God is Completely Satisfied With You Just The Way You Are . . .

the problem is, you have no idea who you are.

That was one of the messages that I got from a retreat on Practical Christianity this weekend.  I spent the weekend listening to that still small voice from within.  It was telling me that as much as I want to love God, I need to also learn to love myself as God loves me.  God loves the authentic me, and in my ego-centeredness I may or may not be close at all to knowing who that person is.  

I know who I think I should be, but does that mean that my opinion of  who I am and where I am going is the same as God's?   Probably far from it.  It is only through lots of intentional prayer, and discernment that I will ever come to know who it is that God sees when God looks at me. 

Fr. Adrian, (our retreat master) said we should look at it as though we are athletes training for competition.  We can't become elite level Christians without intentionally setting aside time to make ourselves fit enough to be the person God sees us to be.  We have to work on our whole self;  mind, body and spirit.

I am good at working on the spirit and mind part of my elite level training program.  I love to learn new things, I am constantly reading spiritual books and the bible and spending time in prayer and meditation.  I spend time offering my services to others in volunteer activities and share my joy of salvation with others every chance I get.

Where I fall down is taking care of my body.  I need to get more exercise, and learn to eat better to control my blood pressure and blood sugar.   Exercise would help my arthritis.  Eating right coupled with the exercise would lead to weight loss which would in turn be good for my knees.

So,  I am going to try really hard to work on myself.  I am going to spend some time every day being intentional about taking care of my body which is a temple of the Holy Spirit; the place where God resides.  Because from now on it is not I but Christ who lives in and through me, and He shouldn't have to live in a place that looks like it ought to be condemned.

PAX

Graduation Keeps Getting Closer

I am sending out Graduation Announcements today and it occurred to me that the official date of my Gradual School Graduation is less than a month away! I got my class ring (see picture) in the mail this week and have been wearing it ever since (thank you mrangelmeg, it is the best birthday present I could have ever asked for).

We even got confirmation of our housing arrangements for graduation weekend since we are staying down on "The Hill" for the weekend to make it less stressful on me. Mrangelmeg, the angelbaby and I are driving down on Friday and meeting up with one of my closest friends Friday evening for some good times. We promised to take the angelbaby to The Unstable --what they call the campus bar (if you know anything about the Rule of Benedict you might get the little inside joke in the name of the bar).

The other four kids are driving down on Saturday and joining us for the festivities the day of graduation and we secured another suite for them so that they can stay over Saturday night and don't have to drive back until Sunday.

We are hoping to find a place to have a little informal get together on Saturday evening for Lay Students and families, we haven't decided where that will be yet, or what that will entail, but it will all get worked out in the next few weeks.

I still have a few gifts to purchase, and a special little surprise that I have planned to hand out to everyone, I have to pick that up the week before graduation so that they are fresh. (hint, something I am well known for people will miss when I am gone).

I keep trying to decide what to wear to graduation, I suppose I could just wear something I already own, after all it will be under a cap and gown for the official ceremony. I have threatened to wear this , but considering the reception the last time I wore it when I was down there it might not be such a good choice. They might decide to withhold my diploma.

Pax

What I'm Not Missing

Mrangelmeg and I took his cousin Lilli to St Meinrad with us on Friday evening for a couple of functions that happened to be going on that evening in conjunction with this semester's lay student class weekend. As I have said before I am happily not taking a class this semester, but these two particular functions were ones that were not to be missed.

The first was the dedication of a painting that was donated to the school by the students of Fr Damien Dietlein OSB, the Old Testament Professor there. The picture is called Exodus and is of Moses and the Israelites crossing the Red Sea, painted by an Ethiopian artist who currently lives in South Dakota. The entire enterprise was done as a surprise to Damo (our name for Father) and he was genuinely touched and surprised by the affair.

The other activity was the inaugural session of Theology in the Round, a session intended to bring Seminarians, Lay Students and Alumni together for an evening of discussion surrounding a topic chosen by a guest speaker. The evening's speaker happened to be another of my professors: Fr. Denis Robinson OSB whom I had for Early Church History and had been telling mrangelmeg about for months. His topic was John Henry Newman and Catholic Education. It was a bit more lecture than discussion, but very interesting none-the-less. I really wanted mrangelmeg to have a chance to experience Fr. Denis because he is a force with which to be reckoned.

After that discussion we spent some time in the little bar on campus which is called the Unstable ( Benedictines take a vow of stability, so they call the bar, the Unstable, get it?) visiting with all my friends who are there for class this weekend while I am not. I do miss them so very much, though I don't miss class at all. I even had a chance to talk to the artist of the painting, which was really cool, they flew him in for the unveiling, but his plane was delayed and he didn't get there till later, but he was going to be there for the weekend.

We had a wonderful time. And we got to see the Extreme Makeover Home Edition house in St. Meinrad (the town) as we drove to the Monastery. How cool was that?

I have to admit, knowing that those of my friends who were there for Fr. Denis' class on Creed were having a quiz on Heresies in the early church on Saturday morning I was more than happy to be returning home Friday night.

Pax