What if you were created on purpose? What if you were loved with a passion and depth greater and wider than anything you could imagine? Take a moment. Close your eyes. Breath deeply. Imagine this. Imagine this love and this lover. As you set your self in this love, as you open your heart and imagination to it, what do you feel? What do you look like?
What if you really believed this love was true? How would you live? How would you treat yourself? What would it look like to live in this love? Who would you be? Take a moment. Close your eyes. Breathe deeply. Imagine this.
Now widen the scope. What if this were true for the person next to you? Your mother, father, siblings, relatives? Classmates, coworkers? Take a moment. Close your eyes. Breath deeply. Imagine this. As you set the people closest to your heart (or even just acquaintances) in this love, what do they look like?
Finally. What if this were also true for the person who irritated you on the bus or the road this morning? The person you try to avoid? Or even farther, what if it were true for that person (because there's one in everyone's life) who just makes you want to pull your hair or just shake them? What if it were true about all of the Iraqis, Iranians, Middle Easterners? The Sandinistas?
What if your enemy, your enemy and the enemy of your country, what if they were also created on purpose? What if they too were loved with a depth and a passion unimaginable, by the same Creator who holds you in the depths of his heart?
Take a moment. Close your eyes. Breath deeply. What is your reaction to this? What do you feel? Disbelief? Fear? Outrage? Indifference? perhaps a grain of truth?
This is the heart of the Gospel: For God so loved the world he sent his only son.
He loves the world. Breathe that into the depths of yourself, all the way to your toes. God loves the world. You, me, your friends, neighbors, family, and those that we don't care for. God does.
God speaks twice in the Gospels to Jesus. Both times saying, "You are my beloved Son." This enduring message of love. He says it to each of us, too.
But. It is this love, that is Jesus's very identity. He accepts it and makes it the basis for everything. He CLAIMS God's love. He BELIEVES God's love. He LIVES God's love. This is the foundation for everything.
It is this love that is meant to be the foundation, too, for everything in our loves, particularly those of us that claim to follow Christ, who are called to measure our life to His, to follow the example he set.
What does it mean to be God's beloved?
To know I am loved?
to be with this loving God?
to know that I am not no one?
to know that I am not alone?
My core fundamental identity is I AM GOD'S BELOVED
Breathe this truth into you, again and again and again. Breathe it out in your words and actions to yourself and those around you. Let it bring you wholeness and into holiness.
You are the beloved of God.
19 July 2010
21 June 2010
Co- Authors of the History of Creation
What is suffering?
This is the question that has been on my mind for the past... well while, but specifically the past week. I had the opportunity to be part of a workshop on Inner Peace and Social Justice sponsored by the archdiocese of DC about a week ago. The opening remarks of the priest have stuck with, likely because it's a strong image: the blood and water pouring from Christ's side.
Water and blood, blood and water: the wine of the Eucharist, the water of baptism. In this physical outpouring of blood and water, this manifestation of Christ's love, we are cleansed. We are baptized, the priest said, in the water that flows from Christ's side, just as each Sunday we drink the wine of his blood.
As we are cleansed in and through Christ's sacred suffering, we too are invited and called to our suffering, to our love. To be bathed in Christ's water and Christ's blood we are reformed.
Yesterday this theme was once again brought up in the Homily at mass. Suffering, the Jesuit said, is evil. We are not meant to suffer; God does not want us to suffer.
Warning lights and question marks flew off my face and in my heart. "You have my complete and total attention," I thought, " now where are you going with this?"
"We are not called to suffer. All suffering is evil. Christ spent his life alleviating suffering, casting out demons, curing illnesses, ministering to the poor. Christ shows us that we are not meant (called) to suffer. We are called to love. We are called to love and in so doing to give ourselves away. To give ourselves, which can be scary, which can hurt. Whichever of will lose your life will save it."
We are called to love. Yes, I believe that with all of my heart and being. But does that mean that all suffering is evil? Does it make me somewhat masochistic if I don't think all suffering is evil, that maybe sometimes it can be important? Is it evil that Christ suffered -- Yes, evil that he was tortured and killed, but if suffering is evil it seems like perhaps accepting and allowing that suffering to happen to himself is also evil? Sitting back and allowing suffering is evil.
Yet, isn't it through Christ's suffering and often times our own suffering that we become sanctified? That we, in our woundedness can truly allow God and Christ to enter and lead. Yet, maybe that has more to do with the goodness of God and his ability to use all for his purposes than the actual nature of suffering. God is God and is so good that even evil can be used for goodness.
Father Maher says through studying, mass, reading the Bible and scriptures we can get the word of God in our heads and then down to sit on our heart. but the Word enters our heart when our heart is broken and in this brokeness, there is space and need for the Word to truly enter us, to become part of us.
In this loving so deeply that we give ourselves away, that we love even when it hurts. That love that is so great that it leads to pain and accepts suffering ... if suffering is inherently evil, how can it be the result of something so good, something so of God? but God is good and wants the best for us, but the world is fallen. So while we were created for love and not for suffering, suffering is a part of life. It can be destructive, or salvific but it can only be salvific through God because of Christ. So alone suffering is evil and not of God but the greatness of our God is that even that he can use even that.
Talking with Father Maher as he walked by, he commented: "it's not that everything happens for a reason, but rather that God can create reason from anything." Even suffering. In our freedom, in our God given freedom, that through free will, through freely choosing him, freely choosing to love even in pain, God can bring meaning and we are co-authors of the History of Creation, bathed in blood and water and so freed to love even when it hurts and when we can't love any more, Christ can and will love for us and through us, if we ask him to.
This is the question that has been on my mind for the past... well while, but specifically the past week. I had the opportunity to be part of a workshop on Inner Peace and Social Justice sponsored by the archdiocese of DC about a week ago. The opening remarks of the priest have stuck with, likely because it's a strong image: the blood and water pouring from Christ's side.
Water and blood, blood and water: the wine of the Eucharist, the water of baptism. In this physical outpouring of blood and water, this manifestation of Christ's love, we are cleansed. We are baptized, the priest said, in the water that flows from Christ's side, just as each Sunday we drink the wine of his blood.
As we are cleansed in and through Christ's sacred suffering, we too are invited and called to our suffering, to our love. To be bathed in Christ's water and Christ's blood we are reformed.
Yesterday this theme was once again brought up in the Homily at mass. Suffering, the Jesuit said, is evil. We are not meant to suffer; God does not want us to suffer.
Warning lights and question marks flew off my face and in my heart. "You have my complete and total attention," I thought, " now where are you going with this?"
"We are not called to suffer. All suffering is evil. Christ spent his life alleviating suffering, casting out demons, curing illnesses, ministering to the poor. Christ shows us that we are not meant (called) to suffer. We are called to love. We are called to love and in so doing to give ourselves away. To give ourselves, which can be scary, which can hurt. Whichever of will lose your life will save it."
We are called to love. Yes, I believe that with all of my heart and being. But does that mean that all suffering is evil? Does it make me somewhat masochistic if I don't think all suffering is evil, that maybe sometimes it can be important? Is it evil that Christ suffered -- Yes, evil that he was tortured and killed, but if suffering is evil it seems like perhaps accepting and allowing that suffering to happen to himself is also evil? Sitting back and allowing suffering is evil.
Yet, isn't it through Christ's suffering and often times our own suffering that we become sanctified? That we, in our woundedness can truly allow God and Christ to enter and lead. Yet, maybe that has more to do with the goodness of God and his ability to use all for his purposes than the actual nature of suffering. God is God and is so good that even evil can be used for goodness.
Father Maher says through studying, mass, reading the Bible and scriptures we can get the word of God in our heads and then down to sit on our heart. but the Word enters our heart when our heart is broken and in this brokeness, there is space and need for the Word to truly enter us, to become part of us.
In this loving so deeply that we give ourselves away, that we love even when it hurts. That love that is so great that it leads to pain and accepts suffering ... if suffering is inherently evil, how can it be the result of something so good, something so of God? but God is good and wants the best for us, but the world is fallen. So while we were created for love and not for suffering, suffering is a part of life. It can be destructive, or salvific but it can only be salvific through God because of Christ. So alone suffering is evil and not of God but the greatness of our God is that even that he can use even that.
Talking with Father Maher as he walked by, he commented: "it's not that everything happens for a reason, but rather that God can create reason from anything." Even suffering. In our freedom, in our God given freedom, that through free will, through freely choosing him, freely choosing to love even in pain, God can bring meaning and we are co-authors of the History of Creation, bathed in blood and water and so freed to love even when it hurts and when we can't love any more, Christ can and will love for us and through us, if we ask him to.
11 May 2010
How do you measure a life?
Just found this article, and well, I don't think I could say it any better myself:
And I offer you this as an alternative yardstick to perfection and happiness.
My aunt told me once that emotions are a single package -- if you lose or deny one of them (sadness frustration despair discontentedness) you lose all of them. To strive to only feel happiness assures above anything else that you will not feel it.
And I offer you this as an alternative yardstick to perfection and happiness.
My aunt told me once that emotions are a single package -- if you lose or deny one of them (sadness frustration despair discontentedness) you lose all of them. To strive to only feel happiness assures above anything else that you will not feel it.
26 April 2010
A Stranger's Kindness
Several weeks ago, I was coming home from work at the Perry School. It had been an amazing day there! Involving drumming, dancing, playing with the kids around the Peace Pole outside and then a Family night with amazing conversations between parents and kids in the Peace Room.
Any rate, this wonderful day went long. I had to catch an 8:24 bus to back on campus in time (or 5 minutes late!) to my Thursday evening Seniors faith sharing group -- one of the high lights of my week, honestly. I have about 6 blocks to walk and a long stop light. Booking it, I could see the bus stop at 8:22 and figured I was ok and slowed down a little. 3o seconds later, to see the bus speed by. This is a bus that only comes every half hour. I was leading the group that night and really didn't want to miss it, so took of running again. Hoping the next few red lights would slow the bus down enough. Running running running. And it's not gonna happen. Slow to a speed walk when a car, stopped at the light roles down their windows and says: "You trying to catch the bus?" To which, out of breath, I can only nod "Yes." "Do you want a ride?"
"Do you want a ride?" I think the earth stopped as I inhaled the question. Did I want a ride? And flashing in my head are thoughts of my prayer group and my desperate desire to be there. the warning repeated over and over again since i was little not to take rides from strangers. but there was something that made me trust that these strangers were not strangers but compassionate people. "Do you want a ride?"
To which, out of breath, I could only not "Yes." and got in the back seat.
"We saw you running and figured you wanted the bus," they said, "and we felt bad."
"Thank you!"
They resumed their conversation, finalizing plans for the party they were throwing the next night.
"Do you know what the next stop is ? I wonder if we can pass the bus before then..."
(this said on a tight one lane in each direction street...)
"Logan circle and dupont are stops" I said, " but if it stops and we are right behind it, I can just jump out and run ahead and get on it."
And just then, the bus stopped, I jumped out... the bus slowly started and I ran and knocked on the door. It stopped, opened the door, let me on.
I sat down, sighed, and laughed in gratitude. What a ridiculous night.
As the bus rode on toward school, I thought about risk and trust and compassion. To trust someone is a risk. How to decide when it is a risk worth taking? Be it in love, in friendship, accepting a favor ... there is the chance that hearts will be broken, that people will be hurt. When is the risk worth taking? When is it fool hardy?
What about the compassion it takes to offer a ride to a stranger? And the trust to accept? A risk is being taken on both sides. Can it only be justified if everything ends well?
I like to think that there is goodness in the world. That there is beauty and love and gentleness in addition to the betrayals and the pain. It's a gamble that I hope that I take every day, in one way or another.
Any rate, this wonderful day went long. I had to catch an 8:24 bus to back on campus in time (or 5 minutes late!) to my Thursday evening Seniors faith sharing group -- one of the high lights of my week, honestly. I have about 6 blocks to walk and a long stop light. Booking it, I could see the bus stop at 8:22 and figured I was ok and slowed down a little. 3o seconds later, to see the bus speed by. This is a bus that only comes every half hour. I was leading the group that night and really didn't want to miss it, so took of running again. Hoping the next few red lights would slow the bus down enough. Running running running. And it's not gonna happen. Slow to a speed walk when a car, stopped at the light roles down their windows and says: "You trying to catch the bus?" To which, out of breath, I can only nod "Yes." "Do you want a ride?"
"Do you want a ride?" I think the earth stopped as I inhaled the question. Did I want a ride? And flashing in my head are thoughts of my prayer group and my desperate desire to be there. the warning repeated over and over again since i was little not to take rides from strangers. but there was something that made me trust that these strangers were not strangers but compassionate people. "Do you want a ride?"
To which, out of breath, I could only not "Yes." and got in the back seat.
"We saw you running and figured you wanted the bus," they said, "and we felt bad."
"Thank you!"
They resumed their conversation, finalizing plans for the party they were throwing the next night.
"Do you know what the next stop is ? I wonder if we can pass the bus before then..."
(this said on a tight one lane in each direction street...)
"Logan circle and dupont are stops" I said, " but if it stops and we are right behind it, I can just jump out and run ahead and get on it."
And just then, the bus stopped, I jumped out... the bus slowly started and I ran and knocked on the door. It stopped, opened the door, let me on.
I sat down, sighed, and laughed in gratitude. What a ridiculous night.
As the bus rode on toward school, I thought about risk and trust and compassion. To trust someone is a risk. How to decide when it is a risk worth taking? Be it in love, in friendship, accepting a favor ... there is the chance that hearts will be broken, that people will be hurt. When is the risk worth taking? When is it fool hardy?
What about the compassion it takes to offer a ride to a stranger? And the trust to accept? A risk is being taken on both sides. Can it only be justified if everything ends well?
I like to think that there is goodness in the world. That there is beauty and love and gentleness in addition to the betrayals and the pain. It's a gamble that I hope that I take every day, in one way or another.
20 April 2010
back to Suchi!!
April 20, 2010
Dear Friends,
Can you believe how quickly time has passed? Here we are in the spring of 2010. This past December I graduated from Georgetown with a major in Psychology and a minor in Justice and Peace Studies and will be walking at Commencement this May. I am currently enrolled in a Teaching English as a Foreign Language class and will be certified to teach this June. As if all of this were not enough, this coming September I will be moving to El Salvador to work at Centro Arte para la Paz (http://capsuchitoto.org/). As part of this experience, I will teach, help to organize community events, and live with the people who captured my heart when I studied abroad there last spring.
Centro Arte para la Paz is located in Suchitoto, which is a small town about two hours by bus (a 75 cent trip!) north of San Salvador. My theology professor, Sister Peggy O’Neil, is very involved with the center. At the end of my semester there, she invited me back to work with her, and I have gratefully and excitedly accepted her invitation.
My time in El Salvador was inspirational and formative. I often reflected on the question, “Where does my greatest desire meet the world’s greatest need?” For me, upon graduation, the answer is resoundingly in El Salvador, at Centro Arte para la Paz.
My desire: ever since I can remember, I have known that I wanted to serve, that I wanted to work with people, to listen. As I got older, I developed a yen for travel. On my graduation from high school, my dream was to join Peace Corp: to travel, to serve, to be part of a community completely different from anything that I had known. There was a part of me that felt like “well, it’s nice to dream, but I’m sure you’ll grow out of it, Christy.” After my time in El Salvador, it is clear that this desire to serve and live with the poor and the marginalized is not a passing phase, but a vocation. With Sister Peggy’s invitation, it became possible.
The need: The people of El Salvador are special. There is no other way to say it. The memory of the 12-year civil war of the 1980’s remains very much a part of Salvadoran life: memories of homes and people lost, war-time tensions turned into political tensions, the majority of the population living in poverty. Yet, there is a tangible hope, faith, and joy. There is a generosity and a hospitality, which I can only hope to learn.
Thus, the need is truly a mutual one. The work of the center in Suchitoto is to provide resources and community space for the people of the city as well as to invite foreigners in to serve and learn about the reality of El Salvador. With this in mind, my Justice and Peace senior thesis was the creation of a peace education curriculum built specifically for Salvadoran elementary school children. This is a class I will likely have the opportunity to teach. The gift back, to me, to other volunteers, is a lesson in simplicity, generosity, and giving with no thought to the cost.
As I prepare for this next great journey, I invite you to join me, through financial support, prayers and by following on my blog! I will be in Suchitoto from September of 2010 to May of 2012. To meet my expenses for this time, I am raising approximately $6,000 for food and travel expenses (due to the visitor visa system, I will have to leave the country every three months). Sister Peggy has generously provided housing and a stipend of $100 each month, so the cost I am responsible for is now $3,900. Any help you are able to provide is much appreciated! Please contact me (or leave a comment with your contact info) if you are interested in supporting me!
Financial assistance, however, is not the only support I need. Perhaps even more important are your prayers: for me, for the center, and for people of El Salvador!
I will be posting updates and pictures regularly on my blog (here!).
If you have any questions, would like more information, or just want to chat, please do not hesitate to comment! Thank you so much for your time and support!
Con Paz y Mucho Amor,
Christy
Dear Friends,
Can you believe how quickly time has passed? Here we are in the spring of 2010. This past December I graduated from Georgetown with a major in Psychology and a minor in Justice and Peace Studies and will be walking at Commencement this May. I am currently enrolled in a Teaching English as a Foreign Language class and will be certified to teach this June. As if all of this were not enough, this coming September I will be moving to El Salvador to work at Centro Arte para la Paz (http://capsuchitoto.org/). As part of this experience, I will teach, help to organize community events, and live with the people who captured my heart when I studied abroad there last spring.
Centro Arte para la Paz is located in Suchitoto, which is a small town about two hours by bus (a 75 cent trip!) north of San Salvador. My theology professor, Sister Peggy O’Neil, is very involved with the center. At the end of my semester there, she invited me back to work with her, and I have gratefully and excitedly accepted her invitation.
My time in El Salvador was inspirational and formative. I often reflected on the question, “Where does my greatest desire meet the world’s greatest need?” For me, upon graduation, the answer is resoundingly in El Salvador, at Centro Arte para la Paz.
My desire: ever since I can remember, I have known that I wanted to serve, that I wanted to work with people, to listen. As I got older, I developed a yen for travel. On my graduation from high school, my dream was to join Peace Corp: to travel, to serve, to be part of a community completely different from anything that I had known. There was a part of me that felt like “well, it’s nice to dream, but I’m sure you’ll grow out of it, Christy.” After my time in El Salvador, it is clear that this desire to serve and live with the poor and the marginalized is not a passing phase, but a vocation. With Sister Peggy’s invitation, it became possible.
The need: The people of El Salvador are special. There is no other way to say it. The memory of the 12-year civil war of the 1980’s remains very much a part of Salvadoran life: memories of homes and people lost, war-time tensions turned into political tensions, the majority of the population living in poverty. Yet, there is a tangible hope, faith, and joy. There is a generosity and a hospitality, which I can only hope to learn.
Thus, the need is truly a mutual one. The work of the center in Suchitoto is to provide resources and community space for the people of the city as well as to invite foreigners in to serve and learn about the reality of El Salvador. With this in mind, my Justice and Peace senior thesis was the creation of a peace education curriculum built specifically for Salvadoran elementary school children. This is a class I will likely have the opportunity to teach. The gift back, to me, to other volunteers, is a lesson in simplicity, generosity, and giving with no thought to the cost.
As I prepare for this next great journey, I invite you to join me, through financial support, prayers and by following on my blog! I will be in Suchitoto from September of 2010 to May of 2012. To meet my expenses for this time, I am raising approximately $6,000 for food and travel expenses (due to the visitor visa system, I will have to leave the country every three months). Sister Peggy has generously provided housing and a stipend of $100 each month, so the cost I am responsible for is now $3,900. Any help you are able to provide is much appreciated! Please contact me (or leave a comment with your contact info) if you are interested in supporting me!
Financial assistance, however, is not the only support I need. Perhaps even more important are your prayers: for me, for the center, and for people of El Salvador!
I will be posting updates and pictures regularly on my blog (here!).
If you have any questions, would like more information, or just want to chat, please do not hesitate to comment! Thank you so much for your time and support!
Con Paz y Mucho Amor,
Christy
05 April 2010
He's Alive, He's Alive
So weeks (months? a month?) of not posting and here we go two in one day! Relistening to the lyrics of Christ is Risen I realized I wanted to unpack the lyrics a little bit. Particularly the bridge and the chorus which go as follows:
Writing the lyrics, there's a part of me that feels "this says it so well, where more can I say?" I think mostly just that it relates to my previous post: as a Church we do not deny death nor hell, but we are called (and seek and strive) to stand in the light. That death and hell are not the final Truth, not the end, not the last word. "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was God and the Word was with God" and so too the Word is the final Word, beginning and the end. It gives me goosebumps to think about.
"Come awake, come awake" Slowly I awake (Mary Oliver says "Oh Lord, I was never a quick scholar but sulked and hunched over my books past the hour and the bell") -- and you can ask any one who has lived with me: I do not awake and rise from bed in the morning easily. It is a journey and a re-commitment to life every morning. But yet the call is to "come awake" and "come stand in the light" and the only reason I can answer this call is that my death, all of the ways I die and am tempted to die, have each been trampled and transformed. because in joy and in sorrow I can cry with joy or with tears "He's alive, He's alive." When I remember I am called to FOLLOW and not MAKE THE PATH, when I remember that Christ first walked the road from death to life, created it made it at great cost (at my cost), when I am awoken...
And there are so many things to awake to: the beauty of the world in nature in people in friendships, in love, in family -- all of which I am invited to be a part of. And so many things to awake to which are hearty breaking: hunger, poverty, thirst, illiteracy. Yet these last my "come awake call" is not to an awakening of the existence of these issues, but to awake to the love God has for the people (His people) who suffer, to awake to His love and to feel it and live it and act it in my own heart in my own life. So He is alive and He is alive in me. What a beautiful call, what a call I wish I could awake to and live out better and more fully!
Christ is risen from the dead
trampling over death by death
Come awake, come awake
Come and rise up from the grave
Christ is risen from the dead
We are one with Him again
Come awake come awake
Oh death, where is your sting?
Oh hell, where is your victory?
Oh Church, come stand in the light
The glory of God has defeated the night
Singing Oh death, where is your sting?
Oh hell, where is your victory?
Oh Church, come stand in the light
Our God is not dead
He's alive, He's alive.
Writing the lyrics, there's a part of me that feels "this says it so well, where more can I say?" I think mostly just that it relates to my previous post: as a Church we do not deny death nor hell, but we are called (and seek and strive) to stand in the light. That death and hell are not the final Truth, not the end, not the last word. "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was God and the Word was with God" and so too the Word is the final Word, beginning and the end. It gives me goosebumps to think about.
"Come awake, come awake" Slowly I awake (Mary Oliver says "Oh Lord, I was never a quick scholar but sulked and hunched over my books past the hour and the bell") -- and you can ask any one who has lived with me: I do not awake and rise from bed in the morning easily. It is a journey and a re-commitment to life every morning. But yet the call is to "come awake" and "come stand in the light" and the only reason I can answer this call is that my death, all of the ways I die and am tempted to die, have each been trampled and transformed. because in joy and in sorrow I can cry with joy or with tears "He's alive, He's alive." When I remember I am called to FOLLOW and not MAKE THE PATH, when I remember that Christ first walked the road from death to life, created it made it at great cost (at my cost), when I am awoken...
And there are so many things to awake to: the beauty of the world in nature in people in friendships, in love, in family -- all of which I am invited to be a part of. And so many things to awake to which are hearty breaking: hunger, poverty, thirst, illiteracy. Yet these last my "come awake call" is not to an awakening of the existence of these issues, but to awake to the love God has for the people (His people) who suffer, to awake to His love and to feel it and live it and act it in my own heart in my own life. So He is alive and He is alive in me. What a beautiful call, what a call I wish I could awake to and live out better and more fully!
Mighty to Save
Something clicked for me at mass this past Sunday -- Easter Sunday. After a long Lent -- per usual, seeming so long by the end that I simultaneously forget that it WAS lent and also began to believe that it would never end -- Easter has arrived. Now, I (and my Church) can cry and shout and sing ALLELUIA, the time of mourning, of desert, of preparation is past and we joyfully celebrate our time with the Bridegroom.
I'd been feeling desert-y lately. Desert-y in that my lenten promise became hard to keep (and towards the end I'd only sporadically done so). Desert-y in that life, while very very good, was seeming so much in my own hands and so desert-y in that I felt myself more and more turning to myself or the people around me than to God. When life was so good, when I felt love-ing and so loved, what did God, what did Christ have to say to me. And so as a result of so much goodness and blessing I got lost in the desert.
Easter mass, the music, the people -- church overflowing -- the homily, the dresses and shoes and ties and smiles worn by this over flowing church. The cross above the alter. Eucharist. Jelly Beans passed out by the priest after mass to all the children. This Pure Life all around: Life that was pure and real because it was born of death, that it allowed for death and pain and suffering (didn't ignore it, rose color it, look away), and triumphed. And I remembered or rather was pulled out from the death, the deep, and gifted with a deep breath of air above the drowning deep water (hmm... my images are getting confused: in the drowning deep AND the desert all at one, hmm? well, yes)
Death was acknowledged, once again, as part of the world and as part of life. The pain I felt and the pain I thought I should've have felt, were transformed (and this is important: transformed, not removed). The guilt and the feeling of holding my happiness in my own hands was taken as well and I was given back a sense of overflowing. A re-realization of my beautiful small-ness. I was re-claimed from the GOODNESS of my life. How funny is it that it is from the very goodness of the life I lived that I needed to be rescued from? Reminded of the God who IS, who saves, who loves. Reminded of Christ: my savior (reminded I need saved: from my sins and brokeness but --and let's beat this into the ground -- from the good things in my life), my friend, my brother, my love and lover.
In short: I too often mistake the gifts and blessings from God as God. But God is God and while good things come from Him, they are to lead me not to worship of those good things, but to Thanksgiving and a deeper desire for Christ.
To wrap it up: these are the links to the two songs that really spoke (sang) to me at mass.
Mighty to Save
Christ is Risen
I'd been feeling desert-y lately. Desert-y in that my lenten promise became hard to keep (and towards the end I'd only sporadically done so). Desert-y in that life, while very very good, was seeming so much in my own hands and so desert-y in that I felt myself more and more turning to myself or the people around me than to God. When life was so good, when I felt love-ing and so loved, what did God, what did Christ have to say to me. And so as a result of so much goodness and blessing I got lost in the desert.
Easter mass, the music, the people -- church overflowing -- the homily, the dresses and shoes and ties and smiles worn by this over flowing church. The cross above the alter. Eucharist. Jelly Beans passed out by the priest after mass to all the children. This Pure Life all around: Life that was pure and real because it was born of death, that it allowed for death and pain and suffering (didn't ignore it, rose color it, look away), and triumphed. And I remembered or rather was pulled out from the death, the deep, and gifted with a deep breath of air above the drowning deep water (hmm... my images are getting confused: in the drowning deep AND the desert all at one, hmm? well, yes)
Death was acknowledged, once again, as part of the world and as part of life. The pain I felt and the pain I thought I should've have felt, were transformed (and this is important: transformed, not removed). The guilt and the feeling of holding my happiness in my own hands was taken as well and I was given back a sense of overflowing. A re-realization of my beautiful small-ness. I was re-claimed from the GOODNESS of my life. How funny is it that it is from the very goodness of the life I lived that I needed to be rescued from? Reminded of the God who IS, who saves, who loves. Reminded of Christ: my savior (reminded I need saved: from my sins and brokeness but --and let's beat this into the ground -- from the good things in my life), my friend, my brother, my love and lover.
In short: I too often mistake the gifts and blessings from God as God. But God is God and while good things come from Him, they are to lead me not to worship of those good things, but to Thanksgiving and a deeper desire for Christ.
To wrap it up: these are the links to the two songs that really spoke (sang) to me at mass.
Mighty to Save
Christ is Risen
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