To Love Another Person...

My husband and I are huge musical theater fans. I am not ashamed to say that he is a bigger fan than I. It may not surprise readers that this being said, we are fans of the recent 2012 movie of Les Miserables. *sigh* I have linked to a Youtube clip of the audio.

While I'm not going to debate the Theology of the movie version (I'm still working on the book) I am using the music to make a point. During the Epilogue of the movie, Jean Valjean, at the end of his life sings one of my favorite lines in the show, "To love another person is to see the face of God."

On my Ignatian Prayer Adventure today I am naming my blessings. The biggest blessing that I have and gift that God has given me is that of Love. I can confidently say that I am loved by my husband, my family, my friends and last and not least, God. Yet I also love those I interact with. Each person I encounter is deserving of a different kind of love. My parents and my husband will always have a deep and prominent place in my heart; I have friends that I have adopted as siblings as I am an only child. I also love those I work with and for through what I complete during my days. Those that I love are gifts that God has placed in my life, and I would not be who I am without their love and influence.

Beloved, let us one another, because love is of God; everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God. Whoever is without love does not know God, for God is love. 

1 John 4: 7-8

While I look at those that I love and love me, I truly see how God works through all of us in the world. This ability to see God in each other also comes from being created in God's image. If we were created in his image then we are also made for love.

Because of the love that comes from God, there are other gifts I have received: healing, mercy, joy, hope and faith. Each of these gifts could warrant an individual post of their own. I am grateful for these gifts and I each flows through my life and those lives that I touch.

I maybe digressing from my initial topic so I will return to it now. "To love another person is to see the face of God." Through the Catholic Teaching and Tradition, as well as my own experience, I believe that all human life is to be treated with love and respect just because they are human. I have recognized God in people simply because they are my fellow man. True, I have not seen Jesus' physical face, body, and human form, (unless you count the Eucharist) but I can recognize his love and grace in those I meet. 

To conclude my reflection for the day is to count what I am thankful for. I am thankful for my husband, family, friends, my job, basic necessities, this blog and my faith.

What are things that you are grateful for today?

Sunshine and Snowflakes and Darkness

Once upon a time when I lived in Iowa, I learned that Spring meant warm sunbeams and crazy western winds from the plains. When I moved back to Minnesota I thought Spring would come a bit later, the winds would be a little less and Spring would eventually come. This year, the winds have followed me from a direction I cannot find, and when we thought Spring had come, we got 13 more inches of snow. 

Nasty trick Winter, nasty trick.

There is something I cannot doubt though, Spring is "here". It is hiding like an illusive child but it is here. (I say this knowing that "Winter Storm Yogi" is going to drop more snow on us Wednesday/Thursday. *sigh*)

Today I started my second week of this Ignatian Adventure and I am beginning to work on the Examen. If you aren't familiar with this practice, it involves prayerfully looking through your day at triumphs and sins and asking to be forgiven as you strive to be better. I apologize if I'm off base with this. Part of the challenge is to walk around today and enjoy God's scenery.

When I read that, I chuckled and said "yeah right, the wind is kicking up enough where road salt is sand blasting my car." Then it dawned on me, while I was running errands today the primary thought I had was "Oh the sun feels nice, and I haven't seen the sky this blue for a while." There I was, basking in the beauty of God's creation between stores and my car, trying to find Red Vines for a friends birthday.

Regardless of what I was doing out and about, I am glad I made it outside today. It is a gorgeous day in Minnesota and I am happy to be here, even if I'm writing this blog.

Then at work, I start seeing posts and tweets about the Boston Marathon. Another great day to be outside until I realize that this isn't what these messages are about. There has been a bombing near the finish line of the Boston Marathon.

The first I heard of it was from a message that a dear friend sent that she was praying for the victims in Boston. I have since then been praying and keeping up with the news myself. Just last year I knew of a priest who was running the marathon who dedicated each mile to a different prayer request. He had prayed each of the 26.2 miles and I don't know if he was back again this year.

I can't tell you how many times as a "responsible adult" I've been asked why God lets evil happen if he is completely good. What I've learned is that evil is just an easy definition.

If you were to ask me explain mathematical concepts of subtraction or division, I could tell you that they don't really exist. Subtraction and division is just another way to explain a way of addition and multiplication. 5 - 3 can be explained the same as 5 + (-3). Division is the same as multiplying by a fraction. Any scientist will tell you there is no such thing as "cold". If it is cold outside, it is the same as saying there isn't enough heat for it to be comfortable. It would be the same to say that darkness is the absence of light, white is the inclusion of all color and black is the absence of all color. 

Evil is the absence of goodness and grace.

True enough, God has given of himself and God is all things good and filled with grace. To be blunt, the absence of God, his love, his grace, is what we call hell.

What happened in Boston is horrible, we cannot work fast enough to help everyone who is affected by this tragedy. This was not an evil act, this was an act done with the absence of love for one's fellow person. That being said over the next few days we will hear many other stories. Stories of grace and love. Stories of people who ran in where darkness prevailed. These people will be hailed as heroes, I am happy to call these people grace filled, compassionate, individuals who did what was right. They have tended to the wounded, cared for the grieving and brought love into an unloving situation. They are God's love and grace in action. They are living out the Corporal Works of Mercy in our midst.

Then as one person in southern Minnesota I will do what I can, I will pray for those who have been affected and pray that God's grace and mercy touches those who did this today.

Our Father who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy Name. Thy Kingdom come. Thy Will be done, on earth as it is done in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who have trespassed against us. Lead us not in

to temptation but deliver us from evil. World without end. Amen

Yes!

Yesterday was hard for me to go through the exercise, today was a soothing balm to that hurt.

I often frequent a Natural Family Planning website and forum at www.livingthesacrament.com and from the women on the forum, I have learned to take an approach to my fertility as Mary did with the Archangel Gabriel. So it came as a pleasant surprise to have Luke's account of the Annunciation. The instructions of the day from "An Ignatian Prayer Adventure" was to "marvel at Mary's freedom to say 'Yes'!"

When I read through the Annunciation today I heard two different things. First I put myself into the story and wondered what it would be like to have an angel tell me that I would be pregnant. I am not saying that I would be given the blessing to carry the Lord but my own child. Gabriel saying "Do not be afraid" I think reaches out to any first time parent's fear of having a child. At the same time I would still be like Mary as I would be concerned with the 'how' it would happen.

Despite Mary's fear she still has the boldness to say yes regardless of all the stigmas of her day. Then I saw the meme to the left and remembered a lot of cultural issues Mary would have faced. She should have been cast out of her family and stoned. From my collegiate studies, Mary was also supposed to be a consecrated virgin. She had reason to be overly scared for herself and her only worry was that she "didn't know man." (v. 34) Gabriel reminds Mary, and myself, that nothing is impossible for God, (v. 37) and that was enough of a reassurance for Mary to give her "yes".

So Jesus had been an unplanned pregnancy and currently, short of divine providence, I am not expecting to become pregnant. My second realization is how a person reacts in faith. I truly do marvel at Mary's yes. Her yes only started with the Annunciation and continued throughout her life. From trying to find the lost child Jesus, to raising Jesus as a single parent, supporting his ministry, and standing by him as he died are only a small list of the yeses Mary gave.

However, I need to be more bold as I step out in faith. I second guess myself, I occasionally doubt my decisions. I look at where God is trying to bring me and stop being a child and digging my feet into the ground trying to stop my moving forward. I need to confidently move forward and not always balance the options.

A Loving God and a Lost Child

Yesterday I had mentioned that I had began an 8 week exercise using "An Ignatian Prayer Adventure" and today I almost quit. I almost quit because it got hard and hit one of the spiritual wounds I carry and I don't like to talk about. It took me 6 months before I even considered mentioning it to my new confessor. This is a wound that I don't like mentioning but always seem to come out once I trust someone, a lot. It has also been one God and I have been working on together, slowly, like taking off a bandage with care. Well, today it got ripped off instead. But here's the deal, I wander to different places, I never quit the journey.

When I was a teen I had awful self confidence, I thought everyone hated me and I never knew who I could trust. A mentor of mine and a priest suggested that I begin praying using Psalm 139. It was my rock, it gave me hope and as a teen I had too many highlights and girly doodles around it to signify my obsession with this Psalm. As I grew more confident in myself, my need for relying on this Psalm decreased.

Fast forward to my post college years to now. I am happily married and my husband and I are trying to start our own family. The beauty of how God creates individual life is evident and apparent to families and readers of this Psalm alike. It scares me that my husband and I may never know or fully understand what it means to assist God in his creation. I am afraid that part of it is selfishness because my husband and I are happy with our lives right now, and the other fear I often hold is that I've done something in which infertility is my cross that I am being asked to carry.

This brings me to the questions that the exercise asks me, How does God gaze upon me? I feel like God looks at me with the love that is beyond compare. He looks at me with the same love as when he created me, and will continue until I leave this earthly life. Because of this I feel ashamed and guilty for feeling like I have not and am not carrying my cross with submission.

I vowed that my husband and I would accept life as a gift from God, I just haven't been treating it as a gift. I've been demanding it as a right. By my own blind desires, I am again missing the mark.

Then comes the next reflective question of the day, How open am I to receiving this intimacy? Intimacy, a word that I heard all too frequently as a teen and young adult. It was often explained to me as the act of "into-me-see". Intimacy isn't just the love that my husband and I share with each other but how I am able to see into those I love, to know fully who they are.

This intimacy with God scares me because I don't want God to see inside of me. I don't want God to see my brokenness and woundedness. I want to be better than I am and show that I've been a good steward of his love. Then I recall something I read from St. Therese of Lisieux in A Story of a Soul, "Here is one of those incomprehensible mysteries which we shall only understand in Heaven, where they will be the subject of our eternal admiration. My God, how good Thou art! How well dost Thou suit the trial to our strength!" Because I am loved, because God chooses to bring me closer to him, I am given a trial to which my strengths will assist me. Now, only if I could place what those strengths were.

Through it all, God is often referred to as the "Divine Physician"; if I don't show him what my wounds and scars are, how can I let him heal them? By doing this, I am also accepting of the intimacy that he chooses to share with me. Scary though it may be, it is also beneficial to me as his daughter.