February 28, 2009

A New Thing

Snowy Dawn over Hawk's Nest Ravine. Bella Vista

"But forget all that-it is nothing compared to what I am going to do. For I am about to do a brand-new thing. See, I have already begun! Do you not see it? I will make a pathway through the wilderness for my people to come home. I will create rivers for them in the desert!
Isa 43:18-19

A week ago this was the reading for Mass, I pondered it when I went on the way to church, then that afternoon... I came home in the late evening to find my Bella so ill, not knowing that the "new thing" was going to be living alone, really alone. My heart is just numb and cold, like the world outside my window cold and frozen with the blowing snow.

My time away from home was a good thing, I was removed from the scene of my heartache for a time. I could cry and grieve and not have to deal with the aftermath. Woody did a good job putting Bella's things away in the garage. He is devestated about this and found the need to go to the church for comfort the day I left which I think is a great thing. He cried from his heart and that grief was a very healthy thing.

I have spent the day before the TV, watching EWTN, there have been some very uplifting shows on and I have found some comfort in the shows on the Lenten season, the prayers and meditations . The wind is gusting and blowing the snow off of my roof and adding clouds of white to the feather like swirling snow drifting down. I have candles burning, and the whole scene is warm and comforting, in the face of what feels like God's abandonment of me. I know what the Psalmist must have been feeling like when he wrote the 88th Psalm I am suffering a true dark night of the soul, that I must stay on top of or drown...

The news is so abysmal... How many of you have stopped watching all of this trash on TV? The media is scaring people. I was in the home of well meaning folks this week, but they have pastors telling them tales of underground prisions that will house Believers that Obama is going to have rounded up.... For Pete's sake! Sadly there are a lot of Christians screaming "End of the world" nonesense. I grew up in a Dispensational Eschatology... The rapture, literal 7 year tribulation, literal 1000 year reign of Christ ect. Even with that this situation isnt as bad as 1930 with the depression, Hitler and Stalin.... which surely must have frightened our parents and grandparents, yes Jesus could return tomorrow but we live in today. We must live in today and leave tomorrow to itself...

I heard a great devotion on this subject from Father Leo Clifford (The exact one was not available on this link but there are some good ones here enjoy a bit of wisdom) Fr. Clifford commented on how good it was that everyday is a new day...that we reherse death by sleeping and we rise again to enjoy a new day...that we can only truly live today. Imagine if we were flown up in a helecopter and could see our whole lives at once, how discouraging that would be. The Carpenter would see the 5,000 houses he would have to build, or the Doctor, witha crowd of people to treat the size of Madison Square Garden, or the mother, with a life times worth of dirty dishes to clean, runny noses to wipe, and diapers to change! Is it not wonderful that God only gives us enough for today. The Children of Israel only got to gather enough of the Manna the heavenly food God provided for them for the day. It rotted if they overgathered. My life rots if I try to get ahead of God.

So, I cry a bit and smile a bit and I am waiting for the new thing. I dearly hope it is a job. It may be a new furry friend. I have answered several ads on Craigslist for pets that need homes, we shall see how things go

Labels: Annabelle, Faith, Personal Growth