October 26, 2009

Restoring My Sight

Growing into gold a tree in transition Peartree Cottage Metfield Bella vista AR

O Jesus,
I want to live in the present moment
to live as if this were
the last day of my life

St Faustina of the Divine Mercy
from her diary, portion 1183

I have been confronted by this weeks Sunday scripture...how a blind man called out to Jesus against the crowds admonitions to be silent, then risking everything, for that tattered cloak was his "home" his shelter against the elements, his only possession, he threw it aside and scrambled to Jesus... The faith demonstrated is extraordinary, for how was he going to retrieve his garment if he stayed blind?...but the blind man thought only about the moment, Jesus was in the present moment and he had the choice to got to him right away or live safe with his cloak and the regrets of what might have been...

My life has become a daily lesson in living in the moment, an intensly personal inward walk towards a destination that is beyond my understanding.I have no idea where I am going or how I will get there, or if am even going in the right direction. All I know is that I have a journey to make. God has provided provision, occupation, fellowship, and various avenues for my spritual and mental growth in this season of transition. Like the blind man I am throwing off old notions of how I should live, work, worship,and think... giving up sins that kept me blind, spiritual training that created a modern day pharisee of me insted of a true disciple that Jesus longs for me to be... living in the moment the way St. Faustina describes in her diary...the way our Lord lived His life here on earth...

I feel like my life is broken down into tiny bites, bits and peices of daily living. They dont flow into something greater they just seem to "Be"... one moment then the next moment then the next. My thought process is somewhat compartimentalized anyway so this ads to my feeling of disjointedness

My work day is very much like this... each phone call I take at the call center is a solitary moment in time...each call I make to verify a transaction, or take to answer a customers question is a singular moment. Never to be repeated in quite the same way. I am very much aware of this and that this will be the only time I touch this persons life, to never speak to them again.

....I take another call and another.."yes ma'am, there has been an order placed on our website using your credit card number ending in...." a victim of fraud answers a message one of us has left on their phone... there are varied emotions on the other end of that phone, and I am limited as to what I can say to the victim of identity theft. Limited in the consolation I can give... bound by the law and the priorities of the world's largest retailer. ... time is critical. We are working in real time and the fraudster is stealing more as we sit there talking. I hurry through the phone numbers and instructions realizing that this persons life has just been thrown into a muddle and all I can say is sorry...

but for all of that I am humbly grateful for the job, hopeful that it might turn into something more. I like it really. I feel like I am doing worthwile work. I am helping people. My shift is now more of an afternoon and evening one and that leaves me my mornings to read watch mass on EWTN spend some quality time with Miss Abigail who has grown into the cutest little love bug... A neighbor comes in late afternoon to let her out for potty and on nice days they go for a walk. There havent been many of those. Cool and wet its been now with only a handful of dry bright days. I get home early enough to have a few hours to shop on my way home, to have a small meal and if I wanted watch TV thought that has become such a low prioity that the minimal cable package...(I now only have local channels and the religious stations like EWTN , and TBN. I also get Turner movies...all for 22.00 a month pretty cheap)

Because I am working evenings I have given up Alanon, no day meetings fit, and evenings are out. I also have dropped out of RCIA for now thought I am still attending St Stephen on saturday nights. I am waiting on God to show me His will on my swim accross the Tiber.

I have begun using a Divine Office for prayer and meditation in the last month, that too chops up my day into three prayer times. As I am still a candidate to join the Brothers and Sisters of Charity, this is what they use so my times of prayer and theirs sort of come together.

I am in hopes of a change in my life wroght by this time of one foot in front of the other...that the trust in God that I sought for myself so deeply is coming to the surface. As I daily trust God for my very exisitance I am growing in my knowledge of Him and His desire that I live like this one foot in front of the other. I tell people its like being a tightrope walker if you look down to to the side you will plunge to your death.

I want to thank those who pray for me and have and are there for me constantly. I couldnt get there without your help...for those that attend worship with me that read this thank you for your love and support.

To the trolls that lurk on my site that wait a year to say anything then make condeming comments and belittle my stituation, saying "so what you deserve it because you go to wrong church..." read that passage in James about wishing your brother to "be warmed and filled" then walking away. Only the litugically based churchs seem to have the resources to help folks these trying days... I am finding more good in my daily readings and prayers than I did just reading the Bible alone...

And to those that share in my sufferings... We are a long way from seeing daylight no matter what the pundits on tv say. We are in a depression in many parts of the country. I am glad ..GLAD God has used this trial to open my eyes to the true plight of the poor. Like the blind man, I had to run to Jesus to ask for my sight, and he has shown me the pain around me. I am not alone. My sight is being restored bit by bit... I want to be able to say...Yes I can see Jesus.......

Labels: faith working, Friends

October 24, 2009

Mark 10:46-52~ I Want to See, Jesus

The hills are afire...autumn in the Ozarks near Bentonville AR


And they came to Jericho. And as he was leaving Jericho with his disciples and a great crowd, Bartimaeus, a blind beggar, the son of Timaeus, was sitting by the roadside.And when he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out and say, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”And many rebuked him, telling him to be silent. But he cried out all the more, “Son of David, have mercy on me!”And Jesus stopped and said, “Call him.” And they called the blind man, saying to him, “Take heart. Get up; he is calling you.”And throwing off his cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus.And Jesus said to him, “What do you want me to do for you?” And the blind man said to him, “Rabbi, let me recover my sight.”And Jesus said to him, “Go your way; your faith has made you well.” And immediately he recovered his sight and followed him on the way.

Labels: Scenic Arkansas, scripture

October 23, 2009

You Are Divinely and Eternally Loved~a meditation

Eternal Blue Skies above Panama City Beach Florida

one of my latest crazes is Facebook. Several friends had encouraged me to use that as a tool to stay connected during this rough season in my life and its been a huge help to me.

I have strengthened old freindships, maintained a few friendships long distance and been introduced to some new friends...one of them is Vinny Flynn. He is a well known writer speaker and musician, best known perhaps as the patriarch of a very talented family and for his devotion to the Divine Mercy and Eucharistic Adoration. Here is a Facebook posting of his that really spoke to me recently


During Adoration this morning, the words of a song kept popping into my mind — “divinely and eternally loved” — the final words of one of the songs on my daughter Erin’s CD “Through the Darkness.” I can never listen to this song without tears, partly because of the beauty and emotion in Erin’s voice and partly because of the lyrics themselves.

Today the final phrase really hit me, and I was flooded with the reality of it: “You are divinely and eternally loved.”

Here’s the reality: You are not an accident. You didn’t just happen, no matter what the circumstances of your birth. You were not merely born; not merely created. You were fathered — lovingly, personally formed in your mother’s womb by God, who wanted you to be born, wanted you as His child.

There were millions of other human persons who could have been conceived through the union of your mother and father, each with his or her own completely unique DNA. Your parents, of course, couldn’t see all the possibilities and choose the one they wanted. But God could — and did.

Quite simply, you exist because God choose you, from all the millions of others who could have been born. You are — at the very least — “one in a million.” As Pope John Paul II wrote in his “Letter to Families,” “Parents, as you beget children, never forget that God wanted them born.”

That’s why abortion is always wrong, even in cases of rape and incest. No matter how unexpected, inconvenient, dangerous, tragic, or even violent the circumstances may be, one reality is always the same: from all the millions of possibilities, God chooses the child He wants born. And when God chooses to give life to a child, He also chooses to love that child forever, one-on-one, in a different way than He has ever loved any other child.

I have 7 children and (at last count) 23 grandchildren; and I do not love them all the same. I love each one differently and have a different relationship with each one. The more I get to know each one, the more unique that relationship becomes, and I can truthfully say to each, “I love you differently than I have ever loved anyone else.”

This is the way God loves you. When you can put aside all distractions and concerns and focus exclusively on God — in other words, when you become present to Him who is present to you — you will find yourself loved in an entirely unique way. It’s as if no one else exists at that moment — just you and God. You are His entire focus, the delight of His heart.

This then, is what it means, first of all, to be “divinely and eternally loved: to be chosen and set apart from all others in the heart of God.

What else does “divinely loved” mean? It means you are “thrice” loved. There is no separation in the Trinity. As St. Faustina expresses it, “Whoever is in communion with One of the Three Persons is thereby united to the whole Blessed Trinity, for this Oneness is indivisible” (Diary, 472). At every moment of your life, you are being held in the loving embrace of three divine Persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

How do divine persons love? Unconditionally. Not based on behavior, but on relationship. God doesn’t give or withhold love depending on how you act. There is nothing you have ever done or could ever do that can make God stop loving you. You don’t have that power. You can’t change God. He is always loving you, always wanting the best for you. The things you think and say and do don’t change Him; they change you. They either draw you closer to Him and His love, or they pull you away from Him so that you can’t feel or respond to His love.

“Eternally love?” It means that this personal, one-on-one, unchanging love of God for you is not bound by time. He knew you and loved you before He formed you in your mother’s womb, and His love for you will never end.

You are divinely loved — forever!

I needed that thanks Vinny!

Labels: Catholic, Faith, Prayers

October 18, 2009

Mark 10:34-45 Rule For Success

Pasture fence near Bentonville AR


And James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came up to him and said to him, “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.”And he said to them, “What do you want me to do for you?”And they said to him, “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.”Jesus said to them, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or to be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?”And they said to him, “We are able.” And Jesus said to them, “The cup that I drink you will drink, and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized,but to sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared.”And when the ten heard it, they began to be indignant at James and John.And Jesus called them to him and said to them, “You know that those who are considered rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them.But it shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all.For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

Labels: Scenic Arkansas, scripture

October 04, 2009

Psalm 142~ Lord, You Are My Refuge

Autumn Surrounds the Sanctuary, First United Methodist Church Bella Vista AR



You Are My Refuge


With my voice I cry out to the Lord;
with my voice I plead for mercy to the Lord.
I pour out my complaint before him;
I tell my trouble before him.

When my spirit faints within me,
you know my way!
In the path where I walk
they have hidden a trap for me.
Look to the right and see:
there is none who takes notice of me;
no refuge remains to me;
no one cares for my soul.

I cry to you, O Lord;
I say, “You are my refuge,
my portion in the land of the living.”
Attend to my cry,
for I am brought very low!
Deliver me from my persecutors,
for they are too strong for me!
Bring me out of prison,
that I may give thanks to your name!
The righteous will surround me,
for you will deal bountifully with me.

Labels: Bella Vista, Scenic Arkansas, scripture, UMC