by Mary | Jan 15, 2009 | prayer
Did you ever have one of those days? Well, I’m having one of those months. It’s been an endless string of things not going according to plan, and, to tell you the truth, it’s wearing me down. Normally I go to God with a laundry list of things I need, but these days I’m so mentally and spiritually exhausted that I just sit there, saying, What? What? WHAT?!?!? I keep waiting for a sign, an answer, something to let me know I’m not veering off course, but I have to admit that I’m starting to think that maybe I am, in fact, off course, way off course.
How do we know if we’re following God’s plan? What if we think we’re doing His will, but we’re completely off base and don’t even know it. What if we’re misinterpreting the messages, misreading the signs? I mean, most of the time God is pretty subtle. I have yet to be knocked off my horse or even my kitchen chair. I keep thinking that I’m moving in the right direction with my spiritual writing, with my prayer life, with my effort to try to do the right thing on a day-to-day basis. But when I run into brick walls at just about every turn, it makes me stop and think about whether God and I are using the same game plan.
Does any of that make sense? Do you ever just pause and think, Wow, what if I’m not meant to be in this particular place in my life, what if I’m missing something big. I guess I’ll never know. I guess I’ll just keep sitting before God and shouting my eternal, WHAT?!?! But it would we be nice to at least get a clue.
It’s good sometimes to realize that even the greatest spiritual masters felt confused or unsure of their path at times. Here, again, is Thomas Merton, who provides me with endless comfort because he was so willing to put his human weakness out there for all to see. He reminds me that even the saints stood before God and asked, What? What? What?
Read and reflect and, please, share your insights:
“MY LORD GOD, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone. – Thomas Merton, “Thoughts in Solitude”
by Mary | Jan 14, 2009 | Uncategorized
Last night, when I made my nightly rounds to each child’s bedroom before going to sleep, I found myself lingering longer than usual. Instead of quickly fixing Chiara’s covers or snapping off the light on Olivia’s fish tank or picking up the clothes that Noah had dropped on his floor, I just watched and listened and soaked up the innocence and beauty and wonder of the little lives entrusted to my care. And I imagined what Ross’ parents were going through at that same moment, maybe looking at their own little boy in a hospital bed and wishing that their biggest worry was a messy bedroom or an overdue library book. It’s amazing how a thought like that can put things into perspective and make you realize how fleeting life can be and how quickly it can change.
Sometimes, when I’m caught up in the day-to-day circus-like atmosphere of life at home with three busy and active children, it’s easy to miss those brief shining moments that sparkle like diamonds amid the dullness of the daily drudgery: the hug from Noah for no particular reason while I’m in the middle of making dinner, the “I love you” whispered into my ear when Chiara climbs into bed in the morning to snuggle before the day begins, the smile on Olivia’s face when I say I’m going to polish her nails or braid her hair or give her even just a few minutes of undivided girly-girl time. Back when Noah was younger, I would write down those special moments, as well as the funny things he would say and do, so that I could always go back and relive the moment, but now it seems I’m always too busy just trying to get through the day to sit down and ruminate on all the things that need recording. Even now, as I write this, Chiara is begging me to play with her, and I keep putting her off. Would I do that if I could see into the future?
At dinner last night, after grace, we told the kids about Ross and prayed together. Noah said, “I hope I never get cancer.” The immediate parent reaction is to want to reassure, to say, “We’ll never let that happen to you.” But it happens to people when they least expect it, doesn’t it, and we can’t make it stop and we can’t ward it off and we can’t make promises that we don’t know if we can keep. And so I told Noah, “We never know what life is going to hand us,” and even as I said it I quietly prayed that we would never be asked to bear the cross that Ross’ family is carrying right now.
Record the moments, even if only in the scrapbook of your heart, and tonight linger at a bedside and be thankful for what you have not been asked to bear.
by Mary | Jan 13, 2009 | Uncategorized
Ross, the almost-12-year-old cousin of a good friend of mine (and a good friend of this blog) is in round two of a battle with leukemia. He needs your prayers and lots of them, so please take some time today to send some blessings Ross’ way. In fact, you have my permission to stop reading this blog so that you can pray instead.
by Mary | Jan 12, 2009 | prayer
I have mentioned in this space before — perhaps so often that you are all sick of hearing about it — that I have an incredibly hard time praying the Liturgy of the Hours. Truth be told, I just can’t get it. I can handle the Magnificat version, which is extremely abbreviated and requires no flipping of pages, but the real deal, the version that you would pray if you lived in a monastery, well, that’s like a spiritual Rubik’s Cube as far as I’m concerned. I flip back and forth, try to find the right place in Ordinary Time, and get thrown off course by feast days for saints I know nothing about or, heaven forbid, special seasons, like Lent and Advent. Prayer, at least for me, simply cannot be that complicated, so what I’ve done in the past is simply close up my book of Christian Prayer, say something familiar, like an Our Father, and call it a day.
Until now. I had vowed to make 2009 the year I finally learned to pray LOH the right way and without fear. So my friend Bill, who is up visiting our family, sat down with me today and showed me how to run the gauntlet. Then we said Morning Prayer together. I’m not convinced that if I try to say Evening Prayer on my own later today I won’t just get frustrated and default to an old standard instead, but at least now I feel like I’ve got a fighting chance. It would be easy, I think, if I had an opportunity to pray LOH in a community for even one week, to figure it all out, but when you’re on your own and you’re trying to do all the Psalms and antiphons and canticles amid the chaos of family life, it can all get to be a little overwhelming.
So I feel pretty good. We’re only a couple of weeks into 2009 and already I’m chipping away at my plan to learn to pray the Prayer of the Church. Anyone else out there praying the Liturgy of the Hours regularly and at home? Please, tell me how you stay committed and make regular time for this. I can imagine Evening Prayer will be a bit tricky, what with it falling some time around kids finishing homework and me making dinner.
by Mary | Jan 9, 2009 | prayer, spirituality
So I’ve been up since about 3 a.m. It feels like it’s dinner time and it’s just a few minutes after 9 a.m. now. Since I couldn’t sleep last night, I was showered and dressed and downstairs before 5:30 a.m. I wandered around the kitchen for a few minutes before it finally dawned on me. I had no excuses. This was my opportunity to sit in silence and just listen. The house was completely quiet, the sky was still dark, and I had about 90 minutes stretching out in front of me before the kids had to be up for school.
So I made a pot of coffee (Mystic Monk — how appropriate — thanks to the generosity of A.L. from our comment section, who sent me Christmas Blend a few weeks ago) and I lit the Peace Pot candle I bought when I was on retreat in the Adirondack Mountains in September. The little hand-thrown pot with the hand-dipped bees wax candle (see photo above), which I purchased directly from the potter, for me symbolizes the silence and serenity and solitude and simplicity that I experienced on my contemplative retreat. Just lighting it makes my shoulders relax. And then, after those things were done and I had poured a cup of coffee, I sat. And, as is the case when you don’t allow yourself to sit in silence very often, I watched the acrobatics of monkey mind ensue. My particular monkey is my inability to stop writing, even in my head, whenever I try to be quiet. So I did what I was taught on retreat and brought myself back to a centered place, thinking the name “Jesus” in my head if not on my lips, and I allowed the thoughts to float on by without getting aggravated or caught up in them. And I sat and I listened and I waited.
I have to admit that despite the fact that I feel really tired right now, I loved, loved, LOVED my hour of silence. Mind you I did not just sit and wait for the Spirit for the whole hour, but I probably made it a good 20 or 30 minutes, which is a lot for me. I spent the rest of the time reading my favorite St. Francis book and just reflecting. It was one of the best mornings I’ve had in a long time and it made me wonder why I can’t drag myself out of bed for this kind of thing more often. I felt a sense of peace come over me and a realization that somehow things are going to be OK with a particularly difficult business situation that has been weighing on my heart and soul like a giant stone. I found myself saying to God, “OK, let’s try it your way.” I can’t promise the peace will last or that I won’t revert to the state of fear and and anger and frustration I’ve been living in for weeks, but it’s a start.
