Small Success Thursday

We're half way through Lent. I realized, I haven't quite managed to find a rthymn to my devotions or my prayer life. It has remained organic and impulsive and not entirely focused. This is not a confession of a bad Lent, only a reality of how this Lent has thus far progressed.  

1) So today, I recommitted to my Lent.   

Things were hard, but less so, because that's how grace works.  It makes it possible to do what we cannot do without it.  This alone counts as a success, and not  a small one, because it was a reminder to begin again.   

2) In adoration, I recognized I've overtaxed myself in every place of living, and Lent reminded me, I needed to give up trying to do everything, to give up trying to please everyone, and do whatever it was that needed doing, not for approval or success, but out of love.  It sounds corny, but I'd struggled with this past year of obligation, which robbed the ordinary of its joy.  There were and are a thousand reasons for counting blessings because of this year, but I'd grown tired of looking, tired of counting, and begun counting the wrong things. 

Recognizing I'd overdone, was the first step of recovery. Lent would begin again on this, March 11th, with the goal of more surrender each day.   

3) Today, we celebrated as my son turned 17. It's hard to believe 17 years have passed since the year the Red Soxs won their first world series, the Return of the King came out and won best picture and John became part of our lives.  We're so happy he is.   

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JOHN! LOVE YOU

Have a piece over at W.I.N.E today...

 Ask and You Shall Receive.

Two-Fer Friday

Yes, I know, I didn't link up to Small Success Thursday yesterday.  I admit, I was preoccupied by the news. My hometown of Beaumont, Texas has been on all the channels lately, owing to Hurricane Harvey.  I'd writtten my friend Mark Shea to ask him to pray.  He did me one better, he took my worries and fears and asked all his readers to pray too. 

At the time, I honestly felt very fearful for Beaumont.  This storm has already broken so many records and destroyed so many homes, and when they lost water, I wondered if we'd lost Beaumont. I admit, I went to adoration and my heart howled.  The words floated into my heart, Jesus is in the boat. You knew, there would be storms.  You also know, He's in the boat with you.

The howls went away, and the news from Beaumont brightened.  They still have a long way to go to even sort of get to normal, but I was reminded once again, of the steel in the bones of these people, and the gold of their hearts.

I'll brag as an older sister, that my siblings and their families in Texas are busy finding people to help, and calling others to do the same.   They live out what I'd written about in the aftermath of that time in adoration:  In Great Storms and Little Struggles, Be Christ to One Another.  Have a great weekend! Pray for all those recovering from the storm, and help out if you can, any way that you can.

Thank you.

Drop the Nets

Where does anyone have the time for all of this?  

I know I have ten kids but I don't see anyone who isn't overtaxed, overworked and overwhelmed by all of modern living.  I was in a restaurant yesterday (car was being fixed ergo we ate to kill time) and a older woman walked by me.  Glancing around at all the people multi-tasking through their lunch, she said knowingly glancing down at my two toddlers seated and eating their macaroni and cheese, "This whole world is stressful. It's all hard." 

How to disagree with a woman I don't know the name of when I understood the stress that could be felt permeating the place where people were supposed to be taking a break and enjoying the pleasure of eating and company.  She didn't wait for a response but I wondered if part of the edge is the expectation that we should always be using every moment productively, that we have instant messages and emails and access leaves us less patient with actual people. 

The walk back to get the car, it was hard not to notice that even walking has become a task that requires additional activity, as people talked on their phones, tapped on their machines or listened to podcasts.  We are rapidly willingly becoming Borg, always connected, always electronically monitored, always keeping score, keeping track, surrendering minutes, hours, days of our life to things that are seemingly infinite and yet limited, and invisible and yet permanent, intimate, discoverable and unloving.  Her statement kept resonating with me...what was the answer to her query.  It wasn't to my mind to be found in politics or better organization or even dutiful hard work.  The stress that she spoke of was something more like the air we now breathe.  We know it is polluted. We do not know how to stop breathing it or how to make it otherwise.

I say this because yesterday, I got to come up for air, for real air, for 16 minutes.  My son plays baseball and  has Friday practice.  It's about a mile and a half from our home so I drop him off and come back.  I left a bit early for pick up and snuck into the 24/7 adoration chapel at our neighborhood Catholic church.  For a crowded small room (16 people), it was more quiet and peaceful than a lunch time restaurant with taupe and teal coloring and Enya type music.  The presence of the Holy filled more than good food. 

Admittedly, I felt like the nosiest soul in the room as I struggled to quiet my nonstop distracted brain, even route prayer being deliberate, felt like an attempt to somehow change the purpose of coming, which was to be in the presence rather than to tell God anything. The sacred is what we need, which explains why the world so little values any hint of a reminder of it, quiet, stillness, fullness, community, miracles, prayer, or innocence.   Everything else fell away for a few moments, and then I snapped back into lockstep with the time and the world, my phone alarm went off but I was honestly looking to check it before it went off, because I am an undisciplined soul and worried that I was not where I needed to be.   The Martha took over and I whisked back into the parking lot and off to the pick up spot for my son.  

Could you not stay?  The spirit is willing, the flesh weak.  I did not stay.  Like a dieter who buys candy or a person on a budget who goes on a shopping binge, I know what my soul needs, I distract myself from that best choice with lots of glittering alternatives, all important, all flashing, all mattering.  I do need to fix dinner. I do need to help with homework and housework and manage all these people's schedules.   But sometimes the duty of it can be rather like a child holding her breath in hopes of getting things to work out her way.   It is time to stop trying that method of affecting the world.  There should be time for this, I should be able to give a bit more and not treat God or His presence like something to squeeze in or occasionally indulge in, like writing, waiting for inspiration to leads to less writing, so also, waiting for the Spirit to push me is akin to demanding God fix it for me, that my free will be taken out of the equation.  This need to micromanage my life and my world is something to surrender, to freely give away for an hour. 

This year's theme was and is, Be Still and Know I am Here.  I am still struggling with even the first two words.  How can one know the Sacred if one is too busy to hear/listen/see, how can one know the Holy if one is wilfully blind?  How can one Know God if God comes last on the list if He even makes the list?  

I sat there mulling over where all this thinking took me, and the humorist said, "See, this is why you don't sit down and think, because it always leads to more.  And it's true.  You can't love God and not then be tugged to do more, to seek to love more, to give more.  You either don't/won't love, or you can't not give.   Surrender Sherry.  

How does anyone have time for this?  How do we stop crowding every second with everything but the sacred?  We have to Will it.  We have to drop the nets and go. 

Be Still my Heart, or at least, Be Quiet, My Brain

Every year, we pick a spiritual theme and this year, it is "Be Still and Know that I am."  You would think this would lead to an obvious pilgrimage to visit the Blessed Sacrament. I won't deny I'd fully intended that this be a weekly regimen. 

Then life happened.  And we got to August and I'd not made it to adoration once.  "How can you know I am if you will never ever be still?"  I could hear God smiling, bemused at my frantic attempt to get through the laundry, the chores of the day, helping with math, solving fights, running errands.  Here I was flailing away and feeling like less and less was getting done, less and less was mattering, and much of what I did do, was without a sense of peace that I thought would come from the Rosary, from serving my family, from trying to do what I ought, rather than what I wanted.  I had to ask, did I really want it if I put it off so much? 

But the opportunity kept quietly insisting that I consider it, like a wound that needs tending.  It pulsed. 
I drove by where there was 24/7 adoration.   It kept reminding me.  Every time I went out. 

My writing started drying up.  Everything felt stale.  My prayer life felt rather like a diet that wasn't working. I was eating right, exercising, not losing weight.  What more do you want God? I asked. 
And I knew.  You can keep beating your head against a spiritual wall, or you can go. 

So today, after dropping off my oldest at his job, I told myself, give yourself 20 minutes.  Immediately, my brain came up with three different other tasks that needed to be done.  I shunted them aside. My brain suggested I go back home and help with the math, get the kids and take them berry picking, clear out the computer room, plan our anniversary...after all, didn't I say a daily rosary? Didn't I read the Magnificat?  Wasn't my prayer life already full?  How was it going to make any difference? 

I drove through the parking lot the wrong way (as if that isn't symbolic enough).  I parked. I called home to check on my two teens that were serving breakfast.  All was quiet.  I'd run out of excuses. 

I'd love to tell you I had this great spiritual awakening, but it was more like a, "What took you so long?" moment.  And I cried and prayed for all my family and wondered why it had taken so much, why it had been such a struggle, to simply come and sit?   There was a temptation to say the rosary, but I didn't want to be busy before God, so I refused my desire to get some of my to do list done. This was be still and know time, not rosary time.   Sitting before our Lord, I felt bothered that I'd been so bothered, troubled that I'd considered coming such trouble.  All I could mutter was a "I'm sorry, I've been away."  and over and over again, "Jesus, I love you." It was a warm calm place to be, the very opposite of much of my life with the twists and turns that ten different personalities can generate. 

When I left, I promised, it would be fewer than 8 months before the next time.  "Be still and know that I am."  can't happen if I don't visit.   Now God's working on the...couldn't you stay an hour?  

Small Success Thursday

It's Thursday and today, we take stock of the past week; of the small things we did that were in fact, big victories.  Motherhood is replete with these sorts of victories, over pounds, laundry, bills, homework, splinters and drawings on the wall.  If we do not recognize that these small daily things reveal sacrifice, devotion and love, we will succumb to the despair brought on by dull joyless dutiful grunt work.  All service must be love, or it exhausts more than the body.  But the trick is, we have to be mindful of what we do if we are to serve out of love; absent that mindfulness, we can turn what is supposed to be a gift into drudgery.  We don't always, but it's an easy slip I know for me.   

With that in mind, today we celebrate the little things we did with great love.  Please join in and visit the others who participate.  Use Mr. Linky and on your own blog, list three or more ways in which this week, by grace, humor, determination and love, you were victorious over minutia, dust bunnies, errands and the demands of modern life.  Then leave a comment.

This week I:

1) Took four kids to get hair cuts.

2) did a one on one shopping (Borders) with my daughter that probably is most hungry for this sort of time. Told her to ask me to do it again. She beamed.

3) Visited with my sister and we promised to go to adoration in our separate towns. (I made it last night!) The best description I have for being in front of the Blessed Sacrament, is Oasis.  You don't realize how thirsty  you are until you drink.

4) Thought the reading with kids would get derailed by last week's vacation (it was great by the way), but we picked back up and I can't wait for them to find out what happened to Eustance on Dragon Island tomorrow. 

5) Will meet this morning with my daughter's teachers to discuss learning styles and teaching strategies. 

6) Let a few go to see Harry Potter on their own, they loved it. --though oldest son said when Voldemort hugs Malfoy --most awkward hug ever.  (Three rows behind him snorted their sodas). We're going tonight. (Date Night).

7) Didn't gain weight on vacation --a victory of not going backwards.

Now it's your turn.

*****ARGH! Mr. Linky failed me.  :P
Here's Mr. Linky. 





I'll put all the blogs who commented onto Mr. Linky. Thanks!
(Had a morning meeting and a 12:00 appt. so I couldn't check the blog until 2 or I would have corrected this sooner). 

Summer Meme

I was never good at tag as a kid.  I never caught anyone.   So if I got tagged, the game was essentially over.   However, in blog tags, I'd never yet been tagged so today, I'm happy to say, "I'm it!" 

The Ironic Catholic tagged me at her post today. 

My five favorite devotions are: 

1) Saint Bridgette's devotion --fifteen Our Fathers and fifteen Hail Mary's, every day for a year.  It is for all the souls in purgatory but it is also my daily reminder to pray and because it is daily, I do find myself doing it during laundry or dishes or taking out the garbage.  It means that any activity I do can become mindful and for that, I am very grateful.

2) Saint Louis de Montfort's Total Consecration to Jesus through Mary:  This has been an ongoing pleasure and challenge for the past (it's hard to believe it has been this long), seven years.   When we have the days where we're doing the litany and the rosary and still have to keep up with Saint Bridgette's, you sometimes feel like you are marathon praying and in truth, you are. 

3) The Divine Mercy devotion:  This was something I said while sitting at the hospital with Paul; it gave me great comfort.  I use it when I'm stressed out; when the Holy Spirit wants me to focus on mercy because I am becoming to harsh or too hard or too sad. 

4) The Rosary:  The rosary always surprises me with how much I love it.  Mary's devotion is my go to when I can't figure out anything to do prayer.  She provides me with my everyone needs to be quiet because everyone is fighting and I want to hit the reset button prayer. Mary also stands ready when I this more often prayer.

can't sleep, I can't cope, or even worse, I don't want to cope prayer.   She is always my why don't I pray
5)  Adoration:  I have loved it whenever I have gone; I have felt pierced and fed whenever I have gone.  Like the rosary, I know it is always there and always possible.  (There's a perpetual adoration chapel just a mile and a half from me).  Yet like the rosary, I do not avail myself of its riches as often as I could or should.  You have to know there are no coincidences with God and the fact that I was thinking only yesterday of how I should go and today, I get a reminder via a blog meme, that this is something I will have to simply schedule and go do. 

Now I get to tag five other bloggers to consider how the devotions they cherish feed them and invite them to share. 
My Wonderful Life
Cheeky Pink Girl
Adrienne's Corner
Violin Mama
Just Another Day of Catholic Pondering

And I realize what a relief it was to never catch anyone because I now sit here thinking of all the other bloggers I could have tagged but didn't.   Ah well.  In the meantime, tag! You're it!

And Now for a Catholic Commencement...

If you want a funny alternative to my piece, I highly recommend:
http://ironiccatholic.blogspot.com/2009/05/ironic-catholic-alternate-notre-dame.html.
Otherwise...

My brain is fried from all of this, and I need to attend to the domestic church that is my home, instead of the ivory twin towers of academia and politics. But I do have an alternative suggestion for next year's commencement speaker.

First, we must discern what would constitute a good nationally prominent figure, known to all. The individual must be historic, life changing, a person who inspires real hope and real change.

Second, the person must be known for good works, dedication to the sick, the poor, and to ending injustice and suffering in general.

Third, the person must be a good speaker, with a riviting charismatic personality that speaks to both the rich and the poor, the educated and the simple.

Fourth, the commencement speaker must invite each gradutate to go out and be more loving, more humble and more grateful for the gifts they have received. The speaker must envoke the new graduates to go out and be lights to the world, to engage it with their wisdom, their service and all their hearts.

Fifth, the person's example as embodied in written and spoken words, actual work and whole life, must be perfect and subject to intense scrutiny. Personal character witnesses and testimony about these works, words and deeds must hold up and show that they have endured the test of time.

In light of all these qualities which must be non negotiable, there is only one candidate who could meet the entire criteria. Hold Commencement, and at the point where the speaker would get up, present the Blessed Sacrament.

Ask for prayerful sober reflection for the hour, and invite all to adore Him.

And let this be the tradition at Notre Dame and all Catholic institutions of Higher Learning from now on.