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

Over at Catholic Mom.com today and other things...

1)  I've been writing, and my first piece in a while is at Catholicmom.com and called Go Deeper In.   

2) I'm editing.  Slowly.  Grudgingly.  

3) I'm exercising.  Slowly.  Grudingly.   

4) A brief shout out to all of you who hear when others don't, that someone is hurting more than they wish to admit, thank you.  

This morning, a friend felt devastated that her attempt to help someone who voiced a suicidal thought was treated with contempt.   Yesterday, another person I know dealt with a similar issue.  My response to everyone and anyone who responds when someone cries out thinking no one hears them  is, thank you for listening.  Thank you for stopping from all that is ordinary and distracting and keeps life busy and humming along because someone else hurt and you noticed.  

Thank you because those people are still here because you heard and didn't keep going.  
Thank you because you understood the need to stop, that such things couldn't be ignored or brushed aside.  
Thank you because we all know this has been a horrible year, and yet, you still think of others and recognize, sometimes the hardness of life overwhelms.   It need not, and it might not, if we are willing to listen, and to speak when we hear "the cry of the poor."   The people who did the right thing, are still struggling with what they encountered and what they can't share, so I'm telling them, "Thank you." from the bottom of my heart for everyone who doesn't know they need to say thank you, but who does still have that someone to love today, because of what you did.    

5) The move to Patheos is soon.  

6) If you're in the DC Area, tickets just went on sale for this, very psyched about the fall.    

7) Lastly, I hope your Lent is going well.  Mine has involved a lot of backtracking and uturns and restarts and it's near the end of the second week.  Next week's reflection, what makes a "good Lent?"  

Move!

Yesterday, I mentioned moving day.  Today, I'm thinking about moving but in a different way. 

So I started Lent, I've already messed up every day, and yet, that's the purpose of Lent, to be reminded every day of how much we pretend we don't need saving, how much we deny, we need saving.  The best Lents aren't when we adhere to whatever our Lenten promise is perfectly, but when we are perfected by the trial of seeking to adhere to it in the first place.  

What we do matters, and yet like receiving, how and why we do it matters too.   The matter of our sacrifice matters.  That's why sacarments have an unbearably physical element to them, an undenyable physical reality.  

It's the everyday progress, that comes with acknowledging how much we regress, that makes for true humility --can't do this without grace, not even for a second.   It's the everyday little surrenders that make up whole splinters of a cross that over a lifetime, is the whole cross. The nails of our life are those big moments, where we were given the opportunity to say yes or no to Christ, and the crown we weave, is of all the times we've managed to cooperate with grace and the world hated us for it, and our keen awareness of all the times we failed to love those around us --all the moments we could have cooperated with grace and did not.  We get to offer all our failures to Christ, along with a humble, "I am sorry, I am nothing but a poor ungrateful servant.  Here I am Lord, do with me what you will."   

This past week, many in my family were reminded of what most of us take for granted, heat, power, water and food.   This week, many in our nation were reminded, our world is much more fragile than nature, and this past twelve months, our nature, much more fragile than we believe.   

We are always practicing Catholics, even when our practice sounds terrible, even when we screw up, especially when we don't recognize we're screwing up.  God knows this, God tells us over and over again, He knows this.  He compares us to sheep.  That's not flattering. It is however, a reality.  

This week, I sat thinking about spiritual practice and discpline being like weight loss --the most success is when we stop looking at the problem as something to be solved, and instead embrace it as a way to live.   The same is true for spiritual exercise.   When it is part of breathing, we are closer to "doing it well" because we aren't doing something to check off a box, but as part of an ever on going progression.   

Editing, parenting, writing, exercise, prayer, all of these things are the cumulative consequence of a regular constant willingness to do and do again and be willing to do poorly but do every day.   

So with that in mind, I'm going to go edit my book and go for a short exercise...if only to start.   
Because all of these habits require first, foremost and always, my cooperation, and none of these will happen if I do not will to do them.   That includes Lent.  

The desert everywhere is calling.  Inviting us to will to go into it.   Lent is the time to be willing to move.   

At the Catholic Standard Today

My son and I took a walk and exercised our imaginations.  Staying at home and keeping the faith.

At the Catholic Standard Today

Feeling overwelmed by the world? Remember, Jesus is in the boat, and you were created exactly for this time to be a saint in this time. You were created to be heroic in virtue to help others. Let's get to it.

At the Standard Today Proving Yet again,

I am not good at clearing my own spiritual debris. 

God Alone Suffices.

Over at the Standard Today

I had my son read over my suggestions and he said, "Those are pretty good Mom." High praise indeed.

Letting God Tear the Sin Away...

The National Catholic Register ran a piece of mine from 2019.  Here's a link to the post, What To GIve Up For These 40 Days.   I know why I need Lent. I do not suffer well. I don't fast well. I don't forbear well. Everything when I know I'm supposed to be striving for holiness, seems to somehow vex more.  Prayer is harder, patience is harder, and forbearance?  Ugh.   So I'm going to go force myself to pray...until I'm no longer resisting praying. 

It's rather like doing the chore until you no longer chafe at the task itself.   I can tell you, I'm not humble enough...I'm still struggling and acutely aware of my own desire to do my own will.   I should be very grateful, and I keep finding out much to my disappointment and embarrasment in me, I'm not, because the desert is unpleasant and hot and sticky and annoying and full of scratchy things. 

Asland must tear away Eustance's Dragon skin, and to do so he tears through to the real Eustance with his claws.  It's a brilliant example of how much we cling to sin, and how much we allow it to define us if I think about it. It's disturbing as well, because those claws, like those nails, hurt.   Yet we know God is delighted every time we let Him close enough to pull at the sins we cling to, like a child opening the wrapping, He's dying to get to the present, to the gift of us. 

Good Friday

This week, as everyone knows, we suffered the loss of the physical beauty of the Cathedral of Notre Dame. I've been there and admittedly, I was a dumb twenty-two year old.  I'm not saying all twenty-two year olds are dumb, but I was.  While at the Cathedral, my big memory was of climbing above and posing as a Gargoyle on one of the two turrets people can see.   I'd love to say I've matured since then, but every once in a while, I'm reminded, I did that, and I still sometimes think that way. 

I forget the sacred when I'm consumed by my own thoughts or my own entertainments.  It's easy for me.  I also forget the sacred when I'm hurt.  I forget the sacred when I'm overwhelmed. It's easy for me to not be present, to be busy and anxious with many things.   I was at the Basilica of the Sacred Heart, and distracted.  I find I'm more and more distracted the older I get, and thus not present as I need to be. 

It's why I love Holy Week. I need the saturation of the stations of the cross, the washing of the feet, the reading of the passion, the empty open tabernacle and the covered crucifix.  I need all the reminders, over and over again, to help me stop being pulled away from God, to help me focus.  It's like fasting for the mind, it forces the mind to pay attention to what is not present, making one long for what is missing.   It's why I need whenever I can get it, daily adoration. (I don't always, like I said, I'm easily distracted).  If there's one thing this modern world is starved for, it's stillness and quiet contemplation of God. 

By all means, go to confession, fast, pray with your family, listen to podcasts or watch a movie giving the story of Christ's last few days or focus on Passover itself, so you recognize how much of the mass comes from what came before.   Cultivate some seriously quiet time with God, force your mind to fast from what is here and now on what is ever present and eternal.  Even if this Lent stunk --you forgot to fast, you forgot what you gave up or didn't succeed in somehow making an sacrificial offering, begin again, and make a good Good Friday. 

Over at the Register

So I had all these doubts...but apparently last month I didn't feel so lacking in confidence. I forgot I wrote this piece in February over at the National Catholic Register on not hiding your light. It's a gentle reminder, (if only to me), if you haven't really started your Lent, you can today, and that our God is about our Joy, not our drudgery.

He doesn't want me discouraged, He wants me joyful.   That's a great comfort actually...because it's a call to joy...which is a willed response to reality.   It's not about getting rid of things, it's about being at peace with where you are and why you are wherever it is you are...

On that note, in the interest of peace of mind, I'm taking a break from Facebook for Lent.  I'll still link articles here and share them, but no commentary, no likes, no sharing of other stuff, no status updates, no lingering.   Thank you for understanding.   Happy Lent!

Having So Much More to Give

There are moments when you discover the gifts of others in the midst of doing ordinary things that make one wonder, how did I miss this before now? How is it not obvious to everyone, how luminous this person is?

When a student gives a beautiful response to a question, or writes an amazing paper, or does the opposite of what one expects, (given past behavior), these are the moments that make teaching worth more than the pay of a CEO.  When I look at the teachers of the school where I work, I know they live for that moment, even the ones who pretend to be jaded, for the surprise of a mind awakened, a heart turned, a soul suddenly filled with fire, wanting to take on whatever the future brings. 

More than once while pursuing this career path, I've been asked, "Do I think I could handle it?" and thus it seems, I should answer this serious question.   My thoughts run the gamut from "Of course...to, why not?" but when I'm not being flippant about it, when I look at the reality of what is involved in the day in, day out of teaching, they are to me rather like parenting.

 I know three things:

I will have days when it is hard.
I will have days when it is harder,
and I will have days when I wonder how I could do anything else.

The reality is, like it is for all these teachers, and all these students,  we all have so much more to give, and our zeal and talent and efforts fluctuate with the seasons and needs of our lives.  I want however, the opportunity to try.   I'm sifting through the landscape because I also know, I tend to want to give...and thus for me, the question is should I.  I think that's what this Lent for me is about...getting quieter, listening more, and allowing myself to be uncomfortable with not yet knowing, and searching for the answer to it. 

My initial answer is yes.  I can.  My secondary answer is...I will do what I find I am allowed, and trust that gift, be it what I do now, or something else, is something I can and should do. 

I didn't know I could raise ten children until I had to raise ten children.  Much of my life has been discovering the limits I placed on myself were just that, limits, and that those limits remained until I believed they could be challenged.  My own eldest daughter constantly shows me through her force of will, how much can be accomplished by forging one's own will into a thing of iron. I keep thinking, hers couldn't get stronger...yet it continues to be further forged.

So what does it mean about the writing?  Not a thing.  I'm a big believer in the both and, as opposed to the either/or, and I need writing, whether to focus my thoughts on parenting or anything else. In writing, like parenting, like teaching, like everything, there's always more to give, it's just a question of should we give it, and will we.   We all have so much more to offer than we know. 

Over at the Register Today

Have a Great Ash Wednesday...and I hope this Lenten journey leads you deeper and deeper in...

Sunday Musings...Getting Ready for Ash Wednesday

Yesterday, I read an article which irked me, because it took to task people who offer Spiritual advice from a Catholic perspective without having degrees or jobs which back up their offered counsel. I'm not linking to it because I'm only citing my response to the accusation, not to the article's main points itself. I chaffed because professionalism of the faith feels anti-Catholic to me. We specialize in people who aren't experts. Saint Peter was a fisherman. Saint Matthew collected taxes. Mary, the Blessed Mother, was a young unmarried girl. The Catholic Church loves and celebrates rookies with abandon. However, the article struck a nerve because I'd also recently read comments on my own work which called one of my pieces a waste of space. The comment got likes too.

(I know, first rule of the Internet). So I sat there worrying, am I wasting other people's and my own time? I don't have a degree in anything theological. Even worse, I knew I was experiencing false humility. I wanted to justify myself and wanted the credentials at the same time. I wanted to be...but I ain't bonafied.

With all of that kicking in my head, today, I read the news of a friend of mine, (online), who is experiencing great success and joy, an acquaintance of mine, (who I would like to call friend), who likewise participated in a women of faith conference and I felt both happy for them both and after a while, envy. I didn't like that about myself. I should be happy for both. Instead, I felt jealous, like why aren't I in that circle too? Why haven't I arrived as it were...and all the demons were present at once in that moment. I wanted the attention, I wanted the company, I wanted to be recognized....and envied those who have it...who earned it...who deserved it...and who probably, didn't envy anyone else their success. The earlier article resurfaced in my head. I am no expert on God, the Gospel, the Church or life, no more than anyone else. I have no credentials save experience and whatever I've absorbed from reading books and articles and listening to wiser more studied heads than mine over the years, So what business did I have feeling envious? These women did the work, I didn't.

Yuck. That's what I thought of my soul in that moment, laid bare with all its meaner, weaker, crueler, stupider desires. Except I knew one other thing. Spiritual battles will use truth without charity to get us to sin, or charity without truth (Whichever works), just as long as the attacks get us to focus on us and what we want, rather than on the blessings of our lives, the endless gifts, the joys and treasures, pleasures and bounty of our own lives. Sin and love cannot exist in the same space, one or the other will be deprived of the oxygen it needs to survive. How one fights off the erosion of soul the Devil uses to dishearten, and thus destroy us is an act of the will, and a combination of fasting, prayer, alms giving and the sacraments.

So I was reminded in mass, if I wish to grow in gratitude, to grow in joy, to grow in being a woman of faith for the right reasons (out of love of God and not my own glory), I must pray for others. If I want to be a woman of faith, I have to start working on this plank in my eyes, which prevents God from being seen through mine. I know, we're never finished. We've never arrived as long as we're here, on pilgrimage in this wasteland, seeking a home we've always known, but haven't yet reached. However, it would help if I saw better, if I weren't kept from fuller joy by wanting to somehow make the "A team," if I didn't care what team I played on, or whether I got to play at all, if all that mattered was cheering on the whole Church to victory.

Lent beings this Wednesday, and when I thought, what must I give up for not merely the next 40 days, but forever, it's allowing the need to be affirmed, approved, accepted and honored for showing up or doing the work which is required. To be able to recognize always and everywhere, I'm merely a servant, and an ungrateful one at that, doing only what is required. I need to go to Our Lord to listen at His feet, rather than to read off to him my rosary and list of needs. I need to need less to be in front, I need to practice more listening, more silence. I need to go deeper into the desert.

Honestly, I think giving up diet coke and chocolate would be easier for me. When I write these things, they're my attempt to pull out of my own heart, what it is I believe and why. The words are an offering. So I'm not an expert nor am I acquiring said degree credentials. Like everyone else in this life, I'm trying desperately to not be distracted, discouraged or dulled by my own desires to be something less than God aspires.

That's the real rub of it. God's plans are bigger than mine, better than mine, more luminous, happy, joyful, beautiful and glorious than any I can dream. Why wouldn't I want that? Happy Ash Wednesday March 6, 2019.

Two Pieces for You...

Hey everyone, I've got a piece over at the National Catholic Register on the Assumption.  It's funny, the pieces I sweat over, sometimes don't catch on, and the ones I don't feel quite right, sometimes turn out to be the ones people like.  I struggled with the piece on the Assumption. 

Speaking of struggles, after a long dry spell, I have a piece over at Aleteia on 5 tips if you're botching Lent.  I'll be over here drying to redone my ashes and mental sack cloth.   Thank goodness God doesn't get tired of hearing me say, "I wasn't ready.  Do-over.  I'm beginning again."  I know I do. 

A friend of mine who is not Christian asked me about Lent. She thought the fasting component fascinating.  "Do you feel yourself getting stronger?"  Nope.  Just the opposite.  What I have learned thus far this Lent, there's much to do. I need to will to do it, and I am very predisposed to be weak.

She laughed.   So did I.   Thank goodness for the mercy of Lent.

Returning to it

Writing is one of those professions which always demands your next trick and doesn’t look backwards.   Five hundred words a day; no skips. No excuses.  I’d done both. For the past few weeks I’d come to the lull in the day (usually at night) when there’s time I could spend writing, and hadn’t.  Dullness took over my writer’s heart and I let it.  

With that failure to practice, I’d lost a piece on the Eucharist and the real (perceived) vs. the actual (reality) which kicked around for a day teasing me.  I’d not put out words on how we need to really tackle the issue of access to fire arms as a nation and stop putting symbolism over substance in our policies and procedures, not because we can prevent every act of evil, but because we can help curb this sort of evil.    The temptation to act like a lesser creatures and not push to action, is a form of sloth.   We have to resist the temptation in the big and little to let life simply go on and not stop, reflect and respond. I knew this about the bigger world outside of my own, and the internal one.  Sloth allowed for greater creeping dullness, for less response to the whole world. 

Fortunately, I have lots of passionate people in my life, at work, on my facebook feed, and hearing and reading their responses to world events helped.  Their energy and interests helped me recognize an unhealthy detatchment and mourn all these lost stories.   As if to bring it home with a resounding "Hey Sherry, can't miss this!"  one student in a class asked me, "What's zeal mean?"  Answer, the opposite of what I'd shown.  

Sloth and Procrastination are a writer’s greatest threat.  I ran through the reasons in my head as to why I hadn’t but they were all excuses which weren’t the real reason.  Ten kids never stopped me before.  Sickness and stress didn’t stop me before. Time wasn’t always an ally either.  For the past few weeks, I’d felt drier, and ever duller. I even remarked to my husband, “I feel like salt which lost its flavor.” It felt like it wouldn’t come back.  Being in the writer world desert, I’d not dug deeper or pushed onward, I’d simply stopped and once I stopped, restarting became harder. I was ceasing to be a writer.  I’d become someone who had been for a time, if I let it continue. I didn't want to be a had been.

Lent is one of those seasons of the Church which helps me rediscover almost always the same lesson I’m refusing to learn.  I lack discipline in my will.  Fasting, in addition to allowing me the opportunity to make reparations for the damage I’ve done to the world by my own sin, fasting or rather, the discovery of how poor I am at fasting, teaches me all the ways in which I avoid noticing what I lack.   Opening the computer, I’d shut it back down again.  I'd tell myself good reasons. I’m tired.  I need rest.  Being a slave to appetite, to impulse and to time, I lost something precious. I tried to joke to myself I’m fasting from writing, but I wasn’t wanting to write and opting to surrender that desire, I was not writing and waiting for desire to take me back to it.  

Looking back at the words, I found a lot of “I’s.” in the work, hammering home where and with whom the problem lay.  I'm guessing my muse forgave me because I woke up and felt pushed until I started writing.  Pushed out of sleep, pushed out of bed, and pushed until the words came spilling out and it didn't matter what time it was, they had to be typed.   The love of words for words sake restarted.  I still needed to know why. 

Always writing to be published didn't allow for the sort of free association thinking involved in writing as play.  As writing became more work, the work of writing demanded more, and it meant I never just allowed writing to be only my thoughts, only chasing down every rabbit hole my brain opened.  I'd even been thinking about closing my blog because all the writing was "professional." 

 However, the playground of the blog allows for more randomness and is a means of maintaining the discipline of the 500 words.  It's the home for all the 500 words which don't have some other place they could go. 

And so, I begin again, so as to continue becoming.  

Happy Ash Wednesday!

It's not a day of obligation, but it's still a wonderful thing to receive. 

Here's my latest at the National Catholic Register.  How to prepare for the next 40 days.

Here is one of my favorite site's write up on the common questions for Lent.
Thank you Marcel. Lent 2018.  It was written for Lent in 2014, but the information hasn't changed. 

Ash Wednesday is always dear to me.  My father died on Ash Wednesday, March 5, 2014.  So I consider it a feast day for my father even as we fast. 

We're in Week Three of Lent

Tuesday, I took all the petitions with me when I attended a healing mass celebrated by Father Dan O'Leary.  If you read yesterday's piece, you got day one of his talks.  Here's the podcast version of his Day 2 talk.  Father Dan has many spiritual gifts, and one of them is his devotion to the sacrament of confession.  I've seen him see a person leaving because the line was too long and stop whatever it was he was doing, to invite them back.

Standing in line to receive a blessing, waiting became an opportunity to engage in a litany of sorts, for all those I've ever hurt, both by co-mission or omission, and all those who I've nursed hurts against.  I've been to healing masses before, (not often), but I know they bring with them great graces.  It's a sort of oasis in the midst of this Lenten journey, a greater feast than getting to indulge in whatever surrender we've made up to now in our normal appetites.

This past week, I began to reflect on what these first three weeks of Lent have brought.  While considering the purpose and process of Lent, I stated how I started Lent wanting God to give me friends.  I was praying for friends.  Now, I find my desert is full of friends for whom I am praying. This thought germinated into a piece over at the National Catholic Register.   It is a great blessing to be part of all of your lives.  Thank you for honor.  

May I pray for you today?

Day 4 of Lent

May I pray for you?

I'm rotating between the blog and Facebook to make sure I ask every day, and to keep from sounding like a nag. 

The first thing I've come to know, is there are a lot of hidden crosses.  It is an honor to be allowed to share in such stories of strength, courage and fortitude.  My heart rends for some of these individuals.  It feels inadequate to simply pray, and yet it is all any of us can do given what some of these people face, and in reality, it is what we are asked to do. Also, I know, God's heart rends more than mine, and He can and does act, and is acting. 

Today, I read several posts by people who declared themselves emancipated from organized religion because they wanted to be more in connection with God.  Maybe they have that grace, but going to adoration, I cannot get closer, and I know absent the sacraments, (as I know even with them), it is easy to drift. It is easy to fall into talking to myself.   It is easy to fall asleep. 

However, the names help me anchor.  I have a red book in which I write every name of every person and every intention each day.  Leave your name and/or intention in a like, the com box or email.  Every day but Sunday, the offer will be given.  

So may I pray for you?  

Over at the National Catholic Register/Day 2

It was a pleasing surprise to discover this piece over at the National Catholic Register. It's called 5 Ways to Go Deeper and Deeper Into Lent. I would argue, it is a process and all five steps are necessary.  We're always in need of going deeper and deeper in, and whatever gets us to wade further into the waters, is good.

It is Day 2 of Lent.  Thank you for helping me with my observance.

The other day, I felt the weight of everything (Fat Tuesday), and asked for comfort.  My son who is eight, would not let me alone for the next hour.  Everywhere I went to be alone, to nurse the hurt I felt, he came.  I locked myself behind three doors.  He picked them.  I shut myself in my bathroom. He knocked on the bathroom and I could hear him outside calling me.

I didn't want to visit with my son. I wanted to be comforted, so I put on a coat. When I went outside, he put on a coat and came out. Three times I took him back in, and went back out to allow myself to keep asking for comfort, and three times, he found a way out to come and climb a tree next to me.

It seems obvious and yes,  I figured out, he was part of the answer, as was a phone call from my brother, a text from my oldest son, and an unsolicited hug from a daughter, and the unasked for purchase of a Dunkin' Donut by another daughter.  I also received an email from a complete stranger about an article I'd written, and an invitation to get together with another friend for Thursday, all of which came in short succession.  God hears. God answers, and He's even goofy about it, like encouraging my son to come outside three times to climb trees next to me, coaxing me with donuts and visits from friends.  It was a lavish response to a momentary dark mood. One might even say overkill, except it wasn't.  It was the more, the little extra that let me know, it was God saying over and over again what He always says, "I love you." and "I am here."

So know, I am praying for all of your intentions, and I hope, you get showered with answers.

May I Pray For You?

May I pray for you?

I've been thinking hard on what to do for Lent.  I know one part of Lent will be the 40 bags in 40 days, but I also know, that is a physical discipline and God knows, I need to become more mindful in all things.

Part of Lent is to go deeper into prayer.   My own prayer life has been one big distraction, so I'm seeking to take my own wandering brain out of the equation by giving it others to focus on instead.

This year, this is part of my Lenten observance, to pray for others before the Eucharist.  Each day. Every day.  The offer will be made each day on this blog.  I will take any and all petitions to prayer for the day.   You can email, private message or put your petition in the com box. You are invited to be a prayer warrior for all petitions you see.

What will that prayer be like? It will be simply presenting whatever is received, probably in the course of the Rosary or Chaplet since those are my two favored ways to try to delve deeper into relationship with God.   My brother made a comment to me, which frightened me and at the same time, I didn't argue the matter, because that's what we're supposed to seek when we talked about the purpose of prayer.  Everyone is supposed to seek to have something as close as possible to being able to walk with God in the cool of the day.  He made a comment about my prayer life being direct.

His comment was coupled with a discussion held online where I asserted what I believe, prayer always works.  Not how we plan, not as magic, but it always opens us to going deeper into relationship with God.  Between my brother's comment and the discussion on prayer, I felt the tug to ask, and so I ask again, "May I pray for you?"

The reality is, we all should be more comfortable asking this question but for some reason, I am not.  I can't figure out why, but I am not.  I know it has something to do with how intimate prayer is. but that's not quite it.  I know there is more.  I know that more is the great unknown, the deeper ocean which isn't safe.  It is the desert where everything is vast and I am small.

God doesn't want us to have a safe relationship with Him, God wants intimacy, infinite intimacy and that always requires us to move toward the infinite.  I didn't know until I wrote this, that this idea frightens me, exposes me, somehow unnerves me.  It shouldn't, but it still feels as if it does.  I do so not like and yet love and appreciate how God lets me write until I discover, how the soul clings to the haven of an oasis, staying where I know, staying where it's safe.   Lent is not about being safe.  It helps to have that smear of ashes on the head, again outing us as mortal, and as Catholic.

So if you wish, if you want, may I pray for you?