Eastertide & Mercy Flow

JMJT! Praise be Jesus Christ! Now and Forever!

Easter season is a time of special graces as we celebrate the ultimate Good News that Jesus is risen from the dead, and that all of humanity and creation has been redeemed. Alleluia! Alleluia! 

As I contemplate the profound mystery of this Theo-drama, one word keeps coming to mind. FLOW.  I pondered this veiled recurring theme that kept showing up everywhere I went. My husband was unaware of this interior dialogue and mystery stirring within me and started telling me about a new business related book he was reading. He shared, "Yeah. It's about flow, you now? Like being in flow." It has indeed been a long time since I earned my MBA and worked in the corporate world, and I truly had no idea what he was talking about.  He then began to explain this concept and compared it to being "in the zone", where time and space seemingly cease and you are one within yourself and in what you are doing.  The official definition in the secular world is described as a state of mind in which a person becomes fully immersed in pursuing a goal or an activity. While in this mental state, people are completely involved and focused on what they are doing and perform at very high levels due to an intensive focus and awareness. 

This reminded me of a recent conversation I had shared with a group of fellow Carmelites.  One member holds tremendous musical talent. She commented that she has experienced rare moments when she has become one with the music and everything just begins to flow in an effortless, seamless and harmonious way. She described it as if one is on the outside looking in at something that is beyond human ability and all time stops.  In such moments there is a convergence and an ebb and flow that is otherworldly. We can certainly observe this at times with professional athletes who are like poetry in motion, or when artistry exudes from an individual or group that raises one's awareness and sense of possibility to a higher plane of existence. Perhaps we have experienced such moments in prayer when God's Divine Presence is so infused that everything around us seems to disappear. 

All of these examples of flow ultimately point upward towards God. They elucidate the gifts that He has given certain individuals, but perhaps more importantly these moments serve as a reminder of Our Lord's call to each one of us to enter into His Trinitarian Divine Love that flows without ceasing or hindrance between the Three Divine Persons, and beckons each of us as His children to partake in this free flow of love.

If we look at divine patterns it is filled with the divine flow of God's blessings and graces and our responses to it.  From the very beginning of creation, we encounter this flow as the ruah breath of God hovering over the waters and the Word and Breath comingling to create in love. Divine Love is flowing through all of Creation and between humanity and God before original sin.  All is in harmony and nothing is discordant.  After the Fall, such divine flow is still present, but is not as easily accessed in our brokenness.  Nevertheless, God is constantly promising flow to His Chosen People- that He will bring them to a land flowing with milk and honey [Num 13:27].  The prophets assure the Israelites that God intends to restore them and will make peace flow like a river [Is 44:3], that "the hills shall flow with milk" [Joel 3:18],and that "justice will flow like water and righteousness like an unfailing stream" [Amos 9:13].  These promises of flow are expanded upon and made permanent by the final promise spoken by Our Lord Jesus that "He who believes in me, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living waters" [Jn 7:38].

Jesus is the ultimate exemplar of Divine flow. He descended to earth in the flow of the Divine Will and incessantly refilled His cup in the domestic church of the Holy Family in His Sacred Humanity. Simultaneously, He enjoyed ongoing union and communion with the Father and the Holy Spirit who operated His life and to whom he gave His moment by moment fiat.  In the Gospels, Jesus is attentive, intentional, and fully present in His words, mighty works, and prayer.  His ultimate sacrifice upon the Cross is Divine Flow as He surrenders into the Will of the Father and placed all in His hands.  He lets go of everything in an ultimate act of kenosis by emptying Himself completely.  Even His blood and water flowed freely from His pierced side as a final act of flow as He birthed Holy Mother Church and released the fullness of Divine Mercy and redemption through such intentionality.  

We encounter God's Divine Flow as the First Mover, and then are invited to respond and imitate this dynamism and surrender.  Interestingly, St. John of the Cross speaks of the dark night of the soul leading to contemplative prayer as an inflow of God's grace towards transformation and purification of the soul.  This outpouring of Divine Love is received as an inflow of contemplative gifts couched in holy darkness which trickles into the soul as it begins to let go of the attachments, personal idols, and silos that divert it from loving attentiveness towards the Source and summit of all.  It is as a hidden spring that proceeds in silence undetected towards this fount of plenitude.  This is the beginning of the wellspring of contemplation that flows and run where the heavens and the earth drink, and satisfy their thirst... [Kavanaugh, K. Poem #8:3, 10 p. 59-60].

If we desire to be in perpetual flow with the Lord, I propose a 4 step process to prepare our hearts to be ready to receive His movements and invitations. They are as follows:

FLOW

F: Follow in Faith. Flow is not about force or about figuring it all out.  We are not called to chart our own path or be self-sufficient, but instead to follow Our Good Shepherd who leads and guides us and to be attuned to the voice of the Holy Spirit. Following requires humility and recognizing our need to be life-long learners and students of the Lord. When we resist we cannot follow or receive the promptings of flow. 

L: Listen and Lean: Listening is the disposition of a disciple and requires silence. This means taking breaks from the incessant noise around us and planning technology fasts as needed to recalibrate the ears of our hearts.  While listening for the still small voice of the Lord, we want to lean into the Father, the Vinedresser.  Our Father knows every hair upon our heads, just as a vine-grower knows every vine in his vineyard. He knows every nuance and trait, our personal histories, and every strength and weakness within us.  We can lean into the Father's love as our Abba who desires to hold us, comfort us, and bring us to a place where we are in flow with His Trinitarian love and all of creation.

O: Offering: Being in flow requires a full and total offering of oneself to God. To flow freely in His Divine Will and Spirit is to welcome Him with open hearts and empty hands in a posture of pure receptivity.  This means presenting every aspect of our lives to the Lord...every nook and cranny.  This includes our identity, our hopes and dreams, professional and educational pursuits, vocation, financial concerns, sexuality, our masculine/feminine genius, strengths and weaknesses,  sins and failings, all of our relationships, memory, intellect, will, and the gifts we have been given through His generous hands. We can ask ourselves, "Are there any areas that I am holding back in offering to the Lord?" He waits for you and I. 

W: Wait: Flow is about movement, but we do not get to control the pace or timing of such dynamism. Scripture tells us that the Father and the Son are always at work with the Holy Spirit, and that He makes all things beautiful in their time.  It is important to recognize that even tiny imperceptible movements can be flow, when we are freely consenting and cooperating with where the drift of His elan wishes to take us.  There is high tide and low tide, seasons of rushing of waters as well as trickling, sometimes barely perceptible, dewdrops. 

By following in faith, listening and leaning, openly offering, and waiting we can enter into the breath flow and life force of the Holy Spirit and receive His gifts and fruits. We can engage in life with eyes of wonder and gratitude in all the ways that He is beckoning us to take a holy adventure with Him. We can flow in our daily lives with Him indwelling within us and enter into a serenade of love with God, one another and all of creation. 

FLOW

F: Follow in Faith

L: Listen and Lean

O: Offering

W: Wait

 

Putting on the Mind of Christ - Reforming our Minds this Lent

JMJT! Praise be Jesus Christ! Now and Forever!

This post was partially written this past Fall, and I have now had time to complete it.  I am hopeful that it can be helpful for this time of Lent as we are called to grow and wander outside of our comfort zones of thought and behavior in the desert with Jesus at our sides. 

Life is a journey and filled with changing seasons and times. We are now officially in the fall season, although here in the desert one might not see as many noticeable differences as triple digits continue to cling to us in some final hot breaths of air. Nonetheless we feel the changes starting to emerge with cooler mornings and evenings beginning to tease our tired heat-weary bodies as promising relief and hope for the near future.  As I look back at this summer, I see that an overarching theme of my spiritual life has been entrustment to God through Our Lady and consenting to God's Divine Will. The pithy theme of consent to be content has been dancing in my head for the past several months, and continues to challenge me in new and unexpected ways as I find areas of entrenched stubbornness and willfulness within my heart.  I consent to what God does in my individual life each morning upon awaking, but as I shared in my last blog, I often find myself railing against the sufferings and injustices that I encounter in other people's journeys.  This took a mini interior crisis to bring my faulty ways of thinking to the surface and allow Jesus to begin to heal these wounds and to root out these areas of pride in my thinking that I know better than the Lord what is best for others. It has been a deeply etched lesson upon my soul that God reveals in Scripture, 

My thoughts are not your thoughts,

    neither are your ways my ways,”
declares the Lord.
9 “As the heavens are higher than the earth,
    so are my ways higher than your ways
    and my thoughts than your thoughts. [Is 55:8-9]

This is obviously an ongoing process that may take significant time to root out, but Our Lord is speaking to me about asking him for His mind and His thoughts.  I asked Him how I can begin to surrender into ALL of his plans for myself, others, Holy Mother Church, and all of the cosmos and creation. That is when he brought me to the Scripture verse from St. Paul that exhorts us to "Put on the mind of Christ [Phil 2:5]. He also tells us in 1 Corinthians 2:16 that "You have the mind of Christ."  That sounds promising and it sounds like a definite promise. I'll take it.  With that in mind, I have been imagining myself suiting up for the Lord. I am putting on His armor- specifically my shoes shod with peace, and the helmet of salvation. This helmet contains Jesus' thoughts and ways of mercy, love, justice, tenderness, and righteousness and not mine. By putting on His helmet, I become His soldier but even more so His student. My Divine teacher tells me, "Learn from me for I am meek and humble of heart."  He explains, "No one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal Him." [Mt 11:27]

This means I must stay close to Jesus, and listen to Him and learn from Him. I must part with my faulty thinking and ways, and become radically open to a new way of  understanding and living. The good news is that even Jesus was said to have grown "in wisdom, knowledge, and grace before God and men."  Of course, this entails study of His Word and the truths that they reveal. For we are told that "Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes forth from the mouth of God." [Mt 4:4].  Jesus lays out the Beatitudes as a schema for life and He presents them in the order of importance as Fr. Jacques Phillipe likes to say. The first thing he shares is "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." There it is. Above intellect, understanding, and reasoning is humility. The first means by which I need to put on that helmet of salvation is not be striving to study my way into heaven and a closer relationship with God, but instead to embrace my littleness and to accept that without Him I can do nothing. Then I can "gird up" my mind in sobriety and filled with hope set "fully upon the grace that is coming" [1 Pet 1:13] to me as from the revelation of Jesus Christ.  

St. Paul encourages us in Christ Jesus to "complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfishness or conceit, but in humility count others better than yourselves. Have this in mind among yourselves, which was in Christ Jesus who, though he was in the form of God, did not deem equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant...And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on the cross" [Phil 2:1-3, 5-8].  St. Peter echoes this theme of humility as well by advising us to, "have unity of spirit, sympathy, love of the brethren, a tender heart and a humble mind. Do not return evil or reviling for reviling; but on the contrary bless, for to this you have been called" [1 Pet 3:8-9].

In a culture oozing like an infected wound with its seemingly incessant calls to argue, disagree, attack, point fingers and blame, this is radical advice and healing balm for the soul and mind. It brings us back to our simple humanity and our need for a savior. We cannot figure it all out alone.  Quite often our minds play tricks on us, our perceptions and assumptions about others and various situations are ill-formed and downright false, and we find ourselves trapped in our own cages of narrowness of mind and heart.  

This is where putting on the mind of Christ in the desert landscape and simplicity of Lent can clear the cobwebs of our thoughts and renew the circuits and neural pathways of our damaged thinking patterns, addictive "go-to" assumptions and personal silos of power and protection.  In the desert we leave behind what is unnecessary and we put on garments that are appropriate for the hot days and cool nights.  We have permission to remove the earmuffs that prevent our ability to hear, and we shed the extra layers of unnecessary bling, status labels and impractical heavy and obtrusive layers. It is a time for nakedness. It is a time to allow the Lord to re-clothe us in the garments of His grace and to recloak us in robes of truth and righteousness, kindness, purity, and simplicity. 

By allowing Our Lord to re-clothe us as little children and to embrace a posture of pure receptivity for His plans, words, wisdom, and understanding we can begin to see God, ourselves and others in a new light. We can accept that His ways are not our ways, and He knows better than we do what we all need, and how to realize that plan. We can begin to truly appreciate that each human being shares in the divine image and Presence of God and is a beloved son or daughter who deserves our respect and who carries beautiful gifts from God even if they are buried deep within or we are unable to see them for whatever reason.  

Through wearing these new garments and putting on the mind of Christ, our worldview can begin to change and be transformed into one that has room for all of humanity whose members are all called to live in a beautiful love dance or duet with the Holy Trinity and with one another.  By rejecting the short sightedness of narrow and worldly thinking, we can then be refreshed and "be transformed by the renewing of your mind [Rom 12:2]." We will be able to "put on the new self" and recognize that "Here there is no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, salve or free, but Christ is all in all. Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with hearts of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. Bear with one another and forgive any complaint you may have against someone else. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. " [Col 3:10-12].  

The fruit will be a reformed and renewed mind that radiates Christ, that begins to encounter the world with the mind of Christ at work in her and the helmet of salvation upon her head.  Then we can truly enjoy the grace of being "able to test and approve what God's will is - his, good, pleasing and perfect will" [Rom 12:2]. This always comes down to love. 

Litany of Admonitions & Precautions of St. John of the Cross for Lent

JMJT! Praise be Jesus Christ! Now and Forever!

The Lenten season is upon us once again.  Inspired by the writings of  St. John of the Cross, I wrote this litany a few months ago and plan on using it as an examination of conscience for this penitential season. It is indeed very challenging, but I believe it can be a source of strengthening our resolve to practice detachment from worldly concerns and distractions during a time of intense societal, political, cultural, spiritual and familial upheaval. By practicing these admonitions, St. John of the Cross believed that we could love God and others better. May it be so. 

Litany of Admonitions & Precautions of St. John of the Cross

[for private use only]

Lord, have mercy, Lord, have mercy.

Christ, have mercy, Christ, have mercy.

Lord, have mercy, Lord, have mercy.

Christ, hear us, Christ, graciously hear us.

God the Father of Heaven, have mercy on us.

God the Son, Redeemer of the world, have mercy on us.

God, the Holy Spirit, have mercy on us.

Holy Trinity, One God, have mercy on us.

Deliver me, O Jesus

        From the world, the flesh and the devil.

Deliver me, O Jesus

From any person, place or thing which is an impediment to complete union with God.

Deliver me, O Jesus

        From any excessive desire for worldly goods.

Deliver me, O Jesus

From imprudent concern and zeal over worldly affairs of which I have no jurisdiction or control or doesn’t concern me.

Deliver me, O Jesus

From disordered affections and preferences of one person over another.

Deliver me, O Jesus

        From speaking about others without good reason.

Deliver me, O Jesus

        From selfishness.

Deliver me, O Jesus

        From disobedience to others in rightful authority over me.

Deliver me, O Jesus

        From pride & taking action for my own pleasure & ego.

Deliver me, O Jesus

        From sensuality arising from the heart, the mind & the flesh.

Deliver me, O Jesus

From violating my religious/spiritual, temporal and vocational obligations, both large and small.

Deliver me, O Jesus

        From covetousness and an unbridled desire for possessing.

Deliver me, O Jesus

        From rash judgment of others.

Deliver me, O Jesus

        From doing evil that appears under the guise of good.

Deliver me, O Jesus

From a mediocre state filled with imperfections & venial sins.

Deliver me, O Jesus

         From the spirit of envy and jealousy of others’ goods and gifts.

Deliver me, O Jesus

        From a spirit of vanity & self-love.

Help me, Jesus

        To become the servant of all.

Help me, Jesus

        To overcome my self-will.

Help me, Jesus

          To never omit anything which may cause natural repugnance.

Help me, Jesus

        To show an equal love for all & disinterest in judging 

men’s affairs.

Help me, Jesus

To adapt myself to all situations & become all things to all people in order to gain all.

Help me, Jesus

        To develop a deep spirit of self-abnegation.

Help me, Jesus

        To suffer in silence.

Help me, Jesus

        To love my neighbor purely in the heart of God.

Help me, Jesus

To do my work permeated with charity for God and others.

Help me, Jesus

To make sacrifices with a free and generous love for others.

Help me, Jesus

That my natural love may be subordinated to supernatural charity.

Help me, O Jesus,

To love both my friends and enemies with sweetness of spirit & tenderness of soul.

Help me, O Jesus,

        To be meek, gentle, humble in word and deed & patient.

Help me, O Jesus

To foster and practice a sincere, practical love for all; a predilection for those closest to God; and a paternal solicitude for those in greatest need.

Help me, O Jesus

        To practice abundant love of neighbor, with great affection for them and expecting nothing in return.

Help me, O Jesus

        To be indifferent to all that I eat, drink and wear.

Help me, O Jesus

           To discipline and moderate the desires for material blessings.

Help me, O Jesus

        To become poor in spirit.

Help me, O Jesus

To never marvel at nor be scandalized by anything I see or hear as I cannot know or interpret the motives, faults or circumstances of others but instead to recognize my own failings & human weaknesses.

Help me, O Jesus

        To restrain my tongue.

Help me, O Jesus

        To see and accept persons as they really are.

Help me, O Jesus

To practice prompt obedience [even over sacrifice] & to strive for perfect submission of my will to the Will of God.

Help me, O Jesus 

        To be filled with sincerity and truth.

 

Let us pray:

Lord Jesus, help us to follow the wisdom of St. John of the Cross as found in these precautions and counsels in a spirit of humility, detachment and sacrifice in order that we may learn to love as you love.  Grant us this grace through the intercession of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel and St. Joseph, and the power of your Most Holy Name in the Holy Spirit, all for the Glory of God the Father. Amen. 

 

 

         

 

 

 

Ode to a Blemished Bride

JMJT! Praise be Jesus Christ! Now and Forever!

On the Feast Day of the Dedication of the Basilicas of Saints Peter and Paul, I wrote the following before the Blessed Sacrament, with deep pain in my soul for Holy Mother Church.

Ode to a Blemished Bride

Inexplicable groaning,

Blemished Bride

Falling.

Failing.

Fainting.

Collapsing into seeming ash-heap.

Swallowed into the ground,

The Dirt.

Humus brushing contact

With wrinkled garment.

Donates gasp of life.

Humility dusting outstretched barren palms.

Grasped.

Accepted.

Covering face.

Beleaguered, but not yet dead.

Grasping for Life-breath,

Sprinkled with the Slain Lamb's Blood.

Soaking in it.

Transfusion.

Resuscitation.

Resurrection.

Revelation.

Veil lifted

Bride restored and glorified.

The Weeping Bride by Kenny Adamson

Litany of Divine Presence in my Earthly Presence

JMJT! Praise be Jesus Christ! Now and Forever!

Today we celebrate the great Doctor and mystic of the Church, St. Therese. More than her intellect and wisdom, I cozy up to my saintly sister's approachability. For she saw all things as grace, and sought to surrender into God's gifts every moment of every day. She did so with His Holy Presence ever before her heart and soul through Jesus' Holy and Adorable Face, and a sense that she was never alone.  She knew that Our Lord exists outside of time, but abides and indwells with us in the daily seconds, minutes, and hours of our daily lives whether extraordinary or mundane, whether experienced in joy or sorrow.  As a daughter of the Carmelite masters, and immersed in the spirit of Elijah and Our Lady, she understood that no moment of life is wasted. Every moment counts. Even if it is slow, imperceptible, and seemingly fruitless. Life is meaning and holds meaning. Time is gift. God's gift of time to me is gift. I am gift. My gift of time to God and others is gift. 

This has inspired the following: 

Litany of Divine Presence in my Earthly Presence

Elijah proclaimed,"God lives, before Whom I stand."

St. Therese rejoiced, "God lives before Whose Holy Face I stand with empty hands."

I say in union with Elijah and St. Therese, "God lives before Whose Holy Face I, _________________, stand with empty hands."

I am standing in God's Presence.

I am living in God's Presence.

I am breathing in God's Presence.

I am being in God's Presence.

I am giving in God's Presence.

I am receiving in God's Presence.

I am inviting in God's Presence.

I am resting in God's Presence.

I am sleeping in God's Presence.

I am creating in God's Presence.

I am loving in God's Presence.

I am healing in God's Presence.

I am nurturing in God's Presence.

I am suffering in God's Presence.

I am empathizing in God's Presence.

I am standing in God's Presence.

I am grieving in God's Presence.

I am lamenting in God's Presence.

I am crying in God's Presence.

I am adoring in God's Presence.

I am praising in God's Presence.

I am thanking in God's Presence.

I am recollecting in God's Presence.

I am pondering in God's Presence.

I am seeking in God's Presence.

I am singing in God's Presence.

I am celebrating in God's Presence.

I am hoping in God's Presence.

I am believing in God's Presence.

I am forgiving in God's Presence.

I am seeing in God's Presence.

I am hearing in God's Presence.

I am touching in God's Presence.

I am dreaming in God's Presence.

I am serving in God's Presence.

I am sharing in God's Presence.

I am speaking in God's Presence.

I am silencing in God's Presence.

I am reaching out in God's Presence.

I am communing in God's Presence.

I am laboring in God's Presence.

I am falling in God's Presence.

I am arising in God's Presence.

I am mothering [fathering] in God's Presence.

I am sistering [brothering] in God's Presence.

I am bridaling in God's Presence.

I am daughtering ["son"-ing] in God's Presence.

I am laboring in God's Presence.

I am striving in God's Presence.

I am surrendering in God's Presence.

I say in union with Elijah and Therese, "God lives before Whose Holy Face I, _________________, stand with empty hands."

I am.

God is.

We are.

One.

Amen. 

My Own Personal Derecho: Learning to be Content in the Midst of the Pain & Suffering of Others

JMJT! Praise be Jesus Christ! Now and Forever!

Who knew that I would experience my own personal derecho last week? You know- that mysterious term used for a land hurricane that destroyed the corn crops in Iowa and Illinois this past summer, with high wind gusts that pulled up trees by their roots, flipped cars, flattened crop fields and destroyed silos, homes, and farms? This land hurricane event went unnoticed by many, but was devastating to the area and especially to the farmers.  Well, I don't pretend to be a farmer or to have a green thumb, but the landscape of my soul felt like it had been razed to the ground after a series of blows to my own personal sense of propriety and desires for others were dashed.

In the span of about 6 hours I experienced two women I love telling me that they were going to commit suicide, and a dear family member communicating severe internal angst and a deep lack of self-worth.  The brokenness was raw and real.  I had just seen one of these women a few days prior, visiting her at her home where she is confined to bed wracked with pain most of the time, and has been for the past several years. No doctor can help her, there is not a lot of money left from all of the failed treatments, and she and her husband live from one day to the next just hoping that she can eat, sleep and go to the bathroom. It is pretty basic. We have prayed together many times, and there has been lots of emotional and spiritual healing from the past.

While next to her bed on this morning and before opening up Scripture to pray I had told God, "Lord, I come to you in my complete poverty. I am here with empty hands. I can do nothing without you. I am helpless. I don't know what you want or what you are seeking here, but I know you tell us that all things work together for the good of those who love God."  Her exhaustion and the fatigue of family members and care givers were foremost on my mind in this deep pit of desolation and suffering that seemed neverending.  It was palpable.  As I left I wondered if I had any belief in what I was praying and reciting.  I couldn't help but think of Jesus lamenting, "When the Son of Man comes, will He find any faith on earth?" [Luke 18:8] And, like the father whose son had been oppressed for years by an evil spirit that even his closest disciples could not cast out, Jesus had told him, "If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes."  The father's response - "Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief" [Mk9:24]. My insides were churning as my self-dialogue painfully asked myself, "I am living a sacramental life. Do I believe what I am living out every day and praying? Am I truly who I say that I am? Do I fully believe that Jesus can do this? Why does it seem that Jesus doesn't want to heal her or take her to Himself but instead keep her here in complete continued misery for years on end. How many rosaries, Lord? How many novenas? How many prayers of healing and hoops to jump through?"

So fast forward two days and the perfect storm is on the horizon, and getting ready to hit. I am feeling ineffectual, and immersed in doubt and wallowing in subtle and not so subtle forms of pride.  I am even hearing the guttural whisper of the Enemy telling me that I should stop praying because every time I do the situation gets worse. What am I doing wrong? Why does God not help this person? How long, Lord? I was caught in a hamster wheel of intense empathic pain for my sister in Christ and selfish concern for my own role in healing her, instead of trusting in the movement and timing of the Holy Spirit and God's ways. In the midst Derecho Candida, the threats of suicide begin to roll in via text.  I respond with messages of hope, love, and encouragement, but feel completely empty, devoid of answers, doubting God and his plans. It is the perennial problem of suffering that C.S. Lewis wrote about in his classic work on pain. He tells us, "The problem of reconciling human suffering with the existence of a God who loves, is only insoluble so long as we attach a trivial meaning to the word 'love', and look on things as if man were the centre of them." He calls pain and suffering God's megaphone to a deaf and fallen world. He further tells us that if we "try to exclude the possibility of suffering which the order or nature and the existence of free will involve, you find that you have excluded life itself."

                                                                        William Blake's Illustrations for the Book of Job

How appropriate that this interior crisis was still front and center on the Feast Days of the Exaltation of the Cross as well as the Sorrows of Mary.  The solemn celebrations that show us that the ultimate suffering - death itself- does not have the last word. That Jesus as the Sacrificial Lamb for all changes all that is lost and makes it beautiful.  That the victim becomes the victor in Christ Jesus. On this day I wrote the following stream of conscience poem/rant/lamentation:

        That splintered heavy beam

        That you carried on your torn

        Shoulder and back for me.

        Intersection of mercy and truth

        Justice and peace is sometimes

        An unwieldy peace agreement indeed

        Between my weak pock-marked soul

        And your magnanimous pure self.

        This crossbeam of love leaves an

        Imprint, a seal upon my arm,

        A branding on the chambers of my

        Heart. Sometimes my heart can no longer

        Beat to the rhythm of your heart 

        That is opened and immersed in the Cross.

        Instead, it wishes to efface it from myself 

        And all of humanity.

        Your words sting as you speak eternal truth,

        "Get behind me Satan."

        Ahhh....to eschew the Cross.

        To reject it and forsake it.

        To deeply misunderstand and 

        To mistrust it.

        To run from it as from a dreaded category 5 Storm

        To deny it, and keep its kiss of love

        From engraving its eternal wisdom,

        Its fiery heat of truth from

        Capturing and branding me

        with my true identity.

        What a web of self deception I weave,

        What a broken and lost path I follow

        When I wander from the luminescence 

        of the Cross.

        

        Its crossbeams stretch in all four directions-

        Whether I go north, south, east or west

          It will find  me. He will find me. You will

         Find me, Jesus, because you never leave me.  

        As a fulcrum of love and mercy you

        Lift me to yourself, where mercy and 

        Truth meet and justice and peace kiss.

        I still try to argue, I still wonder why.

        Why the pain, Lord?

        Why the continued, seemingly never-ending

        Suffering for some people, despite the prayers,

        The effort?

        This is where I meet the problem of pain & suffering.

        Sometimes it seems downright scandalous, Lord.

        How long?

        Why?

        When will relief come?

        Where's the mercy, the justice,    

        The truth, the peace?

        

        "It is right there", you tell me.

        Really?

        Am I blind? Deaf? Dumb?

        Very possibly, yes.

        Because I do know that your ways

        Are not my ways and I am not

        Your counselor.

        

        Forgive me, Lord, for counseling you.

        Forgive me, Lord, for doubting you.

        Forgive me, Lord, for being angry with you.

        Forgive me, Lord, for running from your Cross.

        Forgive me, Lord, for questioning and advising you.

        Forgive me, Lord, for failing to do and say what you desire of me.

        Forgive me, Lord, for my lack of faith.

        Forgive me, Lord, for my lack of hope.

        Forgive me, Lord, for my lack of charity.

        Only you can deliver me 

        With your crossbeam that glitters resurrection

        With your cautery of love that burns and brands,

        In order to heal. 

        

        Forgive me, Lord, for I am a sinful woman.

        I place my trust in you and 

        Surrender to you. 

        All that I have I place in the Immaculate

        hands, heart and womb of Our Lady to

        Purify and present to you.

        Please help me to not be scandalized

        By the Cross.  May you instead

        Lift me up, that in my complete poverty

        I may be glorified with you.  Amen.

Just like you have taught me to consent to whatever the day brings and its circumstances for myself, your gentle voice these past few days has reminded me that I must consent to what you are doing in other people's lives and the plans that you have for them. I cannot control, but I can love, pray and be present and available in the midst of profound suffering. I can imitate Our Lady who stood silently at the Cross, offering her tears and her torn heart, and surrender to your ways that are not our ways. May I consent to your plans for me as well as your plans for others, Lord. Then I can be content and this sadness and doubt can be banished from my heart. Then the wheat that falls to the ground and dies can become fruitful, and this interior derecho can be a source of rebirth, renewed faith and hope in your loving providence and perfectly laid plans for myself and all others.