Life goes on

It's sunny but cold this morning. Outside my window tiny leaves unfurl from one of the season's early blooming (Is that what non-flowering trees do?) trees. I wonder: What kind is it?

I refilled the bird feeder which a large flock of crows emptied yesterday. A squirrel gorged on spilt remains keeping the usual crowd away.

Tomorrow Holy Weeks begins. We will enter the drama of the Passion of the Christ. During Lent I've tried to meditate on some aspect of our Savior's last week of life every day. Today I'm struck by Jesus' response to the arresting party that came to apprehend him at Gethsemane. Dignity, commitment to his mission, and respect even for his enemies. He never lost his temper. He addressed Judas as 'friend'. He rationally asked the soldiers, who had seen him day after day in the Temple: "Why come under cover of dark, armed and hostile?" He submitted willingly as they led him away.

While Christians enter the holiest week of the liturgical year, birds migrate, squirrels feast on unexpected bounty, and trees send forth their leaves. The world goes on just as always.

I hope and pray that I won't. I hope and pray that Christians everywhere will be changed by the love of God demonstrated by the self-sacrificing Christ.

Get out of jail free?

After I visited my orthopedist last Friday for a new set of xrays, I couldn't come here and write. I was too discouraged by what the xrays revealed: no healing.

After finishing Nouwen's The Return of the Prodigal (which I highly recommend!), I began Abandonment to Divine Providence: Loving God in the Present Moment by Jean-Pierre de Cassaude. It had been on my reading list for quite some time; I'm convinced God led me to order it for 'such a time as this'.

Since a retreat over 5 years ago, "surrender" has been my word and my prayer before the Lord. That word was given me right after treatment for breast cancer and right before the leukemia diagnosis. I've lived with it on my keyboard for a long time now. Recent experiences, though, have revealed new depths to its meaning for me.

Cassaude writes:

Do we not know that by all creatures, and by every event, the divine love desires to unite us to himself -- that he has ordained, arranged, or permitted everything about us, everything that happens to us, and with a view to this union? This is the most ultimate object of all his designs, to attain which he makes use ... of his creatures... and of the most distressing events as well as of those which are pleasant and agreeable...If this be true, every moment of our lives may be a kind of communion with the divine love...

Last weekend and the early days of this week my spirit struggled to overcome the disheartenment I felt. I struggled to praise and thank God even for more weeks of dependence and house arrest.

Now I'm at the end of the week and I must testify, God has sent people every day this week to take me out and about. A Lutheran neighbor even took my to mass one morning. I am so amazed.

While my heart rejoices, I know God can't be manipulated. Trusting God is not a 'get out of jail free' card. I want to remember, though, that God has my back even when it seems I'll never emerge from the dark valley. God will lead me out. I can count on it.

Parallel universe

Another gorgeous morning has dawned. I fully expected clouds and rain but no! A sliver of the moon shone like a narrow sp0tlight before sunrise and now the sky is clear again. I am happy to meet the new day with all its signs of spring.

I'm in my 10th week here at home; I'm losing track of the day of the week now! I mark them by television shows or regular weekly activities. When I awaken, I go through them to place myself in the week!

I tuned into the local morning news. Highway cameras followed cars entering the District. Watching all those people traveling to work seemed so strange.

Have I entered a parallel universe? (just kidding)

Tomorrow: another day, another xray!

Today Nathan's home and we'll run errands. Or, he'll run errands while I sit in the car. :-)

Discipline yourself!!!

My soul has turned often recently to trusting God with the present moment, whatever the moment may bring. No matter what I feel or think, whatever my response to what I experience I say to myself, "Jesus I trust you and I thank you."

Logically, if God knew me and loved me and gave His son for me even before I existed, then I can trust Him with the large and small matters that touch my life. To trust God, I must humbly relinquish control , a control I never possessed anyway, of my future.

I spoke of this once to an agnostic friend who asked: "So why are you so special to God?" Good question! I am special to God, I told him, but SO ARE YOU as is every other person that has ever lived and will ever live.

God envisions a 'future full of hope' for every one of us. Do I want God's future for me? Do I believe the God has loved me since the beginning of time and that nothing will change God's love for me?

I need to whisper that to myself many times every day: God loved me before I loved Him. He loved me so much that Jesus died for me.

De Cassaude in Abandonment to Divine Providence
counsels that trust and gratitude are key disciplines if one seeks to draw closer to God. Discipline is the operative word. Practicing trust and gratitude, spiritual weight lifting exercises, similar to the discipline of a champion athlete, build the muscles of faith and hope and love.

I trust you God with these thoughts. I thank you for them. Accomplish your will in and through me.

Finished and Framed

Here's the counted cross stitch project that took me 6 years to finish!

It says, "Grow old along with me, the best is yet to be." (Browning)

I'm so pleased; the final product is better than I ever imagined it would be.

Nearly gone

Green grass has reappeared! The snow I thought would be here til July is nearly gone, even on our shady side of the street.

I'm ready for the snow, which glided gently to earth with mesmerizing beauty so many weeks ago, to leave!

Come on in, Spring! Bring your warmer temperatures, delicate buds, and pastel blossoms. I'll be thankful for your moody rains and temperatures for they signal the return of life to the earth.

Can I be thankful for the moodiness of living? Some days my spirit soars; some days it's as grounded as an ostrich, too heavy, and seemingly not made, for flight at all. Can I trust that,like the changing seasons, they are part of life? Can I trust that God will take me through the winter of the heart to its' Spring? Can I trust God will find me once again?

Today I can trust for my heart is light. But I know a day will come when people or circumstances or my own failings will challenge me.

Nouwen writes: ...we can allow ourselves to be found by God and healed by his love through the concrete and daily practice of trust and gratitude. Trust and gratitude are the disciplines for ...conversion... Without such disciplines we become prey to self-perpetuating hopelessness.

God is looking for you. (The Return of the Prodigal Son, p. 84)

Lay it on the altar

We sang a hymn in church yesterday -- When Jesus came to show the Father's love, He came as a sacrifice. He put himself upon the altar.

I read somewhere else recently Love, real love, always involves sacrifice and suffering.

I think I've lived my whole life with my head in the clouds. Suffering was something to escape or deny.

For Jesus, suffering was the path to our redemption. It was not his will, anymore than it is mine. However, he did not deny or choose to escape even though he could have.

Jesus chose to love me and all humankind in all times and places so much that he was willing to suffer.

For what or for whom am I willing to suffer?