Grant me the Grace to Desire it

I know it's been quite a while since my last post. Transparency is a journey, and one that I'm still learning from. Even reading my post from January makes me cringe a little now, since I have learned so much since then.

It's simply providential that when I was nearing he end of "From Aristotle to Darwin and Back Again" by Etienne Gilson, my intellect began to pivot toward the desire to study suffering. Having lived

with my own chronic pain in the everyday, I was surprised that I didn't have any resources in mind. A friend led me to "The Science of the Cross" by Edith Stein. It's a beautiful and life changing book, there is an unplumbed depth to her words and I am convicted that I will never be done contemplating them. Her first section is on detachment and it is not for the faint of heart. I knew not what I had started and so came upon this spiritual power house unawares. Praise God that I did! I wouldn't have been brave enough to read this book if I had. God moves in strange and mysterious ways, opening me to contemplate humility and providing me with a myriad of opportunities o discover what true humility looks like. It is this living life in an honest and unassuming way that you can earn whatever respect or accolades come your way. Sounds like I'm still working on my pride in that sentence, but look again. True humility is the knowledge and acceptance of truths as they are. To presume that you are worthy of respect and praise is the opposite of graciously waiting to be called upon. Humility also gives you a heightened awareness of what it means to be obedient. To trust those, who have been put in your life as authorities and to acquiesce to any task in obedience.

You can't go on a journey with humility without allowing The Litany of Humility to become your constant companion. After these months, it has become a dear friend. Now, one ought not force the Litany of Humility on the world, it seeks its own souls to teach. There is one particular line, that is the most striking to me.

"That others may become holier than I, provided that I become as holy as I should, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it." 

This line encapsulates what it is to see and accept things as they are. This, too, is the root of detachment. Through a daily examine, to become intimately aware of your weaknesses, and to then allow God into them. For all good things come from Him. God did not desire my pain, but if I allow him entrance into those weaknesses, He may be glorified through them. I'm nearing the end of "The Science of the Cross" and every word is like honey, sweet and tart at the same time. That when a soul, fully aware of her weakness, allows God to permeate every part of her, then He is given the freedom to exalt in His own goodness, and those graces which He bestows on the soul. A soul perfectly consumed by Christ can then be cherished for her own sake, not simply for the sake of the grace given her by God.

Once on the road to humility, it opened me to living life fully alive in my pain. Pain is something that can easily prevent us from living life abundantly. Through our fallen nature, we feel that we 'do not have time for pain'. I know I certainly didn't think I had time to be weak and fatigued every day. However, to begin to accept life and its experiences as they are and to perhaps begin rearranging priorities, a soul must encounter the truth of the world as it is. Though I didn't think I had time for pain, the moment that I made room for it in my daily life, was the moment that I began to live life truly alive. Only when one sees the shackles that are preventing the soul from living life fully alive can she be freed to "Breathe the free air again."

"Breathe the free air again," (The Two Towers, JRR Tolkein)

With this desire to live life authentically once again firmly in mind, I began to read "Explain Pain" by David Butler and G. Lorimer Moseley. Life changing wisdom. When pain is seen as an output of the brain, then the pain experience is turned on his head. One of the easiest cloaks to hide under in pain is that "something is wrong." This is a natural understanding, as pain is our most resilient and highly functioning protective system. Pain is not bad, it protects us. Pain is the brain's answer to the question "How dangerous is this, really?" Persistent pain is an indication that your nervous system has become proficient in sensitizing the brain to danger, prompting the pain response. In the book, "Why do I Hurt" by Adriaan Louw, he uses an interesting image. In the initial injury, a lion walked into the room and your reaction probably saved your life! Good job brain! However, soft tissues typically heal in the first three to six months. Louw describes persistent pain as the lion following you through your every day life. "Explain Pain" allows me to say:

Second Hand Lions

While I still may have a lion hanging out on my back porch every day, I know he's there and I am more aware of those activities or movements that will make the lion seem more dangerous. This allows me to be an active participant in my pain, instead of a passive recipient. So I ride the wave of pain and look for a better outcome tomorrow. No one else can experience my pain, so it is up to me to accept my limitations and to be seen in my weakness. I could and probably will write another post more specifically on what I've learned in pain science, but for now it is good to see yet again that all things can be made good through God. That my experience of chronic pain can affirm my dignity as a person is truly strange and mysterious.

To prep you for any future pain science posts (give me another six months), please enjoy this video.

Transparency

The word of God is living and effective, sharper than any two-edged sword,
penetrating even between soul and spirit, joints and marrow,and able to discern reflections and thoughts of the heart.
Hebrews 4:12-16

I was convicted recently at a retreat with the Brothers of St. John, that I need to dwell with the word humility. What does it mean to be humble? What does it mean for me to be humble? What can I change in my life to let go of things that I consider as 'my accomplishments?'

Humility really finds me on my dystopian journey. For what is the greatest weapon we have against relativism? Humility. In a culture filled with people who bear the weight of being both source and summit of their own dignity, they can't see past their own anguish. Who better to shock the world out of itself than someone who is focused on others. Someone who does not rely on his own strength to give him dignity. This is the man my main character needs to be. So in order to discover all of the facets of this character and what sets him apart from his broken world, I also need to go on a journey of humility. Father Joseph Mary put it best when he said:

"If we are truly humble, we put ourselves in last place. It is not, then, crushing when others put us in the last place."

My journey since December has been difficult. Humility is not the natural state of the choleric. God is wise and merciful though. To bring down this choleric spirit, he gave me the gift of physical hardships. I recently back-slid into blooming and constant neck pain from my still-healing whiplash injury of two years ago. I bring this up, because the hero of my dystopia must also be familiar with living in pain, having a visible ailment to suffer through in the midst of his dark world. These physical weaknesses forcibly placing me in a position of saying "I can't do everything." Or rather, "I can't be everything I want to be." The most crushing of them all is the phrase "I need help." Yet even these frail strides are only the first steps toward embracing humility in my daily life. I will call this first stage Transparency, or the feeling/knowledge that the whole world can see through you to your very core. My many weaknesses rising to the surface to be viewed by all.


I finished an excellent book this week, "From Aristotle to Darwin and Back Again" by Etienne Gilson. It is an excellent book speaking poignantly on the harm science has done to metaphysical man. That because science cannot scientifically explain teleology (that every created work, insofar as it exists has a purpose, or 'end') it cast it aside as an explanation for living being. Teleology not only gives man a purpose, it gives man a source, that his end is to return to that from which he was created. Scientifically, then, we have man made in the image of man, which is precisely the philosophical conclusion of relativism. Finishing this book made me eager to read more, so I highly recommend it.

I return again to this question of what it is to be man made in the image of man and its hindrance to humanity reaching the fullness of truth. Pride as the great deceiver, putting the power to bestow honor and glory in man's own hands. This creates a self-centered man. There is an amazing chapter in "Christianity and the Crisis of Cultures" by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger entitled "We Must Use Our Eyes" and it deals with this very concept of breathing dignity back into the hearts of modern man. Therefore the cure for transparency is to be seen. No other solution could be more ironic. So we turn to our closest friends, our families, our mentors. "Go and show yourself to the priests" Mark 1:40-45. Be seen as you are. Stop hiding in the shadows.


I saw a quote by Madeleine L'Engle on facebook. "You have to write the book that wants to be written." I have never heard truer words that speak to the mechanics of creative writing. Now having discovered so much on this dystopian journey, I have to return to my work and find the voice for the book that wants to be written. I have a strong outline for twelve chapters right now, and these discoveries in humility, which have added so much depth and color to the world I am creating, call me to go back and rewrite the entire outline from the beginning. with new insights in mind.

I will end with this. Mother Teresa's advice on how to be humble:

• Speak as little as possible about yourself
• Mind your own business
• Avoid curiosity
• Do not try to take care of other people's business
• Accept contradictions with good humor
• Overlook the faults of others
• Accept insults
• Accept to be neglected, forgotten and despised
• Be kind, even if provoked
• Do not seek to be admired or inordinately loved
• Give in in discussions, even if you're right
• Choose always what is most difficult.