For the love... of vocation

I have a calendar on my desk, mostly to remind me what day it is while I'm doing my bookkeeping, but also as a moment of inspiration. It's the "Bl. Pope John Paul II: Words to Live By" calendar and I love it. Yesterday there was a quote that resonated with me:

"Creating the human race in his own image and continually keeping it in being, God inscribed in the humanity of man an woman the vocation, and thus the capacity and responsibility, of love and communion. Love is therefore the fundamental and innate vocation of every human being." (Pope John Paul II, Apostolic Exhortation: On the Role of the Christian Family in the Modern World, November 22, 1981.)

This one paragraph is packed with meaning and depth, as is all of Bl. Pope John Paul II's writing. Our late holy father reminds us of our responsibility to love in truth. For written in our very nature as human is the capacity to love. The unique treasure of self-gift, to put another before your own wants and needs, is inseperable from our call to live our vocations.

A monk, Br. Isaiah CSJ, once said to me that, "Every vocation is a vocation to love." His words have stayed with me over many years of my life. How simple the answer of love, how complex the question of how am I called to love? It's the journey of discovering your vocation.

For me, I know how I am called to love, the problem is that I'm waiting for the fullfilment of my vocation. Who am I to argue with God's timing? The beautiful thing about love is its freedom to grow. Even though my vocation isn't standing tangibly before me, I am still called to grow in love and to be fully myself in the expression.

Bl. Pope John Paul II just gave me a friendly reminder to never say "It's not time yet." The fullness of life is in your ability to be who you are.

"Be who you are and you will set the world on fire." -Catherine of Sienna

Stones

"Harden not your hearts as your fathers did in the wilderness." Psalm 94

What makes a hard heart? It's a question I have been asking myself for a week. A better question, as always, would be why? Why harden your heart? Is it a choice or is it something that grows slowly? Becoming accustomed to the slowly warming water until, before you realize it, it's boiling and a hard shell forms.

After my week of reflection (more thought time to follow) I believe the root of a hardened heart is fear coupled withe experience. We all know and have experienced the heartaches of life, some are more traumatic than others. For the most part, we get wise and approach things differently the next time around. What if the next time around, the answer is to close up? What if we allow fear to change how we live our life, trying desperately to guard our own hearts without real thought to coming hardness.

While a hardening heart, I believe is a gradual change, some people show it more than others. Those jaded and synical, whose judgmental eye is just another form of hardness, those we can see clearly. We all know someone like this. But what of those who hide a hardness of heart just below the surface? Friendships easily made and kept, but only to a persicope depth, where you can keep a visual on the surface. When things become serious or deep, fear kicks in and somehow the hidden hardness finds an outlet, petty fights, lack of empathy, self-afflicted affectations. Sounds familiar even in my own life. Fear of a pain long remembered and a wound not yet healed.

The question then becomes, what do we do with pain? I'm very aware that I have wounds still healing, and fear of pain and rejection runs through my soul from time to time. What is the proper response to pain? Very often, my gaze pauses before the cross, the only place where suffereing can come to light. All of our experiences of pain or affliction, though caused through human weakness, were still seen and destined by Christ. These moments of seeming failure and despair are in fact moments of victory over death.

Can we muster up the strength to live through the pain? Find hope in things unseen, and the fertile knowledge that true love casts out fear and heals wounds. The truest love is found in the heart of Christ as He cried "I thirst" from the cross. To have a hardened heart implies a choice, a choice to live in fear or to live as children of light, confident that the Father's Will shall lead us to life everlasting. If we take moments of pain as an opportunity to truly live, then life will engender life and those around us will see and feel its life-giving effects.

Gaze of Friendship

I was on a road trip. I love road trips for many reasons. One of them is that it gives me a chance to mull life over.

On my way back to Peoria I stopped to see one of the most delighful and wonderful women I know. I have a plethora of beautiful friends and I love each of them dearly. Kristin Striker is one of those memorable people that I cherish. God truly placed her in my life and every time I see her I leave rejuvenated and feeling more myself. Kristin and I have been friends since we were 8 years old, we met at a Couple to Couple League Convention that our parents were attending and have been pen-pals and dear friends ever since.

As I was driving away from Kristin and toward Peoria I could feel zeal for life building up. Along with the strength to stay on the fire and continue to strive to do things that are uniquely me. As upbeat and perky as these posts are, sometimes I loose sight of that drive. Something Kristin and I talked about was living life fully alive and that when you dare to do so a person feels things deeply. Every joy: an extreme joy, every hurt: a deep pain and every friendship: a chance to encounter someone amazing. Talking to her always brings new life to my little soul.

Then I began to wonder what it is about a friendship that inspires a person to be themselves. Directly after wondering that I began to laugh a little because Kristin is a prime example. Whenever we do see each other, we are each completely centered on the other person. "Oh, I've talked too much..." "But what about you..." My true delight was hearing all the details of her life and sharing in the joys and sorrows and confusions. When someone looks at you with the gaze of friendship it gives you the freedom to be more alive, more yourself. When both are simply finding joy in the other person, each has the utmost freedom to be themselves and to cultivate a spirit of joy.


















My visit with Kristin has given me the audacity to continue to thirst for fullness of life. I feel very blessed to have so many friends who remind me of what a joy it is to live life fully alive.

A title for this post will come to me...

I've been thinking a lot lately about the person and about friendship. For instance, did you know that in philosophy you can proove the existence of God through a study of friendship? You really have to get to the root of it, but philosophically (without the help of faith or theology) you can do it.

Until man is in awe of another person he is not fully alive.

Bold words, stemming from an even bolder conviction. I've been striving for so long to be fully awake in life. I feel more alive and awake now than I ever have, and the funny part is that I take more acute enjoyment in my friends and family. I'm in awe.

This awe is best expressed through the love of a spouse, so you married people out there will probably relate to what I'm writing. Even if you're not (like me), there are still other people you can find joy in, true friendships that touch the soul and shape the person.

What puzzles me now is what about people who can't flip the switch, who do not have the audacity to not dwell on themselves and truly gaze upon another person? I've seen it, and it makes me sad for the fullness of life is robbed from them.

When you can gaze on another person for the sake of their own goodness, it pressupposes a few things. There's a lot that goes into discovering these things, but once found it can never be lost.

• It presupposes that you know who you are and have discovered a self-worth and are confident in that worth.
• It presupposes that you see a goodness about another person, or people in general, it's how chaperones are able to love crazy teenagers at an Eagle Eye for aweek.
• It also presupposes a desire for self-gift, to share yourself with another and conjoined with that a desire to respect and receive the gift of the person before you.

There is an intrinsic good and value to a person. It's why people fight so hard for the pro-life movement, every life is precious and every life has a purpose. When you really think about a statement like that, WOW! Each person you pass on the street, every gal at the drive-thru window at McDonald's and every person you're close to has something to offer the world. It's almost a little too much for a person to handle.

This awareness is usually sparked by a gaze upon one person who is your good, which is why this can be best seen in marriage. I may not be married, but I've had true friendships and those friendships enable me to be more open and given to others. There's a mystery of a beloved friend, they can grow and change, be in a bad or good mood, have virtues and vices, yet they will always captivate your intellect and drive your will. Constant movement toward another person, yet that person will always be more than you can comprehend or capture. That's why friendship at its root does not disable growth but enables it. Each has the freedom to be most fully themselves and ipso facto most fully alive. Your gift of self to another person enables you to be most fully yourself and draws the other outside of themselves. Never ending gift. That's why it's inspiring to see good and holy marriages where the two have truly become one.

But what about those who don't have that gaze? What can flip the switch? If you're respecting the freedom of the other you can't make them look at you, but wait patiently for a head to turn and an awareness seep in. Unrequited love, what burn and what desire. Though if you're fully alive you know, after a time, if they can't gaze at you, then you must preserve yourself and withdraw.

Someone caught in their own gaze often finds themselves in many meaningless friendships and relationships. The meaning they find in these relationships is the meaning they bring to it. Always looking at the other to guage a reaction or for the sake fo beeing looked upon. They limit the other person's ability to be themselves because their qualities are only appreciated for the gratification received. A person stuck in this gaze cannot truly be given or receive another person. They can float from one to another, never settling, never really looking. The hard part is that often this gaze is developed under the duress of self preservation and unless challenged or inspired to break out of it, will not change.

How much they miss! What is to be done for these poor souls? The fullness of life is stripped from their very act of self-preservation. And nothing can wake them up but an awareness of another person. Seems hopeless, but at the same time as I ponder with this question I am filled with hope for these people. To see someone fully alive and be in wonder before a person can heal so many wounds as well as inspire the confidence to truly gaze at another. Discovery of self is also a must, and each person's journey is different. For me, it was only when faced with the reality of my own faults and Christ's redeeming love and His plan for my life could I truly know myself and begin to embrace life fully awake.

I'm still thinking about this question and may have more later, but this at least gives my restless brain some peace over the question.

Zeal

I wrote before Lent that my resolution was to Live Life again! Lent has come and gone and the Easter Season is over. Somehow my flawed and very human attempts to refocus and rediscover a drive for life led me to the heart of God's will for my life.

God wills that I live life. Now that I've been led there, it all seems so simple, but the journey has been quite the experience. Each day I am faced with small choices, moments where I can decided to surrender my will into the Father's hands or keep it for myself. I will be the first to say that I do not understand the Father's will for my life! Makes surrender a little more difficult, yet he asks it of me anyway.

I met with my spiritual director recently. Our meetings are always a delight but this last one was healing and challenging all at once. Fr. Nathan asked me where I feel most alive? Good question. For someone who is still in vocation limbo, trying to define moments where I feel most alive is difficult at times. To go off what I said in my last post a little bit, I found myself facing the desires of my heart again and again.

Did I really want it? Do I really want to allow the desire for the fulfillment of my vocation run through me? To do so would require that I accept the stage in life I'm in and move forward anyway, even though I don't know what the end is going to look like. My desires are so strong and the fire of my heart is burnign so steadily that I fear that if I let loose the horses they may ravish me. What does it mean to truly wait in anticipation: to allow the fire of desire burn away your imperfections and ideals into a reality that you do know yet?

I may not know what the end is, but I can say confidently now that I do know what it's like to be alive. My sleeping soul is awake and ready for God's will. To discover what His will is exactly, I am called to be fully alive and fully myself every day. Changing and growing toward God's plan, embracing who He created me to be and the mission He has placed on my heart.

"Make haste my beloved for I am sick with love." (Song of Songs) Yet I will wait in the flames of desire.

Desire

Some thoughts about my banner.

The Spirit and the bride say, "Come." Let the hearer say, "Come."
Let the one who thirsts come forward,
and the one who wants it receive the gift of life-giving water."

Revelation 22:17

Well, first I should walk you through my thoughts whenever I read this verse. For any of the people reading this who has ever done Lectio, or a Bible Study with me, you can probably imagine the sound of my voice... out of control.

We've got the Spirit and the bride, as this verse begins. St. John shoots us back to the incarnation. Our Lady is always in John's heart. And then they say "Come." The movement required of this verse is striking. They're calling us forward. They're not going to make us move, just invite us to join them.

Here comes the good stuff, "Let the one who thirsts come forward." Ugh!!!! Love it! They're calling everyone onward, but only the ones who thirst come forward. The great thing is that it gets even better, "Let the one who wants it receive the gift of life-giving water." Not only do you need to be thirsty for it, but you have to desire it to receive the gift.

This verse has been growing on me, or should I say challenging me to grow? God has been softening my heart. It takes time and is filled with the burning pain of longing for more. He's showed me, slowly, over time and giving me the strength to desire the gift. The beautiful thing I've discovered is as I open myself to desiring God's plan, He takes it and makes it more beautiful and perfect than I could have on my own. The desire growing and changing each day, carrying me deeper into His love.

It takes a choice, will I move toward God or not? Will I have the audacity to desire the fullness of life? Can I stay on the fire of His love? Can I move forward?

Let the hearer say, "Come."

Embers

"I came to cast fire on the earth and how I wish it were already blazing."

Luke 12: 49

Pentecost is coming this weekend and the fact that this just dawned on me today explains a lot about my thoughts these days: all over the place.

I recently helped run audio for the St. John Summer Conference, put on by the Community of St. John in Princeville, IL. The conference itself is meant to help young adults go deeper in their faith. I've been around the Community of St. John since I was 16, and I learned early not to settle into complacency with them. "Same old retreat..." The schedule may be the same, but it's never the same retreat.

I'm blessed that I have the skills necessary to monitor audio levels and enter into prayer. I may not always be able to split my attention, but I was able to find enough moments of calm to give God my full attention this weekend. And boy is He moving!

I came away from each day of the retreat with my heart pulled in new and deeper directions. He called me to come and rest, but I feel like I'm getting a spiritual workout these days. He is asking me to trust Him with my heart. I've spent so many days thinking I could protect it myself under frail fingers that opening them is terrifying. All I had to do was ask, and not only has He taken my fear, but He's been remodeling. "Yes, that's right, knock down that wall right there, we're going to start over." Beep, beep, beep. A truck backs up and the pendulum swings into those moss encrusted walls.

PAINFUL! "Shoot Lord, be nice! St. Anthony, talk to Him, will you?" Also thoughts of "I'll tell your mom on you!" but Our Lady is already here, she's been holding my hand while I watch the destruction. Even while writing this, I can't help but smile, because the joy of the reconstruction far exceeds the pain I'm suffering now. And then it dawned on me that Pentecost is this weekend, and the anticipation of the coming of the Holy Spirit has taken me. It seems God wants to make a little extra room for the Holy Spirit to move around in me. I am filled with hope.

"Tongues as of fire settled upon the apostles." Acts 2:3

The image of fire is standing out strikingly in my mind's eye today. It's the only facsimile to what's going on in my heart. Consumed by fire. There is a reflection that my spiritual director is fond of using when wrapping up a campfire. By this point the stars are at full shine and the only thing illuminating the front field is the glow of the embers. Father compares the embers to the fire of God's love, burning off all the imperfections, giving heat and light. He says it more eloquently than I ever could, but the image is striking.

What pain and what joy, to be consumed by the fire of God's love. Saints like St. Theresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross knew it well. I know I haven't reached any lofty heights of contemplative prayer, but the spirit of silence is setting me ablaze. God is moving the walls of my heart and He's given me the grace to watch.

I was not expecting the pain. It's not like breaking your heart, it's a consuming and sweet desire to allow Christ to do what He wishes. I've been praying for patience, so of course during this time Christ is testing my desire for that virtue. He's keeping me discombobulated, trusting from day to day that His love is sufficient and His will is perfect.

The hard part is staying on the fire.