2012 - Best Year Yet

One of my best friends has a birthday around the same time as I do in December. While celebrating the coming of another year, we both decided that 2012 was going to be our "Best Year Yet!" This is certainly a resolution that fills one with confidence and excitement for what such a positive attitude will bring you in the coming year.

If I had been asked to guess what I thought that God would do with my resolution, I would probably have listed off all of the desires of my heart in the confident hope that this being my best year yet would lead to their fulfillment.

Here we are, three months into the Best Year Yet and what has God decided to do with my resolution so far?  Let's recap:

Early in January I was in a car accident. It was both my first accident and my first ticket. All-in-all the best case scenario for that accident. I was on my way out of town and approaching a light that had turned green. I guess I spaced out after that because the traffic didn't really start moving by the time I reached the intersection and I rear-ended a truck. The truck was fine, but my poor corolla was no longer in a condition to drive out of town. So after a tow truck, I spent three weeks without my car driving a van that I borrowed from some dear friends of mine who have generous hearts.

Poverty. I wrestled with the idea through this experience, thankful that my accident hadn't caused anyone injury and for the generosity of my friends.

The first weekend of March I spent babysitting in Iowa, an experience, which in and of itself deserves a post about all the giggles and funny things my nephews said and did. On my way back to Peoria, the weather was not that great. It had snowed earlier and the roads were a deceptive and treacherous kind of slick. There were cars in the ditch just about every twenty miles the whole way back. At one point I took a side-road around a traffic jam, I didn't feel comfortable on the main road with so many semis closing in on me. On this windy back road, (ever since my first accident) I was driving like a grandma. Coming around a curve (at night) there were 6 doe deer standing in the road. I of course braked, but after realizing there was no avoiding this collision, I knew that the safest thing for me to do would be to drive into them.

Praise the Lord that I only hit one of the deer. Her body slammed into the driver's side of my car and the rest of the deer scattered. Considering the gravity of that situation, I am extremely lucky to be alive right now. Since my car was still drive-able, it was a long hour and a half to a well-lit trusted rest-stop where I could survey the damage and have a mini-break down. I did make it all the way back to my apartment after the experience, but was terribly shaken up for two days following the accident.

Poverty. Again and again, God has been showing me how to rely on the goodness of the people around me. I'm still reflecting on the idea of poverty and what it means to come before the Lord empty and trusting. I'll have another reflection on poverty soon, I'm sure, but wanted to present the idea that poverty can be a gift from God. I'd welcome any thoughts to help me in this discovery. St. Joseph is probably one of the best models of the gift of poverty (next to the Blessed Mother) and I've been asking him to show me how to take this lesson into the Best Year Yet.

Peace

“If peace is God’s gift and has its source in him, where are we to seek it and how can we build it, if not in a deep and intimate relationship with God?”

-Bl. Pope John Paul II-
Address to the representatives of the world religions.
Assisi, Jan 24, 2002

I love calendars, schedules, and planners. One of my favorite calendars is one on my desk. It is filled with quotes from my beloved Bl. John Paul II. From time to time one of the quotes resonates with me so deeply that I have to write a blog post on it.

Peace is a word that I love. My spiritual director begins each of our meetings by greeting me with "Peace," and the very word, spoken aloud, settles my heart and soul. I have a good friend, who through all of the changes of her life, has impressed me with her trust in God's plan and the peace that she posesses. My mother posesses that calm and quiet peace about her as well.

I long for peace in my heart. There is an extreme difference between peace and complacency. At times I am complacent, where I don't care about my troubles. Probably the opposite of peace, and yet deceitful enough to mask itself as peace. For if I don't care about my troubles than they can't distress me. So for a time I am lulled into a sort of counter-productive calm.

Peace is a total and utter trust in God's plan and faith in its fulfilment. So it's not that a person chooses not to care about his troubles, but that his troubles really are weightless. It's the knowledge that even amidst troubles, God's glory shines and finds its fulfillment.

“If peace is God’s gift and has its source in him, where are we to seek it and how can we build it, if not in a deep and intimate relationship with God?”

The Traditional Birthday Reflection Post

I ran late to Mass on the morning of my birthday. I got there in time for the Gospel, so was very thankful I could receive Jesus on the day of my birth. I stayed a little extra after Mass to read the readings I'd missed. Good thing I did because God had a great message for me on my birthday:

Isaiah 48: 17 - 19
17	Thus says the LORD, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: "I am the LORD your God, who teaches you to profit, who leads you in the way you should go.
18	O that you had hearkened to my commandments! Then your peace would have been like a river, and your righteousness like the waves of the sea;
19	your offspring would have been like the sand, and your descendants like its grains; their name would never be cut off or destroyed from before me."

I'm not often frank on my blog. I dance around what's on my heart, hinting and posing questions that I then try to answer. This reading spoke to my heart in ways that only my Beloved could. The truth about me is that I spent a year with the Community of St. John to discern whether I had a vocation to religious life. At the end of the year I discerned that religious life was not how God was calling me to love or how he was calling me to be light to the world. Praise the Lord! But that started me on an infinitely harder journey filled with a desire for something more and an obvious time of waiting on God's timing.

This year I have said goodbye to three of my friends who have left to enter convents. The other two in this picture are in India and Texas waiting to enter at the word 'go.' It's been so beautiful to see how God has spoken to each of their hearts differently, and called them forth to be who he created. They still have a long journey to vows, but they're most certainly living God's will for them. How beautiful! How difficult it is to remain here waiting and hoping in God's plan for my life. How difficult it is to remain in the fire of desire.

"O that you had hearkened to my commandments! 

Then your peace would have been like a river..."

Such a beautiful challenge on my birthday, God calling me forward and beyond my limitations toward his heart. I'm of the firm conviction that God is using this time of waiting to prepare me for the trials of married and family life. Looking back I certainly wasn't ready for them when I was in college, and even looking back one year I can see how I was not ready. If only I would listen!!!! It is so hard to live by God's laws. To be humble and obedient to Him, to remain faithful and always listen for His voice in my daily life.

"Let me rise then and go about the city, through the streets and squares; let me seek him whom my soul loves." I sought him but I did not find him. 

Song of Songs 3: 2

Oh that I might so desire God's will that I actively seek him each day. If you think of it, my desire for God's will would compel me to be most myself. It's that kind of desire that compelled the saints to live heroic virtue. It's that kind of desire, which will build a culture of life and a civilization of love. As young people we are given a beautiful gift in our unique ardor for life. For my birthday, God woke me up to my unique call to live life now, living in hope of what is to come in His plan for my life. Then peace shall abound.

Faith

Faith is the realization of what is hoped for and evidence of things unseen.

Hebrews 11:1

The theme of faith has been following me this week! First I had that great encounter through confession, then last night I went to a talk my spiritual director was giving in preparation for the Total Consecration to Jesus through Mary. The topic last night was Adoration and I was, yet again, thrown into the mystery of Faith.

Since these talks were given in preparation for the consecration, speaking of Mary's Faith was a fundamental part of the talk. Because Mary was chosen by God to be the mother of His Son, she possessed all virtue perfectly. I often think that this means that Mary didn't have a care in the world, that because she possessed all virtue and grace, that she was above those little trials and sufferings I find so painful in daily life.

Yet, in Luke 1, Mary was troubled by what the Angel said to her. Father spoke of the poverty of God's plan. Mary had complete faith that God's will would be done in her life even though she did not understand "how can this be as I do not know man." (Luke 1:34)

"How can this be as I do not know man." This difinitive statement made by Our Lady reveals the secret of her heart kept in a covenant made in her body. A vow of virginity. Aquinas writes of this verse as her revelation of that vow. In all the other covenants God makes with man of conceiving to bear a son the promised child is conceived through the bond of the flesh. However, Christ is conceived through "The holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you." (Luke 1:34) [I could probably do a whole post just on Mary's virginity, but will maybe save that for later.]

Mary trusted, even though she had made a vow to God through her body, that what He declared to her through the Angel Gabriel would come to be. The blind faith of Our Lady, without the understanding as the world sees it, but with eyes that trust in the Word of a loving God. Even more paradoxical than the birth of Christ is His death on the Cross.

Christ came to die, "and a sword shall pierce your heart." (Luke 2:35) She trusted through the 30 years of Christ's hidden life that His timing was perfect. She lived her life with the knowledge that her Son was the Son of God and that He chose to remain silent for those years. Then a mere three years after beginning his ministry, to be put to death on a cross, deserted by His friends save for John.

She was the mother of a dead Son and her Son gave her another. "Woman, behold, your son." (John 19: 26) The poverty of Mary's faith in God's plan allowed her to accept the gift of John and subsequently to be mother to us all. To trust entirely in God's plan is to live life without fear. To walk steadily forward trusting that even though you do not know the way, that God's light will lead you to truth.

There is a rediscovery of faith in the eyes of God. The realization that looking with eyes of this world will not get you closer to knowing His plan for your life. Looking at our Lady's faith, we can rediscover how we ought to pray. To offer our very selves as the sacrifice burnt before the Throne of God and to choose to love even when we do not have all the answers as to why trials and sacrifices have come. To embrace these trials as a standard of vicotory, holding to the cross as the cry of hope.

Checking In

I recently went to confession. The strength of this beautiful sacrament always fills me with awe.

One of my many goals is to discover how to live each stage of my life well. To be fully alive throughout my whole life. It's a hard mountain to climb and my second winds come from Confession. It's not always easy to continue to climb when I don't know how much further until I reach a peak.

This week the priest spoke with me about trusting God. He touched on the very thought that it's hard to always trust God when it's uncertain what the plan is. The wisdom he gave me was that God's plan is never static, it's constantly moving forward, and if you're living life fully alive you are always in God's plan. He advised that I take some time in prayer to check in to see where God is moving in my life.

God is moving in the silence. In this non-fulfillment of my vocational desires he is moving.

We are always called to hunger and thirst for truth, for fullness, for life itself! This paradox of not being satisfied with where I'm at and yet resting in the knowledge that His grace is sufficient is filling me right now. The audacity of hope is not something that's easy to define.

The challenge is to be fully alive and fully myself in all things. Never to hide behind fear or complacency, but dive fully into life. This trust that I so yearn for must be propelled by my firm resolve and desire for the fullness of life. If I am always striving to be more myself, I shall always be walking in God's plan for my life. The time will come and His timing will be better than my idea of perfection. For even when I do discover the fullness of my vocation the next journey will begin to discover how to live well that call.

Hope: It's a lifestyle choice.

Movie Reviews: The Adjustment Bureau

The Adjustment Bureau: 
One scene is inappropriate, otherwise a well done movie.

Starring: Matt Damon, Emily Blunt

Premise: (Slight spoiler alert) Matt Damon plays a rising NY Senatorial Candidate, who bumps into the 'woman of his dreams' one day only to find out the next that she is not part of the "Adjutment Bureau's" plan for him. In stumbling onto the existence of the Adjustment Bureau, he discovers that they are men who can travel through subspace using doors (dressed in bowler caps) and they adjust decisions and situations to fit 'The Plan.' All under the direction of "The Chairman." Matt Damon fights the idea that 'free will' is an illusion to win the girl and a life of his own making, in the end entering through the doors of the Adjustment Bureau, risking having his memory obliterated to spend what time he had left with 'the one,' showing that he chooses her.

Philosophical questions posed: Choice, Free Will, fulfillment through friendship, desire

Cinematic Notes:
Hats: The Adjustment Bureau wears hats. This is an illusion to the "Man in the Bowler" painting.
Significance: The man in the bowler has no face, thus signifying "The Man," so in film when this imagery is used, usually in stark oposition to a character they're illustrating modern man's struggle against "The Man." It's also significant to Power Struggles, or in this movie, the battle for autonomy and free will. At the end of the film when the main character takes the hat for himself, he's taking his life into his own hands, takign it from "The Man."

Lighting: Many of these scenes feature rows of lights, either above the head in a large warehouse setting, or on desks stretching across above heads that are sitting at tables. etc.
Significance: This signifies two things: Man under Scrutiny and it adds to the imagery of Man in a cage. This is a mind bender, so cage mantra comes back in many different forms on all the characters, both in and out of the adjustment bureau.

The Cage Motif: Found subtly behind the characters through pillars, wall design, room design etc.
Significance: It points toward each of the characters being placed in a box and operating per the boxes perameters. Only at the end do you have wide open spaces when choice has been put into act and Matt Damon stands up for his Friend.

Chess Boards: The flooring of many of the shots with the A.B. contains a checker pattern.
Significance: This is pointing toward a chess match between the protaganist and antagonist. Who is behind each side? "The Chairman" vs. Matt Damon.

Water: In the movie water stunts the ability of the A.B.
Significance: In film, water is significant of change, especially rain because rain washes away existing into change. So at the climax of the film it's pouring rain.

Staircases: In this film they pit the staircase against the door 
Significance: In film, stairs signify rising to an occasion and taking ones fate into their own hands. Hence so many chase scenes on spiral staircases. The spiral staircase is also significant of a search for truth, around each bend. Dizzying to the center, usually the summit.

Doors: To stay on one side or go to the other, especially highilghted by the fact that one side of the door is another place entirely. Idea of movement and again, choice.
 
Review: I found this film to be intellectually stimulating. The vivid cinematic motifs used to portray a quest for the answer to the questions of free will and choice made for a dynamic game of cat and mouse through this quest for power. There was some dissatisfaction, for me, in the end resolving of the question, but the movement of man fighting for choice was stunning. The key is that it poses philosophical questions that one can then think about once the movie ends. A triumphant leap from choice into action, instills in the viewer a need to do the same in ones own life. There is a light treatment on the fulfilment of self through friendship. For a person who is so 'other' than you that they inspire you into life versus a static relationship that is comfortable. A well done film with one inappropriate scene I would suggest skipping if you watch it at home.

The Way of Delight

I try, as often as I can, to go out for a bike ride after work. It automatically creates space and distance from the desk and it's good for me too!

I'm a big fan of riding the Rock Island State Trail. The beautiful thing about the trail, especially right now is that it's surrounded by trees. If you've ever read Anne of Green Gables and tried to imagine the way of delight or lover's lane, the Rock Island State Trail is pretty close. In fact, I'm going to allow myself an Anne moment and rename the trail because let's face it the Way of Delight just fits my little trail.

The beautiful thing about tonight's ride was that it took place near sunset. It was hard to tell pedaling forward whether the vibrant and vivid colors I saw in the trees were true fall colors or the very colors of the sunset. The light streaking across the path and breaking through the leaves to fill the path with an otherworldly glow. Couple with that the lazy hum of a few crickets still hanging on in the warm dirt and I found a haven from the business of the world.

A moment I look forward to on every bike ride is right about where I turn around. There's this field of something that has the color of goldenrod and it grows out into the distance. Away beyond it you can see the cars whizzing to and fro as people go home to their families for dinner. And beyond the already idyllic view the sunset lit up the horizon with vivid colors that stretched forward, providing a beautiful moment to just be silent and appreciate life.

It's moments like these that make me wonder why I don't stop more often. There are so many moments in life to simply sit back and smile about, why don't I take them?! I'm going to try to remember soak up all of these delightful fall rays of gold. Life is too full of busy moments not to take advantage of quiet ones.