Untouchable Superpowers

My little neighbor came over yesterday to pay me a visit.  We pulled up a stool so she could help me peel potatoes, but that was pretty hard and boring.  So, she waited as patiently as she could until we could go outside and jump on the trampoline.  In the meantime, she played the piano, and fed the dog, the fish, and the cat.

She jumped to her heart's content and I mostly chased her per the "You can't catch me!" invitation she offered.  I learned she was going to be Wonder Woman for Halloween.  At one point, I picked up a handful of dead leaves and threw them in the air.  When they landed on her, I told her they would take her super powers away.

As she held one, she looked me in the eye and said, "These kind of leaves can't take my superpowers away.  My superpowers are in my heart, and only green leaves can take my superpowers away!"  Then, she threw the leaf with a look of royal dismissal and promptly took my superpowers away with the flick of a magic strand of trampoline skirt.  Not only that, but she sent my superpowers to land in the branches of a neighboring tree.

Naturally, the next thing she did was give herself flying powers, and left me cross-legged on the trampoline.  Proud, powerless, and highly-entertained.

Her grammy came back for her and my soup needed tending, so we called it a day.  And I've been thinking about my little-superhero-neighbor ever since.  Mostly, I'm amazed at how wise she is to know that her superpowers are in her heart, and that whatever you happen to be holding or might say cannot take them away.

Interesting how little bodies can hold such big truths!  Makes me wonder how different things might be if the truth only grew with us, instead of shrink or disappear altogether, as it seems to do.

Thanks for the reminder, little one.  You should come over more often.

Vacation on a Bumper Sticker

I'm happily out of the mountains and breathing easier again.  We made it home last night from our vacation to Kansas and Colorado.  For me, leaving and coming home again after a day, or nine in this case, always seems to clarify and spark a greater resolve to live life better.  

First, I love the mountains, but I love to be able to see "down the road" more. 

Secondly, I need more (and some is more) discipline in my life.  

I need to:

1.  Exercise (again)

2.  Stop drinking soda (again)

3.  Get up earlier (again)

4.  Plan better for meals (again)
 

People are running and biking up mountains.  I should be able to walk a few laps around a flat park.  People are getting up at 2:00 in.the.morning so they can summit by noon and be off the mountain again before the afternoon thunderstorms roll in.  I should be able to walk a few laps around a flat park.
 

My brother and sister-in-law work out hard 4 (sometimes 5!  Gasp!) days a week at this little-known place called Cross Fit, at 6 in.the.morning.  I should be able to walk a few laps around a flat park.  During our time in KS, they showed us their gym and some of the things they do there.  Goodness.  No wonder they look like that!  And just because they look good doesn't mean they spend a lot of time looking at themselves - it's just an awesome side effect of something called  DISCIPLINE...That big "D" word I need to shake hands with, once again.

Last summer, I did Couch to 5K, which gets you from zero to 30 minutes of non-stop jogging in 8 weeks.  I much-too-quicky dismissed my personal trainer friend when she cautioned me about persevering beyond my goal.  Me?  No way.  I worked way too hard to get there.  Ha. I never jogged for 30 minutes again.  Not even once.  My internal dialogue went something like this:
 

Day 1 (after 15 minutes of jogging):  Hey! I can walk if I want to.  I met my goal.
 

Day 2 (after 10 minutes jog-walking):  Hey!  I can jog some, walk some if I want.  It's better for you anyway - letting your heart rate come down and pushing it back up again.  It's called interval training.

 

Day 3 (walking only):  I hate running!  The important thing is to be moving.  30 minutes of walking daily really is the very best thing, and it's not so hard on your joints.

And just like that, I talked myself out of the whole exercise bit in three measly days.  I'm hoping it works just as effectively talking myself into it (again).

Then there's the idea that people who walk every day walk three miles.  You ever notice that?  Maybe three miles is to walking what eight hours is to sleeping.  But, whenever I think about walking three miles, I think about my 96-year-old friend who says, "If I would have known walking three miles every day would have made me live this long, I wouldn't have done it!"  I'm just saying, there are risks, and it's better if we acknowledge them.

In trying to do anything, we must ask for God's help.  Even when you have done so it may seem to you for a long time that no help, or less help than you need, is being given.  Never mind.  After each failure, ask forgiveness, pick yourself up, and try again...It cures our illusions about ourselves and teaches us to depend on God.  We learn on the one hand, that we cannot trust ourselves even in our best moments, and, on the other, that we need not despair even in our worst, for our failures are forgiven.  The only fatal thing is to sit down content with anything less than perfection.  -C.S. Lewis

Finally, I'm taking a page out of the simplicity book of the people who are going before me.  They have years and they have money, and they desire less instead of more.  They're going from bigger to smaller, or to not at all.  You name it.  Campers, boats, dream homes...I think my aunt and uncle are the best example of this lately.  They have a dream place with three floors, a gorgeous yard, garden, flowers, pool, and creek running behind - all for sale - to live somewhere that isn't so much work.  He said he'd leave everything in the house, too, except for his guitars and underwear.  I'm glad for the underwear part...

This is a good thing for me to reflect on.  Twenty-five years down the road, I could be off-loading everything I'm tempted to acquire now.  And for what?  More and bigger isn't better.  It isn't.  It's just bigger and more.  More stuff, less room.  Bigger houses, bigger campers, bigger headaches.  And this is one of the reasons I left the cute Colorado hoodie in the overpriced gift shop; the other reason is I'm cheap.  Instead, I brought home lots of pictures and memories, and none of them will end up in an estate sale.     

So, here are my vacation epiphanies on a bumper sticker... I'm a hills and plains girl.  I need to get moving - in the morning, outside, and in the kitchen.  And less is more.

What does yours say?

Dear God of Mountains, Hills, and Plains,

Thank you for the majesty of Your mountains and the comfort of Your plains.  Thank you for my family and their "Yes" to You, which allows my boys to live in a world where gathering is joy, aided by unseen forgiveness, offered and received.  Thank you for living reminders that laziness needs to be thwarted by discipline.

Please bless all who can't fathom leaving the city or state they live in for lack of time, transportation, desire, money, or health.  Please bless all who leave with a safe return, contented hearts, and a greater desire to reflect Your Glory.  Amen. 


 

A Good Paintbrush

Trusting The Great Artist is an idea that keeps resurfacing in my readings, and most recently at the Morning of Reflection on Friday.  It reminded me of a journal entry I wrote about being a "good paintbrush," a few months back.  (It's funny to me that most everything I write makes its way from my little green journal to you, eventually.)

Anyway, God must think we're pretty awesome.  We get to do, and be, everything that God uses in our transformation!  It's fascinating to me that we are both the canvas on which God, The Great Artist, creates His masterpiece, and the paintbrush He uses to make it.  We are the tool, the medium, and the finished product.  Our job as tool and medium is the same.  To respond. 

September 18, 2013
Help me to be a good paintbrush, Lord.  Content to be in Your Hand for as long as You deem necessary.  Help me to remain docile and content, to paint only the picture You have in mind.  For I know paintbrushes don't have eyes, with which to see what the Great Artist intends.

Just as no one thinks "of praising the quality of the brush an artist used when you look at his painting, but instead admire his skill in using it," help me be deaf to the praise of others, for it is praise of You alone. 

Help me to be blind and deaf to everything but You, and to rest comfortably in Your hand, or wherever You set me down.

A paintbrush has no life of its own.  Help me to be a good paintbrush - One who doesn't fall into the trap of trying to be "powerful, relevant, and spectacular" (Henry Nouwen).  Amen.

Fear, Hope, or Love - The Reasons for Every Action Since the Beginning of Time

Fear.  Hope.  Love. 

One of these three things motivate every action of our life.  They dictate how we suffer interiorly, and how we treat others.  They are often very hidden, but the absence of clamor doesn't nullify their existence or change their power.  If anything dictates everything in my life, I want to know about it.  I like to know what I'm doing and why I'm doing it.  If you don't have clarity about what you're doing, it is impossible to act with purity.  Purity of intention is acknowledging and removing all selfish intent when performing an action, and doing it for love alone.

To do good to others in the hope that, in turn, our Lord will be good to you is a supernatural motive, even if it is self-centered.  To do good to others with the consciousness that Christ asks it of you is less egoistic.  To do good to others because you are convinced that Christ will consider it as having been done to Him personally is a sign of pure love of God.  To do good to others because you can please God, and you want to give Him the best you can, is perfect love of God.
The Hidden Power of Kindness, Lawrence G. Lovasik

Fr. Lovasik didn't refer to doing good to others to avoid going to hell, but it is a possible motivation nonetheless.  In the same way, fear, hope, and love dictate our response to suffering in our lives.

According to Rt. Rev. Dom Lehodey in Holy Abandonment, there are three degrees of conformity to God's will in response to suffering:

In the first degree, we have no desire for suffering; in fact, we avoid it as much as possible.  However, we are willing to endure it if it is the only way that we can avoid committing a fault [for fear of condemnation].

In the second degree, we don't wish for suffering, but when it comes, we accept it and endure it willingly because we know that suffering is a part of God's plan for us.  We have a love of suffering, but this love is only a consequence of our love for God. [Hope in God's goodness and plan]

In the third degree, which is the most perfect of all, we are not content with just accepting the trials that God may send us and suffering cheerfully out of our love for Him...our love for God is so great that we long for trials and we rejoice when they come to us because we know that they come from the hand of God and are ordained by His adorable will. [Love]

 [What is contained in brackets is my interpretation, based on St. Bernard's summation]

According to St. Bernard, beginners as a rule have only resignation derived from fear; proficient bear the cross with a willing heart, a more generous conformity begotten of hope; the perfect embrace the cross with ardor, which complete conformity is the fruit of holy love.

Since we are all looking for happiness, it is good to know that we can have something even greater.  That something greater is joy.  It transcends happiness because it is not dependent on people or circumstances.  "Authentic joy is a deep interior peace and satisfaction that we experience as the fruit of wisdom and understanding." (Endow study guide)  It is the result of placing our expectations on Jesus, and not on others.  It comes when we do all things with purity of intention - the intention to love our neighbor for love of God.  Even, and especially, in our suffering. 

In his letter Salvifici Doloris, Pope John Paul II gives us four reasons our suffering can be seen as a reason for joy:

1.  It clears the way for the infusion of grace which transforms human souls.
2.  In it, there is concealed a particular power that draws a person interiorly close to Christ...
3.  ...human sufferings, united to the redemptive suffering of Christ, constitute a special support for the powers of good, and open the way to the victory of these salvific powers.
4.  Faith in sharing the suffering of Christ brings with it the interior certainty that the suffering person 'completes what is lacking in Christ's afflictions'; the certainty that in the spiritual dimension of the work of Redemption he is serving, like Christ, the salvation of his brothers and sisters.

So, basically, our suffering (IF we unite it with Christ's suffering by our intention to do so), can serve for our own salvation and that of others. 

That is a reason for real joy.

Dear Heavenly Father, Thank you for the rain, roofs that don't leak, and bread machines.  Thank you for loving us.  Thank you for fear to motivate us when our love is not yet perfect.  Thank you for hope along the way, and your love to imitate.  Please give me the wisdom to know what motivates me.  I want to do all things for love of You.  Please grant me the grace to act with purity of intention and detachment from all that is not You nor leads me to You.  Please give me the joy that comes from understanding your love for me, and your plan to bring good out of everything, especially suffering.  Thank you for the opportunity to participate in my own salvation and that of others.  Thank you for Pope John Paul II and the continued guidance of your Church since you gave Peter the keys to your Kingdom.  Thank you for Pope Francis and for his love.  Amen.

Pope John Paul II, pray for us!