I don't know about you, but I always find it easier to apply affirmative directives instead of negative ones. For one thing, when we hear "don't do X", we still hear the forbidden "X", and subconsciously we nonetheless focus on that which we are supposed to be avoiding. Also, abstaining from doing something is not the same as doing the opposite.
When it comes to the 10 Commandments, I've always thought that perhaps linguistics is where Moses went wrong. (I know, it'd be way too easy if all it took for world peace is to change the focus of how the 10 Commandments are written.) At any rate, I've decided to give it a try myself, so that when I'm going over them in preparation for the sacrament of reconciliation, for instance, I'm better challenged to grow in character instead of just checking off all the ways I'm not failing God!
So without further ado, here are the 10 Commandments, as I understand them, that go beyond just what not to do, and instead note what we are to do instead.
1. Remember Who made you; therefore worship God alone, prioritizing Him above all else. (Two ways to do this follow.)
2. When you speak about God, do so with respect.
3. Every week, set aside time to honor God.
4. Honor our parents as God's co-creators; know your place and hence be humble.
5. Safeguard life; be a steward of it.
6. Be chaste.
7. Share what you have with others.
8. Be honest and trustworthy.
9. Be modest.
10. Be content with what you've got.
A bit of commentary on the above. The first three commandments I think are self-explanatory, as they already appear in the affirmative on the original templates. The only observation I've made here is that commandments 2 & 3 are examples of 1.
The fourth commandment is also in the affirmative, but I've always found it confusing how to apply it to my life as an adult child of my parents. I think when looking at my parents in the grand scheme of things, I'm reminded of my place in the pecking order, which should lead to an attitude of humility in life in general.
The fifth commandment I found a bit passe. I mean, don't murder, really? I would think in this day and age, this sort of goes without saying. People of course ignore it, but not because they're confused about whether they should or shouldn't take life. I am always tempted to skim right over this one as I do my examination of conscience, bc of course I haven't killed anyone. But when looked at through a life-affirming lense, ah, now I'm a lot more challenged. Do I build people up or shut them down? And what about other creatures of God? I do not give life, not to animals or plants, and not to people (even my own children); I merely assist at best. So it should go without saying that I can't take that life. But do I look the other way when others take life into their own hands? Or do I stand on the side of God, trying to safeguard it?
The sixth and ninth commandments always confused me because I didn't understand why there needed to be two commandments that essentially say the same thing. Do not commit adultery, and do not covet your neighbor's wife (or husband, though if you want to be a literalist, us women appear to be getting a free pass on this one ;) ). I get that one is physical action and the other is thought, but is that really sufficient enough difference? But when looked at as what we ought to be doing instead - being chaste and modest, all of a sudden I understand the difference. Chastity has to do with our actions when it comes to our sexuality. We are to keep sexual intimacy inside the marriage covenant. That is the definition of chastity. So if we're not married, no sex. If we are married, sex only with our spouse. Easy enough. But then modesty is a lot more nuanced. It's in our dress, our demeanor, in our sense of humor, our entertainment, our words. Do we tempt others towards unchastity by our immodesty? Or do we do our part to safeguard marital sexuality?
The seventh and tenth commandments also gave me trouble over the years. Again, I thought they were saying the same thing. Don't steal, and don't covet. Instead, go beyond merely not taking what doesn't belong to you (because sometimes this is actually up for debate), and share whatever you do have. That way, there's no question that you're not stealing because your focus is on how you can share what you have instead of how others ought to share with you. And then there's the coveting. That leads to envy, jealousy, and all around a nasty selfish attitude, as you think about all the things you don't have instead of counting your blessings. Instead, be content, ie. count your blessings!
Finally, the eight commandment has to do with honesty, and here too I think we can grow so much more if we live our lives focusing on integrity and authenticity instead of just not telling any lies. We lie with much more than our words. Omissions can be lies. Disingeniousness can be lies. The way we present ourselves in life can be a lie - putting on a facade to try to impress others. There's no truth in that. But we can still glaze over this commandment and say we don't technically tell any lies, so we're all good. No, we're not. That's just not good enough. Be honest and trustworthy. There's the goal of this commandment.
So I plan on looking to this version of the 10 commandments from now on as I try to improve as a human being. Maybe it can help someone else as well.
Showing posts with label prayer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label prayer. Show all posts
Friday, January 6, 2017
Saturday, December 31, 2016
Theme for New Year 2017: Self-Improvement
I used to make a laundry list of New Year's resolutions. After keeping and reviewing my sheets of paper, I realized that all I was doing was listing what I wish I were accomplishing, and just rolling it over from year to year whenever it didn't happen the previous year. I didn't actually have any specific plan in place to bring my "resolutions" to fruitition. So I stopped making resolutions.
Recently I read about an alternative that piqued my interest. In lieu of specific things to check off a list, some people think of a term or phrase to help them guide their overall approach to the year. A theme, so to speak. Almost immediatly I knew 1) that I wanted to try this, and 2) that my theme for 2017 would be "self-improvement". This idea probably appeals to me in large part because of its minimalistic approach. The goal is not what follows; the goal is "self-improvement". It's a very subjective goal, but then, I'm only accountable to myself, so why not?
I have several areas of my life where I have specific action plans in mind to reach the overall goal of self-improvement.
Spirituality.
In February, I hope to start meeting with a spiritual director. I'm waiting for February because a couple of women from my church are being certified in January, and I hope to start meeting with one of them.
Since August, I've been going to monthly Confession. Similar to broken resolutions, I've noticed that I tend to confess the same sins over and over again, which has helped me isolate some underlying problems that need to be addressed.
Daily prayer and Scripture reading. I was doing pretty well until my son was born. As could be expected, having a newborn and a preschooler has thrown me off my game. First thing in the morning was working well for me, but I'm squeezing in as much sleep as I can right now to help ward off postpartum depression and anxiety, which debilitated me for months after my daughter's birth. And when I get some alone time in the evenings, I'll be honest, I feel like I should use at least some of that time to pray, but I don't. So this is definitely an area in need of improvement for 2017.
We do pray together every bedtime as a family, and I've tried to pray the Guardian Angel prayer in the mornings with my daughter, and the Angelus at noon. So we'll want to solidify these practices.
On a positive note, though, when the PTSD-style thoughts creep into my mind, I immediately call on the name of Jesus to push the enemy away. And you know what? It works! So I suppose these count as spontaneous prayers, scattered throughout the day.
Retreat. I'm not sure I'll be able to swing an overnight weekend retreat this year, as Fernando will only be 9 months old for the women's retreat through my church, and a year old for the silent retreat through my alma mater, and I'm not sure what our nursing status will be by then. Though I am certainly hoping to not be nursing at night by then, but we'll see.
Beauty
I've been slowly revamping my wardrobe. With minimalism as my guiding light, and keeping femininity and modesty at the forefront. The idea is to have only items that I love, that fit me, and that go with more than one other thing. My color scheme is neutral, so black, white, gray, brown, beige. I am on a mission to find some solid colored tunics, or mini-dresses that I'd wear as tops, as well as a couple more maxi skirts.
My skin routine seems to have to change as I no longer have oily skin but rather combination. So I'm in need of a new cleanser. I think for moisturizer I will stick with the shea butter I got for my daughter last year.
I do want to have a bit of makeup on hand for going out, as eye liner in particular makes me feel more confident and, well, pretty :) So I'll need to find something with natural ingredients.
I'm due for a new pair of glasses, and I think I'm done trying to get frames that are as inconspicuous as possible. I think I want to go bold for a change! All around red frames, maybe? This may end up less expensive as well, since I've been paying for the glass to be treated so as not to be as visible on the bottom, where I don't have a frame.
Exercise. I suppose this should be in a category of health, but I'm being real here. I want to lose the rest of my pregnancy weight and get my pre-pregnancy abs back, not because it'll mean I'm healthy, but because it'll make me feel confident and, well, pretty again ;)
Emotional Health.
Basically, I want to deal with my mommy issues with the help of a therapist so I can be a better mom to my kids.
But also, as mentioned above, I'm actively warding off postpartum depression and anxiety. I refuse to succumb to it again.
I think that covers what I think of when I'm thinking of self-improvement. So there it is, out there in the virtual world, hopefully to keep me accountable, so that this time next year, I can post about my successes :)
Recently I read about an alternative that piqued my interest. In lieu of specific things to check off a list, some people think of a term or phrase to help them guide their overall approach to the year. A theme, so to speak. Almost immediatly I knew 1) that I wanted to try this, and 2) that my theme for 2017 would be "self-improvement". This idea probably appeals to me in large part because of its minimalistic approach. The goal is not what follows; the goal is "self-improvement". It's a very subjective goal, but then, I'm only accountable to myself, so why not?
I have several areas of my life where I have specific action plans in mind to reach the overall goal of self-improvement.
Spirituality.
In February, I hope to start meeting with a spiritual director. I'm waiting for February because a couple of women from my church are being certified in January, and I hope to start meeting with one of them.
Since August, I've been going to monthly Confession. Similar to broken resolutions, I've noticed that I tend to confess the same sins over and over again, which has helped me isolate some underlying problems that need to be addressed.
Daily prayer and Scripture reading. I was doing pretty well until my son was born. As could be expected, having a newborn and a preschooler has thrown me off my game. First thing in the morning was working well for me, but I'm squeezing in as much sleep as I can right now to help ward off postpartum depression and anxiety, which debilitated me for months after my daughter's birth. And when I get some alone time in the evenings, I'll be honest, I feel like I should use at least some of that time to pray, but I don't. So this is definitely an area in need of improvement for 2017.
We do pray together every bedtime as a family, and I've tried to pray the Guardian Angel prayer in the mornings with my daughter, and the Angelus at noon. So we'll want to solidify these practices.
On a positive note, though, when the PTSD-style thoughts creep into my mind, I immediately call on the name of Jesus to push the enemy away. And you know what? It works! So I suppose these count as spontaneous prayers, scattered throughout the day.
Retreat. I'm not sure I'll be able to swing an overnight weekend retreat this year, as Fernando will only be 9 months old for the women's retreat through my church, and a year old for the silent retreat through my alma mater, and I'm not sure what our nursing status will be by then. Though I am certainly hoping to not be nursing at night by then, but we'll see.
Beauty
I've been slowly revamping my wardrobe. With minimalism as my guiding light, and keeping femininity and modesty at the forefront. The idea is to have only items that I love, that fit me, and that go with more than one other thing. My color scheme is neutral, so black, white, gray, brown, beige. I am on a mission to find some solid colored tunics, or mini-dresses that I'd wear as tops, as well as a couple more maxi skirts.
My skin routine seems to have to change as I no longer have oily skin but rather combination. So I'm in need of a new cleanser. I think for moisturizer I will stick with the shea butter I got for my daughter last year.
I do want to have a bit of makeup on hand for going out, as eye liner in particular makes me feel more confident and, well, pretty :) So I'll need to find something with natural ingredients.
I'm due for a new pair of glasses, and I think I'm done trying to get frames that are as inconspicuous as possible. I think I want to go bold for a change! All around red frames, maybe? This may end up less expensive as well, since I've been paying for the glass to be treated so as not to be as visible on the bottom, where I don't have a frame.
Exercise. I suppose this should be in a category of health, but I'm being real here. I want to lose the rest of my pregnancy weight and get my pre-pregnancy abs back, not because it'll mean I'm healthy, but because it'll make me feel confident and, well, pretty again ;)
Emotional Health.
Basically, I want to deal with my mommy issues with the help of a therapist so I can be a better mom to my kids.
But also, as mentioned above, I'm actively warding off postpartum depression and anxiety. I refuse to succumb to it again.
I think that covers what I think of when I'm thinking of self-improvement. So there it is, out there in the virtual world, hopefully to keep me accountable, so that this time next year, I can post about my successes :)
Sunday, October 30, 2016
How Parenting Has Affected My Faith
I am happy to be returning to this blog with the annoncement that I am, once again, "fully Catholic". That's not to say that there's really such a thing as a "partial Catholic", just that I FEEL Catholic, and that I am actively living a Catholic life, however imperfect, striving for virtue and faith.
It has been a long journey, over two years. Being given several months of clarity to reflect on what went wrong before being launched into the postpartum period again next month, I've been able to determine what went wrong. Why did I lose my faith? What can I do differently this time around?
You see, I pretty much blame postpartum depression/anxiety on my loss of faith. So as I prepare to give birth to baby #2 next month, I worried that any progress I may have made in the interim may be compromised yet again in the postpartum period.
Prior to the birth of Maya, Alex and I were very involved in our church community, had an active prayer life at home, and had overcome several trials of faith. Our prayers had been answered with the blessing of our daughter, and it killed me to be feeling anything but eternal gratitude to God.
Here's what I believe contributed to my postpartum depression/anxiety and the resulting loss of faith.
1. Breastfeeding challenges. Within a week of birth, I suffered nipple damage that resulted in a breast infection (mastisis), breast absceses that needed to be drained twice, and a yeast infection, all of which contributed to my limited milk supply and the heart-wrenching decision to supplement with formula. It took a full two months to resolve our breastfeeding challenges, thanks in huge part to a godsend of a lactation consultant, Angela, and the fact that Maya had a chance to grow a bit, thus resolving the low palate issue that caused the initial nipple damage.
2. Loss of familiar surroundings. Almost as soon as the breastfeeding issues were resolved, we sold our house and moved to be closer to Alex's work. While this was the best decision for our family without any doubt, it did bring about severe stress. For one, the house we spent a decade together, the house where I had just given birth to our daughter, was gone.
3. Loss of a support network. We moved out of state, away from what limited support network I would've otherwise had. I didn't know anyone, friend or relative, and was very isolated home alone with a newborn. As much as I've wanted and enjoyed being home with our daughter, in retrospect I see that I really needed some sort of social outlet to help normalize the situation.
4. Neglect of healthy lifestyle. We resorted to convenience foods, low on the nutritional scale, and certainly didn't think beyond getting sleep whenever possible. There was no thought of exercise, or hydration, or a social life outside the home, or personal development, or couple-time. There was only being "on" with full-on care of our baby, or desperately catching some sleep whenever possible. In my case in particular, sleep is a big necessity. My body requires 8-10 hours of uninterrupted sleep to feel fully refreshed. Needless to say I was not getting any meaningful stretch of uninterrupted sleep, much less the amount my body needs.
The above put me into survival mode. I was just going from day to day, trying to make sure our daughter was safe, fed, clean, repeat. I had completely ignored all other aspects of myself, my identity, my life. I avoided leaving the house, including to church, for the first month or so, finally venturing out for Christmas Vigil mass, because I didn't want germs around my precious baby. So even before we moved, I had distanced myself from the church community that meant so much to me. Somehow, prayer also got lost in the shuffle. There's no other way to describe it: I was in survival mode.
I had ridiculously high expectations of myself and what it meant to me to finally be given the opportunity to parent, to be a mother. That's why our breastfeeding challenges were such a deep blow to me. I couldn't even articulate the disapointment I felt over having to introduce a bottle on day 6 of Mayas life, of having to feed her factory-produced formula that I couldn't vouch for myself.
This muggy mental state that resulted, primarily from sleep deprivation but also from unrecognized stress factors (the move, social isolation, and already feeling like a failure in motherhood) contributed to the onset of my postpartum depression and anxiety. It either didn't kick in until after 6 weeks post-partum, or I didn't realize it was already underway until then. Afterall, I did go to my 2 week and 6 week postpartum visits with my midwife, and they do screen for depression, yet it wasn't flagged at those times. By the time my 6 month postpartum visit came around, I had been to hell and back mentally.
For four months straight, isolated and sleep deprived, I suffered from horrible visual images of worst-case scenarios popping into my mind throughout the day. There didn't seem to be any discernible trigger. If one of our dogs caught my attention, my mind went straight to my baby being attacked by the dog. If I wanted to go sit out on our balcony with baby on my lap, my mind went straight to accidentally tripping and dropping baby over the banister. I know parents worry, but this wasn't worry, this was as if I was having flash-backs of horrible things that actually happened. I imagine post-traumatic stress disorder works in a similar way. There's no reason for the thoughts, they just creep in and take over any sense of logic. I stopped watching crime shows with Alex at this time, and the news, thinking that perhaps the violence there is what subconsciously triggers violent thoughts for me. It's now been over two and a half years since I've been censoring what I view. (And if you knew me, you'd know how much I enjoyed watching shows like Elementary or NCIS with Alex.)
Presumably because my mind was constantly occupied with violent visuals or subconscious fears of another vision episode catching me off guard, I just went about my daily life on auto-pilot. Around four months post-partum, I started being able to incorporate housework into my daily life. I took tons of photos and videos of my precious daugher. I was very keenly aware of the miracle she was in multiple ways. My entire life revolved around doing everything I possibly could to give her the best start in life. I jumped into attachment parenting with both feet first, and only in retrospect have I realized that I completely ignored one of the principles of AP: balance. I did not seek to balance my daughter's needs with mine at all.
Most of our parenting decisions I continue to stand by, even though outsiders may think they contributed to my sense of overwhelm. However, I definitely went overboard with a few, and this is where hope enters in. Having recognized that I did not do Maya any favors by neglecting my own mental health, I intend to be vigilent and proactive about my own mental state with her baby brother.
First of all, I do not have to worry about moving or social isolation this time around, which already gives me a sense of ease. We are settled into our new house and I've made friends locally. As for breastfeeding, I cannot predict if we'll also struggle or not, but I know now to immediately seek out a lactation consultant if need be, and we know of one through our church. We have develped a bit of a sense of community at our new church, and my faith has returned to a good working place. I know that there are a few things I have to keep at the forefront of my mind in order to avoid slipping back into mental chaos.
Daily prayer.
Weekly Mass attendance.
Monthly Confession.
Regular visits with friends (most likely playdates)
Regular alone time while kids enjoy daddy-and-me time (we started this with Maya)
Daily exercise: family walk or yoga while the kids play or dancing with the kids
Weekly one-on-one connection with each child (while Maya is having daddy-and-me time, baby brother is having mommy-and-me time, and vice versa)
Every few months, Alex and I need to find a way to connect just the two of us. (We don't require frequent date nights, as the past three years have proven. We are happy to take Maya with us when we go out to eat, and that is always a nice treat with no need to worry about childcare. Also, car trips usually allow for adult conversations, though lately our little jibber-jabber has been struggling with giving us our own conversation time.)
Annual spiritual retreat. I don't know if we'll be ready when baby brother is only 8 or 9 months old, as the annual women's retreat through our church is in August. It will all depend on his sleep and nursing.
Which actually brings me to the Balance aspect of attachment parenting, and how I hope it will contribute to a saner post-partum period and baby/toddler years. I did not hold anything back when it came to breastfeeding and cosleeping. What's more, I took it upon myself to practice elimination communication, which was great during the daytime, and Alex and I both agree that it was worth the effort (Maya has been diaper-free since 18 months, completely out of pull ups for backup on outings since 2.5, mostly bc we finally got up the courage to trust her.)
I was able to reestablish exclusive breastfeeding for three months before solids entered the picture with Maya, and I wanted to make up for the formula I had to feed her in the first three months of her life. I still intend to breastfeed on cue, however - especially if we are spared the trauma we went through with Maya - I now know that you can, indeed mix breast with bottle without any dire consequences (something I feared the first time around but was forced to find out was unwarranted), and so perhaps we can have some night feedings done by daddy with pumped milk, and if so, I may very well be able to attend next year's spiritual retreat.
Sleep. Sweet sleep. I simply cannot provide the same environment to my second baby as I did to my first, as that would involve neglecting my older child. I cannot be of any use to either of them sleep-deprived, and so I will be more strict in this sense. I do not adhere to crying it out. I do not believe in "sleep training" per se. However, I do now recognize that just because a baby cries doesn't mean I'm doing something wrong. I simply did not want to hear my daughter cry, and that was a mistake. With my son, I will take a different approach.
For starters, since we saw how successful it was for us to watch our daughter for signs of needing to use the potty, and how that enabled us to keep from teaching her to go in the diaper, then why can't we apply the same approach to sleep? Basically, we will watch him for signs of sleepiness, and place him in his bassinet to fall asleep there. I won't make it a habit of letting him fall asleep at the breast every time, even though I know it's only natural that he'll get drowsy nursing. I won't just drop him off and leave the room, either. But I want him to learn that sleep is something that he can do on his own, if still in the viscinity of loved ones. I don't see why I didn't do this with Maya. I kept a meticulous log of the times she ate, slept, eliminated! I could've easily looked back to see when I should be encouraging sleep by placing her down instead of letting her get used to falling asleep in our arms, especially at my breast. I will be keeping a log with baby brother too, so after the first week or two, I will look back to see if a rough "schedule" could be drafted for his sleep times. (I do shutter at the word "schedule" on one hand, but on the other hand, I know that limits allow freedom, both for me and the kids, so I just need to view it as something we do in moderation, but that we do do.)
And as for elimination communication, we will definitely do it again, but I will definitely not deprive myself of further sleep in order to be putting him on the potty in the middle of the night when he's still peeing multiple times at night! (I did this with Maya, and had to take a break at 10 months to save my sanity. Lo and behold, when I returned to it a few months later, I noticed she was able to hold her urine all night, and she actually started staying dry at night before daytime dryness.) So we will defintiely take him to the potty during the day when at home, but we will definitely not stress about him wearing diapers on outings, and I won't be getting up at night to put him on the potty for the first year. If I'm up anyway, to nurse him or change a diaper, then of course might as well sit him on the potty. But I need to stop waking up at every little sound and movement my cosleeping baby makes! If he pees in his diaper at night, so be it. The trade off is a happier, better rested mama. I'm sorry, but my Eco-Idol needs to go. I do now think that sanity is worth a diaper in the landfill (since I'd want disposables at night to minimize discomfort and thus wake-ups; cloth during the day for sure! I'm not planning on worrying about accidents left and right either by letting him go diaper-free before his skills have been tested.)
So with those three parenting adjustments, the different set of circumstances in our living situation, and my conscious decision to maintain a balance in my own well-being, I hope to keep post-partum depression/anxiety at bay, and by extension, keep my faith growing and going in the right direction.
This post started out being about the state of my faith, but I think the practical analysis will prove to be more helpful in its application. Bottom line, I do not want to lose my faith again. I am choosing to remain Catholic. I am choosing to believe in the fundementals of Catholicism. I am choosing to focus on those areas of Catholic faith and spirituality that nurture my desire for holiness and virtue. I am choosing to ignore those areas of faith that create in me any sense of doubt, skepticism, or temptation to "use my intellect or reason".
God exists. God created me. God loves me. Death is a mere transition to a more complete state of being with God. These things I know and believe with every fiber of my being, and these are the things I want to nurture from a uniquely Catholic perspective, because why not? Catholicism is my heritage, it's a beautiful religion, and it makes no difference that others may find exactly the same thing in another tradition. To each their own. Catholicism is for me.
It has been a long journey, over two years. Being given several months of clarity to reflect on what went wrong before being launched into the postpartum period again next month, I've been able to determine what went wrong. Why did I lose my faith? What can I do differently this time around?
You see, I pretty much blame postpartum depression/anxiety on my loss of faith. So as I prepare to give birth to baby #2 next month, I worried that any progress I may have made in the interim may be compromised yet again in the postpartum period.
Prior to the birth of Maya, Alex and I were very involved in our church community, had an active prayer life at home, and had overcome several trials of faith. Our prayers had been answered with the blessing of our daughter, and it killed me to be feeling anything but eternal gratitude to God.
Here's what I believe contributed to my postpartum depression/anxiety and the resulting loss of faith.
1. Breastfeeding challenges. Within a week of birth, I suffered nipple damage that resulted in a breast infection (mastisis), breast absceses that needed to be drained twice, and a yeast infection, all of which contributed to my limited milk supply and the heart-wrenching decision to supplement with formula. It took a full two months to resolve our breastfeeding challenges, thanks in huge part to a godsend of a lactation consultant, Angela, and the fact that Maya had a chance to grow a bit, thus resolving the low palate issue that caused the initial nipple damage.
2. Loss of familiar surroundings. Almost as soon as the breastfeeding issues were resolved, we sold our house and moved to be closer to Alex's work. While this was the best decision for our family without any doubt, it did bring about severe stress. For one, the house we spent a decade together, the house where I had just given birth to our daughter, was gone.
3. Loss of a support network. We moved out of state, away from what limited support network I would've otherwise had. I didn't know anyone, friend or relative, and was very isolated home alone with a newborn. As much as I've wanted and enjoyed being home with our daughter, in retrospect I see that I really needed some sort of social outlet to help normalize the situation.
4. Neglect of healthy lifestyle. We resorted to convenience foods, low on the nutritional scale, and certainly didn't think beyond getting sleep whenever possible. There was no thought of exercise, or hydration, or a social life outside the home, or personal development, or couple-time. There was only being "on" with full-on care of our baby, or desperately catching some sleep whenever possible. In my case in particular, sleep is a big necessity. My body requires 8-10 hours of uninterrupted sleep to feel fully refreshed. Needless to say I was not getting any meaningful stretch of uninterrupted sleep, much less the amount my body needs.
The above put me into survival mode. I was just going from day to day, trying to make sure our daughter was safe, fed, clean, repeat. I had completely ignored all other aspects of myself, my identity, my life. I avoided leaving the house, including to church, for the first month or so, finally venturing out for Christmas Vigil mass, because I didn't want germs around my precious baby. So even before we moved, I had distanced myself from the church community that meant so much to me. Somehow, prayer also got lost in the shuffle. There's no other way to describe it: I was in survival mode.
I had ridiculously high expectations of myself and what it meant to me to finally be given the opportunity to parent, to be a mother. That's why our breastfeeding challenges were such a deep blow to me. I couldn't even articulate the disapointment I felt over having to introduce a bottle on day 6 of Mayas life, of having to feed her factory-produced formula that I couldn't vouch for myself.
This muggy mental state that resulted, primarily from sleep deprivation but also from unrecognized stress factors (the move, social isolation, and already feeling like a failure in motherhood) contributed to the onset of my postpartum depression and anxiety. It either didn't kick in until after 6 weeks post-partum, or I didn't realize it was already underway until then. Afterall, I did go to my 2 week and 6 week postpartum visits with my midwife, and they do screen for depression, yet it wasn't flagged at those times. By the time my 6 month postpartum visit came around, I had been to hell and back mentally.
For four months straight, isolated and sleep deprived, I suffered from horrible visual images of worst-case scenarios popping into my mind throughout the day. There didn't seem to be any discernible trigger. If one of our dogs caught my attention, my mind went straight to my baby being attacked by the dog. If I wanted to go sit out on our balcony with baby on my lap, my mind went straight to accidentally tripping and dropping baby over the banister. I know parents worry, but this wasn't worry, this was as if I was having flash-backs of horrible things that actually happened. I imagine post-traumatic stress disorder works in a similar way. There's no reason for the thoughts, they just creep in and take over any sense of logic. I stopped watching crime shows with Alex at this time, and the news, thinking that perhaps the violence there is what subconsciously triggers violent thoughts for me. It's now been over two and a half years since I've been censoring what I view. (And if you knew me, you'd know how much I enjoyed watching shows like Elementary or NCIS with Alex.)
Presumably because my mind was constantly occupied with violent visuals or subconscious fears of another vision episode catching me off guard, I just went about my daily life on auto-pilot. Around four months post-partum, I started being able to incorporate housework into my daily life. I took tons of photos and videos of my precious daugher. I was very keenly aware of the miracle she was in multiple ways. My entire life revolved around doing everything I possibly could to give her the best start in life. I jumped into attachment parenting with both feet first, and only in retrospect have I realized that I completely ignored one of the principles of AP: balance. I did not seek to balance my daughter's needs with mine at all.
Most of our parenting decisions I continue to stand by, even though outsiders may think they contributed to my sense of overwhelm. However, I definitely went overboard with a few, and this is where hope enters in. Having recognized that I did not do Maya any favors by neglecting my own mental health, I intend to be vigilent and proactive about my own mental state with her baby brother.
First of all, I do not have to worry about moving or social isolation this time around, which already gives me a sense of ease. We are settled into our new house and I've made friends locally. As for breastfeeding, I cannot predict if we'll also struggle or not, but I know now to immediately seek out a lactation consultant if need be, and we know of one through our church. We have develped a bit of a sense of community at our new church, and my faith has returned to a good working place. I know that there are a few things I have to keep at the forefront of my mind in order to avoid slipping back into mental chaos.
Daily prayer.
Weekly Mass attendance.
Monthly Confession.
Regular visits with friends (most likely playdates)
Regular alone time while kids enjoy daddy-and-me time (we started this with Maya)
Daily exercise: family walk or yoga while the kids play or dancing with the kids
Weekly one-on-one connection with each child (while Maya is having daddy-and-me time, baby brother is having mommy-and-me time, and vice versa)
Every few months, Alex and I need to find a way to connect just the two of us. (We don't require frequent date nights, as the past three years have proven. We are happy to take Maya with us when we go out to eat, and that is always a nice treat with no need to worry about childcare. Also, car trips usually allow for adult conversations, though lately our little jibber-jabber has been struggling with giving us our own conversation time.)
Annual spiritual retreat. I don't know if we'll be ready when baby brother is only 8 or 9 months old, as the annual women's retreat through our church is in August. It will all depend on his sleep and nursing.
Which actually brings me to the Balance aspect of attachment parenting, and how I hope it will contribute to a saner post-partum period and baby/toddler years. I did not hold anything back when it came to breastfeeding and cosleeping. What's more, I took it upon myself to practice elimination communication, which was great during the daytime, and Alex and I both agree that it was worth the effort (Maya has been diaper-free since 18 months, completely out of pull ups for backup on outings since 2.5, mostly bc we finally got up the courage to trust her.)
I was able to reestablish exclusive breastfeeding for three months before solids entered the picture with Maya, and I wanted to make up for the formula I had to feed her in the first three months of her life. I still intend to breastfeed on cue, however - especially if we are spared the trauma we went through with Maya - I now know that you can, indeed mix breast with bottle without any dire consequences (something I feared the first time around but was forced to find out was unwarranted), and so perhaps we can have some night feedings done by daddy with pumped milk, and if so, I may very well be able to attend next year's spiritual retreat.
Sleep. Sweet sleep. I simply cannot provide the same environment to my second baby as I did to my first, as that would involve neglecting my older child. I cannot be of any use to either of them sleep-deprived, and so I will be more strict in this sense. I do not adhere to crying it out. I do not believe in "sleep training" per se. However, I do now recognize that just because a baby cries doesn't mean I'm doing something wrong. I simply did not want to hear my daughter cry, and that was a mistake. With my son, I will take a different approach.
For starters, since we saw how successful it was for us to watch our daughter for signs of needing to use the potty, and how that enabled us to keep from teaching her to go in the diaper, then why can't we apply the same approach to sleep? Basically, we will watch him for signs of sleepiness, and place him in his bassinet to fall asleep there. I won't make it a habit of letting him fall asleep at the breast every time, even though I know it's only natural that he'll get drowsy nursing. I won't just drop him off and leave the room, either. But I want him to learn that sleep is something that he can do on his own, if still in the viscinity of loved ones. I don't see why I didn't do this with Maya. I kept a meticulous log of the times she ate, slept, eliminated! I could've easily looked back to see when I should be encouraging sleep by placing her down instead of letting her get used to falling asleep in our arms, especially at my breast. I will be keeping a log with baby brother too, so after the first week or two, I will look back to see if a rough "schedule" could be drafted for his sleep times. (I do shutter at the word "schedule" on one hand, but on the other hand, I know that limits allow freedom, both for me and the kids, so I just need to view it as something we do in moderation, but that we do do.)
And as for elimination communication, we will definitely do it again, but I will definitely not deprive myself of further sleep in order to be putting him on the potty in the middle of the night when he's still peeing multiple times at night! (I did this with Maya, and had to take a break at 10 months to save my sanity. Lo and behold, when I returned to it a few months later, I noticed she was able to hold her urine all night, and she actually started staying dry at night before daytime dryness.) So we will defintiely take him to the potty during the day when at home, but we will definitely not stress about him wearing diapers on outings, and I won't be getting up at night to put him on the potty for the first year. If I'm up anyway, to nurse him or change a diaper, then of course might as well sit him on the potty. But I need to stop waking up at every little sound and movement my cosleeping baby makes! If he pees in his diaper at night, so be it. The trade off is a happier, better rested mama. I'm sorry, but my Eco-Idol needs to go. I do now think that sanity is worth a diaper in the landfill (since I'd want disposables at night to minimize discomfort and thus wake-ups; cloth during the day for sure! I'm not planning on worrying about accidents left and right either by letting him go diaper-free before his skills have been tested.)
So with those three parenting adjustments, the different set of circumstances in our living situation, and my conscious decision to maintain a balance in my own well-being, I hope to keep post-partum depression/anxiety at bay, and by extension, keep my faith growing and going in the right direction.
This post started out being about the state of my faith, but I think the practical analysis will prove to be more helpful in its application. Bottom line, I do not want to lose my faith again. I am choosing to remain Catholic. I am choosing to believe in the fundementals of Catholicism. I am choosing to focus on those areas of Catholic faith and spirituality that nurture my desire for holiness and virtue. I am choosing to ignore those areas of faith that create in me any sense of doubt, skepticism, or temptation to "use my intellect or reason".
God exists. God created me. God loves me. Death is a mere transition to a more complete state of being with God. These things I know and believe with every fiber of my being, and these are the things I want to nurture from a uniquely Catholic perspective, because why not? Catholicism is my heritage, it's a beautiful religion, and it makes no difference that others may find exactly the same thing in another tradition. To each their own. Catholicism is for me.
Sunday, March 20, 2016
Spring is in the Air!
And with it, it brings new life! Today marks the third anniversary of Maya's homecoming (ie. the day we transferred her embryo). Tomorrow we will find out if our last FET will give her a sibling or not. And over the weekend, yesterday in particular, there has been a resurrection of a different kind in my life.
For about the past two years, since after Maya's baptism and our move to Maryland, I have struggled with my faith. At first it was just not a priority, then as I tried to get back into it, I realized I didn't feel it was a good fit and considered other faith traditions (yet again), and finally, I tried to makes sense of the label of spiritual independent and/or Deist. Last August, I attended a women's retreat through my Catholic church as a last ditch effort to remain Catholic. The advice I was given on that retreat was to not only keep attending mass, but to go back to receiving Communion, even if I didn't believe in the Real Presence or the creed, because God would meet me where I was.
So I decided that I still had a birthright to the label Catholic, even if others might call me "lapsed". I tried to grow in the faith again by attending a Discovering Christ series with Alex (and Maya!), which went OK but didn't convince me of anything. This was all of fall. This spring we attended the follow-up to it, Following Christ, and it was even worse. I was bored out of my mind and I might as well have been attending an atheist convention, because I didn't share any of the beliefs or assumptions that were being presented. I had pretty much given up hope on truly being Catholic again, and made my peace with being a Deist. I joined a couple of online Deist groups, which actually haven't been very active, and that was that.
But I wasn't happy. This weekend I got an incredible urge to want to believe again. I researched "making yourself believe something you don't" and "what's the harm in believing something that isn't true" and I read with great interest what a bunch of skeptics/atheists/Deists had to say on the subject. At the end of their arguments, I was left with a singular observation.
I have long held at my core that the meaning of life is to find happiness, and to help others find contentment. And my current spiritual trajectory just wasn't bringing me happiness. I thought I was quite rational, believing only what the objective evidence (nature) would allow for, and simply didn't believe in the concept of God revealing Himself through a prophet or holy book. But in the end, what good does it do me even if I do only believe in evidence-based facts, if this doesn't bring me joy? Is truth only the sum of rational facts?
Upon further reflection, I realized that truth is relative. Truth, beauty, love - these are not experienced equally by every individual. One person can love another when others do not. One person can find something beautiful when others do not. One experience can be true for someone when it isn't true for someone else. So while religion doesn't agree that truth is relative, and neither do atheists apparently (who reveal themselves to be just as religious as theists in that sense), my personal conviction is that truth and fact are not interchangeable.
There may not be facts to back up everything taught by my religion, but I can find universal truth in the interpretation, in the metaphorical meaning. My problem has always been that I have been too literal. I assume what I hear and read is literal unless and until proven otherwise. I've tried to accept Catholic teaching on a non-literal level before, but yesterday, I think I was finally granted the grace to do so!
I started praying again. Praying in the sense of speaking my heart to God. Not just in lifting an intention in my mind's eye and envisioning it being immersed and enveloped in God's purifying light. I still think I'll treat intercessory prayer that way, at least for now. But I actually spoke to God, to Jesus, to be specific. I called Him Lord and it didn't make my stomach churn. I think I have distanced myself from my previous literal understanding of God long enough that it is no longer a conflict for me to think of Jesus as Lord. In the interim, God has become very distant, abstract, impersonal, unapproachable, unknowable. Jesus is the opposite of all of those things. And I do not feel like I'm betraying God-the-Father by lifting my heart to God-the-Son, bc I now consider the way God-the-Father operates is more from a distance, by delegating - if you will - to Jesus. As I was praying in front of our Divine Mercy image of Jesus, I felt God's approval - all of God, including God-the-Father. And I thought about the Trinity, a concept that gave me so much trouble before, and realized that it's not literal. The Trinity is simply a Christian koan, a riddle that is meant to make us realize that we are never going to be able to comprehend the full nature of God, so we really should stop trying!
The timing couldn't have been much better. I didn't even realize we were entering Holy Week. We have a secular calendar hanging in the kitchen, and I have missed mass the last few weeks, so I had no idea where we were in the liturgical year. And then yesterday at mass, I looked around at all the familiar rituals, objects, words, and I found comfort in them, and realized they were "true" all along, I just kept interpreting them too literally.
I give myself permission to disagree with certain interpretations and teachings of the Church, following the advice of the priest from my last retreat, namely that God would meet me where I'm at. I don't feel the need to be in agreement with other Catholics, or the Catechism, or the Vatican, in order to reap the rewards of Catholicism. I give myself permission to be a part of an imperfect church, even as the church denies being wrong on such issues as gay rights. I believe it will come around, though perhaps not in my lifetime. But instead of trying to find a perfect place of worship, which I think had become a scapegoat for my own personal imperfections, I am embracing an imperfect church. And by extension, I am accepting myself as an imperfect being.
I don't like the term "sin" and "sinner", but synonyms such as missing the mark, being broken, veering off the path, having shortcomings... these are all undeniable and essentially all that "sinning" really means. It's funny, I don't like to think of myself as a sinner. It bothered me to no end how much focus there seems to be in Christianity on all the wrong we do, all of our mistakes, instead of focusing on how we can improve. But if I'm being honest, how can I know what to aim for if I don't know where I'm coming from? The message of Jesus is that my mistakes do not define me. It's critical to be honest with myself and realize that I'm not perfect, but that it's ok. It's my own fault if I focus on the mistake and not on the remedy. The church has opportunities for both.
Later today I will be leaving the two Deist online groups. I will continue focusing all of my attention on finding meaning within the religious tradition that was given to me as a tool as part of my birthright. Yes, there is truth to be found in other religions, but that doesn't lessen the value of my own religion. The other religions are not there for me to convert to, but to learn from. My task is to work on my spirituality within the context of Catholicism. There will be challenges and disagreements, but I know from exploring other faith traditions that this was going to happen no matter what, in every conceivable tradition. The lesson is that we are not perfect, and neither are our human institutions (say, organized religion), but that's ok. The challenge is to learn to live within an imperfect world. To embrace acceptance. To be content with what is. To stop striving for a future time, a different place, and to get into the habit of perfecting every present moment, wherever we find ourselves.
Tomorrow I find out if we will have another baby. I'm leaning towards yes, that he's a boy, and that he will become a priest. And that he's the reason I have fully returned to the Church. I can't explain it any other way, except that today, I feel like fully Catholic again. And I thank God for that.
For about the past two years, since after Maya's baptism and our move to Maryland, I have struggled with my faith. At first it was just not a priority, then as I tried to get back into it, I realized I didn't feel it was a good fit and considered other faith traditions (yet again), and finally, I tried to makes sense of the label of spiritual independent and/or Deist. Last August, I attended a women's retreat through my Catholic church as a last ditch effort to remain Catholic. The advice I was given on that retreat was to not only keep attending mass, but to go back to receiving Communion, even if I didn't believe in the Real Presence or the creed, because God would meet me where I was.
So I decided that I still had a birthright to the label Catholic, even if others might call me "lapsed". I tried to grow in the faith again by attending a Discovering Christ series with Alex (and Maya!), which went OK but didn't convince me of anything. This was all of fall. This spring we attended the follow-up to it, Following Christ, and it was even worse. I was bored out of my mind and I might as well have been attending an atheist convention, because I didn't share any of the beliefs or assumptions that were being presented. I had pretty much given up hope on truly being Catholic again, and made my peace with being a Deist. I joined a couple of online Deist groups, which actually haven't been very active, and that was that.
But I wasn't happy. This weekend I got an incredible urge to want to believe again. I researched "making yourself believe something you don't" and "what's the harm in believing something that isn't true" and I read with great interest what a bunch of skeptics/atheists/Deists had to say on the subject. At the end of their arguments, I was left with a singular observation.
I have long held at my core that the meaning of life is to find happiness, and to help others find contentment. And my current spiritual trajectory just wasn't bringing me happiness. I thought I was quite rational, believing only what the objective evidence (nature) would allow for, and simply didn't believe in the concept of God revealing Himself through a prophet or holy book. But in the end, what good does it do me even if I do only believe in evidence-based facts, if this doesn't bring me joy? Is truth only the sum of rational facts?
Upon further reflection, I realized that truth is relative. Truth, beauty, love - these are not experienced equally by every individual. One person can love another when others do not. One person can find something beautiful when others do not. One experience can be true for someone when it isn't true for someone else. So while religion doesn't agree that truth is relative, and neither do atheists apparently (who reveal themselves to be just as religious as theists in that sense), my personal conviction is that truth and fact are not interchangeable.
There may not be facts to back up everything taught by my religion, but I can find universal truth in the interpretation, in the metaphorical meaning. My problem has always been that I have been too literal. I assume what I hear and read is literal unless and until proven otherwise. I've tried to accept Catholic teaching on a non-literal level before, but yesterday, I think I was finally granted the grace to do so!
I started praying again. Praying in the sense of speaking my heart to God. Not just in lifting an intention in my mind's eye and envisioning it being immersed and enveloped in God's purifying light. I still think I'll treat intercessory prayer that way, at least for now. But I actually spoke to God, to Jesus, to be specific. I called Him Lord and it didn't make my stomach churn. I think I have distanced myself from my previous literal understanding of God long enough that it is no longer a conflict for me to think of Jesus as Lord. In the interim, God has become very distant, abstract, impersonal, unapproachable, unknowable. Jesus is the opposite of all of those things. And I do not feel like I'm betraying God-the-Father by lifting my heart to God-the-Son, bc I now consider the way God-the-Father operates is more from a distance, by delegating - if you will - to Jesus. As I was praying in front of our Divine Mercy image of Jesus, I felt God's approval - all of God, including God-the-Father. And I thought about the Trinity, a concept that gave me so much trouble before, and realized that it's not literal. The Trinity is simply a Christian koan, a riddle that is meant to make us realize that we are never going to be able to comprehend the full nature of God, so we really should stop trying!
The timing couldn't have been much better. I didn't even realize we were entering Holy Week. We have a secular calendar hanging in the kitchen, and I have missed mass the last few weeks, so I had no idea where we were in the liturgical year. And then yesterday at mass, I looked around at all the familiar rituals, objects, words, and I found comfort in them, and realized they were "true" all along, I just kept interpreting them too literally.
I give myself permission to disagree with certain interpretations and teachings of the Church, following the advice of the priest from my last retreat, namely that God would meet me where I'm at. I don't feel the need to be in agreement with other Catholics, or the Catechism, or the Vatican, in order to reap the rewards of Catholicism. I give myself permission to be a part of an imperfect church, even as the church denies being wrong on such issues as gay rights. I believe it will come around, though perhaps not in my lifetime. But instead of trying to find a perfect place of worship, which I think had become a scapegoat for my own personal imperfections, I am embracing an imperfect church. And by extension, I am accepting myself as an imperfect being.
I don't like the term "sin" and "sinner", but synonyms such as missing the mark, being broken, veering off the path, having shortcomings... these are all undeniable and essentially all that "sinning" really means. It's funny, I don't like to think of myself as a sinner. It bothered me to no end how much focus there seems to be in Christianity on all the wrong we do, all of our mistakes, instead of focusing on how we can improve. But if I'm being honest, how can I know what to aim for if I don't know where I'm coming from? The message of Jesus is that my mistakes do not define me. It's critical to be honest with myself and realize that I'm not perfect, but that it's ok. It's my own fault if I focus on the mistake and not on the remedy. The church has opportunities for both.
Later today I will be leaving the two Deist online groups. I will continue focusing all of my attention on finding meaning within the religious tradition that was given to me as a tool as part of my birthright. Yes, there is truth to be found in other religions, but that doesn't lessen the value of my own religion. The other religions are not there for me to convert to, but to learn from. My task is to work on my spirituality within the context of Catholicism. There will be challenges and disagreements, but I know from exploring other faith traditions that this was going to happen no matter what, in every conceivable tradition. The lesson is that we are not perfect, and neither are our human institutions (say, organized religion), but that's ok. The challenge is to learn to live within an imperfect world. To embrace acceptance. To be content with what is. To stop striving for a future time, a different place, and to get into the habit of perfecting every present moment, wherever we find ourselves.
Tomorrow I find out if we will have another baby. I'm leaning towards yes, that he's a boy, and that he will become a priest. And that he's the reason I have fully returned to the Church. I can't explain it any other way, except that today, I feel like fully Catholic again. And I thank God for that.
Friday, January 29, 2016
Spiritual Independent in the Catholic Tradition
Last night I conducted a sort of thought-experiment. I imagined my daughter asking me what some aspect of Catholicism meant, how she was to understand it, what its relevance was to living a meaningful life.
First, I thought of the major figures and events of the Old Testament. I imagined telling my daughter that each of these stories was meant to convey a certain moral.
The Creation story is meant to remind us that we are made in the image of God, that we have that of God in us (as Quakers would say). Also, this story shows how it is human nature to always want more, since even living in paradise, Adam and Eve are shown to be dissatisfied. The consequences, of course, were dire, and the point of the story is that we should cultivate contentment, that learning to be content with where we are in life without constantly wanting something different or something more, is the key to a return to paradise.
Noah was given instructions from God that made no sense. He was ridiculed for building a giant arc no where near a water source. And yet, his dedication to being in tune with God, willing to listen for God's inspiration regardless if it is what we expect to "hear", led to him being the only one prepared to endure the legendary flood. The story also highlights the importance of the various members of the animal kingdom, as God desired for all of them to be saved along with the humans.
The tower of Babel shows that our different languages, cultures, religions serve to divide us, limiting our ability to work together towards a goal. Of course, the goal of the people in the story was to worship an idol, hardly a task worthy of enlightened persons. But the underlying point is that God originally wanted us to work together - it wasn't until the people in the story proved to try to use their community for bad that God put a stop to their nonsense. So with the right joint goal, it can be said that God wants us to work together and transcend the superficial differences of our societies.
Sarah and Abraham didn't receive their mission in the story of the Hebrew (and later Jewish) people until an old age. This goes to show that we are never too old to make a contribution, to do something worthwhile. (I absolutely refuse to engage in the other part of the story, child sacrifice.)
Moses led his people wandering around for generations. I think this is indicative of another aspect of the human condition. We search, we seek, we want to find God, even if we seem to constantly mess up along the way.
The proverbs are mini morality lessons, Cliff notes without the whole myth or legend to dig through. Just the bare pearls of wisdom.
Psalms and - one of my favorite books of the Bible - Isaiah are not so much stories with morals as they are expressions of praise and worship and adoration towards our wonderful creator. When we cannot find the words ourselves, we can turn to these books and find a reminder about how awe-inspiring God is, how miraculous life is.
Even the utterly tear-inducing borefest of Leviticus can be valuable. It shows in minute detail how one people - the ancient Hebrews - expressed their spirituality. The detail with which they tried to please God is noteworthy, even if not relevant to modern times or gentile people.
Next, as far as the New Testament, I strongly believe that Christianity is a religion started by Paul, who took advantage of Jesus's teachings and popularity and twisted it according to his own spiritual understanding. As such, I see little value in placing much of what's written there on the "truth spectrum". Even so, there is certainly plenty to be gained from the stories found there.
One of the values of the gospels can be found in what they have in common. That which is repeated, well, apparently bares repeating. The teachings that are attributed to Jesus, regardless if he actually taught them, stand alone. Each of Jesus's teachings can be taken to heart and applied to our modern lives. If we struggle with guilt or grudges, Jesus insists on our repentance and assures us of our forgiveness. If we struggle with keeping the various commandments, he breaks it down for us to the core, so we know what the motivation behind our thoughts, words, and actions ought to be. If we are stuck in a constant competition, comparing ourselves to others, Jesus reminds us what's important instead.
I really like the way Quakers are stereotypically said to hone down their values: integrity, peace, simplicity, equality, community, stewardship. Jesus not only teaches these things through his sermons, but he lives them and exemplifies them through the stories about him.
The incarnation story takes place in the womb of an unlikely candidate. A woman, a young girl really, is elevated to the role of God-bearer and later (in Catholic and Orthodox theology anyway) Queen of Heaven. Equality. In the story of the nativity, Jesus is born in a barn among hay and animals. Simplicity. He travels around with his disciples, and he slowly expands the circle of his audience to include gentiles. Community. He dines with people no respectable person would dine with. Equality and peace. His passion, crucifixion, and death are an incredible testament to his integrity and commitment to peace. He has opportunities to change what he preaches, to go back on what he's said, in order to save his life but he doesn't. Even stewardship can be found in how he alludes to the lessons we should take from nature - the sparrow who doesn't collect into barns yet is fed, the wildflower that doesn't spin yet is marvelously clothed. Nature, it would seem, is there to teach us, not to be trampled on.
I also like how the Rosary gives each of the main events of the story of Jesus a core value or spiritual gem to ponder. These vary somewhat depending on the source, but include gratitude for the gift of faith, fidelity, desire for holiness, spiritual courage, and love for the Eucharistic Lord (Luminous Mysteries instituted by pope St John Paul the Great). That last one is clearly Catholic-specific, but we can easily simplify it to "love of God". (The Joyful Mysteries encourage us to ponder: humility, love of neighbor, poverty of spirit, purity of mind and body, and obedience. The Sorrowful Mysteries: acceptance of God's will, mortification of the senses, reign of Christ in our heart [Quakers would say "Christ within", or "God within"], patient bearing of trials, and pardoning of injuries. The Glorious Mysteries: faith, hope, gifts of the Holy Spirit [ability to be inspired by God], "to Jesus through Mary" [value in intersession], and grace of final perseverance.)
Finally, I also considered the regular ritual practice of mass attendance in my thought experiment. I continue to participate regularly with my husband and daughter in spite of having completely made peace with the fact that I am no longer Christian. Nonetheless, I am staying put on Sundays because there is still much spiritual wealth in the practices, even if my understanding of them is different from the "official" beliefs.
We gather together regularly for the very basic human need to form community. We sing, pray, and hopefully learn together, as well as contribute financially to the greater good. These acts remind us of our social nature and that we have a place in the community.
The stories of the Old and New Testament are read and expounded upon, so even those who never crack open the Bible on their own have the benefit of being exposed to the moral lessons discussed above.
But as Catholics, the center of our worship is the Eucharist. I have never stopped feeling something special about being in the presence of the Eucharist. It has been ingrained in me, and I welcome having this opportunity to still link to my old Catholic faith. Yes, God is everywhere, but when something is too wide-spread, it loses its appeal. When something is overdone, it stops being special. That's why we celebrate birthdays, holidays. They are special days set aside to remember someone or something worth remembering. That's not to say we shouldn't remember them any other day. But without that special designation, everything becomes mundane.
And so, being able to step foot in a Catholic church, stand in front of the tabernacle, and become aware of the enveloping silence around me, I'm able to truly come to grips with the fact that I am standing on holy ground. I am in the presence of God. It's not that this place is more holy than any other place, or that God is more present here than anywhere else. But the reminder makes it very real for me.
Then, we are invited not just to be in God's presence, but to actually come up and receive holy Communion. We are being allowed to physically experience the spiritual reality of God being a part of us. There is that of God in all of us. Literally. Not only that, but watching others receive Communion reminds me that each and every one of these people is made in the image of God, has that of God in them. I don't have to know them, agree with them, or even like them. God made them and lives in them all the same. What a beautiful reminder!
And then, at the end of Mass, we are told to go forth and take what we've learned, what we've experienced, into the world. So in a sense, we are told to include everyone we meet or come in contact with in this realization that God lives in them too. And so we are encouraged not to limit our experience of God to this time and place, but to have our weekly church attendance nourish our souls for the week, so that we can stand in the presence of God on the street, in our living room, under a tree, stuck in traffic, in an elevator, in line at the store, in the waiting room at the doctor's, and remember how God is there with us, in the people around us.
The interesting thing about this thought experiment is that it occurred to me halfway through that by just framing the Catholic teachings as "stories" and the "sacraments" as "ritual reminders", all of a sudden I don't experience my defenses kicking in, resulting in a blockage to gaining any spiritual benefit from any of it. Instead, I'm able to hear the deeper meaning and grow spiritually. As a Spiritual Independent, in the Catholic tradition.
First, I thought of the major figures and events of the Old Testament. I imagined telling my daughter that each of these stories was meant to convey a certain moral.
The Creation story is meant to remind us that we are made in the image of God, that we have that of God in us (as Quakers would say). Also, this story shows how it is human nature to always want more, since even living in paradise, Adam and Eve are shown to be dissatisfied. The consequences, of course, were dire, and the point of the story is that we should cultivate contentment, that learning to be content with where we are in life without constantly wanting something different or something more, is the key to a return to paradise.
Noah was given instructions from God that made no sense. He was ridiculed for building a giant arc no where near a water source. And yet, his dedication to being in tune with God, willing to listen for God's inspiration regardless if it is what we expect to "hear", led to him being the only one prepared to endure the legendary flood. The story also highlights the importance of the various members of the animal kingdom, as God desired for all of them to be saved along with the humans.
The tower of Babel shows that our different languages, cultures, religions serve to divide us, limiting our ability to work together towards a goal. Of course, the goal of the people in the story was to worship an idol, hardly a task worthy of enlightened persons. But the underlying point is that God originally wanted us to work together - it wasn't until the people in the story proved to try to use their community for bad that God put a stop to their nonsense. So with the right joint goal, it can be said that God wants us to work together and transcend the superficial differences of our societies.
Sarah and Abraham didn't receive their mission in the story of the Hebrew (and later Jewish) people until an old age. This goes to show that we are never too old to make a contribution, to do something worthwhile. (I absolutely refuse to engage in the other part of the story, child sacrifice.)
Moses led his people wandering around for generations. I think this is indicative of another aspect of the human condition. We search, we seek, we want to find God, even if we seem to constantly mess up along the way.
The proverbs are mini morality lessons, Cliff notes without the whole myth or legend to dig through. Just the bare pearls of wisdom.
Psalms and - one of my favorite books of the Bible - Isaiah are not so much stories with morals as they are expressions of praise and worship and adoration towards our wonderful creator. When we cannot find the words ourselves, we can turn to these books and find a reminder about how awe-inspiring God is, how miraculous life is.
Even the utterly tear-inducing borefest of Leviticus can be valuable. It shows in minute detail how one people - the ancient Hebrews - expressed their spirituality. The detail with which they tried to please God is noteworthy, even if not relevant to modern times or gentile people.
Next, as far as the New Testament, I strongly believe that Christianity is a religion started by Paul, who took advantage of Jesus's teachings and popularity and twisted it according to his own spiritual understanding. As such, I see little value in placing much of what's written there on the "truth spectrum". Even so, there is certainly plenty to be gained from the stories found there.
One of the values of the gospels can be found in what they have in common. That which is repeated, well, apparently bares repeating. The teachings that are attributed to Jesus, regardless if he actually taught them, stand alone. Each of Jesus's teachings can be taken to heart and applied to our modern lives. If we struggle with guilt or grudges, Jesus insists on our repentance and assures us of our forgiveness. If we struggle with keeping the various commandments, he breaks it down for us to the core, so we know what the motivation behind our thoughts, words, and actions ought to be. If we are stuck in a constant competition, comparing ourselves to others, Jesus reminds us what's important instead.
I really like the way Quakers are stereotypically said to hone down their values: integrity, peace, simplicity, equality, community, stewardship. Jesus not only teaches these things through his sermons, but he lives them and exemplifies them through the stories about him.
The incarnation story takes place in the womb of an unlikely candidate. A woman, a young girl really, is elevated to the role of God-bearer and later (in Catholic and Orthodox theology anyway) Queen of Heaven. Equality. In the story of the nativity, Jesus is born in a barn among hay and animals. Simplicity. He travels around with his disciples, and he slowly expands the circle of his audience to include gentiles. Community. He dines with people no respectable person would dine with. Equality and peace. His passion, crucifixion, and death are an incredible testament to his integrity and commitment to peace. He has opportunities to change what he preaches, to go back on what he's said, in order to save his life but he doesn't. Even stewardship can be found in how he alludes to the lessons we should take from nature - the sparrow who doesn't collect into barns yet is fed, the wildflower that doesn't spin yet is marvelously clothed. Nature, it would seem, is there to teach us, not to be trampled on.
I also like how the Rosary gives each of the main events of the story of Jesus a core value or spiritual gem to ponder. These vary somewhat depending on the source, but include gratitude for the gift of faith, fidelity, desire for holiness, spiritual courage, and love for the Eucharistic Lord (Luminous Mysteries instituted by pope St John Paul the Great). That last one is clearly Catholic-specific, but we can easily simplify it to "love of God". (The Joyful Mysteries encourage us to ponder: humility, love of neighbor, poverty of spirit, purity of mind and body, and obedience. The Sorrowful Mysteries: acceptance of God's will, mortification of the senses, reign of Christ in our heart [Quakers would say "Christ within", or "God within"], patient bearing of trials, and pardoning of injuries. The Glorious Mysteries: faith, hope, gifts of the Holy Spirit [ability to be inspired by God], "to Jesus through Mary" [value in intersession], and grace of final perseverance.)
Finally, I also considered the regular ritual practice of mass attendance in my thought experiment. I continue to participate regularly with my husband and daughter in spite of having completely made peace with the fact that I am no longer Christian. Nonetheless, I am staying put on Sundays because there is still much spiritual wealth in the practices, even if my understanding of them is different from the "official" beliefs.
We gather together regularly for the very basic human need to form community. We sing, pray, and hopefully learn together, as well as contribute financially to the greater good. These acts remind us of our social nature and that we have a place in the community.
The stories of the Old and New Testament are read and expounded upon, so even those who never crack open the Bible on their own have the benefit of being exposed to the moral lessons discussed above.
But as Catholics, the center of our worship is the Eucharist. I have never stopped feeling something special about being in the presence of the Eucharist. It has been ingrained in me, and I welcome having this opportunity to still link to my old Catholic faith. Yes, God is everywhere, but when something is too wide-spread, it loses its appeal. When something is overdone, it stops being special. That's why we celebrate birthdays, holidays. They are special days set aside to remember someone or something worth remembering. That's not to say we shouldn't remember them any other day. But without that special designation, everything becomes mundane.
And so, being able to step foot in a Catholic church, stand in front of the tabernacle, and become aware of the enveloping silence around me, I'm able to truly come to grips with the fact that I am standing on holy ground. I am in the presence of God. It's not that this place is more holy than any other place, or that God is more present here than anywhere else. But the reminder makes it very real for me.
Then, we are invited not just to be in God's presence, but to actually come up and receive holy Communion. We are being allowed to physically experience the spiritual reality of God being a part of us. There is that of God in all of us. Literally. Not only that, but watching others receive Communion reminds me that each and every one of these people is made in the image of God, has that of God in them. I don't have to know them, agree with them, or even like them. God made them and lives in them all the same. What a beautiful reminder!
And then, at the end of Mass, we are told to go forth and take what we've learned, what we've experienced, into the world. So in a sense, we are told to include everyone we meet or come in contact with in this realization that God lives in them too. And so we are encouraged not to limit our experience of God to this time and place, but to have our weekly church attendance nourish our souls for the week, so that we can stand in the presence of God on the street, in our living room, under a tree, stuck in traffic, in an elevator, in line at the store, in the waiting room at the doctor's, and remember how God is there with us, in the people around us.
The interesting thing about this thought experiment is that it occurred to me halfway through that by just framing the Catholic teachings as "stories" and the "sacraments" as "ritual reminders", all of a sudden I don't experience my defenses kicking in, resulting in a blockage to gaining any spiritual benefit from any of it. Instead, I'm able to hear the deeper meaning and grow spiritually. As a Spiritual Independent, in the Catholic tradition.
Monday, December 28, 2015
Honing Down on a Spiritual Practice
How can I at once be drawn to the person of Jesus and simultaneously ambivalent (at best) to the religion I believe best represents the movement He supposedly started? I've been looking for a spiritual practice where I can base my values on Jesus, because they're familiar and resonate with me as true. Yet at the same time, I didn't feel comfortable in a spiritual practice drenched in the concepts of original sin, being hell-bound, human sacrifice to appease a vengeful god, and suffering as the new happiness. You know, Christianity.
I knew Islam claims to respect Jesus, even Mary, but really, there is nothing in their practice based on Jesus as a central figure. Obviously Judaism is either ambivalent or downright antagonistic towards the figure of Jesus. Lots of comparisons can be found between Jesus and Buddha (Sidhrtha Gautama), but no Buddhist follows Jesus; rather, they take refuge in the Buddha, the Dhamma, and the Sangha. Buddhists do not take refuge in the Christ. Some of the newer movements sparked my interest too, but ever so briefly. The Unitarian Universalists and the Baha'i in particular. But there was something gnawing at me to put my faith in an ancient tradition.
In fact, while in high school, a Japanese exchange student once asked me why I was a Catholic (she was an atheist). I remember giving her a very simplistic reason. Catholicism was the original Christianity, which was born from the oldest religion, ie. Judaism, therefore must be true. Something lame like that. Never mind that I now know that Hinduism is actually the world's oldest religion.
Apparently there may be room for what I'm looking for, for someone like me, within the Hindu tradition. Apparently, Jesus (as Ishu) is an actual prominent figure for some Hindus, who look to Him as their guru. Could it be that I could follow the example and teachings of Jesus outside of Christianity after all?
I've always held a very childish idea of God. Something like a cross between a genie and Santa Clause. He's all-powerful, so he can grant any wish to anyone, if only he desires. But he is also just in that if I've been bad, I will not get what's on my wishlist. Even though I would mouth the words that God is all-powerful, having this very fantastical view of him automatically limited him to, well, the realm of fantasy. I think this is why I struggled with the Trinity. There was no need for the Son and the Spirit, if we already had the Santa-Genie God. I just couldn't phathom their purpose in my worldview.
Lately, I've become more and more aware of the fact that my view of God has changed, has become less and less graspable, less personal and more transcendent. God's physical body (that which occupied my mind) dissolved and enveloped the entire universe (or multiverse). He is now barely detectable, yet still undeniably there. But he doesn't sit down to converse with people anymore. He doesn't engage in our petty human tit-for-tat. He doesn't waste time (sic!) weighing our good deeds against our bad deeds, or lamenting the fact that His perfect plan for a utopian universe went to hell when He allowed us free will.
No, these are human traits, human stories, human explanations. God simply is. He is in the business of creating, sustaining, breathing life into living beings, transforming dying creatures into something strictly spiritual. He sees the big picture and doesn't fret over disasters like we do. He knows everything is temporary because that's the way He made it. Only His eternal creativity is eternal. We call it love, that God is love, because we all want to be loved, and what better boost to our self-confidence than to believe the Almighty loves us. But love - the way I have understood and experienced it - automatically means favoring someone over someone else. We marry the person we love, not everyone. We prefer our own children to those of others because we love our children and only like other people's kids (if that!). As with everything else, without a contrast, nothing stands on its own. God loving me makes no sense if He equally loves everyone else. Then it's not really love, is it? It's something more mundane, less intense and passionate. Again, God created everything to have an opposite. Love is one of those wonderful gifts He created and gave us. Love is how we can feel secure while in this earthly realm of ours. We cannot imagine God not loving us, yet it's exactly what I think limits Him in our minds.
So, if God-the-Creator is not so much personal as the Universal Force, then it starts to make sense why Christians came up with the concept of the Trinity. The Holy Spirit is the very breath we breathe, our inspiration, that which carries us from moment to moment until we are ready to be reunited with our Divine Source. And Jesus is a way for us to have a God who loves us. Jesus the historical figure, didn't tell people "God loves you". He did say "love one another as I have loved you", but He didn't say "I love you because God loves me. Pass it on." He took the mysterious power of God and translated it into something we both longed for and could understand. He loved us. Even this is problematic, if we believe that Jesus is God and/or that Jesus loves everyone. We're then back to the dilemma of no contrast to His love. If He loves us, whom does He not love? Aha! Enter Satan! Jesus hates Satan. Satan is our enemy. We fight against Satan by siding with Jesus.
Only I've never really been on board with the whole Satan concept. It implies a duality beyond the source. Either the Divine Source had within it evil that split into Satan, or it was a separate entity all along, which begs the question, how can there be two sources?
On the one hand, I say that theology shouldn't matter so long as morality and ethics are there. On the other hand, I cannot imagine a spiritual practice bringing me peace and joy if I am not convinced that it is based on, and leading me to, truth. I've tried the whole "fake it till you make it" approach, which may work for some people, or in some circumstances, but a spiritual practice just seems to be too important for me to approach it willy-nilly.
I cannot imagine going through the rest of my life without spirituality playing a central role, but I have to embrace something that brings me peace and joy and motivates me to live like Jesus taught.
I know this means I have to start spending daily time in silence, preferably in nature but not necessarily, in order to just allow myself to decompress from the constant noise in my mind. With time, I'll want to increase the length of this silence until I give myself enough time to not just quiet my mind, but allow inspiration to enter. I may need to chant or count breaths or lean on some other crutch at first in order to keep busy thoughts at bay. I've found in the past that yoga is a great way for me to focus on the present moment. I need to start doing yoga regularly, ending with a period of silent sitting, having given myself a chance to detox from the noise of the every day.
I also need to choose a few of my all-time favorite spiritual songs and listen to them and/or sing them, again, on a daily basis. This will give me something positive and uplifting to focus on, especially when I am drowning in worry or negativity. Perhaps a few songs before yoga, followed by meditation?
One thing I know is that I cannot allow myself to think that reading or writing can take the place of my spiritual practice. I've tried spiritual journaling and Lectio Divina, and while they are both good resources, I think they can at best be supplements to the spiritual practice I've outlined above.
So I will begin this week with five minutes of singing/listening to music, five minutes of yoga, and five minutes of meditation (Quakers would call it waiting worship). I will squeeze these in whenever I can, by next week shooting for combining them into a single 15-minute stretch of time. Then I'll revisit the practice after a week.
Perhaps if I click "publish", I will feel obligated to really give it a go...
I knew Islam claims to respect Jesus, even Mary, but really, there is nothing in their practice based on Jesus as a central figure. Obviously Judaism is either ambivalent or downright antagonistic towards the figure of Jesus. Lots of comparisons can be found between Jesus and Buddha (Sidhrtha Gautama), but no Buddhist follows Jesus; rather, they take refuge in the Buddha, the Dhamma, and the Sangha. Buddhists do not take refuge in the Christ. Some of the newer movements sparked my interest too, but ever so briefly. The Unitarian Universalists and the Baha'i in particular. But there was something gnawing at me to put my faith in an ancient tradition.
In fact, while in high school, a Japanese exchange student once asked me why I was a Catholic (she was an atheist). I remember giving her a very simplistic reason. Catholicism was the original Christianity, which was born from the oldest religion, ie. Judaism, therefore must be true. Something lame like that. Never mind that I now know that Hinduism is actually the world's oldest religion.
Apparently there may be room for what I'm looking for, for someone like me, within the Hindu tradition. Apparently, Jesus (as Ishu) is an actual prominent figure for some Hindus, who look to Him as their guru. Could it be that I could follow the example and teachings of Jesus outside of Christianity after all?
I've always held a very childish idea of God. Something like a cross between a genie and Santa Clause. He's all-powerful, so he can grant any wish to anyone, if only he desires. But he is also just in that if I've been bad, I will not get what's on my wishlist. Even though I would mouth the words that God is all-powerful, having this very fantastical view of him automatically limited him to, well, the realm of fantasy. I think this is why I struggled with the Trinity. There was no need for the Son and the Spirit, if we already had the Santa-Genie God. I just couldn't phathom their purpose in my worldview.
Lately, I've become more and more aware of the fact that my view of God has changed, has become less and less graspable, less personal and more transcendent. God's physical body (that which occupied my mind) dissolved and enveloped the entire universe (or multiverse). He is now barely detectable, yet still undeniably there. But he doesn't sit down to converse with people anymore. He doesn't engage in our petty human tit-for-tat. He doesn't waste time (sic!) weighing our good deeds against our bad deeds, or lamenting the fact that His perfect plan for a utopian universe went to hell when He allowed us free will.
No, these are human traits, human stories, human explanations. God simply is. He is in the business of creating, sustaining, breathing life into living beings, transforming dying creatures into something strictly spiritual. He sees the big picture and doesn't fret over disasters like we do. He knows everything is temporary because that's the way He made it. Only His eternal creativity is eternal. We call it love, that God is love, because we all want to be loved, and what better boost to our self-confidence than to believe the Almighty loves us. But love - the way I have understood and experienced it - automatically means favoring someone over someone else. We marry the person we love, not everyone. We prefer our own children to those of others because we love our children and only like other people's kids (if that!). As with everything else, without a contrast, nothing stands on its own. God loving me makes no sense if He equally loves everyone else. Then it's not really love, is it? It's something more mundane, less intense and passionate. Again, God created everything to have an opposite. Love is one of those wonderful gifts He created and gave us. Love is how we can feel secure while in this earthly realm of ours. We cannot imagine God not loving us, yet it's exactly what I think limits Him in our minds.
So, if God-the-Creator is not so much personal as the Universal Force, then it starts to make sense why Christians came up with the concept of the Trinity. The Holy Spirit is the very breath we breathe, our inspiration, that which carries us from moment to moment until we are ready to be reunited with our Divine Source. And Jesus is a way for us to have a God who loves us. Jesus the historical figure, didn't tell people "God loves you". He did say "love one another as I have loved you", but He didn't say "I love you because God loves me. Pass it on." He took the mysterious power of God and translated it into something we both longed for and could understand. He loved us. Even this is problematic, if we believe that Jesus is God and/or that Jesus loves everyone. We're then back to the dilemma of no contrast to His love. If He loves us, whom does He not love? Aha! Enter Satan! Jesus hates Satan. Satan is our enemy. We fight against Satan by siding with Jesus.
Only I've never really been on board with the whole Satan concept. It implies a duality beyond the source. Either the Divine Source had within it evil that split into Satan, or it was a separate entity all along, which begs the question, how can there be two sources?
On the one hand, I say that theology shouldn't matter so long as morality and ethics are there. On the other hand, I cannot imagine a spiritual practice bringing me peace and joy if I am not convinced that it is based on, and leading me to, truth. I've tried the whole "fake it till you make it" approach, which may work for some people, or in some circumstances, but a spiritual practice just seems to be too important for me to approach it willy-nilly.
I cannot imagine going through the rest of my life without spirituality playing a central role, but I have to embrace something that brings me peace and joy and motivates me to live like Jesus taught.
I know this means I have to start spending daily time in silence, preferably in nature but not necessarily, in order to just allow myself to decompress from the constant noise in my mind. With time, I'll want to increase the length of this silence until I give myself enough time to not just quiet my mind, but allow inspiration to enter. I may need to chant or count breaths or lean on some other crutch at first in order to keep busy thoughts at bay. I've found in the past that yoga is a great way for me to focus on the present moment. I need to start doing yoga regularly, ending with a period of silent sitting, having given myself a chance to detox from the noise of the every day.
I also need to choose a few of my all-time favorite spiritual songs and listen to them and/or sing them, again, on a daily basis. This will give me something positive and uplifting to focus on, especially when I am drowning in worry or negativity. Perhaps a few songs before yoga, followed by meditation?
One thing I know is that I cannot allow myself to think that reading or writing can take the place of my spiritual practice. I've tried spiritual journaling and Lectio Divina, and while they are both good resources, I think they can at best be supplements to the spiritual practice I've outlined above.
So I will begin this week with five minutes of singing/listening to music, five minutes of yoga, and five minutes of meditation (Quakers would call it waiting worship). I will squeeze these in whenever I can, by next week shooting for combining them into a single 15-minute stretch of time. Then I'll revisit the practice after a week.
Perhaps if I click "publish", I will feel obligated to really give it a go...
Saturday, December 19, 2015
Personal or Impersonal God?
At the core of my spiritual quest over the years, there had always been one constant: a personal God. But with my recent reversion to Cultural Catholicism, I'm trying to make sense of the role spirituality ought to play in my life now that I'm essentially nonreligious.
My beliefs in terms of the big questions are simple and straightforward, with little explanation. With every fiber of my being, I believe, nay, I KNOW, that everything that exists was created. At some point, some laws of physics and other mysterious forces we may not yet know about (as was the case until recently with quantum mechanics, quarks and all), were placed into motion, and from there the world that we now know evolved. Somehow, for some reason. I do not speculate as to when that was, or why. But I do not doubt for one second that there was an act of will on the part of an intelligent source thanks to which we have our being.
The second point of my minimalist belief system is that death is merely a transition, like all other things in the known universe. I cannot think of a single experience, single even, that has a definitive ending and beginning. Rather, I see everything is in a constant state of transition. We are both dying and being reborn simultaneously and continuously. We fall asleep and for all intents of our personal consciousness, cease to exist (with the rare exception of lucid dreaming). Then we awake and reflect back on the fact that we were asleep and carry on in our wakeful state as if nothing happened. We do not dwell on having temporarily died, nor do we agonize over having our conscience die yet again the following night.
I find it interesting that people claim to only believe what they can see, what they can understand. I know I'm not in the minority when I say that I actually do not fully grasp how radio waves, much less television, works. All I know is that there's electricity involved, and some computer coding, software and hardware, all of which must be working in perfect alignment for me to be able to watch my favorite show. I don't understand it. But because I can experience watching my favorite show, I know there is an explanation, and that's actually enough for me. I don't need to be a physicist, computer programmer, electrician, before I can enjoy my show. So why do people insist - like I have done for years - that they must first grasp who God is and by extension what that means for us and our lives before we can start living, enjoying life, and doing the right thing?
I do not know if we reincarnate as lesser or greater beings based on our karma, or if we remain humans in our next life, or if we reincarnate at all. I do not know if we fall into a deep unconscious slumber until some designated "Judgment Day", or if we are immediately judged to be worthy of heaven or not at the moment of our death. I do not know if our bodies will by physically resurrected, and if so, will I get my 37 year old body or a younger or older version?
To be honest, I find all of these hypotheses (for that is all I see them as) to be a bit far-fetched and too literal. I think what makes spirituality and the divine mysterious is precisely that we cannot explain it in terms of our everyday experiences. We can approximate, but nothing more. I think most religious adherents are simply too literal in their understanding of their faith.
What I actually do think happens after death, and this is a work in progress, always open to adjustments as new information makes itself known, is based on who I think "I" am at my core. I don't think my body is what makes me who I am, eternally speaking. My body has changed drastically since the time I was still in the womb. We shed our cells regularly, and I read that every seven years or so, the cells in our entire body have been replaced with new ones. If this is true (from science), then how can I think that my body is what makes me who I am? There is something else that maintains my sense of self through all of those bodily changes.
I don't think it's our personality either. As we mature, as we have different experiences, as we learn and grow, we see the world in a different light. Some aspects of our personality may remain, like introversion or extroversion, but I cannot say that I am the same "person" that I was twenty years ago. At age 17, I was graduating high school and learning to toe my way into the "real world" (whatever that is) with my best friend Rachel as my guide. I was in a chaotic state of figuring out how to make my life meaningful. I went from wanting to pursue religious life (being quickly discouraged from this endeavor by my family) to joining AmeriCorp (my application missed the deadline) to shipping off for the Army's Basic Training Course.
Twenty years later, my best friend Rachel has crossed over to the other side (of death, that is). I ended up hating the Army and spent a little over one year there. Rather than finding my independence, as I had intended, I found my life's partner instead. We married, enjoyed life as a couple for a while, struggled with infertility for many years, and finally welcomed our daughter two years ago. And instead of religious life, I'm now nonreligious. No, my personality is not what makes me who I am either.
There is something mysterious, something that cannot be grasped with the intellectual faculties, that holds us together and carries us through life. It is something so nuanced that the moment you start to define it, you get it wrong. It's something that intersects who we are as physical beings, emotional beings, and intellectual beings. Many people call this something a "soul", though usually it is thought to be very non-physical in nature. I actually think it is absolutely rooted in the most minuscule particles of existence.
Quantum physics absolutely intrigues me, as it describes concepts such as bilocation and time travel as real, except on the level of quarks. How can we begin to conceptualize God or our true nature as it comes from God, if time is a construct with no basis in reality? Time-space, actually, is seen as a single phenomenon, interdependent. We experience time and space because we live in it. But after death (and for argument's sake, before conception), we are not bound by either. We can be anywhere, do anything. We are not God per se. We are God's fingers, toes, etc.
Teresa of Avila said it beautifully when she said:
Christ has no body but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
Compassion on this world,
Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good,
Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world.
Yours are the hands, yours are the feet,
Yours are the eyes, you are his body.
Christ has no body now but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
compassion on this world.
Christ has no body now on earth but yours.
And to continue a bit with the Catholic tradition, in spite of calling myself a "revert to Cultural Catholicism", I actually do currently believe in the transubstantiation of the bread and wine into the essence of Jesus Christ. And it's not because the church says so, actually! It's because of quantum physics and what I've learned about quarks being able to exist simultaneously in two "time-space" places at the same time. God is outside of time, right? During the Liturgy of the Eucharist, we have an opportunity to attune ourselves to a time warp of sorts, where we are given a front row seat at Calvary.
Now, that said, just because I believe this doesn't mean it's not disturbing, or that the rest of Christian theology makes any sense to me. My immediate question is, why would I want to be present at an execution? A torturous one at that, of an innocent man! I'm not some sort of sadist who gets his kicks from watching others suffer. So what I actually think is the point of that part of our religious service is a reminder of innocent suffering (so that we are moved to act to lessen it) and a reminder of the possibility to transcend one's own suffering. I think the same role is played by the image of the crucified Christ at the altar, and the stations of the cross in every Catholic church. No, it's not feel-good religion. It's difficult, but it's real. It can truly lead us to something beyond our mundane everyday experiences, if only we let it.
While we're on the subject of Catholic belief, I also believe in the Virgin Birth. That said, I am not committed to it being unique to Jesus. Because early embryonic cells have the potential to grow into any of the necessary cells that a human needs (hence the interest in embryonic stem cell research), it doesn't sound like a stretch at all for a single cell, Mary's ovum, to somehow have carried the necessary y chromosome in order to grow baby Jesus in her womb. Of course, this isn't something she could've willed into being. This is where the hand of God comes in, and it is best if we leave it at that, because once we start to guess why God may have done such a thing, we end up with religion (aka theories and hypotheses about the unknowable will of God).
I don't think Jesus's conception needed to be miraculous (which only means "unexplained by current scientific knowledge") in order for Him to teach what He taught. Yes, I realize that the Christian religion states that it is not so much what Jesus taught that is important, but what He did (namely "take our place on the cross"). Not being Christian, I do not subscribe to this notion. I do not believe in so-called original sin or the wrath of God. Instead, I believe that Jesus's crucifixion was inevitable as far as the natural consequences of being a rebel of thought in his society. The value of his sacrifice (to me) comes in the fact that he was perfectly aware of the consequences of what he taught publicly, but he refused to stay silent. He provided an example that has been followed since, not only in the church-sanctioned saints of the faith, but also in the secular heroes and heroines who have fought for social justice and civil rights, all too often paying the ultimate price for the courage of their convictions. This is not blasphemy. After all, we are told to "be Christ to others".
Finally, we have the Resurrection, another teaching that I do not see any reason for discarding. Countless people "saw Jesus" after his death. What they saw is really moot, other than to say that it was real to them and changed their lives. It doesn't matter if they saw his literal physical body, the one that was nailed to a cross. It doesn't matter if it was some new, transcendent yet still physical body that is now held up as a promise for anyone willing to follow him. It could just as well have been a vision, a hallucination, a dream, a hologram. Why do we assign greater worth to that which can be clearly discerned with our five basic senses, yet ignore the truth that can be known through intuition or discernment?
So for me, Jesus taught very important lessons. He was willing to die for them, because he believed his lessons had the power to transform lives. And they do. And the fact that people experienced (and continue to experience) his presence in some way is only confirmation of the fact that he can continue to teach us these lessons, if we only listen.
I think the reason we are taught to focus on the person of Jesus (rather than his teachings) is simply a way to remind us to do what he said - empty ourselves and deny ourselves and put ourselves last. We cannot go though life polishing our many virtues and patting ourselves on the back and expect to live a transformed life. Jesus called us to go beyond the basic golden rule. Jesus called us to try to see the big picture. I think we are entering an age when that will be more and more possible, with the insights gleaned from quantum physics!
Why do most religions preach helping others? There must be something in the deepest part of who we are that remembers that we are all interconnected, that we are not merely individuals living together on this planet. Where I end and you begin.... there's a transition there that isn't quite as clear-cut as we like to think.
Ok, so is God personal or impersonal? I think that as far as we are persons having a personal experience in this lifetime, God is likewise personal. God encompasses whatever experiences we can imagine, because God is the source of them all. But to say that God is "a person", as in just like us, is to make God in our own image, idolatry! God is beyond simply an elder Father-King sitting in the clouds looking down at us. And this is what I believe was the intention of putting forth the belief in God as a Trinity, this "both-and-neither" answer that simply doesn't satisfy our meager human intellect, when we try to limit our understanding only to what our brains can do! I don't think the point is that God is literally a Spirit-Man (Father), Savior-Son (Jesus), and Holy Spirit (like a very important angel maybe?). The point was precisely to stop our incessant philosophizing over the nature of God, as if we have any right to understand God or grasp God's vastness or greatness, as if we have a right to qualify our worship based on our understanding. The Trinity is a western koan! What is the sound of one hand clapping? What does the color red taste like? What is the nature of God?
I actually think we will know everything we need to know once we cross from this life. I think children are still very close to our source and can better intuit God than adults can. I think some of us, probably through mere openness to the Spirit, can indeed experience God's presence without the limitations of human language, either in dreams, or visions, or just through quiet reflection. Sadly, most of us spend too much time paying lip service to how great God is and too little time acting as though we actually believe what has been taught about God by some of the greatest religious-philosophical thinkers of all time (Jesus included). Do we really treat others the way we would want to be treated? Or do we only treat those that aren't too different from us with kindness? Do we look for excuses to ignore people's struggles, or do we look for opportunities to help? That is how we really worship God; not in ritual and lip service, but in spirit and in truth.
My beliefs in terms of the big questions are simple and straightforward, with little explanation. With every fiber of my being, I believe, nay, I KNOW, that everything that exists was created. At some point, some laws of physics and other mysterious forces we may not yet know about (as was the case until recently with quantum mechanics, quarks and all), were placed into motion, and from there the world that we now know evolved. Somehow, for some reason. I do not speculate as to when that was, or why. But I do not doubt for one second that there was an act of will on the part of an intelligent source thanks to which we have our being.
The second point of my minimalist belief system is that death is merely a transition, like all other things in the known universe. I cannot think of a single experience, single even, that has a definitive ending and beginning. Rather, I see everything is in a constant state of transition. We are both dying and being reborn simultaneously and continuously. We fall asleep and for all intents of our personal consciousness, cease to exist (with the rare exception of lucid dreaming). Then we awake and reflect back on the fact that we were asleep and carry on in our wakeful state as if nothing happened. We do not dwell on having temporarily died, nor do we agonize over having our conscience die yet again the following night.
I find it interesting that people claim to only believe what they can see, what they can understand. I know I'm not in the minority when I say that I actually do not fully grasp how radio waves, much less television, works. All I know is that there's electricity involved, and some computer coding, software and hardware, all of which must be working in perfect alignment for me to be able to watch my favorite show. I don't understand it. But because I can experience watching my favorite show, I know there is an explanation, and that's actually enough for me. I don't need to be a physicist, computer programmer, electrician, before I can enjoy my show. So why do people insist - like I have done for years - that they must first grasp who God is and by extension what that means for us and our lives before we can start living, enjoying life, and doing the right thing?
I do not know if we reincarnate as lesser or greater beings based on our karma, or if we remain humans in our next life, or if we reincarnate at all. I do not know if we fall into a deep unconscious slumber until some designated "Judgment Day", or if we are immediately judged to be worthy of heaven or not at the moment of our death. I do not know if our bodies will by physically resurrected, and if so, will I get my 37 year old body or a younger or older version?
To be honest, I find all of these hypotheses (for that is all I see them as) to be a bit far-fetched and too literal. I think what makes spirituality and the divine mysterious is precisely that we cannot explain it in terms of our everyday experiences. We can approximate, but nothing more. I think most religious adherents are simply too literal in their understanding of their faith.
What I actually do think happens after death, and this is a work in progress, always open to adjustments as new information makes itself known, is based on who I think "I" am at my core. I don't think my body is what makes me who I am, eternally speaking. My body has changed drastically since the time I was still in the womb. We shed our cells regularly, and I read that every seven years or so, the cells in our entire body have been replaced with new ones. If this is true (from science), then how can I think that my body is what makes me who I am? There is something else that maintains my sense of self through all of those bodily changes.
I don't think it's our personality either. As we mature, as we have different experiences, as we learn and grow, we see the world in a different light. Some aspects of our personality may remain, like introversion or extroversion, but I cannot say that I am the same "person" that I was twenty years ago. At age 17, I was graduating high school and learning to toe my way into the "real world" (whatever that is) with my best friend Rachel as my guide. I was in a chaotic state of figuring out how to make my life meaningful. I went from wanting to pursue religious life (being quickly discouraged from this endeavor by my family) to joining AmeriCorp (my application missed the deadline) to shipping off for the Army's Basic Training Course.
Twenty years later, my best friend Rachel has crossed over to the other side (of death, that is). I ended up hating the Army and spent a little over one year there. Rather than finding my independence, as I had intended, I found my life's partner instead. We married, enjoyed life as a couple for a while, struggled with infertility for many years, and finally welcomed our daughter two years ago. And instead of religious life, I'm now nonreligious. No, my personality is not what makes me who I am either.
There is something mysterious, something that cannot be grasped with the intellectual faculties, that holds us together and carries us through life. It is something so nuanced that the moment you start to define it, you get it wrong. It's something that intersects who we are as physical beings, emotional beings, and intellectual beings. Many people call this something a "soul", though usually it is thought to be very non-physical in nature. I actually think it is absolutely rooted in the most minuscule particles of existence.
Quantum physics absolutely intrigues me, as it describes concepts such as bilocation and time travel as real, except on the level of quarks. How can we begin to conceptualize God or our true nature as it comes from God, if time is a construct with no basis in reality? Time-space, actually, is seen as a single phenomenon, interdependent. We experience time and space because we live in it. But after death (and for argument's sake, before conception), we are not bound by either. We can be anywhere, do anything. We are not God per se. We are God's fingers, toes, etc.
Teresa of Avila said it beautifully when she said:
Christ has no body but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
Compassion on this world,
Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good,
Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world.
Yours are the hands, yours are the feet,
Yours are the eyes, you are his body.
Christ has no body now but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
compassion on this world.
Christ has no body now on earth but yours.
And to continue a bit with the Catholic tradition, in spite of calling myself a "revert to Cultural Catholicism", I actually do currently believe in the transubstantiation of the bread and wine into the essence of Jesus Christ. And it's not because the church says so, actually! It's because of quantum physics and what I've learned about quarks being able to exist simultaneously in two "time-space" places at the same time. God is outside of time, right? During the Liturgy of the Eucharist, we have an opportunity to attune ourselves to a time warp of sorts, where we are given a front row seat at Calvary.
Now, that said, just because I believe this doesn't mean it's not disturbing, or that the rest of Christian theology makes any sense to me. My immediate question is, why would I want to be present at an execution? A torturous one at that, of an innocent man! I'm not some sort of sadist who gets his kicks from watching others suffer. So what I actually think is the point of that part of our religious service is a reminder of innocent suffering (so that we are moved to act to lessen it) and a reminder of the possibility to transcend one's own suffering. I think the same role is played by the image of the crucified Christ at the altar, and the stations of the cross in every Catholic church. No, it's not feel-good religion. It's difficult, but it's real. It can truly lead us to something beyond our mundane everyday experiences, if only we let it.
While we're on the subject of Catholic belief, I also believe in the Virgin Birth. That said, I am not committed to it being unique to Jesus. Because early embryonic cells have the potential to grow into any of the necessary cells that a human needs (hence the interest in embryonic stem cell research), it doesn't sound like a stretch at all for a single cell, Mary's ovum, to somehow have carried the necessary y chromosome in order to grow baby Jesus in her womb. Of course, this isn't something she could've willed into being. This is where the hand of God comes in, and it is best if we leave it at that, because once we start to guess why God may have done such a thing, we end up with religion (aka theories and hypotheses about the unknowable will of God).
I don't think Jesus's conception needed to be miraculous (which only means "unexplained by current scientific knowledge") in order for Him to teach what He taught. Yes, I realize that the Christian religion states that it is not so much what Jesus taught that is important, but what He did (namely "take our place on the cross"). Not being Christian, I do not subscribe to this notion. I do not believe in so-called original sin or the wrath of God. Instead, I believe that Jesus's crucifixion was inevitable as far as the natural consequences of being a rebel of thought in his society. The value of his sacrifice (to me) comes in the fact that he was perfectly aware of the consequences of what he taught publicly, but he refused to stay silent. He provided an example that has been followed since, not only in the church-sanctioned saints of the faith, but also in the secular heroes and heroines who have fought for social justice and civil rights, all too often paying the ultimate price for the courage of their convictions. This is not blasphemy. After all, we are told to "be Christ to others".
Finally, we have the Resurrection, another teaching that I do not see any reason for discarding. Countless people "saw Jesus" after his death. What they saw is really moot, other than to say that it was real to them and changed their lives. It doesn't matter if they saw his literal physical body, the one that was nailed to a cross. It doesn't matter if it was some new, transcendent yet still physical body that is now held up as a promise for anyone willing to follow him. It could just as well have been a vision, a hallucination, a dream, a hologram. Why do we assign greater worth to that which can be clearly discerned with our five basic senses, yet ignore the truth that can be known through intuition or discernment?
So for me, Jesus taught very important lessons. He was willing to die for them, because he believed his lessons had the power to transform lives. And they do. And the fact that people experienced (and continue to experience) his presence in some way is only confirmation of the fact that he can continue to teach us these lessons, if we only listen.
I think the reason we are taught to focus on the person of Jesus (rather than his teachings) is simply a way to remind us to do what he said - empty ourselves and deny ourselves and put ourselves last. We cannot go though life polishing our many virtues and patting ourselves on the back and expect to live a transformed life. Jesus called us to go beyond the basic golden rule. Jesus called us to try to see the big picture. I think we are entering an age when that will be more and more possible, with the insights gleaned from quantum physics!
Why do most religions preach helping others? There must be something in the deepest part of who we are that remembers that we are all interconnected, that we are not merely individuals living together on this planet. Where I end and you begin.... there's a transition there that isn't quite as clear-cut as we like to think.
Ok, so is God personal or impersonal? I think that as far as we are persons having a personal experience in this lifetime, God is likewise personal. God encompasses whatever experiences we can imagine, because God is the source of them all. But to say that God is "a person", as in just like us, is to make God in our own image, idolatry! God is beyond simply an elder Father-King sitting in the clouds looking down at us. And this is what I believe was the intention of putting forth the belief in God as a Trinity, this "both-and-neither" answer that simply doesn't satisfy our meager human intellect, when we try to limit our understanding only to what our brains can do! I don't think the point is that God is literally a Spirit-Man (Father), Savior-Son (Jesus), and Holy Spirit (like a very important angel maybe?). The point was precisely to stop our incessant philosophizing over the nature of God, as if we have any right to understand God or grasp God's vastness or greatness, as if we have a right to qualify our worship based on our understanding. The Trinity is a western koan! What is the sound of one hand clapping? What does the color red taste like? What is the nature of God?
I actually think we will know everything we need to know once we cross from this life. I think children are still very close to our source and can better intuit God than adults can. I think some of us, probably through mere openness to the Spirit, can indeed experience God's presence without the limitations of human language, either in dreams, or visions, or just through quiet reflection. Sadly, most of us spend too much time paying lip service to how great God is and too little time acting as though we actually believe what has been taught about God by some of the greatest religious-philosophical thinkers of all time (Jesus included). Do we really treat others the way we would want to be treated? Or do we only treat those that aren't too different from us with kindness? Do we look for excuses to ignore people's struggles, or do we look for opportunities to help? That is how we really worship God; not in ritual and lip service, but in spirit and in truth.
Tuesday, November 10, 2015
Lectio Divina Gospel of Luke
Below are the verses that jumped out at me over the past month or so of time spent with the Word of God in the Gospel of Luke. Underneath, I list the parts of these verses that resonated with me in particular, and then I try to make sense of the conversation that is unfolding between God and me.
Luke 1:4 "So that you may realize the certainty of the teachings you have received."
Luke 2:35 "So that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed."
Luke 3:8 "Produce good fruit as evidence of your repentance."
Luke 4:36 "They were all amazed and said to one another, 'What is there about his word? For with authority and power [Jesus] commands the unclean spirits, and they come out."
Luke 5:5 "Master, we have worked hard all night and have caught nothing, but at your command, I will lower the nets."
Luke 6:40 "No disciple is superior to the teacher, but when fully trained, every disciple will be like [the] teacher."
Luke 7:24 "What did you go out to the desert to see?"
Luke 8:10 "[Jesus] answered, 'Knowledge of the mysteries of the Kingdom of God has been granted to you.'"
Luke 9:23 "If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me."
Luke 10:41-42 "You are anxious and worried about many things. There is need of only one thing."
Luke 11:33 "No one who lights a lamp hides it or places it under a bushel basket, but on a lamp stand so that those who enter might see the light."
Luke 12:8 "Everyone who acknowledges me before others the Son of Man will acknowledge before the angels of God."
Luke 13:24 "Strive to enter through the narrow gate, for many, I tell you, will attempt to enter but will not be strong enough."
Luke 14:11 "For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted."
Luke 15:7 "There will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 righteous people who have no need of repentance."
Luke 16:13 "No servant can serve two masters. He will either hate one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon."
Luke 17:5 "And the Apostles said to the Lord, 'Increase our faith'."
Luke 18:1 "Then [Jesus] told them a parable about the necessity for them to pray always without becoming weary."
Luke 19:10 "For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save what was lost."
Luke 19:46 [Jesus said] to them, "It is written, 'My house shall be a house of prayer.'"
Luke 20:36 They can no longer die, for they are like angels; ad they are the children of God because they are the ones who will rise.
Luke 21:38 And all the people would get up early each morning to listen to Him in the temple area.
Luke 22:41 After withdrawing about a stone's throw from them and kneeling, He prayed.
Luke 23:42 "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom."
Luke 24:45 Then He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures.
Certainty of the teachings
thoughts of many hearts
evidence of your repentance
with authority and power [Jesus] commands
but at your command, I will
when fully trained, every disciple will be like [the] teacher
What did you go [...] to see
Knowledge [...] has been granted to you
deny himself and take up his cross daily
There is need of only one thing
so that those who enter might see the light
acknowledges me before others
strive to enter through the narrow gate
one who humbles himself will be exalted
joy in heaven over one sinner who repents
no servant can serve two masters [...] You cannot serve God and mammon.
Increase our faith.
pray always without becoming weary
For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save
My house shall be a house of prayer
hey are the ones who will rise
Get up early each morning to listen to Him
Kneeling, He prayed
Jesus, remember me
He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures.
Luke's gospel hasn't been as clear to me as was Mark's. I do see the Lord trying to offer me the wisdom and understanding that I am seeking in terms of the spiritual life, and hinting at how to receive it. To show proof of my repentance, I am to do what Jesus commands, seek Him in the desert (retreat), deny myself and take up my cross daily, acknowledge Him before others, strive to enter through the narrow gate, humble myself, choose between God and whatever else is taking the focus away from Him, and pray a lot!
In return, the Lord is offering me the certainty that His teachings are true and will reveal the thoughts of many hearts, that He has the authority and power to command unclean spirits even, that He is willing to train me as His disciple, that I can receive the knowledge of the mysteries of the Kingdom of God, that I can be an instrument of His grace for others to see the light, that I can be assured of the joy in heaven over my repentance, that my faith can and will increase, because Jesus came to seek and to save me from the lost state I am in.
It seems to me that for now, I am being told to stay the course and trust God to reveal Himself and His ongoing plan for me in His own time. I am not to make demands on God before agreeing to commit to Him. I have to sit in my discomfort and await God's next move.
There was a beautiful prayer in a little red book, Hearts Ablaze-Praying with Jesuits, that talked about just this. But in my minimalist fervor coupled with my time away from the Church, I gave away that book. I guess life is full of regrets, big and small, but God - Jesus covers it all. As He says in Luke 10:42, "There is need of only one thing." Curiously, He says this to Martha, who was complaining to the Lord about her sister Mary. This was the theme on my women's retreat that brought me back into the fold.
There is need of only one thing.
What is that one thing?
Faith? Prayer? Repentance?
That is what I hope will be revealed to me in the second half of Luke's gospel. All three are needed, I know, but which is the foundation?
I initially divided this post into two parts (hence two quotes from Luke 19), because the second part started with the Passion Narrative. My questions from above were immediately answered as I began to take notes for the remaining verses. The one thing needed is prayer! Everything else flows from a life of prayer. Faith comes from a life of prayer. Repentance is the result of a prayerful attitude towards God. Virtues come from daily prayer. Joy and peace come from prayer. How does one have faith without prayer?! Who repents for their wrongdoings without first spending time in prayer, where they are convicted of their sin? At least prayer makes it easier and more obvious to repent.
And so I am convicted to spend more time in prayer. I honestly don't really think of my time in Lectio Divina as prayer. Or maybe prayer-lite. It's reading, so it's enjoyable to me, and it easily becomes an intellect activity. But at a recent church talk I also realized I wasn't incorporating an aspect of Lectio Divina that I should've. Namely, I haven't been using my time with Scriptures as an opportunity to enter into the story in a contemplative manner. So as I begin with the next gospel, I shall do so.
For every problem I have, I should turn to prayer. For every frustration, prayer. For every disappointment, prayer. For every doubt, prayer. For every sorrow, prayer. For every pain, prayer.
But also, for every reminder of grace, I should turn to God in thanksgiving prayer. For every day, prayer. For every encounter with a kind person, prayer. For every moment spent with my daughter, prayer. For every conversation had with my husband, prayer. For every time I find a redeeming quality in someone, myself included, prayer. Pray without ceasing - St. Paul said that for a reason, eh? It's the narrow gate that Jesus spoke of, isn't it?
Let us pray...
Luke 1:4 "So that you may realize the certainty of the teachings you have received."
Luke 2:35 "So that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed."
Luke 3:8 "Produce good fruit as evidence of your repentance."
Luke 4:36 "They were all amazed and said to one another, 'What is there about his word? For with authority and power [Jesus] commands the unclean spirits, and they come out."
Luke 5:5 "Master, we have worked hard all night and have caught nothing, but at your command, I will lower the nets."
Luke 6:40 "No disciple is superior to the teacher, but when fully trained, every disciple will be like [the] teacher."
Luke 7:24 "What did you go out to the desert to see?"
Luke 8:10 "[Jesus] answered, 'Knowledge of the mysteries of the Kingdom of God has been granted to you.'"
Luke 9:23 "If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me."
Luke 10:41-42 "You are anxious and worried about many things. There is need of only one thing."
Luke 11:33 "No one who lights a lamp hides it or places it under a bushel basket, but on a lamp stand so that those who enter might see the light."
Luke 12:8 "Everyone who acknowledges me before others the Son of Man will acknowledge before the angels of God."
Luke 13:24 "Strive to enter through the narrow gate, for many, I tell you, will attempt to enter but will not be strong enough."
Luke 14:11 "For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted."
Luke 15:7 "There will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 righteous people who have no need of repentance."
Luke 16:13 "No servant can serve two masters. He will either hate one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon."
Luke 17:5 "And the Apostles said to the Lord, 'Increase our faith'."
Luke 18:1 "Then [Jesus] told them a parable about the necessity for them to pray always without becoming weary."
Luke 19:10 "For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save what was lost."
Luke 19:46 [Jesus said] to them, "It is written, 'My house shall be a house of prayer.'"
Luke 20:36 They can no longer die, for they are like angels; ad they are the children of God because they are the ones who will rise.
Luke 21:38 And all the people would get up early each morning to listen to Him in the temple area.
Luke 22:41 After withdrawing about a stone's throw from them and kneeling, He prayed.
Luke 23:42 "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom."
Luke 24:45 Then He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures.
Certainty of the teachings
thoughts of many hearts
evidence of your repentance
with authority and power [Jesus] commands
but at your command, I will
when fully trained, every disciple will be like [the] teacher
What did you go [...] to see
Knowledge [...] has been granted to you
deny himself and take up his cross daily
There is need of only one thing
so that those who enter might see the light
acknowledges me before others
strive to enter through the narrow gate
one who humbles himself will be exalted
joy in heaven over one sinner who repents
no servant can serve two masters [...] You cannot serve God and mammon.
Increase our faith.
pray always without becoming weary
For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save
My house shall be a house of prayer
hey are the ones who will rise
Get up early each morning to listen to Him
Kneeling, He prayed
Jesus, remember me
He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures.
Luke's gospel hasn't been as clear to me as was Mark's. I do see the Lord trying to offer me the wisdom and understanding that I am seeking in terms of the spiritual life, and hinting at how to receive it. To show proof of my repentance, I am to do what Jesus commands, seek Him in the desert (retreat), deny myself and take up my cross daily, acknowledge Him before others, strive to enter through the narrow gate, humble myself, choose between God and whatever else is taking the focus away from Him, and pray a lot!
In return, the Lord is offering me the certainty that His teachings are true and will reveal the thoughts of many hearts, that He has the authority and power to command unclean spirits even, that He is willing to train me as His disciple, that I can receive the knowledge of the mysteries of the Kingdom of God, that I can be an instrument of His grace for others to see the light, that I can be assured of the joy in heaven over my repentance, that my faith can and will increase, because Jesus came to seek and to save me from the lost state I am in.
It seems to me that for now, I am being told to stay the course and trust God to reveal Himself and His ongoing plan for me in His own time. I am not to make demands on God before agreeing to commit to Him. I have to sit in my discomfort and await God's next move.
There was a beautiful prayer in a little red book, Hearts Ablaze-Praying with Jesuits, that talked about just this. But in my minimalist fervor coupled with my time away from the Church, I gave away that book. I guess life is full of regrets, big and small, but God - Jesus covers it all. As He says in Luke 10:42, "There is need of only one thing." Curiously, He says this to Martha, who was complaining to the Lord about her sister Mary. This was the theme on my women's retreat that brought me back into the fold.
There is need of only one thing.
What is that one thing?
Faith? Prayer? Repentance?
That is what I hope will be revealed to me in the second half of Luke's gospel. All three are needed, I know, but which is the foundation?
I initially divided this post into two parts (hence two quotes from Luke 19), because the second part started with the Passion Narrative. My questions from above were immediately answered as I began to take notes for the remaining verses. The one thing needed is prayer! Everything else flows from a life of prayer. Faith comes from a life of prayer. Repentance is the result of a prayerful attitude towards God. Virtues come from daily prayer. Joy and peace come from prayer. How does one have faith without prayer?! Who repents for their wrongdoings without first spending time in prayer, where they are convicted of their sin? At least prayer makes it easier and more obvious to repent.
And so I am convicted to spend more time in prayer. I honestly don't really think of my time in Lectio Divina as prayer. Or maybe prayer-lite. It's reading, so it's enjoyable to me, and it easily becomes an intellect activity. But at a recent church talk I also realized I wasn't incorporating an aspect of Lectio Divina that I should've. Namely, I haven't been using my time with Scriptures as an opportunity to enter into the story in a contemplative manner. So as I begin with the next gospel, I shall do so.
For every problem I have, I should turn to prayer. For every frustration, prayer. For every disappointment, prayer. For every doubt, prayer. For every sorrow, prayer. For every pain, prayer.
But also, for every reminder of grace, I should turn to God in thanksgiving prayer. For every day, prayer. For every encounter with a kind person, prayer. For every moment spent with my daughter, prayer. For every conversation had with my husband, prayer. For every time I find a redeeming quality in someone, myself included, prayer. Pray without ceasing - St. Paul said that for a reason, eh? It's the narrow gate that Jesus spoke of, isn't it?
Let us pray...
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