Nothing is Wasted

When I am suffering some kind of small and ridiculous problem, what can I do? I can offer it to God, and offer myself to God.

What matters is that, here and now, it is "I" who am afflicted; the circumstances of this situation are calling on me to make a sacrifice, to recognize the mystery of my own life and to say, "Lord, this belongs to you, this moment belongs to you, 'I' belong to you."

The world is a communion of sacrifice. How little we understand of what God can build out of the circumstances we consider worthless. Love does not have to feel sweet. Anyone who has changed a poopy diaper knows that. The power of sacrifice is beyond our measure. Offer everything. When I offer, there is--however faintly it may seem--the recognition that "I," my circumstances, the whole world, belongs to Someone Else, to Christ--the Christ who suffered and triumphed and inaugurated the New Creation. It is His. I am His. Nothing is wasted, thrown away, lost, stupid, meaningless.

Real life is the affirmation of this through sacrifice, through letting go of my idea, through the constant abandonment of my limited perspective, my measure, my attachment to my own expectations, including especially my expectations about myself. I am frustrated with myself. Offer the frustration. Do not cease to love, to aspire, to cherish ideals, to struggle, to do good, but remember that it all belongs to Him and that He shapes everything according to a plan that He knows is right for me.

February 3, 2011

Right Now, Right Where You Are....

Think, think, think, write, write, write, read, read, read, think, think, think, doubt, doubt, fear, fear, think, think, read, read, read, think, read, write, doubt, FEAR....

Really, its as simple as Teresa popping into the office and asking for an apple slice.

He is here.

I can't hold myself together with a comprehensive understanding of myself, or with stuff, or with anything that I try to capture with my conniving and my worrying.

Instead something happens. Someone comes. Someone Else is here.

This is what Christmas teaches me. Of all the billions of people born in human history, there is one who -- right now -- says to me, "I am the meaning of your life."

"I am what you are searching for, what you keep trying to make for yourself, in an effort that leads to desperation again and again, because you know that what you're looking for is beyond all your thinking and understanding and expression; you know its out of reach...."

"Don't be anxious. I have come to dwell with you. I am here, right now, right where you are. And I love you."

Whatever darkness you suffer, remember that He is here.

Whatever sorrow, confusion, guilt: He is here.

He wants to bring you through. He loves you.

"I have come into the world to be its light" (John 12:46).

Rejoice! Its the Christmas season. Happy Christmas Season!

Why Are We Always So Frustrated?

Everything is grace,

Everything is the direct effect of our Father's love. 

Everything is grace, because everything is God's gift....

--St. Therese of Lisieux

Everything? Really??

Okay, I can do the theology here, but when it comes to actual stuff that happens ... its very hard to see everything as a gift. Sometimes "everything" is a train wreck. Where is the "gift"?

At such times, it seems easier to understand that proverb of contemporary worldly wisdom, which might be paraphrased as: "Life stinks and then you die!"

But no. Those are always words of profound dissatisfaction. The human person knows they are wrong. If there is any "resignation" in them, its only in the attempt to make a cynical peace with the idea that the universe is one big scam.

But I can't say "I've been cheated by life" except from the expectation that life is supposed to give me something, that at the heart of life there is a promise.

Thus, people go on hoping for something, and if they say things like this its because they are trying to cope with a sense of frustration that seems to renew itself over and over again.

I usually don't go so far as to say that "life stinks..." (well, not lately anyway). But I do feel that "life is often frustrating."

How can my frustration be a gift? Why do I have to live with frustration, day after day; dull, throbbing frustration aching through the day; frustration like a prison that seems to build walls in every direction? What's the "gift" in that?

Well, frustration provokes me; it challenges my freedom, and my sense of who I am.

In the face of frustration, I can choose to give up. I can say "life stinks" and wallow in pity for my isolated self.

Or I can remember that my very self is a gift, and that this moment of frustration (with all of its bitterness, pain, and incomprehensibility) is a gift because it deepens my awareness of who I really am. It reminds me in a concrete way that I am made for something greater, something beyond my control, something I don't make or measure or manage, something that I can't find anywhere in this world.

Nevertheless, this "something" is real. It is at the root of me, it sustains me, and it carves itself into my heart in the form of a promise.

What does my five year old daughter do when she's frustrated by something?

"Daddy, Daddy, Daddy, Daddy! Help! Please help!" She asks for help. She asks Daddy to come.

What do I do if I see Josefina crying, helpless, frustrated by something because she's just too small to understand it?

I go to her and pick her up and hold her. She still cries. Sometimes she cries even more. It seems like she doesn't even notice I'm there.

But I am there, and I keep holding on to her.