Where the Catholic Sun Doth Shine

Crazypants!

I've thought a lot about it and I think I know what to say here, finally, about my praying weekend. It's not about the Holy Spirit stuff - sorry to disappoint. I would be so happy to share those things and have those conversations via email! But my biggest hope for this silly Catholic blog is that it's accessible for people who aren't Christian, and since listening prayer often seems large and wild to people who ARE Christian, well, we are into baby steps here. 

But I do have something to share, that I actually really really want to share, so here goes. 

Okay so first of all, I'm just going to say it and be confident in it: I am called to intercessory prayer (where you are praying on behalf of someone or something). I just am. Some people are called to missions or teaching or evangelism or rocking out on the guitar in a worship team or being one of those diehard social justice-preaching nuns I just love. I am called to pray, God has given me gifts in prayer, and I've known this since high school, even though I didn't quite know what to call it or what it was. 

So! That said! I AM REALLY BAD AT IT. 

It's this really messed up, twisted, icky conglomeration of things, really. For one thing, I'm not really bad at it. You can't really be bad at something you are called to do and for which God has given you gifts. And it's not a SKILL, though you can certainly benefit from training and the wisdom of others and confidence and the experiences that come with time. You can't be BAD at it. What "bad" means, for me, in this context, is that WHILE I am praying I am constantly - and I do mean constantly - sinning in and around it. 

UGH. It is true. And that's where the twisted mess lies: all sorts of tiny sins all smushed together that separate me from what God is really trying to DO in me. 

There's the sin of arrogance. I know I am called to this, I know I have gifts in this, therefore I see myself as "good" at it. Which is just as wrong as saying I'm bad at it. How can you be good at something that is truly only something God has given you, that only he makes possible and allows you to do? But I persist in thinking highly of myself because things "happen" when I am praying with others. Obvs it is all me. My pursuit of Valedictorian of Intercessory Prayer Times is horrifying, and I am curling into the fetal position of shame just telling you about it. 

There's the sin of desiring the praise of men. My absolute favorite hymn, "Be Thou My Vision" has this line: Riches I heed not nor man's empty praise. Every single time I hear that line I cry. EVERY TIME. My whole life has been in pursuit of praise. (All you enneagram scholars, sing it with me now: THREE!) So often when I'm praying with others I am compelled to "perform". There's this dark spot in my mind that knows if I say or do something while praying, people will be... not necessarily impressed, but it will reinforce, in their minds, that this is something I'm, again, "good" at. FOR SHAME, MAGGIE CHEUNG!

Then there's the sin of wanting to meet the expectations of men. This would be where I feel compelled to perform, not just because I want to look like a Kick Ass Intercessor, but because I feel like people EXPECT it of me. When I zone out during group prayer time (which is, uh, often) what motivates me to return is not the glowing presence of Jesus, but fear that I am failing. 

There's the sin of doubt. It's not like I'm unaware that all these things are going on in me. Seriously, half of the time I spend praying is asking God for forgiveness for each arrogant little thought that crops up in my brain. I am so paralyzed by my own character flaws and sinfulness that I begin to doubt that I hear God at all. Clearly I am making everything up, all these things I'm feeling must be things I invented so I can look good, earn praise, succeed. So I don't say anything. I talk myself out of any idea that God could speak to me. It is better to keep it to myself than to risk infecting our prayer time with things that aren't of God. 

(Which is where the sin of arrogance once again comes to play: believing I am so powerful that a prayer time could be led astray by ME. HA HA HA.)

I can't believe I am telling you these things. I am SO ASHAMED of them. 

All of this stuff came into play that weekend. In fact, there are ways that this weekend was the PERFECT SETUP for me and my pride. It was a small group of people who have prayed with me before and respect me. They were all people I wanted to impress. I was sequestered. I did not have to interact with anyone who would call me on my crap. I could totally act my way through this. And pray, of course. My intention is always to be holy and prayerful. My own self just always gets in the way. 

But as all of those things were happening in my head and in my heart, God was speaking to me. Then the things I was hearing and feeling were confirmed by the other women in the room. They were hearing and feeling the same things, or they were hearing and feeling the other parts of the whole, and when we put all our prayers together they added up to this really amazing picture - and I was part of that. I hadn't made those things up. I hadn't invented them to make myself successful or impressive. One of the many many ways God used the women in that room was to give me confidence, to confirm his calling to me. 

This was most convicting when I didn't speak or act out of fear, when I felt that the only reason I would say or do something would be to show off - at those moments one of my fellow pray-ers would gently prompt me to act, simply because they felt God wanted me to. 

And why did he? I marveled at this all weekend. God KNOWS what all goes on in my heart. He knows exactly how prideful and arrogant and obnoxious and self-aggrandizing I am. Yet he allows me to pray anyway. He allows me to intercede. He allows me glimpses of the great work he is doing. 

Better than that, he wants me to do this. He has called me to do it! He HAS given me authority in prayer, and in spite of my sinfulness he has not taken it away. 

I was confessing all this to a friend the other day and she said, "Maybe God WANTS you to feel good at this." 

So I am pondering what that means. Right now, I think, it seems to mean that I give up all my waffling and insecurity, that I continue to practice and learn and train and that one day my "authority" will feel like less of a novelty and more of a "this is simply what God has given me". It doesn't mean that I am proud of it, but it does mean I am confident about it. Right now I can't separate the two. 

Oh, this topic still feels so inaccessible. I am sorry, Readers Who Think This Is All Crazypants! Would it help if I told you how many times I sat in that room and thought, "THIS IS CRAZYPANTS!" Because I am so of the world and I can't help constantly thinking about what not-Christians would think and say. I am with you! Hearing God speak to you? CRAZYPANTS.

But he does, he does, and I proclaim that here. I also just want to tell you that no matter how much you muck up your own self, God can, and will, use you anyway. He doesn't have to. He doesn't need to. But he wants to, and I just can't get over the amazingness of that. My soul is so stained, so pockmarked, so not what it should be, yet God calls me anyway. He doesn't shove those things away, but he somehow works around them and invites me to go along and somehow, in the going along, I know that my soul will be the tiniest bit transformed. 

What's your lie?

OH LOOK. I AM BACK.

So the "inherent in our identities" thing. I cannot shake this. 

The last handful of months haven't been my most stellar. When I think about the, ah, overlying THEME of the last several months, the word I keep snagging is "failed". This isn't the most accurate word, but it's the easiest one, the one I reach first.  

I won't make a big list of Failures, but just to show you that that isn't the right word, I'll tell you that first on my list is Emma's birth. I KNOW. How can that be a failure? The not-failure is sitting right next to me slurping on her hand. 

The lie I believe about my identity isn't that I'm a failure... no, that's too easy. It's that I didn't measure up. I could have done it better. If I'd worked harder, been smarter, prepared better, I would have done it better. 

Which is also a lie. 

The scripture my friend studied was Jesus' temptation in the desert. My friend told me she never paid much attention to those verses. She thought they were just a power struggle, blah blah blah. (I didn't tell her that I never paid attention to those verses because I don't pay attention, really, to ANY verses and don't know which end of the Bible is up.) (She knows this already.) (SIGH.) 

Jesus is tempted three times. The first time the devil says, "If you are the Son of God, turn these stones into bread." The second time he says, "If you are the Son of God, throw yourself off this cliff and prove that the angels will rescue you." The third time he says, "Bow down before me and I will give you the world."

And as my friend is helling me about this scripture study, it became clear, at least in that moment, that we weren't talking about performing miracles and proving your invincibility and kingship - we were talking about who Jesus really is. Look at yourself! You are tired and hungry and destined to die. Why hasn't your Father taken care of you? Why does your Father treat you this way? You can't really be the Son of God...

The lie I hear is: look at yourself. Look how poorly you performed. You did such a bad, embarrassing job. Can people really love you? Can GOD love you? 

My list of poor performances is mortifying. Not because of the performance, but because of what I thought was important. My CHRISTMAS PARTY makes the list. Like the Christmas party even MATTERS. I am EMBARRASSED to tell people how down I was when it looked like no one was partaking of the hot chocolate bar I spent weeks dreaming over and stocking and preparing. This hot chocolate bar, it was going to be the thing that catapulted me into Martha Stewart territory. The thing that would make everyone thrilled to come back next year. The thing that made THIS party better than the LAST.

Except I didn't see anyone DRINKING the hot chocolate. And I was humiliated. Totally bummed out. Crushed. I felt like an idiot. Everyone must think my hot chocolate bar is so stupid. No one sees how cute it is, how much work it was to arrange it just so. No one would spend this much time on a HOT CHOCOLATE BAR. How stupid of me. No one sees my hot chocolate bar and thinks, "Gosh, that Maggie has such neat ideas [in my fantasies, Pinterest does not exist, these ideas sprout fully formed from my own imagination] and this is why we're friends."

Because it's not ME who is awesome, it's what I DO. 

Then the next morning I went around picking up cup after sludgey bottomed cup. Clearly I just hadn't SEEN anyone drinking the hot chocolate. I felt foolish all over again. 

Because I know! I know how stupid this is! I AM WELL AWARE! I have been attempting to manage and corral this specific neurosis for YEEEEARS!

But, like I told God recently, managing your own neuroses is totally exhausting. 

I told him this after telling him that my neuroses were keeping me from being with him. I was not good enough. I had not done well enough. I wasn't even doing well enough at dealing with my issues with not doing well! Why would he want to be around me? Someone who can't even give BIRTH without feeling like she could have done it better! (What my impossible standard is here, I'm not sure. That maybe I would have screamed a little less?)

What I've been feeling, though, these past couple of days is not pressure to get it right or to figure it out or to diagnose myself into the presence of Christ. What I feel is a gentle nudge, a tilting of my heart, so that my stuff, all my stupid little human stuff, pours from the crevices of my confused human heart and spills into his hands where it disappears. It vanishes. I don't have to think about it anymore. And in that second I am just me in front of God. Just me. Just my simple human self and my heart's desire for a rockin' Christmas party and I hear the truth: You are my daughter. I made you, I know you, and I love you. I love who you are, not what you accomplish. My love is not a reward. My love is not impressed. My love is complete and full and free. My love is unconditional. And also, I thought your hot chocolate bar was kick ass.  

I want to start here (again) (and again)

I have things to say here, but I am not saying them because... by the time I actually get my wits together it seems the moment has passed? Or whatever profound thought I had is no longer profound and now seems incredibly dorky? Something like that. In fact, I am only writing here right NOW because I accidentally clicked on the link for THIS blog instead of the OTHER blog and...

A few weeks ago I wanted to come here and say, "There is something about ME that prevents ME from being with God." And you see why I did NOT come here to write that, because WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN. 

Except then this weekend my Professional Ministry Friend was all talking about some bible study she did where this was the exact topic. That there is something inherent in our identities that makes us think we can't be with God. Of course she was much more eloquent. Plus there was a whole scripture study around it, which I would tell you about if I thought I could do it any justice whatsoever. 

Some dude at Phillip's work gave him a CD of a talk - teaching? It's by an Australian guy and he keeps saying "teaching" like it's "teetching" so that's sort of how I'm thinking of it. It started out being about one thing - how we've been preaching that Christianity enhances your life (and never talk about how it saves your life) - and now it seems to be about something else. But I feel bad for thinking that, because the guy speaking went on for at least 20 minutes in the beginning about how many "decisions for Christ" he's earned through his talks and how many pastors have asked him to speak. Still, it's interesting. I'll have to listen to the rest, at least, before I make any snarky comments. 

(Not that I would have any snarky comments. I think the gist of what he's saying is right on. I just don't like how he tells me how many "decisions" he gets.)

(Which is really how a lot of people in ministry talk, though, and maybe I find it off putting but how else are they supposed to measure their effectiveness?)

ALSO. There was something else. What was it. 

Then I was running on the treadmill today - and truly, the treadmill is where I do my best worshiping. I think I have something like 90 planes of thought, and surviving a run requires about 89.5 of those planes, which leaves me only .5 plane left to zone out somewhere. What I'm saying is there's no space left in my brain to distract me. So I'm running in the afternoon, while the kids are supposed to be playing in the playroom and Emma is supposedly napping and I'm just trying REALLY HARD to make this work. I know I need to run, I know my mental health requires it, I know I will feel better and maybe not be so angry if I can just run this out. 

So I'm running. I am listening to worship music (this is pretty much the only time I listen to worship music, although, let's face it, 99% of the time I am running to Ke$ha). And my kids, the ones who are supposed to be drawing or building train tracks or whatever, materialize in the doorway to the laundry room (where my treadmill lives) and begin to RUN IN PLACE. They are imitating me. They look a lot like the little girls who open the door to Prime Minister Hugh Grant at the end of Love Actually and start dancing when he starts caroling. They look like those spastic, crazy little girls. And suddenly I am laughing. I am laughing on the treadmill. And then I am crying because GOD KNOWS I needed a reminder that my children are CHILDREN. They are beautiful and hilarious and make me snort with laughter in the middle of mile two and at the same time I'm hearing "holy holy" bursting through my eardrums and YES. 

Yes. There is something inherent in my identity that makes me think I cannot be with God. There is a way that I do not believe I have a disease, that I do not need saving. There are a MILLION ZILLION FRILLION ways in which I march about my daily life utterly and completely ignoring Him who made me. And what does he do? He comes to be with ME instead. 

Maybe he's even in the paint

I am tired. And people keep telling me I look tired which is 1) annoying and 2) not terribly flattering to my delicate little flower ego. I put on the nicest clothes I have at this stage of life to head out to my friend's birthday dinner Tuesday night, and practically the first thing my other friend said to me when I picked her up was, "Have you been crying? Your eyes are red. Are they red because you're tired? You look so tired."

GEE, THANKS. 

But even if I have the face of a Haggard Old Woman, even if I am sleep deprived and totally worn out by the time I drop off the big kids at preschool, I do not feel tired in spirit. If that makes sense. I actually feel very much alive. I am excited about my life. I am aware of all the bits and pieces. 

There are a LOT of bits and pieces. I'm involved in planning so much right now, either my own stuff or group stuff or helping with other people's stuff - it's a lot of spreadsheets to track. I was telling my dad about some of it today and he said something like, "Gosh, Mags, you're into everything right now" and it really only hit me then. Yes, but I am okay. 

I am well. Even though there's a lot going on, even though a lot of it has potential for conflict and strife and confusion - I am well. I'm not afraid. I'm even excited to meet the challenges. When is THAT ever the case? 

I went to the NDCF fall retreat this weekend - well, the Saturday evening portion - because the guy who used to the lead the fellowship when Phillip and I were in college was the speaker and he's totally worth immersing oneself in a culture I left years and years ago. I was nervous I'd leave the weekend with Issues - not least of which would be Feeling Really Freaking Old. But instead I left with confidence and inspiration. I left knowing that ten (okay, more like twelve) years later, I am secure in who I am and what I'm doing. (Most days!)  

God is with me. I just know this. I watched those college kids and their intensity and tears and joy and just the highs and lows of their emotions - is there anything in between when you are nineteen with an undecided major? I sat in the back and just watched. I could see myself in them, but I no longer need a powerful Saturday night conversion experience to know that God is working in my life. As much as I miss that, as much as I sometimes feel like I DO need it - right now I just know. He is here. He is with me. He is totally cool hanging out in my mundane SAHM world. 

Some of you, in response to my last post, said that dying to my family is what is required of me right now. That's losing my life for Jesus. I agree with you. But it just doesn't feel like ENOUGH. Enough for ME. I want more than laundry and dishes and breastfeeding jail. I know that God is okay with me and I know that there are seasons, but I long for more. I want more of him. 

I am so good at filling my life with things. I've got a party, a blogger gathering, a girls' weekend in LA and family holiday stuff all on my plate right now. House projects, websites, preschool. Plus paint! Don't forget the paint. I could be so stressed out right now, but I'm not. I'm just... I have perspective, and you guys, I never have perspective. God is with me. And would it be weird to say God is with all of those things? Even the paint? I just feel like he totally knows me, he totally knows where I'm at and he's there in the phone calls and spreadsheets and instant messages and face to face conversations. 

When I have space to add something else (or maybe before then, since space never really seems to open up anyway) I'm... well, honestly, right now I have only the faintest glimmer of how I'm going to step forward with God. It happened for me at the retreat - so maybe I had the Saturday night conversion experience anyway. 

But did I tell you I'm tired. I'm so tired. And it's late and Emma is actually sleeping which means I should be sleeping too and I'm going to make myself stop trying to find the right words and just go to bed already. I just wanted to tell you that I'm excited to be busy with something else, even if it's not quite the right time. And maybe if I go to bed and sleep on it, I'll have the right words another day. 

 

Live differently!

Last weekend Phillip and I went to The New Church, just to try it out. I meant to write about it as a way of processing all the differences and thoughts I had while I was there, but I'm glad I didn't. Because even more stuff came up today, when we were back at Our Regular Church, and now I have more to say than, "The New Church has a guitar in the choir!"

I think it's probably a given that we will switch churches; it's just a matter of when it happens. It doesn't have to happen immediately, which gives us plenty of time to pray about it, but obviously what we will do is agonize and fret and prolong and argue until the solution just sort of presents itself and we go along. At least, that's what usually happens. Right now it's not even so much that we've discerned that we should switch churches, it just seems to be common sense. So. We'll see where that goes. 

One thing I liked about the new church was the priest. Kind of a moot point because he's only an interim priest and the new permanent one isn't arriving for a few more weeks. But listening to the interim priest's homily did make me realize that it's been a super long time since I've listened to anyone different (or, to be honest, LISTENED. It's helpful to not have children in order for this to happen.) Then, as I usually do when I'm comparing music styles or preaching styles or whatever, I reminded myself that It's Not About That, and promptly forgot about it. 

Then we had a new priest at the regular church today. He was just ordained last weekend. He's being assigned to a church a few hours away. For some reason he was the presider at Mass this morning and I was skeptical, as I always am when we have a guest priest. Either you can't understand them or they're boring or they're quiet or they're just differen't and you don't like them. SORRY PRIESTS. We are a tough audience. 

Then at some point during the opening prayer I saw him raise his hands a little bit, look heavenwards, and smile. And I thought: this guy is different. 

Turns out this new priest is KICK ASS and I am tempted to drive several hours each way to his new church. He's from Trinidad, he's young, he's loud, and he's passionate. His homily was on fire. His words were modern and in-touch, but so grounded and solid and true. He was funny, but not dorky funny, and not TOO funny. He used his hands. He was... effusive. It was an exhortation to be alive in the faith, to be on fire, to live differently. To live your love for Christ out loud, where other people can see. And you guys, by the end of that homily I was GONNA DO IT! Me! An example! YAY JESUS!

I came home from church feeling more renewed than I have in a long time. 

Anyway, because I am ME and I AM WHO I AM, I felt tremendously guilty about this and had to analyze my whole reaction with my husband, who is used to this sort of thing by now and knew what I was going to say before I even said it. For ten years people I've been telling myself that preaching doesn't matter. Music doesn't matter. Even community and extracurriculars are just not that important. What matters is the Eucharist, what matters is the liturgy and the Mass and if you have communion you have everything you need. You are fed. That is church.

And... I know! I do! Even at my most seriously-considering-leaping-over-to-the-Protestant-side point, I knew I wouldn't do it. The non-denominational services (which were the ones I knew) were not church. They were talks with music. I KNEW that I somehow needed/wanted liturgy, the ritual, all of it. Even though I didn't follow all of it, even though I might only feel that way because it's what I was used to - there was just something about church not being CHURCH without those things. Without communion. 

When we first started attending our regular church, it had an On Fire Priest. He left for Africa after (I think) two years. Then we got our current priest and people left in droves. I'm just being honest. I watched it happen. Our new priest was a solemn, professorial, understated, super serious kind of guy, pretty much the opposite of the previous priest. And big, fiery, passionate, loud, on-fire homilies were not his thing. They aren't his thing. I have since grown to LOVE our priest. He's immensely gifted in so many things. He's incredibly passionate about liturgy and in a small group or in a committee, I could listen to him talk for hours. He knows EVERYTHING. I respect his opinion on EVERYTHING. I ask him questions like I would ask a teacher. He IS a teacher. But I wouldn't say he's a preacher and, until today, I'd kept a tight lid on my desire for being preached at. 

It all tumbled out when I was talking to Phillip. Ten years of trying and I still don't particularly care about liturgy. I want it, I need it to be there, but it doesn't speak to me the way it speaks to so many Catholics. On certain occasions I find it beautiful and touching, but maybe once or twice a year. I have never felt 'different' after taking communion. So I tell myself, it's not about FEELING. Because it isn't. God is there no matter what. 

But is it wrong for me to FEEL more of God when I've heard good preaching? I just... I don't know. I am super sensitive to cults of personality, whether it be in politics or church. I don't like it. It turns me off. And I've been telling myself that to love a church for the preaching means I'm loving the preacher, not Jesus. But is that really true? Isn't the ability to preach well a gift from God himself? I was CLUED IN after that homily. (Again, it helps that the kids weren't there!) I was DIALED IN during communion. I still didn't 'feel' any different, but I had these words ringing in my head, as if God had said them himself. Is that not a good thing?

I have this hope, which I'm not sure is a GOOD hope, that the new priest coming to the new church is a gifted speaker. Because in my years of being churchy, this is the thing, above liturgy and music and environment, that inspires me. 

One phrase the guest priest threw out here and there was "dead church". As in "the young people say the church is dead!" Which started a discussion between Phillip and me about our impressions of church growing up. Phillip was in the same church his whole life, and his impression of Catholicism was THAT church. By virtue of quasi-military life, I got a taste of many churches. On military bases the Christian faiths share a chapel, with a staff that puts the crucifix up or down depending on who's scheduled to celebrate. The priests have 18 month tours of duty. I had a lot of priests, I lot of different chapels, and plenty of experiences inside cold, hard, European town cathedrals. In some places the church felt dead, or boring as I would have said then. Other times it had a spirit, and ALWAYS there were different cultures and different people. 

So one thing Phillip brought up is wanting to take our kids to different churches every once in a while. Not so much that you don't have a 'home' church, but maybe once every couple of months. Attend a minority church, a downtown church, a church where the music is supposed to be awesome, a church that looks completely different from ours. Just so our kids know there are other Catholics out there and while the Mass is the same, everyone puts a little different spin on it. That our church may be full of wealthy white people, but there are churches full of poor not-white people. Catholics are all kinds of people. 

I think I like this idea. 

Anyway... these are all the things I'm thinking about re: switching church. Tonight I am missing the amazing speakers I heard in college, the many gifted preachers I've heard on retreats. 

Love is all that I can give to you

Loving God is kind of a weird idea, isn't it? I mean, really loving him. There's no physical being, nothing to hug or hold, nothing to look at. He doesn't talk to you, you're not sure he hears you, he's just this big THING. This IDEA. Respect, fear, obey, bow down before - yes. But love? Can you love something you're not even really sure is OUT there? 

This is, at least, how I felt for a very long time. Even now, occasionally, if I'm honest. Although, honestly again, "loving God" was not really on my agenda. I just didn't think about it. God was always a given in my life, I was well aware that "Jesus loves me", I never questioned their existence, their presence in my life, the fact that they cared about me (and, more frighteningly, knew everything about me.) But my response to that... I guess I viewed my relationship to this unknowable higher being as one of acknowledgement. I believed he was there. I knew he was in charge. I would say so, out loud, to other people, without much in the way of fear or embarrassment. I attempted to live my life in accordance with what he would have me do. But I don't think this meant I loved him. 

When I was a kid I was entranced, and I really truly mean ENTHRALLED, with supernaturalness. An otherworldly power. I know this makes me kinda weird, and I'm not really sure where it came from, but I just was. I just had this FEELING that there was something else out there. Things I couldn't see or touch, but which were real and tangible and present and... like God himself. But not.

And this is how, even why, I sought God. I wanted to know more. I wanted to be around that kind of power. I'm embarrassed to say it now, but I cheerily and excitedly embraced all sorts of situations that have made my friends shiver. I will never forget one of my best high school friends getting totally weirded out by what was happening and simply leaving the room, while I was all "MORE PLEASE." And not because I loved God. Not because I wanted to be with God. No, I wanted to be AROUND God. I wanted to be IN that stuff. (And in it I was. IT WAS AWESOME.)

But... that's not... well, it's just this tiny little aspect of something else, and I really had no idea that it was the something else that I so desperately needed. That God and being a Christian wasn't this thrill ride, or my chance to be a prophet or an interpreter or any of the other things I found so compelling. 

I remember hitting up a streetside palm reader when I visited (that same, actually) high school friend at college in Berkeley. I remember being a little disturbed, but whatever, it's all in fun. Then a year later I had my Tarot cards read on spring break in Oregon. And THAT... that's when I knew I would never be doing that again. There was something wrong in that house, something sinister, I felt it with my entire body, and I just knew that this stuff existed and it wasn't for thrill rides or fun or being "special". 

How grateful I am that God took my attraction to fortune tellers, my curiosity about ghosts, my need to sneak out of bed and watch Unsolved Mysteries with the babysitter, and used it to bring me to HIM. I mean, how many times have I said this on this blog? There but for the grace of God go I! 

He sought me, he took me as I was, he met me in my self-centered power grab, he knew what I wanted, and he wanted me with him anyway. 

I've grown up since then. Not all the way. FAITH IS A JOURNEY, LA LA LA! I am still unreservedly interested and attracted to what I would now call The Charismatics. But God is so much more than that in my life now. And as I learned more about who he is and who I am, I realized - I don't think I love God! It wasn't that I DIDN'T love God... I just... I realized I never thought about him THAT way. 

And here I was, totally committed, totally in, praying in front of and with and for people, going to church, hell I even devoted four years to college ministry! I desired God, I wanted to be closer, I wanted him in my life. But I wasn't sure if I loved him. 

I wanted to. I knew that much. 

I'm still not sure how it happens. I think for me, perhaps, a real relationship evolved. I do hear him, I do know that he hears me. In my darkest moments he is what I clung to. When I look back I can see how he led me out of those places. How much I need him. How much others need him. How much I don't understand, which means I need him all the more. And through all of it, a belief that he will never leave me. 

Out of that, a stark and horrible realization of what the cross really means. Out of that, well, how can I not love? And cry with relief to be loved in return!

If the little seminar questionnaire 'inventory of gifts' thingy my church is so into right now is to be believed, and I think it's mostly right, "faith" is one of my "gifts". I've known that. I don't know how else to explain how I believe so easily in things other people find bizarre, if not downright unwise. (Well, I can think of other explanations, but none are as flattering as "it's a gift".) So for others the road must be different. I'm suspicious of those who say they've loved God from the start, that they always knew, that they were devoted little children. But perhaps that's just because I'm envious. And I don't like people who are holier than me. (OH SO MANY PEOPLE.)

I can only say that the fact that I do love God now, as a bride loves her bridegroom, is only because he was patient with me while I discovered how. 

My hope is in You

I find myself hoping in the calendar. I plot the days - who to visit, where to go, what to eat - then I get to a Saturday or Sunday and wonder if Phillip will have time to hang out with me. Sometimes I flip the kitchen calendar's pages, trying to figure out when Spring Break will be. Sometimes I bring up our shared Google calendar and stare at it, filling in all the empty squares with things I don't need to remember, just to make it look like my life is moving along. 

I hope in Redfin. Oh MAN do I hope in Redfin. I wake up every morning and jump online to find out if there are any new listings. This is beyond ridiculous, I know it, but I feel like one of these days Redfin is going to deliver. One day Redfin will show me exactly what I've been looking for. 

I hope in getting a haircut. Maybe then I'll finally feel beautiful. 

I hope in losing weight. Maybe then I'll feel confident. 

At times I've hoped in getting certain jobs. Maybe then I'd feel legitimate.

I used to hope in my thermometer. There were days I lived and died by that thermometer. I would stare at the calendar then too, counting days, marking my temperature, feeling lifted up by the right pattern, feeling bereft if the combinations weren't working. It took us five months to get pregnant with Jack, which is hardly a long time. I can say that now, and feel ashamed and ridiculous even pointing it out. But at the time, I'd already been waiting on Phillip to feel "ready" for nearly a year, and now I had to wait longer? While every one of my friends got pregnant first, and half of them by surprise? I had so much hope it had to go somewhere, and I chose to let it out, let it overwhelm, whenever I picked up that pastel pink thermometer.

Until one day, feeling crushed by the weight of counting and waiting, I realized I couldn't do it anymore. I had to stop with this constant surveying of myself for evidence - reason to hope. Because my hope was not in a stupid thermometer, my hope was in Jesus. 

I started saying it out loud to myself, whenever I started to go down the Hoping Path. "I hope my temperature is high." "I hope the scale shows another pound down." "I hope I get this job." "I hope enough people come to the party." No, my hope is in Jesus. 

It probably sounds silly to you, but I am a SUPER good hoper. I can be optimistic about anything, and normally I consider this to be one of the nicer things about me. But there are times when I put so much heart and soul into hoping for something - too much. It's good to be hopeful about getting pregnant or getting a job or throwing a kick ass party, but I would throw my worth into it. Like I would somehow be less, my life less, if my hopes didn't materialize. And at some point in my worship of the thermometer I realized how I'd idolized all these things. In my pursuit of hope, I'd raised the numbers on a thermometer above God's love for me.

I hoped the most where I was most afraid to trust. 

So I can't hope in Redfin showing me the perfect house - I hope in Jesus. I hope in Jesus' love and guidance, in God's plan for my family. I hope for a gorgeous, updated Craftsman in one of my favorite neighborhoods, but ultimately? I hope in Jesus. What can I possibly hope for that's as perfect as what God wants to give me? 

 

Show me your ways, Lord,  
teach me your paths. 
Guide me in your truth and teach me, 
for you are God my Savior, 
and my hope is in you all day long. 

Investing

So that "Ministry Idea" I had? To start something groupy and sharey at my church? Yeah, not doing that anymore. Not because I don't think it's a good idea. I think it's a fabulous idea (like ALL of my ideas, natch). But I just don't have it in me. Not right now. 

Part of it is just what's going in my life, which is school/work/kids in whatever kind of order it is when all of it is first. People ask how Phillip is doing and if they aren't close to us they're always surprised to hear that he's working full time AND going to school, and then they always say something like, "How does he do it!" And then, because I am kind of a snot brat, I say, "ME!" But then these people ALWAYS bow their heads and nod and agree completely and I'm sort of taken aback because... well, I guess I'm right! I take care of the kids and the house and the bills and the food and the calendar. I always think, "Well, I would be doing those things ANYWAY." Because that's how division of labor in our house tends to work out, and both of us like it fine. But there's definitely an element of loneliness when you add school into the mix, or maybe I should call it Separateness. Phillip is so entirely swamped in HIS thing that I can't possibly ask him to be aware of MY things. 

(Although he is. Because he is awesome. And we are making it work. The end.) 

But there's another part, which is the part where I don't really want to invest in other people right now. That sentence is horrible because of what I'm saying and also because I use the word 'invest' which SO reeks of non-denominational college fellowship that I once banned a roommate from using it in conversation. But it happens to be true. There are personal and not-so-personal reasons for this, but the truth is that I have a lot of really fantastic people in my life and I am happy with just them. For the first time in years I am not stressing out about a complicated friendship or some needy acquaintance and oh my gosh it is so nice. I think for a long time I felt like I wasn't being a good Christian if I wasn't giving 110% to all my relationships, even with the people I didn't like so much or the people who were just really hard or confusing. It wasn't really about not being able to say no or anything like that, but just sort of making sure I had time and mental space for everyone. I felt like I was MANAGING a lot of things, if that makes sense, and not necessarily getting anything out of it, let alone enjoying it. But that's what you do, right? This is how you love people. Be with them, get to know them, participate in their lives. 

(I THINK my love language is Quality Time.)

Aaaand... YEAH. Done with that. I'm at this point where I feel like: Here are the people I love, here are the people I'm "invested" in, all the available slots are full. I still feel kind of horrid saying that, but it's been a really healthy (BARF) thing for me to grasp. I was praying over a particularly rotten relationship at one point and I just felt God saying: let it go. It's okay to let it go. And now? SUPER HUGE FAN of letting go! 

I feel like God has talked to me a lot about this over the last two years or so. I'm the sort of person who doesn't like to have acquaintances - if I'm going to spend time with you, I want to be besties. But you can't be besties with everyone, which I know intellectually, but I feel like I would try anyway. Even when I didn't particularly click with someone or when that someone wasn't necessarily good for me. I just felt like I wasn't being true to myself or true to God or acting out my faith if I wasn't trying my best to grow deeper in ALL of my friendships. I probably drove a lot of people crazy, now that I think about it, with my Need To Be Close. But it also was hard on me, in ways I didn't see until things got overwhelming, until just my basic life got overwhelming. I have KIDS. I have a husband with a crazy schedule. I can't do what I used to do. I needed to stop expecting that of myself. I needed to stop thinking that things were only good if I was getting closer and closer, becoming a better and better friend. 

I think I told you about that one time I was praying and Jesus was sitting at my kitchen table, pouring me a glass of wine and in the driest tone of voice telling me to chill out. SO many things needed chilling out. Is it weird that Jesus had to give me permission to stop caring? To tell me that'd I'd done my piece? That I didn't have to do it all? 

It's not like I won't pick this back up at some point, right? I like to start stuff and be in stuff and get other people to do stuff. But maybe when school is done. Maybe when my kids are a teeny bit older. Maybe when it doesn't feel so exhausting to stick myself out there. Maybe when it starts to sound fun and less like potentially painful work. 

Eating chocolate chips with Jesus

This will be my attempt to "finish" this post. Although, note to self, I should never do "to be continued" posts because, ah, what was I writing about again? 

Ugh. How do I write this without getting all listy and boring? Hmm.

Have you ever said to yourself, "Well! I tried that and it didn't work. Oh well! Moving on!" I mean, I say this about things like, oh, trying to make rounded corners in CSS. Eventually I gave up. Oh well! (Although I bet there's a way to do it NOW. I should check that out.) But I've never said it about anything as large and great as CHURCH. Which was essentially how I was feeling. It wasn't just the spiritual director, it was spirituality. It was church and everything I've tried to do and be with church and anyone who wanted to talk about church and honestly, the new church meeting I'd signed up for could go jump off a bridge for all I cared. 

Oh, that was a particularly rough night, the night I went to the church meeting and tried, again, to express a deep-seated Thing about myself and was, in the face of that vulnerability, condescended to/patronized. And not just your regular old introverted vulnerability, where you are brave enough to open your mouth and you just hope you don't sound like an idiot. This was vulnerable as in: I am telling you something about myself that I KNOW is not right and I KNOW needs heaps of character building, but I am going to tell you anyway, because I am trying out this whole Being Real thing that everyone is always harping about and WOW DID THAT FAIL. And yeah, I know the person in question did not at all mean to condescend/patronize and was just trying to be nice but KISS MY YOU KNOW WHAT, PERSON IN QUESTION! 

Eh. You know that only lasted a week. A week's about as far as I go angry/depression-wise. Then I eat some chocolate chips and try a different thinking route and lighten up. (Just a little.) 

Where was God in all of this? I don't know. When I look back at those weeks I see myself sort of emotionally storming around and Jesus kind of hanging back in the corner with the bag of chocolate chips, watching me, munching, waiting for me to get it out of my system. Like, totally not annoyed or impatient or bored, just passing time.

The first thing that helped was reading a series of blog posts about some dude's personal experience with exorcism. I know. All the pinky-toe-in-the-churchy-water people just flew out of here. But seriously, those were some hands down awesome blog posts and they reminded me that 1) there is stuff out there that doesn't want me to be eating chocolate chips with Jesus and 2) what I do, what I was made to do, what God gifted me to do no matter Catholic, Protestant, winning at church, impactful blogger, supermom or WHAT, is pray against that stuff. These truths I hold self evident. 

So I started to snap out of it. Somehow. The angry, snippy stuff - that isn't me. I realized that if I tried another spiritual director I would have to put on my big girl pants and understand that people are spiritual directors because they see crap about you that you are not so good at recognizing yourself. WHICH IS WHY YOU SEE THEM. 

I realized that while my approach to How To Be Catholic is so off base I even question "How To Be Catholic" is the right term for it, it's a valid struggle AND I would do well to find a spiritual director, if I wanted one, who speaks Three. Because if one more person blows off my hard work I will go on some sort of church meeting RAMPAGE.

I realized, again, for the trillionth time, that I am called to be Catholic. Even if sometimes I don't like it. 

What I can say for this unattractive little episode of mine is that SINCE then, I mean, SINCE I've located Jesus in the pantry and now we are both eating chocolate chips TOGETHER, I am hearing him rather well. Not that I understand everything he's saying. HA. More on that later. 

A placeholder

I have a lot I want to say here, I really do. It's been an eye-opening couple of weeks for me, faith-wise and it turns out I am very angry about some things and bereft about others and I could seriously just sit here and vent until I turned blue. But I don't want to do that - I'm too tired, I have a wicked headache, I haven't had a moment to tell even Phillip these things. So this is a placeholder and it's only point, really, is to hold me accountable to writing it out. Eventually. I mean, I'm sure you are not on tenterhooks or anything, it is not THAT exciting or revelatory or even halfway interesting, but I am someone who writes to figure out what she thinks and it would be good, is what I'm saying. If only because every time I try to reason it all out I get very very mixed up. 

I hate being mixed up.

And maybe I will vent a little bit ANYWAY - don't you HATE IT when you think you are being patronized, but you can't be SURE and maybe it is your own annoying prideful self who is interpreting the patronizing when in actuality there is no patronizing at all? See, I have this suspicion that that is the case. That I am not being ACTUALLY patronized, I am PERCEIVING being patronized. And by getting frustrated and angry about my PERCEPTION I am actually preventing myself from Internalizing A Great Truth. Or something equally blog fodder-worthy. 

I DON'T KNOW. I hate it when I'm stupid. I also hate it when meetings run a half hour over because they started a half hour late and when you factor in the part where I made special plans to have my baby's birthday dinner and present-opening early enough so I could get to the meeting on time I REALLY hate it. Maybe THAT'S why I'm in such a stellar mood this evening. I prescribe myself a Restorative Cocktail, three Advil and BED. 

Good night! When I come back I promise to put on my Happy Face.