I Desire a Heavenly Mindset

Last night, with the adventures of homecoming safely a week behind me, I found myself reminiscing about my own high school homecoming week.  It was quite easy to slip into romanticizing that time in my life because there is no risk that I will be caused to repeat it again.  My memories centered on the competition of the week, the class rivalries that emerged in full force, the class skits performed in which each teacher was fair game, and the exhilaration that filled the entire school for one precious week.  Throughout the week we would have games each day and the competition was fierce.  Seniors almost always won but it was the goal of each grade to produce an upset, one in which only obnoxious cheating would result in the triumph of the seniors.  My junior year was probably the most competitive.  The skits were hilarious and all of our favorite (and not-so-favorite) teachers were impersonated and analyzed.  (Note: As a teacher now, this is always a fear of mine when the students are given the chance to make fun of the teachers.  I sit in the gym, waiting anxiously, hoping that I wasn't memorable enough or disliked enough to become the focus of students' laughter.)  My junior year we won the "Olympics" and the triumph was palpable.  We gathered in our class sections in the gym bleachers and would chant our anthems. "J-U-N I-O-R...Junior, Junior, Junior!!!"  "0-8 0-8 0008"  The shouting echoed off the walls of the gym.  That memory is one of my favorites--the class anthems, the school spirit, the energy, the competition. 

I can almost trick myself into believing that that experience was high school.  It was not.  High school wasn't traumatizing for me, but it wasn't the best experience of my life.  I liked school and I was involved in numerous activities: choir, band, volleyball, track statistician, plays, oral interp, and TATU to name some.  It was a great time of development...but it wasn't perfect.

That is one of my problems.  I am excellent at romanticizing the past and thinking of it in the best ways.  This doesn't hold true for everything but for many things it does.  I think back (way back!) to college and I am able to make it free from any trials or difficulties.  I think, "Trish, do you remember that time that your job was to read theology books and write papers?  When you hung out with friends several times each week?  When you felt like you were changing the world by being in the pro-life movement?  Remember when you went to New Mexico and twice to Honduras for mission trips?  Remember traveling around Europe?  Wasn't that the absolute best time of your life?"  And looking at all of those adventures and blessings, I am convinced that I should be there and not here.  What is very easy to overlook is the fatigue, the stress of completing two theses in one semester (even if that was my fault entirely), trying to finish the endless stream of homework, wanting to hang out with friends but not being able to, worrying that we wouldn't fundraise enough for the mission trips, the excessive tiredness.  All of that is easy to forget in the quest to make college "the best years of my life." 

The point is this: the past is easy to love because we don't face its challenges in the present.  Of course there are difficulties in my present life but those are more keenly felt because they are the present.  In high school I was left with this feeling that nobody understood me.  The friendships I had weren't rooted in Christ and therefore often seemed shallow.  In college I had the blessing of making those friendships and seeing how quickly they blossomed simply because we were rooted in the same soil.  Now I am able to see the beauty of those friendships even though I don't find myself immediately surrounded by them anymore.  Instead I see from afar those friends continue to grow and impact the world.  They are getting married, they are having babies, they are continuing on with their lives.  As for myself, I am growing and changing, even if at a slower pace than I would like.  The past was necessary to make me who I am today, but now I need to live in today.  I need to live in today with all of its trials and difficulties--with the sophomores that won't listen to me, with the seniors that are quick to roll their eyes at my statements, with the other teachers that don't quite know how to take me, with the desire to live out my vocation yet being caught in a seemingly indefinite waiting place. 

Perhaps instead of gazing jealously at the past, I should look with anticipation to the future.  Imagine Heaven.  All of the beautiful people I know, all of the gorgeous places I've seen, and all of the lovely experiences I've been blessed with, all rolled into one and magnified greatly--this is Heaven.  When I focus on that goal, the end prize, the eternal life with God in Heaven, then the pains and irritations of today seem to pale in significance. 

“The Glory of the Lord, therefore, is the super eminently luminous beauty of divinity beyond all experience and all descriptions, all categories, a beauty before which all earthly splendors, marvelous as they are, pale into insignificance.”  The Evidential Power of Beauty

"Really?!" Semi-Awkward, Semi-Hilarious, Entirely my Life

Sometimes I have to look at events that occur and simply ask, "Really?!"  It doesn't have to be that huge of an event but sometimes the way things work, or don't, is almost comical.

Take today, for example.  My Scripture class learned what the phrase "nakedness of his father" actually meant.  For the record, I had no intention of revealing this little tid-bit to my classes.  I didn't last year, and I had every intention to continue that trend this year.  Nevertheless, I decide to tell them when I learned the other teacher had told his classes what it meant.  I figured it would prevent any questions about it arising later but now I think it never would have surfaced.  The topic was broached and passed over in my third period class.  The idea that Ham committed incest with his mother was repulsive, as evidenced by the looks on their faces, but I moved on fairly quickly to the story of the Tower of Babel.  Class moved slower for my sixth period class because I had to give a lecture about respect to my students.  With a mere ten minutes left of class I was nearing the time to reveal to them what the euphemism actually meant.

Lo and behold, in walks my principal.  For a brief moment I considered bypassing the phrase and going on to the Tower of Babel.  Was it really that important anyway?  What point did it prove?  Despite my hesitation, I committed myself to proceeding in the intended manner because the presence of my principal shouldn't alter what I teach.  This class is naturally a more reactive class so I wasn't surprised when the murmuring began.  You can only tip-toe around the matter for so long before it is necessary to plunge in and just say what it means.  He appeared quite interested as I tried to guide my students around this delicate event.  I placed my emphasis largely on what Ham was saying by this action.  Time soon ran out and the bell rang.

He just couldn't come when I talked about the flood, when we read different Scripture passages from the Old and New Testaments about the flood, when we read about the covenant that God makes with Noah, or when we drew pictures about the different covenants.  Today I actually managed to vary the class and incorporate different teaching aspects.  Yet all that was seen was a ten minute lecture at the end of class about how Ham had relations with his mother.

I'm not sure if I am more horrified by the events or if I simply find it awkwardly hilarious.

All I could think when the door handle turned and I saw my principal walk in was, "Really?  Really!"

On the plus side--perhaps he learned something and I subtly proved that I do have a degree in Theology that has afforded me unique knowledge about Sacred Scripture.  Or I am simply ruining my students' opinions of the characters of the Bible.

It could have been worse, right?

The Art of Going Deeper

You think you know something.  And then you find out that you really had no clue.

Yesterday my Scripture class was learning about the Fall of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.  Ever since taking an Old Testament Scripture class in college, I have had a deep love and appreciation for the Old Testament.  Perhaps my "love" isn't quite as passionate as it should be, but there are parts of the Old Testament that I will return to and soak in the goodness of salvation history.  The story of creation and the fall of man is one of those stories.

I was guiding them through Gen. 3 where the serpent began to wheedle his way into the innocent hearts of the first couple.  Reviewing the story again I was amazed by the goodness of God and the way He loved us from the beginning.  He asks little of us and when we fail to give Him that little, He is quick to promise redemption.

The serpent from his very first words is twisting the beauty and goodness of God and tries to portray Him as a harsh dictator.  "Did God say, 'You shall not eat of any tree of the garden?'"  Very quickly the loving generosity of God is portrayed as miserly withholding.  "You will not die.  For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."  He dares to blatantly contradict God yet he always operates under half-truths.  Adam and Eve do not die an immediate physical death.  Yet the death they undergo is of a far more detrimental sort--they die spiritually and face separation from God.

The serpent sows seeds of doubt in the hearts of Adam and Eve.  "Does God really have your best interests in mind?  Is He holding out on you?  Can you really trust Him?"  They begin to wonder if perhaps everything they never knew they wanted could be found within the fruit of this tree.  Perhaps God, all-good, all-giving, all-knowing, perhaps He cannot be fully trusted.

They buy stock in that lie and it turns out to be the worst thing they could have possibly done.  The facade crashes around them and the lie becomes apparent.  As they realize they are naked and have fallen from grace, I can only imagine that the serpent did not remain silent.  At this point he was probably whispering to them how disappointed God was with them, how things could never be the same, and that their sin was irreparable, unforgivable, too big for the mercy of God.

It struck me while I was speaking to them about these doubts that Satan whispered to our first parents, that we hear those same words, too.  I told them this.  But my realization was that when I was their age, I wouldn't have believed myself.  I would have claimed to not listen to Satan or to mistrust God or doubt His intentions.  When I was 15-16 years old I would have said I trusted God.

Now I am far closer to God and I am beginning to realize how little I trust Him.  I begin to see how I do listen to the voice of the enemy and how I doubt God's intentions, plans, and desires for my life.  When I was the age of my students I would have thought that I didn't doubt God because I was close to Him.  Now that I am closer to Him, I see that I doubt Him.  It is a beautiful mystery that in the spiritual life, the closer we come to the light (and I am by no means very close to holiness or this light) the more we can see our own darkness and imperfections.  We see places that need to be purified and cleansed where before we thought we were perfectly healed and whole.

So we delve deeper into the garden of our hearts.  We question why we run from the God who made us, loves us, and wills us into existence.  We realize that we are running from Him.  As we turn to hide and cover ourselves, we ask why we are ashamed and what needs covering.  When I taught Totus Tuus I would have little kids tell me that if they were Adam and Eve, they would have listened to God.  My response probably wasn't as delicate as it should have been--I told them that they would have done the exact same thing and that Adam and Eve made the choice on behalf of humanity.  My innocent little 3rd and 4th grade Totus Tuus children probably didn't understand that.  But if I reflect on my day and my life, I can see how nearly every day I have eaten the fruit and then run away from the sound of my Lord seeking after my heart so that he may simply be with me.  He comes to seek me out and forgive me and I run away, saying I am unforgivable.

Lord, help us to delve deeper.  Grant us the grace to dig beneath the surface and look past what we have assumed to be true.  Help me to trust in You with a genuine trust that will enable a wholehearted joyful surrender.

Simple Beauties

I like simplicity.  And I like beauty.  I am continually amazed by things that would be so easy to pass by or discount as being of little importance.  A simple cup of coffee from home on the way to work with the sun shining on the plains filled my heart with joy.  The Sacred Host exposed in vulnerable love as voices rise like incense to fragrance Our Lord's throne.  A glorious sunset that mixes the palette of colors into a never before seen array of splendor.  The simplicity of a humble priest who, with eyes closed in a concentration that must have been often etched upon Our Lord's face, raises his hand to absolve me from my sins.  The moment in the confessional when you say the Act of Contrition and you are struck for the first time by the words "but most of all because I have offended Thee, O God, who art all good..."  My heart desiring the simplicity of a human love that will rival all fiction and will lead me steadfastly to Heaven's embrace.  The conversations with dear sisters placed hundreds of miles away from me.  This song.  A beautiful red tomato freshly picked from the garden and an apple harvested from the nearby tree.  This picture:

A moment to stop, look around at the countryside, and breathe in a deep breath of crisp autumn air.  The silence, the peace, the luxury of looking across the land and seeing no human person in sight.  The knowledge that I am because He always is. 

Witnessing to Lived Faith

They were nearly in the palm of my hands.  Not all of them (that would be a miracle) but many of them.  For what seemed like the first time in the entire semester, this class seemed interested in what I had to say.  Gone were the faces etched with boredom.  They were replaced with genuine eye contact and interest.  I hadn't intended to launch into the discussion for an earlier class, but I had and it had gone well.  Now I was facing a more difficult to please class and the transition I used before wasn't clear.  I considered not even broaching the subject with them, but just continuing on with the class and ending early.

When I finally began to speak on it, it went better than expected.  I remember thinking at one time, "Lord, this is going great.  They are listening and the story is flowing well."  This was the best they had listened all year.  I was thrilled.

It struck me later as very interesting that what they listened to the best was what was most personal to me.  I've been talking to them about faith and reason for the past few days.  This particular class day I had reviewed the introduction to Lumen Fidei and we had explored what faith is and what faith isn't according to the encyclical.  I love theology.  But to them it is just another book, at times, that must be read and regurgitated.

I began to tell them that having faith doesn't mean that it will all be easy.  Yet regardless of the trials, faith is worth it and God desires to be in relationship with us.  Then I told them more in depth about my older sisters who are religious sisters.  I didn't try to white wash any difficulties or try to evoke pity in them.  Rather, I told them about how it was difficult for me to watch my sisters choose to leave me because they were following God.  My intention wasn't to highlight any strictness of the orders.  I wanted them to see that I understand sacrifice, being angry with God, and feeling like what is being asked of me is just too much.

This second class seemed to grasp it most fully.  A couple seemed near to tears but just about everyone was alert and listening.  I think it helped them realize my humanity.  Do I love the Lord?  Yes!  But even with this love and this desire to love, I still find myself balking at the sacrifices that are to be made.  While I often paint this as a past sacrifice, it is still an ongoing sacrifice.  I do not always think of the sacrifices but there are moments when the emotions are sharpened, the scab reopened, and the ache felt again.

Perhaps today they forgot everything that I said yesterday.  What I hope remains somewhere within them is the knowledge that life will be filled with sacrifices.  Will I choose to make them with Christ or without Him?  A life of Christian sacrifice is not easy.  Yet I do not think a life running from Him would be easy, either.  Life will arrive and demand things and people of us that we are not prepared to surrender.  Faith is knowing that Someone else cries with you and that Someone desires you infinitely more than you desired your lost love.

That is what makes life bearable.

They just report the facts...as they want you to know them

Yes, reader, these articles are fairly old.  The reason I only recently stumbled across them is because I do not turn to CNN for my news coverage.  Following are a few glimpses why.  

You could argue that I am being intentionally critical.  That would be true.  I am intentionally criticizing a news group for presenting the news in a biased way.  They probably pride themselves on their responsible journalism, but I find nearly each word tainted with the desire to misinform the public.  News groups, be they of radio, paper, or TV, have a large task: to bring the news to the people.  Yet how they do so will greatly influence how people act.  

Need an example?  President Obama got re-elected.  If you own the news, you can, in a way, own the people.  

This is why good Christian people are needed in the media circles.  Here is a shout out to all of my friends (and all the strangers) who are committed to accurately presenting the truth.  You are in the streets in a big way.

Vatican seeks to rebrand its relationship with science

"There have been no signals yet as to whether Pope Francis will bring about a softening of the Vatican's stance on issues such as condom-use as means to prevent suffering and early death."
http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/11/world/pope-vatican-science/index.html?iid=article_sidebar

I attack this sentence (one among many from this article that could be lambasted) because of how they phrase it.  They wonder if Pope Francis will save people from suffering and early death.  Their solution: condoms.  By saying it in this way, they present the picture that the Church cares little for the sufferings of others.  It completely neglects the fact that the Church works tirelessly to ease the sufferings of people.  They just refuse to accept the Church's moral stance against condoms.  
P.S. The headline?  Please.  The Church helped develop science.  Some of the best scientists belonged to the Church.  Some were even priests.  And this was long before Pope Francis.  Sometimes news groups are so...medieval about this topic.

Humble pope has complicated past

"Pope Francis is being painted as a humble and simple man, but his past is tinged with controversy surrounding topics as sensitive as gay marriage and political atrocities."

Controversy.  Whatever will we do?!  Most of the Church's teachings on human sexuality are considered to be controversial.  It isn't the Church's fault that society disagrees with them.  The controversy comes from an increasingly pagan society.

"Don't be surprised, Girard said, if the new pope shows flexibility on contraceptives, but don't expect him to budge on the Catholic Church's opposition to abortion."

Apparently they do not understand contraceptives and the Church's reasons for being against them.  This is more wishful thinking.

"With a front-page counterpunch, the president said the church possessed "attitudes reminiscent of medieval times and the Inquisition."  The bill eventually became law, and Francis left the battlefield defeated.  But some supporters hold it up as evidence of his traditionalist views."

What would be really terrible would be to have a pope who didn't follow the tradition of the Church.  Of course this is proof of traditional views.  He is a faithful Catholic.  Hence why he got elected pope.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/03/14/world/americas/argentina-pope-profile/index.html?iid=article_sidebar

Catholics: 5 ways for Francis to move forward

"The issue of gay rights has proved deeply controversial within the Catholic Church, and led to accusations from activists that it remains mired in the past rather than looking toward a more inclusive future."

Again with the controversy.  It is an interesting concept that truth ceases to be truth simply because of the passing of years.  This comment is a result of a misunderstanding of the Church's teaching on homosexuality.  Realistically, I don't think they desire to know the truth.  They don't like the truth anyway.

"Meanwhile, 50% of the world's Catholics remain excluded from the highest echelons of the church because of their sex -- and Filipino Rummel Pinera says it's time the church acknowledged the importance of women in its history, and its future."

Those are pretty deep statistics.  I also believe that it is time for the Church to stop excluding men from having babies.  It is extremely unfair.  The Church HAS acknowledge the importance of women.  Read JP2.  Read Chesterton.  Read Jesus!  Go in and look at the Mass attendance on the average week day...or weekend.  Look at the women helping with the parish life.  

"We're living in a world that has become a global village, [and] in this global village of ours, women now can't just be fence-sitters or nannies," he said. "Women now know that they were created as co-equal of men."

I'm not sure I've ever seen "co-equal" before.  Regardless of that fact, women are the equals of men...they just aren't the same.  It is interesting that the speaker seems to insinuate that in the past, women could just stay at home or be "fence-sitters" but now they have evolved into people who are now equal.  I take offense at how he says we women used to be.

"The Roman Catholic Church should become dynamic in this age, so that it can maintain the loyalty of its flocks and win many souls for God," he said.

Question: Will the Church win souls for God at the expense of Truth?  Can you really change what is accepted as truth and gain souls for Heaven?

"I think that the church needs to go back to a simple message which is to love each other and not care about what religion we are or what we believe in," she said.

I'm pretty certain the Church never had that message.  Yeah, I don't think the martyrs died so that we could walk around in a relativistic culture and say, "I don't care what you believe...I just love you."  Granted, saints loved people regardless of what they believed.  If you really want to "go back" you would encounter the Early Church.  They were evangelizers.  They spread the Gospel message.  They lived authentic Christian lives.  If that is the "go back" she is referencing, I believe she is correct.  But how can you "go back" to a stance the Church never held?  Simplicity.  Not to be confused with heresy.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/03/14/world/irpt-pope-priorities/index.html?iid=article_sidebar


Thanks for reading my little rants.  Remember: you cannot trust everything you read.  Except, of course, this blog. :)  We need people desiring the truth in all walks of life.

I'm not the only one speaking out (to my whole 10 person audience) about the media bias.  Lila Rose is, too.
Check it out.