Independence and Surrender

Our entire lives seem to be a battle between independence and surrender.  We seek independence at an early age and relish it for much of our lives.  My two year old niece enjoys the freedom of saying "no" and running where she wants, when she wants.  My nephews want to help with chores and frequently refuse help for themselves, instead wanting to demonstrate their ability to do it on their own.  As adults, we are quick to forget there is any uniqueness in driving where we want, buying what we want, and living how we want.

Age or misfortune catches up to us and we soon find ourselves losing our independence.  We can fight this inevitable fate, but it will only breed bitterness and malcontent.  Eventually, we must surrender.  In the spiritual life, we can learn this gift of surrender earlier.  Relinquishing control of our lives, realizing that we are not the ones in control or willing our own existence, can prepare us for the gradual physical surrender that must happen.

My grandparents are aging and I see the fighting that takes place within them.  I do not blame their desire to grasp their dwindling freedom or to express frustration at a body that is now turning against them.  The simple freedoms are gradually slipping away--no walking around the block, no trips to the grocery store, no single bed for them to share.  The task of getting ready for bed, something so mundane one often forgets it, is now one that requires help.  Waiting outside their bedroom as they were ushered to bed, I thought of how someday that will be me, helping my parents.  And perhaps someday it will be me, being helped to bed.  Inwardly, I rebel at the thought.  I think that I will break the mold, I will not need the help, I will do it on my own.

When visiting them, I can sense the mounting frustration.  There seems to be both a desire to return to health and a desire to die.  My grandparents have not aged prematurely.  In their late 80s-early 90s, they are as fit as one might expect them to be.  Thankfully, they are ill in body but, apart from a little confusion, sound in mind.  I wonder what to say---do I speak of suffering?  Do I remind them to be thankful of their blessings?  Do I try to lighten the mood?  Mostly, I just listen.  I listen to my grandpa tell me about the picture of grandma now on the piano.  He says he wanted it there because that is how she looked when they met.  Her beauty floored him.  I listen to my grandma talk about one of my many cousins.  Her life for so many years has been about others, even now she finds it difficult to draw conversation to herself.  I listen to my grandpa's worries and fears.  I listen to my grandma attempt to follow my mom around the kitchen, asking what she needs help with and telling her what to do.

While age has forced my grandparents to lose independence, illness can do the same for others far younger.  I have a friend from college who has been battling a debilitating illness for the last three years.  It causes her intelligent brain to rebel against reading more than a few lines at a time and forces her marathon trained body to be weak and unpredictable.  I refuse to canonize her yet, but I have witnessed the beauty of her striving to surrender herself to God in His inscrutable plan.  Such a situation could easily lead to depression and bitterness, but she is fighting the good fight, ironically by striving to lay down her arms.

How do we surrender?  It is a choice.  We can see physically our limitations.  I can really want to do something yet find myself incapable.  The spiritual limitations are less clear.  With those, we can fool ourselves into thinking they aren't there or that we have surrendered, simply by virtue of thinking the words once or twice.

In surrendering, we choose to not manipulate the situation, we choose to not be in control.  After years of being told that we can do it and that we are the ones running our lives, it is counter-cultural to step back and release control.  I can drive myself anywhere I want, I can eat whatever food I want, and I can spend my time as I choose.  But I do not will my heart to keep beating, I cannot control the replication of my cells, and I am powerless in making myself continue to exist.  For all the little things I doggedly control, I am incapable of controlling all the major aspects of my life.  Accepting God's authority in my life is central to becoming the saint He desires me to be.

Lord, help us to surrender, to admit with our lives that we are not the ones in control.  In our inmost being we desire to belong to You and to give ourselves over to You.  Grant us the grace to do so.

"Amen, amen, I say to you, when you were younger, you used to dress yourself and go where you wanted; but when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go."  John 21: 18

Deo Gratias

"We don't actually think you're crazy." 

I smiled at that as the student walked out the door.  While I wasn't extremely worried that they thought I was, there was a moment today when I wondered if I had pushed them over the edge. 

We were finishing up a PowerPoint from yesterday about Purgatory and someone asked a question that related to saints, although I'm not quite certain what it was at the time.  The saint they used as an example was St. Anthony.  Oftentimes I don't share personal stories with them for a few reasons but today one instantly came to mind.

"I got in a fight with St. Anthony once."

They looked up at me, puzzlement chiseled into their features.

"When I was younger my mom always told us to pray to St. Anthony if I lost something.  So I would pray that he would help me find my overdue library book.  And he would.  One month later after I already bought the book.  So I finally got mad at him and told him I wasn't going to pray to him anymore.  And so we didn't talk for a while."

"Wait...you and your mom?  Or you and St. Anthony?"

"St. Anthony."

I looked at their faces.  They wore a bemused expression but they were all paying attention and seemed interested.

"You guys think I'm crazy."  The entire class laughed.  I knew that telling them about a close relationship with a saint (i.e. a physically dead person) probably didn't strike them as the most normal thing.  But the positive thing is that theology teachers can get away with crazy things and the students just chalk it up to their faith.

"Anyway, I started talking to him again and now he helps me find things all of the time.  St. Anthony is great!"

The PowerPoint presentation continued and I put the incident out of my mind.  While they are one of my favorite classes they also are often the least productive.  The interesting story of St. Anthony was replaced with a frustration that they weren't working on their assignment but seemed to be talking about everything but theological matters.  Yet when that student told me that they didn't really think I was crazy, the frustration melted away and I had an "I'm glad I'm a teacher" gushing of emotions.  Of course, it isn't the easiest thing to do and sometimes I want to give up, but it does have moments of joy and gratitude.

Some of my sophomores even claim that they wish they were me.  I was rather shocked by that statement but then I realized it was induced by my close proximity to their conversation and their combined frustrations over school, tests, and homework.  "I wish I was you, Miss ------"  Instantly my weekly life flashed before my eyes and I was firmly convinced that if they knew my life, they would be immediately grateful for their own.  Late nights grading papers, frantic test-writing, suppers with the parents, euphoria over Friday nights that end in an early bedtime...yes, they would sprint back to their current lives if they knew much more.  Their claim that I didn't have any homework to do was the added cherry to the top.  Despite my vehement internal opposition to their claims, I had to laugh at the naivete of my lovely sophomores.

I like my life.  It may appear boring or mundane to others.  But it has a fair amount of joy and blessings mixed in with the suffering and trials.  Too often we are in a state of discontent.  I want to just thank the Lord right now for this moment of contentment.  For the sunshine outside, the weekend languidly spread before me, the empty classroom that was just occupied by so many beautiful, wandering, searching young souls, the jeans of a dress down day, the love of friends and family, the imminent Sacrifice of the Mass, and the knowledge that someday all of this will end and what will replace it will be infinitely better. 

Deo gratias. 

Gratitude for Being Unfulfilled

I realized that I should be grateful for my frustrations and unfulfilled desires.  When I present my experiences teaching to some of my friends, I feel as though it is an endless litany of dislikes, discouragement, and downfalls.  I don't mean for it to be that way but I am unable to paint a purely rosy picture of a profession that I find difficult and stretching.  Yet I realized that in some ways it is very good that I am not content with it all.  I desire to do better, to improve my teaching, to reach out to my students.  And while this means that I am not a perfect teacher it also means that I desire to do better than I am doing.  Of course there is the necessary reminder that one shouldn't always be frustrated and unfulfilled.  But I desire such great things for my students and their souls that I am far too weak to deliver on my own.  Thus, the tension.  I long for greatness but fall into petty worries.  I search for fulfillment but am left unsatisfied.  I will never be completely fulfilled on earth.  Only in Heaven will I find fulfillment for all of my good desires.  Nevertheless, I yearn for this fulfillment, for this unobtainable perfection.  We are trying to get back to something we once had, to something for which we were created.

“The sweetest thing in all my life has been the longing — to reach the Mountain, to find the place where all the beauty came from — my country, the place where I ought to have been born. Do you think it all meant nothing, all the longing? The longing for home? For indeed it now feels not like going, but like going back.”  --C.S. Lewis Till We Have Faces

Such beauty!  Anyway, the point of all of this is that it is alright to not feel fulfilled and satisfied.  We live in an imperfect world within an imperfect society.  There is much to see in the world that needs change and transformation.  My students will be imperfect because they are human and I will be imperfect because I, too, am a human.  We are deeply flawed.  Ah, but not beyond redemption!  I shouldn't glory in my misery or disappointments.  Nevertheless, I don't need to attempt to make myself believe that I should be 100% fulfilled and satisfied.  There is conversion that needs to take place in my heart, I am a pilgrim traveling down the path of life, and I have not yet reached my eternal home.

The task of evangelizing the modern world is not easy.  It isn't easy because we are asking them to accept truth that is difficult to accept.  Because we are telling people that perhaps the best thing for them is a life that includes suffering and painful growth and sacrifice.  Yet I am thankful that the Lord has called me into this mission field and desires me try to reach His flock.  It isn't because I'm perfect--because He knows better than any my imperfections--but perhaps simply because I have this desire for His will to be done on earth, a longing for Heaven, and a knowledge that without Him, I am nothing.