To Be or Not To Be....All is a Gift

It was the end of the day and one of my students was posing one of my least favorite questions.  The question is mildly manageable if I sense that the student is asking this question out of sincerity and a desire to understand God in a deeper way.

That wasn't how he asked the question.

His question was posed more in opposition to God.  It was meant to hurt our perception of God as loving and merciful.  And I find that attitude very difficult to tolerate.

"Did God use Satan to strike the people down in Egypt at the Passover?  Or did He use one of His angels?  And if it was one of His angels, how come God decided to kill so many people?"

In a certain sense, it is a fair enough question.

In another sense, it tears at my heart.

So perhaps my reply was a little more abrupt then necessary, but it was to illustrate a point.  I didn't directly answer the question at first, but I attempted to answer the incorrect aspects surrounding his perception of God.

"God doesn't owe us anything.  God doesn't even owe us life."

I think they were surprised by that response, in all its bluntness.  I reassured them of God's great love for them, but spoke of how it is never our "right" to exist.  Existence, in its entirety for humanity, is a gift.  God, in His great love and mercy, never blots out our existence.  For mere mortals, death will come.  For even the God-man, death came.  But life continues beyond the grave.

We are a people who expect that certain things are our due.  It seems an injustice to us that bad things happen, that we are not treated as we wish, and that death will come to us all.  How many people have expressed, in the throes of sorrow after the death of loved one, that it was so unfair to lose them as they did, when they did?  I do not disagree that death can be tragic or that we will be left with many, many unanswered questions and seemingly unheard prayers.  Yet isn't it the natural course of life?

I am not owed this next breath.

It is not my due that tomorrow will dawn and I will be alive to see it.

It is not my right to live until an old age, surrounded by loved ones.

In reality, God owes me nothing, because He has given me all I have in an act of extreme generosity.  It is not necessary that I am alive, but He wills it to be so, for now.

God gives life and God can take that gift away, too.  It doesn't make Him a murderer, as the question my student posed seemed to imply.  A murderer is one who does not have the right to take a life and yet does.

Let's say each month you receive $100 in the mail from a close friend.  If that friend should stop sending that money, would you then call them a thief?  Of course not!  They were generous to give the money, but as a gift, it must be freely given.  And as a gift, it can end.

All of this is not to make you question the tenderness or faithfulness of God.  He cares about you with a fierceness that is intense to behold.  Yet His ways are so often not our ways.  It can be confusing to muddle through the events that befall us and see how God is working in the midst of devastation.  It won't always be easy and we often won't understand.

But this is necessary to know: If God removes a gift, it is because He is offering a different kind of gift.  

It may not always be easy to see the beauty in that new gift, though.  When we are no longer healthy, we can experience the gift God offers in suffering.  When we experience a death, we can see the gift God offers in grief.  The gifts never cease to flow abundantly from His hands, but they may look other than we would wish.

To a generation that thinks they are owed so many things, I told them God has never been beholden to them.  Everything they have and everything they are can be chalked entirely up to the mercy and love of God.  They did not have to exist and yet they do.  And it is very good.

You are here because God desires you to be here right now.  It would not be less loving of Him for you to no longer be alive; He would simply be offering you a different kind of gift.  However, since you are here right now, God has a purpose and a mission for you.  Throughout this life, He will offer you many gifts.  You might not like them all.  But in the end, He will offer you one of the greatest gifts, life everlasting with Him.  I see that not as robbing me of something that is my due (how pale this life will seem in comparison to the Beatific Vision), but inviting me into a mysteriously beautiful gift that is entirely undeserved.

So breath in and breath out.    

Those were gifts.  Handcrafted, uniquely given to you.  Not because He had to, but because He chose to.  Someday that won't happen.  And that will be a gift, too.

Thank You, Lord, Giver of all Good Gifts.

The Gift of Winter

Snow in the Swiss Alps

When did snow become a drudgery?  I'm sitting in my classroom, grading papers, trying to let Pandora play music uninterruptedly and outside snow is gently falling.  It has been fluttering down for a few hours now and it looks peaceful.  Instead of an empty classroom, I should be in a cozy living room, warming my chilled fingers on a cup of hot chocolate, and watching the snow design an intricate blanket for the earth.  

This used to be a delight.  The arrival of snow was once something longed for, something wanted.  Now I seem to view it as a necessary evil, the consequence of living in a northern state, a sort of Purgatory on earth.  Yet only a few days ago I was able to witness first hand the disappointment of my 4 year old nephew when the snow melted.  He was debating other things and realized he was losing so he changed the subject.  Whining and with such a sad face that you would want to quickly give him whatever he desired, he told his mother that the snow wasn't there anymore.  In his short lifetime he had only been through a couple winters and they still held a deep excitement for him.  It amazed me briefly.  I had begun to assume that everyone was as unimpressed and pessimistic about the snow as I was.  My nephew, though, was viewing snow through a gaze of wonder and awe.

When did snow become something I disliked instead of something I anticipated?  I always thought it was when I was required to help with outside chores and I realized that snow and slush make carrying 5 gallon pails of corn remarkably difficult.  I used to don snowpants, gloves, and a hat and go roll in the snow, make snowmen, and just relish in the cool air nipping at my nose.  Now I am more concerned in keeping my feet dry and how quickly I can dash from my car to the warmth of a building.  Much of the wonder of winter has been zapped from my life.  It is there, in brief glimpses of soft snow settling on window sills or the sunlight enhancing the sparkle of the icicles forming at the edge of the roof.  There is a cold sort of beauty that I like with winter, but the moments I rejoice in it are few or only when I am separated from the elements by a windshield or window.

That is my present goal--to embrace the beauty of winter and delight in it.  I plan to begin with putting my things in my car and then, perhaps for only a few seconds, tilting my head back and feeling the snowflakes kiss my face and melt at the brazenness of their touch.  Then I will drive (carefully) home and try to embrace the gift of winter.  Everything is a gift, right?  Today the Lord is offering me the chance to live and experience another winter day.  For all my aged and weary 23 year old bones know, this could be my last winter.

The Lord provides for the tender hearted

The Lord has given me the gift of a tender heart.  I don't always view it as a gift, I don't always want people to know about it, but on occassions I am reminded to be thankful for it.  Now this sensitivity doesn't mean I cry when I see a dead deer and worry about Bambi.  It also doesn't mean that I sob over soap operas and run to see every chick flick in theaters. 

What it does mean is that I nearly cried the other night when I saw a gorgeous sunset.  It means I cannot read "A Child Called It" because I feel physically sick and begin to feel depressed.  My sister brought the book home from the library several years ago and I tried to read part of it.  The story focuses on the abuse a young boy endures at the hands of his mother.  I feel sick just thinking about the way I felt when I read the first pages.  This sensitive heart causes me to remember things people said or did years ago that they probably didn't intend to be lasered into my memory.  It meant that I had to will myself to not cry when my principal was talking to me about how I handled a situation last year.  He wasn't even angry or yelling at me but I had to keep willing myself to not let the tears fall.  "Trish.  You cannot cry.  You are an adult."  So I managed to not cry...until he left the room.  Then I sobbed.  This tender heart causes me to cry each time I open it up a little in spiritual direction.  I plan to high-5 Father the first time I manage to walk out of there without having shed tears.  This tender heart causes me to long for Heaven as though I have been homesick my entire life.

Recently a man who had worked with my dad died due to brain cancer.  He kept a blog about the journey he was making with the cancer.  Instead of becoming bitter and cynical or blaming God, he called his cancer "the gift."  I didn't really know him, but I loved seeing him at the different Masses around town.  As I read through some of his blog entries, I cried.  He writes about how he sees God each day and encouraged people to look for God wherever they were.  I think of the family he leaves behind and I mourn for them.  Yet I also think (though I don't intend to minimize their pain) about what a gift all of it actually could be for them.  To know that you will be dying and soon.  It would make me live each day to the full.

But shouldn't I already be doing that?  Why is it that the fear of death suddenly makes us desire to live?  St. Irenaeus said, "The glory of God is man fully alive."  I want to be fully alive.  Sometimes it takes a sunset to wake me from my stupor.  Or the feeling of holding a beautiful niece in my arms as she squirms and smiles.  Every now and then I am just struck by reality--the grass is really green or the sky seems so clear.  Suddenly I can see and I realize how blind I let myself become 

Lord, help me to embrace this tender heart.  This heart that causes tears to well up in my eyes at inconvenient times and yet allows me to see a beauty that is perhaps overlooked.  Above all, help me to place my tender heart within the wound of Your Sacred Heart.  Only there is it truly safe, only there can she find rest.  Thank You, Lord, for this gift called life---the challenges, the heartaches, the joys, the blessings, the experiences of You that reaffirm that all of this has a purpose.  Thank You, Lord.  Amen.