The Grace of the Present

I'm not opposed to making memories.  As an introvert, I spend a decent amount of time inside my own head, thinking over what has or will transpire.  However, the other day I was scrolling through Facebook and I was seeing pictures and albums that were presented as "making memories."  Do we prefer to make memories rather than live in the present moment?

Is something off if we spend a large amount of our time documenting for the future moments of the past?  Could it be that the present is not actually as great as we will remember it to be once it is firmly grounded in the past?

I'm sporadically reading One Thousand Gifts and the other day I read about how Ann Voskamp, the author, was struggling to encounter God's face in the moments where she is stressed and angry.  Seeing God's face in the brilliance of the morning sunrise or the contented cooing of a newborn is easy.  Yet it stretches us to see God's face in a belligerent student or a quarrel with a friend.  As I read, I thought of how just that day I had been annoyed with my students not listening to my directions.  It never even crossed my mind to stop and consider, "How are they revealing God's face to me right now?"

The present moment is the place where we encounter God.

We are making strides when we are able to go back to a difficult situation and see how God was present in that moment.  Yet it is supremely better to be able to, in that very moment, see the face of God present.  If only I could look at my students, complaining and upset about their work, and see Christ in them.  It would take re-training my mind and my heart.

In One Thousand Gifts, Ann Voskamp reveals an experience she had with her son that changed them both.  At one point in the conversation, she tells her son that the only way to combat feelings is to have other feelings.  The central feeling we can use to combat unwelcome feelings, she presents, is gratitude.  In the midst of frustration, fatigue, anger, sadness, or annoyance, what a difference it would make if we would begin to be thankful.  Not gratitude for something of the past or the future, but gratitude for that present moment.  What would it be like if in our most trying moments we saw the face of God in His perennial presence?  Surely it would change things.

If we spend our lives trying to simply "make memories," I fear that the best moments of life will not be what we actually experience, but always events of the past.  I run the risk of sabotaging my present for the glorification of a past that never really existed.

When I look at my semester that I spent studying abroad, I don't initially recall the tiredness, the inevitable frustrations of group planning, or the desire for American comforts.  Yet those were very real aspects of my semester.  I cannot expect my present moment to measure up to my idealized past experiences.

God is present in the here and now.  In this moment, despite the commonness.  In my quiet study hall on a random Wednesday.  In the lukewarm coffee I'm still enjoying from this morning.  In the satisfaction of checking another item off my to-do list.

This present moment is a moment of grace.  Because grace is only offered in the present.

I desire to teach myself to accept each moment as the grace-filled, soul-transforming, heart-deepening, wound-healing, saint-making, God-given moment that it is.  This present moment is where we encounter God.  Let us not overlook His presence in the now in an effort to live in the past.

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I'm Busy

"No, I can't.  I'm too busy."

I'm a bit surprised to hear these words uttered by my three year old nephew.  I don't think he really knows what those words mean.  I asked if he had given a hug to his grandma and he said he was too busy, as he tiredly walked away from me. He has heard this phrase but he doesn't understand how to properly apply it.  My brain thinks briefly of The Princess Bride and the misuse of the word "inconceivable."

Then I think about my conversations with my relatives and I realize that I am very quick to fall back on, "Life is busy."  It is a nice conversation filler but it doesn't really tell one anything.  Which is partially the point--life is filled with many things but I don't want to fully articulate them right now.  Life is either busy or nothing is going on.

Somewhere along the line I began to think of busy as success or as the necessary answer for how my life is going.  Because I can't say I don't know what I'm doing with my life.  I can't admit in casual conversations that I'm at times frustrated with the Lord and myself.  Or that I want to sit in my classroom and cry some days while other days fill me with over-the-moon excitement and joy.

"I'm busy."

Oh the contradiction!  Here we are at the "busy" part of the year that revolves in essence around a quiet manger scene. The God of the Universe enters into our chaos, confusion, and hurt and the world for a moment seems to be still.  We are enraptured by the glint in the newborn's eye, in the soft giggle, in the squirm of chubby arms and legs.

I need to come up with a better response than, "I'm busy."  I'm present.  I have time for you.

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

Living in God's Will

Last Saturday I really missed college.  Perhaps it was the fact that my sister just headed back to school or maybe it was due to a longing for good community.  Or because I would like to be the student again and not the teacher, despite the satisfaction I get from job at times.  Every now and then I have to stop and remind myself that I am not on a break from college but that I will never go back to college, at least I will never return to where I was before.  I've tossed around the idea several times of getting my Master's degree but I know it won't be the same as my undergrad.  There is a sadness that comes with that repeated realization.  That phase of my life is completed and it is a place to which I can never return.

I find myself missing things that I didn't plan on missing along with things I knew I would miss.  Now I live in a house but I find myself missing the dorms and being able to walk across the hall to talk to someone.  I didn't love going to the abortion clinic on Saturday mornings, yet I find myself missing that mission field and the people that I prayed alongside.  I miss beautiful lectures by brilliant professors that just feed my soul.  While I don't miss paying for them, I miss the feeling of picking of a new stack of books at the beginning of the semester.  Perhaps I miss writing papers and I try to live vicariously through my students by assigning frequent 1-page papers.  I miss campus and walking around through the changing seasons.  Oddly enough, I miss the adult-like feeling I had of going to Mass off-campus.  It made me feel so grown-up to be going to Mass with adults who have jobs.  The odd factor is that I do this now but I think it is because I am going to parishes I went to before college that I don't feel so adult-like.  My heart misses the adoration chapel and the beautiful peace found there.  I miss my schedule and the mode of college life.  Yeah, I miss many things.  I didn't realize this so much the first semester because I felt so overwhelmed with work.  But now I am able to look up a little bit more and I find myself looking into the future, wondering what else could be in store.

What beautiful plan does God have for me?  And what is He doing with me in the meantime?  He has never failed me but I am so quick to fall back into fear.  I miss college and that is natural because it was an important part of my life in which I grew substantially.  Yet I would be amiss to spend this next phase mourning over the last one.  My goal is to recommit to live in the present with joy, embracing as fully as I am able every aspect of my present life.  God is loving me in so many ways right now.  Right here is living in God's will.   

Thy Will Be Done

Perhaps I am not alone in feeling this way, but I desire a great mission for my life.  I want to do big things and transform society.  When I look at the different passions in my life, I wonder how I will ever be able to use them all, how will God be the fulfillment of all of my desires.  Taking a look at where I am at the present moment can cause me to feel impatient and claustrophobic.  I want to travel, to live life, to have adventures, to be incandescently happy.  There are moments, like on Thursday, when I look at my life as a teacher and I wonder what in the world I am doing.  Some people are able to say that every day they go to work they are filled with a desire to go to work and that because of that, they never feel like it is work.  Unfortunately, I cannot say that the same is always true with me.  There have been several times over the past few months that I didn't want to go to work, that the thing I wanted most was to extend the weekend.  My heart desires something grand and beautiful.  Yet when I look at where I am in my life, I begin to wonder if it is ever possible to attain that.  Am I simply missing God's will in my life?  Will I be my own worst enemy?  Everyone desires a great love and a great adventure and too quickly I begin to wonder where mine is.  I've spent half of the past semester longing to live life fully and the other half praying to enter into eternal life.  At times I am filled with a passion for teaching and with gratitude that I am able to do what I wanted to do right out of college.  Nevertheless, I wonder what else there is for me and how the plan will unfold. 

Maybe much of this is natural--the transition years after college, the quest to find stable footing, the desire to be a saint, the longings to be fulfilled.  Yet some of this is perhaps the temptation of the evil one.  If he can make God's will for me now seem to be unimportant or too little, then he is winning in a sense.  God could have a grand mission for me next year but His will for me is to be a teacher now.  If I focus on the future grandeur and fail to do my duty in the present moment, then I am effectively not doing God's will out of a misappropriated desire to do His will in the future.  I need to learn patience without succumbing to passivity.  How will I know if God is asking me to step out in faith or if it is my own desire for the grand that will cause me to run contrary to the will of God.  I have this desire to be a saint and although I know there are many saints of the ordinary, I don't want to be ordinary.  While I don't want to stand out especially, I long for a great mission, something where all of my desires are fulfilled.  Maybe this is just my melancholic nature coming out and longing for the ideals that can only truly be found in Heaven.  All I know is that I long for a beautiful adventure that will be personally transforming and will transform others.  A little daisy wants to be a bouquet of roses.

What a different view of me my students would have if they read this blog.  I know they don't think I'm perfect but I like to think I look generally put together and collected.  At times I wish I could tell them how ridiculous and confused I truly am.  The facade would be destroyed.  What does God want me to do now?  He has placed me here for a reason.  I forget that reason, though, in moments of frantic worry and a desire for my will to be done.  So, Lord, if Your desire is for me to be here now, please teach me how to do Your will in the present moment--and to love doing it.