The Wal-Mart Heart Change

I could feel it increasing in my heart.  My fingers tapped on the shopping cart as the impatience within escalated.

Standing in the speedy checkout line at Wal-Mart, I was feeling pressed for time.  I hadn't wanted to stop at Wal-Mart, but I needed glitter.  Never in my life have I purchased glitter, so it took a bit of meandering before I found what I needed.  A few other items found their way into my hands and then I was at the checkout.  Waiting.

The sense of urgency was palpable in Wal-Mart.  I could feel it because I had places to be, things to do, and the rush of shoppers waiting at the checkout lines declared that they had similar situations.  The clerk tending the cash register was taking care of one customer and it seemed to take a while.  His credit card wasn't accepted and he was on the phone.

Minutes passed.  I kept eyeing other lines, watching them line up and pass through while I waited.  Finally, the woman ahead of me moved forward in line.  Change needed to be dispensed into the tray and we watched her unroll two packs of quarters.  Then the cashier counted the gifts bags.

1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...10

10 gifts bags.  Then she swiped one.  And repeated the act seven more times.  She stopped and began to count the number of bags on the screen.  But she must have lost track of which line she was on so she took a piece of paper, holding it up to guide herself line by line.  The customer told her that she had only scanned eight but there were ten.  The cashier finished counting, swiped another, and then keyed in another.

I'm feeling impatient, inwardly reminding myself that it is Advent, the season of waiting.  But for some reason, my time feels more important.  Perhaps it is part of the human condition.  We are quick to hurry others, almost insulted that they should waste our precious time.

I will my heart to stop pounding with impatience.  Almost like hushing a baby, I remind my heart that there is enough time for what is necessary.  Slow down, slow down.  Do what you tell your students to do: practice patience, seek holiness in the simple, ordinary things in life.  Be faithful in small matters.

And my heart slows.  When I approach the cashier, I am greeting her as though I never waited.  I am striving to not make myself the most important person in the situation.  The anxious tapping of impatience is brushed away for a moment, and I try to hang onto this as I navigate the parking lot and the line of cars waiting to exit.

Later, I will lose this patience and peace.  I will rush about, attempting to do in a couple hours what should have been done in days.  And I will miss the joy of the present moment and seek to tend to things rather than to people.  But for all the missteps that will later follow, I am reminded of that moment in the checkout line.  That moment when my agitated heart encountered the peace that it was always meant to have.

Say to the fainthearted, "Take courage and fear not. Behold, our God will come and will save us." -Isaiah 35:4

There He is: saving me from myself in the Wal-Mart checkout line.

Tireless

The Lord isn't tired of you.

If He hasn't tired of me, then I know He isn't tired of you.

Don't we sometimes assume He is, though?

I apply human attributes to God and figure He must want to respond to me as I want to respond: grabbing me by the shoulders, slightly shaking me, and telling me to snap out of it.  Or something along those lines, sometimes more or less intense.

He is unfailingly patient.  God is able to endure our imperfections better than we are.  Where we can be short-tempered and over hasty, God is slow and long-suffering.  I think I am a fairly patient person, but at times I am the most impatient with myself.

He waits for us.

It is a struggle to extend that same act of kindness to myself.  To wait for my heart to catch up, to wait for my mind to grasp the concept, to wait for my body to gain the strength.  We want it right now and we think we should be able to conquer all now.  Sometimes, though, we need to accept that we are in a specific place.  Instead of being angry with my heart, I can acknowledge where it is struggling and be patient with it.  Instead of frustration over what my body can't now accomplish, I can see the difficulties and move forward gradually.

The heart is probably the most difficult for me to wait for.  I want it to quickly recover or never get wounded.  The Lord, in His inscrutable wisdom, gave me a heart that is very tender.  And life can be pretty rough on such a heart.  Having a tender heart isn't a coveted aspect in our culture.  Instead, we are taught to not care what others think, to do our own thing, and to take whatever doesn't kill you and let it make you stronger.  But sometimes it just hurts.  So I find myself fighting against the desire to shield my heart behind indifference or coldness.  Or I use my best-learned defense: sarcasm.

I will fight, nearly to the death, in defense of sarcasm being a valid sense of humor.  When used in the right situations, I think it is fantastic.  However, I will admit that I use it to shield my little heart all too often.  If my heart can't handle the pain of honesty or sincerity, it will hide behind quick remarks and witty comebacks.  In the moment, it is a fight or flight instinct and I guess I choose both: fly away with the tender heart and fight with words of steel.  I know that it will not help my heart, but sometimes the conditioning takes over with little regard to what I should do.

The goal is to tell myself, "Trish, today you will not hide your hurt behind sarcasm.  You will be sincere and meaningful in your words.  And you, impatient one, will be patient with your own heart.  It is a gift."  Perhaps, someday, I will listen to myself.

I need to be reminded that God sees me in a way that is different than I would initially imagine.  In Isaiah 43: 4-5a, God speaks to Israel of a love that is unsurpassed by any other.  It can be helpful to remember that this covenantal love also extends to us today.

Because you are precious in my sight, and honored, and I love you, I give people in return for you, nations in exchange for your life.  Do not fear, for I am with you...    

He is present, long-suffering, patient, and waiting for you.  Not for you to drag your feet, but for you to let all the many conflicted parts of yourself come together.  To wait for your heart to catch up to where the situation requires it be and to not be frustrated that it isn't there yet.  To remind the head that there is more to life than what makes complete sense.  God is working in the midst of your broken chaos right now and He isn't letting it stop Him from doing what needs to be done.

Though He is moving forward in your life, He isn't leaving any part of you behind.  Because despite all of it (the situations, the emotions, the problems, the pride, etc.), He isn't tired of you. 

A Lesson from Snow

I like to think of driving in the winter as a lesson in teamwork.  Usually, I don't like to drive in the winter, but sometimes I get surprisingly excited after a new snowfall or some slick ice.  I go out to my car and think, "Alright, Humanity!!!  You can do it!  If you don't get impatient when I turn slowly around a corner, I won't get mad when you slide through a red light because you are afraid to hit your brakes.  We will all work together and it will be OK!"

Yesterday, I was able to live that experience out again.  I was slipping and sliding up to a stoplight, praying that Jesus would stop my car before it went into the back of the vehicle ahead of me.  Then I looked in my rear view mirror to see a car careening towards mine.  It isn't going to stop in time.  I just knew it.  Sure enough, almost in a dream-like way, she slid into the back of my car.

Put car into park, activate flashers, and open car door to confront the person who played bumper cars.  She was apologetic and young while I was surprised to see no damage.  I got her information and carried on my way to school.  No yelling (not really my style, anyway) and no attempts to make her feel bad.  Besides, I had so very nearly done the same thing to the car in front of me.

The rest of the day, I was willing humanity to be patient with one another.  Yes, it is going to take longer to get anywhere.  But, if we work together, we can all get home in one piece.  At times it leads me to inordinate pride in the human race: no honking horns, no dramatic zooming away, and no freaking out over slight delays.

You did it, Humanity!!!!  You treated other humans like they mattered!  

Like I said, sometimes new snow makes me a bit excited.  It gives us the chance to show a little patience and see the needs of others as important.  And we could always use a little bit more of that.

Peace Begins With a Smile

"How do you do it?"
"What?"
"How do you not respond to all of our comments?  You just smile."
Unconsciously, I smile as I consider my response.
"See.  Like that!" she says to me.
"Sometimes," I say, "that is the best response."
"Really?  You are supposed to just smile?"
"Well, sometimes smiling is the best response for me.  I'm not always certain what I would say would be good.  You guys definitely make me grow in patience."

That is entirely true.  Teaching forces me to grown in patience in a way I never really considered.  My first year of teaching found me horrified at myself as I realized that I had picked up a behavior from my students I didn't want: rolling my eyes.  I guess I had seen so many eye rolls that I just began to mirror their behavior back to them.

My students probably view me as quiet, gentle, and "nice."  They have experienced little of my sarcasm and sharp tongue.  Perhaps they would be surprised if they had a glimpse into my mind, a taste of the quick retorts my mind can come up with when faced with their behavior.  I like to think of myself as "long-suffering" and attempt to wade through their comments, ignoring many and responding to a few.  My goal is to have the best response for the given situation.  Sometimes it is acting like I never heard their groans.  Other times I confront the student and then send them to the office when their behavior becomes too much.  I probably get it wrong 80% of the time.

Patience.  I'm slow to learn it.  Driving across town I'll get cut off in traffic and I am amazed how quickly my temper can flare.  It is as though the greatest injustice has been done to me.  On good days, I will quickly remind myself that it isn't that big of a deal and will try to regain my peace.  In a similar way, by 8th period my patience can wear thin and what wouldn't have bothered me earlier in the day is nearly unbearable at that moment.  I'm weary and ready for the day to end and instead I find myself justifying a ten minute assignment to an eighteen year old child who thinks they are an adult.  Perhaps the Lord placed me here to acquire this virtue and my deficiency in patience will be overcome by teaching.

However, until my stubborn little heart learns to respond with tact and grace to complaints and criticisms, my best response may be a smile.

"Peace begins with a smile."  -Bl. Teresa of Calcutta

Heart of Jesus, Sanctify my Heart

Can you imagine how large the heart of Jesus must be?  How patient, how loving, how gracious, how kind, how relentlessly unfathomable His mercy?

I wish I had a heart like that.  A heart that could encompass the entire world.  A heart that was large enough to love all I encounter, sincerely, truly, seeking the best in them regardless of how they respond to me.

My heart, tiny, puny, cold thing that it is, is impossibly small.  It is not enough to envelope my students.  It is not enough to embrace my family.  It isn't even enough to surround myself.

They frustrate me.  I can be lead to feel defeated, disheartened, angry, annoyed, sarcastic, listless, bored, and on the verge of tears.  My life is not based on teenagers, but I don't think they quite realize how much of my life centers on them.  For hours I am with them.  My offerings are typically rejected because students (surprise!) don't like homework and seem particularly prone to dislike even more "religion" homework.  Because it is supposed to be easy.  And Jesus is always the answer.

Part of me wants to lecture them for an entire class period--about how I don't like grading their papers but I do it because it is asked of me.  I don't like their attitudes but I try to be forgiving without being a push-over.  And I try to remain calm when they so flippantly assume that teachers desire them to fail and want to push them to the limits of sanity.

Why would I want that?  I'm on the limits of sanity myself, how would an entire class of teenagers bordering on madness help me?  One day last year, when the comments were more than I could bear, I asked them to think logically about what they assumed.  Unless a teacher really derives pleasure from their pain, what benefit would we gain by making our students hate school?  We are the ones that have to be with them all day, anyway.  Why would we want to make them miserable and then try to teach them?  The answer that they didn't give me?  The students feel better when they assume it is simply out of spite that we give them homework.  That we challenge them, not because we desire their growth, but because we desire their tears.  It's an obnoxious assumption that I am certain I entertained as a high schooler.  Now, on the other side of the desk, I see the ridiculousness of it all.

And this, readers, is why I need His heart.  Mine is clearly too small.  It gets annoyed at many things and subconsciously chooses favorites.  It makes hasty judgments, harbors unforgiveness, settles for mediocrity, and all sorts of other vices.

They deserve so much more.  They deserve a wide-open heart, one that has room for and welcomes all.  They need a heart that is tender yet firm, tangible yet limitless, patient yet demanding, relational yet depths beyond imagining.  They need Jesus.  So until they understand where He is and that He is, I must be a witness of that heart of His.

Sacred Heart of Jesus, sanctify us.


"He has loved us all with a human heart. For this reason, the Sacred Heart of Jesus, pierced by our sins and for our salvation, "is quite rightly considered the chief sign and symbol of that. . . love with which the divine Redeemer continually loves the eternal Father and all human beings" without exception."  --CCC 478

Sometimes God Procrastinates

Sometimes God procrastinates.  He has had all of time knowing what will happen and yet He still waits until the last minute to pull things together.  Yet the sudden perfection of everything falling together comes off as far more dazzling then if it was revealed in advance.

For the past couple weeks I've been thinking about a Bioethics Certification course.  The reading and assignments are done online and then participants attend a seminar this fall and a case studies day next May.  The problem?  The cost.  The certification program is $2900 and then travel, lodging, food, and transportation for Bismarck and Philadelphia would need to be arranged.  It seemed an impossible amount for a Catholic school teacher with a remarkable amount of debt.

The beginning of this week I talked to my department head at school.  Sister thought it sounded like a great idea and encouraged me to talk to the principal about funding.  The conversation with the principal the next day was a little less uplifting.  He told me an amount that would cover the trip to Bismarck, which left me questioning if I could financially pull off the rest of the tuition and trips.

In desperation, I sent an email to the Bioethics center asking if they had any scholarships, donations, or funds for those who wanted to do the certification but couldn't afford it.  I wasn't extremely hopeful, even though I told them I was in the e-mail.  It seemed this dream wouldn't be fulfilled.

The next day my parents called and left me a message.  We filed taxes incredibly late and so they were letting me know what my tax refund would be.  I was a bit surprised at the amount and my first thought was that it would definitely help pay for the certification program if I ended up doing it.

My mom and I went out for supper the next night and I talked about it with her.  I wanted to do the program but I didn't want the cost to spiral out of control.  It would be stressful to realize part way through the program that it would cost more than I anticipated.  My biggest concern was how much the trip to Philadelphia would cost.

That night I talked to my housemates about the program.  It is obvious that I want to do it, but I was still conflicted.  In bed that night, I asked Jesus to make it clear to me if He wanted me to do the program or not.  Time was running short to register for the program but I wasn't entirely convinced.

The next morning I was giving a couple quizzes in my classroom and I checked my e-mail.  There was an e-mail from the priest in charge of the bioethics program.  He said they tried to find someone to help me out financially and a donor offered $1000 for a student who needed tuition assistance.  He was wondering if I would accept the money and he hoped it would enable me to take part in the program this year.

I sat there in shock looking at my computer screen.

It had all fallen together.

Everything.

Between the tuition assistance and my tax refund, I would only need to cover a few hundred dollars.  The school was offering to pay for the trip to Bismarck but I could maybe stretch that a little more.  All that was needed was me to cover Philadelphia.

It was a beautiful feeling that morning.  The Lord had pulled it all together and just in time.  I grabbed another faculty member to watch my students take their quiz and I called my mom.  Speaking the words that I had only read so far was incredible.  She was not surprised but said she expected something to come up.  The joy began to overflow and I started to cry a little.

There was a deep-seated peace within me.  I wasn't wondering anymore about if the Lord wanted me to be in this program or if it was my own desires.  He pulled everything into place in the perfect time.

So perhaps God wasn't just procrastinating this entire time.  Maybe He was teaching me to wait patiently and to trust in Him.

In the Waiting

The "crucify Him!" of Good Friday gives into the waiting of Holy Saturday.

I always find it difficult to speak those words.  Inwardly, I rebel.  I don't want Him crucified, I don't want to be one of the crowd yelling for the death of the One who loves me.  Yet what other role is there to play in the Passion narrative?  Peter denies Christ three times.  Judas betrays Christ for money.  Pilate is intrigued by Jesus yet still washes his hands of Jesus and hands Him over for death to appease the crowd.  The Pharisees rile the crowd and they yell for the death of Jesus.  In the words listed in the Passion narratives at Palm Sunday and Good Friday, there is no one to defend Jesus.  None speak on His behalf.  So I must cast my lot with the crowd and speak the words that I too often live out.

We suffer through the Passion with Jesus on Good Friday.  Not fully, of course, but we enter into it more.  We try to make it a reality, an event to experience today, not simply a fact of our faith.  At Good Friday service we reverence the cross.  I pictured myself at the foot of the cross, looking up at Christ.  At times I am clinging to the cross, kissing His feet.  Other times I am crumpled on the ground in agony.  Or I am embracing Mary, trying to understand her sorrow.  At one point I was Our Lady, cradling Jesus in my arms, my broken heart questioning why this must happen yet remaining steadfast in my hope.

He dies and is buried.  There is an emptiness I feel with all of this.  There is a strangeness in the tabernacle, open and empty.  There is a sense of deprivation.  I don't understand what the apostles felt, but I catch a glimpse of it.

We enter then into the waiting of Holy Saturday. In a way, this is worse than Good Friday.  Good Friday involves action--we are walking with Jesus to the cross, we are watching Him be crucified, we are mourning Him and cradling Him in our arms.  But on Holy Saturday He is buried and He sleeps.  My soul is waiting for the "Alleluia" of Easter but it is not here yet.  I try to imagine the starkness of Holy Saturday for the apostles and Our Lady.  Jesus is dead and buried.  They do not understand that the Resurrection will take place.  Perhaps Holy Saturday is bleaker than Good Friday.  While yet alive, there was the hope that angels would come and rescue Him or that He would come off the cross of His own volition.  Holy Saturday is filled with memories of the Passion, reliving the moments when they betrayed the Christ, and wondering what the future holds.

Did that happen?  Did He truly die?  Is this how the story ends?  Did we follow this man for three years, see Him perform many wonders, listen with burning hearts to His words, only to see Him die the ignoble death of a criminal?  What is God's next move?  Did evil really triumph?  Where is hope?

Easter Sunday cannot be understood yet.  It is beyond what they expect.  Living in the hours after the death of Jesus, they are wondering how life can ever be the same or even continue.  We can experience Holy Saturday in the same way, too.  Yes, we know the next step in this story: Christ rises from the dead.  Yet in our own lives, we do not know the next step.  We often experience a Good Friday and then think it ends with Holy Saturday.  It is difficult to wait.  It is difficult to be patient and to let God bring something gloriously beautiful and incomprehensible from the ruined ashes of our situation.

Between "Christ has died" and "Christ has risen" there is a tension.  Perhaps much of our life is spent in this tension of living between death and resurrection.  The waiting has a purpose though.  It is preparing us for the joy that is to come.  We simply need to have the patience to sit with Our Lord in the tomb.  He will rise--we know this truth.  In this moment, in this Holy Saturday of our lives, we need to wait in this moment of death, in this apparent loss of everything we hold dear, in this aching lack.  Christ is meeting us in this lack.  And He is preparing our hearts for the joy that He will pour into them.  The joy will be made all the more wonderful by the experience of the agony of waiting, suffering, and dying with Him.

Christ will rise.  For now, let us wait at the tomb with Him, deepening our desire for Him.  Let us wait in the tension that is bringing about our salvation.