I love you so much – but not enough. yet.

Temptation is a funny thing – one I used to think only existed in the secular, tangible world.

And my solution to temptation has generally been avoidance, as possible.
If I’m fasting from chocolate during the season of lent, I eliminate it from my cupboards and keep it off my grocery list. If I’m inclined towards sin with a certain man, I avoid situations that might permit us to fall. I think it’s pretty reasonable. Chocolate is chocolate, so there isn’t much to say about that. But with a man, I’m often able to recognize that if I loved him with a perfect love, my selfish desires would be undermined by my desire for his well-being and that would be enough to keep us from sin. Unfortunately, I’ve found that this isn’t always the case, and my love isn’t always pure or perfect or able to withstand significant temptation. And that’s why avoidance becomes my strategy.

The other day I was driving home post-call and realized that Mass would be starting shortly at our Parish. As I was deciding to go, I realized I had an apology I needed to offer. Though the issue was not mortal sin territory, I still felt like I needed to seek forgiveness before receiving Jesus – and knew that I had been avoiding it for a few days. I then considered going to Mass and not receiving the Eucharist, but I found myself in a similar sort of place I had found myself before with a man. This idea that because I loved Jesus so much, (but not enough), I didn’t know if I would be able to resist Him in the Eucharist. And so, from a desire not to dishonor Him with my sin, I kept my distance until that afternoon when I was reconciled with the other.

As our love grows, I think we go through phases. Simply put, I think we begin with an attraction to another that entices us to spend time with them, to invest in them, to learn about them. As our relationship begins to establish itself, I think we often end up in a place where we feel compelled to serve the other in a certain capacity, but aren’t necessarily more concerned with their wellbeing than we are with our own. And often we get stuck here.

If we persevere, if we push through, if we seek to love perfectly, we eventually end up in a place where we are ready to lay down our lives for the sake of another. We find ourselves offering a selfless and sacrificial love. Our love begins to resemble that of our Lord who allowed nails to pierce His hands and feet that we might have the Best. Not just that which is good, but that which is Best.

We are all capable of offering that kind of love – because the Lord who created it is alive and at work in each one of us. It is thus our choice of where we will settle, where we will end up. Will we only love enough to maintain our relationships, or will we give everything, aware of the hurt and disappointment that will follow, but still able to give, as we find our foundation in love Himself.

Drawn in to love...

The love of the Trinity is phenomenal. Potentially so phenomenal that we can’t understand it. But when I think about the love of the Trinity – I understand it as three which become one because of a powerful and binding love. Minutely similar to us – our human bodies are essentially held tightly together by connective tissue galore. Without these binding factors, we would quickly fall apart in to our many individual parts. I think that’s sort of how the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are bound together as one God – bound by a love so strong, so selfless and so stable that it can take three and make them one, in the same way that small structures in our body take our individual parts and make them one.

So I think this makes the Eucharist AMAZING. Because when Jesus enters our body – we, too, are drawn in to that love. The love of the Trinity is necessarily imparted to us and poured forth from us – because Jesus, who we hold within us, cannot be isolated from the love of the Father and Holy Spirit. And so, as Father and Spirit pour forth love, we are enveloped in a pure and perfect love – and as Christ’s love contributes to the Three in One – we become capable of expressing a perfect, selfless, sacrificial love.

I think that’s right…

A delayed understanding...

I used to think that cliques were bad. I thought they were divisive and dividing and even hurtful at times. In my mind I knew that a class of 30 or 200 or 500 people couldn’t be full of bffs. That people had to have groups of friends. But then I still just didn’t like them.

I think it’s because something has gone wrong in the process of us finding our friends.

Some friend groups have been placed on pedestals and others on foot stools.
Our common, social perception says that not all cliques are created equally.

I disagree.

I do believe that indeed, because we are each unique personalities, there are groups of people that would naturally form – people who we just tend to get along with without trying. And that’s great. That’s actually kind of beautiful.

But the problem began the day someone conceived this idea of a ‘social ladder’
Because it’s within this context, within this worldview, that we cease to be comfortable being who we are, for we believe we ought to strive to be more.

NO.

We are individuals. Uniquely, beautifully and wonderfully created.

What I mean is that… it’s just so obvious that no one group of people is better than another. If we were able to take away all of society’s effects, I think the groups that form initially would remain. Though we are all human, we are different types – different sizes, shapes and characters. And there are people who we naturally get along with. If we could choose those people freely, I think we would find happiness in our relationships. But instead we reach. We try to climb a ladder than never should have been dreamed in to existence. And if we get stuck here – if we never realize that we were born to be who we are – then we’re stuck with a life of searching.

For it is in acknowledging the beauty that is unique to our individual souls that we find freedom.
And when we are free, then we are happy.

Fight or flight...

There’s something called the fight or flight response, which is also referred to as the response of your sympathetic nervous system. It’s a co-ordinated series of changes in your body that occur when you’re in a situation that requires you to either fight off an imminent danger or flee from the sight. As you can imagine, this series of changes leads to open your airways to allow more oxygen in to your body, it speeds up your heart rate and dilates you pupils so more light can get in, amongst many other things. Your body however cannot simply accommodate these changes without drawing from other parts of your body that aren’t crucial to this response. And so, while some organs in your body get more blood flow to increase their efficiency, other areas of your body – like your gut and your extremities, have their blood flow constricted.

Overall, I think it’s a pretty phenomenal example of how the body is meant to work cohesively as one.

Fantastic material I say!

If the body of Christ is suffering – I tend to believe we have a responsibility to attend to it. If I was walking in the forest and met a bear and my stomach was too selfish to give up some of its blood - I would become the bear’s dinner. It’s really that simple.

If our community, our body, is suffering. If it is not well. I think we are responsible. I don’t think we can sit around and do nothing. I don’t think we can simply look on them with sympathy and then go on with our lives. As Christmas approaches – I’ve begun to feel that our practice of suffocating our Christmas trees with lavish and extravagant gifts is foolishness. I think we need to become a people of sacrifice. A people of commitment. A people who recognize that, despite the decrees of our society, we are not our own. Our body and our lives are not ours to do with as we please. I mean, we can… and we often do. But I believe we have a responsibility to the rest of our body to offer what we have, to give according to our means and to pray without ceasing. Just as the body subconsciously adapts when a part of it is in need, so we need to consciously choose to recognize those who are in need, and seek out ways in which we might die – that they might live.

If you are reading this on your computer screen, you are a part of the we who have been given so much. And if we are not prepared to give sacrificially in this season of giving – then I daresay we never will be.

What's in a name...

He IS the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords.

But He is also our Father

And I have this thought that God may be more interested in being our Father than He is in being a King.

Though we are servants, I think our more intimate role is one as daughters.
And though we deserve nothing, I think He is happy to bless us with abundance.

If we were to compare the Kingship of our Lord to the Kingship of a man over a country, I think the meaning behind these words is born. Does a king prefer to hear his very children call him king? Does he await their first word, hoping it will start with a k? Or does he yearn for the day his child will utter dada – the day when his child will acknowledge that, in a unique way, he has contributed to a portion of this child’s existence. Does he recognize that while he can be a leader to many that has little significance in considering that he has been a proponent in the creation of just a few? I say without hesitation that the latter holds tremendously more meaning than the former. And I think this to be true of our Lord too. I believe He longs for us to recognize Him as our Father more than as our King.

CS Lewis suggests…

--

Why is God landing in this enemy-occupied world in disguise and starting a sort of secret society to undermine the devil? Why is He not landing in force, invading it? Is it that He is not strong enough? Well, Christians think He is going to land in force. We do not know when. But we can guess why He is delaying. He wants to give us the chance of joining His side freely. I do not suppose you and I would have thought much of a Frenchman who waited until the allies were marching into Germany and then announced he was on our side. God will invade. But I wonder whether people who ask God to interfere openly and directly in our world quite realize what it will be like when He does. When that happens, it is the end of the world. When the author walks onto the stage, the play is over. God is going to invade all right. But what is the good of saying you are on His side then, when you see the whole natural universe, melting away like a dream, and something else, something it never entered your head to conceive comes crashing in. Something so beautiful to some of us and so terrible to others that none of us will have any choice left. For this time it will be God without disguise. Something so overwhelming, that it will strike either irresistible love or irresistible horror into every creature. It will be too late then to choose your side. There is no use saying you could choose to lie down when it is become impossible to stand up. That will not be the time for choosing. It will be the time when we discover which side we really have chosen. Whether we realized it before or not. Now, today, this moment is our chance to choose the right side.
God is holding back to give us that chance. It will not last forever. We must take it or leave it.

--

I believe that day will come when every man will recognize God in all His glory for everything He is.
There will remain no doubt that He is, and ever has been, the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords.
Yes – our God will be victorious.

In a special way, I think those who have known Him as Father will be overwhelmed with irresistible love.
That as we acknowledge Him as our King – we will know too that, though servants, we are also His precious children.
And as we call on Him as the most powerful being, we will know that He has also shown us the most delicate of love.

And so with joy we will declare
That’s my King
and that’s my dad.

His thoughts are higher than mine

I recently read a friend’s musings on how we often don’t understand the ways of God. I agree.

And then I wondered why...

If I had things my way – there would be a step-by-step plan lying on my desk instructing me exactly how I was going to accomplish the Lord’s plans for my life. It would be coloured with detail about the job I would have, the man I would marry and the children I would raise and it would dictate exactly how this would be accomplished.

But that’s just not how it is.

You would be strapped to find someone who would declare with certainty that they know the will of God for the next decade. More often – those who follow Him do so on a daily basis – seeking to hear His voice and follow in His footsteps as He gently guides us along our unique and perfect paths.

Often it’s hard. We don’t know where our steps today will lead us to tomorrow.
But we follow in faith.

And I think there’s phenomenal wisdom in this day-by-day revelation.

See, I often wonder if Agnes Bojaxhiu, at the age of 13, had been told that she would leave behind family and friends and spend her life in the streets of Calcutta feeding those she described as the poor and destitute– would she have endured? Would she have continued to follow? Or would she have run in the opposite direction as quickly and as far as she could have?

If Karol Wojtyla had been told when he was 15 years of age that he would one day be the leader of the Catholic Church on this Earth, that he would be shot in St. Peter’s square and later forgive the man who put a bullet through his chest – would he have remained faithful? Or would he have sought another path for his life?

The Lord reveals His plans on His watch.

Knowing that before He does – He will prove Himself faithful and give us permission to trust Him.
Yes, as we take risks and put ourselves on the line – the Lord assures us that He is worthy.

And it is with this assurance, that we are able to trust more. To risk more.
To forsake all else, which has repeatedly disappointed, and pursue the One who never fails.

Our Father doesn’t ask for foolish abandon before assuring us that He is worthy of our lives.

I think God gives me words once a while because they last. And emotions don’t.

Today, I don’t feel perfectly loved. I don’t feel the abounding, sustaining, suffocating love I easily described a couple days ago. And I don’t know why. But I know I don’t.

I have theories though. About why I don’t.

As I was sitting here this afternoon, feeling less than perfectly loved, a friend messaged me asking how to make pasta. I told him my favourite part is throwing it against the cupboard to see if it sticks – an absolutely guarantee that your pasta is ready! Yum.

Anyways – he proceeded to make his pasta, cupboard throwing and all. And was so pleased with his success he came online to tell me how well it worked, and more than that – featured this accomplishment in his facebook and twitter status – with a shout out to yours truly. And can I, regretfully, tell you, that –emotion wise –this was the most loved I felt this evening.

I think the world has become really good at acting.

John Paul II wrote of our heart’s yearnings.

I find great peace in thinking of the time when the Lord will call me: from life to life! And so I often find myself saying, with no trace of melancholy, a prayer recited by priests after the celebration of the Eucharist: In hora mortis meae voca me, et iube me venire ad te – at the hour of my death, call me and bid me come to you. This is the prayer of Christian hope, which in no way detracts from the joy of the present, while entrusting the future to God's gracious and loving care.

“Iube me venire ad te!”: this is the deepest yearning of the human heart, even in those who are not conscious of it.


I don’t always see this. The people I encounter don’t appear to be hungry. They don’t scream yearning. And when I’m stuck in my own world, engulfed by the love of the Father, I think I’m quick to forget what it is to NOT know the love of the Lord. To not have that yearning spoken for.

My theory: when I find myself suddenly feeling unloved, I think that’s a bit of a wake up call. It’s a reminder of how I would feel most everyday if I didn’t know, have or embrace the love of my Father. A reminder that though we can all put on happy faces and pretend we’re satisfied; though we can even convince ourselves that we have what we need, it doesn’t make it real. Our longing doesn’t go away. A reminder that just because everyone seems to have it together doesn’t mean they do. A reminder that we are capable of wearing masks and pretending we’ve found what we’re looking for – though that remains a distant reality for many.

Life’s a lot easier if we ignore the yearning of our human hearts. Or the yearning of those hearts around us. It’s easier when we accept people at their face value and fill our lives with temporary pleasures to dull the ache of our own longings.

So many of the things we do can be explained by our hunger to be accepted, to be needed and to have purpose in our lives because much of who we are is wrapped up in our hearts. And so it follows that our true happiness lies in satisfying those innate desires with that for which they were created.

Objectively, we often find ourselves on the outside of situations that our friends or family are involved in and we just can’t understand why they are where they are. We don’t understand why they choose option A, when it is slowly destroying them, while option B has their true best interests at heart.

Look to their yearnings.
Look to the rawest desires of their heart.

Therein we find the answers.


Our hearts are restless until they find rest in You.
St. Augstine