Living Life Well

Lord, be with me; I want to do Your will.  Show me how; show me where.  But You don’t need to show me why.

I trust in You.

I’ve written many times about the importance of that question: “why,” because we do so many things without asking it, or without asking it about the most important things:  Why am I alive?  Why here; why now?  Why am I so blessed?  Why did my God die for me?

Why?

I used to think it important to think on that question, so as to not just do, or just want.  Things are there for a reason; there is truth.  I wanted to know why, and I thought we all should be asking that.

I realize that my searching for “why” tells something about me: that I’m curious, that I have a need to understand, and that knowing “why” might strengthen my faith.  Needing to know why also says something else about me:  I have a great abiding trust in myself.  It’s only been recently however, that I realized that question “why” also says something else about me:  I am alone; I don’t really trust anyone.

I believe it is a great epiphany if you can come to trust in God.  Why did Jesus do that?  Why does the Church teach that?  Why do people act that way?  Why am I the way I am?  They’re questions that eat at us, and not finding answers which satisfy us, we are unsettled.  And most of us can’t even bring to mind the question that is at the root of all these others:  Why does God love me?

And we think if we can’t figure that out, He must not.

I said that in some ways it is a curse to have intelligence, a curiosity that is always asking “why”.  Far too few of us are using that intelligence to bring us to the correct answer to that simple question.  The answer on most matters to that never-ending question of “why,” our need to know, is: It doesn’t matter, because God knows why.

It’s a great insight and a great grace, if the Holy Spirit opens our minds and our hearts to see that in a at what happens to us.  We are just a speck in all of creation, in the timeline of eternity.  It’d be easy to look at that immenseness and think:  “Well, then I must not matter at all.”  But you do.

God put you there.  He created the picture of creation.  He needed you there; He wanted you there.  You don’t need to know why.

All you need do is trust.  And as for how to live your life, that’s such a small thing too.  You need to trust there also, because He showed you how to live that life; He came to earth to demonstrate, and if His example wasn’t clear enough, he said those simple words of saying how to live:  Love God, and love your neighbor.

It’s what He created you to do.  Now go do it well.

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The Gospel (Lk 15: 1-10) is about the lost sheep.  And when it is found the shepherd says: “I have found my sheep who was lost.”  But reading on, Jesus later says: “There will be more rejoicing in heaven over one repentant sinner …”  Do you see the difference in those words?  The shepherd says “I found my sheep;” Jesus says: “My sheep found me.”  That’s the reason for joy in heaven.  The sheep that was off, looking around on his own, seeking his own answers to “why,” and it tuned and found God, the answer to all its questions.

And there was rejoicing in heaven.

I pray you can someday reach that point, where you can hear the cheering of heaven.  Stop looking for ways you want to go, for understandings you must have.  Listen to the Shepherd’s voice calling you, even if it seems faint and far away.  And learn to trust.  RESOLVE to trust.

That is living life well.

Me:Dummie

I finished filing my taxes last week and in closing, Turbotax informed me that it would not be available for me next year; it would not support Vista for 2017 returns.  Coupled with similar notices from Bit Defender and other software companies, I went out last week and bought a new computer and up-to-date Windows and Office software.

I went to the computer geek guys about 4 or 5 times, ensuring that they had transferred stuff from my old computer ----- and that I could find it.  Inch by inch, I made progress but every time I tried something else, I couldn’t find some tool I used on my old computer, or some bookmark, or some name, or some file.  I knew that given a few years I would eventually figure it all out, however I gave up.

It will probably be another week or two before things get somewhat normal for me ---- hopefully I’ll fulfill my Lenten resolution to do some housecleaning.  But today I ordered Office 2016 and Windows 10 for Dummies, which should get me headed in the right direction.  Maybe.  Until then, don’t be looking for much in the way of blog postings, emails, or anything electronic from me.

Me --- Dummie.

OMG! I Got What I Prayed For!

The Gospel (MT 6:7-15) was on the Our Father prayer, and forgiveness.  The meditations in the book The Better Part (#16) brought it into focus for me:

“Forgiveness requires humility …, recognizing that you are not God.  A refusal to forgive involves passing judgment …, (but) only God can see the whole interior world of a human being.  A refusal to forgive comes, ultimately, from arrogance.  We think we are so perfect.  Those who refuse to forgive are acting like God …., (but) the throne of judgment only has enough room for one judge at a time, either oneself or God.

The unforgiving person ends up destroying himself in his self-righteous attempt to destroy his neighbor.”

Those words gave me much to reflect on, and I read them more than once.  It was on the third glance, however, when my mind settled on that first sentence:  “Forgiveness requires humility.”  The one prayer Jesus taught us, The Our Father, has its roots in humility.  And then I recalled that I begin my prayers each night with the Litany of Humility.

I pulled out the laminated prayer card with the prayer’s words and looked at it again.  I recalled when I first read that prayer, years ago:  I choked at its words.  “I can’t pray for that!” I thought.  But I did.  It took a long time for those words to go down easy, and even longer before I began to pray the words with sincerity.

The first lines of the Litany of Humility have me praying:  Deliver me, Jesus, from the desires of being loved, honored, praised, preferred or consulted.  It’s saying that I don’t want my focus to be living for myself, my ego.  I am important, but my life can’t be totally focused on me.

The next section of the Litany has me praying:  Deliver me, Jesus, from the fear of being humiliated, rebuked, ridiculed, or from having my opinions rejected.  It’s saying that I don’t want to live for other’s approvals, and I must be able to accept their rejections --- I won’t get mad.  It’s recognizing that I am not perfect, and I must stop acting like it.

And finally, the Litany ends with me praying:  Jesus, grant me the grace to desire that others are esteemed more than I, chosen, praised and preferred to me, and even that they be holier than I --- “provided that I become as holy as I should be.”  I’m praying here that I may be one with the Holy Spirit, bestowing love on others as a focus of my life.

The fruit of the Litany of Humility is love.  It’s the love that Jesus had, the love every parent should have, and every community should have.  The Our Father prayer isn’t a petition to God for what we want, it’s a prayer that we might be humble enough to live as Jesus lived, with a focus on love of others, and to always be reconciled with them.  The prayer starts with “Our” Father --- I don’t want to be treated as someone special.  I want to be one of God’s family, all loved together.

The first parts of the Litany of Humility are me rejecting what I want, and the last praying I do as God wants.  The prayer is saying I reject the self-centeredness Adam and Eve chose in the Garden, and accept the hard cross Jesus chose, of loving no matter the cost.

Later that same evening, I read these words from the book Divine Intimacy (Meditation, 97 and 98):

“The spirit of mortification has … renunciation of the ego …, inordinate tendencies toward self-assertion, complacency in one's own excellence.  Unconsciously, we tend to make “self” the center of the universe.

O Lord, how often I have tried in so many ways to escape the mortifications, humiliations, and difficulties which You Yourself had prepared for me.  Give me, O God, sight which can judge events in Your Light; strike my ego, my pride, my opinions.  Here I am, Lord, mortify me, purify me as You wish, for whenever You afflict, it is to heal, and whenever You mortify, life increases.

The best mean of conquering temptations to pride and vanity is to choose exactly what humiliates us and makes us appear little in the eyes of others.”

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There came a day when I was asked to use my talents to help some people, but I discovered they didn’t want my help.  The more I sought to give them benefits, the angrier they got.  My ways of thinking were not their ways.  Then the above prayers and reflections came to me.

I was seeking to use my talents wisely, and expecting honor (and cooperation).  I was rejecting their anger and disagreement:  Because I knew I was right!  And in the actions I sought to take, I was, but I was not properly considering them and their feelings.  And suddenly this night, with the reflections above, I realized:  OMG!  Praying the Litany of Humility each night --- in the rejections of these people I sought to help, my prayer has been answered!  I have been humbled!  But now that I found myself in the perfect position to accept and humbly love these people, more than myself, could I?

It’s hard to concede a good you want, for someone else’s higher good.  In effect, I found I wanted to help some people save a penny --- a good thing, but my actions caused them to be distracted in anger, losing a dollar, a more important thing. 

Love is the most important thing; a unity of family the most important thing; we must be humble enough to give it and to want it for everyone we meet, regardless to the cost of our ego.

And later that evening I read one more thing, from the book which always lies on my coffee table:

“Son, in many things it behooveth thee to be ignorant, and to esteem thyself as one dead upon earth; as one to whom the whole world is crucified.

Many things also must thou pass by with a deaf ear, and think rather of those things that appertain to thy peace.

It is more profitable to turn away thy eyes from such things as displease thee, and to leave to every one his own way of thinking, than to give way to contentious discourses.”

-- My Imitation of Christ, by Thomas a’Kempis (Chapter 44)

Second-Guessing God

The Gospel was on the rich man (Mk 10:17).  Jesus told him to “sell everything” earthly, so “you will have treasure in heaven; then come follow me.”  And the man went away sad.  “How hard it is for those who have riches to enter the kingdom,” Jesus told His disciples.

And I wondered:  What are my riches?

The Garden of Eden showed us the commonly-held riches of every man and woman:  They are prone to value themselves highly, even more than God.  It is the Devil’s primary temptation: God’s laws are restrictive; you deserve this thing or that, and so it is right for you to have it.  (We Americans like to say we have a “right” to what we want for ourselves.)  Some rationalize a response to this temptation and their response.  They convince themselves God can’t exist, because “A God would want me happy --- no pain, no sorrow, and total freedom.”  And some convince themselves that God DOES exist --- “But I have to compensate for His shortcomings, His not loving me enough.”  Most often these compromises occur through giving in to the desires of our body.  Certainly Pride is at the top of these desires; we want to be honored, respected, and loved.  But the five physical senses are also sources of temptations, and these are often satisfied by money:  the big house, beautiful possession, trips, sex, and of course food.  All these are the temptations of the body in every man and woman --- but for some there are more.

With the fall in the Garden of Eden, the average person became prone to the temptations of Pride, choosing self over God.  Some, however, are NOT average people, they are gifted with even “better” bodies --- and for these the Parable of the Talents says: “From those who are given more, more is expected.”  But even as the gifts of our body can provide us new ways to serve God and give more, they can also provide us new ways of being led astray from Him.

Two exceptional gifts which I have some experience with are the gifts of higher knowledge and beauty.  Unfortunately, it’s often parents who first see these gifts in their children and focus undue attention on them, teaching them not as gifts to help the kids to serve God, but to serve themselves.  They are treated as special kids growing up, different than their siblings, and then these “special” kids grow up expecting to be treated as special adults.  They believe life is easier than it really is; that things are owed them, and later, they don’t know how to handle adversity which they should have seen in their youth.  They come to think that attention given them is love, a deserved love.  Their knowledge and beauty often lead to easy financial gains in their adult lives, which they treat as their due, not further gifts to be used wisely.  These are the ones who would pass easier through the eye of a needle than attain heaven.  At the root of their sins is the fact that they have never learned humility, from which flows true love of others --- the heart of the Gospels, and the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

The rich man thought himself a good person --- like we do.  He knew and followed the commandments --- like we do.  But when Jesus said “give up your money and ways and follow Me,” he could not do it.  The rich man knew the commandments and their good results, but he’d also grown up learning the value of HIS knowledge and its good results (money).  Jesus was saying “Stop following what you know, and follow what I know.”  Trust Me.  And the rich man could not. 

I understand that rich man’s reluctance.

Peter knew Jesus and acknowledged Him as the Son of God.  And so when Jesus was walking on the water and told Peter to come, Peter immediately left the boat and started walking to Jesus.  (Notice none of the others did.)  But as Peter walked on the water he had time to think, and his initial trust faded, and he began to sink.  I very much understand that hearing of God’s call, and the subsequent forgetting of the initial trusting in God, and then thinking of what I am doing or plan to do.  How often some good idea of God’s didn’t get done by me, because I had to interject my ideas.

I think Saul had to be knocked off his horse and blinded to make Paul as trusting a man as he turned out to be.  At one point Paul saw the lame beggar and said “what I have I will give to you; rise and walk.”  I could picture myself in Paul’s shoes; I could imagine the Holy Spirit urging me to heal the lame beggar in front of me.  Unfortunately, I could also imagine what I would have done in Paul’s spot.  I would have thanked the Holy Spirit for opening my eyes to see the man in front of me, and been confident of the Spirit’s healing powers --- and then I would have started thinking:  “If I heal this beggar, he will be a poor man with no livelihood, but I know someone who might offer him a job, and someone who might give him a place to live.”  And then after I’d gone and arranged those things, I would go back to the beggar man, planning the words I would tell him: “Get up and walk; go see Sam for the job he has for you, and then Joe for a place to stay.  Now thank Jesus for His blessings and have a good life.”  It would be a good healing.  Only when I got back to where I had seen the lame beggar, I would find him gone.  I wouldn’t have trusted the urgings of the Holy Spirit without interjecting my own urgings.  That’s my problem, and one of many people.  I have some blessings of intelligence, and I am used to thinking of good solutions to problems, and being rewarded.  It’s hard for me to ignore myself and trust in God’s urgings, and just act on them.

Many of us want to be open to God’s will; we pray that He would show us.  And sometimes He does, but most often not the way we expected.  And so we pause, and we think.  And nothing changes in our lives, and we wonder why, and wonder if things will EVER change.

They won’t, not if we continue to rely on ourselves, and our wisdom not His.  We need to stop second-guessing God!

If anyone wants to be a follower of Mine, let him renounce
himself and take up his cross and follow Me.

“We need to desire Mt Calvary as much as Mt Tabor.  Only then will this hardest lesson --- that earth isn’t heaven and never will be, that the path to abundant meaning and happiness passes through a daily cross, that unless we are willing to sacrifice our personal preferences and worldly desires we will never reach the goal for which we were created --- only then will this lesson be able to seep down into our hearts and spread into every corner of our minds.”

                        -- The Better Part, Meditation 181