Far Beyond Pearls

The homily this morning was pretty predictable. It focused on the Gospel, of course, the tale of the poor man who embarrassed himself by sitting down near the head of the table at a wedding banquet. Alas, when a more distinguished guest arrived, the man was asked to give up his seat and ended up reclining way, way down at the far end of the hall, at the lowest place of all. “For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.” (Lk 14:11)

The second reading, though, from the twelfth chapter of St. Paul’s Letter to the Hebrews, was pretty powerful stuff. I had to read the whole chapter.

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so close, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. (Heb 12:1)

I wonder how fast I could run, unburdened by sin, free and light, with eyes only for my Lord and God.  I appreciate Paul’s passion.

Lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but rather be healed. Strive for peace with all men, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord. See to it that no one fail to obtain the grace of God; that no “root of bitterness” spring up and cause trouble, and by it the many become defiled. (Heb 12:12-15)

Good advice to a fallen world in which we are more inclined to tear each other down than lift each other up. And that “root of bitterness”. How much strife is caused in our own families by that deep-rooted weed, causing “the many to become defiled” by our angry words and begrudging actions.

For you have not come to what may be touched, a blazing fire, and darkness, and gloom, and a tempest, and the sound of a trumpet, and a voice whose words made the hearer entreat that no further messages be spoken to them. You have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the first-born who are enrolled in heaven, and to a judge who is God of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks more graciously than the blood of Abel. (Heb 12 18-19, 22-24)

Such a word-picture he paints, of storms and war and burning destruction and a terrible voice thundering commandments from heaven, contrasting so vividly with a vision of angels and saints, a golden city, a just God, our risen Savior.  I think of the words of our beloved Pope John Paul II: “Be not afraid!” We were made for heaven, for joy, for light, for love.

Saint Paul makes it sound almost easy.  So why is it so hard?

A baby up too early, drifting off again in my arms, smiling silly, sleepy smiles at me.

Just a few more lessons to put in my planner and a whole block of 45 minutes unscheduled, right in the middle of the morning, three days a week.  It is obviously meant for Penny.

A school room nearly clean, nearly clutter-free.  It’s nice out there.

The freedom (!) of a plan, a concrete, written-in-ink plan, and the hopefulness – the confidence – that it will all work in practice as well as it does on paper.  (Setting aside the schedule shifting knee surgery my husband scheduled for a Wednesday morning, of course.)

Having the option to say, “No!” to outside activities this weekend.  I just can’t afford to give up my fight for order now, in the end-game.

The piano my beloved husband is going to pick up this afternoon, in trade for an organ.  And the fact that he is going with good will and without me because I wanted to call the whole deal off due to the travel time.  I hope it’s worth the trip.

And last, but definitely not least: frank conversation that lets two lost lovers take just one more step back toward real love.

I had never even heard of a Holy Hour or Eucharistic Adoration until I moved here. And it’s quite possible the whole idea would never have occurred to me if I hadn’t hooked up early on with a wonderful group of ladies who are actively pursuing increased knowledge of our faith. Still, our parish doesn’t – or didn’t – offer Adoration and, aside from occasional pilgrimages to other churches, I believe in sticking with the parish God has given me, so long as it’s failings aren’t leading the faithful down that wide, wide road to you-know-where. Our parish has many failings, but I don’t believe we’re heading that way, at least not yet. On the other hand, I’m not so sure we’re heading upwards, either.

Well, as God would have it, as we grew in faith, our longing for deeper communication with our Lord began to weigh heavy on our hearts, and we organized a potluck luncheon for our good Father C. with the intention of convincing him that our parish is positively hungry for Eucharistic Adoration. He disagreed, to our dismay, but in the next breath, he gave us permission to set up the monstrance ourselves, to remove our Lord and God from his usual place of repose in the tabernacle and to expose and adore Him in His golden throne upon the altar. “You can do that?” I exclaimed in genuine surprise. I had thought that something like this would fall firmly into the realm of priestly duties. “I can if I trust you,” he retorted. We have Extraordinary Ministers of the Eucharist in our midst and we all hold this responsibility and honor in the highest regard so, even though we were saddened by Father’s unwillingness to oversee, we ran with it.

We now have Adoration for two hours on Tuesday mornings. I went for the first few weeks, but I quickly found that it was interfering with my God-given responsibilities as wife and mother, especially with regard to homeschooling, and I prayerfully decided that this morning Adoration was not what He desired of me. We hope to add some evening hours in the future, but for now, I make a point to go when I feel disordered, or I just go at another time of day, even though He is not exposed. (Exposition is not necessary for Adoration.) We are fortunate in that our church is unlocked and available to parishioners most of the day. Many, fearing vandalism, aren’t.

As we blog readers have short attention spans, I’ll end here for today. Tomorrow, I will try to express to you how Adoration affects me and offer some resources that I have found profitable.

We’d been under a severe weather watch for days in anticipation of a collision of natural forces which had not even formed yet.  It hit, finally, this perfect storm, on Saturday afternoon, as we made our way home from the First Communion Mass in town: torrential downpours driven by powerful winds, severe cloud-to-ground lightning, and a threat of tornadoes.  I’d have liked very much to hunker down indoors until the worst of it was past, but, alas, the work on a farm must go on, no matter what Mother Nature throws at us.

We were between storms when we went out to milk.  We did our work with one eye on the sky, which was getting darker and darker.  And there was that distinct feeling in the air, the one that inspires an urgency to find cover as soon as possible.  Leaning up against the cow, waiting for the machine to finish drawing out the milk, I looked out past the barn gate to where the chickens had been scratching a few minutes ago.  “Looks like the chickens went in,” David remarked.  I nodded, anxious, watching the flow of milk through the lines.

Finally, she was done, and I left David with the clean up, hurrying across the field to close up the chickens before the storm hit.  Just my luck: one hen was resisting and three roosters were still out, trying to coax her indoors.  She saw me and decided that my presence was coaxing enough, and two of the roosters followed her in. The third, though, backed out and took off across the field.  Lightning flashed and I circled around to steer the rooster back toward the hen house.  He balked at the door again, as the thunder rumbled and a steady drizzle began to fall.  I circled around him again, and again he balked.  “I’ve got one rooster too many,” I hollered at him, “and if you get shut out, it won’t break my heart!”  At that moment, the heavens opened up and the rooster and I found ourselves standing in a wind-driven downpour.  He hightailed it inside and I closed and barred the door.

With my jacket pulled up over my head in a vain attempt to stay dry, I ran as fast as I could back to the barn.  David was just settling in on a hay bail, and he laughed at me as I sat down, soaked through, beside him.  The wind was so strong, it blew the rain clear through the barn.  I got up and made my way to the back door to slide it shut, to the relief of the two cows who were hiding in their stalls.  And then we stood there, listening to the rain drumming on the metal roof, waiting for it to let up enough that we could get back to the house.  A child dashed out to save the sidewalk chalk that was getting wet even on the porch.  A small river flowed past our feet.

At last, we could hear each other without yelling over the incessant pounding of the rain, and we knew it was time to go.  He grabbed the milk bucket and the umbrella, and I let him through the gate and closed it behind us, bidding our companions good night, and good luck.  The children hadn’t even missed us.

I bottled the milk, and washed the babies, and glanced through the kitchen window as I passed.  The setting sun shone strong from beneath the clouds.  The fields looked particularly green in that brilliant light, beneath the heavy gray sky.  I passed off the baby and picked up the camera to photograph this delicious contrast between light and dark, sun and storm, before it was gone.  And I stepped out into the storm, into the rain and the wind, and I was awestruck.

What an incredible sight, and I’d have missed it if I hadn’t gone back out to capture what I only thought was there.

Blessings in the storms.

Graces in the trials.

Beauty when we least expect it.

And so we suffer our burdens, carry our crosses with patience and joy, because even in the darkness, God shines His light.

But we have to go out into the storm in order to see it.

I don’t even want to tell you how hard it is to get a decent photo of an eight year old boy. 

This post has been edited – by request – to say simply:

Keep praying for my parents, please.

See? You just can’t tell other people’s stories, even when the story is yours, too. 

Thank you.  And I love you.  All of you.

Barbara’s hopefulness reminded me of a conversation I had with Jonny this week.

We were just going about our normal routine, working on something together at the table, when Jon looked up at me with bright eyes and announced, “I think it would be fun to be a priest.”

I was surprised.  In the entire eight and a half years of his life, up until that very moment, he had never uttered a single word or behaved in any way that even hinted at a calling to the priesthood.  I did not mention this, though.  I remembered the advice our parish priest had offered for encouraging religious vocations among our children.  He had said: to encourage vocations, don’t discourage.  So instead of reminding Jon of all the other things he loves, or pointing out that he never pays attention at Mass, I casually inquired, “Oh?  What do you think looks like the most fun?”

He beamed.   “Well, I think it would be fun to get up in front of all those people and talk to them about God and stuff.” For a split second, I paused, trying to wrap my mind around the idea that public speaking is enticing to my shy son while simultaneously imagining him as a young man in flowing vestments at the moment of consecration. Then, just as I was about to pose another question to draw him out a little more, Jon shrugged and added, “Or maybe I’ll be a mechanic.”

I’ll be proud of him either way, as long as he’s following where God is leading.  As parents, I don’t think we can ask for much more than that.

Will you all please pray for my dad?  He had a heart attack some weeks ago, and shortly after being released from the hospital, he began having trouble breathing.  They thought it might have been from one of the medications he was on, but he stopped taking it and it hasn’t helped.  He’s been in and out of the hospital, sometimes seeming to improve only to find himself worse off than before.  Anyway, they’re going to do a biopsy of his lungs this afternoon, and I’d just like you to pray for his health and safety, and for his doctors to figure out what’s going on and how best to help him, and for my mother’s worried heart.

Thank you, friends.

1. Thomas walking on his own without prompting and without even caring if there is someone to catch him when he gets where ever he is going.

2.A cheese press David  made for me out of two cutting boards, some 1-inch dowels, and a few barbell weights.  No more stacking fifty pounds of books precariously atop my cheese!

3. Chickens roaming in a whole field made dog-proof  on Saturday morning.

4. Busy neighbors coming and going but always stopping for a few minutes to say hello over the fence.  They’re looking out for a cow for us, too.

5. Jon – finally! – reading every little thing his beautiful blue eyes light upon.

6. A great desk found at a flea market for a great price.  It’ll be a great place for a little boy to do his engineering AND (hopefully) help keep the floor clean of erector set bits.

7. Strong coffee, and lots of it.

8. Friends and family and friends I love like family.

9. A budget.  Is that silly?  We sat down and made a budget last week, to begin the first of May, and I’m ridiculously pleased about it.  I don’t think we’ve ever done this before, planned out what to with every single dollar that comes in.

10. A few great doctors who really care about their patients. I know of a couple we need to replace, too, but I’m thankful for the ones who give us their all.

11. The love of my husband.

12. My new red mixer to replace the white one that’s been broken since last autumn.  We didn’t miss it for kneading bread, but it sure did make a lot of other tasks either highly inconvenient or downright impossible.  I mailed away for a free ice cream maker attachment, too, which will be wonderful, since our current ice cream maker is kind of small.  (By the way, did you know that chocolate ice cream has exactly three ingredients?  Cream, sugar and cocoa.  Find a brand at the store that has only three ingredients.  Go ahead.  You can’t beat the taste, either!)

“Wealth must be seen as a responsibility, not as a privilege. The responsibility is to create more wealth. It’s like having an orchard; you have to give away the fruit, but not the trees.”  Carlos Slim is now the world’s richest man. His wealth angers his fellow citizens in a country known for its poverty,  but I love this quote and he’s as much a philantropist as he is a businessman.

We all have been given gifts that we are stewards of.  For some, like Mr. Slim, that gift is money, but most of us are “differently blessed”.  We have skills that others can benefit from, or some material good that comes to us in abundance (like eggs ), or even just the simple gift of time.  They are gifts given to us by God, not something owed us, and it is our responsibility to use them to bless others, to tend our orchards, to give away the fruit while nurturing the trees.

What are you blessed with and how do you share that?