Has the Lord ever asked you a question and you know the right answer and your answer are not the same?
The Lord is really good at asking simple questions that cannot be answered because the answer is too difficult to bear, let alone say out loud. Like the rich young ruler who went away sad, sometimes what God asks of us is more than what we are prepared to give.
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In the book of Luke, chapter 15 there is the parable of the good shepherd going after the one lost sheep.
Did you grow up in the era of the Sunday School flannelgraph? (Kids today have no idea what they are missing. If you know, you know.) If you did, you know the image of the sheep, stuck in a bush. (Probably played double duty with the story of Abraham not sacrificing Isaac.) And you know of the good shepherd—Jesus in his long robes—and how nicely the little lamb fit over his shoulders. Charming to be sure.
The parable is interesting though. What shepherd in his right mind would leave 99 sheep to chase after one little pain the ass, who, if you have ever worked with sheep, will probably stray again? (They are persistently rebellious like that.) It always seemed an odd analogy to leave the flock for one.
My pastor said today it is a picture of love and how love compels us to do things that are not even understandable and in the light of reason seem unreasonable.
When I was a little girl I wanted to get married young, be a missionary, and have so very many kids.
Check. Check. Check.
And honestly, I was proud of it. I did exactly what I set about to do. I was serving the Lord (I mean, I am sure God appreciated all I was doing for him. Why wouldn’t he? I was such an asset.), I was married to the first man I ever kissed, and I had all these beautiful babies. My life was completely on script.
Little did I realize that life was improv.
I never expected to be living with the consequences of addiction and trauma. I never expected chronic illness. I certainly never expected to be 42 and divorced, raising children on my own. Working full time, even! That was never in the equation. I loved being a stay-at-home mom (a term I don’t particularly care for) so much.
And now. What is going on with my unscripted life?
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Today I listened to this podcast. Although not the main focus of the podcast, it touched briefly on the well-curated lives of those on Instagram. Not just us regular folk on Insta, but those “content creators”….you know….“influencers.”
Especially prickly to me personally are those monochromatic curated accounts. All polished and shiny in the same color palette. It doesn’t look alive. It looks like a still life. The accounts are kind of sterile. Dry. Unromantic.
But life is rather unruly. The unexpected always happens. We never expect it. Life is messy. It is all the deep end and there is no lifeguard.
It’s so easy to be false. I suppose that has always been true of mankind, but it is particularly true of mankind on social media. But what if I don’t have, or more importantly, I don’t want a well-curated life, that has been carefully selected for the demographic most likely to give me likes. Going out of a limb here, this can include vague-posting and meltdown selfies. Likes are the social currency we use to evaluate our worth. And if a pic of us crying without details of why can get me a lot of likes and “What is wrong?” comments, we’ll do it.
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Today begins the Dormition Fast in the Syriac church. Our Byzantine fam has been fasting for a week already. Our Roman fam is not required to fast…but that doesn’t mean you can’t.
As promised here are some meal ideas for your big ol’ hungry family for the fast. But first let me mention two approaches to fasting. The first says that if it is tasty and you enjoy it that it is not really fasting. The second says the bare minimum requirement of the law is enough. Can we find a happy medium and a proper understanding of the fast?
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I spend about 10 minutes in the mornings looking at the headlines. I probably shouldn’t, because more often than not it’s depressing. The world has gone mad. Where are we all going? And why are we in this hand basket?
Our collective health, mental well-being, economy, and energy is overextended. In response, the powers-that-be print money in hopes to stimulate the economy. Nevermind that consumerism has never led to internal peace. We can update our post-pandemic wardrobe or join a gym to get sculpted. We can find a better car, a perfect latte, or a guide to being an at-home mixologist. Yet, at the end of the day, when we look in the mirror, we just have ourselves and whatever bit of eternity we hold within us that we haven’t managed to snuff out with our excesses.
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We drove. About 7,000 miles (give or take a thousand). We saw both coasts. Canyons, mountains, rivers. We watched elephant seals fight on the beach and an otter swim up river. We drank California wines and Colorado beer and ate hotel breakfasts which is always a thing all its own.
But the best part of everything was people.
First of all, the people with whom we traveled—the family. All shoved in a van, blasting music, eating too many snacks, laughing, napping, sometimes fighting, praying the Divine Mercy as close to the hour of mercy in whatever time zone we happened to be in. (You can still view those prayer times on our Instagram.)
Also the people we visited. It was precious. Some friends were new. Some friends date back decades. It has been a lot of years since we have hugged some of these people. We have grown and changed and so have they. And yet, to embrace them again—there were some tears, because our hearts are still connected. Bless God for that. As the kids say, if you know you know.
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It has been 8 years since we have taken a family vacation. That was a simply magical month of road tripping with only 8 kids. And we have had a lot of miles as a family since then.
Surviving and somehow coming out thriving after the last couple years has been nothing short of miraculous. This vacation is a grace, a gift, and is full of Thanksgiving. The kids and I are well and healing body and soul.
June….where did it go?
We saw the end of the governor’s state of emergency for the pandemic (Which really changed our lives not at all, because we never changed them in response to the government overreach anyway) and the lifting of the dispensation not to attend Mass (which also did not change our lives at all, because the Maronite Bishop kept the liturgies open so we never missed Mass all year), we celebrated the big 2-0 for my oldest love bug, planted a garden, and I got good medical news. We also went on some beautiful hikes.
Besides the weather being like Satan’s armpit for a good portion of the time June was healing and fun and made me fall in love with my community all over again.
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“What you do matters—but not much. What you are matters tremendously.” (Catherine Doherty)
Today I wrestled hard with my heart. I am not sure if my will or my emotions won or if it was a draw. Nothing causes you to face what you really are like rejection. My life has been a school of rejection. I never quite connected the dots until my spiritual director pointed it out and suggested I read On The Cross of Rejection by Catherine Doherty. (You know how the backside of every crucifix is empty? That’s the cross of rejection reserved for true disciples.) I read it two years ago, right before I officially separated from my husband. This book cut like a knife and healed like a balm.
And the lessons are not finished. They are like a spiral staircase going ever deeper. I have to circle back around the same theme, as God reveals me to myself and draws me a little deeper into his Sacred Heart. The thorns encircling the Sacred Heart go deep.
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reconciling things 