God Talk and Tea

When miracles become ordinary

As a Catholic, I have a confession to make. I sometimes watch televangelists.

While there are many things that make me uncomfortable about this style of evangelizing, I have always felt it would be arrogant, and foolish, of me to suggest that God limits the wisdom of the Holy Spirit to only those of one particular faith tradition. And very often I am edified by a particular insight.

Today’s bit of wisdom centered on our tendency, as human beings, to allow the miracles in our lives to become ordinary.

God fills our lives with miracles every day; someone to love us, the birth of a child, a new job, a promotion, a return to health, or good friends.  At first, our hearts are full of gratitude and love for God’s gift, but too often, when love demands something of us, or work becomes a challenge, the miracle becomes ordinary, routine, not worth the effort or fullness of heart with which we once embraced the gift.

This preacher used the example of the birth of a child, a miracle that fills us with love so profound it’s hard to even describe. And then, the child becomes a teenager and we ask, “God, why did you do this to me??”

I laughed, having had to deal with six teenagers during my lifetime.

The preacher followed this analogy with a Scripture passage, and that’s when I really started paying attention, because it was the same passage that had come across my desk three times in the past three days, and one I had never read before.

“But I have this against you, that you have turned away from your first love. So keep in mind where you were at first, and be changed in heart and do the first works; or I will come to you, and will take away your light from its place, if your heart is not changed.”  Revelations 2:4-5

Today would be a good day to remember the miracles, so “ordinary” doesn’t become a way of life and we find ourselves grieving the loss of God's gifts to us.

Learning from God and Jimmy Buffett

Getting a kite up in the air can be a real challenge, especially when you stand on the tail.

This was today’s lesson by the bay, as I watched a young father try with persistence to get his kite, stamped with a spaceship, to lift-off.

After numerous adjustments to his backward gait, the line length, arm placement and evaluating whether the kite was put together properly in the first place, this frustrated father was close to chucking the kite, streamers and all, into the sand and calling it quits when he happened to look down and realize he was standing on the kite’s tail.

I think I saw a relieved smile creep up the corners of his mouth, as if he were glad to discover he was not kite-challenged after all.

Like this kite-flyer, when it comes to achieving something, we are often our own worst enemies, standing on the tail of our dreams and our growth.

Our plans, our relationships, and our spiritual lives may be stunted as much by our own failure to pay attention as by our sometimes misguided decisions and tendency for blaming others, especially God.

On more than one occasion, when I’ve complained about things not going as I’d like, I’m certain I’ve heard God say, “Well, if you would just pick up your foot and get out of my way, we might make some progress!”

A good first step is when I can get in line with Jimmy Buffet and admit, “I know it’s my own damn fault!”

 

Image URL  www.tias.com/stores/fuzzyizzy/pictures/7401a.jpg

Tempering the siren call of the ice cream truck

On the shore at the bay there is a jungle gym area where my daily visits usually include a lesson learned in observing children at play. Yesterday’s lesson was fit for America’s Funniest Home Videos.

A group of seven young children between the ages of two and eight were having a great time climbing the plastic rock stairs, chasing each other up and down the slide, and hiding in the nooks and crannies of an artificial mountain. Squeals of delight echoed loudly, even against the lapping waves and the chatter of parents nearby.

Then, in an instant, chaos reigned. The Ice Cream Man arrived. Like a dog whistle to dogs, the distinctive teeth-grinding chimes of the ice cream truck set this once pleasant, collaborating group of little people into a frenzy. Squeals of delight became pterodactyl–like screeches of desire.

“ICE CREAM!!!!!!!!!”

Pushing and shoving ensued as 14 crazed feet jockeyed for a head start to the truck. Parents sprang into action to halt the stampede but not before one limber five year old bolted toward the street well ahead of frantic adults who screamed for him to cease and desist – to no avail. Thank God for parent panic which propelled his father across the sand before tiny feet hit the pavement.

When it was over, and the Ice Cream Man drove away without a sale, several children had collapsed into quivering, sobbing mounds of disappointment. “I want ice cream!! Give me ice cream!!” Parents cajoled, promised, and resorted to dragging limp bodies across the sand to restore order.

Young children are notoriously self-focused. They want what they want when they want it. They have to learn to share, to defer desire, to put others’ needs before their own.  Sometimes, we, as adults, are not much different. We may not throw ourselves on the ground and scream when we don’t get what we want (though a few TV shows give evidence to the contrary), but we often go to great lengths to satisfy our wants, sometimes at the expense of others, even those we love.

Famed British poet, Lord Byron, wrote, “We are all selfish and I no more trust myself than others with a good motive.”

Acknowledging our propensity for selfishness, and mustering up the courage to examine our motivations, is a powerful step toward understanding that while “have it your way” may be a great advertising slogan for building sales, it is a poor philosophy for life. For as much as we can be the center of our own universe, we also share in God’s nature, which is love. Where we place our attention and our energy is our choice.

Ultimately, the degree to which we can balance our selfishness with our magnanimity is the degree to which our lives will have meaning and our relationships will be truly loving.  That doesn’t mean we can’t run to the ice cream truck once in a while, it just means we shouldn’t push people off the slide to get there.

LIving with the paradox of a sunset

It seems an unlikely marriage, beauty and despair, but creations of the human spirit in crisis are among the most meaningful and beautiful in existence. Art, music, literature, even prayer, flowing from a heart of pain, resonate with creatures who must face their mortality with every passing moment. What are we to do with this life which is ours for such a short time? How do we give it meaning? Where do we find our joy? How best can we navigate an existence fraught with paradox and insecurities?

Vincent Van Gogh painted.  In the grip of mental illness and a soul-searing loneliness, this Dutch painter gave the world hundreds of paintings, haunting, filled with light and beauty and depth. During the year preceding his suicide, from an asylum in Saint Remy, France, Van Gogh painted more than 100 works, including two of his most famous – Starry Night and Irises, a painting that sold for $54 million dollars in 1987 and remains on the list of the most expensive paintings ever sold.

Irises have great meaning for me. As my father’s favorite flower, my childhood was filled with their rainbow of color. The image of their graceful sway sat at the periphery of long summer conversations with my dad on the mysteries of life. I miss him, and so I fill my space with irises, paintings of all sizes and shapes, among them some of Van Gogh’s brilliant still-lifes. 

These images hold memories of presence, of sharing, of love, the experiences that give life true meaning. They also remind me of the fluidness of time, slipping through our fingers and gone before our limited brains can process its going.  As I grow older, and wiser, my father’s lesson to live with awareness transforms the slip of time into an opportunity, into a graced experience of the potential within each of us.

And so I stand each night at the edge of the bay, watching in wonder as the sun seemingly slips beneath the horizon in a haunting display of color, a moment breathtakingly beautiful, yet painfully marking the passing of another day of our earthly journey – God’s painting, reminding us to live, and love, well.

Photo of the bay at Lavalette at sundown.

So, what's your spinach?

Last week it was Pinocchio, today it’s Popeye. He came to mind when I was cooking up some spinach, of course. When I was young, I didn’t care much for this gnarly sailor. Snagglepuss was more my type. But as I got older, I had a new appreciation for Popeye’s wit and wisdom.

Well before the proliferation of today’s self-affirmation gurus, Popeye pointed us toward self-acceptance: I yam what I yam and that’s all that I yam! Try repeating that to yourself in the mirror as your morning affirmation!

For those who are uncomfortable with the jargon, a simple translation will work: I am what I am and that’s all I need to be!

But my favorite expression, as a wife, a mother of six, and woman who often finds it hard to say no, is Popeye’s admission of his breaking point: That’s all I can stands, I can’t stands no more!

Translation, in today’s terms: NO! I’m done! Fini! Change the channel! Hand over the belt because today I’m number one!

However it’s stated, it’s all about self-care, acknowledging your limits and your needs. And finally, after what seems a life-time, I’m getting the hang of it. But Popeye knew it wasn’t enough to just acknowledge your limits. He had a formula for overcoming them.

Now, if I could only master the spinach thing, aka, giving my body, mind and soul what it needs when it needs it. Today, it’s physical and mental rest, a peaceful place, time for prayer, and laughter. Tomorrow, it may be something else.

So, what’s your spinach?

SDG

Taken down by a nose!

God forbid this kind of thing should ever happen to Pinnochio!  

It started a few days ago, uncontrollable bloody noses, two trips to the ER, and now a face that looks like snorkel gear has been surgically implanted.

The clinical name for my new attachment is an air-inflated epistaxis device, which is another name for a nose tampon that blows up like a balloon, with lovely plastic tubing hanging out of your nostril that must be taped across your cheek.

When the ER doctor inserted it I moaned, loudly I’m afraid, and afterwards I whined. It burned, my eyes and jaw now hurt, my head ached and I rapidly developed symptoms of a fierce head cold. Tears pouring out of my eyes, my unpacked nostril closed up and I could only breathe through my mouth. I need chapstick, Vaseline, water, anything!

You must keep this in for 48 hours, he said, and take antibiotics so you don’t get toxic shock syndrome. Oh my. When it began to bleed again three hours later, I headed off to the ENT doctor who told me 48 hours was not sufficient. At least 4 days, maybe 5, he said. Hasn’t he ever heard of toxic shock, I worried? I imagined by day 5  I would have succumbed already.

It’s so easy to let your imagination, and your inner child, take over when you are in pain.

I needed a Cher, “snap out of it” slap, and the ER doctor provided it when he explained that the body has two release valves, kind of like the pressure cooker my mother-in-law introduced to me after I got married (literal, not figurative!). One was in the nose, the other in the brain. He said these bloody noses could be a good thing, because if the valve blew in the brain, I wouldn’t have the pleasure of an air-inflated epistaxis device. I’d be dead.

So I did what my lovely Stephanie always advises when things get tough: Put on your big girl pants and suck it up!!

Thanks, Steph, and by the way, would you be free Friday night? I’m having my snorkel gear removed Friday morning, so I’m sure to need some TLC afterwards. My pants are going to the cleaners.

Link to photo image http://i145.photobucket.com/albums/r238/Debaserness/pinnochio.gif

Growth requires new ways of thinking and being

For a number of years, I worked with a boss who encouraged us often to think outside the box, a phrase that has, today, become so commonplace as to be ordinary. Still, whenever I hear the phrase I think of him and his desire for us to engage in extraordinary thinking.

While cleaning recently, I came across some remnants from a hamster cage, including the exercise wheel. As the image came to mind of our long-gone hamster running in the wheel within the cage, I thought again of the objective to “think outside the box.”

Life for our hamster was one of routine, engaging in the same behaviors day after day, getting the same results, including running in a wheel that went no where. Hamsters, it would seem, are not able to consider life outside the box as a possibility and then take the necessary action to make it happen.

If they were, our hamster might have piled up enough hamster litter around the wheel to make it stationary and then use the wheel to climb out of his cage. A simple wire mesh cover wouldn’t withstand for long the impassioned gnawing of hamster teeth, and voila, life outside the box!

Of course, such a life is fraught with danger and challenges, not the least of which is the need to be self-sufficient, to secure sustenance and shelter, to learn to navigate a new environment full of other creatures who may either hurt you or help you build a new community of like-minded hamsters. It is easy to see why some hamsters might eventually go running back to the safety of their cage and their wheel, while others never even consider life outside four walls. 

Obviously, hamsters, like other caged animals, are not endowed with the ability to consider the meaning of their lives. Reflective thinking is the domain of the human mind. Still, even with that gift, we are often unable to consider other options. We live in fear of the unknown and the uncertain, and retreat to the security of familiar behaviors even when the results make us miserable.

Sometimes the most confining of boxes are not the circumstances of our lives, but, rather, our attitudes and our decisions, serving as self-constructed walls which ultimately restrict our growth. And surely, we were meant to grow.  God’s creation is our model. Within the living realm of nature, there is fluidity and movement, folding and unfolding. There are no squares, no boxes, except those we construct ourselves.

All life is designed by God for growth and change, for becoming.  But growth is our choice. We can nurture it, or we can stop it dead in its tracks. God would tell us, as he directed Moses to tell the people of the Exodus, “Choose life!”

 

Learning a lesson from the black swan

As I pulled my car into the parking lot of the beach along the bay, I noticed a single white swan, its    silhouette bright against the misty grayness of water, sky and land.  She had the bay to herself, no ducks, no geese, not even a seagull entered the scene. Even in the rolling waters, with a storm brewing to the north, the swan seemed to glide effortlessly across the surface, confident, self-directed, unperturbed by the ever widening expanse of water she had travelled away from the shore. Soon she was out of sight, and I turned back to my book, but the image of her alone and secure in deep water was meaningful for me as the place I wish I could be in my life.

The next day, closer to sunset and parked in the same spot with the same book, my reading was  interrupted as I watched a lithe and strong young woman, dressed in a black wetsuit, carry a large white surfboard across the sand to the water. She was also carrying a long, slender oar.  She sat on the sand to stretch and struck a lotus pose for just a few minutes. Then she picked up the oar and slid the board into the water and stepped on to it. She dipped the oar into the water and began to glide across the dancing waves of an evening bay, confident, self-directed and seemingly unconcerned that the lavender hues of sunset warned of the quickly approaching darkness.

She was the black swan, and the image of her standing on that board as if on solid ground, moving further and further away from shore, was remarkable. I was envious, but I shouldn’t have been. She had obviously wanted something enough to go beyond wishing.

Choosing is a matter of blessing or curse

It’s not often that I get a chance to be immersed in an abundance of creative expressions of faith   meant to transform hearts and lives, but that’s exactly what will happen tomorrow at the Diocese of Trenton’s Re:Image Film Festival at the Algonquin Arts Theatre in Manasquan. Last year’s festival was a real testimony to the power of art and media to inspire a response in faith, so I’m really looking forward to tomorrow.

One of the music video winners from last year was Laurie Collins, whose video “Choose Life” won the Mission Excellence Award. The music and images were powerful reminders of the gift of choice, not only when it comes to the unborn child but in the difficult and painful experiences of life.

We read those same words, choose life, in the Book of Deuteronomy when Moses, who led a rebellious and complaining people through the desert for 40 years, reminds them of God’s commandment, saying, “I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. Choose life, then, that you and your descendants may live …” (30:19).

Moses makes it clear that life is comprised of both the blessing and the curse, “life and prosperity, death and doom.” We have the opportunity to choose between them. This is not to say our lives will be free of suffering or hardship, or that we will not experience death in its many forms, but that in choosing to remain aware of the blessing instead of losing ourselves in the curse, we are choosing God over the many gods that entice us. Our choices begin when we open our eyes in the morning, and affect, says Moses, not only us but our families as well.

Today, Moses’ words in Deuteronomy 19, often ending with choose life, have become popular in motivational circles, but he has more to say about what choosing life really means:

“I call heaven and earth today to witness against you: I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. Choose life, then, that you and your descendants may live, by loving the LORD, your God, heeding his voice, and holding fast to him. For that will mean life for you, a long life for you to live on the land which the LORD swore he would give to your fathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob” (Deuteronomy 30:19-20).

Nothing says lovin' like cannoli at the Jersey shore

I have made an amazing discovery. Nothing says "I love you," better than a four gallon container  
of cannoli filling. That is, if you are my dear friend John, whose appreciation of food belies family roots that stretch back to Norcia, Italy.

And cannolis are at the top of his list, along with chocolate layer cake, grilled kielbasa, pasta fagioli, and a quality "gravy." Actually, the only food not on the list is potatoes, though he’ll eat them without complaint if they’re served.

The discovery came about because one of my sons works each summer at a bakery at the Jersey shore, within walking distance of John’s house. The bakery closes for the fall and winter so rather than throw out remaining stock, my son delivered a number of goodies to John and his family. Included with the surprise was a large tub of cannoli filling.

John has been trying to track my son down for a week to thank him "Norcia" style, because, really, how many people can say they were ever the recipient of several gallons of cannoli cream?

For John, this was not just a little treat or simple pleasure. It was a gift from the angels, a reason to celebrate, and the makings of a family story that will be retold time and time again: "Do you remember the time when Chris brought me four gallons of cannoli filling??! And we ate it all even without any shells?!"

In my life, John has been the epitome of gratitude, and not just because he responds to every meal as if it was the best he’d ever eaten! Throughout the many years of our friendship I have learned that John lives on the breath of gratitude and his response is always celebratory. If an exclamation point had arms and legs, its name would be John.

It is a rare person who lives in awareness of the gifts in life. Such a person also lives in awareness of the presence of God.

In the Jewish tradition there is a deeply meaningful practice of reciting blessings throughout the day. There are blessings for eating bread, drinking wine, smelling spices or fruit, upon arising, when bathing, at bedtime, to name a few. This practice requires that a person pause in the moment, focus their attention on the gifts of God, which we too often overlook, and offer an intention of the heart full of gratitude. In so doing, we acknowledge that God is the source of all good and the reason for our joy.

No doubt in my mind that God is the mover and shaker behind canolli, the Jersey shore, and a very special friend like John!

You say grace before meals. All right. But I say grace before the concert and the opera, and grace before the play and pantomime, and grace before I open a book, and grace before sketching, painting, swimming, fencing, boxing, walking, playing, dancing and grace before I dip the pen in the ink. ~G.K. Chesterton

 

Copyright © 2010 by Mary Regina Morrell