Category — Faith 'Flections

“Any how do [people] find Him? By technique? There is no technique for finding Him. They find Him by His Will. And His will, bringing them grace within and arranging their lives exteriorly, carries them infallibly to the precise place in which they can find Him. Even there they do not know how they have got there, or what they are really doing.

As soon as a man is fully disposed to be alone with God, he is alone with God no matter where he may be — in the country, the monastery, the woods or the city.

The lightning flashes from east to west, illuminating the whole horizon and striking where it pleases and at the same instant the infinite liberty of God flashes in the depths of a man’s soul, and he is illuminated.

Although he is a traveler in time, he has opened his eyes, for a moment, in eternity.”

-Thomas Merton, Thoughts on Solitude

“The unity which is the work of poverty in solitude draws together all the wounds of the soul and closes them. As long as we remain poor, as long as we are empty and interested in nothing but God, we cannot be distracted. For our very poverty prevents us from being “pulled apart” (dis-tracted).

… ALL CREATED THINGS interfere with my quest for some special experience. I must shut them out, or they will tear me apart. What is worse — I myself am a distraction. But, unhappiest thing of all — if my prayer is centered on myself, if it seeks only an enrichment of my own self, my prayer itself will be my greatest potential distraction.

…I am left rich and alone and nothing can assuage my hunger: everything I touch turns into a distraction.

Let me seek, then, the gift of silence, and poverty, and solitude, where everything I touch is turned into prayer: where the sky is my prayer, the birds are my prayer, the wind in the trees is my prayer, for God is all in all.”

-Thomas Merton, Thoughts on Solitude

“A temperamentally angry man may be more inclined to anger than another. But as long as he remains sane he is still free not to be angry. His inclination to anger is simply a force in his character which can be turned to good or evil, according to his desires. If he desires what is evil, his temper will become a weapon of evil against other mean and even against his own soul. If he desires what is good his temper can become a controlled instrument for fighting the evil that is in himself and helping other men to overcome obstacles which they meet in the world. He remains free to desire either good or evil.

…

Living is the constant adjustment of thought to life and life to thought in such a way that we are always growing, always experiencing new things in the old and old things in the new. Thus life is always new.

…

The phrase self-conquest can come to sound odious because very often it can mean not the conquest of ourselves but a conquest by ourselves. A victory we have won by our own power. Over what? Precisely over what is other than ourself.

Real self-conquest is the conquest of ourselves not by ourselves but by the Holy Spirit. Self-conquest is really self-surrender.

Yet before we can surrender ourselves we must become ourselves. For no one can give up what he does not possess.

More precisely — we have to have enough mastery of ourselves to renounce our own will into the hands of Christ — so that He may conquer what we cannot reach by our own efforts.

In order to gain possession of ourselves, we have to have some confidence, some hope of victory. And in order to keep that hope alive we must usually have some taste of victory. We must know what victory is and like it better than defeat.

…

A false humility should not rob us of the pleasure of conquest which is due to us and necessary for our spiritual life, especially in the beginning.

It is true that later on we may be left with faults we cannot conquer — in order that we may have the humility to fight against a seemingly unbeatable opponent, without any of the satisfaction of victory.

… In the beginning, the pleasure of self-conquest is necessary. Let us not be afraid to desire it.”

-Thoughts on Solitude, Thomas Merton

“When a man suffers, he is most alone. Therefore, it is in suffering that we are most tested as persons. How can we face the awful interior questioning? What shall we answer when we are examined by pain? Without God, we are no longer persons. We lose our manhood and our dignity. We become dumb animals under pain, happy if we can at least behave like quiet animals and die without too much commotion.

When suffering comes to put the question: “Who are you?” we must be able to answer distinctly, and give our own name. By that I mean we must express the very depths of what we are, what we have desired to be, and what we have become. All these things are sifted out of us by pain, and they are too often found to be in contradiction with one another.

… If therefore we desire to be what we are meant to be, and if we become what we are supposed to become, the interrogation of suffering will call forth from us both our own name and the name of Jesus. And we will find we have begun to work out our destiny which is to be at once ourselves and Christ.

…Sin strikes at the very depths of our personality. It destroys the one reality on which our true character, identity, and happiness depend: our fundamental orientation to God.

… The effect of suffering upon us depends on what we love. … if we love ourselves, suffering inexorably brings out selfishness, and then, after making known who we are, drives us to make ourselves even worse than we are

[!!!] …When is suffering useless? When it only turns us in upon ourselves, when it only makes us sorry for ourselves, when it changes love into hatred, when it reduces all things to fear.

But the grace of Christ is constantly working miracles to turn useless suffering into something fruitful after all. How? By suddenly stanching the wound of sin. As soon as our life stops bleeding out of us in sin, suffering begins to have creative possibilities. But until we turn our wills to God, suffering leads nowhere, except to our own destruction.”

-no man is an island

“We may be assured that perfect chastity will not be attained by any merely human efforts. You must ask for God’s help… After each failure ask for forgiveness, pick yourself up and try again. For however important chastity may be, this process trains us in habits of the soul which are more important still. It cures our illusions about ourselves and teaches us to depend on God. We learn on the one hand that we cannot trust ourselves even in our best moments, and on the other, that we need not despair even in our worst, for our failures are forgiven. No amount of falls will really undo us if we keep on picking ourselves up each time. We shall of course be very muddy and tattered children by the time we reach home. But the bathrooms are all ready, the towels put out, and the clean clothes in the airing cupboard. The only fatal thing is to lose one’s temper and give up. It is when we notice the dirt that God is most present in us: it is the very sign of His presence.” – C.S. Lewis

The cruelest world
The coldest heart
The deepest wound
The endless dark
The lonely ache
The burning tears
The bitter nights
The wasted years

Life breaks and falls apart
But we know these are
Places where grace is soon to be so amazing
It may be unfulfilled
It may be unrestored
But when anything that’s shattered is laid before the Lord
Just watch and see
It will not be unredeemed

For every choice that led to shame
And all the love that never came
For every vow that someone broke
And every lie that gave up hope
We live in the shadow of the fall
But the cross says these are all
Places where grace is soon to be so amazing
It may be unfulfilled
It may be unrestored
But when anything that’s shattered is laid before the Lord
Just watch and see
It will not be unredeemed

Places where grace is soon to be so amazing
It may be unfulfilled
It may be unrestored
But you never know the miracle the Father has in store
Just watch and see
It will not be
Just watch and see
It will not be unredeemed

-Selah

jottin’ down good quotes again tonight in my journal…

“Respect means the concern that the other person should grow and unfold as he is. I want the loved person to grow and unfold for his own sake, and in his own ways, and not for the purpose of serving me. If I love the other person, I feel one with him or her, but with him as he is, not as I need him to be as an object for my use. It is clear that respect is possible only if I have achieved independence; if I can stand and walk without needing crutches…
To respect is not possible without knowing him…
The only way of full knowledge lies in the act of love: this act transcends thought, it transcends words. It is the daring plunge into the experience of union… I have to know the other person and myself objectively, in order to be able to see his reality, or rather, to overcome the illusions, the irrationally distorted picture I have of him. Only if I know a human being objectively, can I know him in his ultimate essence, in the act of love…
Love is the only way of knowledge, which in the act of union answers my quest. In the act of loving, of giving myself, in the act of penetrating the other person, I find myself, I discover myself, I discover us both.”
-Erich Fromm, The Art of Loving

and from one of my favorite authors:

“When we pray we admit we don’t know what God is going to do, but remember that we will never find out if we are not open to risks… In many ways prayer becomes an attitude toward life that opens itself up to a gift that is always coming. We find courage to let new things happen, things over which we have no control, but which now loom as less threatening.
And it is here that we find courage to face our human boundaries and hurts… As we find freedom to cry out in anguish… we discover ourselves slowly led into a new place. We become conditioned to wait for what we in our own stretch CANNOT CREATE OR ORCHESTRATE. …

In the quiet listening of prayer, we learn to make out the voice that says, “I love you. You are mine. Build your home in me as I have built my home in you.”

…Mourning not only means facing our losses; it also welcomes our losses as ways of following more radically the voice of love.

The gospel calls us continually to make Christ the source, the center, the purpose of our lives. In him we find our home… Here mourning our losses ultimately lets us claim our belovedness. Mourning opens us to a future we could not imagine on our own.”

- Henri Nouwen Turn my Mourning into Dancing

It becomes difficult for me to share in this space in times like the one I am having, for lack of privacy on this blog means a certain level of covertness and I am left resorting to quotes I am reading and broad outlines of the events of my life. This will likely continue for awhile as a space for me to journal what I am learning and go back when I feel weak to read over and over the things that seem to give me strength. But in this post I’ll be slightly more personal and specific, careful to approach the subject with love and respect.

I need prayer as I navigate letting go of a person (namely, a husband), a home, a dream, a life. As I take on a more prominent role in the lives of my children who need a loving, patient, stable mother now more than ever. I and the kids are currently living with family in the area and doing our best to feel out each day as it arrives. Always hopeful for a miracle but also trying to accept and be grateful for what IS, even when what IS feels like tragedy. So much has happened in the last week, (even month), so much that has lead me to today and each day, holding my head above water by the grace of God. Some of it remains confusing, but most of it makes perfect sense with every passing day of clarity and the sobering reality of what disease does to a person.

And I have felt the support this week, I really have. Even as I mourn what might be lost and come into the reality of my situation in difficult, even cruel ways, I am reminded at every turn that to live and love means to hold my life loosely, to take on risk, and eventually to forge ahead into the hope of a future.

I do have hope, but I hope in a very general sense right now. Mainly because I have experienced, just two years ago, a total hopelessness that was proven wrong by what only surrendering to God has the power to do. Love is a miraculous thing and for any glimpses of His love here on earth, I am so grateful.

I am so grateful for the love of my friends and family. For my child who hugged me tightly tonight and told me I was the sweetest and bestest mother he ever saw (despite how very often I fail him).

I breathe in and breathe out gratitude and it seems to keep the anxious knot in my tummy a little more pliable. I feel stronger this time and more understanding of what has happened. I can walk out on to the porch in the crispy morning, after a good hard rain and thunder storm last night, raise my hands high to the Heavens and say, “OKAY. I’ll be okay.”

“I do not need to see myself, I merely need to be myself. I must think and act like a living being, but I must not PLUNGE my whole self into what I think and do, or seek always to find myself in the work I have done. The soul that projects itself entirely into activity, and seeks itself outside itself in the work of its own will is like a madman who sleeps on the sidewalk in front of his house instead of living where it is quiet and warm.

…The reason why men are so anxious to see themselves, instead of being CONTENT to BE themselves, is that they do not really believe in their own existence. And they do not fully believe they exist because they do not believe in God… the loss of faith has involved at the same time a complete loss of all sense of reality. Being means nothing to those who hate and fear what they themselves are. Therefore they cannot have peace in their own reality (which reflects the reality of God). They must struggle to escape their true being, and verify a false existence by constantly viewing what they themselves do. They have to keep looking in the mirror for reassurance. What do they expect to see? Not themselves! They are hoping for some sign that they have become the god they hope to become by means of their own frantic activity — invulnerable, all powerful, infinitely wise, unbearably beautiful, unable to die!

When a man constantly looks and looks at himself in the mirror of his own acts, his spiritual double vision splits him into two people. And if he strains his eyes hard enough, HE FORGETS WHICH ONE IS REAL. In fact, reality is no longer found either in himself or in his shadow. The substance has gone out of itself into the shadow, and he has become TWO SHADOWS instead of ONE REAL PERSON.

Then the battle begins. Whereas one shadow was meant to praise the other, now one shadow accuses the other. The activity was meant to exalt him, reproaches and condemns him. It is never real enough. Never active enough. The less he is able to BE the more he as to DO. He becomes his own spiritual slave driver — a shadow whipping a shadow to death, because it cannot produce reality, infinitely substantial reality, out of his own nonentity.

Then comes fear. The shadow becomes afraid of the shadow. He who “is not” becomes terrified at the things he cannot do. Whereas for a while he had illusions of infinite power, miraculous sanctity (which he was able to guess at in the mirror of his virtuous actions), now it has all changed. Tidal waves of nonentity, of powerlessness, of hopelessness surge up within him at every action he attempts!

Then the shadow judges and hates the shadow who is not a god, and who can do absolutely nothing.

Self-contemplation leads to the most terrible despair: the despair of a god that hates himself to death. This is the ultimate perversion of man who was made in the image and likeness of the true God, who was made to love eternally and perfectly an infinite good– a good (note this well) which he was to find dwelling within himself!

In order to find God in ourselves, we must STOP LOOKING AT OURSELVES, stop checking and verifying ourselves in the mirror of our own futility, and be content to be in Him and do whatever He wills, according to our own limitations, judging our acts not in the light of our own illusions, but in the light of HIS REALITY which is all around us in the things and PEOPLE WE LIVE WITH.”

-No Man is an Island.

Couldn’t have said it better myself, Merton.

As summer teases me with it’s end, I’ve been reminded in more ways than I would have ever asked to be that seasons of change and transition are an ever present part of life. I am reminded that even when I feel my greatest want is for things to be the “same” for awhile, my greatest need could very well be a more courageous face off with yet another set layers I need to shed.

I’m talking about finding stability in the midst of seeming turmoil. Of realizing you have a deep fear that needs to be addressed and purged, a fear you would have not realized was such an underlying driving force in your life had your situation remained honkey dory.

(Did I just say honkey dory? You bet ya )

So I hear Fall is the seasonal representation of letting go, of asking yourself what things you are holding on to. I’ve stumbled upon a blog about transitions and have been getting such nuggets of wisdom:

“From a spiritual perspective, every transition is an opportunity for growth. As we learn how to let go into ‘groundlessness’, we move into a more effortless alignment with life. Life is ever-changing, and when we approach transitions consciously and with the intention of growth, we eventually learn how to accept this truth with grace.

This is not an easy task. Transitions require no less than the willingness to die, to sit in the uncomfortable void, and to be reborn. Who would willingly embrace this task? For some of us, we have no choice. Transitions seem to pull us into the underworld and create such fear, pain, confusion, and disorientation that we must seek help. While in the throes of this challenge, this may seem unfair, and we may be plagued with questions…

Yet when we finally emerge from the pain, we see that the struggle was well worth it. For to enter into the death-void-rebirth cycle is to embark on the heroine’s journey. And when the heroine returns from her voyage, she carries the boons—or jewels—of her travels. One of the great boons is that she knows, at a deeper layer of consciousness, that there can be no light without entering the darkness, and that with each descent into her darkness, the light shines ever more brightly. She knows that next time she is pulled into the darkness—which most likely will occur in the midst of her next major transition—she will be able to navigate the journey with grace. She trusts that, even as she cries and rages, she is exactly where she needs to be. She realizes that she is developing a capacity to die and be reborn and she recognizes that there is no greater spiritual task on earth.” – beautifully written by Sheryl at Conscious Transitions

I cling to such a deeper hope these days that I am exactly where I am supposed to be, in the midst of a stormy sea of fear and confusion and pain. Weaker moments come and go, moments of despair that will surely continue to show themselves for the rest of my life. But I’m learning a lot and part of my dread is turning into excitement about the challenge of removing unnecessary things I’ve held on to, of finding a deeper freedom and faith. Of learning about truly unselfish love, hope, mercy, and about my true self that I keep reading about from Thomas Merton (and bare with me as I share ):

“If we love one another truly, our love will be graced with a clear-sighted prudence which sees and respects the designs of God upon each separate soul. Our love for one another must be rooted in a deep devotion to Divine Providence, a devotion that abandons our own limited plans into the hands of God…

a selfish love seldom respects the rights of the beloved to be an autonomous person. Far from respecting the true being of another and granting his personality room to grow and expand in its own original way, this love seeks to keep him in subjection to ourselves… Such love fears nothing more than the escape of the beloved… A love, therefore, that is selfless, that honestly seeks the truth, does not make unlimited concessions to the beloved…

Hope deprives us of everything that is not God, in order that all things may serve their true purpose as means to bring us to God. Hope is proportionate to detachment. It brings our souls into the state of the most perfect detachment. In doing so, it restores all values by setting them in their right order. Hope empties our hands in order that we may work with them. It shows us that we have something to work for, and teaches us how to work for it.

…All desires but one can fail. The only desire that is infallibly fulfilled is the desire to be loved by God.

…Only the man who has had to face despair is really convinced that he needs mercy. Those who do not want mercy never seek it. It is better to find God on the threshold of despair than to risk our lives in a complacency that has never felt the need of forgiveness. A life without problems may literally be more hopeless than one that always verges on despair.

So thank You for despair, transition and letting go. May they be gentle teachers – I have much to learn.