Preparing for Holy Week

We are now embarking upon the most solemn, serious time in the Church calendar.  Because of this, I will be posting here less. I might put in a photo and Scripture verse once or twice, but most of the time I have for writing will be spent over at the blog The Cloistered Heart, which is at thecloisteredheart.org. There, we are presently talking about the amazing love our God has for us.... love so great that the Father sent His Son to suffer and die to redeem us. If you have a minute, please join us there.

May you be blessed with a holy Holy Week, and a truly blessed Feast of Our Lord's Resurrection.

A Glimpse of Wind

I cannot see wind, but I know when it's around.  I cannot see air, but I am sure of it.  

I spent part of Sunday in a park, snapping pictures of trees and new spring blossoms. Intent upon capturing close-up shots of early dogwoods, I didn't give much thought to what might be above me.  Until I heard the sound of distant laughter. 



Turning to look up, I saw the wind. 

"Bless the Lord,O my soul!  O Lord my God, you are very great! ....who makes the clouds your chariot, who rides on the wings of the wind...."  (Psalm 104:1 & 3) 

(photo N Shuman, 25 March 2012)

The Microscope of Faith

Currently I am engaged in another “breadbox excavation” ... that is:  I’m rummaging through old letters and journal entries.  I just came across this written in 1992:

How hard it is to see things from our tiny perspective!  We peer and strain and turn every which way to make sense of it all.  Perhaps that's when the microscope of faith comes in so handy. 

Through the “microscope of faith,” we’re able to see things we could not otherwise detect.  We don't see God or angels or the Kingdom of heaven with our naked eyes.  Yet they are real, just as surely (and even MORE surely) than are tiny one celled creatures.  We believe in bacteria and viruses, even though no one ever saw them before magnification. 

We can believe in God, too, but not without the magnification of the gift of faith.  It is through this that we see things as they really are.     

"Now we see indistinctly, as in a mirror; then, we shall see face to face.   My knowledge is imperfect now; then I shall know even as I am known."  (1 Corinthians 13:12)

Trusting the Connection

From the breadbox, 1997:

My dear friend,

I was struck by your saying that you awake crying out 'I want to love you, God.'  What a heart-cry, and all the more powerful in aridity.

When I'm in spiritual aridity, I sometimes feel as though the 'phone lines' have all suddenly fallen silent and I feel disconnected.  Have you ever been speaking with someone on the phone when there's a problem and you can hear the other person perfectly but they can't hear you at all?  I think aridity in prayer is a bit like this, only we are the ones who cannot hear the other Person - God, in this case.  

I feel sometimes as though I am talking, praying, continually pleading 'hello?  Is anyone there?  Did You hang up...?'  And there seems to be no 'response.'  No sense of anyone being there at all.  Like all the lines have gone dead, or have been cut.  

Faith, I guess, is when we stay on the line even though we have no perception that He IS on the other end.  We stay connected nonetheless; we stay connected through the lines of faith.  Sometimes we plead for some sign, sometimes we put down the 'phone' to distract ourselves with something else for awhile.  But always we come back to speak again and say 'I trust that You are there!  I shall proceed as if I were deeply aware of Your presence, a presence I cannot at this moment perceive.'

 He is there.  He hears me, and He hears you, and I pray that when our faith again comes into the 'light,' we will find that there has been much, much growth in all our seasons of dark.
                                                                                                                  Nancy
(public domain photo)

The power of His Name

"Nothing restrains anger, curbs pride, heals the wound of malice, bridles self-indulgence, quenches the passions, checks avarice and puts unclean thoughts to flight as does the Name of Jesus."  (St. Bernard of Clairvaux)

"The more rain falls on the earth, the softer it makes it.  Similarly, Christs holy name gladdens the earth of our heart the more we call upon it."  (St. Hesychois)

"No one can say 'Jesus is Lord' except in the Holy Spirit."  (1 Corinthians 12:3)

from a homeschooled grandmother

As a homeschooled grandmother, I graciously accept all the privileges to which my age and position entitle me, and I'm grateful for this time to settle back and learn.

I watch a two year old thoroughly enjoy a room filled with toys... until I set up safety-boundaries.  Suddenly it dawns on her that  she's not supposed to cross these, and then they become all she can think about.  I remember that God watches as I test the edges of His will.  I realize He knows more about what dangers are "out there and down the road" than I do. I think of the garden of Eden...

and thus I've had a lesson on "why there are commandments."

I see a day bursting with spring. Tossing aside thoughts of  any "trouble" I might have to go to to do this, I grab the bubble-blowing toys and say "let's go outside!"  I settle into a lawn chair and watch a preschooler blow, chase, laugh, pop.. blow, chase, laugh, pop.  I notice early buds on trees, daffodil splotches of yellow against green; I hear the nearby cooing of a dove... 

and thus I've had a lesson in wonder.   

I observe the tenderness with which a five year old helps her toddler sister.  "Here's how you wrap your baby...you can have this dolly.... this is how we rock them, see?"  And the all important piece of advice:  "if you're the Mommy, you aren't supposed to have a binky in your mouth!!!"...

..and thus I've had a lesson in love.

"You can do nothing with children unless you win their confidence by ... breaking through all the hindrances that keep them at a distance."   (St. John Bosco)

"What was wonderful about childhood is that anything in it was a wonder.   It was not merely a world full of miracles; it was a miraculous world."  (G.K. Chesterton)

"Whoever does not accept the kingdom of God as a child will not enter into it."  (Luke 18:17)

like the sound of a great amen

"Exult, you just, in the Lord ... sing to Him a new song; pluck the strings skillfully, with shouts of gladness.."  (Psalm 33:1 & 3) 

I read this scripture with a sigh.  Loving to sing, I can't carry a tune in the proverbial bucket. Alhough I savor the sounds of harpsichords and pianos and cellos and harps, I myself am no plucker of strings. 

Even with no musical talent, however, I find singing to be a path into prayer.  I like to pray with psalms, using the words as a springboard to my own conversations with God.  "I will extol you." I read in Psalm 145... and so I do.  I begin to thank Him for His goodness and kindness and mercy (this can go on for some time before I turn again to what I'm reading).  And when I feel pretty sure no one is within hearing distance, I just might burst into song.  Sometimes using a tune I know, sometimes making up my own, I sing to God of His wonders.  I set thanksgivings and praises to music; I may even bring intercession into the song.  It somehow opens my heart to do this, and helps unlock the door to conversation with God. 

The psalms are a springboard into prayer for me.  And music, even if I keep my singing "on the inside," is my personal amen. 

"I do not know what I was playing,
Or what I was dreaming then,
But I struck one chord of music
Like the sound of a great Amen."  (A. Proctor)

A Thousand Dimensions

I fell in love with the sea when I was seventeen.  Never mind that I'd never laid eyes on it.  Never mind that I was growing up in a landlocked American state, far from salty breezes.  I imagined crashing waves and windswept dunes and oh, such a wonderful smell!  

The first time I saw the ocean, that day when I was hit with the full impact of sounds and scents and gusts of wind for which I had only been partially prepared, I knew I'd had no way beforehand of picturing the scene spread out in three dimensions before me.  The constant roll of waves, that overpowering ROAR, the feel of feet being sucked down into wet sand.  Even though I'd dreamed of it and actually in some way loved it, there was no way I could have envisioned the totality of it all.  

Everything I'd imagined about the sea was true.  The only shock was in discovering how much MORE there was to it.  The three-dimensionality of it.  The engagement of senses I'd never thought would be called into service. 

Sometimes I compare my love of the sea to love of God.  Never having seen Him, I love Him.  I have true ideas of Him, and through His grace I can actually know Him.  Yet there is no way I can know Him in His fullness until I see Him face to face.  I cannot even envision such Totality, and I suspect such vision would overwhelm a human still in the flesh. 

Will there be, in eternity, sounds beyond anything we've ever heard here?  Colors not detectable to eyes of flesh?  A thousand dimensions spread before us, in every taste and shade, in every tone and depth, in every texture of Love.... ?

"Eye has not seen, ear has not heard, nor has it so much as dawned on man what God has prepared for those who love Him."  (1 Corinthians 2:9)

so that I may carry out....

"Most high,
glorious God,
enlighten the darkness of my heart
and give me, Lord,
a correct faith,
a certain hope, 
a perfect charity, 
sense and knowledge,
so that I may carry out Your holy and true command."  

(St. Francis of Assisi's Prayer before a Crucifix)

Old Stamp Collectors

"Old stamp collectors never die," I said to a friend one evening; "they just get returned to Sender."  She immediately popped back with: "Nancy, that was first class!"  

I am an old stamp collector, I'll admit it, even though the collection is long gone.  I suspect the fascination hit with my first postcard from an aunt vacationing an entire state away.  I saved the card (after all, receiving my own mail then was a Very Big Deal).  Having a great time, said aunty; the weather is good.  Wish you were here... and oh, how I wished it too.  Such exotic lands my relatives visited.  Ohio!  Peoria!  Kansas!  Des Moines!  The very names were colorful, as were the stamps on their cards.  I began a collection of both, poring over paper fragments of adventure on lazy afternoons. 

I knew I loved to travel; never mind that I never did.  I loved caves, too, although I'd never been in one.  I loved astronomy even if my view was limited to the blob of quivery moon I tried to focus on through a cardboard cereal-premium "telescope." ("send in 3 boxtops and 25 cents").  My sense of adventure was unbounded.  Actual travel?  Well, that was limited by my dad's job and a second-hand Chevrolet.  

My stamp collection is gone now, and I am very practical.  I buy stamps I really like, then stick them on envelopes to put them to good use.  I no longer have to imagine travel, I simply call it up from memories.  I've gone to numerous states and well beyond.. even to the other side of the earth.  Maybe I'll travel a lot more - who knows?  But regardless, there will always remain one Great Adventure.  I just pray for grace to look forward with anticipation to that one, and to the amazing experience of seeing face to Face my Sender.  He is bigger than the earth, more brilliant than the moon, grander than Des Moines.

"And men go abroad to admire the heights and mountains, the mighty billows of the sea, the long courses of rivers, the vast compass of the ocean, and the circular motion of the stars, and yet pass themselves by..."  (St. Augustine) 

(photo from US postal service via Wikimedia Commons)

the glory on which they gaze

"Eternal incomprehensible God, I believe, and confess, and adore Thee, as being infinitely more wonderful, resourceful, and immense than this universe which I see.  I look into the depths of space in which the stars are scattered about, and I understand that I should be millions upon millions of years in creeping along from one end of it to another, if a bridge were thrown across it....  

"But all, all that is in these worlds, high and low, are but an atom compared with the grandeur, the height and depth, the glory, on which Thy saints are gazing in their contemplation of Thee."  (John Henry Newman)

erasing the board

As I stand poised at the edge of Lent, I find myself reflecting upon the Sacrament of Reconciliation.  Today I stumbled across this from Charles de Foucauld: 

“When you want to write on a blackboard, you must first wipe off what is written there.”  

Several things occur to me as I read this.  First of all:  chalk is not permanent.  Nor are my sins.  Once the “board” has been erased, the original mistakes can no longer be read. 

Second:  a blackboard cannot be erased unless something is done.  Someone has to actually take action and clean the board.

Third:  a chalkboard eraser is not a steel wool pad.  It is soft.  It’s made to clean the board, not harm it.  If a blackboard could feel, I doubt it would cry “ouch.”

“God,” wrote St. Gregory the Great, “scourges our faults with strokes of love, to cleanse us from our iniquities.” 

Strokes of love.  Not lashes and paddles, but strokes of love.

Jesus wants to erase every one of my sins.  He knows I cannot do it on my own.  He has given the Sacrament of Reconciliation as a (gentle, loving, healing) Eraser.  I pray, on the eve of this Lenten season, for the grace to “confess my sins, do penance, and amend my life."  May Our Lord write what HE wants on my life; may He make it totally His own. 

(This post is part of Catholic Blog Day.  Clicking on this line will take you to another site, where you can find other bloggers' reflections on Lenten penance and reconciliation)

this weekend, I missed....

It's a good thing I don't believe in 'fate,' lest I be accused of tempting it.  It is the providence of God that I believe in - therefore I can safely tell you that this weekend I missed snow.  

It had been promised (the snow), just as it had a number of times this season.  I was awaiting a whirling white visitation, splendidly cold, one to kiss my lips numb and leave them frozen.  Not the sort of thing one normally looks forward to, I admit, unless the season has been uncannily mild.  Or unless one happens to be a coziness addict - an appreciator of warm teas and soft blankets and the homey sense of well being that comes with thawing toes.

At this time of year, I normally feel starved for springtime. I grow weary of frozen air.  I get distressed by hazardous road conditions and threatened safety and cancelled plans.  But I do enjoy finding refuge from chill.  I like to look out from a sheltering house upon a world gone white.  

I hope I won't be writing soon to say there's been a drastic change.  But this weekend, I missed snow.  

(photo © 2010 N Shuman)

I Kiss the Faded Ink

Going through a few of my old letters tonight, I felt I was opening a long sealed treasure chest.  What a grand jewel is a letter!  Every one is a gift, a precious slice of life.

One letter among all the rest stood out as my favorite; no contest.  That would be the following from my husband, written while we were dating.  He was twenty years old. 

December 25...Dear Nancy, "Wanna know something?  Last night when we were at our respective midnight masses we were twenty miles apart, but really we were together.  We both heard mass and received the Christ child in communion - and that’s about the closest bond anyone can have - and the best!  I’d say we’re pretty lucky!" 

So would I, my darling.  So would I.  

"I listen and my hand thy letter presses; 

I, time-worn woman, touch it with caresses. 

I kiss the faded ink of its addresses."  

(Susan Emory, "An Old Woman's Answer to a Letter from her Girlhood")

nearer than I can imagine

Just as I rush from a busy day to a dinner out, I find myself running across the following letter:

"During your meals or during any daily duty, lift your heart up to Him, because even the least remembrance will please Him.  You don't have to pray out loud; He's nearer than you can imagine."  (letter from Brother Lawrence)

And now.... away I go......

True North

France, 1600s:  "Ships at sea have a mariner's needle which always points to the north.  Although the ship may be headed south, the needle never fails to point north.  It sometimes seems that the soul at prayer is going straight south, since it is greatly bothered by distractions.  Nevertheless the highest point of the spirit always looks toward God, WHO IS ITS NORTH.  People who are the most advanced in the spiritual life often have such great temptations, even against faith, that it seems to them that their whole soul consents to these temptations.  Yet they still resist at the deepest level of their being.  Even though all their other faculties and powers may be filled with distractions, their spirit is praying."  (from St. Francis de Sales, emphasis mine)

my holy Valentine

It's a grand time for letters.  Letters, notes, valentines bursting with verse and humor and pop-up-song.  I love every one of them.  On Valentine's Day, give me hearts, give me roses, give me rhyme.

As a child, collecting valentines to line up on my dresser, I would count the cards and sort them and arrange.  Valentines from friends were put where I could see them readily; ones from boys I liked were given pride of place.  It was not unheard of for a girl to receive two or more valentines from the same young man:  a definite sign of not-so-secret love. 

"The Bible is a letter from Almighty God to His creatures,"  wrote Pope St. Gregory.  I read this today and think, if this is the case, then what a missive!  The length of it.. the poetry... the repeated declarations of total and absolute LOVE. 

"I have loved you with an everlasting love... I am constant in My affection for you."  (Jeremiah 31:3)

"Though the mountains leave their place and the hills be shaken, My love shall never leave you."  (Isaiah 5410)

"My sheep hear my voice; I know them, and they follow Me.  I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish.  No one shall snatch them out of my hand."  (John 10:27-28)

I can turn page after page of Scripture and find such love.  Love that would suffer and die for me, declaring itself over and over and over - a definite sign of not at all secret Love.  

This is Love that deserves first place in my heart.  This Valentine's day, I shall (anew) accept it.  And I pray for grace to give love in return.  

Through prayer, through acts of charity, through aspirations of love and praise, I hope to give Our Lord a number of "valentines"... repeated declarations of a not-so-secret love. 

a rose in winter

France, April 1622: "Plant Jesus Christ crucified in your heart, and all the crosses of this world will seem to be roses."  (letter of St. Francis de Sales)

"The sun looks at a rose, along with a thousand million other flowers, just as much as if it looked upon the rose alone. And God, though He loves a countless number of other souls, does not pour out His love upon one soul less than if He loved that soul alone..."  (St. Francis de Sales)

do not refuse to hear....

Letter to the Hebrews:  "Do not refuse to hear Him Who speaks."  (12:25) 

I am struck by the word "refused" used here.  I mean:  imagine God speaking to me and me not just missing the call - but actually refusing to hear it! 

Actually, I can imagine that all too well.

It doesn't take a long memory, on my part, to see myself with head ducked, eyes downcast, pretending I don't know what is being asked of me.  I've never heard a physical "voice" from God, but I have detected the gentle call of One inviting me to live as He asks, to treat others as He wishes, to give Him a moment of prayer. 

But gosh, I'm so busy.  Maybe later, just a little later.  

If Jesus were standing right in front of me, would I say "Nice to see you, but you caught me just dashing out the door.  Oh, and I meant to tell you - I had a reason for not doing what you asked the other day... after all, what would people have thought?  And oh... excuse me just a minute, will you?  I think I heard the phone....."

The thing is - Jesus IS standing right in front of me.  Right now.  He is closer than I could possibly imagine.  

How will I respond?

A Thank You Note

USA, 2012: Dear Pen Friend, 

    Today's letter is from me. Just me.  Not me "and" anyone; only little old me.  
    I've received an airletter (the kind that's written in pen and gets delivered to a metal box outside the house) urging me to take good care of myself.  Because, said the writer, "I could not bear to be without my penfriend!"  
    I immediately thought back through years of correspondence.  Paul was only the beginning.  After him, there was a string of pen-pals.  One of these sent me copies (several years ago) of ALL of the letters I'd sent her over these many years.  I read them with laughter and more than a touch of nostalgia; also with the sure knowledge that only God could have turned such a scatter-penned youngster as I was into a writer.  "I have heard about the British 'Beatles,'" I once told her... "I hope someday I can hear their music."   "President Kennedy was shot, tell me if you've heard about it over there."   "I went swimming today and the dog died" (no connection between these last two events).
     I went on to write letters to friends and boyfriends.  To people met through writing and travels.  And now, as I thank God to have such a privilege, here I am clicking away on a keyboard to you. 
     I suppose you can consider this a thank you note.  Thanks for making a few mouse-clicks and opening this letter. 
     I pray (I genuinely do) that the Lord will take good care of you. 
     Because "I could not bear to be without my penfriend....."  

     Nancy