Simplicity and charity

I hope I never confront this evil face to face. If I so happen to I would hope is do it with dignity and grace like the monks of the Tibhirine massacre

I first heard their story through a small independent French film "Of Gods and Men". The local independent theatre was playing it, and (not knowing what it was about) I bought a beer and settled in for some French Catholicism-YIPEE

What I got was a lesson in martyrdom and the will of God. How to accept the things we cannot change, and how to love those around us as Christ does. -should not have bought a beer.

My favorite part of the move is the ending with the closing testament of Bro Christian de Chergé that was recorded before he died. He was a man who dedicated his life to God and to peace with his Muslim brothers and sisters.

If it should happen one day—and it could be today—that I become a victim of the terrorism which now seems ready to encompass all the foreigners in Algeria, I would like my community, my Church, my family, to remember that my life was given to God and to this country. To accept that the One Master of all life was not a stranger to this brutal departure. I would like them to pray for me: how worthy would I be found of such an offering?

I would like them to be able to associate this death with so many other equally violent ones allowed to fall into the indifference of anonymity. My life has no more value than any other. Nor any less value. In any case, it has not the innocence of childhood. I have lived long enough to know that I share in the evil which seems, alas, to prevail in the world, and even in that which would strike me blindly. I should like, when the time comes, to have a space of lucidity which would enable me to beg forgiveness of God and of my fellow human beings, and at the same time to forgive with all my heart the one who would strike me down. 

I could not desire such a death. It seems to me important to state this. I don’t see, in fact, how I could rejoice if the people I love were indiscriminately accused of my murder. It would be too high a price to pay for what will be called, perhaps, the “grace of martyrdom” to owe this to an Algerian, whoever he may be, especially if he says he is acting in fidelity to what he believes to be Islam.

I know the contempt in which Algerians taken as a whole can be engulfed. I know, too, the caricatures of Islam which encourage a certain idealism. It is too easy to give oneself a good conscience in identifying this religious way with the fundamentalist ideology of its extremists. For me, Algeria and Islam is something different. It is a body and a soul. I have proclaimed it often enough, I think, in view of and in the knowledge of what I have received from it, finding there so often that true strand of the Gospel learned at my mother’s knee, my very first Church, precisely in Algeria, and already respecting believing Muslims.

My death, obviously, will appear to confirm those who hastily judged me naive or idealistic: “Let him tell us now what he thinks of it!” But these must know that my insistent curiosity will then be set free. This is what I shall be able to do, if God wills: Immerse my gaze in that of the Father, to contemplate with Him His children of Islam as He sees them, all shining with the glory of Christ, fruit of His Passion, filled with the Gift of the Spirit whose secret joy will always be to establish communion and to refashion the likeness, playing with the differences.

This life lost, totally mine and totally theirs, I thank God who seems to have wished it entirely for the sake of that JOY in and in spite of everything. In this THANK YOU which is said for everything in my life, from now on, I certainly include you, friends of yesterday and today, and you, O my friends of this place, besides my mother and father, my sisters and brothers and their families, a hundredfold as was promised!

And you too, my last minute friend, who will not know what you are doing, Yes, for you too I say this THANK YOU AND THIS “A-DIEU”-—to commend you to this God in whose face I see yours. And may we find each other, happy “good thieves” in Paradise, if it please God, the Father of us both. . . AMEN!

I carry your heart

I love you because God gave you to me. The enormity of your eternal soul gets to me sometimes, it seems too big to handle. Not overwhelmingly big, but humbling big. Humbling because, for this small moment in time, God has asked me to care for you.

This life I never wanted, but said yes because I felt the pull of God. It’s a vocation fulfilled. It’s everything I was afraid of, everything I was running away from, but it fits and is so right.

We didn’t have an easy start you and I, and we were separated for quite some time. When the nurses brought you over I looked at your pale little body and then smiled at the camera for our first photo. I didn’t think you were real at first so looking at you was too hard, so I looked at the camera. And then I was alone.

I was wheeled into recovery, and was left to wonder about you. Sure nurses came in and out, Maj J stopped in at one point, but really I was left to wonder about you. What you were doing, how you were, what you looked like. I don’t remember praying, but I remember thinking that God was here, and He knew my heart. The words I could not pray were being heard. No longer inside of me, I knew you were your own person now. I want so badly the strength to be the person God wants me to be for you.

You were so very gentle with my body, and I thank you for that. I felt you move but they were always graceful movements, no hard kicks or jabs in the ribs. You were there, you were gentle. Even now, you do not ask for much.

I frequently look over to make sure you’re still breathing. You little life next to me makes me feel a heavy sense of responsibility, a responsibility I feel neither worthy of nor ready for. I want to do everything right and it drives me nuts that I know I won’t. I am going to screw up, and I pray I don’t hurt you in the process. I know I will, I know I am not perfect. I know I will hurt you, physically, spiritually, and mentally. It’s how it goes, it’s what being a parent is all about. I am not going to do everything right. You’re my first, so you’re kind of the experiment. I get the privilege to see you, to see who I am in you.

I don’t know when I’ll stop being nervous something bad is going to happen to you (I’ll possibly never stop being nervous). Some days I’m afraid I’ll wake up and it was all just a dream, that you somehow won’t be here, or that somehow you’re not mine.

You've changed me forever. In a very scary and thrilling way I will never be the same. In what ways I won’t be the same, I don’t know yet. But your little life next to me holds promise beyond measure. You are a gift, and I will spend my whole life letting you know what a gift you are.

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in

my heart)i am never without it(anywhere

i go you go, my dear;and whatever is done

by only me is your doing,my darling)

i fear

no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want

no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)

and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant

and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows

(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud

and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows

higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)

and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in my heart)

~EE Cummings

Change

I wasn’t ready for life to change as much as it did in such a short time. But the ironic thing about life is that the tighter you hold on to something, the faster it slips through your fingers. I look back and wonder where the time went. I was always told that the older you get the faster time goes. Well now I’m living that warped time speed and I don’t like it. It’s getting harder and harder to hold on to the moments.

Life has completely changed since I first started this blog. I’ve gotten married, met a pope, and am having a baby-all within a very short amount of time. I read back through old posts and my biggest worry was how I was going to pass nursing school, and deal with a military move across the country.

I used to work with religious sisters, and they absolutely changed my life. An important lesson I learned was that change was good and should be welcomed. If things didn’t change, how would we not become stagnant in our faith. How would we fight complacency unless we were able to not only say “Lord thy will be done”, but live “Lord thy will be done”.

And some days I’m sad. I was the first of my close friends to get married, the first to have a baby, the first to really graduate college. My life is moving in a different direction, and it’s not like I am not friends with them anymore, but somehow in someway things are different. They still get to go out late at night, drink whenever, and not really have major worries beyond themselves. They don’t want to hear me complain about how different my body is acting or about all the things people don’t tell you about pregnancy (even in nursing school there’s stuff my body is doing that was never covered in my classes). And even though we’re separated somehow, Christ has still bound us in friendship. It’s just a different relationship now, and I wasn’t ready for all the ways they would change.

And so as life continually changes, the one person I cling to is Christ. For when everything changes He stays the same, He is the constant. And I pray somehow, someway my kids will have that same love for Him. Especially as this world gets crazier, or as they grow in and out of their own friendships, that they remember the greatest friend of all.

a little catch-up

Well what can I say, too many things in life changed, and I was too busy living to blog about it.

I got married-something that took a lot of prayer and a lot of trust in God. It's something I learn more and more about everyday, and reflect on how holy of a vocation it can be.

We went on our honeymoon 2 months later (you know after the holidays and stuff since that's what nursing calls of you).

And we are expecting our first child...all in a matter of 3 months life has drastically changed.

What doesn't change? Love of God.

What I first found out I was pregnant, I did not accept it as God's will. It's so easy to toot a pro-life horn, but so different living it.

The reason I didn't want to be pregnant...PRIDE. Well if I had to pick one it might as well be the root of ALL evil right?

You see I was prideful that I, a nurse who had tracked her cycles for 2 years, couldn't make NFP "work" when it finally came time to put it into practice. And now all the birth-control-loving people at work would say they were right and I was wrong. If you really want to "control things" you have to take it into your own hands.I felt like I had something to prove.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized I don't want to control things. Anytime I've ever done that in my life it's NEVER worked out. I want God to control things.

More so if I am going to live the pro-life message, that's what NFP is for. To say I don't know what will truly happen, but I trust and I am open. Even when I don't want to be open or I don't feel very trusting, I WILL. It's holds not only my soul and conscience accountable, it holds my husband's as well.

And what was I trying to prove? That God's plan is the best, and that being open to His plan brings so much JOY. I truly feel that in my heart, and I pray that the people I work with see that.

Some days it's really hard working in the healthcare industry that says  a child's life is only worth something when it's wanted. That ALL life is only considered human insofar as much as it's deemed wanted or useful.

Well haha I work in that industry, and I don't buy that lie. Now it's time to lie a life contradictory to that.

Trinitarian Love

Life is crazy busy, I get married in 4 days...and it just seems so bizarre.
I knew I'd hate it if I didn't do a little interior reflection before I set off into a sacrament, a sacrament so beautiful and so wonderful I don't really know what I'm getting myself into. I guess that's why it's a sacrament though, the grace is always there to make manifest the glory of God, we just have to be open to receiving it.

The thing I want most is to become a saint. I want to live in the glory of God...FOREVER! There's a hole, so big inside me, only heaven can fill it.

And sure I get distracted in sin: music, TV, sleep (or lack thereof), shiny objects...etc etc But all those things are only because I'm looking for the forever of heaven.

And this sacrament I am about to enter into with another human being (just as weak, just as distracted as I am) is so scary. Scary because it's a whole other soul we're being held accountable for with the possibility of more souls being added (through the grace of the sacrament of course), which is so much bigger than ourselves. Luckily though, we're partners in the fight against the culture and sin, and these souls we raise together while keeping each other accountable.

And it's funny, I always thought of God as my partner, but when one got added it made it more Trinitarian....and I like that, it fits.

Let Us Make Haste to Our Brethren Who are Waiting for Us.

A Sermon by St Bernard

"Come, brothers, let us at length spur ourselves on. We must rise again with Christ, we must seek the world which is above and set our mind on the things of heaven. Let us long for those who are longing for us, hasten to those who are waiting for us, and ask those who look for our coming to intercede for us. We should not only want to be with the saints, we should also hope to possess their happiness. While we desire to be in their company, we must also earnestly seek to share in their glory. Do not imagine that there is anything harmful in such an ambition as this; there is no danger in setting our hearts on such glory."

I just love the imagery of the saints longing for us, wanting us to join them in heaven. It's just so beautiful. When you know the love of Christ, of course you'll want to share it with others because it's a kind of love that meant to be shared.

I got a phone call today that someone who worked on my hospital floor has died. It is an extremely sad situation because she leave behind 3 children and a husband who loved her very much. When I got the news, I was so happy for her. She will be released of the burning curiosity that holds so many of us back from trusting.

And who wouldn't want to die on the feast of all Saints?! Every prayer warrior in heaven I feel like is open armed to accept souls today, what a day to die! They long for us to join Him who loved us first, gave His life for us, and has continually offered Himself as sacrifice on our altars throughout the world. He sits in the tabernacle, waiting for us, longing for us, and heaven is filled with just as much longing for the us to join the glory.

This feast of all Saints is meant to out that desire for heaven in our hearts. When we think of Christ, do not our hearts burn within us? So on this day let us pray for those being released into heaven to share in the glory, and ask for the intercession of those already there. Let us make haste to our brethren who are waiting for us.

The Patch on my Shoulder

I contemplate a lot about where I am and where I am going. I think of all the Lord has done, and I am so anxious to see what He will be doing in my life. I want people to know who I belong to, and I think about how one distinguishes that they are a part of something so much larger than themselves.

I think about my formation time in nursing school...the many many years that flew by so quickly. I think about how the formation we (as the students) received there would become a foundation so much larger than we could know at the time. I think of how I stayed up all night late, drank many gallons of coffee, and had constantly greasy hair paired with bags underneath my eyes.  But that's not really what demonstrated my oneness with being a nurse. It was patch on my shoulder. Every nursing school required white scrubs, but it was the patch on the should that stated specifically what nursing school one attended, and it proved my place within that organization.

And now, I've traded that in for a much more considerable patch-a military unit patch on my left shoulder. It signifies what words could never describe:

It's something larger than myself, and I wouldn't want it any less. It represents countless hours sacrificed, many patched wounds, training, and a mother's tears. It's built on sons, daughters, brothers, and sisters. And in my everyday struggle for holiness I need to remember what that patch on my shoulder means. Because it's not about me, and my frustrations, but about a nation that was built on "God we trust". Broken though it may be this side of heaven, it represents a larger part of humanity that desperately needs grace. May God shed His grace on thee, and mend thy every flaw.