7 Quick Takes Friday #5

I cannot believe that it is Friday again already and time to contribute to the quick takes Friday meme hosted by Jennifer at Conversion Diary.

1. This week ended in quite a flourish! A call from the main headquarters of our main client indicated major trouble at our Texas branch. No question about it, with a conflagration in those offices, I had to get on a plane immediately, dragging along with me the senior manager who oversees the set of branches to which Texas belongs. (This is an example of the reason why my Twitterlet, Where in the World is Beth, sometimes changes daily!) We rushed down there, my senior manager and I, with his assistant joining us from our Maryland branch where he was conducting some routine business. Together, we made quite a fire team. Out went the fire! The embers are cooling, and we came home this evening. A total of about 18 hours in Texas is what it took. Whew! Well, not really. While we were in Texas, I got word of a small fire at our Hawaii branch. The same senior manager and assistant will need to go there. However, they can use the fire-fighting techniques I showed them in Texas, and I can stay in California, at least for the next three days. Yes!

2. While we were in Texas my boss's supervisor, who will be going to Korea next week with the same senior manager who was with me in Texas, asked for talking points for his speech there to be sent to him immediately. My boss nervously kept a dialogue going between me and his supervisor because there was no way anyone could send him the data that was needed from a blackberry, our only means of communication. The last email I got, as I was sitting on a plane waiting to depart on the leg into California, was a copy of a note sent to my boss's supervisor, explaining why the request could not be offered immediately: we were on a plane traveling back to the main office. And then, as so often happens in my life, everything changed. I quickly typed and sent an enote to my boss before the plane doors closed: "Your boss just literally ran onto this plane enroute back from Washington. Quite coincidentally he is sitting in the seat beside the senior manager he needs the information from. I think we don't need to pass any more messages. Odd world we live in, isn't it?" When I reached California, I had a relieved LOL note waiting for me from my boss on my Blackberry. Now, just what are the chances of that happening??!! I am rescued so often that I just cannot say that all of it could possibly be happy coincidence unless "coincidence" has another name.

3. And speaking of Korea, I was reminded of my trip there as the lady who sat beside me on the plane to Texas coughed, and spit up, and, prior to taking off, complained to someone on the phone about how sick she felt! Sheesh! Don't people have any conscience about spreading germs? In Korea, temperatures are taken upon boarding and debarking planes, and the sick are not allowed to travel. Perhaps the USA should follow suit. I generally don't worry, but since I have to travel a lot and cannot take the flu shot (allergy to its growth medium) during flu season, I have to leave my health up to God's protection more consciously than I usually do. (I hope God heals that lady traveler, too, before others get sick.)

4. Staying on the theme of Korea a bit longer -- yes, I know it happened two months ago, not two days ago -- I am still having trouble getting my mind to understand the kind of time travel I experienced. I left Korea Tuesday afternoon and arrived in California Tuesday morning. I am still trying to figure out what I did Tuesday morning, should anyone ask. Did I do the things that I experienced in Korea or the ones I experienced in California? Will the real Tuesday morning please stand up? (I am glad I don't keep a diary; it would be hard to make an entry for that day.)

5. Speaking of illness, I have a very elderly friend whose doctor refused to allow her to live alone following a stroke. So, she moved south to live with a relative who has since decided that she is too costly and has returned her here. Now, while there is more to the story and some help is available, much of the responsibility to make sure she is okay has fallen to me. No one asked, but that is okay. A friend is a friend. However, I live 30 miles away, and when I call and there is no answer, I do not know whether she has fallen, is away from the phone, or gone to sleep. Plus, I travel. The morning that I left for Texas, I called and she told me she was on the floor. I called a neighbor who checked on her -- had to dismantle her lock to get in -- and found her naked on the floor. She had fallen, was not hurt, but was unable to get up. We are very perplexed about how to handle this situation. We have the telephone for the relative down south, but there are no answers to our phone calls. I wonder if any readers have ideas about how to handle this better than we are doing?

6. "Haste makes waste," as Benjamin Franklin said, but, in my experience, it does worse. While traveling to Texas, I learned through the grapevine that a junior manager had unilaterally canceled a meeting that I had set up. I found out through an organization-wide email. I reacted immediately. Patience is not one of my virtues; that is something that I am still working on, often successfully. So, I sent a very terse message to our operations person who had sent out the message, cc'ing the junior manager who is the ops persons's boss, stating that this person had no authority to undo any of my decisions or scheduled events and needed to have checked with my assistant who was in charge in my absence. Then, through my assistant, I found out that it was my assistant who had made the decision, based on good reasons. Oh, my. Once again, it was time for a piece of humble pie! I wrote a letter of apology to the junior manager. He replied that he had not taken offense. Since he should have, given my words, I am now worried that he did not take offense because he has become used to my impatience! Ooh! Not good!

7. This past week sometime I lost my journal, the one where I keep my notes for things I am working on, including posts to this website. I did not mislay. I know where it was left, and it is long gone! This only goes to show that the only sure thing is my memory. Oh, wait! I forgot: I suffer from CRS Syndrome. (CRS: Can't Remember Shit -- sorry about the rough acronym; it was invented by a nurse friend of mine.) I gave up on trying to remember or piece together the notes that were in the journal. Time to move on to new notes. Or, maybe, time to write less, pray more, and prioritize a bit differently. Do you think that maybe God yanked the journal out of my hands? Hm...dunno...I will have to pray about that...

Wishing you all a glorious weekend -- a happy Halloween and celebration of All Saints' Day, and more!

V. I. P. or V.O.P or Both?

How does a VIP (Very Important Person) take a VOP (Vow of Poverty)? This troubling non-equation plagues me on some rare occasions. Take Saturday night, for example. Our organization was having a formal ball. And "ball" was the appropriate title for that event, the required attire being tuxedos for men and gowns for women. Now, being a VIP in our organization (by position, not necessarily by self-view) meant that I could not avoid attending the ball, and indeed my VIP-ness evidenced itself several times throughout the evening by what I was called upon to do and where I was required to sit. That is the work side of me.

The spiritual side of me is quite different. Usually that different spiritual side, with God's help and guidance, splashes out around me at work. I am a secular Franciscan (well, almost -- I have not yet professed but am entering my third year of candidacy), and as such I tend to follow St. Francis's model of giving away what I have and making do with very little. After all, I don't really need much now that the kids are grown. I do not feel compelled to live this way; I feel impelled to do so. It brings me great happiness to use my fairly decent salary (albeit less than it might be if I were not living in the "Land of Splat!") to help those who have no salary at all, to pay off God's credit card, and to contribute to divine projects such as rebuilding the St. Francis Retreat. Splurging on a fancy ball gown that I would wear only once, then, did not fit with my truly Franciscan lifestyle that, alas, at times conflicts with my truly secular life. I did not want to buy a gown; I wanted the gown money to help my kids with their medical bills, the orphans of Kaluga or Liberia with finding care and perhaps even homes, the children of Palomar with getting a school, the young mother in need of a home, the foreign handicapped child in need of an American doctor, and the strangers passing through my life in need of food. I find far more pleasure in helping them than in looking at a pretty dress. But this was a ball! And it was for my office where I was supposed to be some kind of role model!

I did have an alternative -- or so I thought. Since our foreign nationals were allowed, indeed encouraged, to wear their national dress, I figured that perhaps the Arabs would allow me to claim their ethnicity for a night since I had lived in Jordan for more than two years as a resident (equivalent to a green card holder in the USA). After all, on more than one occasion I had gotten away with wearing a pretty Arabic dress for a dress-up event. So, I donned a Jordanian dishdasha hashemiya (the kind of dress in the picture above) and, like Cinderella, left for the ball.

Yes, like Cinderella. Except for one thing -- no ball gown! The closer I approached the ball on my 45-minute drive there, the more concerned I became that I would be sitting at or near the head table where everyone would have on their fancy tuxes and gorgeous gowns, and there I would be in a pretty but everyday dress that I had picked up for $7.50 (yes, the period is in the right place) on the streets of Aqaba from a shopkeeper whose wife had probably done the hand embroidery. I started to squirm, well, at least, emotionally. What would people think? If I were sitting with the rank-and-file, it would be one thing, but at the head table in a Arabic dress, not a gown, and, in fact, in a dress that even the poorest of people in the Middle East could afford and would typically wear? What was I thinking? I could have afforded to buy a beautiful gown to show off for my employees and superiors. How dumb to have put my last dollar for this month in the church collection plate for this week's cause! If people who worked for me deserved to look pretty, so did I!

I was still squirming when I reached the ballroom. I should not have been. All my Arab national employees flocked to me, pleased as punch that I would dress as one of them. They wanted my picture taken with them. They introduced me to friends who had come with them. The other nationalities suggested that next time it was their turn to be so honored, that I should don their native attire. (I think I will -- I have some dresses from Russia, Uzbekistan, Brazil, and Turkmenistan in my closet, all of them gifts from friends and colleagues with whom I worked in those countries.) Needless to say, I enjoyed my gownless ball experience very much.

Driving home, I realized that my thoughts during the earlier drive to the ball had dramatically illustrated some Biblical precepts, like the man who asked Jesus what it would take to get to Heaven and to whom Jesus responded that he should give everything away and follow him (whether taken literally or figuratively, I was on the wrong side of that equation on my way to the ball). And how about that camel that could make it through an eye of a needle easier than a rich man can make it to Heaven? Well, thank God, I am not rich! But I was acting like it on the way in. Really, who cares what others think about what I am wearing physically? Is it not more important what I am wearing spiritually? Is not the armor of God far preferable to a pretty ball gown? I may have questioned that on the way to the ball but certainly not on the way from the ball.

God taught me a lesson that night about who is important, who is really a VIP. No VIP of God's was at the ball that night (at least, none that I was aware of, there being much of which none of us are aware). He also taught me a lesson about what is important. Certainly, not a gown.

God gives me everything I need. If I had needed a ball gown, He would have given me one. Instead, He showed me that my simple Jordanian dress was sufficient, just as His grace is sufficient. So, any dollars I have, extra or not, belong to God. Deep down, I think I knew that on the way to the ball, too. Just sometimes, God has to reach down and clunk me on the head again so that I remember just what kind of role model I am really supposed to be.

Monday Morning Meditation #14: And They Did As the Lord Commanded

All the (many) chapters I read this week from Exodus and Leviticus had to do with rules for living and worshipping, ranging from childbirth, circumcision, food, and cleansing, to tabernacle design and ways of making offerings. They seem intended for a different time although I know that at least Orthodox Jews follow these instructions carefully even today. Perhaps some day God will send someone to explain to me in what way these rules should be meaningful to me. Quite meaningful, however, was the frequent repetition of one phrase in various versions: "they did as the Lord commanded," "Moses did as God commanded," and so on. Whenever God gives Moses a reason for obedience, it is always some version of "because I am the Lord." It is sort of like a parent saying, "Do it because I told you to." In return, God promises the Israelites, whom He alternately refers to as His people and His servants, that if they obey His commandments, He will provide for all their needs. Further, and more excitingly, He says that He will be with them. ("And I will walk among you and will be your God, and ye shall be My people." Leviticus 26:12)

Reading: Exodus 35-40 and Leviticus.

Meditation: The specific rules aside, what all these passages taken in aggregate say to me is that we are to obey God, without question, in all things for one reason alone: He is God. I assume that since God opened His arms to non-Jews, then we, too, are both His servants and, if we love and obey Him, His people and that His promise to walk among us and provide for us if we obey Him works for us, too.

On a personal level, I have experienced both the requirement and the promise. God has given me a number of taskings, some of them quite difficult. The most difficult, however, was to call my mother. I was angry when I heard the words, "Call your mother."

I did not want to do that. I had not spoken to her for ten years. Asking me to call her seemed terribly unfair. She had been highly abusive to her eight children physically, the details of which I chronicled in my book, Blest Atheist, and when those children became adults, the abuse just changed into emotional abuse. Several of them caught her beating their children (her grandchildren) and ended up sending her away from their homes. Most of my siblings were not speaking to her at the time of my tasking.

I have no idea why God wanted me to call Ma, but while I at first argued, in the long run (it was not that much of a long run -- it took me about a week to find the number and make the call), I put aside my anger, put on my "ruthless trust" (to use Brendan Manning's term to describe The Ragamuffin's Path to God), and did it. I did it for the sole reason that God required it of me. (Explaining that to my mother was rather interesting, to say the least.)

First, I had to track down Ma's phone number. Since nearly no one was talking to her, it took some time to do that. Once I had retrieved the phone number, I still hesitated. I did not know what to say! What would you say to someone to whom you had not spoken for ten years? "How can I call her?" I asked God. "I have no idea what to say!"

A very quiet one word wafted through my mind, indicating an action that had not occurred to me: "Listen." Of course! I could listen. And that is what I did. I listened. For over an hour, I listened -- to a voice full of curiosity, eagerness to relate a decade of happenings, and elation. Perhaps that is about as close as Ma can get to love.

I still do not completely understand the tasking to call Ma. Nor can I directly track any one blessing -- I have received so many! -- to the act of calling her. The only thing I can say is that I "did as the Lord commanded," and I am glad I did so for no other reason than that He is Lord. I love being His servant and hope that one day He will say that I am one of His people.

And that is far as I can go with you on this Monday morning. I must retire to prayer to ask God to keep on tasking me for His taskings ultimately bring me great satisfaction, to repent for all the taskings I have missed or done poorly, to give thanks for all the ways in which God has indeed provided for me, and to offer praise for the ways in which He orders my world.

After that, I will spend some time in contemplation, open to any "walking" together with which He is willing to bless me. The joy of His presence surpasses any other happiness I have ever experienced.

I will now leave you to your prayer and contemplation, but first, I would like to bring to your attention a Monday morning prayer post that you might enjoy:

Fr. Austin Fleming, priest of the Archdiocese of Boston and pastor in Concord, Massachusetts, posts a prayer each Monday morning that he calls "Monday Morning Offering." I enjoy his prayers very much. I hope you also will find them inspirational. He has graciously given me permission to include a link to his blog on my Monday Morning Meditation posts.

For inspiration throughout the week, I would point out two sets of blogs: (1) the list of inspirational blogs that follow the enumeration of Monday Morning Meditations on the right-hand side of this blog and (2) my blogroll, where I am following a number of inspirational priests and writers about spiritual matters. I learn so very much from all these people. I highly recommend them to you.

Have a good day and a week enriched by the presence of God. May you be blessed by opportunities to do His bidding, and may you do that well.

If you pick this up as a weekly devotional activity, please share with me and others your own thoughts about the message of Exodus 35-57 and Leviticus or any other scripture that you choose for meditation. Feel free to copy the image of the mission church; maybe some time in the near future my Internet-inept self will be able to figure out how to use the Mr. Linky buttons, but to date I remain incompetent at the more sophisticated blog stuff. Yes, I know it has been 14 weeks, but I am exceptionally computer-inept. In the interim, you are welcome to use the image and share the meme of Monday Morning Meditation for starting out the work week closer to God.

Subhan Allah!

Something special has occurred. Hence, the post title. Subhan Allah is an Arabic expression for praising God for unexpected mercies.

My prayer group and other friends, including some who read this blog, have been praying for Maha, a friend of mine in Bahrain who calls me "Mom" and whose teenage brother and a large number of his friends were dragged from their beds in the middle of the night in May 2008 and accused of a crime they did not commit (trumped up charges about an illegal action taken that night in May against someone who had actually died the previous fall -- oops, the police forgot to check out that detail thoroughly). They had been jailed ever since. I don't know about the other young men, but Maha's brother was beaten regularly almost to the point of losing his eyesight. It was called interrogation. Every trial date during the intervening months was postponed, followed by a new "interrogation." It seemed to be a matter of ruling Sunni intimidation of the larger Shia population. Outside international investigation, including an international justice specialist from the United Nations, did not help. Western embassies were reluctant to speak up.

Without divine intervention, the likely outcome would have been the one that has happened in the past: 15 years, life, or death. (The last such group was convicted in the late 1990s, and the sentence was capital punishment.) So, prayers were the only medium available. I personally know people who prayed for these young men regularly in Bahrain, Canada, Egypt, Lithuania, Morocco, and the United States.

Earlier this week the prayers were answered. Maha's brother and the other young men have been released! They were declared innocent by the court and also given a royal pardon. Maha tells me that in Bahrain people flocked to the mosque the night before the pardon to pray for the young men; they prayed until the crack of dawn. She also told me that nobody really expected the outcome that all of them would be declared innocent and freed. (My comment: Wait a minute here...if you pray, don't you expect an answer? I do!)

These young men are now considered heroes for not caving in to the government. Blessedly, they are getting their old jobs back. Their families are celebrating as Arabs know so well how to do!

Many thanks to everyone who prayed for these young men. Sometimes, in international matters, our first, last, and best hope is God.

Migraines: A Different Kind of Post

Although I do not generally blog about medical matters, except for the birth defects with which my children and grandchildren have to cope, I have run across so many complaints on the blogosphere about migraines that I thought it might be worthwhile to wander into new blog territory and share my experience at controlling them. My son, Shane, too, is prone to migraines and is able to control them. Perhaps our experience will help someone.

I had terrible migraines in 1980 as a result of a fall down a flight of stairs that broke my back (T5 compression fracture). The doctor said, though, that I should have had migraines all my life, given my car sickness as a child and other related conditions. I was in 3-day agony with each migraine and could not work, but ultimately I found a way to stop them before they began. Initially, I would fight the headache, as is my tendency to do with everything in life. However, that only made them worse. I tried to ignore them. No deal. Like others who suffer from migraines, I quickly learned that lying down in a dark room would help. What was happening, then, I realized was that I was giving in to my body and letting my body take over and readjust itself. Once I realized this, I was able to create the same feeling (condition) in my body without needing the help of the darkened room and sofa. I would simply momentarily blank out; in other words, I darkened my mind completely until there were no thoughts left and my autonomous system alone was in charge of my body. That allowed it to regulate the amount of blood flowing through my head, bringing everything back to normal. At first, I needed a few minutes of "blanking out," but with time I learned to manage it in just a second or two. I am fortunate that I do not get migraines in my sleep and wake up with them. They only sneak up on me in my waking hours, and when I feel that pain creeping toward me, even if I am in a meeting or talking to someone, I blank out for a second or two, and, shizzam, I am back to normal. (Of course, I also avoid the food triggers. Chocolate and caffeine are great pals of migraines, at least for me, so I avoid both, and so I have many fewer episodes of needing to stop the pain creep in its tracks.) Now, I sometimes have migraines attempt to start, but I have not had a real migraine in 29 years.

When I described what I was doing to the doctor, he told me that this was called biofeedback and that it could be taught. Since I taught myself intuitively, I had saved a lot of money on training, which typically takes about six months. (Even so, I think it would be time and money well spent.)

Ditto for Shane. At age 11, he had to come home from hiking the Appalachian Trail with his father and see a doctor because of multi-day migraines. The doctor put him on Inderal, which bothered me because it acts on the heart. Even with medication, Shane was frequently absent from school his 8th grade year from migraines that caused him to vomit for days (my earlier experience). I explained my "blanking out" technique to him, but even though he tried hard at it, the migraines continued. Then suddenly they stopped completely. I asked Shane what had happened, and he said that he had finally understood what I was doing in terms of biofeedback. The process is very hard to describe accurately, which is why it took Shane some time to figure it out. He had to learn to try easier, not harder -- and that is also something that is difficult to describe. But he finally got it. He, too, now can stop the headaches before they start and has been migraine-free for 21 years.

For those of you who suffer from migraines -- I know just how debilitating they can be -- it's worth a conversation with your doctor about biofeedback training. If it is at all possible to control your migraines, it is worth the investment in learning to do so.

7 Quick Takes Friday #4

I cannot believe that it is Friday again already and time to contribute to the quick takes Friday meme hosted by Jennifer at Conversion Diary.

1. The most memorable day this week was clearly yesterday. One of those things happened to me that generally only appears on sitcoms. As a very fine, low-key day perked along, I received an e-note from one of the senior managers who had met with a junior manager who worked for him. He told me that after consultation with the junior manager, he had decided that we needed to wait two months to begin a major (and highly visible) project for which we had just received considerable funding. This was clearly a non-starter. I knew that the problem lay not with the senior manager who had just returned from vacation but from the stubborn junior manager incapable of prioritizing. Having had multiple frustrating conversations with her earlier in the week about her reluctance to take on this project, which fall squarely into her position duties, I had reached the limit of my patience with her. Furious, I dashed off a note to the senior manager stating that I knew that his words reflected the mindset of the junior manager who was a hindrance and not a help to the organization. I suggested that if she could not handle the due-outs from the project that I need early next week that I would do them and immediately after that find a replacement for her (and, oh, by the way, I was already looking for one). Done! Off with the note! I could then calm down. However, as I pushed the send button, I noticed that the senior manager had cc'd the junior manager on his note. Oops! Frantically, I tried to stop the note from flying out to their computers, but it merrily danced away from me. I tried to recall it. Failure! She read it before I could navigate to the tools menu! So, there not being much else to do at that point, I sent an e-wail to the senior manager to alert him to the possibility that she would soon descend upon him, which she did. My assistant was away on business but monitoring email and was cc'd on all the notes. He sent me a note: "Classic!" Right, classic! Oh, my, oh, my! The rest of the day found the junior manager closeted with the senior manager, fussing over the note and worrying about her job. I talked to him at 7:00 as he was dragging himself home from the office. "Hard day," was about all he could say. Right, hard day, indeed! My fault, too! I talked to Sr. Maria last night, noting that this was one action I had not prayed about in advance although every morning I ask God to guide me during the day even if I forget to turn any particular action over to Him. Sister had a surprising reaction. She said that perhaps I had been guided. Perhaps this employee needed to be hit on the head, given her general arrogance toward other employees, often expressed feeling of superiority, and overly secure confidence in her job. Perhaps Sister was correct. Today the junior manager got ALL those "impossible" due-outs done three days early! Life is curious and complicated sometimes! (Often, actually!)

2. Continuing the at-work discussion, a new senior manager who had recently moved back to the USA from Korea found that he had some interesting large Mexican figurines that he had no room for at home or work and wanted to give them to me. They make a great addition to my office. More important, though, I had to clear off the bottom shelf of my bookcase to hold them. The only useful thing on that shelf was a prayer rug I keep handy should someone need it. In cleaning off the rest of the shelf -- mostly binders with old documents -- I found that nothing was more recent than 2005 and were all things that my predecessor had left. Talk about procrastination! I had known for three years that I should clean up the shelf. Sigh! Where are those kids of mine who used to help with the housework when they are needed? I now know why the house was clean. The kids did it! Had it been up to me, we would probably have constantly been living under three years of dust!

3. It was great to return this past weekend from nearly three months of non-stop traveling. Many thanks to guest bloggers who helped me by filling in on Wednesdays. I hope you have enjoyed their posts. By the way, I am not home free yet. I returned to more than 1900 waiting emails at work, but I am now down to only 900 still to answer. Hey, it's progress!

4. When I got back from all the tripping, I found a very needy kitty at home. Murjan, our alpha cat from Jordan, is highly social, and he was fit-to-be tied that his "mother" had been away so long. He is more doglike than catlike, and I found him "yipping" at the window when I came up the stairs. Then, he started cussing me out in good Jordanian cat talk. (Middle Eastern cats have more than a dozen different kinds of meows, and one can figure out what they are "saying" with these sounds.) Then, he rolled over and wanted his belly scratched over and over again for a very long time. See, more dog than cat?

5. I no sooner got home than a friend, Rocio, sent me a note that she would be in town. She is another world traveler but generally lives in Boston. We planned to get together Saturday evening after settling in my 90-year-old friend who was moving back to town from Los Angeles and that was after spending four hours in the morning in a seminar for catechists that our diocese was holding. Quite a full day! It became fuller when Shane called me to remind me that I had promised to take Lemony out (with family) for her birthday that same evening -- so our evening with Rocio became Rocio + family. She was game, and Nathaniel entertained her as if she were royalty, devoting all his attention to her all evening. Flexibility! We learned that in the Middle East, too!

6. We turned in papers this week to take our previous landlady to court for failing to give us our security deposit back. Her excuse? She had spent it and had no income with which to replace it. For a couple of months, she sent us a few dollars at a time, but she still owes us $1800. I was going to forgive it, considering that she truly does not have money (is not employed) and that I got $1800 back about the same time the deposit was due from three years of overpaying electric bills (a new meter adjusted the past bills - not sure how that happened, but I don't look gift horses in the mouth; God often provides for me in this way, so why would I want to question?). However, Fr. Ed at our parish thought that was not a good idea, that it would be contributing to her dishonesty. She is a member of our church and has done the same thing with other tenants in the past, I have found out, and gotten away with it. So, it looks like I have to take a day off from work next month for small claims court. Oh, joy! (And I do feel a twinge of guilt because I can afford to give up the money, and she has little beyond her modest rental income. On the other hand, as Fr. Ed says ... )

7. And, before I make it to bed today, I have a pleasant translation task to complete. Padre Julio from Colombia sent me one of his periodic letters for sponsors of the children supported by Por Amor a Los Ninos de Colombia for translation from Spanish into English for those sponsors that speak no Spanish. I enjoy doing the translations because Padre writes very eloquently and the letters are always interesting in content, as well. The school he had wanted to build for the children is now operational, and the sustaining farm is getting there. It is a wonderful project to try to curb the misuse of children for insurgent activities in an area where there were no schools previously. For some uplifting information and to see what God can do through the efforts of a dedicated priest and his small coterie of helpers, take a look at his website.

End of tales, end of week. I hope yours was as interesting (well, maybe a little less interesting since I am still dealing with the fallout of yesterday's hasty note).

Angel of Beirut

Were I to have had any doubt about God protecting me, one incident in the Middle East would have dispelled it. I had traveled on university business from Jordan to Lebanon (a trip that put me on the “search her on every leg of every trip,” i.e. “randomly selected for search” list at airports worldwide for a while).

One morning in Beirut I started down a ghetto-looking street, devoid of vegetation or people, wondering if I had somehow misunderstood the instructions that the hotel clerk had given me in French. (French and Arabic are the two lingua francas in Lebanon. Of these, I chose to speak French. My mastery of French was greater than my capacity to communicate in Arabic, and I certainly looked more European than Arab although when I donned hijab — a headscarf — I could surprisingly pass for a Middle Easterner in looks.)

The stone buildings on the Beirut street stood stoically silent as if on guard, comrades of mixed color and size, humbly displaying the wounds of past wars for any accidental passerby. Some had chipped corners and broken stairs. Most were bullet-ridden.

As I walked down the street, a man suddenly appeared. Where had he come from? He looked directly at me and called out to me.

“You are not from Beirut, are you?” he asked in excellent English although his countenance was definitely Arab. He then commented, “You look Western.”

“I am a Westerner,” I answered cautiously, careful not to mention my American heritage. In the Middle East, I was always honest but never candid. If, in any given situation, I could pass for European or, as more often happened, a Russian, I did so. It was safer, given the war in Iraq and highly emotional reactions to Americans in the Middle East in general.

In response to my admission, the man replied, “In that case, you don’t want to be walking down this street. It would not be safe for you. Where are you trying to go?”

I crossed the street to where he was standing so that we did not have to continue to shout. He waited patiently, without moving. Coming up to him, I explained that I was looking for an ATM. He directed me to another street. I thanked him and walked away.

I thought he had remained at the spot where we had spoken, but as I was passing through the intersection only seconds later, I turned and saw that the spot was empty. How fortunate, I thought at the time, that he was in the right place at the right time to protect me. Later, I wondered how he could have disappeared so quickly?

But who was he? As Ashley Siferd wrote in her guest blog on this site last week, there is someone watching out for me. Wish I were worthy of it! Well, I may not deserve it, but I do love it!!

-------------------------------
Adapted excerpt from my book, Blest Atheist. Other excerpts from Blest Atheist can be found on my other blog, Mahlou Musings, where I have double-posted this post, as well, for convenience of readers of that blog, who tend to differ from readers here.

For more angel stories on this blog, click here. For more angel stories on the Mahlou Musings blog, click here and here.

Beth Niquette maintains a blog of angel stories that you might like to read, and I would point out that Sr. Lorraine is looking for angel stories for a book should you have any to share.

In conclusion, may you always be watched over by angels!

Monday Morning Meditation #13: What the Face Shows

Moving forward by two chapters in Exodus, I found a description of how Moses's face shone so brightly after being with God that the Israelites became afraid of him. There are no less than three mentions of this inner light beaming outward.

Reading: Exodus 34: 29-35

Meditation: I cannot but wonder by comparison how much of the inner light that God gives to us when we come to Him in prayer that we afterward beam out onto those with whom we come into contact. Can, indeed, anyone tell that we have been with God? Or do we keep it all locked up inside?

Somehow, the reading of this passage brings to me Hawthorne's story, "The Great Stone Face," in which Ernest, who lived in Franconia Notch, NH, had one wish above all others: to live long enough to meet the man who looked like the great stone face. Those of us who grew up in New Hampshire (I did, at least, part-time) knew the saying that just as cobblers hang out a shingle with the imprint of a shoe to show that they make shoes in their shop, so, too, did God hang out His shingle to show that that He makes men in New Hampshire. The legend of the Old Man in the Mountains, the rock formation similar to a man's face "with the sunshine brightening all its features" (Hawthorne's words) that stood high above a small pond for centuries before it fell to erosion about five years ago, said that some day a great man would appear, one that looked like the great stone face. Throughout Ernest's life, one person after another was heralded as fulfilling that legend, but when he looked at them none did. People moved out; people moved in. Ernest grew up to minister to them. A very humble man, he asked for little and gave much in return. His riches were in his love for others. Always he watched and waited for the coming of the man who would look like the great stone face, but none did. Near the end of his life, as Ernest was delivering an outdoors sermon with the mountains in the background, a poet noticed that it was the face of Ernest that resembled the great stone face. While Hawthorne leaves some things to our imagination, I can easily see the light beaming from Ernest's face, light that came from a lifetime of doing God's bidding and gathering the inner light that none of the grand visitors had ever beamed upon the people of the valley; hence, Ernest's inability to see the likeness in their visages. His humility prevented him from seeing his own.

So what do our faces show? For that matter, what does our behavior show? And what do our words show? Do they shine with God's love?

Fr. Terry, a local priest about whom I have blogged before, asks, "If people know you, would they want to know your God?" Well, would they?

For me, that answer is, often yes but sometimes no. I am working hard, with God's help, to get those no's removed!

And that is far as I can go with you on this Monday morning. I must retire to prayer to ask God to shine through me more, to repent for all lost chances to share God's love with those who might really have needed it, to give thanks for all the inner light He has given me, and to offer praise for the sunshine of His love that is so grand that it can fill the whole world, were the world to let it, and still have spare.

After that, I will spend some time in contemplation, open to any inner light God cares to give me for the minute, the hour, or the day. Being with Him, surrounded by His light and love, is the most joyful start to the day that I can imagine.

I will now leave you to your prayer and contemplation, but first, I would like to bring to your attention a Monday morning prayer post that you might enjoy:

Fr. Austin Fleming, priest of the Archdiocese of Boston and pastor in Concord, Massachusetts, posts a prayer each Monday morning that he calls "Monday Morning Offering." I enjoy his prayers very much. I hope you also will find them inspirational. He has graciously given me permission to include a link to his blog on my Monday Morning Meditation.

Have a good day and a spirit-filled week, and may you find the patience you need in dealing with others and the trust to wait for responses to prayers not yet answered.

If you pick this up as a weekly devotional activity, please share with me and others your own thoughts about the message of Exodus 34: 29-35 or any other scripture that you choose for meditation. Feel free to copy the image of the mission church; maybe some time in the near future my Internet-inept self will be able to figure out how to use the Mr. Linky buttons, but to date I remain incompetent at the more sophisticated blog stuff. Yes, I know it has been 13 weeks, but I am exceptionally computer-inept. In the interim, you are welcome to use the image and share the meme of Monday Morning Meditation for starting out the work week closer to God.

God's Credit Card

note: image copyright Katrin Wegmann (www.katrinwegmann.de)

I imagine the title of this particular posting sounds a bit odd, but perhaps a little explanation will make it seem more reasonable. Several months ago, I blohttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifgged about a nagging little concern that I had in the case of people asking for handouts in a post called, "The Art of Panhandling and the Act of Giving." My concern at that time was the thought of giving to people who did not really need the money or to people who were going to use it to make their condition worse (e.g., buying alcohol with it). Over time, both from bloggers' comments to that post and my subsequent reading and discussion with others, I have come to the conclusion that true giving is separated from dictating what a person does with the gift. So, that dilemma for me has been resolved.

There arose another dilemma, though. I do not carry money with me very often because I have so often been mugged and I do not need to because we are a plastic society, pretty much worldwide these days. So, when a panhandler or a person clearly in need has crossed my path, I have often not been able to help (although I would have otherwise been in a position to help). And so, I would ask God to give me another chance to help -- and I would blow it again because once again I would have only plastic with me. And then I would ask for another chance and blow that one and on and on.

On one of those occasions when I was apologizing for losing yet another opportunity to help one of God's people in need and "explaining" (obviously, a superfluous act) that given my plastic-only habit, I am not in much of a position to help anyone, into my head popped the concept that God can use plastic, too. And so I got God a credit card.

It was one of those card offers for a small credit line: $500. One can, with time, increase it as the bank and the customer build a relationship, but $500 seems to be quite an appropriate limit. I never end up putting that much on the card, and with that limit I cannot possibly get in over my head, at least not for long. Nothttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif that this could possibly be a worry because God always provides for me in such cases. So, God and I have this deal now. I reserve this card for His purposes. When He puts someone in need in my path, I pay with His card. (Of course, I can use my other cards, too, but they are usually maxed out, so having a card exclusively for God's purposes is very helpful.)

Here are a couple of recent examples of how God has used His card:

(1) I met a man in the parking lot of our local grocery store. He was on his way from Ohio to southern California to move in with his daughter, his luck having run out in Ohio. He was traveling by motorcycle, which requires less gas, and he had enough gas to make it to where he was going, but he had run out of food money the day before and was hungry. He asked for a couple of dollars for a doughnut and coffee. He thought that would carry him through the remaining six hours of his trip. I told him I had no cash but I did have a "special" credit card and if he would pick out what he wanted, not limited to a doughnut and coffee, for lunch and for the road, I would pay for it. So, he did, very judiciously. At the same time, I picked up some strawberries for dessert for dinner for Donnie and me. They were on sale: buy one, get one free. (This kind of surprising sale, just at the right moment, happens so regularly now that I would be surprised if it did not happen.) So, I gave the free strawberries to the hungry man; obviously, the sale was intended for him. As for paying off the credit card bill, the amount was so minor that it was no problem at all; I was able to include it in our food budget for the month without crimping our style, simple as our style tends to be.

(2) A couple of nights ago, about the time that the town was rolling up its sidewalks, I dashed to the grocery store to pick up some supper, our food supplies having become somewhat depleted while I was traveling. There, a young couple came up to me, the girl crying, saying that they were completely out of gas, no one would help them out, and that they were only two hours away from their destination. They looked younger than my kids, and it turns out that they were only 19, traveling across country for the first time to see some childhood friends. They begged for just one gallon of gas, enough to get to a town with more people where they might be able to get more aggregate help. I told them that I had no cash and explained about my special credit card. Asking them to follow me to our only gas station, I used the credit card to fill up their tank. They were ever so grateful -- and extremely relieved. The cost? $36. The next day, one of our church members saw me at daily mass (only when I am in town and can get off work, I go, so it is not all that often, unfortunately). This church member told me that she really needed two copies of my book immediately. (I keep 8-10 books on hand at all times, just in case, and I get them at author's discount.) Once she had paid me for the books and I had ordered the replacements at author's discount, my "profit" was exactly $36, just enough to pay the credit card bill.

So, I ask you: Is there any doubt that God is using "His" credit card?

Blest Guest Wednesday #3: There Is Someone Looking Out for Me (Ashley Siferd)

Since early August, it has been difficult for me to post regularly although I have somehow managed not to let more than a few days go by between posts. Considering that my crazy travel schedule is definitely going to continue for a few more months, I have been able to bring a little sanity to the blogging part of my life by asking for help. Some wonderful fellow bloggers have been willing to write guest posts for me on Wednesdays, hence the name "Blest Guest Wednesday." As today's "Blest Guest," I asked Ashley Siferd, who has been with me on this blog from nearly its very beginning and who writes a blog called If Necessary, Use Words. I think you will find her life, her blog, and her post here interesting. Here goes:

There Is Someone Looking Out For Me

While I don’t recall ever having a face-to-face encounter with an angel, I do believe that they are present in my life. Of course I think that those human beings who carry out certain kind acts that occur on a daily basis (like holding open a door for someone with full hands or picking up a person’s books that fell) are angels, but in this context, I mean the spiritual, ethereal beings who serve God.

I have never doubted the existence of God. Sometimes I have found myself thinking about the question, “Well, what if there wasn’t a God?” but I have never ever thought of an answer. I know that He in fact is there because on numerous occasions, I have felt His presence or that of someone who was helping me, like an angel.

I am not a terrible driver. I will admit that I have a certain degree of road rage, yes. However, I am careful. I’m both a defensive and offensive driver. But being both doesn’t mean that I will avoid every potential hazard or dangerous situation. Once while turning left onto the two-lane highway, the lady in the left lane either completely forgot that I was there or just didn’t care. She started to drift over into my lane while we were turning, and there was nowhere for me to go. I had just enough shoulder to move over, but it wouldn’t have helped because she just kept coming!

Her car should have hit me. Miraculously though, it did not. Puzzling to me also was that I was not enraged with her. I felt a calm presence in my car. I was safe and not angry. I couldn’t explain it. That is when I first realized that Someone up there is watching out for me.

I’ve recently had a few “almost catastrophes” in the car. Most of them have been not so nice folk who have nearly t-boned me while I have been going through a certain intersection. If you are driving up the hill next to my dorm, you do not have a stop sign but everyone else does. I always slow down so that I don’t get smeared, but apparently some people just don’t like to obey the law. Amazingly (and miraculously!) enough, my car and most importantly my life has been spared. Protected.

The other night I was driving home on the interstate. I had been told that bad weather was coming, but when I left campus, it was nice out…what bad weather were you talking about? I had just merged onto the interstate when it began to rain. I don’t enjoy driving on the interstate at night. I hate driving on the interstate when it is raining. What do you know? It starts raining very hard while I was driving home at night. The perfect storm, I guess, right? Well I had never had that unfortunate combination before. All I could do was pray and sing along with my mixed CDs. Even though it took me a lot longer than normal, I made it home safely. I found out later that I had been driving through a storm that had prompted several tornado warnings in the area!

Now every time I get in the car, even if it is just to go down the road two miles, I ask my guardian angel and my extra driving angels to watch out for me and to be in the car with me. I pray for a safe journey for me and the other drivers around me.

I’m sure that there have been numerous occasions when my angels have hit the palms of their hands on their heads in bewilderment, thinking, OMG what are we going to do with this girl? What was she thinking? I know I’m oblivious to some things that go on around me, but they certainly are not. I’m thankful for their constant vigilance, but I’m even more thankful that God has granted His angels charge over me. Lord knows I need them!

Monday Morning Meditation #12: An Impatient People

This week, ploughing through chapters of Exodus that contain the laws that God gave to His people, I recognized the initial corpus of regulations for British common law upon which US law rests. Informative enough to require reflection!

After wondering whether I was being set up to become an overnight lawyer, I reached the more interesting (to me) story of how the Israelites grew tired of waiting for Moses -- there were, after all, a lot of laws being handed down -- and coerced Aaron into making a golden calf for them to worship. Of course, God was angry. Moses was so angry that he broke the tablets containing the Ten Commandments.

Reading: Exodus 32: 1-6

Meditation: I cannot help but see immense parallel between the Israelites' attitude and the attitude that I see on a daily basis, and, admittedly, even have at times adopted myself. The Israelites were not the only impatient people!

So many times I have heard people say that God did not answer their prayer. My catechism kids, for example, in their moments of greater skepticism will say that God does not care about them or will even question whether God exists because they did not get the answer to prayer that they wanted in precisely the manner they wanted at precisely the time that they wanted. Beyond understanding that "no" is a legitimate answer, they often need to be led to consider the possibilities that (1) God's answer will be better for them in the long run, (2) sometimes we want and ask for things that we should not have, and (3) that seemingly unanswered prayers may simply be prayers that have not been answered yet. I cannot recall not having a prayer answered, but I can recall longer waits than I would have liked and often getting answers I had not anticipated -- better answers, more creative answers, la chose juste that is beyond my capacity to conceive even though I am an inveterate out-of-the-box thinker. (My daughter, Lizzie, insists that I have not yet found the box.)

Deep down we know that patience is a virtue. Don't many of us pray for patience? But, as the joke goes, don't we often tell God that we want more patience, and we want it right now? Yes, we are an impatient people.

Sufis consider waiting to be a virtue that God requires of them. I have a Sufi friend, a poet, whose life has embodied this virtue and whose writing is filled with it. Deep down we, too, know the value of waiting. Don't we say that we often receive greater enjoyment in the anticipation than in the receiving of something? When we receive something for which we have long waited, don't we attach greater meaning to it? Ah, yes, we do that and know that, but nonetheless we are an impatient people.

And that is far as I can go with you on this Monday morning. I must retire to prayer to ask God for that proverbial patience, to express my regret for my daily moments of impatience, especially in those cases when I don't rein in or hide my impatience well in working with employees, to give thanks for God's great kindness in not becoming angry with me as with the Israelites (at least, I have never seen His anger, but then I have not yet made any golden calves -- fortunately, I don't have the gold, literal or allegorical, to do that), to offer praise for the ways in which He leads me to develop patience by the practice of waiting, and especially to tell Him that I know He spoils me far more often than I deserve (but I like it) by not making me wait very long at all.

After that, I will spend some time in contemplation, patiently abiding in His presence, which is the most joyful start to the day that I have ever experienced.

I will now leave you to your prayer and contemplation, but first, I would like to bring to your attention a Monday morning prayer post that you might enjoy:

Fr. Austin Fleming, priest of the Archdiocese of Boston and pastor in Concord, Massachusetts, posts a prayer each Monday morning that he calls "Monday Morning Offering." I enjoy his prayers very much. I hope you also will find them inspirational. He has graciously given me permission to include a link to his blog on my Monday Morning Meditation.

Have a good day and a spirit-filled week, and may you find the patience you need in dealing with others and the trust to wait for responses to prayers not yet answered.

If you pick this up as a weekly devotional activity, please share with me and others your own thoughts about the message of Exodus 32: 1-6 or any other scripture that you choose for meditation. Feel free to copy the image of the mission church; maybe some time in the near future my Internet-inept self will be able to figure out how to use the Mr. Linky buttons, but to date I remain incompetent at the more sophisticated blog stuff. In the interim, you are welcome to use the image and share the meme of Monday Morning Meditation for starting out the work week closer to God.

Sister M

Yesterday, when I blogged about being a broken vessel, I mentioned how easy it is to fall into the trap of comparing oneself with others, and some readers commented on how I am not the only one who does that, agreeing that we should not although sometimes there are people who can be models for us in their holiness.

For me, there is indeed one: Sister Maria. I am fortunate to have come to know Sister quite well. She lives in the Franciscan Sisters of Atonement convent in the woods overlooking the valley (quite a view from their living room) next to our parish offices and is the nun in charge of keeping everything in order there, something she is very good at. Like most of my other friends, and I do consider Sister a friend, she is considerably older than me: mid-seventies. Sister comes regularly to the prayer group and Bible study group to which I belong, and I benefit from her experience and wisdom. She also teaches catechism, as do I, so I see her (actually, I room with her) at the religious education conferences that we attend for our continued faith formation.

In addition to being a model for me in all her quiet ways, Sister, because of her accepting nature, is the one person in whom I have confided nearly all of my spiritual experiences for which I need greater understanding: the times that Evil seems to attack, the miraculous help and clearly God-sent healings that enter my life from time to time, understanding of prayer (especially contemplation which was my entry point into Catholicism -- Sister says I started backwards from most, who begin with ordinary prayer and work through meditation into contemplation whereas I was hit on the head and surrounded by the presence of God for two full weeks and had to learn later, through RCIA, how to pray the ordinary types of prayer such as thanksgiving and repentance), and more.

The "more" includes those early days when an interim diocesan priest who took over our RCIA group from Fr. Barry, visiting priest and director of St. Francis Retreat Center, waved aside any of my spiritual sensations and interventions as "nonsense." While Fr. Barry was and is always available to me, God bless him, he has been highly occupied with rebuilding the retreat center that had burned down. Valuing his time, I go to him only with the thorny issues. Over 80 years old and having already celebrated 50 years of Franciscan priesthood, he is never surprised -- he has seen it all in his 50+ years of ministry in the Franciscan tradition. Nor does he make me feel awkward or embarrassed. He understands, accepts, and gently guides in a way that has made him my de facto spiritual advisor.

Still, because of the demands on Fr. Barry's time and the abundance of my spiritual encounters and experiences, it is Sister Maria to whom I generally go for interpretation. She not only has time and wisdom for me, but like a true friend and counselor, when she sees that I need reproving, she does not hesitate to speak out. In some difficult moments, when I have not understood what it is God is trying to tell me, she has taken me into the chapel and prayed together with me. Now, there is a true friend! You can probably tell that I love Sister very much. I am highly grateful to God that He has not only surrounded me with priests, each of which has brought something special into my life, but also that He put me in Sister's path and led her to scoop me up and take me along for frequent intervals of her journey. Sometimes she is gone for long periods of time, taking care of God's business and her own ailing sisters, but other times we get long moments together through local religious social events which we attend in tandem with other friends. In addition, a triad of Sr. M, Robert (a spiritual director), and I (the most unlikely of choices except for my extroversion) share responsibility for the leadership of our local prayer group.

Sister M is the most humble person I know and, as a Franciscan and true servant of God, would be quite surprised that I would think of her as a model. Now, if I, in my Franciscan walk as an SFO candidate, could only come close to that! My hope and goal is to some day come close enough to earn the right to profess in the third order. (Regulation-wise, I could have done it already. Spiritually, I need more study and greater humility. And, like most people, I need more time with God.)

God has blessed me beyond anything I have deserved, and my relationship with Sr. M is one of those blessings. May all of you be blessed with someone in your life like my friend, de facto counselor, and model, Sister M, beloved by many, not just by me.

Damaged Vessel

We have no right to compare ourselves to others for God loves each of us just as we are with all our imperfections. Yet, as a relatively new believer, I find that at times I cannot help but compare myself with other parishioners; it is one way in which I learn.

The comparison isn't good. I see around me people who seem more pious and more devoted than I think I will ever be. Although when I first first enter and kneel I feel God's presence so strongly that sometimes I can scarcely move, just a few minutes later I feel my mind slipping away and wonder what it is that keeps me from being as focused as others. (And yes, I do realize that I am probably not entirely alone in this.) Sometimes my focus is pulled away by events in my life that skitter through my brain. Other times, I become so absorbed in enjoying the presence of God that I find myself praying mechanically as I bask in that feeling of love -- a sort of contemplation that blurs out everything and everyone else.

More often than not, I marvel at being in the midst of those who love God and have taken the time to come and tell Him that in the presence of His community. That is when I realize that there is both a spiritual side and a social side to church. While they are intertwined, I don't think the best time for intertwining is during mass.

As these various thoughts swirl around in my mind, I realize from the swirling alone what a broken receptacle I am. I know that God can use all kinds of vessels -- the sturdier ones around me (those people who have spent their lives in the church and done much good in the name of God), the small shiny ones (the little children who have a life of service yet to come), and even the broken ones like me. Truly, I don't know why God entrusts such a damaged vessel as I with any of His tasks, let alone why He clearly selects specific tasks and lays them before me. I am grateful, though, that He does for I enjoy doing them.

Nor do I understand why He floods His enormous love into me when I cannot possibly hold it all; there are too many cracks in me, some possibly from the casting and the rest from a lifetime of rough usage. Again, I am grateful that He does. I sincerely hope that what leaks out through my cracks will be God's love, and that it will splash liberally onto others, both those others whom I admire as examples for my own spiritual development and those others I meet on a daily basis who live on the fringe and need that love so much more than I do.

Thankful Thursday #3, Escaping Evil

Some time after coming to faith, strange things started happening to me, so strange that I am reluctant to talk about them in a blog or in real life. I have mentioned them to few people although perhaps if I mentioned them to more, someone would be able to educate me about what happened. I have had a few people tell me that I had come face to face with evil, and that sends some chills through me, especially because I am an optimistic, eternally happy, trusting human being. Moreover, I am hopelessly naive despite the number of years I have lived, the amount of international experience I have garnered, the scope of academic knowledge I have gathered, and the extreme difficulties I have survived. So, it is no wonder that I had no way to interpret at least three puzzling events. (There may have been more, but besides being naive, I am also somewhat oblivious to everything around me, so it is only the great strength of the associated ambient sensation that allowed me to perceive these three.)

The first incident happened in the car as I was leaving work late one evening. I so strongly felt a presence in the back seat that I turned around. There was no one there, and yet the sense of a presence would not dissipate even when I turned on the inside car light. Hm. I had to drive home. Was this my imagination? It did not feel like it. Yet, while not being able to see anything, I felt a terrible sense of something bad, evil, negative, dark. I had a half-hour drive home alone, and I did not much like this sense of something that I could not see in the back seat. So, just in case I was not totally hallucinating, I invited the evilish thing that I could not see to join me in the front seat. "We can pray together all the way home," I told it (out loud, actually), and suddenly it was gone. I drove home with no more interference. I assumed that God had intervened, and for that, I was more grateful than words can relate.

The second incident happened on the mission grounds. I like to walk around them each evening around 9:00. Depending on the time of year, sometimes it is light outside, sometimes dark. On this evening, it was dark. On such evenings, I would spend much time in meandering prayer, and I would also take time out from my ambling to kneel at the church door and pray in earnest. This time, as I approached the church door and stood still, I felt someone standing beside me, about a half-foot taller than me (in other words, average male height). I turned to say something -- and jumped. There was no one there, just a mass of air that was darker than the surrounding air. Spooked, I walked away rapidly, stopped near the close-by rose garden, and looked back. Nothing there. Had it been my imagination? Was I losing my mind? Too much evening air? Determined that nothing was going to keep my from my evening prayer, I walked back to the church door, kneeled, and suddenly felt the dark presence beside me again. Not knowing what to do and determined to connect with God, confident that God would protect me if there was a need for protection as He always had and always does, I said my prayer, surprisingly unimpeded by my "companion," whose presence I felt until I had finished, stood up, and returned to my ambling. I did not look back as I walked away. Perhaps I should have. Suddenly, I heard a leaf crack, as if someone had stepped on it. I whirled around, but no one was there. Then, I looked at the ground, and there was a cracked leaf a few feet away where I could not possibly have stepped on it. Spooked again, at least a bit, but mostly angry and not knowing how to eliminate this "thing" from either my mind or the location (not knowing whether it was real or not -- how does one determine reality beyond a shadow of a doubt?), I shouted at it: "Whoever or whatever you are, real or in my mind, get off this land. This land is God's, and you have no right here." Just as suddenly as it had appeared, in my universe or in my mind, it was gone. I assumed that God had once again intervened, and for that, I was blessedly, relievedly grateful for my aloneness and my returning sense of sanity.

The third set of events began soon thereafter. I was traveling to many locations -- so, what is new? -- and had trouble getting rest because every night I would experience nightmares. I could never remember the details, but I knew they had been dark and frightening, demonic. Sometimes I awoke in the middle of the night from them, a strange phenomenon because throughout my abusive childhood I never once had nightmares. Throughout my difficult parenting-of-special-kids days, I never once had nightmares. Throughout my travels on rickety planes to dangerous countries with no money in my pocket, I never once had nightmares. And I did not want them now. So, I began to pray before going to sleep to God to keep any nightmares away from me, to let me dream only of Him, and He answered that prayer. I have not had a nightmare since. Nonetheless, I still ask every night, and God still gives me my request, for which I thank Him endlessly.

Truly, I am ever so grateful that these apparitions or whatever they were seem to have disappeared in recent days. I am a new convert to Catholicism, to belief of any sort. I don't know how to understand these things. I don't even know if they are related to my newfound belief, about which I am still learning. (I keep asking God for lessons, and He keeps giving them to me -- tough ones.) However, I certainly don't want any other opportunities to learn more about this dark stuff first-hand, regardless of source or what it is related to. I hope God keeps it away from me permanently so that I can at least maintain the self-illusion of being sane! For that illusion, I am grateful!

Now, if you have not written me off as hopelessly insane or the equivalent, please tell me for what you are thankful this wonderful Thursday.

More information about the Thankful Thursday meme can be found at the website of Grace Alone.

Blest Guest Wednesday #2: Like a Dream

Since early August, it has been difficult for me to post regularly although I have somehow managed not to let more than a few days go by between posts. Considering that my crazy travel schedule is definitely going to continue for a few more months, I have been able to bring a little sanity to the blogging part of my life by asking for help. Some wonderful fellow bloggers have been willing to write guest posts for me on Wednesdays, hence the name "Blest Guest Wednesday." As today's "Blest Guest," I asked Sarah, who has become an Internet friend and who writes a blog that I follow closely: Cult of Deception. (This is her little dog here, whom I find adorable.) Sarah's abusive childhood has chords that resonate with mine. I think you will find her life, her blog, and her post here interesting. Here goes:

Like a Dream

I never told anyone. I kept it all inside. I started to wonder if it was some crazy dream or if it even happened at all. I thought maybe I made it up? Other times I thought - it wasn't that bad - it was no big deal. But last year people I hadn't seen started surfacing - family, friends - people who knew....

You're a miracle they said. How did you survive?

Survive? Miracle? What did they mean? They started to tell me stories of their memories of how bad things were, how thin I had become, how out of control......My older sister who I hadn't seen for a long time returned from living overseas. She needed to talk. She forced me to listen....forced me to remember.

The memories hit. They hit hard. I wrote to get the images out of my head.

I couldn't eat or sleep. I wanted to get in my car, close my eyes and drive. It felt like it was happening all over again - the beatings, the confinement, the rape - throwing up day after day after day even if I had tasted even a small bite of something - shoving needles in my arm - three and four times a day - ripping my arms with jagged rocks to feel something because I felt nothing. I was numb inside.

Why now God? Why are you letting me go through this now? I didn't want to remember and yet in remembering it dawned on me - finally - just how far down God had reached to free me.

Everyday in the heat, rain and cold - I ran - alone in the woods - in the hills near our home. There I felt the gentle touch of God - And I heard His whisper - You're stronger now. It's time to tell the truth of what happened. Tell your story to give someone hope -

How could I have never told anyone what He did. Nothing worked. Nothing could break the chains that kept me in living on the edge. Nothing except the gentleness of His touch.

The power of His gentleness.......

This November, I will publish my story In the Eye of Deception. A True Story. Sarah from www.cultofdeception.blogspot.com

Monday Morning Meditation #11: Our Need for Others

I made it this week into the next chapter of Exodus, chapter 18. Compared to the previous three chapters, how enlightened the key players in this chapter are! Moses has now set himself up as a judge for the people, interpreting God's laws for them. Moses's father-in-law, Jethro, comes to Moses, learns what he is doing and how overworked he is, and makes a wise suggestion. He recommends to Moses that he find a number of wise, honest, God-fearing men and let them handle the smaller matters while he (Moses) takes on just the complicated cases, the ones that he might need to take to God for guidance.

Reading: Exodus 18

Meditation: I could not help but apply this situation to my own life many centuries later. So much is parallel. So little has changed through the ages. My first thought always used to be to try to do everything myself and, like Moses, become overworked, tired, and, in my case, less effective than I could have been.

It has taken much time and experience for me to learn to accomplish my work tasks through others, and indeed, I have been very fortunate, in finding experienced, capable, and loyal junior managers to help me at work. (I am not so sure that it is only good fortune for ALL of my current junior managers are believers -- mostly Catholic, some other Christian denominations, two Muslims, and one Jew. There are no atheists or agnostics among them. I do not believe that this combination would have happened without the hand of God leading the right applicants to my door.) Having such junior managers means that I do have to accept things that might be done differently than I would have done them myself and perhaps even less well than I think I might have been able to do them in the case of junior managers who are still learning the ropes. Far more important, however, having a team of people who live to honor God means that employees are treated in more humane ways than they otherwise might be, that these managers let God's direction lead them in helping employees, that employees are not reluctant to pray for each other, and that people love coming to work because even those individuals perceived as difficult people know that they will usually find love and support there.

Letting others help with my private life has come with a bit more difficulty. Most of my life, I have been a tiger, fighting for survival because I had to as a child, dealing with physical, sexual, and emotional abuse heaped upon me by adult relatives, watching my brother be stabbed, being forced to observe my pet cat being burned alive, and so forth. Cruelty unimaginable to most accompanied me all the days of my youth. So, I became a tiger. I survived.

Then, when my children introduced me to their giftedness, physical handicaps, and mental disabilities and I found not only immense lacks in the system to help them but also some strategically placed professionals who acted as obstacles to their well being, I became like a tiger with cubs: truly vicious at times. I cringe at some of the memories.

It has only been after getting to know God and trying to follow the path He has sent me down and understanding that it was He who led me out of the jungle that I have learned to relax, let Him lead, and, very important, allow, yea, even ask, others to help. What a difference that has made! I feel like I can calmly walk through the valley of the shadow of death, climb any mountain, and walk through any fire for He is with me every step of the way. Nothing else matters. I will probably always have that tiger spirit somewhere in me, but now it obeys the Lord. I guess it would not be unlike the wolf calming down and eating from the hand of St. Francis. My tiger lives, but it is meek for that is how God wants it to be.

And that is far as I can go with you on this Monday morning. I must retire to prayer to ask God to keep my tiger spirit meek and obedient, to express my regret for times in the past when I have roared and deliberately frightened others, to give thanks for God's great kindness in caring enough about me to tame my spirit, and to offer praise for the the many ways in which He protects me and mine every day so that I no longer feel the need for self-defense.

After that, I will spend some time in contemplation, hoping and trusting that this great God will continue to abide with and in me, keeping my tiger at peace.

I will now leave you to your prayer and contemplation, but first, I would like to bring to your attention a Monday morning prayer post that you might enjoy:

Fr. Austin Fleming, priest of the Archdiocese of Boston and pastor in Concord, Massachusetts, posts a prayer each Monday morning that he calls "Monday Morning Offering." I enjoy his prayers very much. I hope you also will find them inspirational. He has graciously given me permission to include a link to his blog on my Monday Morning Meditation.

Have a good day and a spirit-filled week, and may you find helpers for all your needs. (If I can be one, please let me know!)

If you pick this up as a weekly devotional activity, please share with me and others your own thoughts about the message of Exodus 18 or any other scripture that you choose for meditation. Feel free to export the image of the mission church; maybe some time in the near future my Internet-inept self will be able to figure out how to use the Mr. Linky buttons, but to date I remain incompetent at the more sophisticated blog stuff. In the interim, you are welcome to use the image and share the meme of Monday Morning Meditation for starting out the work week closer to God.