On Being Worthy

Sunday started as one of those days when everything seems to go wrong and the whole world has a sad cast. I had fallen asleep on the couch the night before and had missed my evening contemplative prayer session. I had not had a chance to ask God to protect me from nightmares as I always do and as God always does. While I did not have a nightmare (see my post, Nightmares, about my sudden nightmare attacks following conversion), I did have some kind of nonsensical negative dream that would have been comical had it not been sad. To make matters worse, I did not wake up in my usual manner but rather to the barking of the alarm clock which I had set just in case I overslept. (Yes, my alarm clock does bark; I chose the sound of barking dogs because I easily sleep through alarms of all sorts but always wake up when the cats, disturbed to hear dogs and not see them, come running to me for help, insisting that I crawl out from under the covers and aid them.)

With the first bite on my toes from Intrepid and the simultaneous feel of Murjan’s paw pulling the blanket off my face and tap-tap-tapping me on the cheek, I jumped out of bed, instantly realizing that I had missed the first Mass of the morning. I did want to catch the second since I had a noon BBQ with friends and had already decided to attend one of the earlier, English Masses in lieu of the Spanish noon Mass, my usual choice (so that I can sleep in, Sunday being the only day that I can do it). Donnie woke up at the same time, looked groggily around, and commented that I had fallen asleep before finishing the preparations for the BBQ. He could not do it all by himself; he would need my help before I left for Mass. My morning plans for contemplative prayer, followed by a quick shower, followed by Mass, followed by a quick trip to the store for ice, followed immediately by the BBQ were quickly swapped out for a new set of plans: BBQ preparation and, sigh, laundry drying. By falling asleep early, I had not put the just-washed laundry into the dryer.

At that point, I was wide awake. Let’s see: no prayer, no shower, no clothes. What a way to start the day! I quickly found something in the closet to wear (not what I planned) in lieu of attending Mass nude, threw the laundry into the dryer and the cats into the cat room where they would be out of the way and have a place to play, washed the kitchen floor, cleaning up the obvious signs of cats sharing our eating quarters, combed my hair which I would have preferred to wash, grabbed the keys, and ran to the car.

As I backed out of the driveway, I saw that I was already five minutes late for Mass. Fortunately, it is a 45-second drive to the Mission (no walking today). I quickly parked, ran past the parish office and through the gardens into the church. The lector was reading. I had missed the blessing, sigh! (I like the blessing.) I had also missed any seating space. I looked and looked and finally saw a spot in the middle of one pew near the rear of the church. I asked the person on the end if I could slide in, and she moved over. Now I could relax.

I sat back to listen to the readings and then to Fr. Ed’s homily, which was really, really good – everyone said so afterward – but I had trouble concentrating. I knew the reading. It was about giving up earthly goods, which I have done three times in my life, well, actually four, if you count my college days, never having had many goods, anyway, and perhaps therefore not feeling any great need for such things (or perhaps, as an Emersonian rugged individualist from Thoreau’s New England, not wanting to be owned by my things). Father’s explanation of the reading was perfect. He began with an analogy to how one traps a monkey. When he started with that, the thought that ran through my mind was “and I need to know how to catch a monkey why?” Then it became clear that it was an analogy. The monkey does not let go of the food that has attracted it to a jar, coconut shell, or other container with food, into which an empty paw can enter but from which a full paw cannot withdraw. So, the monkey is trapped. We, too, are trapped when we won’t let go of our earthly goods. It was food for thought, but my thoughts were elsewhere.

My thoughts centered on my irritation at waking up late, my plans going awry, having to finish the previous night’s work, and, especially, missing my normal morning time in prayer with God. Seemingly, I had forgotten that I was at the moment sitting in a pew with my friends in the presence of God.

Fortunately, the sense of God’s presence broke through in time for communion. Maybe not today, I thought. My mood makes me unworthy in spite of having mouthed the words, “Lord, I am not worthy to receive You, but only say the word and I shall be healed.” I said them. I did not listen to them – or perhaps did not subconsciously believe that God would “say the word” today.

Having decided not to take communion (a first such decision for me), I contemplated whether to go down for a blessing or continue to nurse my irritation in the pew while others took communion. I decided that the pew was the best place for me at the moment, given my attitude. “Sorry, God,” I said silently and, with a sudden sense of guilt, realized that I had not actively participated in the Mass that I had so hurried to attend. “I don’t feel worthy to receive the Eucharist this morning.”

Wrong decision! I suddenly felt like I was being pulled into the aisle and pushed forward. I should have recognized all my ruminations as wrong thinking. I don’t have to have done everything right to be worthy. I don’t have to earn God’s gifts. God grace showers us with gifts freely. God wants our union. We are worthy simply because we are His. He will “say the word.” He always does.

As I walked forward, I felt enveloped by pure Love, yea, by God Himself. My irritation evaporated, its droplets lost among the greater ensemble of tear-sized drops of forgiveness, acceptance, yes, even worthiness, droplets that never evaporate. I remembered that we all have been made worthy a long time ago – when God first conceived us and then later in those simple, powerful words of Jesus, “Forgive, them, Father, for they know not what they do.” Indeed, I often know not what I do, but I do know this: God forgives, God accepts, God graces. I therefore have the right neither to judge others or myself nor to hold myself apart from God. The choice is not mine. It is His. It has always been His, and He always wants me. Can anything else, whether earthly goods or abstract emotions, matter?

Robbed Again!

Padre Julio, about whom I have blogged previously, Skyped me from Colombia this morning. He had been robbed again -- the second time in three months that someone broke into his car and took everything. This time the thief took both Fr. Julio's personal computer and the computer that belongs to the organization he founded, Por Amor a Los Ninos de Colombia (For Love of the Children of Colombia). It had recently happened, and I guess when he Skpyed me, he was at an Internet cafe, trying to figure out his next step and wondering where and when the good from this would come about!

I suppose I am a fairly appropriate person with whom to share this kind of news. After all, in addition to my regular muggings, I have been robbed on a few occasions. The first time washed away any sentimental affiliation with things. We had moved from Montana to South Carolina, where I was undergoing my initial military training, and had then gone on to California, where I was to be permanently stationed. (Of course, in the military one must realize that a "permanent change of station" is anywhere in length from six months to three years -- so much for permanence.) While I was in South Carolina, we had left many of our possessions, including my wedding ring (long story), in storage in Montana. After the move to California, I asked for annual leave, and we made a difficult and long trip back to Montana through the snowed-in Sawtooth Mountains, over which we had to creep with our tires in chains, only to find out that everything had been stolen. There was absolutely nothing left. Bit by bit, we replaced everything, except the wedding ring. I do not wear one to this day, but most people know immediately that I am married. There have been other times, each with its own special characteristics, but the most recent was finding upon return from two years in Jordan that our RV, in which we had been living in an isolated area on a mountain river in rural California and which we had left in the possession of a neighbor, had been broken into and everything stolen, including the door from the refrigerator, the air conditioning (leaving a hole in the roof), and all the wiring. The neighbor, it turned out, was wanted for kidnapping (her own child, in a divorced situation) in Louisiana and had been forced to return there. And then there was the house that we lost. We had rented out our primary residence when we moved from Pennsylvania to Washington, DC years ago. For years, the tenants paid the rent, taking out any money they needed for repairs, and renting out a second apartment that was part of the house and keeping the rent in exchange for taking care of the property. It was a great arrangement until they suddenly went incommunicado and stopped paying rent. Our attorney learned that the father, the sole breadwinner, had lost his job and was on welfare but had not conveyed that to us (perhaps we could have worked something out). When the attorney told the tenants to pay the back taxes or leave, they left, taking everything they could, including things that belonged to us. Then, to make sure that there was nothing left, they took an axe and broke every window and chopped down all the stairs. Oh, well, it was only a house.

Any time I might consider that I have problems, I recall the life of my best friend from college. Coping with a bubble baby (no immune system) and a child recently diagnosed with diabetes, together with a husband dying from cancer for whom doctors held little hope, she locked her house and left for her home city where the doctors were better able to treat her husband and her mother could help with her two children. Six months later, she returned with her husband in remission, planning to continue on with her not-so-easy life and found her house ransacked. Nothing of any value, including sentimental value, had been left. (The whole story is rather long and has an amusing, well, at least, a lighter, outcome; I have posted it on Mahlou Musings.)

I think the moral to these stories is that life is too short and too complicated to worry about possessions. Possessions, in the long run, do not really matter. (I don't think that is just the Franciscan me speaking. I think it is really true.) In the long run, we may never recover our possessions, but, in my experience, God will somehow turn these experiences into something that is good or something that gives good: good from bad, the story of my life and of the lives of many people I know.

Our earthly goods may be taken from us, in my case over and over. But that is not important. Our soul cannot be taken from us; we have to give it away of our own free will. Our hope cannot be taken from us; we have to give up on our own for God will always hold out to us a branch of hope. Our happiness cannot be taken from us for while we may not be able to control what is done to us, we can control how we react to it (as the aphorism goes).

Sure, I have been robbed, but I choose to let those things go, forgotten in past days that I am not going to relive, anyway. I choose happiness. Always. My happiness does not lie in having good things. It does not even lie in having good news. Rather, my happiness lies in the fact that the universe is bigger than I, that God is greater than I, and that, as we are told, all things will work together for our good. That does not mean that my life has no sorrow. Certainly, it does. Considerably much of it, truth be told. However, sorrow does not preclude happiness, just as happiness does not preclude sorrow.

The robberies I experienced gave me a very different outlook on life -- a more positive one and one less burdened with the need for things (now I can use more of my money to help others because I no longer feel a need to "buy" fine surroundings). The robbery my friend experienced led her, too, through the intervention that she sought, to the ability to cope with three difficult medical situations, and today both children have outgrown their medical problems and are married adults with families and her husband is still in remission from cancer. Good in the long term is something to be anticipated for Padre Julio as well. In the short term, however, please pray for him and the children of Palomar.