On Feeling Rich

I woke up this morning, feeling like a princess. I had a sheet underneath me, a sheet over me, a blanket on top of that, and then, riches of all riches, a fluffy bedspread to snuggle into. Ever since purchasing a new bed in early July and moving our old bed into the empty bedroom for Doah and guests, we have had only a blanket on top.

I have hankered after a bedspread not because it is the commonly accepted way to finish a bed -- everyone knows I am eccentric, anyway, so having a blanket was sufficient in many respects: warmth, covering, etc. No, I just wanted a bedspread the way children want a ball or candy or something special. For me, the bedspread was special.

Certainly, with my income I can afford a bedspread. But there is an odd thing about my income: it disappears rather quickly. (I suppose I am not unique in that way.) First, there is Shane who needs $300 a month for special milk for Nikolina who is missing most of her intestines. Then there is Lizzie and her cat, who seems to need surgery periodically. Then Doah and Noelle, who needed scads of money to pay for medical expenses as children but need little these days, are always happy to have a small gift. And that's family. After that, there is Sula, the parish cat, who needs surgery -- I promised God's credit card in support of that cost. And the mission and the retreat center and other charities. And, the most fun of all, nearly every day someone who happens into my life who needs the money more than I do. After all, I need little and, surprisingly, I find myself post-conversion wanting little. I enjoy sprinkling my income around in this way, but somehow it did not leave any extra for a bedspread the past two months.

Until I got my recent travel reimbursement and per diem and found that I had spent considerably less on eating than my office thought I should have. Yippee! Bedspread money!

There is something special about waiting. There is something special about wanting. Instant gratification does not compare with the richness of want deferred or potential want gratification given away to someone else.

Yes, I feel rich with my new bedspread. However, I feel even richer each time I am able to take money from my pocket and give it to someone who needs it more.

(Also posted on Clan of Mahlou.)

Monday Morning Meditation #92: Seeing Visions

OK, so it is not Monday morning any longer in the most eastern parts of the US, but I managed to just get up on this fine holiday morning in California. After all, I rarely get to sleep in, and I truly enjoyed it this morning. Wishing all of you a happy Labor Day. After putting my feet on the floor as a result of the cats' insistence that I was really acting too much like a spoiled princess, I turned my thoughts to the MMM, and here I am. I have passed through Lamentations. It is just too good a morning to write about sorrows. I am not a sorrowful type person, anyway. I appreciate the good things that happen to me. As for the bad, well, that's life. I make the best of them that I can, and, with God's help, some of the bad turn into pretty good and even very good. So, instead of spending more time lamenting, I pushed on to the book of Ezekiel, where the very first verse seemed to be a great stopping place and worthy of meditation:

"In my thirtieth year, in the fourth month on the fifth day, while I was among the exiles by the Kebar River, the heavens were opened and I saw visions of God."

I stopped at this verse, which would seem to be incomplete without reading the rest of the story, because I cared less about the content of the vision than about the fact of the vision. Manifestations by and from God have intrigued -- and troubled -- me on a number of occasions since my conversion, which began with a manifestation (hierophany).

Reading: Ezekiel 1:1.

Meditation: Upon a number of occasions, I have been told by one supposedly knowledgeable person after another that God does not talk to ordinary people. One well known priest in southern California, who led a retreat I attended about St. Francis, went so far as to say that St. Francis was mistaken, that he did not really hear a voice, that this was a thought welling up from within him. He had no comment about the locutions received by St. Teresa of Avila, but I suppose he might have said the same. Fortunately, the priest to whom I had turned when I first received a locution disagreed with this southern Californian priest. I suspect, though, based upon the lay people and the religious whom I have encountered in the past five years that only a very small minority believes that God ever really talked to people and that in those cases it was only the Israelis of yore.

So, that, at time, causes me to ponder the issue of my own sanity. Then, something comes along to provide evidence that this was not a thought welling within me -- on most occasions, it would not be possible since the locution providedhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif information I had no way of knowing. (See, for ehttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifxample, Voice VI on Modern Mysticism.) It also helps that Fr. Thomas Dubay, before his passing, wrote a wonderful book, Authenticity, in which he discusses locutions, touches, visions, and more, and that he responded to a letter in which I described my experiences, indicating that he thought that they were probably authentic. What has helped even more was a comment I read in some book (wish I could remember which one) that contended that God has not stopped talking to His people; we have just stopped listening.

I would suppose that one could say the same thing about visions. God has not stopped sending visions to His people; we have just stopped seeing.

Contemplation: That is far as I can go with you this Monday morning. I now retire to private prayer to thank God for seeming insanity of what comes my way -- the visions and the locutions. I will praise God for the greatness of His love that He continues to trust me with these things even though each and every time I question them. I will ask God for greater trust and greater discernment and will repent for those times I have had too little of each. Then I will move on to contemplation, my favorite part of the day, letting God take over the direction in which my relationship with Him moves.

I will leave you now to your prayer and contemplation. First, though, 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 think 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. (During the week, he also posts great homilies and other thoughtful discussions. I enjoy reading those, too, as do readers of this blog who have taken the stroll over to his blog.)

For additional inspiration throughout the week, I would point out two sets of blogs: (1) the list of devotional blogs on my sidebar 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.

Spiritual Sunday #31: Voice

For more Spiritual Sunday posts, I recommend that you wander over to the website of Charlotte and Ginger, who host the Spiritual Sunday meme.



Because I do not blog on Sundays -- keeping it as the sabbath, a practice started by Fr. Christian Mathis (Blessed Is the Kingdom) -- I use older posts (forgotten perhaps but hopefully still interesting) from one or another of my blogs that seem appropriate for this meme. It seems to work to bring out the older posts that many have not read before or ones from other blogs I maintain that readers of 100th Lamb may not know about.



This week I decided to post something from the early days of my Modern Mysticism site: Voice.



Wishing you a peaceful Sunday!

No One Wins a War

They USA proudly states that it won WWII. Korea, too, although it seems that the no-man's zone and current situation would indicate that perhaps no one won. Vietnam? Well, that was considered a conflict, not a war, so there was no way to lose that. Iraq and Afghanistan, dunno what we consider them at the moment -- stomping grounds for chasing terrorists or purported terrorists or suspected terrorists? I sometimes get closer to these wars than I would like (or than might be healthy), and I keep meeting friends, not enemies.



As a veteran of the Cold War, I benefitted from Russia allowing me to finish my doctorate in Moscow when work obligations kept me from fulfilling the residency requirement in the USA. At my dissertation defense, I thanked the university, saying that twenty years earlier I had come to the USSR to lohttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifok upon the face on the enemy with my own eyes but in twenty years had found only friends. After the Cold War, when providing some assistance to the Belarus Academy of Sciences, I had dinner with the vice president of one of the universities. He turned out to be my counterpart: he had been a Red Army officer, specializing in American order of battle, at the same time I had been a US Army officer, specializing in Soviet order of battle. Small world! Humbling experience! We became great friends.



Whether enemies are national or personal, we lose by not knowing them as they are but as we oppose them to ourselves. Somehow, in doing that, they become large and we become small. Somehow, in doing that, we lose our humanity. It is not a win-lose situation. It is a lose-lose situation.



Please join me in praying daily for our enemies near and far:

- that God bless them twice as much as God blesses us

- that they feel God's love twice as strongly as we do

-that God teach us to love them twice as much as we love ourselves.



Maybe, then, there would be no more wars to fight, nationally or personally.



Wishing you all a stress-free, friendly day!

Monday Morning Meditation #91: Look to God

This week I began reading the book of Lamentations. It is not a book that has had a strong impact on my life, except in the case of the story of Goliath, which I have related here below, when I asked God for verbal instruction and then opened the Bible to the Book of Lamentations where I did find some relevant verses. I suppose I could select nearly any verse for inclusion here since they all seem to be singularly focused on the pain felt by Israel after having been conquered, something which happened only because the majority of the population failed to heed the words of the prophet, Jeremiah, who gave the people of Israel warning and warning from God along with a description of what would happen to happen if they failed to follow God's words. Rather than focusing on God, however, they focused on themselves. Nowhere is the reason for their fate clearer than in chapter 4, verse 17:

"Moreover, our eyes failed,
looking in vain for help;
from our towers we watched
for a nation that could not save us."

Reading: Lamentations 4:17

Meditation: Of course, the nation could not save them. God could, though. But they did not look to God. They did not trust that God could or would save them. I wonder how often we try to save ourselves, waiting to turn to God until it becomes absolutely clear that we do not have the wisdom, strength, endurance, or forbearance to save ourselves. How many times do we give a problem to God and then worry about it? By worrying about it, we have essentially taken the problem back. As parents, we expect our children to grow up into full independence. At least, Western parents expect this. God, though, is a different kind of parent. God does not expect us to become independent as we mature in faith. In fact, the opposite is the case. God hopes that we will become more and more dependent as we learn that the only absolute source of safety and help is God. God is a parent like no other.

Contemplation: That is far as I can go with you this Monday morning. I now retire to private prayer to thank God for the all-the-time, no-matter-what help that is mine for the asking. I will praise God for the greatness of His love that accepts me with all my weaknesses and even loves my weaknesses for they bring me to Him. I will ask God for less independence for, if I am anything, I am an independent sort -- and have been so, according to my mother, from the age of two. Then I will move on to contemplation, my favorite part of the day, letting God take over the direction in which my relationship with Him moves.

I will leave you now to your prayer and contemplation. First, though, 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 think 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. (During the week, he also posts great homilies and other thoughtful discussions. I enjoy reading those, too, as do readers of this blog who have taken the stroll over to his blog.)

For additional inspiration throughout the week, I would point out two sets of blogs: (1) the list of devotional blogs on my sidebar 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.

Soft Addictions

Judith Wright has written a book, called There Must Be More Than This. In it, she describes some things one might not consider sins or addictions. She calls these "soft addictions." Examples include doing nearly anything to excess: shopping, FaceBooking, chat rooming, primping, game playing, and many more -- activities that become necessary to us and to which we lose control. For a more complete list, I recommend reading the book.



I do not have time for many of the things on Wright's list nor interest in most of the others. However, I had noticed that I had spent an increasing amount of time playing Farmville, a rather addictive game hosted on FaceBook. I had a large and beautiful American farm, which took considerable time to build, initially accomplished sitting in airport lounges while traveling (in lieu of reading, writing, or even simply praying). I had not noticed what Farmville was replacing in my life. That is the way it is with addictions. It soothed my mind, I justified to myself, and soon I had built an equally beautiful but quite different English farm. Now I had to tend my crops in both locations so that they did not die. I added buildings, built up a play-money cash reserve of millions, acquired two dogs, and was close to reaching Level 100, even sure what the significance of that might be. I barely noticed that my mind was not soothed but numbed. I reached Level 94 when I made a terrible mistake. Instead of clicking on "remove post," I clicked on "remove Farmville." I could not retrieve anything, no matter how I tried -- and I really did try.



Was it an accident? Or a Divine contrivance? I suppose I will never really know, but I am back to reading, writing, and especially praying in my "spare" time, of which I now have more. My mind is indeed soothed -- and no longer numb.

Of Gods and Men

My prayer group recently watched a movie that really inspired contemplation. In English (the movie is subtitled), the title is Of Gods and Men. (If you are interested, you can watch the trailer.) In French, the original language, which I read and understand, the title is "Des hommes et des dieux" (Of Men and Gods). For some reason, I like the original title better. It is one of those rare movies that when it is over, no one has anything to say. You simply sit, reflect, and then depart, left to your own contemplation. I met one member of our prayer group the following day at noon Mass (happened to have a day off for some reason I don't recall now), and she told me that she was still in contemplation as a result of the effect of the movie on her.



Here is the description of the movie from the Amazon website:

Loosely based on the life of the Cistercian monks of Tibhirine in Algeria, from 1993 until their kidnapping in 1996, Of Gods and Men tells a story of eight French Christian monks who live in harmony with their Muslim brothers. When a crew of foreign workers is massacred by an Islamic fundamentalist group, fear sweeps through the region. The army offers them protection, but the monks refuse. Should they leave? Despite the growing menace in their midst, they slowly realize that they have no choice but to stay... come what may.

And here is a review that pretty much says all that I would say.

The monks at the Trappist monastery in Algeria seem almost to exist outside of time, so it may be a while before we recognize the 1990s as the setting for Of Gods and Men. And old traditions cannot escape new warfare in this stirring movie, based on a true story that happened at a remote enclave of peaceful, studious priests. These Christian monks minister to the largely Muslim (and very poor) villagers in their vicinity, a balance that is threatened by Algeria's Civil War. When nearby radical-Islamist insurgents begin killing foreigners, the monks must face a choice. Will they flee to safety--a perfectly rational and understandable decision that will leave the villagers without their only source of health care--or will they stay on, secure in their spiritual calling despite the possibility of abduction or murder? Director Xavier Beauvois makes an absorbing film from this question, and it's not at all difficult to understand why it became an unexpected box-office smash in France (and ended up winning the Cesar award for best film of 2010). The film is beautifully cast, and sometimes Beauvois simply trains his camera on the lined, weathered faces of his priests, as though allowing those lines to tell the story. Heading the cast is Lambert Wilson (of Matrix fame), who leads his men with an almost regal bearing, and veteran actor Michael Lonsdale, who quietly inhabits the role of the physician in the group. The film takes time out for quiet contemplation, as though understanding that the priests' suspenseful situation is only half the story. The wordless climax, which allows the men to be animated by the earthly pleasures of wine and Tchaikovsky, is something of a spiritual journey of acceptance all on its own. It's a moment you'll find very difficult to forget. --Robert Horton

The title of this post is in my opinion the core of the film's message. If you watch the movie or have watched it, you will see (or already know) the source of that phrase. I won't spoil it for anyone through explanation.



Enjoy!



Posted a few days ago on Modern Mysticism.