Be Brave...

Men go abroad to wonder at the height of mountains, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long courses of the rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motion of the stars, and they pass by themselves without wondering. -St. Augustine

To a woman my fellow widows at church think that I am brave.  Brave to travel alone, brave to drive long distances in a motor home, brave to leave to comfort of my home.  I am NOT brave!  I just refuse to let my fear stop me from living.

Driving the Oregon Coast Line on the 101 was an exhilarating and terrifying drive.  The vistas were breath taking, so were the curves and drop offs.  I know that Our Blessed Mother had to be there as the Hail Marys were flying off my lips.  I asked her to keep track of the decades as I was too busy keeping us in our lane and on the road.

I called on the Blessed Mother again as the wind was a steady 20 knots with gusts that moved me all over the road in the middle of no where.  If I had been on the boat, S/V Dragonheart would have been dancing in the waves and all would have been well.  Motor homes tend not to right themselves when knocked down.

Being brave doesn't mean that you have to go it alone.  In fact, Our Lord has given us a cadre of Saints and Angels to call on when we need help.  I believe in their powerful intercession.  It is the intercession of the saints that make being Catholic so wonderful.  We have friends.  We have friends in high places!  I go to those friends when in need.  I can't wait to meet them.  Many of us have formed long lasting relationships.  Some saints are new relationships.  But when in deepest trouble, when paralyzed by fear I know that The Blessed Virgin, my Mother is always there.  She helps me to stand up straight and tall when I want to curl up in a little ball of fear.  She comforts me in my sorrow.

So be brave...you are not alone.

Lord,
You know my deepest secret fears,
Help me to face them,
confident in Your Love.

Remind me of my friends,
the angles and saints; who
truly are my helpers.

Thank you for the gift of
Our Mother.

~Cindy

We Have Turned Our Backs

Oh my God! Teach me to be generous; to give and not to count the cost; to fight and not to heed the wounds; to toil and not to seek for rest; to labor and not to seek for any reward save that of doing your blessed will.
-St. Ignatius of Loyola

The news and the condition of the world have me truly worried.  We collectively appear to be lost.  We have lost our moral compass and keep our heads firmly planted in the sand.

The story about the well with poisoned water that turned everyone mad except the King and his family keeps going through my head.  The people because they have drank from the well all go mad.  The King and his family do not as they have a private well.  However, the people want to get rid of the King because they no longer trust him.  In the end the King and his family drink from the poisoned well and the people love him again.  But now the King is as mad as his people.

Social media allows us to judge others... and judge we do.  From the parents whose child fell into the gorilla enclosure which resulted in a beast, magnificent tho he was, to be killed for the child's safety.  I wish that I could tell you that I never took my eyes off any of my children or that I never feared that one drowned because I lost track of them at the lake.  They were fine.  Just taking a nap.  I didn't know that.  I am sure if this was posted on Facebook there would be outrage and a police investigation as to my criminal responsibility for losing track of my child.  It happens in an instant.

Politically we are slinging mud at each other and the vitriol is some of the most vile I have seen.  We as a country complain, but we don't seem to want to do anything to change the situation.  We have the power, but that would mean taking responsibility and we are not very good at that most days.

We listen and take advice from people who have no qualifications other than they have a podcast and they seem to speak to the hole in us that desperately wants to be filled.

If only we could turn around we would see that the answer has been there all along.  God, yes, God is the answer.  If we could focus on Him and His teachings and truly trust Him and be obedient to Him, and do His will and not our own we would not have any problems.

Let us look to our commonalities and truly love each other.  It is difficult to sling mud at someone you love.  We must act according to our conscience and be willing to accept the consequences of our choices.  We must stand up not for ourselves, but for those that can not stand up for themselves.  We must exercise mercy. Yes, mercy even for those that we think are not worthy.

I shudder when I think how we pray by rote the words of the Our Father...forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those that trespass against us...

Lord, I stand before you
in need of your mercy.

I stand before you
in need of moral courage.

Help me see that my judging will
only lead to my own judgement.

~Cindy

Wanting Chinese Food...

If I had been a man I would have been a great preacher.
-St. Teresa of Avila


My youngest daughter texted me from Madrid, Spain this morning saying, "I'm a bad tourist. I'm at a Chinese Restaurant right now.  My reply was, "sometimes you need Chinese Food no matter where you are."

That simple exchange led me to think about some of the things that I want or think that I want.  There is a difference.  The biggest thing in my life that I have believed with all my heart is that I was to be a Nun.  Well, that didn't happen.  I got married.  I got married more than once.

I think in the beginning I got married because I wanted children and I could not reconcile that want with being a Nun.  Wanting to be a Nun became an easily pulled out excuse for being unhappy.  "Oh, if only I had become a Nun."  "I never should have married.  I should have become a Nun."

I am not sure what would have happened if I had been a Nun.  A cloistered one at that!  I do know what happened because I chose to be in the world and remain among the laity.

I married and had children.  In fact, I have always said that I had yours, mine and someone else's.  I have biological children, step-children and adopted children. I wasn't always the best Mom and I drug my children through my own drama.  Never a good idea.  But I wasn't a bad Mom either.  I did the best I could with what I had at the moment.

In my vocation as a lay married person, the one thing that I am most proud of is how Michael and I handled his impending death.  That I did right.  I did not do it alone.  I had so many people praying for us. I had my parents who put their lives on hold to be with us.  I had our children, who came and saw their Dad.  I had my favorite sister and her family who helped in so many ways.  I had my brothers, who supported me in every way they could.  I had exceptional friends who held me up. I had my faith, my priest, and my parish.

Life can be like Chinese food.  One from column A and two from column B.  Faith is not like that...it is a stead fastness that carries you through even when you want to quit.  Faith enables us to climb mountains and swim oceans.  Faith enables us to deal with washing clothes at eleven o'clock at night for the child that just remembered they need that special shirt in the morning.  Faith enables us to wash dishes and mop floors with a smile on our face.

Sometimes we want Chinese food.

Lord, You know me
looking for the easy way.

There is no easy way.
Your way has a yoke,
but the yoke is light.

~Cindy

Oh Pride...

The only way to make rapid progress along the path of divine love is to remain very little and put all our trust in Almighty God.
-St. Therese of Lisieux

I will be honest, I am a bull in a china shop!  I open my mouth and speak before my brain and heart can stop me from being hurtful, small, and judgmental. I do not take criticism well, in fact, I become defensive and dig my heals in.

I have been known to cut off my nose despite my face.

Lately Our Lord has been putting me in positions to learn humility and I have been failing miserable.  I have been like the cacti in the picture with lovely flowers to lure you in and yet if you get too close my thorns will get you!

I have been extremely opinionated of late and with that comes judgement of others. I know best and am happy to tell you how and when you should do something.  I have snapped at others and then had to apologize to them as awareness stabs me in the heart.

Lord lately you have been gently trying to remind me to be an empty vessel and to accept criticism and to stop judging just because they sin differently than me.  As usual I needed a 2x4 to get my attention.  I needed more than one reminder and you were willing to provide the opportunities.  Thank you!

Lord, here are all my hurt feelings.
I give them to You.

Here are the unkind thoughts and criticisms of others
I give them to You.

Here I am stumbling on the path,
Hitting my head on the low gate to Heaven.

Here I am in all my weakness
Seeking my strength in You.

~Cindy

Today is a gift.

God wants you to be in the world, but so different from the the world that you will change it. Get cracking.
-Mother Angelica

I have the ability to hide in my little world.  I go to daily Mass and home and to my sister's home. I also go to the grocery store when needed.  But what I really want to do is travel!

I just got back from a week of camping with a group of strangers.  I felt that I had been thrown head long into a world that I did not feel comfortable in.  It was a singles group which really is not my scene, but a mutual friend wanted me to meet up with a women. She thought we would hit it off.

The woman and I were able to find common ground and we had a good time until we had to be with the group.  They were negative in so many respects and there was a fair amount of casual sex.  It reminded me that my life had changed in small and big ways.  I no longer felt part of the world.  Especially that world.  So I made sure that I started my day with prayer; to ground me, to put on my armor, to help me remember that I am a child of God. The Rosary in my pocket was a good physical reminder of who I want to be and how I want to conduct myself.

I listened to their stories about how lost and hopeless they felt. Only one other person went to Church on Sunday. We went to Mass together.  There were remarks about going to church so we could be saved.  I needed to go to get grace and be strengthened.

As much as I wanted to hide in my RV and not interact I knew that I had to get out there and be Christ-like. I attempted to put a positive spin on the negative.  I was to be a witness to them.  I did my best.

The week did help remind me that I love being in my RV, seeing the country and admiring God's handiwork.  I was and am feeling guilty about wanting to be out there when I have commitments here at home.  As I was discussing this with my favorite sister, she reminded me that I need to do this traveling thing while I still can.  She reminded me that each day is a gift and that I can't squander it.  My parents and brothers agree with her.  Then Father Charlie talked about it in his homily at Mass.  I know he sees my heart and reads my mind!

I want to find a way to meet my commitments and still travel.  It would be a shame for that new RV to just sit and gather dust.  I bought it for a reason.

Lord you gave me the desire to serve you.
And You gave me the desire to travel.

Help me to find a way to do both.
Your will, not mine.
~Cindy

We do not recognize Him!

"Holiness is not for wimps and the cross is not negotiable, sweetheart, it's a requirement."
-Mother Angelica

I love the readings during the Octave of Easter. Jesus is raised from the dead and He appears to His disciples and His Mother, Mary.  Yet, each time that He appears to them they seem not to recognize Him!

This has always concerned me.  Why didn't they, who walked with Him, ate with Him, and shared in His public ministry not recognize Him when He appears to them?  Father Charlie hypothesized that perhaps Jesus looked different, or perhaps they didn't expect to see Jesus.  Jesus takes the time to appear in places that they had all been together during His life. I love that fact that Jesus cooks breakfast for them on the beach.  What an incredible image of Our Lord on the beach, fish and bread on the fire cooking for His disciples.  How much He loves them and us to do the most ordinary of tasks for them.  He feeds them!

We too are like the disciples.  We don't recognize Jesus when we see Him.  Perhaps it is like Father says, we don't expect to see Jesus there.  But there He is, sitting in the pew behind us chatting as they plan their golf date, or the parishioner that rubs us the wrong way or that we rub the wrong way.  He is in the homeless person on the corner that we wonder are they really down on their luck and should we just drive by.  Jesus is in the family member that has hurt or disappointed us.  Jesus is the rebellious teen or the forgetful parent. Jesus is in the sick or dying spouse that we care for on a daily basis until we fear we can't do it any more.

Let us not forget that Jesus is also in the innocent smile of a child.  The painted sunrise and sunset are gifts from God.  Jesus is in the smile of a total stranger that lightened our dismal day.

Jesus is not in the tomb.  HE IS RISEN!

Lord help me as I move through my day
to see You in others.
Help me to see You in others that annoy, hurt or anger me.

Help me to see You in my small cross.

Help me to lighten the cross that others carry.

~Cindy

God Writes Straight

God writes straight with crooked lines.
-Fr. Charlie

I know that I have mentioned Fr. Charlie's quote that, "God writes straight with crooked lines" before.  Lately it is a mantra that has been circling in my head for a couple of weeks.

When Joseph is sent to meet his brothers, they want to murder him.  Instead they sell him into slavery.  Later when they are starving and head to Egypt they are saved by the very brother they wanted to murder.  God took a seemingly bad situation and made it a good one.

As I reflect on my life I see where God has taken what I considered a bad situation and He turned it around for good.

When Michael was diagnosed and we knew he was terminal we could have been stuck in that mess of crooked lines.  Instead God wrote straight to our hearts and freed us from our fears and doubts and drew us ever closer to Him.

Now one of my daughters has been diagnosed with cancer and once again the lines are crooked.  Even now I see God's hand writing straight.  This diagnoses has allowed us to begin healing our relationship.   God doesn't want us to have regrets.  No, He calls us to lay every thing at His feet so that He can carry our burden.

Certainly during Holy Week as we approach the crucifixion of Our Lord we see the crooked lines.  Peter denies Him, Judas betrays Him, and Jesus feels abandon in the garden. Yet through all of this God's hand is writing straight.  He turns this sacrifice into our salvation.

Lord,
Help me to not become entangled with crooked lines.
Give me the strength to see that Your hand is already writing straight.
~Cindy