I was planning a much better-developed post on this topic, but God kind of forced my hand.
I’ve been praying recently about the fact that I do crazy, radical things because I trust God. I consent to perpetual celibacy, I quit my job and live out of my car–you know, pretty much the usual for a successful, educated woman pushing thirty. And yet I’m super anxious and obsessive about stupid, unimportant matters: whether I might run out of gas before the next rest stop because I didn’t feel like stopping at the last one even though the light was already on; whether I’ll be able to find a parking spot downtown in time to make it to Mass early enough for it to count as Mass; whether the check that’s been following me around America will finally catch up with me in time to cover my bills.1
This is ridiculous! Why do I trust God with the salvation of the entire world but I don’t trust him with my calluses? Why am I willing to offer him hours in prayer every day but I just can’t give him the two minutes left in my holy hour because what if my host is waiting for me?
Seriously, it just feels pathetic, largely because it’s so irrational. I trust God with the creation, care, and salvation of every human soul, with the design of the genome, with the tiny little flashes of inspiration that lead to a life of faith. I trust him with my whole life–just none of the details of it.
So today in adoration, I made a list of things I trust God with:
The happiness and salvation of everyone in the world.
That’s pretty BA, huh? I’m, like, practically a saint.
So then I made a list of the things I don’t trust God with:
My car. (It might break down.)
Traffic. (I might be late.)
Other people’s opinion of me. (I care more than anybody ever should.)
My success. (What if I never get any jobs?)
Anything involving paperwork. (That stuff stresses me out!)
My stuff. (I don’t have much, so if I mess it up, I’ll have to replace it and that’s really frustrating.)
A place to stay. (I trust God to provide in general, but what if I can’t find someone to put me up next Thursday?)
And, like a good little Christian, I asked God to teach me to trust him. I told him I wanted him to be Lord over the details in my life, not just the big picture. I prayed to delight in his will3 and offered every moment of this day for the glory of his name and the salvation of souls.
And then I went to my friend’s mechanic because my brakes had suddenly started feeling squishy. Quick patch on the brake line, I thought, and we’re good to go.
Nope. $800 fix. Oh, and the part won’t be here till Thursday, so I have to stay in Mobile till then because my brakes will almost certainly go out completely if I do any more driving on them.4
I’m supposed to be at Ave Maria in Florida on Monday.
So, for those of you keeping track at home, that’s an expensive car repair (#1 and #6) that makes me miss speaking engagements (#4) and strands me at someone’s house (#3–what if they think I’m a burden? They absolutely don’t and I know that and they’re wonderful but what if??). Oh, and if I skip Ave, I don’t know where I’ll go before Indiana on the 23rd (#7).
So here’s all the wisdom I can muster on the cross I was handed on the Feast of the Triumph of the Cross:
If I figure out this side of heaven what the silver lining to this is, I’ll let you know. Until then, I’ll enjoy an extended visit with dear friends and wonder why Megabus doesn’t go from Alabama to Florida. Feel free to throw some prayers my way, for miracles, resignation, or both.
Notice that these are all travel-related. Because that’s pretty much all I do. [↩]
You know, that he’ll take care of me even though I’m living out of my car and don’t have a real home. [↩]
It’s the brake master cylinder–apparently that’s important. And I think it’s all legit because it was a Firestone, so he’s got no real incentive to mess with me, especially since he spent 45 minutes on the phone trying to get the part quicker. He managed to get a promise of “Monday or Tuesday.” I’m not optimistic. [↩]
I didn’t really grow up praying. I mean, my parents prayed. And I’m sure I joined in. But all prayer was to me was reciting the words I’d memorized. There was no relationship there.
Really–what’s not to love?
Mass was worse. I hardly even tried there, stand/sit/kneeling along with the congregation with my mind on My Little Ponies instead of my Lord.
I remember, on the day I made my first communion, whispering to my mother during the Eucharistic prayer, “What do you do after you have communion?”
My poor mother had no idea that the answer was “pray,” that I could possibly not realize that the silent kneeling was supposed to give me the opportunity to speak with the God I’d just received. She thought I was asking for things to say in prayer, so she answered, “Sometimes I thank God for the stained glass windows.”1
From there on out, when I was at my most “pious,” I spent my meditation time repeating, “Thank you for the stained glass windows thank you for the stained glass windows thank you for the stained glass windows thank you for the stained glass windows” ad infinitum until I’m sure God himself was annoyed.
“Child dies in tragic ugly shoe incident. Story at 10.”
When I wasn’t feeling pious (the better part of 1991-1997), I spent communion evaluating the shoes of the people walking by. When I saw shoes I liked, I’d hold my breath until I saw another pair I liked. It was the 90s–I almost passed out a few times.
So believe me when I say that I don’t go to Mass because it’s fun. I didn’t have some incredible conversion that inspired in me a love of silence or liturgy or contemplation or–God help us–sitting still and being quiet. Nope–3000+ daily Masses later, I’m still bored.
When I make this confession, people are often shocked that I’m a real person, not some plaster Saint. I think “normal” people assume that those of us who are trying to be holy really enjoy prayer. And while there are some who do, many of us struggle just as much with paying attention in prayer as your average Catholic.
The difference, for those who take this God thing seriously, is that we actually struggle with it. We don’t just succumb to boredom and take the Mass as an opportunity to check out the latest fashion trends in our corner of suburbia. We pull our attention back every time it drifts, we prepare for Mass, we fight to treat the Mass as though it were the most important thing on the planet. Which, of course, it is.
So I thought I’d give some pointers to those of you who (like me) are struggling to pay attention. Not every suggestion will work for everyone, so look through the list and see if there isn’t something that might help you. Ignore the rest.2
Choose wisely. We don’t all have the luxury of choosing which Mass we’re going to attend, but if you do, be intentional. Figure out which music draws you deeper into prayer, which preaching inspires you, and which congregation is focused (or energetic or traditional or family-oriented) enough to strengthen your prayer. There’s something to be said for persevering through distractions, but no sense borrowing trouble.3 .
Although this window mostly got me wondering if the shepherd in green thought he was on Arsenio Hall….
Pick your poison. If you’re anything like me, you’re going to be distracted no matter how hard you try. There’s a big difference, though, between being distracted by counting cinder blocks or trying to figure out where that stain in the carpet came from and being distracted by sacred art. So I tend to go to churches with lots of representational art. If my mind’s going to wander, better it wander to the Nativity than to the Colbert Report.
Seat yourself.Once you’ve chosen a Mass, don’t just slide into the most convenient pew to exit from. Pray over where in the sanctuary you focus best. I need to sit in the front or I’ll spend the whole Mass looking at the people around me and trying to figure out their ages and marital statuses and relationship to the kids sitting with them and on and on. If I sit in front, I only do this after communion, which is a much shorter time to try to discipline myself. Other people need to be in the back where it’s quieter or in a darker spot or whatever. As they say in real estate, location, location, location! It can really make a difference. .
Be prepared. Take some time with Sunday’s readings (or the daily readings) before you go to Mass. Maybe read the upcoming Sunday’s Gospel every day or just spend Sunday morning looking over the readings. You’ll be surprised at how much more you get out of Mass.4 .
Dress the part. There are some obvious rules about what clothing is appropriate to wear to church; clean, modest, and in good repair come to mind. What I’m saying is, leave the torn jeggings at home. But stepping up your game a little for Sunday Mass might make it easier for you to focus (and those around you as well). Wearing a tie or a skirt might feel so foreign to you that you automatically sit up straighter and focus more. If nothing else, it’s a nice gesture when you man up and wear pants instead of shorts, not because shorts are bad but because it shows that you find the Mass important. .
Offer it up. Not to be a cliché, but prayer is powerful. Not only do the graces of your Mass get poured out on the person you pray for, but it also helps you to focus when you’re doing it for someone. If your Mass is for your sick granny, you’re less likely to space out. .
Tweet it. Let me be very clear: I am NOT suggesting that you live tweet the Mass. Put your stupid phone away for an hour a week! But if you challenge yourself to come up with a 140-character summary of the Mass’s theme and tweet it,5 you’ll have to pay attention to the readings, the prayers, and the homily. Did you know that Sunday’s prayers actually connect to Sunday’s readings? And that the first reading is chosen specifically to connect to the Gospel? Commit to tweeting about the Mass every week and you’ll have to start paying attention just to have something to say.
See?? This lady’s already doing it! Now I’m following her, although most of her texts are in what looks to me like Tagalog.
Play guessing games. Let’s say you don’t read up ahead of time–see if you can guess the theme of the readings just by listening to the opening prayer. Then listen to the first reading and see if you can predict the Gospel. During the Gospel, try to guess what point the priest will make in his homily. If you’re as competitive as I am, this’ll keep you on the edge of your pew. .
Get real. I think what makes Mass hardest is that it doesn’t feel relevant to our lives. But it is! You just have to open your eyes to realize that every moment of the Mass is just begging you to give yourself to God. I find this most powerful during the offertory. When the bread and wine are brought forward, I (try to) do a little examen. I pray about what I’m most grateful for at the moment and offer that as a sacrifice of thanksgiving to God when the bread is offered. When the wine is offered, I consider what “cup of suffering” I’m being asked to drink and I offer that to God as well. In doing this, I surrender my tight grip on my blessings and thank him for my suffering. Then I go deeper and recognize the crushed wheat that’s gone into the bread–what past suffering has made this current joy possible? I meditate on the fact that this wine of suffering will become the blood of Christ–how can my suffering be transformed for the good of the kingdom? Most days, I space out, but when I’m focused enough to pull this off, it can be really incredible. .
It’s the little things. A priest once recommended to me that rather than getting frustrated when I realized I’ve been tuning out at Mass, I should pay attention to what I tuned back in for. “Maybe,” he suggested, “that’s the Holy Spirit trying to get your attention.” So instead of giving up because it’s the Creed and you haven’t noticed a word since the Confiteor, see if there’s something in that line of the Creed that speaks to your heart. The thing is that the Mass is so replete with meaning that whatever six words you manage to focus on are more meaningful than everything else you’ll say all week.
Odds are good you’ll fail again and again and again. One of the consequences of the Fall is that worship no longer comes naturally to us and spending a solid hour not obsessing over yourself can be a little bit like hell. Don’t get discouraged that the Mass is still boring after you’ve been trying so hard for six weeks–it takes a lifetime. Besides, sometimes boring prayer is just what we need. So try to pray and focus at Mass but recognize that whether or not your prayer is good is ultimately up to God, not you. All you can do is the best you can. He’ll do the rest.
All right, peanut gallery. I’d love to hear any tips or tricks you’ve got to offer–Lord knows I need them. What works for you?
Small, awful, abstract things so high up as to be barely visible. Definitely not something I’d normally thank God for. [↩]
Or, you know, spend 5 years wrangling babies at every single Mass, then go by yourself and have a blissful hour of peace. From what I’ve heard, it’s practically the beatific vision. [↩]
Note: there are some exceptions, but in general, you are canonically obligated to attend the parish in whose boundaries you reside. I’m not so much advocating that you enroll at a different parish as that you move to the parish you want to enroll at. [↩]
As an aside, the more you love Scripture, the more the Mass means to you. Get on that. [↩]
Can we get #todaysMass trending on twitter? That would pretty much make my life. [↩]
Have you ever been in prayer and had a really powerful image and a sense that you were entering into really deep prayer–maybe even contemplative prayer–and then you realized that you were thinking about mashed potato shampoo and you weren’t actually having a vision, you were actually half asleep and dreaming?
Yeah, that happens to me at least once a week.
It’s not that images don’t have a place in prayer, it’s that coffee does. And when I’m good and jacked up on caffeine, I can use my imagination to pray and get some images that make a lot more sense than mashed potato shampoo. Prayer isn’t just a left-brained experience of memory and recitation, nor is it an introvert’s Mecca of silence and solitude. Prayer is about relationship and God wants to encounter you in so many different ways.
So sometimes I put away my rosary and close my breviary and even try to turn off my interior monologue. I turn to the Gospels and try to meet Christ there. When the Spirit’s moving, I can open the Scriptures and insert myself into a scene, imagining that I’m encountering Christ just as the characters of the Gospel do.
This style of prayer is often called Ignatian, after St. Ignatius of Loyola whose Spiritual Exercises use this technique. The idea is that you enter into the story and allow the Holy Spirit to speak to you through, essentially, daydreaming.
What’s most important here is to be open to the promptings of the Spirit. Don’t try to dictate who you are in the scene or what you experience. Instead, try to let go and see what happens–do you find yourself cast as a Pharisee? Are you too distracted to listen to Jesus? Are you afraid to approach him?
One of my students, after a meditation on Jesus calling Peter to walk on water, told me that he knew Jesus was calling him out of the boat but he couldn’t hear what he was saying because he refused to listen. “Were you afraid of sinking?” I asked him. “Oh, no,” he said. “I knew I’d be safe. I was just afraid that I wouldn’t be happy, so I turned my back on him.” Very telling.
A seventh-grade boy explained after a meditation on the woman caught in adultery that he was a Pharisee. When I pushed him, he got very quiet and then said, “I think I have the same struggles that the Pharisees did.” Twelve years old.
An Ignatian meditation can definitely be done with just you and a Bible, but a guided one can be a good way to start. So I’ve got a meditation for you on the woman who anointed Jesus. Throughout the meditation (about 20 minutes), I ask a lot of questions. Ignore them if they don’t help. Definitely don’t feel the need to figure out your answer to every question. The idea here is to immerse yourself so completely in the scene that you let go of yourself and allow the Spirit to speak to you. (You’re going to need speakers.) So set aside some time, get comfortable, silence your cell phone, and see what the Lord has to say.
After your meditation, take some time to process. Who were you in the scene? What emotions were you feeling? What did Jesus say to you? What look did you see in his eyes? Where did you go at the end? What does all this mean?
This kind of meditation doesn’t work for everyone, but I thought I’d throw it out there for those of you who were interested. I do a lot of these (on retreats especially) and I’m trying to get into the habit of recording them for y’all. You can find others on this page.
He taught me to dance in my tiny grad school living room. We had to push the futon out of the way to have room. Sure, I’d “danced” before, but I never could get my feet to do the right things, and I was nervous. I’m not generally clumsy,1 but there’s something about someone being that close and paying that much attention to the movement of my body that just makes me nervous.
This is not a picture of that dance lesson (although it would have been nice if he had been wearing a tux). But it is a picture of me dancing. So that’s relevant. Right?
But he was nice, and not my type, so I let him teach me.
“What do I do?” I asked, as he put his hand on the small of my back.
“Just lean back,” he smiled.
“But what are the steps? How do I count?” I’m sure a look of panic crept into my eyes, despite my desperate desire to maintain my composure.
“Just lean back and let me dance you. Relax and look into my eyes. In this style, the guy does the work.”
So I put my arm around his shoulders and my hand in his. Then I took a deep breath and let go of myself. I had to be loose for this. I had to surrender, to let him hold me and look at me and move me. A few times I tried to pay attention and catch up and do the “right thing” and it just got me all twisted. For this dance to work at all, I really had to let him lead.
I could have fallen in love with him right there. I don’t know why more men don’t learn to dance.
I was wearing ripped jeans and flip flops, but I don’t know that I’ve ever felt so elegant or so graceful or so captivating. There was nothing between us but the dance, but oh, what a dance.
It was one of the most intimate moments of my life, looking into his eyes, being held so close, almost letting him carry me. It was pure and innocent and intense and I’m so grateful for that dance.
It’s a moment that comes back to me in prayer often, that ethereal half hour in the living room. There’s something so beautiful about that image,about the surrender involved in that dance.
I picture myself in the arms of Christ, just being held and adored. I spend my life doing and thinking and achieving, but here it’s enough just to be. There’s so much of me that wants to know what to do next, how to act, what steps to take, but that just makes me stumble. The beauty of dancing with a man who knows how to lead is that all I have to do is look into his eyes and trust.
And so in prayer and in life, I’m trying to lean back. I’m trying to let go of my plans and intentions and desires and to be caught up in his embrace. There, in his arms, I don’t have to do anything but let myself be loved. Dancing through life with him, I don’t have to know the song or the steps. I just have to let go of my obsession with being in control and let him lead.
For years, my relationship with Christ has been a romantic one. It’s the only way I can understand how consumed he is with love for me, the only way I can learn to live and move and have my being in him. Maybe this image of being held and loved and danced won’t work for those of you who see him differently–men especially–but, oh, what a gift it is to find him in prayer and to feel the beauty and the power and the intimacy of that living room dance session in his Eucharistic embrace.
More often than not, the song I hear is a setting of St. Ignatius’ Prayer for Surrender:
Take, oh Lord, and receive
All my liberty, my memory,
My understanding, and my will.
All that I am and all that I possess
You have given to me.
And I surrender it all to you.
Form it to your will.
Give me only your love and your grace!
For with these I am rich enough
And desire nothing more
How perfect.
Irregular
That scar on my arm? I ran into the door. At the library. Just call me Evel Knievel. [↩]
I’ve always been very independent. My dad says that my first day of “school” (at the ripe old age of 2), I didn’t even hug him goodbye. There were people to meet, after all, and things to do–who needs Dad? I distinctly remember learning to pump on the swings, probably around age 3, and thinking to myself, “This is great! I don’t need anything from anyone anymore. I can do it all myself!” Friends, I even got excited when I had my first headache in second grade because I thought that made me an adult. Really, I was born 30.
So I’m sure it comes as no surprise that I like to be master of my own domain. I like to call the shots. I’ve pretty much been in charge of everything I’ve ever done; it’s that type A thing again. The problem is that on top of being bossy and opinionated, I’m almost pathologically lazy. Which means that, while I want to be in charge, I don’t actually want to do anything or even really make any hard decisions. Basically, I was born to be a princess–run everything except when I don’t want to.
This back and forth between doing everything and doing nothing makes me a big fan of Augustine’s line, “Pray as if everything depended on God, work as if everything depended on you.” Except that Augustine (and Ignatius of Loyola after him) meant for the two to be done simultaneously–hard work and complete trust in God. I have a tendency to do them sequentially. First, I work my butt off without asking God for any help at all. Then when I fail miserably, I sit on my worn-out butt and pout until he swoops in and fixes it all. I make ridiculous deals with him like, “If you want me to have a car, you’ll just have to give me one.” Like he’s Bob Barker or something. Either I do everything and you can sit the and watch, God, or you do everything and I’ll put my seal of approval on at the end. No collaboration, here. Either autonomy or ease.
But whether I’m in the working portion of the cycle or the praying portion, I’m doing it all myself. I hate asking for help. It’s not that I hate being helped–remember that I’m lazy–I just don’t want to seem needy. I think it stems from a deep-seated fear I have of being too much. I’m loud and awkward and obnoxious and emotional–everything about me is just big.1 Sometimes it feels as though I’ve spent my whole life being told to be quiet or sit down or calm down or go away and I’ve really bought into the lie that I’m just too much.2 So to cope, I want to give and give to people but I don’t ever want to take because then maybe they’ll hate me. I hate doing dishes more than almost anything (except running and bananas, as you’ve probably realized), but I’ll do dishes at other people’s houses because I don’t want them to think I’m a freeloader.
Why, God, why???
But God loves me too much to leave me the mess that I am. So after I gave away everything I owned and entered the convent, thinking, “Ah, now I never have to ask for anything again because everything will be given to me,”3 the Lord led me out of the convent. Oh, and told me not to get anything–a car, a phone, a place to stay. I spent the next 7 months completely dependent on the incredible generosity of my sister and brother-in-law. Theoretically, I was learning that I deserve other people’s help. Nope, just felt guilty and in the way the whole time.
Then I got a job, but still no car. I spent two and a half years mooching rides off people (in the suburbs and a small town–zero public transportation) so that I could learn to ask for help. Instead, I just didn’t go anywhere. I lived off of ramen rather than ask for a ride to get fresh food. By the time I finally got a car, I’m pretty sure I had scurvy.4
I know intellectually that we’re supposed to be community and that I at least need to trust that the people who love me want to help me. I’m trying. I really am. But whenever I ask for something (or even feel that by my very life I’m asking for something), I feel ashamed. And afraid that this will be the last straw, that after this ride from the airport or this stopover in your guest room or this visit for lunch you’ll realize that I’m just too much. I know that people love me and they want to help me and that most of the time they don’t even see it as help but as friendship. But this is the lie Satan has convinced me to believe: pretty much anybody who spends time with me is doing me a favor and I’d better not ask for too many favors. Is anybody with me on this? Am I just neurotic?
It all comes down to pride, of course. Everything does. In my pride, I don’t want to need anyone else. I want everyone to see me as self-sufficient because then I can be the magnanimous one in the relationship and they can be the peons graced by my presence. And when I can’t do that, well, I’d rather just suffer.
Humility doesn’t suffer in silence–humility asks for help. Jesus asked for help in carrying his cross; why do I think I’m strong enough to carry mine alone? When people love me and offer to help me, why can’t I rejoice in their friendship? Why do I have to obsess over my guilt?
So right now this is what I’m really struggling with: balancing my efforts, my trust in God, and other people’s help. I’m inclined to spend hours a day on the internet putting my whole life in order. Which will leave me exhausted and miserable and with no idea of where to go or what to do. On the other hand, I’m inclined to sit back and let God make things happen for me. I know he can, I’m just pretty sure that he won’t. He refuses just to live my life for me, more’s the pity. I’m not at all inclined to ask people for help. But when I took a break from work to get in some pray, the word I got was “help.”
So I’m going to try to grow in this area by asking for help. People have been so generous with this whole new life of mine and I’m so grateful. But some people have been asking how they can support me, so I’m going to swallow my colossal pride and tell you what I really need:
Prayer: Duh.
Speaking engagements: I’m loving the blogging–I’m actually shocked at how much–but I feel so drawn to public speaking. I’m not too proud to speak to confirmation classes or groups of church ladies. I can do youth or adults and I can talk on pretty much any topic. Plus, you only have to pay me if you want to, so you really can’t lose! If you work at a school or work at a church or go to a church or know someone who does one of the above, do you think you could set something up for me to come speak? I’d really appreciate it!
Connections: I know a lot of people in education and ministry, but if you know someone I don’t, do you think you could pass my blog on to them and suggest that they ask me to come speak?
Publicity: I know some of you must have been sharing my blog because I’m getting more and more hits on it. Don’t just share it because you’re my friend (which I think most of you are at this point), but if I post something that really moves you or convinces you or makes you laugh, could you share it with your friends? I’ve got nifty sharing tools down at the bottom for you. If you’ve got a blog yourself, it would be amazing if you’d link to mine. Apparently search engines really care about that. Or you could like me on Facebook–click the facebook “f” at the top of the sidebar.
Computer geek stuff: My C++ teacher would be ashamed of me if he knew how technologically inept I am now, but the SEO business is killing me. Why are there over 2000 results for “Meg Hunter-Kilmer”? Why doesn’t this page show up till page 4? Why can’t I google all my individual posts? Why doesn’t googling these questions get me decent answers??
Advice/suggestions: Maybe you started a career like this and you’ve got some thoughts. Or maybe you know how to use social media to advertise yourself. Or maybe you’ve never made it to the end of one of my posts and want to tell me to keep it short. Bearing in mind that I can be appallingly sensitive, could you give me your thoughts? I can be reached through the contact me page or via facebook.
I hate asking for help. But I can’t do this without it. Feel free to ignore and just keep reading the blog–even the one hit your click adds to the stats that I check obsessively is a help.
You guys are the best!
Especially my head. Have you ever noticed that? I can’t fit into a single hat at Target. Also, I might have lice now. BTW.<–my mother wants me to make sure that everyone knows that this is just a joke about how you’re not supposed to try on hats. I don’t have lice. [↩]
John and Stasi Eldredge do a great job of explaining how every woman is afraid that she’s either too much or not enough–or both, for many women–in their book Captivating. I really recommend it. [↩]
My friend Nick had scurvy. I thought it was an STD that pirates got and I was really embarrassed for him. Then he told me it came from a vitamin C deficiency and I was really embarrassed for me. Probably should have known that. [↩]
I am not going to do that. Is it bad that I just wrote all about trusting God completely and then drew a line in the sand that I refuse to cross?
But I wanted to be a PRINCESS!!
But I don’t feel guilty about this–not one bit. Which is pretty good for someone who tends to be a bit (a lot) scrupulous. I was tempted to feel like a jerk when I first saw the article. “Oh, man,” I thought, “Now I have to do that.” With a sigh because gosh this surrender thing is just so hard and why do I have to do all the hardest things?
And then I remembered that I don’t. In this instance, because it would be absolutely imprudent for a woman to live on the street and rely entirely on the kindness of others. Sure, God could call me to that. But I’m open and I’ve prayed and I just don’t think he is. And I don’t have to feel bad that he’s letting me have a car and a checking account–it’s his plan, not mine. I don’t have to be the very most appallingly surrendered to Divine Providence to be surrendered.
But there are always people to compare myself to. How about this one:
Have you heard about this girl? That’s Katie Davis. She’s 21. Those are her 13 daughters.
Right?
Seriously, read her entire blog. I’ll wait.
I ran across her story and thought, “Wow. What faith. How beautiful. DEAR GOD PLEASE PLEASE DON’T MAKE ME DO THAT!!!!”
I know, and yesterday I sounded all surrendered to God’s will, right?
But here’s the thing: God desires your joy. Not just in heaven (although that’s his top priority), but here on earth, too. He wants you to love your career and your family and your vocation. Yeah, you’re going to suffer along the way. Some of the time it may seem as though all it is is suffering. But that’s because he’s not willing to trade your eternal joy for temporal comfort. “What does it profit a man to gain the whole world but forfeit his soul?” There’s a reason for the suffering–because he wants you to be happy.
We tend to look at the examples of the long-suffering Saints and think that whatever is hardest and least appealing in life is probably what God wants for us. Just think about how we glorify the martyrs. “Yeah, he got burned alive. But that guy had his fingers bitten off! And that guy was flayed alive! Ooh, and she’s not a martyr, but she used to rub pepper and lye into her skin to make herself ugly and I bet that really hurt!” We glory in their willingness to suffer for Christ and forget that not everyone is called down the path of bloodiest resistance.
Hacked to pieces AND burned alive? Some guys get all the breaks.
You’ve got to remember, friends, that God loves you–truly, madly, deeply, to borrow the words of Savage Garden. He’s not planning out a miserable, painful path to heaven. Really, he’s planning a life that you’ll love. And he created your heart to desire the things he has for you.
Unfortunately, that desire is often coated in a lot of worthless junk that we’ve piled on ourselves. Which means that just because you want something doesn’t mean that’s God’s will. But it does mean that if something sounds terrible and awful and has absolutely no appeal for you because it’s just the worst thing there’s ever been in the history of ever, you can probably leave it alone for a while. Be open and maybe reconsider down the road but don’t assume that because something sounds terrible it must be what you have to do because Jesus died on the cross and so Christianity must be really, really miserable.
I guess the question you have to ask is does this sound horrible because you’re scared and running away from something or does it sound horrible because it’s just not what you were made for? You have to get past your attachment to sin and figure out what’s really going on.
I kind of look like this when I run. Only female, soaked with sweat, and mostly dead.
See, to me, running a marathon sounds like torture. Then death. Then hell. Then being reanimated to suffer it all again. To this guy, it sounds hard (okay, maybe nothing’s hard for him) but not miserable. On the other hand, if you ask me to spend a week–24-7–with teenagers, I’m psyched. I know it’ll be exhausting and hard and probably smelly, but it’s a life-giving kind of hard. And that’s the real difference–does this profession or vocation or promotion or relocation or whatever inspire me? does it make me want to keep going, even when it’s hard? Or do I feel defeated and empty just thinking about it?
What I’m saying is don’t assume something’s “the right thing” just because it’s hard. We aren’t all called to be beggars or run orphanages. But don’t assume it’s “the wrong thing” because it’s hard, either. Anything worth doing is hard. You just have to ask if it’s the kind of hard that makes you want to keep pushing or the kind of hard that makes you want to curl up and die. It’s not that simple all the time, but that’s a good litmus test.
We’re all called to be saints, but we’re not all going to be Saints. You don’t have to be some kind of miracle-working, leper-washing, hair-shirt-wearing superstar to be pleasing to God. And sometimes “trusting God” is code for showing off. If it’s his will, he’ll give you the grace for it, no matter how hard it is. If it’s not, the easy life you’ve got planned might just go all Jumanji on you.
This is not what I meant by a "board game." Ha. Punny.
So I’m not going to join Andrew in his radical poverty (yet). But I’m not saying you shouldn’t. Go ahead and pray on it. Just remember: unless it’s God’s will, doing something crazy doesn’t make you a saint. It just makes you crazy.
If you’ve been paying attention, you’ve probably picked up on the fact that I recently packed everything I own into the trunk of my Mazda3 (okay, my mattress pad is in the back seat), waved goodbye to Kansas after a 2 year exile in the flatlands, and headed out to God knows where. I left a job and friends and great students to do…well…I’m not exactly sure what. I know what I’m expecting (speaking and retreats and blogging and whatnot), but all I know for sure is that God asked me to leave and that he’ll take care of the rest. No home, no job. For the time being, I’m living out of the car.*
It’s interesting the kind of reactions I get to this.
Non-religious person: “Oh–wow! That’s really…” stupid? “um…” crazy? “um…great that you’re going to…find yourself. What a wonderful journey.” At which point I feel like a flake and a cliché.
This is totally what prayer does to you.
Nominal Christian: “Oh–wow! That’s amazing! I could never trust God like that. You’re really an inspiration. What a wonderful journey.” At which point I feel like a fake and a fanatic.
Holy Christian: “Nice. I’ll pray for you.” At which point I’m disappointed that they’re not more impressed. (But relieved that they didn’t use the word journey, which is probably my least favorite word in the English language. This might be because every episode of The Bachelor–don’t judge me–uses that word at least 35 times. My sister and I toyed with the idea of a drinking game involving the word “journey” on The Bachelor but decided that even doing it with water might kill us.)
Because this is how you find true love.
This weekend, I got to catch up with a bunch of old friends at Fr. Tom’s ordination and had the humbling experience of repeatedly being asked, “So what are you up to these days?”
It was a real flash back to the last time I had no answer to this question, right after leaving the convent. People kept asking me what I did and I kept having to swallow my pride and tell them I was nannying for my sister’s baby. For a type A fool like me, that was hard. Especially when I saw the look in people’s eyes wondering what on earth I thought I was doing shelling out for a Notre Dame degree (or two) and then living on someone’s futon and working for free.
This weekend, it was much the same. “Well, I just left Kansas…” I’d say.
“Oh, and where are you going now?”
“Well, I don’t exactly know.”
“Oh….”
One kind soul said, “Oh, that’s all right. You’ll figure it out eventually.”
“No!” I couldn’t help responding. “I had it figured out. And it was all great. God just had something better.”
A better woman would have bit her tongue and allowed the world to see her as aimless and flaky. I’m too proud for that. So I explain it all.
“You see, I was teaching. But then I felt that God was calling me to step out on faith and leave that. He asked me to be homeless and unemployed and I had to trust him. So I’m going to be traveling and speaking and blogging and writing a book and I think it’s going to be really great.”
Which, of course, is code for “I’m really holy and trust God a lot and by the way you should invite me to come speak at your church/school/ministry.”
And Christians are suitably impressed and non-Christians are suitably disturbed (which is generally how my life goes) and look at me I’m preaching the Gospel and everyone knows how awesome I am!
Here’s the thing, though: there’s nothing impressive about this.
No, really. That’s not humility (I don’t do humility, more’s the pity). It’s just fact. I serve a God who made the mountains and moves them when he wants, a God who made the sea and the storm and then walked on the waves and calmed them, a God who heals lepers and the blind. My God sent his Son to die for me–why wouldn’t he give me everything I need? (That’s a little Romans 8:32 for you.) What’s scary about living out of my car with a credit card and savings and a bunch of couches to crash on when God provides for people who don’t even take a second tunic?
So when I give everything away and quit my job without any particular destination in mind (which has happened twice now), it’s not so much faithful as smart. You see, somewhere in my 28 years, I figured out that, despite all the impressive things I can put on my resume, I’m actually quite dumb. In everything that matters, anyway. I can’t seem to get past myself enough to see what’s best for me. I spent a good 10 years pining away for a man–any man–before God knocked me over the head to show me something that fits me so much better. I hated myself for most of college because I couldn’t figure out how to stop being me and start being that quiet, pious girl in the chapel. It didn’t occur to me that maybe I was actually made to be me, loud and obnoxious and awkward as I am, that perhaps God actually made me that way because he wanted me that way, not so that I had something to overcome.
You see, I can barely even see who I am now and what I want today, let alone who I was made to be and what I’ll need to be that person. And I’ve fought God and just come out the other side tired and unhappy (and in need of a good confession). But when I’m abandoned to his will–as much as I’ve ever managed to be–there’s something energizing about that. Oh, there’s still suffering. Often there’s more suffering in following God than there is when you turn your back on him. But there’s meaning to that suffering, and purpose, and healing.
And God starts taking care of all the details and mapping out your life for you, with lovely morning greetings like this:
If only God communicated through greeting cards....
Okay, no, it’s not that easy. You’ve still got to discern and, usually, make money and pay bills and work hard. But ultimately, it’s on him. He’s made you that promise: that he will provide. Your job is to pray and love and fight for holiness and never, never to worry.
Believe me when I say this isn’t going to make life easy. Trying to do God’s will–letting go of your own understanding of who you are and surrendering to his truth–is about as hard as it comes. Obedience isn’t easy; but it’s simple. It’s a matter of choosing truth, goodness, and beauty, even at the expense of yourself.
I’m not talking here about how to figure out God’s will. That can be widely different for each person and in each situation (although I talked a little bit about my journey (gag) here). I’m talking about those times when we know what God is calling us to. Maybe that’s obvious stuff like getting help with your porn problem or getting to Mass on Sunday or carrying on a civil conversation with your stepmother. Maybe it’s a matter that took some real discernment like entering religious life, leaving a job, or ending an unhealthy relationship. Maybe it’s something that you’re not sure yet about but it just keeps nagging at you.
I’m sure most of us right now have something that we really know, if we’re being honest with ourselves, we have to do–some change of behavior or major or job or marital status or attitude or diet. Stepping out like that does take faith. But I’m telling you that God always comes through. Always. That’s just who he is. It’s not a matter of learning to trust that he’ll give you what you want–God forbid he should give us what we want! It’s a matter of learning to trust that ultimately–ultimately, not immediately–he’ll bring us to a joy so deep any struggles we may have on the way will pale in comparison.
It doesn’t always seem to make sense. God told Abraham to leave his family and country–and Abraham went. Jesus asked a bunch of fishermen to leave their nets and their boats and their father and go change the world. And they didn’t hem and haw and finish college or build up their savings or wait till the kids were grown first. Immediately they went, Scripture says. At once they left it all behind. Even though they had no idea what he was asking them to do.
But there’s a freedom in that obedience. The freedom of living in God’s will. Freedom from regret or doubt or (eventually and God willing) fear. More importantly, there’s the freedom you give to God to bless you beyond your wildest imaginings. That might be through opportunities he could only give you when you followed him; it might be through the joy of life lived in grace; if might just be through the growth in holiness that comes from following him. Whatever it is, he can’t give it to you (yes, I just said God can’t) until you surrender to him.
If you fix your eyes on Jesus, you can walk on water. So forget your fears and your attachments and your plans and your will and just get off the boat. Maybe you’ll sink. If you do, he’ll catch you. But if you don’t–oh, friend, imagine!
If you’re up for it, I’d love to hear in the comments about what God is calling you to abandon to him. It’ll help me to pray for you 🙂
*I’m actually writing this from the passenger seat of my sister’s car, sitting in the library parking lot using their wireless as my super-ornery niece finally naps in her car seat. I tried books and songs and prayers and pajamas in the middle of the day and lunch and that awkward bend-over-her-stroking-her-back-while-singing-praying-to-God-she-finally-falls-asleep-in-her-crib move and putting John Paul down for his nap in the same room and she just alternated between sobbing in her crib or playing happily out of it. So my sister’s watching John Paul and Cecilia and I are depleting the ozone layer running the engine so we don’t die of heat in this car. In case you wanted to know the inspiration of this post which started off being about living out of my car but doesn’t really seem to be anymore.
As I walked my nephew through his prayers last night, we enjoyed the following exchange:
Me: Can you tell God how great he is? What did Jesus do that was great?
John Paul: He took bwead and wine and tuwned it into his body and bwood!
I swear I’m not making this up. Completely unaware of tomorrow’s feast (or my epic series of Eucharistposts), the one event from the life of Christ that struck my 2-year-old nephew as awesome was the institution of the Eucharist.
Yes, I’m taking notes for the hagiography.
Just so everybody knows that his theology’s sound, John Paul has also been known to stop playing, look up, and say, “Thank you fow Jesus fow dying fow me!” He’s a little preposition happy at the moment.
But he’s on the right track. Somehow, his little child’s mind gets that the Eucharist is just as essential as the Passion. In fact, it’s an extension of the Passion.
Behold the Lamb of God
I’m sure everyone reading this knows that the Passover is a type (a foreshadowing) of the Passion. But bear with me here (And turn to Exodus 12 if this is news). In order to save his people from slavery to Egypt (sin), God ordered them to take an unblemished lamb (sinless Lamb of God) and slaughter it (crucify him) at twilight (during an eclipse). He ordered that not a bone of it be broken (Jn 19:36) and that the Israelites anoint their doorposts with its blood (be baptized and saved by the blood of the Lamb).*
People usually finish drawing the eery parallels there (although can I point out that John the Baptist called Jesus the Lamb of God–sacrificial victim–just before Jesus was baptized, symbolizing his union with sinners and his death? Sweet.) but that’s only the first part of the ritual. Any Jew will tell you that the meat (hehe) of the Passover ritual is the Seder meal. In fact, Exodus spends more time commanding that than it does commanding the sacrifice, going so far as to say that all Israelites must eat the lamb (Ex 12:47–I guess Jewish vegetarians just have to suck it up one day a year).
The Old Testament is engineered intentionally by God to reveal the New in the light of Christ. We start to understand the purpose of the Ark of the Covenant when we look at Mary. We get a sense of worship when we look at the temple (incense, anyone?) and we can’t understand Baptism without the flood and the Red Sea. So what’s with all the sacrifice stuff all over the Pentateuch? And why is it always telling them who was supposed to eat of the sacrifice?
That’s right. Many kinds of sacrifices had to be consumed entirely, others eaten by priests, and some eaten by the one who offered it. The idea was that you offered your best to God, who made it sacred. Some of it went to the priests, some was burned up, but some was given back to you. You then feasted with your family, thanking God for the opportunity to make a sacrifice (now there’s some good theology) and being sanctified by consuming what was holy. The ancient understanding of holiness was that it was contagious. If you touched something unclean, you became unclean; if you touched something holy, you became holy (or got struck dead–2 Sam 6). God called the Israelites to consume their sacrifices so that they might become holy as their heavenly Father is holy. For Ancient Jews, a sacrifice without a meal was incomplete. A Passover without a Seder was sacrilege.
Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross is clearly a Paschal (Passover/Easter) sacrifice; so where’s the meal? Well, he had to go a little out of order, but the Apostles consumed the Lamb of God at the Last Supper, when he offered his body and blood to them under the form of bread and wine. You cannot have the Passion without the Last Supper–you cannot have Christianity without the Eucharist.**
Because for the Israelites, sacrifice was necessary, yes. But the feast was how they shared in that sacrifice. The meal was the source of sanctity for them just as the Eucharist is for us. It’s the source of our faith as well. In John, Peter makes his profession of faith after the bread of life discourse. In Luke, the disciples on the road to Emmaus didn’t recognize the risen Christ until after he broke open the Scriptures for them (Liturgy of the Word) and then took bread, blessed it, broke it, and gave it to them (Lk 24:30). It’s through consuming the Passover Lamb that we are drawn to faith.
And here’s the thing of it: this isn’t just some accident of allegory where we felt as though we had to get all the details right. “Okay, well, there’s something in here about eating it standing up, so let’s nix the altar rails….” No–God created the Passover for the purpose of showing us what the Passion meant–and showing us that it didn’t end on the cross or in the empty tomb or even on Ascension Thursday.
My friends, Jesus loved you too much to spend only 33 years on earth. It wasn’t enough for him to live for you, nor to die, nor even to rise again. He needed to be with you, here for you, every moment of every day.
At the Last Supper, he made this promise: I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you (Jn 14:18). This wasn’t a promise made only to his Apostles, merely a promise of the Resurrection. He’d told them about that a half dozen times. They weren’t suddenly going to get it now. No, this was a promise to you that he would offer himself for you not once but eternally.
“I refuse,” he said, as he stared death in the face, “I refuse to leave her. I will come back for her. I will wait for her, weaker than I was on the Cross, poorer than I was in the manger. I will suffer abuse and ridicule, be ignored and profaned, every day for the rest of time rather than leave her. And most days she won’t bother to come see me. And she’ll receive me without a thought about me. And some days–Father, forgive her–she’ll come to me mired in sin. But I will never leave her nor forsake her. I will wait for her in the tabernacle. I will stare at her from the monstrance. I will kiss her as she receives. I will dwell in her heart. I will be borne in her life. I will not leave her.”
The act of receiving is so intimate, this moment at which we accept the love of another person given entirely for us. We the Church walk up the aisle to our groom. When a groom takes his bride to their marriage bed, when they consummate their marriage, they say to one another, “I give myself completely to you forever.” And each time they make love, they renew the covenant of their marriage, making again with their bodies the vows they spoke on their wedding day: I give myself completely to you forever.
As he stretched out his arms on the cross, Jesus said to his bride the Church, “I give myself completely to you forever.” In the person of the priest, he says at each Mass, “This is my body, which will be given up for you”–I give myself completely to you forever. That is the promise of the Eucharist, the sign by which Christ renews his covenant with the Church. It’s an act of marital love, and act of intimacy so profound that it’s called the summit of the Christian life. Jesus, the lover of your soul, is drawing you to himself, giving himself completely to you–not just spiritually but physically–begging that you be captivated by him as he is by you. Begging that you give yourself in return.
Sure, he could do this by sending his Spirit into our heart or stirring up a desire for union with him. But God made us physical and spiritual–he knows that we’re not purely spiritual creatures and we can’t survive on the spirit alone. He gave us the Eucharist as a physical expression of the all-encompassing, life-giving love we were made for. The reality of his presence allows us to give ourselves completely to him as he offers himself completely to us.
This physical reality of the Sacrament touches our hearts in a way that spiritual certainty just can’t. Because it’s real. It’s tangible, it’s physical, and it’s beautiful. A perfect love for Christ would desire to possess him completely–which we do when we receive. A perfect love for Christ would desire to be transformed into him–which we are when we receive. A perfect love for Christ would desire to give ourselves completely to him–which we can when we receive.
Praise God for the gift, the incredible gift of the Eucharist. Here is the one place where you are fully known, loved exactly as you are, and called to be greater. Here is the one place where you are completely accepted by the one person whose acceptance matters. My friends, if you are blessed to be Catholic, please, oh, please learn to love Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. You won’t always feel it (Lord knows I don’t) but when you choose to see him with eyes of faith, your life will be transformed. The Eucharist is the source and summit of the Christian faith. It is our strength to endure and the reason we sing. It is the promise of his love and a foretaste of heaven. It is, quite literally, the meaning of life.
Jesus longs to love you in the Eucharist. Let him.
*Can I just tell you that when this was first explained to me it absolutely blew my mind? I was in high school and I seriously freaked out. I knew Jesus and all, but I had no idea that this Christian thing could be intellectually stimulating. Little did I know….
**Incidentally, this seems to have been Tolkien’s biggest problem with The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe; Lewis set up a whole Passion narrative with no Last Supper, a whole Passover with no Seder.
I once took a class on prayer. It was very interesting, I’m sure, but I still have no idea how to pray. I’ve even taught classes on prayer. I know there are all kinds of distinctions about mental prayer and vocal prayer and contemplative and mystical and meditative and on and on, but in all my many hours of “praying” (by which I generally mean sitting in a chapel talking to myself about things that have little to do with anything spiritual) I’ve only discovered three kinds: saintly prayer, snotty prayer, and boring prayer.
Saintly Prayer
When I speak of saintly prayer, I don’t mean the prayer the Saints generally speak of. That’s often bitter and empty (à la Mother Teresa or John of the Cross). When it’s not, it’s selfless and self-emptying. It’s entirely about God, not about the one who prays. I tell you, friends, I am not there yet.
Although I wouldn’t mind a little ecstasy now and again.
I’m talking here about the prayer that feels good. The kind of prayer where you’ve got something to say and so your holy hour speeds by. The emotional high of singing praise music or the comfort of finding meaning in Scripture that hits you exactly where you are. I hope you’ve all experienced this–some peace, some joy, some answer in prayer. It’s a beautiful thing, a true gift. And for those of us who have felt God in this emotional way, the experience can strengthen us through times of emptiness.
This kind of prayer is nice. It might strengthen your faith or give you a passion for sharing the Gospel. That’s lovely. But emotional highs are candy–they are not daily bread. If your prayer were all lovely and happy and fulfilling, you’d soon stop praying out of love of God and start praying out of love of the feeling of prayer. That’s not virtuous and it’s not love. If prayer is about growing in love for God, it can’t always be fun. There has to be struggle and sacrifice and trudging through months of blah if it’s going to mean anything.
Cherish the gift of prayer that touches your heart and stirs your soul. But don’t seek that in prayer. God made you for something better than thrills.
Snotty Prayer
I was talking with an 18-year-old boy the other day and he started describing his experience from the previous night. It seems he was having a miserable time over a girl and he needed to pray it out. So he walked as far away from his house as he could get, off into the wilds of Kansas corn, and fell to his knees, screaming at God.
“I was sobbing,” he said, “tears pouring out of my eyes, snot running down my face. It was disgusting. And one of the most inspiring moments of my life.”
God didn’t answer his question, the desperate “Why?” he was crying into the night, but he came away comforted anyway. Because that prayer, that desperate, guttural cry to the one who made the universe and holds us in his hand–that prayer reminds us that we’re alive. When life is good and pleasant, it’s easy to start feeling lost. This is why people in this country are so rich but so, so poor. We coast through a life that gives us everything we’ve ever asked for but leaves us empty. Snotty prayer reminds us with a stab to the heart that we are very much alive. The pain exhilarates in a way that joy rarely does and we begin to feel again, to strive again, to fight again. Sometimes rock bottom is exactly where we need to be.
I think that snotty prayer is also a testimony to the depths of our faith. We doubt God’s existence when we’re unhappy, but we blame him when we’re miserable. We hope he’s not watching us when we’re trying to get away with something but we insist that he listens when we feel abandoned. I have my doubts about God–we all do–but never when I’m snotty. When I’m on my knees in the cornfield (or sitting in the driver’s seat of my car, more often), I know God’s there. I scream, “Are you listening? Do you even care? Why won’t you answer me??” But in those moments of desperation, it never occurs to me that he might not be there at all.
There’s a depth of faith, still beneath the rolling surface of daily mediocrity, that we doubt until we find ourselves raging against a God who, it seems, we knew was there all along.
This prayer is miserable, but it’s a blessing. It’s a reminder that we’re alive, a reminder that God is, too. And so, as much as it hurts, it’s beautiful. But faith can’t be sustained by this kind of prayer, either. For one thing, it would be exhausting. For another, your face would probably start to chap. But more importantly, prayer is more than emotion, positive or negative. Faith can be strengthened by this prayer, too, this prayer which in its suffering is somehow more real than even the saintly prayer. But what feeds our faith is much more mundane.
Boring Prayer
Maybe your daily prayer time is meaningful and directed without being thrilling. Maybe you find peace in practicing the presence of God and the stillness of your meditation strengthens you to continue. If so, I commend you (with slight bitterness and more than slight suspicion). For the rest of us, let’s talk about how boring prayer is.
It really is, isn’t it? No, not always. And, in my experience, it becomes less so the more you practice it. Until it doesn’t. And you go to the chapel and check your watch every 2 minutes until your holy hour is up.
Maybe I’m just more ADD than most, but my half hour meditation sometimes feels like a herculean task. I remember going to visit a former student when I was fresh out of the convent. I was a professional pray-er. She was 17. We went to do a holy hour together and mine looked like this:
Dear Jesus, I love you so much. Um, I really love you. A lot. You’re great. (58 and a half minutes to go) Um, help me be holy. I really want to do your will. Make me like you. (57 minutes to go)
Imagined continued platitudes and watch-checking for another 27 minutes, then various books and devotions and such to fill my hour. Meanwhile, Katherine knelt silently for an entire hour. I was so frustrated–I’m supposed to be good at prayer! I certainly practice it enough, right?
First of all, Meg, don’t be an idiot and quit comparing yourself to people. Remember when Peter did that?
Peter turned and saw the disciple following whom Jesus loved, the one who had also reclined upon his chest during the supper and had said, “Master, who is the one who will betray you?” When Peter saw him, he said to Jesus, “Lord, what about him?” Jesus said to him, “What if I want him to remain until I come? What concern is it of yours? You follow me.” (Jn 21:20-22)
Jesus basically says, “Peter, shut up and deal with your own issues.”
But I think the real issue is that I naturally look down on prayer that’s difficult. I think it’s not real prayer unless I feel something. Why? The Christian life is difficult. It’s even dull much of the time. Why would prayer be any different?
Here’s what I think: a lot of the time, prayer is boring because it’s supposed to be. If I went to prayer every day because I enjoyed it, it would have nothing to do with love of God. Yes, sometimes I enjoy prayer. More often, though, I go because it is good, because he is good, because I want to be good. St. Thérèse said that when we want to leave prayer 3 minutes early, we should stay 3 minutes longer. If I took her at her word, I’d probably have to double all my prayer. But the point remains that the prayer we do not desire has the most merit.
People are always telling me that they don’t pray (or go to Mass or read the Bible or whatever) because they don’t “get anything out of it.” But that’s exactly when you get the most out of it! You get discipline and selflessness and the satisfaction of offering yourself to God not because of what he does but because of who he is.
Look at it another way: I hate to run. I refuse to do it. ((Seriously, if you chased me with a knife, I wouldn’t run. If I’m going to die anyway (which I will–I couldn’t outrun someone in a coma), I at least want to die breathing.))
Running is awful because I’m so out of practice. If I ran every day, I’m sure eventually it would become bearable. ((That’s what they tell me, anyway. And the crazies even say that running becomes fun. That I do not believe.))
Prayer is similar. We were made to worship but the Fall has us terribly out of shape. We need to practice. And as we pray each day and gradually increase our time in prayer, we will learn to hunger for it and even to experience God, to “get something out of it,” if you will. It won’t matter which of the Teresian mansions we’re in or what approach to prayer we’re taking because it will have transcended all that. But I would hazard a guess that most days it will still be boring.
I do get saintly prayer occasionally and I cherish it. And I even manage to rejoice in the gross, snotty prayer. But it’s the boring prayer where I put my money where my mouth is, where I kneel before the crucifix and tell God I love him.
I stumbled across a brilliant blog post the other day with advice for teenage girls ranging from awkward-but-true (“maybe you should stop offering your own breasts up for the ogling”) to touching (“You are beautiful. You are valuable. You are enough.”). I nodded till my neck hurt and then offered my students presents for reading it. I gushed about it and raved about it and then I moved on. Because I am (allegedly) an adult and have learned these lessons.
Today in prayer, though, I was struck by this: “’Follow your heart’ is probably the worst advice ever. “
Amen! Your heart is stupid! Don’t look at me like that, you know this. Remember that guy (girl) with the spiked (long) hair who wore those amazing JNCO wideleg jeans (um…that shirt she looked all cute in)? Okay, so I was in high school in the 90s. Forgive me. But work with me here—that kid’s in jail. You were so in love and everything would have been so perfect if your parents/friends/less attractive significant other hadn’t gotten in the way. All you wanted was to follow your heart and be true to yourself but you were stuck following the advice of people who think with their thinking organs and not their blood-pumping organs. And where did that get you? Oh, yeah, prom pictures where nobody’s wearing an orange jumpsuit.
Despite the fact that anyone over the age of 12 knows this, though, following your heart is the only virtue left in American cinema. Josie Geller follows her heart to the pitcher’s mound in Never Been Kissed. Who cares if she outs an innocent man as a sexual predator along the way? She’s being true to herself! Or how about Cher from Clueless following her heart into the passionate embrace of…her stepbrother? And nobody has a problem with that?
You see, when we’re “true to ourselves” above all else, we’re generally stomping all over someone else. (Unless you’re so holy that you love others more than yourself. In that case, may I suggest starting a blog to teach the rest of us?) Our hearts may want to drown our sorrows, cheat on our taxes, and kick our children to the curb (figuratively, I’m sure). A well-ordered mind, or conscience, or, dare I say, soul, knows better.
Now, I’m not saying every decision you make should spring directly from an Excel spreadsheet (although that is how I chose my last home). I’m just saying that your heart isn’t an unfailing compass to happiness. Because your heart is broken. Maybe not broken in two, but somehow lost, confused, hurt, stony—broken. There’s something in you that isn’t as it should be. This is ultimately a result of the Fall, but more immediately caused by an absent father, a number on the scale, a demanding mother, a best friend who found someone better, a pink slip, a solo Valentine’s Day…. Your heart learns to long for things that will not fill it and runs from the One who will. You need meat and potatoes but your heart grasps at Snickers instead. And so following your heart without regard for consequences or kindness or truth, beauty, and goodness just leaves you clinging to the candy while you slowly starve to death.
So when I heard that line, I put a big check mark by it in my head and moved on. But today, I started to wonder. Doesn’t God write his plans in our hearts? Can’t I trust my heart to lead me in his paths?
It struck me that the Christian life is about letting God tear from your heart whatever is not of him, letting him break and remake you. As I suffer in obedience to him, he conforms my heart to his. The more I love and seek him, the more my heart leads me in his ways. The more I pray, the more my life is built on who I am in him, not who I am to others. When I sit before the tabernacle and ask God to show me his will, I usually just mean that I want him to validate my will. I grasp at the happiness he has for me without accepting the joy that he is for me. But when I seek to love and serve and be consumed by him, the hardness of my heart is transformed into flesh—into his flesh for the life of the world.
St Augustine said, “Love God and do what you will.” Not because the rest doesn’t matter but because your will is aligned with his when your life is about him. So maybe “follow your heart” isn’t the worst advice ever—if you’re really following God. Ten years ago, the most powerful desires of my heart were to get married and have babies—two things I no longer believe God’s calling me to. I don’t think the deep desires of my heart have changed, but I’ve started to recognize what my heart is truly longing for: to be loved as I am, to give myself away, and to nurture others. Gradually, I’ve learned to see what my heart truly desires and to listen to what God has written there.
I’m not there yet—of course I’m not. I’m starting to trust, though, that my will is an accurate reflection of God’s will when it comes to the big things. A friend asked me today how I know that God’s asking me to start this ministry. I explained that God reveals his will to me in many different ways (more on those soon) but in this situation I felt a deep desire to do something that doesn’t naturally sound appealing. I like to have plans and safety nets and instead I’m driving away from the people I love, leaving with no job, no home, and no plans to find either—and I’m thrilled! When my heart rejoices in something that isn’t natural to me, I start to listen for God’s voice in that.
My heart is still divided on pretty much every front and there are many areas where “following my heart” would be as much of a disaster as it was when I was 15. One day, maybe I’ll be so completely his that my heart is his heart. Until then, I’ll let prudence balance passion and trust the thoughts of those wiser than I. Pray for me!
Oh, and (because it was stuck in my head the whole time I was writing this) here you go:
