DROPPING THE BUCKET

Today is the last day of what has been a remarkable sabbatical year, and tomorrow I start my new job. I ritualized the transition in an odd way--by cleaning my room! As I dusted each picture and each item, I said a prayer of thanksgiving for family, friends, and life experiences they represented. Then I got out the office items that have followed me through my adult life phases: from career as biology teacher, through community leadership, into (very symbolical!) storage during the sabbatical year, and now into my new office in the Career Center at Brescia University.

I felt a golden glow of gratitude for what has been, and a twinge of anticipation for what will be. I'm READY for it, and eager to get settled in tomorrow. But my dream journal has been telling me that I have some anxiety about taking on this new venture--can I do it? Will I be successful? Face it, I'm a technophobe, and am nervous about having to learn database and spreadsheet computer programs for the other half of my job, as Grants Coordinator...

I took comfort from this morning's readings at Mass, which were full of reassurances that God will provide whatever we need (even mutiplying loaves and fishes if necessary). Then, in prayer later in the day, I randomly opened A Book of Wonders by Ed Hayes, and look what it said: "Trusting, I lower my empty bucket into You, the mystic bottomless well, filling it full of whatever I truly need to accomplish the task You have given me." Well, I guess I finally got the message!

NO BOOK NEEDED

On a recent trip to the Canadian Rockies, I didn't take a prayer book...didn't need one! In Celtic spirituality they talk of "thin places"--places where the spiritual world is closest or most accessible to our everyday one. Mountains are "thin places" for me; if Meister Eckhart is right when he says that "every creature is a word of God, or a book about God" then I can't even imagine how many volumes (how many whole libraries!) a mountain would represent.

I was doing a guided meditation once, when my director placed me on a mountaintop overlooking a lovely valley and a big city. I was directed to go down into the city and look for God. Mentally walking around the city, I began feeling guilty because I "knew" I was supposed to find God in the people I met, but that time at least, it was not happening the way I thought it was supposed to. I knew I was not going to "pass" this test!

Then I looked back over my shoulder, at the mountain, and realized that for me God had been there all along. God is wherever we are--but especially on a mountain!

Models of grandparenting

Do you hold special memories of your days spent with your grandparents? I was not fortunate enough to know my grandfathers or my materal grandmother. However, I have heard some wonderful stories, so the image of their gentleness and love are etched on my heart. I look forward to meeting them someday. Although grandmothers and granddads are a cherished treasure in our unfolding, each has their own specialness. My trips to spend the day with Grandmammy, my dad's mother, fell on Sunday afternoon as we packed into the car and travel about 45 mintues to her home. It was always peaceful and elegant, and the routine was so predictable. Gathering apples, climbing in the apple tree when no one was looking. The visit concluded the same every time. Just before we said our good-byes, Grandmammy would gather the kids and pass out cookies or candy or both. What a treat!

Now, I am sure Saints Anne and Joachum had a family routine of interacting with Jesus as well. I can imagine it was also very memorable. Definitely, they were people who loved and nurtured the Christ Child in their role as grandparents. Today as the Church remembers these special saints, I encourage you to call to mind your own formative years and the role your grandparents played in your life. What do you cherish as you recall their marks of love and unique touch that cemented your family together?

Let them grow together until harvest.--Matthew 13:30

"When the crop grew and bore fruit, the weeds appeared as well." Now being a farm girl I know that weeds are never welcome. They distract from the process of growth. They interfere with the plan. They can become destructive and overpower the fruit. Get them out before too much damage is caused.

However, upon reflecting upon my own weeds, I can see that they might serve a valuable purpose. I think the important thing is to do my own inner work and determine what is "wheat" and what is "weed". They can be confusing you know. Perhaps the uprooting is necessary but as Jesus declares in time, all will be harvested and the destructive weeds will be eliminated. In the meantime, can I learn something from my own weeds? It is possible that in yanking out the weed some wheat would be eliminated as well.

Obviously, Jesus is much better than I am at determining wheat from weeds. He alone knows what is inside my heart and is full of compassion and mercy rather than harsh judgment. Today's gospel causes me to reflect on what my weeds are teaching me. I have been about doing damage control these past few days because of a public statement I made that sounded judgmental and even unkind. After reflecting on what I said, I realized that I left out a very important sentence. My spirit was killed because of comments I heard during a presentation not because of the presenter or the content of the report but rather the uncharitable comments I heard around me as the report was being given. The wheat and weeds were confused. And I came across to some as judging, rude, unkind, unchristian. My heart knows what I meant and Jesus does too, and hopefully the harvest will be worth the pain of misunderstanding.

I ask for the grace to safeguard the gifts of wheat and to let go of the weeds in my own heart that I might contribute to a just and fruitful harvest.

life attracts life...

I heard this statement recently in a presentation on new membership for consecrated life. I have spent some time reflecting on that one statement. It seems to hold true for us as Ursuline Sisters of Mount Saint Joseph. There are many in relationship with us as individuals and as a community who are inspired by our efforts to live out our response to God's call. It may not be something that they can articulate. What is it that they experience with us that gives them energy, joy or peace? What makes this relationship different from their family or friends who nurture, affirm and support them. I believe it is that they find us grateful for life. Appreciative of life! They find us "life-giving"! Alive with passion and love! Clinging to Christ the vine who nurtures our own life and our relationship with Him. Life attracts life! I am grateful for the opportunity to examine my own choices. To take time to do the inner work to know that life truly attract life.

MY KIND OF SAINT

I spent my retreat last week with some very wise people, while reading a book (Becoming Who You Are) by Father James Martin, SJ. Given the fact that sanctity is God's goal for each of us, Thomas Merton's advice is good: "The problem of sanctity is finding out who I am, and discovering my True Self." And "we cannot become ourselves unless we know ourselves..."

The call to be your True Self is the call to be a saint (Who, ME? -- thinking of apostles and martyrs.) God would not call us to something impossible, like being Saint Michael the Archangel, for example. There's a picture of him in case you have not been introduced. I'm not even called to be a saint like Angela Merici or Ursula or Mother Teresa or Pope John XXIII, but like myself--my BEST self. We don't have to be someone else to be holy. We are led to our own brand of holiness by our desires, by what attracts us, by what we like.

Mother Teresa was talking to an idealistic young man who had come to Calcutta to be like her. She told him, "Find your own Calcutta!"

Nothing More Than Nothing

I came upon a story that I loved the first time I heard it and the significance and lesson it presents is still powerful. I regret that I cannot give credit to the author so if you know the author I would love to know. The story goes like this:

"Tell me the weight of a snowflake," a coal mouse asked a wild dove.
"Nothing more than nothing," was the answer.
"In that case I must tell you a marvelous story," the coal mouse said. "I sat on a branch of a fir, close to its trunk, when it began to snow--not heavily, not in a giant blizzard, no, just like in a dream, without any violence. Since I didn't have anything better to do, I counted the snow-flakes settling on the twigs and needles of my branceh. Their number was exactly 3,741,952. When the next snowflake dropped onto the branch---the branch broke off." Having said that, the coal mouse scurried away.
The dove, since Noah's time an authority on the matter, thought about the story for a while and finally said to herself: "Perhaps there is only one person's voice lacking for peace to come into the world."

One snowflake made all the difference. Do you want to make difference? Let your life speak.

What lesson do you glean from this story?

Known in PRESENCE and WORD

I came across this YouTube video from the National Religious Vocation Conference communication and was very inspired. It is a powerful reminder to me that God comes to us and really touches us through WORD and PRESENCE. Enjoy! I would love to hear what your reaction was when you viewed it.

For those not sure you can press play, sit back and be awed!

WWAD?

We've all heard the little mini-meditation, WWJD? "What would Jesus do?" Well, I (like most Ursuline Sisters) could paraphrase that a little and ask WWAD? "What would Angela do?"--in seeking to be true to the charism of our founder, Saint Angela Merici. While I was discerning a new ministry I spent a lot of time on that question, and decided that Angela would have urged me to let my natural likes and dislikes point me in a general direction, then see how it looked in light of our community charism...after all, the sisters in her early community did not share a common ministry--the important thing was how they WERE, not what they DID.

In the course of my job search I talked to Father Larry, the president of Brescia, our Ursuline-sponsored university in Owensboro...figuring that if Ursulines were still sponsoring it, Angela would approve of the work going on there. He and I talked about things I like doing: advising, research, writing, teaching, and working for the environment. To make a long story short, my new job at Brescia will involve all those things --and the environment piece I pursue in my free time too, as water tester, trainer / teacher of water test volunteers, and member of just about any local committee that involves water!

So beginning August 1, I will be serving the students at Brescia as Director of the Career Center (advising and teaching), Grants Coordinator (research and writing) and occasional on-line biology / environmental science teaching. How's that for having your cake and eating it, too? I continue to pray for all those seeking meaningful work, for those stuck in jobs they don't like, and for all those discerning transitions. Thank you for all your prayers for me as I navigated these waters since last fall!

CLOUDS OF WITNESSES

Many years ago, I read a mystery entitled "A Cloud of Witnesses." I don't even remember what it was about, but the title continued to intrigue me, even before I knew it was a Bible quotation from the book of Hebrews. Almost every day for the past few weeks, I've been helping to edit the "saints" stories for our new Ursuline Book of Prayer, and I think about that quotation every day.

Working on them all day, every day, some weeks, I feel like I have absorbed them--sort of like taking a long trip inside a small car with a smoker--one emerges completely "smoked," But that's not a good comparison, because this "soaking up saints" is a pleasant experience! I leave work with my head full of great stories. There are so many interesting saints besides the familiar ones, and when you read their real stories with all their interesting "peculiarities" left in (not edited out to make them sound "holier") they emerge as real people...slaves, queens, concentration camp victims...but real people.

I could have been depressed, comparing myself to all these heroic people, but that's not what saints are for--they are held up to us to show us that--no matter what the circumstances of our daily lives--childhood abuse, violence, addictions, selfishness, sin--there are people who have coped with these things (and worse) and used them to grow in holiness. As we said in the '60s, "Bloom Where You're Planted!"

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