Family Portrait - Pink

Why Not? - Shania Twain

Shania Twain, an international county star, freely admits her brokenness. I can't help but admire her for that. Her brokenness comes from: poverty, domestic violence, death of her parents and brother, workaholism, betrayal, divorce and insecurities. While Shania never mentions God in her healing process, her story is still one of hope. Anyone who has had the rug pulled out from under them will be able to relate to her story.

Her story is about learning how to deal with the struggles in life and overcoming fear.

I love her themes, "Why Not" and "From This Moment".  I think she is a great secular example of what kind of attitude is needed to best use the moments allotted to us.

Anyone who knows me knows how much I admire St. Faustina's understanding of "the moment".   St. Faustina tried to use every moment to better her relationship with God. I think that this is the highest use of each moment.

Even if you disagree, for good or for bad, each "moment" is an individual choice. What are you choosing? What will you choose? Remember, even not choosing, is a choice.

(Note there are somethings in these videos that I do not support such as immodesty (Shania's career years), the dissolubility of marriage, and some of the spiritual practices they participate in.)

PRIDE vs HUMILITY - Day 6

Is it okay to be... brokeN?
   unsuccessful?  hurt?  sick?  rejected? stupid?  poor?  ugly?  afraid?

Is it okay to not be perfect?  Is it okay to be...what I am... ME?

Hello.  Nice to meet you.  I am broken!!!  Yes, I am broken.  I hurt.  I am afraid.  I regret.  I am not all that I want to be.

I have admitted what I am.  I have even said it out loud.

I couldn't say this out loud for a long time.  It is hard to say that word in application to myself... broken... but, I am... broken...

In many ways and many things, I have failed.  I don't have it all together and I don't like recognizing that.  I am proud.  And if I am going to talk about humility, I must also live it. I must honestly recognize myself for who I am.

I have realized over time that I sometimes am more afraid that people will see that I am struggling than of my actual problem.

What will people say if they knew...

Will they think I am incapable? useless? emotional? undisciplined? hypocritical? What will THEY think?

WHAT will they think?!????

Well, once I truly understood in my head that nothing I could do, would give me the power to control what THEY - the crowd of random persons, who aren't exactly main players in my life - think, it was easier to let go of this oppression.

Then, it's easier to let go of WHAT will they think?!????  This time the "they" are the people closest to me.

Also, openly recognizing that I am broken, I felt I could finally breathe.  Yes, I am broken, but so what? Aren't we all? We all are struggling with something. We are all hiding something. The longer we hide behind that mask, of  "nothing is wrong with me", then the longer it will take before we can heal.

There is nothing wrong with having something wrong with ourselves.  However, it is wrong to stay in the place where we think, or act as if there is nothing wrong with us.  Life is about fixing all those wrongs.  It is a test.  It is a challenge.  What will we do with this problem?  How will we turn it into the greatest good possible?

Prayer of Thomas Merton

My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me, nor do I know myself. And the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so.

But I do believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this, You will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore, I will trust you always.

Though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death, I will not fear, for You are ever with me and You will never leave me to face my struggles alone.

-     Thomas Merton, OCSCO (1915-1968)

The Story of the Tea Cup

There was a couple who went to England to shop in a beautiful antique store. They both liked antiques and pottery, and especially tea cups. On a trip to celebrate their 25th wedding anniversary, they found an exceptional cup. They asked "May we see that cup? We've never seen a tea cup quite so beautiful."

As the lady handed it to them, suddenly the tea cup spoke, "You don't understand." the cup said, "I have not always been a tea cup. There was a time when I was just a lump of red clay. My master took me and rolled me, pounded and patted me over and over, and I yelled out, 'Don't do that. I don't like it! Let me alone.' But the potter only smiled, and gently said, "Not yet!!"

Then, WHAM! I was placed on a spinning wheel and suddenly I was spun around and around and around. "Stop it! I'm getting so dizzy! I'm going to be sick!" I screamed. But the master only nodded and said, quietly, "Not yet." He spun me and poked and prodded and bent me out of shape to suit himself and then...Then he put me in the oven. I never felt such heat. I yelled and knocked and pounded at the door. "Help! Get me out of here!" I could see him through the opening and I could read his lips as he shook his head from side to side, "Not yet." When I thought I couldn't bear it another minute, the door opened. He carefully took me out and put me on the shelf, and I began to cool. Oh, that felt so good! Ah, this is much better, I thought. But, after I cooled, he picked me up and he brushed and painted me all over. The fumes were horrible. I thought I would gag. "Oh, please, Stop it, Stop it!!" I cried. He only shook his head and said. "Not yet!"

Then suddenly he put me back in to the oven. Only it was not like the first one. This was twice as hot and I just knew I would suffocate. I begged. I pleaded. I screamed. I cried. I was convinced I would never make it. I was ready to give up. Just then the door opened and he took me out and again placed me on the shelf, where I cooled and waited... and waited, wondering what he is going to do to me next? An hour later he handed me a mirror and said, "Look at yourself," and I did. I said, "That's not me. That couldn't be me. It's beautiful... I'm beautiful!"

Quietly he spoke: "I want you to remember this," he said, "I know it hurt to be rolled and patted, but had I left you alone, you'd have dried up. I know it made you dizzy to spin around on the wheel, but if I had stopped, you would have crumbled. I know it hurt and it was hot and disagreeable in the oven, but if I hadn't put you there, you would have cracked. I know the fumes were bad when I brushed and painted you all over, but if I hadn't done that, you never would have hardened. You would not have had any color in your life. If I hadn't put you back in that second oven, you wouldn't have survived for long because the hardness would not have held. Now you are a finished product. Now you are what I had in mind when I first began with you."

The moral of this story is this: God knows what He's doing in each of us. He is the potter, and we are his clay. He will mold us and make us, and expose us to just enough pressures of just the right kinds that we may be made into a flawless piece of work to fulfill His good, pleasing and perfect will.

So when life seems hard, and you are being pounded and patted and pushed almost beyond endurance; when your world seems to be spinning out of control; when you feel like you are in a fiery furnace of trials; when life seems to "stink", try this...Brew a cup of your favorite tea in your prettiest tea cup, sit down and think on this story and then... Have a little talk with the Potter.


Story from: http://www.lightyourfire.com/unanswered_prayers.htm

When Time Touches Eternity

As you may have noticed, my subtitle for this blog is: "A blog focusing on living a virtuous life, NOT TOMORROW, but in THIS moment."

Currently, I am all about living in the present moment. I didn't always used to be this way.  When I was a teenager and also when I was in college, I mostly thought about the future. "What do I want? What is in store for me? How can I get there?" After college when life became more challenging, I mostly thought about the past. "I wish I can live in it again... or did I make the right choices?" 

Now I see that resting in both ways of thinking are futile. How true are St. Faustina's words!

Only the present moment is precious to me,

As the future can never enter my soul at all.

It is no longer in my power,

To change, correct or add to the past; 

For neither sages nor prophets could do that,

 And so, what the past has embraced I must entrust to God.

O present moment, you belong to me, whole and entire.

I desire to use you the best I can.

- Divine Mercy in My Soul, Notebook I #2

 
As much as I wish I could go into the past and either change my actions or live in it still, I am wasting my moments in the NOW on it. Since the past can't be changed no matter how hard I think on it, I am wasting time and causing anxiety in myself.

It is good to be prepared for the future, but it is futile to place my hope in it.  It is good to have dreams and goals, but as most successful people say, the dream comes true through the work of today. I think similar advice is true for the goal of Union with God.  C.S. Lewis illustrates this beautifully in his Screwtape Letters. (This book is a satire about tempting humans away from God.) Here is an excerpt from a letter from one demon to another:

CHAPTER 15:

"My dear Wormwood, 

        ...The humans live in a time but our Enemy destines them to eternity.  He therefore, I believe, wants them to attend chiefly to two things, to eternity itself, and to the point of time which they call the Present. For the Present is the point at which time touches eternity. Of the Present moment, and of it only, humans have an experience which our Enemy has of reality as a whole; in it alone freedom and actuality are offered them. He would rather have them continually concerned either with eternity (which means being concerned with Him) or with the Present --either meditating on their eternal union with, or separation from, Himself, or else obeying the present voice of conscience, bearing the present cross, receiving the present grace, giving thanks for the present pleasure. 
      Our business is to get them away from the eternal, and from the Present. With this in view, we sometimes tempt a human (say a widow or a scholar) to live in the Past. But this is of limited value, for they have some real knowledge of the past and it has a determinate nature and, to that extent, resembles eternity. It is far better to make them live in the Future. Biological necessity makes all their passions point in that direction already, so the thought about the Future inflames hope and fear. Also, it is unknown to them, so it makes them think of unrealities. In a word, the Future is, of all things, the least like eternity. It is the most completely temporal part of time - for the Past is frozen and no longer flows, and the Present is lit up with eternal rays... Gratitude looks to the past and love to the present; fear, avarice, lust and ambition look ahead...
      To be sure, the Enemy wants men to think of the Future too - just as much as is necessary for now planning the acts of justice or charity which will probably be their duty tomorrow. The duty of planning the morrow's work is today's duty; though its material is borrowed from the future, the duty, like all duties, is in the Present...
      We want a whole race perpetually in the pursuit of the rainbow's end, never honest, nor kind, nor happy now, but always using as mere fuel wherewith to heap the altar of the future ever real gift which is offered to them in the Present...

Your affectionate uncle,
Screwtape" 

Also, remember that God's name is "I AM",  not "I was" or "I will be".