The best way to show my gratitude to God is
to accept everything, even my problems, with joy.
— Mother Teresa (1910-1997)

It is the time of year that we begin to shift in our “busy-ness” to thoughts of thankfulness and gratitude as November is the banner that has arrived on the top of the calendar. Thanksgiving brings joy and fun for many of us. Great meals, time spent with friends and family, Apple and Pumpkin pie. When we reflect on the Beauty and love of our lives, and recognize God’s loving presence in all these things it is so easy for our hearts to radiate gratitude. 

But life isn’t always sunshine and flowers. There can be difficult days as well. Have you ever had one of those days that everything just seems to go wrong? When you pour the milk on your cereal it shoots across the bowl and showers the tablecloth. The news paper has been rained on. The dog escapes out the door, as you run past your car parked along the curb on the way to the neighbor’s yard to capture the escaped canine, you discover that there is a parking citation on your windshield… funny thing, when the 31^st changes to the first of the month, you need to park on the same side of the street, two nights in a row. It’s barely dawn and you’ve made multiple messes and spent 40$ on a parking fine!

The aforementioned scenario, though it represents a series of unfortunate experiences that may be frustrating, does not begin to compare with some of the more severe difficulties that life confronts us with. Experiencing the Holidays with our spouse absent, going through the serious illness or loss of a child, trying to celebrate Christmas when you are unemployed and feel financially hopeless, facing a cancer diagnosis, or some other terminal disease, struggling with the darkness of clinical depression; these are far reaching situations where our sense of pain or heartbreak is sustained, or worse, feels as though it will suffocate us.

How do we have gratitude on our bad day… or joy when the difficult days have turned into months?  Mother Teresa provides us with wisdom that can give us courage in troubling circumstances, or hope in our sorrow, in order to find some joy in our Thanksgiving.  

The best way to show my gratitude to God is
to accept everything, even my problems, with joy.

Mother Teresa taught that what Christ brings us as Christians that the world desperately needs is Joy. According to the scripture and the catechism, Joy is a gift of the Holy Spirit. It is infused into us through God’s grace, it lifts us up enabling us to see beyond the pain and trial of here and now, allowing us to capture a glimpse of the happiness and beauty of what is yet to come. This saintly woman taught that in order for us to do this of course, we must raise our eyes above or beyond what we may be experiencing and look to Christ.

Mother Teresa taught that when we look to Christ, gazing upon him brings us joy. She taught her sisters in Calcutta and the priests that she ministered to there to look at Jesus. See in Him one who knows our every pain and sorrow. See in Him one who has suffered in every way.  Finally, see in Him the glory of resurrection and hope which will be ours when we are united with him for eternity. She gave specific focal points to consider that would help us see past trial or trauma. Choosing to visualize Christ, to see certain points in His life brings to our reality graces that will bring us hope and joy because with Him as our focus we discover that we are not alone.

Mother Teresa said that as we look at Christ in the manger, shows us that God is not outside of our experience. Looking to Christ, God Incarnate, is to see the one who knows what we feel. The Jesus we see in our crèche, reminds us that the human endeavor even in its challenges, has value. All of life’s experiences can have value, when surrendered to God, our Father. Even with its unavoidable trials or heart-aches, to be human is worthwhile.

As the God of the Universe, clothes himself in humanity to come and be one of us, he experienced for the first time loss, sorrow, loneliness and isolation. His experience of poverty, sorrow, or exhaustion, could not be felt in the joy and glory of His Fathers presence in heaven. Imagine! In order to relate to us more fully, he chose to become authentically human. He was willing to leave perfection in order to be with us, to share in the joys and the pain of our human experience.

When we look to Christ on the cross, we look at the highest point of the mystery of the incarnation. Christ lays His life, with His claim to power, glory and freedom down and He suffers. Not because he deserved it, not because he had no choice, but out of Love.  The prophet Isaiah (Chapter 53) describes what Mother Teresa says we will see when we gaze upon Jesus in his own hardship.

A man of suffering, knowing pain,

Like one from whom you turn your face,spurned,

and we held him in no esteem.

Yet it was our pain that he bore, our sufferings he endured.

We thought of him as stricken, struck down by God and afflicted,

But he was pierced for our sins, crushed for our iniquity.

He bore the punishment that makes us whole, by his wounds we were healed.

His Love for the Father’s Will regarding our salvation, caused him to choose pain and death. Christ was willing to face an angry crowd of judges who would condemn him, torture Him and rob him of his dignity and his very life, for love of us. To offer us eternal salvation, the payment for our sin, He was spurned and avoided by men. But the salvation is for today as well, for as we find ourselves surrounded by hopelessness or pain we discover that he too has been here, and is here. We are not alone.

Finally, She tells us to look at the hope that radiates in the beauty of Christ in His resurrection. His pierced hands out stretched to gather us into His arms, remind us that this pain while perhaps necessary, is not forever. This life gives way to a fuller, more beautiful life that lasts forever. We are on a journey, and though the way is difficult, it is only for a short time and as we look to Him, He will lead us through this dark, and bring us into the radiance of eternity with Him. All of our pain erased, our tears wiped away, our fears forgotten as we live in joy and hope with Him.

 

Turn your eyes upon Jesus,
Look full in His wonderful face,
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim,
In the light of His glory and grace.

If we focus on our circumstances, the pain or challenge of life makes gratitude difficult. We can’t accept our situation with Joy, when we think He is being unkind or unfair to us. If we imagine that the ease of others must mean that He must love them more leaves us resentful and sorrowful. So we look to Him as our Hope guiding us through and beyond the hard times as we love and trust Him to see us through. 

It is my hope that for most of us our days are more shaped by goodness and blessing, than difficulty and trial. That we find the blessings easy to count, and that Thanksgiving is happy because of all the good that makes up our lives. But in the moments where the circumstances may be more difficult, we will require grace in order to have gratitude.  If we are to accept everything, even our problems, with joy then with Mother Teresa, we need to look upon Jesus.
 

Will they ever learn?

Do you ever get tired of reminding your kids to make their beds, pick up their shoe, practice their piano, take their clothes out of the bathroom. This week a home-schooling Mom in our support group wrote to us asking for prayer, she was feeling a bit overwhelmed.

"...I am seriously wondering whether anything I teach my kids (and I'm not talking about the academic stuff) is getting through to them. There seems to be absolutely no sense of self-discipline at ages 9 and 10.  I feel like we are sinking in quicksand, and the more I try to get out the worse it gets..." Have you been there? I know I have.


My children are 12, 13, 14. I am a very extroverted Homeschooling Mom. I am a very active and high energy person. I am fairly self-disciplined person. and I can't tell you how many times I have asked myself whether or not anything I am trying to teach my children is sinking in at all. They squabble among themselves, and have to be reminded over and over to make their beds, pick up their clothes, keep their dressers tidied, take their things up the stairs, PUT THEIR DISHES IN THE DISHWASHER, only to name a few.

I want to share with you that first of all self disciplined middle school children are a rarity. Unless you are a mom who is borderline OCD with perfectly consistent correction and follow through, with your children, [or have that rare child who is a neat freak(also tending toward OCD], You are likely experiencing what most of us go through with our middle schoolers. They are dicey, pre-occupied, flighty and though can remember a thousand things in a video game... they routinely forget to do many of the simple tasks we are trying to train them into.

They are certainly old enough to do most anything and it does seem like they ought to put this together... but remember we are training them... Yes, training them... and my mother reminds me frequently that the key word train here is train and like the one you have to wait for on the day you are late, for most of us this is a very long and frustrating experiences. She explained that it is an experience that will make you look back and miss potty training because self discipline is a much longer and more complex process!

I don't know your lifestyle, but with ours this is complicated further because though we love the idea of simplicity... we own a lot of stuff, stuff complicates alot of things. At this point I am not prepared to turn our house into a mini-franciscan residence and get rid of it all (LOL), so this requires that I use added patience as we work on it. We also are very busy, so routines are tough to come by... this means I am somewhat inconsistent. This also adds to the challenge of habit training.

So what "Habit training" requires of us is a lot of patience. With me,in particular, this requires even more GRACE, because I get so frustrated, I frequently imagine that a good lecture will help them remember next time. [Note to self: they don't really! Further reflection causes me to suspect that I actually do it because the drama of the lecture and occasional shouting for emphasis gives me a bit of an adrenaline rush that feels like release... Pathetic, Huh? :) ]

So over the last 4, (Yes, count them-- 4 years) I have been able to see this in a different light. My children's sense of self discipline is primarily going to come out of their observation of my leading and modeling a self disciplined life. My mom encouraged us to have personal prayer time throughout my teen years... I have them today. She taught me to keep clothes off the floor, my clothes lived much of their lives on the floor of my closet until i got out of college, Today there are no women's clothing on the floor of my bedroom. She explained budgeting, tithing, saving and forced it on us all while we lived at home... I was crummy with my money until I had a house payment and husband... and this summer we burn the mortgage.

Self-discipline was not a major trait of mine through my youth or even in young adulthood. I’ve developed as I have slowed downand matured as a mature woman with purpose and intentionality. For the last 18 years I have finally been putting into practice the stuff my mom told me, showed me, and scolded me for. But I suggest that the greatest element, as important as her unfailing efforts, was the fact that I had seen self-discipline modeled before me day in and day out. She wasn’t perfect, but she did the best she could for 18 years. Interestingly, she would tell you that a lot of it she didn't even master herself until I had reached middle school, but I have little recollection of anything but order and intentionality.

Don't get discouraged. Keep at it every day. Celebrate the victories. Notice them when they do what you are looking for. Strive to find ways to turn negatives and failures into positives and a chance to learn. At least they tell me that it was they would like me to do! ? Right now, my kids are just starting to actually surprise me with three and four days in a row of actually remembering to do part of the above mentioned list. But it is never all 3 of them remembering 3 days in a row... so there is always someone to correct somewhere! For most children these routines and self discipline issues are long-term projects. I try to read idea books with "how to" ideas from time to time, just to give me new suggestions.

These are just a few thoughts that I hope will encourage you and remind you that you are not alone. Start each day  asking for grace wisdom and strength. Be gentle on yourself, kind but firm with your kids and let Divine Mercy flow right through the living room, let it wash over all the stuff that needs to be picked up or attended to. On days you don't succeed, apologize and get a fresh start tomorrow, and if you mess up as often as I do, the graces of frequent confession can strenghten your resolves to be gentle.

With prayer and patience we will succeed!

Robin's songs and Easter Reflections

Do the Robins know that their songs have consequences? As they waken in the morning, do they decide to day I must sing… to let the other robins know that I am here. Do they sing to warn others that “this grass and all of the worms below it are mine.” Or perhaps they choose to sing to appear more attractive. Perhaps they intend to sing “so let the other eligible robins know that I am available.”  Are the chirps really just  sort of a “personal ad”  in song? Or do they just ‘sing’, with no self awareness at all. The song is not sung as a message, but just because singing is “just a robin’s instinctive behavior.” Whatever the reason, I am so glad they do.

As a Milwaukee morning walker, you go through a real adjustment in the Spring. The cold, dark of March Morning walks, begin to warm with hints of pink and orange in the eastern sky. You hear the hopeful songs of a few committed robins daring to give an early performance of the endless concerts that May will bring. And you have a sense that the worst is behind you, and that you are of the brink of the warmth and hope of “Spring.” Of course this reverie is rudely interrupted by “Daylight Savings Time.” You wake up the second Monday of March. Immersed again in darkness, and you ask yourself if perhaps everything would be better if you started the day at 6 rather than 5. 

Since the clocks changed, back in the darkness for much of the walk, I listened to the few robins who sing their song even in the dark. I pondered on all that these birds observe and will be observing, each morning at daybreak. The sunrise will start earlier and earlier. The days will grow warmer and warmer. Spring will finally come!

 Listening to the chorus of robins during my reflections at dawn, my thoughts drifted to Easter, and the Holy land at this same time of year 2000+ years ago. Did you know, that during Springtime in Israel, thousands of birds will stop over, as they make their way back to Europe from Africa? As I observed the early morning sights and sounds, I wondered to myself what an opportunity it would have been to be a bird nesting in the garden outside Joseph of Arimathea’s mausoleum.  The amazing things the wildlife inhabiting that garden might have witnessed.

Imagine the quiet mourning, the reverential sorrow and love that Nicodemus, Joseph of Arimathea and the others would have displayed as they laid Christ’s lifeless body to rest in the new tomb. Perhaps the Blessed Mother was in their company as they delivered the corpus to the tomb, John offering her comfort and assistance until she was ready to leave and return with him to his home.  Soon after, there would have been the contrasting appearance of the Roman guard. 

 

Arriving upon the scene, this group would have presented a visage of violence and vulgarity. These men hardened by battle and crude way of life common to the thousands of Roman soldiers who committed to a 20 year life of war and work. In exchange for some land and a few other benefits these men lived far from the empire, building roads, conquering new lands. Keeping order by the edge of a sword and raising tribute for the emperor of an ever growing empire. They would have felt that they were wasting time guarding this gravesite against a few Galilean fisherman and some Jewish zealots, or they may have seen it as an excuse for a quiet, relaxing weekend.

Would the birds and small creatures living in the garden, have been frightened by tremors and resulting quake that accompanied the Resurrection Angel? St Matthew suggests that the Angel’s appearance was the cause of the earthquake. The burly Roman soldiers were so traumatized, they fainted in the chaos they experienced between the quake and the appearance of the glistening radiance of the Angel. These pagans were left stunned to the point of losing consciousness at the tumultuous arrival of the heavenly messenger.

 

The women who came to the tomb that morning for love of Christ, found this Angel in His radiance expecting them. Perhaps they may have found the radiance of his appearance frightening at first, but he reassured them, and allayed their fears. Giving the women the wonderful news that Jesus Christ had overcome the brutal death that they had witnessed, He directed them to go share with the disciples that Jesus’ tomb was empty, and that He was alive.  With their enthusiastic departure, morning calm might have returned to the garden.

I imagined the scenes that a nesting songbird might have observed from an overhead nest, looking down from the branches, as later Peter and John came to the tomb, to verify for themselves that the women hadn’t been mistaken. Their visit would have been followed, after some time, a visit from the living Christ, Himself.  Maybe the birds watched and listened, as Jesus’ words comforted Mary Magdalene when in her tears and grief His gentle voice told her that she could stop her weeping because he was alive.

Yes, the familiar robin’s songs were the background music for my reflections on the different scenes that contribute to the wonder and the reality of the resurrection.  Over the course of your lent were you able to take a few moments to ponder the wonders and mysteries of the resurrection? I know that many of us make time especially on Fridays to attend the Stations of the Cross. This tradition gives us such a great opportunity to meditate on the sacrifice our Lord has made for our salvation. But the Resurrection brings us a series of vignettes that will inspire our hearts as well. 

I hope that, as women we will find ourselves refreshed and filled with joy as we experience the Easter Season. Our lives are blessed with meaning purpose and hope because of the “Life” we find in Christ. He is our friend who never leaves… He cannot die… We will never find ourselves abandoned, In the garden of our hurts, disappointment or grief, He will come as he did to that garden where Mary Magdalene wept over the loss of her friend, her savior, her hope.  As we reflect this Easter on all of this, in the context of our own life that may include pain, loss, sorrow of our own, may we, like Mary find comfort and hope as the voice of Christ reassures us that He is here as he speaks our name.

Trackless Solitude IV

Hence all her paths are mystery.
presaging a divine unknown.
Her only light is in the creed
that she is not alone.

The soul that wanders, Spirit led,
becomes, in His transforming shade,
the secret that she was, in God
before the world was made.

The discovery of this “Waylessness of grace” has taken some getting used to. I have had to surrender myself to the truth of Isaiah 55:8  "For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways," declares the LORD.  Sometimes, as God reveals things to me, I am stunned by my own naivete. Why is it that I still imagine sometimes that I should be able to anticipate what is coming. While the Word of God directs and guides, it frequently is directing through moral principle, than dictating moment by moment particulars.

So often in the moment by moment experiences of my life, the sensible presence of the Holy Spirit has been absent. I feel nothing. It is not a matter of doubt, or fear, or contempt for the truth, I just don’t really “feel” anything. There is just an endless series of decisions, responsibilities, relationships, and obligations waiting to be executed in a sort of “nothingness.” And then unfortunately I have a tendency to get a little lazy spiritually and have a false sense of self sufficiency which I am ashamed to say can often lend itself to me becoming spiritually lazy and I walk in my flesh.

Sometimes I wander, imagining that I know exactly where I am going, and may be equally convinced that all of my activity is both from and for God. I am ashamed to say that this is a deception that I am particularly vulnerable to. This wandering is not “Spirit led” and it doesn’t lead to the miraculous transforming power of the Holy Spirit.  Instead I am just busy going a lot of places and when I get there I am frustrated, or exhausted and very frequently feeling lonely.

Jessica says as she closes this poem , The soul that wanders, Spirit led, becomes, in His transforming shade, the secret that she was, in God before the world was made. I believe this and it is my hope. I believe in his foreknowledge God’s desire and original design for  me was to be a woman of gentleness, meekness, integrity, love, humility, creativity, holiness, wisdom, mercy and above all full of His life-giving love. It was and still is God’s design for me.

I believe that as I yield to His Spirit, following where ever He leads, unrelenting and unafraid He really will transform me.  I know that following Him is arduous, but I am convinced it is worth every effort and sacrifice. I know my only lasting satisfaction can be found in Him. Sometimes I feel like I get distracted by every flower, butterfly and soda-pop can along the way, but it is the prayer of my heart that I will listen to His whisper and stay with Him in this “Trackless Solitude.”

Trackless Solitude III

Beneath the glistening foliage
the fruit of love hangs always near.
The one immortal fruit: He is

 or, tasted: He is here.

Love leads, and she surrenders to
His will. His waylessness of grace.
She speaks no words save his,
nor moves until he marks the place.

The Waylessness of Grace.  I invite you to pause here. Now reflect on that… The  waylessness of grace…  the first time I read the poem I didn’t even see the phrase, leastwise try to figure out what it meant. Probably I had read the poem 4 or 5 times before my “aha moment” came and its meaning penetrated my consciousness.  So intrigued, I was, about the thought and meaning of the  idea of “trackless solitude” that I didn’t even notice “waylessness of grace”.  Then one day, reading through the poem yet again,  those 3 words resonated with my heart.

There is no Bible verse that clarifies or defines the concept of the “waylessness of grace”. The more I reflected on it, I felt like this idea which had been only a spark burst into a flame! That made sense of something I had experienced but as yet remained dormant. I wanted confirmation, that what Jessica was putting into words, really was my experience so off I went to “google it”!

I did the web search only to discover that the only google references associated with these 3 words are  a whole bunch of links to the poem. Jessica may have actually coined this term itself, and to my knowledge never defined what she meant by it. In the absence of any actual definition of this concept, I have further reflected on it and today I share with you what it has become in my own life and understanding,

After we hear the call of the Spirit and we give our “yes” to Christ, we enter into this journey of discipleship. I thought I had a grasp of what that was, I will summarize in list form for you how I thought the “way of grace” should basically go in my understanding of discipleship.

1. Read your Bible and Pray every day. This is the basis of knowing Gods will.
2. Face the fact that this undertaking will not always be fun… It is a cross we are carrying here. 
3. Although this is a narrow path, don’t worry some really neat people will be there, because even though “few there are that find it” all of the elect should be right there on the path too… because we all know that there is only one way to heaven.  
4. Understand that some of what Christ requires may not make sense to you, but trust and obey anyway. 
5. Submit to your husband, because God says so, so you have to.  
6. Raise your children in the way they should go …. Nurture and admonition of the Lord, so you don’t totally mess them up.  
7. Quit Sinning!  Ok, you can’t totally quit, you are human… but make it your purpose to avoid sin, and you’re not allowed to keep your pet sins alive, because “You can’t help it”.  
8. Spend time in the church, encouraging others and being encouraged.  
9. Forgive jerks… friends too, but especially the jerks because we will be forgiven as we forgive.  
10. Pray for the rapture because getting out of here is our only hope.

I thought that basically, this is what Christ has called us to. I assumed that if you wake up in the morning, spend time in the Word and in prayer, it should all come together pretty much just fine. Then again, sometimes... maybe not so much!
 

Somehow living out of that list, although it is all true, so frequently does not seem to correlate with whether or not everything is going to "go the way that it seems like it should.” I wake up, pray and think that it probably ought to be "going a certain way", and it just doesn’t.  My kids are naughty, my husband acts weird, my friends disappoint me and what I am reading in the the Bible isn’t really saying anything that has to do with all the stuff that has to happen this week.

To me, this muddled mess, (that so often seems to be the state of my life), is the Waylessness of Grace.” I find myself in the midst of the craziness, frustrated, depressed, anxious, confused, or dare I admit it, just plain angry? My spirit cries out “NO WAY!” "This is not working." "I cannot do this, I will not survive this hurt or disappointment." "No Way!" My response isn't because I feel that God has denied me some nicely manicured primrose path. I never was under the impression that discipleship was characterized by a trip of ease where I skip along merrily.But from where I sit...I am in some cold, gloomy pathetic swamp, I'm ankle (or knee or neck deep, depending on the day) in mud I may never get out of. And even if I do, I'm guessing that I am still going to smell for days!!

How is this cold nasty bog discipleship. I look about me, utterly confused,because I was trying to do the right thing... and I am lost. I feel so clueless, where did I lose my way? I scan the horizon for a sign, some way that might seem familiar...I look for a sign, suspecting that I should be seeking a Palestinian footpath, somedusty Jerusalem road! Certain that when I find "the way of grace" it will includes crowds shouting “crucify him" on both sides, and I will be much better off… It's not so much that I imagine that I will “Like the way” but at least I’d recognize it well enough to know I was in the right spot! The certainty of it all would make it more comfortable.

There in my confusion, after I have quit my hysterical sobbing, or wiped my angry tears away, and quieted the incessant murmuring of my heart, when I look right into his eyes,  He meets my gaze and points to the spot.  Gently, He says, “Yes, right here Karina. Right here in this cold, ugly, spot is exactly where I want you today. Lean in to my grace. My grace is right here for you, and it is the way.  The way isn’t the path… the way is actually the grace itself.  My grace… Me… I am the Way.”

Trackless Solitude II

The Spirit lights the way for her;
bramble and bush are pushed apart.
He lures her into wilderness
but to rejoice her heart".

In my Spiritual life, I have been lured into the wilderness, by the Holy Spirit, and if I keep blogging it would probably make a good topic to write about some day. But, in continuing a record of my personal journey, I found myself in a desolate wilderness… but obedience to the Spirit of God wasn’t really how I had gotten there.

In 1993, as I found myself at the bottom of the chasm I had fallen down into, decimated by my own choices, and deluded thinking, desperate for a change, the Spirit whispered my name. I wasn’t sure where I was, I had no idea where I needed to go, but certain that I would do well not to return from where I had been; I turned in the direction of His whisper.  He said my name again, and limping and wounded, I followed him in the dark, never having really experienced Him in this way before, but certain of who He was, and willing to see where he was leading.

I think if I am honest, I would have to say I was not much familiar with the Holy Spirit then. And I would be cautious before making claims of some casual and routine intimacy with Him now. It is mystery, because at that time, on that walk He was Spirit, yet he was so close I felt that I could touch Him. There in the darkness so thick, His presence around me, but unable to see anything but his light leading me out of where I was into a different unknown.
 
He lured me into the wilderness all right, and it was the right place for me at the time.  I was healed there. Not a quick, one shot, miraculous “rise up and walk healing”. It was more of a survey the damage, triage approach. A lengthy assessment of which wound is worst, what needs to be re-broken, “Wow this is pretty bad” approach. He cleaned and dressed my wounds, the water of his love, and antiseptic of truth were accompanied by the soothing ointments of his mercy and grace. He cut away tissue that just wasn’t going to heal, and broke some bones that I had tried to set myself some years before. Pretty much… I couldn’t move.  So Jessica’s phrase “but to rejoice her heart,” well let’s just say, it wasn’t the first trip, and it took a while to get there.

For 4 months, I lived in a stark and barren wilderness. It was a quiet and slow rehab.  I had never really heard of such a thing happening before, I mean to real people in the 20th century.  I thought trips into the wilderness with God only happened to people in the Bible. (Granted, there were quite a few of them, Moses, Rehab, Naomi, David, Elijah, John the Baptist, Jesus, even Paul.)  I don’t know why I would have thought God didn’t do that anymore, but I guess I assumed that, while it was a literal event for them, it was merely to serve as a kind of a literary motif for us. You know, things God needed to have happen so that they could be written about for us in the Bible. But to my mind, that only happened to people in the “robe and scroll dispensation”, and I guess I figured that God didn’t really do that anymore.

Of course, I know now that he does. Short day trips, long weekends, extended periods. He’s even been known to lead me into wilderness and back, in less time than it would take to drink my morning coffee. But I never know when, or why, or for how long.  That was a very special period in my life, it changed me forever.  

Most of the time now, He keeps me on this side of the brambles and the bushes. So much of my time, led by the Spirit, is keeping to the familiar paths of my life, and that is not a bad thing. He can rejoice my heart in any setting, and heaven knows I need the Spirit for that, because I have a heart that is prone to murmur and criticize. Sometimes I feel like it may require more grace and His “anointing” to bring me a spirit of joy when I fold laundry, referee my children, or look at my living room, than it did when He took me into the quiet wilderness and into the closeness of His healing presence.

Trackless Solitude

Deep in the soul the acres lie
of virgin lands of sacred wood
where waits the Spirit.
Each soul bears this
trackless solitude.


The Voice invites, implores in vain
the fearful and the unaware;
but she who heeds and enters in
finds ultimate wisdom there.

How familiar are we with the depths of our soul? I know that I have only re-discovered my own over the last decade or so. I have finally grown secure enough to admit the exterior topography of my life that I had run roughshod over since I had entered high school, was only a part of who I was. Unbeknownst to me I had abandoned whole sectors of my personhood behind, my conscience, my feminine sensitivity, mystical spirituality, because in the social drama that became my life you couldn't attend to all of that and be "cool", successful and popular, at least not in the social circles I wanted to be part of.  The further I went from my interior self, the less I was able to hear the Spirit.

For years of my life, I lived only on the epidermis of who I was.  During my adolescence, I experienced a great deal of rejection, confusion and frustration in my relationships. I began to feel uncertain about who I could trust. People that I thought I could count on disappointed me, my peers were opportunistic and time and again betrayed or took advantage of my naivete. The disillusionment and anxiety that I experienced came to mar and scar the depths of my soul. In an effort to feel better, I abandoned the locale of my deepest hurts. I moved outward to engineer new stronger exterior life where I believed that I would be safer and felt less vulnerable.

  When I was a young adult, I changed environments and structured a world where I was popular and comfortable. I built on the foundations of the faith that I had grown up with:  I studied Scripture, was fully engaged in the activity of my local church, and made time with fellow believers a priority. At the same time though,  I resented its fundamentalist tenets. I felt that life was codified with rules that made unrealistic demands of me and placed limitations on my lifestyle that were "extra-biblical" at best. I chafed at the rules, certain that my baptist"individual soul liberty" entitled me to define my own understanding of how to live my faith. Soon, the surface of my life was also as marred and scarred as the interior life of my youth. This time, however it was not due to circumstances associated with childhood. Now, my by my own inconsistencies, I was actively harming myself, and I adamantly denied how deeply entrenched I was in hypocrisy and pride. Sadly, I was unaware that under the guise of living a libertarian approach to a "good enough Christian life" I was being decimating my spiritual,physical and emotional well-being. In my freedom I lived  deluded by mismanaged relationships, materialism, lust and avoidance of the truth about myself: that I had developed a spirituality based on a false confidence in biblical knowledge and unfortunately,an unfounded self-reliance.  

It took me years before I was able to hear the Spirit calling my name. I assumed that I ought to be able to hear him, because I had been to all of the places that I imagined he was.  I had never quit going to church, never stopped studying the Bible and the people I spent the greatest amount of time with were Christians. His voice may also have been drowned out by a cacophony of 'good things," I suppose. Add to it the clatter of the busy-ness of my life in the foreground, joined by intermittent thunder in the background which accompanied the storm of my hypocrisy,and frequent poor choices. You can add to all of that the painful sound of incredible feedback whenever I would slip into meaningless physical relationships that had become a recurring pattern that I seemed unable to avoid. There was not much chance that I would hear anyone's voice over all of the noise.

As unbelievable as it may sound, I was unaware of just how far away from my own soul and His Spirit I had wandered. I really had convinced myself that I was going to be fine. I imagined that amidst the clamor, if He called, I would hear Him. I didn't want to go to Him, I thought it would all be fine, right where I was, but I couldn't have been more wrong. My personal life would crescendo chaotically and end in a deafening silence when I betrayed a man of integrity, and grace who loved me. In the finale,I found myself falling through an unnoticed fissure in the outer crust of my life. It was a long, hard fall inward.


It was then, desperate, ashamed and alone, in the depths of despair face to face with what little was left of my shredded soul, that I heard in the dark silence, the Spirit's voice whisper my name.