Waiting on the Lord....

As many of you know, I had my hip replaced and am still rehabbing that. I'm continue to search for productive work in the my field of Catholic theology, be it writing, teaching, speaking or interesting forays into media. The question of what to do fulltime with my time is ever before me, and yet I'm not overwhelmed by it.

Writing continues to seem like a natural fit for my lifestyle, temperament, and family obligations. I have a few pots on the stove of ideas, and I'm stirring them up.

In the meantime, I find comfort in waiting on the Lord, as evidenced in these scriptures.

Hebrews: 10: 35-39:
Therefore do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. For you have need of endurance, so that you may do the will of God and receive what is promised. "For yet a little while,and the coming one shall come and shall not tarry;but my righteous one shall live by faith,and if he shrinks back,my soul has no pleasure in him." But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and keep their souls.

Habakkuk 2: 3-4:
For still the vision awaits its time;it hastens to the end -- it will not lie.If it seem slow, wait for it;it will surely come, it will not delay. Behold, he whose soul is not upright in him shall fail,but the righteous shall live by his faith.

Psalm 27:14:
Wait for the LORD;be strong, and let your heart take courage; yea, wait for the LORD!

Let us pray for one another, that we do all that He sets before us.

Writer's Wednesday - M. Eugene Boylan

All that is necessary for any Christian in order to seek the summits of divine love, is to live in faith, hope, charity, humility, and willing abandonment to God's will. The teaching of the popes, the tradition of the whole Church, as we saw, all proclaim that all God seeks is our love. He does not ask for miracles, for great achievements, for extraordinary success, for outstanding personal development. The only thing He asks is so extraordinary--for it is a love entirely beyond our powers--that we must rely upon Him to give it to us Himself; hence no need despair of achieving it.

...all that is needed is that we make the ordinary things of our ordinary life one long act of love of God by purity of intention and fraternal charity.

--M. Eugene Boylan, This Tremendous Lover, www.Christian-Classics.com.

Writer's Wednesday - Ludwig van Beethoven

I carry my thoughts about with me for a long time... before writing them down... once I have grasped a theme. I shall not forget it even years later. I change many things, discard others, and try again and again until I am satisfied; then, in my head... [the work] rises, it grows, I hear and see the image in front of me from every angle... and only the labor of writing it down remains... I turn my ideas into tones that resound, roar, and rage until at last they stand before me in the form of notes.

---Ludwig van Beethoven, composer

from Notations -- Quotations on Music.

Edited by Sallye Leventhal, Barnes and Noble Books, 2003.

The Presidential Election: To Choose according to Conscience

We'll be voting for President in November. Why not take 3 minutes and watch this video from CatholicVote.com as it addresses the concept of voting your conscience.

Then, take 3 minutes to understand just what that means by reading what the Catholic Church teaches about forming your conscience, listed below:

From the Catechism of the Catholic Church

THE FORMATION OF CONSCIENCE

1783 Conscience must be informed and moral judgment enlightened. A well-formed conscience is upright and truthful. It formulates its judgments according to reason, in conformity with the true good willed by the wisdom of the Creator. The education of conscience is indispensable for human beings who are subjected to negative influences and tempted by sin to prefer their own judgment and to reject authoritative teachings.

1784 The education of the conscience is a lifelong task. From the earliest years, it awakens the child to the knowledge and practice of the interior law recognized by conscience. Prudent education teaches virtue; it prevents or cures fear, selfishness and pride, resentment arising from guilt, and feelings of complacency, born of human weakness and faults. The education of the conscience guarantees freedom and engenders peace of heart.

1785 In the formation of conscience the Word of God is the light for our path,54 we must assimilate it in faith and prayer and put it into practice. We must also examine our conscience before the Lord's Cross. We are assisted by the gifts of the Holy Spirit, aided by the witness or advice of others and guided by the authoritative teaching of the Church.55

TO CHOOSE IN ACCORD WITH CONSCIENCE

1786 Faced with a moral choice, conscience can make either a right judgment in accordance with reason and the divine law or, on the contrary, an erroneous judgment that departs from them.

1787 Man is sometimes confronted by situations that make moral judgments less assured and decision difficult. But he must always seriously seek what is right and good and discern the will of God expressed in divine law.

1788 To this purpose, man strives to interpret the data of experience and the signs of the times assisted by the virtue of prudence, by the advice of competent people, and by the help of the Holy Spirit and his gifts.

1789 Some rules apply in every case:

- One may never do evil so that good may result from it;

- the Golden Rule: "Whatever you wish that men would do to you, do so to them."⁵⁶

- charity always proceeds by way of respect for one's neighbor and his conscience: "Thus sinning against your brethren and wounding their conscience . . . you sin against Christ."⁵⁷ Therefore "it is right not to . . . do anything that makes your brother stumble."⁵⁸

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We will never forget!

You will prepare the world for My final coming.

(Diary 429)

Speak to the world about My mercy ... It is a sign for the end times.

After it will come the Day of Justice.

While there is still time, let them have recourse to the fountain of My mercy.

(Diary 848)

Tell souls about this great mercy of Mine, because the awful day, the day of My justice, is near. (Diary 965)

I am prolonging the time of mercy for the sake of sinners.

But woe to them if they do not recognize this time of My visitation.

(Diary 1160)

Before the Day of Justice, I am sending the Day of Mercy.

(Diary 1588)

He who refuses to pass through the door of My mercy must pass through the door of My justice. (Diary 1146).

All quotes from:

Diary, Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska, Divine Mercy in My Soul

(c) 1987 Congregation of Marians of the Immaculate Conception,

Stockbridge, MA 01263.

Photo credit: Magnum.

Writer's Wednesday -- Madeleine L'Engle

Jesus told his friends and disciples over and over again that not only were they to let the little children come to him but that they were to be like little children themselves. When we are like little children, with the openess the child had up until the age for school, then we retain our ability to be creators, our willingness to be open, to believe.

I need not belabour the point that to retain our childlike openess does not mean to be childish. Only the most mature of us are able to be childlike. And to be able to be childlike involves memory; we must never forget any part of ourselves. As of this writing I am sixty-one years old in chronology. But I am not an isolated, chronological statistic. I am sixty-one, and I am also four, and twelve, and fifteen, and twenty-three, and thirty-one, and forty-five, and... and... and...

If we lose any part of ourselves, we are thereby diminished. If I cannot be thirteen and sixty-one simultaneously, part of me has been taken away...

The marvellous thing is that in the writing of fiction we can, indeed, be eighteen again, and retain all that has happened to us in our slow growing up. For growing up never ends; we never get there. I am still in the process of growing up, but I will make no progress if I lose any of myself on the way...

Creativity opens us to revelation... to see angels, to walk on water, to talk with unicorns. In the act of creativity, the artist lets go the self-control which he normally clings to and is open to riding the wind. Something almost always happens to startle us during the act of creating, but not unless we let go of our intellectual control and become open as little children. This means not to set aside or discard the intellect but to understand that it is not to become a dictator, for when it does we are closed off from revelation.

----Madeleine L'Engle, Walking on Water, Reflections on Faith and Art, 2001.

Photo credit.

'Nuff said, take two.

A New England native, Tom McLaughlin, gets right to it in discussing why Sarah's Palin's Christianity is in the media's crosshairs.



Let us pray for her and her family.

The blessing counter -- or keeping my tank full

Every now and then I stop and make a list of my blessings... it is the sure cure for crabbiness and shortsightedness in my life.

At the moment I am thinking that if I could count my blessings as fast as the counter spun around at the fuel pump these days, I'd be on the way to keeping my spiritual tank full every day! Here is my stream of consciousness list of gratitude producers... in random order as they occur to me...

1. Hubby comes home tonight from a business trip.

2. Daughter is making a good transition into the first full week of "college" coursework.

3. This is my first September in the last five that I do not have to return to school myself--I graduated with my Masters this past May.

4. I am shopping for a new computer.

5. I found the money for the new computer in a serendipitous way--squirreled away in an old savings account!

6. I am enjoying a tasty beverage, (to quote David Letterman.)

7. My house is quiet and all is well.

8. The night is calm.

9. I am working on a few new writing projects.

10. I am reading two good books on the craft of writing.

11. I am listening to a Bible Study as I commute to/from school each day with my son.

12. The GOP has found its conservative voice in VP-nominee Sarah Palin.

13. There are clean clothes drying in the dryer.

14. There is fresh food in the frig.

15. The dog's diarrhea cleared up.

16. We have plans to visit with friends this weekend.

17. There are roses in the vase in my room.

18. There is fresh paint in my bathroom.

19. I went to adoration today.

2o. There is an adoration chapel open 7 days a week at my church.

21. I found a local church near my son's school that has Mass at 8am, right after I drop him off!

22. I went to out to dinner last night.

23. I only had to bake a pizza for dinner tonight--it was supper for two.

24. There are M&Ms in a bowl on the counter.

25. I have a haircut appointment scheduled.

26. I finished my resume and I'm shopping it around.

27. I am in the "happy hormone" part of my cycle.

30. This past week I reached 12 years cancer-free.

31. This coming week I reach 10 weeks post-op for my hip replacement.

32. I am walking without a cane.

33. I no longer live on pain medications.

34. My physical therapy is hard, but needed.

35. I am going back to Weight Watchers. (pray for me.)

36. I am finding my back-to-school groove/schedule/rhythm.

37. I am missing my daughter (refer to #2), but learning to let go. It helps that she is so happy and well adjusted.

38. A TV program made me smile.

39. The hurricane coming up north here has been downgraded to tropical storm.

40. My insurance agent showed me how to lower our premiums significantly.

41. The parish has a picnic coming up.

42. The new season starts soon for our music ministry.

43. Haagen Daz chocolate.

44. My coffee pot has a "delay" so I can fill it tonight and wake to a fresh pot in the morning.

45. and there is half-n-half in the frig.

46. I did something today that helped clear the air of something I was feeling guilty about.

47. I did not lose my glasses as I had thought.

48. I can pray.

49. I can laugh.

50. I can sing.

[Photo credit.]

'Nuff said

(We interupt this blog for this public service announcement....)


In case you didn't hear or read Sarah Palin's acceptance speech for the Republican nomination for Vice President, go here.


[Photo credit.]

Writer's Wednesday -- Julia Cameron

Creativity is an experience--to my eye, a spiritual experience. It does not matter which way you you think of it: creativity leading to spirituality or spirtuality leading to creativity. In fact, I do not make a distinction between the two...

The following spiritual principles are the bedrock on which creative recovery and discovery can be built.

1. Creativity is the natural order of life. Life is energy: pure creative energy.

2. There is an underlying, in-dwelling creative force infusing all of life--including ourselves.

3. When we open ourselves to our creativity, we open ourselves to the creator's creativity within us and our lives.

4. We are, ourselves, creations. And we, in turn, are meant to continue creativity by being creative ourselves.

5. Creativity is God's gift to us. Using our creativity is our gift back to God.

6. The refusal to be creative is self-will and is counter to our true nature.

7. When we open ourselves to exploring our creativity, we open ourselves to God: good orderly direction.

8. As we open our creative channel to the creator, many gentle but powerful changes are to be expected.

9. It is safe to open ourselves up to greater and greater creativity.

10 Our creative dreams and yearnings come from a divine source. As we move toward our dreams, we move toward... divinity.

----Julie Cameron, The Artist's Way.

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