be myself

This past weekend has been an eye opener for me. I have felt lost recently like I don’t know who I am anymore. I went to Emmaus for Mass Friday and on to coffee with my old group of friends. I was even blessed with a friend showing up from out of town who also joined us at coffee.

My usual pledge to myself during these events is that I will listen and answer or contribute if asked otherwise I try to keep my opinions out of the fray.
The greetings, introductions and obligatory spilled coffee all happened rather quickly and we settled right in to chat. When the conversation turned to food and health I stuck by my promise to myself. Until for the third time the woman on my right leaned across the table to tell another friend that if she just took some blah blah supplement her life would become wonderful and ordered again. Something in me snapped, I do not know what but I just stood up and said I’ve got to go. I went to the grocery store for some food I had promised to drop off for the weekend retreat at the Church; and by the grace of God wandered back into the coffee shop where my out of town friend sat waiting for me to return because “I was her ride” back over to her car.

How could I have been so selfish, everyone was just annoying me and I really wanted God to just fix this....

Sunday morning as I was reading a SLU commentary on the Sunday readings I suddenly realized I saw pieces of my life in these stories.
Larry Gillick S.J. shares that We pray with a new notion of a God of peace Whose constant labor is for our ongoing creation resulting in peaceful union.
We are bidden also to pray with our eagerness to celebrate the realities of Easter. There is the old Latin phrase, “Hasten, slowly.” We can pray with patience and to linger with these days of waking up to who God says we are in our Baptisms.
We may reflect as well on our need for a Savior, a Jesus to free us. We can pray as well for a deeper sense of the areas of our lives which are not quite living yet.
To pray with Patience? and linger with these days of Waking up to who God Says I am in my Baptism.

I can’t tell you much about the place my soul went upon reading this except it was weightless and tearful.

The story in Chronicles about the exile of the Jews to Babylon for 50 years... enough time for me and my grandchildren to forget who we are...how did they hang on to their identity or maybe it was God who hung on to who they were. Cyrus knew! When he released them he told them to go home...“Whoever, therefore, among you belongs to any part of his people, let him go up, and may his God be with him.”

Then I hear that [I am] his handiwork, created in Christ Jesus for the good works
that God has prepared in advance, that [I] should live in them. I should live knowing or willing to be in the good works Christ has prepared for me!

So a tune from Amy Grant runs through my head “God is in Control” and I realize for the 10 millionth time that “yes” he is.

Nicodemus met Jesus in the dark because he was afraid, maybe outwardly because the authorities who would likely have hurt him or his family. The commentary however links it to shame over sin, that Nicodemus was hiding in the dark from Jesus with all the worldly good reasons and Jesus the Son of God debunks it all.

I still do not know who I am, but I do know I can’t solve the worlds problems with fancy nutrition supplements albeit there are a few I cannot do without.

I don’t know how people hang on to who they are when they aren’t who they thought they were. You see I feel sometimes like I am trying to hang on to a previous self, too much maybe. I can’t give everything up and let everyone else's needs and schedule control my life. I still drive out to Emmaus even when it is a hassle to do it. I drive past St Thomas more and ask myself why????? don’t I just cut the strings. But the few times I have been at STM I don’t feel I am called to make that my home, not just yet anyway...

My life in the lake area is still rather rich my friends very true and very much a part of me. My life around my home is all about my family I hardly know anyone else up here. Maybe all I need to do is work on that.

What will God provide.