THE PRIME OF YOUR LIFE,...contd.

                           makeshift studio/garage

A few years back I became fascinated with Japanese prints.  I could relate to how the French impressionists felt when they fell in lovewith the lyrical perfection of these sublime prints.  I collected every book I could and have a wonderful collection. This collection inspired a series of large mixed media paintings.The first of this series which is pictured above is made of three panels, which was my first attempt at large mixed media work.To educate myself, I practiced on several small squares of masonite for  hours and hours, experimenting on overlays of glazes and textures.  I started by coating the surface with a prime that I colored with some raw umber, then added whatever gritty powders I had, such as sand and crushed pumice, etc. to add some texture.I textured it very unevenly as  I spread the thickened prime on with a roller,brush, or palette knife, encouraging random nooks and crannies to form.  These variations in texture would suggest an image, usually a woman's face, intertwined with something from the garden.  As in life, it is what lies beneath, the seemingly randomness of our origins and circumstancs, that which we have no control over,  that present us with  the prime for our lives.It's these nooks and the crannies, Providence's grist for the mill,  that richly flawed prime, which becomes  our opportunity to create the emerging beauty of our lives. The Creator, with our cooperaton, turns the gritty surface into the     complicated textures that give our lives real depth.  Without our cooperation, the image never emerges, and without Him, there is no real depth and life is shallow..and in the end, worthless.

WHATEVER..IS BEAUTIFUL

                                           

             Longing     mixed media 48"x68"
                                                 


A while back, in a post entitled, How Is Your Soul Balance?, I wrote about an exercise I did in a counseling session that revealed to me exactly how out of balance my life had become.  One of the areas I am working on is to restore the creative flow in my life, in my soul.


Since that exercise, having committed to giving my creativity a greater priority in my life, I am in the process of getting a website together to market my work.  Although I have continued doing pastel portraits on consignment, I have neglected my more inspired painting for several years. I am gearing up to start again.  


I am revisiting a few paintings I had completed in the past and in doing so, I hope to carve a path within myself and a place in my home (my mother is still living peacefully in my studio) to start working consistently again.


The above painting is one of a series that helped me get through some very difficult times. Focusing on color, line, texture, and wonderful paint, and the stuff of painting and design, really saved me by giving a worrier like me, a focus on whatever is pure, beautiful, true, and admirable...


Stay tuned!

more on THE FOOLISHNESS OF GOD ...

 

                               is wiser that the wisdom of men 

O my God!

You have given me a word, the word is arrogance, the barrier to what it is really all about for us humans, why we are here, why our ancestors were expelled from the garden. Our goal is humility..and has been our goal and will continue to be until the end of time:  building humility - the only ticket to heaven.

As I see it today:  We were in the garden with You.  We were tempted by arrogance and we bailed on who we really are: creatures, not You.  We were duped into thinking we could be Creator too. An impossible task for a creature.

You intervened out of love for us because You really wanted our company, but could not be one with us without..humility, our living knowledge of who we are..You sent us to Ground Zero..to start over.

We are all in some kind of recovery..recovery from pride and arrogance.  The Greeks called it hubris. We are hummus, of the earth, or the dirt, in a good way.  We have no call to hubris. It is our lie, our downfall.

Pride is the major stumbling block to the spiritual life or oddly enough, to the human life.  We are spiritual beings learning to be human, and through being humans.  There was no better way or our loving Creator would have thought of it.  We are stuck in the muck of wonderful flesh, dying flesh. We have only this one chance to get back in the garden.

With our limited spirtuality, we cannot do it because only God is wholly  or perfectly Spirit and only the completely spiritual (another word for perfect/mature love) can survive Paradise.  Entering Paradise is not entering a place, but entering a Person, or a Family, FatherSonSpirit. 

The ticket, just the ticket, is a loss of arrogance, a humility, a knowing the truth about who we really are: creatures made for maturing love. Without this love need met in ourselves and others, we cannot even start the trek. With that ticket of humility, however it comes into each ones life, however stringent the course, however long it takes, we can have hope of entering the path of peace, or rather, the Persons of Peace.

Getting us this ticket cost Christ his human life, just as it costs us ours.   It is unthinkable really, even as much as we meditate on the Cross, to come close to knowing what that kind of humility and full acceptance of His mission was like. 


Humility is not natural to us, because we inherited the lie (original sin) Compared to His Cross, our cost at times seem small, such as holding back a sarcastic comment when we know we are right.  However we are each given a cost, a mission, a cross that fits us.  The trick is to accept it, however ordinary or challenging.  I recall a story about a woman who was so angry that she had to die through cancer because it was more within her vision of herself to die like a real Christian, by saintly martyrdom.

I have trouble at every turn accepting my mission.  I pretend often, or allow myself to be deluded about what it so obviously is. Often I don't want to even consider accepting it. I want to distract myself constantly, with food, with the internet, with research, thinking, figuring it out, shopping, you know. Even prayer at times, is a distraction or a way to control the circumstances that make me uncomfortably stuck..and human. 

Being human is being in a humbled state. We are being humbled from thinking we are God, that we know all, or at least can find out. After all, we have Google now.  Until recently, many of us could seem to buy it all, knowledge, pleasure, ownership..full control.  These were and always will be props unholding the lie, and eclipsing the cross - for a time.  We are here to be humbly loved and to humbly love. This truth, will set us free. He suffered humiliation for that, to set us free from the pride of life, that liar.

THE FOOLISHNESS OF GOD

    IS WISER THAN THE WISDOM OF MEN

As you know, I have been struggling with a parent's nightmare recently. Today I sensed something  on reading a piece on the 12 Steps, Step 7 to be specific, an article entitled Removing Arrogance. 


Reading about arrogance, I was getting a sure sense that having this challenge  happen in my life has become God's opportunity  to help me along my path to being fully human,  allowing myself to be exposed to the truth about my wrong thinking and wrong doing, freeing me to be at peace with myself and others- someday.  In other words, it just may be my chance to burn off some real time in ..Purgatory!

I am not who I thought I was...Mrs. Perfect..I don't know better than others. My life does not have more credence than others. It is easy to think this when comparing myself to others whom I put on a pedestal and admire, but really hard to do when comparing myself to those I cannot stand or think are really arrogant, stupid, immoral, uncharming, dull, irreverent, unholy, just plain crass or annoying, or in any way, do not meet my humble..standards!

    
      Mending

May Raphael hover

With woolly wings

Like a tender mother

Over my soul's

Unattended things

"FRET KNOT !"

What we sometimes do to relieve anxiety creates more problems for ourselves and others and...then..more, you guessed it..anxiety. It feeds on itself and creates food for others in its hungry way. It is like a fire fueled by the oxygen we give it as we get in its fierce path. There seems to be no stopping this voracious monster.

Have you noticed this in your life?

I have for so many Lents tried to give up negative thinking leading to anxiety, but finally this Lent, I think it is giving up on me.  I want to be the kind of woman that when she awakes in the morning, the devil say,  Crap, she's up!

In order to have this be my goal each morning, first, I have to get up ahead of him, the devouring one.  I have to notice my anxious thoughts and what I may be tempted to do to control them. Often what I do involves others, controlling them. Not pretty. (Not pretty me, I am so not a controlling woman, the bitchy one we all  love to hate). Most the time, I think of myself as kind, gentle, sensitive, truthful, and o so loving. All wonderful qualities, but add in fear-filled. There you have it, the root of controlling.  No fear, no need to control.

Often, then, when I try to help others to do the right thing, often I am trying to soothe my own discomfort about how awful it will be for me if they do the wrong thing. It is almost impossible to escape my own selfish motives. It is how I think I

am made to survive in this world.

Lets get real:  

My son is in very early recovery. He goes to meetings regularly. His transportation is a bike. It is raining. I am concerned he won't make the meeting. If he doesn't make this meeting, he may not feel like going tomorrow because he won't be as pumped up. Maybe his sponsor will be disappointed and lose interest in him. What will he do without a sponsor?  He may then weaken and get tempted and fall into relapse.  Then what..disaster will befall him..and me?..and the whole fam..next????

The solution, not so much to his problem, but to my anxiety, is to pick him up and take him there. My car is in the shop. Now I am tempted to call..my daughter.  I have anxiety about her reaction and getting her involved. She might resent him and rag on me about being so, ugh, codependent.  I will ask her if she wants to go shopping (bright idea!) I will even buy her a great lunch at her favorite bistro and by the way, maybe she could drop her brother at his meeting..no big deal.  She has two children to take in tow. They need naps. Now I am stuck with more anxiety. I need to get that sticky stuff off me. If they miss their naps, they will be cranky, she will be cranky, and so on. Not wanting to cause anyone any problems, I offer to have the two cranky kids overnight to make up for the favor. 

So now we are on our way, the two littles cranking up in their twin carseats, my daughter grumbling a little about their naps, but looking forward to a great lunch and maybe some fun shopping.  I will offer to buy her something as a thankyou. Knowing I am causing such a detour of her day, I feel kinda guilty...

We are near my son's place and we run out of gas. Everyone is starving, the littles are screaming. My daughter is pissed..and the pissing is directed at...me and my son. Now my heart is pounding with guilt, anger, and fear.  I am walking a small can of gas to her car while she and the delighted children are in munching on McDonalds, next door to where her car is now stuck.  She is not happy about the junk food,  foraging furiously through her greasy fries nevertheless.

We put in the gas, pull up to my son's place. He is not there..duh! Now I am more anxious. Did I mention that he is 26 and three-quarters??  Did I mention that it would never even occur to me that he may have other resources besides me?  Did it ever occur to me that the wrath incurred by his sister against him and me because he did not call me to tell me he may have a ride would cause me more trouble than all this is worth.

Now everyone is exhausted, the meeting is almost over..in a few more minutes, in walks my son with a half smile to match his half turned cap... after being dropped off by a new friend..a girl.  Mom, what's wrong with you. Why are you all here?  This is Kiara, she gave me a ride? She picked me up when I was riding my bike and put the bike in back!

Aahhh! now my anxiety is relieved, but at what price?

It is no wonder Jesus' constant warning is against anxiety. This indulgence in fear opens a door that the Spirit wants shut. With that door opened even a squeak, harmless looking, little pests can sneak in and run amuck in any household, feasting and dropping at its table on a regular basis.   While it is no sin to fear, can what we do to control that fear, especially when that control involves others and, be sinnish? Or at least, far from virtuous. For me, that'd be a yes, (just ask family).

HOW IS YOUR SOUL- BALANCE?

                                            A THING OF BEAUTY IS A JOY..

                                                                                  .. until it loses its balance

In a counseling session this week, I was asked to do an exercise with a pile of books. It could have been a pile of blocks, but all we had were books.  I was to sort  them into piles,  each as if they represented different parts of my life, parts to which I give time and energy. 

My immediate reaction was to pile most of the tottering books in the middle.  This was my family, particularly focused on any child that was in trouble, specifically with out of control self-destructive behaviors.

As I looked around for more books for the other piles of my life, there were a scant few left to work with.  Next, I piled two books for my creativity, art and writing, three for my own recovery work, two or three for fun stuff, two for friendships, one for Church, etc. The carpeted floor supporting all the books, I considered as my underlying spirituality..inner life with God.

Then she asked me: how would I want it to be. My answer was, uh,..balanced.

With the evidence stacked up in front of us, showing clearly how out of balance my life had become tending family ills, I made the small beginning of a new commitment. I would make the piles more even, taking from the middle one and distributing the books, i.e. my time and energy, more evenly between my own recovery, my neglected creativity, and a few of the other other short stacks, such as friends and fun..including in that playing with my favorite playmates, the granddaughters.

During the week, a new shoot of life was quietly bursting inside me. Instead of the sluggishness of anxiety pulling like an anchor on my energy and motivation, I wanted to get going in the morning.  I realized I owed it to God and myself to move in a different direction, devoting more time to reading and practicing the recovery work, praying for myself, and exchanging all the wasted time looking for data on the internet in a frenetic search to soothe my anxiety about my children, for some actual research on my next art phase. 

Obviously, something good had died within me because now there was, for a first time in many many months, a quickening within, that was picking up energy as if oxygen was flowing more freely in my soul.

I know now I will start painting more regularly, more passionately again, and have started gathering information to start a new series.

As an excuse for not painting, I have not had access to my studio, since my dying mom, yes, she is still dying...surrounded like a holy queen bee encased in a loving hive, buzzing with the honey of worker bees, feeding and doting 24/7.  Looking at her, I recall  saints I've seen embalmed in  sunlit chapels of Sienna, smiling at eternity.  Except her legs are moving- constantly- restless with Parkinsons.  She gets more exercise than any bedridden person I know. This exercise is probably helping her circulation and keeping her healthy. Her skin still glows and once in a while, she makes a joke, or says I love u too!   When approaching a special occasion, like her 89th birthday, she asks, out of nowhere, what's the plan?

Hearing her words, inspires me, What's my plan? If Mom, at 89, can still have great expectations in her mind, it is way too soon for me to surrender His plan for me, a plan for good things, not for the evil things I have been dwelling on.

(Jeremiah 29:11-13 NKJV) For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. {12} Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. {13} And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.

WOUND UP IN DUCK TAPE

      This is my mind on quack


The power of an image. The chicken that follows a duck and walks like a duck image is still fueling my imagination. It has been very helpful to me as a reminder of what I am learning in recovery with the help of Nar-anon, a 12 step group to support family members dealing with drug addiction.

How it helps is that when I am stuck in this cycle, my life becomes so unbalanced, with every ounce of energy focused on the disaster of the circumstances, the hopelessness and feelings of powerless and need to control to avoid further anxiety and crises, that I lose myself to the problem. I become a part of the disease.

Once a somewhat healthy chicken, I contract a disease, the dis-ease of walking with duck feet. This unbalanced way of walking is caused by a mental- emotional disease; it is duck thinking, out of balance worry and control thoughts and behaviors that a chick takes on during such an ongoing crises, changes her makeup. Her natural God-given walk changes.

Now whenever wrong thinking and old habits come to my mind and emotions, I have to recover myself and walk the other way, the balanced way, the how-God- created-His-chicks-to-walk way, the healthy way.

I have been resisting sharing some of my recent learning here because I did not want to turn this into a blog about recovery, 12 steps, etc. But that is where I am being lead these days, so there may be something in it for you too...if you are following along.

More about my recovering my mind in the next post. Stay tuned!

 

WALK LIKE A CHICKEN, QUACK LIKE A DUCK, continued..

Chinese farmer Fu Haiwen has a strange duck: it has chicken feet and is afraid of the water!

Fu said he bought the duck in June but did not notice its unusual feet for ten days, reports Laibin News. It was only after he noticed it acting differently to the rest of the ducks that he examine closely and was surprised to see it did not have webbed feet."never went with the other ducks to swim in the river," he explained.

This poor little creature is a stranger in a strange land like so many us who lose tract of our true origins. Our modern world is full of such children, wandering after strangers and strangnesses, things, ideas, places, objects, addictions, who will serve as substitutes. Soon these lost chickies will look, walk, talk, and feed on a world they were not born to. Soon they forget they are chickens. After a while they walk like the odd ducks they are following. One just has to turn on almost any television station and watch the duck parade.

How He must miss us..in our wanderings.

As Christ following adults we know better, yet daily we lose our way, and begin to bond with strangers.

Why is it so easy for  strangers to capture our minds, our hearts, our bodies, and even, our souls? Richard Rohr, contemporary theologian, once described humans as mimetic intelligences, as the advertizing world so well knows. We become what we mimic. We copy what we see.  We are copycat learners, or, well,..copychicks.

Have you ever noticed how a new fashion, for instance, the layered look, which at first sight seemed so oddly unfinished, letting what seemed like underwear hang out, evolved into the norm?   Soon we begin to like it, admire it, want it, have to have it. Trends are born out of our need to mimic. We follow what we look at faithfully like quacking ducks with chicken feet.

In our postmodern world there is no lack of streetside venders, showing off their wares. I lose "track" often to my own meanderings and once in a while get really lost to such snake charmers. I have to remember that I become what I look at long enough. I must be really careful what I look at. I moment by moment have to re-focus my mind's eye on whatever is lovely, true, pure, beautiful, as Paul reminds.

My ugly yet charming snakes are unhealthy foods, giving into worry and anxious thinking, gossip, shiny new goods, temporary comforts, wanting what I want when n how I want it, and so on and on - an addiction to the slippery sirens of the senses and the world, the will, its pleasures and its burdens. What are your charming snakes?

Mother Hen,

cluck over me

never let me out

of Your warm, feathering

tender.

I am at home

never more

than when

I am tucked

deep

in the giddy crush

of Your unbearable wing

IF JESUS WERE A CHICK?

                    Woof!Woof! I'm a doggy!

Why not? Actually, even God calls himself  a chick, well, a hen, a mother hen to be exact.  No. I am not being sacriligeous. His own son Jesus referred to himself as a hen that spread its wings over its brood of chicks.

I read a great line from bestseller The Help today.in reference to a neglected and wandering toddler who followed the housekeeper everywhere she went, including a black only bathroom. Taboo! The help said of the child, who was receiving more signs of love from her than from the little one's preocuppied young mother, she like a baby chick who follow a duck, who think she a duck

It reminded me of how crucial and natural,(super- natural really), it is for us human chicks to follow and cluck for our mother hen. And who does Jesus himself say this big warm superchicken is: it's Him, our Mama -Jesus. 

No, I am not a goddess worshipping new age pseudo-feminist. It is just science meets theology. We follow what we need, what we hunger for, what we smell like. We cluck for love..in all the possible places..or persons. Chickens show us how to do this, even chicks that are lost and seek any four legged feathered friend. The maid was black and quacked, unlike her mother who was white and clucked. But the little one's survival instinct told her to follow..the love.

.

O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, just as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not have it!

Luke 13:34

Now that's some simply divine bonding. An offer no smart chick would refuse and yet we do ..often.  It worked out well for the toddler in the novel, but what about for us? Day after day we lose our way, bonding with strangers who become so familiar,  and seem so natural to us, and they are just that -natural.

What our real Mother Jesus offers us is a bonding to the super natural. We are spirit and are born to become what we bond with, born to bond with our spiritual parent, This parent is likened to a mother hen who loves and broods over us, inspite of our lostness, our mistakes, and our rejection.

So that we little human chickies make no mistake whose our Daddy, our Father became a chicken too so He could look like us, walk like us, even reek of barnyard smells-just so we would recognize Him.  

If we just look for Him all around and within us, nuzzling close and breathing in  His unique scent, and do this daily by  listening for His voice in the Word, touching Him, in those who most need us, and tasting Him in the Eucharist and through the sacraments, or simply by following Him around every moment of every day, clucking  every chattering thought from our heart to His, as brother Lawrence did, we will bask in his motherly presence and be bonded. ...and blessed.

WRITER'S CRAMP

              
Hold da applause!

Thanks for checking in occasionally, any readers that are still out there. When I first started blogging, I did some research on what makes a blog work. The number one requirement was..duh!..keeping up the writing - at least one or two times a week.  I tried to do that and it worked. I was so happy to have so many readers keeping me company.  But recently, something happened.  It was such a big thing that I did not even have time to reflect. I usually organize my life, fortunately for me,  to have regular time to reflect deeply and often. 

The events of the last few weeks have left me with a heart-and- headwrenching loss for words.  From one day to the next, I did not know what to expect and was left off balance so often. All my efforts were focused on changing old patterns of thinking in order to learn what works in new challenges.

Today is the first day I have felt the energy to continue writing. All I can really say is ThankYou all for your loyal prayers because things really are starting to look up.  However, as my son texted today when I congratulated him on his progress,  Mom, hold da applause!  But not the prayers!  We are at step one, but step one in the right direction. 

He has made a life-changing turnaround, which although it seemed like it took forever - ten years or so - when God answers prayer, it seems like the good news comes suddenly, unexpectedly.  Details may be forthcoming..or not.  I am just checking in today so you don't go away.

Through all this, I have learned some new things that many of you may already know:

I have learned that nightmares do sometimes come true,..and yet that God never loses sight of His dreams for us and keeps His eye keenly on the goal, even when we cannot see the way.  

I have learned that letting go, or being detached is much more demanding than I ever thought possible. It calls for every thought, every fear, every effort to prevent or protect, to be put away, really put away.   It feels like risking all I trust of my own power.   But it can be done and must be done for God to have His way.

 Mothers are the hardest to get out of the way because we are trained warriors, always vigilant for what best protects our young. We are willing to take the bullet for our children, but the bullet may be just the crippling blow one needs to be stopped in his tracks..and turned around. (Recalling Jacob's ladder, sometimes the bullet is delivered by an Angel)

I have learned that lots of things, most things, i.e. how others live, even our most loved ones, are not any of our business really.  Our business is to love and pray and live our own lives uncompromisingly.  Let them live theirs, however wrong it may seem to us at the time. We simply do not have the whole picture, but Someone who cares even more than any mother does, knows everything.  Nothing goes unnoticed or uncared for, day by day, moment by moment. 

I have learned that it takes guts to let loved ones suffer without rescuing and that rescuing does not really rescue any one but our own anxious thoughts, which are not always in line  with reality. We have only our very feint and subjective view, as if we see through a keyhole of limited knowledge and from a narrowly skewed point of view.

I have learned that other adults are capable of making their own choices and facing their own consequences, from which they cannot be prevented. They are the natural consequences that are part of a plan that we do not usually accept or understand. Things can get pretty awful and there is nothing we can do to cause, control, or cure some of other's ills. 

I cannot even address my own ills without full surrender to God's Almighty healing as a first, middle, and last step.

 I am learning this by  accepting the inevitable - with all the help of your prayers and the support of others who have practiced serenity inspite of  challenges much more difficult than I have  had.

Every week I meet with others who are doing impossible leaps of surrender and still carrying on with life, crying, laughing, loving, stumbling, and having victories. 

I know that we can get through anything together because each one has a teeny torch that can light up a room full of darkness, just by being open and humble before one another. With people, purpose, and practice, Grace happens.

JINGLE BELLS

In santa suits

Forgetting our roots

Like deer we prance

In  tinsel trance

All a senseless rushing

All such sentimental gushing

Wait!  Turn back, be still.

Do you hear?..the feint lyric of a woman's will.

Be-it done-unto-me, her trembled cry.

All given for love, a willingness to die.

A girl -child chimed, use me?
How so? She could not see,

Yet, yes, her  brave song consenting

To Whom she'd been so faithfully attending.

Into the soil of a soul so deep

He was invited to thrust His  seed,

His divinity sod.
So entered God.

A helpless child
Glowing in vernix,  holy and mild.

From the simple surrender, one woman willed
All hearts could be opened, and truly filled.



Withholding will:
          Be less careful.

Heart  of mine:

         Be more prayerful.

Trust in Jesus:

         Be made fertile!

Things are looking up...

                                              

While you are waiting for a rescue

  Trust God, no matter what!

I would love to expound on the final letter of the acronym, HOST:

H for humility
O for obedience
S for surrender
T for trust

But in this case, a simple picture is worth the thousand words it may take to explain the unique opportunities  we mortals are given to exercise trust,.. when things heat up around us.

I do have one question: where was Sara when Isaac was getting ready to burn in his britches???  Was it too contrary to any mother's instincts for her to witness this mutilation?  Yet a few years or centuries later, a much younger Jewish mother was asked to do the same...and she said ok.  With that yes, she said no to Hell's grip, freeing her Son to  Cross us  over to Heaven. She loved our God with her will, not only with the sentiment of  a mother bonded to her child -in a human way, but in a tough love, real love - bigger than this life - way.

God called us maggots. Rude!!!!!

In today's  readings, we are called maggots by our own Father-his very own lovable maggots- but worms nevertheless!

As maggots, we are full of fear, and rightly so.  We feed on the world's trash, so we are always vulnerable to death by poison. We could be stomped out instanly by toxic spray, or smashed by any force stronger than ourselves. Indeed, we are at the mercy of our Father, who created us, who owns us, who, believe it or not, finds us most precious in our smallness, our weakness and rotting state. Whatever we are, we are His.

He invites us in our wormliness to join Him at table, treating us like the most honored guests at the banquet of Life.  He says in today's readings, that although John the Baptist is the greatest one born of woman, he, in his purely human state, is nowhere as great as those who are in the kingdom of Heaven.  And who are those who are invited to this kingdom.  It is the least of us, the maggots of creation.Who are those inhabitants of heaven -  the saints, no less.

However we must start our ascent by changing our natural diet. We must begin to fast the common food of this culture and start to eat from the Host, the Heavenly Host who invites us to feed on Him, His Body and Blood. His Word.

He invites us change our environment, to get out of the garbage and to eat with others who are already feeding on the Host.  We need to be in good company, in fellowship, to stay in shape for the fasting and the new diet.

Together,we are invited to supernatural food, the kind that prepares us for the bread that Jesus himself fed on while he was on earth. He reminds us that he has Bread that we know not of.  That is the bread that will make us great in the Kingdom on Heaven.  This is the bread that will advance us. He is that bread.

I guess the insult was worth getting our attention..and pointing to the truth about our present state. We are what we are, vulnerable creatures, not one of us born of woman exempt from the spiritual battle that could end in death. 

Fear not, the angel says, because he knows that as worms, we may live in fear.  As humans, our bodies, our minds, our emotions are constantly offered an invitation to fear. Even and maybe especially saints have experience deep fears.  It is only sensible to have some fear. Life as we know it is a scary place. We dodge bullets while we feast..every day.  The angel are asking something that seems so unreasonable of us.

Actually the angel, speaking for God, is acknowledging that we as humans will have fear in that things alarm us on a regular bases. We anticipate troubles. We fly, we fight. The human condition. Yet he says in plain Hebrew, do not fear! Instead what the angel asks is that  we would not remain in fear, making decisions out of fear, compromising our truth, our love, our mission because of fear. Fear is probable, but love is possible..and commanded. We are not to be dominated by natural fear, but by supernatural love.

Choking in smoke right now, without help I would remain breathing the fumes of fear.  I could be buried under its stinking heap, or I could follow the peephole of light leading me out of this darkness.   The further I allow myself to get down into the muck of fearfilled thinking, the mustier my soul gets and the blinder the eyes of my heart.  I must pull up on the rope of rescuing prayers woven with the love of God's helpers, the company of saints, the help of Christians, All Y'all.


Friends,
Thanks for the oxygen. The smoke is clearing. I am getting some air,  thanks to all that life-saving love and prayer.

MARY, UNDOER OF KNOTS

Whenever I find an old chain necklace, full of knots, I don't even bother trying to untangle them. I just give it to my husband who seems to be able to do it with an uncanny ease.  I really hate unknotting things, so today as I breezed by the end of  a show on EWTN, I was stunned by yet another title for Mary. She, who has been given every title and talent grace can imagine, is sometimes referred to as Our Lady, Undoer of Knots.  This title originated from an amazing painting  found centuries ago of her among angels, her slender fingers entwined in loop after loop of  a long  silken ribbon   She was undoing the knots in the endless strand and returning it effortlessly to its original flow and sheer beauty, rendering it useful once more.

As this image struck me, I wished there was a way I could engage with this power of hers. Then, happily,  the program referred to a novena, a traditional prayer form based on the nine days of prayer led by Mary after her son's death.  She and the apostles gathered together in the upper room to pray as one.  Rushing to my faithful friend, Google, I uncovered the meditations  of this novena and started it immediately. I prayed it for the first two days in the early morning and today in the car.

I really felt the Spirit's kindness led me to hear about this help just when I needed it most.   As some of you know, my life has recently become entangled, my heart wrenched in knots over some very serious circumstances in my beloved family.  After doing all I can to untangle the situation, bringing every ounce of my perfectionistic energy to bear, I am beginning to accept that there is absolutely no more I can do to fix things, no matter how hard I try - a perfect time to give this precious chain of knots to the one who has been given the gift of freeing my spirit from such bondage.

In today's session, my counselor referred me to spiritual direction because she said that what I have arrived at is a spiritual crossroads.  I have come to the terminal, the end of my spiral. I had been around and around this same pole so often and wound my soul so tightly shut around impossible circumstances, choking out any breathing space.  She suggested that this  was blocking my relationship with the only one Who could really comfort me.  I needed to get some air, a lot of air.  I need to loosen my choke on the ghost, the ghost of control and truly SURRENDER, the S word of the H-O-S-T. 

H for humility, O for obedience, and today, S for surrender.  This message comes just in time because now I have the image of Mary untying knots and giving me back my ribbon, whole and smooth and long.  This ribbon represents my prayer life, my connection and daily communion with Christ.  The knots are a kink in the hose of our freely flowing conversation; they stop the flush of the Spirit into my daily life.  Mary is helping to restore our union with her nimble fingers.

The ribbon also represents my son's struggles, the complicated knots in his young life. Mary, help of Christians, as she is also known, will rescue whom her Son suffered for. No mother would let her son hurt  in vain, not Mary of all mothers.  We too are her children and she does not want us to suffer any sorrows in vain. She, along with her son, just like at the wedding feast, will bring out the best..in the end. Just as she saved the embarrassment of the bride and groom at Cana, she will smooth the way by drawing her Son's power our way.

A NOTE ABOUT SURRENDER:  Surrender does not mean giving up, and never does it mean giving up to the enemy as in human war terms. Here surrender is giving back, giving back to the Victor, what is already His.  It is giving back by letting go of the tugging, the turning, the twisting, the churning, the knotting of the piece of rope that we have been given.for a while.  Yes, He allows us some rope, may be a lot of rope, but when it is time to let the rope go, we must do so, so He can reel it in to Himself.  Sometimes the rope is so snarled, Mary is called upon to untie  the knots, one at a time, so as to smooth and make swift the journey back.

A NOTE ABOUT THE ICON  This icon of Mary was painted to reveal Mary's intervention in untying the many knots created by the heresies that were hurting the Church centuries ago.  When prayed as a novena, endless testimonies have given witness to the power of Mary's intercession in helping dysfunctional family situations as well as many other prayer requests. 

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Will you join me in praying this novena for your intentions, just google : Novena to Virgin Mary, Untier of Knots.of Knots?