by Liz | Feb 2, 2010 | main
I haven’t checked to see if TNT or TBS is running the movie “Ground Hog Day” 24×7 – or until we get it right – but this is the day. It’s halfway between the Winter Solstice and the Spring Equinox. It’s the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord, as well. In the movie, the day repeats over and over – trying to get things right. In the church, the prescriptions of the Law are fulfilled, and Simeon is at peace because he has seen the Messiah, and knows that everything is right.
And, here at my desk, I try to sit and understand how it all fits together. On a rainy, overcast February morning, in this time halfway between the dark of winter and the promise of spring, I am given the knowledge that even while I see indistinctly in the mirror, all is well. Isn’t that so much of life? While we watch for Pauxatawny (sp?) Phil to predict the time of the coming of spring, we still know that spring is coming… life, buried underground will sprout and grow.
I will sit in this time between dark and light and know that deep within God reminds me of the words that so often put things into perspective: All shall be well; All manner of things shall be well.
by Liz | Feb 1, 2010 | main
Yesterday I noticed that a single friend was attired in a clothing with an impending “wardrobe failure.” That would be a seam by a pocket that was coming loose. Not something he had noticed, not essential to existence, by any means. I poked fun at him saying he “needed a wife.” That’s not an option for him, and he responded that he simply needed someone to cook and sew.
Maybe, it’s more a matter of needing a “keeper.” We all need one – I do, for sure. You know, someone to function as wife/mother to look at use lovingly before we face the world each day and say – “Are you wearing that?” (or “You’re not going out like that, are you!?” Someone to tuck in tags, check for rips and tears, someone to see us clearly where we are.
Guess that’s a bit of what God does for me, if I take the time in the morning to pray and be quiet. If I am open to his/her gaze she will show me the things that need attention. And it will be done in a loving way… If you ware going out into the world, at least know that the tag might be hanging out, or the shoes scuffed, the temper a bit on edge. Someone to remind me that I am loved.
De Colores!
by Liz | Jan 31, 2010 | main
A couple of weeks ago, a friend and I were talking and he mentioned something he had read or heard about the difficulties of understanding the various ways of expressing love. Some talk, some do. It seems I’m married to a “do-er” as it were. I’ve tried watching carefully for the past week of two to see if I can understand this. Interesting trial.
He does. He went to Walmart for something, and while there, hunted down a cable I needed for my iPod so that I could use it in the car — 2 cables, it turned out. In the past, he bought me a 12-string guitar for my birthday (one I had looked at, played and liked very much.) He calls on his way home from school (he’s a teacher so he’s off earlier than I) to see if there is anything needed at the store. There are more things that he does. Many more.
This is not my preferred communication method. It’s hard to see it. It requires work on my part to pay attention enough to see that this is his way of caring. I am much more in tune to to talking, sharing, emotion. That I understand that without so much work. But, I think this might be impossible for him.
This weekend the second reading for mass proclaims that love is the most important. Perhaps it is not only important to love, but also important to try to understand and accept the sometimes cryptic way others attempt to love us.
by Liz | Jan 31, 2010 | main
I’m retiring — well, I retiring from my “day job” at Auburn. Not happening until the first of April, but it seems it’s happening. It is not lost on my friends that my first day as a retiree will be April Fool’s Day (and I have an 8 am dentist appointment, to boot.)
The questions begin: “What are you going to do?”
I have lots of answers ready at hand. I’m going to be able to go to the gym in the mornings! At 8, which might happen, instead of 5:30am, which is not happening. I’ll be able to head up the road to Birmingham to visit more often — this is important since the 3rd grandchild is scheduled to make his/her appearance in Birmingham the first of June. I’m planning on having more energy available for my second and third jobs — mostly web development for the Vincentian Family and anybody else who would like to compensate me for the work. I’d like to actually learn to speak and understand Spanish, make the Pilgrimage to San Juan Compostela, hike parts of the Appalachian trail, spend time with my granddaughters in Florida (and go the zoo – I love zoos!), make some quilts and visit my friends in NY.
Plans! We all have them. It remains to be seen how many of these will come to pass. Mostly, I hope to live well, grow in faith and appreciate the life I have.
by Liz | Jan 30, 2010 | main
The other night my husband was watching one of the science channels. The show was about physics. Is light a particle? Or is light a wave? And the answer is “Yes.” I don’t understand the math or the physics beyond the simple idea that relativity and quantum physics are mathematically incompatible. I understand that understanding light fully will require a “third way” – and the candidate is string theory. Something that will make two incompatible explanations work…
Incompatible ideas, dreams and hopes seem to be a part of everyday human existence. Yesterday I saw it in myself again. I sat face to face with a dream or hope that seems so incompatible with my reality and other dreams and hopes I have. To follow one fully seems to require leaving the other behind. And yet, I find I must hold both within in me. Both are precious. I seek a “third way.”
I struggle to understand and to accept that things that I feel are in such conflict. I struggle to find a way through the narrow, twisty maze of passages that is my journey. I find a part of my answer in the second reading for mass this weekend. It’s that passage from i Corinthians 13 on Love that is used so often at weddings. We all know it: love is patient, love is kind… It’s then end of that passage that speaks to me:
Love never fails.
If there are prophecies, they will be brought to nothing;
if tongues, they will cease;
if knowledge, it will be brought to nothing.
For we know partially and we prophesy partially,
but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.
When I was a child, I used to talk as a child,
think as a child, reason as a child;
when I became a man, I put aside childish things.
At present we see indistinctly, as in a mirror,
but then face to face.
At present I know partially;
then I shall know fully, as I am fully known.
So faith, hope, love remain, these three;
but the greatest of these is love.
It seems that Love is the glue that binds. Love is the “string theory” of life. Love is the way through the twisty little passages. Love will allow me a way to hold my conflicts within me and know that there is a way to be true to myself and my creator.
Now the mystery becomes Love. How do I begin to grasp that one?
