Living in Love

Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children.  And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.  But fornication and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is fitting among saints.  Let there be no filthiness, nor silly talk, nor levity, which are not fitting; but instead let there be thanksgiving.  Be sure of this, that no fornicator or impure man, or one who is covetous (that is, an idolater), has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.  Let no one deceive you with empty words, for it is because of these things that the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.  Therefore do not associate with them, for once you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord; walk as children of light (for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true), and try to learn what is pleasing to the Lord.  Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them.  For it is a shame even to speak of the things that they do in secret; but when anything is exposed by the light it becomes visible, for anything that becomes visible is light.  Therefore it is said, "Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give you light."  Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise men but as wise, making the most of the time, because the days are evil.  Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.  And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery; but be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with all your heart, always and for everything giving thanks in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God the Father.  Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ.  Wives, be subject to your husbands, as to the Lord.  For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior.  As the church is subject to Christ, so let wives also be subject in everything to their husbands.  Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.  Even so husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.  For no man ever hates his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body.  "For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh."  This mystery is a profound one, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church; however, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

Ephesians, ch 5

What a terrible and potent thing is love!  How unsustainable is love between mortals.  It perishes with our lives unless it is sustained by the same thing, the only thing, that can preserve our lives unto eternity: divine love.  Therefore, "let love be genuine," (Rm 12:9) modeled upon, shored up by, and infused with the love of God.

Willing to Ask

More from Jean Lafrance's Give Me a Living Word:

You are willing to ask, but you want to have alternative solutions in case your supplication does not "work".  That is precisely why your supplication does not have this desperate power which overturns mountains and casts them into the sea.  You withhold an alternative solution and you do not yield yourself totally to this prayer of petition.

I would add to Fr. Lafrance's words that we often also lack, in addition to abandonment to God's solution to our problem, abandonment to God's plan, which might include our problem.  Of course, both deficits are merely instances of the same attitude that says, "Do my will," rather than, "Father, not my will, but yours," (Lk 22:42).

What Does It Mean to Be a Spiritual Child?

Today, as on most Saturdays, my mother and I pick up my baby sister Keelin, about whom I've written before, and take her for a car ride. Keelin looks forward to these rides, and on the odd occasion when they cannot happen, she is disquieted. She does not understand. She wants her car ride. And it is worse if, for some reason, either of us has to go by her group home on such an occasion for some business. Today I had to drop off some articles for her. I took some pains to avoid having her see me, because the weather is very inclement, and in such situations the briefer one's time on the road, the better. I spoke with her aide quietly, never going into the house. As I took my leave, I saw Keelin in the background, standing on her tippy toes and craning her neck to see over the aide from a distance. I do not know if she identified me with my hood on, by I know that she knows the time of the week and whom she expects to arrive for her. What she probably does not understand is what snow and low visibility have to do with her car ride.

It is also so between us and God. We know what we want and are expecting, and we know them to be good things: successful career; family happiness; freedom of movement; good health; a rhythm of diversion, leisure, and fruitful labor; and so on. What we do not understand are the reasons for which God withholds these things from us, or at least permits them to be withheld.

It is at these times when we can internally rebel against God, even if we continue to go through all the motions of a religious commitment to Him; or we can pray for the grace to accept that our Father knows what we need and is giving it to us, even when it feels like a very bitter pill to swallow.

This is faith: knowing that God has a plan for our good, even when we cannot see it.

i am a little church(no great cathedral)

i am a little church(no great cathedral)
far from the splendor and squalor of hurrying cities
-i do not worry if briefer days grow briefest,
i am not sorry when sun and rain make april

my life is the life of the reaper and the sower;
my prayers are prayers of earth's own clumsily striving
(finding and losing and laughing and crying)children
whose any sadness or joy is my grief or my gladness

around me surges a miracle of unceasing
birth and glory and death and resurrection:
over my sleeping self float flaming symbols
of hope,and i wake to a perfect patience of mountains

i am a little church(far from the frantic
world with its rapture and anguish)at peace with nature
-i do not worry if longer nights grow longest;
i am not sorry when silence becomes singing

winter by spring,i lift my diminutive spire to
merciful Him Whose only now is forever:
standing erect in the deathless truth of His presence
(welcoming humbly His light and proudly His darkness)

Another beautiful piece of postmodern poetry by the late e. e. cummings.

Haiti and God's Providence

There's been a lot of nonsense lately about Haiti - everything from remarks about it being divine retribution, to attempted pleasantries about it all being for the best.

Something I've been focusing a lot on lately, for personal reasons and because of more public affairs, is the authentic meaning of joy and hope.

St. Therese of Lisieux asked in a letter how it was that Jesus, without ever being deprived of the joy of the beatific vision, could yet experience such utter emptiness and abandonment on the cross. She answered herself that she did not know, but only knew that it was possible because she herself was experiencing it during her own painfully fatal conflict with tuberculosis. Joy, for a Christian, isn't mere happiness any more than love is mere warm feelings toward another. Joy is the knowledge of the presence of God's Kingdom, the knowledge of His will at work - even when it is hidden-and-not-yet-present.

The cheapness of religious cant isn't that it's false to say that God's Providence includes even the catastrophic suffering of innocents. If God's Providence doesn't include suffering and death, then it's worthless. It isn't false to say, "God has a plan, and this, eventually will be drawn into the good." But also isn't the point, and it is cheap to say to someone who is in the throes of suffering, unless you are darn sure they are prepared to hear it.

The cheapness of religious cant is that it subsumes one reality - that of pain, suffering, and death - into another one: the victory of God. It tries to make the sorrow "go away," and not for a commitment to truth or to the person suffering, but simply out fear of the discomfort of facing the truth of the person suffering.

When we are suffering, it is good to remind ourselves of God's Providence, and that He is as displeased with the pain we are experiencing as we are, and to ask ourselves, and Him, honestly, what role this might play in His plan for our lives. When others are suffering, it is probably better just to listen presently at whatever length, help them practically in ways they might need or request, let them ask their own questions in their own time, and let our presence in persona Christi serve as an unspoken answer.

Another Gross Copyright Violation...

I hope to be excused my copyright violations by my intent to promote others to purchase and read the books from which I copy willy-nilly.  Here is an awesome passage from Fr. Walter Ciszek, S.J.'s He Leadeth Me.  It's about his time in the prisons, gulags, and Siberian villages of the Soviet Union.

Whatever the trials of the moment, whatever the hardships or sufferings, more important than all these was the knowledge that they had been sent by God and served his divine providence.  I could not always fathom the depths of his providence or pretend to understand his wisdom, but I was secure in the knowledge that by abandoning myself to his will I was doing as perfectly as I could his will for me.

Spiritual freedom of this sort, as I knew from bitter experience, is not something that can be attained overnight or ever possessed in its final form.  Every new day, every new hour of every day, every new circumstance and situation, every new act is a new opportunity to exercise and grow in this freedom.  What is required for growth is an attitude of acceptance and openness to the will of God, rather than some planned approach or calculated method.  Even as ascetical (sic) practices such as penances, fasting, or mortifications can can be hindrances rather than helps if they are self-imposed.  Striving instead to eliminate all self-will, to accept God's will revealed in the circumstances of daily life, is the surest way to achieve growth in conformity to the will of God.  It will provide more than enough virtue to be practiced, suffering to be sustained, pain to be borne; more importantly still, it will make us fit instruments to achieve his designs, not only for our own salvation but for others as well.  The service of God must take preference over all else.

There is more, but you'll have to pick up a copy of the book and read it.

Yea, Father, Such Was Thy Gracious Will

Today, the Gospel reading at Mass was one of my all-time favorites.  I have decided to copy it below, but from the RSV, which is, as usual, lovelier than the NAB translation of the same passage.

In that same hour he rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said, "I thank thee, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to babes; yea, Father, for such was thy gracious will.  All things have been delivered to me by my Father; and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, or who the Father is except the Son and any one to whom the Son chooses to reveal him."  Then turning to the disciples he said privately, "Blessed are the eyes which see what you see!  For I tell you that many prophets and kings desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it," (Luke 10:21-24).

This prayer of Jesus is laden with terms, phrases, and themes used in the Old Testament in the prayers offered by prophets to thank God for his mighty deeds, like when Jethro thanks God for having delivered Moses from Egypt (Ex 18:8-11).  The second part, about eyes seeing, etc., is a definite answer to Isaiah's prophecy (Isa 6:9-10; 18:3; 29:18; 32:3; etc).  Though Isa 52:13-15 is typically seen as predicting the passion of our Lord, I believe it applies here as well, because many who think they know what's what do not expect Jesus as he is, and so cannot see how he is acting and what he wills.  As C. S. Lewis reminds us in The Chronicles of Narnia, God "is not a tame lion."  If we wish to see him, we have to set aside our preconceived ideas and be open to him-as-he-is.  That's because he does crazy and unexpected things, like die on a cross or be born in a pigsty.

A Few Pictures of Bavaria

My friend Trisha and I set out this morning to rent a car.  It took a while, but we finally set out by 2 p.m. from a rental car company to an enchanted destination that we had been planning to finish up with by 2 p.m.  We relaxed though, and decided to let Providence guide our adventure.  Along the way we had a few cool experiences. Driving on the autobahn with our manualtransmissionrentalcar (guys, back me up on this - it was awesome fun), we happened across a sign that said Autobahnkapelle. The word is a conglomerate of "auto-course" and "chapel." Trisha thought maybe it was a rest stop, because the obvious meaning was too weird. I shared her sentiments. Intrigued, we decided to stop. When we got there we saw that it was, in fact, a Catholic church in a countryvillage whose proximity to the autobahn prompted somebody in heavily (but now, unfortunately, not-so-practicing) Catholic Bavaria to build an off-ramp leading directly to it and then advertise its presence.

The off ramp led to a parking lot with this sign (it says "Mary-on-the-Road Church").  We followed the sign and arrived at this interesting piece of architecture, an honest attempt to be both modern and reverent, built in 1969.  Its architecturalinsides were more predictable than the people we met therein: a German woman who works with the local diocese, presumably at the parish, and three Senegalese - a man and two women.  They came in while Trisha and I were praying.  As I finished my prayers, they prepared to leave.  Suspecting the man of priestcraft, I approached and asked him in the language I heard him speak, "Excuse-moi, monsieur.  Est-ce que etez-vou un curé?"  ("Excuse me, sir?  Do you happen to be a priest?")  He told me that his name is Father Pierre, and so I asked him to give his blessing to Trisha and me.  He was happy to oblige.  Afterwards, we spent several moments speaking a few random words of French, German, and English to each other.  The German churchworker noted that we had in one little country chapel three whole continents.  It was a real blessing to meet a kind father and three wonderful sisters in our holy religion there, and so unexpectedly.  It was a Providential reminder that wherever we go, if we go with God, we go not alone.

The episode was very typical of the Catholic Church, I think, and also very beautiful.  Before I rush on, I want to note that the chapel itself was actual nice.  Modern and goofy, to be sure, but with a very high ceiling and a very clearly marked tabernacle visible throughout the place.  Above the altar hung a cross cut into a circle so that the thing looked like a Sacred Host.  Unusual, all of it, but none of it disrespectful or sacrilegious.  Again, very much like our beautiful Church, dear reader: goofy, unusual, but really a valiant attempt to honor God, and not a failure at doing so.  And like the Catholic Church, the most important thing is what happened inside.

A bit further in our journey we passed a late Romanesque church under renovation.  A gardener working in the cemetery helped us to find our way in.  It was simple and sparse, but the white walls reflected the little windowlighting well.

Our trip reached its climax as we pushed into the Alps further and wound from village to village, smaller and smaller as we drove.  At one point we came across a sign with the silhouette of a cow.  As we wondered what that might be, we came across a small traffic jam - 6 cars, more than we had seen in twice as many miles, backed up - waiting for a line of cows to be herded up the road.  My picture didn't come out so well, so maybe I'll add Trisha's later.

We saw the castle in the distance and drove into the village-like tourist-souvenir center at the foot of the mountain upon which the castle sat.  What you see below was the reward of our perseverance through rain and 80 or so miles of adventure: Schloss Neuschwannstein ("New Stone-swan Castle").

It was cloudy most of the day, rainy frequently, and always chilly.  It made for very gothic photography of a photogenic region that responds dazzlingly to the weather.  We parked halfway up the mountain and hiked up.  We'd arrived too late for the tour, but enjoyed walking around the perimeter and courtyard of the 19th century schloss (an ornamentalcastle) seen above.  On the drive home we stopped at a gasthaus ("Guest House") for dinner - excellent Bavarian fare.  We got back to our hosts' home around 9:30 or 10:00 p.m., dead tired and with some cool stories to share.

Our Father planned for us a much nicer adventure than we could have planned for ourselves.

And yes, I deliberately smooshed several nouns together, in honor of our Germanhosts.

I Just Met the Coolest People

Bl. Valentin Paquay	Bl. Lodovico Pavoni	Bl. Eusebia Palomino Yenes
Belgium	Italy	Spain

I recently finished writing three articles for an encyclopedia, each about one of the blessed Christians pictured above. When I applied to contribute biographies of new saints and beati to the publication, I had hoped to receive the names of VIP saints. That was all my ego doing the hoping. In the course of doing my research, I got to speak with a kind librarian, dig around in CUA's library, and dust off my Latin. The final product was three brief articles and a lesson from each of them.

• The lesson I received from Bl. Valentin is this: the simple love of Jesus goes a long way.

• Bl. Lodovico taught me that big things begin small, and that noble people are not do not feel themselves to be stooping when they attend to them.

• Bl. Eusebia taught me that small is beautiful and that we will be happiest if we entrust our littleness to Jesus.

The lesson I learned from all three of them was really more of a reminder: Jesus has given me my britches and I shouldn't try to be too big for them.

I really enjoyed the learning about them, and hope you will too. Each one of them speaks to me from across the generations in a different way, but like all the saints, they say the same thing, only in their own way: "Do whatever He tells you," (Jn 2:5). Click their names beneath their portraits to read the Vatican's bio of each my new favorite pals.

The Hound of Heaven

Francis Thompson's poem "The Hound of Heaven" came to my mind and got me thinking.

Last night at my prayer group, a thought came back to me. It had first come to me while I was on retreat at the end of July. I think I need to focus less on doing stuff for God (as if He needed me!) and more on letting Him do stuff for me. That sounds heretical, even blasphemous to our Pelagian, go-getter culture, I am sure. I sounds vaguely backwards to me, too, I must admit. But I think I am good footing here. Jesus said of Himself, "For the Son of Man also came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many," (Mk 10:45; Mt 20:28). I cannot light a single star in the sky for God, but He can give me divine life, self-control, peace of mind, gentleness toward others, love of virtue, strength of conviction and character, and all the other things that I lack, or that are at best fleeting for me.

That I go to Mass, for instance, is not pleasing to God in the sense of making Him happy. He's in heaven. Maybe He IS heaven, if Heaven is union with Him. If He's not happy (and the Catechism teaches us that He is perfectly so) then what can someone as little as I do to make someone as BIG as Him any happier? Rather, I go to Mass because is it good for me. I do not mean it in a relativist way, as if Mass were good for me, but not for someone else. I do not mean this in a self-centered way. The point of Mass is not to make me happy (although it sometimes does), and I shouldn't stop going if it fails to do so. The point of Mass is to worship God. But I am the sort of creature designed by the Creator to worship Him in a particular way, and will never be fully satisfied with a life oriented in any other direction. So I go to Mass because He commands it, because He made me for it, because He made it for me, and because I need it.

I guess what I am getting at in my own rambling way is that I cannot spend my life trying to please others; doing good to/for others is a very different thing than merely pleasing them. With God, this distinction is even more important. To be perfectly pleasing to God, I'd have to be perfect. Happily, He knows better, even if I do not. It's hard enough to really mean, "Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done," let alone to do it myself. While I am still a sinner on this earth, it is probably much better to let Him do it in me, rather than try to do it for Him. I have stopped trying to pile Holy Hour upon Holy Hour and rosary upon rosary. Now, it is time to start asking Him to lead me deeper into prayer, in His own way, and in His own time. "Give us this day our daily bread," (Mt 6:11) and "Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?" (Mt 6:26). It is telling that the response of Mary to the angel was not, "I will do everything that God says," but rather, "Let it be to me according to your word," (Lk 1:38).

A new prayer...

Eternal Father, grant me the serenity not to know
Your will and to love it anyway. Please give me
what I need to serve You. Please help me
not to worry about anything, but in
everything to
trust
You.

Gettin' Back in the Swing

So I just 15 minutes ago finished my 12 mile run. Actually, it was 12.76 miles because that was the most convenient route I could find that would bring me by my house at the halfway point so I could make a pit stop. It took me 1 hour, 59 min, 35 seconds. That's 9:22 min/mi, about 11 sec slowly than my minimum goal for the marathon. I've got 10 or 11 weeks to work on that. Should be doable.

At 80*, the temperature was cooler than the daytime high of nearly 100*. Over the course of this run, I burned approximately 1441 calories. To give you an idea of what that means, somebody my size and weight, with a desk job and not much exercise, should consume 1824 calories in a day to maintain weight.

You wouldn't think that running is a team sport. Oddly enough, though, high schools and colleges do have running teams. My roommate and I couldn't run together tonight, but he will run tomorrow night the same pain and accomplishment that I ran tonight. We encourage each other. That is a real motivation. Two other things motivated me. Firstly, I offered up the run as a whole, and with it each hill, each creaky joint, and each impulse to stop and hitchhike home. Tonight's cause was a close friend, a brother really, who is undergoing some pretty excruciating spiritual turmoil. The other motivating incentive was a chocolate milkshake at the end. (Hey, bro, ya know I love ya, man.)

I am going to the 24-hour McDonald's for a milkshake, to buy some ice at the 7-11 next door, and then to take a cool shower and hit the hay. It's 1:00 a.m. right now.

Also, when I started the run I asked my guardian angel (who is so cool) to remind me when things got rough, especially in the last 4 miles or so, what this is all for. As always, he came through. (Thanks, Father, for giving me such an awesome guardian.) While I was running this song I recently downloaded, "We Are Gonna Be Friends", came up on my iPod and then stayed in my mind. I didn't mind because it's a nice song.

The song led me to reflect on the amazing things my Heavenly Father has given me, how He has lavished blessing upon blessing, and grace upon grace: good weather, legs that work, family that love, good friends, faith and hope, beautiful cool breezes, baseball games and juicy hamburgers. God is so merciful. Please, friends, let's always take opportunities that present themselves to remind each other of our Father's great love for us.

We're all in this together now.

My Retreat

So, as I mentioned before, I went on retreat from July 24 to Aug 1. It was a really beautiful experience, and I am especially appreciative of the community that hosted me, provided me meals, and a daily spiritual director. I feel like the lines of communication between me, myself, and God are more open than they've been in a long time, and that can only be a good thing.

That said, the retreat was not easy or, in one sense, pleasant. "There's a reason," my director said on Day 5, "that they are called spiritual exercises. A retreat is not a vacation." Holy freaking cow, was he dead right on the money! I forget where I read - I think St. Anselm - that the spiritual life is much more difficult than the natural life, and mental labor more difficult than physical. As an academic, he was perhaps biased and defending his lifestyle, except for a key rationale he provides: if it were easier, wouldn't spiritual development be sought and attained more frequently than the material? Yet we see the opposite. Additionally, St. Anselm himself was accustomed from his youth to working for his father, attaining some prosperity therein, hard toil (like walking from Italy to northeastern France to get to the monastery that he eventually joined!) and physical sacrifice, so one can hardly say that he simply hadn't tried the material life. My retreat was eight days long and silent - no talking, no books (except the Good one) or newspapers, certainly no iPod (!). I went to Mass each day, and met with my spiritual director for an hour or two each day. That was very nice. Then in was back into silence. I ran about every other day, and was encouraged to eat heartily and take naps. Lots of time with me, my Bible, and God.

It got intense.

Even when I wasn't in chapel praying, prayer just kinda popped in on its own without me looking for it. Sometimes it was like wrestling with Him. A friend asked me, "Lol. Who won that wrestling match?!"
I laughed, and thought for a minute. When we wrestle with God, we always win. That's because if we win, we win; and if we cry "uncle," (or more aptly, "Father!") and submit to God's will, then we win, too. And don't think that it's blasphemous to write about beating God in a wrestling match. There's precedent: don't forget Jacob and the angel (Gen 32:24-25).

The retreat also required a lot of perseverance. It helped that I flew to Omaha and was picked up at the airport, so I couldn't really go anywhere. But at points I was crawling out of my skin to get out and get it over with. Just like in a run, one might stop to breathe, stretch, or walk, I found myself a couple of times cheating: sneaking a look at an old newspaper, or having a quite, furtive conversation with another retreatant. But basically I stuck with it. I kinda thought - don't take this as dogma - that retreats have different durations, like races. A day retreat might be like a mile run, a weekend like a 5k, a week-long retreat like a 10k, and the 30-day retreat Jesuits make might be compared to a marathon. Maybe there's something there.

So it was good. There were some things that God and I needed to hash out together, kinda like our own little Beer Summit. Only happier, and nobody had to get arrested.

The Drumbeat for Taxpayer Funded Abortion Marches On

Without writing into law, the enemies of life are very craftily trying to create institutions and laws and offices and give them the legal authority to cram abortion down America's throat through regulations quietly, and at a later date.

Sharing Life's Journey

I took my godson on the Appalachian Trail for an overnight hike with me last weekend. We found a pleasant flat spot alongside a stream where some people had camped the night before. We told fart jokes and ate trail mix; cooked on a portable camping stove; made a fire to roast marshmallows over; saw some wildlife, including three black bears, though those weren't the most exotic things we saw (this was!); and played a few hands of Uno. All in all, it was a very successful weekend if "success" is measured in friendship, laughter, mutual challenge and encouragement, interesting experiences, shared joy, and ice cream (although ChocoTacos proved elusive).

Actually, come to think of it, that's not a bad standard of success. My godson told me several times that he was very grateful that I brought him hiking with me, and that he'd like to do it again. One day, he will understand how grateful I was that he came along.

People Say That God Has a Plan

So right now I am going through a lot of uncertainty in life, some emotional turbulence, and some minor practical chaos. To specify a bit, just enough to give a feel, but not so much as to spill my guts inappropriately, the "minor practical chaos" of the last week has included our basement flooding three (3!) times, my car breaking down, and some hay fever (a day or two after the rains finished flooding our basement and all the watered plants went back to pollinating). So, yeah, things have been kinda rough.

A theme emerging in all this s...tuff is God's providence, that "God has a plan for everything." Other people have been relating to me, unsolicited, the stuff in their lives past and present, and sharing with me this confidence: God has a plan for everything, and everything is part of his plan.

Fine. Why did God make mosquitoes, then, I protested to a friend years ago, just rhetorically, when he told me that God has a plan for everything. The biologically minded conversation friend told me that the mosquito's role is to spread disease to cull herds. Fine. Where mosquitoes failed me, I now have a better challenge to God's providence. If God has a plan for everything, what's His bright idea about the shield bug? It doesn't bite or sting or carry disease as far as I know. It just smells kinda poopy, and they sneak into our house a lot when the screen door isn't shut all the way. They don't really bother us overly, not enough to make us (or, I suspect, other large mammals) migrate or anything. They don't get into our food, but they do gravitate toward light bulbs. But none of those observations gives a clear answer to the question. The "why?" remains.

So it is with the flooding that caused no damage, but just annoyance; and so it is with a lot of the other s...tuff in the last few weeks. Of course, the stuff I do to myself is explained by just that fact alone: I do it, and God permits it so I can learn and grow up finally. Fair enough. But still, what about the shield bugs of life?

I think, in the end, I am going to have to side with Job here. I am gonna have to just admit I don't know, and with out being too pushy, tell God I'd like an answer, and wait on Him to decide when it's best for me to know. Something in me really strongly rebels against not knowing everything about everything that affects my life, against not being in charge of everything around me. That's OK, too. That's the way it is. I just keep going to confession in those cases. Every time, the Son of David is merciful to me (Lk 18:38), a sinner. So until I have a better answer, that's what I'm gonna have to try to get through my thick skull - God's mercy. To paraphrase the Little Flower, everything is a mercy. Even the shield bug.

Seek to Know...

"Seek to know the path of spiritual childhood, without forcing yourself to follow this path. Leave works to the Holy Spirit," The Way #852, St. Josemaria Escriva.



Hadn't heard from him in a while, and I read this one at my desk when I got to work this morning. He is so excellent.

Persevere in Prayer

"To persevere. A child that calls at a door calls once... twice... many times - loud and at length - and without shame! And someone who goes to open the door in a huff is disarmed before the simplicity of the inconvenient little creature. So it is for you with God," The Way #893