A Mountain of Meaning

Writing a story or a novel is one way of discovering sequence in experience, of stumbling upon cause and effect in the happenings of a writer’s own life. This has been the case with me. Connections slowly emerge. Like distant landmarks you are approaching, cause and effect begin to align themselves, draw closer together. Experiences too indefinite of outline in themselves to be recognized for themselves connect and are identified as a larger shape. And suddenly a light is thrown back, as when you train makes a curve, showing that there has been a mountain of meaning rising behind you on the way you’ve come, is rising there still, proven now through retrospect.
-“One Writer’s Beginnings” by Eudora Welty

I had an experience which relates to this quote from Eudora Welty but which is perhaps true in the reverse. In a conversation with someone I don’t know very well, I was posed the question about why I’ve remained Catholic and faithful to the way I was raised. This isn’t the first time I’ve heard this question, but I think I’m never quite equipped to answer the question well. There are so many things to say and yet I am uncertain what to peg as the reason I am still Catholic.

The short answer, I suppose, is the mysterious working of grace. How can I account for that which is unquantifiable, incalculable, and unknown? The prayers which have been prayed for me, the sacrifices offered on my behalf, the ways I’ve unknowingly responded to grace, the particularities of my personality, the effect of others’ words or actions, and far more have all had an impact on my heart and my life of faith. How can I offer a quick response? How can I even fully know why I still adhere to the sacramental life, why I find the lives of saints so fascinating, why I continue to follow Jesus when many people in similar situations or with relative experiences have not?

And yet here was someone asking a question and since he had not exactly remained in the faith of his childhood, it seemed more important to offer some sort of authentic response instead of just shrugging my shoulders and saying, “God is mysterious.”

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Honey From the Rock

I looked up from my sink of dishes to see a plump baby bird and his mom perched on the railing of my deck. The squat baby tipped his head back, opened his yellow-orange beak, and received what the mom graciously offered. The mom’s intense blue-black head flickered to the tree and then to the sky, cautious and attentive, before bolting away in search of more food. Meanwhile, the baby bird hunkered down on the railing, no squawk or complaint issuing from his mouth as his mom left him.

For God alone my soul waits in silence; from him comes my salvation. He only is my rock and my salvation, my fortress; I shall not be greatly moved.
(Psalm 62:1 RSVCE)

This little bird, trusting in the faithful return of his mother, made me see again how I should be with God. Every time the mother took flight, the baby waited quietly, resting in the firm and certain knowledge that she would return. The most squawking happened when the mother had landed on the railing and the baby chirruped incessantly, eagerly clamoring for the food which was soon to be given. Otherwise, he was silent. He hardly moved. He never made an attempt to go get food on his own or to make any sort of search for his mother. He just waited in confidence.

Or perhaps he simply followed his bird instincts that said his mom would return with food. Yet how much more should I wait hopefully on the Lord, trusting that as He has promised, so He will deliver. The Lord will not abandon me or forget me. He can be completely trusted and relied upon. Though He might seem absent or far away, He is always laboring to provide the very best possible in each moment.

I am the Lord your God, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it.
(Psalm 81: 10 RSVCE)

No conversation, no questions, no complaints. Just a neck craning back and a beak opened wide to receive whatever the mom was going to give him. And the mom provided each time. Sometimes she took part of the food back out, held for a bit in her mouth, and then deposited it again in his waiting mouth. Whatever she gave was received as good. I didn’t see the baby spit it back out or question if he would like what would be offered. Simple receptivity.

In these actions, repeated several times as the dirty dishes passed through my hands and became clean, I found a challenge offered to me from the Lord. Would I be like that little bird and receive all that He would offer me? Would I not question if it was really good or if I would like it or if there was anything else, but would I instead just receive from the Lord all He gifted? Could I trust the God of all creation, Who has led me up out of my own Egypts many times, as simply as the little bird trusted his mother? Will I take the offered cup and drink fully?

But my people did not listen to my voice; Israel would have none of me. So I gave them over to their stubborn hearts, to follow their own counsels. O that my people would listen to me, that Israel would walk in my ways! I would soon subdue their enemies, and turn my hand against their foes….I would feed you with the finest of the wheat, and with honey from the rock I would satisfy you.
(Psalm 81: 11-14, 16)

Recently, I’ve been pondering the truth that God is always giving us our greatest good in every moment. It isn’t something new I learned, but it isn’t something I have often found myself considering. While I often don’t receive fully what the Lord is offering, it has been renewing my perspective of life events and situations when I try to view it from this perspective of unfathomable goodness.

The priest who spurred this pondering shared a story which I have also been ruminating over. He mentioned praying for rain as a child and how this nearly destroyed his belief in the goodness of God since the rain often didn’t come or was delayed. As a child, his perspective was that if God heard enough people, He would give what they were asking for or be convinced to give them what they wanted. Yet he offered a more Christian perspective of what prayer should be with the Lord. When begging and pleading for rain and it doesn’t come, the faithful follower of Jesus should be able to prayerfully wonder, Lord, what greater good are you doing here in this place of our need?

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Waiting Without (A Foreseeable) End

When asked why I chose Advent as one of my favorite seasons in the liturgical year, I replied that I appreciated the anticipation. Then, realizing what I had said and the truth of it, I considered how I also liked the set ending point of the anticipation. We are asking for Christ to come in a new way at Christmas and then He comes, December 25th, like clockwork. A definitive period of anticipation marked by a definitive end.

Life, however, is not like this.

Yet I have also come to realize that I am in the Advent of my life. Perhaps, however, we are always in an Advent. Maybe we are always saying, “Come, Lord Jesus” and hoping for a particular fulfillment. There is no definite end in sight, though. That which we long for and ardently desire isn’t simply four weeks away or even a year away. Instead, we wait and we hope. Even if it is clear that the Lord has a plan, it is eminently unclear how it will unfold. Will our desires be answered just as we long? Or will there be some circuitous, meandering path to fulfillment, realized only years later when we look back and can say that God answered, just behind a guise or beneath a veil.

I believe that I shall see the bounty of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord with courage; be stouthearted, and wait for the Lord.
Psalm 27

Advent is a time of anticipation, diving headlong into our hopes and desires, while also ordering them anew. It is a time of preparation, reminding me that I must always be actively preparing to welcome Jesus, even while my heart is led to long for other, earthly things, good as they may be. If the Lord came tonight, like a thief, I would be saddened if my response must be, “I was simply waiting for you to give me this particular gift and then I was going to….” How much better to be always in a state of welcoming and preparing to make room.

These past few months I’ve been taking a class on the problem of suffering. The proposal is that as Christians, we must hold that God, being good, allows the suffering from which He can draw a greater good for us, which could not be arrived at without the suffering. From philosophers to novelists, we have wrestled with this experience of suffering coursing through humanity, trying to see how it is both a mystery and yet also a means to encountering God. After one evening of reading, I was forced to look at my life and say to myself, “Everything in my life is offered as a way to draw me nearer to the Lord.” It was almost unbelievable, as I gazed at aspects I wished were otherwise, longings left unfulfilled, and wondered why God couldn’t have caused me to grow in some other way apart from the soul-deep suffering. While left with no definitive, particular answer, there is a comfort in trusting that the Lord will make His plan known at some point between now and eternity, revealing to me the ways particular pains were offered as gifts.

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Always Good

The thing to combat the rampant 2020 pessimism is reflecting on the goodness of the Lord.

About one year ago, I heard people and saw social media fill with a litany of “Thankfully 2019 is nearly over! That was the worst!” People were confident in a 2020 of their dreams, something that would be better than the difficulties of their current year. While I can applaud the sense of hopefulness, it also rang with clear bitterness toward what had been offered them in the present. As a teacher, I see it year after year as students (and, admittedly, teachers) often anticipate the end of a semester or a school year.

Something better must be coming, we say. The present difficulties must yield to glorious triumphs.

So 2019 died and 2020 was born.

While it is definitively a different sort of year, I have heard many speak with gloom about this year, about the complete and utter awfulness of it all. Some have been more dramatically impacted than others, for sure. Yet, overall, the disdain for the year seems overkill.

Yes, I know about the pandemic. Yes, I remember the election. Yes, yes, all of the difficulties we endured were real.

And yet there is much to find hope in and rejoice over.

At a retreat this last weekend, I was surrounded by people who were praising the goodness of God. And I thought, Some people would think we are crazy saying that God is good right now. But it is true: He is objectively good. If we cannot praise Him unless we are surrounded by perfection, we will never praise Him. If our idea that God is good is based on our current circumstances, then we don’t know Him at all. It is a thin and superficial faith we have if it ebbs and flows in direct proportion to how fortunate we feel.

If our God, whom we serve, can save us from the white-hot furnace and from your hands, O king, may he save us! But even if he will not, know, O king, that we will not serve your god or worship the golden statue which you set up.
Daniel 3: 17-18

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A Life-Giving Intentionality

In the first few weeks of school, I find myself swinging between this isn’t that bad and then suddenly falling into I’m not sure I can do this for an entire semester or an entire year. What I keep returning to is the knowledge that this year, perhaps more than ever, needs to be filled with intentional work-life balance and an abundance of good, life-giving things for me. It is always the desire and goal each year for those things to have a critical place and yet this year I think they need to be a desire turned into reality.

With everyone masked, I find myself trying to guess more and more what my students are thinking or how they are receiving the information presented. Not every student gives away their inner thoughts on their faces, but it certainly helps me know more about what is happening internally when I have an entire face to view and not simply a set of eyes.

I realize the same is true for them, too, when I re-watch videos of me teaching and I see how crucial the facial expressions were for the lesson. I don’t claim to have the most interesting face, friends, but the whole face is incredibly helpful when lecturing. Even though I was raised by a man who disciplined with his eyebrows, I cannot convey every emotion purely through raising or lowering my eyebrows. I attribute at least part of my excessive tiredness to this COVID-induced reality.

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Vanity of Vanities

I don’t generally consider myself to be vain. Perhaps I have a sort of intellectual vanity, but physical vanity doesn’t usually seem to be my downfall. There was an article I read that said my personal hell would be that every time I open my mouth to say something intelligent, something completely idiotic would come out instead. Based on how strongly I felt that, I assume I must have a rather decently sized strain of vanity when it comes to if people think I am smart or stupid.

A few weeks ago, I asked some of my family if they would rather have people think they were smart or beautiful. For me, the answer was pretty clear—I don’t care too much about beauty, but I care a great deal about intellect. So it seems I would be rather virtuous when it comes to physical vanity.

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Is the Good News Good?

St. Peter says to “be ready to give a reason for the hope that is in you” (1 Peter 3:15) but sometimes it seems the hope can get lost in a parade of rules. I asked my students what is the cause of our hope and after throwing out several answers, someone finally said the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus was the source of our hope.

“Do you feel like the Good News is good?”

They paused for a moment, almost seeming to sense there was a trick question they needed to skirt.

“Yes,” one student said.

“Why?”

This simple question seemed difficult for them. Someone replied, “Because it seemed like the right answer.” In fact, when I asked a later question (“Why does the Good News not seem good?”) they were able to respond with more answers.

When I go into the prison, so many of the men that come to the Catholic bible study or Mass are able to clearly point to their lives and say, “When I do my own will, I am not free.” It is a profound gift that the men in prison have that I think so many outside prison lack. The doctor, the teacher, the student, the politician, the bus driver, the plumber, the painter, the whatever can look like they have it together because they have some worldly success and their struggles might not be so apparent. The reality, however, is that we are all in great need of being saved. This crashes into the truth that the Good News is profoundly good, but it does require an acknowledgement that I cannot do it on my own.

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Break Our Hearts of Stone

It seems keeping the heart one of flesh, instead of being one of stone, is the continual work of a lifetime. Softening, rather than hardening, requires a strength and intentionality that doesn’t come naturally to me. In the wake of my defensiveness and desire for self-preservation, I repeatedly need to engage in the work of letting my heart be real. The simple act of believing in the goodness of others (and living in that truth) is one that requires me to be soft-hearted over and over again.

As I’ve gone into the prison, I have grown in seeing the goodness in people who have made many mistakes. Many of the men I interact with are easy to find goodness in because they are seeking the Lord, too. Their zeal for the Lord or their desire to love Him or find Him invites me to see how God is moving in their hearts. Others are a little more difficult since they make me feel uncomfortable or continually lie to me. But as a whole, I am able to look at men who have raped, murdered, and committed all sorts of crimes and proclaim their inherent goodness.

For whatever reason, we often look up what crimes the men are in for and how long of a sentence they received. At times, it helps to understand their position: are they in for life or a few years or simply back after breaking parole? We decided to look up one man I’ve talked with several times and see his crime. It was surprising because the kindness and gentleness I’ve experienced from him ran contrary to the crime he was sentenced to serve. Yet, despite the surprise, it didn’t really change how I felt toward him. The goodness and kindness I’ve experienced are real and he is far more than the crimes of his past.

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Quit Striving: You Are Already Valuable

For the past few semesters, I give something called ‘The Preference Test‘ as a way to lead into the Argument from Desire when speaking of God’s existence. This test gives a series of would-you-rather questions but proposed in a slightly different way. I understand why the students sometimes find it silly because it pits options like You are loved against You are not loved. It seems easy enough to be clear about what you would truly prefer, but so many times the students struggle to admit that they desire something when intellectually they are convinced it doesn’t exist or isn’t real.

One question asked if they would rather have their value be innate or dependent on their abilities. This one is always interesting, because the hard-working, pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps mentality comes out in full force even if it isn’t really what anyone would truly want. I asked what they preferred. Did they prefer to be worth something just because they exist or did they prefer to strive for worthiness?

So many of them argued that culturally our value is based on our net worth or the skills we’ve acquired or how gifted we are. I told them I understood that, but asked how do you want your value to be determined? Still some insisted that they would prefer that measuring rod of value.

Interestingly, some seemed to fear nobody would work hard if they just knew they were valuable. I wonder if it is because they work hard to be good and then they wonder what it would be like if everyone had value regardless of their skills. Perhaps it is because they feel validated by meeting certain expectations and don’t know what it would mean if those measuring rods were broken and thrown away. Who would they be without grades or athletic giftedness or money or determination?

And it just made my heart ache to see them striving so much. So many of our problems seem to stem from not knowing our true worth or identity. If we all fully understood it, perhaps we wouldn’t be compelled to step on other people or gossip or give up or lie or do whatever we do to get ahead. Or whatever we do to numb the feeling that we aren’t worth anything or can never amount to much. People suffer from not knowing their own true value more than being too full of their own giftedness. I’m quite confident that the ones who seem the most full of themselves are so because they recognize within themselves a radical insufficiency.

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Old Words, New Meaning

Have you ever heard a passage in Scripture and been convinced that it was crafted specifically for you in that moment?

Or have you heard a story or verse again but you are really hearing it for the first time with new ears?

Who shall climb the mountain of the Lord?
Who shall stand in his holy place?
Psalm 24

After a college semester in Austria, I spent a week in Ireland with my aunt. One day, I climbed Croagh Patrick, the mountain said to be the place where St. Patrick drove the snakes from Ireland. I’m a plains girl, through and through, but I was excited to have a mini-retreat as I ascended the mountain on my own.

For several months after, I was reminded of this small pilgrimage when I would read Scripture passages that spoke of climbing mountains. Transported, the verses were enriched with the memory of my own mountain climbing experience. The view I had from the rocky summit was striking, reminding me why mountain-top experiences are so formative.

The Lord is king, let the earth rejoice,
Let all the coastlands be glad.
Psalm 97

In college, I went on a mission trip that brought the sacraments to people living along the Honduran coast. We hiked to towns that had no roads and met with people who had almost nothing. My Spanish was limited, but my heart overflowed when I encountered their simplicity and their joy. Returning to campus, I longed to be in Honduras, a place abundant in beauty and where I encountered the tangible presence of the Lord.

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Seeking After His Heart

A Blog Following the Quest of A Human Heart

Tag: goodness

A Mountain of Meaning

Honey From the Rock

Waiting Without (A Foreseeable) End

Always Good

A Life-Giving Intentionality

Vanity of Vanities

Is the Good News Good?

Break Our Hearts of Stone

Quit Striving: You Are Already Valuable

Old Words, New Meaning

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