I’m Glad I Didn’t Write Her Off

It was day two of teaching. In the midst of a simple roll call, I said her name and she rolled her eyes.

A flash of anger shot through me.

Who does she think she is? Can she hate me already?

I moved on with class and I reminded myself to love her. Because, really, that is all I could do. While I could have made a big deal about it, I have long since learned to choose my battles. And while I will never say that I always pick the right battles, I have learned to not make all of them battles. Continue reading “I’m Glad I Didn’t Write Her Off” →

On Highland

Most of what I have learned about the Lord’s mercy, I learned on Highland Avenue in Pittsburgh.

My younger sister and I were talking the other day about college. We agreed that perhaps even more impactful than the beautiful truths we learned in the classroom were the heart-wrenching experiences we had in ministry. Those were the moments that changed our hearts. Those were the moments when the truths of Christianity became living, breathing testimonies.

The first place I truly experienced a situation where I could love those who persecuted me was on Highland Avenue. Yet it was also the place where God reminded me that He never abandons anybody. There my heart was broken and there my heart was healed. Continue reading “On Highland” →

The Need for Reform

A group of atheists in my town is spending money to buy billboard space to convince people there is nothing. The only other group that quickly comes to mind that spends so much time and money to prove that there is nothing are those fiercely for abortion.

The atheist group has chosen to utilize one of the best arguments for there not being a God: evil and suffering exist. The billboard points to the millions who died in World War II as evidence of there being nobody who heard the prayers of the Christians and Jews. It is a compelling argument. Nearly everyone can point to an instance in their life or in the life of someone they know that seems to not mesh with a good and all-loving God. But what if the state of the world pointed more to the depravity of which mankind is capable rather than the non-existence of God? Continue reading “The Need for Reform” →

Love never ends

“Why would the Lord be frustrated with you? What would that accomplish?” my spiritual director asked me during our last meeting.

While I had spent days being frustrated with myself (and assuming the Lord was, too), I had never looked at it in quite that light. And in some ways, I didn’t want to. It was easier to assume that the Lord was throwing up His hands and sadly shaking His head in my direction.

“Why would He be frustrated with you?”

Because it seems like He should be. I am–why wouldn’t He be? Continue reading “Love never ends” →

Beloved Fatima

My sister said that the closer we got, the larger my smile became. I couldn’t help it. I was returning to a place that I had visited twice before and it had a certain feeling of coming home. The bus pulled up and let us out, excitedly spilling onto the platform before setting out on our mission.

I had returned again to my beloved Fatima, Portugal. This was the second “Marian bookend” of my Camino in the summer of 2014. Prior to walking the Camino, we had visited Lourdes. Now, we were on a celebratory trip to Fatima.

Continue reading “Beloved Fatima” →

Hope’s New Life

There is that lovely feeling rising up in my heart. It is refreshing and enlivening.

What is it?

Hope.

The promise of something new. The promise of change. The desire for tomorrow to surpass what was done today.

Yet how quick I am to fade from hope back to disillusionment or despair. The feelings I have that encourage change and a new direction are simply feelings: temporal, passing, ephemeral. I made a list of dreams I want to have fulfilled in 2016 and get excited, yet within a couple days I’m ready to settle.

What I need instead is the virtue of hope, something that actually lasts.

“The virtue of hope responds to the aspiration to the happiness which God has placed in the heart of every man; it takes up the hopes that inspires men’s activities and purifies them so as to order them to the Kingdom of heaven; it keeps man from discouragement; it sustains him during times of abandonment; it opens up his heart in expectation of eternal beatitude. Buoyed up by hope, he is preserved from selfishness and led to the happiness that flows from charity.” –Catechism of the Catholic Church 1818

A few months ago, I had this intense feeling of hope. It didn’t make sense logically because what I hoped for was nowhere in sight, nor did it seem to be soon in coming. The feeling was so strong, though, that I knew it was from the Lord. Yet I also knew, from past experiences, that sometimes the Lord will provide an abundance of something for me because in the near future, there will be a seeming lack of that very thing.

When I started sidewalk counseling outside an abortion clinic in Pittsburgh, I was filled with overwhelming joy and peace after the first three times. It was strange because I had prayed there for a couple years and never felt those emotions so intensely while there. The Lord was giving me the reassurance I would need when those feelings subsided. And they did: when the joy and peace were absent, I felt the closest I’ve ever been to depression. I ached and felt hollow within. If it wasn’t for those weeks of intense joy when logically I should have felt sorrow, I might have quit sidewalk counseling. I didn’t because I knew the Lord had convinced me of my course of action through consolation.

So a few months ago, when I felt this overwhelming sense of hope (or, as I called it at the time, “joyful anticipation”), I was thankful for that gift from the Lord, yet also a little concerned for what might be ahead. “Thanks, Jesus, for this wonderful joyful anticipation. I love this feeling. But…what is going to happen later?” The hope lingered and I basked in it. I told myself to remember this intensity of hope because it would pass, as all feelings do.

And they passed.

I found myself wishing I could quit life for a while and simply step out of the day-to-day grind. I wanted the Lord to deliver His promise now, because I wanted it now, not later. With the feeling of hope absent, the future no longer seemed quite as bright and cheery. I was left wondering if I hadn’t made it all up. Yet when I thought about what I had felt, I could still feel this deep certainty that it was true. The thing hoped for is not yet a reality, but I know the Lord will remain true to His promises, even if I must wait.

True hope is not a feeling that comes and goes, depending on the day. It is steadfast and enduring. Hope persists when logic and appearances suggest that it is fruitless. It is what the Israelites depended on as they waited for their long-desired Messiah. It is hope that led the three wise men to journey miles in anticipation of a king preceded by a star. As the early Christian martyrs were led to their deaths, it was hope that enabled them to look with love at the very ones who wielded the sword or the stone or the nail.

Hope isn’t a different perspective to have on life: hope is to have a new life.

“The one who has hope lives differently; the one who hopes has been granted the gift of a new life.” —Spe Salvi, Pope Benedict XVI

2016 will not be the year that my life becomes perfect or where I will magically change into the person I always wanted to be. But I do want this year to be one where I am honestly pursuing the best for myself and where the Lord’s will for my life is done more completely than ever before. I want to read twenty-five books, learn about the constellations, travel to two new states, and many more things.

Primarily, though, my hopes rest in the Lord. I want to venture into 2017 knowing the Lord in a far deeper way than I do right now. I want to enter tomorrow with a deeper knowledge and love for Jesus. I am not promised tomorrow. All the things I long for and hope for in the future, may never be mine because I may not live to see that day. But I am here now, and that is where the Lord desires to meet me.

“Although I have lived through much darkness, under harsh totalitarian regimes, I have seen enough evidence to be unshakably convinced that no difficulty, no fear is so great that it can completely suffocate the hope that springs eternal in the hearts of the young. You are our hope, the young are our hope. Do not let that hope die! Stake your lives on it!” –St. John Paul the Great, WYD Toronto 2002

This year I am embracing this hope that springs eternal in my young heart. I am taking this hope and letting it lead me into change (though it be difficult) and into newness of life. Hope, for the Christian, isn’t optional, it is operative.

I need hope. Not passing feelings, but real, life-sustaining, time-enduring, source from which my actions flow hope. Anything less is insufficient.

“My soul is waiting for the Lord, I count on his word. My soul is longing for the Lord more than watchmen for daybreak. Let the watchmen count on daybreak and Israel on the Lord.” (Psalm 130)

David

David was an American. The first American that we encountered as a hospitalero in the Spanish albergues. My impression of him, initially, was terrible. That wasn’t because I was quickly judging him or disliked him in appearances. It was because he came off like a jerk.

We showed up, with our minimal Spanish and tired legs, and inquired about beds for the three of us. “Tres?” The single word was a question indicating more than we wanted to attempt in Spanish. The man with a full head of silvery hair was unimpressed.

“Yes. I see three people.” We were taken aback and weren’t sure how to proceed. If I had an ounce more of stubbornness and more energy in my body, I might have left the albergue and walked to a different one or a different town. Instead, we awkwardly stood there, feeling bad for our spokesman and wondering if he was the only one in charge.

He briskly asked for our passport and credentials. Annoyed, I tried to kill him with kindness. I openly smiled at him when he handed my documents back to me. He didn’t seem quite certain how to take it. I would have thought he would be excited or interested to meet some people from his country, but he was clearly not.

The other hospitalero came down the steps and she greeted us in Spanish. David’s unenthusiastic voice chimed in, “They speak English.”

“You do?! Wonderful! I can talk to you! My name is Patricia.” The shift in emotions was quick. David was brooding and annoyed while Patricia was bubbly and patient. We watched them interact, assuming at first that they were a married couple. She wanted to know what the men had discovered about the water situation. Three times David gave a rude or unkind answer, but she persisted.

“No, really, David. Tell me what they said, so I can tell those who are asking.”

Finally, he gave a genuine response that satisfied her. My impression at this point was rather favorable to Patricia and dismissive of David. I wasn’t here to get walked on or be the point of his melancholic sarcasm. She convinced him to show us to our beds, a task he wasn’t pleased with but completed with minimal grumbling.

And so it was, the first American volunteer and already I was wishing one of us was from a different country. No wonder people dislike Americans if they all act like that, I thought.

My next main encounter with David was at our communal meal. Between Patricia and David, the plan for the evening was presented: supper followed by singing and then watching the sun set. David kept walking in and out of the room while we settled into our seats. I thought I had him pegged–they were a married couple and she wanted to volunteer and he came along because of her. Not because he wanted to, but simply for his wife.

Yet within the first few minutes that theory was flipped on its head. They weren’t married but had met the previous year when they finished the Camino in Finisterre. Both wanted to volunteer and decided to complete the undertaking together. He was from the States and she was from England. This information was nothing to what happened next.

Cool, detached, collected, sarcastic David began to speak. He revealed that this was their last night of the two weeks of volunteering. The next day they would be leaving for a holiday. David got choked up numerous times during his speech, his voice cracking and squeaking as he struggled for control. It was completely and utterly unexpected.

The meal of lentil soup with meatballs was served. David would take our bowls, with a large smile, and refill them before passing them back down the line to us. I was baffled. This hardly seemed to be the same man. Here he was trying to be polite and kind, a contrast to the seemingly self-absorbed American I had encountered hours earlier.

David was one of the greatest surprises of the Camino. I’m not sure I ever again saw such a transformation. The first David was, unbeknownst to me, struggling with the idea of leaving the tiring but beautiful work of being a hospitalero. He was also under stress due to water problems and trying to communicate in his rather terrible Spanish. I didn’t know that but immediately felt not welcomed. Patricia was more patient and knew more of his heart. When he obnoxiously refused to seriously answer her questions, she patiently waited for him to be sincere. That evening, David told all of us that Patrica was his best friend.

They sang silly songs, making fools of themselves for our entertainment. Then we took a group picture outside and watched the sun set. The colors were lovely but weren’t quite as grand as South Dakota. In the morning, we set off, waving goodbye to companions from the previous night. David surprised me. At the center of our hearts is a desire to be known and loved. We may build up walls all around us and shield ourselves with steely hearts, but there is always a chink in the armor. Because there always remains the desire to be known by others.

Even supposed jerks like David can turn out to have hearts of flesh after all.

“I will give you a new heart and place a new spirit within you, taking from your bodies your stony hearts and giving you natural hearts.” Ezekiel 36:26

A Reflection of Authenticity

A Reflection written in France

Among the swarms of people, residents and visitors, that bustle through Paris, I am merely a face. Living in a city causes people to think and act in different ways. Just being with the people, riding in the Metro with them, traversing their streets, I began to feel how closed off they are to the world. Everyone is wearing a mask–to protect themselves, to not let others see their true selves.

At one point, I was deeply frustrated with it. I feel like the quest of the last few months has been to learn authenticity. Who am I really? Who is God really? How is our relationship doing? It has been all about not staying on the surface but delving deeper. “Become who you are!” I was in Paris meeting peoples’ eyes and smiling, but then I remembered city people don’t do that and it could send a message I don’t want.

Riding on the Metro I knew I stood out with my large hiking backpack, but I felt like I fit in more when I acted bored, had a blank look on my face, and appeared to care little about the stops. We encountered young ladies near the Eiffel Tower who wanted signatures to help the deaf and the mute. I’m not entirely sure how their attempt to target only English-speakers would actually help the deaf and the mute of France, but that was their mission. The beggars at the churches–are they actually poor or is it all a ruse?

It bothered me to be living in a world of masks when I was striving for authenticity. I hate trying to evaluate people’s motives when my innate desire is to trust. I want to believe in people. At one point I looked at the crowd and thought of how each person is a well, their depths cannot be plumbed. Yet if we cut off the deeper parts of ourselves, if we live as masks instead of just hiding behind them, if we live so long in the superficial and shallow, we will begin to lose our ability to go deep, we will lose our belief that we even have depth. We will become the masks we wear.

Perhaps this is why the faith appears to be dying. People are tired of masks of holiness. They, whether they know it or not, crave authenticity. And the pagan world presents at least one thing authentically–I want to live without rules or morals but simply in the pursuit of pleasure.

How does one live authenticity in a world of masks? I don’t know exactly but I have some ideas. Don’t feign indifference when you actually care. Care less about appearance and more about actuality. Live deeply. Penetrate the inner depths you have and seek to know others at a deeper level, too. Refuse to be content with living in the shallow end, but rather put out into the deep!

Seeking After His Heart

A Blog Following the Quest of A Human Heart

Tag: heart