Life in a new city, a new job, a new home - all of this and more have kept me occupied and not blogging. The third week of Advent is well under way, and in a week's time, I'll be on a plane headed to the Land Where I Was Birthed for Christmas and New Year's Eve. Not only will I be visiting my dear family and friends, I will also be continuing my discernment by staying overnight at the Carmel in Concord, NH, and visiting with the Poor Clares of Boston, located in Jamaica Plain. (Incidentally, Jamaica Plain is where my parents first settled when they moved from Elmira, NY to Boston back in the early '50s.)
A few words on the full-time job I've held since August - I'm the Office Manager for Mt. Calvary Catholic Cemetery in Salt Lake City, UT, working for the Catholic Diocese of SLC. Certainly not rocket science, but definitely a ministry - in more ways than I would've thought. I've come to see and know a deeper vein of human experience and suffering: the grieving, the poor, our veterans, gang members and their families, folks without a whole lot of education, immigrants, and people just trying to get by. This experience has been (and continues to be) extremely humbling, and I've learned (am learning) more about myself than I thought possible. I've been so ingrained in academia and academic pursuits - not that there's anything wrong with them! But as a person who feels called to pray incessantly (which is part of the Carmelite charism), I needed to see and know these people. What I found at my last job as a writing tutor at Azusa Pacific University were people working their butts off to improve their lives and the lives of others. Now I'm seeing people who may not have the opportunity for education, who may be poor or rich, but who are nonetheless living out their lives in the best way they can, sometimes in the face of tremendous odds. I am humbled and blessed to serve them.
In this job, the Holy Spirit has also blessed me with some very painful realizations about myself. Control. I've written about it before, but here it has become a daily experience of having what I think is control wrenched from my hands. I finally realized how attached I was to my "story," to the ways in which I've kept myself locked in an unending power struggle with reality. A struggle which the enemy was all too keen on reinforcing. In a moment of anger and frustration at a circumstance that I felt was making me look bad, a circumstance not at all in my control, I felt the gentle insistence of Jesus, asking me, begging me to give it to Him. Oh how I wanted to keep that injured, off-put, angry, self-righteous stance intact for my ego to feel warranted! "If I let this go, I'll cease to exist!" was somehow the whispered lie that I'd come to believe at some point in my life; a lie that has festered and formed layers of scar tissue throughout the decades.
But Jesus, He loves me so much that he wouldn't let up. In the moment, eyes closed, jaw set, I felt the melting start... and slowly I opened my heart and with the Spirit of Wisdom to lead me, I gave it to Him.
Nothing has been the same since. It was a quiet yet life-changing moment of sheer grace. Nothing in me was able to do this on my own. I'm weak. I want to reinforce the Story of Me over and over again. God is constantly luring me into letting that false self go, giving it to Christ to be healed. I want to live free in Him!
I've become a huge fan of St. Augustine recently. His own struggle with his intellect as well as his "fleshly passions" seem to reflect much of my own. The Augustinians take as their symbol the heart with an arrow and flames, because St. Augustine was a man of the heart, after the heart of God. I totally dig this!
"You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you." - St. Augustine of Hippo
Please pray for my discernment, or if you're not the praying type, send me some good thoughts, please. I feel in my deepest knowing that I am close to the truth of where God is leading me. I have made a wonderful connection with the Bishop of SLC, who has blessed the personal vows of obedience, poverty and chastity which I made myself over two and a half years ago. This is one step closer to my goal of living consecrated life.
I will be keeping you all in my prayers for a safe, peaceful, blessed Christmas, a Happy Hanukah, and however many other religious feasts there may be! My next post will likely be in the new year, so Happy New Year to you as well.
God bless!
No comments:
Post a Comment