Only in God

only in God and through God can I become who I truly am.  Only by becoming who I am in Christ can I fully see truth.  Only by getting living in God and getting out of my own way can I do this.  I can't actually do this, God does this and I allow it.  To be the small petty person I want to be in myself would be a shame.  My vision of life is so small.  God will give me a big life full of things I can't even imagine, and because I can't imagine them I resist.  I get so caught up in daily living in the wants and desires of those around me that if I didn't start my day here with Him I would be lost in my own mask.  Without Him I would be so miserable and lost in exchanging one mask for another trying so hard to find the one that fits me, but none of them fit.  We are not meant to live under a mask, we are meant to live as free beings under Christ.

Finding Truth

How can we recognize truth in the world if we never seek to find it in ourselves?  Thomas Merton said of those who never seek to find their true selves in God "If we have chosen the way of falsity we must not be surprised that truth eludes us when we finally come to need it!".  Those who can not find truth or think it is all relative may never have found their true selves.  Until we know ourselves, who we are in God's eyes and strive to be that person is it a wonder that we fail to see any truth?  If we spend our whole lives hiding, we have to blind ourselves to who we are and in blinding ourselves we lose the ability to see anything faithfully.  If we can't accept ourselves, the one we know best, how can we ever have compassion for anyone else?

Becoming your true self

How do we become our true selves?  At this point in my life I think it is an ongoing project for our entire lives.  I am not there yet and what little I have found can slip away at any moment.  I need God to be even a little bit of my true self.  I have to have a daily relationship with God, I have to spend my day with Him.  I also have to be forgiving of myself.  I fail constantly and in order to not spend time mulling over all my past failures I have to ask for His forgiveness, make amends, and go on.  I could waste my whole life in regrets.  I have to be alert with my eyes and ears open, waiting for God.

He will send people to you.  Last nights get He sent me a young lady whose car wouldn't start.  I have been her and while I couldn't get her car started I could make sure she had someone coming and not leave her alone to worry.  God will send you things like that big and small that will make you life bigger than it would have been.

Our true selves as a reflection of God

Everything that God has made is a reflection of Him in some way.  Every tree, bug, bird, or person expresses a thought of God and therefore is a vision of God.  A tree or a flower or a bug is what it was created to be and by simply being what God created it to be is itself perfectly following the will of God.  A tree doesn't try to be a bird or a bug try to be a flower, they simply are as God intended them to be.

Human beings on the other hand are not content to be what God made us to be or do what God created us to do.  If God created us to be an accountant in a small town with a simple life with a family, we aren't happy.  We want to be more important, in a bigger town, with a wildly successful family.  We put on airs and we sin to fool ourselves and those around us into thinking we are someone else.  Instead of being saints where we are, we waste time being someone God doesn't know.

Becoming who we are meant to be

I want to recommend that you read Thomas Merton's New Seeds of Contemplation, at the very least read pages 34-36.  For me these pages hold the most profound idea, that we waste our lives try to construct this illusionary self.  We stick labels and experiences on ourselves to make us appear to be who we want the world to see us as.  We all do this.  We do things, we say things, we wear things that we think reflect who we are when they are really who think we are.  And it isn't just the secular world who do this.  Have you ever worn a cross so other people know you are Christian?  Carried a Bible and wanted people to see it?  When I joined the Secular Franciscans I was disappointed at first to find out we no longer wore habits.

We can not make ourselves, we have to discover ourselves.  Who we are in God.

Good Friday - Sitting in Silence

What a beautiful and peaceful way to start the day.  The birds are singing outside and all is quiet here in the church.  All is dark except the light behind the tabernacle.  Thank you Lord for this time.

I love you and want to always be with you.  I want to do Your will, and only Your will.  I want to be small and insignificant in the eyes of the world, but to be Your friend.  I don't need riches or comfort, I need You.  I want that enduring faith until the end and then to be united with you.

Until then I will look for You everyday in those around me.  I know a piece of You is all of them and it my job to seek it and find it.  I will serve You through them.  I will love You through them.

Waiting

I sit here my Beloved with You.  I am such a poor attendant left sitting here with You as your trial begins.  I begrudge the small amount of sleep I will miss sitting here with You who died for me.  Tomorrow I think I should get some great prize for skipping meat and cutting down on what it eat, but You were whipped for me beaten for me and then died for me.  Can't I wait just a bit longer, sit with You as You suffer?

There is no prize on earth for sitting here with You, I hope there is a prize for me in heaven.  I so want to want to suffer for You here on earth, to do some loving deed to prove to You how much I love You.  But I don't do it and by that I do show how much I love the one who is love itself.  I can only do the smallest things for You.  If You ever need me to do something great, You will have do it through me.  I am too weak and afraid.  Only in You can I ever hope to be strong.

How about that, I sit here with the one who loves me most and who suffered and died for me and I say if You want something more from me you have to help me.  I wish it weren't true, I wish I was strong and brave.  I wish I could but when I try I fail, when you help me I can do anything.  I think of the day I was in Rome and going up the stairs that you walked up to see Pilot.  I was about half way up and thought I wished I hadn't started.  Why?  Because my knees hurt, a bit.  Then I thought about You and what You went through on those stairs, what you heard, and I was ashamed.  What I did was so small, nothing in comparison to even what others have done and I almost gave up at a bit of knee pain.

I know I am so flawed, so broken.  Heal me Lord, make me more like You.  You who are all love, all beauty, and all wisdom.  Mold me Lord in your image and make me strong.  Help me Oh Lord to do Your will.