An Employment Issue

One of the biggest sources of comedy at camp were the group of counselors I liked to call the young guns - the kids who were as green as the grass at the beginning of the season who swore they had enough experience to run camp.  Though they barely knew how to get to camp without the help of two parents, eight phone calls, and 84 emails or facebook messages (because let’s be real, writing an electronic letter is sooo old school), they inevitably would make priceless comments that highlighted an eager willingness and a blind naivete before the campers arrived.  Days later their grand visions of running an entire age group were challenged by just trying to get 10 kids dressed for breakfast. Let me highlight, this is not an easy task by any stretch of the imagination!  

Lately, life feels like a conglomerate of moving puzzle pieces. “If you could move this one to the right and this one to the left, and if you could have done it yesterday it would have been helpful,” I annotated to God the way I think things ought to be.

Now, if God is as sassy as I can be I imagine His response would be: “Yes, and if you’d let me be God and you be you, we’d be better off as well.” Noted, the sass factor of God has not been documented in (any?) theological textbooks to my knowledge so this is written only under the authority that I am a Confirmed Christian who at times drips with New York sarcasm and sass and who appreciates that God speaks my language in order that I can understand my own ridiculousness at times.

They say it takes 10,000 hours to master something. When we’ve gotten to the level of mastery or even significant success in some areas of our lives it’s easy to start thinking I should have mastery over all areas of my life. The fact is, though, the Christian life, the Christian vocation, is fraught with mystery and wonder. And no matter how much we have “mastered” being a Christian there is still so much to learn, as we are an infinite distance from Perfect Love Himself.

God gently reminded me that I was acting like a young gun this week. It was an employment issue. I wanted to be God instead of trusting Him. His words from Job echoed:  

“Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?
    Tell me, if you have understanding.
Who determined its measurements—surely you know!
    Or who stretched the line upon it?
On what were its bases sunk,
    or who laid its cornerstone,
when the morning stars sang together,
    and all the sons of God shouted for joy? (Job 38:4-7)

To reverse the employment issue, I had to recognize and live the wisdom
Father Cavanaugh gave Rudy: “There is a God and I’m not Him.” Let us trust and return with all of our heart. Let us live with the confidence that His benefits plan trumps any other and His life insurance plan is filled with good things – “a future and a hope” (Jer. 29:11).

Verso l’alto,

KGRC

Now I’ll be bold

As well as strong

And use my head alongside my heart

So tame my flesh

And fix my eyes

A tethered mind freed from the lies

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGKfrgqWcv0

Here I go again

I often stop to wonder how this comes to be

Such a glorious love, such a beautiful mystery

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcolY_8gFfE

Take this cup away from me and find another one

Or give me strength to follow you and say your will be done

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pEiFy5jAwI

*I love finding new artists: PJ Anderson and Connor Flanagan is where it’s at, kids! They know what’s up J

Rise

If I had a dollar for every time a doctor asked me a question above my pay grade as a patient, I’d have my co-pays covered for the past year without a blink of an eye. “If you don’t have any of the symptoms of any of the major diseases, why are your levels so high?” she pressed me for an answer. “I have no idea,” I responded quietly.

I may have no idea but I can tell you I’ve thought and wondered the same thing for a long time. Long enough that I should have just booked the darn appointment weeks ago so I could have heard the doctor’s befuddlement and the assignment, I mean prescription, to go get more blood work done. Even as someone who is a fairly experienced patient, I still hesitate over potentially difficult news even though I know searching for the diagnosis is the first step towards the solution. But knowing something in your head and even when you know it in your heart there are times when the chasm between where you are and where you need to go has you paralyzed.

Similarly, this might be the case when we need to make a lifestyle change or when we experience the onslaught of the waves of life. When we’ve come to expect the rolling in of the continuous tide, we can sometimes hold our breathe and duck under, maybe even long after the tide has rolled out because our expectations have us expecting difficulty. Like the woman who was accused of adultery, let us hear the words of Christ: “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” ¹¹ She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you; go, and do not sin again.”^[a] Let us lift up our eyes to see the hand that’s outstretched to help us up. Let us rise with the peace of the resurrection.

Verso l’alto,

Kathryn 

Come on up for the rising

Come on up lay your hands in mine

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOm-uIPzqpI

I will go

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nK87iEQJYCc

Open your up your eyes

You’ve got to rise up when this world has got you down

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfa3GZOEb38

We will rise out of the darkness
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5m4N69UjQA

Beautiful Mess

One of the benefits of Anatomy 101 (I mean being a PT patient for a few years) is that you learn it’s all connected. The other day at yoga the instructor asked if my hamstrings were tight. I refrained from verbalizing the sarcastic reply, which insinuated my belief that if we still lived in the time and age of printed encyclopedias my picture would be sitting pretty next to tight hamstrings

Nonetheless, a few days later I was doing this meditative yoga, which infuriates the hell out of me because you seemingly do nothing and yet the effects are unreal. In the midst of it, I recognized I had a knot in my low back that could support the weight of the globe on the shoulders of Atlas. No wonder my hamstrings were tight.

“Every effect has a cause,” my own words from class the other day echoed back to me. Though I can trace tight hamstrings to poor posture while reading and sitting too much, I realize it’s harder to ask and understand the question which holds the cause of suffering as it pertains to good people.

I’m not going to attempt a treaty on this question, as the discourse that has been written is vast. Rather, the past few days I’ve seen the “cause and effect” of my own personal suffering in light of Love. As the God of life and love leads me through suffering, He walks with me and shepherds me with gratuitous love. I’ve seen the causes of other’s actions and uncontrollable circumstances open up and effect a new reality within and for me. Like Job, I can’t say I’ve liked the way God has communicated His love at times nor can I say I understand it, but I trust that even in the midst of suffering the Lord’s cause is always His steadfast love and the effects, when we cooperate, can transform a seeming mess into a beautiful one.

The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord - Job 1: 21

Verso l’alto,

K. Grace

Find a place that we find rest in this beautiful mess

You made us beautiful despite all our mess

We are created for holiness

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yio1zL5sG6c&list=UUQJy1tzAzV7BsSlzChSwK3g&index=12   (Starts at 2:35)

What you don’t have you don’t need it now

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=co6WMzDOh1o

Blessed are you

You are good to me

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKosVfAEUPE

My heart will choose to say

Blessed be Your name

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Qp11X6LKYY

You can focus on what you’ve been through or what you’ve come through.

Seasons of Change

Change is a constant of life. There are times we seek it and others when it “just happens,” like the cool wind of Fall sweeping over the summer haze. It can be a good thing and it certainly can be uncomfortable. Like the new skin that grows underneath a scab, change can push us outside our comfort zone making us want to scratch the itch of it not feeling totally right.

I’m a routine person. It’s a family thing – early to bed, early to rise. I’m nicer when I follow a schedule (What’s up, understatement!).  So when the schedule changes it’s slightly (eerrr…exponentially) frustrating waiting to find the new routine. As we glide into fall there are moments when it feels appropriate to be sipping coffee all cuddled up on the couch and there are other moments that have me running for the beach. In the midst of the change of seasons, it is an opportunity to see where we have come from and where we are going is only linked by where we are. Seasons of change bring up lots of “what should I be doing” moments. For me, the recent season of change has me asking the practical - when should I pray? How should I pray? When can I socialize? What’s my work schedule? And the ever-important questions: when can I play and when can I work out?

As these practical questions come to mind (and yes, they are important), I am encouraged first to answer “who am I to become?” From this flows what should I do, when should I do it, and how the daily “it’s” should be done? With peace, joy, and love I am called to be me - the best, unique and unrepeatable version of me. As God created me in His image and likeness I am called, by name, into His heart of mercy to be refined and strengthened by His love. I am called to more firmly hear His Truth: “I have loved you with an everlasting love.” I am called through the season of change to recognize we are constantly called to becoming more authentically ourselves. We are constantly called to greater freedom throughout life, which is itself a season of change from life to Life. Let us hold fast to what is unchanging in our lives, the inestimable and steadfast love of God, through any and all seasons of change.

Verso l’alto,

Kathryn Grace

“Laid down in grief/But woke with the keys/ To hell on that day/ First born of the slain/ The man Jesus Christ laid/ Death in his grave.” *This is what's on repeat these days*

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNEruHID6-k#t=74

Whatever way our stories end, I know you have rewritten mine …

Who can say if I have been changed for the better? But because I knew You, I have been changed for Good.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzrGFQysfYU

One thing remains

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_KXsMCJgBQ

“By day the Lord commands His steadfast love; and at night His song is with me, a prayer to the God of my life.” Psalm 42:8

“It is what is unchanging in our lives that helps us make sense of change.” Matthew Kelly 

Dare You to Wonder

He peered over the rims of his glasses. It was an action unbecoming of his age as his raspy voice and mannerisms had me swear he was an old man in a little boy’s body. Then in an Irish whisper that could rival my grandmother’s he said, “I’ll tell you after Mass.” The smile unfolded upwards and met the twinkle in his eyes. He was flirting over the pew. His comment was laced with innocence and wonder. He awaited with baited breathe as the seven year old girl finally smiled her affirmation. It’s one of the many reasons why I love working with seven year olds: they wonder.

So often we are on the five year road map or climbing the proverbial ladder that we miss out on wonder. We miss the gift of today. Wonder illuminated our childhood like the fireflies that lit a summer night. In the midst of darkness, there was an unpredictable predictable spark. And yet, aren’t we called to still wonder? Aren’t we called with child like trust to see the hand of God in all circumstances? Aren’t we called to reverence with a spirit of aw and wonder?

We can sit in darkness and wonder when or how is God going to answer our prayers. We can sit in silence or anger or frustration wanting, hoping, waiting for the seemingly unfulfilled promises of the Lord. Maybe life’s been unfair. Maybe circumstances have happened that have you questioning the light. Darkness has become so familiar that you wonder if you should even wonder if there’s a breakthrough coming. Maybe God’s gifts are currently coming through trial. Don’t despair. The God who created you and loves you and holds you in existence longs to whisper His plans of goodness to you. He desires for your heart to be made anew and to light your path, even if it’s just one step at a time.

So often we think of wonder as anxious worrying, wondering what if it doesn’t work. Sometimes it’s easier to just put up another life plan for submission and to hop on the road with narrow vision and seemingly little road blocks because at least it affords us the feeling of control. But when compared with the unpredictable unfolding of God’s generous Providence, it pales in comparison. Intellectually it is one thing. To live this reality is another. It might be scary to wonder but it’s equally exciting. Let us let go of our tightly clinched fists and our plans and our ways and let us wonder with childlike trust.

I dare you to wonder.

Verso l’alto,

K. Grace

You are not alone

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXIXmQadwXw

Are these just some words that I say aloud?
Is this just the sun breaking through the clouds?
Oh, I know it's more and I know somehow that
Heaven is breaking through

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sN30iznc-Ww

And I think to myself, what a wonderful world

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2VCwBzGdPM

Like a diamond in the sky
How I wonder

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEGV9H0aZaQ

Built to Last

No this isn’t an advertisement for Ford!

When I think about Bl. Pier Giorgio Frassati, I talk a lot about climbing to the HeightS! I’m a dreamer and a fighter; it’s natural. It’s alluring and captivating to transcend and to climb onward and upward as our siblings in faith who have gone before us cast a view of the landscape. Those who have gone before us paint the image of a life well lived and naturally we too want join them to see the grandeur of God and to hear His voice in the intimate, personal whisper which the saints heard the Word speak. That being said, these thoughts are often based upon a rather large assumption, which bears some reflection.  

In order to ascend, we must be walking on Solid Rock. Now, saying Pier Giorgio’s foundation was solid does not mitigate or downplay the reality that there were times and circumstances in his life that were treacherous or rocky. Rather, it highlights that as he climbed the Alps as a mountaineer and spiritually as a pilgrim he did so by placing one foot in front of the other, by attending to each small ascent that came his way. He built virtue and character by his daily habits, his receptive disposition to prayer and the sacraments, and his filial devotion to Mary. He staked his footing on solid ground.

Life according to the Spirit, whose fruit is holiness (cf. Rom 6:22; Gal 5:22), stirs up every baptized person and requires each to follow and imitate Jesus Christ in embracing the beatitudes; in listening and meditating on the Word of God; in conscious and active participation in the liturgical and sacramental life of the Church; in personal prayer; in family or in community; in hunger and thirst for justice; in the practice of the commandment of love in all circumstances of life and service to the brethren, especially the least, the poor and the suffering.

The Fathers of the Church use the word fillocalia- that is, love for divine beauty which radiates from divine love – to describe the spiritual journey toward purity under the guidance of the Holy Spirit in the hopes of daily becoming people who live “in the image of Christ”. Pier Giorgio was one of those who daily worked to become better conformed to the image of Christ.  (An Ordinary Christian, 64)

What’s your foundation? Where do you place your footing?  Bl. Pier Giorgio Frassati, pray that we may allow Christ to be our cornerstone, the bedrock and the foundation, which is built to last.

Verso l’alto,

Kathryn Grace

You are the solid rock we are built upon

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NjX7c4sx8Pg

I’ve been out there searching for a place where I belong and on my way I heard my song. Let it sing me home!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmj9xIMF9Pc

Love’s the Only House

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzM_lxnzi64