Take the Long Way Home

Nine days, only nine days, that’s not so very long.  I was supposed to finish this novena in nine days.  If anyone is reading this they know that it’s been a lot more than nine days since I posted the first day’s reflection.  My prayer life needs some serious work if I can’t be consistent for nine days! 

Today’s reading was on Love of God and Fear of God.  Without having to take any time for reflection or meditation I can tell you that I don’t love or fear God enough.  If I feared God then I would spend more time in prayer!  I would be able to commit myself for nine measely days to this novena!  Scripture tells us not to fear man who can kill the body but not the soul, but to fear the one who determines the fate of both (my own bad paraphrase).  It is a great priviledge to call the King of the Universe, Daddy, but it’s one that I tend to take for granted.  Do you think Paris Hilton respects her father?  Does she know, really know, how incredibly lucky she is to be his daughter?  Do you think she wakes up every morning and thanks him?  Or is she a spoiled brat who expects her father to foot her bills?  Does she take her wealth for granted?  Not knowing anything about her I can’t answer that question, but I take my Father for granted.  My Father is much wealthier than hers; He promises a much bigger inheritance, and yet I don’t have the respect for Him that I should.  I don’t wake up every morning thankful, instead I wake up expecting Him to take care of me.  Expectation without fear of who He is is just plain stupid!  And can you truly love someone you don’t properly respect?  I love my husband, but there is an element of fear there.  Fear in two aspects: 1. I respect him.  He is a good man, a hard worker, thoughtful and helpful.  2.  I also fear what would happen if I took him too much for granted.  I don’t assume that he would still love me, stay with me, if I was too bad of a wife.  He is probably not even aware of this fear - he would tell me that it was unfounded, but is it?  Are there things I could do that would be unforgiveable?  I think so.  Scripture compares our relationship with God to marriage, so I think this is a valid train of thought.  Can no fear in a relationship lead to the destruction of that relationship?  I think so. 

This is definitely food for thought.  I have always intellectually assented to the fact that I needed to fear God (and love Him).  I have also tried to think about what that really means, but I have not been very succesful at living out what my head tells me is right.  But here I have to admit that I don’t remember praying for fear; praying for love, yes, but not fear.  I think I have a new prayer!  Holy Spirit, I need fear!  The healthy fear that one should always have for their husband, their sovereign, their God.  Help me to be quiet and listen for your Counsel and your Knowledge.  Help me to be sensitive to your voice so I can follow your leading into Piety, and give me Fortitude so I can carry on.

I can sum up this day in a few words…. Peace is a choice.  Peace is not what I get when I have no more problems, or more realistically, peace does not come when I’ve solved the problem at hand.  Not true peace anyway.  The peace that passeth understanding only comes from God.  Here again I have to struggle with the separation of the Father and the Holy Spirit.  I still think of the Holy Spirit as “preceding from the Father” in a way that I don’t think was intended - so tied together that there is no separation, no separate identity, just the way that the Father (as a Spirit) comes to me. 

Peace from the Holy Spirit is peace despite circumstances, peace that remains no matter what goes on in life.  Peace is not the same as ease.  Unfortunately, ease is usually what I seek.  But peace is what I should want. 

I really struggle with fatalism.  As a Calvinist I was supposed to believe that everything is ordained by God, but that this belief should not equal fatalism.  I don’t know how typical I was, but I had a hard time NOT being fatalistic.  How can I have any type of free will if God ordains everything?  How do these work together?  There is indeed an element of mystery there.  God is definitely in control, but I must make choices, I must use my free will to follow, to worship.  I feel that my prayers are more effectual, ie  that  my prayers mean something - before in my mind it seemed pointless to pray because God already knew what was going to happen, it didn’t matter what I wanted, God was going to do whatever He wanted and the goal was to want the same thing as Him.  (this is still a goal I want to achieve, but there is a fine line between believing that God listens to ALL your prayers and that He only pays attention to the “right” ones)

So my prayer today is for peace, real peace.  Peace that only the Holy Spirit brings.  Peace in all circumstances.  And to receive this peace I must listen to the HOly Spirit.  Of course this requires me being quiet!  Listening to God is hard.  It’s hard to tell the difference between God and me.  My thoughts and wants are so much louder than His.  Holy Spirit, please give me the grace of quietness, the ability to hear you when you speak to me.  Help me to drown out myself and listen to You.

Piety gives you peace.  What is piety?  My Websters calls it “duty to God; devotion to religious duties; loyalty and devotion to parents, family.”  I like that last part - devotion and loyalty to family.  I think that is the better definition of piety.  Am I loyal to my Father?  my Brother?  my mother? (Scott Hahn says that the Holy Spirit has a maternal role in the Trinity - not that the HS is female.  That Mary is a “type” of the Holy Spirit.)  When there is family harmony there is peace, at least that’s how it works in my family.  When there is harmony, any situation that arises doesn’t seem overwhelming because you are not facing it alone, but together.  But when there is disharmony…

So what does piety look like?  This is where I have trouble.  I’m not good at maintaining any level of piety in my life.  A busy day comes along and instantly I throw over prayer, meditation, study, to make room for whatever else needs to be done.  I need lots of help here!  And peace?  That is rare in my world.  I am an anxious person by nature.  But I know for sure that when I can maintain a healthy prayer life I have that peace.  

Holy Spirit, please come to me and grant me peace.  Give me Fortitude, because I need that to maintain Piety.  I need your help in learning to be quiet and listen to your Counsel.  Give me your Knowledge and wisdom, and help me to discern *your* voice from my own. 

I’m about two days behind now, and it’s all because I have nothing to say about this day.  I’ve read it over and over for several days (and I’ve been good, I haven’t looked at anyone else’s reflections or moved on to a new day) and I have “no comment”.  I don’t know why this novena has been so hard for me.  All I can think of is that I want to have something brilliant to say and when I don’t I walk away.  Okay Holy Spirit, give me Fortitude…

The Holy Spirit sanctifies.  I’ve heard this before, but somehow it seems different in this context.  Honestly, I have to say it’s probably not the context, but my perception that is different.  Trying to see the Holy Spirit as a distinct person has  been challenging.  I’m so programmed to ask Jesus everything that branching out to ask the Holy Spirit (much less Mary and the Saints!) has to be a conscious task.  I have always heard the Trinity divided up into their different “roles”, but because I wasn’t asked to take any kind of action I was able to reserve “judgement” on this.  I was able to *say* I believed in the Trintiy, yet not take it to heart, not make it real to me.  Now I’m being asked to pray directly to the Holy Spirit, as the third person of the Trinity.  In other words, to take it to heart, to make it real.  If the Holy Spirit *is* the third person of the Trinity then this should be no problem, right?  But because I’ve never internalized this belief I’m having difficulty.  Oh Holy Spirit, show yourself to me, make yourself real to me, give the gifts of Fortitude, Knowledge, Counsel and Understanding.  I believe.  Lord, help my unbelief.

Day 3’s post was a rant about how I don’t know what God will tell me personally about my life.  How do I make decisions?  Does God have a “will” for every life decision?  Is it only a matter of locating this “will” and working within it, or do I have “free will” to make decisions and God works with me on the decisions that I make?  Yesterday I was whining about how I “want ” something that I can’t afford, now today the novena says, “Why do I spend so much time accumulating money when Jesus promised that the Father would provide?”  WHAT DOES THIS MEAN!!!!  Does this mean do what you “want” and the Father will provide (I guess I should add that what I “want” is a good thing, I’m not asking for personal pleasure)?  Aack, Holy Spirit, I need Understanding and Knowledge (Counsel and Fortitude would be nice too, please).  How do we know when it’s the Holy Spirit giving us Knowledge and Counsel, and when it’s just our own sinfulness seeing what we want to see to gain what we want? 

Holy Spirit, I need true Counsel, Understanding, and Knowledge, and I need true Fortitude to persevere through the process.  Help me to know when it’s truly You speaking to me.  Help me to be quiet enough to hear You through my own desires.  Help me to see where I need to grow and learn, and not just be focused on my life circumstances. 

I’m a little stymied by today’s meditation.  Understanding…  What does this mean exactly?  Understanding of God’s will?  Understanding of His word?  Understanding of…?  I’m stuck in this, I think, because of something I “want” from God.  And also from a conversation going on in a homeschool forum that I frequent.  Does God let us know what He wants from us (other than the obvioius obeying His word - I know He doesn’t want me to lie, etc)?  In our everyday lives, can we know “the will of God”?  Or does He give us free reign to decide what we want for ourselves and the goal is to spend enough time with Him in prayer, in church, in His word, to have our “wants” line up with what He considers “good”.  I “want” something that I can’t really afford.  Do I “step out in faith” and do what I “want” and “trust” that God will provide the means?  Do I pray for the means and wait until God provides them?  Maybe this doesn’t correspond to the kind of understanding that the author of this novena intended, but this is what dominates my mind.  What kind of understanding can we have?  Can we understand what God wants from us in all situations? 

What kind of counsel, what kind of understanding does the Holy Spirit provide? 

“O Holy Spirit, I did not spend enough time
yesterday trying to learn how to listen to Your
promptings. I always know better than my teacher and
did not think it would make any difference. I do not
let You guide me because I do not KNOW how to listen
to You. In fact, I do not even listen to those who
have had the experience of learning how to listen.”

These were the first lines of the novena today and they made me laugh out loud.  Do you mean it’s not only me?  Everybody that does this has trouble with it?  What an arrogant fool I am.  It’s as if this was a personal note just to me, which means that I’m not all that unique since apparently these same lines speak to every single person who does this novena. 

I tried to listen, but I didn’t try very hard.  I tried to meditate, but I didn’t try very hard.  Thank you God that you knew us well enough to know that we need the Holy Spirit!  I need guidance desparately and yet I don’t listen to the One who can guide me perfectly.  Break through my stubborness and my hardness.  Speak to me and I will listen even if it’s not what I want to hear.

Batter my heart, three-person’d God, for you
As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise and stand, o’erthrow me, and bend
Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurp’d town to’another due,
Labor to’admit you, but oh, to no end;
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captiv’d, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly’I love you, and would be lov’d fain,
But am betroth’d unto your enemy;
Divorce me,’untie or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you’enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.                   - John Donne

Fortitude?  To be fortified? Strength? To be strong?  Perseverence? To not give in, or give up?

Characteristics that I both need and want.  In fact I think that these may be the things that I ask God for most.  The strength to continue - my most common prayer.  Well, its my prayer again today, only this time I’m asking the Holy Spirit directly to give it to me. 

I’m supposed to be meditating on this… thinking about fortitude.  I’m very good at ruminating about past hurts or stupid things I said, but apparently I’m no good at meditating on something positive.  I have no thoughts at all.  My mind has been blank all day.  I can’t move past the obvious.  Fortitude - okay, Holy Spirit give me fortitude, help me be strong…  But what does this mean, what does it look like, what new insights do I have?  I have  nothing. 

Admission:  I just cheated, sort of.  I’m not doing this novena alone so I’m not supposed to look at anyone else’s thoughts before I post my own.  After typing the above (and that was after trying to think about this all day!) I looked at my friends thoughts to see what this ”should” look like.  And she said something about learning more about fortitude.  Can we research?  Can I look up fortitude?  See what other’s thoughts on the subject are?  I thought that was against the rules?  You can see how this whole idea of looking to my own thoughts is driving me insane!  But somehow I think that is what I need to do.  I need to have the “fortitude” to stay with my own mind, to not rely on others to think for me  (just a caveat in case anyone else is reading this - I “live” to read what others have to say, to research a subject, to know all sides.  Personally I think this is a great and necessary and responsible thing to do.  My conviction to not research for this novena is entirely personal, based on what I think God is telling me about me, not on what I think is “proper” for anyone else.)  This will be a hard nine days!  I will definitely need that gift of strength! 

Oh, Holy Spirit, come and dwell with me.  Give me that gift of fortitude that I need so much.  Be with me today and everyday, provide me with the strength I need to make it through, and  not just barely but with grace and love.  Give me perseverence to stay afloat no matter what comes, to run the race to win the prize. 

So who is the Holy Spirit anyway?  This may sound like a strange question to most, but it has plagued me for years.  Growing up I was taught that the Trinity was a pagan invention forced upon the church by Constantine and his thugs in the 4th century.  I was shown countless “Bible proofs” that prove the whole concept of the Holy Spirit being a personality of His own were ridiculous, anti Biblical, and thus downright sinful.  In the ensuing years I also heard many sermons by more traditional preachers proving that the Trinity does exist, is Biblical, and thus it’s downright sinful NOT to believe it.  What is the truth?  How does one know?  To be honest I found the Biblical “proof texts” to be more convincing on the no Trinity side, but the more convincing “church history” is on the yes Trinity side. 

My decision to believe in 1 God in 3 persons was made purely as a bow to church authority.  I figured that if Christians had believed this idea for over a thousand years there must be something to it (those of you who know about my journey across the Tiber will find this quite amusing seeing how it was a similar bow to church history that first sent me swimming!).  But accepting the reality of the Trinity is different than understanding it.  And vastly different than relating to this nebulous Holy Spirit.  Who is the Holy Spirit?  What does He do?  I have spent my entire Christian life avoiding Him - at least as His own personality, I’ve only seen Him as part of the Father or part of the Son. 

Now I’m being asked to pray to the Holy Spirit.  Again, this probably seems normal to most, but revolutionary to me.  I’m being forced to put action to my words - you believe in the Trinity, now prove it!  I’m also being asked to meditate on my own thoughts - not an easy task for me.  I’m a natural researcher; I like to read and meditate on what other peoples thoughts are.  But here it goes - my novena to the Holy Spirit…

“I believe.  Lord, help my unbelief.”

Holy Spirit, I ask that you open my mind and my heart to your presence.  Allow me to accept things that are not concrete.  Make me aware of who you are and help me to worship you as you deserve.  You know my heart better than I do and I have the promise that you will send my prayers to the Father.  I ask that you conform me to the Father’s will, that my prayers will reflect that will.