Take the Long Way Home

Moving

Thu, 26 Feb 2009 09:14:39 +0000

I’m moving!

I have started blogging at a new site… Scattering Flowers.

It is still a work in progress right now, so please excuse my dust! This site will remain here. I will slowly be moving my old posts over to the new site, but it will take me some time.

Come see me!

Mon, 16 Feb 2009 17:54:31 +0000

My husband is always after me to blog about my experiences waiting tables. I hate waiting tables; hate it with every fiber of my being. I have to be friendly and outgoing and most of all humble, and all to people who treat me like I’m something they scraped off the bottom of their shoe. Because I have assumed a servile position (they don’t call us servers for nothing!) those being served treat me as though I am inherently below them. If I could be something “better” I would, right? If I was intelligent or educated I wouldn’t be here, right?

My last shift included some interesting examples. One fellow, who I think was trying to flirt with me - in front of his wife and kids no less - insulted my vocabulary. I told him that I *anticipated* his margarita would be ready soon. He replied, “That’s a big word for you.” Seriously? I didn’t know how to respond. “Do I look that stupid”, I wanted to say? “Do YOU think that’s a big word, because I don’t.” Of course I didn’t say those things. I think I mumbled something about it not being that big of a word while walking away bewildered.

Then there was the mustard guy. This guy, and there are lots of them, think that they are the only customers in the restaraunt. Their needs must be taken care of immediately, regardless of who else might require my assistance. It didn’t matter that I had 16 other guests who were all asking me for things - and before him, I might add - he wanted his extra side of mustard yesterday. When he didn’t get it as quickly as he thought he should have, he followed me into the kitchen (where I was actually waiting for his mustard) and started screaming at me about his mustard. Where was his mustard? Why was it taking so long? He was going to throw his hamburger in the trash now because it was no good without 6 tbs of mustard. And he did. He threw his burger and fries in the trash and demanded that his meal be free and that he get coupons for a free meal the next time he came in. And he got it, because managers really have no choice but to give customers whatever they want, no matter how riduculous.

Then the new manager messed up the order for one of my tables - twice. And blamed me for it. She rang it in the computer, and she told the cooks what to do, but it was my fault. Clearly, my fault.

So what? Why am I ranting about not being appreciated in the job that I chose to perform? I chose that job because the hours work best for my family. I chose it, even though I don’t like it. Kind of like Jesus. Jesus, the son of God himself, chose to shed all vestiges of his glory and come to earth and be a servant. People treated him like something they scraped off the bottom of their shoe. His Father didn’t force him to come to earth as a man, He chose it. Freely chose to do it. He served those who didn’t appreciate what he was doing. They assumed that because he took a servile position he was beneath them. But they were wrong. Just like my customers are wrong about me. They can’t see who I really am, what I am really worth. The kicker is my knowing it doesn’t make it any easier to face their derision.

Why can’t I be more like Jesus? Why can’t I take the abuse and just serve? Why do I crave recognition for my accomplishments? Why do I want so badly for people to see me as deserving honor and respect? I’m not talking about bowing down here, just an acknowledgement that I am an intelligent, worthwhile human being. I think we all crave this because we are worthy of this. We are made in the image of God. We all have an inherrent dignity because of being human. All of us.

The hard truth is I am just as guilty as my customers. I don’t always treat others the way I want to be treated. As a Christian, as one bought with a price, as one who serves a God who serves, I should be willing, no anxious, to serve. Without thanks, without accolades, just because I am imitating my master. Yet at the same time, because I am a child of the Creator of the Universe I have a place of honor in this world (not to mention the next), even if no one recognizes it or understands it.

What all this means, I don’t know. I have no profound theological point to make. It is merely my own musing. Any thoughts of your own?
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Hello Again

Fri, 13 Feb 2009 17:08:41 +0000

I know my little blog has been sadly neglected for quite awhile and I can’t make any promises that I’ll have much time for it now, but I wanted to at least check in and let my few readers know what’s going on in my life. I think I mentioned that I’m going back to school. Well, it’s kicking my butt! I added up the time I’ve been spending on study and class and it boils down to having a full time job - 8+ hours a day plus some weekend time. Add that to my part time job, one husband, and two children and you get one stressed out little chickadee. I know that this probably describes most people’s lives, but I seem to be one of those folks that can only handle so much on her plate at one time or things get ugly! I have put this blog waaaay down on my list of priorities, below clean bathtubs and dusted lamps, and I’m rethinking the wisdom of that. My family would probably prefer to have clean bathtubs… what am I saying? I have boys, they have absolutely no appreciation for clean anything, not even socks! Anyway, I am going to make an attempt to post a little. Last year my Lenten resolution was to post at least three times a week. I think I will make the same resolution this year, only keeping it to once a week. It’s not that anything profound came out of last year’s posting (it was mostly just quotes from books, which were themselves quite profound), but I think the exercise will do me good.

I have always thought of this blog as a place to put my notes. Random thoughts that interested me, quotes and summaries of books, stories, etc. that would be easy for me to access later. Everything in one place so to speak. But lately a dear friend has been sending people to my blog. People who have questions about the Catholic Church, those who are maybe considering conversion, those who are convinced that we Catholics are going straight to hell in a hand basket, in other words, a variety of people that probably don’t care much about my book summaries and probably even less about my book quotes (although I will never, never stop posting those). I’m not sure that my blog answers any questions, unless of course you are looking to debunk the Dagon the Fish god myth, or need a good pithy look at indulgences. I’m not sure what direction this blog should take. I’m a pretty eclectic person in real life and so this blog will probably always reflect that, but I think that maybe I should post more about the life of a convert. This makes it a bit more personal, but I’ve always struggled to keep the personal out.

This friend of mine owns a fabulous Catholic book and gift store that brings in an interesting mix of people. She thinks I’m a lot smarter than I really am and her sending people she meets in her store to my blog is very humbling. It has also been a wake up call that I have something to say that others might find worthwhile. When I started this blog I never dreamed anyone would read it except for the group of women who “forced” me to start it in the first place. I still have a very small readership (I’m amazed that I have any considering how little I post!). I read their blogs when I started this odyssey of faith and it was very comforting to see that someone had walked this path before me and had survived. But I didn’t think past that.

Another happening that has me thinking contemplative, bloggy, thoughts is my recent appearance on Facebook. I have avoided it until now for many worries, none of which have come to fruition (my insecurities usually come to nothing but I can’t seem to escape them). Something that I didn’t expect - that my old friends would look me up; my old protestant friends. Those folks that knew me from my Calvinist days; those folks who have no idea that I’m now, gasp, a Catholic. I counted myself lucky that my conversion occurred in the midst of two different moves to two different states. That meant that I only had to tell my closest friends, and I knew that although they would think I was nuts they would still love me. Now for the first time, three years later, I’m face to face with the possibility that I’m going to have to stand before the firing squad that I thought I had escaped. Like my other insecurities this will probably amount to nothing too. But is has me thinking. It’s been awhile since I had to “explain myself”. Why did I make this momentous move? How has my life changed? How is it still changing? How has it affected my family? Would I do it again? Am I glad that it happened or do I wish that I was still ignorantly worshipping God the way I did for those good years before, the way my old friends still are? How is my relationship with God different now? For the past three years I have mostly talked about these things with other Catholics and the conversation is much different when you are addressing someone who you know already agrees with your ideas and your choices than with someone who vehemently disagrees.

So that’s where things stand. I have made no decisions, but I’m toying with ideas.

Art

Sun, 18 Jan 2009 20:58:43 +0000

“Culture is the last refuge, the sanctuary, the human place in the midst of the surrounding dehumanization. Through the arts man is able to know himself, even if only on the intuitive level. He senses his own worth, even when he cannot articulate it.”

“Can a poem or a song defeat a tyrant?”

“Yes. Yes it can, given enough time. When a work of art is both beautiful and true, man’s freedom is strengthened by it…”

Michael D. O’Brien Island of the World

Idolatry

Fri, 24 Oct 2008 13:42:19 +0000

I know you all thought I was dead, but I’m very much alive, just very busy and so not blogging! But something struck me at Bible Study this morning that I had to get down on paper because I was afraid I would forget it!

Deuteronomy 4:16-19
Be strictly on your guard, therefore, not to degrade yourselves by fashioning an idol to represent any figure, whether it be the form of a man or of a woman, of any animal on the earth or of any bird that flies in the sky, of anything that crawls on the ground or of any fish in the waters under the earth. And when you look up to the heavens and behold the sun or the moon or any star among the heavenly hosts, do not be led astray into adoring them and serving them. These the Lord your God has let fall to the lot of all other nations under the heavens

How does fashioning an idol in any of these forms degrade humanity? Go back and look at the creation account in Genesis 1. God creates the earth, the sun and moon, the land and sea creatures and birds and then he creates man. He gives man dominion over all these other creations - so man rules, has power over, mastery of the earth, the sun and moon, the land and sea creatures and birds. If man then fashions a “god” in any of these forms he is giving up his position of dominance and mastery and giving it to a subordinate! He is making a “god” out of a subordinate creation! Man, in the image of God, is given dominion and is told to conquer the earth and subdue it. It is therefore degrading to man to be conquered by the creation that he supposed to subdue.

Since we don’t typically make ourselves idols out of wood and stone we like to take these verses and think of the idols we have in our lives - money, success, people we love - we can turn pretty much anything into an idol. We are told in the New Testament to offer our bodies as living sacrifices, put to death the deeds of the flesh, to be dead to sin and alive to Christ (there are many many more examples, but you get the picture). We are to conquer and subdue sin in our lives (with the help of the Spirit of course). When we allow a sin - pride, lust, greed, etc - to rule us and become our idol, we have degraded ourselves. We have dominion and mastery through Christ!

There is more that could be said, but I’m out of time!

Reptititous

Thu, 17 Apr 2008 13:26:11 +0000

I hear alot about the “vain repititions” of Catholic prayers. Whenever I hear this I’m always reminded of a story about my friend Joy.

Joy was at the end of a very difficult pregnancy. After a long and arduous labor her son was finally born, the doctors weren’t sure he was going to survive, but he had been born. Very soon the little boy began to thrive and the immediate threat was somewhat diminished. But Joy was not doing so well, she had begun to hemorrage and nothing seemed to stop it. Now Joy was a good little Baptist girl and she believed all the nonsense that she had been told about Catholics and their repititous prayers. She always prayed the “right way”, you know, spontaneously. No canned words for her. But as she lay on the operating table she felt quite certain that she was going to die. This was not a panicked fear, but a heartfelt certainty - she was going to die on that operating table. She was never going to see her new son, or her other two children ever again, she was going to have to trust that her husband was going to take care of these little ones. She wanted desparately to talk to God, she wanted to put them in His hands, she wanted to cry out to Him, but the pain was too much. The hurt was so intense that coherent thought was not possible. But what would and did come out was the Our Father. This prayer was memorized and could be said without gathering words. It expressed everything that she needed to say. It expresses everything that any of us ever need to say:

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy Name
Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth, as it is in heaven
Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses
As we forgive those who trespass against us
Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from Evil

What else is there?

Joy prayed this prayer, out loud, over and over and over and over. All the while that the doctors and nurses were frantically prepping her for surgery she kept up her prayer. Over and over and over and over. She wasn’t really aware that she was saying it out loud, but she was. After the ordeal was over, and she did not die, but lived to to see her precious little ones again, one of the nurses came to see her. She commented on how serene Joy had been in the midst of the turmoil, and how much she had been affected by Joy’s prayers.

So what is the verdict? Did God despise my friend Joy’s prayers? Were they merely vain and repititous words, devoid of meaning?

Joy certainly didn’t think they were devoid of meaning, for her they were full of meaning. They were the evidence of God’s presence on the gourney with her, they were the rock she clung to in her most deparate hour.

So whenever I am told by others that my Rosary or my Divine Mercy Chaplet are vain and repititous words, I think of Joy, and I cling to my Rock.

Should They Stay or Should They Go

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 20:46:28 +0000

The other day I visited a friend who asked if living in Texas had given me an opinion on illegal immigration. She told me a story about a brother in law who employs quite a few fellows of Mexican origin. They all have their papers (whatever that means!) that must be filed in order to work in the US. Or at least he had what covered him, because he has no way of knowing if any of these papers are false. Apparently some of them WERE false and several of these fellows were taken away in some kind of “raid”. Well the rest of his crew walked off too – in solidarity. He was in the middle of a big project that had to get finished, so of course he had to hire whoever else was available. He wasn’t very happy with the quality of work that these new guys did and lamented the fact that these fellows he had before had been taken away. He wished the government would leave them alone, or declare them all legal, whatever the proposals have been.

My friend wondered if I agreed with her brother in law (they live in Mississippi), or if living in Texas (where illegal immigration is more apparent) had given me other thoughts.

I have never had a firm opinion on what “ought” to be done, because I could see both sides of the issue – at least politically speaking. But lately I’ve been looking at this issue in a new light, thinking about it in different terms. Becoming Catholic has changed my thinking in lots of ways, but I didn’t expect illegal immigration to be one of them!

I tried to explain to my friend what was going ‘round my brain. How I was trying to reconcile mercy and compassion with our nation’s laws. How I was trying to understand the Old Testament admonition to the Nation of Israel to treat the foreigner and the alien with kindness because Israel knew what it was to be the alien, while also following Paul’s advice to obey those in authority over me, namely my government.

This subject came up again in an email group that I’m a part of, so when I turned on a DVRed Sunday Night Live with Father Groeschel and he was answering questions about his view of immigration, I decided it was kismet – I was blogging about it!

I can’t do better than just summarize what Father said, because he voiced what I was thinking, but unable to vocalize, and explained where the ideas come from. So here’s what he had to say (a little caveat – I know this is a “hot topic”, I know that not everyone will agree with me, that’s okay, I have no intention of swaying them):

People are first human beings before they are a nationality and they should be treated as such. As human beings they mirror the image of God and we should treat them as that, not as “Americans” or “Mexicans”. Thomas Aquinas says that the earth belongs to the human race it doesn’t belong to any nation. This is natural law, and natural law precedes national law.
Why do people come? Why do they leave their homes and sometimes their families to come to America? It’s because they are desperate. They are poor. Here they have a chance to support their families in a way that they can’t back home. We in America are rich because of the poverty of other countries. We suck up their natural resources and their money. We use their people and their land for cheap labor and then we deny them our borders! We deny them an escape of what we helped create (it bothers me to have to citation for this).
According to Father Groeschel (who based his knowledge on the testimony of many immigrants he has spoken to) illegal immigrants buy phony green cards. So when they work they send in all their taxes and Social Security (and their employers match it). After a few months they receive a letter from the government saying they sent in the wrong green card number, so they send in another phony one. The government never responds again! So the US government is implicitly involved! These people pay in taxes and SS, but they can’t ever get those benefits! That means that millions of people are paying into SS that will never see a dime of that money!
There are 4 sins in the Old Testament that are said to “cry to heaven”:
1.   murder
2.   adultery
3.   profanation of the Holy
4.   denying workers their wages
It seems to me that denying SS benefits to those who pay in is denying the worker his wages! This is a grave injustice.
He goes on to say that America is not just guilty of abortion and slavery, but the way we treat those inside of our borders (however they came to be here) also cries to heaven. They are here because they are poor. They want to give their children a chance! Just like us…

The True King

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 13:58:01 +0000

This morning ds and I were reading about Jesus’ trial before the Sanhedrin and Pilate. When we got to the part where Pilate hands Jesus over to the soldiers for scourging (where they beat him, strip his clothes, give him a crown of thorns and then make fun of him, mocking his “kingship”) I couldn’t help myself, I had to point out the similarities to Aragorn in The Lord of the Rings. I’ve never studied Tolkien, so I have no idea what he had in mind while he was writing this particular scene, so what follows is only my own personal thoughts.

My absolute favorite scene in the whole trilogy is when Aragorn is standing before the Black Gate of Mordor. He has just announced himself King and is asking to meet with Sauron. Up until this point he has kept his identity secret from all but a few. His most intimate companions know who he is, and Sauron has been allowed to guess that he is about, but now he makes the pronouncement public. He stands before his enemies and uncloaks himself, so to speak. Sauron, of course, won’t (and indeed can’t) come out to meet with him, but he sends another - a man who Sauron has twisted to his own will so completely that he can’t remember his own name- the Mouth of Sauron. The Mouth of Sauron rides up and laughs at the gathered crowd.

“Is there anyone in this rout with authority to treat with me? Or indeed with wit to understand me? Not thou at least!”, he mocked, turning to Aragorn with scorn. “It needs more to make a king than a piece of elvish glass, or a rabble such as this.”
Aragorn said naught in answer, but he took the other’s eye and held it, and for a moment they strove thus; but soon, though Aragorn did not stir nor move hand to weapon, the other quailed and gave back as if menanced with a blow.

Aragorn, the true king, does not argue or seek to defend himself, either with words or with his sword. He knows who he is and insults from his enemies can’t change that reality. He knows that nothing will be gained by violence at this point in the story (that will come soon, as Sauron unleashes his forces against them), but I love how when the Mouth of Sauron is forced to look into Aragorn’s eyes, into the true king’s eyes, he cannot stand. Aragorn does not return evil for evil, his hope is to overcome evil with good. When the Mouth of Sauron, the emissary of the false king, looks into the eyes of the true king, he is afraid, he sees his own defeat (no matter that the forces of evil greatly outnumber the forces of good, that does not seem to give him courage). The true king does not need to conquer his enemies by force (Aragorn knows that it makes no difference who wins the physical battle at hand, the war will be decided by Frodo and the Ring), it is by being humble that Aragorn seeks his victory (after all this is merely a ploy to keep Sauron’s eye on the outskirts of Mordor and away from Frodo and Sam in the interior).

But enter in Peter Jackson and his film adaptation of this book, and this scene in particular. He has Aragorn react to the taunts of the Mouth of Sauron with violence! He cuts off his head! He ruins the picture of the true hero, the true king (and the True King he can be seen to imitate). Instead of strength of character, he has only strength of arms.

I can’t help but make this comparison… Tolkein’s Aragorn is like Jesus - he doesn’t stoop to defend himself from the taunts of his enemies. He is humble and patient, waiting for the right moment. While Jackson’s Aragorn is like Peter - he acts without thought for the consequenses (specifically he reacts with violence when the soldiers come to arrest Jesus).

Confession

Wed, 12 Mar 2008 10:33:20 +0000

“In a sacramental confession, the penitent names his offenses because it is a way of taking responsibility for them before God and before man. He says, I am a sinner. This is what I have done. I blame no one but myself. I ask to be pardoned and healed. I need a Savior.”

“Hmmmm. I have always suspected that it was intended more to shame the penitent into never repeating his folly.”

Elijah shook his head. “That is what so many misunderstand. A priest of Christ knows that he is a man like other men. He too could commit the sins told to him through that screen. He stands there as a sign of contradiction set down in creation. A sign of mercy and truth. The truth sets us free, and mercy heals us. He stands as a living presence of Christ before men, and in the place of men before Christ.”

- Father Elijah by Michael O’Brian

Saintliness

Tue, 11 Mar 2008 14:49:08 +0000

“You want to be a saint [insert your own name here, or better yet insert my own name], but you want to be a saint on your own terms. You want glorious victories with your sword, most of all, you want victories over your personal weaknesses and faults.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“It is a good desire, but it can also be a kind of idealism masking pride… Who is the saint? The one who obeys God in his weakness, or the one who demands to have every admirable quality before he sets forth on his quest?”

-Father Elijah by Michael O’Brian