the loving mercy God desires

cross at Finisterre, España

“Jesus helped many people, but He was honest and straightforward about it. He didn’t persecute people after He helped them. And he asked them what they wanted from Him. Sometimes He asked why, too. He held people responsible for their behavior… I think [codependent] caretaking perverts Biblical messages about giving, loving, and helping.”

~Melody Beattie, "Codependent No More"

“Go and learn the meaning of the words, I desire mercy, not sacrifice" 

Gospel of Matthew 9:13 

I’ve usually heard these words, said by Jesus to the ever unpopular Pharisees, as some kind of criticism to them, an inside diss, if you will.

But today, as soon as I read this Gospel, I also heard my heart asking out loud—what do you really mean by that, Lord, that you desire mercy and not sacrifice?

The response was surprisingly immediate: the difference is in the attitude.

If I stop, pay attention, and I’m honest with myself, I know when my behavior—no matter how honorable it may seem—is based on an attitude of “sacrifice.”

When I act out of “sacrifice,” I’m often masking a myriad of other mindsets compelling my behavior. It’s often based on what author Melody Beattie describes in therapeutic jargon as behaving like a “victim,” usually acting out of a codependent “Drama Triangle.”

But let’s not get lost in that language either. 

The point is simple. My behavior can either reveal an attitude of “sacrifice,” centered on the self—or it can reflect a desire to act out of love, giving the self in freedom and authenticity.

This is the loving mercy God desires.

go ahead, I dare you to laugh

“A joyful heart is the health of the body”

or in this translation:

“Laughter does good like a medicine.”

                                                              ~ Book of Proverbs, Chapter 17, verse 22

“Humor is a prelude to faith and laughter is the beginning of prayer.”

                     ~Reinhold Niebuhr

 

Did you know that laughter can improve your life in 111 different ways?  Here are five, just to get you thinking:

#1       one woman’s personal failure is another woman’s… not exactly success, but definitely a source of shared humanity.

Picture this. I’m babysitting – by myself – all five of my grandkids, and everyone, I mean everyone, is grouchy and whinny.  At one point I look at the gang that surrounds me, everyone four years old and under, and I say rather loudly, “Oh my LORD!”  Upon hearing the word “Lord,” my one-year-old granddaughter Sofia folds her hands… in prayer and looks up at me.  Clearly, God knows that I was NOT praying, but Sofia reminded me to stop, laugh, and yes, say a prayer together.

#2       I read somewhere that Carol Burnett once said, “comedy is tragedy plus time.” Clearly not every tragedy will transform into humor of the ha-ha type.  But I’ve learned that happiness and sadness can and often do travel together.  It’s important for me that I remember that even in the darkest moments, light will soon follow.

And in truth, some pretty dark and/or dreadful moments do eventually become humorous. For example, the camping trip from he**, when tornadoes kept breaking out one after the other everywhere around us. Not only did our family have to take down our camping site in a panic in the rain, we had to drive east as fast as we could trying to find shelter or outrun the tornadoes.  Yet within two hours we were “camping” and roasting marshmallows again –at a Marriott Residence Inn!

If you want to read a family-oriented blog whose writer has a phenomenal sense of humor about every day moments, check chewingcrayons.com! 

#3       Who would you rather be around, a pessimist cynic who never smiles because life is just too hard or a realist who finds humor in most situations?  

Yeah, me, too!  Enough said.

#4       there are 17 different ways that laughter is good for you, physically.  It boosts  the immune system. It triggers endorphins and can even temporarily relieve pain. It improves and increases blood flow, protecting your heart (both literally and figuratively) against difficulties. 

A few years ago I realized that the physical exercises I was doing in physical therapy, AND the wise advice I was given in acupuncture by Dr. Li, AND my spiritual director’s guidance – were actually all telling me the same thing.

Open up your chest.

Breathe as deep as you can.

Let yourself be vulnerable, open, and genuine!

Do you need more reasons?

#5       Since laughter relieves physical tension, stress and anxiety, experts say that your muscles stay relaxed for up to 45 minutes following laughter!

I know it is different when you’re a young mom and you have 15 different balls to juggle with your kids. But I can tell you that the best medicine for me when I’m having a bad day or when my body is flaring up is to hang out with my grands. Within seconds… okay, within minutes, I am laughing at something one of them said or did. Who can resist a 2-year-old stud opening the front door in sunglasses?

As expert author Misti B., points out, “laughter has never failed to improve one’s life.”  Check out her book, "If you leave me can I come with you?" -- right here!

And yes, I've written about humor before -- like here and this one here. But I'm not as funny as Mrs. Diaz! 

“It is requisite for the relaxation of the mind that we make use,

from time to time,

of playful deeds and jokes”

                                                                       ~ St. Thomas Aquinas

Small Mercies Miércoles: Today I'm grateful for...

Elena at the Oklahoma City Zoo

“For years, I subscribed to the notion of an “attitude of gratitude.” I’ve since learned that an attitude is an orientation or a way of thinking and that “having an attitude” doesn’t always translate to a behavior… 

So, what does a gratitude practice look like? The folks I interviewed talked about keeping gratitude journals, doing daily gratitude mediations or prayers, creating gratitude art, and even stopping during their stressful, busy days to actually say these words out loud: ‘I am grateful for…’ When the Wholehearted talk about gratitude, there are a whole bunch of verbs involved.” 

~ Brené Brown, “The Gifts of Imperfection”

That last line jumps out of the page at me,

“When the Wholehearted talk about gratitude, there are a whole bunch of verbs involved.”

Although our young adult children and I don’t always agree on the facts behind their memories of growing up, I think all four would probably remember just how much their mom harped on the statement: “attitude is everything.”

I once wrote it in big letters on the glass of the French doors in our dining room, a declaration of expectation for every family member’s behavior!

The truth is that when teenagers turn melancholic and moody, there are few—if any—practical things that a parent can say to make them change. But urging/encouraging/demanding an “attitude of gratitude” was tops on my list of behavior expectations for them.

I still agree.

But what I hear in Brené Brown’s statement is that embracing an understanding of gratitude and thankfulness is not only about exploring the English language, as I wrote about here.

We can all agree that gratitude is an essential ingredient to living in joy, orienting my heart toward God with thanksgiving for the blessings in our lives. But how do we GET it?

It’s the difference between a noun and a verb!

This is why I’ve committed to Small Mercies Miércoles/Wednesdays.  It’s my way of taking note of the daily doses of grace that happen in the ordinary moments of my life. 

And by the way, I picked Wednesdays because the middle of the week is a good place to stop and assess my attitude about the week—and take action for the second half!

Today.

my Twinkie Cecilia, snuggling on my shoulder at Sofia's baptism!

I am grateful for -- the unique and intimate opportunity of getting to know each of my grandchildren, face-to-face. At this time last year, my Holy Trinity of grandchildren lived in Milwaukee, and I spent a lot of my time and energy traveling to Wisconsin to visit.  But all that has changed. Not only are they living just 25 minutes north of me, there’s a new grand for me to get to know, baby Sofia Maria (4 weeks old tomorrow!).   

What about you? What are you grateful for today?

orienting my heart

“When Paul says that God has chosen the weak, the foolish, and the rejected, or when Jesus, in Matthew’s Gospel, describes the Kingdom of God as a wedding feast to which all the poor, the lame, the sick, and the blind are invited, they confirm that the weak have a preferential place in the hart of God. Jesus himself was rejected and outcast; he identifies with the rejected, the outcasts. Is that not the Gospel’s new order that replaces the old? We in L’Arche are beginning to touch something of the mystery that people like Saint Vincent de Paul grasped when he said: ‘The poor are our teachers.’”

~Jean Vanier

“One can write reams about the poverty of Christ—drawing conclusions about what an imitation of that poverty would be like and what kind of implications this might have for us. What is beyond discussion is that whatever our life it must, if it is to be Christian, protect a place for Christ in our flesh and blood encounters—our meetings, our welcomes, our ways of relating—to the poor. The poor man by reason of poverty itself often repels us (cf. Francis kissing the leper). He brings into our way of life the very contradiction that is Christ. It is the real presence of Christ in the poor man, when this is really believed and the poor man is known as a person, that can transform the encounter with him from a purely ‘social problem’ into something essentially and authentically Christian. The poor must not be someone who is tolerated and put up with, but someone who is waited for and expected.”

~Madeleine Delbrél

“Saint Vincent de Paul saw that one truly intelligent way to follow Christ is to recognize our own spiritual poverty and to serve that poverty in ‘the least of these.’ He recognized that one truly intelligent way to practice theology was to tend to galley convicts, untouchables, and incurables. [A]t the end of the day the question for each of us, is: What was my orientation of heart toward the people with whom I came in contact over the last twenty-four hours? How am I treating the people who can do nothing for me? Is my work for my glory or for God’s?”

~Heather King

+   +   +   +   +

I’ve spent most of the past three days hanging out with my holy trinity of grandkids, Elena and her little brother and sister, twins Ignacio and Cecilia.

In a house full of adults, these beautiful little voices are simultaneously the center of attention—and the voiceless who “can do nothing for me,” helplessly needing care and nurture.

Sometimes the poor in our lives are, literally, the homeless, poor, and forgotten. Sometimes the poor in our day are those who need our help and attention, and can’t give us anything tangible in return, the children, the sick, the elderly.

How can I change the world always comes back to me. How did I respond to the people in my life today? What was my “orientation of heart,” my attitude?

this week from Denver: pondering on attitude

I am in Denver this week, attending the annual gathering of Catholic communicators from the U.S. and Canada -- the Catholic Press Association's Catholic Media Conference.

This is a rich, busy and special time with my colleagues and friends in the Catholic press, and my time will be limited to posting on my Facebook page and on Twitter. Please join me there!

So for now, enjoy this recycling of one of my early posts:

During a recovery period after one of my surgeries, I was not allowed to drive for months. The months became even longer because our car was a standard transmission—and both my physical therapist and my surgeon warned me that the shifting gears would set the recovery back on my right wrist. Unable to even drive myself to a haircut, I felt utterly isolated. I was, literally, stuck at home, incapable of getting to daily Mass or meeting a friend for lunch.

Like a toddler learning to walk, I battled to regain use of my arm in the smallest of tasks—opening a jar, holding a book, writing a note, and fixing my hair. 

I longed for any sense of normality, and of course, for contact with the outside world. I missed the ordinary, normal things that, so often, I complain about having to do!

Then I got the news that my writer friend Gerri had suffered a stroke that threatened her life and left her paralyzed on half her body. Gerri’s recuperation has been truly miraculous and impressive, but the most amazing aspect was her attitude and perseverance—and her marvelous sense of humor. Like the email she sent—punctuated with a smiley face, reminding us:

“Still alive and sort of kicking. My stroke was 1 year ago, on 2-15. Thanks for all the prayers. Keep them coming, I'm far from back to normal.” 

Or the email with dancing figures across the page where she joked, “I really miss driving my car and the ability to get to mass during the week—I am saving on gasoline costs, though!”

What Gerri reminds me of, constantly, is that only I can change my attitude. And attitude leads to behavior. It's not about noting that someone has it worse than me—someone will ALWAYS have it worse than me—but about stepping out of my personal swamp of self absorption and shaking off the mud long enough to walk in a different direction, towards someone else in need who needs my presence. 

Sculpture wall on

University of Oklahoma campus, Norman

it's just an illusion

I’ve been having flare up symptoms for days now. Much like our seesaw weather in Oklahoma, I keep telling myself that I’m okay, then stepping back to add, all I need is to sleep more, or sleep better. Or perhaps just watch that I eat healthier. Things will change when the schizophrenic weather settles down. Or maybe I’d be in a better place if I would just, exercise more, rest more, pray more.

While all these things can and do affect my body, not to mention my attitude, the frustrating and eventual truth is that sometimes I can do all the right things and still have a flare up. That’s simply the nature of autoimmune conditions in general—or any chronic physical condition, for that matter.

The bottom line is that I’m not in control, not ultimately.

Not only that, but thinking that I am – or can be – is simply an illusion.

“The answer lies in understanding that it is these things - and these things alone, here and now, at this moment – that truly constitute the will of God. The challenge lies in learning to accept this truth and act upon it, every moment of every day. The trouble is that like all great truths it seems too simple. It is there before our noses all the time, while we look elsewhere for subtle answers. It bears the hallmark of all divine truths, simplicity, and yet it is precisely because it seems so simple that we are prone to overlook it or ignore it in our daily lives.”

 

~ Fr Walter J. Ciszek, S.J. 

[He Leadeth Me, p. 40]

“…the fullest freedom I had ever known, the greatest sense of security, came from abandoning my will to do only the will of God. What was there to fear so long as I did his will? Not death. Not failure, except failure to do his will. ‘For if God is with us, who can stand against us?’…For to know that he directed me in all my actions, that he sustained me with his grace, gave me a sense of peace and courage beyond description.”



 

~ Fr Walter J. Ciszek, S.J.
 

[He Leadeth Me, p. 158-9]