Thankful Thursday #3, Escaping Evil

Some time after coming to faith, strange things started happening to me, so strange that I am reluctant to talk about them in a blog or in real life. I have mentioned them to few people although perhaps if I mentioned them to more, someone would be able to educate me about what happened. I have had a few people tell me that I had come face to face with evil, and that sends some chills through me, especially because I am an optimistic, eternally happy, trusting human being. Moreover, I am hopelessly naive despite the number of years I have lived, the amount of international experience I have garnered, the scope of academic knowledge I have gathered, and the extreme difficulties I have survived. So, it is no wonder that I had no way to interpret at least three puzzling events. (There may have been more, but besides being naive, I am also somewhat oblivious to everything around me, so it is only the great strength of the associated ambient sensation that allowed me to perceive these three.)

The first incident happened in the car as I was leaving work late one evening. I so strongly felt a presence in the back seat that I turned around. There was no one there, and yet the sense of a presence would not dissipate even when I turned on the inside car light. Hm. I had to drive home. Was this my imagination? It did not feel like it. Yet, while not being able to see anything, I felt a terrible sense of something bad, evil, negative, dark. I had a half-hour drive home alone, and I did not much like this sense of something that I could not see in the back seat. So, just in case I was not totally hallucinating, I invited the evilish thing that I could not see to join me in the front seat. "We can pray together all the way home," I told it (out loud, actually), and suddenly it was gone. I drove home with no more interference. I assumed that God had intervened, and for that, I was more grateful than words can relate.

The second incident happened on the mission grounds. I like to walk around them each evening around 9:00. Depending on the time of year, sometimes it is light outside, sometimes dark. On this evening, it was dark. On such evenings, I would spend much time in meandering prayer, and I would also take time out from my ambling to kneel at the church door and pray in earnest. This time, as I approached the church door and stood still, I felt someone standing beside me, about a half-foot taller than me (in other words, average male height). I turned to say something -- and jumped. There was no one there, just a mass of air that was darker than the surrounding air. Spooked, I walked away rapidly, stopped near the close-by rose garden, and looked back. Nothing there. Had it been my imagination? Was I losing my mind? Too much evening air? Determined that nothing was going to keep my from my evening prayer, I walked back to the church door, kneeled, and suddenly felt the dark presence beside me again. Not knowing what to do and determined to connect with God, confident that God would protect me if there was a need for protection as He always had and always does, I said my prayer, surprisingly unimpeded by my "companion," whose presence I felt until I had finished, stood up, and returned to my ambling. I did not look back as I walked away. Perhaps I should have. Suddenly, I heard a leaf crack, as if someone had stepped on it. I whirled around, but no one was there. Then, I looked at the ground, and there was a cracked leaf a few feet away where I could not possibly have stepped on it. Spooked again, at least a bit, but mostly angry and not knowing how to eliminate this "thing" from either my mind or the location (not knowing whether it was real or not -- how does one determine reality beyond a shadow of a doubt?), I shouted at it: "Whoever or whatever you are, real or in my mind, get off this land. This land is God's, and you have no right here." Just as suddenly as it had appeared, in my universe or in my mind, it was gone. I assumed that God had once again intervened, and for that, I was blessedly, relievedly grateful for my aloneness and my returning sense of sanity.

The third set of events began soon thereafter. I was traveling to many locations -- so, what is new? -- and had trouble getting rest because every night I would experience nightmares. I could never remember the details, but I knew they had been dark and frightening, demonic. Sometimes I awoke in the middle of the night from them, a strange phenomenon because throughout my abusive childhood I never once had nightmares. Throughout my difficult parenting-of-special-kids days, I never once had nightmares. Throughout my travels on rickety planes to dangerous countries with no money in my pocket, I never once had nightmares. And I did not want them now. So, I began to pray before going to sleep to God to keep any nightmares away from me, to let me dream only of Him, and He answered that prayer. I have not had a nightmare since. Nonetheless, I still ask every night, and God still gives me my request, for which I thank Him endlessly.

Truly, I am ever so grateful that these apparitions or whatever they were seem to have disappeared in recent days. I am a new convert to Catholicism, to belief of any sort. I don't know how to understand these things. I don't even know if they are related to my newfound belief, about which I am still learning. (I keep asking God for lessons, and He keeps giving them to me -- tough ones.) However, I certainly don't want any other opportunities to learn more about this dark stuff first-hand, regardless of source or what it is related to. I hope God keeps it away from me permanently so that I can at least maintain the self-illusion of being sane! For that illusion, I am grateful!

Now, if you have not written me off as hopelessly insane or the equivalent, please tell me for what you are thankful this wonderful Thursday.

More information about the Thankful Thursday meme can be found at the website of Grace Alone.

The Grace of a Lost Wallet, Part II

God always answers my prayers but rarely in the way I expect or intend when asking. My lost wallet is a great example. Mind you, I never did ask for any help with that wallet. I just went on with my life and figured it would find its way home or not. But first, before I can continue with this story, I will have to direct you to the previous post about the wallet, or the follow-on details will make no sense. So, have a look here (The Grace of a Lost Wallet), then continue below.

Now, while I did not pray about that lost wallet, I did pray about something else. Earlier in the day, I had taken a Super Shuttle ride from Dulles Airport to my Washington office in Arlington, Virginia. The driver was a friendly guy, and when he found out that I did not have a ticket and the shuttle was going to leave in a few minutes, he personally walked me through the convoluted path to the ticket counter and back. Nice guy. Arab, I believe. It took nearly an hour to reach my office in the DC rush hour traffic, during which I added to the five hours of sleep I had just gathered on the red-eye from California, dozing during most of the trip in to town. I had no luggage, and I was the first person off the shuttle. So, I hopped off, with a thank you to the driver, who graciously wished me a good day.

As I entered the building, it slowly dawned on me that Super Shuttle is a taxi and not a company-supplied van, which I usually take but could not this time because the trip came at such short notice, given my early hour of arrival. I should have tipped the driver. I headed back out the door, just as the driver re-started the van and pulled out of the driveway. Feeling a bit stingy over the matter, I asked God to take care of the driver that day and see to it that he got good tips. I felt confident that as a result of that prayer the driver would indeed have a good-tip day.

The rest of the day was filled with successful meetings, at the end of which I grabbed a hotel taxi back to the hotel since our company van was occupied with taking the CEO to Regan National Airport to catch a flight to another of our locations. I returned to Dulles, where I discovered the loss of my wallet. Fortunately, I do not keep my credit cards in my wallet, and so I had my company card to pay the cab driver -- and, this time, to include a tip. The rest of the wallet story is in my previous post.

I arrived home early Friday morning from my redeye and went in to work. I had sent an enote to someone in the Washington office to check in the conference room for my wallet, which is the only place I remembered having opened my purse. Waiting for me was her reply: she had looked everywhere but had seen no wallet. So, all those other options as to who might find it and what s/he might do remained open.

I did not have to wait long. During a morning meeting, my phone rang. I glanced at the number: an unknown 240 number. So, I let voice mail take the call. After the meeting, I called voice mail. There was a man, who called himself Amr, speaking with a distinctively Arabic accent, saying that I had dropped my wallet in the Super Shuttle van. He had been the driver (whom I had not tipped). He wanted to return the wallet to me and asked for me to return his call.

I was about to return Amr's call when the phone rang again. This time it was Amr's supervisor, who was a native speaker of English. He had given the wallet to her and asked her to call because he thought perhaps I was not able to understand Arabic-accented English. (Little did he know how much time I have spent with people who speak Arabic-accented English!) The supervisor told me that my checkbook was in there (had forgotten about that), along with the business cards that had my coordinates so that they knew whom to call, stamps, and $56 in cash. Yep, that is exactly as it should have been. She offered to fedex the wallet to me. I told her to use some of the cash in the wallet for fedex and give the remainder of the money to Amr. She was surprised and said that Amr did not expect that but would obviously be pleased.

So, God did answer my prayer. Amr did have a good-tip day. As with so many of my answered prayers, I could not have predicted the outcome that I, the one who had not tipped him, would ultimately be the one to provide the good-tip day for Amr. Moreover, it was not even an expenditure for me because my per diem would be double that. I had taken about half of my per diem from an ATM just to have some money for meals. However, because I was all day with the CEO, my office provided all the meals, and I am allowed to keep the per diem. So, Amr made nearly $50 on a tip, and I made nearly $50 on per diem post-tip. Win-win. I could never have planned that, let alone even thought of an outcome of this nature. I have reached the conclusion that I don't ever want God to answer my prayers in the way I anticipate because His ways are always so much better than I can dream up!

I just love watching the many ways, so often unusual, in which God sprinkles His grace onto all of His children! Amazing!

About That Lamb...

I don't know where the words came from. I could hardly believe they came from my mouth, yet I heard them as they slid out. "I don't think you are taking this project seriously," I said to the recently assigned project manager of a subcontractor at our Washington DC branch. She cringed and averred differently. I only shook my head unkindly and walked off to begin the presentation I had come to deliver.

I can explain how I got to the point of saying those words. In preparing for an all-day briefing to be conducted in DC together with a specialist from one of our subdivisions, I discovered that the concept papers we were to use were so poorly done that we could not use them. So, I had to re-do the work of several employees, whose supervisor had assumed that the work was fine. To worsen matters, the computers had been down (server outage) for the two days prior to my departure for DC. I had only one day to get everything done once the computers were back on line. That day I had several meetings, and during the time available in and around the meetings, one after another employee came into my office on small issues (well, important issues to them but ones I considered minor at the moment). Although I had closed my door, no one had seemed to notice. My open-door policy had been turned into an open-the-door policy. Too much to re-do, too little time to re-do it, and too many distractions from doing it! I was annoyed.

Add to that annoyance the fact that everyone around me seemed to be falling apart. I had one senior manager undergoing emergency surgery and another in the hospital with internal bleeding, cause undetermined. An employee had gone into the hospital for routine knee surgery and ended up comatose and packed in ice (we were waiting to here whether and when heroic measures would cease), and a junior manager had been diagnosed with a tumor and had to be brought back from his field assignment. This was all in the space of two days. Our senior leadership at the annual BBQ the day before I left for DC was decimated. I was stressed.

I did not escape any drama by leaving. As the plane was taxiing into Dulles International Airport, I quickly checked my Blackberry and learned two disturbing pieces of information. First, a project that I was to have been involved in had been downsized; much of the physical risk had been removed from it (that part was good -- while I was unconcerned for my own safety, my prayer group had been praying that something like this would happen), and the performance date had been moved to September, interfering with my need to be in Korea at that time. Second, my supervisor had overturned my appointment on an assignment I had promised to an employee. (She deserved it, and later in the day he recanted.) However these things work out and worked out, I arrived disappointed.

Following a night of only five hours of sleep after cleaning up from the BBQ, which had been at my house, and having had to go to work earlier than normal to begin that day of meetings and interrupted work, I had to jump onto a redeye from San Franciso to DC. Of all times, the pilot raced across the continental skies, arriving 30 minutes ahead of schedule, leaving me with a mere four hours of sleep. I was tired.

When I arrived at ground transportation, I blackberried the supervisor of our DC branch for an address to give to the taxi driver. She gave me the office address. I showed up there only to find out that the briefing was taking place at the premises of the subcontractor in another part of town. Now I would be late. I learned that the mistaken address was deliberate: the supervisor wanted to discuss the project with me alone. That meant that the specialist, who did not have the briefing powerpoints (I had them) would have to do with the first presentation without them and without me. I was angry.

Annoyance, stress, fatigue, disappointment, and anger combined to evoke my caustic remark when, having finally arrived at the subcontractor's location in time for the second presentation, I was informed by the project manager that two key personnel would come only after lunch. Any one of those conditions would have served as an excuse for my remarks, I initially tried to justify to myself. However, no justification exists for arrogance, and it was certainly arrogance that lay behind my words: whatever I had to say was more important than anything they had to do, and obviously that was not true.

I apologized to the project manager later. However, words don't dissolve; they don't run away; taking them back is nothing more than a vacuous expression.

While I know that I have not lost God's love, I was not thinking of God's presence when I made my unkind remark, and so I did not feel God's presence. The worst part? I lost an entire morning with God. That time will never be regained.

Clearly, I needed some time with God alone. After finishing the day of presentations, I ran to the nearby metro station where I knew there would be a line of cabs to assist me in my cab-plane-car dash to our Georgia branch. I grabbed a cab, driven by a courteous and calm middle-aged man from Pakistan. We chatted casually, and while the conversation was calming, it permitted no opportunity for time alone with God, as there had been none all day. I missed San Ignatio with its quiet spirituality.

Having swiftly picked up my ticket and passed through security without incident except for my typical random search, I took the airport train to the Delta terminal and made my way to Gate 76, keeping my eye out for any place at all for quiet prayer. There was none at all, just masses of people moving in cohorts to and from gates, into and out of restrooms and restaurants, and along the corridors. I missed even more San Ignatio's quiet spirituality where nearly every nook and cranny provides an opportunity for prayer.

I had more than an hour to wait for a now-delayed plane. I opted for a yogurt cone and seated myself at a table near a large potted plant, surrounded, of course, by other travelers.

My thoughts turned to my increasing unease. From whence these feelings? A change in the equilibrium of my life! I realized that I spend most of my time helping others, sometimes because I have been given a divine task, sometimes just because I stumble across someone in need (which may not always be accidental), and most often because those in need are people who work for me. My last few days, however, had been focused on me: the just-completed presentations in DC and the upcoming one in Georgia. I had moved away from helping others for lack of time (the employees to whom I had shut my door), lack of authority (the overturning of my decision by my supervisor), and lack of ability (the sick folk). I missed helping others, being God's helper. I missed time with God. It would be two more days before I would return to San Ignatio.

Even though I had no sense of God's presence while I waited for the plane, I wailed a silent prayer, spilling out those emotions and desires. I knew God would hear, understand, and forgive.

And then everything changed. Delta cancelled the flight. There were no other flights on Delta that night. I would miss the Georgia presentation, scheduled for early in the morning the next day. I called my admin assistant to inform the folks in Georgia, as Delta set about rescheduling all its passengers.

"Does anyone speak Russian?" one of the gate agents called out loudly, then a few seconds later, appealed "we really need someone who speaks Russian."

"I'll call you back," I told my admin assistant. Then I stood up and raised my hand, "I speak Russian."

The gate agent was visibly relieved. So were the mother and daughter who were trying to get back to Moscow via Atlanta. We very easily settled everything for them, and as their stress level eased, so did mine. (I find that happens a lot -- if you help someone who is stressed out, it eases your own feeling of stress.)

The grateful Delta agent offered to take me out of turn, but I waved off the offer, telling her that my office could handle my situation. It did. I ended up coming back to San Ignatio early! On a United non-stop flight direct to San Francisco. What could be better? How about a surprise complimentary upgrade to first class? Another redeye, but one on which I could sleep very comfortably.

All was right with the world. I was on my way back to San Ignatio. I wondered how much of this occurred because of my plaintive prayer about missing my quiet time with God. Ah, for any part of it -- and every part of it -- I am grateful.

All the way back home I could not sleep in spite of two short-sleep nights. The excitement of nearing San Ignatio overpowered every thought and emotion. God no longer has any need to look for this lost lamb. This lamb knows where to find the rest of her flock and her Shepherd!

What happened next? Unbelievable!

Looking back on that awful day and what I had done and felt, I should have been punished. Instead, a loving God brought me home to San Ignatio, back to Him in every meaning of that phrase, back to where I belong, where nothing of the material world matters. Now, too, I could look forward to being on time two days later for the retreat being led by Fr. Kevin, who also leads a contemplative-prayer-for-busy-people group in San Jose that I have participated in for nearly two years now. I would have had to arrive late because of returning from out of state.

I took the next day off from work -- I was owed comp time -- to be with God now that I was back in a spiritual environment. What a marvelous day that turned out to be!

The first thing after I arose (later than normal, yes!) I checked my email. Astonished, I read one note twice. It was the cancellation of a mandatory meeting on Friday, the second day of the retreat. I had worked it out with Fr. Kevin that it would be okay to miss Friday because of that meeting. Now I would have no distractions during the retreat!

A short while later, I attended noon Mass in the little chapel, celebrated by Fr. Paul on his last day in our community before returning home to Nigeria. Still reeling perhaps from my out-of-control behavior on Monday, I felt so very unworthy to be there and at the same time so loved. As I stood in line for communion, I could not keep the tears from pooling in my eyes, and I did not care if anyone saw them; we are all friends and all God's children.

Following Mass, two friends (one of them the person who assisted the priest in my RCIA class) asked me to join them for the rosary, after which we went out for cookies and milk. (I admit it; milk has always been my favorite drink.)

During our milk-and-cookie fest, I told my friends about my plaintive prayer, in which I bemoaned my separation from San Ignatio and loss of a sense of God's presence in the past few day's tumult, and how everything had suddenly worked out for me to spend the entire rest of the week with Him. One of my friends reiterated what a Sufi friend told me several years ago, word for word: "God spoils you."

Indeed, He does! And I am so very grateful!

(I posted the above story in two parts on my Modern Mysticism blog, but because of the title of this new, replacement-for-Blest-Atheist blog, it seemed apropros to include it here, as well.)

When You Make It...

A while back I was traveling a lot (for that matter, I still am) and my early morning and late evening times for contemplation became usurped by one urgent matter after another, mostly associated with work although some were home matters. My prayer time kept getting shorter and shorter, and my walking-around-the-mission time fully disappeared under the mounds of tasks I found heaped on me.

I truly missed my morning and evening contemplation, and taking a few minutes for prayer when I arrived at work was just no substitute. In fact, after about 30 seconds, invariably someone would knock on my closed door urgently with a non-urgent matter. Sigh!

"When will I have time to be with You?" I wailed to God at one point.

"When you make it," came the soft but distinct response. It was a short, simple answer that contained an immense truth and prompted an abrupt stop to my downhill slide away from the summit of daily quality time with God.

Of course! As a parent, I should have realized it without being told. After all, if we do not make spending time with our children a priority, the quality of the time that we do spend with them suffers, as does, ultimately, our relationship with me.

Interestingly, when I started again making time, deliberately, to spend in prayer, I re-learned what I knew previously: God gives us that time back. I don't understand how it happens, but I do know that I don't "lose" any time needed for other matters, home or work, when I deliberately set aside time for God. I do gain, however: contentment, happiness, calmness, better critical thinking, clearer problem solving. I wonder why I ever thought I could not afford to spend a considerable amount of time with God every day. The reality is that cannot afford not to spend a considerable amount of time with God every day.

Happy prayers to you!

Monday Morning Meditation #6: Good from Bad

This week, I made it through only one additional verse of Genesis. That's right: not one additional chapter, but one additional verse. Why? Because the content of this particular verse, God turning bad into good, is the theme of my life and as such deserves at least a week's contemplation and probably much, much more time. Here in Genesis, I find this theme in another life, one that is centuries old: Joseph of the many-colored coat. Joseph, in continuing the conversation with his brothers who have come to Egypt to buy grain during a great famine, states: "And as for you, ye meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive."

Reading: Genesis 50:20

Meditation: After telling his brothers that he has forgiven them, Joseph explains to them that while some very terrible things seem to have happened to him, these events ultimately led to good and without the knowledge, experience, and foundation initially created by them, the good (saving his brothers and the rest of the Middle Eastern world of the time) could not have happened.

On a personal note, as an atheist I never questioned why all the difficult things in my life happened to me, especially three children and two grandchildren with multiple birth defects; I just assumed that it was a matter of an imperfect nature. After coming to faith, however, I asked God why. I did not blame God for anything. I just wanted to know why. I was led to read Job. It took five readings to understand that God does not cause bad things to happen, but free will, freely evolving nature, and Evil itself create those negative things. Our love for God and God's love for us is independent of whether our lives are filled with good or bad. However, God will take the bad that happens to one person and make it good for many people. (For example, because I had the experience of raising an American spina bifida child, along with the ability to speak Russian, I was able to take in a child artist from Siberia, dying from complications of spina bifida, and, with the help of others, find proper treatment to save his life -- as for the money, God led me to a multibillionaire to pay the bill. My life has indeed been filled with miracles, but many of these came from God fixing difficult situations, and some of these could not have happened had not there been a string of bad building upon bad, uh, make that, mathemagenic experience building upon mathemagenic experience.)

The other thing I would point out about the times that God has jumped in to turn bad into good is that the individuals, while they may have been frightened or angry, were never in any danger. God was there with them and had plan for pulling them out of their messes (like God does so often with Mahlou messes). God told Satan that he was not allowed to kill Job. So, Job's life was not in danger; Job just did not know that. There was an angel in the fire with Shadrach, Meschach, and Abednego (the good that came from this bad was great testimony to King Nebuchadnezzar and the nation of Babylon) and in the lion's den with Daniel (the good that came from this bad was religious freedom as a result of the testimony to King Darius).

I think we do not always see the good that comes from the bad because we sometimes want it to happen too quickly. (Joseph had to wait many years.) Sometimes our view is too restricted; we see only what is happening immediately to us and not to a larger swath of the population. Sometimes we want it to happen our way only, don't see that God often has unique and much better solutions than we can imagine, and fail to recognize answers to prayers that differ from our requests. And sometimes we don't realize that God uses people as His hands on earth to create the good -- and perhaps we are actually part of His work (or could be if we were to be willing and open).

And that is far as I can go with you on this Monday morning. I must retire to prayer to ask God for greater willingness and readiness to be part of His plan for turning bad to good for the people around me, to express my regret for any and all opportunities to do this that I have missed, to give thanks for all the times he has created good from bad in my life, and to offer praise for caring enough and being great enough to create miracles in my life and the lives of my friends and acquaintances.

After that, I will spend some time in contemplation with this wonderful God who has done so many wondrous things for me and mine.

I will now leave you to your prayer and contemplation.

If you pick this up as a weekly devotional activity, please share with me and others your own thoughts about the message of Genesis 50:20 or any other scripture that you choose for meditation. Feel free to export the image of the mission church; maybe some time in the near future my Internet-inept self will be able to figure out how to use the Mr. Linky buttons. In the interim, perhaps you are welcome to use the image and share the meme of Monday Morning Meditation for starting out the work week closer to God.

Have a good day and a blessed week, filled with all good things -- and let any bad be turned to good for your sake and the sake of all around you!

What a Wondeful Day It Was!

Yesterday was the most amazing day. Seriously! No tongue-in-cheek intended here.

First thing in the morning, Lemony dropped Nathaniel at school and picked me up in her rental car. (Shane's and her car broke down while Nikolina was hospitalized at Stanford--transmission needs to be replaced.) I could not drive because our battery was not working; Donnie had had to call AAA from the hospital parking lot the day before when the car would not start, and the battery had to be ordered.

While I was waiting for her, I remembered the financial issue that had been hanging around for a few days, jumped online, and discovered a deus ex machina resolution to my financial problem. An amazing solution -- but I am getting so spoiled by God pulling my family out of the muck all the time that I was not even surprised. First, earlier in the week, in order to overcome the sizable deficit caused by my not canceling an automatic payment when I chose to send in a paper check through the mail (thus paying twice and unable to get the money back in any kind of timely fashion), I had made arrangements to use savings and max out the credit cards with advances. That earlier morning, however, when I got up and checked the bank balance before going to the bank for the advances, I found that all the rest of the automatic payments for the month had been sent in and cashed, bringing the negative balance to a level beyond my capacity to make up in the manner I had planned. (I have no idea how the earlier release date got on those checks. I must have made a typo on the automatic payment date for them, but that seems strange. Possible, but truly odd and unlikely.) So, I was left with an impossible situation. What a crazy answer to a prayer for help! But God knows best, so I figured that since I could not catch up the account, anyway, I would not even try, especially since the amount I was able to round up would bring the negative balance to exactly $-666, and I did not like that number. I would just wait and see what would happen. Well, what happened was a bit extraordinary. First, the bank paid everything. Not maxing out the credit cards turned out to be important because we needed to put the car battery on them, as well as some other things that came up associated with Shane's emergency and other unexpected "activities" of this week. (Had my plan to fix matters myself worked, we would really have been stranded.) Then, yesterday, I saw that on Wednesday some per diem I was owed had come in, but for twice (!) the amount I expected. I was then back in the black by a few cents, and of course everything was much better Thursday morning, which was pay day.

This is why I never worry or even think again about any problem after turning it over to God: because God fixes things so well! (Well, there was that one time that I did worry, and God made it very clear to me that I should not do that; I never have again, at least so far.) My experiences in this vein have, I suppose, turned me into a little kid, always expecting the parent to rush the rescue. Actually, I never ask to escape the bad. I don't even worry about bad things happening; they happen, and that is inescapable life, free will, bad genes, evil-doers, and all that. But I do expect to be rescued. I also know that something good will come from the bad stuff, and I am curious enough to want to see what it is. I do bring the bad stuff to God's attention because I think it never hurts to ask, but generally I only ask once because somehow I am pretty certain, given the complications of our lives, that God must have us on a weekly checklist: "clean up this week's Mahlou mess."

So, Thursday morning started out easy! Little did any of us know what was to come!

After being picked up, I watched Nikolina while Lemony went to visit Shane in the hospital. Shane's appendix, it turned out was not about to rupture as the doctors thought Tuesday evening. It had already ruptured several days earlier, but apparently the concern over Nikolina's spinal surgery and the trips back and forth from Stanford kept him ignoring the pain. Only after Nikolina was home did he realize that something was wrong. Very wrong, as it turns out. He was full of gangrene. The appendix has been removed and his insides scrubbed. He is on mega doses of antibiotics, to which he seems to be responding well. The doctor has maintained a partially open incision because with Shane having a fever that comes and goes, the doctor is not certain that he got all the infection out. So, we wait. Until Monday, we are told. At least, Shane is now allowed visitors (initially restricted), and both we and Lemony have visited although yesterday Lemony's visits were abbreviated and between my babysitting duties and Donnie's trying to get a battery for an older car and wire money to Blaine (whose car had also broken down) -- once again glad that we had not gone ahead and maxed out the credit cards, we were not able to visit at all. But all of that was but a hint of things to come.

Not long after leaving for the hospital, Lemony returned home with Nathaniel in tow. The school had called about ten minutes after she arrived in Shane's room to ask her to pick up Nathaniel who was being sent home with conjunctivitis. She had to take him to the pediatrician, who is in a city south of us by about 20 miles. Most of her afternoon was spent on that while I got to teach Nikolina pattycake and other baby games that her great-great grandmother taught me. (It's interesting to see how, as a grandmother, I instinctively mimic my grandmother, not my mother nor myself as a mother. Odd!)

Lemony returned just in time for me to give Nathaniel a hug, and then both of them went off to open house at school. Donnie showed up at Lemony's with a working car, and we were just beginning to relax from all the stress and trauma of the past week, beginning with Nikolina's surgery, when all the lights went out. A helicopter that was helping to put out a forest fire several miles away had flown into the power lines and knocked out the electricity and cell phone tower for three towns. Lemony came home, left Nathaniel with us, and went to the hospital to confer with Shane on next steps. Nikolina was not tolerating the 100+ degree weather without air conditioning, and not having a working phone in an emergency was a concern.

Shane and Lemony found a hotel for Lemony and the kids about 30 miles north that had electricity and air conditioning -- and space. Off we went in our two-car caravan. (We did not want Lemony driving alone without a working cell phone.)

What fun! After settling Nikolina and Lemony into the hotel (Nikolina immediately perked up), we picked up some snacks for the next morning for Lemony and kids, gas, and dinner at Denny's. (Once again, I was glad I had not maxed out those credit cards.) After dinner, Nathaniel and I had fun splitting a root beer float: I drank the root beer, he sipped the "fuzzy stuff," and we split the ice cream. Then he proudly carried Lemony's dinner that we had ordered for her as take-out back to her at the hotel. As I left, I turned to say goodnight to him, but he was fast asleep in the bed, shoes and all!

We arrived back home at midnight and went straight to bed but not before offering a prayer of gratitude for once again being spoiled. Fixed finances. Car that works. Shane out of danger. Nikolina home (well, hotel, but better than the hospital). A day spent with family, which is hard for me to get, given a job that has me traveling frequently. And important lessons taught (and, hopefully, learned), such as

(1) Family is more important than work;
(2) Family bonds are built through time spent together, even if it is shared trauma;
(3) People have physical limits -- we should keep those in mind and enjoy our family and friends every day, treating them as though we have limited time with them because we truly do;
(4) There is no problem that God cannot fix better than we can try to mend ourselves:
(5) God will come through for us, just perhaps not always at the time or place or in the manner we anticipate;
(6) Cars, modern conveniences, things -- none of these are more important than relationships with family, friends, God;
(7) It is important to stop and smell the roses -- had not all these things happened this week, I would have been at work from 8-8 and would not even have seen the roses, let alone stopped to smell them; it is important to remember that life is for the enjoying, the valuing, the gee-whizzing, and the thank-you-God'ing, not for burying ourselves so deeply into our work that miss out on the wonder of it all;
(8) It is okay not to be fully mature, to run to God whenever help is needed;
(9) We can trust God without reservations of any sort; we don't have to worry (we simply choose to); and
(10) God likes to spoil us.

Yesterday, Lemony asked me rehtorically, "When is this all going to stop?" Ah, she has missed the point. It may not stop. Life is what it is. It is not important that the bad stuff stop because God will fix it, God will use it to teach us important lessons, and in many cases God will use the bad for ultimate good, often widespread good for many people. In the end, if we let Him, God will spoil us.

God, for sure, spoils me and mine. But you don't see me complaining!! As Nathaniel recently said to me, "Grandma Beth, you spoil me, but that's okay because I love it." Likewise, I say, "God, you spoil me, but that's okay because I love it!

Who Was Connie?

Last year, I traveled about an hour to the closest city to attend a contemplative prayer group, now, alas, disbanded. (The priest who led it was reassigned and no replacement has arrived.) The group met regularly once a month in the evening. I joined the group close to its day of dissolution. The few meetings I attended I enjoyed, and to the last meeting I took a fellow member of our local mission prayer group, the difference in the two groups being that the city group was focused on contemplative prayer, leading to very quiet meetings, and our local group is focused on pray-aloud prayer, leading to mathemagenic noise and inspirational chaos. Both groups include sharing of personal experience and spiritual growth.

The contemplative group always began with paired discussion about the condition of our personal prayer life. Then, following a scripture reading, 20 minutes (which seemed like never enough time) was allotted to contemplative prayer. After that, we usually sang some songs, followed by announcements, and that was that. It was a group activity experienced individually for the most part.

During the last session, I was paired with a newcomer, named Connie. Shabbily clothed, with downcast eyes and meek demeanor, Connie looked like she had wandered into the wrong group, most of us being middle-class yuppie types, at least to the common eye, and none of us had any idea how she found us or really why she came. She did not want to discuss anything about each other's prayer life during our pair time. Rather, she wanted to talk to me about dying. It seems that Connie was in Stage 4 of esophageal cancer, something I know little about except what Connie told me. Prayer was not her concern. Putting closure to her life was. She did not want my advice. That was good for I had none to give. She wanted only a friend. She wanted to be touched, to be held, to be hugged -- all without words, a difficult task for an extrovert such as I, but I did my best to give her what she requested. I listened. I said little because I needed to say little. She said anything I would have said and far more. I wish I had listened with my memory as well as my ears because I would like to remember now more than I do. I recall that she said that she was ready to die, that she worried about nothing, and wished only that the pain could be less. She said that she knew that God loved her -- and added "more than you could possibly understand right now." That was odd, but I did not remonstrate. I just knew I was supposed to listen. She said she had no relatives or real friends in the world, that few would miss her. She accepted that. She wanted nothing before she died, but she did whisper one thing with some urgency before we were called back into a group for our contemplative prayer session: "Pray for me."

During the prayer session, Connie sat in the pew in front of me and next to the aisle, as I was. What I loved about these particular prayer sessions was the fading of the external world, the loss of outside distractions, and a sense of union with God. As I said, 20 minutes was just far too short a time.

This time, though, after 10-15 minutes, I felt something happening in the pew in front of me and, suddenly quite aware of all my surroundings, I noticed Connie. She was not praying. She was looking around, and, I swear, she did not look like herself. Not shabby anymore. A softness surrounded her. I could not tell whether it was coming from within or from without. I blinked several times, thinking I was somehow in a heretofore unexperienced state of some kind of unusual or at least never-before-described-to-me contemplation, but no, my eyes reported the same odd softness with each blink.

Suddenly Connie stood up, looking much like herself again, and started to walk out. I stood as she passed me and reached out to her with a questioning look. "Good-bye," she said. Nothing more. "I will pray for you," I promised in a whisper. We embraced warmly, and she walked out.

I could not concentrate after that and sat quietly, waiting for the others to finish praying. Then came our group sing-along of fairly short duration, followed by the announcement about the dissolution of the group. Perhaps it was the surprise nature of that announcement or a sense of imminent personal loss that kept anyone from noticing that Connie had left. Whatever the reason, no one said a word about it. The prayer group leader dismissed us for the last time. I interrupted before people scattered and asked if anyone had noticed Connie's departure. No one had paid attention to the fact that we were one less in number at the end than at the beginning. "We don't know who she is," one person said. "We've never seen her before," another volunteered. "Perhaps she realized she was in the wrong place," yet another suggested. Maybe any of those things. Maybe all of those things. Maybe none of those things. I told the group what I knew about Connie (except for the strange vision I had of her during prayer). I told them about her request for prayer. Instinctively, with no one individual taking the lead, we all formed a circle to pray for Connie. The leader look at me, so I said what I hoped were adequate words.

I have many times since wondered what happened there. The person from our mission prayer group who had attended with me said that she got the same feeling from Connie that I had: otherworldly, but she had no idea why. Perhaps when one is close to death, one is close to God.

Brother Charles, on Praise and Bless, wrote in this week's homily something that brought Connie back into focus for me today. He was addressing the question of transsubstation, but I am excerpting some of his words here -- please forgive me, Brother, for using them out of context -- because they immediately made me think of Connie:

"When God reveals himself to the world, what appears? On the one hand a newborn, vulnerable child, born of young, poor parents away from home. On the other hand, God reveals himself as a condemned criminal, tortured and in the midst of his execution. These are the mysteries of the Nativity and the Passion, the revelations of God in the Word made flesh, Jesus Christ, and they reveal a God who is sublimely humble. "

Could God have been there in Connie, a humble, dying-from-cancer, living-alone, sixty-something, raggedly clothed, obviously poor, weak woman? A reminder to us that whom we consider "the least" among us may not be the least at all? None of us who were there will probably ever know, but at the time and now thinking back, that sense of another dimension that surrounded Connie still gives me pause.

Who was Connie? Does that matter? At the very least, she was someone who needed support, and we gave it the best we could. Isn't that something of what God wants us to do on this journey we call life?

Monday Morning Meditation #37: The Prayer of Jabez

I moved forward into I Chronicles this week and immediately became somewhat bogged down in the copious genealogy there until I came across the two-verse description of Jabez made famous by Bruce Wilkerson in various publications, e.g., The Prayer of Jabez (Bruce Wilkerson with David Kopp):

Jabez was more honorable than his brothers. His mother had named him Jabez, saying, "I gave birth to him in pain."
Jabez cried out to the God of Israel, "Oh, that you would bless me and enlarge my territory! Let your hand be with me, and keep me from harm so that I will be free from pain." And God granted his request.

Reading I Chronicles 4:9

Meditation: I almost hesitate to provide any thoughtful consideration of these verses, given how wildly popular Wilkerson has made the prayer of Jabez. So, what I would like to do is throw out some ideas for consideration to readers and ask for your interpretation.

Q1. Can we take Jabez's prayer out of the context in which it was prayed? Jabez was "more honorable" than his brothers; that seems to be the reason he is mentioned in more detail than the others listed in the genealogy and that may be the reason his prayer was answered. It was a prayer that he would not experience a life that matched the meaning of his name, "pain." We are told that God granted that prayer. I wonder if we can assume, then, that God will answer the prayer of any "honorable" person. There is a thought in the back of my mind that says that this prayer was prayed by this particular person for a particular reason and that God likely answered the plea of this particular person for reasons that He alone know. So, we know that when an honorable man prays, his prayer avails much. Does it make sense to expand beyond this and say that when anyone prays this same prayer, it will avail as much?

Q2. A related question is can we generalize the contents of Jabez's prayer? Jabez asked for a blessing; certainly, I think we can generalize the request for a blessing -- we do it all the time. After that, though, Jabez wants more territory, and in those old days that likely meant land. I wonder if it is really possible, as Wilkerson suggests, to extrapolate from that our right to ask for greater opportunities, power, riches or whatever else we would like to have.

Q3. Does anyone else see something rather selfish in this prayer once it is generalized to the situations of today? At least, as it is presented in much of the popular literature, Jabez's prayer is seen as a good way to "get" something from God. Or am I misunderstanding what Wilkerson is saying? Wilkerson aside, the prayer is all about the self, what Jabez wants, and, if we extrapolate to ourselves, what each "I" wants. It is not about what the group needs or about God's will being done or anything much that would indicate that this prayer is anything more than Jabez wanting to escape a limited future, one filled with pain, based on his name. If Jabez was an honorable man, there were probably many other prayers he said as well, ones less concerned with his own self-interests.

Q4. If God thought that this was the ideal prayer for us to use, why did Jesus give us the "Our Father" prayer to use? The Lord's Prayer is quite different from the prayer of Jabez. It focuses on all of us as a body; it looks to seeing God's will done; it asks for basic survival but we also promise a few things that would make us "honorable," such as forgiving those who trespass against us.

So, then those are my questions to you, which is far as I can go with you this Monday morning. I must retire to a different kind of prayer, the only kind I am comfortable praying, to ask God to guide me in becoming "honorable," to thank Him for all that I have, to praise Him for the wonderful gifts He gives to all of us, including, at times, miracles, and to repent for those times that I may have been selfish in my prayers. After that, I will spend as much time as I can in contemplation, my favorite part of the day, letting God take over the direction in which my relationship with Him moves.

I will now leave you to your prayer and contemplation, but first, I would like to bring to your attention a Monday morning prayer post that you might enjoy:
Fr. Austin Fleming, priest of the Archdiocese of Boston and pastor in Concord, Massachusetts, posts a prayer each Monday morning that he calls "Monday Morning Offering." I enjoy his prayers very much. I hope you also will find them inspirational. He has graciously given me permission to include a link to his blog on my Monday Morning Meditation posts.

For additional inspiration throughout the week, I would point out two sets of blogs: (1) the list of devotional blogs that follow the enumeration of Monday Morning Meditations on the sidebar of this blog and (2) my blogroll, where I am following a number of inspirational priests and writers about spiritual matters. I learn so very much from all these people. I highly recommend them to you.

Fishes and Loaves for Colombia

Almost two years ago, I met a young priest from Colombia, Padre (Fr.) Julio. Padre Julio substituted for our noon Spanish mass one Sunday and mesmerized the congregation. Shortly thereafter I came to know Padre better (1) as he traveled more than an hour to Stanford University Hospital to pray for my daughter Noelle who was having brain surgery, (2) after he accepted my offer as a volunteer tutor of English when his duties were changed from the Spanish mass to the English mass (a mutually beneficial activity -- as I helped him convert his homilies from Spanish to English, I learned a lot of theology from him and a little more Spanish, too), and (3) during web design working sessions with my family (which consists of graphic artists, computer programmers, web designers, and me, a writer and translator) as we constructed a website for the organization that he founded: Por Amor a los Ninos de Colombia (for love of the children of Colombia). Padre's dream was to help the children of his native Colombia, a beautiful, rural region, full of potential that was being replaced by violence. Padre describes the situation as follows:

In recent years, violence and illiteracy have affected the communities of the village of Palomar and surrounding hamlets. The distance between the school and the houses where the children live can be between one and six hours, making school attendance impossible.

Because their families live in poverty, these children cannot afford transport to nearby towns or cities either. This has resulted in young people between the ages of 12 and 18 having no other choice than to join guerrilla or paramilitary groups, commit petty crimes, work in the fields without the possibility of an education, or worse yet, becoming addicted to drugs.

The need to provide alternatives to solve the many problems this school-age population is facing is an urgent one. They have neither the economic nor the material means to do it themselves.

But let me step back just a bit in time. When I first became acquainted with Padre as a result of his describing Por Amor during mass, I wanted to donate a little something -- and "little" was the right label for any monetary amount I could hope to scrape together. Having come from an impoverished farm family and then spending most of a lifetime raising children with serious medical needs, even spare change was hard to find. I reasoned, however, that I could offer family skill in lieu of money, and Padre and I began a conversation about how the website would look. In the midst of this conversation, I ended up being sent to work in Bahrain for three weeks, just as Padre was beginning a push to raise the initial funds for Por Amor. Padre and I maintained a running e-mail conversation, he in Spanish and I in English, about the website plans, but somewhere in the back of my mind was the understanding that most of our work would be in vain if he could not get together a reasonable fund in a reasonable amount of time. I would have liked to help with that, too, but I am no fundraiser. So, on both counts -- giving money and raising money -- I was not much help to Padre until a marvelous thing happened.

As soon as I had arrived in Bahrain, a friend, who knew I was coming, showed up in my hotel room and dragged me to dinner, in good Arab fashion refusing to allow me to pay. But I had per diem for my meals, one thousand dollars, in fact, to cover the time I would be abroad. As I walked up to my room, an idea flew into my mind (from where?). There would certainly be another friend or two who would react in the same way over the next three weeks and the Ministry of Education would also likely host me for at least one meal, so I might have a hundred or even a little more than a hundred dollars left over from unspent per diem. I made a promise to God that whatever amount I did not spend on food in Bahrain, I would give to Padre for His children in Colombia. After that, friends and colleagues appeared out of the woodwork, and none would allow me to pay my own way (it does not fit with the culture there). In addition, the Ministry of Education had several socials and formal dinners which were also free to me. When I left Bahrain at the end of the three weeks, I had not had to purchase even one meal. When I reached the USA, I handed all $1000 of my per diem over to Padre for his children.

Bahrain might be little more than a desert to some, but it does have the famous tree of life that flourishes in sand. How symbolic for what had just happened! I was living in a philanthropic desert and yet out of that wasteland tumbled one thousand dollars for children in need half a world away. Would God re-create the fishes and loaves miracle today? You bet!

Monday Morning Meditation #3: Legacies from the Tower of Babel

I have made it as far as Genesis, Chapter 11 (yep, I decided to continue in a sequential fashion, which is very unlike random me) before coming across the story of the Tower of Babel. I had to stop and reflect on that story because had there been no destruction of the tower and scattering of the people, along with confusion of tongues, I would have no employment today. You see, I have worked in 24 (about to be 25) countries as an interpreter, translator, foreign-language teacher, cross-cultural consultant, and language-program administrator. My repertoire of foreign languages exceeds 20 and continues to grow. So, of course, the story of the Tower of Babel caught my attention. Post-Babel, in the world in which we live and the one where I try to bridge cultures, our biggest problem internationally is understanding each other well enough to stop killing each other, or, better, not to start the killing to begin with.

Reading: Genesis 11:1-9

Meditation: In re-reading this passage, I noticed something beyond the outcome, i.e. the scattering of people across the world and the rise of a myriad languages. Something else speaks out from these verses: hubris. One hears overweaning pride and conceit in the words of the people: "Come, let us build us a city, and a tower, with its top in heaven, and let us make us a name." God's response was to prevent this, scattering the people, and making it difficult for them to communicate with each other. It would seem that "making a name" for oneself is not what God considers important, yet how often do we want to do just that? How often do we want our children to do that? How often do we admire those who have done that? How often do we congratulate friends whose offspring have done that? Making a name, it would seem, is very important in American culture.

One of the people I would like to emulate is our former landlord, Ernie Camacho. Anyone who knows baseball probably recognizes that name from World Series XIV, which he pitched, as well as his former pitching for more than one national baseball team. Ernie was a small-city boy, the son of immigrants (friends of ours), who had made a name for himself. The question is: Does anyone know where Ernie is now? He finished his career in the early '90s and returned to the town of his youth, living with his Mexican-Catholic parents (our friends), and working as a high school school janitor. Yes, as a janitor. Why? He started out as a school counselor, but took on the janitor's job because, as he told me, the students opened up more to a janitor than to a counselor; they had nothing to fear or prove with a janitor. As an international educator, I have a long way to go to reach the level of janitor. Maybe I won't make it, but I try. I have come to know many janitors worldwide; they have been good teachers for me. Some day maybe I will be as good a teacher as they. For that, I pray. I suppose I could quit my job and seek one as a janitor, but (1) I am not ready for that because I like what I do and I know that God is able to use us wherever we are (it is, in fact, a job that God has permitted after obviously closing doors to alternatives) and (2) I am not good enough at the skills required of janitors for anyone to consider offering me a job.

And that is far as I can go with you on this Monday morning. I must retire to prayer to ask God for guidance as I continue to try to be an adequate conduit for Him and for my organization in bridging cultural and linguistic differences, to express my regret for each of those instances where I "blew it" because I was not ready to understand "the other" or failed to do my homework in advance of meetings, to give thanks for a lifetime of unexpected and undeserved opportunities to meet representatives of the scattered tribes descending from the days of Babel, and to offer praise to God who understands us even without words. Yes, that is what I will pray for to begin with, but then, I will take up the more important theme, to ask God to show me how to be His janitor, to sweep any sense of my own self-importance under the carpet of fraternal love, and to trash any pride that may remain hidden within me for I do not need it. The latter is, unfortunately, not a one-time prayer. I need to have long, periodic conversations with God about that -- and do.

After that, I will spend some time in contemplation with this wonderful God who loves me in spite of my pride and failures.

I will now leave you to your prayer and contemplation.

If you pick this up as a weekly devotional activity, please share with me and others your own thoughts about the message of Genesis 11: 1-9.

Have a good day and a good week!

Lost from My Prayer List

Two people I had listed on the prayer list for this blog died this past week. That is not surprising because I put on that list those who are the nearest to God, and sometimes they leave this earth even though their loved ones would like them to stay.

Let me tell a little about the two who died. They were quite different. One was a mother of ten, who had spent a number of decades in this world and contributed in many ways, not the least of which was her cancer diary. Her name was Cyndi. The second was a little boy, whose coming was awaited with much anticipation and trepidation for it was already known before his birth that his heart was too slow for this world. His name was Matthew.

A mother of ten children, Cyndi, called her blog, "Faithful Promises." She died with an attitude of gratitude, as they say. Would that we all have such an outlook on life when it shows its worst side! On her blog site, Cyndi wrote, "Although at the moment cancer is taking quite a bit of my time and energy, it is not how I define my life. I truly believe that this is a trial to be faced for gain. God can and will use my illness to His glory. Already He has shown His faithfulness in meeting our needs. I believe that He will continue to do so in a mighty way. I am His vessel. And that, not cancer, is who I am." Quite an example for all of us, don't you think? And certainly a wonderful role model for those ten children she called her own. Please keep this family in your prayers.

Matthew's story makes me think of Dale Evans Rogers' book, Angel Unaware. (If you have not read it, I suggest you do so. It is short, and you will not regret the time.) While his life was much briefer than the little girl, Robin, who was born to Dale Evans and Roy Rogers, little Matthew seems to have made a big impression on those around him. Before his birth, Matthew was found to have a slow heart. After birth, Matthew lived only four days and then followed three siblings who had left this world a few years before his arrival. The faith of this family is truly amazing. Please keep them in your prayers.

Praying for someone who is dying is one of the hardest prayers to make, I have found. For what does one pray? That the person will live? What if the living is worse than the dying? And how does one know which is better? That God's will be done? That is not what we really want, is it? We want God to intervene, fix things, heal the person, and return our pre-illness world to us.

As with anything else, we do not and cannot see the really big picture. We cannot know why God intervenes with miracles in some lives and not in others. I guess it just goes back to having total trust. So, I pray the only thing that I can think to pray. I pray that God treat those I am praying for as His special people, as I know they are, and take care of them in the ways that He knows to be best because God's best is far better than anything we can imagine. And then I wait in confidence for God to answer that prayer.

(P.S. Click here for the story behind the praying hands, along with the story of another person who is in need of prayer.)

Monday Morning Meditation #2: Blowing Our Heritage

Where does one go after the first chapter of Genesis? For lack of a better plan of action, I moved over into the second and third chapters of Genesis. Why not?

Reading: Genesis 2, Genesis 3

Meditation: In reading these chapters, I noticed something I had glossed over before: "And the Lord God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it." Hmmm....Fine job that we did! And I do mean "we." Yes, Adam and Eve managed to get themselves thrown out of the garden, but there are people living in these areas today, especially the area of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. They are called Iraqis -- and Kurds and Sorranis -- and they are at war. Historically, there has been much fighting in this area, constantly destroying natural beauty, and now the US has launched its campaign against this area. Let's see -- the University of Baghdad more than 30% destroyed, national treasures stolen from museums, and historic landmarks gone forever. It seems that we are not keeping what God has given us very well, certainly not "dressing" it. Or, do we somehow think that this task involves only people from a bygone era. And what about generalizing this task? Does it not generalize to include our natural environment wherever we are. Perhaps George Bernard Shaw's words -- "Go where no one has gone before and leave a path" -- should not refer to the physical world but the metaphysical one. Perhaps the backpacker's motto -- "pack in, pack out" -- should refer to both physical and metaphysical worlds. We don't need to leave our psychological garbage strewn around any more than our physical garbage.

In Chapter 3, God is quoted as saying now that Man has eaten of the Tree of Knowledge (of good and bad), the Tree of Life should be put off limits and kept away from Man, lest he eat from that, too, and live forever. Oh, my! I think Mankind just lost a good deal of trust -- and we do not seem to have done much over the centuries to regain it. How many times have we turned away from God? Murdered his prophets and His Incarnation? Silenced those who would speak on His behalf? Tried to act like Gods -- judging others, making decisions with nary a thought as to what God would see as good, setting up our own ethical systems (some in contradiction to scripture)? If we had a chance to live forever by eating forbidden fruit, how many would do it? (I think the % of today's population answering "I would" would be quite high.)

There are apparently things that we are not supposed to know, as with the knowledge that came from eating the fruit of the forbidden tree. Adam and Eve, gaining that knowledge, changed their relationship with God for the worse. How many times do we receive bounty from God and stll ask why God gave it to us? Or, on the other hand, when something goes wrong, blame God, and demand to know why He did not intervene? Maybe we are not supposed to know because knowing, as in the case of Adam and Eve suddenly knowing good and evil, would further spoil a simple, trusting, loving relationship to God.

And that is far as I can go with you on this Monday morning. I will now retire to prayer (to ask forgiveness for all those times I fail to dress and keep the places and people God has put before me and all those times I have asked to know why when I really only needed to accept God's will, to beg for another chance to try not to fail, to give thanks for all the chances I have been given and all the love I have been given even when I have not deserved them/it, and to offer praise for the great kindness of God that forgives over and over and lets us try again and again and loves us forever and ever). And then I will spend some time in contemplation with this wonderful God, and will let you do the same.

If you pick this up as a weekly devotional activity, please share with me and others your own experiences in doing so. What words did you choose for meditation? What insights did you have? What have you been given to understand that would be appropriate to share and from which we might all benefit?

Have a good day and a good week!

Doah Went to Court, or God Knew Best

With another interesting comment coming in early this morning on the topic of God (not) answering prayer, I am thinking again about the post about my catechism classes and the teenagers' frustration when God does not give them exactly what they want -- and, in reaction, they declare that God is dead or does not exist. (Of course, much of that is for the dramatic effect on us teachers, and the rest of it is to keep up the "cool" image of the cheerleaders and ball players in the class.) What I tell them is to look beyond their own agenda and see what God might know that is better than what they want.

A highly troubling personal example bubbles to mind when I think about prayer and God knowing best. When I first returned from Jordan three years ago, I learned that my mentally challenged son Doah had gotten into some serious trouble at the local mall. At the time, he was living in a group home for disabled adults and working at a sheltered workshop, as he does now. He was in his mid-twenties, but because he never surpassed 4'7", he never seemed to be older than 8-10 years old, which is the outside limits on his mental development as well. A very affectionate person, he had seen a young girl he knew at the mall. She was with her parents. He went over to her and hugged her. At that point, all manner of chaos broke loose. Although Doah's size was the same as the girl's, the girl was only 13. The parents freaked; Doah does look "different." Mall security seized Doah, and off he went to jail. The group home director got him out of jail, but the district attorney wanted to prosecute even after the parents, who had finally figured out what was happening, dropped the charges. The DA had a goal: Get retarded people off the streets of Salts, the city where Doah lived.

Lizzie, my oldest daughter, was visiting at the time that Doah's first appearance in court took place. We had only about a day's notice. I had just returned from a long time out of the country, and the group home was not used to my being around to inform about such things and had somehow also missed informing Shane, who looks out for Doah when Donnie and I are not around. Donnie was still in Jordan. So, Lizzie and I went to court with Doah. However, because Doah is not conserved and is of age, neither of us was allowed to appear with him. We had to sit in the back of the courtroom.

When the judge called Doah, he read him the charges: sexual molestation. (For a hug!??!) The judge then asked Doah if he understood the charges. Of course, he did not. He appeared quite confused, and the judge repeated, "Please answer me. Do you understand the charges?"

Doah responded, "You give me credit card? I buy something?" Now the judge was confused! He looked around the courtroom, somewhat desperately, and saw Doah's social work leaning over the barrier.

"Are you with this young man?" he asked.

The social worker identified his name and position and was allowed to approach the bench. He told them that there was family in the area and that the family wanted a private attorney. (The judge had been about to assign a court-appointed attorney, and, I fear, that would have been a railroad job. The DA would have had his highly visible case that could have turned into sanctioned discrimination against an entire class of people.)

We have a friend who is considered one of the best defense attorneys in Salts. I had actually been instrumental at one point in putting him on the fast track to practicing law in California so he helps us out from time to time. He took Doah's case gratis. He thought it would be open-and-shut, but it turned out that the DA would not budge. He had a chance to make a name for himself and get his agenda implemented, and he planned to do it. Our lawyer was temporarily stymied, and Doah was definitely going to be put on trial. There were only two possible outcomes of such a trial: (1) jail for a year, or (2) probation and identification for life as a sex offender.

So, if Doah were your son, which outcome would you pray for? Being in jail would have taught my little imitator how to do many bad things that would have followed him the rest of his life to his detriment. Probation was fine, but being labeled as a sex offender would also have followed him all his life to his detriment. So, I asked God for the only thing I thought could possibly work: for God to make the decision on what would happen to Doah.

The morning after that prayer, our lawyer called me excitedly. He said he had turned the case over and over in his mind and saw no way to win; he had spent a couple of days trying to convince the DA that what he was doing was wrong-headed and not appropriate in this case and still saw no way to win, given the DA's stubbornness. Then, when he got out of bed that morning, a thought from nowhere had tumbled into his head: the DA has a supervisor. So, he went to the DA's supervisor, explained the whole case, told him that he had known Doah since Doah was 9 years old, and that what had happened was only a result of Doah's generally friendly nature. The supervisor agreed that there was more than met the eye, requested a psychological examination, and said that a third option would be added: If the psychological examination confirmed the lawyer's analysis, then Doah would be put on probation for a year and if there were no further incidents all court records would be expunged as if nothing had ever occurred.

And, so, that is exactly what happened. The psychologist said that Doah had the mental acuity only to determine whether a behavior was good or bad but not the ability to understand that a good behavior becomes a bad behavior depending upon circumstance. That would be too fine a distinction for him to make. In other words, hugging is good at home, school, church, parties where you know everyone, but it is bad at the mall. Doah could not possibly draw that kind of conclusion, given his mental capacity. So, option three was taken by the court, and a year later the DA himself requested that the case be withdrawn and the records removed.

How blessed we were that God had a third answer. How happy I am that I did not ask for one of the only two options that I knew about. (I suspect, though, that if I had asked for one of those options, God would still have introduced the third, better, one.)

So, yes, I say to my catechism students, God does say "no," and we should be grateful that God knows best!

And God Said "No"

The teenagers in my First Year Confirmation religious education class often come with a chip on their shoulders toward God. It nearly always come from what they perceive as unanswered prayers. They have yet to realize that "no," "wait," and "let's substitute an answer other than what you specifically asked for" are all answers to prayer.

In explanation of what appear to be "no" answers, I suggest the following possibilities:

(1) sometimes if God were to give us what we ask for, God would be interfering with, walking back, or setting aside the system of free will and genetic selection that He put into action centuries ago;

(2) God's love for us is separate from what God does for us and so our love for God should not be contingent upon whether He answers our prayers the way we expect or at all;

(3) sometimes we do not see the answer to prayer because it was not the one we expected;

(4) sometimes what we ask for is not in our best interest (good parents also say "no" to their children when kids ask for something that is bad for them or dangerous).

Sometimes these explanations work. Other times, though, a teenager is really angry at God about something bad that has happened that he/she believes that God should have prevented. Last year, for example, one lost a cousin and the other a classmate in car accidents. They wanted to know why God "took" or "killed" their relative and friend. Obviously, God did not go out and kill these chldren. They were taking risks and lost; God simply did not intervene.

So, readers, what have been your experiences? How have you explained such things to your own children, or, if you are a catechist, to the children you teach? I would love to have additional insights.

Today's Drama

Ah, Saturday! Yes, I can sleep in! I rolled into bed rather late last night, or more accurately, early this morning, secure in the knowledge that I could get an unusual full night's sleep. Well, no, apparently. Just a few hours later, a ringing intruded into my dreams, whatever they were, and soon I was emerging into the not-yet-daylight. Fumbling for the alarm I had forgotten to turn off, I finally realized that it was the phone ringing--just as the caller hung up. I turned on the light and saw that it was Lizzie (my daughter) and Blaine (the young man we had raised from teenage years who ultimately became Lizzie's husband and our son/son-in-law), calling from Illinois.

Lizzie and Blaine! Something must be terribly wrong because they never call; they always send an enote. By now, Donnie was awake, as well, and called them back. Blaine answered. Yes, something was terribly wrong. His cousin, Alana, had just reached him. Her husband had arrived home drunk and had beaten her to the point that she had difficulty walking and was in pain. She needed some place to stay for the day and perhaps night while she was sorting through her options.

We made arrangements for her to be dropped off near our mission church. In a plan reminiscent of my experiences in eluding the KGB during the Cold War days in Moscow, I walked up as the taxi dropped off Alana and all the possessions she had been able to pack in a hurry while her husband was out of the house. She had to leave behind her beloved bike. (I suggested to her that she not give that a second thought. After all, bikes can be replaced; people cannot.) She did manage to bring a favorite cactus house plant and four suitcases of clothing and other possessions. We waited on the sidewalk until the taxi disappeared, and then I called Donnie who had been parked out of sight nearby. He drove up, and we put all the possessions and a very traumatized Alana into the car, then, learning that she had not had breakfast, had her pick out what she wanted at the local deli. We returned an hour later for pain medication. (I am probably the only mother in the entire country who raised seven children and never seemed to need an aspirin for them or for myself! Someone should give the condition a name: HPTS, as in High Pain Threshold Syndrome.)

At our house, she made some calls, often tearfully. Finally, a plan emerged to stay overnight for a few days with a cousin in northern California and then move in with her mother in Nevada, in order to begin to put her life back together and to shake her husband (hopefully, about to become her ex) off the trail. We drove her to her cousin's house this evening. It was a two-hour trip one-way, and we have just returned with sore bottoms from four hours of car-seat-sitting. We think the calluses-to-appear were for a good cause.

I tried to get her to see a doctor because the bruises and limp were obvious. She did not want to do that. I also tried to get her to turn her husband into the police; battery in California is mandatory imprisonment. She did not want to do that, either. Since she did not know us (but she knows several of our children), accepting guidance from me was not a natural thing to do. I left her with the story of my sister, Victoria, who kept going back to a husband who beat her, blaming herself for "pushing his buttons," until the day that he took a knife to her. Then, after the police jailed him, she divorced him and raised her two sons, happily, as a single mother. I take hope in the fact that after our discussion, Alana asked to borrow the computer and researched battered-wife sites. That was a reasonable, unemotional thing to do in response to a very emotional experience.

Some things are slow to change, however, or so it seems. Women are still blaming themselves for abuse. They are still afraid to tell doctors what has happened for fear it will make them look bad or be embarrassing. They are also afraid to pursue their beaters and molesters legally for fear that when they get out of jail, they will look up the person who put them in and beat them even harder. Somehow, women and we as a nation, not just those who comprise the group of the abused, have to learn to face down those who act in base ways and just stop the beatings, not with temerity but with reasoned courage. (See my post on abuse.)

Fortunately, unlike many other women in similar circumstances, Alana has a support system--the cousins, friends, mother, father. I have to hope that this will make the difference that will keep her from returning to an abusive situation.

After we dropped Alana off this evening, I said a prayer for her. She will need God's love in order to accept herself as a lovable person, and she will need God to give her strength as she takes one new step after another toward a saner and safer environment. I will continue to pray for her in the days ahead, and I ask anyone reading this blog to add her and all abused women and children to your prayer list.

Amazing Power of Prayer

Marvels of marvels and miracles of miracles, something happened this morning that I never thought I would see. Never. Because I did not have as much faith as I should have had.

Donnie and I will celebrate our 40th anniversary on March 20. Complications, however, have arisen in celebrating it. First, March 20 is the only time that the university students in Lithuania can do the review session for the course I taught there the last two weeks, and they need one. Moreover, March 21 is the only day that they can take their final. Given the 10-hour difference between our countries and the plan to have the students do the final review over Skype and the final (monitored by the department chair) in the computer lab, emailing me immediately their answers, my presence is required in both instances in the late evening hours, ending at midnight. So, while I can be free during the day, I need to be at home, with the proper computer equipment at night. Any plans that Donnie and I would have liked to have had to take a trip (we have dreamed of a special trip for our 40th anniversary for some time, entertaining a number of different exotic locations, among which it had been difficult to choose) cannot be accomplished on the actual date. Second, with Shane unemployed, I would prefer to use trip money to pay the next unseen number of months of his COBRA fees, which at $800 a month are well beyond his ability to pay on unemployment compensation, and provide smaller amounts to help with the kids and food. (His umemployment amount covers his rent only.)

So, seeing that our local St. Francis Retreat Center, which is no more than five minutes up the hill from our house, is offering a two-day retreat on Franciscan spirituality March 20-21, I decided to sign up for it. Donnie has agreed to come! We will try to sneak away on the evening of March 20, during the dinner hour, for a private anniversary dinner at our favorite local restaurant.

The process leading to this decision began when Donnie returned from Jordan, an atheist as I had always been, to find that I had had a remarkable conversion experience and was now pretty dedicated to following in the path of Christ and obeying God at all costs. It was not the kind of thing one emails to one's spouse of 30+ years or relates on a phone. So, I had waited until he had completed his contract there, which ended eight months after mine, and then, when he arrived back in California, I shared with him all that had happened.

To say that he was in shock would be an understatement. For nearly a week, he could not even speak to me. He would look at me and mutter, "I cannot get my head around it."

Doah, on the other hand, was delighted. He had been a believer perhaps before he was even born. Who knows, given his significant retardation, what and how his beliefs were formed, but he always exhibited them. However, from the time that he could speak, he evinced not only strong belief but strong connection with God, saying things like "God told me" X or Y. One weekend soon after Donnie came home, Doah was in the car with us, driving to a nearby city for grocery shopping, and spontaneously said a prayer that momentarily got Donnie's attention, "Dear God, Thank you for bringing Mom to You, but You forgot about Dad."

Unfortunately, the effect was minimal and shorter than temporary. I wondered what would reach Donnie, and I knew that he was not the type to be pushed. Moreover, he was still in shock. I had been such an outspoken atheist.

A few months later, a friend visited from Nebraska. We spent every evening walking around Old Mission grounds, a little of it together but most of it separately praying and communing with God. It was during that time that I started begging God to help with Donnie and was told that eventually he would come to believe but that first I must frequently pray with him.

Pray with an atheist? I knew how that would have gone over with me, and I had a pretty good idea how that would go over with Donnie. Nonetheless, convinced that this was the path that God had chosen to bring Donnie to Him, at our very next breakfast together, I insisted that we say grace together. We have continued that pattern for two years now. I have also upon occasion, as I sensed his atheism turning into agnosticism, asked him to say grace (just in case), and he has acquiesced.

Then, last spring my torn rotator cuff was healed instantly during Mass. Doah was there and sensed the same presence on the kneeler with us that I felt touch my arm. When I returned and showed Donnie the totally free movement I had in my arm that had been impossible to move than 30 degrees before I went to Mass, he was again shocked. With the healing confirmed five days later by MRI, his agnosticism began to turn toward a "just in case, perhaps-perhaps not" kind of potentially emerging belief.

Still, he has been unwilling to step closer. I go to Mass alone or with Doah, Noelle, or Lemony (my daughter-in-law who was gladly my sponsor), when they are visiting, or even sometimes with a friend.

Nonetheless, Donnie has spent time with Fr. Ed and Fr. Barry, when they have come for a family or other event. They don't push him, either, and I try to follow their model of just being an example. I have also tried to be steadfast in praying for him and, as God urged, with him, relying on God to take care of the rest.

And so today, I am the one in shock, pleasant shock. (The shock pricks me, though, in thinking that had I had greater faith, there would be NO shock. Nonetheless, I am happy, indeed. Yes! A spiritual weekend together! What better anniversary gift could there be?A