relative success

Following up from my last post, I wish to share a story of how a gift that I was humbled to receive affirmed my decision to "politely" proceed with dinner plans I had made with co-workers during September. 

Two of my female co-workers and I try to study together once a week or once every couple weeks (although, one has a Masters, the other has a Ph.D. so why they're studying is beyond me - I'm the only one with actual homework to do! Although that might explain why I'm the one who is the most focused...). Often, we will plan our study sessions near a restaurant we've been wanting to try, so that after a couple hours of hitting the books, we have as our motivation the reward of a good meal waiting for us. Not only does it help to have some study buddies, but it is nice to spend some time "off the clock" with a few co-workers and to enjoy each other's company. 

We had already scheduled a study/dinner night for the middle of September, with our destination the Cheesecake Factory, and rather than backing out on them and delaying the evening til October, I decided it might be better to go ahead as planned (they were not aware of my commitment) and tack on an extra day or two at the beginning of October in reparation. However, I was feeling quite guilty about it, especially the day of our plans, and kept thinking to myself that if I was actually being strict with myself in this experiment, I wouldn't have relented so easily. 

God hushed me, though, when quite unexpectedly, that very day after daily Mass I received a thank you card from the priest for the work I had done all summer as a sacristan for the young adult Mass here in Indianapolis, and inside was a gift card: to the Cheesecake Factory. 

Someone once brought to my attention the fact that this is not about being so stubborn that "come hell or high water, I will not eat out this month!" but that it is more about the spirit of the undertaking. In the case of my Cheesecake Factory experience, I had to surrender to the poverty of 'yes'. By adhering to our plans and "breaking my commitment" I had to swallow my pride, proceed with the dinner plans, and realize that not eating out for a month is not about gaining bragging rights or proving that I can do it: it's about what I learn by making (or not making) that sacrifice. The fact that I even set out on that path and was open to the lessons that would come with it is more important than if I "succeeded" in the mission of the month. Success is such a relative term anyway. 

This experiment is not perfect, and I realize that more and more each month as I think of a greater challenge, a more authentic form of poverty that I should be living, but my shortcomings do not limit God's work in and through this experiment - it has still been beautifully fruitful. +

to humbly receive

I would like to share about my month of September: I tacked on another challenge to the experiment. I decided to avoid eating out, as a sacrifice and a more truer form of poverty, and well, it was both more and less difficult than it should have been.

The more difficult part was a result of a condition I have: I am a social butterfly to the core. I'm not really one to eat out unless it's on social terms, and that probably occurs more frequently than is healthy, for many reasons (see post on time). So because it is a normal thing for me to grab dinner or lunch or coffee with a friend or relative, my breaking that habit presented quite a moral dilemma at times. Do I eat out to be polite because someone has invited me, tell them I'm busy until October, or witness to them by sharing about what I'm doing and why I'm doing it (hmm...good question...) and perhaps actually make an impact with this experiment? 

It's hard to know what the right answer to that question is, and I think my conscience, in it's moments of rationalization, would like to think that depending on the circumstances there are different right answers. Maybe polite society would argue that this is true, but you don't win souls for Christ by being polite. 

There were two instances where I did eat out, both because they had been previously scheduled, but also because, to be honest, I didn't rise to the challenge of being a witness. I chose the polite route. Was this the result of a fear of humiliation?

People in poverty - financial poverty - do not have the money to go out to eat very often, if at all, and so I imagine that status comes with a lot of humiliation. It is extraordinarily humbling to admit to someone that you cannot afford something that they can, not only because it is a blow to one's sense of self-worth (which, for too many people, is defined by their income and material possessions), but also because there may come a time when betraying your financial status elicits charity. 

In our independent and self-sufficient society, it is difficult to accept generosity in whatever form it may present itself, and isn't that a crying shame? Of course our world is broken: in their selfishness, people forget to be charitable - to be loving - and so is it any wonder why there is a lack of trust and willingness to accept charity when it is offered? To accept God when He manifests Himself in the form of love, of generosity, of a gift that our pride does not allow us to receive? 

In a cut-throat culture that takes and does not give, it can be hard to believe that someone might actually be good enough to be capable of this charity. I cannot help but think this may be why so many people reject the greatest gift ever given to us: Life, found in the Most Holy Eucharist. 

God Himself comes down and allows us to consume Him in the simple form of bread and wine - the Creator of the entire universe allow us to take Him into our mouths! He willingly travels through our bodies, feeding our souls, filling us more than we could ever hope to be filled by anything else: and all this, humbly, only if we choose to receive Him. To receive His Gift. of Everything.  

More to come. +

Blessed Mama T

This beautiful woman. I have noticed her following me this year....or perhaps she is leading and so beckoning to me to come forward with her, and I am beginning to wonder if maybe I should have committed myself to a study of her life for this year of poverty - she embodies it so perfectly. 


I came across these words of hers today...you see what I mean? 


"The more you have, the more you are occupied, the less you give. But the less you have the more free you are. Poverty for us is a freedom. It is not mortification, a penance. 
It is joyful freedom. There is no television here, no this, no that. But we are perfectly happy."

switching to God's time

Time to step it up a notch. We're about eight solid months into this experiment and I do believe it is now game time (huh!). The challenges are getting more acute, my weaknesses are rearing their ugly heads, and there is a sense of descending deeper (or ascending higher?) into this experiment, knowing that with four months left, God has not nearly finished the lessons we are being taught this year. 

Two particular topics have captured my attention over the past couple months, so much so that finding the words to write about them has proven to render me silent, but it is my hope that today I can pen my thoughts on these: food and time. 

They're two things that go together, if you think about it. Most of us aren't privileged to have mothers or maids to prepare our meals for us, so not only does eating take time, but so does cooking and cleaning afterward, as well as obtaining the food from a restaurant or the grocery. I actually quite enjoy cooking, but almost always something else takes priority, and I slap something together to satisfy my stomach in moments of ravishing hunger. Something in me finds it extremely difficult to rationalize spending even 15 or 20 minutes on preparing a meal (although with my novice cooking skills it usually takes me much longer than that to 'whip' something up) and then taking the time to eat it, when there is "oh, so much else to do!" 

But that begs a very potent question: what is this "so much else to do" and why is it taking priority over a basic need of human life?! This struck me one day like a Bible upside the head as I began to consider the state of my life and what I am doing with it. You see, just as with money, spending time is a thing to discern carefully. This year has not been about being cheap or saving as much money as possible, but rather about being wiser and more frugal in the ways money is spent within the bounds of my life. It has been an exercise in climbing out of the box and taking in the view these new conditions afford. I am not poor, but in considering my brothers and sisters who are through my actions, I have come to one step closer to that solidarity that we as followers of Christ seek. 

Just as I have limited the ways in which I spend my money this year, weighing whether a material good is a need or a want and proceeding accordingly, so too must I begin the same process with my time. This is not an act of selfishness, but rather an acknowledgment that if the way I spend my time is causing my basic needs to suffer (food, sleep, etc.), my spirit to wither, and my relationship with God, the most important one in my life, to lack because I do not have or make enough time to spend with Him, then something is really wrong. Even spending time in service to the Church, if it is not rightly ordered, can do more harm than good, both to me and those I am trying to serve. 

Sometimes, we are faced with situations in which we are asked to do or give something that requires us to take from something else: this is the poverty of 'yes'. In saying 'yes,' there is a sense of abandonment, as the realization of the sacrifice such a charge will require sets in, but even in the knowledge that challenges will come, there is a certainty and a peace that saying 'yes' is absolutely the right thing. Other times, we are presented with something that, while inherently good and entirely desirable, we must decline for a greater reason: this is the poverty of 'no'. It becomes apparent in these times that no matter how beautiful or worthwhile any invitation is, if it is not in God's plan for us, we have no choice but to say 'no' for the sake of our best interest. This we know in the deepest parts of our hearts. Both of these 'poverties' require a dying to self, because often the answer God calls us to give is the opposite of what we would like to say, but this type of poverty, of obedience perhaps to His will, is purifying and true. 

In taking these ponderings to heart, I am approaching my time this fall in a new light. Cutting the ties that bind me to a busier-than-healthy schedule and re-evaluating just how God is calling me to spend the 168 hours He gives me each week, I hope to enjoy a slower pace and bring the spirit of poverty to my hourly allocations. 

Maybe I won't even need my watch anymore! 

Not that I have a choice. 

It stopped working today, raising me to the ranks Julie has been reeling in since March. It's just one more experience to add to the journey, and well, I was starting to get a tan line. God's timing is always quite perfect, and my watch wasn't actually doing a very good job of revealing that to me anyway. 

Does any of this even make sense to anyone other than me? 

I'll save the rest of my thoughts on poverty and food for another day. That tangent is still being formulated in my head. 

+JMJ+

a lot to live up to

whoa...


Advice for her sisters

Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta asked her sisters to follow these virtues. "God needs our poverty, not our abundance. These are means of being humble:

• Speak as little as possible about oneself
• Take care of one's personal matters
• Avoid curiosity
• Do not meddle in the affairs of others
• Accept contradictions with good humor
• Do not focus on the faults of others
• Accept reproach, even if undeserved
• Yield to the will of others
• Accept insults and abuse
• Accept feeling uncared for, forgotten, despised
• Be courteous and sensitive, even if someone provokes you
• Do not try to be admired and loved
• Do not hide behind one's own dignity
• Yield in arguments, even if one is right
• Always choose what is most difficult."
  
   Source: "Heart of Joy: The Transforming Power of Self-Giving" by Mother Teresa, Servant Books, 1987

"Not my Moleskine!!!"

"Holy desires...increase by delay in their fulfillment; if delay causes them to fail, they were not desires." -St. Gregory the Great


In one month, ask me if I still want a new Moleskine planner...mine suffered a significant amount of water damage tonight, and well, I felt like crying. I have been somewhat dramatic and asked Julie if I could possibly bend some rules (using a dusty Border's gift card? asking for a "gift" from someone?) to obtain a new one. Like tomorrow. I am attached to this thing at the hip. (Planner = life...?) Her advice: wait a month and see how you feel. She reminded me that she has made it this far without a watch...


So, maybe I don't need it as much as I think I do...and we're back to this again.


He makes everything glorious. +

Long Story Short

Update: I've continued the trend I began in my preparations for Haiti and have started getting rid of the clothes I no longer need or want or that aren't modest. It's amazing how long the culture has kept it's grip on me! But slowly, slowly I will continue conforming to who Christ is asking me to be. He is so patient! 

So, long story short, remember the problem of no more hangars? Plenty now to go around! 

On a similar note, as a form of poverty I suppose, we've taken on a challenge for the summer, Julie and I. No A/C in our apartment. We'll make an exception if we're going to have guests (no need to drag innocent bystanders into our experiments!). If you've spent any time in central Indiana in the last month, you know there've been a few hot ones! Long story short, it's a bit rough, but as I've been saying all summer: "It's not as hot as Haiti!" 

But speaking of Haiti and no air conditioning, I realized something a few weeks after I got back. Being sort of toasty in the apartment, you don't usually want to wear much but shorts and a tank top. And that's when I realized I left almost all of my shorts in Haiti...hopefully someone is getting some good use out of them down there (although I'm generally twice the size of all the Haitians, so hopefully there's someone who can even fit into them!). So, this has been another component to the year: offering up all that the present situation (and my ambitious generosity) brings!

But long story short, my mom sneakily purchased some shorts for me. She tried to tell me that they were from her closet, a couple pairs that she "never wears anymore." Then why do they smell new, Mom? :)

Ah, but it takes me back to an earlier post: this is the charity we open ourselves up to in poverty. A charity that comes unrequested and undeserved. And that is the charity - the love - we receive from Our Lord, who is Love Himself. 

Long story short? All you need is love. +