What do you seek?

Today I woke before dawn with my blankets curl up beside me hugging me with warmth, sweet smell and a little reminder that Im home. I lay awake recalling Sisters invitation to sleep until I arise and go for a run, if missing Mass or norm Friday tasks this is alright, just go with the body rhythm. 

The birds had not yet risen so the dead of night sounded. I don't often close my curtains as they just look out onto a fence, leaving them open invites the night light into my room and first breaking of day  to fill the air before my eyes sometimes open. 

Last night we had companions, an evening of which we lead, B, Anne and myself. After the planning session Sunday afternoon, it was put into motion last night. It went well, challenging yet hopefully watered or open new seeds within people. 

Theme was - How does the Passionist Charism call us to be disciples of Jesus and enable us to respond to the critical issues of our time and place?

As I lay awake in my bed, my mind drifted….. 

This world of our is so big and so small all at the same time. Some days there are things that don't even become a blip on my radar. Things that leave me a pit in the depth of my stomach and haunt my dreams… things that cause tears to fall… Big huge horrific acts happening in the pockets of the world and all I can do is read, hear, sit trying to absorb a reality so extreme and offer them in prayer. Other things are happening in my own corner of the world too, perhaps on a smaller scale, yet they are life-altering as well - like cruel cancer to wonderful people. Job lost. Miscarriage. Poverty. Pain. Family domestics. Chronic illness. Despair. Heart break. 

In admits all this I can not help to cry out - Lord how do I trust you in the midst of such mess? 

How are we supposed to handle it all?

Sometimes when you stand down at the river, the world get's mighty quiet. Like the mightiness might actually comes in the quiet. The river keep navigating its complex course, rolling out the possibility of another way, a way less travelled, a way through. 

At companions issues where put forth - consumerism, care of our common home, hospitably for people seeking asylum, welcoming refugees, recognizing the dignity of people who are trafficked, family violence and abuse, poverty… all these contemporary issues of our time. One highlighted that these were man made issues from the beginning of man kind.

As I sat listing I realized that we live in an age of individualism, consumerism to measure worth, measure value and how so often it is through this that people are caught in this idea of certainty. 

Turn on the cranked up "experts", click on the screaming headlines, what people are shopping for is certainty. Certainty sells because we like to take home our boxes - to put people in boxes, put our life in neat boxes, put parts of the world into manageable boxes. 

Im left asking myself what do I seek - TRUTH - truth isn't found in trite boxes, rather truth is found in the richness of Christ. Its not marked with simplicity, its marked with fullness of grace. 

I would be even so bold to say that Truth is a person and He is complex, empathic, integrity and the certainty and supremacy of Christ. 

And lets not be disillusioned as the river's wide and deep and strong and long and there are layers to the water, quiet depths and currents. As the travelers, followers, disciples, we navigate the complexity and acknowledge them as the river like this faithfully carries us Home. 

Standing in the river there is a warm current that drifts, like sun rays warming the water allowing it to invite one to rest for a moment. Times when I stand feeling so vulnerable, able to feel anthers pain like it was my own, able to let my heart speak; been so widely exposed to enter into the pain and suffering with Christ and by doing so moving to stand by others in their. I offer the trails, the white water current at the foot of the cross, where the spirit can flow to enter into a relationship that may otherwise not humanly possible. 

TRUTH - We're not called to carry boxes - we're called to carry CROSSES. 

Box carriers are about buying certainty for living

Cross carriers are about carrying the complexity of living. 

Box carriers strain for the power of controlled lives. 

Cross carriers surrender to the power of the Christ life. 

Box carriers box things into simplest. 

Cross carriers unpack things and sit with the suffering. 

ONLY those who carry crosses who can know how there is an intersection of the many complicated things that bear down on people. 

By this all people will know that you are my disciples - 

not if you label one another, 

but if you LOVE one another. 

John 13:35

I am left feeling that we would know if we are disciples as we don't label the misunderstood people, the people with different ethnicity, skin color, culture, struggling people, sick people, confused people, angry people, hurting people….. but if we just love them! 

Sister would say this is an everyday miracle, so simple, so pure, so beautiful that people don't even know its a miracle that is taking place. Love is ultimately not a trite good feeling, but a steady current of quiet actions that could carry the loved person toward ultimate good. 

Love is stubbornly praying for your 'enemies' till you see 'enemies' are illusions and God makes everyone grade in your life; a friend. 

If we knew what current everyone was trying to battle, there isn't even one person we wouldn't help fight their current with the current of a Greater Love. 

What is our faith if its not about living so that people from many streams of life are carried by the current of His love - toward Him and Home. 

The world changes when we don't categorize, polarize and demonize people with boroad brushstrokes, but when we apologize, empathize, evangelize and prioritize people with these quiet brushes of grace. 

You can hear in the silence a whisper so great - 

Come to Me and drink, all you who are parched for peace and thirsty for unity and dry for the shalom of the Kingdom of God .

The light off the river lights all our faces. Maybe finding stillness, and listening in the quiet, here there is a hearing, there is a seeing - 

Maybe the world and everything we see, maybe it's more beautifully diverse shades of transforming grace…. 

Lets not before that it turns out Christ followers are not called to go buy certainty rather we are called to go walk by faith!