I have no pithy commentary on this early Monday morning. I feel I need a weekend of rest from my weekend. It is a sad fact that work may be less emotionally stressful than time off. If not for having the boys this weekend, the two days would have been brutal.
But they ground me and keep me focused. My love for them is balm for many wounds. And I cannot think of myself much when I am mothering them. As it was, we saw Knight & Day. We cooked and baked and snacked. E and I went to the farmer’s market. We got two new plants, blueberries and a bushel of white acre peas. One plant is a repeat blooming daylily with a violet blossom. The other is a “hibiscuit”. It was E’s choice, with its giant saucer-sized crimson blooms. He vacillated about which house it should be planted, since this is just a rental house. It made my stomach lurch, but I let him pick the plant for himself, so why not let him pick which house he plants HIS plant. His world is not to be about picking or choosing. I left it open ended and told him that I was sure his dad would find a perfect place to plant it at his house. Later, he came and said he wanted to plant it under the bird feeder. And so we did.
I read my novel and avoided reading my work related “homework”. I baked a loaf of banana bread that heads into the office this morning for the staff.
I went to mass. I have had a hiatus from attending mass. My silent protest surrounding the church’s shame and failure to protect the children. Skipping mass breaks a tenent of my church, but doesn’t weaken my faith. I love the catholic mass and the communion, but hypocrisy chafes at me. But, after this weekend’s troubling interaction and discord, I was quite unnerved Sunday morning. Fear and anxiety are never the best reasons to seek out God, but I know that there is a reason Jesus says more times in the gospels, “Do no be afraid” than he says “Love”. God knows the human heart. And I was very upset Sunday morning and literally felt compelled to go to mass. Fr. Gillespie was celebrant because Fr. John’s mother died Friday. And Fr. G is a great homilist, an academic….a thinking man. Between the readings for the day and his homily, I was affirmed in myself and knew the pull to go to mass was of a higher order. What a blessing! I couldn’t begin to convey or retell the homily, and I think we often each hear what we need to hear. I heard that like Elisha who left his parents and people to take up Elijah’s work and like the apostle’s who left their families to follow Jesus…..each of us are hunted by God. That was Fr. G’s word….HUNTED. God wants us, seeks us, calls us…..and comes after us over and over. And we look over our shoulder, almost like prey and eventually have to surrender. Surrender…..even if it means leaving our fathers and our mothers and our families….and all that our community may name as “correct”…..if we feel called to answer God in a different way. And so often, we worry more about the others in our pack judging us and how we run or live or work…..we care far more about their judgement than the Lord’s……and we give them more power over us than we submit to God because they shout into the town square their judgment. Or they threaten retribution or penalty.
I have but ONE Lord…ONE God….and I reconcile to HIM. People can think I am crazy or selfish or wrong in my life’s endeavors. And maybe I am…..but that is for me to answer and face. God does not need a Greek chorus. My life is not an opera. I am but a speck of sand. And for much of my faith life, I have understood that the Enemy stalks me like prey. That the closer to God I pull, the more ferocious the Enemy attacks. I love this metaphor that God wants me just as badly…but not to devour me….but to fold me into his love.