“Three things in Human Life Are important;
The first is to be kind.
The second is to be kind.
The third is to be kind.”
-St. Mother Teresa
Music by: JJ Heller
Tag: godinterest
“Pleased to meet you, Monica.” Said Rita.
In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Pleased to Meet You.”
One of my bucket list items is to take time to read more for pleasure. I tend to read to learn something. Usually about my faith, or those who help me to live out my faith. (Role-models.) Many of the Saints are these for me.
I don’t think there’s some deep dark physiological reason why I no longer read much for pleasure. (There must be worse things than this, right?) As a child/teenager I only read for pleasure! It was a wonderful form of therapy for me, (which often helped me to escape from the sometimes dramatic life of my childhood.)
Every year at the start of summer vacation I began with a wish list of books I wanted to read! And every year I always began with the same book to start me off: Island of the Blue Dolphin, by Scott O’Dell! (I still have my treasured copy!) I never tired from this. I always looked forward to Karana, the brave twelve year old protagonist, kick-starting me into the frenzy of gobbling up the many books I’d read in the course of those few short months.
Maybe forgetting to read for pleasure happened when the kids started to be born. (Yes, always blame the kids.)
There was so much to learn now. (Beyond how to live abandoned alone on an island that from your perspective belonged to dolphins.)
So much to accomplish. (Besides befriending a pack of wolves.)
So much to live for. (Not that making my own canoe to escape from the island was no longer important.)
Thus, my faith and the heroes who lived it out were the inspiration I needed to live out this evolving life of mine. (And still need today.)
Did the Saints, as they were living out their own ordinary lives, think the same thing? Did they look to others for inspiration and support? Did they draw upon the examples of others to live out their own life in a manner pleasing to God? Did they seek out others to help them understand the “blue-print for living,” which our God had written?
I like to imagine they did.
I like to imagine that Joan of Arc looked back upon the courageous way the Blessed Virgin Mary lived out her faith and found the added amount of strength she needed to do battle. I like to imagine that Teresa of Avila drew great wisdom from Catherine of Siena in the journey to be named together as great Doctors of the Church.
They are all ordinary women who ended up doing extraordinary things for the Lord, precisely because of their deep and abiding intimate communion with Him in prayer. They walked the talk.
All of us are called to the same manner of life. We are all called to gather strength from the other to live in a community that has been given the same Holy Spirit, access to the same wonderful saving Word of God, and the graces which are mediated from Jesus Christ through His Body, in the Sacraments of His Church.
I am grateful for these people. I have learned much from them. And I find pleasure as I imagine them having met one another along the road in their own personal faith walk, from time to time.
“Monica, meet Rita.”
He makes all things New.
I recently found my daughter’s “first favorite” stuffed animal as I was beginning to pack up her childhood bedroom for our upcoming move. A small black and white spotted Dalmatian dog she would anxiously reach out to hold with her small pudgy hands. And who, through her muffled pacifier filled mouth, would then shriek ‘Woof-Woof!’
As I held “Woof-Woof” in my now aging & (beginning to) wrinkle hands, I found comfort in reflecting on the sights and sounds from so many years ago. Was this the same level of comfort my daughter felt when she too held this same toy as a small child? As my fingers brushed past the grub & grim I remembered each and every stain. The dripping chocolate ice cream cone, the trips to the beach, the mud-puddle hurdles across the parking lot as we ventured into Mas
s one rainy Sunday morning & “Woof-Woof” fell from my daughters tight grip onto the rain-soaked pavement just as we hopped over the final puddle!
Each examination of every stain kept me peering into a heart full of memories. Most sweet and precious and others painful, as when she clutched “woof-woof” tight against her chest & tucked up close under her chin the day she severed the tip of her tiny little finger. And yet although “Woof-Woof” has made several trips through the laundry in an effort to make him look “brand-new” again, I am grateful now for the stains that have been left behind. Because it’s all of that, the good and the bad; which make the purpose of this little stuffed animal so valuable. That make “Woof-Woof” so loved.
And while holding this forlorn stuffed puppy, I unexpectantly pause to examine the comfort of my own life lived out.
Just like this stuffed-animal my own life deserves to be examined. Not critiqued. Not judged. But examined. What has the ‘messiness of life’ left behind on me? Was there a purpose in it all? Has it caused me to value somewhat differently? Has any of it made me more loving or loved?
And I must be the individual examiner. Not a peer. Nor loved one. But me, myself…and God beside me.
He alone holds the comfort I need each time I examine my conscious and peer deeply into my soul. Especially, as I discern whether to accept or to polish away the grub and grim that stains me.
He alone will determine the value of each stain.
And He alone will be the one to hold me in His hands one day remembering the sights and sounds of my life.
I pray He too finds comfort in the life I struggle to live for Him. For I know it is only Him who makes all things (brand) New.
Hugs n’ blessings,
Dawn Marie
hugsnblessings 