Coming to the End of Myself

Well, I am trying to retreat and rest, but it's been difficult. I did my taxes today because you know, that's so relaxing and retreat-esque. Actually, doing taxes did relieve some stress!

But, overall, I am, as some have put it for me, "Coming to the end of myself."

Thus, I've prescribed myself to consider rest, burnout, and the like this week. During these past few days, I read a book entitled Watch Out for Burnout: A Look at Its Signs, Prevention, and Cure. This quote caught my eye:

Multiple causes account for dropout, but studies show acute fatigue one significant dynamic. The current duration-of-service norm for inner-city social workers and inner-city lawyers turns out to be only two years. One stateside psychiatrist says 50 percent of his clients are missionaries. A long-time missionary comments that a typical overseas worker lasts five to six years.

I found this very striking: half of a psychiatrist's clients were missionaries!

The book overall was not incredibly helpful, but I'd gotten it as a freebie about a year ago and hadn't read it straight through. Even reading an entire book on the subject of burnout was really helpful.

Perhaps the most fun and interesting chapter in the book was "The Healing Power of Humor." The author posits that having a sense of humor is a preventative and a healer of burnout, which is true, but I love that humor gets its own chapter! Here we go. This is good for me to read:

Humor allows us to live with the contradictions of life. The man who must always act rationally kills himself with intensity. He will embarrass himself by his own contradictory behavior. People laugh at his over-seriousness, but he cannot laugh at himself. To laugh at one's inconsistency reveals the deepest consistency...Humor allows us to live comfortably with ourselves...Perfectionism is the worst kind of seriousness, a poison that brings death to liberty and rigor mortis to the spirit. Humor is the antibiotic that heals the terribly perfect...

And another:

Work comes easier after side-splitting humor. Machinery moves more smoothly. Hope makes its reentry quickly, quietly, almost unawares. Possibilities grow luminous. Artifice and therefore stress disappear. When wheels squeak, apply the grease of humor.

So, yes, burnout. While I didn't find the book altogether that earth-shattering, I really liked the topics which were chosen for chapters:

God's Healing
The Healing Power of Humor
Genuine Spirituality
Stress and Distress
The Therapy of Creativity
God's Gift of Self-Esteem
Physical Fitness
Time
Family
Facing Fear
Converting Anger
Dealing with Guilt

What I liked about the table of contents is that the list is, I think a very creative, insightful and also Christian. But the book, on the whole, was a bit too psychologically-based; there was a particular emphasis on Jungian psychology. I would have liked to have seen the book more firmly and closely tied to Christian teaching and then been given practical suggestions on how to make changes in my life...

...Because here's the thing: knowing oneself, the basis of Jungian psychology, really only goes so far, but goes a decent distance, I think, in being the solution to caring for oneself and being a disciple. It's not self-knowledge that brings lasting freedom but that knowledge put into action, in real choices, and in Christ. If I simply know Lynne better, will I not burn out? That's part of it, sure.

But more fundamentally, I can trust that God knows me better than I could ever know myself, and my life is safe in His hands. Even when things look bad and I am at 'the end of myself,' He is there. Even when I don't understand something in my life or a reaction I have or an emotion I feel, He is there, and He alone is unchanging. Even when He is asking me to do something that "I" normally wouldn't do, He is there, still asking, still meaning to love me and others. For example, someone this year told me they thought I was quite the extrovert. And my reaction was "Huh? Heck no!" But through the Holy Spirit and over the past several years, I've been able to increase the amount of time and energy I can be around people and at some level, deny myself the luxury of only living out of who I am and what my preferences are, even if and especially if I know them. The essence of Polonius's stupid yet wise remark "To thine own self be true!" is and is not the answer to dealing with suffering and burnout.

Anyways. So the book wasn't stellar, but it provided good food for thought; it got some balls rolling in my head --not bad for a free book!

Link to "Pink" Piece

Here is the link to the newest version of the "Pink" post, as promised:

http://www.swordofthespirit.net/bulwark/march10p4.htm

Kicking Crutches

It has been a lively week for this UCO staff worker! I had a sense, about 1-2 weeks ago, that the Lord wanted to give the Ann Arbor UCO Summer Household ladies a home before UofM's spring break. Why is this significant? Because it can be a jungle of a process to find the right kind of housing for Women's SHH. I won't bore or stress you with the details of that process! But I can say that I believe God gave me extra zeal and wisdom so that I could help Him fulfill this word. Yesterday was the final day before UofM's spring break and, lo and behold, our faithful God did secure a house for us; a deposit was paid and a form was signed. There is at least one household of six women (that is, six women have committed 100 percent) at this point, praise God!

Throughout these past two weeks, the Lord's been speaking to me via this housing search about confidence and humility. First, confidence: God seeks a faithful yet decisive servant. He wants the kind of servant who, while the Master is away, goes ahead and takes risks in order to double the amount of talents originally given to him by the Master. This kind of servant knows his Master that well, that His Master is demanding. (Matthew 25:20)

Mary at Bethany: she poured out the oil and wiped Jesus's feet with it and her hair. Did he say to her, "Mary, take this oil, pour it out on my feet, and wipe my feet with your hair"? No. She took the initiative. She didn't have to ask Him or need Him to ask her to do this specifically. She knew Him. (John 12: 1-8)

There are other examples. In the Parable of the Prodigal Son, the father needs to make it explicit to the older son that the older son had always been welcome to have a celebration with friends. Clearly, the older son has not taken the kind of initiative that the tennant and Mary do. There is still something lacking in the older son's understanding of his father's love and nature. Similarly, the father needs to put the robe on the younger son's shoulders and encourage this son to feel welcome as a son rather than a slave. The younger son still has more to learn about his father's love. (Luke 15: 11-32)

As I have already said, I think the Lord has been revealing more about confidence and humility to me through my SHH housing search in ways similar to those in these Scriptural examples. Okay: what is humility not? It does not consist of focusing on weakness or defects; that too, is an expression of pride, this kind of self-deprecation. This self-decprecation is sinful because it consists of a focus on the self rather than God.

True humility exists when our eyes are fixed on Him alone, when our hearts are fixed on the state of His rather than the state of our own, however 'good' or 'bad' that state might be. In times of blessing, all he asks is that we thank Him. In times of distress, all He asks is that we turn to Him. True humility says "I need the Lord" not only because we "know" by faith and by the Bible that we "need" Him. No; even more profoundly, true humility says "I need Him because I love Him." Our love for Him becomes so strong that we can say it is a matter of need. An example: when a man or woman says that they "need" another man or woman, what they mean to express is really love.

God makes it very clear throughout Scripture, in such examples as I have already given, that He does not "need" a slave. He is God: He does not "need" anything or anyone. He wants and desires to lavish love on sons and daughters. He wants the older son to come inside, the younger son to feel comfortable dressed in fine things, to give His children the Kingdom. He wants the Samaritan woman to not just have water but Himself.

Perhaps a more radical example is Job. So often times, I wonder if we say "Poor Job!" too quickly. I wonder whether we can say, "Blessed Job!" The Lord does not want Job to just have good or bad things. God is after the full capacity of Job's heart to love. God cares more about the heart of Job than He cares about the earthly concerns Job has. God's unrelenting and perfect love for Job drove Him to purify Job's heart, even if that meant suffering and ridicule for Job. And then He lavished on Job and gave back to him tenfold all the more because that is the good nature of our God!

God's love for His children is truly relentless and pure. How could we ever hope to imiate such love in our response to Him if He didn't so strongly encourage us to sacrifice all for Him? He knows our condition, our weakness, so He made His loving encouragement Law. And when we failed to keep that, to fully receive His love through perfect obedience to the Law, He sent His own Son, Jesus Christ, that we might be assured all the more that He understands our Fallen condition and so that ultimately, we might be saved from our condition.

Yet His Law and His Son remain the keys to understanding our Father's heart. His Law is not to be discounted. It is an instruction manual to God's heart; we learn much about how He loves and His Nature when we study and keep His Commandments. If it seems as though God has unreasonably high expectations of us, if the Commandments seem too strict, this is only because of our woundedness not His unreasonableness.

And yet we have a Divine Physician, Jesus Christ, who heals us through His death and resurrection! The title of this post is "Kicking Crutches." God has, as I've said in various ways throughout this post, been encouraging me to kick the crutches of fear and self. God has been showing me that although I am a sinner, with His grace, I can really be confident and run. We can kick crutches and run on His strength and grace. We can seek and expect to find the unexpected. We can find a housing situation in downtown Ann Arbor for two months before the end of February. We can walk on water as long as we don't look down and look up at Him. We can trust the grain of wheat to grow even if we can't always see it growing from beneath the ground.

We really can, do, and love "through Jesus Christ who strengthens us" (Philippians 4:13).

The Goodness of Having Roots

A Disclaimer: At points, this is a more "Catholic" (ie, I use language specific to Catholicism) post than this writer would normally post, but since this blog is this blogger's personal blog and contains reflections on her personal expression of faith and experience of God, but also since she is a great advocate of ecumenism, she is writing with reference to aspects of Catholicism and also giving a disclaimer. This is post about how I've experienced the love of God in my life, and that happens to be through particular aspects of Catholicism. So, I hope this does not offend but inspire!

You know what? I love writing. I cannot explain to you, even in words, even in words and with the grace of the Holy Spirit, explain to you how much I love writing. It is with a supernatural, Godly love that I love writing. Thank you, God, for calling me to such a vocation.

This afternoon, I've been cleaning up, editing, adding, subtracting, shaping, and praying into the most recent blog post. I'll post a link to this new version of the "My New Favorite Color: Pink" post once it is re-published.

Working this post into a new-ish piece has led me to think more about my dear friend whom the post mentions. She must be praying for me these days, or God wants me to pray for her, or both, because I've been reminded of her in small ways often in the past week and a half, beginning with being asked to edit the "Pink" post. Some examples: I met someone with name last week, and the next day, saw a truck with her last name on it pass me on the road. More small things like these have led me to pray for and think of her and her wonderful family.

I often find that God leads me to write about that subject which He has more teaching for me in. (Can you really end a sentence with a preposition like that? No. It makes me cringe...but it's staying.) So this afternoon, I wrote about: my friend, radical discipleship, martyrdom, living single for the Lord, and how to love the world as Christ does. These are not new things to think about, these things I was thinking and writing about this afternoon. I was mainly doing a lot of remembering this afternoon. And so, I've been silently asking Him as I've been writing and thinking this afternoon, "What are you trying to show me?"

"Go back to your roots. Remember how much I have loved you."

This morning, the responsorial Psalm at Mass was one that I have known since kindergarten. The Communion meditation song was one I have known just as long. Singing them was going back to my roots, and this experience was a simple and sweet gift for today. In singing this Psalm and then the other song, I recalled that I am known by the Lord and that we have a history that is very special to Him. And so, this post is mainly about being rooted in the Lord, what do our roots look like, and I'm going to share a bit about some of my "roots."

---

When I was a freshman in high school, my mother had to get to her job early in the morning, which meant that she had to drop me off at school very early in the morning, early enough that there wasn't anyone for me to talk to at the school when she dropped me off. In the fall of my freshman year, sometime near the beginning of the school year, I found myself at school, bored, feeling awkward and lonely, wandering the halls trying to distract myself from these observations.

Then, I hear voices. Where are they coming from? What group of people would be hear so early in the morning? I keep walking the halls, listening and following the voices I hear. Then, I see it: the school chapel, filled with a small crowd of people, lights blazing, and the sacrifice of the Mass being celebrated, just like it is on Sundays, right here, on a weekday, in my very own school.

I can't remember if I walked in that day or sometime within the next few days, but after that day, I knew what I would be doing before school every day that I could until I graduated. I would be at daily Mass. Before that day of following voices, I didn't even know that Mass was celebrated every weekday. I mean, I think I knew it, but I really didn't understand or see those people who actually go to Mass during the week and not just on Sundays.

I did go to daily Mass almost every day during my four years of high school and prayed in the school chapel when I could get to it on my lunch hour. It was such a safe, beautiful, holy place.

Well, daily Mass has become one of those "roots" of my faith. When I first came to college, I felt lost. One of the first things I decided I would do would be to try to go to daily Mass sometimes, so that I would at least be able to encounter God in some familiar, everyday way. There were a lot of uncertainties about this new city, this new schedule and lifestyle, that of a college student, but at least the Mass would be familiar, would be a foundation and compass. And so, throughout college, there were seasons during which I was able to go to daily Mass, thank the Lord.

To this day, when I face confusion, attack, or discouragement, I turn to God in the Mass, and I find in this His resting place, His comfort, and my well-worn place in His presence. Each time I go to Mass, particularly daily Mass, I am aware of my freedom in Him. I think, "I've been here before. I've been here, here in Christ's presence. I can relax." I felt that way this morning, and I was so comforted by the fact that I can still keep going to church, going to Mass and letting God cast out my fears and questions as I have for the past sixteen years.

I just love the Lord so much for giving me a history that has details, specific blessings, memories, and graces with Him. I think the prophets and Psalmists in Scripture feel similarly. They are forever recounting the deeds of the Lord, the history of God's faithfulness to the Israelites, as they turn to praise or seek the Lord in their present circumstance. I said at the beginning of this post that I couldn't find words to express how much I love writing. Same with the Lord--it's hard to express accurately and fully my love for the Lord and nature of God. One way of doing so though is to recount His deeds, concrete times and ways in which He has been at work in my life and others'. I think that oftentimes, when we say to one another, "Hey, remember when..." what we're really saying is "I enjoyed doing that with you" or "I love you." I see this happen with the children I nanny. They often say to me, to one another, or to their parents, "Remember when _____ happened? That was great!" or "Remember when we did _____?" I personally and especially love when they remember how I beat them at Go Ninja Go or made them the sandwich they wanted. :)

In conclusion, perhaps I will exhort you to recount your own "roots" in your relationship with the Lord: what are the strong ones? He's the source, He Himself, not memories, instances of grace, etc. Him and Him alone. But, as I think I've already said, He gives us roots, things to help us stayed connected to Him and to understand His nature and love for us, and so it's good and right to recount the roots and thank Him for them:

"We will not hide [the things that we have heard and known, that our fathers have told us],
but tell to the coming generation
the glorious deeds of the LORD, and his might,
and the wonders that he has done.

-Psalm 78: 4, ESV

My New Favorite Color: Pink

Christmas may be over, but I'm still meditating on the Annunciation, the event in which the angel Gabriel appeared to Mary in Luke 1 and exhorted her not to be afraid, but because God favored her, she would give birth to and mother His Son Jesus Christ.

I was re-reading a blog post I wrote on April 29, and what I quoted from the George Weigel book continues to call me on. Again, he makes these four points about Mary's "Yes":



1. She did not keep her options open
2. She did not negotiate
3. She did not have an 'exit' strategy
4. She did not ask for a contract



This past weekend, I attended the Kairos Winter Conference (http://winterconference.info/). The theme was "Love for the World." We talked much about martyrdom. We talked about what it means to give a complete "Yes" to the Lord.


My friend used to tell me that her one dream was to be a "pink" martyr. My first reaction to this was Oh, she wants to be a very feminine martyr? Well, she explained to me that she wanted to be both a "white" and a "red" martyr, to live her life for Christ and also to die as a martyr. White + Red = Pink. This young woman is now a part of a cloistered Catholic religious order. I only knew her, really, for two weeks, but those two weeks of witnessing her every day life continues to inspire me. She continues to serve as a model of holiness for me. What she did were things such as: pray, laugh, speak of the Lord, read Scripture, serve her housemates, be my friend, babysit, sing, slide down bannisters, and go for walks. She also drank about 6 cups of coffee a day, three in the morning, three at night. Now, I like to tell myself that you can be a martyr and drink your share of coffee, after seeing how much she drank!


Anyways, there was nothing fancy about her life, not really. But the ways in which she lived her every day life were graceful, grace-filled. She is a martyr, what some of us might call a "walking saint." Some wonder at the idea of living one's life in a cloister. Some people say, "What a waste! Just sitting inside walls, praying, when they can be changing the world!" But I have often known, with full confidence, that her prayers for me carry me through times of distress. I often think about those two weeks, look back at my journal entries from those two weeks, hoping to learn something new about discipleship from these two weeks. She wasn't perfect--I saw her weakness, but what was remarkable about her was her confidence in the Lord. Her joyful confidence in God's love for her was the foundation of her life.


This was the take-home message of the Conference: We are called to be martyrs in our every day lives, in our words, and perhaps, if God wills it, in our deaths. At the women's session, we talked about how full confidence and knowledge of God's love for us is the key to giving that love to others, to becoming martyrs. Therese of Lisieux's Little Way is the "hidden" path to Heaven is confidence in God's love for us. It's the core of 1 John, particularly 1 John 3 and 4. "Perfect love casts out fear."


So: Is martyrdom hard, intense work? I suppose it can feel so at times, and Satan would like us to think it thus. But my cloistered friend, Therese, John, and the Lord himself, who says "My yoke is easy, and my burden is light," all remind me that martyrdom is an expression of love, a response to and a reflection of Love Himself. And Love Himself says to us, just as Gabriel says to Mary, "Do not be afraid, for the favor of the Lord is upon you." We are God's children, and we need not be afraid, for His favor is upon us.

A good glass of wine often brings one closer to the Lord

Wow, Christmas is approaching: it's so close, as the kids I nanny remind me each day. The UCO Christmas party is over, the multiple rounds of Go, Ninja Go! played out, final Winter Conference registrations trickling in. Finally, promised rest is on the horizon.

What a blessed Advent this has been! It's been a whirlwind season of discernment for me, including a set of exciting and interesting conversations between myself and the Lord. Finally, a resting place has been discovered. And I am so grateful. This finally coming to a deep rest in the Lord has made me think hard about the time that preceded it, and I'm going to share some of these thoughts.

As a young person, there is the possibility of living in a state of constant intellectual, emotional, and spiritual upset, I think, because we could constantly be asking ourselves these questions, very real, very important questions: Where am I going to live someday? What will my career be? Am I called to marriage or celibacy? Young people, in so many ways, are pilgrims because they wander from one thing to another, from one idea and dream to another, trying them on, trying to figure out whether anything they are choosing for is bringing them rest, true joy and contentment.

Not to mention the actual, practical, and environmental upsets that young people go through. Being a young person, the vocation of a young person, includes special things like moving multiple times a year. If you're a student, that means you potentially live in a different place with different people from year to year. You're sort-of connected to you nuclear family and sort-of not. Where is "home"? I think, last summer, I moved about five times, practically lived out of two bags. The average Joe or Jane does not move five times a year. No wonder we're all so stressed out, right?

But maybe there's another way to look at this season of life.

For a length of time now, I've found the Scriptures about the Israelites wandering for forty years helpful because these show me how to be at rest when I'm settled and when I'm moving. The Lord was so faithful to the Israelites as they wandered, even as they complained about the manna and said that they missed Egypt. He told them where to worship and taught them how to worship Him. He led them with a pillar of cloud by day and fire by night. Some of His most marvelous works took place while they wandered. He provided a resting place at each place they stopped a place where they could worship Him.

My prayer, as a young adult, as a disciple of Christ, is that I do not miss the glories of this pilgrim season. I think there is the potential to be frustrated, bitter, anxious, and downright unhopeful in this season. (Not that I've been any--or all--of those things...) I think we can be tempted to look back, like the Israelites, and say, "Lord, life was better back then, back there." But that is not helpful on our faith journey because more freedom in Christ is gained when we stay in the present and receive what He has for us now. If we, as young people, can live radically during the days we are called to wander and enter the Tent of Meeting wherever the Lord sets it up, that is, where He calls us to be, then we will find rest. Our faith in His faithfulness will be irrevocably strengthened in a way that will affect the rest of our settled, adult lives. Our hearts will be formed by our response to His call, and our hearts will know they are always on a pilgrimage toward a sure destination, Heaven.

Finally, a word of hope and encouragement. I've hand-dried many a wine glass this fall because I've often been privileged to drink very nice wine with the very nice people I live with. The Lord has said to me, as I've dried these wine glasses: "I know just how hard to 'dry' you. I know you are weak, delicate. I won't press you and clean you with so much pressure that you will shatter. I will be gentle, and I will make you transparent. I will make you clean and to shine."

The Lord knows we are weak. He knows we are delicate, even. If we feel tired on this journey, brittle and ready to shatter, let us remember that He is gentle. Even if we feel we've been thrust into a wilderness, He is still gentle and quiet, leading us forward, patiently waiting for us to enter the rest He has prepared for us. May we, in these days preceding Christmas, find our rest in Him. Amen.

Is it good for man to be alone?

I'm giving a talk in about a week on personal prayer. I gave a talk on personal prayer a few weeks ago, and I've been asking Him if there's anything to subtract or add to the next talk. As it is, the talk addresses obstacles to personal prayer. I mentioned pride and fear as the main obstacles, but I think I'm to address one specific fear when I speak next week: the fear of loneliness. Something very obvious to us when we enter into our daily prayer time is that Jesus Christ isn't sitting beside us on our bed or in the chair across from us. It's not as if we can see what color socks he's wearing or what he's having for breakfast.

In Genesis, the Lord says, "It is not good that man should be alone." And thus He creates woman: companionship is in God's perfect plan, and it can exist in perfect harmony to our relationship with God, that is, there is zero chance of our relationship with God suffering when we have relationships with others.

But this all changes with Original Sin. Elisabeth Elliot, having lost two husbands, the first martyred and the second to cancer, wrote the book The Path of Loneliness to share with others the suffering and joy of being in solitude with God. She writes:

"God designed the answer to Adam's aloneness: a woman...But something happened. Sin destroyed the perfect harmony of the universe....The human companionship, which in the divine plan was the answer to man's aloneness, no longer suffices....His aloneness has another dimension which is an experience of pain--a pain called loneliness."

Why is it often difficult to enter into silence and pray? Why do we often only surrender to God in the midst of suffering? These things remind us that we are alone and that, as it says in the First Step of many 12-Step programs, "our lives have become unmanageable" because of sin. We are forced to look at the fear of being alone and the reality of our imperfection and to choose what our aloneness means. Does it mean what Satan tells us it means, "without God," the essence of Hell itself, or does it mean "God is with me," that God is who He says He is, Emmanuel?

Jesus Christ, Emmanuel, teaches the following in order to explain the position that God is to have in our lives:

"If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple" (Luke 4: 26).

Does Jesus really mean that we are to "hate" those who are closest to us? No. But in comparison to our love and devotion to God, the love that we have for our families and friends should be pale. God is to be the center of our lives, and this was not such a mighty task before the Fall. Just as we inordinately love things of this world and often love people with possessive rather than humble hearts, we are called to "hate" for the sake of the Kingdom.

I think it's very possible to be surrounded with good Christian people, good Christian activities and still be missing the point--personal encounter with Jesus Christ. That would be the Martha syndrome. Someone recently said to me, "All He wants is for you to sit at His feet. He doesn't want you to fill your life with things to do. Just sit as His feet."

Many people will do good things and are doing good things who have no conscious, chosen belief in Jesus Christ. What makes Christians different then? Certainly not just the good things we do, though works are a part of our mission. The certainty of what awaits us--Heaven--is what sets us apart. The certainty of our belief in the One for whom we do good things is what is attractive to others. A personal relationship with Jesus Christ is the heart of Christianity.

In summary: everything was great before evil entered the world. When sin did enter the world, personally encountering God became a task and people actually became, to some degree, a hindrance rather than a help to encountering the Lord. Then, Jesus Christ came and corrected this effect of the Fall; the faculty of a personal relationship need no longer be a hindrance but in fact the only Way to union with God the Father. Jesus Christ, flesh and bone, fully God, is the only one with whom a relationship will always help us draw near to God the Father.

So, we may not see Him in a chair next to us tomorrow morning, sipping coffee, waiting to talk to us. But "faith is the assurance of things not seen." And God is a faithful God who has given us many promises that we might know Him and walk in His ways. Coming to Him each day strengthens our belief in the eternal reality that awaits us. We can experience a bit of the joyful anticipation of Heaven, even a bit of Heaven itself, when we come and wait at His feet each morning.