Zeal for God

                As I was ready a fictional book called “Maccabee”, I came across an interesting quote that hasn’t left me since I read it.  “The others, the ones that left, will only fight when they fear they might suffer some personal loss.  Just like the pagans, their god is really themselves.  It’s always been that way.  It’s always the minority who have a true zeal for God.”  The last sentence really hit a chord in me.

                In the Catholic Bible, there are extra books.  I have heard the reasons for this many times, but I would have to look it up again to explain.  Someday I may go into that.  Until then, two of the books are titled I Maccabees and II Maccabees.  My Lenten goal was to study these books and read the fictional account.  I made it through I Maccabees, but not II Maccabees.  I have to say that it was a little dry.  It is a history of the Jewish people and how they battled to take Judea back from the pagans.  The Maccabees are a family, a father and five sons, who led the Jewish people.  Maccabee means hammer.  They crushed their foe.

                The quote comes from a fictional account.  I like the book a lot more then the Biblical account because there is wonderful character development, loss, and of course love.  After their father’s death, he left Simon as the people’s spiritual leader and Judas as their military leader.  Judas was discouraged by many of the men leaving their army to return home even though the pagans still held Jerusalem.  The quote comes from words Simon spoke to his brother Judas. 

                “It’s always the minority who have a true zeal for God.”  I can’t help but put other words into this sentence.  “It’s always the minority who have a true zeal for” country, writing, running, music, prolife….  Really any idea could be put in here.  The interesting thing is when I switch the words great people come to mind.  Those with a zeal for God are the saints, Gondi, Mother Teresa.  Soldiers come to mind when I think of zeal for country.  Writing would have to go to Stephen King, Terry Goodkind, and Danielle Steele.  I got to thinking about my zeal, if I have any.

                In one of our conversations, my son and I talked about faith.  I think I mentioned the quote.  He surprised me when he said I was the most “faith-filled” person he knew.  I laughed and said he needed to find someone better them me for that title.  I will admit that I was happy to see he appreciated my attempt at being a good follower of Christ.  Yet, do I have a true zeal for God?  These past couple of weeks it hasn’t felt like it.  I have completely botched all my Lenten commitments and writing this blog hasn’t been inspirational to me.

                I also think about my “zeal” for writing or the lack there of at the moment.  The truth of the matter is right now I have no zeal for anything.  My body keeps telling me to rest, but I want to accomplish something of meaning.  Instead of feeling like I am on a journey to holiness, I feel like I am on a journey to nowhere.  

                At my Bible study today, I mentioned my failure at my commitments and lack of zeal.  All I can really think about is all of my spring gardening that needs to be done; plus, all the prep work that needs to take place for my daughter’s first communion and my son’s high school graduation.  Oh, and I shouldn’t forget Easter and my middle child’s sixteenth birthday.  My dear sisters in Christ, reminded me of a couple of things.  First is it is okay to fail.  We can grow in failure.  The important part is we try.  I was also reminded it isn’t too late to work some more on my commitments.  Nothing says I can’t continue one of these commitments for the Easter Season or longer.  As for lack of zeal, I can’t remember how it was put, but so what?  The zeal will come back later when spring is over, the gardens are growing, and all of our family celebrations are over.

                Thank you ladies for helping me through and being such awesome mentors!  On my way home, I was inspired by a story idea.  The writing hasn’t left nor has the zeal.  I am just taking a rest.

                Blessing to you all.

Catholic Excursions

                The Catholic faith contains many beautiful practices and beliefs.  One of the things I love so much about the church is the ability to go most anywhere in the world and participate in my faith by immersing myself with the culture’s faith as well. 

A couple of weeks ago, my family and I traveled through parts of Mexico.  In Puerto Vallarta, we took a jeep excursion through the city and the surrounding countryside.  At a stop in a little village, the villagers set up a few tables to sell their creations.  My son bought a few Rosaries for himself and friends.  This seems such a simple transaction, but to look at it a little deeper fills my heart with love.  These women made the Rosaries by hand.  I don’t know if they actually prayed with these Rosary beads; however, I know they pray the Rosary as does my family.  In this, we have a commonality.  In the same village, my husband and other son walked up to the church.  They didn’t get to go inside, but again, they were able to find a common link with the people of the village.  All of us would have loved to attend Mass with them. 

Our next stop was at Hacienda Dona Engracia outside of another village.  I was fascinated by this area.  The first section we looked at was the tequila factory.  The drink here is made of blue agave pictured to the side of this post is the plant and the section of the plant they use for the liquor.  I have never been a fan of tequila until we tasted small samples of the drink.  I was amazed by the smoothness.  It is a recipe that has been handed down the family since at least 1917.

                After the talk and tasting, we were encouraged to look around the hacienda.  I could have spent a couple of days in the area.  My family ate at the little restaurant and had the best tacos, they claim, while I looked around.  There is an area behind the buildings with trails for hiking and biking.  For those who love to shop, a market sat next to the restaurant. 

TheEngracia family has not forgotten where their success lies.  They built an area to give thanks.  I was fascinated by the tiny chapel.  Love radiated from the room.  A familiarity pulled me.  The Bible sat on the alter with the same portrait of Mary that is in my church as well.  The crucifix of our Lord dying for our sins reminded me of Lent even while celebrating my family on vacation.  I went to a kneeler and said some prayers.  I was able to join my prayers with the Engracia’s prayers.

Of all my travels, my favorite activities are when I am able to spend time in a church whether it is enjoying God’s children at Mass or quietly spending time with Him alone.  I have been blessed to enjoy the Cathedral of Saint Paul in Saint Paul, Minnesota; the Basilica in Minneapolis, Minnesota; Mass in Atlanta, Georgia; Everett, Washington, Dublin, California; quiet time in a small church on Catalina Island, and now quiet time in the countryside by Puerto Vallarta. 

Blessings to you all.

Time Struggles

           About two weeks ago, I wrote about my writing dilemma and how I was going to take a week off with family and pray about my situation.  Our week away was wonderful.  I loved not checking in on the computer, researching, and hitting deadlines.  I enjoyed it so much that for this last week with a mushy vacation brain, I have been avoiding the situation all together.  I started painting the living room instead of working on writing.  Now granted, the living room needed painting very badly and I have relatives coming for a 1^st Communion celebration at the beginning of May.  They will return for the graduation celebration; plus, more people coming, so the painting is a necessity.  I think of all that has to be done to prepare for both events and my oldest leaving the day after graduation for military training and then he goes straight on to college.  I am overwhelmed.  Writing is the furthest thing from my thoughts.

While praying about my writing, I found an answer.  It is the same answer I hear when I put myself in this panic mode, but it is one I don’t like.  While I was in college the third time, I worked three jobs, carried 16 credits, and carved time out for my husband and son which entailed going home for weekends or them coming to me.  I was attending a college four hours from the town we lived in at the time.  Hum, if I could do all that, why do I question how to do my writing?  Yes I am older with more volunteer time for my kids’ activities, but I still have quite a few hours in the day to work with.

I need to start scheduling my days as if I am in college.  Basically I have five classes.  They are Editing Short Stories, Editing Pursuing Destiny, Writing Hypnotize the Moon, Publishing Communications, and Researching a Saint.  Oh, I probably need to add a short weekly seminar to write my blog.  Geez, writing this just scares me especially with all the celebrations coming up.  It sounds so doable in my head, but writing it seems so overwhelming.  I need to keep praying.

There is a saying I ran across in my studies of writing.  How do you eat an elephant?  One bite at a time.  They applied this to writing a novel.  How do you write a novel?  One word at a time.  I have to say though, writing the novel wasn’t that bad.  The tough part is to sell it while trying to get other work sold and still writing.  I really wonder if any of it is worth it.  Maybe I should just bag the whole thing and concentrate on the hobbies I love to do around the house.  Is writing part of my journey to holiness?  My heart keeps crying, “yes, yes it is.”

Yesterday I wrote up a schedule with all my writing activities scheduled.  I successfully worked on Pursuing Destiny and Hypnotize the Moon, but I didn’t touch any of the other things.  I am not feeling so bad about that because these first two things are what need to be done for the conference in August.  Today I am off my schedule.  I should be doing some housework and exercising, but I thought I would work on the blog seminar first.  I can get that other done later on in the afternoon.

Are you struggling with time management?  How do you overcome all the obstacles?
Blessings to you all.

God's Start

                I sit here looking at a blank sheet of computer paper.  Yesterday, I kept thinking I need an idea for an after vacation post.  Unfortunately, my brain hasn’t stopped being on vacation.  I feel like goo is coming out of my ears.  The potential topics I have for the day are vacation memories sprinkled in faith or discussing my lack of answers in my soul searching quest to see what to do with my beans and rice (see past blog).  The later seems a bit depressing, so I think it will be memories.

                Our vacation started out beautifully.  My middle child drove the two hours to the airport.  While crossing over the mountain pass, I prayed.  The night before an inch or two of snow fell making the road less then desirable.  My husband guided our young driver over the roads safely with God protecting us all.  Once in town, we took the opportunity to have breakfast with my wonderful brother-in-law and his beautiful wife.  The much needed family time chartered us to the airport in fine spirits.

                The airport threw a kink in our smooth travel plans.  All computers went down in Oregon and California, so our flight from Seattle to Los Angeles was canceled.  The agents in Missoula took wonderful care of us.  They set us up with a new flight first thing in the morning to Burbank and hotel accommodations in Seattle for the night.  We didn’t get to hang out in Downtown Disney, but we came up with great Seattle plans.

                Once in Seattle we were directed to a mile long line due to the canceled flights.  I will admit I am being a bit dramatic about the line, but not by much.  Agents were going up and down the line talking with people trying to make a bad situation better.  One came up to us to see what our situation happened to be.  Within a few short minutes, he had us out of the line and to an agent in another area to get our hotel.  She not only gave us our voucher but she also checked us in for our morning flight.  Hours in a very long line turned into about thirty minutes with another thirty to get bags and driven to the hotel.  What a wonderful blessing all these people were for us.

                We spent the evening relaxing and spending time with family.  My other brother-in-law brought his wonderful family to the hotel.  He also brought dinner.  The kids played games and the adults chatted.  We couldn’t have planned a better start to our vacation if we tried. 

                Blessing to you all.

Soul Searching Through Beans and Rice

                After a little soul searching, I have decided to do a little soul searching, reevaluating of my life, and/or praying for God’s guidance, however or whatever I need to do to fix a small dilemma I have been seeing in my life.  I assure you it is a small dilemma.  For the past three months, I have been having a wonderful time researching and writing for this blog.  I have grown in my journey to holiness and hopefully spoke to other people’s hearts; yet, I have not been progressing well in my writing career.  My monthly word count has been good at over 10,000 words each month, but all of those words have gone to the blog or an occasional journal entry.  Maybe 2,000 words have actually gone to my fiction writing.

                I don’t believe the blog has been the complete cause to my lack of fiction.  Really my biggest problem is editing.  I HATE IT.  My novel, Pursuing Destiny, needs to be edited.  One of my first readers gave me great insight in some major holes in the plot.  Nonetheless, I would rather go to the dentist than work on the book.  I have sent out queries on the book hoping to be rejected so I wouldn’t have to edit.  Pathetic, but true!  There are twelve short stories on my thumb drive that need to be edited or finished to than edit before I can begin sending them to markets I still need to research.  I have a second novel with over 50,000 words done, but I haven’t touched that since November.  Finally, I may have an idea of what I have been called to truly write, but with all this other stuff hanging over my head, I am overwhelmed.  I could go on and on about all of this; plus, I could add my duties of motherhood, housewife, friend, crafter, and pending gardening season, 1^st Communion and High School Graduation activities, but I think you get the picture.

                Today at my 4^th Day group (a Cursillo Bible Study), we continued Lesson 2.  Hum, we all felt like we were being hit over the head with either a baseball bat or 2X4 to pray more.  We also continued working with the analogy of our jars of life being filled with beans and rice.  Beans are the big things in our life like faith, spouse, children, and jobs while the rice is the little things like housecleaning and such.  During our time together, I was feeling pretty good about myself because hey, I don’t have a job.  Life is chilling out with plenty of time.  I can be such an idiot!  Writing the paragraph before this one made me realize I have bean and rice issues.  Do I make the finished novel a bean and the rest of my writing rice?  I have been told one of the best ways to break into writing is through short stories first, so should that be the bean?  I have a conference coming up in August. Should my half finished novel be the bean so I can pitch both novels?  Or should I say to heck with all of that and work on the project I think (not know) God wants me to do as my bean?  I am so confused.

                Pray without ceasing.  Praying in the predawn hours.  Praying at night.  Praying on the mountaintop….  We must have looked at 10 different spots in the Bible about praying this morning.  Even in my quest for finding things about Saint Patrick last week, I found prayer in his writing.  “…in a day [I said] from one up to a hundred prayers, and in the night a like number…”  The neon sign is saying I need to pray.  I need to get away from my computer, blogging, facebook, Bejeweled, and all the distractions.  I have been planning on fasting from technology, so it is going to begin today with my blog and tomorrow evening with facebook.  Granted, I will still have the family to distract me, but besides God, it is my biggest and brightest bean.  I am going to enjoy them while I am praying.  In fact, in the little book we are working from, I wrote down my beans as being faith, husband, and kids.  My rice I wrote in as housework and writing.  My rice can just take care of itself for the next little while.  Watch out beans, you are getting my full attention!

                Blessings to you all.

Stop Judging

                Yesterday afternoon, I met a friend at the local brewery for a beer.  We don’t do this as much as we used to and I miss it.  We have also been very bad at staying in touch.  In the last couple of weeks, I have been worried about her and her family.  Her husband has been diagnosed with esophageal cancer and the doctor’s are trying to figure out if it has spread to other areas.  The future does not look good.  She and I just went through the loss of a dear friend.  For her, our friend was more of a sister, so the loss was doubly hard for her and now she is facing it again with her husband.  True to form, this strong woman is doing well.  She is facing this challenge head on and strategizing her future. 

                During the conversation, I was bothered by a comment or two.  For the last nineteen hours, I have been mulling it over in my head how people can make a bad situation worse by their judgments.  One person has made the comment that she is lacking emotion in the situation.  In the same contest, people at work watch her for emotional outbursts thinking she is cold if she doesn’t have them.  This has never been her personality nor will it ever be her personality.  They shouldn’t expect it or judge it. 

She went on to talk about how she won’t handle all of this like our friend’s husband or the way I would with my husband.  She is different than me and our relationships with our husbands are different.  It only stands to reason that our going through a crisis will be handled differently.  This is completely logical and I will stand by her with the decisions she makes in the future.  We may discuss things and I may offer up what I might do, but ultimately, I stand by what she needs to do for the betterment of her needs, not mine.  Yet others will criticize, condemn, point fingers, and judge.

In Matthew 7:1-2 Jesus states, “Stop judging, that you may not be judged.  For as you judge, so will you be judged, and the measure with which you measure will be measured out to you.”  The explanation in my Bible’s notes sheds more light.  “This is not a prohibition against recognizing the faults of others but against passing judgment in a spirit of arrogance, forgetful of one’s own faults.”  In Luke 6:37, he also states these words of Jesus in a different way.  “Stop judging and you will not be judged, Stop condemning and you will not be condemned.  Forgive and you will be forgiven.”

I will always admit that I recognize the faults in others and myself.  I am horrible and judge people who judge me when I should be more loving.  With others who don’t judge me but instead accept my faults, I dismiss their faults.  I think it is human nature to defend ourselves against those who judge us to judge back.  Yet, do we really need to say it to their face especially during trying times?

Years ago, I chose not to attend a meeting.  The stress in my life would have only grown if I were to go to this meeting.  Several people condemned me for not attending.  A friend and I discussed my fault in not going.  She didn’t agree with me, but she also didn’t condemn me.  Instead she lovingly accepted my choice and grabbed all the information from the meeting and gave it to me so I could read up on the issues.  I will always remember this kindness and act of Christian charity.  I also use her example and try to emulate her love.

I pray that God buffers my friend from those who think they need to express hurtful notions of how she should handle her life.  And I pray I can always be there for her without judgment and a strong ear to listen.  And I sure hope we go out for more beer!

Blessings to you all.

Esther: A Historical Tribute to Women Leaders of Faith

This morning I was going to simply discuss another quote by Saint Patrick, but after reading from my Lenten prayer book, I thought a story suited the day better.  Many people have issues with the Catholic Church and maybe other churches as well on being predominately led by men.  Yes, our priest is a man, but the rest of the church has women galore leading our flock.  Many of us females are Eucharistic Ministers while others lead in religious education, the Cursillo movement, music ministry, Readers, and the list can go on and on.  The Bible also has many women working as leaders to not only serve their people but also to save them.

In the days of the Old Testament, women did not have a high standing in most of society.  King Xerxes of Persia a pagan ruled over his wife.  Though she had prestige over other women, she had none over her husband.  Merely on the refusal of attending one of his feasts, he deposed and banished her from his kingdom.  She had no way of fighting this and fled.

The next wife he took was a Jewish woman named Esther though he had no love of the Jewish people.  In fact, one of his members of court convinced him to put to death all of the Jews living in Persia.  Esther was stuck in a very bad position.  She couldn’t watch her people and close relatives die at the hands of her husband; yet, if she spoke up to him, he surely would kill her.  Esther took her dilemma to the Lord.  He stood by her as she interrupted her husband to speak on behalf of the Jewish people.  The king didn’t go through with the mass murder.  She saved her people.  Today is the last day of the two-day Jewish feast in honor of Esther and her courage.

Esther didn’t lead her people from Egypt like Moses.  She didn’t lead her people in a synagogue.  I will never become a priest.  Though she and I can’t play the “big” roles in our faith, we can still play an integral part in the development of our community.  We ladies have a lot to offer with our faith in our families, Bible study groups, and in our parishes.  How are you leading?  Oh, and guys, just because this isn’t about you, step up and take action.  We all have a part to play in our journey to holiness.

Blessing to you all.