Thinking outside of the box...

When you get as old as I am, you are generally pretty set in your ways, as far as thinking is concerned. It's really hard to look at a problem and not approach it in a similar way you have approached it for most of your adult life. It's hard to think outside the box!

But one sometimes has to do just that in order to grow in your relationship with God. What??!!

Okay, so I had an appointment with my SD this week and I was bringing a problem of mine that I haven't been able to work out. It concerns a parish situation that is really frustrating to me... and to many others... When I get frustrated, I also become angry about the situation... because what I want to happen, doesn't... and I know others feel the same way and they are frustrated and angry too.

I am well aware that my frustration and anger has as its basis, my nemesis, PRIDE! Yikes! Lord, I need help! I'm not doing too well on my own.

Without going into details about the parish situation, I asked my SD for help in changing something in this equation of frustration, anger and pride... I wanted to break the cycle of how I was looking at the situation. I couldn't do it myself because I didn't know how to think out of the box that I had created because of my approach to other situations in the past...

My SD apparently understood something I didn't... or couldn't see... Something very simple that has now been a great help in how I look at the parish situation and my response to it...

"Have you ever thought that maybe by not allowing the situation to be resolved, that God is trying to teach you something?"

Do you see the light bulb that just came on? Habits of how one responds to things are so deeply ingrained they are very hard to break. My SD showed me there are other ways of looking at a problem. Of course, I know that... BUT I couldn't apply it to myself until he made the connection!

Lord, you send me your graces in so many ways...

The end of days...

I am very very tired tonight... I have had a busy day.

This afternoon, I received an email from our parish secretary alerting us that Minnie was back in the hospital and not doing well. Also, that one of our elderly parishioners had had a stroke and was in the local VA hospital in the hospice unit.

Minnie is my friend who has recently been diagnosed with metastatic cancer... I had been bringing Communion to her since an earlier hospitalization. I had not been able to get in touch with her for the last week and didn't know what was going on. Minnie is one of our Wednesday evening Mass participants and has been the one to set up for the Mass ever since I realized how much she wanted to do this herself. So I stepped aside and set up the lectionary instead...

After I read the email, I called the parish office to speak to our priest. I asked if he was planning to visit these two parishioners this afternoon because family members had asked for him. I wanted to go with him. So we agreed on a time. Our priest is one of our foreign priests and is happy to have someone accompany him on these visits.

The hospital where Minnie had been admitted is a large complex of hospitals and requires a lot of walking and directions on how to go from one place to another. There are even slips of paper with directions to help people find their way. When we arrived at her room, Minnie was awake but a little confused in talking to us... She has had many tests and lots of bad news.

Our priest anointed her and gave her Communion... Because she is dear to me, I asked to say a short prayer too. Her son had just come in to be with her and he eventually walked us through the maze of corridors on our way out. He told us how serious her cancer is. I hope she will eventually be able to return home... but only God know if that will be possible.

Our next visit was to our elderly gentleman parishioner who had been admitted to the local VA hospital with a stroke. This hospital is garden style and it felt like we had to walk a mile through another maze of corridors before we arrived in the hospice section. Fortunately, a volunteer led us to our destination. Our parishioner was alone and either asleep or in a coma... the nurses could not give us any information about him since no family members were present. One of the nurses tried to arouse him but was not able. He may have been sedated... Anyway, our priest also tried to rouse him but I suggested that he simply anoint him and I left a note to his family that we had visited and that the priest had anointed him.

We finally returned to the rectory in time for our Wednesday evening Mass and I took over once again, the setting up that Minnie had always loved to do. I wonder if she will ever be able to return...

Heavenly Father, if it is your will, bring healing of mind, body and spirit to your daughter, Minnie and to your son, George.

It's been that kind of a week...

Yes, it's been that kind of week. You know how it goes: where you have a long list of things you want to accomplish and at the end of the week, the list hasn't gotten much shorter. In fact, as the week goes on, you remember even more things that belong there, so the list gets added to several times.

One very heartening thing happened at Mass this morning. One of the choir members turned around to me and said very quietly, "Boo said to tell you that you can bring him Communion any time." Boo is her husband and a former long time member of the choir. He had to retire from the choir a couple years ago because of severe emphysema and he is on oxygen. He very seldom can come to Mass anymore because it is too much of a hardship for him.

Boo is a person who wants only the priest to come to bring him Communion. Our previous priest apparently visited him from time to time. Unfortunately, our present priest is not cut from the same cloth. But since Boo wishes to receive Communion more regularly, he has now asked his wife to tell me that I can do this for him. This is a big step for Boo and I was taken by surprise at his wife's request because I know his preference for the priest. It's a pity, isn't it? But I am grateful for this opportunity... God is good...

Dear readers, come to my bookshop!

No, that's not my pile of books! But this is a good representation of what I am doing at my shop! Trying to separate my freebie books that a vendor gave me, price them and then place them on shelves.

I love books!!! And with my bookshop, I have been in seventh heaven, selecting books that I want to read. I have a pile of books crammed into a small bookcase behind my desk where I keep the "important stuff" for my shop. They are the books I have picked out to read from the piles I go through.

I would never have believed that I would ever have a bookshop of my own. This just didn't seem possible... and then it all fell into place with our flea market shop. God works in some interesting ways!

Tax time is coming up soon... that means I will have to take an inventory of my books. Takes about a week... My guess is that I have around 3000 books!

In the meantime, let me enjoy what I'm surrounded with!

The Cat came back!

A vendor friend of mine told me this remarkable story about her sister's cat. During the first week of December, the cat failed to return home from one of her excursions outside. The sister searched for several days without finding the cat and finally concluded that it had been run over or that some other accident had befallen it.

The sister is a manager of a mobile home park and often has business with one or another of the folks who rent spaces in the park. One day last week, she visited one of the families in the park. As she approached the mobile home, she thought she heard a cat mewing from underneath the home. Mobile homes are usually required to have a "skirt" around the bottom of the home for aesthetic reasons and the sound was coming from behind the skirt.

Anyhow, she spoke with the owners and told them there was a cat under their home and that they would have to open the skirt and remove it. Apparently, the homeowners had not heard the cat or had not paid any attention to it.

The homeowners opened the skirt and a cat bounded out from underneath the home like a bat out of hell! The cat was nothing but skin and bones but before it fled down the street and out of sight, the sister noticed the collar around the cat's neck and realized that this was HER CAT!!! The cat who had been missing for a month!

The sister went home and prepared to search the neighborhood to see if she could find her cat. She wasn't sure the cat would be able to find its way home because of its emaciated condition. After having no food or water for a month, it might be in too bad a shape to remember where she belonged.

But as the woman opened her door to begin the search, THERE STOOD HER CAT WAITING TO COME INTO THE HOUSE! She opened the door and the cat darted in and went directly to where her food and water bowls had stood.

You can imagine the joy in that household. Because the cat came back!


~ Drawing - My Skinny Cat by Keith Mills

What's in store for the New Year?

It has been a long time since I have blogged here. I have good intentions but we all know what the road to hell is paved with! I have responsibility for my parish blog as well as a couple of other blogs... The parish blog is the only one that is flourishing.

I really want to be more active on this one... maybe use it as a journal. I hesitate to say a "daily" journal but more often than I have been using it. I like to write when there is something to write about... I lead a busy life but not an exciting one, which is one reason I haven't written more.

One thing I like about writing is that it keeps my mind active. Here I am, a 75 year old gramma, who hopes to keep my mind from turning to rust for a few years longer. I read all the time. Last year I read 54 books! I also have a flea market shop where I sell books (this is where I feed my hunger for reading), costume jewelry and other flea market treasures. I make very little money doing this. In fact, since the economy has tanked, I am usually going into the hole every week. However, I like the flea market atmosphere. Flea market vendors are an interesting lot...some real characters... I may write about them sometime...

I also am very involved in parish life. That might be something to write about in the future also... I'm getting some ideas even as I send these words into cyberspace....

Well, I guess I have gotten started...

Image Source: Playing with the Universe

Taking up your Cross ~ A reflection on the 22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time

I thought I would do something a little bit different today. Sometimes, I write reflections for our parish blog and I did so for last week's readings. This is what those readings said to me...

Twenty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time

Jer 20:7-9
Ps 63:2-6, 8-9
Rom 12:1-2
Mt 16:21-27

It was just last week that we heard how Peter recognized Jesus for who He is: the Christ, the Son of the Living God. But in the Gospel reading today, Matthew describes how Peter becomes a stumbling block for Jesus.

Jesus is trying to prepare his disciples for his coming arrest; and the suffering and death he will have to endure at the hands of the chief priests who are plotting against him. Peter, who had just confessed his belief in Jesus as the Son of God, cannot believe what he is hearing. No, it can't be true! This cannot happen to God's Son!

But Jesus admonishes Peter: "Get behind me, Satan... You are an obstacle to me!" (Mt 16:23)

You can imagine how Peter felt. Perhaps he still believed that Jesus would reign over an earthly kingdom. How could Jesus be subjected to suffering and death and still be the Son of God?

Jesus then explained to his disciples and to us today what it means to be his follower, to be a Christian. We must deny ourselves and take up our own cross for his sake. To live according to his Word. We must expect to be persecuted and to suffer and perhaps, even to die for our faith.

Are we even willing to make such a sacrifice? Jeremiah faced a similar crisis of faith long ago when he decided he could no longer speak the Lord's Word to the people:

"I say to myself, I will not mention him,
I will speak in his name no more.
But then it becomes like fire
burning in my heart...
I grow weary holding it in, I cannot endure it." (Jer 20:9)

Even though he was being mocked by the people, Jeremiah realizes that God's Word cannot be restrained and thus he must speak.

Paul also recognized what needed to be done as he taught the Christians of Rome,

"... offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God..."(Rom 12:1)

We are not to conform ourselves to the world but to renew ourselves so that we can desire only to do God's Will.

Doing the Will of God is how we become holy and pleasing to Him. The psalmist understood our yearning for the presence of God in our lives as he prayed:

"...you are my God whom I seek;
For you my flesh pines and my soul thirsts...

...your kindness is a greater good than life;
my lips shall glorify you." (Ps 63:2, 4)