Insignificance

to be saint

for Him

We are called to be fruitful, but also little. How can I do much good without much pomp?

Seeds. Seeds are little, very little, but have the power to transform the face of the earth (both literally and spiritually). I try to plant seeds as I feel called: I post a blog, I prepare a meal. Do my words speak to souls? Are my sacrifices in the kitchen appreciated? Oftentimes, I do not know and never will. Yes, I desire a forest to grow up by my toil—and a forest may well grow up—but it is likely I will never see it. Such does not mean I have not been fruitful; it simply means I, in the world’s eyes, am also blessedly insignificant.

But sometimes I do know. In those moments, I witness saplings push their way up from the soil I tilled and sowed and watered. I witness them reach for the sunlight, for heavenly things. But if I were to dwell on the saplings, I would cease to scatter seed, and my shadow would stunt the new growth. I must move on. For pomp would kill as surely as any blight would.

I like to say that a very selfless act is to plant an oak . . . because you will never live to see it in its glory, a hundred years from now. In truth, a young oak is quite scrawny, even ugly. But still you plant it. Why? Because you know that you, in your present insignificance, can begin something very significant indeed: fruit to come. You may never be acknowledged on this earth as the one who planted that awe-inspiring oak—yes, your name may be forgotten—but in Heaven your name will be remembered forever.

Because sainthood is the sowing done not for recognition, but for God. 

Loneliness

to be home

with Him

Yes, I have been blessed to call many places home . . . and yet something in me knows they are not home—I merely call them such, because they remind me of the place where my soul was born. They are like a letter from a beloved—it is something that brings his face to mind and heart, but he himself remains afar.

I am a stranger and a sojourner in this world, thrust onto a plane that humanity was not originally intended to walk, and my innate memory of Home will not let me forget this. I know I belong where the Lord and I may walk side by side, hand in hand. Here, I am alienated from His touch. Yes, I am lonely for what should be.

Sometimes, even when I return to the most familiar place on earth, the place where my family lives, I feel as if I am floating above reality, unable to truly absorb what I am touching, seeing, hearing. I want to to enter fully into reality, to appreciate fully every moment. But if I could, I know I would become attached to finite realities. Yes, we were created to live fully, but in our fallen state, life on earth is partial delights, partial dreams, partial existence.

But these partialities cannot end in misery. Even though our flesh may be dying, God desires that, within ourselves, we know life in abundance. He asks us to be drawn deeply into the partialities, into the beauty, truth, and goodness found in creation (be this the family farm or my family themselves), not because they will fulfill us, but because hidden within them we find their origin: Christ in His fullness.

Yes, there are moments when the loneliness lifts—just enough to warm an aching soul. And I realize, it isn’t about where I am, but who I’m with. Yes, I belong with Him . . .

Poverty 

to be crowned

by Him

We are all blind until we are poor.

I find the world is slipping through my fingers, like dust, as I lift my hands to Him. But I do not relinquish what is finite to remain with hands empty. I lift them to receive that which satisfies—because it never runs out. Pleasure can be found in the finite riches, it is true, but happiness ends when the riches are spent. Joy is always to be found in the infinite riches, which moth and decay cannot destroy.

Why do we cling to the world if we know what glory awaits us? Why do we remain oblivious to what (we must admit) is obvious? Do we believe it is safer in the dark? Indeed, do we fear what Love would demand of us to acknowledge and change? Go and sin no more. And yet, Love demands precisely because it wishes our true happiness—our joy.

We fear to change, because we find our sin comfortable—it demands nothing more than cowardly self-love. But if we were to change, to trust Love’s demands, we would realize we were not comfortable after all, for we were created for holiness, not sin. And holiness wears a crown, while sin wears shackles—shackles felt but not seen until poverty is embraced.

Only when shackles fall can we lift our hands to Him who cries to us: Ephphatha—be opened!

Insecurity

to be rooted

in Him

I am a writer. We artists are known to stand on shifting sands; one day it is feast, the next it is famine. Is it foolishness to pursue what we love, what we feel called to pour ourselves into, knowing we will rarely, if ever, be secure?

But what does secure mean? If it means to never find yourself desperately needing a miracle and thus never receiving one, to never know consolation made tremendously sweet by desolation, to foresee the future as clearly as if you’ve already lived it . . . I would rather continue being a leaf on the wind—but rooted in Divine Providence. Yes, if holding fast to that pencil, that brush, that guitar means not knowing how I shall eat tomorrow—but also that I will know euphoria at being saved, once again, by a thread . . . I will hold fast, in faith.

I am young, but I have seen wonders. I’ve been blessed to call many exquisitely beautiful places home, to call many golden people family, to find love where I would not have if the Lord had not opened doors. Yes, He had to open those doors, because I own no key (I could not afford a key to such realms). And if I did own a key, would I open the right doors? I know myself. I know I would shy from the threshold that is darkened by the unknown—not realizing that just beyond is a light-filled garden teeming with wonders.

Be it foolish in the world’s eyes, I hold fast to my pencil, because I know how Divine Providence has transformed my life. It has allowed me to live without the boundaries that permanence, comfort, and wealth impose. Insecurity has lifted my feet from the earth, that I may see from a vantage I never could have reached otherwise.

When I am insecure, I am free.

Insecurity

to be rooted

in Him

—

Poverty

to be crowned

by Him

—

Loneliness

to be home

with Him

—

Insignificance

to be saint

for Him

She was the most beautiful bride I’ve ever seen.

My sister, gowned in lace, flowers adorning her hair. My sister, tall and elegant, processing up the aisle. My sister, a princess being offer by the king and queen who gave her life, offered to the prince who would share in that life, protect it, cherish and nurture it. As the choir’s harmonies swelled in the high, medieval-like spaces with holy, holy, holy, and as we the witnesses looked on in wonder, I can describe Tianna as nothing other than radiant.

And as she and her beloved clasped each other’s hands and vowed their love, I feel that we were bound with them—a hem on a tapestry, called to support them by our indelible connection through the Body of Christ. Perhaps this, in part, is why such strength can be found in Christian marriages. A man and woman do not enter the Sacrament alone; an army rallies around them.

I imagine the heavenly armies were gathered before the altar there as well—to celebrate the victory of purity in the couple’s love. For I believe my sister radiated as she did because her soul was a window unsoiled, allowing the purest light to break through from Heaven onto this earth. I think it is a grace specially designed to be released in the Sacrament of marriage . . . but one that is too often hindered by a blackened window. If the world knew how sweet this grace was, it would not only cleanse its windows but throw them open to feel the warmth beyond.

Yes, I think what I will remember best from my sister’s wedding is the warmth—the warmth emanating from God’s very heart, made possible by the holy romance between a man and a woman. Yes, it was the the Divine descending through mere humanity. Such is the power of a Sacrament.

on fire

like I’ve never been

before

to be a spark

in the stubble

of fallen mankind

I desire this

O my God

—

what blazes within

let it escape

rage wild

where You will

ignite the sleepy hollows

scorch the vines that choke

drive every creature

to the brink

of Your life-giving waters

—

but more than to

consume with fire

I desire to be consumed

utterly

by Your love

nothing left of me

but You

On a morning cool with the impending fall, I bundled into a hoodie and set out down the lonely gravel road, the dogs and cats trailing behind me. I clutched the red crystal drops of a rosary in my right hand. I spoke the prayers aloud; I prayed the mysteries within.

It was not merely the pearl-gray sky, the dying cropland, that seized my heart with sorrow, for I was praying the sorrowful mysteries. I was reflecting on all I have given to the Lord thus far in my life—and I realized that my small heroic moments amount to nothing compared to what He gave me as He suffered agony among the olives, suffered beneath the lash, suffered the cruelest crown, suffered as He fell again and again beneath a cross that should have been mine, suffered as the blood flowed from His body as He hung naked before sinners.

I was struck by the raw truth that I have not given enough to my God. And I realized I am not called to give more to Him . . . I am called to give everything.

I don’t know what this will entail in my life. It may mean being far from those I love, perhaps even giving up those I love. It may mean being little, unrecognized, unappreciated. It may mean laboring in the vineyard without living to see the fruit. It may mean darkness. But I do know with certainty that it will mean boundless joy, deep-rooted peace, and ultimate fulfillment as I empty myself to be filled by Him.

Because with Christ, every cross leads to resurrection.

When the world was a void, when a dome rose from the waters, when He formed a chasm in the land and filled the chasm with cool, green water from a stream—I am certain the Lord knew how much we would love this lake.

In the depths of this past winter, I dreamed about the day I would celebrate my 21st birthday at the lake of my childhood. How good is God that I would, after all, find myself there that day, beneath the bluest sky, scarcely a breeze to threaten the heat, with my loved ones. In all the world, it is the one place that will always be woven into the fabric of my life, because it will always be there to return to as long as I live (though its shoreline recedes or advances with the rain and the drought). At once, the lake—with its hot, orange beach; evergreen boundaries; placid, sunset surface; wraithlike loons that come and go; shabby playground and canteen—makes me impishly happy . . . even as it makes me achingly sad.

It is the pale shimmerings of Heaven. So beautiful but never quite what it should be, like the moon reflecting the sun’s blazing light. Ah, how to explain the tears that came as my father held me and I gazed upon the lake turning pink as the sun carved downward, a haven that few people have been blessed to know and love as we have, as I have. I grasp, knowing I can never hold. But I must grasp, because as I do, my fingers graze the veil that separates my true home from what is tangible now. And in this I remember that one day I will find myself swimming in the purest lakes man has never known—and loneliness becomes hope. 

I know these things

though they sleep within me

—

What once was in the garden

is now choked by earth’s vines

vines that closed Eden to us

and our hearts

to our true selves

—

All we cling to now

is memory

of nakedness without shame

—

We may claw and slash

at the vines

seeking our return

to paradise

to unity

to love undistorted

but what was lost

will not

cannot

be found in the ruins

—

Turn your face, then

to the living memory

given us

to nakedness nailed

upon a tree

He who is without shame

—

Yes, He will awaken you

awaken us

to the love

that was

and can be again