I don’t get the vampire thing.  Never have, but here is a really fascinating explanation for it.  Fr. Barron makes some great points.

I’ve been reading a lot of really good blogs lately, and can’t help but think that there are so many ways that I could improve this one.  I could make it look more “professional”, somehow.  I could focus on just one of the things that interest me, like political commentary, or family life & homeschooling, or genealogy (which I think I will still just make an entirely separate website for that), or Catholic Issues/Apologetics, or, or, or. . . .

The problem is, my brain goes in too many directions at once, all the time.  And I can’t even blame the children for that, I’ve always been this way!  For example, last week, I wanted to blog about so many things that I wound up not blogging about anything.  For example, I had a really great blog post floating around in my head entitled “Dude!  Where’s My Plane?” about Obama pretending he didn’t know that someone took AF-1 and did a low flyover of NYC, terrifying the people of Manhattan and causing them to evacuate buildings and have major PTSD flashbacks of 9/11!!  All for a “Photo Op”????  I hope Obama is smarter than that, but at the same time, that would simply mean that he really is that sinister, to intentionally terrify his own people like that.  (Good thing he didn’t try a stunt like that over Dallas or Houston!)

Or I could talk about homeschooling.  About Faith, and how she’s been so busy lately digging up herbs in our yard and woods, and drying them, chopping them and making herbal remedies!  Our kitchen smells kinda funny from time to time, but I am so proud of her! Or about Alex, and how he did so well in school this year, and how funny he was co-hosting the HCHA Talent Show last week (see pictures all over Facebook!!), or about how Kendall is finishing up his first year at UNC-A, and how much he is enjoying studying Journalism, and how cute he is running around with a digital microphone and interviewing everyone he can.  I could say that Gaylon is still in Texas, and that we’re still in North Carolina, and it still stinks!  Our house hasn’t sold yet (duh.) and we are going to move to Texas at the end of the summer anyway, to be with him and get the kids plugged in.

Then I thought about how I’d like to discuss how well my genealogy research has gone lately, and how much I have enjoyed getting in contact with cousins I didn’t even know about down in Central Texas on the Adams side.  We’ve exchanged pictures and information and it’s just been incredible! And did I mention I’m building a website just for genealogy?   That way I can not only separate my genealogy from my political and religious views, but I can keep from boring to death the few readers I have who are not related to me!

And then there is my Catholic Faith, which I am usually pretty low-key about, because I have so many friends who are not only Protestant, but have been taught that Catholics are not Christians, and must be ’saved’!!  My Jewish friends are much more understanding of me being Catholic, probably because of that whole persecution thing.  But I absolutely LOVE being Catholic, and there are so many things I could ‘blog’ about, that might help people understand our faith, our beliefs, our Christianity.  That would probably be best in a separate site, as well.

So, what to do?  What to blog about??  It’s not like there are all these people reading my blog, and hanging on the edge of their chairs waiting for my next post!  Most of my close friends don’t read my blog at all, and of my family, I think only Gaylon, Kendall, Mom and occasionally Faith read it.  And of course, Lishi, (Kendall’s fiance) who is one of the only people who ever leaves me a comment. (And of course, Laura R. and Laura S.!!  I love my Lauras. . .)  I know there are a few folks scattered across the country who read it, but they never comment.  I tried a Poll once, and only a few folks participated in that, so perhaps the bottom line is this:  I blog for me.  If someone doesn’t like what I have to say, they certainly don’t have to read it.  Lishi’s brother, Steve Skojec, always has really great taglines for his blog, like “Cogito, Ergo Blog” (I think that was it. . . . I don’t remember exactly, and now he’s changed it) or his current one “You Didn’t Ask, But I’ll Tell You Anyway”.  Okay, that one really fits my situation, as well. LOL.  I’ve never met Steve, but I love his blog!

So, yeah.  My blog will probably continue to be a collection of randomness, and my title, “Chasing Thoughts” is probably very appropriate.  Maybe someday I will actually be able to focus on one thing for a great length of time.  But then, I will finish writing those books I’ve started, and not worry about blogging!

“Remember, man, you are dust
and to dust you will return.”
(Genesis 3:19)

It is difficult for many people to understand why Catholics wear ashes on their foreheads on Ash Wednesday.  After all, Jesus died on the cross and rose from the dead.  In that one perfect sacrifice, all was fulfilled, and the only thing left is for us to accept the work that has already been completed in Jesus.

Exactly so!  Jesus’ death and resurrection took care of everything.  There is nothing we could have ever done, or ever can do, that would have atoned for our own sins, let alone the sins of the entire world.  And that is the point, actually.  We are nothing more than dust, and without God, we have no meaning, no purpose. It is only through Jesus that we can ever hope to become something more.

But it is so easy to forget what God did for us.  So easy to become self-reliant, self-sufficient.  We can easily begin to believe that we are ‘good enough’ and that we don’t really ‘need’ God.  We are lulled into believing that we’re special, of our own accord.  Unless of course we find ourselves in dire circumstances, in which even atheists start to call upon the name of the Lord!!

So, on Ash Wednesday, we wear ashes on our foreheads to remind ourselves of who and what we really are.  And, most of all, they remind us why we need the amazing God who was willing to sacrifice His only Son on a cross to lift us from the ashes of death to the glories of eternity.

I have been hearing a lot about “change”.  Seemingly, everyone wants change, but they want someone else to make the change for them.  And, it seems to me that the folks making the most noise about wanting change are the ones who have never had any real need for it.

So, I’ve been wondering what sort of change people are hoping for, and why.  It’s obvious that the majority of Americans believe they want change, but what does that mean?  I would be willing to bet that if I did an informal survey, it would mean something different for every one of us.  But why?  In the greatest country in the world, why are so many people dissatisfied, disillusioned, angry and bitter?

I have come to the conclusion that the reason so many Americans are screaming for change is because they are unhappy with themselves, and are unwilling to do what it takes to change themselves.  Whether people like it or not, truth is not negotiable or relative.  As Flannery O’Connor said, “The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it.” However, when people become unwilling to accept truth, then they start making their own rules.  And, because misery loves company, they recruit as many people as they can to agree with them.  It doesn’t matter, by the way, how many people agree with something that is not true.  It’s still not Truth.

Some things are absolutes.  Murder is wrong.  Stealing is wrong.  Lying is wrong.  Adultery and fornication are wrong.  Apostasy, heresy, disordered passions.  It’s all wrong.  It doesn’t matter if we like it or not.  All of us have committed some form of “wrongness”, and some of us are up to our necks in it.  (Back in the day we called those “wrongnesses” s-i-n-s.)  If we live in sin, we separate ourselves from God.  If we separate ourselves from God, then we will be unhappy.  The only way to feel good about ourselves again is to get our lives together, from the inside out, and reconcile with God.

Now, I’m not referring to condemnation.  Too many people have been fatally wounded (in a spiritual sense) by the threat of a condemning, hellfire and brimstone god.  They’ve been told that they are hellbound rotten sinners, and insulted to the point that they really would rather burn in hell than accept the god that’s being shown to them.  Christianity is supposed to be a religion of love and mercy, of forgiveness. If we could only grasp a tiny understanding of how very much God loves all of us, we would be blown away.  We would want to change ourselves to make Him happy!  Somehow, the message is not getting through!

I’m talking about a healing, freeing, reconciliation with God. It really is that simple, but it ain’t easy. It is however, worth the effort.  Accepting that if we live according to His requirements, we will be happy, joyous and free. Things might be really bad in this life, but as long as we can keep our eyes on the big picture, on eternity, it makes it all worthwhile.  If we don’t live according to His requirements, well, we’re gonna be really, really unhappy, and we’re gonna start screaming for change.

“The beginning of the Gospel stands for the whole; uttering it, one is as it were sending out the breath of the Holy Spirit to engage the four winds, pervading them and turning them to good. The world is thus declared to be the realm of God’s creative word; matter is subordinated to the power of his Spirit. For matter too is his creation and hence the sphere of his gracious power. Ultimately we receive the very bread of the earth from his hands. How beautifully the new eucharistic bread is thus related to our daily bread! The eucharistic bread imparts its blessing to the daily bread, and each loaf of the latter silently points to him who wished to be the bread of us all. So the liturgy opens out into everyday life, into our earthly life and cares; it goes beyond the church precincts because it actually embraces heaven and earth, present and future. How we need this sign! Liturgy is not the private hobby of a particular group; it is about the bond which holds heaven and earth together, it is about the human race and the entire created world. In the Corpus Christi procession, faith’s link with the earth, with the whole of reality, is represented “in bodily form,” by the act of walking, of treading the ground, our ground.” ~Pope Benedict XVI

(Above Quote From: The Feast of Faith, Approaches to a Theology of the Liturgy, pp. 134-135)

This took my breath away! How beautiful to think of the Liturgy in such terms. And the image of uttering the Gospel as sending out the breath of the Holy Spirit to engage the four winds…wow.

What can I give You?
You bought my life and soul
With your raw and tattered flesh
That dripped blood
Into my chalice
For my communion.
You paid in hideous gaping wounds
For my peace of mind.
With Your silent agonizing humiliation
You heaped my tiny troubles
Upon Your overburdened Cross;
You tread barefoot over sharp stones,
Through jagged sneers,
And under Eternity’s crushing weight
To purchase my redemption.
My debt is great,
And You deal not in currency,
But in Love.
So let me love others
As You love me.

Most of us would never even consider helping someone who had been mean to us.  We would probably never want to see or speak to them again, let alone go live with them!  Yet that is exactly what St. Patrick did. And because of his obedience, he is one of the most popular and famous saints ever. (Although I’m not exactly sure he would approve of the drunken revelry that ensues each year in his honor.)

St. Patrick was actually Scottish, not Irish.  He was captured and taken to Ireland at the tender age of 14, where he spent six years in slavery.  Rather than becoming bitter and angry toward God for his misfortune, like most of us would, he turned to God in prayer for comfort and strength.  When he was 20 years old, God came to him in a dream and told him to go home.  Patrick believed God, escaping his enslavement and being reunited with his family.  But the Irish still called to him in his dreams. (We Irish folk are hard to forget!!)

He entered the priesthood, eventually becoming a bishop.  He spent many years in Rome doing great work before he was sent to Ireland to spread the message of the Gospel.  He was chosen because of something he’d learned during his years as a slave: Celtic!  He was able to communicate with the Irish.  And, as History clearly testifies, he communicated with them beautifully! He preached all over Ireland, even in the face of grave danger from the Druids, many of whom would have rather killed Patrick than convert to Christianity.  Patrick and his followers were imprisoned and sentenced to death many times.  However, by the time of his death in 461, he had converted virtually all of Ireland to Christianity.

Patrick is well known for using a shamrock as an object lesson on the Trinity.  He had an unassuming manner and a gentle way of speaking.  He was known for his humility and disinterest in material things.  He is also credited for chasing all the snakes out of Ireland, although I’m not sure that’s ever been proven!

For me, St. Patrick challenges me to rise to the occasion, and accept whatever lies in front of me with a positive attitude and trust in God.  I’ve never been enslaved, per se, but I’ve certainly been caught in situations that I felt very trapped in. St. Patrick is an amazing example of how to deal with those situations.

And, for those of you who love timelines (like me!) here is some interesting trivia. St. Patrick lived from 385 – 461 AD. (Why do I always think he was around during the Middle Ages?) Below are some people and events that coincided with his lifetime:

• The rise of Buddhism occurred in the late 300’s.
• St. Augustine lived from 354 – 430 AD.
• Hippocrates began movement toward medicine as science in the 400’s.
• And, last but not least, the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire occurred between 337 – 476 AD.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!!

Lent is a season of great reflection for me. In fact, Lent is my favorite of all the Liturgical seasons.  I think it is because the daily readings and meditations put me so much more in touch with not just my inner darkness and sinfulness, making me very aware of how much I need mercy and forgiveness, but because they lead me very clearly and gently to God, the only real source of them.

I think that this year, more than ever before, I have become amazingly aware of how much God has extended His mercy to me, of how much He has forgiven me.  For whatever reason, that has never been something that has been very tangible to me in the past.  Perhaps it is because of the Bible study I am doing on holiness. Or maybe it’s due to the fact that I’m getting older. Perhaps it is because I have managed to prune some of the major chaos out of my life, making it much easier for me to find God.  The more ’static’ I have in my daily world, the harder it is for me to hear God’s voice.  I have a lot less ’static’ than I used to.

I don’t mean I’m not busy.  I am as busy as ever, if not more so.  But when I am busy with things that serve God, those things don’t tend to stress me out and distract me from Him.  I have found not only the time, but the desire to read the daily readings, to meditate on the writings of the Saints and the Early Church Fathers.  Without fail, those things give me energy and enthusiasm for not only God and my Faith, but my daily life. I am empowered with repentance, the only prerequisite for receiving that mercy and forgiveness.

We had a really big thunderstorm tonight. While it was still raining, and the sun was just barely beginning to glow behind the clouds, the most magnificent rainbow I’ve ever seen emerged across the entire sky! It was so big I could not capture all of it in one photograph! But I tried. I ran outside, in the cold and blustery rain, and stood out there like a crazy person pointing my camera into the sky. It was truly the most beautiful and bright rainbow I’ve ever seen!

And there are a couple of analogies I’d like to make here. First, I would have never seen it if my friend, Lisa, hadn’t called me to tell me about it. Sometimes, I would completely miss God if it wasn’t for my friends helping me out. Second, the storm was not completely over. It was still raining, the wind was still blowing. But at the sight of that glorious rainbow, the storm was forgotten, and nothing else mattered. God was in the storm.

I do not believe it is an accident that God placed His first rainbow in the sky as a promise to us. Every time I see a rainbow, I think of God, and of how much He loves all of us. I am reminded that He is even more glorious and magnificent than any rainbow, and that it is a symbol of His faithfulness. The storm does not have to be over before we find God. Even in the storm, that rainbow outshone everything around it. And isn’t that just like God?

I have written poetry for myself for most of my life, and it has always amazed me when somebody liked anything I’ve written, so I have to say that I am incredibly honored that Rodger Sellers, Pastor of the Portico Presbyterian Church over in Charlotte not only found and read the poem I wrote, “into your way of peace“, but he liked it so much that he posted it in his Lenten Blog!  Wow.

I have read some of the most recent posts on that Lenten Blog, and I really like what I’ve read!  I very highly recommend the post “A Negative Times A Negative Equals A Positive?“.  It is excellent, and makes such a powerful point about the nature of repentance.

into your way of peace

what does it take?
create in me a new heart,
renew my mind and
make me holy
like you, O Lord!

i have hidden in the valleys,
haunted by my guilt
never daring to seek the Light;
telling myself it was enough
to remember the warmth,
clutching hollow memories
of who I used to be.

and yet you saw me,
crouching in the shadow of the Cross
collecting your tears
to mix with my wine.
you looked down on me
in love and compassion
and suddenly I knew
i could yet ascend
the mountain of the Lord
and stand before your gates!

all I have to offer
are your own tears,
nothing of my own has value.
i have treasured them
all this time
wrapped up in my heart,
a hopeful fountain of grace.
praying that someday
the shadows would lift, and
your dawn from on high
would indeed break upon my darkness
and guide my feet
into your way of peace.

(Scripture References: Psalm 24 and Luke 1:68-79)

“Holiness consists in carrying out God’s will with joy. Faithfulness forges saints. . . . The first step toward holiness is the will to attain it. With a will that is whole we love God, we opt for Him, we run toward Him, we reach Him, we possess Him. Often, under the pretext of humility, of confidence, of abandonment, we forget about using our will. But it all depends on these words–I want or I do not want. I have to pour out all my energy into the words ‘I want.’ We cannot decide to become saints without a great effort of renunciation, of resisting temptations, of combat, persecution, and of all sorts of sacrifices. It is not possible to love God except at one’s own expense.” ~*~Mother Teresa of Calcutta~*~

I am doing a Bible Study on Holiness (Courageous Love: A Bible Study on Holiness for Women, by Stacy Mitch) and found this quote in the study guide. I thought it was amazingly profound. But then again, that is usually my reaction to most things Mother Teresa said! Anyway, I think what really struck me was how it stands in such stark contrast to the “Me” Culture of American Christianity. I have never been able to stomach “prosperity” doctrines, which teach that God will bless you financially, physically and spiritually, if you just believe hard enough, pray hard enough, and act Christian enough. Even a cursory glance at history reveals that such a belief is ridiculous!

So I loved what Mother Teresa said about renunciation, resisting temptations, combat, persecution and all sorts of sacrifices. It makes so much more sense to me. And, I also love what she said about forgetting to use our will. I don’t know about anyone else, but I can find a million excuses to not exercise my will in serving God, and why that’s really okay. But in the end, it’s up to me to choose God, to choose holiness. Anything else is really not okay. I’m so glad his mercies are new every morning!!!

Suffering is a part of life, on some level or another. I’ve never met someone who hasn’t felt pain at some point. We all deal with it differently, expressing it with varying degrees of openness, but we are all far too familiar with pain: emotional, mental, physical.So it is comforting to me to know that my God suffered, too. To know that he endured measures of emotional, mental and physical anguish that I cannot even begin to imagine or comprehend, because that means that no matter how bad things might seem to me, He can relate, and can be there for me. And not only that, but He can bring meaning to our pain.

Someone expressed this really well to me today: God does not always take our pain away, but he is there to hold us. Isn’t that what a good parent does? God doesn’t save us from pain and suffering, but He is always there for us, and can take our suffering and turn it into growth. Archbishop Fulton Sheen said: “The Goodness of God means that God gives us what we need for our perfection, not what we want for our pleasure and sometimes for our destruction. As a sculptor, He sometimes applies the chisel to the marble of our imperfect selves and knocks off huge chunks of selfishness that His image may better stand revealed. Like a musician, whenever He finds the strings too loose on the violin of our personality, He tightens them even though it hurts, that we may better reveal our hidden harmonies.”

On Fridays during Lent, we have the unique opportunity to participate, in a very small way, in the ultimate suffering of our Savior: The Stations of the Cross. We will pray and meditate at each station, walking along with our Lord, as he makes his slow, treacherous ascent to Calvary. (These events were beautifully dramatized by Mel Gibson in his movie ‘The Passion of the Christ‘) I am always reminded, as we say the words “We adore you, O Christ and we bless you, Because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world” of how very much God loves me, and of the lengths to which He has gone to demonstrate that love for me, for all of us. And the Stations of the Cross are such an amazing, tangible way to teach my children how much God loves them. How could anyone refuse a love like that?

The Stations of the Cross

1. Jesus is Condemned to Death
2. Jesus is Made to Bear the Cross
3. Jesus Falls the First Time
4. Jesus Meets His Afflicted Mother
5. Simon of Cyrene Helps Jesus to Carry His Cross
6. Veronica Wipes the Face of Jesus
7. Jesus Falls the Second Time
8. Jesus Speaks to the Women of Jerusalem
9. Jesus Falls the Third Time
10. Jesus is Stripped of His Garments
11. Jesus is Nailed to the Cross
12. Jesus Dies on the Cross
13. Jesus is Taken Down from the Cross
14. The Body of Jesus is Placed in the Tomb

I am always somewhat surprised by the Gospel Reading for Ash Wednesday. Jesus is talking to his disciples, warning them not to perform righteous deeds in order that people may see them. He tells them to give alms secretly, to not even let the right hand know what the left is doing. He goes on to exhort them not to be like the hypocrites, standing and praying in the synagogues and on street corners, so that others will see them. He says we should pray in secret. And finally, if we are fasting, it should be our little secret. We should look nice and clean. (Matthew 6:1-6, 16-18)

Then we all get in line and go up to receive ashes on our foreheads! At first glance, it seems like we are jumping up and heading straight into what Jesus said to avoid. At first glance. But upon closer examination, there is (or at least there should be) a big difference between the public acts of the hypocrites Jesus condemns in Matthew, and the distribution of ashes on the foreheads of the faithful.

The individuals Jesus was talking about were performing righteous deeds, giving alms, praying and fasting for effect. Everything they did was carefully calibrated to make people think they were holy. It was all a show, a smoke-and-mirrors event. Inside, deep in their hearts, they were far from holy. And I think they knew it, but as long as they could keep up the charade, they didn’t care. Until Jesus came along and saw them for who they really were, and called them on it. No wonder they wanted him dead!

But back to those ashes. The Old Testament is full of references to the use of sackcloth and ashes. Mordecai resorted to sackcloth and ashes when he heard that King Xerxes had decreed that all of the Jews in the Persian Empire were to be killed. (Esther 4:1) Job also used sackcloth and ashes to express his repentance. (Job 42:6). Daniel writes about turning to the Lord with prayer, fasting, sackcloth and ashes. (Daniel 9:3). And in the New Testament, in reference to towns who refused to repent, in spite of all the miracles they’d witnessed, Jesus said, “If the miracles worked in you had taken place in Tyre and Sidon, they would have reformed in sackcloth and ashes long ago” (Matthew 11:21) You get the idea.

So ashes have been with us a long time. Receiving ashes on the first day of Lent is a practice that dates back to the fifth century. We have even earlier references to the use of ashes being used by the Early Church from the writings of Tertullian (c. 160-220) and Eusebius (c. 260-340).

But these are not the ashes of the hypocrites. These ashes are merely an outward sign of a commitment to an “interior pilgrimage towards him who is the fount of mercy” (Pope Benedict XVI). We no longer use sackcloth, and the ashes are merely symbolic, but the meaning is the same: we are sorry for the way we’ve acted and the things we’ve done, and we want to change. So, this is the first part of the journey toward Easter, toward our rebirth through repentance. How cool is that?

Sources: CatholicCulture.com, Vatican.va