Please don't misread my willingness to grit out an opportunity to spend time with you as an appreciation for your chosen programming. It managed not to offend me for 30 minutes. That's a record. But it's not "30 minutes and counting," as they ruined it at the end, in about the worst possible way. "Do I make you happy? You make me happy. Let's $&#*!"
And as funny as Betty White may have been in places, watching SNL reminded me why I don't set the DVR for it every week. The funniest bits were her monologue (in which I heard echoes of Shatner's great and lambasted "you-Trekkies-should-get-a-life-of-your-own" bit from years ago) and the census gags. Much of the rest fell into the "sexually-suggestive-humor-seems-funnier-than-it-really-is-when-delivered-by-an-88-year-old-woman" category.
Friday, May 14, 2010
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Don't over-analyze things
Here's something one shouldn't dwell on for too long: how do self-conscious acts of kindness yield to true selflessness? I hope to discover this, but am convinced that I won't if I think about it too much.
Here's the rub: we do kind things to please another, yet their reaction pleases us in return, makes us feel proud. So what's really the driving motivation, the other's pleasure or our own pride? This is probably a good dynamic to be aware of. The problem is, it's a bit like The Game (sorry Game-aware readers), which I just learned about the other day: just thinking about it means you've lost (and of course, I've just lost The Game again). Or it may just be like the watched pot that never boils, how having the lid off of it allows enough energy to escape that it can never overcome its latent heat of vaporization.
This is tangential to Fr. Neuhaus' observation that we seem to know that our own love for God (and by extension, for others) can never be sufficient in quantity or purity, that instead of rooting around in our "rag shop" we need simply unite our meager offering to that of Christ. The Holy Spirit will make it what it needs to be. The more obsessed we get with perfecting it on our own, the more it becomes about the opposite of love.
In any case, I need to avoid being too introspective with this . . . Not that I'm prone to introspection, or anything like that.
Here's the rub: we do kind things to please another, yet their reaction pleases us in return, makes us feel proud. So what's really the driving motivation, the other's pleasure or our own pride? This is probably a good dynamic to be aware of. The problem is, it's a bit like The Game (sorry Game-aware readers), which I just learned about the other day: just thinking about it means you've lost (and of course, I've just lost The Game again). Or it may just be like the watched pot that never boils, how having the lid off of it allows enough energy to escape that it can never overcome its latent heat of vaporization.
This is tangential to Fr. Neuhaus' observation that we seem to know that our own love for God (and by extension, for others) can never be sufficient in quantity or purity, that instead of rooting around in our "rag shop" we need simply unite our meager offering to that of Christ. The Holy Spirit will make it what it needs to be. The more obsessed we get with perfecting it on our own, the more it becomes about the opposite of love.
In any case, I need to avoid being too introspective with this . . . Not that I'm prone to introspection, or anything like that.
Perfect love
Between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the joyful consummation is forever. Their love, which was from before the foundation of the world, is now magnified by the homecoming of all the prodigal children adopted into their love. Stumbling our way toward home, we worry about the unworthiness of our love, only to discover that it has already been attended to . . .
To fret about the quality of our love is to miss the point. Yes, we examine ourselves, confess our failings and pray for the grace to offer our best. But it will never be good enough, unless with all its flaws it is handed over and taken up into his love for the Father. Foolishly we rummage through what Yeats calls "the rag and bone shop" of our hearts to find a love that is pure, untouched by self-interest or pretense. It is an endless and futile search, compounded by complexity the more rigorously it is pursued. Among the things we give up, among the things we hand over, is that futile search. - Fr. Richard John Neuhaus - Death on a Friday Afternoon
I'm now in the home stretch of this book, the last word of Jesus, the final chapter. How interesting that my reading of this passage coincides with my desire to improve and purify how I love. Has Fr. Neuhaus carefully brought me to this point, or has another Author's hand been at work?
Unlike the usual worldly approach to this quest - and my own past ones - I'm not looking for someone I can love better. (Isn't it sad how often we conclude, if we don't love another as we long to, it is because of a fault in the beloved?) While I'm not so sure I'm seeking anything so self-disinterested as Fr. Neuhaus describes, what I want is to love like I breathe. Each inspiration of breath brings in the oxygen that saturates my cells with the fuel they need to carry out their function for the good of my body; each expiration carries away that which would poison them. And when breathing becomes hard, I find a way to do it anyway.
I want my loving to be the same way, just as natural and life-giving and purifying, and just as determined when it needs to be. As much progress as I've made in choosing my beloveds' best interest, there's still too much selfishness in my love. And while I'm pretty sure this is largely up to me to address, I suppose it is like our love for God: my love for those I love won't ever be good enough - that is, as abundant and pure as I long for it to be and, beyond that, all that God would have his love for them through me become - until I unite it with Christ's love for them, perfected in his commending himself fully into the Father's care.
This book keeps reminding me that focusing too much on myself and my efforts confounds my best intentions. I must look to Christ.
To fret about the quality of our love is to miss the point. Yes, we examine ourselves, confess our failings and pray for the grace to offer our best. But it will never be good enough, unless with all its flaws it is handed over and taken up into his love for the Father. Foolishly we rummage through what Yeats calls "the rag and bone shop" of our hearts to find a love that is pure, untouched by self-interest or pretense. It is an endless and futile search, compounded by complexity the more rigorously it is pursued. Among the things we give up, among the things we hand over, is that futile search. - Fr. Richard John Neuhaus - Death on a Friday Afternoon
I'm now in the home stretch of this book, the last word of Jesus, the final chapter. How interesting that my reading of this passage coincides with my desire to improve and purify how I love. Has Fr. Neuhaus carefully brought me to this point, or has another Author's hand been at work?
Unlike the usual worldly approach to this quest - and my own past ones - I'm not looking for someone I can love better. (Isn't it sad how often we conclude, if we don't love another as we long to, it is because of a fault in the beloved?) While I'm not so sure I'm seeking anything so self-disinterested as Fr. Neuhaus describes, what I want is to love like I breathe. Each inspiration of breath brings in the oxygen that saturates my cells with the fuel they need to carry out their function for the good of my body; each expiration carries away that which would poison them. And when breathing becomes hard, I find a way to do it anyway.
I want my loving to be the same way, just as natural and life-giving and purifying, and just as determined when it needs to be. As much progress as I've made in choosing my beloveds' best interest, there's still too much selfishness in my love. And while I'm pretty sure this is largely up to me to address, I suppose it is like our love for God: my love for those I love won't ever be good enough - that is, as abundant and pure as I long for it to be and, beyond that, all that God would have his love for them through me become - until I unite it with Christ's love for them, perfected in his commending himself fully into the Father's care.
This book keeps reminding me that focusing too much on myself and my efforts confounds my best intentions. I must look to Christ.
Sunday, May 09, 2010
Undertaking a challenge, finally
I've decided to take on a home improvement project this spring that I've been putting off. I'm a little intimidated by this, actually.
Yeah, that's pretty accurate. If "a little intimidated" usually means "totally terrified."
I've figured out that's the reason I haven't undertaken this project sooner.
What if I'm not able to do this?
Wednesday, May 05, 2010
Self-deterministic "grown-ups"
As adopted brothers and sisters of Jesus, we pray to his Father who is now our Father.
There is the objection that such prayer is infantalizing, a regression to the dependencies of childhood. Grown ups, it is said, do not need the crutch of a "parent figure" to lean on. Good for them. I once asked an old priest, a famous spiritual director, what he had learned from hearing thousands of confessions. He had a ready answer: "There are no grown-ups." There are grown-ups who pretend, and then there are those who have grown up to know the "second naiveté" of our utter dependence. The Child who was utterly faithful in his utter dependence was given not a crutch to lean on, but a cross to die on. To those whom he calls to be his brothers and sisters he says, "Take up your cross and follow me." Pretending to be grown-up is easier. One might be well-advised to keep it up, were it not for the truth that the darkness we feared as a child is real; the darkness we feared is but a slight premonition of the darkness from which he cried, and we cry with him, "Father, into your hands I commend my spirit." - Fr. Richard John Neuhaus - Death on a Friday Afternoon
I struggle along with everyone else to not be so grown up. Responsible, certainly, but being grown-up implies a self-sufficiency that will simply never be true for me. The benefit that comes with it is being able to determine for ourselves what is right and what is wrong, to do what I want, to be able to convince myself that what I want is really what's best, against all evidence to the contrary. It is this self-determinism for which we long as children. We're eager for the day when we no longer have homework, when we don't have to heed our parents, when we can do as we wish, when we're grown-ups.
Does anyone have the kind of life they imagined when they were kids?
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that I'm trapped in a life in which I don't get to make my own choices. But I've also seen the results of making choices in ways that aren't bound appropriately, or are limited by my own vision. It isn't just a matter of considering the effects my decisions have on others; our decisions have effects we can't foresee.
This is why we so need the utter dependence on God which we scorn in our rationalism. Yes, many have misinterpreted this to imply a license to impose their will on others. But applied properly, it is rather a way to set appropriate boundaries in my own life, to draw me out of my selfishness and more fully into a life of love. When I commend my life into my Father's perfectly loving hands, I am freed to give myself fully, without fear of what I may experience in the process. Though it may be the cross, beyond it lies a resurrection beyond my imagining.
There is the objection that such prayer is infantalizing, a regression to the dependencies of childhood. Grown ups, it is said, do not need the crutch of a "parent figure" to lean on. Good for them. I once asked an old priest, a famous spiritual director, what he had learned from hearing thousands of confessions. He had a ready answer: "There are no grown-ups." There are grown-ups who pretend, and then there are those who have grown up to know the "second naiveté" of our utter dependence. The Child who was utterly faithful in his utter dependence was given not a crutch to lean on, but a cross to die on. To those whom he calls to be his brothers and sisters he says, "Take up your cross and follow me." Pretending to be grown-up is easier. One might be well-advised to keep it up, were it not for the truth that the darkness we feared as a child is real; the darkness we feared is but a slight premonition of the darkness from which he cried, and we cry with him, "Father, into your hands I commend my spirit." - Fr. Richard John Neuhaus - Death on a Friday Afternoon
I struggle along with everyone else to not be so grown up. Responsible, certainly, but being grown-up implies a self-sufficiency that will simply never be true for me. The benefit that comes with it is being able to determine for ourselves what is right and what is wrong, to do what I want, to be able to convince myself that what I want is really what's best, against all evidence to the contrary. It is this self-determinism for which we long as children. We're eager for the day when we no longer have homework, when we don't have to heed our parents, when we can do as we wish, when we're grown-ups.
Does anyone have the kind of life they imagined when they were kids?
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that I'm trapped in a life in which I don't get to make my own choices. But I've also seen the results of making choices in ways that aren't bound appropriately, or are limited by my own vision. It isn't just a matter of considering the effects my decisions have on others; our decisions have effects we can't foresee.
This is why we so need the utter dependence on God which we scorn in our rationalism. Yes, many have misinterpreted this to imply a license to impose their will on others. But applied properly, it is rather a way to set appropriate boundaries in my own life, to draw me out of my selfishness and more fully into a life of love. When I commend my life into my Father's perfectly loving hands, I am freed to give myself fully, without fear of what I may experience in the process. Though it may be the cross, beyond it lies a resurrection beyond my imagining.
Stubborn
A young monk had been living in a monastery for two years and was at his wits' end because he did not feel that he knew and understood the art of prayer. One day, in a moment of desperation, he approached a very old monk who was sitting by a river which ran through the monastery grounds. The young monk asked the old monk to explain prayer – what it is and how to do it. Immediately, the old monk grabbed the younger by the scruff of the neck and thrust his head underneath the water. The young monk tried with all his strength to break free but was unable to do so. As the old monk intuited that the younger was about to drown, he yanked the younger out of the water. The young monk gasped for breath as he had never done before, at which point the old monk said calmly, “That is prayer, my son. It is the very breath of life. Make time for prayer, even if it is difficult at times, because for our inner selves, it is as important as oxygen for the lungs. Without it, we spiritually die.”
I presume this story is apocryphal. Still, I'm growing concerned that I don't want God anywhere nearly as desperately as I need to breathe. There are too many worldly things that I seem to want more, that are more tangible and present to me.
God, nurture in me a greater desire for you, and put to death in me all that chooses other things in your place.
I presume this story is apocryphal. Still, I'm growing concerned that I don't want God anywhere nearly as desperately as I need to breathe. There are too many worldly things that I seem to want more, that are more tangible and present to me.
God, nurture in me a greater desire for you, and put to death in me all that chooses other things in your place.
Monday, May 03, 2010
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)