Contented **sigh**

Wow. Every last little detail around the house didn't get taken care of, but that was ok. Everybody we expected didn't come (including one who absolutely should have come, though we really didn't expect her to), but that was ok. A couple folks were bent out of shape by the kids having such an unabashedly good time, but that was ok. We spent too much money, but that was ok.

We threw a wedding (well, technically a convalidation ceremony) on Saturday for our youngest and her husband. Before that, since we would have a bunch of extra family staying at the house, there were numerous projects that we wanted to take care of, including repairing and painting ceilings, painting the guest room, stripping off old wallpaper remnants, reorganizing the kitchen, general cleaning up, and that was before the mrs. pulled up the carpet and underlying linoleum in the entry, adding a porch and entry tiling project to my already full agenda of the past several weeks. We didn't finish all the details (well, mainly two trim pieces in the entry), but got a ton of things done. Then there was all the usual stuff associated with a wedding, which we probably could have gotten away with not doing all-out, but it we really wanted to convey how important we thought it was.

Everyone seemed to have a good time. There were several unique and wonderful elements that set the ceremony and the reception apart from the ordinary. Oldest daughter has probably burned her bridges with youngest, and God only knows why she didn't attend, but at least she sent her kids, and we had a fine time with them.

Now to avoid a post-event letdown. Oh, and get back on my bike!

TOSRV 2007

When I took up cycling a little over 4 years ago, I had no idea I would enjoy it to this degree, let alone that I would become as insane as the guys who inspired me to start. Nonetheless, last weekend I completed my fourth Tour of the Scioto River Valley, a 2-day, 200-mile ride between Columbus and Portsmouth, Ohio.

This year we had 14 riders start, on 3 tandems and 8 singles. One of the tandems was a pair of college freshmen who had ridden it with us before. This year they had about 16 miles of training between them, so completing half of the ride was a pretty impressive accomplishment for them. One of the singles was a coworker and friend who managed to complete his first century on Saturday, then ran into a bit of tire trouble early on Sunday which gave him adequate reason to bail out, especially given his concern that he would otherwise be holding up the group. Since we had a support driver meeting us in Portsmouth on Saturday and then at the first two rest stops on Sunday, the three of them had means of getting home, each with a sense of having accomplished much, if not all they might have set out to do.

Weather on this ride is generally hit or miss. This year it was a home run. Gorgeous both days, and if it was a little chilly to start on Sunday, we were all prepared for it. Tailwind all the way down on Saturday, though that was a challenging headwind - stronger than forecast - on the way back on Sunday. Effective group riding on the way back on Sunday helped, and though I was perhaps a bit of weak link for a bit, I recovered well for the final push coming in.
Overall, my average speed for the two days was higher than for any past century, and higher than all but one of my training rides this year.

Now if we can just get through this busy month with a few more riding opportunities so as not to lose the progress I've made.

The forgiveness challenge

For years now it has been my belief, if never fully verbalized, that we don't truly understand forgiveness and grace until two things happen in our lives:

• We are hurt by someone we love deeply, even seemingly unforgivably, and truly forgive them for it
• We hurt someone deeply, even seemingly unforgivably, and receive forgiveness which we know we don't deserve
  

For me, the second was the real eye-opener. Being forgiven by others when it was otherwise impossible to forgive myself taught me what a gift true forgiveness really is. Most of us go through our lives mistaking true forgiveness for cost-benefit analysis. "You've hurt me," or "I've hurt you," and then we mentally go on, "but the overall balance of our relationship remains fairly even," or "the benefit of reconciling is greater than the cost of severing our relationship." Maybe that's largely true in our relationships with others, but it can never be so in our relationship with God. I don't think most of us understand true forgiveness until our need of forgiveness from others has been extensive.

The giving and receiving of forgiveness can get complicated by a few things. In the latter case, there is a difference between someone offering us forgiveness and us receiving it. Many of us never truly receive the love, forgiveness and reconciliation offered us. We often choose isolation over any real acknowledgement of our hurtful actions, which is a prerequisite to our acceptance of forgiveness. This probably could bear some expansion, but this will have to suffice for now.

On the other hand, forgiving someone else doesn't necessarily mean we should put ourselves in harm's way again, especially if they've taken no concrete steps toward fixing whatever it was in themselves that led them to hurt us.

Also, in my experience, at least, forgiveness is a process, not usually an instantaneous event. When I've been deeply hurt by someone, forgiving them doesn't mean I don't feel hurt or angry, at least right away. It does, however, mean that I never stop wanting the best for them. Not in some superficial way, rather I continue to desire for them a deep, abundant life in God. And over time, those feelings of betrayal and anger should diminish if I refuse to feed them by obsessively hanging onto them.

Neither does forgiving another mean they won't have to face the consequences of their actions. In extreme cases, there may be legal actions that really need to be taken; if so, I shouldn't seek to maximize them for the sake of retribution.

Another tough complication can arise when we don't learn about the hurt we've received until it is impossible to express forgiveness. In this case, the only thing we may be able to do is the underlying, heretofore unspoken requirement for receiving and giving forgiveness in other circumstances: we can pray for healing for the other.

I find myself in this boat for the present. I'm angry and hurt. It is literally impossible to reach out in any tangible way to the friend who utterly betrayed me by deeply hurting someone I love. Yet I have been forgiven much, and my desire is for this other to be forgiven, too. So I offer my prayer, asking God to do what I cannot: heal the one who has been wounded, heal me from my pain, heal the one who has hurt us so.

Da Vinci

A coworker has a list of quotations - about 3000 or so - that are cycled through each time you hit his homepage. In tribute to Poe, we refer to it as the "quote of the hit," or QOTH. Today, I saw this one, which led me to reflect for a moment, which is of course the reason he puts quotations on his page in the first place:

"People react to fear, not love—They don't teach that in Sunday School, but it's true."
—Leonardo da Vinci

Da Vinci was a genius, but he was only almost right on this. I will credit him with meaning something like this, though: "People's reactions to fear are more basic than their responses to love. As long as someone is afraid, it will inhibit their ability to receive and return love."

I believe that the chief reason that so many marriages fail to achieve their potential (well, relationships in general, but a marriage is supposed to reach the ideal) is that we never get beyond our behavioral issues to the underlying, unrecognized, and therefore unresolved, fears that produce these behaviors. These fears have deep roots which (often) long antedate the current relationship, and it takes a long time in a truly safe environment for a wounded person to feel secure enough to face them.

A relationship that becomes marked by insecurity just doesn't feel safe enough to provide that opportunity. Unfortunately, most marriages are on rocky ground before we realize we need outside resources to help us root out our longstanding issues. Ironically, it can be the presence of a secure relationship that initially provides a safe environment in which the wounded person begins acting out this latent fear, thereby eroding that security before they can get at their underlying issues.

Many people live in constant fear without recognizing it. For the longest time - in healthy retrospect, I realize it was for as far back as I can remember - I was one of them. I thank God that my wife was willing to love me through it all.

Good Friday thoughts

It has become a custom for me to spend at least an hour in prayer in the wee hours of Good Friday morning. The concept is that we are keeping watch with the Lord in Gethsemani, though we're not so presumptuous as to think ourselves any more successful at that than the apostles were. The Garden may have represented a time of crisis for them, but we usually find our personal crisis points somewhere other than our unitive and commemorative participation in the events of Holy Thursday night.

I marvel at the insights and blessings that arise out of this prayer time. Sometimes, I'm touched anew by things I know I've reflected on before: how marvelously Ps 95 (the invitatory psalm which may be used to start prayer virtually every day) applies to the context of Christ's passion ("harden not your hearts," indeed!); the sublime insight of St. John Chrysostom, who points out that the water and blood which flowed from Christ's side are the Baptism and Eucharist by which we become transformed in him; a fresh identification with Jesus' utter crushing (part of the meaning of Gethsemani, where the olives were crushed into oil) -- the One who deserved to be adored by all creation was willing to instead be crushed in our place.

Usually, newer insights accompany these. The last couple of days in the car during my (very short) commute, I've been listening to a talk by Fr. Robert Spitzer, president of Gonzaga University. I was there as he delivered this talk a couple years ago, in the course of which he spent some time discussing the practical application of Jesus' prayer, "Thy will be done." Of course, Jesus taught this in what we know as The Lord's Prayer, but then showed us its ultimate application in the Garden.

To what degree am I willing to truly submit: Father, Thy will be done? Will I trust that this really will be for the best? Isn't it usually only insofar as we can see the potential good, and are not too put out? If it means that we're likely to encounter consequences that intimidate us, or which might cause us to suffer loss or embarrassment or shame, we're not so good at living this out. When we know the right thing but fear implications which cow us into (what we rationalize as) pragmatism, it is much more challenging to trust God's will and providence rather than our own vision.

Today, I am given a gift I can never deserve, as my Savior gives his life in my place. I pray my response to my deliverance will be an ever deeper trusting in God, a willingness to truly and fully submit to God's will, especially when it is most challenging.

Some thoughts on the raising of Lazarus

What was going through the disciples’ heads? First, Jesus tells them that "this isn’t going to end in death." Then, two days later, he says, "Lazarus is dead." Surely that series of events must have shaken their faith in him? At least Thomas remained willing to rally his peers: "Let’s go die with him." It’s the kind of confidence that gets utterly crushed when one falls short. I think Thomas' subsequent doubt was rooted in his own perceived failure to see his resolve through to his own end. But he was ultimately restored, became a faithful leader in the early church, eventually fulfilling his earlier rash promise.

How about Martha? I love Martha; maybe it’s because I think we tend to have a lot in common with her. I know I do. Don’t we compare ourselves to those around us who aren’t measuring up to our standards of behavior, just as she judged her sister for not helping out? Now, here she is, on the one hand saying, "Yes Lord, I know my brother will rise in the resurrection on the last day," and affirming "I believe that you’re the Messiah, the very Son of God." But when it comes to actually trusting Jesus, she says, "Umm . . . but . . . but . . . , if you roll away that stone, it’s going to really STINK!" Aren’t we like that? "Yes, Lord, I believe," we say, but then, when the path before us heads in a direction we don’t want to go, or of which we’re afraid, we hem and haw and look for all the reasons we should choose our own way. "But . . . but . . . ," we stammer. Eventually we'll likely have to face what we're afraid of anyway, and the hurt can get a lot worse if we delay. We may find it easy to trust God to do what we want him to, but not trust him enough to agree to go where he is clearly leading us. We trust in our own judgment rather than God’s, when if we do what we know we ought to do, what God is waiting to empower us to do, our lives would be SO much better. Indeed, we would become the people we dare not hope to be.

I think this passage teaches us about obedience in another important way, too.

Suppose they hadn’t rolled away the stone?

When Christ delivers us from death, we owe it to ourselves to continue to follow his guidance, or we’ll experience further pain and death. Once I know I’ve been delivered, shouldn’t it become easier to obey God in every leading? Too often, it isn't.

In whom do we place our trust, really?

From The Seven Levels of Intimacy

I've stayed home sick yesterday and today with my worst cold in several years. Everything has an upside, though: I've rested a LOT, and have been able to read more than usual. Here are some quotes and reflections from Matthew Kelly's book, The Seven Levels of Intimacy:

"Revealing our feelings makes us vulnerable, but we endure risks in order to reap rewards. The reward of making ourselves vulnerable is mental health."

I'm struck by the simple truth of that statement. Trying to keep yourself safe all the time will literally drive you crazy! We need people in our lives with whom we can just be ourselves, can let our guard down to simply feel whatever it is we're feeling and express it appropriately. We cannot have true intimacy without this freedom.

"The genius of intimacy is that when we bring our dark side out into the light in the context of a loving relationship, our darkness loses its power over us. Darkness cannot abide the light of love. It is intimacy that will hold our hand and walk through the dark rooms of our past and present. It is intimacy that has the power to set us free from our faults, fears, and failures."

How true I have found this to be in my own life. Every close relationship I've ever experienced has involved the sharing of something deeply personal and painful, and in every case it has opened the door to intimacy. Unfortunately, that only brings the light of freedom to the degree that we can acknowledge the darkness' past power over us.

Now obviously in both of these ideas there is an underlying assumption. You can't just take someone off the street and decide that the two of you are going to be emotionally intimate. Obviously, to reach these levels of intimacy requires that a relationship has developed between people with similar goals which has allowed them to develop a sense of trust with one another. Not until our partner proves trustworthy in small matters can we entrust them with larger ones.

"There is a saying in Christian circles that every saint has a past and every sinner has a future."

I believe that most hypocrisy is the result of people being unwilling to face their own failings. If I've never received mercy -- even if it has been offered freely, if I've never wrapped myself in forgiveness and even come to embrace the role my failings have played in making me the person I am today -- then I'm unlikely to be be very accepting of myself. But (I think) it's psychologically impossible for us to live that way, so we project all of our self-judgment on those around us. Instead of striving to be the person we could be, we settle for being better than "them," as if we don't deserve any better than that.

And maybe we don't. Maybe we're all born with an inner awareness of the ugliness of sin, or if you prefer, with an inner hatred of how we hurt others. And it isn't until we have freely received mercy and forgiveness for our own failings that we can begin to accept others in spite of theirs.