The Little Way

I’m back.

I know, I know – I said that six months ago, in my last post. But this time, I mean it.

I feel the need to confess the reasons (however invalid) for my blogging absence. This way, I’ve got them out in the open. And once expressed, they’ll have expired, and I won’t have access to them any longer.

One: I’ve been busy. Or perhaps I’ve just felt busy. I call it the tyranny of the monotony.  Just the everyday stuff of life which seems to suck up each day: working, grocery shopping, cooking, cleaning. Sounds ridiculous, really, when I verbalize it like this, but it’s the truth. I often don’t feel as if I have the time, or at least the mental energy, to put into my writing.

Two: I’m been afraid. There have actually been dozens of posts that have popped into my head throughout the past few months. Thousands of thoughts that I’ve wanted to share with you. But I’ve been afraid to write them. Afraid that what I had to say was too personal, too elementary, or just too irrelevant. The perfectionist in me wanted my writing to succeed – whatever that means.

Three: I’ve been aimless. For reasons I’ll explain in forthcoming posts, the past year of my life has felt very topsy turvy. I had a very different idea of how it was going to go, versus how it turned out. The turmoil has forced me to refocus, and to rediscover the true source of my own joy and fulfillment.

This past summer, I took advantage of several opportunities in an effort to commit to this rediscovery process.

The first was a high-end aptitudes test which I underwent in June. It wasn’t a personality test. But rather, a test of my natural skills and “aptitudes,” things that I was born with, which come easy to me, and won’t really change much over the course of my life. The results weren’t all that surprising to me. But one of my favorites was the discovery that I’m off-the-charts, 99& percentile-plus in an aptitude called “Idea-phoria.” [My family members love this term, by the way!].

People high in “idea-phoria” experience the rapid flow of ideas – constantly. And so, for someone like me, with such high levels, it means that I am thinking all….the….time. My thoughts aren’t necessarily fluid – or logical. But nevertheless, my mind is constantly racing.

The second opportunity was a “spiritual” gifts test. As Christians, we believe that God created each of us with special gifts, meant to help us in building the Kingdom of God and loving each other, in the same way that he loves us. I haven’t analyzed these results in as much depth as the aptitudes test, but I do know that my greatest “spiritual” gift is a sense of compassion (second and third were the spiritual gifts of giving and serving.)

And finally, the third opportunity has been a life-coaching series called “BASICS.” Basics is a simple, professional development program created by my  friend (and respected businessman) Bill Roth. About twice a month, I meet Bill for coffee, over which we discuss the “basics” of not only a successful and fulfilling career, but of a life lived to the fullest. The discussions are all about my dreams – and any of the reasons why I haven’t yet pursued them.

And with that, I come back to my ultimate reason for this post: I love to write. It brings me joy. It is the perfect outlet for my “idea-phoria”-ridden brain. If it seems I am too busy, it means that I have not made my writing a priority; moving forward, I plan to be purposeful. If I am afraid, so what. I would rather proceed and fail, than to fear and always wonder what could have been.

As I sat down to write this first daunting post, the only remaining question was: “What do I write about?!” What could I say that hasn’t already been said before? Everything seemed so trivial, so little….

At this moment, the “Little Way” of Saint Therese of Lisieux popped into my head. You see, Saint Therese did not believe that she could ever achieve saintliness. She was simply overwhelmed by the caliber of saints who had gone before her. So, instead,  she decided that she would pursue each day with baby steps; she would approach every seemingly small, insignificant moment, with as much joy, love and humility as she could muster. One step at a time. She is now considered one of great “doctors” of the Catholic Church.

This past year especially, I have felt an increasingly strong devotion to Saint Therese. I am drawn to her simplicity, not only in the way she prayed, but in the way she approached life in general. I look forward to touching upon her more deeply in my future writings.

I’ve decided that I’d like to dedicate my blog efforts to her, for two reasons.

One, I think her “little way” is way in which I should approach my writing goals. Simple steps, baby steps, each inherent with a humble hope for greatness.

And two, because it is the “little” moments in my seemingly insignificant life which have taught me my greatest lessons. They are the little things that I wish to share; they are the gems that continue to enrich my life, and I hope, will begin to also enrich your own.

 

Following the North Star

I realize that this is my first post in months – nearly a year in fact. And so it’s understandable that this resurrection post is quite intimidating for me. But I’m diving in nevertheless. Let’s just say that I have allowed the busyness of work, home, travel and other well-intentioned-but-misguided-first priorities push this fragile little passion to the bottom of my list.

It is Christmas evening. My husband and I have spent the past few days with his parents and his sister’s family, including their three children – now my own nieces and nephew. And as I have spent the day basking in the very simplest of joys, I am overwhelmed with gratitude and overcome with excitement for the new year to come.

It’s gonna take a few more posts for me to find my novelist’s voice again. And so for the time being, I want to list on this Christmas day just a few of the many things I’m thankful for:

• For my faith. It’s true that our relationship with God is felt more strongly at certain times in our lives than others. And so I’m always grateful for moments like the one last night, when I experienced such a beautiful moment of simple yet achingly powerful love for my Lord. The simple, unassuming love of the Christ child. It gets me every time, reminding me that my faith in Him doesn’t have to be complicated. It only has to be.
• For my husband. As I woke up next to him this morning, all I could think was, “I’m so lucky…how’d I get so lucky??”
• For a child-like Christmas morning. I woke up in the early morning hours, heart pumping with excitement – not in anticipation of my own presents, but because I couldn’t wait to see the face of my mother and father in-law, as they woke up to discover their huge surprise Christmas present from Santa (aka, James and I).  I haven’t experienced such excitement for the surprise of Christmas morning since my own childhood. And fyi, it was awesome. They were speechless.
• For the easy love that I feel for my husband’s family. It’s like they were always my family – teasing, joking, laughing, hugging and celebrating. The whole kit and kaboodle.
• For the beauty of Washington trails. For the first time in months, I rediscovered my love for running thanks to the moss-covered trails through a misty evergreen forest .
• For my neices and nephews. Is there anyone who can make you feel more loved than a child?? I am now AUNT Tracy and I love it. At any moment, I am the perfect lap for cuddling, hugs and kisses. For no other reason than just to say it, my niece simply taps my shoulder at the dinner table just to say ”I love you, Aunt Tracy.” I am the first one called into the bedroom to give bedtime snuggles. And phone calls from my other three nieces, incoming tomorrow, just to tell me how much they love me and how excited they are to see me.

The cover of book The North Star by Peter H. Reynolds

Now some of you might wonder, what’s with the title of this post? The North Star by Peter Reynolds is the story of  a little boy on a journey. The message is simple, “Ask yourself where it is you want to go…and follow the star that leads you there.” And in asking myself that very question, many “places” immediately entered my mind. But one of the simpler thoughts was, “I want to write,” and so, on this beautiful Christmas evening, I paused and looked up to my North Star. And it lead me here, to share my thoughts with you.

“Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night…” ~Clement C. Moore

Why give it up?

Every year around this time – Ash Wednesday and the first few days of Lent that follow – you hear people asking the questions, “What should I give up for Lent?” and “What should I do for Lent.” Interestingly enough, I’ve also come across more than a few instances where people who haven’t practiced their Catholic faith in years, are either finally ditching the practice of “giving something up” (the tradition had stuck with them, even if their faith did not), or are still wondering what they should give up, despite their decision to leave the Catholic Church.

Just as an aside…I always give up chocolate. Every year. By default. I give up something else in addition to chocolate, or do something in addition to giving it up. But chocolate, in general is my passion. It never gets easier to give it up. So that’s what I do. Among other things…

But here’s my question. Why give it up? Why invite suffering? Why go looking for it? WHY should I give up chocolate? My pillow? Hot showers? (and yes, I knew someone who gave up each of these things for a Lenten season!) The concept of suffering always has trouble clicking with me.

Now, I think I’ve had this revelation before, at some point in my life. I’m always amazed at how we can have the same revelation or learn the same lesson over and over again, at various points in our lives, yet still experience the same wonderful – or perhaps different but equally wonderful? – effect.

My latest revelation goes a little something like this:

“Why am I doing this?,” I ask.
“For Jesus,” says the good little Catholic girl.
“Who is this Jesus?,” she asks
“Hmmm….I’m not quite sure. Well, if I’m doing this for Jesus, then I guess I should know who He is.”

And right then and there, she starts to pray.

And pretty soon, she’s praying every time she wants chocolate, or her pillow, or her hot shower. And as she prays, she begins to learn a little more about this Jesus.

And she soon discovers just how amazing He is. And that he’s one hundred times better than chocolate, or a pillow, or a hot shower. And that knowing him makes her ten times the better person than she ever was when she ate chocolate instead of talking to him, or enjoyed her pillow instead of talking to him, or took her hot shower, instead of talking to him.

Why give it up? In short, for Him!

The power of a praying wife

Making prayer a daily priority has never been easy for me. In general, I don’t think prayer is easy for anyone. You have to be silent when you want to be moving, or sleeping, or doing anything else besides submitting yourself to something greater than you are.

With all that said, I am 100% positive that the more we pray, the better person we become: for ourselves, for our spouses, our family members and for the world around us. Our resistance to prayer is born of that age-old sin – the root of all evil – Pride. We convince ourselves that we can be God, without God.

The ironic thing about pride, is that the only way to get rid of it, is to pray. To be humble. To do the exact opposite of what you want to do. It’s no wonder we put off prayer – for days, weeks, months, years, even for a lifetime. But there comes a point when you think to yourself (even if it’s somewhere deep inside, something of which we might only be barely conscious), “I don’t like who I’m becoming!”

Several months into my marriage, I was feeling particularly overwhelmed by my actions towards my husband. I would stomp out the door, when the only thing I wanted to do was stay and be close to him. Or I’d throw a silent treatment, for as long as I needed to, to get my way. Or I’d pull away from him, when the absolute only thing I wanted was to let him hold me. Yes, I’m embarrassed to say that I definitely do all of these things, more often than I want to admit. Why? I’m sure there are various little reasons, from superficial ones to deep-seeded ones, but as I’ve reflected on each of them, I’ve always come back to that pesky root: pride. I want it to be about me – and nobody else.

I knew that prayer was the answer long before I actually acted upon it. I knew that I, personally, needed to pray in the morning, before my day got started. If I waited till evening, I’d find something – anything – to distract me. So, early AM it was. But that meant waking up earlier. And leaving my husband to sleep another few blissful hours while I got up. YUCK.

But in the end, I decided to do it. Do you know the true meaning of “Decide“? It means “of death.” In making a decision – a choice – we choose to “kill” the thing that we do not choose.

In this case, I decided to pray. And I subsequently killed an extra hour of sleep in my life. I’m not going to lie – it’s tough most mornings. I play a sick little game with my alarm’s snooze button, and I can almost hear Jesus shaking my shoulder to get up, like I’m sure my future children will do years from now.

But when I truly reflected on this “decision,” I realized something. I could either kill sleep, or I could, in a sense, commit a seemingly insignificant yet very real “murder” in my marriage. If was convinced that prayer was the only way to heal me of my pride, and if I knew realistically that prayer was only going to happen in the mornings, then deciding against prayer was a decision for pride, something that I could already see was going to wreak havoc on my husband and I. Remembering this profound little realization has gotten me up many times.

And so, here I am, a few weeks into a weekday morning prayer routine. I’m still growing in it, and I’ve failed more than a few times. But I’ve developed just enough of a track record, that I’m seeing the results. And man ‘o man, are they beautiful. They are different for each person – and yet all the same in one way: they are perfectly formed to the needs of your heart, and your heart alone, and answered by a Creator who is Love Himself.

Here’s the final irony of destroying pride. When you truly give it up, only then do you experience the greatest freedom, beauty and peace of your life.

Rewards born of vulnerability

Angela & Andy blow out their candles back in 2008

Sister Servant of the Cross’ birthday was this past Wednesday, February 3. She shares the day with her twin brother, Andy.

Because it’s difficult to send either of them birthday “packages” – Andy is on the military base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and Sister is embracing a life purified of material things, I decided the best gift I could give to each of them was a long, heartfelt letter.

There’s a certain freedom you experience when you’re “forced” to give a gift that you might not have given if you hadn’t been forced not to give a store-bought gift.

Particularly in regards to my bro, I was feeling a little vulnerable, writing this “pour my heart out” letter. He and I have never been entirely comfortable with heart-felt conversation. But, by the time I had finished writing my letters, I felt….REAL.

It made me realize how rewarding it is when we overcome our fears of vulnerability, even with the people we love the most, and thus experience a little slice of “real” life – one that isn’t littered with material “fillers” and presentable “masks.” One that just plain admits: this is me, this is what I struggle with, this is what I love about you and what I hope for our futures!

Try it. You’ll be surprised.