Waste

How often is it that we just think that we "waste time?" I was thinking about this a lot yesterday, let me lay out my day. I woke up at 7:30 am to a phone call from my friend Sarah, I had plans to go out to Longmont, Colorado (which is an hour away from Littleton, where I'm staying currently) for breakfast with her and our other friend Emily. When I was talking with Sarah about setting up a time for us to all get together she asked me, "Does it matter when we meet?" and I explained to her, "No, not really, because, I just need to waste time that day until Ryan comes home from work." At the time, I didn't really think too much about the phrase, "waste time." I went out to Longmont to meet Sarah and Emily for breakfast. It was a nice drive out there, and during that drive I was thinking to myself, "Can I really consider this hour long drive as a waste of time?" The more I thought about it, the more that I began to come to the conclusion that, "No, I cannot." This was where my thoughts became entangled with the idea of "wasting time."

At any rate, I got to the restaurant and had a good time with the ladies, then I went to a local car dealership and spent like an hour there just test-driving cars and acting as if I was actually going to buy one (ha ha, so much fun). After that excursion, I found myself a Borders and just went and looked at books for like the next hour and a half to two hours, when I finally decided upon which book I wanted to buy, I left the bookstore and had a 30 minute conversation with my good friend Amy from high school. I got myself some lunch, and found a nice place to just sit and read some more of the book I had just purchased. The whole entire time that I was just slowing down and enjoying the day I thought to myself, "It's okay, I've got time." So my thoughts began to grow even more on this idea of "wasting time."

What I was eventually forced to ask myself was this: is there really such a thing as wasting time? I mean, every moment in time is driving us towards something, towards an ultimate end. Just like my hour long drive from Littleton to Longmont wasn't a waste of time because it had a purpose, it had an end, so it is with the rest of our lives really. Moments in time carry these rich experiences and they all point us towards something. Even those moments that we think are just huge wastes of time are important and invaluable, you just need to look at it in a different light. You're stuck in a traffic jam on your way to an important meeting, is this a waste of time? or is this just an opportunity to grow in patience? You take a wrong turn and find yourself in the mountains when you're trying to get to your friend's house, is this a waste of time? or is this a way to teach you to plan ahead and actually read directions more carefully? Simply because we have these experiences they help to make up who we are, every moment is an instance to move one step closer towards becoming the person we want to be. There's this song that I absolutely love, and some of the lyrics go like this:

Stand where you are,
We let all these moments pass us by.

Maybe if we step back and just stand where we are, we'd really come to understand that these moments that we take for granted as a "waste of time" are the pieces of our lives that make us who we are. I don't want those moments to pass me by anymore...I want to live for the moment and get caught up in the glory of the fact that God's grace is reaching me and is changing me and bringing me closer to Him with each passing moment.

Change

"Change me, Lord, and I will change my world."

I stand before the beginning of a summer that I know is just going to rock me to the core. Totus Tuus is just going to be such an awesome experience but the fact of the matter is, I'm scared. I know that a lot of my ways of viewing the Church are just going to be completely annihilated, I'm not in the safe "Benedictine Bubble" or even the safer "Life Teen circle." I'm just going to be changed so much and I know that that is what's taking away all of my sense of control, because I have none, this change is coming on quick and there is absolutely nothing that I can do about it at all. As much as this is a scary prospect and I'm not excited about being away from family and friends at home until the end of July, I know that God's going to do good things with me through this experience. What lies ahead? I have no idea, but, what I do know is that if God changes me, then, I will be His instrument to change the world.

Cinderella

She spins and she sways
To whatever song plays
Without a care in the world
And I'm sitting here wearing
The weight of the world on my shoulders

It's been a long day
And there's still work to do
She's pulling at me
Saying "Dad, I need you

There's a ball at the castle
And I've been invited
And I need to practice my dancing
Oh, please, Daddy, please?"

So I will dance with Cinderella
While she is here in my arms
'Cause I know something the prince never knew
Oh, I will dance with Cinderella
I don't want to miss even one song
'Cause all too soon the clock will strike midnight
And she'll be gone...

She says he's a nice guy and I'd be impressed
She wants to know if I approve of the dress
She says, "Dad, the prom is just one week away
And I need to practice my dancing
Oh, please, Daddy, please?"

So I will dance with Cinderella
While she is here in my arms
'Cause I know something the prince never knew
Oh, I will dance with Cinderella
I don't want to miss even one song
'Cause all too soon the clock will strike midnight
And she'll be gone

She will be gone

Well, she came home today with a ring on her hand
Just glowing and telling us all they had planned
She says, "Dad, the wedding's still six months away
But I need to practice my dancing
Oh, please, Daddy, please?"

So I will dance with Cinderella
While she is here in my arms
'Cause I know something the prince never knew
Oh, I will dance with Cinderella
I don't want to miss even one song
'Cause all too soon the clock will strike midnight
And she'll be gone

I've said for the longest time, "I only want to have boys, I just don't want to have girls when I'm a father, because, I would be that overbearing, ridiculous father that brandishes the shot-gun whenever a boy comes to the house." While the second part is still very much true, I will be that overbearing ridiculous father, I think I may be re-thinking the first part. I turned on the radio today while I was moving my car to keep packing up the last minute things (fun, fun, fun) this song came on. I was automatically caught up in this song and it even choked me up a little bit.

There was one time I was talking with my grandmother and she asked me, "What do you want to have when you're married and have children." This kind of took me off guard, but I responded honestly to my grandmother, "Grandma, I just want boys, I don't want to deal with girls, they'd be too much for me to handle." She just looked over at me and responded, "You would be blessed to have girls." And while at the time I just remained silent and disagreed with my grandmother, something just kinda clicked today. This incredible song by Steven Curtis Chapman just really hit a part of me that I wasn't even aware of...

I just want to have a baby girl. I want to hold her and smile at her and just look into her eyes and just know that someday some boy will be lucky enough to have her, but he will never love her as much as I will. I want to be able to dance with a baby girl and just let her tiny hand wrap itself around my fingers, I want to sing over her, I want to be the father that she will want and need and love more than anything else in the world. I want her to be a daddy's girl. I just want to giggle with her. I want to never pass up on an opportunity to remind her how beautiful she is and tell her how much her daddy loves her... I want it so bad.

December

This is my December
This is my time of the year
This is my December
This is all so clear
This is my December
This is my snow covered home
This is my December
This is me alone

And I,
Just wish that I didn't feel
Like there was something I missed
And I,
Take back all the things I said
To make you feel like that
And I,
Just wish that I didn't feel
Like there was something I missed
And I,
Take back all the things that I said to you

And I'd give it all away
Just to have somewhere to go to
Give it all away
To have someone to come home to

This is my December
These are my snow covered trees
This is me pretending
This is all I need

And I,
Just wish that I didn't feel
Like there was something I missed
And I,
Take back all the things I said
To make you feel like that
And I,
Just wish that I didn't feel
Like there was something I missed
And I,
Take back all the things that I said to you

And I'd give it all away
Just to have somewhere to go to
Give it all away
To have someone to come home to

This song has a haunting tone to it. If you hear it once, it sucks you in and it holds you suspended in this state of wondering. I think to a certain extent it just cuts the the core of what a lot of people just want, a place to go home to, yes, but even deeper than that someone to come home to. I mean, what is a home? It's more than the four walls that make a room, more than a roof over your head. You can come back to a house, but if the people there are essentially non-existent to you, or if you are essentially non-existent to them, what's even the point?

If you come "home" to a house that is cold and lonely, where you are alienated from the rest of the world around you, it might as well be December, because, the world just seems cold in that circumstance. Ever ounce of us just wants someone to come home to, that is all. St. Anthony of Padua said, "Everyone longs to give themselves completely to someone, to have a deep soul relationship with another." Isn't that the truth? The song has it right when it says, "I'd give it all away just to have someone to come home to." Fame, power, money all if it means absolutely nothing without that someone to come home to. As much as we may try to deny it and fight it, deep down, it's what our souls long for. Yet, here I am, this is my December.

Articulate

A sudden sensation has overrun my consciousness. There's this urge deep within me to simply write about this sensation that words just seem to be unable to articulate. It's the sensation of coming home to your best friends who have been anxiously waiting for you, it's the sensation of a warm bed to climb into and fall asleep in, it's the sensation of a difficult good-bye, it's the sensation of being exhilarated by the mere phone call or text from the person who's captured your heart, it's the sensation of drinking a warm cup of coffee with a close friend, it's the sensation of having your heart shattered, it's the sensation of discovering your secret passion that no one else will ever know about, it's the sensation of the loss of a loved one, it's the sensation of a cool glass of lemonade on a hot summer day, it's the sensation of crying on the shoulder of your best friend, it's the sensation of getting into the college you wanted to get into, it's the sensation of being aware of everything around you and nothing at all... it's the sensation of falling face down in wonder and awe at all God has done.

Intensification

"Whether or not you claim to be interested in it, from the moment you are alive you are bound to be concerned with love, because love is not just something that happens to you: it is a certain special way of being alive. Love is, in fact, an intensification of life, a completeness, a fullness, a wholeness of life...We will never be fully real until we let ourselves fall in love–either with another human person or with God." –Thomas Merton "Love and Living"

We are intimately correlated with love, no matter how much we ignore it, or try to avoid it, or talk about how "love is pointless." As much as it may hurt, we really cannot claim to be human or even alive for that matter, unless we give in and allow ourselves to be consumed by this reality that is love. C.S. Lewis said once, "Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to keep it intact, you must give your heart to no one... avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket of your selfishness. But in that casket - safe, dark, motionless, airless - it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable... The only place outside heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers of love... is hell."

I very often fall into the temptation to lock my heart away and not let anyone in. It's safer there, I know that I won't break my own heart, so if I just keep it to myself and not allow anyone else in or put any love out, then everything will be safe. What is that though? I mean, Merton hits the nail on the head when he talks about how we will never be fully real until we let ourselves fall in love. Falling in love implies such a strange concept, no one ever intentionally falls, we like to stand up straight and walk as confidently as possible, falling just makes us look silly. When you trip and fall, you lose control of everything and it, literally, knocks you on your butt, falling in love is the same way. We lose control of it all, we're knocked flat on our butts, but, is it really all that bad? There's a surrender and a joy that comes along with falling in love and allowing that to happen, when we cut ourselves off from that possibility, whether it be in the context of a romantic relationship or not, we miss out on what life is all about.

Love is the intensification of life, I really like that idea a lot. Jesus says in John 10:10, "I came that they might have life and have it more abundantly." How do we have more abundantly? Through love. How fitting! The Son of God, the Creator of the entire universe stepped off the throne into the confines of time and space to give us life through love... through love! Did love hurt Him? Did it cause Him pain? Yes, in the most tangible way possible, "No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends." –John 15:13. He showed us the way to intensify our lives, and to have it more abundantly. Will we take up the call? Will we love, despite the heartaches that are bound to happen? I want to live my life to the fullest, I want to love and not be afraid of the consequences. Amen.

Empty

"We accept our emptying because we realize that our very emptiness is fulfillment and plenitude. In our emptiness the One Word is clearly spoken. It says, "I will never let go of you or desert you" (Hebrews 13:5), for I am your God, I am Love." -Thomas Merton, "Love and Living"

The idea of emptying has been on my mind and heart these past few days. It seems as if I'm being stripped of everything. I mean, my ministry seems to have been snatched from me, I'm going to be separated from my best friend in the fall, heck, even the classes I'm supposed to be in seem to have been falling through. Why is this all happening to me? I think it's just that God is emptying me. In and through the emptiness, that is when God's Word can be spoken through me. When He empties us, and takes away all of those things that we hold onto so tightly, that's when His message of Love can truly be spread, without our own influences. What sounds better? "I love you through my own depraved nature" or "I love you through God, because, He's all I really have?"

St. Paul talks about being emptied in his letter to the Philippians when he said, "But, even if I am poured out as a libation upon the sacrificial service of your faith, I rejoice and share my joy with all of you." (Philippians 2:17) Being poured out is a good thing here. Being made empty is what is necessary because, I can do nothing on my own, however, "I have the strength for everything through him who empowers me." (Philippians 4:13). It's this paradox, in our weakness there is strength, in our foolishness there is wisdom, and even in our emptiness, there is fulfillment.

"Rather, God chose the foolish of the world to shame the wise, and God chose the weak of the world to shame the strong, and God chose the lowly and despised of the world, those who count for nothing, to reduce to nothing those who are something so that no human being might boast before God." (1 Corinthians 1:27-28)

This emptying is so that there might be no pride in me. Pride is the antithesis of love. How can I love if I'm too busy making an altar for myself? How can I see the goodness of God in others if I only see the falsified goodness within myself? Being made empty for the sake of love, that's what's going on, that's what He's doing in me right now. The pride needed to be taken away, for what end and purpose I still do not know yet. Father, I don't understand You, but I trust you.