Chase

"Every time I see your face,

My heart takes off on a high speed chase,

Don't be scared, it's only love that we're falling in,

I would never do you wrong,

Or let you down,

Or lead you on,

Don't look down, it's only love, baby that we're falling in"

While I was at home over spring break, there were a few things that became painfully clear to me. Some of them were simple things like, I don't think I can live at home with my parents for an extended period of time any longer, or that I still have a deep passion for youth ministry. Other things were a little bit more intense and in fact, they were down right scary. 

As much as my mind may be screaming for me to "re-think things" or "change my perceptions," the fact of the matter is that I can't deny my feelings any longer. It seemed that this girl took up so much of my "brain space." I would catch my mind wandering and thinking about how she was doing, or think about how difficult it was to not see her for this short break. For the first time in my life, as I considered all of the options that lie before me as I come closer to graduation, I was completely at peace with not going back to Phoenix. Not only that, but I had a desire to leave Phoenix and follow this girl wherever she may go. Am I crazy?  Possibly. Does the way my heart feels make sense? No, but when do things like this really make sense?

I was talking with Dana about all that was shooting through my mind over break, and she smiled and said to me simply, "You're crazy for this girl aren't you?" I guess it's true, the fact of the matter is that I'm going off of little to no gumption from her that pursuing her will lead to anything, but I can't just write everything off. When she looks at me, when I catch of glimpse of those eyes, my heart jumps into my throat and beats a million miles an hour, I feel like I stumble over my words, and I get so nervous. If I was to be completely honest and vulnerable with myself I'd have to admit to the fact that I just want to fall in love with this girl. What is the matter with me? This is the best, worst feeling I've ever had. 

The best things in life are worth fighting for right? I mean, what if I want to fight for this? I think that I owe it to both of us that I do... all that I want is to sweep her off her feet, completely. I want to fight for her love, I want to expend myself as far as I possibly can. What I do know for sure is that every time that I see her face, my heart just shoots off, I want to do whatever is within my power to win her love. Don't look down, just jump, trust that God's going to catch this.

Leading

"For God is leading Israel in joy

by the light of his glory,

with his mercy and justice for company."

 -Baruch 5:9

My old youth minister, Ike, is a large man with a deep joy that spills out into his fantastic, hardy laughs. Fr. Meinrad is a big priest that hums and jokes because of the excessive joy that flows through his life. Dr. B-W is an upbeat, loving man whose joy shines through his smiles. God has blessed me with many examples of how the joy of the Lord is key to living a fulfilling life.

What does it mean to lead your life following the joy of the Lord? God gives us so much to be joyful about, sometimes I just choose not to see it. The life of a Christian should be nothing more than a life of joy. The passage from Baruch says that God leads His people in joy by the light of His glory. His glory is the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit wishes to pour fourth His joy in abundance. What makes Ike, Fr. Meinrad and Dr. B-W so joyful? The movement of the Holy Spirit in their lives. There is something to be joyful about every moment of our existence. God's unceasing, immeasurable love is chocked into every instant of our lives. What does it mean to live in the joy of the Lord? It means allowing the reality of His love to permeate all that we are.

I'm also truly moved by the part of the verse that says that God's justice and mercy accompany the leading of the Lord's people. Studying grace and predestination has led me to despair at times, but this passage shows how God's justice and mercy are things to be joyful about, in the light of His Glory, the Holy Spirit. What it ultimately concerns is knowing that even if we don't completely understand the will of God, we can take hope in the fact that He does.

Ike lives his life by letting the joy of the Lord lead his way. Fr. Meinrad is always joyful because the Glory of the Lord fills every instant of his life. Dr. B-W delights in God because He trusts in His will and in His justice and mercy. My only prayer is that the Lord will lead my life in the way of joy, by the light of His Glory, with His justice and mercy as company.

Dawn

I won't fear the night,

Because You promised me the dawn,

Grace has taken me,

And I'm falling into Your arms,

Redemption wakens me,

And I rise from my sleep,

At last Your Glory shines in me,

Now my soul can live

I love Ike's song, "Falling Into You." I am just so moved by the simplicity and how profound it truly is. The very first lyrics, "I won't fear the night, because you promised me the dawn" sends shivers down my spine every time I listen to it. 

Things seem so dark sometimes, don't they? There are just instances in life, whether it be by our own choosing or by some other design that we just don't know what's going on. There are just times that I at least feel like I'm stumbling around in the dark. Right now, it seems like things are really confusing, I don't even understand my own heart and I can't make heads nor tails of my emotions. It is almost like I'm in a darkness, a darkness that limits my understanding and I think that more than anything else is what terrifies me. This feeling of not being in control and like I'm falling head over heels against my better judgment simply doesn't make sense to me. This darkness is here, it's ominous.

David, an awesome youth minister from my diocese had as his status the other day on facebook," God is faithful... even when we have no idea what He is up to." That alone comforts me as I face all this that lays before me. I ultimately need to let go and sometimes just trust. Trust, trust, trust! Jason said to me, and I always come back to this because I love the idea of it so much, "Sometimes you just have to jump and trust that God is going to catch you." I really feel like Ike's song touches on that very idea. The idea of falling into the grace of God alone, trusting in His presence and love. Even when things seem to be dark and confusing, there is nothing to fear because, ultimately, God has promised me the dawn. When His glory, His grace, fulfills every part of my soul, then I will truly be able to be alive.

That's the dawn.

Restless

See, I refuse to believe,

That my life's going to be,

Just some string of incomplete,

Never to lead me to anything remotely close to a home life,

Been holding out for a home life,

My whole life

There's an inexpressible part of my soul that's just unsatisfied right now. I want to be able to offer myself, unreservedly, to the love of my life. That is it, that's all I want, and it's hard when there's someone who is just so close and yet so far away. My heart cries out whenever I'm around her, and I get subtle little snippets that I read into probably way too much which make me think that she may be feeling the same way. I'm so hurting, just broken, I want so bad for my love life to have some semblance of sense to return. I cannot be satisfied with just accepting that all that I have to look forward to is a life of incomplete without leading me towards something like a "home life" like John Mayer talks about.

I was thinking about my good friend Johnny tonight, about the love that he has for his wife, for his son and it just made me swell up inside. Johnny has this picture of he and his wife at their wedding reception. They're dancing, and holding each other, his forehead pressed against hers. Johnny has this gigantic smile on his face, and she has this look on her face that's filled with joy and love. It's the most fantastic picture I've probably ever seen, and every time I look at it I begin to cry just a little bit, my heart just yearns so bad for that. All I want is a home life, a wife to come home to, children to love unreservedly. God has to have something in store, it just can't be any other way, He knows. I just want to be able to love, completely.

Premature

'Cause nothing's a breeze,

We suffer we bleed,

For two hearts to beat as one,

We learn as we go,

At least now we know,

Something we can't become

Become

Over the summer, I was a "Mute Math VIP" which essentially meant that I got priority access to the concert that upcoming fall and I also got to listen to their new album before it was released to the general public. When I first listened to the album, this song stuck out and really grabbed ahold of me. I think as with any good song, it only becomes more appreciated as it resonates with life's circumstances as they come your way. I feel like in an indirect way, this song is a reflection on my soul, and where my heart is.

The simple fact of the matter is this: my heart is scattered, beaten. It's like butter spread across too much bread, that's where my heart is at right now. These lyrics paint the picture of a couple that's tried so hard, exhausted everything within their power to work out issues and fight to continue to love each other, yet it just can't work, it just can't. My heart aches as I think about this circumstance because, as much as it would hurt and it would expend all that your heart had to offer, at least there was a chance, at least there was something to fight for. My circumstance, however, is quite different in that, I feel like an opportunity, something that may have been very good was taken, dashed, and ended prematurely.

There are days that I feel normal, at ease, satisfied with my state, my circumstance. There are other days that I think, "Whatever, I'm graduating soon, waiting for the shot-clock to reset." Still, there are other days that I look at her and I just want to do anything I can for her, something to make her see where my heart stands. It stands divided, aching, wondering, and ultimately dissatisfied. I can wrap my mind around the idea that nothing is easy, but what I can't handle is when I am ready, and willing, to pour myself whole-heartedly into pursuing something and it can't happen because of circumstances. It simply hurts when you're ready to offer yourself, to suffer, even to bleed to lead two hearts to beat as one, and circumstances do not allow for it. What do you do with that? How do you interpret all that happens as being part of God's Divinely ordained, loving plan when this simply hurts? Sometimes, I look her in the eyes, and she has to be able to read it, she has to be able to see where I'm coming from, but I can't do or say anything because it's not appropriate.

Then there are the confounding variables, if you will, that coincide with this curtailed expression of emotion. Sometimes it seems that my emotions are drawn elsewhere, to other potential loves. Sometimes I am bitter about being at Benedictine where the reality of dating like it should be seems like an intangible 'holy grail.' I get angry when I feel like I'm backed into a corner against my will, without my consent, like I'm being played like a puppet. I don't like to feel caged in, kept in a corner where I won't do any harm. There are times when I just feel like I need to smash the social norms and throw my inhibitions out the window and simply tell her, "I think I may be falling in love with you." Yet, here I sit, alone in my room, with nothing but my glass of water to keep me company and my thoughts to mull over.

What if I wanted to suffer, to bleed, 

to make two hearts beat as one?

Weight

"But the harder I try

The more clearly can I

Feel the depth of our fall

And the weight of it all

So this might, could be

The most impossible thing

Your grandness in me

Making me clean" 

-David Crowder

If there is one song that I would consider my "all time favorite" song, it would be "Wholly Yours" by David Crowder. More than anything it, I feel, categorizes my spiritual walk, all of it. The themes that arise from the song are a real gut-check if you seriously sit down and think about them, it's hard to just walk away from some of the lyrics. 

Tonight was one of those nights that it was hard to just "walk away" from these lyrics. I went to mass at St. Benedict's tonight. I decided to go a little earlier to get some prayer time in silence before mass started. As I was sitting in the pew, reflecting on the Psalms this portion of "Wholly Yours" came to mind in particular. I've been reading through St. Augustine for my senior seminar about grace, predestination and free will. Augustine was making me angry today because the more and more I read of him, the more and more I feel like Augustine makes God out to be this distant, impersonal deity that arbitrarily chooses who He will love. It made me angry, but on the flip side of Augustine's theology, it highlights something that I suppose is just hard for me to swallow. The entire underpinning of everything Augustine writes is to show how great God's grace is; so much so that we cannot merit it at all. This seems fairly straight forward, but as I was sitting waiting for mass to start tonight a sudden awareness overtook me: the harder I try to be holy, the more I see I cannot be holy. 

This is the gut-check, this is being made aware that I am "full of earth and dirt." Anything that is good within me does not flow from me at all, not even a little bit. The only goodness that I am capable of is that goodness which God helps me to achieve. Granted, my free will must consent to it, but above and beyond that, I am not the initiating factor here. God's grace is "everything that is bright and clean," as the song phrases it, but I think the most miraculous part about all of this is that the sanctifying grace which is offered to us is not some exterior puppeteering. The grace is internal, intimate, renewing us from within. He is holy, I am not, yet He is changing me piece by piece making me holy like He Himself is holy. How is it that this happens? Well, by becoming wholly His. This was all I could think of throughout mass, the incredible gift that grace truly is, and how undeserving we are. St. Jerome said once, "It is our part to seek, His to grant what we ask; ours to make a beginning, His to bring it to completion; ours to offer what we can, His to finish what we cannot." The more I strive after perfection, the more I see that it will never be mine on my own will and merits. This is the most impossible thing: that He Himself is bringing to completion in me the sanctity that He wishes to bestow. Man is the only creature that needs something outside of himself to complete himself, and God is beckoning to us all, He wants to make us holy, like He is. 

Trust

"He who loves, trusts."-Author Unknown

The funny thing about this post is: I started it over a year ago. I literally wrote the quote above "He who loves, trusts" in May of 2008. I read this and it still resonates with me, it still calls out to some corner of my soul and makes sense of it. Truly, this is a very beautiful quote, simple, and eloquent, like many things it reflects the nature of the Christian life, and God Himself to a certain extent. 

Paul George gave this talk at a Steubenville West conference a few years ago, and the imagery he used was so simple, but so eloquent, and so beautiful, again, like the quote above. He talked about how he loves sharing the gospel with the youth, but the hardest thing for him every single time he leaves home is having to say good-bye to his kids. Tears well up in his daughter's face and she always asks him, "Why do you have to go daddy?" The love she has for her father manifests itself in a very simple, beautiful way. He continued on and told us all about how when he comes home, he pulls into his garage and has to walk up an old, rickety flight of stairs. His daughter always hear him as he takes that first step, and by the time he's a few steps from the top, she flings the door of the house open and leaps from the landing into her daddy's awaiting arms. That story has always stuck with me, it penetrated a part of me that I've always been guarded about letting other people know: how much I want to be a father and have a daughter. Ultimately, it is an example of a beautiful, simple, eloquent expression of love, and in turn, of trust.

The image of Paul's daughter leaping into his awaiting arms shows such a great trust that she has for her daddy. He didn't say that she checked to see if he was ready, he didn't say that she paused at the top of the stair and waited for him to walk up a few more steps. She wrenched the door open, violently, and threw herself into the arms of her father, the father who's love is so trustworthy. She knew every time she leapt that her daddy would catch her, she didn't care that the stairs themselves were creaky and prone to breaking, nor did she stop to think about whether or not her daddy was going to catch her, she just trusted and leapt.

Once upon a time, I was talking with Jason Pastore. We were having a discussion about many things, in particular, how difficult it is to trust in what God's will is, and how hard it can be some time to discern what God's asking. He said, "John, sometimes you just have to jump and trust that God will catch you." How true, how simple, how beautiful. This leads me back to the quote above. As a senior in college, many of my class mates are beginning to stress out, over analyze everything, and question what they're going to do with their lives. The closer and closer I come to graduation, the more and more that I've come to realize that now, more than ever, I just need to love on God. If our love of God could only be like the love between Paul and his daughter. This unbreakable, deep, affectionate love manifests itself throughout day-to-day life for the George family. When was the last time that we could say that our love for God manifested itself throughout our day-to-day life? When was the last time that we simply jumped and trusted that God would catch us? He who loves, trusts. Beautiful.