Flower

These past few weeks have been terrible. My soul was so broken leaving the people I love so much back in Kansas City. I hit a wall after having such an incredible experience of being around a community that I feel so genuinely accepted by, people that I would do anything for, and I know they would do anything for me as well. The scenery was green, the leaves on the trees shifted gently as the soft blow of the wind breezed through them, I sat and talked and joked with the people who have come to capture my heart, their friendships have made me a better person. All of these incredible, small experiences lifted me up, I felt rejuvenated and refreshed. Then, I got on that plane, and I flew back to the desert.

I looked around and the reality of it all began to sink in. I was back in a place where spiritually and emotionally I've been dry. I hit a wall, in those first few moments of being back here I would have traded anything to simply go and turn right back around, to go back to that place of true love and acceptance which, often times, I feel like I've truly been lacking here. Yet, here I am, in the desert, quite literally. My soul just yearned to be surrounded by those people who mean so much to me.

In the difficulty and craziness of the past few weeks: the brokenness of my heart, the business of ministering and planning, have just quite simply left me feeling dry. There are times that I sit and stare blankly around my apartment and think to myself, "I feel so alone." Especially romantically, I've never felt so hopeless, so stranded, so broken. Last Wednesday was an especially hard day for me, I just wanted everything to stop, I wanted to reverse whatever crazy path that I've found myself on, and I caught myself asking God, "Are you sure You put the right person here?" After that especially difficult night, I called one of my brothers and I simply said to him, "I just don't know any more." He responded saying, "Dude, I don't know if New Mexico is the right place for you, you just need to move up to Denver, be surrounded by good community again. These past few months, I have noticed a distinct lack of joy in your voice, and I think you need to take a serious inventory about being there, I don't think that New Mexico is ultimately the place that God wants for you to stay permanently." In that moment, it just hit me, the thing that I was lacking: true sense of community and belonging. I catch glimpses of it here and there: with my co-worker, with some friends that I've made here, but ultimately, community just doesn't permeate my life here.

So, these past few weeks have been difficult, and in all of the questioning and internal debate, one of my brothers, Omair, shared this song with me. As I watched this song with the translation of the lyrics, the sheer beauty of it all overtook me. The lyrics just hit my soul where I was at and truly permeated my entire being. They resonated with me in a way that music hasn't in a long time. It was almost as if God Himself was speaking to me through this song. The translation (I'm taking some liberties here) goes roughly like this:

In a desert, once, on a hunt I found

A flower so fair with a radiant smile

Sadly I approached it and sighed,

"Ah! You are one just like me

A hapless flower from a beloved's hair

Frail fingers won't take you

To a soft face so close

Nor will you be kissed by lips

So delicate like a rose."

With a silent smile the flower replied:

"Don't lose heart."

With a silent smile the flower replied:

"Don't lose heart.

This desert I wouldn't give up

For the gardens of Iran,

Here I stand alone,

While legions like me are there.

Amidst this cursed soil I stand apart,

In this gray desert I am a flame of Divine light,

I'm beauty's silent song, a miracle from the sky.

In your garden there are thousands of flowers,

Just like me."

"In your garden there are thousands of flowers,

Just like me."

"Amidst this cursed soil I stand apart

In this gray desert I am a flame of Divine light

I'm beauty's silent song, a miracle from the sky.

In your garden there are thousands of flowers,

Just like me,

A nameless droplet in a nameless sea

Don't feel lonely in your desert,

To behold you at last will be a sore Ghani Khan"

The flower stood alone in the desert, the man approached it saying, "I know just how you feel, I'm alone too, I'll never be loved, you'll never feel love's tender kiss, just like me. You are alone." The flower responded not by wallowing in despair like the man, but changed the perception of the circumstances, "Here, alone, I stand apart, I am different and by the very nature of the fact that I am alone out here in this cursed land, I am a bearer of the Divine flame." Talk about a gut-check. As of late I've felt like that lone flower in the midst of a vast desert, surrounded by only death and dying of the soil around me. I think of my friends out here who (generally) seem to have someone else beside them, to love them. Yet I stand alone. I think about my friends in Kansas City and Denver that have strong community there, that have people to simply be around and be surrounded by. More often than not I am alone. I could take the view of the man when gazing upon the flower and say, "You'll always be alone, just like me." Yet, I could take the view of the flower, "I wouldn't trade this desert for the gardens of Iran, there are thousands of flowers just like me, here I stand apart." Consider this: the flower's being alone is it's true beauty. Amidst a sea of flowers, it does not stand apart, it cannot bring about anything spectacular, but there, alone, in the desert it has that ability. The flower can inspire, can glorify and magnify how great our God is simply by the very fact that it is alone.

That was the click for me. That was when everything made sense. I am like that flower in the desert, alone, cast off and surrounded by the cursed soil of the desert. This is my means of glorifying God. I can either wallow in seclusion and begin to doubt every little thing that happens here, or I can praise and thank God for where He has placed me, realizing that even if I do feel alone for now, I have that opportunity to magnify and glorify His name in my loneliness. Here I can be that testament to the Divine light, I can be beauty's silent song. He has placed me here, like a flower in the desert, and I wouldn't trade it for the gardens of Denver or Kansas City.

Limitless

Tonight I went to go pray in St. Benedict's adoration chapel, the place where so many nights of my collegiate career were spent, the place where I truly began to understand the depths of Who God is and realize that I'll never fully know all of Who He is. I have a very mechanized view of God sometimes, like He's some almighty gum-ball machine. I put in "good things" I say "prayers" and I expect Him to respond in a very specific way, and when He doesn't do it, I get angry and feel deprived. There are times that I just want things to work out in a very linear fashion, I come to God and I have a laundry list of things that I want/need, "Take care of _____ first, then after that happens ______ and finally wrap it all up with _______, thanks God." Something that came to me as I was praying tonight was simply this, "Do not limit Me, seek only the greatest things and I will answer them." How many times when we come to the Lord with our laundry list of things for Him to accomplish are we really and truly limiting Him and all that He does? We're subliminally saying, "I know what's best, and You need to settle in here to follow things my way." What? Where does that even remotely make sense? Have any of us ever really stopped and considered the reality that God wants what's best for us? He doesn't want to settle for the small things that we anticipate will make us truly happy, He'll forego those things and bring us to even greater love, greater holiness and greater happiness. Don't limit Him, seek only His will, He'll answer that desire.

Gone

I've been listening to a lot of Ray LaMontagne recently, there's something about his music that is just soothing to my soul and seems to breathe fresh life into me. I've had my ups and downs these past few months, and quite honestly I am rather angry with myself for not getting over things like I want to. As much as she hurt me, as much as she freaking took my heart and shoved it into the dirt, there is still a very real, very palpable portion of my being that simply wants to win her heart. What in the world is the matter with me? Why is it that I still toss and turn at night with thoughts of her haunting my consciousness? Why do I want to just scream over and over again until I can't even speak anymore? Is it wrong that I just want to cry my eyes out until they've dried up? What was so different about her that continues to bind my thoughts? I heard this song, I know this is so wrong, but this is so real, and I thought of all those things she told me she has a hard time with. All of those worries and anxieties, those little portions of her soul that she continued to worry wasn't "good enough," wasn't "presentable" to others and how those things, those were the things that I was so deeply attracted to. How real she was with me, how I could just hold her and all my worries and anxieties simply melted away. There's this part of me that wants her, but the thing is, I want to be with her, I don't want to simply be another "guy friend" that she so vehemently insisted she had an ample amount of. I just want to go to her affections and simply place myself out there saying, "Let it be Me."

Great

How great Your love for us,

How great our love for You,

That grace could cover us,

How great Your love

There are a lot of random little conversations from college that I very vividly remember. One such conversation was with my good friend Andrew as we talked about the song, "How Great" by David Crowder. I've had a fondness for this song for a long while, and during this random conversation with Andrew he noted to me, "I don't know how much I like that song, it kind of bothers me." When I asked him his reason for this he responded, "I get the 'how great' His love is for us, but the 'how great our love for You' part is what bothers me because our love isn't that great." I initially responded by saying that may have been the intent, to highlight the difference between our love and His, that His love is so great and in comparison "how great" ours is really isn't that much.

Today I was listening to this song repeatedly throughout the course of the afternoon, letting the lyrics really sink into my soul. Something occurred to me in my musings and reflection upon this song: I don't think that it's too far off to say how great our love can be. We talk in theology about how God's grace builds upon our nature, but does not override it, and that the difference between our love and His is that we love because we see good in whatever it is we love, His love however is what makes things good. We as Christians are called to live, walk and breathe the life of grace, and when we do that we participate in God's own being, in His very essence, His grace makes us like Him.

Perhaps by our own nature, our love is nothing special to look at, but consider the transforming love of Christ as seen in those who truly live the life of grace. I personally can list off countless people who have transformed my life, lifted me up and made me a better person because of their love, in a way, their love made me good. The beautiful thing is this: when we live in grace our love grows and flourishes as we participate in God's love. We talk about how great His love is, why are we so afraid to recognize that we too can participate in that same love that makes things good? In grace, in life with God we too are capable of, and indeed are called to have, the type of love that makes things good. Grace does this, grace reaches out to our limited human nature, builds it up and raises it far beyond anything we could accomplish when left to our own devices. It's a never-ending circle, God's love is so great and the Trinity is a perfect union of love between the three persons and, by grace, we are able to participate in that, not only in loving others but more importantly in our loving God. We are meant to be that little taste of the trinity in the world, we are meant to enter into the world, offer our love, and thereby, transform and allow our love to make things good. How great, His love for us, and how great our love for Him... through grace.

Depleted

Deliver me, out of the sadness

Deliver me, from all of the madness,

Deliver me, courage to guide me,

Deliver me, Your strength inside me

I've come to a place where I am just so incredibly weak. I feel so terribly and utterly exhausted: physically, emotionally and most especially spiritually. I preach the gospel to my teens but I feel like it doesn't reside in my heart sometimes. I skirt this line between being a man of faith and a man of iniquity. I just feel bankrupt, dried up and out of gas. I'm sitting here in my apartment at 2:30 in the morning considering all of the circumstances surrounding my life right now and I just feel overwhelmed by what I have to do, and underwhelmed by the good things God is doing in my life. I consider a few months ago when I was convinced that I had met the one person I wanted to give my heart to unreservedly and grow old with, despite only having known her for a few months, and I was so much happier then. Since then I've had my times of consolation, but right now I've found myself in an enormous rut, feeling expended beyond my limits and secretly wondering if this really is the best thing for me. The enemy has found a way to continue to prod and tear at me, and this thorn in my side seems like an insurmountable object, ever-constantly draining me, breaking me and leaving my soul in the dust.

It seems to have gotten to the point where all I can legitimately pray anymore is, "deliver me." When your heart is so heavy that you can't even seem to lift your head up to face the heavens, you begin to feel downtrodden. I feel like all I can do is cry into the dust saying, "deliver me, deliver me, deliver me," hoping and praying that He'll hear me. There is just so much sadness in trying to recover from the deep wound Ashley caused; there's so much madness in my workplace that I don't think I have had a chance to catch a breather in a while; my courage seems to have been depleted; all I want is His strength again. So here I sit: broken and engulfed in doubt; all I can do now is cry out, "deliver me."

Content

St. Rafael Arnaiz has floated in and out of my life for the past year now. I first discovered who this incredible saint was during my Benedictine Spirituality class when my group and I presented on the Trappist order. His story follows the narrative of simple love. After graduating high school, he fell in love with the Trappist order. He entered as a novice and had a desperate case of diabetes which was detrimental to his vocation. He was drafted by the army during the Spanish civil war, but declared inept for service. Throughout the course of his young life he was forced to go in and out of the monastery at least three different times. The final time he entered he was forced to enter as an oblate, living on the outskirts of the community. Yet he still desired to be the monk he knew he was called to be.

I recently had a conversation with my mother in which she asked me about dating. I told her that in order for me to consider dating again, God Himself would have to crack open the skies, appear with a host of angels and say to me, "John, this woman here is who you're supposed to marry." Heartache has been the reality of my mangled love life far more often than joy, happiness or peace. There is a part of me that is so over it, so fed up, so completely done. Then, I consider the story of St. Rafael, he hit wall after wall after wall in pursuing his vocation and he never gave up. He continually sought out the way he knew God wanted him to be truly happy in this life. Nothing was going to keep him from pursuing that vocation, that key to following God's will. Then, I look at his picture, completely at peace, drenched in a very tangible, visible happiness. I don't think that there's another picture that conveys such a pure sense of contentment, of true complete happiness. So, as I begin to consider my vocation, and understand that the best things in life are often those that are hard-fought, I take refuge in the story of St. Rafael, and I hope that someday there will be a picture of my wife and I where we look so happy, so content, so holy that others too may be inspired to follow their vocation, despite the intense suffering that sometimes comes along with pursuing it.

Missing

I can't find my watch,
I can't find my wallet,
So how in the hell am I supposed to find
The one that I love?
The one that I need?
Hidden so high
Buried so deep
Somewhere to run
Somewhere to go
And if I ever find her
How will I know?

A few years ago my good friend Melissa gave me this song by Jon McLaughlin called, "Amelia's Missing." I think the song itself is so interesting because he sings about not being able to find Crazy Horse, Hoffa and of course Amelia. These mysteriously elusive historical figures that no one is quite sure where they may be (if indeed they were still to be alive) just can't be pin-pointed. Yet, at the same time, he contrasts this with not being able to find such simple things as a watch and a wallet. These things that are so important for day-to-day living, have been misplaced, and he's not sure where they are, much like Crazy Horse, Hoffa and Amelia. He finally concludes by saying that if he can't find these people who are so elusive and hidden in history, and at the same time he can't find the bare necessities for the day-to-day, how can he find the one that he's supposed to love?

I think that this song is just so interesting because the picture he paints I think is ultimately one of sheer and utter confusion. This person that is set aside for us, that one person is so elusive, much like the people he mentions, yet at the same time that one person is so indispensable to living in the day to day, much like the wallet and the watch. The question he poses is one that really strikes a chord with me, "I can't find my watch, I can't find my wallet, so how in the hell am I supposed to find the one that I love?" In this continuing search for that one person, sometimes we find someone who stands out and are tempted to think, "This one...this might be it." Yet at the same time, how do we know? Ultimately, we don't. God doesn't give us a matching number, He doesn't step off of the throne into our love lives and say, "Hey, pay attention, this is it." It becomes so frustrating for those of us trying so ardently to be docile to the movement of the Holy Spirit, especially when our hearts have been broken and stepped on by the ones that were, "so good" or that we thought could work.

Isn't that the way of things though? Shouldn't there be a certain amount of uncertainty, otherwise where would the surprise be? What would happen to romance? I know several couples where the lady was decidedly unattracted to who they ended up with, but partially because of the surprise of it, partially because of being open to stepping outside of the box, they became truly happy with the men that pursued them. All they were trying to do was follow God's will, which is not mapped out crystal clearly for us all. This calls to mind Thomas Merton's prayer of abandonment, "But I believe the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all I am doing." Even the desire for the desire to follow His will, often, is sufficient. We may not have everything laid out in black and white, but that is the state of humanity. As we're searching for that person who just seems to be "missing" from our lives, it's so important to always trust in Him first, seek to please Him, and even the desire alone is pleasing to Him.