Tiny Star

Let me be your little nothing,
whom you love with all your heart.
Let me be your glory's mirror;
may my pride receive no part.

Let me be your emptiness,
to give you room to live.
Let me offer up your majesty;
I have no more to give.

Let me be your tiny star,
obscured by clouds and night.
Only you shall see me there
and keep my flame alight.

-Laura Marie Hall Paxton
03/29/2015

Falling for God

We are born to die and dying is the most important thing we can do, to prepare for leaving this world. I want to do that well. Can I feel pain and suffer and still love and forgive? Can I look for every opportunity I can to show God how much I love Him? Can I make my life a gift to God that culminates in the final sacrifice of my life?

Blessed Titus contemplated these things from prison as he waited to be killed. He had been tortured ("experimented on") in Dachau, day after day for many weeks. The entire time, he prayed for his torturers and cried out, "Thy will not mine be done!" 

While in prison, he wrote, "(Christ), in your weakness, you conquered the world. Let me be weak with you and bow deep under the weight of life. Be insignificant and small in the eye of the world and stand up again with you for new suffering until my death will be the crowning of my offer. Amen." 

Blessed Titus lived and died this prayer. 

The world we live in does not teach us these things. The world we live in teaches us that "Heaven on Earth" means an abundance of wealth and pleasure, and that we can be empowered, full of great self-esteem. Some take it to the extreme and see themselves as gods and goddesses. 

Yet, it is pride that separated us from God in the beginning- The pride that we knew better than God whether or not to eat the fruit of the Garden. And it is only through humility that we may return to Eden. 

Jesus fell for me. 

May I also fall for Him, and when I fall, let it be all for His glory.

Let me fall to the ground and never get up, but let only Jesus rise in me.

Blessed Titus Brandsma, pray for us.

Amen.

Edit: As of 02/25/15, this blog has been significantly edited. There were a couple of theological errors in it that are now corrected. So, some sections have been omitted in order to make a clearer point. Thanks for your patience!

An Invitation to Eternal Friendship

My former formation director asked why I haven't blogged in a while, and she suggested that my writing about the humanity of Christ may be a good idea. I had shared with her something my spiritual director taught me last week and she said it had revolutionized her thinking and deepened her experience of the Eucharist. So, she wanted me to let more people know.

I will be happy to share it, although it is not my idea, but my understanding of his lesson. Jesus Christ is more human than we are. He is not less human, but more human. Humanity doesn't equal sinfulness because humanity was never intended to be sinful. As humans, we were created perfect and our fall from grace actually made us less human, a warped distortion of what it means to be human instead.

Jesus came to restore humanity to our original perfection and goodness, as a “second Adam,” and to offer humanity a second chance. Jesus is 100% human, which is 100% good, and He is also 100% God.

So, what does this mean to us? I imagine it means something different to each one of us personally.

For me, it means the opposite of what I was taught in my "new age" spiritual path before. I believed that we lost Eden because of our desire for knowledge of good and evil, which had to do with judgments. If we could stop judging, we could return to Eden, where we could reign as gods.

Well, good luck with that, since even if we did not judge we would still live as a human who is less perfect than were designed to be. We would just convince ourselves we were perfect anyway, and lose the opportunity to know the real return to our natural and perfect human state.

That solution does not re-unite us to God our Creator. It only blinds our vision from the truth of our alienation from that God. Judgment is not the enemy. Alienation from our loving Creator is the enemy and judgment did not create that. Pride did. We wanted the knowledge of good and evil so we could “be as gods,” after all.

And this explains why I am creating the app I am developing. I want to bring us closer to our loving Creator through Christ, the new and perfect man. I want people to relate to Him as a human man, as well as to God, because this is the reason He was born and died for us.

In Father's homily this morning, he talked about what Christianity has that secular “spirituality” lacks. We have a real relationship with the Trinity, the Trinity that original sin wrenched us away from. My new app has over 500 quotes by Jesus Christ himself, from Sacred Scripture. It also includes over a thousand quotes by four Carmelite saints and four blesseds.

What's the point of using quotes from our saints and blesseds, and not just the words of Jesus Himself? Their life was dedicated to helping bring people into a deeper relationship with Christ. So, I want to do that for us, too. I want their words to help us form friendships with these masterful guides, so we can come to know our true Love and Master, Jesus Christ.

I want everyone to know the profound and permanent intimacy, healing, love and joy this friendship offers.

So, in my usual peculiar style, I have been developing a “communication gadget,” a “telephone” of sorts, to help us form a deeper connection with Him.

“If anyone comes to me, I want to lead them to Him.” -St. Teresa Benedicta (Edith Stein)

Longing to be Still

Jesus, through this frantic world, could you just hold me still?

I don't want to be happy.
I do not want comfort,
for these things pass.

O How I long to be still, still, still with you.

I've had enough,
and nothing else will satisfy.
and there is nothing I won't do
to be still with you.

Let the world keep spinning,
Let it spin until I'm sick,
but Jesus, hold me still.

I want to be unmoving
when life moves lightning fast,
blowing me apart,
and leaving torment in its wake.

There is not much I can count on here.
People lie and use each other.
People die and people leave and
my world spins upside-down.

Just freeze me in your constant stop.
Still my thoughts, Still my heart, Still my being.
Still my all.

Your stillness,
dear sweet stillness,
doesn't have to feel good.
Only make your stillness last.

and Jesus,
Bind me to your cross forever,
for that is where the greatest peace is.

-Laura Marie Hall Paxton,
01/10/15

Advent: Preparation for His Power

Christmas teaches us about the strength and might in gentleness, mercy and innocence.

In preparation, Advent can teach us to cleanse ourselves of attraction to false power, so that we might become receptive to the true power of Christ in our lives.

Jesus Christ has brought the world an unexpected (and before unheard of) type of power. Before his arrival, many of the Jewish people were expecting a ruler of military strength, such as David. Much of our world believes power lies in physical strength, the ability to influence, or even to bully and hurt others, physically and emotionally. 

The attraction to power goes far beyond the obvious example above. Humans forget what's most important. We can become consumed with trying to prove our worth to others and to the world, so we may seem "powerful" in their eyes through our "specialness" or "greatness." 

When we are over-focused on creating the "perfect" Christmas celebration for our families, or on producing the perfect work of art or project at work, we are often led away from our primary goal of living here on earth, which is to love and serve God. We are not called to impress Him or anyone else.

Love and service don't have to be fancy or special, just real, honest, sincere and from our heart.

Just through the "mere" act of being born, Jesus demonstrated for us how to live all eight beatitudes. When the Creator of the universe came to us as a tiny baby, He taught us all we need to know about how to love.

When we look at a painting or icon of the Blessed Virgin Mary holding Jesus, the baby, who is really the focus? Mary is larger and Jesus is smaller, but does that mean Mary is more important? 

No, for Jesus taught us that we are to come to Him as a little child. Jesus never asks us to do anything He did not do first. Jesus comes to us in a tiny, vulnerable human form, held lovingly by his mother, who serves Him with her care. 

It is in the image of Madonna and Child that we see true majesty and might of Christ. Within that tiny baby is contained all the strength and power in the universe. He doesn't want to force us to love Him, but beckons us through the sheer power of His love to open our hearts and souls to Him. 

Jesus came to us in a dirty stable, a place we where we would probably be ashamed for anyone to visit us. Jesus still wants to meet us there, in those dirty, shameful, hidden places of our souls. And he meets us there with the purest, humblest and most precious love there is. 

During advent, as we prepare for Christmas, let us prepare our hearts and souls to receive the strength of the peace of Christ. Let that purification time center around letting go of false ideas of what makes us and others strong. Let us give ourselves to Him with greater humility, purity and simplicity, as He first gave himself to us. 

"O Blessed Jesus,

Give me stillness of soul in you.

Let your mighty calmness reign in me.

Rule me, O King of Gentleness,

King of Peace."

-St. John of the Cross

Why I Cope with Life Better Today

I do not know how I would cope with my life if I were not Catholic. I can easily tell you that I would not cope well. Years of living beforehand would bear that out. 

Here are some differences in how I get through tough times today vs. during my "heretical" years. 

(1) My emotions do not control my decisions as much.

Free will has to do with making decisions without being driven by emotions. I am making more solid, logical and clear choices now than I ever have before. During my "heretical years," I believed that free will had to do with extricating myself from the oppression of moral obligations in order to be free to follow my feelings. How did that work out for me? Hmm.. I'm writing this... so...

(2) I take care to have selfless motives. 

When I pursue being of the greatest service to God above the motives for comfort, public opinion or material things, each decision I make has meaning. When I work to make my life a gift to God rather than a gift to myself, I do not have time to immerse myself in self-pity or resentment.

Good feelings and material things will all pass away. Peace in my heart, mind and soul will never be possible if I waste any time trying to chase any other goal than to serve God. 

(3) Suffering can help me.

A central focus of our faith is how suffering in life can help us. No moment of suffering need ever be wasted. We would all agree that an athlete preparing for competition puts herself through a lot of pain and personal sacrifice towards achieving her goal. A person preparing himself for holiness, in order to prepare for the life beyond, will need to make similar sacrifices and endure pain as a part of developing character. 

When I suffer, I can lift that suffering up to God as a sacrifice for the good of another. I can also use that suffering as an opportunity to surrender my human will to God's will, as Jesus did. I can experience a bond between me and Jesus as I willingly embrace suffering. 

The Catholic practice of penance is also a way to use suffering as an advantage. The evil one believes he can control us with the fear of suffering and death. When we willingly choose suffering, we baffle him. That is why the Passion and Cross of our Lord is the most powerful antidote to evil. 

(4) Comfort? Why?

Many people turn to religion as a comfort when life is painful and challenging, but if I use prayer primarily to make myself feel better, I am using God and not serving God. God's purpose is not to help us feel good, but to BE good- the salt and light of the earth. Although often prayer can be comforting, I do not have to be a slave to comfort when I choose to follow God. Peace is far better than comfort. 

God- Why We Need To Talk

I was at a retreat last year where our retreat master said to us, “You will never make time for prayer until you realize prayer is the most important thing you can do.”

There are many days when I think the most important thing I can do is earning a living, or to have fun playing a computer game or to organize my closet, and yes, there are times when these are important things for us to do. But, prayer actually is the most important thing we can do every day.

Why is prayer the most important thing we can do? Well, for one thing, we are utterly dependent on God for everything, from the air we breathe to whether our hearts beat or not.

Prayer acknowledges that we are unable to do anything at all, much less anything important, without God.

And why is that helpful to know? Because God does listen. He does answer our prayers and he is capable of doing anything. Nothing is impossible for God.

My relationship to prayer has changed. For six years, I prayed selfish prayers. I prayed for my continual happiness, good fortune, fame and success in every endeavor to impress others. I learned to cultivate “feel good” during prayer time, by focusing on the vague idea of what love “feels” like.

I was surprised to learn later that love is not a feeling. I was also surprised to learn that in relationship with God, as in any relationship, it isn't very loving to “use” our friends. Sometimes in life, it can seem that God is supposed to be our “prosperity dispenser,” but that is not His function in our lives.

As my relationship to prayer has changed, my relationship to God has changed. It's been significant for me to begin to know the person, Jesus. Jesus is God in a relatable form. I never used to pray to Jesus, only to the Father. But, since Jesus is my friend now, I want to learn all about his life and about who He is. So, my relationship with Jesus has become a more mature and healthy one now.

When I pray to God, I know God is there. I feel Him there, but that's not how I know He's there. Jesus, like “love” is not a feeling. He's Truth itself in human form. Truth can feel all sorts of ways or no way at all. And prayer is not always my “fun time” anymore. I often don't look forward to it.

In addition to the Liturgy of the Hours and daily mass, Secular Carmelites are supposed to do a minimum of thirty minutes of silent prayer a day. And when you think about it, since the Carmelite charism is prayer and prayer is our true vocation in Carmel, thirty minutes is not much time. Yet, in our busy lives in the world, everyone struggles at times to integrate even that minimum routine. This is my third year into practicing this way of life and I still have some really erratic times.

I can tell you why. It's always pride. It's always that I forget I need him for everything there is and that is why prayer is the most important thing I can do. Our relationship with God is definitely that-- a relationship with a Person. Like any relationship, we need to put the time and effort into keeping it alive and growing.

During good times and bad, we need to talk.  

1 a.m. Prayer for Forgetting

Do you remember a dream
that was not about you?
Did it torment or soothe you 

or did neither one matter,
not thinking of you?

What did you see?
What did you hear?

Where were you,
or, did you wonder that?

Was it surreal 
or so real that you froze there?

Did you try to remember
yourself,
but could not?

Tell me,
If you have been there,
please, 

for I can't remember
not remembering me.

I implore you,
Teach me the way.

-Laura Marie Paxton,
09/17/14, 1 a.m.

Help Me Serve You, Lord

Help me serve you Lord, for I am too accustomed to serving mainly myself.

Help me serve you, Lord, with  all my heart and all my mind, for I am too used to the distraction of my selfish interests.

Help me serve you, Lord, for my salvation lies only in your service. To desire and to pursue becoming a master of others, a hero or a show-off is to choose the path taken by the evil one. 

Help me serve you, Lord, for only you can save us, have saved us, and will always save us. I know the path of self-glorification best and I don't have much experience with following your path. 

Help me serve you, Lord, for all you've ever done is serve us, while I complain and am ungrateful, as if you owe me something.

Help me serve you Lord, for you created a beautiful world. We were selfish and ungrateful, so you took on flesh and sacrificed that flesh to show us how there is no greater love than to seek to do your will through service. I am caught up in myself and I actually ignore how you gave me your all.

Help me serve you, Lord, for you are always there to save me, but in my selfish blindness, I demand that others rescue me and do your job as Savior.

Help me serve you, Lord, because all I seem to want to do is prove my worth and importance to you and to others through the "good" and "helpful" things I do.

Help me serve you, Lord, for only you can and have made a worthy sacrifice. Don't accept my gifts when they are tainted by my pride. Please, Lord, don't let me insult you that way.

Help me serve you, Lord. I am no good at this.

Lord, have mercy.

Amen.

Laura Marie Paxton
09/05/14

The 7 Most Mindblowingly Liberating Things I've Learned As A Catholic

I finally figured out what matters.

This is it.

(1) I do not need a happy ending in life. 

The Meaning: Life isn't meant to be a fairy tale. Whether or not we become rich, famous or even comfortable is completely inconsequential. We are Christians. We follow the example of Christ, who died a brutal death. The majority of saints (and people in general) also died in unpleasant ways.

The Freedom: No matter how my life ends, I can die a "happy death," knowing that I am at peace with God. I will know my life has been worth living and my soul belongs to Jesus Christ forever, despite all of my human failings and any regrets.

(2) How I feel about my life doesn't matter. 

The Meaning: Whether I think my life is going well or not is completely inconsequential. How does God view it? And how can I improve my efforts to be of service to God? 

Is God heartless? Does he just not care what I am going through? No. He is compassionate. But when my feelings become more important than following His will, I don't need to pay attention to them and no one who really cares about me should pay attention to them either.

The Freedom: Less time wasted with pointlessly evaluating my life in terms of chemical and hormonal reactions to my environment. So, when I am able to accomplish detaching from my feelings, I have more time to actually live. And when I am able to accomplish actually living, all that time spent living is spent more at peace.

(3) How other people feel about my life doesn't matter either. 

 The Meaning: Whether people agree with what I believe and do is irrelevant because what God wants is important and not what they want. 

 The Freedom: I know what God wants is what's best for me. Unless someone is there to guide me towards discovering God's will, I do not need their opinion. So, if people want to insist that I accept moral relativism or reincarnation or abortion, they are not able to influence me at all. I am secure  in my convictions because I have strong roots in my desire to please Him. 

(4) Even if I became a god or goddess, it wouldn't matter. 

The Meaning: Having "personal power," or realizing the greatness in my soul in order to "manifest" whatever "abundance" I believe I deserve is not going to contribute one iota to my happiness or well being. I once believed that detaching myself from judgment, to achieve my desires, was freedom. Now, I see that the desires were the prison, not the judgment.

The Freedom: Who cares who I am? I belong to the infinite Creator of the universe, to all the power there is. To want what He wants is to want the perfect good. As much as I often think I am special or that I need to be special, the truth is that I don't have to be anybody, not anybody at all. Just His!

"Lord, when we ask you for honors, income, money or worldly things, do not hear us."

-St. Teresa of Avila

(5) If I never have sex again, it will not matter.

The Meaning: Sex is not necessary for psychological health.  Saints (those who were Religious or single) lived in deep fulfillment and peace without sex. A confidential survey of priests who have chosen celibacy showed that 90% are "very happy" with their decision. Having sex may be good for relieving stress, reducing blood pressure and it may have other health benefits, but not not having sex is not a proven physical or psychological health deterrent.

The Freedom: One less thing to focus on, feel driven by or worry about. One less empty thing to turn to as a potential "fix" for a lack of fulfillment in life. Less drama. Freedom from the hormones and intense drives and attachments of sex-based relationships. More complex and interesting aspects of myself and others to focus on. Far greater peace of mind. Me= Four years chaste. Loving it.

(6) One thing DOES matter:
Absolute truth is the only truth there is. 

The Meaning: If everything is equally true, then nothing is true. Truth has no meaning then.

The Freedom: I don't need to seek anymore. I have the True Faith. Yes, other religions contain some truth, but I have the full truth. I don't need to justify it, explain it, or convince anyone else. Remember, after all, I don't care how anyone else feels about it. I only need to live it, with deep gratitude.

(7) Never stop asking- "How Could I Do Better?" 

 The Meaning: It doesn't matter what horrible challenges life throws at me- Those are not excuses to wallow in self-pity or to justify selfishness. Nothing but doing my best is relevant.

The Freedom: This is the annoying part, the part that often does not feel freeing. Fortunately for me, (whenever I am able to remember it), I know that it does not matter how I feel. Yet, if I do not push forward, I am doomed to slide backward.  And truthfully, learning to live a Christian life is hard work. Yet, each time I free myself more from an over-attachment to a person, place or thing, it is worth it. Each moment I am not robotically controlled by my emotions and desires, I am freer.

Before my conversion, near the beginning of the RCIA program, our class discussed the goal of the Catholic Church. We were told that the goal is to help each Christian develop a more mature relationship with Jesus Christ. 

So, I said, "Wow. What would that look like?" The answer, from our teacher, Marybeth, was "saints." I was a little jarred, since I'd imagined that people who just believed and did what they were told could not be very mature.. but it's not WHAT you learn as much as HOW you learn that changes you, forms and matures you. Like everything else in the Church, it is paradox. 

Now that I understand what matters, I will spend the rest of my life working toward actually doing what counts. 

Every day, it seems I see how much worse I am at doing that. But, that's just how I feel, and that... 

doesn't matter.

The Eucharist and the “Ghost in the Machine”

As an autistic, I have the unenviable ability to almost completely compartmentalize my intellect from emotions. I go into a “machine mode.”

My friends often have a very unfortunate experience with that. They talk to me while I am in the middle of “implementing my agenda,” and they see that I do not acknowledge their feelings at all. Friends who know me well stop me and say, “Hey, I just poured out my heart to you,” or “I just disclosed something hard for me to say,” and of course, I collapse into a sea of apologies. I don't realize what I did, but of course I want to acknowledge the feelings of my friends!

My autistic reality is not all that different from neurotypical reality. Humans minds work very much like computers, which is why computers are designed based on how our logical intellect works. Our minds are different from computers because emotional drives can dominate our experience. I know all about that too! I have been known to immerse myself in emotion and the “lever” that makes my brain work seems to snap completely off, while emotions drive my life. Whether we are emotionally driven or intellectually detached, we are all divided, unintegrated and crippled in our human experience.

Until we insert the variable of “infinity.”

Infinity. Yes, infinity. The God who exists outside space and time enters our reality in the Eucharist. The God who exists outside space and time enters my body in the Eucharist. The infinite God who created me enters me, body and soul, and begins to thread his infinite Self into my bones and cells. This creates a “jolt” that literally drags me to my knees. I am grateful to know the impact of His infinite love moving through me, joining Himself with my lowly soul.

How must Mary have felt when the infinite God found His home in her womb? I will never know the magnitude of that experience, but I can receive a “taste” of it through my experience of the Eucharist.

Why am I Catholic?

The Eucharist is why. When I was a young protestant, I received the Eucharist without knowing what it was. I immediately wept because I felt in that moment in union with God. It's always been that way for me. The effect of the Eucharist is a stab in my heart that kills me and brings me to life at the same time.

For that instant, I am integrated. I am whole. 

I walk out the door of church and become once again the struggling Secular Carmelite in formation who has difficulty staying dedicated to prayer. I amble about my daily life, continually wondering why my experience in the Eucharist does not stay with me. Thankfully, I let that concern go fairly quickly now, because I realize maintaining a life of service to Him is more important than what I happen to feel, but I still remain bewildered.

Sometimes, it is unclear what really moves me. Once years ago, someone who was working with me started to call me, “The Machine.” That was because I always had a relentless agenda for him to follow. And by relentless, I mean relentless. I should never be in a supervisory position over people. I've always been considered to be hard-driving and that is because “The Machine” that is my mind likes to go nonstop. (Thank God for helpers in my life who help me find balance beyond hyperfocus!) My new study of Xcode to program smartphones is a beautiful haven of structure and logic. I like to enter and shut the doors to the world. But, often, it is difficult for all of us to turn all that off and enter into the softer side of contemplation the machine of our mind longs for.

Human beings also have free will. This is what separates us from animals. Our souls have only one essential choice to make here on earth, "Will we serve God or will we serve ourselves?"

If we do not receive the Holy Spirit in our human lifetimes here in life, the seeds are not planted for eternal life. There is no “Ghost” in our machine. What is our soul apart from God's soul, who created us? How can it survive in any meaningful way? There are many who believe their soul IS actually God's soul and that their mind creates the world. People who take this position live in a counterfeit reality, sadly. Others, who see the Eucharist as a merely “symbolic meal,” or an experience that somehow incorporates “Real Presence,” without being the actual body and blood of Jesus Christ miss out on an immense experience as well.

The Eucharist is more than a “feel good experience,” thankfully. The Eucharist is fuel to go about serving God, infused and strengthened by God Himself. The Eucharist provides the deepest and most intimate connection that man can have with God.

Without that connection, we are alone in our weak human state. We act selfishly. We hurt people's feelings. We damage relationships because we are callous. There is no infinite God to appeal to who can forgive, heal and strengthen us. I constantly and reliably fail but at least that is not the end of my story.

We are more than machines. We need a healthy soul. The soul runs best on the fuel of the Eucharist and nothing else will do.

*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_in_the_machine

I Am Free. (And it's not what I thought It was).

I'm Laura Paxton and I am free.

I am free to play, to create, to express myself, to explore my world. I am freer to think and to reason and daydream than I ever have before. I read more. I have meaningful work that I enjoy very much. I wake up each day with the joy of purpose before me.

Only about five years ago, I existed in a cramped, dark apartment where I had given up on life, agoraphobic, eating mostly chocolate bars for sustenance and playing online scrabble all day long to keep my mind off the pain trapped deep inside. How did I end up there?

Let's face it... I'm autistic. I'm bipolar. I've lived on the dangerous edges of life. I've been raped,  survived a near fatal suicide attempt, was almost successfully murdered and lived homeless at times in my teens. Over the course of my life, I've also been taken advantage of, tricked and abused because of my poor judgment, (which was poorer than most people's to begin with, because I'm autistic and don't judge social situations well). Add to that how I had a mother who rejected me. Compound that with how I was immersed in the "New Age" since childhood and my spiritual practices became more and more satanic-leaning over time. How am I alive? How am I even here? 

About five years ago, out of the blue, I decided to read a book on contemplative prayer by James Finley. I got to the part about how deeply people desire God and I wept. The sad tears turned into happy tears, because I realized I could finally feel again. It had been so long since I had felt anything! Best yet, the first thing I felt after many "dead" years prior was the desire for my God. I knew I needed to go back to church, and soon.

Through the past few years, I have come to experience freedom- and it only took over forty years to find it. Freedom is the opposite of what I always thought it was. 

My early ideas of freedom came from my parents, of course. It was really important to my parents that I have freedom- freedom to create, play and explore the world. The only problem with that is when there are no limits to it.

When I was a young teen, I could ask my parents whether I could go to an adult cocktail party and drink all I wanted and the answer was, "We don't believe in telling you what to do." I never had a curfew. I was never grounded in my life or put on any sort of restriction. I lived an anxious life, not even sure about what was safe or not a lot of the time. Being a total nervous wreck in a state of constant crisis, drama and repeated trauma caused by all the above wasn't exactly what I would call freeing!

There was only one thing in my life my parents absolutely forbid me to do- becoming Catholic. I told a friend this on the way to a retreat recently and she laughed so hard, I think soda came out of her nose.

I wanted to become Catholic very much. I was happy in the Church community. I had a good relationship with a nun named Sister Dorothy there and I would go and talk to her. I loved learning in CCD. It all made sense. And no, I did not go to Catholic school. I just found every way possible to spend as much time as possible at the Catholic Church, from late childhood to my early teens. Yet, eventually, my parents forbid it completely, when I was about fourteen. It was their first strong, "No." And why? "Catholicism will disrupt your direct relationship with God," they said. "We want you to think for yourself and we don't want a saint or a priest or a nun or anyone else to influence you."

Sooo... How did that work out for me? Not really well! There is no feeling I know better than the sense of being "lost."

"Lost" would be my area of expertise.

In my thirties, I followed a spiritual path for about six years which purported "total freedom" to be one of its goals. I haven't seen them put forward a consistent definition of what this means recorded anywhere, but the goal seems to rest on concepts like, "manifesting whatever you want in abundance," and "not being attached to anyone else's judgments or opinions of what you choose to do." I can't even begin to describe anything more constraining and spirit strangling.

Why? Because it's all a game of, "I believe, so I get," or "I believe, so I realize I already have." Because it's centered on "personal power" which is nothing more than worshiping at the altar of selfishness. I am. I have. I do with my power. There is none of the, "God alone suffices," of St. Teresa in that. You may find "all the love you need within yourself," and feel blissfully good, but you've only found a clever way to convince yourself you don't need the more deeply gratifying "meat" of spiritual life. And what's wrong with that? Nothing, if you don't mind the shallowness and emptiness that philosophy and lifestyle creates.

I can also tell you, just because you go to a different satsang or drum circle or circle ceremony every night to find spiritual freedom, you are not necessarily freer for it. By always seeking to break through the next set of limits, (or "limiting beliefs"), you will be searching forever. Of course, there are a limited number of "winners" in this way of life, who will tell you they have found what they were looking for. Those are the ones who make money through selling you this "freedom."

Freedom is actually free.

Someone told me a fable yesterday about a group of children who wanted to play ball next to a steep cliff. Of course, they were afraid to play. They could fall over the edge. They could lose their ball. So, they just sat huddled in a circle, afraid and not having any fun. Later, some people put up a fence and then the kids felt safer and they could play happily and freely. And, that would be a good description of my life today versus my past.

Freedom has to have bounds of some sort- edges, limits, containment. In fact, without a sense of outer security, inner peace is difficult to cultivate.

Now, I've talked to many people (mostly "reverts,") who grew up on the opposite, ultra-strict extreme and they are just as "messed up" as I was. When kids aren't given any room to play at all, that can be like living in shackles. So, often they end up throwing away all limits in life as a reaction to that. For either reason, once a person makes the decision to pursue "freedom" as a "limitless do my own thing," kind of an existence, they don't end up happy in the end either.

So, here we are, the converts and the reverts, two sides of the same coin, really.

I am Home again and I can breathe again. And life beat me to a pulp to get here. Because I have "been there, done that, tried almost everything," I know more solidly than most people do how there is no remote possibility that anything other than Catholicism is the Church Jesus founded. Here in the arms of the Church is the only source of the living bread and water our soul hungers and thirsts for so very much.

We need the chalice of God's love to hold us and fill us. Unlike "spiritual teachers" through the ages, Jesus was truly God. Jesus said He was,"The Way," not "a way." Because this is so, there must exist a true way, a path of certain and steady ground. It is not an act of cowardice (such as running from difficult questions) but an act of great courage to recognize and stand up for the answer when you find it. We are deeply blessed. We have the deep, solid security of knowing, "The Way."

Freedom really isn't "just another word for nothing else to lose." Freedom is another word for "nothing more to gain," and to gain everything is absolutely possible. As C.S. Lewis put so well, "A person who has God and everything else has no more than someone who has only God." With God, we truly do have nothing more to gain. And we are free.

(A related quote.)

"In John 8:32, Jesus tells us that the truth will make us free. However, the mentality mentioned above, so prevalent today, is one which fears the truth. It holds that truth is a relative category, and that the truth claims of the Church are not freeing, but rather enslaving. To counter this, Cardinal Ratzinger wrote that Christians today need to counter the skeptics’ question, “What is truth?” with a question of our own: “What is freedom?  What do we actually mean when we extol freedom, placing it at the pinnacle of our scale of values?” Taking up this call, I believe we need to learn and find ways to creatively present the now classical distinctions in moral theology between freedom of indifference and freedom for excellence, on the one hand, and morality of obligation and morality of happiness, on the other."

-Matthew J Ramage, PhD

http://www.hprweb.com/2014/05/benedict-xvi-on-freedom-in-obedience-to-the-truth-a-key-for-the-new-evangelization/

Why I Am Grateful for Having Anxiety Issues

Grateful for anxiety? This is lunacy. Of course, that is the sort of lunacy you should have come to expect from me by now.

Although it may seem odd to say I'm grateful for having anxiety issues, it is still true. I don't like anxiety, of course, I don't like the way it feels or the toll it causes on my physical health and energy level. I don't like the way it can negatively affect relationships with other people, either. Yet, without anxiety, I wouldn't be as aware of the need to grow closer to God.

The first flutters of heart racing, the first awareness of sweating and labored breathing remind me that I need Him. And even if I end up taking medication for it before I can compose myself enough to pray, I do pray. Later, I find novel and interesting prayers and devotions to try to use when the experience hits. I try all sorts of creative techniques to get a handle on it. I succeed sometimes and sometimes I don't. None of that matters. It's the awareness I have that I need God that matters. That's why I'm on this earth, after all.

I've come to refer to the anxiety onset the "God Alarm." As soon as I can get to a point where thinking is possible, I say, "Thank you God for the call to come closer to you."

Psychological situations can trigger anxiety but I get to have a "sense of control" with them more, since I know my thinking causes them and my thinking can sometimes help stop them sooner.

However, in my personal situation, anxiety will eventually go away on its own, whether I do anything to calm myself or not. And anxiety will come no matter how hard I work to avoid it. For me as an autistic person, loud or screeching noises cause it. Bright lights in my face cause it. Being in a crowd of people can cause it.

My biology reacts immediately. It's involuntary. I carry dark glasses and ear plugs and use them as needed. I try to minimize any situation of overstimulating distress. But, they happen. They happen because life happens. Ambulances screech down the street. Light can suddenly change after a rainstorm, shooting a ray of stabbing light into my eyes, unexpected.

Is my goal to be cured and anxiety free? No, not at all. My goal is to remember I am weak and He is strong. My goal is to remember that I need Him. And so God provides me with that awareness on a regular basis.

With my bad luck, I may end up getting cured of it. And then what will I do to remind myself that I need God? A buzzer on my cell phone just wouldn't be the same.


 "God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our consciences, but shouts in our pains. It is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world." -C.S. Lewis

Something Woke Me Up Yesterday- and it wasn't about me.

I learned something great at the Carmelite Monastery yesterday, just as I was dozing off. It was right after our thirty minutes of quiet prayer time and I was groggy.

I'm not sure how or why this came up, but we have been doing Lectio Divina with the encyclical Apostolicam Actuositatem for months now and yesterday, we spent about forty minutes on number 20. I hadn't found this document to be thrilling reading, and it wasn't exactly jarring me out of my stupor.

We were contemplating how the laity is to participate in the work of the Church, because all Secular Carmelites are required to have some sort of lay apostalate, and so we need to understand what that means as well as we can.

Somehow, in our discussion, this verse from Paul came up, "Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I do my share on behalf of His body, which is the church, in filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions." [Colossians 1:24]

The person who brought up the question that served as my "alarm clock," is a pre-aspirant. She is also a convert, such as I am. She had a question I've often had myself. She wanted to know how anything could be lacking in the sacrifice of Christ. In response, I remember becoming suddenly alert, excited that I knew the answer. I rattled off some sort of response I had heard that technically might have been considered right, when actually I did not fully understand the verse myself. So, my response confused her.

I listened for a while and I heard some really profound and eye-opening things from my sisters in Carmel, people who have seriously contemplated this verse for decades. 

For one thing, we don't actually pray. The Holy Spirit prays within us, for us. For another thing, we don't actually produce any good actions in the world. Only God can do this through us. It's not just that in humility, we give God credit for everything. It's that in reality, He really is the only one who HAS credit for anything. This is the only thing that is actually true.

As Christians, we are not ourselves, or who we were. We are the Body of Christ. Each time we receive the Eucharist, we are becoming one with Him and with each other. So, it is Jesus who sees through our eyes, speaks through our mouths, thinks through our brains and suffers in our bodies. So, Jesus is still here on earth, continuing His joys and afflictions through us. We are the vessels and witnesses of His greatness. Christ's work of redemption is complete, yet we must do our share to continue His work on earth, to complete the work that is "lacking" or still needs to be done in the world.

Apostolicam Actuositatem seems really dry at first. I wondered, how do you contemplate something that keeps talking about our personal relation to "the hierarchy." Well it's really about our personal relationship to the Body of Christ, and the hierarchy is just a term for the way that is structured. There's not a word in it about "me," the individual. It's about "they" and about "acting together." If we look more closely at the verse by Paul, it reads, "I do my share," implying he does his part of the group. It doesn't say, "I, on my own, because I am uber-super Catholic girl, do what Jesus couldn't finish doing." It says, we continue to do His work on earth.

The reason Apostolicam Actuositatem seemed so boring to me for the past few months is that I wasn't hearing things about me, me, me. I wasn't hearing what "resonates with me," or that I can "apply to my personal life." I was hearing about how to be a part of something larger than myself, to continue, through my share in the body of Christ, to make Christ's presence more known here on earth.

Well, I'm not sure if I understood all of this correctly or if it was even explained correctly, but it woke me up. (I was literally nodding off before my friend asked this question and I woke up quickly, seizing that opportunity to attempt to say something brilliant to impress everyone-- which thankfully, did not happen, because the group, as a whole, had a wider message.)

I'm not sure we can read the Bible as individuals with individual interpretation as our guide. I'm not sure it was intended to be read that way. In fact, I'm confident that it's not. The  Body of Christ is not the fragments of Christ, after all. 

It was interesting that our President, Chris Hart, talked about how common it is for people to just give all their energy and work towards what they think is serving God, only to find themselves depleted and exhausted. In that weakened state, God actually has someone there to work with to accomplish His true aims. If we think we're serving Him, we're not. I stand convicted- all the way. I started to ponder what it actually means to let Him accomplish His work through us. There's a profound passivity involved that isn't easy to learn.

Well, I can't hit the snooze button on that.

Starving for God and on Diet Pills? Why?

I spent almost my whole life starving for God, although I didn't realize that I was. Imagine that you're ravishingly hungry, but you find a way to turn off your "appetite switch," so that you no longer look for food or eat food. A dieter's dream!

Well, that's not so great when it comes to God. I was truly wasting away inside. 

Years of my life were spent searching for something, but I never quite knew what it is. Yet then, there was the time I stopped searching. I didn't think there was anything out there to find.

There's a way to turn off your natural appetite for God, and that is turning off your "God switch." You see, when you suppress feelings of guilt, fear and weakness, you can become convinced you no longer have a need for God. Your appetite for God is suppressed along with those very natural human feelings.

It's like taking diet pills. And, it works. When you don't believe you need God, your "religion" becomes "personal empowerment" and "manifesting abundance" and feeling good and free to do whatever it is you want.

Most people I know are taking those diet pills. You may be happy, but so are people taking speed so they won't want to eat. I promise you, you're starving.

It was hard to give up spiritual appetite suppressants. Coming to terms not only with my past, but also with the truth of the human state of being sinners, was the hardest thing I ever did. I didn't want to look at it. I didn't want to admit defeat, that following my own will had led me nowhere or into dangerous ground.

Little did I realize, when you take that terrifying leap into repentance, you do really break into pieces, but it doesn't matter. Your fall is cushioned in the greatest peace and the deepest love you've ever known. Your soul is really satisfied. And, the real you may get up off the ground for the first time.

What is Lent? Why do you have it?

I spoke to someone today who knew nothing at all about Lent, other than about the "lint" that you find in the clothes dryer. I realized that the terms I use routinely are like a foreign language to her. So, she suggested it might be a good idea to blog about it, to let people know what Lent is really all about.

Most people know that Lent is when Catholics (and some Lutherans and Episcopalians) get ashes smeared on their foreheads on Ash Wednesday and after that, they give up something they like for forty days until Easter. When most people hear of this, it seems really odd and even incomprehensible to them. What's the point? They wonder. How weird!

I'm sure a lot of people hear or read this, roll their eyes and think to themselves, "Why do they want to deprive themselves?" Sure. Well, it isn't typically "fun." It's a pretty serious time for us, a time of sacrifice. We're also happy and joyful, but overall, Lent is a somber season. 

So, what is Lent and why do we call it a "season" anyway?

Lent is a Church season. Just like we all have fall, winter, spring and summer, the Church has Advent, Christmas, Lent, Easter and Pentecost. We follow the cycle of a Church calendar so that we (as one united church family of 1.2 billion people) can explore the life of Christ and how it relates to us, not just individually, but together.

The way I explained this to my friend today was that my relationship with Jesus is a friendship. Friends listen to each other and want to get to know each other. I don't have a one-sided relationship with God, like I would have like a therapist, teacher or a purely authority figure. I have an intimate relationship with God through Jesus, and so because I love Him, I take the time to get to know Him.

When I pray, I don't just talk to him about my life, to try to get him to understand me and my moods and needs, but I try to understand Him, both as God AND as a human being, like me. As a human being, He has normal feelings, just as we have. He has sadness, anger, fear and joy.

What's the first thing you do when you form a new friendship? You want to learn about the other person. You listen to their experiences and you imagine being in their "shoes" as best you can. You think about how the other person may have felt about things and what they went through.

Jesus went through a lot between the time when he was arrested and when he died on the cross. Because He went through so many intense and important things, we have a ritual called, "The Stations of the Cross," which allows us to meditate deeply upon each event Jesus experienced on His last day. 

Why would we do that? Why would we be so focused on that? Because we feel sad that our friend had to go through all that for us. We want to show Him respect and honor. We want to show Him we care about what happened and what he went through. A friend would do this for a friend. It's like being a good, caring and attentive listener, a witness to His pain and appreciative of His gift of Himself.

When we give things up, whatever they are, we are letting Jesus know that we want to give gifts to Him too. We want to offer Him small gifts of sacrifice to show our appreciation. Making our small sacrifices helps us empathize and identify with His pain and sacrifice and it helps unite us to Him. He made the Ultimate Sacrifice and nothing we can give means anything next to that. But, we need to learn to grow in love and so we practice giving all we can give back to Him.

So, that's why crazy Catholics give up chocolate or alcohol or Facebook or television for forty whole days. It's a very little action that means a whole lot more when we approach it in the right way. Sure, some people just go through the motions, but we are lucky to have special events, programs and liturgies throughout the lenten season to deepen our relationship with God as much as we feel drawn or inclined.

Next Wednesday is Ash Wednesday, the day that begins our season of Lent. I look forward to it even though it's not an easy time, because I know the more I put into it, the closer I grow towards God.

Discerning God's Will in a New Year

I haven't blogged this month because I've been going through a period of reflection and transition in my career.

This past year, I published five books, an e-book and an app and also provided social media management for 1st Way. I stayed stressed all the time and still didn't reach the business goals I had in the original grant proposal. It was too many balls to try to juggle, although overall, I'm happy with the results of last year.

Insights from Carmel by Patricia Tresselle, OCDS, got released at the wrong time with the wrong files. If you've purchased this book, we'll send you another one free. Big glitch but problem now solved. Luckily, we caught it really fast and the problem is fixed now. This book is a Secular Carmelite formation manual that can be used by anyone, Carmelite or not, to grow closer to union with God.

I'm about to receive a "second tier" of grant funding. So, I'm trying to finish writing my updated business and marketing plan for the next six months. The plan is this- I'm publishing a book by Deacon Matthias Lugendo and I am developing an app on a "secret" subject. The rest of my attention will be towards marketing projects for the seven products I already have out on the market. No more social media work for any other companies, either. (Although this could change, as I'm not through writing the plan.)

You might have noticed I am "all about Uganda" lately. Yes. It started because I met someone online who impressed me immensely- a brilliant deacon who grew up in an extremely poor village with no running water, no shoes. He survived typhoid and malaria and being abandoned by both parents at the age of six. He has the best attitude toward life of anyone I've known. Nothing is more humbling than to help Deacon Matthias publish his autobiography, to record his story of  how he consistently overcame these odds through faith in God, deep gratitude and trust that he would make it through to be of service to God. He has a natural heart of gold, the kind of heart most of us have to work hard all our lives to try to cultivate. 

I'm a person of both enthusiasm and a tendency towards extremes. Since I am Catholic, I get to call it "zeal," so it sounds like I'm practicing great virtue when I throw myself headlong into a cause. So, I set up a scholarship fund for seminarians on Go Fund Me. The results weren't bad. The fund influenced a full scholarship, partial scholarship and donation towards books. I know at least two of the four seminarians I was trying to raise money for are going to go back to school this semester. The other two will not make it because the deadline has either passed or will pass in the next few days. So, I still did not think the results were very good enough.

I have since spoken with Fr John Judie of Father John Judie Ministries, which provides scholarships to seminarians all over east Africa. Father John is not covering Uganda right now but he outlined a way for me to be more effective in fundraising. I'm considering starting a non-profit as a part of that. I need to approach this in a more strategic way. Also I'll need to work on contacting and working with the seminaries directly, so funds can hopefully go directly there. Crowdfunding doesn't seem to be the best medium for this, although I'm still keeping that platform open for people who want to use it. The money will still go to seminarians.

I believe that people who give all their hard work and dedication towards overcoming great obstacles for the glory of God should be helped when they've done all they can and it's still not enough. That is why it is important to sponsor seminarians in third world countries, such as Uganda. Is this to be God's will for me forever to me to work towards this? For a few months? That's up to God and not me. I might even find my time is too limited to do as much for that cause as I really want to do.

I resigned as president of 1st Way, Eugene. I realized I was wrong about what God was calling me to do. I'm still sad about it and miss it. I wish them all the best and hope they continue to grow and thrive and save lives of babies and empower women to take care of themselves, carry their children to term and still live meaningful lives with education and careers.

One of the toughest things in the world is discernment of God's will, but I can tell you what God's will is not:

God's will is not to assume we have found the right ministry in life and to confidently and rigidly cling to that. God's will is not to assume we are better than others because we think we do things better than they do, or to insist we be the best. God's will is also not to be downcast and gloomy, to project negative outcomes in life, to wish negative outcomes in life for others, or to reject the mercy and grace of God because we'd rather feel sorry for ourselves or punish ourselves. We don't get to do this and pretend we are still following God's will. These are sins.

I know a little bit about what God's will is:

God's will is to be open, receptive, positive and trusting, even if he leads us down a windy road or what feels like a confusing maze. God's will isn't as much what specific things we need to choose as much as it is about choosing to give God the reins and allow Him to be our master or not.

We get to make this choice every day of our lives and every moment of our lives. It is the ONLY important decision we make.

Insights from Carmel- A Guide to Growth Toward Union with God

Insights from Carmel by Patricia Tresselle, OCDS, has gone to press! The books should be available in the next week or two, just in time for Christmas!

I'm more excited about this book project than any others I have done this year (including my own.) I love Pat's book. She provides an in-depth study of the writings of Carmelite saints, Carmelite prayer types and methods, and meditations through the liturgical year. 

The book is intended to be used at the discretion of formation directors in the various communities but it is also a great introduction for anyone who wants to learn more about Carmelite spirituality and the Carmelite way of life.

The goal of Carmelite spirituality is to live in union with God. Pat Tresselle shares some powerful insights and tools to grow as close as possible in relationship to Christ our Lord.

Here's what's in the book (from the table of contents):

   

1. The Process of Formation
2. The Development and Necessity of Prayer 
3. Basic Types of Prayer
4. Stages of Prayer: Following St. Teresa 
5. Prayer and St. John of the Cross
6. St. Therese and the “Little Way of Prayer”
7. Prayer and Christian Meditation 
8. Lent, Penance and Prayer 
9. Epiphany
10. A Journey Through The Interior Castle 
11. May- The Month of Mary
12. Prayer and Action In a Carmelite Life
13. St. John of The Cross, Teacher and Guide 
14. Meditation On The Magnificat
15. The Beatitudes and Carmelite Spirituality 
16. The Way of the Cross and The Way of Nada 
17. Meditation on Gethsemane
18. Meditation of Jesus’ Last Words on the Cross

The Heartbeat of Jesus, Why I Live

I was wandering the woods in my amnesia, 

Following the lights to scattered campfires, wandering to who knows where.

The moon was full

My heart was hungry

Who am I? Where am I?  So lost, confused and crying.

When my father held me as a baby, his heartbeat soothed my every tear.

When I am close to Jesus, I am near his heartbeat too. 

I am a baby in his arms and His Sacred Heart holds my heart in the safest place I'll ever be.

As I grew older, my dad and I camped by the river. The heartbeat of the river soothed me in the intoxicating laurel thicket where we slept.

Every evening, my dad's friend would say, “This is the life.” 

Years passed when I could not hear that heartbeat. 

All I could hear were chaotic sounds of need and fear, 

frantic crickets and cicadas seeking quickly fleeting mates.

The moon was full

My heart was hungry

Starving, all alone.

One day, I will find myself, floating on my back, nailed to my cross.

I won't move there but I'll be freer than in all my life, alongside of Jesus in that river of peace. 

Indifferent to my pain, my peace will deepen, more than I have ever known. He has shown me that. 

Jesus, floating with me, will say to me, with all delight, “My child, this is the life.”

The Cross, it is the Life, the life that pulls me back into the rhythm of His heart at His breast and the waves in their joy, “My child my child, this is the Only Life.”

My heart is full

As the moon fades into dawn.

Amen.

-Laura Paxton 11/02/2013