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

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. 

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.

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

The Infinite Hole in Our Hearts

When I wrote, “Borderline and Beyond” seventeen years ago, I just wanted to survive, to want to live and to stay out of a psych hospital. Three years later, my goals expanded to include “learning to love myself” and “making lots of money.” I found the perfect fit for those goals in a type of new age philosophy. The techniques and practices I used worked. I had greatly improved self-esteem, career success, money and status. I was happier than I had been in my life.

However, I'm not still following that philosophy. Some people (who do not think I've completely lost my mind these days) ask me why. The reason is that none of these areas of “success” in my life were places where my heart was designed to find rest. St. Thomas Aquinas gives us a list of four goals that will create an empty life if pursued for their own sake: wealth, status, power and comfort. I can attest that this is true.

Our hearts are designed by God to find rest in Him. The philosophy I was following included other goals such as “becoming God,” and learning to love yourself as God. One teacher I had asked me to spend hours in front of the mirror trying to “love myself perfectly,” as this was the key to my enlightenment.

During that time, (around 2001-06) I revised Borderline and Beyond to include similar practices that I recommended for people to try, such as the “mirror work.” And yes, it does work, up to a point. It's also a band-aid to cover a deep hole in your heart. Take the band-aid off and the hole will be just as deep and wide. I've heard it said that in each person there is an infinitely deep hole, a God sized hole, and that's why only God can fill it.

The “hole” in our heart cannot be filled with ourselves. We don't live in isolation and we are created in the image of God, who is infinitely bigger than we are. The good news is that God can and does fill that hole when we ask Him to. When I realize how I need God for every breath I take and every move I make, and when I am aware of my absolute dependence on God, God has a chance to fill that hole with his strength, love and wisdom. This is the only way to peace and purpose in life.

Am I going to revise Borderline and Beyond again to include a religious or Christian theme? No, actually not. I'll be restoring my book to its original condition, just as I wrote it while in my mid-twenties. My book was written to reach people in a similar place and it will and has reached down and lifted up those who are struggling with day to day emotional survival. I'm simply taking out the added stuff.

The new book will be called, Borderline and Beyond: The Original. The accompanying workbook never came with the original book. It was added later. That book will be changed but again, no religious ideas added. The only difference will be that I'm taking out anything that in my opinion is unnecessary and possibly confusing the reader more than helping her.

Borderline and Beyond has always been a book about recovery, strength and hope. My hope is that the book will be a better resource in the future, once I complete the restoration of the book.