Category Archives: reflections

Whatever is lovely

reflections, , , ,
autumn leaves and shadows
autumn leaves and shadows

Anxiety. It’s not imaginary. It’s not soft and cuddly. It is real.  Certainly anxiety has been a part of my own life for as long as I can remember. My mother used to talk about my ‘anxiety bunnies.’ Therapy, prayer, and just being gentle over the years has helped me to befriend my anxiety and learn how to deal with it without it dealing too much with me, if you now what I mean.

Maybe that’s why I’ve always loved that anxiety has a part to play in my own Congregation’s story. In 1884, at the profession of vows of the first Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace, Bishop Edward Gilpin Bagshawe said this:

“To secure this divine peace for ourselves and procure its blessing for others in the midst of the sin, turmoil, and restless anxiety of this modern world is the object of your institute.”

As a Sister of St. Joseph of Peace, then, my object is to be present to the restless anxiety of the world (and in myself) in ways that bring peace.

Today as I was walking home from church through city streets aglow with the splendor of autumn, I found myself reflecting on today’s second reading from Philippians (4: 6-9).

Brothers and sisters:
Have no anxiety at all, but in everything,
by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving,
make your requests known to God.
Then the peace of God that surpasses all understanding
will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

Finally, brothers and sisters,
whatever is true, whatever is honorable,
whatever is just, whatever is pure,
whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious,
if there is any excellence
and if there is anything worthy of praise,
think about these things.
Keep on doing what you have learned and received
and heard and seen in me.
Then the God of peace will be with you.

First of all, my dear friend Paul needs to realize that as much as we might wish to brush our anxiety bunnies under the rug, they will pop back up from time to time. We will have anxiety. I will (and do) have anxiety.  But he has a point that rings true with my own experience.

The path to peace in the midst of the restless anxiety of our world (and our own hearts) is to bring that anxiety to God. To bring our prayers and concerns and wonderings to our God who of course already knows all about them, but there is something good and intimate and honest about laying it all before our loving God.

And so having placed our anxieties before God, we can let them rest there and focus instead on whatever is true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, gracious, and excellent.

Whatever is lovely … so much is lovely, as my autumn walk this morning showed me in abundance. Does that make all the yucky or complicated or worrisome stuff of life go away? No. But it brings some peace that helps us to be more authentic and our best selves as we face what we have to face in life.

Or so it seemed to me this morning on my autumn walk.

May the God of Peace be with you all, and may whatever lovely things you come across on your path today touch your heart and stop you in your tracks, if just for a moment.

Friendship, Vulnerability, and Prayer

reflections,
Photo Credit: "Friendship" by Fabrizio Lonzini/Creative Commons License 2.0
Photo Credit: “Friendship” by Fabrizio Lonzini/Creative Commons License 2.0

I am a lucky girl. Over the years, my path has crossed with some pretty amazing people, and I have been blessed to develop some incredible, deep, and lasting friendships with some of them.

Friendships of course start because you have some commonality, shared experience, or perspective. There you are, just living your life day by day, and before you know it, you’ve got a friend. Come to think of it, isn’t that a song from a certain animated feature?

Even for those of us who are just a little bit shy, that’s really the easy part. The hard part comes when your commonalities shift or go away, or when the physical distance between you grows, or other life changing events happen and shift the landscape of your friendship.  When you shoulder some of those burdens of life together, renew connections and make new ones, your friendship goes even deeper and in the process becomes more precious.

In my experience, the most beautiful part of friendship comes when you are able to walk tenderly together into the moments and spaces of vulnerability in your lives. Sometimes this is entirely mutual, such as when you and your friend share a hard experience. Sometimes you are the one in a vulnerable spot, and your friend is there to love and support you and help you remember how good things can be and that things will be good again.  And sometimes, the grace in the moment is that you are able to be there for your friend when things aren’t going that well, or even when it seems as if their world is falling apart.

I will never forget one of these moments in my own life, the night I got the news that my mom’s long struggle with cancer was finally over and she had passed. As hard as it is to believe, that was actually eleven years ago this month. At that moment, I was filled with a jumble of feelings that were almost overpowering and paralyzing. I was so glad my mom was no longer suffering, yet at the same time felt like my world had literally been torn apart and would never come back together. I called my friend. I’m not sure how coherent I was. I think I was just trying to tell someone that I was dropping everything and flying home the next day to be with my family and get ready for the funeral. I may not actually have said anything. All I know is that within the next hour, well after midnight while I was packing my suitcase, there was a gentle knock on my door.  My friend was there just to give me a hug. She had driven all the way across town just to do that. I hadn’t cried really until that hug but her presence and love freed me to let go and be with my grief. What gift.

My prayers these days are filled with hopes and love and support for friends who are going through their own rough patches. Marriage problems, deaths or serious health problems of loved ones, job or vocation crises.  Some of my favorite people in the world are having a tough time right now.  In most cases, they are too far away for me to hop in a car and give them a hug. But in my prayer, they are loved and held in a special way. Being present, even at a distance, to my friends in their vulnerability is such a beautiful thing.

I was looking for a photo to go with the post and found the one above. How perfect is that, my friends, to express what I’ve been trying to write in the past 628 words?  Sometimes, you just need a buddy to sit within you in the dryer, to give you a hug between the spins and hot spots of life.