End of Christmas...ordinary time

 

Today I took down the Christmas ornaments and lights and other Christmas decorations.  The tree stands barren with a nativity scene as the focus on Christ's birthday and baby Jesus shifts to ordinary time tomorrow.

Ordinary time which is most of the time in the Church calendar year. Of course no time is ordinary in our lives. But there are seasons in Christ's life that are poignant.  His birth and what that means and his passion and resurrection and what that means.

Each teaches us something no matter how many times we celebrate and travel alongside.

But the end of Christmas is different from the end of Lent. Lent has the culmination of Easter and a 50 day celebration after 40 days of Lenten fast. The end of Christmas is the end of awe, wonder, and joy. We know what comes next in the not too distant future. But today I reflect on the trust, innocence and wondrous deed of the incarnation. Today the three magi arrive days later to see what we could not see. I wonder if we could really see if we were there. But I am comforted by Christ saying that blessed are those who believe even though they did not see.

On a personal note, this Christmas season brought about many little miracles that continue my phase of a new direction and beginning. The prevailing sentiment is peace mixed with a little bit of a roller coaster. What gives me peace is that God's will is always accomplished. It becomes easier when we allow and cooperate with his guidance and voice. 

So as tomorrow begins ordinary time, may the end of Christmas infuse it with extraordinary thoughts and actions being led by the Lord.

New Beginnings

This is the second week of advent 2024. This year has seen a sea of change for me both professionally and personally. And I ask new questions now, and some of the answers have taken time and others have not been answered. Patience is easier when you finally have seen God work things out enough times that you have faith that God works things out to the next steps and in the end. I actually find joy in asking questions now. It is as if I am discovering myself for the first time.  

Professionally,  Acting was always a bit of a reluctant call. Love the art but am afraid of the unknown and of my own judgement. Acting is such a personal art and it is collaborative. That collaboration with people who were unfamiliar was a challenge for me. Before I would take almost any job in the field and now after hitting a milestone professionally and moving away from  LA, I can no longer do that. I am more discerning and honest with myself. What lies ahead depends on how I answer the questions I am asking myself and God. 

Personally both in friendship and romance--I reflect a lot more when I feel disrespected or in low priority.  Oftentimes, silence has the answers that words can not provide. The decisions take time but they do come. In new relationships--I take my time and discern and when I choose to respond--I have been gifted the grace to do so chartiably. Being honest with yourself is not easy. Eventually. operating on fear becomes a non productive habit. 

The fruit of all of this has mainly pleasant aspects now. The pleasant is peace, patience, joy and humility and the unpleasant is unexplained loneliness at times. The process to get here involved struggle, detachment, feeling stuck, fighting myself and anger. Growth is never easy but it is worth it. The miracle that comes is when the doors finally open and the past doors finally close. It is at once unexpected and a great relief.  Place holders are removed and you finally feel yourself moving forward. 

The one gift that I have been graced with is intuition and trusting that that comes when it comes. Listening to it is always the way forward.  As the Advent season progresses, I find my calendar full with good choices. FOMO only applies to the stock market. :-) But with every new struggle..I will find that answer. The struggle is a new opportunity for growth.  

This season of Advent is teaching me that some old traditions are good and some no longer feed the season. It teaches me that Jesus is not the same or stagnant even in celebrating his birth year in and year out.  He is always waiting and welcoming us to New Beginnings.

Merry Christmas

It has been a while since I have been inspired to write. 2023 was a very challenging year for me..filled with lots of unique experiences...different choices than I normally make and much painful growth. A lot of the time I closed my heart sometimes without intention and sometimes with. But that has led me to writing this day.I have never chosen to write about the birthday that changed the world  and doing it on  Christ's actual birthday.

A lot of peace permeates me now as I write this. There is a lot of  misinformation surrounding the celebration of December 25th as the actual day of Christ's birth. If you want to know more about that here is a link--https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/why-december-25

This holy day has become a holiday with the symbols of gifts, which the wise men were bearing, Christmas trees ( tree of life, evergreen tree symbolizing eternal life believing in Jesus) writing cards (which seems to be just a recent custom replacing letters) and Santa Claus ( Saint  Nicholas who had legendary habit of secret gift-giving gave rise to the traditional model of Santa Claus ("Saint Nick") through Sinterklaas.)

This day marks the day The word of God became flesh. This year for me had me pause more than other years to think and feel what that means. Too much emotion, anticipation and expectation flooded past Christmases with family, friends and significant others. This year those elements were certainly there but I was also more peaceful. This year three attempts to schop down a Christmas tree met with odd interruptions that prevented it from happening. A tradition I had for 20 plus years. From that flowed the decision to skip sending Chrstmas cards this year...something I had done since I was 25.  I chose to spend it in LA with new experiences and with new acquaintances. And even that came with signs making it easy for me to choose. 

Life has its challenges and crosses and I thank God for the days filled with grace. Hope is the antidote to most of our ills..for it brings joy. Hope in this life and hope in the afterlife and resurrection. All is possible and the hurdles we must jump to get there makes us not only stronger but more appreciative of the blessing.

These next twelve days I promise to open my heart again and bring love and joy to people and creatures that cross my path. I opened my heart to my cat Emma..almost gave her up. Bringing the medical records and hearing her reactions and fate as well as discussing what really is required to have her live a normal cat life. I guess a life on meds for her is not all bad when faced with the alternative.

If you are joyful and blessed this Christmas I am happy for you and give thanks. If you are somewhere in between or worse than that...My heart breaks for you and my hope is that you find the joy in what Jesus birthday really means and the blessings that will flow from there.

God coming into this world as one of us  means we can overcome as well albeit with falls along the way. Salvation history would not be continuing if we did not have a purpose in it. You have a purpose in it...in what seems immediate and apparent and what is not apparent.

Merry Christmas!

Happy Freedependence day ( 4th of July)

Our culture and its evolution in this country especially in the last 70 years has been nothing short of mind bending for a lot of us. But with every change even the not so good ones as far as for the good of society lends an opportunity for charity. So much of the time we take personal offense at things and fail to see that even in disagreement we can be charitable. Sometimes charity means stepping away and letting those people are that person know, we/I am here for you if you choose to not self-destruct but I am going to walk away if you persist in your self destructive ways. Love/charity does not always seem kind. But it certainly is for the good of the other and for the good of the self.

Freedom has its positives and negatives and is by design, divine design. Freedom from our own self destructive ways of thinking..lots of times unconscious is perhaps the greatest challenge. By setting ourselves free we can help set others free and vice versa.

With Freedom we have the ability to do great harm to others and ourselves. We each twist our perception of reality to be the end all be all. But we each have the freedom to choose God and to be as charitable as we wish.  God works through each one of us to influence and add to this journey of life. Some will challenge us and others will agree and it all serves its purpose.

In the end the freedom we have been given and how we choose to respect and challenge each other's freedom is ours to make.  Divine providence prevails and in that too we have the freedom to accept or fight it as well. If we choose to depend on God..that too is our freedom to choose. The freedom to choose back as He is always ready to help.

Happy Freedependence day and embrace our country's gifts and flaws and know we are here for a great reason..to help and to heal each other by design with God guidance and help as we freely depend on Him.

Forgiveness

 

Rarely is this voice heard or if heard respected. Forgiveness is a gift to yourself, to the injuring party and to the world. In this Easter Season there have been many moments I found joy, lightness and openness and many times I have felt loss, aloneness and pain. That is the process leading to forgiveness. Sometimes there are patterns that repeat itself in relationships and you have to stop the pattern. And sometimes stopping that pattern requires saying true things that change the other's perspective and the way they choose to move forward or not. When this pattern for you finally ends, you may feel relief.  

But a choice follows.

You can choose to blame yourself, the other person or God or life circumstances, your parents or all or part or a myriad of other options or you can just choose to forgive everyone you blamed.

There is a freedom in forgiving yourself, the other person and your false concept of God (or whomever else you blamed). It lifts the cloud and makes you light. It allows you to face the music and let others handle things their own way. It allows you to let go and move on. What follows is that you open to new experiences,  new people, and to God in a different way. You open to whatever comes or does not come your way. It frees you to see that sometimes you don't see and so you forgive that too,

Forgiveness takes many forms. The past is one..the present is another and the future requires another. Sometimes you will fail in the moment but the goal remains the same. Don't forget to forgive yourself too.

For me and God..I think I took the signs as an answer. Perhaps the answer was to open up and keep walking through problems over and over again because I kept seeing signs and progress. I have to believe the purpose is growth now. Many beautiful gifts come from a failed relationship. But I have to be honest and say..in hindsight I would have stopped walking through the problems a long long time ago. On the other hand, I learned to the very end something very valuable had I not walked through the problems until I could no more. In any case God uses every choice the good, the bad, the beautiful and the ugly for His grand purpose. And I am grateful I don't get to know or judge.

If it took this experience to learn the beauty, the power and the healing effect of forgiveness then it was well worth it.  It's a muscle I will have to use over and over for myself and others. I hope to give God the reins fully one day..it seems to work for a lot of people but that process for me now still requires  discernement, pondering and the free will choice to continue down this path of faith.

One day I will look back and say this major shift led to this wonderful new path and the timing was right and it never would have been if this other thing did not happen or end when it did or the way it did. 

Forgiveness is what drew me back to faith. The famous passage while Jesus was hanging on the cross, "Forgive them Father for they know not what they do."  That touched me in a way nothing else did when I came to know the purpose of life. Give that voice/whisper a chance.  Forgiveness is one of the more beautiful gifts God has taught us about and it works.

Allow...

 

Happy 2021..a new and brief post with acronyms.

ACT  Allow Change to Happen

ALT  Allow Love to Happen

                                                                                    AMT  Allow Miracles to Happen

                                                                                    APT  Allow Prayer to Happen

Advent is Truly a Miraculous Adventure

As 2020 draws to a close, we reflect on a year that was for most of us mixed with unexpected blessings and unexpected sorrows. Perhaps both are necessary to prepare us both for our eternal home and a deeper joy in this life.

This Advent is unique for me..I journeyed with the Magnificat Companion. And actually I had not intended on it. I originally ordered it for a friend and that manufacturer said it could be past Nov. 29 before it was delivered.  So I tried to cancel the order and in the meantime picked up a copy at a local religious bookstore and mailed it to my friend. Ironically, the other copy came as well and I asked him to drop off the extra copy in my box. I received it just in time to start on Nov. 29.

And what an adventure it has been...from unexpected meetings to unexpected phone calls. And in the process, layer's being removed and fears discovered. For me..the most surprising thing is how much of an undercurrent fear plays in my action and inaction. Certainly love has also motivated me but I just did not realize that fear was so strong. I guess the quiet allows each of us to reflect...if we take the opportunity to do so.

I will start with the beginning and then my own personal discoveries.  Oftentimes, what appears as one thing is often another thing nuanced. For example the story about Adam and Eve.  Aside from the serpent's deception and guile, I would like to look at Adam and Eves response.  Certainly disobedience was there but it was also FOMO perhaps. Fear of missing out. If this fruit opened eyes and provided wisdom and one could be like God knowing both good and evil...then if they don't eat it they will stay ignorant. Certainly they knew God and what he had said and enjoyed but what if there was something more? They would have consulted God with this dilemma first. They had no reason to doubt his goodness..yet FOMO won the day.

Then their eyes were opened and when they heard the Lord they hid out of fear. Then they feared taking responsibility and feared God and started to cast blame around. Fear prompts a whole host of behaviors and thoughts that are sinful..but the genesis may always be fear. Certainly fear is good in some instances as an alert..but if our response generally speaking is love then we are never filled with angst or fear. No matter what the consequences are.

So now to the personal. I would venture to say that most people on a superficial level think I am a fairly courageous woman. And to some degree I do believe I have been blessed with this gift thru temperament and circumstance. 

However, what appears as courage sometimes...not all the time of course..is under laden with fear. When I am doing something that I believe is Gods will then it is much easier to be courageous. But when the motivation turns to my own needs as the primary focus...well for sure that can be fear.

I tend to be fairly proactive with friends but sometimes it is to be in control of how much company I have. I fear the silence sometimes. I fear finding out what happens if I don't do this. Thankfully, Covid has afforded the luxury of more submissiveness and humility. Probably traits that need a bit more attention in my temperament. 

I also tend to use my reasoning and detachment as means of protecting myself. I fear rejection and I fear being taken advantage of..I fear caring deeply and hurting deeply. But alas..this where this Advent is a huge blessing. The adventure has led me outside my comfort zone of control and fear..trusting God and letting him lead but doing so with trepidation at times. But there are many moments and in particular now...that I feel this sense of hope and joy that makes it easier to be open to God and his love and then in turn be loving in my actions.

Reading the Magnificat Companion, the book given out by my Parish named the Hidden Power of Kindness and praying and also praying the rosary  have been a huge blessing for me. Having faith and letting time and Grace happen is also a huge blessing.  The reward is that this adventure has led me to a deeper peace, a deeper joy and a deeper love.

And that is more than I have dared hope for in Advents past.  Christmas is coming....are you ready? Are you ready for transformative miracles? No matter what the outcome of the days are whether joyful, sorrowful or a mixture of both..we always have the choice to say no to fear and yes to love. May the serenity that surpasses our understanding bless you during these last few days of Advent and give you the deepest joy in opening your heart to remembering the miracle of God becoming human...in the form of baby Jesus. 

Advent is a truly a miraculous adventure.