The curious part is that even if I had not gone outside that night or stopped to take in the beauty, the sparkles still would have been there, glittering like sequins in the snow. Why all this lavishness? I mean, have you ever stopped to wonder? It’s not like any of us deserve this boundless outpouring of beauty and inspiration. When Alice found herself in Lewis Carroll’s wonderland and a horde of impossible opportunities were around her, she responded as a skeptic would.
“There’s no use trying,” she said: “one can’t believe impossible things.”
“I daresay you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”
When I think about my world, I agree that’s true. When I think of the mysteries in life, I realize how many “unbelievable” things I actually believe! I think God’s humor can be found in surprising paradoxes, such as Christmas. Who would have dreamed that God, who created the universe and all of us beautiful, silly, quirky, talented, awkward human beings, would come and take on the form of one of us? Then that the God-Man would choose to be miraculously conceived in the Virgin Mary! And that our Savior came not as a military giant but as a tiny, whimpering, adorable little baby with blinking eyes and open arms. That an immortal God subjected himself to human death! That God in His earthly body endured suffering and carried our sin and infirmities on the cross. And finally, that He rose from the dead and there is victory over death! To these “impossible” statements, any reasonable people ask, “Why?”
Some of us choose to respond like Alice. We’re busy or tired and don’t want to try. Or maybe we think to believe will demand too much from us. Maybe we’ve been hurt and feel that to try to believe would be too painful, vulnerable, or scary. But the Queen says we must only practice to learn the art of belief. It’s that simple, “Just believe.” Our present and our future never held so much promise than when we first believed. That’s where the twists and turns in my life’s landscape take on meaning and I begin to see the possibilities in my life. I begin to see hope in difficult situations.
The answer to these mysteries has been planted in our deepest desires, embedded in our dreams, sounding in our heartbeats, and echoed in the fairy tales and stories of ages past, stories old and ever new…
Once upon Christmas Day, the prince of the Kingdom of Peace was moved by love to disguise himself as a simple peasant boy to go walk through his land and rescue a beautiful servant girl, who he dreamed would become his princess. When she spotted the handsome peasant boy coming, she began to sing,
“Hark, my lover - here he comes
Springing across the mountains,
Leaping across the hills!”¹
When the prince, disguised as a peasant, came to call on her, he saw that she was laden down with burdens and her beauty was disfigured. She was in need of a healer. How could she become his princess in this state? So he softly called out to her, “Come to me…you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart; and you will find rest for yourself. For my yoke is easy, and my burden light.”²
He knew this was why he had come. Because he loved her so much, he took her burdens on himself and carried the chains that had weighed her beauty down. The burdens became so heavy upon him that his appearance became unrecognizable, and the townspeople said, “There was in him no stately bearing to make us look at him, nor appearance that would attract us to him…oppressed and condemned, he was taken away, and who would have thought any more of his destiny?”³
The burdens became so heavy that the cost was his life. He gave it willingly, handing himself over for her, “to sanctify her, cleansing her by the bath of water with the word, that he might present to himself the church in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish”!4
Three days he spent in the tomb. And on the third day, he rose from the dead, fully restored and glorious beyond all telling. With his beautiful princess at his side, he led her into his kingdom to live happily ever after. Her beauty shines so brightly now, it is fixed in the stars, and that is why the stars have never ceased captivating men. Shining as lights in dark places, they remind those on earth that their true destiny is with the King.
“Faith is the realization of what is hoped for and evidence of things not seen.”
Hebrews 11:1
Wishing you the joy of faith in the coming New Year!
Christina
¹Song of Songs 2:8 ... ²Matthew 11:28-30 ... ³Isaiah 53:2,8 ... 4 Ephesians 5:25-27
In My Heart Lies South, Borton shows how an all-American woman with so much independence falls in love with one Mexican man and grows to embrace the culture so much so that it becomes a part of her. She wears all the hats, from curious spectator to active learner and finally falls gracefully into her new dress, always open, eager to learn and with humble acceptance. It is her humility and obedience that is like a gem, quite rare and beautiful to find in an American woman. But she learns by making mistakes, laughing at herself, crying tears of frustration, and learning moment by moment what gives life happiness, what makes love last, who holds families together, the madness of love, the fidelity of love, the safety of protection, the strength of a man, and the power of a woman within the family dynamic.
I cannot recommend this book enough. It speaks to the young woman who is learning about love. It relates with the young and fool-wise mother who is trying so desperately to raise her children right, but every one of her staunch arguments seems to backfire. It’s written to anyone who wants to be captured in the indomitable stronghold and safety net of a Mexican family.
Meet devout Mamacita. Look into her large, wise and mischievous eyes. She joyfully sacrifices everything for the sake of her family and is there through thick and thin. Meet the free-thinker Papacita who loves studying his books and looking after his grandchildren. Meet Beatriz and Roberto, the many tias (aunts), and a whole cast of characters who bring love and laughter to the bustling family scene.
Like Elizabeth, turn the time backwards and enter a time of traditional values and ways of life. Encounter a real Mexican family, live in their home and traipse around their town. Discover the meaning behind cultural customs, the spiritual ecstasy of the Catholic faith, and yes, even the not-so-glamorous traditions or embarrassing superstitions that remind us gently that our Church is made up of sinners. After reading this book, I have a whole new appreciation and affection for Family. Maybe it is possible to bring that adventure to our own.
It's Friday, and while many are leaning back, collars loosened, sipping hot beverages in their recliners, here I sit, writing, writing, writing. Somehow my life just got busier in a Friday!
How easy it is to get caught up in rushing around between work, family life, studies, ministries, pursuing dreams and so forth! Thankfully, the call to holiness doesn't demand that we remove ourselves entirely from a life of busyness, but that we "Belong to God...in the midst of so much busyness," (St. Francis de Sales). What a good reminder for me. Let's focus on belonging to God, and to one another.
It is with this focus that we shall be given the rest: peace, strength, courage, refreshment, consolation, love and encouragement to keep on course. When the evening twilight of our lives darkens, we shall take up our eternal rest on high, along with our loved ones who have gone the way before us. No longer dead but alive in Christ, we shall all belong fully to God and fully to one another.
Hope? After this dark week? Yeah, that’s how I felt, until my friend surprised me by saying that I was the most hope-filled person she knows! And I began to wonder…why? Why do others say I am a person of hope? What makes a person of hope?
I was three years old, alone, in darkness, my head throbbing with pain, strange smells, strange bed, and foreign voices. Where was my mom? Where was Dad?
The car crash had instantly killed my father and injured my mother. Choking and deprived of oxygen, I was within moments of death when they found me and began doing CPR on me. With a cracked skull, concussion, a ruptured eardrum, bruises and a black eye, I was sent to Children’s Hospital in Milwaukee. Alone and far away from my mom, who was in the hospital in another city, my prognosis was not good. My two aunts visited me regularly to sit and hold me in their arms, but I refused to eat anything and turned to sleep. When it became obvious that there was no physical reason why I couldn't survive, my male nurse worried that I was giving up on life, that the darkness and pain was too much to bear. Life without hope is no life at all.
At the nurse's bidding, my mom recorded a tape and sent it to me. It was her voice singing songs to me, telling me stories, and saying how much she loved me. I can still hear those soft words in my mind to this day. She was a mother in one hospital bed calling out to her child alone in another hospital: “Live! Choose to live! I love you!”
Thanks, Mom.
And on that tape, my mother read me the story The Little Engine That Could. Do you remember a favorite book from your childhood? This one is mine. The little blue engine said yes to help pull the train loaded with toys and good gifts for children to the other side of the mountain. Pulling with all her might, that little blue engine chugged up the hill, repeating, “I think I can. I think I can. I think I can.”
This children’s story still quickens my heart today and stirs up emotions inside me. It has become the mantra of my life.
I decided then and there to live. After listening to the entire tape with my eyes open, I decided that I was not going to give up on life. I began the fight to live. And when my aunt offered me a mashed banana after the recording was over, I ate it. Something stirred in my breast and made me believe that no matter how awful the darkness was that I was going through, life would still be worth living. Wow! I healed!
The next few years of life would be hard and mournful. Losing my father was the foremost reason for my clinging to hope. Growing up without my dad is a loss that only feels itself deepen, not fade, with time. Therefore, I know that it is our various trials in life that influence us and teach us the reality of hope. We choose to be hope-filled.
Hope is courage. Hope is endurance. Since my childhood, I have chosen to live by the motto “I think I can!” and “I thought I could!” And onward through this vale of tears and over mountains, this little engine keeps chugging along, hopeful, optimistic, and smiling!
I know I can!
I have a confession to make. I have not sat down to blog in the last three weeks! NOR have I been diligent in taking daily walks.
“Walking itself is a cognitive act. The more I hike, the more I find my words,” said Mary Kay Baum, a courageous woman I met recently with early-onset Alzheimer’s disease. I was attending her inspirational talk as a reporter and taking down her words, so I could write an article about her. How true about the cognitive power of walking! How often do we think of hiking, or biking, or ballroom dancing, or any kind of exercise for that matter, as a cognitive act? Yet, it is employing our mental faculties. And so often as a writer, I find that when I’m walking, then the words come.
This fall, I’ve gotten the chance to hike several times on wooded trails with friends. We call these excursions Emmaus Hikes because we use it as a time to reflect on the Scriptures and pray with each other, as well as to explore and appreciate God’s breathtaking creation. Last week, we trekked over a carpet of gold, leaves of the most lustrous golden hue, under the arches of a wooded cathedral. We followed a trail beside a running creek that gurgled as it fell over grey rocks and flowed on its course. We walked through a field of prairie grass with purple wild flowers. We moved within this still setting of tranquility.
A different experience with nature happened to me last month. I went to Lakeside Park alone and sat down on a rock by the edge of the largest lake in Wisconsin. Rather than being in the cloister of the woods with the companionship of friends, here I was out in the open air with the lake stretched out so deep and wide before me. This time the wind was stirring up the water and forcing it to come crashing against the rocks. Nature’s commotion seemed to aptly express the emotions in my heart that day. And in the wild roughness of the wind and water, my only companion was a forlorn fisherman, who kept moving along the rocks in search of a lucrative spot. Seemed he was as restless as my heart, though I didn’t move. The cut in the chill autumn breeze kissed my face. It was a brisk beauty, wild and free, rough and crashing. And as I sat there, my frantic heart found rescue and peace. I related with the duck, bobbing up and down on the water, being pushed along by forces greater than it, which it hardly understood. I became filled with awe of how small I was and great I am at the same time. Here was this little writer, this broken seeker, on the rocks being swept up into God’s awesome creation. How wonderful are the works of your Hands, O God! And who am I to tell of them? The rhythm of the waves, rough as they were, calmed my heart.
I have walked the park with many people. I have sat by the water’s edge with different friends. And I’ve learned that not everyone reacts the same way. While one person walks with deliberate step and purpose, another walks leisurely, savoring the moment. While one walks to conquer, another walks to be conquered–by beauty, by nature, by conversation and by nature’s romance. Myself, I walk to be conquered. The words come as I breathe in deeply and reflectively of the larger purpose through which I trek.
It’s good to be back.
So I am currently being caught up in 1940s culture and World War II stories. It all started after reading the novel Dream When You’re Feeling Blue by Elizabeth Berg this summer. Then this fall I was handed a copy of one veteran hero’s self-published booklet revealing his wartime memories in Germany. My curiosity kept thirsting for more and led me to the library to pick up The Greatest Generation, a touching book of so many people’s stories and written by TV anchor Tom Brokaw. I only read the first chapter so far, but it looks like it will be an unforgettable read.
So what’s the big deal? Everything! Here are just some bits and pieces of what I find most intriguing about the culture of the 1940s and the generation that survived the Great Depression, fought earnestly and won World War II, and taught America what it means to go where duty calls and honor beckons, to sacrifice, to be patriotic, and to love.
I admire the unity between the soldiers fighting abroad and the families on the home front, united in the war cause and equally sacrificing their lives so that we could win the war. I admire the willingness to make sacrifices for a common cause and for their loved ones. Marriages stayed together. Families were large, close-knit, and they stayed together (this was the era when kids actually slept two or three in a room – gasp!) And the country stood together. I really believe this was because they were eager to make sacrifices for each other. I’m touched by the power of handwritten letters from girlfriends, parents, little siblings, and strangers to keep up the morale of our soldiers. I admire the girlish fashion of the 1940s - so classy. In fact, what wasn’t classy about the ‘40s? I admire the men and am inspired by the women. Even with women entering the workforce (to support the war and their men), there was respect for masculine and feminine roles. Most of all, I admire our grandparents who are men and women of this generation. We have not respected and honored them enough. We have a lot to learn from them.
So, my readers, I’d love to hear your thoughts and stories. Do you have any good book recommendations or favorite World War II films?
“Better than robbing a bank!” said the man in the beaver hat, half-kidding, half-serious, standing over the stranger he was talking to in the second floor of the library. He gave the stranger sitting down an over-friendly jab on the shoulder and continued, “I go by the Bible’s principles. If a man can’t trust another man, then what good is all this,” he waved his hand at the law books the man was reading. “Then how are we going to ever get out of Iraq and end this war.”
I was in the library, working on my writing assignments, but now the beaver man attracted all my curiosity. He had found sanctuary, like me, in the literature section with the likes of Stephen King, Faulkner, Hemingway, Twain and O’Conner – the American literary greats. The beaver man wore tennis shoes, blue jeans, and a rough cotton shirt. His eyes were hollowed out in the valleys of his face. He arrived at my table with a square black case, a large overstuffed white envelope, and his calculator, ready to fulfill his duty to the government and fill out his tax forms. I subtly observed him.
Before he opened up his case, I noticed a black and white sticker and on it “9-11” and “war.” He wore a pin on his shirt with the reverse colors, black letters that spelled “Committ” on a white background, a slogan or word I had never heard before. It seemed like some kind of rallying statement. How long had he had it? How long had he been wearing pins and stickers, carrying signs and preaching peace?
What ensued were grunts and sighs. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” he blurted out loud. After a while, he rose up suddenly and walked to the window, his eyes searching beyond the confines of politics and money boxes. I related with his yearning to find deeper meaning – is this all there is? Then he disappeared around the aisles of American fiction, only to suddenly reappear later, like some figure of the past who was still searching to find his place in the story, or his piece in the peace. Where was the peace he had been rallying for all his life?
One look at his papers sprawled out all over the table put him at unrest again. Taxes had no appeal to him now. That is why he turned to the man at the next table over, the white bearded man in a grey shirt and black sock hat. The man in the beaver hat drew curiously over, the beaver tail hanging behind his head. “If you don’t mind me asking,” he began, “Are you studying government? You’re not a lawyer, are you?”
The man answered no and murmured that he was studying to complete some kind of suit or law cases. From the tidbits I gathered he was studying for a degree in a new job. The more they chatted, the more amiable the man in the beaver hat became. Finally, he gave the stranger a friendly pat in admiration and wished him luck. “Better than robbing a bank!” he said and advised, “Don’t expect to make anything the first six months.”
I sat there and mused, my mind turning completely different matters than before. Where is the answer for peace? Is it in robbing the bank so we have financial “security”? Is it in our power-hungry careers? Is it in bigger government that provides for us after we have given our freedoms away? Is it in robbery or well-earned corporate successes, progressivism, consumerism or market increases? If so, then why are there growing divisions, rivalry, putting your fellow man down, national insecurities, and global wars? Yes, the more we reach for, the less we have. The more our arms grab and cling to, the less freedom we possess. The man in the beaver hat was right, “If a man can’t trust another man, then what good is all of this?”
I recalled his height, but how he slouched over at the shoulders, as if carrying the weight of a generation of fighters: Vietnam protesters, revolutionaries, tree-huggers and hippies. How many causes had he joined? Were they won or lost? And did it matter? Does any of it matter?
When all of this fades away and we are left, stripped of everything…a trumpet will thunder …“man and woman he created them…” and we will remember it all begins and ends with him and her and God. This is how it began and this is how it will end: ourselves accountable before the God who created us.
The greatest interior peace comes from doing the will of God in our lives. As Dante so famously penned in Paradiso, “In His will is our peace.”
Trust within loving relationships will yield peace. Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979, said “If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.” To belong to each other is to depend on one another, to hold ourselves responsible for each other’s well being, to be faithful in our promises, to be trustworthy. The family is the most basic cultivating ground for peace. Peace between couples equals peace in families, equals peace between neighbors, equals peace within cities, equals peace between states, countries, and nations. Mother Teresa, in calling us to cultivate peace in the world begins from home base, “I want you to be concerned about your next door neighbor. Do you know your next door neighbor?”
To all who read this, and to the man in the beaver hat, I hope that you may find and know the peace that you seek.
