Short lil'in one ear and out the other venting baby rant.... quitting smoking- hard!
So this am I had the bright idea in the shower that quitting smoking is like the Gospel passage where a man sins seven or seventy or a million seventy times a day.. so like smoking you fail several times a day and some are easier then others.. yada-yada. Nuff said there
All is fine for me but get me around my family, who are salt of the earth, the most wonderful, kind, loving, give ya anything ya need people, who ALL smoke!!! Did not plan on joining them for lunch but had Mom's office papers and Mass let out early enough thought I could get them to her at my bro's office. Ended up going to lunch with them... like I said I loving best family in the world but by the time we got back to my brother's office afterwards I could have fought a battalion or just curl up alone and hide.... SMOKE SMOKE all around smoke that bitchy gene was kicking in and a head ache from hell was joining in just fer kicks. Then went to post office to drop off passport application and the gal said you have to call for an appointment...grrrrrrrr... ya know how much I love fed govt BS..la-la-laa.. ok I call the number and a voicemail informs me to leave my number and WAIT for them to call me back... WT*?? So now I am home waiting for the USPS trolls to call me back so I can drop off my passport app....la-la-la-la,...
Please pardon the rant sometimes ya just have to articulate the frustrations to be rid of them.
!!!!!!!----OK Life is back in synch again-Thanks be to God! St Andrews had their once a month Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament(Eucharistic Adoration) so went there for the whole thing 5pm-7pm...AHHHHHH Our God is an AWESOME GOD!
Such a humble state hidden and vunerable yet so strong, immediate, unintimidating! Oh what a glorious 2 hours in the church of my youth! Jesus reminded me of the loving times spent there as a child. My mind's eye captivated once again in the evening sunlight by the stained glass windows, the ornate decorations, the beauty of this church with such humble beginnings. this 'castle on the hill' my protestant friends would call it.
Ahh-- images of my grandparents in their Sunday best sitting near the front.. happenstance( we know what I think about that- it rarely is coincidence) I was sitting 4 pews back on Mary's side where they would sit most Sundays for who knows how many decades. My Grandmother's pure strong soprano voice singing gloriously in my ear, my grandfather's coat a faint hint of pipe tobacco... With eyes of a child I could see again the people from the back of the church as the sun beamed through the rose window and we would find our seats before Mass. the choir bursting in song for the season and everybody raising as the priest and alter boys entered bearing the crucifix before them. Faint hints of incense drifted in my childhood memories transporting me to the wonderment I felt as a toddler, young child, young teen.
Oh how I gazed up at the giant crucifix above the alter Sunday after Sunday telling Jesus my young thoughts, mystified at times at why this gentle man would not just come down from there and play. LOL, so when very little I would sneak my crucifix out to the backyard where we had our 'hole to China" with roads and caves cut in and play with Him there because Jesus needed to have fun too I reasoned in my stubborn little mind. As He and I would battle the devil and always win, or marvel at the sky and wonders in the backyard adventures.
Love, love, love! All around me images and smells, thoughts and songs of love! From my family to the mass, to my first communion to confirmation, confession in the dark safe boxes, to my wondering why I ever drifted away. LOVE! I was shown love through those 2 hours of simple things and complex mysteries! LOVE! How Jesus heard the pleas of His Mother praying to Him on my behalf and sending the Holy Spirit to save me that dark night. The mystery of the Holy body, Blood Soul and divinity of Jesus in that most sacred humble Sacrament of bread and wine transubstantiated into His real present self. How He was there listening to every person praying there listening to their heartfelt prayers, hopes, fears, dreams, needs as if no other existed in the world. How at that moment somewhere in the world His precious Body was being broken by a priest for our salvation our little way of joining into His great sacrifice for us.
Love! To reminding me how one week ago He told me that nothing mattered except Him, Jesus. No one else mattered except for Him, Jesus.. To let the fears of the past go and to follow Him completely. Then he reminded me of the dream I had Thursday night that made it clear that all could and should be left behind including my family for they will be fine and if I stayed with them over Him I would be following the wrong path and I knew it. Then I asked Him to please make it easy to know the path since I have a bit of a problem differentiating subtly of His and that of my own desires. Oh how wonderful to talk with Jesus this way! He showed me an image of Him as a baby small, vulnerable depending on His human parents completely to care for Him and how I need to be like that child and depend completely on Him and to trust Him with all things. It may not happen on my time scale but He will lead and make the path when He wills it... and so it shall be!
Also used the smoking as a way to show that I and all men will fall as He did during the Crucifixion. He fell with us so we can see that we fall and we ask for forgiveness and help from God and then we get right back up and continue carrying our cross with Him. Onward up the hill to Calvary, upward struggling, suffering, seeing the love of the women and Blessed Mary knowing that even in extreme suffering there will always be love with us reaching out to wipe our face, offer us water, and to give us complete gentle caring love... just as Jesus went through so shall we... the good, the ugly, the tortuous.. all for the glory of God!
Glory be to the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit! As it was in the beginning, is now and shall ever be. Amen! Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia!
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