Won over to the Little Way

St. Therese of Lisieux.... she's like the popular girl at school.  Everyone talks about her, everyone gets her class picture.  It would be comforting if she would at least be a mean girl, and then you would be justified in your envious dislike of her - but she is among other things, the kindest, most loving person in the room.

Throughout my faith journey, St. Therese has been the one fly in the saint ointment for me.  I did not care to read Story of a Soul.  In college, I felt obligated to be inspired by her "little way," but instead I felt irritated.  She seemed so coddled, so perfect.  So loved and admired.  Her journey to God seemed too easy, too...little, for my taste.

Instead, I preferred saints of a stronger mettle - St. Teresa of Avila, who bravely discoursed with kings and popes, who spoke plainly and honestly and often made me laugh.  I preferred Mother Theresa of Calcutta, who got in and DID something.  St. Therese of Lisieux in a convent... my real, honest wondering was, what did she DO?

"We cannot do great things, but we can do small things with great love." - Mother Theresa

The funny thing is, that sometimes I have a sense that St. Therese adopted me somewhere along the way.  It would be just like her to choose the person who liked her least, and choose to love and pray for her, wouldn't it?  How annoying.  And yet, over the past several years, my opinion of her has begun to change. 

I was initially turned off by the "little" way, and how small the returns would be.  I looked for a grand design, a big plan.  Early in my faith, I wanted God's call for my life to be something BIG.  Ordinary things didn't inspire me.  I could see the need to love my brothers and sisters halfway across the world and just as easily ignore my brothers and sisters before me. 

Sometimes I think one of the greatest catchphrases that influenced my advent into the Catholic Christian lifestyle was "God has a big plan for your life." To quote Anne of Green Gables, this phrase has a lot of 'scope for the imagination.' In my imaginings, this plan would be monumental - a career as a Christian singer/songwriter, perhaps.  It would be fueled with important encounters with people in which hearts were changed, lives won over, in which everything grew in significance.  Life would be one long succession of great moments.

"Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin." 

  Mother Theresa   



Throughout my 20s, the more I searched for these moments, these evidences of a "big plan," the more frustrated I became.  Life was not moving along as expected.  Something must have gone wrong.  Either the phrase about God's "big plan" was just a flashy embellishment on the truth, or I had done something wrong because I didn't feel I was living according to a big plan. 

"Mother Theresa always said, "Calcuttas are everywhere if only we have eyes to see. Find your Calcutta." Shane Claiborne

And this is where, after years of pushing her away, St. Therese has reentered my life.  Where the hope of largeness and significance has left me disappointed, now the Little Way has begun to inspire me to a different kind of greatness.  Because, according to the Little Way, all that we do is important.

“It is love alone that gives worth to all things.”  St. Teresa of Avila 

According to the Little Way, where I live and work is not the point.  My success in God's plan has nothing to do with my success in "the real world." Whether I live in a convent, a cluttered apartment, or a large mansion, I can live the Little Way. 

According to the Little Way, my status, either single, married, a nun, does not matter.  I can love God and others in any one of these vocations, and if I love Him faithfully, I am a success in God's plan. 

According to the Little Way, my possessions, my career, the good and difficult things that happen to me - these are all useful, are all resources leading to the success of God's plan.  I can use anything in this world as material with which to love God, serve Him, follow Him.

“Christ has no body now on earth but yours,
no hands but yours,
no feet but yours,
Yours are the eyes through which to look out
Christ's compassion to the world
Yours are the feet with which he is to go about
doing good;
Yours are the hands with which he is to bless men now.” 

St. Teresa of Avila 



According to the Little Way, it doesn't matter if I share my music with a crowd of 5,000 people, 50,000, or 5.  If I play this music with love, I am a success in God's plan.

So, washing the dishes for my roommates is not just a chore, it's an act of love.  Smiling at the person who hurt my feelings, though hard, is an act of love.  Giving someone a glass of water, a kind word, when I could be doing something else, has value.  Making my own bed in the morning can be an act of love. 

"Miss no single opportunity of making some small sacrifice, here by a smiling look, there by a kindly word; always doing the smallest right and doing it all for love." 

St. Therese of Lisieux           



I no longer resent St. Therese of Lisieux.  Her Little Way has been a saving grace, a reminder of what really matters, in my 30th year. 

What are you practicing for?

"See how the farmer waits for the land to yield its valuable crop, patiently waiting for the autumn and spring rains" James 5:7

My parish priest pointed out this week, that one drop of rain seems to do very little, and even one day of rain hardly makes a difference for a crop.  But in the end, all of these drops of rain together have led to the production of the crop, and have a hand in its harvest.  How is a plant built then? Drop by drop by drop.

If we look for a result from each drop, we will experience frustration and annoyance.  It is the collective effort that matters, and the collective effort takes time, a larger vision, and patience.

This morning it occurred to me that I practice a skill every day that I am hardly aware of.

Every day, I spend a few hours looking over the shoulder of a piano student at a music book, somewhat like this guy here:

 I am focused on teaching in those moments, translating symbols on a page into beautiful music for the student to enjoy.



But in the meantime, all those hours and hours of practice have led me to develop a skill.  Now I am able to glance at a piece of music for five minutes and memorize the entire thing. I have memorized Fur Elise, Minuet in G, and lots of other fun little pieces, just by watching the music over my student's shoulder. 

I have been practicing reading.  I have been practicing synthesizing patterns of music and generating large-scale plans from them.  Today, I wrote out Carol of the Bells for a student, using triangles and squares to represent musical patterns that repeated.  Without needing to notate on the staff, the student walked away with a clear picture of the music in an easy way to understand. 

The point of this isn't to brag about this skill, although I was amazed to realize I now have an ability to do something complex without really focusing, or trying to develop it.  Nonetheless, I have practiced it every day.

When we aren't counting each single drop of rain in our lives, we tend not to notice the collective effort, the overall development.  We practice many habits without thinking of what they will one day become for us.  Sometimes it helps to think about what positive daily habits will create for our lives in general. 

-Doing household chores each day eventually leads you to find creative ways to make big jobs more efficient.

-Practicing kind words of affirmation for family members leads to harmony and good spirit in the household

-Remembering to see and thank people for the little things they do to make your life easier leads to good friendships

-Habits of decorating the house for each season leads to your children developing an excitement about each season of life

-Practicing an awareness of the needs of those around you leads to a life of generosity and love

-Practicing getting up at the same time each morning leads to greater discipline in your life, which leads to regularity and a sense of purpose. 

-Practicing making your bed and keeping your space tidy leads to a sense of your own worth and value

-Practicing thinking kindly toward yourself as a friend leads you to patience with yourself and room for you to be who you are and grow to who you are meant to be. 

Rejoice always

"Rejoice, Rejoice, Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel."

I have heard these lines my entire life, and played them on the piano for almost as long.  I know that the moment in the song calls for a nice big forte, and sometimes it feels exciting to stumble on the triumphant major chord after all those mournful minor chords. 

But this morning I had a new realization:

The Rejoicing in the Song precedes Christ's coming.

I've always sung O Come O Come Emmanuel safely on the other side of the incarnation, death and resurrection of Jesus.  After everything is clear and everything is obvious.  Duh, of course Emmanuel will come to thee, O Israel - how could you ever have doubted that?

But today I realized - this song is written from the perspective of before all that.  It is written from the vantage of a waiting time, a time before gifts received.  It is written from a time of doubt, chaos, confusion. 

By this point, Israel was long past the hopeful image of descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky.  Moses had come to lead them to the Promised land, and they ended up wandering for 40 years, and then they fell in with all sorts of other people, and many lost their beliefs.  And then Israel totally split into Northern and Southern kingdoms - which certainly must have filled many hearts with doubt about where all this was leading.  God may have promised something great to begin with, but then there came schisms, and corruption, and acts of treachery. 

I kind of laugh at the term "hot mess." Israel was in a pretty hot mess at this point. 

And STILL, in the midst of it, are these words: REJOICE!

And not because they had seen the great king they were looking for, but because they had hope that He WOULD come. 

Sometimes when I am waiting, I find it hard to rejoice.  Instead, I find it easier to worry.  And if I rejoice, it's half-hearted, because for all that, I'm really not sure it will all be okay in the end.

Why is it easier NOT to rejoice when we haven't seen the answer we seek?  Why is it easier to resort to, "It will never happen.  I'm crazy to hope for this,"  rather than to give ourselves fully to joyful expectation?

And why might it be good to rejoice when our hands are empty?

Rejoicing - - - opens my eyes to receive.  It welcomes answers in whatever form they will come. 
Rejoicing - - - predisposes me for hope, and good things are drawn in.
Rejoicing - - - keeps the lines of communication open between me and God, rather than turning God
                        into my enemy.

Living a Daily Rhythm

My spiritual director is asking me to work on daily discipline. 

 

I love lists.  I love schedules, plans, and organizing mechanisms of all sorts.  I love to cross that little box and scratch out that little To-Do item.  But for some reason, my first reaction to her words last week was  - rebellion.  I didn't want to live each day by a list.  I didn't want to spend a certain amount of time in prayer, a certain amount of time exercising, a certain amount studying and working. 

 

 

The more I thought about it, the more I felt like life, with its momentary inspirations, feelings, impressions, would be locked into blocks of pre-planned, pre-scheduled time.  Would I become a robot?  Would I begin to lose who I am?

 

 

 

The word "Discipline" is a little scary that way.  It feels to me like forcing an order which isn't natural. 

 

But then I thought of a word that captured it better: Rhythm.  Getting my life into a daily rhythm.  Now, that isn't so bad.  That even sounds a little like music.

 

 

 

 

 

Out for a walk today, I was noticing how beautiful the leaves are at this time of year.  Especially in Minnesota, where Fall isn't just three days long.  Some of the trees are red, yellow and green at the same time, a natural sort of rainbow tree. 

 

 

Then it occurred to me how seasons can be appreciated because of this natural rhythm and order of time.  I love fall because of sweaters, hot cocoa, Halloween, dark houses lit up inside.  But then winter has its merits too - snow angels, snowmobiling (for my brother), gingerbread.  Nature isn't stifled by its rhythm; rather, the rhythm of the seasons enhances the beauty of each time. 

 

There are other rhythms, too, that give nature an order and a meaning, but also which enhance its beauty.  Tidal waves, for instance.  The presence of the golden mean. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then what about me as a human being? Can my own life be enhanced by living in a certain rhythm?  When I am not living under the sway of impulses and feelings, but rather living a disciplined existence?  And even with "rhythm," can there still be room for inspiration, adventure, impulses?

 

 

Here are a few things I've noticed:

 

*Now that I am exercising daily, I can feel that I am making progress.  I can feel my muscles getting more toned and am increasing endurance.  Knowing that I am making progress gives me a sense of purpose and joy.  Life feels like it has direction and is leading somewhere good.

 

*I don't feel like exercising every day, but I do anyway (most of the time).  I am conscious that my willpower is growing, and this is also an overall gain.  I am happy knowing that I can make goals and keep them.

 

*Making daily time for prayer has given me a focus to each day and a sense of direction.  God seems close and a part of each day, not just an afterthought.  This time for prayer and silence causes me to consider how to treat others, greater self knowledge and opens me up to necessary changes.

 

*Daily habits, like exercise, have opened my life up to unexpected joys.  When I watch Netflix or browse Facebook all day, I tend to feel sluggish and gross by the end of the day.  On my walk the other day, I noticed some really beautiful things that brought me a sense of awe and wonder.  I realized that in loving myself enough to make this daily habit, my life is opening up to receive joy. 

 

*Though discipline is hard, the overall results have been good (sense of purpose and direction, joy, gratitude, belief in myself).  These effects build me up rather than keep me down, and help me in turn to build others up. 

 

 

 

A Spirit of Impoverishment vs. The Kingdom Mentality

One day I identified a Spirit of Impoverishment in myself.  Where did it come from? It was such an ugly little spirit that I hesitate to reveal it in a blog.  Let's just say that if this spirit of impoverishment were embodied, it would look like this:

What sorts of thoughts come from a Spirit of Impoverishment?  Well, I suppose thoughts like this:
                   - "Everybody else has what I want. Everyone else has something figured out that I don't."
                   - "God doesn't really care about me, or has forgotten all about me."
                   - "I am always trying to catch up."
                   - "I will  never be fixed enough/healed enough/redeemed enough to live a joyful life."
                   - "God has a wonderful plan for everyone else's life but me."

And in the Spirit of Impoverishment, there was a lot of dwelling, and thinking, and living, in my own concerns. 

I felt impoverished of the Love that is bigger than myself. 

We condemn selfishness and greed in others, and we are horrified to find it in ourselves, and yet we often don't see that the underlying problem is fear:

Fear that we aren't loved.
Fear that if we don't grasp for ourselves, our needs will not be met.
Fear that if we don't dwell on our own concerns, no one else will care for them.
Fear that we will be forgotten if we don't assert control.
Fear that we are not loveable at heart.

When operating from this spirit, I found that my actions were those which increased a sense of self-loathing and insecurity, even as I hoped to overcome them.  I talked only of myself with friends.  I wore baggy or unattractive clothing.  I ate fattening foods and neglected exercise.  I spent more time alone.

At some point after I recognized the Spirit of Impoverishment guiding my thoughts and actions, I had another thought:

What if I thought of myself, not as this ugly gremlin, but as a beautiful princess in my Father's palace?

Okay, maybe this seems silly.  But the imagery worked for me.  If, inside, I believe that I live here:

That a good and gracious Father shares all that He has with me:

That I have been given gifts to share with all those in the palace, and that they also have gifts to share with me:

That there is a special place for me where I am treasured, loved and allowed to be who I am:

That there is enough for everyone in the castle, including me.

If I believe all of this is true, then,,,
                                        I no longer have to think only of myself. 
                                        I can accept that the gifts of others only increase the blessing for all.
                                        I am free to give what I have, not grasp for myself
                                        I live in a spirit of joy rather than of pain
                                        I am serene in the sense of my worth and the sense of being loved.

If I am operating from the Kingdom mentality instead of the Spirit of Impoverishment, I have found that I make better decisions. My thoughts are centered on those around me.  I take care of myself by exercising, eating healthily and getting better sleep.  I can be patient in bad traffic, knowing that my needs are going to be met, somehow, and even irritating circumstances can bring good.  I give myself more room to be. 

The Kingdom mentality focuses my attention on a good Father whose love is bigger than me, and this really does change everything.

Teaching is like playing catch

Teaching, I just realized, is like playing catch. 

As a teacher, I often catch myself struggling with a sense of over-responsibility.  If the student came unprepared (didn't know the notes, the hand position, the rhythm, or the music just didn't flow) there must have been something I didn't do right.  I work hard to plan lessons that cover every hole, every gap in understanding.

But I am a human being too - I miss things.  As hard as I might try, I can't see into my student's mind and see what he sees or understands. 

Sometimes the greatest thing I can do for my student is to stop doing for my student.  To stop covering all those gaps.  But usually then I feel like I am doing nothing to help.  It feels a little like I have stopped working hard for those results - learning.

Teaching is like playing catch.  In order to have success in learning, the student and teacher have to be present - physically, mentally, prepared.  Both have to be in tune.  Both have to be on time. 

If one (teacher or student) is doing all the work, taking all responsibility for the "ball" (learning), then the other (teacher or student) disengages, loses interest, loses a job and a role.  For successful learning, a teacher needs to have good boundaries - a clear sense of what is her responsibility, and what is the student's.  And students learn what their responsibilities are from the teacher.  If the teacher takes over whenever the student doesn't practice, the student learns that it is unnecessary to practice. 

One memory I have of growing up is how unprepared I often was for school.  I would forget to put all of my books in the same place each day, or forget an assignment, or skip over the tricky things in order to get finished with my homework as soon as possible.  My mom, on the other hand, was an extremely prepared and organized person.  I knew that whether I left my books scattered on the living room table, or by my shoes, they would be neatly sitting in my backpack the next morning for me to see.

By taking responsibility for me, my mom saved me from feeling the pain of my lack of responsibility from others.  Later on, I had to pay for the lack of good habits of preparation and forethought (well, I am still paying for them, honestly :) and I had to learn better habits.

Playing catch means that the student gains a sense of responsibility from the mistakes they make.  The teacher offers clear feedback and tosses the ball again.  The student gains an opportunity to try again and see whether learning is happening or not. 

Interstice

Sometimes I'm afraid to leave an empty space. 

Teaching piano, I'm very aware of the 30-minute space I get, once a week, with each student.  Minutes of silence don't feel productive, then.  They feel like wasted space. 


Sometimes I find myself asking a question, and a minute goes by while the student thinks.  Inside, my mind is reeling with the answer.  My tongue is full of the temptation to fill the empty space with the solution.


Recently, I've started becoming aware that when I fill those empty spaces with my own answers, my students walk away with empty spaces where thinking has not happened. 


We are a "doing" culture, a culture primed on coffee and long workdays.  And sometimes too many empty spaces are being filled by doing that ought to be left empty by waiting, by listening, by thinking.


A baby reaches out his hands in the empty space as he tries to reach my hands.  But it is the empty space, not my hands saving him from the empty space, which prompts the first step.


A teacher presents a student with an assignment that needs to be done in the next week.  In this empty space of a week, there is a challenge - will the student do the assignment and learn from it, or not?


I struggle in prayer for an answer - why won't God tell me what to do? But in the silence of the empty space, I begin seeking, asking, discovering.


I ask my friend a question - does she want to meet me for coffee? And in the empty space I wait for her to say yes or no.  I have no control over the response, which comes freely from her.  I realize that there is an empty space in me, a need for the friendship of others, which I am unable to fill on my own.


I have an hour of free time, an empty space which makes me uncomfortable.  I want to turn on the tv, the internet, the radio, iTunes, rather than experience the silence. 


I am sensing an invitation in my life to make more room for those empty spaces, to recognize the gift inherent in them, to stop filling them in when it gets uncomfortable.   To stop filling them in for other people.  To take the risk of asking the question.  To take a step without knowing what the second step will be.