things i've realized about being non-committal...

submitting yourself to the will of God is a very dangerous thing; it is also one of the most liberating things you could ever do in your life.

once you commit yourself to doing whatever God asks of you, you have to do it. there's no backing out of it. you've already said "yes" to God... how can you say, "woops, my bad, God. i was just kidding!" what are you going to tell God--that you weren't thinking straight or had a momentary lapse of sanity? how can you un-commit yourself to following God's will?

see, commitment is a tough concept for me to 'get' because i've been non-committal for as long as i can remember. i actually think i learned to be non-committal as a coping mechanism for dealing with my mom's death as a child. as a 5 year-old, i didn't know why she would ever want to leave us alone. in some way, i guess i thought she chose death to escape her cancer, rather than choosing to stay with us on earth and suffering through her illness. yes, i know it's a completely illogical and irrational thought process, but i wasn't logical or rational at 5 years of age. and i never talked to anyone about it so i never learned the purpose of suffering--how we can be sanctified through our suffering depending on how we deal with things we're dealt--or why people even die.

a couple of years later as a tween, with everything about my mom's death bottled up inside of me, i remember hoping that i never got married because then i'd turn into a mom and might have to leave my children alone one day the way my mom did me and my siblings. i never wanted my children to experience that. what a tragic outcome on my part in dealing with my mother's death...

fast forward to life in my late teens and early 20's... as long as i can remember, i've been non-committal. in college, my friends used to tease me because i seemed to have a revolving door of guys i was dating for a couple of weeks at a time and then they'd be gone. sometimes i'd even date two of them at the same time... i'd date them, then decide that we weren't "right for each other." or i'd say that i wasn't "at that stage" yet where i'd want to settle down and get married, even if they did. or, i'd get bored and i'd lose interest and move on, plain and simple.

23 years would pass before i'd come to understand that my 5-year old sensabilities about life, death and leaving-before-they-left-me had become an impassible hurdle in my life... during my reversion to the Faith, when i reconciled what i had done with God through the Church, i worked with a wonderful spiritual director at my parish in houston and by talking things out with her and praying about them, i was able to see God's hand in every aspect of my life--good and bad--through the years. my non-committal attitude was my youthful(read: immature) way of putting up barricades around my very fragile heart which had never healed from losing my mother at so young an age.

somewhere in my brain, i reasoned that if i didn't commit to any one guy, then i was able to control the circumstances which made my heart vulnerable and could keep my heart safe. i got to call the shots and be in, or out, of a relationship as i pleased.

clearly, this is not the how relationships should function according to Church teaching. in fact, the secular definition of 'relationship' means that two things are found to have an association with one another or even a natural connection. in the Catholic understanding of relationship, it is only by relating with and to others that we become aware of our individuality. as we discover our individuality, we realize that we are naturally wired for community, for relationship with others. what a beautiful paradox, eh? [the Church has much to say about the specific relationship between a man and a woman, in courting and in marriage, and the purpose of the perfect, complementary nature of this relationship. if you are interested in knowing more about this topic, i sincerely hope you will check out john paul the great's theological work, "man and woman He created them: a theology of the body." there is so much to unpack in this work, so much more than just sex, it will leave you with your jaw open!]

so what's the point, you might be asking?

well, i realize now that i'm not non-committal like i thought all these years. i can see how irrational my understanding of why people leave (or die) was and what the end purpose of dating is. i realize that death is actually one of the best things that can happen to a person... in my mom's case, dying released her from the temporal pain she was suffering through since finding out she had cancer a few years prior. and because my mom was a devout Catholic, i know that she believed she would be reunited with our Creator when she left this earth. she knew that this life on earth was not, in fact, the end--it was just a jumping off point to the real beginning of spending eternity in heaven.

i also realize that dating is not merely for recreation, as was my approach throughout college, but it is about seeking out a partner who will help you get to heaven. there is a definite difference between dating and courtship, and hopefully dating leads to courtship, but more often than not, in our modern american culture it doesn't. the purpose of dating in our culture is to have someone to take you out to dinner and a movie, to buy you drinks at the bar, to flirt with you and tell you nice things, to spend the night with to make you feel like your physical needs are being met, to temporarily take your mind off of things that are too uncomfortable to sit with in silence. in my case, all of those things blinded me to the fact that i never dealt with my mom's death. the problem with that approach is that it's temporary, it's not permanent. and if we understand marriage the way the Church teaches--and that should be the ultimate end to dating and courtship--then we should share a unique marriage relationship with one person who knows us inside and out and can support us in tough times and kick our butt into gear when we need it. kinda hard to find a person to help you get to heaven when you're just thinking about when the next person will come along.

now, what does all this have to do with committing to following God's will? well, i've been doing a lot of directed reading, guided prayer, dialogue with people that i trust about what my vocation is, and i believe that i know what God is calling me to. i don't know when it will happen, but i believe that God has been preparing me for marriage. and trust me, it is difficult feeling that God wants me to be a wife and mother and see no prospects in sight. it is too easy to think that i will never find someone at my age and that i should just give up. i have plenty of good-intentioned people offering words of advice and offering to set me up so that i can find someone, anyone as soon as possible. and it would be really easy to get mad, get sad, or get desperately lonely. but, i have committed (for the first time in my life) to following God's will, being patient in His plan for me and seeing my friends' and families' offers to help as longings to see me happy.

i will not give up on my committment to following God's will for me, i will not lose hope that God has been working on someone who is going to be what i need to get me to heaven and that He will reveal this person at the right time.

so this is what committment feels like... i have to admit, it feels pretty peaceful!

pax et bonum,
crystal

you're a human being...

not a human doing.

i've been mulling over this thought for a couple of days now since father james martin, s.j., tweeted it (@jamesmartinsj). there are so many reasons why i love twitter (way simpler than fbook, for one thing!), but mainly because it's fun to 'see' the thoughts of holy men and women and their insights on Scripture, the Faith and living a christian witness...

anyway, this quip spoke to me for several reasons, the most apparent being that i am in a constant battle against the clock! no matter how much stuff i cut out from my schedule, i always seem to have more things to fill my time with... i always justify putting more things on my schedule than i can handle by saying, "volunteering and building community aren't bad things, so it can't be wrong for me to add this to my schedule..." and boom. just like that, i've over-committed myself to doing more than i have time for. again.

btw, would you pray for me that i learn how to say, "no," at some point in my life? :S

i know i haven't written much since coming back from spain and the brief time i spent in samos with the benedictines, so you may not really know how transformative of an experience it was for me. only a few people really know the depths of loneliness and desolation in prayer that i was experiencing prior to leaving for spain. it was heart-wrenching to go through but thankfully, our good Lord sent me the right people at the right time to speak hope into my situation. to those that helped me through that time of spiritual dryness--thank you. i am forever indebted!

when i arrived in spain, i was completely disoriented by my inability to tell what time it was because i forgot to pack a wristwatch and i was too scared to turn on my cell phone because of the astronomical cost of sprint's international data charges. for someone like me who is constantly running from place to place, it was a very unnerving feeling to have no clue what time it was without hunting down a wall clock (which the benedictines didn't have) or asking someone what time it was (gasp! me? ask for help? never!). in hindsight, though it was infinitely frustrating at the time, i am so thankful for that built-in schedule which allowed me to just be and not have to do anything.

in samos, i also experienced for the first time praying the liturgy of the hours. on the plane ride over from the states, i had the pleasure of meeting 3 great guys from auburn university, and they taught me by example how to better live out my faith. usually, i'd see one of them with their nose in a prayer book or silently praying the rosary or something, yet they were the most friendly, joyful, humorous guys i've been around in a long time. they reminded me that this Christian walk, though full of suffering at times, is a joyful walk, too! we are people of the light and of hope and our joy should be shared with everyone we come in contact with! man, did i need that reminder... [this was also a great lesson to learn before we landed in spain because upon arriving in madrid, we heard about the protestors who were antagonizing the WYD participants by shouting at them or throwing things at them... local tv stations covered the incidents and illustrated the differences between them and the WYD participants--it was easy to see on their faces alone! would you prefer to be angry? or happy? it was that simple to see...]

anyway, it was during that week in samos that i walked through the psalter with another FOCUS participant for the first time and talked about what experiencing lauds with the monks was like. every morning we'd gather in their chapel and had the opportunity to pray along (which i was able to do for some of the parts i could understand in spanish, sung in gregorian chant style) or just sit in silence and take in the sounds of the prayers. even now, every couple of nights, i find myself awake at 3 a.m. and feel drawn to join the Church in prayer. amazing...

much of the FOCUS retreat was about building fellowship and living our faith in community, being built up and building up one another by our Christian witness. sometimes, though, i'd go off on my own to walk the neighborhood around the monastery or to just sit in the spanish sun on a bench made of seashells, watching the tourists and townspeople scurry about or i'd read a book or write in my journal.

i relish in the thought of my time spent in samos...

back home in houston, in many of my classes this semester we've talked about the inadequacy of human analogies in describing the glory of God. the most beautiful man-made phrases crafted from expansive vocabularies are, in the end, limited by our humanity and vocabulary. so how do i begin to convey my experience with God?

i guess i can just say that i felt an enveloping peace inside the walls of that monastery. the foam-padded plywood bunks felt like a bed of feathers, put there with the express intention of giving my burdened bones rest for the week. the drafty chapel, cold while still being bathed in sunlight, illumined the lives of the saints, past and present, who accompany me on my walk of faith. and the simplicity of my day, centered around prayer, ordered the chaos in my life.

i think it's so easy to lose focus on the important things in a fast-paced, modern world such as ours... what's funny is the more you experience God, the more you get to know Him, the more you hope and pray that the spiritual encounters continue to happen. but little things get in the way--things like running, school, friends or family, money and job issues--and they rob you of the stillness and quiet that is needed to hear God's voice. it's hard to maintain a balance in life that fulfills our human needs to be social and needed and helpful, while respecting the space and silence that is required to unwind and be at rest in God's presence.

i'm 31 and i'm still trying to find that balance. and i'm still learning how to ask for help. in fact, the only reason i have the time to write this blog is because i was sent home from work for being sick. were it not for this ill-timed sickness, i probably wouldn't have checked-in until thanksgiving break... there is something really wrong with this picture. especially if i believe that God is using me through writing this blog to minister to someone 'out there' in some way. i need to check-in more often...

when i read fr. martin's comment, "you're a human being, not a human doing", it made me stop and think about how i got to this point of busy-ness in my life again. one of the things i'm learning to do is ask for help before i get overwhelmed... so, i humbly ask all of yall out there, would you please pray for me that i a) learn to say "no" things i don't have time to do, b) that i plan my waking hours to include time to rest in and be with God in prayer, and c) that i listen to where God is leading me, specifically in discernment of my vocation, whatever it may be...

pax et bonum,
crystal