Musing on a Week, a Month, a Time period

The year 2014 has been a transformational year.  As the year progressed, since our return home from Mission, I have learned, in delicate layers, the changes in clarity, personal strength, and courage, the experience has gifted me.

The most recent sign of increased strength was with the early appearance of our beloved baby grandson, Sebastian David.  It was a bare ten days ago that Krista went from ill, to deathly ill, to early birth, thus saving her life and the life of her baby, her first child.

There was a numbness that came over me as I experienced this event in waves of shock, each ever higher than the last.  It was like standing on a seashore watching a tidal wave approach and having no idea what I was seeing until it is too late.

Nature's hidden move

The long low gathering swell

Hissing grains of sand

Feeling the crushing

Weight of weightlessness, I sat.

I could not go on.  

It took me a while to breathe again.  It wasn't a collapsing, breathless gasp, so much as a flush of weakness that told my brain to desert my body for a moment.  With recovery came questions about my baby, my daughter.  Yes, my baby, my daughter.  Why was it taking so long to get her back to her room?  I would learn quickly of the meticulous thoroughness of the doctor, the piecing of her poor body back together.  There is a whole world of knowledge that was secret and now lays exposed.  I am learning quickly.

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On July 10th, I wrote Fear and Loathing in the Valley.  At the time, ISIS was not quite upon our consciousness yet.  The war between Gaza and Israel had not started yet.  I was still struggling, with difficulty, to deal with my dread and animosity towards all Muslims.  It wasn't until I spoke with Sr. Agnes, that I started to gain a small level of peace and perspective.  That bit of peace and determination to not be ruled by hate arrived just in time.

Who would have imaged the persecution, torture, and/or murder of anyone NOT Muslim or not the right sort of Muslim, that has hit?  Who would have guessed that we would witness a Christian Diaspora such as we have not seen in modern times?  

While the peace and power of prayer has granted me more openness of heart, I still must consciously tell myself that I love God's children - all of us, no exceptions.  I don't have to like what ISIS or Hamas or Al-Qaeda stand for, in fact, I hate what they stand for.  And, I will also not be silent.  

We live in a world where the glib and dismissive sound byte rules.  There is nothing but noise.  Everyone shouts.  No one listens.  The people who should be talking, aren't.  We have become a of nation of thoughtless, raving, crazed people (on the right and the left) and people like me who remain quiet in the face of contempt.  If the weapons and ideology of ISIS, Hamas and their ilk, kill the body, our words have become the weapons that has killed the spirit of a nation.

It was fear that kept my mouth shut, but not anymore.  I won't yell back but I won't let things slide anymore either.  If someone wants to wear ridiculous signs comparing marriage and religion to donuts and dieting, when don't expect me to be quiet.  I won't yell at you but I will question you in the hopes of getting you to think.  

Yes, I know this could be regarded as funny and many might share the idea without considering the deeper meaning that is at work.  I'll even admit that I laugh when I first see these silly pronouncements.  But, then I step back and consider what is really going on.  It takes a lot of brain power to come up with clever opinions.  Imagine how much better life would be if that brain power was put to work to achieve a positive outcome.

Mission has made me more open and more responsive to the needs that are all around me.  It has opened a gateway in my mind that now lead to an exit point through my mouth and on the written pages.   Mother Teresa told us, in many way,s to speak in love, for love, and of love.  She is our modern day model for quiet strength, not destructive noise.