A catalog of recent blessings:
- Saturday night was the school dinner dance/ auction fundraiser. I wasn't sure if we would be able to attend this event, but since we missed the Seabee Ball, I was glad we still had an opportunity to go out on a dressy date once it became clear that Baby is taking her sweet time. It wasn't formal, which could be why it was one of the most upbeat and sociable school fundraisers we've been to in awhile. Or is it just that Californians love to drink wine and dance? We got to visit with some other families who have interested me but whom we haven't really met, and we met some families we didn't know at all who were interesting. The crowd made it fun night, but the absolutely best, most exciting part was that we won the raffle for free tuition for one of our kids! Yahoo! We never win anything! I want to tell everyone, hey guess what! but I don't want to gloat. Several people came up to tell us how happy they were for us - and probably they are a little glad that the same family with one kid who has won the last three years because he (his parents) sells so many tickets (entries are based on how many tickets for the cash raffle you sell) didn't win yet again. Still glowing with gratitude.
- Sunday night was a different kind of event - Pam Stenzel came to give a chastity talk to the confirmation classes. My eighth grader is in the class, and my two older boys are peer leaders, so all three teenagers were in attendance. Parents were requested to attend, so the gym was overflowing. I have been grateful for the active youth group here - over 300 kids are enrolled in the two years of confirmation class. In the summers the leader, who is a Steubenville grad, takes kids to Steubenville conferences, mission trips to an Indian reservation in New Mexico, and a weeklong urban service project in LA. She's got a lot of charisma and dedication to the kids. So I'm grateful for her spiritual leadership, I'm grateful that my boys want to be involved, and I'm grateful for the message that Pam conveyed. I haven't been as outspoken about chastity and theology of the body teachings as I thought I would be. It's nice to have someone else who is witty and knowledgeable spout off statistics about STIs, anecdotes about lost and preserved virginity, and motivational messages about being chaste for your kids to hear. Half the parents were in tears by the end, I think. It's a scary world out there. But there is also a lot of hope, especially amongst the kids in that gym. I tried to re-emphasize to my kids in the car on the way home that while it may seem like the hardships of your teen years are more suffering than you can stand, they are a very short period of time compared to a lifetime of marriage and an eternity with God. I pray they can keep the distant future in sight as they navigate the difficult choices of their immediate future.
- Another thing that stood out to me in Pam's speech was when she told how she was adopted. Her mother was raped as a young woman and put her up for adoption. She was an unwanted child, but her life has not been purposeless. I think about all the people her crusade has touched, and pray for unwanted children everywhere.
- I'm also grateful I'm no longer on bedrest. The past few days have been beautiful, and I've been taking walks again. The weekend was full to brim - a track meet, soccer games, the fundraiser, a birthday party, a St. Patrick's Day parade two days early. I let one of the teenagers drive to the track meet along the back highway that runs along beautiful corridor of agriculture property. The drought out here may be scaring the owners of these properties, but their lemon trees and strawberry fields still look lush. We pray for rain at Mass, but I am thankful for the cheery sun nonetheless. (And I'm thankful for getting to go to the track meet. I love track season! I felt nearly as tired after cheering for the runners as if I'd run the race myself.)
- I'm grateful we had time to help at ManyMeals again on Wednesday. This is a once-a-week dinner program our parish provides to the community. We try to go once a month. It is primarily for the homeless, but not limited to just homeless people. One table is full of elderly friends. At another table sit a group of mentally challenged adults, a couple of them were born with their disabilities, one suffered a stroke, another was in a car accident. They have homes, but they come for the meal and the fellowship. Some of the attendees are regulars. One man, new this week, asked if I knew where he could get cash. I mentioned St. Vincent de Paul Society or Catholic Charities. I had no cash myself and the volunteers are not supposed to give handouts. Then the man told me he had only been homeless a few weeks since he lost his job. He lifted his shirt to reveal a huge scar where he had been shot in the abdomen. Now he was disabled and was still waiting for his paperwork to be processed so he could receive government benefits. One of the regular volunteers, an older woman who comes with her husband every week, told me some of the stories she has learned while serving these meals. We also learned, through another source, that her husband, who quietly rolls plasticware into napkins and twist-ties them together, refills the butter baskets, and stocks the salt and pepper, is a retired two-star Admiral. We knew he had been in the military on ships, but he was so humble about his jobs. My husband was ready to salute him this weekend.
So you never know. Through the grace of God, we have been blessed with bright, healthy kids, supportive extended family, my husband's dependable job, a multitude of friends, and wonderful experiences. We could lose any of it, any minute. Still, I can be ungrateful. I can mull over lost opportunities and impossible dreams. I can bewail my selfishness and sacrifices. I really want to eat cake, not diabetic diet foods.
As I have mentioned, Pope Francis has repeatedly reminded us to be grateful to our families, to our fellow human beings, to God. To say "Thank you" is also to say "I love you." When Lent first started, I resolved to more aware of what I have to be thankful for. I have started and abandoned gratitude lists. I have written multiple times about gratitude and giving thanks. But still I fall back into the habit of selfishness and self-pity: What about me? That's mine! I don't want to! Sometimes I am as grabby as my kids. It's a bit discouraging how often I have to turn again, and turn again, and turn again.
It is a good thing that Lent is not called a time of change, but a time of conversion. Conversion takes a lifetime, as this quote from Pope Benedict XVI on Ash Wednesday of 2007 reminds us:
"Conversion ... is not something that happens once and for all, it is a process, a journey, that cannot be limited to a specific period but must embrace all existence. ... "In this light, Lent is an appropriate spiritual moment to train ourselves more earnestly to seek God, opening our hearts to Christ. Conversion means seeking God. It is not an effort of self-realization. Self-realization is a contradiction, and it is too little for us. We have a higher destiny. Conversion consists precisely in not thinking that one is the 'creator' of oneself, and thus discovering the truth."
And from Pope Francis's homily for Ash Wednesday this year:
Lent is a time to recover the capacity to react before the reality of evil,” the pontiff emphasized, adding that it is also a time “for personal renewal” and for “community” that “brings us closer to God.”
Highlighting the importance of “confidently” adhering “to his Gospel in order to look at our brothers and the needy with new eyes,” during this season, the Pope observed that it is “a suitable time to convert to be able to love our neighbor.”
This love, he explained, is “a love that generates an attitude of gratitude and of mercy with the Lord, who 'became poor to enrich us with his poverty.'"
If we have a Creator, we have someone to thank. One of the first and easiest prayers our kids learn is "God is great, God is good, and we thank Him for our food." If we are filled with love for the things, and more especially, for others created by God, it is even easier to feel gratitude. And so thank you, God.
From Pope Francis' Easter Vigil homily last year:
To remember what God has done and continues to do for me, for us, to remember the road we have travelled; this is what opens our hearts to hope for the future. May we learn to remember everything that God has done in our lives.
Dear brothers and sisters, to all of you who are listening to me, from Rome and from all over of the world, I address the invitation of the Psalm: “Give thanks to the Lord for he is good; for his steadfast love endures for ever. Let Israel say: ‘His steadfast love endures for ever’” (Ps 117:1-2).
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