My goal going into this vacation was just to relax and enjoy every single moment of my travels and time with my family. Which is exactly what I did. I sat on the top deck of the cruise ship by the pool and stared out into the swaying, aquamarine ripples of the ocean as we awaited our first port. It felt like I was in the middle of nowhere, just a speck floating in this large vessel on water and in that moment it made the world seem infinite. I felt completely relaxed and with the sun beaming down and a subtle breeze passing by every so often; I felt like all my anxieties, troubles and fears had temporarily floated away.

Having no access to technology was difficult at first but as the trip continued it felt refreshing not to have it by my side 24/7. In fact, not knowing if any of my ‘fish’ had written to me felt great, and made me realize that it was taking away from appreciating what I did have in my life and just living in the moment.

I got home from my trip with a sun burn that was peeling, but was surprisingly darker than I’ve ever been. When we landed back in Toronto I was already reminiscing about the islands, dolphin encounter and laying on the beaches in Aruba and St. Kitts with a Pina Colada in hand. There were several guys with their families that looked my age on the cruise, but I really wanted to not focus on chasing after anyone and if anything let them chase me.

When I arrived back in Toronto to the freezing cold, I felt like the last week had been a dream. I flipped through my pictures and couldn’t believe I experienced all of it. Really, it was an escape from reality. Although I’m home now and back to daily routine, I want to continue not to let my obsession over finding ‘the one’ take away from experiencing life to the fullest.

My advise to all of my readers: make yourself a Pina Colada and lay down on your couch. Play a YouTube soundtrack of the ocean breeze. (Yes guys, this goes for you too. You can get a beer instead of a Pina Colada if preferred). Close your eyes, shut your technology off and discover that feeling that pushes away all the stressful things in your life and transports you to a contented place.

These Divine Manifestations were published in the Mystical City of God¹.

Let us consider the virtues and trials of the Blessed Virgin’s husband: the chaste and pure Saint Joseph.

Ponder Saint Joseph’s internal disquiet and his great anguish in discovering the pregnancy of the Virgin Mary:

The divine pregnancy of the Princess of Heaven had advanced to its fifth month when the most chaste Joseph,

her husband,

commenced to notice the condition of the Virgin;

for on account of the natural elegance and perfection of her virginal body… any change could not long remain concealed and would so much the sooner be discovered.

One day, when Saint Joseph was full of anxious doubts and saw Her coming out of her oratory, he noticed more particularly this evident change, without being able to explain away what he saw so clearly with his eyes.

The man of God was wounded to his inmost heart by an arrow of grief, unable to ward off the force of evidence, which at the same time wounded his soul.

The principal cause of his grief was the most chaste, and therefore the most intense love with which he cherished his most faithful Spouse, and in which he had from the beginning given over to Her his whole heart.

Moreover, her charming graces and incomparable holiness had captured and bound to Her his inmost soul.

As She was so perfect and accomplished in her modesty and humble reticence, Saint Joseph, besides his anxious solicitude to serve Her, naturally entertained the loving desire of meeting a response of his love from his Spouse.

This was so ordained by the Lord, in order that by the desire for this interchange of affection he might be incited to love and serve Her more faithfully.

Saint Joseph fulfilled this obligation as a most faithful spouse and as the guardian of the sacrament, which as yet was concealed from him.

In proportion as he was solicitous in serving and venerating his Spouse, and loving Her with a most pure, chaste, holy and just love, in so far also increased his desire of finding a response to his affection and service.

He never manifested or spoke of this desire, as well on account of the reverence elicited by the humble majesty of his Spouse as also because the more than angelic purity, conversation and intercourse of the Virgin with him had given him no apprehension in this regard.

But when he found himself thus unexpectedly in the face of this disclosure, where the clear evidence of his sense allowed no denial, his soul was torn asunder by sorrowful surprise.

Yet, though overwhelmed by the evidence of this change in his Spouse, he gave his thoughts no greater liberty than to admit what his eyes could not fail to perceive. For, being a holy and just man (Gospel of St. Matthew Chapter 1 Verse 19), although he saw the effect, he withheld his judgment as to the cause.

Without doubt, if the Saint had believed his Spouse had any guilt in causing this condition, he would have died of sorrow.

Besides all this was the certainty of his not having any part in this pregnancy, the effects of which were before his eyes;

and there was the inevitable dishonor which would follow as soon as it would become public.

This thought caused so much the greater anxiety in him, as he was of a most noble and honorable disposition and in his great foresight he knew how to weigh the disgrace and shame of himself and his Spouse in each circumstances.

The third and most intimate cause of his sorrow, and which gave him the deepest pain, was the dread of being obliged to deliver over his Spouse to the authorities to be stoned (The Book Of Leviticus Chapter 20 Verse 10), for this was the punishment of an adulteress convicted of the crime.

¹Imprimatur: † Edwin V. Byrne, D.D., Archbishop of Santa Fe, 9 February 1949 A.D.

Related articles

• Prayer To Find Your Vocation In Life (credointhecommunionofsaints.wordpress.com)
• [MaryVitamin] Espousal of the Blessed Virgin Mary to Saint Joseph (deaconjohnspace.wordpress.com)
• How The Apostles Creed Was Formulated (credointhecommunionofsaints.wordpress.com)

My cousin appeared to be slightly sedated and did not seem to comprehend the reason behind her being “incarcerated”. All she could say was that she was at work one day, had flared up with anger and frustrations and had an outburst at one of her colleagues, which appeared to be out of character. My cousin, when normally presented to us at the family home, had usually appeared to be very docile, passive and placid with people.

As I had not seen her for several years, all I knew was that she had married an Egyptian man of her choice. A man she had met over the internet. I didn’t know much about him and neither did my family. Nor did her own family, truth be told.
So. My cousin informed me that her “marriage was on the rocks” and she was trying to salvage what she could. She had tried to hold her emotions in check she said and did not wish to disclose her feelings or emotions with anyone. She just realised something was happening to her mindset when she could not concentrate at work and had to repeat requests and tasks several times over. It all became unbearable when her manager asked her to do something and my cousin retaliated in anger. She didn’t mean to hurt or upset anyone. It was an emotional pressure cooker. She had just exploded at the wrong person. She meant to direct her anger at her husband. Her parents, when informed of her “difficulties” were trying to be very supportive but didn’t quite appear to understand her predicament. As always, they tried to protect their young daughter from harm. Everything will be alright, they assured her.

“You don’t understand”, she said. “My marriage is failing, I have failed and I have failed my parents. I’ve lost all hope to live”.

After several weeks or was it months? It’s hard to tell…it was a very stressful time. After treatment, therapy and medication, my cousin was eventually discharged back into the community. She returned home to her husband and everything appeared to be okay. However, all was not as it seemed as her husband decided to go on holiday – back to Egypt – for a week and when he returned, he told her he couldn’t live a lie anymore, packed his bags and walked out.

 “I knew it was going to happen”, she said, “It was just a matter of time, and when, what or how…”

The outcome was two fold: On the one side, it offered her independence and at last, for her, so she said, a sense of freedom.
“Freedom from what?” I asked.

She divulged the fact that in her opinion, he was very domineering and abusive. She cited recent examples of how he tried to control her life, telling her how to dress , wear the scarf on her head, not cut her hair, not approving of her long term friendships, not picking her up from her support groups or abandoning her alone when she happened to be two minutes late coming out of her meetings. He’d rather she stayed at home, cook decent meals although they seemed to manage to consume a large number of takeaways, visit low graded restaurants or cafes, or eat at her parents as she admitted to being a “hopeless cook”, iron his clothes and carry out all the household duties. This is a role that my cousin knew she could never fulfil and had no inclination to be the obliging Muslim wife. After all, she said, I’m born and bred in the UK, I’m an intelligent, educated British Asian woman and my mind is full of Western cultural beliefs, outlook and opinions. I couldn’t dispute her logic and agreed that a partnership or relationship should strive to of equal balance.

But it did not stop him accepting the fact that she had to work at several different jobs in order to maintain him and pay for his academic courses or degree to train as a pharmacist…

She also admitted that in 5 years of marriage, she could not, or they could not, consummate their marriage. This was an issue that was discussed. Could this have been the reason for the failing or strains within their relationship? This was a question poised many times but hardly drew adequate or satisfying responses.

Needless to say, this did not stop my cousin from exploring her sense of self, her sexuality, sexual orientation or identity. After her husband left, she began to believe that she was either frigid or had lesbian tendencies. No wonder he didn’t fancy me, she said. I didn’t give enough…
So. She started going clubbing on her own, explored the nightlife, frequented gay nighclubs in the hope of being chatted up or finding a female companion, although she found some men “so fit and hot – but GAY!” and attended several pole dancing classes in the City Centre. Although she said the other attendees were of similar age, they were fitter, leaner, more supple, flexible and dedicated to use the pole with skill and determination.

Bearing in mind, my cousin was still, effectively, under the care of a mental health Psychiatrist and on medication. She did not meet anyone nor did she attempt to strike up a friendship or relationship. She was merely reacting to her frustrations, anxieties and belief that she was unwanted, unloved and undesirable. She was looking for her “ideal companion or just wanted someone to love”. She was reacting to major life stressors.
One day, whilst at home, she went upstairs to her bedroom. Before she knew it, she could smell smoke and realised that her kitchen was on fire and smoke was bellowing up the stairs and began to choke her. She managed to climb out the window and stood on the roof of her porch. The fire service and police arrived and she was taken care of. She was temporarily re-housed in a small flat, not too far from her parents. Her coping mechanisms were put to the test.

She was invited to a fancy dress party. She went as a cowgirl. She had bought a cheap, plastic toy gun but did not think it authentic enough. She then went out and bought a BB airgun from a toy warehouse. She had no intention of using it, but as she had experienced two major life changing events in her life – an estranged husband and the marital home almost grazed to the ground – it came as no surprise that when she visited her Psychiatrist, to review or renew her medication/prescription, she was calling out for help when she said she was having negative, vengeful thoughts and produced the bb gun, still sealed in its box, and placed it on the desk of the professional.

The Mental Health Consultant, in his or her capacity or professional assessment or opinion, rather than query to find answers to what was going on, saw a bespectacled, South Asian Muslim woman, wearing a headscarf tightly bound around her head, and clothes that appeared to restrain a plump body, pressed the alarm, called in two security men and had my cousin, who would not, could not hurt a fly, had her sectioned for “being a risk to self, being in possession of a handgun to use for criminal intent and harming others”.

Now, tell me. What would you do?

The Learned Kat

So I sold my house, quit my job, left a 16 year relationship, moved 3 ½ hours south and got a degree in Dental Laboratory Technology and Management. I graduated with honors and applied to 198 labs throughout the US and Canada, and had no luck at all. So now I’m back where I started, doing what I’ve always done, but now I’m paying twice as much rent as I paid in mortgage, and I’m teetering on the brink of homelessness.

Now, in the movies when people make such a radical change, their life changes, radically. And frankly, that’s what I was expecting. There’s no real life primer on what to do when you gamble and lose and are right back where you started from. It’s quite humbling. Actually, it’s a crushing blow.

On the way to work today, knowing I was going to be training with my same old coworker for my same old job, I was wondering how I’d feel. Would I be getting smug looks? Would I be depressed?

Actually, as I walked up the bridge, I was surprised to discover that I felt really good. It was like coming home. I really always did enjoy working there. And it was like I’d never left. But as the shift wore on, I realized that I hadn’t come full circle, after all. I had changed. The bridge had changed. It had been modernized. It was different.

This was the bridge operating console before I left.

This is the same room now.

So instead of coming full circle, I had come full spiral. A tight spiral, granted, but I wasn’t exactly where I used to be, emotionally or structurally. I’m older, I hope I’m wiser, and the things that used to upset or worry me seem trivial now.

I think maybe I did get something out of going to school besides a third worthless degree. I think I learned that I can roll with the punches, and that nothing in life is as permanent as I once thought, and that, oddly enough, is a good thing. Once you figure out that change is survivable, a lot of your anxieties disappear. It’s really quite liberating.

So here I am, yet again. The “here” is still here, but the “I” is someplace else entirely. It’s all good.

764      Now, when the Cross has become a serious and weighty matter, Jesus will see to it that we are filled with peace. He will become our Simon of Cyrene, to lighten the load for us. Then say to him, trustingly: “Lord, what kind of a Cross is this? A Cross which is no cross. Now I know the trick. It is to abandon myself in you; and from now on, with your help, all my crosses will always be like this.” (1)

Think about this for a moment.  Meditate on it and see what you come up with.

Why do we so easily claim that Jesus is God, that He is our Savior, delivering us from the bondage we are in to sin, and bringing us to the throne of God, while at the same time we struggle so much to let Him be the Master of our life, and letting Him turn our sorrows into joys, and the heavy burdens we carry in this life into something light?

Think about it.. 

No, I meant that.. think – take 180 seconds and just think through what I read above.

We all have to deal with burdens, they are there.  The aches and pains of getting older, the worry and anxiety about our children and grandchildren.  Financial struggles, Resentment and hurts, and though we know our sin is forgiven, guilt and shame from our past… or our present.

Do we realize that when we call Jesus, Lord, or Master, when we talk about living in the Kingdom of God, we are talking about His responsibility more than His authority?  That the Old and New Covenant – binds Him, by His choice, to cause us to dwell in peace, to live in His presence, to know the power of His love?  That if we are bound by the same covenant, our responsibility as loving subjects is to let Him be God, and let Him care for us?

Our actions, guided by Him, are but part of realizing that He is our Lord, our Savior, the Prince where peace reigns… in our lives?

That is why the greatest burdens don’t always seem like it.  That is why those who struggle under those burdens of life, become our burdens – for we see their toil and vanity, and know how they can find relief, and rest.

I love how Fr.Josemaria phrases it – the secret is that the burden, this cross of ours, is not ours, for we have long since abandoned ourselves in Christ – ever since we were marked in His name, as the waters of baptism poured over us.

So go on, let Christ take on your day… as you walk with Him.

(1)  Escriva, Josemaria (2011-01-31). The Forge (Kindle Locations 2751-2754). Scepter Publishers. Kindle Edition.

Because if that’s not true, how do you explain the scooters? The little butt-sized platforms with teeny rickety wheels on all four corners, riding two inches above the floor. These were SO MUCH FUN and all the kids loved it when the scooters came out, except the alignment on them was so terrible that every time you pushed off with your feet at top speed to roll across the gym, they bumped, your hands slipped, and the hard plastic wheels ran over all of your fingers simultaneously. Fun in gym = physical pain. It’s classic Pavlovian conditioning, people.

Or pickleball? Remember pickleball? The unholy bastard offspring of tennis, badminton, and ping pong? It’s like a sport, except so slow and with such low self-esteem that it doesn’t require its players to exhibit either physical coordination or mental acuity. “You’re being too critical,” I hear you thinking, because I have a magic brain, “and claiming pickleball as evidence of Soviet infiltration is clearly a paranoid overreaction.” Really? You think so? I submit to you as Exhibit A: the USA Pickleball Association. Adults play this game, invented in 1965, in tournaments, on a national level. Their “This is Pickleball” page claims that a dog named Pickles invented this game, and who am I to argue with an animated gif. This page goes on to explain the universal appeal and unbridled fun of playing pickleball, or at least I assume it does, because the page is coded such that the demonstration videos cover up the universally appealing and unbridlingly compelling text explaining everything. If this isn’t the work of the Soviets, it’s at least clearly the North Koreans.

Or how about the Flying Dutchman? Not the ghost ship doomed to sail the seas for all eternity, but the exercise I participated under threat of flunking? This is an exercise so appalling that Google, obviously in on the conspiracy, has flushed all references to down the memory hole. Be afraid, people. This exercise, or mind control technique, as it is more rightly called, involved one person lying on his back on the ground, legs up at a 90° angle, hands reaching up. The second person rests their hips on the first person’s feet so the two people are face to face (only three feet apart), and then they hold hands. This brainwashing technique was developed to make children believe that they could trust their classmates, only to be held personally responsible by the teacher when the other person fucked up. Whoever invented gaslighting children in that way is a monster.

Today the Flying Dutchman persists, like a rot under the gums, only now it goes by a different name: static balance exercises. The Soviets don’t want me to blast this story wide open, but the truth compels me to speak. If I wind up dead of a particularly embarrassing “suicide” involving poppers and goats, you’ll know it was no accident.

Not convinced PE is a Soviet plot? What about the Presidential Fitness Challenge, where the standards for youth physical fitness were set so embarrassingly low that even I could pass, literally without breaking a sweat? Listen to me: this conspiracy has infiltrated the highest levels of our government.

I mean, if I were a gym teacher, charged with laying the foundations of health and wellness for a new generation, drawing on, for inspiration, the Platonic ideal of the gymnasia, I myself might attempt to teach:

Instead, what my teachers taught me is:

My point with all this being: it probably will not be a huge surprise to you to hear I’ve never joined a gym.

But I’ve been feeling lately like it was time. Not because I’m in terrible shape—I’m actually doing pretty well, physically speaking, especially by general American standards. Plus I accidentally lost 15 pounds after I left my ex just because I wasn’t stress eating and binge drinking as a coping mechanism anymore, so weight’s not the issue. Ironically, I wanted to go to a gym because I was starting to take pride in my body for the first time. I had been doing lots of new and exciting things, like hiking and backpacking, or running a 5K, or having marathon life-alteringly good sex, basically pushing my body as hard and as far as it could go, and every time I did, I felt better and sexier and prouder, and wanted nothing more than to try again to see how much I could do this time.

But a lifetime of Soviet indoctrination is not so easy to overcome. And although I kept poking listlessly at the special fitness deals my work had made with various gyms around town, because they’re self-insured now and their sharply increased interest in my physical health is purely coincidental, I clearly was making no move to actually, you know, do anything. But fortunately for me, merely considering a gym membership has many health benefits that will no doubt eventually be recognized by some medical professional somewhere, provided you offer him or her a bucket of American money as a recognition tool.

Do you believe in coincidences? Because I kind of don’t. At all. So when a friend offered me a handful of guest passes to the Y, purely out the blue, I figured that meant something. Of course, what that meant to me and what that mean to her were pretty much entirely in separate galaxies, meaningfully speaking.

What it meant to me: the universe was giving me a nudge in the direction of overcoming fear and shame, and lovingly providing a practical solution for fulfilling the deep longing I so clearly had to love my body and take joy in my physical self.

What it meant to her: There was a cute single instructor there she wanted to fix me up with.

So I took the passes. I was apprehensive, but the Y offers a wide variety of free classes, so how bad could it be, right? And that’s how the very first thing I did when I went to a gym for the first time in my life was accidentally attend a kickboxing class in Spanish.

It wasn’t my fault, I swear.

I printed out the class schedule from their website and showed up for Jake’s Boot Camp class right on time. I did the whole sign in thing where they were, I think, unnecessarily suspicious of me. I mean, was it really necessary to use a counterfeit detector pen on my passes? But when I asked the way to Boot Camp, the receptionist startled visibly and told me there wasn’t any. Turns out they had just changed the schedule, but not posted it yet. Thanks, guys. So I asked what classes were happening at that time so I didn’t waste a trip. Kickboxing was about to start, taught by Oralia. Well, ok, sure. I’ll go.

I’ve had some people ask me why I didn’t get suspicious at this point about what language the class would be in. And the answer is: because I am not a racist, that’s why. I’ve lived in Tucson long enough that an instructor named “Oralia” doesn’t raise any alarms with me. What I failed to take into consideration, however, was that I was now on the south side of Tucson, which tends to be more racially homogeneous, if you take my meaning. My meaning being: that’s why they were looking at you weird, white girl.

So unsuspecting me goes in and gets stared down by the all-female manteca class, who circled up in a vaguely hostile manner. I took an empty spot toward the back of the room, and one of them peeled herself off from the pack and told me I would have to move to another, equally empty spot, like four feet to my left. I did, because wtf?

Simmering racial tension aside, the class was actually fine. It was just a cardio class, so all I had to do was do what Oralia was doing. And it’s not like the language was so advanced that I couldn’t follow what was happening (“¡Quatro! ¡Tres! ¡Dos! ¡Uno! ¡Y quatro más!” So even though I wasn’t entirely convinced I wasn’t about to be shanked for occupying the wrong empty space, I would still call it a positive experience, in that I sweated voluntarily for the first time since that day I ate a chiltepin.

So that was good, but I did not achieve the goal of meeting Jake. So I went back later in the week and tried his kickboxing class. Based on my experience with Oralia, I was led to believe that kickboxing at the Y was a cardio class. Furthermore, I was led to believe this based on the actual class description:

A challenging action packed cardiovascular class that combines the energy and music of an aerobics class with martial arts techniques

= sweat and kick until you reach your target heart rate. Imagine my surprise when all the other students showed up with hand wraps, all ready to punch and kick and punch the living shit out of a floor bag. The whole class was about learning actual kickboxing techniques, so we all lined up against one wall, then demonstrated our extremely shaky command of actual kickboxing techniques one by one across the gym and back again. This style of teaching is pretty much maximally designed to active my social anxiety; said anxiety being quintupled when Jake had to continually (and manually) correct my form in front of the class.

And it totally wasn’t his fault, but having the first time my potential date ever touched me be to underscore my public humiliation pretty much killed any chance he had of ever touching me in any more entertaining way. Sigh.

So I was already crabby when they pulled out a man-sized upright dummy and had all of us line up to practice punching it in the face. I was basically ok with it until Jake helpfully shouted: “Come on, ladies! Hit him hard! Hit him in the face! Pretend it’s your ex-boyfriend you’re getting revenge on!”

Everybody laughed. Except me. And it wasn’t funny at all.

So I gave up on that Y and tried the one next to my work. They had a class called “Muscles and More,” which I found to be a pretty exciting name, and is described thusly:

Take your workout to the next level using only exercise bands and body weight. Develop lean muscle, build a strong core and improve endurance. All levels welcome!

I can handle that, right? Even considering that my “next level” was technically only “ambulatory,” it still sounded just my style. And I had a huge amount of fun speculating on what the “more” in the name might refer to. Kittens? White slavery? Self-esteem? The possibilities were limitless.

EXCEPT when I got there they had JUST CHANGED THE SCHEDULE and so I wound up going not to Muscles and More, but instead to Awesome Abs, which was now in that time slot. Awesome Abs did not sound like as much fun:

Want a powerful core? This class will take you through a series of exciting exercises that will keep your core in check. Develop your abs, low back, and oblique’s in a quick 30 minute class!

Although it’s true I would have hated the class anyway due to the greengrocers’ apostrophe, the only thing exciting about this class was finding out how many different ways there are to almost throw up. I spent the next three days dreading my own sneezes.

So: strike three. Or maybe two and a half. But fourth time’s a charm (or three and a half’s). I went back later that week to try out Muscles and More again for the first time.

(Is the “more” a North Korean hit squad? A ham sandwich? A T-Rex?)

But hey, fuck you, says the Y. Muscles and More was cancelled that day due to staff intransigence. Seeing me standing alone and forlorn in a dark and empty workout room, the helpful roaming staff member starts pitching the TRX class instead, which at the same time in a different room. I had never heard of TRX and told him so. He said “it’s a state-of-the-art system for maximizing your muscles developed by a Navy SEAL.” I assumed the modifying phrase was simply misplaced here and didn’t ask the obvious question. He led me to a small room, where, it appeared, people were hung by their wrists at regular intervals at a 45° angle from ropes off the walls, like some really badly written episode of Clone Wars, or a horrifying BDSM Harry Potter fanfic.

The idea of TRX, which was not at all explained to me by the not-yet-staff instructor they were trialing and observing that evening, is basically that you do pull-ups holding onto a strap strung through an O-ring on the wall, pulling your full body weight up and back (down and forth?) using just your hands to support yourself. For an hour. The story is that the Navy SEAL who invented it needed workout equipment that could travel light, pack up easily, and give you carpal tunnel in thirty minutes or less. I walked out when I felt the shooting pains in the backs of my hands.

So to recap:

Four classes, 3.5 failures. I could almost feel the Red Menace tightening his grip around my throat, except he had been to TRX the night before and could longer make a fist.

But I am nothing if not stupidly optimistic. So I took my last pass and made one final attempt at Muscles and More. (A xylophone? Freedom fries? A sherpa?) This time I went to a third Y, the one near my house. They took my picture before they let me in and claimed it was corporate policy. When I politely countered that two of the two other Ys I had been to did not seem to agree that it was corporate policy, the receptionist just stammered out, “Uh, they should.” My personal theory is that, having visited three different Ys in three weeks, they flagged my name as someone casing all the gyms across town as a probable member of the Free Weight Gang. But in any case, I went.

And here Muscles and More (A wheat penny? Linux? Full release?) was described differently:

Work your core body and major muscles with this strength and conditioning class. No cardio but you can pair it with Zumba which follows!

which struck me as pretty comical, imagining how that particular description came about. Working in the public library, I’ve learned that people will complain about anything. Because they want to feel that “someone” is listening to them, even if that someone is powerless to change anything about the situation or to make the person complaining actually receive the explanation they demanded. So here’s the conversation I’m imagining:

YMCA member: (irritable) Excuse me. Excuse me! Miss!
Pitiable staff member who happened to be scheduled at the front desk: (politely) Yes?
YMCA member: I have a complaint about the Muscles and More class.
PSMWHTBSATFD: I’m sorry to hear that. How can I help?
YMCA member: There was no cardio in that class. I came here for cardio. My doctor said I have to do cardio workouts or I WILL DIE. I will sue you if that happens.
PSMWHTBSATFD: Uh…well, it is a conditioning class. If you’d like to do cardio, you could go to any of our—
YMCA member: I WILL SUE AND DIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
PSMWHTBSATFD: Certainly. I’ll make a note of the deficiency on the schedule.

But hey! It was my last chance as a guest to try Muscles and More (Hot Pockets? Herpes? Hamming distance?) and sure, let’s throw in some Zumba, too. Because why not.

It so happened this was the week before Christmas, and I was feeling pretty smart about trying the gym before January hit and the plague of 6-week gym members hit. Luckily it only takes me two weeks or less to become a snob about almost anything.

I got Muscles and More (Pita bread? Wheetabix? Swedish fish?) ten minutes early, and I was already way late. Apparently there is a short class right before it where they do crunches for twenty minutes; before this class is also the times when all the cranky Active Seniors camp on all the good equipment and leave you with the 6-pound weights.

But all that hard work of not actually making it to a single class finally paid off when I attend my very first MaM class and got the stuffing whooped out of me. Those old ladies are tough. I wheezed through “muscles,” but disappointingly never found out exactly what the “more” was. Maybe you only find out after you’ve been to a certain number of classes.

Shaky and pale, I decided to stay for the Zumba class, mostly because it was in the same room the next hour, and I wasn’t actually capable of moving yet. As the students filed in, the instructor bounded up to the front of the room. She was an adorable Hispanic woman who looked suspiciously like Oralia, and who was dressed up like an adorable sparkly sequined elf. With the hat and Converse and skirt by Victoria’s Secret and everything.

I’ll say for the record: Zumba is fine. It’s fun, even. It is less fine and fun when all the songs are Christmas (or Navidad) songs, and I loathe Christmas songs, and even more less fine and fun when the class is clearly over capacity and yet somehow you get stuck next to the most energetic skinny man in the world, racing back and forth across the room with a frighteningly hyperfocused manic energy because he apparently has crack cocaine for breakfast. Think Chris Traeger from Parks and Rec, only WAY more positive and excitable. Literally.

And then at the end Santa came out for a guest appearance. It’s obviously much, much harder to Zumba in a full Santa suit than an adorable elven outfit, although he also obviously had much better musical taste. He got thirty seconds into “Gangnam Style” before he had ho ho slow it down and mostly just wave merrily. By the time we got to “Mahna Mahna,” he had given up all pretense and was just pacing slowly back and forth at the front of the class. Perhaps not surprisingly, this made me feel a lot better.

So: my last pass was spent. So? I did it. Despite all the terror and setback, I discovered actually really liked going to the gym. So: I ponied up the $34 a month. I am now a member of YMCA. No, no. Please. Hold the applause.

Of course, joining was only the first hurdle. There’s also the stick-to-it part. But I’ve been going for a while now (and brother, I have stories). And I’m a little embarrassed to say it feels kinda good. I like pushing my body. I like being surprised by how much it can do. And I like that the hard work has decimated my alcohol and sugar cravings. To my everlasting shock, I now am one of those gym people. I have actually come to enjoy that time after a hard workout when you get that pained, exhausted, hunched-over and happy feeling in your muscles.

I want more.

Above: John Vianney, the Curé of Ars.

Contemplation is gazing on God with the eyes of the heart. Part of this gazing is to believe He is present even when the heart seems overwhelmed with other things. This gaze of love searches for Him and this search takes time. For those who take up silent prayer, who obey the voice which calls out, “Be still, and know that I am God”, such contemplative souls understand why the Priest of Ars was moved by the witness of that old farmer.

ByAnthony Lilles

Contemplative prayer does provide a beautiful wisdom that disposes the heart intensely to God so that one is actually freed from those troubled anxieties that too much attachment to the things of this world can cause. In this, there is a very satisfying peace that one discovers. Anxieties and worries do not have the same disturbing effect because worldly affairs no longer seem as important. If persevered with, this contemplative prayer also frees us from false notions – like the idea that religious practices somehow appease the wrath of God, or that the Christian life is all about storing up merits for oneself.

But while a certain kind of indifference and equanimity can be characteristics of spiritual maturity, these virtues are only so to the degree that they are informed by charity — which is friendship love of God. Without charity, these qualities become what Augustine considers splendid vices. It is simply cold indifference to remain detached in the face of a neighbor’s plight. It is a slothful equanimity that does not resist such sin. Rather than strengthening our relationship with the Lord, this kind of peace becomes a barrier to the friendship the Lord has invited us into.

The temptation to seek the peacefulness contemplation produces rather than God who is the source of all true peace found its theological expression in Quietism two hundred years before the Cure d’Ars. Thinkers like Fr. Maravel, Fr. Molinos, and Mme. Guyon, similar to St. John Vianney, promoted the practice of the awareness of God. They, like the Cure d’Ars, rejected the notion that the spiritual life was about appeasing an angry God. They also upheld, however, the conviction that spiritual maturity requires attaining indifference to sin and one’s own salvation. Enchanted by a certain passivity that they mistook for supernatural virtue, they and their followers were often proported to be the source of scandal. Especially dangerous was their notion that one ought not to resist sin – because resistance and struggle disturbs one’s inner peace. Check out http://tiny.cc/bvRvJ.

Unlike the promoters of Quietism, the Cure d’Ars understood that peace is the fruit of our friendship with the Lord. This friendship requires vigilance and struggle against anything that might harm it. When we struggle against sin, we are really struggling against the tendency in us to act against love, to act without love. Only when we act in love does God create the space in our hearts that peace requires. His secret was to allow himself to be pierced by the plight of the people Christ entrusted to his care. Once pierced by their need for God and at the same time drawn to enter into God more deeply, he found the ability to surrender what he thought was best for what the Lord thought was best.

This trap of Quietism is at least partially rooted in a need for control and a lack of trust in the Lord. Becoming passively indifferent about one’s own life is so much easier than actively pursuing friendship with God with all our strength and determination. This is because indifference towards one’s self does not require trusting God or surrendering to Him who yearns for us. Indifference does not require vulnerability. Like Adam and Eve, such indifference offers a fig leaf, a place to hide from the One who searches for us, something that appeals to our imagination more than the unimaginable thing God has called us to.

In his own journey, John Vianney realized Christ’s saving hand over this spiritual trap. God’s friendship was necessary for real peace. He instinctively understood that this friendship with God, like all friendship, demands daily discipline of opening one’s heart and the willingness to go into His heart. Such discipline would be impossible without grace – but by the grace of Christ, this struggle yields peace. In this way, Contemplative prayer and asceticism went hand in hand for him.

http://beginningtopray.blogspot.com/2009/08/st-john-vianney-continued.html

“”In the multitude of my anxieties
within me,
Your comforts delight my soul.”  Psalm 94:19

There will always be a multitude of anxieties.

Lord, I chose to be comforted by You today.  And here is a simple poem . . .

Comfort Delights

web.njit.edu

There is a river
called Anxiety

that churns and tosses
you about

here are paddles
and a life jacket

take My hand now
climb on out.

I speak to my mom a couple times a week. I haven’t spoken to my dad or brother in a while. I miss my nephews.

I have been feeling unwell for a couple of weeks. All my tests came back negative for everything. All seems to be functioning normally. But something is up in my kidneys. I have to go to a urologist next week. I don’t want to go. Now, I have to get used to seeing a new doctor. Thankfully, if I don’t like the doctor I am to see, I can keep looking and trying them out until I do find one I like.

Just thinking about finding a doctor gets my heart racing. I start to freak out at the thought. And the more I think about it, the more anxious I get.

Leaving the comfort and safety of my surroundings and having to go and be around people I don’t know just gets my anxieties working over time. I really do enjoy meeting people and talking with them. It’s the whole getting to that comfy point that gets me on the freak out train. I hide it well though.

So far I have kept my resolution for the new year of “No Surgeries!” I need to get my kidneys in good working health so I can go adventuring again because not being able to get up and go like I used to sucks.

This won’t be my last time at the bottom; I know I’ll hit that depression wall again. But until then, I will continue to try new things, meet new people (and not freak out) and adventure like I have never adventured before!

Add to this the fact that I’m pretty physically incompetent as well. I never did quite get the hang of convincing my limbs to move in concert. This becomes a serious problem when one of the goals of the game is to keep your ball in one lane at a time, that lane preferably being your own.

Just in case you think I’m exaggerating: the only time I’ve been bowling was in seventh grade when my friend had her birthday party at a bowling alley, and I said I didn’t know how to bowl and didn’t want to go because of that, but she insisted I go anyway, and to make me feel less awkward and self-conscious, stood behind me to coach me on each throw, and that’s why when I was following her instructions to “not be afraid to put some power in it,” except with my gangly adolescent body that refused to obey orders correctly I put the power in at the wrong time, the wrong time being the upswing on the way back and not the downswing going forward, and being already so nervous about doing it wrong that I was all sweaty in that special slippery way that only seventh graders can be, I lost my grip on the ball and launched ten pounds of terror straight back at her face with all the force my surprisingly wiry little arm could muster. My only saving grace that evening being that she was on the varsity softball team and therefore had quick enough reflexes to jump back just in time, and the parabola the ball described ended not with me being imprisoned for manslaughter but instead with the hot pink ball landing smack at her feet, leaving a pretty decent hole in the ground where it fell. That hole today is popularly known as Crater Lake.

Also going bowling is kind of a big deal because, while I am willing to expend time, energy, and my friends’ money to organize something soul-stirring and life-affirming, like, say, a caving expedition or backpacking trip, I am significantly less inclined to arrange an outing wherein the highlight is me falling down, plus tater tots.

Which means if I’m going to cross bowling off my list, I had to go with the only opportunity that presented itself of its own accord: a work league. My work does a monthly thing where they go on I think the first Friday or something, every, I don’t know, ten months out of twelve? Three seasons out of four? Months with lunar eclipses? Every third month unless the date is odd? I’m really not clear on what the bowling season is. All I know is that there is a lot of bowling and then it stops.

I kept postponing going, of course, because really the last thing I want to do is perform physically in front of people I have to work with, for god’s sake. Until all of a sudden it was the very last month. Somehow everyone knew it was the last month but me, and for some reason they all went out of their way to tell me that it was. I think it was a conspiracy. So with a heavy heart, I agreed to go, figuring if nothing else I could get a good story out of it.

What’s that saying about you might wish for things if you aren’t careful?

So I steeled myself for bowling that very evening. I figured I had enough time to run home, change clothes, and eat dinner, since the organizer told me it started at seven. The players all told me it started at seven. The flyer sent out to the entire staff said it started at seven. Based on these contextual clues, I chose to show up at seven.

Except that apparently in bowling etiquette, 7:00 is understood to mean 6:30 or possibly even last Tuesday, because by the time I arrived at 7:04, everyone was already in teams and tacky shoes, so all there was for me to do was stand around awkwardly and pretend as though it wasn’t exactly like high school when no one wanted me on their team then, either. So I basically just stood around affecting interest in the games and trying not to throw up out of anxiety until I thought I could finally leave without being rude. I did not count this as a success.

So I figured I had to try again, if for no other reason than to shut people up about how much I really would love bowling if I just gave it a chance. “Luckily” for me, for some reason I don’t understand, the 2011–12 fiscal bowling season was immediately followed with a summer session, or really whatever I don’t care, so the Last Game That I Had to Go To or Miss My Chance was just the first in a series as far as I could tell. And by this point I had built up so much anxiety around it that I absolutely wanted to go at the next opportunity and just be done with the whole mess.

This line of thinking led to what was if not my first mistake, certainly my greatest, which was going bowling with a broken toe. Breaking my toe wasn’t actually my fault. It was my shitty landlord’s. Instead of putting air conditioning in the duplex I lived in, they put in a swamp cooler. For those of you not familiar with swamp coolers, the concept is that it blows moisture into your home to cool it off inside when it’s 107° out with 0% humidity (again, you think I exaggerate. I do not.). Swamp coolers actually work pretty well most of the year, and your skin feels less itchy when it’s on, plus they cost like a nickel to run, so they’re pretty popular in Tucson. The only problem, of course, is that the massive amounts of humidity make all your books warp like they’re being involuntarily pulled into an alternate dimension, and all that “at least it’s a dry heat” BS goes right out the window you always have to keep cracked open so you don’t burn out the cooler’s motor, and also during the fairly significant monsoon season we get here, swamp coolers are 100% useless and you will spend the summer lying on your floor hating rain and all water everywhere.

Or, here’s how a friend of mine put it: “You’ll think you’re a genius for three months. Then you’ll want to kill yourself.”

And I know you’re asking yourself how this can be their fault if I knew it had a swamp cooler when I moved in, but trust me, if you knew the rest of what they did, you would totally be on my side on this one.

So yes, I did think I was a genius for three months. Then the monsoons came. And here’s a fun bit of trivia: winds in Tucson tend to blow east to west. And remember you have to leave your window open. Guess which direction my windows faced? Yup, east and west. And monsoons come up unpredictably now, thanks so much global climate change. So rain just basically blew in my house all the goddamn time. But even when it didn’t, I just had to walk around my house sticky and angry. Wearing clothes didn’t help, and not wearing clothes didn’t help. It’s impossible to get comfortable or sit on things or sleep well. The cats were all pretty much just one long bad hair day, and took to walking around sideways for some reason. When I took one of them to the vet, he (the vet) asked me if I had bathed him (the cat) that morning. I had to say no, it was just my house. I woke up enraged every single day, and one morning I opened my eyes and yelled at my house, “STOP!!! BEING!!! DAMP!!!”

So swamp cooler time is angry time, is what I’m trying to say. So I’m just filled with blind rage as I stomp around the house. And one night I tried to huff myself to bed, except I was so angry I lost what little directional competence I possess and walked my baby toe straight into my metal bedframe with full enraged force. And that is how I broke my toe. I’m frankly surprised I didn’t break the bedframe, I smacked it so hard.

Did I go to the doctor? No. I did not. Everyone knows there isn’t anything you can do for a broken baby toe other than feel sorry for yourself. You can’t even fix a broken big toe. I happen to know this from personal experience, because I once had to take my ex, who not only had some anger management issues but also liked making sure I knew I wasn’t in control of my own life, to urgent care because he was so angry he kicked a plasterboard wall, putting a hole in it and thereby breaking his left big toe. I don’t remember what he was mad about now, but I’m pretty sure it was something like “don’t tell me to quit calling you a stupid cunt, goddammit, because it’s only the truth and it’s not my fault you can’t handle the truth.”

(I was not supposed to be mad about the hole in the wall, either, because “it wasn’t made well” and “just caved right in.”)

But ok, I’m dutiful and take him to urgent care, but I have to help him hobble to the car and hobble to the waiting room and fill out all of his paperwork and wait with him for nine hours (thanks, broken American health care system) talk to the doctor about his aftercare because somehow I am responsible for the state of his toe, and help the same doctor convince him that he does not, in fact, need a cast even though he insisted he did, because no competent doctor will put a cast on a broken toe and no, the doctor is not trying to screw you over by giving you substandard care.

So yeah, I lost a weekend to that. But you can’t be too mad because these things happen, right?

Except then IT HAPPENED AGAIN THE VERY NEXT WEEKEND. He kicked the OTHER WALL with his OTHER FOOT and broke his OTHER BIG TOE and we did the whole stupid thing ALL OVER AGAIN on my THREE DAY WEEKEND. Only this time he picked a brick wall, which fortunately was in fact made well and did not in fact cave in, which is why he insisted that this time, surely, he would need a cast, and how he eventually convinced me to take him back. Again.

Healthy boundaries, kids. Have some.

So yeah, I didn’t go to the doctor because I knew the drill. Instead I hobbled around pathetically and pretended to be surprised when people noticed.

Basically, then, picture is this: I’m at bowling. I’m on what must be the unluckiest team in bowling history. And people are kindly trying to show me how to bowl (I asked them to please not stand behind me) but it’s pretty much impossible to get the 1-2-3 (left-right-left? red light–green light?) rhythm of the steps right when it’s more like left-hobble-left and there’s no way to time the swing correctly and basically I just am making a jackass out of myself.

Also my boss is there.

So…still doesn’t count, right? Fine, I’ll go a third time, but this is it: this experience will determine my position on bowling. Because by this point I’ll have given it every possible chance a reasonable person can.

I wait until monsoon passes and my free-floating rage ebbs. I wait until my toe heals. I wait until I’m feeling optimistic, upbeat, and chipper. I even wait until I’ve watched The Big Lewbowski for the first time.

I get there on time, meaning 48 hours early. I get some shoes. I get some tater tots. I get some impromptu lessons again, mostly from the same boss, but also a lot of enthusiastic coaching from everyone else who noticed my incompetence, meaning everyone else.

And on my first frame, I threw a strike. Yeah, no shit.

I felt pretty silly about all the anxiety and the hoopla I had thrown up against bowling. I mean, it’s just fun, right? And win or lose, your teammates will cheer you on because there’s nothing so dumb you can do that will make people not want to bowl with you.

My second frame I got a spare. And I was feeling pretty impressed with myself. I was feeling the ball and how it sat in my hand and how the weight swung and how my body moved. I was feeling much more confident, and started to throw the ball with serious heft and intention, and the ball was actually going where I wanted it to go.

So it therefore came as a complete surprise to me when, on the third frame, I somehow bobbled the downswing and, using my full physical intention and all of my personal strength, swung an 11-pound ball directly into the back of my knee. I didn’t ever go back and ask, but I’m pretty sure the hole I left in the floor when I collapsed is now being used by USGS for gravity coring in the earth’s mantle.

Yeah, it hurt, a lot, and the back of my leg swelled up and turned black. I didn’t go to a doctor for that either, since I already happen to know it’s not actually possible to die of embarrassment. But that giant bruise, which lasted for freakin’ weeks, was the final signpost on my road to bowling. I didn’t get a good look, but I think the sign said “Lane ends.”

So. There. I gave it a try, and I was more than fair. Bowling is stupid and I hate it and it hates me and that’s the way it will stay forever and everyone’s happy with things staying just like that. And don’t ask me to do it ever again because I won’t go, unless maybe I just watch and someone is buying me beer.

But I am still totally willing to try zorbing, if anyone knows a guy. That looks like fun.

I suppose you could say that my journey began a few years ago, when the stories came to light about catholic priests & their crimes against children in Ireland, & indeed, all over the world.

But we will get to that after the introductions.

Hi, my name was Damian Cúipéir, (Now Daamin Abdul Quadir) I was born in (withheld) in Newcastle, County Down, in the North of Ireland. I am the second youngest of 6, & I was raised as a catholic.

I began having problems with the teachings of the Catholic Church when I was at high school, when I was told that I had to go to confessions, to confess my sins in front of a priest. I objected to this & stated that I could speak to God whenever & wherever,

I chose to, this could be in bed at night, or anywhere really.

I became a ‘lapsed’ catholic from here & really had no further involvement with religion from this point for several years. But it didn’t stop me from believing in God, my view was that I could still pray without having to go through a ‘representative’ here on Earth.

I was still praying using the prayers that Catholicism had taught me, & later, I just spoke to God. When the stories of the behaviors of priests & others in the Catholic Church began emerging, I wanted to have no further dealings with it. But I still ‘knew’ there was a ‘God’, & felt I needed to find a new direction to go in.

I spoke to my mother about this only last year (2012), she told me to do what I was happy with, in other words, it was my choice & I’d be the one living with it. Basically, that was her blessing, or as close as I was going to get to it. So, I had to decide where I wanted to put my faith. As far as I was concerned, there was ‘ONE GOD’, just everyone had a different name for him, according to their faith.

The only other religion I had been looking at was Islam, I know that may sound cheesy, but it is the truth! I had been reading about it, but I was anxious, because my health was not good at all, at the time. I thought I wouldn’t be able to pray ‘properly’ as I had saw it on TV, because I was unable to get up & down, prostrating as I was told it was called. I thought I couldn’t be a ‘proper’ Muslim! I think because my health was so poor, it prompted me to take more decisive action. I began reading more about Islam from a few sites online, but I was a bit apprehensive; I was thinking about what others would think of my decision to embrace Islam, instead of putting my own happiness & peace of mind first.

In the meantime, I had been introduced to a few brothers on Facebook; I think the first was Brother Ibrahim. I remember thinking to myself after chatting with him a few times, “Why do they say that Islam is an evil religion, this guy could live across the road from me, he talks like me, could have similar interests, HAD a similar sense of humor.” I can say that he put me at ease, I wasn’t nervous about talking to him, I think the first time I spoke to him on fb, I ribbed him about his name, & he took it the way it was meant, as a bit of cráic, a joke. “He’s human”, I thought. Chatting with him & others, it spurred me on to gain as much knowledge as I could find about the religion of Islam, & how to go about bringing it into my life, to become a part of it.

I testified ‘Shahada’ on November 19, 2012, through islamreligion.com. I was having an online chat with Zia, one of the operators.

We went through all my fears, worries, anxieties, & I was at peace with myself at last. Zia phoned me & I testified ‘Shahada’, I wanted to ensure that I was saying the words right, for my own peace of mind. I honestly felt as if a weight had been lifted from me, I was unburdened & I was happy.

I told Ibrahim & a few other brothers & sisters of what I had done, by private message. This was because I had wanted to tell family & friends in person, rather than to plaster it across fb. So slowly, steadily, the list of people I felt I should tell in person grew smaller & smaller. Then in mid to late December (I think), I posted it as my status on fb. Again, I felt unburdened & extremely happy.

Now I just look forward to learning more about Islam every day. Brother Ibrahim provided me with links to a lot of sites where I could pick up more & more knowledge. Now, I have a great bunch of ‘true friends’, brothers & sisters who help me every time I chat with them on fb. Reverting to Islam is the best decision I have made in years & my Christian friends fully supported me right through the process, & still do to this day.

inescapably engulfed by the raging waters.

Mountainous waves crash violently against the rocky shoreline,

showers of salty mist spray through the windy winter air.

I am left awestruck at the wonders of our God…

How the Creator would construct something so spectacular,

… so powerful

… so menacing, yet so… majestic

… so barbaric, yet so… beautiful

… and all from a simple command.

I am left overwhelmed

 … at the might

… at the grandeur

… at the resplendence of the enigmatic Architect of this universe.

And to think::

He cares for me!

Reeling from such a thought,

my mind is unable to fully grasp such surreal truth.

Breathing slowly, I watch as all my anxieties

… all my fears

… all my shame

… is swallowed up into the stormy sea.

And I am left

… with peace.

unfortunately this cell phone pic does not do justice

ANYWAYS ENOUGH OF ALL THAT MESS, YEA? LET’S TALK ABOUT SOME GOOD STUFF!

Class itself was pretty average. Show up, take notes, leave slightly late because my teacher has little concept of time. But, a few good things happened today which I feel like mentioning. First, I had my boyfriend drop me off about two hours early so I could do some work in the library without distractions like video games and the internet.

As I was walking to the library, a girl called out to me, “I like your hair!” Which struck me as a little odd, because I was wearing a beanie-style hat that completely covered my hair aside from a very small bit sticking out the back. But, that little bit is bright purple, so I guess that’s the power of purple!

I also walked up four flights of stairs, on purpose this time! (Edit: It occurred to me that I never relayed this story to you, since I just wanted to forget it. On Thursday, I walked up those stairs to find the library, effectively exhausted myself and nearly passed out, only to get to the top and see the elevator. I was… most displeased.) I didn’t even stop for a break when I got to the top like last week, I just kept going until I got to the library. I was panting and dripping sweat, but I made it. I will build my stamina one trip to the library at a time! I’m pretty proud of myself for that.

Here is the biggest and best thing, in my humble opinion. Not only did I make a joke in class, out loud so everyone could hear me, but after class, I actually spoke to people I didn’t know! I wasn’t forced to, I just did it of my own accord because I had something to add to the conversation! And I didn’t pass out or vomit or anything! This is quite a big step considering my crippling social anxiety.

Of course, because there always has to be a dark cloud for the silver lining, while I was walking home, I was honked at by a driver for crossing a freaking crosswalk. There’s a yield to pedestrians sign there and everything, the people in my neighborhood just choose to ignore it. I made a rude gesture at them and if I see their car again, I may or may not slash their tires, I still haven’t decided. [No, not really. I would never do that. I'm too afraid of getting caught and I can't afford to replace tires, let alone get arrested. Pretty sure my mom wouldn't bail me out on that one.]

I should practice forgiveness, since obviously this person hasn’t reached more than a basic, bottom-dwelling plane of existence. I’ll do that tomorrow. Tonight, I want to complain. But don’t worry, I won’t let it wreck my good day.

Video: “Encourage Yourself“

David strengthened himself in the Lord

Before David was king in the Old Testament, God brought him through many difficult trials, hardships, rejection, and pain. We all know David as a “Man after God’s own heart.” His relationship with the Lord was highly unusual for his day because the entire outlook for worship in Israel at the time was focused on the sacrifice of animals to temporarily deal with sin, and not the sacrifice of praise from the heart. His heart led him beyond the letter of the law to the heart of the Lord. David learned how to rely completely on God for victory. David’s trust for God did not change with each circumstance. David had integrity of heart. His heart was forever faithful to God in-spite of his circumstances.

David was anointed to be king, but he didn’t assume the throne until 10 – 13 years after Samuel had anointed him. God was grooming David for greatness. He was being groomed for the throne of Israel. He endured more difficulty, persecution, and rejection than many of us face in a lifetime. David developed strength of character that only comes by winning private battles.

Read 1 Samuel 30:1 – 6

David learned the ability to do something in the face of the deepest betrayal and rejection imaginable. When he stood completely alone, that is when David “strengthened himself in the Lord his God.” (1 Samuel 30:6)

1 Samuel 30:6 

“Now David was greatly distressed, for the people spoke of stoning him, because the soul of all the people was grieved, every man for his sons and his daughters…”

How would you respond to a situation like that? Without question I would feel “greatly distressed” too if my life was threatened by my closest friends, not to mention having your entire family taken from you. It is one thing to deal with the grief of missing your wife and children, it is added hardship to face at the same time those who are rejecting you and remain strong. David was human.

The Bible doesn’t go into detail how David encouraged himself, but we do know his source of encouragement was the Lord.

In this message you will find tools to encourage yourself in-spite of any hardship you may be facing. We have to learn to encourage ourselves so that we can advance in God. God wants us to learn how to strengthen ourselves through Him because developing our skills will promote spiritual longevity. We need longevity because our destiny and potential cannot be attained in a few years; they extend to the end of our lifetime here on earth.

How To Encourage Yourself In The Lord

 1.  Look the right way!

Phil. 4:8 (NKJV)

“Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy – meditate on these things.”

Look for the good. Look for what is true and noble. This verse tells us to look for the lovely. If we do this, we will be encouraged and strengthened.

Phil. 4:8 (The Message)

“Summing it all up, friends, I’d say you’ll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious – the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse.”

You will be challenged from day to day. We are not promised that our days will always be blissful and peaceful. As you go through your day you may encounter things which make you cringe, or things that are wrong or ugly. Deal with these as you must, but do not let them become your focus. Remember that almighty God is with you. Can you hear Him say to you, “Look the right way?” Remind yourself of how faithful God has been in your life and set your gaze in that direction. God will be faithful again because it is his character.

2.  Listen to God’s voice and follow!

Don’t allow the enemy to tell you that you can’t hear God, or that God doesn’t speak to you because God does speak to us. We have to tune our ear to His frequency by spending time with Him to recognize His voice.

John 10:4 (NKJV)

“And when he brings out his own sheep, he goes before them and the sheep follow him; for they know his voice.”

John 10:27 (NKJV)

“My sheep hear my voice and I know them, and they follow Me.”

Close out all other voices of the world and focus on the One True Voice of God which will lead you out of your despair. Any voice that is shouting doom and gloom is NOT of God! God’s voice instantly brings peace. As a matter of fact God’s voice is peace.

It is one thing to hear His voice and another to follow and obey. If we cried out to God and He answers; obey. Our actions should follows hearing His voice.

When God speaks and you follow, life will become a romance. It will awaken your passion for God, life, and others. Listening to God’s voice becomes the first thing you do instead of the last.

Why is it that we humans try to figure things out on our own and then end up discouraged and hopeless? Let it be the first thing we do and save ourselves undo grief.

3.  Pray your anxieties away!

Take inventory of what is occupying your mind. What occupies your mind the most becomes your god. Worries, if indulged, develop into idols. Anxieties will gain a life of their own like parasites infesting the mind.

What I am about to share may seem cliché or simple, but this is what I do when anxiety tries to overtake me. I run to my secret place in prayer with God and cry out how I feel and share all my anxieties with Him. He already knows, but something happens when I release it. I stay in my secret place until I sense His peace and reassurance that His is with me and I can trust Him with my life. Often we are anxious because we lack trust. We may have been wounded by others, or circumstances, and are afraid. I put on Christ worship while in my prayer-time. It helps me to focus my attention on God, Who is my source of peace.

We have to stop playing and rewinding our memory tape of our past and allow God to heal us from the sting of it all.

Phil. 4:6 – 7 (The Message)

“Don’t fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns. Before you know it, a sense of God’s wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down. It’s wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life.”

Affirm your trust in God and refresh yourself in God’s presence this will break you free from the bondage of fear, worry, and anxiety.

4.  Guard your thoughts!

Good thought choices keep us close to God, while bad thought choices will push us away. Do anything to guard your peace.

Isaiah 26:3 (NKJV)

“You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in You.”

When you are discouraged your peace is gone. Hope is gone. Chances are you didn’t guard your thinking, or you are allowing circumstances to determine your mood. Circumstances come and go but God, and His peace, remain the same; always available to us.

Bring your thoughts into God’s presence. If they are negative, destructive, or blown up, God’s presence is the defuser.

2 Cor. 10:5 (NKJV)

“Casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.”

Don’t allow your vain imaginations to grow above who Christ is in your life. Focus on God’s answers and not your problems.

Psalm 105:4 (NKJV)

“Seek the Lord and His strength; seek His face forevermore.”

In God’s radiant light, anxious thoughts shrink and shrivel. Judgmental thoughts are unmasked as you bask in God’s unconditional love. Confused ideas are untangled while you rest in the simplicity of God’s peace.

Walk and talk with confidence. It’s time you look up, not down. It’s time for you to expect great things to happen in your life, not bad.

5.  Praise your way out of despair.

I am sure this is one of the ways David encouraged himself in the Lord. David was a praiser. He couldn’t help it. Remember he had integrity of heart. He was solid in who God was in his life. Praise came naturally to him.

Psalm 28:7 – 8 (NKJV)

“The LORD is my strength and my shield; My heart trusted in Him, and I am helped; Therefore my heart greatly rejoices, and with my song I will praise Him. The LORD is their strength, and He is the saving refuge of His anointed.”

When David was captured by the Philistines in Gath David cried out to God his heart and his praise.

Psalm 56:3 – 4 (NKJV)

“Whenever I am afraid, I will trust You. In God (I will praise His word), In God I have put my trust; I will not fear. What can flesh do to me?”

Our very concerns, as we cry them out to God, can turn into praises because they express our need for God to intervene. They are truly a sacrifice of praise and this is what God desires from us; to be real, and to know Who our source is.

Psalm 42:5 (NKJV)

“Why are you cast down, O my soul? And why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him for the help of my countenance.”

Praise brings God’s help. When we are depressed or feeling down, we are encouraged to hope in God in this prophetic song. It lets us know that God’s countenance, His face, turns towards the one who praises. Then the praiser’s countenance is lifted by God’s love.

When we praise God He comes. His presence saturates us and we can’t help but receive joy.

Psalm 16:11 (NKJV)

“You will show me the path of life; in your presence is fullness of joy; at Your right hand are pleasures forevermore.”

Face to face encounters with God will always bring peace – this is what our praises do. Knowing this makes me want to always seek God’s face in every situation in my life. Actually, it draws me to want to spend time with Him because I am forever changed after being in His presence.

Psalm 105:4 (NKJV)

“Seek the LORD and His strength; seek His face evermore.”

Numbers 6:25 – 26 (NKJV)

“The LORD make His face shine upon you, and be gracious to you; The LORD lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace.”

Wow! These verses in Numbers sums it all up. Let it be your prayer that God will shine His face upon you daily. One true way of assurance that it will happen is to spend time everyday in God’s presence. The peace of God is more valuable then all the riches in the world.

6.  Meditate on the promises of God.

All the verses I have placed in this message are God’s promises. We can stand on everyone. Reading God’s word and meditating on what it promises will lift our spirits. God’s word is truth. His word never lies. We will not be put to shame when we trust in God’s word.

Here are are more promises in God’s word to stand on:

Psalm 22:5 (NKJV)

“They cried to You, and were delivered; They trusted in You, and were not ashamed.”

Psalm 25:2 – 3 (NKJV)

“O my God, I trust in You, Let me not be ashamed; let not my enemies triumph over me. Indeed, let no one who waits on You be ashamed; Let those be ashamed who deal treacherously without cause.”

The words “trust” and “wait” are interchangeable. Trust = Wait. This means we need to ponder upon it, or roll around in it. Often trusting God requires waiting, and waiting requires trust.

Psalm 25:20 – 21 (NKJV)

“Keep my soul, and deliver me; let me not be ashamed, for I put my trust in You. Let integrity and uprightness preserve me, for I wait for you.”

There are so many promises in God’s word. Find some which pertain to your situation and stand on them. Get them in your spirit so when the wind and waves come, you won’t be tossed here and there.

7.  Strength comes from covenant people in your life.

Our close friendships, especially with our spouses, are powerful because they are build on covenant.

Covenant establishes an agreement that allows the spiritual reality that governs your life to flow to the other person, and visa versa. This is why it is so vital to develop friendships with people whose lives consistently display the fruit of the Kingdom. When we steward covenant friendships with people of faith, we stay connect4ed to a growing source of strength that often greatly determines our ability to persevere through difficult times.

Ecc. 4:9 – 12 (NKJV)

“Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their labor. For if they fall, one will lift up his companion. But woe to him who is alone when he falls, for he has no one to help him up. Again, if two lie down together, they will keep warm; but how can one be warm alone? Though one may be overpowered by another, two can withstand him. And a threefold cord is not quickly broken.”

There are many close friends of genuine faith in my life. Sometimes I don’t have to even tell them what I am going through, but just spending time with them I am uplifted. Why? Because my friends are people of faith and they naturally exude hope, peace, and joy. Many times when I am low, tired, or discouraged I spend time with my godly friends and I walk away encouraged and my burden is lighter.

Remember to protect yourself when you are emotionally vulnerable or tired. Don’t allow yourself to be around people who will drain you, or are complainers or who are critical. This will bring you down even more and discouragement will set in. You will become who you hang around. Choose your friends wisely!

All this said, if you have sin in your life, this will always separate you from God and make you discouraged. Check your heart and ask God to show you anything that is not pleasing to Him. When he shows you, or you may already know, stop it immediately and turn away from it. The pleasures of sin are but for a moment, and the consequence can last forever.

I pray this has helped you to encourage yourself in the Lord and to walk with confidence and boldness to keep on with your life. Be your own cheerleader! If you don’t who will?

From one encourager to another,

Pastor Kris Belfils

www.krisbelfils.com

www.hopefellowshipspokane.com

www.krisbelfils.wordpress.com

With the crazy pace of life in almost every society in the world today, what everyone needs is some rest. Some would go away on a long holiday looking for a restful time, but many return unrested. The reason is simply because physical rest and entertainment are not what we really need. They offer a temporary relief but real restedness comes from Jesus – the Prince of Peace. When in need of rest and stillness, it is not so much a place we need to go to but a Person we need to go to. Jesus says to people of every generation, “Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” (Mt.11:28) He also said, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.” (Jn.14:27) As you begin your walk with God today, take a moment right now and rest in Him. Commit all your anxieties to Him in prayer and the peace of Christ that surpasses all human understanding will keep your heart and mind in Christ Jesus. Yes, a peace that surpasses human understanding. Don’t try to process everything with your head, let go of your thought process and allow the Holy Spirit to minister to you and reveal to you His plans and purposes. Have a restful day!

Today’s Bible text: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” (Mt.11:28)

Pastor Barnabas Chong
Email us at twc@cairnhillchurch.com

Today’s recommended video: At the cross … Click here for YouTube link

2. Hence this Second Vatican Council, having probed more profoundly into the mystery of the Church, now addresses itself without hesitation, not only to the sons of the Church and to all who invoke the name of Christ, but to the whole of humanity. For the council yearns to explain to everyone how it conceives of the presence and activity of the Church in the world of today.

Therefore, the council focuses its attention on the world of men, the whole human family along with the sum of those realities in the midst of which it lives; that world which is the theater of man’s history, and the heir of his energies, his tragedies and his triumphs; that world which the Christian sees as created and sustained by its Maker’s love, fallen indeed into the bondage of sin, yet emancipated now by Christ, Who was crucified and rose again to break the strangle hold of personified evil, so that the world might be fashioned anew according to God’s design and reach its fulfillment.

3. Though mankind is stricken with wonder at its own discoveries and its power, it often raises anxious questions about the current trend of the world, about the place and role of man in the universe, about the meaning of its individual and collective strivings, and about the ultimate destiny of reality and of humanity. Hence, giving witness and voice to the faith of the whole people of God gathered together by Christ, this council can provide no more eloquent proof of its solidarity with, as well as its respect and love for the entire human family with which it is bound up, than by engaging with it in conversation about these various problems. The council brings to mankind light kindled from the Gospel, and puts at its disposal those saving resources which the Church herself, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, receives from her Founder. For the human person deserves to be preserved; human society deserves to be renewed. Hence the focal point of our total presentation will be man himself, whole and entire, body and soul, heart and conscience, mind and will.

Therefore, this sacred synod, proclaiming the noble destiny of man and championing the Godlike seed which has been sown in him, offers to mankind the honest assistance of the Church in fostering that brotherhood of all men which corresponds to this destiny of theirs. Inspired by no earthly ambition, the Church seeks but a solitary goal: to carry forward the work of Christ under the lead of the befriending Spirit. And Christ entered this world to give witness to the truth, to rescue and not to sit in judgment, to serve and not to be served.(2)

INTRODUCTORY STATEMENT THE SITUATION OF MEN IN THE MODERN WORLD 4. To carry out such a task, the Church has always had the duty of scrutinizing the signs of the times and of interpreting them in the light of the Gospel. Thus, in language intelligible to each generation, she can respond to the perennial questions which men ask about this present life and the life to come, and about the relationship of the one to the other. We must therefore recognize and understand the world in which we live, its explanations, its longings, and its often dramatic characteristics. Some of the main features of the modern world can be sketched as follows.

Today, the human race is involved in a new stage of history. Profound and rapid changes are spreading by degrees around the whole world. Triggered by the intelligence and creative energies of man, these changes recoil upon him, upon his decisions and desires, both individual and collective, and upon his manner of thinking and acting with respect to things and to people. Hence we can already speak of a true cultural and social transformation, one which has repercussions on man’s religious life as well.

As happens in any crisis of growth, this transformation has brought serious difficulties in its wake. Thus while man extends his power in every direction, he does not always succeed in subjecting it to his own welfare. Striving to probe more profoundly into the deeper recesses of his own mind, he frequently appears more unsure of himself. Gradually and more precisely he lays bare the laws of society, only to be paralyzed by uncertainty about the direction to give it.

Never has the human race enjoyed such an abundance of wealth, resources and economic power, and yet a huge proportion of the worlds citizens are still tormented by hunger and poverty, while countless numbers suffer from total illiteracy. Never before has man had so keen an understanding of freedom, yet at the same time new forms of social and psychological slavery make their appearance. Although the world of today has a very vivid awareness of its unity and of how one man depends on another in needful solidarity, it is most grievously torn into opposing camps by conflicting forces. For political, social, economic, racial and ideological disputes still continue bitterly, and with them the peril of a war which would reduce everything to ashes. True, there is a growing exchange of ideas, but the very words by which key concepts are expressed take on quite different meanings in diverse ideological systems. Finally, man painstakingly searches for a better world, without a corresponding spiritual advancement.

Influenced by such a variety of complexities, many of our contemporaries are kept from accurately identifying permanent values and adjusting them properly to fresh discoveries. As a result, buffeted between hope and anxiety and pressing one another with questions about the present course of events, they are burdened down with uneasiness. This same course of events leads men to look for answers; indeed, it forces them to do so.

5. Today’s spiritual agitation and the changing conditions of life are part of a broader and deeper revolution. As a result of the latter, intellectual formation is ever increasingly based on the mathematical and natural sciences and on those dealing with man himself, while in the practical order the technology which stems from these sciences takes on mounting importance.

This scientific spirit has a new kind of impact on the cultural sphere and on modes of thought. Technology is now transforming the face of the earth, and is already trying to master outer space. To a certain extent, the human intellect is also broadening its dominion over time: over the past by means of historical knowledge; over the future, by the art of projecting and by planning.

Advances in biology, psychology, and the social sciences not only bring men hope of improved self-knowledge; in conjunction with technical methods, they are helping men exert direct influence on the life of social groups.

At the same time, the human race is giving steadily-increasing thought to forecasting and regulating its own population growth. History itself speeds along on so rapid a course that an individual person can scarcely keep abreast of it. The destiny of the human community has become all of a piece, where once the various groups of men had a kind of private history of their own.

Thus, the human race has passed from a rather static concept of reality to a more dynamic, evolutionary one. In consequence there has arisen a new series of problems, a series as numerous as can be, calling for efforts of analysis and synthesis.

6. By this very circumstance, the traditional local communities such as families, clans, tribes, villages, various groups and associations stemming from social contacts, experience more thorough changes every day.

The industrial type of society is gradually being spread, leading some nations to economic affluence, and radically transforming ideas and social conditions established for centuries.

Likewise, the cult and pursuit of city living has grown, either because of a multiplication of cities and their inhabitants, or by a transplantation of city life to rural settings.

New and more efficient media of social communication are contributing to the knowledge of events; by setting off chain reactions they are giving the swiftest and widest possible circulation to styles of thought and feeling.

It is also noteworthy how many men are being induced to migrate on various counts, and are thereby changing their manner of life. Thus a man’s ties with his fellows are constantly being multiplied, and at the same time “socialization” brings further ties, without however always promoting appropriate personal development and truly personal relationships.

This kind of evolution can be seen more clearly in those nations which already enjoy the conveniences of economic and technological progress, though it is also astir among peoples still striving for such progress and eager to secure for themselves the advantages of an industrialized and urbanized society. These peoples, especially those among them who are attached to older traditions, are simultaneously undergoing a movement toward more mature and personal exercise of liberty.

7. A change in attitudes and in human structures frequently calls accepted values into question, especially among young people, who have grown impatient on more than one occasion, and indeed become rebels in their distress. Aware of their own influence in the life of society, they want a part in it sooner. This frequently causes parents and educators to experience greater difficulties day by day in discharging their tasks. The institutions, laws and modes of thinking and feeling as handed down from previous generations do not always seem to be well adapted to the contemporary state of affairs; hence arises an upheaval in the manner and even the norms of behavior.

Finally, these new conditions have their impact on religion. On the one hand a more critical ability to distinguish religion from a magical view of the world and from the superstitions which still circulate purifies it and exacts day by day a more personal and explicit adherence to faith. As a result many persons are achieving a more vivid sense of God. On the other hand, growing numbers of people are abandoning religion in practice. Unlike former days, the denial of God or of religion, or the abandonment of them, are no longer unusual and individual occurrences. For today it is not rare for such things to be presented as requirements of scientific progress or of a certain new humanism. In numerous places these views are voiced not only in the teachings of philosophers, but on every side they influence literature, the arts, the interpretation of the humanities and of history and civil laws themselves. As a consequence, many people are shaken.

8. This development coming so rapidly and often in a disorderly fashion, combined with keener awareness itself of the inequalities in the world beget or intensify contradictions and imbalances.

Within the individual person there develops rather frequently an imbalance between an intellect which is modern in practical matters and a theoretical system of thought which can neither master the sum total of its ideas, nor arrange them adequately into a synthesis. Likewise an imbalance arises between a concern for practicality and efficiency, and the demands of moral conscience; also very often between the conditions of collective existence and the requisites of personal thought, and even of contemplation. At length there develops an imbalance between specialized human activity and a comprehensive view of reality.

As for the family, discord results from population, economic and social pressures, or from difficulties which arise between succeeding generations, or from new social relationships between men and women.

Differences crop up too between races and between various kinds of social orders; between wealthy nations and those which are less influential or are needy; finally, between international institutions born of the popular desire for peace, and the ambition to propagate one’s own ideology, as well as collective greeds existing in nations or other groups.

What results is mutual distrust, enmities, conflicts and hardships. Of such is man at once the cause and the victim.

9. Meanwhile the conviction grows not only that humanity can and should increasingly consolidate its control over creation, but even more, that it devolves on humanity to establish a political, social and economic order which will growingly serve man and help individuals as well as groups to affirm and develop the dignity proper to them.

As a result many persons are quite aggressively demanding those benefits of which with vivid awareness they judge themselves to be deprived either through injustice or unequal distribution. Nations on the road to progress, like those recently made independent, desire to participate in the goods of modern civilization, not only in the political field but also economically, and to play their part freely on the world scene. Still they continually fall behind while very often their economic and other dependence on wealthier nations advances more rapidly.

People hounded by hunger call upon those better off. Where they have not yet won it, women claim for themselves an equity with men before the law and in fact. Laborers and farmers seek not only to provide for the necessities of life, but to develop the gifts of their personality by their labors and indeed to take part in regulating economic, social, political and cultural life. Now, for the first time in human history all people are convinced that the benefits of culture ought to be and actually can be extended to everyone.

Still, beneath all these demands lies a deeper and more widespread longing: persons and societies thirst for a full and free life worthy of man; one in which they can subject to their own welfare all that the modern world can offer them so abundantly. In addition, nations try harder every day to bring about a kind of universal community.

Since all these things are so, the modern world shows itself at once powerful and weak, capable of the noblest deeds or the foulest; before it lies the path to freedom or to slavery, to progress or retreat, to brotherhood or hatred. Moreover, man is becoming aware that it is his responsibility to guide aright the forces which he has unleashed and which can enslave him or minister to him. That is why he is putting questions to himself.

10. The truth is that the imbalances under which the modern world labors are linked with that more basic imbalance which is rooted in the heart of man. For in man himself many elements wrestle with one another. Thus, on the one hand, as a creature he experiences his limitations in a multitude of ways; on the other he feels himself to be boundless in his desires and summoned to a higher life. Pulled by manifold attractions he is constantly forced to choose among them and renounce some. Indeed, as a weak and sinful being, he often does what he would not, and fails to do what he would.(1) Hence he suffers from internal divisions, and from these flow so many and such great discords in society. No doubt many whose lives are infected with a practical materialism are blinded against any sharp insight into this kind of dramatic situation; or else, weighed down by unhappiness they are prevented from giving the matter any thought. Thinking they have found serenity in an interpretation of reality everywhere proposed these days, many look forward to a genuine and total emancipation of humanity wrought solely by human effort; they are convinced that the future rule of man over the earth will satisfy every desire of his heart. Nor are there lacking men who despair of any meaning to life and praise the boldness of those who think that human existence is devoid of any inherent significance and strive to confer a total meaning on it by their own ingenuity alone.

Nevertheless, in the face of the modern development of the world, the number constantly swells of the people who raise the most basic questions or recognize them with a new sharpness: what is man? What is this sense of sorrow, of evil, of death, which continues to exist despite so much progress? What purpose have these victories purchased at so high a cost? What can man offer to society, what can he expect from it? What follows this earthly life?

The Church firmly believes that Christ, who died and was raised up for all,(2) can through His Spirit offer man the light and the strength to measure up to his supreme destiny. Nor has any other name under the heaven been given to man by which it is fitting for him to be saved.(3) She likewise holds that in her most benign Lord and Master can be found the key, the focal point and the goal of man, as well as of all human history. The Church also maintains that beneath all changes there are many realities which do not change and which have their ultimate foundation in Christ, Who is the same yesterday and today, yes and forever.(4) Hence under the light of Christ, the image of the unseen God, the firstborn of every creature,(5) the council wishes to speak to all men in order to shed light on the mystery of man and to cooperate in finding the solution to the outstanding problems of our time.

PART I

THE CHURCH AND MAN’S CALLING

11. The People of God believes that it is led by the Lord’s Spirit, Who fills the earth. Motivated by this faith, it labors to decipher authentic signs of God’s presence and purpose in the happenings, needs and desires in which this People has a part along with other men of our age. For faith throws a new light on everything, manifests God’s design for man’s total vocation, and thus directs the mind to solutions which are fully human.

This council, first of all, wishes to assess in this light those values which are most highly prized today and to relate them to their divine source. Insofar as they stem from endowments conferred by God on man, these values are exceedingly good. Yet they are often wrenched from their rightful function by the taint in man’s heart, and hence stand in need of purification.

What does the Church think of man? What needs to be recommended for the upbuilding of contemporary society? What is the ultimate significance of human activity throughout the world? People are waiting for an answer to these questions. From the answers it will be increasingly clear that the People of God and the human race in whose midst it lives render service to each other. Thus the mission of the Church will show its religious, and by that very fact, its supremely human character.

CHAPTER I THE DIGNITY OF THE HUMAN PERSON

12. According to the almost unanimous opinion of believers and unbelievers alike, all things on earth should be related to man as their center and crown.

But what is man? About himself he has expressed, and continues to express, many divergent and even contradictory opinions. In these he often exalts himself as the absolute measure of all things or debases himself to the point of despair. The result is doubt and anxiety. The Church certainly understands these problems. Endowed with light from God, she can offer solutions to them, so that man’s true situation can be portrayed and his defects explained, while at the same time his dignity and destiny are justly acknowledged.

For Sacred Scripture teaches that man was created “to the image of God,” is capable of knowing and loving his Creator, and was appointed by Him as master of all earthly creatures(1) that he might subdue them and use them to God’s glory.(2) “What is man that you should care for him? You have made him little less than the angels, and crowned him with glory and honor. You have given him rule over the works of your hands, putting all things under his feet” (Ps. 8:5-7).

But God did not create man as a solitary, for from the beginning “male and female he created them” (Gen. 1:27). Their companionship produces the primary form of interpersonal communion. For by his innermost nature man is a social being, and unless he relates himself to others he can neither live nor develop his potential.

Therefore, as we read elsewhere in Holy Scripture God saw “all that he had made, and it was very good” (Gen. 1:31).

13. Although he was made by God in a state of holiness, from the very onset of his history man abused his liberty, at the urging of the Evil One. Man set himself against God and sought to attain his goal apart from God. Although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, but their senseless minds were darkened and they served the creature rather than the Creator.(3) What divine revelation makes known to us agrees with experience. Examining his heart, man finds that he has inclinations toward evil too, and is engulfed by manifold ills which cannot come from his good Creator. Often refusing to acknowledge God as his beginning, man has disrupted also his proper relationship to his own ultimate goal as well as his whole relationship toward himself and others and all created things.

Therefore man is split within himself. As a result, all of human life, whether individual or collective, shows itself to be a dramatic struggle between good and evil, between light and darkness. Indeed, man finds that by himself he is incapable of battling the assaults of evil successfully, so that everyone feels as though he is bound by chains. But the Lord Himself came to free and strengthen man, renewing him inwardly and casting out that “prince of this world” (John 12:31) who held him in the bondage of sin.(4) For sin has diminished man, blocking his path to fulfillment.

The call to grandeur and the depths of misery, both of which are a part of human experience, find their ultimate and simultaneous explanation in the light of this revelation.

14. Though made of body and soul, man is one. Through his bodily composition he gathers to himself the elements of the material world; thus they reach their crown through him, and through him raise their voice in free praise of the Creator.(6) For this reason man is not allowed to despise his bodily life, rather he is obliged to regard his body as good and honorable since God has created it and will raise it up on the last day. Nevertheless, wounded by sin, man experiences rebellious stirrings in his body. But the very dignity of man postulates that man glorify God in his body and forbid it to serve the evil inclinations of his heart.

Now, man is not wrong when he regards himself as superior to bodily concerns, and as more than a speck of nature or a nameless constituent of the city of man. For by his interior qualities he outstrips the whole sum of mere things. He plunges into the depths of reality whenever he enters into his own heart; God, Who probes the heart,(7) awaits him there; there he discerns his proper destiny beneath the eyes of God. Thus, when he recognizes in himself a spiritual and immortal soul, he is not being mocked by a fantasy born only of physical or social influences, but is rather laying hold of the proper truth of the matter.

15. Man judges rightly that by his intellect he surpasses the material universe, for he shares in the light of the divine mind. By relentlessly employing his talents through the ages he has indeed made progress in the practical sciences and in technology and the liberal arts. In our times he has won superlative victories, especially in his probing of the material world and in subjecting it to himself. Still he has always searched for more penetrating truths, and finds them. For his intelligence is not confined to observable data alone, but can with genuine certitude attain to reality itself as knowable, though in consequence of sin that certitude is partly obscured and weakened.

The intellectual nature of the human person is perfected by wisdom and needs to be, for wisdom gently attracts the mind of man to a quest and a love for what is true and good. Steeped in wisdom. man passes through visible realities to those which are unseen.

Our era needs such wisdom more than bygone ages if the discoveries made by man are to be further humanized. For the future of the world stands in peril unless wiser men are forthcoming. It should also be pointed out that many nations, poorer in economic goods, are quite rich in wisdom and can offer noteworthy advantages to others.

It is, finally, through the gift of the Holy Spirit that man comes by faith to the contemplation and appreciation of the divine plan.(8)

16. In the depths of his conscience, man detects a law which he does not impose upon himself, but which holds him to obedience. Always summoning him to love good and avoid evil, the voice of conscience when necessary speaks to his heart: do this, shun that. For man has in his heart a law written by God; to obey it is the very dignity of man; according to it he will be judged.(9) Conscience is the most secret core and sanctuary of a man. There he is alone with God, Whose voice echoes in his depths.(10) In a wonderful manner conscience reveals that law which is fulfilled by love of God and neighbor.(11) In fidelity to conscience, Christians are joined with the rest of men in the search for truth, and for the genuine solution to the numerous problems which arise in the life of individuals from social relationships. Hence the more right conscience holds sway, the more persons and groups turn aside from blind choice and strive to be guided by the objective norms of morality. Conscience frequently errs from invincible ignorance without losing its dignity. The same cannot be said for a man who cares but little for truth and goodness, or for a conscience which by degrees grows practically sightless as a result of habitual sin.

17. Only in freedom can man direct himself toward goodness. Our contemporaries make much of this freedom and pursue it eagerly; and rightly to be sure. Often however they foster it perversely as a license for doing whatever pleases them, even if it is evil. For its part, authentic freedom is an exceptional sign of the divine image within man. For God has willed that man remain “under the control of his own decisions,”(12) so that he can seek his Creator spontaneously, and come freely to utter and blissful perfection through loyalty to Him. Hence man’s dignity demands that he act according to a knowing and free choice that is personally motivated and prompted from within, not under blind internal impulse nor by mere external pressure. Man achieves such dignity when, emancipating himself from all captivity to passion, he pursues his goal in a spontaneous choice of what is good, and procures for himself through effective and skilful action, apt helps to that end. Since man’s freedom has been damaged by sin, only by the aid of God’s grace can he bring such a relationship with God into full flower. Before the judgement seat of God each man must render an account of his own life, whether he has done good or evil.(13)

18. It is in the face of death that the riddle a human existence grows most acute. Not only is man tormented by pain and by the advancing deterioration of his body, but even more so by a dread of perpetual extinction. He rightly follows the intuition of his heart when he abhors and repudiates the utter ruin and total disappearance of his own person. He rebels against death because he bears in himself an eternal seed which cannot be reduced to sheer matter. All the endeavors of technology, though useful in the extreme, cannot calm his anxiety; for prolongation of biological life is unable to satisfy that desire for higher life which is inescapably lodged in his breast.

Although the mystery of death utterly beggars the imagination, the Church has been taught by divine revelation and firmly teaches that man has been created by God for a blissful purpose beyond the reach of earthly misery. In addition, that bodily death from which man would have been immune had he not sinned(14) will be vanquished, according to the Christian faith, when man who was ruined by his own doing is restored to wholeness by an almighty and merciful Saviour. For God has called man and still calls him so that with his entire being he might be joined to Him in an endless sharing of a divine life beyond all corruption. Christ won this victory when He rose to life, for by His death He freed man from death. Hence to every thoughtful man a solidly established faith provides the answer to his anxiety about what the future holds for him. At the same time faith gives him the power to be united in Christ with his loved ones who have already been snatched away by death; faith arouses the hope that they have found true life with God.

19. The root reason for human dignity lies in man’s call to communion with God. From the very circumstance of his origin man is already invited to converse with God. For man would not exist were he not created by Gods love and constantly preserved by it; and he cannot live fully according to truth unless he freely acknowledges that love and devotes himself to His Creator. Still, many of our contemporaries have never recognized this intimate and vital link with God, or have explicitly rejected it. Thus atheism must be accounted among the most serious problems of this age, and is deserving of closer examination.

The word atheism is applied to phenomena which are quite distinct from one another. For while God is expressly denied by some, others believe that man can assert absolutely nothing about Him. Still others use such a method to scrutinize the question of God as to make it seem devoid of meaning. Many, unduly transgressing the limits of the positive sciences, contend that everything can be explained by this kind of scientific reasoning alone, or by contrast, they altogether disallow that there is any absolute truth. Some laud man so extravagantly that their faith in God lapses into a kind of anemia, though they seem more inclined to affirm man than to deny God. Again some form for themselves such a fallacious idea of God that when they repudiate this figment they are by no means rejecting the God of the Gospel. Some never get to the point of raising questions about God, since they seem to experience no religious stirrings nor do they see why they should trouble themselves about religion. Moreover, atheism results not rarely from a violent protest against the evil in this world, or from the absolute character with which certain human values are unduly invested, and which thereby already accords them the stature of God. Modern civilization itself often complicates the approach to God not for any essential reason but because it is so heavily engrossed in earthly affairs.

Undeniably, those who willfully shut out God from their hearts and try to dodge religious questions are not following the dictates of their consciences, and hence are not free of blame; yet believers themselves frequently bear some responsibility for this situation. For, taken as a whole, atheism is not a spontaneous development but stems from a variety of causes, including a critical reaction against religious beliefs, and in some places against the Christian religion in particular. Hence believers can have more than a little to do with the birth of atheism. To the extent that they neglect their own training in the faith, or teach erroneous doctrine, or are deficient in their religious, moral or social life, they must be said to conceal rather than reveal the authentic face of God and religion.

20. Modern atheism often takes on a systematic expression which, in addition to other causes, stretches the desires for human independence to such a point that it poses difficulties against any kind of dependence on God. Those who profess atheism of this sort maintain that it gives man freedom to be an end unto himself, the sole artisan and creator of his own history. They claim that this freedom cannot be reconciled with the affirmation of a Lord Who is author and purpose of all things, or at least that this freedom makes such an affirmation altogether superfluous. Favoring this doctrine can be the sense of power which modern technical progress generates in man.

Not to be overlooked among the forms of modern atheism is that which anticipates the liberation of man especially through his economic and social emancipation. This form argues that by its nature religion thwarts this liberation by arousing man’s hope for a deceptive future life, thereby diverting him from the constructing of the earthly city. Consequently when the proponents of this doctrine gain governmental power they vigorously fight against religion, and promote atheism by using, especially in the education of youth, those means of pressure which public power has at its disposal.

21. In her loyal devotion to God and men, the Church has already repudiated(16) and cannot cease repudiating, sorrowfully but as firmly as possible, those poisonous doctrines and actions which contradict reason and the common experience of humanity, and dethrone man from his native excellence.

Still, she strives to detect in the atheistic mind the hidden causes for the denial of God; conscious of how weighty are the questions which atheism raises, and motivated by love for all men, she believes these questions ought to be examined seriously and more profoundly.

The Church holds that the recognition of God is in no way hostile to man’s dignity, since this dignity is rooted and perfected in God. For man was made an intelligent and free member of society by God Who created him, but even more important, he is called as a son to commune with God and share in His happiness. She further teaches that a hope related to the end of time does not diminish the importance of intervening duties but rather undergirds the acquittal of them with fresh incentives. By contrast, when a divine instruction and the hope of life eternal are wanting, man’s dignity is most grievously lacerated, as current events often attest; riddles of life and death, of guilt and of grief go unsolved with the frequent result that men succumb to despair.

Meanwhile every man remains to himself an unsolved puzzle, however obscurely he may perceive it. For on certain occasions no one can entirely escape the kind of self-questioning mentioned earlier, especially when life’s major events take place. To this questioning only God fully and most certainly provides an answer as He summons man to higher knowledge and humbler probing.

The remedy which must be applied to atheism, however, is to be sought in a proper presentation of the Church’s teaching as well as in the integral life of the Church and her members. For it is the function of the Church, led by the Holy Spirit Who renews and purifies her ceaselessly,(17) to make God the Father and His Incarnate Son present and in a sense visible. This result is achieved chiefly by the witness of a living and mature faith, namely, one trained to see difficulties clearly and to master them. Many martyrs have given luminous witness to this faith and continue to do so. This faith needs to prove its fruitfulness by penetrating the believer’s entire life, including its worldly dimensions, and by activating him toward justice and love, especially regarding the needy. What does the most reveal God’s presence, however, is the brotherly charity of the faithful who are united in spirit as they work together for the faith of the Gospel(18) and who prove themselves a sign of unity.

While rejecting atheism, root and branch, the Church sincerely professes that all men, believers and unbelievers alike, ought to work for the rightful betterment of this world in which all alike live; such an ideal cannot be realized, however, apart from sincere and prudent dialogue. Hence the Church protests against the distinction which some state authorities make between believers and unbelievers, with prejudice to the fundamental rights of the human person. The Church calls for the active liberty of believers to build up in this world God’s temple too. She courteously invites atheists to examine the Gospel of Christ with an open mind.

Above all the Church knows that her message is in harmony with the most secret desires of the human heart when she champions the dignity of the human vocation, restoring hope to those who have already despaired of anything higher than their present lot. Far from diminishing man, her message brings to his development light, life and freedom. Apart from this message nothing will avail to fill up the heart of man: “Thou hast made us for Thyself,” O Lord, “and our hearts are restless till they rest in Thee.”(19)

22. The truth is that only in the mystery of the incarnate Word does the mystery of man take on light. For Adam, the first man, was a figure of Him Who was to come,(20) namely Christ the Lord. Christ, the final Adam, by the revelation of the mystery of the Father and His love, fully reveals man to man himself and makes his supreme calling clear. It is not surprising, then, that in Him all the aforementioned truths find their root and attain their crown.

He Who is “the image of the invisible God” (Col. 1:15),(21) is Himself the perfect man. To the sons of Adam He restores the divine likeness which had been disfigured from the first sin onward. Since human nature as He assumed it was not annulled,(22) by that very fact it has been raised up to a divine dignity in our respect too. For by His incarnation the Son of God has united Himself in some fashion with every man. He worked with human hands, He thought with a human mind, acted by human choice(23) and loved with a human heart. Born of the Virgin Mary, He has truly been made one of us, like us in all things except sin.(24)

As an innocent lamb He merited for us life by the free shedding of His own blood. In Him God reconciled us(25) to Himself and among ourselves; from bondage to the devil and sin He delivered us, so that each one of us can say with the Apostle: The Son of God “loved me and gave Himself up for me” (Gal. 2:20). By suffering for us He not only provided us with an example for our imitation,(26) He blazed a trail, and if we follow it, life and death are made holy and take on a new meaning.

The Christian man, conformed to the likeness of that Son Who is the firstborn of many brothers,(27) received “the first-fruits of the Spirit” (Rom. 8:23) by which he becomes capable of discharging the new law of love.(28) Through this Spirit, who is “the pledge of our inheritance” (Eph. 1:14), the whole man is renewed from within, even to the achievement of “the redemption of the body” (Rom. 8:23): “If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the death dwells in you, then he who raised Jesus Christ from the dead will also bring to life your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who dwells in you” (Rom. 8:11).(29) Pressing upon the Christian to be sure, are the need and the duty to battle against evil through manifold tribulations and even to suffer death. But, linked with the paschal mystery and patterned on the dying Christ, he will hasten forward to resurrection in the strength which comes from hope.(30)

All this holds true not only for Christians, but for all men of good will in whose hearts grace works in an unseen way.(31) For, since Christ died for all men,(32) and since the ultimate vocation of man is in fact one, and divine, we ought to believe that the Holy Spirit in a manner known only to God offers to every man the possibility of being associated with this paschal mystery.

Such is the mystery of man, and it is a great one, as seen by believers in the light of Christian revelation. Through Christ and in Christ, the riddles of sorrow and death grow meaningful. Apart from His Gospel, they overwhelm us. Christ has risen, destroying death by His death; He has lavished life upon us(33) so that, as sons in the Son, we can cry out in the Spirit; Abba, Father(34).

Read More:

http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/
ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_cons_1
9651207_gaudium-et-spes_en.html

I might be smiling, but I have a creepy feeling in this class.

While I remain far away from home on travel, Daughter’s posts (regarding various subjects – all fairly droll) provide a continual source of distraction for me.  Though I may have wanted to didn’t attend an all-girls school*, many of the rituals Daughter describes could easily apply to my experiences at the traditional (public, large, indifferent) university from which I matriculated. 

*In a recent conversation with Daughter during our cross-country trip, she claimed she felt she hadn’t really gotten the full “college experience” because she attends a Lesbian Cult School.  I gently reminded her the choice had been hers, not mine.  She was fairly quiet after that, except for blubbering about marketing ideas for the FaceTent ™. 

First day jitters notwithstanding, I cannot remember any class during my entire collegiate career during which a professor/instructor/graduate teaching assistant made students endure social “get to know you” experiments. 

That’s not to say I came up with a few stupid ones myself, but early on I mainly focused on identifying pretty classmates (future Soccer Moms, I now realize), and connived how best I could ingratiate myself with them.  That’s actually not a true statement, as it infers real social interaction with same.  Rather, my initial strategy involved simply maneuvering to a closer seating position so that any subsequent conversations seemed both incidental and natural.

Perhaps this type of thinking explains the spate of abysmal grades I received during my first few semesters in school. 

So the strategy I outlined above was really only applicable in the larger seminars, where it was quite easy to become lost in the numbers.  A couple of my introductory courses had 300-400 students.  For obvious reasons, the dynamic wouldn’t work in smaller settings, where I would come off looking like more of a weirdo than I actually am was. 

One of the most memorable scenarios demonstrating this cunning action plan took place in a very large Introduction to Western Civilization course.  The seminar itself was perplexing, to say the least.  The professor was more of a storyteller than lecturer.  He had blazing red hair, and he roamed the auditorium regaling us with his seeming first-hand accounts of the greasy locks that populated the heads of  Merovingian Kings.  The fact that I can remember these vivid details thirty-five years after the fact simply reinforces his impactful presence.

And he was also a goofball.

The problem was, however, that after listening to his tall tales, I would duly complete the reading assignment in the text (he wrote – $125 at the University Bookstore), and I am not exaggerating when I say that absolutely nothing he talked about was included anywhere in that damn book. 

It was incredible, and I duly paid the price after the first exam where I was able to aptly confirm I had no idea about what we were studying.  Eventually I broke the code, and I began to visit the “optional” course study halls, where the teaching assistant running the thing basically gave us the answers to the essay questions ahead of time. 

I might be dumb, but I’m not stupid.

Okay, so back to the social drama in this course. 

Early on I spied a striking young lady who regularly sat in one of the lower seating sections.  When I wasn’t paying attention to the lecture (which was frequent, I suppose), I devoted ample thought toward formulating and implementing my plan for Social Interaction with her.  And because role was taken the first couple of times we gathered, I actually knew her name.

Ironically, though I still remember the detail about the Kings, her name is pretty much lost to the vagaries of time and my increasingly decrepit memory.  I do seem to think her last name was “St. Something”, but that’s about as far as it goes – not that it matters much.

Because she rarely varied a place or two, I began to migrate my way closer to her over the course of the next few weeks.  All this time it was apparent that, whatever attraction and/or awareness that existed, it was completely one-sided (me).  And to put this whole thing in historical context, I believe Daughter would now describe my behavior as “stalking”.  Daughter Number Two, my eleven year old, would simply call it “creepy”, which seems to be the moniker applied today in middle school to anyone slightly out of the norm. 

Eventually the day arrived where, you guessed it, I had successfully maneuvered myself near to the object of my poorly planned affection interaction.   

If memory serves, I uttered something like, “I forgot to bring a pencil today.”

No.  I take that back.  That line is way too sophisticated.  I probably just smiled.

And, in return? 

You probably guessed it – nothing.  It seems the key missing ingredient for me, other than self-confidence, maturity, and humility, was knowing how to start a conversation with any other Muggle human being.  In retrospect, all of my practice up to that point had been pretty much with cats and dogs, so I was at something of a disadvantage with girls people. 

But it was a good learning experience for me anyway.  To this day I still retain a modicum of knowledge about pre-Medieval dynasties (a useful icebreaker at most parties, if nothing else), and I quickly figured out that meeting girls required developing a basic ability to communicate using the English Language, mainly.

It has taken years for me to try to develop that skill, and I’ll let you know when I do finally manage it. 

In the meantime, I hope Daughter enjoys this last semester at college. 

And I hope she remembers that sarcasm has its place, cynicism is a solid baseline for an unhappy life, and, if you can avoid being labeled “creepy” by your little sister, you’re probably doing A-OK!

- Dad

I can only imagine people like Abraham being ask to take his family & just go but not knowing exactly where he was going, like Joseph being sold by his own brothers, then thrown in jail by being falsely accused, like David bring anointed as king but runs for most of his young age from a king hiding in caves.

When I thought those who were my friends in Christ seemed to just disappear slowly away. Leaders who I thought were my friends but are no where to be found. So I ask God ”what has happen?” ”Where are those who said they would be there for me?” The reality is that they are not, unless I call someone, no one calls or even checks on my health, not one person comes by to check on me or my family. Am I mad about this? No, I just forgive & move on in life & just keep asking the Lord for new direction for myself & my family.

Each day I wonder what is in store, what the Lord is trying to say to me, to my family. I try to see each day as a learning experience & to try learn what the Lord is trying to teach me.
I still deal with anxieties that hit me out of no where & they are not good at all, there are times that they hit for several days straight & those are the days I just want to crawl in bed & not move from there at all. I have people tell me to just not think about it but when they hit, I always say until you’ve had them then you will know that’s it’s not something you can control at times, they just hit when you least expect it.
I still thank the Lord daily for my divine healing, for healing me inside & out, I thank the Lord in everything even when I don’t understand or I am feeling well. I walk in faith learning that He is in control.
I am thankful for my lovely wife who has stood at my side through all this. It has been a hard journey not only for me but very much for her as well. It has taken a hard toll on my three daughters who have been there daily checking on me each day & I’m grateful for them.
Some can say where is God in all this? I say He was helping those nurses, those doctors that were caring for me, He in the heart of my family when they are checking on me, He is on the heart of those very few handful friends that still check on me daily, He is all around me when I step outside & look at that beautiful sky & showing His majestic glory.
I think that walking in faith is hard greater then walking by what I see because it makes my spirit stronger & it makes realize only He was here from the beginning, He will be here in the end.
Hebrews 11:1, 6 Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see. And it is impossible to please God without faith. Anyone who wants to come to him must believe that God exists and that he rewards those who sincerely seek him.