Presume that someone's out to get you

My parents, in their early marriage, were somewhat competitive. I won't go into the history, suffice it to say that their dear priest friend sat them down during a visit he was making to our home and told them that they needed a new motto: Presume Good Will. This has been a mantra in our family for a long time, and it certainly gets at that part of me that wants to be uncharitable and suspicious.

Why on earth can it be so hard to presume good will with some people? I think part of it is that I'm convinced that certain people either have it in for me or just don't care one way or the other. Also, there are those whose stated motto is Look Out for Number One. These people make it awfully hard to presume good will about them, since they often don't have good will...at least not for anyone but themselves.

But I don't think that lets me off the hook. I mean, Jesus didn't tell us to love our neighbors *and* our enemies when it seemed like they had good will. He didn't put conditions on it. We just had to do it. And since obedience is a virtue that I'm struggling to teach my almost-4-year-old, it seems right and natural that I would be struggling with this particular command.

"But Jesus, the last time I saw that person, he messed up my day in 12 different ways...before noon!"

"Okay, fine, Jesus, I heard you. Just let me finish venting about how much I can't stand that person. Then I'll be charitable. Just a minute. I'm almost done."

"Can I just set aside one of the fifty things that I was going to complain about? I'll save it for later. Then I can be charitable now, but have something to fall back on later, because I know that person is a no-good sumgum."

I can imagine that Our Lord is getting fed up with me. I can't stand having direct orders questioned, blathered about, ignored, put off, etc. So thank God He has infinite powers, because otherwise I'd be testing his patience this week!

Okay, Lord, I'll work on it now.

Patience

Again. I have to say that patience is the virtue that I have the hardest time keeping a big enough supply of around here. For some reason, it's like...well, what's the ingredient that I'm most likely to be out of when I go to make a recipe? Something perishable, like cilantro. Come to think of it, that's a great analogy, because once you put cilantro in a bag in the fridge, it's good for about 2 days. Then it starts to stink and exude brown stuff. Yuck.

And it's an even better analogy because, good heavens, that stuff makes so many things so much better! Like patience. Hmm. I have to say, I love cilantro. It's difficult for me to understand those who don't like it -- and if someone doesn't like cilantro, often they really don't like it.

But I digress. Cilantro is also pretty easy to grow oneself. I have grown quite a bit this season, and it's so rewarding. I just went out back and clipped a bit here for guacamole, a bit here for salsa, a bit here for salad. MMM. This way, too, I didn't have brown-goo syndrome in my refrigerator, which is terribly sad. Why DO they sell so much at one go? Does anyone really use that much cilantro before it goes bad?

This is another thing about patience: it's much better to grow your own than to try to count on an emergency prayer here or there in order to get it...you may just find brown goo instead. I often seem to. So I should learn a lesson from my cilantro: work on growing (with God' help, of course) a good supply of my very own patience, to be used when necessary. It definitely makes most things better.

Some of my cilantro has now gone to seed, and I'm looking forward to collecting those seeds to keep growing my own cilantro. Another good lesson: let your patience grow so much that it creates flowers and then seeds. This way, you have a stash of mature patience, you can use the seeds to grow more, and you can -- with proper tending -- use your store of patience to create (with God's help, of course) more of the patience that you need.

I have two cilantro plants that I haven't planted in the garden yet. They're not terribly robust and need LOTS of watering, since it's the heat of the summer and they're in tiny little pots on the deck. Again, another good lesson about patience -- or really any virtue: connect this virtue with the rest of your spiritual life so that it gets lots of nutrients from your regular (hopefully) sacramental life. Don't consider an outsider, adopt it into yourself and try to make it a part of you.

There, I'm convinced. Cilantro is one of the best herbs -- tasty and instructive!

So the next time I'm tempted to yell at my daughter for behaving like a baby (okay, she's only 3!) and making me late...for Mass (yes, always good to preface an attempt to get to daily Mass with lots of yelling; you'll feel especially foolish when you get to the church and discover that there isn't Mass today. Just saying.)...I'll remember the lessons of cilantro.

Pray without ceasing

Overheard yesterday as my first daughter was coloring:

"Dad in Heaven, bless Dada all day long."

Imagine God's heart melting at that prayer!

Verse to ponder

Jeremiah 23:29

"Is not my word like fire, says the LORD, like a hammer shattering rocks?"

I'm going to ponder this one a while, especially since I know some hearts of stone (including my own) that could use shattering with a hammer...

Is it holy fear or just fear?

A discussion with some good friends got some thoughts percolating in my mind. It occurred to me that, whenever I'm considering an objective good that I am afraid of or have some element of fear about for whatever reason, it has never been the case that the fear was an indication of God's will for me. Holy fear is something different -- fearing to sin and offend God is obviously leading me to God's will. With something that is objectively good, though, if I have fear about it, it is almost always an obstacle to my discernment of God's will rather than God trying to tell me something about the situation. And the times that I've recognized that and done what I could to allay the fear, as well as ask God for the grace to surrender to his will in the matter, things have been much more clear.

For example, before I met Michael I felt that I needed to discern about the possibility of a call to religious life. For some reason, I was very fearful that God would call me to this! It sounds so silly to say it, but there it is. Of course God's will for me is going to be my greatest good, but there I was, fearful about it. And it wasn't until I finally decided that I needed to give my fears to God and surrender and look for what really was his will that I began to have some peace. First of all I felt that if it was his will it would be a good for me (okay, not rocket science), and then I began to realize that it wasn't what he was calling me to, but he wanted my willingness to follow his will without strings attached on my part.

It sometimes seems so hard to follow JPII's recommedation -- Do not be afraid! But perhaps it's more simple than it seems.

Fierce Japanese What?

Hannah has been listening to some books on tape, one of which talks about Samurai. She has a new interpretation, however, that may not have much historical accuracy, but really brings amusement into the lives of the grownups around her: Samurai, the fierce Japanese spiders! On the tape, of course, they say fierce Japanese fighters, but Hannah heard spiders, so spiders it is.

She and her cousin, older by 15 months, and wise in the ways of spiders, were playing outside today, running from various evil creatures, including t-rex. Hannah thought this was a perfect opportunity to introduce Samurai, so they then spent a good long time running from the fierce Japanese spiders. Cousin Gabe did balk a bit about them carrying torches and using swords, but Hannah stood firm and won her point.

Yet another blessing our children bring us: laughter.

Restless

Do you ever get a feeling of holy restlessness? Like God is about to do something in your life, or is asking you to do something and you just aren't sure what it is yet? I have that right now. I started the Novena to the Holy Spirit, so hopefully that will help to clarify things. Or perhaps God is merely hinting that I get off my duff and clean the whole house...this feeling is almost like the nesting feeling of pregnancy.

I certainly need to work on turning over more of my time to the Lord, if only just as an offering at the beginning of an activity. It's important that we make our offering in the morning, but I should not just forget God until the evening after that offering...I suppose I don't entirely forget him, but I am feeling very drawn to giving more of my time over to him. Perhaps that is what it is. It will be interesting to see what the next couple of weeks bring.