Peace out

Where does peace come from?
Within? God? Diplomacy?

What do we even mean by “peace”?
Calm? Happiness? Cease-fires? Mediation?

The word “peace” is so ubiquitous that we’ve ceased paying attention, ceased knowing what we’re saying.

Kind of like when you rapidly say a word so many times in a row that you forget what it even means anymore and have to stop and think about it.

The philosophy of language is really quite interesting; I took a class about it in college. (In France, in French, which just adds one more layer of interest to an already pithy subject.)

One of the most compelling concepts from the class is that a word is really just a symbol, a signifier of something else. In order to have meaning, it must be attached to something other than itself. When different people look at the same word, they may (and probably do) call up different “attachments”: different images — different significances — for that word. This concept partially explains why word-association games where you say the first thing that pops into your head are so telling about an individual’s psyche and life experience. While there are absolute, objective truths — definitions — of words, what a word actually means to an individual is so much more than that.

So what does “peace” mean to you? Stop and think about it for a second. (I know that it’s an odd feeling to STOP and THINK about something, isn’t it? I’m serious: do it right now.)

Honestly, 2 thoughts immediately come to my mind.

In the movie, Miss Congeniality, Sandra Bullock plays a gawky FBI agent who’s infiltrated the Miss America pageant. I love this movie. However, the movie is tainted for me because at the very end of the movie (SPOILER ALERT!), Sandra’s character says “And I really do want world peace!” *Groan* Totally out of character and cheesy (not that other parts weren’t, but this was unbearably so). It bothers me most because it’s disingenuous: They had just spent a fair amount of time making fun of the fact that “world peace” was an automatic answer for the ladies in the pageant, the robotic answer, the expected answer. Maybe they do, in some sense, want world peace… but they don’t even know what that means, and they haven’t even stopped to think about it! Over the course of the movie, Sandra’s character has gone from an intelligent, but clumsy, tomboyish, overworking, hygiene-challenged shell of a woman who scoffs at pageantry to a compassionate, beautiful, confident woman. I would hate to think that being the latter includes giving up your ideals and emptying your brain as well. Even if, at her core, she actually does want the world to be at peace, did she REALLY have to say it like that?

The other image that “peace” brings up is in the Mass when the priest says the word a handful of times right before the sign of peace. This repetition never really stuck out to me until I heard Dane Cook’s spiel about it. Now, he’s making fun of it, but he does it in a way that’s not offensive. And honestly, priests say it at least 5 times right before the sign of peace:

Lord Jesus Christ, you said to your apostles: I leave you peace, my peace I give you. Look not on our sins, but on the faith of your Church, and grant us the peace and unity of your kingdom where you live for ever and ever 
R: Amen
The peace of the Lord be with you, always.
R. And also with you
Let us offer to one another a sign of peace.

 

I think my example illustrates just how omnipresent “peace” is, from the secular to the religious. We talk about it all the time. But how many people actually achieve it?

World peace: So many people working towards it (so many people working against it), but even if it’s possible, this is still quite a long way off.

So what do we do in the meantime?

Seek inner peace.

I’ve found that the only time I truly feel at peace is when I’m living contemplatively. Living contemplatively can happen both in the most hectic times of life AND in the most calm. (cf works of Thomas Merton)

In the hectic times, the goal (whether I make it or not) is to keep the eye of the storm in the core of my being. Though the winds of the hurricane roar, there’s always the quiet center in my soul, and the fury outside cannot penetrate it. (cf. Henri Nouwen’s Out of Solitude)

In order to maintain that center, it’s necessary to quiet oneself occasionally. Just be. Allow yourself some sabbath time. Allow yourself to sit and daydream. Allow yourself to ignore just one pressing issue and just sit. Invite God into your heart, your gut, your mind, and allow Him to heal, clean, and sort through things for you.

I quite often ignore both of these forms of contemplative living, somehow forgetting all the good that comes out of it, and how much my time is multiplied when I take the time to focus on God.

And so I write this post not as someone who’s a master of peace, but as someone who yearns desperately for it, and forgets all the time how to get back to it. So I’m writing now in thanksgiving to the Holy Spirit not only for the reminder, but also for the gifts that make it possible…

Pax vobiscum.

Misericordes oculos

Turn then, most Gracious Advocate, thine *eyes of mercy* toward us…

Eyes fascinate me.

They show so much about a person (i.e. “windows to the soul”).
They’re so important to our daily lives.
They’re one of the very first things I notice about the opposite sex
If something’s irritating them, we’re all but incapacitated (i.e. why pepper spray deters attackers, why getting something in your contact is one of the worst feelings ever).

Paintings depicting Jesus’ and Mary’s eyes are so compelling… But can you imagine what they would have looked like in real life?!

The first line I have here is from the prayer, Hail, Holy Queen. The Latin for “eyes of mercy” is “misericordes oculos”, and if you break the word down into its roots (okay, okay, I’m like the only one who’s going to do this, so I’ll share the insight, ha ha), the first part is pity or mercy, while the second part means heart.

So in Mary’s eyes, not only do we see regular old mercy, but we are shown the mercy of her heart… Her Immaculate Heart… the fount of her innermost truth and purity.

In our Merton discussion today, we talked about praying from the heart: the simplicity and depth of it, and what we really mean by “simple” prayer and even the concept of “the heart” beyond the actual organ.

The simplest of prayers that the Trappist monks and primitive pray-ers used was “Lord, the meditation of my heart is in Your sight.” In other words, “Lord, you know my heart,” a prayer I actually say quite often when I get to the point where all I feel like I’m doing is giving God lists and lists of intentions.

How tightly these two body parts are tied — eyes and heart — to our souls and our prayers.

Something to think about: How many other ways is your flesh made spritual? Many, if you think about it….

What Flu Season & Spirituality Have in Common

I don’t know about you but just about everyone around is getting sick. Just about everyone in my office except those with the ridiculously strong immune systems has gotten sick in the last few weeks. Most of us have taken at least one sick day. It’s that time of year. The flu bugs are out and about ready to prey on our unsuspecting and unaware bodies. If our immune systems are not up to par, then we’ll surely have some down time trying to recover.

Speaking of being sick? How’s your soul? Irishbutterfly talked about an insurance policy? What about your daily dose of Vitamin C? (Is it a coincidence that Christ starts with a C? I think not!) Are you subject to a spiritual flu virus?

If we’re honest with ourselves, we’re probably all subject to some soul sickness. I guess it’s that time of year and all.. It’s why we practice Lent. To fast and pray to build up our spiritual immune systems! Use the Catholic Weekly or your parish as a resource to find programs to strengthen your spiritual health. When you’re health is failing, we usually stay in bed and seclude ourselves from the world while we recover. Maybe it’s time for you to go on a retreat or take some extra time out to spend with God. Maybe go to Reconciliation as your regular spiritual “check up”.

It’s never fun being sick. But it builds up our immune systems. So don’t let your soul sickness become a terminal on-going illness. Let it be something that builds you up and makes your faith stronger!

Wild Hearts

So I definitely spent way too much money on books today. On the one hand, they were all spiritual reading books. Of course, on the other hand, I already own many more spiritual reading books than I could finish in a year.

Anyway, one of the books I bought — for myself this time, as I’ve already given it multiple times as a gift without having read it myself — was Wild at Heart by John Eldredge.

The concept of this book is so appealing: Basically, men are pressured — especially by modern Christianity! — to be this “nice guy”, when that’s the exact opposite of both what he was meant to be AND what any woman really wants! Men want to have adventures and conquer things, and women want the knight to come rescue her and fight for her. There’s a lot more to the book, and it’s thick with cultural and pop references, and though it’s obviously geared toward men reading it, women have also been encouraged to read it in order to understand the inner longings of men.

I, for one, am the perfect stereotype of what is described in the book, as far as I can tell. I am drawn to the dangerous man, the knight, the cowboy, the outdoorsman. I want the man who’s going to run around conquering things all day, and come home to me at night and adore me, tell me of his conquests, and lay his tired head in my lap.

And it’s hard because those same wild boys are just that: Wild. They think that in order to “settle down” with someone, they have to… well… settle down. And in certain aspects it’s true, obviously, as I don’t want my man chasing every skirt he sees, but in most aspects of life, I’d want him to stay wild, like I found him.

But not only is society trying to tame him, often us women attempt to tame them without even realizing that we’re making them into something we don’t even want!

Beyond these wild men, I think we also expect our entire lives to be way more tame than they should be, or are.

Life is hard and painful and passionate and beautiful; we are broken, fallen, and constantly healing. But, for some reason, we expect that life is just going to be this easy, “la la la”, skipping-through-the-daisies kind of thing. And we get depressed when it’s not that. Whoever told us life is like that?! Why would we even expect that?!

Maybe between movies, TV, and our parents’ “good ole days” renderings of the past, we’ve come to have a distorted view of life as having this perfect domesticity… that it just doesn’t have.

So here’s to living with reckless abandon!
Sounding your barbaric “Yawp!” over the roofs of the world!
Becoming even more undignified than this!
Dancing with wildness and letting the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, to be realistic, to remember the limitations of being human!

Let the wild rumpus start!

(Ironically enough, stay tuned tomorrow for reflections on contemplative living… the polar opposite of wildness! Welcome to the wonder and majesty of the life God gave us!)

Thoughts on Fiat and Spiritual Disciplines

As I said before, I am reading Eat, Pray, Love. This book is so deeply involved in one woman’s pursuit of God that I am finding very interesting things about my own pursuit of God. So here I’d like to offer some reflections that I’ve just stumbled upon in reading part of the “Pray” section that is devoted to India.

First
If you read the About page on our website you’ll simply learn that those of us who have gathered together to write this blog are Catholic women who are seeking to answer Yes to God’s call (whatever that is) in our lives. We’re trying to echo Mary’s Yes. I was thinking about how we chose to use screennames instead of our real names and how today I went to add our link to my Facebook profile to kinda show everyone what we’ve been up to (because I’m excited about it!) and then I stopped. I think this site serves best that it’s (at least somewhat) annonymous. We are just a couple of ordinary women. Just like you. (Except of course, if you’re not a woman, in which case we’re still just like you only women… Haha!) But I think that anonymity (and maybe my co-authors will disagree) is what will make this site so helpful. It’s our pursuit. Just like Eat, Pray, Love is Elizabeth Gilbert’s pursuit. I don’t have to know who she is and where she lives to relate to her struggles, joys, fears and victories in her quest to find God. So I am enjoying writing for this blog and look forward to submitting more.

Second
Part of this book, the part that I am currently reading, is talking about meditations and while the author doesn’t come out and say it the meditations are really a discipline. It’s hard for her to focus her thoughts and to completely and totally reflect on God and her spirit (and the connection of the two). And with all the distractions that go on around us, competing for our attention and desire it’s no wonder that anyone would find it difficult to quiet their hearts. I’ve realized in reading about this woman’s struggle with the discipline of meditation has sorta mirrored my own struggle in different disciplines ranging from prayer, to being present in front of the Eucharist, to practicing the sport of running. Both require practice, motivation to take time out for each, especially when you just don’t want to. But all, the benefits outweigh the time you spend putting into it. I could go on but the point is after thinking about this I became extremely proud of my friend and another poster on this blog, Irishbutterfly. She has been thinking about using Fiat as a place to post her thoughts during the Lenten season. Whether or not she does is up to her and God. But I just began thinking about her and my other friends who have chosen to live a life following the Lord and how grateful I am to all of them to be such fine examples to me.

I’m not fluffing this up. None of us are perfect by any means. But we try. We’re real. And that’s what this little piece of real estate on the web is all about. Being real. Being spirtu(re)al. Hahaa.

And Third.
Because everything good happens in three to complete a “Trinitangular” shape. (Get it? Trinity? Trangle? Yeah, that’s what sort of ride you’re in for if you subscribe or keep coming back to Fiat.) This place is a way to remind us as authors that we’re not alone and you that you’re not alone. There are still people out there that believe that God is Lord. That sex is sacred and a gift for marriage. That Mary is a perfect example on how our lives should be lived and that we are all connected because we all have God living and dwelling within each of us.

OK, I think that concludes my stream of consciousness for now. Thanks for reading!