As I promised in my last post, the blogging continues. As I write this, late Sunday evening I look forward to the coming week. I anticipate the ending—at least for a couple months—of a big responsibility that has been hanging over my head for some time. Yes, it will be January before I need think about the new state-mandated testing again. Finally, I hope, I can settle in once again to concentrate on something other than assessments and deadlines.
While I’m certainly not opposed to the administrative aspect of my work, I can most confidently say that it is not my favorite thing to do. Like most people I prefer being involved with activities that don’t leave me longing for the weekend or even for the end of the day. There’s something special about being able to live in the moment and to savor the time that is now. Surely, the days pass quickly enough without our hurrying them along.
As I was reading the scripture passages for the Mass on the Memorial of Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini, it occurred to me that Paul’s instructions to Titus on the selection of presbyters and bishops must have seemed a little like administrative duty. In comparison to the work of preaching, healing, and being a minister of mercy, I suppose that there were aspects of being an apostle that seemed a little more mundane.
In my adult life I have met people who have been unable to live in the moment—perhaps I was one of them at one time. There’s an interesting phenomenon that I believe has a great deal to do with how we live out our lives and how we experience our contact with God, and that ultimately has to do with our satisfaction with life overall. It has to do with being able to accept that whatever is going on is God’s will and that our role in it all is often to wait patiently.
There is something about not being able to wait that is kin to not being able to be alone. I remember in my college years I was terrible at being alone. I dreaded each moment that I had to spend by myself. I knew others who also experienced similar feelings. It is my opinion that not being able to wait, not being comfortable with the moment, with who we are alone, often is what leads to a destructive lifestyle for many people.
Now, here’s where I’m going to begin reflecting about 12-Step spirituality. However, before I start any speculation about myself—whether or not I am personally in recovery—let me say that all of us are in recovery from something, and I discovered long ago that giving up abusive drinking, smoking, overeating, etc. is just the surface stuff of recovery. The real work lies beneath the things that are only symptoms of a much greater longing. There’s something that all of us have in common—it’s a desire as deep as our human soul; there’s something in us all that’s waiting to be fulfilled, which seems to wait perpetually.
Beginning to realize and name the existence of our ultimate need will serve us in finally being able to satisfactorily fulfill the longing and emptiness that lies in the heart of each of us. If anyone can say that he or she has no need this great, I suspect that there hasn’t been sufficient reflection on the matter. There is still the need to engage the idea of recovery.
Ultimately being able to make it through a workday without longing for quitting time, or being able to live for something other than the weekend, is about being at peace. Peace is the key to what many people think of as recovery—for me it’s just about peace. Sure, I realize the need for recovery. Life is such that it inevitably leaves us with a wound of some kind. We have to find a way in the midst of it all, rather than at the end, to realize that in the moment there is cause for joy.
Amen. The Good News is that there is a higher power than self; the Even Better News is that He loves us as is, just as we love our children (and others). The Iffy News is that we must trust this Higher Power with the scalpel to sever and excise that which holds us bound. As you note, folks are bound by the underlying, not by the obvious self-medicating. That is why folks often simply switch addictions. Truly, our hearts are restless...
There are a lot of buzzwords in AA, some of which have taken on a negative connotation, and I'm not thrilled with them, but recovery by any other name is recovery. I did part of this 12 Steps of the Bible (and later, 12 Steps of Spirituality) with someone who'd worked the steps long before, which ultimately led her to the Church. I saw with my own eyes how it (trust in God, and the really HARD work of recovery) had saved her, turned her around, and was giving her back to herself. I'm thankful to God, with all my heart, for helping her to live. Her child will be even more thankful..the girl is FULL of love. We also saw that rescue/return with the priest who led the series' as well,who knew it would indeed help us to become better evangelizers. (No one is exempt from pain, thus, nor from self-medicating; some do it without chemicals/substances, which may be even worse, if quieter.)
To live in the moment.. well, there is nothing harder to do, yet there is no better way to accept, to be grateful, for this gift of life from Him. How greatly we should pity the May fly (or whatever bug it is that only lives 24 hrs.), if its life is snuffed out even sooner! Some of us do that to ourselves every day, tho'. We have 24 hrs., and we live (and love) only for a tiny portion of it. Part of that is because we're way too busy, but part is also a definite self-wielded fly-swatting.
Posted by: H | November 13, 2006 at 12:45 PM