Finding direction.

In terms of spiritual direction, I've spent the last ten years or so finding it in books. My education was largely classical (thanks to dearest mum), so those books have Deo gratias been classics: Therese, Teresa, John of the Cross, Dubay, de Sales, and other various names that pop up on this blog regularly.

Finding a regular spiritual director, however, has not been a successful venture. Jen over at Conversion Diary had a beautiful post last January that kicked me in that direction again. For about two weeks. Then, as per usual, I resumed my leisurely and most rational excuses, "Well, this just isn't the right time of life for me to be doing this. It would take too much time away from home. You know." I'm already so obsessed with this religion thing--family members think I'm like that obnoxious Jewish aunt who keeps every darnned tenet of the Law to the T.

But the nagging thought remains: "Can I really do this on my own?" It's simply not Scriptural to forge ahead into the vast stretches of my Interior Castle's endless rooms and mansions. I committed myself to more spiritual reading, and that was wonderful. Casual conversations with friends advanced in the spiritual life have also provided great insight and held me accountable to various commitments. Questions still pop up, though: How does this apply to my life? Is this dry period from God or a result of selfishness? What attachments are holding me back?

Then two days ago my mother handed me Thomas Dubay's Seeking Spiritual Direction. Talk about another kick in the pants. Perhaps most helpful so far (I'm only about half-way through) is simply hearing that the thirst for intimacy with God should be the driving thirst of my life. No matter what anyone in your life says, however they perceive your passion, the overpowering desire for Him and for holiness is our common vocation.

Dubay quotes John Henry Newman extensively. Here, Newman describes the life of mediocrity: "They have a certain definite and clear view of their duties; they think that the summit of perfection is to be decent and respectable in their calling, to enjoy moderately the pleasures of life, to eat and drink, marry and give in marriage, and buy and sell, and plant and build, and to take care that religion does not engross them." This worldview, however, makes no eternal sense. The bottom line is that we all have a final destination, so our progress to that final destination ought to take precedence over and inform our other various goals and pleasures (many of which are perfectly legitimate and even helpful toward teh final resting place).

In other words, I think it's time to get more serious: "With all my heart I seek your face." (Psalm 119:10) That means exhausting every avenue, every resource, in pursuit of the divine lover.

But more on this later.

Happy Day.

Miriam Gianna is four today. For her, this first half of Emily Dickinson's poem. The whole poem is here.

29 - Have You Got a Brook in your Little Heart

Have you got a brook in your little heart,
Where bashful flowers blow,
And blushing birds go down to drink,
And shadows tremble so?

And nobody knows, so still it flows,
That any brook is there;
And yet your little draught of life
Is daily drunken there.

Citizens.

As I mentioned in my last post, I've been pondering what it means to be a good citizen lately. Obviously, we belong--precendently and ultimately, as Neuhaus says--to the heavenly city. Eternity is a very long, um, NON-time; all our earthly joys and duties are nothing in that final perspective. No matter his country, his loyalites, his failures, every citizen of an earthly kingdom will in the end leave and be relieved of that kingdom.

Nevertheless.

Our final destination, the eternal city, also provides the very reasons we have for our loyalty to and service of our earthly city. Most of us reading around here agree that our own lives have a purpose and the circumstances in which we were born--our family, our nation--are given and ordained to be our place in which we will live out our own particular choice for or against the city of God.

Longing for heaven will express itself in concern for, and perhaps even love of, our place in history--for our family and nation--as gifts.

"And seek the peace of the city whither I have caused you to be carried away captives, and pray unto the LORD for it: for in the peace thereof shall ye have peace." (Jeremiah 29:7)

So, I would add to the quote from Neuhaus yesterday that we must be able to account for the good and just present in our nation but also be willing to pray, suffer, and strive for its welfare. Nauhaus would agree, I'm sure. For him, true service and love can only come about through knowledge, especially of "the constituting moment and subsequent history of [America]." Origins and final end are everything--they are the roadmap to peace for this city.

Here's where the labor comes in: history and constitutional law are tricky. But it helps to keep the basic questions in mind. Who were the founders? What did they say (read their actual documents with a clear mind)? What were the early sins of the nation? How were they extirpated? What were its triumphs? How were they preserved? A poet, who I can't find in a quick Google search, once said the greatness of America was its ability to sorrow over its sins. That's not far off.

Onward to more vacationing! The mind must take these thoughts in little sips.

The good citizen.

I've been musing (between diaper changes) lately about our citizenship, patriotism, globalism, Catholicism, and, you know, the Meaning of It All. Last year's election and the aftershocks have really woken my interest in these things.

What does it mean to be a good citizen while still being a "stranger and sojourner"? Here's Richard John Neuhaus's formulation:

"A good citizen does more than abide by the laws. A good citizen is able to give an account, a morally compelling account, of the regime of which he is a part--and to do so in continuity with the constituting moment and subsequent history of that regime. He is able to justify its defense against its enemies, and to convincingly recommend its virtues to citizens of the next generation so that they, in turn, can transmit the order of government to citizens yet unborn..."

Then he turns to we Christians who happen to live now, in present-day America:

"This regime [our regime] of liberal democracy, of republican self-governance, is not self-evidently good and just. An account must be given. Reasons must be given. They must be reasons that draw authority from that which is higher than ourselves, from that which transcends us, from that to which we are precedently, ultimately, obliged."

More thoughts on that later.

Thomas More.

Few men capture my imagination like Thomas More, the happiest martyr of the Reformation. In More's Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation, the condemned "Anthony" speaks his author's wit:

"But whensoever God may take me hence, to reckon yourselves then comfortless, as though your chief comfort stood in me--therein would you make, methinketh, a reckoning very much as though you would cast away a strong staff and lean upon a rotten reed. For God is, and must be, your comfort, and not I."

The words of a great orator, brilliant wordsmith, and great father. May his memory be hailed hearty in all the pubs of Christendom today!

Vacation.

The Philosopher Mom and Scientist Dad, together with the various progeny, are sequestered up in the deep greens of New Hampshire. It promises to be three weeks of deep breaths, long walks in the woods, maybe deer and bullfrogs at twilight, and good food with family.

It is good that we are here.

There can be few gifts sweeter in life than a family home to which we can return. There are certainly few joys that prophesy more keenly the joy of heaven, our final home. I can hardly grasp the enormity of this gift: to be with those who have known you from your first breath, to be at one in heart and mind concerning the Final Things, to laugh at the same jokes, and to enjoy peace and prosperity while knowing they are not ends in themselves. Many families, I know, plan and long for this to be theirs without ever seeing it come to pass. I will take these days to be grateful and to pray for them.

We are resting and recovering from the storms now, readying our hearts for whatever the divine will has for us in the coming months. It is good.

Father's Day 2009.

"A father," my father said today, "should be

holy (hallowed be thy name)

the just man (thy kingdom come)

submissive to God's will (thy will be done)

generous (give us this day...)

forgiving (and forgive us our trespasses)

a moral teacher
(as we forgive those who trespass against us)

gentle (lead us not into temptation)
and
a spiritual warrior (but deliver us from evil)...

He has been all of these things to me.

Joy and peace to all fathers--spiritual and otherwise--today.