Best books I read in 2007

I thought a perfect topic for my last post of 2007 would be to highlight some of the amazing, life-changing books I read this year. Here are the five best:


He Leadeth Me by Fr. Walter Ciszek

This stunning account of Fr. Ciszek's wrongful imprisonment in Russia is one of the most life-changing books I've ever read. I read it months ago yet still find myself thinking about it almost daily. What was most surprising to me was how applicable the lessons he learned are to modern American life. His insights about discerning and seeking God's will and trusting God in all things that he discovered during five years of solitary confinement and fifteen years in a Siberian death camp are amazingly inspiring, whether you're experiencing great suffering or just feeling numbed by the daily grind. I particularly loved his thoughts on how to keep your faith alive in the midst of the humdrum, the mundane and the boring. A must-read.

Posts that were inspired by this book:

• The finger of God is here
• Living God's will: Do all situations come from God?
• Would you kids be quiet?! I'm trying to seek God's will here!

My Life With the Saints by Fr. James Martin

This book was such a delightful read, a great mix of being easy to get through yet also inspiring and informative. In each chapter Fr. Martin lovingly chronicles the life of a particular saint, and weaves in stories of how this holy man or woman inspired him during the ups and downs of his life, which has ranged from the corporate fast track to the Jesuit priesthood.

There are so many great stories here, and not just from the canonized saints themselves. I found just as much inspiration in the stories of the many saintly people Fr. Martin has met in his journeys as a Jesuit priest: the religious sisters who cheerfully ran a hospice in the slums of Jamaica; the African refugees who had suffered unspeakable tragedy and lived in squalor and yet were moving on with their lives by starting small businesses; the Little Sisters of Jesus in Nairobi whose tiny house with hardly any possessions, no electricity and very little water overflowed with joy and laughter; and the countless saints who will never have a canonization ceremony, never have the world know their names, yet humbly serve God and see joy in beauty in the world around them, even in circumstances that are miserable by worldly standards.

Posts that were inspired by this book:

• Life with the saints
  

Journey to Easter by Pope Benedict XVI

Based on a Lenten retreat he gave for John Paul II in the '80s, Pope Benedict XVI walks us through a series of meditations based on scripture readings for Lent (BTW, how's that for pressure: being in charge of a spiritual retreat to help JPII grow in his faith!) I admit that there were two or three chapters that were just kind of over my head, but the rest of the book offered powerful insights on everything from prayer to the Paschal mystery to conversion to the Church. I find myself going back to this book over and over again for inspiration. An excellent read for Lent.

Posts that were inspired by this book:

• Closing my eyes
  
• Having it all in prayer
• The desert experience

Introduction to the Devout Life by St. Francis de Sales

When I first read Introduction to the Devout Life, I didn't feel like I got that much out of it. When I reached the last chapter I felt like I'd enjoyed reading it but couldn't point to anything specific I'd taken away from it. Then I picked it up off my desk one day and, as I flipped through and re-read the various passages I'd starred and highlighted, I realized just how much I really had taken away from this book.

Now that I've gone through it again, I count it among the best books I've ever read. It's the ultimate how-to manual for becoming a saint -- also, perhaps because the books is based on his letters to his sister and other women who wanted to grow in faith, I find that his advice perfectly fits the things I struggle with on a day to day basis as a wife and mother. Just know that you may have to read it more than once to have the lessons really sink in.

Posts that were inspired by this book:

• If only!
• Temper control
• Anger, anxiety and trusting God
• We're always victorious as long as we're willing to fight
  

Finding God's Will for You by St. Francis de Sales

How do we know what God wants us to do? Should we try to discern God's will even for little decisions like what to eat for dinner? What if we pray and it seems like God is telling us nothing at all? These were the questions I had when I decided to get a copy of this book. I found good answers to those questions and a whole lot more: the book has lots of practical advice for daily living that you can start applying to your life right now. It's also a little bit less dense and more readable than Introduction to the Devout Life.

Posts that were inspired by this book:

• Keeping the big picture in mind
• Planning to do great things for God
  

If you're looking for some good reading for 2008, you cannot go wrong with any one of these books. Happy new year!

Three things to know about emailing me

I love all the emails I get through this blog (my address is on my profile here). Due to some recently technical difficulties, I thought I'd post this little email policy:

1. I will reply to all emails within two weeks...because of recurring issues with people not receiving my responses to their notes, I've decided that I will reply to all emails within two weeks. Depending on the volume of emails I have in my inbox (and the volume of chaos around the house) I may only be able to reply with a quick note, but I will at least let you know I received it.
   
   
2. Emails from me often end up in people's spam filters. I don't know why this is, but I assure you it is no small source of frustration. So if you email me, check your junk mail folder for my reply.
   
   
3. I get 500+ spams per day. So if you email me and the subject like is "hi" or "question" (or "CHEAP V-I-A-G-R-A") I will probably miss it. Descriptive subject lines are helpful.
   

So if you contact me and get no response for more than two weeks, it is either because I didn't receive your email or because my response got caught in your bulk mail folder.

Food for thought for New Year's resolutions: Decalogue for Daily Living

I recently heard a priest refer to a "Decalogue for Daily Living" that Pope John XXIII created for himself based on the Beatitudes and the 10 Commandments. I looked it up to get the details, and have found it to be really helpful and inspiring. I've mentioned before that my faith and closeness to God increased profoundly after I worked on purifying my heart; I went through the motions of being loving, kind, charitable, etc., even when the emotions weren't really there -- and the results were dramatic.

Because of this experience I think that incorporating the points from this Decalogue for Daily Living can be really powerful. It offers practical, concrete actions we can take to purify our hearts to make room for God. In this season of new beginnings and fresh starts, I thought I'd post it in case anyone else finds it helpful.

Daily Decalogue of Pope John XXIII

1. Only for today, I will seek to live the livelong day positively without wishing to solve the problems of my life all at once.
   
   
2. Only for today, I will take the greatest care of my appearance: I will dress modestly; I will not raise my voice; I will be courteous in my behavior; I will not criticize anyone; I will not claim to improve or to discipline anyone except myself.
   
   
3. Only for today, I will be happy in the certainty that I was created to be happy, not only in the other world but also in this one.
   
   
4. Only for today, I will adapt to circumstances, without requiring all circumstances to be adapted to my own wishes.
   
   
5. Only for today, I will devote ten minutes of my time to some good reading, remembering that just as food is necessary to the life of the body, so good reading is necessary to the life of the soul.
   
   
6. Only for today, I will do one good deed and not tell anyone about it.
   
   
7. Only for today, I will do at least one thing I do not like doing; and it my feelings are hurt, I will make sure no one notices.
   
   
8. Only for today, I will make a plan for myself: I may not follow it to the letter, but I will make it. And I will be on guard against two evils: hastiness and indecision.
   
   
9. Only for today, I will firmly believe, despite appearances, that the good Providence of God cares for me as no one else who exists in this world.
   
   
10. Only for today, I will have no fears. In particular, I will not be afraid to enjoy what is beautiful and to believe in goodness. Indeed, for twelve hours I can certainly do what might cause me consternation were I to believe I had to do it all my life.

As I attempt to incorporate each of these ten actions into daily life, I've found that that last part of #8 is particularly powerful: I'd never thought of "hastiness" and "indecision" as being all that bad...but now that it's been called to my attention I realize that hastiness and indecision (particularly the latter) are largely responsible for my frequent feelings of being overwhelmed by household tasks.

Anyway, I hope that others might find these to be inspiring, helpful ideas for daily life!

Thanks to Lisa at Unexpected Journey for typing it up so I could just copy and paste it. :)

The pursuit of happiness

In the process of sending out Christmas cards I always think about the people whose names are in my address book. I wonder what they're up to, how they're doing, and hope all is well for them. As I did this a few weeks ago, I noticed as I came across the names of our parents' friends that so many of them have had a rough time in the past decade or so. Divorce, mid-life crises and general restlessness seem to be epidemic among the baby boomers and those born around the same time. It seems that so many people we know from that generation express a vague dissatisfaction with their lives, a feeling that somehow things should be different, should be better, and they don't know where it all went wrong.

Recently I noticed in some forwarded email chains that more than one of our parents' friends have the same signature on their email. As I read it, I thought that it was a good summary of the baby boomer outlook on life. And I think it's a good summary of what's gone wrong. It said:

Life is short: Break the rules. Kiss slowly. Love truly. Laugh uncontrollably. And never regret anything that made you smile.

This motto of sorts seems to be based on the view that it's healthy and good -- if not the very meaning of life -- to pursue happiness. Our culture takes it for granted that the pursuit of happiness is a worthy and important goal. I always believed that too. But having observed the fruits of that worldview in my parents' generation, and having lived most of my life that way myself, I've come to believe that it ultimately leads to misery.

That last line, "never regret anything that made you smile," brings to mind so many examples of just where this worldview leads us astray. Sure, I smiled when I held my newborn baby or when I got married. But I also smiled that time I told a joke at another person's expense that got big laughs; I smiled when a dangerously unhealthy diet plan allowed me to be considered attractive by society's standards but left me at a weight that was clinically anorexic; I smiled when I heard that something bad happened to someone I really disliked. All of these things made me happy. None of them brought me peace.

I've come to believe that when we chase happiness, what we really want is peace.

It's interesting to observe how the pursuit of happiness is lauded more and more as our society becomes less and less religious. From my experience, I think that that's because it's impossible to be at peace while denying the soul, so pursuing happiness is the only choice we have. Peace does not -- cannot -- come from what is found in the material world alone. From a viewpoint in which the observable material world is all there is, humans should be mentally tranquil, in a state of harmonious equilibrium, at things like the deaths of those whose genes are less than perfect, or the demise of others and their resource-consuming offspring. Yet, oddly, what lead people to inner harmony, to peace, are counterintuitive things like self-sacrifice, detachment from our appetites, and trust that there is something more to life than what meets the eye.

Inner peace requires acknowledgment that there is something transcendent about human life -- not necessarily Christianity, but some sort of tapping into the rule system from wherever it is that our souls originate. It requires religion. Which is why I think that as we've cast off religion we've had to also cast off the pursuit of peace, of inner tranquility, and settle for the cheaper substitute, the pursuit of happiness.

And when we follow only that which makes us happy, it can so easily lead us astray, leaving us chasing fleeting pleasures and hollow passions that lead to anything but happiness in the long term. From my experience, ironically, when we give up trying to find happiness and start trying to find peace is when we actually achieve true happiness. From the little saying above, things like kissing, loving, laughing can be wonderful things -- but without those mysterious rules of the soul to reign them in -- without the litmus test of whether or not they put the soul at peace -- we can find ourselves looking back on our lives and finding that where it all went wrong started with something that originally made us happy.

Saving Christmas

We went to Midnight Mass on Monday night, the first time I'd ever gone to church for Christmas. We walked into our beautiful church around 11:30pm and took a seat up front just in time for the caroling to start. I was fascinated as I looked around the building, to see so many people (probably about 500 in all) in their nice suits and dresses, out so late on this cold night to pay their respects to God.

As the choir began a beautiful rendition of O Come All Ye Faithful, I sank bank into the pew and only barely sang along. I had waited so long for this great event, my first Christmas celebration in a church, and yet, to be honest, I was in a bad mood. In all the chaos of planning Christmas while sleep deprived for three kids ages three and under at two different relative's houses with some little family disagreements thrown into the mix, I was left feeling down and negative. I'd done a good job of trusting in God throughout Advent, but had succumbed to frustration and stress sometime during that afternoon. And my mood was only made worse by the fact that I had had such high expectations for this night, so I felt like I'd ruined this evening that was supposed to be so special.

As the last people poured into the building and the choir began the opening song for Mass, I heard some commotion in a nearby pew. A lady had squeezed into the row behind us and was greeting what seemed to be her husband and her sister, hugging them and telling them merry Christmas. At various lulls in the Mass she would occasionally turn to them and quietly exclaim something like, "Isn't this wonderful?" or "This is so exciting!" At one point I looked to see if she had young children with her, wondering why she was making those comments since surely she'd done this many times before.

Meanwhile, when we kneeled for the consecration I leaned heavily on the pew in front of me, hanging my head low. My mind drifted away from the Mass as I thought about how tired I was, and how few opportunities I was going to have to catch up on sleep any time soon. I thought of how disappointing it was that my husband had to go back to working 12 hour days the day after Christmas, how there were so many decision yet to be made about the logistics of the next day, and how difficult it was going to be that that we had to pack everyone up and go out of town this coming weekend. Eventually I forgot all about what was going on at the front of the church as my mental whining took over all my thoughts. And I heard that lady's voice from behind me say breathlessly:

"There he is."

I was so consumed by my selfish thoughts that my first reaction was to think, "Who?" I lifted my head to look around, and my eyes rested on the consecrated Host that the priest held above the altar. "Of course," I thought. "There He is." I had been in the presence of a miracle, and all I could do was think about how much stuff I had to pack to go out of town.

At the end of the Mass, as the choir started again and we all got to our feet to fill the sanctuary with Joy to the World!, the lady behind me was giddy as she exclaimed, "Merry Christmas! I'm so excited, it's CHRISTMAS!" And then I saw her introduce herself to the people I thought had been her husband and sister. As it turns out, she didn't know them at all. She just hugged them and talked to them because...simply because she wanted to share her joy.

I turned around to smile at her and she mouthed, "It's Christmas!" I had been analyzing my bad mood all night long, trying to remember all St. Francis de Sales' advice about trusting God, trying to find the right prayers to say, trying to figure out what God's will was for all the different situations that were stressing me out. I'd prayed for God's help, but it seemed impossible that anything could pull me out of this funk.

But those two words, the joyful exclamation that "It's Christmas!" were really all I needed to hear. Though my mood didn't improve instantly, it snapped me out of my negative downward spiral to be reminded of just what a special day this is. My whole life those words kindled in me feelings of childlike wonder at this mysterious holiday that has the power to inspire people from all walks of life to be more loving, more giving, more kind; the holiday that still sends a shockwave of Christian hope and joy throughout the world, even in our increasingly secular culture. This was the holiday that gave me a taste of the peace of Christianity, even before I believed. It was Christmas!

Despite the fact that we didn't get home until 1:45 and then I was up multiple times with the baby and our plans went way off track for the meal and gift opening the next day, my mood steadily improved, and I was able to set aside my cares and just enjoy the beauty of Christmas.


So thank you to the anonymous woman in the pew behind me that night. Thank you for reminding me of the wonder of Christmas, and the miracle of being able to celebrate Christ's birth by receiving his actual presence in the Eucharist. Thank you for your humility, for not being afraid to look foolish by sharing such unrestrained joy with strangers. Thank you for acting as a little angel to remind those of us who had lost sight of the simple fact that "It's Christmas!"

Merry Christmas!

Of my entire life, last Christmas was the first Christmas that I believed in God. This is the first Christmas where I really felt it. Tonight, at Midnight Mass, will be the first time I've ever gone to church for Christmas. After 30 years, tonight I will actually celebrate the birth of Christ, in prayer, in a church.

Christmas is so much more beautiful than it used to be, now that I'm a Christian; yet in some ways it's now wonderfully anticlimactic. When I was an atheist, this season of peace and hope and joy was so special to me, so very different from the rest of the year. Yet since I've come to the shocking realization that God exists, that the Christian claims are true, every day is like Christmas. Every day -- even bad days -- I carry with me that unique peace and hope and joy that comes only from God.

Thank you to every single one of my readers, to those who offer their thoughts through comments or emails, and for those who have kept me in their prayers as I've stumbled along in this spiritual journey. May God bless you all, and have a very merry Christmas!

Celebrating Advent

As I mentioned, at the beginning of this month I found myself scrambling to celebrate Advent...which was especially challenging since I had no idea what Advent was (luckily my kind readers helped me out). I had to turn the page over on my already huge to-do list to now add "Get Advent wreath!", then after thinking for a moment, "Figure out what Advent wreath is for" and, after more thought, "Figure out what Advent is for."

Though I sincerely wanted to know more about this season, I felt burdened by having more to do. As if the Christmas season wasn't already busy enough, if I were to observe Advent it would mean doing even more! So I prayed. I prayed a prayer of regret, expressing remorse that I knew I wasn't going to be able to properly observe this season, asking God for help, and promising to try to do better next year.

Meanwhile, I had been working on the issue of anger. The topic had seemed to have come out of nowhere -- I didn't think I had a problem with being angry and it was never in my plan to work on it. Yet it kept coming up. I couldn't set the issue aside, even though I kind of wanted to. I really felt that God was leading me to work on this right now, though I didn't know why.

As I've chronicled, I came to realize that my anger was almost always the result of being anxious, which was always the result of not trusting God. I began trying hard to never allow myself to indulge in feelings of frustration and anxiety: whether my toddler threw a bad temper tantrum or all the pots and pans came cascading loudly out of the cabinet when I opened it or my neighbor stopped me to tell me a loooong story when I was in a hurry, I would seek peace by remembering that all I had to do was trust God. I worked hard at letting go of my plans, at not fixating on how these inconvenient events were derailing what I "had to" do (according to me).

I trusted that I would get it all done...as long as I accepted "it" as what God wanted me to do instead of what I wanted to do.


Then, this morning, I thought of how two days from now is the last Sunday of Advent, how it's a shame that I let it slip by. I never did get around to making an Advent wreath with the kids, we didn't do a Jesse tree or put up a little Christmas countdown calendar. I didn't even read any of the things I'd earmarked as "good Advent reading."

But as I've gone through my day (day five of a visit from my mother-in-law), I realized that something has changed -- something big. I'm not stressed. Sure, I am occasionally tempted to be stressed when I see all the gifts I have to wrap or my mother-in-law shouts from the living room over the blaring television that my three-year-old spilled the Coke she was letting him drink. And I guess I have felt anxious here and there. But, for the most part, it has really worked to just turn to God with all anxiety, to say "I trust that you will work this out" every single time I start feeling stressed. I have made it through this Christmas season in a (mostly) peaceful state.

Last Sunday the priest at a friend's church talked about Advent as a season of waiting, and that our goal should be to wait well. And as I walked through my choatic house, looking at all the areas that could be more clean, thinking of all the things that didn't get done -- we never did get a Christmas tree up, I forgot to get gifts for a couple of loved-ones, I didn't make those Christmas cookies, I couldn't even find time to decorate the house at all -- I realized that I am actually at peace with all of this. So many things that I really wanted to do didn't happen; but the only thing that really matters did happen: I trusted God. I had sort of hoped that God's plan would involve me miraculously finding the time to make my house look like something out of Martha Stewart Magazine's Christmas issue, to come across a bunch of extra money to get all those gifts I wanted to get, to take the kids for a portrait with Santa.

But none of that happened.

And I realized that, ironically, it is in the fact that none of these "important" things got done that I observed Advent after all. I put my trust in God, even at the expense of all my big plans. I was patient as I waited for him to show me the path forward, even though it was really tempting to elbow God aside and frantically rush around to "get things done!" I set aside my plans for his, and in the process gave my family the gift of a calm, happy mommy. I waited well.

This Christmas, remember those who have experienced loss this year

A while back I heard a great idea that I wanted to pass along: before you head out to wherever you're going for Christmas day, or as you're preparing to host the celebration at your house, take a moment to think of anyone you know who has experienced loss such as the death of a loved one or divorce at any time this year. Write down their phone number to have handy so that you can give them a call to let them know they're in your thoughts and prayers this Christmas.

I got this idea from a guest on Relevant Radio. He had lost a child, and found that some of the hardest times to get through were that first Thanksgiving and first Christmas without his son; yet since his son had died in Spring, the huge initial outpouring of support had passed and he had his wife felt alone as they struggled to get through the holidays.

So keep those who have experienced loss this year in your prayers as they prepare to celebrate this first Christmas without their loved one, and give them a call on Tuesday to let them know you care.

12 of the best blog posts I read in 2007

Regular readers of this blog and my links blog know that I love sharing all the good stuff I come across in my web surfing. This week I decided to undertake the daunting task of putting together a "best of 2007" list. I'm sure I'm forgetting some excellent stuff (that I will undoubtedly remember as soon as I hit Publish), but from my limited time and even more limited memory I wanted to at least make an attempt at sharing some things I read this year that really made an impact on me. I've linked to almost all of these before here or on the links blog, but thought it might be fun to round up my favorites.

Without further ado, in and no particular order, here are 12 of the best things that were posted on blogs (or other "informal" writing venues) that I read in 2007:

1. Why I am a Christian: I don't think it's too much of an exaggeration to say that John C. Wright is our generation's Chesterton. His writing about his conversion from intellectual atheism to Christianity never ceases to amaze me, and this post is no exception. I often find myself thinking of something he says here of his experiences with Christianity: "If this is an hallucination, it more useful than sanity." (I also posted his conversion story here.)
   
   
2. Story arc: Of all the good posts at DarwinCatholic, I don't know why this stands out to be as one of my very favorites. Maybe because "Tom" reminds me of so many people I know. Maybe because "Tom" reminds me of myself sometimes. But ever since I read this I've frequently thought of just how much the human experience comes down to looking for the story arc in our lives.
   
   
3. Not "our" baby: If there is a more touching story out there of hope and trust in God in the face of extraordinary loss, I have not found it. I cry tears of both sorrow and joy every time I read Kristen's story of driving home with an empty carseat after her failed adoption, and the truths that she learned from that situation.
   
   
4. Is there anything good about men?: This transcript of a talk given by Roy F. Baumeister has kept me thinking even months after I first read it. My husband originally emailed it to me with the subject line "one of the most insightful things I've ever read".
   
   
5. Who's story is it?: This blog post introduced a question that my husband and I frequently refer to: "Is God part of your story?...Or are you part of God's story?" We realized that the way you think about these questions speaks volumes about how your relationship to God.
   
   
6. Schooling at home: I was already leaning towards homeschooling when I came across this article by Sally Thomas, and this really helped seal the deal. It's probably the best case for homeschooling I've ever read. (Her article about Homeschooling and Christian Duty is also great.)
   
   
7. How I became a Catholic: Aimee Milburn's post, which is ultimately about trusting God, is beautiful for so many reasons. She's an incredibly talented writer and manages to distill a lot of concepts into a very concise, readable, lovely post.
   
   
8. Why pray?: This one post answered so many of my questions about prayer, and left me with a phrase I refer to often, that prayer is ultimately "putting on the mind of Christ."
   
   
9. Tips for making it through the day without going insane: Though not every single suggestion here would work for me, overall I found this advice on household management from a homeschooling mom of seven to be invaluable. I printed it out and have read it many times for inspiration.
   
   
10. For a time such as this: Kim's post about remembering that, as she says, "If you are a parent, you ARE the curriculum," is one of the first things that got me thinking about trusting God in all my daily actions, however small.
    
    
11. How I became pro-life: Abigail's post is a beautiful story not just of her conversion on the issue of abortion, but of an even greater conversion of heart. It's one of those posts that leaves you with a warm feeling for a long time after you read it.
    
    
12. A Global Intelligence Briefing for CEOs: There was a lot of buzz about this article on a business school email list that my husband is on, so I printed it out and read it. It's a fascinating and (relatively) brief summary of what's going on in the world today.
    

Thanks to the authors of all these great posts. (Again, I know there are MANY that I missed.) I hope that others enjoy these as much as I did!

We're always victorious as long as we're willing to fight

I'm so inspired by some of the comments I've received recently in which others have talked about how they too are working toward spiritual growth, often in the same areas as I am. It's humbling and refreshing to hear of so many other people out there trying to fight the good fight.

I came across something inspiring the other day, once again from Introduction to the Devout Life, that I thought I'd share in case anyone else out there ever feels discouraged (as I do sometimes). Every time I've felt like it's hopeless, like I fail too often and see too few improvements, I think of these words that the great Doctor of the Church writes in the first part of the Introduction:

The work of purging the soul neither can nor should end except with our life itself. We must not be disturbed at our imperfections, since for us perfection consists in fighting against them. How can we fight against them unless we see them, or overcome them unless we face them?...To practice humility it is absolutely necessary for us at times to suffer wounds in this spiritual warfare, but we are never vanquished unless we lose our life or our courage.

[I]t only remains for us not to lose courage. Save me, O Lord, from cowardice and discouragement, David says. Fortunately for us, in this war we are always victorious provided that we are willing to fight.

I've thought of this often in the past week, and hope that others find it inspiring as well.

Anxiety is easier

Last week St. Francis de Sales and some bad programming at Google Maps led me to one of the biggest realizations I've had this year: that anxiety = not trusting God. For a long time I knew that stress about certain individual matters was due to a prideful insistence that I had the best plan for how this or that situation needed to turn out. But it has been quite stunning to realize that every single time I am anxious, it is due to a lack of trust in God.

So, as I've mentioned, I've been trying to work on this by making a conscious decision to put all my trust in God every time I feel anxious. Every time I feel those all-too-familiar sensations of anger or anxiety (or both) start to bubble up, it's a reminder to turn immediately to God and figure out what he would have me do at that moment. Of course, I thought, most of the time that will be impossible to know. Especially in instances where I don't have long periods of time to reflect and pray, where I have to react to a situation quickly, I assumed that I would only rarely be able have a clear sense of what I should do to be in line with God's will, that the majority of the time nothing would really come of such an exercise.

I was wrong.

To my surprise, many times when I do this, when I turn to God in a state of anxiety to seek his will for me in this situation, I know exactly what his will is. I just don't want to follow it.

For example, last week my mother and I were preparing to co-host a Christmas party on the weekend. In the week leading up to it, I sensed a lot of tension. I felt like she wanted me to help a lot more than I was able to, and each night that went by without me going over to her house to help decorate and cook, it seemed to get worse. And when I realized that I was going to have to use part of Saturday morning, the day of the party, to go to Mass for a holy day of obligation, my stress level reached a boiling point. I felt like my mom was just going to blow a gasket if I told her that I couldn't even help with last-minute preparation because I had to do church stuff.

I was feeling extremely anxious when I decided to turn to God and trust him with this situation. And as soon as I got in a trusting, prayerful mindset, I knew exactly what he would have me do: act in great humility and love. God's will was that I humble myself to tell my mom how very much I appreciated all the hard work she'd put into this party; that I offer a sincere, loving apology and admit that I'd left her with all the work, that I had not followed through on my promise to help; to use the opportunity of telling her that I had to go to Mass for the Feast of the Immaculate Conception as an opportunity to be a little bit vulnerable and share my faith (something I almost never do with my family) and explain why it was important to me to go; and to get up extra early on Saturday to go to the first morning Mass I could find so that I'd have as much time as possible to help my mom.

My prayer to know God's will was so quickly answered, the path forward so clear...And I thought: "That sucks!" I guess I was hoping that God's will would always involve stuff like amazing coincidences and unexpected journeys and beautiful realizations (as happened the Friday before), not actual hard work on my part.

This situation is just one example. Over and over again this past week, I've found that the challenge is not usually knowing what God's will is...it's following it. There have been some occasions where I really don't know what I am supposed to do and can only go forward in meekness and blind trust. But, more often, when I pray about my anxiety, God's path for the resolution of the situation is actually pretty clear: it involves stuff like smoothing over tense interpersonal situations with great humility and love; resolving financial stress by admitting things I don't want to admit and committing to sacrifices I don't want to make; making overwhelming situations manageable by taking a hard look at my priorities (like, say, stopping half way though a blog post I really wanted to finish to open mail instead) and asking for help when I need it. And so on and so on. Not surprisingly, it keeps coming down to stuff like sacrifice, humility, loving openly and selflessly, patience, being willing to be vulnerable, etc. In other words: really hard stuff that I don't want to do.

This has been a surprising development. I guess I always thought of knowing God's will as something reserved for the most saintly saints, something that takes long stretches of deep prayer and meditation to even begin to discern. I'd never really considered the situation where I know exactly what God's will is but just don't care to follow it. Looking back, I think that for a while now I've used anxiety as a crutch: sometimes it's easier to just sit around and stress out, to indulge in feelings of being helpless and overwhelmed, than to do what I know God wants me to do.

Missed opportunities

A while back I was talking to someone I didn't know very well at a social event, and she offhandedly mentioned that she'd recently suspected that she was pregnant. She said she was relieved to find out that she wasn't, but that if she ever were to get pregnant she'd have an abortion without a second thought. I was sort of nodding politely, not sure what to say, when she caught me completely off guard. "Why do you guys [Catholics] believe that's wrong?" she asked sincerely. "I'd honestly like to know."

Whoa! I had no idea what to say. We only had a few moments to chat. I didn't even know where to start. I wished I had some sort of "DIE TO SELF" button I could push to instantly rid myself of ego and sinfulness so that whatever I said would be pure Holy Spirit, that my shadow wouldn't block out God's light, so to speak. Unfortunately, I didn't have a button like that at my disposal and I ended up stammering an overly complicated version of why I used to be pro-choice but now am pro-life. It was kind of a mess.

Of course I've thought about that conversation many times since then, thinking of all the great things I could have said that might lead this nice girl to consider exploring the pro-life point of view a bit more. I've been assuring myself that it was fine, that maybe the Holy Spirit might have worked through my rambling response in some mysterious way...but that never really sounded right. I realized after a similar occasion this week that what is more likely is this: the Holy Spirit did not work through me nearly as much as it could have. This occurrence and others like it were definitely prime opportunities to share the love and peace of God with other people...but instead I shared mostly the ego and talkativeness of Jen.

At that time I'd fallen into an apathetic mentality that I was a "good person" so therefore I didn't need to worry too much about spiritual growth. I held on to this vague notion that since most of my sins were "small stuff" like a little gossip or anger or sloth here and there, I really didn't even have that much to worry about. Was I anywhere remotely close to being as Christ-like as people like St. Francis of Assisi or St. Josephine Bakhita? Nah. But, oh well, I thought. I have a lot on my plate, maybe I'll work on being more saintly some other time.

It was when I thought of how many missed opportunities I've had, how often I probably could have been a conduit for another person to experience God but blocked out his presence with my own ego and sins, that I realized how serious it really is. Of course ideally I should hate all sin simply for the fact that it is a betrayal of God and his infinite love and goodness...but, to be honest, I'm not spiritually mature enough for that to resonate with me on a gut level. It's surprisingly easy to forget about that whole "offending God" thing and not worry about taking my spiritual growth to the next level, patting myself on the back because I'm not a thief or a murderer and I even use the f-word less often than I used to.

But then I think: what if I had achieved great spiritual growth at the time that girl asked me about abortion? What if I were in a state of great peace and closeness to God when I got into that conversation with the bank tellers last month about why I am no longer an atheist, or when the nurse at the doctors office told me she's a lapsed Catholic and asked why I go to a Catholic church, or when that atheist relative of mine asked me to recommend some books about religion?

Every time I'm tempted to pat myself on the back and not worry so much about "small" things like being a little lazy or angry or gluttonous or uncharitable, I think of those occasions and others like them. If working hard becoming a saint, at being as Christ-like as possible, would mean that God is able to add even a little bit more of his love to the world through me, any amount of effort is worth it.

What did you do right in 2007?

I love New Year's resolutions. I love using the start of a new calendar year as inspiration to finally make some of those changes I've wanted to make, to do new things, to improve areas I've long wanted to improve.

But as I was going over my list of things I want to do in 2008 (working on anger, not surprisingly, being one of them) I felt a little bit hopeless. Thinking of my tendency to start projects that I don't finish, how very often I fail at my attempts at spiritual growth, how so many of my great plans have fallen by the wayside, I made some comment to my husband like, "I don't know why I bother."

But then, like the sweet guy he is, he pointed out that I actually did lots of good stuff this year. Much of it wasn't exactly what I intended to do, or even what I originally wanted to do, but they were accomplishments nonetheless. He listed various areas of my life that I got organized, ways in which I grew spiritually, little things that used to be problems back in 2006 that I'd resolved in 2007.

It was such an inspiring exercise that I wanted to ask my readers: What did you do right in 2007? What were some things that you accomplished, problems you resolved, ways you grew spiritually, etc.? It could be in any area at all -- home organization projects, prayer life, parenting, weight loss -- whatever! I'd love to hear about it, not just because it's a nice topic for us all to think about this time of year, but maybe we'll get inspiration from one another as we head into 2008. I'll leave my answer in the comments.

Part II: What happened when I decided to trust God

OK, since a couple people asked, I'll share the rest of the story that I alluded to in my previous post: what happened when I decided to let go of my anxiety and just trust God. (I hope my atheist readers are taking a break from blog reading today. They'll think I've lost my mind once and for all!) :)


So there I was, driving around a dark neighborhood, a zillion anxious thoughts running through my head: "I cannot believe I'm running late AGAIN! Am I ever going to be on time for anything again now that I have kids?! And isn't it JUST MY LUCK that Google Maps took me to the wrong place when I was running late to begin with! Is my friend going to be offended that I didn't show up?! Should I call my husband and see if he can navigate me to the right place, even though he's trying to deal with all three kids?! I wonder if he's getting really stressed out watching them after his twelve-hour day at work!..." You get the idea.

I was stuck in this mentality that since I'd screwed everything up by being late and getting a bad map and getting lost, I was on my own; God's will would have been for me to not screw up in the first place, and now it was up to me to figure it out. Luckily, I was able to pull out of my anxious rut long enough to remember that that was not the case. God has a will for us at every moment, even when we get ourselves in bad situations. I realized that it wasn't too late -- it's never too late -- to turn to him and humbly seek his will. So that's what I did. I made the choice to let go of my anxiety, to trust that God guide me down the right path. I decided to pull over to pray and think, so I turned down a dark side street.

As I was slowing down to park, a bright object caught my eye: a shining statue of Our Lady.

Some small church had a little outdoor chapel with a white statue of Mary, which glowed in the light of a big floodlight. In the darkness of that unlit neighborhood on a winter night, it stood out like lighthouse on a dark sea. It was so beautiful, and so uncanny that I'd seen it as soon as I'd decided to seek God. The only prayer I could say was just, "Thank you."

I was so drawn to the statue, so eager to express my thanks to God and his Mother for giving me this little sign. I wanted to get out of my car to go pray in the chapel, but that seemed dangerous in this dark, unfamiliar neighborhood. A thought popped into my mind, and I knew with certainty that it's what I was supposed to do: I'd go to my church.

A sense of peace washed over me. All of my anxiety was completely gone. I wasn't supposed to go home, I wasn't supposed to try to make it to my friend's event, I wasn't supposed to squeeze in some errands. I was to go to church. On my way over I turned on Relevant Radio and one of the first things I heard was a guy talking about how his life changed after Our Lady guided him to go to church one night. (I'm not making this up, I promise!)

When I got there I was surprised to see a lot of cars in the parking lot. I walked up to see some note about the Feast of the Something Something on the door and could hear that a Mass was going on. I didn't think we usually had Mass at 7:30 on Fridays, so I planned to just peek my head in the door and then head out, maybe going to find the nearest Adoration chapel to pray for a while. But when I looked in I was surprised to see a good friend standing in the entry hall with her baby, so I walked in to say hello. While we waited for her to go in and receive Communion I asked her why she was there at such an unusual time.

She responded by telling me that it was a Vigil Mass for a holy day of obligation: the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. Mary's feast day. I'd had no idea.

Chills ran down my spine. God seemed so close that I was almost tempted to look over my shoulder in case he and Mary were standing there. I looked in at the glow of the sanctuary, the angelic music wafting all through the building, and felt I was in a warm oasis of life and beauty. I also realized that it was almost two years to the day since I first began going to this church (which, of course, I blogged about at the time). It was a wonderful moment of feeling safe and at home, realizing how very far I'd come since the first time I stumbled into this strange place.

I left the church after the Mass ended, knowing that I had done what I was meant to do that night. Earlier this week in prayer I had asked Mary to pray for me, and to bring me closer to her. I'd also asked for God to show me how I can make it to daily Mass more often -- and in figuring out how to squeeze in going to church for the Feast of the Immaculate Conception I discovered some local Mass times that I hadn't known about before that will allow me to make it happen.

I think the events of Friday night were answered prayers. It was one of those times when everything seemed to come together, when God seemed so close that I could practically touch him. And I could have so easily missed it all if I'd continued to be anxious, if I hadn't stopped and made a conscious decision to put all my trust in God.

Anger, anxiety and trusting God

I never intended for controlling feelings of frustration and anger to be the theme of my prayers and writing for the past few weeks, but ever since the subject first came up I haven't been able to avoid it. I didn't realize how often I let my Irish temper get the best of me until I tried to work on it -- and, boy, do I have a lot of work to do! But I had a major breakthrough this weekend that has brought me great peace that I thought I'd share in case anyone else finds it helpful:


A couple weeks ago when I first started writing on this topic, I stumbled across this line in St. Francis de Sales' Introduction to the Devout Life:

With the single exception of sin, anxiety is the greatest evil that can happen to a soul.

Wow! Those were such strong words that they really stuck out in my mind. I didn't see that as directly related to the topic at hand, so I moved on and just made a mental note to review that passage again some day.

Meanwhile, Friday night I found myself in a state of being just furious. I was trying to get somewhere, I was running late, it was really dark, and Google Maps had taken me to the wrong place. After circling around a poorly lit neighborhood for a while, I realized that I was going to be so late that I would simply miss the event. I'd gotten all dressed up, put on makeup, set aside a bunch of work I needed to get done, told my friend I would be there, got everything in place to leave the kids with my husband...all for nothing. I believe "livid" is a good word to describe how I felt.

I recalled Abigail's recent advice to look past anger to focus on what's really bothering you. I realized that I was so angry because I felt totally out of control: I couldn't turn back time to not be late; I couldn't guarantee that my friend wouldn't be offended that I didn't make it; I couldn't be sure that I would get to all the things I needed to do that evening, that this lost time wouldn't be a big setback to my to-do list; I couldn't throw a brick through a window at Google's headquarters to show them what I think of their mapping application. I'm kidding about the last one (kind of), but you get the idea. As I went through this list of what was really bothering me, I recalled that seemingly unrelated St. Francis de Sales quote I'd stumbled across, and realized that anxiety was at the root of my feelings of anger. Not just in this situation, but almost always.

When I lose my temper with the kids it's not usually on days that I'm all caught up on housework and things are otherwise under control; it's when I feel like their misbehavior is totally derailing something else I'm trying to do, e.g. putting away laundry or getting us out of the house or getting lunch ready. When I get really frustrated with some little thing like a person at the grocery store blocking the aisle, it's not usually when my day is otherwise running smoothly; it's on the days that I feel like I have way too little time and way too much to do. And so on and so on. As I thought through these examples, I realized that all of this -- pretty much every time I end up losing my temper about something -- comes down to one thing, and one thing only:

I don't trust God.

To use my example from Friday night, I felt like the weight of the entire situation was on my shoulders alone: I had to control everything. I alone had to make it right. Heck, I alone had to decide what making it right would even involve. I was extremely anxious because of this self-imposed pressure, and my anxiety had manifested itself as frustration and anger. I had a vague recollection of something else St. Francis de Sales had said in his section on anxiety:

When you perceive that anxiety begins to affect your mind, recommend yourself to God. Resolve to do nothing that your desire insists on until your mind has regained peace, unless it is something that cannot be put off. In that case you must meekly and calmly try to check the current of your desires and restrain and moderate them as much as possible.

So I decided to pause and turn to God before anything else. Specifically, I decided to trust God. I pulled over on the side of the road to stop and think for a moment. I had so many options whirling around in my head: "Should I try to find the church or am I too late?! Should I just go home?! Should I do some errands first?! Should I call my friend?!" I set all that aside and decided to make a conscious decision to trust God, and to seek a state of calmness and meekness. For all I knew maybe there was some big reason this all happened; and, even if it was just a screwup on my part, God could surely make it right if I calmly, humbly sought his will for me in this situation.

For brevity's sake I'll skip the details of what happened next, but suffice it to say that I was led down a totally unexpected path that culminated in a wonderful experience that left me feeling very close to God. It ended up being one of the best, most spiritually fulfilling nights I've ever had. Yet I would have missed it all if I'd insisted on blocking out God's voice with my noisy thoughts of anxiety and anger.

St. Francis de Sales writes:

If it is out of love for God that the soul seeks escape from its troubles, it will do so patiently, meekly, humbly, and calmly and look for deliverance rather by God's providence that its own efforts...If it seeks deliverance out of self-love then, as if success depended on itself rather than on God, it will excite and wear itself out...Now if it does not immediately succeed in the way it wants it grows very anxious and impatient. Instead of removing the evil, it increases it and this involves the soul in great anguish and distress together with such loss of strength and courage that it imagines the evil it be incurable. [This] produces anxiety, and anxiety in turn produces sadness.

Every single time since that night that I've found my temper flaring up, it ends up boiling down feeling anxious about something, which boils down to not really trusting God. The other day I posted about trying to let go of my attachment to the sin of anger. I've realized that even this is rooted in a lack of trust: I will continue to find it oddly cathartic to indulge in feelings of anger and frustration as long as I feel like the weight of the world is on my shoulders, that it's entirely up to me to make it right. But when I can finally get it through my head that it's not up to me at all, that there's really not much more for me to do here than to cultivate trust in God at each moment, then I can finally relax. I can quietly, humbly do what I need to do each day, finding peace in the knowledge that when things go wrong, God will take care of it. He'll tell me how to proceed, as long as I'm listening.

The best prayer for me to focus on here is not, "God, show me how to stop being angry." It's not even, "Show me how to stop wanting to be angry." The best prayer I can say to help with this is, "God, show me how to trust you."


[UPDATE: A Part II to this post is here.]

Finding Narnia

I keep getting stopped in my tracks as I'm out and about this month. I'll be scrambling around trying to check items off my Christmas shopping list, putting eggnog in my cart at the grocery store, walking through a department store while trying to keep the kids from pulling things off the racks, and I'll hear some familiar old Christmas tune begin. And I'll stop, forget everything else, and listen intensely for just a second. Even as I go back to what I was doing, I'm acutely aware of the music in the background.

This is only the second Christmas since I've believed in God. And it's the first Christmas that it ever occurred to me that the songs about the birth of Christ are distinctly, vastly different than the songs about reindeer and Santa. It's the first time it ever occurred to me that they're religious. These songs were not written to be light little ditties about imaginary characters; they were written by Christians about one of the central events to their faith: the birth of Jesus Christ. The event that humanity had awaited for so long, that people from many different times and places had whispered about throughout the ages, when Someone from the other world would come and somehow make everything right. It finally happened. And in our Christmas songs, we proclaim this great event.

All my life I made no distinction between Santa Clause is Coming to Town and The First Noel. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and Frosty the Snowman were fairy tale songs about mythical characters, as were Hark! The Herald Angels Sing and Silent Night. It never once occurred to me that it could be otherwise. Not even as a child, not even for a moment.

So it's really impossible to describe how those songs sound to me now. I wish I could, because it's one of the most thrilling, amazing feelings in the world. The closest I can come is to offer this analogy:

When I was a kid I read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (we didn't know C.S. Lewis was a Christian, otherwise I probably wouldn't have read it). I was so enchanted by the idea of these children discovering that a dusty old wardrobe was a secret portal to another realm full of wonder. I wanted so much to experience something like that, to stumble across some other world different from the one in which I lived, a place of great thrills, adventure and mystery. Once or twice when visiting my grandparents I would be looking for something in one of their cluttered old closets, and I would reach back through the clothes...just in case. Though I was never surprised, my heart always sank a little bit when I felt the wall.

When I hear Christmas songs now, I feel the way I would have felt if one of those times that I reached to the back of the closet against all odds, I felt cool air and a snowflake fall on my hand. It was supposed to be a fairy tale. This story of a loving God who created these creatures who scorn and reject him over and over, yet made himself one of them to suffer for them, to die for them, to save them...it's the best story ever told. And, to my astonishment, I discovered that it is true.

When I hear the first few bars of What Child Is This? or Joy to the World! waft above the clanking of shopping cards or the ring of cash registers, I feel like grabbing everyone around me and hugging them, jumping for joy while yelling, "It's true! Can you imagine anything so wonderful? The stuff that this song is talking about -- it's true!" I imagine that most stores have policies against that sort of thing, so I refrain. But I always smile, and I always feel overjoyed to have these reminders to rejoice, for a Savior has been born.

Beacons of hope

At some point just before my search for God really began, I had a sort of 25-year delayed reaction about the priesthood and religious life. I read some Catholic writer's lament that so few people follow God's call to religious life these days, that not very many young men and women are willing to leave the world to serve God alone, and I thought with shock: "You mean there are any?"

I guess I did know that nuns don't marry, and I'd heard something about priests and monks staying single, but it had never sunk in. When I really got it through my head that there are actually people out there who live just for God, I felt bewilderment and surprise...and an odd sense of hope.

At the time my life was extremely "worldly." I didn't believe in God and was completely immersed in socializing and career and vapid entertainment, so I really couldn't imagine why someone would become a nun or a monk or a priest. I tried to figure out what their payoff was: obviously, I thought, there must be some selfish reason for choosing to do this. But, from a worldly perspective where things like the pursuit of pleasure and being able to do whatever you want were extremely important to quality of life, I couldn't figure out what it was.

I know it sounds ridiculous, but all my life I held on to this vague notion that nobody seriously believed in God. Looking back, it's a little disturbing to think of what a great determination I had to cling to cynicism and sarcasm when discussing Christianity. I simply refused to entertain anything related to this religion that rang of selflessness or sacrifice or hope, immediately explaining it away with some cynical retort. I looked a