Lenten Talks 2010 - Hurts

I read an article by Daniel O'Leary today while I was praying and I had to share.
It really helped me to continue to reflect on what Fr Brendan shared with us yesterday.
Enjoy :)

"As Henri Nouwen wrote, we must live through our wounds instead of thinking them through. 'It is better to feel your wounds deeply than to understand them, to let them into your silence. You need to let your wounds go down into your heart. Then you can live them though and discover that they will not destroy you. Your heart is greater than your wounds'.

Instead we cover the hurts of our hearts with the bandages of the mind. We bury our painful emotions and think that they are dead. We forget that out presence and personalities are profoundly influenced and shaped by these underground and often violent realities. We live and act out of the invisible shadowworld that turns, silently, within us. Pain needs light. Nothing heals in the dark. Michael Leunig writes:

When the heart is cut or cracked or broken
Do not clutch it, let the wound lie open
Let the wind from the good old sea blow in
To bathe the wound with salt and let it sting.

The scars of Jesus, inside and out, were always there for all to see. He let Mary wash them, Thomas touch them, his mother hold them. he openly wept, openly cursed, openly blessed. He mourned losses with others, he was angry in a crowded temple, he carried his cross in public places. His was a transparent life. And it cost. He was always dying so as to achieve that state. Nothing less will do for us.

In Lent we grow by dying. There is no other way. In this dying we recognise the false face we've grown used to, the daily lies we tell, the thoughts of deception that cross our minds, the infidelities we do not commit only because we might get caught, the lovelessness of our lives parading as shallow compassion, our collusion with conformity, our fear of beauty and big dreams Nowhere else but in this awareness of our sins, can we ever be reached and saved. We die to self when we sweat blood to stay faithful, when we sacrifice the ego of our vanity for the essence of our truest being.

This is the dying that daily scrapes the self-renewing fat of pride from the ribs of our soul bringing a fearless, inner lightness and clarity. When the eye is unblocked, the Buddhists tell us, the vision is sure. This is the liberating dying that puts the truth in our eyes, the resonance in our voice, the power in our presence, the depth in our listening. Since we are now connected up inside, our heart is no longer divided. Rinsed and cauterised, all that is unauthentic is zapped from our infected being. When the small gods go, God arrives. Heaven, in the end, is where we belong."

Just something to think about.

A Bientot,
Krissie

The Icing On My Life

I'm supposed to be studying, and that can only mean one thing: I have a tray of baked goods in the oven and a baby cousin on my lap.

This is my Ode to Procrastination.

Hi, I'm Kristina.

Yesterday I started thinking about all the things that make me me.

The things that make some people laugh, while others roll their eyes.

Some just flat out don't like me. I don't float their boat.

Ah well. All I can do is smile and keep on swimming.

Just keep swimming, swimming, swimming.

I like to bake. Well OK, fine. I guess that's an understatement.

Like if I were to say I like Blueberry Muffins. Not enough.

According to some, it's my goal in life to make people fat.

I guess there are worse things I could be accused of.

If you don't like it, don't eat my brownies. [I'm just saying.]

Art Galleries. I cry. No seriously: I cry.

I. Am. Art. Nerd.

And I embrace it, so that's OK.

I can't imagine things being any other way.

[The Force is strong with this one]

Music makes the world go round, the world go round,

The world go round. Well it gives it a soundtrack at any rate.

I keep forgetting not to sing at the top of my lungs,

Cause Toto, we're not in Kansas anymore and there are people living underneath us.

But I sing really loudly in the shower. I figure it doesn't count.

Jane Eyre took no shit. I give her props for that.

War and Peace is burning a hole in my library.

The library that my dad had to build for me since I had enough books to fill an entire wall.

Floor to ceiling. I like to read. I'm bookish. I even have glasses dont'cha know.

I read Shakespeare because I like to. Not because I have to.

Jesus is the reason I am.

That's all there is to it really. He died and I am saved.

And though I could never deserve a love like that, it is freely given to me.

Now I don't know about you, but in my books that's pretty incredible.

And I live in celebration everyday because of that fact.

I'm loud. I talk a lot. When I laugh it sounds like a goose being strangled.

Don't worry, you'll get used to it pretty quickly.

I fall over my own feet if given half a chance. I say stupid things when I forget to think before I open

My stupid mouth. But I always say sorry.

And mean it too.

I own funny hats. And scarves. LOTS of scarves.

I'm average height. For a ten-year-old.

Enough about me. You'll figure the rest out as we go along.

Hi, I'm Kristina.