whose will?

“It seems to me that the spiritual answer is to be found in neither optimism nor
pessimism about the future, but in complete trust in God.
Fr Benedict Groeschel

(Percy sporting a “mimi” hat / Julie Cook / 2017)

And just incase you’re confused…the question is not who’s Will…?
As in who is Will…?
But rather…whose will…?
As in mine yours, ours or His…..

The past couple of days, weeks and even months I feel as if most of my posts
have had one central theme in common…the simple matter of will.

As in the constant tug of war we play with both ourselves as well as everyone else…
with the ultimate tug and pull and war being with God himself.

When I was a little girl my grandmother Mimi would crochet and knit up a storm.
Sewing, knitting, needlepoint…you name it, she did it.
Yet none of that ever appealed to me…it was not ever to be my forte.
I just didn’t enjoy it and I especially loathed trying to learn it.

I don’t know if it was a patience thing or rather that I just opted for
other creative outlets.
Today a reattached button is about the extent of my sewing endeavors.

My grandmother however was profuse with Mother following in hot pursuit.
Afghans, throws, bell pulls, pillows, samplers, seat cushions, stool covers…
all of which now oddly adorn my home.
But the specialty, or rather the pièce de résistance being always, the “mimi hat.
A crocheted toboggan like thing looking oddly like a flapper’s cap.

Everyone got a mimi hat.

Colors were limited to brown, beige, rust, cream, antique gold….
You’d put the hat on your head and immediately your hair was now a flat static
fly away mess. Wildly and weirdly standing on ends atop your head so you
had no other choice but to keep the hat pulled down tight on your head…
while looking a bit odd wearing the thing in the house especially in the summer.

Mother would make us put on and wear the blasted things when we went to visit
or if Mimi would come to visit us.
Not that Mimi would expect it, but Mother knew it would make my grandmother happy
seeing us “enjoying” her handiwork.

I hated them.

My choice in wearing the hat was that I could either fight and refuse or
I could suck it up, acquiesce and please…
I opted for the later because I did not want to make my life miserable while
making everyone else’s lives miserable.
Nothing like a 7 year old demanding no to a parent demanding yes.

The same held true when I was made to wear a dress every time we visited our other grandmother, Nany. Since Nany bought the bulk of our clothes, Mother knew that
if she wanted to keep her mother-n-law happy, she’d better be putting her kids
in those nice new clothes. Never mind that I was happiest in jeans or shorts.

Which goes back to mother having a choice…
She could either give-in to our whining and let us look like sloppy bumpkins
while drawing the ire of the woman who had bought us all sorts of nice clothes
or she could get us gussied up and uncomfortable while drawing the praise of this
matriarch.
She too chose the latter.

I learned early on that sometimes its best to give a little while giving in a little
rather then reveling in being self centered with a life short lived
in a sea of selfishness.

Yet our society appears to have forgotten about biting the proverbial bullet…
Living in a nation that is now in a constant state of in-fighting over the notion
of our own individuals wills, is proving both counter productive and most
oppressively destructive.

It says a lot about us as a society that we are constantly demanding our own
will to be done.
As we’ve moved from the consideration of others to simply damning others.

Fr Benedict reminds us of the importance of a will other than our own…
“‘Your will be done.’
This conviction should be the ultimate intention of all your prayers–
along with finding our peace in the acceptance of that will.
Certainly, to pray like this is a gift of the Holy Spirit.”

“It is out of two things, acceptance and obedience to God,
that we receive the great gift of peace.”

If we persist in this hellbent quest of ours, demanding our own will rather than
seeking out and yielding to His will,
we will be damning not only others but ourselves in the process….

When we went down last month to West Palm Beach for my aunt’s funeral,
As we sorted through my aunt’s belonging determining what should stay
or be tossed, I found a box full of mimi hats.
Funny how these some odd 50 years later, seeing those hats brought a warm smile
to my face and a most warming sensation to my heart.
I was immediately transported to a happier time.

How different that could have all been had I refused so long ago to have ever
worn one of those hats preferring to be self-centered and selfish.

Seeing them all these many years later may have actually brought back some very
difficult memories rather than the happy ones I felt suddenly seeing them again
all these many years later.

I opted to bring two of them home.
I won’t be wearing them, but I’ll be happy knowing that I now have them…
I just think the cats are probably now thinking what I use to think….
that these are really stupid looking hats….

(oooo lala)

Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
Romans 12:2

Threads

“If everyone gives one thread, the poor person will have a shirt”
Russian Proverb

“The soul that is attached to anything however much good there may be in it, will not arrive at the liberty of divine union. For whether it be a strong wire rope or a slender and delicate thread that holds the bird, it matters not, if it really holds it fast; for, until the cord be broken the bird cannot fly.”
St. John of the Cross

(just a few of my friend Charlotte’s tools of her trade / Julie Cook / 2015)

(just a few of my friend

The question we each eventually find ourselves asking,
at some point or other during our lifetime is. . .

“To what and or to whom am I bound?”

What is it that ties us, binds us, secures us to this thing we call life?

Is it family?
Is it work?
Is it that cadre of friends?
Is it the joy of hobbies?
Is it wealth?
Is it the pursuit of wealth?
Is it what we amass. . . our things, our toys, our possessions?
Is it a belief, a faith, a thought, a lifestyle, a life choice. . .?
Perhaps a combination of all of the above. . .?

The threads, those intricate strings, ropes, chains, cords, wires that tie us and bind us to this world, those that help to keep us grounded. . .but at the same time limited and tightly bound. . .
We must wonder. . . do they bind us, tether us just like the dog who is tethered to a chain run in the yard—affording a measured amount of space and length to run about, jump, sit, sleep. . .that is until we reach the end of the line– only to be rudely and abruptly yanked back into place. . .into our safety zone.

Are we tethered to these items and people just like the chained dog living in a limited world?
Do we look at these threads, these ropes, these chains as various life lines which offer security or rather do we need to be tied down and constantly connected, growing more and more tangled up the more we run about?

If we allow ourselves to be tied to this and that, to be bound to all the earthly goods in our lives, clinging to those things and people we allow to consume us, then what room do we allow for God and for what all God wants to be and to give within our lives–the offerings, the compassion, the Grace?
We can never soar upward, freely, toward the Creator if we are as a puppet—full of strings that bind and eventually knotting up and holding us to everything but Him.

The more we amass in this world, the heavier we become with more and more threads—hindered by the things that tie us up ever tighter to the world and to its life sucking needs. We become ensnared and entangled in each thread that leashes us to each and every thing and person–being unable to even lift a hand, reaching outward toward a God who wants so desperately to take our hand.

Maybe it’s time to untie, even cut, a few strings. . .to be willing to let go of a few things that we foolishly have thought to be too important. With our focus being so overtly grounded, we are unable to begin to look up and away to that sacred place where God longs for us to be.

Oddly we may believe that the threads that tie us to even our churches, to even certain relationships, too important to loosen—but we must realize, before we are so terribly knotted and tangled that when the threads are too many and too tight to the church or to anything or anyone other than the Omnipotent God of Creation, not allowing us to tie and tether ourselves to HIm and what He alone has to offer, then we are surely lost as we drown in a sea of colored threads.

God wants His thread to be the only thread we ever need or use.

It’s what St John of the Cross so eloquently surmises in today’s quote—it matters not what we are “tied to. . .for until the cord is broken [cut, severed], the bird cannot [be free] to fly [or soar]

Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord;
We have blessed you from the house of the Lord.
The Lord is God, and He has given us light;
Bind the festival sacrifice with cords to the horns of the altar.
You are my God, and I give thanks to You;
You are my God, I extol You.
Psalm 118:26-27