I Am New

This is kind of a goofy analogy, but sometimes I feel like my spiritual life could best be described as a slinky. The center has always been the same, as I was lucky enough to have been raised in a faith filled home. My conversions have been slow and gradual, circling round and slowly ever deepening. But like a slinky, to get to the next ring, you must first spiral down before coming back up. So has been my spiritual life, where I sometimes have felt as though I was not going the right way, or rather not going anywhere at all, but always at that lowest point or time of difficult, circling around, suddenly I feel myself drawn deeper and closer to the slinky holders hand. :)

The most clearly I have "heard" the Holy Spirit actually speaking to me was when I heard him telling me that Robbie and I were being called accept a new child (Sammy), despite financial strain. It was a profound experience for me. Since that time, I've felt something changing in me, as if allowing God's will to into our life in such a vulnerable way was somehow also MY conception as a new person. Since then, I have cut loose old bonds and forged new ones. Robbie and I were also invited to participate in training to lead a faith sharing group. As we gathered in the upstairs of the parish office with other kindred spirits, I felt like the disciples in the upper room. It changed my feelings of discouragement and sterility in our parish life, to feelings of hope and optimism, as I realized how many others were right there around us who were also seeking spiritual renewal. The process gave us the opportunity to "be the change" and see the change we needed to see instead of worrying about whether we were in the right place. And through the process, my husband became the spiritual leader for our family that I had always dreamed and knew he could be. This changed everything, it changed him, me, and our marriage. I myself was massively pregnant with Leo at the time, and massively pregnant with the new self God had been growing me into. All sorts of graces had been dropping slowly so that now my cup was now on the verge of running over.

This Lent has been a good Lent for me. Good meaning fruitful. I don't know how else to describe it other than that I feel like I have fresh eyes. Things that I had heard or read or knew in the past, although I THOUGHT I was seeing clearly, are now so much more clear and real and vivid. . I feel like how Barbara must have felt after she got glasses. She was giddy on the way home, playing "I spy" and rejoicing over things we had been driving past every day that she could now see clearly. I wonder how I could have felt I had a good, deep spiritual life before, and now it is just even better. Why did I not realize? And how did I get to this point? I can see now that only by the opening of myself and those acts of vulnerability, relinquishing my own sense of control, was the Holy Spirit able to enter and do his work.

I know I am still a newborn, and I will probably be a newborn many more times in my life. Today I am just being still in the realization of what Christ did for me on the cross and deeply grateful for this chance at new life in Him.

Wishing a blessed, fruitful Triduum to anyone who happens by and a Happy, Happy Easter!!


And another song: