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Obscure Reflections in a Mirror brings you three mini-devotions and twenty-seven lightning flashes of Biblical illumination in rapid succession kindling God's.
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Yet, we also do know that scripture is replete with examples of people who were nobodies and lived rather hidden and even obscure lives, and it was precisely because their lives were lived this way, that God was able to use them for the unfolding of his kingdom. And what about the way that the encounter of two unseen and gestating babies lying silent and hidden from plain view in the wombs of Mary and Elizabeth were able to communicate their joy before they could even see the light of day, making that significant moment of encounter so powerful that it made it into the written word of Scripture and one of the mysteries of the Holy Rosary?
Perhaps we need to ponder anew the hidden power of obscurity whenever we feel the need to promote ourselves and to satisfy the false self. This simple statement speaks volumes about how the young or even the not-so-young mind tries so hard to not stay home on Saturday nights because doing so seems to conjure up images of being unpopular, uninvited, and thus, unliked and alone.
Hopefully, this is something that speaks to my fellow brothers and sisters who are infirm and find themselves surrounded quite often not by crowds of gaiety and cacophony, but perhaps more often by the silence of hospital wards and constantly beeping medicine pumps and the discomfiting breathing sounds of their fellow room mates. Monday, November 17, Allowing healing to begin when illness and brokenness are embraced. No one realistically wants to be ill. The body naturally wants to be whole and healthy, yet it is almost a universal truth that this body that we have breaks down and is in a constant fight within against free radicals which do battle against the healthy cells of the body.
Complications arise when our own immune systems get weakened and the free radicals grow in an abnormal and destructive way.
Saundra L. Washington D.D.
It is easy to take for granted the victories that our own bodies win over these often unseen and unfelt battles. It is often only when something goes awry in this battle that these free radicals become highly reactive, giving them the potential to cause damage leading to things like cancers.
When things have reached this stage, one begins the onset of actually dealing with the issue of cancer and illness and a body that is broken in some way.
On the medical side of things, the doctors have all sorts of armory to deal with these issues and to stem the illness. But it is on the spiritual side that there is also a silent but necessary struggle with how one should face this ongoing tussle between life as we have known it all along, and what life is going to become, now that one has an illness to live with and a brokenness that is clearly on the horizon of life.
I have come to see in a rather painful way literal and allegorical that denial comes in different forms. Denial has in fact many facets and faces, and in my very slow process of recovery, which is a real test for someone who has a predilection for busying oneself with work and a dedicated sense of purpose in life, I have come to see that denial can in fact be a resistance to facing the fact that life is going to be very different.
I have tried hard to want to bounce back and to condition my body to its former physical level of fitness and stamina, but it does seem that it is really going to be an uphill task. I might never even get to where I once was, when I was at my peak. I am often torn between accepting the permanent changes, and striving to achieve what so many people who have survived cancer purport as a returning to normal life.
The pain of cancer is not just something that is experienced in a physical way. Some cancers are rather pain-free. But in truth, there is another pain dimension that we have to deal with, and that is the pain of the realization that things would change in the future. That kind of pain is something that only the divine doctor can help us deal with. Cancer patients like myself may want to come back to life as we have known it with a vigour and vengeance, but perhaps what we also need to know and accept is that embracing the illness is when another kind of healing is allowed to take place — a healing that is beyond the physical.
The Christian response to illness and suffering has this dimension that easily escapes many of us faced with illness and suffering. But the real Christian response of one who is a disciple of Christ is found when we look at how Christ embraced the Cross in that salvific act of redemption and salvation as an indication of where and how real healing can actually come about.
The mystery of suffering has to include then the struggle between acknowledging our incapacity to make things happen ourselves, and the handing over of our suffering or even our deaths to the power of God. This creates a tension that often stymies us at our roots. For Christ, it was a struggle that lasted about six hours. Ours is one which is often much more prolonged. When we learn to slowly embrace this mystery, I believe something happens to us within. We begin to embrace also the fact that we are not as whole and well as we should be, and where we are is how God speaks to us loudest.
I will always remember what Catholic priest and poet Daniel Berrigan once said when asked where spirituality lies, and whether it dwells in the head or in the heart. His reply is classic in so many ways. This meant that God speaks to us loudest where our ass is at — where we find ourselves seated in in life, be it in a state of flux, a state of contentment or even in a state of anger, denial or suffering in whatever form it may take.
That Jesus did not ask that things be immediately made better on that Cross teaches us something about the power of humility and docility in the face of human suffering. Even as I write this, I am clearly aware that what I am writing about is entering into the area of mystery, and that words can be more of a stumbling block than the conveying of an inner truth.
Yet, it is my hope that there is someone who is suffering with faith, and finding it a constant struggle that this truth, mystical as it is, does have a redemptive value. It is until and unless we have dared to embrace our sufferings, our illnesses and our brokenness that these become our doorways to holiness that leads to a redemption and salvation. It is not that our sufferings and pains become lessened. We just receive, sometimes even if just momentarily, that connection with the divine. This is why prayer is so important, especially when we face the unexplainable sufferings that we go through in life.
I almost put this book down quite a few times. The author reveals to us her painful struggles with her divorce and her faith. She brings us through her OCD and intense introspection and I wasn't sure I wanted to continue to go through it with her. But this book got better as she got better. By the end I was saying over and over again to myself how profound some of her writing was - how beautifully she explained some things. In one chapter she talks about how she can't always say It gets better In one chapter she talks about how she can't always say some things out loud because she's afraid she doesn't really mean them with her whole heart, but when she sings them in church - she means them at that moment.
I have said that to myself so many times.
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Here are some of my favorite quotes: "There was a season when, for me, Jesus was no more and no less than the reason I had to stay in a marriage I didn't want to be in. When Jesus was nothing but Rule. I am now beginning to recollect that Jesus is Rule, but that he is also many other things: mother, bread of life, author of my salvation, the bright morning star. We are now getting reacquainted. Her father said to her, "What you promise when you are confirmed What you promise when you are confirmed is that that is the story you will wrestle with forever. By contrast, a saint can fail in a way that the hero can't, because the failure of the saint reveals the forgiveness and the new possibilities made in God, and the saint is just a small character in a story that's always fundamentally about God.
I am, however, beginning to learn that I am a small character in a story that is always fundamentally about God. May 28, Meghan Davis strader rated it really liked it. However, throughout the book I was finding it harder and harder to relate to her. My walk with God is also not nearly so neurotic. I am not called to ritualism in order to feel closeness to my Maker.
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I can, however appreciate that she was sharing how she meshed with what she felt her call was: Making time for various rituals to fulfill her walk and re-create the conversion feelings. My favorite quote of the whole book was: Loving God, it turns out, is hard precisely because it does not promise the reassuring logic of accomplishment and failure. Feb 05, Ellen Dollar rated it it was amazing.
I read this in one afternoon. While my life is very different than Winner's I am older, married, have kids, do not have a Ph. In the middle, you feel alone, a little bored, confused about which direction to go, even unsure you're capable of going in any direction. This is beautifully I read this in one afternoon. This is beautifully written, and she manages to write about her divorce in a very discreet way that doesn't reveal too much about the marriage itself or lay blame at anyone's feet but her own.
Yet she still conveys the raw grief of her sense that she failed at marriage.
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Apr 04, Kaylea rated it it was amazing Shelves: see-blog-for-more-info. I became acquainted with Lauren F. Winner a few years ago when I found her spiritual memoir, Girl Meets God. That book recounts her faith journey which includes being raised Jewish, a conversion to Orthodox Judaism her mom wasn't Jewish, and the faith is passed through the mother , and then later, her conversion to Christianity.
Winner's authentic, honest and blunt writing style, along with her faith journey captured my attention. So when her newest release, Still: Notes on a Mid-Faith Crisis, came across my path earlier this spring, I jumped at a chance to read it. This memoir opens in the "middle" of Winner's spiritual life.
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Her marriage has failed, her mother has died, and life isn't quite what she anticipated. But instead of turning away from her faith, Winner found herself turning back to church and to God.
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Part of the book follows the church calendar, so Winner's essays use seasons like epiphany and lent to provide a unique rhythm to her writing. In one, Winner jokes about what she would give up during Lent. A friend suggests she give up anxiety.