Thy lovely saints do bring Thee love...

....Incense and joy and gold;
Fair star with star, fair dove with dove,
Have brought Thee sins and tears;
Yet I too bring a little love
Amid my flaws and fears.
A trembling love that faints and fails
Yet still is love of Thee,
A wondering love that hopes and hails
Thy boundless Love of me;
Love kindling faith and pure desire,
Love following on to bliss,
A spark, O Jesu, from Thy fire,
A drop from Thine abyss. - C.R.

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What does one do with the things in life which God gives you? As human beings, when someone gives us a gift it often seems to be the tendency to take it, own it, and do with it as we please. But when it comes to gifts from God, that is a different matter. He gives them to us not to possess but to nurture and make abundant... so that we may give it back to Him for His glory and honor. Just like in the parable of the talents where the man entrusts his servants with his property, when God blesses us (and these blessings come in many forms, but they are always things we do not deserve. They are the things which God gives to us to show His overflowing love for us. Even though He could have stopped giving us things we didn't deserve at the resurrection, we see Him still thinking of us, in His sending the Holy Spirit, and in His involvement in our lives in ways we could never have hoped or expected). He gives to us so that we may be like Him in His desire to make abundant what is good and beautiful, so that we may imitate Him in His fecundity by cultivating and caring for these things. Yet if we try to possess it, which is not ours in the first place to possess, and if we do not do what we have been commissioned by Him to do, we become like the servant who did not invest the talents given to him, and will be left to admit to our Master: "I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you scattered no seed, so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground" (Matthew 25:24-25). This fear to invest in the masters money is self-focused. It is a fear of losing that thing which He has given to us without realizing that it is not about us at all. Yet we do not want to lose it; we do not want to give it up. There is a risk involved, to be sure, but do we not have faith that God in His wisdom chose us to care for it and that He knows what He is doing? If we do not take the risk it will not even be given the chance to grow.
We have to take the risk, even if we doubt that we are capable of managing it well. After all, if God chose to give it to us then we do not need to fear at our own limitations and inabilities. Perhaps the responsibility is overwhelming, but it does not have to be. And if we can learn to trust and love God; if we can recognize that He is the Master who reaps where He has not sowed and gathered where He scattered no seed, then what He has set before us will be given the chance to flourish and abound, and become all that He intended it to be, and indeed, all that we hoped it would be.

It is then that we will have gained all that we did not want to lose, and it is then that our Master will turn to us and say "Well done, good and faithful servant" (Matthew 25:21).

Of ... so many things

For the past few hours I have been sitting in my dorm room trying to edit my term paper before I send it off to be graded by the writing director. But my mind keeps wandering. For the past few weeks many things have been disturbing my otherwise calm spirit. Community has an amazing way of drawing vices out of hiding. Not that I regret that my flaws and imperfections and vices have been revealed: for those people in my life--my mentor and my closest friends--who are most aware of the things on my mind, are then able to help me, guide me, in finding the answers. Nevertheless, I feel an ache at the very thought of my flaws and faults, and would much sooner force my issues back into hiding than bring them into the light so that they may be scrutinized by my peers. It hurts to acknowledge and accept that I am not the person I wish I was. I have a lot of growing to do. Even though the pursuit of goodness never really ends in this life (Who can say they have acquired all the goodness that can be acquired?) I do feel this never ending self-imposed pressure to be better than I am, and I think that its enough pressure to actually prevent me from doing so. Why do I do this to myself? Is it pride? It's so easy to say, yep, its pride... the greatest human vice. And while, in one sense, I would like to say "No, my psyche is much more complex than that" I am afraid that if I were to be the honest person that I want to be then I must admit, this pressure is only the result of my not wanting to wait for God to sanctify and perfect me according to His will. Could I even say... gee I hate saying this... Have I been trying to sanctify myself? Is it all a matter of what other people think? Of what I think of myself? Ugh... how could I be so far off the mark... even this realization makes me sick.

O Lord, forgive me!