Incase You're Wondering...

(Optional continuation of "What it means to Me." It is optional because it is only a more thourough -and confusing- plunge into the thoughts behind the concluding sentence of the previous entry. I wrote it and it is now 2.00 in the morning, so I decided to post it just incase you're wondering. And by the way, blogs have a limit; apparently a five-page word document is too long. Who knew?)

Because this can be said in a sentence and also studied for a week (as we have this week), or a lifetime, let me just add a little more to perhaps connect a few (though there are probably many) loose ends.

Each heart has a deep yearning, an unquenchable desire for something that is bigger than what we can find on earth. They call it the Mystery. We call it Jesus. The point is (in my belief) that we are creatures made by and in the image of an Eternal God. Because, for some reason, in immense grace, our Creator has chosen to make us in His image, we yearn for the eternal, a fullness and oneness that is far deeper than what we are able to find on earth. I think it is said perfectly in Ecclesiastes 3:11 (interesting, because it is a book about finding satisfaction in life): "He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end." Wow, this verse is more perfect than I thought! "He has made everything beautiful in its time"... wow. This is the point that is made over and over again in the teachings of the Movement, both on the adult\family vacation and on this youth one: that to be human is to have Desire, and our Desire is for the Mystery of the Divine. Yes, God is the only true fulfillment of our desire, and that has been the point most emphasized to me in my personal experience of Christianity up to this point. The emphasis here, however, seems to be different. The emphesis here is the Desire. Because if to be human is to have desire, then to have desire is to be human, which means to be truly, fully, and utterly alive. Because that is what we are: humans. We are humans with eternity in our hearts, but we are not spirit, like God, and we do not live in heaven; we live on earth in a very physical world where those problems like bills, homework, dissagreements, tasks that must be accomplished, and logistics of situations to be figured out are constantly on our minds, taking up our attention and energy except for those few, precious moments -perhaps on a weekend or a holiday or a lunch break- when for a moment you are able for some reason such as laughter, to think of nothing more than the simple bliss of I am happy. Don't you love that moment? That happiness is not filled with self-doubt, self-hatred, or endless contemplations of worries about the millions of difficulties that may or may not happen. And the rest of the time? The rest of the time your mind may be in a million other places, on all of those frustrating aspects of simply getting by.

It is very difficult to write this because it is very difficult to arrive at a point of understanding something from a different perspective without having seen, met, or experienced the people who see from that perspective. To get to a certain point that I am trying to make, you must understand, as I have come to find, that happiness is equivalent to God, or perhaps, more accurately, to knowing God, since we have (I believe) been created for a relationship with Him. Happiness = Knowing God. What does that sentence mean to you? Because I think our understanding of the word "happiness" is still too different for this to ring true in our hearts. Forgive me: I will say it from my own perspective: My understanding of the word "happiness" was too different, to menial, to unholy, temporary, fleeting, shallow, and unimportant to be equated with something as grand and huge, deep, myterious, and gratifying as knowing God! I believe, however, that the problem is not just that they have a different definition of the word. Because you could say, "Oh, I know what they mean; they mean joy, because happiness doesn't last, but joy lasts even through suffering and hard times." I am not sure if that is the case, though. I am probably getting off the point, because the point does not have to do with the difference between happiness and joy. What I did mean to point out through that, though, is that happiness has seemed far smaller in my mind than something as great as JOY, or many other far more superior-sounding spiritual concepts. But happiness! Happiness to me was this small and meaningless thing that came from a fun joke with friends, a laugh with my family when one of my siblings makes a silly face, a quick smile when the sun hits my face or I see a beautiful thing during the day... just some small things that make me happy. Well, what if happiness were given dignity? What if happiness were to be given such an identity that I could say as did a teacher I spoke with this week: "The desire of my heart is to be happy." What? No, that is far too carnal; that is what "worldly people" think; that is empty and will lead only to dissatisfaction. And yet, what did that girl (Whose name is Angela, by the way), say? She went out with her friends, did whatever they wanted to do because they thought it would make them happy, and didn't feel happy- and so there is a definite difference between doing whatever you want, and having the desire to be happy...that is a WHOLE other subject that I dare not enter into now. The only reason that I even went into all of this questioning for this word is to give you some of the ideas behind saying that to be happy is the desire of my heart. It was important for me to explain that this desire, for me, must be HAPPINESS; it must be someting I considered small. It must be this because then I can truly believe that I can experience God through little things. It is not that my desire is little- not at all! In fact, every day my desire is renewed, and every day my longing for goodness, love, peace, understanding- happiness- is renewed. No, the desire is not small. But the experience of happiness can come through small things. Even great big things, like seeing HUGE mountains, are beautiful because of their small components, such as wildflowers, streams of trickling water, green trees, colored rocks, moving clouds, soaring birds, shining sun... each "little" componant is what brings beauty.

Beauty is a rather noble word, in my oppinion, and in the vocabulary of the Movement, Beauty is also our Desire, also part of the Mystery of the eternal God and true happiness that corresponds to the need of our hearts. One thing I had mentioned earlier was the different focus, on the Desire rather than the satisfaction. It sounds like a bad thing, and I'm only saying this is one aspect of it, but consider this, if you will... I am going back to the idea that to be human is to have Desire, and so to have Desire is to be human, and also to be alive. That same teacher (his name is Seve ("seh-veh")) said to me, "What is sadness? Sadness is man's cry for happiness." The value in this deep desire for happiness is really rather profound, I think. Because, do you remember that whole list of problems that come to your mind during "the rest of the time"? I said, the rest of the time your mind may be in a million other places, on all of those frustrating aspects of simply getting by. In the course of day-to-day life, you may FORGET that the desire of your heart is to be happy! I did not even acknowledge that such a thing could happen! I went into all of those other explanations so that even if you don't fully agree that being happy is the same as knowing God, you might be able to grasp even a little bit of what a terrible loss it is to become apathetic to your desire for happiness (true, heart-coresponding happiness, the happiness that is true Beauty, that is God's Presence in our lives) . To become apathetic to this basic, fundamental, and deep desire is to forget what it is to be human, to forget what it is to live- to forget, even, that we are alive, much less that there is the potential for true happiness all around us! And what is this true happiness? God's Presenece in our lives! That one thing our heart desires the most! In the book that I have been reading of these fundamental ideas of the Movement, there is a sentence that says "Life is a dialogue" (between us and God). Life is a dialogue. I have never heard anything so hopeful, because it is not something in the far-distant future, it is here and now, every day, in all of the "small" things that make up the big picture of life (in all of the small flowers that make up a huge mountain). And also, "Life is not a tragedy; tragedy is what makes everything amount to nothing." If you go through life with your head down in the humbug rush and roar of the never-seising troubles and problems and planning that never amount to ANYTHING- that is tragedy. How to prevent this is to be constantly be aware that you desire more than the nothingness that life sometimes requires. When you are constantly in touch with your desire, then the circumstances which correspond to your desire, whether they be a meal, the face of your friend or family, a bird, a flower, the sun on your skin, a glass of wine, as they said, any of these "small" things- they will be to you more than just "a little thing that makes me happy"- they will be, in fact, an incredible encounter with God Himself. It is not that these things, these events, these people or experiences in themselves are our satisfaction, but it is in the shattering of our apathy towards life and all of its small gifts as they come to us, that we will become open to recognizing God's Presence with us in every aspect of our days, of our lives... and I can think of nothing that could make me happier!

This is my last journal of philosphy for this blog. I mean this quite literally because the time has come for me to spend much less time on the computer. We will leave on Wednesday, I believe, to go to Sardegna, the island to the west of Italy. We will have internet connection there, but spending so much time blogging is not really good. I know that I should really have more self control to just keep it simple, more of a blog of what I am doing, and less of a sharing of ideas. To me, however, this has been an extremely spiritual trip, spiritual experience. I am connected to many of my family and friends in very deep, spiritually-connected ways, and I have felt that to simply tell you: we played many fun games, we dance Irish dances, sung fun songs in English and Italian, I made many friends, it was hard for me to leave my many friends... those would all be true, and all be important, and if I had pictures I would tell you more about those things. But this week for me has been about these ideas, these quotes and stories and ways of living life. I feel like I have learned to be happy in life, in a whole new way than what I have known before. That is a very difficult thing to try to express like this, in words, in a blog, on the internet, and using my friend's computer and my fellowship time with them. I must at least tell you these things, though. I needed to, because that has been the reason for me comming here. Perhaps it seems so similar to what I already knew; perhaps it seems so insignificant to the actual act of living life. But, in fact, it seems more deeply part of the sinue of life, the actual act of living each day with laughter, an awareness of beauty, a perspective of thankfulness in knowing that my destiny as a human being with an eternal desire is being fulfilled right now. Today. In this sunshine. With these friends.

I asked myself at the beginning of this journey: "Yes, I enjoy being here. But is that enough, to simply enjoy?..." My answer then was NO. No, because I have a destiny, and this is my destination, my journey, and there must be a purpose for it. Well, there is a purpose, and the purpose is to enjoy. There is a destiny, and the destiny is to learn how to enjoy. And there certainly is a journey, because God has given me an entire lifetime to experience more and more beauty, through happiness and sadness, that deep cry of the man to be happy. God has given me friends and adventure, family and love, music and laughter. God has given me a lifetime in which to discover more and more the Beauty, the Joy, the Happiness, the Fullness, the Destiny of yearning for His Presence, to know my Creator, and finding Him in the most unnexpected ways- just to think that LIVING LIFE could be a dialogue with the One whose voice I long most despertely to hear!

That is why I have written this. It sounds conceptual, but it is actually what is giving me the strength, direction, and hope to live, in the actual, raw, sometimes heartbreaking reality of the verb.

One last thing. Angela had told Seve something that he then asked her to tell me, while we were all talking. She said slowly, pondering each word, "I am falling in love with reality." I thought of reality in all of its harsh ugliness, and I thought "why\how on earth would you\could you do that?" Then she answered, "Because I am finding that reality is good for me." Again, I was incredulous. Reality is not GOOD for us! Reality hurts us! Reality is full of bad things that happen to good people and impossible situations that leave the heart hopeless and broken and alone. Why on earth would she say such a thing? That is the question. The book I have been reading about the Movement ideas starts by addressing exactly that.

"The circumstances through which God has us pass are an essential and not a secondary factor of our vocation, of the mission to which He calls us. If Christianity is the announcement of the fact that the Mystery (God, eternal, true beauty and happiness) has become flesh in a man (Jesus Christ), the circumstances in which one takes a position about this in front of the whole world is important for the very definition of witness...For us, then, circumstances are not neutral. they are not things that happen without any meaning; that is, they are not just things to put up with, to suffer stoically... For us, these circumstances have all the weight of a call, and thus are part of the dialogue of each one of us with the Mystery present." The Mystert present- God with us- Emmanuel. Not only does this enable us to truly, finally, learn to trust God's plan in our circumstances (for it is not just that He has a PLAN- but He is SPEAKING to us, NOW!), but also to accept who we are as we respond to them in faith. I won't go into a whole other topic, I just want to say againt the encouraging words of Seve to me, after he told me his definition of sadness, and that he is actually glad for the times he feels sadness because it reminds him of his desire to be happy, and in his desire, he remembers to live alive. He said, "So you do not need to delete (cancelare: erase) anything about yourself. Usually sadness is an ugly thing that we try to push away from ourselves, have nothing to do with, cover up. But sadness it not ugly; it reminds us of our desire (for Beauty). This means that nothing you feel needs to be deleted- it is all important (even sadness)." Beautiful. You see? That, to me, was beautiful. The encounters I have had this week with people, ideas, and nature, have not been some cool things that happened that made me happy- they were encounters with God over and over again through everything I did, so that finding God was finding happiness, and I was really, truly happy.

So I had a wonderful week! :D

I will probably now have a wonderful vacation and probably miss you all very much and be thinking of you every day and hopefully be taking lots of pictures if my bag with the charger is found! ;D But in the meantime, I know that losing it, and everything else that happens to me, is a chance for an encounter with God. I am never alone, and I am finding such deep comfort in that, for what else do I have to cling to? We cannot control reality. But when every experience in reality is a chance to encounter the God of our Desire, then reality, even in its uncontrolled, frightening unpredictability, really is good for us, because we have a place in the reality of this moment for a reason: for an encounter, for a dialogue

My God, please speak to each of us as we go through our days. Please help us to be open to seeing You in every situation and detail that we face, and to always be aware of our desire to know You. You are the desire of our hearts because You created us that way, and I thank you so much that You truly are our satisfaction. Please satisfy us now, wherever we are, and bring peace to our hearts in whatever sadness, restlessness, or lonelyness of feeling lost we may be feeling- You are always with us; we are never alone. Please lead our paths, our days, our years, our lives. Let our lives be dialogues with You- we want to hear Your voice, we want to know You, we want true and lasting happiness from the goodness, the eternity that you have placed in our hearts. Lord, please drive out tragedy from our lives, all of the habits of our minds of thinking that our lives or anything in them is insignificant. In Your grace you have given us such worth in You; our joy, our suffering, our faith, sorrow, love, and longing are not all amounting to nothing, because You have lead us to these things for a reason. Thank You for leading me here, and thank You for leading each and every one of us. Please be with us in these following days and weeks. Help us to seek You and help us to rest in the peace of Your Presence as You reveal Yourself to us through all of these different experiences in our lives, both big and little. I thank You so much that there truly is the Beauty, Goodness, Happiness that I long for, and I thank You so much for sharing it with us. Let that be a flower of hope to us as You teach us perseverance on the mountains of trials we face each day. Thank You for loving us, and thank You that we are never, ever alone, no matter what we face or where we go. I love you, Jesus. Amen