On days like today I realize how keen God’s eye is for details. While we let a moment pass, and often allow those moments to pile up behind us classified as an ‘ueventful day’, God was probably working overtime in your fleeting thoughts, the brief inner swell of a hope for more, and in the void that tastes vaguely of homesickness or longing for something more but you just…can’t…put…your…finger…on…it….and it’s gone.
Today I was pondering my yesterday. It was in all terms an ‘uneventful day’. BUT there was something nagging me about a feeling that haunted the corners of each ‘moment’ that passed. In conversation with a friend today we were talking about the ‘Beneath the Layers’ blog and we started talking about the particular ‘layer’ we each were working on, and the fact that whatever our particular ‘underlying fear’ was…it most likely stemmed from something that happened in our childhood. Deeper and deeper we got into the conversation and at times agreed, “How frustrating to think we are just FINE but some brief moment, one word, or look, or experience that happened when we were five, six, seven years old could affect us at nearly 40!” We laughed and agreed, “Can’t we just keep ignoring it all? I’m sure people die without ‘digging through the layers’.” 🙂
However, in the seriousness of our conversation, I focused on the one layer I’m working on right now… the fact that what gives me the most joy in my gifts and talents is also the very vice that brings about a monstrosity of insecurity (that if not peeled back and discarded could eventually keep me from succeeding in the way God has planned). I left our conversation realizing this was what was ‘haunting’ the corners of my thoughts yesterday…and I do believe because I was allowing those ‘moments’ to fly by without proper pondering God needed to give me a ‘push’ forward.
God tried to give me that push BEFORE yesterday when this weekend I found an old note from my beloved spiritual advisor Msgr. Elmer who recently passed away. The following was written on a 5 page report: “Dear Shannon, I thought about you when I read Bishop Flores’ talk he gave to the National Catechetical Society. I have underlined the part I think is meant for you. di Cuore, CWE”
He gave this to me about about 3 years ago. The underlined part reads: “To elaborate further how we can better expose these themes requires attention of us all, but most especially those charged with spreading, handing on, explicating and defending the Faith. Good literature is part of our heritage, and it can be very effective in helping us focus upon what kinds of issues are prominently at play in our time.”
There was another section highlighted but the one above reached from the page and grabbed my heart (along with seeing Msgr. Elmer’s writing). When I found it I could only weep again for the loss of such solid spiritual guidance…and he believed in me. So I put the moment aside.
Until today…it all came together. At least in my personal case. After I left my friend I went to pick up my kids and sitting in car line I opened up the little red book again, “My Daily Life” and read the very next passage that followed what I blogged about yesterday. It reads:
“Your present emotional tendencies developed through the needs, fears and dislikes of early life. They become habits whether conscious or unconscious. In varying degrees they still influence your present feelings, thoughts, preferences and prejudices. In your present effort to improve yourself, you cannot begin as though your past never existed. You must adopt your new goals with the realization that old habits will continue to interfere for some time to come.”
I got it. I didn’t let the moment pass. I called my friend and read her what God wanted us both to hear. Msgr. Elmer is still guiding me :). I will not let him down.
Blessings
Shannon