Wednesday, July 4, 2012

A Couple of Things

St. Teresa of Avila on Janet Cupo


Presumably we also gave up all thought of our own importance when we began to lead a spiritual life and to pursue perfection. Yet the moment our self-importance is wounded we forget that we have given ouselves to God. We want to snatch it up and tear it out of His very hands, as they say, even after we have, to all appearances, made Him lord over our will.

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You see, the gift our lord intends for us may be by far the best, but if it is not what we wanted we are quite capable of flinging it back in his face.

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The Fourth of July

It's sort of a bittersweet day. I find myself longing for the 50s and John Philip Sousa. Or maybe I just want to be eight years old and not really know what's going on.

AMDG

8 comments:

  1. The Fairhope Pops Orchestra (I think that's the right name--basically a wind ensemble) always plays a concert by the bay as night falls, right before the fireworks from the end of the pier start. It's worthy of the feeling you're talking about. Unfortunately it does not change the surrounding reality.

    I think God could help us out with that gift business by including some kind of message that says who it's from.:-) "I'm sending you this trial. Use it wisely and good things will result. Yours, Dad." Sometimes one feels that things are from the other guy. Though I know ultimately it's all from God.

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  2. That sounds so lovely. They have a great fireworks from Mud Island on the Mississippi, and there's tons of people sitting on the bluff. The problem is that you have to get there early and the people next to you might be exceedingly drunk and there are people who think it's fun to throw firecrackers into the crowd. One year, we went out on the river in my Dad's houseboat to watch. It was really great. Ideal.

    Your second paragraph reminds of those jokes where the wife complains that the husband never tells her that he loves her and he says that he told her when they got married and he'll let her know if anything changes.

    AMDG

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  3. We have nice small-town fireworks here. Alas, it is thunderstorming right now, but maybe it'll be over by the time the parade's supposed to start at 8. I was wanting to see all the volunteer fire departments from three counties all on the same Main Street . . . that alone is worth the price of admission, which is free.

    And I love St. Teresa's first sentence: "PRESUMABLY we gave up all thought of self-importance . . . " She has my number, as I'm sitting here feeling sulky because the big dudes are off at Scout camp, the big girl has gone out with friends for the evening, and it's now raining on whatever was left of our party here . . . which I seem to be flinging right back in his face, aren't I.

    These 30-day trials -- the chief trouble of my life is that I don't want to get sucked into the lifetime club membership with monthly dues. So I say no before they even get done inviting me.

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  4. We had a very nice day with all our children and their spouses and children. They came in shifts. First shift came about 9:30, last shift just left at about 6:45. I stayed in the ppol so long that I've probably developed gills.

    One of my sons-in-law is taking my three grandsons (6,4,2) to go see fireworks. We can usually see a few from here, and I think that will do.

    AMDG

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  5. After being so gloomy earlier, I have to say that we wound up having a fun evening. Dinner was kind of scattered, and I was stressed out because I thought I'd left my debit card at the ice cream store last night (and if it wasn't there, then I didn't know where it was). But I found the debit card, and the two kids at home (B & R) and I went over to the high school where they were doing the fireworks show at the football field. It was pure unadulterated small-town stuff -- I saw lots of my Hispanic 1st Communion kids in the crowd, which was kind of moving -- and for some reason the whole thing made me probably as nostalgic for the 1980s (why? why?) as you were for the 50s. Maybe it was all the John Cougar Mellencamp music they were playing. Ada was there with the family of some good friends, and one of their daughters came and sat with Ray, so that was fun.

    Interesting crowd-watching. I saw a woman with a dollar sign tattooed on her breast.

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  6. Talk about the wrong message...

    We ended up not seeing the fireworks, because we ate dinner late. I sort of missed it.

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  7. Maclin, I should have explained that better, but I was in a hurry. What I mean is that God tells us all these things: that He will never leave us or forsake us, that all things work together for our good, that we have to pick up our cross and follow Him, etc., etc., etc., and then because I haven't had some sort of personal reassurance lately, I act like I think maybe He's changed His mind.

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  8. Yes, I took it that way. When I first read this comment (the just-previous one) I was a little confused because I wasn't sure what misimpression you were trying to correct. And I was at work, therefore extremely distracted, so I just let it go. But now I'm wondering: did you take my remark about the wrong message as a response to the joke? That was actually a response to the last line of Sally's post, about the woman with a dollar sign tatooed on her breast. That's what I thought was the wrong, I mean *really* wrong, message.

    But back to the joke: I do sometimes feel, like the wife in that story, that some further reassurance wouldn't be too much to ask. But of course we do get them from time to time. We're sort of insatiable on that score, I guess. Though since we also get a steady stream of reasons to wonder if he's really in charge, maybe we have some excuse.

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