A Heritage of Prayer

Lately, I've been so thankful for the example that my mom sets in prayer. Her prayers are such a huge part of what makes our family what it is. Nearly every morning I see her sitting down with her Bible & prayer book, often simultaneously trying to keep track of the baby or help get breakfast for the little boys. I know it's not easy for her, but she makes the commitment to do it, despite the distractions. When I think about all of the responsibilities in my life, I wonder how I can justify omitting morning prayers so often when Mom does it with far more tasks at hand.

My paternal grandmother is a prayer warrior, too. I remember several times staying at their house & waking up very early (before six), not being able to go back to sleep. I would creep down to the steps and look through the rails to see Grandma sitting on the couch with her Bible and her prayer book. I know that she regularly prays for each one of her 19 grandchildren individually. She sends out waves of grace to us, though we probably won't fully know how much they've affected us until we're in Paradise.

I never met my great-grandmother, Edna Case, but her presence still influences my life. I'm sure it was partly from her that my Grandma got her early-rising prayer habits. She seemed like such a disciplined, intelligent, devout Christian woman. I've only seen her face in pictures, but I have seen her legacy in my grandmother and great uncle & aunt. All 11 of her grandchildren are still walking with the Lord and raising the 43 great-grandchildren in His ways.

Right now I want to be developing the discipline of rising early and devoting time to God in prayer. I have to admit that I've done pretty poorly in the last year, but it's a habit I know is worth working for. I ALWAYS benefit from getting my mind and heart straight first thing in the morning. It helps me stay prayerful, focused, and more industrious throughout the whole day. Sharing communion with God puts a sweet taste on my heart that lasts for hours.

Holy, holy, holy
Lord God Almighty
Early in the morning
Our song shall rise to thee.

I want to give that heritage to my sons and daughters someday (if that is God's will for me). I want them to have great relationships with each other like I have with my own siblings. I want them to be good friends with their cousins, to appreciate the godly family legacy that they have and be nourished in their own prayer life by the holy examples of their parents, grandparents, & great-grandparents.

The Advantages of Skirts

They are feminine.

What better way is there to say, "I like being a lady"?

They are unique to females.

There are only two types of men in our society who can wear robes - judges & priests. Pretty significant, don't you think? Women can wear them every day; why not take advantage of it?

They are pretty.

Most feminine things are :)

They have variety.

Wearing jeans every day is so boring. Skirts & dresses come in every shape and color.

They are comfortable.

They have such a lovely, free, open feeling! Plus, many of them are much softer than pants. [Miniskirts & those with the slits up to the thighs aren't so comfy.]

They are easy to shop for.

Pants have to fit in 100 places whereas skirts really only have to fit in the waist. Plus, they're generally cheaper if you shop in the right places.

They are flattering.

People don't have to see those 100 places. A dress will just flow right over them.

They are old-fashioned.

The vast majority of women over the vast majority of history always wore dresses and I like feeling a connection to the women who came before me when I dress like them.

They are classy.

I always feel so much nicer & more ladylike when I'm in a skirt. I'm also generally more productive when I take the time to dress nicely in the morning. Staying in my jogging clothes or sweatpants makes me feel lazy.

They are fun to spin in.

It's true :D

They are romantic.

Okay, I have a way to kill the balcony scene in Romeo & Juliet. Put Juliet in breeches.

They add mystique.

An alluring aura of mystery hangs about a girl who doesn't bare all.

They catch the wind.

They catch the eye.

A miniskirt or painted on jeans might catch the eye in one way, but a lady dressed with dignity catches it in quite another.

You can wear awesome leggings with them.

Okay, maybe that's just a personal quirk, but it is a fun trend to wear (especially now in the fall & winter)!

They are elegant

They have this cool flowy thing going on.

But perhaps the greatest reason why I love dressing this way is because of the beautiful, holy lady that I have in my mind as a model for Christ-filled women (literally):

Significant Books, Part IV (The Everlasting Man)

"On the Man Called Christ."

The paradoxical, yet universal nature of Christ is both mystifying and so fulfilling.

"It revolutionised their very vision of revolution; and turned their very topsy-turvydom topsy-turvy."

Why is Christ is any different from other men? Why Christianity is different from any other "religions?" The reason is that myth and truth are united in that person of Christ.

"...in reality the rivers of mythology and philosophy run parallel and do not mingle till they meet in the sea of Christendom...there has never before been any such union of the priests and the philosophers."

Men wrote myths because they longed for the story in which God touches man. Never did they dream that God would actually become man, and make Himself so man could touch Him.

"It met the mythological search for romance by being a story and the philosophical search for truth by being a true story."

The polytheism of the Greeks & Romans was a search to fulfill the imaginative side of man, but it could do little for the realistic side. The principles & proverbs of the ancient Orientals sought to fulfill the philosophical man, but couldn't satisfy his wild imaginings.

"The philosophy of the church is universal...Had Plato and Pythagoras and Aristotle stood for an instant in the light that came out of that little cave [the stable], they would have known that their own light was not universal. It is far from certain, indeed, that they did not know it already. Philosophy also, like mythology, had very much the air of a search...For it is the paradox of that group in the cave, that while our emotions about it are of childish simplicity, our thoughts about it can branch with a never-ending complexity. And we can never reach the end even of our own ideas about the child who was a father and the mother who was a child."

Significant Books, Part III (The Everlasting Man)

As I was going through my list of "significant books," I decided to post about The Everlasting Man by G.K. Chesterton next. Ha! That was a month ago. In preparation for the intended entry, I decided to browse through the book again to refresh my memory. That turned into a full-blown re-reading along with copying passages & taking notes. Whoops.

The book has a pretty wide spectrum of topics, but it all comes back to a central point. Anthropology, history, art, religion, mythology, tradition - it all points to Christ. And no person seems to be able to convey this with as much common sense, humor & wit than Chesterton.

Humans seem to have some trace of supernatural in them. At the very least, the supernatural has always had a mesmeric hold over us. We seem always to point to the sky. Humans are strange, unprecedented creatures. As Chesterton puts it:

"There may be a broken trail of stones and bones faintly suggesting the development of the human body. There is nothing even faintly suggesting the human mind." -Chapter I (The Man in the Cave)

Somehow, we're so like animals, yet so unlike them. How did we come to be so different? Was it millions of years of evolution? Chesterton drily suggests that no matter how long a cow grazes on the hillside, it will never build its own cow-shed; no matter how long a sheep is in a pasture, it will never develop ancestor-worshiping practices. The phenomenon is not justified or explained any more by a million years than it is by a day. The fact still remains that it is an incomprehensible phenomenon. And where did our unnatural tendencies come if not from an unnatural (or supernatural) being?

"The simplest truth about man is that he is a very strange being; almost in the sense of being a stranger on the earth. In all sobriety, he has much more of the external appearance of one bringing alien habits from another land than of a mere growth of this one. He has an unfair advantage and an unfair disadvantage. He cannot sleep in his own skin; he cannot trust his own instincts. He is at once a creator moving miraculous hands and fingers and a kind of cripple. He is wrapped in artificial bandages called clothes; he is propped up on artificial crutches called furniture. His mind has the same doubtful liberties and the same wild limitations. Alone among the animals, he is shaken with the beautiful madness called laughter...It is not natural to see man as a natural product."

Oh, I shouldn't start quoting or I won't be able to stop! I might as well just tell you to drop what you're doing and read The Everlasting Man right this moment. Seriously, just read the first chapter - The Man in the Cave. It contains enough profound wisdom to fill 50 books. I would be content to simply read it over and over again. Even the short paragraph of the metaphor of man and mirror overstimulates my brain with amazement.

And yet that's only the beginning of the first half of the book - "On the Creature Called Man." The second half is "On the Man Called Christ."

It looks like this is going to be more than one entry...

...I can't resist just one more quote!

"Behind all these things is the fact that beauty and terror are very real things and related to a real spiritual world; and to touch them at all, even in doubt or fancy, is to stir the deep things of the soul."

Say Your Prayers

Here's a song that's been on my mind lately. I bought it on iTunes a while ago because I liked the band & the song sounded catchy, but recently I started listening to the lyrics and they have a challenging message.

Look at you now, just standing there like you think you’re something. The lights are up and the crowd is looking your way.
Waiting for what you have to say.
Go ahead boy give them a little taste of hypocrisy, maybe a hint of blasphemy.
Whatever you’re preaching it isn’t me.

You wanna walk with me, do ya?
You wanna walk with me.
If you love me then just love me, don’t you give me pretty words.
Lay your life down at the altar.
Let me see how serious you are.

These people don’t look to me no more they’ve got their idols in various forms.
With lust in their eyes they crave for more.
Take their place with the corporate carnivores.
Oh, keep your focus for the day will come when everyone will give account for what they’ve done; make me proud.
Make me proud my son.

Look at this broken world; look at my children.
Get ready go; sing to me the right song.
Look up say your prayers on the steps of the capitol.
Look up say your prayers, on your knees.
Look up say your prayers.
Look up say your prayers.
You wanted it to be like you always thought it would but all you seem to accomplish is the
opposite.

A lot of times in my walk with God, I find myself praying in the mornings & evenings, but living for my own selfish pleasures during the rest of the day. I guess sometimes I feel like my "pretty words" will satisfy God's call for my life, but they won't.

My life is supposed to be a prayer & an offering to God. Repeating "Lord, Lord" isn't going to cut it (Matt 7:22-23). I need to lay myself down on the altar for Him, just like Christ did (Eph 5:2).

Real love isn't selfish. Real love is willing to make sacrifices. If someone is apathetic in a relationship, they hurt the other person like crazy. Well, God's a person and He loves us more than any other person we could ever know. There's no way to imagine how much we hurt Him when we're lukewarm.

Say your prayers. Pray for all your fellow Christians who've fallen into tepidity and those who still haven't found Christ. But don't just pray with words, pray with everything you do.

Significant Books, Part II

After the Scriptures, the book that's had the most influence on my spiritual life has been Divine Mercy in My Soul: The Diary of St. Maria Faustina Kowalska. It was one of those long-term readers that took me half a year to get through, but it was almost a daily devotional companion last year.

The writings of the saints & mystics really are phenomenal. Until I started dipping my toes into them a couple years go, I couldn't have imagined the intensity of a passionate relationship with God. Faustina was in a constant state of union with Christ; it seems like she was always aware of His presence, always talking with Him, thinking of Him, working for Him, loving Him. She was conscious of His holiness and so she was always contrite & willing to do anything for Him.

The prayers in this book are so simple, deep, & beautiful. I was convicted in the deepest parts of my heart because I recognized that that's where all of our souls are created to be - in humility, openness, and love toward God.

Everlasting love, pure flame, burn in my heart ceaselessly and deify my whole being, according to Your infinite pleasure by which You summoned me into existence and called me to take part in Your everlasting happiness. O merciful Lord, it is only out of mercy that You have lavished these gifts upon me. Seeing all these free gifts within me, with deep humility I worship Your incomprehensible goodness. Lord, my heart is filled with amazement that You, absolute Lord, in need of no one, would nevertheless stoop so low out of pure love for us. I can never help being amazed that the Lord would have such an intimate relationship with His creatures. That again is His unfathomable goodness. Every time I begin this meditation, I never finish it, because my spirit becomes entirely drowned in Him. What a delight it is to love with all the force of one's soul and to be loved even more in return, to feel and experience this with the full consciousness of one's being. There are no words to express this. (1523)

St. Faustina had visions of the intense sufferings of Christ because of our rebellion and especially our apathy. Not a page out of the 644 failed to move me to deeper repentance and love for God. Reading this diary, I was amazed at the infinity of spirituality. It's so deep that there's literally no bottom. This book absolutely blew me away! God has used this woman to bring thousands of souls to Him, and I only hope I can become 1/100th of the saint that she is.

Experiences I Never Want to Forget

I feel as fortunate as a queen to have been able to see some of the most phenomenal landscapes in the States on a western family trip these past 2 weeks!

Walking through the Badlands was almost like walking on the moon.

The formations in Jewel Cave were just as unearthly.

And I'd never dreamed of anything like the Needles of the Black Hills!

There's no way that I could even describe the vast beauty of Yellowstone.


I'd seen pictures, but experiencing it in real life was stunning. Half the time I felt like I was just looking at a postcard.

Now it feels to me like the world has infinite facets that I haven't even begun to see...

...unfathomable things...

We got to make beautiful family memories like stopping for lunch at a lake in the Grand Tetons, skipping rocks, playing in the water, and enjoying the sunshine & unforgettable view.

The long driving hours were just as scenic as the stops. Whenever I looked out the window at the enormous Wyoming & Colorado plains I saw in my mind's eye dusty covered wagons crawling slowly across.

And thanks to modern roads & automobiles, I got to see what so few other people in the world are privileged to see from the top of Pike's Peak.

But the best part of the trip by far was definitely this.

Thanks for the memories :)