One more excerpt from Lisa-Marie Calderone-Stewart’s I Wasn’t Dead When I Wrote This:

When I was a kid, and I baked cookies with my mom, we always seemed to burn the last batch. Not on purpose, but just because it signaled the end of the cooking and the beginning of the cleaning up. We started to focus on washing the other baking pans, cleaning up the crumbs, getting out the cookie tins, washing up the measuring cups and spoons, and all of a sudden, we’d smell the last batch starting to burn, and we’d laugh because this seemed to be the pattern we kept repeating.

“Oh well,” my mom would say, “Things don’t have to be perfect in order to be wonderful.”

My mom and I would laugh about two sayings that truly balance each other out.

1. Anything worth doing is worth doing well. Of course. Don’t start vast projects with only half-vast ideas. Think about it. Know your situation. Bring in the experts. Talk with your peers. Consider your options. Weigh the pros and cons. Think about the consequences. Choose your solution wisely. Plan well. Follow through. Be thorough.

2. Anything worth doing is worth doing badly. However, if you are going to wait for things to be perfect, you’ll never get anything done at all.

DON’T WAIT FOR PERFECTION; WONDERFUL IS GOOD ENOUGH.

Now enjoy our Friday reflection video. What words of wisdom would you pass on to a younger person today?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cn8V6GFBDD0

Now we share some wise and hopeful words from the late Lisa-Marie Calderone-Stewart, in I Wasn’t Dead When I Wrote This: Advice Given in the Nick of Time:

If you still think everything seems hopeless, I invite you to do a simple exercise.

On one side of a piece of paper, try listing all the problematic issues you can think of—things like hunger and poverty and sickness and homelessness and bullying and illiteracy and abandoned pets and rape and gang violence and war.

On the other side of the paper, try listing all the agencies and organizations that are already working on these issues. Things like soup kitchens and food pantries and homeless shelters, and shelters for battered women and their children, and hotlines and research foundations for every disease you can think of, and the Red Cross and Doctors without Borders. The list of agencies and organizations ends up being longer than the list of issues.

Why would I ask you to do such a thing?

Because people of integrity are people of service and justice. It’s one thing to say you care about people; it’s another thing to show it. There are countless opportunities.

You don’t have to save the world. You only have to find one area in which you can serve.

Once you start serving, you will learn more about that issue. Then it will become part of you; you will start thinking about it—thinking about how you can contribute, thinking about your own skills and talents. You’ll make a plan, and you’ll follow through and see if it works. If it works, you’ll do more of it, and you’ll do it better, and you’ll get some of your friends to join you. If not, you’ll find ways to fix what doesn’t work. And you will still get some of your friends to join you. And you’ll make new friends who are already involved in the same justice work. And together, you’ll support one another as all of you learn more, and you’ll reflect more and plan more and serve more. Before you know it, you’ll be a leader.

Service . . . learning . . . reflection . . . leadership . . . support . . .

Can you tell this writer was a swimming coach?

The way we hesitate at the water’s edge before taking the plunge is similar to the way we hesitate before getting truly involved with life. Sometimes we feel as if there is some deadly cancer force out there, and it will drag us down and defeat us, so why bother even trying?

The simplest reason is merely this: We are human beings. We have a responsibility to participate.

If there is anything we will regret at the end of our lives, it will be the times we could have done something but instead chose to do nothing.

Initial hesitation is good. It means you are taking your role seriously. You know it’s not a picnic out there. But there comes a time to throw your towel aside and face the water. Even though you know it’s not going to be pleasant, at least not at first, it’s something you are being called to do. It will shock your system, but the time for standing at the water’s edge is over.

You need to plunge in.

You need the waves to knock you silly. You need to kick, kick, kick—and keep breathing—and stretch, stretch, stretch until you start to connect with the world in a meaningful way. That’s how you find out what you’re really made of. You might surprise yourself.

This book won third place in the Inspirational category of the 2013 Association of Catholic Publishers’ Excellence in Publishing Awards.

It’s the season for graduations. Most of us know someone who will be moving on to high school or college or from college to (we hope) a working life.

One difficulty of the graduation transition is that the graduate’s elders want desperately to pass along their best advice—and this at a time when many a graduate feels young, invincible, and too smart to be slowed down by “lectures” (because that’s the way they sound) from their elders.

So, sometimes we give the graduate something we hope will help her wisdom along. For instance, a book that is small and friendly.

Books targeting high school or college students can fail miserably if they are written in a patronizing way. The voice has to be authentic. And the person writing must truly know her audience.

Well, I have just such a book to recommend: I Wasn’t Dead When I Wrote This: Advice Given in the Nick of Time, by Lisa-Marie Calderone-Stewart. The author worked with young people for years and founded Tomorrow’s Present, a leadership group for young people. She has the experience to back up her words.

Actually, she had the experience. Lisa-Marie died last year after a long fight with cancer. She sent a manuscript to our acquisitions editor, and he turned it down because it didn’t quite work. Then he discovered that this woman had a long history of ministry and was dying. So he got back to her and said, essentially, “I’m rejecting this manuscript. But I want you to write another book.”

To which she said, “You do realize that I’m dying, right?”

“All the more reason to get started right now. What are the most important things you have to say to young people, now that you’re facing your own death?”

So, in just a few weeks’ time, Lisa-Marie wrote I Wasn’t Dead When I Wrote This. She was literally dying as she and the editor did the read-through of her final draft. By the time the book was published, the author had already accomplished the ultimate graduation.

You can buy this book at a discount during graduation season.

On Wednesday, I’ll post some excerpts, because Lisa-Marie’s wisdom is good for anyone, not just young people.

On Wednesday I shared about coloring as a spiritual practice. Enjoy this video, inspired by the Arts and Faith series by Loyola Press, in which I talk more about my hobby and share some samples.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKE1Zr3Guz4

Resources:
Coloring Mandalas books 1, 2, and 3 by Susanne F. Fincher
Native American Mandalas by Klaus Holitzka
42 Indian Mandalas by Monika Helwig
Color Your Own Angels in Art Masterpieces by Marty Noble
Icon Coloring Book: Journey to Pascha by Annunciation Press
Ornamental Arts from Around the World Coloring Book by Pomegranate Communications
Charley Harper Coloring Book
Arabic Floral Patterns Coloring Book by Nick Crossling

If the Holy Spirit is a fire, a wind, a flowing stream of water, or an endless ray of light, how do we apprehend it? How do we converse or interact with what cannot be held in the hands or seen with the eye or known in the mind?

Perhaps we try too hard to comprehend divine movement through traditional ways of knowing. For many of us in the Western Hemisphere—or at least those of us of European descent who are children of the Enlightenment—knowing is usually about words, facts, quantities, qualities that can be defined and measured. Knowing requires that we can explain something, usually through written words or numerical values.

There are other ways of knowing, however. We know through our physical senses. We know through our dreams. We know through deep intuition and passionate emotion. We know through movement and through silence. Sometimes we know through symbols and metaphors—such as the rushing wind of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.

As a writer and editor, I have spent a career working with words, with ideas expressed through phrases and grammar. I have learned how to use language so that it can represent precisely what I mean. Words have been my primary way of knowing for most of my life.

A few years ago, I needed interior rest. I struggled with depression; I was weary of many things, but I could not go on vacation or otherwise escape from my realities.

So I decided to try to recover an activity I had loved as a child—long before I worked with words or had adult responsibilities. I bought some nice colored pencils, and found some coloring books filled with mandala patterns. I began to sit in the evenings, sometimes with the television on, with my husband sitting nearby, and each evening I chose a pattern and began to work on it. Some of the more intricate patterns took days to finish. I experimented with color combinations and with layering colors, with shading and highlighting.

And as I did so, something inside me unclenched. I could feel fresh air moving through my brain and heart and life. I became absorbed with mere color and pattern and allowed words to sit by the wayside during these evening sessions of coloring.

Gradually, I recovered an early sense of knowing through color, symbol, and the intuitive desire for this shade rather than that one. Another part of me was awakening, and it made the rest of me feel much better.

I encourage you to try something this week that is off the beaten path for you. If you are a word person, then go to something other than words. If you are a person who moves around a lot, very active physically, then try settling down, and vice-versa. Allow other parts of yourself to wake up and learn to be sensitive again. Prayer is, after all, simply a focused form of paying attention. And we attend to life in many ways. Do some exploring, and see what happens.

The Holy Spirit has inspired many artists to use their talents to express their faith. The Loyola Press Arts and Faith series will celebrate some of these contemporary artists during the next month.

We are in the last week of Easter, which culminates in Pentecost. On the first Pentecost, the Holy Spirit “fell upon” the followers of Jesus of Nazareth, and at that point the community of faith became home to God, each person a dwelling place of the Holy Spirit. There was the “speaking in tongues,” with the apostles proclaiming the story and work of Jesus in the languages of all people groups present in Jerusalem at the time. There were signs and wonders. The band of disciples was at that point transformed into the Body of Christ.

In that one paragraph is enough theology to unfold for weeks, but let’s look at the words of Mechthild of Magdeburg.

Wouldst thou know my meaning?
Lie down in the Fire
See and taste the Flowing
Godhead through thy being;
Feel the Holy Spirit
Moving and compelling
Thee within the Flowing
Fire and Light of God.

—Mechthild of Magdeburg, The Flowing Light of the Godhead

She recognizes the enlivening, moving presence of divine life in each of us. The Spirit is fire, light, flowing air, or water. And it is personal. I may or may not believe all the Christian theology down to each point. But the Holy Spirit works within my own soul, and whether in times of belief or unbelief, hardship or encouragement, work or rest, I am responsible to “lie down in the fire,” to allow the overwhelming experience of God’s presence to move through me and compel me.

I am convinced that we have grown sluggish when it comes to attending God’s presence that already works within us intimately, ceaselessly, and intensely. As the day of Pentecost draws near, may we open our lives to the fire and light that give us life.

• Write a one-sentence prayer that invites the Holy Spirit’s movement in you.
• Write a single phrase that, for you, describes the Holy Spirit in your life.

Today I present a simple prayer about mercy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UI4GbBcN8iU

God’s mercy, as Julian of Norwich put it in Monday’s quote, is “all love in love.” Mercy goes much further and deeper than taking on pity on someone in need or reconciling with someone who has asked forgiveness. Mercy is a way of looking at life, a way of approaching our everyday experiences and relationships. There are many signs of a merciful spirit; let’s tackle a mere four of them today.

1. You expect good (behavior, attitude, intention) from others rather than habitually looking for the worst. This means that you don’t go into encounters looking for ways to judge or criticize, and you don’t enter conversations expecting a fight. You don’t put the worst possible interpretations on others’ ambiguous comments. And although you’ve experienced being used or cheated by others, you enter every relationship with hope and trust, relying on wisdom to help you protect and honor all persons.
2. When you’re in a position to exercise power over others, you don’t, unless by doing so you are better able to protect or otherwise help them. For instance: If you have a naturally forceful personality, you don’t take advantage of it to get your way. If you have the means to “work the system” to get what you want, you evaluate if what you want is beneficial to the common good. You are especially sensitive to those who do not have your advantage, position, and leverage, and you look for opportunities to empower them and help them grow into their own strengths and gifts.
3. You hold back from making comments or divulging information that will cause others to feel embarrassment, shame, or other discomfort. This is especially tempting in a group setting because often the person who has been shamed or insulted knows that she would only make matters worse by responding or trying to present her side of the story.
4. When you must confront another person for the right reason (correcting an error, warning of danger, clarifying a statement or event), you don’t enjoy it. That is, this confrontation does not turn into “getting this off my chest” or “setting her straight.” A merciful person feels the pain of the one she must confront, and she says what must be said as gently as possible.

It’s really disconcerting to write this post and realize that these four signs of mercy are too often absent in my own life. And I won’t ask any of my DDF community to confess their weaknesses! But please post your wisdom on this topic.

Living the resurrected life means that we are operating in a heightened consciousness about who we are and who God is. Julian of Norwich’s description here can help our understanding of this life we have in God.

Our good Lord, the Holy Spirit—endless life dwelling in our souls—always protects us and gives us peace. Through grace, God’s spirit brings each soul to tranquility and makes it obedient and reconciles it to God. Our good Lord constantly leads us on this path of mercy while we’re in this unpredictable life.

In my vision I saw no anger except on humanity’s side, and God forgives us that, for anger is nothing else but an irrationality and our antagonism to peace and love. It comes from a lack of power or a lack of wisdom or a lack of goodness, and this lack is not in God. It is on our side, because—through sin and dejection—we have in us an anger and a constant opposition to peace and love.

In God’s lovely look of compassion and sympathy, He revealed this truth often because the foundation of mercy is love, and the business of mercy is to protect us in love. This was revealed to me in such a way that I could perceive nothing about the qualities of mercy outside of the fact that it is all love in love.

—Julian of Norwich, Revelations

• What is your experience of Christ’s mercy sustaining us in this “unpredictable life”?
• How do you react to Julian’s definition of anger as “an irrationality and our antagonism to peace and love”?
• “The business of mercy is to protect us in love.” If our love toward others mirrors and imitates God’s love for us, how might mercy express itself in our relationships?

I invite you to lose yourself in these images as Fernando Ortega reminds us of our ultimate place in the arms of God.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kw18u6qXq_Y