Category: good for the soul

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Rest. Relaxation. Recreation.

Just another afternoon.

When you’re retired, every day can seem like every other day, but the truth is, I’ve never been busier. And that “retired” mess is a lie. I’m still working. I’m teaching online courses, and I’m trying to keep up with some writing. I’m on a couple of local committees that demand an awful lot of time from me (in a good way), and I travel a bit giving talks and retreats.

My to do list is longer now than when I was working full time and had kids at home.

Come out and play

When a friend called to get me out of the house and into some fresh air, I jumped at the chance. We had an adventure at a friend’s horse farm. It was the perfect distraction, and the perfect afternoon in the country.

Because of my husband’s illness, we’ve done a lot of research on the importance of blue space. Apparently, living near water is good for your mental health. I’ll take it! Most of you have seen my sunrise pictures from the bay.

But green space is also good. I love to get out to the rolling hills and see trees, and flowers, and beautifully mown acres of land. The horse farm was the perfect spot.

Cue William Wordsworth

As an English major, I feel like I can come up with a story or a poem for any event, and “The World Is Too Much With Us” captures today’s mood perfectly.


The world is too much with us; late and soon,

Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;—

Little we see in Nature that is ours;

We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!

This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;

The winds that will be howling at all hours,

And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;

For this, for everything, we are out of tune ….

That first part of the poem laments the mess we’ve created for ourselves in a consumer-driven world where everything is about materialism and getting and getting while wasting the beauty of the natural world. Although written around 1802, this poem resonates with me today. I’ve been guilty of watching “nature” programs on tv instead of going outside. What a statement of the times.

I’m blessed to have friends who can execute the occasional intervention.

God’s creation

The pull nature has on me is part of the natural order of things, an opportunity to worship God in his creation.

Nothing exists that does not owe its existence to God the Creator. The world began when God’s word drew it out of nothingness; all existent beings, all of nature, and all human history are rooted in this primordial even, the very genesis by which the world was constituted and time begun. (CCC 338)

I am reminded of this miracle when I get away from the man-made distractions that disconnect me from the beauty of creation. It is an opportunity to breathe. To stretch. To admire and praise the Lord God who made me and this beautiful landscape from the smallest blade of grass to the majestic trees that dot the landscape.

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Friends, Old and New

Maria Morera Johnson 2018
Maria Morera Johnson 2018

This weekend I spoke at a Magnificat prayer breakfast. I told my faith story, something I am more and more comfortable doing even though it is a changing story that grows and unfolds as I continue this walk with the Lord. It is inextricably bound to my relationship with the Blessed Virgin Mary, too. Relationship, of course, is at the root of my experience.

I shared that I feel like the workers who came in at the end of the day and still received a full day’s wages (Matthew 20:1-16). I am grateful for a merciful God who knows my heart and wants me close. For too long, I lived a compartmentalized life, where I put church in a box to be opened only on Sundays, prayer set aside to be recited and checked off a list while the rest of the time I enjoyed the give and take of relationships with family and friends.

Over the weekend, I connected with good friends, women with whom I’ve worked in the new evangelization, women with whom I have much in common as we shared about our faith, our loves, disappointments, and joys that make up so much of our experience in mid-life. Women with whom I’ve shared a spiritual home in our parish for decades. And to my delight, women I reconnected with after many decades!

We talked for long hours, at lunch and over dinners, laughing joyfully through most of it, but also acknowledging our moments of pain and insecurity – allowing ourselves to become vulnerable for a moment. This give and take that I took for granted in my friendships over the years and learned to foster and appreciate in deeper spiritual friendships as I got older, was the missing element in my relationship with the Lord – it wasn’t relational.

I learned, through these friendships, how to open up, trust, share, and most of all, be present to the Lord – and most importantly, to just be in His presence. It didn’t happen overnight, but through the years I’ve learned to apply these gifts of friendship to my relationship with the Blessed Mother and Jesus. I’m grateful for the friends who have been bridgebuilders for me. Through their holy example so much like the examples of the saints, I’ve learned to respond to the most important relationship in my life, with the Lord.

I’m still learning. To be present. To be vulnerable. To be loved.

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come closer

adoration

Years of keeping a regular weekly holy hour has made it clear to me that I still don’t know how to do this right.

I’ve had a few very profound experiences in those opportunities for Adoration, but to be honest, it’s not a regular occurence. The more common experience is that I just show up. I never have to worry about Jesus showing up; he’s waiting for me. The weak link in the relationship is me.

Truth be told, I still, after all this time, struggle with what I think is the “proper” thing to do during Adoration. I teeter between going prepared with reading material, journals, and a list of prayers — things that I think are good and pleasing to the Lord — and showing up empty-handed ready to sit in silence and listen. More often than not, it’s a bit of a mix. I fear I am taking my agenda instead of being open to the Lord.

I fidget and get distracted in the silence.

I alternate between moments of sublime awe and spiritual desolation when I feel nothing at all. The latter would worry me if I didn’t also have moments of consolation like I experienced today. Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament at a cloister took me by surprise. The monstrance faced the nuns in the cloister. I had a perfect view of the side of the monstrance, and couldn’t see Jesus no matter where I  moved.

I felt like Zacchaeus hanging off the tree.

I thought of the hemorrhaging woman who wanted to get close enough to Jesus to just touch his cloak. And in the silence I heard come closer.

Closer to his Sacred Heart. Closer to his Love. I didn’t need to see to know my Lord was there.

 

 

 

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