The Mercy Memo

Days ago, on one of the lists I was on, the group got an email from a lady who is on another email list for pregnancy. This lady I will call Kate was forwarding a prayer request to our list for this other lady, I will call Beth, who has a baby diagnosed with Trisomy. Trisomy is a genetic abnormality something like Down’s Syndrome. Beth was aborting her child and Kate was begging us to pray that she would change her mind.

I must say this, I understand the pain that this poor woman’s decision was making in her life and on her family. I have a friend who can’t get pregnant. We talked one day and I believe that if she was given the choice, my friend would keep this child who was causing so much angst for this other woman. Choices.

Monday, as I rode a train from Rhode Island to Newark, I passed by rows and rows of “brownstones”, public housing units in New York that house thousands, tens of thousands. The standard of living in these areas is often low. The people there are often poor and the areas are crime ridden and suffer from a standard of living that the average American can’t understand. A working wage for these people, more women than men, is enough to feed the kids one fair meal a day. And they are often immigrants. So much for the American Dream.

Flying by on my train, I think of how many people look at that and say, “Poverty put them there, we should make the government fix it so there are no poor.” Choices.

Some choose to live a life where they are, not choosing the harder road. Those that do not deserve our compassion and our help. Christ Himself said in Matthew 26:11, “The Poor you will always have with you, but you will not always have me.”

Choices. What are or were the choices of these people? Of the young man? Of those living in NY public housing? Of priests? Of your family?

What are God’s expectations of our choices?

To feed the hungry
To give drink to the thirsty
To clothe the naked
To shelter the homeless
To visit the sick
To visit the imprisoned (Reference Matthew 25 and Tobias 12. “To visit the imprisoned” was originally listed as “to ransom the captives,” referring to the ransoming of Christians taken prisoner during Moslem aggression.)
To bury the dead

To counsel the doubtful
To instruct the ignorant
To admonish the sinner
To comfort the sorrowful
To forgive all injuries
To bear wrongs patiently
To pray for the living and the dead

To feed the hungry: Have you given from your excess to someone who has no food or can’t feed their family? Or someone who needs a meal today because of a new baby, a lost job, a sick child or parent?
To give drink to the thirsty: Have you given that which is basic in life to someone who doesn’t even have clean water?
To clothe the naked: How many clothes darken your closet?
To shelter the homeless: Have you helped someone find a home, a job, helped with basics so they can rest their heart?
To visit the sick: Have you comforted the sick, elderly, dying?
To visit the imprisoned: Have you stood up for those wrongly accused, those who can’t speak for themselves or for righteousness? Have you taken Christ to those behind bars, whether they are there by their own choice or not?
To bury the dead: Have you helped another keep his human dignity from conception until natural death?

To counsel the doubtful: Have you given encouragement to someone who needs it?
To instruct the ignorant: Have you helped teach someone in some form, both spiritually or not?
To admonish the sinner: Have you helped someone determine right from wrong and to do the right thing?
To comfort the sorrowful: Have you given from your heart to someone who grieves?
To forgive all injuries: Have you ignored all the wrongs given to you, no matter the age, date or severity?
To bear wrongs patiently: Can you stand, like Christ, like a lamb before slaughter, without uttering a “But I didn’t do it!”?
To pray for the living and the dead: Are you praying without ceasing?

Do you think you are fulfilling God’s expectations of you? Are you making the right choices?

I read in our Stars and Stripes today about a Florida player that was recruited merely to bring up the grade point average of the team because he is so smart, he finished his Business degree in 2 and a half semesters. Oh and by the way, he’s now their starting Quarterback.

Ok, so I’m not a huge football person. For the longest time, I thought a tight end was the guy at the bar you thought was cute. Ok, yes that was crass, but it was the truth for the most part. You see, my mom is a fanatic, but me? Clueless. Jim has spent years and years trying to teach me the basics. I didn’t get it. But in the world of football, getting to be the starting quarterback is good. Very good. And for Florida, that’s like being the Gold Medal Olympian.

So, what has this got with spirituality? Well, think of how we are normally? We have these expectations of people. Well, he’s smart and so he can’t play ball or he’s fast but he must not be a good wrestler, or she’s feminine so she must not be very strong or tough.

Expectations. We have them. What about God? What are His expectations? What does He expect of us in life? What are our expectations of ourselves?

I thought about this and what came to me is that often our expectations don’t match up with the truth.

It’s funny how we are often so surprised at the “human endeavor”. When someone rises against all odds and does something quite unexpected, then we are so surprised and so pleased we talk amongst ourselves and think, “Wow, I could never have done that.” Like the young man mentioned above, we have no concept of how we could do what he did. And yet, we do it every day.

A long time ago, I was a police officer and I worked in a bad section of town. Often, we would be called into this section. Drugs, gang violence, domestic violence, burglaries, crime was rampant, abject poverty and drug money everywhere. And yet, there was always a few families that didn’t fit the mold.

If we are set by our expectations, if we are molded by our environment, then why do those families exist?

And why are we surprised when they exceed our expectations?

And why are we upset when people don’t even meet our expectations?

God has no expectations. He lives knowing the past, now and the future, without separation or seam. So He knows what we are capable of doing, all our sins AND all our best moments. He knows what we are destined to do if we choose to do it. Rising above what we are to what we can be.

The expectations of the Florida football coach were low in the case of this player. Low in that young man’s ability to play. And often my expectations were low in the case of families in the bad parts of town. We were both surprised.
We must turn our own expectations of ourselves to what God expects of us… to do more than the mediocre and excel.

Expect more of yourself than you can imagine.

I had the most joyous thought. I mean, I am grinning from ear to ear. I woke up this morning and as my daughter cuddled with me, I was encouraging her to wake up and get going. She said to me, “but you’re leaving in a few days and you’ll be gone for a whole week!”

My reply made a thought turn in my head that has reverberated throughout my whole morning. I said, “Yes, but I go to prepare the house for you.”

Christ says the same thing to the disciples. He says in John 14:2 “In my Father’s house there are many mansions. If not, I would have told you: because I go to prepare a place for you. And if I shall go, and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and will take you to myself; that where I am, you also may be.”

Do you see? Do you understand? I can see it so clearly. Christ went with JOY to the Cross because he knew he was going to Heaven to make a home for his family. He was going to go make it perfect for them, ready to move in and with all the things they like, and didn’t know they liked. It says in Hebrews 12:2 “Looking on Jesus, the author and finisher of faith, who having joy set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and now sitteth on the right hand of the throne of God.” He went to the most horrible execution that could be devised in the minds of men WITH JOY!

I go to prepare the house the way the kids and Jim want it. I will paint Sarah’s room, because she wants it pink. I go to buy some new furniture, so that we will have a place to sit. I go to order the house in preparation of my family coming and I am having help, too.

Can’t you just see, in your imagination, Christ pointing to a wall and telling the angels that that is not where it’s supposed to be and they need to move it three feet over because the new owner needs it that way?

My heart sings with the understanding of how Christ could leave this world, knowing he was going to the next. He was going ahead and he knew it! He was filled with joy at the prospect of getting the house ready for his family.

Yes, I am filled with sadness that I am leaving my friends, the places I have been around for three years, my home here in Germany. Look at it from my eyes this morning: I am going to make the house ready!

Ok, so that is a literal house, what about the other “houses”? Where else does this apply? Well, everywhere!!! Get up in the morning, preparing your day, make it in your head as if you are preparing a place for your family, your co-workers, your friends.

We all have chores we must do, so do them as if your family was coming home to them. Get up in the morning excited to sweep and mop and clean because you are preparing a place for your family to come home to. Make dinner as if it is the Wedding Feast of the Lamb, even if it’s only sandwiches or meatloaf.

Go with joy to prepare a home and understand where He stood when He looked at the Cross, not looking at the Cross, but seeing the mansion near His Father, ready for His Family.

What Joy!

What a great time getting together with friends. Glad I’m not all depressed or anything because it would have been hard to say goodbye if I were crying or all teery eyed. What a great place this has been, Germany. I will be happy if I can return. When I return? I hope so. I love it here and the people just make it better.

My husband was complaining to me today about then Cardinal Ratzinger’s (now Pope Benedict the 16th) book “Called to Communion” . Apparently, it’s not bathroom reading. I will agree with him on that, but I can’t agree with him that Ratzinger appears snobbish in his use of large words. Jim’s argument was that he should dumb it down for “dumb Tennessee boys”.

I disagree.

As the shepherd of the largest flock of believers in the world, the Catholic Church, Pope Benedict will be ever the head of the Church and therefore, like a real life shepherd, must know what is best for the flock. No, he’s not perfect, anymore than the shepherd in the field is perfect. He’s chosen.

By the virtue of the choice he is made more. More than what he was. Like a pile of tiny pieces of metal becoming a watch. And therefore, we must look to the things that he writes not as something above our head, but as something to strive for in our learning.

The real life shepherd uses his voice and his knowledge of the land to steer the flock from danger. He even will be forceful in his attempts to save the ewes from danger. The sheep don’t know why. They see the land, the grass and think: food. water. He sees the land, calculates the time he must have with them, the distance they can travel, the dangers they face.

We don’t get frustrated with the shepherd because he is smarter than the sheep. We get frustrated with the sheep for being so dumb as to run off a cliff. Do we hear his voice? Do we follow the shepherd where we need to go?

John 10:27-28 “My sheep hear my voice: and I know them, and they follow me. And I give them life everlasting; and they shall not perish for ever, and no man shall pluck them out of my hand.”

Do you follow the man who has been chosen to lead the flock? And if you do, do you try to understand what he has been led to say to us? Or do you rail against it, saying “It’s too hard!”?

Well, finally, I am back on the net again. Feel like I was missing a body part or something. Listen, you don’t have any way of knowing whether I am good or if I am interesting or what have you. So, just hang on for the ride and we’ll see where we go. God has given me a chance to write and fulfill my desire to put on “paper” what’s on my mind and so here it is. Hopefully, it’s not drivel to anyone.

Annie