Kirkepiscatoid

I will do one tomorrow also b/c there is an epilogue set of questions at “journey’s end” but WOW! 40 days! OMG I really did it!

The last day focuses on “contemplating the goodness of life”. She says that contemplating goodness is the “ultimate sanity”--that it is “the crown of the spirit, the gateway of the heart through which all good comes and in which all things are welcome as the gifts of God.”

Reflection questions:

1. Write about how you understand your inner goodness.

I am just beginning to accept it, let alone understand it. It’s an interesting non-coincidence that I have been struggling with the possibility that I am not good at giving myself credit for my inner goodness and that God is far less hard on me than I am on myself. That’s a mistake, b/c it puts me in the arrogant position of “presuming I know more than God” and self-separates me from God. But to overcome that, I have to accept that God sees me as worthy and that somehow, I delight him. I have a tendency to figure “God is God, and I’m me, and there’s not a huge amount in common with us, and at best, we’re little exotic pets that entertain him.” But I am starting to realize that is a very small view. Could it be God really NEEDS us? Could it be that we are the part of his creation that makes HIM feel most whole? I am just getting the surface scratched on this one and have to explore that one more.

What I am starting to understand about my “inner goodness” is, well...if it were a LOLdog on the “I has a hot dog” website, it would have a smiling little terrier dog going, “Inner gudnezz—I haz it. Iz better’n hotdog.” I think I need to spend more time with my inner goodness, accept it, explore it, and see it as “real.” Right now I know I have it, but I’m not convinced in my mind it’s real. My gut says it’s real. My head says, “Uh, I dunno.” My hands say, “Let’s take it apart and see what it’s made of,” and my heart says, “Uh, I don’t think you can do that, inner goodness is not made of pieces and parts.” That’s where I am with it at the moment.

2. Consider the challenges and opportunities that prevent or encourage your ability to affirm your goodness and the goodness of creation.

The biggest challenge is that (as a friend reminded me) I have a habit of, when things seem to touch me too much, in the name of “self-protection” I reduce that “thing” to its smallest denominator and stomp on it to make it go away. I do that by belittling the “pop vernacular” version of something. I am going to have a hard time with that on my next project, my Advent project. Christmas is such as loaded season for me, full of scars, that some of how I deal with it is belittle the worldy aspects of it and “refuse to play.” I am going to have to address the season of Advent without wanting to tear up and stomp on “pop Christmas.”

That habit also gets in my own way in terms of seeing my own goodness. I can see the goodness in creation way more than my own. I can reduce myself down to the smallest denominator and stomp on me, too.

On the other hand, I can find myself participating in creation in an affirming way very easily. It is easy for me to take walks and see the goodness of creation, see clouds, sit in the dark and appreciate the new moon, the quarter moon, the full moon. I enjoy seeing the differences doing the “same thing” day after day, watching the seasons change, the pattern of stars in the sky change, etc.

I thought about this even in terms of the Eucharist. I’ve been told by my vicar that sometimes, when I am being acolyte, there are times my “presence” on the altar is stronger than others, and he has learned to equate that with the possibility that I’m struggling with something. That’s probably only half right. I think what happens is, when I struggle, or am a little “not quite right” I tend to throw myself into the physical details of my acolyte job, in an attempt to feel more “unobtrusive,” more “inclusive”, literally “to become it.” (Sort of like the reflection we did some days back on how in the evolution of prayer skills, we can “become a prayer.”) Wow, what if I could throw myself that deeply into it when I’m NOT struggling? That would mean I have reached a new contemplative place!

3. Contemplate the “sanity” of seeing goodness beneath the pain and suffering in life.

I think I have always been able to do that a little, and am understanding it better now. Out of all the “old skills I had that helped me survive the first half of life”, this is the one I am pretty sure I need to keep. Somehow, in my tumultuous growing up period, I learned to still see the good and learned to still turn towards the good. I realize that is God’s grace and I am thankful for that in a way I can barely describe. That skill is the undergirding of another of my good qualities—laughter and my off the wall sense of humor.

The only difference between then and now, is then I saw it as an “escape” and now I see it as one of the essentials that makes up the essence of who I am and what God breathed into my soul to make me “me”!