I’ve been down with fever. All I can do is stay in bed in our little son’s room, which serves as an isolation ward whenever a patient needs it. From that bed you can see a large mirror on the wardrobe door, which reflects the window. Aside from the dirty window panes, described earlier, I can contemplate the clouds moving on the blue spring sky.  I’ve been watching this motion picture as if it was a most interesting broadcast. That reminds me of the cartoon by Michael Leunig which I found the other day on FB.

If sky-watching is so beneficial, how about looking up to heaven? How much can be gained by the simple “inactivity” of prayer?

He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to Him (Isaiah 53:2)

My husband, children and friends do not always show “beauty or majesty”. And sometimes I don’t find it easy at all to look at them and to be with them, especially when they are annoyed or “difficult” in any other way. But this is then, and probably mostly then, when I can put to test my love for them.

Am I able to find within the mercy and courage that Veronica had? To offer the gestures of kindness, that favourable look that goes beyond my daunting impression about the other person’s behaviour?

Am I ready to welcome the other in his/her suffering? Or do I stay entrapped in my own fear, resentment, sense of helplessness or discouragement?

The test may come out better or worse, but I’m sure love should not be missing from the ways of the cross.

Basia

“But blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in Him” (Jeremiah 17:7)

If you entrust your needs and expectations to the Lord, He will satisfy them all in His own perfect way.

The need for self-esteem and recognition? – “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name; you are mine!” (Isaiah 43:1)

The need for safety? – “The Lord watches over you – the Lord is your shade at your right hand” (Psalm 121:5)

For being understood? – “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28)

For strength? – “I can do all this through Him who gives me strength” (Philippians 4:13)

And finally:

Love? “I have loved you with an everlasting love” (Jeremiah 17:7)

Dosia

The day starts with a phone call from some Internet company.

– I’m not interested – I reply.

– But why, it really won’t take…

– No, thank you.

 A moment later I find a leaflet about some courses in our post box. Time flies, I’ve got to hurry to work. And there I am greeted by a loan offer from a very insistent bank. As I take care of my customers, I’m being nagged – also on the phone – by a mobile Internet provider. Time passes by very quickly, as usual. I manage to refuse to buy surgical suture. Then I tidy up my mailbox by deleting adverts of watches, pills the name of which I shall leave unsaid, and women’s underwear. I’m ready to go home.

 One leaflet is waiting stuck on the gate, the second one – on the ground and the third one in the post box. They all enable me to go through the shelves of hypermarkets in the vicinity. Quite upset with this obvious anti-ecological attitude, I enter the house, and what do I find on the shoe cupboard? A leaflet, of course! Meaning: the kids managed to collect some of the papers from the path in front of our house. This time I learn how to get a really quick loan and a quick pizza delivery.

I’m enjoying the hearth and home. We’re just having supper together when someone rings:

– Excuse me, am I talking to the owner of the phone line?

– Thank you very much.

– But why, you haven’t even listened…

– I am really not interested, thank you very much.

I think the Reader may imagine the feelings that overwhelm me as I start bathing our playful kids. Afterwards, I hope to have some time to sit together with my wife, when:

– Good evening, I would like to invite you for a presentation of our excellent bedding…

And He is waiting. In each minute of the day, He wants to meet me. But He does not intrude himself on. He is waiting patiently, because He loves me. And He’s not mercenary.

Michał

…you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.

Steve Jobs, Stanford Commencement Address, 2005

The dots I make each day may temporary fail to show one clear picture.

I discover, though, that a lot of things have happened to me “for some purpose”. They might have been difficult and unintelligible then, the moment they were happening, but they’ve left me with some gift. They turned out to be some added value. Through them, I was given some talent, knowledge, skill.

When I feel discouraged, I may be saying: my picture makes no sense. My dots of this day moved behind the margin of the master plan. And there’s absolutely no point for those few that have been here for so many years.

But it would be pointless to get discouraged. The One, who can see more than me, will show me one day the picture that will dazzle me with the logic of His love. The picture of my life.

So even if I’m not able to get the whole picture, I decide to keep on making dots of my best everyday choices. And command myself to Him with this trust that He’ll fill in all the missing and deficient parts of the picture.

Małgosia

Seek good, not evil, that you may live. (Am 5:14)

Seek, protect, support and strengthen GOOD – in my spouse and in me.

DoesN’T  that sound like the prescription rooted in His Word to help “my love NOT to burn out”?

Basia

a wife told her husband.

Does it really work that way? Can love burn out?

The education making me ready to start work lasts from 12 to 19 years (if you add postgraduate studies).

Getting a certificate in a foreign language – requires 600-650 h.

Driving lessons – about 60 h.

How much did it take you to get ready for marriage? Marriage preparation course?

Is that enough?

What else can you do in that field? How to translate your knowledge into competence?

A feeling may burn out, but love never does!!!

You just need to know where to look for love. How to take care of it! How to nurture it.

Fr Jay

“He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.” Matthew 5:45

It’s good that God’s sense of justice is so completely different from the human version of it, because we’re always given another chance – despite our weaknesses and failures.

So let’s be grateful for God’s mercy, for His love, which accepts us as we are. His love comes always before everything else; it heals, liberates and changes the old into the new.

Dosia

Show me your ways, Lord, teach me your paths. (Psalm 25:4)

For me, the Lent is the exceptional time of taking a closer look at the ways of the Lord, especially his most difficult and last way – the Way of the Cross. The way of remaining silent and gentle, the way of sacrifice, patience and rising from the falls, of accepting – without complaint – all the painful and difficult part of life.

I guess I can tell God’s ways from those that are not His. Of course, that doesn’t mean I’m an expert on the former. I’m still learning. I’m learning the “highway code” of those beautiful and difficult ways.

I know these ways are safe, protected and they have clear destination. I don’t want to turn back, though I know I can turn around and choose another path: God’s ways do strip me of freedom. Falls are inscribed in the progress, so I mustn’t get discouraged. Because it’s not about high speedometer read-out and perfect performance – inside and outside.

The vital thing on the Ways of God is to trust Him and let Him guide you, as He has foreseen everything: every bump, every thorn and curve. With Him, each fall, hardship and effort are just the means of achieving something more! It’s so much easier for me, when I realize that, to go through each tough experience with some positive attitude. In the end, all His paths lead to Joy!

Basia

I like what Michał wrote. Just the day before I was talking to a friend who said that you have to realize that a married couple is two separate people. 1 and 1.

It’s obvious at the first glance that I and my husband are different and no one would take me for him – and the other way round. At the second glance, I see that „he” has entirely different habits, ideas for leisure, and his ways to react to events. When he puts away clothes, he does it in a manner so varying from mine. Let’s be honest: it’s sometimes annoying.

That’s when I need the third glance. And then I realize that „he” is someone other than „me”. And it’s not about the list of differences that could be listed endlessly. He is different in the absolute sense, „the other”, as God is – „the Other”. I have no rights over „the other”, and if I think otherwise, I’m a usurper. On his face God wrote a message for me: „Thou shall not kill”. And the face, even while speechless, expresses this message in its defenselessness.* How much respect and concern is necessary not to hurt this defenselessness – in my dictatorial inclinations.

Love in marriage is not a cavity that devours the other and digests him/her into the perfect copy of its own „perfect” self. Because the distance between „I” and „you” can only be challenged by dialogue, by opening myself to the otherness of „you”. It’s a journey into the unknown.

Małgosia

*You can read more in Emmanuel Lévinas’s Time and the Other.