Shielded from Grace

Holy Cow!  It has been almost two months since my last post.  To be honest, I've had writers block.  Not to many ideas.  Not a whole lot of time to devote to writing either.  My prayer life has been abysmal.  And guess what? I feel like I'm in the desert.  If you look at this post, I think I'd be somewhere near the bottom of the cosine.  Do you think there is any coincidence?

For me, being in tune with the Father starts with a good prayer life.  It is the foundation on which all things are built.  The best results for me are when I start and end the day in prayer.

With the exception of going to Mass every week, and bible study when my business travel allows, I have not been too good a son to the Father nor a good brother to the Son.  In a way, I think that not having a good prayer life and/or not participating in the sacraments shields you from the Grace of God.  In much the same way as a child/teenager shuts themselves in their room and locks the door.  They are trying to shut out their parents.  It is the only place that they can go and (hopefully) be alone.  They are shielding themselves from their parents and what they consider prying questions or interference from their parents.

But the question is, why do we want to shut out the Father and his grace?  I think with me it just starts with being tired and frustrated with work and skipping prayer once.  If we don't have enough discipline to get back on track, we hit the downward slope of the cosine curve.  Hopefully we realize where we are going and get back on track.

Thankfully, the Good Shepherd is always glad to have us back in the fold.

Blessings

Tim

The Post Only a Christian with an Engineering Background Could Enjoy

I am an engineer and scientist by training. I have a B.S. and M.S in Electromagnetics from Michigan Technological University. One of the greatest things about my education is that it has helped me to recognize similar patterns in seemingly different phenomena, activities, situations, etc.

On my faith journey, I have had many ups and downs. In mathematics there is a rhythmic function called cosine that fluctuates between 1 and -1, or up and down. It looks like this.

Not only does this represent the ups and downs during my faith journey, but it also represents how I think I waiver between feeling in the Spirit and feeling pre-occupied with other things. During the week, starting with Sunday Mass, I am Spirit filled. But as the week goes on, the crush of the world causes me to be preoccupied with other things. It is only until next Sunday's Mass that I am filled with the Spirit again.

So what I needed to find was something to keep me "centered" with the Father. One of the things that has helped has been our Parish's Bible Study. Our group is a great, faith filled Small Christian Community. It meets on Wednesday and it helps to refill the Spirit in my soul.

There is still a big difference between the peaks and valley's. The valley's aren't in the "shadow of death". But they could be better. And I had noticed that even though I am feeling more centered, I still let the crush of the world affect my relationships with the ones I love. At confession, a priest suggested I enhance my prayer life. Since then I have tried very hard to have some good quality prayer time in the morning after getting up and before going to bed. This has helped a great deal. So now, the ups and downs are more like this.

The goal of course is to keep smoothing out the peaks and valleys so that we are always in "tune" with the Father. A flat line across the top is where Jesus probably was. The Saints probably had curves that had minimal peaks and valleys.

So what do you think, is it attainable? Only through the Grace of God and discipline and a desire to continuously improve myself. St. Joseph pray for me.

Blessings

Tim

Does the Father Beam with Pride?

Does the Father Beam with pride when we do something that is according to his will? How about when we are baptized or after our first Sacrament of Reconciliation and Eucharist? What about when we are confirmed or have a reconversion that brings us back into his Grace? Does discovering our true vocation give him a warm feeling from the fact that our actions will bring him glory?

Why am I asking this? Because of the pride I feel whenever one of our daughters hits a milestone in their development. It is these milestones, both small and large, which really make parenting a joy. I'm writing this a couple of weeks after our oldest, Emily, that did something that made me extremely proud. Let me explain.

Emily has a couple of jobs to do when she gets up in the morning. They need to be completed before coming down to breakfast or climbing into bed with Mommy and Daddy. These jobs are nothing major:  make her bed and give the cats fresh water. Giving the cats fresh water is an important one because she would like her own kitten and she is trying to prove to us that she can be responsible.

Well, Sunday morning was very cold here in the Pacific Northwest. I heard her get up and give the cats some fresh water and I expected to her to make a beeline for our bed. After about 10 minutes, she was a no show.  Concerned, I got out of bed and walked over to her room. I opened the door to her room, and there she is lying on her 95% made bed, covered with a blanket.  "What are you doing?" I asked.

"It's cold, I'm warming up", she said.

"Why didn't you come into bed with Mommy and Daddy?"

"I didn't finish my jobs."

I was stunned and couldn't have been more proud. My little girl was showing responsibility. She was starting to understand the difference between knowing what she had to do and what she wanted to do.

I scooped her up, gave her a big hug, carried her into our room, and plopped her on our bed so that she could snuggle up with us.  (The only thing she hadn't done was putting her stuffed animals in place. Good enough in Daddy's eyes.)

So does the Father beam with pride when we hit a milestone in our faith journey? When we are baptized, confirmed, have our first reconciliation, and our First Eucharist? What about a conversion? What about when we conform ourselves to His will? How about the little things like this? Is he looking at the both of us with a smile happy that we are doing ok, learning from each other?

Blessings to you all.

Tim

Ton of bricks

Unfortunately, when reacting to stuff the kids do, sometimes I come down on them like a ton of bricks.

My wife has commented that I do go overboard sometimes. I guess I may get it from my father. But what am I to do? I guess I need to put things into perspective. They are good kids and behave a vast majority of the time. So are minor troubles that they cause worth coming down on them so hard? Especially since they are like sponges and likely to take my actions as an example to incorporate into their toolbox of behavior. Do I want them over-reacting like I do? No of course not.

What kind of lesson can I learn from the Father? Does God come down on me with punishment when I sin?  Of course not, through my sin, I am insulating myself from his grace. Sin is a conscious decision to not do the will of God.

But the difference between the two is that I know that I am sinning and am responsible for my actions and my children still have not developed that inner compass as to what is right, wrong, and appropriate.  So, while their actions could insulate them from our love (grace) it shouldn't because they haven't developed that compass.  Perhaps the adage "Yield, and be firm" applies.

What makes things worse is that they are learning this behavior from me.  I'm beginning to see it in how sometimes my older daughter will go non-linear on her little sister for the simplest things.  Much like I do.

All is not lost though.  I see how well she behaves in other situations and I can not be more proud.  She is becoming such a big girl!

I've started taking steps to reform my behavior and am working with my oldest daughter to control her behavior.  Hopefully working with them, we can roll back the clock on the behavior they have learned from me.

Pray for me.

Tim

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