Ever wonder where you belong in the world? Where you can go to be no one but yourself?

Well, we all have a family and families can be the most wonderful of people.  Families can accept us for who we are, or they can add to our levels of stress by encouraging us to be better than we are at the present moment – sometimes both at the same time.

I ran across this quote from Pope Saint John XXIII the other day and couldn’t help but feel inspired.  He said, “I am of the same family as Christ — what more could I want?”

And, aren’t we all?  Christ is constantly and always accepting us as family members.  Accepting us for who we are right at this moment, yet at the same time constantly challenging us to be more.  Such is the life of the disciple.  At each graced moment along the journey we are both accepted and challenged, yet always, always, always loved by God.  What more could we want?

As I walked this morning I saw numerous daffodils lifting their heads and awaking from the hard, packed, winter soil.  It’s chilly and only half sunny, but they are arising.  It was a reminder to me no matter how long our winter, no matter how packed our soil, no matter how strongly held our opinions or attitudes, our grudges or our personal hurts, nature and Lent always gives us a chance to awake and begin again.

All that time in winter darkness should give us enough strength and nourishment and enough desire to rise above the darkness, to risk awakening to the present graced moment, and to begin again.

Daffodils do it every spring.  And so can we.

How many times have we told ourselves that Lent will be a time where we will pray more?  Yet, after a few days we realize that we are not very practiced prayers and we end up continuing our prayer with the not very creative memorized prayers of our youth.

St. Teresa of Avila may be able to help us.  She said if we know how to speak to a dear friend, we know how to pray.  Marvelous, isn’t it?  Now all we have to do is realize that God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit are our dear friends!  Then we can pray and speak to them with truth and sincerity about what is going on in our lives – just as we would to a dear friend over a cup of coffee.

And, there is no requirement that we be in church, or on our knees, or take some special posture to pray.  We can pray and carry on our conversation with our dear friend while taking a walk or walking the dog; while sewing or knitting; while sitting in our favorite chair.  The conversation is what is important.

And after we have shared what we want to share with our dear friend, take some time to listen, in quiet, for a response.  God wishes to communicate with us as well and each moment of our lives can be a graced moment where God is trying to speak to us.  Let’s not forget the time in prayer for listening.

With love and trust we know each morning that the sun will rise. Even when we cannot see it, like today when it is pouring rain as if a pipe had broken.  But with love and trust we know the sun is still shining, still giving warmth and light with all its effort.  The sun doesn’t decide to do that – that’s just what it does!

This week, 36 years ago, with love and trust we said “I do” to a committed relationship.  Thinking back on it, I had no idea what I was doing or saying.  No idea at all.  But, with 36 years behind us – years of joy and happiness, trials and struggles, children and stresses, jobs and mortgages – now I know what “I do” means.  It means continuing to give warmth and light even when it isn’t easy or comfortable.  It means staying committed when something else may look more interesting.  It means loving as a decision, as well as an emotion.  What begins as an emotion has to be able to survive the days and nights of continual rain and sogginess.  Eventually, the emotions mature into deep commitment and give warmth and light because we decide to continue to love and trust – no matter what – whether the sun is shining or not.

This decision to love and trust has brought much happiness and joy to our lives.  Our four children, our greatest blessings, are now grown and we are rediscovering what attracted us to each other in the first place.

I’m reminded of a comment made to us while visiting the Smithsonian Air and Space  Museums recently.  The person at the counter wanted to know if we wanted tickets for our “little ones” as well as ourselves.  I replied that our “little ones” were now “big ones” and that we’d left them on their own.  “That’s what happens,” he replied, “so now you can become “little ones” yourselves again.”  And, that’s just what we are doing.  Exploring this part of the country as if we were young again.   A sense of adventure has brought us across country to DC and to commemorate 36 years together we are giving each other bicycles so we can explore the parks and trails in this area.

All because of love and trust and the two little words “I do” that have shaped our years together, every moment has been graced.

What does it mean for us to practice our faith?  I think it literally means that we keep trying until we get it right.  And, there’s no rush . . . we have a life time to get it right.  But, once again, Lent offers us the opportunity to improve our practice.

Like doctors who have a medical practice, or lawyers who have a legal practice, as spiritual beings we have a spiritual and religious practice.  That means we have to work at it, and it also means that it does not always come out perfect – but we keep trying.  My husband used to tell our kids when they were growing up that “Everyday is practice for tomorrow.”  How true that is!  So, every day we can practice to be a better person, a person more and more like Christ.  It doesn’t happen automatically, but by continual practice, day after day.

So, let’s use this day as a time to practice and to improve our prayer, our patience, our acceptance, our charity, our forgiveness, our ______________.  You fill in the blank.  What needs more practice in your spiritual life?

Each moment we practice our faith is a graced moment.

How are we with silence?  I mean the kind of deep, true quiet where God speaks.  How are we with that kind of silence?  I think many times we are much too over excited with the events of our days to even recognize the presence of silence or to allow it when it presents itself.  I am reminded of a joke I heard a stand up comic use when I was in high school.  “Last night there was nothing on TV so I turned on a light.”

Are we equally compulsive about silence?  Do we turn on the TV, or ipod, or computer, or music just because we cannot stand the sound of sheer silence?  Fr. Thomas Keating said that silence is the only language God speaks and everything else is a bad translation.

If we want to hear the sound of God’s voice we may have to turn off other things in our busy lives.  Silence is there – God is there – if we but take the moment to immerse ourselves in the silence and listen.

Perhaps this Lent is also calling us to a greater amount of silence in our days so we might be able to hear the true sound of God.  Everything else is a bad translation.

Let the silent moments be graced moments.

A couple of years ago I came across a beautiful little prayer.  “O God, bless them.  Change me.”  It seems most appropriate to focus on this little prayer again during this Lenten season.  It is simple, straightforward and ultimately, life changing.  “O God, bless them.  Change me.”  All I need to do is stop focusing so much on myself and think of the other person.  They may not have had me in mind at all when they cut me off on the freeway or was rude in the grocery check out line.  They may not have even seen me as they pushed their way in front of me to get to the information desk first, not wanting to wait in line.  And all I need to do is remember the prayer:  “O God, bless them.  Change me.”

We are not privileged to the inner workings of others’ lives – many times we are not aware of our own – so how can we judge what might be their motives?  Ask God to bless them.  And then ask God for the courage to change us and our attitudes.

Lent is a time to practice what we preach; to try to improve the actions of our lives and make them more consistent with Jesus’ actions of love and compassion toward everyone.  This little prayer may help us.  “O God, bless them.  Change me.”

It is a graced moment each time we pray it.

Another Lent begins today and we are asked to examine our lives and make an authentic effort to travel the Spiritual journey more deeply.  I am committed to that journey anew this year, and like every Lent, pray that it makes me a better follower of Christ and witness to the ways of Christ in our world.

Now is the acceptable time to examine not just the surface aspects of our lives, but the very roots of our all of our ambitions, desires, and the true character of who we are.  Who are we as we struggle to follow Christ?  How do we make that journey in authenticity?

St. Andre Bessette once wrote: “God doesn’t ask for the impossible, but wants everyone to offer their good intentions, their day’s work, and some prayers.  That will help them a lot.  The best Way of the Cross is when people accept willingly the crosses that are sent to them.”

Let’s start with acceptance, then, and let acceptance be the graced moments of this Lent.  Acceptance of our place in life; our struggles; our pains; our misunderstandings; our losses; our longing for love that was not there for us; our failures; our hurts . . .   These become the cross we carry on the path to following Jesus.  Not to be burdened by them, and not to use them as excuses, but to accept them and journey on – following Christ with every step.

Living in DC has many advantages.  Recently we spent the better part of a day at the International Spy Museum, one of the many museums and attractions in the area.  It was great fun because it took both of us back to our youth – way back to our youth – of Secret Agent Man, Man from U.N.C.L.E., I Spy, and Mission IMPOSSIBLE nights before the television screen wondering how the hero was going to make it out of another tight spot or impossible task.  I’d given up long ago that ANY of the little gadgets they used on any of those shows actually existed.  How could they?  They used things like a tiny tape recorder that fit into a package of cigarettes when the smallest home version available at the time was not much smaller than the size of a washing machine.  But as we made our way through the Spy Museum – there it was displayed in the glass case – the tiny tape recorder fit into a package of cigarettes, circa 1960.

But what brought me to this reflection was what happened when we first entered the Spy Museum.  First, we had to stop in an ante room and find an identity.  We were to remember the name, occupation, place of birth, destination, reason for this visit and how long our identity was to stay in said destination.  If we forgot any of the alias information at any check point along the way, we would be held suspect.  Needless to say, it’s difficult to remember something that is not real.  And, I have always wondered how spies did it.  In the current shows, like MI5, the spies are given massive amounts of information in a few seconds which they must take in, remember and act out of for the duration of their mission.  It’s amazing to me that anyone could even do that, and I’ve decided I could never!

I much prefer the wisdom of Oscar Wilde who said “Be yourself.  Everyone else is already taken.”  Why even want to be somebody else?  It makes for great entertainment –  but life?  No, just be yourself.  And that is the grace.  Each one of us is unique and graced in our own individuality, every moment of every day.  “Be yourself!  Everyone else is already taken.”  Be yourself and it will be enough.  It’s a better tool for life than any little gadget in the Spy Museum, and only you can do it!  Just be yourself.  And reflect to world the wonder that is you!

So many things in this city are still so hard to get used to!  Yesterday, I set out for the post office with a package to mail and on my way out of our housing area I noticed a tow truck with a car in tow backing into a parking place along the street.  I thought to myself just how lucky this person was who needed his car towed — the tow truck actually found a parking place somewhere near his apartment.  What are the chances of that on a crowded D.C. street?  I glanced to where we had parked our car along the street (as I do everyday) to make sure all was well with our little “Dixie” and walked on to mail my package.   Following my business at the post office I set off in a new direction and promptly got lost.  Luckily, since there are no perpendicular roads and going around the block is not an option in this city, I had google maps on my phone to help me.  Referring to my map several times, I managed my way back into familiar territory and found my way toward home.  All of this had taken me on a lovely 3.75 mile hike that took almost 2 hours.  It was a good walk and I love the exploring – just not so much the getting lost.

When I returned to our corner, I glanced to where our car was parked and — it was gone!  I tried to remember if that was THIS morning that I had just seen the car parked there, or was that some other morning and in the meantime, we had parked the car somewhere else.  No, I was sure that was the last place we had parked — and NO CAR was parked there now.  Beginning to think that our little “Dixie” has been stolen, I made my way to the police station while calling my husband on the phone.  “Did you move the car?” I asked him.  What a silly question, as I knew he had been at work all morning and it would probably have taken him longer to get home and move the car than my walk had taken me.  While talking to him and proceeding to the police station, I noticed another tow truck, with another car in tow.  What a strange sight for our neighborhood – two tow trucks in the same morning!  Then I noticed that there were work crews cutting branches off of trees around power lines.  My mind made the connection!  Were the tow trucks moving cars out of the way so work crews could cut tree branches around power lines?

With this novel thought, I walked slowly away from the police station and back toward our neighborhood to walk around the streets that we usually have to cruse to find a parking place.  Tree trimmers were buzzing and tow trucks passing and then I spotted her.  Our little “Dixie” was parked in a space where we had not parked her!!!  Someone had moved our car!  On the windshield I found two tickets and a pink slip.  The first ticket was printed at 7:51 AM and fined us $50 for parking in a space that was reserved for tree work from 7:00 AM to 3:00 PM.  The second ticket was printed at 10:01 AM and fined us $100 for the pleasure of having our car towed to another location.  The pink slip was courtesy of DC city towing, but had nothing filled out on it – a blank pink form from the city of DC, obviously left by a tow truck operator far too busy towing cars to fill out any paperwork.

Needless to say, I was a little miffed.  I walked back up the street where we had originally parked the car and found two small signs the size of legal paper taped to a tree and a light post located about 3 feet apart that notified car owners to have the street cleared for 150 feet between the hours of 7:00 AM and 3:00 PM.  Now, you must understand, our car was about 7 or 8 cars away from these signs, AND the car parked in front of us – closer to the signs – had a single ticket on it and had not been moved.  Add to this information the fact that there are NO trees requiring trimming anywhere between where we had parked and the posted signs!  The men were working further down the street.

I had to ask myself how it is the city feels they can move the personal property of others without adequate notice or signage and then make citizens pay for the privilege.  Well, I guess it’s one good way to help counter city deficits.

Where’s the grace in all of this you might ask?   Well, the grace is that the people who “stole” the car put it in a place where it could easily be found and left no other damage besides a required “gift” to the city of $150.  It could have been so much worse.