The Wind

     The wind has been blowing for two days. It rushes like water around the house, sifting, sorting, overturning--taking away whatever is loose. In some ways it's a pain, but it keeps things fresh.
     I realized during the night that this blog really is a journal. It's not simply a place for recording daily events, like a diary, but a place for working out meanings, relationships, significance. And once again God demonstrates that if I show willingness, he won't wait. He sends the wind to sift and sort me, to take away what I don't need.
     Now it's self-righteousness. In Mark 2:17 Jesus tells the Pharisees that he didn't come for those who are just, but rather he came for sinners. To send me to that verse right now, only days after Easter, was a bold move. I don't like having to look at things like a Pharisee, like somebody who doesn't get it, but that's where I am. That's where I've been stuck.
     Because until I get over self-righteousness, I'm going to be stuck. And I can't get over it because I can't make myself righteous. It has to come from beyond me. Everything I long for, all the passion of the Triduum, lays dead on the ground going nowhere if I try to make it go by myself. Somewhere along the line I have to let it go, and let God take over.

    But he may have given me a clue. Easter Sunday was remarkably quiet. All the liturgies were over for us after the Easter Vigil. It gives us the whole day to stay at home and meet people at their convenience: family, friends, neighbors. No effort, really. Just some food on the stove, some chairs at the table and whoever comes, comes. So a member of our family came. She sat at our table the whole day and we spent the hours catching up, talking about politics, the neighborhood, our past year. I learned with some astonishment that she knows someone who is living on ten dollars a week for groceries.
    Ten dollars a week, in my own neighborhood. I did some calculating and realized how little that is. It was hard to imagine. My Catholic Alert System went on immediate alert. How can this be? Right under my own nose! Why wasn't anyone doing anything? How might I cruise in and intervene?
     I started making lists. (I always make lists.) Maybe if I shifted this expense for a week I could get to the grocery for a box of canned foods. Or maybe if I cut out that expense I could add a category to buy food. Maybe I could get a truck and start a small charity, yeah. Pretty soon I was lost in the thicket of self-righteousness. That's when God sent me to look in the Gospel for His word on the matter.
    
     We desire God. Our passion blinds us. We are like Peter on the mountain cutting sticks to build a tent for God. We don't see it. We don't understand. He has to put a hand on our heart, slow us down, get our attention. The desire is righteous, but the response is all wrong...
     The person in my life who suffers want is on a journey. I am on a journey too. Our paths intersect and when I awaken to their need, my heart, the new heart given to me for loving, opens to them. Can I help? Of course I can. Does helping make me holy? No. Holiness comes first. It comes from God through Jesus and it is God's doing, first, last, and always. He comes like the wind, searching for what is loose, what is free to pick up and move. Where will the wind take this bit of loose heart? Will it take me to my neighbor who needs food to eat? Will it take me to the one who lives in the street? Will it find a way to help? Will it only drop me there so that I can see and know that my family is out there, in the world, suffering in so many ways, hoping, as I do, that the Lord will come and find them? He will come. That is assured. But when He comes, will he find us there with them, hearts open and ready? Will he be able to do what He hopes to do through us? Will he be able to help through our hands?

    If there's a rusty truck filled with groceries in my future, God will take me to it. My job is to let go of what I've been holding onto, what's been holding me back when the wind comes blowing. I've had it backwards I guess. I've been trying to catch the wind, when I need to be letting the wind catch me.