Soul Scribe

Man is what he believes. 

Anton Chekhov 

And for us this is the end of all the stories.  All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story, which no one on Earth has read…in which every chapter is better than the one before.

C. S. Lewis
The Last Battle,
Chronicles of Narnia

Broken things are precious. We eat broken bread because we share in the death of our Lord and his broken life. Broken flowers give perfume. Broken incense is used in adoration. A broken ship saved Paul and many other passengers on the way to Rome. Sometimes the only way the good Lord can get into some hearts is to break them.

Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen

God calls us to lead lives of holiness.  Jesus gave the most perfect example with his own life.  But he gave us other examples of holiness in his own mother, the Virgin Mary, and the saints.

Saints are people to whom we can relate, essentially role models for the faithful.  Saints do not forget those of us on Earth.  They follow Jesus’ commandment to “love thy neighbor as thyself” (Matthew 22:39) even after death.  In following this, saints pray intensely for those of us on Earth.  And thank goodness, because we really need it!

While we ask saints for help, it is by God that our prayers are answered.  Saints help us at the request of Jesus and through God’s power.  When you pray to a saint, you’re not worshiping that saint.  You’re asking for the saint to pray for you and ask God to help you.

God is the one acting in our lives, not the saints.  They’re just the messengers showing us the way to reach the Lord.

“Hope” is the thing with feathers —

That perches in the soul —

And sings the tune without the words —

And never stops — at all —

Emily Dickinson

Stand by the roads and look, ask for the ancient path, which is the way to good.  Walk on it and find rest for your soul.

Jeremiah 6:16

The etymology (fancy name for where a word comes from) of the word vocation takes it back to the word voice.  I love the idea of that relationship.

My vocation is my voice in the world.  It’s what I’m charged to do every day.  My voice is my vocation.

As a writer, voice is that all-important, yet unexplainable thing that makes great literature.  It’s all about the voice.  No one can slap a real definition on what voice actually IS, but they sure try – sorta like God.

We try to define God, but we really only capture the smallest essence.  That’s part of the evolution of faith – we understand a bit more each day of what God has revealed to us.  But try as we might to define God – God will never be contained by us.

God is so much more than we can imagine.  It’s the greatest mystery of all time.  Keep up the sleuthing and we’ll be rewarded with a glimpse of the truth.

I’m settling into my vocation.  It can be difficult to throw thoughts out there into the world, because it contains my voice – my soul is in everything I do.

So despite my trepidations, I’m sharing my vocation/voice/soul with the world.  Maybe one day, I’ll hear back from you about it.

We get so caught up in the nitty gritty of rules and judgments that we forget.

 It’s not about the rules.

It’s about how you treat people.  It’s about finding that person in the corner and finding out who they are.  It’s walking the talk and how you live each day.  What kind of good did you do today?

You can be the most conscientious follower of religious practices and still not be who God wants you to be.

Don’t get me wrong.  Religion is important, but it’s not for show or the motions.  You’ve got to live it, not just attend it.

Religion is making our path to a relationship with God, as individuals and also community.  Everyday religion requires commitment that less and less people have time for nowadays.

We marginalize people for many reasons – they look different; they act different; they live different; they don’t look, act or live how we want them to live.  We forget that some people are even there.

Open your eyes and see all those around you as God does.  God sees each of us.  He really sees – not just the surface, but deep down into the soul.

If we really look at one another and see, we can make a difference.

He is not wise to me who is wise in words only, but he who is wise in deeds.

St. Gregory