What are they looking for?

A group of us at our church are gathering to discuss the book Doers of the Word by Archbishop Dolan and one of the questions last week was, "Is the secular world searching for a more closer union with God?" In my heart I wanted to answer, "Yes, why of course they are!" The truth is as we tossed this one around was that we are not seeing evidence of this. In the secular world there is a lot of searching and a lot of finding but it has nothing to do with God and a lot more to do with what feels right.
This morning as I dropped off my daughter at school the car in front of me was pasted with stickers like amnesty international and the sierra club. But the one that prompted me to think about the whole wide world without religion was "Wag More, Bark Less". Yes, it is a nice thought and a cute sticker for a dog lover but it speaks the sentiments of today. Simply by smiling and "being happy" we will create a peaceful world. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Why, because we get angry! We get angry when kids are starving, when wives are beat, when our food is poisoned, when schools are danger zones, when babies are murdered, when the poor can barely survive, we get mad and then we do something. There is no wagging when evil shows it's face. There is no face lapping, paw shaking or fetching when the world is in such chaos. How can one calm the storm by smiling at it?
I think we need to talk a whole lot more and not back into the proverbial paper bag but straight to God in heaven. The secular world will eventually wake up, they will eventual see that the false peace they believe they create by encouraging everyone to get along will disintegrate.
I recently prayed in front of an abortion clinic with four of my children, a day after a homemade fire bomb had been thrown at a woman in prayer. One friend disapproved at what she saw as irresponsible and dangerous, she said, "There is a lot of evil out there." I couldn't agree with her more, the evil that takes place inside that building, the evil that spreads from it like a vicious rumor on a raging river,is real. I stood there but I was not alone with us there were five guardian angels and a whole lot of prayers. It really isn't about shaking my back end rather than yelling and it is about praying, defending, and sharing God's word, His peace and love. Maybe this is evidence at our failure to spread His word, how can one know it if they are never taught it? Maybe wagging is the best they've got?

Homemade bomb thrown at peaceful protester

40 Days for life...40 Days of prayer for mothers and their babies. Mother Theresa said "And if we can accept that a mother can kill her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another?" Here in Kalispell, Montana babies lives are threatened everyday and now those who peacefully pray for a conversion of heart are also not safe. The officers were unmoved and even suggested to expect such violence.

1 Corinthians 4:5 "do not go on passing judgment before the time, but wait until the Lord comes who will both bring to light the things hidden in the darkness and disclose the motives of men's hearts; and then each man's praise will come to him from God."

Cowboys still kneel

Last night I was a cocktail waitress in the VIP section at a Bull Riding Event. Up close and personal with the cowboys, the bulls and the drinkers.
Cowboys still kneel in prayer. In case you didn't know, Cowboys still kneel.
Cowboys who are tough, dirty, dusty, stuffed in chaps, kneel and pray.
Cowboys take off their hats, place it over their heart and bend their knees.
Cowboys get on bull and hold on for dear life but first they pray.
Cowboys drink and Cowboys spit.
Cowboys open doors and twirl girls, Cowboys get rough in the fields
and Cowboys still kneel.

Not big enough for that many kids

It is a common assumption that the more kids you have the larger your body will be. How often does a woman without children here people say, "Wow, how do you do it and you work 40 hours a week?" or "How do you keep your figure after all those hours in the office?" I suppose the fact that a woman's uterus fills up and grows to accommodate a baby, and most of the time the rest of her body too, that it is uncommon to return to your size post baby.
I have spent too many years obsessing about the size of my back end, calves, upper arms and hips. I have spent days arranging naps and playdates around my chance to exercise. Fighting with myself to get up earlier than I would like, feeling guilty when I don't. I have wasted too much time staring at a shape that will forever be MINE. Have you read, The Shape of Me and Other Stuff ?
I only say this is a common assumption that you must be large to have had more than one child based on the obnoxious amounts of comments I have received over the years about the way I look. Some sound down right disappointed that I am not FAT!

I know what I don't want to be part of. I do not want to be part of a culture of death. I do not want to stand face to face with a woman who tells me she had no choice but to visit with someone who believed her only path to wholeness was to rip her baby from her womb and not have been able to save her from that horror.
I know I want to be about empowerment and sharing with woman the very strength we possess that is being stolen and manipulated into, "our strength is in freedom" and that kind of freedom being referred to is childless or lives only in the life with children of intention.
I beg to ask how many woman have willed their conception? How many women have said this month of September is the month that agrees with my schedule and subsequently in June have birthed their purposeful child?
If woman could recognize the gift of motherhood and stand to defend the lives of their children in any case, yes even in the case of rape, can you imagine the women we would be? Strong, vivacious, brilliant, defiant even. I know I want to be joined with women who will stand for their rights. The right to no longer be victimized by a culture that says we are only worthy when we are weak. A culture that says we are too weak to birth, too weak to break up, too weak to survive,too weak to tell our parents, too weak to give our child the gift of adoption, too weak to let anyone know. Why? Why do our children have to die?

Christian Soldiers

"There is no Easy Button in real life. Look at a crucifix and there you will see your model. Servanthood, laying down our lives that’s what we are called to, and it’s totally different from what the world says. Jesus is our example. He was Lord but came to serve not to be served. If I can remember this in my role with my children things go much better. I am here to facilitate their learning, serve them in their needs etc. I don’t have all the answers, I am seeker like so many others but I am trying to constantly be open to helping my children discover who they are and become the person God created them to be."
Michele Quigley (Homeschooling Mom of 10 Michele Quigley.net)

What if Mary already told us?

So many of us question, how can we know? If only we had a messenger from heaven... Yet so many of us search for the answers in the news that only increasingly tells us that on one hand it is really bad and none of us are doing enough yet on the other hand it isn't as bad as one thinks and if we all just became vegetarians, recycled and praised whomever we think that "god" is in the fresh air on some vacation sebatacle we are sure to find some sort of inner peace. Yet so many of us long, so many search, in the face of death we all cry out. We cry out as the ones we love leave this world and many among us are so painfully uncertain that what their love ones will face is nothing.
I am curious why this is alarming when the same people claim, before they experience life in the trenches that there isn't a God more of an essence maybe and there isn't a Supreme being capable of causing death that inevitable causes pain. Concluding that if there is pain there is no God if there are ways to live by that are unpleasurable there can not be a God. Yet so many find themselves feeling the effects of unemployment, less food, depression, uncertainty, addiction and disease and start to wonder, IS THERE ANYBODY LISTENING?
Why is it then that we aren't all talking about Mary's apparitions, why isn't there a buzz about Mary? Children, Men and Women of many faiths, no faith, barefoot and lonely in the wilderness are telling us she has a message, they heard her, they saw her and she is talking to us- She the mother of Jesus. She has told others secrets before that have unfolded before the visionaries very eyes, they have lived the massacre of Rwanda, they have heard the horrors of WWII yet we turn a deaf ear.
Most of us would rather read some over published piece of garbage like, The Secret, that tells us to focus more on ourselves. If we had all the answers would we be crying out? There are no atheists in a fox hole.