God & Storms: Does God protect us?

This blog post was originally published in October 2014. It seemed appropriate to repost it in the midst of this historic hurricane season, as we continue to pray for all those facing storms.

How would you answer the question, "Does God protect us?"

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Do you ever pray about the weather?  “Pray for good weather this Sunday for the church picnic.”  While there’s certainly nothing wrong with praying for this sort of thing, it may create legitimate questions in our minds:  If God would arrange good weather for our church picnic, why wouldn’t he arrange for hurricanes to avoid heavily populated areas, or for monsoons to stop before they become devastating floods, or for rain to fall on drought-stricken farms? Why not redirect a polar vortex or subdue a tsunami?

Can God control the weather?  Of course.  But does he?

In this way, earth’s storms are not unlike the storms of life.  We can and we should pray about the difficulties and devastations we face.  We must always communicate with, and lean on and believe in, our loving and powerful God.  But we are well aware that he does not always intervene when it comes to “bad weather.”  Could God control every aspect of our lives, create a wall around us, protecting us from every bad thing?  Perhaps.  But does he?  He most certainly does not.

Perhaps it comes down to a question of how God protects us.  There are times in life when we feel miraculously protected – walking away from a car accident, being thrown from a horse and standing up good as new.  But for the most part, we get tossed around by life with scars to show for it – there are injuries, illnesses, heartbreaks, sleeplessness, stress and death – for all of God’s children.  The rain falls on everyone, and some even seem to get more than their fair share.  God does not always shield us from these things.  And yet he remains our powerful protector.  He protects not with a power that interferes with each event, but a power that gathers us in, and pulls us near, and makes and keeps promises about being with us.  It is a power that may strike us as a bit too subtle at times, and yet as time passes, we recognize how awesome, and how essential, and how real it actually is.

As a parent, I do not want my children to suffer, and I am naturally tempted to smooth their paths in whatever way I can.  But even more than I may want an easy life for them, I want a great life for them.  I want them to be great.  And the fact is that great people have suffered. They have experienced the storms of life without always bailing out into the nearest shelter. They have learned the most important things by being brought down low.  Storms transformed them and made them strong, wise, clearheaded and serene.  Wounded?  Yes, that too.  But we can be wounded and still be great.  It is much harder to be utterly unscathed and be anything more than mediocre.

God allows bad weather – really bad weather – and he allows life’s storms.  Sometimes the storms are so bad that our wounds don’t heal.  For those times we may simply have to surrender:  “Lord, I know you may not change this storm, but you are always willing to change me.  So if you must, make me great!”

Hurricane Harvey makes destructive landfall on the coast of Texas on Aug. 25, 2017. Image credit NOAA/RAMMB.

Some Lenten Levity, Courtesy Dorothy Day

In honor of Laetare Sunday (“Rejoice Sunday,” marking roughly our halfway mark through Lent), I thought I’d share a story with quasi-Lenten undertones (that’s a stretch) that made me laugh out loud.

It’s from a wonderful book put together by Rosalie G. Riegle entitled Dorothy Day: Portraits by Those Who Knew Her.  The book is full of impressions, stories and memories about the real Dorothy Day from a wide survey of people who knew her in all sorts of capacities throughout her life.  

A little background on this particular story – apparently Dorothy was known for disliking contemporary music!  Rosalie narrates with the help of longtime Catholic Worker Brian Terrell:

“Often the young [Catholic] Workers would ‘have a hard time understanding the grumbling of their elder leader as an expression of love,’ as Brian Terrell says. ‘For all its craziness, the Worker is a family, and in families it often happens that the elders complain about…the younger generation.’ Brian tells a generational story about Dorothy coming upon some young people at work in Maryhouse and listening to the Carly Simon song ‘I Haven’t Got Time for the Pain.’ Dorothy shook her cane at them and said, ‘You’ve always got to have time for the pain.’”

Dorothy Day! When I'm old enough to shake my cane at people, may God grant me your panache!

I doubt Dorothy ever shook her cane at these four whipper-snappers: Ralph DiGia, Dan Berrigan, Chris Kearns, and Tom Cornell. Photo courtesy of Jim Forest’s online photo album.  Click on the picture to visit Jim’s “Dorothy Day” album.

Your Paper-Thin Wings

At Saturday’s retreat on prayer, my retreatants and I reflected on how we are made for prayer. We are human; we are free; we are made for relationships. Prayer is our relationship with God. God is not “up there” while we are “down here.” Rather, God is with us, and he desires intimacy with us. Although prayer is indisputably challenging, we were made for it. It was meant to be.

To illustrate this point, I shared something I recently heard on a Radiolab podcast (with four kids in four schools this year, I do a lot of driving and a lot of podcasting!). Radiolab was investigating how a caterpillar becomes a butterfly. Do you know how a caterpillar becomes a butterfly?

A caterpillar does not simply grow wings inside its chrysalis. No, first the caterpillar dissolves into a goop. That’s right, goop. If you cut open a chrysalis during this stage, goop spills out! Somehow that goop becomes a butterfly.

But where do the wings come from?

As it turns out, the wings are already formed inside the caterpillar. Careful dissection of a prepupal caterpillar reveals paper-thin, transparent wings, tiny antennae and even legs! The structures of “butterfly-ness” exist just below the caterpillar's outer skin, waiting for transformation.

We were made for prayer, friends. The wings are already there, paper-thin, transparent, and a bit pent up. With God’s help, we can stretch out and fly.

I hope you will enjoy this Radiolab broadcast:  “Goo and You.”

"Life history of the silk moth (Bombyx mori). A, caterpillar; B, pupa; C, imago; the cocoon is cut open to show the pupa lying within." Source: J. Arthur Thomson, M.A., LL.D. Outlines of Zoology (New York, NY: D. Appleton & Company, 1916).

Magnificat Reflection on Parenting: "Christ's Own Forever"

My thanks to Magnificat for allowing me to republish the following reflection, which I originally wrote for their column “She Pondered These Things in Her Heart” (January 2017).  

"Christ's Own Forever"

A beautiful thing about ritual is that the words of our rites often echo in our minds when we need them most.  Raising four children in a world of conflicting voices can be a daunting task.  When my husband and I worry about the choices our children could make and the harm that might come to them, the words that reverberate in my mind and heart come from an old baptismal rite, one I heard many times in my own youth:  You are marked as Christ’s own forever. 

Releasing our children into the hands of God is perhaps the most difficult and the most liberating thing we can ever do as parents.  We begin at their baptism by marking them as Christ’s own.  It seems so easy when they are babies dressed in pure white!  But as they grow – as they form their own ideas, opinions and lives – we realize this “release” is a process that lasts a lifetime.  It is a prolonged exercise in trust, for we must trust that if we let go – if we release the anxious grip we have on our children – that he will catch them!  He will hold them in a protective embrace that does not restrict them in the least.  He will sort out the mixed messages in their hearts and penetrate his gaze into the deepest, truest parts of their souls.  Only God can do these things.

Our children are growing up in confusing times.  But we have given them over to be Christ’s own forever.  And in that simple act, if we can really do it, we too will be free.

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Guest Blog: "Slow Down, Mom"

My guest blogger today is my dear friend, college roommate and “soul-sister,” Jeanne Canavan.  Jeanne and her husband are the proud parents of Veronica, a delightful young lady adopted from Poland several years ago, and the soon-to-be parents of Victoria, another little girl from the same orphanage.  Jeanne is also the vice principal at a Catholic K-8 school in Virginia.

I asked Jeanne to write this blog post because she said something to me that I thought was worthy of every parent’s reflection.  Jeanne said she believes that the particular children we have – whether biological or adopted – are given to us to heal us.  We may find some aspect of our child especially difficult to deal with, especially challenging, especially annoying or especially impossible.  This is probably the “part” of our child that is meant to stretch us, change us, and ultimately, as Jeanne said, heal us.   

Jeanne, thank you for sharing your wisdom with us!

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June can be very challenging for families whose children begin to struggle as academic goals become more difficult and motivation to be in school decreases.  Thoughts of summer fill our heads, and yet we want to diligently finish the remaining work and prepare well for the next chapter in life or at school.  

At the age of seven Willard Wigan – now a world-famous artist – already hated school.  He was a complete misfit there – ill-behaved, not meeting benchmarks, at times seemingly dazed and confused, at others angry and withdrawn.  He just didn't fit in.  

I work in a school and sometimes meet with parents whose kids don't like school, and more importantly, aren't successful there, either academically, socially or behaviorally.  There is nothing like the look on the faces of a mom and dad who realize they have a long, dark road ahead: Johnny or Sue, Blaze or Tucker . . . simply do not fit the mold.  

One reason it's easier for me to connect with these moms and dads is that my little girl was in that exact situation starting toward the end of kindergarten.  I remember the frustration of realizing that her special needs meant that traditional settings would be very challenging for her and for us.  I also remember the morning I woke up and realized that performance at school was not the “end all be all.”

I distinctly remember God's inspiration: "Think of her special need as something designed to change you and what you view as important. Your life's work, your vocation is to love her exactly as she is."  That thought floored me.  About me.  My life's work.  I couldn't imagine a more difficult task than loving my child exactly as she is.  

And yet...I know and believe that God does that for me and each one of us with ease and simplicity.  His love is uncomplicated, pure, discreet . . . not like mine on occasion with my daughter . . . explosive, demanding, impatient, and hurried.

"Slow down, slow down, Mom; I can't walk that fast. Slow down, slow down, Mom.  I see something in the grass here.  Slow down, slow down, Mom.  I have a question."  It seems "slow down" is God's way of taking my goals and pride out of the equation and infusing my life with His priorities.  

Willard Wigan's mom was patient with him, however.  It didn't bother her too much that he didn't fit in; she just wanted him to find a place where he did.  When he was seven years old, Willard presented her with a tiny little town for a colony of ants to use.  He had made it from matches and matchboxes.

And no, she didn't yell at him. She didn't tell him that he had made a mess. She didn't throw it away or become angry that he brought ants into the house.  She simply said, "Son, you're good at this.  Do this!"  

And he did.  

Willard is now a world-renowned miniature artist who makes art so minuscule that most of it cannot be seen with the naked eye. Some of his pieces are small enough to fit in the eye of a needle.   He works in the middle of the night so that cars passing on the road do not disrupt the tiny motions of his specially designed tools.  

Perhaps if his mother had not loved Willard exactly as he was in that exact moment, the world never would have seen just what wonders a small boy grown could produce.  

So this summer, between helping her learn to type, or working on his gait, or driving her to algebra camp, make time in your schedule to let your kids just be.  Cherish them as they are.  If you feel yourself wanting them to change, instead, let them change you.

Williard Wigan created this micro-sculpture of Christ the Redeemer inside the eye of a needle.  He used a fly hair (yes, a hair from a fly’s head) as a paintbrush.  Click here for a short video.

This picture of Jeanne and Veronica was taken at an “emergency” trip to the hairdresser after Veronica decided to cut her own hair in order to surprise her mother.