Trust Me

"Trust me," has become a trite expression.  Every time someone says something, they punctuate it with, "trust me."  It has become so commonplace, that I have learned to never trust anyone who says "trust me."  Not so with God.  You know why?

It is because right from the beginning, right at the beginning of sin, God showed His loving care for us, never mind proving His love by sending His Son to redeem us.   Before Jesus, before we were kicked out of the Garden, God's plans for Adam and Eve shows His love.

He punished Adam and Eve like any good Father does.  Look what He did to the serpent!  Adam and Eve were dealt with in a different manner.  God allowed Adam to give a name to his wife.  God wanted them to continue, as best they could, the life He had ordained for them.  He did not want Adam and Eve to be naked and defenseless.  He clothed them better than they could have done themselves.  Adam and Eve were sad and ashamed to leave the Garden.  But they weren't desolate.  God have given them hope.  They were to wait for the seed of a pure woman to make up for their sin.

Personally, what I, as a woman, a grandmother, and mostly as a mother, consider proof of God the Father's loving care for us, is child birth.  Mothers have to suffer.  Mothers face the pain of child birth.  But isn't this exactly where their greatest experience of joy is found?

Trust Him, from Whom all good things flow.

Praise God from whom all blessings flow;

Praise God, all creatures here below;

Praise God for all that love has done;

Creator, Christ, and Spirit, One.

Two Year Olds and Mercy

She wouldn't come out of the shower.  My granddaughter is only 22 months and already she was throwing a temper tantrum.  I take her swimming once a week in a YMCA pool.  She loves it.  She loves to shower, also.

The problem was that she was tired.  Swimming wipes her out.  I told her it was time to go home--to see--Mommy and Daddy.  But she was screaming so loud she couldn't hear a word I said.  I shut the water off.  She screamed louder.  I tried to pull her out but she was slippery wet and backed away from me.  I offered her food and she took it and threw it at me.  I offered her a toy.  That was thrown at me, too.

She was uncontrollable.

I didn't know what to do.  She had to come out.  I wrapped her in a towel and took her out screaming, crying, kicking, slapping and also slippery wet.  I had a hard time drying her, never mind her resisting and hampering every article of clothing I put on her.

Everyone in the locker room looked at us disapprovingly.  Not one look of sympathy!  Not one offer of help.  In fact, the locker room emptied of people.

I got her dressed, enough...no socks nor shoes because she wasn't walking; she had to be carried out.  She still screamed bloody murder.  Her hair was a mess.  There was no way I could dry it, let alone comb it.  Forget barrettes!

She's about 30 pounds.  That's 30 pounds of resistance.  Besides kicking, punching, slapping, she was now biting.  Did I mention that I was carrying a backpack of wet towels and bathing suits?
I also had the diaper bag.  In addition, my pocketbook was a heavy burden.

I carried all.  But with her squirming and pushing, I had to keep stopping and adjusting my hold on her, so I wouldn't drop her.  It seemed an inordinate amount of time to traverse my way out of the locker room, down the corridor, through the foyer, out to the parking lot.  Meanwhile, trying to sheepishly smile away the hostile glares.  I was not a monster.  She was!

She kept it up as we painstakingly staggered to the car.  Damn!  Why did I park in the last row?

Finally, the car door was opened.  I resisted the urge to throw her in her car seat, and firmly placed her in a secure position.

Do you believe the volume of her screams never lessened?

I backed out of the parking space.  I put the car in gear and proceeded out of the parking lot.

All of a sudden, it was quiet.  I looked in the rear view mirror.  Could she be asleep, already?  I stopped the car and looked at her.

She was sound asleep.

No she didn't look like an angel.  Her expression showed that she was asleep under protest.

So be it.  And she stayed asleep, as her mother carried her to her crib.  She napped for three hours.

I was upset and angry.  I thought of God's providence.  Hmpf.   Then I thought of Father Lataste's message of love and mercy.  Hmpf.

Yes, she's my granddaughter and I do love her.  I'm upset but not angry.  She's not even two, so who can I be angry at.  God?  Well, who else?

So OK, there's nobody to be angry at.  I have to forgive her because she's only a baby and doesn't understand.  She can't articulate her feelings any other way.

Do you think God feels the same way about us?  We sin because were human.  We upset Him but He has to forgive us because we don't know any better.  Is this what Father Lataste was trying to tell the women in Cadillac?

God is all merciful, full of love.

Hmpf.  But I'm not divine.

I will never take her into a shower, again.  Never.  From now on, we come out of the pool, and walk by the showers, and go to the dressing rooms.  No more showers.  Never.  At least until she out of the terrible two's.

What does it all mean?

See what you make of this: happiness, sadness, gospel.

This morning upon leaving my home, I stopped dead in my tracks.  There before me the sun's rays were fingering through the trees branches and falling on the sparkling dew wet grass.  It was breath-taking.  I tried to take a picture of it on my iPhone, but the sun's rays didn't come across.

Approaching my car I was quite dismayed to see a small pile of something on my car's roof.  A dirty bird?  Sap from the tree?  It was kind of too big to be bird poop, or sap.  It was a gray pile of matter about the size of my fist.

I went in the back yard and picked up my granddaughter's pail and shovel.  I carefully scraped up the disgusting mass of whatever it was.

It was a poor little bird.  It looked kind of embryonic.  Some predator bird must have picked it out of its nest, and it was too heavy for it, so it dropped it on the roof of my car. ( I'm creating a story for the entire incident.)

Anyway, I started to say a pray for it.  Then thought.  Aquinas says birds don't have immortal souls so what am I praying for?  Is AQ wrong (perish the thought)?  But shouldn't some sort of remembrance be made for a creature's life.  So I prayed for my understanding of it all.

At Mass, the Gospel was Matthew 10: 24-33.     "...Are not two sparrows...  Yet not one of them falls to the ground without your Father's knowledge..."

Ah............Nietzsche is wrong.  Religion and reality do come together.