January 22, 2022

A Woman’s Plea for A Righteous Man

Lord, my own Father,

I come before you today as an ambassador. As your little daughter, I come with the right to implore you to give me an answer to bring back to your servant.

Who is he that you have refused to grant him the return on the bill he has so painstakingly filled for you? What crime has he committed that you refuse to satisfy the desires of his heart?

• What do you ask of me?

I ask for the opportunity to present his case to you.

• Proceed.

Father Almighty, I, your beloved daughter Elizabeth, upon whom you shower every grace and blessings, present to you this day your servant, ____, and his many deeds, so that you can repay him according to his deserts.

The Bill of Actions (please respond to each item)

1. Your servant has devoted his entire life to your cause.

• Proceed with your items. I will respond when you have finished.

1. Your servant has not committed a mortal sin since dedicating his life to you. He has kept on the straight path, serving you in word and deed, loving you through his actions, defending your cause.

2. He is committed to finding the wife you are preparing for him, uniting with her in true intention, and raising his children with her for your glory.

3. He has sacrificed his time, talent, energy, and meal times to your work.

4. He has at least twice risked his career and academic standing to win hearts for you.

5. He has read the works of the greats, studied the languages of the dead, and schooled his mind to grasp the concepts of the faith so he can pass them on to others, in fullness.

6. Finally, Lord, he has been a respectful, loving, and righteous man in his actions to your daughter and servant, myself. Through his deference to my sex, he has taught me wonderful aspects of your love, and the dignity of my own worth.

With these seven charges listed before you here, I state his grievance: that among the multitudes of his many blessings, which he accedes to come from you, namely: friendship, good grades, financial future, prospect of romantic love, family, health, a sound mind, and many more, he still finds himself lacking something.

This lack proceeds not from any reticence on his part to open himself to your will. Rather, holy father, his will is as open as he knows how to make it. He seeks for your answer, your help, oh Lord, in knowing what it is that he lacks, what it is that you refuse to give him. What is he still to receive? What are you promising him, which this great desire of his heart proclaims?

And why have you not payed him his due?

In your own words, Lord, you declare:

Jeremiah 22:13

“Woe to him... who makes his neighbor serve him for nothing and does not give him his wages.”

1 Timothy 5:18

“For the Scripture says... “The laborer deserves his wages.”

Thank you Father for you willingness to hear my plea, which I make only out of love for my friend, and to uphold and show forth your glory, oh God, who are the most fair and just king over all. Thank you, and glory be to you forever!

THE LORD’S RESPONSE:

You have brought me this plea of my son, and I thank you. I will address it point by point.

1. You say My son has devoted his entire life to my cause. I never asked this of him. You will say that he will not be satisfied by such an answer. But that is what it is.

2. You say first that My son has not committed a mortal sin since dedicating his life to my service. You say secondly that he has served me in word and deed, loving me through his actions and defending my cause. To the first point: this is well and good, and no more than I ask of any of my servants. To the last: so have I done for him. When he floundered on his way in life, who was it that steered him back? When he risked his future for my sake, who was it that pulled him out of danger and kept him in school and work? He is my beloved, and I am his defender.

3. You say he will marry and raise his children in the way they should go. I say he must study the Holy Family. And in particular, St. Joseph, who was a humble man. He believed he was owed nothing, but rather, in his humility, took steps to put Mary away from him. It was this willingness to renounce himself and his future that secured for St. Joseph the greatest marital bliss on earth.

4. You list the temporary, particular things of this life which he has sacrificed to my eternal plan. What of them? What do these have to do with me?

5. You say he has fought to win hearts for me. I say I have fought to win his.

6. You say he has studied the intellectual greats, languages, and the concepts of the faith. He will receive no more from these than that which they can provide. What more does he seek from them?

7. Finally, you say he has been a respectful, loving, and righteous man in his actions to you, my daughter and servant. I ask, what do you owe him?

Enough, then, for the points you have brought me. The main grievance, then, is the lack that gnaws at his heart.

I say, you have done well, my good and faithful servant. I am calling you to more. I have withheld nothing. I have given you all.

This all is my heart, my mind, my hands, to do my work in the world. This all is the all to which you, in your striving, have opened yourself. Yet this all is over-crowded.

My heart cannot fit into yours, though it has tried. My hands cannot manipulate yours, though they have tried. My mind cannot overshadow yours, though it has tried.

In this effort to accommodate me into yourself, you are breaking. You are so open, and withheld nothing back, so that I am like a tidal wave breaking, unobstructed, against a house. The house is breaking.

I am calling you to more.

Come to me. Build your house underwater. Let not my mind overshadow yours, but let yours enter into mine. There is plenty of room. Then your heart will rest in mine, and your hands will fit inside my own, like an infant wearing his father’s giant gloves.

This lack in your life and heart, oh son of mine, oh good and faithful servant, is my invitation to you to come deeper, to disappear, into me.

You ask why I have not paid you your dues. I declare it is because you cannot yet receive them.

Your desire is my promise.

Enter into my house, and I will pay you all.

MY RESPONSE TO THE LORD

Thank you Lord for your answers. I have only one question now.

HOW is _____ to enter into your house? What must he do?

• He must believe it’s possible.

July 27, 2021

Me: Ok Lord, what do you want me to write about?

The Lord: Me

He loves it when I write to Him, write about Him, and just when I write. Lately, I’ve been filling my life with other tasks, and He keeps redirecting me... Write, Elizabeth. Write of me, of life, of love...

Me: As you wish.

Is Love a Choice?

“I never really believed in magical love,” my friend said, “until I fell into it.”

Have you ever fallen in love? In conversation recently, my friends and I came to the realization that to fall in love is not a choice. In fact, if it were a choice, it would cease to be love.

I intend to defend this position, since as a Catholic, we are often told: “love is a choice.” I do actually believe that. So if falling in love is not a choice, but love is, what does that mean?

Now, I want to make a distinction before I go any further. There is a difference - impossible to describe though I will try - between falling in love and infatuation.

If you have been in love, then you know what I mean without my trying to describe it to you. And if, so far, you’ve only experienced infatuation, then no description can truly communicate the concept of love.

Some Clarifications:

Neither love nor infatuation is a good or a bad thing, in and of itself. Both partake of goodness, and both are a necessary and beautiful aspect of the human experience. Both can also be perverted. But love is higher - in the order of being and goodness - than infatuation.

• Infatuation engages the senses and emotions, driving out every other reality.

• Love engages the entire person: mind, body, and soul, and leaves command of the emotions.

• Infatuation makes the person selfish, even if she doesn’t mean to be, for she is so full of the other person and the good feelings she’s experiencing, that she has a hard time seeing other people.

• Love brings the person out of herself and able to see people, beauty, and good things in abundance, for she sees suddenly the futility of little things, and begins to engage with reality on a deeper level.

• An infatuated person sees their beloved in everything. Anything, even the littlest thing, reminds them of their beloved.

• A person in love looks for aspects of their beloved in things of quality. They seek to go deeper into beauty, goodness, and truth. Knowing that their beloved is a thing of precious quality, they seek for themes of precious quality in all around them.

• Infatuation either leads to love, or dies away into oblivion.

• Love endures, even if it changes. It either changes it’s tone into a lasting affection, fades away into a pleasant memory, or else it lasts until ‘death do us part.’

• Infatuation does not change the person, other than to bring sometimes transitory happiness and stress.

• Love, on the other hand (while not automatically making him a better person), calls the lover to a higher virtuous standard. He suddenly recognizes and adores virtue, and has the powerful motivation to be a better person for the sake of his beloved. Love transforms.

The Choice

So why is it that although love is a choice, falling in love is not?

To be ‘in love’ is not a choice, but choice is still involved. When I and my friends have fallen in love, we noticed the common theme of Resistance. Every one of us resisted the idea of accepting that we were ‘in love.’ To fall in love is unnerving for the very fact that we do not choose to fall into it. Would you choose to fall into a pit? No. To fall is an unsettling feeling. It makes your stomach drop, your heart pound, your life change direction (literally - we go from traveling horizontally to vertically). For this reason, the expression ‘falling in love’ is very appropriate, for it is an unwilling fall.

To be in love is the choice. It is to accept Joseph Campbell’s Call to Adventure, and to embrace that life is about to take an unexpected and potentially disastrous turn. To be in love is to accept that there is a higher reality in life than oneself. It is to recognize beauty and goodness, and to seek after deeper understandings of these realities. To be in love is to ascend in mind and soul.

In God’s inneffible wisdom, He has allowed us to experience this call through the presence and companionship of another person in romantic love. He could have left us with Him alone, for He is, after all, Love itself. But in the Garden, he decreed that it was not good for man to be alone, and so he created a helper fit for him, and in Adam’s moment of awakening to see Eve, he was struck into declaring his love and his joy. It was Adam and Eve’s call to grow deeper into God through knowing and discovering the other.

“Do not arouse, nor awaken love, until it so desires.” This awakening is outside of our control. It seems as though the love itself is a living entity, coming to life and fluttering outside the doors of our hearts, begging for us to let him in.

Will we choose to let him in?

My friend, when he spoke of falling in love, of now believing in magical love, was speaking of this total self-effacing love. It makes one want to live forever with the person, if they can, or else die to prove their love. It is the celebrated love of Romeo and Juliet, of Victoria and Albert, of Christ and the Church. It happens in a moment - in one instant of existence - and it changes the trajectory of one’s entire life. One instant, we are our regular self, trying to figure out who we are and what we’re meant for in this life, and the next: everything else is eclipsed. Nothing small can enter our world any longer. Not, that is, unless we choose to deny our call and shut the door on beauty, truth, and goodness. For this arousal, this awakening of love, is in truth a call to the highest realities of life: to enter into the Love of God himself, who is alpha and omega, the beginning and the end.

This love may lead to marriage, or it may be a stepping stone on the journey. But I encourage you that when you fall into love and you open your door to let it in, you have done no harm. You have chosen beauty, truth, and goodness, and if you invite the Lord in, you will ascend to know Him in his Higher Places. You will ascend to see the Lord in his house of Glory, where He waits for you.

Do not despair of ‘magical’ love. Do not seek to arouse it. And most of all, when it comes, do not deny it entrance.

July 5, 2021

Notes for My First Talk

Who Am I and Why Am I Talking to You Today?

Build my business

Surrender

Inspire

I can inspire you, not by sharing all the bad things in my own life, but rather, but encouraging you to do what I have done. Rather than focusing and narrowing in on all the ways God hasn’t shown up for you the way you want him to, instead, praise Him for his blessings.

Write 10 gratitudes in the morning.

Notice 3 things at night that He showed up for you during the day:

1. I wonder what wonders God has in store for my life?

2. I wonder how God worked that out?

3. Look for God, Open yourself to gratitude, and to Trust in God

   Trusting in God

Place to place, person to person

• It’s not about the numbers, its about the quality of the interaction

Men and Women Profit differently

Men: Push forward to create. “By the sweat of their brow” they earn their daily bread, and the daily bread of their family

Women: Surrender themselves to the providing of others, in particular God, from whom they receive everything.

Quote: From “For Women Only” about St. Paul’s evaluation of men loving and women surrendering.

Women do not naturally surrender: it is a trait we develop, and when we engage in surrender, we are far more fulfilled than any success we gain on our own

If you find yourself pushing, you are banging your head against a brick wall. God is your lover, and he wants to give you everything you need.

Men do not naturally work: it is a trait you develop, and when you work, you gain far more satisfaction through that activity than if someone just gave you something.

Now, quick caveat: these are the deep needs of men and women, but we are all human. Men still desire and delight in gifts, and women still desire and delight in work. But those activities should be supplementary to our deep, made-for activities.