Franciscan Benediction

May God Bless you with discomfort

At easy answers, half-truths, and superficial relationships

So that you may live deep within your heart.

May God bless you with anger

At injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people,

So that you may work for justice, freedom and peace.

May God bless you with tears

To shed for those who suffer pain, rejection, hunger and war,

So that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and

To turn their pain into joy.

And may God bless you with enough foolishness

To believe that you can make a difference in the world,

So that you can do what others claim cannot be done

To bring justice and kindness to all our children and the poor.

Amen.

I gather its amazing at how little we pray, and seek Him, when He is faithfully with us every minute of everyday. I read through the first day’s devotion briefly during recess today while pondering over (yes at the same time) what I should fast. Seems like God has sort of given me the answer. (:

It was a brief skim through, but what caught my eye was this:

Have we reduced Christianity to a great buffet, and ourselves, the self-serving consumers? Do we pick and choose whatever we fancy from the Word, and skip the parts we don’t like?

For example, in times of loneliness and need, we affirm that Jesus is always with us, even to the end of the age. But we forget that this promise of His abiding presence was given after He commissioned His disciples to (make disciples of all nations) take the gospel to the ends of the earth. (matt 28:18-20) We seek His blessings, but withhold our wholehearted devotion to His purpose.

Sometimes I feel that my life is made up of many pieces of cut paper. When I go to school, somehow, I transform into a different person. Someone who hungers after a level of acceptance; being carelessly loud and brash; allowing the expectations of this world to get to me.

I had a silent retreat in the last week of the holidays with Danne at the beach. Somewhere along the way I was forced to accept that grades don’t matter. Even if i fail every single subject I should have the joy of the Lord to sustain me. This is of course not to renounce the importance of hard work, diligence and striving to be all that you can be (yada yada). I awakened to the fact that my stress, my moments of loss, anxiety were borne of the overdependence upon the need to succeed. and to what purpose?

“I undertook great projects: I built houses for myself and planted vineyards. I made gardens and parks and planted all kinds of fruit trees in them… I became greater by far than anyone in Jerusalem before me. In all this my wisdom stayed with me.  I denied myself nothing…Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done, and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun.” Ecc 2: 4-11

“What does a man get for all the toil and anxious striving with which he labors under the sun? All his days his work is pain and grief; even at night his mind does not rest. This too is meaningless. A man can do nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in His work. This too, I see is from the hand of God, for without him, who can eat or find enjoyment?” Ecc 3: 22-24

If our lives were shaped by God, to be lived for God; where we’re given the opportunity to seek God and find Him that we may enjoy the fullness if His goodness and grace; and yet we let the world’s definition of what is good cause us pain and endless misery. I am agitated. I struggle with it. I cannot begin to describe how nervous I was for bio results today and how afraid I am that about LA – that I will not match up to the standards of my peers, the expectations of my teachers, and my own foolish pride which tells me that I need to be better.

I need to RISE beyond. We all do. And God help us, Father help us.

“Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:

to loose the chains of injustice

and untie the cords of the yoke

to set the oppressed free

and break every yoke?

Is it not to share your food with the hungry

and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter-

when you see the naked, to clothe him,

and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?”

Isaiah 58:6,7

And may God bless you with enough foolishness

To believe that you can make a difference in the world,

So that you can do what others claim cannot be done

To bring justice and kindness to all our children and the poor.