Reflection From Friday: Journeying, Seriousness, Successes

I’m reacting emotionally, I know it, due to a mixture of factors:  lack of adequate, quality sleep; increased stress due to unforeseen small but necessary tasks about the house-buying/closing process; stress and concern for poor Bennie and how taxing his new, intense schedule is on him, combined with all my feelings that I’m not able to be of much help to him; newness and change and transition and all the difficult, thick moments of the stretching of my soul (complete with soul stretch marks, hopefully visible by God!) … and so on I could continue.   (I’ll save you by halting here.)

Yet, I felt insulted, and sadly, I wanted (almost instinctively) to respond in rudeness instead of with love when that woman across the row felt it her job to reiterate what the flight attendant had just stated:  “all portable electronic devices need to be turned off and stowed…”  Except, mind her, the aisle-crosser lacked a sincere professionalism and instead presumed an air I’m discovering is more typical here than in the South, a pompous, bossy-type laden with a thick Yankee accent dripping with an “I-know-everything-I’m-from-New-York” attitude.  Ever seen the MadTV “Bon Qui Qui” youtube clip??  Not exactly soul-elevating material, I realize, but SO APPROPRIATE right now:  “RUDE!  Suh-curity!  Needs to go.” :D

To merely laugh about it all lightens my soul immensely.  Was it Chesterton who wisely explore the idea of not taking oneself too seriously?!  

“Seriousness is not a virtue.  It would be a heresy, but a much more sensible heresy, to say that seriousness is a vice.  It is really a natural trend or lapse into taking one's self gravely, because it is the easiest thing to do.  It is much easier to write a good Times leading article than to write a good joke in Punch.  For solemnity flows out of men naturally; but laughter is a leap.  It is easy to be heavy: hard to be light.  Satan fell by force of gravity.” (Orthodoxy.  San Francisco:  Ignatius Press, 1908.)

Thank you, Jesus, for rescuing me from my too-grave self.  I was about to  Okay, brutal honesty here – I was in the process of mentally instating a self-proclaimed queen fit for a royal party, but with the intent all wrong – the pity sort of party, perhaps the worst kind.

So now I have managed to cover my once-crisp, tri-folded paper E-ticket with scrawling blue ink – blank side AND word side, too.  I am reminded of my dear friend Mary, for I believe I can say confidently that she would laugh at my current situation:  not malevolent “laugh at” but the good ol’ giggle because I’m delighting in the very fact that I’ve been where you are, and I might be there again!  You would see, if I could have taken a picture (but not I – I am a federal law abiding citizen who’s fully turned off my portable electronic device and does not desire a $400 fine) a blubbering sort of bleary-eyed face; perhaps the tears have dried along my cheeks in downward departure, but I’m afraid to move for fear that the bulbous contents of nasal passengers in both nostrils might sneak down my face.  A crying mess, in a cramped airplane, with NO tissues, no trace of even a napkin, no way to keep the barrage from embarrassing peril.  Thank you, dear Lord, for humility!  I shall say it again – I rejoice in humility!  I praise you, Jesus!  (And thanks, also, for wising placing the sleeping man at my side, for I am cognizant of Your two-folded felicitousness of that:  a) sleeping man is quite considerate enough to keep his eyes closed throughout my embarrassing emotional effusiveness even if he is merely feigning sleep, and b) sleeping man is a serene but sturdy obstacle, barricading any urge within to stoop to unloving levels and respond, either in catty word or in physical deed.  “Slap some sense into” – I understand circumstances from which this cliché might have been derived; yes I do!

I will close, again, I rejoice, in more humility!  (How dense are we little humans, oh Glorious Hound of Heaven, that you choose to pursue us and refine us – over and over and over and over and over – without ever tiring of patient, enduring love?  WOW, how you love us, O God!)  I wanted to attempt the Small Successes on Thursday blog thing (thank you, Jenny-Lynn, for being my inspiration!  Is it legal to participate even though I'm not a mom?!?) but succeeded only in procrastinating.  I am late.  I am irritated at my own tardiness.  Oh well!  I am learning, and if my learning (albeit slow at times) pleases You, Lord, then I am pleased, also.

m     I denied my urges to respond with deed or word to that poor woman.  (I need to work on the thought-bit; does this still count as a success?!  I suppose, for glory comes in unraveling more layers of myself and my ever-increasing need for a Savior!)  Indeed, I prayed a Hail Mary for her, too.  And for sleeping man – I think I saw a ring so he must have some experience with emotional women and thus gets a prayer, also!

m     Instead of reading encyclicals online or buzzing through a few of my favorite blogs in happy bumblebee style, I sat down and ALMOST finished my Philosophy of Catholic Education.  Yay for enacting intelligent Bennie’s if I think of it, I do it now philosophy of living!  J

m     Before shutting down my electronic portable device, I received news from my mother that dear Julia had a baby girl!  So, this is a HUGE success shared vicariously in great delight and with awesome admiration for a WONDERFUL momma, wife, friend, and Catholic woman, one to truly emulate alongside Mary – wait-to-go, Jules!!!  You moms are amazing!

“O Lord, you have probed me, you know me;

You know when I sit and when I stand;

You understand my thoughts from afar.

My journeys and my rest you scrutinize,

With all my ways you are familiar. …

I praise you for I am wonderfully made.” (Psalm 139:1b-3; 14.)

“Here is my journey’s end; here is my butt,

And very sea-mark of my utmost sail.” (Shakespeare.  Othello, II, v, 267-268.)

God bless you and keep you!  I miss Texas! 

In His Sonshine, ~Elizabeth Anne