Dump It
Dump It
“Hear and
give ear; be not proud, for the Lord has spoken.” Jeremiah 13:15
A
few months back I saw the dump truck rolling in to pick up trash from the
parish & school dumpsters and I just knew God was giving me an obvious
“sign” – the sign on the garbage
truck. Immortalized in the photo above. I laughed out loud when I saw it and
realized that God knows not only did I need to see it then, but I need to see this
every Tuesday and Wednesday around that neighborhood. Apparently the garbage
company’s name is PRIDE Disposal Company. An awesome, always timely, visual
reminder of the true nature and value of pride – it is trash, dump it.
Given
that I am going to make an attempt to dump a chunk of pride here, I’m going to
do my best to hand over the letters on the computer keyboard and let Divine
hands do the typing better than my own. I pray that whatever hits the virtual
paper, also hits hearts and minds the way God intends it to very well for
fruitful changes in any of your lives as well.
As
our family moved to Guam a few years back with the Navy and experienced the
adventures and challenges of a “forward deployed” military life, two things
happened. Somewhat simultaneously, first my “inner self” began to fall apart in
bitterness, anger, depression, overwhelm, drinking (typically) a bottle of wine
a night to compensate for anxieties, angers, worries and frustrations, and
secondly (or maybe this was firstly, its hard to tell with God) God began to really
take over in gradual, tangible ways. God gave me an experience of a Stations of
the Cross more moving than I had ever experienced before in my life. God gave
me a culture of island people devoutly, joyfully, rejoicing in the goodness of
the Lord, and depending on God’s providence for all things almost wherever I
went. God gave me an experience of His presence in mass when I hit my personal
lowest interior place. God provided a wonderful community of very faith-filled
military wives who became great friends and Bible study or faith journey partners
– many happened to be Seventh Day Adventist. Through them God gave me the
examples of natural, easy sober, and healthful eating living that my body was
craving. The other several were all Catholic. Through them I saw the graces and
ways of leaning into and gaining strength from church of my baptism,
confirmation, and matrimony.
Change
and pride are often slow and difficult to dump, and so while we were moving to
Portland I was still drinking too much, but my heart was being moved to a
greater desire for better health and for learning more about this grand mystery
that is “love of God.” God brought us into an amazing parish with more
perfectly placed details than I can account for here. I cried at most masses
for the span of close to a year. The Author of Life made prayer time, study,
and “love of God” to take new root. Through prayer, and through what I think of
as both a heavenly space and my Most Anonymous of Alcoholics & Other
Sinners Anonymous meetings – daily mass – I have somewhat easily become very sober
and content. Better than that, combined prayer, mass, monthly reconciliation,
sacrament of the sick, and excellent counsel have helped me gradually become less
anxious, less cynical, less bitter, less stressed, more forgiving of myself and
others. I am by no means perfect at any of this, and the way God led me is not
the way for everyone, but any gains in these categories are great gains for God,
and for anyone else who lives with or knows me. I used to be highly critical of
“born again” Christians…. until I became a kind of one. I used to be highly
suspicious of those who were “saved”… until I needed saving and was (and
continue to be). I used to think God was dependent on my work… until I was most
dependent on His.
I
reflect a lot on the story of Jesus first miracle, changing water into wine at the
wedding in Cana, when I ponder back on the last 4-5 years. It has become easy
to consider myself an urn, once filled with “wine and whine of the world,”
emptied and down to my last drops, refilled with waters of baptism and daily
rehydrating, rejuvenating drinks of earthly water, touched and blessed by Jesus
life and holy scripture, poured out here as a completely different kind of spirit.
