Sunday, March 25, 2007

Peace

It's easy to forget the simple things in life, and how much joy they can bring us. We get so caught up all the time with everything we deem "important", and the good stuff can be so easily overlooked.

I finally made my way back to the Church I normally attend tonight, 5 PM Mass. I'd been making my weekly pilgrimage, due to physical constraints, at a different place, but this week I made the effort to find my way "home".

The Mass that I've so come to love is ministered by a group called "Life Teen", and while I'm well past my teenage years, I don't think that joy needs to know your age in order to find you.

Life Teen, in many ways, brought me back once before. After what I witnessed and experienced, first-hand, on 9.11.01, I was, for the first time, very angry with God. Right or wrong, my faith had been tested, and I'd given in to that anger and allowed it to cause me to turn my back on my Religion. In my heart, no God that I'd come to love, worship and honor, would have ever allowed what took place that day. And off I went. To funerals, Memorial services, one after the other, saying goodbye to friends and business associates, some of whom were never actually found and identified. And with each Mass, I drew further and further away from my heart.

I think it's very appropriate that, a few years later, it took the love and faith of a group of teenagers to show me just how juvenile my reaction had been. My anger got the best of me, and I allowed it to bury a faith that had been solid and strong for so many years. Yet this group of fresh faces, beautiful voices and loving souls took hold of my heart, and brought me back from the bad place I'd gone. A faith that I'd rejected, I now seemed unworthy of.

But, as I said, these kids showed me the way back. They led me out, and proved to me that God's will is not for us to question, but to accept as for our own good. Their song, their enthusiasm, their genuine love for each other, as well as everyone around them was the call that I needed to hear.

I've made my peace now. I've done what was necessary to come back into the Fold, and it's an awesome feeling. They welcomed me back, probably very unaware of the effect they've had on my life.

I'm just glad they did. And I'm grateful. It was so very good to see and hear them again.

6 comments:

  1. We all go through it. I have not found my way back. I am still struggling to find my journey...my answers.
    MArie

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  2. You were and are, never unworthy of faith...never.
    Glad you found this peace. It was just waiting for you.

    Nancy

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  3. I'm so glad you have found your faith again. That must be a rejuvenating feeling. Faith is what keeps me going. We will constantly be tested and tried in this life.

    I can only imagine what you went through with 9.11.01. I'm sure it was horrendous, to say the least. The one thing that gives me understanding is that each of us has been given agency.....even those 19 killers who rammed planes into buildings and killed thousands. They made that choice; an extremely poor one at that.

    Jimmy, I don't know if you believe in life after death.....I hope you do. This life is but a glimpse in the eternal scheme of things. This is a life of tests and trials; learning and growing; finding peace amongst the storms; establishing and maintaining relationships that can last beyond this life; and not only experiencing pain, but joy and happiness as well.

    Hold to that faith; let it grow. God loves you.....just as He does all His children.

    (sorry for the preachiness; I felt impressed to share a few things).

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  4. That's awesome. I'm so grateful that God is everywhere, and that He loves us so much that we're all given the chance to turn ourselves around and change. No matter how far we've strayed.

    Inner peace can be so hard to reach in our fast-paced, loud, increasingly Godless world. I'm just glad that we can have those moments where we feel the spirit and that pure love of God - like in Galatians 5: "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance"

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  5. The worst feeling I've ever known is an anger at God that is so intense it made me turn my back, and the grace of coming home to God is one of the best.

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  6. Being angry at God...I think a lot of us can relate to that one.

    What a joy to be able to let go of that anger, and to progress spiritually.

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