More Than a Feeling

Yesterday, I was walking around Mile Square Park with my close friend and we started talking about our spirituality. 

“Lately, I haven’t been feeling like performing any of my spiritual commitments,” I began.  “I’ve been going to adoration and having difficulty concentrating and sometimes I leave the chapel feeling worse than when I went in. Finally last night, I was so tired of feeling so distant from God,” I continued, “that in the middle of the night I jumped out of bed and started talking to Jesus.  I told Him this has to stop, I’m tired of feeling so distant from you, I will go to confession later in the week, but for now I am going to apologize and repent for everything and clear the air.  Then guess what happened?  A light went off in my brain and I realized what is happening! God & I, our relationship is maturing… That crazy, madly in-love honeymoon stage is over! God is inviting me to have an adult relationship with Him.  One in which I am not always going to feel like doing the right things, but I still must do them - sacrificial love!”  (EUREKA)

My nephew caught me writing!

Scientist believe that when people fall in love - that giddiness, racing heart, flushed skin, sweaty palms, mind obsessed with thoughts of the significant other are a result of the brain releasing higher levels of Dopamine (the pleasure chemical).   In time, as the relationship progresses, the brain gets back to its normal levels of brain chemistry and people at this point have two ways of reacting. One, they realize that the excited feelings are gone and that must mean they are no longer in love.  Or two, that honeymoon period of the relationship is over, but love is more than a feeling, thus they must press on.

 A rose from dad's garden.

It’s difficult to do things when there's no instant gratification (usually I procrastinate), but when I am doing things out of love for another I eventually get to it…  I think of my mom, how she sacrificed a career to be a stay at home mom.  How she cooks, cleans the house, does laundry among a million other house chores – yet she does it all with the utter most happiness.  In my naiveté I believed she did everything because she HAD to, but now I know it’s been her choice all along –all those actions are expressions of love.  Love is the most present in ordinary tasks so much so that an untrained eye tends to dismiss it!  

Mami in her element.