Can I tell
you a story? Once upon a time, I fell in
love with God and the ignited life in me desired to change- to reflect more of
Him and less of me. I pondered for a while
if perhaps God wanted me to be His (body and soul) and I went through a year of
informal discernment of religious life.
Yet, as a new comer to the faith I was also very immature and I felt
that people that followed the steps of the saints were people that were already
saints themselves. Learning that some of the saints
started as some of the biggest sinners was the shock of a lifetime. The discovery, felt like when you are a child
growing up and one day you realize that your parents are not perfect and they
fall from the pedestal you held them onto.
Your dad is no longer the strongest, wisest person on earth- he’s just
an ordinary man. Similarly, I began to
see the humanity of the saints.
Nonetheless, the saints are not of this world so in a span of a day I
learned some of their biographies and their sanctity still seemed like it was
ingrained in them. As if God placed this
godly desire in holy people in a very different way- a more powerful form than
I felt I had it in me to be holy. While I
strive to be a better version - a reflection of a living Jesus in me, I realized
that I had a long way to go. I looked
down at my feet and I was wearing these Swarovski crystal covered heels and I
thought, “If I become a nun I will never be able to wear cute shoes again!” You are probably laughing if you are not
judging the superficiality of that thought; but, it’s true for all the new
burning love I felt for Christ I had a stronger attachment to this world. Love was an all good feeling- sacrifice was
nowhere near my definition of love at the time.
So, after a year of personal discernment I put aside any notion of becoming
a religious. Sometimes as I write these
posts about my thrifting experiences I feel guilty and boastful because I still
have a strong attachment to pretty things.
Yes, I have a gift for finding treasures at low prices, but still when I
think of Saint Francis of Assisi (which I do often) I feel like he would be disappointed
in me. If he saw my room full of things
I wonder what he would say. If he knew
that I decided to become a laity so that I could wear pretty shoes would he nod
in sorrow?
Sometimes I
worry about not being smart enough, Catholic enough, traditional enough,
accomplished enough, simple enough- of not being godly enough. Of being a vehicle that instead of leading
others to Christ I am promoting materialism and a distorted, too comfortable,
non-Catholic Christian lifestyle. While
I might not be enough of the qualities sited above- I do have one quality that I
try to uphold above all - I am honest to the core. My nephew got in trouble a couple days ago
because while playing with a friend in the swimming pool he pushed his buddy a
few times underwater and the little boy became afraid of drowning. My sister told me how she handled the
situation, but still asked me to speak to my nephew about what he had done
because she really wanted him to understand that what he did was wrong. So, I looked at him straight in the eye and I
said, “Honey, I’m going to share with you one rule I live my life by, the rule
that always applies to any situation.
When you are wondering if what you are about to do is wrong ask
yourself, “would I like it if it was done to me?”" I passed along the golden rule. You see as a child, in my early formation, my
dad told me that we Duarte’s were people of our word that our word meant a lot
of something and when others spoke our family name they would do so knowing we were
people of honor because we kept our word.
Though my dad wasn’t a very active father due to his alcoholism- this
one rule he not only taught us, but lived by it. So, honesty is huge in my life. But I am human and as a writer I do have a
tendency for hyperbole…
Now a tiny
(and I do mean a tiny) bit more instructed in my faith, I am learning to
make peace with the side of me that (like a fly attracted to light) loves
pretty things. I am learning to find
balance and make peace with the fact that a sparkly pair of shoes revealed my
path as a laity. And I pray to God (because
I do have a strong desire to walk through life on earth with a human companion)
that He sends me a holy man one learned in the faith who will guide me because,
the Lord knows I need the guidance, Hallelujah!
No comments:
Post a Comment