Everyone Needs to Forgive Somebody

-- 
Betty Arrigotti
Author of Christian Love Stories:
  Hope and a Future (Oaktara 2010)
  Where Hope Leads (Oaktara 2012)

www.BettyArrigotti.com

Our Father… Bless Our Families

Our Father –

Who art in Heaven –

• Our Papa God reminds us there is another life, another existence where all will be well. He helps us put into perspective this life and our nagging worries. Our attention should focus on the next life, knowing God is there, too, and we will know joy with him forever.

Hallowed be thy name –

• This phrase balances the concept of Papa God with a reminder of the awe-inspiring nature of All Powerful God, as well. He is all holy. His name is holy and we should speak it with respect and humility. Like our own children, whom we want to trust us and yet respect us, we owe him honor.

Thy Kingdom Come –

• We look forward to a better world but we can’t just sit and wait. We must also work to bring improvement to this world. Within our families and within our world, this phrase reminds us to strive to constantly improve ourselves and our relationships.

Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven –

• Our children must learn to obey us as parents in order to be safe and to grow into successful, law abiding adults. It might feel better to us in the moment to let their disobedience slide, but we owe it to them to respond consistently, even though they will be angry with us for a while. It is our job to model for them that their actions have consequences so that when they are adults they will not expect to get away with infractions.
• We, too, must constantly strive to discern and obey God’s will, in order to become the fully actualized people he created us to be.

Give us this day our daily bread –

• So much of the world is not assured of daily bread, let alone quality nutrition. And yet, we have more than enough. This phrase reminds us how desperately the world needs us to share our abundance.
• In a broader sense we are asking God to provide what we need, trusting he will. Not what we want, necessarily, but what we need.
• It also states us how truly simple are our daily needs. What do our children need daily? To be loved, protected, educated, fed, and clothed. Perhaps we need reminding that our children don’t NEED all the activities, toys, or electronics that we want to provide them. They need more of our time.

And forgive us our trespasses –

• We will make mistakes. We all do.  Let’s teach our children by example how to apologize quickly and ask forgiveness. Here is a useful template from www.cuppacocoa.com for a sincere apology:

1.     I’m sorry for…   Be specific. Show the person you’re apologizing to that you really understand what they are upset about.

2.     This is wrong because… Until you understand why it was wrong or how it hurt someone’s feelings, it’s unlikely you will change. This is also important to show the person you hurt that you really understand how they feel.

3.     In the future, I will… Use positive language, and tell what you WILL do, not what you won’t do.

4.     Will you forgive me? This is important to try to restore your relationship. Now, there is no rule that the other person has to forgive you. Sometimes, they won’t. That’s their decision, and that’s not something you automatically get just because you apologized. But you should at least ask for it.

As we forgive those who trespass against us –

• It’s a two way street. If we want to be forgiven, we must forgive others, even those who aren’t sorry and never apologize. God knows it cripples us to hang on to anger but when we release our grudges it releases our spirits. A family who learns this need never worry about mistakes tearing the family apart. Or resentments eating away at us from the inside.

And lead us not into temptation –

• No, God doesn’t ever “lead us into temptation.” We do fine leading ourselves there, or stumbling into it. From the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Simplified, 2846-2847, “Sins come from consenting to temptation. We ask God not to lead us into temptation, meaning ‘do not allow us to enter’ or ‘do not let us yield to’ temptation. God cannot be tempted and he tempts no one. This petition asks him to block our way into temptation and to give us the Spirit of discernment.” We ask God to protect us from temptation and when we are subjected to it, to strengthen us so we turn away.
• When we are tempted, God will “provide the way of escape, so you may be able to endure it” (1 Cor 10:13).
• We pray our children will avoid temptation. We need to communicate very directly with them about temptation and how difficult it is to stay strong. This is where role play practice comes in. “What would you do if someone asked you to…” Don’t let the actual situation be the first time they have to figure out how to respond.

But deliver us from evil –

• Protect us, God, from this world’s wicked ones.
• Protect our children as they go out into the world. Keep evil away from our family!

For God’s is the kingdom and the power and the glory! All will be well. We simply need to trust in his love for us.

Blessings on your week!
Betty

Single Parent Families

Welcome back to our 4 minute focus on building strong families!

One chapter in Building Christian Families by Mitch and Kathy Finley deals particularly with single parent families. If you are, or have been, part of a single parent family you will recognize the truth in what they write. If you are blessed to be part of a two-parent family, please read this anyway in order to build empathy for the special challenges you have been spared and perhaps to consider helping struggling families.

The single parent family is a true family and a legitimate form of home-church. Let’s follow the example we see throughout the Bible as God shows a soft spot in his heart for “widows and orphans,” or any family who needs extra consideration.

We all have our limits, and it’s only realistic to accept them. However, single parent families have special challenges we should be sensitive to:

• Both parent and children have gone through painful disruptions, whether because of abandonment, divorce, or death. Sources of income must be developed, a move to a new house or apartment may be necessary, and children might need to attend different schools. The grieving process may continue for many months, or even years.
• Parent-child relationships must be redesigned. A non-custodial parent may struggle to pay child support, worry about religious upbringing, have more time to be depressed, or feel acute loneliness.
• While couple parent families sometimes deal with the temptation to leave the main responsibility for parenting to the other spouse, the custodial single parent responds to the demands of children all day long and does it alone.
• Where a widowed parent may be looked upon by the wider community as courageous, others often view the divorced parent with suspicion or judgment. In some worship communities, the single parent who is divorced often feels shunned, ignored, even subtly ostracized. Yet divorced single parents have a deep desire to belong, to be a part of their church community.
• Single parents worry that their children will never have witnessed a normal man/woman, husband/wife loving relationship.
• Single parents must often deal with two particular temptations: the temptation to self-pity and to resentment.
• Many single parent families experience degrees of fear and anxiety that the typical couple-parent family does not usually know with such intensity. Financial anxieties may head the list, but a vague, undefined fear of what the future may bring is not far behind. The single parent is unable to share these fears and anxieties with another intimately known adult. She or he lives with these feelings constantly, so the fear tends to compound itself.
• In the two parent family, it is crucial for spouses to spend time regularly on themselves and on their friendship as a couple. It is equally important for the single parent to carve out of the week a few hours for leisure and, now and then, for prayerful reflection.
• The single parent often finds it necessary to struggle against the tendency to become isolated. Single parents have a need for sympathetic friends and for warm relationships with two-parent families. Single parents often need little more than a sympathetic listener, and they can frequently find this by forming friendships with other single parents and hopefully, by membership in church groups.

On the other hand, single parents may have some advantages over couple parents.

• They build strength as survivors, even though both parent and children have known much anguish.
• Children of single parent families are sometimes more mature than many of their peers from two-parent families. They have, of necessity, been trusted with significant responsibilities at home.
• Single parents may be more free to lead their children in their chosen faith life. In two-parent families, value conflicts which relate to the spiritual life of the family sometimes develop between husband and wife.

Single parents are like all parents:

• No parent or set of parents can give children everything they should ideally have.
• Most parents today often feel guilty about not spending enough quality time with their kids.
• All families know insecurity.
• All parents are called to conversion of heart and life, to trust God above all, to turn away from fear and anxiety as motives for action, to love God and others as the source of life’s meaning and purpose. Parents are called to do this even in the midst of meaninglessness and the temptation to despair. This is true faith, in the real world.
• All parents need other parents to simply commiserate with, to talk to and share their burdens and joys. We should never underestimate the value of honest talking and listening among peers, for it is a terrifically valuable service that all church communities should offer to parents.

Finleys remind us that a basic principle for all parents’ spirituality is to “keep on keeping on.” May God help all of us, married and single to persevere in our effort to parent well.

The Family as Church

Blessed Pope John Paul II declared, “The family in fact is the basic unit of society and of the church. It is the ‘domestic church.’”

Mitch and Kathy Finley, in Building Christian Families, write:

“Within the family, the foundational experiences of the Christian life happen best, for both children and adults. For most people, it is within the fabric of family life that faith becomes real. In family life, we experience the deepest joys and our deepest anguish, which means that in family life we most often discover the Cross and Resurrection of Christ in our own experience. […]”

“Within the family and around the family table, children experience the meaning of the Eucharist long before they receive their First Communion. Within the fabric of life in the domestic church, child and adult experience the meaning of forgiveness and reconciliation, apart from any official sacramental celebration of the experience. In the family, both adults and children experience the Christian life at its most immediate, where the seeds of faith are planted and cultivated daily.”

The family is the fundamental building block of the Church. Family spirituality is defined by the Finleys as, “A family’s ongoing attempts to live every dimension of its life in communion with the Cross and Resurrection of Jesus the Christ.” We first learn our spirituality primarily from our family. As Christians, our purpose in life is to serve God and his people, to work for the good of others, that we may all grow closer to God as we build his kingdom here on earth and spread the Good News of his love through our actions.

Do your children know what it is to be Christian? And what it means to be Catholic (or your denomination)? Or, more broadly, what are your children (even grown children) learning about spirituality as they observe their parents’ everyday life?

If your children are little, think back to your own childhoods. What did you look forward to about how your family expressed its faith? What were your family spiritual traditions on Sunday mornings? On holidays? On vacations? I remember whirling around the living room with my grandpa on Sunday mornings after Mass, my feet placed carefully on top of his dress shoes. Does that memory make me more Christian? Actually, yes, I think so. I knew in those moments that Sundays were special days of joy. Days to spend with family. Not simply because they were days off, but because they were God’s day.

If your children are teenagers, do you speak openly with them about your faith? Do you ask them what they think about social justice, or priests they have known, or some of the ethical questions we struggle with today? Do you visit other parishes so they begin to understand the universality of our Church? Do you reach out to the less fortunate as a family?

Last weekend, my husband and I watched a documentary, Into the Arms of Strangers, about the 10,000 children who were sent away in the 1940s from German occupied lands to strangers in England, in their parents’ desperate hope of saving their lives. The separation traumatized both parents and children, but their children lived, when 1.5 million children who stayed behind did not survive. The story touched us deeply as we listened to these children, now grown into elderly men and women, talk about how their parents struggled, in the few days between learning their children were accepted to the freedom trains and sending them off, (in most cases, never to see them again) to impart to them all the wisdom and faith that they would have spoken and modeled over their lifetimes.

Whatever the age of your children, even if they are greying themselves, don’t leave for later what you want them to know about your very personal faith. If you are uncomfortable at the thought of talking about such a personal issue, (Why are the most important things to say the hardest?) consider writing it down today. Here’s a start:

I know there is a God because once…

I know He loves me because…

I believe He wants me to treat his children with love and respect. I learned this when….

I know God answers prayers. He answered mine once when… (Maybe he said no, and you only came to understand what a good thing that was later.)

I believe in heaven. I’m not looking forward to dying, but I’m looking forward to asking God a few questions when I get there. And I’m looking forward to seeing my loved ones: _____.

I know God forgives. I learned this when I was forgiven once by ____. If they could forgive me and I know God loves me even more than they, He must forgive us even better.

I chose the church I attend because______ (our family always has been, or I converted because, or whatever your story is)

Our faith should be so important to us that we take care to pass it on to our children as a family treasure. May we recognize our treasure this week!

Blessings,

Betty

Unconditional Love

Welcome to this new Lenten series of 4 Minutes for Growth!

This year we concentrate on the family.

John Powell, S.J., starts us off with his timeless book, Unconditional Love: Love without Limits. I chose this book because unconditional love must be the basis of family life. Though we all fall short at times, loving without preconditions should be our goal—the type of love we continually strive to achieve and maintain. Unconditional love says, “No matter what, I will not reject you. I’m committed to your growth and happiness. I will always love you.”

Powell reminds us that love is not a feeling, but rather a decision and a choice. We choose to place another’s welfare on the same level as, and sometimes even above, our own. By so doing we bring true meaning to our lives. Such meaning, or self-fulfillment, is an elusive quality which we can’t capture by direct pursuit but only attain as a by-product of loving.

Unconditional love says: I will love you, I will encourage you by helping you to be aware of your strengths, and when necessary I will challenge you to grow.

Most times this love will be tender and gentle, but not always. Sometimes unconditional love must be tough love, when truly wanting what is best for someone’s growth and happiness means not giving them what they want, but rather what is essential. A spouse may need to firmly point out a loved one’s self-destructive choices, or a parent will set limits to protect a child who is not ready for the independence he or she demands. A wife might ask her husband to cut back on his time away from home, or a mother might forbid a son to attend a party that “everyone else” is allowed to attend. Love is not unconditional if it weakly allows poor choices in order to avoid uncomfortable confrontation.

However, even tough love is not harsh. Sometimes as parents we think we need to constantly correct in order to assure our children’s proper growth. But a child does not flourish under criticism. Rather, Powell contends:

There is nothing else that can expand the human soul, actualize the human potential for growth, or bring a person into the full possession of life more than a love which is unconditional. […] Unconditional love is liberating. It frees the loved one to be authentic and real.

I think most people would agree that our children deserve unconditional love. We parents know we fall short, but we remain determined to love our children no matter what they do. It gets harder, though, when we turn it around. Shouldn’t we love our parents unconditionally, too? They weren’t perfect, but neither are we. And, even more difficult, what about our siblings? Heaven knows, siblings can find and attack our vulnerabilities. Do I need to love them unconditionally after what they did… or continue to do?

(Apologies to my two brothers. I’m speaking generally here, not specifically. Though I also apologize for when I didn’t treat you with the love I should have.)

Granted, not all family members are healthy to be around. Sadly, some are caustic, and boundaries must be raised in order to protect our emotional well-being. We mustn’t fear that loving another unconditionally will mean losing ourselves. In fact, in order to love another we must first love ourselves, as much as we are able, unconditionally. God has made us and declared us good and he has shown us we are loveable and worthy of the greatest sacrifice. So we come to love others, not out of weakness, but out of strength and awareness of our worth. It would be unloving to allow others to treat us with disrespect.

Yet, for spiritual and emotional health, unconditional love calls us to endeavor to forgive the wrongs of the past, even from a distance. That way, if the family member ever makes changes for the better, we will be ready to reconnect.

God’s word to us in the Bible is full of stories of unconditional love. We read of the prodigal son’s father, who knew unconditional love requires forgiveness and so ran to embrace his son at his penitent return. We believe that Jesus demonstrated unconditional love as he died for our sins and yet bid his Father, “Forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

These are our models for building strong families. We must offer our family a lifetime of striving to love them unconditionally, forgiving them for their mistakes and asking forgiveness for our own, but always trying again to love, encourage, and challenge each other to be the best we each can be.

Next week we will turn to Building Christian Families, by Mitch and Kathy Finley.

Blessings on your first week of Lent!

What is Holy Saturday all about?

Have you ever asked yourself what Holy Saturday is all about? We know the gift of Good Friday – that Jesus suffered and died for us so that we can experience forgiveness now and joy with Him in Heaven. And we understand the gift of Easter – that Jesus rose from the dead, and so doing, conquered death’s hold over us so that we might rise again, too.

So what is the gift of Holy Saturday?

Imagine what the disciples must have felt like on Saturday. Surely on Friday they were numb and couldn’t believe what had happened. But Saturday came and they had to admit Jesus had died. All their hopes for a better life must have died with him. Jesus—who was so charismatic, so good, so filled with potential, who was going to lead them into a new kingdom—had agonized and then breathed his last on the cross.

Think of the women who followed him and hadn’t been able to embalm his body on Friday. Now on Saturday they were not allowed to do so because of the Sabbath. So they were left with no way to show him their devotion, no opportunity to pay tribute to his body. No work to distract themselves from their loss.

I’ve been there, haven’t you? When all your hopes have been destroyed and you realize your dreams will not be realized. Perhaps when someone you love dies? It takes time to process your loss. Your mind doesn’t want to accept the pain and pushes it away in denial. We want to blame someone and often God takes the brunt of our anger. We are where Lazarus’ sister was when she said, “Lord, if you had been here our brother wouldn’t have died!” We are where Jesus was when he said, “Father, why have you abandoned me?”

But at some point in this Saturday experience, you realize a phase of your life is over and you must bear the loss and go on.

I think the gift of Holy Saturday is that even when we are at our lowest, and everything seems hopeless, and even when we can’t feel God is near, he is. When we are in that dark pit, alone and desolate and frightened, he is there. When we are “going through Hell,” we can know the Son of God has been there, too. There is nowhere we can go where he hasn’t been.

Jesus taught us how to make it through the Holy Saturday loss when, though he felt abandoned, he said, “Father, into your hands I commend my Spirit.” He showed us God still exists, even when we can’t feel him, and we can trust and place ourselves in his hands.

Yes, he could have risen on Saturday morning. Yes, he could give us everything we want right when we want it. But then we wouldn’t be given the gift of being able to say, “God, I can’t feel you here. I can’t understand what has happened. I’d give anything to change it and I don’t know why you allowed it. Still, I believe in you. I know, even though it doesn’t seem like it right now, you love me. And I know you are all powerful. So even if I can’t have what I want, I trust you that you know what I need, and you want to shower me with goodness.”

It takes time to get to the point of being able to say this and mean it, all while enduring intense pain. But that’s the gift of Saturday, Time. And because we now know that Jesus did rise and our God isn’t dead, the gift of Saturday is Hope. Because of that Saturday and what happened next we now can trust that a Sunday will come and with it, the resurrection of all that is good.

May all your Saturdays of Despair be followed by Sundays of Life!

Blessings on your Holy Week! I hope this Lent, and these posts have brought you closer to God in some recognizable way. I hope you’ve grown! I hope I have, too.

Our society certainly needs to grow. Matthew Kelly, in his book Rhythm of Life sees three challenges to growth that endanger our culture:

• Minimalism is a common mindset that asks, “What’s the least I can do and still get by?”
• Hedonism tempts us to ask, “If it feels good, why not?”
• Individualism denies interdependence and demands, “What’s in it for me?”

These blockades to growth slip in to our lives barely noticed. How fast can I speed and not get pulled over? This relationship is too challenging, why should I keep trying? Why should I volunteer? I’m already over extended. Which Mass tends to be the shortest? Yet, these mindsets certainly are not an imitation of Christ, who would never have submitted to the cross if he were trying to get away with the least he could do, or what felt good, or what was best for him personally.

Instead, Matthew Kelly suggests a different route.

• Rather than minimalism, we are asked to dream big and attempt great goals. We are challenged to become the very best person we can be. We are asked to discover, “What do I want from life? He suggests we reconnect with our childhood dreams. Rediscover the quiet voice within, who speaks so softly that we must escape the noise of the world to hear. What gifts and passions make us come alive? Who could benefit from what we want to be able to do? We need to take our Sabbath day to rest and slow down so that our harried hurry doesn’t convince us we can only do the minimum. What is the most we can do?”

• Rather than hedonism, we are asked to choose self-discipline, and so doing discover the freedom to do what is right. By discipline we build character, integrity, and strength. We become leaders, rather than pleasure seekers. We can accomplish the goals we discovered when we asked, “What would make my life meaningful?” Instead of accumulation, we desperately need simplicity. For balance we need to grow in all four areas, physical, intellectual, emotional, and spiritual, even if it doesn’t feel good right now.

• Rather than individualism, we are called to discover the meaning of life by helping others. That assistance will bring a joy and connection which satisfies the loneliness that independence can’t fill. We want and need intimacy in our lives. Relationships challenge and call us to growth.

In my reading, I came across Matthew Kelly’s dreams for us all. As I read them, I thought, Yes! This is what I hope for my children! These are the dreams I want to see them reach. Then I realized, if I want this for them, I must pursue these passionately. I need to be an example to them, no matter how flawed.

Matthew Kelly’s Seven Dreams:

1. I have a dream for you… that you have complete control over your mental and physical faculties and that you are slave neither to food, nor drink, nor any other substance. I dream that you will be free, that you will have freedom in the truest sense of the word—the strength of character to do what is right in each situation.
2. I have a dream for you… that you are able to discern the people, activities, and possessions that are most important to you. And that you are able to give each of them their time and place according to the appropriate priority,
3. I have a dream for you… that you have the courage, determination, firmness, and persistence to perform the tasks that you choose, decide, and resolve to perform. That you perform them with a commitment to excellence and attention to detail.
4. I have a dream for you… that you discover a unique talent that leads you to dedicate the professional aspect of your life to some work you can be passionate about. I dream that you may enjoy the rare privilege of spending your days in meaningful work. That you serve your neighbor, your family, and your community in this occupation and that by it, you are able to provide for your temporal needs.
5. I have a dream for you…that you grow in wealth in every sense of the word, that you are never in need, and that whatever your wealth is, you share it with all you can.
6. I have a dream for you… that you find true love. Someone you can cherish. Someone who makes you want to be a better person. A soul-mate who can challenge you and love you. A companion who can walk with you, know you, share your joy, perceive your pain and heartache, and comfort you in your disappointments.
7. I have a dream for you… that you discover a deep and abiding interior peace. The peace that comes from knowing that who you are, where you are, and what you do is essentially good and makes sense; that you are contributing to the happiness of others; and that you are progressing toward becoming the best-version-of-yourself.

You can learn more about Matthew Kelly at www.DynamicCatholic.com

Notice God’s Love

I want to challenge you to try something. Ask God to show you today how much you are loved. Then—here’s the challenge—pay attention and notice when He does, because He will, but you might not expect the method He chooses.

Rev. Michael Harvey spoke recently about a study that showed people in other countries are more open to spiritual experiences than we are in the States. We tend to lead our lives in such a hurried, busy state that we are too distracted to notice that small miracles surround us. We are spiritual as well as physical beings. So, why is it so hard for us to believe we are surrounded by a spiritual as well as physical world? We need to practice being aware of how God touches our lives.

Sometimes God shows us his love through nature:

• In the vastness of the ocean, or stars, or a mountain range.
• Or perhaps in the craft of a frost-covered spider web, or the contrast of red berries next to the white bark of a birch tree.
• Maybe you’ll be entertained by the play of a puppy, the speed of a horse, or the call of a bird you haven’t heard before.
• Maybe your heart dances when the first daffodil or crocus opens, or daphne causes you to inhale deeply.

God can speak to your heart through other people:

• Someone’s words may strike home and seem like a personal message for your life.
• A friend calls or stops by to visit.
• An unexpected kindness makes your smile reach your eyes.
• You listen to lyrics and a melody, or see beauty in a painting and are uplifted.
• You can certainly know God’s affection through the embrace of a loved one.
• Or sometimes, witnessing another’s misfortune, you realize how blessed you are.

If we are alert, we see the hand of God in coincidences:

• Uncanny timing brings an old friend across your path, or averts an accident.
• A deadline you weren’t ready for is suddenly postponed.
• God was definitely cherishing you the day, the moment, when you met the love of your life.

You may experience God within you:

• Inspiration comes and a problem is solved.
• Your prayers bring you to a new awareness of God’s nearness and love.
• Forgiveness you couldn’t quite attain settles gently into your soul.
• A pervasive moodiness lifts and you re-experience joy.
• You reach a goal that had eluded your efforts.
• You suddenly realize what unrecognized gifts you’ve been given in your abilities, or your family, or your health.

In fact, if you want to grasp the wealth of God’s love for you, list the aspects of your life that make you grateful. Look to the past:

• Note where God has blessed, rescued, or forgiven you.
• Remember that even the times you suffered often brought forth growth. Perhaps a relationship ended and you were devastated, but later you fell in love with someone more perfect for you.
• Go beyond your own past and study history to see God’s hand in it. Appreciate what your ancestors risked in order for you to know freedom and opportunity.

God can speak to you in pain:

• Ponder the ultimate sacrifice of Jesus on the cross.
• Many people first find God when they are suffering, at the lowest point in their lives. When they cannot go on, they reach out to Him and experience a peaceful comfort and realize He sustains them.

Let’s open our eyes/hearts/souls to God and all the countless graces He showers on us each day and discover a critical step to growth. Once we know deep down, undeniably, that we are loved, it frees us to a sense of gratitude and an ability to love ourselves and others.

Discover what circumstances prove easiest for you to recognize God’s tender presence. For me, because I love nature, He tends to touch me in the beauty of sunshine, flowers, birds, and wildlife. I feel treasured when a flock of geese flies overhead or I spy a hidden deer. I also feel God-cherished through my family. When my husband smiles at me, or I hold a tiny baby, I connect with that spiritual world.

If you are like me, you may start out your day with the best intention to notice God’s love notes. Then the business of the day wears on and suddenly it’s bedtime and you haven’t thought about it again. That’s ok. You can mull over your day with a sense of gratitude as you fall asleep. And then you can begin again tomorrow because God will show you His love any day you choose to recognize it.

If we believe that God is love, we touch God whenever we open our hearts. Will you notice Him loving you today? Or will someone else notice because of your loving actions?

May you discover new depths of God’s personal, intimate love for you this week!

The Best Version of Ourselves

Remember Matthew Kelly’s The Seven Levels of Intimacy I briefly listed two weeks ago? We spent a little time considering Level 4, Hopes and Dreams. Today I’d like us to talk about Level 7, Legitimate Needs. God gave us these needs as clues to help us thrive.

An ongoing theme in Kelly’s writing is his encouragement that we strive to become “the best version of ourselves.” To do so, we need to constantly grow in all four legitimate need areas:

1. Physical – Eat well, exercise, sleep regularly. Let each decision we make in this area (and all areas) be tested by asking ourselves, “Will this (cupcake, walk, bedtime) make me a better version of myself?”
2. Emotional – Give focus and priority to relationships. We talked about this last week in the concept of carefree timelessness. Spending time intended for simple enjoyment with the important people in our lives will enhance our relationships and bring us joy.
3. Intellectual – We become what we read. As individuals and societies, we become the stories we listen to. What stories occupy your time? If you are like me, we access our stories on television, in the newspaper, in the books we read, and the time we spend online. Do these stories portray heroes we’d like to emulate? Kelly recommends we choose our inputs wisely and give at least ten minutes a day to reading great books.
4. Spiritual – We spend particular focus on our spiritual growth during Lent. Yes, we may eat better, or exercise more as an attempt to be healthier, but these are disciplines we practice, and discipline is the road to growing spiritually. Kelly recommends we start our spiritual discipline with ten minutes per day spent in what he calls “the classroom of silence.”

When you stop to realize and truly believe that our God, who is All Powerful but also All Loving, yearns to have a one-on-one, face-to-face, heart-to-heart relationship with you, cares about you intimately, wants what is the very best for you, and would do and give everything toward that end, the experience of such intense love will light a spark within you. The spark will ignite a fire that is sometimes a warm glow and other times an encompassing inferno.

By human nature, even though we experience these moments of understanding when we are awed by the realization of God with us, before long we return to our mundane worries and cares. To counteract this and continue to grow in our relationship with God, we need to choose to keep returning to the awareness of his presence. To always be aware of God’s nearness is a wonderful goal but for now, let’s commit to drawing ourselves back to the spiritual with the discipline of setting aside time to refocus on God.

• We can reconnect to the loving presence by many routes. We can turn our thoughts to prayer at any time or place, even at red lights while our cars and spirits idle.
• We can inform our life decisions and our knowledge of God’s way by studying scripture and inspirational writing.
• Together with our faith family, we avail ourselves of God’s graces together in the sacraments of the Church. Do you sometimes agree with your children who complain that church is boring? If so, pray before the service that God will show you one way to become a better version of yourself. Then listen to the songs, the readings, the homily, and the voice in your heart. One phrase will excite you. Write it down in a small journal and pray about it. You’ll be amazed at how the Spirit has been reaching out to you at every service and you didn’t notice.

This doesn’t need to be a lone pursuit. Focus on helping loved ones achieve their legitimate needs and you will grow closer to God and each other.

Homework: Commit to the discipline of ten minutes of attention daily to each of the four areas of legitimate needs. If that seems overwhelming, start with one and add another each week.

May God bless you and your willingness to work toward growth!

You can learn more about Matthew Kelly at www.DynamicCatholic.com

Carefree Timelessness

Welcome back to our 4 Minutes 4 Growth. I hope you shared a discussion of hopes and dreams with someone you love.

Would you like to feel even closer to that someone?

Matthew Kelly writes that the key to thriving relationships is carefree timelessness. By this he means spending time with people without an agenda, simply to enjoy their company. No matter what the relationship, whether spouse to spouse, parent to child, friend to friend, or person to God, increase carefree timelessness and it will deepen.

When have we experienced carefree timelessness in our lives?

Remember when we first met the love of our life and how easily the hours could pass spent in one another’s company? Conversations were easy and fun. We could share a lengthy visit in person or on the phone without running out of topics to cover, not because we needed to exchange information, simply because we enjoyed the time together.

Think of how, as a teen, you could spend hours talking on the phone. Now teens can connected by both phone and computer. But if you ask them what they talked about they’ll still  shrug and say, “Nothing much,” like we did to our parents.

Or remember how close you felt to the people who shared your last vacation? Our walks along the beach, hikes on forest trails, or easy games of Frisbee didn’t accomplish concrete goals, but rather social and relational ones. We relaxed. We realized how much we value the people close to us.

Sadly, our busy-ness today is an enemy of growing intimacy and deepening relationships. There’s a recent trend in the work place that employees don’t take all the vacation time they accrue. What a lost opportunity to share with our families that down time that seems so simple and yet draws us so close.

Maybe due to our tightened belts we take “stay-cations” and don’t leave home. Yet, if we don’t leave our day-to-day responsibilities behind, we risk taking on yard or home projects to accomplish, rather than refreshing our spirits.

And oh, dear, our Sabbaths suffer. Given to us as a gift from our Creator to help us renew ourselves weekly, Sundays instead become a work day to cram in what we think we must accomplish before the next week begins: laundry, homework, unfinished office work, or shopping. Sabbaths are meant for renewal of ourselves and our relationships.

Our lives find their meaning in our relationships. Ask the people lying in the hospital, soon to leave this earth what made their lives important. It’s the people who stand at their bedside, the people they’ve loved or served, who are the monuments to their existence. The lives they’ve touched and improved give testimony to their accomplishments more than their promotions or patents.

Yes, we need to work, and our employment is an opportunity to minister to the world by how we behave or what we produce. However, our love will survive us and influence the world more profoundly.

There’s a country song, “She Thinks We’re Just Fishin’,” which portrays a dad realizing the times he spends fishing with his little girl are moments they both will remember and treasure. Go “fishing” with someone important to you!

I know one dad who jogs with each of his young adult children when they get together. I can imagine the interesting conversations caught between breaths. Another father sets aside Sunday afternoons to call each of his grown daughters, simply to catch up and stay connected. One friend never listens to music while driving her children, preferring the spontaneous conversations that seem easier when not sitting face to face. I remember my mother suggesting window-shopping walks downtown at night after our small town stores had closed. I don’t recall any life-changing conversations, but those walks told me she valued our time together, when time was a scarce commodity for a single mother.

So, this week’s homework: Spend a little carefree time with someone you love. No agenda, no goals to meet. Simply relish the moments together. Call a friend. Write a letter. Take a walk with one of your children and focus on him or her and the joy of sharing time. Play a game, not to win or teach, but for fun.

If you’d really like to test the parameters of this tool to intimacy, spend some carefree timelessness with God. Visit the Blessed Sacrament in perpetual adoration chapels, or sit in an easy chair near a window and turn your attention to him. Recognize you are in his presence always and everywhere. Chat with him. And listen.

You can learn more about Matthew Kelly at www.DynamicCatholic.com