The Road to Daybreak

I just finished The Road to Daybreak by Henri Nouwen. The thing that stuck with me from this one was that the most personal is the most universal. I don't write about my emotions much, but it might help if I did. On the other hand, I've also realized how inconsequential writing may be, as much as I like it. Jesus didn't write anything. He lived his life and others wrote about him. That may be the way I am supposed to follow Him too.

I don't know how this ties in with anything from last week. We went to Idlewild again on Wednesday and I wore a shirt swimming to avoid getting burned. I took the car in on Friday to have the dashboard replaced, but they just took pictures and will call me when they have the parts. My mom celebrated her 63rd birthday this week. Kelly hosted the party on Saturday and Mary baked the cake that Mary wanted to bake (and bought the cake that my mom wanted bought). Yesterday, Nancy and Sarah went to visit Ashley, and then I took the girls over to my parents' house to swim even though they were going out to see the new Dory movie. Mary was there doing homework when we arrived and my parents showed before we left.

PS - This is the book that referred to Rembrandt's Pilgrims at Emmaus and Rublev's Trinity Icon. I may purchase those for my library if they are already in the books at my library.

No Man Is An Island

I just finished Thomas Merton's "No Man Is an Island." There is a lot more to it than I will cover here. It is certainly a good book for any Christian, but may also be good for any person of goodwill. The part that jumped out at me in this reading because of where I am was that a Christian does not seek revenge just so that he can be good, but so that his enemy may be made good as well. It's not time to write another letter, but I think I'm going to include something about that in my next one.

Be who God made you to be

I have seen the phrase "be you" a lot this week. My daughter wears a shirt that says "Be-you-tiful" that I like, but I feel like there should be an asterisk or something more for a number of reasons. We are all sinners, but we don't (or shouldn't) want to be sinners. There's a verse I recall that sounds like it's from Paul that goes something like "I don't do the good that I want to do, but do the sin that I do not want to do." The confusion may arise from the fact that it's our heart/mind/soul that wants to do good, but it's our bodily impulses that make us sin. Some may confuse these bodily impulses with what they think they "want" to do. That may be natural, but we're called to be open to God's grace to act supernaturally. That's basically my letter for this week.

St. Joseph

I'm done with my last day of work for the school year. I'll probably take the girls back sometime this summer with their report cards and stop at Hoss's on the way back. On Sunday, I took Emily to a Pirate game, while Claire was getting a volunteer award with Nancy and Sarah. On Monday, I took Sarah to a Pirate game. Later this week, we're going to Idlewild with my sister and niece, a star party with my mom, and another Pirate game with my dad. So most of my time will be spent being Dad instead of Dr. Stevens. When I'm Dad, I try to model myself after St. Joseph. That's what my letter was about this week.

2016 Retreat Goals

Pick out my meals ahead of time each day. Consecrate any hunger pains to God.
Feel sorrow for my sins. Consecrate any crosses to God.
Go to Confession monthly. Review these goals weekly.
Bless everyone of my patrons that come in. Compliment someone daily.
Read a biography of Ignatius (done). Return to SFO before 2019.

Bring at least 12 sheets of paper next year (10 talks, 1 confession, 1 thank-you to the cafeteria)

Past Objectives

Early on I wrote about whatever was on my mind, often within the theme of what Mary said most recently at Medjugorje, but hat often became redundant, depending on how much time passed between messages. Then it became whichever Breviary reading appealed to me most, but those began to repeat with some of the daily readings being the same as the previous week. Then I focused on the divine office readings from the Bible, which only repeat every two years, when I expect new insights would be relevant. Finally, I just tried to blog about the readings from the Mass I was at last because that repeats every three years. Sometimes, of course, I just post certain requests to keep them at the top of my blog, so anyone who visited would be sure to see them.

I went back through all 225 posts, so now I can use this post as a bookmark that I don't have to go farther back if I decide to take this blog in yet another direction in the future. The direction I want this to take now is to be a record of what is going on in my life, but I'd also like to tie that to something in Scripture when I can. That's more for me, than for others, but it will be posted, so someone else may get something out of it. It will also be OK if the Scripture passages repeat because the connection will be different. I'd also like to go back and make connections to my past with Scripture by making 2 posts/day (one current and one past).