I'm not sure this post is going to come together. It's many ideas bouncing around and interacting, but I think one would have to be an actual writer or a more caffeinated me to make it happen.
I've mentioned this in passing, but I kind of hate this time of year. I'm a little on the sensitive side and feel like my senses are assaulted at every turn. There's nowhere to rest. The house is strewn with baby stuff, decorations, ballet bags, and school books. I clean and put up all day long and still. The noise of Christmas carols on the piano, the baby, my son repeating Calvin and Hobbes strips. It's good stuff, yes, and on any other day I could make it into something lovely but it overwhelms me now.
The only peace I feel these days is during Mass and that's as it should be. My husband and I are in a study group watching and discussing the series "Catholicism" by Father Robert Barron. Though I'd highly recommend it, I don't think I'll ever get around to reviewing it here because it's just too big; theologically, visually, rich. Anyway, the following passage was taken from this Sunday's segment on prayer. Father Barron is referring to John of the Cross here and I really had to stop myself from copying several pages.
"We human beings have withing us "great caverns" which are infinitely deep, unfathomable. These are intellect, will, and feeling - and they are infinite precisely because they are ordered to God. The mind eagerly comes to know particular things, individual truths, but none of these achievements finally settles the mind, just the contrary.... the mind won't rest until it comes to the fullness of the truth, to what the theological tradition calls the "beatific vision," seeing God face-to-face."
Two things. First, it's nice to know that this restlessness of the mind is natural - much like childbirth, knowing that the discomfort is normal makes it easier to endure. That it is also easily remedied, to some degree, by turning towards Christ is also comforting.
Aaaand the baby just woke up and my early bird daughter is chatting endlessly about American Girl hair styles so I can't even attempt to wrap this up properly, but I think the passage is worth sharing without my profound insights (ha, ha!) so I'm posting anyway! All the best, friends.
