A Mother Who Knew Chaos and Trusted Her Son

https://wine.webinarninja.com/live-webinars/261827/register

I suppose, like every human being, I am riddled with contradiction. This is one of many of mine. I am a person who pursues my faith, but I am often pessimistic about the very faith I profess. In times like these that pessimism is not as tempered as I would like by my faith. In fact, I am very aware of the strong temptation to give up, if not to spin out of control.

So, it was a bit of a lifeline that my pastor mentioned a webinar by a group I had never heard of, Women in the New Evangelization. It was only an hour and a half, but it was rejuvenating. There were two specific things that resonated among others. One was the idea that God can be discerned in the chaos--something which frankly never occurs to me when I am in the middle of it.  It is ever more critical to listen for His voice particularly in these days of competing circumstances and imperfect human exhortations that surround us as we are confined to our homes. The second was a reminder of Mary, the Mother of God, as a model, a model for those of us thrust into chaos. After all, her very life was thrown into chaos, from the moment the Angel Gabriel announced that she would bear Jesus Christ. When she said "Yes" to God's mind bending plan, in, from my weak kneed point of view, not so simple trust, she was acceding to a life upended. She would endure not only the usual sufferings of the time in which she lived, but the exquisite pain of her son's suffering and death for a purpose that she could only ponder, and not completely understand until it all unfolded.

It is probably paradoxical for me to write that realizing is comforting.  I think that part of it is a realization that if I can let go of my anger, fear, distrust in times like these, stop being resistant to the storm around me, the chaos, as she did, I actually would be at peace. I fight the problem. She leaned into it. She absorbed it. Her words to the stewards at the wedding feast , "Do as he tells you," quietly but firmly uttered, she speaks to me, to you, to us.

So, here I am at the end of this Saturday in these strange times spinning a little less frantically, psychologically and spiritually speaking.

Oh, there was something else the speakers mentioned that occurs to me. Gratitude. It is important to be grateful fo r what we do have even amid the storms and stresses that bombard us. I am thus grateful that today I had this short period of emotional refueling.

This webinar is available now for view for those who did not "attend" in person. Some might find it helpful. If even one person does, then that's another thing to be grateful for, I am thinking.

As to me, and this blog, going forward, I am thinking, just thinking of adding a video component aimed largely at the faith crowd, and anyone who might want to explore faith. Now, as I say, this is just a thought. Now that I am of a certain age, and am personally in the category that the late Nora Ephron dubbed, "I Feel Bad About My Neck", I am not crazy about how I look in pictures, let alone moving pictures. On the other hand, it is a logical addition to a blog, vlog, or whatever thing is developing and has long been developing on line. But first, I have to figure out how to get the right size and be able to upload properly. We shall see.