There is something I know to be true but I have a difficult time adhering to it. It is the fact that reality is not against me, but for me, that my life and the moments, events, and people that make it up are my path to destiny. I am never reminded of this more than when I receive Traces each month. I am particularly reminded by reading the letters. Two that I read this evening after School of Community moved me to the point of needing to turn my laptop back on and write about this experience, both to make sense of it myself and to perhaps communicate it to others. The first was sent by Giuseppina, who is 85. In her letter she shares some experiences she had during a recent hospital stay; what struck me were these words: "If you let His presence in, you learn to look, stay, and to come to the judgment that reality is not against you, but is for your own good." If being the key, it is up to us, left to our freedom. Too often I assert myself against reality, trying to twist it.In another letter, from Laura, who writes about her relationship with her daughter, the magnitude of experience, everyday experience, is realized, simple things that happened to her that caused her to lift her gaze and realize that reality is not against me. This caused a shift "from an obstinate reliance on [her] own strength to the openness to the forms reality was presenting [her].
It is funny because I had an unpleasant conversion with my own son on the drive home this evening. I was the cause of the unpleasantness. I also felt that our School of Community this was a little abstract and discursive, which I find a bit frustrating. This frustration is a provocation for me to be a better leader, which requires me to realize that even the reality of SofC is not against me and to see that the charism of the Movement is the work of Another, not my work and that not adhering to the method is an assertion of myself, a failure of trust, which is to entrust myself and our School to Another. It is not just facing reality, but engaging it, seeing that everything that happens to me is for my own good. These are the kind of words that sound empty, but are not when filled with desire.
Veni Sancti Spiritus, veni per Mariam.