The story of God telling Abram he would take him to a new land, a land unknown to him, always intrigued me. Whenever I read that story, I always took it as a literal shoutout from God to me. "Uh, Rach, yep, its about that time again. Let's go somewhere weird together--just you and me. I like to watch you do weird things, and heck, I know you get a kick out of it...at least in hindsight. So let's go little lady!" No, that's not how God says it...but it's really amusing to think of it that way. But, in my defense, I have always viewed my life as an adventure with God, where He takes me to places I would never have dreamed of. This dream really harvested when I moved out to Czech Republic. I felt God asking me to trust Him. Czech Republic was definitely not my first choice, in fact, it was never anywhere I was attracted to in the least bit. God however made it very apparent He wanted me in the Czech Republic to study abroad. Eventually, I spent a good amount of time there (4 months) and felt His peace with me, even while getting thrown out of bathrooms in TESCO. (Don't every ask if you can use a debit card in an eastern european bathroom!) Despite all the trials I had there, which are endless, I knew it was the best decision I've ever made. I look back on my time in Czech as my coming of age. Being in a country that was 69% atheist taught me to make my faith my own. I was in a program called ERASMUS which is basically just an excuse to move to another country and party. I found out that I had two options: go to mass every day and endure the czech liturgy (no english masses, folks) and sit in cold churches being badgered by bums, or eventually fall back into the party scene due to my loneliness and weakness.
The struggle and fight to see God daily, which came through trying to figure out mass schedules in a different language, locate churches, and find an english speaking confessor (impossible, but God did it) was what made my experience in Czech Republic what it was. The fight for my faith made it beautiful, and God rewarded me with one of the most amazing, whimsical experiences of my life. He rewarded with me the most eclectic group of friends (Alice, Ruthie, Jeongmin, Steph, Heather, Alice, Jess--only in Heaven will we know how God orchestrated our beautiful friendships!) and I was completely charmed by Europe. I wanted to live there the rest of my life. I came back to the US renewed, with a strong sense that God's will probably is just as zany as I suspected, and that from here on forward, my life going to just as whimsical and strange as my time in Europe gave me. I wanted to hold on to all the joy, excitement, and random life lessons I learned in Czech Republic. I craved a life that was topsy-turvy, random, and new everyday. The problem was, Czech Republic was a chapter in my life, yet I wanted to absorb every speck and make it the thesis for my life, entitled "My Life as a Gypsy." Or whatever. So, now here I am back in Lincoln, two years later, after many failures that were my attempt of resurrecting a time long ago--a dream upon a dream. I have to stop and wonder, "What is God truly doing with me? And what am I doing to get in the way of it?"
I am now back in Lincoln after the most spiritually, physically, and mentally exhausting months of my life. I spent all of September and October in a remote Catholic retreat house in the Scottish highlands, and then I spent a good 10 days in Croatia and Bosnia trying to find the Blessed Mother of God (more on that later!), and then I found myself in St. Paul Minnesota for a few days in a miraculous journey back to my home, after wandering around Europe without a clue. Somehow I managed to restrain myself into sticking around Lincoln for a good month and a half, and then "here I go again, on my own...(love that song) going down the only road I've ever known" to Wyoming, to work at a horse ranch for troubled teen girls. I stayed a week and then decided to scoot my butt back home for reasons that are too deep to go into on a blog.
We need time to heal, and we definitely need to give God time and the silence necessary to truly guide us. "Delight in me, and I will give you the desires of your heart."- Psalm 37:4. So, apparently, God wants us to be happy. I don't know why this is such a shocker to me. Maybe, because this has been the hardest year of my life, and I've become infatuated with the spirituality of St. John of the Cross, which speaks of detachment, dying to self, and embracing the cross which I will lug with me up the royal road to Heaven. Truly, we do need to die to this world to enter into the beautiful embrace of the Crucified, but God longs for our happiness. He made us for this! It is a paradox--we must die to the pleasures of this world, but yet God states we can find Heaven on this side of eternity. I think my heart yearns for Heaven more than ever. I long to see that city on a mountaintop, aglow with the love of the ages.
"The Son of Man has no place to rest His Head."-Jesus
Oh I do relate to these words of our Savior. Can't every person who has ever had a case of wanderlust, or who was searching for their place in the universe? Christ too was a wandering soul, but as Fr. Kelly stated last night at Theology on Tap: His wanderings had structure. He had a plan mapped out to evangelize to the little towns of Judea and Galilee, sending out his disciples in pairs. Mine...well, no I cannot say I had structure when I wandered into Croatia with a one way ticket and nothing else. Is this the perfect segway to tell my Medjugorje story? I will save that for my next post. I hope the Holy Spirit gives me the words.
I am on a search. I decided my true vocation is a pilgrim. We all are pilgrims in search of the Holy City on a mountaintop: the City of God. Our wanderings should be inward directed--like the Russian spirituality describes of going inward to your "poustinia"--the desert place in your heart. (Catherine Doherty, Poustinia) Whether I wander physically or I go inward to search for the City of God within me (Heaven dwells within all of us) I know that my calling and yours is to be a pilgrim on this earth. To seek God with all our mind, heart, and soul is the absolute calling of every one of us, and we must never forget it. Man's life on this earth is short, seventy to eighty years if a man is strong, so the Psalm goes.
If you want to be inspired, google "Marino Restrepo." He was kidnapped in the jungle for 15 days and had a vision of Heaven and Hell. I know a lightbulb clicked when I heard his talks. God's quite funny actually--I was listening to his talk and he was describing how we all will die very soon. (A warm tingly topic) He was talking about how it will come much sooner than we think, because look at our pasts, did they not pass in a flash? So too, is our life. Right when i was listening to his words about caskets and such, and how we all will be in a casket one day, a white hearse came speeding at 85mph down I-80! I saw it coming in my rearview mirror, and I couldn't believe it. Oh, i love divine irony. His timing is perfect.
