Image by Intergalactic_C from Pixabay
We don’t like to think about being caught. Most of our lives are spent saying, “Not it.”
Who wants to do dishes? Not it!
Who wants to rake the yard? Not it!
Now grated, these questions weren’t exactly open-ended. In the asking, lurked the presumption we were going to say, “Me please!” or at the very least, “Okay…” because these questions asked by parents were really commands. This needs doing. You’re doing it.
My own kids do not recognize this imparative. In fact, they use this same method against me. “Do you want to take us to get ice cream?” has been snagging me for years. “Can you pick me up?” “Can a friend come over?” “Can we get go out?” Somehow the answer always seems something like yes.
God understands this reality of love, that when asked, the lover desires to say “yes.” Parents want to say “Yes.” to their children. God waits and longs for us to say “Yes” to him.
Since Easter, I’ve felt like the disciples after Good Friday, wandering around waiting for something, but not sure what. I keep listening to the daily mass, waiting to be “caught,” to feel pulled. We want to be called, to be singled out, as much if not more than we wanted to be “not it.” Here, with God, we want to be picked. Instead, I’ve felt caught by my conditions, by my weaknesses, by my faults.
With my left arm perpetually encased in a compression sleeve, I’ve felt limited in strength, in action, in capacity. It doesn’t help that the therapy requires I sit still for an hour with the machine squeezing my left arm. Waking up to see if my arm is lined after I take off the sleeping sleeve isn’t exactly freeing either. In short, I’m three weeks into this lifetime sentence of having my left arm bundled, and I can already tell you, it’s annoying.
The road of a Catholic life includes lots of time when we’re both convicted that we need to do, and confused because we don’t quite know what it is we’re called to do, only that we’re called. So how do we help ourselves find the ways in which the Holy Spirit longs to work with us?
Begin with an inventory, of your gifts and talents, and of your long hopes. Discernment of one’s call within a call, the ways in which we are to catch others after we are caught, isn’t like getting a “cutie mark.”
We’re never one and done with our interactions with God, and our free will always plays into the process. So what we long for, what we think we desire, is not irrelevant to God or this process. God made us for joy, and when we do things that make time fall away, or which bring joy to ourselves and others, that a sign that this gift, this act, whatever it is, is part of our vocation. However, God always leaves room for us to grow into even more of our vocation, and for our vocation to be bigger than any of our plans. Vocations always are.
Which brings me back to wondering, why do I have this left arm business and what does God want with me now? How do I get more caught? How do I help catch others? By letting myself remember that we are always lost, and always trying to be found. I guess God wants me to do this right, with what’s left of me. My brain laughs and thinks, “I am not left handed.” and, “I hope we win.”
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