I am in heaven!

So I have no idea how this bloggy thing works and I am sure it will be different and changing all the time, but I thought I would start with my prayer journal entry from early this morning.

3:00 AM seems to be the time when God needs someone to talk to. Good morning Jesus. Funny thing, I thought I needed a good night's sleep tonight. So whats the deal with this blogging thing? It really started with this journal. All I was doing was trying to sort out the pain, but it got me writing and actually sharing my writing. Nothing I had planned, scheduled and organized, but there it was. I am guessing that is how you want it (me?) to be. I feel like my whole relationship to you has had an agenda attached to it all these years. I think I was always trying to get something, a need met or a mission accomplished and I was, unwittingly, using my relationship with you to get it; you were simply a means to the end.

 I don't know how you made the shift in me, I would not have thought it possible and could not conceive of it, though I think Hollis has tried to point it out at times. But you have you have made that shift and so you have become the end instead of the means. What a profound change! I am not sure I can describe it. But it is right and feels good. "Homey" in the sense Hollis and I have been using it lately. "You're my inheritance and reward" the psalmist declares. I am not striving to achieve or be something. I am just being with you. Listening to you, aware of your very real presence and love that constantly surrounds and "presses in" on me. And with you, all of your friends who are with you, the saints. Of course, the big official ones, who are quickly becoming my friends too,  but also the others, the "dearly departed" I think they are called, even though they seem closer now than ever, so I don't see why we call them that, Darrell, Carla, Grammy and Grampy,  and the others; a "great cloud of witnesses" that are my daily companions now.

 I am living in eternity. I am united to Christ in a real and substantial way through my baptism into him and I am experiencing eternal life. In a very real way, I am experiencing heaven, right now and right here. I have always thought it was a future thing, a far off place I was going. but I have the union with Him now and the communion of the saints, I have the joy now too, even in the midst of living the pains, struggles and weaknesses of life here on earth because I can unite those to His pain, and struggles and weaknesses (its weird to think of God having weaknesses, the child Jesus, the "emptied" Jesus), find Him there (being with Him IS the goal!), and experience joy. I never understood the saints when they rejoiced in their pain before but I am starting to have just a hint of it. It is the sweet fellowship of being with Jesus there. Eternity is NOW! It is where Jesus is. St. Paul declares in Ephesians that "we are seated in heavenly places in Christ." Though my experience of it, is not that I go there in some mystical sense but that it surrounds me, here, in this life. How weird and exciting and life changing is that? I am in heaven!

So, here I am. I have no goal but you, Jesus. I love you. Thank you for rescuing me.

Getting Started

Hi!

I am starting this blog in the hope of sharing my love for the Catholic Church, my relationship with Jesus, as it grows and changes, and some thoughts on the New Evangelization, especially as it is lived out here in Maine. I sense I am entering a whole new level of love and union with Christ and His Church and feel called to share the journey. It probably won't be helpful to anyone but me, as I struggle to find words and to develop my thoughts on how we can be better evangelizers, but I think it is what I should be doing. So as soon as I can, I will get started!