“Each day comes to me with both hands full of possibilities”—Helen Keller
Impossible situations
Impossible relief
Impossible wins
Impossible situations
Oh yeah, when all seems impossible and lost. When there’s no
way out. The door is closed. It closed
so swift your nose almost got nipped.
Then comes the Helen Keller quote. She was blind, deaf, and could
barely speak coherent words. She became
a writer, a pioneer who overcame steep obstacles, and disabilities. She never
quit.
You think you got problems? She had impossible problems. A teacher, Anne Sullivan, came along and taught her to spell W-A-T-E-R on the palm of her hand as cold gushes began to soften her heart.
Helen thrived in her impossibilities.
So, can you–with a little secret that’s not a secret.
You are two letters away from changing the word impossible to
possible.
Be grateful about something every day.
Save yourself some trouble.
Are you jealous of someone else’s success?
Stop and celebrate Amazing You!
Decide to be grateful for what you have.
Believe in the possibilities you can hold in your hands.
She didn’t get jealous that someone else had more followers than her or that they could see the world, or that they could win TED talks when she need an interpreter the rest of her life when she spoke.
Helen Keller was a celebrator.
Amazing challenges awaited Helen and she unlocked possibility in them.
I think she did it by gratitude.
Oh, does that word sometimes seem cliché anymore. People pound
it to death selling gratitude journals, gratitude courses, gratitude hashtags, or
gratitude wall hangings.
Take away something: gratitude is not just skin deep. It’s
heart deep, soul-diving, forming a conscience of Thanksgiving in your life.
Learn to embrace it. Cup your hands and hold it dear.
Don’t let thanksgiving for all the graces God bestows pour
through your fingers like so much tepid water.
Cup that water like Helen Keller did. Take a big gulp of it.
Sing Gratitude
Be Gratitude.
Pass the gratitude along by just a smile, a kind word, or leaving
the quarter in your cart at Aldi for someone to get. Come on, that’s the easiest
one out there.
Put the cart away for the cart-boy, especially if it’s
raining. Be grateful food is so easy to get here.
Turn on your computer in the morning expecting possibilities
in your difficulties.
Don’t grumble when you are driving in rush-hour traffic. Give that man a blessing instead of a bird.
Be grateful you even have a car when a majority of the world
walks for miles everywhere.
Open up possibilities and something else wins: HOPE.
My blessings might not look like your blessings. That’s
acceptable.
Helen Keller’s disabilities didn’t look like blessings
either. They looked like possibilities to her.
Be impossible for a while, so people say to you, “She’s just
impossible,” because you are seeing possibility in each day with your hands
full of gratitude.
Pilgrimage: Split, Croatia, 1998. The first time I saw John Paul II.
My encounter with now St. John Paul II made me believe he was the Vicar of Christ. Before that, I had thought he was just a man. A man to respect, a holy man, but just a man. I wasn’t even going to take the time to see John Paul II.
I was headed to Medjugorje, Bosnia, to report on a tiny village of faith where six people claimed to see the Virgin Mary. I was going to report on the after effects of the Bosnian war, and I was going to tie in the Kosovo conflict at the time. https://www.britannica.com/event/Kosovo-conflict
I wanted to talk to the people. I did not think the pope was necessary to the story I was chasing. My plan was to visit Medjugorje, rent a car to drive to Mostar, and write a tidy story. God laughed at my plans. I am in deep gratitude for the joke played on me by the Heavenly Father.
I was right and wrong about the pope.
The pope is just a man. A vessel of so much clay like the rest of us. But he better be moldable clay to form disciples. How does he do that? By the power of his priesthood, by the primacy given in Scripture, and by the power of the Holy Spirit. This is where the man ends and the Vicar of Christ begins. The pope is in a direct line of apostolic succession from St. Peter giving him jurisdiction. The papacy was founded by Christ when he told Peter, “On this Rock, I shall build my Church.” Matthew 16:16. Peter was the rock. Christ commanded it when he told Peter to “Feed my lambs…Feed my Sheep,” John 21:16-17
Peter, the first pope, was given the keys of heaven with the ability that what he bound on earth, was bound in heaven; the forgiveness of sins. Christ also promised the gates of hell would not prevail against His Church, (Matthew 16:18.) This was a dramatic proclamation, as Christ was literally standing by the cave known in the pagan world as the gates to the Netherworld, or hell. Against that large outcropping of stone, Christ stood and instituted the Papacy. The location was where the Romans thought Pan lived, a terrible deity who was also the god of shepherds. What incredible irony. Here is Christ, who declared himself the Good Shepherd, who laid down his life for his sheep, and called himself the gate, defying the very god known for shepherding his flock to the netherworld. https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+10&version=NRSVCE Christ was saying, “Be Not Afraid,” he had conquered all that could ever frighten us. In fact, Christ said those words in John 16:33: “Take Courage, I have overcome the world.”.
Christ’s Vicar, John Paul II, strode out onto the balcony of the Vatican, after his election to the papacy, and thundered the same words: “Be not afraid!” The first Slavic pope from mystical and faithful Poland, roared like the Lion of Judah. He planned to protect the faithful placed in his charge earning the name Papa spoken with love and reverence by millions across the globe. In the Bible, that phrase appears 365 times. One time for each day of the year. Christ said “Courage,” but it is from the god Pan where we get the word panic, the sudden, uncontrollable fear that leads people into irrational behavior.
Christ calls us to peace, joy, love, faith, and hope. He never calls us to panic.
I didn’t know any of this as a I stood on the graveled road, bodies pressed so tightly together, hands waving, and voices shouting as John Paul II came into our midst. I could not have quoted any Scripture pertaining to it or even explain it. A lady on the bus told me the term Vicar of Christ. I had never heard that term in all my 12 years of Catholic School. She was too honest for me to think she was making it up.
Primacy, Peter, Promises, Apostolic Succession. Gates of the Netherworld. Strange phrases that held no meaning for me. They stirred me not in the least. What moved me was the witness of the crowd. There was devotion here to a depth I had never probed.
My bus passed masses of pilgrims walking to Split, pulling over on a dusty road to let them get around the sharp curves before us. They could not afford the bus and had no car. So they walked to see their Papa, and I hadn’t even wanted to go. That got my attention. Why would they do it?
I wanted to climb Apparition Hill in Medjugorje and be close to the Virgin Mary. I had a devotion to her as a child. I wanted to see if it would be renewed in Bosnia. John Paul II devoted his entire papacy to the Blessed Mother. Totus Tuus was Saint John Paul II’s apostolic motto. It is a Latin phrase meaning “totally thine” to the Virgin Mary, expressing his personal Consecration to Mary based on the spiritual approach of Saint Louis de Montfort. Mary was a common theme in many of his writings
It was clear that I needed to see this son of the Virgin Mary before I climbed any mountain she was appearing atop. Mary was given to all people at the foot of the Cross by Jesus. “Behold Your Mother,” Christ said from the Cross to John. John represents us. We are to behond his mother and not be afraid to take her into our homes just as St. Joseph and St. John did, (Matthew 1:20 and John 19:27) https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+19%3A27&version=NRSVCE
This part about Mary was easy for me to believe. The papacy was not. I had trouble with a man telling me what to do. Until Croatia.
Thousands upon thousands to see just a man. No one goes to that much sacrifice to see only a man. When’s the last time you heard someone walking two hours to a rock concert or to see a movie star? You can say you might have heard of one or two misguided people doing this, but thousands? And for centuries? For more than 2,000 years people have went to see the pope and waited for hours to receive his blessing.
It was the faith of these Eastern Europeans that made me take notice that the papacy is about the Body of Christ–Christ’s living body on Earth as represented in his Catholic Church and people. No pope has ever been able to change the dogma of the Catholic Church. There have been some bad men as popes who I wouldn’t have wanted to meet in any dark alley, let alone in church. But the worst of the worst were never able to change the truths of the Catholic Church, the deposit of Faith that has stood for more than 2,000 years.
That alone shows me that the Pope is more than a man. I met him in Croatia by the seashore of the Adriatic Sea, the waves gently lapping and my heart brimming.
Photo by Jennifer Lindberg Combining seasonal décor with the liturgical year is how I relax. It’s how I care for myself, my family, and others by being a hospitable hostess. It’s about truth, beauty, and goodness through all the seasons of our life.
This Hopeful Home observes our prayers, our arguments, and
our growth. It sees skinned knees kissed, hurt feelings soothed between
siblings with I’m sorry, and laughter peeling through the air.
I’m the hostess of my home. For myself, my family, and my
friends. Decorating my home with the seasons of nature and the liturgical years
is how I relax and treat myself to some self-care. Self-care restores our sense
of balance and extends out to others by creating no barriers to hope, faith,
and love. Decorating your home isn’t complicated. It’s easy and calming once
you know what you like, the rule of threes, anchors, and the color wheel. That’s
all I’ve ever used along with trial and error.
October colors look good with blue. Blue is the traditional
color of the Virgin Mary. I love pairing orange and blue. The blue in my
antique vase, the blue in my runner atop the buffet, and the blue in my table
cloth– just subtle enough to cool down the orange but still let the orange be
the anchoring color.
Creating a space for friends and family to feel cherished, and a place that uplifts my soul, is my goal of creating a hopeful home to reflect the seasons of life and the liturgical year. –Jennifer Lindberg
Francois Mauriac won the 1952 Nobel Prize in Literature. A devout Catholic he wrote about human suffering and redemption. Common themes everyone wrestles with and show everyone is in need of saving.
Carrying an armload of firewood from the barn, heaving it into its spot, the first fire of Autumn is about to be lit.
This wood stove warms us when we are cold, and enlightens us as we stare into the flames, letting our thoughts wander or ponder the day.
Christ says he wants to set the world on fire, a blazing furnace
of love. (Luke 12:49.)
This blazing fire found the Apostles on the Walk to Emmaus,
“Were not our hearts burring within us while He talked to us on the road and
opened the Scriptures to us?” Luke 24:32
A small spark of great love ignited the Apostle’s faith
leaving them in deep wonder and astonishment.
St. Catherine of Sienna describes fire as a means to
evangelization:
“Be who God meant you
to be and you will set the world on fire,” she preaches.
With God “all things
are all in all,” Ephesians 4:5. He sets our hearts up to receive the Word and
His Grace in the flame of love.
As the flames catch
the wood and we snuggle close on this cool day of Autumn — looking out at the
leaves that blaze red and orange and yellow outside our window— I am reminded
of the Francois Mauriac quote that tidies everything up for me and lets my
heart burn the word Hope.
“The day you no longer burn with love many others will die of the cold.”
God made all this to make us happy. Photo by Jen Lindberg
Take a walk with God who wants to meet you where He made you: down in the dirt, humble folk. Trod a well-worn path, scuff your boot heels through the leaves. Breathe in the language of nature and listen for a bit. Nature has a language all its own, because it was made by the Word –the Word made Flesh, my Savior, my God-man. God has words to speak to us out here. He built you on the rock of faith to walk with Him. He made the sky blue and the trees blaze with color to make us happy. You might be surprised how He speaks to you through his creation that he breathed life into with simple words.
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