To see

When asked by my eldest daughter, on the phone from Cincinnati, what I was up to, I mentioned that I was up in "The Blue Room" sorting through my life. The mere mention of that local tavern brings the usual eye rolls and snickers because at our house that title doubles for the upstairs vacant bedroom which is a showcase for my pack rat tendencies! As I waited for her usual rapid fire comments to end, I reminded her that any amount of time that I spent in that room was less time that she would have to spend there boxing things for the estate sale!

I did not go into detail to her that I was approaching my task a little differently this time. "I will probably need that one of these days", was supplanted by " Who will need this?". I was quite surprised at my reaction to the small box in which I was placing my old eye glasses. I cannot even begin to number the amount of times that I have walked through the local bank and seen the box where the Lion's club collects old glasses and sends them to the needy around the world. "Great cause!" I think as I walk away, "I will have to do that sometime." Of course I never have placed one pair in any Lion's box, because you know, I might need them someday!

Trying those glasses on for the final time, I noted that I could barely see through any of them. All those glasses that had helped me see clearly at one point in time,were gradually replaced as I needed stronger prescriptions. I was struck by a thought that I was holding on to notions of my parish in the same vein. "What you see is what you get" aptly described my youth. I memorized my prayers, went to mass and knew I was a Catholic. Probably about as many times as I changed prescriptions, throughout my life, I changed the way I saw the church. Saying rote prayers and merely attending mass no longer helped me see what the Spirit wanted me to see. Music, speakers, movies, discussions, quiet time, teaching CCD, working Confirmation retreats, intimate conversations with parishioners, healing masses, and various stints on committees were all the Lord's prescription adjustments that improved my vision.

I have come to realize lately that the way I have dutifully accepted the leadership of our parish is akin to relying on the worn glasses that I wore twenty years ago. No one resists new frames after so many years, so why do some resist altering interaction patterns within a parish? I understand resistance to change, but I also understand that some of the neatest moments of my spiritual life have come when I chose to change my frames to be with other members of the parish who changed theirs. The hard moments have been when I have had to change the prescriptions. I look like the other parishioners, but what I see is unique to what the Spirit has led me to see. To accept that idea is to accept and appreciate that everyone in my parish has a different prescription than I. They need different lens and different levels of activities than I do. So it makes sense that our parish should be offering many different opportunities for growth and development rather than a small number of rigidly structured large activities.

I like the leadership of our parish, but I will stumble in my daily walk if I do not trust the pair of glasses that I have been prescribed to wear by my Father. With the same confidence and trust that I have in removing those old frames with those old prescriptions from my house, I am eager to embrace the ideas that will improve the vision of the people around me and of course my own. We don't all crowd into the optometrist's office and shout out what we see in unison, why would we expect that our visions from the Father would be the same? If the church leadership seriously asks us what we see, we will tell them because we all want our glasses to help us see clearly. I have never met a doctor yet that doesn't ask me what I see to prescribe my glasses, why should the church leadership be different?