Inspired By the Writings of St. Paul

Beloved, you have been with me on a very personal journey as I search within myself to discover how I might help people outside of myself. I have felt like a foreigner as I challenged some of my beliefs and lazy thinking. Your faith has been both inspiration and guide.

Just being in your presence provided a glimpse at unfettered kindness, unshackled goodness. Our lives can be so much more than a mere chronology of events when we believe in God and share that belief with others. How we share our belief is both private and public. What are we willing to do in God’s name? I have seen your courage, your compassion, your patience.

I have learned that being selfish often encourages carelessness in how we interact with others. A giving heart is unbounded and filled with reverence. Life is best when nothing is wasted.

You have shown me a tenderness that I did not deserve but which taught me how to love with my eyes closed. I now understand life is best lived without conditions or expecting anything back from any act of kindness.

It is easy to forget or hide feelings of past love, past hope. But, it was beautiful to remember the goodness of the past and to associate it with the goodness of the present and with you.

Each minute that we are alive is a minute to give thanks and praise to God. Each minute that we are alive is a minute to share and inspire faith and hope. Each minute that we are live is a minute to love unconditionally. Doing those things each minute will be difficult but in the end it will be beneficial for our souls want us to rise up in goodness and love and become beacons for all.

I have learned about the beauty of being in a community because of your patience and kindness. The most beautiful thing is meeting someone filled with God’s grace, God’s love, and God’s will and then being asked to do a simple task. The request created a bond which shall never be broken. I want my life to be filled with God’s grace, God’s love, and God’s will.

It is easy to move through each minute saying, prayers welcome.

I have learned so much about being of service to God from simply being with you, observing you, and listening to what you say about your Faith.

Vocation - American Style

Once upon a time, there was one little country boy, walking on an urban sidewalk. And he allowed himself to see God in faces of passing strangers. It was an existential moment of questions and answers; a lyrical moment of wonderful belief, faith, and love; an exemplary moment of inspiring and living Catholicism.

He had a personality shaped by sitcoms, detective shows, and imported international miniseries. There was an understated curiosity about him. He was always ready with a question and a smile. In his being was a growing love of his religion, growing respect of his faith. Learning about God and how to please God, pleased and challenged him.

There was an ordinariness about him, detached and graceful as he searches for goodness and his path. His eyes looked around him, at the glass storefronts, the neon signs, the rushing pedestrians. Then he tried to remember something he heard at Mass.

beautiful, service, faith, love, sharing, direction, forgiveness, help, dedication, charity, peace, kindness, empathy, honor, privilege, ceremony, tradition, Bible, St. Paul, homily, God's work, community, family, prayer, reflection, examination of conscience,

Sometimes I too have a feeling leading me in a certain direction; interpreting past events and assigning symbolic significance, religious archetypes to the realities from my life. Sometimes I too must acknowledge my faults, my sins, even the smallest elements, the random thoughts, brash and wild. Sometimes I too realize the material world may be beautiful and yet there is an element of the intangible which creates obsession, greed, lust.

In quiet moments there is a very tangible sensation, the material that both hope and love are made of, that leads my brain through all the formative influences. There are examples supreme and sublime. There is a search for a lucid freshness and purity. There is an innocent insistence which challenges my being, my inactivity.

Here and there, I have made small discoveries about myself and there is a desire for a relationship with God which contains greater fidelity. Each new discovery could be complemented by an anecdote or a fragment. Nothing is isolated.

I have been on a journey for a long time, following the traces, the ancient footsteps everywhere. I have observed life and something beyond life, something beyond words. Now, my heart and soul yearn for God's grace, God's love, and to do God's work.

It is never too late to yearn.