Yellow Slide

Hello Zeteo community!

I have a bit of a busy week ahead of me, but I saved the best part of Father Michael's talk for last, so I knew I needed to write a post today. I hope you enjoy his insights on discernment as much as I have - it has definitely been food for thought for me.

God bless,

Olivia

Week Three: Yellow Slide

Last week, Tharin and I brought Jerome to the swimming pool. When he was a tiny baby, he loved to be held in the hot tub, and would turn into a content ball of mush in our arms. Lately, he has been discovering his independence and spends most of the time we are in the hot tub trying to clamber out and back to the yellow slide.

At the pool, Jerome is fearless. He just mastered the art of climbing the four steps to the kid slide, and would most definitely plummet down it himself if we were not there to guide him. He does not yet have a concept of how he would sink to the bottom without daddy on the other end of the slide to catch him. He has no concept of the danger, but because we as his parents know his limitations, we are able to protect him from this unawareness.

We give him the independence we can, allowing him to waddle on his own in the shallow part and to climb those four steps - but we know there are simply things he is not capable of doing on his own, not yet, even if he does not yet understand his own smallness. So we catch him when he tries to go too deep, and we hold our arms ready when he gets to the top of the slide.

This is good analogy for my relationship with Christ. An important part of growing in Christian maturity is growing in our understanding of our human weakness, of our smallness, of our humbleness. Like Jerome at the swimming pool, God is holding us afloat whether we realize we need Him to or not and just as Jerome will eventually come to understand that he is too little for the deep end just yet, so must we develop a realistic view of our human shortcomings.

We all have yellow slides in our lives - things we are enticed by, that we think we should be able to do on our own. An important thing to realize about God is that He is deeply respectful of our free will, as Father Michael mentioned. God will respectfully and gently tell us if we are not ready for something, but ultimately leaves the choice up to us.

In Christian maturity, we must come to an understanding of our limitations, and learn to listen for the promptings of God and certainly the promptings of the deceiver. Satan, the father of lies, is intent on leading us into pride, away from the truth of our humanity and into a false belief that we do not need God. He is intent on convincing us we can take the yellow slide on our own, that we do not need God to catch us at the bottom.

Unlike God, the deceiver takes advantage of our freewill. If we interpret the promptings in our lives we are able to discern where the influence is from. Father Michael explained that promptings from the deceiver will contain lies, will feel seductive, accusatory or threatening, whereas God's voice is always respectful, always an invitation. He invites us to chose to love Him and to let Him catch us, and delights in our sincere response to this invitation.

In this swimming pool of life, are we realistic with where we need God to keep us above water? Are we listening to His voice when He is telling us we are not yet ready, to step away from the deep end? Or are we distracted by another voice, a seductive voice, telling us we are capable of doing it on our own, and getting ourselves in over our heads as a result?

I know that if I, in humility, am able to let the Lord lead and propel me, to give me the swimming lessons I so desperately need, I may someday be ready for the yellow slide in my life. Or likely something even greater. For the time being, I have the opportunity to lay back in His strong arms, and to know that I am safe.

Whom Shall I Fear

Hello Zeteo Community!

As per usual, I tried to sneak the Zeteo blog in at the last minute this Thursday. It did not go so well for me this time. The truth is, I have been avoiding writing the blog all day. Mostly because I feel completely uninspired today. But in obedience, here I am.

God bless you all, I hope you are all having terrific weeks as we get ready for spring - already, I know. Is it just me, or does it feel like we have barely had winter yet. Do not get me wrong, I really do not mind.

Olivia Fischer

Week 2: Whom Shall I Fear

Father Michael started his talk on angels and demons with an interesting thought. While most people admit to the reality of the demonic, and have a fear or even fascination with the forces of evil, God is more likely to be pushed aside. As Matthew Kelly says in his book, Rediscover Jesus: "Our culture seems intent on placing Jesus in the same category as Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny." (Page 30)

I remember learning about the reality of the demonic world when I was a kid - I think after I watched a Padre Pio movie and Father Pio is physically chased by a demonic dog. I became terrified by this stunning realization that there were such evil forces at work in the world, and would sometimes be almost paralyzed with fear of it.

I was blessed to have a wise mother who taught me something very important, which has stuck with me throughout my life. In those times of fear, she told me to say Jesus, over and over. The name of Jesus literally means, "God saves." Just in saying the name of Jesus, we are professing an integral theology of the Catholic faith: God saves. There is no word more powerful than this, and the evil we can be so terrified of, is terrified by just the mention of it.

As Father Michael explained, the demonic world is actually very weak. Unlike God who has infinite power, satan has only the power which God permits. Just as God created us, God created all spiritual beings, as we pronounce in the Apostles Creed: "I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible."

A huge realization for me came from an answer to a question asked of Father Michael following his talk. It was asked whether the demonic world has a type of hierarchy as the angelic does. Father Michael explained that it does not. The demonic world is much weaker than we give it credit for because of the inherent disunity by which it is run. Where God seeks to unify and to gather, satan attempts to scatter and divide. This results in a structure that is void of rational thought and order, as these things can only be found in God.

It is easy to divide or unbalance something that is not rooted in God. Which is definitely something that rings true for me. Satan wants us to feel unbalanced, disunified, confused, alone - he wants us to feel like this world is hopeless, so that we can accompany him in his misery.

But we as Catholics know the truth, and we can proclaim it every time we say the name of Jesus. God saves, and as Jesus said on the Cross: it, the battle between good and evil, is finished. Evil is overcome, and despite how it may seem to us as humans, it is powerless at just the mention of the name Jesus.

I know I need to remember this as I go about my daily life and am tempted to be overwhelmed by doubts, fears, the feeling that I am trying to sort things out on my own. The answer is so simple, something I seem to have grasped so much more readily as a child: Jesus. And He is not some figment of Christian imagination, as Matthew Kelly puts it. He indisputably walked on the Earth, He indisputably performed miracles then, and continues to work them today.

As the song by Chris Tomlin, Whom Shall I Fear, so beautifully phrases, the God of angel armies is always by my side. To dispel the darkness that we allow to enter into our lives, to perform the miraculous in our every day. I do not know about the rest of you, but it takes an awful lot to get that to sink into my thick, stubborn, materially-distracted head. Good thing He is a lot more patient than I am stubborn, and while He is finished with evil, He is never finished with me.