Fire Within

Props to Kathryn and Michael for breaking bread with me, and listening.

Someday the whole story will come out.

The act of refinement – call it Refiner’s fire – can turn you into broken glass. On legs.

You stumble around, carrying within you this act of spiritual conquest, the battle that brings (eventual) victory, feeling everything intensely; the hope, the heartbreak, the gratitude …

… the discouragement so bleak at times you wonder, If this is how God treats His friends …

A guy I knew once said that St. Therese the little flower was neurotic. I replied that this was false. She wasn’t neurotic, she was engaged directly with God who had to do stuff, burn stuff, break stuff, make stuff. It wasn’t neurosis, but the poetic power of the Holy Spirit revealing, exposing, the inner-working miracle.

It’s always easier to see things when they're happening to someone else.

I hate this. But (I can't believe I'm saying it) I wouldn’t change it for the world.