French Romance by Benjamin Cambridge

There’s something heavenly about sitting in a room, with lots of light, planted next to a big bay window where you can see the grass tossing up into the air as the lawn mower goes back and forth.  Gazing out into the hills that surround your house, just knowing first-hand how big the world is out there, but that there is no need to completely figure it all out or rehash its detours.  Relaxing French music playing in the background, as if your life is a scene out of a whimsically, perfect Meryl Streep movie filled with ups, downs, character growth and triumph.

Having grown up with my mother watching love stories old and new, my life would no doubt become what I always thought it might be deep down … a movie.  And I mean that in the form of a slightly embarrassed, yet sincere confession for not just myself, but for us all.  In that, in many ways, each of our lives is a bit of a movie.  Life is full of climaxes, and plummeting moments.  Mundane and mediocre parts too.  But then, the rising and falling of action happens.  We find our fire within to face the battles of our own story plot.  There simply cannot be an end so hopeless or destructive to the main character when this movie is about US.  We know deep down when this movie is about us, that we have to get to that summit of what is our own beautiful ending.  And in life, it is up to us, to get ourselves to that blooming point where more can still be said about our life.  Another movie?  Why, yes, of course.

The movies keep coming out the more we invest in life!  I think that’s why I have always loved not just the romantic movies my mom and I cozy up to, but ALL movies, all stories, all plots, all books, novels, classics – old and new, plays, short stories, and so on.  I immediately fall in love with where the writer is going and how each character takes shape slowly over time in great detail.  We can all benefit from those universal truths and motifs embedded into the complex stories or characters’ lives.  Each character has something to teach us, model for us, or experience FOR us.  If we watch those movies over and over throughout life, or return to that favorite book, we find ourselves in the movie; a character we’ve been identifying with all along, a plot that sings the story of our own life’s stinging adventures.

“But the classics also speak of hope: the endurance of love; the need for heroes; unexpected graces; unanticipated comebacks; kindness amid hatred; the balm of forgiveness and the gentleness of charity; loyal friendship and ennobling faithfulness.  Classics speak with wit and wisdom, subtlety and shouting, about the fundamental vicissitudes of being human.  And that story never grows old.”

– Tod Warner, “Midnight Oil: musings since we last met” in the Evangelization & Culture Journal

As I sit next to the window, fondly remembering all my favorite characters, some I just couldn’t help but watch over and over until I could admit my own struggles to myself, I remember the ones I grew out of as well.  I may watch their movies still or read their books, but I am not caught up in their story as much anymore.  For myself, I realize that the waters of my life have finally calmed in such a beautiful way; a way I had always hoped for, and worked toward.  I see now that these still waters are more like an extremely clarifying mirror facing the heavens, allowing me to see, even if just for a moment, all its beauty – all its grace.  My movie-mind simultaneously wants to intervene and fears the mirror could suddenly get hit by a comet, shattering to pieces.

But, no.  For the first time, it is important to know that everyone and anyone who meets this mirror face-to-face, gets to finally rest and embrace it as a gift for as long as we get to.

The negative thoughts and mindless interventions that try to ruin these moments – the fear, the comets, the destructive surprises – I know now how to shine a light on them and call them out for what they are.  Instead of letting those thoughts spiral and take me away from this moment, I take a deep breath, and allow myself to enjoy the climaxes of my own instrumental measures within, that might have once made me wince with pain, yet now bring me great joy and all-enrapturing gratitude for this life I chose to endure, embrace and experience in every possible way.

I can smell all the flowers now.  I can hear all the birds.  I can let each piano note echo in my chest, once and for all.

It is in this blissful moment, that I replay the bloodshed of life that brought me to my knees.  I see it.  I remember it, and yet I am able to appreciate this heavenly moment despite what it has taken to get here. Perhaps, without the sacrifice and the pain, none of this would ever be felt, known and better yet, with lots of prayer understood.

Proverbs 17:22

A joyful heart is the health of the body, but a depressed spirit dries up the bones.

I have to believe that from pain and brutal sacrifice, we ALL resurrect.  Rephrase, we are all called to resurrect.  We are given the option to spring forth from the horrendous soil that we might be in, and still bloom – more beautifully than ever expected.  From darkness, we are for the first time, able to see the light.  From the thick of the woods, we listen for and follow the clues, we trust the rustle of the leaves, and find our way back to the main road.

For these painful, yet triumphant reasons, my entire being has embraced Life.  I have learned that HOPE actually is our happy ending to this movie of Life.  It’s an ending that comes about in life, more than once.  Cyclical, in a non-repetitive way, for each cycle of revelation and growth is a different experience – a new set of wings acquired – a new layer of petals and color blooming widely and courageously as we face the Sun.  Always growing, always craving to capture the essence of love, the meat of meaning, the maker of beauty.  And do we get to?  YES.  In small chunks, little doses, at a time.  Like bread crumbs on a trail, we find ourselves following the path with much more faith and trust, absolutely stronger, braver, wiser, more hopeful, more humble, and more graciously accepting of life’s encounters.

 

 

 

 

“In grappling with who we truly are, we will happen upon an otherworldly joy.  Pope Benedict XVI once reminded us, ‘The ways of the Lord are not easy, but we were not created for an easy life, but for great things, for goodness.”

-Tod Warner, “Midnight Oil: musings since we last met” in the Evangelization & Culture Journal

We must submit ourselves, pin ourselves down in these bay window, heavenly moments.  We must bask in the goodness that we ultimately gave into; all the relief, all the love at the core that has helped us get to this moment and the gratitude that floods our entire being as a result of wisdom gained.  We will never … a phrase to be thrown out the door like many other phrases or deceitful words of the kind:  I will never, You should never, I can’t ever … Just typing these phrases reminds us of the dark vortex that does exist out there.  This vortex has NO beginning, NO end, NO realness – just a labyrinth of lies that mean nothing.at.all.  It literally has NO meaning.  And yet, we choose to let it have meaning when we are in those fallen moments of despair.  We believe, momentarily, that the dark lies can take over the nucleus of our being.  That they can define us.  Therefore, we allow them to mislead us.

And in the end, in hindsight, that’s all it is: misleading.  Nothing more than that tiny little word. What a hardly, non-threatening word when we look at it all alone without its band of bullies, and yet it causes so much destruction when we are in the thick of the fog of the first fall into the vortex.

“All of the great masters of the Christian spiritual

tradition saw that we are able to love only inasmuch as we have received, as a grace, a share in the very life, energy, and nature of God.”

– Robert Barron, Centered: The Spirituality of Word on Fire p. 38

“It is only when we conform ourselves to the way of love, only when, in a high paradox, we contrive to empty out the ego, that we are filled.”

– Robert Barron, Centered: The Spirituality of Word on Fire p. 32

Life has its way of springing up signs all the time to discount all the horrific lies of this world.  As I drift away back into the French music lullabying my heart into the place I have finally reached mentally and soulfully, I am finally able to speak to Darkness to its face, and shut it down.  I pray, that these words will resonate with others out there, who are either approaching the summit, at the summit, descending, or climbing.  We are with you.

With prayer in my heart for anyone who faces the darkness today, I finally say to the face of darkness:  

You are incapable of winning.  You have absolutely no power over me, or anyone who is prayed for, because now I know who you are and what you are trying to do.  Now, I know how to get out from under your despicable illusion of control, and I will prayerfully protect every single other soul who falls down this supposed rabbit hole.  YOU end here.  YOU have lost.  WE WIN in the end.  We have ALREADY won.  And now, you are the one who is absolutely nothing; what you were supposed to be all along.  A monster under the bed.  A nightmare we wake up from.  Because this kind of light, this kind of hope, has no shut off switch.  This kind of light, will always be lit – FOR ALL.

Philippians 4: 6 – 7

Don’t worry about anything; instead pray about everything.  Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done.  If you do this, you will experience God’s peace, which is far more wonderful than the human mind can understand.  His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.

So, play the French music.  Write the words down like they are notes coming out of your heart and onto the page in measures of grace, courage, and faith.  Embrace the green meadows and the sprung flowers.  Close your eyes, and let the sun warm your face.  YOU are home.  You are HOME.  You ARE home.  Come on in. There is food, shelter, love and light here in this home, waiting for you.  Here, you can bloom.

“On the biblical reading, salvation, therefore, is a matter of the meeting of heaven and earth, so that God might reign as thoroughly here below as he does on high.”

– Robert Barron, Centered: The Spirituality of Word on Fire p. 95

With Prayer & Love,

Mrs. Walker