New Year *Wonder*

+Happy and Blessed New Year to All+

We ventured out to brunch with my parents today after Mass where we found these festive balloons to mark the New Year!  

Duty called so dear husband had to work at the Fire Department on Christmas Day, New Years Eve AND New Years Day this year:( We don't ever get used to him working holidays and we miss him but we manage try to make the best of things when we can.  I'll admit, sometimes it's very difficult to stay cheerful…Though I'm smiling here, aren't I?  Mass and the balloons definitely made me smile:)  I was also very happy for our future firefighter that he got to ride-along with Dad for the New Year.

 My parents are good sports.  They come a long with us when they can.  They were gone out of town for Christmas so it was just me and the kids. Having college boy home definitely made things more complete!

We've had some really nice days doing this kind of thing…

Christmas Day brought glorious weather…and wonder!  

In some of my Advent reading, author Anthony Esolen describes wonder in an Italian grotto where St. Francis orchestrated the first live Nativity.  It was an experience where people forgot themselves for a time in order to witness and wonder in the birth of a little child who was God humbled.  Esolen comments that when people "forget to be great they may return to childhood themselves, their eyes bright with delight and their lips parted in that happy look that children have when they are all wonder and no self."  If only we could make ourselves small enough more often…Forget trying to be great…Just maybe we would find ourselves in the womb of wonder.  I have no doubt that we would certainly be happy there.

*Wonder*

Its become my new word and goal for 2014…I want to live in radical wonder this year…To marvel, be amazed and have deep admiration for God's wondrous works.  Keeping the virtues of charity and humility in mind, I want to be smaller…Less of me (figuratively).  Though less of me physically would be nice too:)  Can you tell that I might "need it" from the start of this post?  One of my favorite Saints, St. Alphonsus Ligouri, says that "we should always, even to the very last moments of our life, question our own strength and place all our confidence in God, always begging Him to give us humility."

Well, kind of an interesting story …

On New Year's Eve, I was out for a walk, praying the Rosary.  Part way into the Sorrowful mysteries, a little scene started playing in my blind's eye.  It was me, crawling on my hands and knees through a very small and dark space, much like an attic.  I was crawling towards a tiny bright light to get out.  It dawned on me that I was too big to fit through the small opening…I needed to be smaller in order to get out of the darkness and reach the light.  With each Hail Mary, I began to shrink until I was small enough to break through.

Hmmm, I think I'll take that as a big hint, even a sign, that less of me is definitely in order… In fact I think I may need to just quietly slip out of sight after that one!  So if you see less of me around these parts of the woods, you'll know why…. 

It's all good and I am grateful to be reminded that less of ourselves is definitely more if we are to be humble in the eyes of God.  Unplugging from social media distraction has always been a healthy break for me.  I'm just not sure where God wants me to go from here…Keep blogging or not? I can hardly keep up anymore as it is.  Hmmm, what to do?

Providentially, this scripture verse, discovered during Advent, is my new favorite!  I'm pondering things with it in mind...
"If there is any encouragement in Christ, any solace in love, any participation in the Spirit, any compassion and mercy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, with the same love, united in heart, thinking one thing.  Do nothing out of selfishness or out of vainglory; rather, humbly regard others as more important than yourselves, each looking out not for his own interests, but also everyone for those of others." ~Philippians 2:1-4

In the meantime, I'm off to wonder and shrink…:) God willing!