a lordship of love

I spent a little time re-reading some of these posts because, to quote myself, "I am a champion procrastinator." Yes, I have a paper due. I also noted one post: "I never eat or sleep." Really? I think a significant portion of my life has been lived in anticipation of that fact ending one day. Still not true.

One post was particularly good to re-read. One where I remarked on how much I failed move through life ALIVE before Rome. Not that Rome was some magical antidote for a life I wasn't sure I wanted, but Rome was the context in which I put into action a truth I did not understand, because I did not live it: surrender, utter poverty in imitation of Christ before the Father is LIFE. I certainly would not boast of living it now, but it is nearer than when I first believed...

In search of an utter dispossession of self. Yes. To dispossess ourselves and be possessed by Christ and in this possess everything. This yields the greatest joy. I think if someone had told me that 10 years ago, I would have frantically tried to mash that into some mathematical formula that yielded comprehension and success. Don't possess = possess everything = joy. EH?

The cross is a scandal, a persistent obedience, a paradox. A crucified Messiah? Death yields life. Poverty yields possession of a Kingdom. Blood washes clean. Joy and peace are born of humility and service. Do we understand that? We are to be pierced. Flesh and bone. Nail by nail. Joined to him. On the cross. Pope Benedict XVI says we have to think and operate according to the logic of the cross (http://www.zenit.org/article-31053?l=english). That is not the logic of men. And until we submit ourselves to this paradoxical love, joy remains fleeting, illusive. We have to have, as the Holy Father says, "an authentic Christian conception of God and of the world, of personal and universal salvation," one where "all is centered on Christ, Lord of hearts, of history and of the cosmos" (see previous reference).

He is the Lord of hearts. Is he the Lord of yours? Surrender.