underground woman

The snow was like an early December snow--not too cold but beautiful. Snow fairies fluttered beneath the streetlights. [G] was hungry and I didn't want to go to sleep just yet, so we walked up the hill, making our way up the narrow path that had been tromped out before us, connecting the ill-designed sidewalks. I hopped in front of him and followed his right and left movements, cutting him off so he couldn't walk next to me.

He laughed. "Mary, you're so light I can just do this--" and I felt his hands beneath my ribs and when my feet hit the ground I was behind him. I laughed and slammed into him, but he kept his balance.

I thought for a minute.

"Mary, stop thinking about it and have fun," he said.

Then I got shoved into the snow.



Dr. Jackson says that the secret of the angels is this: obey before you hear. And I think as imago Dei that's what we're supposed to do--if we are ourselves, if we allow ourselves to be who we really, truly are--then we will obey naturally. We won't have to anal-yze "God says to do X, and God is all-knowing and loves me completely, so X is in my best interest." We won't have to think about it, we will just do it habitually. It will be cemented in our brains the way it's cemented in to brush away the hair that falls into our eyes--we just do it and don't think about it.

We used to be able to do this naturally, but our nature was wounded in the garden.

How can we do right when we don't know what right is? Sometimes we don't know. Sometimes we have to take a leap of faith--say a prayer and go with our gut and hope we do right, but know that if we do wrong while trying to do right, things will turn out okay in the end. St. Francis of Assisi built a church.

Sometimes we do need to think--to examine our conscience and find out where we continually screw up. Then make an effort to create habits of doing right. If you habitually do right when you know what's right, your gut instinct is more likely to be correct when you don't know what's right.

The basketball player who thinks about his shooting in practice doesn't have to think about his shooting during the game. He just does it.

So if I practice love--practice kindness, practice courage, practice patience--then my gut instinct is more likely to be right. And if it's wrong, well, I've done my best and He can't really hold me accountable, can He?