The Presentation

From "The Presentation," a featured piece by Heather King in the February Magnificat:

""And you yourself a sword will pierce so that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed," Simeon told Mary. Whatever pierces our heart is a religious experience. Whatever pierces our heart we are invited to offer at the temple.

We bring all our joys and all our trials. We especially bring our contradictions, our compulsions, our wounds.

To present our experiences at the temple is to sacramentalize them. To present our experiences is to recognize that all experience, from the smallest to the largest, has a supernatural dimension. We offer our experiences on the altar of the fact that we are loved just as we are, and that everything that happens to us is an opportunity to draw closer to Christ. We present ourselves at the temple because our lives, our work, our sacrifices are not our own.

We bring our wounds and we also bring our strengths and talents. Otherwise we tend to forget that the purpose of our gifts is to glorify God. We start to think that our gifts make us special, or that we can use them to lord it over the rest.

When we do present ourselves, we find that the temple is not empty. Simeon is there, and the elderly prophetess Anna. People have been praying for us all our lives. We are part of a centuries-old tradition, and we are invited to participate in the ever-unfolding and perpetual resurrection.

We go in peace, knowing that we, too, are servants whose eyes have "seen your salvation.""

busy, busy, busy

I drank the last of my Miss Elizabeth tea from Bingley's Teas today. I will have to look into getting something new for my black tea category! It's exciting. The choices are boundless over there. Go check it out if you are in the market for some quality tea leaves!

Other quick notes...

-I like Ron Paul because he is consistent and he is serious about limiting government. He is the only one who stands apart from the other candidates and indeed politicians in general. Although his approach to Roe v. Wade is to have the states decide the issue for themselves, which some folks dislike, I think it is an eminently more practicable solution. Besides, for 40 years pro-lifers have been voting Republicans into office because they were "pro-life" or at least "sort of" pro-life or maybe just "not as" pro-abortion as the Democrat offering. None of those politicians have done any good. Rather than vote for someone who says he'll carry on the same old battle with the same old minimal results (ultimately), I'd like to go with Ron Paul on this.

-Additionally with regards to Ron Paul, his foreign policy is right on the money. Why are we in Germany, South Korea, Japan, and these other countries? Global security? But who made the U.S. the world's police force? We need to stop singing about putting 'a boot in yer ass cuz it's the American way' and get our own house in order.

-People need to stop slinging labels on people of differing political persuasions and start engaging the ideas that they find offensive. What do you think? Based on my observations in social media, it seems that Democrats have decided to simply label all Republicans as certifiable lunatics, which is escalating this dangerous problem. If we can't engage each other's opinions and ideas charitably, then our country will degenerate into a land of petty squabblers-- if not blatant discrimination, violence, intimidation, etc. While such human rights violations are perpetrated in other countries on the basis of race or religion, here they may be perpetrated on the basis of political affiliation. So we need to turn around and get off this road ASAP.

Yours in haste.