It's Pretty Weird Inside My Head Today

I am not sure I could feel more jarbled.

One year ago today, my mother moved to Dallas. I am so glad she's here. You might recall that I was a little nervous about her coming and how we'd get along. I think it hurts her feelings that I felt that way, but it's not my intention to hurt her feelings (sorry Mom). I have to be honest with how I feel, and that means the risk of hurting others comes along like a bad hangover from cheap tequila. Anyway, she's here. I don't get to see her often enough. She put in her dues, though, let me tell you. She was driving here never realizing her life would change forever and she'd make some real sacrifices for me, my family. She became the primary caregiver for my mother in law and my kids while my husband pieced together the goings-on of his parents accident and I worked and did I don't know what...

This leads to the reminder of the OTHER anniversary: The Accident.

Yeah...that horrible, horrible day that has scarred all of us in one way or another. That event that persecuted some of us, freed others. That moment in time when we all were nose-to-nose with our own mortality. Nothing short of a miracle has occurred in the last year. My father in law is alive and doing reasonably well. My mother in law is 100% recovered and driving again. My mother's joined a bowling league. There is still chaos. There is loads and loads of frustration, exasperation, desperation. Piles of heavy emotional weight bear down on our shoulders in different ways. Each of us try immensely to bolster our own weight and lighten the load of others around us. We function, mostly. Thankfully, glimmers of hope have shone; smiles have been created and sustained, laughter has been echoed.

I was at church today and I was praying about the aforementioned. Mass starts. Old Testament reading. New Testament reading. Gospel reading.

Gospel
Mt 22:1-14 or 22:1-10

Jesus again in reply spoke to the chief priests and elders of the people in parables, saying, "The kingdom of heaven may be likened to a kingwho gave a wedding feast for his son. He dispatched his servants to summon the invited guests to the feast, but they refused to come. A second time he sent other servants, saying, ‘Tell those invited: 'Behold, I have prepared my banquet, my calves and fattened cattle are killed, and everything is ready; come to the feast.”’ Some ignored the invitation and went away, one to his farm, another to his business. The rest laid hold of his servants, mistreated them, and killed them.

The king was enraged and sent his troops, destroyed those murderers, and burned their city. Then he said to his servants, 'The feast is ready, but those who were invited were not worthy to come. Go out, therefore, into the main roadsand invite to the feast whomever you find.’

The servants went out into the streetsand gathered all they found, bad and good alike, and the hall was filled with guests. But when the king came in to meet the guests, he saw a man there not dressed in a wedding garment*. The king said to him, 'My friend, how is it that you came in here without a wedding garment?' But he was reduced to silence.

Then the king said to his attendants, 'Bind his hands and feet, and cast him into the darkness outside, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.’

Many are invited, but few are chosen."


It might be seen as a frightening passage. I didn't understand why the one man who attended, dressed inappropriately, would be so harshly punished. Then, My Favorite Priest verbalized the message to me.

I melted.

Tears welled in my eyes.

This reading, my friends, is the same reading that called me to conversion. I heard the message of being invited to the Feast yet I had been to busy to acknowledge it...until that day. That day when it befell my ears three years ago. It fell in line with the week the JK asked me to be the Godmother to her firstborn baby by taping a sign to her very pregnant belly and waddling over to me. The sign said "Will you be my Godmommy?" I cried. Then I knew. I *knew*. I had been invited and THIS TIME, I would accept. I wasn't allowed to be JMK's Godmommy because at that time I wasn't Catholic. But, I am KK's Godmommy (thanks JK and MK).

So....here I am sitting in awe of the events of the day and it's not even 10 a.m. yet. So much of me wanted to bow my chest and walk proudly out into the glorious day bearing witness of survival, conversion, fortitude. Another part of me yearned to crawl under a rock, to isolate and just lay in the lap of God and be held.

I've had a great day. And I'm thankful for it. For all the pain, the strife, the growth. I am humbled and honored. I am hopeful for the future.

But, it's still weird inside my head today.

* represents someone unwilling to change/be converted