Transitioning Again
Deus meus et omnia.
2025 had been a year of peaks and valleys and the inclines and declines leading to them. I lost a job, (initially) lost out on unemployment, watched my husband lose his strength, and was tempted to lose mine. Suffice it to say as I sit on the couch and look around at the room bathed in the warm light for morning I am reminded of a passage in Paul’s letters that sums up the feeling in the aftermath.
But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us. We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed.1
If I counted all of the times where I felt like I would drown and the wind and waves would be my end, I think I would be much like Peter in the Gospel of Matthew. But the hand of Christ still catches him like it catches me.
And now it’s 2026. I am still alive.
It’s February, even, in 2026 and less than a week before Lent. I am not the man I was around this time last year. I would even say that I’m not the man that I was even a month ago. Exponential and limitless growth is a myth in economics but feels entirely accurate in regards to the way the Holy Ghost grows within the Christian and sanctifies the new man. For example, the Lord, when touching the leper, made him clean and He Himself remained undefiled. This was in contrast with the law that prescribed rituals for cleansing after contact with that which was unholy. There is nothing corruptable or based in the inherited illness of sin within Jesus but He instead cannot help but to make all things new.
It feels a lot like a fire I’m tending. I ignored it at one time—starved it of oxygen and fuel. It still burned. I pleaded with it to not consume me and turned my face to foreign flames. It still burned. I hid my face from the heat and light when I feared its holiness would leave me in an ashen heap. It remained undeterred and ever alight. The constancy of God knows no equal. His unchanging eye has been known to me since I was young and I pray that it might continue to not waver. The first step to His gaze not causing me to cower was acceptance, I think.
He’s the Hound of Heaven and I am not getting away from Him and His call is not getting any quieter. He rings in my ears like tinnitus. I can either let it bother me or do what the brain does and adapt to the sound so that, while it is still there, it doesn’t cause me fright. Then, maybe the journey of faith can really begin. I’ve known Him since I’ve known thought but this season of life I feel is oriented around getting to know Him.
For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.2
I want the Kingdom of Heaven with my whole heart. I want a world where we all war no more. Maybe it starts inside of me by attuning myself to Him and not yanking so hard at the lead that I choke myself. His yoke is easy and His burden is light, right? Then act like it and walk with Him. The Hound and the Fire and the Calling will not yield, so I must and trust that whatever the outcome is, I won’t end up at the bottom of the sea.
So, of course, this eventually culminated into me applying to be a Franciscan friar.
Not immediately. My immediate thought was to emulate my namesake and excuse my way out from under His gaze. I'm too much of this and not enough of that, etc. This was a routine much loved and well performed by myself when His voice carried on the wind. I think more than anything else I wanted the chance to say no and not be a slave to Good. The old man thrashed against the restraints I was beginning to employ to get him to settle and yearned to be ensnared by the Passions instead. You learn really quickly though that to love a thing for its sake alone means you need more of it much faster than if you savored it. Classic dopamine rush. I wanted to be different and to do something different.
Soon the dam broke and the valleys and low places were flooded with Him and I allowed myself to drown in love with Love Himself. And take a recommendation to read Bonaventure. The world is sick and dying and I am sick and dying and the only medicine I have found to be a panacea is Christ Himself. May the blood cover me as I inquire this new path.
2 Corinthians 4:7-9
Jeremiah 29:11-13