10 Years of Blogging

I’ve been blogging here for 10 years. A decade?! Where does time go?

My usual answer to that particular question is that time goes into wrinkles and gray hairs. (That is becoming more and more true, by the way.) Thankfully, for the tenth anniversary of this blog, I can say that the past decade has gone into personal reflections on universal truths, insights gained through prayer and God-given experiences, and wisdom that I’ve received and shared with you. So all thanks goes to God, a little of that for the technology that allows me to dictate and publish these posts, and a whole lot for you, my readers, for reading my words and encouraging me to continue writing.

While I’ve been writing this blog and you’ve been reading it over the last ten years, a lot has happened in my life and in our collective lives as earthlings. We’ve lived through a global pandemic that killed millions, dealt with life in lockdown, celebrated the heroism of thousands, witnessed the growth of the Black Lives Matter and Me Too movements, suffered a contentious election and insurrection at the US Capitol, been appalled by mass shootings, terrorist attacks, and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and glimpsed the wonders of deepest space with new telescopes. In my personal life, the past decade started with my consecration to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, then continued with a pilgrimage to the Holy Door in Québec. My family and I were plunged into the emotional fear and triumph of my father’s septuple bypass and we made it through a year riddled with illnesses for me — pneumonia, acute bronchitis, a cancer scare. I forged on with a posted promise to write a book that culminated in It’s Good to Be Here published by Sophia Institute Press, traveled the world virtually through radio and television interviews and, just recently, at the close of this past decade of blogging, had two poems accepted for publication in anthologies.

It was the worst of times, but it was also the best of times, to put a spin on what Dickens wrote. The living of life can be so busy, and often bombastic, that we can lose sight of the meaning of life. Through all of our ups and downs we are called into the depths to find our constants, those aspects of human life that never fail, that are not subject to whims and weather, that pull us through our days and nights into eternity. It is not enough to say that love will pull us through, because so many times we don’t think about love itself but about the people whom we love. And we are aware that the people whom we love cannot be our constants. Not because people can disappoint (although that’s sadly true), but because people are fragile and our relationships with them here on earth are only temporary.

Love itself is what never fails. That is, loving never fails. Things go badly in our lives or in the lives of our loved ones, in the life of our nation or of our world, and we are given a choice. We can choose love or we can choose whatever the opposite of love may be — hate or apathy or despair.

The meaning of life is not hate.

The meaning of life is not indifference.

The meaning of life is not worthlessness.

The meaning of life is love. Not the warm and fuzzy kind of loving that feels good and then stops when loving becomes difficult, but the deep and constant kind of loving that lets go of fear and is willing to always give, to be inextricably identified with the act of loving, the act of giving of oneself even when there’s “nothing in it for me.”

There I go again. A lot of words that some of you will want to read over several times, while others will simply shrug your shoulders and move on. I don’t want to write this way. I want to be perfectly clear, perfectly obvious in what I desire to convey. What I desire to convey, however, is too perfect for me to nail down. There are no human words to convey it. I only know — I only hope — that I will allow this perfect love to guide me, to console me, to empower me to remember the truth of eternal joy and let go of hate, apathy, and despair.

God is my judge.

God is my maker.

God is my good and loving Dad. When I am feeling enraged, when I am feeling disgusted, when I am collapsing into sorrow and feeling like life isn’t worth living, may I choose love and, with the Holy Spirit that dwells within me, cry out, “Abba!” When I am feeling delighted, when I am feeling worthwhile, when I am rising up with joy and feeling like everything is beautiful, may I also choose love and, with the Holy Spirit that dwells within me, sing out, “Abba!”

For better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, forsaking the ways of hate, apathy, and despair, and remaining faithful to loving all the days of my life — this is the most important promise to pledge. As I continue to write my memoir, as my parents continue to age and I continue to deteriorate, may I not live in indifference or fear but in love, trusting in Love.

The pledge in my very first post on this blog, taken from a sort of official Consecration to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, is the one that I will make again ten years later, on the upcoming Feast of Christ the King. Read it HERE.

Asking for God’s mercy, for His kind and gentle ways, for me and my loved ones not to be put to the test, and for beautiful blessings to be given to all who read this.

Pax Christi

© 2023 Christina Chase