Correspondence

SPOILER ALERT!

If you are one of the people who I recently gifted with the book Just Call Me Lopez be aware that I intend to share something from the story!

I've been reading a book by Margaret Silf ~ Just Call Me Lopez: Getting to the Heart of Ignatius Loyola.  Despite my years as a student at Loyola and my years working in the Health System I've only had a rudimentary knowledge of the life of the founder of the Jesuits.  Well this little book is not the definitive biography of Ignatius but it is a wonderful story and it gave me one little piece of insight into Ignatius that I had not previously considered.

Ignatius was a correspondent.  He was a letter writer ~ an art that I wish I had taken the time to perfect.  He wrote to his companions.  Letters of encouragement and love.

I am the kind of correspondent who is full of good intentions.  My daughter even pointed out the fact that I buy "Thinking of You" cards and then never send them!  Yup, full of good intentions.  Maybe it's because email & FaceBook are so much easier than sitting down with a pen and trying to put something legible on paper.  Maybe it's because I've always had more good intentions than good actions.

A couple of years ago I took action.  I followed a call and went back to school.  And as I finished Just Call Me Lopez I got my own letter from Ignatius.  It might have been left for Rachael but I know in my heart it was to me.

Dear friend and companion,

I have not gone far.  I have simply gone from Somewhere to Everywhere.

Thank you for sharing my story.  Trust your own story, for God is in every moment of it.  Trust your own experience, for it is the raw material from which God is shaping God's Dream in you.  Don't worry that you don't know who or what "God" is.  Let the mystery be a mystery, and don't try to grasp it with your own understanding, or pin it down into the limits of your own memory, or manipulate it to conform to your own narrow will.  Walk on now in courage, and in deep content.  You are God's pilgrim.  God's love and grace are all you need.

Thank you, and adieu, my friend.  A poor pilgrim, alongside you.

 Take the letter as your own message from God and from the pilgrim who travels alongside you.  Maybe that's me . . . maybe it's our friend Lopez.