Some sound advice.

This little wooden sign couldn't have said it any better... and it couldn't have slapped me upside the head any better either.

Last Friday during the First Friday festivities, my friends and I went into a store called Art and Glassworks on Queen Street in downtown Lancaster.  It's a pretty neat little shop that mainly consists of every kind of class sculpture, figurine, and knick-knack you could possible imagine.  They also had many wooden signs, like the one above, with cute sayings scrawled across their surfaces.  Our curiosity piqued, we wandered around the store for a little while, and then went out back into their courtyard to listen to a small jazz band play.

When we were satisfied, we came back inside, and I realized I missed one small section of the store during my browsing.  Here, I discovered even more of these wooden signs, and it was then I found the one pictured above.  After I read it, I began to laugh, and I turned to Kyle and pointed it out to him.  He read it and smiled, and said that was perfect advice for me.  I heartily agreed.

I was tempted to buy it then, but held off until today, when I happened to be running errands around town.  I stopped into the store, and to my delight, it was still sitting where I first saw it Friday night.  I took it up to the lady behind the register, and we struck up a little conversation about the sign, in which I said these were words I needed to see every day.  While she wrapped it up in tissue paper, I looked up above her on the back wall and saw another wooden sign in big letters that said, "Where the HECK is Easy Street?"  I laughed.  With my sign in hand, I got into my car, finished my errands, and went home.  Now, my new advice sits on top of my dresser mirror in my room where I can see it every day.

Why did those words hit me so hard, yet make me laugh and make me feel so humble too?  Because it was an answer to an accumulation of so many thoughts and ideas that I've struggled with throughout my life, in both my every day living and my spiritual life.  A simple statement like the one pictured above was enough of an answer for me say, "Duh!" (God works in such interesting ways, doesn't He?).

Unnecessary seriousness has crept into many facets of my life.  Growing up, I always felt like I had to stick to some schedule or rigid guideline that described how I should live my life and how to be successful.  If something wasn't going right, say, in a relationship or I was struggling with a class, I would stress over it and worry about it.  This also applied to how I acted in front of people and how I thought I needed to perform; I cared way too much about what people thought of me.  I walked a thin tightrope, and if I made a mistake and fell, I wouldn't hear the end of it.  My seriousness, and sometimes lack of humor really made me feel miserable, and probably made the people around me uncomfortable sometimes, too.

I've lightened up some, due to a lot of grace and joy from God.  I continue to struggle with caring about what others think of me, but it has lessened some over the years after going through college and now being out in the "real world."  I still see it occurring a lot in my spiritual life, though.  I try too hard to be a spiritual example for others when I need to tell myself that people should not be looking at me, but they should be seeing a reflection of God's love instead.  The saints can attest to this; they sought to decrease while Christ increased (in the words of John the Baptist).  Saints had plenty of humor, too!  St. Teresa of Avila, my beloved patron, was always amiable with our Lord.  Once, while she was traveling around Spain, she was getting out of a carriage when she slipped and fell into some mud.  She said to the Lord, "If this is how you treat your friends, no wonder you have so few!"

I also get stuck in ruts where I think I need to follow a specific formula in order to gain my salvation, and I convince myself that I've figured it out and everybody else should follow; the "holier than thou" mentality that I recently realized have sometimes.  I'm sure people have probably seen my grumpy, serious face that just screams, "You're doing it all wrong!"  One, this mentality is totally unrealistic.  Two, I have no room to judge people and most of them are probably doing a much better job than I am.  Three, there is no set formula or regime of prayers to recite in order to guarantee salvation; it's not what I do, but only through my "fiat" to love God does grace overflow into the channels that are opened through acts of adoration, prayer, and love, transforming my soul to receive the love of the Three in One.   Love of God, self, and neighbor will always lead me down the "narrow way" of salvation, because that love fulfills everything God has set out for you and I through salvation history which ultimately leads to the sacrifice of Christ and His love!

So... sometimes we just need to remind ourselves to lighten up a little bit (me, especially), even if it takes some words or sign to remind us.  A little humor doesn't hurt, and if we fail, Jesus' hand is always outstretched to help pick us up again.  Life is short, and we want to use as much of that time as we can to tell everyone that we have an even greater life waiting for us after this one through Jesus Christ and His Church!