Catholic Hermit Shares Message from Jesus

Does not seem often that Jesus speaks aloud, within, so clearly.  Or perhaps, in actuality, it is not often that this consecrated Catholic hermit is listening closely to His Real Presence.  So many distractions of the temporal world can interfere if not watchful, listening, waiting within the recesses of the mind, heart and soul.

So yesterday, after reading another homily of Pseudo-Macarius on detaching from the distractions of the "world" so that one can choose to think of God, be in God, the hermit thought-flashed its apologies that it struggles with  discipline and will to cut loose from the distractions.

Then the hermit broached in the interior conversation, the recent attempt to pray daily the novena prayer attributed to St. Bridget, one that is said to have been given her by Jesus to pray.  A friend had sent the brochure with the seven-paragraph prayer, each covering a different aspect of Jesus' life and Passion.  One is to pray the Our Father and a Hail Mary prior to praying the words of each paragraph.

This hermit go through four of the seven.  With each, there was an appreciation of the aspects of praying for forgiveness and to improve in areas of life such as giving up sins of the heart, sins of the spirit, sins of the body, and so forth.  But the hermit found itself re-reading and back-tracking sometimes mid-sentence.  Just could not keep the mind focused!  

Ah, the hermit decided to try again the next day, then the next.  And it was this failure to successfully read-pray through a lovely verbal-mental prayer, that this consecrated Catholic hermit bemoaned its guilt and lack of discipline.  How sorry!  Why was it that the hermit delighted in and had the will and discipline--even to cling to--these forms of prayers when it first converted to the Faith 21 years ago?  What has happened?  

In this vein of thought-flashing conversation with the Lord, the hermit proceeded to apologize and self-chastise.  Then through the silent din within of its conversation, the Lord spoke:

Just talk to Me.

Ah.  So simple, so pure, so loving, so honest, so understanding is His Real Presence!  Just talk to Me.

Perhaps He is pleased with the banter, after all, that the hermit puts forth in stream of consciousness, interior converse with God, with Mary, with various saints, angels, and souls known and unknown to the hermit who lived and died and live again in fullness of Light on the other side.

Just that morning, when the young helper and the hermit had a most difficult time unsticking a blade in a tool so we could change it, the hermit had interiorly prayed to the patron saint of tools, whoever that might be, to please help us.  Instantaneously, the blade mechanism dislodged, freeing the effort.
Prior, when we searched diligently for the blade we wanted to install, the hermit asked Little Child Jesus to help us find it, and prayed that aloud.  Lo and behold, the blade was found in an unlikely spot.  "Thank You, Child Jesus," the hermit cheered, but then a rude aside, "but why did You take so long?"  And then an immediate, "Sorry for being so rude, Jesus!  Thankful You helped us find it!"

The other day a friend's husband could not find a swimming pool leak.  His heart is doing poorly, and going under water, holding his breath, caused some frightening, bodily symptoms.  "We need to ask the Prophet Jonah to help your husband," suggested the hermit.  The thought had just popped to mind. Of course, it is the Holy Spirit Who pops these ideas to the fore.  We just have to snatch them out of thin air and put them to action.  "He certainly knows about underwater experiences.  Three days he was in the belly of the whale, and in reality is an archetype for Jesus' three days until resurrection.

Three days later, the friend emailed with much excitement.  That day, her husband surprised himself.  He found the leak after three days of underwater searching.   While he scoffed that it was in answer to requesting Jonah to help locate the leak, attributing it to another silly Catholic superstition (his wife is Catholic; he is not), he did say he appreciated the prayers, all the same.  That counts!  

His wife and this hermit thanked the Holy Spirit and the Prophet Jonah.  No doubts in our minds.

So the brochure of the prayers purported to be ones Jesus asked St. Bridget to pray and promote, remains on the floor here by the mattress in this fixer-upper, Te Deum Hermitage.  The hermit has decided to review the main points of each paragraph of worded prayers, to get the gist.  It has asked St. Bridget to please pray these verbal prayers on behalf of the hermit, as they are lovely prayers, and beautifully worded, but somehow the hermit cannot keep focus when reading them.

The hermit is going to just keep talking to Jesus, telling Him all, sharing all, asking all, loving all, and listening to all that Jesus has to say to the hermit, day in and night out.

"Just talk to Me," Jesus said.

That's good.  That's real.  That's profound.  That's the truth.  And that's simple enough for this tired out old hermit with work galore to try to tend to the prayer requests of others and to keep renovating this fixer upper it got itself into, to be able to pray with full and sincere body, mind, heart, and spirit.  Praise God!

Good Thoughts, in Severe Pain

What to do in severe pain?  Keep praying. Keep praising God.  Try to consider all the good things, the gifts, the positive occurrences and people.

Take it moment by moment, and continue to rest.  Know that the pain will surely pass, and the body will rise again and be able to function somewhat.

Offer the suffering for the millions and billions of people in the world, just this past week or so, who have been victims of injustices and crimes against humanity.  Offer the suffering for sections of the world at war with others, particularly and seemingly mostly over religious differences.

Stay in bed as much as possible, remain calm, remember to think of Mary.

I am thinking of Mary these days as a type of informal renewal of consecration to Jesus' Sacred Heart through Mary.  

Consider that as parents or friends, we enjoy receiving personal messages, written notes, original words and thoughts more than a purchased card or what someone else has written or thought, and with only a signature added to it.

I mentioned this aspect to a friend who feels beleaguered by the daily and heavy reading involved in a more formal consecration that a diocese is promoting.  It is all good, but she feels somehow her otherwise sweet and close and intimate relationship with Mary is impinged upon by the heaviness of the purchased "program".

What if we had the confidence and under- standing to offer Mary (and Jesus, of course, or any of the Trinity) our own words of love and expression, our gratitude, our own little (or long) prayers?  Why not make up a hymn?  Did not Hildegarde of Bingen write and sing her own songs of love and praise?  What makes a song perfect any more than any other song?  Who decides?  Does Mary or Jesus disregard any bit of love offered them?

What makes our expressions good is the love with which we offer them, and the fact of even trying and doing, no matter how humble.

I kept folders of my children's drawings, and I still have the notes they wrote years ago.  They mean so much in their heart-felt attempts to express love and depend- ency--and hope--in me as their parent.  No matter how they may feel now or in interim years of leaving "the nest", their expressions of love and closeness are precious.  (If I felt a tad better, I'd try to draw a picture--even a stick figure--of Mary.)

So are ours, to Mary, to Jesus, to the Father, to the Holy Spirit--to any holy souls on the other side!  We consecrate ourselves by love and by desire.  If we do not have the confidence or think we won't get all the right words or thoughts into the expression, fear not.  Try to say or think any words of love, or not even words.  Just feel love for them.  

They are inside in the abode made in our souls.  Even a smile inward, will be known by His Real Presence.  Even a thought of gratitude to Mary for her example of grace and willingness to do His will, is known to her.

It is all rather simple, is it not?  Even in the worst of pain or the most dire situations, we can express love and desire in quite simple ways.

God Bless His Real Presence in all of us!

Mary-Likeness Poem-Prayer

This is a copy similar to what I was given soon after I was confirmed in the Catholic Church.  Being open to and accepting Mary as a person and in her role as the Mother of God, as well as guiding me as a mother her child, was perhaps the most fearful aspect of my conversion due to negative bias passed on in my upbringing.

While this poem is ideal and pious, I also have read and will continue to read other persons' experiences and thoughts on Mary.  Perhaps most importantly, I desire to have a more personal and real relationship with Mary.  I have never quite understood some women's  (religious sisters, too) desire for greater position, prestige and power in the Church.  What woman had and still has all these and more, than Mary?  Yet she never desired nor demanded such.  

Some may say it was the culture in which she lived when on earth, and now is different.  When getting to know Mary after years of only considering her on Christmas Day, I opened up to Mary.  I asked her to be my mother in a different and additional way than my loving, earthly mother.  

At the time of conversion, I lived across the road from where Ven. Fr. Solanus Casey spent ten years of his life.  He loved reading Ven. Agreda's writings, "The Mystical City of God."  I did so, also, and would walk in the woods Fr. Solanus had walked, and I opened myself to Jesus' mother.  It is time to do so yet more.  This poem-prayer is sweet and simple.

MARY-LIKENESS

                

Mary-like in soul and body! Mary-like in mind and heart! Mary-like in every action – Child of God, how fair thou art! Fair to Christ and all His angels, Fair to earth since thou art seen To be like her – like MARY Earth’s and Heaven’s fairest Queen. Mary-like in soul! What beauty When thy soul is full of grace! What a Mary-smile will greet thee When thou’lt meet her face to face! Mary-like in body! Keeping All the senses in control; Looks and bearing both revealing A Mary-temple for thy soul. Mary-like in mind and memory! Sinful thoughts and fancies flee; Idle dreams and selfish musings Find no place, fair child, in thee. For the Mary-mind is lifted From all sordid thoughts to live On the high and noble promptings That a Mary-soul would give. Mary-like in thy affections, Loving all, excluding none – Loving, as you think our Lady Ever faithful, would have done; Mary-like in every action In enjoyment, work or prayer, Watching Mary, copying Mary, Loving Mary, everywhere.

Mayst thou catch her gentle manner, And her calm and queenly ways, Mayst thou learn her art of bearing Words of censure or of praise; Mayst thou learn the hidden secret Of her smile, so kind, so true, Which reflects the radiant beauty Of her pure soul gleaming through. In a word, may all the greatness, All the sweetness of her ways, All the inner grace and beauty, Heaven and earth delight to praise, Find their likeness in thine own soul Child of Mary, as thou art, Making these more like thy mother, Ever dearer to her heart. Night and day, in joy and sorrow, Night and day, ’neath crushing care, Ask of Christ true Mary-likeness, Through the year be this thy prayer, Christ will hear, and Christ will answer If thy pleading but ring true, “JESUS, make me just like MARY, MARY, make me just like YOU.” Nihil Obstat Joseph R. Casey Censor Deputatus April 11, 1941

Source: Louis W. Bernicken, Box 413 -- Mt. Vernon, Ohio.

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This page, maintained by The Marian Library/International Marian Research Institute, Dayton, Ohio 45469-1390, and created by Father Johann G. Roten, S.M. ,

Simplicity in the Seeking

"At that time Jesus said, ‘I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him." (Matthew 11:25-27) 

Today's Gospel reading stimulates and affirms the thoughts while drywall mudding in Te Deum House.  Yes, I have been pondering the growing reticence to anything but what is simple--especially in the spiritual life.  It is not like me who used to take on the spiritual journey by trying any challenging physical or intellectual project, devotion, book, ascetics.  

Somehow, the above words of Jesus are a balm of simplicity.  It is not that I don't think or can't think, or that I cannot read challenging books or carry on intellectual conversations, or study complex rules of life or know various "paths" in prayer, requiring various steps and guidelines.

The problem is, if a problem:  All that now wearies me.  In fact, it kind of makes a sickening stir in the stomach, and before long I am resting in bed or doing some simple, fun task like conversing with His Real Presence in the gardens to dispel the heaviness of the other.

It is not at all that the complex, intellectual, detailed, erudite, learned and researched ways of prayer and journeying to God are wrong or bad.  They simply sicken me; I get drained thinking about them, and when I see something lengthy with many components, rules, listings of steps of procedures, I have to stop reading.  My heart-thoughts develop clogs in the brain.   It seems best to read the marvelous books simply to enjoy them--because they connect us to His Real Presence in some way or other.

Recently I was wondering if I was losing my faith!  Had I become lax and rude regarding certain practices, prayers and programs said to be the way to holiness?  There are many blogs which go into these practices--how-to-be holy required lists and guidelines.

I recall reading a letter of St. Therese of Lisieux, and laughed when she wrote she'd rather wear a hair shirt than pray the rosary.  As it turned out, her spiritual director realized she was praying more intimately in a contemplative way and was not at the level of the verbal and meditative repetition of the beautiful rosary prayer.  What seemed a problem was not at all, and surely Mary was pleased with the intimate conversing Therese engaged with her and with her Son.

Then the thoughts of Brother Lawrence in practicing the presence of God. He was a lay brother cook, a simple man whose education lacked but whose faith and love of God was like a shooting star, heavenward.  He said that at a certain point, best to have God be one's spiritual director.

A friend emailed a bit ago.  She and I finished our reading of Elizabeth of the Trinity's life.  She has signed up for a diocese program to be consecrated to the Heart of Jesus through Mary.  She had to purchase a book and a workbook.  It is a 33-day consecration based upon St. Louis de Montfort's written thoughts of Mary and his act of consecration.

My friend is burned out on the third day.  She finds it forced, intense, methodical, burdensome; plus she was not pleased with the cost of the materials they were told must be purchased for this consecration.  She shared with me that the complex content seems to get in the way of her otherwise intimate and pleasant relationship with the Mother of God.  However, she keeps praying that somehow she will make it through the program and will be consecrated to Mary.

I suspect she already is.  

However, a decade ago I was quite intent on strictly following the 33-day consecration prayers and offerings, meditations.  I utilized St. Louis de Montfort's writings: a small booklet for under $4.  While I have St. Louis' book of extensive love-writings and insights about Mary, I have read about half.  It remains with the bulk of my books, packed in some box in the pole barn, bookmark inserted where I left off.

Inspired by my friend's effort in the diocese program, I decided to re-consecrate myself to the Heart of Jesus through Mary, although I figure (and my spiritual father agrees) that once consecrated, it's a sealed deal: my heart in His.  However, I'd like to honor Mary as well as commemorate her Queenship which this year happens to be the 30th anniversary of my life-altering car-accident and 19th anniversary as a Catholic, and 12th anniversary since my last child left for college.  All these happened on August 22.

But what to do?  Certainly, it must be something very simple.  I am too far behind or beneath the difficult, the taxing, the intense, the costly materials.  One thought is to just do something every day regarding Mary's aid in falling in love all the more with Jesus, whatever she brings to mind.  Another is to read daily a little prayer that a woman gave me when I became a Catholic.  I used to babysit her children, and I always admired this woman--perhaps due to her Mary-likeness.

The poem is called "Mary Like-ness."  It is a prayer poem she had to memorize when a child in parochial school.  I would love to be more Mary-like, frankly.  While mudding this morning, I wondered if Mary did stuff like that?  Did she help with the building of her stone house in Ephesus?  Did she make the stone stations of the Cross that legend says she had in her back garden and where she would linger and meditate on the life and death of her Son?  I'd like to think so, although being a woman in that culture at the time, perhaps not.

I have been praying for a friend's friend who killed himself on July 7.  He had horrible pain that so altered his life; he lost hope and purpose.  God bless him!  I wrote to my friend how sorry, but that I know first-hand how pain can alter our minds when it gets out of control.  Jesus knows!  He Is Mercy!

Then a friend emailed and asked me to help pray with her for a woman who is in a coma.  She passed a semi-truck and was struck by another semi-truck that evidently did not see her.  Ironically, her name is the same as a woman who came to mind yesterday afternoon while mudding the drywall.  Terry.  For that Terry, since I'd not had her come to me in thought for quite awhile, I realized she or someone in her family needed prayer, so I let each person kind of flow through my being in a type of blessing greeting and benediction.  God's will be done.  

I will let his Real Presence guide my thoughts on Terry-in-the-coma.  I am also going to send some encouraging thoughts to her, kind of talk with her about how death is so easy and beautiful, but if she is to remain on earth, God will simply send her one place or another.  His will be done.  Either way, it is all right.  In her coma, she awaits.

The memorized prayers are most help- ful, though, and not at all difficult when spontan- eous.  

Often, while watering flowers and trees, I pray a Hail Mary, Glory Be, the Lord's Prayer and sometimes the prayer the angel had the children of Fatima pray at the end of each mystery of the Rosary.

As for binding Satan, it is good to command him aloud, or also pray the St. Michael prayer.  But now, in whatever verbal or mental praying, I aim to be in the Order of the Present Moment.  Whatever spontaneously drifts into the subconscious or the conscious mind...or out the lips...becomes prayer.  MERCY, or Dear God in Heaven, or Mary help, or Jesus is enough for me!

I steer clear of formulas.  I find that if one simply strives living all for God in the Order of the Present Moment, then certain rituals, postures, repetition, mantras, or routines are not necessary.  Some are all right, and I have certainly read many books on such efforts for spiritual progression.  But I am discovering as I seek God, what simply helps most is to desire much and to be in love with His Real Presence.  

It helps not to be distracted by too much of the world and its concerns, but God can break through noise.  If we love Him, we will turn down or cut out what is not God.  If we simply know how real God IS, and that His Real Presence is inside our souls having made His abode there, we can easily step inside and join Him any hour of the day, any place, and in any circumstance or activity.

How marvelous, of course, that holy people before us have shared their prayers and their ways of coming to union with God.  Some later on in their lives realized more what Jesus was trying to express in the Scriptures.  Seems to me, at least at this point in my life: love + simplicity.  

Love Jesus and get to know Him intimately, personally, as His Real Presence remains inside our souls all the time, there waiting for us to join Him.  Rejoice and rest and find His Real Presence so very simply.  Love Him, have faith, and believe!

"All things have been handed over to me by my Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him."

The Furniture Novena

A few days ago, a woman called.  She started the conversation with, "I know what you will probably say, but I want to ask you, anyway."

A few short months ago her mother-in-law had passed from this earthly life.  After the funeral, she and her husband met with his siblings to express which pieces of mostly humble, earthly possessions of their mother, they would like.  The siblings wrote down their desires, and there was agreement at the time...or so it seemed. 

The woman and her husband were to have a hutch, a bedroom set, and a desk.  Others had chosen other pieces of furniture and various items, mostly all of but sentimental value.

At this point, I knew the outcome.  We all can, based upon so many stories like this involving possessions of a deceased family member.  Greed and covetousness rear ugly heads.  Of the siblings, a daughter who lived near her mother and had access to the items, decided she and her two adult children should have what her brother and his wife were to have.

The woman (who called me) and her husband, had planned a vacation of which part would be to buy a trailer on Craigslist in order to pick up and bring back the stuff, a few hours' distance from the deceased mother's home.  But the ugliness of the possessions caper had turned the situation into upset and confusion.

At the time of her call, she felt bad that she had agreed with her husband to stick up for their rights and insist on what had been agreed would be their furniture bequest.  The woman did have good memories of her mother-in-law and her hutch, and her husband wanted his mother's bed set and desk.  And there is really no reason (other than sin) that his sister decided to take what was not agreed upon.

What to do?  Well, I pointed out that this is looking grim for the sister's soul.  We discussed how it is just furniture, just stuff, and any of it could be easily purchased elsewhere and for not a huge sum of money.  And this type of uproar is typical after the deceased is buried and the grief that can unite survivors has mellowed, and divisiveness over possessions begins to sprout.

It is a no-win situation on the temporal playing field.  If this couple gives in to the essential "theft" of what they were to have, they will have negative feelings and see the reality of the sister's greed and deceit.  If they show up and fight for what is rightfully theirs, by previous agreement, there will be ugliness in the confrontation, words exchanged, and perhaps even some force required.  Either way, relationships will be damaged.

 

We discussed the "high road," if both the woman and her husband could at all levels detach from the items, much as Jesus had recommended to the rich young man who asked what it would take to enter the kingdom of heaven.  At the time of the young man's asking, what Jesus said about relinquishing possessions (and this can be within the soul's attachment as well as in tangible letting go), was too much for the rich young man to do, at least just yet.

Since the husband in this current situation was not one to give in to wrongs, he also was prone to not ask his wife's input on matters.  My asked-for-opinion thinking it best to let the husband deal with the issue in the way he wanted, which was then to get the trailer and go to his late mother's house, and attempt to get the items.  This was to be done in conjunction with the couple's vacation.  I pointed out the possessions might not be there when they arrive, as the sister knew they were planning to come to that area in a week. 

The woman who had called me was in distress for added reasons.  She said in part she felt guilty for having wanted the hutch in the first place.  Well, that is not a horrible sin, for it is very human to appreciate and desire tangible reminders of those we love and who have loved us.  And how many of us can suddenly have that kind of utmost detachment?  But we talked a bit more, and I pointed out that we are getting older, and literally, "what on earth" are we going to do with the "stuff" we already have, let alone more stuff?

We agreed that their week of vacation and the days leading into it, and possibly the days following, are now and could be fraught with tension.  The could be depends upon the woman and her husband's letting it get to them.  

But again, the main issue in all this seemed to me to be the state of the sister's soul, for this was an ugly mess caused by her wanting what was not agreed upon to be hers in addition to what she had taken already.  How sad a soul so needy of tangibles, so attached to more than enough for touchstones of her mother's memory!

Prayer would be the only balm for the couple's peace of mind and their own spiritual progression, and most importantly, for the deeper conversion of the sister's soul.  The woman (a spiritual friend) was distracted by all the emotions that go along with such issues.  (We all know what it feels like to have inner--and outer--peace disrupted.) 

The idea came:  Offer a furniture novena.  I suppose it came to mind due to recently praying the potato novena [previous post mentions this, or a video sharing].  I suggested that she and I select a piece of furniture in our own abodes--one that has some kind of meaning due to memories associated.  We would keep the prayer simple and tactile.  Lay a hand on whatever piece of furniture and simply repeat a Hail Mary.  Do this once a day for nine days.  (We each know the history of and Christian, Biblical symbolism for the "nine"--as in the nine days between Christ's ascension and Pentecost.)

On the second day of our prayer-across-the-miles, the woman emailed that she was in great distress again, feeling even more guilty that she had ever wanted her mother-in-law's hutch; and she reported her husband had decided to fight for his rightful possessions, his portion of personal effects from his mother's estate.   The woman's conscience was bothering her, and she had asked the Lord to give her another chance to somehow influence her husband's decision which was to demand tangible justice.

I emailed back that we should keep to our furniture prayer, and that right then if she could lay her hand on a piece of furniture in her house and ask Mary to help calm her upset, I would do likewise where I am.   Surely Mary would come to her aid immediately.

The next email I received was a day later.  The woman had done the praying, the laying on of hands, and peace within occurred.  But an outward miracle also occurred:  her husband had come home from work, showed her some photos of a trailer he intended to purchase so they could haul the furniture home.  However, he then he did what is rare if ever:  he asked her opinion on what he should do.  (Seriously, this is not like the husband at all.  He does not go in for praying, and he calls the shots.)

She had asked the Lord to give her another chance for input with her husband on the furniture snafu, and He gave it to her.  When given this moment, she told her husband to let his sister have whatever, and that they can go on their vacation and let all that other go. 

In another miracle, her husband agreed!

But the woman had been thinking much since our conversation.  All the more she realized that her sister's soul is endangered by what she had done, even though to others it may seem like a small matter and so very typical in estate situations.  So we are continuing the Furniture Novena, specifically now for the sister's soul and for conversion of mind, heart, and spirit--not for the furniture ordeal.

It is not that the "gimmick" of laying hands on a piece of furniture and praying a short Hail Mary is the gist here.  It is that of faith and of the simplicity of heart in the praying, that seems to be pleasing to God.  It includes the beautiful memories of people and created things and their usefulness.  We each are finding delight in praying with tangible "touchstones" but not as a heaviness or laborious effort.  We can think of the carpenter's Son, and add to that an intensity of desire for the good of souls: the woman, her husband, the sister, her adult children, for my own soul as well as all souls who have or will have these types of "furniture" or possession problems.

When I laid my hand upon (here very dusty, move-damaged, stacked and stored) furniture, the pieces I touch each have some memory included--either of who built the furniture such as in one my great-great-grandfather built, or in a $2 chair purchased at a yard sale four decades ago when I was first married.  That chair I refinished and reupholstered the seat, and it was a chair my eldest daughter sat on while at her desk doing homework during high school years.

Another was my harp stool, with thoughts of earlier desires to play but wondering if ever having this place habitable enough to take it out of protective packing.  Another is this twin bed which a neighbor gave me for my first house when married. Later, several years after the divorce, it a man with a drinking problem but needed work, refinished it. My second daughter slept in this bed through teen years.  I am in it as I write this!

Now, these details mean nothing to anyone else, but hopefully we can  grasp that somehow touching the items and praying for the resolution of the nasty situation brewing for my friend and her husband and his sister's soul, has touched my soul, my life.  It is all very good. 

And in faith, as we continue the Furniture Novena for another few days (lost count, but that does not matter), I am sure the sister's soul will be affected even if we never know or see outcomes.  For one thing, it will not be for the furniture or needing it for practical purposes or for sentiment.  The couple has overcome that "world."

And in another thought, these are some of the ways that the Lord interacts in our lives, and how we can talk with Him, interact with Him, and touch and be touched.  He talks with us; He guides our actions; and He lays out our path in little details and truly miraculous (even if nuanced) outcomes.  

These and more are God's miracles. 

No surprise, this Word reminder in Psalm 85, this morning:

"The Lord will give what is good,
   and our land will yield its increase.
Righteousness will go before him,
   and will make a path for his steps."