Battling with prayer...

Dear Friends and Family...

Several years ago...too many to count, my dear friend and classmate, Dora Elia Garcia Saavedra (Dr. Saavedra of UPTA) moved back to the valley after many years away.  Our family had recently returned, too, after being away some 22 years.  Dora and I clung to each other that first year.  She was trying to finish her dissertation for her Ph.D. and I was trying to adjust to valley living...city living gave me experiences that had changed me.  My awareness opened my eyes to differences that didn't have to be.  There was the "machismo" attitude, the non-existent conservation and recycling system, family dramas and dramas that I thought belonged back in high school.

Ralph and I had moved around quite a bit during our sabbatical from the valley.  We lived in Houston, got transferred to Denver, Colorado, back to Houston, then Longview, Texas and finally San Antonio before we moved back.  I enjoyed freedoms that freed my mind and my soul, and now we were returning to the valley.  I dreaded returning to the valley.  I cried for days, praying that I was strong enough to face the challenges I knew I would be facing.  At the time it was my mother and my sister I dreaded returning to not so much for me but for my young daughters.  I did not want them to go through what I had experienced growing up.  This time around, I informed my mom and sis, if they spewed even an ounce of uninvited, cruel criticism, it would be the last time I would speak to them.  Without going into detail regarding this criticism, trust me, there is constructive criticism and this was not that.  (I do want to add that my sister is no longer that person.)

So back to Dora...

Dora and I would walk at Bill Schupp Park here in McAllen, sometimes daily, sometimes just a few times a week.  We discussed her dissertation, our families, prayer and meditation.  I had found that praying the rosary was especially helpful in quieting the mind. At the time, Dora did not know how to pray the rosary.  So everyday, we would pray, sometimes out loud and sometimes in silence.   It wasn't long before Dora perfected her rosary, archiving to memory the different  mysteries of our faith.  Combined with meditation, I found that in order to live a more grounded, spiritual life I had to silence my mind.  How can I hear or know God if my mind is constantly chattering about mundane things that have nothing to do with him or living a good life.  It was a wonderful time.

It would be great if I could say that I have prayed the rosary everyday since then but that would be a big, fat lie.  On this side of my return to the valley, meditation also fell by the wayside.  It is not until now that I've finally have gotten to that place...and if you've been there, you know what I'm talking about.  It happens to joggers when they run, it's the place I call "The Zone." When I jogged, walked, mediated, or prayed the rosary it put me in the Zone.

More years passed, Dora got her doctorate and I joined the work force.  It was in the year 2000,  I, along with two of my classmates, decided to revive our class reunions.  Everyone was so busy, raising children, working, and facing challenges.  But a small core of our class remained faithful and we began gathering every year.  Made up mostly of locals, we celebrated  another lifetime and people that touched us.

It wasn't long before things got messy.  That valley mentality (It's what I call it.  This is not meant of offend anyone but it exists.)   It got the better of us and soon there were problems in Camelot.

During that time Celia Munoz Bazziomani, our larger than life beam of light and classmate, my childhood friend and confidant, found herself battling cancer.  It's now 2005, and unbeknownst to us, Celia is battling the biggest war in her life.  Following surgery that was suppose to fix everything, there were complications.  Celia fell into a coma for 30 days.  It was by the grace of God that Celia came back to us...and she brought some valuable information.

Celia shared with me in an e-mail, everything she had seen and heard during those 30 days.  She told me that there were angels battling in between heaven and hell for her soul.  What tipped the scales were prayers.  She could hear the countless rosaries being prayed on her behalf.  Rosaries from the nuns and children at Casa Amparo, from another orphanage further down in Mexico, from our friends and family, church, strangers...she heard them all.  It was our prayers that brought her back for another short while, so she could finish what she started.  God was not done with Celia.

She asked that I read her e-mail letter to our classmates.  As promised, I read it at our 2006 class reunion.  I posted it on our class website.   You could hear a pin drop when I read it.   She wanted everyone to know how important it was to pray for each other. In the early morning hours after our reunion, Cynthia Weber Garza and I spent our last slumber party with Celia.  We didn't know then but her last trip to the orphanage, whose name I don't know, would be her last.

I didn't understand back then what I understand now...which is the way it is in life.  I understand that forgiveness is your way out of your mental prison.  Pray for everyone, even your enemies - God is in their lives just like he's in yours.  It may be the prayer that saves someone's life.  It saved mine.

Since the time Dora and I prayed the rosary...another mystery was added, the Luminous Mysteries.


Want to know more about the rosary:  The Rosary

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What I understand today...

I finally got my groove back re: meditation, prayer - it's battling insomnia for me, fixing my health, and I'm feeling the love again.

No one knows what the menagerie of friends and friends will do to your life - good or bad...but when you pray, without judgement, when you forgive, without judgement, it becomes what God wants it to be.  I love his ways.

One small prayer, one small acknowledgement, one small gesture of kindness opens up the heavens.

Love and forgiveness, over everything else, is the healer of all ills.  Watch how the people that truly love or have loved you come back, stay, or touch your life even if its for a brief moment.  Your memory will keep it in your heart for a lifetime.

Dora, Celia and You will always be in my heart...