A single year
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July 29, 1988 I find it increasingly difficult to justify the law, and I mean any law. The reason is that all law can be summarized within the two great commandments that Jesus came to teach us. Love the Lord God with all your heart and love your neighbor as yourself. Actually those two laws should be summarized in one single all powerful word. The "word" is "love." The "word" to say "love" is "God." If it is of, by, from, and for God it is love. If it is of, from, by, and for love it is God. The only law is love. The only law is God, and the only word is love which is God. There is in reality no other law. Man creates law so as to have something to fail at. God imposes no law upon man. Man imposes law upon man and justifies it by saying without law there would be disorder. If that were true would not law bring order? Do you see any semblance of order about you? Do you see any semblance of law around you? Of course you do. Tons of law and even more disorder. God does not want anything to do with man's image of law. God wants everything to do with man. Does man want anything to do with God? Love God and each other. Just love and everything falls into place. Now remember the place it falls into may not be man's place so it will probably bring turmoil. If you love you will find your place in God. July 30, 1988 We say the heart of something is the very core of that thing. The heart is often thought of as the center of being. The heart of Jesus is love. Yet it is not enough to say that the center of Jesus being is love. The heart of Jesus is love yet it is not enough to say that love is the core of Jesus' being. Jesus is love. There is nothing else that can be said of our Lord. Everything of far and about Jesus is love. Oh yes, I hear you saying that I am attempting to define God. I am attempting to limit God. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Once again it is a question of understanding what love is. It is also a question of understanding the difference between God and humanity. I don't know why it is, but I do know that God has given me the gift of understanding this difference. Human love at best is conditional and therefore limiting. God love is never conditional therefore never limiting or limited. The very heart of Jesus is love. The very being of Jesus is love. Once again I am compelled to point out that no human can ever in any way affect or change in any manner God. God is, and what God is, is love. No human can cause any change ever under any circumstance on or to God in any way! God will love you and me forever because God's nature is unlimited and unlimiting love. When we "sin" we turn away from God, God never turns away from us. Just as well when we turn to God, we try to open ourselves to the love God has for us. I say try because I do not think man can ever love unconditionally. Yes, we try, and some of us try harder than others. But even in our most successful moments, what we offer is conditional. We cannot love as God loves, we can love. We should love and we need to love. We can't love as God loves. God's love, as is God's being, is unconditional. You and x are conditional people. We depend so much and react to so little. God does not depend. God does react. God feels and accepts our love in his love for us. God feels and accepts our falling away from God in that same love. Either way, God still is and God still loves us. So is it a hopeless thing for man to seek to be God like? Of course not, God dwells within all life. God dwells within each of us. There is not one breath of life that does not possess God. There is not one breath of life that does not possess love. Love is in all things created and that is because God's love created and creates all that is. There are no exceptions. It is this part of God within us that is our hope. The more we try to get in touch, in tune, with this part of our being, the more we find we must change. The more we change the more difficult life becomes. The more we try to be like the God that created us, the God that dwells within us, the more difficult ours life becomes. And yet, I tell you, we have no choice if we are to know life everlasting. There is only one way, only one decisive choice man can make if man is to know, love; and serve his God. That choice is not simple. That choice is to live from within, to live from the God part within, to live in love. There is no human, there is no being that has life. Nothing can achieve this perfectly. The best we can do is to try. It is the trying that we are made perfect finally when we leave our human body. If we have lived a life trying to give glory to love, we have a good chance to live forever in our Lord God. When I say I want to live in the heart of Jesus, I mean it. I mean I want to live in the acceptance of Jesus' love for me forever. July 31, 1988 One month at St. Mary's! How was it? Interesting, busy, exciting, scary, all of that and more. I wish I could have given Father a different image of me, yet, I have tried to be myself and I have tried to please awfully hard. Sometimes I did and sometimes I did not. I am still afraid to let my guard down even for a little bit. I am back to some habit s I do not like and I intend to correct them now. It is just that the harder I try to be who I want to be and who I think God wants me to be, the easier it seems to be to slip up on what seems to be a little matter to me. Yet, if I didn't think, know it was wrong, why would I be worrying about it? The answer is if I can make major changes and corrections in my life, and there can be no doubt that I have done that. Well, I can make this seemingly small change in my life. If this is where I should be Lord, and I am doing what you want me to be doing, please let me do it well. I want to be successful here so much, yet I am open to going and doing just about anything: I can think of if that is what you want of me, Lord. The only thing I am counting on without fail is that you will not give up on me and you will not turn me loose. Please don't get disgusted with me as I often do with myself. I will change. I will be your servant and I will not be anything else. Please do not let me fail even if it means you have to reach down physically and pick me up and put me physically where you want me doing what I am to do a for my God and his people. I love you, Lord and I truly am sorry for my failings. I am most sorry for giving in to the small insignificant failures. I am sorry for ever in any manner turning away from your love, especially through lack of awareness on my part, in my thoughts and actions. Please forgive me and help me change. Well Lord, I think we have started a whole new journey. I so hope and pray it is your journey. John August 1, 1988 Yesterday was my mother and father's 47th wedding anniversary. Today is my sister's birthday. 47 years of living, hurting, loving, caring, and being together. Loyalty is a big part of marriage. Next June Linda and I will have been married 24 years. I will be 44 and she will be almost 42. All of our life we will have lived with each other. My father is almost 71 and my mother is almost 68. They have lived, loved, fought, sought, and taught together for all their life also. Since my inception I have been loved by my God. I am grateful for all this and more. I took the Sunday collection to the bank this morning: and it was $500 short in the cash. The counters made a mistake and. I had a serious heart attack. Not a real one, but close enough. They have poor money handling going on at St. Mary's. I intend to change that as soon as this Sunday. Beginning this Sunday, I want the money handlers to fill out a money ticket showing how many ones, fives, tens, twenties, etc they have counted. That should equal their cash deposit. I hope. Thank you for taking care of me. It r could have been most serious. I love you! August 2, 1988 It is extremely hot and humid. It is about 95 degrees and 85 – 90% humidity. It is 10 pm. It is so hot and sticky, sleep will be hard to do this night as it was last night. The whole country is roasting this summer and the summer is if anything .just about half way over. Rain seems to be trying to come back and maybe if it does come back the heat wave will end. I sure hope so because I truly do not like heat. I keep thinking we almost made it to Alaska. Then I think we almost didn't have a job. Almost…what a word. It means what? Could it mean trusting or not trusting? Could it mean we came close…close to doing what? Did we come close to serving or not serving our God? Almost. I am not fond of that word. As hot as it is I am not fond of many words. I mailed two manuscripts and two chapter one of the new book off. I cannot let myself become too hopeful. I feel I am almost - see that word - going to make it this time. I am afraid to believe but that doesn't keep me from doing. I love you, Lord and almost has nothing to do with it. August 3, 1988 Well, it is as hot as yesterday was once again. There does not seem t be an end to this heat and humidity. I work for a man with an explosive temper and with people who are worn down by living with him and this heat doesn't help. I am beginning to sour and I am trying no to. I really think it is the heat. I think Linda, Jamie, and I should get away from here this weekend. We don't want to spend the money but I think it is necessary for us to relax a little and if we stay here all we will do is still be in the heat and still have a tenancy to be over at the church. We need to get away from everything for a day. It is even too hot to go for a drive and where would we drive anyway? Lord God it seems when we get a little ahead of the Evil, you, a little on our feet, well, the Devil comes up with still one more way to get us to stumble. Not this time! I call on you, O Lord, my God, stand firm with me and do not turn me or mine loose not even for a second. It is the right of a servant to seek to be protected by his master. As your servant, I am seeking your protection. I love you Lord and I feel your love for me. I even sense you are smiling a little. It is going to be a hot night. Oh well… August 4, 1988 O my God, I am so sorry! My wife told me this week I worked for myself and forgot all about working for you. I know that it is true and I am deeply upset. I forgot Lord I was your servant not the servant of myself or Father Ed or anyone else. I know now I acted like a boss and worked so hard not for your glory but mine. How did this happen? Simple. I let myself work to please man and I worried more about proving I was good, I was competent, I was more than competent, all this and more, and I forgot about you. Now Lord, here I am. Wisdom has come and dwelled within me and I will be ok. You will not allow it to be otherwise. I have come so far and we I know because you told me I would stumble. Well Lord pick me up. I have stumbled and I refuse to stay down. So here I am Lord, I beg you to lift me up and don't drop me unless it is on my head because I do not want to continue off your path. I am your servant and no one else's. I love you and I will not give in to this urge to work. I will only work for you. I will learn to relax. You will teach me Lord and I will be not only your servant but your student as well. Here I am Lord, stand firm with me and lift me. August 5, 1988 Wow we went to Detroit and took in a double header Major League Baseball game. Tigers and Boston Red Sox. There was a 2 hour and 45 minute rain delay and now all motels have no vacancies. I really enjoyed the games which Detroit won - both of them. 2-1 in the 1st game and 3-2 in the second game. We are trying so hard to relax, slow down, and boy are we tired. I wanted you O Lord to hear me say I love you and I thank you and standing firm with us as we try to slow down and relax in you. I sure enjoyed the games! John
August 6, 1988 Well Lord, I don't know what is going on. Ave Maria Press turned my writing down flat. Our weekend off resulted in us driving 500 miles almost no stop. We visited a weeping icon of our Mother Mary. I am tired, anger, and worried. I am about coming apart. Forget I am, You You are You are our hope! John
August 7, 1988 O my God, I am tired. I want a place to myself, my wife, and my child. A small permanent home. One small chance to make our own way. One chance to relax, write, and not be otherwise involved except to help others. An opportunity to love others without being slaughtered in the process. O Lord fresh air cold clear water, blue sky, and place to think, do, and write. Well Lord, it is a great wish, a wonderful thought, whatever you want of me, that's what I want. Lord I want you, my God, to hold me tight, to put me where I should be, doing what you want. More than life, I want to make you, my God proud of me. I got the message, I don't need to make God do anything, God loves me no matter! Thanks God. August 8, 1988 The feeling of wanting to get away, to be independent, only my wife, daughter and me is still a part of me today. I love people and I really love trying to serve my God. I do not like being unable to conquer sin. I cannot stand watching our bodies deteriorate and stay fat. I cannot stand having the means to live dictated by another human being whom I see as being less than Christian. Am I so much of a Christian? Sometimes I feel as though I am not a Christian at all. I get angry, and I want to run away from everything. I know it is my dream, my earthly hope to provide for my family, to be a successful writer of books leading people to God. I just know if I tried to write a novel with lots of sex and real life drama it would be very successful. I am not to do that. I cannot be a part of anything written unless it is centered in the love of God. O Lord I pray you will stand firm with me and hold me up. O Lord I pray I will remain steadfast in my desire and willingness to serve you. I believe in the one great commandment, Love. I love you my God. Thanks for loving me. August 9, 1988 What does it take for a man to be happy? I thought a job making enough money to live on, working for my God, and I would be ecstatic. I am not. I want more. I want to be respected and loved. I want to love and to respect. I want to have only on boss and I want that boss to be of my choosing and I want it to be God. I do not want to work for man. I do not want to work for myself or for anything. I want to live freely with my family and be a Christ like man. I am beginning to feel that is not possible on earth. Please stand with me and hold me up Lord. You can see I am being bombarded. I am to the point where I do not trust my instincts and that may be the first good thing I have realized in a while. Lord, I here I am so please use me as you want, not as I want – thanks. John
August 10, 1988 The last t few days I have been anything except thankful and I have so much to give thanks for. O Lord, I thank you – For the new and wonderful life that is being protectively carried by the life you brought into this world through us. Thank you for the baby that is within our daughter Gigi. For Tim a fine young man who loves our daughter and is married to her. For Gigi that she may find a way to be the person she wants to be and be a good mother and loving wife. Thank you Lord for Nikki that she is as strong and self determined as she is. Thank you for giving her someone who seems to love her for herself. Thank you for Linda. Outside you Lord, she is the single greatest gift any man could have received from you. She is my wife and I love her so. Thank you for her. For our families, I thank you, Mom and Dad McDonald and Flakes. Thank you for letting my mother be alive and thank you for restoring her some of the faculties that she needs. ; For Divine Mercy, a church for us when we had needs. For our car, praise you Lord for it because it fills a need we could not afford. For our health, we are still alive and reasonably well. Most of all for Jamie our youngest daughter. She is a visible sign of your love for us every moment of every day. I thank you for this job that I am doing. I am afraid of screwing up and so afraid of doing wrong yet I know you provided for me and mine when I had nothing. So I also believe you are providing now through this job. I thank you for standing firm with me on this journey. I so thank you for lifting me up each frequent time I fall. Likewise, there are not enough words of thankfulness to express the thanks I feel for your not giving up on me in disgust. I guess I most of all want to say, I love you Lord, and I thank you for being my God. August 11, 1988 Today is our day of rest. A day off not to do anything specific, yet a day to do whatever we want to do. Sometimes on a day like today we can't decide what to do, so we do nothing anyway. That can be an answer in itself. Sometimes we try to do too much on a day like today and end up having no rest at all. I doubt if there is a happy medium. You either always underdo or overdo. The happy medium is doing what is right for you. A day off…What does that mean? What are we off from? Well it is a time where we deliberately try not to think about our work. It is a time when we stop trying to figure things out and .and just let things be. It is, at least we hope, a day of relaxation for our mind, our body, and our priorities. It is a time to let your guard down and that is scary. I am afraid to ever let my guard down even for a short moment. Sometime everyone must let their guard down. We have to. The strain of constantly being on guard is most killing strain of all. God, my father be with us on this our day off. August 12, 1988 We had an all day staff meeting today. The administrative aide position, namely me, was discussed in detail. It went well. They really seemed to affirm me yet boy was I uneasy. The role of the pastor was discussed also. The role of the staff to the parish and inter related was also talked about. We saw ourselves as servants and I hope we meant it. I am going to a young adults meeting this weekend in Toledo. I hope it turns out well. Lord, I may need your presence more this weekend than ever. Please give me the strength to let you hold me firmly in your hands. Thanks John August 13, 1988 I attended the 8th annual Young Adults Conference of Toledo today. It was held at St. John's High School in Toledo. It was interesting although I really did not fit in. I was accepted and I accepted me being there and there were good moments, very good moments, so I guess it was fine. The workshops were excellent, especially the one on aides by Father Dan Dickman. I drove home late unexpectantly but m glad I did so. Thanks for watching over me. John
My conference is now over and I have returned home. Still am somewhat of an outsider but I felt I made at least one or two friends and I seemed to fit in better. I was a little disturbed by what the group of young people facilitated verbalized as their priorities. The first three things said were, drink, dance, socialize yet when they realized we were to turn in our priorities, self worth, acceptance, service, and good times were what was put down. I think my two oldest daughters are going to need financial help and with very little Linda and I have been struggling to save, you now Lord, what we are going to do, yep, let them have our savings. It is not fair to Jamie but maybe it will re fine. We just need to trust you more Lord. There is a big hullabaloo about a new movie, The Last Temptation of Christ. I wonder Lord why are so many so concerned. I hope it is out of love for you. I don't see my God as being hurt by anything I do, say, or go see. I see me being hurt by some of those things though and maybe that is the reason. I love you Lord and I have reason to believe you picked me up and loved me around some last night. Thank you! Please continue to do any time, rather all the time. Thank you again, Lord. John
August 15, 1988 The Feast of the Assumption of Mary into Heaven. O Mary mother of us all, I ask you to remember how you might have felt had your mother and father been less understanding about your role in life as the unwed mother of a child. My daughter, your daughter Gigi needs to know that her church and her God has not dumped on them. You know how she is feeling. There is no human alive that has not made mistakes. Gigi and Tim have made mistakes even if I know not what they are. I know that you and your son, our Lord, love them so very much. I know you will stand firm with them and help them through this time. Please find a way for them to have their marriage blessed in their church. It is not necessary for me to ask Jesus to bless their marriage for it seems that he has already done so. They do need a church and I beg you mother to give them one. You, Mary were blessed indeed by being the mother of God and we know you to be most loved by God despite the fact you were unmarried and pregnant. Help my daughter Gigi now as she needs your help. Stand firm with Tim and Gigi and the new life your son has blessed then with. I love you and trust you Mother and I am aware of your deep love for me and Linda. Thank you. Happy day O Mother of God. We celebrate you O mother of God, we love you. August 16, 1988 Father Ed told me he thought I was doing a pretty good job. Twice! I would hope he really means it. Supposedly from him that is a big compliment. We went out tonight. We went to a late movie after supper at Denny's and a visit to a county fair for some harness racing. I even won two quinellas. I won a total of $12.60 for $4 bet, hey, not bad. My daughter Gigi really thinks I can solve huge problems. Lord, you and I know I can't solve anything however, we both also know just who can. You can Lord and I have placed things firmly into your hands. Thank you for this day. Stand firm with me Lord and do not turn me loose. I love you. John! August 17, 1988 Tonight the Parish Council held a welcome to St. Mary dinner for us. It was chance for them to get to know us and us them. It went well I thought. Thank you Lord for helping Gigi and Tim. Thank you Mother of us all for knowing and understanding our need. There are not words to describe my God or his mother. I am so grateful my God. My soul praises my God. My being sings with joy to my God, my Savior. I am who am nothing knows of the power of I am who am. I am who am is love, and love is my God.
John
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