While the communal-living nature of a Life Plan Community can greatly enhance the quality of life through positive interaction, activities and a broad social circle, it can also open the door for the formation of exclusive cliques and a wide variety of bullying behaviors.
Beatitudes at Home and Beatitudes Home Health are different programs, but they both have the same goal in mind: To keep our residents as independent as possible for as long as possible.
There’s a story about the famous painter Leonardo da Vinci. During the time when he was working on his famous painting “The Last Supper,” he became angry with an acquaintance of his. The two men had words and parted from each other on very bad terms. Leonardo returned to the church on whose wall he was painting the fresco. It was no use. Leonardo could paint nothing he was happy with. He had reached the point in the project where he was doing the face of Jesus. Time and again he tried to render a likeness of the Lord, but he was unable to do so. Finally the great artist realized that he had work to do, but it was not in the church he had been commissioned to decorate. Leonardo put down his brushes and sought out the man who had been the subject of his wrath. He asked the man’s forgiveness. The man accepted his apology and offered an apology of his own. It was only then that Leonardo was able to return to the church and finish painting the face of Jesus.
St. Paul wrote a letter to the church at Ephesus because he knew that the church was engaged in quarreling that threatened to tear them apart. He counseled them: “No more lies, no more pretense. Tell your neighbor the truth. In Christ’s body we’re all connected to each other, after all. When you lie to others, you end up lying to yourself. Go ahead and be angry. You do well to be angry—but don’t use your anger as fuel for revenge. And don’t stay angry. Don’t go to bed angry. Don’t give the Devil that kind of foothold in your life.” Sometimes we feel we should never be angry, we should repress our true feelings. However, when we do that, our anger continues to simmer within us and ultimately festers or blows up and can be terribly destructive. Avoidance of conflict makes room for the devil. Anger is a natural part of our emotional makeup as humans.
Think back on your own life and reflect on what role anger has played in your relationships—was it healthy anger or destructive? Are you a spewer or a stewer? Anger itself is not a sin. Sometimes we are called to be angry. The world would have lost much without the blazing anger of William Wilberforce against the slave trade. If Martin Luther King had not been angry at racism, the civil rights movement would not have flourished. If Gandhi had not been angry at oppression, India’s independence might not have happened. Anger, channeled in a positive way, can be a catalyst for change. The famous writer Dr. Samuel Johnson was once asked to temper the harshness and anger in a book he was about to publish. His answer to that request was that “he would not cut off his claws, nor make his tiger a cat, to please anybody.” There is a place for the tiger in life; and when the tiger becomes a tabby cat, something is lost. How many relationships have been forever destroyed because some small issue was left to fester, grow, and divide the best of friends? Resolution of differences may take a long time but Paul is telling us to put aside our anger quickly. If we have been in the wrong, pray to God to give us the grace to go and admit that it was so; and even if we have been right, pray to God to give us the graciousness which will enable us to take the first step to put matters right.
On August 22nd my husband and I will be taking our daughter Maddie up to Northern Arizona University to begin college. There have been many plans and preparations throughout her senior year as she diligently applied to various colleges and scholarships and took all the required preparatory exams. Then came the BIG decision—which college will it be? When she decided on NAU there was momentary relief that the decision was made and then the next stage of preparations began as we learned about all that she needs to bring with her, who will be her roommate and in which dorm she will live. During these days attention is mostly showered on Maddie as people ask with excitement where she will be going to college?! However, I’m finding that those same people turn to me to ask, “And how are you doing mom? You’re going to be an empty nester!” When the kid flies from the nest everyone wonders what the parents are going to do with all their newly found time! My heart is not breaking as my child leaves home. She is excited to test her wings and learn about life as an independent adult. I, of course, will miss her and I’m sure I will worry more than I need to at times but I am excited that her life will be filled with fresh and new experiences. It’s helpful to remind myself that life is a balance of holding on and letting go. The prophet Khalil Gibran’s poem On Children says it all:
Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.
