Daughter of God

     In the past 2 days I have heard reference to 5 people in my family being "geniuses."  That's a heck of a lot of geniuses.
     Maybe they are, and maybe they aren't.  But I get a little unsettled, thinking, "Am I the only lame-O, non-genius in my family!??"  I get this same unsettled feeling when I hear gushing reports about how people in my family are saving the world, saving the people in the world, or ending poverty/discrimination/hardship etc. in the world.  It's hard for me to stay steady--how is being a housewife and a mother measuring up in any significant way?
     The truth is, I am a daughter of God.  I once had a book with this as its title: "I am a Daughter of God."  It was about Carmelite spirituality.  I stared at the title on the spine of the book for a year.  The title was enough for me!  I did not even read the book!  I began praying, becoming in my heart what I knew I was called to me--such a daughter, myself.
     What the world needs is not a book or a DVD or a global forum or a talk show or money or a concept.  What the world needs is DAUGHTERS and SONS of GOD: it needs people who are so filled with joy and contentment that they shine.  It needs people who have learned to readily forgive.  It needs people who know how to give when they will not receive anything back.  It needs people who live their lives in communion with those close to them: daily life lived out hearing, responding, sharing, serving, laughing, relaxing, working together.  This can happen in any living room, in any kitchen, and with anybody whom you happen to live.
     Dignity in being loved and claimed by God, FORGIVENESS, and a joyful shared life: these are the ingredients to what I consider the most blessed life on earth.  I am delighted that I feel called to one day achieving this blessedness.  I believe that it is more powerful than a life of making books and DVD's and money and talk shows.  Those books and DVD's and money and talk shows are trying to help people embrace their dignity, forgive or overcome hardships, and live well together.  They are only valuable if they are working, and they are only working if they enable people to achieve this kind of blessedness.
     I know that I am not a genius and that is okay with me.  The real question, what is the life well lived--what is the BEST life?  It is true that I choose housewifery and motherhood and friendship over working to end suffering on earth.  I hope that in so doing, I can in my own particular way be a window through which peace and love and joy flood the world.