Like any mother, I love to hear my family laugh.
Lately, my husband and children have been playing a new card game together, an intricate game with rules way too complicated for me, but I nevertheless enjoy hearing them play.
The other day, I happened to walk into the room just as they all erupted into great laughter over this game. And it was not just polite, tittering laughter, but hearty, rolling belly laughs that came from deep within their souls, the mark of people truly living in the moment.
My heart soared in the moment as their laughter seemed to carry my soul upward in thanksgiving to God for such joy.
Moments such as these often seem otherworldly, when my soul is lifted beyond what is visible on the surface of this life, with sheer joy bringing me closer to God.
Similar moments include, for example, witnessing a newborn baby’s first smile, having a heartfelt conversation with your teenager, seeing a breathtaking sunset, or experiencing a moment of prayerful clarity.
Conversely, there are also moments when my soul is dragged down like a weighted stone, bound to the worries of this world in drawn-out illnesses or personal trials, unexpected death, prolonged times of loneliness or anxiety.
Somewhere in between these two planes — the spiritual and the surface life — I have to find a balance in order to be a good wife and mother for my beautiful family.
It is part of my vocation, part of what God calls me to do.
Sometimes, I must admit, finding balance in my vocation seems simply beyond my human capabilities. As I grow older, I become increasingly aware of how very little I am on my own, which forces me to cling more tightly to God in unabashed humility.
Physical, spiritual
We were made to be creatures both spiritual and physical. As C.S. Lewis said in Mere Christianity, “[God] likes matter. He invented it.”
Because we are both spiritual and physical beings, our lives consist of both planes that interplay with each other. We remain physically grounded in the work God puts before us on earth, yet have the ability to grasp the spiritual level at play behind all surface situations.
How beautiful that God has allowed us to be both physical and spiritual creatures at the same time. What a gift to contemplate and appreciate, all at once, especially in moments that embrace both planes.
Converging realms
The consecration at Mass is the epitome of such a moment, the marriage of the physical and the spiritual, embracing Jesus’ Real Presence in the physical form of the Eucharist, which we can see and touch and consume.
My willful offering of surface worries to God, too, is a converging of the physical and the spiritual realms. As I practice surrendering each trial to God over and over again, my surface worries serve as a way to anchor me in the reality that we are of the earth and not in heaven yet.
In the end, when I have given over all crosses to God in complete and utter humility and recognition that I am nothing without Him, then will I be able to lose myself in Him one day and not even be bothered by my own deficiencies because I won’t be thinking about myself at all but consumed by Him, who is Love itself.
What an indescribable gift it will be when heaven and earth converge equally in my soul.
Until then, I will strive — with God’s grace — to maintain some kind of balance that allows me to live out the vocation He has given me.
Letting laughter lift my soul to God is a start.
Julianne Nornberg, mother of four children, is a member of St. John the Baptist Parish in Waunakee.