move the books
playing to our strengths
This week marked one year since I adopted Rocco Taco Cicone. Please enjoy this picture of us, taken when we first met. You can tell that he was quite apprehensive for the adventures ahead.
When I first met Rocco, his name was actually Wallace, which is a fun fact that I find absolutely hilarious. This was the first picture I ever saw of Rocco, where he looks a little bit sad.
Whenever Rocco looks sad (usually during a long car ride), his alter ego Wallace comes out. That fact doesn’t have anything to do with this newsletter, but I thought I would include a picture for reference. Wallace is real.
As soon as I got Rocco, I started taking him to work with me. This is not something that I would advise anyone to do. Instead of just getting used to being in my home and having me as his owner, Rocco also had to get used to going in the car every day (did I mention he doesn’t like the car?) and a second, entirely different space.
It was in my office that I first learned that Rocco is also a houdini. In preparation for bringing Rocco to work, I had gotten a baby gate to put at the entrance to my office so that people could still see in and talk to me without Rocco disrupting the flow of the office. He took down that baby gate in about 0.5 seconds.
The second thing that I learned about Rocco very early on is something that I wrote about when I first announced the Catholic Book Club: Rocco loves to rip up books. He loves to rip up boxes too, but I don’t mind sweeping up shreds of the latest Amazon box nearly as much as I mind cleaning up pages of a book that I have yet to read.
The problem: my office has TONS of books in it. Rocco would take the books off the shelf one by one until he found one that he wanted to rip up. His favorites are hardbacks… little buddy has expensive taste.
So, I moved the books off the bottom shelf. I got a galvanized steel lead and attached it to my desk so Rocco couldn’t escape.
That was all I had to do and everything was fine.
Part of me feels like this was cheating— instead of training Rocco not to escape or eat books, I’m the one who changed the set up of my office and forked over $14 for a lead.
On the other hand, when we pray the Our Father we always ask God to “lead us not into temptation.” Now, this line has an interesting history and there has been some debate around it recently. After all, God does really lead us into temptation?
I have some thoughts about that line that I’ll be sharing in the next newsletter (so stick around, please). But today I’m focused on the fact that I removed temptation from Rocco, set him up for success, and now our lives are so much easier.
I decided to play to his strengths.
St. Paul writes, “When I am weak, then I am strong.” It is precisely our weakness that opens us up to falling onto our news and being willing to accept the grace of God.
God is the one who sets us up for success. St. Thomas Aquinas says that grace builds on nature, which basically means that God made us who we are and His grace does not diminish or destroy us but elevates us. It’s a pretty life-changing thought.
What this means is that God’s grace is like that galvanized steel lead that finally made Rocco into being a good office companion. It didn’t remove Rocco’s instinct to run away (my little sister learned a few weeks ago that Rocco will, in fact, still run wild in the office if given the chance), but it did build on his desire to be close to me and to receive attention.
As humans, God’s grace builds on our natural desires to love and to be loved and to know and to be known to make us into great saints. When we are weak, then we are strong.
A few reminders:
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Don’t forget about the Zoom Catholic Book Club! This month we’re reading Reckless Girls by Rachel Hawkins and will meet on Zoom on Friday March 4th at 8pm EST. You don’t need to read the book to join!