If I had to summarize my experience in the Movement up to this point, I would have to say that I am constantly looking for the hidden camera that is recording my life; the camera that is recording me in disbelief that this is really my life. I feel as if I have replaced Jim Carrey as the subject of The Truman Show and that what I have been living for the past 6-7 years is not real, but set up as part of some sort of experiment.

How is it possible that I read something written by a man I have never met, yet it is exactly my experience? Who told him? How is it possible that I go to Italy two summers in a row and struggle to spend time with all of my friends there because there are so many real friendships, including all of the ones who call me Mom? How is it possible that I have such good friends in Spain? I hosted their children for only three months here in Miami, yet we share a real friendship, a friendship that does not fade with time or distance like others do. How is it possible that I sit at my dinner table and look around to find a couple of Italians, a Spaniard and a Dutch man playing his guitar and switching back and forth between his kazoo and his harmonica as I hold back the tears from the emotion I feel when we sing together? Is it really possible to live this way? I constantly find myself asking this very question and looking over my shoulder thinking that this time, I will find that hidden camera. It can't be real.
I did not go looking for new friends. I didn't "need" any. I already had a group of very good friends with whom I grew up, friends in whom I recognized His presence. CL came looking for me and it shook my life. It took all of the pieces of my life and threw them up in the air. It made me question everything. I had grown up knowing that God was always there for me, but now, it was Christ who wasn't just there for me, but guiding me and leading me and so evident in these friendships, these dinners, these songs. I tried to ignore it because, as I stated earlier, I didn't "need" it. Besides, I didn't have time for it and it was shaking up my life, shaking up everything I knew. But I couldn't ignore it. I gave up on trying to ignore it and decided that I had to follow it. The pieces started to fall into place. It has changed my life. My life is quite full. I have a husband, three kids, a full time job and a Masters degree that I am currently pursuing. I don't have time for much, but yet I find the time to read and prepare for School of Community because I enjoy learning to see life in a different way. I find the time for the Fraternity Exercises because I am fulfilled after a weekend of learning, sharing, and singing. I find the time to lead my GS group because I want to help them find what I have found. I really don't know how I find the time for all of this. I don't know how I am not stressed. How is this possible?
Then, I meet some Italians and become friends with them as well. We do School of Community together and share many meals as we all like to cook. They have a baby and ask me to be her godmother. I go to Italy this past summer and spend a week with them celebrating the baptism, touring nearby towns and learning how to cook with their Nonna. How is this possible? Is this really my life? Where is the camera? I go to the Family Vacation with them in Corvara and meet all of their friends. I feel like we already know each other from before. We have dinner together and have great conversations even though they speak little English and I speak little Italian. How is this possible?
I know the answer to this. It's quite simple, yet so hard to grasp sometimes. The answer is the presence of the One who called me to a better life. The One who is present when we are together. The One who unites us even when we are miles apart. The One who knows me and what I want and need better than I know myself. The One who allows me to be more myself than ever before. I teach high school Theology and I am always telling my students that life can be so much more when we recognize His presence in it. And then when it happens to me, I wonder where the cameras are, because, as the saying goes, "If its too good to be true, it probably is." There have been enough years and enough relationships and it has spread through enough countries for me to realize that this is not a set-up. It is real. This is my life. It is possible to live this way. My life is proof of that.
My life isn't perfect. There have been times of financial difficulties, losses of jobs, friendship situations and illnesses of family members. I live a very real life, with all of the circumstances found in any real life, yet my life is beautiful. How is this possible? I have good days and I have bad days. I have days when I laugh and days when I cry. But at the end of the day when I lay my head down on my pillow and think about this life of mine, I can honestly say that if this is truly a set-up of some sort, keep the cameras rolling, because it is beautiful to live this way.