Moving Day...

Posts for Chocolate For Your Brain will continue over on the Catholic Channel of Patheos at Chocolate For Your Brain!  I started this week and am still learning the ropes of adding photos and proper posting.  It's going to be a learning process. 

So it's a renewal of my blog but with some new bells and whistles.   
Welcome to the Renaissance of my writing...I hope.    

What if God Measures Us By How We Measure?

 It is a terrifying thought, and my brain plays little games, like when we die, God shows us all the ways in which we were harmed by sin, by others sins, that we are given one more opportunity to be merciful and forgiving as He is, and that allotment we allow, we use towards those who hurt us, is then used as a weight against the ways in which we've hurt others.  That puts it in stark contrast, and reminds us, we need more mercy than we've ever given.  

It would be frightening except that God by His very nature is more merciful and loving than we could ever imagine.  That we struggle to approximate His mercy and love and fail so regularly is a discouraging reality.   The through my fault, my fault, my most grievous fault line of the prayers always feels like a fissure of the soul, revealing how much we don't do what we ought, how much we do what we should not. With covid, these days I know I struggle with paying attention anywhere...in prayer, in mass, watching television, listening to conversations. It's as if my ears, heart and brain are simply tired of giving anyone the full attention required, and doing so requires tremendous effort. I don't want to give the time I must, I should, I ought.  I do, but it always requires wilfulness where it used to be easy. 

To complain would show a callow nature, and yet, I know that shallowness is somehow attractive because it seems to require less effort.  It doesn't, because the less effort satisfies less with each time it's tried.  Yet, it promises an ease that cannot be acquired. It's been a year and many of us feel shallow, drained and thin of spirit, and want that promised fullness brimming over that used to come so easily. 

I suspect it is the problem with Zoom, with online instruction, with many of modern relationships. They can't convey the intangible, so the experience itself becomes ephemeral.  Friendships in real life and online, with the living, and those we cannot see, most especially God,  require we seek it, even when we do not feel it.  It's a recognition that the gulf is always on our side.  

Asking the God who sees through attempts to appear holy that aren't, and through efforts that appear fruitless but are full, to pour into us grace beyond anything we deserve, and reveal via scripture, via beauty, via truth and via the sacraments, the so much more we could be, and the so much more He offers.  Where we see water, He makes wine. Where we only have a few loaves and fishes, He feeds the 5000.  It's always there, the bigger reality below the surface of the world.

Life and sin and struggles and distractions can obscure our dim vision.  We're reminded of all the blessings of the moment when we encounter another, for whom the struggles seem to us, even greater than our own, such that we feel embarrassed we ever felt anything about our own.  Praying for others, offering what we struggle with, for them, is an attempt to measure the way God measures, which is to say, with generosity, with what is needed, beyond what is asked.   

If we want to love as God loves, we need to stop measuring it out in teaspoons, and pour out the biggest buckets of prayers we can find onto Heaven, expecting to be drenched in graces as a consequence.   

Small Success Thursday

We're half way through Lent. I realized, I haven't quite managed to find a rthymn to my devotions or my prayer life. It has remained organic and impulsive and not entirely focused. This is not a confession of a bad Lent, only a reality of how this Lent has thus far progressed.  

1) So today, I recommitted to my Lent.   

Things were hard, but less so, because that's how grace works.  It makes it possible to do what we cannot do without it.  This alone counts as a success, and not  a small one, because it was a reminder to begin again.   

2) In adoration, I recognized I've overtaxed myself in every place of living, and Lent reminded me, I needed to give up trying to do everything, to give up trying to please everyone, and do whatever it was that needed doing, not for approval or success, but out of love.  It sounds corny, but I'd struggled with this past year of obligation, which robbed the ordinary of its joy.  There were and are a thousand reasons for counting blessings because of this year, but I'd grown tired of looking, tired of counting, and begun counting the wrong things. 

Recognizing I'd overdone, was the first step of recovery. Lent would begin again on this, March 11th, with the goal of more surrender each day.   

3) Today, we celebrated as my son turned 17. It's hard to believe 17 years have passed since the year the Red Soxs won their first world series, the Return of the King came out and won best picture and John became part of our lives.  We're so happy he is.   

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JOHN! LOVE YOU

Cookie Cutter Parenting

 When I first started out as a mother, my journals bear out my worries, that having a second or a third, would lead to not paying attention to the individual needs of these new people, that numbers would preclude treating each child's interests and taste and talents and gifts as unique. 

Now, that I have ten children, four dietary menus, six different musical instruments being played or not,an artist, a teacher, a government major, a bio major and track star, a K-pop loving archiologist major and a budding singer, editorial cartoonist, and we won't even start on the discussion of clothing, I think this early fear of mine can safely be laid to rest forever.   Really.  

I mean, I'm not a tiger mom and I'm not an assembly line parent, but I have to wonder, to those tiger moms out there, and those capable of having all their children embrace similar clothing styles, astetics, dietary preferences and haircuts...how did you do it?  Mass hypnosis?  Biofeedback?  Drugs in the dinner plate?  Absent draconian threats of Wandavision type becoming unglued, I can't get them to move as a collective voting block to agree upon dinner...not even pizza, because two don't eat pizza and they like three different places from which to get said pie.   

Even something as simple as milk...I've got oat milk, almond milk, whole and skim...and one who doesn't like any.   

Ice cream...chocolate, mint chocolate chip, only ice cream sandwiches, cashew icecream, mochi (apple pie only), and ben and jerry's cherry garcia, and the rest will eat any of them...that last flavor of B&J is for me though, as a coping mechanism for what I endure when fixing dinner.   (But I'm easy, I'll eat just about any sweet).    

I'm glad I raised ten individual unique people, but there are moments when I'd like to say, "Hey you...deliberately round peg, get in the square hole now because it's hammer time!   And I'd swing down like nobody's business.   I'd like to not feel like every meal, every holiday, and every event is not merely reminicent of a GRE Analysis question, but the inspiration for a whole slew of new ones.  ETS should have me on payroll.   

Still, there are moments when I see the sublime wonder of having so many different unique personalities under one roof.  Today, the tire blew out on my mini-van.  One made dinner.  One practice yoga with three others. One helped organize cleaning the living room.  Another did pick up of those who needed rides and two did the dishes.  It was a beautiful thing, all these individuals coming together despite their many differences.  

In gratittude, I made cookies and everyone was happy. It was then that it hit me, the joy I'd created with the thank you treat...everyone loved them.  Everyone ate them. They were universal. 

And it occurred to me, the cookies...they were slice and bake.

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to IKEA

 So this week, as we continue the theme of everything deciding after a year of only living with us, the machines are all quitting, the furniture followed suit.  Out one bed and a few drawers, we opted to do as the Swedes do...and went to that store known for three things...making Americans follow a maze without having a ride at the end, selling furniture Mjollnir like in temperment, refusing to be assembled by those it deems not worthy, and the unique capacity to make people not presumably under duress, part with money to purchase frozen sweedish meatballs for human consumption.   

We purchased a bed after an hour of walking around, and two desks and yes, even some Sweedish meatballs.  My second oldest started assembly, my desk was easy.  My daughter's bed, not so much.  It seemed we'd neglected to purchase the right slats and the base bar. We also accidentally purchased a full rather than twin...but that, we could deal with so the next day, we drove again to the Ikea (it's an hour there each time).  

Home again, home again, jiggity jig, and we can't open the bar. It's supposed to expand.  We tried WD40, we tried olive oil, and we had three people pulling as hard as they could --with visions of someone being impaled by the process if the damn thing gave.   My son decided to try a hair dryer.  To our surprise, he was able to slide the bar with ease. It did give him bragging rights, especially since everyone else had tried and failed.   I told him to tell his older sister, there was a simpler explanation...we were not worthy.   

The mattress we need arrives tomorrow...and the sheets and comforter that would fit, on Tuesday, so sometime after March 9th, my daughter will have a working bed and maybe, a full night's sleep.   

As for me, four hours of driving and an equal amount of frustration for four adults and satisfaction for one modest but still somehow smug teen and I microwaved the meatballs for dinner, vowing never to darken the doors of the most overrated Sweedish import since the SAAB, Hagar the Horrible and, well I do like ABBA.   

I do however, love my new desk and the breakfast table, having caught wind of the recent wave of revolutions by inanimate objects, feels wobbly.  

Over at Catholic Mom.com today and other things...

1)  I've been writing, and my first piece in a while is at Catholicmom.com and called Go Deeper In.   

2) I'm editing.  Slowly.  Grudgingly.  

3) I'm exercising.  Slowly.  Grudingly.   

4) A brief shout out to all of you who hear when others don't, that someone is hurting more than they wish to admit, thank you.  

This morning, a friend felt devastated that her attempt to help someone who voiced a suicidal thought was treated with contempt.   Yesterday, another person I know dealt with a similar issue.  My response to everyone and anyone who responds when someone cries out thinking no one hears them  is, thank you for listening.  Thank you for stopping from all that is ordinary and distracting and keeps life busy and humming along because someone else hurt and you noticed.  

Thank you because those people are still here because you heard and didn't keep going.  
Thank you because you understood the need to stop, that such things couldn't be ignored or brushed aside.  
Thank you because we all know this has been a horrible year, and yet, you still think of others and recognize, sometimes the hardness of life overwhelms.   It need not, and it might not, if we are willing to listen, and to speak when we hear "the cry of the poor."   The people who did the right thing, are still struggling with what they encountered and what they can't share, so I'm telling them, "Thank you." from the bottom of my heart for everyone who doesn't know they need to say thank you, but who does still have that someone to love today, because of what you did.    

5) The move to Patheos is soon.  

6) If you're in the DC Area, tickets just went on sale for this, very psyched about the fall.    

7) Lastly, I hope your Lent is going well.  Mine has involved a lot of backtracking and uturns and restarts and it's near the end of the second week.  Next week's reflection, what makes a "good Lent?"  

My Small Success Thursday

 Years ago, I ran Small Success Thursday every Thursday for Catholicmom.com. It's now on Instagram and I'm not, so I'm going to just restart posting Small Success Thursday each Thursday to force me to hold to my 500 words  a day, no outs, no excuses mantra until I run out of words.   

Small Success Thursday is about taking stock of the prior week to see the little victories that help one be grateful for the things that otherwise might get lost in the course of seven days. In this time of Covid, cultivating gratitude is a form of self preservation and a reminder that even when things are pretty much the same, there are moments that should be celebrated.   

1) In the past week, we've acquired a new car, a new toaster and a new dishwasher. All three machines just decided their time was up and they weren't going to do anything more.  The mechanic took the car for what looks like a month and a half break.  The toaster found its place in the trash can and the new one ambled its way over the course of seven days from wherever it was in the Amazon warehouse to our home. The plumber took away the old dishwasher that was a machine and not working.  The old dishwasher that is not a machine is still working and wondering if she stopped working, would she get to retire too?   

2) Restarted my writing 500 words a day to get my writing brain back into regular practice. It had taken what I would call a month off (Feb), after the conference.  

3) Looked at my shoes and thought about walking.  Waiting for the temperature to be above my age.   or at least within a decade.   

4) Visited with a few important people in my life, family, friends, which somehow had fallen by the wayside --how we can get too busy when we're not going anywhere is proof we are capable of infinite distraction in every circumstance.  

5) Watched a movie I hadn't seen and read a book I hadn't read.   (Progress again, against watching things I've already seen, and looking at text I already knew).   

That's my list of Small Successes of this past week.  Hope your week was filled with small successes too.  

Potential Side Effects from Getting Vaccinated...

I mean besides being able to possibly avoid a very contagious potentially deadly disease...

There are as many crazy therories as there are theorists, but I'll try to outdo them all.

When news broke that vaccines were approved, I wanted to sign up right away, but the state is deciding who gets the shots and in what order. I get it. I'll get to get it. I've received half of it, and in two weeks the other half. They're being careful and reasonably so. Can't have too many super soldiers running around like Steve Rodgers, we might get a crazy Bucky on our hands instead. Some are worried it includes microchips that will turn us into zombies that only do what Bill Gates tells us...but I've not had any problems other than I really do want to install Windows 10 on my computer and I don't know why.

The companies putting out these shots, they're testing versions for kids and mine were psyched about possibly being test subjects and maybe becoming mutants. However when I told them, if it grew a third arm as a side effect, I would no longer accept unclean rooms, they said they'll wait for FDA approval. I have to admit, now I'm disappointed.

Last week I drove to six flags to get the first shot, and it made me shrink. I may not be tall enough to get the second one when I return. Then I realized I was slouching from the year long sitting at a computer screen isolatory way of life we've endured.

I think the shot gave me weight gain, I'm sure it wasn't the pizza for dinner last night or the french fries or the ice cream. The medication must have given me procrastination, it's why I haven't done the paperwork for this week or the dishes yet. It's why I took a nap as well. The side effects have no end, so I'm not sure when I'll stop napping. I may need to do so tomorrow too, you never know.

Treatment for the side effects includes coupious amounts of chocolate...I've done my own independent research on the matter so you'll have to trust me. It's not some crazy wacky theory I found on the internet, I made it up myself. It cures dementors so why not Covid shot side effects.

Speaking of side effects, I've noticed my voice is slurred. It could be the wine from dinner or the need to not stay up late binge watching whatever new thing it is I've found on Netflix, but I'm sure the need to binge watch into the wee hours is also a side effect. I wonder if I can sue? I've become acutely aware of every action since the shot, even if I did it before the shot, since before it was a coping mechanism. Now, it is a reaction worthy of excessive fiscal compensation.

There is one side effect I can report with absolute certainty that is the result of that first shot in the arm. I've felt this bubble of something, of being able to think beyond the moment, of anticipating walking out the door, and one day, seeing other people's faces. Side effects include making plans, preparing for the future, and remembering there's so much more to this life than inside the four walls of our house...so go and sign up and get yourself vaccinated to help your family and yourself, because the side effect of hope is sooooooo worth it.

Hold Please...

 Today, we learned, we're not alone.  Oh, we know that Covid keeps all of us six feet apart, but there is one universal thing that knits all hearts together, a thing universally loathed...telemarketers.  They've managed to evade the do not call lists, such that the home phone rings almost exclusively with apologies from a non existent electric company, notifications about our car warranty and notes from Linda that there is nothing wrong with our credit card...however...  

As such, my children view such disruptions to the normal chaos and peace of the home crimes worthy of all the creativty they can muster.  One answers in German.  Not to be outdone, another says, "Dominos Pizza? I'd like to order a pepperoni and a large with extra cheese. Hold please."   The third is more wiley.  She hands the phone to Paul, who not knowing who it is, proceeds to talk and walk about the house, happy to share his thougths with the robot on the other side of the line. No unusual credit offers or certificates for extended warranty of our automobiles have shown up yet, so we deem it a fair use of the phone.  The practical child just hangs up. She doesn't want to be bothered with such things.  

However, there is one...one who truly excells at using these opportunities to practice wit.   Answering the person selling solar panels, "I don't want to exploit the sun..." or "I don't believe in that great white hot orb in the sky." she leaves them stunned into silence. It's brilliant and burning and devastating to behold.  The phone rang...and perhaps the karma for however many spambots and call centers burned over the years needed to happen, because the person on the other side of the receive paused too long for anyone to think it was a human being.  

"If you're selling, I'm going to come out swinging..." the tiger prepared to pounce...
The person on the phone stammered out their name and asked for me.   The recognition, this was an actual person dawned on everyone.   Scratching a note...if that's work, I'm really sorry, but if it's just a friend...the mom on the line was cracking up, telling me her daughter uses pots and pans as  drumset when the telemarkers call.   "I thought it was just me."  

No. It's not you. It's not me either, it's all of us, united against them.   We laughed and wondered how many are out there with silent running gags they use to get these pests off the phones we don't want to answer...the phone rang.  It was about a hotel trip somewhere..."Hola?" She began, and proceeded to say the lyrics to "Despesito" as if having a conversation.  

The momentary shock of encountering an actual person we know in real life obviously had worn off...

Things that Will Hold

These days, as the world starts to open up, and all of us feel the jitters, the stress of returning to the more that life demands, we need to be careful with ourselves and each other.  We need to practice kindness, with our words, our deeds, and even our non actions. 

We need to have gentle words, gentle acts, and gentle arts, gentle responses to the hardest of things and the ordinary hardness of ordinary life.  That means choosing to eat healthy, but being kind when we can't.  It means getting enough rest, even if it means a nap. It means praying, and asking the angels and saints to help when the heart runs dry.   It means practicing that good and generous measure packed and overflowing of forgiveness, for everyone struggling with the damage and hardness of the past year, and other pains we do not know.   It means practicing on ourselves for all the pains we ignore.   

Today, I spoke with my kids about remembering to take care of themselves and each other,  We need to exercise, we need to exercise restraint. We need to read, we need to read the moods, and we need to serve each other and recognize when we need to ask for help.   It's not easy to recognize we need to stop, or we need to help someone else stop, but this is the reality we have to help soften, like a crocus in the landscape before spring.  

Being a crocus in winter is the goal, ermerging before Spring signals that everything is safe and warm and ready.  It doesn't mean not wearing masks or practicing social distancing, it means doing all of that, but doing them with a trust that spring will come, that the world will get warmer and so will life.   

We won't always be in lock down. We won't always be struck by Covid. We won't always have to wear masks to make sure everyone around us is safe, and everyone we love we go home to, is also safe. One day we'll be able to breathe easy about all of this and all of this will amazingly be a memory with face masks being a reminder of that year we stayed home. . 
It’s restorative to remember, we won’t always be in Lent.  Easter is coming. All of Lent is a reminder, that much of life is ash, is Ash Wednesday, but Easter arrives.  Easter is here, and even better, it is always. For now, we get to work at this business of caring for others and ourselves.  'Till we have faces, we will have to show our true selves by how we treat each other and ourselves. 

What We Should Do

 We've almost made it a year.  

Some of us received covid shots, others remain at home, but this year of cloistered living, it's changed us in ways we do not yet know.  It's visible in the grocery stores. People don't go in there relaxed, they go into the stores in a rush, they do not make eye contact and they do not stop.  It's visible when you visit a college campus, and the pick up football or students sitting together or walking holding hands, isn't visible.   

Tonight, for some reason, we needed out, out of the routine, out of the house, just out.  So we drove to the drive thru of a local establishment and ordered ice cream.  It was a little thing, and yet restorative of something of the reality we miss, the reality we've not known since March 12th of 2020.   

How do we reset our psyches?  I am not really worried about it, once we don't have to worry about it.  I'm certain we will rejoice almost excessively once we can go to a football game, dance or store without masks, and can do the ordinary things of ordinary life like errands and dates and birthday parties out in the world without risking our families or ourselves.   

It's the time between then and now that will be the hardest.  This is no longer new. The trick is to not try to do more than today until tomorrow is today.  We do have to do it again the next day and the next and the next, but by doing so, we won't gnash our teeth at how long we've endured this, we will instead focus on the battles of the day we face and no others.   It will mean we spend less time cursing the battles we've already fougth and won or lost.   It will mean, we do not despair because of how long this is taking to "flatten the curve," but hope because we've made it so far.   

We've made it so far...we've made it so far.  We've made it so far, getting ice cream in a drive thru felt like a rebellion, like a form of defiance, of manufactured triumph.  We will make it...and when we do, we should all sign a baseball with the year and the date we emerge from this mess, because we succeeded.  

Move!

Yesterday, I mentioned moving day.  Today, I'm thinking about moving but in a different way. 

So I started Lent, I've already messed up every day, and yet, that's the purpose of Lent, to be reminded every day of how much we pretend we don't need saving, how much we deny, we need saving.  The best Lents aren't when we adhere to whatever our Lenten promise is perfectly, but when we are perfected by the trial of seeking to adhere to it in the first place.  

What we do matters, and yet like receiving, how and why we do it matters too.   The matter of our sacrifice matters.  That's why sacarments have an unbearably physical element to them, an undenyable physical reality.  

It's the everyday progress, that comes with acknowledging how much we regress, that makes for true humility --can't do this without grace, not even for a second.   It's the everyday little surrenders that make up whole splinters of a cross that over a lifetime, is the whole cross. The nails of our life are those big moments, where we were given the opportunity to say yes or no to Christ, and the crown we weave, is of all the times we've managed to cooperate with grace and the world hated us for it, and our keen awareness of all the times we failed to love those around us --all the moments we could have cooperated with grace and did not.  We get to offer all our failures to Christ, along with a humble, "I am sorry, I am nothing but a poor ungrateful servant.  Here I am Lord, do with me what you will."   

This past week, many in my family were reminded of what most of us take for granted, heat, power, water and food.   This week, many in our nation were reminded, our world is much more fragile than nature, and this past twelve months, our nature, much more fragile than we believe.   

We are always practicing Catholics, even when our practice sounds terrible, even when we screw up, especially when we don't recognize we're screwing up.  God knows this, God tells us over and over again, He knows this.  He compares us to sheep.  That's not flattering. It is however, a reality.  

This week, I sat thinking about spiritual practice and discpline being like weight loss --the most success is when we stop looking at the problem as something to be solved, and instead embrace it as a way to live.   The same is true for spiritual exercise.   When it is part of breathing, we are closer to "doing it well" because we aren't doing something to check off a box, but as part of an ever on going progression.   

Editing, parenting, writing, exercise, prayer, all of these things are the cumulative consequence of a regular constant willingness to do and do again and be willing to do poorly but do every day.   

So with that in mind, I'm going to go edit my book and go for a short exercise...if only to start.   
Because all of these habits require first, foremost and always, my cooperation, and none of these will happen if I do not will to do them.   That includes Lent.  

The desert everywhere is calling.  Inviting us to will to go into it.   Lent is the time to be willing to move.   

Moving Day is Coming

 It's been in the works for a while now, but Chocolate For Your Brain! is moving to Patheos.   

I'll let you know when exactly, but all of these posts will migrate there once it's up and running.  Back in September, I'd been considered.  Now, after a few months of trying to figure out what to do, or how to do it, the hour approaches.   

Why am I doing this?  

Well, first, to get myself back in the writing spirit, where five hundred words doesn't feel like a push.  Second, to become part of a community of writers again, which would in turn spark my own brain to jog around the park.  Covid-19 makes everything laggy and saggy, including humor and a joyful witness...so I'm packing up and joining Patheos --a faith based website with multiple channels including one labeled, Catholic.   I think I qualify.    

What's been going on lately? 

Well, I've been teaching, I've been fretting about all my family in Texas, and it's very icy here and the snow blower decided it was too much work to clear our driveway so it quit on the maiden voyage, leaving all of us with our backs to take care of the rest.   

What really gets me is all that work doesn't amount to much of a calorie burn, only a sore back.   

In the meantime, I'm doing Lent...it's awkward like most Lents, where the recognition, you've already messed up tends to tempt one to not simply start over again.   But I'm trying...and I'm going to go on trying.   

What else are you doing?  I'm supposed to be editing.  I've found I can get the bills paid, organize lesson plans, fold clothes and do dishes and will, before I start tackling that stack...but I need to...so I paid a visit to Barnes and Noble today, to remind myself of the goal.   When I see all the stacks of books, it's  a reminder of all those who managed to see it through to the end.   It makes me wonder how many others have a stack like mine.  

It also makes me want to either a) declare a it's my week, hole up in the computer room and tell everyone to bring me food and remind me to shower until it's done  or b) cry and panic and put it off some more or c) beg everyone to remind me to edit every day until it's done.   I know, it should be c).   
I just stress ate the last of my emergency chocolate thinking about editing.   Now I really don't have any excuses.   

I'm thinking of exercising...that really tells you how much I don't want to edit.    
However I know, the only way it gets better is if I look at it.  It's like a swimsuit I don't want to put on, because I know how it's going to look.      

Moving day is coming.  In the meantime, I'll be over here, editing and trying not to cry at the reality, I should have hit the gym a long time ago, both literally and figuratively with this manuscript.  

What I Love About the Season to Come

 Confession is good for the soul.  I stink at fasting.  Really.  I forget.  I overpromise God and I fail...a lot.  If we measure Lent by adhering to one's promise to God, I am a faithless human being most of the time...and Lent, being bigger than my grandest ambitions is a great teacher of humility, because my flesh is weak weak weak.   

Success at Lent measured by letting God lead me, those stick out like jewels...volunteering in college one year, going to daily mass another, calling my sister every day to say a "Hail Mary," and one year (just one), where I gave up chocolate for the whole year, as a form of prayer.  So right now, you'll see tons of articles about "how to make this the best Lent ever" and "On beyond chocolate..." and the like.   I'm going to tell you, discernment about what God wants to give you, is part of the process.   My best Lenten plans have come from God, not me.   

What Lent teaches you, depends upon how much you're willing to listen.  Lent at the start typically has me doing a lot of talking.   This year I'm going to...and I pile on..and I read an article and that sounds good so I add to it...and I think of something I've been meaning to do, and I add it, and my Lenten promises become a virtual buffet of spiritual ambition. What all my Lents up to now have taught me, is I haven't changed since elementary school.  Sherry is very enthusiastic and creative, but she talks in class.  

Fortumately, I haven't worn out Christ like I did my teachers during school.   

One thing I know, often what God wants to tell us is the opposite of our plans.  So I'm going to try and do the opposite of my normal approach of picking everything from the menu.   I'm picking one thing.  I'm also normally talk or write of my plans for Lent.  It's a natural response of a writer, to use everything as grist for the mill.  Surrendering that temptation, to talk about it, to share it, is part of the process of trying to invert or subvert my own proclivities.  

My writing brain is already pitching a royal fit. If you don't write it down, you won't remember it.  If you don't tell others, they won't remind you.   I already know, it's the right call because of that reaction.  So, if you want to know what I love about Lent, it's that it is always an opportunity to be led, we just have to follow, and trust that this desert season is necessary for our souls, and the one leading us, will see us through safely if we allow Him.   

Get ready for Lent. Ash Wednesday is February 17th.   Ask God to help you listen and follow Him into the desert.  

What Do We Do Now?

A Good Discourse

So I'm doing a workshop "Called and Gifted," and one of the things they want us to do, is the opposite of what we tend to, what we have over the course of our lifetime, programed ourselves to respond.  I've mostly learned in the past three weeks, that I'm responding to life with a sense of anxiety I've never known before.   

Intellecually, I understand it.  For the past year, fight or flight has been answered one way, flight.  Learning to not view everything as a threat will take time, and as the pandemic is not over, it will also be only half true.   But the question keeps forming in my mind, so I'm writing about it to discover both how to respond and what I actually think.  I swear, my brain is in my fingertips and no where else.   

It's been three weeks since the conference, hard to believe. We took a break, and honestly, for me, everything stopped. Part of my stress at that point, was the return to school of two of my children. I hadn't realized how secure I felt with all the birds in one place, until two left. The world felt more fragile, because they weren't all here. The world felt less connected because part of my community wasn't fully present in my home. The pandemic hurt less for the past eleven months because all twelve of us were in one spot. That time is ending. They weren't more fragile or less for leaving, it was me. I began hunting for what I needed to feel less fragile. There were a lot of loose ends, things I needed to finish...my book, the conference...just lots of little details that all nagged. So... I went back to the page and there's a link for those interested in continuing the discussion of how to promote and maintain civil discussion online and in real life. It needs to happen outside of a conference, it needs to happen as an ongoing reality. As we reopen, we're going to have to relearn these social skills we've let slide over the months of pandemic. Our emotional muscles atrophied in this time away, and our emotional strength to bear the ordinary. I don't believe it's just me.

We're going to discover how a year of Lent changed how we see things, how we feel out there outside of our homes. "It's a dangerous business Frodo, going out your front door." --and until everyone is vaccinated and this disease is stamped out, it will be. There will always be risk, that we will hurt someone else inadvertendly by carelessness, or by omission and callousness.

Being careful with others, both physically and mentally, will be a sacrifice. It will be an act of love, of willing the good of the other, to wear masks and maintain social distance. We need need to remember that we ourselves, (all of us), at this point, are fragile. We don't often recognize that fragility, because we're used to pretending at all times, that we're not.

All the more reason for promoting "A Good Discourse," because we need to recognize first, last and always, that behind every screen is a soul, and our own souls are damaged in addition to others, when we give in to temper, wrath, snark, gossip, lies and indifference. We're all in this together, and we'll only weather this by creating deliberate fellowship and hold true. Think I'm going to hold a marathon LOTR now...

Here's the link: A Good Discourse

On My Soapbox!

 Brace yourself.  I'm angry.   

Back on March 13th, of 2020, we closed the buildings of schools but kept teaching.   We taught virtually, but we did everything we could to attempt to give them as much as we could in the time we were given.  We taught summer school virtually.  We taught first semester virtually. We're still doing it.  Teachers are trying to teach.   

Multiple vaccinations now exist.  They've been slow to roll out, but they exist.  
We've managed to wait this long, why the push to have us go forward to open before we've had a chance to get the vaccination?  We get that things are hard but here's what I want to bring up as a point.  This is a link to where Corona Virus is spreading more.  

Corona Virus Update across the 50 States

Here's a  site that shows where schools are open.  

Across the States School Openings/Closings

I'll wait.   

As I look at them, where is the spread being contained?  (0-21 per day infection).  
Hawaii, Guam and North Dakota.    Maryland and DC are going down, they're still a rate of 21 and 23 per 100K respectively. 

Where is it exploding?  New York, California, Texas, Illinois, where more schools are open, where there is less continuity of policy across the state, where there has been tremendous pressure to go back to normal.   

The world right now is not normal. 

Next, I looked at the metrics for our county because I've studied that throughout the pandemic. 

In January, the metrics exploded.  Why?   Think about it.   It makes sense the infection rate rose because people got together for Christmas, for New Year's, for Kwanza, for Hanaukkah, and/or took vacations over Winter break.  If you look at the metrics for the rate of infection detected, (here's the link), the pattern emerges.  The infection rate in November rose because of Halloween and Election Day.  The infection rate in December rose because of all the holidays I mentioned.   There aren't holidays in January that involve travel or big events.   The rate has decreased.  

 I also looked at the rate of infection  of now versus the summer, and our current rate, while trending down, is still above the rate observed and recorded during June, July and August.  Past trending is no promise of future, and the major challenge of this pandemic, is as we open up, we increase the likelihood of infection.   The metrics aren't secure at this point or indicative of safety, but merely of where we are today. 

The reality is, right now Maryland looks good because it is more cautious than other states. 

If it jumps the gun, following the Governor's proposals, (which I suspect is putting tremendous pressure on the local municipalities), the consequence will be lives.  I'm not trying to be melodramatic. I'm stating the reality.  We all have family with mitigating health conditions that would be severely compromised by Covid.   

If we're willing to show leadership and finish this year, we should have the time and allocations to ensure everyone who can be vaccinated, get vaccinated by the start of the new school year, and while it won't be popular, we'll be doing what's hard and what's right.   

What's hard and what's right is seldom popular. 

But this decision to force a re-opening is tripping and quitting with the finish line in sight. 

As a school system, county and state, we can get every adult vaccinated, and we can begin again provided we're willing to be patient.  We can even get all the parents of those kids vaccinated as part of the enrollment process for next year.  We just have to decide, everybody matters more than test scores and that we can't have good outcomes if students are at risk by coming to school. 

Let me state the reality.  I get that teaching virtually is hard hard hard hard hard.  I've done it this past year and it's hard.   Let me say, I want to return to the classroom because I want to be engaging my students.  I want to have my kids in school too.  However, I'm not willing to bet their future lives on an impulsive present.  I'm fine with redshirting everyone and going another year. We'll all emerge stronger, smarter and wiser, and alive.   At the end of the day, how many kids families are we betting on being impatient?  Because one is too many, and many more than one will be affected. 

Thank you for listening.  Be safe. Be smart, and let's finish this the right way. 

 

A Memory that Keeps Hearts Going

Holy Thursday, 2000

At 5 AM, my dad is in a bed with an IV, being prepped for surgery. My brother and I are in Maryland preparing to fly down. My brother and sister who live in Texas are by my mom and dad's side.

They pray with him, laugh with him, hold his hand and sing "Dona Nobis Pachem," and then, maybe because Dad is doped up, maybe because he sees how worried they are, maybe becase Dad doesn't like when others are worried, they keep singing songs...some Kingstron Trio, some other stuff, but the song that my mom tells me about, is the Wild (not Gypsy) Rover.

Mom said that people stopped and listened. (Dad used to sing this song to her when they were dating, or as he would say, courting). So here people are preparing for emergency quadruple by-pass surgery, and the family preparing is singing Irish drinking songs.

My brother told me, nursing staff were crying at the scene;

the broken voices, constant eye contact, prayerful, off key, on key, sotto voce, loud sniffles, self abasement, constant hand holding.

Dad drifted to sleep.

Then my brother went to the chapel, prayed a rosary, cursed at God, implored him, and it's all a blur. All he could remember was Dad scratching out on a sheet of paper upon waking and seeing all of us, "My cup runneth over."

And it did. The story itself has earned a spot in our family lore both for the response to suffering, and for the great healing of telling it. Today I told the story to a friend who is facing a similar challenge and she felt alone because she recently lost someone very important to her heart, to her family.

I told her I would post this story, pray for her, and invite others to do the same, and if you can, around 10:30, sing in the off tune, out of tune or perfect pitch voice you have, the Gyspy Rover for my friend, so as she sleeps, she knows the Church Militant (here), and the Church Triumphant (The saints) and the Church Suffering (those who perhaps played the Wild Rover for many a year) are praying with her and are with her in this trial.

And my brother shared with me a video of Dad singing with him on Christmas, 2012. He died on Ash Wednesday of 2014. When I married, he sang the Notre Dame Fight song to me to help me calm down before walking down the aisle. (I was shaking). I suspect he's singing to each person as they enter for the same reason.

In Memory of a Cousin

The seeds of memory are planted in the next generation when we share our stories.  This past week, my cousin died.  Over an evening Zoom wake thirty-one cousins and many aunts and uncles plus fourty or so friends feasted on memories and the faces of cousins we’d not seen in years, and the years fell away.  I don't have a particular story, but I remember my cousin, and my wedding pictures include him and his sister dancing up a storm.

The numbers were indicative of our cousin’s love of faith, his family, chili, music, crabbing,* Texas, the marsh and the beach.  Too soon for them, too soon for us, too soon, too soon, too soon, but Ben Hall’s life revealed his cramming of everything into everything, except beans in the chili.  

We should laugh more, we should feast more, and we should share stories more often than we do, for reasons other than someone no longer can create stories for us to tell.  We should listen more, we should look more, we should seek each other’s faces more often than when convenient, more often than ordinary life encourages.  

It’s so rare, and yet we somehow forget, that each of us is singularly rare, singular to the universe, created by God for the universe, for all of us to love.   The testimony of a life is all the stories of love, all the friends, all the people who reveal how much of that rareness has been seen and discovered by the universe.What a treasure given by God to us, for us to meet, to know, to feast with, and to wait in joyful hope for seeing again one day.  One of the gifts even of this time, of a time of grief, is the coming together and remembering if only for that moment, while the world never stops, even though we don't understand why the world doesn't stop, when someone dies, we stop. Stopping is important. Stopping makes us remember, there are important stories we need to be telling, need to be hearing, need to be living, that will get lost if we don't stop and pay attention. Remember to keep making the stories because you want those for the long haul. They're like warm fires on a cold night when the world feels like one long winter. It warmed to see their faces, to hear their voices, and to hear their stories. Thank you for the stories Ben, we will miss you until everyone is telling stories about us. Every moment here is a gift, and a reminder of that what is to come, is even better. Here;s one of his songs.

*Thanks to Danny for the correction, Ben loved to crab and went to LaBelle armed with a camera, not a gun.

Here's what I Know

None of us know what the next day holds, a child in the hospital, a bad diagnosis, a job loss, a death, all of these were in the petitions of today.  My own sorrows too, I put at the foot of the cross because that's where all of them belong.  So Christ can bleed on them, weep on them, and make them something other than merely misery, He can make them sacred. 

My sister called and in her grief, we visited, and through all of that, we shared a few laughs and were reminded of how we need each other even far from each other, because each bolsters the faith of the other.  She reminded me of  Reepicheep in Prince Caspian.   We're all called to be intercessors for each other.  We need each other.  We're not meant to be alone in our walk to Christ, we're to come and bring others, we're to walk together, to accompany each other and to pray for each others' needs and even wants. 

I should admit here, that Reepicheep is my favorite character of Narnia.   I love everything about that mouse, and Dawn Treader is my favorite book from my childhood.   I love all the islands, I love all the imagination of it, I wanted to find a picture that moved inside the frame and brought me there.  

But the stories remind me, what I tell my children when they're stressed about something beyond their capacity -and that description right now to me, fits everyone.   All the storms are temporary...all storms...even the worst ones... and sometimes, the storms abate in our favor. After all, we should remember, we have a God who the winds and seas obey.  

Remember God loves you and that all success and glory, like all trials and tribulations, are fleeting, they're moments.  Your job in living, is to treasure all the moments, even these that throw into sharp relief why all the boring time, all the ordinary time is sacred.   

Ever Ongoing Conversion

 I read my friend Jen Fitz's story of being invited into deeper relationship with God, and it's perfect for today, when the Gospel is about Christ calling the apostles to something more than they are doing.  

Here's the rub for all of us, whether we have a story we can share on the spot or not, God is always calling us deeper in, that's what all of life is, an invitation to something bigger, something more, to love more, to serve more, to share the gifts we have more.   The problem with being fallen, is we put the emphasis on the having rather than the giving, on the knowing things rather than people, and on doing stuff --being productive, rather than engaging people where they are, as they are.   

I can write pretty words, but can I live a beautiful life.  Words are much easier.   They're like jokes.  It's easy to write humor.  Take life. Exaggerate it here, shrink it there, reverse it, twist it like taffy and add a touch of something unexpected and voila, joke.   Real life is like not knowing how to drive stick shift.  You may know the rules of the road. You may know how to drive automatic.  You may even be a good driver with acute spacial skills and fast reflexes.  However, if you don't know when to switch where your foot is, or what gear to shift, you will spend a lot of time fixing your mistakes.   

Failure at living the words is where most of us are.  We can fish all night and catch nothing.  What's more, we may have holes in our nets --which might be why we're not catching fish at all.  It might be, we aren't doing what we're supposed to, because we've always done what we've always done.   

Yesterday, I posted  a poster on Facebook about being more pro-life, not less.  A friend and she is a friend, tried to find common ground, to say that she is someone who cares for the dignity of the poor, for the immigrant, for people, but feels we ought to have this freedom because the child infringes on the freedom of the mother disproportiately and the laws allow it and each individual must decide what they can bear.  But for the unborn, she is pro-life. There, she wants to help the mother, but allows for if the mother does not want to be a mother.  She cares deeply about all of this humanity, probably more and better than most, probably better than me.  I believe that the dignity of a person is from conception to natural death.  The common ground is everywhere except with the unborn.  

I'd been helping with a conference we created over five months called a Good Discourse.  Here was my chance to put to work what I'd learned.  So I tried. Well, I didn't quite hit the mark. Her words, "Not even close."  

I sat frustrated with myself, but decided I would not respond, not because I feared response (not entirely anyway), but because I thought it important to sit with her words, "Not even close."  My brain woke up the next morning having crafted an argument to "win."  But I didn't want to win, I wanted something better, something more, something better than that.  Another friend in the meantime had attempted to continue the conversation, but again the point was raised, we've been at this for fifty years, and we're still here.   

No.  We've been at this a lot longer than that. We've been at this since the fall.  We will always have things about which we disagree, on a fundamental level until we are knit together in Christ. (Heaven). 

The problem for all of us the living is, we're called to start the life of Heaven --union with Christ, here, and if we know Christ, then the obligation is greater.   

The question raised in today's Gospel is, will we drop the nets we hold full of holes that don't catch any fish?  We've been at this all our lives and caught nothing (both ways). Are we more interested in a friendship with someone, with really loving that person, or with holding on to all that is familiar. 

Do I want the friend? Yes. I'd like the friend.  Do  I also want no one to ever want to do what is done to children in utero? Yes.  I can work towards the later, by words, by charity, by service, to make it possible to thrive, but there is only this one person who is this person and I'm reminded of Dorthy Day's hard true beautiful saying, "We only love God as much as we love someone else the least." and I recognized the sin of sloth, of not seeking the remedy spiritually, of not wanting to have to.

At that same moment, a text came through my phone.  My cousin died over night.  And I was reminded, no time is guaranteed.  The time to drop nets and follow is always now.  

Dropping the net means sacrifice, more than symbollic, more than just words.  The answer is, we can always do more, we can always love more, and we must trust and know God will make up what is lacking.  So I'm asking God to fill in the cracks, to bind us together like bricks, Christ is the mortar that makes us something other than mere shaped rocks, that makes us something stronger that can house and protect and keep the harm out and the warmth in. 

Today I give a talk, and I'm no longer ready, or I'm less ready than I was, because it's about humor and how hit helps heal even the hardest moments.   Marc's getting everyone ready for mass.  We're going.  We're stopping what we're doing and dropping the nets. 

Want to know what A Good Discourse is about?

The first rule of growing a Good Discourse, recognizing we're part of the problem.  

Here's the registration, and you can join even if it's already started.  I'll be there taking notes.   
Sign up and we'll see you there.

Sometimes, The Best Things in Life Cost Money

 So today, I took my son to Best Buy because his computer and his good tracking sports watch died.  Coupled with the new shoes he needed for track, I needed to check the calendar.  

The Bank of Mom is taking it on the chin these days, but I've also decided to take a page from the banks.  I'm now charging interest.   

"Hey Mom, can we go to Target?"  
"Well, we could, but I've got all this work to do. If only it didn't take so long. It's too bad it's just me..." 

The older kids recognize this is a blatant passive aggressive attempt to get them to clean, but they also are the ones who understand, cleaning works as a Mom bribe.   

The younger ones, having recently discovered that Mom can be bribed, have yet to comprehend that Mom is so pleased when she gets assistance, they don't have to try as hard as they do...not that I'm going to stop them.  

"Hey Mom, if we sweep the floor and mop and clean the bathrooms, can we get McDonalds?"  
"Yes.  Yes we can."   

The older kids howl, they don't want McDonald's, that's cheapy junk food.  I point out, those that clean get to call the shots.   Now the internal struggle is more fierce.  "What exactly is possible?  Five Guy's?  Noodles and Company?  Ledo's?"  However, I know better. I know the bird in hand is the willing worker, the negotiations with these folks often leads to better fare but a less fair arrangment for me, and the house looks less fair as well.  All's fair in love and war, and in parenting which is a mixture of the two.   Being an evil bank in this situation, I double down.   

Those who clean get exclusive rights to the dinner out.  No one not working will get the benefit of my generosity.  There's a panicked look on the teens faces as they scavange for opportunities that will yeild them the fries from the golden arches they just mocked.   "Hey Mom, I'll take down the Christmas tree ornaments."  "Hey Mom, I unloaded the dishwasher."  "Hey Mom, I cleared out the shoes from the front and hung up the coats."  I listen, nodding. It's good to be the queen. I'd planned to let them eat it regardless, but now the deal in everyone's mind is set, so all shirkers are ferreted out by their siblings who are working.  "If you don't work, you don't get..." or some version of Saint Paul's warning goes out, and tasks I never thought to propose get done.  My fridge gets cleaned and the closet organized, and the turtle tank.  

Bonus, no dishes after dinner.  I'm thinking, if cleaning the main floor gets the ordinary junk food, the higher end stuff ought to merit deeper cleaning.   I google local chefs that are celebrities for their cuisine and mention the price tag.   To a person, they state their preference for the red and gold.  

I'm no expert but I think I've been chopped.  

A Good Discourse

 This post requires homework.  First, watch this talk given by Fr. Steve Grunow of Word on Fire.  

Fr.'s words strike me as hitting at the core of what we're trying to do with this conference, trying to remember we need to be active rather than reactive in ministering to the world by our words.  

I've seen it in the demand that we condemn everyone who ever voted for the current President.  I have family and friends I love, who didn't want to vote for the President Elect and who felt strongly that there wasn't a good choice.

The rage at anyone who didn't feel happy voting against one or for the other (and in this respect, it doesn't matter who the other is), was a dupe, a useful idiot, or worse is systemic.  Everyone feels justified in their rage.  Everyone feels that it's time to rage.  It's necessary that the other, feel the rage we feel and know it is directed at them.  That's the problem.  When there is great wrongness, great evil, there is great temptation to feel justfied in rage.  We're not good at righteous anger, we don't stay there. It's too quick and too easy to fall into wrath.  It's why Christ tells Saint James and Saint John they should not reign down fire on the towns that rejected them.    

There's a great struggle in our lives, how do we love someone with whom we disagree, and not lose hold of our values in the process? 

The reality is that social media creates an untrue binaryness of conversation that precludes any both and, and demands instead a fealty to an either or, but declares itself as authoritatively correct.  Real relationships go beyond the binary. Real relationships are messy, hard, and yet forgiving even when we don't want to, not because we wish to be dormats but because we wish to extend the opportunity always for something better than what was.   

The demand that those who are in the wrong beg for forgiveness before offering mercy is itself rooted in the eye for an eye and not the turn the other cheek. People may want to point out, "They had it coming, they deserve it," but this likewise glories in the suffering of others not as merely deserved but richly so. We are spiritually always in danger when we proclaim it safe to enjoy someone suffering, especially if the consequences are really bad. Being on the side of angels means grieving that souls were this wrong, and praying for them with a whole heart that they somehow, through God's grace, heal.   

BUT THEY'RE WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG --They did bad things.  They're evil evil evil evil...we can name their sins.  We know they sinned. We can prove they sinned.   

Yes...but they are also as hard as it is to remember, both and.  They are humans we must encounter. They are enemies we must love. 

If we cannot out mercy God, then we cannot be too merciful to others.   It's a reality we were supposed to really wrap our hearts around in the year of mercy. We still haven't, not by a long shot.  Those who stormed the capital and smeared it and swore to hurt people and did these wrong illegal immoral things, they will face consequences, both in this world and the next.  But we don't get to hate them.  They are the most pitiable of people, showing they lack pity themselves.  

I go back to the reality of how Mary responded to Christ's crucifixion.  If anyone only human could justly rage at the crowd for their wrong thinking, for their group thinking, for their stupidity, it would be her.  She who had not sinned, did not rage at them for crucifying her Son.  If anyone could justly condemning all of the crowd for refusing God's friendship, it would be Christ, and yet even here he offers.   It's beyond us absent grace, great grace.  Yet here, we aspire. 

I'm reading a fantasy novel series to my youngest daughter, and in the denouement, the main protagonist, Taran, Assistant Pig Keeper is shocked that the king, Lord Gwydion declares he will raise a barrow to King Morgant who had betrayed them all in a quest for power. 

"...Gwydion replies, "It is easy to judge evil unmixed," but alas, in most of us, good and bad are closely woven as athe threads on a loom; greater wisdom than mine is needed for the judging.  King Morgant served the Sons of Don long and well," he went on.  "Until the thirst for power parched his throat, he was a fearless adn noble lord. In battle, he saved my life more than once. These things are part of him and cannot be put aside or forgotten. And so shall I honor Morgant," Gwydion said, "For what he hused to be, and Ellidyr Prince of Pen-Llarcau for what he became." (The later had sacrificed himself to rid their world of an evil despite a lifetime of selfishness). --The Book of Three by Lloyd Alexander.   

Or, to use a more current favorite fantasy fiction, "The world is not divided between good and death eaters."   

Loving your enemies mean not wishing them anything other than reformation, than restoration, than finding themselves surprised by joy, not abandoned.   If we can see no good in the people around us then we will find ourselves surrounded by monsters, and we will meet the enemy and it will be us. 

Want to be part of the work for a better dialogue, for a stronger sense of how to infuse social media with charity in truth and truth with charity?  Come to "A Good Discourse," and be a part of the dialogue.

A Good Discourse...Register today!                                                      

A Good Discourse in the Nation, How we Begin Again

 The first requirement in healing our nation, is to stop labeling ourselves as us and them, because we are one people, even if divided by politics, by religion, by income, by education, by race, by values, by experience and by background.  We are still, a people, and the first thing we must see, is that what we want from this country, is for everyone to hear and for everyone to feel they've been heard.  When people don't feel like they matter, or like their lives matter, they stop listening.  When people don't feel important, they stop caring.  When they don't think anyone will hear them, they get angry.  

Dismissal of anyone, is just that, a dismissal, and it's something that builds walls, something we don't want, that makes more discontent more likely.  It makes reactionary policy also more likely, which is the least likely to satisfy for anyone.  We need to find a way to reconnect across the digital, intellectual, political, economic and personal divide that's been expanding as a result of the nationalizing of every race, the politicizing of every issue, that precludes ever granting the presumption of good faith to anyone who doesn't already agree with whatever outcome we desire.   

A house divided does not stand, and I would say, as a country, at this point, we're on our knees.   

It will take statesmanship, it will take courage, and it will take humility and it will take work, to begin the process of restoration in our national dialogue.  Rather than having individual channels that cater to what we prefer, we need to find the people who are working on the problem, and willing to discuss what they hope, what they know, and where they agree, and be committed to working to find as much as possible that can be done.  There is a lot of work to be done, and less of it completed when everyone is competing to show how whoever isn't doing what we're doing, is failing at humanity.  Whenever we see someone else as less than, we are failing at humanity.  We need to be aspiring to something better, and somehow putting love where little or none is.   

A good discourse allows for listening as much as talking, for giving and forgiving, as much as asking and receiving.  We need to pray for all of us, to have receptive hearts for each other, even those with whom we disagree...and whoever we can think of that we would ask the question, "Even them?" "Even these?" the answer is...and it's hard to recognize, because it would be oh  so much easier if it weren't, "Yes, even these."  

"But they are lepers.  They are sinners.  They are tax collectors."  my brain says in some format, and I'm sure everyone's does..."They did X" and "X" is horrible, and was horrible, and will always be horrible.  However Christ forgave the most horrible of acts from the most horrible of places, and we cannot be more merciful than Christ.  

So if we want a better discourse, a better reality than the one we can all point to, from the beginning of fallen and ordinary time, then we must ask for the peace the world cannot give, and give it to the world.  It will fall on those who hear it, it will return to us on those who do not.   Be the words "Peace be with you," and peace will be with your spirit, even in the hardest of times and you will have "a good discourse," if not with those around you, always with God and that will be sufficient.  

Let us go and make our visit.  

A Tale of Two Americas

Today, I attended a funeral for a family member who served three presidents during his life as a physician. It's hard not to get a lump in the throat looking at the rows after rows after rows of tombstones honoring those who gave the fullest member of devotion.  It's hard not to feel a surge of gratittude to the selected servants who marched silently in unison to hoist the coffin from the hearse to the caisson.  The whole cememony draws one to silence, they walk in unison and in silence.  Even the horse drawn carriage is driven at such a speed to heighten the silence.  

It doesn't matter the weather, the rows speak to the heavens of their sacrifice and service.  The men shooting a 21 gun salute reveal a somber understanding that what we value, we must defend.   

A few miles away, people stormed the capital and they remain as of now, contesting the election of President Elect Biden.  People broke windows and left messages for congressmen for doing what they're elected to do, to represent the states and give a roll call of the electoral college votes cast.   

The President and the President Elect went on the news, I listened to both. President elect called for people to stand down, to calm down. He opted to not take questions and I thought that wise.  He did call on the President to also ask people to leave and calm down.  Minutes later, the President reechoed his claim that the election was stolen, though he ultimately asked people to leave.  

It wasn't pretty, it wasn't noble. It wasn't Presidential, but it was what was. 

Mercifully, people did begin dispersing. We must hope for something better than what we've seen up to now.   

Praying for peace is the first step, working for it is the second.   

The reality is, we need to be a country that can abide, and the behavior of those outside and inside occupying the captial does not indicate this reality. People who abide do not break windows of the government buildings, or threaten elected officials if the election does not go their way.   

I thought of the marching military honoring the dead.  I thought of the dead who thought this country was worth living and dying for...we need to somehow find a way to make our country closer to something worthy of such sacrifice for everyone from this day forward.    

Roll of Not Fitting

Being Catholic means we are to side with the downfallen, the ostrasized, the minimized, the marginizalized, the poor, the weak, any and all of those who cannot speak for themselves.  It also means, we should expect a cost.   

The cost has been coming.  

From the youngest of ages, I've always wanted to "fit in." and honestly, never felt I did.   

As an adult for a time, I "fit in" with the Catholic media to which I aspired, I wrote for places I wanted to be part of, and felt like one of the cool kids.   However, recent decisions have indicated, I need to be okay with being not even part of the B-team.   These past sixteen years, I've written for multiple Catholic pubications, even spoken on many.  I've been a big fan of Catholic media, supporting it with my time, my talent, my treasure, and many of the names became surrogate friends, affirming for me values I held dear.  

However, the media keeps warping, and to my heart, no longer speaks with a humble heart, but with an authoritative insistence, about what should be one's priority, and what is permissible to be ignored.  Tribalism has crept into the land of the Catholic media. I feel it in the earth, I smell it in the air, and there is a darkness when it comes to how we treat each other, when we disagree, and a dark joy people have when they can tear down another.   It's part of what prompted planning a conference to help form a Catholic media community.  

No amount of telling myself, "I'm a small fry" and pushing it away won't make a difference lets me ignore the reality, the media Mother Angelica made, isn't what it was, or at the moment, what she hoped.  It's become something less than Catholic, because it isn't universal anymore, it's exclusive.  It ignores what it does not like, silences those who try to break it open, and champions people and positions that are not in keeping with the teachings of the Church in favor of what is in keeping with holding onto power.   It dismisses the Pope and idolizes the president.

Last time I checked, disagreeing with the teaching of the Church, and taking on and/or dismissing the pope made one something other than Catholic.  It hurts to let go because I wanted to belong, but more than that, I want the network to be what it says it aspires to be.  It still has hints and reminders and moments, but it, like all of us is fallen.  It's just that, it seems to not know that anymore. 

I heard my brain saying, "Sherry, what are you doing?" "Sherry, don't be stupid." and "Sherry, you have a conference and a book coming out and...and, and..."  and "Why not wait?" 

However, GK Chesterton talked about being a person of faith being like a fish that must swim upstream...which would mean, always fighting the current, being pulled against what is easy, and what is faster.  

This year, a friend of mine and her colleagues were let go from their radio program, "Morning Glory," because she spoke up against the evils of racism when the world was willing to listen. She spoke from the heart because the nation had seen with their own eyes, the rotten fruit of silence --Abery's death, George Floyd's death, Breonna Taylor... the list unfortunately goes on.   

There are lots of voices that argued, the discontent at these people's death was funded by George Soros and Anitifta, but Gloria they couldn't silence with such a claim. She wasn't left of center, she was and is Catholic.  She wasn't willing to refuse to speak against an evil.  She wasn't willing to be safe by being silent.  She suffered for the Gospel by losing affiliates and eventually lost her job because she swam upstream against the current, against the whispers of what was prudent and safe and protected.   She didn't stand by the charcoal fire and warm herself and seek not to be noticed.  She let herself be used by God as a voice, which doesn't mean success in the eyes of the world as much as we might wish it did.  

When you are willing to lose for love, you're willing to love.  She did.   

Back to now...some people who are Catholic were dismissive of her dismissal, saying she shouldn't have spoken about such things and all I could think is, "Catholicism is supposed to be a happy religion. Let's not bicker and argue over who killed who."  and "but for Wales?" Safety was Wales and silence, security with the promise of accolades and appearances and approval.  Sanctity meant risk, disapproval, and being shouted down by those who didn't like hearing anything unpleasant or unsettling.  

The Gospel of Tranquility where we are all just one big happy fleet, vs. the actual Gospel, where we embrace the cross and know, we will get more than splinters.  

I am working on a book of mediations on the words of the Doctors of the Church, and over and over again, they emphasize, we only love God as much as we love our neighbors. Saint Teresa of Avila said, "We cannot know whether we love God, although there may be strong reason for thinking so; but there can be no doubt about whether we love our neighbor or not. Be sure that, in proportion as you advance in fraternal charity, you are increasing your love of God…” (St. Teresa of Avila, Doctor of the Church, Interior Castle, Fifth Mansion, Chapter 3).    When I quoted her to someone who felt my friend shouldn't have been bringing up racism, here is what he said:

The great Doctor doesn't say that advance in love of neighbor causes increase in love of God. And you are talking about Moral Certitude vs. Absolute Certitude which is a Theological distinction which applies to levels of Knowledge that a soul can have with respect to their relationship with God. This has no bearing on the reality that Love of God precedes and enables Love of Neighbor. There is a reason why Love of God is the First Great Commandment, and love of Neighbor the 2nd. God alone is Infinite Love, not human beings. Ergo, only to the extent that one has God, is united to God, particiaptes in His Divine Nature, is a soul capable of authentically love his/her neighbor. Man on his own can't advance in Love or love neighbor more. He must 1st possess the increase in Divine Love and Then, be capable of Loving others more with this acquired growth in Charity.

And: 

 "God did the dividing for us when He made 2 Distinct Commandments. You can't give what you don't have, and you can only give as much as you have. Only to the extent that one participates in the Divine Nature - do they possess Divine Love. And, you can only give Divine Love if you have it, and as much of it as you have. If you are St. Mother Teresa, you can love neighbors very much, BEACUSE you have LOTS of God. Love of God comes 1st - then Love of Neighbor. God ordained it this way quite explicitly in Scripture."

To me, that treats the gift, the grace of love like a finite source when we know love is infinite.  It presumes that we cannot somehow all love our neighbors, because some of us do not have enough ourselves to give out. 

I am not sure how I am not loving God if I love my neighbor. I am certain I'm not loving God if I don't love my neighbor.  I know we do not love God if we cannot see Him in the suffering face of our neighbor, in the suffering face of our enemies, in the suffering faces of strangers, in the suffering faces of suffering.  Further, we do not love God if we think we do not owe Lazarus at the gate, our gifts, our time, our talents, our treasure, our friendship.  We do not love God if we think we must somehow splice or divide our love of God from our love of neighbor, or that in loving one, we fail to love the other.  I do not cease to love my husband to the extent I love my children. I do not cease to love God to the extent I love those He made for love, and commanded me as part of my vocation to serve.  I love God only to the extent I love those He made for love and commanded me as part of my vocation to serve.  God is love, ergo whenever I show love, I am revealing the God who is love to others.  That is the mission of every soul.   The more we seek to reveal God, the more God will through us, reveal Himself.  

I also know, whatsoever I do to any of my brothers, I do unto God. 

This year, I prayed for friends, so God spent the year illustrating to me how to be a better one.  Being a better one means not staying silent, not being safe.  So, I am giving up that spot on the B-team.  Catholicism has to grate to make us grateful for our Savior. Catholicism must demand something of our spirit, of who we are, because love is always based on sacrifice.   

Goodbye EWTN.  I will miss what you were and wait in joyful hope that you may one day become again so I can return.