Hey, I'm here...at the Register again..

Yes, I'm linking to another piece over at the Register...and this one is for all those who haven't figured out what to do for Lent.  It's an oldie but a goodie from my days at Catholicmom.com, but sometimes, what you write stands the test of time.  So here are 40 Lenten Resolutions.  I'll be over here, not going on Facebook for from now until Easter except to the extent my blog links up to Facebook and I share pieces that get published. 

Sunday Musings...Getting Ready for Ash Wednesday

Yesterday, I read an article which irked me, because it took to task people who offer Spiritual advice from a Catholic perspective without having degrees or jobs which back up their offered counsel. I'm not linking to it because I'm only citing my response to the accusation, not to the article's main points itself. I chaffed because professionalism of the faith feels anti-Catholic to me. We specialize in people who aren't experts. Saint Peter was a fisherman. Saint Matthew collected taxes. Mary, the Blessed Mother, was a young unmarried girl. The Catholic Church loves and celebrates rookies with abandon. However, the article struck a nerve because I'd also recently read comments on my own work which called one of my pieces a waste of space. The comment got likes too.

(I know, first rule of the Internet). So I sat there worrying, am I wasting other people's and my own time? I don't have a degree in anything theological. Even worse, I knew I was experiencing false humility. I wanted to justify myself and wanted the credentials at the same time. I wanted to be...but I ain't bonafied.

With all of that kicking in my head, today, I read the news of a friend of mine, (online), who is experiencing great success and joy, an acquaintance of mine, (who I would like to call friend), who likewise participated in a women of faith conference and I felt both happy for them both and after a while, envy. I didn't like that about myself. I should be happy for both. Instead, I felt jealous, like why aren't I in that circle too? Why haven't I arrived as it were...and all the demons were present at once in that moment. I wanted the attention, I wanted the company, I wanted to be recognized....and envied those who have it...who earned it...who deserved it...and who probably, didn't envy anyone else their success. The earlier article resurfaced in my head. I am no expert on God, the Gospel, the Church or life, no more than anyone else. I have no credentials save experience and whatever I've absorbed from reading books and articles and listening to wiser more studied heads than mine over the years, So what business did I have feeling envious? These women did the work, I didn't.

Yuck. That's what I thought of my soul in that moment, laid bare with all its meaner, weaker, crueler, stupider desires. Except I knew one other thing. Spiritual battles will use truth without charity to get us to sin, or charity without truth (Whichever works), just as long as the attacks get us to focus on us and what we want, rather than on the blessings of our lives, the endless gifts, the joys and treasures, pleasures and bounty of our own lives. Sin and love cannot exist in the same space, one or the other will be deprived of the oxygen it needs to survive. How one fights off the erosion of soul the Devil uses to dishearten, and thus destroy us is an act of the will, and a combination of fasting, prayer, alms giving and the sacraments.

So I was reminded in mass, if I wish to grow in gratitude, to grow in joy, to grow in being a woman of faith for the right reasons (out of love of God and not my own glory), I must pray for others. If I want to be a woman of faith, I have to start working on this plank in my eyes, which prevents God from being seen through mine. I know, we're never finished. We've never arrived as long as we're here, on pilgrimage in this wasteland, seeking a home we've always known, but haven't yet reached. However, it would help if I saw better, if I weren't kept from fuller joy by wanting to somehow make the "A team," if I didn't care what team I played on, or whether I got to play at all, if all that mattered was cheering on the whole Church to victory.

Lent beings this Wednesday, and when I thought, what must I give up for not merely the next 40 days, but forever, it's allowing the need to be affirmed, approved, accepted and honored for showing up or doing the work which is required. To be able to recognize always and everywhere, I'm merely a servant, and an ungrateful one at that, doing only what is required. I need to go to Our Lord to listen at His feet, rather than to read off to him my rosary and list of needs. I need to need less to be in front, I need to practice more listening, more silence. I need to go deeper into the desert.

Honestly, I think giving up diet coke and chocolate would be easier for me. When I write these things, they're my attempt to pull out of my own heart, what it is I believe and why. The words are an offering. So I'm not an expert nor am I acquiring said degree credentials. Like everyone else in this life, I'm trying desperately to not be distracted, discouraged or dulled by my own desires to be something less than God aspires.

That's the real rub of it. God's plans are bigger than mine, better than mine, more luminous, happy, joyful, beautiful and glorious than any I can dream. Why wouldn't I want that? Happy Ash Wednesday March 6, 2019.

God Just Called to Say He Loves Me

As a kid, I remember reading "Murphy's Law" and thinking it hilarious.  Now, I realize, it was a warning.   For the uninitiated, Murphy's Law states. "Anything that can go wrong, will." 

I'll wait while all who read that scroll through their memories for perfect examples of this reality. 

Like when...

You're filling out the tax forms and under stress and seven phone calls hitting both the land line and the cell interrupt the process, with the final perfect joy moment coming when the fourteen year old cooking hamburgers sets off the smoke detector. 

Or

You're getting dressed for work and in a hurry and decide to wear the gold earrings.  One hoop falls from your fingers and drops beneath the dresser, rolling back to the far back such that you have to lie down on the ground to reach. When you arise, earring in hand, you note, it's covered in fuzz.  You look down at your outfit.  It matches your earring. 

Both of these events happened today. 

However certain dust bunnies and taxes may be, I know one thing more certain, the needs of adolescents for things out in the world, when Mom is stressed.   Tomorrow is Dr. Seus day at school, and she needed a shirt that said Thing 2.   I had one or two thoughts about things but thought better of voicing them. 

Driving over, I found myself in a hard mood.  I didn't want to hear talking, or to listen. I found everything tiresome.  I knew it wasn't good, and clamped down on myself, hoping simply allowing her to talk would satisfy.  She asked me if she could turn on the radio, and happily sang along with the tunes. 

Even parking proved difficult, and I still found myself struggling in the store.  It all felt just like extra and it was, but it should have been joyful extra and I knew it.  We got the necessary costume accessories, both for her and her two younger sisters and I stopped at the grocery store for some milk and other stuff.  She talked about singing and recalled the Black History Museum her class staged in the gym that morning, asking me what I knew about various figures and who we'd gone to see.  She asked if I'd seen her friend giving a report on Stevie Wonder.  I hadn't. 

She'd fallen in love with his music at a choir concert earlier in the year and began trying for the words.  Checking out of the store, and half listening, the part of me that's a good parent told the rest of myself, "You're missing this."  She sensed my frustration and thought it was her.  I apologized, explaining, I wasn't myself, or rather, I was too preoccupied to be good company.  She patted me on the shoulder as we loaded the groceries.  "That's okay." and asked me, "Why don't they play more of Stevie Wonder's music?" I admitted, I didn't know, other than it wasn't recent.  Perhaps just admitting my frustration proved sufficient humility, because up until then, I'd fought even discussing my own predisposition. She asked me for my favorite Stevie Wonder song, and I told her it was the first I owned, Sir Duke.  She said, "They should play more. I wish they would."

We got in the car and "Isn't She Lovely," immediately came on the radio.  "It's like God heard me saying I wanted that song."  and we sang along the lyrics we could remember.   The mood lifted, though I thought God was more telling me to look at my daughter, and see her.  "Isn't she Special.  Isn't she wonderful?"  and I thought, "Thanks God," for stupid things like songs on the radio, they make up for lint covered earrings and smoke alarms. 

And yes, I never thought through love we'd be 
Making one as lovely as she 
But isn't she lovely made from love,

Thanks Rita!   P.S. This is the piece from the concert she loved. 

Over at the Register

Discussing how it's a long Lent for all of us, undergoing this trial of the Church by the sins of those who ignored sin, and those who committed them.

More thoughts

In delving into literature, the arts, any field of study, we can always find a way to focus on that which brings us closer to God, or that which reveals how far afield we can fall.  In scholarship and study, it is a tricky dance, to introduce materials which have edges and wounds and propose ideas which might shock or disturb.  The teacher must offer the student the opportunity to explore the world a thought they might not otherwise have entertained, with all the freewill that engages. 

Ergo, for some, comics and manga might be a gateway to more graphic depictions of violence and sex, and for others, they're just a fun way to read stories about super-heroes and villains, about adolescence, adulthood, and all the trials that come with the mere process of growing up. 

It can be Harry Potter, it can be Percy Jackson, it can be the Kingdom, Plato, O'Connor, Balzac or Rabalais.  It can be the Alchemist, Lolita, Madame Bovary, The Adventures of Hucklebury Finn, 1984, anything.  Some see the beauty that can be mined, another sees evil being condoned, sin being celebrated.  The question is, as with most things, how are these tools being used, not the tools themselves.   What one teaches is a component, how and why are more critical. 

I've been thinking about what's been written, and I think the grave error that many who embrace CM's thinking have about schools, is the desire to somehow have a safe place. It's a bit like the overreach my own county has done at times in the name of safety.   At one point at a local recreational spot, they removed all the swings from the park. The result? Almost no one went to the parks. The concern of safety had removed most of the fun. 

People protested, common sense prevailed and the returned swings felt like a momentary triumph over the gathering gloom.   Guess what?  Skinned knees returned to the park too.  The reality is some in this world try to eliminate the possibility of skinned knees (whether physical or mental) without recognizing such a move also eliminates the discovery of flying through the air, of touching the sky, of racing your brother and fantasizing about going all the way around.

Things can be fantastical and not within the confines of the teaching of the Church and yet reveal Truth.  All of Creation sings of the Glory of God, and Saint Paul could see the longing of those who did not know Christ, for a relationship with the Divine. 

Imagination is one of God's cleverer ways of evangelizing His people, because the acts of creating in the mind is an imitation of the Creator.  What we will into being by our efforts as art, is static, in that it will only be what we will it to be, in terms of its nuts and bolts and physical reality.  It didn't exist for the world before we rendered it, but it reveals something of how our minds are like that of the mind that imagined us into being. 

There is not pure wheat in art or literature, the wheat and chaff grow up together.  Sacred art of the Vatican exists because those who created it studied the sacred and secular art that came before them. If we can only examine that which echoes our sensibilities, we will eventually learn nothing for fear of having our own spiritual bubble pierced. 

Looking at the Saints' sensibilities, we ought not feel afraid.  The Catholic imagination and mind understands beauty, truth, kindness and love, service and humility, these are universal calls of the heart.  As such, the saints who are known both as scholars and artists would tend to indicate, when we enter into the world of arts and letters, our understanding of what is good, true and beautiful, is expanded, not contracted, whether by contrast, or by discovery.   There are parts of the Canterbury tales I don't love, and Shakespeare plays I don't enjoy, yet I can see the good of knowing both.   I don't need blinders placed on my mind to understand some of it is great, and some of it, less so, nor is my soul threatened by the reality of imperfect or non Sacred art. 

To those who wring their hands at the choices of books, who think somehow, if we pull at this and tweak at that and cut this out, we'll create a safe spot, where no one will be injured, this is a lie. I suspect many who get snared, are trying (albeit in a blind manner) to bind the world so that nothing will ever happen. They're like Marlin at the beginning of the movie, not letting Nemo experience life for fear life will hurt. The tragedy for each of them, for all of them will be 1) if they succeed, and 2) if they don't but spend their lives trying to.

Prayers and reparations for their and our foolishness, for injuries to the Church done in her defense, and those done in response to her failures to lead, educate, catechize and evangelize, and for those seduced by the psuedo strength of a life lived without skinned knees and strengthened souls.  We cannot become gold tested in fire without being pounded, heated and shaped, without being forced to grow beyond what we think is needed.   

   

Overstuffed...

Today, there are three boxes of ornaments on the couch, the game is on, five kids played cards while two are on the computer, one went to the movies with friends and two are napping.  Everyone rotates through the kitchen scrounging for a steady stream of turkey sandwiches, stuffing, apple date cake and blueberry pie.   There is a stack of recycling, three milk cartons, two OJ, three diet cokes, two root beers, five waters and a sprite, not to mention Saturday's paper, five cardboard boxes from packages and a three inch thick stack of Christmas catalogs from Friday which needs to be taken out.  A barbie and fifteen teddy bears grace the couch and giant Jenga blocks in a Stonehenge formation adorned with dinosaurs create a walking hazard in the dining room. 

I've not ventured up or downstairs, for fear of finding out more.   I have two loads of laundry to fold and sixteen shoes I see which need to be put away so I retreat to my bedroom to the computer. No one is seeing anything.  Everyone is content and full.  Real life will start up again soon, but for now,  the Christmas carol station competes with Spotify disco, and books, games, movies and balloon dances trump homework, housework and schedules.   

I am overstuffed with joy, all of them are home.  There have been dances and paper books created, jokes and pranks, impromptu song fests and dancing, balloon cheerleaders and emergency runs for milk, bread, pie crusts and apples. Someone is making homemade mac and cheese. Another kid is experimenting with hot chocolate. They're also going for track practice runs, signing cards and decorating for Christmas.

It is a necessary rest in between the ordinary and the more that is to come, what with Christmas, exams and other things.   Every minute feels both wonderfully endless and fragile.   I polled the kids about going to evening mass and they opted for Sunday at nine, to let today continue to spool out uninterrupted by going out.  The weather echoed the idea, with huge soaking cold rain from four o'clock on.   So we played more cards, moved along a wash and emptied a laundry basket, looked for dresses online and started new games. My daughter set up the Nativity set for Christmas, and we watched the football and quizzed me on baby animal names.  I learned a baby oyster is called a spat, and a baby platypus is called a puggle. I read a book. 

Such a day...overstuffed with peace.  It's a great day to be here, to enjoy all of it, to be present, and to allow time to spill out like water.  It is a grace and a gift. 

Over at the Register Again Today

I know, it's been a while.  Here's today's piece over at the Register:

Joy and Grace Go Together.

I'll try to get better at posting. 

Surprise...at the Register Again

I submitted this piece a while ago, but tinkered with it after the fact which frustrates me from a writing stand point.  That being said, you can see the original over at the National Catholic Register...and please share if you liked it. 

Pray Thy Will Be Done and Mean it.

1,300 Embraced Splinters

Over and over again, in everyday stuff and online, I find faces of despair.  People have much to be angry over, and they're hurt they have to wrestle with this pain when there's so much that needs tending too.  This great mess called life keeps getting somehow messier, and it's frustrating to people of good conscience, of good will, of good faith, to find themselves overwhelmed with the levels of stupidity, cruelty, indifference, clericalism, protectionism and self-indulgence and self delusion we're bombarded with on a daily basis. 

In the Church, people are taking their children from schools, and themselves from the pews, because the leaders/princes of the Church have shown themselves to be poor shepherds in one of the most primary of roles, and as such, it is legitimate to question, how good they are at shepherding in any of their other functions.  It seems, to the laity, the leadership of the Catholic Church does not yet grasp in its totality, how much damage they've created by their slow plodding approach to things in this situation. 

I'm reminded of this scene.

The faithful are the hasty hobbits.  They've said they'll address this in November.  It' rather like Treebeard's telling Merry, "We've just finished saying Good Morning." and Merry's terse response, "But it's nighttime already! You can't take forever." 

Elizabeth Scalia says as much in her very fine article here.  I second all she recommends.

People do feel put upon by the public calls for prayers and fasting when it does not seem those who perpetuated or aided and abetted or ignored these crimes/sins are doing much at all other than publicly wringing their hands.  However, what we are asked to do is still of great merit, not merely for their souls, but for our own. 

I would love for Bishop after Bishop, even those who are good ones, to say, I renounce, I resign, I will serve at the lowest position, and for them to do it.  We need to see something from the Bishops akin to this: 

Even if they've earned a spot on the team by their efforts, talents and service.   

They know the ways of the saints.  Saint Maximilian Kolbe said "Take me instead."  in the concentration camps.  If he could surrender a place of no comfort for a place of certain death for love of Christ, for love of the other, a father who cried out, how is it no bishops, no cardinals feel this same push of the Holy Spirit?  If they cannot see it, then what about us who can?

Well, if they don't, then, we who feel the pain of the fathers and mothers over their crushed children, and of the children who were so violated, we must say, "Take me instead." and that's why it's not wrong for the laity to pray and fast and offer penance.   We need to take on something, something which will cost us, something public and I do not know what it is, but since we see the pain, and we know the depth of it, it's not enough to howl "Do something."  If they don't get it, then it must be us who act. 

I go back to the report, there are over 1,000 victims.  There are over 300 priests.  So there should be a 1,300 day penance, if only to give some hint of action on the part of the laity and yes, we will do penance for the guilty, and penance in reparation for the damage done to the innocent. 

Yes.  But what do we do?   

1) Begin.  Write on your calendar today, Victim 1.  Writing it down, since we don't have the names, is a way of beginning.  

2) Offer a sacrifice of today, of something today for victim 1.   

3) Tomorrow, begin again, for victim 2. 

4) If you forget, begin again anyway. 

5) If you mess up, offer your foolish forgetfulness. 

6) Keep at it.  

For those who question, what good does sacrificial offerings do to the sufferings of the past, or of today, for the victims of the sufferings? 

Answer, more than we can understand. 

1) It acknowledges the reality of the injury done (something kept hidden for far too long).  

2) Spiritually, you become united with Christ by your sacrifice/atonement.  Christ suffered and died for each of us, we're not even doing much more than offering a splinter, but we can unite with Christ with that splinter.   

3) It might prompt you individually to more, because the Holy Spirit always starts with mustard seeds. 

The number of victims posted would take from today to Friday, May 21, 2021.  May 21st is a feast day in the Catholic Church, the Feast of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of the Church, instituted this year by Pope Francis. I didn't know that until I googled it, it seems providential, to pray for each of these little ones harmed by the church, to the Mother who birthed Christ, who loves the Church as none of us do, and who wants all of us home at the altar.   

7) When you get to day 1000, begin work on the alms giving and prayers for those who did or hid these acts.   Here, 

8) Give something away each day for 300 days. It can be time, it can be things, it can be money, but surrender something.   

9) Why?  

          a) Because these acts occurred over time, and so time is something that must be given in response. 

          b) Because the only way we won't be driven from the life of the Church even as we cling to the faith of it, is by willful obedience, and this is a discipline which will allow us to lead by example. 

          c) Because these priests, who did these things, they also held the Eucharist, they were consecrated to Our Lord, and God does not want any of his sheep lost, and they were/are lost.  We must be like the good shepherds to these lost shepherds with our prayers.  The prayers will not be wasted, (but I did put them after the victims because yes, I'm still annoyed and flawed and know we all need time to beat that down. Our prayers will be like the Lord's invitation to their souls, to respond to the feast.  We cannot save them, but we can participate in their salvation by our prayers.   We can imitate Christ's mercy on the cross which came before anyone asked or acknowledged what they'd done.   

It won't be a Year of Mercy or a Year of Humility, because it will take three years, six months and three weeks plus a day to embrace the  1,300 splinters, by the people of the Church for the Church, out of love of Christ, and all those injured by this grievous wound, this great thorn.. 

That day will be March 17, 2022, the feast of Saint Patrick's, and a feast day marking the chasing out of the snakes from Ireland. I didn't know that either when I googled it.  So to me, feasting for the victims with the promise of Mary whose foot crushes the serpent, and with Saint Patrick, who chases the snakes away, is the proper response.  For me, it is too wonderful and too perfect a timing not to begin.

So let us begin.  

We're Going to Have to Wrestle With This...

Lots of people say, "I'm spiritual, not religious." and it is because they fail to see the connection between the physical actions (in the sacraments and ceremony) and the deeper reality these physical signs, symbols, gestures and prayers, reveal.  Faith without works is dead, as Saint James said. In the case of the Pennsylvania report detailing accusations, assaults, actual documentations and testimony covering several decades, involving 300 priests and over 1,000 children, we have case after case after case, of works without faith. 

That seems like it might be an overstatement, but the business of the Church seemed to triumph over the spiritual reality of the Church. There will be some who read the report, and because many of these documented abuses took place decades ago, clamor for everyone to move on.   However, these sins, and they were sins, and these crimes, and they were crimes, demand we wrestle with the reality, we are never free from the temptation to cut ourselves off from God, even when where we work, what we do, and all that surrounds us, even the words we must say, call out to God.   We can have everything and forfeit it for a want we can't have.  We can be living out our vocation, and fail the moment things become difficult.  We can fail by looking away, by pretending whatever we see, isn't that bad, or by pretending what we do in this circumstance, doesn't matter. 

We're part of the defense against the Gates of Hell because we are the Church.  Ergo, we must not be asleep in our spiritual lives.  To have acted and preyed upon so many, (1000 known), spiritual deadness must have abounded.   By what we do and what we fail to do, we will find ourselves saying, "Lord, Lord! When did we see you suffering?" and find ourselves spit out for our lukewarmness.   There's a lot of millstones to go around, for neglect, for institutional protectionism, and for actual assaults and failure to report, and profound indifference to the subsequent suffering. 

The error for each of us, is to will only to move forward, as if we can somehow discard sin like a skin.  It's an error of worldly thinking to think we could ever purge sin from our hearts.  Only God's grace can burn away our hardness of hearts, and forge the soft points that should be steel.   We cannot ever taste even a little of sin, for it's like we're all alcoholics, it's just the flavor of the liquor we're debating.    

The whole of the Church will have to perform a penance.  I propose a Year of Humility, both public and private, where we pray, fast and do reparations and alms giving.  We offer masses and shun feasts other than the Eucharist. We hold confessions every Friday from sun-up to sun-down and try to have 24-7 adoration staffed so every parishioner, every family performs a holy hour during the year, as part of the whole Church response to storm Heaven begging for grace, for healing for the victims, and yes, even for the perpetrators.   


As an institution and organization, there's a desire to move on, but we need to wrestle with this pain and it's going to be messy. It's going to hurt.   To begin to heal, we must first allow ourselves to examine this wound and be willing to enter into it.   

The one comfort I can give, is our faith is not based on the faith lives of men but from Christ.  He's with us, he's on the cross for us.  He invites us to enter into his suffering for the Church and we should.  If you want to read what else I've written about this subject, it's over at the National Catholic Register: The Wake Up Call We Need, and if you have a suggestion for further discussion on this matter, leave it in the com box.  

The Grand Jury's report is here. Read it. Weep. Pray. Fast, and weep again.

Small Success Thursday on Thursday!

It happens sometimes.    Here's the link to my weekly piece over at Catholicmom.com.   Hope your week was full of Small Successes.

Over at the Catholic Exchange today...

Something new for you.  I've been published for the first time over at the Catholic Exchange.  Here's my first piece, The Unexpected Graces of Offering Dailly Prayers for Others.  Please go take a look, and share if you like it.  Thank you!

It is All Grace, Whether I Know it or Not

We all have prayers we pray, for good things, things we think we want, even know we want, which we don't receive. The job I'd hoped for but didn't get, was going to sting longer than I wanted. My brain worked through the problem. "Maybe it's better." My heart pouted, "At 51, I'm still in a high school and still, despite my best efforts, despite doing everything asked of me, I can't get off the bench of the frigging b-team." Dwelling on it for too long brought tears, so I steeled myself to safely transverse the distance to my car without making a scene. The whole time, my inside screamed. Explaining away my feelings, I told myself and told myself and told myself it's no big deal.

I suppose it's good to know, I'm not as good at lying to myself as I thought. "I wanted that job." I admit. Yes. The reality of the "No," even though I said all the reasonable important correct polite gracious things at the time makes it hard to think, what to do next?

Needing to take my mind off my disappointment and not feeling up to facing people just yet, I took to the gym after work, but even the mindless anonymous nature of the multiple machines with multiple screens didn't feel private enough. Upstairs in the dance room, I put on my favorite music and tried to kickbox until all I'd feel was the soreness of my arms. The room has mirrors everywhere. It's been a while since I saw myself, and as I work out, it's there from every angle, how much I haven't done, and how much of me I have. The music can't quite lift me out of the mood, because there's more of me to lift.

I tell myself, it's not important and it feels like I have to say it about everything. "Progress, not perfection,"and "fake it until you make it" don't seem to hold the charm they once did. They feel like dusty cliches rather than the keys to success. I punch harder but only for a little while. The will to will through things, it's out of practice too.

Tuesdays hold a lot on the schedule, three kids with track at two different fields at two different times, one kid with band, two with CCD and I teach. No one showed for my class, which made sense.  They'd received the sacraments, so the class afterwards felt like an afterthought.  In the hour of waiting, with all that time, I brooded. Not the best way to stay distracted by a long shot. After outlining the lesson on the white board, I grabbed a DVD player and watched a film on the Eucharist, a sharp reminder, mine are little problems, and this while painful, was not horrible, just disappointing.  It's embarrassing to recognize, I'm not good at suffering, not even a little.

Driving home, I kept changing the radio, anything to keep my brain humming along, singing anything, but the DJ's on the air didn't help out. We got home and made boiled hot dogs, brocolli, sliced apples, and chili-cheese onion enchilladas. The clock on the wall needs a new battery, so I belatedly discover, it's 8:30 before I can guarantee more than half have eaten, and 9:30 before everyone is finished.

Those who ran needed showers. "The day just won't end." I thought.  I'd wanted to read to my kids, but one forgot to do her homework, such that every time I tried to do something else, she'd call out for help. By the time she settled, the window for reading to them and my patience, had passed. In the back of my head with each failure, either on the scale or in life, I heard the whisper, "See, you couldn't have." I noted how two daughters took themselves off to bed without me getting to say good night.  Not seeing them feels like a failure. Not wanting to see them because I'd like to not do any more, feels like a bigger one.

"Do the extra." I hear in my heart, and that beaten will wants to crawl into bed. "Do the damn extra." (My concience tends to lightly swear at me when it knows it's right and I'm being stubborn for no good reason).

The smile the non-sleeping older one gave me for just coming up to say, "Good night." is a reminder, love is revealed through being wiling to serve and to suffer for the good of another. Each act of parenting we'd rather not do, is a tiny surrender, a tiny cross, and each smile, each "Thanks Mom," and each little moment we witness of a child's growth in maturity, understanding, kindness and courage, is likewise, a mirror of God's joy at our learning to sublimate ourselves.

The words, "My grace is sufficient," is a promise which I have to will to accept, or not. I know, one offers peace beyond all understanding, and the other, nothing I want. My disappointment still remains, but its effects diminish. I'm not quite at "It's all grace, " but it's getting closer.

What to do

Leah Libresco Sargeant writes a beautiful article discussing what we as Christians should do in light of Charlottesville.  She presents a lovely way of examing how to 1) create genuine peace and 2) be an authentic witness and 3) offer correction to those in grave error.  You go and you interact with these people, you learn their names, their fears, their loneliness, and you ask questions, you seek to get at what it is they think, and to present a living counter argument without argument.  Please, go read it.  It's so worth it.

There is a great rage in this country and a gleeful glowering joy at pointing out sinners, and saying to the crowd, "These ones, it's okay to stone.  Pick up your rocks."   But the reality is, to those who show mercy, mercy shall be theirs.  Mercy is the gift we give, the grace we allow to flow through us, not when it is deserved, but precisely because it isn't.   Jesus is still reaching out, even from the cross before His death, to enter into relationship with us, to bring us to the right place, to heal our broken hearts.  We are to do the same, whether it's racism or anything else.   That's a tall order, a hard order,  an order only possible to fill through grace, by grace, and so as to receive grace.

So don't blast with holy wrath or excommunicate a friend for failing to see the evil you see, ask them what they see.  Ask them why.  Ask them their fears, their concerns. Go out to lunch and find all the spaces in between, all the points where their gifts are, so as to see their true faces, which are not only the sins we know.  

Yes, these views must be challenged, must be countered, but the only way to stop hate, is not to stomp people into the ground, but to show a better way.  It may seem obvious to you, but that's the nature of sin.  It blinds us to others. It blinds us to good. It clouds the heart, and so we see through a glass darkly.  As Leah sagely notes, when you don't think anyone can see anything but the sin, it is hard to embrace anything else.

Be the option out, be the refuge, be the source of light that helps people cast off these views and the world will be brighter for it.  

New Piece at the Register

It began as an intellectual response to a fellow writer's lament at rage being all the rage these days, it resulted in a piece over at the National Catholic Register.

Hey! Where did Small Success Thursday go?

It's on Facebook over at Catholicmom.com.  I don't know if someone who isn't on Facebook can read that link or not. Please, let me know one way or another.  I'm still mulling over how to manage this weekly counting of the blessings of the past week if it isn't able to be shared beyond the walls of Facebook. 

Suffice it to say, here's the key point:

We went to the zoo.  As happens in most field trips with kids, it got hot. They got hungry. We had to walk everywhere, and there was a temptation to turn what had been a treat into a trial.   We got through it and with that struggle, came this insight.   

Suffering, albeit in a tiny way, somehow made the whole trip more memorable, the way a story becomes more memorable than if once upon a time, everyone lived happily ever after, the end. I thought about this as we prepare for Lent, knowing we're to recognize, the only way to Easter, is through the cross. Embracing suffering doesn't mean seeking pain, but weathering it well, and weathering it with other people when such moments occur, being the Simon or the Veronica to someone whose burden becomes visible. 

So this week's small successes became focused around when we had the opportunity to be a Simon or a Veronica, did we take it?

Please, leave a comment in the com box if the link works or not (if you are NOT on Facebook).   Thank you. 

Small Success Thursday

If you're wondering where that feature of this blog went to the past three weeks, it wasn't that it got eaten by the holidays.  Small Success Thursday is supposed to be a means for people to interact and encourage one another in addition to being a moment of reflection on all the blessings of the past week.  However, we never got the participation in the link-ups we hoped.  People don't have always have the time to write a post about their comings and goings and spiritual victories.  So, to faciliate people being able to contribute to Small Success Thursday, we moved it to Catholicmom.com's Facebook page. 

While I know how to link a blog to Facebook, the reverse is more tricky.  So I've attached a link to Catholicmom.com's page, and you'll have to scroll down to read the rest of it.   If you're not a member of Facebook, I don't know that you can comment, but you read this blog so you can post comments here if you wish.  It now has a handy dandy hashtag too.  #smallsuccess.   If you use twitter, you can post your stuff there too.   (I am not a twitter officinado). I have one.  I just don't quite get it.  

Here's a sampling of the past two weeks if you missed Small Success Thursday...the posts are related so you might enjoy the sequence of events. I did.  

 
Week 1.  Small Success Thursday "Do not be afraid to take Mary into your home," was the translation I heard in the back row where we sat for this past Sunday's Mass. We have a prayer table. We have three nativity sets set up, and a framed picture of the blessed mother in my kitchen. How could I be afraid to take Mary into my home?

This week.

Small Success: She Means it.

Last week, I wrote about rediscovering the need to pray the rosary, and my attempt to put that devotion to Mary back into my life. Christmas happened and we got sick with the stomach flu and my good intentions which started so promisingly last week lay languishing. However, as I recovered and returned to normal life, I began to consider how I'd wasted an opportunity to pray. Prayers when we are ill, are a sacrifice, because when you are sick, ...

We're Always Both And

By now nearly everyone knows, Hillary Clinton said that some of us are "irredeemable."  I would submit, the candidate for President is correct and yet not.  For she thinks only some of us are irredeemable.

Sitting in mass today, I heard the story of the Prodigal son, of the two sons who both misunderstood the Father's love, and yet both were the beneficiaries.  That is the true reality we face, both as a people and to a person.  I couldn't help but notice all the families struggling with children at the mass. I know this battle, it is a universal one.  This day, my kids kept trading off who would sit next to me, eventually resulting in two sharing a chair, one sharing my lap, and one glommed onto my left shoulder rendering me unable to move. They did in turn each need to go to the bathroom, which gave me a few moments to try and really attend, but I kept seeing the families.

I saw parents trying to hold those they loved more than life itself and pay attention, some having to take their kids back to the cry room, others attempting to tough it out.   They were trying to love with great fervor, squirmy little people who didn't want to obey, didn't want to follow, didn't want to be quiet, didn't want to do anything their parents wanted.  Yet, the parents held them, kissed them, prayed with them and for them, and spent all of their energy on what seemed like a meaningless endeavor to the outside world, trying to help them behave at mass.   They didn't stop loving their misbehaving children, not doing what they wanted, not doing the Father's will.  Some might describe the acting out of these kids all over the mass, as deplorable.   It did not stop the parents love, their children's disobedience.

What we need and don't have and haven't had in some time, is a leader or a person running for leadership, who loves those not voting for the "proper party." Additionally, ideology driven media, celebrities, politicians, social media, and all other means of communication, tend to stir the sense of us, them, and promote hating the other as irrational, unreasonable, uneducated, stupid, crazy, evil, corrupt, awful, sinful, and instantly tainting of anyone who doesn't fit whatever the group think deems appropriate.  I don't hear anyone disagreeing that someone in this country is irredeemable, only disagreeing about who's on the list.

The reality is, we're all on the list.  We are both irredeemable by our limitations and sins, and innately worthy of honor, being made in God's image and thus daughters and sons, heirs to God's kingdom.   We love with great fervor, but often, we throw that fervor into everything else except our neighbors.  So yes, Hillary is right when she says anyone is deplorable.  I am, as is everyone who votes for Trump, Hillary, or anyone else or no one else, anywhere in this world, any time in this world.  We are all broken.  We are all prodigal children who sometime are the older sibling getting mad because there's a party and it wasn't thrown for us to show everyone else how good we are or more accurately, how bad everyone else is by comparison.

We are all, irredeemable or would be, save for that great unfathomable fact, God loves us.  What we have to remember, both as citizens and as individuals, is that great truth, that mysterious truth of God's love for us, is true for all of us, for each of us, at all times. There is no one who is irredeemable save that soul which refuses redemption.  God's mercy is not a safety net, but the hand of the father, reaching out to each of his children, offering grace, divine help, redemption.

We are all both and.  What's great, what's wonderful, is God has invited all of us to the party, where He will show the world how much He loves us.  All we have to do, is be willing to come in to the feast.  

P.S. I saw the parents of the squirmy kids.  They bought their children donuts.

Something Else, Something More

My parenting skills run between the urgent, "We need to do something!"and the slothful, "Do we have to do something?" with my reaction to most events in life being something like, "We should have done something more."  and "Why didn't we do something?"  and when the kids do something spectacular, being in awe and thinking, "I've done nothing to merit this."

"They're something.  They're something special."   Yesterday, they were something.

The other day, I had a mountain of paperwork. It had taken over my room, and it took all day to clear it out.  I was stressed.  So stressed, my oldest daughter told me, my aura of stress permeated the house.  She told me to sit for five seconds.  I started doing the dishes.  She told me to sit on the couch for five minutes. I started folding the clothes.  She told me to stop.  She said, "You're tired. You're actually, exhausted." She took out her phone.  "For optimum results, you need either a twenty, fifty or ninety minute nap."  She explained the results of 1) refreshed, quick wake up, 2) refreshed, quick wake up, improved memory, 3) refreshed, quick wake up, improved memory, actual rest.

When I objected the third time, she set the timer and sent me to my room.

While I slept, they scurried, all of them about the house.  There was a post-it on my door.  DO NOT ENTER UNLESS DEAD! to cut out the psuedo emergencies several children created to gain access.

The oldest son went out with the mission, procure dinner.

The rest of the children...folded and got rid of the laundry.  There had been 8 baskets and three couches plus the floor covered.  It now looks like this: 

They also cleared off the table near the front, the table that had been bulging with papers and files and notebooks and book bags and I don't know what else.  Two daughters remade it into a prayer table.  It now looks like this:

And to top it all off, they left a note for me on the dry erase board.

This: 

We sat, said grace and feasted.  The kids had pizza.  Two of the older ones had wings, and I had a Stir Fry Japanese Noodle bowl with pot stickers from Noodles and Company.   They also bought me a diet coke.  

Sometimes, reality breaks your heart with love.   And when it does, it's really something else.  Something more.  Have a great Friday!

The Quiet One

Every week, Tuesday threatens to destroy me until it doesn't.  It starts with wake up, as if the kids are going to miss the bus, this is usually the day.  It's also trash day and that means waking up the middle two early to take down the garbage.  I make the lunches.  The kids also have band so they need their instruments.  Launching the top four, it is now the next 3's turn.  They have papers to sign and things they forgot, but we make it to the bus and all have left the home, hair brushed, socks and shoes, coats and in some cases hats, and today, mercifully, no one forgot their lunch.

One returned home, she feels sick.  My morning is now shot.   I phone the doctor's and do my upstairs patrol --which means gather all the clothing and the trash and make the beds, make sure the toilets aren't clogged and the sinks speckled with toothpaste.  I turn off the lights and shut the doors.  On a good day, I make it through the main and top floor, on a great day, I mop and hit the basement.  Today is not a good day.

Our bed needs stripping.  I'm not scared because we have a new washer and dryer.  We'll test those suckers out.  Alas, the dryer for the first time, failed me.  My comforter did not get comfortably warm until three cycles through.   We go to the doctors, and the CVS, and back home.  I rest for half an hour, which means I rodeo the laundry along and clean out the sink and clear out emails.   It is time to take the teen to her job interview.  Then I swing back home to pick up the kids from the bus, and then back to the two schools to get the tweens, the track star and then the job interviewer.  I snag her to do a quick shop while she waits.  We drive home, unload and start dinner.

It is Tuesday.  Two have CCD, and another has basketball.  They are sequential, not congruent, to ensure maximum inefficiency of my time.   At 8:30, we begin the long trek home so they can eat a second dinner (not wolfed down), and finish any homework.  I begin dishes and check the laundry and pick up the shoes, coats, lunch boxes, papers and socks.   The house feels wrecked and disorganized. I feel wrecked and disorganized.  Putting them to bed, my daughter handed me a note she'd drawn during a break in the action. "I LOVE MOM." It has me with a crown.  I have been paid in full by the quietest of my children, when I felt most spent.

It's the quiet ones the Holy Spirit uses.   Going to have to watch this one.