Sometimes serious, sometimes funny, always trying to be warmth and light, focuses on parenting, and the unique struggles of raising a large Catholic family in the modern age. Updates on Sunday, Tuesday and Friday...and sometimes more!
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.
Every year, I use the Saint Generator and the word generator. This year, what struck me was the word. Silent.
It is something missing from my heart, from my writing. The breathing in and out that needs to take place to find yourself somewhere other than where you've been before, isn't there. It's not because I'm not trying. It is because, I think my writing is holding its breath so to speak.
My prayer life likewise suffers from a dryness. It is indicative of too much talking on my part, and not enough listening. Being at adoration, I know myself to be talking to God, not listening. So when the word says, "Silent," I know it is the Holy Spirit telling me, be still and know I am here.
This past week, I wrote a piece for WINE, Women in the New Evangelization, and the scripture given to me, involved the story of Samuel going to the temple and hearing himself called and going to Eli. Eli finally realizes, God is speaking to Samuel and tells him to say, "Speak Lord, your servant is listening."
The waiting in prayer is part of being willing to trust God. Silent is the word to remind me, to let myself listen.
I bring this up because I'm wondering as I write this, if I'm to put aside writing for a time or if it's more about how I should approach writing, with more reading, more silence before beginning. It's something to consider, which if I'm honest, I've been too busy with all that life entails, to allow myself to consider. I need to be silent to let myself consider.
I received Saint Elizabeth of Hungary. I'd found two others but lost their names and had to redo. However, the third attempt left me with the Saint I first adopted, as my confirmation saint. It was like reconnecting with an old friend. I'm hoping she'll help me learn to be silent enough to listen.
Want a word for the year? Go here.
Want a saint for the year? Go here!
There are moments when you discover the gifts of others in the midst of doing ordinary things that make one wonder, how did I miss this before now? How is it not obvious to everyone, how luminous this person is?
When a student gives a beautiful response to a question, or writes an amazing paper, or does the opposite of what one expects, (given past behavior), these are the moments that make teaching worth more than the pay of a CEO. When I look at the teachers of the school where I work, I know they live for that moment, even the ones who pretend to be jaded, for the surprise of a mind awakened, a heart turned, a soul suddenly filled with fire, wanting to take on whatever the future brings.
More than once while pursuing this career path, I've been asked, "Do I think I could handle it?" and thus it seems, I should answer this serious question. My thoughts run the gamut from "Of course...to, why not?" but when I'm not being flippant about it, when I look at the reality of what is involved in the day in, day out of teaching, they are to me rather like parenting.
I know three things:
I will have days when it is hard.
I will have days when it is harder,
and I will have days when I wonder how I could do anything else.
The reality is, like it is for all these teachers, and all these students, we all have so much more to give, and our zeal and talent and efforts fluctuate with the seasons and needs of our lives. I want however, the opportunity to try. I'm sifting through the landscape because I also know, I tend to want to give...and thus for me, the question is should I. I think that's what this Lent for me is about...getting quieter, listening more, and allowing myself to be uncomfortable with not yet knowing, and searching for the answer to it.
My initial answer is yes. I can. My secondary answer is...I will do what I find I am allowed, and trust that gift, be it what I do now, or something else, is something I can and should do.
I didn't know I could raise ten children until I had to raise ten children. Much of my life has been discovering the limits I placed on myself were just that, limits, and that those limits remained until I believed they could be challenged. My own eldest daughter constantly shows me through her force of will, how much can be accomplished by forging one's own will into a thing of iron. I keep thinking, hers couldn't get stronger...yet it continues to be further forged.
So what does it mean about the writing? Not a thing. I'm a big believer in the both and, as opposed to the either/or, and I need writing, whether to focus my thoughts on parenting or anything else. In writing, like parenting, like teaching, like everything, there's always more to give, it's just a question of should we give it, and will we. We all have so much more to offer than we know.
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.
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.
And we'll just call this the "Small Success Thursday not-posted on Thursday link." Since the title of that one is "Thank God for the Mess." I'll consider this blog an additional opportunity to be both ironic and thankful. See? My whole life is in service to your entertainment. When I'm not writing these pieces up, I'm living in such a manner as to give them additional context. The things I do for you people....
On a more sober note, please pray for all those recovering from Hurricanes, and those in their path now.
The Catholic blogosphere is as diverse as the Church itself, with people who wrestle earnestly with issues both big and small, but who try always to be Catholic in their response to life and all the people living in it. We aren't always successful. Being like any family, we have fights, we fail, we forgive, we pull away, we mess up. However only when we have our right and left hands together, can we be fully in prayer, fully seamless, fully the Universal Church we are all called to be.
Above all, we want this world which is God's gift to all of us, to go on, allowing future generations to discover Christ both in the sacraments and in each other, in service and in prayer. That can only happen if the people here now, work for peace, both in our own hearts, and in the world. As part of the overly talkative patient wing of the hospital for sinners, who believe part of our vocation, is both to learn and educate about the Catholic faith, it is time we came together in prayer. In the core of each Catholic, I know there is more than a mustard seed of faith, waiting for us to ask. I also know, harder things require more than mere prayer and faith, but atonement, for some demons do not go out except by prayer and fasting. We have a world full of unrest even absent the current sabre rattling in North Korea, and we need to get to the work of being the Body of Christ to others. We can only do that by being deliberate in seeking grace. Who doesn't want more genuine peace and grace in the friendships in their lives, both online and in real life?
How?
We do not have worldly power, but we have something much greater. We have the King of Peace, and we have His blessed mother, the sacraments and the saints. So I am asking all Catholic bloggers everywhere, at the Reporter and the Register, at Aleteia and Crux, Catholicmom and Catholic Digest, Catholic columnists both independent and syndicated, new and established. Calling all writers from America and the Catholic Stand, at Patheos, New Advent, Big Pulpit and the Catholic Conspiracy, Church Militant and anywhere they may be found, to ask their readers to consider praying and fasting this Friday, August 11th, for peace in this world, on the internet, in families, and between nations. Joyce said of the Catholic Church, "Here comes everybody." Well, we need everybody.
Jesus told us to ask and we shall receive, seek and we shall find, and that collectively, we should be able to mustard up a mustard seed, and maybe transform a mountain of problems into molehills.
How to participate:
1) Decide you will dedicate this Friday to penance and prayer and fasting for peace in our hearts and across the world.
2) Offer a fasting of a particular kind for the whole day; something which you either treasure, or which you know is a barrier to your own prayer life. It can be something as familiar as diet coke or Facebook, it can be refraining from snark, it can be meat, it can be your phone or television or anything which you surrender for 24 hours, as a gift in atonement for our sins and those of the whole world.
3) Invite others, both in real life and online to do the same, and write your own post of why and what. We are all small. We are all at the very least, half of mustard seeds, but together, we can move mountains.
If you don't know what to do, here are a few ideas:
30. Pray for all our leaders, and all those in power. Spend time with the Blessed Mother, asking her intercession in their hearts.
29. Figure out what you cling to, what you have made an idol or an addiction, and ask all of Heaven to help you let go.
28. Read the life of a saint.
27. Review and renew your baptismal vows and confirmation promises.
26. Read the daily readings to your family at the dinner table.
25. Make a gift of yourself to your family today. Following the wisdom of Saint Therese of Lisieux, picking up pins for love.
24. Watch or listen to a podcast on Forgiveness. Fr. John Ricardo's talks on this matter are excellent.
23. Call your pastor, ask what the Parish needs you to do.
22. Do an examination of conscience from your earliest memory to now, and ask for wisdom and guidance from the Holy Spirit.
21. Pray for the souls in purgatory, arrange to offer a mass.
20. Fast. Pray for peace each time you remember, you're hungry.
19. Smile at each person you encounter, and whisper a prayer in your heart for each person you see.
18. Spend time with your children, playing on their level.
17. Invite someone to join you for mass.
16. Offer your unique talents as a gift to your local pregnancy center or soup kitchen or parish, or a neighbor in need. Set it up as an ongoing
15. Invite someone you know could use a friend, out to lunch. Listen.
14. Read the catechism on Just War.
13. Venerate a relic. Ask for the saint's intercession.
12. Make a pilgrimage to a local chapel or shrine.
11. Begin the Total Consecration to Jesus through Mary.
10. Go to adoration for an hour.
9. Divine Mercy Chaplet
8. Spend some time reading the Psalms.
7. Donate clothing to a local shelter.
6. Go to mass.
5. Pray a family rosary.
4. Give alms.
3. Make a confession.
2. Read some of the writings of the Doctors of the Church.
1. Perform one of the Spiritual or Corporeal Acts of Mercy.
There are as many ways to fast or give alms or make atonement as there are saints, and with all of us, we should hit all of them. The goal is peace, of the kind we can only ask for, the only kind worth receiving. Let's get to work.
The Syrian crisis is as complex as anything one might imagine. Here are some of the key points from the past four years alone. Suffice it to say, 250,000 individuals have died and 11 million have been displaced from their homes. Every once in a while we get worked up over a picture, because a picture as the saying goes, is worth 1000 words. Nikki Haley held up pictures asking how many children have to die before Russia cares? I'd change the word Russia to world.
Seeing people dying in a horrible quick fashion that is frightening, that makes us want to take action.
This sort of horror, like the picture of the boy washed up on the shore, like the picture of the boy in the back of the ambulance, somehow gets us more invested than say, this picture:
or this one:
Which makes us want to change the channel because we can't wrap our heads around it and don't have a symbolic action we could do which would let us go back to not paying attention.
So remember folks, you can kill with indifference, denial of humanitarian aid, bullets and bombs all you like, but if you do a chemical weapon drop, we'll send missles. Please, go back to killing and oppressing your people in less emotionally gripping and disturbing ways. To avoid further strikes, only oppress and kill in ways which are approved by other civilized nations.
While I hope the missles got the places that hold chemical weapons, no one should feel comfortable that the US sends drones or missles into countries where we have not declared war or been given sanction to act in a military fashion or that Russia has promised to bolster Syrian air defense systems and is sending a frigate to monitor Syria's port to the Mediteranean. It has the feel of brinkmanship, and not "the art of the deal." Military action, like all other things we do, ought to be the result of reflective, deliberate policy and thoughtful examination. This act, (in contrast with the talk up until last week), is reflexive and reactive. I didn't like it with the past presidents, I still don't like it.
So what do we do as we watch powers and principalities play out a game of live chess with real people?
Perhaps it is time to make that request again, and this time, add alms giving in the form of each parish taking on a family. If the Pope asks our fellow Christians and Muslim and Jewish brothers and sisters to each take on a family at each church, each mosque, each temple, we will be able to whittle that picture of endless despair down, and perhaps help prove there is another way to address "such relentless hate," by riding out to meet them. Problems aren't intractable just because they're difficult to resolve. Problems remain intactable because people refuse to be moved or to move. What is required is embracing the cross. Somehow, we have to know, if we are Catholic, everything always requires embracing the cross. Somehow, we have to know, peace isn't the merely absence of conflict. Anyone who ever had a silent fight knows how a house feels when two people aren't getting along. On a global scale, we can't know peace when we wilfully ignore suffering so as to "get along."
What we keep forgetting, as individuals and whole peoples, is when we ignore a problem because it is hard, it gets bigger. It's true with weight. It's true with debt. It's true with education. It's true with politics. It's true with everything that matters in life. When we ignore problems because they are difficult, we eventually wind up ignoring people. We need to take on this crisis we've ignored.
How?
We can eliminate the humanitarian crisis by helping one family at a time, via one community at a time. Risk is always involved when we reach out to a stranger, to an other, whenever we offer love but to do otherwise, is indifference (which is the simplest path and what we've done as a world whenever we thought we could). We've tried indifference. It has lead to where we are now, with millions searching for room in the inn of the world, pictures of the dead and the dying and stories of suffering, waste and pain with no respite.
Here's one more, which has some of the same information but is still worth reading as I'm pleased it's from a secular source: How to Help.
Petition your bishop, your pastor, and your friends to encourage everyone to do the same. As we prepare for Holy Week, we ought to ramp up our prayers, fasting and alms giving, storming Heaven, asking for the peace the world cannot give. If we show we are not living as this world would have us, but as the next, perhaps we can have better pictures and better stories to tell.
So Pray the Rosary for peace.
Fast as penance for all the pain we've created via neglect, indifference and not being willing to act,
and give alms, so they will know who we are.
It may seem unreasonable to pray for peace in such a wartorn and conflicted country. How could it possibly happen? That's okay. God loves unreasonably. We can be unreasonable with God in our prayers, and God wants peace for these people, for all of us, even more than we do. It may seem crazy to give alms when there are so many in need. How could our little be sufficient? That's okay. Give what you can. God will do the multiplying. He's done it before. It may even seem scary to take on caring for people of a different faith, people we don't know, and to invite them into our lives. Again, that's okay.
Love is always unreasonable, generous and courageous. So be unreasonable, generous and courageous. This week, this about to be Holy Week, be love.
It is Day 2 of Lent. Thank you for helping me with my observance.
The other day, I felt the weight of everything (Fat Tuesday), and asked for comfort. My son who is eight, would not let me alone for the next hour. Everywhere I went to be alone, to nurse the hurt I felt, he came. I locked myself behind three doors. He picked them. I shut myself in my bathroom. He knocked on the bathroom and I could hear him outside calling me.
I didn't want to visit with my son. I wanted to be comforted, so I put on a coat. When I went outside, he put on a coat and came out. Three times I took him back in, and went back out to allow myself to keep asking for comfort, and three times, he found a way out to come and climb a tree next to me.
It seems obvious and yes, I figured out, he was part of the answer, as was a phone call from my brother, a text from my oldest son, and an unsolicited hug from a daughter, and the unasked for purchase of a Dunkin' Donut by another daughter. I also received an email from a complete stranger about an article I'd written, and an invitation to get together with another friend for Thursday, all of which came in short succession. God hears. God answers, and He's even goofy about it, like encouraging my son to come outside three times to climb trees next to me, coaxing me with donuts and visits from friends. It was a lavish response to a momentary dark mood. One might even say overkill, except it wasn't. It was the more, the little extra that let me know, it was God saying over and over again what He always says, "I love you." and "I am here."
So know, I am praying for all of your intentions, and I hope, you get showered with answers.
We'd wrapped until 12, 2 and 4 respectively. The little ones got up at 5:45 am.
So we woke or tried to, and watched as our children reminded us of why all this happens. My youngest said when she looked at the tree and the gifts and the lights, "I am filled with the Christmas Spirit." She meant it with fullness known only to the innocent and the graced. Her heart sang just to know, Santa came. We were given gifts, all of us. I think her heart fluttered to know, everyone was remembered.
We came to mass as we always do to everything, with a rush and a push and a hunt for socks, shoes, coats and the right pair of pants for someone. We took two cars despite having a shift go to Midnight. Two wore jeans. Two wore beautiful dresses. Three wore ties. One son looked around and said, "We don't look polished enough for Christmas mass." I whispered back, "Those who came first were the worst dressed, those who looked the best came 12 days late." He laughed.
Somewhere in the mass, I prayed my whole heart. More than anything, I wanted to hear my son sing, and all my children sing. Some of my children have beautiful voices, but for whatever reason, don't sing. I miss their voices when we're together and they're silent. That's the thing with hearts' prayers. God hears them. God loves them. And sometimes, when you ask for a miracle, something you could never find in a store or online or through any other means, God rearranges the world so that the answer is yes.
My son told the priest as he shook hands, "Merry Christmas." Rita, John and I heard it as did the priest. It always shocks how immediately, God wants to interrupt my day and remind me, God is, and wants to be so present in my life if only I'd let Him.
That afternoon, the family orchestrated a carol for the grandparents, but before that, there was an impromptu version of Hamilton in the kitchen, and everyone was singing. Again, the lesson echoed. "Speak your heart's desire." For His is to be ever closer to us.
Merry Christmas. Speak your heart's desire and be mindful, for God has given Himself as a gift, Now, if only we will come and receive Him.
I hoped the election, (whichever way it went), once over, would allow people to go back to being able to speak to each other online and in reality the way we would want to be spoken to; with civility, a presumption of good faith, humor and mindfulness. If the past week is any indicator, things will get progressively harder.
On Mondays, I visit with Mark Shea on his podcast radio program. I've spent part of the morning reading the horrid comments thrown his way for daring to point out, that Alt Right as a group, is a sickness which all people of good will, and all people who call themselves Christians, let alone Catholics, must oppose. After reading it, and seeing so many broken souls pound their brokeness as truth, my first thought was, "I should have spent the morning exercising," it would have been healthier and more pleasant, however much I don't like doing it.
But what I didn't like, was the reality I kept hearing, "Bring us Barabbas!" and "We have no king but Caesar," and the conviction, I did too.
Since I tend to vote Republican, I know I must stand and say, "I'm sorry. This is not what I stand for, or want to have in this country or in this world. The bigotry and racism and anti-semetic thinking I've seen in the Comment box from Alt Right, and articulated by those who pretend it isn't there allowing other people to do the same, this is always, everytime and everywhere and in every soul, wrong." I'm sorry such thinking exists. I know Archbishop Sheen said it is a scandal to be scadalized by sin. I guess I'm not shocked, but deeply saddened to discover yet again, we hold hearts of darkness, we are so very broken, we so deserve the crucifixion we've not been given. I can change that word we to I, and know it still holds.
I cannot speak for anyone other than myself, but I failed, because I did not let myself think this was anything more than a fringe, and I also know, I couldn't have voted for the alternative. What I should have done, was somehow spoken sooner, spoken louder, only, I didn't honestly think he'd win. So I didn't think it would matter. However a sharpness has pierced my heart ever since the election. I know I did not willingly peer into everything, and because I could see some evil, I did not want to see other evils. I thought, this is not a fight I want, so I didn't enter deeply. But the Gospel this week kept convicting me. "You are lukewarm, so I spit you out of my mouth." I always find those words of Jesus to grate. They convict me of wanting to be liked more than to speak truth, of wanting not to make waves, of wanting not to speak up because who wants that pain?
So I'm here to day, to begin again and to invite all people who are of good hearts, who want a world that echoes more clearly, the kingdom to come, to do the same. Alt Right, supporters of Alt Right, I stand with and claim kinship with whosoever you've decided shouldn't have protection, and I will fight for, whosoever you've decided shouldn't have protection, even if I disagree as a person, with said people I'm going to fight for.
I can't fix what's happened. I can only go forward saying from now until I die and beyond, we are one race with many creeds and opinions. We are always and everywhere and in all things, our brother's keeper. It seems stupid to have to say, because it seems obvious, but since some do not believe that the infinite value of each human (because they are human) supercedes nationality, capacity and everything else, I will say it here.
Even though I've voted Republican, even though I'm a pro-lifer, those things are components and not the whole of who I am, though if I stay silent, they will become so. As a Catholic, I cannot stand by while people's dignity and rights are trampled, or families are destroyed and stay what I hope when I die, defines me. I am a person who seeks, who hopes, one day she'll make the right choice when given the option, and say, I want Jesus, rather than Barabbas.
They, whoever the they is that you don't like, like you, are my brothers and sisters, and I want each of you at the wedding feast. I want all ten of my children to come for Thanksgiving even though they can't, and I want that all the more in the life to come. I know we will be judged by how we treat each and all, and when we cut off one, the one we've cut off, is ourselves. I also know, just as I don't always get along with my own family, so also I do not always get along with my extended family, but all are still all, my family. I love and need them all including you. So Alt Right, while I am a small time blogger with a small time platform and only a teaching assistant, I will tell you, you, like all of us, are a broken people, and you need to see, that you are hurting yourselves by your hatred.
Hate always warps the person who hates, not the people hated.
So I would invite you to do better, and challenge myself to do the same; to stop picking and trumpeting Barabbas. Today, instead of posting that outrage, pick a friend in your list with whom, you do not see eye to eye, and invite them for coffee or pizza or whathave you if you're nearby, to visit, and if not, look to see something they hold which you too, can hold dear, and be a bridge to greater deeper truer friendships on Facebook and in the world. If you do this, you will no longer be Alt Right, you will be alright, and becoming truly right, would help right what is broken and wrong in this world.
The alternative, is death and no place at the wedding feast and all who make it to the feast, would wish it otherwise.
Ash Wednesday for me is always March 5, 2014, the day my father died. I don't even remember if I got ashes on that day, but nothing brings home the reality of "remember thou art dust." like knowing, I cannot see Dad's face except in pictures and memory.
It is hard to go to mass on Ash Wednesday now, because I become a blubbering mess at some point, and have to pull it back together before Anna starts asking in an outside voice, "Why are you crying?" But I need the ashes. They remind me of him, just as they remind me of the reality we spend most of our lives ignoring. We will die. Our bodies decay daily. The roses my husband bought me last week, dry and droop within seven days. I have a tooth needing a root canal. Decay is ever present, but we have an amazing capacity to busy ourselves so much, we can ignore it.
I know we live beyond death, and I have great hope. But the day itself reminds me. It reminds me of what I haven't done, what I'm not doing, and of all the ways in which, no matter what I'm doing, I haven't done what the goal of this life is, to love unconditionally, and to pour myself out. Surrender is the response we're asked for, the revelation to the world, I have faith.
The issue isn't to surrender once, but to surrender constantly. The real question is, How?
How do we drop the nets today and every day from now on? The mission is to be catchers of souls.
How? We go out, and speak truth joyfully. "Beauty will save the world," Dostoevsky says, Nothing is more beautiful than a joyful spirit, nothing draws people toward something like laughter and beauty. We want to know who is laughing and why, to see the person enjoying life as we in that moment when we seek out the person laughing, are not yet. We hope, by coming into contact with the person laughing, we will become like them, lighter and more full of the zest and joy of life, more alive.
It's why this humor blog persists. Humor as a formula is pain plus time equals something healing. So get your ashes, make your resolution for the next 40 days, and tomorrow, I'll come here to write humor and chew the fat intellectually (since I gave up actual fat for Lent). I'll regale you with all the insights that come from not being able to sate my appetite for sweets and cooking with a Paula Deen type hand with respect to butter, and a not so Frugal Gourmet with respect to Olive Oil. I miss them both already. Hot cocoa without whipped cream somehow tastes like something less than hot chocolate.
40 days...
No fats.
In the words of my father, as we start this season of Lenten prayers, fasting and alms giving, "Now is the time to start the big push."
No one is so efficient as the person who would get work done if only. Today, I sit thinking how clean the house would be if even one of my three vacuum cleaners were working, but there's a broom and it sits in the closet next to the dust pan saying, "Hello?" Have I fished them out and begun sweeping? What are you crazy?
Yesterday I lamented about not being able to write as I don't have a laptop. My notepad and pencil whispered, "Ahem." Did I begin scribbling away, crafting today's piece for your amusement? Hey kids, let's watch Penguins! I watched Penguins. My kids and I even critiqued it, they noted the plot holes, and how much better it could have been. "They needed better writers Mom." The notepad is trying to leap off the desk at me.
However, I've discovered, even with the tools, I don't get going. I have a paper shredder I've never assembled, and a cooler full of old bills and the like that need to be eliminated. I have a new swifter mop I've not taken out of the box and a photo shadow box with 20 slots in it, that need pictures. The stacks of not done feel monumental. I have books that need reading and reviewing, editing and actual writing, paper work that needs filing, dishes that need to be unloaded, a sink that needs cleaning, clothes folding, a child to be played with today in the morning and what am I doing?
Blogging.
Why? I'd love to say the fault is in my stars, but it's in the stars in my eyes, always taking on more, never finishing what I start without the need for if not cheerleaders, coaches to push me past my comfort zone.
While discussing the stalled project of Penelope, I recognized I don't even put the treadmill past 3.5 because then I'm not comfortable. Working out, like writing, like trying to live out a good Lent, involves going where we're not comfortable, going to the dusty untidy corners and pushing ourselves through that resistance. What I've discovered is, in projects and my fitness and faith, I'm soft in the middle but full of strong promise.
So I'm signing off to go take care of 1) paper work, 2) dropping of the vacuum cleaners and 3) go work out. I'll put the treadmill to at least 3.6. God willing, and me willing with God, all that needs to be done today, will be.
Today is Ash Wednesday. Liturgically, it's the anniversary of my father's death. The actual date is two weeks away, but nothing quite reminds one of the reality of ashes like the reality of an anniversary of a parent's death. It doesn't feel like so much time has passed.
The past few weeks, I've lost my computer. As a result, I've not quite known what to do with myself. My writing lay fallow more than I'd like and come this week, I felt apprehension as Lent approached. I didn't have some grand inspiration for the day or the 40 days. Normally, I have big plans. I'll do 40 bags in 40 days! I'll go to daily mass! I'll well, I'll do something big, important, holy. It's a zeal and enthusiasm I have naturally, but it is often without actual correct orientation. "Martha"-ing Lent is not the way to go. But it took 40 or so years of mucking up Lent to get to this recognition.
That recognition came with the other hard point, a personal revelation about my own tendency to do the same thing to Lent in everything else I do, to focus on the flash and sparkle and newness of whatever, rather than the reality of the work to be done. It allows me to flit upon the surface of things, relationships (my friendships suffer from this), and the home (man does it suffer from my cursory keeping), and my writing --which is fire and forget and seldom edited more than once. It's perfect for blogging style, but not for writing anything with weight or length.
It's an ugly and unsettling thing to recognize, you've spent the last 40 years wandering, still not getting it. I've churned through rosaries, read a daily devotional, done any number of things seeking holiness, without necessarily beginning where Lent demands we begin, with my own faults, my own faults, my own grievous faults. The temptation for me, and I'm sure for many, is to say, I'm not so bad...and list all those devotions, all those ways in which I've sought to live out an authentic life of faith. But all of those good things, as good as they are, do not change the fact, that even alone, I require my God to do this:
I cannot begin to fathom the ugliness. I only know Ash Wednesday requires I recognize my own dullness of spirit, and my own inability to "Get or Do Lent" correctly. I can't get an A or a gold star. I can either grow in faith, or grow duller. That's it. That's all.
The goal is to grow in holiness, to free ourselves at least in part from addictions, and to recognize however far we've come, we're not there. We're supposed to wind up at the foot of the cross by the end of this journey, to know we have crucified Him. We called for His crucifixion. We betrayed Him. We denied Him. What did He want us to do? Love Him.
Have a Blessed Ash Wednesday. Pray. Fast. Give Alms, and do it all with a smile and grateful heart.
Walk into the desert, and know when you do, you will find the one who loves you this much.
