Advent Day 1 Begin Clearing the Stable

In the exact spirit of Christmas, not Advent, I made a list.   I'm now checking it twice.   But I now write for DeTours (school newsletter to alumni), the Catholic Standard (freelance), the Catholic Digest (freelance), Catholicmom.com, some of my stuff is being posted and run at Eat Sleep Write,. I also moderate a writing page, and am currently editing a book, working on a book and blogging.

Then there's the non writing life.  Raising ten kids, managing the needs afar and near, ranging from 21 to 3 about to turn 4 takes time.  The house, well, there are a lot of piles that need at least a day's attention to become something other than a pile I put somewhere else. And I need need need more than anything, to be present to my family, to be a person in Advent, a person who prepares and is watchful.

But you can't prepare if you're overwhelmed.

Something's got to give.

So what am I doing?

I will still write, but this blog will be a place where I post links to pieces that are published.

You can't double post in the writing world, it's a big No-No.  Apparently Google punishes your site if you do. So I will do as others before me have done, and post lead ins here to links where the work gets published.

I'm sad that all my old stuff is now considered published, and thus unusable elsewhere.   Seven years of stuff that can't even be recycled on the internet unless I take the whole thing down, and that would involve saving the entire blog to files and combing through them.  Not really interested in that level of a project on top of everything else.  I have to let go of it.  It's not an easy thing to surrender.

It's a good step, one that's been coming for a while, but which I'd put off because I thought I could do all the things. (It's what I always think).    But today, I was reminded, no matter how hard I work, I'm not in control.  I can't always do it.  I started thinking about all that needs to be done, and I felt overwhelmed.  Until I went up for the Eucharist, and it was God's way of saying, "Don't worry Sherry, I've got this.  Just be willing to give up a bit of your handle on this, and I'll flood in the difference beyond what you could hope."   I'm not supposed to do all of it.  I'm supposed to facilitate all of it that I've been given.

So the blog is the first step in clearing out the cluttered nature of my stable.  

This week I go to the Marian exhibit in DC and get to do an article for the Catholic Digest on Portraits of Mary over the centuries.  I'm really looking forward to Wednesday.  I'll be thinking of my mom as I look at portraits of Mary, as I know she'd love this even before I walk into the place.  

I also have to write the newsletter to take that off my plate.  They are the baby steps I need to take to start in earnest removing the piles away, to empty my soul of all the clutter that keeps it from being a open place for Christ.  Happy Advent.

No Matter Who You Are or What You Do, There's a Buzzfeed Quiz for That

I'm posting over at Eat Sleep Write today.  Serving up humor all fresh for you.

Small Success Thursday...one day late

I know, this blog feels like it's withering on the vine. I promise I'm still writing, it's just it's all been for articles or editing or Penelope.   I'm trying to see if I can make a go of writing, and use the blog as a place to keep stuff, but for submission.  

Here's the link to this week's Small Success Thursday over at Catholicmom.com.

I promise, once Advent starts, to be better about this blogging business.

Small Success Thursday

Come join us and count your blessings of the week!

Grace of Yes Day

Lisa Hendey is a longtime friend of mine. She published my pieces at Catholicmom.com back when I first started writing in the blogosphere and she put up with a lot of experimentation.  She helped encourage me to continue and pound out a style and cadence.  She's been a virtual friend for going on 7 years, though I hope one day we meet in person.

She's written several books, the most recent of which is decidedly both poignant and personal while touching on what I think is the universal means by which we begin to walk down the road of Holiness.  Her book is called  The Grace of Yes.

The little fish is named Fiat, and represents each of us jumping out of our comfort zone, trusting wherever we land with our "Yes" is where God intended.  It isn't a fatalistic leap, but a leap of faith, jumping from the safe controlled bubble tank of our constructed lives, into the ocean of God's love. Who wouldn't trade a tank for the Ocean?  Who wouldn't want the more of God?  Us.  We like our comforts, our control, and the safety of being where we have the illusion of being in charge.   Saying yes means expanding our world and encountering others, and the unknown, being stretched and grown by more than we would opt to do on our own.  

I've only plowed through the first two chapters, but she asks the big questions and recognizes when she's not asked the questions.  She reveals the need to discern why are we saying yes and what are we saying yes to?  And what should we be saying yes to?  The answer of course is, to God.

The vocation of our lives is the How business of saying "Yes" to God, or no to other things.  So I'm trying to say "Yes." to my children first, and to my husband, rather than "wait," or "Not yet." or "I'm tired." or "I'm busy." It's too easy to put off people for things that often aren't important.

Last night, my daughter said, "Come play Heart and Soul with me Mom."   I didn't want to, I was in the kitchen, cleaning up from dinner.  I need to learn to stop.  I should stop and play.  She was working on "Heart and Soul."  I hate that song.   But she loves it. She's just learning it.

"Come and play Mom." she asked, which is really, "Come and waste time with me."  Wasting time is the surest proof of love, the willingness to do nothing or anything, with someone else, not because of what it is we're doing or not doing, but because of who we are with.   I missed out last night. I stupidly chose dishes over duets.  How dumb am I?  Very.  So Very!

So today, I'm dusting off the piano, and I'm hoping I get the opportunity today to receive the Grace of Yes.

P.S. I have an extra copy, if you would like to have it, leave a comment in the box and I'll pick a winner!

Why These Moments Matter

It has taken forty-eight years to grasp the reality of how good things happen, they are an act of the will on the part of someone.   As a child, Mom made dinners happen and took us from point a to point b and Dad would orchestrate game nights and visits with cousins and aunts and uncles, but as kids, we drifted from big event to big event. So to us, as kids, it felt organic, natural, ordinary. This was simply what you did.  

As an adult, I began to see the effort involved in reunions, especially in deliberately gathering for non event events.  Parties became tied to reasons for parties, like weddings, baptisms, birthdays and sadly, funerals.  The ordinariness of getting together with family became less ordinary as we all grew older, moved, and began establishing lives that focused on lesser things like jobs, homes, and school.  It wasn't a lack of love for anyone, but there was a lack of will to practice that love, a form of familial sloth that crept into relationships, rendering them a collection of fond memories, rather than an ongoing experience of each other.  

Going to a wedding, one of the last weddings of the generation of cousins, everyone began to feel the hard march of time, and how the hardening of familial arteries could cause ongoing damage if left unchecked.  We would have to will ourselves out of that funk, to will ourselves beyond our comfort zone if we were going to have connections not dominated only by whenever someone had a wedding, baptism or funeral.  We'd have to have moments of ordinary time, and to have those, someone would have to "Will it."  

So we made a start, an invitation to do things, which is again, like anything else, a beginning, hopefully of a greater experience, of all of us growing closer together.   What I hope, is everyone will make that brave start, issue beginnings, so that we turn what is a momentary inspiration born of recognizing we want to have relationships that are more than in name only, into a willful habit of fellowship, and tie us as family beyond the cumulative memories of past events.   

The Beginnings of Something

This morning, I jumped on my emails, perused my writing forum for assignments, tweeted my links to Small Success Thursday and I'm linking to Catholicmom.com here.  Then I read the news and visited my favorite sites.   Asking for a Mission and what that means.  

This past week, a piece ran over at Catholic and Enjoying it, I am Arnold Abbott!, where the mayor and city counsel of Ft. Lauderdale, Florida made it illegal to feed the homeless on the street, illegal for the homeless to sleep in public, and illegal for them to own private property which they keep on public grounds. (The police can seize it on these grounds).   My heart hurt that a city would take this approach --to "help" the homeless.  They went so far as to arrest a 90 year old man and two pastors for feeding those who showed up for the meal.  

I read and researched other articles on the issue, and the spin was that they didn't want to stop feeding people, they wanted to regulate feeding these people.   Yeah.  So charity without a license, not allowed.  I could understand the copious reasons given for wanting this regulated.  It is still wrong to outlaw the impulse to charity. It is still wrong for a society to penalize people helping others.   There can be debates until the next century about how to solve the problem of homelessness with dignity, and there can be legitimate concerns about safety, both of those served and those serving, but it's still an odious society that hamstrings those with the least power, to serve the comfort of the "common good." I can't not fight it.   

Then I heard on NPR from a consultant who argues against any giving of money or food to the homeless except when it is tied to a program.  He claimed a 85% reduction in homelessness in the cities where such an aggressive policy has been enacted. I tried to find a link today, but could not after multiple searches.  What I wanted to know was if the reduction in homelessness was a result of policies getting people into programs and thus not homeless, or because they went elsewhere where the cities were more hospitable to those lacking homes. It's clear that many cities feel so frustrated by homelessness, they view these sorts of measures as a viable answer.  I don't claim to have an answer but I know it isn't to harrass those without homes or those who try to minister to them.

So when the Vatican announced it was building showers to let those who live outside, come in and get clean, I cheered.  This is the beginnings of the answer.  The answer is not a systemic program or government outreach, but one person to one person, outreach to meet the people and thus their needs.

I was feeling great until I saw this response:  How in the world do showers help??? Where are the change of clothes and the free mobile phones? Where are the shelters, etc? The proposition is ludicrous on its face... What is needed is for the PRIVATE sector in Rome and the WHOLE of the USA, to partner with multiple charities to create shelters, jobs, thrift stores where they can work, etc... The Saint Vincent DePaul Society does a GREAT job of this, why don't we help them there???? DUH.

To me, the showers help each person who uses them, to feel clean, refreshed, to have a sense of dignity, and that is the beginning. We are always at the beginning of serving, not the end.  When we die, if we've done this even sort of correctly, we will get the grace to continue the work as intercessors, to pull more people to continue this service to others, so that even more people will receive the gifts of grace squeezed into their heart.  It isn't that we shouldn't help Saint Vincent DePaul Society, but the goal is always to pull more people in. Some don't see the Saint Vincent DePaul Society, but they might see what Pope Francis is doing, and thus be pulled in to the Church, to encounter Christ, either by the help of the showers, or by what the showers represent.

The person asked, "Isn't that self defeating?"  Who is going to take a shower and put on their old stinky clothes? 

I would argue it's not. Because it still is the beginning, and every kindness removes some of the pain, some of the hurt, some of the loneliness.  What's self defeating is to not see them, to not invite them to eat even if they smell, or to think because I cannot solve every problem, I should not start to solve any problem.  Or worse, that the problem should be solved by other people or organizations or the government.   The rich man is condemned to Hell for doing nothing.  For refusing to treat Lazarus as even as he did his dogs.

But again the response: Pointless. Many will say it will be as if you are feeding stray dogs or cats...They will continue to come back over and over and over and the problem will multiply...Why? Because your ilk is not willing to address the fundamental issues of this scourge: Death of the Family, Immoral Business Practices and Immorality!!!

I'm ilk.  It's true.  Today, the county I live in has a deluxe shelter for stray animals.  It is beautiful, spacious and pristine but I do not know where the homeless in our county go when it is cold.  So he's right to charge I should do more, at the very least, learn more.   And once again, I know, "It is the beginning." 

Leaving aside the comparison of human beings to animals, which is itself so very wrong, these people are Christ in his distressing disguise.   Why act?  There are graces that come from performing corporeal acts of mercy, even on those we cannot permanently cure.  Jesus told us the poor would always be with us.   He calls us to love and to serve, not to create utopia.

However, here's the rub.  If all of us heard the call Pope Francis is issuing, to be neither cold or lazy in our care of the poor, how much closer all of us would come to beginning to build up the Kingdom of Heaven while here on Earth. 

 



"When a poor person dies of hunger, it has not happened because God did not take care of him or her. It has happened because neither you nor I wanted to give that person what he or she needed."

- Blessed Mother Teresa

None of us come close to Blessed Mother Teresa.  We can see the people on the corners of streets, some of them for years.  I agree, things cannot continue on as things are much longer.  If we are to be a people of hope, we need to hear and harken and harden not our hearts, toward anyone, roll up our sleeves and figure out how to get out there.  I'm going to find out where they go when the weather turns for starters.  We're called to catechize by being catalysts.  We're all the beginnings of something if we say "Yes."

How?  Ask.  Ask what beattitude God wants you to live out in faith.  Then seize it and live it.  You'll know, and then it will simply require of you, that you give back to God, the one thing you can give to God, The Grace of Yes.  

My article is up at the Catholic Standard

Busy working on an interview article with Marie Helene Mathieu and a review of her translated book,  Never Again Alone.

So enjoy the most recent piece for the Catholic Standard, detailing the annual White Mass held in DC to honor people with disabilities and those who care for them.  

Small Success Thursday

Come join us over at Catholicmom.com.

Be Not Afraid, I Promise You

I listen to Catholic radio.  It started when I decided listening to the news made me too angry and listening to music sometimes meant my toddlers knew tunes I didn't want them to know.  At first, it was just mass. I'd put it on while I cleaned the house and while I still grumbled when I found the occasional apple core or yogurt cup hidden by some hungry child who knew they weren't supposed to sneak snacks, I grumbled less and felt less irritated by the mere repetitiveness of having to clean again the next day with mass to look forward to as company.  All of Heaven and Earth could sing to me while I wiped down the counters.

Yesterday, I heard a husband who sounds broken, because his wife is afraid.  They are expecting their third child, and that baby has been diagnosed with Down Syndrome.  She fears the future. She fears what God is asking.  She is considering the unthinkable, thinking abortion will take away her fears, her worries.  Hearing the pain in his voice, I don't need to imagine the fear in hers, I've felt afraid of the future when I expected our ninth.  I know people whisper to you, "Abort. Try again. Do over." in so many words.  

But each of us is unique.  Each of us has a soul.  Each of us is part of God's masterful luminous joyful glorious plan.  It is only sometimes sorrowful because we live in this fallen place, but the divine reality of each of us being a gift is baseline.  I wish I could hug this woman and tell her what I know.

This child is a gift.  This child will be different, but the future is not unbearable, it is simply unknown. It just feels unbearable because all the unknowns come crashing down at once when you get a diagnosis of anything less than perfect.  

All children come to us helpless and with struggles we cannot yet know.  Some have severe allergies, others learning disabilities, some have tempers and others struggle with making friends.  Each child comes with an unknown future.  Oddly, with children who don't have genetic markers for conditions, we don't agonize about the future nearly as much, though they will still have to weather illness, school, bullies, frustrations, heart breaks, skinned knees, bad dates, bad haircuts, disappointments from others and from themselves and yet, we think only of the glittering promise of the unknown with genetically "normal" children.  I promise you, he will surprise you out of fear with his capacity and his love, and your capacity for love.

 Because this child has a fragile aspect you already know, holding him will feel all the more precious, all the more delicate, and you'll celebrate his speech, his walking, his everything as if it were winning the Boston Marathon, because for him, it is.  He will come and bring with him, the opportunity and purpose of many holidays and feasts.


I also promise you out there, if you are faced with a diagnosis of a child with a less than perfect genetic or physical or mental make up, this is not the end of your world, don't let it be the end of his or hers because you were afraid.  Love stretches our hearts the way pregnancy stretches our bodies.  We will never go back to being the smaller creatures we were, once we begin loving someone new.  And it's okay to be afraid, it's just  you have to know, you have to believe, you have to trust, that love is always always always, stronger than fear, stronger than death, stronger than all of the unknown.  

It is our job as parents to welcome each child into the present, and to show them as much love as possible in the present, and little by little, to chip away at how to make the next moment of the present, more luminous.   It's work. It's hard work, and it takes a lifetime, but every one of us requires a whole lifetime of being loved, none of us survive without constant doses.  

The last thing I'll tell you my unknown sister, is hold tight to your husband.  Hold tight to each other and God and it won't be all drudgery, it won't be all darkness.  You'll be stunned when the sun breaks through in your heart, and you find you can smile and even laugh, and all things again seem possible. 

 Please pray for this unknown sister and her husband, and for their family that they will be wrapped in love, wrapped in courage, and given the knowledge that this baby is a joy for them to discover, not discard.     This little boy is a gift.  He will grow all of their hearts, and he will be a source of light and joy to the world that seems to covet darkness.

P.S. I wasn't going to write on this, I'd already called in and asked fellow Catholic writers to pray for this family.  Then I looked at the Loyola 3 Minute Retreat for the day as I cleared out my inbox of emails.  I don't normally, but today, the Holy Spirit prickled.   If you haven't clicked on the link, the first words are from Genesis 22: 11-12.  "But the Lord's messenger called to him from heaven, "Abraham, Abraham!"  "Yes, Lord," he answered.  "Do not lay your hand on the boy," said the messenger..."  and so I'm writing here for whoever reads this, asking you to pray for this family, pray for their three sons, for their marriage, and for them to know God loves them all.

Next Year's Halloween Makeover

I used to love Halloween. I loved the costumes. I loved the candy. I loved the decorations. Then, like everything else I've ever loved in this world, professionals got a hold of it and ruined everything. Pros made the experience of carving a pumpkin, putting together an outfit and tripping out your house for the holidays, activities which require advanced degrees in creative design, special effects lighting, and a budget that rivals the line items for NASA research and development.

Now a days, if your pumpkin isn't strobe light animated to have Darth Maul or Elsa from Frozen sing "I'm all about the Base." you're slumming.

All the go to easy costumes of prior years, vampire, pirate and zombie, have been relegated to the no longer acceptable, annoyingly sparkly, or made so over the top by recent movies and television shows, as to require actual effort to assemble. Gone are the simple white sheets with holes for the eyes. Gone are the grab six sashes, tie them across your waist and head and call yourself a gypsy. Gone are the classic black capes and pointy teeth. Every witch now looks like something from Anime, Harry Potter or Wicked.

Working the door on October 31st, I pined all night for some kid to come to the door wrapped in toilet paper as a mummy, or made into a robot using tin foil, or wearing their mother's prom dress as a princess. Instead, I got 27 Elsas, and heaven knows how many other princesses, all from Disney, all glittery, all beautiful, and all done via a Visa card.

Something was lost in all these pre-processed costumes, the same thing lost in looking at my kids loot when they got home. Everything was the same. All treats now are bite sized chocolates in foil wrappers except for the bottled water which indicated someone really doesn't like Halloween or wants their house wrapped.

I remembered getting homemade popcorn balls and multi-colored marsh mellow chocolate stained glass windows, caramel apples and straws of sugar. We tolerated the dentist who gave out toothbrushes, we understood it anyway.

But I recall the teenagers of our neighborhood t-ping the one home with the mean guy that handed out raisins. Everyone of us kids felt he deserved it. We were cowboys and football players, queens and rabbits, The oldest teen was Robin Hood and he wore his bow across his chest, and had real arrows in a homemade quiver. His dog was dressed in a burlap sack with holes cut out for his feet and a rope around his waist. He was Friar Tuck. That was part of the fun. We made up everything. Everyone made up everything. Creating what we did not have, inventing what we wished we could buy in the store brought joy...which now, we get at the seasonal costume shop, but the joy feels artificial, like fake salt.
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So I've decided. Next year, we're going to make costumes. I'm going to give them felt and paper bags and foil and tape and hopefully, my kids will discover what we seem as a people so intent on forgetting, that the fun of a Holiday is not how close to perfection we come with our look, but how perfect our look is when we go through the process of creating it. We'll have fun and it will be messy, but it will be real. And I'm going to go find some retro candy to give out like sugar straws and teach my kids how to t.p. the people who gave out bottled water and scolded my kids about their teeth. It's a matter of principle for me. They weren't even dentists!

Happy Halloween!