We are always in Holy Saturday, awaiting the fullness of Easter

It’s Holy Saturday but before dawn, so it feels like a continuation of Good Friday, when I bet the followers of Jesus on that second day, struggled to rest.  The world must have felt empty, and the future, only uncertain. I imagine their thoughts and conversations must have churned over the whole of those three years and that Good Friday in a ruthless fashion.  “They’d crucified Jesus! How could He die?  Jesus raised people from the dead! He healed the blind. He cured the mute and the deaf and the lame and the sick! He cast out demons! He walked on water! He fed the 5,000.  He fed us. How? How? How could He die?” and “Why?”

I imagine they must have hunted through their memories for every word of His they could remember, most especially, that he’d warned them, He would suffer and die.  Palm Sunday must have felt like another lifetime ago, rather like the luxury of attending mass seems now.   We are in the midst of a storm knowing something of that emptiness, as our lives are stripped back, as the stores are stripped bare, and as the future for well, everything, is revealed to be what it always was, uncertain.   It makes all we do, an act of faith or a revelation of our fear of trusting in the Lord.   It’s easy to see how the apostles would have locked themselves in an upper room.

We are awaiting Easter with the knowledge it happened and is happening now.   That’s the gift of Holy Saturday for us.  One day, we will receive again the gift of being able to go to mass, to participate fully and receive.  We know it will be true infinitely should we respond to God’s invitation to love Him with a yes, forever.  We will be before the Lord of Hosts. We will be able to see and touch Jesus more than we have up to now whenever we’ve been given the blessing to receive.  Today, most especially this day, we’re between Good Friday and Easter in the world, with the knowledge this disease is about us and dangerous, and the hope of one day, being able to move about without fear.

Holy Saturday is a gift to the Church, as Jesus descended into Hell and preached the Good News of His endless love to the dead. (We profess this in the creed at every mass).  Holy Saturday must be a day of special joy to the souls in Purgatory it seems to me, because all time is now to God, and so the souls in Purgatory now, must be offered the gift of hearing God’s love, every Holy Saturday and all time in Purgatory must also be like that first Holy Saturday, the time in between death and life everlasting, where the souls hear and rejoice at the word.

If we want a slice of Heaven now, when we can only watch the mass but not partake fully, we should rejoice at the word, and live in hope of the eventual time when if we are so graced, we get to participate in the fullness of Holy Saturday, as a prelude to experiencing the fullness of Eternal Easter. 

At the Catholic Standard Today

My son and I took a walk and exercised our imaginations.  Staying at home and keeping the faith.

Over at the Register today

Hello and welcome to April.  I have a piece over at the National Catholic Register for anyone who felt like somehow, they missed something of what they were supposed to feel or do during Holy Week.   I've found in discussions with family and friends, the experience was almost universal, maybe we need to just relax and allow ourselves to be steeped in Holy Week, rather than thinking we have to somehow ascend into it.  Anyway, enjoy and please share with friends via facebook, twitter, etc:  When a rough Holy Week is the lesson.

Connecting the Dots

Every Monday, Mark Shea and I enjoy a good talk.  This past week, we shared Easter Sunday stories and delved into the great mystery that is The Shroud of Turin.

Surprised to Find

A piece I wrote Monday night, is up at the National Catholic Register today.  If you remember the piece I wrote at the beginning of Lent, May I Pray for you, this is the bookend to that one. It is why in part, I've continued the question on Facebook.  Admittedly, I also miss the experience of community I felt during Lent and so I am thinking, it might be good to continue.

Here's the piece:
 What does an Easter People look like?

and here's the question for today, "May I pray for you?"

Over at Eat Sleep Write Today

Busy, trying to deal with those things like I don't know, whatever it is that happens on April 15th.   So you get this piece I wrote for Eat Sleep Write!  It's seasonal, it's about a taxing bunny.  

So....It's Easter Monday....Now What?

The long wait for Lent is over.  The candy eaten, or most of it anyway. Now people pick over the left behind, gradually snatching the best flavored jelly beans and gnawing on the last of the lamb.  The day after Easter, Easter Monday, what do we do?  We ought to do something.  We've spent all this time waiting for Easter, and now we're here.  We're supposed to be changed, to be transformed by this event, by this day, by the knowledge of what happened then, 2015 years ago, and what happens at every mass, what is still happening, and what will happen again.

But today is Monday. It's ordinary.  The kids want breakfast, lunch, dinner and snack and wonder what we will do with the hours in between eating.  Laundry and dishes await, dust bunnies and beds to make, there is more, more and more, and still, the moreness promised by Easter seems far away, because the blooms have not yet broken the soil of the soul.  We've celebrated, we've begun, but now we must begin again.  

The air is warm, spring whispers its presence, but it is not yet garishly explosive in its beauty, not yet shouting to the world "He is risen."  Instead, there are occasional glimpses, a crocus here, a daffodil clutch there, bunny and bluebird sightings become less rare.

We come to the empty tomb, but we do not yet understand.  We go about our lives, walking to Damascus, talking about the events of the week, of our lives, waiting to understand all that happened and why.  We know something has happened, we even name it, but the reality is not yet fully understood, anymore than a bud is full bloom or a seed a tree.

My children want to know what they will do today and tomorrow and in the afternoon tomorrow after the activities of the day, they want to be distracted, diverted, entertained during their spring break.   I want them to understand the gift of leisure, so I let them struggle with the cross of boredom.  It leads to creative play, to shared playing, to going outside and discovering a stick makes a good flag pole when you attach streamers, and that tree is good for climbing.  The driveway provides a near endless canvas, and sunning yourself with a book and a blanket can be very relaxing.  But saying go do these things, would not give them the joy of these experiences.  They cannot be listed as options, or they lose their potency, the beauty of extemporaneous play is discovered joy.  It cannot satisfy any other way.  

Perhaps that same need, to let us be bored with the less of not Easter, is what we require to discover the more  that comes with the full reality of Easter.

Happy Easter Monday!

Holy Week Thoughts

Palm Sunday, we get the reading of the Lord's last hours.  We get to see in painful detail all the ways we need Good Friday.

Because Jesus would not do things the way we wanted them, by being a King in the world as opposed to King of the world, we betray Him. 
We fall asleep even when things are dire.
We fall asleep even when He asks us not to.
We fall asleep in His presence.
Because we're too weak to speak out, we ask, "What is truth?"  
Because we're envious or chafe at His words, we plot to undermine Him, blaspheme Him, testify against Him, or watch as these things are done.
Because we're creative when we feel righteous, we weave crowns of thorns, and invent games, "Play the prophet." and demand Jesus answer, which of us struck you.
To fit in with the crowd, we say "Crucify him."
To not be declared like Him when someone says, "Surely you were with Him." we deny three times.

We give a heavy cross to Him.
We watch Him fall.  We watch Him fall again. We watch a third time.
We don't want Him to die just yet, so we get just enough help to prolong the pain.

We want to watch Him nailed.
We place a sign over His head. 

We pierce His side.

We dare Him, "Let this Messiah, this king of Israel, come down now from the cross, that we may see and believe."

This week, hearing this read aloud, it occurred to me, that last request by the chief priests and scribes, He answered with a yes, giving them the opportunity to recognize the Messiah (and one hopes some of them did).   The idea gave me great comfort, the people asked for the unreasonable, and God answered with the lavish "Yes" that is Easter.

Have a blessed Holy Week, prepare for the day of the most lavish Yes.  

Glimpses of Heaven

Sitting around the table after singing "Happy Birthday," someone asked my daughter what her favorite point of the day had been.  She looked around and talked about going to the baseball game with her father.  I looked about and my favorite moment was that one, with everyone around the table.  Even on Easter, we hadn't quite captured the knowing moment of being together, despite going to mass, despite breakfast lunch and dinner.  Today, Easter Monday, for a moment, we caught the experience of being at the wedding feast, when all whether eating or not, were present to each other.

Then someone asked for milk and another, a fork, a text message came which demanded an immediate response, one child vanished to the basement with her kindle while another two raced to finish the video game they'd paused and the birthday girl finished her cake and asked to go plunge back into her new book. The babies needed washing and the moment of communion over pink cake and candles fell into memory, blanketed over by the need to get one back to school, to do the dishes, to fold the laundry, to organize, to clean up the crumbs and keep moving.

If Catholics need a reason for weekly mass, it is that we live in an age that seems forever on the edge of dissolving into permanent rage. The Internet especially trades on the commodity of outrage that can never be resolved or absolved.  Any pockets of peace or tranquility have a singular quality to them, they are unique to the moment, to the post, to the writer or the reader.   Rage against the other side. Rage against the rich. Rage against those in power. Rage over what we do not have. Rage against what others do or do not do. Rage against what is being demanded or not.

Top that with the demand for instant access to our brains via emails and cell phones, i-pads and blackberries and we live in a busy busy angry exhausting world.  Carving out an hour, where we only need be present, we only need come with our needs, our wants, ourselves and all we love, seems like so very little for God to ask. Especially when doing so, would give us His peace even if we're stuck in the cry room with two children who have perfected the art of being both dead weight and oddly boneless while screaming. It is sufficient, God counts if we show up, if we are present, if we come to the table.

But we're busy crazy forgetful creatures, so he gives us moments to remind us, like sunsets, early spring flowers, snow falling and those few minutes after the cake.

And I think to myself, it's a good thing we have 12 birthdays to celebrate, we will perhaps be able to experience a few more slivers of what it is to be in Heaven and remember that the goal of this life is not to die tired and busy, but to be still and live presently.  

Limping into Easter

This is the high season for Catholics, especially those church going rosary saying apologetics reading catholic blog groupies like me.  

Except I am completely spent.  Emotionally, spiritually, personally, I am tired.

I have had a crummy Lent.  The irony stings. I wrote a column on Lent. I've tried adding things and taking away and I’ve forgotten and started again and forgotten and started again and deliberately ignored my resolutions and confessed and confessed and failed yet again. .

Trying to right the ship, I tried to lead a family rosary and we did it, if you don’t count the silent cold war between one child who refused to come in, and another who refused to come up from the basement after they’d screamed at each other.   I felt defeated.  How can I raise these people to be holy when I am not?  How can I be responsible for these souls when I am flunking with my own?

It occurred to me that I don’t envy the Pope trying to be responsible for the souls of the whole Church, trying to lead all of us to the heart of Christ.   We are an unruly lot of surliness...like my children on occasion.
Yet all of it can turn in an instant, from the clamor of a fight to the grace of unexpected extraordinary generosity.  We keep trying and sometimes, we can approximate the love we are called to give.

We have to lay hold of, the heart of Christ, and it is freely offered at every mass in the Eucharist.  That is the great miracle of His love, that is Heart is ours for the taking, it is offered like a lover, for He is love.   Take and eat.  Be at peace. Be not afraid.  Christ will fix everything we’ve broken if we let him.

We needed the Crucifixion, each of us needed Our God to suffer that that much …just for us because we are so messed up.  We are so angry. We are so injured, we hold onto our wounds fearful of the Divine Physician’s healing touch.  We want to hold onto our pain in our pride, and let it define us.  We cannot give a perfect Lent, we cannot save ourselves.  It is only in surrendering to God’s grace that we allow his Heart which as always beat for us, to enter.  

Easter happened.  Easter is happening.  This is the great reality, that a great or crummy Lent, Christ accepts all our offerings, the crumpled resolutions that got forgotten and abandoned and the ones well kept, it is the hearts He desires.   So to all who come to crowd the Easter mass, offer your heart, He will give you His, and all the weariness and wounds of this world will be washed away.  He will heal all of our lameness, world and self inflicted.

Have a blessed Easter.

Spambot Saturday 4/22/09 Offering

The Scrutiny of Jelly Beans


This year, the real Easter egg hunt began before April 12th, as shoppers scoured the local pharmacies, grocery stores and bulk warehouses for what have apparently become the latest scarce commodity in these economic hard times; jelly beans. Now normally, no one cares one wit about these rainbow colored sugar gel confections. Oh sure, they enjoyed popularity under President Reagan when Jelly Bellies were all the rage and a brief renaissance via Harry Potter’s Every Flavor Beans, but ultimately, they remain the third stringer in the candy world of Easter baskets.

This year, there weren’t any to be found despite multiple stops. I know it wasn’t just me, as I heard several other parents asking the store staff and calling out, as if they needed to summon these candies by name. Jelly beans were missing. The parents looked lost as they gazed at row after unhelpful row of pure chocolate candies. Jelly beans allowed one to stomach giving one’s offspring as much candy as Easter baskets provide without feeling totally indulgent. They’d get candy but one could be sure, they wouldn’t eat all of it. One adult summed it up perfectly, “No jelly beans…How could it be Easter?”

Leaving aside the lack of theological connections between rainbow colored peanut shaped licorice and the salvation of all our souls, I had to agree.

Those little colored jewels are life savers for when it’s ten o’clock at night and frankly, the Energizer Easter bunny needs a nap. Pour those suckers into the plastic eggies and boom, you’re done. Even better, they come in bulk, and thus multiple eggs can be filled in a short period of time. This is why the rabbit invented jelly beans. He had to get around the world in one night with no elves, no reindeer, he was both the UPS delivery guy and the truck itself. The poor creature needed to streamline if he was going to get to everyone.

Now I know perfectly well why those classic candies aren’t in the stores or on the shelves. It’s a conspiracy and I blame the children. While all kids love finding the eggs, jelly beans rank somewhere above lima beans but not by much. They’d stashed the bags somewhere behind tax software so that parents wouldn’t find them or be in a buying mood when they saw them. I went through the alternatives in my head. We could still fill the eggs.

Some would have money. Some could have chocolate or even malted milk eggs and Cadbury crèmes. I saw bubble gum eggs for sale, but consider that too adventurous. There may be parents out there who don’t mind cutting a lot of hair after Sunday mass, but I am not one of them. I was pining for the beans myself, not for eating mind you, I wanted my filler. But the absence of them made me recognize the reality of the life of a jelly bean.

Check any Easter basket two days post Sunday. You’ll find the foil remains of the bunny and no small number of wrappers from the malt, chocolate and marshmallow eggs. Beneath the green stringy grass, lurks at least a quarter cup of jelly beans of all assorted flavors.

Then, the sorting begins.

Three days after Easter, the yellow, red and pink ones have disappeared. By day five, the need for a sugar fix is still insufficient temptation to venture a bite at those black ones, though the purple, green and orange ones have all been sampled. Eventually, experimentation takes the place of voluntary eating, with jelly bean tooth pick statues, microwaved beans and dissected candy being amongst the most memorable alternatives.

As I lamented the loss of this bulk content piece from the children’s Easter baskets, there was a run in the store on marshmallow peeps. As I grabbed one of the last six packs of yellow chicks, a fellow mother had her hand on the bag. There was a brief tug-a-war, but I surrendered when she said, “Let my Peeple go.” It's Easter and you have to let these sort of things pass over.

Happy Easter Everyone!

How I Know We Have the Right Pope

Catholicism is always both and.   Neither the left nor the right is fully happy with this choice and worries, worries because the Pope might be not only in agreement with their side.  Guess what, while most people think they'd be pleased as punch to have Jesus meet us, we'd probably have to first swallow a lot of humble pie and recognize it is us that need to run out to meet Him.  

His humility is another sign that we have a Holy Spirit driven shepherd.  We have had the charism of Pope John Paul the II, or the Great, who smiled and welcomed everyone. We have had the quieter charism of Pope Benedict the XVIth, who provided us with the theology and bones of our Catholic Church tradition.  Now we have a quiet man who lives it using both his left and hands, teaching us with his one lung, to breathe deeply the presence of God and that will impell us to go out using both hands, to live it.  

God bless Pope Francis.  It does not matter if it is Saint Francis of Assisi or Saint Francis Xaivier, they are all on the same team, that of the All Saints.  He, like all the popes before him, is called to look at the Church, at the Body, and help straighten the limbs that are crooked and teach the whole of it to reach out and heal the world. 

He started by asking all of us to pray for him, and offering us an opportunity for an indulgence. So he has started by trying to help all of us get to Heaven faster.  That's a pretty awesome beginning, to offer us a fast track to our real home.   There may be two weeks left until Holy Week, but it already feels like Easter dawn. 

Easter Jelly Bean Opera

I have one son who specializes in pestering.  If he catches even a whiff of an idea that something he does irritates one of his brothers or sisters, he cranks up the volume to achieve maximum teasing effect.  With nine siblings, the hunting ground for prey is always plentiful.   He specializes however, in coming up with phrases or songs and activities that get under the goat of a singular person.  

The victim for Easter's project was his older sister. Given her size and height advantage, he'd have to craft something innocent enough to get past Mom censors, create a chorus of minions in the youngers and bypass his other older sister and one older brother in the process; a bank shot to the right corner pocket.  Tricky but doable. 

Mom had requested he locate two more baskets for egg hunts.  He improvised and brought  back two large straw sombreros, the kind given out at Chevy's for birthdays.   Tickled with his own inventiveness, he began singing about it.  "SOMBRER-E-O~!  SOME-BRER-EEEE-OOOOH! SOME-BRER-OH!" 

I initially thought his song rather charming and amusing.  His older sister however, found it a nusiance.  Big Mistake.  Smelling her teen frustration, he upped the ante and the volume.  "SUM BRER EEEE OH! SUM BRER-O SUM BRERE O SUM BRER O!"  Somehow West Side Story's "Maria" had morphed into spanish yodeling. When I gave him the eye brow "Stop bothering your sister." he broke out his trumpet and played the same notes over and over again.   She was furious.   "Make HIM STOP!" she ordered me.  I asked him to put his instrument away but it was too late.  An earworm had been created and enthusiastically embraced by the toddler set who now began their Von Trapp imitation of their brother's new Easter anthem.   A literal chorus of toddlers jacked up on Easter candy were marching about singing  "SOMEBRERO SOMEBRERO SOME BRERRRRRR OHHHHHH!"  Her agony was as equisite as his grin of victory.

Mission accomplished, he now morphed into seemingly innocent boy by doing the breakfast dishes.  But she was not fooled.  "MOM!" she glared at him for creating this cacophony.   "He's doing the dishes. Put on Dora, that should stop the rest of them." I suggested.  "What?" he asked with mock ignorance.  "I was only singing Sombrero...SomeBrerO, SOME BRER O!" I took away the inspirational hats and substituted real Easter baskets.  Personally, I hadn't minded the noise, it was happy and silly and he was doing the dishes.  (I value free chores done without nagging almost as much as true family peace). 

But it's Easter, and the only heads I want bitten off are chocolate ones.

Happy Easter

Happy Easter.

If we really understood the miracle that took place that morning, we would be racing to that tomb with the apostles and we'd wind ourselves getting there. 

So it is today, if we really understood what Easter means, we would be spilling over drunk with joy and awe and gratitude. 

Like watching our children at Christmas and their delight in everything is ours; so also God watches us as we go about thinking we understand everything, delighting in little things, getting upset over little things and He loves us just the same despite our clumsy oafish ways of being, our forgetfulness, our carelessness and our need for constant reminders of how to act. 

Happy Easter.  

We need all the miracles big and small that Christ offers, then and now; we need the miracle of the Mass, of the blessed sacrament, of how no matter what mood you may be in, something in the Liturgy will whisper to you if you listen, something will resonate in the heart.  We need the daily reminders of beauty, of song, of spring and of community, we need 1000 blessings every day to remember the Author of all those blessings; and if we are sufficiently steeped in grace, we might be able to see how many thousands more God offers. 

A friend of mine starts her day by counting fifty gifts of the coming day before she sets foot on the floor.  She is I think the kind of person who would run to the tomb; who keeps Easter in her heart all year long. 

May we all learn to do so.  Happy Happy Happy Easter.

I am the Country Bunny

My favorite children's book growing up was The Country Bunny and the Little Golden Shoes. It's still in print and if you don't own it and have little ones, it's worth a trip to the bookstore before Easter.  I remember always going to the shoe store looking for gold tennis shoes, convinced that they were always just "sold out."  The bronze baby shoes that often were showcased at the counter reinforced this notion in my head.  Kid logic does not require perfect proof, only sufficient collaborative evidence.

So when I was finally made aware of the reality of where all the eggs and candy came from, I cried hard.  Harder than one would think over Easter than one would expect for Christmas.  Not wanting to be unsympathetic to her oldest daughter who just learned that some of the pixie dust of the world was purely manufactured by Disney Corporation, she patted me on the shoulder and asked what was the worst about having this new knowledge.

"It means Scratchy (my rabbit) is out of a job."  I sobbed.

Mom had the prudence to decide not to address this muddled confusion of mine.  "She'll do just fine. She still has us."  Mind you, my pet bunny was the most foul tempered long eared rodent to ever grace the planet.  Her only expercise was to run away from my younger brother who would try to pet her inside a fenced area our saintly neighbor had created for this very purpose.  Mom figured I would get over it when the foil wrapped bunnies appeared in my basket.  Chocolate soothes a great many things including a heart that needs to grow up a little.  It did. 

But over the months that followed, my brain kept working on those hard truths, drawing the lines slowly.  That meant the story of the mother cottontail with the 21 baby bunnies who grew up to be the fifth Easter bunny wasn't anything but fiction either. 

But I didn't want it to be, because that story still felt real.  I went back to my room where a stiff baby shoe in my toybox was a keepsake that I would pretend was golden and belonged to the Easter bunny.  I loved the idea of the little girl rabbit putting her hands on her hips and declaring, "Wait and see." when the other older rabbits mocked her dreams.  I loved that she became what she wished not on her own time, but in the fullness of time by being joyously dutiful despite the apparent unglamorous demanding requirements of raising her 21 children.   The Grandfather bunny gives her golden shoes that allow her to bring Easter joy to the most difficult of places because of her courage, persistence and great love for children.

Having read the story recently to my own toddlers, they saw the parallel immediately and began to discuss which of the jobs they had in the house. (The Country Bunny assigns two children to each chore, leaving the politest one as the keeper of her chair and in my fantasy world back then, the next generation Easter Bunny who would take his mother's place when she grew too old to carry Easter baskets).  As a kid I'd worked these things out in my brain trying to figure out which job I would get assigned; like I said before, Kid logic works on its own world view rules.  I wanted to be one of the kids assigned to paint pictures. 

I tried to use this new generation's love of the old story to my advantage by assigning chores to two at a time.  They agreed.  I even have one willing to pull out my chair for me at dinner.  I thought about calling my mom at that point, explaining that I was the fifth Easter Bunny and said, "I take a size six and a half please."

I am the Country Bunny.

Various Offerings, Sweet, Cool and of Substance

First, Sweet:

One of my favorite traditions is the Washington Post Peep's contest. I've always wanted to enter.  I have this vision of doing the scene from the Ten Commandments with Moses saying, "Let my Peeple go." 

No one has done that but this year's selection is worthy of your attention.  My favorite is the Peeping Tom Peep.

Go Vote for the Peeples!

It's a calorie free indugence.

Coolness:  I just got on skype.  I feel like I finally entered the world of the Jetsons.  Now, where's my flying car, push button kitchen and robot maid?

Upside: I can call and talk to Mom and Dad and see them.
Downside: I will need to put on make up to use the computer.

Finally, for something more of substance, my friend Maria sends along a link to the Jone's Design Company.  It makes sense to me that someone who loves beauty and makes a living helping others discover how to make it happen in their home, would be drawn to deeper things.

P.S. Happy Birthday Regina!  You got potty trained so it's legal for you to be four now.

Keep Running

Psst.  Hey!  How's Lent working out for you? 

So far, I've managed to determine that my capacity to deny myself is woefully lacking.  I've gained four pounds.  Fridays have been particularlly hungry days when I haven't exactly put on the joyful mask for fasting or even abstaining. The rosary I planned to say daily, well I'm about a week or two behind, let's say three days to four out of the week it gets said on the fly while I'm driving or taking out the garbage or making the beds and adoration only made it onto the schedule because it was prescribed as penance.   Three pages of the spiritual book I'd chosen as a guide for the 40 days have been skimmed but I cannot recall a word. (I fell asleep).  Flailing like crazy does not sound like the way one should be when seeking to go out in the desert of one's spiritual life, but it aptly describes my Lenten journey thus far. 

The other day, getting everyone dressed was a major ordeal.  Someone couldn't find their shoes, another couldn't find socks, a third needed a different shirt and the fourth was running low on skirts she liked wearing. 

The next day fixing breakfast was hard. We'd ordered groceries to be delivered for that evening, but had to limp through breakfast.  Some had leftover flan. Some had oatmeal.  With such limited options, I still had one daughter who will not eat oatmeal or flan. I offered to make eggs.  Four eggs were frozen and two were cracked and frozen to the carton, but we limped through.  Naturally, two others at home wanted eggs too.  While I was fixing eggs, my five year old daughter tried to be helpful. She took the last of the cereal and poured it in a paper bowl for her brother who was sitting in his high chair awaiting his meal.  Within seconds of her good deed, the bowl and it's contents were scattered across the kitchen.  He dumped his sippy cup of soy milk for good measure. 

As I frantically tried to clean up, he rubbed the remainders of his drink and food in his hair.  Now the night before, a tomato pot fell into my bathtub killing the seedling and making my bathroom a dirty mess.  I forgotten about that until this morning when I went to give my son a quick bath to get him ready for a 10 o'clock speech appointment.  Instant mud.  Scrambling to get them all dressed and wiped down, the floor clean and table at least not sticky before she arrived, I can't say I offered it up.  I can't say I prayed through it.   I can say, it got done.

 Loading the car today was hard. We needed gas, we were running late and for the third time, I'd stowed all the winter coats only to get socked again with a 40-60 degree pouring down nasty rainy day. Today God, everything stunk even though I could see that everything did not in fact stink, that it was me having a hard time because I just wasn't feeling particularly dutiful.  Today everything I didn't want to do needed immediate one on one careful attention or it would implode.  And eventually, that everything included me.We know that suffering can bring us to Christ; and I know I suffer the least, mine is an easy burden to care for a lot of people that love me; but for all that, all this mess and minutia can bring me to my knees. 

As a kid, I ran long distance.  The final lap was always the point at which I wanted to quit, my body ached, I wondered why I was doing this, I wondered if anyone would notice if I just walked off the track.  Most of the time, the rule when those sorts of thoughts entered my head was run faster; but thankfully, on the times when I didn't have the extra go, others cheered and said keep going.  It seemed to me I needed that "Keep going." crowd now.  And before I could even ask, the keep going crowd made its presence known.  These past two weeks, people have been preparing meals for my family.  I do not know who they are but I am grateful.

This weekend is Palm Sunday and I know, I am not ready.  Next weekend is Easter and I know I know I know I am not ready for that but man the one thing I do know is how do I need it.   How I need Easter.  And that moment of knowing, of thinking how I needed Easter, brought the peace that doing everything properly could not have (for I would have been proud of making a good Lenten sacrifice), and the joy of knowing that screwing up was why we needed Easter in the first place.   

 Have to go finish making the beds, take away the laundry baskets from my daughters that are using them as bumper cars, feed the baby and read Paul a book.  Thank you to my unknown support team and happy final lap of Lent everyone.  Keep running.

Time for New Things

This past Lent, I gave up my personal gritch but she spent the last few hours before Easter making sure I'd know that this battle would go on unto death.  We have been slack in our organization of the back basement. It's easy because you can shut the door and only go down once a month to change the filter and say, "This basement is a mess, we should clean it up." Then you go upstairs and forget about it until next mortgage payment day.   It was easy until this past Saturday.  My daughter went down and she found water.  It was bad.

We spent Holy Saturday clearing out the basement of papers, sorting what could be salvaged.  Because my husband was at the office preparing for a Monday business trip, I drafted all my children into work. Trips to the grocery store were postponed.  Trips to the department store for shoes for one child were forgotten.  By the end, my helpers had discovered Lord of the Rings was on television and one by one succumb to watching.  I'd cleaned all day and still in the end, I was left alone. 

Clearing out lesson plans from my teaching days of 17 years ago, it made me angry. It made me frustrated.  I saw all these fun things once ago I planned that I was no longer doing.  I saw all my kids doing fun things and I was here cleaning the smelly spidery basement.  Even my shop vac quit on me.   I felt tired and unready for Easter even as I mused that a wish I'd held, to clear out the backbasement had been fulfilled. The cleaned out room did not bring me joy.  It only meant I could now see how the rest of the house needed work too. I felt just as messy and spidery and smelly and empty.

At mass the next day, we arrived looking a bit unready.  One child was wearing a dress that was a bit too old for her, we had no shoes for the baby, three kids had struggled with their hair that morning and it showed.  Sitting in a pew all by ourselves, I was forced twice to take kids to the bathroom. But somewhere in that morning in the midst of the song at the presentation of the gifts, I felt unbidden, the understanding of what these past 40 days had been supposed to be about for me. 

I have nine children. 

For the past year, I have been becoming adjusted to managing all of them; but it has been about treading water, making sure we got through the bare minimum of any given day.  Teeth brushed, three meals, homework done.   It has been functional.  I've done more sometimes, but at that mass, I felt the dull recognition that I had become conditioned to seek to do the minimum and no more.  Looking at those old lesson plans made me realize I had somehow drained a lot of the color out of parenting for function.

Parenting should be about every color and sparkles and stickiness and joy bordering on garrishness.  It wasn't that I'd been depressed, it's that I had supressed myself.  The practical gritch had sought to remove all fun from parenting by emphasizing how much effort fun was, and to keep me from even participating. 

"You have this very light cross to care for lots of people.  It is now time to put on the joyful mask." I remembered how much fun I'd had as a teacher. I could hear in the whispers of the choir's song at the bringing of the gifts.  My gift I had been hording unto atrophy, burrying it.  It was time to dig it up and start bringing it to the altar every day and offering it.   Walking up for communion, it was hard to keep from crying or smiling or laughing, I felt all three and the overwhelmed hope that I wouldn't forget this lesson that seemed so obvious and so easy and yet so hard to embrace.  

It is Easter, it is Spring. Rejoice.  It is time for something new.

Candy Ferret

With nine children, you have some that love salty and some that feast on sweet and like Congress, you have the undecideds.  My almost three year old today, after many months of discernment, has declared. 

She went into her sister's room who for some reason, hordes her treats from any holiday and paces them out until the next holiday so that there is always a steady if slow stream of goodies from which to feast.  She found the stockpile from Saint Patrick's day.  She feasted well. 

Her sister is none too pleased.

It's a good thing Easter is only a few weeks away. 

A Few Easter Thoughts

Every Sunday, we go to mass and some days, mass is easier than others. Knowing there were chocolate bunnies and eggs to find made some of our crew a bit squirrely for the 8:30. My oldest was in Florida, my two oldest girls altar serving, and my husband and I were left to deal with our eight year old --not a morning son, our sentimental fiver and what are affectionately referred to as the "non sentient" crowd.

The Non Sentients began by entering the pew and announcing to anyone within earshot --the entire church, that the Easter Bunny had brought Chocolate. The four year old began then flapping like a bird for joy.

Then the organ played a practice Alleluia, he felt the need to flap and say the word, "Flap. Flap. Flap."

Still, his joy was infectious and I soon had a flock of would be flamingos.

Faced with flapping toddlers in a crowded church, I tried to suggest that this wasn't the time. Looking around, the other toddlers stuck in stiff Easter dresses followed my son's cue and began their own immitations of a faithful flock.

The opening music fortunately stopped the toddlers from taking flight but I was struck by their response to Easter for the rest of mass.

Happy Easter. May we all be so happy we could fly.