345/365 Christmas is Over

That's what my sister-in-law said, annoyed at a commercial on TV.

But it's not.

The local radio station that plays the worst Christmas on Earth starting in early November stops abruptly at midnight on December 26. Done. Christmas is over.

But it's not.

This is when it's Christmas for me. Advent, not only this year but especially this year, is sturm und drang. It is work and suffering and preparation in many ways. It is ridiculous rituals that we love and school stuff we have to finish up and snow shoveling and not enough salt for the porch and mopping the floors for the 96th time that afternoon.

But this is Christmas. This is rest and glow. This is foraging for cookies in my mother-in-law's dining room and watching Dr. Who while knitting in the recliner. This is listening to my perfect Pandora radio station I've created, to Nat King Cole and Bing and Dean and Vince Guaraldi sing Silent Night White Christmas I've been dreaming of santa claus coming to town. This is sleeping in and Mike isn't working and so the kids have two parents to bother instead of just me and did I mention sleeping in? Someone else cooks, or doesn't. Someone else cleans, or doesn't. Kids play and I take a couple advil and rest.

It's a short Christmas after what seemed like a short Advent but it actually was long. So bewildering. I'll be chalking the doorposts in a week and that seems ridiculous already.

But it's not over yet.

346/365 Yeah, that's true

"As the oldest child in a big family, I learned early how to be responsible. Like with many firstborn children, it just seemed to come naturally to me--sometimes to an extreme. The importance of accepting responsibility can't be overemphasized. Just as important, though, is knowing when to let go, knowing when we've done all that is in our power. Responsible living means embracing both realities."

Daniel Homan, OSB

347/365 Homilies, Dominicans, etc.

There have been some excellent homilies for me this past month. I wish I could say more. I am useless these days. I just know that I've left church thinking.

We have a deacon, a Dominican moving towards priesthood. He's the best we've had so far in this position, in my mind. I think he'll do fine. I'm getting the impression, though, with these guys and with my experiences with occasional Dominicans at SLU (they have a divinity school there), that I'm just not a fan. Isn't it fascinating how different orders truly do attract different folks? Jesuits, of course, make me want to become a Buddhist. I have never been impressed with Vincentians, either. Dominicans don't make me want to run away and hold my ears shut with the palms of my hands, but there's just something about their style that doesn't hit my heart the way a Benedictine or some Franciscans or the Redemptorists of my childhood do. We don't vibrate on the same wavelength or something.

But I think this deacon will do fine. I wonder where he'll go and what he'll do. I wonder if he'll be far away and think about our little urban parish and all those crazy people. I wonder if he'll remember us fondly when he goes. Probably so.

348/365 Back Home

I got a bulletin from this past Sunday--having a key to the church has its advantages. I sat in the car and read this poem by Christine Rodgers that Miguel inserted into his column, something about the Christmas star and the magi and how we are led to God and it was short and William Carlos Williams-esque in style, this simple little dropping of words. The last part reads:

And if

an angel
warns you
in a dream

not to
return
by the old

way,
please
listen.

I love the story of the Magi, the transformation, the gifts, the flashback and forward for Christ's whole life. Me, I'm moving away from this crisis point but there isn't any resolution. I don't think I've arrived anywhere and nobody is pointing me a way back or forward. I'm back home, but I'm still headed that way. I hope I've taken the correct turns.

349/365 3535

It stands there across the street from the school.

Owner occupied drug house. In 2000, police officers sat in our classrooms monitoring activity. In 2001, they forgot about us and moved onto more fertile ground. Every raid produced the wrong people, never the owner, never someone to pin it all on.

Drug dealer season starts with the first warm weekend and continues until stoop-sitting is too uncomfortable. A lot of the school year, pretty much.

The school closes, a new pastor arrives, other things fall here and there and life goes on.

Then one day heading down to a girl scout meeting I realize the front doors are boarded up. Must have finally caught the right guy, I think. I wonder how long it'll be empty.

Delivering Christmas packages, Mike and I head into the church hall with our kids. The doors are now boarded up with new boards. And the windows, too. It's a shell. Waiting for something? To fall down? So many barriers to success.

"I wish I'd taken a picture of that place," I say to Mike. "Like one every year from the time I started at the school. Its downfall."

We walk into the church hall, a dim hallway that leads to the cafeteria. "You wait long enough, I guess," I sigh.

350/365 New Years

"You're welcome to come over," Astrid invites us over for New Year's. It's a choir party, from what I gather. I think she was embarrassed she hadn't mentioned it earlier. Ah well. Becky starts listing off folks or something, I don't know, I'm gathering stuff up before my car gets a ticket on Grand.

"And Lynn called," Astrid fills in. "She thinks she might even come by without Pat."

"Lynn is coming?" I clarify.

"Does that determine if you are?" Astrid says with a smile.

"Nah. I've got a neighbor thing, but it is good to know that up front."

Eh. As if I'd want to ring in the new year with Lynn. Maybe just to round out the ridiculousness.

351/365 Christmas Novena in Review

I loved the Christmas Novena this year. I needed it. Something predictable (even though I'd never been before, it follows what I know). Something the same each night. Something a little warm on the chilly December evenings, with round voices echoing in the barrel vault of our church ceiling. Something I could probably do by heart as time goes by.

Simple beauty and stillness. It brought my heart round back to where it should be.

352/365 New Years Resolution

This past year, my resolution was simple. When people put their turn signals on and need to get into my lane, whether merging onto the highway or avoiding surprise construction or even just human frailty of making a mistake, I was going to let them in.

I kept that resolution all year. I wasn't silly about it. I waited for the turn signal and I was safe when I let folks in. I didn't let people in who raced to the front of the exit lane to wedge themselves in out of turn. Those people annoy me. But people who just needed to get somewhere and let their needs be known? By early February it wasn't even something I had to think about. Of course I let them in.

This is the first year I kept a new year's resolution.

So I guess 2010 wasn't too bad a thing after all.

353/365 Finishing Up

Twelve left--I'm off count because it's hard to keep up daily with 3 kids and 3 blogs and 3 cats and 3 volunteer jobs and so many other 3s. I'll finish up in the new year. I'm woefully behind on my neighborhood blog, one that continues into the winter and spring.

I'll have to think of what to say. Too bad I don't have anything amazing to reveal. That's the nice thing about stability, after all.

354/365 New Year

The strangest Christmas season ever. Christmas on a Saturday meant I never knew what day of the week it was that last week of Advent. I was not alone in my confusion, either. It meant that Christmas was immediately followed by Holy Family that Sunday, and here a week later we're not obligating Mary, Mother of God on the 1st because tomorrow is Epiphany. Astrid said it was like Triduum come to Christmas. It was for her--she is performance art, in the choir, but for me nothing can touch the exhaustion of Triduum.

We have a long ordinary time in front of us, Easter being almost as late as it can be. Plenty of time to get ready for Lent and keep the church plain and get some growing in.

I'm starting seeds in a week because I'm increasing my garden just a bit. Rearranging. But like the liturgical year has taught me, living in one place and doing the same things again and again allows for minor tweaking and learning as the years go by.

355/365 Epiphany Chalked Up

and on entering the house
they saw the child with Mary his mother.
They prostrated themselves and did him homage.
Then they opened their treasures
and offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod,
they departed for their country by another way.

356/365 UndecoratingChurch

Ordinary time has always been plain at our church since I started getting involved. I can't recall before that time--liturgy and place didn't mean as much to me then. But it does now, and ordinary time, especially the winter section, has always been plain. Take down Christmas and leave things spare and open. Kind of like the house, too, when I take down the Christmas tree and set things up for winter. The dining room seems big and clean and there's room to breathe and think.

But this year, Christmas was as short as it could be. It will be over Sunday, but the poinsettias are not spent. Hildegarde sent a message: what should we do?

I like things bare, but I don't like to waste. The poinsettias are lovely but have Christmas written all over them. I'm not sure how to compromise.

So I emailed back that I just didn't have a dog in this fight. Either way is fine with me. Really. Let me know what I should do.

357/365 Hunkered Down

Sick baby.
Long night.
Plans will wait.
Up late and often,
in a haze.
No thinking,
just being.
Hot baby.
Curl up and comfort.

358/365 Taking Down Christmas

I took down Christmas today--at my house. All but the wreaths and the creches (is it proper to put an 's' on that? maybe "nativity scenes" is better, or, what they really are, "Jesus' Birthday Playsets").

The tree will go out tonight to Carondelet to turn into mulch for somebody. The ornaments and other bits and pieces get put into a plastic box with cardboard dividers, and into a green metal footlocker. A metal footlocker that my grandmother gave me on some kind of spontaneous whim about 10 years ago. My parents were in town--probably at Christmas, or maybe when they first moved here?--and we were at her house. "Do you want an old trunk?" she asked. I never say no, which is a blessing and a curse. Sometimes it means dirty baby stuff that I have to dump myself. But sometimes it means a spare dining room table from Astrid or the primitive square-nail construction dresser that holds our TV. And this was one of those blessings.

I remember my parents being there because Bevin was jealous of the trunk. Old, an actual footlocker/trunk instead of a newer replica of the real thing. Forest green, the lock broken but the flip-down latch locks in perfect order. A mailing label on the top. It was Aunt Betty's.

This is the story I know of Aunt Betty. Forgive me if you've heard it already:

"You know Aunt Betty?" she starts. I know Aunt Betty. I don't know how we're related, but I know that the green footlocker I keep my Christmas ornaments in has her address on Delmar on the label. I remember her last years, at occasional family gatherings we rarely attended. She'd sit at my grandmother's butcher block kitchen table and appear to talk to her hands. Sometimes my mother would sit next to her and smile-and-nod at her.

"Well, when she died, I had to go through her things. In her desk drawer, I found this envelope. In this envelope, there was this key. And there was this address. I thought, 'that's down on South Grand in the city.' And so I drove down here one day and found it was Tower Grove Bank. It was a safe deposit box key."

"Well, I went into the bank, and talked with a man at a desk, and I said, I'm her cousin's daughter, but I'm in charge of her estate. And the man says, well, she hasn't taken a look in that box in over thirty years. He says, she just pays the rent. I said, well, I want to close it out. Whatever's there she doesn't need anymore, I said. And so he takes me to the box, and I open it."

I stand there on my porch, she's leaning on the roof of her car, waving at people passing her slowly in their cars.

"And in it is one piece of folded paper. It's dated in the thirties, 1937, and it says, 'I've gone. John.' She'd only been married to John for three years. And he never came back. And she put that letter in a safe deposit box in south city. That letter was 50 years old when I took it out of that box." She shakes her head and laughs. I stare at her in disbelief.

"You know, no man's worth 50 years of heartache."

Merry Christmas. Don't waste your time.

359/365 Taking down more Christmas

On Sunday, we've decided to sort of spread the poinsettias out, take down the evergreens, and ease our way out of Christmas. Like I said in my email, I don't care. Neither did most who replied. But Lynn's response was something along the lines of, "But aren't people expecting to be allowed to take a poinsettia home on Sunday?"

I thought, but did not say:

What? Since when is the parish a source of free plants? Since when do folks "expect" to receive a poinsettia from the parish after Christmas is over?

And then I remembered the year Lynn announced to the whole crowd at the Migration mass after-party , a week before the season was over, that everyone could go upstairs and get a poinsettia! I wasn't there (thank goodness). But I remember the devastation. It looked like post-sale Black Friday at a walmart. What a mess. But I do remember that being odd, how eager she was to give the damned plants away. Is this common? I just don't remember it from other parishes...

360/365 Benedictine Moments

I stay. I stayed this year. Several times, in fact. At several points, I had a choice presented to me to jump ship, change horses, experience the grass on the other side of the fence. And I never did.

Staying, or stability, is good and bad. The downsides are obvious to someone who has been lots of places and seen lots of things: sameness is dull. Staying put might mean missing a great opportunity. It's a bad idea to stay in a bad situation.

None of my situations were bad, or else I wouldn't have stayed. I say no to many things that I decide aren't a good idea as time goes on. I have chosen not to spend too much time with my too conservative relatives on important holidays. I just don't like them and I don't want to ruin Easter with that. I used to, but I decided it was time for a change--many years ago, not this past year. Just as an example.

My situations I decided to stay in this year are far more mundane than making a break like that. School choice. Irish dance school. Worship Commission. RCIA. Children's Liturgy. Girl Scouts.

Girl Scouts remains constant because I know the difference between hierarchy and local troop, just like I understand the difference in my church. I didn't jump ship and send Maeve to the French Immersion school, even though I was tempted, because we are invested in our school community--and there, stability paid off with good kindergarten teachers and my time not split between two locations. I stay in RCIA because I see others leave and I know it makes it harder on those who remain. Same with children's liturgy, although I also stay there because I know I'm good at it. Irish dance school--a few dancers from our school have bailed for a new school which would be a shorter drive and maybe a good choice, but I know the teacher at our school and Sophia didn't feel the need to leave. She just shrugged and said she was happy where she was. And so, so was I.

And I stay on Worship Commission because I won't let that woman win. Probably not the most Benedictine reason, but it does keep me there.

361/365 My Name

They call me Dearbhla
They call me Asumpta
They call me Atracta
They call me Maeve
That's not my name, that's not my name
That's not my my my my my name
(Up and Over It "Chav Ballerina")

It's Maeve's favorite song. It's about being an Irish dancer and being anonymous in your wig and makeup and stiff dress and nobody knows who you are--so they call you a variety of Irish girl first names. Maeve loves it, of course, because it says "they call me Maeve/that's not my name." She thinks it's hilarious.

She was singing it as she got out of the car today to go to church. And then the homily was about names. About the importance of knowing someone's name. About how, once you know a person's name, it is the beginning of a relationship. That before that point, a person is whatever you assume she is--whatever ethnic group or minority culture or religion, but once you learn her name, that starts to fall away.

This is, of course, completely true and I have nothing to add. I think about the mom at my girls' school, Muslim, wearing her hijab, and how at first I didn't know how to be with her. Then I realized she was just like me, only not like me. And then it was fine. She likes the Onion and Red Dwarf and thinks kid music programs at school are ridiculous. Her husband is a Croatian, a convert (I believe) and she converted, too. Her first name is Jenny for goodness sake. So I guess I did have something to add.

My first name is Sarah. I keep it hidden because I was never called Sarah growing up. I even dropped it when I got married, but I picked it back up. Tradition or something. I was named for my great-aunt, who died this past year at 93. The name I go by is Bridgett, which is a variable spelling of a name with many spellings. My parents were going for an Irish-American theme there (I think about the rap group House of Pain all the time when I say these names): Bridgett, Ian, Bevin, and Colleen. Besides Bevin, I'm not sure if any of those names are even used in Ireland anymore (and I doubt Ian ever was). Bridgett, though, however you spell it, was. And in fact, one of my diaspora immigrant ancestors is a Bridget. Or Bridgit. Or Bridgett. She was illiterate: what did she know? And she married an Edward (Mike's first name as well), becoming the first Bridget Blake in my line. I wasn't technically named for her, since my parents didn't even know she existed, but I like to make that happen in my head anyway. She was born about 1838 and was here by 1855. She is a puzzle.

After that, my maiden name is Blake, a name I would have loved to have used for a child's first name but both my sisters have laid claim to it. If and when they ever have children. Blake is Irish, or maybe English, although Edward Blake was from Galway. He committed suicide in East St. Louis after gunning a man down in his bar. I yearn to know more.

I gave up Blake, although it's still part of my name, for Mike's name: Wissinger. There's not a day that goes by that I don't regret this move. I already have to spell my first name. Now I get to spell this one, too. Every time. And, with the way it's pronounced in Mike's family (WESS-singer with singer like the sewing machine), I have a choice: people can spell it or pronounce it. Legally mine, but not mine?

I mentioned this on some blog a few years back, but I have a set of initials that follow my name that are essentially meaningless except in the right context. Like my dad who could technically sign his name with RN at the end, but why would he, since he's been an accountant since the 80s? I am a Benedictine oblate, which means that if I ever decided to, say, write from that perspective for publication, I could sign my name Bridgett, OblSB. I do sign my church banners that way, but otherwise it simply doesn't matter to anyone else. But I like having it there as a reminder.

That's my name.

362/365 Down with Christmas

But don't take those poinsettias.

I stood in the back of church talking to Flora about what we needed to do after mass, after folks filed out and went out into the world. If we had people stay, we needed to take lights down off trees, take wreaths down, etc. And I was tying up the ribbons on my Christmas banner so they wouldn't get tangled or drag on the ground. Sal was trying to talk to me about how he did not touch the trees this year (although most likely he did...) and I was making a mental list of tasks.

I watched as a young girl, my daughter's age, went over to the creche scene and took a poinsettia. Miguel leaned over and said something to her, I couldn't hear what, but she put it back. He'd mentioned it at the end of mass announcements: don't take the poinsettias because we're still going to be using them for a few weeks.

Mostly because it annoys me that Lynn is so anxious to give them all away. I don't even like the damned things. But I guess I'm just not nice enough to let it go...

363/365 Clyde

I get the quarterly update magazine from the monastery, kind of akin to an alumni newsletter. It arrived on Saturday and I flipped through it. They are rehabbing, too, although with more diligence (and money). One of the things they're doing is putting in a geothermal heating and cooling system.

They also have windmills on their property. It's called the Conception project, after the men's monastery, but it was their idea. I guess the Clyde project isn't as evocative.

They recycle, I mean, they are a center for recycling and sorting for the community around them. They rent their land prudently for cows to graze but not for development (although who would be interested in development out their way, I'm not sure).

To sum up, for a group of cloistered nuns, they are so forward-thinking and aware of their world. They put their liturgy of the hours on podcast. Like, more than I could figure out if I focused. They make gluten-free altar bread. And soap.

There's been a lot written about monasteries and how they saved Europe or civilization, how they were the first model of the corporation. And there's a lot written about the Rule and how modern folks can use it to run their lives in a better way. And I've got to say, 4 years into this? I think it's probably all true.

It makes me wish I lived closer, to be a part of it--many nearby lay members of their community are more actively involved than I could be so far away. But my place is here, of course, for all the good reasons I write about here and on my south city and sycamore blogs. How benedictine of me.

364/365 This is where I live

When I left the school, pregnant with Sophia but not ready to give up my current life for a new one, I couldn't see into the future. I had made the mistake of teaching where I went to church. As much as I loved teaching at the school, it was impossible to keep those two parts of my life separate and my faith life suffered for it. Plus I was incredibly immature and, truly, should have been reined in by a principal and put in my place--but our principal got winded walking up a flight of stairs so it was kind of every man for himself. Anyway, I've talked about this before and let it go ages ago. But I think back on it sometimes, the conversation I had with Mike that fall, as my faith drifted and I got busy being a mother.

We baptized Sophia the Sunday after September 11, 2001. I was still so angry at our pastor I couldn't make eye contact. And I said to Mike, "I'm going to outlast them. Sr. Fern's contract is up next year. She'll move on. Sr. Agneta will, too. And Fr. Bill. I will stand here, in my parish, and outlast them."

Agneta and Fern left at the same time--the school was only open that one last year before we merged with a neighboring parish school. Bill was there a long time. He baptized Maeve. I almost didn't have her baptized, and I almost had Mike's uncle do it down in Cairo. But I stood firm. This was my parish. Plus Mike wasn't going to let me not baptize her (I was on the edge, leaving for the Quakers, but still wanting to prove I belonged at my parish? I was in the throes of something, let me tell you).

So we baptized Maeve, but I didn't even invite Bill over afterward. Still pissed. Then that coming year I was nominated by a ridiculous number of people to be on parish council. That's what happens when you pray for guidance. So I sat at that table and took notes as secretary and didn't budge. This was my parish.

When Bill left, I wrote him a nice note. By that point, my edges were worn down some and it was obvious that I belonged here.

I can't even imagine having angry heated loud arguments with our pastor in the parking lot now.

Agneta, Fern, Bill...all left. Then Joey left. And Terri. And all those people. The parish now is not what it was then. I stood my ground. I stayed. Even Dolores is hardly ever there. All those crazy folks from back when I taught (there are new crazy folks, of course). I'm here, Astrid's here, Colleen O'Toole's here...but most everyone is gone. Their kids grew up and the parish was less a part of their lives. Sometimes I'll see a kid I taught--like Flora's sons, who are, like, as old as me now--and that always makes me happy. But all those crazy adults? Don't miss them a bit.

365/365 Didn't Think I'd Do It

Didja?

What this has taught me is that parish life is the same thing over and over. Could I have written another blog post about Lynn and her special brand of crazy? Could I have posted another recap of a worship commission meeting? Another review of a holy day and how nice the church looked? I could have done it again and again and it would have all blended into an amalgam of sleepy memory familiarity for years and years.

Sometimes I'm at a meeting now and I realize I've been in the parish longer than anyone else. This really freaks me out.

I worry about the future: not about the parish, but about me. Besides attending where I am, there's very little about me that feels attached the greater Church. I'm not angry, I'm just...disconnected. I've tried to leave before and have failed. Becoming an oblate I hope is a step to remain and not a last ditch effort before I give up. I think my faith is strong, but my earthly connections are weaker all the time. I think in the end, my problem with RCIA isn't the teaching or presenting faith or fussy old law professor or any of that. My problem is that I'm not really sure this is the place for me--rather, the denomination for me--and so I feel like I'm being false to present it to those seeking a place. Every time I'm with someone converting from another denomination (as opposed to someone coming to us from no faith background) I think of Sr. Jean's comment that most folks don't need to leave, they just need to go deeper and set down roots. She was talking about me, of course, but I wonder. It's easier with children's liturgy because these kids come from families who are already Catholic. And I know how to do it right...

But I remain here. In my mind I whisper the words "for now" but I will probably remain here. It's too hard to leave. I could spend my life searching and never find a place to call home. Or I could realize that where I am? It already is home. It's good to have certain things certain. I don't have to think about what to do on Sunday morning, I don't have to look up service times or check out directions or tips on how to be a good guest. I just go to my parish and that's what I do. I'm kind of entrenched. Who knows what will happen when my kids leave, but it's almost like I have to say that because of the indefiniteness of my own life and history. Of course I'll stay. But what if I can't? There's always going to be an asterisk because I can't fully say that this is where I am, forever.

But maybe it is. My roots are spread everywhere--baptized at Mary, Mother; first communion at St. Bernadette's; married at St. Cecelia's; confirmed at St. Pius. My children, though, have one taproot, more like Mike that way. Everything on his character sheet is at St. Patrick's in Cairo. And all of Sophia and Maeve and Leo, most likely, all their religious history, will be at our parish. I wonder where that will lead them. I wonder how it will be different for them.

A continual conversion of heart, that's the less than perfect translation of the other benedictine vow: obedience, stability, and conversatio. I may be here, I may stay here, but I will always be saying yes. That won't end. It shouldn't. And so I do.