284/365 Cleaning Out

Sometime in the first year Fr. Miguel was our pastor, we cleaned out the sacristies. Some of the trouble back there was just years of not noticing mess. I have a feeling Fr. Bill just didn't see mess. And didn't care. So there was decent stuff in some corners, but covered up by mess. Especially in the servers' sacristy.

But other things were just wrong. Lots and lots of clingy polyester vestments that were too short for Fr. Bill but he wore them anyway. Banners that were just, well, too much burlap and felt. Fabric that was kept "just in case." Bad bad satin. Poles that didn't go to anything. Half-empty cans of pledge--like, 4 half empty cans of pledge.

And don't get me started on the crap we were storing in the choir loft. A creche that was supposed to go on the roof of the rectory porch (Sal is still asking me if we're putting it up on the porch roof this year--we threw the whole dang thing away). Fake Christmas trees. Items that were impossible to identify until we envisioned them as the base of an advent wreath, for instance (I remember Hazel and her husband describing in detail how to take off each piece of fake greenery and wash it with mild soap and water before reattaching it each advent).

Junky junk and ticky-tacky kitsch. A box of Christmas ornaments--not like, you know, gold and silver glass balls that would maybe have a place in a Christmas church environment, but stuff that you wish your grandmother would throw away, like coffee filter angels and clothespin reindeer and plastic nativity scenes. A fake dove that came off some floral arrangement (which Miguel placed atop the John the Baptist statue on the baptismal font like a perch, umm, we were pretty slap-happy by that point). Just stuff.

We threw it away.

We don't miss it.

285/365 Tired

I came to church today because I had children's liturgy. Otherwise it would have been tempting to skip because I was exhausted from trivia. But come on. Ten o'clock mass shouldn't be hard to get to. So I went. I never--no, I rarely--regret going to mass, and I didn't today. Jenny did a wonderful job at children's liturgy and it was nice to be the second person on the job for a change.

Plus, I got to go to lunch with my in-laws afterward. It would have been a big faux pas to have my mother-in-law and Mike's brother at mass and me at home drinking coffee and checking Facebook. Something to keep in mind.

286/365 Deposit

"Did we pass?" I ask the secretary as I return the key. "I mean, we tried to get things clean, and we weren't using the kitchen or anything, so."

"Usually if people don't pass," Miguel interjects, "I hear about it from the coffee and donut people. I didn't hear anything yesterday."

"Good. Oh, and, if we do pass, the deposit goes to me, not the school--I covered it when we signed up."

She notes it in the book. I scoop up my shoeless child and head back out into sunny October.

287/365 Laundry

It's my laundry week.

It's my laundry week.

It's my laundry week.

It's my laundry week.

It's my laundry week.

It's my laundry week.

It's my laundry week.

It's my laundry week.

I can't forget.

288/365 Checks

I stop by the rectory to pick up the deposit refund from the hall rental. "There's another thing for you here, too," Judy the secretary hands me the two envelopes. The first is self-explanatory.

The second, though, is odd. It's from a return address and name I don't recognize. It's written to our church, but at the bottom it has my name, like where I would put "attention" and then a department name.

I open it.

It's a $50 check made out to our parish and with the notation "Trivia" in the memo line. Ah. It's clear. I ask Judy what we should do--and she's going to have to get another check written. She takes that one and writes me the next day. She has a replacement for me.

It's raining money this week. It's a nice change.

289/365 Worship Commission October Ramblings

As Miguel put it afterward, it was going so well...

It was a catch-up meeting. Lots of dates. Lots of things coming up, with Advent and Christmas and all that. November alone is a meeting's worth. We went through things bit by bit and made decisions and set up meetings for specific needs. Decided on a Christmas novena this year instead of weekly prayer services, which I totally went for, and the only moment I flinched was when Hildegard turned to Lynn and asked if she was ok with that. I thought to myself, please don't stir the anthill. But even that was fine.

We were almost home free and clear. Sr. Vanda had details about November and the mass of remembrance (and other details from last year we, ironically, couldn't remember). I love decorating for November more than any other month of the liturgical year, with December right behind (but December takes more work). But then, we were almost done and had a light laugh about the tradition of the monthly prayer focus--something that was started a few years ago for one reason, but now is just something that goes in the bulletin. But now we do it and it's a tradition! And the last thing on the list was the changes to the languages at mass.

Now, me personally? I think that changes here or there are a symptom, not a problem. The problem is that the hierarchy has decided that a specific English translation of a Latin version of a ritual is better than another--for God's sake, what is wrong with us that we're so caught up in this? But, on the other hand, it's happening and this is not where I'm staking my excommunication claim. If I'm forced out of the Church, it's not going to be over "and with your spirit" instead of "and also with you." I can rattle off a dozen things that would come before this. Well, maybe not a dozen, I mean, I do still belong to the Catholic Church. But there are things I disagree with. There are things I wish we did better. There are things my local church does so well and other places just don't and I wish that weren't true. But the changes in the mass? That's not why I'm Catholic.

But Lynn got her panties in a big wad over it and said it was a great loss for the Church. That people were going to be angry. That she was angry. Miguel told her she could choose to be angry, or not be angry, and then she said that anger was an emotion, not a choice.

Upon reflection, I think they're both right. I think visceral emotion is something that happens, it's like the fight or flight response or maternal instinct. We get angry. We get sad or shocked or joyful--if I witness a decapitation accident on Grand on my way home from church, there is a reaction I don't control. But on the other hand, if I'm still seething 18 years later about something that happened that really didn't matter in the end, then that's a choice. Or maybe she was confusing "emotions are a choice" with the talk about emotions not being necessarily bad or good, that anger in and of itself isn't a sin, it's what you do about it that matters. Or maybe she's just Lynn. Either way, I flipped through that book quickly looking for what I could possibly be angry about, and I decided right then that this wasn't where I was going to be angry. In fact, I was pleasantly surprised at most of it. Not at the big words they used in place of small words, but most of it was just fine. Whatever.

Whatever.

Lynn left in a bit of a huff. I wonder if she'll be back.

Oh, but the best part (besides the after meeting drinking and chatting) was right after Lynn left. I took out my drawings of the Advent banners and showed them to Miguel (I waited until Lynn left because I'm tired of flinching). I'd shown him, sort of, badly, on a napkin after the mass last week during the mission, and he'd been skeptical. But when I showed them to him in color, drawn for real, he said, "oh, these are so much better!" and liked them. Hildegard too.

So now I'm ready to put them together. And the Presbyterian ones. They'll be nice too.

291/365 Liturgical Happiness

"I was a happy person before I got involved with liturgy," Rachel says into her ginger ale. In my mind, that sums up Worship Commission right there. Except I don't think it makes me unhappy necessarily. At least not overall. I keep attending, although I keep hoping, unchristianlike, that Lynn will slip away. I would be happier if she did, that's for sure. I keep trying to like her, keep trying to be open and friendly, but there's something there that doesn't appreciate my efforts.

I do notice more things, like any artist or workman. I notice when things don't go well. I notice when music just isn't quite right, or the homily stinks (that wouldn't be at my parish, of course). Having these tiny bits of knowledge from Catechesis of the Good Shepherd training, or from simply attending worship meeting after worship meeting after worship meeting, I see things now that I didn't before. And I know I would be unhappy at a church that didn't work on these things, that didn't care about liturgy.

Fr. Bill had us gather in church, folks on different commissions, parish council (that was why I was there), friends, active people, and told us he was leaving the parish. The first question, logically, was who was replacing him. He told us a little bit about Miguel, but very vague, only saying that Miguel was very interested in liturgy. I had no idea what that meant, I mean, to say someone was "very interested" in it. Aren't all priests, I mean, that's part of their job. It sounded like introducing a new teacher to the school and saying she was very interested in student outcomes.

But 5 years in, I see what he meant. I think I'm happier, actually, having been involved with liturgy, when it's all said and done.

290/365 Erasers

I remember sitting in the front row of the 6th grade classroom--the other 6th grade classroom, since my homeroom was across the hall, on what would be politely referred to as the "garden level" of the school building. We were half in the basement.

Br. Stephen was up sitting on his desk and we were talking about belief. Beth asked what the difference between belief and opinion was. "Aren't faith and belief simply a matter of opinion?" she asked. Yes, in 6th grade. When I taught 6th grade later in life, I would have fallen on the ground if a 6th grader had asked me this. I got things like "what do we need to know for the test?" and "Why do we have to know this?" but Br. Stephen got questions like this all the time.

And Stephen handled it by going up to the chalkboard and writing the word "opinion." He had the most marvelous handwriting. And he picked up the eraser and turned to look at us. "This chalkboard is faith, true faith. This word is opinion." He erased the word. "It would take a lot more doing to eliminate the slate."

Simple, yes, but it's an image that has stuck in my mind ever since--and that was 24 years ago. I worry about church politics and about how long I'm going to be able to call myself Catholic and what if my local parish changes in tone to the point that I can't call myself a member and where does that leave me and what will I do and how will I find a place where I fit. I disagree with so many things. Why am I here? Why do I stay? What is it about being part of this Church that makes me walk through life as a Catholic instead of a Quaker or part of the UCC or any other of a half a dozen choices that have appeared in front of me in the past?

And I think about that chalkboard in that basement classroom--not my faith versus my opinions, but in regards to where the winds are blowing now as opposed to 2000 years of layered traditions built up and up and up. I think about atomic structures, how the glass marble in front of me appears static but is composed of countless atoms that are constantly interacting and changing and reacting and buzzing about. What's happening now, or anytime, is chalk dust. My faith and the overall picture of what it means to be Christian is slate. In the other analogy, changes in politics or ritual language or who gets communion or who the hated minority is or lamentations about Jesus' words versus a hierarchical church full of Pharisees is all buzz. It's all tiny bits of movement and change and reaction and the glass marble doesn't change.

292/365 Children and Death

We spent the weekend on the Gasconade River, at a wonderful place called Rock Eddy Bluff, where we've been going year after year for 10 years now. Layers built on layers of experiences there. It's important in our family story. This past April, we scattered our dog Dara's ashes down at the creek near the cabin. Dara loved going to Rock Eddy. She was a city dog who loved the leash-free fence-free lifestyle.

It was really important to the two girls that we "visit Dara" while we were there. So we did, skipping rocks in the water, finding stones shaped like hearts or with holes all the way through. Unseasonably warm (it was my birthday, trust me, it was too warm), the girls waded and I took pictures.

Maeve, afterward, told me she was glad we got to visit Dara, but also that she hoped Dara wasn't lonely there, and that she wished we'd saved some of the ashes for our house so we could visit Dara all the time. She's the only one who consistently mentions our old rottweiler. She named her long-sought-after "pillow pet" after her.

And me, I stand there on the banks of Clifty Creek half in the adult world feeling like I'm humoring her (but in a good way), but half in her world hoping that Dara knows we're there, thinking of her. I mean, what does it hurt? Might as well feel connected.

293/365 Advent Preview

Everything ironed and folded and ready to go.

294/365 What I pondered today

There is no moment when God is not manifest in the form of some affliction, obligation, or duty. Everything that happens to us, in us, and through us, embraces and conceals God's divine but veiled purpose, so that we are always being taken by surprise and never recognize it until it has become accomplished

Jean-Pierre de Caussade, SJ

295/365 Advent Meeting

Once upon a time we had an Advent and Christmas planning meeting. The very first I'd ever attended. Sr. Hildegard and Sr. Kinnera, Bev, two or three others, Lynn, and myself. And it was good. It was a group project: we needed to change what Advent was at our parish. And we did. Good ideas became great ideas became trips to find the right ribbon, the right fabric. It was exciting. We stood around the altar collaborating and making something come to life.

Not every meeting can be that, I know. The next year we basically didn't change anything. The year after that, it was down to Hildegard, Lynn, and myself.

That's what it was tonight, too. Just the three of us. But after Lynn's awkward end to the Worship commission meeting, I didn't know what was going to happen. But it was ok. Good, even. She didn't obsess over some weird detail, I didn't bate her. As we were leaving, after Lynn had already left, Hildegard mentioned that it went well.

"That's because Miguel wasn't here," I noted. "So he wasn't antagonized by her and she wasn't focused on how angry she is that he's a man."

But I hate that that's probably the truth.

296/365 It's not small, but it's a small tihng

The Presbyterian banners are 3 feet by 6 feet. Two of them.

The parish banners, once Sr. Hildegard showed me with a tape measure, are kinda bigger than that. Like 3 feet by 9 feet, each. Four of them. Thank goodness they are simple. 108 square feet. Time to get a move on.

But Lynn, in her one act of defiance or whatever, said, "That's not really long enough."

I looked at her.

"I'd say 15 feet at least."

Hildegard was heading down from the choir loft. I shook my head at Lynn. "Nah, there's the advent wreath there, too, and it'll run into it."

"I hope they're paying you for these."

I just shrug. I'm sure I could make demands. But that just wouldn't seem right to me. I mean, it's my parish. I don't want to become simply a contractor. It would change it for me. It would make it an obligation.

297/365 November is coming

November is my favorite month to decorate church. More than advent, certainly more than Easter or Christmas. November means the book of the dead up on the St. Joseph altar, with candles and flowers. A table with photos of those who have died. More flowers at our Lady of Sorrows shrine. Mums, sunflowers, browns and golds. These transition from death to harvest (similar themes) with a thanksgiving tableau up by the altar the weekend before, with pumpkins and gourds, grains, more golds and oranges and darkest greens. It's the end of the liturgical year, end of the growing season, end of ordinary time. I love it.

My list of things to do balloons about now, for church and for my own life. I am busy from here until Christmas night--I've been busy for over a month already. But crisp fall days and falling leaves and halloween and mortality and chapped lips and sweaters make me start moving in a way that the languid humidity of July never ever can.

298/365 Chili Supper

I had a halloween thing I had to go to. But my dad entered a pot of chili into the chili cook-off this evening. Borrowed my crock pot. Cooked the stuff all day. Three times, I think he said. And he won--the people's choice award. Everyone who voted got 18 little cups of chili and a ballot. Good for him. And it put him in a good enough mood that when I approached him on Sunday about cutting some spare pews down to short 2-person sizes to put in the sanctuary for the altar servers to sit on, he wasn't hard to persuade. He had an apron and two free meals at next year's fish fry in his hand, after all.

I don't know if they'll ever feel like it's their parish, but I do keep trying.

299/365 Deacon

We have a new transitional deacon--meaning he's transitioning to the priesthood, as opposed to a permanent deacon, who would be a man from the parish who is not moving towards the priesthood (often he is married, for instance). This is our third in a row, all Dominicans. They do things at the parish and have some homilies and basically, do their student teaching/internship kind of deal here at the parish.

Our current deacon, George, is exuberant. I haven't had a chance to sit down and really talk with him or find out what he's all about, but he makes me smile in a way that the previous two did not. As my mom said after mass a few weeks back when he said a homily that was good, but too long, "this one has potential." And I think he does. He has decent preaching skills (but has been too long winded, that is for sure). Today's homily was better paced than previously, and had one phrase that caught me, that conversion is not a private affair (the gospel was Zacchaeus, the tax collector who climbs the sycamore tree to get a better view of Jesus). That stayed with me, because it would be a lot easier if conversion was simply a private affair. Easier, but not complete or successful.

Anyway, it's just to say that George has potential, just as an average person in the pews kind of statement. He certainly doesn't come off as Totally Impressed With Himself Because He's Becoming a Dominican. Like the last two did. The smarmy elitist feel isn't there. So I'm hopeful.

300/365 All Saints Day

It's not a holy day of obligation, because it falls on a Monday. But it's All Saints Day. Here are the saints in my household:

Brigid: The Irish one, not the St. Bridget of Sweden. Naomh Brigid of Kildare. Patron of dairy maids, newborns, midwives, travelers, children whose parents are not married, blacksmiths, sailors, and poets. This is her cross, too, which is in several places in our house.

Michael: the Archangel. Patron of, well, what isn't he the patron of? Fencing, hatmakers, Toronto, barrelmakers, all of Germany, radiologists, police officers, etc.

Sarah: the wife of Abraham, patron of gypsies. Matriarch to the Jewish faith.

Edward: there are several to choose from and I don't know which. I like Edward Oldcorne, who isn't a saint yet, but simply beatified ("simply"). He was a Jesuit who was martyred after the Gunpowder Plot in England.

Sophia: Allegorical saint, name meaning Wisdom. Martyr Sophia in the orthodox church. Mother of Faith, Hope, and Charity (hence, allegory).

Beatrix da Silva: courtier in the 15th century Portuguese court who retired to a Cisterian monastery and later founded her own order.

Leo: I haven't picked a Leo yet. Leo the Great was a pope...but there's a Franciscan called Brother Leo I like better.

Benedict: Duh. He also has his own cross, on the back of his medieval medal that I wear all the time.

Other saints that we're fond of: Peter the Apostle, Hildegard of Bingen, Patrick, Venerable Bede, Bernadette, Teresa of Avila, Mechtilde of Magdeburg, Anthony, Nicholas, Alphonsus Liguori, Joseph, Kateri Tekakwitha, and a variety of folks that aren't considered beatified or canonized by the church. But maybe I'll save them for tomorrow, the Feast of All Souls.

301/365 Some Souls

There are folks who are not official saints but are still people that I think are important to my journey. A short list:

Dorothy Day
Walker Percy
Thomas Merton
C.S. Lewis
Thomas R. Kelly
Albert Einstein
John Muir
Joe Raposo
Fred Rogers


There are others, of course. These just came to mind as I sat down.

302/365 Ian and Bishop Fiorenza

I went to high school in Houston, to a small co-ed Catholic school originally ran by the O.Carms (I often thought of it as an Irish family, the O'Carms). It was on a grungy side of the city; there were bullet holes in the front doors. But I was valedictorian and had a good time there.

My brother Ian started his freshman year the autumn after I graduated and headed up to SLU. He was following me, and I know certain folks, like my Russian teacher, wer disappointed by Part Two. But there were new folks who took to him just fine, like the new campus minister who made sure he got confirmed while he was there. And rooked him into serving at mass.

I had been an altar server, part of the first wave of girls, in 7th and 8th grade; then we moved to Georgia where that was unheard of, and by the time I got to Houston, I can't tell you if girls were serving or not. I'm thinking not, but I can't think of any of my male classmates serving either. It was always underclassmen when I was there (my junior and senior year only--we moved to Houston when I was 16).

But Ian served at mass with his friends. They were even chosen to serve when the bishop came to our school for a visit. When I was there, we usually were visited by an auxilliary bishop, Enrique San Pedro, and in fact my class gave him an honorary diploma because he often preached that not finishing high school was one of his deepest regrets. He was a Jesuit and did just fine (I read that he's in the process of being beatified, but I don't know how that's going), but he mentioned this again and again. We rarely saw Bishop Fiorenza, but San Pedro was given a promotion to become the bishop of Brownsville and left Houston right before my senior year of high school, so Ian's high school years were blessed by Fiorenza.

Compared to San Pedro, Fiorenza had a soft handshake and boring homilies. When I sat through mass with him, it was like watching it on TV. So I didn't really bother to engage. But Ian served mass when he came to our school, and got to know him better than I would have. I will say that he had pledged to the O'Carms that he would keep my high school open, and that he did. Once he retired, it was right on the chopping block for the new bishop. So I guess I owe him that much.

But back to Ian. Sometimes he just says things that make me shake my head at him. And we got into this discussion of eating contests. You know, how many pies, how many hot dogs, and so forth. And he mentioned that back in high school, he and the other servers used to have (unconsecrated) host eating contests. They'd try to see how many in a minute, or how many in your mouth at one time.

"Oh Ian," I sigh when he tells me things like this. I could envision Steve and John Paul and those other guys stuffing their mouths with those dry communion wafers until they couldn't chew anymore. He elaborates, with sound effects and pantomime, how many and how fast. I'm laughing and then there's a pause in the conversation.

"Once when the bishop came--"

"You did not!" I interrupt.

"That Bishop Fiorenza? Now he could eat some host."

303/365 RCIA preparation

I sat in the dining room with Sarah, the intern from the divinity school who is working with Sr. Hildegard this semester. I needed someone to tell me what to do and she was as good as anybody, frankly. I have RCIA again this Sunday--we were going to be out of town this weekend but changed our minds last week sometime when we figured out that was a ludicrous plan. Every weekend from August to Christmas is full, so yeah, let's go camping in November. Yeah! So, not really. And I raised my hand to take this week's because I feel lots of guilt about RCIA and how not involved I am because, if you hadn't taken notice, I'm busy. Biz. Ee.

But I did and then looked at my choices. Heaven and Hell, Resurrection, and Life stuff (the Catholic view of life issues like abortion, murder, death penalty, etc). Ugh. I wasn't going to be good at the first, I probably wasn't going to be able to talk confidently about the second (seriously), and the third made me clench my jaw because it reminded me of oh so many bad family dinners and gatherings with my elderly aunt and her family and the angry anti-living-people pro-life attitudes around the table. Don't help the poor, don't help them AT ALL, even their children don't deserve health care or good educations, but you'd better never ever vote for someone who isn't unwaveringly holding the abolition of all abortions no matter what as the first and foremost and, frankly, only issue worth talking about. It nauseates me on so many levels, and I don't support abortion as a way of life, I think in vitro fertilization is a slippery slope to scary stuff, and so forth--but I believe personally that these things should be between a person and her doctor, not between angry foaming at the mouth pro-life advocates and politicians and misguided feminists and so forth. And the evangelical hijacking of this issue and the Republican hijacking of the benighted Catholic population and so forth just makes this whole thing like a recently scabbed over cut on my leg. Let's not pick at it, shall we?

But I reconsidered. I reconsidered because the catechism is really so good at things sometimes. Its chapter on God's Will is Life goes over the whole spectrum of life issues and frankly, we're bringing into the church one completely uncatechized young woman and two women from Africa with language barriers of one variety or another. Perhaps it would be good for me to tackle this with enthusiasm and bring forth to their presence the actual ideas the Church holds instead of what this or that bishop spouted off about or what annoying piece of crap propaganda showed up in their mailboxes or from friends and acquaintances with rigid opinions.

So tonight I'm going to sit down and make a handout and an outline for myself. And it'll be ok.

After preparing and hashing things out with Sarah, we chatted about her future plans and then I gathered up Leo to get ready to leave. Fr. Miguel had me smell and guess the flavor of the coffee creamer in his fridge, which was peculiar and I couldn't quite place. While doing this, Leo went into his office and dialed Nairobi on the phone. Then Sarah showed us pictures of her dog's halloween costume and I went home thinking about all this and kept smiling. The things that keep me here...

304/365 Mass of Remembrance Prep

The day got away from me. I meant to be there in the morning, but I forgot about music class with Leo. And then I had shopping to complete. And then lunch with Mike at Cravings (sigh). I got home at 2, but by then Leo needed a big old nap. So Mike picked the girls up at school and came home early. I checked the website of the florist supply house and knew I had a little time.

Sr. Vanda had been there in the morning. She waited for me. I never came. She got nervous and put the table out and covered it with a white cloth. Set up the candles. Waited. Decided to make herself not worry and went away.

I dragged everything in at 5:15 and got to work. The mums were crappy but I was excited about the cut flowers--I hadn't arranged in a long time, perhaps since last November, actually. I got it in and around, and then looked for the easel. We set it up to put a large board on, a board with the names of parishioners and parishioners' close relatives that have died in 2010. Last year Mike's uncle Tom was on the board. This year we didn't have anyone on the board, and that was good. But I couldn't find the easel and that was bad.

I called Sr. Hildegard and left a message about the easel. Then I got things done, including this arrangement. Sorry about the lighting; I took it with my phone. As I was leaving, Hildegard called me back. She didn't know where the easel was either--no, wait, was it in the basement in the back closet? Suddenly it appeared in my mind, too. But I was hungry and dinner awaited me and I went home.

At home, Sr. Vanda fretted.

And then Hildegard called to reassure her.

She was glad.

305/365 Mass of Remembrance

I found the easel, with Sal's help, in the kitchen. Of course. It must have been there for the chili cookoff. So I extracted myself from the conversation with Sal: We decorating church on Sunday? Before Christmas, yes. We going to put up the trees and the wreaths? Yup. Sure are. I'll be there. Sr. Hildegard told me not to touch the trees! I don't touch them! I didn't touch them last year! I have a rotating number of conversations with Sal, who is developmentally disabled, in his late 50s/early 60s and has been our janitor for probably forever; he lives in short walking distance with his sister's family.

Sr. Vanda was upstairs when I got back up with the easel. Ursula and Carlotta were setting up for the reception after the mass. They do beautiful work. Vanda told me all about her worries yesterday and how glad she was that I hadn't forgotten. I have yet to forget this, and every year she worries I'm going to forget. But not in a mean way. She just wants it to go well.

I got the rest of the seasonal corner ready, and went back to light candles to place in the candle stands behind the table where folks can place photos of those who have died. I thought about how we'd had to print a picture of Tom out from a Belleville diocese website, that we hadn't had a photo and the last moment I'm cutting printer paper and trying to find a frame.

I stood in the priests' sacristy and lit the candles. And one of those "I am in the right place" moments happened in my heart, the kind of moment that happened all the time the first year I worked at our parish in this capacity but hasn't in a long time. I lit the candles and put the burnt match on the aluminum sink draining board.And carried the candles out to the table where I put everything just so.Normally I would have stayed, but this weekend, next weekend, all weekends are so busy. Sr. Vanda asked if I'd carry in the incenser (incensor?), but I just couldn't.

"I'll mark you down for next year," she promised, not offered, me.

"That would be fine," I agreed. I like the task. I just couldn't rearrange the time today.

The conversation turned to Infant of Prague and what statues used to be in the nave of church and what I knew about the architecture--could I give a tour if need be?--and I thought I probably could. St. Joseph statues came up, and then we stood there staring at the still-dim church ready for this one last ceremony for those who have died. I thought about my grandfather and how he'd had three memorial masses and ceremonies, that it never seemed to be officially over, I mean, he died in February and there was one then, there was on in May for all the people who donated bodies to science at SLU, and then one when I was in labor with Maeve in October when they buried remains at the national cemetery.

I missed all three of them.

I told Sr. Vanda I'd see her later and made my exit. Tae Kwon Do and housework awaited. I turned off the radio when I started the ignition in the car. Didn't need the noise.

306/365 Banner beginnings

For the Presbyterians. This one is "Waiting". Here is the start:I begin with three strips of cloth--the sky batik, the ground/floor speckled brown, and a middle piece of waste cloth that won't be seen, it'll just be the internal stability that holds the other pieces together while I attach them.

Then I pin a bazillion pieces of fabric to it.

Next stage is sewing it all down.

307/365 Playing Catch Up is Impossible

Things have gotten so busy here lately, mostly because of church-related activities (meaning, if I were a lazy non-church-goer, I'd have plenty of time...). For instance:

Because I'm a member of my parish, I am also a girl scout leader for my parish. And girl scouts are busy this time of year with meetings and hayrides and all that.

Because I'm a member of my parish, I can't keep my hand down when asked to volunteer, so I had RCIA and Children's Liturgy and church decorating on my schedule.

Because I'm a member of my parish, I know Jessica, who is assisting a family from Africa whose daughter is in her daughter's class. And because I once was the math teacher and known to be a tutor, Jessica has asked me to start tutoring this young girl, starting this afternoon. Without the connection of the parish, this never would have happened. I'm hoping to be helpful.

Because I'm a member of my parish, and I like to sew, I've made some banners. So now I have more to make. And my neighbor and friend Gretchen saw some of my work at Leo's baptism and reported it to her pastor, whose church houses my daughters' school, and now I'm making banners for him, too. For Advent as well.

So instead of filling in the last 8 days with teeny little throw-away posts, I'm just going to start from here. I'm on 308/365 starting tomorrow. It just doesn't make sense to go back and put more pictures of banners up, one at a time. That said, tomorrow's entry is pictures of banners.

308/365 Presbyterian Work

309/365 Worship Commission November

"How was your meeting?" Mike asks as I walk upstairs with a whiskey sour and shoo him away from the computer.

"It was fine. Lynn was in Hawaii or something. So it was fine."

310/365 Change

The language of the mass is changing and I don't think I can get excited about it. Or care. I hate that about me but it's kind of a defense mechanism. I hate change, like I said at the meeting on Wednesday night. What was our tolerance for change? was the reflection question. Lots of people said "change is good" and some said less solid things like "I like change when it's a good change." So I decided to be honest and say I hate it. I hate it when things change. I hate it when things aren't planned and I know what's coming and even then I don't like it much. On the Meyers Briggs scale I'm an ENFJ. My extrovert status is solid, my intuition is solid, my feelings vs thinking is a little fuzzy (I feel, or think, that this is the one you can make yourself change more than any of the others: how you make decisions, etc). But my J? Judging vs. perceiving? It's a 10-0. I am all J. All J all the time. At one point my friends nicknamed me Lady J (I think it's a comic book reference besides) because if I don't have a plan, I have nothing. Change can only happen if it is planned. Well planned. Elections make me physically ill. Surprise changes to my schedule throw me for a loop. Babies mess up my life for, like, 3 years. Change and flux are bad. Bad.

The nice thing about being Catholic is that things don't change. Or change comes so slowly it's more of an adjustment. A tweaking. I don't mind tweaking. Local change? Fine. You don't like this banner, let's make another. Take out the carpet. Restore the tile. Make things a little bit better this year. A liturgical year evolves, it doesn't overhaul and reinvent the wheel each time a new season comes along.

Some of the language changes feel like tweakings to me. Like getting rid of gender references to the Holy Spirit. Or even "it is right and just" instead of "it is right to give him thanks and praise." Thanks and praise have already been mentioned. It is right and just. Other small things are jarring, like the changes to the Gloria, but they don't change the feel of that part of the mass.

Actually, besides the ridonkulous "and with your spirit" flip, which just makes me roll my eyes as I read all these backwards retrofitting revisionist history reasons for it, the only ones that bother me are in the creed. I believe vs we believe I don't mind; rewording the Holy Spirit section so we don't say "he he he" all the time is a great idea. But "consubstantial" and "incarnate" are just wrong. Wrong. The idea that "one in being with the Father" is a worse translation than "consubstantial with the Father" could only be true in the dark recesses of minds like Bishop Across the River Braxton. And the incarnate phrase is awkward--once again we look like jerks here, people, like mentioning that Jesus might have actually been born is such an uncomfortable topic to discuss that we have to hide it with a liturgical euphemism.

Yes, one of the lip-service reasons for these changes is to elevate the language and make it more ritualistic, which I'm all for, to a point. I'm not all for it when it comes to the creed. This is the CREED. This is what we believe. We should understand what we're saying if we're going to say what we believe. Which is why I get so annoyed when we drone on "God from God Light from Light True God from True God." Why do we mention God twice there? Why God and True God? What heresy have we forgotten that this stands against? I ask priests every so often (each change of pastor) and nobody seems to know. Not the point here (it says the same thing in Latin)--but I really feel like if I'm going to say WHAT I BELIEVE then I should use vernacular language. Not slang, not jive, but everyday speech. Incarnate and consubstantial are not in my everyday speech. One in being with the father might not be a phrase I'd use when chatting at coffee, but at least I would use the words.

I know I fear and loathe change. So I've sort of let go from engaging in this. It's one of those things, you know, I can't do anything about it and whatever. If it weren't for the Benedictines and Catechesis of the Good Shepherd and my parish I wouldn't be Catholic anyway--none of this really matters to me. I have many many opinions about the hierarchy, of course, and this just gets dumped on that steaming pile.

Like I said at the meeting, this isn't going to be the issue over which I'm drummed out of the Church. There are so many better reasons.

311/365 Win My Soul for Jesus

So I got really drunk last night playing mah jongg, which means to me that I need to play mah jongg more often so I don't feel like I have to push myself over the edge when I get to. The girls who play mj with me live on my block; except for Jackie (who had left before we started the conversation below) we are all in our mid-thirties and have kids between the ages of 22 months and 14 years. And while on paper our character sheets (roleplaying game reference) look pretty similar, we are obviously not the same. Among other differences, three of us are Catholic and two of us aren't. There's another girl who plays with us pretty often, also Catholic, but wasn't able to make it last night.

The two who aren't are Zelda, a non-denominational Christian of the best sort and Gretchen, a recovering Baptist who is now a Presbyterian (USA). She's Leo's godmother and attends the church that houses my girls' school for the moment (until we don't fit in their building anymore!). The pastor of the church is the one who had me make advent banners. His kids go to our school, too. So all of this is kinda intertwined as you can see.

And we were drunk. And Gretchen, who perceives things sometimes that surprise me at first and then make me say, oh, yeah, said in the height of this conversation (after several times telling me to be quiet so that she could ask the other two Catholics a question without my interfering), "You are going to wind up at my church."

I laughed, because I'm so dyed in the wool about ritual and the jarring cracked reflections of ritual at mainstream protestant churches. There's no way I could go be a Presbyterian, any more than I could go be a Lutheran or Methodist or Hindu. The only one that draws me is the Friends, and that's really only an affectation if I admit it to myself.

I turned to Zelda, who was the only one not drunk by that point and said loud enough for all to hear, "Gretchen's going to win my soul for Jesus."

Zelda smiled wisely at me, and later, after the hangover, after the nap, I reflected on this. I want to be Catholic. I want to be a part of where I am. I'm not a Presbyterian. But sitting in RCIA some Sundays I wonder why I'm doing this. Sitting in Worship Commission Wednesday night, I looked at those changes in the language of the mass and thought about the nit picking and the hierarchy and just wanted to chuck it all.

What keeps me here? My parish keeps me here. If I moved, I'd have a hard time integrating into a new parish, starting over. Since that's unlikely to happen, a more solid question is "if our pastor leaves and we get some shit-for-brains pompous dickweed for a pastor" or, with more trepidation, "if our parish closes"....then where am I? Where do I go? I think about that line from John 6: Do you also want to leave? Master, to whom shall we go?

I'll probably always be Catholic. Stability really calls for it, frankly. This is who I am and where I am.

But I don't think that precludes finding other streams to draw water from if this well runs dry for a season or two.

Gretchen will probably not win my soul for Jesus. I love her pastor and I think he'd probably be good to listen to. He is a good person and adores me (which is always a plus). But the energy required to make that change for good is just not in my soul: I am not a convert. I would not be surprised to have a summer home, but my mailing address will always be at my parish.

312/365 End of the year random thoughts

Today is the last Sunday of the year. Starting next week, it is, liturgically speaking, 2011. Advent begins, a briefest of brief Christmas season, and then we're back to ordinary time looking towards Lent and Easter.

I raked up leaves today and thought about Benedictine values. We didn't go to mass this morning because it would have been a disaster (Mike is deer hunting), but we're also not doing anything else. No errands, no trips out and about. Just here at home on an unseasonably warm November day. I raked leaves and thought about tools: there's a passage in the rule about care of tools and how ordinary tools should be treated with the same dignity and respect as vessels for the altar. How our homes (monastery) should be cleaned with the same care. I don't own a rake at the moment--some alley clean up day it disappeared into someone else's care, but I was using Valerie's and made sure it was litter free before I had Maeve return it. When I was done--I rarely rake, too lazy to be bothered by leaves--I looked at the yard. Our front garden is ramshackle and does not age into autumn well. But with the leaves cleared away, the porch swept up, and everything momentarily tidy, I was glad. The house seemed to sigh. Time for bed, time to sleep away the winter. And I understood what Benedict wanted fir his monks and the place where they lived. They weren't obsessive about neatness. It didn't become an end to itself. But having everything away and clean, they could be ready for the next thing. Ready for pruning back the butterfly bush and pulling up the volunteer weed trees. Ready, too, for Thanksgiving and then Advent just around the next bend. Advent is busy in my life. But at least the yard is raked.

313/365 Bread of Life at Starbucks

Sounds like an advertisement.

I had to go to the girl scout shop this morning to keep ahead of things for a change. On the way home, I stopped for, probably, the last iced coffee until April. We went inside for a change and Leo and I split a cookie. We were sitting in a corner, and at the next table over sat two 40-something men, both with mild southern accents. I'd guess probably Tennessee.

The first word I overheard was "stewardship" and I knew they were somehow affiliated with church. Considering the short-sleeved plaid shirt on one and the more corporate look to the other, I went further and guessed protestant. And I tuned my ears more carefully. Mostly because I'm nosy.

Something about a wedding...and then about a music director who is disappointing. "Transitions are terrible. They're just terrible," said the man in plaid. I started to make him into the preacher or pastor, the other man some sort of adviser or elder in the community. I got involved with Leo picking food off the ground (his food, but still) and the next thing I heard were plans for the new year. How he was going to tie manna in the desert to Jesus as the Bread of Life.

I know bible-based Christians who have converted to Catholicism simple because they read John 6 to themselves one night and had a revelation about Eucharist. So I fine tuned those ears one more time to hear what they were talking about.

"The wonderful thing about Jesus as the bread of life," the corporate looking guy started, obviously interested in this topic, leaning forward over his coffee and notes, "is that every culture has bread. Everywhere, all over the world, everyone has some kind of bread. Tortillas, rice paper wontons, yogurt bread, yeast white bread, all kinds. And none of them are exactly alike. Everyone has different experiences of bread, but we all have it."

I looked over at them, pointedly, in a "I hear you talking" glance, and the plaid shirt guy looked at me. I smiled, just a bit. Knowing I'd heard, he smiled back. And then they went back to talking.

After we left, getting Leo into the car and heading back to the city, I ruminated on this. Everyone has different experiences of bread. I like it.

314/365 banners now and forevermore

Banners are done. Except they're not. The fronts are done, and they are backed--I'm not quilting these because they hang so far away from everyone, from the choir loft. But while this cuts out 8+ hours of work, it also means they are kind of loose. They are not stiff rectangles. They are flowy. I've ironed the first to within an inch of its life, but it's still kind of flowy.

I'm think a dowel rod at the bottom is called for. It will provide a stable point and make it more of a rectangle. Pretty sure I don't have any dowels in the basement, though, so that's a trip to home depot and some tweaking at the sewing machine. Still less than 8 hours of work. My fear is that it won't be enough. So I'm still debating (I wouldn't go to Home Depot until this evening anyway because Leo is obnoxious these days).

Hmm.

I like the banners, though. I hope they go over well.

315/365 News flash

News flash: the first banner is done.

News flash: it is 3 feet too long.

WHAT. THE. HECK.

So, thankful that I'd already packed for Thanksgiving, I went home and cut it off at the bottom and fixed it at the top and brought it back up and dropped it down. It was better.

Then I drove away to my in-laws. Next week I'll cut off the rest and re-hem them. And make bourbon slush and forget my worries. Sure.

316/365 Thanks

Thirty people in the house. No green bean casserole, but the best gravy. I could just drink it out of a glass. Dry stuffing and gravy on my plate and the sweet potato puree with the nuts on top. My favorite. I sit with Mike and his brothers and their wives. We're all shadows of each other. I see a lot of myself in them, different pieces of the mirror thirteen years behind me. Leo sits between me and Mike and his dad comes over with his plate, well, I can't even describe his plate, it's so obscenely full of Thanksgiving.

I think about his ridiculous luck, about when Pete and Steve were 11 and he broke his neck. I think about the layers of experience that happen and how they make a family out of individuals. If I knew what was coming tomorrow, I'd be thinking more about Maeve and what we'll lose and what we'll gain and what will happen. But I don't have a spyglass into the future and all I can see is the moment, the good red wine and John made an apple pie and I have nothing I have to do.

And I think about my brother and his wife and what their Thanksgiving must be like. My siblings and I have entangled emotional lives, Mike always likes to say. And there I do think about the future. Worried and useless, I think about things I'm thankful for. For our cats and our car that makes me feel smart. For getting into the next size down in jeans last month. For my kids and for oak trees and snowflakes and temporal lobe anomalies and tums and my wedding ring and girl scouts and our school and the BBC and how folks change over time and blogging and stained glass windows and neosporin and Pixar movies and the Ozarks and all the things that happen that make fabulous stories later on. And gravy.