115/365 Babies change things

I drop out of parish life after Sophia's baptism. It's the way it had to be. I needed to breathe a moment and concentrate on other things. I barely went to church that fall, and when I finally did in late November, I ran into Joey.

She's a big gal and I didn't want to ask, but she told me before I hesitated. She was pregnant.

Babies change things. Her daughter Hannah was 6 months younger than Sophia. They went to Atrium together and played some. She came to a few birthday parties. And it was ok.

I never trusted Joey, not really, but I could see that babies changed things. She changed. She lost some of her edges. Hannah had some problems and Joey became a kind of advocate for her. She didn't do all the things I assumed she would--hire a live in nanny and keep going with all her volunteer work and important meetings. No, she trimmed her lifestyle a bit and focused on Hannah. And it changed things.

They moved a few years ago but I still get the rare email from her. She had to leave for me to get back into parish life, I realize now. Even though babies changed things, we couldn't have managed together.

116/365 Maeve and the Coming Storm

Maeve was born in October 2004 and two days later, the parish had The Meeting where we found out we were going to close.

I was in the hospital. I sent Mike. I still wasn't the biggest supporter of our parish and I wasn't crushed by the news, frankly. I wasn't even sure I wanted to baptize Maeve there. I hadn't integrated our family very well. I was mad and that was that.

But the news wore down my defenses, especially when I heard about the response. I brought Maeve to a parish-wide meeting when she was days old. We were going to make a counter-proposal.

Keep in mind that we're not a congregational system of government. The Catholic Church is not a democracy. But we made a counter-proposal.

Imagine my surprise when the bishop's committee changed its mind.

I was the 3rd baby baptized at the parish my parents' attended when I was born. First book, first page. I was afraid Maeve was going to be the last one at the parish where her parents attended. Flip to the last book, last page, that's me. But no. We weathered the storm and, just like her sister, the Sunday after a tragedy (this time the tsunami), Maeve became part of our parish family.

And I started praying every night for guidance. Where was I headed and what should I do?

117/365 Bev and Arizona

Our entrance song was half in Spanish, half in English.

Our communion song dealt with themes of basic Christian values and how we are Christ to each other.

By the end, as I was watering plants, I wondered, did these two choices have anything to do with the new Arizona law?

I asked Bev, our music director, who shook her head ruefully. "No, they were chosen long before that law was passed. So it must have been the Holy Spirit."

Must have.

Then she said the only good thing about the law? It makes our state seem not as bad for a change.

118/365 Crooked Neck Squash

"Bridgett? This is Hildegard," the voice says on the phone. "We were out in the garden just now and have these crooked-neck squash plants, you know, yellow summer squash?"

"Sure," I agree, stirring the risotto on the stove.

"Well, Kinnera planted several of them, and they're all doing well. We don't need all of them--would you like one?"

"Sure!" I never turn down free plants, produce, or fabric.

She explains the procedure. It involves breaking into their yard with a hand spade. This week.

"I'll do it when I come up to water," I tell her.

119/365 A thought from Thomas Merton

Save us from the compulsion to follow our adversaries in all that we most hate, confirming them in their hatred and suspicion of us. Resolve our inner contradictions, which now grow beyond belief and beyond bearing. They are at once a torment and a blessing; for if you had not left us the light of conscience, we would not have to endure them. Teach us to be long-suffering in anguish and insecurity, teach us to wait and trust. Grant light, grant strength and patience to all who work for peace…grant us prudence in proportion to our power, wisdom in proportion to our science, humaneness in proportion to our wealth and might. And bless our earnest will to help all races and peoples to travel, in friendship with us, along the road to justice, liberty and lasting peace.

Amen.

120/365 The dream

I walk into church. The azaleas are almost dead, that sad dried up look they get right before I sigh and toss them. Other plants are in disarray. And there at the sacristy door is Fr. Miguel.

"HOW could you have let it get this way?" he accuses me.

I look around for an excuse but all I can come up with I say to myself, not out loud: "I can't do this job by myself."

I hurry around while he watches, watering and rearranging.


I have a feeling this wasn't about plants.

121/365 Atrium?

"Faustina told me she doesn't think Atrium will continue next year," one of the moms I know in several different circles mentions to me.

"Really? She just got everything set up," I point out.

"She said she can't make the rent."

"She needs to partner with South Side PSR," I opine. "Make it open to all the parishes involved in that endeavor. You know? Even if just for level one--she could have 5 sessions of level one and that would pay the rent."

What I think but do not say: And let my kids go through atrium through confirmation. Please don't close....

But something tells me she'll rely on the Grace of God and won't do any marketing. Like always.

122/365 Homily

Children's liturgy. The woman in charge is up there, waiting for kids to cluster around and then follow her downstairs. But her helper--whoever that was this week--isn't there. And there are too many kids to make this work. I get up. I need to go.

Hildegard catches my eye as we head out. "If Miguel does the homily I'll come get you," she promises. And this lightens my step. I go downstairs and set up the environment for Helen. She has a plan. I listen to readings. I note how our regular kids just aren't a problem anymore. Even the one family of foster children who were, well, difficult to handle even for the strongest teacher-esque personalities there (read: me), have settled down and know the routine.

Routine. That's part of Catholicism. The familiar allows for the moment of inspiration.

I sit in the back of crowd of kids, Maeve next to me. And Hildegard comes in and taps me on the shoulder. I don't pretend. I get up and go upstairs.

123/365 Floral Guilt

Due to the recurring dream about not tending the flowers (and whatever else I've let go astray) I take a moment from gardening this morning and run to church to water.

The door is unlocked. Wedding.

I go in, and it's silent. I rush up into the sanctuary, only to find that everything is still alive. Not even especially tired looking. I water things, suddenly pleased with the world and the things in it. And I rush back out to go tend my own garden back at home.

124/365 I need some of that peace

I know who's running Children's Liturgy. I see her there, sitting next to Kinnera and Hildegard. I checked last week's bulletin to be sure. And then Fr. Miguel calls kids up.

Jenny, the helper this week, is there, looking nervous. I glance over at Sr. Cheryl, but she just sits. Doesn't even notice. Tick. Tick. Tick.

I get up and join them in the back with a missalette. Jenny leans over to me as we head downstairs: "I didn't plan anything. I'm not the catechist this week."

"I know," I tell her. "Sr. Cheryl is."

"Right."

"Look, I'll get something ready at the table. Go ahead and read the readings and the Gospel and we'll get something together."

The gospel is a harbinger of Pentecost. I leave you my peace. My gift of peace.

So we sit in the circle and talk about peace--inner peace, not world peace. When is your most peaceful time of day? I ask them. And they respond. Mornings. When my sister isn't home. When my dad leaves for work and my mom is in the kitchen. Right before I go to sleep when the nightlight is on.

We pray for relevant things--the people of Haiti, shrimp fishermen on the gulf coast (honest, that wasn't me). And we head back upstairs to the double baptism around the font.

Perfect.

125/365 Oh, yeah.

So much of what we have is dependent upon who our pastor is at the time. Whatever he puts as a top priority becomes a priority for the parish, and the things that are not important fall by the wayside. I think about the past 11 years at the parish and how things changed when Miguel first came to us.

Right after the switch, there was a meeting of congregations way out in the county--congregations from all over, but in order to have us fit, we met in this mega-church out west. It was a political rally sponsored by a union of congregations (Catholic, other Christian, and Jewish) from the area. They'd invited candidates in an upcoming midterm election to come speak about their values and see if they would pledge to uphold our values. A rally. Everything had already been decided in advance. We weren't in on the planning stages but that was fine because, frankly, life is busy and that's not where my energies lie.

Our parish got a bus, a school bus, and we rode out there together. I sat next to Dolores and Mike had the girls behind me. In the middle of the light chatting on the way home, one of the nuns who gave lots of time to this organization suddenly asked, "Was Fr. Miguel there tonight?" The answer was no. There was a pause while she worked this out in her head.

"He'll figure it out," she said. "Some things he has to do."

And Dolores turned to me: "Do you know he has the audacity to put on his phone message that he takes Fridays off?" She laughed. "Like anyone can take a day off at our parish."

And while I wondered if Miguel, whom I barely knew, and only from parish council, would in fact figure it out, I thought I felt something, something imaginary and brief on the back of my neck. A realization. Things were changing.

This isn't to say that our parish isn't still active in social justice--of course we are. It just isn't the topic of every single homily. Social justice folks aren't gone. They just don't get 15 minutes after communion to read aloud their platform for change once a month.

I'm not a social justice person (I say that meaning "this is not where I sink all my energy" not meaning "I don't think we should work for social justice"). I'm a liturgy person. I'm not trained (thank you Lynn for reminding me) but this is what I like. This is why I stay. If it weren't for liturgy, our liturgy, the focus on liturgy at our parish now, if it weren't important to me, well, damn it, why wouldn't I just go sit with the Quakers at 10:30 on a Sunday morning and chuck all the baggage that goes with Catholicism?

So I know the world does not revolve around me, but it's a happy accident that Miguel arrived at our parish when he did. It was sort of a reawakening for me. Oh yeah, here we are now.

126/365 Zoo

"When you took Leo to back," I ask Mike after church, "did you go to the Utah Vestibule?"

"Nah," he shakes his head. "It's sort of become a zoo for choir folks' kids."

It has.

I go back and forth on this now. I sat back there on Sunday for a bit after Leo got away from me in the pew at the offertory. Dolores' daughter and her two wild ones were back there, their mom leaning against the wall looking tired. The little girl came up to me after I sat down and handed me a book. "Read!" she shouted.

"I'm trying to listen to church. You can sit on my lap, but I'm not going to read," I told her quietly. She climbed up on my lap.

"Read!" she demanded again. Her mom picked her up, embarrassed or at her wits' end (oftentimes, when I'm one, I'm the other as well). They left with her brother to go downstairs instead.

There was a little girl, a daughter of one of the choir members, coloring on the floor and yelling at her little brother. They are Maeve's and Leo's ages. Leo played with the little boy for a few minutes and then sat on the floor holding a ball someone had brought. The two kids' dad was more engaged, but they had definitely come to play. And even stranger, one of my girl scouts was back there. A third grader. Sort of helping out, sort of causing trouble indirectly, playing with the 5 year old girl.

But what to do? Complain? Mention to the girl scout that maybe she should join her dad in the choir? I didn't want to get her into trouble.

"You're Bridgett, right?" the dad asks me.

"Yeah, we've met before," I say, friendly. "At Astrid's houses, halloween."

He nods. Our sons play together a few more minutes there on the floor, and then it's time for communion.

Zoo, yes. Unnecessary cage for children, maybe. Allows some families to come to church? I don't know. I'm torn.

127/365 Weddings Suck

I hate brides.

There, I said it.

Fiona called yesterday. There's a wedding this weekend, the weekend I'm at a girl scout camping trip, and the bride doesn't want our plants.

There are a lot of plants on the altar.

"They will clash with her flowers," Fiona explains. She's doing the wedding flowers and wondered, on behalf of the mother-of-the-bride, if we could move them.

The mother-of-the-bride, Gillian, is a parishioner. Long time parishioner. I like Gillian just fine. But I'm not parish staff. I'm not an event coordinator or something. I don't get paid to arrange and rearrange flowers. I'm not there to please brides.

I sighed. Fiona backed up and tried again. Gillian could meet me Friday morning and move things with me. And then, maybe could I move them back after the wedding? Fiona could do some right before or after 4:30 mass.

I explained the girl scout weekend. Fiona was silent. I don't know--I like Fiona a lot. I don't know what she expected.

"Have you talked to Sr. Hildegard, or Fr. Miguel?" I asked.

"Well, not yet. We just, Gillian thought if maybe just you and she could handle it, it would be better."

"But if I'm not there, I mean, I think we need to bring them in on the conversation. I'll call Hildegard."

I do. Hildegard is not impressed with the bride either. She goes down the hall to tell Miguel. Jack is there--all three think it's a bad idea. Count me in.

But Gillian is a long-time parishioner. Rules are set down for a reason, but exceptions can be made.

So I'm meeting Gillian on Thursday at 8:30 to remove flowers, and Fiona is setting them back up before the 4:30 mass.

I hate brides.

128/365 Corpus Christi

Sal's in church when I get there this morning. He's setting up the kneelers for the wedding this weekend. "Setting up" means randomly dragging them out into the sanctuary. There are 4, but many couples only use two (or none at all). But he drags them out every time. I'm there to take plants away so that the bride's flowers don't clash. Whatever.

"Hey Bridgett!" he says, like always. "We did good with the Easter decorating."

"We did, you're right," I say, putting Leo down so he can look at the font.

"Pentecost, I guess we'll put up the red and white banners?" he asks. If he means the felt ones with all the words, the answer is no, we threw them away ages ago. But I just shake my head. "Oh, ok. I'll help take everything down after Pentecost," he offers.

"That would be fine," I agree. "Some time that week we'll work on it."

"Have you heard about Corpus Christi?" he asks. I hate finding things out from our mentally disabled janitor. Sometimes, though, he knows things first. It's a mystery.

"No, what about Corpus Christi?" But I can tell on his face he doesn't have any news. He pauses.

"Are we going to have Corpus Christi?" he asks, trying to be more clear.

"Well, yes, Sal, we'll have Corpus Christi." It's on the liturgical calendar. It's not optional.

"Nobody told me about Corpus Christi," he shakes his head like he's suspicious of my answer. "Are you sure we're going to have Corpus Christi?"

"Yes," I say more definitively. "Everyone has Corpus Christi."

"Ok, Bridgett, if you say so."

I've never been happier to see Gillian walk through the door.

129/365 How much to be a parishioner?

I simply don't go to church. I go, I attend, I'm part of it, right, but I haven't been there regularly since, oh, January? I can't believe how busy this spring became. And suddenly it's mid-May and I won't be there Sunday either--girl scout camp. I will be there next Sunday for Pentecost, but then not the Sunday after. And so on.

When I'm there, my heart aches to stay. I need some good routines. Now.

130/365 Let It Go

It is rarely about me. I carry things in my heart so readily, so automatically, and when something happens that is out of the ordinary, not what I expected from this person or that one, I assume it has something to do with me. I'm the cause or at least the catalyst and I need to fix it.

Astrid has often said to me that, really, it's rarely about me. Something else along the way has jarred the other person. A fight with a spouse, a bad report from school, money (always money), family problems, whatever. And encountering me doesn't cure them, but it doesn't necessarily make things worse.

This is my big challenge. Sometimes I know EXACTLY what I did, and then I often find myself apologizing. But it's a good rule of thumb to know that if I'm puzzled, it's probably not me.

let all go--the
big small middling
tall bigger really
the biggest and all
things--let all go
dear
so comes love

--ee cummings

Nothing's happened, and I know I've written this down before. It's just that I need to remind myself all the time. And this is what was on my mind.

132/365 Rumination on an old Worship meeting

I don't remember the exact words, but it went something like this. It was last Easter season, or maybe the one before that, and Miguel had just read the gospel for the coming season for us to reflect on before we started our meeting (which seems to happen, and then not happen, depending on the month, or maybe on the attendance--sometimes we reflect, but other times he reads, or has someone read, and then that's it. And sometimes that's good). It was, I believe, the gospel when Thomas isn't in the upper room when Christ appears, and he doubts, and then is proven wrong and all that.

Resurrection became the topic. Hildegard mentioned something along the lines of resurrection being a mystery, how Christ was resurrected but changed--he wasn't the person he had been before. The disciples didn't recognize him on the road, for instance. And then Hazel at the end of the table, who rarely spoke up about anything, just sat listening (and sometimes I think judging, but maybe that's just me being terribly self-conscious), said, "OF COURSE he's the same person. He's flesh and blood. He ate fish on the beach!"

At that moment, and pretty much every moment since, I thought about how ridiculous that statement seemed to me. And then I though about how much I didn't care. About how my faith isn't bound to what form Christ appeared in after his resurrection. For that matter, the resurrection isn't too key to my faith. Voskreseniya. It's a mystery I don't spend much time thinking about.

But what I have spent too much time thinking about was this interchange between Hazel and Hildegard. Why is the fact of the gospel story so important to some and so inconsequential to others (not that I think it's inconsequential, but I think some folks can debate, doubt, reassess, and grow in ways that others just can not)? I wanted to cry out at that meeting, "Why? Why does that piece matter? When you are considering the Word made Flesh, why are we so concerned with the latter part? What about the words?"

But of course, it being Worship Commission, I did not.

131/365 Oak Trees

It used to be, I'd go into the woods and I'd know that was an oak tree. If it had leaves, I could recognize oak trees. I was near the oak trees. I even learned, without trying, what a pin oak was. My grandmother had one in her front yard. And somehow I soaked in the knowledge that a pin oak was a red oak, and the other kind of oak was a white oak.

When Sophia was still a baby in a stroller, I realized I didn't know much about the natural environment around me. Missouri is beautiful and I felt bad that I didn't know the birds and trees and flowers. I began to study. I especially fell in love with oak trees. Not only were they divided into red and white, but each category had many species within. There were burr oaks and basket oaks and chinquapin oaks and scarlet oaks. I studied in books and went out into the wilderness. I held leaves and acorns in my hand and all my new knowledge was jumbled up in my head, but in a fascinating new way. I wanted to know and I wanted to know precisely and expertly.

I narrowed in on a street tree outside my front door, an oak of the red oak variety, but it began to dawn on me that it didn't fit. I would observe bud ends and baby leaves and acorns and bark and it didn't fit. I got better books and learned that oaks hybridize, and more than that: their hybrids are often fertile, leading to different hybrids themselves. The possibilities were endless. My neighbor Anne mentioned to me that Forest Park had to bring in an oak expert form the East Coast to figure out what species, or combination of species, a certain grove belonged to. An oak expert. There was no way I'd ever learn enough to be an expert.

Daunted, but still enthusiastic, I got a blank book and started recording every oak tree I ran across. Most fit simply where they belonged: blackjack, blue, white, willow, laurel, and so on. Others were mysterious. I learned Latin terms. Quercus velutina. Quercus alba.

When I went into the woods, I would point out oaks incessantly. It took me a long time to realize that many people didn't care. It didn't matter to them if it was an oak or a maple or a Kentucky coffee tree. They'd come for the shade. So I backed off. But in withdrawing from persistent identification of oaks, I didn't stop naming them in my head. I still saw them for what they were.

I had an opportunity to go walking at night this past weekend at a girl scout camp. We walked in darkness to adjust to night light, simply for the fun of it. Walking past an open field, I saw the form of the white oak in almost the center. I didn't point it out to the group of 9 year old girls walking along with me. They would note it or they wouldn't and it didn't matter. I knew it was there, gnarled and glorious, 100 years at least standing alone in that meadow. I loved it from afar in the darkness, seeing in my mind the shape of its leaves, the size of the acorn caps on the ground below it, the root structure stretching deeply underground. And that was enough.

133/365 Sing Alleluia

Sr. Hildegard sent an email. Notes from her discussion with Fr. Miguel. We weren't having a Worship Commission meeting. And that was fine with me. Everything on the notes looked normal: plans for Corpus Christi, thoughts about Trinity Sunday, and so forth. But there was one thing.

Sometime long ago in the deep memory of our parish (meaning, about 10 or 15 years ago, tops), we started singing Alleluia after the gospel. Before the gospel, too, of course, but then when the reader said, "The Gospel of the Lord," we didn't reply "Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ." Instead, the piano picked up the tone and we sang the Alleluia again. Unless we were using that one setting that went on a long long time, this went fine and without a hitch. But lately it started making folks wonder: why are we doing this?

Lynn insisted that we did this because LOTS of people did this. Everyone else who'd ever been to any other mass anywhere disagreed with her. Bev said we did this because it started some Easter season and never went away.

Sounds like time to question, to me at least.

Why should we do this? What purpose does it serve? Anything that happens in a liturgy should have a purpose. We shouldn't do things simply because they are pretty or because it seems right. It should have a reason.

We decided, back in January, to drop it for Lent. And to always drop it if the reader didn't sing the "Gospel of the Lord" part. Because that was seriously awkward, like the choir was suddenly present when they weren't before. Like we were late or something. Jarring.

It went away for all of Lent.

It came back for Easter Season, because the Alleluia is especially prominent during this season. And it was good. It was. It set things apart.

But there's something about the forced rest of Ordinary Time that makes me happy. Simpler music, simpler decor, simpler things. Atrium calls it the Growing Season. We let things settle into our souls and gel. We count the Sundays off and grow like our gardens. It's lovely.

So I caught this email after Lynn had already replied with: I have been to other liturgies lately for a variety of celebration. They did not sing the alleluia. I miss it. I would be very sad to see us stop this practice.

Which is fine and good. Then Rachel, a new parishioner whom I would really like to see stay on Worship Commission, wrote: I agree with reciting the Alleluia in Ordinary time - makes singing it more effective during "special" liturgical times.

Then I wrote: I prefer not to sing it all the time because it becomes just one of those things. I like having it stand out in the Easter season.

Bev wrote: I really don't have a strong opinion about singing the alleluia after the Gospel. I lean toward not doing it during ordinary time, but would want to sing it before the Gospel.

And then Fr. Miguel sort of tied it all together by saying: Of course we’d sing the Alleluia Gospel Acclamation before the Gospel... my question was just about singing it after the Gospel, as we had gotten into the habit of doing. Let’s plan on not singing the Alleluia after the Gospel once Ordinary Time begins, but saving it for the more festive seasons of the year.

Seemed done, at least for now. The nice thing about a liturgical year is that if this Ordinary Time seems wrong without it, we can go back to it next time. But then Lynn decided to not let it lie. That's a big surprise. She wrote:

I would really like to discuss at a meeting this thing about the alleluia. It is something that makes the Gospel stand out. It also makes the joyfulness of the community alive throughout the year. There are so many other things we do during Easter to make it special. People respond to common responses by rote no matter what is printed in the worship aide. To lose the alleluia during the rest of the liturgical year will make it more difficult to reclaim during Easter. We are a signing community so let the people sing. It seems to me this response only became awkward because we had a deacon who couldn't sing.

O, she just makes me so tired. I can already envision this meeting. And I just hope it doesn't come to fruition, frankly. I think we've spoken pretty clearly, and more talk is not going to make it more clear.

Our next meeting is mid-June. So maybe at least it will be "set" for Ordinary Time. I just can't stop thinking of the Lyle Lovett song, "She's Already Made Up Her Mind."

So now she's sitting at one end of the kitchen table
And she is staring without an expression
And she is talking to me without moving her eyes
Because she's already made up her mind

134/365 Variety of Celebration

Lynn wrote that she had been going to other liturgies (meaning other centers/parishes) to experience a variety of celebration.

Something about that, no, something about everything she says, just makes me nuts.

A variety of celebration.

As for me and my house, we've found our niche. If I went looking for a variety of celebration, it would be simply an exercise in irritation. I am so "at home" at my parish that everywhere else is like a night in a cheap motel. Sometimes necessary, sure, but never desired.

Mike and I did hop around for a year, with the naive notion that we would see everything there was to see in the diocese--instead, we saw most of south and north city. Then we found a place we liked and stopped.

Maybe it's good, though, to make sure that where you are is still where you belong. I don't know. Maybe it's because she explained it that way. Like it was some grand plan of hers instead of "I was dissatisfied with our parish and I church hopped for a few weeks." Maybe it was because she explained it at all.

Maybe it was just that she gets on my nerves no matter what.

Ok, that's probably it.

135/365 Pentecost Plants

Something more red, the message told me. In the craziness of the day, with weather and getting the car looked at and worked on all morning long down in the county at the dealership, I made it to the floral wholesaler while my mother waited in the car with Leo sleeping in the carseat. I had 10 minutes, tops, in order to make it in time to pick up Maeve.

I went into the cut flowers cooler, thinking maybe gerber daisies in a clear glass vase might be different, maybe two sets on the side altars? I looked: nothing. The only things with red in them were towards the pink, and Pentecost isn't pink. It is red. Orange would be better than pink.

So I abandoned that idea and went to the greenhouse looking for flowering plants. Nothing jumped out at me. Geraniums? Ugh. Double impatiens in a hanging basket meant I'd be paying for the basket more than the plant. Lantana, same thing. There were some reddish leafy things--crotons, caladiums--and those went onto the cart. Gloxinia was red, but I was never too confident around Gloxinia. They were my first experience with church plants--Dolores left me with two of them to take care of. Why we only had two, and where they went, I don't recall. I just remember they didn't fare well under my care.

But then again, no plants fare that well under my care, unless they're tomatoes living in the garden cage in the backyard.

A couple of other red plants on the cart, and I head out to the front counters. I give them my account name. "The church, not the high school," I always have to explain. Does no one understand Roman numerals these days?

I carry them out to my mom's car and wedge them between the car seat and the side window. One plant on my lap. And Sr. Hildegard calls on my phone.

"We have so many plants here," she begins. I think she's about to tell me not to bother with picking out more red. So I tell her what I've just done. She says it's fine then, and she'll see me later that evening.

Although it would have been ok, right? I mean, the plants looked so lovely and full on my front steps. If there are too many plants in church, I could always deck out my yard with them...but I don't, obviously. I bring them up that evening and stand there saying "that looks good" as Kinnera and Hildegard arrange them. Too tired to even care at that point.

136/365 Rabbit Song

Gonna waste some time with you
and let this world go
Keep my heart idle
--Hem

We arrange plants. And then, because one must check the arrangement from where the people sit to be sure it's done right, Kinnera goes and sits in the front pew. Hildegard sits on the opposite side from her. I put something away in the sacristy and sit myself down on the top step, leaning on the marble communion rail.

Ah, the communion rail. So much kerfuffle over a piece of architecture. I might be one of the few people in the parish who doesn't have an opinion. We could leave it there and make the church look like it always has (except NOT, since it's changed and evolved over time anyway), or we could take it out and make the worship space more up to date. I don't care. I've never felt like it was a barrier because I'm a post-Vatican II baby and I never knelt at it. I've never felt barred from the sanctuary. So it doesn't bother me. But neither does it seem like the church would be scarred and broken if we took it out (unless of course we did a bad job at it...).

Anyway, just an aside.

I sat there and Kinnera told a story from lunch. Lunch at the parish where she works sounds like fun. Hildegard told a story of being trapped on Mustang Island in a car that wouldn't start. It's longer than that (obviously) and I just wanted her to keep telling it. Keep talking and chatting and I won't have to go home yet. Not that home is the problem. Anywhere but this moment is the problem. I want to sit leaning against this cool marble and listen to you chat and not think about anything outside this moment.

It wasn't anything important, the moment. We weren't making decisions or discussing deep topics. We were being idle. Putting off the next things--for me, girls' bedtimes and housecleaning. Just being there.

When I left, driving down Grand towards home, I realized how much I used to do that. Linger, chat, be. And I wondered what happened to make that so rare. Leo's birth? One too many obligations? Too much Irish dance? I don't know. It was a nice moment. I need to do it more.

137/365 Learning via Repitition

We’ve talked about this at a number of meetings and gotten input from everyone.

As I mentioned before, let’s plan on not singing the Alleluia after the Gospel once Ordinary Time begins, but saving it for the more festive seasons of the year.
--Fr. Miguel

I wrote him back, just him, not to Lynn, and thanked him for bringing it to a close. He said he was restating what he'd already said, so that maybe she'd eventually see this was the way it was going to be. But he never said "because I'm the pastor and I make the call."

It reminded me of being an RA in college and busting a party on any given weekend night (or in the case of Spanish exchange students, any given weekend or weekday, night or day). And they'd try to get me off topic: "But Jason last weekend had a suitcase full of beer!" I'd keep them on task and repeat, "It doesn't matter what Jason did. You have alcohol in your room, right now."

It doesn't matter that Lynn wants to revisit this topic and argue about it in person again. We're done for now.

It makes me think, though, about her last email, the one where she wrote that we were a singing community (she said "signing" but I think she meant singing) and we should sing. She thought it would be difficult to reclaim for Easter if we didn't do it all the time. She thought the congregation liked to sing it and so we should. Or else she'd be sad.

I wonder if she ever asked anyone in the congregation. If she really took the time to ask, say, my neighbor Marla and her husband what they thought about it. Not the sorts who would be on worship commission (although they help with the barbecue). The liturgical common man. I think she might find that they either don't care, or get irritated because it's different than what they are used to before joining our parish, or it takes too long. So often in the rarefied air of theology school, just like a laboratory or a model classroom, it is forgotten that things happen in the real world.

And it's a good cautionary tale. Perhaps a teachable moment for me. Just because I like this or that thing that happens at mass doesn't mean my mother does. Or Fiona. Or Fiona's parents. Or Marla and her husband. People come to our parish for many different reasons--they grew up here, or they like the preaching, or it's in their neighborhood, or they're friends with Colleen O'Toole (hell, that's what kept me at our parish for several years). Liturgy isn't always the number one reason. And I don't think that makes them bad people, or even bad Catholics. I think it needs to be kept in mind that trying something new, especially if that something new is actually something simpler and more to the point, is almost always worthwhile. Like when we got rid of preaching at Advent prayer services (another thing Lynn wanted to cling to, I might add, and that meeting with her has got me all gun-shy about going to more meetings with Lynn). It was a nice thing. But maybe we didn't need it. It took a lot to get people to do it. It didn't really add enough to make a difference. Let's try it without. And it was nice.

The great thing about having a liturgical year, like I've always said, is that you can always do-over next year if it seems wrong.

138/365 Jesus' Laundry

"What are you doing at this mass?" Jack asked as I passed him in the aisle after the Saturday vigil.

"I had Jesus' laundry," I point at the sacristy. "I'm late this week--I should have had it back yesterday."

------

Earlier in the day, I referred to it as such as I carried the basket of clean but unironed whites through the kitchen on the way to the ironing board.

"I have to get this up to church this afternoon," I said to Mike, hurrying by.

"Why? He got a date tonight?"

"4:30, and I'm going to be late."

139/365 Pentecost

There’s a lot of Christianity out there that insists that faith is all about a conviction you have in your head, a decision you make in your mind—that God exists or that Jesus saved us. It’s all theoretical and rational—a faith for intellectuals. But Pentecost shows us that Christian belief and spirituality happen to your whole body. Your mind follows your feet. Decisions come after something happens to your life. A new consciousness comes when you have to figure out what to do with the mess of people all around you and the concrete responsibilities of mutual care: feeding people, praying for needs, sticking around when some folks start getting annoying, or sticking around when the excitement wears off and life gets boring, mundane, ordinary.

--Isaac Villegas

I've had two moments of conversion: one happened after a long period of spiritual crisis and the other happened after I couldn't help myself anymore. I was confirmed in my parish, and that wasn't my conversion. That was my, "yeah sure whatever" moment of learning that I really should be confirmed if I'm going to teach religion in a Catholic school. Then confirm me. I'm catechized, trust me. No, it was after that, when I started to drift away from the church and from the parish. I kept telling myself that I couldn't stay just because I played softball with Colleen O'Toole. There had to be more than that.

So I prayed.

I prayed a lot. I talked to myself a lot. My friend Mary would say I started telling myself a different story. I thought I should leave...my daughter's godmother suggested the Quakers. She did both: Catholic mass and Friends' meetings. But here in town they happened at the same time on a Sunday morning. I couldn't just try it out. I had to make a decision. I read Thomas R. Kelly and prayed.

The archbishop decided to close our parish. It seemed like a pretty big sign. And then he changed his mind (or, rather, the committee recommended something else), and that seemed like just as big a sign. I kept praying. I went on retreat. I tried again. That fall, 7 people nominated me for parish council--Caroline told me I had more nominations than anyone else on the list.

I decided I was done looking for signs. If I was going to believe in the Holy Spirit of Pentecost, here it was. Here I was. I was Catholic and this was my parish and holy crap. Here I am.

Then, starting at that moment and tumbling forward, perhaps I shouldn't even separate them into two events, odd things started happening to me. I'd pick up a book with no real intent to read it and find myself sucked in. I'd hear words falling from my daughter's mouth that had to be at least casually inspired. I'd wind up at websites in the middle of the night without really meaning to. And suddenly it was right there in front of me. From the first time I heard the name Hildegard--the medieval abbess, not the pastoral associate--all the way to St. Bede's monastery and knowing I was so close but not there and searching and staying up thinking too much and worrying about it working out and knowing in my heart that I'd been a Benedictine at least since 6th grade, I was falling into a conversion I could not stop.

Because I didn't want to. My hands and heart and spirit were taking me someplace that had been created for me. I was the youngest oblate candidate at Clyde in 15 years; Sr. Jean said in front of the gathering of oblates that she'd never read a candidate's writing that got so close to the heart of Benedictine thought so fast. I blushed, I remember, but when I got home I wrote this:

Something about that place makes my brain reorder itself. Like physically. I can feel the change.

It was my Pentecost. Something changed and here I am.

140/365 Children's Prayers

It's not always for their dogs.

I've witnessed a lot of prayer at Children's Liturgy over the past two years. Sometimes it is for their dogs--or for all dogs--but oftentimes it is for things that are so real and important to them it makes my heart ache.

I would like to pray for my auntie who is the hospital with a new baby and the baby is sick.

My brother is going to Iraq.

We should pray for the people of Haiti.

My mom's dad is really sick.

My Aunt Mary fell off a cliff and got really hurt (it turns out, after I asked the mother, that this happened 20+ years ago and everyone involved is fine now).

My mom and dad because they're not living together anymore.

I'd like to pray for my new baby brother.

I want to pray for her new baby brother, too.

Let us pray for people who don't have place to live when it's so cold.

I want to pray for my family because we might have to move.

My friend Brittany at school? Because her mom died.

Today is my mom's birthday.

For my mom who just had a baby.

My dad to find a job because he lost his and needs a new one.

For my dog. And for all dogs. And all pets. And other animals, like in the zoo.

Let us pray to the Lord,
Lord, hear our prayers.

141/365 Venerable Bede

Random thoughts:

Today is the feast day of Venerable Bede, one of those saints of the Church who don't go by Saint. He's technically St. Bede, as far as I know (I mean, I first looked at a monastery in Illinois for an oblate program, and it was St. Bede's) but goes by Venerable. Pope Leo XIII named him so in 1899. He lived in the 8th century and is the only Englishman (by birth) known as a doctor of the church.

St. Bede's Monastery is on a flat featureless plain known as Central Illinois.

But the Venerable Bede was not flat and featureless. He wrote extensively--one of those hypergraphic monks who gave us all the information we have on a specific time and place, in this case, the Church of medieval Britain through 729. He was an oblate in the old meaning of the term--a child dropped off at the monastery to be raised by the monks, perhaps eventually taking vows. He did, and was ordained at age 30. He survived the plague when it ran through his monastery--he and the abbot were the only two to make it.

We don't know much about him. In two passages he mentions being married, and this puzzles scholars--could he be speaking metaphorically, or did he really mean he had a wife? It's not like he mentions her by name and gives her family history, and frankly, he was big on the history. But how much metaphor is appropriate? Don't you know you're writing for the future, for generations who aren't going to understand poetic license unless it can be txtd 2 frnds?

He was a Benedictine, of course, in the early centuries after the writing of the Rule, back when there were monasteries in England that weren't sacked and burned down and forced to fall into the swamp. He followed the same rule the sisters at Clyde do today. The same one I do my best to live and breathe within.

His name is rare for his time period. It probably comes from an old English word, bed, with a long e, meaning prayer.

My name means fiery arrow. Prayer is good, too, though.

142/365 Ecumenical Dialogue

Why is it that I can have religious conversations with a Lutheran minister's wife in Texas but can't bring myself to do so with the conservative Catholic who sits behind me at mass?

For that matter, I can chat with and have a good time with the mom at my kid's school dressed in a hijab, a convert to Islam with her blue-green eyes and pale skin and completely white middle class name, but I can't bring myself to be anything more than thinly courteous with the Latin mass attendee on the next block?

My evangelical neighbors know more about my faith life than my Catholic ones.

Maeve's godmother is an Evangelical Lutheran (ELCA, I mean) and Leo's godmother is a Presbyterian (Presbyterian USA).

I share many values more closely with the Mennonite family in my girl scout troop than I do with my Catholic parents.

Why are so many Catholic feminists so very very angry? If they left, we could talk. But they stay and we can't get past the anger.

My few Jewish friends ask important questions about the Vatican, about conversion; my Catholic friends seem to have few opinions about either.

Yet I attended a Jesuit university because the Methodist one that was first on my list treated me terribly on my tour of the college when I visited. Perhaps they weren't interested in ecumenical dialogue. Perhaps they'd been talking to the same Catholics I've been avoiding.

Several times a week I ask myself why I stay. And I've already answered this question and stability is part of it and the biggest part, frankly, but that vow isn't just a promise, it's a deep love for place and denomination and parish and family and I stay because there's nowhere else for me to go, because Sr. Jean Frances told me most people don't have to leave from where they started to find the right place, because I've always been leaving or coming to a new place and I hate starting over and I've already converted too many times to try again now and there is this deep, deep rooted conviction inside me, maybe it's a part of stabilitas, that says:

Stay right where you are. Stay. Down and stay.

But stability isn't my problem. It's the conversion of heart: being a good monk, essentially. How do I be a good Catholic to my fellow Catholics? I'm so good at hospitality across scarred battle lines, but I'm fearful of my nearest neighbors?

Maybe it's because, within the Church, Ecumenical Dialogue has turned into Ecumencial Diatribe. I get sick of flinching.

143/365 Full of Grace

This past weekend was Pentecost. I don't know all the details, but Fr. Miguel mentioned in a twitter post that our parish witnessed/celebrated 6 of the 7 sacraments this weekend:

Saturday morning, we had a funeral for a member of the parish who actually joined the Church (became a Catholic, I mean, not just joined our parish) just 2 years ago.

Saturday afternoon, there was a wedding.

Every Saturday before the vigil mass Fr. Miguel hears confessions.

Mass was celebrated three times and many people received the Eucharist.

On Sunday morning, we baptized Ursula and James' son, who, by the way, is one of the cutest babies on the planet. And I say that as a mother of a darned cute baby. My goodness.

Also at Sunday mass, Joel was confirmed and welcomed into our community.

According to Sr. Hildegard, sometime that weekend Fr. Miguel gave the blessing of the sick to someone, but I don't know the details on that one.

So we didn't ordain anyone. But just a few weeks ago our deacon became a Dominican priest.

We are immersed in grace.

144/365 On the other hand: grace

It is the daily dew and the light afternoon shower that keeps the garden of our souls growing, rather than a once-a-year downpour of grace. --Father Dominic Garramone

This quote is at the top of a blog I read, called Everyday Unitarian. I'm obviously not a Unitarian, but like I've said before, I have lots of ecumenical leanings and I like reading her reflections on faith and church (and it led me to decide to write this blog, even if just for myself, as a reflection on my own parish and its community life).

Fr. Dominic, OSB, wrote some of the first books I read by modern Benedictines. I read through (too quickly) the Rule, and I read some things about the Rule, but when I started thinking more about becoming an oblate, I found his books, and Daniel Homan, an easy gateway. Later I would read and reread Joan Chittister and Kathleen Norris and Michael Casey and lots of other folks, but Dominic was my first step.

We'd lost electricity. It was the summer of 2006 and that first night, it wasn't so bad in the house. The girls slept in the living room on the floor and Mike split the night between our house and my parents' house, just to keep things safe. I lay in my bed with a flashlight and read Bake and Be Blessed. It was like trying on a pair of jeans with a size you're hoping will fit, and then they zip up right away and don't make your rear end look too big. It was a perfect little joy of a book to read. I read the whole thing in that one setting and fell asleep convinced of what I needed to do.

There are so many good gateways to a more spiritual life. Which amuses me (or makes me shake my head ruefully) because I have a minor in Theology from a Jesuit university--my major is in elementary education, but I've taken a lot of theology. A lot more than just a minor's worth, in fact. And in high school, our junior year theology course was the study of Vatican II documents. We studied 4 of them over the course of the year. Four: Lumen Gentium, Dignitatis Humanae, Dei Verbum, and I believe the other one was Gaudium et Spes (but I had to look it up to try to guess...). For a high school theology course, that was pretty heavy. I have a lot of theology under my belt. And yet, by the time Maeve was born, I was no longer in conversation with God.

It was books like Bake and Be Blessed that put me back on that path. The Quotidian Mysteries. Benedict's Way. Simple little books that opened that door again.

145/365 Fr. Miguel Goes to Paris

From his twitter feed:

J'adore Paris! Maybe I can make Adam like it too. Stay tuned!

5 hrs in Musee D'Orsay. 3 hrs at the Effeil Tower. Saw the Tower sparkle at night! Lots of walking. Tired.

Somehow I feel drawn to Paris, like no other city, like I should have been born here, like I belong here. Is that odd? Maybe in another life

Paris, Day 2: Sainte-Chapelle, Notre Dame, Bus Tour through the city, Louvre, Cruise on the River Seine.

Foie Gras for lunch. Foie Gras at dinner. Mmmm. Adam even tried!

Generally, people who pose in front of national monuments or priceless works of art look like morons. Just saying.

Adam bought a beret.
I need to stop reading his twitter feed while he's on vacation with his nephew. Seriously.

146/365 Religious Tradition

Catholicism has an undeniable culture. There are many different shades of this, and Catholics attending two different parishes in the same diocese might have vastly different ideas of what it means to be Catholic. Forget the universal/worldwide church--there are plenty of differences between me and the folks at Resurrection or St. Clement of Rome. Geography, as usual, is destiny.

But walking into almost any Catholic church, I find myself at the front or side vestibule. There's a holy water font. There are almost always pews or some sort of seating. I'm not the biggest fan of pews, but there's something very homey and comfortable about 90 year old quarter-sawn oak pews. There's some sort of sanctuary with a chair, an ambo, and an altar. There are usually images--stations of the cross, stained glass, tapestries, statues, mosaics, something to help tell the story of our faith. There's a crucifx. Fire. Pathways and kneelers and silence. There might be parts of the mass that seem odd to a newcomer--at one parish I attended in Texas, after communion every Sunday we recited the words: O Sacrament most holy, O Sacrament divine, all praise and all thanksgiving be every moment thine. Other places don't sing as much or don't have as much silence or celebrate sacraments differently. But they are all fragments of the same mirror, reflecting God.

I am thinking about this because of the Unitarian blog I read; she is visiting her dad's family this weekend and is surrounded by Catholic tradition. She is originally Catholic, and she likes that her kids are experiencing this, even if just a few times a year. Because her kids will not make first communion or witness baptisms. They won't say a rosary or know the parts of the mass by heart. They see these things with fresh eyes, but with eyes of strangers.

She and I, on the other hand, know these things from childhood. And my kids, in some similar ways, some different, are learning and living these things, too. And in the end, this was one of the things that kept me Catholic when it really looked like maybe I wasn't supposed to be. Religion kept me going with faith wavered. I realized I wasn't strong enough to find God on my own. I needed a community to help me. I needed tradition and ritual and practice and rules. I'm not talking about morality--I could have managed that just fine on my own. I'm talking about religion. About finding one's way through the noise and static. I'm not going to find God in a pink crystal rosary. I'm not going to reach great spiritual insights sitting at vespers. But if I don't do these things, have these things, teach these things, then I don't have any hope of finding God at all. There are too many ways to lose focus.

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything.
That's how the light gets in.
--Leonard Cohen

147/365 Double Rainbow Over South City

148/365 Pews

We have democratic pews. Some churches of our era, or perhaps a little older, have a little metal slot where you could put a "reserved" card--which would be convenient, of course, but what they were originally for was for a family name. At St. Joseph's down in Macon, Georgia, where I unfortunately spent a year and a half, some pews were still assigned to specific families. Some of the pews had gates at the end, too, like a tame roller coaster might, to keep folks in and organized.

We don't have any of that. We have hat clips, like in the background image here, but we don't even have book holders on the backs of pews anymore. Two books get stacked at each end of the pew. Pass 'em down. Our pews aren't ornately carved with symbols of the church or beautiful columns and curlicues. Just this simple Latin cross.

Each pew is distinctive in its woodgrain, and sits at a slight angle for comfort. About half the pews have been refinished, and I think it was supposed to be my job to do that after Dolores left. I haven't even gotten started--I still have a cabinet in my dining room that needs varnishing. Not a woodwork gal. But I check for rough spots and nails when I can, and hammer the nails in and consider what I might do about splinters.

They're no cloister choir stalls, but they'll do.

149/365 Atrium?

Faustina calls. She wants me to be the "helper" in the atrium this summer. That's fine, but sometimes I wonder if she forgets I'm a catechist. I can actually do this. I don't have to be the "observer" as she puts it on the phone.

But I tell her I will, and give her the dates when I'm available. So we go...Maeve was finishing up preschool still this week so it was just going to be me and Leo.

Leo goes into that atrium and sees SPECIAL PLACE JUST FOR ME. He toddles around the room. Shrieking with joy. This is great for a few minutes, and then I settle him down with a puzzle at one of the tables. That lasts a bit, but I start to realize Faustina doesn't want an observer (essentially, another adult in the room just-in-case), but rather a servant.

I'm ok with that, but if I'd know that, I would have probably told her I couldn't, simply because Leo wasn't going to let that happen. I spend the morning scrambling between "Mrs. Wissinger can help you do that" indirect communications and Leo shrieking.

Later in the morning, she starts using more indirect communication by saying things like "Leo doesn't know how to be quiet. He doesn't know how to be in the atrium."

It was supposed to be over at 11 but I left at 10:40 when two other moms showed up. I didn't say goodbye--Faustina was busy with a lesson with the whole group.

I sent an email explaining that maybe I wasn't the best fit. Faustina often communicates by email, but I have received no reply or phone call. Ah well. I just don't understand why I keep screwing up with that woman.

I need the atrium to continue to exist. I need it for my kids (although if it ceased to exist I'd recreate it in my basement). I am happy to help. I'm just mystified sometimes at why things happen the way they do.

150/365 Bartholomew

St. Bartholomew was probably a good friend of Philip's, and maybe wrote his own gospel (it is lost, but referred to in other writings). Some early disciple went to Armenia, India, and Asia Minor, leaving writings behind, and tradition holds that it was Bartholomew. Often he is equated with the apostle in John's Gospel called Nathaniel--since he fills a similar role there (friend of Philip, no other reference to Bartholomew) as he fills in the synoptics.

But what we remember best about Bartholomew, or at least I do from my days in Catholic school with Butler's Lives of the Saints, is that Bartholomew was flayed alive. Not dead afterwards, he was then beheaded. Because of this, most depictions of St. Bartholomew involve a tanner's knife, and sometimes more graphic depictions of a man with his skin draped over one arm.

Here, he is a fig branch. Bartholomew, known as Nathaniel in John's Gospel, was brought to Jesus by his friend Philip. He doubted that anything good come from Nazareth, but came with Philip to meet Jesus. Upon meeting him, Jesus told him that he knew who he was--he had seen him under the fig tree. Nathaniel immediately believed in him, but Jesus told him to wait--there would be so much more he would come to see. (I paraphrase from John 1:45-50).

I think I prefer the fig branch.

151/365 Pieta

152/365 Andrew

Martyrs. Peter gets the keys to the kingdom, Matthew gets money bags, and James the Greater a traveling bag and staff, but most of the apostles are remembered for the way they died. Andrew is known for the X-shaped cross, which is supposedly how he was martyred, crucifixion, but a different twist. Of course, Andrew was more than how he died. He's also the patron saint of women who wish to become mothers, which, trust me, is a large group who need a good patron. He also covers sore throats, Greece, Scotland, and fishermen.

And Andrew was one of the disciples in John 1:35-39 who saw Jesus pointed out to him by John the Baptist as the Lamb of God. This is a peculiar passage that was our reflection at the beginning of our RCIA year. When this is pointed out to them, they follow Jesus. He asks him what they are looking for. In what must have been an awkward moment, one of them replies, "Teacher, where are you staying?" Instead of giving them a direct answer (with my cousin; at the inn; by the lake) he says, "Come and see."

We are all seeking, yearning for answers, connections, but we don't even know the questions we should be asking. Where are you staying. Not something profound. Like something Maeve would ask--"what her name?"--as she points to a girl walking up the sidewalk. Or like the first question I asked Sr. Jean Frances--does anyone come from further away than Kansas City?--Instead of asking something like I am searching for a way to grow my faith and have a relationship with God again because it's been a long frustrating time and do you think this might help me? Even that is a befuddled question, like a stammered "Where are you staying?" but Jesus sees it for more than that. It is the beginning of search.

Andrew found the beginning of answer there, too. For he goes to his brother Simon Peter and tells him, bluntly, "We have found the Messiah."

153/365 Haiti and too much wine

Fr. Miguel came over tonight to talk about Haiti to a group of folks, some from book club, some from the neighborhood. A salon, I called it, based on internet friends' salons in Vermont. We listened to Miguel's short history of Haiti, and then he brought it up to the present, to his recent trip there to a hospital where he served as chaplain for a week after the earthquake.

It was a really good talk. And a chance to drink more bon terra cabernet, which is my very favorite but I don't get to enjoy too often because, being from a family of alcoholics, I do not drink alone. Mike is essentially a non-drinker, and therefore, I spend a lot of time not drinking. This is good for me--I would be a drunk in no time.

I could sit and listen and chat with Miguel on just about any topic. I always learn something and I'm always surprised by something. And I know this probably makes me a total suck up and I just don't care. There.