Utah Vestibule

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

2011-01-11T10:55:00.000-08:00

Didja?

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

I've been at my parish for 12 and half years. Besides my marriage, this is the longest I've done anything (parish and neighborhood are the same length, since my parish is in my neighborhood).

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

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

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

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

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

364/365 This is where I live

2011-01-11T10:34:00.000-08:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

363/365 Clyde

2011-01-10T06:22:00.000-08:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

362/365 Down with Christmas

2011-01-09T14:40:00.000-08:00

But don't take those poinsettias.

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

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

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

361/365 My Name

2011-01-09T12:22:00.000-08:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That's my name.

360/365 Benedictine Moments

2011-01-07T17:04:00.000-08:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

359/365 Taking down more Christmas

2011-01-06T13:58:00.000-08:00

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

I thought, but did not say:

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

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

358/365 Taking Down Christmas

2011-01-05T12:40:00.000-08:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Merry Christmas. Don't waste your time.

357/365 Hunkered Down

2011-01-04T07:08:00.000-08:00

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

356/365 UndecoratingChurch

2011-01-03T18:29:00.000-08:00

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

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

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

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

355/365 Epiphany Chalked Up

2011-01-02T14:52:00.001-08:00

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

354/365 New Year

2011-01-01T10:30:00.000-08:00

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

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

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

353/365 Finishing Up

2010-12-31T12:15:00.000-08:00

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

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

352/365 New Years Resolution

2010-12-31T12:12:00.000-08:00

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

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

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

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

351/365 Christmas Novena in Review

2010-12-31T12:08:00.000-08:00

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

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

350/365 New Years

2010-12-31T12:05:00.001-08:00

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

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

"Lynn is coming?" I clarify.

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

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

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

349/365 3535

2010-12-31T02:00:00.000-08:00

It stands there across the street from the school.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

348/365 Back Home

2010-12-30T11:50:00.000-08:00

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

And if

an angel
warns you
in a dream

not to
return
by the old

way,
please
listen.

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

347/365 Homilies, Dominicans, etc.

2010-12-29T11:44:00.000-08:00

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

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

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

346/365 Yeah, that's true

2010-12-28T11:41:00.000-08:00

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

Daniel Homan, OSB

345/365 Christmas is Over

2010-12-27T11:33:00.000-08:00

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

But it's not.

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

But it's not.

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

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

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

But it's not over yet.

344/365 Snow on Christmas

2010-12-26T13:30:00.000-08:00

It's like a special gift to children, snow at Christmas. This year, too, it was a gift for me. A gift to watch my niece watch it fall the first time. To scurry around and find extra snowpants and makeshift boots (rainboots with two pairs of wool socks) and waterproof gloves. My brother heading out to the park with the girls while I stay home and let my mind relax a moment.

We didn't leave Christmas Day. Maeve had a fever (still) and we wanted to give Christmas travelers some space. So we went over to my parents house and ate pancakes, no rush. Did typical Blake things (bitched, mostly, in unison).

The snow is 4 inches deep at least. Heavy, good snowball snow. The girls made snowmen and a "fort" that was about 8 inches high. Neighbors joined. It was Christmas Eve and there was snow falling. Lots of it for St. Louis in December.

Going out to the car to head over to mass, I smelled it in the air. That clean snow smell. I remember.

343/365 Fever

2010-12-26T11:28:00.000-08:00

Maeve's fever. What's up with that, anyway? This strange mystery of her brain, which leads me to ponder the strange mystery of parenting. And the infinite capacity to not know.

Not only not know, but not be able to do a damned thing.

342/365 Things Not Done

2010-12-25T23:29:00.000-08:00

I never called our floral wholesaler about the missing wreath. I'll dig through that in the coming year. See if they charged us, for instance. Complain later.

I never asked Flora about new bows for the wreaths. I think we could doctor what we have. I know she would do them. I just ran out of time.

I never got confirmations from folks about decorating. On Sunday we had enough people, but Tuesday was slim and by Thursday it was just me, really, and I left after I'd done what I could in the silence of the afternoon.

It wasn't my best Advent. I've done better. I kind of phoned it in. Granted, my brother and his family were in town and so I was essentially "on vacation" to St. Louis with them. Maeve had a seizure, of course, right before Advent started, throwing me for a bigger loop than I want to admit. I had quilting and sewing to do. I never baked a single anything. I hardly got presents wrapped or the tree up.

Something about this Advent still doesn't feel like it's over.

341/365 You do a lot of singing

2010-12-25T23:21:00.000-08:00

"What is up with your church?" my brother asks as we walk into our parents' house for post-Christmas-Eve-mass-presents-and-hoo-ha.

"What do you mean?" I take off my coat and slip my shoes of.

"All the singing. Man, you guys like to sing."

340/365 One last before they go

2010-12-25T20:11:00.000-08:00

I liked these a lot.

I think I know what I want to do for next Christmas, mostly because Rachel and I hate the pathetic pine roping that replaces these Advent banners. But I'm going to let it percolate a while. I have other things on my plate.

Like a set of dish protectors for Fr. Miguel.

339/365 Banners III and IV

2010-12-25T19:08:00.000-08:00

The third is from the letter of James from that Sunday, something about how the farmer waits patiently for the plants to grow. It is my favorite of the four. Mike says that's because it's the only one I came up with entirely out of my head--no flipping through webpages or books for that one. It's all mine.

The fourth is something to do with Joseph's dream. I don't know if that's the Holy Family in a trio and the fourth dot is? Or if that's a trinitarian symbol and the fourth dot is Joseph. I guess it can be what you want.

Sr. Patrice was very very impressed. I said to Hildegarde before we went upstairs to take them down that if I can make things that nuns like, I'm doing something right.

338/365 Banners I and II

2010-12-25T18:04:00.000-08:00

Already gone, of course.

It's been a crappy advent for me.

Here are the first two.

Week one: you know not the day nor the hour. Sort of a sun rise sun set kind of thing. Note the dot theme. It continues.

Week two: make straight the highway for God.

I suppose these will have to be Advent Year A, now that I consider it. I don't know if the readings match very well next year...

Clark said to me, at his house when I was sitting there with Astrid on the Thursday before Christmas, that he was watching me take pictures of something on Sunday. And then he turned and saw the banners for the first time. I don't get how people could miss them. But I was glad he saw them before they were gone.

337/365 Big Sister Moment (double posted)

2010-12-25T17:02:00.000-08:00

This December has been filled with moments. Here is one.

I'm the oldest of 4. My brother Ian is 4 years younger than I am; Bevin is 5 years younger than him, and Colleen is 2 years younger than her. Spread out, kind of like my kids, actually. Enough time between that it's been hard for me to realize that my siblings have started catching up with me--there's a huge difference between 21 and 17, but not so much difference between 36 and 32. Not so much at all, in fact.

Ian and Ashley visited this Christmas. We all went to Christmas Eve mass (10 pm, not midnight, thank goodness), all but Mike, Leo, and Maeve since Maeve had a fever (of course). We sat in two front pews, my parents, Ian and Ashley, and my niece with Sophia. My sisters and I sat behind them. Snow was still falling outside but the church climate was warm, so we kept taking off and putting on coats and dripping from shoes and boots. Sophia and Kennedy were both dressed in party dresses for reasons I never really gathered fully. They'd worn them the night before to my parents' party and I suppose they equated them with Christmas. Anyway.

Sometime around the offertory, Ashley leaned her head against Ian's shoulder, and it totally caught me off guard. My brother is just over 6 foot and must weigh close to 270. He's huge. Ashley is barely 5 feet tall and one of those 120 pounds soaking wet kind of girls. That might even be more than she weighs when she's not pregnant. Tiny.

She's pregnant, in the category of high risk. They will know how high come January at the "big ultrasound" that we all do and none of us notices except if we're looking for the baby's gender. It has never hit me that it is truly an anomaly scan, even when the tech is measuring thicknesses and looking at the roof of the baby's mouth for a cleft. Craziness. Never had to worry. Ian and Ashley have to worry. The baby has Down Syndrome and that can bring with it a whole mixed bag of physical problems, most worrisome being heart defects. We just won't know until we know and on Christmas Eve that was still a long way away.

Earlier that day I'd picked up a baby book when I was at Catholic Supply getting the last Christmas gift (my parents have a creche that we add to each year, an unbreakable creche, I might add, although the woman at the counter said that dogs like to chew on Baby Jesus sometimes. My parents don't have a dog so that's ok). And a little cross to hang in the baby's room, one of those God Bless the Child etc. kind of sentiments. I was standing in line and there was a neighbor in front of me, a woman who goes to my church and lives on the next block and we know each other but I can never remember her name. She and her husband are going to be grandparents in the new year and she's glancing at the baby book and asks me who is having the baby--probably thinking it's me, after all, with my 3 and my youngest at almost 2. And it's Christmas Eve and I'd had a minor brush with death earlier in the day and it's snowing and I'm exhausted and I start to cry. Jesus. I'm not handling any of this well because I'm his older sister and if I could do anything on earth or in heaven to help them I would and I would, without a second thought switch places and have this baby and take this cup from them? You know?

Of course, my neighbor and fellow parishioner has a twin sister who has 7 kids and the last one in that row has Down Syndrome and we talk a moment (it's like everyone comes out of the closet when you break the ice, whether about DS or epilepsy or whatever). The girl behind the counter in her Notre Dame sweatshirt waits patiently. I'm in Catholic Supply, a store I usually detest going to but it was open and I realized I'd forgotten the damned creche and I had no time to make the ridiculous trip over to the shrine in Illinois where I'd rather shop for these things but, did I mention it was Christmas Eve and there was quite a bit of stress? And I'm crying at the counter in front of this woman who is just almost a complete stranger and I pay the girl and I walk out into the snow.

So it's later that night and my daughter is sick again and my heart just won't come to the point where it admits what day it is and Ashley puts her head on Ian's shoulder.

My brother, I should mention, has always been the type that worried me. The adulthood part, I mean. He always reminds me of the passage in that David Sedaris essay about his younger brother and finding out he's going to be a father. Something like my brother was the type who would disassemble the baby and then get distracted by something else, like the chance to eat 100 chicken wings, and forget to reassemble the baby. I'm paraphrasing but that's Ian in a nutshell.

At least the Ian I knew. The Ian who sat on the couch with his 6 year old and watched "Snakes on a Plane" while my girls hid in her bedroom, afraid of scary movies. The Ian who eats habanero peppers to prove his manliness. The Ian who used to drink amazing amounts of alcohol, the Ian who took 47 years to get his bachelor's degree. And so forth. Not an adult.

We'd spent the week together, doing St. Louis things like the Arch and the City Museum and eating Italian food on the Hill because Ashley likes toasted ravioli and even though you can get them in the freezer section nationwide, perhaps, they still are kind of a St. Louis thing. Kennedy, my niece, has grown up a lot. She's 6 months younger than Sophia and is a grade behind her due to birthdays, but she's smart as a whip and nice. Nice counts for a lot when you're the aunt. Later that night she would open my present to her, a sampler quilt with colonial lady blocks, and she would be genuinely happy about it. Nice.

And this week together had shown me that Ian's edges had been worn down in similar ways that mine had. He didn't tease Kennedy, or Ashley, the way he used to. He didn't talk politics with me to get me going unnecessarily. Things were subdued, but not bad. He was more like my friends and less like the people I avoided in high school.

So Ashley puts her head on his shoulder and he puts his arm around her and I suddenly realize he's an adult. She is too, but that wasn't the shock. He's about to be the father of two, one of whom, a little boy, is going to need a lot of care and love and prayer. A baby they're planning to name Ethan, which means steadfast.

It was one of those moments. I've been having a lot of them lately. The most recent one was Maeve's seizure, realizing how incredibly beautiful she is, while she lay there in a post-ictal cataonia. And here it was again. It was another beauty in fear and worry moment. They're here, they're together, they're adults.

What was that I said about life persisting?

The Dream Keeper by Langston Hughes

Bring me all of your dreams,
you dreamers,
Bring me all your heart melodies,
that I may wrap them in a blue cloud cloth,
Away from the too rough fingers of the world

336/365 Christmas Meals Prayer

2010-12-24T12:56:00.000-08:00

From the Rule of Benedict chapter 35:

Let the brethren serve one another,
and let no one be excused from the kitchen service
except by reason of sickness
or occupation in some important work.
For this service brings increase of reward and of charity.

...

Immediately after the Morning Office on Sunday,
the incoming and outgoing servers
shall prostrate themselves before all the brethren in the oratory
and ask their prayers.
Let the server who is ending his week say this verse:
"Blessed are You, O Lord God,
who have helped me and consoled me."
When this has been said three times
and the outgoing server has received his blessing,
then let the incoming server follow and say,
"Incline unto my aid, O God;
O Lord, make haste to help me."
Let this also be repeated three times by all,
and having received his blessing
let him enter his service.

What I said:

By blessing kitchen workers, often alongside those who will proclaim
the word of God for the week from the ambo, Benedict is saying something very
important about the nature of spiritual and manual labor. We don't pray without
working, or work without praying. They are intertwined and both are important.
There is no lofty pursuit that is not supported by basic work. Both are pleasing
to God.

As we prepare to send these meals out to our brothers and sisters home on this
Christmas Eve morning, let us consider our work in this context. O God, come
to my assistance, O God, make haste to help me. Bless this food we have prepared,
bless those who will partake in this meal, allow our own happiness and love to
shine through its simplicity. Bless and protect those who are about to go forth
into the community to bring our labor to fruition. Blessed indeed are you, O God,
who have helped and comforted us.

Amen.

335/365 Christmas Trees

2010-12-20T06:20:00.000-08:00

Every year, my family goes out to find a tree. We go to little family-owned tree farms in dells around Missouri. A couple of years ago, we discovered a place in Washington, Missouri, that grew Canaan Firs, which was the Great Christmas Tree Compromise. Mike grew up with balsams from the Optimist Club lot, I grew up with whatever we managed to find growing nearby. Canaans smell and look like balsams, and I was the hero of Christmas a couple of years back when I discovered them. My parents and sisters take the truck, Mike and I with the girls in the minivan, head down to Washington.

In 2006, snow on the ground, we found the perfect trees quickly, but then had a lovely snowball fight. Sophia and Maeve attempted snow angels. We sawed the trees and drug them back through the snow to the lot where they net them and we pay. Each tree gets a tag, and you keep the other half. Of course, there is the obligatory hot chocolate or cider, and we stood around for a moment chatting, looking for heart-shaped rocks in the limestone gravel path. Mike grabbed our tree, started dragging it back to my dad's truck, and..my parents' tree was missing. Nothing matched the tag. The guys in flannel and boots went through the parking lot--sometimes things disappear accidentally. Don't check the tag, take home the wrong tree. No luck. No extras lying around by mistake, either.

The owners of the farm graciously let us go find another, even though we probably should have taken better care. My dad and I trekked back out to find another--they are all lovely, of course--and he said, "well, somebody must have needed a tree a lot worse than we did." The owners later agreed with him--each year they lose two or three to outright theft.

We laughed once we got back home, though, because my parents live in a 1904 era house with huge ceilings. The stolen tree was over 9 feet tall, and most houses built after 1930 in Missouri stick to the 8 foot standard. We turned on bluegrass Christmas music and reminisced about years when it would have been a good option to steal a tree. Life is good.

334/365 More Christmas Past

2010-12-20T06:11:00.000-08:00

On my birthday, 1983, the Marine barracks in Beirut were bombed. My uncle, and godfather, Patrick, was supposed to be there--sort of the story of his life, actually--but drew the short straw and was sent to Honduras instead, out of contact for months. My family had no idea whether he was in Beirut or sitting pretty in San Diego, or what. After it was sifted out that he was alive, not in Beirut, and not somewhere he could talk about, everyone halfway relaxed.

That Christmas, I remember hovering around the big oak kitchen table at my grandmother's house, hearing but not understanding most of the stressed conversation. When it was time for dinner, my grandmother said grace. My grandmother, Penny, is a liturgically liberal charismatic Catholic, and she held her arms open and palms raised like a priest in the Eucharistic Prayer. She thanked God for those gathered--seven of her eight children, all her grandchildren but two, her siblings, their families--and prayed for "those who could not be with us here tonight." Meaning Patrick and his daughters. She then promptly burst into tears and ran from the room.

This was upsetting when I was 9. But looking around the tight little kitchen, nobody was much impressed by her performance. Patrick had always been her favorite. The siblings exchanged annoyed glances, the in-laws passed the plates around. When my grandmother came back in, calmer after the traditional Christmas phone call from officers overseas, she had me sit on her lap and held me too close while I alternated between resistance and resignation.

333/365 Christmas Deliveries

2010-12-19T07:41:00.000-08:00

A Delivery of Christmas Past:

Saturday before Christmas, parishioners gather in the parish hall, say a prayer, and then go forth in their trucks and minivans and hybrids out into the community. Mike and I, with our girls, have done this every year (Thanksgiving, too, although that isn't quite so involved). Sometimes we show up at doorsteps of immigrant parishioners who aren't even sure what this whole thing means. Sometimes it's grandmothers on fixed incomes who want to give my girls candy for coming by. Young families with big screen TVs that dare us to say something. One older woman who wanted to sell us her treadmill. It's always an adventure, and over the years, has made me, at least, realize that poverty in my neighborhood is veiled in many ways. People who can get by except that it's hard at the end of the year, or people who spend money in ways I might not, money they don't have. People who send their money home in envelopes with red borders.

Last year, we had an address a little further south--in a rougher area of the parish (our parish just consolidated a few years back and gained territory I don't know as well). It was an old side-entrance flounder house (which put it probably as the oldest house on the block--they are peculiar to St. Louis and Alexandria, VA, old and odd, like half a house), and before I even stepped onto the porch, I could smell it. It was something I hadn't pulled up since I worked in the housing projects the first year I taught. A sweet smell, but rotten somehow, stale. Poverty. Scent and sound make an impression on my brain like nothing else can, and I am suddenly taken back to Jarvis sitting next to my desk with this angry look on his face while I hunt around the room trying to find what smells so bad...and then I realize it's him, and I just make it through my day without another word.

The woman answered the door, and behind her I could see the filthy kitchen. Mike asked if she wanted him to bring the things back. No, she told us. Just hand them to her. Her five kids, all pale tow-heads, too thin, half dressed, like images out of a Bosnian war film, were slumped on the bunk beds in the too-hot room in front of the kitchen. The woman was about my age, and the look on her face said it all, right? Maybe. Mike, who is better at this sort of thing, asked if she needed anything else, and she shook her head, staring at us as we stepped off her porch.

There wasn't much to say on the way home.

332/365 Wreaths and Trees

2010-12-18T07:35:00.000-08:00

It's that time of year.

The time of year when I mention Christmas decorating and the wreaths in the garage and Miguel says, "there are wreaths in the garage?"

"Didn't you leave at all yesterday, in your car?"

Sure he did. He just didn't notice any wreaths.

So I went over to the garage and found he was right. No wreaths. Nothing had been delivered.

The phone call to the wholesaler was practiced in my head and in my dreams all Friday night. When I called Saturday morning, the salesman had the audacity to ask me why it had taken until Saturday morning for me to call. Because I don't live at the church. Because I assumed they'd been delivered. I oh so wanted to get mad. I wanted a confrontation--I've had my fists balled up ready for a fight for 3 weeks with nothing coming and maybe, maybe the salesman at the florist wholesaler was going to take it.

But no. I represent the parish, not just myself.

We were written down as a pick-up, not a delivery. Which is a huge chunk of bull because I never ever would have said pick-up. And I made this order in October, when life was normal, so I didn't make the mistake.

He was unwilling to budge.

So I sighed. "How can we make this work?"

The wreaths will be delivered Monday. Thank God Christmas is on a Saturday.

In comparison, I drove out to the tree lot where we get our trees ever since the boy scout fiasco (why am I in charge of anything? I am not good with people. I should be a hermit. A hermit with a crossbow. Maybe just an assassin). I told the men standing around the drum fire (like hobos in a movie) that I was here from the church. They pointed to the office. The office had my paperwork. They had my trees. One of the hobo impersonators loaded them into the truck. We took them back to the church. All was well. The End.

331/365 Novena Night One

2010-12-17T07:34:00.000-08:00

Rachel's voice echoed through the barrel vaulted ceiling of our beautiful church in semi-darkness.

I couldn't help but engage.

330/365 Location of Novena

2010-12-16T07:28:00.000-08:00

Sr. Hildegard sent out an email. It was going to take a lot of work to get the Christmas Novena in place, and then back away, each night in order for other things to happen in between (like Sunday mass and choir practice). She made the suggestion that perhaps we should go ahead and have it in the chapel in the rectory basement.

I wrote back and said, basically, ok, let's have it in the chapel. I'm kind of in a keep it simple mode right now.

Rachel replied that there was no need to move it, that liturgy was messy, I stopped reading because, well, I don't have a dog in this fight, you know? Fr. Miguel wrote as well and agreed with Rachel.

Radio silence. I knew I was leading the novena on Friday but I figured I'd find out the final decision when I got there.

And then, in strict accordance with prophecy, Lynn wrote. She agreed with me. Chapel. Of course she agreed with me. It had nothing to do with me. It had everything to do with disagreeing with Miguel.

Irritated, I deleted emails and ignored it. I told Mike about it. And about how I was tired of all the fuss over such things. And he reminded me, wisely, that perhaps I was a little tied down in the minutiae of my own life to care about the minutiae of liturgy. He was right.

I wonder when I'll be back to normal.

329/365 Christmas is on a Saturday

2010-12-15T10:48:00.000-08:00

So it's throwing me for a loop. Everything to get ready is this weekend, but then there's a week in between getting ready and doing the whole Christmas thing with the family and the tree and the gifts and the driving.

It'll be ok.

328/365 To-Do

2010-12-14T08:22:00.000-08:00

*Trees: check, borrow truck, Saturday
*Wreaths etc: delivered Thursday to garage: is there even room? Ask.
*Poinsettias: delivered next week all by themselves.
*Lights, bows, ornaments, creche, etc: all ready for the most part. Bows, though. Damn.
*Delivery of Christmas boxes Saturday. I guess trees after that.
*Deliver of meals next Friday. Cook in the morning with Sr. Vanda.
*Ian gets to town Sunday.
*Wait for EEG results do not bite nails to the quick
*Wrap gifts
*Teachers?
*Sturm und Drang. Always Sturm und Drang.

327/365 Advent Concert

2010-12-13T08:20:00.000-08:00

The Advent concert was last night. I usually like the Advent concert. This one, however, seemed jumbled up, like we were trying to do too many things with it. Is it a concert, or is it a prayer service, or is it O Antiphons or is it Our Lady of Guadalupe. I left glad for the break from other things but really, my mind never engaged.

There is too much right now.

And to tell you the truth, I could just sit and listen to shape note singing for an hour and feel lifted up in a way that just didn't happen.

326/365 Liturgical Year Part Two

2010-12-12T08:16:00.000-08:00

So the conventional wisdom holds that Christmas was picked for the Solstice because we wanted to convert more pagans, that we essentially stole their holiday. But considering the fact that we were celebrating the conception (March 25) 130 years before any mention of celebrating Christmas, that kind of blows that out of the water...

But I will admit that Christmas trees and yule logs and mistletoe and all that jazz? Totally stolen. Or adopted. Or whatever.

So anyway, now we had these two big feasts, Easter and Christmas, and two seasons of preparation beforehand, Lent and Advent. In between these two feasts is what the atrium calls the "growing time" (and it helps that it is green): ordinary time.

Ordinary time is usually ordinary, but it might be better to call it Ordinal Time. It is counted. That's all. We tick off the Sundays: 9th Sunday in Ordinary Time, 10th Sunday in Ordinary Time, and so forth. It fills the gap between the Baptism of Christ in January and Ash Wednesday, and then between Pentecost and the end of the church year in late November. It is the time for the Word of God to settle into our hearts and take root. Because if all we had were feasts and preparations for feasts, well, you can imagine the spiritual fatigue. We need down-time. We need growing time.

325/365 Liturgical Year

2010-12-11T03:30:00.000-08:00

I'm presenting the liturgical year at RCIA this Sunday. I learned about it at atrium training and, with the symbols of the magi and the meaning behind epiphany, it was my favorite part.

After Christ's resurrection and the beginnings of the Church, his follower kept the Sabbath but also Sunday--the Sabbath because they were, for the most part, faithful Jews, and Sunday to commemorate the resurrection. As time went by, though, they started naming Easter as a great feast--yearly they remembered the resurrection in a special way.

So many new people were joining the church that there started to be an organized way to catechize them--and they started baptizing people at Easter specifically. So a preparation time grew up before Easter, and a celebratory time after Easter in order to properly welcome these new people into the church. These evolved into the seasons of Lent and Easter. We set the date of Easter originally as the Sunday after the 14th of Nisan, since that was the date of Passover. We had eye-witness accounts to assist in this, with Gospel authors tying the crucifixion to Passover.

Long after these eye-witnesses would have died, the church started to combat alternative theories about Christ, including the idea that perhaps he wasn't a person at all. Because of these sorts of heresies, it became important to set down a day each year to remember the birth, as well as the death and resurrection. But before the birth, church leaders set down the date of his conception.

There is a Jewish belief, or was, that holy people and prophets are conceived and die on the same day, usually in the month of Nisan as well. In the year 200, it was calculated that the date of Passover the year Jesus died would have been about March 25, and so the Annunciation was set as that date--the day that Mary conceived.

More later...

324/365 Epileptologist Wisdom

2010-12-09T13:40:00.000-08:00

Dr. Vashist has said three things since I met her in April '09 that will stay with me forever:

1. Let her be who she is going to be.

2. Maeve will let us know if she needs more treatment.

3. Tell your mother to be happy! Tell her you are well, that you are fine! (this was said to Maeve of course).

It's like an instruction manual for Maeve.

323/365 Immaculate Conception

2010-12-08T13:24:00.000-08:00

Today is the Feast of the Immaculate Conception.

I was in a foul mood. I was all knotted up about Maeve's doctor's appointment tomorrow and I had a bad cold settling into my chest. I was troubled by many things. So I went to church.

Walking in, I tossed the week 3 banner on the pew. Jack laughed, just enough to notice. I realized I was being inexcusably huffy, and I couldn't help myself, I had to turn and smile. I hadn't meant to be such a drama queen. I put the altar cloth I finally ironed away in the sacristy, said hello to Miguel, and went to sit.

The Mary altar was decorated for the feast, and will remain so through Our Lady of Guadalupe, which always makes me think of my sister Bevin's murdered friend Jesse, who had a place in his heart for Guadalupe. I think about his mother, her grief mixed with a brazen need for attention, that had repulsed me at first ("how can she act this way when her son has been murdered?") and had later caused me to be even more sympathetic. How terrible a thing to have to live with. We all grieve in our own ways.

Mass began. Dolores was the cantor; I wished Astrid was there for more than one reason. I was having a hard time engaging. My voice faltered due to the cough. At one point as we sat down for the first reading, I almost took out my phone to check my email. But I caught myself. Don't be ridiculous.

The homily was about saying yes. Yes. I listened but it still didn't bring my mood around. We recited the creed and I wondered if I'd ever get that version out of my head when the language changes came. And got irritated as we said "God from God, Light from Light, True God from True God." Wondered what heresy we were defending our faith from. Thought about the song "Our God is an Awesome God" and how it implied that not only were there other gods, but that also our God might not be the only awesome one. I remember laughing about that in high school. Where everything was black and white and simple all over.

Somewhere, though, maybe around the Our Father, my heart started to thaw. Receiving communion, looking into Fr. Miguel's blue eyes the same kind of blue as Leo's, how had I not noticed that before? and returning to my seat to sing the song and relax my jawline.

I hung the week 3 banner after mass was over. Jack helped me get it straight, which means not straight, because it isn't but it matches week two that way. It almost looks like I'm doing it on purpose. Talked a minute with Miguel and Jack about the banners. About my week. About my cold (Miguel is getting over a cold as well). And I walked out into the cold. Happy again.

322/365 Settling into the season

2010-12-01T09:08:00.000-08:00

So I got my little Thomas Merton Advent book out, and a new one I picked last year but haven't read, called From Holidays to Holy Days by Albert Holtz, OSB. I'm excited about this one--the blurb on the back says it is based upon his walks through Newark, NJ. A city dweller, not out on the windswept plains of western Missouri. Today's reflection is about Christmas wreaths, which I will read later when the coffee wears off and I'm a little less, well, frenetic. But reading the title reminded me of last night.

I took Sophia to her play practice and had let Mike know that I was then going to leave for a moment to be alone. I could go get the tires rotated for all I cared, I just needed to be away for a few moments. He understood completely, I mean, he'd been staying with me all day via my blogs and facebook and knew I was a little strung out. I dropped off the late library books (always late) and then drove out to the fabric store I frequent when I can't make it to Hancock's of Paducah (which means usually). I needed a Christmas fabric to back one of the quilts I've made; I needed to get some tapers for the advent wreath (I was going to just use white this year and put ribbons at the base--I made it this morning and it makes me happy). I wandered around the bolts of fabric and didn't think about anything except weight, hand, drape--fabric things. Successful, I then drove home and parked the car. Janet up the street was starting a business selling catalog jewelry and I figured I might be able to find a birthday present for my niece. So I walked in the BITTER COLD WIND up a block and a half.

It was warm and cozy in her house. She had a nice crowd. Astrid was there and we talked about things, all sorts of things, for a moment (I can see Astrid on Monday and then see her again on Tuesday and still have plenty to talk about). I found a few things that I thought I could fit into the Christmas-Birthday lists. Then Janet handed me the Christmas wreath I'd bought from her boy scout troop. I've done this every year, and I hang it in my kitchen to make the place smell like Christmas.

She was worried about my walking home--there's been a bit of a crime spree--but my theory was it was too cold for crime that night and I'd be fine. It is all downhill from her house to mine, anyway, and I walk fast.

I had on my German army coat (bundesrepublik, not something sinister) which I believe will cut any weather. One arm had my purse, which is huge and overfull. The other one, I carried the wreath over my forearm. I walked down and felt the bits of snow flurries hit my nose and eyelashes, just like Julie Andrews' favorite things. Under the streetlight at Arkansas, I looked up to catch the glimpse of the snow.

I crossed on the diagonal to my side of the street, my block, and looked up at the giant sycamore on our corner. I thought about how beautiful it all was, how lovely the city was when you saw it in this light, how humble and graceful my place in the world was.

Suddenly it was Advent and I was back where I belonged.

321/365 Flurry

2010-11-30T10:08:00.000-08:00

The flurries are here. I need to go downstairs with my cell phone in one pocket and the cordless in the other, waiting, still waiting for someone to tell me to wait some more. The advent calendar needs to be set up, and we don't have a wreath on the table yet for the first time since Sophia was a baby. Rituals help and I need to get busy and get them ready.

I think about Professor Elemental, who is a terribly amusing "chap hop" rapper. He sings a rap song about tea, for instance, called the Cup of Brown Joy. I'm not a tea drinker most of the time, preferring the dirtier cousin, coffee, but this line sums it up for me:

when times are hard and life is rough
you can stick the kettle on and find me a cup

Ritual. I need ritual and a flurry of activity. I need to start decorating for Christmas and drink some coffee in the kitchen and finish the last three banners and a few more quilts and pet my cats and open day one day two day three of the advent altoid tin calendar and I KNOW, I KNOW that if I fake it till I make it I will find myself content.

320/365 Choir loft in the early evening

2010-11-29T09:55:00.000-08:00

I had to measure the first banner so I could make the other three the same length. No time like the present, I headed out after taking Sophia to practice. I let myself into the dark church and made my way up the steps--Jack said there are 39 but I keep forgetting to count which says something, let me tell you.

My tape measure is cracked and will not lie flat against the banner. I rip off the end and do the math in my head. I measure it: 10 feet from the edge to the hemmed edge below; 17 inches from the edge to the curtain rod.

The church is silent. Dark and deep, Frost would say. It's Advent but in my heart it's still the crappy end of November with drizzle and grayest, impossibly gray skies. The neurology nurse didn't call. The ice water in my veins from Friday has melted into a muddy puddle, waiting for the dry skin-cracking air to evaporate it away. I'm not adjusting to the post-Thanksgiving pre-Christmas time very well. It's all going too fast but takes forever.

Numbers in my head, I walk back down. I toss the broken tape measure. I walk outside, past the dark rectory and the busy street. My car is still warm. I need to go to the grocery store. I note the boy scout tree lot with silent contempt and pull out onto the street in the darkness.

I know I will eventually exhale. It's the getting there that takes so long.

319/365 First Sunday of Advent

2010-11-28T09:50:00.000-08:00

Waiting.

It's palpable this year. I have to wait to get home to call Cardinal Glennon to sit on hold for how many minutes to talk to a receptionist who will schedule an appointment some time in the distant future for a doctor who will make us wait in a windowless featureless room for an interminable amount of time and then will tell us, best case scenario, that we must wait.

Nine hundred miles away, a young couple is waiting, too, for news that will devastate them and whirl them around. As if they needed more difficulty. I saw what they were going through as round two in a long road to adulthood and now, tomorrow, they will learn that they have to wait and and then spend probably most of their lives waiting.

It's enough to make you go in haste to the hill country and hide. And wait.

318/365 Not too hard persuaded

2010-11-27T09:37:00.000-08:00

I'm not too hard persuaded.

317/365 Twenty Two Months

2010-11-26T09:09:00.000-08:00

She made it 22 months. Twenty two borrowed months. Leo's whole lifetime, just about.

I lay her down on the bed, on the polka-dotted sheet, and she drools, all the saliva she was choking on. She jerks a bit more, but not long. Her eyes are closed and I know she's not there.

My heart doesn't even skip. Suddenly I have ice water in my veins and I don't know how that happened. 22 months ago I couldn't even make the words come out of my mouth on the phone with 911.

She calms down. The fire engine is outside and the younger in-laws are letting the EMT in the front door. I smooth her hair, her perfect golden brown hair. She breathes. The man in navy with all the gear comes to the top of the stairs and starts talking to me. I respond to him, but I keep looking at her face. My God, she's gorgeous. Her nose is so perfect, her eyebrows look like she has them done. The shape of her mouth. My six year old has just had a seizure and all I can think about is how angelic she looks. Like I've caught a glimpse of something I don't notice every day when she's healthy. How do I miss this? How do I not see it?

And my heart is at peace more than it should be, I keep telling myself. I shouldn't be ok with this. I should be worried and sad and upset and all verklempt. But I'm not. I put on a bit of a show, I drink some coffee, I hope for but do not expect a fever spike to come. It doesn't, and while my brain has to wrap itself around this new wrinkle, while I do start the mental games and the bargaining, I don't do so bad.

Knowledge helps, I know, but other than that, it was sort of out of my hands in a very comforting way. This has nothing to do with me. It has nothing to do with Maeve. I can't get her into rehab or clean my house better or move to a dryer climate. This is who she is and where she is and for the first time in her life, I saw her as Maeve. Not just my daughter Maeve or Sophia's sister Maeve or Baby Maeve or any of that. She had arrived. It took a seizure but now I see her.

316/365 Thanks

2010-11-25T08:58:00.000-08:00

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.

315/365 News flash

2010-11-24T08:56:00.000-08:00

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.

314/365 banners now and forevermore

2010-11-23T09:46:00.000-08:00

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.

313/365 Bread of Life at Starbucks

2010-11-22T08:53:00.000-08:00

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.

312/365 End of the year random thoughts

2010-11-21T12:25:00.000-08:00

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.

311/365 Win My Soul for Jesus

2010-11-20T10:32:00.000-08:00

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.

310/365 Change

2010-11-19T07:51:00.001-08:00

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.

309/365 Worship Commission November

2010-11-18T07:50:00.000-08:00

"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."

308/365 Presbyterian Work

2010-11-17T07:00:00.000-08:00

307/365 Playing Catch Up is Impossible

2010-11-16T06:55:00.000-08:00

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.

306/365 Banner beginnings

2010-11-07T10:10:00.001-08:00

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.

305/365 Mass of Remembrance

2010-11-06T13:11:00.000-07:00

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.

304/365 Mass of Remembrance Prep

2010-11-05T13:05:00.000-07:00

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.

303/365 RCIA preparation

2010-11-04T17:25:00.000-07:00

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...

302/365 Ian and Bishop Fiorenza

2010-11-03T17:23:00.000-07:00

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."

301/365 Some Souls

2010-11-02T08:40:00.000-07:00

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.

300/365 All Saints Day

2010-11-01T10:24:00.000-07:00

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.

299/365 Deacon

2010-10-31T10:17:00.000-07:00

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.

298/365 Chili Supper

2010-10-30T10:14:00.000-07:00

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.

297/365 November is coming

2010-10-29T10:10:00.000-07:00

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.

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

2010-10-28T17:57:00.000-07:00

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.

295/365 Advent Meeting

2010-10-27T17:51:00.000-07:00

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.

294/365 What I pondered today

2010-10-26T10:25:00.000-07:00

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

293/365 Advent Preview

2010-10-25T20:45:00.000-07:00

Everything ironed and folded and ready to go.

292/365 Children and Death

2010-10-24T09:14:00.000-07:00

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.

291/365 Liturgical Happiness

2010-10-23T09:03:00.000-07:00

"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

2010-10-22T08:58:00.000-07:00

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.

289/365 Worship Commission October Ramblings

2010-10-21T08:39:00.000-07:00

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.

288/365 Checks

2010-10-20T07:31:00.000-07:00

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.

287/365 Laundry

2010-10-19T10:33:00.000-07:00

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.

286/365 Deposit

2010-10-18T10:31:00.000-07:00

"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.

285/365 Tired

2010-10-17T10:26:00.000-07:00

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.

284/365 Cleaning Out

2010-10-16T10:18:00.000-07:00

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.

283/365 Something you like

2010-10-15T10:12:00.000-07:00

I knocked on the rectory door and Tom answered. It's Friday and the secretary doesn't work Fridays. He invited me in. "I'm here to pay for the hall rental," I explained.

"Did you just say car rental?" Fr. Miguel says, stepping into the foyer.

"Yeah," I go along with it. "I'm renting your car. I promise not to let the kids eat in the back seat."

"Oh, go get some milkshakes," Tom says with a laugh. "You know, Father, since we can't sell the school building, we've had to resort to other fundraising options."

I explain: my kids' school's trivia night is Saturday and we're using the church basement hall. Tom gets me the keys and takes the check. Miguel comes up beside me and hands me a vestment catalog.

"Look through, pick out something you like," he tells me, which makes me laugh again. But he explains that he needs some matched sets now that we have regular deacons and such--purple and white at least. So we flip through: too old, too fussy, too involved or festive for Lent and Advent, oh, I like that one.

And then I note the prices. I'm in the wrong business, my goodness.

282/365 The Cage

2010-10-14T10:07:00.000-07:00

Sr. Hildegard took me to the cage today. In the basement of the church behind the raised section that's kind of like a stage, there's a door. Again with the doors I don't notice. Inside that door is a heap of stuff--not literally for the most part--for picnics and barbecues and raffles and janitor supplies and all sorts of things. And then, past the first door, is an iron grate. A cage door.

Yikes? Not really. She unlocked the padlock and we stepped inside. The sound equipment was behind the locked cage. A sort of workroom. Kneeler parts, extension cords, old boxes of doodads that used to go to something. And a box of hammers, which made me laugh because I have often used the phrase "dumb as a box of hammers". I know the usual is a bag of hammers, but I always have preferred the /ks/ sound with box in that phrase. Sounds more intentional or something.

She showed me the speakers. The cords. The cart. Everything we'd need to project sound throughout a sea of 200 people on Saturday night.

281/365 Dressing the Altar

2010-10-13T09:09:00.000-07:00

I've dressed the altar...4 or 5 times? The first times were like any first attempts at new public activities. I was nervous and was still in the "knowingly unknowing" stage of learning. You know--first you don't know what you don't know; next you know what you don't know and you're shaky about anything you're learning; after that you knowingly know--which is when you should teach (or the stage you should force yourself back into in order to effectively teach). Lastly, you unknowingly know. You just do. When I sew, for instance, I can't even teach someone how to do it unless I step outside myself and remember how I hold my body, my hands, how I control pressure on the machine, or design something and include seam allowances, and so forth. I so unknowingly know how to sew that it's like reading or breathing. It just happens.

On the other hand, I will always be in the stage of knowingly knowing when it comes to math. I love math, now, and I love to teach it. But I keep myself as a non-expert because it makes me a better teacher.

It's become a natural thing to dress the altar now. Somewhere in that knowing stage. I know what I'm doing, my partner tonight knew what she was doing (or had enough presence in public to fake it well), and when we went down to the aisle to receive the gifts from Mike and my girls, I was just smiling. Not nervous. It was good.

280/365 Being Catholic Means Knowing What to Expect

2010-10-12T08:50:00.000-07:00

On Sunday night at the mission, there was an opportunity to file up to the front of church and demonstrate publicly our own adoration of the bible, of God's word.

A mission, like a retreat, is out of the usual Catholic practices. Things tend to be a little different. Prayer services, too. This one at least had a purpose, and was connected to other things we do, like adoration of the cross on Good Friday. Out of the ordinary and just outside my comfort level, but not cheesy or forced symbolism or anything tiresome. I went up and did this with everyone else, returning to my pew and thinking about a women's prayer service I was invited to a few years back by Lynn. Back before I knew to just say no.

A circle of folding chairs. Hand-poured candles in a variety of jars situated, but not lit, in a odd centerpiece on the floor inside the circle. Fabric folds, seashells, a bit of driftwood, a fern leaf. These objects would have made sense if the participants had placed them there after a walk in the woods to find a symbol of what life meant to them right now or something like that. But there, just placed already, it just looked forced and hokey. Little flattened marbles like the ones you put in the bottom of vases, scattered about probably to catch the light or look like water or tears or who knows what.

There was forced movement. The tiredest little dance in a circle with these middle-aged women in broomstick skirts or polyester pants earnestly making these moves, their hands in the air, making a wide circle above them--again, if they'd been, say, Native American interpretive dancers out in the prairie, this would have been good. In a church vestibule with the AC noise and the unlit candles: not good.

There was bad poetry. The bad poetry was read with Wiccan voices. Forceful "I Am Woman" voices.

There was bad music, on a portable CD player. We were supposed to sing along, but no music was included on our pamphlet.

Oreos and lemonade were on the back table for after it was over. I didn't stay. Lynn forced a handmade candle into my hand and asked how I liked it.

"Well," I tried. "Not really my kind of thing."

"Bridgett!" she said, mocking me with her tone. "You should make it your kind of thing!"

But I can't.

I like ritual. It's why I stay Catholic--other churches' rituals always look like reflections of ours and I judge them too much to seriously consider joining them. The Quakers are the only ones who drew me in further than the front door, and that's because they don't have ritual like we do. And I admit I'm too ingrained as a trinitarian Christian to consider moving beyond that concept to other religious traditions. While I appreciate them, their creeds don't course through my veins the way Christianity does. I cannot help being who I am.

And while retreats draw me out of my usual routine, they are filled with faith sharing and reflections as well as different takes on ritual. I feel like I know those folks before I take part in things that are out of the ordinary. But otherwise, give me a well sung compline. Have the things that keep me here. Ritual, reflection, and silence. I don't need anything else. And I certainly don't want it.

279/365 Mission

2010-10-11T08:43:00.000-07:00

Jan asked me what a mission meant for our parish. I was not on the mission planning team, so I am probably not the person to ask, but this is how I saw it:

4 nights of good preaching, each with a theme, brought to us by the Redemptorist mission team (the Redemptorists are an order of priests--I was baptized by them, actually, and my parents were married in Liguori, where they are based here in Missouri (I don't know how big that province might be)).

The themes for the nights are: bible, cross, candle, altar. The last night is a mass, the second-last night is reconciliation.

The overall idea is to reawaken us and replenish us spiritually, and to move us to action.

The priest who came to talk to us and spend the week is Fr. Jonah, and he is completely engaging as a preacher. Reminds me in some ways of Fr. Lucien back at the Benedictine abbey where I went to middle school. I like him. I couldn't go tonight, and I can't go tomorrow, but I'll be there Wednesday for the mass.

It's not like a tent revival do I hear amen kind of thing. It is definitely Catholic thus far.

278/365 Lectio Divina

2010-10-10T19:10:00.000-07:00

Tonight was the beginning of our parish mission. We've brought in a Redemptorist, a brother of one of our parishioners, which hearkens back to my own baptism down at the Redemptorist parish. I'm on the first page. Tonight's theme, though, was the Bible. God's word. As Catholics, I hear we have an uneasy relationship with the Bible. I think that's because so many of us are Baby Boomers, and they grew up during a period when Catholics didn't read the bible. Too bad. I was taught Old Testament by a fabulous Benedictine monk and I was hooked. I'm sorry if that's not your experience as a Catholic or an ex-Catholic, but I find the bible very comfortable. I'm no scholar, but I don't fear it. I don't worry that my interpretation is wrong. I know my faith and I know what it means to me. I use my bible all the time.

He brought up lectio divina during his talk tonight, which is a monastic practice of reading the bible. It isn't bible study and it isn't a marathon. It's taking a passage and reading it until something strikes you. And then dwelling in that word or phrase. Meditating upon it. And then opening up to God's response for you.

It's an easy way to re-introduce, or, for that matter, introduce, the bible into your life. It's not memorization or deep intellectual study. It's a word. Or two. And you, and God.

277/365 The 10 Lepers

2010-10-09T18:57:00.000-07:00

Thoughts on the story of the one thankful leper/story of the 10 lepers. You know the story: Jesus heals ten lepers. Tells them to go see the priests (go to the Temple) and show themselves to prove their cleanliness. They run off, but one, upon realizing he's been healed, returns to Jesus and thanks him. Jesus asks him, a Samaritan, why only one returned? But, having no answer, Jesus simply tells him his faith has saved him.

It's paired with the almost identical story of a healing of a Syrian named Naaman by Elisha. Naaman begs to give Elisha a sign of his thankfulness--but Elisha says no. He won't grow rich from the work of God. So, thwarted, Naaman instead asks Elisha for two mule-loads of earth so he can take it back home and worship God, the one true God, he realizes now.

Huh. He takes home dirt.

In the ancient world, gods were still tied to place (in fact, it's sometimes still true, with centers of religion in different parts of the world). Naaman felt that if he was to worship God the right way, he would need to do it in that place--and if he can't be in that place, he will take that place home with him. Which I guess is kind of like water from Lourdes or pieces of the "true cross." Pilgrimages. Those sorts of activities and desires to be in a certain place to be closer to God. So Naaman goes home with some of the place that belongs to God, and I don't know anything else about Naaman.

So then in the Gospel, there are some more lepers. Jesus sends them, again, to a specific place to be readmitted into the community. One, however, returns, and gives thanks to God at Jesus' feet. The word in Greek is the same as the word for Eucharist. Thanks reserved only for God. Jesus does not correct him as Elisha did for Naaman. And the Samaritan has come to realize that place doesn't matter: the person of Christ does.

276/365 It's hard to plan...

2010-10-08T18:56:00.000-07:00

It's hard to plan when you can't find the outline.

Searching...

275/365 Ordinary Time is Waning

2010-10-07T18:50:00.000-07:00

I have something planned every weekend from here until mid-December (and those will fill up, I know). When I focused long enough to rattle it off to a neighbor today, I got this doomed feeling. Ordinary time is slipping away from me.

In the atrium, we call it "Growing Season", and it is. It's the time to grow in God's word and love, but also in the rest of our lives, all our mundane tasks and gardens and houses and families. This is the time for vacations when you reconnect with your kids, and the time to finally get cucumbers to grow in your garden. We spend our summers lazing about, but really we don't. We work at being and becoming the people we are. Early fall greets us with harvest and back to school, back to encouraging routines and new beginnings. It's a beautiful time of year.

And before I know it, it will be gone. So far gone. The little green plants on either side of the ambo will be gone and an Advent wreath will hang in the back, at the entrance to church. It'll be cold and negotiating last minute present wrapping with school and church and family obligations and traditions. Traditions. I think that's why I like the easy breath of Ordinary Time: there aren't so many traditions. Just good Gospel stories and a plain church and no big worries. Sure, some local traditions, but there's room to move around in Ordinary Time.

Until now.

RCIA This Sunday

2010-10-06T14:18:00.000-07:00

I'm the RCIA catechist this Sunday, for the first time since, oh, Lent? As I've said before, RCIA is something I want to be a part of but even starting my third year of it, I still feel like I'm not qualified. Children's Liturgy of the Word (CLOTW) might annoy me sometimes because I have to miss a homily, but even if I forget and am unprepared, I can make something happen downstairs that will work. And Sadie O'Toole will stand up at coffee and donuts open mic afternoon and say that Children's Liturgy is her favorite part of church.

Or banners, or helping with holiday meals, or whatever. I'm good at things and feel like my work is competent and on par with those around me. This is not true with RCIA but I stay.

We'll have two new folks who are participating in the rite of acceptance this Sunday (the official start to their catechism experience). One baptized, who could come in any time during the year when it seems like she's ready, and one unbaptized. This brings our total to 3, which is nice. One person is a little intimidating for everyone concerned.

Now to plan.

273/365 I have a plan

2010-10-05T02:36:00.000-07:00

I have two plans, in fact.

1. The Presbyterian Plan: I'm doing two banners, 36" wide by 58" long, to flank their sanctuary, basically. When I sat down with the pastor, Jim, we talked about what Advent meant to him, what it means to me, what it means in his church. We decided on a more pictorial theme than my church probably would want, but it gives me a chance to play with some different themes. The first banner is a depiction of the Visitation as an example of pure belief and faith, done in an abstract-ish way, the meeting of Elizabeth and Mary strongly implied but not, you know, titled or anything. Fields behind them, full moon in the sky.

The other banner is based on Jim's idea that Advent is about watching and waiting. You do not know the hour, that sort of thing. So I'm working with the idea of a watchman. I have the drawing done. Another moon on the horizon, seen through a window where a person sits with his back to the viewer, watching out across the vista. I'm excited.

2. The Catholic Plan. I usually just need a nudge in the right direction. We have so many places in our church where banners can go: in the sanctuary they can flank the crucifix (an unpopular choice lately because that was the same-as-it-ever-was option for many years of bad burlap and felt and lining fabric banners). They have often stood behind the ambo as a focal point, sort of to one side. They could stand on either side by the Mary and Joseph altars. They could technically hang from pillars, although it wouldn't be the same effect as in a more gothic style of church. Or they can go in the back of church, either in what has become the seasonal corner (in Ordinary Time, there is information about various opportunities or themes; in Advent the Giving Tree goes there, during Christmas, the creche, and so forth). Or they can hang from the choir loft. Jack installed curtain rods up there on the underside of the loft railing so that banners could be easily attached (I used to balance them with heavy objects here and there). That's where Easter's banners were hung.

And I sent a message to Fr. Miguel and Sr. Hildegard asking for opinions. Hildegard is on retreat or some sort of visit to her motherhouse, but Miguel wrote me back and probably thought he gave me no direction (he basically said that anything was fine, but nothing obvious like Mary and John the Baptist and--well, what I'm doing for the Presbyterians, although he didn't say that (I did). They can go where I want and say what I want.

Well, there are 4 Sundays of Advent, so there will be 4 banners, hung from the choir loft one at a time. I won't give too much away just yet but I drew as much as I could from the Sunday readings for Year A (I can't believe it's going to be Year A again already). I find I do best when I pull from scripture: my Christmas banner is Numbers 24:17; my first Easter banner was John 20:2; my current Easter banner doesn't pull from a specific passage but from creation and incarnation and resurrection and leading to Pentecost. But I already knew what I wanted from that one--the others required more thought and, well, lectio, frankly.

So these four are thus:
1. Romans 13:12
2. Isaiah 11:5-9
3. James 5:7-8
4. Isaiah 7:11 and Psalm 24 and Matthew 1:20-24

The only other thing I'll say right now is the color scheme: navy, blue violet, gray, rose, black, and lightest blue (like shadow on snow).

Next up: full sized mock ups and then off to the fabric store once I gather up my fragments here and see what I need. My favorite part.

272/365 Christmas Greens

2010-10-04T07:12:00.001-07:00

So I called the wholesaler. It was time, if we wanted to reserve the things we want. We get our trees from a different wholesaler, and I can call him later (it's kind of a grungy outfit, office reeks of cigarette smoke, men who look like my uncles in carhartts standing by 50 gallon drum fire pits...). But the wreath wholesaler sells to florists, and so you know it's a nice place.

I called the guy we worked with last year. It's different now. Astrid used to run a wreath fundraiser and order the church wreaths at the same time. They arrived the first week of Advent and while that's great for your front door, it's not so good for a Catholic church that decorates for ADVENT before it decorates for Christmas.

Astrid doesn't do it anymore, and, surprise surprise, nobody has picked up the standard and marched on. So last year I did the order and this year I'm doing it again.

"When would you like delivery?" he asks me.

"Well, we will decorate on the 19th, so could we do the 18th, or maybe the Thursday or Friday before?"

There's silence on the other end. "You mean the Friday before Thanksgiving?" he asks.

"No, I mean the week before Christmas."

"You don't want your greens until the end of December?" he asks, like it's a ridiculous idea.

"Yeah, we decorate for Advent first, you know, all purple and blue and stuff--then we decorate for Christmas on the 19th this year."

"Ok then, well, I'd recommend the 16th if that's ok--everybody wants delivery on Friday for all sorts of things."

"That would be great."

I can see him hanging up the phone in his office, shaking his head at how bizarre we are.

271/365 Why am I here?

2010-10-03T10:30:00.000-07:00

Fr. Miguel did an open mic coffee and donuts today after mass. The theme was "why are you at this parish?" because, while we are geographical, not everyone is here because of geography. I wasn't going to get up and say anything, but Maeve and Sophia both wanted to, so I went with them. And this is just about what I said:

"We moved into, well, just north of the parish 12 years ago but my grandmother told me to come down here because Fr. Bill was the pastor and I should go here. So I called and Bill answered the phone and I told him where we lived. Turned out, we actually lived in St. Frank's parish, and I said, oh, ok, I'll give them a call. But wait, he said. Do you have kids? No, I answered, we've been married about 2 years. Well, do you plan to have kids? And I replied that yes, we were. And he said, well, then, why don't you give us a try. And we've been here ever since."

Afterward, Miguel walked up to me and told me he was glad Bill had pushed for us to join our parish. Colleen O'Toole was standing there next to me. "Oh, sure, because you would have fit in there so well," she rolled her eyes.

"I would have made it here eventually," I point out, since parishes merged 5 years ago and now we actually do live in the geographical boundaries. And then I thought again. "No, I wouldn't," I admitted. "I'd be a Quaker."

Geography, again, is destiny.

270/365 Dregs

2010-10-02T19:22:00.000-07:00

From Joan Chittister's reflection on today's reading from the Rule:

God does not come on hoofbeats of mercury through streets of gold. God is in the dregs of our lives. That's why it takes humility to find God where God is not expected to be.

My best daily spiritual time? Washing the endless dishes. Rinsing, stacking, loading the dishwasher, washing the pots by hand, trying to figure out how to get the burned on butternut squash residue out of my crockpot. Sometimes I have the radio on and Tavis Smiley or Tom Ashbrook tells me things. But most of the time I work with the running water and the distant sounds of my family getting on with their evening in the rest of the house.

There is a stillness in my heart when I do dishes, like when I watch a fire on a camping trip. A meditation to the work and the same scene again and again. The windowsill with my oak leaf bowl. The milk glass vases. The marble. The glass from the Buena Vista. It's kind of an altar. Old things, precious things, depictions of creation, and things that have no meaning except to me. Below them, the jar of cooking utensils, the vitamins, the dish soap. Sugar jar. The Mexican tiles I use under my big pans to keep them balanced on my lovely, but sometimes impractical, stove. I know these images by heart the way I know the rosary. I stand in the corner, the window giving the rhythm of seasons to set off the static pieces of the counter and windowsill. It's just a sink. It's just the kitchen. But God sits there and spills coffee on the table while the water runs over my hands.

269/365 Not at the Monastery

2010-10-01T19:17:00.000-07:00

I'm not at the monastery. I don't even know if this was the oblate weekend or not.

I haven't been for two years. We have three retreats a year, and Leo was just too new to drag out to Clyde. And it would have been a burden to leave him here or take him with. We're just at that stage right now.

I know Sr. Hildegard is going to say something to me, something specific about a retreat, and yes, I know. Just tell me when that could happen. Mike and I looked at the calendar and EVERY WEEKEND from here until Christmas is now officially booked. Not each day, but at least one of the days of the weekend is scheduled. It will fly by, and I'll love it, but I'll be spiritually exhausted by the end.

So I'm going to make a plan. February 19-20 I'm just going to block out. I don't know yet where I'll go but I'm going to go somewhere. Maybe down to Pevely. It isn't far away. I want to go to Clyde--I could stay at Conception--maybe. I've got a few days to consider.

268/365 Autumn Days

2010-09-30T19:11:00.000-07:00

These autumn days are warning us
Of winter sure to be,
When all the leaves have fallen off
From every branch and tree.

These earthly friends are leaving us
Their autumns being past,
And thus the winters of our lives
Will come to us at last.
--Shaker poem

It is this time of year that brings me face to face with aging. In the mirror every morning, in the red bud tree in the backyard turning unceremoniously brown. The hard green tomatoes left on the vine, never to ripen, might as well pick them and make salsa verde. Again. The air is unforgivingly dry and Maeve's eczema returns with her asthmatic cough.

I am, most likely, God willing and the creek don't rise, far from the winter of my life. But it struck me that Sophia is 9, and if she is a typical child, we're half-done with having her live in our house full time. This created a sort of panic in me akin to having a baby reach up and touch a hot burner. Hurry, fast, before it's all over.

All over. It's all over in a hurry, yes. I need to be sure to hurry up and take things slow.

267/365 Feast of the Archangels

2010-09-29T19:04:00.000-07:00

Gabriel lives in our church. He's in the staircase going up to the choir loft, and of course he's in the Annunciation window. Always with a lily, the symbol of purity.

I had studied the depiction in the choir loft staircase before, when I taught at the school, and didn't pick out that it was Gabriel. I wrote about it over on South City Musings and Sr. Kinnera let me know OF COURSE it's Gabriel.

Why? I asked. I just didn't get it. Choirs? Why would Gabriel specifically be there.

She pointed out the bell tower. Proclaim the good news. That's Gabriel's job. Ok then.

We don't have a Raphael, and I don't think we have a Michael. But I like Gabriel in the staircase, picking up the scroll, practicing his lines, put the lily down to concentrate...

266/365 Ideas go in and out of my head

2010-09-28T19:01:00.000-07:00

Moons. It's a month. It's a month of moon. Tree, Jesse tree where once was tree of life. What the heck is a Jesse Tree anyway? The people in darkness have seen a great light. Cop out? Too easy? The Christmas banner is a star. Labyrinth. Going deep inside, hibernation, quiet, solitude. Purple, no, navy, no, yes, navy and purples and a bright light blue like snow at sunset. Desert in bloom? It wouldn't be purple, there would be green. Too much picture, not enough evocative idea? Winnowing fan, streams, voice crying out in the wilderness. Moons.