8/365 Peace be to this house

I learned of the custom when I was teaching at the school. Our former pastor, Fr. Bill, came by with a box of chalk. I was already in the west-facing classroom so it was my second year. I don't know why he didn't come by the first year. Perhaps he'd only recently become acquainted with the practice, which I cannot find any exact ethnic reference to online (and I haven't gone to try to research it elsewhere, honestly). Is it Orthodox? German? Irish? I don't know. I had never seen it done, but after that first day, I would see it on occasion driving down St. Louis streets.

Bill knocked on the doorframe and stepped into my classroom. It was the middle of the day and my homeroom class--a group of 10 boys and 2 girls--were there for math. He pardoned his interruption and handed me the box of chalk, which I thought was amusing considering how much chalk I went through in a given month as the middle school math teacher in the building. Then, without apology or explanation, he wrote this on the lintel of the door:

20 + C + M + B + 01

Which, of course, looked like an equation to me and I wasn't exactly sure what he was going for. He explained that the past Sunday had been Epiphany and this was the traditional house blessing over doors done on that day (or on the traditional day set for Epiphany, January 6). The 20 and the 01 represented the year (2001); the plus signs were crosses; the CMB were Caspar, Melchior, and Balthazar. The traditional names given to the 3 wise men, who of course are not named in the bible and aren't even numbered. But it could also stand for the Latin phrase, Christus Mansionem Benedicat, although I personally think that might be a stretch. Either way, the mark was made above my classroom door.

He did go around the hallway with his box of chalk and repeat the blessing on other doors. And I went home myself with my own chalk from the board tray, got out a ladder, and put it above my own door. I was 3 months pregnant at the time, I realize looking back now.

Rain and snow washed the chalk away after a time, although it created a new tradition for my family and I try to remember as I'm putting away Christmas, that it's time to bless the house. My classroom door, though, was indoors. The weather wasn't going to rinse off the chalk. And knowing the janitorial team, nothing else was, either. It was there the last day I worked in the building.

The school closed two years later. I don't know why I was there, but sometime a few years back before we started the process of trying to sell the building, I was up on that floor again. Some of the doors still had the blessing written above them.

Sometimes I wish our parish had a more traditional Epiphany, although our migration mass is appropriate to the theme. But it might be nice to have the announcement of the date of Easter, for instance, and a blessing of chalk for us all to take home and use to write cryptic messages above our front doors. I haven't done my door yet this year--Epiphany came with the snow and I knew it would all be washed and blown away faster than I could put it up. But I'll get it done during the next few days. A sort of ephemeral mezuzah.

20/365 Lazy River

Ok.

Our church was built in the early 20th century. At that point in history, baptisms were not especially public events. They didn't happen during mass, for instance. The Utah Vestibule was the baptistry, with a simple marble font watched over by cherub faces and a stained glass window of the baptism of Christ in the Jordan.

At some point in history, this font was moved to the front of church into the sanctuary. Then baptism became a public event, more at the heart of things than at the beginning (in the entryway).

I was baptized in a similar font--although 1970s groovier by far down in South County in a church with interior brick walls and chunky stained glass. My brother and one sister were baptized in the same place. My last sister, in 1985, in a similar small font at St. Bernadette's.

By the time I was having babies, our church had established this odd sort of hot tub fountain thing on wheels in the back of church. I cannot describe it more than that, really. It was paneled on the sides, there was a step up, dying plants adorned it, and the water was pumped up through a fountain to create the sound of running water at all times. That, I think, was the positive to this font. Nothing else. It was cumbersome, imposing, ugly, and awkward. Kind of like a guy named Bubba you don't want your daughter to date.

But my first two children were baptized there because that's what we had. I wasn't going to search around for someplace pretty. This was my parish.

In the general overhaul in the past few years, this font went away. Far away. We started using the small font up in front with the hope that someday we would be able to create a more appropriate one in the back (entrance area but still in the main part of church).

Three years ago, we had two adults who were going to be brought into the church at the Easter Vigil. The font in front was designed for infant baptism. We needed a new plan. We did not have the thousands of dollars required to build what had been recommended by the ad hoc committee on church redesign. But having Kevin, at over 6 feet tall, bend over that font to be baptized would have been ridiculous. So we improvised. We built a font in back out of a pond liner, stones surrounding it, and lots of plants. Lots. And it worked well for us.

Last Easter, we did the same. No adults coming into the church, but plenty of baby boys, including Leo. We baptized him there on Pentecost Sunday, Fr. Miguel splashing maybe a bit too much water in his face on that third go-round.

Lent is coming--and Easter of course after that. Easter water in a font in back? At coffee this morning Astrid asked about Worship Commission. I said I'd be going because we were going to talk about Lent and Easter. "Are we putting in that temporary font again?" she asked.

"Probably," I venture to guess.

She goes on to describe it to the other women at coffee. Astrid hates our temporary font. I believe she'd be fine with it if it were permanent instead of sort of makeshift. She has railed against it in the past and I'm sure she will again. She's not the only one. And in some ways I agree--when we used molded concrete bricks around it, it was, well, makeshift. But this past year we used cut stone and I liked it just fine. Of course what I want is a permanent one. But we have no money...

"And at that church in Kirkwood," she goes on to describe another church with a permanent font in back, "it's like a lazy river. Maeve would want to get in it and float down to the pool. That's not what we're going to do, is it?"

I assured her there would be no lazy river in the back of church.

25/365 I'm not as Catholic as I thought I was

Huh.

I've been dabbling in genealogy again. I do that when I need to kick other bad habits or when I need something, anything, besides facebook to stare at when it's late at night and the computer is free. And it turns out I'm about half German and the other half is split, not evenly, between Irish and English--although the English is really Norman and we can trace it back incredibly far into France and beyond.

The English, of course, were not Catholic (recently Methodist, and before that, Anglican). The Irish, just as obviously, were--we were from western Ireland. The Germans I always simply assumed were, since the ones close at hand down in Perryville, my goodness, sent a priest to scope the place out before they moved en masse to southeast Missouri. This always makes me laugh a bit. The idea that Fr. Miguel would go find a good place for us to settle down in, say, Mongolia, and then send us 140 character messages on twitter to tell us where to go.

But recently I started looking through my grandmother's father's side of the family. Someone else has already done the hard part for me and all I have to do is click to accept once I see that the dates match and the names make sense. I prefer hunting for the Irish amongst the diaspora as opposed to this orderly (German) way of having it all spelled out for me. But it is good to get done as well.

But I was looking closely at the records and things just didn't seem...Catholic. And a quick Google search (of course) found what I suspected. Lutherans. I was disappointed, I'll admit. But then I looked at some other records.

Mennonites!

I will not hide my excitement.

I know it has nothing to do with my current parish life. But it made me want to call the one Mennonite friend I have and tell her. Dork that I am. I'll probably tell her anyway when I see her (our daughters attend the same school).

But what it does have to do with, parish-wise, is conversion. My mother's mother converted from Methodism. Obviously somewhere along the line somebody converted from Lutheranism. And how did the Mennonites get mixed up with Catholics in Pennsylvania, home of the Quakers, anyhow?

It always fascinates me to hear stories of conversion. Some convert, I'm sure, because of a friend or a spouse. A few from going to Catholic school. But I always marvel at the ones that come alone--or with a casual acquaintance who told them, sure, I'll take you to church...the spirituality of the human heart fills me with a great joy. And although I remain Catholic, I understand those who leave better sometimes than those who join. At least, those who leave for something (instead of for nothing). Search, seek, come and see. Or bloom where you're planted. But be alive.

37/365 History: Our First Time

We sat in the back half of the church, to one side. We didn't know anyone in the room. I had talked with the pastor on the phone, briefly, long enough for him to convince me to give it a try. It was June.

We walked out the front door and found Fr. Bill on the steps. He's so much younger than I expected, I thought to myself. My grandmother made him out to be older. I know this is the guy, though. She couldn't have put it more clearly: Go there. Fr. Bill Richardson is there and he's so charismatic. I needed charismatic. After we left the Jesuits in college, we church-hopped. Fr. Stoker down at St. Cecilia's was not charismatic. The really really horribly old priest in residence at St. Henry's Immaculate Conception wasn't either. No, that isn't the real name of our former parish. I just like to pretend it was.

At the time, I was about to start teaching at another Catholic school run by very un-charismatic unapproachable alcoholic priests. I was 23. Catholic schools were comfortable even though they didn't pay for nothin'. We'd bought our house, though, on Mike's salary alone, so any additional was better than the assistant teacher's salary out in the ritzy private school in the county. To be honest, I sought out the parish partially because I needed something to fill a void in my life, but the biggest reason was so I could talk about a parish at school.

Seriously. I needed an experience that would match, closely enough, the experience of my team teacher or my assistant or the music teacher I would sit next to at lunch. Later in the year this would prove fruitful when my pastor was interviewed on TV about the Pope's upcoming visit. Mrs. Matusek turned to me in the faculty lunchroom while everyone was talking at once and said, "that pastor of yours! His face belongs on television!" She was always falling for inappropriate unavailable men.

But that would be later. At the moment, we stood on the front granite steps regarding each other.

"We'd like to join the parish," I announced.

After a duel of calendars, all three of us realized that right then was the best time. He showed us how to go downstairs for coffeeanddonuts and promised he'd be right behind. He was. Ten minutes later we were filling out the paperwork.

"I think I'll have Frank and Jessica call you," he said, staring out into the middle distance and clicking his pen. "Young couple like yourselves, energetic, welcoming. Just to help you make a connection."

We left without parting gifts. It's not like signing your child up for kindergarten or signing on the loan for a house or a car. All you do is say sure, I'll come here for mass. And we did.

God, we were young.

39/365 History: RCIA

It took me a while to realize that Sr. Liz attended our parish. She'd taught one of the classes I'd taken in the Theology department at SLU--Women in a Theological Perspective, which was an interesting choice for me, being nothing like a feminist at the time. Sr. Liz didn't change all that, by any means. It took me a while to get where I am. But she held class in her office in Verhaegen Hall, holding her dachsund Roxie on her lap. She was soft-spoken and this made her words all the harder to take. She could knock you flat.

It was about the time Fr. Bill asked me if I planned to be confirmed at some point--he was gearing up, it turns out, to interview me for a position at the school, but I think wanted all my ducks in a row. Or something. I sort of shrugged. It would probably be a good idea.

Sr. Liz ran RCIA. Sitting around the table with her were Fr. Bill and Dawn Armstrong. And Ralph, the deacon. This wasn't going to work, I kept thinking.

But it did. Sr. Liz became my sponsor and I decided Dawn wasn't so annoying after all. In fact, I liked her just fine. I was in a class, I guess you could call it, with a middle-aged guy named Jim who was converting from Pentecostalism. He made it worth my time, frankly. He had so much to say and was open to anything. It was my first set of real conversations with a convert and I've been fascinated by stories of conversion ever since.

I joined the RCIA program in Lent and was confirmed that Easter Vigil. I'd never been to an Easter Vigil. I've been almost every year since.

As I stood there in a moment before I was drowned in chrism oil, Jim stood next to me, far more nervous than I was. I was simply sewing up some loose ends--he was changing a lot about his direction, his path. I stood there while Fr. Bill talked about the ceremony, and Jim started whispering: Dear Jesus, let this be your will. Over and over again. It was a little unnerving.

We made it through and went downstairs afterward for cake from Dickmann's Bakery, with the strawberry filling, the one that Fr. Bill always liked so much. Sr. Liz gave me a bible, the New American I use as reference all the time, since its pages are sturdier than the one Br. Stephen gave me back in 7th grade ("To my bible trivia champ").

Fr. Bill moved on to other things. Sr. Liz lives with her community now. We've lost touch--her health was fragile and the mother house is far away. But Jim is a deacon now in the diocese somewhere. I suppose it was Jesus' will after all. And I'm still here.

42/365 Garden Misunderstandings (History Continues)

"I was just afraid the railroad ties would fall apart," I try to explain my negative attitude. Joey and her landscaper Piper sit on one side of the table, and I sit on the other with Martha. I know she's the anonymous donor but I understand well enough that I'm not supposed to know.

"What about concrete pavers?" Piper asks. She opens a binder and shows us options. They rather generic, without much character, but they would be sturdier. I say so.

"Ok, I'll talk to my source on those," she says, closing the binder. Martha has a worried look on her face. "Now, the fence."

We talk about the iron fence. About a gate. Yes or no to the gate. What kind of gate. Then I ask what later seems like the stupidest question:

"So are we going to have a set up like the community gardens? Are we going to lease plots to parishioners first and then open them up to the neighborhood?"

All three of them stare at me like I've just yelled, "I have rabies!"

"No, nothing like that," Martha shakes her head after she recovers from my apparently shocking question.

And then they continue as if I'm no longer there. Shunned, I listen to the discussion. Serviceberry tree or redbud? White redbud? Holly? Male and female pair? Then Piper opens her binder again and shows me the diagram for the first time. The school part is along one side. Oh. That makes sense, I guess. I process the new information and sit silently, feeling the creeping sensation of "I'm redundant at this meeting", which is a feeling I will have so many times in the years to come at the parish. But here more than ever before or after, frankly. We adjourn soon after and I head upstairs to my classroom to look out the window at the lot.

It'll be good to have the asphalt gone, I tell myself. A nice green space in the city. Not every green space has to have a use. It takes me several self-reincarnations to realize that usefulness is not the only scale upon which something should be measured. It will be good just to have it not be asphalt.

I don't know, standing there at the windowsill, that years later I'll witness Easter fires in that garden. Or that even the next year, it will become an obsession of mine and my friend Mary's, along with the library and so many other little nooks and crannies at the school. I can't know, standing there, that I'll get hot under the collar about this little lot. I don't know how it will all end. All I see right at that moment is a wasted space that's about to become a green wasted space.

But it will grow on me.

43/365 History: A Nemesis Develops

"I can't stand it," Martha whispers through her mournful hands covering her face.

"What's wrong with it?" Piper asks her. Fr. Bill and Joey sit uncomfortably in the little atrium with us. Joey's face is stern and Fr. Bill has on his priest power suit. He leans forward, gathering himself up to say something. But nothing. We wait for Martha.

"It. Looks. Like a grave."

I think about the school portion of the garden. It is somewhat grave-like, but it's October. We haven't planted there yet, for goodness sake.

"What can we do to make it better?" Fr. Bill poses. But I've had enough meetings with Martha. Nothing will make it better now. She has cried at too many meetings. I regret ever saying yes to Bill's suggestion that I join this committee.

I can tell Piper regrets more than that.

"Bridgett's right. The railroad ties would have fallen apart. Now, I'm sorry if the end result isn't exactly what you were looking for, but," she stops. There's nothing more to say. We have talked it to death. All of it. Mushroom compost and drainage and permits and every little detail has made me sick of gardens. We shouldn't still be talking about it.

"Well," Joey shrugs. "I'll buy some mums. I'll have the kids plant them and there you go."

"What exactly about mums is--" I begin but Bill catches my eye. We are done talking about this. Who cares if mums have nothing to do with education. It doesn't matter any more. Quit it.

At the next faculty meeting, Joey is there. She's there to explain the garden.

She's also there to announce that another anonymous donor has offered to buy computers for the school. And she has volunteered to help set everything up. Everything. She will do it all for us. Sr. Fern is so excited. She can't wait to announce it at the PTA.

I look across the table at Ina and Terri, two of my team teachers. I roll my eyes. I am so done with having meetings with Joey. Terri grins back at me. She has misunderstood my irritation. I ask questions. Joey can't answer them. Questions about the internet. About guidelines for use. About from where in the school day computer time will be carved. Sr. Fern's smile is fading but Joey knows how to handle me. "We're going to have a committee. You're welcome to join."

I think about what Fr. Bill said to me at the first Renew 2000 meeting. "I want to hold you and Mike safely," he said, and I didn't understand. "I don't want you two to get cynical about church, about the parish. If it's too much to be on this committee, you tell me."

At the time, it had seemed unnecessary. But not anymore. I tell Joey I'll be there. Just call me and tell me when.

46/365 History: Chatty Joey

It took me longer than it should have to realize that Terri and Joey were tight. You know, when you assume you're in on the joke and then realize you don't know what's going on? It took me until November to see it. By then the mums were planted in the garden and I was busy doing other things. I liked my classes and my job in general was invigorating. In retrospect, it was my favorite year of teaching ever.

Terri had a favorite student, and 8th grade girl in trouble, and that situation as well was closed to me. But she would leave campus to handle things about this girl, and Joey would take her class for the afternoon. That's fine, I mean, substitute teachers exist, but Joey would spend the whole time chatting with the girls and inviting other older girls back to that classroom. From my math class. At one point in early December I finally announced to my seventh and eighth graders that while Joey was a very nice fun gal, they were not going to be leaving my classroom to play. My seventh graders seemed to understand. I had the most allies in there. "I think she's kinda weird," Caitlin admitted.

My eighth graders, well, there were only 5 girls in there besides Terri's favorite. Three of them nodded at me like they knew what I meant. The other two sat quietly.

The next time Joey subbed for Terri, Terri pulled me aside before she left for court. "Kate and Polly asked if they could help Joey organize the new computer room. I figured it would be ok. I talked to Sr. Fern--here's their hall passes."

She didn't smile smugly or act like this was a victory. She just handled me. The note from Sr. Fern said that as long as the girls didn't have a test, they had her permission to help out.

It's not like I could punish Polly and Kate, either. They were both super-sharp in math, and the last three years before I arrived had been second/verse/same/as/the/first with bad math teachers teaching basic skills all year long. I had pushed them, and the seventh grade, into pre-algebra, and these two, along with another girl and two of the boys, hadn't even blinked. A's across the board. My test schedule was published at the beginning of the year: every other Friday was test day, regardless of where we were in a chapter. I couldn't fake a sudden test.

Joey didn't knock on my door and have a conference or anything--the girls were there from lunch time until dismissal. They didn't bother to shut the door. My students could see straight in.

I complained to Sr. Fern the next day. She sighed and shook her head. "They're in 8th grade," she started, I'm not sure why. Then she started again. "Joey told me they'd be setting up the computers. Was that not what they were doing?"

"They were sitting in there chatting. Joey was setting things up and the other two were entertaining her."

"Ok, then that won't happen again," she shook her head, taking a note of it. And it didn't happen again, as long as she was in town. And until Joey became a full-time volunteer computer teacher.

47/365 Teaching is Hard

After Christmas, it was announced that Joey would be teaching computers once a week to the middle school students during the wasted "library" hour. It was in fact wasted--the library had been packed up and sealed in boxes due to water damage two years before and nobody had reopened it. I tried for a while with my friend Mary to make it happen the following year but it was overwhelming. We got shelves set up and fiction sorted but got bogged down in the dewey decimal system. And chatting. But that's what happens when you have volunteers do your job.

Bingo. That's what I said. When volunteers do your jobs, you have no true way of making them do their jobs.

The younger kids' teachers contracted with Joey for computer time here and there. Sr. Bernie never brought her class. Laura down in 1st grade didn't think it was worth the trouble. So for the most part, Joey had middle school students (4th-8th).

Library hour was suddenly an extra free time if you were one of the teachers in charge of library. I had a library class for the 6th grade; Ina had it for 5th and 7th; Terri had it for 4th, and Margie had it for 8th. Free hours in a week are golden for a teacher with many preps and lots of responsibilities and not much pay. They are free, and you don't let other people infringe on them. Library was a semi-free hour. You weren't in charge of a lesson, but you did have a group of kids sitting in your room pretending to read or do homework. Most of the time for my library class I let them talk quietly if they could prove to me they were done with the homework I'd assigned. I got along with my 6th grade well enough that it was a sort of free hour. I graded papers and planned.

But now, with Joey, I had an extra free hour a week. Truly free. Ina had two. The only one who missed out was BeBe, the 7th grade homeroom teacher. We never asked her about it, though, feeling guilty that it worked out this way. She could have used another free hour, too--she was in charge of confirmation that year with the worst auxiliary bishop on earth.

I asked Joey about the arrangement, about volunteering 5 hours a week plus prep time. I didn't even do it in a saucy way. I just was curious why on earth she'd want to do this.

"These kids don't have a lot of resources at home," she replied. "They should have access to computers at school. I mean, look at this school."

I had looked. It was on the lower end of resources when it came to teaching positions I'd held. But the classes were small and we did a good job for the most part.

"And they like me," she shrugged. "It won't be hard--it's not like teaching is hard. I used to work in HR at a Silicon Valley corporation, after all."

"Yeah, well," I started, but I didn't finish. I don't like to be proven wrong. If teaching was going to be a breeze for her, that's great. If not, then I could stand there and smile later.

In January, I got my library time to myself. Joey was across the hall with the 6th grade, which included several thuggy boys. It didn't go well, frankly. These boys respected me enough (or feared me enough) that things were fine in my room, but not always on the outside. Joey also had a hard time with the seventh grade.

She stopped coming in early February. She would be there for the 4th grade, for Terri's extra break, but the rest of us were on our own. Ina got really angry--she had gotten used to two extra free hours a week. She went to Sr. Fern. I don't know how it went, but Joey would come after that, sometimes. Sr. Fern would sit in the room with her. Or Terri would. Or Joey would feign illness and not be there for a full week. She took a vacation in April and didn't show at all. I no longer counted on this unearned free time.

In April, I went down to Sr. Fern. She had mentioned at the last faculty meeting that she needed a volunteer to help with next year's middle school schedule. I was coming to volunteer. She was happy and handed over all the information.

I went home and spent a week with strips of paper on my living room floor, arranging and rearranging the schedule. And at the end of it, everyone had the same number of free hours, including computer time (library was now a thing of the past). But none of my breaks coincided with computer time. Later in the coming year, I would be very glad I did that.

62/365 Altar Guild

We sit in the church looking around trying to figure out what Easter will look like. Fiona is there, for the first time, although she should be the one most in charge of flowers since she works for a florist. Hildegard, Lynn, and Sr. Kinnera were there, too, of course, and we sat quietly, envisioning and remembering.

After discussion on wreaths (what type, how many, how big), ribbons (what type, how long, how much), and banners (which is for another post), conversation drifted to a topic that I often puzzle over: why don't we have organizations at our church to do things that need to be done?

We were specifically speaking of an altar guild or society in this case, but I've asked myself and Astrid this on many occasion about various things--a functioning women's club, a funeral hospitality committee (which we do have now), and so forth. Altar guild, however, is needed. The sacristies are untidy (correction: Fr. Miguel's sacristy is fine. My sacristy is untidy, quelle surprise). The candles, candlestands, and who knows how many other tasks are done solely by Hildegard because the quirky church mice who pretend to get things done are so clueless about what looks nice and what is the right thing to do that she has to do it all over after they leave. Linens are washed by two older ladies in the church--Ethel is fine, but Bernie is much older and more than a tad out of it. She has to take things home on the bus, on top of that, so we really should have someone else in place.

We know this. We know that I cannot alone take care of the church any more than Hildegard can (actually she can better since she's there every day to begin with, but she has a job...but even the two of us would quickly and permanently burn out on this stuff). I feel like counting on Fiona for plants during ordinary time is plenty; Lynn is usually not useful. Jack of course picks up a lot of the slack, and there's always Sal to screw things up here and there.

We need an altar guild. We need a group of people who know what their one task is and can complete it. Linens, candles, brass. Flowers, plants, banners, albs. Holy water fonts, vestibules, sacristies. Luckily we have a priest who isn't so clueless that we need to lay everything out for him. Actually, thank God for that or else we would have drowned a long time ago. But we sat there thinking of who could we ask, how could we have a meeting, when, what would we say, who would be in charge. We kept coming back to the fact that none of this is hard, splitting it up and getting it done....and why has it gotten to this point, again?

Because, I pointed out, until 3 years ago there was only one person doing all of it, doing it pretty badly, and nobody cared that it got done or didn't get done.

It comes back to my theory of abusive relationships. I've talked about this before in regards to politics (local and national) but I think it's true here too. We have learned helplessness. Why should we try to do anything because it'll only get undone? Why should we try to clean that because we've been told time and again that it isn't our place? Why bother having an opinion because it will be shot down?

It takes time to rebuild that. And it will take personal invitation.

After Easter.

71/365 Confessions

Sometime early in Fr. Miguel's stay at our parish, I went to confession. I hadn't been in a while--I grew tired of our former pastor waxing poetic or telling me how young I was. And after the first time sitting in that weird little carpeted room (the walls were carpeted, I mean), I started to realize what reconciliation was for.

I may have it all wrong, but it's not about a litany of tiny nuisance behaviors. And I don't know about everyone else, but my examination of conscience doesn't include a lot of lying, cheating, and stealing. I don't have the inclination to rob banks or have an affair or bear false witness in court. All my sins play out in my relationships. Every single one, in fact, these days. I think it's about learning about yourself and admitting that, yeah, that didn't go so well. And going to confession and talking it out is a way to admit that I am frail and petty and often a bitch. And it helps me to hold back next time. I remember what I say, I listen to what Miguel says in return, and I work to change.

It's more akin to free psychotherapy, frankly, for me these days. Not that it is only that, but it helps put a mirror up to my life and really work to change or to stay on a path of change. Back even 10 years ago, or 15, that's not what this was. I left a confessional about the same as when I went in, except I could check off some box saying that yes, I went to confession this year. But oftentimes I held back more than I said because I didn't want to get into it. Not that I didn't want to admit something, but more that I didn't feel like there was enough time in the evening to explain how it happened. How did I come to be there and why the hell did I stay/do that/say that/be that? Impatient Jesuits or a pastor who didn't handle what was said in complete confidence or a pastor whose relationship with me was all about power. I just didn't need to get into this or that or why. So I wouldn't.

Last year I started bringing things to the table, small things in the grand scheme of things (I have not murdered anyone, for instance, or even anything close to that sort of thing), but still things that nagged me. Why were they still important? Why bring them up now? Because enough time had passed to relieve my own shame? Because finally I felt like here was a priest who knew me well enough to know what I meant? Because I was in my mid-thirties and it was time to let it go? I don't know. Probably a mix of all that, with the majority of it having to do with the person sitting across from me.

I never appreciated reconciliation until then. I had always been staunchly Protestant in my beliefs on the subject: it's between me and God. But Benedict's ladder of humility makes it very clear: do not conceal from the abbot or prioress any sinful thoughts entering your heart, or any wrongs committed in secret, but rather confess them humbly. The struggles I have that I ignore will not go away. Only by recognizing them, admitting them, listening to my heart and seeking out good objective advice will they begin to diminish in power.

So I went to reconciliation last night. And I came home from it with a new will to do right.

75/365 St. Eusebia

Today is St. Eusebia's Day. Not quite the same as tomorrow's St. Patrick's Day or Friday's St. Joseph's Day. But I like her story, as confusing and medieval as it is. And bizarre.

She lived in the 7th century, at the border of Belgium and France. She's the daughter of Adalbald and Rictrudis, both saints themselves. Her father Adalbald, the son of a St. Gertrude, married Rictrudis and later paid for it with his life--his inlaws murdered him. Rictrudis, fearful that her family would come after her and her daughter, sent Eusebia away to live with her grandmother Gertrude, who by that time was an abbess at Hamage. There she lived and grew to the age of 12, when Gertrude died and named Eusebia as her successor.

Well, a 12 year old in charge of a women's monastery didn't sit too well with several people, including her mother, who herself was an abbess at Marchiennes. Rictrudis ordered that Hamage and Marchiennes merge together under a single abbess (herself) and brought the nuns to live at Marchiennes, mostly against their will.

Eusebia and many of the nuns from Hamage wished to return to their home and rule themselves, but remained at Marchiennes under Rictrudis until enough time had passed that Rictrudis felt it would be prudent for Hamage to reopen under the guidance of Eusebia. The accounts I've read say that upon her return to Hamage with the "dissident nuns" she had grown into the position and ruled well until her death in 680.

The idea that she and those dissident nuns didn't immediately trot back to Hamage and snub Rictrudis is what I focus on here. They waited it out. It is so hard to wait it out, to know when the right time has come to do God's will, when your will and God's might be in alignment after all. It could be that Eusebia would have done a great job even at 12--it could also have been just as true that she would have been weak and petty her whole life and never come to be a good leader. Knowing the moment when one can say to someone in authority "I am ready and I am leaving," is tricky, as a child, a parent, an employee, an apprentice, a student. I know when I have said it--sometimes too early, other times just right. I watch as Sophia and Maeve say it, too. I try not to be too Rictrudis about it all. But I give enough tether to let them try their hand. At least that's my plan.

But the most interesting thing? As I read this account and really looked at the names, I thought to myself, "Adalbald? Gertrude of Ostravant? Wait."

In a bizarre twist, I realized that these names seemed more than just amusingly medieval. These names were familiar. These names were in my family tree, the ridiculously over-researched branches that stem back into France and Germany and Belgium. I'm not a descendant or direct relative of Eusebia, but I am of her grandmother Gertrude (this is not the only medieval saint in my genealogical search, but the first one that I found to be a saint after I already had her name and information in the tree). Just so happened I had nothing to say today and thought, "hey, who is the saint of the day?"

Which makes this kind of creepy.

No, it makes it really creepy.

St. Eusebia, pray for me. I am not about to forget you now!

84/365 Old vs New

The old parish...let one person, Dolores, make the decisions about how the church would look on any given Sunday, mostly because she wouldn't let anyone else have any say. This made them complacent, occasionally mystified by her behavior, but hell, it was easier.

The new parish...has a committee that argues. Sometimes. Other times, depending on Lynn's mood, mostly, it goes well. People feel like they can have input. I encourage it because I don't want to become Dolores, but also because I try to be humble enough to know it isn't all about me.

The old parish...thought for some reason that puke green unhemmed raggy fabric covering dumpster-dived school desks were appropriate for tables in the sanctuary.

The new parish...mocks this. Not everything is perfect, but it isn't sloppy.

The old parish...because of Dolores and her moods, did not engage in any cooperative efforts about art and environment. If you dared to volunteer to water plants, you would find them freshly watered when you arrived to do your job.

The new parish...has a pastor who apologized for buying beautiful plants while I laughed at the idea that it could possibly offend me that someone took the initiative (someone with a clue, that is) to make the place nice.

The old parish...hid beautiful things in storage closets and dragged out poorly made vestments every week.

The new parish...took the beautiful things out to show and threw the bad stuff away.

The old parish...did things the same way every time even if it didn't work right.

The new parish...reevaluates, keeps notes from past years, and thinks about what to change.

The old parish...had this fatalism that they didn't deserve things to be nice.

The new parish...knows better.

99/365 Spiritual Needs

Right before Easter, Hildegard asked me if I had a spiritual director. I do, of sorts, in Sr. Jean Frances. We email back and forth regularly and she is so centered and peaceful and good. I love getting her emails because there is always something I can ruminate on, live on, for time to come. Which is good because I'm separated from the monastery for quite some time--the sisters have moved into the guest quarters while the main building is reconstructed, so there is no room for oblates. We could go stay at Conception and commute, but they strongly hinted that guests would be a burden. I can accept that, in fact, I'm glad they are honest about their own needs.

Because I should be too. This Lent was in many ways so good for me. But in other ways it got lost like a breeze in a whirlwind. I made it to Sunday mass at our parish twice before Triduum. I was here and there and everywhere and it sucked a lot of life out of me. This is good to see, in hindsight. It is, in the end, important for me to have a regular spiritual schedule. Another thing I learned this Lent.

Hildegard and I, though, were standing in the parking lot. "Have you considered going down to Pevely, even just for a night and staying the next day? What about down on Ripa?" I knew what Ripa meant--the SSND compound--but Pevely only meant a defunct Benedictine monastery to me. I mean in a Catholic sense. Pevely is also the location of one of the Girl Scout camps, but I figured that's not what Hildegard meant. I queried and she explained. Hermitages.

And I heard all those familiar nagging voices in my head. I have a baby who doesn't sleep through the night yet (yes, that's right, he's 15 months old). I have, oh, not a single weekend between now and the 5th of Never that I can easily claim for myself. I just can't trot off...but why could I just trot off to the monastery? Because they put out the weekend schedule for the year every January? They got on my calendar early?

Eh.

So she told me she'd be asking me later about it. I drove home and got things in order. Went back that evening for a Holy Thursday potluck and she handed me a one-free-night coupon to this place in Pevely. She found it by accident as she unloaded a basket to take to church for the collection that evening. There it was. Lo.

One time in Borders Books, before I was an oblate, I was searching through garbage Christian fluff, things like "The Idiot's Guide to Mary Magdalene" and crap centered around the idea that Jesus wants you to be rich--trying to find something worth my time. Maeve was wriggling in the stroller and I was about to walk away when Sophia said, "Look, Mama, a key." There on a low shelf was a key, an ordinary house key. Sitting in front of Joan Chittister's In Search of Belief. Look Mama indeed. A key.

I do not believe in coincidences. So I suppose I'm going to have to find my way to Pevely.

115/365 Babies change things

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

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

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

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

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

167/365 I know, it's all rehashed, but sometimes worth repeating because I write a lot of blogs and nobody reads all of them

I don't even remember why I was crying. It was high school. It wasn't a boy, I know that for sure. Maybe my parents. In sophomore hall, the math and science wing, hoping he'd be in his office. He was, the campus minister, one of the two teachers who always let me do what I wanted. One had ulterior motives, but Patrick never did. I think I must have walked out of Trig and found him there two doors down. I remember his rough thumbs on my cheeks, brushing tears away. No, Bridge, it's ok. He let me into his office. Collect yourself. Take as long as you need. I remember that. I remember the beige couches, the window out onto the courtyard. I sunk into that beige couch and closed my eyes.

He found me there after the next class. Sat down next to me, put his arm around me. Didn't say a word. It was the first time I realized that my very existence was a good thing for someone else. Someone who didn't want me for something, who didn't have a plan or a goal or a project. Didn't want to score with me on my parents' living room couch, didn't want me to pass the ball to score a goal, didn't want me to score a 1500 on the SAT. There was something intrinsic here that had nothing to do with my IQ or tits or my leg of the two mile relay. It was me and Patrick staring up at his portrayal of the resurrection on the wall. I don't remember why I was there, but I know what I left that office with.

174/365 My Sunday

I take Leo to the back during the second reading. It's over for him already. I get one of the hearing-assistance devices and sit in the Utah Vestibule, wrestling with the 18 month old. I listen to the readings, hiding the little receiver from Leo because he wants to play with it, too. I listen to the Gospel--always a strange one, with the phrase, "let the dead bury the dead." I've been jarred by this before. I've tried to make sense out of, on one hand, giving everything up to follow Christ, but on the other, the idea of obligations, of the corporal works of mercy, of being a Christian.

Then Miguel starts his homily. It's about the Danish resistance during World War II, led by King Christian X. The Jews of Denmark were not rounded up and taken away to concentration camps. Neighbors helped neighbors get them out to safety in (was it Sweden? I can't remember now). There were other simple examples of resistance--they kept the Danish flag raised through the whole occupation, there were no yellow stars on the sleeves of Jews, there was no ghetto. The way Miguel told it, it wasn't an armed resistance, just a peaceful "no" and the follow through that mattered.

Jews were not well-liked folks even in the best of nations back then. Jews were scapegoats and outsiders. In Denmark most likely they were well assimilated and part of society, but they were still the 'other.' Nowadays, we look back at the German Final Solution and I, at least, find the whole notion ridiculous. Horrendous and terrifying, but ridiculous from the standpoint of today. Israeli politics aside, I don't think Jews are a big topic anymore. I don't blame the Jews for anything, really. And even at their most fearful and racist, I've never heard my dad's relatives have anything to say about the Jews. They're kind of a non-issue, really, at least in western society (I'm not talking about Iran, I'm talking about countries where Jews actually live). And I know that isn't entirely true, I took the class on The History of Antisemitism in college. But they don't seem to be the Big Hated Minority any more than any other minority anywhere.

And I considered this as I stepped outside with Leo, after the homily and he was completely wild. The gay pride parade was gearing up--floats were assembling, tan men in leather skirts were standing on the sidewalk in front of our church drinking gatorade and talking to tattooed women with tiny dogs dressed as astronauts. You know: weird with a capital W.

And I thought again about the story of Denmark and the Jews.

179/365 In this house of God

Any table of virgin fir, any maple chair, any oak floor is a bundle of stories. At a lull in the conversation, move your napkin aside. There are centuries under one hand's span, and the timbre of a long, spirited life for the rap of a knuckle. --Kim R. Stafford

Living in one house for a long time brings this passage to life for me as I read it this morning. And then upon further reflection, I thought about our parish church, which, as a building, is nearing a century. And I thought about the feet that have walked on the floor of our church. How many babies' steps are being retraced by Leo's fast little feet as I try to keep him tamed down in the back during mass? How many brides, how many people looking for something--physical or spiritual--that they hoped to find inside our doors? How many whispered conversations in the vestibules about unimportant and serious topics?

I think about one I had in the front vestibule back when I was teaching at the school. Music practice for mass the next day. Something about music practice is so punishing. Making kids sing twice what they don't want to sing once. It just isn't the way to instill a love of Catholicism, in my mind. Especially when half the school isn't Catholic. I never understood why school masses had to be Cecil B. DeMille productions anyway. Why couldn't they be like my high school daily chapel mass? Short, painless, a small thoughtful homily tailored to the audience, and back to school. If I ran the zoo, right?

JD was over the chicken pox, I remember, it was March and Lent and minor chords and all that. And he was sitting there in the 6th grade section, under my annoyed but watchful eye, and pretending he wasn't crying. Sixth grade boys crying is different from first grade boys crying--part of the reason why I liked middle school was I wasn't going to hurt anyone's feelings anymore. Will scooted over to me and pointed this out--his family had kind of taken JD under their wing--and I escorted JD out to that vestibule.

He tells me that he's scared to go home because, now that the chicken pox is over, mom's taking them back home to her husband. He tells me that he's scared, that he doesn't want to go. We've heard this before about his home life; we've started a file. The bureaucracy of child abuse intervention is literally adding insult to injury.

"Do you want to talk with Vera on Monday?" I ask him, thinking of the much better equipped school counselor. But it's Friday, she's left for the day, and he's going home for a long weekend. He tells me that last summer, Barry decided he'd had enough back-talk from him and he took him out to a construction site and beat him until he couldn't get up. "And he had this pipe," he starts, but stops. It takes me a moment to realize he isn't talking about some sort of professorial accessory, but about cold copper plumbing.

"And when I told mom," he says through angry tears, "she told me we were lucky Barry stuck around, that we needed a man."

I stand there, the two of us backed up against the Sacred Heart statue, and I recklessly make promises to him--I often speak before I make my plan, and this was one of the most potentially tragic promises I have ever made--"Nobody needs a man like that," I say, the frustration and anger just about to spill over into my own words. "We'll take care of it, me and Vera."

We did--that's another story for another day. But sometimes when I stand in the Utah Vestibule, where the Sacred Heart statue used to be stored before it was returned to a place where folks, well, could see it, I think about JD. I wonder where he is now. I wonder, self-centeredly, if he ever thinks about me. I wonder what I'd say to him if I ran into him now. It's a nice thought that stability means I'm right here, hidden in plain sight. If he wants to find me, he will.

For now I pace the floor in the back of church and look up at the angel faces looking down upon us. And think of what they've seen.

180/365 Oh, that's why

When we rearranged classrooms in the school, putting the 3rd and 4th grades upstairs together and the whole middle school on the middle floor--not the greatest solution, but the best for the space we had at the time--I snatched up the old 3rd grade room for my own as quickly as I could. I was tired of the morning sun. More than that, I was tired of coming home coated in chalk dust. The new room had new boards, while mine had plywood painted with chalkboard spray paint.

I moved in during the summer, stealing good desks from classrooms where teachers had quit. I wanted all flat-top desks and good chalkboards and that was all, really. I needed no technology, no newfangled teacher's desk or chair. I always kept my desk out of the way and sat there only during quiet work time after a lesson anyway. I thought teachers who put their desks in front of the chalkboard were psychologically controlling access to information. My desk was static in a corner and children's desks moved around depending on the subject and my whimsy.

The teacher before me had put her desk in front of the north-side chalkboard. But I liked to be able to see out a window when I could. Later in the year this became valuable, to see who was walking where and what cars had pulled up in the parking lot. But that summer, I just put my desk in the southeast corner, facing west, and went home.

I always started my days early in August and September. By late April I would breeze in with the kids and fly by the seat of my pants, but I was a planner in the beginnings of years. And so I was there one morning, ready for the day at about 7. I sat at my desk and looked around the room, happy with my arrangement and my position at the school. I looked out the window and noticed something.

My view looked right into the rectory. Yeah, it was slightly frosted glass, but it was slightly frosted glass in front of a shower. And there was Fr. Bill. Getting ready for his day.

Perhaps that's why the former occupant of that room had put her desk on the north wall. I debated moving things around, but changed my mind. The shades pulled down just fine.

181/365 Drug Dealer Season

The summer when I moved into the old 3rd grade classroom, I busied myself with the library as well. I'd toyed around with it a bit during my free time the first year, usually with JD in tow that second semester. We sorted through books and cleaned stuff up and I got way too involved with that kid. He was usually skipping English, or was getting kicked out of PE. He cemented my preference for bad boys and good girls when it comes to what students I connect to best. I don't handle fast-moving girls very well, girls who know too much by the time they are 13 and often become Mean Girls in the process. And good boys, ugh, were usually such suck ups that I had flashbacks to my honor classes in high school. No. Thank. You.

But anyway, that summer, JD was gone for good and my friend Jenna and I sorted through the library and even found a book on the Dewey Decimal system, which of course was right up my alley. Sorting is one of my favorite hobbies, after all. We sat in the room, evenings when it was still light, box fan going, and became friends, really, finally. That's the summer she broke up with Graham and the summer when I learned how to be friends with other girls who aren't good at being friends with other girls.

We'd stay in the evenings until it started feeling too dicey to stay. This time of year was drug dealer season and we could set our stopwatches by the routine: honking at the end of the block, slow driving down the block, more honking outside the house, a car door, footsteps, a car door, speed away. Right outside our window. We weren't likely targets of violence (that would interfere with business, after all) but we could become collateral damage and preferred not to.

That was ten summers ago. The school is closed, the pastor is different, the street is evolving but not completely healed. The Drug House, 3535, is closed down, boarded up and empty. But I know it's not the only location. Water finds its level and drug dealers find their customers. But we're still standing there, we still process on Corpus Christi and Palm Sunday and Easter Vigil, right past the rough patch. We'll outlast them.