4/365 Lectors

"Bridgett, why aren't you a lector?" Joanna asks me point-blank in the middle of Christmas decorating.

Christmas decorating. It's one of the things I do at my parish. I do many things, and I have done many things. Over the years, I have taught at the school, helped out with the picnic, helped plan a garden, and rebuilt a school library. I started but did not finish a wall mosaic project. I was secretary of parish council. I arranged flowers. I mopped the church floor and polished the brass. I've bought ribbon and flowers and wreaths. I talk to florists on the phone now, and I sit in excruciating meetings on occasion. Sometimes I sit in really good meetings. I serve on the RCIA team (helping people come into the Church), I have run an Atrium (helping children come into a fuller participation in the liturgy through catechesis of the Good Shepherd), I sort of run Children's Liturgy of the Word, I make banners, I take pictures, I make meals for the homebound, I deliver Christmas and Thanksgiving boxes to the poor.

But there's one thing I'm absolutely in charge of when it all comes down to it. I mean, yeah, I'm the one making the banners but nobody would look around and get overheated if the banner didn't happen this Easter and had to wait until next. But there's one thing I do that rests sort of completely on my shoulders when it's all said and done. Christmas decorating. I've done it 4 years now and it has changed here and there from what it once was to what it is right now. It will change more with time, I am sure.

Each year, after the 4th Sunday of Advent's 10 a.m. mass, I get a queasy feeling and a sense that everyone is looking at me. They aren't, but still. The first year, I stood my ground against an awful boy scout leader and started dragging stuff in all by myself while my predecessor told people I'd ordered too many poinsettias. This year there wasn't anything like that--Bev arranged the flowers like she once did; Rachel and Keith and Fr. Anthony and my husband and Sr. Joanna and Sr. Christine and new people whose names escape me before I can even change them here stepped up to the plate and got all the bows on all the wreaths and all the trees where they belong and Sal the janitor didn't knock down any trees and everything went just fine.

Joanna says this to me as I am clutching a large piece of gold cloth--like 12 or 15 yards of shiny gold cloth--that we thought we'd lost and it was, in my mind at least, my fault. I wasn't putting the cloth down until it was time to place it under the nativity figures. I'd just made the call to cut one of the big trees down, bring up one of the smaller trees that was frankly too big for the nativity scene, and to somehow place the other large tree to one side...sort of an asymmetrical altar design that I was totally not sure would work. But the afternoon was starting to wear on me and I knew I couldn't be the only one. I didn't want to be that person.

But I turned and looked at Joanna. Sometimes when she says things, she doesn't mean them. Sometimes when she says things, I take them the wrong way. And sometimes when she says things it's because it's high time they were said to me.

"I just don't think I'm very good," I say honestly. Or maybe that's what I've been saying to myself because I just don't want to. I'm unsure. Even now a few weeks away I'm still not sure if this was just one of those lines I throw out to avoid engaging...or if it's true. I fear it may be true. I also fear it may not be.

"It's just that we're looking for folks who will really pray the readings," she starts explaining. I know what she means. I know the difference--this past Easter, Paul stood up there and read a reading from Genesis that was like listening to a bedtime story. I told him after that I loved listening to it, and he started talking to me about stars and birds and how he had these stuck in his head as he was about to read and he just tried to let the words flow that way. I hadn't understood completely what he meant, but it stayed with me. In comparison, there are a few lectors that I need to read along with or else I just don't hear the words. Even when I know the readings beforehand. I don't know how I feel about this--the choir doesn't tend to employ bad soloists but allows anyone, including my 8 year old, to sing the melody. Is it right to tell bad lectors they can't proclaim readings anymore? Is there another way to let them participate? I don't know.

And that isn't my job.

Thank God.

I stood there holding the gold cloth and someone--it might have been my 8 year old, in fact--came up to ask me a question. And I figured I was being asked another question as well and so I turned back to Joanna.

"If you need lectors, I'll do it."

And I will. I have my fingers in many pies (sometimes literally down in the kitchen on Christmas Eve morning) but that's ok. I've always been a sort of jill of all trades.

Christmas undecorating is next Sunday after the 10. I need volunteers too.

9/365 CLOTW and Selfish Desires

CLOTW is my abbreviation for Children's Liturgy of the Word. We restarted this program at my parish after a small seasonal program had been disbanded. Sr. Hildegard gathered up a group of parents and other interested child-oriented catechists to take a few Sundays every semester and be in charge of presenting the Word of God to children, ages 4-10. This is done down in the basement of the church, with a rug where the children sit, a candle on a stand, and an ambo/lectern of sorts.

We were kind of a large crowd of catechists and helpers the first year but have dwindled down to a bare-bones operation. It essentially means I will miss at least 1 homily a month, sometimes more. Leading Children's Liturgy still "counts" for Sunday mass--I'm still participating in the liturgy--but I think I'm going to have to start attending the 7:30 a.m. mass if I'm going to not resent this service.

See, I really like our pastor. Really. And not just because he is personable and I served on his first parish council and trust him and all that--not just because he's a good person and a great priest and we're so fortunate he's at our parish and so forth. He could be all that and fall flat at the pulpit, but he's good at that too. I really like listening to good preaching, and he pulls it off more often than not. Almost always, actually, I go home ruminating on what's been said. I love words and people who use them well, whether written or spoken or sung (or in any combination). So it's hard to know that I'm going to walk out with a gaggle of children and head down to the dim basement to try to present the gospel to them in a way that is child-oriented and lovely...because I miss out on the adult version upstairs that I yearn for.

But I'm reminded of something I read by Fr. Dominic Garramone OSB (the Fr. Dominic from the PBS bread baking show--another one of my steps along the way in the summer of '06). He was complaining to his abbot that helping an elderly monk at the liturgy of the hours was seriously detracting from his own prayer life. The elderly man could barely see the pages, was always getting lost in the office books, kept forgetting Dominic's name--in other words, being a big pain in the rear. Dominic insisted that he could "hardly pray" while helping out this monk. The abbot pointed out to him that without his help, that monk could not pray at all. It is unlikely that the children I share the gospel with down in the basement of the church are going to go home and ruminate on my words. It is doubtful that the things I say will be of any great and wonderful importance. But if it allows them to more fully participate in the mass (and if it, frankly, lets their parents have a moment upstairs to more fully participate in the mass), then it is worthwhile. Even if I miss out on the good stuff once in a while.

So I'll suck it up and enjoy it. Because in the end, I always do.

12/365 Tree Finality

I sent Mike with my dad's truck to pick up the trees left in the parking lot. We didn't want them left by the dumpsters to be tossed in a landfill. There's a perfectly good recycling center down at Carondelet Park. The park mulches them up and uses them as, well, mulch.

It's a big job to haul, and they're big trees. I was exhausted. Mike went alone and I put girls to bed.

He got back over an hour later.

"Well, only one tree fell out of the truck," he starts.

"What?"

"On Grand. Folks pulled up next to me to tell me. So I went back to look for it, but it was gone."

"It was gone," I repeat.

"Yeah, I mean, middle of the road, I expected it in the gutter or on the sidewalk but it was gone."

"Somebody needed a tree, in mid-January?"

He shrugs. "Everything else went fine. Took me two trips."

19/365 RCIA

I'm on the RCIA team. Sr. Hildegard has a way of asking me to do things that I have a hard time saying no to. Now, there are things I would say no to. I would never have tried to run the church picnic back when we had a church picnic. I won't join the stewardship commission. I don't have anything to bring to finance or to any task that requires many many phone calls.

There are things I do that are in my comfort zone--it is easy to make a banner. It is easy to water plants (and let them die accidentally, mysteriously...easy, but I wonder if I'm the gal for that job sometimes). It is sometimes excruciating to go to Worship Commission meetings but it's ok because I know many other people are aggravated as well. Children's Liturgy of the Word is easy now that I'm not making the schedule. Cooking for the homebound, delivering food, sitting on parish council. All easy.

And then there are things that I probably should be doing but that fall outside my comfort zone. Long ago, being on the Art & Environment committee was outside that zone, mostly due to Dolores and Roxanne running the show back then. Nowadays it's ok. I've learned how to deal with Lynn as best I can and it's ok.

But all that aside, RCIA is the one thing I do at the parish that consistently makes me feel awkward and unqualified. I'm fine with being there. It's when it's my turn to run a session that I feel like, well, like I used to when I was in a classroom and my principal was observing. Uneasy. I don't know why, although I have some hunches. Perhaps it's because I'm not ever sure I'm representing The Church as well as I should. Perhaps because I don't have the education or background of many of the other catechists--I have the least, in fact, I would venture to say. I know, someone has to be the least qualified and that doesn't mean I'm not qualified at all. I just get all worked up.

Sunday was my first RCIA session since our new candidate Joel joined us. And it went fine, although I wish we had two or three more candidates so that the dismissal catechesis, when we leave after the homily to go "break open the word" more on our own, would have more brains to draw on. The session after mass is even more awkward with just one candidate. On Sunday there were 4 catechists and his sponsor there, which is a big number considering there's only one of him. Nothing I could have added that would have brought more light to the conversation, really. But I was there and maybe that was enough.

I'm a pretty decent writer. I feel like I communicate well on paper. One of my readers (and amazing writer who is no longer blogging, alas) once compared me to Orwell that way--as he put it, "not in the feverishly dystopic way, but in how you put words on paper." Good prose is like a windowpane. The words shouldn't block the view. But when I'm called to take those words in my head and speak them? It doesn't go as well as I would like. It isn't the same.

So I'm struggling with RCIA. Hildegard says they need me. So I think I should stay. But I wonder if someone else would be better. So then I think I should back off. But who is that person? How do we find her? I don't know these answers. So I hang on for now, quietly dreading the Sunday when it's my turn but knowing that it is something that needs to be done. So I'll go eat my powder milk biscuits...which of course give shy people the strength to get up and do what needs to be done. Heavens they're tasty and expeditious.

24/365 It just slipped out of my mouth.

I was rushing into church Sunday morning. Just so you know, I'm always rushing into church Sunday morning. Sophia attends an atrium in the next neighborhood over and she gets out at 9:45. Just enough time to speed down Grand and scan the parking lot impatiently for a space. How I remember with fondness the leisurely walks to church 3 years ago. Not anymore. We're always in a hurry now.

Hildegard is standing in back. The procession is assembling. I smile and nod at them and she asks, "Are you children's liturgy today?"

"No," I remember back to the email. "Today is Jessica and Eva. But if they're not here, I'll do it."

We quickly moved past them and up the side aisle to the second pew, where we've decided to camp out a while. The entrance song plays. We pass the baby, we get Maeve settled. And then it hits me. I just totally volunteered to fly by the seat of my pants at children's liturgy. I guess I finally did make the decision to be that person. In a good way, I mean.

38/365 History: Finding a Niche

It's hard to find a place. Once you find a place, it's hard to find your way into the place. Having spent most of my childhood packing and unpacking boxes, I knew there was a lot of "finding my way" that was on back order. I would talk about this with Fr. Bill over the first few years we were at the parish. How I was always leaving and really didn't want to. Not just the parish, but everything: marriage, friendship, neighborhood, jobs, commitments. He would challenge me to stick it out. For all his faults (and mine, being a damned liar that I am) he saw that yearning for stability writ large in my life.

Our first year there, out of the blue, he asks the two of us to join a committee to bring a prayer group project to the parish. Based on a program my mother had been involved in back when I was a child, this one was adding the futuristic "2000" to the name. Renew 2000, like the "Fridge-O-Matic 5000" or some other silly faux product. At our first meeting, I don't remember who else might have been there, but Dawn Armstrong was. By the end of that meeting, she had appointed herself and my husband as co-chairs and I decided I didn't like her very much.

Before the program even got launched, she realized this about me. I don't, well, I don't hide my feelings with much success. She confronted me on the phone and brought up three instances that made her wonder what the hell my problem was. Those weren't her words. But that was the tone. I was terrified. She asked if she could come over to talk about it. She was there the following night and I had to explain, basically, what a flake I was.

I think about this when I have trouble with Lynn or, for a time, with Dolores. Or Yvonne or wonder where I screwed up with Judy and her husband. I think about how it is to be in a parish and try to really be in it. How personalities clash, people get offended, and then people walk away. How brave (and terrifying) Dawn was to show up at my house and ask for an explanation for my jerk behavior. And how, in the end, it made me a better person. She wasn't going to walk away from our parish. It would have had to have been me if it had come to blows. Obviously it did not.

That would be later, and it wouldn't be with Dawn.

44/365 Oh, Lent

"I just realized Wednesday is the beginning of Lent," I say to Mike quietly.

"And you have 16 dozen banners to sew before then?" he replies, only half-kidding.

"Exactly." I think back to the last worship commission meeting. It seemed so easy at that point. I guess I have work to do.

But I need those rods affixed to the choir loft or it is all for naught. Perhaps I'll be making some phone calls on Monday. Which is a holiday. Ah, screw it. I'll get done as much as I can.

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.

51/365 MSN vs. school server

"I'm not sure MSN is our best choice," I put my fencing foil into the fray. Sr. Fern looks puzzled. What she knows about the internet can fit in a teacup. I'm not IT professional, but I am married to one. Joey is sitting across the table from me, seething. The other teachers know they're being taken along for a ride where they are only unwilling passengers. Like a carpool.

"Why not?" Sr. Fern asks.

"What sort of controls are available? I don't want to send my class into the computer room and be able to send emails to anyone about anything. Not on school time."

"Look," Joey interrupts, "It's not like these kids don't have computer access at the library, at home, all the time. They are going to do what they want to do!"

"But maybe not here," Sr. Fern says sternly. "I don't want a parent coming to me with evidence of harassment or something like that. What do you suggest?" she turns back to me. I'm ready.

"I've researched a number of email programs for schools that would be appropriate. They're free, they're completely monitored, and we can restrict them in all sorts of ways."

"But the anonymous donor really wanted to go with msn," Joey protests.

"Does msn have the capabilites I think we need?" Fern counters directly. "No? Then I think the donor will understand."

Joey stares at me, not happy. Seething, in fact. But Sr. Fern is happy and I've chalked up a stroke in the win column. "Why don't you and Joey meet after school tomorrow and set that up?"

In the computer room after school, suddenly we're best friends. Joey gets me on a computer and I find my way to the webpage.

"You know, I only picked msn because that's what we use at home," she explains.

"Sure," I say with a nod, clicking on the sign up key.

"I just, I wish you could be more appreciative of my work here."

That makes me look up.

"I've laid out a lot of money to make this work," she continues. "And I hate that you stomp all over that."

"You're the donor," I say, not a question.

"Of course I am."

This doesn't make me like her more.

"And I'm here almost every day trying to get all this to work and did you know I have rheumatoid arthritis? I'm trying to get pregnant and nothing is working and the medication I'm on I'll have to go off and this is just one more thing," she shakes her head.

I mentally erase the mark in the win column, but I don't back down on the internet usage in the school. There is common sense here, not just meanness. But I try to back down on the other stuff. For now.

53/365 History: Sabotage

"The rectory got broken into last night," Sr. Fern mentions in the faculty room, sort of off-hand, to me and a couple other teachers standing their at our mailboxes. "Somebody with a key."

"Then it's not really a break in," Ina points out.

"True, but they sabotaged a computer."

We all look at each other. I am suddenly really thankful I don't have a rectory key. I don't need that kind of heat.

"Which one?" Ina asks.

"Joey's." Sr. Fern leaves and I look at Ina.

"Joey has a computer in the rectory?"

"She has an office," Ina points out.

"Really."

"Yeah, she's a full-time volunteer over there, you know."

I sort of knew. Whatever. I put it out of my mind because it doesn't directly concern me and there is plenty going on at the moment that does. But a few weeks later I'm in the library trying to sift through non-fiction books to label when I hear a key in the door across the hall. Since it's evening and I'm there with Mary, essentially alone and defenseless, I stick my head out to see what's up. It's Joey and her husband. They're fighting about something. I duck back into the library and tell Mary I'll be right back.

"Hey Joey," I announce before I'm completely in earshot. Colin backs off. She looks at me and waves me over. Colin doesn't say anything to me but heads back down the stairs.

"I'll wait til you call," he tells her.

We go into the computer room. She dumps her armful of supplies on a table and sighs.

"Heard about the rectory," I tell her.

"Yeah. A lot of people don't like me very much." She goes over to turn on a bank of computers. "I can't figure it out. I--me and Colin--we're the top donors to this parish. I know because I'm on Finance. But then people who don't give more than $5 a week think they have a right to complain."

I almost felt bad until she said that. Always pulling rank. Not that I gave $5 a week--Mike and I did quite a bit more than that--but she shouldn't get to know, and then tell people.

"Do you know who did it?"

"I've narrowed it to Dolores or Roxanne. Maybe one of Roxanne's kids. They both have keys--had keys, that is. Bill took everybody's keys away unless they were employees."

"So you don't have a key anymore?"

"Oh, I still have a key. I'm not paid, but I'm an employee. You know, when Colin and I moved here we didn't live in the parish, but at St. John's. And I went to the priest there and asked if there was anything I could do. He shooed me off. Wait until I was here longer, that sort of thing. So we started looking around, and then we moved into the parish and when I asked Bill if there was anything I could do, well, he had plenty. I'd just had back surgery and quit my job," she trails off.

I don't say anything. I lean in the doorway watching her do something on the computer.

"We have money because we worked for it. It wasn't given to us." She must be rewinding the conversation in her head.

"Sure," I nod.

"And Roxanne. Damn it. That crazy bitch."

I sort of agree with that statement. Actually, I agree 100% but I'm not going to show my hand. Dolores is a stickier problem. I teach both their kids, and each is a piece of work in her own right, but Roxanne kind of scares me in a way that Dolores never did (and never will).

"Why do you think it was her?"

"Well, she doesn't have a key, but Dolores does. And I think they did it together. They erased all sorts of my files. Some are gone for good. And they both hate me, you know."

She leans back in her chair and beckons me over with her hand.

"I need to tell you something."

We weren't friends yet, but this was where the ice started to break.

57/365 But it's not all wine and roses (history)

While I eventually came to an understanding with Joey, it wasn't that we were bestest best friends. The second autumn of the garden came along and we as a school harvested a bumper crop of tomatoes. We grew an heirloom variety of indeterminate vines and I didn't stake or cage them. Not that I hadn't intended, but my personal life kind of fell apart over the summer when I miscarried and it took a while to bounce back. In that bounce back, I had cake and coffee at Joey's house so she could tell me how sorry she was to hear I'd miscarried. She'd been trying for a while and had resorted to IVF, which had failed several times.

"I can't imagine what it would be like to get pregnant and then lose the baby," she said, and I think she meant it. I ate cake and tried not to think too much about it. I would be pregnant in October but here it was August and it was all still so bad.

But the summer drew to a close and school started up. We donated tomatoes to the food pantry. We let kids take them home. I had brief visions of the future, using produce from the garden in school lunches--nowadays this is the hip education thing to do. Back then though it seemed revolutionary.

So I walked out of school one afternoon and went around to the garden to tend things.

The school raised bed had been replaced with something from an alternate universe. The tomatoes were gone. In their place were impatiens, mums, and pansies. It must have taken someone all day to do this and yet nobody came to tell me? I stood there staring at the damned little flowers and got really angry.

I went inside to Sr. Fern. "What happened to the tomatoes? We were still harvesting--it's only late September."

"Oh," she faked surprise. "Joey told me you said it was done. There's a donor coming to look at the school this evening and she wanted it to look nice. It's only tomatoes," she said as an apology.

"Right," I snapped back. I picked up my canvas bag with the last of the tomatoes alongside my grade book and lesson plans and walked out. Coming out onto the parking lot, there was Fr. Bill walking up to go into the school.

"Why did Joey get to tear out the school garden and plant flowers?" I spit out at him. "Flowers?"

"She said the growing season was over," he repeats the same excuse. "I think some people complained that it looked messy."

"It's fall," I waved my arms the air. "Part of gardening with kids is letting things get a little messy. Plants die. But they weren't even dead!"

"Well," but he stops, for the first time in my experience, with nothing to say or to calm me down with.

"Just because she's good with ONE THING," I yell at him, pounding my fist in the air as if I were hitting a table. "It doesn't make her an expert on everything!"

He doesn't reply. I walk away from him there, not caring who saw me--dismissal time, of course, is filled with people. I get in my car just as I see her pulling up in her SUV. I don't wave back.

She comes up to my room the next day. "Hey," she interrupts class.

"Hi, Joey, I can talk to you in a minute."

"No, I just wanted to drop this off for you." I walk over to the door and she hands me a huge basket of tomatoes. A huge basket. Like, feed a family of 4 for a week kind of huge basket of tomatoes. I take it with both hands.

"I should have talked to you first," she apologizes. I nod, but I'm over being angry. "In other news," she continues more brightly, "we got a grant."

"That's great," I smile thinly. "Thanks for the tomatoes."

I take them home. There isn't a single conflict between us from then on.

65/365 Ladder of Humility

I knew I couldn't just talk about my thoughts on conversatio morum. That would take 15 minutes and that wasn't going to be enough. On the other hand, we got back from Leo's doctor's appointment with a diagnosis of RSV (respiratory syncytial virus) due to the recurrent ear infection and bronchiolitis. Suddenly my Sunday looked doomed--Sophia was scheduled for an Irish Dance show at a nursing home where my great-aunt lives. I would have very much liked to have gone to the show and seen her while I was there, but I was sending Mike because I had RCIA. He was going to take the kids with him and get Sophia ready alone, for the first time.

Now with a baby with RSV, well, you don't take him to a nursing home. You just don't. So now we had a choice--Sophia could bail, I could bail, or we could cut RCIA short.

I'd already failed to go to RCIA pretty much the whole year. And the whole year before that. I'd led so few catechism meetings that the candidates hardly knew who I was. I felt bad about this--but last year I had a newborn and this year I had a family schedule and a toddler. Girl scout camping, Irish dance, trips to the inlaws, sick baby, and bam. I liked Joel, the candidate from this year, although my time with him was so far only two meetings. I find converts fascinating and I knew Hildegard really liked him, too, and wanted to do the right thing.

So I wrote an email explaining my situation and frustration. I felt bad that I'd become that person. The volunteer who never does her job. I've had them in all realms of life--the parent who never brings back the stuff she volunteered to cut out for the first grade classroom. The girl scout mom who is always late picking her daughter up, doesn't get the cookie form in on time, and always hugs me to tell me what a great job I'm doing. The garden volunteer who never researches that grant. The woman on worship commission who never gets the minutes out (oh, that's me too). The computer teacher volunteer who only comes for the classes she gets along with. We all know this person. And I resent them enough that I hate it when I see myself becoming them. In my defense, I have been Peter Principled: being a mom of two was a breeze, but I have now been promoted to my level of incompetence with three kids. But I still saw the writing on the wall and I sent an email resigning from RCIA effective after Sunday (or whenever I was on the schedule already).

Fr. Miguel wrote back and asked me to reconsider once life slowed down a bit (it is St. Patrick's season after all). And maybe I can make it work. Because Saturday night, I stayed up late and really thought about Benedict's ladder of humility and conversatio morum. I was ready by Sunday morning to give it my best shot, get out of church by 11:50, and get Sophia to Nazareth House by 12:30. I was ready.

125/365 Oh, yeah.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

127/365 Weddings Suck

I hate brides.

There, I said it.

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

There are a lot of plants on the altar.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I hate brides.

258/365 Thank You

Fr. Miguel makes the rounds at the stewardship appreciation dinner. I'd spent the whole evening prayer chasing Leo around church, and then most of the dinner as well, since Mike, being on the stewardship commission, was walking around with a bottle of wine filling glasses. Nice evening.

Miguel makes it over to our table towards the end and chats a bit. Thanks me for all I do, which is what I assume he's said at pretty much every table--we have a diverse group of volunteers, and by that I mean lots of people do lots of different things.

"Thank you," he says.

"No problem," I shake my head. "I wouldn't do it if I didn't enjoy it."

"True," he starts, but I interrupt:

"I'm no martyr...."

261/365 Stewardship Appreciation

I think it was pretty well done, all said. I like evening prayer, even though I spent most of it in the back with Leo running around like a freak. Sometimes I don't get it, these kids. How two of them could turn out to be such little heathens and the other is so reflective. But anyway, I like evening prayer. I like that we started with prayer, too, instead of just having the get together downstairs.

Good food and those little Italian cookies I love that I didn't even know existed until I lived in South City. Goodness. They make me happy. Wine and chat and more of my crazy kids. Good turnout, too.

298/365 Chili Supper

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

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

307/365 Playing Catch Up is Impossible

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

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

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

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

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

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

336/365 Christmas Meals Prayer

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.

360/365 Benedictine Moments

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

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

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

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

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

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