Words, and Hearts, and Saints

Part of my morning prayer routine is invoking the intercession of my prayer team of saints. I have a standard team that has been with me for I-forget-how-many-years, as well as my patron saint that changes every year at the beginning of Advent, and those I've added as I intercede for several specific individuals in my life.

My relationship with my standard team has been evolving, especialy over the last year to two. And by that, I mean that I'm aware of a change of need in what I think of as their "department." Essentially, I'm asking the Lord for different things.

My team consists of several pairs and a triad: St. Teresa of Jesus and St. John of the Cross; St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein) and St. Therese; Holy Father Elijah, St. John the Baptist, and St. Cecelia; and St. Joseph and our Lady of Mount Carmel. They are my constants.

I consider my triad my "words" department. And as I stop and ponder, the recent changes in my life where my "words department" is involved is somewhat overwhelming to take in. As my reality has changed, my prayer has adjusted to it.

For years I have prayed that my words would become a means through which God's power could be made known. I eventually adjusted that to specify the words that I speak, the words I write, and the words I sing, since that covered three major areas of my life. I changed that to include the words that I think, and the words I meditate on or ruminate on, because I realized the importance of what I let go through my mind. I've now added "the words that I battle with in my mind," because I had to admit that some of the words going through my mind are temptations. They come with an agenda to get me to doubt that I am loved and designed for intimate communion with The Word Himself. And my ultimate petition here is that my words in every category would arise from the place within me where I seek to live this union with God.

Words have always been important to me, but I've realized in the last year especially how trauma had impacted my "voice," making speaking up and speaking out -- in some moments and on some levels -- physically impossible. Big shout out to EMDR therapy for reaching into the depths to heal that. 

I feel like I'm exiting a season of healing and excavation, and entering a season of healing and activation. "Use your words" takes on a whole new meaning, here. "Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks" is true in many ways. I was in a setting recently where I was told I appeared very confident, facing the prospect of a task that would require meeting strangers at their worst, most vulnerable moments. Do I feel ready for that? Of course not! It's very unsettling. But I can indeed find words there if I have gotten comfortable with my own worst, most vulnerable moments. And frankly, the Lord has been walking me through just that. 

So our words (or lack thereof) show our hearts. Our hearts, in the Lord's hands, are safe, despite their breaking and aching, and all the scary traffic in and out of them. Our words reflect the truth of hearts back to ourselves in ways that can be incredibly hard to swallow. But our heart is exactly where the Lord wishes to meet us, exactly as we are.

Fulcrum and Lever

Currently I have the luxury of quite a bit of time which I can give to reflective writing. So I am cashing in on it. I spent the morning meditating on several things that lept out at me during this morning's Mass: a prayer and several scriptures, which then, during that meditation, all fell within an analogy which St. Therese mentions in Story of a Soul. It was actually among the very last lines that she ever wrote -- in pencil because she could no longer wield a pen. The reference is this: 

A scholar has said: "Give me a lever and a fulcrum and I will lift the world." What Archimedes was not able to obtain...the saints have obtained in all its fullness. The Almighty as given them as fulcrum: HIMSELF ALONE; as lever: PRAYER which burns with a fire of love. And it is in this way that they have lifted the world; it is in this way that the saints still militant life it, and that, until the end of time, the saints to come will lift it.  (Story of a Soul, chapter XI, 36r-36v, italics and caps in original)

This is so important to me right now that I am going to edit what I have already written elsewhere and have another go-over of it all.

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This morning I woke early with the sensible feeling of a certain kind of sweet weight to offer up to the Lord. In other words, I can receive the heaviness of late as a grace and a gift to turn into powerful prayer. It reminds me of what Therese wrote about God being the fulcrum and our prayer being the lever that can lift the world. I'm watching this video which states "without a fulcrum, a lever has nothing to support or balance it, so no work can be done." This deserves a moment of meditation. To allow God to be God is to allow Him to be that which supports my movement, my work, and our point of contact is the only thing that gives my freedom power. Otherwise, it isn't so much freedom that I have as total disconnection from reality. Within God I can rise up, within God I can bear down. Within God I have my full range of motion, my total potential, even though I might see potential beyond my potential -- if that makes sense. The oar can "see" up into the sky, where the rocket can launch, but if the oar is launched into the sky, it is not free, it is disconnected. To use a literally more human analogy, towards the end of the video there's a person lifting weights, and the question is, what part of the body is acting as the fulcrum. It seems the answer is the shoulders. And in this analogy, there is a different, less mechanical relationship between the fulcrum and the lever -- and I wonder now if this is connected to why St. Paul talks about the Body of Christ. Because as the arms rise up and the shoulder fulcrum strengthens, more potential is being created for both the arms and the shoulders. In this analogy, God's potential in us increases as we exercise that lever. He builds up strength within us. And this strength also builds grace, stamina, flexibility, beauty, potential for movement, dance, expression, inspiration, health -- everything. This really gives me an insight and a motivation for bodily movement, making it actual prayer. 

But now on to those Scriptures and phrases that popped out to me at Mass this morning. The first thing was from the collect: "Enable us, we pray, almighty God, to proclaim the power of the risen Lord, that we, who have received the pledge of his gift, may come to possess all he gives when it is fully revealed." The italicized part is what stood out to me in the moment. But as I look now at the opening phrase, I see it connected to the power to proclaim Jesus risen. It seems a bit like a wheel. We pray for the power to proclaim the power of the risen Lord so that we can move from having received a pledge to full possession of all he gives, when "it" is fully revealed. Again the fulcrum idea. The fulcrum being the center of a wheel, and the wheel turning around the fulcrum gives the movement. That's the power. We have received the power in our sacraments. That's the pledge (Eph. 1:13-14). Then comes the enabling to proclaim the risen Lord, which is the gospel preached by faith. As we speak forth in faith, we exercise our connection, we exercise our pledge, we turn that wheel around the fulcrum. And in doing that, God gives -- He gives abundantly. What He gives flows over, spilling everywhere. I have sensed this in the past. Gems and jewels way more than I am capable of carrying in my arms, dropping them left and right, but still having more than I can handle. We then pray for possessing all he gives. Not just stumbling with full arms, but making all of this mine. Taking it all in. Like Joseph in Egypt, managing, stewarding it all very well, not just so that I can be well taken care of, but so that many others will be safe and saved from famine. Then we have the full revelation. So this is an ongoing wheel turning. We travel farther and wider. The power of God will be fully revealed, and this is for the praise and glory of God. This is eternity, and this is the culmination and full purpose of our earthly lives. My earthly life. It is to be found in the praise and glory of God. This is the focus on union. It is going to look different for each person. For St. Elizabeth of the Trinity and St. Therese, this was manifested in death at an early age and terrible physical suffering, which then rocketed them into an eternity of sainthood, ministry, and intercession, personal glory of the sort that belongs to the canonized saint. This is not my path. But my path will be mine just as much as their paths were theirs. And I come to it the same way. I have received the sacraments, I proclaim faith in the risen Lord -- for me, it's what it means to believe and trust despite my human obstacles involving trauma. I receive what God pours out, and I steward it. The orientation of my life shifts away from the initial struggle to get the wheels to work together, and onto the terrain I traverse because of the movement God gives. This reminds me of the little girl I saw last night when I was out walking -- her father was helping her master riding her bike. I cheered her on every time we crossed paths. I have known certain people in my life to be my support, like training wheels are supports. We need this support from others, this witness, to get over the initial struggle of getting the wheels to work. And we need those who cheer us on when they do. And we need those who ride beside us, delighting in the mastery of movement together. Is there anything more beautiful than delighting in the unfolding of the glory of God with another person? This is the communion of saints for which we were created. 

Then from the Psalm: 93:1 "And he has made the world firm, not to be moved." Again with the fulcrum idea. This depiction of the world shows it in the image of God. God is the firm fulcrum. He does not move, but enables movement. Here the world does not move, but enables movement. Terra firma. In other words, God graces nature to reflect Himself, to be solid, trustworthy, predictable. That which enables us to have a solid foundation. We can rely on matter as it images God. In this way, reality is sacramental. He has done this. It is his gift, his reality. It is solid, stable. This is what makes sense out of things like Isaiah 54:10, that though the mountains be shaken -- this solid, trustworthy, God-imaging nature, God's covenant of love with me will never be shaken. With me, not just in general. "My love shall never fall away from you, nor my covenant of peace be shaken, says the Lord, who has mercy on you." Immovable stability is not something I have been able to presume upon psychologically. It is something I receive by faith and have come to trust in. 

Next verse was the communion antiphon, which combined Luke 24:46 and 24:26: "The Christ had to suffer and rise from the dead, and so enter into his glory, alleluia." I had been asking the Lord last night, or telling him that I was having a hard time believing that what is happening right now is for my good. This speaks into that. And it also fits with the reflection on the collect. If Christ had not died and been raised, we would still be in our tresspasses and sins (1 Cor. 15:16-17). If he had not died and risen again, we would have no faith in the risen Christ to preach. I would have nothing to say about trust and hope of moving through trauma because release from it would not be a thing. There would be no jewels and gems to gather up; it could only be imaginary effort, only psyching myself out. It is hard to wrap my brain around "the Messiah had to suffer these things." It was prophecied. It was God's plan. It was where the fulcrum located itself, and Jesus as fulcrum and lever moved the impossible thing. Maybe He could have done it differently, but He didn't, for whatever unfathomable reason, something having to do with the human design. Something having to do with Love, with the being-with in suffering that the Incarnation entails, as St. John of the Cross says in the Romances on the Incarnation. So the Christ had to do this to enter into His glory. That is the path. That was the path for Him, so that is the path for me. Or maybe it is because that is the path for me, that was the path for Him. He destroyed death by death. He opened up the path to life for us who lived in the shadow of death. He saw me in my trauma, and entered into trauma to destroy my trauma. To make that lever turn which would have been immovable otherwise. Thus the most holy thing we can do is to encourage someone to faith. To proclaim the wonderful deeds God has done and move someone else to faith so that they too pull the lever on the fulcrum presented before them, God-with-them-in-their-need.

 Two other verses came to mind as I received holy communion. First: 2 Peter 1:19 "Moreover, we possess the prophetic message that is altogether reliable. You will do well to be attentive to it, as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts" (morning star, an OT reference to the Messiah). This, I believe, was an encouragement to do exactly what I'm doing right now, to sit down and really meditate on these things that struck me. I realize that I have often let things like this slid, thinking "oh, that was nice. yep, I'm sure it's important" but not realizing how much this is exactly what I live on. What I need to survive, more than money, more than food, more than any tangible provision. More than oxytocin. I need to soak in and meditate on these truths, because this is what will give my life the solid foundation that I need and crave. And not just write about it here or think about it for an hour, but come back and review it, open it up and unpack it further. Continue to ask the Lord about it. Continue to reflect on it. And continue to even do the physical fulcrum/lever work to experience this somatically.

Second verse: 1 John 3:2, which I will expand to include verses 1 and 3: "See what love the Father has bestowed on us that we may be called the children of God. Yet so we are. The reason the world does not know us it that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God's children now; what we shall be has not yet been revealed. We do know that when it is revealed, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. Everyone who has this hope based on him makes himself pure, as he is pure." The kernel that struck is me "what we shall be has not yet been revealed." In other words, God is in the midst of a work. He is the fulcrum, and that lever is in motion. My lever may have been both operating and screaming as of late. I can get funny ideas, like maybe the point of this is to shove my hand into the spot where the lever and fulcrum meet, because the goal is to crush myself to death. Maybe the spinning of the wheel is for me to stick my hand in there and get my fingers amputated. Maybe that's the goal here. (These would be lies, coming from one who loves to kill, steal, and destroy.) But no. What we will be, what this is all about, has not yet been revealed, and that verb tense implies that it will be. The revealing is not my work, it is something I will receive. And whatever it is, the work God is about is his fatherly love. His fatherly love is to make himself known, and as we see him and know him, we become like him. Again with the lever and fulcrum. We do our lever work, attached, properly attached to the fulcrum, and there is this strength of God Himself which is built up in us. As He gives to me, I give back to him with my movement of faith, and so He gives himself more, enabling me to give myself more. It is a beautiful progression of love, one that also recognizes and accepts both my limits and my aspirations. Love is eternal, and I can never outgive God. I am freed from the overgiving I am tempted to do when I see myself just an oar, a thing, disconnected from its mount, its fulcrum. I "give myself fully to the water" -- I drown. I "give myself fully to the wall" -- I'm never in the boat, in my potential. But when I am secure within that which holds me in existence, I am ready for developing that skill, that employment of grace and virtue that moves me along. The oar does not row itself. But the body can move itself, as it is given life from the head. 

Fulcrum and lever. It says everything I need to meditate on right now. 

Embodied

"New year, new me" came with a jolt this year. It was as if the Lord woke me at midnight and said: Ok dear, buckle up. We're going for a ride right now, and you are going to need a few things for this trip -- here. 

And we were off, while I was still blinking and not even at the point where I could say I wasn't prepared for this. 

So I have a list of about 11 things that I've been incorporating into my weeks (has it been weeks already?), and one of these is from a website called EmbodiedCatholicWoman.com, called the Heart Safety Toolkit. God bless the Facebook ad that knew I was looking at resolving trauma on a somatic level. Sometimes intrusive marketing is helpful. 

At several turns in my adult life, people have told me that I need to get in touch with my feelings. My response was generally a raised eyebrow and an "ok..." because honestly I knew I had feelings. I felt them all the time, often to an overwhelming degree. I couldn't deny that I'm of an intellectual bent. Most of me shrugged off this entreaty, while the rest of me squirmed a bit, wondering if I'm just not really woman enough. 

Honestly, I had no idea how to do get into this "touch" they talked about. No one ever explained it to me. And though I am deeply intuitive, sometimes I need things spelled out super clearly before I get it, because I just don't have the ability to leap into whatever assumption the speaker is making.

Claudine at Embodied Catholic Woman spells it out, scientifically. Essentially, our bodies can go into different "gears" in response to trauma or chronic stress. These gears hang between our psychology and our physical bodies, and the effects go both ways. The key to resolving what trauma triggers is to become observers of thoughts, feelings, sensations that happen inside our bodies, and do certain physical things that can reset us over time physically and psychologically, to be better able to navigate the challenges that life brings. When we don't reset but stay in a gear where we are either unable to deal, or are hyper-dealing, we are left less and less capable of that kind of navigation, and we instead develop all kinds of unhealthy coping mechanisms, and we become knotty, and maybe even sick, people. 

So it hasn't been so much that I have needed to become more emotional as it is I have needed to become more embodied. By that, I mean to observe: this is what I feel happening in my body right now and eventually move to this is what I can do in response. In the past it was more like I feel x; I am x and it was as if there was no escape. So I would just avoid feeling x, by force, if necessary. Like that link I shared above about the "threat" of the women's Bible study at church. The only solution I could come up with was to guilt myself into not feeling what I felt. Or, one better, to accept, with some sadness, the way I am. What these somatic exercises have taught me (and the Lord, throwing this at me as we left on this trip) is that there's a stopping point between what I feel and who I am. And I can go there and actually accept what I feel into the fuller picture of who God made me. What a concept. I'm 57 years old, but it's better late than never to figure this out. 

This need became screamingly evident as I sat writing an email to a friend one evening, quite in a panic. I put my head in my hands and said out loud, "I'm becoming my father." What I heard was someone in a high state of anxiety, doing the social equivalent of desperately reaching for numbing alcohol to erase the pain, instead of taking courage to face it. (I'm currently reading The Shining as an exploration of the psyche of the dry drunk; more on that after I finish it, maybe.) This state of mind was, frankly, modeled to me by the adults in my life throughout my childhood, and had come to be somewhat emotionally normal for me, though I had not experienced it myself in decades. That was the moment I realized I needed what I was about to find in Claudine a few days later. 

Ok, so none of this was what I came here to even write about, but there we have it. Between Claudine and Manuela Mitevova and her somatic practices I am learning how to be whole. Now we give it time, work, and continued prayer.

My Body Will Rest in Safety

I've pretty much always had a social circle of people older than I am. One such friend mentioned his uncomfortable awareness that everyone's chatter now gravitates towards aches and pains and doctor visits. It makes sense. Pain makes us vulnerable and we need to know we aren't alone with our fears of losing ourselves. 

When I briefly cared for my Mom while she was dying in hospice, I made a mental note to change my relationship with my body. I had always softly scoffed at the idea of going to the gym and doing exercises. My farmwoman epigenetics sang a distant song, to the tune that the goal was the work hard rather than sectioning off body movement away from normal daily activities. Eventually I had to admit that I was not chopping wood, plowing fields or drawing water from wells on any regular basis, and I was, in fact, a cushy modern. Through trial and error (and a lot of back pain) I figured out which kind of exercises I needed, and I've gradually worked towards actually doing them. 

Lately I've been doing a program called Hips Like Honey which focuses on strength and flexibility. It doesn't do much for cardio stamina, but even though it is rather gentle, it has really done its job. I love the feeling of waking up in the morning and doing that huge reach across to the other side of the bed to turn off my alarm, and lay down again, and not only not throw my back out, but to feel solid. 

So today I had my monthly chiropractic visit. I am still actively learning to stop tensing my body all the time, and the doc was showing me an exercise to help me out with that. The moment gave me something to ponder. Essentially he said that the tension in my sacrum comes from my back muscles trying to do the work that my core muscles are designed to handle. It's like two siblings going around together, and the loud, overbearing one is always doing all the talking, leaving the quiet, reserved one unskilled in initiating and carrying out a conversation. The overbearing one is tired and overused, and the quiet one needs focused, gentle attention. As he showed me the exercise, I realized, I don't do gentle very well. Farmwoman is out there, hoisting bales of hay overhead and throwing them. I need to find my interior delicate crystal goblet, or.... something like that. I guess when I find it I'll know what it is.

Something significant happened last month, and it is still settling in. Speaking of tension, lately I feel my mouth relaxing in just an incredibly unusual way. In my experience, I feel tension only after letting go of it, and my jaw and my teeth are apparently not clenched anymore. The other amazing thing is that as I read Scripture, or pray it, or hear it read, I feel like it is all about joy, peace, and God's incredible goodness. And safety. And rest. 

If there's a way to tie together these rambly thoughts, maybe it is this realization. Somewhere in my soul, a pre-verbal baby Marie has, for more than five decades, beheld a fear: that joy, and peace, and safety, and rest, and love, and important people, all disappear. And that little girl is powerless to stop it. Using all my might, and tensing myself silly isn't going to stop it. Like aging, like dying, it's a point of incredible vulnerability. But into that moment of vulnerability, someone has come. And He is Love. And Love is eternal. And I realized I will never lose Him. And more than that, every day I live in Him, I will never lose, either. Part of how I do that is I share my woes with others, and they share theirs with me, and the Lord is there (Mal. 3:16). We live our lives together, and even though we grow weak and die, this is where we find joy.

And in the meantime, the exercises that remind me that I'm weak -- I'll do those. Maybe I'll even become friends with gentle and vulnerable and make a soft nook for Farmwoman to rest in. 

A New (Leg of the) Journey

 New years and new things may suggest each other, but I'm not one to choose some big newness project on January 1. Gosh, even writing that feels exhausting. Life is exhausting enough normally; I don't need to resolve myself any further.

This new leg is more something I am sensing I need and agreeing to. 

I think it just follows on what the Holy Spirit nudged me with last Good Friday with this line "everybody suffers." The second biggest take-away I had after I started praying the Seven Sorrows Rosary was that the suffering we experience is not meant to be a place to camp in, but a place to pass through, on our way to the glory of God. This little revelation came to me as I was out for a walk one Spring day, and I think these little revelations are like slow-blooming flowers, and they are meant to hold my attention for a long time, because they are gonna need awhile to really sink in.

I slipped into a blog post here and there last year that I've been dealing with anxiety more frequently than ... well, more frequently than I'd like to be the case, and more frequently than I'd like to admit. And more intensely than what has been normal for me. In fact, one Spring day I had a full blown panic attack, which hasn't happened for years, and really only happened to me one other time in my life, to my recollection. In the same time period I also had two episodes of anxiety hives, which was completely new. This got my attention and both by plan and sort of by happenstance I made some health changes, including ditching my exercise plan which was itself stressful and taking up one that fit me so much better, and was more demanding in good ways. I also completely gave up drinking coffee. I can't tell you how much good that did me. Between the two of these, my cortisol belly has all but disappeared, and my clothes fit me happily again. I'm also not completely freezing and interiorly curling up into a ball all of the time, despite the fact that our furnace has been functioning questionably for a solid month.

So all these are good things. But I know they aren't all that I need to address. I don't know -- yet, completely -- what I don't know, but I recognize certain sticking points in my life that don't just come out of nowhere. 

One tell-tale thing happened New Year's Eve. I read a friend's Facebook post that was a list of "23 ways I have seen Jesus' love in 2023," with the challenge to follow suit and post your own. I tried it. I started, but I couldn't finish it. I found myself focused on, Oh, that thing -- it wasn't nearly as bad as it could have been and I was worried about this, but it turned out ok and This really sad thing we survived ... It was all so heavy. And I thought of a few uplifting things but found myself afraid to share them publicly. Now, that's kind of a new one for me. I didn't like how this whole thing felt. 

Normally I pray about stuff like this, but I've really got nothing, there. No gush of words tumbling from the heart faucet. But I've been going back to St. Ivo and thinking of the Holy Spirit as the Advocate. So, I've prayed the Veni, Sancte Spiritus. Come, Holy Spirit. 

My favorite Carmelite, Fr. Iain Matthew, OCD, mentioned in one of his talks that, when it comes to allowing God to love us, one of our biggest difficulties is that 90% of us is in the deep freeze. It's there, we have it, but we can't really access this part of ourselves. This image and phrase has been tumbling around a bit, in this process. I want to love God with more of me. I want access to more of me to love God with. He deserves it.

So, I'm praying this way, and as I'm working through my used book inventory, getting stuff listed, I come across the book More Than Words: the Freedom to Thrive after Trauma by Margaret Vasquez (who just happens to be a regular at my parish). I set it aside to read, because it look valuable -- for someone else I know and what they are going through. (heh) 

So, I read it.

We pause here for the classic peanut butter and chocolate collision meme, signifying the creation of a new wonderful reality.

So I've ordered her second book, Fearless: Abundant Life through Infinite Love, and I've begun listening to her podcast about the integration of spirituality and human formation. This is a theme that Dr. Peter Malinowski also speaks and writes on at Souls and Hearts.com that I've been loosely following for a couple of years. But I know there is something for me to address, and I'm going to guess I'm going to discover it as I kind of make this my winter's work. 

One line that struck me from one of her videos was to the effect that God has more love for me than I need to heal my trauma symptoms. 

I think new avenues of growth await me. These often involve a good deal of falling apart, but I figure I'm gonna do that, regardless; or if I don't fall apart I'll just get stony and unfeeling, and I really don't want that. I really don't. 

So, here's to the journey.

Both Sides Now

 When I was younger, I prided myself on everything.

Other people seemed so lazy. They would tell me of the one thing they had planned for that afternoon, and I thought how I could do that in five minutes and thirty other things as well. Other people seemed so stupid. They struggled with things that had such obvious answers to me, as if they didn't even know how to think. They were always complaining of their struggles. I forced myself through things and pushed all the pain away. When I had breakdowns and couldn't cope, other people were uncaring and went on about their business around me in the most callous way. It was clear to me that I was superior in practically every category, and that if people would just listen to me, they would learn a lot.

When I was younger, I was really lonely.

I was filled with anxiety and didn't even realize it. I was afraid at every turn that I would be literally abandoned by those who were supposed to care for me, or that my house would burn down or that I would be killed. I had no reassurance that any other human being had my back in any way that I could rely on tangibly. The good in my world had to come from me, and therefore had to come from the few things I could do well. Working hard to be independent was survival and mandatory. I was always disppointed that I seemed to struggle far harder than I was rewarded for; the crisis was always too small for my effort.

I thought people were hell. God had to teach me that heaven was people. Community. Communion. Outside myself, or rather, people allowed in. All the people, all the way. God's own way.

Jesus Christ gave me His body and blood, soul and divinity. He said, it's for you, and for all. When I came to Him for peace, He told me He's a package deal. "Unless you love the brother you have seen, you cannot love God whom you have not seen." 

"I will take from you your heart of stone, and give you a heart of flesh." (Ez, 36:26). 

God's design was never for me to be a prideful machine or to be lonely. Humility enables intimacy to be, thrive and grow. Jesus Christ wants us to learn meekness and humility from Him so that we can actually experience joy and life, beginning here and now. Purification from our sin hurts like hell. But living in our sin hurts like hell. It all depends whether we face going deeper into anesthesia or farther out into freedom. 

I choose the pain of life, freedom, and love.

A Gift of Grace

Six years ago today, something profound happened. In fact, it was so profound that six years later I know I'm only beginning to take it in and live by its truth. 

At the time, I wrote about it here, surrounding the main event in lots of context. By the sheer grace of God, I had the rare presence of mind to take a short video while this striking thing was happening. You won't see what happened, because it was interior, (you won't see much of anything due to camera and videographer quality) but you will hear something lovely:

This was captured on my last full day in Poland, after a month-long pilgrimage during World Youth Day in the Year of Mercy. Personally, it came at the end of a stormy period of several years where God was teaching me my vocation to love and purifying my heart in some really painful and humbling ways. It was during this juncture that I started formation as a Secular Carmelite.

I wrote a lot about the whole trip in a blog called A Pilgrim in Poland, which is pretty good. As I have begun re-reading, I've learned some things. I recommend it. 𝨾 

I think the most profound things are not "new truths," but the grace to believe truth.
Looking back, here are the graces I have received:
I know that God is Love.
I know that God loves me.

I know that His love is immense, powerful, personal, intimate, insistent, edifying, knowledgable, big, deep, wide, unconditionally available to every living being, fiery, awesome, desireable, healing. 

I know that His love is pain-inducing to the degree that we resist being love-shaped, to the degree we grip our fists, try to possess out of fear of loss, try to feed our addictions and our brokenness. 

I know that He is bigger than our wounds, and that we all have wounds. 

I know all human beings are made not only to belong to God, but to belong to each other.

I know we need not only God to be holy, we need each other. God made it that way. He makes us secondary causes of holiness for each other.

I know He has called me to Carmel to learn to be Love in the heart of the Church. To live in God, and God in me, on this earth, immersing everyone into the ocean of God's mercy and love (which is His heart, the Holy Eucharist, the Blessed Sacrament).

And while there were years leading up to being able to receive this, and while I am still working it out (and it will remain my life's task until I die), I know that on this day, six years ago, there was a significant grace deposit made, where in a prolonged instant, God gave me this.

Here's a secret. One of the songs the quartet played was Blue Moon. It was actually a pinacle moment of personally receiving this. It is why, on the rare occasion when I go to a restaurant and order beer, I order a Blue Moon. It is also one of the many graced musical moments in my life that make me a devoted non-stickler when it comes to the question of what kind of music God can use to minister life.

The only possible fitting thanks I can think of is to give my entire life to Him, trusting the Lord totally to take care of everything. Amen.

Checking in

No, I haven't forgotten I have a blog. Let's just say I've been in a long marinating process!

My life has taken on so many new facets since I was last writing regularly.

For example, there's ChristLife. I have been on my parish's ChristLife team for two years; we just completed our second full round of the three modules: Discovering Christ, Following Christ, and Sharing Christ, which are designed to take a curious person through steps of hearing the gospel of Jesus Christ as a personal summons to a new life, to make a decision of faith, to grow in discipleship practices, and to learn how to tell someone else what the gospel proposition is.

I have also taken on the presidency of my Secular Carmelite community, taking over mid-term because of health challenges of the previous president. And that I was able to do (legally) because of making my Definitive Profession last October.

My mother passed away at the beginning of February. Her health took a serious downward turn just a few days before Christmas, and January was spent with my siblings and I -- mostly my brother and sister-in-law -- on near constant vigil with her. We didn't have her memorial service until March, which felt abnormal to me. So that piece of the year had that music playing in the background. I still have boxes of her personal belongings plopped in the dining room and living room, where I put them upon bringing them home.

In the last two years I have been thrust into the forefront of trying to keep a refugee family in Nigeria cared for. It's strange how it happened, and it's not that I do so much financially, but I have learned to beg in good mendicant fashion. I also realize I have a front row seat to see two incredible women of faith -- the refugee woman and her sister who lives locally -- pray literally for their every need, and to see God provide it, though not without significant stresses along the way.

I have two teenagers now: one just finishing and one just starting high school. Our family plods along with its own unique joys and dysfunctions.

I have somehow become a leader in all arenas of my life. To be honest, I hardly recognize my present self and my 10- 15- or 20-year-ago self. Sometimes, even my 3-year-ago self. This is a work of grace, and like all works of grace it is good but mysterious and just a tad strange.

And there's music, choirs, and public liturgy of the hours; there's Rosary Congresses and Sonshine Bible Club, and all the people in my life, suddenly, everywhere, where'd they come from, and the revitalization of Steubenville, there's the stress of the Catholic hierarchy debacle, there's the joy of genealogy, the need to exercize, the reality of aging and the need to balance all things with good humor.

So, yeah. I doubt I have any regular readers anymore, but if you are one of those who wondered if this blog was defunct, I have planned dozens of posts in my passing thoughts but, alas, have not been taking the time to write.

But writing has always helped, and so I will attempt to once again take up the discipline.

The Power of Managing a Household Well

There have been a few themes clunking around in my head like stuff you keep in your trunk and keep telling yourself, every time you take a sharp corner, you are going finally unload it so you don't have to keep listening to it.

And pretty much it boils down to how parents are supposed to get sanctified by raising their children. It is just a slight variant on saying we are sanctified by fulfilling our duty. Those who are not married or are married without children are in no way exempt from this kind of sanctification, although I admit that it possibly might be harder to see and carry out duty.

But I do have children, so to dig into my own reality I have to write about it that way.

And I keep coming back to those passages like 1 Tim. 3:4 where Paul says a bishop needs to manage his household well. (You can read elsewhere about the history of married priests and bishops in the Church. That's not my concern here.)

Managing a household well is constitutes being a channel of grace for one's family, and this is no small thing. If having been a child is not reminder enough, I am reminded constantly by my children's behavior that their eyes take in all my day-to-day behavior: the good, the bad, the ugly. They are their own persons, to be sure, but I am communicating to them a certain standard of "normal." They know what they can reasonably expect from me. And that will shape them until something more powerful comes along to shape them differently.

Some of the safest-feeling times I can remember as a child (and they did not flow thick) were when I would come into the kitchen in the early evening and find my mom cleaning up. I'm sure that she didn't do it because she loved in any more than I do it because I love it, but her work made me feel secure. I see the same thing in my daughter. When I am working, she will contentedly do whatever she is doing. Especially when she was younger, when I would be reading emails or Facebook posts, she would be far more restless. She could sense that I wasn't really spending that time for her.

But there's more to managing a household than being this kind of grace-channel. There is also my own sacrifice and pruning. Just recently I realized I needed to put more effort into making family meals a more attractive and stress-free service for everyone. So I made a meal plan, and we all benefited and enjoyed dinner more. And then, lo and behold, I had a schedule change that really made having that thing in place not just nice, but a sanity saver. This is how God teaches me the wisdom in following His inspirations. God prunes us and asks things of us for our own good.

I have also found it a "pruning" for me to take the time to teach my kids to do things for themselves and to serve the rest of the family. It sometimes suits my choleric nature to just plow through doing everything myself. But this short-changes my kids, and in the end can frustrate me. I also have to have the humility to patiently instruct my husband about some things, because it is simply better emotional hygiene for me. I realize that my needs are not about me lording it over others or insisting that everyone pull his weight. My needs are the signals for me to provide the training that others really need from me so that everyone can be happy together.

There is also a layer in all of the hidden work I do that is prayer and sacrifice offered for others. There are so many times when taking that next step in front of me in my duty is just so much not what I feel like doing. And yet, it is there. When I choose it because it is an act of service and love, I can (and do) offer that movement of my will as intercession for the salvation of souls and the conversion of sinners. That is why I make that daily offering in the morning, uniting my day and all that it in it to the desires of God. My work isn't about priding myself on being a perfect homemaker, but about humbling myself to offer prayer that is so quickly forgotten, even by myself.

And in the midst of this way of living, God teaches me, guides me, speaks to me in real-life ways. I am a slow learner, but I learn wisdom this slow way.

And that is exactly how St. Paul is saying bishops are supposed to learn to shepherd God's people.

I will never be a bishop, but this is also how God teaches me to have spiritual wisdom to minister to others. No textbook courses or gnostic wisdom. It is about living daily life, doing dishes and laundry, and interacting with children who very gradually develop maturity. Along the way, they forget their times tables, they chronically leave their belongings strewn everywhere, they have a hard time managing all of their emotions, they ask hard questions, they talk endlessly about things in which I barely know how to be interested, and they need to be trained to work and express care about others. And I am called to respond with love, patience, wisdom, attentiveness, and all the other virtues that get shown up in me as so very lacking. So I fall on my knees and beg God for help.

That's exactly how it is supposed to work, for moms and bishops.


This is what power in the Church looks like and where it comes from. It is not a power that makes any sense to the world.

THIS IS NOT THE WAY!

Notorious abortion provider shot dead.

This is really dreadful. I'm just speechless.

Lord, have mercy on us all.

Defending Values and the Encounter with Christ

Last weekend I attended the Spiritual Exercises of Communion and Liberation. I was about as open and ready to receive something as I get, because I was feeling many aspects of my life at loose ends. It's hard to describe succinctly, but I knew that pulling off that Tax Day Tea Party had left my life sort of like newly plowed dirt. All turned over, not like it was before. At the same time I wasn't quite sure what came next.

I write that ("wasn't quite sure") like I'm all sure now or something. I'm not. But I heard something, experienced something, over the weekend that makes it possible for me to move forward, knowing that my life is all of a piece and that I belong to the One who makes me.

A tiny fraction of the time of the Exercises was given to discussing the role of Christians defending values in modern culture. But it was everything that had come before which made that tiny fraction so rich. Fr. Carron, who was giving the Exercises (they are recorded in Italy and then dubbed and distributed via DVD around the world) spoke regarding a situation the Italians had just experienced that was much like the 2005 Terri Schiavo case with which Americans are familiar. Because I can't quote exactly what he said (the text will be published in English soon, though) I'll paraphrase based on how his comments hit me.

Many people defend the right to life, other authentic values, and participate fruitfully in political debate who do not share Christian faith. If we, as Christians, just get in the fray and call people "idiots" who don't agree with our objectively correct principles, and get depressed when things are not going our way (and etc.) then how are we different from anyone else? How are we bringing the newness of Christ into our world? We need to start from recognizing WHY we uphold the sanctity of life, WHY we uphold (fill in the blank: personal liberties, free market economics, limited government, Constitutionalism, what have you). The why is the same why, the only why, that gives any coherence to our lives at all: an encounter with Christ through which I have heard Him say "Come, follow me" and I have followed. We get into trouble if we wish to defend Christian values, like fruit that grows on the tree, without being one with the root which bears that fruit, namely Christ.

Immediately this recalled for me what I wrote in this post about repeatedly sensing people's anger in speaking about political issues, and a sense of their confusion when I was not getting angry along with them. Why? Because if I get angry with people for their political views (one, let's say, which is clearly opposed to Christian teaching, like abortion) I do not have in view the fact that what they stand in need of primarily is either a) an encounter with Christ which transforms their lives or b) further encounter with Christ to help connecting their Christianity with the reality in which they live. The impetus then is for compassion, connection, education, evangelization and a heart for their screaming, unmet needs. (My CL brothers and sisters show me this need not be done in a syrupy, limp-wristed manner either. Ripping into bad reasoning has its place, but -- always -- ripping in friendship, of course!)

So, what about this Tea Party? I am now leading an offshoot group of political activists! Isn't God hilarious?! I spoke at the first meeting of how liberty is far more than a political principle, but it is a human need and a cry of the human heart. (All that has to do with the other 98% of what I experienced on the Exercises, which may or may not appear in subsequent posts.) But now I understand better that it is not enough to point even to really good fruit, or to admire politicians (Ron Paul!) who insist politics has limited value in solving human problems, and who point instead to endeavors of faith and personal charitable activity. Those two are certainly better than swallowing whatever swill we are handed or sitting on our hands either hopelessly or indifferently, pretending that nothing political is bad unless I am on the immediate receiving end of hurt. But we have to be connected back to the encounter with Christ. Jesus has this way about Him: He operates in reality. As we give ourselves to follow Him, He leads us through our realities and we have real opportunity to impact our corner of the world.

And how does He do that? Well, you'll have to wait a few weeks for the text, then come to School of Community and we'll talk about it.

Political Ramblings

Something has been brewing within me for the last many months and has taken on a new life in this calendar year. And that something is a growing political awareness. Oh, my husband has been into politics since his childhood, and I could claim that my interest is all about having something to talk about with him, but really that's not true. If I had to characterize our respective interests in politics, I'd see his as more of a sport and mine as more of an artistic expression.

I strongly dislike partisan politics, and even though I am a registered Republican and even an officer of a Republican club, I do not have warm fuzzy feelings about the Republican party. I make great flirtatious overtures toward the Libertarians. Let's just say I'm deeply enamoured with Ron Paul. I am so grateful for his voice in our country right now.

Part of the reason I write about my political interest as a big deal has to do with experiencing the freedom to express my heart and my convictions. Let's see if I can explain why.

In the past I've felt like there were only two possible sides: current Republicans or current Democrats, and I felt compelled to take sides with "the good guys," as if standing for the right to life expunged all other lapses in judgment one might make. A few months ago I realized what a grave error that is, and how stupid I was to simply gulp down everything done by Republicans as good medicine. Part of the reason I was not always thinking critically about what was happening was out of fear of looking bad to my friends. What, am I 13? I made fun of people falling in "lock step" with a political view, but in fact I was doing it myself.

Because the right to life has always been so central in my political reasoning, I have usually thought only in terms of whether or not a candidate is pro-life in my consideration for voting. So, for example, I supported George Bush over Al Gore and John Kerry. However, let me whisper something in your ear. I actually believe that George Bush completely lost his mind by the end of his presidency, if he hadn't lost it significantly earlier. I had been very iffy on supporting the war and opposed it in my gut when it started. But I was willing to give GW the benefit of the doubt, which does not seem to have paid off well. His educational policy I never supported at all. His spending, with the final fiasco of the October bailout, was insane. I can see these things now and say them with much clearer judgment. Yes, Bush upheld and protected a lot of pro-life legislation, and that was good. But these other matters were not inconsequential little tidbits.

I need to keep learning and watching as reality unfolds before us. I need to speak and work from my passions and my intelligence, and not ignore reality or stuff my life under a bushel basket that I imagine someone else will take care of.

There are a lot of scary bills afoot and a lot of appointments being made of people with unpleasant records. This is reality. However, to view politics as my personal crusade against evil is a recipe for quick burnout and disillusionment. Surely, my best efforts can't save the world. I'm under no illusions that that's what my efforts are for. My efforts are about living in obedience to and love of my Lord and God, Jesus Christ. My efforts are to be acts of charity towards others who stand to be adversely affected by any given legislation. My efforts are to live as a human. Once efforts devolve into a political battle for power, said battle is lost. It must be about the good of individuals. Part of what is good for all of us as individuals is to use our minds, our humanity, and the rights our government still currently recognizes to do the best we can for each other.

Obama Overturns Mexico City Policy

President Obama today sign[ed] an order that will put hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars into the hands of organizations that aggressively promote abortion as a population-control tool in the developing world. The rest.

What Can You Call a Post Like This...

A lot has happened since my last post.

Wednesday morning I figured I'd gulp deep and dip into my dwindling store of pregnancy tests I bought off ebay. Two lines! That means positive. Part of me, the intellectual, fact-based part, was not completely surprised. But the part that responds spontaneously to joyful news was completely shocked and unable to respond. I think my last go-around with two lines on a test had something to do with that. That and all the rest of my history of struggling with infertility.

By Wednesday afternoon I was starting to accept this reality, starting to really warm up to thinking about the personhood of this new life.

And then late in the afternoon I started bleeding. Just a bit.

So, blah blah blah, all that stuff about bleeding being common, no cause for alarm at least half the time, yada yada, all that again.

I woke up at 4:30 this morning, which gave me plenty of time to coordinate myself to get to my OB's for a blood draw. Of course, I don't get results until tomorrow, and they don't mean anything until I can compare them with another blood draw Saturday.

My children went to visit friends, and another friend arranged to bring dinner by. I napped. I woke up to cramping and a bit heavier bleeding.

An hour or so later, I finally started to believe that the test Wednesday morning had really been positive, and that I had been only lightly bleeding before that. I'm not sure what I believe now. Actually, to be honest of course I do. I believe that this baby too has died or will shortly.

At one point this afternoon, I asked Mary Olivia (baby previously lost) to pray for us. All at once I felt great peace, and I remembered: even though I had chosen the name Olivia after a relative who had recently died, I was later struck by its meaning -- peace. The olive branch of peace. And peace is what came into my life after the incredibly short sojourn of Mary Olivia. I had been very anxious to conceive again before that, but afterwards I began to know peace about it.

I told this baby about all the people longing to see her face, but that surely Mary Olivia would be willing to wait awhile to meet her.

But what can I do. I can state my desire, I can pray, but I can't know. Soon enough I will, and whether we keep the gift of sorrow or the gift of life, there's something there with great meaning, for what life is without it?

Just please pray for us so that for my children's sake we can celebrate the Nativity without me, or despite me being a hormonal mess.

Adopting Children with Down's Syndrome

Tripp's voice still cracks when he recalls a line of poetry the couple chose for Jonny's birth announcement before knowing about the disability:
"God's gifts put man's best dreams to shame."

Read the whole account here.

Make sure to read this news article as well about a new proposed law to try to curb the insanely high abortion rate among mothers whose baby has been diagnosed with Down's and other conditions. A critic of the law states that allowing such children to be adopted would be "cruel" to potential parents.

Lord, have mercy.

About that Battle of Lepanto...

I have a cold that I'd been keeping at bay, but this evening it has exploded upon me. So, more than usual I am piecing my thoughts together as I say, or write, them. So, bear with me.

In my poking around the internet throughout the day (and since last night) I've found a variety of reactions to Obama's victory, as I'm sure you have too. The ones that concern me the most are the ones that express fear or despair or a certain sense about divine judgment. Let me just say up front that I understand what it feels like to work hard for a campaign or to be highly emotionally invested, and then lose. I know there is just so much a human body can take before wanting to just cry or moan or throw something or get depressed. As a temporary emotional or physiological reaction, I understand these things. And we do have cause to be very concerned about what could pass into law, particularly FOCA, with the Democrats controlling the entire federal government. And, as I heard Scott Hahn repeat so often in my grad school and employment days, God's judgment generally takes the form of allowing us to have what we ask for.

Here's my concern, if I can finally spit it out: "We the people" are in a bit of a mess, regardless of who sits in the Oval Office. The man in that chair can do a lot of bad, and probably can do some real good, too. But mostly I think the President reflects the nation, and the aspirations of the nation.

Wait, let me try this approach. You've heard, I suppose, about the battle of Lepanto. Kids in our neighborhood dressed as soldiers from the battle of Lepanto for Halloween. I've always heard it billed as the occasion when the meager number of Christian troops defeated the attacking Muslim invaders by means of praying the rosary. So, many have adapted this in praying for this election cycle, for example.

I'm not in the least against praying the rosary, praying for elections, praying for Muslims or praying for victory in spiritual battles. But. I read another account of this battle that has really got me thinking. It is from the book The Discovery of Freedom by Rose Wilder Lane. To summarize in a somewhat choppy, cold-befogged way, her rendering of this battle went like this: Islam, which had embraced the truth that man is free (i.e. created by and responsible unto God, but not under any dictatorship, human or divine) until about the 13th century, had recently (in 1571) become dominated by the Turks of the Ottoman Empire. The Turks, unlike the earlier Arab Muslims, had no concept of man being created for freedom. They held the "pagan" belief that the universe is a closed system, that creation is "finished," that change is impossible, and that God determines an exact role for man which is enforced by a some pagan representative and out of which man may not escape. Contrast this with the Christians involved in this battle. They, she holds, had a lived experience of freedom (primarily because of Saracen influence in Spain and Italy). And it was this the Turks were bent on stamping out. If you follow my rambling attempt to draw out this comparison, what I'm saying is the picture Lane gives is Lepanto was a battle of "Authority" against "Freedom" -- as she understands these terms. (Oh, go read the book for yourself. Please!)

Ok, here, really, is what I'm trying to say. Let us not live as pagans who believe the government is our master, or the answer for, or the menace to, our lives! We belong to Christ, who reveals to us the Father! We need order, yes. I'm not advocating anarchy. But brothers and sisters, human beings are free. What I understand that to mean as I say that right now is that God has created us and bids us live. But His proposal is so, so, so, infinitely more than winding up a clock and watching it go! He has revealed Himself. He has given His life for us to share. He is the Redeemer of the world, and we are there with Him. He sends forth His Spirit to recreate the face of the earth, and guess whom He sends it to and through?!?! We are not called to have our eyes fixed on some human thing, whimpering like a puppy and saying "Mother may I?" What saint do you know of who said "Oh dear, the government is not letting me be holy. Shucks, I'll just hide here for better days ahead, or run over there where I'll be safer." No. The saint lives with God here, now -- where and whatever here and now happen to entail.

If we are honest as we pray remembering the battle of Lepanto, the first thing we need to pray for is our own knowledge of what it means to be free, and what it means to be the agent of the God of Freedom. We need to purge from our hearts the paganism Lane describes.

Fifty points for everyone who made it to the end of this post. I feel like my head will explode. Sorry for the wordiness, but it gives me an excuse to come back and be more concise about this again later.

Audrey Santo and the meaning of a human life

Perhaps like me you've been vaguely aware of the story of Little Audrey Santo. Tonight I was reminded of her again, and learned that she passed away last year at the age of 23. She is now being considered for beatification and canonization.

From her funeral homily: The primeval question Audrey embodies for all humanity to see, to ponder, to confront and to resolve—regardless of creed or culture, regardless of race or religion, regardless of class or nationality—is “Who counts?” Read the rest of this profoundly challenging message here.

Lost in Translation

Today our town had a Life Chain. I had another obligation, but the rest of my family participated. I couldn't help but think about one of the first Life Chains in which I took part. It was a cold and grey afternoon and a sharp wind bit at us as we stood along one of the main highways in Milwaukee. I was with my "fellows" from Risen Savior Fellowship, and we were intent on praying against the evil of abortion, and doing spiritual warfare for the hearts and minds of passersby. A woman not of our group turned to me after one fierce gust of wind and, shivering, said "This is a good penance, isn't it?"

I don't know what my face looked like in response to her, but I felt like I'd just seen a green faced person with three heads. Penance? What are you -- one of those Catholics who think God loves us to be miserable?

We may think or speak of our prayer or action differently, but let us all -- Christians, people of faith and people of good will -- respect life and work to bring that respect to all the world's vulnerable.

Yet Another Serious Reason to Avoid Socialized Medicine

Baroness Warnock: Dementia sufferers may have a "duty to die"

The veteran Government adviser said pensioners in mental decline are "wasting people's lives" because of the care they require and should be allowed to opt for euthanasia even if they are not in pain.

She insisted there was "nothing wrong" with people being helped to die for the sake of their loved ones or society.

The 84-year-old added that she hoped people will soon be "licensed to put others down" if they are unable to look after themselves.

Read the rest here

Baby Factory Open for Business

This development is astonishing. The people of Poland stand in need of our prayers.