sign me up

Recently I decided to be more open to what God might have in store for me. I wasn't foolish enough to ask for "signs," but I definitely put it out there that I needed more than vague insinuations. Sometimes I feel like God is little too much like the scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz. "I'd go that way if I were you!" He says, then points in another direction when we're not looking.

Anyway, I'm feeling, more intensely than usual, a desire to make more of this life. But what is this "more" made of? What does it look like? What do I look like when I'm doing it?

This morning I received my monthly edition of The Catholic Journalist. I receive it because currently that is what I am, and it comes free with my membership in the Catholic Press Association. I flipped through casually, forgetting my recent plea to the Lord that He use everything I see to push me in the general direction of His will for my life.

The center spread was eye-catching. It featured a prominent box with the words "Column Logos"; beneath it I spotted a profound, telling, significant icon. A TYPO! A typo in my professional journal! It made me giddy; a sign of imperfection, proof that other actual human beings produced it and lived to tell.

I got up to share it with a coworker, laughing about the fact that though we worked hard to be professional (a.k.a. perfect) there were always errors. I strive to avoid errors, but I'm also of the stripe that recognizes them to be forgivable signs of a common humanity.

As I pointed out the mistake, my eye was drawn to the center of the page. There, in full color, was a picture of me.

This is not a symbolic statement, guys. I mean, it was my real, actual face!

The spread featured ways Catholic media outlets identify their opinion columns, and the header from my page in the magazine I edit was included. OMG is this a sign from GOD?????

Um, well, I dunno. I thought it was pretty cool, because I'm vain, and I like to think they included it because they liked it. Is it, however, a sign that I'm the best editor ever or that I'm destined for glory?

Probably not.

I took a minute to look at it as if I had never seen it before, and what impressed me most was the scripture. Of the 21 designs presented, including columns from priests, bishops, scholars, moms, pundits, and other editors, mine was the only one that included a verse.

Be transformed by the renewal of your mind. Romans 12:2.

There it was, in black and white. With nary a typo.

I had chosen the scripture when we did a redesign some time ago. It's a favorite verse, one that has driven me time and again to the truth of the power of my thinking to change my reality, or at least my perception of it.

Today, it was a simple reminder, if not a sign. "Cathy," it said unambiguously, "Be transformed." How? "By the renewal of your mind."

So I must change, and if I don't know quite into what just yet, at least there's this: I know how to begin.

unimaginable

A guest post by my son Luke, age 11.

It's silent; it's cold; it's dark. I gaze off over the garage, through the snowy branches of the damp trees, to see the man in the moon looking down and telling me, "You are unimaginable."

I walk outside and with every step my feet get colder, wetter, and numb. I imagine everything as tundra, and my house is a shack. There is a small frozen lake with a hole in the center to fish. I see the last birds travel south for the winter; just a few; cold, tired, just waiting to land in Florida, where they sit on a pole looking out at the ocean. So warm there, but below zero here. I wish I could be there; I wish I could sip a cold glass of lemonade on a lawn chair; I wish I could just jump up and fly away, and be secluded, isolated from everyone else, and fly, just fly, until I cross the ocean, then cross Africa, even Asia, and fly over the world.

It's silent. It's beautiful.

Jacob's Lighthouse

She wasn't entirely certain, at first, if this was Jacob's lighthouse, but she was willing to wager it might be.

It seemed to her, that from a distance, all lighthouses looked pretty much alike. They were like golden retrievers. From a few yards, they all looked silken and gilded and similar. Up close, they had unique noses, and some even smiled. Lighthouses didn't ever smile, of course, but they all stood straight and tall and were white, and only sometimes red.

Jacob's lighthouse was on the end of a fairly short pier that struck out at a regular angle into Lake Michigan, or more specifically, into the bay at St. Joseph's. Benton Harbor was the town on the other side.

She had visited once or twice before, on summer days. She remembered spending half a day or so there, when all of the children still lived at home. There were only six then. It might have been the summer she was expecting number seven. Maybe that was why the walk out on the pier seemed exceedingly dangerous. It was windy, and the cement was slick, having been washed clean by waves that morning. Authorities had opened the pier and assured visitors it was safe to venture out. But she had held Luke, the littlest, extra tight, and scolded the bigger boys when they went too close to the edge. Aaron had gone ahead, as he always did, reaching the lighthouse long before she felt safe. It was a role he had always taken in their marriage, and she tensed in the remembering, then relaxed, recalling that they had remained, through grace, safe.

She remembered that later, they had taken photographs on the nearby beach. It was a cloudy day, and the children's tan faces were golden against the gray. She wanted to capture the moment, in its imperfection and beauty, and keep it forever. It felt fragile and temporary. So unlike the lighthouse that Jacob, her great, great-grandfather, had maintained decades before.

Now she saw the lighthouse again. Not just in a new light, but in a new season. It was winter. It wasn't just, however, any winter. It was the coldest, bitterest winter that had touched the Midwest in years. This day a record was set. Forecasters predicted that the temperature in some areas might only rise to zero. The lighthouse wasn't merely snow-covered. It was encapsulated in ice. Crystals reached out, building one upon the next, forming icy tendrils that connected to the pier below. It was terrifying. And breathtakingly beautiful.

She had never seen it quite this way, and it moved her deeply.

Now, in this season, on the bitterest of days, a part of her past reached out to her and touched her unexpectedly. She had never met Jacob, and could only wonder at what his life had been like. She had gone to the lighthouse on that summer day because that is what people do: they seek landmarks and legacies, and they try to leave them.

She was creating her own that summer day. Even though the child she carried beneath her heart wouldn’t live for more than a few months, she too would leave a unique mark; a sign; a signal; a light as bold as any ever emitted from any beacon in any port, in any season.

She smiled and touched the computer screen. The image of Jacob's lighthouse had been captured by a photographer she'd likely never meet. It was posted online by a friend that chance had brought to her, a friend she had never embraced in person but a friend, a light, nonetheless.

Jacob's lighthouse stood frozen, elegant and beautiful, cold and far away, yet close. She would return there someday, and walk out on the pier, unafraid.

Today, she took the first step.

See the photos of Jacob's lighthouse here.

note to self

Dear One,

So, the holidays are over, and you are left with some extra gifts in the form of pounds.

It's OK.

You ate a few too many of those really good cookies that Joey baked. You went back - twice - to get that yummy special-purchase salami with Chianti wine - and you ate the whole thing in one sitting.

Everyone knows you like wine, so it was so thoughtful of them to buy you several bottles for your birthday and Christmas. You didn't drink it all alone. You shared it with friends and family, and you toasted love. It was good. So are you - really.

So you put on a few pounds. That doesn't make you a criminal. Isn't it nice to feel this way, maybe for the first time ever? That is was OK to indulge and eat some special treats, because most of the time you feed yourself healthful foods in a responsible manner? I mean, really. Stop and think about it. You can TRUST yourself to take care of yourself. You've been taking care of everyone else for decades. You know how to do this. You ARE doing it, and you are going to be just fine.

So drink a few glasses of water. Have some fruit and a few extra veggies. If you want to, have a protein shake and some of that vitamin enriched green stuff. But don't get out the emotional weapons of self-destruction and start whipping yourself. Be kind to yourself. Take a walk. Have a cup of tea. Read that book you've been wanting to read. Listen to some beautiful music. Wear pants with an elastic waist for a few days. It's no big deal.


No one loves you less because you're wearing stretchy pants today. In fact, they might like you better, because if you are too perfect, you make life seem too hard. I know that if you trust yourself, and those who love you, you will find goodness this year. You will become the healthier, happier person you know you can be, regardless of what size jeans you are rocking.


You are loved, and you love. That is what others see when they look at you - not what pants you are wearing or how you've filled them out.


It's a new, wonderful year. Look outside. The snow is falling softly, covering everything in a clean, pure blanket. It's a cool, blank slate. Start fresh. Breathe the chilled air and thank God you have another year to live well.

"Fear is useless; what is needed is TRUST." Luke 8:50, Mark 5:36

weightless

About six or eight weeks ago, my daughter took away my bathroom scale.

Rather unceremoniously, she took it out of my bathroom, put it in the trunk of her car, and drove off. I think it’s still there, beneath jumper cables and grocery bags. I wonder if it misses me stepping on it three or four times a day. I missed it at first, but now that my habit has been broken, I’m not sure I want to be reunited.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve struggled with my weight/body image/scale addiction. They are not all the same thing, and I’m still discovering how they are all connected. According to the charts, I’m overweight, maybe even obese. (I don’t know for sure without that trusty scale.) I’ve been normal on occasion, but according to said charts, doctors, Weight Watchers, people on the internet, and the whole wide world, I’ve been fat for most of my life, and I’m fat now. OK. That’s just the way it is.

Body image is another story. There’s no chart that you can look at that tells you how to feel about yourself. I can be fat and happy or skinny and sad. I can think I look OK and then see a photo of myself or catch a glimpse in a mirror and decide that I don’t deserve to be fed. I know people who are much larger than I am who have wonderful confident attitudes; they love their bodies. I know of very slim, fit women who struggle every day with self-hatred. It’s a complex issue, rooted in ultimately in our sense of truth, beauty, and love.

The scale was simply the tool I used to link the data and the image. It was my barometer of self-worth.

If my weight was down, I was happy. When it went up, I was devastated. It meant that I was not good enough. I was such an out-of-control beast that I couldn’t even do this one thing right. I was a failure.

I was powerless.

I have often told my husband that this struggle is less about what others think of me and more about power and control, and he always asks me “Why do you have to have control?” This enrages me. How dare I try to have control of anything! Who do I think I am? What kind of woman thinks she has any right to be empowered about anything?

Yes, I said woman. I do believe this is a feminist issue, and I am an authentic feminist. Some men, many gay, suffer from these issues as well, and I don’t downplay their suffering, but I’m writing as a woman here. As a woman I am sick to death of this. I am tired of wanting with every fiber of my being to be something I cannot be. I am exhausted with my obsessions. I am so over weighing every particle of food and counting every calorie, because even though they tell you at Weight Watchers that this is normal behavior, IT IS NOT. It is not normal to write down every crumb you eat, and use a measuring cup to count the ounces of wine you drink. It’s nonsense. It’s not normal to weigh yourself every day – or even once a week at their meeting – and base your happiness on that number. It’s not healthy to deny yourself birthday cake on your child’s birthday, or bring raw veggies to parties so you can eat them while everyone else has pizza.

I’m writing this today because a part of me wants the scale back. I have probably put on a couple pounds since it left me, and I’m scared. I’m scared that I will become even fatter, fatter every day; that I will become so fat that I become invisible. I fear that this will happen even though I actually eat very well and exercise, because without the scale to tell me to hate myself, how will I remember?

Some part of me knows the truth, the big truth that I am not my body, and that this shell that contains Me will never be adequate to reflect the wonder of who I really am.

But I am still seeking power. What if I could grasp the power that I already have, as a child of God? What if I recognized that fat or thin, young and beautiful or aging and wrinkled, I am worthy of love? What if I focused on my inner beauty (i.e., the fitness of my soul) instead of the circumference of my waist?

I’m not there yet. I am vain and I’ve been deeply influenced by years of cultural influence. I’ve allowed the image of feminine physical beauty to be my benchmark. But I am willing to experiment with a new idea. Might I be enough as I am?

For now I will avoid the scale. Maybe eventually I will forget about it. Maybe I will find new ways to measure success, power, and worth.

You cannot gather those things in your arms and hold them close, so that they will register when you stand naked, waiting to be judged. You can only release them and wonder at how light you feel when you finally stop trying to grasp them, and let them go.

(I stole the title for this post from my friend Kate's book. I'm in the dedication so I didn't think she'd mind. Go to her site to learn more.)

I carry her heart

The other night someone I barely know told me her abortion story.

I was at an appointment and this person was the tech taking care of me. I see her about once a year, and when she asked me what was new, I told her I now had seven grandchildren with another on the way. This led to a discussion of how many children I had. At first I said I have six, not mentioning Celeste. But as the conversation progressed, and she mentioned a family member who was expecting at age 40, I said that I too had a baby at that age. I briefly shared the fact that my daughter had only lived for four months, and that despite her challenges she was a huge blessing in my life.

I've had many responses to Celeste’s story, but I won’t forget this one.

When I said that Celeste had a heart defect, I could tell her interest was piqued, and she wanted to ask more. When I said that I didn't know about the defect until my baby’s birth – that it had not been detected by ultrasound – she said, “If you had known, would you have terminated?” I responded quickly with the truth, “absolutely not! Heavens no.”

Then she asked if I had suspected anything was wrong during my pregnancy. When I said that I hadn't she started to talk quickly, eagerly sharing her story.
“I had a pregnancy once,” she began. “I knew something was wrong, and even though my doctor told me everything was fine, I just felt like something was off, so she ordered another ultrasound.” She laughed. “Well, you know, Mom knows best and all that.”

I started wondering where this story was going. I had just told her that my daughter had died after we removed her life support, after discovering she had brain damage, after watching her suffer through numerous illnesses, after navigating the emotional roller coaster of a possible transplant.

“Well wouldn't you know,” she went on. “The baby wasn't forming right. I looked at it on the ultrasound, and it looked like it had a hole in its heart.”

I started to feel a little dizzy. I thought about Celeste and the holes in her heart. I also thought of the many babies I've heard of who were born with holes in their heart, who are now grown up healthy adults.

“They told me that I probably wouldn't abort spontaneously, but of course I knew what I had to do,” she sighed. “I felt so bad, but you know, I couldn't imagine looking at it and seeing that….They told me that some people would say this was an abortion, for religious reasons, but , well…. I did go to some counseling about it. I used to feel really bad. My husband wasn't as upset as I was. But you know, the mom is a mom right away. The dads don’t really connect until they hold that baby.”

Essentially, she said this: "You just told me the story of your much-loved child, and how her life was difficult yet such a blessing. If I had a child like that,I would have killed her. In fact, I did."

That sounds and feels like madness.

I didn't know what to say or do, so I did and said nothing. I just sat there, numb, while she continued her work, telling me the story of the baby she aborted because “it” wasn't perfect, because “it” might suffer, because “it” might die soon after birth. We went on to talk about how much ultrasounds could detect nowadays, and how cool it is to see a 3-D one.

I am not surprised that she had an abortion. Nor am I surprised that she convinced herself that she didn't. I am sure this caused her a good deal of suffering, and no matter what you might think, I don’t think she is a horrible human being. I do not judge her; while I don’t know her well, my gut tells me she is a genuine woman who truly meant to make the right choice. She had been lied to by medical professionals and the culture and pretty much the whole world. She had believed the great lie that suffering is the enemy.

I am simply horrified that my telling of Celeste’s story may have somehow confirmed her belief that she “did the right thing.” I am sick thinking that somehow the fact that my daughter suffered and died at a young age meant that I should have ended it before her birth, limiting our collective pain.

I wanted to tell her that despite Celeste’s sufferings, I do not regret for one moment that she lived. Every human being who is allowed to be born will suffer – even those of us whose hearts arrive intact. I wish I had had the presence of mind to tell her that.

Instead I mumbled an apology for bringing up something that might have made her uncomfortable. I said a silent prayer, a plea for mercy for myself and this woman and for all of us here on this planet who don’t seem to know how to love. I offered up my agony for a couple I know of whose two month old baby died last week.

Then I thanked God that my daughter died in my arms and that I was able to bury her precious body in our family plot. I thanked God that I had been given what is apparently an extraordinary grace – the grace to suffer with my daughter at the foot of her cross.

When I first met this woman I liked her right away. She is kind and has cared for me very patiently more than once. I still like her, and I’m reminded I need to love her. And pray for her.

I write this not so that we can all sit back and judge her and say that I’m so much better because I chose to let my child die a natural death. I write this because there are holes in my heart, too, and writing sometimes helps me patch them. Despite my brokenness, I’m still breathing, even though it seems like I shouldn't be sometimes. I pray that she and I can forgive and be forgiven and heal. And really think about what it means to suffer, to live – and most of all, to love.




[i carry your heart with me(i carry it in]

e.e. cummings

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

marriage, rotting corpses, and true love

It’s wedding season, and despite the fact that more than half of the couples who marry this summer will someday divorce, countless couples will dive right in. There is buzz that tomorrow, the Supreme Court will make a decision about whether or not same-sex couples have the right to marry. All this, and the fact that I am married, in and out of season, has me thinking about marriage today.

One of my favorite bloggers compared marriage to a rotting corpse in her post today. Ooh, that’s gross. Bizarre. And also true. Read what she wrote and come back, so we can talk about what she said here:

Marriage changes you. Marriage requires that you give things up, forsake all others, step through that door to the other side. Marriage requires that you die, and that you look death in the face and let it happen. When you marry, you cannot preserve your radical independence. You cannot preserve the idea that your needs and wants come first. You cannot pretend that you are a solitary person anymore.

Hey, I thought marriage was all about “love.” Isn’t that what everyone’s saying? That couples who “love” each other should have the right to marry, regardless of gender?
Let’s talk about love.

Leaving the same-sex debate for another day, I’d like to propose a radical concept.

Most of us haven’t the faintest idea what love is.

When I married my husband almost 27 years ago, I thought I loved him. I mean, he was sweet, kind, and attractive. We had fun together. Spending the rest of our lives together seemed like a fine idea at the time. We were “in love.”

But we didn’t know a thing about love.

Thinking about getting married? Want to know what love is about?

Maybe a rotting corpse is a grotesque example,but damn, it’s brutal, this love thing. Like Simcha said, it’s about death, people. It’s about dying to your very self, about putting the needs of your spouse in front of your own. It’s about forgiving, over and over and over again. It’s about recalling that you did not marry this person because it was going to be nice, fun, rewarding, or pleasant, although there will be times when it is all those things. If you are really loving your spouse, you are intentionally striving for that person’s salvation, whatever the cost.

You are also united into one flesh. One flesh doesn’t have two heads, two hearts, two wills. One flesh is one. If I am one, I hurt when my spouse hurts. I struggle when he struggles. When he sins, I repent with him, and I bear the results of his sin in my own soul. If he stops growing, so do I. If he is far from God, can I really say that I am close?

When I am loved by my spouse, I am cared for intimately. When seen through the eyes of love, I am beautiful – not necessarily as I am now, in my imperfection. My spouse loves me as he loves himself, and he sees in me possibility. He sees the wo(man) I can become.

I cannot, in my wildest imagination, dream of a scenario in which this would be possible without Grace.

This summer, brides will walk down aisles to grooms who will promise to cherish them, to be faithful to them, to lay down their lives for them. Many of them will fail. Many of us fail every day.

But miraculously, through Grace, we can “succeed” at marriage. (Success in marriage means, of course, we shall get each other to heaven, right?) We can only do this by death, the figurative and literal kind. We can only stay married, find a peace and even joy in it, if we look at the crucifix and say, “Yes. I am going to love. like. that.”

So first, we die. We die to self. We accept the horrible fallen state we are in, that we are sinners who will hurt each other again and again, and we will look at our other half, our image, the rest of our self, our spouse, and instead of asking, “Am I loved?” we will ask, “Do I love?”

That’s all that really matters, isn’t it?

the yellow bowl

I pride myself on the fact that I am not attached to many material things.

If asked, "Your house is on fire, and you can only grab a few things. What would you take?" I used to answer that all I needed were my photo albums, as everything else could be replaced. Now that most of my photos are somewhere in "the cloud," I say I need nothing.

It has come to my attention lately that I have been lying to myself.

Years ago, perhaps in my first year of marriage, I bought a yellow bowl at a garage sale. It was pretty much like the one pictured above. It was in great condition, and I paid 10 cents for it, took it home, and didn't think much about it.

Then I used that bowl, for the next two and a half decades. I used it mostly when mixing pancakes or a batch of cookies. And always for birthday cakes. I'm not good at math, but I had seven children, so that's quite a few cakes over the years.

The yellow bowl stood for something good and meaningful. It stood for Sunday morning. It represented the times when Mom threw caution to the wind and made chocolate chip cookies, even though she knew she would eat a lot of dough and that was NOT on the diet. It meant cakes sometimes made from scratch, but mostly from a mix, because it was easier and that's what the kids prefer, anyway. It meant little children begging for the spatula, children with chocolate smiles who needed to lick that bowl!

A month or so ago the rubber ring on the bottom of the bowl disintegrated. Beneath it was a mess of moldy yuckiness. Without the ring, the bowl slid around the counter, making it no longer practical. So in a sensible, practical move I non-ceremoniously threw the bowl in the trash and went on with my day.

I can't stop thinking about that bowl.

I imagine it in a landfill somewhere, wondering why it's not on my counter, playing a starring role on a special occasion.

I see the faces of my children around me, begging for a taste or frosting or asking if they can have the first pancake.

I'm overwhelmed with nostalgic longing. I'm overcome with the realization that something so simple could mean so much to me.

My google search for images made it clear that this "vintage find" might be available for purchase if I keep an eye out for it. Sadly, there is no replacing that bowl. A counterfeit could never take its place.

Instead I have begun to train myself, yet again, to "keep all these things, and reflect on them in my heart." Children grow up; they grow up and venture out into the world, and our motherly hearts break a little each day with the realization. Sometimes I have to catch my breath when I allow myself to think about it. I am teaching them, intentionally, to no longer need me. They are transforming before my eyes - and their growth is utterly and completely out of my control. The world will be unkind to them, and they will suffer. They will stand at my elbow, asking for a taste of something good, for such a short while.

Like the yellow bowl, I will do my job and then, eventually, be all used up.

I hope I do my job as well as that bowl did. I hope I will be a memory to my children of one who held and offered good things, who fed them, and who was a part of every celebration.

Goodbye, my yellow friend. Thank you for the lessons - and the pancakes.

meeting Julian

I wish this post was about meeting my new grandson. But no, he has not yet arrived. Soon.

It is instead about my growing fascination with Julian of Norwich. Let me tell you how we met.

I'm one of those people who could spend hours looking at a dictionary, when I only picked it up to find the proper spelling of "broccoli" (is it two "c's" or two "l's?")or the right way to pronounce "aegis." I get distracted, quite easily. All of those lovely words, with their spellings, pronunciations and meanings! How delicious! So much to learn! Same for encyclopedias. Remember those? Whenever I referred to one, say to begin my social studies essay on the dwellings of the Navajo tribe, I was soon so caught up in reading about navigation and nativities that I forgot all about natives.

Then along came the internet.

You may have noticed that the internet has lots of interesting information on it. There is also a lot of highly disposable garbage, and way too many pictures of kittens and Tan Mom. But anyway. There is TOO MUCH THERE. For someone who likes to learn new things, and feels that every interaction, IRL or virtual, is fraught with meaning, this can be overwhelming.

So back to Julian.

Somebody somewhere someday posted something on the internet about her, and I saw it. It was a few months ago - maybe I was searching for information when my son chose this name for his son? - and I was drawn into articles about her writings. And then yesterday there she was again, in my Facebook newsfeed. For Lutherans and Anglicans, May 8 is her feast day. Unofficially, May 13 is when Catholics honor her. I really liked the icon of her with the cat, and so once again I googled and got sucked into the Great Encycopedia of the World Wide Web (does anyone call it that anymore?)

Blessed Julian of Norwich lived during the horrible years of the Black Plague, never left her "cell," and experienced visions of Jesus and Mary. We have ever so much in common, you can see why we are now besties! You can read more about her here or here, where I did and understood with certainty that this time, for real, I was coming across someone God put in my path for a reason.

Because you certainly have more important things to do, I'll just leave you with a few of her quotes that reminded me that no, I am not the first person to think of these things.

"He loves us and enjoys us, and so he wills that we love him and enjoy him, and firmly trust him; and all shall be well." (Her best known quote is usually worded thus: "All shall be well and all shall be well and all manner of things shall be well." She was an optimist.)

"Our soul rests in God its true peace, our soul stands in God its true strength, and is deep-rooted in God for endless love."

"He is our clothing. In his love he wraps and holds us. He enfolds us for love and will never let us go."

 "Flee to our Lord and we shall be comforted. Touch him and we shall be made clean. Cling to him and we shall be safe and sound from every kind of danger. For our courteous Lord wills that we should be at home with him as heart may think or soul may desire."

"Prayer fastens the soul to God, making it one with his will through the deep inward working of the Holy Spirit. So he says this, 'Pray inwardly, even though you feel no joy in it. For it does good, though you feel nothing, see nothing, yes, even though you think you cannot pray. For when you are dry and empty, sick and weak, your prayers please me, though there be little enough to please you. All believing prayer is precious in my sight.' God accepts the good-will and work of his servants, no matter how we feel." (This really speaks to me. I am a horrible pray-er. I have even been known to say I don't believe in the "power" of prayers of petition - at least not if we are looking for a "yes.")

And my current favorite, one I feel I can hang on to like a life raft these days: "He did not say 'You shall not be tempest-tossed, you shall not be work-weary, you shall not be discomforted.' But he did say, 'You shall not be overcome.' God wants us to heed these words so that we shall always be strong in trust, both is sorrow and in joy."

So there it is. God loves us. He listens to our prayers. He wants the best for us.

And everything's going to be OK.

old enough

Last night, I dreamed my hair was falling out.

I kept reaching around to the back of my head and retrieving long, golden blonde locks. I placed them gently in a box lined with white fabric. I asked someone for a mirror, and I looked at the back of my head. I could see that I had a very bad haircut, and I perceived that I had done it myself. It was strange - all short in the back around the crown, but long in the front. I kept pulling out hair and it kept getting thinner and thinner...I felt incredibly sad, but I kept saying how pretty the hair in the box was, and how I hadn't noticed that before.

It doesn't take a master dream analyst to figure this one out.

I'm getting old, and it frightens and me.

When I was young, I never thought I was pretty, not even a little bit. It just didn't occur to me. I was smart, kind, funny and creative. But not attractive. My nose was short and chubby, as were my legs. I had brown eyes, not blue. I was not thin enough, or blonde enough, or tall enough. I was not enough.

But I was young.

Now, it occurs to me, daily, that I am not young any more. There is plenty of evidence to support this. I am closer to 50 than 40. I have wrinkles and age spots and arthritis. Soon my FIFTH grandchild will be born.

I would like to say that I am OK with this. I used to say that being one year older beats the alternative, which since I can't get younger is obviously being dead. But I'm admitting that lately I feel depressed and panicky about it all, perhaps because even thought the years are flying by, I don't feel one bit wiser. Just older.

When I dreamed of the hair falling around me, and of being surprised at its beauty, I felt wistful for the youth I squandered. Isn't that always how it goes? We don't know what we have until it is gone. I might have even been pretty, once upon a time, but I didn't even know it.

So what am I missing now?

So I'm getting older, so what? Why does youth and beauty seem so precious to me, when I know it should not matter? Like most women, I've fallen for the lie that youth and physical beauty are what gives us worth. The other day my 91 year old father told me I looked old, at least 55. And I let his comment eat away at me. This all makes me so gullible and stupid that I just can't stand myself. For heaven's sake.

If I spend another minute missing the young girl I was, I might not get to know the woman I've become.

I've been married to the same man for over 25 years, and I must say happily so. Together we've raised six children (still in progress!) and have sent one off to Heaven.

I'm still smart, kind, funny and creative.

I've raised one son that worked hard and saved enough money to buy his first car yesterday. My two youngest boys hug me every day and tell me they love me. Every day. My daughters are now wonderful mothers, and my eldest son is about to welcome a son of his own. He can't talk about how much loves his son's mother or his new baby without getting tears in his eyes.

All of my kids go to church, and all but one or two regularly eat vegetables.

Recently, a teenage girl told me that I am one of her role models.

I have a job that allows me to use my talents for the good of others.

I don't need to be young, thin, or pretty to do any of these things - to be the person I need to be. God willing, I have many years ahead of me to understand what is needed of me. I can grow up while I grow older.

I'm might not be young, but I'm young enough. I'm enough.

real love

I don't believe in common miracles, and I neither look for nor expect "signs."

But when I receive a clear message - one that soundly trashes the myth of coincidence - I like to share it.

Palm Sunday ushered in Holy Week; my favorite week of the year. This Lent has been extraordinary. I gave up things I had held tightly to for years. In return, the Lord gave me more than I offered, and I suffered far less than I usually do for those forty days.

On Sunday morning I went to Mass with an expectant, happy heart. In a new way this season, I've felt Jesus loving me personally. Instead of feeling guilt about my ability or inability to give up or take on, I felt peaceful, grateful, and loved. Father's sermon, Franciscan in its simplicity, charmingly delivered with a slight accent (is it Irish? Australian?) touched me deeply. It was, as it should be, about love.

He spoke of the Passion as told by Matthew. We had just read it together, standing too long, fidgeting like children. Father told me after Mass that it was his fifth reading of the Gospel for the weekend. You would never have known.

Father highlighted the sorrow of this version of Jesus' Passion, in particular the loneliness that Our Lord suffered. I was struck especially by his description of the Agony in the Garden. I've often contemplated the garden, and this time I lingered there. We forget sometimes that the first blood of the Passion was spilled in the garden. We forget that some of Jesus' most profound suffering occurred there.

The sermon concluded with an invitation to look at the crucifix and hear what Jesus says from it: I love you. His personal love for me seemed so clear, so overwhelming. I found myself drying tears, something I do so rarely. For years, since I lost her, I have shed so few.

I wiped my eyes and wondered at the joy I felt. It was time for Mass to continue; the collection basket was passed, and we were instructed to open our missals for the offertory hymn. It was then that Jesus gave me a sweet little gift, a reminder that yes, He really did love ME.

Pretty much from nowhere it fell into my lap. Did it fall from the pages of my hymnal? From the collection basket? Had it been there all along? Who knows, but like love, it was just there: a pink heart, the kind a child might have cut from construction paper to give to mommy. A valentine! A reminder of love.


Grinning and crying, I showed it to my husband. "Were you thinking of her?" he asked. I shook my head no; "But she must have been thinking of me." I had been thinking of how much I am loved by God. I realized then that Celeste, who was all about hearts and all things pink, was inextricably tied into my relationship with Jesus. She was an embodiment of His love for me, one of the living examples of his love.

I am amazed by his compassion, his generosity, his kindness. He loves me, and all he did, he did for love.

on contraception and the cross of Church Teaching

There has been a lot of sex talk lately.

Unless you live under a rock, you've heard that there are some "issues" with the Catholic Church and the coverage of contraception indicated by the HHS mandate. Even though I try really, really hard to be quiet on these matters, I have shared a few links and made a few comments on Facebook. OK, more than a few.

I get fired up about things, and this is one of my favorites. It's a high peak on the range of Mountains I Will Die On, a remote and rocky region in which I so frequently find myself. I perch there, usually alone, cold, without a decent jacket or a St. Bernard to take care of me. It's a lonely place, and I'd roll right down if I could. But so often I get all St. Catherine of Siena-y, and shout that "My nature is fire!" and try to tell people, up to and including the Pope if necessary, that they are wrong.

When I was a young teenager, my father would say, "You'd argue with the Good Lord." My response: "Yes, but only if He was being unreasonable."

Anyway.

I don't want to write about contraception today. But I'm going to - this time not to preach at anyone, or to tell you I think it's bad. You already know what the Church says, and you know I believe the Church. OK. Today I want to say something long overdue.

I'm sorry.

I'm sorry if my words have hurt you. I'm sorry if I have made you feel judged. I want so badly to be understood (being Right is a god to me) that I forget sometimes that real, sincere, hurting people read what I write sometimes. And that my words might do nothing but cause them pain.

Regarding contraception and Church teaching, I need to say this. It is a HARD teaching. I was pregnant eight times. I had one miscarriage and gave birth to seven children, including one who died as a baby. I loved and wanted each of my children. And every single time I found out I was pregnant, I felt completely and utterly frightened and freaked out.

I know what it is like to see a positive pregnancy test and think that my life is over. I know what it is like to cry tears of relief and guilt when a late period finally arrives. I know what is like to believe that there is absolutely no way that it is a good idea to have a baby right now.

I also know that NFP is annoying sometimes. It's not always rainbows and butterflies and "Wow, isn't this great for our marriage?". Did I mention it is a HARD TEACHING?

Some Catholic women have been writing lately about how joyful and wonderful the Church teachings are, and how they are a gift to embrace. In fact, I've been one of those women. But it would be a lie to say that I haven't struggled with this. And it would be wrong not to acknowledge that many, many women suffer because of it.

It would also be wrong to judge my Catholic sisters who do not embrace the teaching.

The statistics going around, stating that 98% of Catholic women have used some form of contraception, are being criticized for being inaccurate. I'm no statistician, and I don't know if they're right or not. But ya know what? My experience says the numbers are spot on. When I meet a Catholic woman of childbearing age who is not contracepting (and not related to me), I'm floored. We NFPers are definitely the exception.

And while I stand by the teaching and want others to do the same, I want to make it clear that I'm not judging the many women who aren't there yet. I'm not "there yet" on plenty of things. I just want to let them know that I know how very difficult this is. I have lived it. I'm still living it. It's hard.

But hey, there is hope.

There's Jesus. He's the only reason I even try to follow this teaching or any other. He is the only one who gives me the strength to try. I believe with all my heart that He loves me and wants the best for me. I really do in fact actually believe that the Catholic Church is a gift from Him, and that He wants me to be obedient. I trust Jesus, with my will, not my feelings. I give everything to him, including my fertility and my pride and my selfishness.

Today, I give him any spirit of judgment I have been harboring against other women. What we are called to live as wives and mothers can be a heavy cross.

Wherever we are on the journey, let's not add to one another's burdens. Let's pray for each other, and do our best.