Spiritual

Beliefs: Faith and Social

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I’ve been thinking on this part of this ask for weeks now and the way my mind works this may or may not flow well. One thought led to another one and things expanded from there. This is the portion I’ve concentrated on:

“To be a member of the Roman Catholic church means that you accept that the Pope is infallible when he speaks on matter of faith, and is communicating the the true will of God. That also means that you accept that acting on homosexuality is sinful and disordered, separates one from Christ, and that gay people are called to celibacy, as the Pope has stated.”

 

I know a lot of religious people have opinions on social issues and politics based on their concept of their religious teachings, their interpretation of the Bible and their surroundings (the people they know, their experiences.) I’ve also never heard of homosexuality being ‘disordered’. I’ve also said before that priests were previously allowed to marry, and if not marry, there was an open secret that they had women and children who were acknowledged by the church officials.

I don’t know where along the way there was this mix-up between social, moral, civil lives and faith. I’ve always thought of religion separate from religion. That may be having grown up in the US with the Bill of Rights as my benchmark.

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Summer’s Tail End

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This has been a very busy month.

My middle son missed out on the sign ups for a camp program, so since I didn’t want him spending another week glued to his tablet, we held Camp Mommy while his sister went to her week. We went to Chuck E. Cheese, the park, the comic store, out to a sushi place for lunch, McDonald’s for one of our breakfasts and he came with me to church for three days, which was nice especially since he’s not a big fan.

My oldest son got his driver’s license last week, and has volunteered to get the groceries and drive his brother to his friend’s house. He even got to work on time, which was a tremendous accomplishment!

My daughter went clothes shopping – if anyone lives near a Justice, they’re clearance is 60% and then they take off an additional 40% off! We buy everything too big so that it will still fit next summer! We couldn’t afford to shop their otherwise – they’re prices are way too high.

GISHWHES, information at this link, is over, and went very well. I’ll have a separate wrap up post on that later on.  Preview: Endure4Kindness is coming in mid October. This year, I’m going to be taking pledges. All of the money goes to Random Acts.

I’ve just returned from a spiritual retreat, and it really has energized me to get through the rest of the summer and has given me inspiration for the upcoming fall season. It was called Drawing Closer to G-d, and we learned how to make mandalas, and I was quite surprised at how nice my pictures came out. I have no artistic ability, but this was just the right balance of creativity and spirituality. I will have a separate wrap up on this also later on. Right now, I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed, but in a good way.

This piece was my proudest one during the retreat:

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This next one I just did this afternoon. It has great meaning to me, but again, that might require its own reflective post:

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I’m still in a deeply saddened place remembering Robin Williams. I’m trying to come to grips with the whole thing, and wondering how someone like him can’t hold on, and how someone like me managed to break through to the other side when I was in such a similar despairing place. I only hope that I can continue to do so, and continue to talk about my depression and depression in general, and be aware and there for people who need a shoulder to lean on.

Two requests:

The first is continue to pray and talk about Ferguson, MO and Michael Brown. This cannot continue.

The second is please send me your good thoughts and prayers. I am having some medical stuff going on beginning tomorrow. I’m trying not to think about the money it’s going to cost me, but for now, I have to focus on my health and deal with the monetary fallout when it eventually happens.

Thank you.

Kb

In the Middle

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With all the time I supposedly have, I’ve had a hard time writing. I have ideas, holy mackerel I have a ton of ideas – memoir, fic, meta, even pangs of Bittersweet, but the last two weeks, maybe a bit more, I’ve been scattered and short tempered. Some of that is my doing – stress scatters me – and the insane idea that words have meaning even if you don’t agree with them. The computer thing was beyond stupid. How in the world is my lived experience not valid as one example in a billion seas of examples? And when did knowing someone invalidate your opinions? It’s a strange new world. I’m not sure I like this aspect of it, so I will have to put it on my to-do list to change it, right?

A brief note: if you understood the vague blogging and think this is passive aggressive, you’d be wrong. There is nothing passive about it.

I’m going to write about things that made me jump for joy, things that tear me an emotional new one and things that bother the shit out of me, and everything in between and all around. (I really do need next week’s retreat, don’t I? 😉 Cross your fingers that they let me come sans money. I have high hopes, otherwise known as faith.)

I’m spending the week with my middle son. He was supposed to go to a VBS (vacation Bible school) with a neighbor, but we never asked and I’m kind of tired of him spending his days with this British guy’s Minecraft videos. I’ve dragged him to church, but he really seems to be enjoying it. Yesterday we had a burrito breakfast and went to the library. Today is Chuck E. Cheese and tomorrow is more library fun plus a therapy dog program. Thursday (or Friday – this is still up for debate) is the comic store and the sushi place he’s been asking to try. I think the other day of those two will be a movie day. I’ll see what he wants to do and when because I have therapy on Thursday. Kind of ironic – I’ll probably need it more after Gishwhes.

Middle Guy rarely gets this one on one time, so I’m glad it’s worked out for us, both with timing and mood (especially my moods, which were ridiculously unpredictable last year, but much better this). The middle child has a syndrome for a reason. And then when Dad offers to pick up the other two kids to give middle guy a little extra time with Chuck E, we take it.

He has managed to get a little present for his sister during everything we’ve done. He’s a good big brother, although he wouldn’t want her along on his surprise week.

We’re also excited to be using his older brother’s “new” car. We like it.

See what I mean, though? This missive was supposed to be about writing and here I am giving a glorified to-do list of this week’s summertime fun.

On the depression front (except for the last couple of weeks) this summer hasn’t been too bad. I haven’t dreaded having the kids home like I did last year. I don’t even know how many days there are until school goes back. House is still a mess, but it feels different; better.

I won’t name you, but I must apologize to the three people I had emailed with. I really dropped the ball on this. I think of you nearly every day, and I will send emails or message you to at least make sure things are okay. This is a reminder that you are on my mind and you are not alone in anything, I promise.

Writing. I’m still not sure what I want my writing to be, but I’m more encouraged to try out new things even if most of my writing seems to be journaling.

I blame my memoir workshops for that.

Maybe I’ll do a random prompt every couple of days. Perhaps, a Gishwhesian Haiku for Saturday.

My faith journey continues and is intertwined with my writing as much as both are interwoven with my life – the true Celtic knot of my soul. Triquetra might be more appropriate.

[Source for picture: http://www.lalegendedesfees.com/triquetra/441-pendentif-triquetra-bronze-antique.html]

When I misplaced my faith, my writing kept me together most of the time. With both holding me steady and pushing me forward, there is a calmness that is not only becoming to me, it is letting me become me.

I know there’s a lot of inner turmoil and self-reflection and growing and I expect that to continue until my last breath exhaled and my last word written. Everyone has a legacy and I’m still trying to write mine. I do have to live it first, though.

My past is so eclectic, esoteric (a favorite word of mine from my 100 Club days – inside joke) that in the new world I should be able to squeeze myself in and fit and if I don’t fit maybe it’s time for the world around me to adapt, just a little, considering all of the adapting I’ve done over the years.

Death’s Door

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I’m not a huge fan of death; never have been. Whenever I think of death, I think of my uncle Nathan. His was an open casket, and the only memories I have of him were of cigar smoke and that moment of seeing him in the coffin. I cringed at every funeral after that as a child and well into my adulthood.

I would say that while this is a memory from me as a young child, the two that stand out more abruptly are of both of my grandfathers. They both died when I was five or near about. My first grandfather, my dad’s father was from Canada, and I remember his family there more than I remember him.

The most enduring memory I have is standing in the hospital parking lot looking up to the roof where my grandfather stood. He was wearing a grey bathrobe and I think my grandmother stood next to him. He waved to me and possibly my brother, and we waved back. Well, I waved back because my brother would only have been one or so. I think my father stood with us in the parking lot.

This was 1970 or 1971 and children weren’t allowed in the hospital. It’s kind of like that now, but when my dad was in the hospital, we used to sneak my son in to see him and the nurses would ignore him just so long as he could get past the security guard.

We never would have thought to sneak in back then.

I remember this grandfather from photographs that blend into memory. There is me in a stroller wearing bunny ears, holding a Kodak film box, the recognizable yellow box of the Eastman Company. We are on a street in the Bronx outside of an apartment building. I don’t think this is their apartment building, but nearby there is an asphalt park surrounded by a chain link fence where the older boys played basketball and the girls jumped double-dutch. It was a noisy street with cars driving by, their engines noisy and their horns loud, interspersed with the bouncing of the basketball off the backboard and the handball off of the wall that divided the spaces.

My other grandfather, my Mother’s father died either later that year or early the next year. It was within months of each other. In fact, my grandfathers died within a year and my grandmothers did the same although they waited for many years after that. My parents also died within eighteen months of each other.

The only memory I have of this grandfather was his balding head, sitting with his back to the doorway at the kitchen table eating his dinner when he’d come home late from work. I’m not sure what we would have been doing there so late, but it is the one picture of him in my mind that is consistent.

My mother says that it isn’t true, but I have vivid memories of his death. He had a heart attack in the house, and I remember him lying on the carpet and the paramedics coming in with the stretcher from the ambulance. I would swear that I was there, and my mother would swear I was not, so I don’t know if this is an actual memory that she’s always tried to protect me from or if it is one of those planted memories from other people’s overheard conversations.

He did have a heart attack and died in the house and there are other details that it would seem strange for others to talk about around me, but I don’t know.

These are the three that still stand out to me as an adult, and form my ever fearful phobia of death and dying, although I have mellowed out in the abstract of faith and adulthood. I still occasionally have a recurrence of a childhood dream that I’ve often had of nothingness. If you can’t imagine it, it can’t be explained, but it is the abyss of nothing and it is palpable. It is the dark staring back at you and as much as I try to be calm and rational, the noiseless void can be too much to bear. All I can do is wait for it to pass, and it usually does.

May 14th Reflection

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This campus is a dichotomy in practice. It is stone and marble and brick and lamp posts and tulips. Face one way and it’s the bustle of a city, traffic, walkers, bicycles, radios, chatter, convenience stores. Face the other way and it is green and benches and pastoral.

Today I will walk down the block to the church for Mass. This makes me happy. Shrill sirens scream behind the buildings, people chatter. I sit in partial sunlight under a big tree with rust colored leaves, comfortably, just enough sun in my eyes, warmth on my skin and a cool enough breeze that my decision to not bring a sweater is validated.

I look on at St. Rose, immortalized in stone, arms crossed, eyes closed, wondering about her. My Google list is long and she is at the top to learn about the woman for whom this campus is named for.

I close my eyes (and I hear Kansas – a by-product of a 70s childhood and A supernatural fandom), but only for a moment and the moment’s gone, but the moments here last a bit longer than a moment.

The parking is mostly good and I think about coming back here in later weeks as an inspirational place. Sit and be. Think and write.

Contentedness overlaps with excitability and the bells are ringing to announce the hour. I don’t have a ride home, and I am not worried in the least. This feeling reminds me of a similar day in Williamsburg. I haven’t reached the space of pure contentment and zero anxiety of that day, but this is very close. The winding paths and benches, the stone foundations and the brickwork, the root cellar doors and the leaves barely moving in the gentle breath of the air all remind me of Colonial Williamsburg. I thought it was the place a year ago – goodness it’s exactly a year ago to the day, isn’t it – I thought it was the pace – the childhood memories, being newlyweds, the home of my best friend but it is more than my life experiences as sitting her about five hundred miles north gives me nearly the same feels to grasp onto and gravitate towards.

It is this inner spirituality, inner peace inner light that comes on the breeze and adapts to my surroundings. The devil is in the details but really it is G-d in the details, doing without us noticing until our souls do in fact notice and feel that déjà vu to center us wherever we are.

Like right now.

And here.

Five Things I Learned About Myself Last Week

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  1. I can disagree and speak out and do it in an impassioned way without expressing disdain for the other side. I can also educate.
  2. Not only do I like the blending of faith and continued learning with writing, but I NEED it.
  3. I have more self-confidence than I thought I did.
  4. I’ve changed so much in the last two years, and I’ve also realized that I am ever evolving and the changes aren’t finished getting, like clay. I need time to breathe, like a fine wine and see where my journey has still yet to take me.
  5. I need the retreat. I need the alone, but not the isolated. I need to let the me be free, more free than I’ve let myself be before. I have much to offer.

Spring Enrichment 2014: An Introspection

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This is a list of the classes/workshops I took and the one thing I learned that I didn’t already know:

 

Keynote: Open the Door of Faith (intro with Bishop Edward Scharfenberger of the Albany Diocese, Keynote with Bishop Frank Caggiano of the Bridgeport, CT Diocese)

The themes that rang true for me were: Be open to the voice of G-d and there is no challenge that cannot become an opportunity.

Pope Francis’ The Joy of the Gospel (with Bishop Frank Caggiano)

“Joy is the deep abiding faith and contentment that everything will be alright.”

I realize that I’ve been absorbed in Supernatural themes and fandom, but what he said during this talk was “Family don’t end in blood [boy]” and I promise you, Brooklyn accent or no Brooklyn accent I heard this is Bobby’s voice.

The Judeo-Christian Contribution to the Rise of Science

The one thing that stood out to me isn’t the disagreement between the Church and the Secular or between Creation and Evolution. The conflict that arose wasn’t between science and faith; it was between the different faiths. The Church encouraged science and wanted to learn more. The Big Bang Theory was a phrase used to mock and deride the Belgium priest who was the scientist who came up with it in the first place.

It was also believed that the pursuit of science was a sacred duty – that was how to experience G-d.

Also, a very interesting statement that I would need a little more first-hand research on, but Father Pat stated that there was no gender assigned to Adam until the second person (commonly known as Eve) is created (read the Scriptures)

An Overview of the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola and a Contemporary Way to Pray Them

I’ve never been a fan of the idea of meditation and contemplation and this opened me up to trying it in bits and pieces. The journey of Ignatius of Loyola mirrored mine in an emotional way and it really struck me as parallel in ways. I’m interested in exploring the Spiritual Exercises a little more. We were given a shell to symbolize our pilgrimage, and I do often use objects to focus my thoughts and prayers, not necessarily religious objects like crosses and rosaries.

Thomas Merton’s Down to Earth “Christology from Above”

This ended up being more of an introduction to Merton, which was good for me who had never heard of him. He really spoke to my bias that you need to be religious and pious to find the comfort in G-d, and Merton was far from piety, but he still managed to take his hyperawareness and experimentation and find his religious and spiritual center and that leaves hope for the rest of us.

It is also a reminder that most Saints don’t start out that way (see St. Augustine).

Witnessing to Christ in the Digital Age: Strategies for Discipleship and Tactics for Evangelization

A Brand-New Parish for a Brand-Driven World

These two classes really showed me the link between church and secular life. All of the things we are doing with social media secularly can be done for our ministries and our parishes. It is more of a joining, a combining of our religious and secular lives rather than compartmentalizing them into an us vs. them scenario. It is also the reminder that all things can be used for good or ill, and it is up to us to use our skills and the available technology (see Ignatius of Loyola) to promote positivity and who we want to become instead of shunning them as too hard or difficult to learn or deciding that it doesn’t fit into the religious context. It ALL fits. We just have to figure out the best way to use it in what context.

How Catholics Read the Bible, Part 1: The Hebrew Scriptures

How Catholics Read the Bible, Part 2: The Christian Scriptures

How the Bible is set up, the historical context, a reminder that the Bible is written by humans and it is an interpretation and an ever-evolving document. There is also literary form to consider. These are all things that I never considered.

We are also prompted to take the Bible seriously, not literally.

Though He Slay me, I will hope in Him (Job)

My least favorite subject (and one that I didn’t realize was the subject of this workshop): end of life, pastoral care, bereavement. There was a great visual of our understanding of heaven is a hug. If you look at Jesus on the Cross, his arms are stretched out before in really a universal symbol of an embrace. It is an invitation, a welcoming.

This is not something that I considered before, but I can think back on one or two or three particular hugs that not only gave me comfort but took away pain, and the picture of Christ is less than I imagined as well as so much more.

History of Liturgy Part 1 and Part 2

This. My most favorite learning piece of this is how much of the current liturgy, prayer service, Mass has been part of the Mass since around the 3rd century. It’s worked so well for nearly two thousand years and really shows me the true belief and the specialness of Mass for me today.

Walking Through the doors of Faith with Jesus and Frodo: Praying with the Gospels and “The Lord of the Rings”

I am a huge fan of modernity and pop culture being connected to religious life – it isn’t separate but equal – it is two halves of the same coin. Just as pop culture changes, so must religion. I also enjoy seeing the parallels of the Lord of the Rings (and other pop culture works, see Supernatural) with Biblical texts and stories. For me, the movie visuals made more of an impact than the readings (which I’ve never done), but I also think there is a slippery slope not to make more of something that isn’t there and not to put words into the mouths of the artist (in this case, JRR Tolkien).

TED Panel: Open the Door of Faith (three viewpoints: theology, art and architecture and liturgy

I love the melding of different forks in the road into one theme. Of course, doors are one of my staunchest symbols of many things. Leaving one side to the other, finding hidden opportunities, looming large and scary but they don’t have to be, the different materials used in making the doors, the simplicity, the beauty, the attention to detail.

When you don’t know what is behind the door, that first hesitation is a tiny bit apprehensive mixed with excitement and wonder and once the door is opened, the introduction to all of the senses is there on the threshold and you still have the choice to close the door, but nine times out of ten you step through. Even that tenth time that you close the door; often we are drawn back and eventually enter. These are the roads in our lives leading us and greeting us and supporting us by providing nourishment along the way and sometimes offering us other doors with other choices or breaks from the journey, but at the end of the corridor, we still keep going.

Diocesan Spring Enrichment

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I spent four very full days last week at an enrichment program from our Diocese. It is primarily for the catechesis teachers, and I was fortunate to be offered the opportunity to participate. As a recent participant in the RCIA* program, I know that there is so much more to know and learn about Catholicism.

The theme of this year’s event was Open the Doors to Faith, which for me was a fitting first time. If you know anything about my thing for doors, I use their metaphor in a lot of my writing as well as being a sucker for a beautiful door. The picture below is the front of the church where the Mass was held with the Bishop on Wednesday.

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The workshop program opened with a prayer service with our new bishop and a keynote with Bishop Frank Caggiano from Bridgeport, Connecticut. Bishop Caggiano was a brilliant speaker and had a way of both reaching higher and bringing things down to earth. I gave up my morning break to hear him a second time at his regular panel.

I also took some two part workshops that showed me the history of the Biblical writings and the Liturgy. As someone who didn’t grow up in the faith, the history of the New Testament and the period of time after Jesus’ Resurrection are really a blank for me personally and I’m intrigued how the church came into being. And just to balance things out, on my last day I took a class entitled, “Walking with Jesus and Frodo: Praying with the Gospels and “The Lord of the Rings”.

There were other classes including Social Media in the church, the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola and an introduction to Thomas Merton. There was nothing that didn’t interest me and my copious notes prove that.

I also met people, not only the people I was introduced to by a friend, but a variety of people who simply reached out to me to say hello, to ask my background, to ask my opinion on something and I was a different person here, although I’m not sure if I was so different or that I was more me than I’ve been in the past.

I raised my hand. I asked questions. I offered my insight. I didn’t feel as though I was intruding as I usually do in these kinds of events, always feeling as though I don’t belong and everyone knows it. My confidence was in a great place, higher than it’s ever been. Even not being an expert in religion, I was still comfortable presenting my viewpoint and discussing my opinions with others who’ve been exposed to the language and the history of the church for their lifetimes.

I knew when to bite my tongue and when to correct people on their assumptions. For example, this was a program with the Diocese of the Roman Catholic Church. Talking about my pro-choice stance and the importance of reproductive rights would have been extraordinarily inappropriate of me. However, when a fellow attendee expressed a 1950s view of the mentally ill and the “excuse” of mental illness rather than a medical and physical problem, I did correct him. Even if I didn’t reach him, the other twenty people in the classroom heard what I said and might think twice the next time someone gives that erroneous outlook.

I was very confident and comfortable in everything I did during this week long enrichment, and really the word enrichment encompasses what I was doing through the learning as well as through being in the environment.

I drove myself on one day, got a ride from my spouse another and carpooled for two others. I had some workshops with my car pool driver (and godmother) and many without. I ate lunch with her and not; I sat next to people I met once, I sat alone. I contemplated in the gardens. I took photographs (which I will share with you over the next few days).

For those of you who’ve followed me when I’ve taken self-imposed writing retreats or gone to the IWWG*’s writer’s conference, this was very similar experience and yet not at all the same. I always come back excited and inspired and this week did that for me, but it did more than that.

It gave the professional immersion that I need as well as the ‘alone’ time that I also need to jump start my batteries. This week also gave me a faith basis for jump starting those batteries. I was in a state of constant excitement and inspiration. I have notes all over my book to look up things that I didn’t know about. I have writing prompts to organize and write. I have faith journaling to accomplish. I even got information about Cain and the Mark of Cain that I can use for a meta essay for the Supernatural fandom. This conference, workshop, enrichment, what4ever it wants to call itself was faith and writing and life and happy all rolled into one. It touched on all aspects of my life and creativity.

By the end of it, I was exhausted and my feet hurt, but I wanted another day to hear more, learn more and get more ideas to share with my readers.

I felt things that I haven’t felt…..well, I haven’t felt ever, and I’m looking forward to taking the push and running with it. I can still feel the excitement two days later.

I do believe that things will happen for a reason even if we don’t always see that reason.

Last year when I desperately needed a change, an impetus, something, I was very luckily granted a visit to my best friend in Virginia. This diocesan enrichment was perfectly timed since I wouldn’t be able to travel south this spring and I wondered how to gear myself up, how to incentivize myself. I am, however blessed to be able to visit him in the fall and I’m going to plan that as my next retreat using the themes that I’ve grasped this week to propel me through the upcoming summer.

For now, I have notes to transcribe, memoir homework to complete and enrichment things to write up, both for here and for my church’s blog.

 

*RCIA – Rite of Catholic Initiation for Adults

**IWWG – International Women’s Writing Guild

Lectio Divina

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Last week I was introduced to Lectio Divina, a fancy Latin name for Divine Reading and something that I had been doing already much of this for the last two years even though it was unbeknownst to me. Honestly, it came so naturally to me that I recognized my participation immediately as it was described and I wondered why this is considered a unique concept and why this isn’t done by everyone all of the time.

I try to read the Mass readings daily. Once I’ve done that, I currently have two other daily devotionals that include meditations and individual perspectives on the day’s Scriptures. Unless I am attending Mass, I let my feelings dictate when I will read. Despite leaving it to a sign of wanting it and not obligatory I have rarely skipped the readings.

During this time of Easter until Pentecost, I have been reading the Little White Book which I like for its combination of facts and related particulars along with Scripture and the Gospel of Matthew.

Upon becoming Catholic, I received a gift of Grace by Max Lucado from my best friend and after the other readings, I will read the morning page and then the evening section right before bed.

Many of these days I will latch upon a word or a phrase that strikes me as important or so closely related to my life that I can’t ignore it even if I wanted to. As a writer, there are days when I’m fortunate enough to take one or two of those wisps and express my heart.

Lectio Divina, to me is very much like this with a deeper meaning as it relates to my relationship with Christ.

I understand and appreciate the divine and the sacred, but I also find it sacred that many of my questions in my life, tangible, practical concerns that I seek guidance on are found in ancient texts that happen to know when I’ll need to hear them. I have the faith to accept this, but it is still a wondrous happening all the same.

It was explained to me as a fine food that you take into your mouth by small morsel and let it lay on your tongue so you can identify what it is that is so special about this tiny piece, savor it until you can taste all it has to offer and then seek more.

In researching online I have found that this is not far from what is happening while savoring the Scriptures.

Read whatever you’ve chosen for today and if something jumps out at you, grab it and hold onto it. See how it fits. Why did this word or phrase speak to you?

I have a perfect example of this happening today, so I’ll share it here: In reading Max Lucado’s Grace for this morning, the Gospel reading is from Matthew 7:2:

“You will be judged in the same way that you judge others.”

I found this appropriate that it should come today. One of the things that came between my murdered friend, whose anniversary of death was yesterday, and me was my judgmentalness. It is a reminder of all the negative that I projected when I should have been listening. I’m also afraid of being judged harshly because of my way of judging too harshly, so it makes me insecure and fearful about how others feel about me and whether or not they really like me.

In an essay I read yesterday by Mary Stommes, her quote, “A love you could come home to any time…” flew out at me quite unbidden. As an adult, married with children, I always felt that I didn’t need to worry; I always had a home to go to in my parents’ house. It wasn’t until after they both died that I realized I could not go home again. It left me drifting. Even though they hadn’t abandoned me, they both would certainly have chosen to remain here, but they were gone nonetheless and it left a hole, but not only a hole in my heart that losing a parent (or both) does to someone, but it left a frightening chasm that reminded me that if I took a misstep or made a huge mistake, I had nowhere to run to. I couldn’t hide and on an unconscious level this scared me.

It wasn’t until I had no childhood home to come back to that I began to search for myself, and where a few years later, I continue to search for other parts of myself still missing.

I use Lectio Divina in my secular life, grasping onto the words and phrases that stand out, and when I started relaying that kind of meditation to my spiritual life through the daily Scriptures, I could see and remind myself of G-d’s love and the never alone feeling that eluded me for so long. If that reminder was in a Bible written more than 2000 years old, some parts more than 5000, there was somewhere to turn to reconcile me to afjusting my thoughts and my deeds and that things were not impossible.

With Lectio Divina there are four steps: Read, Meditate, Pray, Contemplate.

Clare of Assisi had a noted four step method to hers: Gaze on the Cross, Consider, Contemplate, Imitate (as in become more Christ-like). Her method seems very much like the one that I’ll describe below.

I’ve also discovered that the Cistercians (as well as other monastic orders) used this method of meditation and contemplation. They were the White Monks in Northern Wales during the Middle Ages and whom Llywelyn Fawr was a patron of.

The meditation itself is a slow progression from one to the next, but it is definitely a quiet contemplation, a time to be alone with Christ.

I will almost never find myself in silence, so I try to adapt. The white noise of a coffee shop, headphones listening to music without lyrics, the hub of the house ,if it’s not too loud and through a closed door, so long as I can focus my energy on my reading. The important part for me is centering my spirit. The willingness to look deeper needs to be available. Music without words. Tea. Water. The day’s reading. Sometimes I find myself choosing a random page in a motivational book or checking a particularly insightful horoscope, and see where that guides me. For me, even these seemingly mundane inspirations still find their way to becoming closer with Jesus.

I leave the passages and the amount that I will read in G-d’s hands. I try to have no set plan as to x number of words or y number of verses. When you find it, you will know.

Read it slowly.

Repeat it until it becomes a mantra on your lips and in your mind.

Ponder the words, pay attention to how they feel on your tongue. When something comes to you – an answer, another question, a face or an item, savor it, meditate on it and then pray on it.

It should be quiet and contemplative.

Sometimes, I know I am too wound up to have any positive affect and so I’ll walk away for a bit. Read a book, make a list. It is very rare that I am not called back to my reading.

One of the most exciting parts for me is that there is no set time. This can be a ten minute exercise or twenty minutes or an hour.

It’s possible that I’ve so easily adopted this method of meditation because of my work with quick, ten minute or less writing prompts that this seems to fit into how my brain works.

However it does it, I’m happy that it is something I can do and feel comfortable with.

Holy Communion

Standard

Leading up to my sacraments, the one that was the most public, the one that everyone watches and sees always is receiving the host. No one would ever know (and most didn’t until a few months ago) whether or not I’d been baptized or confirmed, but everyone knew that I didn’t receive Eucharist.

I wasn’t particularly nervous about the logistics of it but there were a couple of things on my mind. I’m always anxious of tripping over my own two feet, and the thought did cross my mind of what might happen if I swallowed the wrong way and had a coughing fit. Coughing in church is a nightmare.

I think I thought that I’d feel like when you’re a kid and you’re constantly picked last and then you finally get picked in gym class or invited to the Slug Club in Harry Potter. I would be in this elite, privileged group and there would be some self-satisfied feeling of being part of ‘it’. Part of me felt bad for thinking this, and I also felt that that wasn’t what I wanted it to feel like.

But how else should it feel?

I can still count on one hand the number of times I’ve received the Eucharist since my first time at the Easter Vigil, and it is so completely not like I thought it would be.

There is a slight nervousness of not knowing if I’m giving enough respect. Have I bowed low enough? I know I’m forgetting something at the end, but it’s not intentional; my respect and love for Christ is very much present.

I always have a pause because for that second I forget to say ‘amen’, especially when it’s Father Jerry giving me the body of Christ. I try to see his hand, the perfectly round wafer as he offers it to me, but invariably our eyes meet. In the last couple of weeks, he will say my name, and there’s an intensity in his look, a solemn shadow that emanates from his gaze that puts me in mind of the Mystery, and there is so much feeling that I’m receiving in my heart that the ‘Amen’ gets stuck for that moment.

It is all at once calm and comfort, belonging and humbling while at the same time remaining spiritual and wonderful and electrifying.

There is also feeling behind the wine, joy and excitement, but it is not as gripping as my initial and internal reaction to the Host.

Joining my brothers and sisters in Christ each day, there is that belonging, but not the prideful way that I was afraid of feeling. There are no mean girls, no cliques, no hazing. Each of us feels different things and even if we were to describe the experience using the same words, I would doubt very much that we’re feeling the same feelings.

I’m also glad it isn’t the kind of privilege of exclusion; it is not remotely elite. All are welcome here to participate in the liturgy, the breaking of bread, the sharing of sustenance. There is no self-satisfaction, no prideful better than you sentiment, but there is a satisfaction of contentment. There is feeling beneath your feet and the sensation that the path is so clearly ahead.

For me this daily reminder and partaking in the sharing of Christ’s body and blood is also a time to slow myself down beginning with the walk up to receive, to breathe, to clear my mind to everything except the host and for that moment let the Resurrection take hold as a reminder before my day moves forward.

There is no club, but there is belonging.