reflection

Transformation

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In today’s reflection from Give Us This Day, Fr. Paul Boudreau wrote,

“The love of Jesus makes water into wine, traitors into apostles, and is given to us in order to transform the world, starting with ourselves and the people we encounter today.”

Transformation can be a somewhat daunting prospect when looked at as the big picture of our lives; as a journey’s end rather than the journey itself. However, as we teach kids to walk beginning with baby steps, we can see that transformation is best achieved with baby steps.

Little by little, through Jesus’ love and our self-awareness, we can follow our transformation, and reflect on it quietly and thoughtfully in small increments that we each find doable.

As We Journey, We Do Our Best

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I’ve been very lucky that G-d led me to the parish I’m in. When I began attending Mass, the parish priest was in Rome. When he returned, I was hesitant; he wasn’t who I was used to, but it didn’t take long for me to love his way of expressing things. He spoke to me, seemingly out of the blue, but clearly with G-d’s hand on his choices, ones that would stand out to my ears.

One of those apparently innocuous statements was at the end of my first summer.

As we journey, we do our best.

It was simple. Straightforward. Easy to remember and easy to follow; a new mantra for me to take on my new journey.

As we journey, we do our best.

Lent is one of those times of the year that we try to do our best. We give something up, we take something in. We attend Mass more faithfully.

I’ve been struggling with what to give up, but in remembering that Lent is between me and G-d, I’ve decided to keep it to myself for now, maybe for the entirety of the forty days.

Sometimes it’s easier to do my best without eyes looking over my shoulder for if and when I falter.

Reflection – Ash Wednesday

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As I find myself observing my first Ash Wednesday since my baptism into the Catholic faith (I observed two before today), I am hesitant to choose that one something to give up. There are truly so many things available to me, not necessarily bad habits that need eliminating or rectifying or sins that need reconciling, but between candy and dessert, soda and McDonald’s Breakfast Burritos, television and internet, the present list goes on like a persistent gnaw at my subconscious, and I’m not sure where my Lenten (or should I say life -) priorities should lie.

In addition to giving something up, what do I add to my day to encourage me in my spiritual contemplation, the new awakening to my continuing faith journey? In the past, I’ve committed to a daily reflection. Unfortunately this has lasted about two days. Maybe I’ve taken on too much, been overly ambitious, trying to publish a missive rather than a thought.

Should I pray more?

Should I give myself some extra alone time in the morning to reflect and ruminate? Perhaps use as a model the Daily Examen of St. Ignatius?

Everything I’ve mentioned and thought about for this Lent looks good and interests me, but so far none feel right; none feel faithful.

None fit.

They all feel forced, a put-uponing rather than a release, a lethargy of excuses rather than an arousing of spirit or a growth to carry me through these next forty days.

I am at odds with myself and it all feels muddled; a disarray of good intentions amid the clutter of listlessness, torn between excessive piousness and not enough, walking the fine line of knowing who this Lent is for – my outer self or my inner soul.

As I spend the rest of today in G-d’s grace, I’m hoping He will show me which direction to take at this Ash Wednesday crossroads.

A Blog Audit

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Last week I pushed the wrong button and accidentally changed my theme, so I spent two days looking through, and decided on this one. I wanted the color green and I like having a sidebar. It forced me to change whether I was ready or not. Sometimes, a good thing. I’ll be keeping this one.

As for other aspects of the site, what I’m looking to do is create more of a website feel rather than a blog. I have a few pages and I plan on adding more. The pages are for information and links. I currently have the opening page as my posts, but once I set up a Home page, I’m going to redirect to that static page rather than the posts which are listed in the sidebar anyway.

I’ve started an index divided into subjects so readers can find what they’re looking for.

I want it to be my original writing and photographs with helpful or informative reblogs. Simply, I want it to be mine.

I want the site to be a resource, to use what I know, what I learn and to share my experiences, especially the things that have changed me: depression, parenting, equality, spirituality; perhaps make someone else’s journey just a little bit easier and give them company on the road.

I’m still not sure how to join it together and bring out my best, like a tapestry woven with many layers and hidden threads. But I’m happy to experiment.

Welcome.

A Reflection on Resolutions

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Resolutions are one of those things that everyone does, and half of them deny it. Here we are in the third week of 2015, and some of us are still deciding what we want to resolve and add to our goals list while some of us have already given up on our promises on the last night of 2014.

Last fall, I began a new format here, and it seems to have received more positive feedback than not, and even better than readership (which I appreciate and adore) I’ve been enjoying myself. My writing, at least some of it, has a plan with a concrete path to follow.

Third week of January, and I’m feeling pretty good.

I’m still laying out what I want out of this year.

I’m planning on spiritual retreats that I like to couple with my writing. I have one planned for February, and I’m hoping to be lucky enough to go to the Diocese’s spring enrichment again. I would love to go to Philadelphia in September for the World Family Conference and the Papal Visit, but I imagine that’s more money than I can afford.

For my writing, I feel that I have an introduction to what I want this blog/website to be for me and my readers, but that is ever-evolving. I want to focus on writing about my home-buying experience (in a word: traumatic), which is partly a venting and partly a warning to others. I’d also like to write about traveling and whatever that entails. I may also start book posts. I’ve already finished two great books and started a third and I would love to share my thoughts on them.

Personal, I need to work on my anxiety, reorganizing my office, ending my paper addiction, and using my library more.

I’ve stopped reading The Artist’s Way. I liked most of the things about it, but when it asked me to stop reading everything for a week, I could not go through with it. I have started the Blogging 101 project, and have tried to keep up. I may actually have an about section before the end of the month.

Next up is setting up my 2015 Mason Jar and working on next week’s spotlight on organization.

Have a great weekend.

New Beginnings – A Reflection

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I was going to repost one of my memoir pieces titled, New Beginnings. It took forever to find and when I reread it, it wasn’t something that I wanted to share again. It was hard to recollect and be reminded of some of the things I wrote at the beginning of 2013. It’s hard to look at where I was then and realize how far I’ve come but also how far I have to go.

I wrote then:

“I start 2013 in so much a better place than one year ago.”

I listed a few things that remained intact and speculated on a couple more.

I find that two years later I am in a similar place. 2014 wasn’t perfect, far from it, and there will always be downs to go along with the ups. There will always be things to overcome, health issues still to accept and turn around, career, if you can even call it that, to rise to, learning how to parent an adult, keeping my middle child from feeling like a middle child, teaching my daughter the things I’m still strays if so she won’t be; still searching for me in the vast emotional wasteland that is my head, body, and soul.

I am definitely in a better place now than then and in a better place than a year ago. I am still searching for better than that and a serenity that fits me.

In the last year, I took more deep breaths. I went on two spiritual retreats and one spiritual enrichment. I put more of me into my writing. I wrote more. I found Jesus without losing what I already had that was working with G-d. I believe more. I forgive more. My meds seen to be settling into my body chemistry and smoothing me out, repairing what needs to be but not losing who I am inside even as I still look for the rest of me.

I have several points during the year for my new beginnings. Previously, they were Back to School, Rosh Hashanah, and New Year’s Eve/Day.

I think this year will be a new beginnings appraisal every few weeks to check and discern and understand whether I’m still on the right path. If not, begin again.

You never run out of chances.

Annual Mason Jar Project

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Beginning in 2013, I started keeping a mason jar, an idea I discovered on Pinterest. Throughout the year, you add your happy thoughts to it; then on New Year’s Eve you read through them and remember all of the good times from the past twelve months.

In 2014, I also added a couple of things that weren’t happy but that I wanted to remember and reflect on as the year came to a close (the death of my first church friend, Shirley and the suicide/death of Robin Williams.)

I’ll share three others with you:

3/21: Flower show. It was a good day.

6/4/14: Went to the evening Ascension Mass. Saw A! She’s using a walker – since she broke her leg. It was great to see her.

8/4: Dominican Conference Center. Retreat w/ Bro. Mickey this weekend. I can’t wait! I need this.

Birthday Rituals

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Since I graduated high school I have not attended classes or worked on my birthday. I went on a job interview once; almost got into a car accident and after getting the job it was the first one I was fired from. No more.

I’ve learned my lesson.

I even prefer when my birthday falls on a weekday. My husband works; my kids are in school. I do my thing and we meet at home after school and work let out.

I wander, usually. I go to the mall or if it’s a nice day out, a rare treat even in early December, I go to an outdoor mall. We have a fancy one nearby with boutiques (I can afford to window shop anyway) and a café with benches and statues throughout the open space. It makes me feel as though I’m traveling some place new. I get to pretend I’m a tourist or researching my non-existent novel or a wayward traveler and I take pictures of the most mundane things and enjoy my quiet time with myself.

In the years before she died, my mother began to send me money for my gift. There’d be enough to buy myself something I needed, something I didn’t need and have lunch. I started taking myself out to lunch and beginning to be comfortable in my own skin and on my own, something I dread, but am more and more coming to appreciate and treasure.

The year after she died, my husband gave me his work incentive gift card, which happened to come the same week as my birthday– $50 from American Express and I have the same birthday ritual that I had with my mother’s gift.  He knew how much it would mean to me, and it really did. It was one of the nicest things.

I almost always go to Starbucks, breakfast or lunch, have a drink, or two, relax. Write. By my birthday, the cranberry bliss bars are available.

One year we had a major snowstorm on my birthday – schools were closed and everything; no going out for me. I planned ahead to cook Shepherd’s pie and Yorkshire pudding from scratch. I’m not sure why I wanted it so badly. I might have been reading a Welsh history book or historical novel at that time, and that was all I wanted for my birthday dinner. It tasted amazing! It was also one of the only snowstorms where I wasn’t anxious or panicky.

When I was a kid we always got a birthday cake. It was always a surprise, even when it wasn’t. Whoever’s birthday it was would get called away or asked to do a chore and when we came back, the lights were out and there was cake, lit candles and everyone singing happy birthday.

Every year as we got older, we continued this, every year, and every year we would all be surprised when it was our turn. It was sweet. And we all played along even if we did roll our eyes when we were asked to do the “chore.”

We were always taken aback, surprised, thrilled everyone remembered, and if we weren’t, we played along. This was one of those family traditions that my parents loved.

In our family now, we usually pick a restaurant to go out to dinner and come home to cake. I love birthday cake – anytime of the year. It is never the wrong time to have birthday cake. My favorite kind is vanilla with buttercream frosting and some kind of flower or something made out of frosting. This year we had a vanilla raspberry that I want more of. It was the perfect blend of cake and fruit, whipped cream and fondant. Yummm.

I began my most recent birthday by attending Mass. This really is one of the most enjoyable things I do in a week. The way the light bounces off the pews and the altar; the way the words wash over me; the way the host tastes when it’s mixed with the wine in my mouth. So many senses filled in such short moments.

This year, I actually went home and shared breakfast with my husband and drank Doctor Who tea (the ninth doctor to be precise) before going out again.

Believe it or not, I spent the next hour in Payless Shoes trying on boots. I might have mentioned in earlier writings, but I was so excited to find these boots and that they fit pretty perfectly that I even walked out of the store wearing them. I can’t remember the last time I wore shoes out of a shoe store and still kept my “old” shoes which hadn’t worn out to the point of falling off my feet. I now own three pairs of shoes. Woo-hoo! The last time I bought shoes on my birthday were winter boots several years ago from my mom.

Lunch at Starbucks and cake at home. Since my son was working we had my birthday dinner two days later.

It’s funny how every birthday is the same and yet different. I pack up my Kindle, my notebook or journal and my camera. I wear my favorite clothes – this year my favorite long sweater, my new black boots and my cute black knit hat. I become me for a day and try to figure out how to stay the me I am on my birthday all the rest of the year.

The ritual stays the same year after year; it almost takes no thought or planning at all, but the happenings change just enough and each  year I’m in a new place mentally, emotionally so that year’s wandering brings on new thoughts, new reflections, new grace to find.

The sun is in a different place, the clouds have different formations, the blue in the sky is a different shade. The people I run into in the shops or the café are all different and each brings a special presence to my day that I welcome and can add to my growing inventory of people and places and things and they all form the index for my reflecting and writing, always striving to find my way through the shadows.

Advent – Day 3

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Scripture (Job 22:21)
Saint Clare of Assisi

As I hope in you, O Lord, permit me to come closer to you, that my whole soul may do homage to the greatness of your majesty; that my heart, with its tenderest affections, may acknowledge your infinite love; that my memory may dwell on the admirable mysteries here renewed every day, and that the sacrifice of my whole being may accompany you.

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