We haven’t gotten through the first week of January, and our potential is still out there. Still within us, ready to break forth. Our ambition. Our motivation. Our inspiration. How will we keep it at the forefront in the coming months?
I’ll share five ways that I plan on being inspired this year.
Remember that everything *is* connected, and look at the world that way. How is what I’m doing affecting the people and spaces around me? Be aware. Be present. And sometimes, be still.
Setting Intentions. I have a great new planner for the year and it has space for weekly and monthly planning/goals/ progression, and I’m hoping to stick with it all year.
My writing group and their encouragement, their feedback, their continuing friendship.
Taking what I need and leaving the rest. Good advice in any situation and hopefully will maintain lower stress even as the world becomes more stressful.
Carry an umbrella, bring a sweater or hoodie, tuck a notebook and a pen in a bag, and go. Go forward. And take notes.
Inspired. (c)2025
Intentionality. (c)2025
Inclusivity. (c)2025
Interconnectedness. (c)2025
My four words for the beginning of the year. They may stay all year; they may transform; they may be added to or replaced. And that will be okay because it will be what I need at that moment. Follow along and let’s see how it goes.
This past Tuesday was the feast day of Hildegard of Bingen and below I share two links to her music on Spotify. The first is her music sung from her abbey in Bingen, and the second is her music as arranged by Richard Souther. They are both unique in how they sound, but convey the depth of Hildegard’s mysticism and faith journey.
Hildegard of Bingen was a Benedictine Abbess in Germany in the Middle Ages, living from 1098 to 1179. In addition to her role as abbess, she was a polymath, writer, composer, visionary, medical practitioner, and is considered the founder of scientific natural history in Germany. Her writings include theology, botanicals, and medical works as well as letters, hymns, antiphons, and poems.
She has more chants surviving the Middle Ages than any other composer in the Middle Ages. She is also the writer of both the lyrics and the music of her works.
The Eucharist is the highway to heaven – Carlo Acutis
I had heard about Carlo Acutis several years before his relics and Eucharistic Exhibition came to my church. I was intrigued not only by such a young man who was venerated and declared Blessed, but by how recently he had died (in 2006) of acute promyelocytic leukemia. He was near enough to my kids’ ages that it was something that pulled at me. I had seen photos of him and read brief snippets, but when I was told that this exhibition and his relics were coming to our church for nearly a week during Lent, I began to read more. I volunteered to help during the exhibition, and I attended the talks given by the woman, Eileen Wood at Catholic Quest, who was custodian of this display and his relics as well as several of the liturgies held during that week. We also had our own resident expert give a couple of talks about relics in general as well as Eucharistic miracles in particular. It was a busy time at our church, and we had over 1500 visitors in the time we held the exhibit.
“Each of us is put here in this time and this place to personally decide the future of humankind. Did you think the Creator would create unnecessary people in a time of such terrible danger? Know that you yourself are essential to this world. Understand both the blessing and the burden of that. You yourself are desperately needed to save the soul of this world. Did you think you were put here for something less? In a Sacred Hoop of Life, there is no beginning and no ending.”
Nearly one year ago, I attended the first of what I hope will be an annual event at the National Shrine and Historic Site of St. Kateri Tekakwitha in Fonda, New York. It was World Peace and Prayer Day and was being held around the world on the same day, the Summer Solstice.
Please watch this video as told by Chief Arvol Looking Horse about how the day came to begin, starting with his own life history and the tragic past and present of the reservation system. The words are weighty, and the music only adds to the chills I felt, and I think you will feel as you watch:
In 1994, Miracle, a rare white buffalo calf was born in Wisconsin. It was the first white buffalo calf born since 1933. White buffalo calves are sacred to many Native American nations in the US and Canada. The World Peace & Prayer Day began in 1996 and for a time, rotated to different sites until expanding to individual events held at sacred sites globally. The Kateri Shrine is one of those sacred sites and why the administration decided to hold this interfaith prayer service. The Shrine is sacred to the Native peoples who lived and nurtured the land and there is a Mohawk community nearby as well, and it is also sacred to Catholics who believe the Saint Kateri Tekakwitha lived there in the village of Caughnawaga throughout her child- and young adult-hood. This village is the only fully excavated Mohawk village in the country. I’ve written before about my experience there and how profound it was for me and others who attended it.
The Shrine is planning a second World Peace & Prayer Day service on the Summer Solstice, June 21.
Two days ago, it was revealed that another rare white buffalo was born in Montana, in Yellowstone National Park and according to Lakota prophecy and tradition this foretells better times coming as well as a caution that more must be done to protect the earth. This new calf and Miracle are said to be true white buffalo and not albino – they both have a black nose, hooves, and dark eyes.
In the article I’ve linked about this recent white buffalo calf, there is discussion about the killing and removal of bison every winter to keep the herds at about 5000 animals. There is opposition to increasing the numbers in herds from ranchers and the governor, but I don’t see any input from local tribes or from across the nation. Perhaps because they also oppose transferring the buffalo to the tribes. I wonder why they can’t go back to having the Native tribes participate in their traditional hunting of buffalo which kept the population manageable naturally.
That political segue is important to be aware of, but a digression to this joyous event of another white buffalo calf.
Whatever you’re doing and wherever you are on June 21, take a moment to pray on the continuing vitality of the earth, our home, and all of those who live here. I will be at the Kateri Shrine in Fonda participating in the ceremonies and listening to the prayers both spoken through the participants and in the air swaying the trees.
Easter falls so weirdly on the calendar. Often it is the same week as Passover, which makes sense because Jesus went to Jerusalem for the Passover Festival during what is now Holy Week. But this year, Easter is this Sunday (March 31), and Passover doesn’t begin until nearly a month later, at sundown on April 22. Adding into that is that this is my ten-year anniversary of coming into full communion with the Catholic Church. A decade. So long and so short simultaneously showing truly how the days are long, but the years short.
My Easter Vigil was on April 19, 2014. I’ll celebrate that day as well, attending church, having mass said for special people in my life, and I’ll also be celebrating this week as we welcome new people into the church and our parish. There are two baptisms which I find fraught with emotion. Being able to watch what I went through is both nostalgic and spiritual. I still remember the water being poured over my head, slowly, three times, as the words penetrated my being. I still talk about how my priest used a water pitcher, a small one, but still a pitcher and how in subsequent years it was more like a clam shell. It’s amusing to me until I think about the amount of icy water dripping down my robe, although I guess flowing might be a more apt word. I kneeled in a tub, a literal baby-sized plastic pool while subsequent catechumens were stood over a basin. It is a beautiful, ceramic basin, and I am in part jealous and also awed by watching my own experience play out for others, regardless of the intricacies and the details. My robes were made by my friend. The incense rising on Holy Thursday made the shape of a Jewish star. I pointed it out to my godmother, so I know I didn’t imagine it. The chrism oil from the confirmation smelled of rosemary. I leaned over to my husband and friend and told them to smell my face. It was a pleasant, old-world, feeling of ancestors, and something I’ve only felt a few times, three times during my children’s brises and namings, and on my pilgrimage to Wales and Auriesville. It was doing something as part of something bigger, huge, that often can’t be put into words or even thoughts. It’s not that it’s old, but it’s, as Tevye says in Fiddler on the Roof, “tradition,” where tradition means so much more than the dictionary definition. It’s deeper than the ocean and vaster than the stars. It’s time stood still and it’s time speeding past. A single line or a wibbly-wobbly mush of threads or yarn tightening in some places, loose in others, knotted, and dangling and frayed and worn and strong and sturdy. It is faith, and it is questioning. It is changing and encouragement. It is friendship and relationship and knowing everything and still nothing.
Ten years of prayer, of mass, of rosaries, of devotions, novenas, saints and blessed, seeing beyond and within. When we renew our baptismal vows on Saturday night, I will close my eyes and let the water land where it wills, the cleansing water of G-d, that reminds of the past and prepares for the future.
I’ve been thinking a lot about my observances and views especially since coming across the thoughts of Robin Wall Kimmerer in reconciling her own feelings on her family’s rituals, but also since the terror attacks in Israel on October 7th and the rampant antisemitism since then. I wonder if I should be doing more as a Jewish person. I wonder (for the first time) if I should have converted – it’s not that I don’t believe; I do believe wholeheartedly, but am I betraying the Jewish people? Am I still Jewish to others? *I* know I am still Jewish. I just feel on the outside. I have always felt somewhat on the outside. I’m more religious than some; I’m less than most. Does what I do count? Who decides that?
I have many thoughts, but they are not forming cohesively and rationally. They come in screams and anger and heartbreak. And reflection.
Before I had kids, things seemed so simple. My husband and I combined what we were already doing religiously. On the High Holidays and Passover, he usually went to work, so there was no conflict. At work, he ate what he wanted, and at home, we continued to eat matzo. It was the same when the kids were born. That is, until he began working from home, but we continued to make it work as we blended our two religions with our children.
Our wedding was an interfaith ceremony as well. We were married under a chuppah or canopy. We had a Rabbi and a Priest. We (my spouse) broke the glass, which represents the remembering of the destruction of the temples in Jerusalem. We celebrated Christmas and Easter with my in-laws, and the Jewish holidays and Thanksgiving with my family. This continued after our kids were born.
After we were married, we continued to celebrate the Jewish holidays with my family. We also celebrated Thanksgiving with my family and then went to my husband’s family for Christmas and Easter. Thanksgiving somehow felt Jewish to me. It wasn’t overly religious, especially if your family didn’t go to church. I also felt that it was inclusive of all traditions. No one was left out. Now, I realize today that when I thought that I wasn’t thinking about the Indigenous people who we peripherally celebrate on that day as well, but to me as a Jewish person, it was the one holiday that I wasn’t left out of things. It became a bigger holiday for me, and for my kids.
When my kids were born, I knew that they would be raised in both faiths and celebrating both sets of holidays – Jewish on my side and Catholic on my husband’s side. Even though he and his family weren’t religious, they still celebrated Christmas and Easter in his family, and we continued that with our kids.
We would travel from our home in upstate New York to our families: mine for Thanksgiving, which my in-laws would attend, and his for Christmas. We would still see my parents during that time, but the primary celebration was spending Christmas Eve at my in-laws and spending the night. We didn’t begin to stay at our own home on the holidays until we had a house and wanted the kids to wake up there on Christmas morning.
A family piece that’s come down from my mother. A Rabbi, praying. (c)2024
This is the first part of a three-part series. The impetus was something I read in Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer, which I will reflect on in the last part. Part One delves into my childhood, growing up Jewish in what I consider a fairly religious household, although it was less religious than my grandparents’ households that my parents grew up in. Looking back, it is certainly more religious than I raised my own kids in, and that will be discussed in Part Two. Part Three, funny enough is the part I wrote first, but then kept expanding and writing and re-writing, and realized there was more backstory than I could fit into that section. I hope you enjoy reading about my past lives, and my reflections and reconciliations with who I am today and how I became that person, at least in this one aspect of my life.
Griffins and Ginger Snaps 