spiritual

The Halfway Mark

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We’re a little more than halfway through Lent. I’ve mentioned before my difficulty in giving up bread. Fortunately, the additions I’ve made to my Lenten journey are working out much better than the bread. I have indeed attended the 9am daily mass unless I had a prior commitment. I’ve remained after mass on some days to join the other ladies who stay daily to pray the rosary. I read the Lenten reflection book my church provided. I’ve kept a Lenten journal, writing in it daily, and using it for notetaking on my retreats. I have also done some art projects. Once they’re completed, and I make room in my media files, I will share them here. I love the burst of creativity that the retreats give me.

Even just a two hour session once a week is enough to breathe a renewed spirit in me, and set me off on a project.

The month of March was full of spiritual opportunities. I was lucky to be able to attend a total of thirteen days of retreats or workshops. I’ve tried to go through the retreat center’s calendar, and I’m able to continue once a month through June. Just the idea that it’s available has me full of adrenaline to keep pushing.

As you can see, I also have my keyboard back, so I’m hoping to do a little catch up from last weekend, especially with my series: Emma Watson’s Book Club, The New 52 for weeks 12 and 13, and another book news. Those book news posts really help me organize my thoughts on the two books. They’re very jumbled up in my mind, I think due to the emotional level of both stories.

I was also asked last week to share my conversion story, which would mean talking to people, like an audience, and it’s not something I want to do, but I do kind of want to share it. When I talk about it, I get a lot of positive feedback, but I’m not sure I’m ready for it. However, after saying all that to the person suggesting my opening up, I did feel as though I might be able to in the future. That was definitely something that surprised me.

I can feel myself growing.

I will absolutely talk more about my church’s parish mission that occured in the early part of this week, but in short it focused on Pope Francis’ life and thoughts, which in general focus on mercy and forgiveness. I was truly blessed that i joined the church around the same time as Pope Francis’ choosing. He is a true inspiration to me, and the three days I spent immersed in his merciful ideas was really what I needed to end this half of Lent, and be able to continue down my path. Related to our parish mission, I will have a story of mercy and grace to share tomorrow.

The Best Laid Plans

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I’m on retreat this weekend. The subject is Wise and Holy Women. I had intended to make two posts or so this weekend, but G-d had other plans. When I  unpacked I  discovered that I did not have my keyboard. 

On Sunday, I  will write the twelfth week of the new 52 which was supposed to appear here today. Week 12 is a person, Brother Mickey McGrath, oblate and artist. He is our retreat director. He is wonderful and I will tell you of his influence on me over the last few years, opening my heart and creativity. 

In the meantime, follow the link in his name and look at his beautiful and spiritual art. 

Until next time, 

Blessings

Ruth 1:1-18

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One of the retreats I’m on this month is a weekly group. I had done this before with New Testament Women and this session is Old Testament Women.

We pray at the beginning, and then collage from our personal reflections on the two readings, then we share our art, and read the next two for the following week using Lecto Divina. I’ve talked about Lecto Divina in the past. I had been using this technique since I began reading Scripture, but I didn’t realize it had a formal name. It was just something I did.

Today’s class was canceled due to our snowstorm, and will be held next week, but I still wanted to re-read and reflect on these two women today: Naomi and Ruth.

Ruth has always been a favorite verse of mine. I always had a connection to her for some reaosn. One thing I discovered in the reading last week was how much of a Hufflepuff she was. Loyal to her adopted family, her kindness, her friendship with her mother-in-law, even her friendship with her sister-in-law. She’s faithful. Once she married Naomi’s son, she became a permanent part of her family.

She couldn’t state it any simpler: Wherever you go, I will go; wherever you lodge, I will lodge.

Her determination and loyalty really stand out, both as things I strive for, and as part of that Harry Potter house.

See? Everything is connected and interconnected.

First Week of Lent

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Why Do People Fast for Lent? (a view from Vox)

As the first full week of Lent comes to a close, I thought I would talk about some of the difficulty I’ve been having during this year’s time of reflection. It really has been a struggle to find what I want to make of this Lenten season.

On Sunday last, I finally decided, after four days that I would give up bread for Lent. Not all bread products, but the delicious, soft, warm, fluffy bread. Then on Monday at my friend’s funeral reception, I ate a roll. It was not unintentional. I wanted the roll, and I took one. I probably would have had two, but since I knew that I had succumbed I didn’t want to compound my misstep. I do plan on going to confession on Saturday, and I plan on abstaining from bread for the rest of Lent.

I could not decide on what would be a meaningful fast. Everything seemed hollow and superficial. I thought of the other items I’d given up for Lent in the past: diet Coke, ice cream, and McDonald’s breakfast burritos. For some reason, I feel like chocolate should also be on that list, but I don’t recall actually giving it up. Perhaps it was on the list of options in the past.

Should I give up all three?

No, that would be crazy, and near nigh impossible. The abstention is supposed to be thoughtful and somewhat difficult, but I don’t think it’s supposed to be impossible.

I finally decided on bread for a few reasons:

1. I eat way too much bread. [But it’s sooooo good.]

2. My doctor wants me to eliminate bread and sugar and empty calories from my diet. I did this for three months last year and I lost almost thirty pounds. Then, I got lazy, gained it all back, and then some, and I feel much more crappy.

3. Bread would be not impossilbe, but it would also be challenging, and the benefit at the end of forty days would be both physical and spiritual.

So, bread it is.

I am also adding to my Lenten “diet”.

1. I’m returning to the 9am daily mass when I don’t have a prior commitment. On the other two days, I’m planning tea and meditation and/or prayer.

2. I’m keeping a Lenten journal.

3. I’m speaking out, but trying to do so in a more diplomatic way.

4. I’m finding me, and being me more often.

5. Prayer, fast, alms. I’m thinking more about the particulars of Lent, and how to carry Lent throughout my year.

I am also reading Not By Bread Alone. It is a reflection book very much like the Advent one I liked so much.

I am going to try and cook one meal a week. I have been poorly disposed to cooking for quite a while now. Some of it is depression, and some of it is that I haven’t done it in so long, it feels weird to start again.

I have many retreats/workshops, mainly at the Dominican Retreat Center that give me so much spiritually and through fellowship with others.

I’m less self-conscious about discussing my differences with many of the Catholics I know. I talk about growing up Jewish, which not everyone knows, but it really relates to who I am today, and how I approach my Catholicism. I talk about my feminism without as much embarrassment as I used to have. I defend Hillary Clinton and the Democrats, diplomatically. I embrace my allyship of LGBT, especially youth and trans people who need more allies. I accept and embrace my thoughts and beliefs on reproductive rights, even where it diverges from doctrine.

As a funny way to end these thoughts of Lent, as a Jewish person, and yes, I still consider myself to be Jewish as much as I’m Catholic, I find it funny the dietary rules of Lent as compared to Yom Kippur. During the twenty-four hours of Yom Kippur, our fast was no food or drink, and typically most adults would spend the entire day in temple in prayer. I would only take water with my medicine and I only ate when I was pregnant. But Lent…you only fast on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, and you abstain from meat on those days as well as all of the Fridays in Lent. But only if you are under 59. And a Catholic fast is one normal sized meal, but as many as two small meals with no in between meal snacking. I think water is acceptable throughout the day. This seems so easy to my Jewish mind.

I also know that it’s the thought that counts, so while I am partaking in these fasts and abstentions, I am reading and reflecting, meditating and contemplating, and drawing closer to G-d without all the hub-bub of food getting in the way.

Lent is a slow down to discern what is important, and to set goals for the rest of the year after the celebration of Easter.

This is only the beginning of the time in the desert, but it is not a trudge, but a slow pace to get to the other side better than before, and the first steps have been taken.

May your fast be easy.

7-52 – Family

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​When I was a kid, we spent a lot of time visiting family. Every weekend was spent with aunts, uncles, and cousins. Or someone’s aunts, uncles, and cousins. I remember visiting rural areas way out east on Long Island or the wilds of New Jersey. It was probably more suburban than what we were used to in the city, but in my little kid memory, it was farmland with grass and trees and swingsets. Very Waltons. When we eventually moved to the suburbs they weren’t quite so rural. I can remember sitting in this huge wicker chair with my baby brother. It’s probable that I’m remembering a photo, and of course being three or so everything was huge.

My father used to drive us both days of the weekend to Grandma’s house – Saturday to his mother in the Bronx, and Sunday to his mother-in-law in Queens. Both she and my mother worked on Saturdays. In the Bronx, when my grandfather was alive, he’d take me for walks down the city streets, sometimes in my stroller, sometimes holding my hand, stopping at the basketball courts where I can still hear the bouncing ball in my mind, and then turning around to go back to his building. They lived on Castle Hill Avenue, the same area that Jennifer Lopez grew up in decades later. My father and I got stuck in his elevator once. That’s probably one reason I do not like elevators very much.

My other grandmother had a house. it was attached to another house in a row of attached houses. She had a garage and a basement and a backyard that we could never use because it was so overgrown. I didn’t know the street names, but I could find it by the landmarks, turning right at the white fence and so on.

This was how everyone spent their weekends. One uncle, my mother’s brother would also bring his children even though he’d sit in the same chair and read the newspaper silently while his kids, my cousins visited their grandmother, my grandmother.

My great-uncle who was just called Uncle would visit my grandmother who was his sister and his mother, my great-grandmother who also lived there.

I grew up with his two youngest girls, twins, my best friends all through elementary school.  We were one year apart. We went everywhere together. I was the third twin. We lived in the same garden apartment court and when they moved to Florida, my family moved soon after to Long Island. Continue reading

Confession, Penance, and Individual Mandate

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​As a writer, I tend to overshare. 

If I talk about some good deed I’ve done or random act of kindness or whatever, I’m never trying to get a congrats or a pat on the back. I like to show people how easy it is to be kind, to be patient, to simply be nice. I’m not better at it; I just try to be aware of the opportunities when they arise, and in sharing them, I think it shows everyone how the smallest things can affect people.

The same goes for my spiritual postings. If I can feel this, so can you; if you want to. And I do truly believe that we all learn from each other; from each other’s mistakes and from our smallest of victories.

By that same token, I never know if I’m supposed to write about and share the penances I’m given. There is nothing better than that moment my priest says, you are absolved. Second to that is the satisfaction of having completed a penance, whether difficult or easy, rote or inspired. Although honestly, none of them are easy or rote.

In my growing up and seeing confessions on television, I’ve always thought of them as your deepest, darkest secrets that are supposed to be kept hidden away, never to be talked about again.

What I’ve found in practice is much different.

Continue reading

3-52 – Called

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We Are Called. David Haas.

January’s spiritual was hard to come together. I planned on posting yesterday, partly because it worked with the loose fifty-two week schedule in my mind, and partly because it was my mother-in-law’s birthday, her first since her passing in June.

As part of my own religious awakening, I had mass said for her, as I’ve been doing for another friend’s birthday and death anniversary since 2011. I thought it would be a nice way to get the entire family together and send their thoughts to her, assisted by the rest of the congregation. Yes, I do believe that. My family typically doesn’t come to church with me, and that’s alright. I invite them, and I will continue to invite them. It’s my faith. I can only share it.

The woman I usually sit with was behind us – we were too many to share the pew this week, and she was thrilled to see my family. She was grinning ear to ear, and pat my husband on the back. She is lovely, and for her and me and many others being here regularly is more than obligation; it is joy and peace and centering to get ready for the rest of the week.

There is always something that comes out of nowhere and shows us the interconnectedness of our worlds, our spirits, and our being.

Yesterday was also the Women’s March on Washington. Many women couldn’t go for economic reasons, travel reasons, personal reasons, and marches began to be organized across the country, and then across the world until there were marches and protests on all seven continents. In Chicago and Washington, DC, there were so many marchers that they couldn’t march, so they stood. Together.

With signs.

With pink hats.

Rainbow scarves.

Pro this, pro that, and anti too.

In Washington, there were zero arrests. ZERO. How do you have over 700,000 people on the Mall in DC, and have no one arrested for anything? It’s remarkable. I think it’s unprecedented, but I don’t have the hard figures so I’m only guessing from hearing about these types of things.

I was kind of taken with the idea that the women’s march was being held on my mother-in-law’s birthday. It seemed fitting. I don’t know that I’d label her a feminist, but she was really beyond labeling. She was eighty-two when she died. She didn’t drive, didn’t even have a driver’s license. She had no internet in her house, no computer. No cell phone. Didn’t know how any of that worked. No cable until a few years ago. Her camera was a disposable Kodak that you buy at the counter in CVS or Walmart when something momental came up, like grandchildren.

It makes it sound as though she was an elderly woman.

She wasn’t.

Far from it.

Up until getting hit by a car in 2013, she was more active than I was, not that that’s saying a lot, but she was hella active. She traveled several times a year, by herself, by long distance bus. She walked everywhere or took public transportation, usually the county bus. When our kids were born, she was on the first bus north the two hundred fifty miles to help. And man, she helped. She cooked, she cleaned, she took the other kids on walks and to playgrounds. 

She spoke her mind. No filters.

She was an amazing cook and seriously could take whatever was in your cupboard and make a gourmet meal out of it. No lie. I use her Christmas dinners as a model for my own (at my husband’s request). This was the first year mine was perfect. I think she must have been there adjusting the temperature, adding the right amount of pepper or garlic or steadying my hand to avoid over seasoning. The onions were to die for. The meat itself was perfectly cooked, rare enough for my husband, well enough for me. Perfect.

When she was a girl growing up in Belfast during World War II, there was rationing, where she learned how to do without, and how to do with whatever was available. As a teenager, she left home and went across the world to Australia – the Outback – Alice Springs, much more desolate than it is today. She worked and she lived with others who she’d never met before. She went to India and Afghanistan, and worked her way to the United States where she met a man, married, and had three children.

She was still adventurous, and I see her light every day in my daughter’s eyes, her clothes, her attitude. Why can’t I wear a party dress to the comic store? The question hanging in the air with her nose wrinkled and brow furrowed. The day my mother-in-law died we were visiting her, and she loved my daughter’s new shirt. Seventy percent off, and fuschia and orange from Eddie Bauer. I made a mental note to pick one up for her, so they could match on our next visit.

For her cremation, we looked for the most outlandish, brightest, orange-colored outfit that we could find. For the memorial, I wore fuschia, and my daughter wore orange. We were all brightly attired in honor or her brightness, and still, she outshone us all.

At yesterday’s Mass, the processional hymn was We Are Called. You can see the words in the picture above, but I’ll reiterate them again below because they perfectly encapsulated the March on Women, the independence of women honored and celebrated, sung and danced by and to.

We are called to act with justice
we are called to love tenderly
we are called to serve one another

If we remember these words, whether sung in church or said in our minds, we can persevere and move forward. Always forward. We can get through whatever we need to so long as we act with justice, love tenderly, and serve one another. Remember mercy and compassion. And remember those women who’ve gone before us to pave the way. We are all marching in some way to make things better for ourselves and our children. Equal rights are not given.
We all go across the world to a strange land, and we do whatever it takes.

We march.

We march.

We rise.

We stand up and we speak out.

And we don’t stop.

I wanted to take my daughter to the gathering in our state’s capital, but it conflicted with my mother-in-law’s mass. I was able to send my spirit to Washington along with my name on a sign, from a Gishwhes colleague who wanted to bring us all with her. How appropriate to the March and to Gishwhes. I had one friend in Seneca Falls, home of Susan B. Anthony. I had one friend in Chicago. My Instagram was filled with the L.A. march. Gen and the boys in Texas.

We’re not coming. We’re here.

All of our spirits have come together to say we’re here, you will listen, we’re not going back, the resistance is now.

Book News

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​Book News is a new series that is for sharing, for sounding board, for feedback, and for my own accountability. I’ve mentioned several times in the past about the two books that I’ve been “in the middle of” for what seems like forever. I feel like my Wales book is a reward for when my House book is finished. The problem with that is that writing the House book is extraordinarily emotional and I have a hard time getting through it for several reasons that I need to address within the pages of the book.

I don’t know if it will be a monthly or a biweekly feature (I’m leaning towards biweekly) , but it will be on my calendar, and so I will need to set goals based on my outlines, and begin the research for some of their aspects.

Book News will let me keep a log of those things that aren’t necessarily post-worthy or essay/articles, but that still need to be accomplished in order to publish.

I think this will work for me, and I appreciate your support as I make changes and grow as a writer.

Quick Intros Continue reading

On the 12th Day of Christmas, My True Love gave to Me:

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​ …Twelfth Night.

After college, I was fortunate enough to meet some people and get involved in a historical reenactment group. We’re still family but I miss the day to day. Facebook is not an adequate substitute.

We held events, most were annual favorites, and one of the ones I loved was Twelfth Night. It was when we exchanged gifts for the holiday season.

I didn’t pay much attention to why we did our “Christmas” later despite doing ridiculous amounts of research into my Welsh persona. I think I just thought that everyone was busy with their mundane lives and this was when we all got together as a medieval family again.

It wasn’t until later, teaching, reading about a multitudes of December holidays, and really looking at the liturgical calendar that I noticed that Twelfth Night falls on the twelfth day of Christmas, Three Kings Day, the Epiphany.

Everything makes sense now.

Well, not everything, but this does.

And since that journey of the three wise men and others who are not so lauded or remembered, more than I can count have journeyed to meet the Christ child. We can’t all go to Bethlehem, but He will meet us where we are, and he does.

Discernment

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​​How did you discern your vocation, your call to follow Christ? Who were the people who mediated that call?

– Daily Reflections for Advent & Christmas: Waiting in Joyful Hope 2016-17 by Bishop Robert F. Morneau

I don’t consider what I believe or what I do through that belief and faith to be a vocation. That may just be my mind’s unwillingness to grasp the meaning of that word, and I may simply need a little more time to wrap my head around it. To me vocation equals job, so for vocation, I think more of priests, nuns or religious women, deacons, even ministry lay people, but for me simply as a follower of Christ, I don’t think of it or call it a vocation. Perhaps in time, it will become that in my mind whether or not something changes tangibly or not.

So for me, this discernment, which is another word I had to wrap my head around, is about my call to follow Christ. I didn’t recognize the call to follow at all. I came to the physical building of a church for solace, for meditation, for silent ranting, and conversing with G-d. Jesus was not part of the picture.

I don’t doubt not that He led me there, but it wasn’t with a neon sign although there was a street sign. Looking back on it now, it would have been a really sad excuse for a Hallmark channel movie; so improbable, so contrived if I’d thought of it as a five step program.

But there I was led, and once I settled in to looking inward and selflessly instead of the opposite, things fell into place spiritually. Once the call came, there were no doubts, no second thoughts. I, the queen of second guesses and wishy-washyness was shocked with which the ease of following Christ came to me.

I was looking for nothing, and I received everything. Once He reached out to me, He was there. I knew all the things I needed to know, and each step was taken with little thought, but all heart. No regrets.

The people in my life didn’t so much mediate the call as supported it, both before and after.

Prior, I had a friend who emulated forgiveness and love thy neighbor. It hadn’t occurred to me that these were Christian values until I saw it in action under no labels. Watching him forgive what I could never made me acutely aware of how many grudges I held, even if I thought there were a few strong ones, it was a few too many. I began to see things in a different light. My circle of friends supported me and held me up when I would falter, and none of that was expressly Christian or Christ-like; but was just good and decent and human.

Humanity.

Empathy.

Pushing courage into my veins like an energy drink.

After those friends, my church family was so welcoming. Before I was Catholic. Before I would ever hear the call; embrace the call, they were there in all of there capacities.

The women in the pew who talked to me, never once asking me where I’d come from or why I was there (since I wasn’t Catholic).

The priest who I was wary of since my start at Masses came before his return from Roman sabbatical. I do not like change. Any change. My middle name should be wary-skeptical-cynical.

His first homily on or around the anniversary of my friend’s mur/der about a red steamer trunk and his sabbatical that sounded remarkably like my recent pilgrimage to Wales was so profound that it left an indelible mark on my soul.

He also welcomed me into the counseling room, not so much counseling as counsel and talk, and never once asked when I would be joining the church or attending Sunday Mass. Not once.

In fact, no one in this parish community ever asked me when I would be converting. They welcomed me anyway.

The church secretary who became my godmother, so knowledgable, so kind, so full of grace to answer my questions, and fill me in on things I may not be as mindful to not growing up in the church. She is my guide and my friend.

All the people at the daily masses who said hello and smiled at me.

The medical and hot water heater help through the St. Vincent de Paul Society, never once questioning my church going (or not going), not knowing me from Adam, and helping. These men and women have a calling; a vocation.

I was never asked for a donation.

I was never asked for anything before in my heart I knew I could give it. And somehow, they also knew.

I could feel people praying for me. My life did not miraculously improve overnight, but I could feel it – people, friends, acquaintances.

Holy Spirit.

Seeing through the RCIA program, amazingly and profoundly at how much they were teaching me that I already believed since childhood and couldn’t quite put a finger on.

So many people involved and encouraging through a simple head nod and a smile.

The people (you) who read my things here and tell me their stories of their own callings or ask questions about mine or simply hit the like button. It is all part of that mediation, the meditation, the call and the give back.

The calling had been there all along; I only had to quiet myself down to hear it.