What I wanted to write:
"Winter is awful. But -- here's the bright side, folks."
What I actually am thinking:
"Winter is awful. There is no bright side, and if I slip on the ice, somebody's going down with me."
What the (slightly) more reasonable part of my brain decided to write:
There is this scene from the movie Cinderella Man that sticks out in my head, even years after I have seen the movie. It takes place in the winter, during the Great Depression, and Russell Crowe's family is hungry and worried. And at one point, one of the children looks up to his mother and asks why all these bad things are happening. Her answer isn't very philosophical.
She turns to the child and says, "Sometimes life is just hard. For no reason at all."
For some reason, every time I am trudging in the snow, I remember that quote and I remember that sometimes life is just hard. Sometimes it's just cold outside, and you would like to grin and bear it and find meaning in it and be joyful and loving, and maybe someday you will be like that, but right now -- right now, it's okay to just be cold.
To look back on all of your blessings. To think forward to the spring when things will be blooming again. To be generous to those less fortunate who have to spend the night in this weather. And to simply trudge on through the snow, with a quiet, undramatic faithfulness to our daily duties that still gives us a sense of peace even in the winter. We can be still and still faithful, even when our footing is unsure, even when the wind is blowing.
And in that quiet, simple faithfulness, we discover that faith, hope, and love are all still there, even in the winter, not because of anything we do, but because God is there, making up for what we lack.
That quiet, simple faithfulness makes us available to God and free for the next step. We follow him through the winter-y moments with a simple faithfulness, and that simple act of surrender draws ever deeper into his love, emptying us of ourselves so that we can be filled with something more, dying to ourselves so that we can bear more fruit.
For those of you who love the cold -- enjoy the last few weeks of real winter. For the rest of you who are like me: trudge on.
Monday, January 27, 2014
Thursday, December 19, 2013
Stars in the Trees
About this time a few years ago, my niece and I were walking in Charlottesville up to the Corner, where I had promised her a treat. I was holding her hand as we walked through the Grounds of UVa. It was a beautiful winter evening. There were Christmas lights on the trees, but I hadn't noticed them. I was worried about the street crossing and the people and the time and whether or not I was going to be able to finish my paper that was due the next day.
And suddenly, she stopped dead in her tracks and forced me to stop too. "Look, Auntie Barbara!" she said with awe and wonder. "There's stars in the trees!"
I looked up and saw the trees on the Corner, lined up and lit up for Christmas. I wondered for a moment if I ought to correct her, to explain that there were actually filaments and bulbs made up of plastic and electricity in the trees. Instead I paused and looked at the trees and saw that she was right. For a moment, I saw the world the way a four-year-old sees it, and I saw that her way was a little bit more accurate than mine.
"Oh. You're right," I said quietly.
Christmas is a good time to remember the wisdom we learn from children, the wisdom of living in the present and receiving the gift of the present moment. And then it can be a time of being still and seeing things exactly as they are: not as we imagine them, not as we fear them.
Poet Marie Howe has an exercise every year that she teaches her poetry students. She says that she tells them to simply write down three things that they see every day. And it's funny, she says, how difficult it is when they first start, to avoid comparison and metaphor, and to simply see things as they are. But after a few weeks of this careful observing, she says:
"Then this amazing thing happens. Clinkety, clank, clank, clank, onto the table pours all this stuff, and it thrilling. The slice of apple, and then that gleam of the knife, and the sound of the trashcan closing, the maple tree, the blue jay."
Everyone feels the change, the shift within themselves that has taken place when they finally begin living "the sacrament of the present moment."
That is the space where life happens, where gratitude happens, where poetry happens.
I think that's one of the reasons why the Church insists on Advent, and doesn't do the retail world's "Hallow-Thanks-Christmas." The quiet space of Advent draws us out of our busy-ness and into the sacrament of the present moment, into the realization that the world isn't only made up of plastic and electricity: the physical world is always pointing us to something deeper than itself -- though we are physical creatures and must begin by paying attention to our physical world.
Advent is the place of paying attention, the place where we stop -- "look!" as my niece said -- and only when we stop and look can we begin to approach the Nativity scene and see something more than a poor family with their baby in a manger.
And suddenly, she stopped dead in her tracks and forced me to stop too. "Look, Auntie Barbara!" she said with awe and wonder. "There's stars in the trees!"
I looked up and saw the trees on the Corner, lined up and lit up for Christmas. I wondered for a moment if I ought to correct her, to explain that there were actually filaments and bulbs made up of plastic and electricity in the trees. Instead I paused and looked at the trees and saw that she was right. For a moment, I saw the world the way a four-year-old sees it, and I saw that her way was a little bit more accurate than mine.
"Oh. You're right," I said quietly.
Christmas is a good time to remember the wisdom we learn from children, the wisdom of living in the present and receiving the gift of the present moment. And then it can be a time of being still and seeing things exactly as they are: not as we imagine them, not as we fear them.
Poet Marie Howe has an exercise every year that she teaches her poetry students. She says that she tells them to simply write down three things that they see every day. And it's funny, she says, how difficult it is when they first start, to avoid comparison and metaphor, and to simply see things as they are. But after a few weeks of this careful observing, she says:
"Then this amazing thing happens. Clinkety, clank, clank, clank, onto the table pours all this stuff, and it thrilling. The slice of apple, and then that gleam of the knife, and the sound of the trashcan closing, the maple tree, the blue jay."
Everyone feels the change, the shift within themselves that has taken place when they finally begin living "the sacrament of the present moment."
That is the space where life happens, where gratitude happens, where poetry happens.
I think that's one of the reasons why the Church insists on Advent, and doesn't do the retail world's "Hallow-Thanks-Christmas." The quiet space of Advent draws us out of our busy-ness and into the sacrament of the present moment, into the realization that the world isn't only made up of plastic and electricity: the physical world is always pointing us to something deeper than itself -- though we are physical creatures and must begin by paying attention to our physical world.
Advent is the place of paying attention, the place where we stop -- "look!" as my niece said -- and only when we stop and look can we begin to approach the Nativity scene and see something more than a poor family with their baby in a manger.
Sunday, November 24, 2013
Pious Old Women
Today I was forced to think about two things that are kind of scandalous about being Catholic in 2013:
1. Relics.
2. Pious Old Women.
First, relics. "This is a tiny piece of a bone of a saint." Or, "This is a tiny piece of a cloth that once touched a tiny piece of a bone of a saint." I've often wondered about how to react to relics. It is so foreign to our modern minds to even think about death, much less to keep bones around where you can see them.
Second, perhaps part of the hesitation with relics is that they are so often beloved by that other difficulty, that is, pious old women. You know who I am talking about. The old lady who comes half an hour early to church to pray the rosary loudly (and perhaps to tell you that you should be a nun). The woman who says uncomfortable things quite comfortably.
And so it took me by surprise today to find myself in line at the Basilica behind a number of pious old women waiting to venerate a relic of St. Peter. Again I was struck by the strangeness of it, how different it was from anything I would encounter on a daily basis, how almost-comical it would be if I didn't believe that it was true: here's a piece of a bone of the man who walked on water.
And again I was struck by that same "other-ness" of the pious old women with their flip phones taking pictures of it. I smiled to myself wondering if they had a whole album on their tiny phones of tiny relics, and maybe they flipped open those phones during Thanksgiving with their families as they told their niece that she was dressed like a hussy and she shouldn't do that because -- "Look at this relic."
But my cynical sense of humor was interrupted by the Monsignor who happened to be having a conversation at the end of the line with just one of those women, one I know rather well. He didn't have the look of panic on his face that most people have when they speak with her -- the look of "How am I going to find a way to get out of this conversation?" He didn't have the look of someone who was secretly laughing at her piety, as she went on about the time that she once sang in a chorus that sang for the Pope's visit. He didn't have the look of someone who was condescending to speak to her -- and he might have, considering that this is DC, the name-dropping, networking city, where important people attend Mass at the Basilica.
No, I looked at his face as he attentively listened and smiled at her, and I looked at the faces of the pious old women in front of the relics, and I saw the same expression. The Monsignor, too, was venerating a relic.
And that's when I really realized how Christianity places such a radical emphasis on the beauty of each human person the entire person, body and soul. Even the tiniest part of that person. Even the oldest person. C.S. Lewis once said, “Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses.”
So today I said a prayer of Thanksgiving for pious old women and for all that they challenge us to be.
1. Relics.
2. Pious Old Women.
First, relics. "This is a tiny piece of a bone of a saint." Or, "This is a tiny piece of a cloth that once touched a tiny piece of a bone of a saint." I've often wondered about how to react to relics. It is so foreign to our modern minds to even think about death, much less to keep bones around where you can see them.
Second, perhaps part of the hesitation with relics is that they are so often beloved by that other difficulty, that is, pious old women. You know who I am talking about. The old lady who comes half an hour early to church to pray the rosary loudly (and perhaps to tell you that you should be a nun). The woman who says uncomfortable things quite comfortably.
And so it took me by surprise today to find myself in line at the Basilica behind a number of pious old women waiting to venerate a relic of St. Peter. Again I was struck by the strangeness of it, how different it was from anything I would encounter on a daily basis, how almost-comical it would be if I didn't believe that it was true: here's a piece of a bone of the man who walked on water.
And again I was struck by that same "other-ness" of the pious old women with their flip phones taking pictures of it. I smiled to myself wondering if they had a whole album on their tiny phones of tiny relics, and maybe they flipped open those phones during Thanksgiving with their families as they told their niece that she was dressed like a hussy and she shouldn't do that because -- "Look at this relic."
But my cynical sense of humor was interrupted by the Monsignor who happened to be having a conversation at the end of the line with just one of those women, one I know rather well. He didn't have the look of panic on his face that most people have when they speak with her -- the look of "How am I going to find a way to get out of this conversation?" He didn't have the look of someone who was secretly laughing at her piety, as she went on about the time that she once sang in a chorus that sang for the Pope's visit. He didn't have the look of someone who was condescending to speak to her -- and he might have, considering that this is DC, the name-dropping, networking city, where important people attend Mass at the Basilica.
No, I looked at his face as he attentively listened and smiled at her, and I looked at the faces of the pious old women in front of the relics, and I saw the same expression. The Monsignor, too, was venerating a relic.
And that's when I really realized how Christianity places such a radical emphasis on the beauty of each human person the entire person, body and soul. Even the tiniest part of that person. Even the oldest person. C.S. Lewis once said, “Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses.”
So today I said a prayer of Thanksgiving for pious old women and for all that they challenge us to be.
Saturday, November 16, 2013
Paying Attention
God never said it would be easy, did he? Ever have just "one of those days" where all of the smallest things go wrong? One of those days where you are pretty sure that you are not adequate to the task, not really able to do all the things that you want to do, all the things you are being asked to do?
I've learned to pay attention on those days most of all. Grace will show up. It will show up in a thousand little ways, just when you discounted there being any hope of it at all.
I sat down in the middle of the afternoon on just one of those days, feeling defeated. There were a million things to do, and had I done them? It was only 1pm -- how was I so tired already? I felt myself comparing me to other people -- that person would know what to do, this person would never lose the energy. I wanted to say a prayer, but no prayer came. I would just have to be faithful, to trudge on.
And then I got a text from a friend who said, "Remember: you are loved. To infinity."
I could have dismissed the moment as a sweet thought, maybe a warm and fuzzy thing. But something told me to hold onto that thought for a moment longer. To pay attention. It was more than a friend texting something kind -- although seriously, what a wonderful friend. It was a moment of grace in a moment of discouragement. We have to hold onto those little moments. We have to believe that those moments are God speaking to us through others.
Sometimes on those days, it comes in a simple breeze that reminds us of the Holy Spirit. In the smile of another person. St. Vincent de Paul said that "Love is inventive even to infinity." God is always there, breaking through, trying to tell us that he will see us through those days, telling us in a million different ways -- through prayer, through others, through the beauty of nature, through music -- grace is there, inventive even to infinity, determined to show us that we are loved, and we must be looking for it, we must be waiting for it, waiting to be surprised by this love that is breaking through even when we have "one of those days."
I've learned to pay attention on those days most of all. Grace will show up. It will show up in a thousand little ways, just when you discounted there being any hope of it at all.
I sat down in the middle of the afternoon on just one of those days, feeling defeated. There were a million things to do, and had I done them? It was only 1pm -- how was I so tired already? I felt myself comparing me to other people -- that person would know what to do, this person would never lose the energy. I wanted to say a prayer, but no prayer came. I would just have to be faithful, to trudge on.
And then I got a text from a friend who said, "Remember: you are loved. To infinity."
I could have dismissed the moment as a sweet thought, maybe a warm and fuzzy thing. But something told me to hold onto that thought for a moment longer. To pay attention. It was more than a friend texting something kind -- although seriously, what a wonderful friend. It was a moment of grace in a moment of discouragement. We have to hold onto those little moments. We have to believe that those moments are God speaking to us through others.
Sometimes on those days, it comes in a simple breeze that reminds us of the Holy Spirit. In the smile of another person. St. Vincent de Paul said that "Love is inventive even to infinity." God is always there, breaking through, trying to tell us that he will see us through those days, telling us in a million different ways -- through prayer, through others, through the beauty of nature, through music -- grace is there, inventive even to infinity, determined to show us that we are loved, and we must be looking for it, we must be waiting for it, waiting to be surprised by this love that is breaking through even when we have "one of those days."
Friday, October 18, 2013
Stronger than the World
On my way home recently, I decided to stop at my favorite bagel shop. It's a far walk from the metro, but I decided that I would get a bagel for lunch, buy a bag of bagels to share, and then take the bus home.
I ate lunch there, bought a half dozen bagels, and waited for the bus. All seemed to be going according to plan. But just before my stop, a whole crowd of people got onto the bus. When my stop came, they hadn't yet had a chance to move to the back. So I was faced with a choice: assume that the crowds would part for me, or take the back exit.
What I should have done: take the back exit. What I did: assume that the crowds would part for me.
They didn't. And as I bumped into a very apologetic gentleman, the bag of bagels broke. My precious bagels fell to the ground, as I'm sure my jaw did.
I picked them up hastily, and sadly exited the bus, feeling defeated by the world and my own clumsiness.
Now I play the ten second rule (sometimes the thirty second rule), but not with bus floors. I had to toss them in the trash. If you've ever wondered what a broken promise looks like, I'd say it looks like fresh bagels in a trash can.
If you're laughing, I suspect that it's probably because you know what fresh bagels in a trash can feels like. You know what being defeated by the world and your own clumsiness feels like.
So where is God in those little moments of frustration, in the fresh bagels that fall to the floor, in the alarm clock that doesn't go off, in the computer that freezes, or in the countless other little moments that make us sigh?
I think there are a lot of potential answers to that question, once we give ourselves the freedom to ask it. We don't usually allow ourselves to ask it because it seems... petty. Small. And maybe it is. But once we admit that we are small and our questions are small, we can be free enough to ask them honestly.
I suspect that maybe God is in the realization of our call to solidarity -- in that sobering realization that there are too many who go hungry in the world, and that for many people in the world, a story about wasted food isn't very funny.
These moments always humble us because they remind us that we aren't the center of the universe, that the world doesn't turn on our principles or wishes. There are principles like gravity and the free will of other people that operate completely independent of our plans. Maybe God is in that awareness of our smallness, which allows us to slowly become aware of his complete "Other-ness," and our mission to love and serve each other in solidarity, with that love that is "stronger than the world" and all of its frustrations.
I ate lunch there, bought a half dozen bagels, and waited for the bus. All seemed to be going according to plan. But just before my stop, a whole crowd of people got onto the bus. When my stop came, they hadn't yet had a chance to move to the back. So I was faced with a choice: assume that the crowds would part for me, or take the back exit.
What I should have done: take the back exit. What I did: assume that the crowds would part for me.
They didn't. And as I bumped into a very apologetic gentleman, the bag of bagels broke. My precious bagels fell to the ground, as I'm sure my jaw did.
I picked them up hastily, and sadly exited the bus, feeling defeated by the world and my own clumsiness.
Now I play the ten second rule (sometimes the thirty second rule), but not with bus floors. I had to toss them in the trash. If you've ever wondered what a broken promise looks like, I'd say it looks like fresh bagels in a trash can.
If you're laughing, I suspect that it's probably because you know what fresh bagels in a trash can feels like. You know what being defeated by the world and your own clumsiness feels like.
So where is God in those little moments of frustration, in the fresh bagels that fall to the floor, in the alarm clock that doesn't go off, in the computer that freezes, or in the countless other little moments that make us sigh?
I think there are a lot of potential answers to that question, once we give ourselves the freedom to ask it. We don't usually allow ourselves to ask it because it seems... petty. Small. And maybe it is. But once we admit that we are small and our questions are small, we can be free enough to ask them honestly.
I suspect that maybe God is in the realization of our call to solidarity -- in that sobering realization that there are too many who go hungry in the world, and that for many people in the world, a story about wasted food isn't very funny.
These moments always humble us because they remind us that we aren't the center of the universe, that the world doesn't turn on our principles or wishes. There are principles like gravity and the free will of other people that operate completely independent of our plans. Maybe God is in that awareness of our smallness, which allows us to slowly become aware of his complete "Other-ness," and our mission to love and serve each other in solidarity, with that love that is "stronger than the world" and all of its frustrations.
Sunday, October 13, 2013
Evening Prayer
"But
Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart."
Luke 2:19
What a heart Mary must have
had, to be able to keep all these
things, to cherish and to see God’s presence in everything.
I’m not there yet. I don’t know
yet how to hold all these things as
gifts from God. Not always sure how to see God's presence in everyone -- like that person who stands on the left side of the escalator during rush hour (seriously, if you're in DC, the rule is walk left and stand right, people).
Still, my heart took in three
things earlier this week as I walked home from the metro.
The first: every day I walk
past a parking lot where a driving school has their driving lessons. I walked
past a teenager talking on the phone with her mom, asking her to pick her up. The
joy in her voice was contagious as she said, “And I drove on the Beltway today,
Mom! It was great! I’m so excited!”
Then I walked past this little
toddler outside with her father, who was doing yard work. She was busy doing
yard work, too, attempting to “rake” the yard, likely causing more work for
him, but he told her that she was doing a good job.
And just before I reached my
house, I noticed this little patch of wildflowers near a construction fence.
Tuesday, October 1, 2013
Filling in the Blanks
Fill in the blank:
If people really knew ________ about me, I'm not entirely sure
they would love me.
It doesn't have to be a great mystery or a deep dark secret. But you know that the blank is there. Maybe there are lots of things you could fill that blank with.
The blank is that something-that-separates-us-from-each-other.
It's that broken part of ourselves that we try to make sense of. It's that
thing you talk around so that you don't have to talk about.
I recently re-read the story in the Gospel of
the woman caught in adultery that the crowd wants to stone. Jesus somehow disperses the crowd, somehow sends every would-be
stone thrower away. And then he says something amazing: "Neither
do I condemn you. Go and sin no more."
He really sees the woman and knows who she is. Go and sin no more. He doesn't hide the fact that he
knows what she has done and who she has been. She is completely known. How does she bear that?
Neither do I condemn you. He knows her completely. And loves her completely. She is both known and loved.
We hold those two truths with us at all times -- the One who knows
us best is the One who loves us the most. We let that truth sink in and
penetrate and carve out a space in our hearts until there is space for
compassion and forgiveness, until we know in our bones that the One who knows
us and loves us also knows others more and loves them more deeply than we are
capable of.
And then -- then life begins to happen. We are known, which means
our smallness is known; we don't have to pretend anymore. We can give up all
the things we thought made us worthy of love, all of those things that we
thought might fill that blank space, and start living in that all-consuming,
all-knowing, all-freeing love. We can laugh at ourselves.
We start living. Which isn't particularly exciting on the surface. We imagine a perfect morning
and then hit the snooze button three times instead. We get up in the morning
and go to work, and sometimes we don't want to but we do it anyway, and we try
to do it with a smile and sometimes we fail at that, too. We answer our e-mails. We go about our small, everyday tasks.
But in filling that space, in knowing and in experiencing our weaknesses, in loving us even though we are weak, Christ grants us a freedom to be small -- to embrace the smallness of the blind man who cries out for help, the smallness of Peter, who is willing to walk on water, the smallness of the woman about to be stoned. In each of these stories, you can almost feel the immediate freedom that comes from each of these people encountering Christ and handing him their smallness.
And so it is with us. Our small, everyday tasks have meaning. They give us reasons to laugh and to cry on a daily basis. And more than that, we begin to see that our real task is to love each other as Christ loved that woman. Our real task is to suspend our judgment and our gossiping and our manipulation. Our real task is to put down the stones that we want to throw and to speak hope to that blank space inside each human heart: You are known. You are loved.
And so it is with us. Our small, everyday tasks have meaning. They give us reasons to laugh and to cry on a daily basis. And more than that, we begin to see that our real task is to love each other as Christ loved that woman. Our real task is to suspend our judgment and our gossiping and our manipulation. Our real task is to put down the stones that we want to throw and to speak hope to that blank space inside each human heart: You are known. You are loved.
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