7 Quick Takes, Rainy Friday Edition

1) It's Friday, but a GOF Friday which means we should probably be getting ready to go in to work. I should also be putting the final touches on my teaching (it's Baptism tonight!) and of course... reading Fundamental Moral Theology. Are you sick of hearing about how I should be reading for this class? I'm sick of saying it. Sorry. I am going against every instinct to really read our stuff and not skim it, not read only the subtitles, not only read the last paragraph of every section or the last sentence of every paragraph. I'm really trying to be an actual student because it's my last class and I feel like the professor really expects us to read it all, and... I do want to say something reasonably intelligent in class, but I have to tell you it is miserable stuff. I have new respect for philosophy majors, and a new hatred of philosophy.

2) I teach the parents of younger kids at GOF, and love it. They are a wonderful group and are so good to work with. They respond back to me, they speak to each other when prompted, they nod their heads. I tell them how much I love and respect them (because I DO) and how wonderful they are to even give a little bit of a crap enough to go to a thing like GOF with their kids. I always try to hi-hosey this group (there are enough teachers around that we could switch often and take turns) but I always grab them. This summer our DRE asked for feedback from a few of the parents who had been there throughout our 8 year history of GOF (not just about my teaching but overall opinions about the programs) and one person said "She is great! She must be getting sick of us after all this time though!" which makes me think, hmmm... maybe they're hearing a little too much of me. Maybe THEY are sick of ME. It's possible. This would be a great semester to hand off this responsibility to another capable teacher, and I'm gonna. But I'm going to miss them, and I hope secretly that they miss me...

3) yesterday was Graduate Project Orientation and I was one of the near-graduates there. I don't want to jinx myself by saying how doable it seems. There is a much harder option, where you write a 50-75 page thesis, but why on earth would anyone pick that? The PhD students there said that sometimes people choose it if they "have their eye" on a PhD program (oh God no) but that by the way, their PhD program did not want a 50-75 page writing sample upon admission. So, you'd have to be nuts to choose this. There is also an artistic option. You can make a piece of art, or do a performance! I won't choose this, which I'm sure would be a shock to my undergrad self. In freshman year of college we all had to do some kind of project/production for a freshman intro class that was required of all of us. I wrote a poem about how everyone reads into poems too much, put it on a big white board, and called it a day. Got an A. I am gifted, I guess, at finding the minimum requirement and then doing that impressively-enough well. But not this semester. I'm looking forward to my paper. First Draft is due January 5!

4) I had a conversation with a fellow red sox fan last night and understood everything that was said, and knew what to say back. It wasn't a super deep statistical kind of stuff but I totally sounded like I knew something about the sox, and I did! How cool is that?

5) My parents have bequeathed us their bird feeder, which is called a "Yankee Flipper" but should be called a "Squirrel Hurler" or a "Hurl-A-Squirrel." It has a MOTOR on the bottom that will fling anything heavy that tries to get on it, thusly:

What you can see at about 1:35 is that although the squirrel can't hang on, the spinning does shoot out a ton of birdseed, which the little bugger can eat off the ground once he's done feeling woozy. We have not yet seen a squirrel give it a spin, but we have come home just about every day to a half-pound of bird seed on the ground under the feeder, and a menagerie of birds and critters literally stuffing their cheeks, happily.

6) I've got nothing for number six, let's just move on.

7) So I wrote this whole thing on here about my new understanding of how God works, and it took me a month to even get up the gumption to write it, and I tingled when I posted it, and outside of one (good) comment (thanks Cate), I've gotten no response. I kind of thought this was the thing that would make me a theological rock star, and was ready to entertain (and then reject) offers from PhD programs, but... no. Ah well. Still, I hope it makes sense to people, or doesn't, enough to make them want to send me a note. I'm more than willing to hear that it's CRAP, even.

OKAY, time to get showered and ready for work. Baptism excitement here we come! Hope you have a wonderful weekend! Check out ConversionDiary.com for more 7-Quick-Takers.

God as Perfect Parent

There's a thing that I can't get off my mind. It came to me on 9/11, at Mass in Maine, near my hometown. It's not exactly 9/11 related, but I got to thinking when the priest, during the homily, asked "where was God that day?"
You know, too, that this has been a year full of bad news, for people that I know and love. It's been the kind of year that makes a person wrestle with her faith. I never did lose faith but all along, since almost exactly a year ago, I have had a vague understanding that I was coming to know God in a whole new way.
Anyway, I was in Mass that day, thinking about how God works, and this is what came to me:

I am not a parent but I have seen this happen, so maybe you have too. Picture a young child, a toddler, who's pinched his finger. When little kids pinch their fingers, they cry like their heart is permanently broken. Their pain is REAL! I know, because I've had my finger pinched too. This child's mother responds by holding her child and soothing him. She knows that the child's pain is real, because she's experienced it too. She doesn't do much to fix the pain though, and she doesn't remove every possible pinching thing from her child's existence. She has the perspective of many years. She has a whole lifetime of experience to know that, although the pain is real, it's temporary. Seen in terms of a lifetime, that pain is practically nothing!

Here's another thing I've seen. Teenagers get their hearts broken, and feel like it's the end of the world. I remember so many teenage girls over my years in ministry, who were absolutely crushed by some rejection, some hurtful thing that a boy did. I know that their pain is REAL, because I've experienced that pain myself. There is nothing you can do for a heart-broken teenage girl but listen to her and love her through it. I know things will get better and that the world is not better because I have the perspective of time. I almost wouldn't even want a teenage girl to go through her teenage years without having this experience, however truly painful it is.

So, it occurred to me, if the experience of a lifetime helps me have perspective about the pain that we all feel in youth, then how must the experience of ETERNITY give God perspective about the pain we all feel in life? Maybe this explains, in a way, why God doesn't intervene the way we would want Him to, when we're in trouble. Like the toddler, or the teenager, we turn to our parent and beg them to take the pain away and never let us be hurt again. But the parent, even if He could, doesn't. He knows that however real our pain is, it's temporary. Not just temporary, but God knows that in terms of a eternity, our life-time pain is practically nothing.
We can't believe it because the pain is so REAL. It's hard to imagine in the moment, or the lifetime, that this amount of pure and real pain will ever be dwarfed by anything.

God knows our pain is real, because God has experienced pain. And God knows that we can't see beyond our very real pain enough to say "aw heck, this pain is really insignificant, compared to eternity!" It's not our job to have that perspective, but it is God's.

So if this is true, then I know it has implications for my prayer life, and my relationship with God. I can stop asking God to fix things because I know God doesn't do that. It's not a question of whether God could fix things, and whether God won't fix things, but that God doesn't have to fix things for me, any more than a parent would splint a pinched finger or home-school their teenager so as to avoid her having any romantic relationships. God simply loves me through my very real pain and knows that I'll figure it out when I have more perspective.

How, then, do I pray? I think... we can look at our young people again. The toddler runs to his mother and cries, accepts her comforting. The teenage girl does a lot of crying too, and turns to someone who will love her through it (this is where Youth Ministers earn their stars!). When we are hurt in this lifetime, we run to the arms of our God, who almost wouldn't even want us not to have this experience... who knows that in terms of eternity, this is so temporary... who loves us through.

(I'm not totally settled on this new theology, I'm still mulling it over. But it's giving me a new way of thinking about God that I'm kind of liking. It's probably heresy. I dunno. Don't call the pope just yet, let's work this through a little more.)

Oh look, it's Friday, and I can do this legitimately!

I just saw Scott off to a bachelor party-camping trip, and now it's thundering out there to beat the band. This week has been a roller-coaster of emotions, so you might as well come along for the ride, in 7 stops.

1) First, on a happy note, I celebrated my 43rd birthday (holy cow, 43? I haven't given that much thought but it does seem old, now that I'm typing it... or at least, really adult!). I am so blessed with such great friends- we went on a sushi crawl, four places (two of which begged us to stay, promising better sushi than any other place). We went to one place for apps and drinks, then two more places for their specialty rolls, and then pulled up to the 4th place which was to be the top of the list- but it was closed. How disappointing! But we did all right, ate a lot and had a TON of fun. I smiled all the way home, glad and grateful for such friends and my sweet husband, who dressed up to be the chauffeur and even changed his tie for each new restaurant.

2) I know I've mentioned here that this has been a year of bad news, and just in the last week we've gotten a couple more gut-punches. I've been wondering lately if this is what happens: you know how at some point, in a couple of year's span, everyone you know gets married? Then, a couple years later, everyone starts having kids? Well I've been wondering if in the same way, over a span of a year or two, all the shit starts hitting all the fans? 4 or 5 of my friends have lost a parent this year, or experienced some sort of parental trauma. I see now that as we're all getting older our parents have hit this stage of need at the same time too.

3) This year when a friend of ours was diagnosed with something serious, I was gutted. I spoke to a mutual friend and told her the bad news, for which I got in some minor trouble. I know my friend must have felt that I'd gone over her head with the news, but when I told, it wasn't because I wanted to tell her story- it was because it was now my story. The news I shared with this friend was about my sadness, my worry, my concern. I was a mess and needed to talk about it- I never even thought that I was betraying a confidence. I wonder how much people in crisis know that their stories become part of the stories of the people who loved them. This year, my story is having chapters added with some regularity. In a way I'm grateful to be able to be part of the lives of these good people, and honored to be invited to share even in the bad news.

4) My parents seem poised to move out of their house; they now have keys-in-hand for their new place, and my siblings and I are anxious to get them moved. I know this will be emotional time, and stressful, and a lot of hard work. I think we are all looking forward to having it over with, and ready to move on to the next phase of this journey. Still, I'm pre-emptively tired and wondering if there's some way I can't just make it all go smoothly for everyone, while they're off a lunch or something. For now, though, I have an urge to hunker down and take cover while I can. With the place to myself this weekend I'll get lots of reading and some chores done and spend some time in silence, gathering strength for whatever comes next.

5) My brother is getting married, and I'm so thrilled for him and for his bride. They seem like a perfect fit, and so happy- it's thrilling to watch, even from afar! I keep thinking about our wedding, I guess that's natural- I mean, when I think of romance, I think US! But overall I can't wait to celebrate with my family, this exciting and happy occasion. This week on a random trip through a nearby town, Scott spotted this sign, with my brother's and future-sister-in-law's names. Hurray for coincidences!

















6) I'm almost at the end of my studies for my Master's, and I'm stunned to realize that my theology has gone through some twists and turns through it all, and has surprisingly ended up with LOVE. People in my generation are mocked for having been given sloppy CCD in the 70's, with the insufficient message of "God is LOVE" as the main idea. Of course, it was a tumultuous time, just post- Vatican II. There was confusion, I reckon, on what to teach- but there was still one dependable truth, that of God being Love. Older people found this to be rubbish, and despair at the fact that the people of our generation don't know much Catholic vocab, and can't answer the questions in the Baltimore Catechism. But I have a feeling that it was just that God-being-love stuff that might have helped people like me hang in there in this Church, even through some pretty awful times. And little did our parents know how radical a message this Love business was. Only now, in my last year of grad studies in theology, I'm starting to grasp the hugeness, and the radical-ity of it, myself.

7) which makes me feel like the people of my generation are people who could save this Church from falling further apart. We have seen how our parents' 1950's faith stories are turning out, we looked the scandal square in the face, we made decisions to stay or to go. We have been given the Good News that God is Love, and we have the capacity to understand how life- and world-changing that Good News is. We have a unique perspective, very different from our parents' or our children's. We, I think, more than any other current generation, will come to know what will have to be done.

Wow, this is not where I expected these quick takes to take me, thanks for bumping along with me on this one. Read more at Jen's Conversion Diary blog, and may you have a decidedly un-interesting week!

Leaving Home

Woah, what a roller coaster of emotions this trip home has turned out to be! I'm writing from my parents' computer room in what is soon to be their ex-house. They're moving closer to me, closer to most of my siblings, and into a much easier situation. The move is a good thing, good for everyone, and I'm relieved and excited about how it's all falling into place. Still, it's a big change.

We moved to this house when I was a young teenager, from a much bigger and older (and better) house across the street. I don't feel a lot of attachment to this house- it's too new, too ranchy, and I didn't want to move here in the first place. It wasn't designed with the kids in mind- it was built to be a place my parents could ease into their older age in. All one level, easy to heat and brand-spanking new. Unlike our old house, it is small, and outside of the custom touches my Dad has added (Scott says he has a little wooden shelf for everything!) it's pretty bland.

But now that my parents are leaving our home town, and it's kind of emotional for me. I shouldn't complain, it's been many years since I've spent any time here at all, and I haven't even visited enough to call it my home in a long time. But driving through town tonight, sitting in the car at the Dairy Queen, hearing the sounds of the fair through the trees, it's all so familiar, like knowing my way around my own house. We have lots more trips up here to come, as we start to empty the house and prepare it to be sold, but it feels as if a switch is being flipped this weekend, and there's lots of "last time" vibe in the air, for me.

You can go home again, I guess, but not forever.

Mortality Moments

I made it all through the weekend and through a really tough day today, and here I sit blubbering after a father-centered How I Met Your Mother episode, even though it's a story that doesn't resemble mine in the least. I just ate almost an entire package of Trader Joe's Almond Clusters, and some lovely wine, and I'm totally exhausted.
It's just... my parents got so old, so fast! How did I miss that? I mean, I knew they were getting older, I've seen the difference over the years, but it still somehow seems so surprising.
I used to think about people getting old, and wonder- the very last time they skied, or did a cartwheel, or ran, or skipped, or played catch... did they know it was their last time? Would that make a difference? A major reason that I got the surgery two years ago now was so that I could run again before I die. That's so grim, I know! But I'm not ready to do things for the last time. Already I'm facing the mortality of my eyes- all my life I thought it would be so cool to have glasses, and now I do, and I can never again not need glasses. Same thing- I totally knew it was happening, but now that it's happened, and can't un-happen, it seems so shocking and sudden.
Today at work we met as a staff to plan for our pastor's absence, as he is having bypass surgery. We all prayed along as our Parochial Vicar anointed him. Outside, snow fell and interrupted our new spring, and I felt deflated, and adrift. I know I'm not the first or last to face mortality- mine or my own. I'm not leaning to the optimistic, nor the pessimistic side... both seem tempting, but both seem, well, too easy.
We read this Sunday's Gospel, where the woman at the well said “I know that the Messiah is coming, the one called the Christ; when he comes, he will tell us everything.” I thought, yes, that is what I want- I want to know how it all turns out. Also, I want to stop the clock.

Call now to pledge.

I didn't see much of the news today, even as I have been glued to it lately to follow the situations in Libya and Japan, and everywhere. It seems like a particularly doomy time in the world. But today I was spending time with my Mother and Scott, while my brothers were with my Dad, who was waiting all day and then enduring a cardiac catheterization. Mom had been sick and was dehydrated, and we were charged with getting her to eat and drink throughout the day, and keep her company while she (and we) worried about my Dad. The day was filled with looking for chores to do, walking Mom to the bathroom and back, and terrible, terrible pledge programming on PBS.
The news from the catheterization was less than stellar, but not completely doomy, so we are all letting it sink in and processing it in our own ways. I'm learning about myself and how I handle stress through all this, and today I learned how to make fish chowder (it's not hard!) and re-affirmed that I am not going to quit my day job and look for one in elder care; that is, it's not my gift. We did get her eating soup and drinking water, and not to fall down today, so I guess that's good, but all day I've felt like a bit of a bumbler, fish-out-of-water, not knowing what to do with my hands, that kind of thing. Being the caretaker means being a good soldier, too, and not meeting Mom on her way out of the bathroom with teary eyes and swollen lips (my lips swell when I cry. It's not pretty). I want to let Mom deal with this new reality in whatever way she needs to, even if it steps on my way of dealing with it. I reckon I'll process it all through on the way home, later.
Seriously, though, what is the deal with these PBS pledge shows? First there was a tribute to 50's music, with old people singing their old hits- some looked pretty good, but some of them? Wow, they look like they're straight out of the wax museum. That's not charitable. They still have their voices, I'll say that for them, at least the ones who were obviously mic'd and not obviously lip-syncing. But they sing for two minutes, then the viewer must endure 20-odd minutes of people harping at you to pledge, backed by people who are clearly using ten-year-old computers. This was a RE-RUN!!!!
And don't even get me started about Celtic Thunder. They are not fooling anyone under 70- there is no way that crowd was full of real fans, it was more like one of those info-mercial audiences, filled with ringers: "WILL! IT! CHOP!?" My mother swooned over the youngest one, which is a little disturbing but you know what? Attagirl.
Now we're all in bed, gathering strength for tomorrow and whatever that brings. I'm not great at seeing my Dad as anything less than virile, so I will have to pinch my earlobes and be cheery when he comes home. So many things changing in life right now- in the world and in our corner of it. Saturday we celebrate the patron saint of our marriage, Joseph, and will lean on him a bit harder in the coming months. St. Joseph, protector of families; pray for us!

antici.......................................................pation.

I know I've written here how bad I am at dealing with anticipation... and here I find myself today with nothing to do but anticipate. Today I'm home from work, waiting for a 2:00 mammogram appointment, after which I'll come home (to put on deodorant!) and then wait for my 6:30 class to begin, and then home again for the night to wait until morning, when I head up to visit my parents and family while my Dad has a cardiac test.
In stressful situations, I want to do something. I want to get packed, I want to gather the stuff I need to bring up to their house, where I'll be cooking dinner- I want to find recipes, I want to go shopping for supplies. But, mostly everything I need will have to be gotten at the grocery store on the way up, so I can't gather that yet. My laundry is done and my packing almost done, and I can't do any of the cooking I plan to do, ahead of time, either.
I'm not nervous about the test, but I want it to be over because I want to be able to plan for what comes next. Denial of the possible outcomes doesn't help me in the way that planning for them does. It feels better to do something than to do nothing. So, my kitchen's clean, my bills are paid, the garbage is out, I'm ready to get ready- and I'm ready for what comes next. I just want it to hurry up and get here. the suspense kills me!

Looking Ahead to Ash Wednesday

Here's a bit of the parent session I taught this past weekend for our parish's Generations of Faith, with some changes to make it blog-able:



(pic credit)








As we prepare for Ash Wednesday, let's look at a little piece of scripture that I think will pull this all together for us- we often hear it on Ash Wednesday (it’s one of the options) as we are blessed with ashes: “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return."

Why do you think this snippet of scripture was chosen for this day, which marks the beginning of Lent? I always hear that it's a reminder of our mortality, which, I guess is always important- but, why on Ash Wednesday?

To clear it up a little more, let’s look at the context: it’s from Genesis, the first book of the Old Testament- it happens near the end of a speech by God to Adam and Eve after he’s found them hiding from Him in the garden. Remember, they're hiding from Him because they've gone against His instructions, and... well, just maybe they know they're in trouble.
Here’s the scripture with a little context: (Gen. 3:16-19)

To the woman he said,
‘I will greatly increase your pangs in childbearing;
in pain you shall bring forth children,
yet your desire shall be for your husband,
and he shall rule over you.’
¹⁷And to the man^* he said,
‘Because you have listened to the voice of your wife,
and have eaten of the tree
about which I commanded you,
“You shall not eat of it”,
cursed is the ground because of you;
in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life;
¹⁸ thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you;
and you shall eat the plants of the field.
¹⁹ By the sweat of your face
you shall eat bread
until you return to the ground,
for out of it you were taken;
you are dust,
and to dust you shall return.’

Check it out: God is MAD when he says this! It reminds me of an old parental line: "remember, I brought you into this world and I can take you OUT!!!"

I think it's pretty common for a parent to get angry when their kids do something stupid- but I think at the heart of that anger is usually frustration, born of dashed expectations. Parents have hopes and expectations for how the child they've created will behave in the world. They expect their children to be grateful for what they have been given, to know right from wrong and to act accordingly. They are angry because they are thinking "I know you can do better- I have been trying to raise you to do better."

And I think that's what God was saying to His little creations who, as the story goes, should have known how to act in the face of temptation and chose differently.

When a parent chews out their kids for doing something stupid, they demand change- they want their kids to turn it around, straighten up, and remember who(se) they are and that they've been taught- and for us, Catholic Christians, Lent is the time to do that. If we've gone astray during the year, failed to live up to God's expectations of us, now it's time to repent, and to return.

This Ash Wednesday, when I'm blessed with ashes and I am told "remember, thou art dust and to dust thou shall return" I'm probably going to hear "remember, I broughtest thou into this world and I can takest thou out of it!" and I'm going to try to do better. I want to make my Father proud.

Why pray?

I love this image.
I don't know about you and your theology, but the fundamental God-question I wrestle with constantly is how God works/how prayer works.
I want to thank God for all the good things that happen to me, but I think... if I give God credit for the good things, don't I have a right to blame God for the bad things? But I don't want to do that- and, more importantly, I don't believe (or want to believe) in a God who does things to me, at all- good or bad. I do believe that God could do things to me, or, for me... but I find it harder and harder to believe that He does.
This image is right in line with my thinking. If God isn't going to help these people who are willing to die a very ugly death for Him, why would he give me sunny weather for my day off? He didn't save His own Son from crucifixion... what makes me think He will do my bidding?
But, I want to ask. I want to turn to God and ask for what I need- and Jesus told us to, for crying out loud... I have been told to pray and ask for God's will to be done. Fine, of course I want that (and I always have some suggestions about what God's will should be, in case He's curious) but, how can I think that my prayer will have any effect in God's will? I imagine God's will will be done, whether I pray for it or not. So I pray to God to conform my will to His. So far, I haven't seen much evidence of that prayer being answered in the affirmative.
The parent image is always the one I return to- and use my own parents as models for how it works, maybe. I know they have a will for how I'll live my life, but don't move to control it. I know they love and forgive me when I screw up. I know they would have loved to make my life in their care to be a wonderful, pain-free existence, but that they knew it wouldn't be good for me in the long run to live that way. I know they would love for me to turn to them in my sorrowful and fearful times, even if all they could do was love me through them.
But the problem remains; How to pray?
What used to be long chats with God in prayer come down now to three sentences:
Thank you God. (For Jesus, for my life, for whatever else!)
I love you, God. (because I do)
Conform my will to yours. (just in case)
But when the chips are down (or, the lions released) I still ask for help. I figure if Jesus can ask in the Garden of Gethsemane, I can too... (of course we all know how that turned out)