Just Faith, Everyday

  It has been some time since I have reflected with you and for you, and I feel moved to write because of the recent passing of Fr. Tom Francis, OCSO, and my visit to the Monastery of the Holy Spirit in Conyers, GA to commemorate his life, praying with the monks at noonday prayer, reflecting, walking, reading, and writing before I head into a new year of teaching. Fr Tom Francis left me an indelible gift of joy that allows me to see some things in graphic relief, among them sources of inspiration toward restoration of the spirit. When life gets difficult, we seek some way forward (and admittedly sometimes go backward to find it, but that’s only human!). Even though the way forward seems insurmountable, or perplexing, the Psalmist had it right to ask: “a willing spirit sustain in me” ( Ps.51). There’s much to do to create space for that level of willingness, but we all have the capacity to ask for simply the sustaining part of it. It’s in sustaining our willingness that we might ...

  Just returned from a retirement party, and finding myself wistful about what I do and who I work with and all the memory that comes with that. This rumination has taught me a lesson of late: never underestimate what the power of waiting can yield in your life, in your perspective. There’s not a need to be right, or the best in the room, or accomplished in a way that takes anything away from anyone else—just a need to be who you are and give what you do to those who surround you, in the sure knowledge that in some way you have made a mark in their lives that may stand the test of time.  The party came on the heels of reflecting on the passages of my current study for the 19th Annotation, the passage about Simeon and Anna, waiting in the temple for what had been a long time, after much experience and daily striving in their own lives, to faithfully meet the Christ-child entering in nestled in his mother’s arms. Simeon gets a worded statement, and Anna does not, but both, clear...

“Blessed are they who are poor in Spirit; theirs is the kingdom of God.” This start to Jesus’ Magna Carta, a reminder to us that the natural laws of humanity built into creation by the Creator have significance. That we are some and at times poor in Spirit; we mourn; there are the weak, the hungry and thirsty for righteousness, the merciful, the clean of heart, the peacemakers. There will always be those persecuted. Jesus acknowledges FIRST that these souls exist—he sees people where they are—and he blesses them, giving them hope that one day the world may see them in these blessings, but for now, God DOES.  To start it, Jesus acknowledges the presence of those poor in Spirit and gives them the Kingdom for it. These are the poor he knew or got to know, because he was in the habit of befriending, approaching, or being with. Magdalene is a prime example, as well as numerous others. Theirs is the kingdom, on earth as it is in heaven, as Jesus expands for our sake in his formulation a...

In the wee hours of the morning, much like Scrooge, I made a discovery. Unlike him, after years and years of reading and watching Dickens’ story of Christmas, I saw a parallel I have never seen before until now, already with the mind that the story as Dickens saw it is a conversion story. It’s really moreso an Examen, in the spirit of St. Ignatius. If I were really minute about this I’d look closer at Marley, even, and the way he questions Scrooge to consider why he does not trust his senses—how Ignatian is that?!—and then got Scrooge to *sense* inasmuch as intuit and logically believe what was going down around him. That part is actually one of my favorites. But more on that later. The movement of Dickens’ story, from Stave I to Stave V, follows spirits, beings which seem a series of revelations and questions for Scrooge, who, as spiteful as he may be, is still open to considering. In every section there is a moment where he engages the spirit in question, sometimes because he r...

  Passion of Christ, strengthen me.   The line from the Anima Christi I say before receiving communion every week, before feeding my weary soul after more challenges and concerns meet me along the way. This line which stayed with me, as if whispered in my ear, as if a specific kind of encouragement.   I am by nature a passionate person, and have always taken heart in this along with all the Anima Christi prayer. I’ve thought since I was a teen the idea of being “inebriated” was counterculture built in, and that still stuns me, but being a word nerd does not surprise me at all, the Latin base and root words foundational to my understanding, as well as my Portuguese understanding: sanctifica, salva, inebria, lava, conforta, absconda me. Sanctify, save, inebriate, wash, comfort, hide me.   The words immediately remind me of the part in A Wrinkle in Time, when the motherly Beast creature completely wraps our main character in comfort and protection from ...

It’s be a long while since I have posted, and I am noticing that my last post was about the coming-to-life fig tree, which is now shedding its leaves like the Whomping Willow in the Harry Potter series. It makes me smile to see, each time. The seasons have continued onward, marching past our fears, doubts, and deep struggles. A long, hard road, friends, a long hard one—as I am sure it has been for you.  Only this week have my children been able to gain access to the vaccine, for which I find myself utterly grateful and humbled. Generations of humans have grappled with pandemic illness, with disease which we’ve studied and tried our best to overcome—to heal one another. I find myself in a position to help others move toward healing internally inasmuch as any of us need to heal physically from anything at all. I’m equally grateful for the many friends I have in my life dedicating their own to the study of those things which need eradication in our current world: illness; racism; inju...

It’s that time of year when the fig tree in our yard, which has grown exponentially every year since we have lived in this home, really starts showing its fruits. My husband, a tried and true Southerner, is a blur of canning, and loves to make fig preserves and syrups, and I marvel at the intricate process and his obsession with it. Thank God for the greenness of earth, which offers us so much in its simplicity to keep us in tune and interested in creation, grounding us in reality.   I thought of this when I realized this week I’d completed my goal of achieving spiritual direction certification, something I’ve been thinking about and working toward since 2016 (perhaps longer even). Now I’m unable to see life, to see humans and their intricacies, in any other way. I find it hard to listen in any other way than with this attention St Ignatius in his 500 year old practice of the Spiritual Exercises has taught me, though I am finding this voice present outside my sphere of religi...

  To be in a spiritual wilderness is itself a powerful experience, and those who are willing seek to come to terms with that experience have massive steps to take. I’ve felt this wilderness for some time now, and I know you have, too. So many of us have felt the pain of betrayal, loss, and self-doubt in this past year alone. Now, in this time where many of us are transitioning, deciding how to see anew moving forward, how to start fresh in the practice of awareness, is something I think will make or break our world as we enter it. The beauty in the purification and emptying of self---this alone is a most satisfying and connecting way of prayer and meditation. It can start simple: sit and watch a bird, or some light at your favorite time of day. Listen to the quiet, or the noise, in your house, and fix on what makes it good. Let go some of your expectations and then note how this feels to you. Talk out loud, in any way you like or need, to the One who Created you. Emptying your...

  I already posted this month, and my reflection on this giant waiting room we’re in together still stands, but because it is the last day of the year, of THIS year, this interminable year, I want to leave you with one more reflection.  That the hardest of lessons we each experienced this year have real meaning for us now and forever.   It began for me on that bicycle I got back in April or May. It took awhile, but dawned on me that this bike, which is a one speed, simple, straightforward bike, was much like what I had as a youth. Moreover, that I was riding it as I did as a youth: I took the girls to the one flat cul de sac in the neighborhood and rode round and round and round it, over and over, to the point they got sick of it, the sheer repetition.   I, somehow, did not.   And this is where my realization began: that something from my youth had prepared me for the mundane, exceedingly boring, soul-killing repetition, the groundhog day effect o...

  The Incarnation.  A state of mind, a constant celebration. I think of those who want the trees and lights immediately as not being too far off the mark after all, as the presence of God *is* in fact here, and the Advent meditation on Incarnation is more about our wonder that God should choose to come among us, that he would meet us where we are in this complete and total way.  Fully present and here among us, if we would just be instruments for God’s peace and love.  The real focus comes in the whisper of *trust me* from our Creator. Every bit of the language of Isaiah, and the gospel of Mark and Matthew, shows us the light present in the darkness, shows us the impossibility of ne’re-do-wells and sinners as much as saints paving the way for this birth. The need to prepare a way. To make straight God’s path. We’re called into it, into the Incarnation, to become a part of the mystery. To dreams the dreams of Joseph and see as Mary sees, and to say yes to the invitati...

 Friends, it has been several months. It's been several...difficult months. We've been on this journey together. I wanted to just share with you something that happened yesterday that caught me and--as many things have in the past two months--forced me into staying in the moment. I thought you might find it something worth meditating yourself. I've been starting the process of my practice of spiritual direction, and it's been a joy. I could not have started this at a more chaotic time, really, and that's nearly undermined my efforts, but I am determined that nothing should keep me from the mandates God has given me: to serve others and lift up those who need lifting. I am learning and lifting myself, y'all. Yesterday, before finding out about Biden and Harris--literally a minute before--I had closed my direction session with a Catholic Center friend with a prayer to St. Joan of Arc. Many of you may know this most famous of female saints--born to a peasant family...

  During quarantine I have watched out my window at winter turn into the bright green of spring, and then that velvet green turn into something lush and leafy, with all the heat that counters the breeziness of the previous season. In recent days I have watched leaves start to one by one twirl down from the tops of trees, heading toward fall. In a way it feels like a slow or fast motion movie, depending on the day and how you feel.   But this week for me it feels special, because I have also reached a 5-year mark of learning and growth present in my rainbow baby, my youngest and long-sought child. She was born just as my greatest mentor died, and now we are five years on, and so much water under that proverbial bridge. So much. Yet these five months have felt like a learning of five years in some ways. Putting both time frames side by side I see parallels and suddenly my mind opens up like a lotus or some slow but sure opening flower, bent toward the sun. I see a long process o...

My favorite times of day are dawn and dusk, and now I really know why, in my core. In either case, darkness and light take time to come and go: the slow coming of darkness at dusk allows us color and shadow, a respite from the brightness of day, from its heat. The eking, little by little, of dawn’s rosy, sometimes pale yellow light, unfolding like a lotus, revealing the firmament. The passage of time, sure and slow and easy, familiar to us still in spite of all humankind has wrought, brings us these passages. Our Creator has made it so. In some ways this natural phenomenon tells us of our deepest fears and longings, of our evil and good, which are of a piece, whether we like to think of it that way or not. Coming out of this milestone 5 day silent retreat I have reacquainted myself with this truth. In this pandemic this has become a reality—again, whether or not we see it for each ourselves. I see it, clear as day, now. I see it in those I know who fight the good fight, who en...

I am deeply dismayed at the number of people I know trying to justify murder. Aghast, even. Countless comments with some justification to make sense of the immediate death and trampling of human life. It’s enough to make me want to crawl back into bed daily, or at least to question my friendships, scrutinize and wonder what has happened, or why some would choose to tighten their grip on what is clearly wrong. Yet Dr. King tells us now in a voice from the past to move forward: ““If you can't fly then run, if you can't run then walk, if you can't walk then crawl, but by all means, keep moving.” Dr. King spoke this to inspire youth in 1967, and it speaks to us today, of course. Regardless of who or what stands in the way of the justice that comes from the Creator alone, something he acknowledged in his speeches and efforts to inspire. We are God’s hands and feet. Here’s the thing for me: right now so few are willing to look inside themselves that some outside justific...

God pours light into all things—everything is holy. Everything teaches us more about the God who created us. Why would be put ourselves and our selfish desires—willfulness that does not fulfill God’s call to us as co-creators—ahead of that which brings us closer to the Creator? The diverse ways God is present to us calls us to do more. As Richard Rohr, in “Christ Since the Beginning,” points out through Ilia Delio’s words, “ We are created to read the book of creation so that we may know the Author of Life. ” Delio echoes Aquinas as well, something Rohr also points out and connects: “ God brought things into being in order that God’s goodness might be communicated to creatures, and be represented by them; and because that goodness could not be adequately represented by one creature alone, God produced many and diverse creatures, that what was wanting to one in the representation of the divine goodness might be supplied by another. For goodness, which in God is simple a...

I pray for my brothers and sisters out there in prayer--those who celebrate Passover, those starting the Holy Triduum today, and a host of others who cannot celebrate their holy days because of this virus, a human frailty, one which we cannot escape. I share with you my feeling this morning of Holy Thursday that Jesus' words to his friends "Stay here and keep watch with me" mean something quite different now, and will never quite be the same from this point forward. I share this in light of the fact that in 2014, I miscarried during Good Friday, and that experience has never left me the same: the pain I felt as I kept watch was a sharing in suffering, but it was also my suffering. I felt the story I'd only until then celebrated cerebrally or spiritually--I'd felt it in my body. When all three elements of my existence came together, I saw in a whole new way what it means to su...

I’m covering myself up with this beautiful plaid Pendleton-like blanket I inherited from this old couple who’d lived across the street from us in the 70s and 80s, named Bill and Margaret. They took a shine to me and my sister, making us ice cream sodas and showering love. It’s obvious I’m wrapping myself in that comfort, covering up with this woolen blanket, fringe falling off, a woven memory. The chill of early Spring brings on the physical need to cover up, but the emotional toil of what’s happening equally brings on a need. For many the blanket comes in prayer and spiritual communion; for some yoga, meditation, creativity. Of course, our comfort can come in all these things, and we’ve been given a unique opportunity to practice even more, in a way we would never have before. Tangled up in life’s busyness, in our self-importance, we’d not see the beauty of taking significant time with our selves. I think in some cases there are those who struggle with the quiet and with who they’re...

Lately life has been about anxiety, and scheduling everything to within an inch of its life, about trying to keep up with all of the humans in my life, about trying to make time for the human in me, the soul in me, and I am striving, striving toward that goal. Then we have the problems of the world looming in on us as a community: illness and strife in many forms. Incompetence at all levels where we would normally trust our experience and our well-being. The kinds of things that make anyone want to fundamentally question their experience and existence and purpose. It’s exhausting. Having said that, it’s also life-molding and life-changing. Something is happening to our synapses and our souls when we engage fully in our experience, when we learn how to draw boundaries and consider how to communicate and share in life’s great pageant. And I am learning to pray not merely over these moments but through them, to become fully aware of God’s presence in even the more difficult moments of lif...

Seems like whenever I go and visit the place I called home for 24 years, some kind of song from my youth gets lodged in my head as a part of the experience. It’s not every time, but happens more often, maybe because now I’ve been in this place I have made into a home 23 years. Something is happening in the balance of my mind about place—calling for music and beauty to fill it in. When my uncle died suddenly in 2008, the song that wouldn’t leave my ears was Pink Floyd’s “On the Turning Away.” It made sense to me almost immediately at the time, and stayed with me through the wake and funeral, through the long delayed train ride back to Georgia. Other times I’d link onto a song just to accompany the moments—beach, park, family visits. This year for Christmas it was The Cure’s “Pictures of You,” and like “On the Turning Away,” it made immediate sense to me. It came in strains and solidified itself on the plane back, when one of the in-flight offerings was a 40th anniversary Cure concert in...

Being in the presence of deep and abiding pain side by side with utter joy and openness is a disconcerting experience. Or perhaps it’s awakening, sobering. On a trip to Little Five Points and the Variety Theatre I witnessed both, and felt a bit like I was a traveler moving from the depths of hell into a kind of heavenly door, just witnessing what was before me, attuning myself to my experience. We’d gone into Atlanta to see Foy Vance, and had to our surprise gotten there early enough to have a pre-concert drink and a quick bite. Anyone from Georgia who’s been to Little Five, as most lovingly call it, know the atmosphere is like a pumped up Athens, and the bar/coffee shop we dipped into was a perfect example of that: Java Lords, connected to the side of the theatre. Dark and cozy and strange in its decor, there was something about being in the space that felt both like a circle of hell and a party all at once. A couple of older gentlemen were overtly aiming to get full on drunk for the ...