Just Faith, Everyday

When I read something which forces me to question the difference between horror and beauty, and then makes a strong case for the connection between them, I have to pause and consider whether I'm a monster for seeing any good or whether reality just hit me square. Lately, I have my students reading different stories, fictional and not, about war and its aftermath, and while this discussion verges on the sublime, I've been thinking that everyday wars we wage with ourselves count, too. It's odd to find beauty in a place you don't expect. Especially when that place is your deep dark place. For instance, I find it annoying about myself that I tend to whine about everyday little things, even when I promise to myself I won't do it. Of course, there may be good reasons, sometimes: not having gotten sleep; being sick; dealing with insufferable students; feeling injustice. Even as I grind my teeth I know I need to stop, and it's quite like the literal "watch...

The smallness of places can only be bad if you cage yourself within them, if you tie yourself to the posts of fear, pride, resentment, things which so easily entangle. I tied myself to a daily grind of complaining, grumbling under my breath, about Tra and his habits, about my shortcomings, about all the things we did not have. Loosening that from me allowed me to float back up, reach for brightness rather than darkness. This daily grind was my small place. I’m finding right now, as I listen to my soul respond, that my literal daily grind of work and making or saving money is starting to feel like a small space. I want so desperately to save money for my daughter’s education, to allow her the opportunity for some of a Catholic one as I experienced. I know that this foundation has taken me the longest way, still leads me down good paths. I know it would grow for her in dividends, it would be the best of investments. At the same time I want to donate my money to the many causes I kn...

I wonder why I am obsessed with death lately--not in the way you’re thinking just now, reading this sentence, but in the existential, philosophical way, the way which adds that protective layer we need when we think about the inevitable. I listen to Joan Didion on audio books describe the suffering involved in losing your child, and of course it touches me, it makes me think about the delicate balance between the here-and-now and the beyond. It’s unnerving to consider it--Isabella, in all her youthful and playful beauty, seems to me to be immortal, and it’s sobering to see this little bit of myself in her and know she will come, some day, to an end, as will I. That’s always hard to face, though I think my current obsession comes with preparing myself, with tempering my soul, with facing reality in a way that leaves room for awe and wonder and not fear and trepidation. Life is for living, after all. I guess what makes this process difficult is suffering. There’s such a variety of...

The kinds of fights most of us like to avoid are often as quick and easy as a Southern summer storm, descending upon the land with vengeance in its thunder and lightning and downpour. As I get wiser (notice I did not say older) I find that I'm learning more than I thought I would from this: the inevitable tousle over something. Anything. Sometimes everything. Makes me think of times when the adults in my world fought in front of us kids, how I hated it, how it broke my heart then and sometimes still does, especially when disagreement involves witness by children. The sadness of bile and bitterness seems wrong for a child's eyes and little soul. Yet, conflict and its resolve are what children must see to know, to understand, to build the spiritual tools necessary to overcome. What I have learned after so much witness is that experiencing conflict is like language immersion in another country; the language of forgiveness comes in letting go of old grudges and griping (I'v...

Anyone who knows me knows I adore my family. I know how far my heritage has made me who I am, and often, being so far from them, and so far from the Portuguese enclave in which I came of age, I miss the smells, tastes, outlooks, and sounds of Portuguese life. I miss the compassion, love, and understanding of my mother and father, siblings and cousins, aunts and uncles. I feel, to some degree, severed from them, especially now that I have taken this massive step to set down roots in the South. My saving grace has been forging new family here, since I set foot on red clay. The family I have made here through that same love and compassion given me as a child has made possible who I am today, and I am forever thinking about them each step of the way. Each friend who coached, encouraged, and made me feel extraordinary--or challenged me to get my head out of the sand--pushed me forward. So many different communities contributed to my well-being in this very moment, I'm stunned re...

RECORD: To learn by heart; to commit to memory, to go over in one's mind The day I got back from my surgery we had to pick up Isabella from daycare, and when we got home, she saw how I struggled out of the car, and decided that taking my hand was the thing to do. She slowly walked with me up to our porch, kept looking up at me as if to check on me. So small, so new to this world--but she knows what kindness is. Compassion seems to be both a learned and instinctual thing, I am finding, as I raise my daughter and come to learn a few things about myself. My ear is always attuned to turn of phrase and etymology, and the verb "record" caught my fancy recently. To record is what I hope to do with my family history, what I have done on a little digital device, what I do each day when Isabella delights me with her innocent glee (and I snap photo after photo). The spiritual meaning is there in the etymology and I have always missed how it connects to mercy, in both Engl...

On a quiet, reflective hike at the State Botanical Garden of Georgia , I found myself considering the way some plants bend in an arc toward something--water, or the sun, or each other--and found myself wondering, why do they do that? I’ve been interested in the plants popping up around my house--the delight in finding I have gardenias growing by my front porch, and a bountiful hydrangea bush in our backyard. I am clueless about gardening (I’ve killed a few house plants), but I want to get to know what being a true gardener means. What tools do I need, and what do I need to know about plants of different types and with different needs? How does a good gardener know when her seedlings are growing as they should? Or when they need a little nudge? Motherhood hasn’t been dissimilar, and Isabella seems to be growing fairly well. There have been plenty of times I wasn’t sure how to “water” her or what to do to make her grow right, and I am sure I am in for much, much more. On the othe...