Just Faith, Everyday

Choosing to live and grapple with one’s demons is an act of courage. Every time I turn around lately I find someone with a story to share or a battle well fought, and this inspires me in my own battles with “acedia,” or the “noonday demon,”  originally noted amongst monks who live a solitary life and find themselves alone with their worst thoughts about themselves on a  regular basis.   Kathleen Norris writes eloquently on the subject  --but I suspect everyone can find someone who, if willing, has a compelling story to share. I’m grateful for the examples I have in my life at the moment: I have especially looked for fortitude and faith, a counting on God but also an inner strength, a belief that all will be well, no matter the circumstances. My current demons revolve around believing I can get through this pregnancy, and that I will hold my beautiful baby. That my  body won’t betray me. That I will have faith in God, make the right and healthy choices for...

On Holy Thursday, I was 20 weeks and 1 day pregnant.  And for the first time, I allowed myself to be fully joyful: inside, I had an all-out party with myself and Tiny Dancer.  I named the baby Tiny Dancer when I first saw legs and arms move as if in joy, as if to say to me--Mama!  Look at me!  And I did, and I fell in love. I saw, through the miracle of science, pictures of my little one, full head, limbs, belly, squirming and stretching and telling me, yes, I am here, I am going nowhere until it’s time. Little by little I learn the lesson of trust. Each milestone feels different this time, teaches me something new about myself.  In recent days I find myself coaching from within: accept whatever comes. Accept the strange feeling of your belly pulling down and outward; accept the possibility something has gone wrong; accept the possibility all has gone well. Accept it all--it may all be true. Accept the gift of each day given freely.  This, my latest lesson ...

I can’t see her anymore, roaming the yard, looking for her favorite sunny spot on a cold day. Our little Dot, with her hopeful looking brown eyes, always on the lookout, ever-protective of Isabella since she was a wee one.  She left on the tail end of 20 some-odd days of illness for us (sinus infections, bronchitis, flu), after suffering herself through joint and leg pain, and loss of mobility and desire.  In this past month, we have all lost our desire, become humbled by both desperation and dependence, and are just starting to emerge.  Maybe.  I can still see and feel the way I have turned inside myself, helpless to help myself, my daughter, my husband, and ultimately, my dog.  I also remember, being in the midst of this, holding fast, too fast--not letting go.  One day, sniping at each other, I broke. I let go the anger, unleashed it, felt bad and good for it finally coming undone from me, being freed of its tyranny. Before this I’d realized dully that s...

This morning, Isabella, sleepy-headed at breakfast table, said, “Mama, it’s been so nice to be here at home for Christmas--I don’t want to leave for school.”  In her little four years she, too, gets how absolutely lovely and wonderful sharing all this time together has been, and like her I have been hesitant to let it go. As I write, I steal glances at my Christmas tree, the mandate from my husband to take off the ornaments in the back of my head. I can’t do it just yet; I want to linger a bit in the loveliness of one of the best Christmases of my 42 years, to revel in the fresh memory of it so as years go on, I can access this feeling, this moment. Perhaps there will be even better moments to come, but this year will rank right up there, I think. As we drove to school, we discovered the pearlescent moon “following us,” as she said, joining us for the ride.  And I found what I love about the ride: the textures of countryside in contrasts of color, the frost glistening in that ...

I have always felt myself in the middle of things--in between arguments, sides, ideas, always gazing on both and trying to pull together what stands apart, to find what good there may be in the midst of darkness. It’s one thing when this involves friends or family at odds, or my students (in fact I think what makes me a reasonable teacher is this ability, however painful it sometimes is to wield the sword of peace). It’s another when feeling in the middle involves just me, battling with my inner contradictions. Easy to get caught up in it rather than see it as opportunity--as a way to see beyond faults, failings, both within and without. To see the reality of grace. As Advent continues, Isaiah remains my favorite to listen to, as a voice for those who, in between, seek direction. While we succumb to the sorrows of this world, his voice still resounds: the Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim fre...

When, try as we may, we aim to plan and schedule, God enters our lives and presents a set of circumstances unexpected.  In fact, there’s a different time table sliding underneath the one we have established, about the way we think things should go versus the way they in fact go. This comes to life for me now as I make sense of what it would mean to try and have another baby.  Having lost before, I know planning is on some level laughable. That shifting time table is barely perceptible but experience tells me it’s there, in the face of my everyday realities: stressors of all sorts, both the mundane and extraordinary. I am trying to control these, since there’s little else I can control. In class we just considered Milton’s line “They also serve who only stand and wait”--which resonates with me and anyone who has ever awaited something or some situation that had no definite outcome.  I have a specific story now, but I know this line means something to so many who have await...

As I suspected, the school year has absconded with my inner peace, and I find myself running from thing to thing, obligation to obligation, duty to duty.  All necessary, and I’m not the only one. Every morning when I head out to bring Isabella to school, and get myself to my office hours, I see there’s plenty of others in my boat: plenty of people going to fulfill obligations, to make good on promises to be or do who they have to be or do. I’m trying hard to make time for what is good and simple and soul-filling: those things which make the hectic part of living out our vocations worthwhile.  Sitting on the front porch waiting for the chimes to ring on a windy day is one of my favorite recent pastimes, as is watching my daughter learn how to dance, or dancing myself--letting my body and my skin feel the world rather than just working my brain, letting these slowly but surely coax that peace back.  Even just the simple act of writing, of sitting still and thinking, has bec...