Just Faith, Everyday

No one wants to talk about brokenness. I mean really talk about it – like wondering how life would've gone if I could've had my babies 12-13 years ago; if I could've met the right person at the right time then ( when I was young); if I could've not had three miscarriages; if I could have avoided getting into debt; if I could've avoided someone leaving me when I moved 2000 miles for him.  But then again these burdens wouldn't have created what is true and good about my life right now. Both must go together – the brokenness and the light. To be broken can mean many things to many people. I have met so many people broken in so many ways throughout my life, and I am always surprised by their endurance and ultimate hope. Even to have been beaten by a relative; abused in different ways; controlled by someone out of control; battled (and lost) to illness--these strong souls carry their burdens, and then these burdens appear in new ways in later parts of life and chall...

When people ask me how old my girls are, marveling at their cuteness, my first thoughts always go to how old I am and will be as they hit milestones. Then my answer brings me back to earth: 6 and a half years seems both an eternity and a blink. When I think of all I have learned about myself in that short time, all I have found myself capable of, I do a double take.  And it’s handy to have this reminder, especially when I find myself struggling as I have for these six years handling babies and job simultaneously by myself; or negotiating insurance issues of various kinds of surgery for Isabella; or finding ways to educate and enrich my children spiritually and mentally myself, and supporting their teachers; or maintaining a family life rich in slow, not fast living—tied to Franciscan values. I could go on, but you get the idea.  And I know I am not the only one, though sometimes my journey feels solitary, lonely. It’s always alleviated by sharing as I do with the many Mamas ...

Grief is of the moment, but grief is also a lifetime of negotiating an empty spot. And grief looks like many things right now. If you’re like me, you’re grieving the loss of some true and real things hard-earned: community, trust, understanding. Compassion.  It’s not all gone, but there’s a dearth of it right now in some places—and then, by God’s grace, there’s an uprising of compassion, a calling of many to do the right thing that stems only from something planted deep within each of us. To rise up, truly love, be genuine in our faith.  This alone gives me great hope in this time of toxicity. I still desperately miss my spiritual director Fr. Tom, who would have had much to say, ways to guide, even just a word, sometimes—to heal, coax in the right direction, touch the soul. My soul at times feels too far away from the ways he was able to bring people together, but I know he planted in me the smallest of mustard seeds and that growth begins. If you’re like me, perhaps you were...

January is this clean slate we created by marking time, and it always feels a bit cold emotionally, with the hard follow-up to the Christmas season, to the warmth of so many holiday celebrations in which families gather, commemorate, acknowledge life in its fullness and glory. January feels like a slap in the face by comparison. I resent this a little because my birthday is in January, and I joke and say that’s a holiday, too. In fact, there are nine shopping days until my birthday, in case you needed to know. I’m pretty easy to shop for. But seriously, back to this January thing: time is time. Time has continued, as have the ills and misfortunes we left, it seemed, in 2016. These follow, trail behind us ever-so-slightly as we continue. The gate of time is only an indicator for humans; beyond the gate we have to recognize the work that continues to call our attention. Whatever your work is, however you contribute something to this world, make it wholehearted and inspiring, make it coun...

Being over 40 means having every commercial addressed at you, begging money-spending, hoarding of all kinds of material goods.  It’s both funny and depressing. The music is the touch point, I have noticed: artists which seemed avant-garde in the time past currently hawking some kind of ware.  The online, media version of selling wares, anyhow.  It’s unnerving in part because the target is my middle age, my time when supposedly I am in the flush, in the black, willing to spend. Except I am not all these things. Oh, I’ll buy this and that, to be sure—I’m no angel.  But I choose to live a life more simply, to be Franciscan in my outlook on things, on daily decisions, ordinary, everyday. These commercials do nothing for me, and for this I am grateful and, at worst, annoyed. No, I do not think that Lexus will make me happier, or the new iPhone (I only now just got one, and even so I am skeptical of all this power in my hands).  I equally take joy in knowing that what...

What do I want to be new in my life? What do I need to leave behind? A meditation. I think it might be necessary, as the New Year approaches, to leave quite a bit behind. This has been a miserable year for so many, and certainly a miserable year for our collective consciousness. There is indeed much to fear, much to fight for, much to revile. Leaving behind and letting go does not mean ignoring. Don’t get me wrong on this matter: there’s much harder work yet to do because of the position we are in. It starts with changing minds and hearts on what matters most, and with meeting people where they are, with understanding while holding fast to belief. I have worked too long and too hard on social justice, on true connection with the God who made us, on openness to all as a way toward common good; I cannot and will not let that go simply because the new world order deems ignorance and cruelty and evil, or dismissiveness of others’ held beliefs and cherished rights, permissible. None of this...

How am I to write about these things I have stood for always, in some way; how am I to acknowledge and then help those suffering in fear?  Listen to them.  Listen without prejudice to the truly vulnerable. Place myself *near* the truly vulnerable.  I can certainly take the lessons of direction I’ve received, think through ways to ask the right questions, just as my greatest teachers have for me, to allow others to see their own unique path. Theirs is not mine, after all. Where I have to draw a line is in deliberate and hateful acts of racism, discrimination of any sort which cuts off or degrades human life.  I am appalled that there are people I know who don’t care about or even acknowledge this everyday reality. There can be love even if you don’t agree, even if you don’t share experiences or ways of life. Love is this at least. I think of children and how loved they can be, and how easily they can accept others in that love.  There’s naiveness in this, o...