If there is room in your suitcase are you really ready to leave?

I am writing this sitting on a shady terrace at a little hotel perched above the Rhein, across the river from Bingen. It’s hot and humid for Germany, nearly 90F and not yet noon. Yet the morning breeze is pleasant, there are billing doves and assorted other birds providing a soundscape. The atmosphere reminds me of summer retreats at the Jesuit retreat center at Wernersville — now sadly closed — softly encompassing, encouraging a syrupy slowness and a deep appreciation of cooling breezes. (Also the noise of leaf blowers!) Despite the vibes I am neither on retreat nor on vacation, but here to give a talk at a chemistry conference.

One plane ride over the Atlantic, two train rides, and a taxi up to the hotel and I am still too early to check in. The desk offered to hold my luggage and suggested a “chilly” walk through the forest to pass the time until my room is ready after lunch. Or if I’d rather, I could use the sauna and pool. I refrained from saying I had already had the sauna experience today, on the train platform at Frankfurt airport where it felt like an August afternoon in Washington DC. Oof. I opted instead to read my book on the terrace and embrace the breezes.

I was also thinking of those retreats at Wernersville yesterday while I was packing. I am on the road for 6 days, and took only one bag, which zipped with ease in its unexpanded form. It worried me, what might I have forgotten?? Was I really ready to leave if I didn’t have to sit on the suitcase to zip it? I usually fill every inch. Then I realized, most of my recent travels have been to cold, damp climes. Sweaters. Sweaters take up a lot of space. I definitely brought no sweaters on this trip, where it is expected to be in the 90s all week. It also reminded me of a retreat where I gave a Jesuit a ride back to the Main Line.  When he tossed his one very small bag in the back of my Mini. I recall aspiring to travel that lightly. And perhaps now I do.

Firefly thoughts

 

I am in the throes of finishing a book manuscript. My co-author and I have been working on a book on the history of women chemists in the American Chemical Society for the better part of a year. The volume is to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Women Chemists Committee. (The founding date might be April 14, 1927, when the committee met to recommend to the ACS that a women' service committee or early September, 1927 when the first women chemists' lunch was held. Anyway, next year marks 100 years.) The goal is to have the book ready for the fall meeting of the ACS in late August of 2027, which means we need to be done soon.

It's a tight timeline, and these days I am spending about 8 hours a day on it, 4 or 5 days a week. And when I'm done, I have not an tittle of mental energy or physical energy leftover to write for pleasure. (And yes, tittle — as in just a scooch. Which might come from Matthew 5:18 at least in the King James translation, which reads: "For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled." In the Greek ἰῶτα (iota and hence jot) or κεραία (keraia), in Latin titulus or little typographical mark, hence tittle. And weirdly enough I am preaching on the pericope that just precedes this verse in Matthew tomorrow: Matt 5:13-16.)

Meanwhile bits of other writing flash in my brain like fireflies, briefly bright, then gone — or at least hovering dully about, hoping to meet up with some other words and make something new. 

Blink. The New York Times news quiz a week ago suggested more people knew what distinguished a Basque cheesecake from a regular cheesecake (55%) than could recognize the title of Pope Leo's first encyclical (only 39% knew it was Magnifica humanitas). I was surprised, the encyclical seemed like big news to me, but that just tells me I am in a bubble.

Blink.  There is a great recipe for a lemon Basque cheesecake that I want to try.

Blink.  What is retirement like? A question I get asked a lot. I don't really know. I'm working pretty hard to finish this book. And a talk for a conference in a few weeks. And a short essay for next Lent into Easter. Right, and that homily for tomorrow. (Essay is actually done and delivered. Homily is done, delivered tomorrow.)

Blink.  I wish organizations kept better archives.

Blink.  I am so grateful to take handwritten notes again. Yes, I know, people retain information more readily when they take notes by hand rather than on the keyboard, but that presumes you can. For the moment, I can. But am also aware and appreciate that I have other modalities available when I need them. 

Blink. Remember when blinking colored text was a thing on a web page?  

Blink. It's been deprecated, so this won't...blink. 

Done is good

Bryn Mawr has a saying, “Done is good.” It’s our version of “Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.” Sometimes you just have to stop and say, “It’s done, and I am good with that.” Even if you could do more. Even if you can’t do more. It’s time to hand that thesis in, to take that final, to call it a day. Or a career. Done is good. Even if I could keep going. Even if I could not.

Commencement is always bittersweet, with an admixture of relief. The walk back across campus at the end of the day always feels like a moment of transition, leaving behind the chaos of Garden Party (which is exactly what it sounds like, a party in a garden with circles of chairs and tea sandwiches and cookies and ice cold lemonade — for more than a thousand people) for the serene and contemplative scholarly space that is summer. Past the empty tent, down through the arched oaks. 

The wispy ghosts of past commencements drift past. Most of the students I have taught I will never see again. We have spent hundreds of hours together, I can recognize many of their footsteps in the hall before they tap on my door. Gone, but also still with me. Faint outlines of two late colleagues lounge on the Moon Bench, looking back at me, whispering "Done is good!" 

This walk was particularly poignant, though it may not be my last. I can always choose to go to commencement, and for the next few years, when students I have taught will graduate, I may indeed go. But I will be a ghost of sorts, drifting in and out.

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Bryn Mawr gives its emerti faculty a medal to commemorate the event. You wear it to commencement. 

Seriously, I preach

Heidi Schlumpf has an article about lay preaching in Commonweal that I read with particular interest as I did an 8-week preaching practicum for Catholic women this spring. 

A couple of friends shared the Commonweal article on social media and in the comments on one post someone implied that those who grumble and push back against the prohibition of lay preaching at the Eucharist aren’t serious about preaching. If they were, they’d put their energy behind celebrating and preaching at the Liturgy of the Word or the Liturgy of the Hours (particularly Vespers, or rather Evening Prayer) where preaching by the unordained is permitted. Besides, he noted, it's a moot point, because the priest shortage means no one is going to be getting much access to the Eucharist anyway.

I bristled at this take. I wanted to say, "Dude, I think the prohibition should be eased and I take my preaching very seriously!" I did not. Also, there is not really as much space for licit lay preaching at liturgies outside the Eucharist as he seems to think. I didn't say that either. I did say that preaching outside the Eucharist tends to be marginalized.

I note the liturgical norms that restrict the homily at the Eucharist likewise forbid lay persons from reflecting on the readings at many (most?) celebrations of the Liturgy of the Word.  The norms for Sunday celebration in the absence of a priest restrict the homily to the ordained (in this case a deacon) regardless of whether they include distribution of Holy Communion. If a lay person must lead such a liturgy, then they must read a homily written by a priest or deacon (New Zealand's bishops also provide a collection of generic seasonal reflections.) Even on weekdays, the preference is for someone to read a prepared homily, though the UK bishops conference permits a reflection on the reading by a lay person (not to be confused with a homily). Per the USCCB "A Liturgy of the Word with Distribution of Holy Communion should never be scheduled for the purpose of 'providing a role' for deacons or lay ministers." In other words, lay leadership (and/or preaching) in this context is a last resort, not a regularized space for lay preaching.

The norms regarding the Liturgy of the Hours say that a lay person cannot preside if a priest or deacon is present. Can they still preach? The norms are silent on this point, and presumably what is not explicitly forbidden is allowed. But even this still leaves lay voices on the margins.  I have lived in some of the largest dioceses in the country (LA, Orange, Philly). I have lived most of my life in parishes staffed by. religious orders (Franciscans and Augustinians). I have never lived in a parish that regularly celebrates Evening Prayer on a Sunday (my parish does celebrate Morning Prayer every day but Sunday). Philadelphia's cathedral parish does not have public celebration of any of the Liturgy of the Hours as far as I can tell. Would people come out a second time for for Vespers? Probably not. And given the hunger that has been inculcated in Catholics for the reception of the Eucharist, I don't think people are going to line up for Vespers in lieu of a Communion service. (Though apparently you can swap in the Sunday readings at the LOH and follow with communion, so that would serve as an opportunity for lay preaching.)

I know for certain that I have “preached” at the Eucharist, in that a reflection I have written has been read at the time of the homily (sometimes with actual attribution, or as it was once reported to me, "written by a devout lady" which felt terribly medieval to me). At least once at a cathedral (though not by the bishop). If that is licit, why could I not read my own words? Or have my words blessed by an ordained minister ahead of time and read them with my own voice? Is it because my body is wrong? Not Christ-like enough? (I suspect that's the actual answer, a woman can never be as close an image of Christ as a man. Which grieves me, but that's another post.)

Seriously, I do get to preach (as one Carthusian abbot put it, the — presumably ordained — brothers were to preach with their hands, that is by the written word) a lot. I will preach to thousands of people in that sense every day next Lent, having written a book of daily reflections that comes out in the fall from Liturgical Press. I preach at retreats. I have contributed to collections of homilies. I reflect in Give Us This Day —which offers a veritable banquet of voices, from Augustine to my friend Fran, scientists and theologians, ordained and lay, saints and the rest of us. I believe that preaching, however I do it, is my vocation. How do I know? Of all the hundreds of reflections I've written or given, only once have I volunteered. Every other one has been asked for.  Called forth.

The Last Lecture

On the first of May, I gave what I imagine was my very last lecture in a chemistry course. This was not the last lecture of the movies, where a grizzled professor in a tweed jacket waxes philosophical about life within the ivory tower, students hanging on his every word. This was not the poignant last lecture of a computer scientist in khakis and a polo. It was just my usual last lecture of introductory chemistry: on nuclear chemistry, on rads and rems and banana equivalent dose and how nuclear reactors work. And about the pile in the squash court at University of Chicago. (“Was it ever used to play squash on again?” wondered a student.) And when I was done, I wished them a good summer.

It was how I wanted to end my teaching days, with a solid lecture, not a flashy performance, covering material that mattered. To finish as I had gone along all these years, with the needs of my students directing what and how I structured a course, a lecture, an assignment. With an eye out to what might matter for the world. 

It felt like a good landing, and one that I could not have managed without a generous portion of chemistry, given how my own neurochemical machinery was misbehaving. What was utterly impossible the previous time I had  taught this course — writing on the blackboard, scrawling comments on student papers — was once again possible. What was then merely difficult — constructing notes on the iPad, walking down the hall, gesturing at the board, projecting my voice — I can now do without thinking. I am grateful for the chance to retire on my own terms and not because Parkinson’s is pushing me out. I am grateful for the all the pieces and people that made this possible, from the meds to the 50 grams of metal on my Bic pen. PTs and OTs, neurologists and psychologists, spiritual directors and pastors, colleagues and friends and family. I absolutely could not have done this without all the help. 

There have been celebrations and notes and recorded greetings. Crash crashed my retirement party, appearing unannounced at the door last weekend from the other side of the Atlantic. His brother, Math Guy, said they had something to drop off. He wasn’t kidding. And I still have work to do, a couple of letters of recommendation left to write, grades to assign (finals are graded!). Saturday I will march in commencement and get the last word before I, and this last class of students, walk out of the tent and into whatever is next.