Dr. Francl's home for lonely poinsettas

 

The email came from a student in my first year writing class. Could I give a temporary home, she wondered, to her poinsettia over winter break? After a brief exchange concerning cats and watering requirements we agreed that I could house her poinsettia. She would drop it off, she said, on the last day of final exams. "Perfect! I'll be on the lookout for it.”

Friday came, and the poinsettia arrived with a note. I took it into my office and put it on my desk and returned to grading quantum mechanics finals. I stepped out for a minute to heat up a cup of tea and when I returned there were two poinsettias outside of my office. I was puzzled for a moment. I was sure I had brought the poinsettia in. Had I imagined it? I picked them up and carried them inside and indeed there was already a poinsettia my desk. Whew!

Still I wondered, why the plenitude of poinsettias? And one looked a little bit the worse for wear. Was it the ghost of poinsettias future? 

An email resolved the mystery, upon hearing that I was giving a home to one poinsettia, friends of my student thought I might give a home to their poinsettias as well. So I find myself a plant parent for break. They do brighten my office. And I feel honored that someone thinks I might be able to restore the sad poinsettia to health (though I fear it may need more of an Easter event). I will do my best to channel my mother who was not only an amazing parent to six kids but also a terrific plant parent as well.

Asperges: Blessing the sparrow-grass

Asperges. From the Latin, to sprinkle. We replaced the almost three decade old hymnals at the parish. I was sad to see them go, not because I will miss the music, but because I will miss the water-crinkled page with the song we sang many Easter seasons during the sprinkling rite. There is something about the physical traces of the water that cascaded over the assembly, a potent reminder of mercy we held in our hands each and every liturgy.

Asperges. French for asparagus. I wondered if this was somehow related to the ritual asperges. If I squint my eyes the individual stalks of asparagus look much like an aspergillum. But no, asparagus at least, is an old word. Even the OED is unsure where and how it was born. Perhaps it comes from the Greek, perhaps from something much earlier. The a vanished early on, dropped in Latin, and Italian, and old English. Sparagi,sparaci and spargen.And from there sparagrass. And finally sparrow-grass. Only botanists called it asparagus, reclaiming the a from the proto-Indo-European dustbin. It was too stiff, too pedantic for common use. 

A list of things to write about

I've been teaching a first-year course that centers around close reading and writing. The title of the course is "Women Who See Through Walls" about women poets and mystics and scientists. As part of the thread that links the course together we have been reading selections from Natalie Goldberg's beautiful book Writing Down the Bones. One of the last selections we read was called "A list of things to write about". I haven't had much time to write on the blog this semester, teaching three different courses with three different preps each of with a boatload of grading, along with a couple of other writing assignments, have sucked up all my time. But I have been keeping a list of things to write about!

1. The blessing of sparrow-grass; also some weird word that started with c or g and that I can't figure out where I scribbled it down.

2. Shrikes. OMG, I cannot get a description of these birds and their habits when it comes to food out of my head. Thanks New York Times crossword puzzle.

3. Fingernails. Not the things on the end of your fingers but what my grandmother used to call a particular sort of butter mint. The college bookstore had the peppermint version of these, which I had not seen in years. I bought a bag.

4. It appears that AI can write homilies, but should they? I'm really bothered by the thought.

5. Advent calendars are having a moment. I heard a piece on NPR about them, and there was a piece in the Washington Post. I was struck by someone who said the point was to get rewarded every day that we managed to wait. I'm all about waiting, and leaning in to my desire for the living God in Advent. There is an asceticism to that waiting that I'm loathe to give up. That said I'm also all in on Advent calendars, both those that just have numbers behind the doors and those that might have special treats behind them.

6. There's a whole set of math memes going around riffing on the elf on the shelf. Heard about the elf on a shelf? What about the quadratic in the attic? or X on the T Rex? or the lemniscate on the gate?...tell me you're laughing...

And last but not least, a new book is out which has two of my homilies in it. One for Lent and one for the feast of All Saints. A Prisoner and You Visited Me is part of the Homilists for the Homeless series, put out by Clear Faith press and edited by indomitable deacon Jim Knipper. All of the homilists (which include Fr. Jim Martin and chemist Mags Blackie) have donated their time and writing and all the proceeds from this particular book to help those in prison. You can find the book here!

You're doing it wrong

You’ve seen the clickbait, some photo of an everyday object withe the caption, “You’ve been using this all wrong!”

This summer, Math Guy (the offspring with many blog names, including “The Egg”) and his fiancee (!) brought me a cool spoon for my tea that rests on the cup. For months I had been putting the spoon across the cup with the bowl hanging outside the cup. Recently it occurred to me that this left the spoon dripping onto my desk. So I tried the perch shown in the photo. I wasn't sure how secure this would be, but it works great. The spoon seems to float, but is stable enough to carry the mug upstairs without dropping the spoon. I was definitely doing it wrong! (And I did check with the internet, which confirmed it.)

Morning prayer: In praise of lament

The traditional name for Morning Prayer is Lauds, a chorus of praise. Examinations of conscience and penitential rites are reserved for the end of the day. Every day is a new start, venturing forth into a world lit up by the grace of its creator. But I’ve been trying something different these past few months. Listening to the news. To the groans and howls of a world in pain.

About 10 years ago a director on a retreat suggested praying with the news. “Oh, no, I never touch the paper while I’m on retreat.” “Well,” she replied, “Maybe you’d read the news differently on retreat?” I still steadfastly avoided browsing the NY Times sitting on a table in the hallway. But she was right.

So when I wrote an op-ed for the Philadelphia Inquirer last spring about thoughts and prayers in the wake of the Uvalde shooting, someone apparently decided I needed to be ‘educated’ about guns and signed me up for a daily email from a gun company. Every morning I get links about why I need to be armed, and how best to neutralize targets. I could click and unsubscribe, but I haven’t. It sits in my email to remind me to be persistent in praying for an end to the violence and equally persistent in doing the work for justice this demands. It reminds me, too, to examine my conscience to see where I am complicit in the culture that fosters such disregard for human life. To start the day determined to work for the Gospel - for peace, mercy and justice.

This morning I awoke to the news of the shooting in Colorado. I wanted to look away, to pull up psalms of joy on the Solemnity of Christ the King. But instead I sat with the reality of a fallen world, to which I have contributed. And wept for those who died. Lamentations instead of Lauds.

Chewing photons for inspiration

I have been riding my bike to campus this semester. My route takes me through a stone archway and then to the top of the green that leads to the science building. The campus landscape was designed by Frederick Law Olmstead, who designed Central Park (and the grounds of the now-closed Jesuit Center at Wernersville). When I hit the top of the hill I’m looking down an aisle of enormous oaks, their canopies merging in a magnificent green arch, a nave of a living cathedral. I never fail to take a deep breath when I see it. A literal inspiration. 

I can feel my shoulders relax, and all my anxiety slide off.  Is it all the oxygen those leaves are churning out, as they sit there chewing photons? Is it that the rest of my ride is downhill, away from traffic? Or is it awe?

An open window

It's the 60th anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council today. I don't remember the opening of the council, unsurprisingly as I was 4 1/2 (almost to the day).  

The late John W. O'Malley, SJ, who was Crash’s undergraduate thesis advisor, summed up the effect of Vatican II as a move from "commands to invitations, from laws to ideals, from definition to mystery, from threats to persuasion, from coercion to conscience, from monologue to dialogue, from ruling to serving, from withdrawn to integrated, from vertical to horizontal, from exclusion to inclusion, from hostility to friendship, from rivalry to partnership, from suspicion to trust, from static to ongoing, from passive acceptances to active engagement, from fault-finding to appreciation, from prescriptive to principles, from behavior modification to inner appropriation." I sometimes scroll through #CatholicTwitter and think how far we still have to go.              

I look at the photograph from the opening and see so many men — all men at the opening. But Pope Paul insisted on adding women auditors to the Council. And now the Secretary General of Vatican City is a woman, Sr. Raffaella Petrini. I got to meet her a few days ago, she oversees the Vatican Observatory. And for a few minutes I felt the stirrings of the Spirit, and the hope that Fr. O’Malley expressed so vividly flared into fire.

Taking Augustine for a bike ride

 

At a celebration of the Liturgy of the Word earlier this week, the presider mentioned that St. Augustine said you should live your life with your death always in front of you. 

These days I get from place to place by biking. I love its portability. I can park in my office, or in the rack just outside, not hunt for a spot in the parking lot or lug my stuff up or down the hill. Biking on the Main Line is, however, a memento mori. At every stop sign, for just a fraction of a second, my death flickers before me. 

I have safe routes to church and school and the local grocery store. I am careful. But I am amazed at the blatant disregard for stop signs, through which barrel huge black SUVs driven by mothers, bright blue Porsches, and silver BMWs piloted by men with more important things to do than stop. I presume Augustine got from place to place by walking, at least in his daily life, at a time when the dangers were horses and not horsepower under the hood.  But I live as Augustine would have it. Remembering that I am dust.

Making a meringue of things

The end of summer can be a seismic shift for me. I go from days with nothing at all on the calendar to days that are end to end meetings and classes. There is no happy medium. It can be chaotic, and it always takes me a bit of time to find my rhythm.

This year it feels a bit like making meringue, as I gently try to fold my summer schedule into the coming academic year. When you fold egg whites into a batter you need to be gentle, and slow. Use too much force, beat them too fast, and the whole project utterly collapses. These are good lessons for life as well. Be gentle. Don't rush. Let the lightness balance out the moments that feel overwhelming and heavy. Sometimes it's enough to get things basically combined, but if one tries too hard for perfect uniformity, one can lose some of the spaces to breathe.

I have a heavy teaching semester coming, with three courses, including a writing intensive one with extra conferences for students. I'm still working on the tea book. I have a couple of other writing projects with deadlines staring me in the face. But I'm trying to keep some of summer's pockets of air folded in. Riding my bike back and forth to the college. Making time for prayer first thing in the morning. Taking a moment to catch up with the student or colleague I haven't seen since last spring. I may not be perfectly organized for the start of the new semester, but the goal is to let the  summer leaven the year, and to avoid collapsing the whole cake.

---

Now of course I'm craving an angel food cake, and maybe will give that a fly on the weekend. Or maybe a sponge cake with fruit?

Ant farms

All summer long I had a companion at my desk. One large black ant. I would see it marching across the top of my monitor, or sunning on the windowsill. I couldn't bring myself to smash it. It wasn't crawling on me, or generally on my papers, or on my keyboard. It kept to the edges. I wondered that there was just one ant. Though there just is not that much to sustain even one ant in my study. The crumbs from lunch stay in the dining room, and my glass of ice water will not power an ant for any distance.

I finished a solid draft of one of the chapters of the tea book, and took the opportunity to clear the papers off my desk. Turns out there wasn't just one ant, but a dozen of them living in the terrarium on my desk. Am I hosting an Airbnb for ants? If so, does this violate the party policy? I sent the vacationing ants back to the garden, where they may or may not be living happily ever after. But I do miss my reminder to keep at it, to move the words one at a time from my mind to the keyboard to the document.

______

Photo credit: Dawidl at the English-language Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Weird Catholic Twitter: Hymn Edition

There is such a thing as Weird Anglican Twitter, which I find (for the most part) gentle and grace-filled (and occasionally perplexing, not being Anglican).  Their Advent devotional got me through a chaotic end of the semester. Would recommend.

Weird CatholicTwitter? Not so much. Lots of pearl clutching and “well, I never”ing.  It’s often holier than thou. And sometimes perplexing (and I am Catholic). I try not to follow the denizens of that virtual space, but occasionally we cross paths in the comments to a post, as happened last week.

One of the common tropes on WCT is that people should not sing hymns that speak in God’s voice. Someone posted a paean to Sr. Susan Toolan’s “I Am the Bread of Life” — appreciating that so many congregations sing this with gusto. This brought out the “don’t say God’s words” crowd in droves. (Including a new spin, women should not sing this because they are quoting Jesus.)

I’m perplexed. The Divine Office, which can be sung, includes psalms which feature God speaking in the first person. The Church’s ancient liturgical tradition has us singing as if we are God speaking. If you want  to ban that practice, ok, I guess, but be consistent. If “I Am the Bread of Life” is off limits, so are those psalms.

I tried to engage someone on this (yes, I know, I’ll go to confession, I promise) who wouldn’t answer my question about the sung office, but insisted that I reject “a song writer putting themselves in the voice of God” (as opposed to scripture). I surrendered when I realized he didn’t know that the words to “I Am the Bread of Life” were from the Gospel of John. Oh….dear.

A splash of joy

“Wah-hoo,” cries Math Man as he rides yet another wave to shore. He’s grinning from ear to ear, shouting with joy, along with the dozen or so kids riding their boogie boards at the Jersey shore. There are adults out there, too. Clearly having a good time, but none of them are screaming with delight. I would say it’s undignified for the Kenan Professor of Mathematics and chair of the department, but I would argue it’s precisely because of his dignity that he should be should be whooping on the beach. Dignity derives from worthiness. Math Man is certainly worthy as academia measures it, but his human dignity makes him worthy of joy. 

Adults, me included, can be chary of joy. Worried that it makes us seem undignified. So we tuck it in our pockets rather than wrap it round ourselves, we walk it back rather than dance with it. We essay a wan smile while inwardly jumping for joy. But as novelist Léon Bloy wrote in a letter to his fiancée, joy is the surest sign of the presence of God. (No, that was not Teilhard de Chardin, nor was he writing to Jacques Maritain.) If our dignity stems from being created in the image and likeness of God — we ought to be clothed in joy, it ought to trail behind us like a sparkling train.  We ought to shout and leap and grin madly in the presence of our God. Who is before us, behind us, beneath us, within us. And in every wave that carries us to shore. For we are all worthy of joy.

The realms of the unwinking gods

“The first cup moistens my lips and throat. The second shatters my loneliness. The third causes the wrongs of life to fade gently from my recollection. The fourth purifies my soul. The fifth lifts me to the realms of the unwinking gods.”

– a mystic of the Tang Dynasty

I noted I haven’t posted for more than a month. I’m all recovered from COVID, but have been writing like a fiend to make up for lost time (also another conference, but that’s another post). By the end of the day, I’m all out of words and ready to be off the keyboard.

I’m working a book called Steeped: The Chemistry of Tea. I knew the chemistry was rich, but as I have done the research, I’m discovering just how incredibly rich and varied it is. The downside to friends and family, poke me and I disgorge odd facts about chemistry and tea. Tea is big source of dietary aluminum and fluoride and their uptake is linked. Caffeine is made from the rubble of a tea plant’s DNA and RNA (adenine and guanine). The gene for caffeine synthesis has been identified and genetic knock-outs made for coffee (but not tea)….ok I’ll stop now!

The quote from the unknown mystic is the epigraph for one of the chapters. I’m holding it to one cup of tea a day, since I’d rather not be unwinking come the wee hours of the night.

Vital signs

 

I went to my first in-person conference since the pandemic began last week. It was small, we shared many meals together. It also appears that we might have shared COVID with each other. Two days after the conference concluded I got an email saying I’d been a close contact of someone who had tested positive for COVID. I had mild symptoms, so tested. Negative, whew. Just my usual talked too much in loud spaces croakiness.

A day later, feeling like an old late night commercial for Ginzu knives — “now, with more symptoms!” — I tested again.  Two bright pink lines appeared on my home test. Positively positive.

I felt pretty lousy for the rest of the week, with all the misery a high fever brings. I was grateful for the vaccines, which likely kept me from being much sicker. And for space to isolate at home. 

The NHS has a helpful diary for tracking the course of a COVID infection. Space is allotted to record your temperature and pulse oximeter reading three times a day. It was helpful to see when I’d been “fever-free” for more than 24 hours. Crash is always about creating the right paperwork for a project. As useful as the log was, it needed some tweaks.  I needed a column for tissues used (so many tissues, the first few days reminded me of when the kids had RSV) and for my Wordle score.

Fever is gone, pulse ox is (and always was) fine, tissue use down to zero, Wordle scores improved. I declare I am on the mend. And keeping to the theme of the NHS, I’m taking the sea air to convalesce. (This was a planned trip, and since I’m past the 5 days and symptom free, other than tired, we have gone. Regardless, I drove a separate car down, and I’m wearing a mask around Math Man and not contacting others.)

Praying with a cardinal

 …and a squirrel, a chipmunk, and various bugs. The weather has been just perfect these last few days to sit outside to pray and work. I’ve written a talk for an upcoming conference on Complexity, Simplicity and Emergence (the Fourth Annual Thomistic Philosophy and Natural Science Symposium in DC). I’ve read papers and a book and enjoyed some peaceful time in prayer. It’s been amazingly restorative.

Sunday I was interrupted mid-psalm by a quiet chittering. From the cover of the flower bed under the cherry tree that canopies the back patio emerged a squirrel. It scampered up the trunk and then froze, it had seen me. We were eye to eye. And it was terrified. I could see its heart pounding in its chest. I froze, too. We were in a stand off. Finally it decided that retreat was called for and bounded up the tree, across the branches to the pear tree, then danced down the electric wire to vanish into my neighbor’s yard. 

I wonder how often I am startled by God as I dash about, or am I like the squirrel, too intent on my own projects to notice whose garden I’m in? And would I be as terrified as the squirrel if I recognized who I was eye to eye with in prayer?

Soul Cycles

My first bike was blue. I was six. It was a bit like Eve and the apple. It was the gift of knowledge and of freedom. Eventually the freedom to ride to the library, which in those pre-internet days was a door to a vast storehouse of knowledge, or to see a friend who lived on a nearby farm. It was also the freedom to sin. Do not ride to your friend’s house for a sleepover, it’s going to rain. The bike will rust. But I was determined to fly up the street with my sleeping bag and PJs and toothbrush in the basket. And…it did rain. And there were ever-after little flecks of rust on my shiny fenders. Like the black spots on the milk bottles we were told represented our souls. Except confession didn’t remove them. My parents grounded me for a week, no bike. 

I thought about that rainy day on Thursday. I had a meeting at the parish at 3:30. The forecast called for rain, maybe. Should I ride? No, says my youngest, before he drove off. But I’ve been trying to bike whenever and wherever I can, in part as my response to climate change. I am lucky to live nearby work and the grocery store and the parish. And I have a shiny new bike (my 5th ever) that won’t rust in the rain. I checked the radar — clear — and the forecast said rain after 6 pm. So off I rode. The pastor joined us about 5, agreed with our plan and then said, “Boy, is it pouring!”  Deluging. Now the forecast said 15 minutes more rain, then a 17 minute break. No lightning. It was warm. Six minutes, mostly downhill. Could I do it?

I went for it. I rode home in the rain. Which indeed stopped and started on schedule. My bike bags kept computer and papers and phone dry. The rest of me? Soaked. But as Chesterton was wont to say “An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered; an adventure is an inconvenience rightly considered." This was indeed an adventure.

And baptismal, as in total immersion. Perhaps my sin is finally forgiven.

Op-ed: Praying to change

 

I was kneeling after communion on Ascension Thursday (yes, still Thursday in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia) when my watch tapped me to let me know I had a text. I ignored it. I was praying and while I believe God from time to time answers my prayers, I was (fairly) certain God wasn’t texting me.

When Mass ended I checked my watch to see I had a photo of Ted Cruz sent from my youngest kid. Huh? Then I realized that it must be my op-ed, written for the Philadelphia paper. On what we might be praying for when we say “thoughts and prayers” in these horrific moments.

So what was I praying for as I knelt there, moments after holding the Body of Christ in my hands? For the parents and children whose lives and bodies had been torn apart shot from a gun that no one outside the military should have. That their parents might have the strength to watch their children’s bodies taken away from them for the last time. For the teachers who stood in front of their students, for the teachers who wonder if they will ever be in that position. For the courage to keep saying what we would prefer to cloak in euphemisms. For the persistence to keep calling my representatives, both state and federal and tell them what my thoughts and prayers are.

Various people have written to say that the piece has encouraged them to persist in the face of what seems like an intractable problem. Others have written to tell me who to blame. It’s the fault of the parents who failed to take their marriage vows seriously (seriously? Seriously!). Or of universities. Or mental illness. Or, or, or…

Please I pray, let us persist. Call your representatives — that matters. Write them and if you want a copy of my op-ed to send, you can find it here: https://www.inquirer.com/opinion/commentary/uvalde-shooting-thoughts-prayers-ted-cruz-20220526.html

Or I send me an email and I’ll send you a PDF.

Passion, death and resurrection

I went to morning prayer at the parish today, followed by an all hands scramble to unload the flowers and get them out onto the altar for the decorating team coming later. As I headed out afterwards, my heart lifted at the sight of the trees in bloom, the fallen petals from the cherry tree stirring like confetti from a long past parade on the walk, the sounds of the birds. It was a beautiful morning in Bryn Mawr. The air held that spring warmth, just a hint of March’s cold damp still caught in the corners of the stone walls of the church. And just like that I was transported 35 years into the past.

I walked out of the hospital, perhaps around 8. It was a beautiful morning in Bryn Mawr. The air held that spring warmth, with just enough of March’s cold damp to remind you to be grateful that winter’s rigors were past. The birds sang, the trees were aflower, the daffodils across the way were brilliant. Who knew? I’d spent the night in an empty and dimly lit family lounge on the surgical floor and was blinded by all this light and beauty.

It was Holy Thursday, 35 years ago today. On Sunday I had thought I was prepared to wade into the Paschal mystery. Passion, death, and — without a doubt — resurrection. On Wednesday of Holy Week I would discover how woefully unprepared I was to face the Paschal mystery when it was pulled off the pages of scripture and poured out before me. Take this cup, and drink from it.

Tom was thirty. I had just turned 29. Not much older than my sons are now. We’d been married five years, finished our PhDs, moved, got jobs, bought a house, settled into a parish and a neighborhood. It was a very ordinary life, with grass to mow and walls to paint and futures to dream on. But we didn’t know about the bomb inside Tom’s chest. The ballooning artery that would eventually drive a channel into his heart, torn open as he swam laps in the college pool while I sat through the penultimate faculty meeting of the year. 

The Triduum for me would begin with a ride in a ambulance, everything left behind. I would stand by and watch as they resuscitated Tom in the ER. I would make phone calls. I would see that he was anointed with the holy oils. I would talk to him as they prepared him for surgery, though I do not think he could hear me. And I watched and prayed through the night. At 5 am, the surgeon would concede that the damage was beyond repair. At 7 am I would see him wrapped in white sheets, and make the sign of the cross on his forehead with my tears. And walk out of the hospital a few minutes later into that bruisingly beautiful spring day.

So on that Good Friday morning I picked out a casket, flanked by my shell-shocked in-laws and my distraught parents. On Holy Saturday morning I sat with the associate pastor to pick out readings and insist that Easter notwithstanding, there would be no music. No sung alleluia. No alleluia. It was too fast. Three days was not enough time for me to wrap my head around wrenching grief and recognize within it blazing resurrection. I grasp in some small way why the apostles couldn’t believe the women — it was too much of a shift in too little time. I am yet more floored by Mary Magdalene;s ability to see beyond the passion into the resurrection.

There would be a wake on Easter Sunday, a funeral on Easter Monday. Both achingly perfect spring days. Despite all the time that has passed, or perhaps because of it, I can never fail to see the passion and death swirling through the resurrection. It clouds our vision, tests our faith and stretches out our arms between heaven and earth. Like those perfect spring days, where there is still just enough winter lurking in the air to remind you of things unseen.

Veiled

We have been using a different processional cross in Lent. The plain wood cross we will venerate on Good Friday, wrapped in violet tulle. I feel off-balance carrying this cross, it's just a bit top heavy, a bit too weighty for me. Each time I lift it from the stand, I think for a moment that I’ve got this, that it’s not as heavy as I recall. Two steps later, I’m struggling to keep it aloft and steady. Will I make it down the aisle? Up the steps of the altar? It always feels like it’s not quite in my control. 

The regular cross is weighty enough to be a bit of work to carry, but not so much that I can’t smoothly get it under the choir loft and out into the vestibule. It’s always under my control. I’ll be glad of its return come Easter.

The violet has been replaced by a red chiffon drape. As I stand in the back ready to process at the vigil Mass on Palm Sunday, I realize I am veiled. I cannot see clearly, catching glimpses of altar and transept as I move. 

That unwieldy cross, that veil that hides the path from me, remind me of the underlying mystery we gather here to celebrate, that we must die to self to rise with Christ. We must, as the psalmist reminds us, let go our grasp and be still. To give over control and lay down all we have.

What do you think of our news coverage?

The little box popped up in the lower left of my iPad screen, “What do you think of our news coverage?”

The article was headlined “Name, phone, address…” and described a Ukrainian mother writing her name and phone number on her very young child before they evacuated. Just in case. Just in case they were separated.  Just in case her parents were killed. She would have her identity, know a bit about her parents, just in case.

What do I think of this news coverage? I am mortified by it. I am unable to keep my voice from cracking as I try to talk to my own child, home on a brief visit, standing in the kitchen — an adult. I want to say that I remember the time he went to a protest where they told him to write his name and a contact on his arm in black Sharpie. Just in case. I want to say that if we were fleeing such destruction that I could see myself standing in the kitchen grabbing the Sharpie I keep in the pencil cup on the counter, writing names and phone numbers on my children. Just in case. But now I am weeping openly, and I cannot choke out the words out to explain why. So I flee the room. 

What do I think of this news coverage? I think that I am weeping again as I write this. 

Anointed

The reading spoke of a horn full of oil in the hands of a prophet prepared to anoint a king. As I listened I tried to visualize how much oil that might be, were we talking about a few drops or a cupful? What animal gave its horn, what was used for a stopper? There is a time and a place for Ignatian composition of place. This might not have been it. 

That evening I was making dinner, and measured out a quarter cup of oil, a bit more than 50 mL. I set it down on the counter for a moment, and then knocked it over with my hand. Oil was suddenly everywhere. It flowed over the counter top, onto the drawers below. Onto the floor. It was everywhere. I couldn’t believe how such a small amount could spread so far.

At one level, I do understand why oil makes such a mess when it spills. It has a low surface tension (about 30 dynes/cm — and yes, I looked it up, see Albert Halpern, J. Phys. Chem. 1949, 53, 6, 895–897), about half that of water. A teaspoon of oil can spread out to cover about 22 thousand square feet of water. I had spilled ten times that, no wonder it was everywhere in my 200 square foot kitchen.

The messiah, the anointed one. All these years as a chemist, all the psalms I’ve prayed and I’d never really thought, “Why oil?” Oil burns, giving light. It binds, turning flour into bread. It soothes, it’s a balm. It doesn’t evaporate, rather it protects what it covers. It eases friction. Oil is costly. So was the grace that flowed from Calvary. And oil spreads out and out, reminding me that the mercy of God knows no bounds.

_____________________

Benjamin Franklin famously measured the spread of oil on water in a London pond. And in looking through the literature about surface tension of plant oils discovered that you can extract oil from carrots. And that what you get is comparable to olive oil in many of its physical properties.

Illustration is Raphael’s fresco of the anointing of David by Samuel, part of a series in the loggia of the Apostolic Palace in Vatican City. I walked through there in June of 2016, but will admit both have been agape at the frescos and not having noticed this one in particular. 

Reset

Autocorrect just “fixed” the title of this post to “rest” — which might be equally apt. I haven’t posted in a month, despite having a week away from teaching for spring break. It’s been busy. I gave seven talks in the space of just over three weeks, on six different topics. Then I helped four of my five research students get prepared for their presentations at the big national chemistry meeting currently going on in San Diego. (I’m not there, sad to say.) And I started teaching our intensive lab course for junior chem and bio chem majors. Oh — and I’m spearheading the synodal listening process for my parish. Reading this I understand why I am tired!

Last weekend, I picked up Becky Chamber’s beautiful A Psalm for the Wildbuilt to put it away and instead sat down and re-read the ending (spoiler alert!) where an exhausted monk is treated to tea by an oh-so-practical robot. I longed for a bit of not-self care, where someone might sit me down and insist I drink a cup of Evening in Missoula, take a hot bath and sit in the garden under a full moon. Instead I popped another load of laundry in and scrubbed the bathtub.

And then, in the mail a little bit of care arrived, sent by a friend. “For a reset…” said the label on the bottle. Spray some in the air and walk through the mist. I did and was transported back to Shojoshin-in on Mt. Koya in Japan. Dripping cypress, curls of mist, soft moss muffling my steps, and the incredible hot bath. Or alternatively to the hermitage Dex and Mosscap find in A Psalm. Reset indeed. It’s the next best thing to a transporter.

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Evening in Missoula tea. Sabbatical Beauty’s mist.

A Raw Grief

I have been watching Deep Space Nine, perhaps more accurately, listening to it as I cook and do housework. Today an episode came up where Jake Sisko was an old man, a writer who had given up his writing to do research. The plot revolved around Jake's father, Benjamin, being caught in a time anomaly. Every few years he would pop back into normal time and briefly reveal himself to Jake.

It reminded me of some of the vivid dreams I had after Tom died. I had one recurring dream where we would be walking around on a beautiful day, doing the things we normally did, seeing the people we normally saw. And only he and I knew that he would die at the end of the day. It was an excruciating metaphor for the tension between ordinary life and the extraordinary grief that had come crashing into mine. 

Someone in my twitter feed lost her teenage son in a tragic accident last week. When I saw her post about being unable to sleep, my body remembered those awful months after Tom's death. I also had trouble sleeping, and so, so many dreams. She wrote, too, of the need to get back to work, what else are you going to do? I remember people wanting to relieve me of the ordinary chores, but there were no extraordinary chores that I had to tend to, other than the grief. And this was something I couldn't face all day every day. So I went back to work.

I realize now that the ordinary was not so much a salve for my grief, but a way to titrate it. I was grateful for work that required as much of my attention as I could give it, that gave me a few minutes respite from the all too raw reality. 

  

Preaching rebellion

"For I handed on to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures; that he was buried; that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures; that he appeared to Cephas, then to the Twelve. After that, Christ appeared to more than five hundred brothers at once, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. After that he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one born abnormally, he appeared to me." 1 Cor 15:3-8

Listening to the second reading on Sunday I was struck by how absent women were in it. Paul lists the witnesses to the resurrection, but fails to note that the first witnesses were the women, Mary Magdalene in particular. 

Later this week, I ran into this tweet from The Traditional Wife (in someone else's stream, I don't follow her.) It was a bit ironic as this week I was scheduled to preach. A group of us gather once a week to celebrate the Liturgy of the Word, using the readings of the day. We take turns to offer a brief reflection and then open the floor for some faith sharing. It has been a powerful experience through this pandemic to listen to my brothers and sisters in faith turn over and shake out the word of God for each other. Each time we celebrate together, I am in awe of what the Holy Spirit does in the world. Of how we can all preach.

So this week I preached about churches, about sacred space and time. About how all places are sacred, all of us holy. And this characterization of women preaching as living in rebellion, like fallen angels utterly divorced from God, just makes me laugh. Also, I don't think there were churches for Deborah to preach in, to men or women...

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For more women preaching try:

Catholic Women Preach

The latest volume of Homilists for the Homeless (all the proceeds from this series go to the poor)

There's a Woman in the Pulpit a collection from the RevGals

St. Hildegard’s cookies

"Take one whole nutmeg, add equal amounts of cinnamon and a pinch of cloves, grind it together until it forms a fine powder; add the flour and a little water. Make small cookies and eat these often. They will reduce the bad humors, enrich the blood, and fortify the nerves.” — Hildegard of Bingen, Physica, Book 1, XXI. Nutmeg

I gave a day of reflection on Hildegard of Bingen at a local retreat house. One of the conferences was on Hildegard’s Physica where she recommends mint for the digestion and spicy cookies to fortify the nerves. I sent retreatants home with tea and ginger snaps. 

It’s the start of the semester for me tomorrow, so I’m in need of something to fortify the nerves with. I’m on Zoom to start, while students await test results. Next week — back in person!

St. Hildegard’s cookies

1 3/4 c sugar
3/4 c butter
1/4 c molasses
1 egg
2 c flour
2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 tbsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1/4 tsp grated nutmeg
extra sugar for rolling

Beat sugar and butter until fluffy. Add molasses and beat until well blended. Add egg, beat on low to combine. Add flour, baking soda, salt and spices to batter and blend well. Chill dough, covered, for at least 1 hour.

Roll dough into 1 1/4 inch balls. Roll the balls in extra sugar. Place 2 inches apart on baking sheet lined with parchment. Bake at 375F for 8-10 minutes. Cookies should just be brown around the edges. Cool on a rack, cookies will firm up as they cool. Store in airtight container or freeze.

Transmissions from God

This evening I stumbled over an article in the New York Times about a woman who claims to channel the dead. She also claims to channel Yeshua — Jesus Christ. Who apparently comes across with a bit of of a British accent. Really. The article treats this all with dead seriousness, including a flat assertion that she channels the dead, though it does include a couple of remarks from a skeptic. I found the whole business (and business it seems to be, with consultations at $1111 an hour and a book published by Harper One) to be…ridiculous.

Thirteen years ago today I pointed my Mini Cooper north, headed for Gloucester to make the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola following the 20th annotation. Leaving behind family and friends and comforts to spend 30 days in silence, channeling God.

I wonder what a similar New York Times Style article on my experiences of the Exercises would read like? Would it seem equally ridiculous to an outsider?