Proof

 

My seventh (!) book will be published this fall. A book of reflections for next Lent. The proofs came a couple of weeks ago, and once the manuscript for book eight (eight? eight?) went out the door, I had some time and space to devote to this devotional.

I still proof on paper, circling errors with a red ballpoint, pressing into the surface of the paper, leaving a literal wound to mark wounded text. I read it end to end, cold, then again side by side with the text I submitted. Were those snippets of scripture exactly what was in the lectionary? Quotes from the psalms sometimes are pulled from my memory (and my heart and my soul) as I write, not from any specific text. Better check against the source!

When the latest revision of the US English Catholic Lectionary came out, I didn’t add it to my collection. I have the most recent British one, the previous US one, but mostly I turn to the USCCB site or use Give Us This Day. The ritual books in my parish are stored behind the main altar, in a space reserved for quiet meditation in front of the tabernacle. So one afternoon last week, I laid the proofs on the small wooden altar, pulled the Sunday and daily lectionaries from the shelf, and with the Word before me, and the Word at my right hand, I proofed the pericopes. I could have taken the books and proofs to the small library next door, or to the sacristy, but this space felt right.

I used a book called Stones Before the Lord (about monastic architecture) when I taught a course on the history of contemplation in the West. Proofing on the altar left me feeling like I was laying stones of a different sort before the Lord. Stepping stones from Ash Wednesday to Easter, perhaps, or maybe a staircase cut into a cliff taking you from from a rocky beach on the wind-whipped Scottish coast to a chapel nestled high above. Or living stones, to use the image from the first letter of Peter, pulled from my own prayer. Stones I wanted to be properly cut and laid so they might support people's path though next Lent, and not be  stumbling blocks.

I found a few errors and marked them up, now it's headed back to Liturgical Press.

_______

Proofs. It's been a week of proofs. I proofed yeast last night to make pizza crusts. I proofed this book. I sorted through proofs of once new quantum mechanical theories, snapping a picture or two to remember the work I had done (and long ago published), then sent them into oblivion (actually the recycling bin!).

Grief’s half-life

I am slowly (glacially?) clearing off shelf space at home, so that some of the books in my office can have a spot. I skim the shelves, looking for books that I can’t imagine reading again (or that I could get from the library should I wish to revisit them). Intermingled with my and Victor’s and the kids’ books are some of Tom’s. Books from college courses, novels. In some ways Tom’s old books were easy to triage. He does not require physical copies of them on this earth, and I have no memories attached to them (we didn’t meet until graduate school). Off they go. 

Tucked into one shelf in the wall of books off the kitchen was a journal I didn’t immediately recognize with a photo of a pair of battered pointe shoes on the cover. I pulled it out and opened it to find letters I had written to Tom after he died. I read two and closed the cover. It seems they are still hot, radioactive, like Marie Curie’s cookbooks.

What, I wonder is grief’s half-life? And how many have elapsed? We say that after 10 half-lives have elapsed the material is safe to handle (less than 0.1% remains). But even then radioactive events are still occurring, randomly spitting out particles and gamma rays.

What's my name?

 

I needed the receipt for a recent flight. Easy-peasy, right? It was mailed to my work account. Except it didn’t show up. OK, I’ll get a copy when I check in. Ooops. I forgot to ask outbound. My bad. No problem, I’ll get it on the return. Yeah, no. There was no staff available for that in the steamy Frankfurt airport. You can get it online, madame. 

Props to the clear web site, clicked on “get receipt.” A webform appears which wants my ticket number, which I have, and my name. Which I know. I paste in the ticket number, type my name and hit the button. Nope. Nope. “You must use the same name you booked under.” Did I mistype my name? I must have. (Thank you, Parkinson’s, typos happen more often these days.)  I tried again, no typos. Hit the button. No? No. “ You must use the same name you booked under.” 

Ok, was my name truncated by the computer system? I check my boarding pass. Yeah, no. My name is what I think it is. First and last. Do I want to chat with an agent? I do. The AI agent takes my information, suggests I try the webform that isn’t working, then offers to pass me to a human. “You are number 486 in the queue!” 

I am working, so leave the window parked in the corner and periodically check. By lunch (two hours in) I’m 276 in line. Am I still there, the AI wonders. You bet. I wait four and a half hours to get a human (who the AI confesses is helping multiple customers at the same time, so don’t worry if they are slow.) 

The human suggests the webform. I point out that hasn’t worked. Can they give me a copy? That is against policy. Well, I asked, what can I do? Silence. I can email it to you. Awesome. “Can you doublecheck the email?” Sure, sure. I type in my work email. That’s it, I’m assured. It will take 15 to 20 minutes. “Thanks again,” I chirpily type. The chat ends.

Thirty minutes pass. No email. Five hours in and I am still without a receipt. I check to see if I can retrieve it through my credit card. And that’s when the shoe drops. That receipt says the ticket was issued for FRANCL, MICHELLE PROF/DR. Oh. It thinks my first name is MICHELLE PROF/DR? It sure does. The web form cheerfully regurgitates my receipt. 

---

I note the booking form asks for your first name separately from the title. 

Interestingly enough, the typing of people with Parkinson’s has a distinctive pattern, which can be used to screen for possible Parkinson’s. A bit about the development of the screen is here. I did the screen shortly after my diagnosis and correctly directed me to consult a neurologist as it was positive for potential Parkinson’s.

UPDATE: So, a funny thing happened. It’s been about a week since I had this conversation. At 6:33 am today, the receipt showed up in my email. 

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.

---

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. 

Office hours

 

The hours left in my office are few. Today are my last scheduled office hours (which I generally don't hold in my office, but in the atrium space in my building). The last departmental meeting of my career was this morning. Friday is my last class lecture. 

I've written my (final) final exam.

I am noticing all the systems I have set in place to keep me organized, worn smooth over the years.  My teaching bag with its dongles and chalk and dry erase markers. There is a set of molecular models. Tissues for allergies. The vertical slots for each course (and research student) on the shelves by the door. The color coded plastic sleeves: green for general chemistry and blue for p-chem handouts. This morning I slid the last set of lecture notes (nuclear chemistry) into its sleeve, feeling organized and competent and in control. 

It feels odd coming to the moment where I have to dismantle these systems. Empty the cubbies of answer keys and roll sheets. Add the collection of plastic sleeves into the drawer at home that houses the ones I use to organize retreats (pink and yellow and white). Put the teaching bag on the shelf. Red pens. Will I need a red pen after next week?

The work of writing, at least for me these days, is organized in virtual folders, slipped in and out of Scrivener and Pages and Word. Only rarely printed out. Deadlines on the calendar (virtual, too). Will I miss the material culture of this life? Maybe. Probably.

Charting a moral course: Popes, presidents and politics

"Pope Leo should stick to his lane. President Trump has said it. Vice President Vance is so convinced of it that he tried to school the pontiff on just war theory. Pete Hegseth’s Pentagon staff called the papal nuncio on the carpet to make it clear. What is the Pope’s proper purview?"

Frankly, I don't recognize much of my Catholic faith in the pronouncements emanating from the White House. And sometimes I get annoyed enough to make a public stand. I suppose I could stand outside the White House with a bullhorn and read from the Catechism of the Catholic Church, or the documents of Vatican II, but instead I write. I am grateful for the Philadelphia Inquirer who has given me a space to do that.

"I hear this administration saying that our morals are supposed to be detached from our everyday lives. That our beliefs — or our unbeliefs — are an entirely private matter. If we aren’t making our choices based on our own well-formed consciences, whatever tradition has formed them, then are they our choices at all?

Faith and morals are precisely what inform my politics, what guide my thinking about economics and social policy and climate change...Are there any decisions I make where my faith doesn’t play a role? Sure. Do I want mango or lemon water ice at Rita’s? But for the rest of it, I want my moral compass to help me navigate these challenging times.

Conscience isn’t a lane; it is the map that lets us find our way through all the lanes. Pope Leo is reminding us to not leave it behind."

Know where you stand and stand there, said Daniel Berrigan SJ. I know where I stand and I will stand there as long as I can and as long as it is necessary. 

Read the whole thing at the Inquirer. And yes, I enjoyed some alliterative moments...

---

For the record, the proper choice is mango!

For non-Philadelphians: Rita's is a purveyor of frozen confections, particularly "water ice" (pronounced "wodder ice"). Water ice (also called Italian ice) is more crystalline than a sorbet or gelato, but not as crystalline as a snow cone. 

Hobbies

Five more lectures to go.  On solids and X-ray crystallography. A short tour through nuclear chemistry, aware that these 100 or so minutes might be all they get on the topic in their chemistry degree. Memories of my own undergraduate training surface, where we got to use the nuclear reactor to do neutron activation analysis of milk samples. Can I find a photo of the reactor to show them?

Chatting with a colleague in the hall about my plans to write: "It's good to have a hobby," he offers. I bristle a bit.  I'm not sure that I would classify my writing under "hobbies." Sketching is a hobby, knitting is a hobby, fly fishing is a hobby. (Which two of these do I do?) A hobby feels too casual a classification, bearing a frisson of frivolousness. Writing for me carries weight, sometimes serious weight. So is it a job? an avocation? a vocation?

What does the OED have to say? A hobby is "An activity or interest pursued regularly in one's leisure time for pleasure." Or an avocation:  "an activity or line of work for which one has special talent or affinity; one's calling." Vocation, it  tells me,  derives from a summoning.

Writing is (mostly) a pleasure for me. Some of it is done in my "off-hours" from my paid job. This blog is probably a hobby. Regardless of the box I might drop it into, my writing is an integral part of who I am. The words call, and I cannot help but pick them up and start dragging them into place.

Qapla!

Qapla! Success! My latest column in Nature Chemistry came out last week. It opens and closes with Klingon — which may be a first for a publication in a scientific journal. 

Se'vIr lIngDI' tamlertej, tlhIngan Hol QaQ law' DIvI' Hol QaQ puS jatlh Michelle Francl. (More or less translates as "Should chemists publish in Klingon rather than English wonders Michelle Francl")

and 

TlhIngan Hol ghojlu'meH QaQ jajvam. (Today is a good day to learn Klingon.) 

Writing this piece I learned a bunch about synthetic languages beginning with Hildegard of Bingen's lingua ignota to Nobel prize winning chemist Wilhelm Ostwald's literal investment in Ido (an offshoot of Esperanto). He gave half of his prize monies to promote use of the language by scientists. Also  I was introduced to Volapük, which sounds like it could be Klingon, but is actually the name of another 19th century synthetic language.

The essay isn't about Klingon per se but rather tackles the issue of auxiliary languages and science. If English is the lingua franca of science, what is the cost to scientists who do not speak it as their mother tongue? Time? Visibility? Surely, but the ultimate cost is the work that doesn't get done as a result, or gets done more slowly. It costs us all.

So, a Gedanken experiment...would it level the playing field if we all had to publish in Klingon? Could you squeeze more science into a 15 minute talk if you did it in Klingon? Chaq!

Read the whole thing here.

One last time

 

We have a mature thunder plum out front, which blossoms every spring and shades the driveway in the depths of summer. It leans out from under the protection of the great oak, which is 75 years old. A youngster by comparison. Last year I noticed it had developed a fungus, black crusts on a few branches. I've seen this before and I knew what it meant. Soon all the branches would be covered. There would be a last bloom and then the tree would have to become something else. 

I'm down to the last 8 classes of my teaching career, one last season to bloom as a teacher, then I, too, will be something else. (Though thankfully not covered with a fungus!) 

I will learn to say when asked what I do, "I write."

An adulterated Bible

In 1631 a typesetting error resulted in copies of the King James Bible where the 6th commandment (or 7th, depending on how you count) in Exodus 20:14 is rendered “Thou shalt commit adultery.” It was a scandal, the printers were fined (though in the end they didn’t have to pay), and most of the copies of what would become known as the Wicked Bible were destroyed. 

I have started to wonder if Hegseth and Trump have a similarly adulterated version of the Gospels, where the beatitudes in Matthew have been misprinted:

Blessed are those who mourn, for clearly they deserved what they got

Blessed are the strongmen, for who wants to be WEAK?

Blessed are those who show no mercy, nor quarter to the enemy either

Blessed are those who are sure that they know better than God what is righteous, for their morality should be enough for you

Blessed are the warmongers, for obviously this is God’s war and the rest of you ought to get down on your knees and pray for victory

All amid a steady chant of be afraid, be afraid, be afraid.

Sic transit gloria mundi

I am transiting at Dulles airport, headed to South Bend. I’d never been to Dulles before. Somehow I had imagined a small airport, but it is a sprawling thing. I took the train from C to A, enjoyed the video wall art in the tunnel — ads, then a short calm video of ocean waves breaking — then walked the length of the elegant international terminal (I have two hours between flights). It was hushed, with its Dior and Chanel kiosks and sleek glass-doored lounges guarded by uniformed personnel with iPads. (The Etihad lounge was apparently full up, there was a tumble of people on the floor waiting to get in, leaning forward hopefully at every departure.) Spacious gates, a vaulted ceiling hung with flags, sunlight streaming in. From here you could fly to Paris. To Rome.

But my gate wasn’t here. I followed the signs up the escalator. Across. Down another. Down one more. The corridors grew narrower, the ceilings lower, the light more artificial. No fancy oyster bar — burgers and chicken tenders were on offer, TVs showed 5 different sports games, people spilled out into the corridor. A woman walked past dressed in a full-on cat costume, ears and all, tail twitching happily as she chatted on the phone,. Two little kids dressed in lederhosen (really, I promise) whooshed by holding hands and singing. Where, I wondered, was Maria?

I popped out in a spot where each gate has subgates — A1A, A1B…A2F— a dozen gates all squished together in the space of two in the cathedral above. The microphone system isn’t working right. It’s hard to get to the desks. “Raise your hand if you asked for a wheelchair going to Raleigh!” Finding a place to sit is a challenge. Finding a place to stand is a challenge. The building shakes when a plane takes off.  I think of Dante and descending circles.

But. But despite the chaos and crowding (because of the chaos and crowding?) there is something so warmly human about this place. It’s more than an hour to my flight, but I have no desire to return to the sterile marble heights. I score a seat, sit and listen to the man across from me wearing a gorgeous blue turban telling his grandkids he would see them in just over an hour. “Just 60 minutes!” He beams.

The world is filled with glory, fleeting, but no less intense for that.

Talking heads

I’m at Notre Dame (the one in South Bend) today to record a podcast, one of a couple this month. I met the host of this podcast through the blog twenty years ago, when our kids were young, and over the years I have treasured our criss-crossing interests in theology and science. She also introduced me to rose congou tea, a cup of which is sitting next to me as I write. I am also going to the Madeleva lecture tonight — “The Wrath of God(dess): A Spirituality of Feminist Rage” given by theologian Tracy Sayuki Tiemeier. Several of the previous Madeleva lectures are on my shelf, including Kathleen Norris’ The Quotidian Mysteries: Laundry, Liturgy, and 'Women's Work’ and Sidney Callahan’s Women who Hear Voices: the Challenges of Religious Experience. Sidney Callahan is a Bryn Mawr alum, and came to speak to one of my (non-chemistry) courses. 

A couple of weeks ago I was privileged to sit down with Mike Laskey of the AMDG podcast to talk about how science and faith work in my life as a scientist. (This is a great podcast series, in my Saturday morning rotation, with tons of interesting guests, most with some connection to the Jesuits and things Ignatian — rare books, material science, astronomy, songwriting.) I talked a bit about awe and mystery and finding God in a handful of water. Also tea, perhaps because you can (sorry!) hear the noise of my tea cup hitting my desk periodically (also one loud beep from an incoming text — this was not my smoothest interview). 

Tuesday, after a hard PT session, I checked my email to find a request for an interview from EWTN Nightly News to talk about the Artemis II mission. Sure, when? It was 11:35. Could I do this at 12:15? I was sitting in my car, soaked in sweat in desperate need of a shower. 12:45? I got home, showered, professionally attired and to my office in time. Whew — shades of the first days of the great tea kerfuffle!

---

Listen to the AMDG podcast here, and the EWTN clip here. 

Photo is from an interview for On The Media recorded at WHYY 11 years ago, about the Food Babe. 

The women gather

I ran across an Easter reflection from 5 years about an Easter morning spent cleaning the kitchen…

“As I scrubbed last night’s sheet pans, I wondered if this really was how I should be celebrating Easter, clad in a well-worn apron and wielding a soapy sponge. Or perhaps this is precisely how Jesus imagined the celebration as he knelt on the floor, a towel around his waist, washing feet. Women, up early to do the work of feeding the hungry and tending to the needs of the living and the dead. Women with the courage to stay in the face of unspeakable pain, and a scandalous death. Women with the courage to profess what they had seen, in the face of mockery and derision.”

...which kicked off a search for a song I had heard from Sweet Honey in the Rock: The Women Gather. I could hear the spare repeating line in my head. “The women gather…” 

And the women still gather. To stand witness to the unspeakable. To accompany the undesirable. To bury the dead. To shelter their children with their bodies. To beg for peace.

We still gather at Easter — the women, the men, the children — even as we are embroiled in this “war of choice.” Though it not the choice most of us would have made. Our leaders demand we pray daily, “on bended knee” — in the name of Christ —  for military victory. I cannot. I will not. 

Yet. I will pray. For the courage to stand witness to the Gospel, that promises the utlimate victory, over sin and death, For an enduring and earned peace. Not one bought with blood and terror, awash in tears.

---

The rest of the reflection is here. Listen to The Women Gather here.

Stripped of words: a homily for Good Friday

 

I am preaching at Morning Prayer at the parish today, a reflection which had its seed in an interview with Cardinal Timothy Radcliffe by Fr. Jim Martin SJ (you can hear the relevant piece here) and in a reflection in the forthcoming book for next Lent.

---

…So shall he startle many nations,
because of him, kings shall stand speechless;
For those who have not been told shall see,
those who have not heard shall ponder it.…Isaiah 52:15

As we move through the Triduum, we also grow silent in the face of the enormity of what has been accomplished by God. Later today we will sit with St. John’s account of the passion, invited as Isaiah implores us to watch and to ponder. When I hear this version of the passion I am often struck by how Jesus, too, gradually grows silent. Gone is the sharp give and take with the religious authorities. He offers virtually no defense to Pilate. There are no words to reassure the repentent thief crucified next to him about paradise.

Once Jesus wept as he fervently prayed for relief. Now, we no longer hear him lifting up long, eloquent prayers to the Father. In John’s account of the crucifixion, we do not hear him pray at all. He does not cry out to God asking why he was abandoned. He does not commend himself to the Father’s care.

In the end, there is only his battered body, wracked with thirst, hanging on a cross. 

Some time ago I heard Cardinal Timothy Radcliffe reflect on what it had been like to try to pray during his recovery from a grueling surgery. “When I tried to pray the Our Father,” recounted Cardinal Radcliffe, “I couldn’t get past the two words…Our Father…I was just a body lying in bed.”  Still, he thirsted, not just for the water he was not allowed to have, but for God.

Here is this man who preached to the synod — who preached to the pope about hope and prayer —  confessing he could not pray. How many of us have found ourselves in these straits? Caught up in the maelstrom of illness — our own or those of people we love —  or overcome by fear or despair in the face of events that upend our lives, or shake the world, and unable to find the strength to reach for God. When even the prayers we know by heart slip away from us.

I am reminded of a snippet of poetry from Ranier Rilke’s Book of Hours, “like sand slipping through fingers,  all my cells are open, and all so thirsty. I ache…in a hundred places, but mostly in the middle of my heart.” Thirsting for God in every cell, aching for mercy in the depths of our hearts, our physical body becomes the prayer. Like the disciples who ask Jesus to teach them the words to use in prayer, we, too, are looking to Jesus to teach us how to pray in our most desperate moments, when the anguish of our wounds  is more than we can bear, and we cannot find even those words, “Our Father”.

Jesus’ silence on the cross speaks volumes. His arms wordlessly stretched out between heaven and earth, his whole body is a prayer offered to the Father for our salvation. It is a potent reminder that when our strength fails us, we can still pray as Jesus taught us from the cross, arms stretched out in longing, every cell thirsting. That when injustice or illness or infirmity or age strips us of our words, our very body becomes a prayer.

Rube Goldberg mornings

 

I like a good Rube Goldberg machine, I do. Push the marble down the track and zip, ping, zap, eventually the cat's food pours into the dish. Or whatever. But the unplanned machines can be a mess...

This morning I went to put away the clean dishes from last night's dinner. The sheet pan had been set down on a wet soapy counter. It was stuck. I pulled it off. My elbow knocked over my water glass sitting by the sink spilling water. The glass straw from the cup hit one of my favorite tea cups*. Which fell into the sink and broke.  And I cried.

*The tea cup was from the pandemic, depicting all manner of calamities in a classic Delft blue. It always made me laugh.

In transition: Preaching Tuesday of Holy Week

When I was preparing to preach today, I thought that like Peter I've had three chances to preach these readings — for books of Lenten reflections in 2018, 2020 and the one coming out in the fall for 2027.  And when I look back at the reflections I wrote I feel like I've fumbled them a bit, not quite recognizing the weight of what is moving in this liturgy. But as St. Benedict was apparently wont to say, "every day we begin again." So here I try again to capture a little bit of the unfathomably holy space we are sitting in today.

---

I sometimes wonder if we think that the Monday, Tuesday and even Wednesday of Holy Week are sort of a holding pattern, where we are just marking time between Palm Sunday’s intensity and the solemnity of the one long liturgy that is the Triduum. (And also some time for rehearsing and decorating and perhaps juggling our regular jobs).

Even if these days are just holding space, space, as musicians know, matters. Rests give shape to music as much as the notes.

But I hear more than a rest marker in the Gospel for today. Today’s pericope from John is a bit of a jumble. It  comes after the account of the washing of the feet and before the Farewell Discourse which will occupy the next three chapters. It’s a narrative transition, setting up the betrayal by Judas, and Peter’s betrayal, too. The choice of this Gospel for today scrambles the timeline a bit. Yesterday’s installment was a flashback — we were clearly outside Jerusalem with Mary and Martha and the anointing with aromatic oils. Today we have skipped past the washing of the feet which we will return to on Thursday. Tomorrow we will see Judas’ betrayal through Matthew’s eyes, positioned, it seems, well before the entrance to Jerusalem.

Praying with this Gospel the last few days, it occurred to me that today is the pivotal moment, the moment at which we are staggering at the edge of catastrophe, the moment when we tumble over the edge into chaos and confusion, into passion, death and resurrection. 

In chemical reactions, there's something called a transition state. It’s a tipping point, a fleeting moment in the course of a chemical change. Move a fraction backward and you return to whence you came, unchanged. But move a fraction forward and you tumble inexorably to completion, transformed — transfigured. From that point on there is no turning back, even if at first little has seem to be changed.

What John recounts in today’s Gospel feels like a transition state. Once Jesus hands Judas that morsel, once Judas picks it up and leaves the room, there is no turning back, even as the disciples don’t yet see what is coming. Peter surely does not. But at this moment, it is all set in train.

This is when theory becomes practice.

I was reading Annie Dillard’s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek this weekend and I ran across these lines.

"Divinity is not playful. The universe was not made in jest, but in solemn, incomprehensible earnest. By a power that is unfathomably secret, and holy, and fleet."

God is not toying with Judas, or with us. For this fleeting moment we stand at a point where we can see Jesus’ life and death laid before us, where we can see all of salvation history spread out like a banquet, where we can see the choices. Jesus' choice. Judas’ choice. Peter’s choice. Our choice. Today. May we have the courage to choose the unfathomably holy, in solemn, deliberate earnest. 

Made in solemn incomprehensible earnest

Divinity is not playful. The universe was not made in jest but in solemn incomprehensible earnest. By a power that is unfathomably secret, and holy, and fleet. (Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, p. 270)

I spent the afternoon wandering though poets. Marilyn Nelson. Marie Howe. I walked Tinker's Creek with Annie Dillard. It was like binging on an incredible box of chocolates. So rich, so many flavors, each one a grace, and all together -- too much.

...only able to endure it by being no one and so/specifically myself I thought I'd die/from being loved like that. (Marie Howe, Annunciation)

Yesterday I picked up the notes I had made when I was 50, on the 30-day retreat making Ignatius' Spiritual Exercises. I didn't find what I was looking for, quite. But maybe I have now. #4thWeek

The world is wilder than that...more dangerous and bitter, more extravagant and bright. (Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, p. 268)

Tinker's Creek was my mother's, which I found on the shelf when we cleaned out my parent's house. There was a page marked toward the end, the back cover tucked in. So anxious was I to find the last chapter today, I unthinkingly pulled it out. Now I have no idea where the marker was left. Nor why. Was it something I would want to return to? Or just as far as she got before someone blasted in the door from school, from a wild and extravagant and bright day? My mother was 42 when Tinker's Creek was published. Would this young woman have advice for my much older self? I want to weep at my inattention.

The gaps are the thing. The gaps are the spirit's one home, the altitudes and latitudes so dazzingly spare and clean that the spirit can discover itself for the first time...The gaps in the clifts in the rock where you cower to see the back parts of God; they are the fissures between mountains and cells the wind lances through, the icy narrowing fjords splitting the cliffs of mystery. Go up into the gaps. If you can find them; they shift and vanish, too. Stalk the gaps. Squeak into a gap...and unlock a universe. This is how you spend this afternoon, and tomorrow morning, and tomorrow afternoon. Spend the afternoon. You can't take it with you. (Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker's Creek, p. 269)

I remember bundling up on a bitter January day to sit on Brace's Rock just off the retreat house at Eastern Point, somewhere in the first week of the Exercises. Cowering from the wind in a cleft of rock, hoping to catch a glimpse of God from the outside.

I have spent the afternoon. 

 

Stalking my calling

 

I was not stalking my calling, but hunting up a poem, when I stumbled across my copy of "Living like Weasels" from Teaching a Stone to Talk by Annie Dillard. (I'm doing a brief reading at commencement in May, and was looking for my copy of this poem by astronomer Becky Elson, which I love, but is it too dark for commencement?)

If you haven't read it, it reads like a bloodthirsty take on Mary Oliver's poem The Summer Day. The one with the line about "your one wild and precious life." (And which I am definitely not reading at commencement.)

The whole weasel essay is a joy, science and language and imagery all tangled together like the wild roses and poison ivy around Hollins Pond. Or snapped into a single whole like Dillard's mind and the weasel's. 

She opens with the story of an eagle found with the dry skull of a weasel clamped onto its neck, driven by its predatory instincts to bite even as it became prey. To do as it must, to do as it was meant to do — bite — even in extremis.

Dillard closes the essay by mulling  about vocation. "We can live any way we want. People take vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience — even of silence — by choice. The thing is to stalk your calling in a certain skilled and supple way, to locate the most tender and live spot and plug into that pulse...I think it would be well, and proper, and obedient, and pure, to grasp your one necessity and not let it go, to dangle from it limp wherever it takes you...Seize it and let it seize you up aloft..." 

In these last few weeks of teaching I seem to be stalking my calling again, looking for the tender spot, for the pulse point, and the willingness to seize it, letting it grasp me as I grasp it. To do — to be — as I was meant to be.

The world is full of marvels…and things that sting.

The world is full of marvels. I saw Portuguese men o’war (is that really the right plural, surely it isn’t “Portuguese man o’wars”?) on the beach over spring break. Or I am almost sure that’s what the translucent balloons dotting the shoreline were. (I had somehow imagined them to be much larger, based on some real life account I had read when I was a kid.) I was sure enough that I didn’t touch them. Men o’war or not, I have a healthy aversion to jellyfish. I’ve been stung before.

So I was surprised to find they aren’t jellyfish at all, but siphonophores. They aren’t a single individual but a colony of clones, genetically identical but each individual manifesting a different function. A marvel indeed.  

Of all things, it made me think of the passage in Paul's first letter to the Corinthians (1 Cor 12:12): we are one body in Christ, though each of us manifests that differently in service to the whole. What would a homily framed around stinging groups of clones and Paul's letter look like? or better yet, sound like? I'm doing an 8 week course in preaching, so homilies are on my mind.

It also brought to mind Frederick Buechner: “Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid.”

But perhaps be cautious about what you touch?

To Be Seen

To Be Seen

The neurologist pulled her chair around to face me. Then she gently told me that the difficulties I had been having writing equations on the blackboard and tying my shoes were not arthritis but the result of an incurable, progressive neurological disease. Oh.

I left her office feeling curiously relieved—grateful for the small mercies she offered to ease the symptoms, but thankful above all because she had so clearly seen my affliction. So often our sufferings go unseen by those around us. We fear, perhaps, that God does not see our struggles either.

But from the opening antiphon to the Gospel, all of today’s readings promise us otherwise. We are seen, we are known, and, even in the face of mortal danger, we are held close by God, who Isaiah tells us delights—exults!—in his people.

Unlike the heart-stricken father in John’s Gospel, I do not come to God these days seeking a miracle, or even signs and wonders. I come to see. And I come yearning to be seen.

St. Augustine said of the Eucharist: See who you are, become what you see. So I stand before the altar and see Christ lifted on the cross, suffering and fearing he was abandoned. I see who I am, suffering and afraid of what the future might hold—and know I am not alone. I hold out my hands and realize that I am seen in return, called forth from the depths of the netherworld, bound not only to the cross, but promised life. I am seen in my affliction. That is miracle enough, so I believe.

Michelle Francl-Donnay is a wife and mother, a professor of chemistry, and an adjunct scholar at the Vatican Observatory. She is author of Prayer: Biblical Wisdom for Seeking God in the Little Rock Scripture Study Alive in the Word series. michellefrancldonnay.com. 

---

This reflection appeared in the March 2026 issue of Give Us This Day and is used with permission.

The reflection had its roots in the Entrance Antiphon: "As for me, I trust in the Lord. Let me be glad and rejoice in your mercy, for you have seen my affliction." The psalm for the day is the one that I could not stop running through my head the terrible night that Tom died. The dance of tears and joy, of fear and trust. And I kept thinking in the Gospel about the long walk home that the father in the Gospel had, not knowing whether his son lived, had his miracle been granted? Would he still have believed if his son had died?

Putting on the brakes

I have stomped on the brakes, and stepped into spring break. The lawn is still dotted with pockets of snow, even though the bitter cold has finally broken. I longed for warmth that didn’t involve putting on so many layers I felt like a toddler decked out in a snow suit, unable to move. So the three of us — me, Math Man and his golf clubs — went somewhere warm, driving to the airport in a bubble of early morning fog and mist, by lunch we were having lunch and watching whales breach from a perch on the cliffs in a warm place with cool breezes. Like magic.

No email, I told Math Man. No desire for a mad crazy sightseeing schedule. Beach walks, good meals and rest. I realized by the second day that I had activated my “retreat” mode. Rest, pray, read. Walk. Repeat. Lean into the quiet and the sound of the waves. Float. Take some advice from Ireneus: rest in the hand of God.

When we return there will be 7 weeks left of my teaching career. Then I will be stepping on the brakes again, far more firmly. Eighteen more lectures to give, four more recitation sessions to run. A final exam and on the 5th of May, after the final exam, it’s a wrap. Except for the grading. And the packing. 

Is it a journey or am I spelunking?

 

The term “your Parkinson’s journey” crops up in a lot of the reading I’ve been doing and the podcasts I’ve been listening to as I try to better understand what I am facing. The term felt awkward to me and I couldn’t quite put my finger on why. Then I heard it used to refer to the late Eric Dane’s course of ALS. That is when I realized that journeys are a generally a two-way affair. You go on a journey, only to return home. ALS is not a journey, there is no return to normal, there is only catastrophe ahead. Nor is Parkinson’s a journey. It will progress — slowly, I pray — but it’s not going backwards. So, no, not a journey.

So maybe it’s more like a pilgrimage, I mused. You go somewhere, the going isn’t smooth and along the way you are changed. But even pilgrims go back home, the blisters and galls memories, not ever present realities.

In some ways I feel like a refugee who has been resettled in a place she did not chose, unable to return home. Or like my great-grandmothers who immigrated, never returning home, not even for a short visit. 

Maybe this is an expedition deep inside the earth? I read a piece about veteran coal miners who report that most of the time they crawl through the tunnels they don’t think about the enormous weight that is above them, hundreds, sometimes thousands of feet of rock. But every once in a while, that literally crushing reality asserts itself. Everything could collapse. Most of the time I’m not ruminating on Parkinson’s, but there are moments when I feel the future’s weight, and worry that I might be crushed.

Or maybe it is more like treading water over the Marianas trench, you float, as long as you keep moving just under the surface. It’s exhausting. But there are seven miles of water below you, nothing to stop you from sinking into those depths, so you perforce keep moving.

 

All my cells thirst

“I’m slipping, I’m slipping away
like sand
slipping through fingers. All
my cells
are open, and all
so thirsty. I ache and swell
in a hundred places, but mostly in the middle of my heart.”

— from Rilke's Book of Hours, I 23, translated by Anita Barrows & Joanna Macy

I found this snippet from Rilke's Book of Hours on a literal snippet of paper tucked between two dictionaries on my study shelf (I was looking for my Esperanto and Klingon dictionaries, if you must know). I have no idea where I came upon it, on the back is a photograph of a caterpillar chrysallis and something about undifferentiated cells. No idea, either, when or why I might have clipped it, nor how it had found its way onto that shelf of rarely consulted references (when was the last time I used Klingon?).

Meanwhile, unknown to me, cells in my substantia nigra were slipping away, like sand through an hourglass. Dying. When were a third of them gone?  a half? I didn't know. I didn't notice, until I did. Most of them are now gone, swept away by whatever molecular cleaning crew keeps station in my midbrain. 

I imagine this little spot in my brain, gradually growing dark. The lights flicking off one by one. Meanwhile all my cells thirst for what was being poured out, longing for the messages that once flowed on a tide of dopamine, but no longer come.

I ache, in my body, in my soul...and in my heart...for what I lost, all unknowing. For what I know I will lose again.

---

Estimates are that between 60 and 80% of the dopamine producing cells in the brain are dead by the time symptoms of Parkinson's disease manifest. The substantia nigra is just above the brain stem, deep in the middle of your brain. The tissue that comprises the substantia nigra is darker than the rest of the brain's tissue, hence the name.

Rilke's original German has no reference to cells, but speaks instead of senses thirsting in different ways: “Ich habe auf einmal so viele Sinne, die alle anders durstig sind.”

Layers of protection

 

I pulled open the drawer of the lecture table, to stash a pair of winter gloves someone had left behind so I would have enough room to work with some students during recitation. Clearly I wasn't the first person to have done that, both drawers were full of detritus (including another pair of gloves!).

I could classify the contents as lost, left behind, or just in case.

Lost and left behind: Those gloves. Cables. So many pens and pencils. There was a Zip disk from 2000. "Hey, that looks just like the save icon!" offered one student, looking over my shoulder. I replied it wasn't a replica of the icon, rather this was the physical object from which the icon was derived.  Another remarked dryly, "That disk is from before I was born." Erk. That made me feel nearly ancient. I can clearly remember when Zip disks were state of the art.

The drawer was a trip to another time. A late colleague's notes. Unmarked vials. A vial of pure vanillin (which isn't the familiar caramel color of vanilla, but a white powder.) Pens for writing on overhead transparencies (what are those my TA wondered, while I wondered in turn when I had last used that technology, or a physical slide deck for that matter). 

Just in case: That extra pen for writing on transparencies, batteries (one so old it had burst open) and spare bulbs for the projector. Rulers, periodic tables. Period supplies. Blue books (which are coming back into vogue again thanks to AI) and scratch paper for exams.  

Beloved. Period.

We are beloved.
     Period.
Not beloved because
Not beloved if
Not beloved but
Not beloved for
Not beloved sometimes, by some people. 

We are beloved. No commas, no clauses.
Beloved, period.

We are beloved, as we are,
      as we were even before the spirit breathed upon the waters,
          as we will be when the sun itself returns to dust.
Be loved.

Be love. 

---

The parish mission, executive summary. A riff at the end on the Zen koan: "Show me your original face, the face you had before your parents were born.”

Jarred silence

[image or embed]

— TinyTalesDaily (@tinytalesdaily.bsky.social) February 12, 2026 at 9:01 AM

I am, you anxious one.
Don’t you sense me, ready to break
into being at your touch? 
My murmurings surround you like shadowy wings. 
Can’t you see me standing before you cloaked in stillness?
...And with the silence of stars I enfold your cities made by time.”
— Rainer Marie Rilke

from Rilke's Book of Hours translated by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy

I used to dive into the silence once a month at the Jesuit Center near Wernersville and perhaps a bit tongue in cheek, would offer to bring back a bit of the silence for friends. I have been thinking about how to package up silence recently. Or rather, contemplating how to open a space for stillness and silence for those who are seeking it. What would it look like to set up that sort of portal in the parish church for an hour? What could you give people to take home...if not in a jar, but a gift of a way of drawing that cloak of silence and stillness around themselves if only for a few minutes?

It is so tempting to try to push lots of advice in, but I keep returning to Abba Moses advice, "Sit in your cell, and your cell will teach you everything." Or to riff on Mary Vorse's advice to young writers (including  Sinclair Lewis) “The art of writing is the art of applying the seat of the pants to the seat of the chair.”: to sit in prayer is simply to apply the seat of the pants to the seat of the chair. I don't want to constrain prayer.

As to the jars in the TinyTale, I am with Marty Laird OSA (Into the Silent Land) on the notion that contemplation will somehow erase the woundedness we experience. Opening that jar of permanent silence isn't necessarily going to hush the screams in the other jar she bought. Prayer is not snorting lines of euphoric peace, warns Fr. Laird.