Phaith: Exercising gratitude

In these darkling days, even when there isn't a hurricane, I'm grateful for light.  The photo show my desk mid-hurricane.  No electricity, but a great LED lantern designed by Chris illuminated my grading. (You take two stacking plastic cups, half fill the bottom one with water, put the second one on top and insert a brace of LEDs inside.  The water diffuses the LEDs light nicely.)

The November issue of Phaith magazine is up and online. My post-hurricane column is on gratitude. Not only for the lights and heat of the present moment, but for gifts given throughout the years. In return? I'm committing random acts of gratitude. In the moment deprivation is a potent tool for discerning the difference between needs and wants.

...As I dressed in the dark and cold each morning, I was grateful to have clean and warm clothes to wear, even if I went to had to teach class in an outfit that was a bit more casual than my wont. (Next time my hurricane preparations will include not only finding the hand pump for the basement, but ironing a couple of pairs of pants for work!)

But memory fades quickly, even when the circumstances have been far more difficult than our brief return to the pre-electric age. Stranded on drifting ice for months after his expedition’s boat had been crushed, Antarctic explorer Ernest Shackleton wrote in his journal that, if he were rescued, he would never again complain of being too hot. After a harrowing trip through a hurricane in an open boat, Shackleton found himself overheated — and complaining about it — as he hiked over an island mountain pass in search of help.

I thought of Shackleton this afternoon when I reached into the (newly cleaned out) fridge and was momentarily annoyed that we had no milk. Until it hit me that I now had light by which to see that!

St. Ignatius of Loyola felt that ingratitude was at the root of sin...

Read the rest here....

From Phaith: Pearls of Great Price

Philadelphia's Archdiocesan magazine, Phaith, is now being published in an online version. This column appeared in the October issue.

Victor was a bit dubious about this column, worried that he didn't come off very well, sitting in that conference room.  He did his fair share on this project, even relinquishing his favorite part (the tiling) to me.  I love the phrasing, partners in the whole of life. Marriage in my book isn't about going halvies, but about going all in.  Whether it's patios built amid the heat, or children or illness or no lights in a storm...

“Dad says this is your anniversary present,” said Chris as he tipped a wheelbarrow of sand into the form for the new patio. He sounded dubious. Covered in sweat and dust on a sultry afternoon in August, I was piling up 20 pound slabs of stone, while my husband of 20 years sat in a cool conference room at the college, sliding papers around a table. This do-it-yourself project did not look much like the anniversary gifts touted on TV. No pearls?

That is why a man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife, and the two of them become one body.  I’d been contemplating this line from Genesis since I’d heard it read at Mass the week before while Victor and I stood on either side of our oldest son, Mike, at the opening Mass for his freshman year at college — almost 19 years to the day since we discovered we were to become parents. Bound by our vows, we found ourselves bound up anew in this child. A gift on our first anniversary from God to us.

Through the years we joked with each other that we each did 75 percent of the work of being parents, as Victor paced the floors with a disconsolate Chris at 2 a.m. or I tutored Mike in algebra after dinner. Laundry, dirty dishes, play dates and college visits. Fall hikes, family dinners, water fights and choral concerts. A full measure of challenges and joys nurtured equally by each.

 St. Augustine once said that miracles “have a tongue of their own … let us not only be delighted with (their) surface, but let us also seek to know (their) depth.” So, too, do these sacraments that hallow our lives have “tongues of their own” that speak to us not only when we first celebrate them, but again and again, drawing us into the depths of the mystery that is our relationship with God.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church begins its discussion of the sacrament of marriage by reminding us that it is a “matrimonial covenant, by which a man and a woman establish between themselves a partnership of the whole of life.” After 20 years of marriage — after 20 years as partners in the whole of life — my labors on the patio truly felt as much a gift from Victor to me, as it was my own gift to him. Caught up in this sacramental marriage, we are mysteriously one body. 

Chris’ comment made me think not only about the bond that Victor and I share, but nudged me to seek something of its depths. God dwells in me, and I in God. I have nothing to offer, but what I myself have been given. What work I do is not my work, but God’s gifts, at work in me. God offers to do not just 75 percent, but 100 percent, and calls forth the same in me, in each of us.

Where are the pearls? I have been given them. A string of days, dark and light, each built over time of many layers, knotted together. To have and to hold – and to share –from this day forward.

Phaith: Become what you receive - Corpus Christi

Corpus Christi is celebrated this week (the date depends on your local diocese, the traditional Thursday or translated to Sunday). My column in this month's Phaith, on how meals shape our communities, large and small. Full disclosure: The table at my house rarely rises to the level in the (stock)photo that is shown with the article. Trust me on this one. And the conversation is not always, shall we say, elevated in tone. But there is much laughter and love....

"Dinner was almost cleaned up, the last dishes were stuffed into the dishwasher, and Chris was at the kitchen table neatly packing the leftovers while chatting up our guest. A cherry red apron over his jeans, Mike was sifting powdered sugar over the top of a chocolate cake. Kaitlyn bet him a cake that he'd get into Georgetown, and acceptance letter in hand, he's making good on the wager.

As he presents his creation with a flourish to Kaitlyn, wrapped and ready for her to take home, I notice that he's put it on my best cake plate, a wedding gift from a good friend. "Nice choice," I tell him. He grins.

The china cabinet isn't off limits to the kids at my house, so I'm neither surprised nor bothered that Mike has gone rummaging in it for just the right platter. He knows, too, that I believe in using the good dishes not only for big holidays, but also to mark somewhat less momentous occasions -- such as the end of semester breakfast with my students, where guests are perched on chairs, and parked on the carpet.

My kids have learned that meals are about more than refueling. It's a time set aside for us to be together, to hear how the day has gone, to laugh together."

Read the rest in Phaith.

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Photo is of Mission San Miguel's sanctuary. My parent's parish.

Of whirlwinds, teenagers and going on retreat: Phaith in May

I drove up to the silence yesterday, for an appointment with Patient Spiritual Director.  The weather cooperated to the extent of giving me one long solitary walk when I arrived in the morning, but it rained determinedly the rest of the day.  The one retreat in house was small, and not keeping silence, and so I opted for a less silent time than usual and talked at both lunch and dinner.  I'm not feeling deprived; I leave for California, for a completely silent retreat here, on Saturday — and so will enjoy a generous portion of stillness and silence then.

My column in Phaith this month takes up how to start planning to go on retreat, and was written in an incredibly noisy spot — the high school auditorium as the stage sets for the musical were under construction!

"I’m writing this sitting on the floor of the high school auditorium. Behind me at the board Nick is running sound checks, 'test, test, testestest…' The rough crunching emanating from the stage is not what it sounds like — a velociraptor having a snack — but turns out to be Meredith cutting trim to fit around the two story tall emerald throne. The whine of a power screwdriver rises over the edgy jazz music burbling from the wings.

I love the energy that whirls around the theater, a cyclone that sucks in paint and plywood and teenagers until it finally touches down on stage leaving behind a functional snippet of another world. Still, I find my mind drifting to far quieter worlds, to this morning’s email confirming a week long stay in a hermitage at a Camaldolese monastery in the California mountains. 'Sit in your cell like it is paradise.' begins the Rule of St. Romauld, the founder of the Camoldolese Benedictines."

Read the rest here...

Crash, reading over my shoulder as I sat on the floor of the auditorium (my computer plugged into the sound board's power strip), enjoyed this sentence:  I love the energy that whirls around the theater, a cyclone that sucks in paint and plywood and teenagers until it finally touches down on stage leaving behind a functional snippet of another world. Their show was The Wiz, hence the tornado imagery.

Phaith: The Ladies of the Book

The April issue of Phaith has been out for a while, and with it my column; this month on evangelization in the digital age, featuring my virtual book club.

About a year ago Pope Benedict issued Truth, Proclamation and Authenticity of Life in the Digital Age (on the feast of St. Francis de Sales in 2011). He recognized the possibility of building networks of relationships that strengthen our faith in the digital domain and encouraged integrity in our interactions there.  That what existed in the virtual world was "an integral part of human life." Pope Benedict goes on to say, "The web is contributing to the development of new and more complex intellectual and spiritual horizons, new forms of shared awareness." That well characterizes The Ladies of the Book, in my opinion!

I had a small box on the page where I could suggest more resources - and I had to admit it was difficult to select just a half dozen places to showcase for an audience that includes all of Philadelphia's Catholics: young, old, veteran Tweeters and those still struggling with email.  Father Z's WDTPRS and The Deacon's Bench are popular Catholic stops on the interwebs, but were not even on my short list.  At their best both sites can be catechetical and informative on hot topics, but rarely does conversation at either spot rise toward something that sustains my faith, and at their worst, they can be an occasion of sin for me.  The community at People for Others does a far better job of building up the Body of Christ, in my opinion.  The people who come to comment do not always agree, but the topics posted there encourage a focus on our own practices — not on a critique of others' practices and faith —  and help me dig deeply into how I find God, and how God find me.  PFOers pray for each other, seek to build up each other's faith, and share their helpful perspectives.


Herewith, my suggestions of places to visit where the Catholic faith is joyfully proclaimed and the faith of the Church is built up, not torn down.  Where else would you send people to have their faith fed — Catholic or otherwise?

• Busted Halo, online magazine for young Catholics
• The Jesuit Post, compelling and edgy writing on faith by a group of young Jesuits
• People for Others, blogger Fr. Paul Campbell, S.J. hosts an ongoing conversation about finding God in all things 
• @Virtual_Abbey, praying the Liturgy of the Hours on Twitter daily 

"The Ladies of the Book meet virtually, hanging out online for an hour once a month talking about what we’ve read, our lives and God. 

The dozen of us have never all met in person, and perhaps never will. Some of us know each other IRL (in real life), others met through our online blogs or on were introduced by mutual friends on Facebook. We are Catholics by birth and by conversion, evangelical Protestants and staid Presbyterians. We are grandmothers, mothers and daughters; students and teachers; lay women and ministers. And we live in five states scattered across three time zones. Despite our differences we share an abiding joy in our faith in God, a deep yearning to grow closer to God in prayer and a call to proclaim the Gospel abroad, whether that means teaching a religious education class, proclaiming the Scriptures in the liturgy — or writing a terrific post on Facebook. 

'No speech, no word, no voice is heard, yet their span extends through all the earth, their words to the utmost bounds of the world.' proclaims Psalm 19. The ancient psalmist surely did not have the internet in mind, but every time I hear this psalm I think of the blogs I read that span the earth, the people whose voices I’ve never heard, but whose words of wisdom and hope have reached out across vast distances to speak of God’s glory."

Read the rest here...


Note:  Robin (the unnamed Presbyterian) objected to being characterized as "staid", though I meant it in its older sense of steadfast — "know where you stand and stand there" — rather than sedate or unadventurous.  I wish to state unconditionally (having met Robin incarnate as well as virtually), she is not sedate or unadventurous.

Phaith: If God rested, why do we want to multi-task?

Are you old enough to remember the test pattern?

From my latest column in Phaith magazine:

... I remembered how exciting it was to stay up late when I was a kid: the TV turned down to a hush so as not to wake my younger siblings, the old B movies that showed after the 11 o'clock news, and the cut-rate commercials for used cars, the bright sunshine glinting off the cars at odds with the midnight black lapping against the living room window. And when the national anthem played and the test pattern appeared, I would creep up the stairs, adventure at an end.

In this era of "on demand" it's hard for my kids to imagine that once upon a time TV programming didn't run 24/7, that at some point the local station called it a day, leaving a technicolor pattern of stripes and squares to hold the space for morning.

The third commandment pushes back at a world that demands we — or someone — be endlessly available to work: "Keep holy the Sabbath Day." ...

Read the rest here

Phaith: Tending to a prayer life

My next Spiritual Fitness column is up at Phaith. Origen's discourse on spherical angels (for whom the current debates on kneeling/standing posture are moot, as they have no knees) can be found here.

“No more clutter. Guaranteed!” “Streamline your routine: 30 minutes a day to a tidier home” Waiting in line at the grocery store, I sometimes imagine the magazines are jumping up and down like overexcited students, sure they know the answers. Call on me and I can tell you how to get dinner on the table in 30 minutes, with elegant napkins and candles. No, no, read me and you’ll never misplace the choral schedule again!

Facing going home to the semi-permanent mound of sneakers by the garage door and another taco dinner, I too often succumb to those bright promises and add a magazine or two to my cart — with predictable results. The sneakers still lurk just outside the kitchen, and while I can get dinner on the table in under an hour, the table decor is decidedly not a candidate for a magazine spread, except as a “before” picture.

Last weekend I was browsing my shelves at home, looking for some resources for the students in my course on contemplation. As I pulled books on prayer and meditation for various of their final projects, I found myself paging through a couple and wondering if I might find some helpful hints for my own current prayer dilemma in them. Or, like a sure solution for the clutter that comes with living with three guys who wear size 11 sneakers, am I looking for something that doesn’t exist?

You can read the rest here.

The illustration is of St. Augustine...reading. Did he succumb to the clamoring magazines?

Phaith: Ora et labora

More on kitchen painting from my latest column in Phaith:

"But as one playlist ran down, inconveniently catching me up the ladder removing old wallpaper, soapy water running down my arms, a momentary silence descended. The quiet seemed to be doing as much to dissolve my tension as the hot water was doing for the remnants of the wallpaper paste. I left the music off.

I began to listen to the sounds of the task at hand, not obliterate them in a barrage of noise. The swish of the rag in the water, the scritch of the sandpaper on the spackle, the bass thunk as I tapped the lid of the paint can back into place at the end of the day. It reminded me to listen for the sound of God’s Hands at work in creation, in my life. To be attentive to the ways in which God would like to remake me."

Read the rest here....

Sticky writing fail

I sat down to work on a piece for Phaith this weekend, opened my favorite drafting software to find a blank document titled "Phaith February" containing only this text:

Centering prayer…somewhere on a sticky you have an outline for this!

Really? Because I have no idea on earth where it might be stuck….

At least one advantage of typewriters (besides their inability to entangle you in the Interwebs when you are struggling to write) is that you can't archive snark in them.

Come, Holy Spirit, Divine Creator, true source of light and fountain of wisdom! Pour forth your brilliance on my dense intellect...