On the razor's edge

When I came home from the hospital after Tom died, everything was still as we had left it three days earlier. Used towels hung on the racks, rumpled sheets, Tom's razor and shaving brush still on the counter in the bathroom.  It was surreal.  Life was utterly ordinary when I went to work on Wednesday, and unimaginably not when I returned.

I went into the bathroom, looked at it all, and realized that he had no use of these things anymore, nor would anyone else.  I put the razor and brush into the trash can next to the sink, and systematically went through the house removing the traces of the last day, subtly altering the terrain to accommodate one, not two.  My exhausted parents watched, but did not try to stop me.
We came home this week to the detritus of a less permanent and  harrowing departure, but the after images of that other return home remained.  His razor on the counter in the bathroom, his towel hanging on the hook behind the door.  His tousled sheets. For a moment both realities were superimposed.

Once again I put towels in the wash, put away shaving cream and razor, and hung my robe on the door, transforming the guys' bathroom into a space for a soaking bath.

Now is not then, but neither time nor grief is precisely linear, they crisscross the everyday, crashing into each other at odd moments, in unexpected ways.  Like in the bathroom.

The touch of Christ

(Cross posted from RevGalBlogPals)

Our homilist talked about incarnation, God walking among us, as us, touching us as we ourselves touch each other, touching us as we cannot or will not. Jesus touched a leper, an unthinkable act.

I love the lines in this song, which we used to as our opening hymn, about Christ's hands and presence:

Lord of all eagerness, Lord of all faith,
Whose strong hands were skilled at the plane and the lathe...

Lord of all kindliness, Lord of all grace,
Your hands swift to welcome, Your arms to embrace...

Lord of all gentleness, Lord of all calm,
Whose voice is contentment, whose presence is balm...

Where are we balm, when do we reach out to touch what the world considers untouchable?

Column: Flustered for joy

I have very vivid memories of the tailored, lined pink tweed coats, and of the sled ride to Mass, but couldn't precisely place the year. A search of the Chicago Tribune archives turned up the story of the surprise Easter snow storm. My mother, tucked away in the basement sewing would have had no idea that snow was falling on her Easter parade.

Augustine's commentary was (and is) truly consoling, I often imagine how difficult those early days must have been for the disciples. Could they believe their eyes?

The full quote from Martin Laird, OSA is from Into the Silent Land:

"This is why most people don't stick with a contemplative discipline for very long; we have all heard all sorts of talk about contemplation bringing inner peace but when we turn within to seek this peace, we meet inner chaos instead of peace. But at this point it is precisely the meeting of chaos that is salutary, not snorting of lines of euphoric peace."

This column appeared in the Catholic Standard & Times on 4 May 2011.

He himself stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you!” In a state of alarm and fright, they thought they were seeing a ghost. But he said, “Why are you so agitated, and why are these doubts rising in your hearts?” — Lk. 24: 36b-38


“The weather bureau reported itself at a loss to account for the sudden snowfall….” read the article in the Chicago Tribune on Easter Monday 1964. Easter that year had dawned on an unexpectedly snowy landscape. My mother, seven months pregnant, had been up all Holy Saturday night, putting the finishing touches on our Easter outfits. She’d heard the wind howling, but hadn’t realized it was a near blizzard outside.

I still remember my mother’s insistence that, despite the bitter weather, we would wear the new spring coats she’d spent all night finishing, blue tweed for my brother, pink for the girls. My father, knowing he was outmatched, bundled the three of us up in a blanket, put us on the sled and towed us through 10 inches of snow to St. Luke’s for Easter Mass. It may have looked like winter, but the springing to life of Easter was not to be so easily thwarted.

In retrospect, I wonder if it was that early Easter of contradictions that set the tone for later Easters. Easter is a feast that often leaves me feeling like the disciples in this scene from Luke, frightened by the sudden appearance of the risen Jesus, while simultaneously trying to grasp His joyous greeting, “Peace be with you!”

Two decades after that memorable surprise Easter snowstorm, my celebration of Easter was once again paradoxical. I spent Easter morning eating brunch in a local hotel where the noise of families celebrating in their Easter finery burbled merrily around me, and Easter afternoon in the hush of a funeral home greeting mourners at my husband’s wake.

St. Augustine, reflecting on how the disciples faced the reality of the resurrection, well captures these contradictory emotions, “they were still flustered for joy; they were rejoicing and doubting at the same time.” I struggled that Easter, and struggle still, to reconcile my own grief at Tom’s loss with my joy for him, now at rest in God. So I find Augustine’s matter-of-fact acknowledgment of the tumultuous reactions of the disciples in the aftermath of the resurrection to be consoling.

In fact, Augustine notes, within this swirling chaos is an opportunity for grace. The disciples on the road to Emmaus were also troubled, and poured forth their confusion to a Christ they could not recognize and in “the depth of their despair, all unwitting, they showed the doctor their wounds.” Even if I could not fully comprehend Christ resurrected in my life at such a moment, Christ could yet work on the wounds that my very struggle to grasp the realities revealed.

Sixteen hundred years later, Augustinian Father Martin Laird echoes Augustine’s wisdom to those seeking to find Christ’s “Peace be with you!” in prayer and contemplation: “When we turn within to seek this peace, we meet inner chaos instead of peace. But at this point it is precisely the meeting of chaos that is salutary...” The resurrection does not obliterate the pain of Christ’s passion, or of our own travails. Instead, like the disciples in the upper room, and on the road to Emmaus, it is a place where those of us who are flustered by joy in sorrow, who are simultaneously mourning and rejoicing, meet Christ. It is the place where Christ works within us.

Even in their fullness, the first disciples’ lives would be marked by contradiction and chaos. Nourished by joy, filled with grace, nevertheless they would be tried by fire. Perhaps Easter snowstorms shouldn’t be so unexpected after all.

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All-powerful God, help us to proclaim the power of the Lord’s resurrection. May we who accept this sign of the love of Christ come to share the eternal life he reveals. Amen. — From the Opening Prayer for Tuesday of the Second Week of Easter

A soothing cup of tea - in more ways than one

I took a fall skiing last week, my skis went in one direction, my knees in the other. The audible pop sounded and felt much like what happens when I break the cartilage in the joint of a chicken. Argh.

Not surprisingly my knee hurts, and ice and ibuprofen are what Patient Spiritual Director calls "ordinary graces" — which I do not disdain.

Sitting in front of the fire with a cup of tea is also good therapy, but it turns out that the tea is more than psychologically soothing.

Adding around 100 mg of caffeine (roughly what's in my big mug of tippy Assam tea) to 400 mg of ibuprofen makes it 2 to 3 times more effective in relieving acute pain. In 1904 Charles Scott Sherrington coined nociceptive to distinguish between the psychological response to an unpleasant stimulus (nociception) and the physiological response (pain). Caffeine enhances the antinociceptive activity of NSAIDS like ibuprofen, but I think it also mitigates the psychological response. I wonder what Prof. Sherrington would make of that!

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Full disclosure: I fell in the lift line, my skis got entangled when I tried to retrieve the pole that got stuck in the snow. I'd love to say I did this catching an edge on a glorious powder run.

The chemistry heavy version of this post is here for the truly geeky....

Column: Get up and walk

For the record, Chris washed his hands before each evening consult. A big change from five years ago, when he was morally opposed to hand washing!

This column appeared in the Catholic Standard & Times on 14 January 2010.

Now which of these is easier: to say, “Your sins are forgiven,” or to say, “Get up and walk?” — Mt. 9:5

It happened so fast that at first I wasn’t even sure I was hurt. Chris and I were in the kitchen talking while I sliced rolls for sandwiches and he organized the rest of dinner. Suddenly the knife slipped. As I grabbed for a towel to put pressure on the wound, Chris sprang into action. He gathered the first aid supplies, washed and dried my hand, and when he was sure the bleeding had stopped, gently bandaged it for me. But his solicitude didn’t stop there. For the next several nights, Chris insisted on seeing my hand. He checked on the progress of the healing, and carefully re-bandaged it. I was touched by my son’s care, not just in the moment of the injury, but for my ongoing healing.

A few weeks later, as I was settling into the chair in my confessor’s office, my mind was on more metaphysical injuries. Reaching for his stole on the side table he asked, “Are things going better?” His words instantly brought Chris’ ongoing care for my physical wounds to mind. In his question I heard the Church’s concern not just for this one moment of sacramental forgiveness and reconciliation, but her care for us going forward — that we might be able to “get up and walk.”

In reflecting on this passage from Matthew’s Gospel, St. Jerome notes our very human need for physical signs that reflect and support the interior changes that the simple, but sometimes hard to comprehend, phrase “your sins are forgiven” signifies. I hear the words, “I absolve you from your sins, in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit” and have faith that at that moment I am forgiven.

Still, like the Pharisees who doubted whether Jesus could forgive sins, I, too, sometimes need a tangible sign to remind me that I am free of the sins that bound me — and that I will not be left to my own inadequate resources after sacramental absolution. My assigned penance often serves much as the bandage on my finger did, a sign to remind me to be mindful of my injury and an aid to its continued healing.

Pope John Paul II reminds us of these dual medicinal roles for the satisfaction, or penance, that sacramental confession imposes. He points out that penances should go beyond the mere recitation of formulas. Instead purposeful actions of worship, atonement, love and charity keep us aware “even after absolution there remains … a dark area, due to the wound of sin, to the imperfection of love in repentance, to the weakening of the spiritual faculties” (Reconciliatio et Paenitentia 31).

In the satisfaction required of her penitents, the Church offers us not magic words, nor even merely spiritual first-aid, but tangible signs of the new life we now live, and support in living it.

My hand has healed without even a scar, but the experience left its mark in other ways. Now each time I go to confession, I see in absolution and in penance the tender hand of God, gently cleaning my wounds and wrapping my still fragile soul round with His merciful care. I leave aware that not only are my sins forgiven, but that I can get up and walk as well.

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I confess to almighty God, and to you, my brothers and sisters, that I have sinned through my own fault in my thoughts and in my words, in what I have done and what I have failed to do; and I ask blessed Mary, ever virgin, all the angels and saints, and you, my brothers and sisters, to pray for me to the Lord our God. Amen. — Confiteor

Where your strength lies

By waiting and by calm you shall be saved, in quiet and in trust your strength lies. Is 30:15

Somehow this line from Isaiah ended up printed out and stuck in the interstices of my wall-mounted cache of folders early this fall. I can't recall why I printed it out then, but now I'm finding it a single, sharp point of contemplation for these last days of Advent. I'm still fighting off pneumonia, still wired on the various medications that ease my breathing, still unable to sing. So I wait, calmly (not calmly is not good for breathing, perforce), quietly (no voice - ack), and trusting that it will be fine. And it will.

This is a different kind of Advent stillness, not a full stop, not even a slowed pace. Not entered into as an elected discipline, it instead feels like a quietly directed contemplation of the vast landscape between uncertainty and trust. I feel like Mary, enormous with child, contemplating the roads ahead: the ones visible, the ones unseen, the ones unimaginable. If I were to do the Exercises again, I suspect I would see the road in that second contemplation of the Second Week -- the one that asks you to "to see with the sight of the imagination the road from Nazareth to Bethlehem; considering the length and the breadth, and whether such road is level or through valleys or over hills" -- with different eyes.

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While I'm musing about hidden strengths here, my eldest is thinking here about his hidden strengths (which I would argue are very much what the world might need - if not so valued by the high school social scene).

What Season is this?

H/T to the Ironic Catholic.

I'm still, alas, voiceless and wheezy, and taking anti-inflammatory meds just a tad stronger than Advil tucked into boxes rather like an Advent calendar, so this is too funny!

Comfort Food

In the middle of the 30-days last January (2nd week, Temptation of Christ to be specific), I got sick. All I did was sleep and pray and throw-up. Tea and oral rehydration solution (thanks to UNESCO for the recipe) were my salvation.

Several days later, when I finally felt ready to tackle dinner (and dessert), there was an amazing bread pudding for dessert. Plated in pools of bright raspberry sauce and redolent of cinnamon, it was a delight to eye and palate. The sister at the table with me was so taken with it, she nearly licked the plate clean. Me, too. It was seriously comforting food.

We had several stale ends of French bread left over this week. I usually turn these into bread crumbs or croutons, but had enough to consider bread pudding. So that's what I did this afternoon, along with a batch of berry syrup to drizzle over my yogurt (and over the bread pudding). Barnacle Boy and Bead Girl approved the final product -- and it matches my memory well (though I discovered today I deeply associate this with the temptation of Christ!!!)

30-days Bread Pudding

1 large loaf of very stale French bread (or the equivalent)
1/2 cup butter, melted
7 eggs (!)
1 1/4 cups sugar
1 cup heavy cream
3 2/3 cup non-fat milk
1/2 tsp salt
4 tsp vanilla
2 tsp cinnamon

Roughly cube the bread into 1" chunks. Place bread cubes (and the crumbs made in the process) in a large bowl, toss with the melted butter. Whisk eggs and sugar; stir in remaining ingredients. Pour the egg mixure over the bread in the large bowl. Let stand for 1 hour, stirring occasionally.

Generously butter an 11 x 13 pan (I used a glass pan), pour in the mixture. Tightly cover with aluminum foil and bake at 375 F for 45 or until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean.
Serve warm with raspberry syrup or sprinkle with powdered sugar. (Some like this cold, but I'm all for warm!)

Berry Syrup

1 cup water
1 cup sugar
zest from one orange
6 cups berries (I used a mix of frozen berries: black raspberry, wild blueberry, raspberry)

Bring the water to a boil, stir in sugar until it dissolves. Remove from heat. Place berries in a blender, pour the water/sugar solution over the top. Puree. Strain out the seeds, stir in the zest, bring briefly to the boil again. Cool, then store in fridge or freezer until ready to use.

UNESCO oral rehydration solution

1 litre of clean water
One level teaspoon of salt
Eight level teaspoons of sugar
Stir the mixture till the sugar dissolves.

If you can manage a banana for the potassium, that's not a bad idea -- unless of course the novices have beaten you to all the bananas!

Guns, Germs and Steel

Barnacle Boy has a project going for school. He's designed and built a labyrinth for a Minotaur. We bought bass wood (related to balsa) and a stiff poster board. He measured the pieces (I did the cutting with an Exacto knife), painted everything in black acrylic paint, and tonight was the big assembly night. We got out the hot glue gun and went to work. With only two pieces to go, I was gluing a seam, or rather I thought it was a seam. My finger. Ouch. One large blister.

Back to work. Last piece. I pick up the gun and manage to squirt hot glue all over my hand. My hand is a mess to say the least. The Boy tried to help me bandage up the worst of the raw spots, but his sterile technique isn't so hot (and sterile wouldn't describe his hands, I'm sure). I'm now an 8-fingered typist...

Open Your Hands

[This column appeared in the Catholic Standard & Times 23 Oct 1008]

The crowds were almost stifling Jesus as he went. There was a woman suffering from a hemorrhage for twelve years, whom no one had been able to cure. She came up behind him and touched the fringe of his cloak; and the hemorrhage stopped at that instant. Jesus said, "Who touched me?"
Lk. 8:42-45

I descended from the heavenly peace of my study to find a gaggle of giggling teens in my kitchen. "Open your hands, Mom!" invited Chris. "Why?" I am (with good reason) suspicious. "I promise you'll like it." At least he hasn't asked me to close my eyes, or I would have been really worried.

I hesitantly held out my hands, ready to snatch them back if the surprise was not to my taste. A spoonful of chocolate chip cookie dough plopped onto my palms. Chris was right, I liked it. My kitchen turned out to be as full of grace as it was of teenagers.

Chris' invitation and my tentative response to it echoed an experience of a few days earlier. Facing surgery, I had asked to receive the anointing of the sick. When the priest invited me to open my hands, for an instant, I had much the same reaction as I had in the kitchen. I wanted to pull back my hands and call the whole thing off. I was unsure of what would happen; perhaps I should not have bothered God with this?

I took courage from the woman in this scene from Luke's Gospel. She, too, had come seeking healing in the midst of chaos. I wonder if she thought it too small a matter actually to stop Jesus. She was not blind, nor paralyzed, not possessed of demons; she was tired and ill and frustrated. So as not to be a bother, she merely reached out to touch His robe. Christ responded to her, sought her out, in fact. He need not have bothered, she was already well. He was not satisfied to know that healing had happened, but wanted to meet the person healed.

Eyes open, I gathered my courage to face God and acknowledge my need. I opened my hands to be anointed with oil, to have them filled with grace, for strength, endurance and patience - and I hoped - healing.

Grace is found in odd corners, and it's not always easy to accept. In his essay "The Experience of Grace" Jesuit theologian Karl Rahner acknowledges that grace can indeed bless everyday moments, such as teenagers and fresh chocolate chip cookies. But he goes on to point out that when we surrender control over our very lives, then we can begin to experience grace not as moments, but as life within the grace of God. Experiences of grace are not the "seasoning and decorations of life," but the cup of life itself.

In the end, the grace of the sacrament for me was to learn to find, as Rahner advises, the fullness in the emptiness, ascent in the fall, wholeness in my brokenness. If I had not "bothered" God, not sought the graces offered, my physical recovery might not have been any more difficult, but the journey would have had little meaning. Like the woman in Luke's Gospel, I learned that it is not about being healed, but about the encounter with Christ, and the conformity to His passion, death and resurrection that that brings.

Rahner closes by conceding that letting God work in us in this way is not easy. My desire to close my hands and flee is not surprising. "We will always be tempted again to take fright and flee back into what is familiar and near to us: in fact we will often have to and will often be allowed to do this. But we should gradually try to get ourselves used to the taste of the pure wine of the Spirit... We should do this at least to the extent of not refusing the chalice when His directing providence offers it to us." Open your hands.

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Guard your family, Lord, with constant loving care, for in your divine grace we place our only hope. We make our prayer through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

Concluding prayer from Morning Prayer of the 5th Sunday in Ordinary Time

POST post

So I have POST (post-operative sore throat - does that really need an acronym??) as a result of being intubated on Wednesday - or I have the viral sore throat that Barnacle Boy and Crash had last week, or both. No matter, at this point I'm pretty much voiceless. I was so silent sitting in the sunroom that the gaggle of teens in there getting geared up to watch the presidential debate by watching political videos on YouTube forgot I was there.

I did learn that an azulene derivative (sodium azulene sulfonate) is thought to be effective in topically treating sore-throat from either cause, and that it's extracted from chamomile. So I've been drinking chamomile and rose hips tea sweetened with honey, which does make my throat feel better, even if it's purely hydration and placebo effect.

I also learned that sick-leave for a mother is limited. Barnacle Boy roused me out of bed at 6:30 this morning to help him find his sweatshirt (hanging on the coat rack where it belongs), a colleague called to clarify some work stuff, and Math Man phoned home and asked what was for dinner. I punted that last. If you're conscious as a mother, you're fair game. Coherent isn't necessary.