Not a hermit

This year hasn't turned out the way I expected.  This is the year that all three girls are in high school, where my husband teaches.  Until now, he has stayed after school grading papers or preparing quizzes or doing other chemistry-teacher stuff.  My oldest daughter stayed with him, of course, since she isn't old enough to drive and we live a bit far for public transit.  So I expected this year would follow the same pattern, which would leave me alone in the evenings until well after dinner, often until bedtime.  Instead, perhaps because three girls waiting to go home exerts more pressure than just one, he brings work home to take care of here, and they are all home for dinner every night!

I had planned to spend time in prayer, reading the Liturgy of the Hours, reflecting and writing. I thought I would develop spiritually as an individual, a stand-alone person, able to ponder what God might be asking me to do, to become.  I looked forward to watching nature, seeing and loving creation, finding God in all things.  I imagined myself, I see now, being a hermit.

But I am not a hermit, I am a mom. And this year turns out to be very much a year with family, all of us together after work or school, Mom making dinner and Dad helping with homework, each girl coming in at different times to talk or tease or cuddle before bed.  Reading and writing, and prayers, have to fit themselves in to the odd moments, in the kitchen while stirring something, or in the morning after the rest have left for school and I have a few minutes to myself before leaving to catch the train. I say the rosary as I walk to the station, which is a happy five decades away.  My walk crosses a creek and I get my "nature fix" in a short pause on the bridge observing the water level and state of the the vegetation.

I have been drawn out of myself kicking and shouting.  I told God I wanted to do what He wants me to do.  He obviously wants me to be part of my family.  Not an action hero, not a hermit.  Thank you God for giving me a task which is so pleasant, please help me see You in this!

On Celibacy for Religous, and the Commitment of Marriage

I have always thought of celibacy as a sacrifice, giving something up and making an emptiness in one's life.  Secular society reinforces that idea because (recreational, non-reproductive) sexuality has become the most significant part of one's life, therefore renouncing sex is renouncing the entirety of one's self.  But another perspective occurred to me today, as I listened to a Catholic radio host answer a question about the Roman Catholic rite's policy barring priests from marrying:

God creates every one of us, not as toys or entertainment, but with a purpose.  We all have a unique role in the ongoing Creation of the universe, we have a vocation.

The best analogy for vocation that I can think of is being a musical instrument:  something created to play a particular sound and even a particular melody within a larger piece of music.  Playing a different melody may be possible but it won't sound as easy or as good, and might even require painful contortions of oneself in order to make sounds that are meant for a different instrument.

Marriage is one vocation.  Being truly married, in the sense meant by the Church, means being open to having children, and making the family the first priority for both husband and wife.  Being a wife and mother is the foundation of my being, it is the primary ingredient of who I am, more even than my height or age. Even though I am also an individual I am a part of a whole unit.  To return to the musical instrument analogy, I am something like a key on a piano or a string on a harp.  Or, at times perhaps, one drum in a drumset.

The religous life is another vocation.  Each religous order has a charism,  which is "a distinct spirit that animates a religious community and gives it a particular character."  To be a religous is to accept a specific aspect of the religious vocation.  The Franciscan friar is a very different religious man than a Trappist monk.  But both men have the same complete recognition of what they are and acceptance of that identify in God's creation.

Now the math.  The Church teaches that marital relations are for the purpose of having children and thus are only appropriate between a man and woman married to each other, who are open to having children if God should will it.  (Discussion of that sentence is a whole book in itself which I will skip.)  Therefore, those vocations, such as the Roman Catholic priesthood, which do not include children require celibacy.  The man who recognizes a vocation to be a Roman Catholic priest also recognizes a call to celibacy as part of that vocation.

But what about a man who feels truly called to the priesthood and married life together?  The Roman Church is not the only Church with priests.  It is not even the only Catholic Church.  Within the Catholic Church are over a dozen different Rites, such as the Byzantine, Melkite, Marionite, or Ruthenian rites, who do have married priests.  So the Roman Catholic priesthood is a very specific priestly vocation, and not the only option for a man discerning a calling to the priesthood.

What then does this make celibacy? Instead of sacrificing one's whole being, accepting a vocation that includes celibacy means recognizing and embracing a more complete, a truer understanding of oneself as a uniquely created child of God.  It means setting aside the cardboard facsimile of self that the world creates and becoming a full and multidimensional human being.

No it isn't easy. Neither is playing the clarinet, whether in the pep band or as a soloist at Carnegie Hall.  But it is the only truly fulfilling thing there is: to be one's self.

Days of Awe

Shanah Tovah.  It is now Yamim Nora'im, the High Holy Days in Judaism.

YAMIM NORA'IM (Heb. יָמִים נוֹרָאִים; "Days of Awe"), a term applied to the period from the first day of *Rosh Ha-Shanah until the *Day of Atonement and more particularly to these two festivals. This period is more commonly referred to as the *Ten Days of Penitence.

One part of the observation of Yom Kipur is something like an "general examine of conscionce" that Catholics undertake as part of the Rite of Reconciliation. The Jewish practice is "Teshuva," something more than just recognition and regret, yet still without the absolution that is the last part of Reconciliation.

To me, absolution is the most awe-instilling and numinous aspect of Catholicism: my mistakes, my sins,all that I have done wrong or failed to do rightly, all not just forgiven but forgotten, erased from existence thanks to my own repentance and the mystery of Christ acting in the person of a priest. I worried at times about people, particularly my father, who didn't have access to this incredible gift.

Then my father shared something with me. At the time, he had metastasized cancer and was fighting what he knew was a losing battle. He told me that he had decided, that year, to really, fully, practice "Teshuva." He made a list of all his regrets, taking time to think through his life and dig down deep into his soul. He wrote all these things down, to make a thorough chesbon hanefesh, "taking the measure of our souls."

The question is, what to do next? A Catholic takes the list to confession and lays it before God (in the person of a priest) and receives absolution. What was my father, a Jew, to do instead?

As my father pondered this question, during Yom Kipor, a large dumpster was placed on the street in front of the house next door, which was being renovated.  And on the dumpster was the name of the construction company: "Elohim Construction."  My dad reminded me that Elohim means "Lord" and is what an observant Jew says in place of the name of God when he comes across it when reciting scripture. So, my father contemplated this dumpster for a few days. And then he took his list and gave it to God by way of the vehicle clearly provided for that purpose.

The dumpster was still there when I visited him a few weeks later, so I was able to see it myself. During that week it was removed, along with my father's regrets.

I don't worry for my father's salvation anymore. Clearly God has His ways of taking care of all of us.

My father died last year.  יהי זכרו לברכה: may his memory be for a blessing.

Humor, family, religion

Sister told me today I have a dry sense of humor.  I hope that means I don't offend her!  If so, I will undoubtedly have many penances to perform in the future, because my sense of humor gets the better of me regularly.  At least I have learned how to hold my tongue in public.

I do hope the Sisters appreciate the same things that make me laugh. They seem like very nice people, and I would like to grow close to them because I love the spirituality they bring to their work. I have worked with many different personalities over the years, and can get along with almost anyone in the workplace. But I keep in contact with very few of my former coworkers, and even fewer of my former classmates, and the ones I still connect with are those who share my sense of humor.

Even within my family there are those who just shake their head at me.  Fortunately my husband and children are in the same boat, and we keep each other chuckling. I know I am home and the world is right when the one daughter sitting on the sofa tells the other daughter who is sitting at the table about something she has found online, and both my husband and I join the laughter.

I don't use "sense of humor" as a selection criteria for close relationships. Rather, the mutual amusement is a sign, an attribute of less-tangible things that we have in common: shared standards of value, shared principles, shared interests.  We laugh together at jokes about religious orders because we share an interest in and therefore have studied Catholicism and the most visible representatives of our faith, namely those religious who still still wear the "uniform" of their traditions, showing the secular world they move through that there is something beyond the pursuits of money, power, fame.

Such jokes depend on knowledge of religious traditions, the particular spiritualities and even the stereotypes of different orders.  When someone laughs with me, I know they share my knowledge of these things.  When they respond with another joke of a similar format, I know we may become closer friends than before.

Of course, most people do not share my sense of humor, and I can live with that.  The few I have already found are a treasure already.

And so, here's some fun for the family:

During a Eucharistic Congress, a number of priests from different orders are gathered in a church for Vespers. While they are praying, a fuse blows and all the lights go out.

The Benedictines continue praying from memory, without missing a beat.

The Jesuits begin to discuss whether the blown fuse means they are dispensed from the obligation to pray Vespers.

The Franciscans compose a song of praise for God’s gift of darkness.

The Dominicans revisit their ongoing debate on light as a signification of the transmission of divine knowledge.

The Carmelites fall into silence and slow, steady breathing.

The parish priest, who is hosting the others, goes to the basement and replaces the fuse.

Discernment

Sister Serra is a late vocation, and yesterday she described her discernment process.  Sister Roberta called it shopping:  "When she arrived, we said, 'Here comes a shopper!' "

Sister Serra spent a long time visiting different orders.  She felt certain she had a vocation to the religious life, but couldn't find an order that matched her spirituality.  In my words, some were too modern, without a clear structure and tradition, and others were too traditional, using their traditions to avoid a confrontation with the modern world.  She said eventually she made a list of the things she was looking for, and she recognized the order that fit once she encountered it.

I too had to make a list, but I didn't realize it was part of discernment.  Mine listed the attributes of the man I wanted to marry. I spent my late teens and early twenties in one relationship after another, until in my last summer of college I was emotionally exhausted and in despair.  Only then did I seriously consider what I wanted, and realized that yes, I did want a permanent relationship, I did want to get married. And I thought out carefully what I wanted in my future husband.

Only after listening to Sr. Serra's story have I recognized that I had actually discerned a vocation to the married life before I made my list.  I never had any doubts that I wanted, needed, to be in a relationship to be complete. For a long time I simply assumed that everyone felt this way as part of the human condition.  Recently I have begun to think I had basic emotional damage and flaws that caused me to experience the sense of incompleteness I felt when alone.

Suddenly, only now after spending twenty-five years in the married state, I see that this is indeed part of God's plan for me, that even in my blind struggle to become an adult He moved my life in the direction He had mapped out for me.  I think the pain and loneliness would still be part of the process, but I probably would have found comfort in the midst of it had I had an understanding of and trust in His providence.  Yet here I am, in the same place.

A voice said, "Look me in the stars,
O men of earth,
And say if all the mind and body scars
Were not too high a price to pay for birth."
--Robert Frost

Sweet Jesus, grant them rest

Here here is a link to the inspiration for this post, which itself originates from a video here here of a beautiful rendition of "Pie Jesu," which is sung at funerals (the singing starts about a minute in). In his post, Father Allen mentions the translation of the Latin phrase "donna eis requiem" which is "grant them rest." The translation provided in our modern liturgy is "peace," which is technically incorrect since the Latin for "peace" is "pacem."  Now on to my thoughts:

I am struck by the words "rest" and "peace."  The Pie Jesu is a funeral song, an intrinsic part of a liturgy focused on death, judgement, and our hope for Heaven. In this context the Church asks that the deceased be granted eternal rest.

The full richness and depth of rest can only be known by those who have labored long, and hard. To the truly weary, the bone-tired, rest is more than just an end to work. It fills all the senses, like water soaking down into dry soil. It has flavor, fragrance, texture, color. It has silence that is more than the absence of noise, it has silence like music.*

Peace is also a desirable state, and has complexity similar to rest. But peace is a contrast ultimately to conflict, and thus its deeper qualities are most appreciated by those who have experienced violence: victims and warriors. In a sense peace is the correction of an erroneous reality. If the world were in its right order, we would all experience peace.

But even in the most peaceful world, work still needs to be done. "The good man and his good wife with their good beasts on their good farm," to quote C.S. Lewis, will still need to labor for their sustenance. When we have no enemies to overcome, we still have nature, and the work may be even more laborious. We all are called to work, in ways as different from and similar to each other as stars are from suns. Yet even in the midst of work we have moments in which we can put down our work for a time, we can rest.

Thus we can know the reward of rest, its sweetness and its fullness. It cannot be achieved when sought for, yet it is not a mere by-product of the cessation of labor. True rest, deep rest, is given as a grace to the laborer. In this life, we rest, and once rested we can begin again. At the end, we may rest eternally. What richness that will seem!

*borrowed from Mary Stewart in "Madame, Will You Talk?"

Dis-syncronicity

Summer downtime has ended.  The great quiet between school years has terminated, rather corruptly. Last week we had sixty Sisters at a silent retreat, and my family was at home engaged in leisure activities.  Today a Catholic high school has a leadership retreat here, and the students are shouting and laughing in the library next to my desk.  My husband and oldest daughter are at school registering for her senior year of high school, and tomorrow the twins register for their freshman year.

I feel tired and cranky and unmotivated.  And I have a headache.  Why can't I get excited about the coming year? I don't have even a vague sense of enthusiasm.

Days like this require discipline. I don't need feelings, enthusiasm or excitement or even happiness, to get the job done, I just need to go through the list and do what needs to be done.  And as I work, eventually, my mood will change and I will begin to see some brightness in life.  If not today, perhaps tomorrow, or the next.  Meanwhile, work will have been done: guests will be registered, greeted, seen to their rooms.  The world will continue to move forward and someone else somewhere will be spared from crankiness and tiredness, because I didn't get in their way.

Sometimes the only good I can contribute to the world is to not spoil it for someone else.  That itself is an accomplishment I am willing to achieve.

Have a good day, you!