Passages

Our oldest granddaughter Jordan graduated from high school yesterday. Since she had been homeschooled, her graduation was held at the church that my son's family is involved in. Jordan made a speech, the event was videotaped, a great feast was had by all, and she is now preparing for the next step in her life: going to YWAM's Discipleship Training School in Hawaii, and then (we think) college at University of the Nations, also connected with YWAM (Youth With a Mission - a worldwide parachurch evangelistic organization).

That's Jordan in a dress that I sewed by hand close to 40 years ago when I was reading the Little House books to her dad and uncle (they were about 6 and 4 years old at the time).

Jordan's cousin Brenna, the oldest daughter of our older son, will be graduating from (public) junior high school next week, and her younger brother Ethan will be graduating from 6th grade at the Christian elementary school where their mom teaches art and all 3 of her children have attended. How quickly it all goes! How soon they'll be adults!

This is lovely Brenna with her equally lovely mother Rhonda.

And here's the Big E, our star basketball/softball/soccer player.

And in the same vein, Padre Sergio, the priest who received us into the Catholic church, came to Todos Santos today to say good-bye to the people of this parish where he labored for many years. He is finally getting his long-held wish and transferring to the diocesis of Los Angeles (California, USA). Although he and his siblings grew up in Guadalajara, most of them now live in and around LA, and he has been trying for years to transfer up there. It's not easy to change from one diocese to another, and even more so when it means a change of country as well.


We never know how long we have to enjoy the people who are part of our lives today, or the details of our lives that make our hearts full. Circumstances change and people move on, and who knows when we'll be together again? It has been too many years since I've been at the great gathering of my family members that happens every July 4th on a lake in Wisconsin. It has been too many years since all of my husband's family have gotten together, although from the time we were married until the time our boys were in junior high we had a huge family Christmas party every year. Then the parents and aunts and uncles either died or moved away and our generation didn't pick up the ball. I guess "you don't know what you have 'til it's gone", as Joni Mitchell sang.

So "while it is called today", let us rejoice in the amazing gifts of God that surround us - the people, the plants, the birdsongs, the ocean and mountains, the dogs/cats/horses/goats/chickens, and all the small moments that fill our days. How precious every moment of life is!

Longing

I've lived in some awesomely beautiful places, but the one which captured my soul is La Honda.

I love the chaparral. The combination of the live oaks and golden grass is, to my eyes, enchanting. I have lived in a redwood forest, on a hill overlooking San Francisco, on a creek (literally!) under bay trees, and now in a desert oasis with an ocean view. But to have had the privilege of living in the chaparral, surrounded by quail and mourning doves, red-tailed hawks and bobcats (and even the unloved banana slugs and deer), ah, that was as close to what I hope heaven looks and feels like!

I am editing a textbook on financial therapy while listening to Alisdair Fraser, a Scottish fiddler transplanted to the Bay Area, and the sweet memory of my beautiful La Honda is piercing my heart.

We lived there for 11 years and moved because, as has always been the case, God drew us toward something more wonderful. Not more wonderful in its ambience, but certainly in spiritual richness.

Poor beautiful La Honda! There were, I think five or six christians in the community of about 850, and of course we all had different doctrinal beliefs. We became good friends with a couple who were basically Baptist, and met with them weekly just to hang out and encourage them in the faith. We worked together in running the community food distribution service to the poor of the area. But for much of the time we lived in La Honda we weren't part of a church community, since the nearest one was half an hour away on winding country roads, and we couldn't quite figure out how to do community with them, since we didn't live in their town.

In several of the other places we have lived we didn't really know our neighbors (a curse of many urban and suburban areas). It wasn't the case in La Honda, however. We knew everyone on our street (two blocks long), and our lives intertwined in various ways with all of them. It was a real community. When you went for a walk, which a lot of people did, anyone you passed would greet you, whether they knew you or not. There was a restaurant which functioned as the community gathering place. It was one of two businesses in the community, the other being a grocery store. Everyone had to go to the post office to get their mail, since there was no mail delivery available. Ah, the sweetness of a rural life!

On my way to my studio at the bottom of our property.

I served for 6 years on the guild board, which was the governing body of the community. We dealt with the cranks and the deadbeats and the down-and-outers and the ones who wanted to improve things. Over the time we lived there, the community demographics changed. By the time we left there were far fewer deadbeats and many more professionals, which made for less contention but also made the ambience less rich.

I am SO grateful to God that He brought us to Todos Santos, to the Catholic Church, to a culture where family is central and people support one another. The sense of community is fundamental here (among the local Mexicans, anyway; I can't speak for the gringos because I don't know many of them). There are a lot of walkers here, too, mostly due to lack of the financial means to own a car. But I am most grateful for the heights, the depths, the riches of the Catholic Church which was His greatest gift to me in having to leave behind my beautiful La Honda, which will pass away, but His church will never pass away; we are married forever to our redeemer and the lover of our souls, the one who created all the beautiful things of the world and delights in them all.

Confirmation of our marriage vows on entering the Catholic Church.

Reflections on an Unexciting Life: stability of mind

This is the second in a series of posts on the book shown above. This book is full of passages that have deepened my awareness of the landscape through which the path of fulfillment lies - the path that leads to God's presence. Today I want to share a passage that speaks directly to our culture. The emphases are mine:

"Benedict did not desire his monks to be anything else but 'unworldly'…He wanted them to breathe the atmosphere of the Kingdom of God rather than be the playthings of human opinion and desire. To make progress along this way, stability was of the utmost importance. This was…a solidity or steadiness of mind. It was the opposite of mobility of mind. Separation from the world is thus seen to be more a matter of working toward an evenness of life in which prayer becomes possible. It is in the avoidance of meaningless mental stimulation rather than a question of bodily location…To advance in prayer, inner quiet is needed."

Now, I am well aware that God does not require us to have a quiet spirit before He'll hear our prayers. If that were true we'd all be sunk! But this passage, for me, reminds me of how valuable quietude is. By quietude I am not referring to outward quiet, but to that stability of the soul that doesn't seek continual distractions, that is content when not engaged in activity to fill the spaces in one's life.

When I was newly married and we had recently moved to the forest to homestead, we had chickens. The Pirate could sit for long periods of time just watching them, while I would be in the house, looking for ways to be distracted from my discomfort at being a city girl in a country environment and from my own sense of inadequacy. I wished then that I had the inner peace that he had, to be able to sit quietly without feeling as though I were wasting time or that my lack of activity showed dullness of mind or that our life was too uninteresting.

Thankfully, at least in that characteristic I have grown more like my husband over the years, and I am perfectly happy now to just sit and look at chickens, to create the quiet inner environment which invites God to speak directly to my spirit. That's the part from the passage about "advancing in prayer" that my own experience confirms. Yes, God stoops close to hear us when we're surrounded by noise; He's intent on being in conversation with us. As the Catechism tells us, He is the initiator of prayer, we only respond to His tugs at our heart. But, Oh, He yearns for us to yearn for Him! How patiently He waits for us to put aside all our distractions so He can hold us tenderly!

Here is a photo of the view from our last home in Alta California, in an enchanting place called La Honda. We thought that we would live out our lives there. The deep peace that seemed to rise out of the ground; the quiet - so quiet that quail lived all around us (they like the deep country). I spent many hours just sitting, basking in the quiet. And it wasn't because we had an amazing view - we've had amazing views almost everyplace we've lived.

This was the place where I learned to be quiet enough on the inside that I could actually soak in the view. Despite going through the most painful trial of my life there; despite being without the anchor of a faith community; despite having a very challenging professional practice to run. Inner quiet isn't dependent on outer stability, or everything going smoothly. We give our attention to whatever we value, and inner quiet is the result of valuing the "air of heaven"…I want to breathe that calm, pure air that sustains me regardless of outward circumstances. Now THAT is a treasure worth seeking!

Small steps

I've been pondering what a great gap there is between what God wants from us and what we believe He wants from us. For instance, for decades I have understood "suffering" to mean big things, like getting cancer, or having a family member die, or being a war refugee. Although these things can happen God isn't just waiting for us to give ourselves unconditionally to Him so He can put us through the trials of Job. What He does wants is for us to bear our sufferings with a greater concern for those around us than for our own comfort. And the things that present themselves as opportunities to learn how to do this are pretty mundane. Having a sore throat; being misunderstood by your spouse; being stuck in the house with grumpy toddlers.

Same thing with sacrifice. God isn't expecting us to go to a foreign country and suffer martyrdom. He's hoping that we'll sacrifice our TV time to play with our kids; that we'll sacrifice the latte we're on the way to buy so we can give the money to a homeless person; that we'll sacrifice our much-desired cozy afternoon of reading to visit someone who can't get out much.

This also applies to prayer. "Pray without ceasing" seems way too big to ever accomplish. But as has been pointed out by many wise people, prayer is attending to God. It's (figuratively) turning your face toward Him. Another way of saying that is that it's orienting your life toward Him. That doesn't require conscious awareness every moment of the day. If your heart is oriented toward Him, whatever you do is prayer: cleaning the house, answering email, grocery shopping, etc. You wouldn't deliberately do these things in a way that displeases God, which indicates that your heart is oriented toward Him, your life is a prayer, you are offering yourself to Him, even subconsciously, every moment.

Or how about gratitude and thanksgiving? "Give thanks in all things for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you". This also doesn't require us to consciously and continuously be thinking "thanks, God, for the air; thanks for cars; thanks for coffee; thanks for music", etc. We've all experienced a full heart that needs no words; we can aim to cultivate that wordless gratitude that doesn't require heroic effort to sustain. It can be a background sense, a thanksgiving that is easily stirred up.

I suspect that we have been too easily dismayed by the seeming impossibility of ever attaining to the holiness that we see in the lives of people like Mother Teresa or Saint Francis or [name your favorite saint here]. But as Terese of Lisieux reminds us, it's our trusting love that God wants; not heroism. As I learn to look for small ways that I can please God I'm finding that the opportunities are limitless, and within my capabilities. I don't need to reach for the stars; all I need to do is reach for God's hand: trust that He loves me always and will help me always.

Spiritual "seasons"

Rather than thinking about what my "word for the year" is, for many years I have been aware of the specific seasons of grace that I move through. God generally guides me with repeated illustrations of the virtue or lesson that He wants me to learn - with scripture, with circumstances, with interior visions, etc. Right now I'm in a season of learning more deeply how (as numerous saints have reminded us) "ALL is grace". I have been led to pray every morning - before I even get out of bed - that I would be able to see more clearly all the gifts He has given - the ability to cook meals and to enjoy them; the ability to see things in color; the songs of the birds; the great service that buzzards and banana slugs and microbes do in getting rid of nature's trash; and on and on. ALL is grace.

The long canticle of praise from Daniel chapter 3 (sorry, protestant friends, it's not in your version of the Bible) is part of my reading every morning and recently I have had the revelation that all of creation is delightful to God (of course, the Bible tells us that, but now I see it). For instance, one of the lines from that canticle [BTW, a canticle is simply a psalm that is somewhere other than in the Book of Psalms] is "Bless the Lord, mountains and hills/sing praise to Him and highly exalt Him forever". Now of course it doesn't make sense that the mountains and hills need exhortation like that, as though they don't already praise Him and now should begin. No, what's really being communicated there is that the existence of the mountains and the hills blesses God. Their very existence is an act of praise to Him.


Twenty years ago or so God gave me a word and an accompanying picture. It was a call to walk out into the ocean of God's love, and keep going until I drowned. Drowning in His love - at that point there's nothing left of your ability to hold yourself up, to preserve your own sense of what's safe or right. There is nothing left for you to cling to. There is no thought of self-preservation. There is only trust in God's love.

How perfect it is that the current missal readings include the first letter of John, in which we are reminded over and over of how much God loves us. How perfect that Pope Francis is emphasizing God's love as the main theme of all creation. If you're having a hard time trusting God, develop a habit that will remind you of all the ways His great love is made manifest to you every day.

Here's one simple way of doing this: I just discovered that Jenny at Plain Grace has a Friday linkup named "Moments of Grace". It's a way of reflecting on and sharing the many graces that God has poured out on us in the past week, and it only takes a few minutes once a week. May you discover how rich is His love that surrounds you always.

Musing on blogging

After reading WAAAY too many blog posts looking back on the past year and considering what to focus on in the year ahead, I have even less desire to put together my Five Favorite blog posts, or 13 Best Photos or a list of What I Learned in 2013.

The Pirate asked me the other day what the highlights of the past year were for me, and I couldn't turn my mind around to look back…without his help. Turns out that this past year contained some VERY significant events, but I've always been terrible at thinking backwards, and I couldn't remember them (Sold my business! oh yeah! Went to the mainland with our priest! Hmmm, how could I forget such an exciting trip? etc. etc.)

Ah well, this propensity to "forget what lies behind and strain forward to what lies ahead" (Phil. 3:13) is probably why I've never been interested in taking photos. The only reason I take them now is to "illustrate" my blog posts so they won't be overwhelmingly black and white (do you remember the first time you read a book without illustrations? Very intimidating!)

Today is starting out VERY slowly since the Pirate is sick in bed - something which has happened fewer than 5 times in our life together. Saturday is a good day for me to write a blog post, since it's generally a reflective day without any commitments. I haven't been very motivated to blog recently, I think primarily because I realized a few weeks ago that I probably have a greater chance of encouraging others by leaving comments on their blogs than I do by writing my own posts, since I don't have many readers (as far as I can tell). So I have been spending my computer time reading other people's blogs and posting comments.

Yesterday one of the bloggers I read faithfully, Kendra at Catholic All Year, said something about how the point of trying to generate a lot of comments on a post is to get a conversation going. For some reason that never occured to me. Whenever I read a post with more than 10 comments, I refrain from adding my two cents' worth, since it seems to me that the poster has already been inundated with comments. I know I would be stressed to find more than 10 comments in my inbox in one day, feeling like I have to read and answer them all right away. I'm very much a one-on-one conversationalist: the more people there are in the conversation, the less I participate (I go into listening mode and let everyone else hash out the topic under discussion).

Of course, I love to receive comments on my blog posts, especially since most of the time there aren't any. So don't take this musing as a warning to not comment!

The Pirate has just gotten up so we can go to the house of our friend the doctor (she really is a good friend!) so she can figure out what's the matter with him. So I'll sign off with a photo of our "Christmas tree" (the traditional one of the flowering stalk of an agave). Two more days before Christmas season is over, when we have El Dia de los Reyes (the 3 kings). Feliz ano! (I can't make the tilde over the "n" happen in Blogger).

Musings: Dealing with risk

In my years as a financial planner the main issue was always risk. Not "investment risk" but life risk. Things like, "It's too expensive to live here in the Bay Area, but how can I take the risk to move elsewhere? How will I find a job? How will I find new friends?" or, "We want to buy a bigger house but the monthly costs will be much higher; will the extra financial burden hurt our relationship?" or, "Since I want my kid to go to the best college possible, I figure I'll just borrow the money from my 401k plan, and just hope I can get a job as a Walmart greeter once I've 'retired' ".

As I used to tell my clients, life IS risk - the only way to avoid risk is to be dead.

So now we live in Mexico. Thanks to the American "news" media, Americans have unthinkingly absorbed the line that the entire country of Mexico is unsafe due to the presence of drug cartels. Oh really? Let's try to think this through a bit, shall we?

Mexico is a large country - it is as large as the U.K., France, Germany, Italy, and Spain combined - with 31 states plus the D.F. (their version of D.C.). As we all know, the murder rate is not uniform throughout all the states in the U.S., nor all the cities in the U.S. There are plenty of people who wouldn't consider going to Oakland or Detroit because of all the "news" stories about crime there, but I know people in both those cities who live peaceable, happy lives without being worried about their personal safety. I dare say that wherever you live, dear reader, you know of an area near you where you would feel less than secure.

So, if we then admit that it is NOT appropriate to reject an entire nation based on generalized statistics, how can we know whether a specific place in Mexico is risky? One key observation (if you're into reading statistical data) is that the high murder rates you hear about in Mexico are specific to one group of people: those involved with drug cartels. You are actually much less likely to be in danger as an extranjero (non-Mexican) in Mexico than you are to be hit by lightning, or win the California lottery, or be physically assaulted almost anywhere in the U.S. If the drug cartel executions weren't included in the murder rate, Mexico would be shown to be considerably safer than the U.S. So unless you plan to buy drugs or hang out with drug dealers while you're in Mexico, you're not on the radar screen of those who are looking to off people.

Let's look, then at the considerable regional differences in the murder rate. As the map on the link shows, even taking drug cartels into account, most of Mexico has a lower-than-average murder rate. The states with very high murder rates are the ones struggling with a strong presence of the drug cartels. So how is this different from many areas of the US where there is a strong gang/mafia/cartel presence? (and don't be so naive as to think that the U.S. doesn't have these problems). Even in the Mexican states that look the worst on this map, an entire state doesn't bear the risk evenly - there are specific areas where the cartels operate. Not much different from living in the greater Los Angeles area where there are certain cities or neighborhoods where non-residents would do well to avoid. That doesn't mean that all of L.A. is given over to murderous gangs, nor is all of California, or all of the U.S.

The town I live in is small, about the same size as Fort Bragg, California which is near our family compound in the States. There are drug problems in both towns (where are there not?) but our town in Mexico is quite a bit safer than Fort Bragg, even without a police force that one can rely on. When our teen-age granddaughter came to stay with us earlier this year, my daughter-in-law asked if it was safe to let her walk around by herself during the day. I couldn't understand where that question came from until she said that she doesn't let our granddaughters walk around alone in Fort Bragg by themselves (and our granddaughter echoed that by saying that she doesn't feel safe walking by herself in Fort Bragg during the day).

Here in our town there are so many people without cars that day or night there are lots of people - often entire families - walking from one place to another. Also, people (in large part) live their lives outside, in the company of other people. This is common throughout Mexico, whose culture is much more oriented toward family and community relationships than the American culture. Wherever you are, whatever you're doing, you're in plain view of numerous people of good will all the time. In our town we have an added protection - most of the people who live here are from families who have been here for generations, and everyone knows everyone else. Not much can be done in secret or anonymously around here - if you're in the Mexican part of town (it's a different thing where the gringos congregate).

SOOO...how much risk is there for Americans in Mexico, either as visitors or as residents? If you aren't looking for the adrenaline rush that comes from doing stupid things in dangerous places (say, trying to buy drugs in a bar in Tijuana) you're in less "danger" than if you were going to wander around Orlando after seeing Disneyland. You're in less danger than you would be as a tourist in New Orleans. You're in less danger than you are (statistically speaking) if you live in Houston. Oh, and by the way, La Paz, which is the capital and largest city in our state of Baja California Sur, is considered to be one of the safest cities in North America....by the U.S. State Department!

PLEASE try to remember that the "news" media doesn't exist to give its viewers/hearers objective information - not even NPR does that. All media have at their core the need to have enough readers/viewers/hearers to justify their existence, and the only way that they can get that is by focusing on the sensational. As beloved Pope Francis recently said, "a single tree falling makes a sound, but a whole forest growing doesn't". Here's a last link that might put this subject into perspective.

This is a photo of two things that are at the heart of Mexican society: the church (that's our neighborhood chapel in the photo) and having fun outside together, this time at a neighborhood street fair.

Musings: Just say yes

I have spent a great deal of energy during my life promoting clear thinking. This has been helpful to people in the context of my former career, but the dynamics are different in a family, and especially between a husband and wife. With my husband this focus on clarity of thought comes in the shape of correcting his inconsistencies and and instructing him on how to achieve the same level of clarity that I possess [shamefaced grin].

Since I became Catholic and got up the nerve to address "the Mary issue", I have found what a powerful resource her life is as a model for us. The more I meditate on how she responded to situations, the easier I find it to respond the same way. After all, if she, being "only human" could respond with grace, patience, and humility in difficult situations, there's no reason why I can't learn to do the same.

This is playing out in my life most profoundly in my responses to my husband when (from my perspective) he is being inconsistent or otherwise not thinking clearly about something. I am learning to "just say yes" - rather than arguing a point, or instructing him, I am letting go of the issue in my heart; I am acknowledging inside myself that it's okay for him to hold opinions that I disagree with, or believe things that I think are incorrect, or even decide that we should do things that I would not choose. If these things bother God, He knows how to get through to David without my help.

What has surprised me as I have begun to practice this virtue is how immediate the reward is. The unexpected result is a peace that fills my soul and strengthens me to continue to walk this path. Because of that I'm finding excitement in each opportunity to accept my husband's thoughts and proposals without reservations. And it only took me 45 years to let go of insisting on my perspective being right!

I'm so thankful that this man is both gracious and patient!

Musings: tragic? No, marvelous

We were on our way home. We boarded the airplane, the doors were closed, we pulled away from the gate at 11:30am and got in line to take off. The safety video was shown and we were ready to go. Then the pilot's voice came over the system saying that our takeoff would be delayed a few minutes because apparently there was a brush fire at the side of the runway which was being put out. After 10 minutes or so he announced that the fire was due to a plane crash and that we would be returning to the terminal so we could de-plane since it was unclear how long it would take before we were cleared to leave.


As the plane turned around we could see a mass of black smoke rising and expanding. It was clear that the fuel tanks of the crashed airplane had just exploded. The purser of our flight announced that they had no information about the crash other than that it was an Asiana plane. We were told that we would have to take all our carry-on luggage with us when we de-planed, and that it would be awhile before anyone would know when our flight would be cleared to go. Once we got into the terminal it was announced that the entire airport had been closed and would not re-open until at least 8pm, but there was still no information on the crashed plane. We were told to stay near the gate until there was clarity about when our flight could leave.

There were several big screen TVs near our gate and a number of us went over there to see if we could get any information there. Each TV was tuned in to a different channel, with all of them reporting on the crash. They were all showing really awful photos of the body of the blackened plane with the top blown off and the tail missing, and of course they were all describing the incident as a TRAGEDY. However, the real story was much different - a positive story of escape from peril, of grace in the face of danger.

While we waited for an announcement about our own flight, many of us logged onto the internet and discovered that one of the passengers of the crashed plane had been able to post a number of tweets that described the crash and its aftermath. He said that everyone had been calm and had been able to exit the plane before it burst into flames.

Although there were 2 deaths and a number of injuries, the first reports were significantly exaggerated and the the fact that almost all the passengers survived is a marvel. The photos of the burning hulk of the plane that the media kept obsessing on were taken AFTER everyone had been evacuated. The majority of the passengers were already in the airport terminal after having been examined and found with only minor injuries.

Later that day we were sitting next to a woman who was talking to her sister on her cell phone. Apparently the sister was due to land at SFO at about the same time as the plane that crashed. For an hour the caller kept repeating to her sister how worried she and her parents had been when they couldn't get any hard information about the accident - worried that perhaps it was the plane with the sister on it. The woman went into excruciating detail describing how traumatized she had been and how poorly she was coping. This was someone who was NOT one of the passengers on the doomed plane, nor was her sister.

It struck me that this is probably how most people who have no strong faith in God would react to a frightening situation. People are afraid of being made victims by circumstances beyond their control, and can become obsessed with real-life situations in which there were victims. But what is it about being a victim that is so terrifying? The issue is suffering without assent, right? But if the victim assents to the suffering - which is what happens when you offer your suffering to God as an act of unity with Christ - where's the terror? The "victim" has the power to change death into life (Christ's resurrected life) through his or her assent to the suffering. What an awesome weapon God has given us against Satan's primary mode of attack! This is the testimony that the martyrs of the faith have for us, to take heart no matter how awful the circumstance, "For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds...bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ" (2 Cor. 10:4-5)


P.S. After several hours of waiting at the gate the airline said that they were unable to arrange to fly our plane load of people into Cabo in an unscheduled flight, so our flight was cancelled and we all had to book a new flight. Happily, I had already called the hotel we had left several hours earlier and reserved a second night in the room we had vacated. After an hour and a half of waiting to get through to Virgin America to book a new flight, we finally were set up to fly out on Monday.

Eeeewww!!!

Jen has her scorpions
Cari has her cougars and fisher cats (and other fierce furry forest folk)
Kelly has her bats
Dweej has her mice
And I have....

BANANA SLUGS!!!

These things can be 12 inches long, and they're more slimy than snails! All my adult life I have lived in their favorite habitat, the coastal region of Northern California. All my life they have been terrorizing me, placing themselves where I might accidentally step on them, grossing me out when the car runs over them, and sliming their way through unseen cracks into my house where I discover them and shriek, running for rescue, putting as much distance as possible between me and them to eliminate any possibility of accidentally touching them.

My husband, who used to lead children on nature walks, says that if you lick a banana slug your tongue will go numb, and a lot of the kids on his walks took up the offer with enthusiasm. I can't think of a worse torture than being forced to lick a banana slug, except stepping on one barefoot, which I did once at camp. The trauma of that has never left me.

There were lots of banana slugs at camp. One time when my cabin group went on our weekly outpost (sleeping in the woods) one of my cabin mates found a banana slug. She got a bunch of us together to watch what she said was a fun trick. She brought a salt shaker over and shook salt on the slug, which writhed and slimed and melted until all its insides came out and it shriveled into a hard black mass. We were appalled (all except the girl who did the salting). In a fit of shame she suggested that we give it a christian burial, which we did, but that didn't make me feel any better. To watch someone torturing a helpless creature for fun - even something as grossly disgusting as a banana slug - is a horror that I hope never to experience again.

When God looked at creation and pronounced it good, that included everything that grosses us out or annoys us - bats, mice, scorpions, banana slugs, and a thousand other things. We may wish they didn't exist, but we know that these creatures are fulfilling their niche that they were created for, obeying the laws that God set for them. That's more than we can say for ourselves much of the time.

Musings: wearing a headcovering

A few days ago Cari Donaldson put up a post about veiling (that is, wearing a headcovering during mass) which I had every intention of leaving alone, even though I am one who covers my head at mass. I do it because I believe that God has shown me that I personally need it to remind myself that my (as my priest describes it) fierce intellect needs to be under the discipline of love. That's my personal reason which certainly doesn't apply to everyone.

However at mass today we were subjected to the part of the liturgy known as "today's joke" (we're in the U.S. for a couple of weeks). I hope you all realize is an American phenomenon and not practiced in the rest of the world. Anyway, the joke was a long one about the 10 top reasons why God created Eve. The reasons included such things as that without Eve, Adam would get lost in the Garden because he would refuse to ask for directions, and that without her he would wear the same old fig leaf until it disintegrated, etc. The #1 reason was that when God was finished making Adam He stepped back and said to Himself, "I can do better than that!".

Now I have to admit I thought the joke was funny (although out of place at mass), but I was immediately reminded that this is another example of how our culture continually denigrates men and exalts women. And that reminded me of the question of "why veil?" that Cari had brought up. And I'm wondering if veiling might be a visible way that Catholic women can show humility in place of the arrogance that our culture almost demands of us.

I don't think this reasoning would hold up in every culture in the world - I certainly don't see the same arrogance derived from feminism in my home country of Mexico. But here in the U.S. we who seek to follow Jesus and imitate Mary cannot deny that our culture is our enemy in that regard. And as more and more catholics in America are remembering and embracing the rich and ancient traditions that were too easily thrown off in the past generation, the issue of women covering their heads might be worth a second look. I don't believe that wearing a head covering has been only a matter of fashion for the past 2 millennia. It seems by St. Paul's mention of it that it was/is a visual representation of a spiritual truth, just as statues of saints or holy water or countless other seemingly silly or meaningless things are.

I'm not one to preach that everyone should be veiling. I don't see the need for everyone to pray before statues or cross themselves with holy water either. But it seems to me that the more we all know about the meanings behind the symbolic acts that the church has encouraged through the ages, the richer our understanding of the character of the One whom we worship, and the virtues that He wants to establish in us.

Perhaps rather than arguing among ourselves, we might look for the underlying virtues that are strengthened by the wearing of a headcovering and determine, each for ourselves, whether these virtues are ones that we need help in cultivating. Not all virtues are equally lacking in every person; and Mother Church has provided many resources for the specific ones that a person may need extra help with. Let's not reject a specific help that the Church has provided simply because its adherents speak with perhaps a bit too much fervor of the help that they have received.

Monday Musings: you CAN go home again

We've arrived at the homestead in the forest. We flew up to San Francisco on Friday and drove up Highway 1 (The Coast Highway) on Saturday. We've only driven that route maybe four times in our lives because it takes about twice as long as it does to use the big freeway (Hwy 101). But we wanted to celebrate this visit in a special, slow pace way since it is the first time we've been up to the homestead in probably 20 years that I didn't have to bring any work with me. The view is gorgeous all the way up (about 150 miles). I told the Pirate to pull over at any point that he thought was particularly photo worthy, but we immediately realized that would mean stopping at every pull-out. Here are a few examples:




I am a cherry fanatic - I come by it genetically, and I've passed it along to one of my sons. He and I could easily eat an entire flat of cherries in a single sitting. One of the great treats about this trip is that it's cherry season, and of course we stopped at the first cherry stand we saw.


As long as I was active in my profession our vacations were primarily "working vacations" for me, especially here at the homestead. The Pirate could relax and do whatever took his fancy, but I had to spend much of my time focused on work. This visit is SO different - I can be fully present when family members want to come over to our cabin and chat; I can go to local events without having in the back of my mind all the things that I'd have to get done when I got back to the cabin; I can just loll around and read and knit or crochet.


Yesterday (Father's Day) one of the volunteer fire departments in the area (there are lots of them because there are lots of small communities around here) held its annual Father's Day chicken barbecue.

Our son, who is on the volunteer fire department of our local community, helped grill the chicken.


Our daughter-in-law and granddaughters held down the booth selling non-alcoholic drinks (there was also a booth for beer and wine)

The Pirate and I got to have some good, long conversations with old friends whom we rarely see. That's the Pirate in the black cap and our granddaughter Jordan standing behind him.

What a great gift God has given us to be able to come back to our original home and spend time with old friends as well as family. And in such a beautiful place, too!

Musings: Ode to the Desert Plant Lady

As I was praying today my eyes were drawn to this small olive wood statue that sits on my desk, and my thoughts went to how Mary nurtured Jesus as a baby. That led me down a path of reflection on the holy things that we should nurture in our lives, which ended in contemplating how some of our relationships have a special quality about them that one could call "holy" even if the friendship isn't based on a common belief in God.

I'm not talking about people that we know well - family members, people we've known forever, etc. Those are by nature "holy": special, deep, complex. The relationships that my thoughts led to are those with people that we really don't know that well, but that we feel a special bond with. We want to seek them out; we want to NURTURE the relationship rather than letting it drift away.

One such person recently emailed me after reading my blog. She is someone who I've only spent a total of maybe 10 hours with, but oddly, I had been thinking a lot about her and her husband in the past several months. They lived in our town when we first moved here, and then moved to Chile fairly soon after (not exactly a quick drive away!).

I might think that this relationship is special to me because she and I both love desert plants, but I know other people who do and I have no sense of wanting to nurture my relationships with them. I might think that it's because we both came from rural areas in California, but again, I know many people with that same background whom I wouldn't seek out. Who knows what the mystery ingredient is....but the key word is "mystery". That's a fundamental characteristic of holiness (at least from my perspective). God is mysterious, and all that is touched by Him has some of that mystery embedded in it, that element that you can't access through your head, only through your heart.

The goal is to have a heart sensitive to those gentle tuggings, those calls to nurture the less obvious things, the seemingly small things. Mary nurtured Jesus when he was a newborn, when he was a toddler - when he was small and unremarkable in the eyes of others, easily dismissed as "just another baby". What must it have been like for her to look at him and know that God The Creator had taken on flesh in the form of her son - this helpless baby in her arms.

As C.S. Lewis reminded us in "The Weight of Glory", if we could see each other as the immortal creatures that we truly are, we would be tempted to fall down and worship each other. What splendor is veiled in ordinary things! And this goes for certain relationships - ones that have in some way been touched by the God of mystery for our benefit. Let us not fail to nurture the treasures that have been granted us.

Monday Musings: prayers of the saints

Our church is located along one side of the town plaza where all the community events occur. A few days ago when we arrived for the evening mass we discovered that there was going to be a free dance that evening on the plaza, and a band was setting up and practicing as we entered the church to pray the rosary before mass. The noise continued throughout the rosary and during the mass, which the priest shortened because the noise was so distracting.

I started to get huffy in my thoughts - "Why aren't they considerate? Why didn't someone in the local government (offices across the plaza from the church) tell them to wait until mass was finished?" Then I remembered the christians in Syria...in Nigeria...in Egypt...in Pakistan who, when they hear a disturbance outside, are hearing bombs and gunfire. They have good reason to expect martyrdom when they hear loud noises. All we had to expect is a community dance!

This thought led me to pray for all those christians in dangerous situations, and to commit to a day of prayer for them every week, especially for the priests and bishops who must guard their flock as best they can. It's times like this that I most clearly see the hand of Mother Mary teaching me how to pray as she prays, so that I might join with her and with all the saints in their prayers for us who are still fighting the battle. That is also something I pray for daily - her guidance in learning to pray more like her.


As a protestant, I knew I was drawn to prayer and intercession. I always spent a lot of time in prayer, and was involved in intercessory groups. But all that I learned about prayer in 40 years of devoting myself to it was pretty minimal compared to what I have learned through the examples of the saints since I became Catholic and gave myself permission to read their stories. And to find the treasures in written prayers! As a protestant I thought that the only prayers that God heard were the spontaneous ones, because only they could be "from the heart". How far off the mark that was! O the depths of the riches of the prayers than have been created from the hearts of the saints and prayed for centuries! The structure of these prayers is like a guideline into the depths of the human heart, deeper than I could ever go on my own, even after 40 years of trying. Just as lectio divina does in meditating on the scriptures, the prayers of the saints that we have had handed down to us draw us into reflecting on the mysteries and glories of God, and serve especially to teach us how to intercede for others "in the name of Jesus" (in the same way that He does).


Another amazing aspect of the prayers we have received from the saints is that people all over the world are praying the same prayers. And if you have a daily prayer devotion such as the Liturgy of the Hours (otherwise known as the Divine Office) or the rosary or the chaplet of divine mercy, you can be sure that many people around the world are praying the same prayers WITH you at the same time. Now THAT's the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace made manifest in the Body of Christ!


That's not to say that spontaneous prayers have no place - of course they do! They're our conversation with our Father and with the other members of our spiritual family. But some of the "set" prayers, because they don't require our minds to focus on the words, serve as our spiritual breathing in and breathing out. The classic example of this is the Jesus Prayer, much favored in the Eastern Church: "Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner". The Hail Mary, the chaplet of Divine Mercy, and numerous other short prayers can serve the same purpose - enabling us to "pray without ceasing", even as we give our outward attention to the tasks before us.

I'll end with the first verses of Psalm 5, which were turned into a song that we sang a lot in the 70s. It's still one of my favorites, and because of the melody the psalm is embedded in my memory and my heart.

Give ear to my words, O Lord
Consider my meditation.
Hearken unto the voice of my cry
My King and my God
For unto thee will I pray
My voice shalt thou hear in the morning.
O Lord in the morning will I direct my prayer
Unto thee and will look up.

He heeded their prayer, because they put their trust in Him (1 Chronicles 5:20b)

Monday Musings: the prayers of the Church

I've been learning all I can about the prayers of the Church. Until we became Catholics, corporate prayer was basically saying the Lord's Prayer during the service, along with some miscellaneous other prayers that someone up in front prayed and we answered with "Lord, hear our prayer" (at least, that's how we did it when we were in the Presbyterian church). Corporate prayer was missing totally in the nondenominational churches we attended, unless you count the congregation listening to people praying personal prayers out loud.


I actually didn't even know there was such a thing as "the prayers of the Church" until, as a Catholic, I began praying the Divine Office (actually only parts of it). At the front of the book of the Liturgy of the Hours that I purchased, there was a whole section devoted to explaining the difference between personal prayer and prayers of the church. You can find basically the same information in the EWTN library.

My Spanish-language Liturgy of the Hours book puts it this way (my translation):
'The purpose of the prayer of the Church is not the same as that of personal prayer, which is the conversation of a believer with God, but it is the dialog of the Church with her Spouse, of the people of God with their Father who has chosen them, of the community of those who have been sanctified by the blood of Christ with their Savior. This praying community is the Church in its fullest sense - the universal Church, the one who merits the title of "bride of Christ, radiant, without spot or blemish".'


To realize that throughout the entire world, literally millions of people each day are praying the same psalms and the same biblical passages, to know that the faithful have been praying in this same way for two thousand years, is truly wonderful (it fills me with wonder at the majesty of the unity that God calls us to). To know that people are not "reading" these psalms, these passages, but praying them (lectio divina) - and to take my place in this choir of prayer - is a taste of the eternal community of which we are participants. This is so much deeper and higher than the reading of the Bible in group Bible studies that I have been used to.



Not to say that group Bible studies aren't useful or important - they are - but they correspond more to the Bride reading a letter from her beloved, rather than participating in a conversation with Him. And of course, I'm not contrasting personal prayer or Bible reading with the prayer of the Church. All these are rich means of approaching God. I thank Him that He has provided multiple means of communing with Him, since not all who seek Him can read; not all can gather with other believers; not all have access to a Bible.

I know I have only touched the "hem of the outer garment" of the presence of Christ in the prayers of His spouse. I would love to hear from anyone who has been praying the Divine Office for long enough to give me further insight into this treasure of the Church.

What counts as suffering?

I've been thinking a lot about suffering recently - not because of all the horrible things that happen in the world, because we always have those, but because I don't want to miss any opportunities that God gives me to put an exclamation point on my prayers for other people.

Not being a cradle Catholic, I didn't grow up with the idea of "offering up" my sufferings, but even before I became Catholic it made sense to me that suffering must have a purpose or God wouldn't allow it. In 1 Corinthians 1:6 Paul tells us "Now if we are afflicted, it is for your salvation and consolation, which is effective for enduring the same sufferings which we also suffer". And in Philippians 3:10 (one of my favorite chapters in the Bible) Paul says that he wants to know Christ "and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death if by any means I might attain to the resurrection from the dead".

I found that passage when I was a brand-new christian forty-something years ago and was strangely comforted by it. It put suffering into a purposeful context - it wasn't just random, or evidence that God was angry with me or had forgotten me. Suffering was something to be embraced for a greater goal - the GREATEST goal! I have never heard anyone teach on this passage, so it has dwelt quietly in my heart until it was revived by the Catholic church's teaching on suffering.

However, here's the rub: I don't seem to have any suffering to offer up. Oh I have as much pain as the next person, but it doesn't seem worthy to be called "suffering". It's either something I well deserve - the consequence of my own bad choices, like cutting my finger with the plant clippers - or it's something like having a cough for a month, which should certainly count as suffering for my husband, but I'm so used to it that I'm hardly conscious of it. I'd put any personal sickness in the category of "not really suffering" unless there was really intense pain involved. Throwing up doesn't count - that's just normal stuff. Headaches, sinus infections, etc. - they all seem to me to be simply the side effects of life. I guess I have too high a view of suffering - that it only counts if it's physical or mental abuse by someone. Martyrs suffer that way; they aren't considered to have suffered because of frequent viral infections or having bad eyesight.

What say you? How do you use these "small, daily sufferings" as a tool in prayer? What counts as suffering? I'd sure like some enlightenment on this. I'm aiming for this:


"For to you it has been granted on behalf of Christ, not only to believe in Him but also to suffer for His sake..." (Philippians 1:29)