Seven Quick Takes for Friday

1. Our eldest son,  a high school junior, earned a spot in his high school's National Honor Society chapter.  We all went to the induction ceremony last night in the high school cafeteria.

I was really proud of our son, who is maturing daily.  I was moved by the students' individual thank yous to parents, coaches, and teachers. I was creeped out by the pseudo-religious nature of the ceremony, which involved a darkened cafeteria and kids already in NHS lighting and exchanging candles with the new inductees. And then there are the "four pillars of NHS:" character, scholarship, leadership and service, each with its own candle.

I am not making this up.

Neither my husband nor I remember any of this nonsense when we joined NHS at our high schools. 

 "Mom, if you walked into there in the middle of the ceremony you would have thought it was some kind of cult," our 13-year-old quipped on the car ride home.

The Katrina Letters: New York Encounter 2013

Imagine knowing, really knowing the hearts of your parents as teenagers. Imagine hearing their thoughts and feelings, of being right there with them as they courted one another.

Chris Vath had such a privilege. He is part of a family who discovered, in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, a duffel bag filled with 500 letters his parents (pictured here at their wedding reception) had exchanged during three years of separation during World War II, beginning when his mom was 16 and still in high school and his father was 18 and serving in the U.S. Navy. Although Katrina flooded his childhood home with nine feet of water, the letters inside the bag survived, still legible.

A Question About Pie and a Thought about Circumstances

First, a question. Second, a proposal about how to look at our circumstances. OK, first things first. What is your favorite pie recipe? You see, my husband, who handles Thanksgiving dinner, has delegated the 13-year-old and me to  dessert-making duty.  I was hoping to avoid making pie and proposed to our son that we make cupcakes instead. A slave to tradition, my son is insisting we make pie, including a crust from scratch. Help! I never have done that before. Please share with me  your favorite tips and recipes. Crust from scratch sounds so intimidating.

"Pied Beauty:" Noticing the Dappled Things

With all our focus on Hurricane Sandy and the destructive power of nature, I hadn't noticed in these days that fall, my favorite season of all, is passing by. Today I took a walk around our neighborhood and collected leaves that had fallen. It was hard to find the kind of leaves I wanted: colorful and dry. I am planning to dip them in beeswax and make a garland. But many leaves now are brown and wet and sitting in big piles beside fallen trees. I'm grateful for the ones I did find.  It's been a long time since I took a walk like this, a slow walk where I stop to notice all the dappled things around me. When our teens were toddlers we took walks in our neighborhood all the time, slow walks, where they helped me to notice everything. My thoughts turned to poet Gerard Manley Hopkins S.J. and his magnificent "Pied Beauty."

Back to Work After Hurricane Sandy: Signs of Recovery

By the time I got home from work tonight, this is the sight that greeted me. The sun was nearly setting because I had spent time at the Barnes and Noble near my school, picking up a book for my son and grabbing an iced latte. Driving to work today, my first day back from work since the hurricane, I wondered whether I was the only one thinking about  Hurricane Sandy and its effects on our lives. It turns out that was all anyone really wanted to talk about - at school, at the bank branch I stopped by on my way to the book store, and at the book store itself.

Facing the Election, Doris Day, and New Storms

(Julio Cortez/AP)

The beauty of our country is that we have the right to vote and to argue freely about issues that affect us all. I am deeply grateful for that. Our right to vote was hard-won and no matter how lousy our choices this election season, I felt a sense of excitement and empowerment yesterday when I pressed the red button in the voting booth after making my choices. I love voting.

But it can be a tempting to see our heart's salvation as residing in a political party or ideology and to place our hopes in politicians. I found a wonderful recap of how I have been feeling about Election Day. This comes from the blog of Marc Paveglio:

Hurricane Furniture and Other Blessings

I realize this photo of our backyard, which is a slate patio, might not say much to you. But this picture says a lot to me about endurance and promise.

After the Storm, Psalm 85: A Poor Man's Prayer in Times of Trouble

Today for a while, I tuned out all the news about the effects of Hurricane Sandy. I have had a severe cold the past few days and have been lying in bed sleeping and sneezing and drinking water and diet ginger ale.

I knew the tears I was shedding over how much people are suffering in New York and New Jersey wasn't doing any of them any good. So I decided to spend the morning sleeping and listening to James Taylor and trying to forget the misery around us. (All these photos of the Breezy Point section of Queens, first appeared in The Tablet, the publication of the Diocese of Brooklyn.)

After Hurricane Sandy, My Children Help Me Keep Going

 Yesterday while driving out of the Home Depot parking lot,  I began to tear up. Our 16 year old son's words kept me going.

See, I had checked my facebook before heading into the store. I discovered two CL friends are homeless. The boiler in their apartment building in Manhattan's financial district blew up as Hurricane Sandy plowed through. They are scrambling for a warm place to sleep. (They have temporary lodging in New Jersey).

Then, as we walked into the store, I was puzzled by rows of people sitting in cloth folding chairs by the customer service counter. Some were reading books; one woman was asleep. Why were they sitting there? And then it struck me: they have no heat in their homes thanks to Hurricane Sandy.

It's easy to lull myself into thinking life is back to normal. Our home now has heat, electricity, cable TV, phone and internet service. But life is anything but normal for millions in our region. Our children are old enough that their sense of optimism has kept me going in moments when I am tempted to sink into despair.

Feast of All Saints: Cold and Dark, Emerging in Christ's Light

I left my iPad and cell phone in our SUV today before walking into the 12:15 p.m All Saints' Day Mass at our New Jersey parish. In some ways, I wish I hadn't. I wish I could share with you some photographs of the 157-year-old church, plunged in the darkness and cold in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, lit only by the baptismal candle, two candles in the front of the church and six candles on the altar. Instead, I will have to describe to you in words the beauty of those moments and how the Mass, in which we commemorate the named and unnamed saints of our church, left me with the sense of light and warmth of Christ and those who have gone before us and now see God face to face.

Gasoline Shortages and Thoughts about Larger Hungers

Driving down River Road in Piscataway today, recreating the first little bit of my forty mile commute to see if the road to the highway is clear, I was startled to see this at my gas station.  

These folks are filling up gas cans so they can run their gas-operated generators. Because of Hurricane Sandy, millions of New Jersey residents are without power. 

This scene made me reflect on how utterly dependent we are on gasoline.

And then, it made me think about how utterly dependent we are.

Life is hunger, thirst, and passion for an ultimate object, which looms over the horizon, and yet always

lies beyond it. When this is recognized, man becomes a tireless searcher.

— Father Luigi Giussani

After Hurricane Sandy: Grateful

O God, be merciful to me, for in you my soul takes refuge; in the shadow of your wings I will take refuge, till the storms of destruction pass by.

Psalm 57

Our family and our town escaped the worst of Hurricane Sandy, which made landfall near Atlantic City, a little more than 100 miles to the south. Gov. Chris Christie has described our state has suffering "incalculable loss." Millions of us are still without power. The town where I work is forbidding cars on roads; the downed wires and trees are everywhere. Our town lost power Monday night, along with phone service, Internet access and heat and dozens of old trees. But we still have clean water, thankfully, and no trees fell on our our 110-year-old home, which swayed in the high winds Monday night.

Good friends a few doors down had an enormous sycamore fall on their house Monday night. (See above) My husband heard it fall from our house. Because their house is nearly a century old, it is solidly built, and was able to withstand the weight of the tree with minimal damage to their roofs.

Hurricane Sandy: Last Night and Right Now

The hurricane is expected to make landfall one county south of here. Yesterday afternoon, before the wind and rain started, I shot this photo of the front of our house. Notice all the leaves on the tree to the left and in the background.

Just now, I ran outside in the pouring rain (can't take the journalist out of the girl) and snapped the front of our house again, in pretty intense wind. (see below). I didn't get exactly the same shot or angle. While I was out there, my next-door neighbor shouted at me to get inside.  The winds are gusting up to 65 miles an hour. Very loud. I am so grateful we just had our "tree guy" last week give all our trees their annual trims.

So...it seems like by the time this is over, no more fall leaves. We are safe and we are dry. And for now, we have power and clean water. Prayers to all who are already suffering.

Waiting for a Storm: Unexpected Beauty

Given that a late-season hurricane is bearing down on the East Coast, friends and family in other parts of the country are asking what is going on right now here in New Jersey. Well, we're doing lots of preparing and lots of anticipating. "Waiting for the storm of all storms is a tedious process!" a fellow eighth-grade mom wrote as her Facebook status about half an hour ago. She's right.

I alternate between feeling bored with it all and being scared; no one knows exactly where landfall will happen, and because this is a diffuse storm, how widespread its effect will be. And yet, there is always the possibility of Beauty emerging amid fear.

Preparing for Frankenstorm with Solzhenitsyn

Hurricane Sandy, the late-season storm that already has taken 43 souls in the Caribbean, is heading here. The radio stations are full of advice and warnings about what some forecasters are calling "Frankenstorm," because the cyclone is expected to meet a winter storm sometime close to Halloween.

I don't know if what happen in New Jersey though I feel certain we will lose power for several hours, if not days. That happens a lot in our old town with its ancient trees that tend to fall right on power lines. Our power grid is pretty fragile. My next-door neighbor is putting gas in his  generator.

We are so self-absorbed; deaths in Cuba and Haiti don't seem to matter much to us Americans. Our TV and radio are full of reports about how Americans are preparing by filling up our gas tanks and stocking up on milk and bread.

Reflections Of A Christian After Shopping in Darkness at Target

This afternoon I headed to Target with L., our 11-year-old, to pick up some khakis, dress shirts and ties for the boys to wear at a bar mitvah we are attending tomorrow. Imagine our surprise when, halfway through the visit, most of the lights in the store went out. It turns out that Milltown, NJ has been without power since Hurricane Irene. The store never closed, but has been operating with generators ever since. It is slowly trying to ease its way onto the small town's tenuous power grid. Today, managers shut off all but one generator while we were shopping there.

Hurricane Irene brought tragedies to hundreds of thousands of families: death, the destruction of homes and communities and livelihoods. My inconvenient shopping trip has led me to thinking that the rest of us, those who suffered slightly flooded basements, the temporary loss of electricity or phone service, need to quit complaining. We are, after all more than the sum of our modern conveniences. We are the Body of Christ, dagnabit!

In Maine, Celebrating Mass in a Time of Hurricane

In the pouring rain this morning, my girlfriend dropped my family off at St. John's Catholic Church in downtown Bangor, Maine before parking her van and joining us. My husband and I had spent a fitful night, worrying while it rained on the deck outside our bedroom about Hurricane Irene heading up the East Coast. On neighbors' Facebook pages, we have seen pictures of our hometown in New Jersey, with its swollen river, downed trees and flooded roads and bridges.

Inside, the church welcomed us, a sanctuary of calm and light in the storms raging outside and within our hearts. The Mass we attended was also filled almost to capacity with worshipers. The church itself was beautiful, dating from 1855. The parish was celebrating the ordination yesterday of two new deacons. A chamber choir chanted the liturgy with us. What beautiful signs of God's grace among us.