On the First Sunday of Lent, Contemplating the Beauty of Melting Snow

This afternoon I took a brisk half hour walk in the late winter air to watch our son coach basketball. Along the way to Lucky's final game coaching a team of 9 and 10 year old girls, I heard water dripping. Snow is melting and findings its way to water drains.

Happy Thanksgiving

As my friend Scott Dodge reminds us, every day for a Christian should be a thanksgiving - a prayer of gratitude for the life we were called into, for the opportunity to seek Beauty in our circumstances. This particular day of Thanksgiving is almost over.

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: 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.

Self-Deception and The Messiest Room in My House

If you are like me, you have at least one room in your house that visitors never see. For me, that would be the master bedroom. Every horizontal surface, excepting our bed but including much of the floor, is cluttered - with books, an ironing board, clean laundry, a busted vacuum cleaner, manila file folders, you name it. When visitors come,  I simply close the door. 

My pastor, Fr. Jeff Calia, C.O., recently told me that if Christ were visiting, that's just the room He would want to see. In fact, He already knows all about it. 

On Being Fatherless and Planting Mustard Seeds

Reality has a way of intervening into my own little bubble of bliss. In our small family of four, our Father's Day was fine. And yet, over the past few days I have encountered no fewer than 10 children of our acquaintance who are essentially fatherless.

Divine Mercy: I'm Not OK, Neither Are You, And That's OK

I stole the title of this blog post directly from the homily one of our pastors, Very Rev. Peter R. Cebulka, CO, on Divine Mercy Sunday. Anyone remember this book from the 1960s? It is one of the top-selling self-help books ever; in 1972, when I was 10, it rose to the top of the New York Times' best seller list and remained there for two years. My parents had a copy and I perused its pages, looking for wisdom.

But, as Father Peter pointed out, the premise of the book is bogus. I am not OK; you are not OK and that is perfectly OK because God, in His infinite love and immeasurable wisdom, loves us, watches us stumble, helps us to get off the ground and keep walking.

The pastor's words are staying with me throughout this week when already I have encountered: a good friend contemplating the end of her marriage, a student who completed a slew of last-minute work over spring break so he wouldn't fail my class for the marking period and my own limitations as an overweight woman trying to improve my health. None of us is OK; each of us struggles in our own ways with our limitations. But that is all right, right?

God didn't summon us into being so we could be perfect. His expectations are that we try to follow Him as best we can.

I was hard pressed and was falling,
but the LORD helped me.
My strength and my courage is the LORD,
and he has been my savior.
The joyful shout of victory
in the tents of the just:
Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good, his love is everlasting.

On Forgetting About Prayer

Today was one of those days where nothing, from start to finish, went as I planned. Nothing went badly wrong, it's just that nothing went really well. At work, my laptop gave me all sorts of trouble, refusing to link me to the school's server. Then, an important, comprehensive evaluation of me, which I had been prepping for and anticipating for days, was postponed. 

By the time I got to the after-school faculty meeting, I was a knot of anxiety.  My girlfriend K, my best friend at work, eight months pregnant with her first child, sat down beside me in the school auditorium. Turns out her laptop too is being disobedient. I told her how terribly, terribly stressed I was feeling.

We Are Stardust: Lessons from a Seventh Grade Chemistry Class

Tonight, as I sat in bed with my MacBook, logging end-of-quarter grades for my students, our 12 year old came into our bedroom and asked if I could look something up for him for Chemistry homework. At his request, I typed in "why is iron found in the earth's crust?" Here is what we discovered. "Every iron atom in existence, anywhere in the universe, was formed in the cataclysmic death of a supernova star."

In fact, Science Daily tells us "Every element on earth, except for the lightest, was created in the heart of some massive star." How is it I forgot we are made from stardust?

When the Journey is a Trial, My Book of Hours Accompanies Me

Tuesday was a miserable night. You see, I work with human beings. I live with human beings. And I am a human being. And sometimes, that is all just. too. much.

I went to bed late after an intense family conversation about something I likely won't remember a few months from now. Something that seemed terribly important and urgent at the time and worthy of a late-night conversation.

I tossed. I turned. I reached for my little red Book of Hours.

In the Dead of Winter, The Psalms and a Seed Catalog Sustain Me

On winter workdays, I rise at the time Shakespeare says when night is "almost at odds with morning," and you can't tell "which is which." I leave home before the rest of my family has risen, driving north in darkness to my job and arriving just as the sun begins to rise. Sometimes, I don't return home until after sunset. And so I find myself in these days struggling with a kind of sadness, a desire to retreat from a world which feels fully of darkness.

O God, come to my aid.

  O Lord, make haste to help me.

Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit,

  as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be,

  world without end.

Amen. Alleluia.

Reflections on January 1: Psalm 67 and Theotokos

I've been asked to substitute cantor Sunday morning at our former parish.  Yesterday, I chatted with the substitute organist over the phone and she's searching for the music to accompany Psalm 67. I'm making some inquiries. (Hey: if you know, let me know) In the meantime, I googled Psalm 67. It is a song of national thanksgiving. And then I thought about how we'll be singing this song on the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God,  or Theotokos.