Kind and Present

You might think that because I've been lax in updating that I've fallen victim to the subtitle of this blog. You might think that I've forgotten about God, and understandably so.

This, however, is not the case. I had grandiose ideas that I would attend weekday Mass a few times a week, but weekday Mass is at 8am, and I'm often just dropping my girls off at 7:55am, which would make me about 15 minutes late getting there. Either that, or I'm in stained sweats with coffee/morning breath, having yet to make myself presentable. I'd show up late, thinking the priest would rather have me tardy than not at all, but it's Father Don't Call Me By My First Name Because It's Too Familiar, and so I feel a bit awkward clicking the heels of my slip-ons down the tiled aisle. Click, Click, Click, Yes Father Surname, I'm late.

I have been there once on a Friday, and managed to be only 7 minutes late, but still, I like to be on time. This is almost fully within my control, so barring any meltdowns with my youngest, I should be able to remedy this. I believe it would be to my benefit. And my kids'.

I spent the summer seeing God in my children, primarily when they were asleep. I still see God in them when I peek in on them before bed. But it's hard to see God in my children first thing in the morning. It becomes slightly easier after a cup of coffee, but then becomes difficult again when they begin arguing at the breakfast table.

They're so beautiful, it cracks open my heart just a little bit, making a mess. Children can be achingly lovely one moment, and near demonic the next. It is the nature and challenge of parenting.

One of my most frequent prayers is to be kind and present for my children. Sometimes I'm cross with them. Short. Abrupt. And I catch myself, hopefully then, but sometimes not until later, and I say a prayer for help and guidance.

I am guilty of being that person that cannot wait to be doing something outside of this home. And it's not that I think there is anything wrong with wanting to contribute something to the world outside of the domestic realm. But I think I give short shrift to what I do here, and that includes my children, who I will one day let loose upon this world. Sometimes when I realize the enormity of that, it can quickly overwhelm me. We have so much to teach them, and if I want them to be loving, kind, compassionate women, I have to model that for them. In how I treat others, yes, but also how I treat them.

So it's my mantra. Kind and present. Kind and present. Kind and present.

Have I written before that I'm a better parent when attending Mass regularly? I probably have. I'm probably repeating myself. But it's true. Going to Mass makes me a better parent. I could write a series of blog posts on the reasoning behind this. To be the most concise about it all, the most succinct, I guess I would just explain it as a clean slate. There's no other place where I feel I can sufficiently rid myself of the week's detritus: failures and mistakes and sins.

Sometimes when I take Communion, I feel awash in love. If you know me, you know how hard it is for me to type something like that. I am sarcastic, cynical, negative, jokey. I am uneasy stating that. It is a soft feather to my rough edges.

I hope one day the girls feel the same thing. It may take them 30 years, and it may happen in another church or faith. That's completely cool with me. As long as they realize there is always a new chance and beginning. Always a place to try again. And always a massive love that exists as a guiding force.

It's so lovely outside today that I think I'll take them to the park after I pick them up from school. Because I also see God in them when they laugh. Sleeping and laughing. I'm still working on the rest in between.

Danieal Kelly

She was stuck to the bed of the room she died in. Bed sores infested with maggots. She was 14, with cerebral palsy, and 40-something pounds, having been starved to death by her mother, abandoned by her father, and forsaken by social workers.

Her mother is in jail. Her father is on trial.

And I want to know. Where was God in that room? Was he there? Did he talk to her, as her body metabolized itself, as her organs shut down?

Did he whisper that he loved her? That all would soon be love, and peace and light? That suffering was transient? That mourning would be replaced by laughter? That the kingdom of heaven would be hers?

I find myself struck that the universe can know one child, and another can be forgotten, discarded like trash. Did she at least know one Father, after having been left by the other?

I want to know this. I need to have this answered.

And I feel horrible for even asking it. Because I don't know where God is, and can't say for sure that even in the most deplorable conditions, He is absent. Who am I to say?

I am just someone who hopes that child was held and loved, that she sat in the arms of the Father or Mother, as she slipped from a life she didn't ask for into the eternal one that she deserved.

Lent got off to a bumpy start.

We were informed at the end of the 9:15am Ash Wednesday service that our priest was one of 21 clergy members in the Philadelphia Archdiocese put on leave for suspicion of child abuse.

It was an interesting juxtaposition of feelings. I remember walking into church feeling like I was in dire need of a Lenten season of renewal, but also feeling hopeful and good. And then I walked out feeling sucker-punched.

I don't really have a lot of Catholics in my life that I can discuss this with. I wouldn't exactly call our church community vibrant. It's the kind of church people go to, and then leave. There's no Bible study, no volunteer community, no book clubs, no places for discussion. I checked the parish online bulletin board when I got home, but it was closed due to spam. It somehow seemed entirely fitting.

On my way out that morning, an elderly woman told me she hoped this was all a horrible mistake.

Ditto.

I tried to discuss it with one very Catholic friend, and the 'conversation' left me prickly. In her words, 'she wasn't going to participate in judgment,' and the thoughts that went through my brain following that statement were very uncharitable.

Seriously? No thoughts on what is going on? What has been going on, like, forever? When the entire course of some people's lives has been put on a trajectory of pain? When those who could protect fail to do so?

I think it's all very fine and good not to cast stones, but when you have a situation that involves the systematic cover-up of horrendous child abuse, it changes things a lot. And I think some stones should be cast. I think some stones should be thrown, hard. Or hung around necks, like the millstones Christ talked about.

I didn't go to Mass this past Sunday.

The crappy fact of it all is that I trust no one. And it's sad that I trust the hands of Eucharistic ministers more than I trust the hands of the ordained.

Overdue Update

I find it hard to believe it's been over two months since I posted here. Time seems to be flying in a way that I have trouble processing.

Today, the girls are home from school -- the second day of a stuffy cold -- but they are outside in the mildest weather of the year playing with a neighbor. I should be making them stay in and away from other kids, especially given the very dramatic ways they both arose today. I've been there, as a kid, not feeling my best and wanting to stay home. The air will be good for them, a little bit of sweat too.

And yes, they're going back to school tomorrow.

I have nearly finished The Sign of Jonas, and started the Kathleen Norris book Acedia & Me, but both are currently collecting dust as I once again return to my textbook. The lymphatic system reigns.

I spent the good part of December finishing up a nursing school application and some financial aid stuff. There were three applications in full. One school told me my GREs were too old, and so I'd have to retake them to be considered. I can't type here what I said to that bit of info. Another school has already said no to me, and I'm waiting for my third to tell me what my plans will entail this fall.

I might just have a really clean house, and time to fill with computer work. I've been trying to settle into the possibility that nursing school is not in the cards this fall, because I don't want to get my hopes up.

I've been working rather hard for over 2 years fulfilling these prerequisites, so it stings a bit to encounter a roadblock to my self-imposed schedule.

This was my plan! To be in school full-time this fall! It was going to be perfect, with both the kids in school full-time, and me too!

(Sigh.)

I'm not sure what this all means.

Though I'm not sure about all that 'everything happens for a reason' stuff, it's a bit heartening to think that my way has been stymied for something better. At least, that's what will take me through the disappointment. I'll find out in March.

There is a single bright side to my failure to gain nursing school entry. I will take the summer off from classes. No Microbiology Monday-Thursday for 12 weeks, because there'd be no need to try to stuff it in. I could take it in the Fall and regroup, and try to figure out what's next. There are a few more school possibilities for future applications, but I'd really have to weigh time requirements/benefits.

I'm just kind of spilling here, and thinking out loud.

It just kind of sucks to put in the time and be told no.

The Body

I feel slightly guilty about abandoning Thomas Merton. I have yet to finish Sign of Jonas, though I am halfway through.

It's not his fault. I could laze about in his paragraphs for hours on end. It's just that I've had to put him aside in favor of a recently acquired part-time job and -- of course, ever-present -- my Anatomy & Physiology text.

I love the body. It's gruesome and magical, frightening and miraculous. I'm probably the most exhausted I've been in a while, having issues with sleeping and anxiety, and the feeling of always having something pressing to do. But I don't find myself so tired that I can't work up excitement over what makes us...us.

The kids have all these questions. They hear things in school about God making us, our bodies and minds, as if from waving a magic wand, and they look to me for confirmation. Which I give, in some vague way that leaves me unsettled and dissatisfied. Not Adam and Eve, and all that, as comfortingly simple as it all sounds. I stumble and stammer, mostly because I don't even begin to know what I believe, much less be able to explain it in some coherent way.

My text is like a bible of the body, and it's impossible not to see the intricate soulfulness of our creation, however it all came to be.

From the continued contraction of the striated muscle of the heart, to the ability of cells to effectively rid our bodies of toxins, to the nerve impulses that all work together to maintain homeostasis. To maintain. To be effective. For our bodies to work.

It's not that I don't see the hand of God in it all. I do. I just don't feel comfortable trying to elucidate on how. I wish I could tell my girls that with some kind of eloquence, especially when they look at me with their big eyes, wanting to be right. Yes, God made us. End of story. Sort of. Because that story is long and varied with twists and turns.

I've brought up the general concept of evolution with them, how we can trace our ancestors back, but that's about it. I think they'd find the fact of Australopithecus Afarensis a bit suspect. I'll leave that to their future science teachers.

I wonder what Merton would think of it all. He writes little about the human body, except for his relatively poor health and the way illness spread through the monastery like a fire through parched woods. I wonder what he thought of creation and evolution, or where he found the intersection of science and faith, if at all.

I do know he'd believe, no matter our source, that we weren't made for ourselves alone.

This Country is Giving Me a Nervous Breakdown

Hi Jesus,

Boy.

Am I pissed off or what?

You know who I'm mad at?

Well, America. Pretty much ALL of America.

I'm tired of living amongst a wishy-washy populace, who can vote one year for sweeping change, and then pretty much vote to fund none of it two years later. People who swallow the lie that their taxes have gone up, when in fact they've gone down. People who are misinformed, incurious, hateful and racist.


I'm tired of the tea party, which I pretty much believe to be a sham. A complete sham. Masquerading as a populist movement, when they throw their entire support to a party that's just as much about big government as the other: it's just a big government with different priorities, and you can bet your butt I don't think their priorities are sound. Not one bit.

My husband told me yesterday that he heard BP is already turning a profit. Only here can a corporation responsible for the death of millions of creatures and miles and miles and miles of coastlines, not to mention entire industries and livelihoods, turn the page that quickly.

I understand that people are hurting. I understand that people want change quicker than it's being dispensed. But turning to the party that actually sought to block the continuation of unemployment benefits? That's the answer? A party that calls not allowing insurance companies to deny people coverage because they're ill socialism?

Once I saw someone driving a truck that had two bumper stickers on it. One read I'm pro-life and I vote. The other said Why should I pay for your health insurance?

And it's a sight I will carry with me, pretty much FOREVER. Because in it lies the juxtaposition that so many people seem to carry as a philosophy, and it tears at my heart. I say to that guy in the pick-up truck, 'You can't be both.' You can't place yourself into a tent that's labeled pro-life (pro-life!) if you have no interest in seeing any of your tax dollars go to keep a mother who gives birth to her child insured, able to go to prenatal appointments so her baby is healthy, and able to give birth and then bring her child in for well visits.

Ah, whatever. I can pretty much tell you he doesn't give a shit. And he's probably more than a little bit misogynistic.

I'm feeling crummy today, Jesus. I'm not so certain that the Democrats walk your path either, so don't mistake my grumblings for that kind of pride.

I ask you to help turn my general bitchiness, anger and sadness into something constructive. Help me to do your work, whether or not I feel our government is helping or hindering. Help me to show compassion for all, even those with whom I disagree virulently. Help me to not want to throw rotten tomatoes at John Boehner's head. The same goes for Mitch McConnell, Eric Cantor, Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin.

With love,

Kelly

My Own Gethsemani

I'm reading The Sign of Jonas right now. Merton has let me into his journal, and I get to see life in Gethsemani.

This is an old book, maybe around since the 60s, and the jacket is frayed along the edges. The front and back inside covers have a black and white photograph of Merton walking through what I presume to be the Kentucky woods. His back is sort of diagonally to the camera, his right foot raised in mid-stride. Have you ever wanted to enter a picture?

Yes, it's like that.

Wait! Wait for me! That's my feeling when I see it.

Sometimes I wonder if the restlessness I feel is actually a good thing. If the mild and vague sense of dissatisfaction is merely a sign of things to come. That life on earth can only get so good, and it's what comes after that is the true kick-ass part.

Please don't take vague dissatisfaction the wrong way. I'm mostly happy, mostly content, able to experience and witness and store away these lovely moments, generally with family and friends. But I don't know...there is this undercurrent, always an undercurrent, of wanting and needing more.

And I'm not sure if the undercurrent is God, or a sign from God, or the lingering dysthymia that never completely leaves me alone. What's funny is that I crave contemplation, aloneness -- or, at least, I think I do -- but the whole truth is that I wouldn't know what to do with myself there.

I'm not a still person. Sometimes I have to force myself to stop during those moments when the kids are taking their sweet time, and usually it's because they've noticed something, taken note of something in their surroundings that really requires stop and looking. All this is a good thing, but I get far ahead and have to double back, and I have to pull in that ingrained need to keep moving.

I wouldn't know what to do with still and silent. I wonder if that is something that can be learned. But then again, young children and a vocation for nursing aren't exactly leading me in that general direction, either. My life isn't quite chaos, but it isn't hand signals in dim light by the altar, either.

In the book, Merton writes about wondering if he's in the right place with the Trappists, or if he'd have been better suited for the Carthusians. Apparently, the Cistercians weren't silent enough. (And they're monks! Using sign language!)

Of course, Merton stays. He's chosen his particular version of stillness, and decided that that's exactly where God wants him. I have to believe that this is where God wants me, in the slight insanity of family life with my husband and children, moving among throngs of students, reading and writing, and yes, praying. It's a different form of contemplation, for sure. But every bit as valid and needed.

At least, that's what I tell myself as I put Lillian in time-out for the 80th time in an afternoon.

******

Do you know what I just reread on page 35? "The simplest and most effective way to sanctity is to disappear into the background of ordinary everyday routine."

I think I'm being told to go finish the dishes.