I've been praying a lot for patience.

I can tell you, without a doubt, I am a better parent when I attend Mass regularly. Because that's when I sit and ask God for the ability to recognize my awesome charge, and to not screw it up too much.

My children are generally a delight. They are the kind of children you wouldn't mind if I brought over to your house. Because THERE ARE children that you would mind coming over to your house.

My girls tend to use manners and help clean up (even if that requires multiple requests) and aren't troublemakers. (Okay, my 4-year old has been known to start a controversy, but still, that's fairly rare.)

It's when I have them, alone, that's the issue. More often than not, they do not get along. More often than not, they end up fighting over things that make me scratch my head. This morning, at breakfast, it was because Lillian was teasing Hannah about not liking blackberries.

And I was like, you've got to be kidding. All these tears over blackberries?

And I try to be calm and think back to when I was younger, and I know somewhere along the way I got angry or irritated over something not worth a second of my time.

But then I get all like, oh my Lord, we're talking fruit, here. Is this really a punishable offense?

Life. Life. Life. Those kids drive me crazy, and make me crazy with love.

At night I've been falling asleep before asking for forgiveness. I do, however, get in the heartfelt request for patience and a list of things I've been thankful for.

The other day, it was thanks for the sight of my girls swinging. Lily can pump her legs now, allowing me the unique position to observe them both. Their long hair blows with their movement. Suddenly, they're all legs and smiles. Last night, I gave thanks for the grace that found me in my kitchen, stunned with Hannah's sudden maturity. I was setting up a picnic for them with a neighbor's granddaughter in our backyard. I suggested we use a plaid flannel sheet used for camping. "I'll get it Hannah," I said. "It's in the basement."

"Don't worry, Mom. I'll can get it." And before I knew it, she was bounding down the basement stairs, and back up again, emerging with the sheet, only to run back outside again. So many things she can get on her own now. It is both exhilarating and heartbreaking.

Tonight I'll give thanks for Lillian coming downstairs this morning, still sleepy in her pajamas, but wearing sunglasses. It was a random thing, and it made me smile.

They drive me crazy, and I ask for calm. They make me crazy with love. So many things to be grateful for. So many things to thank God for.

Come to my assistance in this great need....

I'm completely and totally sick of these headaches. Not that I was ever really down with them to begin with. I was fairly gleeful of late to find that I wasn't getting them with my usual frequency and ferociousness, which I ascribed to a regular workout schedule. I still believe in this, that working my muscles and heart has benefited my head. For the month of May, however, I've been feeling like my body was hell-bent on giving me a headache.

And this, perhaps, might be the source of my feeling depressed, which I wrote about at my heathen blog.

The neurological effects of migraines are interesting. I've felt shaky, nauseated, sensitive to light, really sad. I've had trouble sleeping. And my medicine isn't working. I get 6 pills a month covered by insurance. Since Sunday, I've taken three. No luck.

So I don't know what this means. I guess it just means I'm due for pain. I've had my respite, and now I'm due.


I took the girls to a parish carnival a few weekends ago. On our way back to our car, I showed them the room near the back of the church that has all the candles. You can light one and say a prayer, surrounded by statues of Mary and Jesus and Joseph, and yeah, who's that guy back there? Oh, that's St. Jude.

Patron Saint of Hopeless Cases. Patron Saint of Unending Head Pain. Patron Saint of Sad People.

Or, that cool guy with the flame on his head.

Don't you wish you could walk around like that sometimes? Decked out in a spectacular flame? And you could answer people like this. Yes, why yes. Of course I've been touched by the Holy Spirit.

I'm doing a novena to St. Jude now, but it has nothing to do with my headaches. I've learned, since being diagnosed with migraines, that there is actually something called Chronic Daily Headaches. So while I may feel desperate and like a hopeless case in the midst of this pain, I've been informed that it could be worse. Like, every day worse. That would suck.

Maybe I'll write about the novena specifics some day. Probably not.

I remember, when I was younger, the area I lived in had a weekly circular called The Penny Saver. It advertised garage sales and appliances and estate sales and pets for sale and all manner of things. There were personals in there, and tucked within the personal were spaces dedicated to St. Jude, prayers and thanks for answers received. I used to read them, even though most said exactly the same thing, and wondered why someone had to take out an ad. Multiple ads. Multiple people. All saying the same thing.

I understand now. If my novena is answered with a yes, I think I might have to rent a billboard.

If it's a no, though, I get it. I would get the reasons why.

Still, I might just have to start another one. I wonder if a saint can be worn down, if they're like, Jesus...again? That woman is tenacious!

St. Jude, Patron Saint of Hopeless Cases Who Are Still Plucky and Determined Despite Being Sad and Headachey. I do believe that has an interesting ring to it.

This Day Will Not Come Again

When am I going to learn that 'vigil' means the night prior? I missed the Feast of the Ascension, and mass for two weekends in a row, and I'm feeling rather aimless, like I'm floating in the ocean, wearing only swimmies.

Very unprepared. And drifting.

I checked my parish's website and found that all the morning masses were -- surprise -- ones that I couldn't attend.

Did I tell you that the last time I attended mass, the celebrant used a decent amount of Latin? Also not good. And I feel bad about saying that, because there once was a time everything was in Latin and then there was a huge sea change, and I bet the old-schoolers felt out of it and unhappy. Something beloved was different. I know how hard that is to swallow. There is something restorative in the cadence of words we know by heart. Words we could recite in our sleep.

The new translations are coming. Can I tell you how bereft I am that I'll have to give up Lord I am not worthy to receive you? It's going to be replaced with something like Lord I am not worthy to welcome you under my roof. That's not it exactly, but the gist is there. And although both statements are completely true, I have a fondness for the one I've said forever.

Some people have said that because the words are so familiar, people tend to zone out while saying them, and that maybe a change will bring new life to mass. I'm going to have an open mind, though I say that with a grumpy look on my face and defiantly crossed arms.

Since I'm scattered and feeling apart right now, I'm going to close with some Thomas Merton. I began thumbing through Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander last night, and was a bit dismayed to find that a lot of it is esoteric. He's quoting this philosopher or this theologian. It will take some work to read it. But there are some brief parts where Merton is describing his surroundings at Gethsemani, and it's like taking a coffee break while listening to a lengthy talk on foreign policy.

A sweet summer afternoon. Cool breezes and a clear sky. This day will not come again. The young bulls lie under a tree in the corner of their field. Quiet afternoon. Blue hills. Day lilies nod in the wind. This day will not come again.

I Heard the Bells

I love a conversion story, whether it details the shift from absence of belief to the embracing of it, or perhaps a faith that isn't drawn upon or remembered, and suddenly something happens to jolt one into a new awareness.

I could read an entire book of conversion stories, and never grow weary of them. I stuck with Thomas Merton throughout his, and wasn't disappointed, as he transitioned from a college student swayed mostly by debauchery to newly baptized Catholic to a Trappist monk. And yes, that's quite a transition.

My own story is brief, and for some reason, or a myriad of reasons, I cannot share it in detail. Sometimes I feel like if I do, then I chip away at its meaning for me. Sometimes I feel like if I think about it too much, I start questioning its authenticity. When it comes to manifestations of God, I've always been more like Agent Mulder rather than Agent Scully. Agent Mulder believed in aliens, and not much else. Agent Scully believed in God, and always had a scientifically based rebuttal to Mulder's beliefs. (Oh, X-Files, I miss you!)

Unlike Agent Mulder, I do believe in God, but I always have questions. I don't embrace and believe as often as I'd like. So I worry that the more I examine my experience, the more likely I am to pick it apart, and chalk it up to coincidence or some other earthly reason. Additionally, there is the nagging suspicion that I am simply not worthy of God's voice. Why would He talk to me?

But He did. And, at least, that's the story I'm sticking to for now.

Sometimes when I think of the particular prayer I had said the night before my moment, and what I had asked for, I get this little chill. Goosebumps, I think, and laugh about it, like there's a bit of the Holy Spirit left in my memory of things, and it rises through firing neurons to manifest on my skin. To manifest in the remembering.

I think of my child -- who, at the time, was 3 years, 4 months old -- and how she answered my prayer the next morning. How she spoke of the concern I whispered in the dark of my room, as she slept. How she gave voice to wisdom way beyond her years in a single sentence.

Anne Lamott once wrote that she wished we could hear bells to announce the coming of grace in our daily lives, so we could embrace it more, and be aware of it. A celestial ding-dong to help us survive and deal.

I heard the bells, or rather felt them, but after, not before, when my eyes became ridiculously watery sitting across from my child, realizing at that moment God was talking to me. Me. And He was using my child to do it.

I wasn't faithless at the time. I was starting to re-explore, reading out of curiosity and starting to attend Mass again. So while perhaps my experience isn't exactly a conversion, I kind of view it as a divine kick in the pants. And I'm grateful for it.

Not worthy. But grateful.

Can Drunk People Be Sacred? Why, Yes!

I've been feeling rather spent, blog-wise. Life...it's busy, and I guess that's a good thing.

My most gigantic goal ever is trying to find the sacred in the every day, and sacred simply equals good. It doesn't entail rosy, watercolored angels coming down from the heavens, preceeded by the sound of church bells to announce their arrival.

I forget this ALL THE TIME. All the time. Especially when I tend toward the curmudgeon. I like to grumble. It's my way of dealing with stress. The problem, however, is that the grumbling can kind of take over, and become my go-to stance on viewing the world.

This past weekend, my husband and I were at a wedding. Lots of time for witnessing the sacred there, from vows being spoken out loud and shared to drunken revelry at the basement bar way past everyone's bedtime. Sometimes, it feels so good to gather with friends and be crazy. So a vodka tonic isn't nearly the same thing as bread and wine. It still felt like a Communion of sorts, with each person bringing their joy and messiness to the table.

In the morning, Dave and I had coffee by the beach, alone. Being the shore pre-season, there blessedly weren't too many people out and about. But the ones that jogged or walked past our bench nodded their greetings. I loved that, too. It's easy to love everything with the sound of vast amounts of water hitting the sand.

On our way back to the hotel, to try and wake our sleeping, hungover friends for breakfast, we saw some movement in the back of the pick-up truck belonging to one of them. Knocking on the window, we see our friend P sit-up and stretch.

"Dude, what are you doing sleeping in your truck?" we say, opening the door.

"J was being such a jerk last night, telling me to turn down the TV, turn off the lights. Mean drunk, that guy. I was like, screw this, I ain't sharing a room with you. So I came out here."

"That had to be comfortable," I said.

"Guarantee, he won't remember a thing of this," P said.

"Let's go wake his ass up."

And so we did, and we all had breakfast at Uncle Bill's Pancake House, with hash fries and orange juice and pancakes and eggs.

It was a sort of profane sacred, not the kind truly cut out for a blog post, but the kind I wanted to share, regardless.

Happy Are Those Who Are Called To Share His Supper

When David and I were engaged, we knew we'd be getting married at my parents' parish in New York. To do this, we had to get permission from our own parish priest at the time. In our dealings with him, it was revealed that we were co-habitating, sharing the same apartment next to the insanely noisy R5 Regional Rail line. We were in love, getting married, and still clearly in violation of Church rules. He told us flat out that we shouldn't take Communion until we had moved into different apartments and confessed the sin of sharing the same bed. As David and I walked back to our apartment, I howled and railed at his audacity. "Fine," I said. "I get that there are 'rules' and he's obligated to inform us of them, but to say we can't receive the body and blood of Christ? Do you think Jesus would deny us a seat at his table?" Eventually I had to just let it go, but I didn't stop taking Communion. As soon as I was sure that letter was sent, we stopped attending that church.

******

I just finished reading a book called Take This Bread, and I really wanted to share a passage of it with whomever happens to read this. The book follows the conversion of a woman who was raised in an atheist family. On a whim one day, she walks into a local Episcopal church and takes communion. As her faith and knowledge grow, she feels called to heed the teachings of Jesus and feed the hungry. And so she does so, in a big way, starting a food pantry at St. Gregory's (her new church), and with some help from her community, is able to start food pantries in other locations nearby to feed to skyrocketing number of people who are unable to afford basic groceries.

It's an amazing spiritual memoir, and the author, Sara Miles, does a good job questioning why churches put up barriers to Communion.

Since this is Holy Thursday, and we celebrate the Last Supper, where Jesus broke bread and drank wine with saints and sinners -- both a man who'd deny knowledge of him three times and a man who'd betray him with a kiss -- I thought it appropriate to offer a meditation, via Sara Miles, on Communion.

"The entire and contradictory package of Christianity was present in the Eucharist. A sign of unconditional acceptance and forgiveness, it was doled out and rationed to insiders; a sign of unity, it divided people; a sign of the most common and ordinary human reality, it was rarefied and theorized nearly to death. And yet that meal remained, through all the centuries, more powerful than any attempts to manage it. It reconciled, if for only a minute, all of God's creation, revealing that, without exception, we were members of one body, God's body, in endless diversity. The feast showed us how to re-member what had been dis-membered by human attempts to separate and divide, judge and cast out, select or punish. At that Table sharing food, we were brought into the ongoing work of making creation whole. I read a commentary by Grant Gallup, a cranky liberation theologian and Episcopal priest who'd retired to Nicaragua. 'The little loaf-sharing church,' he wrote,' stole away from the neighborhood of Jerusalem Temple and the synagogues of the diaspora, hounded by a good imperial government to martyrdom for hundreds of years, and then, one day, found its bishops enthroned and basilicas built for it by emperors. It issues receipts and itemized its metaphysics. It created a dogmatic mind of Christ to supplant the flesh of Nazareth. But there was always and remains still the opportunity to make Jesus your friend, and to invite him to share your supper.'"

('But there was and remains still the opportunity to make Jesus your friend, and to invite him to share your supper.' Those words are so profound, I had to type them again, and though they don't belong to Sara Miles, I thank her profusely for quoting them and their author.)

This will be my last Holy Week post, as we are traveling to New York, so have a lovely Easter!

Palm Sunday

What I saw:

A basket of palms.
A priest cloaked in red. The pews full.
Sculptures covered in purple fabric.
An eclipse.

What I heard:

Coughing. Babies.
My children whispering their hunger to me.
"O Sacred Head Surrounded.'
The Passion, the last breaths of Christ,
and the quaking of the ground.

What I felt:

Grateful to be a part of this church,
despite my misgivings, despite my
disagreements. Surrounded by
fellow worshippers, all of us thieves
asking to be welcomed into
the Kingdom of Heaven.