Irish Stew

Patience has become almost a dirty word in our fast-paced western world.  We all want fast food, immediate answers, speedy service and short lines at the grocery store.  Even conversing with someone who talks a bit slow can be frustrating to people like me who, shall we say, sometimes lack patience (ask my husband and children!) Quick wit, quick analysis of problems, quick completion of tasks – these are the things that are rewarded in our corporate culture. In most of my past jobs, especially when I was a school administrator, superior time management was the most prized quality; inefficiency the greatest sin. I subscribe to a great podcast called Radiolab, and I recently listened to an episode all about SPEED.  It was illuminating and rather scary to hear about the mad race to bring out newer, faster technologies to satisfy our collective impatience.

Contrast this with Mary, who exemplifies patience.  What an enriching Lenten exercise to meditate on this aspect of her character…her patience in accepting the Angel Gabriel’s announcement that she would bear God’s Son, without demanding to know all the future implications for her life; her patience with Joseph as he came to terms with her pregnancy; her patience while she waited for the birth of Jesus; her patience as she witnessed her Son’s life and ministry unfold and pondered all these things in her heart; her patience as she stood at the foot of the cross, waiting for Him to die; her patience as she walked alongside the apostles in the challenging early years of the church.

I sometimes get depressed when I contemplate my son’s slow advancement towards better health.  As much as I’d love to rush the process, it’s obvious that we have a long road ahead of us with his neurological disorders.  There are no easy answers or quick fixes for Tourette’s Syndrome. But in order to cope I’ve been forced to live life one day at a time – noticing and celebrating the small successes as they come.  Basically, it has required me to stop rushing around like an impulsive, crazy little rabbit, and most especially to stop basing my actions on my fears for the future.  Instead, God has been inviting me to slow down and open my eyes fully to the present – and that has been a wonderful gift.  I see the truth in Mother Teresa’s warning to us all: “We cannot find God in noise and agitation.”

Revelations 3: 20 always touches me deeply: “Here I am!  I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with Me.” The way that the Creator of the Universe paints Himself in this picture of patience is a clear illustration of His commitment to us.  He refuses to barge in – but He also doesn’t walk away just because no one answers His knock.  His example of loving patience, standing at the door and waiting, leads me to want to return that commitment, to work in partnership with Him in the growth and restoration of my own spirit and that of others.

The journey to Profession as a Secular Franciscan is not rushed. It’s a time of formation – and transformation – not just a time of instruction. It’s spread over three or four years to allow for exploration and study and reflection, in community with other travelers on the same road. For me, it’s been a good lesson in learning to accept God’s pace, whatever that might be, in the midst of a world that seeks instant gratification.  It necessitates making certain choices, kind of like the choice between microwaving a processed, pre-packaged meal for supper, or taking the time to dig out the slow-cooker early in the morning, find my mom’s Irish Stew recipe, do some chopping and slicing and then let the ingredients simmer for hours.  No question about which one requires more effort…but also no question about which one tastes better at the end of the day.

“Live deep instead of fast.”

-Henry Seidel Canby

Hope

With Advent and Christmas behind us, it seems very natural to look towards the New Year with a sense of “starting anew”.  It’s so easy to get into the “New Year’s Resolutions” mode – and I’m not entirely against it.  Sometimes we need an excuse to kickstart a more healthy diet or better exercise habits, and if the start of the New Year is that excuse, so be it!  But I guess we shouldn’t have such huge expectations of ourselves that we’re shattered when things don’t go quite the way we’d planned. I think one of our New Year’s Resolutions should be to not be so hard on ourselves, and to laugh more at our slip-ups and moments of weakness. 

What we also need, as we start the New Year, is hope.  If I want to be a hopeful person, then I must first be more forgiving – of others and also of myself.  When I set the bar impossibly high and give no room for anything but perfection, I'm destined to lose hope pretty quickly. I think it's really important to be smart and realistic about our expectations and our limitations, seeing our humanness through the loving, merciful eyes of God.  A helpful analogy might be how a good parent has realistic expectations of their young child – not expecting perfection, but hoping for progress, all the while knowing that progress very often comes from making mistakes and learning from them.

Vaclav Havel, Czech playwright, poet and first president of the Czech Republic after the Velvet Revolution against communist rule, once said, “Hope is not the same as happiness that things are going well. Hope is an ability to work for something because it is good.”  That’s a nice blueprint for hope – working for something because it is good.  Notice there are no words like “success” or even “accomplishment” in this definition.  Hope is the direction you are pointed, the road you are walking, the experience you are pushing through…towards something good.  Hope seems to have three close companions: sacrifice, suffering and struggle. But hope is what makes life worth living.

I’m coming more and more to the conclusion that “something good” doesn’t have to be “something big”.  Yes, it’s thrilling to be part of a large endeavour that’s making a difference in the world.  But as Mother Teresa said, “Not all of us can do great things.  But we can do small things with great love.”  Making a point of welcoming a new neighbour on the block. Taking time to ask the widow sitting alone at church how things are going. Bringing some food to a sick friend. Asking that person whom you find slightly annoying to join you for a walk in the park, so you can get to know them better and maybe improve your relationship. It might seem like these small touches of goodness – of generosity of spirit and selflessness – go unnoticed and don’t count for much in the grand scheme of things. But in that paradoxical way of the Kingdom of God, it seems that they count for more than we can imagine.  They start ripples in the fabric of life that flow forwards and backwards, affecting the giver as well as the recipient.

We went to the movie The Hobbit over the Christmas holidays, and being big Tolkien fans, we loved it.  My favorite line in the movie was uttered by Gandalf: “Saruman believes that it is only great power that can hold evil in check, but that is not what I have found.  I have found it is the small everyday deeds of ordinary folks that keep the darkness at bay…small acts of kindness and love.”   

Yes, I might start exercising more, and stop ingesting so much junk food in 2013. I’m also going to try to make a point of keeping my messy office a little tidier, because it’s driving me crazy. But maybe we should also purposefully keep our radar up for those opportunities to perform “small acts of kindness and love” ­– and then be brave enough to do them.  Maybe we should add these words of St. Francis to our list of New Year’s resolutions: “We have been called to heal wounds, to unite what has fallen apart, and to bring home those who have lost their way.”

Therein lies hope.

Year of Faith

October 11, 2012 marked the beginning of the “Year of Faith” in the Catholic Church, which Pope Benedict XVI hopes will inspire all believers to profess their faith in fullness, with renewed conviction, confidence and hope.  In his Apostolic Letter Porta Fidei, the Pope invites and challenges us to rediscover “the joy of believing”, and to share this with others “in the midst of a profound crisis of faith that has affected many people.”

It struck me that my husband Bill and I have been given a natural opportunity to share our faith journey with others, simply through the fact that many people are curious about the decision we made five years ago to become Catholics.  We have been asked many, many times – by Protestants, non-Christians and even other Catholics – “Why in the world did you join the Catholic Church?”   

It’s pretty hard to relate all the reasons for our decision in a few words, so that question has often become a great excuse to get together with folks over coffee and tell our story.  It’s a story of how we were drawn to the Catholic faith through the suffering of our youngest son, who has Tourette Syndrome. Basically, in the search for answers from God about why He was allowing our son’s neurological and mental health challenges to continue (despite our fervent prayers!) we came to see how we had reduced our relationship with God to a formula – we perform A, B and C, and God responds appropriately.  It became increasingly apparent that the formula wasn’t working.

Developing a new understanding of God’s love for us took time, but part of the puzzle was realizing that His love doesn’t shield us from suffering. He knows the value of allowing His children to experience both darkness and light during our sojourn on earth. And suffering becomes more meaningful and fruitful as we gaze on Christ’s suffering on the cross. We received these insights from Catholic teaching, and from connecting with God in new ways through the Sacraments. It changed the way we looked at God, in much the same way Job was changed through his experience with suffering: “Before, I knew you only by hearsay, but now, having seen you with my own eyes, I retract what I have said, and repent in dust and ashes.” (Job 42: 5,6) These insights also revealed to us Christ’s desire, above all else, to be with us, and in us, and working through us, as we walk the road of joy/love/pain. Jesus walked that road Himself, and has continued to walk it with His followers for over 2000 years. That’s pretty much the story of the Catholic Church in a nutshell – countless saints and sinners, moving forward together in time towards our heavenly home, in close companionship with a merciful Saviour who knows us intimately, and calls us friends.

St. Francis saw suffering as an avenue to actively demonstrate his love for Christ. He realized other gifts and blessings were freely given to him by the Holy Spirit, but suffering was one gift he could give back – a way of showing his devotion to the Lord. St. Francis’ explanation of perfect joy was this: “Above all the graces and all the gifts of the Holy Spirit which Christ grants to His friends is the grace of overcoming oneself and accepting willingly, out of love for Christ, all suffering…” Such a foreign concept in our western society today, where avoiding suffering or even discomfort seems to be our primary goal!

And so my husband and I have come to appreciate the opportunities that come our way to join in Pope Benedict’s challenge to participate in the New Evangelization ­– to be bearers of good news.  It’s not about being heavy-handed or self-righteous, but simply sharing our stories in a spirit of humility and friendship, and pondering together some of the insights we’ve gained along the way. It’s a wonderful way of celebrating “the joy of believing.”

Silence Is Golden

As summer draws to a close, I recently realized that I haven’t blogged for quite a while.  It’s been a busy two months, with our daughter and her new husband returning to live in Calgary from Nairobi, Kenya….my sister’s beautiful wedding….and personally, embarking on a new project as editor of a Faith and Arts Journal called Kolbe Times. Another big highlight of the summer was that our youngest son got his first real job. He is 20 years old, and you might wonder what took him so long. Peter is a special guy in many ways. He has a number of neurological disorders, including Tourette Syndrome and Asperger’s Syndrome.  He’s bright, and funny, and kind – but he also has challenges with social situations, with anxiety and with “tics”, the hallmark of Tourette’s.  So when he finally felt confidant enough to apply for a job in a little video game store near our home – and when he got the job! – we were all ecstatic.  It’s going really well.

But because he has to “hold in” his tics while he’s at work, he often comes home exhausted and needing a break.  Talking is difficult at these times, because the minute he opens his mouth he gets flooded with “vocal tics” – in his case a barking sound that he can’t stop – which makes communication impossible.  So he and I have started “talking” in other ways – hand signals, big hugs, smiles, texting each other on our phones (even when we’re in the same room), and little post-it notes.  It’s bizarre, but living life with a special-needs offspring is often bizarre, as many parents will tell you.

The whole experience has challenged me to express myself in smaller and smaller sound bites.  When you are used to expressing yourself freely and copiously, it’s difficult to put a lid on it when you have something interesting to say.  Or even when you have something not-so-interesting to say.  But it’s been a very good exercise in “small is beautiful” – and learning to become friends with silence.

I think the biggest thing I’ve learned from this is that we all talk too much.  We too often feel the need to give unwanted advice, suggestions and opinions.  We too often feel the need to have the last word, or to share unnecessary information (also known as gossip), or to brag about something, or to justify our behaviour, or to show our cleverness with a sarcastic remark. Too often, words take the place of actions that would do a better job of encouraging and supporting our loved ones. Too often words are all about us getting our own way, instead of just quietly letting things unfold as they should. Too often our words drown out the words of others, and drown out the flow of God’s love and guidance.

Richard Rohr shares some good insights about silence in his book Contemplation in Action:

“One good thing that silence and waiting has taught me is that our lives are always usable by God. We need not always be effective, but only transparent and vulnerable. Then we are instruments, no matter what we do. Silence is the ability to trust that God is acting, teaching and using me – even before I perform, or after my seeming failures. Silence is the necessary space around things that allows them to develop and flourish without my pushing.” 

As my son would say, “Shhhh…”

The Invisible Ones

The Mass readings lately have been focused on Jesus’ time travelling from village to village, teaching and healing the sick.  It struck me, as I reflected on the readings, that though Jesus responded to the pleas of the synagogue official and the Roman centurion, he deliberately spent the majority of his time with the poor.  He seemed to be always drawn to those in obvious need, the stigmatized, the forgotten, the outcasts, the invisible ones.  Matthew 9 says that Jesus “saw the crowds and had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.” 

Why is it that we so often feel drawn to people on the other end of the spectrum?  We give our attention to the powerful, the good-looking, the rich, the talented, the confident ones who are very successful at looking after themselves.  I guess we naturally lean towards people whom we secretly strive to be – and who strives to be an outcast?  But Jesus invites us to follow in his footsteps, to walk with him down the dusty back roads, seeking the people that normally garner no one’s attention.

I was thinking about all this when I was at a mall near our house yesterday. I found myself with some time to kill as I waited for my son to finish an errand.  I plunked myself down on a bench, happy to get off my feet for a few minutes and, as is my habit, got my iPhone out of my backpack to check my email, have a peek at Facebook and maybe text a friend. But then I reflected again about the choices Jesus made as he wandered around the countryside with his disciples – about how he chose to counsel the lost, heal the sick, rescue the demon-possessed, give sight to the blind, give a voice to the voiceless.  I put away my iPhone and looked around me.  And there, sitting on the other end of the bench, was an elderly man whom I hadn’t even noticed. 

He had long greasy white hair, a stringy beard, baggy flannel pants and an old gray jacket. His glasses were dirty and askew on his wrinkled face.  He smiled at me, and I noticed he had a front tooth missing. I smiled back and thought about God’s sense of humour in this chance encounter.  I made a remark to the old man about how nice it was to sit down and take a break. We chatted about the weather, and I noticed he had a slight English accent. I took a deep breath as our conversation about the weather came to an end, and asked him if he was from England.  Well, it was like a dam suddenly burst.

The old man started telling me about his boyhood days in a little village in Kent, how he came to Canada with his wife shortly after they were married, how they never were able to have children but they had a very happy life together, how his wife died a few years ago, how a very kind neighbour was keeping an eye on him and sometimes brought him soup.  I found out that he lives close to the mall, and that it’s an almost daily destination for him and his trusty walker.  He was funny, and engaging, and sweet, and smart – and it hurt me to think that most days he has nobody to talk to.  Pretty soon I didn’t even notice his missing tooth and his funny pants.

I was almost sad when my son arrived, errand complete.  I told the old man how much I’d enjoyed our chat, and was surprised to realize that it was true.  I also told him I’d look for him next time I’m at the mall.  I want to hear more about his boyhood days in England, and I’d love to find out what brought him to Canada.  I want to know more about his wife, whom he spoke about so fondly.  I’d like to invite him to join my son and I at the mall’s Food Fair for a bite to eat.

The Responsorial Psalm in today’s Liturgy of the Word is from Psalm 102: “Seek always the face of the Lord.”  That’s what the Holy Spirit was leading me to do at the mall yesterday, I think...with St. Francis cheering me on.  And I am richer for it. 

"Any society, any nation, is judged on the basis of how it treats its weakest members -- the last, the least, the littlest."                                     ~Cardinal Roger Mahony

Jacob's Ladder

I recently was very touched by a Letter to the Editor in our newspaper.  The writer was responding to the “right to die” debate that has been re-ignited in Canada in the past few weeks. A recent ruling in one of our provincial courts struck down parts of Canada’s law banning “doctor-assisted deaths”.

The letter-writer was dismayed about the ruling, and described her husband’s death as a time of sorrow, but also a time of tenderness and great love.  Here’s an excerpt from the letter:

“The last year of my husband's life was the most meaningful year of our entire marriage and I considered it a great privilege to be able to care for him. When you know someone is going to pass from this life to the next, love is intensified and each word, look and touch becomes a treasure that will stay with the one, and travel to eternity with the other. I would not have changed one minute of his lingering from the prognosis of three months to his death one full year later. And neither would he. Even as he lost consciousness, he fought to remain with me; in death, as in life, he gave me everything he could. What we fail to understand is that pain and suffering born for love become joy and peace beyond all measure.”

Her words reminded me of my own mother’s last few years.  Mom died on November 27, 2010, and her last years with us were tainted by the challenges and suffering of Alzheimer’s disease.  It was not an easy time, for her or for us.  But as I reflect back on those years, my Mom became the epicentre of our affection, and that experience spilled over and filled our lives with affection for others.  The nursing home staff became our new family members.  Neighbours became treasured sources of support.  Good friends became our lifeline, giving us courage to go on. Relationships with extended family deepened profoundly.

My Dad and my siblings and I were so focused on loving Mom and caring for her that we couldn’t help but be affected emotionally and spiritually.  We all grew in important ways – learning to express our feelings more openly, to hug each other more frequently, to thank God for each new day more wholeheartedly, to forgive trivial hurts more quickly. And when Mom’s life was drawing to a close, each moment burned brightly, because each moment became very precious. 

I have some incredible memories from the week before Mom’s death, when none of us could bear to leave her side: memories like standing with my family around her bedside, holding hands and saying the Lord’s Prayer together through our tears.  Listening with fervent thankfulness and joy to a visiting chaplain as he serenaded my mom at her bedside with a lovely rendition of “Amazing Grace” in his lilting tenor voice.  Being soothed in ways beyond words by the music therapist who brought her harp into Mom’s room and played for us until her fingers hurt.  Eating cookies that the overworked nursing home staff would bake at home and bring to work for us.  Sitting around Mom’s bed for hours with my Dad and my siblings, taking turns stroking her hands while sharing funny stories from our childhood days and laughing until our faces hurt. 

The most sacred moments in life are sometimes the hardest. In grief, we can clearly see the things that make life most beautiful and most meaningful.  It’s very difficult to explain, but what I learned from my Mom’s last weeks was that the little moments of joy that we experience in seasons of sorrow can be the most intense of any we’ll ever experience. I read somewhere that Jewish scholars teach that the ladder Jacob saw in his dream represents the fortunes of life – good and bad, up and down. Some angels were ascending the ladder, while others were descending. Both the ascending angels and the descending angels are sacred. Our lives are made sacred by moments of intense joy, and also by moments of unbearable grief. 

Sometimes they are the same moments, on the same ladder.

 

Door To Eternity

            Don’t you just love finding a new author whose work you love?  A few years ago a good friend introduced me to Irma Zaleski, and soon after that I was addicted.  Born in 1931, Zaleski was educated in England after her family fled Poland during the Second World War.  She now lives in Toronto, and unbeknownst to me before I started reading her books, is actually one of Canada’s most popular spiritual writers.  Some of her titles, which I now happily own, are The Way of Repentance, Living the Jesus Prayer, Who Is God, Finding Christ Within, Who am I, Conversion of the Heart, God Is Not Reasonable and Mother Macrina.

            Her books are short, with very brief chapters, which one might think would make for an easy, quick read.  But I find that her writing is often so profound and thought-provoking that I have to sit and ponder and re-read almost every chapter. My journals are littered with quotes from her books.  She never ceases to give me food for thought, and often opens the way to a deeper perspective of my beliefs, or sheds a new light on events in my life.  She takes me up on the balcony and helps me see the “bigger view”. 

            I have read some of her books more than once, and they always seem to provide me with fresh insights.  As you can tell by now, I’m a big fan.  Because her books are so small and compact, I often have one tucked away in my bag, in case I am ever stuck in a line-up or a waiting room. Right now I am reading her 2001 book Door to Eternity (Novalis Press).  Here’s a sample of her writing from Chapter Three:

“Belief in the possibility of coexistence of time and eternity lies at the root of all religion.  Religion can be even, perhaps, defined as a path, or a “ladder” to such a coexistence.  Christian teaching makes the truth of this belief absolutely clear.  The creed, the liturgy, the sacraments, the icons, proclaim it:  Christ, a man like us, born at a precise moment of history, living in a small corner of the Roman Empire, dying on the hill of Calvary, buried and risen on the third day, and Christ the Eternal Word, coexistent with the Father.  Christ with us now, on earth, and Christ, already ascended into heaven, sitting in glory at the right hand of the Father.  Christ the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End, in whom time and eternity meet.  And so it is with us.  We are here, at this specific moment of our lives, still bowed down under the burden of our mortality, but the hour of our passing is already known and present to God, who is beyond time.  We are already immersed in his glory and light.  We have been baptized into Christ’s death and are buried with him, but we have also already risen with him and are with him in eternity, at home.  This is the great mystery of faith, the reality of the eternal presence of God “in whom we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17: 28). Yet, because we cannot know it – because we cannot grasp it with our finite, human minds or see it with our earthly eyes – it appears to us as darkness and we are afraid.”