A Long Ago Catholic Education

Messages have started to pop up on Facebook re: the reunion week-end nearly upon us for my Catholic school, which I attended as a boarding student in grades seven through nine. I was a nonreligious girl from a borderline Methodist family when I landed in that new and alien world. At the time, I had a stepsister who had spent one (!) high school year in a Catholic boarding school in Florida as her parents divorced. My father visited her a couple of years ago and told her about my seminary journey, to which she responded,

"Ha! The nuns won!"

I thought it would be fun, with our reunion coming up and FB posts appearing from women whom I can remember exactly as they were as the teenagers with whom I lived, to repeat a post from some time ago about my Catholic school years:

Picture: A scrawny twelve-year-old girl with humiliatingly nondescript short brown hair and bangs, wearing a brand new plaid jumper, a pastel blouse with a Peter Pan collar, and black flats. She is being ushered through the high-ceilinged corridors of the convent, hugely built in the mid-1800s and home to classrooms, dormitories, elegantly crafted shelves and woodwork, well-appointed parlours, kitchens, dining halls ("refectories" in convent parlance), and cloistered chambers for nuns.

Her guide is a nun -- and whatever that might be, the place is crawling with them. They are all decked out in long black habits and starched white wimples (new vocabularly words for our heroine), with crosses jammed into their black belts like hunting knives and lengthy strands of black beads swaying against the folds of their skirts. (The word "rosary" is, also, as of yet unknown.) As they reach the enormous Gothic chapel, our young lady discovers that most of the women and girls, upon entering the door, dip their fingers into a container of water and make a mysterious sign across their bodies. They kneel in the aisle and then sidle into the long pews, where they again kneel on little cushioned benches that seem to have been placed there for just such a purpose. Being sort of Methodist, our observer has never seen anyone kneel in church -- not that she has ever encountered holy water or the sign of the cross, either. But she is willing to wait things out patiently. She is only twelve, but she has encountered enough new situations in life to know that there is no point in assuming or expecting anything. Whatever happens will always be something far different from anything that could have been anticipated.

The only man in evidence, grandly dressed in long robes, is at the altar, where he lifts an enormous round gold container of sorts into the air and chants something unintelligible. Most of the crowd in the pews chants right back. Within a few moments, all is made transparently clear: nothing will ever be comprehensible again. There will be no clarification of beads, crucifixes, water, hand signs, kneeling, nuns or chants -- it turns out that every single word is spoken in Latin.

And thus I was introduced to the Roman Catholic faith. A pre-Vatican II faith, in which young women were graduated from high school and immediately entered the convent, in which priests were placed on pedestals so high you could barely see them.

What was I doing there? My father and his brothers were graduates of a high-profile New England prep school and, while he wanted the same for me, my dad was convinced that our local school system was not up to the job of preparing me (to be prepared). He knew the nuns who ran the school -- it was 20 minutes further out into the country from our home. Many girls from our community attended the nuns' school, albeit as day students. I have my stepmother, a woman not much interested in children, to thank for getting me out of the house on a permanent basis by the beginning of seventh grade.

In other words, I had arrived at a Catholic boarding school, kicking and screaming against my forced separation from my friends, for academic and family reasons. No one in my family seems to have given a thought to the RELIGIOUS facet of the school, which would come to permeate my daily life. I can only conclude now that my family was so a-religious (not anti-religious; just oblivious to the whole concept of religion) that it never occurred to them that anyone took it seriously. Not even nuns.

Here, in a nutshell, was life in a Catholic girls' boarding school in the mid-1960s:

blue wool skirts and white blouses designed in, oh, maybe 1940;

daily religion classes, Catholics and nonCatholics segregated from one another, but both taught by nuns;

long and narrow dormitories in which we slept on beds in rows of cubicles curtained off from one another;

the Beatles, the Stones, and the Supremes blasting from deeply recessed windows in hundred-year-old buildings;

a weekly liturgical music class and a weekly choral music class;

cigarettes in the bathrooms and in the fields behind the school;

skirts rolled up to reveal several inches of thigh;

Sunday Mass, Friday Mass, and, often, several other masses;

basketball with nuns in ankle-length habits;

Saturday morning sewing classes, which I avoided by hiding out on the soccer field;

Latin, statues, holy water, medals, missals, lacy caps for entering the chapel, tattered books on the gory and self-sacrificial lives of the saints, crosses all over the place, brief periods of freedom on late afternoon horseback rides, prayers before meals and classes, slipping out and curling up in those deep window wells for late night conversations long after the nuns had gone to bed;

numerous hours devoted to the development of carefully designed plots for infiltrating the cloistered area of the buildings where the nuns lived in order to research the answer to that endlessly challenging and earth-shaking question: What kind of underwear do nuns wear?

And, since it was the 60s: the Smothers Brothers, Lyndon Johnson, Martin Luther King, Robert Kennedy, and Walter Kronkite.

If you watched the tv show American Dreams a few years ago, you could see in Meg's school some strong similarities to my own. The main difference, of course, was that we lived there, 24/7, and so it was nuns, may of them remarkably young and entirely Catholic, who filled in for parents.

I left that school after ninth grade as an agnostic at best, more probably an atheist. I had had my fill of religious indoctrination and, as a nonCatholic surrounded by medieval ritual, I emerged with a vastly enlarged capacity for skepticism. But I did make three gains that equipped me well for life:

In the first place, I became accustomed to a world in which women managed their own lives. The convent sat on acreage far out in the country and the nuns ran their farm, their convent, and their school. Men were seldom in evidence. Oh, there was a priest, but since I was not Catholic, his presence was of little significance to me. I didn't make confession or take communion or study with the upperclass Catholics, so I had virtually no interaction with him. I never had any reason to surmise that adult women were in need of male approval or cooperation for their endeavors.

Secondly, the nuns were, on the whole, particularly broad-minded women. Probably one of the most significant episodes of my entire educational career occurred when Sister Collette, who taught our nonCatholic religion class in 8th or 9th grade, decided that we would study comparative religions. An extremely young woman schooled entirely in the Roman Catholic tradition, she tried to teach us basic Catholicism, since that was what she knew. We, her irritable and difficult students, did not hesitate to communicate to her that her information conflicted with what we had picked up in various Protestant Sunday Schools. After running into several 13 and 14-year-old brick walls, she announced that she had realized that she knew nothing about religions other than her own, and so we were going to study them together. I don't remember any specifics about what we studied -- although I do know that the only Seder I have ever attended was the one we put together in our little pastel-painted Catholic classroom in the heart of midwestern farmland-- but I have always remembered her fearless and open-minded decision about what we should learn and how we should do it -- with respectful interest and graciousness.

Finally, I learned, without recognizing it as a life skill, to form friendships with other girls and women. I learned to see the members of my gender as reliable, trustworthy, and desirable confidants. I learned that girls and women are smart, talented, strong, funny, and hugely determined people. A few years ago, I attended my first reunion, and spent an afternoon with women I had last hung out with when we were 14 together. It was so easy. When you have talked with a good friend all afternoon and late into the night, month after month -- well, it's an incredible way to live as a young girl. I suppose that we were too independent of adult supervision, and too limited in our encounters with the opposite gender (not for want of trying, believe me), but we learned how to be with women.

Don't misunderstand me -- I would not recommend that a twelve-year-old live away from home. But there are always compensations, and the company of strong women, whether twelve or 80 years old, is one of them.

Summer + Backyard + Photoshop

Don't Get Me Wrong ~

Jennifer, who's given me lots of support, left a comment on my previous post indicating that I'm leaving the impression that my seminary is a place of discouragment.

Not the case ~ except in isolated (and yes, frustrating) circumstances. On the whole it's a gentle and supportive place. Certainly it's a friendly place. But I do experience it differently than most.

One of the struggles in coming to terms with traumatic and severe bereavement lies in the effort to forge a new identity, the old one having been irreparably torn to pieces. The geography and terrain are the same, the circumstances of life seem vaguely familiar, but your own boundaries and priorities are in flux, and there are going to be painful clashes.

It seems to me that there are three basic ways of dealing with a loss like ours. We are all of us strung out along the spectrum, but still: three basic approaches.

First, you can dwell entirely in your grief. It may seem to some that I do that and, of course, sometimes I do. But I read a lot about surviving suicide, and I know well that there are many parents who remain almost completely dysfunctional years after the death of their child. It's tempting ~ every move toward life feels like an abandonment of your child, and sometimes in the constant pull between the place of despair and the place of hope, despair wins. And for some, despair wins almost all of the time, a situation about which I can make no judgment whatsoever.

Other extreme ~ you can deny deny deny and proceed with life as usual. I know a lot about this M.O., it being the one my family of origin has always practiced. There seems to be some kind of (entirely erroneous) belief that by not acknowledging horror publicly or out loud, you can alleviate the pain. I suppose such an approach does make it easier for those outside the immediate circle of grief ~ but in my experience it makes it more difficult and longer lasting for those within.

And finally, there is the approach I am trying out, in my own blundering, confused,and erratic way: I really do try to integrate what has happened with the reality that remains. That means that I say words like "suicide" out loud and that I express my anguish ~ more than others would like, no doubt, but far less than I feel it. It means that I recount funny and sweet stories about my son without self-consciousness. It means that I do not pretend that everything I have believed ~ about God, about the universe, about other people and my relationships with them ~ has not been drawn into question. It means that I still try to sort out the completely irrational from what few things still make sense and that I am trying to rebuild from scratch.

And it means that I am incredibly sensitive to what goes on around me, to things that seem ordinary to everyone else involved. It means that the most innocuous remark can feel like a knife scraping my skin off and that a genuine conflict, no matter how minor, feels like the top of a volcano flying off. It means that a sermon intended to be encouraging, and so perceived by everyone else who hears it, sounds like words of eternal damnation and hellfire to me.

It's been a year now. More than a year. It will be always, at least in this life. Life and death completely and always intertwined, altering all pathways of perception.

And most certainly altering the experience of a seminary education.


Cross-posted at Desert Year.

Rundown of Day 2

Hebrew Exegesis is going to be fine.

Middle of the day: Very bad. Run-in over certain administrative rules I have unwittingly broken, the breaking of which produced some of my best educational experiences here. Result: Foul taste in my mouth over issue of rules versus meaningful learning.

Chapel: 0 for 2. One of the very few Gospel verses that has given me any solace during the past year was given a decidedly different twist by today's preacher. It felt as if a knife had been plunged into my gut and twisted, and I departed before communion, something I don't do. Well, actually, I've done it twice in the past several months. I'm thinking that it would be better sometimes to skip the preaching of the Word and proceed directly to the Sacrament. Those of you who are Reformed will recognize that as a fairly dire statement of desolation. Those of you who are not ~ well, we do Word all the time without Sacrament, but never vice versa. However, having now sat through several sermons which have caused me considerable pain, I'm ready to scratch them from my daily life for awhile.

And that from someone who is in seminary in part because she loves both preaching and listening to preaching. Or used to, anyway.

Day considerably redeeemed by spending the afternoon engaged in a wide-ranging conversation with my advisor.

Long walk; beautiful evening.

Two hours spent translating three Hebrew verses. Sort of. Could not have done it without English version also on desk, and still several of the words have refused to reveal themselves in the dictionary. I know what they are, but I'm damned if I can figure out what their roots are so that I can find them.

Going to read Bonhoeffer. Now there's someone I'm willing to listen to.

First Day Back

I'm not writing in my other blog for awhile, because my feelings are too raw these days to share in even a tiny and relatively anonymous public forum. So, over here, I'll just relay a little of how life in general is going:

The downsides:

People talking at me for six hours today, because it's the first day back; that's about five hours and 59 minutes too much of beng talked AT.

This morning's convocation sermon entitled "I'm So Happy To be Alive," which was preached one year to the hour from when three of us were sitting at my son's funeral, my son whose experience of life a week earlier had been so tortured that he could think of nothing but ending it. My best friend was sitting next to me this morning and ased if I heard any of it. "I listened to every word," I said. "I have to figure out how to get through these things." But now, twelve hours later, I remember nothing except how very painful it was to get through.

The upsides:

Seeing friends! Good conversations.

I am, as I had hoped, going to love my Church and Sacraments class. We have to write a short paper on how technology like church websites, blogging, twitter, etc. and their creation of disembodied relationships affects the church, for good and for ill. Will she admit to blogging or not? Maybe y'all can help me write the paper.

I was not looking forward to my required education class at all. Apparently there are many of us with graduate work and much experience as educators, however, and I found the professor to be delightful. It might be kind of nice to take some time to reflect somewhat systematically on the practice of religious education.

I'm all moved in to the dorm room which I will inhabit three nights a week for just one more year so, while I never did get around to reviewing Hebrew today, I now have a pleasant space in which a person who wanted to do such a thing COULD work on Hebrew.

I do not, actually, know such a person. Nevertheless, I now have to go and take a look at all that I've forgotten in the past five weeks, which is pretty much all of it.

Return to Seminary

Tomorrow at the crack of dawn I will the make the two-and-one-half hour (I hope!) drive back to seminary, arriving (again, I hope!) in plenty of time for my first class of the quarter at 10:00 a.m. That means that today will mostly be a leisurely rotation of laundry and packing, reviewing a little Hebrew, walking, cleaning house, and paying bills.

I am apprehensive and not a little envious and and a tiny bit resentful. When Josephine writes about her seminary experience, it sounds as joyful and filled with community and energy and delight as one might possibly hope for. (Her retreat sounded ideal, as well. Sigh.) I see on FB that the folks already back at my school for this past orientation week are similarly filled with exuberant anticipation. (Except for possibly one, who did not elaborate on a surprisingly (for FB) dark note.) Those would be the folks who, with only four or five exceptions, have never mentioned my son to me, or the reason I was not back in school a year ago at this time.

I was like them two years ago, but my life has changed. And there is nothing to do but endure it. Sometimes people ask me how I survive and the answer apparently is: like this. You do the next thing. You cannot wait for joy, or energy, because they are as elusive as the wind. You do the next thing, and you hope, in a reluctant sort of way, that someday things like energy and joy will return in some new and as yet unimagined form.

It's not that there aren't things to look forward to. I have some wonderful friends at school and tomorrow we'll be in class and chapel together and then at least a couple of us, behind the 8-ball for different reasons, will spend lunch discussing our field education assignments. I'm eager to study Church and Sacraments and grateful that one of our most outstanding professors teaches it. In another day I'll be in conversation about the new spiritual direction program just underway, on the advisory board of which I serve. And perhaps, with no chores beckoning, I will settle into Hebrew once again.

But I know that my experience of all those things differs in fundamental ways from that of all my classmates and professors. In some ways my perspective is off-balance; in others, more on target than ever before. Essentially, I feel completely alone. I plan to do a lot of listening and little talking this year ~ which is always a good thing, I suppose.

Today's reading from the PC(USA) website seems particularly apt for someone beset by the enemies which plague me, someone invisibly fighting her way through brambles and swamps:

Psalm 51

Give ear to my words, O LORD;
give heed to my sighing.
2 Listen to the sound of my cry,
my King and my God,
for to you I pray.
3 O LORD, in the morning you hear my voice;
in the morning I plead my case to you, and watch.
4 For you are not a God who delights in wickedness;
evil will not sojourn with you.

***

8 Lead me, O LORD,
in your righteousness because of my enemies;
make your way straight before me.
9 For there is no truth in their mouths;
their hearts are destruction . . . .

Amen.

Future in Ministry: Two or Three Things

The novelist and short story writer F. Scott Fitzgerald once made the point that every novelist has two or three things to say, which he or she repeats in various forms throughout a lifetime of writing.

At the time I encountered that statement, I was a college student reading through most of his work, and young enough that most things were still fresh and new. The idea that the essence of a person's thought, experiences, approach to life, might be boiled down to two or three ideas, was one of those fresh and new things, and one of the few I never forgot.

Many years later, as I was become an aficionado of the sermon genre, it became apparent that the same statement could be made of preachers. Preachers, like novelists, reveal themselves through words that dance around and through a couple of major themes, the difference being that preachers' themes tend to emerge from the kaleidescopic lens of the Bible.

And then, my first year in seminary, one of my professors mentioned this same reality. And many of the students, not much older than I had been in college, found his words to be as fresh and new as I had Scott Fitzgerald's.

Fresh and new or fresh and old ~ it doesn't matter. I think that we all have ways of focusing, of narrowing in, on our lives and work characteristic of who we are in our deepest, richest, most authentic selves and, if God so graces us, we are permitted to express those selves to others in our work as well as in our kitchens and living rooms and bedrooms.

With my formal training in spiritual direction behind me and one year of seminary left, I have started to think about what my own Two or Three Things might be. I have no idea to what work I will be invited when this second academic portion of my life comes to a conclusion; like an adolescent, I imagine one thing one day and another the next. I probably have, if I remain healthy, fifteen or so years of very active ministry ahead of me, and then, I hope, many years beyond that of perhaps spiritual direction and writing. (You don't have to remind me, of course, that prediction is a futile activity. But one needs to think in general terms, at least.)

I don't know what my activities might entail, but a sense of what my calling is has begin to bubble up. That sense ~ my Two or Three Things, the ones that matter so much to me that I might test each proposed act or potential word (or flow of words!) against them ~ is merely at the beginning stage of a work in progress at the moment.

I wish I had thought of this when I was twenty ~ of trying to boil down to two or three the things that most mattered to me about how to live my life and contribute my gifts to the vast river of lives and gifts that creates the human community. Now, with fewer years ahead of me than behind, it has become an essential task.

And so, my first vague try. Three Things, without (much) elaboration at this point:

"My work is loving the world." (Messenger, by Mary Oliver)

Our narratives are called into life by God our Creator and blend into the narrative of Jesus through the Spirit. It is essential that we tell and live our stories in order that we as God's most beloved may be transformed into whom God calls us to be. (My personal summary of the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises.)

"Be gentle, for everyone you meet is carrying a great burden." Philo of Alexandria. Those of us who have crouched down and wailed into the dry desert wind need to share that story and and open our eyes against the blinding grains of sand, so that we see more clearly and can share more willingly the weight others carry, freeing them to share and live their stories as well. (A sort of subchapter of my Second Thing, bourne out of the past year of my life.)

What about you? Have you thought about what your Two or Three Things are? Do you consciously try to live them out? Are you able to dispense with those things no longer at the core of your being, and center yourself on those that are?

25th Birthday

Matt and Josh in St. Augustine
June 2004
(They were almost 20)

Mothers Meeting

Chris lives in a magical place, just above a Great Lake. She prepared a delightful lunch for us and then we walked down the path through the trees and as far as we could on the beach with her chocolate lab Harry, whose enthusiasm for plunging and re-plunging into the water after a piece of wood does not wane.

We shared in some detail our stories of motherhood shattered by unexpected destruction. Chris's only daughter Sarah was lost two years ago to the rocks and raging waves off the Cinque Terre, a place of utter tranquility when my family had walked there a few years earlier. We described those first days and weeks after the deaths of our children to one another and, in her case, the extraordinary warmth and graciousness of the Italian people, both when her daughter died and a year later when Chris and her family returned to the spot where Sarah died. It's now marked with a plaque and a copy of the beautiful painting of Sarah created by an Italian artist from one of the last photos (which graces the front page of Chris's blog) of that adventurous, creative, gifted girl. Chris shared some extraordinary photographs and videos with me, and we talked about what it is like to have had experiences like these and what it is like to go on, to rebuild lives in the face of mystifying devastation.

Today I began reading a remarkable book, about which I'll write more after next week. However, since my friends know I always read the end first, I will conclude for the time being with the final paragraph, which applies, regardless of the form of loss, to heartbroken but still standing mothers, walking the beach and wondering . . .

Love is selfless, firm, intense, and even dazzling. Its strength outlasts death. Its bond overpowers loss. Its courage defies inhibition. It has no end. . . . I carry with me a strength that comes from survival and a tenderness that comes from loving, losing, searching, and remembering.

Quieting Down

Over at my other place, I'm settling in for this upcoming anniversary week.

I have a big week-end ahead first, as the program in which I've studied spiritual direction for the past two years has its annual retreat starting tomorrow, with Sunday marked by our class certification ceremony.

This having been our internship year (upon which, for obvious reasons, I took my time embarking), I haven't had much to say in public. A spiritual direction relationship is such a confidential one that it seems to me that it would violate someone's trust to say anything even vaguely specific (an oxymoron if ever there was one!) about it. But I can say that I have done a considerable amount of direction work this year ~ some regular monthly direction, some one-time meetings, and a variety of personal retreat work, meeting with people every day for a church or college sponsored week, every week for a Lenten retreat, and every week for the full-blown Ignatian Exercises, which take close to a year.

St. Ignatius referred to his work as "giving" the Exercises, rather than as "directing" someone. He had, 450 years ago, a nuanced sense of collaboration and an understanding that what he had to share was truly a gift ~ the gift of presence to the journey of another. It has been a wondrous gift to me this year, to discover that even among the rocky shoals of my own life, I still have something to offer others.

And so ~ I have one more post to write about today's wonderful meeting with another mother, assuming I get the photos uploaded tomorrow, and then I'm going to spend a couple of days away, and then it will be quiet around here for awhile.

Health Care Rationing

Yesterday Teri Gross offered an excellent interview with writer T.R. Reid, who visited health care providers in several countries to assess their provision of health care. Among other things, he compares and contrasts their responses to a shoulder problem he presented. I have yet to hear the entire thing, but I'm going to try to listen today.

The section that struck me: his assertion that we, too, already ration health care ~ in response to the argument raised against reform to the effect that we will follow other countries by imposing a rationing system.

True enough, a country like great Britain rations specialized care, as he discovered when he sought advice about his shoulder. However, the trade-off is that basic care is available to everyone across the board.

We do somewhat the opposite. For some of us ~ my husband and I for example, thanks to a corporate health care package that costs us out-of-pocket "only" about $4,000 a year plus deductibles and co-pays ~ extensive and sophisticated medical care is easily available. We live within two miles of two internationally recognized and university-affiliated hospitals and we have eye and dental coverage. Our daughter's minor surgery last spring, for which the bill ran $14,000, added about $1,000 to our annual out-of-pocket costs, but it was performed by a world class surgeon who was easily accessible to us, as he had been when she had had the original surgery 18 years ago.

We as a nation are able to achieve the above because we ration health care at the outset: we simply eliminate entire groups of people from even the most basic preventative care. Our son, a restaurant server in a job in which his supervisors carefully ensure that he not work the hours that would require his employer to provide benefits, pays about $100 a month for a catastrophic plan that provides no well-person care and covers no pre-existing conditions, including any that occue under a period in which he has been covered by said plan. Actually, I'm sure that any serious illness or injury in one six-month payment period would ensure (pun intended) the loss of his minimalistic coverage and prevent him from obtaining it anywhere else. If he gets an infection that requires antibiotics, he will no doubt be out another $200 for the urgent care visit and meds. Despiter those two fabulous hospitals down the hill, he has no regular doctor as, I have heard, is the case for a huge percentage of Americans in their 20s without fulltime employment with one employer. Why would he? He can't afford the $200 I (or rather, our plan) was charged for an introductory visit to a new internist.

And he's actually in great shape ~ he lives at home and has parents who, even if he didn't, would foot the bill for his care to the extent that we could. (As we are probably about to do for flu shots, but could not do for, say, cancer.)(When my brother was 21 and uninsured, he was treated surgically for cancer; no chemo or radiation involved. The total bill at that time, more than 30 years ago, was $15,000. What might it be today?) Our city is full of people, young and old, who can't afford the $100 a month and have no one to pick up the slack for extras.

So yes, we do ration. Extensively.

Live-Blogging Mad Men

The Lovely Daughter in response to Ann-Margret's singing in Bye Bye Birdie: Did people like that noise?

Pete has to bring up his illustrious great-great-grandfather.

LD: Why does Pete have Paul and Ken has everybody else?

Gregarious Son: Don can sell a woman in a white dress a ketchup popsicle.

Pregnant Betty drinking wine and smoking a cigarette.

GS in response to Peggy's imitation of Ann-Margret: Peggy doesn't like it so much now that the guys are treating her like one of them.

LD: I'd rather be treated like a guy than a secretary at that place.

GS on Ann-Margret: She's very good looking; I don't think anyone cares what she sounds like.

LD and GS during commercial break discussing gender and laundry.

GS: So Don has made his wife feel better and gotten his brother-in-law's family out of the house and he doesn't have to pay for it and his father-in-law's house will be untouched. Don is VICIOUS.

Oh please, tell me Peggy is not going to risk another pregnancy.

Betty's father is back in Prohibition.

Peggy's into one-night stands now?

Everyone in our living room, looking at Don looking at teacher: Uh-oh.

LD: Independent brunette women are his downfall.

GS: I don't know about his downfall.

None of us get the ending.

Approaching Church

This morning I will worship for the first time in a church new to me, the church at which I will spend ten or so hours a week in the coming year to meet my field education requirement. It's a very old and historic church in the heart of the city, with a magnificent sanctuary, many outreach ministries, a dwindling congregation, and a new pastor.

A couple of years ago in my home church, we talked about what it might be like for a newcomer to experience one of our worship services. We are a vibrant suburban congregation with a long history of social justice work in the local and broader community, a senior pastor who has been there for 20 years and an associate for five, a sophisticated and diverse music program, a multi-generational and enthusiastic congregation. I have friends from other cities who tell me that if they could find a church like ours they would go, and friends at seminary who express surprise at the breadth of our educational offerings and the openness and eagerness of our members to learning and discussion. And yet we do not grow.

When we had that conversation some time back, we talked about how many roadblocks a new visitor with little or no experience of church, or even just of a Presby church, might find in a first visit. Even the bulletin, intended to be helpful, contained words like processional, confession, pardon, assurance, commission ~ I counted once and found 22 words that someone unfamiliar with our service might not understand in our context. (I just looked at last week's bulletin and see that in this past year in which I have been mostly absent, many of those words have been excised in favor of more familiar ones and/or short explanations. Very interesting.) There is a visually appealing brochure in the pews which tells about the history and internal activities and outreach of the congregation, but there is not, to my knowledge, anything which explains the design and purpose of the sanctuary. If you were to visit, I think that you would feel most welcome, but I'm not sure that you would have much of an idea of that to which you were being introduced.

As many readers know, I have often attended Catholic mass this past year, in an effort to worship quietly and anonymously. Even though I was somewhat familiar with the mass, it took a number of visits for me to feel comfortable. I have gone to mass in four different places and, with the exception of the Jesuit retreat house earlier this month, there has never been anything in place to clue a visitor in to what goes on. No welcoming announcement except, in two of them, an announcement of who the presider is and, in the case of the retreat house, the homilist, as that is usually someone else. No bulletin. No one in the pews or seats who talks to you. These services have suited my purposes, but they are clearly designed for those who already know what happens and what its significance is.

So, in a couple of hours: a new place, which no doubt will strike me as glorious in some ways and nudge me with doubts in others. It's a dark and dreary day outside. I have not slept well in nearly a year and last night was no different. In other words, there is nothing outside or inside to foster the openness of spirit I need for this morning, nothing except the Spirit herself who has led me to a new place in spite of myself, and the longing for a God who has remained mostly hidden for a very long time. A new kind of new beginning.

My Great Housekeeping Triumph

After two weeks of procrastination, today I ventured down into the dungeon, I mean basement, to begin the massive reorganization and cleaning it requires. With two hours of work, I produced a couple of bags of clothing and a pile of backpacks and shoes to give away, and a fairly respectable pile of trash.

And I have found a leak in the pipe where the water comes in from the city system. Water water everywhere ~ at least all over the floor in one corner of the basement. I would not have known about it for at least several weeks if I had not been inspired to clean.

OK, so the photo is a tiny bit of an exaggeration. But still:

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

This is why our living room has not been painted in 25 years.

Whatever. I am off to the vet to buy that expensive prescription food that has kept a certain dog out of the ER for the last two years, before she calls the Animal Planet cops to report that her cupboard is empty.

I will think about the leak later.

Color Where There Is No Place to Put It

A couple of nights ago I stayed over at church as one of the hosts for an IHN week. If your community has an Interfaith Hospitality Network, then you know it's a program designed to offer a tiny bit of a homelike atmosphere to homeless families. Shelters are usually segregated by gender, which tends to split up spouses and divide parents from children. Through IHN, families stay overnight, in their own rooms as much as possible, in participating churches and synagogues for a week at a time. They spend their days at the IHN center, from which children are delivered to school and where parents find phone banks and other resources for housing and job searches.

Most religious communities host IHN families about four separate weeks each year. It's a high people-intensive committment: volunteers are needed to set up and take down, welcome and say good-bye, provide breakfasts and dinners, act as hosts during the early evening hours - mostly to supervise the younger children so the parents can have some privacy, and stay overnight. I figured I could about manage an overnight, with the minimal interaction it would require with either the families or my co-overnighter.

I didn't miss the irony that I was spending the evening with four families who have no homes at present at the same time that I was writing about extravagant home decorating ideas. An odd thing has happened recently in that several possibilities for serving the homeless have suddenly materialized in my life. A friend and former colleague is taking me with her next week to a huge men's shelter where she does poetry workshops. A man is my spiritual direction program is planning his internship around offering spiritual companionship to the homeless. This Saturday I'll be spending some time at the church where I'll be doing my internship this year, on a day when lunch is provided to the homeless. And if I get my act in gear and send an email today, there may be an opportunity for me involving spiritual direction and the homeless in the city in which I attend seminary.

In the very dark days of last winter, my own former spiritual director, working in another city these days, sent me without commentary a short article about Jean Vanier and L'Arche, the communities Vanier founded in which those who are developmentally disabled and those who are not share homes together. Why did you send me this? I asked. I don't know, he answered. I thought about writing something, but I decided to let it take its own course. I can't say that I felt suddenly inspired to anything beyond my own survival, but it did occur to me then in a vague kind of way that perhaps he was trying to tell me that my own life having crashed and burned did not mean that I was forever lost and precluded from helping others.

It's probably premature even to speculate about this turn of events, since all that has happened is that a few seeds have been scattered into my life. But it does make me wonder whether I am moving in a completely unexpected direction. I have a roof over my head and a loving family living in it with me, and yet in some ways as a consequence of the past year I feel completely adrift and homeless. New qualifications, perhaps.

Colors - Third Post, and Almost the Final One

It will probably be no surprise to long-time readers of this blog, although it was to me (isn't that always the way?), that when I began to look at the colors I like now, the words that popped up in the various descriptions were along the lines of retreat and reflective.

Some synonyms for retreat (as a noun), thanks to thesaurus.com:

haven, hermitage, hideaway, hiding place, port, privacy, refuge, retirement, safe house, safe place, sanctuary, seclusion, security, shelter, solitude . . .

and for reflective, via its synonym contemplative:

cogitative, introspective, lost, meditative, musing, pensive, pondering, ruminative, speculative, thoughtful.

The colors ~ all variants on blues and greens and purples, all the colors of the ocean which you may not fully realize, if you haven't stared at is as often as and long and in as many places as I have, offers an endless variation of hue. What I don't know (and as Ruth wisely pointed out in the comments below, I should take my time (even if finances did not mandate a leisurely pace!)) is: do I mean pale tones, colors reflecting the beginning and end of the day? Icier tones indicating a certain degree of reticence and withdrawal? Or do I mean the deeper jewel tones, the ones that work best for my wardrobe?

Wardrobes and homes are different venues for color, of course. Despite my (originally) dark hair and eyes, my skin is quite pale, and so deep colors rather than washed out tones look much better on me. (My daughter's skin is pale as well, but her blue eyes and blond hair practically mandate pastels.) I'm not in the least enamoured of today's multi-print styles; my idea of a great look is something more a la Kate Hepburn ~ tailored black trousers and a cobalt blue shirt. For my home, though ~ I'm not sure. As I was reading blogs the other day, this wonderful mix of colors on Mary Beth's blog caught my eye and I thought: the perfect interior. Then I thought: too much. Maybe the perfect interior would be a paler version of same, with the deeper colors for accents via glass and artwork and the occasional pillow or even chair.

In the everything-is-connected department, the cooler, icier, paler colors are clearly reflective of my personal life and movement toward ministry. The former hostess of Christmas dinners for 40 is no more; these days, I struggle mightily in conversations involving more than a few people (and I say some of the most astonishingly inappropriate things when I get confused about the tenor of the group), but I do love to spend time with a (very few at a time) friends. The preacher and teacher and public speaker are still here, but I am told that I am very present to people one-on-one in a way that I think is not possible for me, at least not now, from the front of a sanctuary or meeting room, and so I feel a definite move toward a focus on chaplaincy and spiritual direction manifesting itself.

And so, I think that I am seeing our home more as a place of refuge and reflection, as a place for quiet conversation and small and simple gatherings, for others as well as our family, than as the place through which soccer players tromped and in which multiple chefs spread massive Christmas buffets. Those days were wonderful, but we have been quite changed, and perhaps what we have to share has as well.

(Illustrative colors courtesy of the Atlantic Ocean off Iona.)

Colors, Part the Second

I can see from the dearth of comments on the post below that no one is interested in my reflections on color. Unlike Portia, who received 14 comments (including mine) on the post that inspired me. Does that reflect something about the age and life experience difference ~ she and her friends are at the beginning, full of optimism, moving from the bridal shower to baby shower stages, while I and mine are in the middle, reeling from life's disappointments and trying to rebuild? There is not a single one of my close group of ten or so friends who has not faced a life-altering confrontation with loss and, in several cases, true disaster, in the past decade. Why would we care in the least about bedroom color or living room decor, you ask?

Well, after reading Portia's post, I spent several hours playing around on websites related to color choices. (Where did I find the time? As it happens, I accomplished a great deal earlier this week but, as I have related and has been repeatedly affirmed to me, grief is exhausting. I have spent the past four days in something of a stupor, recovering from the previous three. Online playtime was practically a necessity.) The information was fascinating and, indeed, therapeutic. Possibly also boring to others, since it's about me me me, so I'll shave it down to three quick observations, with some conclusions in another post.

When we bought our home 25 years ago, the decor consisted of then very-fashionable colors and wallpaper in muted country colors and patterns: rusts, beiges, and sage-type greens found in an endless sequence of tiny prints. (You might notice that none of these colors are featured in my previous post, except as rejects.) But during those early years, as we began to recreate the house in our own image, we deepened but did not steer far from those colors, going toward yellows and blues and some reds. Not being Portia, I gave no thought whatever to any of this, but it seems clear now that my subconscious was steering me toward the creation of a home that beckoned with warmth and welcome. My personal wardrobe, interestingly, was based upon navy (interestingly, attorney Portia's favorite ~ and yes, I know the origin of the name Portia). A website tells me that "Navy carries the blue symbolism of importance, confidence, power, and authority. Darker blue, like navy, is associated with intelligence, stability, unity, and conservatism." Leave out the conservatism and you've got it ~ my approach to life as a young lawyer and then stay-at-home mom and community volunteer.

A few years ago, having recognized that our home no longer reflected our lives, I did a previous set of those House Beautiful type quizzes, one that asked about favorite clothing, geography, art, etc. It became clear that the beach and its colors should be my decorating focus. I thought that perhaps my ideal would be something light and airy and colorful: think Carribean and the covers of Coastal Living. However, we live on the Great Lakes in a home closing in on 100 years old, a home which features dark mahogany and oak woodwork and brass fixtures. I decided we would be better off focusing on the blues and greens of the coasts and waters of the north, Maine and Oregon ~ and even on the interior woods and lakes of Algonquin. I was still thinking warm and welcoming, however, as I was beginning to imagine the utility of this far-too-large-for-us house in terms of adult children and their spouses and children.

The past year has been an excursion into another realm entirely. I wrote a post last winter, I think, about my difficulties in choosing clothing, a dilemma echoed by one of my newly-widowed best friends. Who are we now, we wondered, a son and a husband missing from our lives? The houses raise the same questions as our wardrobes do. Our living room is the one room in our house that has undergone no changes at all in the time we have lived here, and I've been gazing at the walls in increasing desperation. That tiny rust print has no place in my current identity, and it's out of date and dark and not clean. This past week, unable either to stand it or to trade it in for a beach cottage, or even to afford to paint it (maybe soon), I went off to Pier One and purchased some dried plants to add some height and interest to the mantle arrangements. It now looks like someone gives a damn, but the colors are still all wrong. What am I to do? I don't think I'm a warm and welcoming person anymore. What kind of person am I? What kind of home should I keep?

Enter Portia's post, House Beautiful, and this week-end's obsession with color. More to come later, but let me add one thing: if it seems as though I am channeling QG's daughter, I want to say that that girl, without a word about church or prayer or God, has performed a serious ministry to me this week. In writing about something that at her age I would have found baffling and somewhat frivolous, she has opened the door to some serious reflections about identity, loss, and self-expression. Who knew?

Ignatius the Pilgrim Statue Explained

I've been asked why I'm so taken with the statue of Ignatius which stands in the garden at the Guelph Retreat Center (photographs in the two posts below).

Ignatius often referred to himself as a pilgrim. A soldier who experienced a profound conversion during his recuperation from a battle injury, he traveled a great deal in the next several years as he sought to discern God's direction for his life. No doubt he would have preferred the great mission adventures for which his colleague Francis Xavier is famed, but he spent the final portion of his life in Rome, writing the constitutions and letters which formed the documentary backbone of the Society of Jesus. Thus the word "pilgrim" ultimately had for Ignatius the same metaphorical connotation of journey that it does for all Christians.

Replicas of this particular statue are scattered around the world. Here's a description from the plaque at Creighton University (which might be identical to the description of the almost identical statue at Guelph, but I'm not sure), with a good explanation of why I like it so much:

“St. Ignatius Loyola, the first Jesuit, leans into the winds blowing from the ends of the earth, manifestations of God’s power and the wonder of the Incarnation. The letter in his hand symbolizes the need that all humans need to communicate with one another and to discover Christ in each other. Adventurous, yet reflective, St. Ignatius meets God’s challenges as the contemplative in action finding God in all creation.”

Another View

Ignatius the Pilgrim

I'm very fond of this statue at Guelph.

Back

So . . . I didn't last long on retreat. What can I say? ~ It's a harrowing time of life. Disguised in the ordinary.

On Retreat in Canada

Qals and Piels and Hifils, Oh My!

I am sitting in my own living room with Gregarious Son and Lovely Daughter and Quiet Husband, totally vegging out while they watch TV.

For the past 50-some nights, I have not been able to relax for one second without thinking that I should be going through my Hebrew flashcards.

What a bizarre sensation it is, not to have to give a thought to a stack of flashcards or pile of charts or other unintelligible material.

Exam over. Retreat and then month off. Phew.

I Think These Would Have Been Good Questions

(See the previous two posts for an explanation).

How have your family, childhood, and adolescent experiences influenced your life of faith and call to ministry?

You've worked in two other fields. How do your previous experiences affect your understanding and practice of ministry? Is there anything you would like to share about work in the "secular world" which might be helpful to those of us who have spent our entire adult lives in ministry?

What's it been like to go to seminary as a second (OK, third) career student? What have been your favorite courses? Where have you learned the most? Have you had any internship or volunteer experiences you'd like to tell us about?

Could you explain what the term "spiritual direction" means and what your training as a spiritual director has involved?

What did you find enriching about CPE? Do you think it's a worthwhile training ground for future pastors?

What can you share with us about pastoral care in light of your experience since the death of your son? What have you learned about suicide? About parental loss?

What passages of Scripture have been especially meaningful in your life?

What interests you so much about interfaith dialogue? How do you imagine incorporating that priority into your ministry in the church?

I kind of like my questions . . . . If I were questioning me at this stage in the process, these are the sorts of things I'd like to know something about if I were limited to questions about call, life, experience, etc. and precluded from asking about theological matters.

Note to self for any similar future scenarios: Organize what you'd like to communicate about yourself very carefully in your mind so that you have access to it and can speak about it regardless of how the questions are framed.

A learning experience . . . .

Humor and Seriousness

Got back to seminary late last night and reviewed the meeting at some length with Dramatic Friend, a wonderful woman from my Presbytery whom I met last summer during CPE, who showed up here this summer for Hebrew, and who went to the meeting last night to support me.

She goes before Presbytery this fall and, after we rehashed the questions I was asked, she said she thought she'd go to her meeting and say, "Would you please ask me Gannet's questions? We've discussed them thoroughly and so I can answer them, plus ~ I can give you her answers!"

In all seriousness, and it took me awhile, but I realized something that we all should know by this time in life: it's hard to ask good questions in a situation like that. Questions that are conceptual and vast and seem tinged with a bit of an ideological bent are almost impossible to address off the cuff. (Unless, of course, you are a politican, which a couple of my FB friends thought candidacy meant!) The questions that work are those which address the specific and call for a narative answer.

It's the difference between a job interview question such as What's your greatest weakness? and one one along the lines of Could you describe a situation in the last few years in which you've made a big mistake, and how you handled it?

There I was, all prepared to talk about my life (which, yes, is a scary subject these days) and I got huge Scriptural and theological questions, the kinds that fill libraries. Do you suppose, I said to Dramatic Friend, that people thought that, under the circumstances, those would be easier?

The other reality, of course, is that some of what I was asked does not fall within my usual range of contemplation and action, which might explain why I could not translate the questions into stories upon which I might reflect. The upside is that I was reminded that there are things barely on my radar screen which are of great importance to others, just as there are matters of critical concern to me to which other people are oblivious.

Now: I really have to focus on nifal and piel!

Adventures in Ordination

I went to the Presbytery meeting.

No theological questions are permitted at this point -- not until next year. At this point, the questions are supposed to be about your call, spiritual experience, seminary, things like that. I had spent considerable time mulling over the statement I had submitted, trying to see it through different eyes and imagine what questions people might have.

I was asked four questions. One on call and three theological. None on anything I had written.

After the third question, someone in the congregation finally objected. But the fourth one was also theological, albeit better disguised as something personal.

I'm now a candidate in the ordination process.

But I can't say that I'm feeling too terrific.

And I have a Hebrew final in 59 hours.

Week Ahead

Guelph Labyrinth

Big week ahead.

Tomorrow night I go before my Presbytery for the next step in the ordination process. Usually these meetings are upbeat and joyful; mine will most likely edge far to the sober side of the spectrum. I have written candidly about Chicago Son in the statement I have to present, partly because his life and death are now so germane to my call to ministry and partly because I don't want people to feel that they must tiptoe around the edge of whatever real questions they have. I am hoping for some joyful moments at the end!

Thursday morning: our Hebrew final. I have a good grasp on what all the possible issues are (and believe me, that's a huge step forward). The question remains: can I remember how any of them work out? Four more days to cram it all into my brain, a few hours of writing, and then -- over!!!

Saturday I drive to Guelph for my retreat. For eight days the forty or so of us there will spend all of our time in total silence, excepting Mass if we are inclined to attend and a daily meeting with a spiritual director. I have written them about the circumstances of my life, telling them I need a retreat director who is experienced, resilient, and fearless. I have had my moments of trepidation, and long periods of wondering whether attempting to make another retreat, ever, after last year is an indication that I have finally and completely lost my mind ~ but mostly, I can hardly wait.

All of which means that a week from right now I will be surrounded by ~ SILENCE.

Across Pretend Borders

I had an unexpected and wonderful exchange last night which caused me to take a look at my email inbox this morning.

I read a lot of religious blogs ~ no surprise there ~ a few of which are listed in my links. Many of them reflect occasional or, sometimes a lot of, defensiveness, hostility, and anger. Sometimes you know it's coming, because that's just who the writer is. Nothing he or she says could possibly induce you to view the faith reflected in his or her writing as something desirable or even worth exploring. Sometimes it's a surprise. There's a blog written by a woman of a somewhat different persuasion than mine whose writing I've enjoyed tremendously, but twice in the last week she's revealed another side in the form of biting remarks pertaining to my own perspective. (No, I've never linked to her blog.) I'll still read her, because I'm curious about her journey and hope it goes well, but the pleasure is gone.

As for myself, I'm thinking about abandoning my pseudonomynimity (too many syllables?), which has caused me to realize that sometimes I am a bit too uninhibited. Perhaps the name Gannet Girl enables me to believe that I can hide behind a multitude of sins. I do think that I may have written things that might on occasion hurt one or more of the individuals whose name pops up in my mailbox, so some culling is in order.

My inbox for the last day or so? (And this is only one of the four. An older ones contains most of the ads and the emails from my long-lived moms' group, my seminary mail contains most things school-related, and a Gannet Girl account contains blog stuff.) In this one: A few inward/outward and Sojourners daily mailings, some of which I'll get to and some of which I won't. Several digests from Parents of Suicides, most of which I will delete because ~ too much. A Benedictine monk. Two Jesuit priests. Two Presbyterian pastors. A friend from church seeking to confirm a presentation. Two people connected to my spiritual direction program. A good friend about a book club selection. Several church friends about the upcoming year's adult education program. Dell, McAfee, and Borders. (The latter three always show up eventually.)

What does your inbox say about your life? I hope that mine reflects openness and curiosity on my part. It for sure reflects a host of different people with whom I am connected in all kinds of ways and who all represent the generosity and care extended to me over the past year. (OK, maybe not Dell and McAfee. But even they make it all possible.)

Loyola House - Meals Magnifique!

Since I've imposed a moratorium on myself with respect to my daily 24/7 obsession with muddling through Hebrew, I thought I'd add some more about my upcoming retreat which is becoming, amazingly, something to which I am looking forward. Amazing in the sense that I can't think of anything else in the past eleven months, other than The Lovely Daughter's college graduation.

Probably many of you have been to various retreat house and conference center meals where the menu resembled something akin to that found in your local high school cafeteria. And I get it -- time is short, budgets are limited, and not too many people working for cafeteria level wages have the interest, knowledge, and skills to develop a menu based on fresh local offerings, Not being a cook of any sort myself, I can hardly complain. When I went to Guelph two years ago, I expected the usual overcooked chicken, scalloped potatoes, and green beans dumped out of cans, and I would not have been disappointed by same.

Did I ever underestimate the creativity and hospitality of the Jesuits ??? (One might mistake them for Benedictines!)

Herewith, from the new brochure (linked in my previous post):

Our continental breakfast includes fresh fruit, yogurt, muffins, citrus marinated prunes, fresh baked breads, hot oats, cereal, and Guelph’s own Planet Bean fair trade organic coffee. Hot breakfasts can include poached, fried, or scrambled eggs, bacon, ham, sausage, French toast, or pancakes.

Every lunch we offer a house soup such as ginger carrot, fresh tomato fennel, chowder, sweet potato, or roasted vegetable. Our entrées range from spanakopita to pasta primavera. Salads might include Greek, roasted sweet potato, fresh greens, tomato basil, or coleslaw.

Our dinner entrées can include roasted lemon chicken, fish in a caper tomato broth, beef and vegetable stew, Moroccan tagine, or roast pork with rosemary. Dinner accompaniments range from herb roasted sweet potatoes, fresh vegetables, or roasted Yukon golds to a mixed rice pilaf.

Desserts are our specialty! From fresh apple crumble pie and butter tarts to orange pecan cake to a simple fresh fruit bowl.

We take great care to bring you the freshest ingredients in all of our preparations. Whenever possible we use as much locally grown food as we can, especially from our farm right here on the property. Everything is made in house from the beginning without the use of pre-made ingredients.

I might add that everything is prepared in silence, to accomodate the retreatants, and presented enticingly in a vast and light, airy dining room, one wall of which consists of windows overlooking gardens and pastures. (And the brochure doesn't mention the brownies, one of which I spirited up to my room every night for a post-labyrinth midnight snack.)

Obviously the expectation is that a week of silent prayer requires a lot of nourishment, and not just of the spiritual direction variety.

Two More Weeks . . .

Retreat

Confusion and Affirmation

Earlier this week I spent an hour or so with the committee which oversees my movement, such as it is, toward ordination in the Presbyterian church. In another three weeks they will recommend to the Presbytery, which is our regional governing body and oversees such things, that I move on to the next step.

I don't know what other such meetings for other inquirers (that's what I'm called at this stage) are like. My last two have been mostly about my son's death and its aftermath. The members of the committee are extremely supportive and I am extremely honest. I think it has helped to keep up with my Desert Year blog, as I am not disturbed by questions about how I manage my work, what kinds of accommodations professors have offered me, how we are planning to mark the one-year anniversary, how I take care of myself.

Someone asked me at one point what I thought they should be asking me. That was a good question, and one I had not anticipated. Later, I thought of two things.

What is it like, to survive this kind of loss?

You learn to to live with constant pain. There is nothing that happens, nothing that anyone says, that doesn't remind you of something. When your Hebrew professor says in the middle of class that you can remember how to pronounce the word for "tent" (oh-hell) if you have ever spent the night in a tent during a rainstorm, your mind immediately moves to a night on a canoe trip in Algonquin Park which you have not thought about for years, and the drying-out routine the morning after, and your son's good-humored laughter. The laughter you had been foolish enough to count on hearing for the rest of your life.

As pastors, what should we know, what should we say, when we go to the home of a family where the sudden death of a child has occurred?

You shouldn't say anything, really. You should begin with, "Tell me about your child," and then you should listen. And you should keep listening, for months and years. You won't have the time, and if you have children of your own it will be too hard, but you should do it anyway.

I don't know why I didn't think to say those things. Maybe because I didn't think they were being asked. It's often hard to guess where people are in their curiosity. Most of the time, they seem to be nowhere close to the reality and, regardless of their genuine concern and interest, or perhaps because of it, it feels as if it would be cruel to fill them in. Better to live without this knowledge for as long as you can.

As we talked, I thought about my best friend at seminary. A vibrant, energetic woman, bursting with gifts for ministry. I thought, Her enthusiasm would fill this room. I should be her.

And then one of the gentlemen, a retired minister, said, We are hearing a lot of good things here, and I just want to say, I would love for you to be my pastor.

Go figure.



(Cross posted at Desert Year.)

Milestone

I just noted on Facebook that I've just finished the last of the 25 short papers assigned over the course of the past two years for my spiritual direction certificate program. So I thought I'd look back at what we've read and written about:

six Rahner papers,
five sets of case studies,
one Raymond Brown and one historical Jesus paper,
eight papers on the Ignatian Exercises,
two on ethics and spiritual direction,
two on spiritual psychology and life patterns,
and one that I can't seem to find.

For obvious reasons, I got a late start on other work for the second year of the program, but the academic portion is now complete and the rest is moving forward.

Spiritual direction has been such a profound gift in my life; it seems an extraordinary privilege to me to be able to offer it in return. And it seems impossible that the little group that began our studies together nearly two years ago is almost ready to conclude that portion of the journey!

Employment

So . . . I think that Lovely Girl of mine has applied for about 50 jobs, last count, and ended up with the one she most wanted. She'll be spending a year with an Americorps project here in City on the Lake, working with high school students on The College Process -- helping them with finding colleges and scholarships, writing essays, interviewing, test prep, confidence building, etc.

Her own formal educational experience has been in environments much different from those into which she will venture in August; this should be an exceptionally good experience for her. From her own high school whose graduates without exception go to college to schools where higher education is barely on the radar screen ~ she will learn a great deal about how expectations and environment affect what we take for granted and what we don't. Her sociology honors thesis was on a related topic with similarly challenged students; this opportunity should meld well with the work she's begun.

She's probably reading this, so let me just add how proud I am -- I know that sending out dozens of applications and revving up for interviews that don't pan out and trudging from restaurant to retail shop in the constant hope that someone else will have just quit is NOT FUN. She mentioned the other day that she kind of wished she'd gone back to camp for one more counseling gig, but she knew that that would have only delayed the job search. Now she may be able to go back next summer for a session or two of the 75th anniversary celebration with a productive year behind her!

YES!

Exam and one term of Hebrew behind me, and The Lovely Daughter called last night to say she's been offered an Americorps job (!) that she was really interested in, and had given up on after hearing nothing since the phone interview six weeks ago.

More news when I know.

A long walk and a little mental break ahead today!