Dancin' on Waves

There are two things I can’t live without: children and Christian hip hop music. Both are so danceable…

Two boys in my class were practicing phonograms (foundation to reading) and wanted to know the meaning of vvv… vivid. I told one to get the dictionary.

He leapt to the challenge, grabbed the book from under a swaying pile of other books, lifted it up to the ceiling a la Lion King, jumped with it still stretched high, spun a few times, and landed with knees bent in an 80’s rock dictionary/guitar slam.

Do we still need to define vivid?

Yesterday, I visited old friends and their five children. When I got to their house, the dance party began immediately with two of the little girls. They escorted me into the house with Irish jigs, a little swagga, twirls. Totally uninhibited.

They were learning to read too. One of the girls got her inflated microphone and swayed as she sang me a beginner paperback while her sister echoed each word displaying pages from her unrelated princess book. I really got the full picture.

The Christian hip-hop artist Lecrae also makes me dance with his vivid pictures. A professional dancer friend introduced me to his song “Walking on Water” a few years ago.

“Hey I'm Lecrae, but you can call me "Crayola"

Not because I'm in the kitchen whippin' up the soda
But because I'm here to paint a vivid picture for 'ya
…
I've got the hope, boy, I'm the middle-man
Let me show you my Supply, yeah you need to know 'em
He got me walking on the water when the wind's blowin'
And when the storm's brewin', and when the tide's high
That's when I lean into the truth that I abide by”

“When the storm’s brewin’”…that’s when I need to dance the most. With Him leading as I hold fast. He keeps me close with centrifugal grace as we spin through the night, walking on waves.

Thank God for the middle men, and little men/women, who bring me bright, dancey reminders of hope and freedom.

"Some people call it perseverance 

Some people say endurance
But I know for sure it
It's got me secure…"

Thankful for Alaskan Joy

I am thankful for friends who encourage me that God holds everything in His hands as He makes miracles.

At Mass, the deacon noted that the first Thanksgiving meal wasn’t a feast. It was rather a celebration of getting through the winter with the help of friends.

Last Thanksgiving the rest of my community ate bread and cheese for Friday fast, but my name was drawn with a few others to go to a nearby pro-life dinner. (I had sacrificed Thanksgiving and a pro-life dinner at home and God gave me both back.)

It snowed that evening. On the way home, one of my traveling companions, an Alaskan man with wild hair, scraggly beard and owl-like bushy eyebrows framing his glittery, wonder-filled eyes, sang in a throatier, deeper Woody Guthrie style the Hail Mary. I’d never heard the melody before. It was grounded, but ethereal like wind blowing across the icy tundra.

Late in life, he gave up house and career to build a rural cabin and become a hermit. I am thankful that simplicity taught him joy.

He was the first to notice flowers in the spring -- “Have you seen that little red one on a bush near the house it yet?” The one to smile and point with excitement at falling snow sparkling in the sunlight… A friend of solitude and music with a flair for Johnny Cash’s Ghost Riders in the Sky.

That man had peace about him – and simple, humble joy. When we said the Our Father at Mass, he would pray loudly and clearly with his eyes shut as he held his hands to heaven in total surrender.

A friend emailed me today, “Recently, I had a sense of the Father having ALL things and absolutely EVERYTHING in His hands….With that, came the sense of Him saying, 'you don't ask me.'  As in, 'ask me'.”

This email reminded me of my Alaskan friend, and so now I’m askin’…God, if I hold up my empty hands and surrender again will you give me again everything I need? Can you help me practice gratitude for everything you give me – little flowers, sparkling snow, and suffering?

Lord, I trust in you. Thank you for holding me in your hands, for the memories and people who loved me on Thanksgiving.

King-Man

Today's the feast of Christ the King. I once heard this song in my heart, "Woman, you are my child. Sing a song just for today. Sing a song just for today. King-man, you are my God. I’ll sing a song just for today. Sing a song just for today."

I Made a Stuffed Seahorse

Woah….I just made a stuffed animal seahorse. Creativity is so cool!

Upon research, I learned straight from Wikipedia that seahorses are the world’s slowest fish, and less than 0.5% live past infancy. The seahorse is also one of the most adorable stuffed animals posted on Pinterest.

I wanted to do something creative so I could feel more alive... and my friend is having a baby, so I will make her a gift.

Unfortunately, the link for the seahorse sewing pattern was broken.

So I bought the supplies and printed the seahorse hoping to trace it bigger on fabric. I’m not a great artist and I still wanted a real pattern. I let my perfectionism replace my motivation, and a few weeks passed.

Recently, I spent time with a friend who has a sewing machine. She made the pattern while I sipped tea. Then we laughed about our perfectionist tendencies… I sewed the eye button while she spent 10 minutes sketching the flawless tip of the seahorse’s tail.

At one point, I took a bathroom break and realized my sweatpants were on backwards. A fellow perfectionist couldn’t help a sista out? I mean come on! There’s even a decal on the front!

We both laughed at that, and the three hours it took to make the stuffed toy, following the various “cut” and “sew” lines on the hand-drawn pattern. Though perfectionists, we still made some improvisations, which we explained in professional, educated detail during a pretend sewing infomercial.

In the morning, I woke to find – next to the practically perfect stuffed seahorse – a new hand-drawn color coordinated pattern on the kitchen table. My thoughtful friend is a genius, and I was delighted.

I relearned recently that creativity is part of what it means to be human – and I need it to feel fully alive.

Creativity was reawakened in me last year when I sewed curtains for a priest’s cabin, and a catering cart cover for an industrial kitchen. Designing, planning, and using my weaker left brain was an enlivening challenge. I also discovered that “compliments”/reconciliation I received as a child touched an important part of me.

“You're good with your hands,” my brothers often told me as reparation for insults. The repetition hurt my younger heart, but now I know it's a good gift to have. I also learned that God put creativity in all of us because we’re made in His image.

Last year I began to realize that God, in His creativity, can remake me. I am still me, but He can soften, reshape and open the places that became rigid, shut and sealed with resentment, anger and fear.

One image that came to mind was my body as pliable like bread dough. And God’s chisel was the Eucharist. He gently scraped my malleable body with Himself, carving out lies and helping me to rise – a current work in progress.

God created seahorses, the slowest and least likely to survive in the sea. He also created me. Right now He’s working slowly to transform my woundedness into love. How will I survive? With a little creativity. 

Magnet Man and Mary

“What are you doing here? Are you going to have dinner with us? Do you want to play Magnet Man?” “What are you doing here? Do you want to…”

My friends’ three-year-old asked me these questions repeatedly when I visited last night .

They’re used to it, but I laughed. The kid never stopped talking and he sure wasn’t listening to the answers – it entertained him to ask if I wanted to play Magnet Man in the midst of our playing Magnet Man, his self-made game to which I still don’t understand the ever-changing rules.

After dinner, I attended a one-man play of St. Maximilian Kolbe’s life. He also asked a question continually:  “Who are you, O Immaculate Conception?”

Fr. Kolbe devoted his life to Mary and wondered how is was that the Blessed Mother bore the Savior of the world in her womb – that through her yes she became the universal symbol of reverence for life.

Kolbe followed each of these queries by asking Mary what she wanted him to do. At the end of his life, St. Maximilian offered his life at Auschwitz in place of another prisoner who was scheduled to die.

  

I wondered, how did St. Maximilian have courage to die for that man? How did he have such total trust in Mary’s intercession?

Kolbe received miracles throughout his life when he prayed to Mary. He also lived through darkness and survived. St. Maximilian marked doubt and sickness in his life as moments that strengthened and prepared him for his final mission; he alluded to this in a letter to new Franciscans in his order:

“You must be prepared for periods of darkness, anxiety, doubts, fears, of temptations that are sometimes very, very insistent, of sufferings of the body and, what is a hundredfold more painful, of the soul. For if there were nothing to bear, for what would you go to heaven? If there were no trials, there would be no struggle. Without a struggle, victory would be impossible, and without victory, there is no crown, no reward…So be prepared from now on for everything.” --Letter to newly invested brothers in Grodno 1927

Mary offered Kolbe in a vision when he was 12 a white crown for purity or a red crown for martyrdom. He chose both. He chose to glorify God long before he knew his passion. Mary did the same thing.

Mary was presented in the Temple at the tender age of 3.

After spending time with a 3-year-old last night, I know how pure and close these children are to God. (My friends' son offered delighted gratitude to his father for the leftover steak we were eating: “Thank you, Daddy for making this steak on the grill! Thank you, Daddy…”)

When she was about the age at which Kolbe chose his crowns, Mary said, “My soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my savior.”

Perhaps Mary’s face was radiant during her Magnificat. But she said yes again with circles beneath her eyes as Jesus learned to sleep at night. And she said yes again at the crucifixion when her face was marked with hard lines of unimaginable sorrow.

Three women I know remind me of Mary’s sufferings – they endured infertility, depression, spousal disharmony. But they continue to stay faithful to their marriages, and their faces carry lines of joy and sorrow as they daily say yes to God.

“Who are you, Immaculate Conception?” What does it mean to magnify the Lord?

Perhaps there is a difference between asking a question repeatedly without listening to the response and asking a question repeatedly to go deeper into the answer.

St. Maximilian asked his question in order to unite his will more fully to God’s through the woman who did it perfectly. Mary died a simple Jewish housewife. Christ magnified his Father on the cross. And St. Maximilian followed these examples – he glorified God by becoming small. And dead.

Do I have the courage to face a 3-year-old’s question: “What are you doing here?”

Only through the light of a deeper question: “Who are you, O Immaculate Conception?” 

 You died to make room for the Incarnation. You are the universal symbol of reverence for life.

“Who are you, O Immaculate Conception?”

I will have to ask you again and again.

Compliments

Compliments. I like them. I’ve had some great ones throughout my life and today was one of those special times.

“I like your hair down and your earrings look like the sparkling sun…shining!” one of my students gushed as she put her hand on my shoulder while we were reading.

I shared the reading time with one of my boy students as well. He echoed the girl’s thoughtful sentiments:

“Same.”

“Same” like you also thought my earrings looked like the sparkling sun? Or “same” like you enjoy this baseball book and can’t wait to read about the homerun?

Yea, I’ll go with the first one.

Two other humorous compliments are pickup lines I received a few years ago.

Once I was on my way to a job interview and the only professional-ish shoes I owned were four inch heals from a college dance. That made me six feet tall.

I walked down the city street with a quick little swagga to the interview, but caught the eye of a larger gentleman in a leather jacket who had both the authoritative look of a gang leader and the suave air of a ladies’ man. He gave me a sideways stare and drawled,

“Yo… I’m six four.”

He looked over his shoulder as I took a minute to hear what he said and we both laughed.

Another time, I was wearing a basketball t-shirt with the words “sixth man” on the back. I had just left the subway station when a young man brushed past me and asked just as smoothly, “Yo… can I be the seventh?”

Again, he checked with a backwards glance for my laughing approval of his cleverness.

Today I thought about what God might say as a pick-up line.

" Yo, I'm infinite." "Yo, I knew you before you were born." "Yo, I created love."

He's the ultimate compliment-er. Beyond clever, He speaks to the depths of my heart.

Maybe God would say  something like this, "These others are mere glimmers of my creativity, because I created them too. They are entertaining, albeit fallen reminders of your goodness and beauty. I gave you everything you have. I hold you in existence right now. And you are worth more than a casual comment on the street."

Another child in my class sang a song to himself yesterday. It went like this," I am awesome. I am awesome. I am awesome," in a rang of high and low notes depending on his decided emphasis.

He was reminding himself in an unconscious, silly, sweet way of his own worth.

Last year, I lived in a place where "God's Image" was written on all the mirrors. With the constant reminder, I began to see myself differently. I also realized how much I had allowed ugliness from the imperfect love I had received form my thoughts of worth.

 The Fall happened. And I wasn’t loved perfectly or even adequately at times. And I was insulted and ridiculed and worst of all ignored.

But slowly, I am learning that I can re-respect myself by unmasking the lies I’ve swallowed so I can live out of love instead. I can start recognizing in what ways I was formed by ugliness and gently remind myself that is not the truth of who I am. Over time this “self-love”--like "I am awesome"-- will replace any selfish, self-seeking love which is really love’s opposite – isolation.

In the Song of Songs, one lover calls to the other: “Arise my beloved, my beautiful one and come.” And God whispers to me: "Come, Be Loved." For only He can fully see me and show me who I really am.

Fire

A fire cooks food, warms a person, provides light. It also burns and kills. I’ve experienced the burning and scaring part of fire and now I want to sit close to the blaze of the Sacred Heart and feel its warmth cooking me back into life -- so I can feed myself and others with the flames.

Fire was a theme for today beginning with a 3:47 a.m. text from my neighbor.

“Did the sparks and popping wake you? Probably a branch against wires. I hear the fire siren. They might be for this. House is NOT on fire!” …Thank God.

Luckily, I slept through it all and didn’t read the text until I woke up.

The story of the Burning Bush was the second fire reference of the day. My students are learning about the prophets, the first of which is Moses – who experienced the Lord in a bush, burning profusely but not consumed.

After I read the Burning Bush story to my class, I asked the students what they thought. 

One girl exclaimed, “Now I know God’s name: I am who am!” 

A boy sat still pondering awhile –he didn’t understand how the bush stayed a bush instead of disintegrating to ash.

Another little girl audaciously announced how she really felt: “Wow that was a long time. Did I miss anything? Is it time to wake up yet?”

I slept through a fire siren and nearby commotion last night, so I could relate to this little one missing the details. But it didn’t feel like a long time to me—I wished I could have slept in just a bit longer.

More importantly, am I awake now? And is my fire burning slowly without turning to ash?

What kind of fires have I experienced in my life? Camp fires, candle flames, kids fooling around with Bunsen burners in high school chemistry, and one incredible bonfire on the bank of the Jordan River in Israel.

The light of that fire illumined the scares of many other life burns. A priest heard my confession on that riverbank and I burned the paper on which I had written my sins. It was a purifying and healing fire near the lowest point on earth, the Dead Sea. It’s remarkable that my Savior would humble Himself to be baptized at such a location.

Why do I need fire? Because I want zeal for HIS house to consume me, because I need purification, because I need warmth, because I need healing.

The song “Set a Fire” by Will Reagan speaks to my desire for this fire and my need for God to set it: “There’s no place I’d rather be… Set a fire down in my soul that I can’t contain that I can’t control. I want more of you, God.”

Moses might have sang a similar song at the bush. When God told Moses his mission to set free the Israelites, he felt inadequate, maybe scared, maybe totally blown away…“Who am I?” Moses asks.

God answers the emptiness of Moses’ “I” with the fullness of His presence. “I am who am.” “I will be with you.”

That “I” is enough to burn “me” up. Lord, set “me” on fire! In a way that only you can control.

God's Work

Like the shrill beckoning of the shofar calling Jews to the Temple to pray, the high pitched peacock-like scream of “yes,” into the microphone at the Gospel–rockin church I attended this morning was certainly a bang on the door of my heart to let God in for a conversation.

“YES!” This tall, passionate black woman bellowed as she squeezed her eyes shut and slapped her hand against her thigh in time with the music. “YES!” her head snapped back toward the rafters each time she let her affirmation to God’s will fly.

One of her choir mates broke his face smiling and pumped his fist in the air forcefully connecting with each of her proclamations.

Thank God.

I need these reality checks to become fully human. I wish I had the courage to sing like that lady. Though I’m sure she suffers like me and everyone else, she decided to cast off any shackles like anger, depression, selfishness, or whatever she may have been feeling today to glorify God.

Yesterday I wrote about manual labor. When I was in Canada, I imagined that work had to be worked into me; my muscles had to become accustomed to it. Likewise, I visualized that my acceptance of God’s love had to be worked into me as well. As I was sewing, making candles, cooking, cleaning, canning, I thought about God’s love being melted, chopped, stitched, scrubbed, cut, sealed into my heart with each little task I performed.

Today, I thought that worship is work. The Gospel said that only those who work should eat. Praise has to be worked into my body so I can fully eat –the bread of LIFE! There was a joke made about the priest today that he works really hard so he can eat more, but I think that’s true with letting God in too.

Am I working really hard at letting my heart be open to love? Or is this a gentle work that’s hard not because I have to do it but because I have to let God do it?

My grandpop gave me some off the cuff advice when I left his house last night. He said, “Don’t work too hard, but don’t stop working.”

This morning, the congregation processed to drop offerings into a basket at the foot of the altar. I watched broken people from a broken world line up to take whatever they had –monetarily and spiritually, to the altar. From the outside, one might say it was a poor, rag-tag group. One woman wore a tank top showing off the tattoo on her bicep. A few people sported mullets, not caring that some say that fashion faded in the 80’s, and one woman wore her mantilla, a traditional lace head covering used in prayer, like a do-rag.

But from the inside, I felt totally connected with these people. There is hope amid brokenness. And light in the darkness. (Some might have said I was a light in the darkness since I was a minority there and race is still a sensitive issue in my city, but I could not have felt more a part of this Church today.)

We are all members of the Body of Christ. And I need to be worked on, and I need to work to eat, and I need the grace of God just like everyone else. “YES!” I certainly do.

Manual Labor and Jets

Manual labor makes the world go round. And a bath with jets is real love. I don’t know what Epsom salts do, but I do know that pressurized water massaging my aching muscles makes me really happy.

I didn’t work that hard when I swept leaves off the driveway today, not nearly as hard as when I canned food last summer, cleaned outdoor jons in the winter and did about two hours of dishes daily after sorting rocks from beans in the Spring.

And the jets didn’t feel as exhilarating as a pilgrimage I took a couple of years ago when I wore the same shirt for a solid week, “slept” in hostels and ended up at a “palace”/clean hostel that had jets in the shower—I was so deliriously giddy then that I turned the jets on before shutting the shower door and soaked the whole bathroom, including about four rolls of extra toilet paper.

But still, there is something glorious about the little work I did today and the relaxation tubbie. It reminds me of this Scripture nugget: “And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.” 1 Peter 5:10.

Maybe manual labor seems like suffering to the work-a-day world that’s outfitted with rolodexes instead of rakes. I hated cleaning bathrooms growing up and often feigned illness before family parties so I wouldn’t have to clean… but now that I’ve felt the reality of suffering and restoration, I’ve come to realize there’s nothing like physical work.

It's the mental work that's sometimes harder than physical labor--which is perhaps why doctors used to prescribe manual labor to mentally ill patients. That makes sense to me because working physically, even at monotonous tasks, has eased my mind on numerous occasions.

In any case, a hot bath after sweeping leaves restored my body today. And healing after a little mind, body, spirit purification is God’s promise to me.

Phlegm Ball

There’s a sign on my wall painted by a friend that says, “Pray, Hope and Don’t Worry.” There’s a voicemail on my phone from a priest who said, “Persevere.” And there’s a little girl in my first grade class who had her sweatshirt on her head today as she laughingly walked around saying, “Can somebody lead me? I don’t know where I’m going.”

That same little girl interrupted my one-on-one instruction with another student today with the exclamation, “Something nasty came out of my mouth again!” She held a phlegm ball out on her pointer finger for me to inspect.

Disgusted, but not disgruntled, I said, “OK, go throw it out and wash your hands.”

She proceeded to dance her way to the trashcan waving her phlegm finger in the air (who knows where that little treasure landed) and stopped in front of the garbage. She paused and pondered, with her finger pointing still poised for deposit (though I think she had wiped it on her pants by now), and then asked, “Trash or recycling?”

I looked up from my instruction, reflexively said “trash," but could not help laughing. Trash or recycling? For real?

What could you make with a recycled phlegm ball? A super ball? Lord, have mercy.

So these are the tidbits God, my bizarre lover, gave me today. What am I gleaning? Life is still hard. But I need to be bold, and ask someone wise when I don’t know the answer. Sometimes it takes sharing my gross stuff with others to learn how to deal/what to do with it. Right now I feel like I don’t know where I’m going, but I am not alone. And clearly God is loving me in little alien ways.

Nun With a Walker

Today I was praying with my head in my hands in front of the St. Joseph statue at a local nursing home for elderly nuns. About 20 minutes in, I heard the shuffle and creak of a walker coming up near me. I felt a hand on my shoulder as a white haired nun with a medal around her neck asked me if I was OK.

I said I was fine, but she said, “Yea, but you’re still not really OK are you?” Yea…no I guess I’m not. She hugged me and simply said, “Lay it at their feet,” gesturing to St. Joseph holding baby Jesus. “They will take care of everything.” And she shuffled back to her pew.

“They will take care of everything.” Do I believe it? Where is my Faith? Am I stuck drowning in the Sea, or wishing my Savior would wake up during the storm, or do I hear the words “Be calm; be still” and take them into my heart?

Earlier this year, I lived with a family for a week while I looked for housing upon my return from Canada. They were doing a surrender novena. At the end of each day was the proclamation of faith, “O Jesus I surrender myself to you. Take care of everything!”

What does that mean? Life is hard. There is suffering. But there are glimpses of hope in people—even strangers-- who walk with me. It is really Jesus who walks with me. And He says, “I am with you. Be not afraid.” 

Pretzels and Crumbs

I was once a Pre-K teacher. In the afternoon we had nap time. Each child was allowed two books to read quietly on their beach towel. The only rules were: no talking and no getting up from the towel (unless there was a bathroom emergency).

After training the children, I was able to read quietly to myself during this time—I enjoyed the respite. One day as I was reading, I looked up to check on the children. To my surprise and utter amazement, I noticed that one little girl’s body was completely covered with pretzels. She lay very still so as not to disturb the snack as she read.

I used all the self control I could muster not to laugh aloud and silently walked over. She looked up, met my eyes and then glanced over her shoulder at the pretzels on her back. She gazed to the other side only to find more pretzels! Then, she looked up at me stunned and in all innocence, said, “I have no idea how that happened.”

After a long interior chuckle, I said “OK,” and brought the trashcan over so she could clean herself. Later I noticed her brush her inside-out pocket into the trashcan—apparently she came to the realization that the pretzel display resulted from leftover lunch.

Upon reflection, I wondered, “What is God telling me in this?” Do I think if I lay really still, everything in my life will stay in order and I won’t be anxious?  Or, if I toss and turn, I’ll never be able to pick up all the pieces?

“I have no idea how that happened.” Looking back now, I honestly have no idea how I accomplished certain things in my life – like living through a Canadian winter, or writing articles for a city newspaper, or teaching Pre-K.

I also have no idea how God allowed me to meet so many people in my life who have listened to my problems and walked with me—even through dark times.

Do I remember to look back and notice the graces God dumps on me when I’m not really paying attention? God’s with me when I can’t remember how I got myself in a mess, and He lovingly helps me brush off the crumbs of confusion.

Inside-Out Handicaps

On a recent bike ride, I noticed a man with Downs Syndrome take a picture of a large yellow Maple leaf with his iPhone. Hi glasses slid down his nose as he stared intently at his phone screen, and bikers and runners whizzed by on the tree-lined path without noticing his effort.

I only quickly glanced at him myself, but his simple appreciation for beauty made me remember an encounter I had this summer with two men at L’Arche, which is a worldwide organization of “communities made up of people with disabilities and those who come to share life with them.”

Here’s my journal entry from that day:

August 11, 2013

I just had the time of my life.

I went to L’Arche to meet the house members and hang out. One of the assistants told me a bit about their needs and then two core members (men with intellectual disabilities whom I’ll call Peter and Henry) took me out for coffee. We walked to the mall, pushed the crosswalk button numerous times in amusement and ended up at Tim Horton’s.

Peter bought me hot chocolate. He told me about his recent vacation to Canada’s east coast where he ate lobster for the first time. Henry stayed in his home city and ate a really big steak—he even took pictures of it for L’Arche’s summer holiday photo contest.

After we finished our drinks, we went outside. I looked at the sun blazing through the summer clouds and commented on how beautiful it was. Harry, with his head back and eyes shut to the brilliant light, put on a big smile and said in radiant glory, “I am beautiful.”

He said it a couple of times joyfully and confidently. No one thought it was sarcastic. He said it in simple sincerity and we walked on.

Earlier that day, I mourned deep points of sadness and loneliness in my life, and begged God through the Rosary for joy and friends to help me through that today.

God provided Peter and Henry.

When Henry said, “I am beautiful,” I knew he meant it. He knew that about himself.

My handicap is on the inside. I’ve been told by myself and others that I’m not beautiful. That’s a lie. Henry reminded me just by being—and though his outward handicap-- that I am beautiful not because of what I’ve done or what the world thinks I should be, but because God made me and I exist. God delights in me and shines His grace on me like the sun—in common ways every day.

Watering the Bathroom Plant

I got a text today that made me lol, and then think about my struggle with scrupulosity. I’m staying in an empty in-law suite and the ladies next door asked me to take care of the plants here. I’ve been watering them faithfully and praying that they don’t die.

(I have a history with plants…including once when I left my whole air-purifying collection to drain on the porch after I watered them… in mid- winter. Their poor green leaves blackened, and the ice around their pot bases only solidified the definiteness of their deadened state...in short, they froze to death in half an hour.)

Anyway, I was worried about one plant in the bathroom of this suite. It seemed the leaves were curling up and I wondered if the shower steam had gotten to it (you’d think others’ showers before my time here might have equally affected it, but I thought for sure that its seeming sickness was my fault).

So I texted the ladies, “I just don’t know how to properly love that plant.”

I had worried that I was doing something wrong, my mind afloat with so many other stresses like the real question of how to love others and myself in this life, that I might actually have had a delusion regarding the plant…

My worries were relieved by text this morning: “The plant looks fine, terrific in fact. Never looked better.” 

“Wow," I thought…"and here I was thinking I was killing that plant. Maybe I have a green thumb after all…”

My neighbor made a few other comments about apartment appliances and then wrote, “P.S. The plant is artificial. Happy Monday.”

Ha!

What else am I watering that’s artificial? The thought that everything has to be perfect (according to my flawed standards) in order for me to enjoy life? Instead, let me wonder something new...like how did that plastic plant soak up all that water?

Pilgrims on a Journey

Today I ate dinner with a college friend I hadn't seen in two years. We've both traveled the world, lived in Catholic communities, struggled with bad habits, family woundedness and broken hearts. At the end of the night, we cranked Indian hip-hop music and danced full force, uninhibited modern, Indian soul-searchin moves on the sidewalk of an upscale strip mall. A couple of people came out of a restaurant to watch, but mostly the scene was serene—as two old comrades kicked it on the night pavement dancing out years of pain and joy and relishing today’s gift of shared status: pilgrims on a journey.

New Blog

Like drops from an IV, little moments of joy keep my melancholic-bent self alive. They’re constant but small, easily missed. If I remember to look, these moments are medicine for my soul. This blog is about recording snippets of hope, joy, kindness and hilarity in my life for my own benefit. If I remember that I am loved, I will be able to love. And this reality is constant and small.