ashes

I have been a Catholic for 68 years and today I found out what the word Lent means;it is an Anglo-Saxon word meaning Spring.And today there is just enough yellow,white and pink out in the woods to suggest this.Bradford pears are fuller with white puffs then I ever remember and those blessed daffodils are drooping with the raindrops on their petals.But fittingly for a day that starts a season of repentance and struggling to find what is truly important in life,it is grey and somber.

The word "focus" has been coming and going in my mind for a few days now,leading up to Lent.
And today, as John and I drove away from Dogwood Trace,an assisted living home, it came to me what a gift that is in a life.

We took ashes to a widowed shut-in from our church.Mona is 86 years old and is mostly blind and has some hearing loss.She uses a a walker and falls frequently.She couldn't go to church because of the bruises from her last fall.And yet, she is Springtime.She is laughter,listening,gratitude and sunshine.

A lit white candle,softly read scripture and then the ancient words were intoned:"Man, thou are dust and into dust you shall return.",while I signed her forehead with a black cross.We then sat in silence.


Mona is visited by many in our church and she always asks how we are and listens.She tells family stories and tales of the ladies she has lunch with;all in love and good humor.She should charge for the lessons in aging gracefully that she is giving me.She does not ruminate on her limitations.Her grace comes from her focus on prayer,her Lord and her family.This holy demeanor has developed over years of single-minded love of God and others.

When we were leaving,she thanked us and laughed, telling us that soon she would be ashes and so would we!Yes, and before that happens this is my prayer from today"s readings:

"A clean(singleminded)heart create for me,O God,
and a steadfast spirit renew within me." Ps 51:12

somthing quite extraordinary

photo by Kris in Puerto Rico



A few years ago, my German friend sent me an article that she found detailing the visit of a Hindu holy man to a German mystic,Therese Neumann.She sent it because the mystic lived in Konnersreuth,in Bavaria, close to where my friend Hildegarde grew up.In school,she had learned all about Therese.The mystic died in 1962 and I found the article interesting but.......

In 1926, Therese received the stigmata which included bleeding from her side,hands and head where Christ's crown of thorns had rested.O.K.The bleeding happened every Friday as Therese experienced the Passion while in a trance. This is pretty extraordinary but saints ,including Francis ,have experienced this phenomenon.But to think of someone in this century experiencing this made me uneasy and a bit skeptical.I had a hard time with Therese but I did keep the article.

In February of this year, we sent flowers to John's sister on her 70th Birthday.Yesterday, we received a thank you note and a copy of a letter from John's brother who passed away over fifty years ago.He was in the F.B.I. in 1948 and was in Europe for a time.He wrote home to his parents about something that he had seen that impressed him deeply.On Good Friday, he and a group of Americans went to Konnersreuth to see Therese Neumann.

He said..."standing there watching her, I was awestruck.She sat up in bed ,looking for all the world just like a little old lady.She was clothed in a white robe,more like a sheet,which also ran about her head as a shawl...There were streams of blood coming from a wound in the palm of either hand and running up her arms.....the sheet about her head was also bloodstained from eight wounds in her head...she could not see or hear anyone.She seemed to be suffering great pain but yet ecstatically for the great blessing that she has, undoubtedly gives her great joy....it was a sight that I shall always treasure and remember."

How is it that something I was skeptical about is confirmed by a person who by all accounts was a devout and good man,John's older brother,in a letter wrtten in 1948?This letter would have meant nothing to me had I not already met this saint through my dear friend.

As a Catholic, I believe that saints exist in another place just as I believe my mother still exists.And it is my feeling that this saint has been"given" to me as a companion on this Lenten journey for a reason and in a way that I do not know.

how important is my spiritual life?

In my yahoo mail box every day, I receive an e-mail from a writer who has a website that offers books and art for sale and musings for free.The site is called "Heron Dance" and just the name makes me smile.

Today, I opened his message and he asks this question,"What would my life be like if I defined success solely in spiritual terms?"I loved that question.I've been thinking it over and "spiritual terms" to me is a broad notion.Another way that I would phrase it would be, have I spent time on the look-out for the Lord today?

Right now, in the back yard under the slightly budding maple,are five plump robins who are splashing and carrying on in their orange and brown splendor.They might be relatives of the ones that sought worms in our summer green yard.Their call brings me right back to freedom,running,friends and laughter. Those birds are like a beautiful painting to me,they take me to another place.Robins and memories cascading from His hands.

This bubbling cauldron of success requires effort on my part.Responding when I am called to prayer,when I feel that nudge or just taking the time.Serving when called.Answering that small voice that tells me,"Do this,now."

Let me give you a Holy Spirit success story.Last week at Mass, I saw a young woman in front of me that I didn't know.We have been in this church for 40 years and know many faces.Before Mass, the priest urges us to turn to each other and say hello.I took the woman's hand and said ,"I'm Sharon, how are you.? She said, "Hi Sharon, I'm Monica."After church, she was talking to my husband and told him that I was the only person who had taken a moment to chat like that and she was very happy.Small thing but that Sunday was for me a spiritual success.

If we decide that the success we want is as a spiritual being, we have the rest of our lives to figure out how and to work it.I propose that this success is the one that provides the glow.That promotion you got, that raise, that lottery win, the home run that won the game.How long does that rush last?

Lately, I've been thinking that spiritual success might involve doing a chore around the house that I don't want to do at that very moment or that belongs to someone else.To live this fruitful life requires focus and so I am back to Lent and the focus I hope to have on spiritual matters.

What do you think of his question?What would your life look like if spiritual success was your only goal?What would the world look like?

Now, I am going to have a successful few minutes because I am going to leave you with my favorite quote by the artist Gwen John:

,"Do not have many little aims but the one great :to be a child of prayer and God's artist".

Lent

In a week, the Church will begin a new season, a period taken out of the year for a specific purpose,repentance.This is not a warm fuzzy word.It implies guilt and need.This is one that causes me to want to turn away.If I need to repent then that means I am not the perfect being I think I am.Ouch.This is a time for me to turn and focus again on what is important.

Next Wednesday, the priest will put ashes on my forehead and in a very politically incorrect manner,will remind me that I am going to die.He will intone:"Remember man that you are dust and into dust you shall return"Whap!

It is my belief that Lent saved my mother's life.One year when I was 12 or so, she put away her Phillip Morris cigarettes and for forty days she was smokeless.She did this as a deprivation, a sacrifice to align herself with her sacrificial Lord.I wonder now how hard that was for her, a smoker since the age of twenty.Years later, when a relative was dying of lung issues, she stopped again for good.She knew that she could do it because of her previous experience.She was with us until the age of 83.

One Lent when I was a kid, I gave up The Long Ranger radio show,my favorite, for the fourty days.Lo and behold,in that time frame the story of how the Ranger became masked and found Tonto was to be revealed.I SO wanted to hear that! I did something else instead of listening and a small part of me knew that it took strength to make that sacrifice.That is a good thing for me to know about myself,I think;that I can say no to my whims.

Fr.Thomas Keating,a Trappist monk,says that to repent means to change the direction in which you are looking for happiness.Oh.It is going into the desert without my T.V,and P.C,with a minimum of distraction and seeking God.

I need this reminder each year and so I am getting ready.These words help:

Yet even now ,says the Lord,
return to me with all your heart,
with fasting,with weeping,and with mourning;
rend your hearts and not your clothing.
Return to the Lord,your God,
for he is gracious and merciful,
slow to anger,and abounding in steadfast love,
and relents from punishing.
Joel 2:12-13

This wonderful invitation is offered to all of us..."Come back,I am here and I have what you need for happiness.Just turn and you will find Me."

lost

This is not about the show or a missing purse.This is about the feeling of being without an anchor or a place of belonging.This is something in your gut that is churning because you don't see that life has any purpose.An empty space in your center.

I left my Church on that warm June day in 1969 while walking over the bridge that traverses the Belt Parkway in Queens,N.Y.The priest at St.Clare's had just asked for prayers to change the hearts of the communists in Vietnam and I thought,"That is ridiculous.That will never happen.Look around,what has prayer ever changed?"As I walked alone,hair blowing in the warm breeze,cars zooming down below me,I liberated myself from superstition.I felt free,very smart and courageous.My intention from then on was to throw off anything that didn't fit with what I experienced and not to believe what others told me.I floated home,a new me.

When I was 8, my sister 11 ,our parents went out for the evening.In our boisterous play, we broke a juice glass by rolling it down off the top of the sofa.Terrified of the out-of-proportion scream fest we would have to endure, we knelt down and prayed,as we were taught, that it would be whole by morning.It wasn't.Well,now.

A few years after my Queens liberation,my family of four lived in California.I was still doing my own thing and one morning I woke up and felt this terrible,gaping hole inside me.Something essential to me was missing.I am so grateful I didn't look in all the wrong places before I uttered a simple prayer;"Lord,if You are there,help me."

I am not going to make something up and say I saw a bright light or even at that moment received great peace.What I do remember 40 years later is that I felt I had taken a step of some kind although I wasn't sure what it was.A few weeks later, I casually picked up a book in a store and found it was on faith.As if the words were highlighted,they spoke to me. That began a journey that has brought peace,joy,purpose and great hope to this one life that I have been given.

As to answered prayers?Out of many answered, I think of two, said many years ago.The first was about a boy that I adored in my neighborhood.I prayed when I was fifteen that he would be in my life and after 50 years he is,still.The other was about that broken glass.We prayed,not because we cared about the cheap glass, but because we didn't want to get into trouble,and looking back,miraculously,we didn't.

All prayer is answered, in my view.That's why I keep a journal;to keep track of what my Lord is up to and how He answers in His time and way.

This journey has not been without twists, detours and grave challenges but I have
never felt alone or without purpose.

I had to write this after I saw the attached picture on another website.Yes, the gentle shepherd had nothing else to do on that December day in California in 1971 but reach his warm hand down over the edge and take this small lamb into His loving arms.I can never express my gratitude in the language we have been given.

grateful heart

It is so easy to lose sight of what is important:to let the dreary weather,chest congestion, cold fingers and feet become the the focus of much fruitless musing.I know that a grateful heart is a happy heart but why does this wisdom hide behind the next corner,out of sight so often.How can I hang on to gratitude and praying without ceasing ?Prayer has value,worrying does not.

Within the last several weeks many mysterious and good things have happened.So I want to focus on these tonight and indulge in metanoia, a turning from where I have been.

I bought a wonderful painting a few weeks ago that jumped into my hands and insisted I take it home.It has a scripture verse,snow,a small tan dog and colorful angels hovering in the trees.If you have read my blog you know that God has ,in my view, used snowy trees, angels and a tan dog to speak to me.As if this God revealing painting isn't enough, I have met the artist,who just happens to live in Georgia, in cyber space,thanked her for her gift and basked in the kindness of her e-mails.A new friend and a blessing.

The other day, my son took his eight year old daughter to a Father-Daughter dance at her school.He ,looking like a movie star with a great suit,silk tie,she in a red dress and fixed curly blond hair.On the way home,she thanked him for a lovely evening. How blessed to see how much he invests in his fatherhood.She will never forget her first Valentine dance.

In January, I had lunch with a high school friend that I had really liked but we had lost touch.I think I laughed more with her than anyone.She was humble,smart and a bright spot for me in my senior year.After fifty years, we embraced with tears and laughter.We had lunch and deeply,deeply connected.It was not an accident, but the Spirit who arranged this meeting as just another great gift to me.

I have faithful friends who never fail to encourage my writing and without them, I would have folded up the artist tent in the beginning.They take the time to read my stories and never a discouraging word.There is no price that I can put on that support.

In January,my husband and I went to his Army reunion and there I connected again with one of his buddies who had made me howl with laughter at the one we attended in Atlanta,fifteen years before.This time we shared our faith and that usually lifts me a few feet off the ground. He is my friend and I look forward to seeing him again.He does woodworking as a hobby, and I can see him in his shop in Indiana,bent over his lathe, planing wood for a table and praying as he works.That scene pleases me.

How delighted we would be if these things were our focus.Gratitude for sight and the colors of Van Gogh.Hearing;the sound of a baby laughing on YouTube.Children and talking to them on the phone about important things.Family;a sister-in-law who turns seventy soon, who has always,always made me feel welcomed in my husband's family for 46 years.The list is endless,it goes out into the firmament,if we think of it.

This must be God's biggest disappointment.He gives us wonders in abundance for our happiness but if we don't see them,focus on them in thanksgiving, they are wasted.This must be why scripture enjoins us not to worry.Fear and worry drop a veil over the wonders and they might as well not have happened.

What have you stopped being grateful for or have forgotten?Please let me know.

the blessing of Kris

Photo by Kris-Puerto Rico





In the Fall of 2002,I was part of a team that welcomed and prepared people who wanted to join the Catholic Church.I recall walking into the first meeting and seeing about 15 new faces.Most were in their twenties.Off to the side was an older quiet couple who sat by themselves.I admit that I was drawn to the tables with the younger people,I could feel their joy,their energy.However, I sat with the older couple and introduced myself and admired the woman's reddish hair.She smiled and said,"That's what my hair used to be like,this is a wig".She told me that she was receiving chemotherapy and the prognosis was uncertain.He husband looked so unhappy but she seemed to be very peaceful.She said that she had wanted to join the church and now seemed like the right time.I was impressed with her serenity.

After Easter, when this group had been confirmed in the church,my new friend Linda volunteered to share her experience with the larger congregation one Sunday.Calmly she described her journey,including her uncertain future.With great courage she said that either outcome was O.K. because she belonged to God.

One morning in August of 2003,the phone rang and it was Linda's husband;he wanted me to come to her hospice room and pray the rosary with her.She had asked for this.He mentioned that he didn't have a rosary.I grabbed two that I had and went to be with him ,his daughters and a few friends to circle her bed and pray.I took the black rosary and pressing it in his palm said,"This is yours."Through his tears he nodded.

Linda's wig was gone and she was puffy but still seemed glad we were there.Every so
often,this gallant ,wonderful woman would apologize because she had to interrupt us to ring for pain medicine.As we prayed,her husband cried but when we were finished,he seemed very grateful for our presence.The next Sunday, Joe appeared at church and told me she had passed that morning.We held onto each other though the mass.

The second rosary mentioned has small wooden beads and after each ten, there is a small silver engraved rose.My very favorite.These two rosaries travelled from a pawn shop to the hands of a girlfriend of my son's and into mine on Easter of 2002.Kris made sure to tell me that this was not an Easter gift,she just thought I would like them.

Kris is now engaged but we pass each other in cyber space occasionally and she has a way of being that blesses me at unexpected times.The first story that I wrote was from a heart that was full of joy because of a wool scarf that she took the time to knit for me.Greenish-blue and so warm,I treasure it.

My young friend is a vibrant,energized person with many friends who she loves deeply as she does her family.She is successful in her career and is a conduit for beauty and good in the world,as I see it.

The picture attached of these colorful saints inspired me today.I thought of the goodness of Blessed Mother Teresa, the humility of St.Clair;of Lent coming up and what that will look like.

The reds,blues yellows are in sharp contrast to the February greys and browns of Georgia.Kris posted this photo she took on Facebook from where she is in Puerto Rico.
She had no idea what musings her posting would engender and perhaps not just in me.

That's what people who inspire us do.Is there someone in your life who does this for you and how do they do it?