Oh, Christmas tree...

When I was a girl, my mother was the one who always put the lights on our Christmas tree, which I realize now was probably because my dad just doesn't have the patience for it. And of course, at the time, neither did my brothers and I. We bugged her as she worked, since none of the decorations could go on (something we could help with) until the lights were finished, and the lights always seemed to take forever.

I know people who have fake trees -- which now come pre-lit, simplifying the process even further -- prefer them because they're easier and don't leave a mess. They don't want the bother.

And as I wound those lights around my tree last night, I got to musing that putting lights onto a tree is a little like life. Sometimes you feel like you're going up and down and round and round in circles in this journey and not making any progress at all. Your hands get dirty. Occasionally you get stuck from all the weaving in and out and have to backtrack. Some spots are clear and easy to navigate, while in others the boughs are thick and dark and you can become lost in them. They poke you in the eye sometimes, or thwack you in the face, and unwelcome visitors -- like lizards or stinkbugs -- can pop out unexpectedly.

Then, there are the decorations. Some people like to have theme trees, or stick to a specific color pallette. On my tree, they're a hodgepodge of colors, and ages -- some of mine used to on my Granny B's tree when my mom was a girl -- animals, bells, birds, cartoon characters. It's a riot of color that, despite the seeming lack of any sort of organization, just works. Presents

And when you're done the seeming hassle is so worth it; sitting and gazing at the tree, your hands washed of sap. The tree is done, lights, decorations, golden garland and the star on top, all the effort is worth it, especially when you can sit back and just gaze at the blinking, colorful lights and the glow they cast on the wall behind the tree. That smell, the crisp piney scent that spreads throughout a room after the lights have been going for a while and the tree warms. It's beautiful.

In life, we sometimes don't know where we're going, either. Our free will takes us down paths we sometimes shouldn't take, but we can learn from them. We make mistakes and our hands get dirty. There are unwanted surprises. But on the flipside, we have family and collect friends who become part of us. God guides us out of the forest and gives us a chance to wash our hands. And hopefully, when the journey is done, we'll gaze at beauty. And I'm sure it'll smell nice, too.

Thankful

"Do not let a day slip by without considering God's favors...

Preserve them assiduously in the greatest possible purity and love them dearly, but even more, love him who so blessed you."

- Fray Francisco De Osuna

How quickly we can forget the gifts we've been given. It is so easy to complain, to worry and fume over what we don't have or things that don't go our way. I'm as guilty of this as anyone. And for some, spouting near-constant streams of vitriol about how the world is going to hell in a handbasket comes more easily than being positive. Maybe it's naive of me, but I try, most of the time anyway, to look on the brighter side of things (mostly because maintaining such a level of negativity seems exhausting). There is so much we have been blessed with, abilities and possessions that we often take for granted. Life, for one. 

Today, if she was still living, would have been my great-grandmother's 115 birthday. She made it to 109, so that in itself was pretty impressive. When she was born, she was very weak, and the doctor and her family didn't think she would survive. But after her baptism, according to family history, she began to improve. I first heard the story in 1995, when we had a huge celebration for her 100th birthday. I remember looking around the room that day, filled with my family -- there were probably 100 of us, easily, and there are more now -- in one of the smaller ballrooms at the Holiday Inn in Alton, Ill. and thinking if she had died as a baby, how few of the people in that room would have been born. The seven sons she raised into adulthood all married and had children, and most of them had kids of their own, too. The fourth generation is having children now as well. All those lives, and the things they did and do to touch the lives of others, wouldn't have existed.

So I am thankful for breath. For movement and vision and hearing. For the gifts and talents I've been graced with, and the opportunity to use and share them. For a job which, despite my mutterings about it, keeps food on my table, gas in my car and a roof over my head. Many these days aren't so fortunate. For my quirky family, who although they sometimes have the ability to exasperate me more than anyone, put up with me, too, and love me. They are always there. And for my friends, near and far, who laugh with me (and frequently at me), endure my near-constant spouting of random facts and, most importantly, pray for me. I praise God for all of you.

And for God, who gave me all, and who also gave His son, and the Son who gave his life. There aren't thanks enough.

"The coming kingdom, here and now."

"No more waiting/Your love's exhaling"
My breathe came in clouds, mingling with the moisture in the air that fell as condensation on the tile beneath my feet, so damp I'd left a path. The chilly night smelled of charcoal, and light was dim in that corner of the convent's rooftop, a buttery reflection from the streetlights below and the one light near the doorway of the roof's entrance. The sound of people chatting on the sidewalk below and the alarum of a foreign ambulance siren racing to the hospital up the hill was all that broke the silence. My cousin Carrie had gone down to our room to fetch something, and I was alone for the first time in days. I'd been sitting at the solitary table we'd dragged into the light, journaling about my experiences thus far in the Eternal City, but I was restless and fidgety. It could have been from the cold; I really should have been wearing another sweater.

But it wasn't just the chill. That day alone, I'd been to a papal audience and been blessed by Pope Benedict XVI, visited the ancient Appian Way and toured catacombs where some of the earliest Christians were buried. In the days before, Mass celebrating the Feast of Christ the King and confession at St. Peter's Basilica, Mass at the grave of St. Peter, the Scavi tour of the necropolis far beneath it, so many churches, each more beautiful than the next; the Trevi Fountain, the Spanish Steps, the Colosseum, the Forum, the Pantheon. Rome, with it's smells and sounds, cobbles smoothed by thousands of years worth of feet crossing them, and history everywhere: seemingly mundane things like ancient water fountains and stairways even older than my entire nation, the food, the people -- and for that week, a community of Catholics, strangers for the most part thrown together, but with whom I felt so at home, and more myself than I had in a long time. There was, as yet, a day in Florence ahead of me and tours of the great basilicas also to come. The fact that I was even there was something of a miracle. It was most certainly the answer to a prayer.

"We're coming home/And all are one"
I'd never been out of the country before, you see, and sometimes despaired of ever being able to do much travel, especially on the salary I made. In July of 2009, I remember sitting on my couch, journaling about how frustrated I was with the sheer lack in my life. There was no church community where I lived, unless you happened to be a retiree, no such thing as a date to be had and I was tired, restless and whiny, so much so that I complained in my journal to God, telling him of my desire to roam, for an adventure. Less than three hours later, my phone rang. It was Carrie, my cousin and the closest thing to a sister I've ever had. Although we talked on the phone fairly often, what with one thing and another, we hadn't seen each other in four years. Her parish in Washington D.C. was organizing a trip to Rome, and would I be interested in going? she asked. All of her other close girlfriends weren't Catholic, and she didn't want to go by herself. I was ecstatic and thrilled, but also a bit reticent. I told her I would love to go, but couldn't promise I could raise the nearly $2,000 for the trip. But I gave her a tentative yes and asked for more information when she had it. It was only after we hung up that I recalled my journal entry from earlier in the afternoon. I picked up the notebook from the floor at the foot of my couch, reread the lines I'd written and just sat there, staring up at my ceiling, laughing. Rarely has the answer to a prayer come so quickly for me.

The first hurdle was getting the time off of work. The trip was over Thanksgiving, and my boss is typically loath to let anyone go on extended vacations over major holidays. But it was July, and a coworker said the earlier I asked, the higher the likelihood my boss would agree to it. I even prayed about the best way to approach her with it. So a few mornings later, I sat myself down at her desk, and told her about the trip, the papal audience, the places we were scheduled to visit. She said I had to go. "Really, it's ok?" I asked. "You thought I would say no?" she replied. Well, frankly, yes.

I almost immediately started saving. As a reporter with a community newspaper, I don't make that much money, and it is extremely hard to save anything. But I stopped buying snacks and sodas from the vending machine at work. I put Netflix on hold and cut off my cable and internet service. Addicted to reading, I stopped  buying books. I bought fewer treats at the grocery store. By scrimping, I managed to save enough to make the deposit. The only thing was, if I couldn't save the money for the entire trip, I'd lose the deposit entirely. I'm not someone who usually takes chances, so it was a gamble and a leap of faith.

And as I saved, I prayed a lot. I offered the trip up to God's will, invoked the prayers of the Blessed Mother, and petitioned several of my favorite saints, all while trying -- and failing miserably -- not to imagine myself there, say, lounging at a sidewalk cafe, sipping coffee. At the same time, I'd see clothes in stores and think, "I could wear that in Italy." Only occasionally would I buy something for myself, and then only if it was seriously on sale, like a shirt at Target marked down to a ridiculously low price. I made the deposit, seeing it as a sign almost that I was on the right track, and kept on saving. But then, the payment deadline loomed, and I was short. My best friend, Sarah, encouraged me to ask my parents for a loan for the remaining $700 I needed. But I'd wanted to do this on my own, I said, and feared a litany of objections, especially from my father, who tends to be frugal and isn't big on traveling. Wisely, Sarah told me, "If you ask and they say no, it's on them. But if you don't ask, it's on you, and you'll never know. And then you'll regret it for the rest of your life." She was right. So with much prayer that God's will be done ("Your will, not mine, Your will, not mine, Your will, not mine" had become almost a mantra for me) I finally drummed up the courage and called. I explained the situation to my mom, who said, while it would surely be amazing, they'd just had to put in an new air conditioner and didn't think they could afford it. I'd prepared myself for the no, and was at peace with that answer. Fifteen minutes later, my phone rang again, my mom calling back. I thought there was probably just something she'd forgotten to tell me. She opened with, "I've been discussing the idea with Dad..." and I braced myself for an entire list of objections he was likely making. But her next words shocked me: "...and he thinks it's fine." Oh, Lord! I couldn't stop smiling, and I must have asked "Really?!" and "Are you sure?" so many times, because my mom just started laughing at me.

"Blessed and broken/The floodgates open"

So there I was, standing on the roof of the convent we called home for the week, Casa Nostra di Fatima, on the Via del Gianicolo. I had  bees listening to Matt Maher on my my iPod as I wrote, and it was still in my pocket as I wandered over to the small Marian grotto set in the far, darkest corner of the roof. With only a small lantern hanging by a chain, Mary was hard to see in the dim, but her arms were spread in welcome. Maher's song "Here and Now" began playing, and suddenly I was in tears. I tend to be somewhat emotional -- honor, sacrifice and beauty regularly make me cry -- and I'd been surprised I hadn't cried much over any of the amazing things we'd experienced thus far. But in that moment, I found myself on my knees, sobbing uncontrollably -- over what, I still can't quite put into words. Perhaps it was the full weight and realization of where I was, a renewal and relief after nearly five years of waiting on something, reassurance that my time spent relying on God alone hadn't been for naught, an awakening, a letting go, sheer joy and thanksgiving. A recapturing of confidence I'd sometimes thought lost. Wonder and awe. Grace. As I cried, I also felt the need to jump up and down, fling my arms out and twirl in abandon. I may have done, actually. And while part of me wanted, at the time, to be discovered in the midst of my tears, I know now that time was not for others. It was entirely Gods and mine.

"Here and Now"

Try as I might, there are things I have forgotten about that week in Italy, despite trying to write down as much as I could at the time and taking a truly ridiculous number of pictures. I know we aren't supposed to live in the past, and I don't. But the memories still shine. While there have been moments in the year since that trip where I've felt that all I regained from it was fading, graces are still trickling through, small moments there resonate into the now, friendships have developed from one short week -- connections from which I like to think I have begun to see a pattern and a path. The renewed sense of myself and my faith linger, for which I am so thankful. I contemplate actions I might not have even considered before, because my restlessness is of a different sort, and there is more adventure waiting for me. I take baby steps toward taking a leap I know I will soon have to make, a bit anxious but more afraid now of standing still than anything else. And I know God will catch me.

Oh, the irony

Last Friday, the pettiest things were driving me nuts at work -- down to the smoke-raspy, nasal-accented, New York tones of some coworkers' voices. I know part of the problem was that I hadn't worked out at all last week, but I was just fed up. Fed up with being where I am, and where I work, and how nothing seems to be changing even though I feel like I'm ready for it to, how I want to move somewhere vibrant with a good Catholic community (one that isn't geared toward retirees) and work in a job that allows me the opportunity to use the creative talents I sometimes feel are going to waste here.

During my lunch break, I'd finally had enough. I got up and drove to the nearest church, San Pedro, and went to the chapel to pray. But it wasn't just prayer...God knows what I want and need, and I figured He didn't need to hear it again (I did briefly remind Him...although I'm sure The Almighty is fairly sick of my whining). Alternately, I knelt and sat in front of the tabernacle, soaking up the peace and cool of the place, basking in the Presence of Jesus. After half an hour, I felt like I'd had a massage. The knots in my shoulders were gone, and I was peaceful again. God is so good.

And then something hit me. Almost exactly five years earlier (to the month, at least), I had knelt in the same church praying that, if it was God's will, I would get the job I'd just interviewed for, the job I currently hold. The irony of the fact that I'd just been praying to leave a job and an area I'd prayed to join five years before didn't escape me. In fact, it made me laugh.

This isn't the first time I've noticed the Lord's sense of irony (the time when a former crush (who I believed deep down wasn't meant to me a priest, and, therefore, was meant to marry me) went off to seminary, then left and proceeded to ask me for girl advice springs to mind), and it likely won't be the last.

God and His sense of humor.

In 2005, I was out of work and living with my parents. Having lived with my family or roommates all my life, I'd never had an apartment all to myself. While I wasn't exactly desperate, I felt so boxed in. Now, having recently had a taste of how wonderfully active the Catholic YA community in Washington D.C. (after having gone with my cousin and a group from D.C. to Rome in November and visited for Holy Week and Easter), with the addition of being really tired of coming home to an empty (even of pets, since my landlord doesn't allow them) apartment and not feeling like I can progress any farther in my current job, I feel like I'm stagnating.

Not that these five years have been a waste. I am more dedicated in my prayer life and spiritual reading. I've come to rely on God more fully than ever before. And while I still cling too tightly to some things, I've been able to let go of others -- bad habits, family situations that are beyond my control -- that I used to let plague me. I'm far from perfect, but I'm working on it. It could have been my free will and impatience that brought me here five years ago, God let me come here now for a reason.

My half hour in the San Pedro chapel was a reminder of how I am loved and cared for. I have offered my hopes and wants for the future up to God, and I trust that He will continue to guide toward the places and people I need. I might get antsy again waiting, but He will always be there to ease me off the ledge.

Too long absent, ponderings on bravery

Sometimes I forget I have this blog, and they I'll read someone else's and think "Oh yeah, I have one, too."



A traditional pen-and-paper journaler, I'm sometimes reticent about posting things online because people will be able to, gulp, actually read them...when the only people who will proabably read my physical journals are, quite likely, not even born yet (i.e., children, grandchildren). But sometimes I wonder what it would be like to actually be brave enough to put something out there that I really do want to say, that I'm reticent to share because people might ridicule me for it or judge me--nothing bad, mind you, just thoughts and experiences (or the lack thereof) that many people might find unrealistic/naive/stupid/insert an adjective. But then I think, "What if if could benefit someone somehow?" I believe God leads us to connections and convictions when His time is right, and I'm feeling braver by the minute.



I know this is rather cryptic, and I probably have no reason to worry, because I don't think the few people who once read this blog do anymore. I'm probably over-thinking it, and an excess of musing never did me any good. Ramble, ramble, ramble.