Art outside museums

Throughout my travels in France, I visited several art museums, and I also noticed art in some unexpected places. The main street in Barbizon, for example, featured mosaic reproductions of works by artists who lived and woked in Barbizon in the 19th century.

Honfleur sits along the northern end of the Seine River and this outdoor wall art is representative of the nautical feel of the town.

In Angers, this artistic garden in what had been the moat around the castle drew my attention.

This mural in Lyon covered an entire building.

I was in Lyon during Holy Week and came upon these Stations of the Cross. The juxtaposition of this modern interpretation of the Passion of Jesus on the ancient pillars was striking.

Whimsical France

My back yard garden is dotted with bits of whimsy–yard art and wind chimes tucked in among the flowers–so imagine my joy at discovering bits of whimsy during my travels around France. Here is a sampling.

It is not uncommon to see animals on roof tops–here are two cats in Honfleur.

Blue snail in Bayeux

A person beneath an umbrella in a fountain in Bayeux.

Giant-sized gardening tools in LeMans

Blue gorilla in the Beau Arts Gardens in Angers

Church gate in Albi

French Churches

It seemed that most every town we visited had a beautiful church or cathedral. Some dated from medieval times and others were relatively new (19th century).

Eglise Notre Dame de la Persévérence (St. Mary of Perseverance), Barbizon, France

Bayeux Cathedral, built between the 12th and 16th centuries.

Stained glass window on the Bayeux Cathedral

St. Cecelia Cathedral in Albi was built in the 13th century. The outside looks more like a fort than a church, while the inside is full of ornate paintings, sculptures and carvings.

Side altars inside the Albi Cathedral

The Cathedral in Le Mans

Silver linings

Joy is a sign of a generous personality, Mother Teresa of Calcutta.

Since the pandemic began a year and a half ago, I have been on the look-out for “silver linings,” those unanticipated good news moments. (It must be my tendency toward optimism!)

Anyway, due to some odd things that happened in my old church during the pandemic, I started thinking about looking for a new church. I have been going to my old church for seven years, and I tend to feel a sense of loyalty to my parish, but last weekend, I visited a new church.

There I sat in this new church, surrounded by strangers, observing how things are done here.

The first thing I noticed was the music. There were several people leading the singing and in addition to the pianist and guitarist, there was also a flautist and a violinist. The sound was rich, and it pulled me into a sense of community worship.

At the beginning of Mass, the priest called the children up front for children’s liturgy, and about a dozen children happily approached. He said a few words to them and then began singing, “If you’re happy and you know it….” The kids and the congregation joined in, singing and clapping their hands. The priest added a silly bit, and everyone laughed.

And then I realized I was feeling something I hadn’t felt in church for a while—I was feeling joy.

As Mass went on, the sense of joy continued. Two children were baptized during Mass, and I found myself smiling, happy for these two young families and their extended families.

The priest included the congregation in his sermon by asking questions, and he called people by name. His sermon was relatable—he talked about spiritual healing and physical healing, and days later, I am still thinking about the message.

Perhaps none of this seems extraordinary to you, but all of this indicated to me that I have probably stayed at my old church too long. Church is one of those places that can get comfortable, and the habit can make it easier to stay than to go. The pandemic shook that up for me—I only attended Mass once in-person, and I found my church too casual about Covid guidelines for me to be comfortable.

This has been a year of many changes for me, with my mother’s death and leaving my job, and I feel I have been living in a liminal space. Here, where routines have been tossed aside and everything is new and different, it seems a good time to explore.

What silver linings have you noticed because of the pandemic?

Overcoming resistance

Over a year ago, I stopped going to church—at first because churches were closed, and when they reopened, I was not comfortable going. I had realized early in the shut-down that those things that are most habitual pose the highest risk of forgetting we are in the midst of a pandemic. Church is a place of ritual and habit.

My church is one of those places where many people hug in greeting one another, and I wanted to avoid having to put my hands up in a “STOP” position. I have missed being hugged, but protecting my health is more important.

Once I received the vaccine, however, I decided to go to Mass.

The seats had been rearranged to ensure social distancing, and I felt very safe. Then came communion, and I happened to see a woman walking back to her seat touching the hands of people she passed—just as she used to do before the pandemic. It was habitual, and people responded as they did pre-pandemic.

I was immediately uncomfortable, and I have not gone back to church since.

At the beginning of the pandemic, when we thought it would only last a short time, I decided that I did not want to watch Mass on a screen. Something felt off about it, as if Mass were a play. I always think of Mass in terms of participation, so not only had I not gone to Mass, but I had also not watched it.

Then, on Easter Sunday, I decided to try watching Mass being livestreamed from my church. It was wonderful to see people again, and I appreciated “being” there.

During this Mass, I began to wonder why I had been so resistant to viewing Mass on a screen.

Resistance is familiar to me, and this incident with the livestream Mass seemed to open the floodgates of my awareness of things I have been resisting during the pandemic.

I think fear of contracting coronavirus has sparked other fears, and the fears have just kept piling up. For example, I have not traveled, and the few times I have eaten in restaurants, I was too anxious to enjoy my meal. Even though I have gotten the vaccine, I am still hesitant to be around more than a few people at a time.

Last week, I was talking with a friend about retirement and said I was afraid I would not have enough money.

“I’ve never heard you talk like that,” she said. She is right; I never feared not having enough money. I live within my means and even though I don’t have a lot of money, I have always managed financially and been content with my financial situation.

I am going on retreat next month, and my spiritual director suggested I try not to anticipate what will happen. I do hope, though, that God will work with me on my fears and resistances. And I am joyfully anticipating going to Mass every day.

ance

The Mystery of God’s Love

Why God chose me is a mystery—inexplicable and unimaginable, really—but a truth I have known my whole life. Visions, dreams, and intense prayer experiences have all revealed God’s presence in my life and the depth of his love for me.

Living with mystery—accepting it and embracing it—is the invitation God extends to me every day. And I have tried to live by accepting the mystery of how God interacts with me and the ways he intervenes in my life.

Until recently, I have held my “God moments” as private, but now I feel invited to share them. This is a shift in my thinking, and as I reflect on it, I think of Moses in the desert for forty years. I was twenty-one when I started having mystical visions and sixty-one when I started blogging about my spiritual journey.

As a child, I felt a strong connection to Jesus and a deep desire to grow in my relationship with him. But at twenty-one, I went through a very dark period in my life and was in deep emotional pain. Unhealthy relationships and overindulging in alcohol were the outward signs of my pain, and, at the same time, I started to attend daily Mass to pray for a conversion.

“I want to be zapped like Saint Paul,” I told my pastor. He was quite certain that would not happen and encouraged me to be diligent in daily prayer and to keep turning away from unhealthy behaviors and relationships.

Then at the end of Ash Wednesday Mass, the priest said, “Go now, cleansed in mind and body, to love and serve the Lord.”

Cleansed in mind and body was exactly what I was not.

I began to cry and knelt to pray: “Please, God, cleanse me.” As I prayed, I saw in a vision a large sword cutting me open, and I watched as all kinds of darkness and filth spilled out. It was like a river flowing out of me until I was empty.

I felt gutted, as though there was nothing left to me. The space that had been filled with so much darkness was now ready to receive light.

All of a sudden, I felt free, and I knew God had zapped me with grace.

“God zapped me,” I shouted to my pastor as I left church, tears of joy running down my cheeks. He conceded that God did sometimes “zap” people, but he cautioned that I would still need to be diligent in prayer and monitor my behavior.

I remember the reactions of people at work that morning. Apparently being “zapped” by God’s grace was visible because all day I was asked what had happened to me. “You are glowing,” people commented.

I wish I could say that experience signaled the end of my dark days, but it took years before I could completely turn away from destructive behaviors—years of prayer and lots of therapy.

But that Ash Wednesday vision and the experience of knowing God’s love and compassion stayed with me and helped me trust the mystery of God’s love.

Leaning into vulnerability

The day after my neighbor Margaret came to mind while on retreat recently, I walked the labyrinth. At the center, I stopped and prayed for insight: Why had the memory of my pledge to Margaret come to mind?

The words from Psalm 89 came to me: “I have made a covenant with my chosen…”

I walked back through the labyrinth repeating those words.

I have made a covenant with my chosen.

What are you trying to tell me, God?

And then I remembered that when I was fifteen years old, I had said to myself, “One day I am going to write a book about my life, and it will start like this: From the time I was eight years old, I knew God had called me in a special way.”

I didn’t know exactly what it meant that God had called me, how it had happened or why God had picked me, but I knew it is true. God had chosen me when I was eight years old.

At that early age, God had somehow made a covenant with me. And now, on retreat almost sixty years later, God was reminding me of that covenant.

The thing about the pledge I made to Margaret is that it was made with my full knowledge and consent. God’s covenant when I was eight was one-sided; God initiated it. I didn’t fully consent.

For many years, I was noncommittal about God. Having been chosen by God only seemed to make me different and somehow weird—I was the kid who loved going to church.

Church was my refuge. As I inhaled the smell of burning beeswax candles, I also breathed in the mystery of God’s grace. I loved the hushed quiet and the space to retreat into myself.

Inside church, I felt close to God. It was there that I experienced God’s desire to be in a relationship with me, where I heard God asking me to say yes to the covenant God initiated.

Inside church, I could be God’s but once outside, I did not know how to trust that relationship or to live it out.

While my fifteen-year-old self knew that something significant had happened to me when I was eight, my adult self has been clueless as to how that could be of interest. On retreat, God gave me an insight.

I went back to the first piece I posted on this blog more than six years ago. God is doing something new.

Much has changed over these past six years—new home in a new state, working in a near field, new friends.

But the most significant change is being vulnerable enough to share my story—with all its difficulties and traumas. I am learning to move beyond shame and to trust that the sky will not fall if I reveal something long kept secret.

My part of the covenant is to tell how God’s grace has infused my life and transformed pain into compassion, fear into trust.

Where I belong

My mother grew up on a farm in northern Michigan. I still have one aunt and several cousins who live near the farm, and last weekend my mom and I went up north to visit my Aunt Mary.During my childhood, we regularly traveled to the farm to help out. Even as a young child, I was assigned chores; gathering eggs was my favorite.

There is no work to do on the farm now—no animals to tend and the fields are rented out for farming.

During this trip, a cousin and his wife stopped by one evening, and one day we visited the cemetery where my dad and many relatives are buried. Mostly, though, my mom, my aunt and I spent the time catching up.

My aunt asked if I was happy that I had moved home. I said yes! No hesitation. I told her I have no regrets about moving back and that I love regular get-togethers with my siblings, being here for every family occasion and my random encounters with my cousins. The transition was difficult, I told her, but so worth it.A few days after that trip, a friend and I were talking about belonging. He is in transition and pondering where he wants to live—a place where he has a sense of belonging is important to him.

I shared how grateful I am to be home and how living here has made me more aware that this is where I belong.

“Did you feel a sense of not belonging during the years you lived away?” he asked.

I did not. When I lived away from family, I felt a strong connection with friends who share my beliefs and values.

My sense of belonging to my family, though, is by birth, and since I cannot be un-born, I always feel connected to my family.

In the same way that my birth made me a part my family, being baptized into my church secured my belonging there.

Birth and baptism created irrevocable bonds, and I have never questioned those bonds. In the sense that I can’t be unborn or unbaptized, I have always had a “they can’t kick me out” attitude.

The deepest of all connections for me, though, is my God connection. Even before birth and baptism, I belonged to God, and belonging to God has sustained me through many difficulties.As I reflected on where I belong, I realized that those who share my beliefs and values get me in a way my family sometimes doesn’t; and that because of our shared culture and history, my family gets me in a way my friends sometimes don’t.

I am blessed to come from a God who sustains me, belong to a family that loves and accepts me and have friends who support and encourage me.

Driving up north and turning off the highway and onto the dirt road to my grandparents’ farm was a reminder of how fortunate I am to know where I belong.

 

 

Vulnerability as a gift

Every winter, my church participates in a rotating shelter program for people who are homeless; this year, thirty men are staying with us for a week.

Our parish school closed years ago, but for this one week, classrooms are converted into bedrooms, the gym into a cafeteria, and a large meeting room into a gathering space with televisions, games and snacks. It is an excellent example of repurposing.

I love the outpouring of generosity this program elicits, as parishioners step up to serve as hosts, prepare meals, provide transportation and do laundry. The planning for this week is spearheaded by one couple who start months in advance to make sure they have enough volunteers lined up to meet the needs of our guests this week.Most nighttime shelters are set up for sleeping, and the people who are staying usually have to leave for the day. The rotating shelter program operates under the same rules, but holidays are the exception.

On New Year’s Day, I was one of four volunteers who spent the afternoon with our guests.

The day before, I was aware that our guests were arriving that evening. Throughout the day, I held the guests, organizers and volunteers in prayer. I was conscious of how blessed I am to have a home with heat—and to earn enough money to be able to pay my heating bills. All day, I thanked God for my blessings.Twice in my life, I have been without a home and had to rely on the generosity of others to have a place to stay. Both times, I was humiliated and felt incredibly vulnerable; and I did not like it.

So being able to offer hospitality to others through this program is especially meaningful to me.

The afternoon started with lunch in the gym/cafeteria. Each table was decorated with a small bouquet of fresh flowers, creating a feeling of spring inside—in sharp contrast to the sub-zero temperatures outside. I sat with two other volunteers, and after we had finished eating, one of the guests came to our table and offered to clear away our dishes.

“Thank you,” we each said as he carried away our trays.

“I like to help,” he commented.

Being vulnerable and needing to rely on the generosity of others can create the sense of being a taker, of having little or nothing to offer. It took me a long time to understand the gift of vulnerability—the gift of seeing myself as being an opportunity for others to be generous.

My time as host on New Year’s Day included refilling water pitchers, replenishing snacks and helping guests with their medications. Last summer, I learned to play Euchre (a card game that is popular in Michigan), and I spent part of the afternoon in a Euchre game.

I can think of no better way to start the New Year than to put myself at the service of others, and also to be an opportunity for someone else to serve.

 

Diverting the stream

“When we meet,” I used to tell Jim, “God is going to say, ‘Good job with what you did for Nakisha.’” While I was taking care of Jim when he had brain cancer, he amended my statement. “When you meet,” he said, “God is going to say, “Good job for taking care of Jim.’”

Taking care of Jim was a lot of heavy lifting, figuratively and literally.

My role with Nakisha was much less hands on. If I think of life as flowing water, my role with Nakisha was to divert the stream.

Nakisha was twelve years old when we met. She had been institutionalized as a toddler and had a vocabulary of approximately fifty words. She attended a segregated, special-education school where her main goal was to chop fruit into exact one-inch pieces. When her “team” decided she would have the same goal the following year, I knew I had to act.

I learned about becoming a Surrogate Parent for Education and tracked down Nakisha’s mother to get her to sign the paperwork.

With my new, official role, I confidently approached the “team” and informed them that Nakisha was transferring to the local middle school.

The next week, Nakisha started classes at her new school, where she flourished under the tutelage of a dedicated teacher and his aide. She began learning sight words, her vocabulary grew and by the end of the school year, she had begun to read.One year later, Nakisha and I were checking out Halloween displays at a local store and she pointed to one contraption and said, “Look, it is making steam.” Steam? She knew what steam was! I cried tears of joy.

Then, I began instigating for her to move out of the institution. Catholic Social Services offered a life-sharing program, and at fifteen, she moved in with a family. As at school, Nakisha blossomed with her new family.

By the time she was seventeen, she had family, friends and interests—and a life that looked completely different from former life.

So many people helped to change Nakisha’s life—people who did most of the heavy lifting. My role was to divert the stream so that changes were possible.

A few years ago, I was reflecting on the people who had diverted the stream of my life. Then I began to contact them to thank them. I called or wrote to friends, former employers, spiritual directors and professors. But my ninth-grade English teacher proved a bit more difficult to track down. After numerous attempts, I let go.

Then, a few weeks ago, a Facebook message led me to this teacher. We chatted by phone, and I thanked her for the way she impacted my life. I reminded her that she had asked me to be the narrator for our school play and I thought she was delusional. Me? Read out loud? No way.

She was persuasive, and I did it.

Her faith in me gave me confidence and changed how I saw myself.