Living excessively

My daily walk includes a path through a park along the shore of Lake Saint Clair, a lake so large I cannot see the opposite shore. The other day, the sky was overcast and the lake a dull gray, when, all of a sudden, the sun broke through the clouds, shining on the water, and the water shimmered. Where seconds before there had only been dullness, now the water sparkled, and I stopped to look.

Three words popped into my mind: Think BIG thoughts!

Vast is the sky overhead and the water at my feet, inviting me to be expansive, to live in the abundance that our God offers us. It was a mystical moment.

Our culture encourages people to think big thoughts about success, possessions, money—building financial portfolios, expanding business, growing wealth—all with an eye toward more money and bigger things—houses, cars, etc. Excessiveness is a word we tend to associate with wealth and the way wealthy people spend their money—mansions, yachts, elaborate vacations, expensive clothes.

But what if we focused our big thoughts on building, expanding and growing love, forgiveness, acceptance and compassion. What if we were excessive with kindness, gratitude and mercy? What if we focused our wants on others instead of ourselves? What if we thought big thoughts about goodness, curiosity and generosity? Pie in the sky? Perhaps.

As I walked home from the lake that day, I passed the elementary school near my house and noticed words stenciled on the sidewalk. The school district has a character-building program focused on developing positive habits in the children and more than a dozen sidewalk blocks had words on them.

I remembered back to the beginning of the pandemic when children wrote messages of hope in sidewalk chalk.

We all need daily reminders to develop positive character traits.

What does all this mean for me? What BIG thoughts am I meant to be thinking? What positive character traits am I meant to be developing? What can I do that will help spread the message of Jesus to love, forgive, accept, hope, trust, persevere?

Preparing for Christmas

This weekend, we begin the season of Advent, four weeks of preparing for Christmas. One of my past parish ministries was writing a reflection for our weekly church bulletin. Advent reflections could be my most challenging because the Pastor encouraged us to focus on preparing for Christmas, instead of celebrating Christmas throughout December. “Advent is a season,” he would say.

This was a reflection I wrote at the beginning of Advent one year that resonates with me this year:

“As we begin this time of preparation for the birth of Jesus our savior, I am so very aware of the suffering throughout the world, in our cities and neighborhoods, and in our homes. Peace seems elusive; despair seems pervasive.

“The Advent readings, though, remind us that we are a people of hope from a tradition of hope. The light of Jesus overcomes the darkness of despair.

“Advent is highlighted in the Church year as a time of waiting which is something that many of us are not particularly good at doing. We have become a people of instant communication, instant replay and instant gratification. We have fast food, EZ pass and express lanes. We tend to want what we want when we want it. For many, this is most true during the month of December.

“This Advent, I invite you to try something different. I invite you to deliberately try to slow down and experience the season of Advent. I invite you to put off celebrating Christmas until the end of Advent and to use this time as an opportunity to become stronger in our faith, more rooted in our traditions.

“Here are some suggestions for the weeks ahead:

• Spend a few minutes every day with the Sunday or daily scripture readings.
• Save and don’t open the Christmas cards you receive during Advent. Open a few on Christmas Eve and then a few more during each evening during the Christmas season.
• If you decorate the outside of your house, do not turn the lights on until Christmas Eve.
• Create an Advent wreath for your home—three purple candles and one pink.
• If you put up your Nativity set during Advent, wait until Christmas Eve to place the baby Jesus figure in the scene.
• Simplify your gift-giving practice. Give more handmade and symbolic gifts.”

I remember writing this piece while I was drinking my morning coffee from my Christmas mug, so very aware that I am one of those people who feels uncomfortable with the not-yet, who likes to jump ahead. I am reminded of the words of Teilhard de Chardin.

I was supposed to be in Europe right now, but I decided against going because of covid. So, the thirteen days I had planned to be away are now free. I will use this time for baking, knitting gifts and writing Christmas cards. I will try to be more patient. I will set up my Advent wreath and ponder light and hope.

How will you celebrate the season of Advent?

Vigil

She sits patiently,

her prayers rising like the mist

over the calm lake.

At the edge of the wetlands

From my perch on the dock

at the edge of the wetlands,

I watched three hawks circle overhead,

gliding, then swooping,

then flapping their wings before another glide.

What could they see from so high above the treetops?

Did they notice even the slightest movement?

Were they somehow signaling to one another?

Mouse by the maple tree.

Chipmunk on the fallen branch.

They flew in unison,

as if they had rehearsed,

as if they were putting on a synchronized show.

Round and round they went,

gliding and flapping,

seeming to be in no hurry at all,

never coming to ground,

content to be aloft.

And then they flew away.

I waited for them to return,

but after a while,

I gave up.

I don’t have the patience of a hawk.

Turning the page

I was convicted the other day by Jake Owensby’s post about unity.

Full disclosure: I don’t watch the news or read a newspaper or listen to the news (other than if I happen to be in my car and it comes on). I am an ostrich when it comes current events. I know the headlines, but not much else.

Friends fill me in when something monumental happens, but for the most part, the divisiveness and aggression in our country burdens me, and I choose to opt out.

It all started when my friend Jim got brain cancer and there was no room in my psyche for what was happening in the world. All my energy went into taking care of Jim and holding onto my job. Jim watched the news and would brief me on what was happening, and I found that this system worked for me. I became a news dabbler.

After Jim died, I grieved, and my pain was enough; I did not need to hear about crime, war or political spats.

Then I just got used to living shallow when it came to the news. It all just seemed like “different day, same story” and I did not find it helpful to my mental health to tune in.

I don’t like being angry, and that is mainly how I feel when I hear the news. I am tired of how little progress we make as a society.

For example, in the 1960’s and 1970’s many women campaigned to change language that excluded them. It was common for “men” to be used as the word for “people,” and men would say women were included in that word, which never made sense to me. By that argument, the word “women” should have been used because it does include “men.”

Over time, the use of “men” to mean everyone changed. In church, we went from saying “brothers” to “brothers and sisters” and from “brethren” to “people.”

But here we are, fifty years on, and “men” has been replaced by “guys” which is just another word for “men.”

There are no female guys, but I cannot tell you how many times restaurant servers have called me a guy. It infuriates me, and it infuriates me that women are complicit in it, that women exclude themselves by calling other women “guys.”

It is no mystery that we still have a gender wage gap and that women are excluded from many positions of leadership in our society. Words matter, and calling women “guys” reinforces the message that men are the top dogs.

And don’t get me started on racial injustice or the demeaning treatment of people who have disabilities or who are elderly or any number of issues I have cared about for the past fifty years.

So please forgive me if I am impatient, but my impatience does not excuse using words that tear down rather than build up. I will try harder to seek unity in what I say and do.

Be present

Be holy (Leviticus 19:2)

Those two words from Leviticus—be holy—caught my attention when I read them during my morning prayer and then heard them at Mass.

Be holy.

I asked myself what I need to do to be holy.

And there is the rub. God is saying be and I am thinking do.

It is a familiar trap for me because I am much better at doing than I am at being.

Give me a task that needs to get done, some project that requires attention or a problem to be solved, and I will jump right in.

But just being? Well, I am not so good at that.

It was one of my biggest challenges when I lived in l’Arche, a Christian community where people with and without developmental disabilities live together. The invitation of l’Arche is to be and being is more highly valued than doing. Living in l’Arche was the beginning of my intentional practice of being.

I have gotten better at it, but obviously, I still have a way to go because I read and heard be and asked what I need to do.

Then I thought of the people I know whom I think of as holy and considered what it is about them that makes them holy.

It occurred to me that all the people I think of as holy are good at being present to the people who are right in front of them. It is not that they don’t make plans, because they do, but their primary focus is on the now. They focus on each person as an individual, and they see the humanity in every person.

One friend texted me the other day that she thinks of people as mosaics made up of broken pieces, some pieces weaker and more likely to break again; other pieces are made stronger by whatever glue binds them.

That honors each person. It doesn’t deny weakness or faults but sees beyond character traits to a more holistic picture of the person. She isn’t trying to fix people; she is trying to be present to them. That is holy.

At the customer service counter in the grocery store the other day, the cashier vented to another store employee about a customer who “went off” on her because the cashier had taken a phone call. The cashier was upset and lamented how angry people are. It was an unholy encounter, full of hurt and anger. I stood and listened, trying to be present to the cashier in her distress.

When she turned to me, it seemed she might have been expecting that I, too, would “go off” on her because I had been waiting while she vented.

“I’m not angry,” I said. “It is a beautiful, sunny day and I am in no rush to go anywhere. Take your time.”

She breathed out and smiled.

“Just be present to the person in front of you,” I said to myself “and that will be holy.”

Becoming courageous

“I want to be you,” a volunteer at my work recently said to me.

“Me?” I asked incredulously.

I admire your courage and kindness,” she said.

Over the years, I have told other women that I want to be them. These are women who embody the virtues I aspire to—patience, compassion, kindness, wisdom and self-acceptance. I want to embody those same virtues.

So when I heard these words being said to me, I was surprised.

I suppose most of us carry around images of ourselves that focus on our insecurities, where we see ourselves falling short and not living up to our own standards, let alone expectations others might have. I know I do.I used to move a lot and hanging curtains was one of the first things I did to help me feel settled into my new place. I remember after one move, a woman at work asked how I was settling in and I told her I had my curtains up so I was in good shape. “Who hung them for you?” she asked, knowing that I was single. “I did them myself,” I replied with both a tinge of incredulity that she asked the question and also a sense of pride. She considered hanging curtains rods a challenge.

But, I have been in my current house for five years and only last week put up the last of my window treatments. I was nervous about drilling into the plaster wall. Drilling into wooden window frames is easy, but plaster?

I googled installing curtain rods in plaster walls and then I called my brother for further assurance. He concurred with the You Tube video.

So I charged my drill, mustered my courage, measured and began. I even used the level to make sure the rod was straight.

The finished product pleased me.Why had I been so resistant? So fearful?Even though others may see me as courageous, I know my inner fears. I know how I can be paralyzed by the smallest thing (like putting up curtain rods).

When this paralysis strikes, I wonder if it is a matter of accepting my limitations or being challenged to overcome a fear.In my early thirties, my therapist encouraged me to do things scared.

Act as if… my therapist advised me. We had been talking about my fears, and there were many. He suggested I act as if I had no fears, with the idea that acting as if would lead to a change in behavior, that my fears would disappear.

I was doubtful, but it actually worked, and each time I did something that frightened (or even terrified) me, I gain confidence.

From another therapist, I learned is to ask, What is the worst that can happen? In most circumstances, the worst is not so bad. (In the case of curtain rods, it would mean some repair work before reinstalling.)

Doing things scared and weighing possible outcomes have helped me become less fearful and more courageous.

 

Getting ready

In my religious tradition, Christmas is a season that begins on Christmas Day. The weeks leading up to Christmas are a separate season—Advent.

Some years I am more attentive to Advent than others, and this year, I feel called to pay attention to Advent.

The differences between Advent and Christmas are easy to see. Advent is a time of waiting—just think of a woman in her ninth month of pregnancy. It is clear that something is about to happen, and family and friends eagerly anticipate the birth of a child. There may be some anxiety (it is possible that something could go wrong or not turn out as expected), but for most people, the expectant hope and joy outweigh the worry.

Christmas, on the other hand, is the time of celebration. To continue the analogy, the baby has arrived; it is time to rejoice.

In our culture, Advent seems to get overlooked, and we move right to Christmas (now as early as October, if we are to believe retailers). That would be like a woman who is only six or seven months pregnant acting as if her baby had already been born.

The weeks leading up to Christmas are often seen as a time of gearing up, but Advent really invites us to slow down and pay attention to the movement of the Spirit within.

I used to write bulletin reflections for a priest friend, and one Advent he asked me to encourage parishioners to resist the secular celebration of Christmas during Advent and to truly celebrate Advent.

I felt a bit guilty completing this assignment because I always unpack my Christmas mugs on the first Sunday of Advent, and every day of Advent, I enjoy coffee in a Christmas mug. Not very Advent-ish of me.

In my defense, I love my Christmas mugs and they get so little use (December and early January).

But, I wrote the reflection piece and gave some suggestions on celebrating Advent.

I have been pondering ways I might use Advent to get ready for Christmas. Some ideas:

• Practice patience—check frustration, yield, wait;
• Reach out to someone who is alone or lonely and offer companionship and comfort;
• Seek forgiveness and reconciliation;
• Take a break from some popular-culture activity that consumes leisure time (television, texting, movies, sports, etc.) and spend that time in prayer or service (maybe for just one or two hours each of the weeks of Advent);
• Do at least one act of kindness every day, totaling twenty-two acts of kindness—hold the door for someone, offer a compliment, pay the toll of the person behind you, add something extra to tips, thank someone….it does not have to be extraordinary to be meaningful;
• Save all Christmas cards and open them all on Christmas Day or during the days of the Christmas season (which ends with the feast of the Baptism of the Lord, January 8, 2018);
• Practice gratitude.

Advent offers quiet blessings and insights if we slow down and pay attention.

 

 

Which path?

My bucket list included the Cotswolds, so when I was planning to visit friends in Ireland, I decided to tack on a few days to explore English villages with thatched-roof cottages and hillsides dotted with sheep.

I had been hiking in the Lake District of England some years ago, so I had a basic understanding of how hilly the English countryside can be and how difficult it can be to follow hiking directions. On that trip, our “leader” was a friend who had hiked in the Lake District several times before and assured us his guidebook was reliable.

We got hopelessly lost the first day, and since it was November, the sun began to set in late afternoon (our “leader” had only hiked there in the summer and had not taken into account the shorter days of November). His confidence waned along with the daylight. Fortunately, we found our way back to our village, but we were a bit more skeptical the rest of the trip.

Over the next few days, I came to understand that the guidebook was written with locals in mind—people who had grown up hiking these hills and would know which stile was the one just past where MacDonald’s barn used to be. We were in the dark, and I quickly began to mock the guidebook. Turn left after the second black sheep, I would offer, because that was about as helpful as the directions in the book.

Walking in the Cotswolds seemed more reliable because there is actually a path called the Cotswold Way, a walk of about 100 miles from Chipping Campden in the north to Bath in the south. I planned to hike only the first part of the Way and thought, “How difficult could it be to follow a path with a name?”

Silly me.

My B&B host gave me maps with the local hikes clearly indicated and instructed me to follow the signs for the public footpaths which would take me to the top of Dover’s Hill and the start of the Cotswold Way. There I would find signs decorated with acorns to indicate the Way.I crossed through the first two fields with no problem, but the third gateway was surrounded by sheep, and I was hesitant to scatter them—not out of fear, but out of politeness. Why should they have to move just for me?

So I turned right and followed the fence line up the hill. Eventually, I found the footpath again and managed to find the start of the Cotswold Way.The walk from Chipping Campden to Broadway is 4.5 miles and I knew that walking across the fields would take longer than a straight 4.5 mile walk back home. But after more than an hour of walking and no sight of Broadway or the Broadway Tower (which I expected to be able to see from a distance), I was getting discouraged.

Broadway Tower

Just then, I met a young man walking in the opposite direction and asked if I was on the path to Broadway.

“Yes,” he said. “You go on this path another quarter mile and then cross through two wheat fields.” He paused before adding, “Broadway will be on your right.”

At the end of the two wheat fields, there was still no sign of Broadway—only another field on my right.

Eventually, I found my way to Broadway and enjoyed an afternoon in the village.

I decided to take the bus home.

The next day, I planned to visit Hidcote Garden which was three miles in a different direction. Rather than risk getting lost on the footpath, I decided to take the bus to the town a mile from Hidcote and then just walk from there. Armed with my map and directions from my host, I felt confident—only to walk much more than one mile with Hidcote nowhere in sight.

Fortunately, lots of people walk the paths, and I am not averse to asking for directions. Sure enough, I was on the wrong path. Once pointed in the right direction, I found the garden with no problem.

By then, I had begun to reflect on the paths as a metaphor for my life.

At the end of that day in Broadway, I had allowed myself a little pity party. I am alone, I whined to myself. Oh, I have loving family and friends, but since Jim and Ted died, I am not loved in the way I once was. I am not important to anyone in the way I once was. Poor me.

Here I was in England, staying at a lovely B&B, visiting churches and museums built hundreds of years ago, wandering through exquisite gardens and enjoying fine meals—and I was feeling sorry for myself. That was not the path I wanted to follow.

Rather, I want to be on the path that continually calls to mind my blessings, the path that invites me to gratitude and generosity.

Perhaps, like Broadway that first day, the destination is not visible as quickly as I want, but my days in the Cotswolds remind me to relax and trust that God is guiding me, and if I can do that, I can appreciate wherever I am along the path and eventually get to where I am meant to be.

Patience and faith

The forsythia in my back yard had very few flowers the past three springs. I pruned it every spring since I moved here, hoping it would produce abundant blooms. A friend who knows about such things told me there are some varieties that flower less and suggested I consider getting a different variety. I was about to give up on my forsythia, and then it bloomed.Be patient, Madeline, I heard God saying.

A few weeks later, I was at a retreat center that has a labyrinth. During a workshop break, I visited the labyrinth and started to walk meditatively along the outer circle. At the first turn in the path, I stopped and looked at the stone in the middle. The brochure had said it was a symbol of Jacob meeting God. I pondered that for a bit and then I had an impulse to just walk to the middle, to skip the layers of circles and jump to the center.The words of Teilhard de Chardin came to me.

Above all, trust in the slow work of God.
We are quite naturally impatient in everything
to reach the end without delay.
We should like to skip the intermediate stages.
We are impatient of being on the way to something
unknown, something new.
And yet it is the law of all progress
that it is made by passing through
some stages of instability—
and that it may take a very long time.

 And so I think it is with you;
your ideas mature gradually—let them grow,
let them shape themselves, without undue haste.
Don’t try to force them on,
as though you could be today what time
(that is to say, grace and circumstances
acting on your own good will)
will make of you tomorrow.

 Only God could say what this new spirit
gradually forming within you will be.
Give Our Lord the benefit of believing
that his hand is leading you,
and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself
in suspense and incomplete.

 Be patient, God again said to me.

Patience is a virtue that I can work on, and it seems God is inviting me to develop this virtue.Faith, on the other hand, is a gift that is about desire and openness.

Taken together, patience and faith invite me to let go of my expectations and my rush-to-the-end attitude. They invite me to accept what is just the way it is, and to move against my tendency to want things to be other than they are.

Patience and faith invite me to lean into God and let God lead me, to accept what is with gratitude and even joy. Opening my hands to receive what God offers, waiting for the gift and holding it loosely enough that I don’t crush it—that is the stance of patience and faith.

Like the forsythia in my yard, I want to surprise the people who have tended to me by trusting God’s grace and becoming the person God intended.