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Lenten Traditions: Food

Over the years, our family has developed Lenten traditions. Some of those have to do with food, which may sound strange since it’s Lent, but even fasting should have an element of beauty and joy to it. I’m not an adventurous cook, so I won’t make a habit of talking about me in a kitchen, but these are worth sharing:

The Redwall Cookbook

A few of our kids (and my husband) love the Redwall series by Brian Jaques, stories about rodent-monks in a medieval setting. And, lucky for us, there is a Redwall cookbook, and it’s all vegetarian. “Stones Inna Swamp” sounds a lot more delectable to kids than vegetable soup with dumplings. It always cracks me up to see them get excited about food they would otherwise roll their eyes at. There are little stories to accompany some of the recipes, and the illustrations are very well done, reminiscent of Beatrix Potter.

Red Lentil Soup

For the first several years of marriage, meals during Lenten fasting days consisted primarily of variations on bread and cheese. The first time I tried making soup, for some reason I thought I could wing it, but it was pretty bad (let’s just say I put the “lent” back into lentil soup). I went hunting for recipes and found one that has officially become a tradition: Red Lentil Soup, with manchego cheese on the side (a creamy sheep cheese from Spain, sooo goooood). For a small meal on a day of fasting, it’s satisfying.

Lenten Scones

Several years ago, when I had three children under four, I had just quit teaching and was a full-time at-home parent. I easily grew listless at home; I had no at-home hobbies, and sometimes the hours seemed to creep on by. My saving grace was a handful of friends I had in the area who, I’m fairly certain, felt similarly. We all came together for company and friendship for both ourselves and our children.

I remember one particular day in March when I needed it more than usual. March is often a difficult month in the Pacific Northwest—lots of gray skies and rain. It’s easy to get stir-crazy. Plus, it’s Lent, so you’re often left without those stand-by pick-me-ups like coffee or chocolate. A friend of mine called me up and invited me over. I remember sitting down at her table, and taking a deep breath, relieved to have my kids occupied with her kids. She set down a steaming cup of tea and a scone in front of me.

There was a story behind this scone, which she called a “Lenten scone” (and it looked very Lenten—lumpy with oats and raisins). She had received the recipe from a family friend in her hometown. Whenever she made these scones—and only during Lent—it reminded her of her home 2,000 miles away and the family whose company she sacrificed for the sake of her new family.

Perhaps the reason I like making these scones is that it reminds me of my friend—and not just that particular friend, who is still dear to me, but for that group of young women who were friends at just such a time. It reminds me of those days of early motherhood that felt Lenten in their sacrifices and self-surrender as I struggled to navigate a life that was no longer about me. I’m still figuring that out, of course, still struggling with it, but those early days were more difficult in their newness.

I make these scones for Ash Wednesday, then for every Friday during Lent. They’re definitely Lenten, but also delicious and weighty. With a side of cheese and carrot sticks, I count them as a small Lenten meal on a fasting day. If you try them out, share them with a friend to keep up the tradition! (And my family is gluten-free, so I just use 1-to-1 gluten-free flour substitution, as well as gluten-free oats. And I’ve substituted buttermilk for cashew milk which works pretty well.)

Ingredients

  • 2-3 tbs. sugar (quantity of tbs. sugar = how Lenten do you want to get?)
  • 1 1/4 cup. flour
  • 1 tsp. baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp. baking soda
  • dash of salt
  • 1 cup oats
  • 1/3 cup raisins or currants
  • 4 tbs. butter
  • 1/3 cup buttermilk

Directions

  • Combine: 2-3 tbs. sugar, 1 ¼ cup flour, 1 tsp. baking powder, ½ tsp. baking soda, dash of salt
  • Stir in 1 cup oats and 1/3 cup raisins or currants
  • Cut in 4 tbs. butter
  • Work in with a fork 1/3 cup buttermilk
  • Press onto a cutting board or counter and cut into squares, or form into a circle and cut into triangles.
  • Bake on a greased cookie sheet at 350 degrees for 20 minutes

Christ must increase, and I must decrease… in body fat…

The other day I went to the local coffee shop to buy hot chocolates for my kids; it’d been a rough week at home, the cold weather had limited our activities, and with Lent around the corner I figured a little mini-mardi-gras pick-me-up was in order. As I stood waiting for six hot chocolates, the barista struck up a conversation. Ordering six of anything usually leads to a conversation. She wanted to know what the occasion was, and I explained that since Lent was coming soon, this was our last hot-chocolate-hurrah of the season. She seemed familiar with the idea of Lent and asked about what we do.

“Individually we all give up or do certain things,” I replied, “but as a family we give up dessert.” (And if you know our family, dessert is a major sacrifice. One eats dinner in order to have dessert.)

The barista’s face lit up. “What a great idea! Lose all that Christmas weight!”

I laughed awkwardly, and didn’t say much more. I figured a crowded coffee shop wasn’t the best place to go into the true purpose of Lent. But her response is not altogether unreasonable. In our culture, we give up food to lose weight. When I found out I was gluten-intolerant, I was surprised at how many people were interested in my gluten-free diet, said they were “trying it out”, like it was another diet fad. Besides the fact that a lot of gluten-free bread is made of starch and has very little fiber, it generally doesn’t taste good—why would someone willfully subject themselves to that? I had to explain that I was gluten-free, not by choice, but because gluten made me physically ill. Fasting, without the primary goal of losing weight, is non-comprehensible to many people.

This non-comprehension is something I’m definitely familiar with, and it’s related to why I don’t fast. I fast according to what the Church instructs, the small meals on meatless Fridays, and I find that doing this as a family increases its meaning as we all ponder our gratitude, or lack thereof, for having more than enough. But for the first several years I was Catholic, I tried to fast on top of that, fairly ambitious with new-convert zeal and enthusiasm, but I failed miserably. I got to the point where I dreaded Lent, associating it with failure and discouragement, with old wounds re-opened.

When I was a teenager, like many teenage girls, I struggled with self-image and a borderline eating disorder. When I started to pursue a career in acting, it only heightened. I remember a fellow actor during a lunch break look at my food and laugh, “Rabbit food again?” I’m from a line of sturdy-built farm women, so I had to nearly starve myself and exercise like a crazy person to achieve a slimmer side of curvy, but it was never slim enough. This lifestyle of mine, which had its roots in other issues, was wholly unhealthy not just for my body, but for my mind and spirit as well. That was a long time ago now, yet I still have a hard time disassociating those unhealthy dieting habits from fasting.

It took me a long time to learn that food is not the only thing one can fast from. It seemed like the most ascetic choice, maybe in my mind that meant holier. But if the point is to grow spiritually, I would have to choose a form of self-denial that would truly bear fruit.

In an interview about the Missionaries of Charity, Mother Teresa spoke about how difficult it can be for young postulants to adjust to their new life in the order. Some, she said, have “more” to give up than others. For example, one postulant had been used to ice cream every night after dinner, and later admitted to Mother Teresa that it had been very difficult to give it up, even to suffer the memory of it. In my own lack of charity, I imagine that Mother Teresa, who was daily face-to-face with poverty, hunger, and death, would have heard that and scoffed. But no, Mother Teresa, in her great charity, understood the degree of sacrifice the young woman had made, instead of focusing on the thing she sacrificed.

I’ve borne many frustrating Lents, at the end of which I feel discouraged and not at all prayerful. Maybe someday I’ll be mature enough to fast prayerfully. But for us modern Americans with shame-faced first-world problems, there are lots of fruit-bearing forms of self-denial: abstaining from television, Facebook, and frivolous googl’ing; waking up early, praying the Liturgy of the Hours, daily reading the Bible; picking up after people without complaint, bearing toddler tantrums with patience, you get the idea—these are difficult (embarrassing as that is). Lent is about self-denial, but the kind of self-denial that will bear fruit; self-denial that will allow us to decrease so that Christ may increase.

in response to the present crisis

Earlier this week, ironically on the feast of the Chair of St. Peter, I started leafing through a new thread of news about the scandals in the Church, and the anti-abuse summit. Reading through it all renewed the anger, sorrow, and desperation I feel for the Church right now. There are lots of ways to respond to all of this, and like everybody, I think I’ve gone through them all in my head.

I hear and see people leaving the Church. Some of them are victims, and Lord have mercy, I wouldn’t dare begrudge that; I can only plead with God for healing. But my assumption for the others is that they are fed up, feel they can’t trust the Church anymore, and are generally disgusted because it is full of sinners and hypocrites. I understand this, but…

Yes, the Church is made up of sinners. Here’s the deal: growing up Protestant in the United States, I knew there was corruption in the Catholic Church. But it made all the difference to realize that the Church herself was not corrupt, rather many of its members are corrupted by sin. If there are butchers, bakers, and candle-stick makers in hell, then there are priests, bishops and popes. We’re all sinners, dependent on the grace of Jesus Christ, working out our salvation with fear and trembling. We fail, we go to Confession, we resolve to do better with the help of God’s grace.

Yes, there are hypocrites in the Church. I heard someone tell my mother once that they didn’t go to church because of all the hypocrites there, and my mother, who has a clever retort for everything (which I LOVE about her), replied, “Then you better not go grocery shopping anymore. Because there’s hypocrites there too!” There are hypocrites everywhere. Should we hold our clergy to a higher standard? Possibly. Does it hurt more when we see them fallen? Of course it does, because we look to them to shepherd us. However, they are human and will fall, and we might even see them do it.

Every time I hear about another sexual abuse case, I want to go on a castration rampage (though to be fair, women are perpetrators as well). As recent reports suggest, pedophilia is not just a canker in the Church. I grew up in the relatively small Quaker church and even I knew kids who had been abused by their youth pastors. When I was a high school student, there was a teacher who had an illicit homosexual relationship with a student. She was moved districts. We found out later, she had been moved from another district previously for doing the same thing. Schools move pedophiles around, the Church moves pedophiles around: STOP DOING THAT. The protection of minors is a universal issue that needs to be addressed by the entire human race. Is it worse when a priest commits such a heinous act? Yes, absolutely. Because, again, we look to them as our shepherds. The Church should be the one to lead the way in protecting our most vulnerable.

I also hear and see Catholics (including myself at times) picking a scapegoat to blame (i.e. clericalism, Vatican II, homosexuality, celibacy, etc.). I understand that intense desire to put the scarlet letter on someone or something and get rid of it. But I don’t think it’s going to be that simple. What I see happening with the pick-a-scapegoat-faction of Catholics is an “us vs. them” mentality that worries me. This kind of thinking often leads to spiritual pride. I think this is a temptation to overlook the root causes. If you start the blame-game, before long you’re running in a circle.

Yes, clericalism is to blame: clergyman abused their office. There was clearly a lack of accountability, and a fear of reporting on the part of the victims because the perpetrator in many cases was not just a family confidant, but claimed to be a representative of Christ. But why is the abuse happening in the first place? Many Catholics claim homosexuality is to blame, but I think a more accurate target would be sexuality in general. We’re seeing the consequences of sexual gluttony, and that doesn’t just pop up overnight. Sick, sexual addiction builds over time. I believe some of these men became priests with good intentions, but their sinful inclinations were not only unchecked, but were encouraged and fostered. The biggest failure were the loopholes which allowed perpetrators to live like kings in their “empire of dirt”.

There is yet another choice, another way to respond to this exposé of sin and betrayal of trust, and that is to continue on as before, but with renewed vigor in Catholic life in hopes of revitalizing the Church from the inside out.

I truly believe there are things we ordinary people can do to help the Church—and that is to focus on our own spiritual growth and the spiritual nurturing of our families and parishes. One of the focuses of Vatican II was to instill in the laity the need to grow in holiness. We can faithfully practice the teachings of the Catholic Church, especially the teachings on sexuality. We can love our priests and pray for them. We can hold our priests and bishops accountable.

We can be faithful to the Church’s teachings on sexuality, within marriage or the single life. The Catholic Church’s teachings and standards of sexuality are challenging and difficult for all of us; they are also good and true. It is particularly difficult now in our society when the message of self-gratifying sex is absolutely everywhere, where pornography is rampant, where one is encouraged to “scratch your itch”, whatever that may be; that pursuing your sexual desires is discovering the “true you.” Clergy have been riddled with the same soul-penetrating bullets we all have. It’s no coincidence that at the same time sexual impurity among the clergy is coming to light, marriage as a vocation is also in a state of crisis within the Church. While we call out the clergy’s sexual sin, we also need to address our own, and make sure we remain faithful to the Church’s teachings. And the Church is not just a purity brigade—the “theology of the body” is multi-faceted and rich, beautiful and enlightening—it’s just good stuff. But the more entrenched our society becomes in sexual gluttony that’s mislabeled as sexual freedom, the more at risk all of us will be of heinous crimes.

I have been really blessed in my years as a Catholic to know awesome priests. But they are human and will fall, just like the rest of us. I recently heard a priest say, “A man goes into seminary, what do you think, the devil falls asleep?” We have to pray for our priests and seminarians. St. Therese of Liseiux had a vision once of how sinful a certain priest was; it was made known to her how in danger the soul of this particular priest was, which inspired her to re-double her prayers for clergy. We don’t need private visions today—it’s all over the news. We need to pray for them.  

The way of mercy includes calling out shit when it’s shit. It is a good thing all of this terrible, rotten awful-ness is coming to light. It’s been festering long enough, stinking to high-Heaven before we all knew about it. We can hold our bishops accountable and still respect their office as our shepherds. I don’t know exactly what this would look like, but I do know that admonishing the sinner is an act of mercy. We can’t be afraid to admonish a sinner even if that is a clergyman.

In the end, as much as I love the priests in my acquaintance, I know I didn’t become Catholic because of the holiness of the clergy. I became Catholic because it is Truth. I became Catholic because I wanted to be as close to Jesus Christ as I could here on earth, and I receive that gift in the Holy Eucharist. I need the Church—I need her Sacraments, her tradition, anchored with the promise from Christ himself that the gates of hell would not prevail against it. The Church will go the way of her Lord, and I will go with her; there is no resurrection without the crucifixion. The Church is not characterized by the evil men and women that are within it, nor is she characterized by her saints—she is who she is because of Christ himself. He established her, He sustains her, He will see her through.

{St. Therese’s Prayer for Priests}

O Jesus, I pray for your faithful and fervent priests;
for your unfaithful and tepid priests;
for your priests laboring at home or abroad in distant mission fields;
for your tempted priests;
for your lonely and desolate priests;
for your young priests;
for your dying priests;
for the souls of your priests in Purgatory.

But above all, I recommend to you the priests dearest to me:
the priest who baptized me;
the priests who’ve absolved me from my sins;
the priests at whose Masses I’ve assisted and who’ve given me Your Body and Blood in Holy Communion;
the priests who’ve taught and instructed me;
all the priests to whom I am indebted in any other way, especially ____

O Jesus, keep them all close to your heart,
and bless them abundantly in time and in eternity. Amen.

daffodils mid-winter

Here in the Pacific Northwest, we just got hit with a surprise February snowstorm. My first thought was for our flower garden. Because of some previous irregularly warmer winter days and sun (which I welcomed eagerly), the daffodils had emerged from the wintry mud at the close of the Christmas season. I knew there would be a chance of frost, but never did I imagine snow and ice in February. I figured the flowers were goners.

I have planted bulbs everywhere we’ve lived (and we’ve moved quite a bit). At first, I favored tulips, with their thick, sturdy stems and bold-hued petals against the gray of late winter. It was my husband who requested daffodils. I think they had made an impression on him during his time in England; we have a photograph of a certain field of bright yellow daffodils in the midst of the gray English sky and gray, stone ruins. When we finally bought a house and felt we had settled for a while, I planted several daffodils.

Daffodils seem delicate, compared to other spring bulbs: their stems and leaves are thinner and the petals are paper-thin. Yet the bloom has a curious shape, the kind that inspires one to ponder a Creator. A sculptor could perhaps make a single one, but for thousands to grow year after year and look just as intricate each time is a marvel. And while I love the bold-colored hues of tulips and the pastels of hyacinths, the daffodil is a beacon of light in a dreary part of winter, a snapshot of nature’s beauty and grandeur.

My favorite character of daffodils is their resilience. As this recent snowfall melted, those optimistic daffodils that had sprung too soon were still there, bent over a bit by the weight of the ice. Now the tulips are quickly following suit, and I expect will bloom in a few weeks, in spite of this cold front. When the sun does peak out during this rainy season, the daffodil will lift her head and follow that light. Even though she grows in a darker time, she loves the light. Her life is brief, but radiant.

I’ve definitely been in a funk, a minor depression, the blues, you know. There’s no rational cause or real worry, and it’s not unusual for me this time of year. There are always going to be things around me, whether it’s with family, friends, church, or politics that feel like a debilitating frost over my psyche, over my heart, over my ability to love, hope, and have faith. I absorb the gray around me. These resilient flowers of mid-winter by virtue of their existence glorify their Creator. For we humans, it is an act of the will to turn our face upwards, to orient our lives towards the source of light and warmth. The hope is that we Christians will, as St. Gianna Molla said, be “living examples of the beauty and grandeur of Christianity”: noticeable, resilient, even stubbornly growing, organisms of beauty, standing out against the gray, testifying to the light.

God knows I am not good at that; I like to sit in the mud and say, “Look at all this mud. It’s gross. That sucks.” It seems to be the small things, things that are easily overlooked or forgotten, easily trampled underfoot, that remind me to look upwards. The daffodil is certainly one, a herald of hope for the spring to come.

daffodils in Oxford

I-want-to-roo-you-playlist-for-Valentine’s-Day

A month ago, the glittering foil heart balloons popped up all over the grocery store to herald in the season of… love, is it? Or a 6-year-old girl’s fantasy world where everything’s pink and candy-flavored. Disclaimer: I don’t really like Valentine’s Day. I don’t see the point. You should tell the people you love them that you love them everyday. And I can’t help but to be a cynic about what a marketing empire it is.

I stopped enjoying Valentine’s Day right around the time it became awkward to exchange valentines. I was never much of a pink hearts and red roses kind of girl anyways. The only really great thing about Valentine’s Day is the chocolate. But that should be permissible and good anytime of the year. (The goodness of chocolate is just plain old science. Even during Lent, the very dark chocolate with no dairy is a worthwhile substitute—just ask the Sisters of the Holy Theophany in Olympia, Washington). It seemed like a cowardly cop-out that someone would declare one’s love on Valentine’s Day—I mean, come on, be original. And then when I learned about the actual St. Valentine, the gig was up.

I first set out to make an awkward-love-songs-playlist, which was highly entertaining, but started to get, frankly, creepy. There are a lot of pretty bad love songs, like songs that should be arrested and tried for real crimes. I have to include a few that are just amusing, then I’ll move on. Here is a mini-playlist (just enough for a good laugh) of the worst-but-not-too-creepy love songs:

  • “I Fooled Around and Fell in Love” – Elvin Bishop… The man we all want, who says he’s been with “a million” girls, but is ready to settle down. Ewwwwwww.
  • “I Would do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That)” – Meat Loaf… Has anyone ever found out what “that” is? Not sure I want to know…
  • “Just the Way You Are” – Billy Joel… Now, I love Billy Joel. But this song is not really a love song. He’s basically saying he doesn’t want her to surprise him or grow as a person, just wants her to be quiet and pretty, and to leave him alone.
  • “I’ll Make Love to You” – Boyz II Men… Ultimately, more poetic subtlety should be employed than “I’ll take my clothes off, too.” Mmm, yeeeahhh, or not.
  • “Lovefool” – the Cardigans… I used to love this song because it’s just fun to dance to; it’s on the Romeo & Juliet soundtrack which I had been in the habit of listening to since high school. But it was my daughter who pointed out, with appropriate disgust, “Uh, is she basically saying she wants him to pretend that he loves her?” Ooh, yes, [parent fail] and skip.

and now, to the good stuff:

But I am not a love cynic. I believe in love, baby. I believe in True Love, the Author of Love, the saving Love of Jesus Christ. But that’s another post. Related, however, is the love of Valentine’s Day, the kind of love where we taste Divine Love, the kind of love that keeps this beautiful world populated.

Without further ado, here is a solid hour of I-want-to-roo-you-love songs (please, consider these in your Valentine’s Day cards instead of the usual cheese!):

  • “500 Miles” – The Proclaimers… Such a clever way to say “I love you”! Though I’m not sure what heavering is… anybody?
  • “Sweetest Devotion” – Adele
  • “Crazy Love” – Van Morrison… It was a toss-up with Van Morrison’s “Tupelo Honey”. I could make a Van Morrison love song playlist. He writes the best love-lyrics. Ever. (see “Sweet Thing”, “You’re My Woman”, “Warm Love”)
  • “Every Little Thing She Does is Magic” – The Police
  • “Blood and Tears” – Joseph
  • “How Sweet it Is” – James Taylor
  • “The Way You Look Tonight” – Frank Sinatra… Classic. Period.
  • “When the Stars Go Blue” – Ryan Adams
  • “One Fine Thing – Harry Connick Jr.
  • “Settle Down” – Kimbra… It’s like the Catholic-dating love song.
  • “For Once in My Life” – Stevie Wonder
  • “Winter Birds” – Ray LaMontagne
  • “I Wanna Roo You” – Van Morrison
  • “Tip of My Tongue” – Civil Wars
  • “Lover, You Should Have Come Over” – Jeff Buckley
  • “Bring it on Home To Me” – Sam Cooke




the sending forth

One of my daughters, whom I call Little Bird here, is in the process of applying to a summer program. She is so excited about the possibility; it’s in an area she has a great deal of interest and will prepare her for what she would like to study. I am excited for her—even just for a chance to practice applications and interviews, which are a skill in and of themselves. Underneath the surface, I think we’re both excited about it as a step into young adulthood: she, ready for more freedom and individuality, and I, to watch her do what I’ve been preparing her for, with a healthy degree of anxiety. And like everything has been with this first child, it reminds me that we’re about to do this several more times with our subsequent children.

I sense we are at the beginning of the sending-forth. Little Bird will be in high school next fall; it feels like the tide is going out, and we’re about to watch her set out with it. I know we’ve got a few years, but I also know it’s going to go by quickly. It’s an exciting time as she begins to think about her high school years in context of what will happen afterwards—colleges, degrees, programs, travel, vocation, etc.

It’s like a curtain has been pulled back, only slightly, not enough to see details, but enough to see that there’s a lot behind that curtain, a lot of life where her dad and I won’t be with her. This is as it should be. But with that comes so many unknowns. When I was a teenager, I saw how my parents, who had grown up in the wild and free ‘60’s, looked at the world I was growing into with confusion. And now I am looking at the world my children are growing into with a similar feeling. I can’t possibly prepare them for everything that will come their way. My job has been—and is—to give them the resources so they know how and where to look for the answers, God help me.

This is where it gets real. She’s about to embark on the part of her life that she will actually remember. Her years with me under this roof will be a blur in a decade or so, though it will always be her foundation. I am suddenly standing still—looking ahead, and looking behind—reflective about the past and prayerful about the future; I am aware that there have been victories and failures as I have reared this child, this firstborn who taught me how to be a mother. I am aware of the grace that is paramount in parenting, and the knowledge that she has always been God’s girl first. I am keenly aware that she was born for such a time as this, and goes nowhere alone.

drugs, the de-humanizer

There’s an old home video I like to watch from when I was around two years old. My dad had just bought a video camera—a technical monstrosity with a blinding lamp—and was Memorex-ing the whole of Christmas. In the video, my aunts and uncles are sitting on orange velour couches, while the litter of cousins enter and exit randomly. One of my uncles is doing a Dolly Parton impression with balloons stuffed up his shirt, after which my dad’s other siblings try to top it with their own joke or impression. They’re all making fun of each other, vying for attention, laughing. Like all families, this is certainly part of the story, but not all of it. No one records the ugly stuff—who wants to relive that?

By the time I was an adolescent, I was aware that a lot of my family were drug-users. But it wasn’t really called “addiction”, it was more like uncle-so-and-so just can’t get his act together. My siblings and I thought our family was pretty amusing, actually. They had become caricatures to us: the uncles who couldn’t keep still, their cigarettes bobbing like teeter-totters between their fingers, dropping ashes on the carpet; the cousin who lives as a purposeful transient with his dog, waxing philosophical, and sharing the augmentation of his thoughts by psychedelic shrooms; the aunt who moves like honey and touches her nose to mine to tell me all about my zodiac that month. It all sounds like great material for a novel, these portraits of pitiable, but amusing characters. We loved them, and laughed at them.

One uncle in particular was the most advanced as a caricature in my mind; he was also the most far-gone. Years of heroin, followed by years of state-funded methadone, had reduced him to a shadow of a person. He babbled nonsense and had black gaps in his mouth from decay. We saw him less frequently as time went on. I remember the last time I saw him; I remember his profile as he chatted with my great-aunt, who, though thirty or so years his senior, looked the same age.

The next time I thought about him was when we found out he had collapsed and been taken to the hospital. Dirty heroin had caused an infection in his body, and after decades of abuse, his organs began to fail. At the age of 44, his body shut down, swelled up, and was nearly unrecognizable before he died. My grandmother, who was in denial about the rampant drug-use throughout the family, did not want drugs to be at all mentioned in the cause for death. But we all knew drugs had killed him, slowly over decades.

It all happened in one night—the call, the hospital, his death—then I went to school the next day. There was no mourning. When someone like that dies slowly over time, you grieve them in pieces. When you first realize they’re using and don’t want help, you grieve. When they choose drugs over their spouse and children, you grieve. When you realize they can’t keep a job and won’t be able to take care of themselves, you grieve. Every time you see them slip into greater despair, you grieve. Simultaneously, you learn how to let go, or you go mad.

His memorial service was a strange event; I don’t remember drugs being mentioned at all. There was a brief obituary, then we all sat in silence while Norman Greenbaum’s rock classic “Spirit in the Sky” played over the speakers. In the foyer, someone had put together a photo collage with pictures I had never seen before of an uncle I didn’t recognize. He was striking with dark hair, strumming a guitar. That day I learned he had been a musician, an actor, and an athlete. This caricature of a person became more real to me at his passing. He became a man with a past, someone who had once lived a real life with aspirations and love. I wondered how he could have become a shell of that man.

Like many families, the cycle of addiction continued with mine into the next generation. One who has been tragically affected is my sister. Another reason I like to watch and re-watch the home-video I mentioned earlier is because my sister, always one who loved attention, is in a lot of it. That is the sister I remember: spunky, fun, giggly, sassy, energetic; she was my playmate, even though she was ten years my senior. Like our uncle who passed away, she is now a shell of that person. I do not recognize her.

The tragedy is that drugs do make people into caricatures of the drug they use. The old adage “you are what you eat” works quite well with addiction; in this case, the user becomes the substance. Meth users, heroin users, coke users, abusers of prescription meds—each has a personality of sorts as the real person slowly slips away. No one uses drugs to purposely mess up their lives, rather they use to dull a pain or to drown out lies of inadequacy. Sadly, the drug or alcohol just confirms the fear of not being enough, of not having what it takes, of being unloved. Spiritual and physical sustenance becomes secondary; shit becomes primary. Everyone who really loves them becomes an enemy outsider. The devil must just love it.

I didn’t know my uncle when he was a handsome, talented young man. I don’t remember his years as a husband or a father. I didn’t have to mourn the loss of him in that way, though as a teenager I was very struck by his sudden and tragic death. But I am in the process of grieving the loss of my sister. I don’t know if we’ll ever get her back. Out of my own despair and anger, I have been tempted to caricaturize her, to make light of her, to scorn all her selfish choices. But that’s the work of the drug, to dehumanize her, and I can’t give in to that.

In my better moments, I cling to Scripture passages about hope, about leaning not on our own understanding, but on the delicate and powerful workings of the Holy Spirit. My hope and prayer is that she will one day hear God calling her by name, out of despair and darkness. I want Jesus to break through to her, to appear before her like He did to St. Paul, blind her with His light and heal her with His love. But as far as I know, He could be trying this every day. After years of dealing with addiction in my family, then learning through Al-Anon and its affiliated literature, I know it’s not simple. God doesn’t force grace upon us; we must cooperate, ask and receive. I know He loves her more than me, more than my blesséd parents who hope, pray, and wait, who search for her like a lost sheep. And perhaps God did do this with my uncle, in those last hours so close to death; as the world watched him in a sleeping silence, perhaps God was bursting through with a healing balm of love and mercy, and he was finally desperate enough to whisper his fiat, his yes to God. I guess that’s why we pray continually, for the mercy of just such a moment.

grafted into Christ

There is a rose bush in my front yard that has gone wild. It’s an eyesore. It only produces a handful of blossoms every summer, and they are drab and diseased. I keep cutting it back, it keeps growing like a weed with prickly stems that awkwardly reach into the healthy rose bushes on either side of it. Every fall as I cut it back, I think to myself that I need to just dig it out. But a friend of mine, who has a greener thumb, has convinced me to take advantage of its mature root structure and try grafting another healthier rose onto it.

Grafting is a miraculous science. A plant is trained and convinced to become something different. It takes time and coaxing, and looks painful. The gardener has to expose the rootstock of a plant and tightly secure another plant, just as raw and exposed, to it. Then you watch and wait, occasionally checking to make sure the two are taking to each other.  

Bishop Barron used this image to describe conversion on the feast of the Baptism of Our Lord. He said, “To be a Christian is to be grafted on to Christ and hence drawn into the very dynamics of the inner life of God. We don’t speak simply of following or imitating Jesus. We speak of becoming a member of his Mystical Body.” This process of becoming a member, of being grafted into Christ, is a provocative image; to be exposed and re-rooted is exactly what conversion feels like.

One of the mistakes I made early on in my conversion was misunderstanding this concept: baptism was the beginning, not the end. And the grafting of my soul to Christ and His Church was not going to be a lovely, whimsical process, but a gritty and sometimes painful one. I wasn’t an infant, I was an adult—my old roots had to re-graph onto the true vine. That would take time, in fact the process will be on-going until my death.

My first year of being Catholic was the hardest year of my life. I had been infused with grace through Baptism, Confirmation, and the Eucharist, then walked right back into a darkness. I thought I would be invincible with all that grace. But I was ill-equipped, truly a soul-infant. I look back now and wonder how I could have managed those years differently—perhaps I should have had a steady confessor, a spiritual director, more of a church community. But God is good, and though I felt abandoned at times, He was there.

I have noticed over the years that whenever there is a period of growth—which are uncomfortable and difficult—a period of rest usually follows. In those moments of rest, sometimes I can see the new bloom taking shape. Sometimes I don’t; sometimes I think, Well, I guess this side of Heaven I won’t know what that was all about.  The whole surrender and trust thing is really hard. But I do know I need the rootstock, I need Christ’s life flowing through me.

my transition-out-of-the-holidays-and-still-feel-jolly playlist

“Intergalactic Planetary” – Beastie Boys … Maybe it’s an overdose of saccharine holiday music, but come January I really needed a little Beastie, and this is one of the few Beastie Boys songs I can listen to with kids around.

“Clap Yo’ Hands” – Ella Fitzgerald … Ella can sing anything; she’s a staple in my house. This jazzy Gershwin tune is just fun.

“Baby Be Mine” – Michael Jackson… I mean, the whole Thriller album, for reals.

“You Are the Best Thing” – Ray LaMontagne… you had me at [trumpet fanfare].

“Don’t Stop” – Fleetwood Mac … If you can believe it, I did aerobics to Fleetwood Mac in the 8th grade, not kidding you, a legit P.E. elective.

“Gumboots” – Paul Simon … That line: “you don’t feel you could love me, but I feel you could” is such a great pick-up line! If you’re single, please go out and use it, and let me know how it goes.

“Little of Your Love”- Haim … I just found out about this band this past summer. If Heart and Bananarama had a musical love-child, it would be Haim.

“Beautiful Day”- U2 … because it is, because it is.

“I Will Wait” – Mumford & Sons … You can totally polka to this song, just sayin’.

“Mandolin Wind” – Rod Stewart … “all I’ve got is yours, except of course, my steel guitar” (love that).

 “You Make my Dreams”- Hall & Oates … Dare you not to dance to that one, even with an over-tired toddler wandering around trying your patience.

“Your Wings” – Lauren Daigle … she’s singing to Jesus, bonus.

“It’s Oh So Quiet” – Bjork … Pure fun.

“Can’t Stop the Feeling” – Justin Timberlake … and this is when you dance your brains out.

flight into Egypt

I never gave much thought to the Holy Family’s flight into Egypt. It was like an interlude in the greater story. The horror of Herod ordering the mass murder of baby boys drew all my attention. But in Maria von Trapp’s memoir Yesterday, Today, and Forever, she writes about when the Flight into Egypt began to resonate with her: as she and her family were fleeing Nazi-occupied Austria, one of her daughters needed comforting, so Maria had one of those parenting moments that I think we’ve all had—she opened her mouth to speak, and wasn’t sure what was about to come out of it. She proceeded to tell her daughter the story of another Family who had to flee for the safety and preservation of their lives. This Family, like the Von Trapps, only knew where they were going,  but did not how they would survive or what dangers and surprises might be waiting for them along the way. For Maria von Trapp, it led her down years of research and pondering about details of the Holy Family’s life.

Since reading that book, I have caught glimpses of this mystery in scattered readings, prayers, and sermons; the most memorable are from the Seven Sorrows and Joys of St. Joseph and Caryll Houselander’s Reed of God.

The flight into Egypt is the 5th Sorrow and Joy of St. Joseph. Meditations on this obviously differ from person to person, but Joseph’s primary sorrow would be having to leave Judea, and with that all his hopes and expectations of family life with Mary and Jesus. As a carpenter, he would have probably fashioned a cradle back in Nazareth, or maybe little toys, for the anticipated baby. And if you’ve ever traveled somewhere foreign that is especially hostile to your faith, there would of course be sorrow in the concern for safety. But what about Joseph’s joy? I imagine incredible things must have happened when God Himself strode into a land where pagan gods reigned. I imagine they would have scattered, though we don’t know for sure what happened. But, like all saints, Joseph must have marveled and rejoiced at the way God led them through the wilderness and miraculously provided. (Coptic Christians have a lot of wonderful traditions surrounding the Flight into Egypt, if you are interested in learning more.)

The irony—or rather, providence—could not have escaped Joseph, a man of God who knew Scripture, that he was leading his dear ones to safety into pagan Egypt, just as another Joseph, who God also spoke to through dreams, had done hundreds of years before.

In Reed of God, English mystic Houselander speculates that perhaps the Gifts of the Magi were used by Joseph to sell and purchase tools in order to earn a living while in Egypt (though according to some, Mary kept the myrrh for Jesus’ burial). Houselander, in her brilliant way of relating the Gospel to the everyday, also writes:

Everywhere the flight into Egypt goes on: the little home is forsaken, the child in peril, the innocents slain; everywhere the refugees—Jesus, Mary, Joseph—come to us: strangers, foreigners in a strange land from every country… For them all, Our Lady has answered, long ago: “Be it done unto me.”

From the Flight to Egypt, this call to mercy for refugees and the stranger is unmistakable, and one of those things that haunts me. It’s something I don’t pray enough about, and don’t do much about. It makes me uncomfortable in the best sense– something I know I need to listen to and act on.

Yet there is one aspect of the Flight that I can relate to: being told to “go” and “do” without a lot of details. Anyone who has ever been told, led in prayer, or forced to set out on a journey has faced the unknown. My husband often says that following God is like walking through a fog— backwards. We all have the opportunity to make our Flight into Egypt: to listen, pick up our mats, and walk. And without asking a lot of why’s and how’s. To carry only the unanticipated gifts God has given us, and to trust that He has given us just what we need.