Familliar Path, New Perspective

Happy New Year!  Yeah, I know.  But it's the first week of Advent, which marks the beginning of the Liturgical Year.  This year, we Catholics began using a new translation of the Mass...a bit of an adventure to be sure.  It is a beautiful translation, though, and I'm looking forward to growing comfortable with it in the coming months.

I'm a little embarrassed to admit what I'm about to share, but I'm too excited to keep it to myself.  I purchased a new Bible a few weeks ago.  It's my first Catholic Edition Bible.  I have continued to use my trusty NIV, even though I have been Catholic for nearly 16 years.  I am using this Advent as a jumping-off point to re-discover scripture.  It's been several years since my last "read-through" of the Bible.  I've grown, and God has led me down some paths that I never imagined even existed.  I've read, seen, heard, and experienced a lot during these years, and it has changed me.  My companion resources are different now, and the actual translation is new for me, too.   I can't wait to see what treasures I will uncover this time through!

So, in the spirit of expectation and new beginnings that Advent holds, I wish you a blessed Advent.  Prepare ye the way of the Lord!

No Storm Can Shake My Inmost Calm

A week ago today, I began to face the possibility, now realized, that my seventh child would not be born into this world.  As anyone might expect, I was scared.  I prayed. I begged God to keep his hand on my little one -- to keep him safe.  I began to dread confirmation of what, somewhere in my heart, I already knew:  the life I had carried inside me was gone. But even as scared as I was of what was to come, there was a stillness inside of me.  I knew that regardless of the medical outcome of the pregnancy, my little one was in God's hands, as was I.  In the stillness, gratitude became my strength.

I am so grateful for my family.  I have a wonderful husband who loves and provides for me and for our children.  I have six beautiful, healthy sons who make me crazy, and bring me such joy.  I have an extended family that has always encouraged, supported, and loved me, even when I have worked at being unlovable.
 
I am so grateful for all the women in my life who have had miscarriages, and have been so generous with their support.  They have not tried to explain, distract, or comfort.  They have simply acknowledged, and let their own silent triumph be my encouragement.

I am so grateful for kind words from sincere hearts.

I am so grateful that medically, this loss was a simple one:  early, uncomplicated, and without cause to fear future complications.

I am so grateful that in all the ways this could have been worse, it wasn't.

I am so grateful that the sun is shining today.

No storm can shake my inmost calm
While to that rock I'm clinging
Since Christ is Lord of Heav'n and earth
How can I keep from singing?


I am so grateful.

Into Thy Hands...

I think I knew that something was awry.  I haven't "felt" pregnant for a while.  If what I felt in the early weeks of my other pregnancies was anticipation and joy, then is this not feeling...dread? Emptiness?  And then when my body began to show the signs of what my heart already knew, there was no single event -- an infamous day from which I can move forward.  There was a twinge. A sensation. And then days upon days in which every time I move, my body reminds me of the child I will never hold.  There are familiar pains, but they have been soothed before by an infant nuzzled to my breast.  With passing hours, my eyes see evidence not of a child brought to birth, but of what remains of the child I will never hold, slipping away, lifeless.  How cruel, it seems, that they should look so much the same.

Truth remains, regardless of time or circumstance.  And this is truth:  Life is never an accident.  No matter how brief, no matter if it is lived in full view or passes unseen by any eye of this world, it remains a testimony of love and of divine life.  No life is without purpose. No human circumstance is beyond redemptive grace.  No suffering is without value when surrendered to suffering hands.

I murmur these to myself, gritting my teeth as the piercing pain in my body rises to keep pace with the one in my soul, aching for the child I will never hold.

Let reason speak truth to silence the senseless ravings of grief.  Let faith bind me fast to firm truth, lest I be engulfed by the sweeping tide of loss.  Let wisdom bring vision to clear my eyes of minute, agonizing detail and soften it to a single remembered moment of my time on this earth, when a child I will never hold burst into life from love, and was caught away into eternity, held here always, if only in memory, by the love that gave him life.

The Long Answer

The question has been asked: "What's with the mantilla?"  I've offered short answers, but here's the long one, at long last.

The notion of covering my head in worship settings has been with me since I was in Jr. High School.  That was when I first encountered St. Paul's letters on my own -- apart from the topical use of them in sermons and Bible studies I had attended to that point.  I remember being particularly interested in his "propriety in worship" teachings.  Someone had remarked once to me that the church I attended at the time reminded her of "kids playing church," and it had bothered me.  I felt a need to understand why we did things the way we did, and to understand why it didn't seem "real" to some.  I won't say it was an obsession, but it was certainly the beginning of a long journey to understand my faith and the way I practiced it, and the way I wanted to practice it.  Maybe it was my age, maybe it was the voice of the Holy Spirit already pulling me toward Catholicism, (probably both), but where I noticed things that the Bible directed that were not in practice in my church, I really dug to figure out why.

First Corinthians 11 was one of "those passages." But any woman who prays or prophesies with her head unveiled brings shame upon her head, for it is one and the same thing as if she had had her head shaved. For if a woman does not have her head veiled, she may as well have her hair cut off. But if it is shameful for a woman to have her hair cut off or her head shaved, then she should wear a veil...if a woman has long hair it is her glory, because long hair has been given [her] for a covering."  I had never even SEEN a woman with her head covered in church.  Imagine the fuss this discovery set off in my mind!  German Baptists, Mennonites, and Amish women (who traditionally cover their heads all the time) were a rare sight where I grew up.  There were plenty of unaffiliated Pentecostals around who all wore long hair, but none who covered.  I wrestled with the point with all the wisdom I could muster at 13, and decided that WE didn't cover at church (or anywhere else) because we weren't "long-hair" Pentecostals.  I made an uneasy peace with the explanation that Paul's words were a product of their time and culture and that they didn't really apply in our society.

Now, fast forward about 20 years. I hadn't set foot in a protestant service in 12 years or more, but that whole long hair/covered head thing was still with me.  I even had a little secret wish in the back of my mind when I saw women with their heads covered in church:  that I had always worn a veil so that I wouldn't have to figure out a way to start, or to explain myself if I did.  I saw those women as "grandfathered (grandmothered?) in" to the veil-wearing club before Vatican II changed the whole world.  Then one night, I was in the adoration chapel.  It was late (my hour was 1-2 am), and I was alone with Jesus.  It was winter, so the basement chapel was quite chilly.  I had a wrap over my shoulders to keep me warm, and I was overwhelmed by the urge to cover my head.  I pulled my wrap over my head, and something changed in me. I wrote to a Mennonite friend about it then:

I was immediately swept with a sense of rightness, and that passage of scripture came back into my mind. I was raised by some bull-headed, girl-power, no-man's-gonna-rule-me women, and so finding my right place in marriage and in faith has always had a taste of that rebellion in it. That night at the chapel, though, it was gone. I felt as much like a woman as I ever have. Not in a girly-girl kind of way, but in a truly, Godly-ordered kind of way. It was right and seemly, and I haven't cut my hair since. What's the point, after all, if it is covered? It has ceased to be a point of vanity because it is always up when I leave the house.

It took a few more years after that night, but I now cover my head at Mass and in the presence of the Most Blessed Sacrament.  It is my testimony to what I believe about the True Presence, and about a woman's  proper response to that presence.  That bit of cloth is the difference between me coming boldly before the throne of grace and coming brazenly.  I still struggle with being the woman I am to be before God, and I was worried about what others might say about my motivation in wearing a veil.  Here's the thing, though: we do not wait to do things until we have mastered them; we master them by doing.  From the time we are children until we leave this world, we practice to get things right, and then keep practicing to make them perfect and to sustain what we have achieved.  I wear a veil, fully aware of what it symbolizes: humility, submission, reverence, and being set apart in a uniquely feminine way.  I pray that by God's grace I will come more fully into those virtues, better living as Christ has called me to live.

Remembering...

September 11, 2001. Ten years later, the images and sounds of that day, and the fear that I felt, and the sense that my world had changed forever are still with me.  I knew before that day that there were people in the world who despised America and our way of life.  I knew that in other places, I could be imprisoned, tortured, or killed for even whispering opinions I held about freedom, faith, and a myriad of other "normal" aspects of my life as I knew it.  But never before that day did I feel unsafe.  Before that day, "those people" were faces and names far away, in countries I never expected to visit.  They could hate me from their world while I was safe in mine.  My parents' Vietnam, my grandparents' World War II -- these had affected them in fundamental ways.  The wars had affected their everyday lives and remained with them, but the bloodshed was far away, and the Americans lost, by and large,were lost in conflict.  September 11, 2001, the bloodshed was here.  Americans were lost not with guns in their hands, but with briefcases and serving trays and merchandise from their stores.  They were ordinary people, leading ordinary lives, who had no reason to think that that day would be their last.  So many had their lives taken that day, and so many more gave theirs away.  We will never know all of the stories.  We will never know just how many lives were saved because a police officer or firefighter stood in harm's way and gave others time to flee.  We will never know just how many ordinary men and women ushered others to safety as their last actions on this earth.  We will never know, at least not fully, the impact of that day on those who were there, on all of us who remember, or on the generations that follow us.

And so today, ten years later, we remember.  We pray for the dead and for those they left behind.  We pray for those who found joy in sorrow, and those who still suffer in bitterness.  We pray for those who did what they could to protect then, and those who are doing what they can to protect us now.  I am so grateful that, for all the possibilities that entered my awareness that day ten years ago, for all the vulnerabilities, for all the things I took for granted that could be used to harm me or my family, I am safe.  There are men and women every day, here in our country and abroad, who are working to protect and defend us, our way of life, our ideals, and our freedom to live and speak as we choose, without the constant threat of harm from those who would take our freedom and our lives simply because we are not like them and do not live as they live or believe as they believe.  I pray that we never, ever forget that freedom isn't free. 

We cannot really ever give a voice to the unspeakable.  I will chose silence today, as I am sure many others will, in remembering....

Song of Joy

Our summer vacation is winding down.  This time next week, I will be preparing to send four of my six little darlings (and their daddy) back to school for another year.  Bedtimes will be decided by the clock, not by the sun.  There won't be any more "late movies" where they all fall asleep and get left on the couches until morning.  They will all have to actually wear shirts for at least a big part of every day.  Yes, the day-to-day will change, but what a great "last hurrah" we had Sunday evening!


We were just getting ready to send the boys up to bed Sunday night, and DH was flipping through the Classical Channel on the Roku and found a recording of Beethoven's 9th symphony with Kurt Masur conducting the French National Orchestra. He told the boys that if they would sit still, he'd let them watch it. (!?!) Of course they agreed (they'd have agreed to watch the NYSE ticker if it meant they could stay up). And so it began....

It is helpful to offer at this point that I really like Beethoven, but DH is a passionate Beethoven devote'.  He can trace the lineage of his piano teachers back to Beethoven, and has always felt a unique kinship with him.  He plays Beethoven like no one else.  No one.

The first, second, and third movements of the symphony were nice.  The littlest kids were asleep, and the older ones were enjoying the music.  Just before the beginning of the fourth movement, the wind picked up and it started to rain...it was a glorious summer rainstorm, with no thunder or lightening.  It was a perfect backdrop to what is certainly among the finest musical finales ever written or performed.  Beethoven was completely deaf when he composed what would be his final symphony.  He had become a very reclusive, and was known for his explosive temper.  His life was marked by health problems, personal struggle, and what, to most musicians, would be a devastating sensory loss.  And yet, a poem he had carried in his notes since he was a young man finally bloomed in glorious expression, premiered less than 3 years before his death.  I offer the text below, with a link to the video (just the last 10 minutes or so).  Taking it in again, surrounded by our boys and warm summer rain, DH and I were wrapped in joy ourselves, so grateful for all we have been given.




Song of Joy


Joy, beautiful spark of divinity
Daughter of Elysium, 
We enter, drunk with fire into your sanctuary.  
Your magic reunites What custom strictly divided.  
All men become brothers where your wing tarries.

	Whoever has had the great fortune To be a friend's friend, Whoever has won a devoted wife, Join in our jubilation! Indeed, whoever can call even one soul, His own on this earth! And whoever was never able to, must creep Tearfully away from this band!
	Joy all creatures drink At the breasts of nature; All good, all bad Follow her trail of roses. Kisses she gave us, and wine, A friend, proved in death; Pleasure was given to the worm, And the cherub stands before God. Before God!
	Glad, as His suns fly Through the Heaven's glorious design, Run, brothers, your path, Joyful, as a hero to victory.
	Be embraced, millions! This kiss for the whole world! Brothers, above the starry canopy Must a loving Father dwell. Do you bow down, millions? Do you sense the Creator, world? Seek Him beyond the starry canopy! Beyond the stars must He dwell.

Jarring Juxtaposition

I love Facebook.  I love that I can keep in touch with friends and family in one place, no matter when or where I knew them first.  I love seeing the snapshot of their worlds spinning by and sharing little snips of my own life with them, and seeing so many different people, personalities, and lifestyles intertwining.  This weekend, that interplay assaulted my happy little world with alarming poignancy, and threw a sobering lesson about gratitude in my face.

A friend from college posted the news about her nine-month-old son having a severe brain injury.  I still don't know what happened; it hardly seemed appropriate to ask.  I scanned back through the posts, searching for explanations, but there are only little updates.  He was gone - they brought him back.  May not make it through the night.  Still here...no change.  The longer he is unconscious, the less it is likely that he will wake up.  Prognosis isn't good; we're leaving him in God's hands.  We won't pursue any further intervention.  We've decided to let him go...his breathing tube will come out sometime Wednesday.  I watched these updates trickle out slowly against the backdrop of other friends' weddings, sports events, news commentary, work news, pregnancy updates...their lives.  Their lives continued on while another family's came to a screeching halt.  The sameness of their days was dizzying next to the picture of lives that are forever different.  Then came the photos.

My friend posted pictures of her sweet little boy, alone, with his Mama, his Daddy, all three together, and with his grandparents.  They were beautiful.  In those images was the peace of a little one in the arms of those who love him, and the aching shadow of farewell.  As I held my own little one last night, snuggling him to sleep, I realized that I was holding him in just the same way as my friend was holding her son.  But I had no reason to believe that my baby boy wouldn't wake this morning, reaching out to be cuddled in the morning quiet.  I had no reason dread his leaving my arms, because I had no reason to think it would be the last time. I wept with an unutterable mixture of grief and gratitude.  I've spent nights in the hospital with sick babies, anxiously watching their breathing, fixing my eyes on the blinking monitors above their heads...but I've never had reason to fear their lives.  They have never been beyond 'routine' medical care.  They've never been unconscious...only asleep.  The magnitude of that blessing is blinding just now.  Even the bickering and whining has a sweetness in it today.  For all their 'problems,' my boys are healthy and normal.  I think my friend would remind me to embrace that, because it could change in a heartbeat.

I write this on a Monday evening.  Unless God chooses to reveal Himself in a miracle, in 48 hours or so my friend will have kissed her little boy's warm, downy forehead for the last time. I will hold her and her family in my prayers as they travel a painful road that I cannot even fathom.  I will praise God for the blessings of six strong, bright, healthy sons, and I will hold them a little longer and a little tighter when I kiss them goodnight. For today, He has not called me to trust Him in the midst of agonizing loss.  I pray that if ever He does, I will be prepared to be faithful.  What else can I possibly do?