Leaflets

Seeking Peace

2010-08-07T20:23:00.000-07:00

Reasons to go on...

It seems I have come to live...

Reach For Hope:

Turning To Seed

2010-08-07T18:13:00.000-07:00

Shorts of life take but a second to assume. They can be crumbled in the pocket, tossed, left for others to find. They serve numerous purposes. They can represent so many different things. And their original symbolism can be immortalized - but only within the mortal hearts of those who knew them first. Thus their essence waxes and wanes over the course of history. Some disappear completely, only to be re-discovered centuries later.

The moment gained can become a moment lost. What is given must never be taken for granted, only shared, and shared honestly. In the breath of an evening, a whole day is remembered. The hope for a rising morning is always there. Yet the call to an authentic presence remains - live the moment as if it were your last. Nothing will follow you when you leave this world, only the ways in which you have loved the world.

Etchings

2010-04-19T09:57:00.000-07:00

The sketches from the last few days can't really describe what this pain feels like. Curled inward, red and puffed, an angry roll against the edges of my stomach. The fever rises from below and steams in my temple. Outside people are running and talking high scores; in my home, I am waiting for the temperatures to melt away.

Cold? Sinus infections? Residual stomach bug complaints? Or a cacophony of mild ailments speaking a language of chronic frustration at the expectations of modern life?

Eaves of the Evening

2010-03-04T11:13:00.000-08:00

Half open lids in the green grass .

I see the sandals above my whispered hair. He looks down on me and his eyes are asking for nothing but for my patience. In the hand of this Shadow, I take my new steps into the world.

In a place among the stones, the fog sips. There is nothing left to shield the moon from her own nakedness; the wind blows the voices of my thoughts into the trees behind me. In my hands lay the bulbs of my own imagination - freshly born, longing for life.

First Mark

2009-11-13T18:49:00.000-08:00

"To make it feel more real --"

Dent's words cut off as a single hand movement slammed the book shut into the table and left a cloud of dust hanging in the air. The ringing in DEnt's ears did not subside for another minute as his lungs burned in oxygen and he struggled to stay on his feet. As the cloud subsided, Dent grasped the desk with both his hands and accustomed his eyes to the face in front of him. The sharp, linear stoic smile of Mr. Garthen's face opened to swallow in Dent's skull. His unblinking green eyes were fixated on the heads of the crowd below them, and he was leaning forward, his knees bent as if ready to jump. Dent smelled the sweet stench of Mr. Garthen's cigar butts as well as the crimson kerchief underneath his coat. As Mr. Garthen sneered in the crowds direction, Dent turned to see horror paralyzing his classmates' faces and the sympathy in his teacher's eyes turning into a heaviness that dragged him into their wake.
After what seemed like an hour, Dent broke out of his hypnotic stare and turned his head towards the stiff gray tie on Mr. Garther's chest. The old man was bending over him like a tree, so in order to avoid crashing into him, Dent slowly maneuvered his way to the edge of the table. Grasping the corner of the desk, Dent took one last look at Marr's Book of Poetry, and ran off towards stage right. The subsequent gasps from the crowd continued even after Mr. Garthe had left surprise for anger and with fist raised, called the assembly to order. As whispers lessened, a trail of comments and questions carried over the students into the lobby outside the hall, and reverberated their echoes through the walls of the building - in classrooms, dorm rooms and teacher conference areas. Dent's voice was never amongst them, though. Dent's voice was never heard at all.

Slam Jam

2009-10-15T16:09:00.001-07:00

I got off the bus today and walked home. Again.

They say that this winter might be colder and snowi(er?) Than it has been in a few years. I hardly notice the cold, though, and I refuse to put on my mittens. An elderly woman dressed in a sari and head shawl swaps the bitter wind away from her chin. But I just bite the current, and make my way down the busy street regardless of what my skin tells me.

I went to the HR office in Medford with a hopeful heart about the future. I showed up early, promptly dressed and pruned for the occasion, and I carried my head high. I expected nothing but a positive, albeit lengthy, afternoon.

Deb McGavern was friendly and adequately distant in her adminstrative presence. She sat me down, gave me the paperwork and CORI questions, and assisted me with the staff quiz I had to complete. I was centered and able and for the most part expecting smooth sails through the entire thing.

What I got instead was a fast ball.

Before I could be left alone to fill out the pages of endless questions, Deb decided that she didn’t have all the information she needed. Glancing over my application, she casually ignored the fact that my references had been left out of the pile, and simply stated, “These are references, right?” I looked up to see her finger pointing towards my Work Experience list, and in particular, to the most current place of employment, Community Work Services.

Inside my head screamed NO. On the outside, though, I explained that I had presented my list of references to Toni when I arrived at the interview. The most proper list of reference names would be found in that document, I told her. I’d asked them NOT to contact CWS, but Deb seemed to think it was a good idea to speak to my Supervisor. I eventually found myself explaining my current litigation status once more, without showing my upset at the sudden change of events. Apparently Jim did not pay attention on the phone that day when I told him about my termination, and Toni was not really in her office when she was telling me about my offer letter going into the mail a few days ago. I’d been congratulated twice already about earning this position but Deb in her haste was asking me for the name of my Supervisor.

I gave it to her. And I gave her the name of another manager who’d also witnessed my hard work.

The rest of the day is a blur. It somehow took me forever to fill out what were exact replicas of the documents my former participants filled out, time and time again, when they came to work at my agency. I was having a hard time with the quiz because a sock was cuddling my brain and in between pages I was sending frantic text messages to anyone who’d answer me. My tear ducts wanted to get busy and I was avoiding looking at the rest of the room, or at my watch. I made it to my physical 15 minutes after schedule and learned, to my consternation, that the fact that I was on medications would delay analysis of my contribution and push my physical exam back at least until next week.

Sojourner's Malady

2009-09-23T22:00:00.000-07:00

The Sojourner wishes peace on the Child.

The Woman lies beaten and torn, the Child at her side, always tending to her injuries, not knowing the why or how of the wet warmth upon her hands.
The Child will grow up with this memory intact -- of the blood on her fingers, the muffled screams as the Woman died slowly on the grass. The rush as another shadow whisks the Child away from the only home she had, and knows, and will ever know. This splintered scene from a wakeless dream she knows nothing beyond.
There are ways to get past the pain, they tell her, as another injection pricks her arm.
She is older, her hair no longer in pigtails, the hospital gown covering her on the cold bed. Then she is tucked away into her memories again and the curtains are drawn. The silent tears that fall from her eyes become stone the minute they touch her cheeks. They collect below her bed like a bed of rocks carrying an invisible river into the grounds beyond the hospital on which the Child, a Girl now, sheds her skins for the surfaces of her kind.
She knows that to reach the place her kind hails from, she must first give up this existence. The Girl reaches for the wooden paddle at the shore and begins the journey into calmer tributaries. As she moves the boat through the waters she hears the laughter of the Children, the voice of the Woman watching over them from the distance, the Dogs, barking. Life is all around her in the ghosts from her past, and she leans in to see a brown house reflected in the water. The smell of chopped wood fills her nostrils with excitement. He has come home.

But no sooner does she bear the boat to shore that the house is gone, the ashes burnt an ancient fireplace into the ground, and the crows announcing a new lair. She has come too late, as always. And so on she goes towards the sun. In the background, a shotgun lands one proud eagle into the river. Canine packs splash to rescue their Master's kill. But this Girl's Father is not among the men in that group. Her brothers have never been, and her friends have all but on and left her. She honors the memory of her shattered petals for one moment, and then digs into the river further, forcefully, till nightfall.

The Whyle contains the bearing seal of all that was once powerful and dominant in the Child's imagination. The cross hugs the crest with Krishna's smile at the front, laundered by the shadowing trees that hold it like a French Door to the mountains behind it. The Girl removes her sandals and lets them sink into the bog. Her dress sparkles in the star light, but she has not come here to jewel herself for the next stranger on the road. She has only come here to die, to make real the blood upon her hands, upon her face, and to bury the Woman's screams in her own pain.

Underneath the wet soils of the dogwood tree an ancient rose is still wilting shades of blue. The Girl touches the rose, avoiding the thorns, wishing life into this beautiful flower. As the wrinkled leaves give way to the Girl's warmth, the flower begins to open and the earth smiles, revealing its roots. Nestled against them a silver dagger gleams in anticipation. The old handle has been wiped clean somehow, devoid of history and past deaths in this court of memories. The mountains remember nothing.

The Girl removes the dagger with both hands holding the flat of the blade, and she closes the edge to her wool-covered chest. Her heart is pumping silently as it has always done. And the Girl staggers as wetness reaches her chin, and unfamiliar rocking drops her to the grass. She crawls her way to the stone circle, widening its scope with her extremities, however, and she drags the blade across her left wrist, then the right. It is done. The wind collects the stream of red in its wake as a storm descends upon this calm riverbed. The shield howls a battle once more to the skies, and the world responds.

Inside the mountain, an old man forces an anvil to stone. The Girl, once flesh, has left the Earth in body. Next to the rock, a silver pool hosts a laughing parade of seahorses. Above the streams there is no joy, the Old Man thinks to himself. A clocks strikes midnight and the Old Man marks another day's work upon his wall. When the wall has been filled he will make his way to the marsh as well, and seek the relief from the dagger's blade.

The latest craze

2009-09-11T11:25:00.000-07:00

Not sure what to say here. Things seem to fly by me very quickly -- I catch leeflets of the messages I feel drawn to, only to watch as they melt away into my open palms.
I am naked in a pool of water and the darkness and sunlight around me changes throughout the day,
but the temperature around me remains continuous.
The Milky Way lengthens her arm and I stretch to follow, but my feet remain rooted in the mud as my fingers glow in the moonlight.
A fog crawls over my eyes, and I awaken once again to the languid, ever- sauntering lagoon.

That is the rhythm of my days on many levels.
The elemental takes over, and the structures I once relied on disintegrate as I seek a more primal response to the envoironment around me.
Nothing holds fix, and my life, on many levels, seems to flow out of synch with the rest of the world around me.
I breach the tall grasses once or twice, but I come back, mostly for respite, to that safe space in the marshes.

I feel disconnected from the world I used to push myself through.
What pressures I accepted once as necessary feel foreign to me,
alien and toxic to my own survival.
I attempt to build on what remains from that time, but the remnants stay dry and mangled in their original places.
Their shadows slowly decay as the soils beneath them petrify and swallow the shoots into the ground,
bit by bit,
along the distant shores.

My visits to these points have decreased in frequency because the thorns do not hold back the pain when I wait in their presence.
They bleed the past into the water around me as my reddened fingers cradle the flower that once was,
and release her into the mud.
These poignant deaths are the tears that I could never cry and yet have let loose in therapy,
the words that once had no origin and now reverberate from my core.
In that velvet flux of cathartic release I see the ice caps begin to melt, and the mountain walls recede in the distance.

I hear whispers of beloved marshes that remain well known to others.
I experience a momentary panic as a part of me fears an eternity lived in this tropical post of swamps, hidden fruits and unknown dangers.
I admire the wings of the birds above me, but I do not prune any feathers.
I wonder about the journeys the old man takes beyond the forest edge,
but I neglect the kerosene lamp he left nestled among the rocks last summer.
I have no currency,
no identification,
no acquired knowledge that I can apply and over-emphasize in my hopes of reaching a newer landscape,
only the reality of my own experience.
In it I notice camels lower their heads to the water holes,
children grow and prosper,
and parents mask pain behind the sincerity of their smiles.

I sink away to where the lily pads flourish.
The berries do not judge me for using them at will in the summertime.
The sun does not set because I have not planted any seeds in the fields that day.

Ballpoint pens

2009-04-10T13:21:00.000-07:00

The hush hush of technological advance admits the absence of human presence in the office. A dollhouse of paperwork dresses the table, in the shadows the First Aid creeps a witnessing message in the hope that the air stagnates further through the afternoon. Artificial light and air heat up the walls of this unchanging home; dusted mission statements yawn an echo against deaf ears. Moving shadows sleep in their own movements; glass fixtures capture time, but not its passage.

Behind the hum of computers an old clock ticks backwards until the end of the work day. Life comes only once the Exit Sign reaches its glow, and the hallways can dance a stifled freedom into the streets outside.

Sand songs

2009-03-19T15:33:00.000-07:00

The darkened room colors nothing of my mood. Black boots stooped over aging fabric, shedding curtains lingering over a sunset's edge. The stuff of life. In mind all fuzz and frenzy over cups of coffee, simple pleasures of exceeding magnitude stopping time, for a moment, to savor an eternity of breath.

Beyond the glass wooden dendrites pierce the evening sky; memories fade into the night beyond themselves. The roofs of lonely houses lean forward as if to gather the last ruins of winter onto their edges. What is left in the distance? The subtle weaving of engines begging for rest. A screech of metal on nearby railroad. Footprints caked over children's laughter in the dawn of an industrial birth, now lost amidst the hurried whistle beneath the station, closing on a destination even as the motors warm up in their slots.

And a soul, alone, struggling to embrace the deeper silence, in fear of empty noise.

Walking

2008-08-03T18:36:00.000-07:00

Intent on nothing else but writing, I am letting my words slip off my fingertips in the hope that something good will come out.

The air is cool and I wish this peaceful silence could endure forever. Yet I lag back and forth between enjoying and disliking, slightly, my stay in Medford. The incessant quiet does not aid my depression and or ward off constant temptation to fall too deeply into myself. But the crow of the birds on my windowsill, the hum from the nearby train tracks and the early morning dew are all things that I treasure about this neighborhood. In Cambridge there was never a sun, never a star, just a spreading gray during the daytime and a long black at night. In Medford I can count the stars, watch the Moon in her glory, and bathe in the sunlight by the altar. When it rains, the trees sigh into my lungs, and the potted plants on our porch stretch out their veiny arms towards the sky.

Dark Waltz

2008-07-30T20:01:00.001-07:00

Montreal, continued

2008-07-30T12:18:00.000-07:00

Now there is nothing worse than being rammed in the neck by your rival...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGrXFotE__M

Montreal

2008-07-28T18:40:00.000-07:00

Here's what our team captain, David Parker, had to say about our team performance this weekend:

Good Morning Living Root!
Happy Monday! Here's a quick recap of our weekend events for those of you who couldn't attend the races in Montreal. We broke down several barriers and set some new records including LRDB's fastest time: 2:17.06 !! And, as some of you already know, we brought home the gold in Intermediate Division G 500 meter final with a winning time of 2:18.15.
The 500 meter final was a really hard fought race, and everyone gave everything they had to win. Our start was really solid and the timing was robotic. I was hoping we'd break out of the pack, but the other 5 boats in our heat just stayed right with us. Our drummer, Nila, just kept updating everyone by screaming "Head to head! Head to head!" The power dropped once about midway down the course, but we picked it back up once I screamed at everyone (sorry, I had to). We slammed away at the finish and everyone poured it on thick. The boat was flying along like mad. As we crossed the line there was no way to tell who won. It was too close to call. The final times were:

1 LRDB 2:18.15
2 Booz Allen 2:18.16
3 Bananaship 2:18.26
4 Desjardins B+ 2:19.16
5 Montreal Dragonfly 2:19.21
6 Hydroglisseur d'H.... 2:20.28

To win such a tight race requires a great deal of mental focus.
We accomplished much and we've continued to make progress. In 2006, we came home empty handed. In 2007 we placed 2nd in Rookie Division C, and now in 2008 we leaped over the rest of the Rookie divisions and won Intermediate Division G. On top of all this, we pulled our fastest time to date during the second time trial: 2:17.06. We just keep getting better and better. I am extremely proud of our performance, and I'm really glad we beat Bananaship.
I would like to thank everyone for all the work they put into making the trip fun and successful. Thanks goes out to David Liu who set up our dinner at Mars Venus. Lily and Margo did a superb job as our PICOLS (Persons In Charge Of Lunch and Sustenance) for we had an excellent spread of munchable foods. Everyone helped haul gear around and set up our campsite. Brian Caldwell taught us a new card game. A big thanks goes out to all the people who drove to and from Montreal. I would also like to recognize several people who volunteered to paddle or drum for other teams: Whitney, Nila, Dave Mollo, Richard, Karla, Melissa, Margo, and Po. Not only did these paddlers get some experience with different paddling styles, they continued our tradition of good sportsmanship.

Check out some photos on the website: http://livingroot.org/PhotoGallery/thumbnails.php?album=153

Montreal 2008 was an amazing experience. It was the first international sports event I'd ever participated in and was framed by my first road trip into Canada. It was the first trip I made into territory where the lay of the land was spelled out in French instead of Spanish, and where I had to rely on some of my more knowledgeable friends for translation. It was also the first event I attended that was entirely centered around the sport of dragon boating, and was held not only at a man-made island, but also in an Olympic basin built specifically for the Montreal Games of 1976.

The teams attending were from all over Canada and the Eastern coasts of the United States -- some of them corporate teams, some of them local teams, and some of them national contenders. We were at the bottom of the list when we started -- a very young team (only three years old) in the Rookie Division that had gone home empty-handed two years before. This year we left gold medal winners -- the first time in our history-- not in our previous division, but now amongst more experienced teams, within the Intermediate Grouping. The back of our medals read Intermediate, Open Mixed 500 meter Final 2008, G Division, 1st Place.

I rode from Boston through New Hampshire and the Green Mountains of Vermont with three other teammates on Friday morning. We got to Montreal in the early evening after stopping in Burlington, VT to take in the sights of Lake Champlain and the local neighborhoods. Our hotel, St. Andre, was half a block away from Montreal's famous St. Catherine's Street and its amazing collection of eclectic cafes, bars and stores. The people were friendly and warm to all us lost tourists and welcomed our stay in their beautiful country with open arms. We ate at the Mars Venus, a popular restaurant-bar, on Saturday evening, after our first day of racing. The video above is one that I took during our second time trial, when I sat out as an alternate. The next morning, we got up at 4:25am and raced our last 500 meters at 7:54 am. Forty minutes later, we found out that we'd placed first.

I saw some amazing things happen while at the event. Three of the top teams in the Premiere Division perked up to make a 100 m dash in front of the thousands of other dragon boaters and fans at the sight. It was a race talked up for at least a half hour before by the local announcers and the shoreline was bursting with people trying to get a better view. 70 m into the race, one boat lost their steerer, veered into the lane to their right and crashed into another team. The steer-less boat angled to one side and tipped everyone into the water, causing an immediate response from the on-site medics and lifeguards. After a small cheer was given to the winning team, an even louder applause came for the hapless dragon boaters that were taken to shore. That same spirit of community support was felt throughout the weekend as resting teams cheered for the people in the basin, and neighboring groups, rivals, friends, supported one another in providing extra paddlers, drummers, steerers, etc, whenever there was a need for them. Stories were told about trips to international dragon boat races in Taiwan, the new groups of teams that were recruiting members, and about victories and challenges. We left Montreal exhausted but grateful for each other's presence, in and out of the boat.

Off this weekend...back very very Sunday...

2008-07-24T16:14:00.000-07:00

Montreal, here we come!!!!

Now I just have to pray for the rain to stop. I should be making rice or starting to carb load; however, I am so tired. I packed last night and have little energy to do anything besides sleep right now.

Here are some images from last year's race. This year we want to come back with some hardware...

Ehhh....

2008-07-21T19:30:00.001-07:00

I haven't posted anything in a while because there is just too much to say. I feel like I talk only about myself on the blog and often wonder if I am helping anyone at all by feeling so sorry for myself. I have a lot going on inside -- a lot of thinking, figuring out what the next step is, etc. I am still Lucy at the corner with a .05 glass of lemonade, wondering what I'll be when I grow up. It's sad, really. I feel like I have also become a reluctant 'believer'...as much as I don't want to believe in the existence of a God, the idea of a benevolent Deity still resonates with me. It is much easier to walk away from your studies, your education, your connection to a previous form of spirituality, when you stop believing in God. But what about when you haven't? The unfortunate re-emergence of a past Presence gets you all tied up in problems again and wondering if anything makes sense anymore. Funny that somehow the death of my deepest self -- the part that was connected to God and led me into my studies at Weston -- has never been grieved or discussed at length in my therapy. I have jumped the hole many, many times and my therapist has been wise enough not to force me into it. But someday I'm gonna have to make my way into that void and see where everything really went.

Clinically bored?

2008-07-09T07:48:00.000-07:00

Before I go back to the daily grind, I think it’s important for me to get things off my chest. I am currently at my desk as usual, sinking in after our weekly update meeting, and there are plenty of things I could be doing. Making phone calls, drafting up a vocational evaluation report to send out to my clients’ counselors, googling for more resources or job openings.

These are all good and worthy tasks that, as a case manager, I should occupy myself with. However, I switch back and forth between a sense of satisfaction with my position and the need to do something more stimulating with my time. I miss school significantly, and I find my meetings with clients frustrating because there is so much going on in their lives, and I cannot help them appropriately. In this agency I must remain focused on evaluating their readiness for competitive employment. My clients walk into my space with all their hurts and struggles, and I must turn some of them away because they are not ready for a job. I end up being too hard on myself and to others because I know I want to be a counselor to the people I meet, and I am afraid of what that means.

I’ve started checking out different Master’s and PhD programs in clinical psychology as well as counseling. I did not have an overwhelmingly positive experience in my Intro to Psych courses in undergrad – in fact, I remember not enjoying the material for some reason. But psychology fascinates me now – the reasons behind people’s behavioral patterns, the events and emotions that lead some individuals one path, and others a different one. My year and a half of counseling has taught me to appreciate the vast knowledge and education that is required to be a good counselor, as well as the amount of thinking that goes into that type of position. I ask my own therapist about his educational history and past jobs, and I get all excited about the possibility of doing something similar.

I just want to do something that fulfills me – to choose a career that encourages me to grow and challenges me to see things in a different light. The field of psychology provides people the opportunity to help individuals in a wide array of settings. And there is always so much to learn, learn, learn…

The Tea Kettle, Series #2

2008-07-01T11:56:00.000-07:00

I'm at work and this is very bad practice. But I'm posting it anyways because I need a break from the redundency of my monthly reports and am craving some newness in the air.
Right now I am reading The Holy Longing and have hit Chapter 5 -- The Consequences of an Incarnational Spirituality. Embracing a 'living God' is not an easy feat. How do we pray actively, vividly, in a day and age when religion can become a mere status symbol? The hands and feet of God are found in the hands and feet of those around us -- often in the most conspicuous of places. I have to mention that there are individuals out there that remain very attuned to the movements of the Spirit in their own lives, and seek to enable others to be the same way. It is not a difficult exercise, but it does require humility. My friend Zac has engaged in such a project, and I think it has impacted more than just his own spiritual journey.

Spilled rocks

2008-06-28T07:17:00.000-07:00

Dar Williams:

This Is Not the House That Pain Built

My house is hard to find, but I'll give you directions,
You can visit sometime, down where all that I built surrounds me
Just make sure your car's got good shocks
There's steep hills, there's potholes, there's rocks
I work in the garden, my son plays around me
Close the gate behind you, there's a horse that can't get out
I will see you first, is that all right
And can you remember, can you remember

This is not the house that pain built
This is not the house that pain built
I was drowning in something, I jumped in the rift
And you knew me back then, when I spat on my gift, but no

It's tough and it's tiring when you go it alone
I learned about wiring, I learned about stone
The building is done but the work's never through
And I won't give up, no how, it reminds me of who I am and where I am now
I remember myself, that's the work that I do
On a spring night when the snow is melting
You'll see two sets of footprints walking
Look at all the stars, and turn around, and walk home,
Slowly walk home.

This is not the house that pain built
That is not a house that pain built
My friends all think that I holed up and hid
But I tell them I didn't, you know I don't think I did, no.

And this is where I let my pain go
This is where I let my pain go
This is where the footprints dance in the snow

Unwoken Dreams

2008-06-28T07:02:00.000-07:00

The Bitter Boy

There was a boy, a bitter boy,
Whose golden heart I saw gleaming.
I thought I'd win the heart within,
But now I know that I was dreaming.

But I will rise, and I will sing,
Until I know I can't conceal it.
Because I hold the saddest song,
I wish to God I cannot feel it.

And then the boy, the bitter boy,
He came to me for rest and healing.
He reached in his chest, deep in his breast,
Held out the heart for me stil gleaming.

But I will rise, and I will sing,
Until I know I can't conceal it.
Because I hold the saddest song,
I wish to God I cannot feel it.

And then the boy, me and the boy,
We walked for miles through stormy weather.
And hand in hand, we roamed the land,
And held the gleaming heart together.

But I will rise, and I will sing,
Until I know I can't conceal it.
Because I hold the saddest song,
I wish to God I cannot feel it.

Then the boy, the bitter boy,
He came to take the gleaming treasure.
He reached in my chest, deep in my breast,
And took the gleaming heart forever.

But I will rise, and I will sing,
Until the day I can't conceal it.
And then I'll sing the saddest song,
And wish to God you cannot hear it.

Oh, then I'll sing the saddest song,
I wish to God you cannot hear it.

This song is about me and no one else, mostly. I haven't been doing too well and have been stuck in a rut for a while. I ran into this song quite by accident, but believe Kate Rusby summarizes my own internal struggle quite well. I am still reading when I have time and will post another series soon.

One Day At ATime - Jeremy Camp

2008-06-22T05:00:00.000-07:00

Tea Kettle Series #1

2008-06-21T20:43:00.000-07:00

These series will be a combination of self-reflections (some of them fictional) and also deeper conversation surrounding books, authors and their connection to spiritual growth, renewal and theological discussion in today’s age. Any comments are welcome as I engage these new series.

Plush Emptiness

The girl was asked to come to the office. She found this odd, considering she was on retreat and the general rule was to remain silent and distant from any opportunities to converse with other participants. She rose from her table, her appetite suddenly gone, and headed for the administration building.

The man in black wanted to know if she was enjoying her retreat. Yes, I am, she replied. The man gestured for her to sit down in the plush chair next to his cherry oak desk and politely offered to get her some water. The girl declined even though she’d been sitting by the lake for most of the morning. She noticed that the man in black kept several liquor bottles in stock on the other side of his office and met with friends often at the small table by his bookcase. Smudgy glass marks rode the dusty furniture, signs of wear and use dressed the couch.

I have called you in here to ask you something important, the man in black said, edging his chair ever closer to the girl, his collar suddenly contrasting with the rest of his clothing. I need to know if you have spoken to anyone while you’ve been here thus far. No, I have—... In particular this individual, the man interrupted the girl, Fr. ____. Have you guys met at all during the retreat?

The man’s smile was easy enough for an untrained parishioner to accept its presence as a sign of good will. But the girl had been in these situations before and understood immediately the nature of the man’s question. She was boiling over even before she knew what was happening, the blood shooting through her ears when she replied:

Why the hell would I ever speak to him?

The man’s smile faded. The heaviness of the air in the room increased three-fold as the man roughly touched his desk and began shuffling nervously through drawers. His toes tightened within the sides of his leather shoes, the tips rising slowly from the carpet. The girl waited, patiently, for what was coming next, as a dark voice, different now, unfamiliar, spoke from behind the cherry table:

On ____________, it was sworn to me that the case of Fr. ______ vs. Ms. _____ was sealed in the Higher Court of Massachusetts under the condition that Ms _____ and Fr. _____ would have no more communication, direct or indirect, as of ________. If any clause or sub-clause of this agreement were to be broken by either party, through indirect, intentional or non-intentional forms, the parties would be requested at a re-sealing at the Higher Court pertinent to the specified area of that state and/or Province. Such re-sealing would be presumed by a redress of the litigation held in the former case of Fr. _____ vs. Ms. _____ and would mandate that a federal fine be charged to the party designated guilty of breaking the agreement. Failure to pay this fine could result in further litigation or temporary restraining orders, even imprisonment, to maintain the safety of the affected party and/or parties.

The booming voice stopped. The girl looked up as the man was leaning forward, his belly resting on the fine point pen that he used to sign so many of his documents with. His pudgy hands were gripping the edges of his desk. The white nuckles were shaking so hard that the girl felt a rumble edging towards her chair, but still she did not waver from the man’s stare. Jumping into his angry pupils, she replied to the angry silence:

I have had nothing to do with him, ever. He is your mess. Take care of what has happened here and quit trying to make it my responsibility. If your man cannot keep his eyes where they belong, then get him out of our way. I know you haven’t been taught to believe this, but honestly, you and your collar are not the Church. The People of God form the Church, and knowing that should be your first priority. If you believe that you were called to something, that that man was called to something, then let that be your commitment to treating others as Jesus would have treated them. I have every right to be here on this retreat, to engage the resources as much or as little as I like, and to feel safe being alone on the property. I have no sympathy for those who use their ministerial positions to take advantage of the people under their charge.

The girl stood up from her chair, made it to the door, and turned around.

I have no sympathy for people who knowingly slip the sins of their brethren under the rug just to protect their order’s image. This is not a true order. This is a hypocrisy of prayer, reflection and counsel.

**********************************************************

Later that evening, as the girl continued her walk along the riverbank, a man in black came from behind the wooden bench and stopped twenty feet in front of the girl. It was Fr _____ and his face was streaming with tears. The girl looked at the man’s shaking hands, his pleading expression, but kept her face unreadable. She carefully collected her skirts, knelt down in the dirt, and drew a line across the sand. When she looked back up, Fr. _________ was gone.

Reflections of an Avid Tea Kettle

2008-06-21T19:45:00.000-07:00

I call myself this because I bury lots of things. I chew on them and let the steam from the surface rise at times, but the depths beneath the heat, the meat behind all the questions that manifest themselves in vaporized who knows?, remain a mystery, even to myself. This is an attempt to reach into those rushing springs and know what they sincerely carry, all the while riding on that endless stream of vapor...

The skeptic and the cynic know a lot about anger and frustration. That is because the skeptic and the cynic long for much more than what they perceive to be on the surface of ideas, assumptions, statements of belief. There is a longing beneath the scowl that these characters are known by. In the world of theology, or as a cynic would want to describe, apophatic theology, I believe, there is a holy longing for deeper truths. A longing that may be as deep and as significant as the paths that the cynic and the skeptic claim to reject. A longing that, perhaps, represents a truth that these individuals embrace, hidden in the silence of their thoughts.

The Holy Longing opens with a tribute to the existence of these tea kettles, and to a hope in life beyond them:

For Henri Nouwen, 1932 - 1996, our generation’s Keikegaard. By sharing his own struggles, he mentored us all, helping us to pray while not knowing what to pray, to rest while feeling restless, to be at peace while being tempted, to feel safe while being anxious, to be surrounded by a cloud of light while still in darkness, and to love while still in doubt.
- Ronald Rolheiser

So begin the tea kettle series.

Alone on the Mountain

2008-06-16T19:22:00.000-07:00

From an email to a friend:

I am reading The River of God by Gregory O. Riley and the content in this book is taking me back to my New Testament study days in undergrad. If there is a Spirit, then that Spirit is leading me on a very interesting path, because I am going back in time. Back then investigating the 'truths' and 'origins' behind our ideas of God was a shock to many people entering the Religious Studies major. I absorbed a lot of the history and cultural innuendos that my professors discussed in those days, but I had to ask myself, So what? I ended up pursuing a theological degree to answer that question and find some meaning behind the human hunger for the Divine. But now I'm retracing my steps and going back to the communities and struggles of the peoples in that ancient world -- and to the gods and goddesses that shaped the lives of those communities, and influence, to a large degree, the monotheistic traditions of our age. I have left behind some of my theological questions and dig now for the bare bones behind all the beliefs, stories, myths, that shape peoples' imaginations. I am not afraid of those stories and of the rivers and tributaries that they came from, so long ago.

Why am I doing this, I ask myself. Maybe because I live with people who are very open to discussing the divine in alternate terms. Or maybe I feel less comfortable with the somewhat stagnant papal bulls, creeds, precepts in our Church that are meant to explain everything about how humans are supposed to live. The golden cups and chalices at the Table do not attract me any more. I sit in the corner with the lepers and I enjoy their homemade scraps much better, thank you.

The homilies at Mass blow me away now. I walk in almost always with my head low, but Fr. Unni finds a way to get it raised again. With the days after the PRIDE Parade numbering themselves in people's awareness, Fr. Unni gave a stunning reproach against all those who rejected their gay brethren from the table (yes, a table with a lowercase t). He was crossing every boundary and bellowing at the Pharisees and Sadduccees, as Jesus would have done, for placing rules on the lives of so many people -- the poor, the disenfranchised, GLBT individuals, and I'm sure amongst them, the non-Christian. He woke me up from my sleep and got me thinking again. Usually when I walk into St. Cecilia's I'm furious -- mostly at the pillars, statues and golden rims that remind me of what is not important in our Church -- and can't process very much.

Saturday was a hard day for me. I had a hard time letting go of my anger and I had an even harder time explaining it to my therapist. The shame always gets in my way when I try to unpack how I feel, and then I begin to lose an understanding of things myself. Isolated moments from my time with my abuser kept popping into my head -- conversations with his Provincial, the calculating words of the Province's lawyers, the way my abuser reveled in my fear and anxiety, the way my shyness (and most likely fear) turned my abuser on even more. Most of all I was angry at the fact that my own journey through divinity school had not proven as fruitful as his did. I would like to give him 100% credit for that, but there is a slight percentage in there that sticks out that only I can own, a piece of the puzzle that represented my own dissatisfaction with the Church, my studies, the environment I engaged them in, regardless of whether or not my abuser was present in them. That piece of that puzzle only became more enhanced by his effect on my life. So I didn't give my all in the interviews at Catholic high schools, I didn't really want the jobs, and I knew that going in. My own dissatisfactions -- reality perhaps I'm female and Catholic, because I have seen people marginalized, because my friends have formed part of the GLBT, non-Catholic Christian, pagan communities and have been rejected at table, reality because I can't answer their questions and want to be present to their doubts, but find that my own faith contradicts, on many occasions, what I believe it means to be a good Christian, reality because my own life experiences and customary critical thinking skills (I fine-tuned them in grad school, amazingly!) don't point to the existence of a loving Creator God who will be here to hold me in a time of need. The running joke is that you lose your belief in a God the second year of study in a theologate. Well, I guess that's what happened and is still unfolding into this post-academic year.

I'm angry because after all the mess, after I got money (it wasn' t that much) from the Provincial and Jose got his six months in rehab plus a year and a half trial period in community, Jose was still the one who advanced in his ministry and moved on to fulfill what his journey had been leading him towards all along, while I was left at a standstill, suddenly an atheist after 25 years of faith. Jose's ordination this Saturday sealed 14 years of formation that now remain unbroken by any fault of his. I got to graduate early with a degree that now feels somewhat purposeless. I find it painful to reflect back on any of the papers, events, nights of study and social interactions that led up to the reception of that degree, regardless of whether they were good or bad. The abuse seems to have colored everything about my studies and the years that have followed them. My already cynical view of this Church finished off the job Jose could not have completed on his own -- it killed my hope in a worldview that carried me for most of my life. Now my books from Weston are bound paper collecting dust in my library, and my diploma is a source of shame and anger that I have refused to bring out of the basement and into my bedroom. I sometimes attempt to read some of those pages, but I grow so angry at the presumptuous attitude with which theology is discussed in divinity schools. There is a belief, underlying, that the truth is already found, that because of constant study, one does not need to change his or her internal voices. The incredible breadth in theological writing has given birth to the idea that being a good Christian in real-time is no longer necessary, once enough knowledge is acquired. Did that philosophy color Jose's understanding of his role in the world? Did it influence him into believing he could ignore his own responsibilities, because he held a position of authority in the Church -- one received after absorbing enough 'knowledge'?

June 8th, 2008

2008-06-14T15:13:00.000-07:00

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Proper nutrition makes a dragon happy...

Taking over the bridge -- we were quite a sight that day.

Butterflies.

This is more painful than it looks...

A close-up on our stroke.

During this first race we were two boat-lengths ahead...Iceman was on the way to victory!

In between heats, we would sweat. During the race, we'd finally cool off.

Maverick pulls in after kicking some ass.

After a long,long day.

Iceman - 3rd place B Division Minor
Goose - 4th place A Division Major
Maverick - 2nd place C Division Major
Pathways to China (our youth team) -- kicked ass

Wild Geese

2008-06-13T18:43:00.000-07:00

"Wild Geese"
by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about your despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting --
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

JUNE 14TH, 2008

2008-06-13T16:39:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow should be one of the most important day in the lives of two men. They will be ordained to the Jesuit priesthood in New Orleans, LA.

I try to say a prayer for the two of them without cringing. I try to ask that they be good stewards of the calling they have received, that they try to live out their faith as authentically as possible, that they find joy in their work and stay present to the joys and sufferings of those they serve. That they are honest with themselves and with the challenges they face in their journeys. That they acknowledge their own shit, their own gifts for what they are, and trust in God, listen for God, when they sense their pride getting in the way of their judgment. I truly wish that, because to not to would be to de-value the importance of the work these men will be doing.

One of those men is a fellow student of mine. He and I entered grad school together and went through the whole process towards our MDiv during my first year and a half in the program -- classes, papers, parties, sometimes head-buttings. I respect my friend and hope that he will serve well in his ministry. He is also a gifted writer and I have found inspiration from his pieces, all reflections on his work with youth, the poor, and the elderly, and how they transformed his life.

The second individual is a shadow from my past that has influenced me on varying levels, most of them negative. This person mentored me for a short time in prison ministry, shaping in some ways my care for the most forgotten individuals in society. That 'mentorship', however, soon became an excuse for this individual to play with my boundaries and to act out his own unmet needs for intimacy. He sexually harassed me and then abused my own trust in his diaconal status. Eventually the harassment became a systematic abuse that affected me psychologically as well as physically, and led to a sexual assault that left me too traumatized and broken to respond immediately. My choice to finally report the abuse, at the behest of acquaintances and family, saved my life, but left me marginalized in my own community as well as among some close relatives. I will never view my own faith and/or sexuality in the same light I did prior to meeting this man.

This second individual went through a brief rehabilitative process after I reported the abuse and then was sent to work full-time in a retreat setting. His constancy in this community most likely earned him the respect of his superiors and allowed him to re-apply for priestly ordination with confidence. Perhaps his ability to jump into a ministerial capacity helped him to heal in part from whatever hurts led him to abuse me. This commitment to his work must have re-affirmed his initial calling to serve others. But I cannot say that this new position will be a humbling agent for this individual. I cannot speak to what temptations he will find along the road, or to what his history up to this point will have taught him about human respect, dignity and modulation as he is addressed as a priest. I will never know if he accepted responsibility for the damage he caused me, or if his superiors hold themselves accountable for their proper and/or improper formation of the men over the years.

I continue to ask where my own path will lead, and if I can ever reconcile myself with the events that have made me who I am these past three years.
--

Rippled sun

2008-05-26T18:33:00.000-07:00

So I got very bored with this blog. Haven't posted anything in a long time and I regret that fact. Don't know where the time went -- working, playing, trying to exist in between? I haven't stopped to smell the flowers and I envy all my blogger friends who, perhaps unknowingly, do so in their very act of writing. I read about Tolstoy, people's gatherings in the spring fever of growth, the struggles that people carry. I miss it all. I'm not reading and I'm not writing and my absence from this sphere has made me a sullen person of late.

Things are spent on the river, where sticks of wood 'burn' the water as our steerer screams from behind. We race one another 500 m at each practice, sometimes two, three times in one day. People gather and cheer us on, tourists turn our exercise into a highlight of their trip, the Duck Boats try to coach us from the comfort of their chairs. It's amazing and an incredible way to build upper body strength. I will admit that I find the stares on the T somewhat comical now. What the hell is that? Is that a paddle? are the questions I usually get. I can own up to the fact that I've earned the right to carry one on my way to the docks now. I received my own paddle from my captain about a month ago, and on the way home she told me her name -- Hanging Tree. She bears my initials on her skin now, and together, we make an interesting pair.

My walls are bare, devoid of expression. Junk is all over the place. I keep too much stuff. I tell myself again and again that I will go to the Goodwill near my house and leave everything there. Forgo my possessions that have somehow, over the course of these three years, come to own me.

Happy summer!

2008-05-26T08:21:00.000-07:00

It's coming up!!!!!

June 8th, 2008

Charles River - Hong Kong Festival of Boston

I'm riding Iceman to victory......

Comfort by Deb Talan

2008-04-16T18:41:00.000-07:00

When everyone has gone to sleep and you are wide awake
there's no one left to tell your troubles to.
Just an hour ago, you listened to their voices
lilting like a river over underground
and the light from downstairs came up soft like daybreak
dimly as the heartache of a lonely child.

If you can't remember a better time
you can have mine, little one.
In days to come when your heart feels undone
may you always find an open hand
and take comfort wherever you can.

And oh, it's a strange place.
And oh, everyone with a different face
but just like you thought when you stopped here to linger
we're only as separate as your little fingers.

So cry, why not? we all do
then turn to one you love
and smile a smile that lights up all the room.
Follow your dreams in through every out-door
it seems that's what we're here for.

And when you can't remember a better time
you can have mine, little one.
In days to come when your heart feels undone
may you always find an open hand
and take comfort, there is comfort.
Take comfort wherever you can, you can, you can.

Trail dust

2008-03-26T18:45:00.001-07:00

Oooh....remember when it rained...

There is something soothing about Josh Groban's voice. No matter how much of a bad wrap he gets from different sources about enveloping the spotlight.

I listen to him when I want to be introspective about things. The message in his songs have a way of digging out more thoughts when I sense I have none left.

Running down....

Where does the running stop? I have stopped running from in a lot of ways, and I spend more time learning how to run with. But that too requires patience as I become aware of others' journeys and their various present-s. The present-s of my clients, my co-workers, my roommates, my family and friends, of the continuous management of energy that is required in order for a team to succeed in competitive sports. I am not an easy person to slow down. I have spent so much time trying to make myself 'fit' and now I find myself in a better space than ever before. So my compulsion to 'fix things', as I have noticed within myself, extends outwards in an attempt to make others as I see them. Not everyone really wants to be seen. They have their own path of discovery to run on, and to share with those they wish to.

I'm enjoying my own rocky road.

Sunday dress

2008-03-26T18:32:00.000-07:00

If any prayers are spoken on March 30 at 9:30am, they better be loud. And quick. A palmy 43 degrees and high winds on the Charles ain't gonna have me singin'.

Until Bob makes it to the back of the boat and yells "RACE PIECE!!!"

Kindling the Flame

2008-03-23T17:36:00.000-07:00

I hold nothing back. What else is there to hide from?

I stood by the wild fire as Fr. John spoke our prayer in the darkness. The wind lifted the flame off the Easter Candle, announcing a hope we all longed for within ourselves. I found warmth and power in the flame from whence that candle was lit. I also saw beauty in the starkness of the night, in our huddled gathering on the sidewalk, within our frail humanity.

The darkness was not a burden on my soul. The silence in the church as we made our way up the steps was a welcome relief from the noise of everyday life. The lighting of the candles was a moving bond – a gentle reminder of our connectedness to each other.

The first lesson was a beautiful one, of course a myth. The Genesis of ourselves remains a great mystery, one that we continue to explore in science, and ponder in faith.

The subsequent lessons were a historical response to the religious wars that were brooding centuries ago. I do not believe in a God that would ask a man to slay his own son in order for that man to prove his faith in that God. I do not feel comforted by an abusive God that shields His Face from me in anger, and then takes me back with great tenderness. That does not make me, and even less, Him, special.

The music was what carried me beyond the room and into my own questions surrounding God. It was in the notes that I felt transcendence, a Resurrection of sorts, a renewal of my spirit.

I found myself moved by the sight of a community welcoming a baptized candidate at the font. I believe that every person, not just Catholics or Christians, form a part of God’s family, if that God does indeed exist. My mind’s eye remembers my roommate kneeling in front of our altar, a candle lit before her. In that moment, too, someone asked for rebirth in all our lives.

This ‘triumph’ of last night did not grab me very much. Death, a part of life, has always gotten a bad wrap in our over-baked society. Yes, it is painful to lose someone. But maybe we need to see and understand death in a new way. The peacock, a symbol of the Resurrection, molts its plumes, only to grow them again. Perhaps human life is also meant to be transformed. We also run in the waters, dot the earth, blow in the winds of our planet. We too form a part of the natural world. Do we really need to live forever? Can we not become a part of what we are born into (the dust out of which Adam is formed) and honor this transformation of our ancestors?

God's light

2008-03-13T05:15:00.000-07:00

The Lenten REconciliation Service last night was beautiful. 90 people in all showed up, and the candles made the silence flicker in my thoughts. I was nervous at first, but I quickly realized that no matter what I said, God would be moving the hearts around me. I settled into the rhythm of the service and attempted to release my own burdens. I don't know how successful I was in doing this, but I saw others around me standing up and finding their way to private Confession. It was a moving sight. Richard's music was beautiful, Joe, George and Gene did a superb job maneuvering the logistics of the service, and Scott and Mark remained supportive the whole way. Charlene and Letitia's careful reading put the community into a deep quiet.

The oil burner that sent me forth at graduation will adorn the sacristy and guide those in need of rest.

God's hope

2008-03-12T04:54:00.001-07:00

It is 7:54 in the morning. I am at my desk already, poised for the daily traffic of souls, tears and small rejoicings. I have a stack full of medical files, evaluations and inked paperwork, etchings all over them. Names and figures. The pasts and presents of people that our fallible selves wish we could suspend in time.

My friends called me last night but I was too dead to answer the phone. Too weary, I would say, of the energy it would take to get up today after such a good conversation. I miss them. I wish there was more of me to go around. I wish I had the energy to re-group and still do all the things I want to. My room, instead, remains a reflection of my inability to achieve such a goal. It is as chaotic as a tornado-ridden Kentucky. I would need a wizard to get it in order anytime soon.

But still, I find ways to express how much has been given to me. Tonight there is a Lenten Reconciliation Service at St. Cecilia's Parish, over which I am presiding. The two weeks of meetings with the DRE and a few parishioners was worth my time. I feel good inside, at peace, slowly opening to God's Presence in the people around me. My hands remind me of this task as I continue my work with my clients. They smell of oil from the tiny burner that accompanied me on the train. The burning wick on that burner will awaken the sleepy evening into our meditation on God's mercy. That burner was given to me as a symbol of my going forth into the world after graduation. Now I light the burner, hoping to send others forth in God's love.

wiser cracks

2008-03-07T18:45:00.001-08:00

I am in bed already. I have to crash early every night to make the morning rides heading toward work. But I will say that I am loving my time there. The honeymoon phase has not ended, but I sense a general excitement underneath the daily movements in the office. People WANT to be there. They WANT to take the clients out on interviews, into intakes, through the training programs. And it leaves me full enough to have to crash on Friday night as well.

I ran into an old friend last night from Weston and chatted over tea for an hour. He has spent so much time working with the homeless, and my work resonates with him on so many levels. I exit the office feeling like I'm done something really good. I just hope my feet remain grounded, and my head stills humble enough.

My bucket list

2008-02-28T19:38:00.000-08:00

The Mission

2008-02-28T14:31:00.000-08:00

	Community Work Services Mission Statement To promote independence through employment for persons challenged by physical, emotional, mental, developmental, social or economic problems by providing quality vocational services that restore and enhance dignity, respect, esteem and skills.

Pretty cool, huh?

The past four days have been a whirlwind of activity and learning. My co-workers have all taken me under their wings and are teaching me the ropes of case management. It is a world that resonates with me on so many different levels, but still manages to challenge me on a daily basis. I have acquired several clients already through our counselors, who are happy to have a bilingual worker on board to help them. I am also shadowing conferences and classes, talking to my boss a lot, and I'm getting to know the participants within our various programs. It is strange to see my name on so many official documents and to know that I will be providing direct service to so many people. I feel like I have worn several hats already throughout the week -- case manager, translator, listener, and sometimes, even, friend. It is draining work, and I have crashed every night since I started trekking downtown. I even fell asleep on the bus coming home today and woke up about a mile after my stop.

There are caring individuals at CWS, and some of them have been in this work for well over a decade. I am impressed by the strength that some of them carry. Several of my co-workers are aiming towards full-fledged social work, while others will be going on to become counselors, career specialists, or nurses. The participants are all very patient people -- some of them walk through life with serious disabilities. Many of them have found a home in the training programs that we provide for them. I am glad.

My apologies for not being in touch in regard to phone calls and the like. I am still adjusting to the schedule. But I thank God every day that I wake up and make my way to CWS.'

Check us out.

I failed my surfing exam

2008-02-22T11:04:00.000-08:00

Uggghhh...

I am being a bad roommate and avoiding the shovels on my porch. I should be outside getting all that snow out of the way. It's been piling up since the morning and I keep telling myself that I'm going to get laundry done. I can hear our neighbor grinding the asphalt off our driveway, but I ignore it nonetheless.

Last night was awesome. We had dragon boat practice out in East Boston, near the airport in a public pool. There were only seven of us that made the trip out there, so Bob decided to have a little fun with us. He stopped our paddling after about half an hour to grab the plastic kayak that was on the wall, and then had Sandy, Lily and I try our way across the pool. We made it to both ends, but once we were out on the edge David, Victor and Al tried their luck. This led to unstoppable laughter from the rest of us as we watched the guys futilely attempt to keep the boat afloat. Bob jumped in to help, making it even funnier as his weight capsized the kayak over and over again. Finally, we grabbed the surfer board and did mock races back and forth across the pool, slipping off every few feet before passing the board onto the next victim. In the end we dumped our coach into the pool, just to keep things fair, and forgot the cool-down so we could dry off. Practice ended with a group outing at a nearby Mexican restaurant and a telecast awards ceremony hosted by Don Francisco and some of Mexico's most famous artists.

I am sore. :)

Happy

2008-02-21T11:04:00.000-08:00

So I got the job I wanted. I am so excited.

So excited I could go didjeridoo about it.

Community Work Services will be a new place for me...and a great avenue through which I can reach out to others. I am still processing it all, but more details will follow.

Thank you for your prayers!

The Lonesome Boatman

2008-02-18T17:31:00.000-08:00

This is so cool....

I went out to lunch with some friends today. One asked how my finger was, another one asked what the hell a dragon boat was, and the third one asked me if I was a Viking.

I am a Viking with soul.

Night

2008-02-15T22:08:00.000-08:00

We all have those identities we wish we could slip into at times...the personas behind which we can bury the pain of our true selves. I found myself wishing I could do just that at the party tonight. I don't know why. It was fun and all, but I just didn't fit like I used to. It wasn't only the social scene that felt odd, it was everything in between - the topics of conversation, the ways people related to one another, the strange familiarity of it all. I had obviously changed, and yet people around me seemed comfortable being in the same bubble as before.

I picked an identity so opposite to what was normative at that party, and at Weston in general. Perhaps even within the Church itself. It feels good. It gives me a sense of power and self-sufficiency that I probably don't claim anywhere else. The solitude that it embodies remains a continuous protest against the status quo and the silencing of voices that deserve to be heard.

bookworms

2008-02-15T11:44:00.000-08:00

I am at peace in this kitchen. My sweet potatoes are cooking in the oven and I am thinking up some new concoction for dinner. Tonight is the B's famous YouTube party (ask me later) and it should be good. It is the only party they've had this semester. I am looking forward to it.

I just finished reading Broken Trust and am still processing its stories of redemption. I am surprised by my ability to sit through them this far. When I first picked up the book I didn't think I could handle what it had to say. But I have been wanting to be present to someone else for a while, and it is good to know that I can be.

The next book on my list is A Monk's Alphabet. I am still laughing from the ingenuity of Umberto Eco's The Name of The Rose, hoping secretly that Driscoll's book can measure up to Eco's game of cat and mouse. They are different authors with very different styles. Driscoll may not keep me up nights the way Eco's storytelling did. But I'll fill you guys in on what I think in the next few days.

What I Wouldn't Give

2008-02-15T11:20:00.001-08:00

Thoughts

2008-02-11T19:14:00.000-08:00

I'm not doing so well. I seem to have hit a milestone of sorts. I find myself reading and re-reading my earlier post from August 16th, Letters of Ash, and wondering what in the world to make of everything now. I feel different, yet still numb, more energized, but still unsure about the future. I picked up Broken Trust on my way through a local bookstore yesterday and immediately took to the last chapters on survival. They were redemptive tales of individuals who'd found the courage to move past the hurt, some even to thrive. As I search the Internet for meaningful work and jump deeper into the life of my parish, I too feel the desire to be made whole again.

I don't know how to move past my anger. Sometimes it overwhelms me to the point where I cascade into a depression full of self-loathing. I am so ashamed of all of it. I want to reach out and ask for help, but I don't have the right words for it. My therapist is helping me to develop a language through which I can do this, but I am terrified of witnessing people's reactions to my story. I am in need of a spiritual guide, and yet I fear the rejection and the internal unconscious self-preservation through which so many retreat in shock. I also hate being told that I have a gift for ministry. The wound is only sliced more deeply as I am forced to re-examine which parts of myself do and and do not remain committed to my former goals. I also know that with every minister comes a journey, a transparency through which others can see self-transformation, and of course, suffering. I dare not share this suffering with the rest of the world. What if I suddenly find myself becoming a shadow of my past self, the person before my years at Weston? I had lost a sense of what it meant to be free. Yet suddenly I find myself imprisoned by my own need to understand the abuse I went through.

I have stopped calling friends and in general am feel uninspired by my usual activities. Dragon boat practice has become more frustrating as I have incurred more sport injuries and remain on the bench with a broken finger.

Happy February

2008-02-01T10:55:00.001-08:00

Thoughts from the Irish city...

Grand Illusions

2008-01-15T11:14:00.000-08:00

I must admit that I did see the Buddha on the road, and I should have killed him on the spot. Instead I decided to run with the thrill of the encounter and see if I could outsmart him. I did.

My grand idea to join that yoga club was an ill-conceived one. I went in for a free '"energy reading", of which I'd heard of before, and was not totally opposed to, given the relaxing massage that accompanied it. I was inquisitive and asked a bunch of questions about the paintings on the wall, I allowed the salesperson to expound her knowledge surrounding all things Dahn, internally deciding that I would interpret the practice however way I saw fit. I signed up for a year of stretching, massages and breathing exercises, and went home a satisfied customer.

Too satisfied.

The next day I received a warning from a reliable source that Dahn Yoga, Inc., may actually be a cult. I did some research on them and found that many critics supported this assumption. I read the reviews of past, as well as present, customers, and saw a common thread connecting their experiences with Dahn. Some of them were conned out of their money, others were pushed to accept the ideology behind the practice and abandon family and friends that could not share it with them, and some jumped in full force, and witnessed the fanaticism of a dangerous leader. A female practicioner at the Dahn Center in Sedona actually lost her life on a retreat held for those studying to become teachers themselves. What's more, the autopsy revealed that she had been drugged during her stay at the center.

The God of Many Faces

2008-01-06T20:12:00.000-08:00

If you see the Buddha on the road, kill him.

So goes the famous protest against the human need to create false deities in the face of a more mysterious Truth. But no one asked what was to be done if this Truth, instead of being seen, actually chose to see you on the road. What was it like to suddenly find yourself being looked upon by God? To recognize that Presence and know that you were being gazed at, layer upon layer?

Somehow I feel like that happened to me at least three times today. Three being the number of Magi wandering through the desert in search of a king, three being the men that walked out of distant lands, cultures, languages, to encounter a new person in the world. I wonder about the Magi and how they must have introduced themselves, not just to a child of mystery, but to the parents of that child, who lived in between the universes of their past, their present, and the shadows from which these three men were emerging. How did those world of differences communicate? How did they find a common Presence in the darkness of that tiny manger?

Fr. Unni blew me away when he started talking about the universal character of God's Love and about the necessity for us to share that love with those common and different alike. The Magi came from a different way of life than that of Mary and Joseph -- what must have been shared and discovered in between them on that fateful night? I walk in the arms of a very unique God these days -- one that seems to keep revealing Him/Herself to me in so many ways. The deeper parts of myself have been awoken by the presence of difference within my life...I have found common ground with my non-Christian friends, points of shared community where we both acknowledge the power of that great Mystery. These moments of shared communication have changed me in ways I cannot fully understand. But I know that the path I am walking on feels more authentic now than it ever has before.

After Mass I went back to Boylston Street and rung the doorbell at a tiny yoga studio that had caught my eye the day before. They were offering free massages and open stretching classes, and today was the last day to get in on the benefits from them. It was entirely a Providential choice, because I walked into a world unlike that of most yoga studios I'd seen before. Dahn Yoga is centered around the re-building of energy within the body and the increase of body flow through all the muscle groups. The classes center on specific stretches that not only strengthen muscle and bone but are designed particularly to help the bodies that were dis-aligned and/or suffering from strain. The martial arts classes are not combative, but provide enough movement to give you a full body workout and develop your skill and sense of balance. The intestinal class is meant specifically for those with digestive problems, a chronic reality of my entire stay, so far, in Boston. As the core chakra in the body, the stomach bears the brunt of all our stresses and anxieties. So many problems or unresolved issues become manifest in our processes of consumption and/or relief. I learned a few postures that once, after so long, taught me how to get rid of that nasty point in my back and offset the muscular complaints that were inevitable with paddling. And I was tired. And my muscles were being forced into action again. It was great.

I signed a one-year contract to take as many classes as I wanted, to attend two workshops on opening the body to more energy and the release of stress (man, we humans hoard our stress like nothing else), and for the cost of enjoying three apuncture sessions (aaaah). One of my instructors graduated from Harvard Divinity of all places, so my curiosity is piqued. The little athlete that could in me is also finally getting her chance at freedom.

So I asked God if all I was supposed to do at this point was just have fun, but I think the answer to that question has been at my nose all along. These basic needs -- exercise, a source of healing, a peaceful home, a diverse community of people to relate with, are all part of my job search. They, in many ways, will support the foundation that is being built for something. The intellectual energy has been there forever, but there has been no body to carry that energy forth. I've been pretty dead in terms of health, perspective, and overall sense of purpose. I can't be fully present to anyone because there hasn't been much of myself these past few years to work with. The only constant is the fact that the God of Many Faces has defied convention once again. I "knew" that I would find my calling, my sense of purpose, my own center of promise, when I got to seminary. I imagined it as one big cathartic confirmation of everything that I was sensing, hoping, wanting...

Heh, it didn't come out that way, not quite. Most of my transformations have happened as a result of my post-seminary recovery. The emergence of the true self is embedded with both the good and the bad of those times. But it is only because I finally graduated, ended my relationship with the Weston community in a definite way, that I have started to feel like I can stretch and grow in all directions.

I guess epiphanes are never meant to be timely. :)

Peace to you.

Thoughts

2007-12-29T19:40:00.000-08:00

I thought saying that I went to see The Golden Compass and enjoyed it would be a good ice breaker to this post. But there are too many voices flowing around, and I am not convinced everyone holds my opinion. So I won't say that.

I'm digging through old thoughts in this kitchen of words, nothing fits. Outside in the cold with Christine, I couldn't express myself properly. Here I am still in knots.

I spend one afternoon after my weekly session staring at the trees, wondering if there was any value in speaking to them in olden days. I think that knowing that I can reach out to all of Nature around me would feed my soul immensely, and that that call was made by God. I get confused then. Where is God and where is this tree? Where am I? I'm paying attention to birds and counting leaves -- how Franciscan of me. But I wonder if my Christian brothers and sisters would approve of this. I dare to ponder if a God so present in creation would needed to be encountered anywhere else, if we could ever dare to call any practice the 'right' one, if we too easily discounted humans' natural need to replenish themselves in the hearth of a forest, or a lake, or a mountaintop. Why do those places feed us beyond anything else?

I am not making sense anymore, not in theological terms, anyways. But I think I know what happened to me, and what has brought me to this point.

I spent a good portion of my life shifting from place to place, center to center. My parents came from different worlds and although they tried to be, were never focused on the same idea. My dad went to church because we went to church. My sister and I grew up Catholic because my mother was, her relatives were, etc. I embraced the faith as I became more curious about God and questions of meaning. It took my sister a much longer time to become aware of her own spiritual journey.

My life is a history of fuzzy snapshots mixed in with sad stories. I never saw my parents fight when I was little, but I never heard them converse, either. My mom took care of us, my dad worked. We were together on weekends and for family vacations, but there were no images of my father and mother smiling in each other's arms. There were no pointings to a romance they once shared, and attempted to maintain, in the midst of parenthood. We were a happy family in a number of ways, regardless. I was the shyer one, my sister the comic. But I always wanted my father to see more in me, to get my personality to shine. I was quiet, but not necessarily because I wanted to be. I remained an introvert with a lot on my mind way into my teens.

I think the differences between my parents exploded into full view once the divorce came. With my father gone and my mother struggling, I was a fish out of water. I went to Mexico and changed schools three times, mainly because I was being bullied and/or my parents wanted to move to another state. Had I stuck to my guns, I might have learned something from my experiences there. My sister made and lost friends in the moves. When my parents divorced, we lost our life in Mexico, and were thrust, once again, into another universe -- the public school system.

Who knows, maybe I regressed in order to preserve myself in the midst of so much change. I had a hard time making friends and I never bought into to any of the 'crowds'. I wasn't a groupie of any kind and I was easily hurt by my peers. The only time I believed in myself was when I sung my first German solo at a high school contest and won my way to a state level competition, but even that was short-lived. Funds were scarce and after graduation, I never sang like that again.

Over time our relationship with Dad soured, as we became torn between having loyalty to our father or loyalty to our mother. They had opposite stories regarding what had led to the divorce, but one thing remained steadfast throughout -- my mother's love and attention for her children. But we missed our father and seeing him as he was then was very painful. I lost my dad then, when I saw him living with someone else. Then my mom died, and my universe came crashing down.

So I am used to jumping in to things without ever knowing if I'm ready. I moved to Mexico and jumped from school to school, my parents divorced, I moved back to the US, and went from being a seventh grader to being a high school freshman. My father re-married, my mother died when I was 21 and just declaring my Religious Studies major. Suddenly the one constant I had counted on all my life was missing, and I became the 'oldest' in the family. I made it through the rest of college with my head still in a cloud. When I graduated in 2003, I was saying ministry because it sounded good and I'd been involved in it for years. But things were slow in our tiny group and I had no basis for what amazing campus ministry looked like. I made long-lasting friendships that have sustained me, but never really found anything that gave me that 'focus'. I decided to work and ended up at Dillard's, selling clothes. I got so miserable and so broke that I began looking for something else, something real, and ended up in Boston.

Deep down I had no idea what a theological education looked like or was supposed to feel like. No one ever eased the blows for me, either. People seemed to fit the mold instantaneously, as if Weston were just an extension of the world they already lived in. I walked in and felt somewhat at odds, and I didn't take well to the cold, sometimes affrontive tendencies of its most a-social students. When the abuse began, I wasn't even familiar with my surroundings yet. The amount of information I had to process was amazing, and I was already doubting what I was doing at the time. In the end, I felt shamed for it, and I graduated, once again, outside of my class, outside my group, and in many ways, outside of the community.

Now I have moved out of that realm completely, and the stench from the worst of those times still sits on me. I have a hard time going to Mass and I find myself attempting to rid myself of more shame. I know that my spirit has always found its center in and amidst creation. I am envious of these Pagans, of their knowledge of herbs, of the intuitive ways in which they use and replenish the earth on which they stand. I do not know why, as a Christian, I feel that I am not privy to the same experiences and source of fulfillment as they are. There is something about my Christian identity that jars me every time I'm with them. It is a challenge to live out that Christian faith with the histories of oppression so played out in my mind, both from history's volumes and now even in my personal past. I have a hard time getting past the anger surrounding what I truly lost at Weston, which was to discover exactly why I'd come. That main point became altered and polluted by my struggle to actually survive my time as a student. I haven't picked up a book since I took them out of my boxes and lined our library's shelves with them. One curious soul, Jason, begs me to let him look at my books, and he takes home titles, authors, ideas. Only when I am with him do I find a corrective to the damage done -- I can use my education for others, and place what I learned in a different context, so it is not reflected onto the same audience as it has been. Jason is a friend to Pagans, thinking of picking up Christianity. I enjoy his desire to learn and the way in which he becomes excited every time I converse with him about theology.

So to end this, I'll say that I was feeling like running away again, like dumping my faith altogether and jumping into something in some ways familiar, in some ways, not. But I can't deny myself again, the way I have or have been forced to do in the past. I don't know if I really wanted to go to Weston. I don't know if I really wanted the education I received. But receive it I did, and it has become a part of who I am.

For me the question of 'want' has never been an easy one. I'm not really used to 'wanting', because things are always changing around me. Want what from who and for what purpose? I have a few things in my life that I do now and enjoy. But I can't answer to the larger things such as a partner, a house, kids. I'm never stable enough to see beyond the immediate situation, both for myself and in concern for my sister.

What I could say is that I do want a stable job, that keeps me challenged, that I enjoy, with benefits and a hopeful future. I'm hoping to get that here, so I don't have to run away again, try something else again, adjust to another environment and culture.

That would be a great gift in the new year.

To light...

2007-12-24T10:53:00.001-08:00

Solstice Ritual, continued...

All:
The sun was dead and is now reborn
The wheel is turning
What do you bring in to the light

(Individual goes to the tree and chooses a basket)
(Repeat til all have gone)

All:
The sun is spent, it has died.
The longest night gives way to dawn
We say goodbye to withered life
A new light is born.
With each candle we encourage light
We greet the new born sun.

Happy Yule!!! (A day late)....

And merry Christmas!!

From darkness...

2007-12-24T10:52:00.001-08:00

Solstice Ritual

All:
To die and be reborn
The wheel is turning
What must you lose to the night?

(Each person casts what they want to lose in the fire and says):

Individual:
_____is lost to the night
To die and be reborn,
The wheel is turning.

Free

2007-12-23T08:48:00.000-08:00

Digging through newness, some apprehensions ---

I am recovering from another injury, this time my right ankle, which I sprained sometime between paddling a few weeks ago and my walk to the corner that Monday...

Went to BMC and got some free care and a nifty air cast to top it off. I am walking fine and even went back to practice this past Thursday (did you really think I could stay away for that long?). I enjoy my teammates a lot...the Thursday night at Uno's is becoming quite a tradition for us. With Nationals and our usual trips coming up in spring, I have been trying my darndest to improve my technique and get up to speed with everyone else. There is a bug flying around and a number of us have come down with the sniffles, but we maintain good spirits despite it all.

Tonight my house is hosting its annual Yule party. We have the Christmas tree and all, but it's too dry to light the candles during the celebration, so ornaments will have to suffice in the meantime. One of my roommates has been running around for days getting everything ready...I've been working and offering help when I can, but she enjoys the solitary effort.

I'm hungry and a little out of sorts. I crashed at 3 in the afternoon and slept until 9pm, got up for three hours, and then went back to sleep. I've been awake for hours, pondering too many things all at once. I will be going to Mass tomorrow with Lubna -- it will be the first time I go to church in over a month (month and a half?). Who knows.

Went home for a five-day weekend, saw my sister's pad, that was nice. She's in Houston with her boyfriend for Christmas, which makes me happy. I'm in Boston under 4 inches of snow. That makes me happy too.

Thinking of finally breaking down and writing something for real. Maybe taking a writing course. I am enjoying the Moratorium, where all time, judgment, action and non-action are suspended. I do what I want when I want and how I want to (within the bounds of reason, of course). It is a freeing experience.

Pontifications (gasp!)

2007-12-04T17:06:00.000-08:00

There's nothing like a little cooking to ease the angry mind.

I realize I was a bit over the edge when I wrote that last post...I was versing universal sentiments regarding church life that I've gathered from multiple sources throughout the years. I chuckle a bit when I remember what Mass was like for me as a child. There was no communion line -- just complete chaos as community members fought over one another to get up to the altar. I prefer things that way. Receiving communion was about God's Invitation to the table; it was not about adhering to the normal order of things so parish life could run smoothly. Why do we cheer for the choir after Mass? We are not at a concert -- the musicians are as much a part of the community as we are, and they too are being sent forth in God's grace into the world. Our applause cuts off the sharing whereby we begin the journey together.

When I worked at Nashua Street, we encouraged people to come up and receive communion, but there was never an expectation that people had to for logistics' sake. But I always believed, and I still believe, that the time when we were most needed to open our hands was when we had hit rock bottom, when we needed to know our participation in the Divine Life through more tangible ways. The God of fear and retribution was never something I wanted in my theological imagination. I stand by my friend Zac's daily decision to lean on a God of Abundance. Rely on a God that transcends my very self, yes; depend on a frightening Deity whose mood swings determine the fate of my wayward soul, no.

Maybe I'll give Mass another chance next week. I'm flying back to my home of almost 11 years for a catch-up with my sister, my aunt Lupi, and some college friends. It is a break I am truly looking forward to. When I return, it will almost be time for my house's annual Yule Celebration, and then I will enjoy a quiet Christmas next to our beautiful tree.

Perhaps things are as they should be.

Bob's machine

2007-12-02T17:21:00.000-08:00

Me being tired.

Humility has many enemies. I hate watching videos of myself and noticing what I'm doing wrong in them...it makes me turn red. But it is transformative, in a way. Here we are reaching the end of our two-hour workout. Bob has been pushing us hard all evening. Of the about 600 strokes we made in the pool that evening, I'd say these are numbers 400-450. I'm not keeping pace that well and I'm choosing to paddle the faster sets. I've finally begun to feel comfortable on the edge of the pool, but my arms feel like jello. The guys in front of me are starting to fade out as well.

We're still gonna win when summer comes along.

What I was thinking of last night...

2007-12-01T21:16:00.000-08:00

I sit still, that my motion may not hide your presence. I do not speak, that my words may not hide your voice. I will still my thoughts, that my thinking might not block your arrival.
-page 74, A Book of Pagan Prayer

I have been struggling lately with a lot of things. I found this prayer and thought that it was the most appropriate conversation that I could have with the God Whose name I am having more difficulty hearing. I try to go to Mass but I feel a deep spite welling inside of me that sits unresolved, keeping me from walking past the parish doors. I know that with every religious system there exists hypocrisy and the fallacy of human intention. But I sit at the table with my three sisters now, who are not just my housemates, and I am amazed by the intensity with which they yearn to know this very large God.

All the theological constructs that I built up in my head to protect the ivory tower that was my degree are slowly coming apart in droves. A new self is emerging out of that once seemingly open space, a truer reflection of my need to believe in a God of amazingly creative power. I hear God's voice more deeply in the rustle of leaves on my front steps than in all the rhythms of church life that I have known since childhood. Why is that? I understand that the Church is not a physical building, but the people that compose it. Yet I see people making such a great deal about showing up to their parishes on a Sunday, about wearing the right clothes for Mass, about following the zombie line to communion, about looking good for God. Faith has become another status symbol. "Studying theology" has become another way for the true believers to proclaim their superiority over the ignorant masses.

So I go to Mass where all the affluent children of Berkeley College of Music enjoy their comfortable lives, not necessarily knowing that they need God, because their support network eludes them from the fact that they are not invincible. The pastor gives amazing homilies to these kids, and I smile as I remember my days in undergrad, even high school. But I'm too angry at the falsity that I've seen in the world around me to absorb anything that comes out of his mouth. I am trained as a lector and we spend two hours talking about the logistics surrounding getting to and from the ambo, without ever actually getting to the heart of the ministry and to why we feel called to serve in this capacity. There is no real sense of community or shared participation in our reading, just the knowledge that the more experienced lectors are there to call us out in the event of an error, and that we are responsible for finding a replacement when we need one. I leave not knowing anyone any more than I did when I entered the room. I realize that my turn to lector will come around once in the next six months, so I can back and wait to attend Mass until it is required of me.

I think I choose this approach to make a point of my anger. I remain ambiguous about attendance because I don't feel a deep connection to the people around me, and I resent the fact that my sense of God has become so alive only in the aftermath of my studies. There was so much more that could have been touched upon. There is so much that I was cheated out of. And there is so much that I could leave behind and never think twice about. That also makes me very upset.

About my last post...

2007-11-17T13:57:00.000-08:00

I hope you guys watch the video. That way you can keep pushing me to become that hard core about my hobby. I am going to chill
for now. I am so sore.

So I joined a competitive paddling team here in Boston -- Living Root DragonBoat, Inc. I was looking for community gatherings of any sort -- hiking, for bookworms, for the urban explorer. I joined several groups but I managed to get my name on the list for a sailing/boating group, thinking I'd hear from them sometime in June, when the fog finally lifted from the sky. Instead the captain of the Living Root team contacted me right away and invited to a free training season with the team in a nearby pool. I went on Thursday evening and found the people there warm and inviting, and very excited to have me with them, even though I was totally new to their world. They got me working hard almost immediately and made sure I wasn't overdoing it. In short, they made me a part of their community.

Our second practice was this morning, at the same location as the first practice session. I met new paddlers and found myself growing stronger and more in tune with the rest of the team. I also got my team shirt and paid my first dues -- $10/training session. I would like to come to training twice a week, but I can come only once and still feel like an active member of the team. This is our offseason, which means we spend the months indoors on the edge of the pool, refining our technique for competitions in the spring against other Boston teams as well as a few teams across Rhode Island and Connecticut. Eventually we'll roll the DragonBoat out into the Charles and practice there until the games start.
************************************************************************************

I have fallen in love with this sport and the people within it. The interdependence that remains crucial to the team's success is something that I have been searching for for years -- it allows for a space of discovery and friendship with others on numerous levels. We all encourage each other and are present to each other's needs, because without addressing them the team cannot function properly. We are "all in the same boat", so to speak, both literally and figuratively. The water cleanses my spirit and the rhythm of the paddles releases me from any thoughts -- and I become one with the people behind and in front of me. I also find great comfort in knowing that we as teammates hold each other within the same goal. It feels so amazing.

Taming the Dragon

2007-11-16T19:13:00.000-08:00

Got what it takes? Second attempt begins tomorrow at 9am.

Silent embraces

2007-11-12T09:24:00.001-08:00

Everything is tranquil as I make my chore list. I must re-iterate over and over again that this house is riddled with prayer, and that being in it stirs me into quiet reflection. At the moment my mind surrounds my completion of a book last week -- Shusaku Endo's masterpiece, Silence. The fictional story of a Portuguese Jesuit priest in Japan during the Christian persecutions of the 17th century is a powerful one. Fr. Rodrigues reaches out to the Japanese Christian community and then is taken into custody by the authorities. When he becomes witness to the pain and suffering of the real people around him, his self-confidence gives into doubt, and he enters a struggle with his own faith that ultimately deepens him in countless ways. What he experiences can only be understood by those who have borne similar pain, and with his acceptance of this fact, Rodrigues learns to embrace the constancy of God's love in a place where it seemed God was never present.

Despite the healthy triumphalism that runs through the language of this book (true to missionary writings), Silence is a testament to the Calvary of millions of individuals who have suffered the pains of oppression. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

Ministering to the self

2007-11-11T10:49:00.000-08:00

Funny, how things seem so different once you have put them back on the shelf. With all the hype of doctoral studies applications, proposal, long-term papers and the like, and a few applications into the world of CPE all surrounding me, I have my head swimming in the hopes and dreams of many friends. I am excited for them, in their stories I live out their expectations. I pray that they find their way and I walk beside them, at times wishing I could jump into their shoes.

I can feel a nagging pressure in the back of my mind that I want to get rid of. The problem is, I no longer know if it is a continuous desire of my own making, or if it is a crutch on which I lean in order to avoid my own fears. I wake up in the morning and I try to block out the voices reminding me of where I came from, of whom I was attempting to be. My father and his girlfriend are all so proud of my accomplishments, yet they barely know me. My achievements make the family look good. My 'vocation' impresses the financially-driven executives that have never stepped foot inside a jail.

I am not being naively proud in saying this. Of course I know of many people who have given to charities, have established foundations or participated in great community service efforts. I am just tired of people seeing only the shadows of who I am. I talk about the courses I took, the things I participated in, what others around me went on to do. Everything is described in a linear fashion -- leading up to that one goal, work in ministry, from which my studies were meant to flow. Yet there is so much flux underneath, so much confusion and change, and no one sees it.

I never made it to Porter Square this morning. I couldn't handle sitting in the midst of abused people, hearing their stories, living it in their eyes. I woke up feeling relieved that I was not working full-time for Ecclesia Ministries, and knew then that I could not make my usual round to the Outdoor Church.

I can feel the truth bubbling to the surface more and more every day. My father knows nothing, my sister can only barely understand, while the friends I have from school have never known how to respond to me. I can't keep lying to my family about what I am doing, what I am looking for, what my hopes are for the future. Everyone tries to volunteer suggestions when they have no idea that I am in a different space from the one in which I began my studies. I play along with them and find myself burying the truth to deal with what they offer. I hurt myself by rejecting the fact that there has been a change in me, that there continues to be a change, and that that change requires silence. Rest.

I can feel myself becoming restless in the house when it grows too cold to walk outside. I only find peace when I pray, but I am constantly fighting God within that prayer, Jacob versus the angel, because I worry that God will throw me to the wolves.

I am weary of the suffering I hear about, day in and day out. I cannot dis-engage myself from it and make myself feel safe in this world. I cannot imagine jumping into the pain of others when nothing seems to silence my own demons. We are driven by the expectation that we must make something great of our lives. By the expectation that we must succeed, find some amazing niche to flourish in in the world, even if that niche lies within the bowels of prayerful listening. I am tired of that expectation. I want to be myself. I want to let go of all the things that I have built up over time to be me. Some days I wish I could throw all my possessions out the window, to take on a new name, and start over. Forget my past and try a new path.

Sometimes I want to leave Church. Intuitively I am a Christian. I believe in the Christian message, the metaphors within that story form the foundation for my own understanding of what it means to live a moral life. But I am sick of the usual political jargon, the everyday hurdles, the lack of acknowledgment. I live with others of a different faith, and I wish that we could always sit at the same table. I encounter God in my walks in Nature, and wish that I could return to a life of the Earth, away from the socially constructed realities that we cling to in search of our own happiness.

In some way I am wishing that I could break down all my barriers, walls, defenses, that I live in to feel safe. I am afraid of my own self, of what lurks beneath, of what this life has done to me. I am afraid to choose another route from the one I've chosen already. Even now, outside of the school environment, I continue to feel inextricably tied to the life I had before. Yet that life is still a part of me, it is not an illusion, and it is from this realization that my greatest pain arises. I cannot be the person I was before. In order for me to find my way, I cannot simply guess my way to the next fork in the road. The change must be internal, personal, as deeply transformative as possible. And that is the hardest kind of work.

deep thoughts

2007-11-05T19:35:00.000-08:00

Even though it is not wise for me to be awake at this hour, I cannot help but remember some of the words from the first reading this Sunday (Wisdom 11:22-12:2). They have not left my mind for several days.

But you have mercy on all, because you can do all things; and you overlook people's sins that they may repent. For you love all things that are and loathe nothing that you have made; for what you hated, you would not have fashioned. And how could a thing remain, unless you willed it; or be preserved, had it not been called forth by you? But you spare all things, because they are yours, O LORD and lover of souls, for your imperishable spirit is in all things!

Fr. Unni's high Bostonian regard for food came into play in his homily, when he called these words nothing more than 'delicious'. He told us to eat them up, to drink them in, to sit with them and let us become a part of ourselves, to understand that this Lover of Souls, this Forgiving, Accepting, Deity, was the God that created us.

As Lavender hugs the porch...

2007-11-04T11:19:00.000-08:00

I dug my heels in and tackled the next adventure.

My room is looking pristine with the orange glow of trees hanging through the glass window, my Celtic throw adorning my Queen-sized bed. Outside the neighbors joke on their porches and a lonely bird cockles to the setting sun. This is Medford, in the full bloom of fall.

Downstairs the kitchen is sidemarked by a beautiful open space of reflective light, hanging vines and a gorgeous piano. A silent Buddha beckons for the silence to speak in this gentle room. A tablecloth gems the coffee table and candles, incense and my own singing bowl. The Pagan Pentagram hangs on the wall, on my heart lingers a Christian cross. In this mix-match of Vegetarianism, environmental respect and the call to a good life, I am making my home.

I cannot imagine another place where I can better live out my Christian values and celebrate the love and abundance of the Creator. I am at peace as I gather my things for Mass. If there is a God, He is smiling right now.

Sticky tape

2007-11-03T00:14:00.000-07:00

I venture to ignore the clock. In fact, I'd wish I could challenge time itself -- hold it fast, push it back temporarily.

It is way past my bedtime and I am still kicking. Everything is packed. There is nothing left in my room to put away; just boxes and bags ready to be taken to my new home. At around 2pm today a friend of mine will bring around his van, load my things, and send me onto the next phase of my life.

Saying goodbye to the B and to my status as a Weston-ite is enough to drive me into anxious prayer. I participated in such prayer yesterday amidst the drums and flickerings of a Mayan Day of the Dead Celebration in Forest Hills Cemetery, sung in both Spanish and varying indigenous dialects and enclosed in a circle blessed by the four winds, the lives of the broken, and the eternal rest of their ancestors. The children did most of the work, rising like flowers from behind the gravestones with a live conch in their hands, shells for their legs, and elaborate moccasins on their feet, all in honor of those who'd gone before them.

I perhaps shared that same joy as I laughed over a game of Cranium, wrapped my things at the table and drank my friends' beer. Of course, that came after I'd cleaned out my shelves in the fridge, emptied my cabinets and offered my non-perishable items to the community. I sat down with familiar faces a guest, and it was as one that I got to see the creepy basement one last time. It is full of cobwebs and of inscriptions on the walls (or stables?) that we like to joke are the names of bad Jesuits whose unfortunate behavior left them crammed in the dungeon for indefinite amounts of time.

I am alone on the bottom floor now. The chapel is empty of my personal items. It deserves a nice cleaning but it is, once more, a chapel. My own bed has no sheets on it anymore. I have done my best to cement the transition in my own mind by packing everything, and thus I will take my last night on the couch, to finalize the fact that I have, indeed, perpared my things for a new home.

Kansas is still looking like Kansas. At least one thing remains familiar.

Peace for the journey...

I'm still trailing fairy dust....

2007-10-27T20:11:00.000-07:00

The Rockies are finally creeping up on those Red Sox...two runs in under ten minutes, 6-2 in the 6th inning. Matsuzaka has been shutting the Rockies down all evening despite the cold and high altitudes typical in Denver. I feel for Colorado right now -- parts of myself would almost choose to root for the underdog if I weren't tempted by the prospect of being in Boston when the Sox won the Series. The third game so far has been somewhat exciting; the first game this past Wednesday was just sad (13-1 Sox) and from what I heard, the second game became a battle of the mits (the pitchers) on Thursday. I really want Beantown to win -- but I also want the National League to show off this postseason. They deserve it.

The remnants of our crazy Halloween party last night are hugging my chair -- the Scarecrow's brains are spread out below my feet, and the furniture is in disarray. We overdid ourselves creating a whole universe on this bottom part of the house, turning the front room into Kansas, the smaller lounge into Munchkin Land, and the dining hall into Emerald City. The main lounge was darkened by cardboard crows and dubbed "The Witches Forest". Kat even found costumes in the drama department of her school and got me fixed up. Krista came as the Lion. Zac's vertically non-challenged self became, of course, the kind-hearted Scarecrow, and Tim was (can you guess?) the Tin Man. Megan's parents bought her a Dorothy dress to debate with the serious Brian, Oz's Man Behind the Curtain.

I spent a week drawing and cutting out tree trunks, leaves, scarecrows, and a yellow brick road. By the time we had everything set up yesterday, I was ready to crash for the night. Instead I jumped into the shower, got dressed, and came out as Glenda, the Good Witch, with Kat as my evil rival from the West. We had green light bulbs to shadow Oz's main city and even got red slippers to go with my striped socks, and had them sticking out from underneath the TV set.

We had a lot of different dishes prepared for the guests, a half keg of beer and a Halloween punch to boot, but nothing prepared us for the creative genius of some of our guests. The dorkiest costumes became the favorites of the party -- Michael sprayed from head to toe in yellow body paint with plastic horns on his head, Edmund as his quiet companion in silver, with Hebrew lettering written all over his cothes, and Bridget ushering the two of them underneath a crazy beard, a dangerous walking stick in hand. Together, the Golden Calf, the Ten Commandments, and Moses stole the show. Coming behind them was a very simple King David (also spelled out in Hebrew), a living icon made out of a shoe box, and The Red Scare. More un-theological guests made an appearance, such as the skinny Euro Trash, the beautiful Audrey Hepburn and the paired Cloudy-Skies and Chance-of-Rain. After sending good wishes to all I encountered, I concentrated my energies on getting to know the Dark Priest, a quiet Druid who was mulling poems under his breath by the stairwell. We had a very interesting conversation on religion, until one of the characters from Animal House came screaming into the house and disrupted our peaceful communion.

In the Witch's Forest we had the Wizard of Oz playing to the music of Pink Floyd, and at about 10pm we killed the breakers in the basement, pressed PLAY and listened to a recording of Pope Benedict's voice remind us of the importance of orthodoxy. I think we all managed to be excommunicated within those ten minutes of darkness, but once the tape ended, we turned the lights back on and forgot all our woes.

I went back to my little chapel a few hours after that, wished a special blessing upon all of Oz, and fell asleep to the sound of Munchkins searching eagerly for lollipops.

Packing

2007-10-24T07:58:00.001-07:00

Well, I signed the lease for a new apartment.

I'm moving out of Cambridge around the weekend of the 1st, and I'm still requesting help. I have boxes piled all over my room upstairs and there are still trinkets lying around the place. Remnants of my time in formation, these trinkets are more than just objects collecting dust. There are the rocks I collected from my 7-day retreat in Gloucester, my time at Mercy House, and my faithful oil burner, always good for the soul. I have Buddhist prayers beads from my last (and first!) healing service at Weston, the two Ecclesia crosses I wore downtown at Common Cathedral and in my work with the homeless, the laughing Jesus, who so inspired me to find hope in troubled times. There's a rosary by the windowsill, a framed picture of my mother, my oil lamp from the Lay Call and Commitment Ceremony.

I have packed everything around these things -- my clothes, papers, computer tools, old diaries. I am still trying to find space for all the papers and notes from grad school. I've even packed my diplomas and my graduation stole. But a part of me can't manage to remove those smaller objects by the window. I bever quite realized it, but that space became sacred to me, that windowsill was almost an altar, a place of conversation with God. When I remove those things and wrap them in bubble tape, my exit from this house will be complete.

Frances is at Wrentham to stay...

2007-10-15T19:33:00.000-07:00

"...Frances... was joyfully accepted into the postulancy! She seems very happy, and we all know she is carrying us all into her prayer and new life there.

She mentioned how in these recent weeks and days she has felt surrounded by love. . . thanks to so many of you! Let's remember her, and know she will remember us."

So went the message from Sophia House to the Weston community, and with it, wonderment and joy at Frances' choice to heed God's call.

I could sense God's depth in her silences; they moved me so, and at times I could see Christ active in her with such intensity. I both admired and remained frustrated by her ability to seek the quiet, when all I could do was run amock to cloud my thoughts. She knew and understood the Old Testament in ways that many contemporary seminarians fail to do, because we focus our energies on the second half of the canon, leaving many stories of wisdom behind; she could put Janice Farnham to the test in her conversations on church history, and she was gregarious in her own way, with friends stretching across three countries and throughout the entire Archdiocese of Boston. She knew and had lived all the necessary Harvard traditions, she'd dated, had a boyfriend, watched her friends get married. And then she was going to take the veil, and enter Mt. Saint Mary's Abbey to remain there, possibly, for the rest of her days.

She will tell you that she began discerning religious life her sophomore year at Harvard; that at a specific point in time, during her annual retreat at Wretham, she knew she was destined to be there. And everything she did, everything she worked towards, remained encircled by this growing desire to enter the monastery, and be with God in silence. Her promising work as a church historian was left behind for this vocation. All the temptations, the prides, that I seemed to struggle with, Frances acknowledged, and put away. She never bought books, she borrowed them, but she read more than any person I know. She introduced me to a Japanese restaurant and I got her to expand her movie collection, but again, Frances enjoyed the movie, treasuring the time spent, and then moved on. I always knew that my time with her was limited. She was quiet at times, leaving me to hope that I could be that centered within myself, where I wasn't seeking for words, jokes, in this noise-driven world, to make myself worthy of the friendship. Frances honored my friendship with her by virtue of her very presence. There was never any tension in her, any necessary need for me to be more than who I was at that particular moment, and I treasured it as a true gift. I struggled to know that same inner peace, to model her in that regard. I plan to continue doing so.

In the end I can only send her off with joy, because she is running into the arms of God.

Thoughts

2007-09-18T19:49:00.000-07:00

So I asked the Dean of Students, as well as my roommates at our first house meeting, if I could extend my stay at Bellarmine until October 15th. Jackie even suggested I start making my mind up about staying the rest of the semester, or the whole year.

With our new goals to establish more community dinners, greater accountability surrounding chores and a deeper respect for the space we live in, a part of myself wants to give in and sign a contract for the year. Why? Cause I miss the life. I reminisce about being a student -- life outside of this house feels foreign, frightening, forbidding. In the same breath I must admit I love the freedom that comes with not studying, and participating in community as a kind of 'minister in vicinity'. I love coming home to a group of people who all have different stories to share with each other. I love the idea of having weekly dinners, participating in our parties, seeing the friends that I'd otherwise not if I moved out. This third year is owed me, I know that. If I could I'd change things. But maybe they are not meant to be changed. I am here, and maybe I am meant to stay.

My advisor would disagree with me.

Cabin fever

2007-09-18T08:22:00.001-07:00

What day is it?
Has it really been that long since I wrote here?
Can I get a grammar check?

My brain is mush as I arise on this fine Tuesday (Wednesday?) morning...it will be noon soon, so I might as well start thinking about making lunch. I am in the first-floor chapel of this huge Jesuit house on a very firm bed with couch pillows supporting my left foot. My spaceboot leans against the desk/altar I use as my personal space.

I am not being blasphemous -- this space is cozy and meant to aid my slow and frustrating recovery. Last Friday, as I was contemplating my cell phone messages on the last step of a two-prong staircase, I made a wrong move with my left foot, missed the step entirely and landed sideways on my ankle. I came down with a bang, but adrenalin and humiliation prevailed -- I stood up, made it downstairs, checked my messages, and went back to my office. Only when I sat down and felt the searing pain rise through my leg did I realize that this was going to be a memorable injury. Forty minutes, twenty explicatives and three ice packs later, I was in a cab heading to the ER at Mount Auburn Hospital.

Once they X-Rayed my foot and heard me scream as they attempted to move it, the doctors decided that my ankle was sprained and that I was going to lay low at home for a while. They tried to wrap my foot in an aircast and give me crutches, but my right leg was too weak to bear the weight. So a nurse ran to the Walk-In Clinic and brought me back a boot and cane. Amazingly enough, the foot cushioned my left foot enough that I was able to make the few steps from my wheelchair to the cab, and make my way home.

With the little AirCast inflater, I can tighten or loosen the boot to my liking, giving me "zero gravity", as my friends like to say. The cane is meant to warn my housemates that I am making my rounds around the house and am ready to pick on them if they're not studying. All in all, my life is incredibly boring right now. Friday was my last day at work at Emmanuel, so my assignment did not suffer any real losses. And I haven't heard from the Campus Ministry Office, a week and a half after its staff interviewed me. My thank-you note and follow-up call did not seem to impress them very much.

So I watch TV, read and bug my housemates into buying stuff for me at the store, since I can't even make it down the front steps of my house. I need new shoes above all else, because the tennis shoes I wear are worn and almost painful from the amount of use they suffered. They were on my feet when I slipped, and my weak ankles did the rest.

I haven't read anyone's blog postings lately because I'm so caught up in myself. I'd like to move out of here soon -- school started Monday at Weston and I feel completely disoriented being caught up in the swirl of a student life I can't even participate in. My friends come home discussing classes that I wish I could take, and I listen, feeling jealousy and contentment all at once. They go to lay student gatherings, class dinners and after-school workshops, and I sit and remember what those events were like for me, wishing I could give back my diploma for one more year of experiences.

My dad thinks I need to stay put here until I have a stable job and can afford a new place. He obviously has no idea what I went through the past two years and what continuing to live here does to me, both emotionally and psychologically. My friends here don't even get it. For them as well as my father, it is a matter of convenience. So I keep looking, and hoping, for the right job that can take me into the next phase of my life.

What phase am I in right now?

Desk ministry

2007-09-07T06:11:00.001-07:00

I am yawning my head off at work this morning...I'm also posting this update, which gives you a picture of how busy I am. Last night I ran out of the building wanting to scream after two days of interviews and a mini-crisis involving an angry professor and a projector VCR that he didn't know how to use. I got home to find out that Zac's community dinner was actually a feast composed of happy guests, salad, spaghetti, strawberry daiquiris, wine and ice cream cone cakes.

Zac wanted to toast to every good event and/or person around the table, which led to much drinking. Krista had completed the GRE for the third and final time that morning, Amanda's husband was joining WJST, Megan had just gotten back from Colombia and Zac from all 49 other states in the US, Timmy was Timmy, Becky was healing from knee surgery, and I'd flown through a second tier of interviews in the hopes of becoming a Campus Minister at Emmanuel College.

I should have excused myself earlier in the evening before I could get too happy. In the end, my body was too tired to even sleep, so I tossed and turned from about 2am until the time I got up. When Kim, the new Operations Assistant, takes her rightful place here on Tuesday, I'll go back to my temp agency hoping for another assignment.

Or to the phone when Fr. Stephen calls, letting me know I'm still in the running for the position I actually want.

2007-08-26T08:38:00.000-07:00

Amen.

Putty

2007-08-25T19:21:00.001-07:00

I feel the urgent need to continue my discernment regarding religious life, social justice, marriage. There are things that cannot be grasped until they are before you; things that we cannot visualize even in the abstract until they are before us, as is.

This is how I feel about religious life. All its pulls and tugs in the hearts of those around me - in the quiescence between a friend and myself as she prepares for monastic life; in the questioning of a sister who is just beginning to unearth her roots and connect with the Transcendent; in the ambivalence and fear of so many who cannot find God in their lives - thread and untangle my strings through the weeks. I see myself with people, the longing to be present to others is so strong, but I don't know how to manifest it; I listen to my sibling as she begins to unveil herself and I realize that I cannot walk the journey for her, I can only trust God's Presence in her life; I think of an individual from my past who as of today is married, and I sense time's persistence urging me to do the same; I want to be open, to express my feelings, but I struggle to see beyond the abuse.

In the end nothing is fixed or even somewhat certain. I try not to hold claim to many things and I contradict my possessive nature; I seek opportunities to be generous, but I recoil out of fear and a sense of inadequacy. I want to be strong for others, but I lack the words to give them hope amidst their struggles.

Perhaps we are simply meant to stretch beyond our limits, to encompass more of others, and encounter ourselves within them.

**********************************************************************************

She who reconciles the ill-watched threads
of her life, and weaves them gratefully
into a single cloth --
it's she who drives the loudmouths from the hall
and clears it for a different celebration

where the one guest is you.
In the softness of evening it's you she receives.

You are the partner of hre loneliness,
the unspeaking center of her monlogues.
With each disclosure you encompass more
and she stretches beyond what limits her,
to hold you.

-Rilke's Book of Hours: Love Poems to God; 1, 17
-translated by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macey

Saut de chat

2007-08-24T18:06:00.000-07:00

Seeds on fertile soil need only thank the footsteps of a coming Rain...
As I sit in this chapel, I realize that I cannot ask for the ears to listen. I am listening, because a vibrant ripple, a puddle is banking onto the shores of my heart.

To my left stands St. Cecilia, to my right, St. Joseph. They are meant to embellish this place and to raise its colors in the hope, perhaps, that Heaven’s walls will split to reveal the Arms of God. All come to the church in seek of some sanctuary, escaping, in some back part of their minds, their own realities. I am aware that centuries of human beings have climbed the steps of a church wishing the world around them would disappear.

I am not here to run away. No visual aid tells me this, no pious representation of Christian martyrdom holds me fast. Outside a dozen bulldozers deafen the streets as the campus labors to give birth to a more renovated self. But in this chapel, this Orans before the Transcendent, I rest in the tension of the moment. What to do and what to choose? I am accutely aware of my human limitations, needs, wants; I see the incredible power of the human imagination, and the whisper that is its existence; the echoes of history that are felt only more powerfully by the generations that follow them.

I am not afraid.

Later on that day, I pause my work to look back on that half hour of solitude. Inside of me a candle is burning. The flame dances wordless prayers, a joyous Litany of Thanks. Something of old is renewing itself within me, and I cannot contain it; my cup runneth over.

On the lonely land, a steady shower bestows its graces.

Tired

2007-08-22T17:21:00.000-07:00

Up-and-coming line backer Natalius makes it to the wall, and crashes head-first into nothingness...

I am so tired. My room is messy and one of the pipes on the second floor has busted, so the five of us are sharing the guest bathroom downstairs until Monday. We noticed that our ceiling was leaking in the kitchen a short while back and by the time I'd come back from Emmanuel half the ceiling had been torn off. The dining area and kitchen stink like hell and I hold my breath every time I open the fridge.

I love my co-workers. They are great people and I feel pretty relaxed around them. The work I share with them is not very challenging, but I am never bored in the office. There is so much to prepare before the students arrive, so the Graduate Studies Department is always bustling with activity. I go back and forth about staying here, because I could do so much more with my life, and the permanent salary they're offering for the job is pretty low.

I made it to the Chapel on the first floor this morning and prayed for all you hoodlums. I snuck away at lunchtime and made my way to the Campus Ministry office and introduced myself to the staff. I'm applying for a Campus Ministry position that just opened up at the College, and hoping that I'm making the right choices.

It is possible that I may be going to another interview soon.

Yawwwn....

2007-08-20T18:48:00.000-07:00

I can climb into bed right now.

My room has been a mess since I got back from the Cape, and my brain has been even more scattered. I managed to keep my head on straight enough to go to a party Saturday night for a fellow graduate, Mike, who is joining the Capuchins in a few days. Frances and I were both there to celebrate with him and to share a few salsa beats with him before he puts on the cloth. However, I made sure Mike asked the Caps to allow him to continue his salsa moves -- he is one of the best dancers I know. A lot of friends from school came, as well as some of Mike's companions from Cambridge's Community of Sant'Egidio. I was about to go home and tuck in early when I received an unusual phone call - from my good friend Sami! I ended up spending most of the afternoon with him on Sunday as he was passing through Massachusetts on his way back up to Canada, and then...

I got hired today as an admin for a higher ed department in one of Boston's local colleges -- I got a desk job, in other words. Not a great position, but an adequate first step in (hopefully) the right direction. It is only temporary, it will last about six weeks, but it could become permanent if they like me.

Buiding the igloo...

2007-08-18T07:50:00.000-07:00

It's fall again...

The wind speed in Boston should reach up to 30 mph today. I closed my bedroom windows (which are never closed) to protect my feet from the cold afternoon air. I wanted to go outside in shorts and a tank top but I guess that isn't going to happen. The effects of global warming? The hurricane in the Carribean? What's going on?

I am not ready for cold temperatures yet. Cold means cloudy. Cloudy means short days and long nights. Long nights means grumpiness when I can't walk out my front door in the daytime because it's too frigid outside.

:(

Begging for Alms

2007-08-17T21:18:00.001-07:00

Well I'm jobless and possibly homeless if Weston doesn't take pity on me....

St. John's Preparatory School felt wrong from the very start. I didn't even bother to set up a ride before I decided it wasn't a good fit for me. They wanted someone to teach Religion in the fall as a teacher was on maternity leave. The school was in Danvers, the staff seemed relatively unfriendly over the phone, and there was no good transportation in between Boston and the school. I'd have to move out of familiar territory and up north for a few months, then scramble for a home and a new job come January. A temporary position, I'm sure, guaranteed me no benefits. So I said No, thank you to the interview.

Today I got a call from the co-op that I was hoping to move into next week. I was supposed to have dinner with them on Sunday and then be interviewed for the spot in the house. The group ate together, shared a common passion for social justice, used only sustainable resources and even grew their own vegetables. The cost per month included rent, basic utilities and the price of food. I thought it'd be great. I was a little worried about how passionate some of these activists would be about their commitments, but I was willing to try something new. Instead they found someone who resonated really well with the community, offered them a room, and filled it.

I have exhausted every option I had until this point and cannot guarantee my exit from the house by August 31st. I have requested more time so I can gather my energies and begin the search anew. Nothing resonates. Nothing feels right. I hate where I live but I have such a hard time leaving it. It makes absolutely no sense.

I was in a foul mood after the phone call so I wandered up to Harvard Square and enjoyed a stroll through the Harvard Museum of Natural History (for free, because I'm cute:). I went to Ignatius House expecting afternoon Mass but found dear Ed Vacek instead, and enjoyed his company for the next two and a half hours. Then I came home, ate a boring dinner and now I'm finishing this post.

I wish I were back on the Cape.

Still I Rise

2007-08-17T21:10:00.002-07:00

Coodles to Maya Angelou...

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.
Does my sassiness upset you?
why are you beset with gloom?
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
pumping in my living room.
Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.
Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own backyard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.
Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise

Letters of Ash

2007-08-16T18:50:00.000-07:00

And now back to reality. I put it off for a week, not wanting to think about it, dwell on it, make it more real than it already is. I have to call someone tomorrow, and submit a statement. This has been a long time coming and I'm sick of feeling pushed aside. When the morning dawns, I will have said what I needed to, I will have asked for what I think is fair, I will have let go of everyone's opinion, and expressed my own. I am worth more than what was assumed of me.

Thoughts from the Cocoon

What is normal and what is not? Who gets to touch you in a particular way and who does not? Why do I no longer know these things implicitly?

Nothing can reverse the past. But I must find a way to understand what should have happened, to grasp the parts of that relationship that were wrong, that were abusive, that were wrapped in manipulation. I fear father figures - they hurt you, they abuse you, they take out their frustrations on you, brought on by a world that demands that they be strong, self-sufficient, adaptive to whatever comes their way. They are grown men, and grown men need to be satisfied sexually as well as emotionally, so they hound you, they woo you and convince you that they are there to protect you, butter you up and make you feel like a woman, empowered by their admiration of your physical beauty, and then they make their move.

Suddenly your self-esteem in on the floor and you're telling yourself that this is not happening. Eventually you split yourself in two to protect your earlier, hopeful, image of the man. As that man becomes swallowed up by this dangerous figure, you begin to lose sight of the person you thought you knew, whom you admired and even had feelings for, whom you wanted to be close to and recognized by as you came into your own as a minister. The same man that threatens to take your health, your will, your very self-worth.

You let him go, seeing the hurt in his eyes as your hopeful image of him is forgotten; you struggle to free yourself from a danger that does not sleep. Over time you catch yourself hoping, wishing, you could have a glimpse of who he was; you walk by his house and your heart pounds, because you are in danger, and yet you are wishing things were different; you grieve the end of the friendship as if you'd killed the man yourself, and you carry the shame resulting from others' bewilderment and shock at news of your story.

You are a wreck, and you develop an intense fear of human relationships. The dichotomy of who that man was before and who he is now terrifies you even though he's gone; with this reality comes a delayed consciousness and overwhelming feelings of powerlessness and despair unlike anything you'd ever experienced before. Feelings that you blocked for his sake, to protect who you wanted him to be, who you assumed he wanted to be, the qualities that drew you in, that caused you to admire him, care for him.

The fear takes over your life and you think you are losing your mind; the man slips backwards and you are left with the ashes of yourself. They overwhelm you more than the abuse now, because you feel ruined, devastated, totally disconnected from who you were before, and you can't remember what it feels like to be 'normal'. You obsess over keeping your self out of overwhelming situations, you sleep more, eat less, and hide your face when it becomes too ashen. Your body tells you that it is in pain and that throws you even more off-center; you beg and plead that someone come and take you out of your misery, and you even consider doing it yourself. And all along, you are still a student, a housemate, a Catholic, a woman. You feel separated from everyone and everything around you, but every day you get up, you go to school, and you come home. You are exhausted but the stimuli doesn't stop. What you don't know is that that stimuli is saving your life.

You grow more accustomed to the attacks of nausea, panic and anxiety and you learn to control them and see them as temporary. Things become clearer as your mind takes hold of other things and you become distracted by other people. Yet deep down certain pains resonate -- you are afraid of being hurt; you are afraid of somehow hurting others, of the dark seed that you believe was left in you by that man's abuse, and must be expelled; you don't want others to see your pain, you are screaming for them to acknowledge it.

People begin to work with the expectation that you are better now, and that things can be seen with less of a critical eye. You struggle for justice even though you are aware you were dis-associating as the events were happening, even though your memory has faded and the smells and sounds of those times have disappeared. You continue to assert that you have been hurt, even though you are feeling better. You are aware that time has moved much slower for you, that choices, certain lifepaths, have been significantly altered as a result of the abuse. You are unsure about yourself, you are feeling stronger. You rely on the support of many to help you unearth the hidden feelings of guilt and shame that you hold, and re-iterate your goodness. They assist you in finding ways to acknowledge how unbalanced your relationship with your abuser was, how much power you did not have in the choices that were made, how many of those choices were made for you, long before you could realize it.

You search for meaningful work, for longer-lasting friendships, for a way to cement your budding self, which is unfolding out of a deep experience. You are a child, you are a teenager, you are an adult, because you are re-claiming your hope in the future. In the background of this room, where you have hidden from the truth, begged even in your denial, faced the abuse and ended it, shed skins in the aftermath and somehow crawled out of all of them alive, a candle burns your peace into the night air.

Champagne and strawberry crackers

2007-08-16T18:17:00.000-07:00

" The world today is sick to its thin blood for lack of elemental things, for fire before the hands, for water welling up fromthe earth, for air, for the dear earth itself underfoot..." - The Outermost House, Henry Beston

I am reading this great book now that I am no longer on the shores of the wild Cape. It makes me sad to enjoy Beston's words so far away from the ocean, but in them I find a kindred imagination - a fellow writer whose thoughts on Nature resonate with my own. Beston's fascination with the Cape developed slowly within his own journey of self-discovery. I sometimes struggle to grasp what I think of the Northeast -- of the shutters on New England homes, the thick accents and ocean-view restaurants filled with visiting Europeans. I find it all fascinating, and yet somehow I am not aware of my place within this world. I realize now that a happy life here develops out of acquired taste for the weather, the culture, the people. I came into Boston puffed up and full of my own prejudices; it has taken much longer, and much deeper chipping, for those prejudices to lose their grip on me. I sometimes wonder if I'd been happier arriving in Massachusetts free of any school commitments, because then I could have seen the place as it was, and not with the insular lenses with which I dove into my studies.

And yet those days follow me always. Yesterday my friend Kate hosted a memorial Mass in honor of Elida Guider, the mother of Margaret Guider, everyone's favorite teacher. A graduate from my own class, T.J. Martinez, presided and gave Margaret a special blessing at the end of Mass. It was a beautiful afternoon to share with so many of my close friends from Weston - T. J. joked about being a new priest, and about how self-conscious he felt in front of us (but everything's valid, don't worry!); Frances was there to announce her acceptance into the monastery; Joy was full of stories from her days at CPE, and Mike McDonald gave us a lesson on the scooter-culture of Italy. Chris and Christine were there, they will marry soon; Mia talked about the Philipines and Bridget about Chicago; and Margaret was so excited about teaching theology at B.C. High this year. I was wearing a Cape Cod T-shirt and attempting, with every part of myself, to memorize those faces, and the good times I'd shared with them. Deep down I was hiding my own sadness as I witnessed Joy's and Nelle's anticipation in the wake of a new school year. I walked home, still not graduated, still not studying, wanting what was past, and craving the present.

The Great Escape

2007-08-15T19:27:00.000-07:00

I have not written here in a week. That is a long time, and im my absence, fellow friends and bloggers have encountered great creativity in their own silences. I have read a few postings and I will return to read more...they reflect the kind of silence I wish I had.

I spent 6 days on the Cape with a good friend. Laura, Jenn and I go back to college days when we were running around the Service House, volunteering with APO, and generally going crazy at around 3 or 4 in the morning. A lot gets cemented and rooted during those sleepless nights. I had the chance to enjoy some more of them with Jenn in Dennisport, where her parents own a lovely house. I got to meet her relatives from Boston and hear stories about her mom's youth, and swim in the warm waters by West Dennis Beach.

Jenn and I made fools of ourselves at the Dennisport Village Green when we got up to dance during a live outdoor concert. Jenn asked me to catch a seagull and so I spent a good half hour chasing a stupid bird up and down the beach, laughing so hard I fell in the sand. We stayed up way beyond our bedtime and were exhausted some of the days, but we had a great time.

Being back in Cambridge is a little traumatizing right now. I feel like I walked into a different dimension. Once we were across the Sagamore Bridge, I started to get sad. Now I just need to sleep for a week. See you later.

Tug-o-war

2007-08-08T22:09:00.000-07:00

"...I wish none of this had happened".

" So do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them decide. All you have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to you."

Wise words, Gandalf. I just gave my applause to the Fellowship, along with Sean. His good friend Nathan went back to St. Louis after a week of hanging out at the B and I think Sean is feeling a little down. The movie night did both of us some good.

Early last evening I found out that I didn't get the job at BC High. I was kind of bummed out about that whole thing and a little pissed that I received an email, instead of a phone call, from the Spanish Department informing me of its decision. But, whatever...I had so many jitters about the job and I wasn't sure I could hold my own in that busy an environment. I would probably enjoy teaching at some point in my career -- but right now high school just feels like too much.

I will be calling PSG tomorrow and letting them know that I am available next week for work. I will also (hopefully) be hearing back from Millstone, a community that I still feel relatively unfamiliar with. In the meantime, I am appreciating the small moments in life. I said goodbye to my spiritual director Colleen today, who is moving to Dublin. I also heard from my friend Frances that Mount Saint Mary's Abbey has accepted her request to enter as a postulant in the Abbey this fall. Life has strange hellos and goodbyes -- all poignant and limited. I've become acutely aware of this as I've searched in earnest for a new place to live, a new place to work, a new space from which to start anew. The journey is both sad and enlivening. I feel myself having to let go of a lot of familiar faces, surroundings and even personal expectations. Yet I have not packed anything yet, and my brain refuses to release me from what I have become accustomed to knowing. You would think that a new job and a new group of people to grow with would bring me excitement, but lo, I am still reeling from my premature exodus into the world. I have not left the Weston community and I have most certainly not left my two years in the house behind.

My once un-severable connection to the past is beginning to wear, and I can feel the tug of another rope. But like Frodo with his inner compass, I am scared to trust what I already know. It is time to dance on the tightrope.

Non-Walmart smiley faces in Heaven

2007-08-07T14:22:00.000-07:00

I never get this excited ---

Jenn is coming!!!! She arrives tomorrow. I can't wait to hang out with her by the beach.

I found a very cool community and am discerning joining it September 1. The other places just weren't cuttin' it, but this house may pass the test.

I am having dinner with Lulu tonight. It will be good to see her.

Peace and prayers for everyone...

Plasma cerebellum

2007-08-06T17:38:00.000-07:00

Oh, I've tried to get myself out of bed,
And climbed my clothes to find my thoughts,
Dumped my legs down the stairs and my stomach into the kitchen,
My brain into recipe books,
But I always end up here in the same place.

The world goes round and I stay square
My skull adapting to the static dimensions of my television;
Music playing from as far as St. Michael's Abbey, Colplay's studios or Loreena McKennitt's dreams

It doesn't matter because if you pinch me I will wake up on the couch
The fan beating the heat off my face
My phone dead
And my patience as well

But this is what I asked for
Time to veg and retract my roots from the soil
Re-discover what it means to be human female loving
I hope I am those things
As the universe of images pounds down my door

Still, in the silence of my unease
I ask for relief in the things I've lost a taste for
Work sweat and sacrifice
Budgets nights and hours in the office

I don't remember what it feels like to be energized in the earth of production
To put on my best face for the client the patient the needy
I am still tired from my own wounds
Even though they are beyond the surface

They still anger me
And I still wave my fist at the sky one moment
And hide in shame the next

There is silence and my voice is not enough
I learn what it is to let go even when one is still attached
What lessons are brought to us
What amazing depths our journeys take us to

What will become of this?
Regaining a sense of self-worth is hard when you are bound
Are drawn to helping others encounter it within themselves
The road is lost
You seek what you thought you knew

That is the mystery
We are all in the valley
In the darkness and the light
Our search leads us to one another
Yet we pass
Again and again concerned with our individual hopes

When all along God is saying, "There! Your sister! Here! Your brother!"

Still waiting for a job...

2007-08-04T14:09:00.000-07:00

Even they can have a good day...

Heat

2007-08-04T06:54:00.000-07:00

Early morning listening to Anuna....going to see another potential apartment in Somerville today. Went to visit a house that had the biggest yard I had ever seen yesterday, but the roommates were slobs...they had trash and clutter all over the common spaces. My room was pretty big, but the amount of stuff lying around gave me a headache. The rent was decent too. I just couldn't picture myself insisting that a bunch of college kids I didn't know pick up after themselves. I asked them if they did house chores and they were like, "No, but that sounds like a good idea...". Geez.

I have two more places to look at and hopefully then I will make up my mind about where I want to live. I went to Jamaica Plain two nights ago and met some very laid back guys living in a tiny space overlooking a Catholic church and a local mosque. They seemed cool and I developed a rapport with them immediatly, but the price of the apartment was way beyond my budget.

I thought B.C. High said they'd let me know where they were in the process by the end of this week, meaning by yesterday. Apparently they said they'd contact me by the end of the week, and that leaves me hoping that the week comes around soon. I've losing steam as the beginning of the school year grows closer and the thought of preparing a lesson plan under haste feels more challenging.

Parts of me are not wanting this job anymore. It scares me half to death. If I get it, I won't have much time to absorb the fact that I am a teacher before my role is thrust upon me. Prayers!

Tango

2007-08-01T18:01:00.000-07:00

I had my second interview at BC High today. I was exhausted when I woke up this morning and somewhat rattled on the way to the school, but I did all right once Gib sat down with me as Department Head and demanded to know where I was coming from. I am not the aggresive type -- disciplining those boys sounds like a huge challenge; a good one for developing basic life skills, but maybe not enough of a risk for them to hire me. Gib prodded me about my interest in art, in music, what working in the prison envrinment was like, what an example of a good homily would be. I relied on my doubting Thomas lesson -- Jesus comes to us even if the doors are closed, I said --and made a slam dunk into that portion of my interview. He asked me how I would teach grammar, what methods I would use; he asked me why I was choosing "just old Spanish" with my theological background and all. Real answer? Cause I need a job, and Spanish is a cool language. The answer I gave him? Integrating language into our lives is essential to understanding ourselves as a human family. There is so much to be discovered in our conversations with other cultures, other peoples, other traditions. Forming these boys for the rest of their lives must involve exposing them to the rich diversity that is humanity, and their unique opportunities for contribution.

Whew. But there is another branch to this process, and I may or may not be invited to become a part of it. I will know by the end of the week if I made the cut.

In other news, I've had a headache for four days and finally cured it when I made my way to Daily Mass at Ignatius House, followed by a mellow dinner of collards, soy beans, garlic, rice and minted water in Mike's backyard. Maybe it was the mint, or the wonderful edamame beans that we steamed and salted, or the conversation. Who knows. But I came home relaxed and content. The Spirit is moving, and there is joy in Its wake.

Droopy thoughts

2007-07-29T14:31:00.000-07:00

I met my good friend Mike at the Dunkin' Donuts by Porter Square this morning. He bought me OJ and an egg croissant, and I helped him carry the bags of sandwiches, juice and socks that he would be distributing to the homeless later that morning. Mike is a part of the Outdoor Church, an outreach ministry that serves the men and women of the streets, particularly those found throughout my stretch of Cambridge and in the neighborhoods of Harvard and Central Square. I met Rev. Jedediah Mannis, a lawyer turned UCC minister who has been working with this group of people for the past 4 years, Rick and Tommy and Rocky, among other community members, and Gene, a minister who led the service for us this morning.

It was a great experience -- resonating with my past work with prison inmates, as the community I encountered suffered the same deprivations, on a much more acute scale, since they were homeless, and they were marginalized, forgotten, some of them not all there. On the flip side, I found myself having to over-compensate for my internal reactions to the realities of the days and nights of these people, of their past experiences and of their present, which showed themselves during the service, and for my own personal fears that reeled their ugly head in the Square. I talked to Jed about working with the communities in Harvard and Central Squares, and we went back to St. James to stash our supplies and de-brief a little more. I felt so at home with those two guys, so safe, and in my presence to the needy of the square, I felt empowered and energized. But I also felt very vulnerable at times, and when I got home around 12:30pm, I climbed to my room and began digging into my past again, attempting to make sense of it. My attempts at self-validation didn't do me much good, they just made me tired and re-inforced my obsessive tendencies. In the end my exhaustion from the heat got the best of me and I collapsed on my bed, where I lay for a few hours. My dreams were vivid and confusing -- my questionings in consciousness continued throughout my sleeping state, and when I awoke, they were not answered. I simply climbed out of bed and sat down to write this in the hopes that my head would clear up.

Life in all its generalities still affects me, even after so much processing, healing, and conscientious searching. This morning comfirmed that, and I must be careful about what I do with my experiences. If I can get myself to write about them, rather than connecting them, unnecessarily, to my own moments of pain, then I will do much better. The people that I met today were suffering so much (some of them had just woken from a drunken slumber, others were wandering off to court-mandated treatments) but I found myself wanting to sit with them and be present to their lives. The Outdoor Church was a powerful presence for the people forgotten by society.

Floating the boat

2007-07-28T16:38:00.000-07:00

Favorite quote of the day:

Watching Men of Honor

Cuba Gooding, Jr. to his loyal former Master Chief: Why are you doing this?

Robert De Niro: To piss people off.

I feel like pissing people off right now. Maybe it'll get me a job.

Continuous thinking on a hot sticky Friday...

2007-07-27T09:27:00.000-07:00

The next movie on my list.

If I were an accordionist, I would play this song in her memory:

Bent pages

2007-07-27T07:14:00.001-07:00

It is a very hot and sticky Friday. I got home very late last night after my outing, my muscles still sore from my previous evening in the Common, watching A Midsummer Night's Dream play out its magic against the green canopy of the park. There were over 500 people present, and I thoroughly enjoyed the play -- and the bad singing and techno-fusion soundtrack that followed the faeiries made it that much more humorous.

I called PSG because I can't wait any longer. I have my initial interview with them Monday and I'm going to be running around with jobs on a week-to-week basis. This sounds really unstable and difficult, but I am not willing to give up my fight (just yet) for meaningful, fulfilling employment. Boston High e-mailed me back to let me know they are still in the process of interviewing candidates, so I'm still in the running...for now.

In the meantime I've been reading A Life of Jesus by Shusaku Endo and I'm really enjoying it. His rich description of the landscape against which Jesus' ministry developed is beautiful, and the book, in a sense, reads like another Gospel. Endo talks about Jesus' internal struggles and his growing sense of self in the book -- something we can never really capture, but as readers, we long to have portrayed. I also re-read Secret of the Andes for the umpteenth time, a favorite from childhood, and I'm thinking of picking it up again when I'm done with Endo's story.

In the end I may have to go back to my tuath and read Confessions of A Pagan Nun again. The truth has a volume much larger than one's body or soul.

Thoughts over a hot brain

2007-07-26T20:55:00.000-07:00

Still awake, even though my eyes are tired. Went with David to see Goya's Ghosts at the Kendall Cinema - it was a good movie, albeit a little different from what I expected it to be, less focused on Goya and more on the people around him, and the ending reflected the harsher realities of life, instead of the rosy colors we always want to frame movies with.

I have a restless spirit these days -- I asked a friend earlier if he prayed, because I am having a hard time doing so. My dreams are more vivid than ever, my life seemingly more in the air. I got a resume put out to a temp agency today, hopefully with better results than I've had at other places. I am really hoping for a great job, and the temp placement is meant to carry me in the interim. It's hard making these little plans when you live in Boston, though...so far I've been living on air, and unfortunately, I've gotten very used to it. But I have to move soon, and I need to get in the habit of rising for work as well as for a full day. I've been vegging through the vacation I prayed for, and maybe it will end at the righ time, cause I am getting too comfortable in this house.

One of my housemates is back, but he will be moving out soon, a great job waiting for him. I ask God what I'm supposed to want, because I don't know anymore.

Something about this video resonates with me. Let me know what you think.

me and my lupi

2007-07-24T07:50:00.000-07:00

Just got off the phone with my aunt Lupi...my cousin Javier's wedding on Saturday was a huge success and all my relatives were there to celebrate with the lucky couple. Lupi tells me that some of the people stayed at the after-party until about 4am. Man, I wish I had been there. My sister and I would have had a blast and getting drunk with my cousins would have been a great break from all this mindless job-searching. Queretaro is a beautiful city - sometimes I wish I could go back in time to my years there, but then I think of everything we went through, and I realize that I can't turn back the clock. It makes me sad. We have land in Mexico - in my mother's name, right now, but hopefully, one day, it can be in my mine or my sister's, and we can build a house together. Tequisquiapan has not grown much, and that's a good thing in my mind. A little house away from all the busyness of everyday life, next door to my cousin Rosita's house, and Lupi's, if she builds a house there as well....

I just got on here to ask for prayers for my aunt Rosi and my uncle Miguel Angel. Brother and siater, they are the oldest siblings in my grandparents' family of five. With my mother gone and Rosi in a wheelchair now (she suffered a fall and developed a severe weakness in her legs, as well as a bad back), the whole family is getting upset over Migue's declining health as the chemo sucks the life out of him along with the cancer. I don't know if he will make it, to tell you the truth. My aunt sounded worried, and she checks in with her sister-in-law every few days to see how he's doing. So prayers, please...

More ramblings

2007-07-21T19:21:00.000-07:00

To see a World in a grain of sand
And Heaven in a wild flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand

And Eternity in an hour. - William Blake

A good professor of mine once said Jesus was left-handed. He joked that Jesus had to be a leftie -- he would have to show his best side when picture time came at the right hand of God! My left hand is my armor these days -- it has been hurting from all the typing and Web-surfing, e-mailing and editing I do in Wordperfect. It all seems somewhat pointless. The Lawrence job was taken and BC may not hire me -- I'm not getting any vibes yet. I spend too much time laying out on the couch in front of the tube, and Cambridge is so borishly expensive these days. I go out with people and then wish I had retreated into my savings account instead; hoarding my money for the day when I am forced out of this house.

Maybe I'm just in a bad mood because my cousin Javier got married today and I wasn't able to be there with my family. It feels unjust that neither I nor my sister could make it to Mexico for this momentous occasion --I have nothing to make up for it, because my life feels empty and purposeless, and I'm tired of telling myself that the right thing just hasn't come along yet. I have been watching things fall apart in front of my eyes; little things, parts of my life, that don't get resolved and continue to pinch their way into the present. I'm also mad at the fact that I censor my anger for the sake of other people when I have every right to rage against the night and to demand that things be different. I wonder what it would feel like to let myself be mad at God instead of expecting a wrathful Deity to punish me for my human nature. I think I am ashamed of my own anger, and that is a hard thing to face. It is neither bad nor good, it just is. Can I accept that, even thank God for my ability to feel that emotion, and then move from there? When will I claim it as my own?

There. It is mine. I am mad. I do not need anyone to say they are sorry for my emotions; right now, I am wanting to wallow in them for a while. Let them run their course. In time, when I am ready, I will let go of them. But not today, not tonight, and maybe not tomorrow morning.

In memory of my Mexican jumping beans

2007-07-20T20:05:00.000-07:00

How are things in Angrytown?

I think I scared some ghosts outside of Angrytown today. Running around on errands in Salem, I dipped off the beaten path and went down to Central Wharf, where Salem's Friendship is docked and the local folk gaze out to the sea. I found myself hiding behind an old lighthouse with melted chocoloate on my fingers and a very bubbly companion on the other line. The tourists that came around the corner got a kick out of my choice hide-out. But the locals did not seem to be as amused.

Equally perplexing are the ways in which I observe Bostonians treating each other. And the ways in which people compensate for their gnawing hunger for connection to others. A tired old guy waves at a passerby in the Harvard T, greeting him like a friend. The passerby looks confused and bewildered by the fact that he is being addressed by this man. Maybe this man is a stranger to him, perhaps someone he would have preferred to not have known. But in either case, one individual is left alone in the conversation as the other one drifts invisibly into the crowd. In North Station, where the pressed suits, heels and cell phones of New England commuters gather at the rails, I see stranger things happening. A man in a tailored business suit, leather briefcase at his side, is red in the face. He's red in the face and he's speaking loudly, very eloquently, to the ghost in front of him. There is no earpiece for him to speak into -- if there was one I'd be concerned that he was forgetting where he was. This man's behavior represents a palpable loneliness that hangs around this city - sensed as people sit by the waters, soothing themselves, but never speaking to one another. Sensed as people lay out in JFK Park in Cambridge as if it were a beach, because they don't notice anyone, or anything. The anonymity of Boston's peoples is a testament to their hearty will to survive, as well as to the powerful effects of New England's winters.

As I ramble on this page, I am silently yelling at my right pinkie, who carries the scars from my interview this past Tuesday. I speak to my toe as if it were a separate entity sometines; begging it to stop throbbing and to heal itself for the sake of the community. My left foot is wanting to wear socks again and my flip flops have grown tired of filling in for my tennis shoes.

A thorn to make your heart sing

2007-07-18T20:45:00.000-07:00

I walked in the rain to the T stop this afternoon...my lucky gray (once blue) jeans slopping in the puddles against my toes. I can't wear running shoes, or anything that comes into contact with my right pinkie. Instead I put on my beach thongs and went against the tide of huddled umbrella-bearers near Davis Square. I woke up last night and found that the blister on my foot had bled through the Band-aid and onto my sock - and now it's whining, even after the ointment, the careful walking, the evening on the couch.

That is what happens when you dress up professionally and make the long trek across an entire cuity for what was a very short interview. Lulu let me borrow one of her nice suits, Tere even helped me pick out a shirt for it, and they both drilled me through mock interview questions. I arrived at Boston College High School thinking I was about to face Goliath with a very tiny slingshot. But the Spanish teacher who interviewed me was so bubbly I almost couldn't concentrate on the questions she was asking me. She seemed so excited about talking about her job; I was hoping for a huge challenge and was not prepared for the interview to go as smoothly as it did. Smooth and quick. I was in the door, out the door, and back on the train. And I wouldn't know anything for sure about this job for another, oh, three weeks.

In the meantime, my feet are hurting, my spirits are a little dampened as I have not heard from Central Catholic in Lawrence, and I am feeling tired again. My job occupation doesn't feel that important anymore; what matters is that I want to enjoy life again. I am even considering applying for a part-time position with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, or looking into volunteering through the Museum of Fine Arts. I am broke, I am a little worn, but the world feels open right now. Just after my interview, I went home and crashed for about an hour. Then I changed my clothes (ignoring the pain in my feet) and headed off to the Back Bay Fens, where the Emerald Necklace Conservancy was doing some pruning on the lovely Kelleher Rose Garden. It was good work and it kept me mind off of things.

One thing remains certain, though. This city has grown on me. And I think it's grown for good.

Mirrors on the wall

2007-07-15T11:29:00.000-07:00

It's hot and humid in Texas (oops..I mean Boston). I just finished eating some Brazilian barbeque with rice and vegetables, and I'm stuffed. I'm also tired - this morning I got up and rushed a shower in order to make the 83 by Porter Square. I went to Lubna's again and headed off to church with her and Tere at St. Clement's Eucharistic Shrine. Run by the Oblates of the Virgin Mary, St. Clement's espouses a very traditional Catholicism that I found both reminiscent of my childhood and also a little contrary to my inner comforts. The opening hymns, found in the Misalette, are always foreign to me, and although beautiful, a bit too old-fashioned. Several key parts of the Mass are either chanted or phrased in Latin, and the acolytes always wear a cassock under the usual garb. The first time I attended St. Clement's it was on Easter morning of 2005, when Lubna invited my aunt and I out to lunch with her and some close friends. The shrine was so full that we had to stand outside the front doors, myself serving as the butler for the continuous stream of anxious parishioners that struggled past me throughout the Mass. Next to the altar men in traditional black habits (Oblates?) resonated Gregorian chants in a carefully situated choir loft. I did not find the chanting very meditative or greatly moving; in fact, I remember disliking the service to a large extent.

On this third visit to the shrine (I went last weekend with Lulu as well) I found the environment more inviting and peaceful. The stained glass windows and ornate altar reminded me of the huge cathedrals in Mexico City and for a small while I was comforted by the presence of my adopted family. Communion was accompanied by the usual instrumental prayer, and the end of Mass came with Adoration. I found myself praying, instead of glancing around me, and rubbing my hand against Tere's for comfort. I used my observations to distract myself from the growing knot in my stomach - the beautiful wooden walls of the shrine reminded me of the extravaganze I would encounter on Tuesday, when I ran south to Boston College High School for my initial interview as a Spanish teacher. The preppy, wealthy school felt more like an abstract idea to me. The reality of those rambunctious boys and their high school energy scared the crap out of me; I fizzed in and out of a disorienting self-search - I could not remember high school very well, yet I did not feel wise or old enough for these kids. I wondered if I could go back that far in time - so much had changed since then! Would they find me engaging, funny, interesting? The fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary time was themed by a call to trust in Providence and the journey towards the true self; Deuteronomy and Moses' beckon to seek out God's presence within the heart, the Gospel reading about the Good Samaritan. The priest asked us - Do you really see your neighbor? What does it mean to really see where people are in their lives, to enmesh yourself in it, to get dirty from the struggles of others, to struggle with them, to be there when the chips are down, to lift the weary?

I exhausted myself with these questions as I recalled my good friend Mike O'Grady and his outreach ministry to the poor and homeless of Porter Square, every Sunday, 8:30am -11am. On my way to the bus stop I saw his familiar smiling face as he welcomed the hugs of the old men and women that wandered the streets during the week. He was their sanctuary, their place of safety. I reached out and said hello, grabbing Mike's hand in a gesture of goodwill, accepting the offer of peace from a tiny man by the bench. There was such an ease to Mike's movements, to his way of relating, and as I watched the group gather around the altar for a Eucharistic service, I found myself envying him. I did know if I could do it. I was not a Jesuit, or a sister, or a seminarian in training. I wore no habit and my life was not determined by the charism of a specific community. I was free, and in that freedom, I found myself wavering, needing something to steady myself with. My sister thought I was crazy for wanting to work in a high school environment. I wondered if I was crazy, and for a moment, that made the challenge ok, because it was going to be hard, regardless of whether I was a mother of two kids already, or a single graduate with some teaching experience. But then the anxiety hit me again, and I prayed that my choice had been a good one - there was no turning back. My interview in Lawrence had gone well, I'd declined AmeriCorp's incredible offer, and BC High was still around the corner. I could still fall flat on my face and not get anything from my efforts. Or I could succeed, and then the real games would begin.

Would I be ready?

Layers of dough

2007-07-13T19:51:00.000-07:00

Very tired...I told AmeriCorps no. It was the right thing to do and I feel relatively at peace with my decision. I am hoping for a follow-up interview for a campus ministry position at Central Catholic and my interview with the Modern Langauge Dept at BC High this coming Tuesday seems promising.

Going to bed. Today I felt semi-normal again after two weeks of relentless anxiety. I am grateful for what I have in my life. I had dinner at Sophia House with friends; we enjoyed a hearty mixture of Mexican and Pakistani dishes, and great tequila to ease the conversation. Our beloved Tom Stegman provided the jokes for the evening. Liz and Catherine provided their hospitality, as well as Frances and Diane. Mike and I gratefully ate the food and made fun with everyone at the table.

One last Tango...until the 13th hour

2007-07-09T18:07:00.000-07:00

I am sitting by myself in the TV room...attempting to figure out my future once and for all. Just saw Frances, who spent six weeks in a monastery, and is missing the life there. They sent her out after her stay so that she could figure out if she really wanted to go back, or if the urge to take on the habit will slowly die down.

I attempt to emulate this same wisdom into my own life. I have just read the letter of acceptance, finally, that AmeriCorps sent me via electronic file, and I am all excited again. The sense of adventure, the list of books to read before moving to the Cape, the life in the house and the outdoors, all day, every day, with the crew. I would get to see and learn so much in those ten and a half months, and I would grow in different ways...

When I read the list of expectations and the regulations of the program, I felt like I was going back into high school and my choir field trip days, my weekends of service with APO in college, my late-night retreats in the SMU Service House. A younger part of myself responded to the familiar stimuli, memories being brought to life vis a vis AmeriCorps' mission. No wonder I feel so conflicted again!

But is this a real urge? Will this opportunity, too, dissipate in the face of a larger plan? What is real and what is not? If I say no to this chance on Friday, will I be making a mistake? I no longer feel confident in my decisions. What if it's really great, what if the work is reparative, amazing, transformative? What if taking this risk teaches me a greater lesson? What if doing AmeriCorps opens a thousand doors for me?

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!!

Counting straws

2007-07-07T19:10:00.000-07:00

Boston and Detroit are battling for the tenth inning - they are tied 2-2 and the crowds are going crazy. Who will win the lucky score?

On that note - I am still in a process of discernment, but I am nearing the end of one of its stages. I have not received an acceptance letter yet, but I know that I have been accepted into AmeriCorps Cape Cod, and that I plan to reject their offer. It is not fear or anxiety that is driving me to make this choice - it is the realization that at this point of my life, a year working on the Cape disconnected from my past and present does not feel like the right thing to do. When I think about getting a steady job, settling into my identity as a graduate, perhaps even as a Bostonian, I am at peace. I do not need a year to mull this over in my head - I want to bury my roots and watch them grow. Even if they are not permanent and I must leave them for other lands in a year or two, if I sense the need to, I will have had the joy of watching a part of myself blossom in this historic city.

Last week I got to help at an ESL class at St. Anthony's Shrine downtown and I went out for Indian food and a few drinks with a good friend of mine. I knew from the very beginning of my time here that my purpose in Cambridge was not solely to study theology - my connection with Boston ran deeper, under the rocks, historic landmarks and past lives that make this city what it is. I wanted to become a part of its histories and to make them a part of myself. I even went to the Boston Harbor Hotel yesterday and sat by the water for a while. Those waves are growing on me. I am extremely lucky to be able to walk to the Charles, to Boston's Harbor, to heart seagulls and owls outside my bedroom window.

My friend Lubna was right. My mother, even as she rests, is still smiling upon this world.

Ripple

2007-07-02T14:11:00.000-07:00

Where does the ocean begin? Where does it end? Why are we drawn to the water - a place that we cannot fully inhabit, a mysterious universe that promises hope as well as danger? In the waves, do we find our peace, or a mirror for our unanswered questions? What confronts us? The peace that we are at one with the world around us? Or is it the peace brought on by our acceptance that we, in fact, will never be whole in this world, that we cannot grasp the deeper mysteries of our selves, of those around us, of the crashing waves beating upon this Earth?

In mankind's search for the sea of tranquility, where do we look? Outward? Seeking a reminder of God's presence in the creation around us? Or do we sit quietly, away from all those commercialized calls to peace, and concentrate on the Spirit's voice within us?

I received a phone call today from Barnstable, MA, AmeriCorps Cape Cod's headquarters. I was offered a position on the Corps for the next year in Wellfleet, MA. An amazing experience, of course. Projects along the ocean line and in the marshes, community centers, classrooms and the open trail. Rain or shine.

And had this been offered me two years ago, I would have jumped in heads-first without a second thought. But the wisdom of the past two years has taught me, in fact, to embrace that which I was seeking. The patience of the ocean is a magnificence truth, as well as its force. I wonder now if my life experiences have finally taught me to internalize a process of discernment I did not have before, when I would have jumped into a year-long commitment after little reflection. I am wondering if I need this experience by the water to follow that Deep Current, if I need the days of work, sweat and challenges on the Cape to test my own skills and gifts.

I sit by the river and I wait. I wait for an answer.

Sunset in the Vineyard

2007-06-29T14:12:00.000-07:00

I enjoyed an e-mail I wrote to a friend so much that i decided to post part of it here. Things come out much more eloquently when we stop judging our own words and let out thoughts flow as they may. I went to the Pemberton Market across the street and wandered through the nursery. There were statues of the Buddha dotting the summer lillies and cobblestone marking the paths behind the flowers. The eyes of those statues were cast downward, looking beyond the shadows of their feet, not needing to see anything, but to let themselves be Seen. Who nowadays engenders that much interior trust in God? In observing those statues and the blooming life around them, I was reminded of our necessary journey towards peace and the anxiousness with which we avoided it. There was no presumption in the flowers, no adamant call for attention, no need to supercede the petals that surrounded them. They just were - created by God - and opened and closed themselves to the rhythms of the nature gifted to them.

My life has been frustrating as of late...I am in the middle of a heavy discernment about what type of job to seek and/or pursue. The Deeper Current beneath me compels me towards large goals, but there are parts of myself that seek rest and require more patience. I'm not very good at giving myself those things, so making the choice to lay low is resulting to be a very difficult one. Still, it is an essential part of living, a lesson that may teach me a lot and give me wisdom for other things. I am feeling tired - but my instinct is to ignore that fact.

Slow reaping for a slow harvest. Life is not in a hurry. Since when are we?