In the Mess: Easy Like Sunday Morning

I know songs have been written about the ease of Sunday morning, but I wish someone would write one about the angst of a Sunday evening. That’s the twitchiest night of the week for me as I transition from the charms of the weekend to the schisms of the work week. I feel like the amiable comic book character, Pig Pen, created by Charles Shultz, traveling in my own dust storm with all the to-do’s swirling around me making a filthy mess of what was once a peaceful mind.  The more I do, the more I realize how far behind I really am and the dirt cakes on — further muddying my panic.

I sort through emails.  I make piles.  I do laundry.  I boss children — an echo of repetition.  I try to remember what I needed to talk to my husband about.  I usually can’t.  I make lists.  I pick up abandoned glasses and clip close half-eaten bags of chips laying carelessly on the counter.  In all my busying, I only seem to find more to do.  Each task leads to another – a maze in the making.  I scatter about in the dusty swirl of tedium past bedtime – past reason.  My son asks me to review his cover letter for an internship he is applying for and I stop.  In that instant, where I was given one more thing to do– when I was already so done, I would have envisioned being buried under the muck of a mudslide.  Instead, I felt the clarity of grace.  I felt its calm and its cleanse, as I realized I belong in the middle of the mess.  It’s there that my independent, almost adult child asked for my input.  It’s there that the mess suddenly stopped choking me and I breathed into the precious moment of mothering.

Our to-do’s will never be done and life will always be messy no matter how much tidying we do.  Serving others in the midst of it is the grace that makes life meaningful.  It gives order to chaos.  It realigns priorities and it reinvigorates efforts. “Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need,” (Hebrews 4:16).

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Easter: the Rising

Sometimes I feel like a tiny bird with an injured leg from an encounter with the claws of a crazed cat.  I know how lucky I am to be here and how much worse things could be; yet, still, I carry a limp from my wounds that sometimes keeps me tethered to the ground.  (I might start telling people that when they ask me how I am doing.)

Life is so darn messy and most of us try terribly hard to tidy what we can.  In its constancy, it can feel like a marathon, and like the tiny bird, we merely hop along.  One of my favorite quotes is from Saint John Paul II who said: “We are the Easter people and hallelujah is our song.”  It conveys such unparallel joy – a skyward ascent of heavenly praise.  It hardly makes me think of hopping.

Indeed, we are the Easter people and we are meant to rise.  Lent is a time to unload the burden of sin we carry.  It’s a time to shed the miscellaneous and the excess.  It is a time to reconnect to God by disconnecting from our distractions.  Sometimes the Lenten experience feels empowering like a strenuous workout or the purging of an overstuffed closet.  Other times, it just feels hard.  All the emptying, sacrificing, and sustaining from a 40-day reflection can feel too austere for a hallelujah song.  No sweet little bird chirps that indicate winter’s hibernation is over.  Just a hop, hop.  Yet Easter is coming – not just at the end of this Lenten season.  Also, at the end of our lives.  In between, in the thicket of life’s doing and undoing, we rise.  Amidst the momentary affliction of life’s messiness, we remain upright.  “Arise, for it is your task, and we are with you; be strong and do it,” (Ezra 10:4).  Even when it’s hard or feels impossible — when there is not enough money, not enough time, not enough of your poor tired soul to go around — be strong and rise. Read more

Encouragement: the Secret Worth Sharing

I have a secret file that I keep on my computer.  I know that makes me sound a bit like a CIA operative working on top secret missions.  (I cannot confirm or deny this).  Admittedly, I have a pretty good cover.  A married mother of two who writes about Jesus, hangs out with cats, and moonlights for the government while wearing yoga pants and a sweatshirt.  You can’t make this stuff up.  Or, can you?

Anyway, back to reality. I have this file that I keep on my computer labeled “encouragement.”  I know you thought it was going to say “delusions of a Christian writer,” but it doesn’t.  It simply reads encouragement.  If you were to open it, you would find emails I saved from people who took the time to tell me how my writing touched them.  I am not sure what compelled me to start it.  (Maybe because I was consumed with self-doubt, terrified that the vulnerabilities I shared would humiliate myself and my family, and perhaps, worse of all, that I was leaving a paper trail of evidence supporting an extended stay in a mental health facility.  You know, just your small, everyday concerns).  When I would get an email of appreciation or encouragement, it made me feel less alone, braver, and best of all, that I was making a difference.  I cherish them.  Each kindness feels like a gift from God, encouragement made holy through the sacred gift of love in which it was made.  Deleting them felt akin to throwing a fresh bouquet of flowers in the trash.  I couldn’t do it.   So, I started my secret file, a hoarder of happy words. Read more

Prayer: What a Catch

Last year, a friend of mine was taken to the emergency room.  She had the flu and was in critical condition.  Before I rushed to the hospital, I prayed a rosary for her.  The memory is like a blur.  My head was racing, my rosary beads were twisting, my stomach was clenching, my hands were shaking, and my heart was aching.  Even though I sat in a chair in my living room, every part of me seemed to be in motion.  I was anxious to get to the emergency room, but from somewhere inside a voice repeated.  Pray.  Pray.  Pray.

When I finished the rosary, I went on Facebook and begged others to pray for her.  I don’t remember exactly what I wrote, but I know it included “even if you don’t pray – pray anyway.”  I’m not usually that bossy in Facebook posts so I hoped people would get the seriousness of the situation.  Even if it wasn’t their friend or their situation, even if they were estranged from God, I needed them to pray.  I needed help for my friend.  I figured if someone didn’t have their own faith, they could borrow their neighbors and throw something up to God.  He’s a great catcher.  That’s what he does over and over again – he catches us.  He doesn’t get caught up in who knows who, or the grudges someone is holding against him.  He isn’t keeping score.  He just catches.

I don’t know how many people prayed for her that day but it seemed like an awful lot.  At the hospital, I prayed with her children.  Friends texted that they were praying.  I called our church and asked them to send a priest to pray too.  He came and administered the sacrament of anointing of the sick.  The doctors were doing everything they could, her friends and family were covering her in prayer, and she was fighting like the warrior she was. Read more