Photo by LucasTheExperience, via Flickr

I wasn’t there. I was supervising the little ones at Children’s Liturgy. But Alex, my thoughtful, empathetic Alex, was riveted to the missionary’s story of life in Haiti, of poverty so intense that children eat “cookies” made of clay.

When church was over, we drove home to a building that would house dozens of people in other parts of the world, but which shelters only six, a house filled with Stuff we rarely use but can’t or won’t get rid of, and a refrigerator stuffed with food, which we often stand in front of and sigh heavily, “There’s nothing to eat!”

In the days before, we bought a new DSLR camera for which we’ve been saving for well over a year, as well as solar lights for the front and a lovely arbor for my climbing roses. Each of these purchases, long anticipated, fills me with quiet happiness every time I look at them.

“Therefore I praised joy, because there is nothing better for mortals under the sun than to eat and to drink and to be joyful; this will accompany them in their toil through the limited days of life God gives them under the sun.” (Ecclesiastes 8:15)

But now there’s an undercurrent of disquiet in my soul. The umbrellas and brooms in the coat closet fall over for the umpteenth time, and I growl, “We need some sort of closet organizer!”–and I think of children eating clay. “I hate all my clothes,” I complain. “As soon as I lose this baby weight I’m going shopping for things that actually look good on me!” And then I remember this picture, and I recognize my supposed necessities for the vanity they are.

We live in a world defined by our consumption. If we don’t consume, everything will fall to pieces, and everyone will be in dire straits, not just those in developing countries. Yet I look at the list of things I want to purchase, and I can’t help thinking how much better spent the money would be going to a place like Haiti, to keep people alive instead of feeding my need for more, more, more. Everything I want to do–travel, home decor, scrapbooking–in the face of such poverty, it feels vaguely immoral. It feels like a scam for me to earn money for singing or writing music or stories, for instance.

I know it isn’t. Beauty is built into the human psyche. What we need to stay alive is only part of the story; God made us to be fulfilled, not just survive, and art, music, beauty–all those “luxuries” are part of that. Somewhere there must be a line between using money to affirm and enjoy the beauty of the world…and gross waste of resources.

But I don’t know where it is.

How do you reconcile consumption and care for the larger world?

***

“Pray without ceasing.” I Thessalonians 5:17

I’ve known a lot of faithful people in my life. And one of the most striking things I have noticed is that it’s frighteningly easy to abuse faith. To turn it into an idol of its own.

Maybe I should be more specific. It’s easy to abuse religious practice. Like prayer, for instance.

I’ve known people who substitute prayer for action. I’ve known people who go for quantity of words, as if they think if they go on long enough, they’ll beat God into submission. I’ve known people who go for flowery language, thinking it makes their prayers more important. I’ve known people who use prayer, consciously or unconsciously, as a way to lecture other people in the room. (I should add that at least once in every category above, “people” refers to me.)

“Some of God’s greatest gifts are unanswered prayers.” Garth Brooks

And I’ve known people who have bought into the idea of the unanswered prayer. This is one of my biggest pet peeves, because there is no such thing. That lesson, learned in my youngest elementary school days at Catholic school, still forms my world view. God answers every prayer. Every one. But sometimes, the answer is “no.”

And sometimes, the answer is “not yet.”

“If I really wanted to pray I’ll tell you what I’d do. I’d go out into a great big field alone or into the deep, deep woods, and I’d look up into the sky – up – up – up- into that lovely blue sky that looks like there’s no end to its blueness. And then I’d just feel a prayer.” Anne Shirley

At some point in my life, someone offered this “formula” for prayer:

First praise, then thanksgiving, and then (and only then), petition.

I struggled for years with the difference between praise and thanksgiving, but finally my daughter taught me the answer to that one.

The trouble is with that last bit. The petition bit. The part that overwhelms prayer for most of us.

The trouble is that we grow up with a wrong-headed idea of what prayer is supposed to do. Prayer isn’t about changing God’s mind. I mean, do you REALLY think you’re going to change the mind of the maker of the entire universe? If that was even possible, I’d lose my faith instantly; who can depend on a God that fickle?

No, prayer is about changing me. It is a lesson in humility, an opportunity to stretch my soul by bending my will to someone else’s. It’s about shifting my attitude from what I want, what I need, what I fear, to what God wants. To what God is asking of me.

That kind of prayer is a lot harder. But it’s also liberating.

I learned the power of this prayer during three years of infertility, when all my life was consumed by the desperate desire for a child. It was such a bruising experience, to pray two dozen times a day, every day for three years, for the same thing, and never once to hear a “yes” in reply. That is spiritual exercise of the most powerful kind. I thought I would never know the reason why God said “not yet” for so long. But in time, that question was answered, too.

“Pray without ceasing.” I Thessalonians 5:17

When I was a kid, I used to hear that quote and shake my head. What a boring life. Are you supposed to just live on your knees? But now I understand that life itself can be a prayer. It doesn’t have to be formal. It doesn’t have to be eloquent. It doesn’t need words at all. It begins with praise, it continues with thanksgiving, and ends with “Thy Will be done.”

And when I manage to live up to it…it works for me.

So there I sat at five p.m., in the section beside the choir, at my old stomping grounds. As accustomed as I am to the constant jostling for position, it was disorienting to sit alone (well, alone until the baby woke up). But restful, too.

Although this was the Sunday evening liturgy I directed for one short year as a newlywed, the parish repertoire has moved on. I knew very little of it, but I learned, enjoying the sound of a contemporary ensemble that is most of what I would like ours to be, leading a willing assembly actively engaged. (Can I just say…wow.)

There’s something special about that church, and although I love my parish and the community to which I have dedicated the last twelve years, somehow whenever I walk into the building where I met my husband and where I married him, it feels like coming home. So much of my growing-up-in-faith happened within those walls, and sitting there, the memories seemed to leap up in greeting.

There were evening choir practices and prayer circle in the cry room, and the heartfelt hug and prayer of a wonderful woman who could see that something was troubling me in those early months of my anxiety, even though I didn’t have the courage to tell her what it was. There were Sunday morning prayers before Mass, twenty people crowded into a music storage room not wide enough for two to pass each other. There was the day after our wedding, when I stood up to ask for  volunteers for my Life Teen music ensemble. It was the first time I ever referred to myself as “Kate Basi,” and the whole assembly, which had seen us grow together for four years, applauded.

Photo by Niccola Caranti, via Flickr

There were earlier memories than that, even. I remember sitting with my parents on a Saturday evening in the days when the church was arranged “in the round,” and the slanting rays of the evening sun blinded, the light searing my soul, flaying it open. It flayed open again last night as I watched my fourth baby stare, mesmerized, at the warmth glowing on polished wood.

I was awake to the holy last night in a way I haven’t been for a long time. And it was beautiful.

This was an “on” night, and his roommate (Julianna) pulled a drama number at 4:30 a.m. and woke him up, so it was, in fact, a double-nursing night…something I don’t take so philosophically. I sat in my nursing chair while he wiggled and pushed his legs against the spindles, mostly playing around while my temper shortened with the dwindling minutes till morning. He needs his nails clipped…badly. And he likes to grab things these days. Sometimes he gets my shirt, but more often he goes for skin, and pulls the breast right out of his mouth. Repeatedly. After he’s torn the skin to shreds, of course.

So as often as he’ll consent, I grab his hand and let him hold my thumb. And as I sat there in the murky quiet of early morning, I suddenly saw the scene from his point of view. I saw the absolute trust, the craving for closeness with something Bigger Than Me. So much bigger, in fact, that his entire hand will wrap around its thumb. So big that it can protect him from the terrorizing of older siblings, and the specter of loneliness. So big that it fills up most of his world.

It occurred to me then that this is the source of faith, the first way in which our longing for God manifests itself. What do we adults have that can compare to that experience of infancy? We long for the security being cared for, too, and we long for Someone so big that we can rest upon that person. But it isn’t the same, because the physical Being is missing. We can’t snuggle up to God and wrap ourselves around a divine hand, knowing because of what we can see and touch that we’re safe. As adults, we have to reach into our souls and our intellects, to see God present in the beauty and power of nature and in the presence of community and supernatural Presence at church. In our “show-me” world, those connections are held suspect, even by those of us who believe them sincerely. We’d like more, and the frustration of knowing we can’t have it leads everyone to question at some point, and many to turn their backs.

It’s good that we grow and become parents ourselves, that we can see these moments in a new way and recognize the truths in them, truths we might otherwise lose touch with.

1. I don’t think I can legally use the image, so please click here. I hate fasting days. But if this picture doesn’t sock you in the stomach and make you rethink your entire life, I don’t know what will.

2. Our deacon gave a short homily with a powerful punch on our April-Fools-Day Palm Sunday that encapsulated everything today is about. It closed with these words:

Today, in this 21^st century ‘world of ironies’, where:
Death is called ‘Choice’ and
Vengeance called ‘Justice,’ where
Love comes on a contract with an “escape clause,” and
everyone’s glued to their phones, yet, no-one is listening . . .

We just, might-again, ask ourselves,
“Who is the fool?” and
“Along with Jesus, where do I stand?”

Read the whole thing here.

3. I noticed things in the Passion this week that never quite registered before. Like this:

They gave him wine drugged with myrrh, but he did not take it.

Drugged…presumably in an attempt to be more humane about his death sentence. But Jesus didn’t take it. He chose to feel every bit of his Passion.

I offer the discomfort of this fast day, small as it is, for a beautiful soul in my husband’s family who went home to God yesterday. May He grant her speedy entry into His presence, and wrap her family in comfort.

Photo by thefost, via Flickr

I have this persecution complex. It dates back to the days when I was engaged to an atheist and I knew I had no business being so. But despite the nudges from my conscience, I couldn’t (or wouldn’t) break it off.

Ever since then, any time I’ve been involved with something I love, I get this niggling feeling of guilt. As if the simple fact that it’s something I want to do means it’s automatically something I shouldn’t.

Mothers in general are highly susceptible to feelings of inadequacy. We never do enough. We never keep our tempers under stress the way we think we should; we never juggle the responsibilities properly–we always, always measure up as less than in our own minds. And judging other mothers–an activity in which we all participate, whether or not we admit it–adds to our own sense of being Not Good Enough.

Imagine me, then, admitting at last that I am no longer a stay-at-home mom, but a work-at-home mom. Guilt steps up and starts poking me with pinprick pincers. If I didn’t write, my house would be cleaner, and I’d spend more time doing “mom” things with my kids, so that when my three-year-old went for a DIAL screening he didn’t get marked down for not being able to use a scissors. Surely I’d do better with faith formation, and Julianna would be farther along the path to speech, so they wouldn’t think she has to spend two-thirds of her time in a self-contained classroom. I wouldn’t get mad when they fight and break things, because I’d be there to arbitrate and redirect. Right?

Obviously, then, I must not be doing what God has in mind for me. I’m being selfish by pursuing a writing career, however humble. My vocation as a mother should stand pristine, undiluted, in the center of my life, and anything that distracts me is Not. God’s. Will, even and perhaps especially if I enjoy it.

Like I said: persecution complex.

Yesterday was Palm Sunday, with an Old Testament reading from Isaiah:

The Lord God has given me
a well-trained tongue,
that I might know how to speak to the weary
a word that will rouse them.
Morning after morning
he opens my ear that I may hear;
and I have not rebelled,
have not turned back.

It seemed a beautiful affirmation. And then it seemed sacrilegious to hear any word meant for me in a passage referring to Jesus.

I am beginning to realize that I may never know for sure that what I think is God’s will for me, actually is. I just have to muddle along as best I can, and accept that rock-solid certainty is not a commodity I’ll ever have in abundance. And in the end, maybe that’s okay. Because as long as I don’t know for certain, I keep seeking. And as long as I am seeking, I don’t become complacent.

Photo by Garrettc, via Flickr

When I was writing about Lent, an odd theme kept cropping up: relationships. It seemed off–I grew up associating Lent with repentance, sorrow and fasting. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that the purpose of repentance, sorrow and fasting is to mend the broken relationship with God. I came to understand Lent as a journey, one foot in front of the other, on a path that leads to intimacy with Him.

As I thought about mending relationship with God, I kept thinking about other relationships that need healing and strengthening. I kept thinking about how our love for God is measured by our love for  others. And I thought of one of my sisters, with whom childhood was a perpetual battle of unkindness, and how, in young adulthood, our unresolved childhood angst piled up until we had a huge fight and didn’t speak for a year.

I realized that the relationship with God and the relationship with our loved ones run parallel. Maybe they’re even one and the same. So I came up with writing Sunday love letters to family members.

The idea is to write a letter to a different family member each week, focusing on what we love about them (not what drives us crazy–because let’s face it, that’s the part we notice most often), underscoring the ways in which we see God in them, and perhaps healing breaches.

We haven’t gotten it done every week. It’s been a crazy busy Lent so far. But we’ve done it twice now, and now I know that idea was inSpiration.

Here is what the first week looked like:

*

*

The second time–yesterday–we wrote notes on leaves instead. The small format works well for little kids in big families. I read my note to Alex:

Do you know that Grandma said last night that every time you walk in, the whole room lights up? I am so amazed when I look at you.

You are JUST LIKE ME.

I love you so much.

Alex stood silently for a minute, then made a dash for his Spiderman game with a suspicious look on his face. “Alex,” I said, “are you crying?”

“No!” he said. (Duh, Mommy!) He returned to whacking bad guys with spiderwebs. “But my eyes are watering.”

Focusing on relationships can be uncomfortable.

But it is also beautiful.

We registered Julianna for kindergarten this week. Can you believe it? I’m having trouble. I mean, it seems like she’s been in our life forever, certainly long enough to be starting school…but there are things you tend to associate with a child entering kindergarten. Like, I don’t know…speech!

___2___

I shouldn’t make it sound like she doesn’t talk, because she does. In fact, she comes to me these days and issues a long stream of gibberish that very clearly means something…I just don’t know what. When she started it, we thought it was incredibly funny and cute. Now I’m looking at things differently. “Julianna, I don’t understand what you’re saying,” I tell her. “One word at a time.”

___3___

For two nights, I spent my after-the-kids-are-in-bed time filling out forms. You should know, also, that my handwriting (so my husband says) is illegible. Being sensitive about this, I was writing ve-ry-slow-ly. And I was ready to spit nails by the time I was done. How many times does the school district need me to fill out Julianna’s address? I filled out her address on NINE DIFFERENT FORMS. And TWO of them were about who she lives with. I mean, really, people. It was a rude awakening to the difference between private and public school procedures, let me tell you.

And she has her last shots this morning. I tried to prepare her last night, but it’s hard to know what she “gets.” Alex is off school, so we’re going to the doctor’s office with four children.

___4___

When RAnn, over at This, That, and the Other Thing, interviewed me about my Lent book, she asked what activities I had planned this year. I told her with the infant in the house, we were going to have to take it one week at a time. Well, that’s what we’re doing. Perhaps it will help everyone who thinks just because I write books about celebrating seasons with children, that our house is full of well-organized, blissful family catechesis. Um…no. My family is the perfect illustration of why we need books like mine. :/

___5___

I was going to write another Quick Take on that subject, but it occurs to me that maybe I need to write a post on that topic all its own.

___6___

Speaking of all things faith, this is evidently “Evangelization Week” in our neighborhood. Tuesday afternoon it was two young girls asking if we had a church home. Thursday just before noon an older lady rang my doorbell with literature. I groaned inwardly and tried to tell her kindly that we’re well evangelized, and quite familiar with the Bible, but she really, really wanted to give me a flier–four pages, full color. “Did you know the Bible says ‘they will beat their swords into plowshares?’ she said with an earnest smile. “Do you believe that will happen?”

What a question! Caught between a desire to get rid of her and the inability to lie, even by omission, I swallowed a whole lot of thoughts and stuttered something that made no sense but made it perfectly clear that I was a heathen, just as she thought. “Well,” she said, “the Bible said it will happen, so we know it will.”

Yes, I thought. In Heaven.

___7___

No matter how much time passes, I cannot get over the fact that in a house with nearly 3000 square feet, everybody has to inhabit the same room. A few days ago, Christian and I prepared dinner in a twelve-foot-square kitchen with one child pushing the empty bouncy seat in front of the refrigerator door, one child building a marble run in front of the pantry door, and one child trying to drop marbles down it before it was finished. Just imagine that traffic jam.

Have a good weekend!

Photo by Carlos 90, via Flickr

I seem to be collecting a lot of prayer intentions lately. Not that there’s anything strange about that–it’s just that for some reason, recently they seem to be hitting a lot closer to home. In times past, I used to promise to pray and then forget all about it. (Yes, I was one of those people, I’m sorry to admit.) Eventually I learned when someone requested prayers, I had to stop whatever I was doing and pray then and there.

But these days, it seems I can’t get these people out of my mind. At odd times during the day I surface from the depths of my own affairs with a heaviness in my chest, a heaviness surrounding a name or two.

We are urged to be specific and forward in our prayers–in other words, to expect miracles. But I’ve grown suspicious of this kind of prayer. The longer I live, the more I see the value of the process. I believe God can work massive, instantaneous change, but most often He doesn’t…because there is value to the process, to the change wrought in us that would not happen if we were miraculously and instantly rescued from suffering.

So for the past several weeks, I’ve prayed for healing from my lingering ear infection, from the leftover fluid and hearing loss…but with no expectation that it will vanish overnight, despite a friend’s prayer for exactly that. Maybe that shows lack of faith. But on the other hand, through this process I’ve learned empathy for the elderly as they are slowly robbed of their hearing–a lesson I would not have gained otherwise. This experience reaffirms a different approach to prayer–one that focuses on grace to endure, on strength and understanding instead of relief from pain. Change my heart, this time. That, after all, is the purpose of prayer: not to force God to do our will, but to open our minds and hearts to accept God’s. I’ve learned to stop asking God to “fix it,” and to ask instead for the grace to accept what is. To say, “What do you want me to learn from this, Lord?”

But it’s one thing to embrace the search for wisdom and insight through suffering in myself. It’s altogether different to try to philosophize away someone else’s pain. I pray grace and strength and insight for them, too…but mostly I beg God to identify a quick exit from their suffering. And the words seem empty. Isn’t a pithy “Lord, please (fill in the blank)” just a pious platitude unless I put action behind it? Shouldn’t I seek some way to ease a friend’s suffering?

I’ve never wished I had Godlike powers so much as when I hear pain and confusion in the voices of those I care about. Yet the reality is that I have no control at all. I can’t heal broken bodies or broken relationships. I can’t remove the circumstances of another’s suffering.

So I pray, recognizing that only God has the answers. And maybe that’s the point, after all: that hurting with those who hurt binds me not only to them, but to God.

(Sharing with Michelle’s community on week one of focusing on the pillars of Lent: prayer, fasting and almsgiving.)