July/August 2010
Since I was one of seven children, alone time with my mom was virtually unheard of with one exception. Every Thursday morning during the summer I excitedly accompanied Mom on the garage sale circuit around our small town. I can’t even remember why I was often the only tagalong — maybe it was because I was the only one awake on those lazy summer days returning home from a 7 a.m. swim team practice in time to jump in the car for our weekly treasure hunt.
Oh how we scoured those garage sales —surveying our neighbors castoffs in search of our own treasures. I can still recall fondly my most prized find— my metallic-gold, banana-seat bike complete with a front basket to hold my coveted Chrissy doll as I tooled around my small town.
While I cherish the memory of those times with my mom I must confess that I don’t go to garage sales now. I could say it’s because my schedule doesn’t allow such activity but the truth is, frankly, I just don’t need any more stuff.
More and more I find myself wanting and even needing less. Don’t get me wrong—I still have a closet full of shoes and more than enough clothes—but I try diligently to shed our extra belongings, routinely handing down my kids’ clothes to younger cousins and boxing up long-neglected but still usable household items for St. Vincent DePaul or Goodwill.
Through these small acts of “recycling” I derive more joy in sharing my goods than accumulating more, a notion reinforced by the popular Pixar movie, Toy Story 3. [Spoiler Alert—if you haven’t seen Toy Story 3 stop reading here, go see the movie, and then please come back and read the rest.]
Central character Andy is college-bound. After a fair amount of mayhem and shenanigans involving a band of Andy’s favorite toys, he is faced with the decision of discarding them or taking them all with him to college. He decides instead to donate all of them to a sweet little girl—the daughter of his former preschool teacher. At my favorite moment in the movie when Andy is “introducing” his toys to his new little friend his favorite pull-string cowboy, Woody, mistakenly makes his way into the “donate” box. As the little girl grabs for it, Andy instinctively grabs it back. But then Andy does something remarkable. After a short pause, he gives his treasure to the little girl.
And that’s the moment that made me blubber. As a mom of a college-bound son it wasn’t for all the obvious sentimental reasons. It was because in that moment Andy did the right thing. He had the character to complete a totally self-less act. He was forgoing the idea of ownership for the value of sharing. And as a mom who steps into a new chapter of parenthood I wonder as I send my “treasure” out into the world if all the years of mothering have taken hold.
“Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” [Mark 6:21]. Whether it’s an old sweater or even your eldest child we are called to share our treasures and not own them.
June 2010
When my daughter Olivia first started all-day kindergarten she had a hard time adjusting. After a blissful year of preschool, which was only a few hours a day, she graduated to all-day kindergarten and couldn’t understand why her school days had gotten longer.
“You forgot to pick me up” she said on that first day, melting my heart and igniting every nerve of motherly guilt. She had assumed she’d get picked up before lunch as she had before—not after lunch—or the nap—or the more afternoon classes.
Eventually though Olivia not only adapted—she grew to adore her teacher and love her new routine.
Like my precious daughter and many of you, I’ve experienced my share of changes over the years: moving from my hometown state to Michigan; changing jobs; I’ve even changed my hair color a few times [though my days as a blonde were short-lived and much-ridiculed.] Sometimes, almost too blithely, I approached the changes naively unaware of how difficult they may be to manage. But even when they were challenging—like being without a paycheck—there was always something exciting about the journey itself.
However, I do understand how a change in the familiar—the very things we hold sacred—can be un-nerving. I remember this vividly when I was a 2nd grade catechist, over a decade ago when my son was preparing for his First Communion. I started to teach the class the “Act of Contrition” that I’d learned when I was their age and they were very quick to perk up and say, “You’re doing it wrong Mrs. Cessna—it doesn’t go like that.”
Huh? When the heck did they change that? And why? And who’s “they”??
My parish at that time had adopted the “modern” version of the prayer—completely foreign to me. So, admittedly, after some grumbling, I learned the new prayer along with my charge of eager eight-year olds. And something wonderful happened along the way. I had a new perspective on the idea of “contrition.”
Within the coming months our Church will begin to prepare for the implementation of the third edition of the Roman Missal. There will be changes to the familiar that may be uncomfortable at first but all indications are that the language changes are intended to enhance our liturgical experience. This undertaking also allows us the opportunity to gain new perspective and insight on the Mass as well.
One of my favorite poets, William Blake, said, “The man who never alters his opinion is like standing water, and breeds reptiles of the mind. “
Yikes! I don’t know about you but I certainly would rather have a mind that is open to change than one that attracts reptiles.
Therefore, I eagerly await the journey to learning more about the revised Roman Missal. If for no other reason than I don’t want to be responsible for a plague of turtles descending upon us.
April 2010
“Mom—did you ever see the Thriller video?”“Hey Mom—you ever heard of this group called Queen?”
Lately my kids have been discovering pop music from the ‘80s and ‘90s and of course, Mom couldn’t have been cool enough to have heard about it.
In fact, I can still remember quite vividly sitting in my best friend Stephanie’s basement — the only friend of mine whose parents had cable—“back in the day” when MTV actually played — get this —music! How could I ever forget the big moment when our pre-teen hearts were eagerly awaiting the debut of the much-heralded Michael Jackson “Thriller” video. And as for Queen —it was the background music of many junior high moments.
The funny thing is that these are innocent questions my children have posed to me, eagerly awaiting my response so I too could share in their enthusiasm for their “new” found discovery. Even as they think of me as “old school” it’s fascinating to watch them discover the very “old school” things I also enjoyed as a kid and approach it with the same excitement.
Everything old is new again so the saying goes. In some ways—these “new” discoveries remind me of what happens quite often in my own faith life—happening upon something I’ve known for years but when I approach it in a different way it becomes “new” again.
This happened quite a bit to me this year while teaching 7th grade catechism. While studying Jesus and the Messianic prophecy my students were fascinated at many of the lessons I’ve known for years and had almost taken for granted as ordinary. Things like how Paul changed one letter in his name from Saul (of course, they thought that was hilarious, pretty much missing the significance of his transformation) and how Deuteronomy was a book in the Old Testament detailing the plight of the Israelites from slavery, not, as one of my young students thought “the study of dudes.”
In some ways my young students — so new in their Christian faith journey — are not so different from the early Christians who in their deep despair discovered the truth about Jesus. Mary Magdalene, who went to his tomb and saw that it was empty. The disciples, gathered in a room after Jesus’ death and He appeared in their midst. Even the man we know as “Doubting Thomas,” touching Jesus’ wounds to prove to himself that it was truly Jesus. Their discovery that Jesus was who He said He was became the driving force that built and sustained our faith for more than 2,000 years.
So the next time you may be tempted to think that Easter is just another holiday recall what Pope John Paul II said, “Do not abandon yourselves to despair. We are the Easter people and hallelujah is our song.”
Imagine if we approached every Easter as if we were experiencing it for the first time — the joy of the discovery that we are saved by God’s gift of His only Son.
Hallelujah!
March 2010
I love shoes. Purple. Floral. Suede. Leather. Hound’s-tooth. Open toe, closed toe, funky sneakers to high-heeled impractical boots. I love them all as they make their home in my closet which has yet to reach the proportions of the infamous Imelda Marcos, but is still bursting.
As I was reflecting on my annual custom of giving up something for Lent I thought about my love of footwear. Could I go 40 days without buying a new pair of shoes? And in fact, could I take this a step further and sacrifice buying anything unnecessary during the Lenten season? Those who follow my Lenten journey may remember that in recent years I have forgone my love of popcorn and my silly habit of monitoring frivolous celebrity gossip. This year I was inspired by a desire to focus on my needs versus my wants.
Maybe I’m just rebelling against the zillions of media messages trying to tell me I need more stuff in order to be happy. Or maybe it’s the haunting images from Haiti-not just the ones showing the devastation but the inspirational photos of joyful faces-smiling despite having so little. If a young child can be happy with a bottle of fresh water, why do I need another pair of shoes to be happy?
Lent—indeed, any “sacrifice” that is a part of our faith—is too often viewed as a negative, a burden, a struggle. Giving up some of your personal time to volunteer to help others. Giving up part of your income to support the ministries of the church. And of course, giving up something you like a lot for Lent like these adorable patent-leather red heels I saw at Macy’s.
But here’s the great catch: some of the greatest blessings we experience come when we get ourselves out of the way. It’s as if we need to “deny” ourselves what we think we need in order to make room for what we really need: a simpler life; the joy that comes from serving; a sense of independence in knowing we can live without buttered popcorn, People magazine or trendy footwear.
Throughout His ministry, Jesus called us to invest in others—visit the sick, feed the hungry, clothe the poor—not to accumulate more stuff. With this direction comes the blessing of focusing less on ourselves and more on others. The self-denial we take part in becomes self-affirming and, hopefully, even transforming. Isn’t that one of the beauties of Lent—opening ourselves up to the Lord’s grace to better our lives?
One less shoe at a time.
February 2010
The call went out to my group of friends. Gail needed our help. Recently separated from her husband with
two young kids in tow she was overwhelmed on how to keep up with the yard work that came with her two-acre country dream house. Within hours ten women ranging in age from 26-65 came armed with rakes and weedwackers, and most importantly, lots of chocolate. Less than a year earlier we hadn’t even known each
other but a women’s retreat held at our parish bonded us together as a
community.
I am reminded of this “drop everything and help” approach and on how ingrained it is as a part of our faith. Service is an integral part of our Catholic DNA. We don’t sit around and talk about it, we just do it. As a young child I remember plunking my pennies into my own cardboard Rice Bowl fascinated by the knowledge that a few cents a day would feed a family in a far away country. As a high schooler I joined with my peers to canvas neighborhoods for canned goods for our Catholic high school’s annual thanksgiving basket drive.
And
while my avid childhood Rice Bowl participation was motivated in part by sibling competition, and my high school service wasn’t all together altruistic as it was to conveniently hang out with the cute guy from science class, it left its mark on me as an adult the desire to help is still ingrained deep within me and is inseparable from my faith.
One of the many perks of visiting the parishes around the diocese is to witness the gleam in peoples’ eyes and the genuine pride as parishioners talk about their parishes’ outreach programs. The food pantry in Coldwater begun by St. Charles Borromeo and now a pride of the entire community; the thanksgiving baskets assembled and distributed at St. John’s in Albion that have increased in number over the last 25 years; the Sunday suppers offered at St. Philip’s in Battle Creek for anyone in the community; the fundraising spaghetti suppers at St. Cyril in Nashville to aid a seriously ailing toddler. And the list goes on and on.
As my heart shattered at the tragic devastation of Haiti it was also pieced back together through hope at the news of countless acts of selflessness and sacrifice: from rescue workers risking their own well-being to save lives to elementary school children digging in their own pockets for pennies to offer help. Reflecting on the often-quoted verse from Acts of the Apostles 20:35: ‘There is more happiness in giving than receiving’, in his 2003 Lenten message Pope John Paul II said, “The inclination to give is rooted in the depths of the human heart: every person is conscious of a desire to interact with others and everyone finds fulfillment in a free gift of self to others... When believers respond to the inner impulse to give themselves to others without expecting anything in return, they experience a profound interior satisfaction.”
A friend once said that perhaps one of the positive outcomes of natural disasters was the opportunity it provided for us all to do as Jesus commanded: love one another. Every day, in countless ways, many around our diocese are doing just that.
December 2009 /January 2010
I’m pretty good at waiting. I waited 17 years for my older sister to move out so I could finally have my own room—only to leave home less than a year for college but boy did I savor those months. Once I waited six hours on a plane stranded on the runway and used that opportunity to finish two novels. Those times of waiting weren’t too bad but admittedly there were the harder waits — like being with my son when he was only a year old and in the hospital with bronchitis and waiting by his bedside while he received breathing treatments. Or staying scrunched up on a little pullout chair in my daughter’s hospital room for three days after a bad fall left her with a fractured skull.
Waiting is good for me because it ultimately leads me to a place of calmness despite what’s going on around me. [Ok, maybe not during the 17 year wait for my own room but during the other definitely during the other times when I’ve had to wait.] To paraphrase the Serenity Prayer, I am able to slow myself down and let go of that which I don’t control and focus on that which I can. In most of my times of waiting I’m able to set my sights on the positive outcome ahead. That’s what allows us to endure the wait — the hope that something good is coming.
This ability to be calm as we wait is not a skill that comes naturally to us but something we learn from experience. As a child, waiting seemed like torture and no time of the year was harder to wait than during the days leading up to Christmas. Each day my brothers and sisters and I would hurriedly tear off the little paper window from the Advent calendar, fighting over the little chocolates and making elaborate guesses at what lay under the Christmas tree.
While I can admit to missing some of that childlike wonderment at the holiday, that wonderment has been replaced with something better — a richer understanding of the Advent season. We celebrate not just the birth of our Lord and Savior but also prepare and celebrate the time for His return. We hear the hope of a new life in Christ echoed in the readings at Mass and in the hymns and Christmas Carols.
And so during Advent, we wait. We hope. We know who arrived at Christmas. And even better, we know what’s yet to come.
