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Dancing in the Kitchen

Yesterday was Mothers’ Day so in my house, it means generally leaving mom alone. Let her rest, watch whatever she wants. Or, as I joked with my siblings, we leave her alone so she can catch up on laundry.

I know. I am hilarious.

My children took it to the extreme and hardly even mentioned Mothers’ Day. Still, we had a nice time visiting Aunt B in her rehab unit/assisted living, watching television, and generally doing nothing. Dinner of steak and chicken, brussel sprouts and cauliflower, along with twice baked potatoes wrapped up the day.

While doing dishes, Ace Number One and I started listening to music. First Carbon Leaf, then John Denver, then Dave Matthews. As we danced around the kitchen, it occurred to me that it has been a while since that happened. Between work and the loss of my mom in December, the treadmill we are on with Aunt B, and four teenagers, the dancing seems to have waned.

It was good to spend time outdoors, planting new flowers with my youngest. It was good to sit and watch the same episode we’ve seen a hundred times of the crime show the second oldest one likes. And it was good to hear from child number three about his art project, chosen to represent the school system in the local art show.

But as I went to bed last night, it was the dancing that made my heart sing. There is just something about blissfully moving around with the music and the freedom of dancing with such abandonment with the people you love the most.

This week, I will intentionally find those opportunities to dance some more, no matter what the roller coaster of life brings our way.

pjd

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Amen

Mom died shortly after last week’s post was published. My eldest sister texted a question and because I was driving, I returned the text via phone call. The answer she was looking for was irrelevant and she said very simply that mom was gone.

“Good,” I said, as Maureen took my hand and started to cry.

After what I had witnessed the previous 72 or so hours, I was relieved. The pain had ceased, the screaming had turned to silence. She was, at last, at peace.

The last week has been an emotional one but I am still waiting for that breakdown; the flood of tears, the ache in my heart, the agony that comes from the loss of a parent. Mostly, I have been overwhelmed by shame and guilt for the way I let mom be treated these last several years. The reality is that my younger sister is troubled. Her behavior is not rational. She is dishonest and manipulative to a point that is almost comical – if the repercussions were not so serious.

And I didn’t do anything about it.

Sure, I discussed it with my siblings. We texted one another about our frustrations. We shook our heads and wrung our hands. We would take turns challenging her and calling her to account, only to have our lives threatened, our children ridiculed, and (in my case) being told I was banned from the facility where she had warehoused mom among the demented and inept. She had held mom hostage – emotionally, spiritually, and physically – and I rationalized that my hands were tied because mom had chosen her as power of attorney.

So there are two kinds of mourning going on – one for a mother I loved, who raised me and challenged me and supported me. Another for a sibling I surrendered to and in whose presence I hope to never find myself. Someday I will be able to separate the two but for now one loss taints the other and I find my anger focused on my own lack of action.

Life is complicated.

Years ago, when I was in the Holy Land, at a hotel in Bethlehem, I was on the phone with my mother. I was about thirty, unmarried, and calling to check in and share a bit of the journey with her. Suddenly, the power in the whole town went out and sirens blared. Knowing just enough to be scared, I crouched down in the phone booth and relayed what was happening to my mom, thousands of miles away.

“Really?” She said, “The power is out…” Then a pause. “It’s fine here,” she said, suddenly oblivious to the miles and the ocean that separated us.

That simple phrase, “It’s fine here” became our rallying cry for the rest of the trip. Twenty years later, friends still quote it to me.

In the stillness of the morning, sitting here all alone, I imagine that’s what mom would say right now. Forget the guilt. Forget the past. Forget the pain that comes from knowing you probably couldn’t have done anything without permanently fracturing the family. Forget it all. Just remember the love, that she tried her best as a parent and, when appropriate, as a friend. Wherever she is, the response would be the same, settling my nerves and reminding me once again…

“It’s fine here.”

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Ave Maria

There is a day off coming in the middle of this week. The offices will close as we pause during Advent to celebrate Mary’s Immaculate Conception.

I cannot help but think of my own mother whenever there is a Marian feast. She was not immaculately conceived and the older I get, the more realized how complicated she really was. As dementia takes over and her body fails, I will travel 700 miles or so this week to say goodbye. It will be good to be alone in the car. It will be good to see my sisters. It will be good to hold her hand and thank her for doing the best she could.

Mary taught Jesus how to pray. My mother taught us that God was often subtle. Her daily ritual of “Good night. God bless” was as much of an overt prayer as she offered. Her “be careful,” every time you left the house was as much an admonition as a prayerful plea. She once told me she feared something would happen if she didn’t utter those words before we left the house – especially when we started driving.

Mary taught others to do whatever Jesus told them. My mother had a bit of a different take on that. She ruled by fear and you did whatever she told you or you incurred her wrath. I grew up in a physical household and it’s likely one of the reasons I hardly ever touched my children when disciplining them as toddlers.

Still, my mother was generous to a fault. She spent money she didn’t have on things we wanted but didn’t need. Year after year, she allowed her children to invite youth groups, sororities, fraternities, friends, and families to our house and our giant pool and enormous backyard.

You think more about your own parents when you are a parent and I imagine I will soften my own opinions when the phone call comes and mom is gone. The time since dad died has not been easy and is colored by the dynamics of a family that struggles to love each other and a little sister that makes everything messy.

Today, however, I am torn between the memories of the mother I had and the idealized version of the mother I wanted.

Life is complicated. Love is messy.

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A Night at the Symphony

Someone gave our son tickets to see the Bridgeport Symphony play Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony on Saturday night (at the same time Notre Dame was playing). My wife and I flipped for it. She won, so I went. 

I’ll be honest. I like classical music, but I really wanted to watch the game. Maureen left yesterday for her first extended trip in nearly two years and there is just something about a night at home.

The seats were in the second row. My son’s cello teacher had received them as comps and she has little ones for whom the evening would be too long. His orchestra teacher from school plays alongside his cello teacher, so we were in the line of sight for both of these talents. Note to self: don’t fall asleep.

I had forgotten what it’s like to sit next to a child who is totally enraptured in something. I had forgotten how music well played can lift you up and carry you away. I even forgot to check the score of the game on my phone. Let’s be clear – these folks can play. 

If you’ve not taken the time to listen to the full symphony, download it and turn it up. Written in a time when the world was a depressing place for the composer, when anxiety was high as a leader failed to serve the people, the orchestration is written to reflect the trying times in which Beethoven found himself. While we are all familiar with the opening notes, few of us have ever listened all the way through – to the triumph, the pageantry, the mystery, and hope that the composer finds in the end. 

As we walked to the car, I couldn’t help thinking what a gift the evening had been. Not just because I got to spend it with my son, but because it had challenged me to stand still and listen – and it gave me hope for all that still stands before us. 

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This Place Is A Mess

Sometimes I like to look around the house and think about being dead.

I don’t mean in a suicidal way or anything of the sort. I mean looking around and wondering, “What will happen to that?” or “Will anyone want that?” or even, “I wonder how long it will take to throw that away.”

When someone dies, I find that there are two reactions when it comes to the stuff that’s left behind. Either the person or persons left let virtually no time go by and begin almost immediately throwing out, donating, selling, or otherwise giving away the collection of things the now-dead person once possessed.

The other reaction is that nothing happens. Nothing is moved. Nothing is donated. Eventually, the items become part of the house, absorbed into the everyday.

Every so often, I look around and just start pitching stuff. The thought of someone having to go through my desk, decipher my notes, looking at the nonsense I have kept makes me crazy. What a waste of time I think that would be for someone. There are days I want to live more simply – give me some books and a nice chair – and a computer – and printer – and some good pens – and a blanket. Here we go again.

When I was growing up, I remember my mom saying that if we had not used something in a year, it was no longer ours. We had to go through the closets and give things away. I dare say it was one of her finer moments that has stayed with me into adulthood.

There is too much stuff cluttering the house. The same could be said for my mind. Time to declutter.

Time to throw away.

Time to let go.

Before the winter cold sets in and now that we are through the heat of the summer, it’s time to clean the closets, give away the furniture, slim down the closets, and fill the van with donations.

Now… how to do that with my head.

 

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The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

It’s back to school time!!

After a non-summer summer, with no vacation and days that slipped by too quickly, the bus pulls out this morning at 7:20 am.

And moms and dads everywhere rejoice. It’s not that we do not love our children, but it will be nice for them to be away, for the house to be quiet, and for them to get back to some semblance of normal (whatever that is).

And so we pray….

Master and Teacher,

Bless our bus drivers and crossing guards. .

Bless our Google classrooms and those who still must be on Zoom.

Bless those who are vaccinated and those who struggle to decide. (Give those undecided folks a push, O Lord, and wings to get to the doctor.)

Bless those children who struggle to keep the mask on, trying so hard to stay even three feet apart from friends they have missed so much.

Bless our teachers who have worked so hard for so long, those who yearn to embrace their students and those who will face the challenge of keeping their charges safe and healthy.

Bless our school nurses, who guide those who are not well away from others, trying to discern the difference between a common cold and a deadly virus.

Bless our little ones entering school for the first time in this reality that changes every day. Give them the wisdom to comprehend the need to stay angel wings apart from their friends.

Bless those who are new in our schools – students and teachers alike – trying to find the right classroom, the right locker, the right books, and the right attitude.

Bless those extroverts among us who long to sing and talk and have for so long been stuck indoors.

And bless those introverts who wish they were still inside.

Bless us all with compassion, that we may root for the underdog, celebrate those who accomplish much, and pray fervently for each other.

Bless us with an environment free from bullying, needless competition, and petty jealousy.

Help us, Lord, to fall in love with learning, be it online, in person, or a little bit of both.

And we beg you, Lord, to bring these children and teachers safely home at the end of the day, the week, or the semester. Keep them free from violence and viruses – at home and at school – on the bus and on the streets – and guide them home to the waiting arms of those who loved them first.

Finally, Lord, we beg for an end to the pandemic that has cost so many so much.

We make this prayer through Christ our Lord: teacher, servant, and source of all hope.

Amen.

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Lessons From Saints

This week, we celebrate two great saints: St. John Fisher and St. Thomas More.

John Fisher was a bishop who refused to recognize the king of England, Henry VIII, as the supreme head of the church in England. He was executed on orders of the king, who could not stand being embarrassed by those whose reputations as a theologian and scholar were greater than his own reputation as ruler.

We celebrate Bishop Fisher that same day we celebrate my favorite saint, Thomas More. Also executed for his refusal to recognize the king over the pope as head of the church, More was the Lord Chancellor of England, whose final days are recounted in Robert Bolt’s play, A Man For All Seasons. I read that play every summer and taught it when I was a junior high teacher and, again, more recently, in a class I taught at a local university. At the end of the play, More stands on the dais, about the lose his head for following his conscience and says, (at least in the play), “I have been commanded by the king to be brief, so brief I will be. I die here the king’s good servant, but God’s first.”

More and Fisher served the king well. When the king didn’t get what he wanted, he changes the rules. People still do that, don’t they?

The world doesn’t have enough people willing to be “God’s first” – not Republicans first, not Democrats first, not liberals or conservatives, or ultra-anything, not watchers of news from one side or the other, but true, honest to goodness folks, willing to stand up and be “God’s first.”

Because if we are judged on how we treat the one another, some of us might be in real trouble. Yes, me included.

This week, let us work hard to be “God’s first.”

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Rest

In Wayne Muller’s book Sabbath, the author reminds us that rest is not optional; it is a command. In the Ten Commandments, we are commanded to keep holy the Sabbath, and for a faithful Jew, that meant resting from work. The busyness of our lives can become like a violence in our midst, forcing us to work day and night, respond to emails at all hours, and work tirelessly to “get the job done.”

When we live without listening to the timing of things, when we live and work in twenty-four-hour shifts without rest – we are on war time, mobilized for battle. Yes, we are strong and capable people, we can work without stopping, faster and faster, electric lights making artificial day so the whole machine can labor without ceasing. But remember: No living thing lives like this. There are greater rhythms, seasons and hormonal cycles and sunsets and moonrises and great movements of seas and stars. We are part of the creation story, subject to all its laws and rhythms.

This week, let us make a conscious effort to rest. It’s been a crazy year and a half and our bodies and minds will function much more effectively if we take time this summer to unplug, recharge, step back, and rest.

Now if only I could follow that advice…

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The Visitation

My wife is amazing. Anyone who knows her knows this. I married up in every sense of the word (except height). When she was pregnant with each of our children, I saw her do things that would have us mere men falter: manage the safe release of more than twenty thousand high school students from an arena, facilitate meetings with adults who behave like children, work full time, cook, clean, and wrangle our own children all by herself while I am an ocean away.

Yes, she is amazing. Pregnant or not. Women are amazing. We men should know that, respect that, honor that, and always remember that.

Even with all of this amazing-ness, all of it pales in comparison to what we read about in today’s Gospel. In Luke, chapter one, Mary sets out in haste. Having just learned she will be the mother of her Lord, an unwed mother at that, she thinks not of herself, but of her cousin whom she has learned is now with child. She must go help. There is no choice. She must head out in haste.

Having been to the Holy Land and having made the journey Mary made (in an afternoon, in a van), I am drawn into that story. We celebrate the Annunciation in March, the Visitation in May, and the birth of Christ at Christmas. It fits nicely with our modern-day calendar, but let’s imagine for a moment that it actually lines up with history. Mary receives a visit from the angel, to which she gives hers fiat, her “yes” to God. Then, hearing that Elizabeth, a cousin presumably, is with child, she forgets her own needs and heads out – in haste! For the next sixty or so days, she hikes her way up and down hills, through the valley of villages, across very dry land, traversing rocks, heat, and discomfort as she goes – all so she can be of service to someone else. The short van ride we made in air conditioning took her two months – though my hunch is that she probably would have stopped to help anyone else she saw in need. Still, I haven’t done anything “in haste” in some time and that line reminds us of Mary’s single-mindedness. Elizabeth is first. May is second. It’s clear she was teaching Jesus from the get-go.

Once again, we turn to Ruth Mary Fox and her wonderful poem about this event. Let each of us commit to going “in haste” to someone in need this week. Let us bring Christ to others so they, too, may leap for joy.

Into the hillside country Mary went
Carrying Christ.
And all along the road the Christ she carried
Generously bestowed his grace on those she met.
But she had not meant to tell she carried Christ
She was content to hide his love for her.
But about her glowed such joy that into stony hearts
Love flowed
And even to the unborn John, Christ’s love was sent.

Christ, in the sacrament of love each day, dwells in my soul
A little space.
And then as I walk life’s crowded highways
Jostling men who seldom think of God
To these, I pray, that I may carry Christ
For it may be
Some may not know of him
Except through me.

Have a wonderful week.

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Back to Work

Just when we have this whole Zoom thing figured out and our home office is neat and clean, it’s time to return to the office.

At least for me. Maureen’s never left her office.

How, I keep asking, with so many things cancelled, can I still be so busy? I am caught between being so grateful that we both have jobs and the strong desire to blow it all off and go for a walk in the middle of the day.

The office will reopen officially in a few weeks and the working from home will slowly subside. I will have to move the papers and files and books from the attic office and dump them back on my “real” desk.

I will take a look at the folders and papers around the office and wonder to myself, “If I haven’t touched them in 15 months, can I just throw them out?”

I will see colleagues I haven’t seen in ages, which is mostly good.

I will take a break from my weekly filming of Mass and return with the family to attend on a regular basis.

Most of all, I will have to find pants that fit.

You see, one thing we all figured out working from home is that you can wear the same sweatpants for a week and just change the top – or not – while you are Zooming across the hemisphere. There are clothes in my closet I have not worn in more than a year, even if I have been going in to the office, on average, once a week.

I have seriously considered wearing a uniform like that rich kid from the Facebook or the guy from Apple, but my ego won’t let me wear the same things over and over. To be fair, I am not sure that’s what they do exactly, but you get the point.

The children are mostly back in school (one in quarantine because a classmate’s parents let their kid go to a party) – and just as they will be released for the summer, I will head back to work.

It will be a nice change of pace, but I know that it will not be the same when I cannot turn off the camera, go grab a snack, and wear clothes that don’t match.

Have a good week – at home, at work – or wherever you are.