Remember me, Mom.

When you remember me, it means that you have carried something of who I am with you, that I have left some mark of who I am on who you are. It means that you can summon me back to your mind even though countless years and miles may stand between us. It means that if we meet again, you will know me. It means that even after I die, you can still see my face and hear my voice and speak to me in your heart.
For as long as you remember me. I am never entirely lost. When I'm feeling most ghost-like, it's your remembering me that helps remind me that I actually exist. When I'm feeling sad, it's my consolation. When I'm feeling happy, it's part of why I feel that way.
If you forget me, one of the ways I remember who I am will be gone. If you forget me, part of who I am will be gone.
"Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom," the good thief said from his cross (Luke 23:42). There are perhaps no more human words in all of the Scripture, no prayer we can pray so well. (Frederick Buechner from Whispering in the Dark)

My mom, Genevieve Carpenter, passed away yesterday, quietly and peacefully and I will miss her terribly but I will always remember.

School Days and Empty Nests

For the first time in forty-nine years I will not be going to school this September. I always loved the idea of school and I was always fine once I arrived, but for forty-nine years I pretty much had a stomach ache every morning, and for the life of me I never knew why. People ask me if I'll miss going in everyday but I really don't think I will. Of course, I do miss the idea of not being with the kids - they were always my raison d'etre. But for the most part I am glad to be free of schedules and to be available to my family in any way they may need me. As September approaches I look forward to being involved in life in new ways - wherever life's twists and turns will take me.

And for all those parents who drop off their last (or only) of their children at college, my heart and prayers go out to you. For me that moment of driving away from our youngest after leaving him off at college was the most heart-wrenching event. My husband and I felt like two goobers sobbing in the parking lot of the university. The sadness of it all was overwhelming, and our poor son just didn't get why we were so emotional. But for those of you who've been through this, and are going through this, you know exactly what I mean. Does it get better? Overtime it definitely gets easier but the empty nest really feels lousy for a while. In time your relationship with this child changes in a good way, and you can once again relive the fun childhood memories without tears. In the meantime, cry all you want after the drop-off and when you get home .Cry it all out and try to avoid too much contact for the first thirty days. My son is a senior now and I only cry after he pulls out of the driveway to head back off to school. I don't know but I think tears are good once in a while. We cry because we love them so much and they have brought such great joy to our lives and that's a good thing. My husband and I are now at the point where we can enjoy all our children (four) for the wonderful adults they have become. Life is good.

Now for a quote from C.S. Lewis - " To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket - safe, dark, motionless, airless - it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all dangers and perturbations of love is Hell".

Spiritual Malaise

Ever wonder why some people's faith is so strong that it never waivers no matter what? I wish that I could have that same kind of faith. Sometimes it is just so hard not to lose hope that things within the American Catholic church will change. How can we as lay people continue to be so powerless in the face of such blatant disregard by the hierarchy of the American Catholic church to the needs of its people. The recent sex abuse scandal is only the tip of the iceberg in my opinion. I believe that the cardinals and bishops continue to play the good "ole" boys game but in new and more clandestine ways. Somehow American Catholics have to unite and take back our Church. No more can the hierarchy rest their laurels on the pray, pay and obey nomenclature of the past. We need to upend this unholy hierarchy by hurting them where it matters most - in their pocketbooks. It seems to me, especially in my Diocese, that the Bishop is more concerned about saving money then saving souls. All his decisions regarding parochial school closings and merges, Church closings and merges, laying off of teachers, and mandated retirements of priests, are based on financial advice of a company he hired to help him accumulate more money. What about accumulating more souls? I want so desperately to find those good Catholic priests and bishops that I know are out there and join with them and restore our Church back to being what Jesus called it to be. I wonder if we can even muster up enough interest in the people anymore. So many are just apathetic to how affairs of the Church are conducted. So many have become savvy consumers of Catholicism - shopping for the Church that temporarily meets their family and work schedules. Their Church has become a place where they can drive by and pick up a sacramental rite now and then thus allowing them to keep up the appearances of remaining within the Catholic subculture. There is also the consumer savvy hierarchy (Bishops and Cardinals) who take full advantage of this apathy - hence their power and control over all the finances (money that continues to come from the people they so carelessly shepherd). The state of the American Catholic Church is in a bad way. What does one do when no solace can be found in one's home parish? My parish has been recently reduced to a foul display of Machiavelli tactics by parishioners trying to vie for key positions with the newly appointed pastor who seems more interested in refurbishing the rectory than attending to the spiritual needs of the parish. Friends tell me to just abandon ship and go seek out another parish that is spiritually healthy. Somehow that just seems too easy. What about the home parish I leave behind?

While I was away . . .

Vacations are such a treat especially when you get to see your new grandson baptized along the ocean at sunset. As I gathered with several generations to welcome this new little one into the life of God and the Church I experienced God's presence all around me - heaven's touch in the wind against our faces, heaven's music in the crashing waves, heaven's scent in the mustiness of sand and shells, heaven's taste in the saltiness of the beach mist, and heaven's visual promise in the faces of parents, godparents, big sister, and baby. Yes, this was definitely one of those "in the moment" epiphanies for me. I used to tell my students in catechism class that these are what we call "aha" moments - when we truly experience the wonder and awe of God's presence. Emily Dickinson certainly describes this moment better than I:

"Eden is that old-fashioned house

We dwell in every day

Without suspecting our abode

Until we drive away."

from The Single Hound

Away on break

Be back August 13th.

Patience

There is a great website at www.gratefulness.org which allows you to sign up for a daily email message. Many wonderful thought provoking quotes are sent and one I received on July 30th went like this:

Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word happy would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness. It is far better to take things as they come along with patience and equanimity.

Carl Jung

Right now my parish is indeed going through a measure of darkness as we adjust to a new pastor. Last night the new pastor met with four of our twelve parish's catechetical teachers, me being one of them. The other eight were smart not to attend. As a child with one foot in pre-Vatican II and another in post-Vatican II, I was raised to respect priests and revere them as men following a higher calling. Even though I know that each priest is first a man, and therefore susceptible to the same human foibles as the rest of us, I was amazed at how much disrespect this particular priest felt he could place on the laity, especially females, which all four catechists were last evening. It seemed as though he was not listening to our concerns and questioned us and the past practices under our former pastor as if we were all doing things terribly wrong. His manner was abrupt, his thinking was disorganized, and his criticisms were personal and hurtful. So, what do I do? It was my intention to go last night as support for the woman who will be the new Director of Religious Education. I also told this new pastor that it was not my intention to teach this school year as I was in transition from full time employment to retirement in order to refocus my life on family and avocational interests. He told me I might as well go stand in the road and let myself get run over by a car as retiring so young is suicidal anyway. This from a priest!!! Am I just not getting his style of interaction? Did he want to ask me to stay on as a catechist but go about it in a completely discourteous way? I am feeling very confused right now and entering into a measure of darkness. I pray for patience and insight to follow what God wants me to do.

Wednesday's Child