It’s a beat-up world and we’re living in it.

My husband and my marriage and that of our parents’ is what has dressed our children’s view of marriage. Television probably stitched and patched up the rest, which is a shame, but that’s not what I want to focus on.

It’s a beat-up world and I know that the rest of the world’s marriages are dressed in many sizes, shapes, and frames simply because there are so many of us out there who were created in so many different sizes, shapes, and frameworks. It just stands to reason.

But, despite the differences in families, the sacredness of marriage is something I think is so beautiful and blessed that I wanted to succeed at defining my marriage even if I failed at everything else. I can’t depend on or trust that the rest of society will define it for me.

Marriage does not a wedding make. Marriage is not a one-day act, but a lifetime of Dos. Marriage is not simple something you do, but something you are.

Marriage should define one because the two become one.

Some modern day people would snub at this and I hear the dry advice, “Get a life.”

This is my life. Sorry, modern world, but my marriage does define me. And to see other marriages fail so much in today’s world reassures me that what my husband and I have done and what our parents did before us is not something contrite. It’s serious business.

All I have to do is click on today’s social media to see that we are living a battle that attempts to defeat and crunch and grind the very sacredness my husband and I believe to be the thing that defined generations of our family before us, continued to define us these past 26+ years, and will, hopefully, define the landscape of my grandchildren.

I’m not here to tell people how to live. I tend not to preach. People rebel against preaching. I’d rather people find out I’m Catholic after I’m dead. Sounds rather O’Conner-y and I probably read something by her that provoked that comment. But I won’t preach. I am here to show people that a good marriage is possible. That family life is a valuable resource. That peaceful living is worthwhile. If they make a different choice there is little I can say to change that, but please allow me the courtesy and respect to live my life adorned in a life that endorses its Creator and sings His praises.

Not long ago I ran into a childhood friend at the store. We grew up together when our older siblings attended Catholic school and we were still in potty-training school. We both married a month apart and had our children back-to-back. She is godmother to my oldest daughter and I am godmother to her oldest daughter. She sponsored me on my Cursillo. We not only grew up together, our lives have crossed paths and twined through life’s motions and ceremonies together.

Sheila and I met in the milk aisle on the eve of our silver wedding anniversaries and where two of us were gathered in His name. Our oldest children were venturing out into life; life congested with its burdens and blessings, its pains and praises, its hurts and healings. And we talked and talked. Milky condensation dripped with words full of worry.

I don’t remember the whole conversation but one thing stands out and I Moby-wrapped it in an attempt to carry it close to my heart always. I made the common comment of how necessary it was to keep all our growing children close in prayer, consecrated to Christ, dependent on His mercy. And the Holy Spirit dropped upon my friend and spoke Truth through her, “Not only pray for them and their future marriages, but pray for our marriages as well. We can never stop praying for our marriages.”

The sanctity of marriage needs many, so many, prayers. Prayers for those planning to wed. Prayers for those of us already married. Prayers even for those of us whose marriages have been measured in silver (25 years) and gold (50 years).

Prayers can never end. That’s where ideal meets reality.

The Church gives us the ideal. Society says it doesn’t exist. The reality is never the ideal yet the Church is the only thing in this world that even tells us the ideal is possible. The Church tells us this while holding up the crucifix. It repeatedly holds up the crucifix and admits that YES! life can be full of suffering. YES! life can be a sacrifice. The Church that looks life straight in the ugliness and glorifies suffering and sacrifice. No wonder people run for the hills.

But the Church also offers us hope and vision and an answer to resurrect and redeem the ugliness of the crucifixes in our daily lives. It shines a Light on the crucifix and says YES! there is something else to this. YES! there is an ideal to strive for. YES! there is redemption found in the quake of this ugliness and suffering.

We cannot have the Resurrection without the Cross. We cannot look away. Marriage is redemptive that way. We have to clean up the messes our sins make of life. Marriage is our chance to live the Paschal Mystery renewed every day of our lives in prayer. In constant prayer.

I am joining the Sistas by praying 40 Days for Sacred Matrimony, will you join us?

May 1st to June 9th

Copyright 2013 Cay Gibson 

From the time we are small we offer up candy and ice cream during the season of Lent in the hopes of making ourselves better. We do it because our mom and dad tells us it will make us better. Better people. Better Christians. Less selfish. All Lent long we do penance and alms-giving and sacrificial offerings in hope of transforming our spiritual beings into something worthy of Christ’s sacrifice.

We look down at our penitential selves to see if our wool is whiter? brighter? purer? since the start of this Lenten journey? Are we worthy of His forgiveness and sacrifice?

We find ourselves unchanged; we are still the same ol’ wolf in sheep’s skin that started on the journey with Christ. We promised not to eat the lamb, but the temptation was a scent away every-single-step-of-the-way.

I’ll be honest. I usually feel worse at the end of Lent. Like a young child, I’m dying of thirst for the cola or the chocolate milk I gave up. I’m not happy with my performance. I’m discouraged that what I did wasn’t good enough. I’m not satisfied with my resolve. The Lenten season is not even finished and I’m already thinking of what I can do differently next Lent. What can I do bigger and better? I count the times I broke our family’s fast of not eating out and remember the filet o’ fish sandwiches eaten in guilty solitude. I’m a pathetic being. My lamb’s skin is soiled and stained from the long, hard walk to Calvary.

And, beneath my penitent outer layer I am still a wolf. A selfish, judgmental wolf seeking her own satisfaction.

What began with good will and bright expectations such as attending Stations of the Cross every Friday has collapsed into moans of repetition and boredom from the children. This leads me to become impatient and annoyed. I snap at the gentle, innocent lambs that leap around me.

Yet, they are the true lambs. They do not hide their real self. They are proud of their little sacrifices and their little penances and their little offerings. They await Lent’s end with joy, knowing that their little palancas are enough for God. They don’t fret, because they have faith.

Faith in God’s mercy. Faith in God’s forgiveness. Faith in God’s unconditional love. Faith in the wolf in sheep’s clothing who guides them up the hill to Calvary.

We often feel incomplete as Christians, unsatisfied with our performance, unworthy of the unconditional love God has for us, guilty for the sacrifice He offered for us. At least I do. We see ourselves for what we really are: weak, human, sinful, imperfect, raw.

Yet, as we remove the fake sheep skin, we realize we are neither a sheep nor a wolf. God does not focus on our weak nature. He sees beneath our natural weakness, He looks past the fake skin we drape over ourselves when standing before family and friends. He looks only at our souls, that unmistakable image of Himself, that is washed clean by the blood of the lamb because the Lamb is all gentle and all innocent and all loving and all pure.

By journey’s end the wolf, like the lion of old, is contrite and humbled and, released of his outer layers, he lies peacefully with the lamb.

Copyright 2013 Cay Gibson

A Mother’s Lent

Late one night as I rode with my friend and our children to and from a basketball game, we talked. And talked. And talked.

Surprisingly it was a quiet ride.  Very conducive to talking and sharing with a friend.  Chelsea and her little friend kept the baby happy with cookies, a water bottle, and a furry bear toy. The older ones were plugged into their Ipods.

One of the things we discussed was Lent.  What were we doing?  How was it going? What could we do better?  Why were we doing what we were doing?  Well, that was my end of the conversation and most of it, I will admit, was my “ideal” of Lent.  I was honest with my friend over my failings and discouragement.  She was sympathetic and understanding.

Then I turned the table and asked her to lay-out her Lenten intents.  She paused, then smiled and meekly answered.  “I don’t have any.”  This was the family who had offered up Masses and rosaries and sweets and many, many prayers for all their friends during Advent.  I remembered that our special day of prayer and remembrance was marked December 13th on our Christmas card.  The feast of St. Lucy.  I remember that because even their youngest, little Lucy, offered up a sign of the cross before the Nativity for all the Gibsons.  We all thought that was just too precious.

My friend went on to explain how much she loved going to daily Mass and saying the rosary at church with her oldest daughter during Advent.  “I could go to church every single day,” she confided to me.  “I love going to Mass. But I realized this Lent that I simply cannot take on another thing.  I’m doing all I can.  I have to trust that I am and that that is enough. One day I’ll be able to go to daily Mass and pray the rosary without interruptions or racing home to get breakfast for five children and start lessons. That time isn’t now. This Lent I’m trying to worry less, complain less…just do less.  I’ve prayed about it and I don’t think God wants me to take on any more.”

This conversation gave me much food for thought.

Doing less for Lent.  Not taking on anything more.  Not worrying about extra prayers.  Not doing extra penance.  Not subjecting the family to another out-of-the-house activity even if it is some “good” like the Stations of the Cross.  Not attempting to deny children their afternoon snacks.  Not even worrying about the family code of no eating out when you find yourself in a town on a cold, rainy night hours from home.

I had already told myself that I was going to take it a easy this Lent. As regards to penance, that is. I had to.  The start of Lent made me focus onkeeping everyone healthy this Lent. There was enough sacrifice and extra work there for two Lents.  Stations of Cross with tea candles around the sitting room table, spiritual reading each night, no meat on Fridays, and no eating out.  Very simple. Each of the children chose their own simple Lenten offerings as well:  no eating meat through Lent, an extra decade of the rosary at night, and two giving up all colas.

But taking it easy was far different from doing nothing at all.  That was a different perspective for me. I was mulling it over when, only a few days later, my friend Kathryn Muldrink posted this thought-provoking post:  Can a Mother Observe Lent?

We have a busy next couple of days.  I’ll leave you with her thoughts…and your own.

Prayers for a peace-filled Lent.

Copyright 2013 Cay Gibson

Simpler Expectations for the New Year

At the beginning of Christmas vacation, I was exhausted. Didn’t know it. Wouldn’t admit it. But I was really exhausted.

On the eve of “welcome-to-life-in-the-New-Year” I realized that no matter how much life has to offer and no matter how much of it is good and wonderful, there comes a time when you must step back.

I realized within these vacation weeks that almost everything I do is done because other people expect it of me. It’s not because I want to impress people. I don’t. It’s usually because if I don’t do something, I will be labeled under several tags I don’t care to be labeled under such as: lazy, useless, undisciplined, unmotivated, unproductive, etc.

Funny how that has been the motivation for me to “do”. By “doing” I mean, running in crazy spinning circles. I have fallen victim to the threat of the 21st century that tells me that I must have something planned every second-minute of every day.

Every year I say I will not do it. Every year I do it. I can blame no one else.

And yet, one good thing about keeping a blog is that it shows me that this is my life. After six years of blogging, I now know that this is my life and it isn’t going to change…much.

And so, again, on the eve of “welcome-to-life-in-the-New-Year” I’m realizing that it isn’t the doings that have me exhausted and weary but, rather, the expectations that come with this full life.

As of last year, I gave up those expectations of myself.

Giving up expectations (of ourselves and others) is so hard, isn’t it? We’re told all our life to be somebody. To do this, we inevitably have to set high expectations of ourselves and those around us. Or we fail.

Why are we always failing?

I’ve struggled with it. I’m sure others have. For every negative thing I hear someone say about someone else, I am silently thinking, “Goodness, they could say the same thing about me.”

That hurts.

We are always comparing ourselves, aren’t we? To those around us. To those related to us. To those who work with us. To those we teach. To those kneeling next to us in church.

And we will always see someone as better than ourselves and someone as lesser than ourselves. And who are we to sit and judge?

We see things that God does not see and He sees things that we do not see. We don’t need to look further than our own folded hands to know that we need the newborn Christ; neither do we need to look further than our loved ones’ eyes to know that we have the Resurrected Christ.

And I’ve realized that I can never live up to everyone’s expectations of me. I have been blessed beyond measure with the amount of family, friends, and associates God has entered into my life. Blessed abundantly! But, with blessings, comes expectations. I have realized that I am not up to the task of expectations.

Expectations drain me. Expectations cripple me. Expectations make me feel a failure.

I have recently heard myself giving out this advice in almost constant dialogue the past two months, “Set high expectations of yourself. Expect nothing from others, but accept graciously whatever they give. And count everything a blessing.”

I’ve got it texted, twittered, and pinged within my brain.

In an awakening, I realized I have been sharing these words (which I’m sure are pieced together from most of my spiritual reading of the saints this past year) with my friends and family in hopes that they will let go of any expectations they have of me. Without knowing it, it has been my silent cry for mercy.

I want to be able to give, to ministry, to care for, to console, to write, to teach, and to retreat without having that presence in the background say, “But you haven’t done enough for me.” There is always someone there, you know, lurking in the corners, saying you haven’t done enough, given enough time to, fed enough, forgiven enough, held enough…

When is our doing simply good enough?

We have to simply drop the expectations we have and that others have of us at the foot of the cross and have faith that He can purify and fulfill what is lacking in our offerings.

I now realize it isn’t the activities or the job or the homeschooling or the family life or my writing that burden me. In looking back over six years of blogging, I realize that everything has been a call from God. Nothing is done without His plan, His purpose, His provision.

There were years of homeschooling mightily. There were years of writing intensely. There were years of crafting at the table with little ones now grown older. There were even years prior to blogging when I was caring for an ailing father-in-law, years I thought would never end; now I see they were but a wink of time given from God to me.

It has not been the activities or the job or the homeschooling or the family life or my writing that burden me but, rather, the expectations that come with those positions.

Some people would disagree with me and say, “Well, you just need to stop doing all that if you don’t want people to expect things from you.”and my first reaction would be, will be, to give all up.

Because I can never live up to anyone else’s expectations. If I am doing what I feel led to do each day of my life simply because I think people expect it of me, I just as well not do any of it.

If they can be thankful for what I do and accept it graciously without higher expectations from me, than I know that they see God, not me, navigating the ship.

I do what I do in service to my family, to my church, and to God.

He reaps what I sow. With Him, any little thing I do is good enough. Anything else I do becomes too burdensome, too wearisome. The expectations are too heavy to bear.

Probably my own expectations of myself have been the most burdensome.

I see now that Scripture is so right on…and, in it, I have found my Scripture for the New Year:

Ecclesiastes (Chapter 3):

“There is an appointed time for everything, and a time for every affair under the heavens.
“A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to uproot the plant.
“A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to tear down, and a time to build.
“A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance.
“A time to scatter stones, and a time to gather them; a time to embrace, and a time to be far from embraces.
“A time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away.
“A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to be silent, and a time to speak.
“A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.
“What advantage has the worker from his toil?

“I have considered the task which God has appointed for men to be busied about.
“He has made everything appropriate to its time, and has put the timeless into their hearts, without men’s ever discovering, from beginning to end, the work which God has done.
“I recognized that there is nothing better than to be glad and to do well during life.
“For every man, moreover, to eat and drink and enjoy the fruit of all his labor is a gift of God.

“I recognized that whatever God does will endure forever; there is no adding to it, or taking from it. Thus has God done that he may be revered.
“What now is has already been; what is to be, already is; and God restores what would otherwise be displaced.
“And still under the sun in the judgment place I saw wickedness, and in the seat of justice, iniquity.

“And I said to myself, both the just and the wicked God will judge, since there is a time for every affair and on every work a judgment.
“I said to myself: As for the children of men, it is God’s way of testing them and of showing that they are in themselves like beasts.

“For the lot of man and of beast is one lot; the one dies as well as the other. Both have the same life-breath, and man has no advantage over the beast; but all is vanity.
“Both go to the same place; both were made from the dust, and to the dust they both return.

“Who knows if the life-breath of the children of men goes upward and the life-breath of beasts goes earthward?
“And I saw that there is nothing better for a man than to rejoice in his work; for this is his lot. Who will let him see what is to come after him?”

Nothing happens outside of God’s plan. More than ever I see the changing seasons in my life and how they revolve outside of my control but never outside of God’s. Yes, God has given us free will and many choices. Yes, He has given us the brains and wisdom to discern and make decisions. And, yes, most the time, He gives us control over these decisions and choices. Sometimes, though—such as the illness of a parent or child—we are at God’s mercy and everyone else’s it seems.

These are tests of faith.

Other times—the times we are in control (seemingly or otherwise)—are gifts of faith.

In 2013, give up having so many expectations of yourself. Ask family and friends to do the same; not to have any expectations of you, just to kindly accept what you can give. And to pray for you and your family.

Copyright 2013 Cay Gibson

The Is No Other Christmas

There are people who find it disturbing that others observe Christmas festivities before the actual feast day on December 25^th. They find it troublesome that others do not reverently observe the season of Advent in its true penitential somber. They guard against playing Christmas carols before Christmas Eve. They hesitate before going to parties of merriment. They are respectful of the holiness and reverent on the waiting.

While that is not necessarily a bad thing, I would suggest that they might need to look at their own heart’s issues with pride. (*) I would also suggest that Catholics, as a whole, not fall victim to guilt if they enthusiastically embrace the festivities of Christmas within the season of Advent. There is no room for guilt in the season of Advent as there is no lack of merriment while awaiting and preparing for the birth of a baby.

While I know that Advent is a penitential time of waiting and preparing as well as being known as the “Little Lent”, my experience of waiting on five births clues me in to the fact that it is very much okay to decorate and bake and party during the Advent season. It is, in fact, necessary! Perhaps it is the only way to observe Advent. Especially when we walk very closely to the one who carried that baby, prayed while pregnant with Him, and nourished Him until Christmas Day.

Let me give you an example.

We are all waiting on the birth of a very precious baby. We should prepare and do so with great hope, faith, and heart!

What does a mother do in that final month as she awaits the birth of her baby?

She cooks and freezes meals. She bakes. She nests. She cleans the house and washes the bedding. She decorates the nursery and anoints the house with fresh little touches. Family and/or friends gift her with a baby shower. She plays quiet nursery rhymes for the baby swimming in her womb.

What do we, as wives and mothers, do jointly in the month before this Christmas birth? We cook meals ahead of time. We bake abundantly. We nest and feather our homes. We clean the house and pull out the winter clothes to wash and make fresh our winter beds. We decorate the house lovingly and anoint the rooms with fresh touches. Yes, we even attend a few Christmas parties. And, yes, we play quiet Christmas carols as we dust the traditional spot for the nativity.

Is there really any difference in terms of preparation and anticipation?

This is the obvious rejoicing…the rejoicing we do before the birth, the rejoicing that says we trust in this new life and we are abundantly blessed with the anticipation of that birth.

It doesn’t mean that we are not reverently observing our own “Little Lent” even while cooking, baking, decorating, cleaning our homes, playing Christmas music, and attending Christmas parties during the season of Advent.

Preparation is a beautiful thing, a necessary thing, and a festive thing. It’s where community comes together.

The “littleness” of this season comes when we prayerfully consider our own spiritual lives and not the daily lives being lived around us. We are called to be in this world, not of it. This world will never give us the observance, rejoicing, celebration, reverence, or prayer that we believe this season is entitled. It never can. Something will always be lacking.

But we can find that little something within our hearts. That joy, that reverence can only be found within our hearts and it comes to fullness on Christmas Day. It’s a heart song between God and His creation.

In the silent times when I linger to pray, my Magnificat falls open on my lap before me and I read about the tradition of the Christmas Crib:

“His poverty enriches those who embrace it and Christmas brings joy and peace to those who, like the Shepherds in Bethlehem, accept the Angel’s words: ‘Let this be a sign to you: in a manger you will find an infant wrapped in swaddling clothes’ (Lk 2:12). This is still the sign for us too, men and women of the third millennium.
There is no other Christmas.”

~ Pope Benedict XVI

And that is our focus, that is our Christmas, that is the cause of our rejoicing.

After the birth, after the house fills with well-wishers and admirers, after the shouts of joy and congratulations have echoed through, after the gifts have been presented to the new babe and opened by his mother, after the joyful crowds of people visit and eat and hug around the family circle, after…

…after…

…comes rejoicing in its purest sense.

Quiet rejoicing.

The shepherds and our families withdraw from the well-light, well-known glow of light. The town turns off their Christmas lights.

The wise men bow low. Our friends leave their kindness.
The cows murmur low with heavy breasts. The stores empty.
Milk runs over. Eggnog is cleared off the store shelves.
The lambs fall asleep. The town falls asleep.
The Christmas bustle on the streets dissolves.
The mother is left alone with her newborn babe. We are left alone with our Savior beneath the lights of the tree.

This is our moment.

Most believe Christmas is over.
Our Church and its people know otherwise.
Christmas is just beginning.
There are twelve days of Christmas celebration, beginning on Christmas Day and continuing to the feast of the Epiphany, but the world seems to hush on December 26 and Christians, still wanting to rejoice, takes this offensively, as though the world has turned away from what is good and holy. Rejoicing should be loud and merry, full of exclamation points and pomp and commotion.

Or should it? Must it always?

We can still rejoice, but it is a quiet rejoicing. It’s the rejoicing known by mothers and fathers who have gazed shoulder to shoulder over the face of their newborn infant. We, as Christians, are left to gaze upon something good and holy; something that does not need bells and whistles and parties and pomp and commotion to herald its completion because…

…because it is complete. It is reverent awe.

The Holy Father tells us that in view of the infant in the manger:

“There is no other Christmas.”

Our rejoicing comes in fullness on Christmas Day. There is only us and our Savior.

There is no need for anything else. No more food, no more parties, no more festivities, no more decoration, no more presents.

“There is no other Christmas.”

There is only us and a manger and the stillness of poverty that lies in the aftermath of society’s commercialism and consumerism.

“There is no other Christmas.”

(*) Here I am not referencing the observation people have made on the consumerism attack of the holiday. Things that desecrate the true meaning of Christmas should be spoken out and guarded against…always.

Copyright 2012 Cay Gibson

Pumpkin of Thankfulness

As I await the pending birth of our family’s very first grand-pumpkin , I realize how much my family has to be thankful for this year. You just can’t beat the gift of life, especially in these days when death is a justified option.

Pumpkins remind us seedlessly of these bountiful blessings.

This little pumpkin of thanksgiving craft (link below) can easily be done as a craft this Thanksgiving Day by the younger family members or on long orange strips around the Thanksgiving table by everyone then quickly pasted together and placed at the center of the table.

It may consist of only one pumpkin, one table, one family, and one day of the year but the blessings, like the seeds we scooped out when carving our jack-o-lanterns, show the abundance of life our God has given us.

Continue reading Pumpkin of Thankfulness and learn how to make this unique Thanksgiving craft

Copyright 2012 Cay Gibson

Pro-Life Is Not Always Pretty

We cooked, cleaned, and cared for my father-in-law after my mother-in-law passed away in 2003. I say “we” because my husband and his family were a huge part of this caring process. He had the beginning stages of Alzheimer’s and declined quickly after her death. He cut my towels to make wash cloths, he glued his granddaughter’s dollhouse pieces and McDonald Land toys on his dresser and shelves (and wouldn’t give them back), he tore out pictures from my children’s picture books then taped them to his wall, and he used Elmer’s glue on his dentures.

He became a shadow of himself. He wouldn’t have wanted to live those years any more than we wanted to see him live them.

The year we lived and cared for him was the hardest year of our marriage. I have never tried to sugar-gloss it or make it anything it wasn’t. My husband was working all day every day and our youngest of five was only sixteen months old and I was homeschooling the others. My oldest daughter broke her ankle and was on crutches that summer which ended the only plans we had of a sneak-getaway before school began anew.

She sat outside on the front porch and watched the rain fall. I stood at the kitchen window and watched the rain pour.

At a homeschool conference that fall another mother spoke all bubbly and happily about the blessing her elderly mother-in-law was within her homeschool, large-family home. She meant well. She was lifting me up to the ideal of a grandparent living within the home. She was pointing out the blessings and real life lessons found if only I looked for them. I understood the message; I didn’t appreciate the bubbliness.

These were desperate times that called for desperate measures on my part. It was often not pretty.

Her mother-in-law was sane; my father-in-law wasn’t. Her mother-in-law unloaded and reloaded the dishwasher for her. Her youngest was ten-years-old. My youngest was not even two and she was pouring kool-aid and apple juice all over the floor and table. My father-in-law was slamming doors and chasing the family dog down the hallway with a can of air freshner.

I look back now. My father-in-law has been at peace and with my mother-in-law for the past four years. And, yes, I learned a lot and was pulled and stretched more than I would have wanted, but I will not be poetic and say I wish to repeat those years. But, with my parents on aging’s doorstep, I might be called upon to do just that. Do I dread it? Yes? Do I fear it? No.

The one thing I learned the most during those younger years is how many things I did so wrong. Those were days of just getting through the day into the next day. Nothing was poetic. If it was something beautiful for God, it didn’t look that way to me. It was messy and nasty and hard and mechanical. Nothing heavenly about it.

It wasn’t until it was over that I could see God’s hand in it. I often think of how I should have done things differently. Often I wish I had. I still don’t see the beauty in those years but I know the manure and rotting leaves were there. It wasn’t pretty, but they were part of the soil God scattered for my growth.

My oldest daughter’s first job in nursing clinicals was to enter the room of a cancer victim who had died not 30 minutes prior. Kayleigh was assigned with another student to clean and prepare the body. One of the Corporal Works of Mercy in action. My daughter tells me that the worse part of being a nurse is handling the smells. Some nurses put Vicks rub in their nostrils to mask the smells. Smells of life. Smells of impending death.

It is often not pretty.

During a year’s time my grandmother fell 3 times. She had surgery. She had dementia. We had to lock-up her meds because she couldn’t remember taking them so would take them twice, or more. She didn’t want anyone to stay with her but would call my mother and uncle every hour on the hour to come and check on her and the house. She refused to leave her house to stay with anyone else. At night the anxiety was high and we were worried due to her wandering mind. At night she didn’t recognize her house or her surroundings. Between my mother, uncle, aunt, daughter, and myself; we clocked shifts to stay with her. You didn’t sleep. You stayed up…walking her to the bathroom, getting her water, listening to her ramble, answering the same questions over and over and over again and again.

If any of you question your own sanity, become a caretaker of someone with dementia or Alzheimer’s. It isn’t pretty.

I’m not writing this to mock or make light of anyone suffering. I’m establishing my credibility. Been there, done that.

If I were not committed 100% to faith and family, I could turn quite cynical. I see the beautiful, glossy images shared on Facebook and I know the beautiful message behind the image, I know the graphic artist means well but I’ve seen the reality. It isn’t pretty.

Pro-life work is not always about cute, cuddly babies. It’s about so much more. Pro-life work, in 21st century reality, is closely interwoven with the work of preparing for death. It is so closely woven that it makes hypocritics of all of us. Yet, when we inspect it more closely, the work of preparing others for death is actually preparing them for their second life so it isn’t really about being pro-dying, but about being pro-living.

It’s about dying to self. It’s about dying to our own selfishness and our own needs. It’s about preparing a mother to give birth to a baby who might die anyway. It’s about showing respect for a deceased body because it harbored a living soul. It’s dying to our sleep so that another can have peace of mind. It’s dying to our comfort so that someone else can be comfortable. It’s showing through our own life how we are called to live…and die. It’s about respect and dignity for what God has made. It’s about living in less than perfect condition, through less than perfect situations because we have been asked.

Because life is not glossy or perfect. It certainly doesn’t always smell good. That is the most common compliant of going to a nursing home. The smells. The sounds.

A pro-death society has taken God out of this cycle. A pro-death society has removed God from the Paschal Mystery so there is no place for respect and dignity much less for corporal works.

Without God, we have no hope. No hope at all. That’s why, in dying, we practice how to live. We are all journeying to death each day of our life, but we journey towards it with the reality of witnesses that there is life beyond death. That is why it is called the Good News. It is up to the pro-life witnesses to shout the good news of the Ressurrection that there is life after death. In the Theology of the Body by Pope John Paul II, we are told that the body is part of that Good News. We were created in the image and likeness of God! That includes these bodies of ours. We were not created as angels. We were created as human beings who are not complete without our bodies. We are not mere souls, shapeless entities. We are body and soul. God knew that because He created us and that is part of the hidden message of Himself which He left us in the Eurcharist….His own body and blood, soul and divinity. All these things complete us.

As one pastor told a group of us when teaching the Theology of the Body, Grandma may be dancing around in heaven but she will not be complete until her body and soul are joined at the last coming of Christ when we will all be resurrected again with our bodies. Our bodies are a part of who we are. Our bodies mean something. Our bodies are as precious as our souls. Our bodies were created in love and for love.

Without the physical, walking, breathing body of Christ appearing to his followers and over 500 witnesses it would surely be a myth and many people would have since disproven it. The tomb would have remained closed and the bloody sacrifice would have been for naught. But people who saw the risen Lord were willing to die while teaching others the message of life in a risen God-man. You don’t die for something you don’t believe in, neither do you live. Neither do you serve.

Life, in the way it is taught in the pro-life movement, isn’t always cute and cuddly and baby lotion scents. It’s more. It’s a cross with power, a dead man who breathed His living spirit upon His apostles, and a God who loved His creation enough to live and die for us so that we too may live again after our death.

Amazing!

Copyright 2012 Cay Gibson

Little Saint Therese by Margaret Mary Myers

A favorite saint of Catholic girls is St. Therese the Little Flower. This little saint is a good patron to share with our daughters, granddaughters, and goddaughters. There are plenty of “St. Therese”s and plenty of little books on this saint from Lisieux, France. Where do we start?

Catholic author Margaret Mary Myers gives us Little Saint Therese, a simple book on this simple saint which is appropriate for the younger set of children in grades Kindergarten through Third Grade. It’s a perfect introduction to the little way to heaven so young children are not overwhelmed by a life too noble or a sacrifice too great.

It is written in a simple style which makes it easy for mothers to read with non-readers, perfect for new readers, and engaging for older readers. Two features I like best of all are the ‘Questions to Answer’ found at the end of each chapter (an answer key is found at the back of the book) and that the author includes actual quotes spoken and written by St. Therese and her parents. Through the saint’s own thoughts and words, your child will hear about the childhood of St. Therese and her early formative years until she became a new nun. Though simple, Little Saint Therese reads as though St. Therese is speaking directly to your little reader.

The book’s ending has a surplus offering of a prayer, a novena, a page to the parents, and a list of other book suggestions about St. Theresa. While not a picture book, this book does include simple clipart and it is perfect for early learners. Margaret Mary Myers has thought of everything in this little book to introduce children to this great saint.

With the school year beginning, now is a perfect time to take your child on a visit to the homes of the saints. St. Therese can start us on this ‘little way’ and this book is a great resource to begin your visitation.

If you’re interested in ordering Little Saint Therese, go to TheBookPatch.com (ISBN: 9781620301388). Even the cost of the book is a “little” offering of $3.25. That’s a wonderfully low price for a ticket into the home of a great saint.

Hopefully Ms. Myers might consider doing more books like this one on the lives of other saints for our children to visit. You can visit the author’s website at http://margaretmarymyers.com/.

We are giving away two copies of Little Saint Therese. To enter, leave a comment in the combox with your name and how you came to know about St. Therese and two winners’ names will be randomly drawn to win a free copy of this book. The deadline to enter this contest is midnight Pacific time zone on Thursday, September 20, 2012. 

Update: Our winners are Wanda and Stacey – thank you to all of those who participated in this contest. 

The Paschal Mystery Renewed

I stand alone at the hospital window looking down. Votive lamplights burn their nighttime vigil over a twilit parking lot void of white horses and golden chariots, no gladiators or princes to ward off the phantom who silently glides out the back door, no hope of happily ever after. It’s just me and the parking lot, a gaping carless receptacle where earlier I could not find a single space to park my car. It now stands like the catacombs of old, mournfully vacant.

There is no life, no beckoning, no forward motion; only stillness and darkness that lingers. Oil spots anoint the spots of healers and ministers.

A car passes on the road beyond, then three. A car turns into the vacant parking lot, then two. The car shifts, quivers, purrs, then is still. The headlights flicker, then go dim.

Silent, reverent figures walk across the parking lot and enter beneath the moth-enshrouded lights. It is not a place one comes willingly. I know. These are not the family troubadours who have come to herald new babies into the family. Those will come later in the day. These visitors are the soldiers, the family warriors, who have come to cradle, cleanse, comfort, and console the body of Christ. They come to renew, refresh, and revive those who kept watch at Calvary.

In the whisper of a moment, life enters the house of suffering and death. Dry coffee grounds are scooped and poured. A coffee burner clicks. A hiss. A sigh. Morning incense wafts upward and steals outward into the hall to greet me.

A voice is heard down the hallway. The elevator beeps, lurches, rumbles. A slow grind announces its ascent and its sleepy eye welcomes the new arrivals. Everything, dead and silent only moments before, is now awakened and breathes a new day.

It’s the paschal mystery renewing itself once again. It’s the body of Christ in flesh and blood putting on its armor and conquering a new day. Day in and day out, the hospital lives, suffers, rejoices, dies, rests, resurrects, and lives again. Day in and day out the believers come to witness the body of Christ living, breathing, dying, and rising again to a new day. Day in and day out this house of suffering repeats this mysterious vigil.

Those who stay with a sick loved one at the hospital die to self, die to personal comfort, die to personal pleasures and satisfactions. We give what we can and do what we can. Like Christ, we die and we rise. That is the Paschal Mystery renewed.

Those who suffer from Alzheimer’s or another life-debilitating illness die to self, die to dreams and interests and opportunities. So does their family. Dying is heartbreaking and gut-wrenching. It is also grace filled, but you have to look for the grace; often patiently so, very patiently. You have to be open to the graces. We will rise to a new day, a new dream, a new interest, and new opportunities; as long as we have hope and faith in the Paschal Mystery.

Those who lose a job die to self, die to an old routine, die to an old way of life. We rise to a new day and discover a new routine, a new way of life, a new job. An old way dies while a new way is born. That is the Paschal Mystery renewed.

Those who go through a divorce die to self, die to promises, die to yesterdays gone, die to vows broken, die to family structure crumbled. People have claimed divorce to be like a death in the family. It is that; but, for Christians, there is the promise of a new day, hope in a new tomorrow, and faith that the family structure will rebuild itself. That is the Paschal Mystery renewed.

These are but a few examples of the paschal mystery renewing itself day in and day out and we, as Christians, live it because there we have the gift of hope, the gift of faith in the real Paschal Mystery of our Risen Lord. It is because of that sacrifice and the hope of the resurrection that we renew ourselves, that we comfort one another, that we keep vigil within this house of pain and suffering.

*The author wishes to thank Rev. Louis Arceneaux, C.M. of the Congregation of the Mission of St. Vincent DePaul for his instruction and teachings on the Paschal Mystery. It was through his excellent spiritual teaching on this mystery that the author came to fully understand, appreciate, and renew herself daily to this mystery of life.

Copyright 2012 Cay Gibson

A Penny for Your Summertime

I’ve been thinking about neighborhood ice cream trucks. We used to be assured of circus music, icy cold treats, and delicious childhood memories every weekend, every summer, thanks to the ice cream truck. We still occasionally hear the bells inviting children to stop their play, climb down from tree houses, turn and look down the oasis-splotched road. The music plays and the children dance.

It’s a sweet childhood memory for those of us now digging into our purses and pockets, snatching Mason jars off windowsills to empty runaway coins onto tabletops, and rummaging in the washing machine for loose change. We long to give our children what we had. A simple ice cream treat. Just a little taste of summertime days and childhood ways.

Yet I wonder how much longer the ice cream truck will roll down our street and afford our children a summertime treat that can be bought with nickels, dime, and quarters. Surely one ice cream treat will soon cost five dollars which pays the distance it takes for the ice cream truck to come to and around your neighborhood.

I’m also wondering about the parents standing in the front yard holding the watering hose, who have just emptied the Mason jar, pockets, and washing machine to collect enough coins to tank up vehicles needed to get to and from work. There is no “loose” change for ice cream treats.

I cannot count the times I’ve walked through a parking lot with my children, spied a penny, and succumbed to the childish refrain of:

“Find a penny, pick it up,
All day long you’ll have good luck!”

The penny is promptly picked up by the child and I have no recollection of where it goes or what it is spent on. I haven’t seen penny gum machines in a long time so, I suspect, it is lost under the car seat, in the washing machine, or in another parking lot. I hardly know why I continue the rhyme and reason of stooping to pick-up a stray penny.

Then again, I think I do know. It’s rooted in me as a child growing up in American.Childhood habit stamped in copper. Another little American girl shared her experience with me and I, in turn, shared it with my daughters.

Anyone who has read Little House on the Prairie by American pioneer icon Laura Ingalls Wilder remembers the penny found in the toe of her Christmas stocking. How can you not? It’s the best part of the book!

“They had never even thought of such a thing as having a penny. Think of having a whole penny for your very own. Think of having a cup and a cake and a stick of candy and a penny.”

Many of us remember this commentary because it jarred us out of our twentieth century lives. It continues to jar children in the twenty-first century. That a penny used to have such precious value means something to us.

Over our heat-stroked parking lots (when even the economy sweats), we fail to see the worth of a penny any more than a bee sees a drop of honey in the abundance of a flowerbed; but we certainly see a penny’s worth when the gas pump sign goes up a notch. We use our ten-cents reward points eagerly, we are thankful for the three pennies off each gallon, we cheer when we see the price has dropped five-cents, we Facebook the lowest spots to our friends.

A few years ago I was brought to a new awareness about Benjamin Franklin’s philosophy:

“A penny saved is a penny earned.”

I was in the checkout line of a grocery store with my youngest daughter when an elderly lady got behind us. She was counting pennies in the palm of her hand. She spied a stray penny on the floor behind my foot and asked my daughter to please pick it up and give it to her. Imagine a grown-up asking a six-year-old to turn over a penny to her so that she could buy her food. It was a revelation to me that even today there are people who find a penny priceless. Perhaps the next time we see a penny in the parking lot we’ll think twice before stepping over it.

Surely this gas crisis and bad economy is a wake-up call for Americans to appreciate things more. We know we appreciate a road trip more; we definitely appreciate a full-tank of gas more; we appreciate Mason jars full of change when we need an extra gallon of gas; and we should certainly appreciate the music the ice cream truck brings to our summers. It means there are still enough pennies left in the world to make our children smile.

Copyright 2012 Cay Gibson

God is good.

On the Feast of the Visitation of the Blessed Mother to her cousin Elizabeth, I am remembering in prayer not only those newly pregnant but, also, two mothers and their babies. One couple was told that their longed-for, much prayed and hoped for baby had the fatal birth defect known as anencephaly, while another couple was awaiting the birth of their second child, having lost their firstborn child to the same birth defect the year before. Both couples were at different levels in life’s journey. Both couples were struggling with life issues that some of us have never known and might never know. Both couples asked what God’s message meant. I don’t know if they wanted to really know, yet they did want to know. Madly so.

In reality, these times are not messages from God at all. They are, in fact, visitations from God.

Christ chooses to visit us in different ways. Sometimes He visits us for a fleeting moment and just as quickly leaves us with an unquenchable longing. These visits are much too short and we cry because He has left us with nothing to hold onto but a memory of what was or what could have been. He came and asked us to rock Him to sleep. And He was gone.

Sometimes His visits are extensive and the luggage He brings is greater. He asks us to accept Him, welcome Him, and let Him stay awhile. He asks us to make room in our hearts for His visit. He moves us out of our comfort zone and into another house entirely.

Sometimes He comes as the expected visitor who becomes the young adult who overstaying His welcome. He stretches us in patience, in virtue, in acceptance.

How do we receive Him?

Joyfully? Sorrowfully? Gloriously? Luminously?

How ever He comes to you, receive Him. Receive Him amidst the joy, the tears, the glory, and the light because these are the times that create Life and He is Life. Receive Him as He comes to you because through Life is where we find the answers to our questions and, thus, our salvation.

It is through our charity and hospitality to Him through others that we shall be measured:

“Then the king will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. 35
For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, 36
naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me.’ 37
Then the righteous 16 will answer him and say, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? 38
When did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? 39
When did we see you ill or in prison, and visit you?’ 40
And the king will say to them in reply, ‘Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.’
~ Matthew 25: 35-41

No matter how briefly, no matter how lengthy, no matter how difficult, no matter how inconvenient, no matter how imperfect, no matter how…these visitations are simply what they are…visits from Christ.

How do you receive Him?

Let us pray that we receive him as prayerfully and joyfully as cousin Elizabeth did on the Feast of the Visitation:

“When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the infant leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit, cried out in a loud voice and said, ‘Most blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And how does this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?’ ”

* * * * *

“Unlike a simple visit, a visitation is different owing to the purpose intended by the get-together. A visitation aims to accomplish something. Specifically, a visitation is an encounter that carries within it a meaning that is exception.” ~ Magnificat (Mass Contemplation/ May 31, 2010)

* * * * *

Eternal Father,
you inspired the Virgin Mary, mother of your Son,
to visit Elizabeth and assist her in her need.
Keep us open to the working of your Spirit,
and with Mary may we praise you for ever.
We asked this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
Who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.

* * * * *
God is good all the time

Copyright 2012 Cay Gibson

We stand at risk of loosing this dignity and, thus, this quality.

So 300,000 people marching for life is awesome.

And so is the 100plus who marched in Sulphur, Louisiana.

I wonder, if we tallied the numbers of each individual March for Life throughout our nation, what the numbers would show.

For 20 better years our church and KC Council has put on a Pro-Life March the third Sunday in January. Armed with a letter of approval from City Hall and swat cars to manuever busy intersections, we march.

Our little marching band has experienced just about every type of weather possible on a January day here in SW Louisiana. We have marched in sun, fog, chilling rain, breezy winds, and, as in yesterday’s weather, a balmy blanket of mugginess.

Only one year we didn’t march. It was January 1997, that January winter an ice storm ripped through our town, downing powerlines, closing restaurants and stores, basically shutting down our whole town. South Louisiana just isn’t prepared for such things. As the wind sleeted in that afternoon, fog shuttered thick along the marshland, and rain clawed and scratched against our car windows; we stayed in the hall and recited a united rosary. That night our town sat frozen in the icy grip of January.

It was the only year we didn’t march…but our family did conceive a baby.

We’ve marched for so long even our children don’t question it. They’ve never walked at our state capital in Baton Rouge nor at our nation’s capital where I hear the marches bleed together in a living, walking rosary of people and prayers, but they have walked the local march holding onto PawPaw’s hand for several years in a row. They’ve walked with several church parishioners who are gone now but who marched for life while they lived. The children have marched for so long it’s as ritualistic as doing the stations of the cross during Lent. Often, if they aren’t working, our children are there…even if it is to meet us afterwards at the hall for fellowship gumbo.

Generally it’s 100-130 church parishioners who march the March on a quiet town street here in Sulphur, Louisiana. When it is a local church body on an every day road within your home town, one doesn’t feel the excitement and frenzy that I imagine one feels in Washington, D.C.

We might pass a handful of cars, more at the red light below the railroad tracks. We might see teenagers stop their basketball game at the local park and walk to the edge of the concrete with curious stares. We might see a buddy or two on the golf course as we pass. Caps are lifted, hands waved, rosary continued.

In 20plus years we’ve never had any confrontation or ugliness. Once some men walked from their front porch to the street and asked questioned. Some of our KC members spoke to them. I’m not sure if our little pro-life march made an impact or not. Do we make a difference? Evidently my daughter wonders a bit too.

This year she quietly asked, “Why do we do this?”

It’s just a quiet street in SW Louisiana with people who march.

I know she understands the fight for life we are in. She knows babies die everyday because they are unwanted. She understands large families are the canoe floating upstream in an avenue of highpowered speedboats going downstream.

She understands all this so I know exactly what she meant when she asked, “Why do we do this?”

There is no media to document us. There are no speakers to motivate us. There is no steady beat of many feet hitting to pavement to rally us. There is little traffic, no applause, no sirens. Often there is just quiet…and a rosary…and cheerful talking…and silent smiles…and laughter amongst friends.

In the face of a death sentence, we are about Life. There is no doom and gloom on this Sunday walk in January. We’re about Life. We talk and laugh while skirting our walk in prayer.

So…the question was why do we?

Because each one of these marchers has looked Roe vs. Wade in the eye and defided it. They’ve seen it, they’ve experienced it, they’ve felt it and they chose to walk away from it and towards something better…in faith. Faith in something bigger than our human weakness. God’s grace?

They do not walk blindly or unknowingly. They know what they face.

They are not hyprocrites. They are heros.

There are three families in our church parish whose daughters had babies born withanencephaly. They were all told their babies were going to die anyway. All three mothers chose to give their babies nine months of life. Where other mothers have no grave of remembrance, these mothers have a place to place flowers and thank God for the nine months of mercy they felt within their wombs.

They walk this Sunday in faith.

There is the young mother with endometriosis. She was told she’d never be able to have babies. She pushes a stroller bearing her two babies as she walkes in faith.

There are three couples who could not have their own biological children.  They push strollers, pull wagons, and bear atop their shoulders the joyful yoke of another mother’s burden.

There is the older mother who contemplated aborting her last child who now walks proudly, happily with that child faithfully at her side.

There are the grandparents walking who are now raising their grandchildren because of neglect by the parents, drug addictions, and wrong choices. These grandparents sacrifice the gift of self even when no one notices nor cares. They walk in faith that these very children will carry on a life of faith after they are gone.

There is the family who saw a child with Down Syndrome born, suffer, and die. They know the cost of hospital neonatal and operations and hotel rooms and doctors and needles and death. They know that life cannot be bought for a price.

There are people marching who work in the medical profession. They know just how necessary it is to have healing hands rather than hands of destruction. As Christians, we co-create with God. Our hands are not capable of destruction.

There is a mother walking who has sought relief from depression and anxiety. She has faced a pregnancy in the middle of her illness. She walks with faith that she can help another mother and her baby.

Some walk simply because they know that child #5 is as important, as cherished, and as desirable as child #1.

Some walk because they are grateful their parents had them in their forties. They walk because they are thankful their parents accepted God’s decision to expand their household even though a new baby changed their retirement plans. They walk in faith knowing that God’s plan is never finished. They walk in faith knowing that with each life God’s plan is only beginning.

These are families of faith. Faith that there is a place for everyone on this planet. Faith that, just as there is room for everyone at the KC Hall and plenty of gumbo for all, there is a place for everyone at God’s heavenly banquet.

Behind us vehicles carry those too elderly, too lame, or too slow to march. They are still witnesses of faith. We carry them.

There are families walking in our mist who walk for family members who cannot walk due to battles with cancer, Lou Gehrig disease, and other debilitating attacks to the body. They walk because they know how weak the body is. They know the quake of broken bodies, the heaviness of bodies burdened by disease, and the stench of bodies not fit for marching. They walk in faith anyway.

They walk because they have cared for elderly parents and know how hard it is but a vote foreuthanasia is not on their ballot.

It is not easy, often it is not easy at all. Often marchers see where they failed and where they weren’t as merciful as they could have been. I’ve seen in in myself. Still, they continue to walk in faith that God is more merciful than we.

In a small town one does not walk to be heard, to make a statement or to get the attention of higher governing powers. It’s nice when the mayor of your small town shows up to walk alongside of you.

A Higher Power does sees us. He sees us march in small solidarity and often it is not to prove a point at all. It’s a walk in support of one another, reminding neighbor that we (as the body of Christ) have experienced all those scenerios which this anniversary assures us is a means to end a life and yet we, going upstream, choose otherwise, and live to march the march.

The media and government would like to portray prolife walkers as uneducated, uninformed hypocrites. Nothing is further from the truth. People doubt your honesty unless they know you have walked a mile in their shoes. Suffering unites. Suffering also teaches: mercy, compassion, sympathy.

Suffering is probably the greatest teacher of all.

These walkers have walked the walk, lived the life, faced the fear. They are our role models.

I walk this march to see their faith, remember their stories and witness how they accepted God’s grace, thus overcoming some of their greatest fears…and ours.

If I were to face any of the difficulties or life situations some of these marchers have faced, I would not look to Obama and his board of ethics for my strength and support. I would look to the people I know, the ones I have witnessed stand strong and true despite the Fall, the ones who walked down the street with me this past Sunday afternoon.

Death has stared them in the face and they have answered him with faith, life, and dignity.

They walk with assurance as a church body that Death need not be the final answer. They are living proof that Life is always the right answer.

Copyright 2012 Cay Gibson

“Resplendent and unfading is wisdom,
and she is readily perceived by those who love her,
and found by those who seek her.”

We often confuse wisdom and knowledge and in this overloaded existence of constant information it doesn’t occur to us to ask what the difference is.

The visiting priest at Mass instructed us that there is a difference.

You could have heard a match stick drop in the church. Evidently I was not the only person sitting secure in self-knowledge while shoving wisdom under the pew.

Knowledge, the priest explained, is the constant search for new information. We are constantly asking questions. We are constantly seeking. One question leads to another question and so on.

Knowledge is good and noble and informative but without wisdom it binds you here to the earthly life and no further.

Wisdom, on the other hand, seeks to understand what already is.

We can seek all our life for knowledge to our problems, our fears, and our faith and never find the answer. Then, at the end of our mortality, we realize, in the pursuit of knowledge, we never sought the wisdom to accept what we could not change.

Wisdom is found in the hurt mother who kneels at the feet of her child and tries to understand his frustrated day.

Wisdom is found in the anxious father who sits on the passenger side and seeks to understand his teenage daughter’s longing for freedom.

Wisdom is found in the lonely grandparent who smiles through her tears as she watches her grandson walk away in his soldier uniform.

Wisdom is found in the angry store manager who patiently taps his pencil on his desk while hearing both sides of the story.

Wisdom is found in the disappointed teacher who drives to school the next day with a plan.

Wisdom is found in the overwhelmed coach who stuffs his hands in his pockets and decides to push the team on instead of walking away from them.

Wisdom is not easy to come by and it doesn’t change our human emotions but it brings peace which the all-consuming pursuit of knowledge cannot.

A summary of Wisdom is found in the Serenity Prayer…

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,

Courage to change the things I can,

And wisdom to know the difference.

In short, wisdom seeks to understand what already is.

There is no need for more information in the book of wisdom. No need for more searching, more clicking, more examination or questioning.

Not that those things are not good.

Knowledge and the quest for knowledge are good and fruitful and holy. Knowledge can also be used to exploit, embarrass, belittle, ridicule, and hold power over.

Wisdom is better.

Wisdom knows you cannot change the whole world.

Wisdom, as the priest said (sounding very much like St. Therese), is in loving people in life and loving them into death.

There are some things we cannot change. No amount of preaching, arguing, or debating is going to change some people’s minds and can prove detrimental to their spiritual growth.

A firm example would be Mother Teresa. I’m pretty sure she didn’t lecture, preach, argue, or debate with the AIDS victims she found in the ditches of Calcutta. She didn’t say, “I told you so!” or “If you had only read your Bible every day…” or “You should have listened to your parents (or to your priests).”

She merely took them home, loved them in life, and loved them into death; knowing that God would handle it from there.

Having been raised my whole life by LaSalette Missionaries and spiritually instructed by Jesuits in the Ignatian Spiritual exercises for almost 10 years, this book opened my eyes anew to the  Benedictine rule. The LaSalette Fathers sought to reach the heart and soul of the child. The Jesuits and St. Ignatius with their power of speech, strength of words, and instruction of knowledge sought to reach the mind of an adult.

They did all that.

St. Benedict came along and showed how to reach the heart, mind, and soul of a sinner who can neither change others and was in need of the gift of mercy.

Radical Hospitality: Benedict’s Way of Love by Father Daniel Homan and Lonni Collins Pratt is a book which transformed the way I see situations which people inevitably get themselves into due to (1) lack of knowledge—which confirms that knowledge is good and holy and beneficial to our salvation (2) influence of others (3) free will—ever heard of that?)

This passage was one of many examples Radical Hospitality which jarred me into a vision of radical hospitality (page xiv-xvi):

“Father Noel and Father Dan were taking a walk on the monastery grounds one day. It was the kind of day made for a walk with a friend. A group of eleven- and twelve-year-olds from an institution for troubled children were on a tour of the monastery. They had arrived by hay wagon, pulled by horses with a couple of young drivers, probably in their late teens.

“Acres of rolling grass invite you to stretch out on a sultry summer day and enjoy the soft grass and warm earth. The monastery grounds are well groomed…

“It is home to the Benedictines, and a home is what it feels like—an easy place to be. Something about the place is welcoming.

“The two monks were enjoying one of those long, warm days of late summer. … Occupied in conversation, Father Dan did not notice the hay wagon drivers until they came within a few yards.

” ‘I was stopped in my tracks,’ he remembers. ‘Right there on the yard in front of us, the two wagon drivers were passing a joint back and forth, looking completely at home, as if this was the most natural thing to do at a monastery. In case you’re wondering, it isn’t.’

“Father Dan was a street-smart kid raised in Detroit. Before he could demand an explanation, Father Noel spoke up.

” ‘Young men,’ he exclaimed with wide-armed relish, ‘we are so glad that you are with us today to enjoy the grass.’

“It was an enthusiastic and heartfelt welcome from the hospitable soul of an old monk. The guys naturally thought he was one very cool old monk.”

Who do you think those two young teenagers in this story would come to if—through knowledge, the Holy Spirit’s prompting, or their own free will—they desired to seek more information about these monks, their lifestyle, their vows…their very faith?

The old monk had the wisdom to know that this day was the beginning of those teenagers relationship with God and he welcomed the teens into that realm of wisdom.

Wisdom seeks to understand what is already before you; not to control it, not to analyze it, not to judge it. Just to take it in faith that God created this person and God loves this person. Can you love them as well? Can you love them in life and love them into death…knowing that God is waiting on the other side?

Most of us can’t. Most of us don’t want to. Most of us do as Pontius Pilate did. We ask “What is Truth?” We wash our hands of loving others and we walk away because it’s hard. It’s harder than anything else we do in life; loving others outside our realm of understanding.

It’s easier to judge. To gossip. To control.

It’s easier to lecture and preach. Easier to push our game plan.

It’s easier to do others things, possess other things.

Easier to analyze what the parents did wrong. Easier to blame others.

It’s easier to keep looking for answers to questions. Easier to keep Googling.

When in truth all we need to do is ask, like King Solomon (1 Kings 3:1-28), to desire wisdom above knowledge. It takes wisdom to know the difference.

Copyright 2011 Cay Gibson

On his first visit to the doctor his pediatrician looked at me instead of my baby and said, “So how are you feeling?”

I thought it strange he would ask that of me even as a nine pound, eleven ounce piece of me lay on the examination table kicking and screaming.

He clarified, “You’re awful small to have had a baby this size.”

I simply nodded. I didn’t reveal to him that my ob/gyn had predicted a 6 1/2 lb. baby. This bouncing baby boy was quite the surprise to all.

“Look,” he bid me to my son’s side, “you can see exactly how he was wedged inside of you.”

And, like a puzzle, he took my son’s hefty little legs and fit them into the contours of his plump belly. Everything fit perfectly.

My babysitter’s husband nicknamed Garrett Bull-O. The name stuck.

Garrett did indeed look like a bull in a china closet. Everyone said so. He was all boy. White headed and demanding. Even when he cried, his cry was deep-throated and manly. He didn’t sleep at night.

We embraced the family bed with this son. It was the only way the family slept.

I used him as the excuse for my tiredness, my moodiness, my frustration, my nervousness. It’s true, I whined, the third child is the pinnacle. I looked down from the peak of motherhood and was afraid I would fall off the face of the earth. My very self had been demoted.

I admit I was tired. I was working part-time, had a soon-to-be six year old son and a three year old daughter. My son was starting kindergarten that fall.

I had had a miscarriage shortly before conceiving this son.

On top of housework and life in general, I wasn’t stopping to simply enjoy being a mother.

I was tired.

I had allowed myself to get sucked into the vacuum known as motherhood in the 20th century…never realizing that I didn’t belong there.

I wasn’t listening to the whispers of my own body. How could I when there were moving pieces of me all over my house: demanding, crying, screaming even?

There were many times I understood too well why society trumpeted the Litany of Self:

• Don’t have more than two children
• Take birth control
• Take time for yourself
• Don’t have any more children
• Put your children in daycare
• Get a job

Like Satan in the desert had tempted our Lord, 20th century America had built up this mountain of self and set me upon it and told me I could have it all.

“Again the devil took him up into a very high mountain, and shewed him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them, And said to him: All these will I give thee, if falling down thou wilt adore me. Then Jesus saith to him: Begone, Satan: for it is written, The Lord thy God shalt thou adore, and him only shalt thou serve. Then the devil left him; and behold angels came and ministered to him.”

~ Mt 8:1-11 Douay translation

There were many days I dreaded going home because I didn’t want to face the music (ie: crying, poopy diapers, whining, messes, dirt), but beneath the earthly grime and human weakness I saw something more, something that elevated this life. In my children I saw the face of God. I realized the sanctity and blessings within and turned away from the desert. And found life…abundantly.

I didn’t withdraw from my family and homelife as the world told me to do. Rather than try to escape into the 20th century mentality, I did what society tells us not to do.

I withdrew and I learned the art of blooming where God had planted me .

I decided to consume myself with it. I embraced this God-given role and embraced my home and family.

I couldn’t help myself.

There was too much sweetness found in the pockets of daily life that saved me from the dizzying heights I had climbed in those first six years of motherhood.

Even more valuable was the knowledge that it wasn’t too late to change my mothering.

This picture represents one of those little pebbles I picked up along my way down that mountain. It’s one of the many pebbles I put into my pocket. It’s a picture of Garrett playing in our backyard with his first set of wheels. His sister’s doll is beside him. We called it his “girlfriend.” It’s a picture of what life can be when you stop living in the outside world and live in and for the now.

Those pebbles in my pocket mean more to me than all the mountains in the world. They are the mustard seeds of my life’s story.

Today the baby who almost brought me to my melting point is seventeen years old. I find it a beautiful thing that he has a love for all things that wiggle, bounce, twitch and flail tiny.

I now see that his demanding cries were that mysterious voice in the desert which one doesn’t understand and which many try to ignore. We are pulled away by the tempters in the desert: the outside voices which tell us to turn away from the other voice, the one that calls us, the one that demands that we grow, the one that begs us to come down from the mountain and become like children again, the voice that beckons us to turn back to what is a part of us and worthy of our time and self, the one that pleads even.

“A voice cries out: In the desert prepare the way of the LORD! Make straight in the wasteland a highway for our God!”  ~ New American Bible

For seventeen years, the physical life of this child has been a spiritual journey for me.

Little does he realize that I am a much better parent because of him and his brother and sisters.

Saying he has been a gift from God sounds trite and redundant. He is so much more.

He is one of the pebbles I collect on the road that leads me to Heaven.

And while it might sound trite and redundant, please don’t tell my mother’s heart that. I stopped listening to outside voices a long time ago. I now listen with my heart.

Garrett and his sister Kayleigh (his sponsor) on the occasion of his Confirmation on April 29, 2010 with Bishop Provost of Lake Charles Diocese.

Copyright 2011 Cay Gibson

At this very moment millions of decent human beings are phoning, texting, twittering their anger. Most of us, I might add, are in a state of disbelief!

There are thousands of Internet discussions and posts and comments (not counting mine) happening right this minute concerning the Casey Anthony trial. Everyone is waiting for Nancy Grace to prosecute their screens.

The battle cry is JUSTICE FOR CAYLEE!

Ah, justice! That evasive justice that dear little Caylee Anthony did not get nor Laura Kate Smither nor Savannah (who went to CCD with my 9 year old daughter, but no longer) . That spiritual justice that all those followers of Fr. Corapi won’t get. That justice that evaded the victims of Jack the Ripper. Same justice that will not persecute the bullies of your past. Justice not found in the cars of drunk drivers. Same justice that haunts the thousands of babies abused and killed and tossed aside like garbage. The real world is seldom just and ideal. So why do we keep searching for a just and ideal society? I can only speak from personal experience.

I have always thought I was an idealist. I was wrong. I’m a realist. True, I love ideals and reading about them and striving for them. Seldom do I attain them; the reality is never as pretty as those ideals in my head. What worth are those ideals in the mind of a realist? I’ll tell you their worth. They’re put there by God to get me through the muck of this world. They keep me going forward in an otherwise un-ideal world. They help me to strive towards something better than I am or that this world gives me. They help make me a better parent than Casey Anthony.

My idealist side is always questioning my realist side: “Would you think differently if your child was kidnapped and murdered? Would you hate the sin but love the sinner?” 

Honestly I can’t say how I would react. My idealist side says I would be stoic and charitable.“Father, forgive them.” My realist side is probably closer to, say, reality. They, whoever ‘they’ are, would probably have to sedate me and put me away in a locked room. I would be on a cocktail of drugs just to get me through the trial.

If my granddaughter was dead and my daughter was on trial and there was a questionable doubt? Let me just say I can understand why Cindy Anthony tried to take the rap. But I’ve also heard too many people who have had family members murdered who come back to say they got to a point in their life when they had to let go and let God. Eventually they had to let go and forgive the offender otherwise the stress and anger would have killed them, thus giving the offender two victims instead of one.

There’s no justice there! There is a valuable lesson and I like to listen to those quiet voices of wisdom over the voices of anger that rise up to silence the voice of God. It is a valuable lesson to be learned by the rest of us if we just stop our ranting and listen to God’s plan for us.

And what is that plan? I hate to disillusion you here but man’s justice is not part of it. The first murder in this world was between two brothers. How’s that for God’s plan? I’m sure Eve wailed and lamented this injustice within her family. But then she turned around and gave birth to another son. That is where faith begins. Faith in the face of fear!

We go on living and loving and learning. And trusting God’s plan justifies our own actions.

Why do we expect justice now, when it wasn’t even present in the book of Genesis? I don’t think we expect it…people never fail to disappoint us…as much as we long for it. Justice is not for this world. Justice is reserved for the Kingdom of God. That’s the plan!

Despite the realist in me, it is usually the idealist in me who posts on Facebook. Today was no different.

“Fr. Corapi and Casey Anthony aside…I’m going back to focusing on what matters in my life…my family and my God.”

Most people understood my post and related to my resolve. Most shared their support by hitting the “Like” button, not that I expected anyone’s support but it was reassuring to see I wasn’t completely alone. A couple of my friends were, understandably, caught off-guard by my post. And I understood their anguish. I understood their defense. I sympathize. While I understand what other Christians are saying, do you suppose if I shout my offense and injustice of the world from the top of my Facebook soapbox, it will change anything? Anything at all? Will it change society?

Probably not. Like it or not, justice is often not found in this world. We have only to look at 9-11 and what has ensued since that date to witness the evidence.

What I’m saying in my Facebook ponder is that, instead of shouting from the top of our Facebook rooftop like the rest of society, we should face our own families and our own church communities, bow low, and vow to improve this world within our own backyards and homes and churches.

Forget the world at large!

Did I say that?

Yes! Yes, I did!

I’m sorry but I can’t change the world. I can’t! And, truth be told, I don’t see many politicians and lawyers and superstars doing a much better job of changing it (much less making it better) though they all say they will. Today’s age of instant media has us all believing that mass hysteria is the only way to change society.

I beg to differ.

Rather than climbing the pinnacle of Facebook pondering, can’t we come down to where God has planted us and bow down to those within our homes in servitude and turn to the people within our churches in asking for and receiving forgiveness?

Does this mean we don’t need to seek, strive, push, implore, and pray for justice here on earth? Does this mean we never go out into the world at large and beat a healing drum?

Yesterday was a day that reminded us to keep seeking, striving, pushing, imploring, praying, and pledging…

“…allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

The 4th of July! A great day for our nation. A wonderful day for remembering what men of faith and character were able to accomplish by going out into the world…without the Internet at their disposal.

Again, there is nothing wrong with the pledge we recite in our country. It’s our ideal. An ideal put before us that makes us seek, strive, push, implore, and pray to make a better life for ourselves and our children.

That ideal is important. We need that. And, surprisingly, it’s attainable. Sometimes the ideal becomes the reality.

But when our ideals fall like lumped clay at our feet, that’s when the realist in us needs to step forward and say, “Be still! Listen! Where is God’s plan in all this? What is God’s plan for me?”

These ideals are made by fallen people much like us. People fail us. People disappoint us. In the real world we must focus on the battle before us, not the whole war around us.

To quote Kimberly Hahn, ”I’m changing the world one diaper at a time.” That’s where God has called me to serve Him and it’s through obedience to Him that I am able to serve where He has placed me.

Because of my duties to my household, my church, and my friends, I have not kept abreast of the Casey Anthony case or the Fr. Corapi incident. Not that I was blind to either or hard or numb. I knew I couldn’t make much of a difference and I am, for better or worse, a believer in minding my own business. Sometimes I wonder about myself if, in fact, this makes me cold, hard, numb, whatever.

A friend sent me a private message today on Facebook and I very much appreciated the care she took in sending me a smiley face over the airwaves. She mentioned: “I’m just glad we only have to answer for our own actions and not others. I think when we get wrapped up in stuff like the trial and we become a part of what the world wants. God tells us to be different from the world.” 

That’s the crux of our anger. We all want justice and we want it NOW! But God’s time is not our time. When one has a Christian worldview such as my friend mentioned…being in this world but not of it…it sometimes comes across as cold and a little unfeeling. People believe you have to be angry to be passionate about something, but anger is not of God. Christ didn’t hurl his cross in anger and demand justice! He remained who he was, an innocent man who saw that God’s plan was greater than his own.

It’s not to say that we all stand here and remain silent when other parts of Christ’s body are hurting. It isn’t that we ignore the cry of the poor and suffering but, sometimes, in heeding to the call of so many we forget our own surroundings and leave our own souls unattended. That can prove disastrous. We must fight the battles within our own homes before we can expose the demons that run rabid over the whole world.

What happens when your life is grounded in Christ, is that you become sensitive not only to the victims but towards all God’s children. I grieve for Caylee Anthony. I also grieve for Casey and her parents. I grieve for what happened and what will never happen. I grieve for the kind of mother Casey should have been but wasn’t. I grieve for what the grandparents have lost in the life of that little girl. I grieve for their souls. I grieve for days spent in jail cells and dark thoughts and feelings of worthlessness. I grieve the hours of useless ponderings and regret. I grieve for tears shed and tears unshed. I grieve for the lawyers who live this reality every day. I grieve for the jury whose lives have been defined by the deeds of another. Mostly I grieve for Caylee and birthday parties that will never be.

What makes me saddest of all is that Casey Anthony portrays so many young mothers in America today. Not all but too many. Young mothers who leave their children to go to bars, strip clubs and drinking binges.Young mothers who don’t want the commitment of having a child. Young mothers who continue to act like they are not mothers. Young mothers who move in with boyfriends who have no commitments or any ties to them or the child. Young mothers who have no respect for themselves or their children. Young mothers who think of their children to be dolled up and paraded then discarded. Young mothers who will look at Casey Anthony as a role model who gets a book deal then the movie deal and end up with the money, fame, and night life without the child to care for.

What makes me sick is the celebration of the defense team within sight of cameras. Smiles, laughter, hugs, high fives, ecstatic jumping, and cork popping champagne bottles.

What makes me cringe are all the dollar bills that will be spent when buying her book and viewing her movie and giving her the time of day that little Caylee was not given.

This is really not a case of whether Casey was found guilty or not. No one but Casey Anthony knows what truly happened. Still she is a marked woman. Just as Cain was marked by God, Casey Anthony will be marked for life. She may not stay in jail but people can make sure her life is a living hell…or not. People are the harshest of judges.

As far as the verdict, we are all guilty. Guilty of the attention, the time of day, and the book sales that we give Casey. We are guilty of public displays of celebration. That any of us (namely, the defense team) could celebrate so openly and proudly is a disgrace.

This is truly a case against society and its most defenseless citizens…the children.

Isn’t it wonderful that in today’s busy world, Catholic families can always be doing be doing a little something and never be without proof that we are Catholic?

Even in our busiest moments with work, school, little league, carpooling, and feeding our families, there is still a little time is left for God and His Church.

All we truly have is little time each day anyway. Right?

A little time to live. A little time to pray. A little time to worship. A little time to love.

A little time each day to offer our day to God? Possibly by taping the Morning Offering to our bathroom mirror to recite as we curl/straighten our hair, brush our teeth?

A little time each day to bless ourselves and our children. Possibly anoint ourselves with holy water as we walk out the door on our way to the things that serenade our day?

A little time each day to open our Bibles and meditate on the word of God. Possibly before we turn out the light for the night?

A little time each day to pray the rosary. Possibly as we sit in a line of traffic, sit in the dentist’s chair, put on our make-up, or fold a load of bath towels?

A little time each day to sing a song of praise. Possibly a CD of Christian music in the stereo as we prepare supper for our family?

A little time to read and meditate on Scripture:

DivineOffice.com (http://divineoffice.org/ )

iBreviary.com (http://ibreviary.com/new/)

iMissal.com (http://www.imissal.com/)

iPieta.com (http://ipieta.com/)

A little time to remember that Christ is the light of the world. Possibly with candles at the dinner table, a prayer candle for those in need, or lighting a candle in church on Sunday?

A little time to pray for those suffering and in purgatory. Possibly by ejaculatory prayers sporadically throughout the day: “Jesus, help them!” “Jesus, bless her!” “Jesus, save him!”

A little time to improve ourselves and strive to be a better person. Possibly by doing a good deed, a good work, taking no credit, and offering it back to God?

A little time to strive to be holy. Possibly by focusing on the saint of the day and meditating on a spiritual quote by that saint?

Helpful “Saint a Day” App links:

Pauline Press:  http://www.pauline.org/AppsMP3s/SaintaDayiPhoneApp/tabid/387/Default.aspx

American Catholic: http://www.americancatholic.org/Features/SaintofDay/iPhone-App/default.aspx

A little time to be saint-like. Possibly by smiling at someone in the store, letting someone with only a few grocery items step ahead of you in the check-out line, looking into the screen of our child’s eyes instead of at the computer screen? The opportunities are endless.

Our Catholic faith is endless and full of depth. Here are a few retreat notes to get you started in those “little” ways of being Catholic

Remember…

• We cannot transform the world until we allow Christ to transform us.
• We have to be before we can do.
• Being Catholic means just that…being…not doing. Christ said to come and be fishers of men. He did not say come and do. ~ Simone Dubois
• Being Catholic means “never having to say we have nothing left to do.” ~ Signs of Life by Scott Hahn
• We really don’t have to do anything. We just have to be Catholic each day.

Copyright 2011 Cay Gibson

Our children are God’s invitation to learn our faith all over again and, this time, to internalize it.

I was struck by this when, during the Advent season, I read Quas Primas, an Encyclical on the Feast of Christ the King written in 1925 by Pope Pius XI. What a great read. You can read it at EWTN website: http://www.ewtn.com/library/encyc/p11prima.htm

There’s a lot I could highlight and tip my cursor at, but the part I’m especially focused on this liturgical year is this excerpt:

(21) “For people are instructed in the truths of faith, and brought to appreciate the inner joys of religion far more effectually by the annual celebration of our sacred mysteries than by any official pronouncement of the teaching of the Church (emphasis mine). Such pronouncements usually reach only a few and the more learned among the faithful; feasts reach them all; the former speak but once, the latter speak every year—in fact, forever. The church’s teaching affects the mind primarily; her feasts affect both mind and heart, and have a salutary effect upon the whole of man’s nature. Man is composed of body and soul, and he needs these external festivities so that the sacred rites, in all their beauty and variety, may stimulate him to drink more deeply of the fountain of God’s teaching, that he may make it a part of himself, and use it with profit for his spiritual life.”

It goes on, of course, but this is the main flux.

I love this! I love that Pope Pius XI confirmed my 21^st century mothering instincts years outside of each other. He agreed that the feasts of the Church do indeed reach all people and affects both mind and heart! Can children be taught in any other way?

He tells us that most of the faithful are not “the more learned” but are, in fact, “only a few” and we are assured that:

“For people are instructed in the truths of faith, and brought to appreciate the inner joys of religion far more effectually by the annual celebration of our sacred mysteries than by any official pronouncement of the teaching of the Church.”

This sentence alone directs the steps of parents in teaching the Catholic faith to our children.

That the Church embraces feasting makes me want to be a child again. It makes me happy to belong to a Church who invites and welcomes the little children towards the altar of God. That the Church has given us such a beautiful, rich, eventful tool—the liturgical calendar—to focus on and plan our feastings upon, speaks to my creative side…the side I share with my God the creator. That the Pontiff agrees with me that I should focus on these feasts within my home makes me almost giddy…like a child. A Catholic child in the 21^st century!

Copyright 2011 Cay Gibson

At the hairdresser’s this morning three of us carried on a conversation about what has happened in the Church’s past and what is going on in the Church’s present and what we see as the Church’s future. None of us are theologians or have master degrees in religion. Two of us teach CCD. The third was an elderly woman in her eighties who has seen and knows far more than either my hairdresser or I.

But we all agreed with the obvious; there is a lost generation of Catholics out there. They are our neighbors, our friends, our family; they are the parents of today. Following in their stead, is the next generation. We are all called to the table yet so many fail to accept the invitation.

I am often oblivious to the obvious and I was a self-professed Catholic teenager at one time which allows me some compassion for the students who come down the corridors of our CCD building. That’s where my relationship with my own children (of staggering ages) comes in. I give a measure of clearance to all the questioning teenagers who come through our religious ed program because I know their questions. And I know there is not always an answer. But years have passed and my life is very different today then it was when I was a Catholic teenager. I am now a Catholic wife and mother. I now see how rich and beautiful the Catholic faith is and it stuns me that other parents are blinded to the obvious. There is so much to learn, to unwrap, to embrace. I am the blind-leading–the-blind.

I’m thinking though, shouldn’t we try to revive our Catholic faith? Our Catholic identity? Shouldn’t we be passionate about defining our religion and keeping our eyes open wide for all the beauty and possibilities therein? By definition the term “religion” means a lifestyle of faith. Most of us define our religion by the faith lifestyle our family raised us in or by what the current culture is following, but a lifestyle of faith should go deeper than that. A lifestyle of faith defines who we are in heart, mind, and soul.

So how did we end up with a lost generation of Catholics?

I think it’s safe (though cautious) to say that after Vatican II most parents stopped living the Catholic lifestyle. It was considered dowdy and old-fashion. We were liberated. We were “in the know.” Out with the old, in with the new, became an understood mantra. We left our traditions camped outside our lives and shunned anything that chanted Catholic. We were no longer sure what or who we were supposed to look like, act like, and be like as Catholics. We closed our  doors on past notions, lifelines that had withstood the lashes of change through so many years. It is only natural that the only connection we made with the Catholic lifestyle was that of sitting in church for an hour on Sunday making chapels of our fingers and palms. We didn’t understand why we were there or what we were doing there. If that wasn’t enough, we were subjected to another hour of CCD classes. Not all classes were dull and monotonous but most of us had our share of watered-down Catholicism.

Though Vatican II opened many closed doors to the Catholic laity and actually invited us into a fuller communion with the Mass, lots got thrown out the back door that shouldn’t have been thrown out. Gone was the mystery, the traditions, the age-old devotions which formed the connections—like rosary beads—between generations. Religion became something to do only in church on Sunday and something to share only in CCD on Wednesday nights.

We need to look back at those devotions and traditions, upon which the Catholic faith tucks and hems its teachings inside of.  Catholic author Leisa Anslinger recently told several religious education directors, “Tradition is the passing on of sacred truth.” It is also the passing on of the sacred trust. Tradition, truth, and trust are what define a Catholic lifestyle. Without traditions we lose that personal connection with our faith. We lose our relationships with those who have gone before us marked with the sign of faith. We lose our identity and become yet another lost generation.

Don’t we want our children to know what a Catholic lifestyle truly looks like? If we don’t keep it alive and burning within our homes, it will surely pass away and become the stuff of legend.

With this in mind, let’s look at the traditions and devotions that make our Catholic faith so fragrant and meaningful if only we reach out and embrace them, beginning inside our homes, our domestic churches. As Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof tells his audicence, “Because of our traditions, we’ve kept our balance for many, many years.” The best way to go back to finding  this balance is to start with the Church’s liturgical year which conveniently begins anew on November 28^th, the First Sunday of Advent.

Until my next column, you might want to go to Mater et Magistra and copy their free PDF Fall 2010 issue which is full of Catholic ideas sure to abundantly bless your Catholic home:  http://materetmagistramagazine.org/mETm_3.4_online.pdf

Copyright 2010 Cay Gibson

These men might not be rescued until Christmas time. That information took me 2,400 below light and life as I tried to imagine what it must be like for them and, in my own reality, to imagine what their families are experiencing so far south of us.

I pray for the men and their families daily. And I am thankful for light and life.

And—though it’s a gigantic (perhaps even desperate) leap of similarities—something that strikes me (in a peculiar, over-exaggerated way, of course) is the fact that the trapped miners have had to establish a routine, a schedule, to help breed a sense of normalcy and to help them with cope with their current state of affairs. It is not much different from the way we live as families, on a substantially larger scale, of course.

The need for normality is crucial for the survival of these 33 men. For those wanting to discuss this current event with their children and give them a hands-on perspective, here is a good link: How 33 Chilean Miners are Surviving.

Each man is given a job to do each day. Something as simple as washing their faces and brushing their teeth each morning sets the rhythm for the day. There is a rule that no man begins eating until all have food in hand. A mine vehicle’s hood has become a desk where decisions are made. The buddy system has been installed in order to care for one another. They eat together, work together, pray together, make decisions together, and play makeshift dominoes together.

Does your family?

An expert on traumatic stress, psychologist John Fairbank from Duke University, speaks, “What we’re seeing them do now is trying to normalize their situation, giving it a routine, a structure and a purpose.”

Families can use this code during the stress of everyday life: routine, structure, and a purpose.

A purpose! I find this mind-tingling ironic that, in the end, in every situation, humans need a purpose. Our purpose in life is the gift of Hope that was left at the bottom of Pandora’s box. It’s the filagree of Hope which we cling to that says we have a purpose here on earth, that we are more than the worms which irrigate the earth and the ants and bees which slave under a hierarchy of structure and purpose.


Copyright 2010 Cay Gibson

I added my 2-cents:

“I really like Facebook.

“I haven’t had much online time…certainly not enough to write thought-provoking blog posts—and Twitter’s word limit limits my expression too much.

“Facebook is a nice medium.

“And lots of my family and friends are on it which is very nice.

“My son is 15 too.
And he thinks Facebook is being taken over by the “old” people.

“His Oma and I try to respect his space, while he begs his little sister to not pester his basketball friends who accept her ‘friendship.’

“And I’ve learned, via Facebook, that my son is quite the poet! Who knew!??! “

Someone replied that she was learning how humorous her son was, because of Facebook. It really is a good thing for parents to realize that their teenagers are often just trying to be funny rather than sarcastic.

Frankly, some of the stuff my son headlines at Facebook makes me scratch my head at times. He’s pretty melancholic…in a good way though.Then I find out many of his “headlines” weren’t his personal melancholic thoughts but were lines from songs that speak to him. And that taught me a little more about him versus who I thought he was.

Facebook has afforded me a small “peek” into my son’s inner thoughts…in many good ways. As a parent, you don’t often get these “peeks.” Even while sitting across from them at the table or listening to them in the car, you cannot begin to pry open their minds and face the entirety and enormity of the person God has created.

Seriously…

None of us can truly know the inner being of our spouse and children. Nor do they want us to. Only God knows. Still, even within families we struggle to communicate and make ourselves understood. We struggle so hard.

And that’s why I’ll embrace any form of communication that is presented to me, even little 140 character “tweets.”

I find it a privilege that these Internet mediums give me the opportunity to “login” to more insight of my child’s life. I read something they’ve written, even if it’s a one-liner headline on Facebook or a short “tweet” at Twitter, and am amazed to have a glimpse of their real perspective. It’s a small part of them, true, but it’s still a very real part of them. They typed it. And I love that.

It’s like being backstage of a theatre or in the wings.  You get to see more than what the audience sees. You get to see behind-the-scenes. You get to see parts of the whole performance that has placed your child as the star.  You get to see the headlines that you were clueless to.

It isn’t your fault that you were unaware. Parents are busy. We miss a lot that swirls and twirls around our houses. We’re figuring up income tax for the year. You had jury duty this week. You had a deadline to meet. You had to shop for school supplies. You had to cook supper.

Then your child hands you a script—not written by you but by him—and you realize there are scenes in your child’s life you missed, perhaps even ignored. Scenes you didn’t know he had recorded. Scenes you never saw practiced. I think we all get those scripts.

The obscurity of these communicative outlets, while still very public, allows people to be more themselves. I think.

True, some people hide behind this persona, but tell me honestly: can your child really hide from you? The life of these online outlets is a much easier life to live in. Admit it. Being front and center is not easy for most of the population. Stage fright is clearly at the top of our lists of phobias.

At Facebook, My Space, Twitter, blogs, and other “stages”, you aren’t physically standing in front of an audience worried about whether your pants are on backwards—or unzipped—or if there’s a speck of spinach between your teeth.

Perhaps it’s because I’m a writer that I think we learn more about people and their thought-process from their writing than by talking to them. My husband and father, who both find people so fascinating that they are content to sit in the middle of the mall strip and simply watch people while my mother and I shop and yak-yak-yak-yak endlessly, would probably disagree with me.

But I speak from experience. I have two young adults, one teenagers, and a pre-teen.

I think I know my children pretty well. I know what makes them tick. I know their future plans. I know their worries. I know what they like and what they don’t like. I know who they like and who they don’t like.

At least I like to think I do. At least for today.

Tomorrow they will prove me wrong.

My teenagers and I talk alot, on a daily basis. We cell phone, we text, we email, we sit on the sofa and recliner, we talk while cooking, we talk leaning against our vehicles, we talk over the echos of the television, we talk over the din of heckling siblings, we talk late at night…midnight even. Conversation here never stops. And I could easily be tricked into thinking that I know my children.

But I’m in my forties now…young enough to not know everything and old enough to know that I don’t know everything. I know that my own parents don’t know everything about me and what makes me tick. Why would I presume to know everything about my children?

There are still times—though not near as often as when I was a teenager—when my parents leave from their morning coffee stop and I feel there are points that weren’t conveyed as well as I wanted  them to be. I feel misunderstood. But I’m old enough now to know there were points my parents tried to convey that were misunderstood by me.

All’s fair in love and war…and communication.

So we laugh about one of the grandchildren’s antics, shake our heads over the state of the economy, and simply go back to sipping our coffee and, in doing so, we keep the communication open and alive…never taking ourselves so seriously that we refrain from communicating in any way except our Facebook pages. And the conversation goes on.

It’s human nature and part of our dignity that wants to be, demands to be, understood. We are never so at peace as when someone understands us. A hundred people might misunderstand us but the single soul who reaches out and says, “I know exactly what you were trying to say” is the one we see as our friend.

These small forms of communication…as I have seen time, time, and again…serve to unite us only at the pace we are willing to be united. There are times to talk face-to-face, times to send thoughtful cards, time to send clarifying emails, time to send quick texts, times to back off, times to be silent, times to be public and times to be private. And we are led to more expansive conversations and insights which bless us and leave us more open-minded and charitable than we ever were in high school drama class. That’s why I’ll take communication in any form it’s offered, especially from my children. Whichever way my children are comfortable communicating, I’ll take it. Gratefully.

Copyright 2010 Cay Gibson