Simple Thoughts: Missing Molly

Simple Thoughts: Missing Molly:  Sister Molly came into my life a little less than a year ago.  She had been recommended to me as a perfect spiritual guide match by two peo...

Simple Thoughts: Protecting the Stillness

Simple Thoughts: Protecting the Stillness:  I have been home from Spain for more than a month and one of the greatest gifts that it is still giving is finding comfort in the stillness...

Zooming Out: The Long View

 Over the past few years, I have become a happy resident of the long view.  As I age and rediscover my footing as grandmother and retiree, this feeling is amplified by the passing of a parent and the death and illnesses of my aunts and uncles.  Although, you always know it's coming, one day you look around and realize there is no one left of the older generations to ask the questions: do you remember, where did we go on that train trip, who are these people in the photo? It's not so much the feeling of being orphaned as it is taking on the mantle of the sage or crone that ushers the other generations forward; the keeper and teller of the stories.  I first noticed this long view as I watched my daughter mothering her own children.  I remembered the worries that she shared of food and diapers and preschools and the futures into which she was leading them as my own when she was in my arms.  I immediately remembered the stress I felt as a mom but had somehow magically shed as a grandmother.  For the first time I could see the worries on which I had wasted my time and energy.  The kids were fine.  There was no need to be concerned of each meal, each diaper change, friends they would or wouldn't make.  The kids were fine.  That is not to say that those things were not important, only that they would take care of themselves.  

This long view has also granted me the gift of forgiveness. When you are 25 and look back on your life at the mistakes you have made, it is difficult to find the place of understanding how God could love you in spite of it all.  For me, the high school and college years were full of missteps and experimenting with the boundaries of safety and security. I did nothing that you would call dangerous but I definitely tinkered with the lines. Then, as you make the turn toward 40, those errors of your youth are overshadowed by the goodness you have left in your trail; the work you have done, the service of which you have been a part, the love you have given to your parents and children, and the sacrifices you have made in the name of that love. It becomes harder and harder to remember the errors of your past or maybe you purposefully leave them behind and choose not to carry them alongside of your goodness. You live your life stepping forward knowing that you are always moving toward goodness through the next decades of life.  

What followed next for me was the time of coming face to face with the knowledge that I am God's Beloved.  That did not come easily but it did finally come until I could at long last hold the loving gaze as God affirmed, "You are my Beloved; this is my daughter with whom I am well pleased." That led me into Week 1 of the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises.  This week starts with God's great love for us and all that has been provided through the beauty and grandeur of creation.  I fell deeply into that love and spent days in prayer of adoration and giving thanks for all the gifts I have been given.  But then came the time to acknowledge that I haven't always responded to those gifts with thanks and gratitude. I was immediately tossed back to my youth and saying aloud and trying as best I could to believe that I am a sinner but yet still the Beloved.  Only with God can those two facts sit side by side.  These were difficult and tear-filled days.  It took me some time to fully understand what it meant to be loved despite everything; no matter what I do or have done or will do, I am the Beloved.  Nothing can keep me from the love of God.  

In the aftermath of the Spiritual Exercises, I once again zoom out and engage the long view. Much like my years of motherhood, the worries of the missteps of my youth are little more than a pebble on the road of life that needs to be stepped over.  God's love is always present and although I may turn away from time to time, the love waits for me to look back over my shoulder and once again engage with gaze of Love.  I am the Beloved.  Always and forever.  

Getting Everyone in Alignment to Follow the Plan

 There have been many occasions that I believed I was following my life path only to be surprised that things didn't seem to go the way they should have or even could have. Then later, I would feel myself returning to the same location on the journey for a second or third round and this time things went much more smoothly. Could it be that I was pushing things ahead of their schedule or was it that I was not the only variable in the experiment?

Here is example #1: When I left public education in 2011, for the first time in my life I was unemployed with no job on the horizon. A friend invited me to come take a look at the exciting things that were going on at the Nativity schools in San Jose where he was principal. I was overwhelmed by what I saw and you couldn't help but call it exciting; however I was simply in no condition, physically, mentally or, spiritually to take on the challenge. I thanked him, knowing full well that this might be my only opportunity, but I was simply too exhausted from my most recent teaching experience to even consider it. I truly believed I was done with the classroom and was moving on. Fast forward two years in the future and the shoe was on the other foot. I was the one asking for the chance to be a part of the Nativity system. There was definitely some prodding that was involved but in the end the principal agreed and I signed the contract to teach English and Religion. Was the plan for me to be there in 2011 or 2013; whose free will was interceding and disrupting or delaying the plan. Here is a completely different scenario. Around the time that my mom turned 90, we all agreed that it was time to insert a safety net for her and hire a home health care agency. She went along with it for a few weeks but then started sending the aids home early or asking them not to come on their scheduled days. It took a while but Mom finally found an aid that she liked and with whom she built a relationship. But even that wasn't enough to sustain the agreement. Within a few months, we all tired of trying to convince Mom that this was for her good and released ourselves from the contract. Once again, fast forward 18 months and as things with any 90 year old does, things begin to deteriorate and we are once again in a family conversation about home health care aids. This time it works for two reasons; Mom is ready and her favorite health care aid is available. Once again, were we pushing events ahead of their schedule or did Mom have to come to grips with the idea that she really did need help before the relationship could work?

I do believe that God has a plan for my life but I also believe that I have been given free will to circumvent the plan, make a detour and come back around to the plan at a later date, or even completely avoid the plan altogether. There is ample evidence of all of these options at play in my work history. But here is the thing that I have finally come to understand; the plan/my plan is not operating in a vacuum. The plan involves not only my life but also plans for other people's lives. I could only accept the teaching position at Nativity the second time around if and when it was available, meaning someone else's life plan had to include a move away from Nativity. Mom would only agree to home health care assistance if Joyce was available and she could only come to that decision after having met and known Joyce the year before. All of the people involved in a possible scenario are operating in tanden and simultaneously with my own. So on those occasions when I start down a path and I lose sight of it, it may not be my fault; it may be that another main character in the scene has unknowingly changed course.

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin's poem about the "slow work of God" has always been one of my favorites. Patient Trust. So now the dilemma for thoughtful humans becomes: are the unpredictable movements of the involved parties part of that slow work or is God as surprised by how and when the plans work out as we are? Whichever is true, I marvel at the complexity of life and our lives in relationship with one another. Unknowingly, we are all totally and completely dependent on each other and on God's plan.  

When the Crossing of Paths Becomes an Intertwining

I am a big believer that people come into your life for a reason. There have been several people that have crossed my path and I have known immediately that they came to me for a purpose. I felt it, knew it, and said it aloud. Sometimes they came to remind me that despite the trials and turmoils that I was enduring, I was lovable because they were living proof of it. And sometimes I have known immediately that they came to teach me something about life - to find joy and delight in it, to lead me in a different direction, or just to show up and stand by my side. But there have also been a few people who have come and left and come again. Our paths for some reason began to resemble an intertwining rather than a crossing. With each meeting or crossing our relationship deepened and each of us grew because of it. I have a friend who I met when we were both first married and having our babies. It was the 70s so we were part of a vegetable coop and a cheese coop and we just seemed to pop up in each other's lives - at the park, at church, and eventually at the same school. I wasn't actually part of her inner circle of friends but we definitely knew each other and one another's kids. 

Life goes on and mothers get jobs and you just slowly lose track of people. Our paths crossed again when my job journey brought us together at the same school. The crossing this time was a deeper connection as now we not only had our families in common but came together to talk primary educational curriculum, reading strategies, and the challenges of Catholic education. We were both thinkers more than feelers and even did some teacher trainings together. There was nothing we loved more than picking each other's brains to find new ways around the challenges in early reading instruction. Our relationship now had a more solid feel to it. But once again my professional journey took us in different directions. She headed towards administration and I wanted only to know more about learning. My path moved me along the trajectory of special education and into public education and back out again with a return to Catholic schools. We would encounter each other now and again and with each meeting we remembered how much we enjoyed one another's company. We came to name our friendship the "pair of old shoes" that are familiar and comfortable. You see them in your closet often enough but you're not sure why you don't wear them more frequently because the minute you put them on, you remember how good they feel. That was how our friendship felt - comfortable and easy. 

But life has a way of moving you away from comfort and ease. Your kids get older and go to high school and college; your parents age and become ill and there doesn't seem to be a way to get back to that old pair of comfortable shoes as often as you'd like to. So the intertwining continued as we moved along on our separate paths, coming together whenever possible and enjoying the feeling whenever we did. But then it seemed that a greater power interceded. My friend found her way into the Spiritual Exercises at Santa Clara University, something I had tried to fit into my summer schedule for several years near the end of my career and it just hadn't worked. It became a "someday thing" on my life's agenda. But all it took was my intertwining friend to say, "Tere, you've got to do this," and I was in. It was Covid and I was living in Florida to be near my parents but all obstacles had been removed with the advent of Zoom meetings. Now this friendship became something far beyond anything either of us could have ever imagined. We talked often and long during my Exercises and at the end of it, God led me back to San Jose and suddenly we found ourselves within walking distance of one another. We meet for coffee and walk the labyrinth, we share the latest book we read or tidbits of conversations with our spiritual guides. These conversations help us to grow in our faith and give us a safe place to ask the questions or just admit how long it has taken us to learn to pray or meditate or contemplate. This acquaintanceship that became a professional mentorship that became a comfortable friendship was now a spiritual companionship. The intertwining of these two lives is something for which I will never stop giving thanks. There is no more crossing of these paths. We are walking side by side, hand in hand, companions on the journey.  

We are Given All That is Needed

Any adolescent's first hearing of the story of Ignatius of Loyola is left feeling with the thought of "I think I'm OK." Ignatius's early years are definitely not the model we would want our middle schoolers to emulate. (Ignatius Biography). He was born into nobility but being the last of thirteen children left limited opportunities. Iñigo brought all of his personality traits to bear on his desire for success. He was driven to be the best and that may have meant finding a female companion (some have called him a womanizer) or leading his fellow soldiers onto the battlefield of a skirmish that no one but him thought was winnable. Ignatius is well-known for his "cannon ball moment." As the story goes it was his desire to go into battle against the French in Pamplona, Spain and things did now go well as many had previously predicted. It was an especially bad day for Ignatius as he was carried off the battlefield with one leg broken and the other severely wounded. The leg was set; perhaps improperly, and healed leaving a bump on his leg. Being extremely vain and whose nobility uniform included tights, this was unacceptable and Ignatius demanded that the leg be broken again, the bump shaved off, and reset. So his recovery was quite long and extensive. Personality traits of young Iñigo from this vignette alone would include determined, proud, vain, glory seeking, and willing to win at all costs. But as we all know, Ignatius's cannon ball moment led to a personal conversion and he was able to take all of these traits and remold them in his desire to serve Jesus.

As Christians, we believe that God-given strengths and traits with which we are born are put in place to serve God. However, as humans, we often have what we think is a better idea of ways we can serve ourselves and God simultaneously with those traits. When born into nobility, it is only natural that Ignatius would have utilized his gifts toward glorifying his rise through the noble ranks. He had a strong belief in himself and that he could be the best at whatever he attempted. There is certainly no ill in being the best but through his conversion, Ignatius was able to see ways to mold those traits away from being self-serving and instead to glorify God. So when we look back at the somewhat selfish traits, Iñigo demonstrated in his youth, we can see how they could also be utilized in service to God. He was born with everything he needed to follow the path from Loyola to Rome. He believed in himself and that even if he went into battle alone, he would be victorious. After completely the writing of the Spiritual Exercises in Manresa, he walked alone to Barcelona and sailed on to the Holy Land and back to Paris to complete his studies. He was charismatic, and easily convinced others to join him in the mission of initiating the Companions of Jesus and beginning the order of the Jesuits. His dedication and devotion shifted from royalty to Jesus and his blessed mother, Mary. It bears noting that the power and personal dedication of this one man is still at work in our world today. Ignatius started an order dedicated to education and there are currently 28 Ignatian colleges and universities in the United States today. HIs mission, the spiritual design and purpose of one man, is still growing.

So when we take time to discern the direction of our life and question the decisions we have made, I hope that we can take a moment to dig deeper and consider the personality traits that have been at work. If we, like young Iñigo, have used our gifts for personal gain in place of giving glory to the gifts themselves, take a moment (hopefully not a cannonball moment) and consider how we and God might be able to work together for the greater good. How might we take the trait of being the best at something and realign it so it serves others? We, too have been given all that we need.

The Power of Place

I ponder the part that place plays in our spiritual development. Does growing up in the woods change who you are and become compared with that same being who is raised in the urban world of a metropolis? Was the role of Loyola as place vital to who Ignatius of Loyola became? Did the rolling hills and mountains that he walked as a boy form him into the man that would become awestruck at the night sky.

I am an avid reader and would agree that there are some books and writers that are so drawn to the power of place that the setting becomes another main character in the story. It is in the interaction between the persons and place that the plot draws its drama. Where the Crawdad Sings or Go Like a River would be sadly lacking in structure and form without the beauty and grandeur of the settings.

I grew up in rural Iowa and there was nothing I liked better than being down in the greenbelt behind our house which we all lovingly called "the ditch." I had no affinity to the life of Iowa, of the town, or even the houses we lived in. When I turned 18 and was ready for college, I was more than ready to leave it behind and the same was true four years later as I left Florida for California. But the Iowa trees and grasses and mud that formed that young girl somehow nurtured her into the woman that would want nothing more than a walk in the woods on a spring day in the Santa Cruz hills.