End of School Year Poem

I packed my backpack one last time.

Old pencils with worn out erasers,

Dry markers that have forgotten how to spread color across a page,
Used up spiral notebooks
And all the words they held.

I packed up my desk and left it for another year
Another student
Another day.

And I lowered the lid.

My baseball cap is waiting for me
At home on the bedpost.
My swimming suit is neatly folded next to my summer shorts
In a drawer that’s barely used from September to May.

I wave good-bye to science, and math, and grammar, and all those classes.
But somewhere in the middle of July, I’m bound to realize.

It has all followed me into summer.
The science finds me as I explore the meadow and the grove.
The math returns as I count out change at the store and the farmer’s market.
The grammar is there and the vocabulary I learned, when I pick up that book that’s been waiting for summer and I fall asleep each night with the characters who live in the book on my bed stand.
And the religion has followed me home as well.

I see God in the early morning sunrise. The hayfield. The mother and her calf. The watermelon, so sweet and juicy. The long car ride to the beach and new states and new places.

The holy water is always waiting. The kneeler is ready for my hands to lower, so my knees can bend. And as I enter the Church during these weeks of summer vacation,
I realize over and over that I didn’t leave anything behind.
It is all right here.
Inside.
Where I keep all the best things and they stay wrapped up in memories.
In that place where I…

Remember.

 -D.Bossert

End of School Year Poem

The Heart of the Matter

It doesn’t happen every time I enter the church doors and genuflect. In fact, it doesn’t usually happen while I’m kneeling in prayer. It happens after. After I’ve bowed before the Altar. After I’ve quieted my spirit and shared a space of time with Our Lord.

When I slip back into my seat - that’s when it happens. I can feel my own heart beating. My upper body moves slightly with each pulse. It’s a gentle stirring, the direct result of a beating heart and a quieted body. My heartbeat.

And it reminds me of a phrase I’ve heard many times since my conversion to the Catholic Church. Sacred Heart of Jesus and Immaculate Heart of Mary.

Their heartbeat.

The irony is that I embraced the devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary before I grasped the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

I’m not sure why. After all, it was Jesus who led me here. He guided me to the Eucharist and His Church. Perhaps this last devotion came late because I came to the Church with a great love for Christ to begin with, while I knew nothing of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Perhaps it was my self-diagnosed ignorance that caused me to consider the Immaculate Heart of Mary first.

Lately, though, as I sit in the quiet before Mass begins and I feel my own heart beating, I sense something beyond myself.

Another Heart. It pulses with a love so perfect that not even death could stop it permanently. It flows with a mercy so great that not even my imperfections can cause it to cease its life-giving fountain. It pours forth with an abundance of grace so rich that I have all that I need to genuflect and leave through the Church doors – and become Christ to the world.

It was near the Feast of Divine Mercy Sunday that my spiritual director gave me a book by Hans Urs Von Balthasar. Heart of the World. The writing is beautiful, so beautiful that I was lost in its rhythm, wooed by the literary masterpiece.

The thesis comes square in the middle of the figurative language. I didn’t expect it. It didn’t come in a jarring way. I didn’t come upon it abruptly. It was more like an epiphany, like the first rays of morning light when you are staring at the Morning Star. And you realize that the heavens are waking, and the sun’s first light has claimed all light and made it its own.

Jesus Christ’s love flows from His Sacred Heart. And everything is absorbed into that pulsing Heart. Mary’s Immaculate Heart. And my heart, too.

The Sacred Heart of Jesus is the talisman with which God has penetrated our world and transformed it from within… the talisman God has used to break open the bolted gate. That’s what Hans Urs Von Balthasar says. “God created a Heart for himself and placed it at the center of the world” (44). This “hushed chamber became a military highway on which the caravans of grace descend.”

Hans Urs Von Balthasar describes this Grand Central Station as the epicenter by which every living thing is sorted and distributed and receives its papers and authorizations, mission, consolations, routes, provisions, and grace. This is the “circulation of love” (56). Divinity and humanity at its most vulnerable. Where love is offered, even before it is received.

This Sacred Heart keeps pulsing. Waiting. Offering itself, beating for me constantly, steadily, quietly. And It is beating for you. And your children. And your parents. And your students. And your priest. And your neighbor. For those you like. For those you don’t like very much. For those you don’t like at all. Yes, there is love for that one, too.

It is the Grand Central Station where the Divine One abides, and we abide in Him.

And as I sit there in the quiet before the Mass, I let my beating heart submit to that Heart. Soon, I will leave, renewed and recreated by the Precious Blood and the Holy Eucharist – to go into the world as the vulnerable one. I will carry Him to them.

The Heart of the Matter

One of my students asked me if I was Republican or Democrat a few months ago. Leave it to a child to ask questions no adult would ask. I didn’t have an easy answer for him.

I have gone through a political identity crisis of sorts since converting to the Catholic Church. I don’t know what I am any more. Nothing fits well.

When I was a child and my dad was a Wesleyan preacher, our family identified itself as Republican. Then everything shifted when my dad became a Presbyterian and my mother went into teaching. The Wesleyans we knew were conservative. Presbyterians weren’t categorized quite so easily, though it seemed they were mostly liberal, and public school teachers were predominantly Democrat. Suddenly, our family identified itself as Democrat.

I spent my adult years bouncing from one political party to another. One election, I was conservative. Another, I was liberal. And then, I returned to my conservative roots.

Until I became Catholic. Now, nothing fits well.

I resist committing myself to either major political party because I can’t say I agree completely with either one. I’m pro-life, from conception to natural death. I don’t limit that conviction at all. All life is to be protected.

I’m pro-immigrant. I suppose that’s because my minor was Spanish and my nieces are adopted from China. I’m pro-social justice. I suppose that’s because I have two African-American grandsons. Maybe it is because I have experienced lean years and prosperous years.

I believe in the dignity of the worker.  A good job can make the difference in one’s outlook on life and one’s hope for the future. Work is a kind of therapy. It is almost sacramental – so much so that it can even become a prayer. I believe that there is more at stake than the economy when unemployment is high. The human spirit is damaged by unemployment and underemployment.

I believe in religious freedom. I believe in the protection of conscience rights and an individual’s right to practice his/her faith.

Where is the candidate with planks and a platform that match mine? Where is that candidate? If you find him or her, please send me an email.

So, what is a Catholic to do? How do you answer the question, "Are you a democrat or a republican?"

I think the fundamental problem with many American voters is that we tend to vote for the candidate who will help us the most personally, and usually we are thinking about our own pocket book and bank account.

It is easy to know which side of the political fence you are on then.

Or, we Americans tend to vote for the candidate who will support our profession the most. It is easy to know which side of the political fence you are on then.

Or, we vote for the candidate who fits our religious (or non-religious) perspective. That works for almost everybody except Catholics.

Catholics don’t have things neatly organized into conservative or liberal ideology. That’s why liberals sometimes like our bishops and they sometimes dislike them. That’s why conservatives sometimes like our bishops and they sometimes dislike them.

I follow what the bishops say, and contrary to what so many think, not even the bishops could answer my student’s question.

We are Catholic. That’s about all we can say definitively. We don't hitch our wagon to things as fickle as political postures.

We are not reeds in the wind, blowing in the direction of whatever wind is most popular today.

Sometimes, that means we will stand up and irk liberals and sometimes that means we will stand up and irk conservatives.

But, if we are who we should be, we will always have the common good in mind and we will always come down on the side of the oppressed, the marginalized, the unborn, the orphaned, and the displaced, and for the one with no political, economic, or social clout.

If you think you have figured out whether I’m liberal or conservative by now, you know me better than I know myself.

Even so, I will vote in the election. I am likely to feel conflicted as I mark my vote, but I hope I remember that it’s not all about me. It’s about the common good.

Life.

Liberty.

And the pursuit of happiness.


But it is not merely my life, my liberty, my happiness that I'm concerned about. It is the life, liberty, and happiness of every life. EVERY life. That said, the voice that cries out to me the loudest when I vote belongs to the one who has no voice at all. So while you can not possibly know my political affiliation (because I do not have one), you probably can figure out how I will vote.

Bottomline: I’ve found the ultimate expression of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness in my Catholic faith. Politics? Not so much.

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Camp Lakewood & Saintmaking

The Alpine Tower is a rite of passage. The name alone is enough to make the incoming 5th and 6th grade students go silent.

How hard is it, anyway?

They ask the older students, who calm their fears by recounting their own experience on The Tower.

You just can't get stuck in fear. Keep moving up. Just think about where to put your foot next, what handhold you will go to next.

We had a beautiful, sunny day on March 30th for our climb.

The students stood at the foot of the tower - and stared at it. Nothing could prepare them for this moment. The challenge of The Tower rose above them, daring them to wrestle their own fear and then leave it on the ground.

The students approached the climb in different ways.

The most athletic boys had the greatest challenge. They stood at the base of the tower and watched. They assessed The Tower from all angles. They categorized the ropes. Taking the easiest way up would look bad. They had images to uphold. But choosing the most difficult way up might mean not making it at all. And that would be tragic. The whole class would see them fail. And one never got another shot at The Tower.

It was today or never.

The girls had their own fears.

One girl, Anna, marched over to the base of The Tower and just started moving up. Her older sisters had made it when they were at camp. Her older brother had done it. And, by golly, she would too. She was the smallest girl from St. Ignatius School. But family honor was at stake. A few minutes later, she stood on the platform and did her victory dance.

Another girl stepped up to The Tower and started climbing. Mary approached the challenge as she does everything. The only thing she saw was six inches ahead. She focused only on what to do next. She did not know if she was three feet off the ground or thirty feet off the ground. And that is how my frailest girl made it to the top. She never saw the tower as The Tower. She merely saw one handhold after another.

Then there was the girl who begged to come down. She could reach up and touch the platform, but the final maneuver terrified her. We called to her from the ground, reminding her that she had made it this far. It's right there, Julie. Just reach up and touch it. The whole thing was painful to watch. A classmate started up The Tower long after she did and gave her a pep talk as he passed her and reached for the platform. I wondered what would happen if she refused to go up and refused to go down. Finally, she threw a leg over the platform and hauled her body up.

There was still one more little girl. She wasn't mine. She belonged to St. Vincent's School. Emma. Emma looked like she was in second grade. She had spent a long time looking at The Tower. As she gazed on the vertical obstacle course, she shook. The tears rolled down her face. She never looked at her teacher or at me. She only saw The Tower. There was no getting out of this challenge. Eventually, they would all try and make it - or try and fail, and she would have to go then. I wondered what would happen when she could not put it off any longer. I said a little prayer for Emma-the-tiniest-of-all.

Okay, Emma. You're up.

All eyes were on Emma. She walked quietly to The Tower and began climbing. And climbing. And climbing. She went deliberately. Silently. Stunningly focused. We weren't witnessing confidence, just pure determination. When the next handhold seemed just a little out of reach, the guide (a woman named Kim) would give a little assistance from the ground below by tugging on the rope that connected Emma to Miss Kim. Emma was so focused, she never realized that Miss Kim was helping. Emma would move up, pushing off from her foothold, and Miss Kim would give the rope a little tug. Emma made it. She made it all the way up, while some of our strongest boys had stood on the first platform and begged to come down.

I've thought a lot about those students and how they approached The Tower.

The making of a climber is not so different from the making of a saint.

Some people who seem to have this whole faith-thing figured out tremble as they face the last, greatest fear. The shadow of death. There's an image to uphold, after all. The fear is almost too much for them - fear of death, fear of failure. There is humility in this moment, and if they can embrace that gift, they can make it. They succeed because they finally realize that it was never about their strength to begin with. It was always about submission and trust.

Other people are like Anna. Their entire family has set the standard and it's almost as though they were made for this moment. They have been groomed to conquer this challenge. Like little Therese, whose parents and sisters were like a garden - a garden that gave The Little Flower everything she needed to find her way up.

Still others are like Mary. They move from one foothold to another. The journey is do-able because the climb is never more than six inches higher. God takes care of the rest. These are the ones who know how to give a yes to God. And another yes. And another yes. And then, it's done.

Other people are like Julie. They want to quit when the end is right there - when they can touch the final landing and all it takes is one more heave upward. And everyone around them holds their breath and prays. And even they find the grace to make that final ascending move.

I'm like Emma. The smallest - spiritually. The weakest - spiritually. The youngest - spiritually.

I'm the convert. I spend much of my life just trying to keep up with those who have longer spiritual strides. I spend my time at the back of the line - watching the big ones. I'm not a spiritual athlete. I'm not a cradle Catholic with a family line like St. Therese. I'm not able to compartmentalize the journey, taking in only today. I look at the tasks before me and tremble sometimes. I've been known to cry and mutter to myself I don't think I can do this.

Dear, sweet Emma. You make me smile. If you can make it to the top, then I can too. Just as Miss Kim guided you and helped to haul your tiny frame higher and higher, grace will take me on this upward journey, too.

The time for tears is over. The time for self-doubt is done.

It's time to reach for the rope and just move higher.

Camp Lakewood & Saintmaking

Catholic by Grace Diocesan Column

The Catholic by Grace column hits its 46th paper. The Diocese of Superior will run the column in The Catholic Herald.

Catholic by Grace Diocesan Column

You've Been Outbid

You've been outbid.

I've been spending too much time on ebay. The phrase is in my head and it's playing on an endless loop.

Outbid.

Too much of life is like that. Bidding on things that catch the eye. Disappointed when we don't get what we've set our hearts on. Upping the ante. Losing anyway. Quickly finding a new bauble to take our minds off the one that got away.

Outbid.

You know what... there is one place where I like to hear the word outbid.

In the confessional.
Where I'm absolved from sin.
When the enemy of my soul has to listen and flee.

Before Confession on Saturday, one woman sat down near me and said, "Well, here we are. Sinners." I nodded, but soon, I thought, a new word will replace that one. Forgiven. Sinners, yes. But soon...

You've been outbid, satan. The Blood of Christ has paid the price.

Precious Sacrifice.
Holy Offering.
Lamb of God.
Perfect One.

Plunged into the sea of Divine Mercy. Yes, the enemy of our soul has been outbid. Jesus Christ is the highest bidder for your soul. And He's waiting for you in the Confessional.

You've Been Outbid

Peter, Paul and Denise

I've been thinking about Peter. He loved Jesus. I can imagine him crying out, "Surely not I, Lord. I will never betray you."
I think one of the things I realize (now that I'm Catholic) is that I have a better view of myself. The view isn't always from a flattering angle, either.

Click here.

I used to think I was deeply in love with Christ - and I was---still am.

But Lent (and an array of Catholic practices) makes me realize that I am not as wonderful as I once thought.

And yet, I am far more holy than I once was.

Seems like a paradox, doesn't it?

Peter had been with Our Lord for two years. He loved Jesus. Without a doubt, he would have followed Our Lord to the ends of the Earth.

But in a moment of panic, He forgets all of that. His confidence in his own love for Jesus doesn't keep him from denying Christ. In fact, Peter denies the Lord he loves three times.

Face-to-face with one's own weakness - that is Lent. That is this now-ness. It is a spiritual place where I know how much I love Our Lord. Oh, so very much! And yet, I see my weakness. My confidence in my love for Jesus isn't enough. It is dangerous to be too sure of one's self. It is risky to think I will never compromise my love for Christ in exchange for a momentary escape. If Peter did it, I shouldn't be too sure of myself.

"I tell you, I do not know Him!"

I say Peter's words when I fail. When I sin. When I do not do the good I wish to do, but do the evil I do not want. (See St. Paul's Letter to the Romans 7:15-19)

Lent.

A season for looking deeply into the tomb of one's own weaknesses - and realizing how much I need Jesus to help me remain faithful.

It is possible to abandon the journey or to get lost along the way. It is possible to lose out on the crown of glory. Beginning a journey doesn't mean one will definitely complete the journey well.

But, one cannot end it without beginning it. And so, we begin, praying that He who began a good work in us will be faithful to complete it. (See St. Paul's Letter to the Philippians 1:6)

Eyes on Christ. My confidence is in Christ's mercy and grace.

Not on my own "mountain of love" that will surely keep me from denying...

For I know how very weak I am. Even so, let us run the race - with hope.

Every athlete exercises discipline in every way. They do it to win a perishable crown, but we an imperishable one. Thus I do not run aimlessly; I do not fight as if I were shadowboxing. No, I drive my body and train it, for fear that, after having preached to others, I myself should be disqualified. -A Letter from St. Paul to the Church at Corinth (I Cor. 9:25-27)

Peter, Paul and Denise

Hubcaps on Branches... and Some Lenten Ashes... these are a few of my favorite things

Once in awhile, I see a shoe in the road. It's odd -- a shoe in a road, in a place it obviously doesn't belong, separated from its mate.

It's almost as odd as seeing a pair of shoes tied together and flung across an overhead wire. You can't help wondering how it got there. Why it's there. Plain old weird.

Today, while I was driving home, I noticed a hubcap that was hanging on a branch. As a driver who has lost a hubcap or two through the years, I knew why this oddball thing was hanging on a treebranch. Someone had found it and knew the owner might be looking for it. The "finder" hung the hubcap on a prominent branch in hopes that the "owner" would pass that way again and see it. The good-deed-doer would never get a thank you for his act of kindness. It was enough to know that the owner might be thankful for the anonymous help.

My friend, during Lent, you are hanging hubcaps on trees for passersby. You won't be thanked. Nobody will ever come up to you and say, "Hey, when I saw the ashes on your forehead, I felt a tug back Home."

Or, "When I took an order and the entire family chose seafood, I realized that they were Catholic and I remembered that it was Friday. That's when I went to Confession. It was the first time in fifteen years."

Or, "I couldn't quite figure out what was going on with her, but she just stopped joining in the office gossip. At first I thought she was sick, but she was in too good of a mood to be sick. Then I wondered. Could it be what she's given up for Lent?"

You are hanging hubcaps on trees. They are out there, the ones who have lost something. And when they notice the oddball hubcap hanging from a tree limb, they might just say, "Hey, that's mine. I need that back."

No acclaim.

No recognition.

No thanks.

Go ahead and hang the hubcaps, friends. And smile while you're doing it. You are about to make another person's day, or week, or eternity.

Hubcaps on Branches... and Some Lenten Ashes... these are a few of my favorite things

Learning to Do the Splits - Lenten-style

At the end of 6th grade, I had a big goal. I wanted to make the cheerleader squad in middle school.

Tryouts were in September. So, I spent the summer getting ready. I had to be able to do something nobody else could do. I had to be able to do something no one would expect me to pull off.

I had to be able to do the splits.

My dad's cousin Shirley told me how to train myself to do the splits. She had been a cheerleader throughout high school, and she could do the splits better than anyone I knew. She showed me the stretches and encouraged me to work my body daily. "Your muscles will cooperate with you, but you have to train them. You have to make them learn something new."

I practiced. Stretched. Attempted. Practiced and stretched and attempted the splits over and over.

For weeks.

At first, I had a good twelve inches between the floor and my body. Then ten. Five. Two. Just two.

By the end of the summer, I could do the splits. There was no space between me and the floor. None.

To top it off, I could do a cartwheel (which I had learned a few years earlier), and I could go right into the splits from there. It was stunning. Nobody else in our rural Iowan middle school could do what I could do.

I kept the secret. In September, we gathered outside for practices. We memorized the tryout cheers. We learned the jumps.

And then, without saying a word, I flung my body sideways into a perfect cartwheel and let my right leg stretch out before me, landing in the most graceful splits you have ever seen.

The girls were impressed. "How did you learn to do that?" They asked.

"I practiced. A lot."

I did not make the cheerleading squad. I simply didn't have the confidence and powerhouse voice to make the team. But I could do the splits.

I had learned something pretty amazing. From that point on, I could do a spontaneous cartwheel and splits whenever the spirit moved me. In the backyard. In the gymnasium. On the wrestling mats. Yes, even in Mom's living room when she was out of the house.

Right now, I'm working on another set of muscles. A spiritual set of muscles. It's Lent, and by the time these weeks of Lent are over, I hope to have conquered this goal of mine.

I'm not hoping to impress anyone. There isn't a squad I hope to be on (unless you're counting the Saints in heaven - that is my ultimate goal).

But I know one thing. It's all worth it. When others least expect me to do my spiritual cartwheel & splits, I hope to pull it off. When nobody is looking, I will spontaneously throw myself into this new skill.

Holiness is practiced. Sanctification is perfected.

There is as much deliberateness required in our becoming holy as there is in learning how to land on the ground with one's feet pointing both north-and-south simultaneously.

Forty Days.

Practice, practice, practice.

Learning to Do the Splits - Lenten-style

Got Palms? And so it begins...

So we have the burning-of-the-palms this week for Ash Wednesday at St. Ignatius School in Concord Hill, Missouri. Father told the students to bring in last year's "Palm Sunday" palms (as usual) to burn. I'm at home on this beautiful Saturday morning, and I'm looking at my palm collection. I have never remembered to bring them back to church for this meaningful ceremony. Instead, I have always placed them in a vase and kept them on a little table at the end of my hall. But THIS YEAR, I am collecting all of my palms - since my first Palm Sunday as a Catholic in 2005 - and I am giving them back to the Lord. I can't wait to pass them out to my students and have them offer my palms up in our ritual. I LOVE our Faith. What an amazing ceremony! What depths of spiritual meaning these faith rituals provide us!

Got Palms? And so it begins...

It's About the 1st Amendment: Stop the HHS

http://bcove.me/is9avdcg

It's About the 1st Amendment: Stop the HHS

Come, Holy Spirit!

This past week, my religion students read about the passing of the baton from Moses to Joshua. They read how Moses layed hands upon Joshua - and then Joshua went forth and led the Israelites across the Jordan River into the Promised Land.

It was a moment for an object lesson. The young people in that class were about to witness a great thing. Four of them had older brothers and sisters who would be Confirmed that night.

The Bishop was coming. In a few hours, he would lay hands upon their siblings and their newly Confirmed brothers and sisters would be ready. Ready to fulfill the work God had called them to do.

Their Jordan River awaits.

The Promised Land is within sight.

And it is set into motion with the laying on of hands.

I wanted them to understand that it is a real event - a tangible thing - this laying on of hands.

The Bishop would lay hands upon our young people, just as the Holy Father had layed hands upon him, and the Bishop would invoke the Holy Spirit's help. It had been done this way for 2000 years.

From Jesus to Peter - all the way to Pope Benedict XVI and Bishop Rice.

The very real touch of the hand goes all the way back to Jesus Christ.

As I explained this great tradition - laying on of hands - I remembered something. It is something I had not thought about for a long time.

When I was their age, my father was ordained as a Presbyterian pastor. He was installed as the pastor of two small parishes in northern Iowa. This ordination and installation required a laying on of hands. I remember seeing my father kneel, seeing some of the elders in the church gather around him, and see them place their hands upon my father as they prayed.

The ritual was as old as Sacred Scripture.

But something was missing. I did not realize this back then. I do now.

The thing that was missing was something we call apostolic succession. The prayer was real. The laying on of hands was real. The Holy Spirit was there. And the faith was real.

But the ones who stood around my father with their hands touching my dad's head - they were not part of a tangible line of apostles. Nobody had layed hands on them. Nobody had anointed them and sent them. There was no apostle in the family tree.

The literal laying-on-of-hands could not be traced all the way back to St. Peter and Jesus.

But the Confirmation students I had taught for months - the ones who were about to be Confirmed - they COULD say this.

The hands that would touch them tonight really were part of the apostolic chain that went all the way back to Jesus Christ.

I think about Dad in moments like this. I wish he had experienced this historical connection to the early Church. I wish he had known what I have discovered.

And yet, it is enough. I have made peace with even this.

I believe my father was taken along a path that went just so far. And no farther. I believe he went to the edge of the Promised Land, and then, in a mystery I cannot explain, I was sent to go the rest of the way.

I have stepped into the Jordan, following after priests and the New Ark of the Covenant. I have seen the waters part again. And I have stepped into the promise. A land filled with gifts. All for the asking.

Wisdom and understanding.
Right judgment and courage.
Knowledge and reverence.
Wonder and awe in the Lord.

Come, Holy Spirit!

Come, Holy Spirit!

Becoming God's Best Poem - even when you feel too busy

“So much depends upon a red wheelbarrow, glazed with rainwater, beside the white chickens.” American poet William Carlos Williams wrote the poem. I happen to like it, but my husband just laughs and says, “That’s not a poem; it’s a sentence.”

John is right, of course; it is a sentence. I am right, too; it is definitely poetry. I guess I just like the simplicity. In my mind, I can see the wheelbarrow as it rests against the chicken coop and the rain bathes the wheelbarrow like an agrarian version of blessed holy water.

To me, it is the ideal of poetry, which should contemplate life, human interaction, and the complexities of our existence, like a pale imitation of faith and the spiritual journey.

As a Christian, I am that red wheelbarrow, overused at times, underused at times, and sometimes used for fun and frolic. Many times, I feel like I am overworked by the Master. I want to cry out, “Can’t I just go back over there by the chicken coop and rest a bit? Lord, aren’t you driving me a bit too hard?”

Then, I sometimes feel abandoned. Like the wheelbarrow, I am propped up beside a chicken coop and left to wait and wait, as the rainwater drizzles down and the chickens peck at the ground. The dog days of summer or the harsh cold days of winter stretch out before me, and I long for Jesus to take me for a joyride, letting some small child climb aboard, feet dangling as she throws back her head in laughter and the Master takes us both for a spin around the farm. I am happy to be used in this way. And the opportunities seem all too rare.

That is how it has been for me since my conversion. At times I am at rest – so much time to sit and reflect, time to contemplate God, my faith, and my purpose. But in those moments, I’ve often felt forgotten and even wondered if I would ever be used again for His service.

Other times, like now, I enter seasons in which I feel overworked – rushed about and pushed to the brink of my ability. I look back to the seasons of quiet contemplation, and I remember those days of rest with longing.

When I am most exhausted by seasons of active labor or feel forgotten in seasons of quiet contemplation, I am surprised and delighted when the Master decides that work and rest can wait. I can almost see the Master as He gently calls to me and says let’s do something else for awhile. Let’s have a little fun. I smile as He lifts a small child up and places her in my care, and we go for a joyride.

I hear the child’s laughter, and I am glad that so much depends upon a red wheelbarrow. So much depends on letting God use me in the way and in the timing of His great design. And that is the poetry of belonging to Him and submitting to His perfect will. That is the way my little life is transformed into God’s poetry.

Becoming God's Best Poem - even when you feel too busy

Preacher's Daughter Caught Fighting in School

God has a sense of humor.

I created an event on my FaceBook page. I do it every year.

Please join me in praying for Christian Unity during the Week of Christian Unity, which begins January 18, 2012.

I clicked on most of my FaceBook friends and sent out the invitations.

The "Accepts Invitations" started rolling in.

I just checked how many have agreed to pray. I had a personalized note from Penny. She said that she would pray throughout the week, even though she has to work.

Penny made me smile.

A few decades ago, Penny and I were in 8th grade together in a little middle school in Riceville, Iowa. I remember the day we were in art class. She was standing with her friends and I was sitting with my friends. Our friends were not the same. She was from McIntire, and I was from rural Riceville. She was a bit  rowdy. I was a goody two shoes.

For some reason, she thought I was talking about her that day. I wasn't. But she thought I was, and that created a chemical reaction. When we lined up to leave art class that day, she accused me of talking about her to my friends. I told her I hadn't been talking about her at all.

She didn't believe me.

Really, I wasn't.

Yes, you were. (shove)

Without thinking, I shoved back, and wham. Preacher's daughter and McIntire girl fight in the doorway of the art room.

The two of us keep swinging until the short, overweight English teacher came out of her room and yelled, "That's enough!"

We stop fighting immediately. I burst into tears. Penny runs out of the school and holes up at her grandmother's house a block away. I don't remember very much after that.

Fastforward through a few decades, and there I am, sitting at my computer, smiling.

Penny has agreed to pray that the Christian world will be one. At peace. In accord. Strife ended. All on the same page. No misunderstandings.

Let the past be the past.

This is the kind of irony I love.

God, you have such a great sense of humor.

Penny, God bless you for praying - and for inviting me to be your Facebook friend. Blessed are the peacemakers. That's you, Penny!

And that's every one of us that says count me in. I'll pray. "Father, make us one. As you and the Son are one... so that the world will know that You have sent the Son of God to a crazy, mixed-up world."

But a world that is certainly worth redeeming. Now, go and invite everyone to join us in prayer, even the kid you fought with in 8th grade!

Amen, and amen!

Preacher's Daughter Caught Fighting in School

Journal Your Way to God in 2012

In 2003, I had a prayer journal. I started it about six months before I began my daily journal. The difference between a prayer journal and a daily journal is this: a writer captures his thoughts and fears and joys and experiences and dreams and disappointments in a daily journal while a believer documents his prayers and petitions in a prayer journal. Both are excellent ways to document spiritual growth, and I highly recommend starting some kind of faith-based journal in 2012.

I found my prayer journal from 2003 awhile back. I was surprised to discover that every request had been answered, but one.*

I had asked God for a very special thing - that He would restore my father's health. My father passed away on December 28, 2003. Not only had Our Lord not restored my father's health, He had called him into eternity.

That one unanswered prayer was not God's will. While there are probably many reasons why it was not God's will, one reason was that his death was the catalyst for my eventual conversion and journey to the Catholic Church.


Quite simply, if Dad hadn't died, I wouldn't have become a seeker. And Jeremiah is right when he speaks for the Lord, saying: Seek me and you will find me when you seek me with all of your heart.


Before that moment, I didn't truly seek God. Why? Because I thought I already had it all put together. Strange how the death of a loved one changes all that.


Prayer has been a part of my life for many years. I know that God answers prayer. I know that He does not answer prayers in the way we hope He would answer them - sometimes anyway. When that happens, it is because God has something far greater for us than our limited minds can conceive.


Like conversion.


Like eternity.


This blog is a reflection of my journey, a window into that precious daily journal that holds the full story of how I became Catholic by grace.


It has also become something of a prayer journal because prayer is essential in this faith journey. I read recently that St. Teresa of Avila said, "I am certain of it that Our Lord will eventually bring to the harbor of salvation, the one who gives himself to prayer."


There are many reasons why we should pray. This may be the most important one of all.

May you discover the joy of sacred writing in 2012.

Blessings!

*We ought to be persuaded that what God refuses to our prayer, He grants to our salvation.– St. Augustine

Journal Your Way to God in 2012

2012 Goodbye Laziness; Hello God's Plan

We just checked in at Big Cedar Lodge in Branson, Missouri. It feels great.
It was a long road to this vacation - metaphorically and literally. I just finished a semester teaching ten different classes every day to four different levels of students. On the side, I tutored a fourth grader in Spanish. Oh, and I write for diocesan newspapers.

And I am a penpal via email to a number of potential converts.

And I am a mother and grandmother.

But I will let you in on a secret. I used to be very lazy.

I watched soap operas almost daily. Yes, it's true. (I gave this up about three years ago.)

I considered my day a busy one if I had one event on the calendar. Grocery shopping was an event - in my old life.

So, how did I go from being lazy to being crazy-busy and happy with that?

I have never felt more certain that I am in the center of God's plan than I do right now. And there's more than enough energy to go around when one can say that. I love what I do because I have the sense that this is what God has called me to do.

Miraculously, there is enough energy for all of it

Here's what I did (in case you are lazy and you want to lose that vice during the new year):

1. Be converted. Completely. Totally. Radically. (Try daily Mass attendance and reading the Liturgy of the Hours).
2. Pray.
3. Pray.
4. Pray some more.
5. Wait on the Lord. (What are you waiting for? Peace. Our Mother's gentle nudge. Our Lord's voice.)
6. Be ready to say yes.
7. And pray some more.

Then, the doors will open. You will feel the nudge. You will say yes to the invitations. And you will find that there is more energy. His grace is really, truly, actually, incredibly, mysteriously, miraculously sufficient for every good work.

Go ahead. Say the words. Goodbye Laziness. Hello Divine Plan. You have my full and complete yes.

2012 Goodbye Laziness; Hello God's Plan

Once upon a time, when I didn't believe in the story of Our Lady of Guadalupe...

Over 20 years ago, I began my first teaching position at Beckman High School in Dyersville, Iowa. In spite of the fact that Spanish was my minor and I wasn’t a Catholic convert at the time, I found myself the only foreign language teacher in a small Catholic high school, teaching all levels of Spanish to about 160 students. I remember having little confidence as a teacher and even less in the subject matter.

I pulled activities and assignments from every possible place. Somehow, I came across a little story written in simple Spanish which I thought my upper level students would be able to translate. I considered the story nothing more than an interesting Catholic legend.

Thankfully, I did not propagate my misunderstanding, but rather simply assigned the story to my students and left religion instruction to the religion department.

In January of 2005, while nearing the end of my conversion to the Catholic faith, I received one of many “care packages” from Randy and Mary Hill, a married couple in the Archdiocese of St. Louis that had taken me under their wings when they discovered that I was converting. The box they sent to me contained a book on Marian apparitions entitled A Woman Clothed with the Sun by John J. Delaney. While reading a chapter on Our Lady of Guadalupe, I came across something that would take that little story out of the realm of legend and into the realm of absolute reality for me.

In 1990, while completing a college-level course on Latin America, I learned a couple of Nahuatl words (Aztec language), one of which was “cuatl” (pronounced kwah-tell, emphasis on first syllable). Translated, it means snake or serpent. The Aztec people even had a god named Quetzalcuatl, which literally translates to plumed serpent.

The book I was reading explained that the Aztec pronunciation of the word “Guadalupe” would have been something like kwah-tell lah-shoop-ay. So, when the Lady said her name to Juan Diego’s uncle, he would have interpreted the first part as snake because cuatl and guadal are both pronounced kwah-tell. What I didn’t know—which the book explained for me—is that the Aztec translation of the second half of that phrase literally means to trod on something. When I put it all together, I was stunned. In Nahuatl, the name Guadalupe means One who trods on snake! So when the Lady repeated her name for a poor, uneducated Aztec man, saying call me Santa Maria de Guadalupe, she was actually saying, call me Holy Mary of One who has trod on the snake. In Genesis 3:15, this is the name God reserves for Mary, the second Eve; so when the woman says her name, she gives the name the Lord planned for her from the beginning of time.

I have no idea how I overlooked the miracles behind the story of Our Lady of Guadalupe all those years ago. I’m sure it’s because I didn’t put together that cuatl and guadal have virtually identical pronunciations in Nahuatl, and I had never learned the translation for the rest of the compound epithet. Still, it amazes me that I could teach Spanish in a Catholic high school, assign the reading to upper level classes, and not know the whole story. It cuts me to the heart when I realize that I taught my students about the conquistadors, but not the miracle of eight million baptisms that occurred in the seven years following the vision. Some sources estimate that the actual number of conversions might have been closer to nine million (with the total Aztec population only ten million at that time).

I’ve promised myself that one day I will visit Mexico and see the five-hundred-year-old tilma that bears the image of Our Lady. I just wish I could gather all my former students together in one place and have another chance to teach them the story of Our Lady of Guadalupe. With uncensored delight, I would ask them if they have heard the story—the true story—of the Woman who converted a nation with the help of a few Spanish roses, a cloak called a tilma, and one very humble Aztec man named Juan Diego.

I urge you to read more about Our Lady of Guadalupe, and let the story speak for itself.

Santa Maria, mi Madre Nueva, gracias—por todos los milagros y las lecciones del corazon. Holy Mary, my new Mother, thank you – for all the miracles and lessons of the heart.

Once upon a time, when I didn't believe in the story of Our Lady of Guadalupe...

The Immaculate Conception? From total disbelief to utter amazement!

Have you ever watched a television program that changed your life? Well, that’s what happened to me – but it took more than five months for the full impact to hit me. It began on July 16, 2004. I caught the tail-end of a Journey Home program (EWTN), and I was immediately drawn to that night’s guest. On a whim, I wrote Mary Beth Kremski and attempted to explain something that I didn’t completely understand myself – my growing desire to enter the Catholic Church.

I had been fascinated by Mrs. Kremski because she was a Third Order Carmelite – or at least that’s what the tag line at the bottom of the television screen said. I didn’t know what Third Order meant, but I knew that the authors of the books I had recently read were Carmelites. St. John of the Cross and St. Teresa of Avila – only they lived in the 1500s. I had no idea that there were Carmelites living and breathing today! What luck! I had to write her. I had so many questions.

We exchanged just one set of letters in August, and then the communication ended. I turned my attention to the local Catholic Church and decided to try RCIA class and see what would happen from there.

In December of 2004, the RCIA leader at my parish introduced the class to the Church’s teaching on the Immaculate Conception. I’ve come to the conclusion that our Blessed Mother was gently guiding me through this part of my journey, but at that moment in time, she seemed to be nothing more than one major stumbling block for me.

I announced to the entire class that I couldn’t accept that Mary was conceived without sin. I was willing to admit that Protestants had let the pendulum swing too far in the opposite direction, relegating Mary to a minor role in the Christmas story, but I felt that was in response to excessive Catholic Mariology. I explained that, while I believed the Lord could do that for Mary, I was convinced it was highly unlikely that he did do it. At that moment, I didn’t even have enough faith to say, I believe, Lord help my unbelief.

The terrible thought hit me then. Where does one go when she believes in Apostolic Succession, the Papacy, Purgatory, the Communion of Saints, and all Catholic Teaching, except the Immaculate Conception? What was the name of that denomination? I felt like Peter when he said, where else can we go? This is a difficult teaching, Lord, but I’ve nowhere else to turn.

After many attempts to help me understand, my RCIA instructor mentioned that I had the option of placing a petition before the Blessed Mother. If I had sincerely given myself to the task of understanding and I still couldn’t embrace this teaching, he told me that I could always ask Mary to show me the Truth.

As an Evangelical, I had placed many petitions before the Lord. That was not a new concept. And I didn’t have a problem with asking Mary to answer my petition. I just didn’t think she would do it.

I knew a lot was riding on this petition. The Immaculate Conception was the one obstacle that stood between my father (a Presbyterian minister) and the Catholic Church. In fact, if he could have resolved this issue, I’m convinced he would have converted to the Catholic Church thirty years ago. Before I made my petition to Mary, I prayed, “Lord, I will follow you wherever you lead, even if it is down a road my father could not take. I just want to get this right. And so, I beg You NOT to answer the petition I place before Your Mother if this teaching shouldn’t be embraced.” Then I turned my heart to Mary and laid it on the line:

Mary,

If you are as the Catholic Church says and if you love me, please answer this petition. I want someone to communicate with me by your inspiration. I need the communication to encourage me in the faith, and I don’t want it to be from Catholic friends at the school where I used to teach or my Catholic in-laws. I don’t want it to be from anyone in my parish. All of them—well, I have shared this struggle with some of them, and they may know through earthly tongues that I need to be propped up. Mary, I want the message to come from you to the ears of one who could know no other way. Please choose someone who, for me, would represent the Universal Catholic Church. Then I will know I am right where I am supposed to be and that the Church’s Teachings are ALL correct, terra firma, especially the Teachings about you. Please answer my petition before the end of the year—I know, that’s just two weeks.

This petition is rewritten word-for-word from my journal entry for December 12, 2004, the day I said the prayer. I knew it was unlikely I would receive a response. Almost as unlikely as the Immaculate Conception, I thought.

Our Lady didn’t make me wait very long. In the mailbox the next day was a letter from the woman who had appeared on The Journey Home the previous July. I had not heard from her since August when her one and only letter arrived. BUT, in December of 2004 she decided to write me a second time to encourage me in the Faith and let me know she was praying for me. Her letter was dated December 8, 2004. Above the date, she had hand-written The Feast of the Immaculate Conception. With tears streaming down my face, I read her two-page, single-spaced letter.

I had been ready to abandon the journey. I knew it would drive me crazy to teeter on the fence for very long. That’s why I had put a time restriction on the Blessed Virgin. That letter sealed everything for me. Like Thomas when he touched the wounds of Our Lord, all my doubts were gone instantly.

Mary is my Mother! And like the truest mother, she loves me and knows me better than I know myself. After all, she knew the very thing I would ask of her before I even asked it. Mary Beth Kremski’s letter had been dated four days before I made the petition, arriving less than twenty-four hours after my request for help. Our Lady proved herself to be the Immaculate Conception and a Mother with impeccable timing.

My Favorite Blog Post - why I love the Immaculate Conception

The Immaculate Conception? From total disbelief to utter amazement!

Catholics and Their Endless Rituals

On Friday morning, the students gathered for opening prayer. They do it every day. We always end with the Pledge of Allegiance and a little chant. Do the right thing. Treat people right. Even if you don't feel like it.


Our little morning ritual is full of lessons for the convert.

Rituals matter.

They make us what we are.

We become what we say. We remember what we do repetitively. These things build community and they bind us together.

As Americans, we get a little misty-eyed when we hear the very young say the Pledge. When we look at them and see that right hand resting on a little beating heart, we hear those words fall from a little mouth, we see their eyes firmly fixed on the Stars and Stripes.

The entire ritual moves us. We are glad we have passed these things on to them.

On Friday morning, after the prayers and the pledge, one 7th grade boy picked up the flag and stand and carried it to the church for our Veteran's Day Mass.

This is where my worlds converge. I am American. I completely embrace the Pledge, the patriotic ritual, the repetition of the words and gestures we hold dear. They make us who we are.

How much more so those things we do and say as Catholic Christians. It is right to have rituals. They make us who we are. It is right to pray our prayers, so familiar that we can say them without stumbling at all. Our Father, who art in heaven... 


It is right to fix our eyes on the cross - on the body that is suffering on that cross.

And we pass these things on to them.

There was a time I did not see the value in spiritual repetition. I did not understand the purpose for faith rituals. I thought these things stifled the creative inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

I was wrong.

If the pledge and the flag and a hand over one's heart can make us patriotic and help us to remember that we are proud to be American...

...then a prayer and crucifix and a hand making the Sign of the Cross can help us to remember whose we are... and why Our Lord died and rose again.

Rituals.

Repeated prayers.

They help us to remember. And then, we go out to be what we proclaim.

Catholics and Their Endless Rituals

November 2011 Catholic by Grace Article

My first encounter with the elderly and dying came when I was eighteen. I was a nurse’s aide for about five months. That’s how long it took me to realize I was not meant to be a nurse.

I dropped my plans to go into nursing, but the memories of the people I met in that Nebraska nursing home have stayed with me for nearly three decades.

I remember the stroke victims. The woman who spent each day repeating “Mana, mana, mana.” The man who was able to say a handful of words clearly. All expletives.

Another woman reminded me of Edith from All in the Family. She would nervously apply red lipstick when her handsome husband visited. I remember how much I disliked him as he stood there with his arm around his girlfriend and urged his adolescent daughters to give their invalid mother a hug.

I remember the woman named Mary who said she’d never had cross words with her husband of fifty years. I wondered if she was being honest. I still wonder.

And there was the man who demanded our immediate attention, saying he was related to William Buckley, Jr.  I was only eighteen. I had no idea who William Buckley, Jr., was. I asked the other nurses. They hadn’t heard of him either.

The residents of that Omaha nursing home  fascinated me. I wanted to sit with these people. Talk to them. Find out their stories. Was Mary a saint, or was her husband just easy to get along with? Had the man who swore a blue streak been a swearer before his stroke? Did “Edith” really think her husband would be impressed with her red lipstick? Did it kill her spirit to see him with a mistress, both of them standing near her like they had done their good deed for the year?

Was Mr. Buckley really related to the Mr. Buckley, Jr.?

The first floor of that nursing home was busy, sometimes downright chaotic. There was never a moment to sit and simply be with the patients. There was little dignity in getting old. And something in me said this isn’t right.

I remember one day in particular. Three patients had to be bathed before the evening meal. I gently washed a frail woman, the second of the three patients on my list. I did all the talking while she simply submitted to the process. She weighed almost nothing. I could lift her from the wheelchair to the bath chair and back again by myself. She looked at me quietly as I dressed her, putting on her gown and robe and slippers. If I hurried, I would get the last patient bathed before the floor nurse announced that the kitchen was open.

I wheeled the woman to her room and collected my final patient. A few moments later, the head nurse entered the shower room. She asked me if Lydia had seemed okay when I bathed her. “She was quiet, but nothing unusual. Why?”

The nurse told me that Lydia was dead. I was the last person who had touched her body, bathed her, spoken to her.

And I didn’t know anything about her, except her name.

In that moment, I knew that the elderly deserve more than the hurried care our society gives them. We are so advanced. And yet, we often forget the dignity of the human person.

The unborn.

The man in prison.

The cast-off wife with her lipstick-smile.

The one who spends all day saying mana, mana, mana or a string of profanity. The one who thinks about her deceased husband all day, every day.

I have decided that I want to go to a Catholic nursing home when I’m old. I want to spend my final hours and minutes in a place where I can go to Mass, where a nurse can wheel me into an Adoration Chapel, where I will be surrounded by rosaries and crucifixes and images of Our Lady. I want to pass from here to there with the faith and the faithful all around me.

As Catholics, we believe in the dignity of the human person. I plan to spend my final days in a place where the caretakers know that I am made in the image and likeness of God. And maybe, I will share a few words with a young nurse’s aide, and perhaps she will remember me with a smile.

November 2011 Catholic by Grace Article