motivation

A new year... a new decade... time for taking stock, time for making changes. It's what I love the most about New Year's, this motivation to look both back and ahead.

I tried to do it when the liturgical calendar changed, but without success. "Prepare ye the way of the Lord." it says in Isaiah. But Advent came and went last year. Even though I thought I would be prepared, I wasn't.

While it doesn't seem right that a secular holiday will hold more sway for me than the spiritual seasons, I will take whatever inspiration where I can get it... and run with it. Life is too short and my own gets shorter every year. I have no clue how long I have. None of us does. That knowledge can be both depressing and motivating. Today it's motivating.

Taking stock:

• I spend too much time playing Happy Farm and Fish Town, even though I rationalize that these games are a way to relax and unwind. Maybe I need to rewind, not unwind. Time to look at that and either wean myself away or go cold turkey. Lent will be a perfect time for this if I don't get to it sooner.
  
  
• I have let my own personal (creative) endeavors slip-slide away. Time to set a schedule to blog on a regular basis. Time to get back to the cartoons too. I miss those little boys. They give me great pleasure and satisfaction, not to mention they make my sisters laugh.
  
  
• I noticed just this morning that my patience level has deteriorated (yet again). Maybe it's time to change the furniture around. That usually helps. That and weeding out stuff... from my closet, drawers, bookshelves. Weeding out is like getting a haircut. I feel so much lighter, less encumbered. Maybe it's some law of quantum physics the scientists have yet to discover, but getting rid of stuff actually produces energy. You think I'm crazy? Try it. No, really try it.
  
  
• Okay this is a stretch, but I've been having a lot of bad dreams lately. I think it's time to write them down.
  
  
• Just in case I've never mentioned it, here's a trivia fact about myself: five is my favorite number. I do everything in fives... latent OCD gene I imagine, but I believe it's basically harmless. So this will be number 5 in the stock-taking activity for today: I am way too bossy. This not-so-harmless-trait is going to take more work than I can even imagine. Acknowledgement is the first step. I did, I do. I'm done for today. Time to go empty some drawers... get rid of five things.

resolutions?

It wasn't until I read something on facebook (yes, I now have a face on facebook... long story) about someone making New Year's resolutions that it even occurred to me that I hadn't. Not only had I not made any this year, I hadn't even thought about making any. So what does that mean? 

For one thing, it means the past week, the Christmas Octave, (for those in the liturgical know) and beyond... I've done just about the bare minimum. It's been a week of rest and reading good books. Never, since I've been in community have there been so many sleep-in days actually scheduled. It's a first.

This unexpected rest time came about organically I think. Nothing was premeditated. We had our usual Christmas week schedule intact, with Lauds and Vespers as the bookends for the days of possible social and rest times, excursions into the city for movies or other events. There was an overnight period of fellowship planned with the Melrose sisters the weekend after Christmas. None of that happened. They were just getting over the flu, plus one sister had broken her foot, was in a cast, and not yet able to travel. They didn't come.

We rallied once for a movie, three of us (plus the aide) taking the two elders in a taxi convoy to the Lincoln Plaza for "Last Chance Harvey" but otherwise it was just too cold for ventures out. Our cook was away for the holidays and we grazed our way through the refrigerator finishing up the leftovers. I cooked something most nights, but otherwise I rested.

Then the modified rest evolved... into full days of rest until Vespers. I cannot tell you what a difference it made. The sheer luxury of waking up in a freezing cold room and not having to jump up out of bed was one thing, but being able to turn over and snuggle beneath the covers and dream was the best gift I've received this year. (And I received some really good gifts.)

Today we are back on schedule, and unlike my silent retreat of a few weeks ago, I'm rested and ready for the change. Perhaps one of my New Year's resolutions will be to remember just how much I need to schedule rest and relaxation before I'm at the point of burnout.

Rest day and other (probably) unrelated trivia

Rest Day... ahhhh.

During the holidays, and especially this year, with Christmas and New Year's falling on Tuesday, our normal Monday rest day got discombobulated. We had a partial rest day on New Year's Eve, but another sister and I had volunteered to create the party hors d'oeuvres, so we were busy most of the day. And... as much as I appreciate a half-day's rest any time I can get it, it's just not the same thing.

I awoke at 5:30, (my normal time for rising) looked at the clock, smiled and rolled over back to sleep. I had silly dreams... I dreamed a man I know wanted to marry me. It really didn't matter that he's married, I'm a nun, and he's years younger than I. Some of those issues arose in the dream. Then I dreamed that I was supposed to go to sewing school as part of this new marriage endeavor. I had my choice of wedding dress design, upholstery, or something else. In my waking world I hate, hate, hate to sew! I'm no good at it, have no patience for it, and would do any number of crummy jobs before I would ever stoop to sewing for a living. Somehow that, too, came through in the dream, and I woke up.

On my day off I like to sleep a little later than usual, but not so late that I've wasted too much of a day to do exactly what I want. So I'm up. When I went to the kitchen for coffee, I had a craving for grilled pimento cheese sandwiches. It's been years since I've had one. My second husband and I had them a lot when we were first married. Today is actually the anniversary of my first marriage. Who knows how all that stuff manifests in the psyche to create a dream? It's a fascinating mystery. My daughter-in-law wrote me yesterday that she had jokingly added Jesus Christ as my spouse in her electronic address book. I shot back a pretty crass note, especially for a nun. When I related the story to my sisters last evening, there was dead silence in the room. Uh oh. Sometimes I feel like I'll never live up to this new calling. Sometimes I feel like I've been living it forever. The split personalities just don't match. Welcome to my world.

Holding out...

Jesus said, "But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father."
—Luke 24.36

One of the more enigmatic statements of Jesus that has always stirred my sense of mystery... As our religion has evolved through the centuries, we have attributed a lot of talent, knowledge and identity to the One we call the Son of God. Jesus, on the other hand, rarely tooted his own horn, went to great lengths to make his disciples understand that all of God's children are beloved, and in this case, made it clear he himself had no clue about when the "end of time" would come.

God (the Father) was holding out? On one of the three persons of the Trinity? And what about the Holy Spirit? Did that One know? Or was it simply in mortal form that Jesus had forgotten everything he knew before birth? That in leaving his God status behind, he was forced to become "as one of us"... dull, stupid, bound by human form and appetites?

I have often had lucid dreams of being with God before my own birth, mapping out the challenges, the pieces of experience and wisdom I was to learn in my incarnation. I don't know if I believe in reincarnation or not, but I don't disbelieve. I hear conversations in my head... "and you will have intelligence and talent. That will be one of your challenges... to treat gently and with compassion those who do not see clearly the way you do." Obviously I have a long way to go on that one. I have never suffered fools gently.

Yet there are those who think believing in God is foolish. Perhaps they must suffer me. It comes back to the constant theme: we are all in this together. No one gets in or back (to heaven) until we all get in. Everything is one and the One is everything. Except for that Father figure. He's holding out. Mysterious, huh?

What's this about?

It's been a long time since I've had a wandering dream. Usually it starts out the same... I'm on my way to attend some important event, always a little late, and take what looks like a short cut, only to end up somewhere way out of my way. The more I look for someplace familiar to begin retracing steps, the more difficult the journey, the more lost I become.

This morning's dream started out in a basement that supposedly led to an underground passageway that led to another building... but I got lost. I came out too early and was in a backyard/alley. Of course, instead of turning back then, I decided to keep going, headed in what I thought was the right direction. There is a funny "Bert and I" joke: You can't get there from here.

I was in the country at one point, on a college campus, another time I thought I'd found a route and almost fell off a cliff. I hopped some sort of open air train and landed out in the Bronx, where (in my dream) the subways didn't even run.

I was in habit, too. Is that significant? It was certainly significant when I was in a huge garage full of forklifts and dump trucks, and I lifted up a floor-to-ceiling doorway to get out and got grease all over me.

I was riding another train and two women were discussing nuns in habit. One of them said, "Most of the Catholics don't even wear habits, now, and they look terrible." The woman standing next to her (and me) said, "Well those that do, don't look any better." I hadn't looked in the mirror since early morning, and I imagined I was a disheveled mess.

At one point, I decided to try to enjoy being lost, to look for something interesting, to take my own advice to a directee, and "stay present to the moment." It lasted a few minutes before I was searching again.

Eventually I woke up. Since we just lost daylight savings, it was still early enough to feel good about not wasting my (somewhat) day off. I hadn't panicked or cried in this dream, but I was ready for it to be over. Waking up resolved nothing... Just left me wondering "What's this about?!?"

bits and pieces

First of all... SAVE THE DATE:
December 8th — afternoon (Probably threeish) I will make my life profession at St. Bartholomew's Church in NYC. More details will be vouchsafed.

It's especially fitting that this ceremony will take place at St. Bart's: when I moved to New York from Jacksonville, Florida, St. Bart's was the parish I joined. It was where I pushed my comfort zone off the map by volunteering in their homeless shelter, where I finally said "Yes, I'll do Cursillo", which led to my volunteering at the breakfast feeding program. It was where Sr. Mary Lois, OHC, was life professed in a public ceremony I attended... and realized (duh) for the first time, that women actually choose this life, it's not foisted on them as an also-ran. (You know what I mean... you can't be a doctor so you'll be a nurse, you can't be a priest, so you'll be a nun.) As a post WWII baby, that mentality still sticks with me, even though I have been one of the ones to break the mold.

I still volunteer at St. Bart's on Thursdays, and they were gracious enough to extend the offer. It's a beautiful place, a big place, so everyone who wants to come, can fit.

Second of all: My friend pat sent this cute cartoon:

Recently we had someone staying with us who is exploring whether (or not) she might have a vocation, and whether (or not) this is the community to test that call.

I never thought I had a vocation. But I definitely felt led to this community. One of my first dreams after moving in was of hearing a commotion in our back garden... my ex-husband had rented a backhoe and was trying to dig through the building to "rescue " me.

Since then I've had a number of dreams, and he and I have had a number of discussions about the future... whether there would be a future described as "ours" or if mine would be here. God has made it clear on so many levels that this is it.

So... against all odds, that's what I'm doing on the 8th of December. If you're free that afternoon, you're invited.

What would it take?

I was dreaming... on days when I'm able to get up, go to the bathroom, and go back to bed, I dream. I was at some kind of retreat or conference centered on a tragedy or disaster somewhere in Africa. There was a map of that country with outlines showing the region that had been affected. Whatever it was, it was pretty huge. (Take that outline and superimpose it on a map of our country, I didn't think that then, but I'm thinking it now.)

We, the participants, were about six or so. We had traveled in a panelled van to some remote lodge in the woods. I had joined at the last minute, not knowing exactly what we were doing, thinking "field trip" I guess. Actually there was someone else on the trip I wanted to get to know better. The facilitator had made a few presentations and was now working the room, moving from one of us to another. We chatted for a minute; I realized I had already seen at least part of the movie he was going to show next. I told him I had not actually seen the entire thing. (I had been bored.)

He lowered his gaze and asked, "So what would it take for you to get serious about this issue?"

After dinner, we were each asked to stand up on stage and speak to the others about what we had learned and what we planned to do. My mouth was still full of food as I made my way up to the microphone. I had no clue what I would say. But at the mike, I had one of those moments. I swallowed the last of my mouthful and wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. I wanted to dance it, what I felt in that moment, but I only twirled once. I was on stage in front of a group of serious people finishing up their very sumptuous meal. All before me had given little speeches about how they were either writing a check that evening or were going back to their parishes to drum up money for the cause.

I spoke my truth... to his question to me, to not really being able to relate, to having enough on my hands as it was, to being a nun with no money, to my prejudices and fears, to my inability to feel their emergency, and my inability to do anything about it from only a sense of duty.

What would it take? It would take being there. It would take being kidnapped, set down in the middle of the crisis, with no way to escape. My present is my reality. My sisters' needs are my concern. I woke up with all this in my mind. Dark shadows of global crises and my ability to focus only locally.

perspective

I'm thinking this morning about luxuries... (and I'd better think fast because the morning's almost over.)

My mentor called me last night and said "If you want to take a rest day tomorrow, do it. I'll take your doorbell in the afternoon and our admin assistant can do it in the morning." "What about the grocery shopping?" I asked. "I'll pick up the groceries while I'm out in the morning." "You sure?" "Yes, take the day off."

Luxury. For the tired, sleeping in is an appreciated luxury. I heard the doorbell at 6:45 and rolled over. I had dreams; most have slipped my mind by now, but I dreamed a lot. They say the sleep-deprived can last three times longer than the dream-deprived before they start to get psychotic. I believe it. I slept until 10:30... unheard of in my usual desire to make the "day off" count. Now I'm sipping a cup of freshly brewed coffee, another luxury. With flavored creamer... another luxury left behind as a surprise before that sister went off for her long retreat.

The thing about luxuries is they can't be constant, or they aren't luxuries anymore. We start to expect them, begin to think we need them, when in fact, we don't need half the stuff we think we do.

Years ago I knew a man who used to say "It only costs a little more to fly first class." It was his motto for the troop of insurance salesmen, a motivational tool to get them out on the streets to sell more policies. The truth now, of course, is it costs a whole lot more to fly first class, as Travelocity and Orbitz and all the other web services can prove.

I imagine if you've always flown first class, it's annoying to fly coach, but if you've always flown coach, it's a luxury to fly first class. Before the convent (BC) I had flown first class a few times, and was enthralled with each little detail that made the difference in how passengers were treated. The mixed nuts (Not just peanuts) were warm, and served in a porcelain dish. The alcohol was free, the silverware was metal, not plastic, and you had a choice of entree. They gave you hot facecloths to wash up at the end of the trip. I was delighted with each new offering, and took full advantage of every one, from the Mimosa to the ice cream sundae. Nowadays we know we're lucky to get a bag of pretzels... Travel amenities have changed. We find the old luxuries were not necessities after all. It was all perspective.

Perspective has to do with our mindset, our mood at the time, our prejudices and our opinions. It can be subjective and biased or it can be a deep perception of things in their actual interrelations and importance. Jesus' perspective changed the hearts of the people he encountered. They either followed him or wanted to kill him.

Making it Legal

So... none of the dream scenarios played out the way I dreamed them. That was nice.

In a multiple dimensional Universe, however, it's possible those dreams were as valid as what I experienced yesterday in the meeting. No matter how many theories and dimensions scientists postulate and science-fiction authors describe, we are trapped on this Earth (and in this time) in dense material.

Yesterday's meeting (THE meeting) was something I dreaded because there was no planning for it. I kept coming back to the scripture that says: Don't worry about what you'll say when that time comes; the Holy Spirit will give you the words you are to speak. Trusting in that was all I could do, but it didn't mean I felt no stress.

My sisters began with gracious comments. They went around the circle and many said nice things about me. (One or two compliments I can handle. A room-full is hard to digest.) The inevitable "yeah, but if you really knew me you'd say something else" flitted across my mind. But I've lived with these women for four years, They do know me. They know where all my warts are, how my temper flares when I'm under stress, how my timing is less than perfect, how bossy I can be.

The most precious comments came from the oldest sisters... women who in some ways are now losing their grip on day-to-day reality. One said, "I sit next to her in chapel, and you can tell if someone is really praying or if they are just there. I can tell you this woman really prays." The other said, "I'm just so happy she's around. I'm glad she wants to stay."

In our community we play down the whole "married to Christ" philosophy, although references to this spiritual union abound in the liturgy and in the rule. Personally, the idea strikes me as kinky, and therefore borderline blasphemy. The church as the bride of Christ doesn't do much for me either.

I can visualize the church as the body of Christ quite easily though. Picturing whether I am a fingernail vs a hangnail gives me great delight. Most days I am probably both.

The inquisition is over and I am not banished to the netherworld (yet). All agreed to wholeheartedly support my next step in the process... making it legal. Wahoo!

A dream is a wish your heart makes...

Jesus formed radically open circles of friends. We erect intricate and inflexible institutional barriers that admit only those whom we deem worthy. Jesus stood up to the religious establishment. We are the religious establishment. — Tom Ehrich

Ouch! And yet... right on!

I've been having what my deacon friend calls "cold feet" dreams. Why I didn't expect to get cold feet (at least a few times before my life profession) is beyond me. I guess I expected to sail straight into the sunset with Jesus... once I had said yes.

Isn't that a laugh? Jesus never sailed into the sunset with anybody, whether he got married during his lifetime or not. If he did, that wife was left at the foot of the cross or the door of the tomb, just like everyone else.

Anyway, in my dream I was being cross-examined by my sisters about my cartoons. Some sisters think they are hilarious, some think they are cute, but at least one thinks they are blasphemous and heretical. In my dream she had rallied several sisters (who had never even seen them) to her point of view, and I was being asked to cease and desist if I wanted a "yes" vote from the community. Uh oh. Deja vu time. Didn't we already go round the bush about this with the blogging theme?

Yet in my dream I spoke up quite forcefully this time. "I'm sorry sisters, but I believe I'm called by God to draw these cartoons and I have no intention of stopping. For you or anyone."

Excuse me? So, as the dream progressed to its logical conclusion, I was not voted in and was given the option of hanging around for another year to try it again. I said "Nope, I'm outta here."

Just like that. All that work, all that prayer, all that discernment. "I'm outta here." When I awoke I was flummoxed. Is that how I really feel subconsciously? What about all that talk of accepting the vow of obedience? Ahhh... will have to look at all this a little more carefully... again.

My friend talked about various interpretations, (skirting the obviously silly one that God might be calling me to draw these somewhat subversive cartoons.) Cold feet. You are both individuals... the one for and the one against, the party line and the troublemaker. But one key component was how quickly I jumped at the chance to be kicked out. Aha! Of course that rings true. That way I don't have to decide. It's not my fault. Whatever happens next... I hate dreams that reveal all my inner flaws, don't you?

searching for meaning

Dream: I am at a huge party, a housewarming. At one point it seems to be for the community because a woman kneels down and asks to receive communion. I explain that we are just having a dinner party, not a Eucharist.

Then it seems to be a housewarming for my ex-husband and me. I am welcoming guests, who are looking around in disbelief... everything is spotless and all the clutter is gone. You can see the furniture and bare floors. There are lots of people milling around everywhere... out in the yard, on the porch, crowding into the kitchen. I see some new people, friends from my time in community and I ask them to stay. Supper will be ready soon, and there's plenty.

As I walk into the kitchen, one of my husband's ex-wives (he's had a few) is hacking away at a giant slab of salmon. She looks up and smiles. She is "tenderizing" it. I walk by without comment. If she wants to tenderize the salmon, I'm not going to interfere. Another woman is trying to help my husband with the lentil soup... but the bowl is too small for all the ingredients. Apparently I have prepared everything in advance and have put it in the freezer, but nobody has remembered to thaw it out. There are no large pots or bowls to serve it in. I am irritated that the soup is still frozen, irritated that there are no large bowls. Oh... I took all the large bowls when we divorced, I think. My fault.

I send my husband on a fool's errand... to find a large enough container for the gallons of frozen soup. What about a large roasting pan? Do you have one of those? He returns with a giant covered grill hot off the fire pit. Will this work? He sets it down on the table. I lift the lid and there are about twenty blackened cornished game hens inside... left over from some long ago barbecue. The pan is burned and full of dirt. I lose my temper, fly off the handle and yell at him. I wake up.

I look at the clock. 6:03. I've overslept (again). I was awake at 4:30 but the window was open and the room chilly, and my neck stiff and painful. Too lazy to get up and close the window I burrowed deeper into the covers... to dream. What? Why? In dreams concerning my ex-husband I am always angry with him for something. I try to analyze the dream as I wash and dress and brush my teeth. What does it mean, Lord?

Feast of the Presentation

Another time snafu in our liturgical calendar, the feast of the presentation of Jesus in the temple, occurs on the second of February, marking the official end of Christmastide. (If your outside Christmas lights are still burning, it's really time to take them down, never mind how pretty they look.)

As we near the end of another "creativity week", today's service was a Morning Prayer/Mass combination at the very civilized hour of 8:00 am. Another priest, who often celebrates for us on Friday, rang the doorbell at 7:00, then realized he wasn't celebrating today because he had a meeting to go to.

I was asleep when the doorbell rang (I shut my alarm off at 5:00 and rolled back over into dreamland.)

In my dream I had just narrowly escaped being crushed by an overpass. (New York was having landslides and I was beneath the Westside Highway.) Before that I was part of a work crew cleaning up the Holland Tunnel from flooding. When the doorbell jolted me awake, I swore... thinking I had overslept. But it was only 7:00. An hour to go before mass. What luxury!

I was exhausted from the dream. I'd been working hard bailing out the tunnel and was covered in mud from the landslide. My fellow sister had lost her granddaughter's baby bonnet and had gone back to some hotel to look for it. She was covered in mud too. Don't go, I thought. Forget the baby bonnet. Stay here, where it's safe.

Where do these crazy dreams come from? I was relieved that I was not covered in mud afterall, and that my sister was right next door in her room. Relieved that I had plenty of time to make my bed, drink a cup of coffee, prepare for the day in leisure. How was Mary's day? ...the day they took the Christ child up from Bethlehem to Jerusalem to be presented?

Had she overslept? Was her new baby fussy or placid? Did he howl when he was circumcised? In my own internal chronology, the wisemen are still in transit when all this is happening. They have not yet visited Herod, and their questions have not yet placed all Bethlehem infants in danger.

Yet Simeon's prophetic words: and a sword will shall pierce your own soul foreshadow the life she faces as the mother of God. She may narrowly escape the sword of Herod's soldiers, but there will be many more to come.