If I picked favorites…this would be it

I had all sorts of mushy feelings today for one of my classes.  They were working on a word find (with clues from the textbook, of course) and I guess I fell in love with them.

Every class period has its own flavor.  A few people can completely change the tone of the classroom.  And I think I realized today how much I like this class.  I actually spent a few minutes just watching them and smiling.  My heart was filled with this grand protective motherly feeling.  I wanted them to never grow up and to remain just as they are.  It isn’t often that I wish that for sophomores in high school.

This class interacts well with each other.  The students are young but fairly mature.  As they worked on the word find, a few of the boys were singing a song.  Another couple of boys were a little off to the side, working in a pair, and their conversation was so random but just very comfortable.  They like to talk at times, but they are respectful.  There are some really solid girls in that class–confident but not overbearing, smart but not trying to trip you up.  They answer my questions when I ask them.  When we do “contemplative time” (ten minutes of silence to contemplate a prompt I give them), they ask to do it again the next day.  I took them outside if they promised to not tell any other class and I believed they kept their promise.

Perhaps on Monday I will realize that these feelings were the fleeting result of Friday tiredness and a lucky day.  Yet I believe they will endure.  They are filled with a lovely joy, a bubbling energy, but tempered with some introspection and genuine heart.

Thank you, Lord.  May they always remain so.

Old Love

She walked into the chapel, hunched over and slowly walking.  Shocked, I saw her bow a little deeper before entering the pew after her husband.  For most of the Mass she remained seated, but she would stand briefly for different parts before sitting back down again.

They were elderly and found it difficult to move but they were at an evening Mass on a weekday.  I felt protective of the lady, making certain the pew didn’t move as she slowly lowered herself down again.  It was a witness of authentic love, of Jesus and of each other.

I found myself praying that someday, that would be me.  Maybe not in Leon, Spain but somewhere in the world.  That I would be able to grow old with someone, that we would make it to Mass even when standing for very long proved difficult.  Gnarled hands, stooping backs, weak eyes, fairness of youth replaced with the antiquity of age, all of it points to the beauty of love that endures, that holds fast to “I do” despite trials and hardships.

I was reminded of this Spanish couple after Mass today.  Walking over to the adoration chapel, I was forced to slow my steps as I followed an elderly couple.  He wore a cute hat and held his wife’s hand as they ambled along.  It was an image of love that encouraged me.  It left me wanting what they have, even though I have no idea who they are.

Young love is appealing in its own way–in the passion, in the ideals, in the dreams, in the hopes of forever, in the rampage of emotions, and the newness of adventure.  But old love is reminiscent of iron tempered by fire–it is calmer, it endures, it remains steadfast, and it looks beyond the superficial.

I just love love at every stage, I guess.  Just be the lay witness the Lord desires you to be.

Sometimes God Procrastinates

Sometimes God procrastinates.  He has had all of time knowing what will happen and yet He still waits until the last minute to pull things together.  Yet the sudden perfection of everything falling together comes off as far more dazzling then if it was revealed in advance.

For the past couple weeks I’ve been thinking about a Bioethics Certification course.  The reading and assignments are done online and then participants attend a seminar this fall and a case studies day next May.  The problem?  The cost.  The certification program is $2900 and then travel, lodging, food, and transportation for Bismarck and Philadelphia would need to be arranged.  It seemed an impossible amount for a Catholic school teacher with a remarkable amount of debt.

The beginning of this week I talked to my department head at school.  Sister thought it sounded like a great idea and encouraged me to talk to the principal about funding.  The conversation with the principal the next day was a little less uplifting.  He told me an amount that would cover the trip to Bismarck, which left me questioning if I could financially pull off the rest of the tuition and trips.

In desperation, I sent an email to the Bioethics center asking if they had any scholarships, donations, or funds for those who wanted to do the certification but couldn’t afford it.  I wasn’t extremely hopeful, even though I told them I was in the e-mail.  It seemed this dream wouldn’t be fulfilled.

The next day my parents called and left me a message.  We filed taxes incredibly late and so they were letting me know what my tax refund would be.  I was a bit surprised at the amount and my first thought was that it would definitely help pay for the certification program if I ended up doing it.

My mom and I went out for supper the next night and I talked about it with her.  I wanted to do the program but I didn’t want the cost to spiral out of control.  It would be stressful to realize part way through the program that it would cost more than I anticipated.  My biggest concern was how much the trip to Philadelphia would cost.

That night I talked to my housemates about the program.  It is obvious that I want to do it, but I was still conflicted.  In bed that night, I asked Jesus to make it clear to me if He wanted me to do the program or not.  Time was running short to register for the program but I wasn’t entirely convinced.

The next morning I was giving a couple quizzes in my classroom and I checked my e-mail.  There was an e-mail from the priest in charge of the bioethics program.  He said they tried to find someone to help me out financially and a donor offered $1000 for a student who needed tuition assistance.  He was wondering if I would accept the money and he hoped it would enable me to take part in the program this year.

I sat there in shock looking at my computer screen.

It had all fallen together.

Everything.

Between the tuition assistance and my tax refund, I would only need to cover a few hundred dollars.  The school was offering to pay for the trip to Bismarck but I could maybe stretch that a little more.  All that was needed was me to cover Philadelphia.

It was a beautiful feeling that morning.  The Lord had pulled it all together and just in time.  I grabbed another faculty member to watch my students take their quiz and I called my mom.  Speaking the words that I had only read so far was incredible.  She was not surprised but said she expected something to come up.  The joy began to overflow and I started to cry a little.

There was a deep-seated peace within me.  I wasn’t wondering anymore about if the Lord wanted me to be in this program or if it was my own desires.  He pulled everything into place in the perfect time.

So perhaps God wasn’t just procrastinating this entire time.  Maybe He was teaching me to wait patiently and to trust in Him.

Open House, New School Year

There are a lot of things most people don’t know about teachers.  Most people don’t understand that non-essential classroom decorations (posters, quotes, extra materials) are not paid for by the school.  At times they don’t realize that teaching isn’t a 8-4 job, even if those are the hours for school.  They see the long summers, the Christmas breaks, the consistent weekends off and they believe that teachers have it made.  My dad used to say that teachers complain about their pay but they only work for nine months out of the year.  After seeing me endure my first year of teaching, I think he re-evaluated and commented that teachers work pretty hard.  Every job has its difficulties but people think they know everything that teachers must do because they have all experienced classroom teachers.  The other side of the desk is a bit harder, I’ve learned.

The school year is just beginning and I feel tired already.  Tonight was open house–where the parents go through a mock day and are in each class for 5 minutes.  I’ve never been a big fan of it and always get nervous to speak to the parents.  Tonight I was the least nervous I have ever been but there were still moments of anxiety.

The best part was when I would thank the parents for being the primary educators of their children in regards to the faith.  My intention was to challenge them, encourage them, and applaud them for their efforts.  It was wonderful to see the parents hear what their children probably never say to them.  They see the battles to get their children to Mass and I catch a glimpse of the greatness of that action.  One of the parents thanked me for what I do for the students.  Despite my dislike for the open house in general, that makes it worth it.  I love that I was able to encourage, however briefly, the parents in their vocation as parent.  The rewards may not seem obvious but they will be eternal.

Since my older sister came home for home visit, I am realizing that I love the idea of the lay vocation.  It is the leaven in the world.  The sanctification of the world will only be possible, I believe, with the sanctification of the laity.

Priestly Inspiration

A middle-aged man strode down the center aisle of the church minutes before Mass was to begin.  He was wearing dark blue jeans, a collared shirt, and a sweater tossed over his shoulders and the arms, in a loose knot, lay on his chest.  I was a bit surprised when a few minutes later the same man emerged from the sacristy dressed in priestly vestments.

For several days on the Camino we encountered priests who didn’t wear clerics.  Inside the church they were in vestments, but right after Mass they were indistinguishable from other men of the town.  Some looked like businessmen with black dress pants and collared shirts.  Others looked more like they were out for a holiday themselves.

Perhaps I am simply blessed to live in the diocese that I do where many of the priests are found wearing their clerics.  It was the ninth day of walking before I encountered a priest wearing his clerics.  And this priest renewed in me the hope that Spain wasn’t a lost cause.

We were in Santo Domingo de la Calzada.  The larger church was open for paid tours (because of its great beauty) but Mass was held in a small chapel nearby.  Arriving at the chapel, we found the priest sitting in the confessional at the back of the church.  This was another first on the Camino–a priest hearing confessions.  We were filled with great joy, however, simply when we prayed Mass with this priest.  I don’t understand much Spanish, but the very way that he pronounced the words of consecration called all of us to become holy.  He elevated the host and the chalice and each time, the chapel was suspended in a rich silence.  The kind of silence that makes your heart ache and fills you to the brim with irrepressible joy.  Although I didn’t understand all of the homily, I understood that he was reminding the people to practice silence in their lives.  He encouraged them to pray after Mass or to leave the church so as to allow others the chance to pray.  He brought this peace to all of the faithful gathered there.  He was showing his flock the pathway to holiness by following it himself.

After Mass the church was not immediately closed, as had been the case in nearly every other town.  Instead, the priest himself came out and prayed for a while.  So much of me wanted to stay in this town for a longer period of time just out of the hope that this priest knew English and we could speak to him.  I just wanted to be near him.  The other priests that we encountered weren’t necessarily bad priests.  But this was the first priest who inspired me.  He was young and deeply in love with the Lord.  It was ridiculously attractive.

I don’t know much about the life of St. Josemaria Escriva.  All I know is that he wrote books that can comfort yet also be a spiritual slap in the face.  This priest reminded me of what St. Josemaria Escriva may have been like.  He was traditional, used Latin, prayed the Mass with great fervor, spoke homilies to encourage and challenge his people, provided opportunities for the sacraments, and allowed the church to be open for prayer.  This priest, simply by following the Lord, filled us all with a great joy.  Much of that evening and into the next day we gushed about him.  How he had given us the pilgrim blessing during Mass without making all of the pilgrims come to the front of the church.  We spoke of how he wore his clerics.  We recalled how he seemed to inspire holiness in his people.

This priest did nothing intentionally to inspire us.  He simply followed the Lord’s will for his life and that caused peace and joy to emanate from him.  The question all of this brought to the forefront of my mind was, “What does it mean to follow the Lord?”  I want those inspirational qualities that my beloved priest from Santo Domingo de la Calzada has and I want to follow the Lord as fully as he does.

A Reflection of Authenticity

A Reflection of Authenticity
A Reflection written in France
 

Among the swarms of people, residents and visitors, that bustle through Paris, I am merely a face.  Living in a city causes people to think and act in different ways.  Just being with the people, riding in the Metro with them, traversing their streets, I began to feel how closed off they are to the world.  Everyone is wearing a mask–to protect themselves, to not let others see their true selves.

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At one point, I was deeply frustrated with it.  I feel like the quest of the last few months has been to learn authenticity.  Who am I really?  Who is God really?  How is our relationship doing?  It has been all about not staying on the surface but delving deeper.  “Become who you are!”  I was in Paris meeting peoples’ eyes and smiling, but then I remembered city people don’t do that and it could send a message I don’t want.
Riding on the Metro I knew I stood out with my large hiking backpack, but I felt like I fit in more when I acted bored, had a blank look on my face, and appeared to care little about the stops.  We encountered young ladies near the Eiffel Tower who wanted signatures to help the deaf and the mute.  I’m not entirely sure how their attempt to target only English-speakers would actually help the deaf and the mute of France, but that was their mission.  The beggars at the churches–are they actually poor or is it all a ruse?
It bothered me to be living in a world of masks when I was striving for authenticity.  I hate trying to evaluate people’s motives when my innate desire is to trust.  I want to believe in people.  At one point I looked at the crowd and thought of how each person is a well, their depths cannot be plumbed.  Yet if we cut off the deeper parts of ourselves, if we live as masks instead of just hiding behind them, if we live so long in the superficial and shallow, we will begin to lose our ability to go deep, we will lose our belief that we even have depth.  We will become the masks we wear.
Perhaps this is why the faith appears to be dying.  People are tired of masks of holiness.  They, whether they know it or not, crave authenticity.  And the pagan world presents at least one thing authentically–I want to live without rules or morals but simply in the pursuit of pleasure.

How does one live authenticity in a world of masks?  I don’t know exactly but I have some ideas.  Don’t feign indifference when you actually care.  Care less about appearance and more about actuality.  Live deeply.  Penetrate the inner depths you have and seek to know others at a deeper level, too.  Refuse to be content with living in the shallow end, but rather put out into the deep!

Why are you walking the Camino?

“Why are you walking the Camino?”

After hearing someone’s name and country of origin, this is the next general question to ask.  Yet it is a very personal question to be asked so early on.  I never quite knew how deep to go or even how to phrase my reasons entirely.  So when people asked I generally told how it worked out for me to come this summer rather than my deeper reasons for walking the Camino.  If the question seemed to be asked too flippantly, then I didn’t want to bare my soul to someone I hardly knew.  I am a melancholic, after all, and the perfect words never quite seemed to find themselves on my tongue at the appropriate moment.

Despite my reservations, some people were remarkably open about their reasons.  One young man I met said that he was walking for redemption.  I never asked him what he meant by that but it sounded deep.  A young woman was looking for her heart.  An older woman said she was walking for forgiveness–to forgive herself or nature…something.  One man was walking out of thanksgiving.  Others were looking forward to a new stage in their lives or hoping to initiate a change.

I walked the Camino for Love.  Naturally, part of me hoped to find “the one” on my walk, implausible though it might be.  What I really wanted, though, was to find a deeper love with Jesus.  While the Camino is traditionally a pilgrimage to a holy site, modern Camino walkers are typically not walking for religious reasons.  They are searching and seeking after something but they don’t fit into neat religious groups.  Perhaps I underestimated my fellow walkers, but I didn’t foresee a very interested response if I said I was walking across Spain so that I could fall deeper in love with the Lord.

While part of me understands the different reasons to walk the Camino, I often found myself thinking that I knew of no other sufficient reason to walk the Camino other than Jesus.  My heels and the balls of my feet developed large, painful blisters that reappeared day after day.  I can think of little else that would motivate me to repeatedly stick a needle into my foot and then to walk seven hours on sore feet.  The ache in my feet was manageable when I knew that I was offering it up for something and that this pain was aiding someone else.  It would have been entirely different to just endure the pain as part of the adventure.

Why did I walk the Camino?  I walked it for Love.  I walked it because in prayer Jesus tenderly calls me “My Heart” and I wanted to fall deeper in love with that Sacred and Eucharistic Heart.  I walked it for a time of peace and solitude.  I walked for Jesus.

The Post before "The Camino Memoirs"

I have returned from walking the Camino de Santiago.  And I plan to write lots about it.  But not quite yet.  However, in anticipation of those writings, the next few weeks will more than likely be filled with what I will now dub “The Camino Memoirs.”  You will not fully understand my Camino because so much of what the Lord did was just for me, just for my heart.  Nevertheless, I will try to give you a glimpse into the beauty, the toil, the graces of walking across Spain for a month.

Until then–I realized that the Camino is life.  Each day is another day laboring in the vineyard, filled with beauty and sacrifice.  And each day takes us one day closer to Heaven.

To Know God and Speak of Him

Before I started teaching I remember speaking to a priest about my lack of knowledge and experience.  I was worried I wouldn’t be able to answer all of their questions and would find teaching to be too much for me.

“Do you trust that the Church has the answers, though?  That your students couldn’t come up with a question that would prove the Church wrong or that she hadn’t thought of?”
“Absolutely.”

Father seemed to look at me as if that was enough.  So I would be delving into teaching a subject that I didn’t know everything about but I believed that the Church could answer every objection.  In other words, what was the worry?

That realization, that nothing my students or anyone could do or say would change my trust in the Church, was a necessary one.  Even if I don’t know the answer now, I believe there is an answer.

I have a few students who are over the Church.  They don’t want anything to do with religion and their perception is that mandatory theology classes are killing them.  I graded a journal the other day and some of the things the student wrote made my heart ache.  He was writing words that spoke strongly of his dislike for the Church, his disbelief that Christ was there or listening, and his dislike at even having to keep a prayer journal.  What may have surprised him was how I read his words.  When he talked about Christ not listening, I pictured a hurt little boy too closed off to even accept the comfort Christ was offering.  As he described his desire to do whatever he wanted and not follow the Church, I envisioned reckless parties and a continued desire to fill an aching hole within himself, all the while refusing the only true means of fulfillment.

I don’t know how to prove the existence of God.  I can give them different arguments for God’s existence but I cannot give to them my experience of God or the fact that I know, without a doubt, that God is present and that He loves me.  In many ways, I am baffled by disbelief.  I understand that I am a teacher and I am supposed to help them through these things, but it is not something I have experienced myself.  Sometimes I was angry at God, sometimes I felt He didn’t care about me, but I always thought He was there.  I see my students aching for God and yet not even willing to acknowledge the ache.

When I hear their questions or their critique of the Church I wonder how we can see things in such a different light.  I see a loving Mother and they see rules.  I see a tremendous love story and they see someone uninterested in their lives.  It doesn’t make me doubt my faith or doubt God.  Rather, it makes me desire, somehow, someway, to give them my faith, to help them understand God, to trust in Him.  I haven’t figured it out yet, but there must be a way.

Holding Up the Falling Apart

How do we transform a culture?

I have very few ideas but I see a great need for it to take place.  When I see the hardened, embittered faces of my students as we have a discussion about something the Church teaches, there is a tendency to despair.  How can these youth of 17 or 18 already have such a distaste for a Church I love so ardently?  It is hard to determine if this is the fruit of their teenage angst and rebellion or if it is the result of a culture that is paganizing our youth right in front of us.

And who is to blame?  I know it isn’t necessary to point the finger.  Maybe it isn’t even helpful.  But there must be someone who is failing which leads to us having this mounting problem.  Is the school failing?  What is the responsibility of the school in regards to nourishing the faith?  Is the parish failing?  How much is the result of poor catechesis from the parish and diocese?  Are the parents failing?  How much is blamed on the parents not modeling the faith for their children and how much is due to their own faulty knowledge of the Church and her teachings?

I don’t know who is mainly to blame but I do know that we all reap the negative consequences of a society that is becoming increasingly pagan.  And if a specific group isn’t doing their expected share, there must be a way for the others to step up and help fill in the gaps.  Obviously it would be ideal for the main education to come from parents who are ardently in love with their faith and on fire for Jesus Christ.  In this ideal world they would also be supported by wonderful extended families, solid priests, evangelizing parishes, and a diocese that takes holiness seriously.  And of course this would include authentically Catholic elementary, middle, and high schools as well as universities and religious orders.

Somewhere, though, the ball is getting dropped.  The result is that I face a classroom full of seniors in high school who already seem jaded and hard-hearted.  (Not all of them, granted.)  It seems almost like a futile effort.  I feel so easily frustrated and hurt when they express a disdain for the Church.  They eye her suspiciously and know that she must be looking for ways to box them in, for ways to steal their joy and fun.  And with this mentality there seems to be little I can do to sway them.

The other day I found myself talking to one of my senior classes about the Church’s teaching on homosexuality.  Their faces were hard and critical.  A few had smug looks or mocking smirks.  My heart ached for them, trapped in their culturally indoctrinated mindset.  How do I reach them?  How do I explain that the Church is not bent on hatred but solely on love?  How can I shatter their misconceptions of the Church?  So I told them that even if they don’t understand what the Church teaches, even if they don’t agree with what the Church teaches, that they strive to believe that the Church loves them and desires the best for them.  She isn’t trying to think of rules to trap them but is giving them guidelines to live in true and authentic freedom.  Trust that she is acting out of love and not like a tyrant.  Because that changes everything.

There is a delicate balance between realizing it doesn’t rely on me and yet desiring enough to do what I can with what the Lord has given me.  Because it is so easy for me to simply chalk the world up to ridiculous and then retreat to my Catholic bubble.  But this world falling apart does affect me.  Even if I try to isolate myself from it all, it will impact my life because it is impacting the world and I live in it.  And hopefully someday I will have kids and I cannot simply tell them to hide from the world for their entire lives.  Jesus said something that seems to contradict that lifestyle.  Something about being light and salt to the world.  The Lord has given me a mission and it is my duty to fulfill that mission to the best of my ability.  So when I try and the world still seems to all fall apart, I can rest in the knowledge that God knows, God cares, and God has a plan.  Even the falling apart is resting in His hands.

Autumn
The leaves are falling, falling as if from far up,
as if orchards were dying high in space.
Each leaf falls as if it were motioning “no.”

And tonight the heavy earth is falling

away from all other stars in the loneliness.


We’re all falling. This hand here is falling.

And look at the other one. It’s in them all.


And yet there is Someone, whose hands

infinitely calm, holding up all this falling. 

Rainer Maria Rilke