Dodge Ball ...

Have you ever worried and fretted over something to the point of distraction? Maybe instead of asking “have you ever”, I should more accurately ask “when was the last time you fretted over something to the point of distraction? I would wager a bet that all of us, if we are being honest, would not go much further out than a week or so. In our busy work and home lives, it seems there is always plenty of reason for worry … great or small.

I recently have worried quite a bit over leaving my home church of over 20 years. The rug was pulled out from under me, and my soft spot to fall is no longer available to me. This Lenten season, I have spent a lot of time pondering, praying, and searching for a new connection, someplace I fit.

When times of worry arrive, I like to play “Dodge Ball With The Devil.” As we are told, “let go, and let God.” But how many times do we truly let go and let God? It seems we always take it back. Thus … “Dodge Ball With The Devil.”

Who among us hasn’t played dodge ball with our friends on the school playground? I remember taking turns on who was going to get the ball first. Then the others lined up against a brick wall … hopefully without windows! The person with the ball starts to toss the ball at friends against the wall, and if you get hit, then you take the ball and try to hit another person who then takes your place. And the rotation continues.

So when you play “Dodge Ball With The Devil” you give God your concerns. However, often the devil may try to get you to take them back. He tosses these issues your way, very slyly he tries to hit you, look to the left, to the right, move quickly and dodge, dodge, dodge … just don’t let him get you! Each time you dodge what the devil throws your way, God grasps these issues in His strong, loving arms, and handles them His way in His time. When we try to take control and take back what we have given to God, in essence we have let the devil fire them at us and strike us. Be steadfast and dodge, dodge, dodge … Let Go and Let God!

Roamin'...

I have recently and quite appropriately been called a “Roamin’ Catholic.” I suppose this is indeed a proper title. After having spent almost 20 years at a specific church and very involved with the choir, prayer committee, and often other activities, I have left my church. I have left my home, my soft spot to fall.

I am now, this Lenten season, on my personal journey to find a “new home.” I have taken with me on this journey, the pain that has followed from my previous home. But I know with God’s helpful hand and his miraculous direction, I will indeed find a new home. I share the words below from a song recently sung during a Sunday liturgy. It is by Whitaker, entitled "In Every Age". They speak to me …

Long before the mountains came to be and the land and sea and starts of the night,
Through the endless seasons of all time, you have always been, you will always be.

In every age, O God, you have been our refuge.
In every age, O God, you have been our hope.

Destiny is cast, and at your silent word we return to dust and scatter to the wind.
A thousand years are like a single moment gone,
As the light that fades at the end of the day.

In every age, O God, you have been our refuge.
In every age, O God, you have been our hope.

Teach us to make use of the time we have. Teach us to be patient even as we wait.
Teach us to embrace our every joy and pain,
To sleep peacefully, and to rise strong.

God, you have been our hope, you have been our refuge,
You have been our hope.

During this same liturgy, I was feeling quite alone. I looked around and didn’t see anyone I knew, which was new to me, having been so long with my previous church and knowing so many of the special people in the community. But then the hand of God did reach out to me. At the “sign of peace” a tradition during a Catholic Mass, I heard behind me a voice that said, “Sharon!” I turned and it was a former member of my other church, smiling from ear to ear, and she blew me a kiss. My little piece of home had followed me. I admit I wept with the softness I felt. Dinner followed Mass that evening, and a renewal of an old friendship made new.

In every age, O God, you have been our refuge. In every age, O God, you have been our hope.

Forward ...

Pedro Arrupe, SJ, was the 28th Superior General of the Society of Jesus, leading the Society in the realities of serving the Church and people in the post-Vatican II world. Arrupe was a man of great spiritual depth who was committed to justice. He writes, “Nothing is more practical than finding God, that is, than falling in a love in a quite absolute, final way. What you are in love with, what seizes your imagination will affect everything. It will decide what will get you out of bed in the morning, what you will do with your evenings, how you spend your weekends, what you read, who you know, what breaks your heart, and what amazes you with joy and gratitude. Fall in love, stay in love, and it will decide everything.”

This Wednesday, March 5, 2014, is Ash Wednesday. And, so we start another Holy season of Lent. As a cradle Catholic, this season within the liturgical calendar of the Roman Catholic Church, has always been a time of melancholy and thought for me. I usually feel pangs of inadequacy during Lent for having not “given up” the right thing, praying as much as I should, giving alms as I should, and not “doing” enough good deeds as I should. This year, however I have an even larger challenge. I have left my church. I have left my soft spot to fall. I have left my home. For reasons too painful and too complicated to put to paper, I have left my church.

So this Lent, I start my journey to find a connection again within a church. I need to often remind myself that not “being” in a specific church does not change my relationship with God. In fact, I have turned to Him more in the last several weeks during this painful journey. I go forward with quiet resolve to find my “spot.” I don’t know how long it will take, or if I will ever find a new home in church. It is so hard when what I had before was so calming to me. But the main task is to go forward.

I know I will stumble and fall on this journey. But if my resolve is to keep my eyes fixed to His power and glory, I know that when I fall, my frail hand will be taken by Him with a gentle pull. The blessed pull to move forward. Saint Mother Theodore Guerrin has stated, “We do not know whether we have a long time to live or not. It might be that this year will be the last God will give us to work for Him and to prove to Him our love.” Oh, my urgency of moving forward

The Flowers Still Come

After my Mother's death, I kept a journal.  I would write daily at times, then it would stretch to weeks, to months, and then sometimes just a writing on a very special occasion.  Below is an entry I made on the second Mother's Day after my Mother's death.  I still remember when this happened and how it touched my heart.  I share today in honor of all our Mother's both alive and in Heaven.

The Flowers Still Come …

Mother’s Day, 2006

I am now celebrating the second Mother’s Day without my Mother.  When I awoke this morning, I felt the immediate need to make the journey to the cemetery to deliver my flowers and spend a little time at my Mother’s grave site.  As I pulled into the cemetery, I saw a car parked to the side of the paved path, and I observed two people walking across the cemetery on their personal journey as well.  As I grew nearer I realized that I knew these two people … they were actually the parents of one my friends, and they have to be in their mid 80’s.  They both had bouquets of flowers, and that is when I noticed exactly which graves they were going to visit.  They split apart a bit, and then I saw them place their flowers on their Mothers’ graves.  Their Mothers must have been gone for decades at this point, yet the flowers still come.  This touched my heart in a way that hasn’t happened before.  It was my affirmation that it doesn’t matter how long our Mothers have been gone, they are never forgotten and memories abound for the rest of our lives.  After placing their flowers, they walked back to each other, took hands, and returned to their car.  I stood silently alone for a while, talked with my Mother, and then returned to my car.  These fifteen minutes enriched my Mother’s Day this year, and this sweet little couple has no idea they were such a part of it.  Our Lord certainly sends His loving touch in the most simplistic of ways.  We only need to be attentive.  The flowers still come.

Reflection …  My God of infinite love and mercy, I realize more and more that I live in the presence of your love. There is no way that I couldn’t, even if I tried, because you never give up on your children.  Open my heart to your continued love and fill it with the peace that only you can give.

Precious Life ...

Sometimes it takes the saddest and hardest events in life to shock us back to what is really important.

Last Thursday, April 19, a dear friend and fellow choir member suffered the bursting of a cerebral aneurysm, and she died early Saturday morning, April 21.  She was only 48 years old.  But, oh what she packed into those 48 years!  She experienced life with full enthusiasm. She took care of family and friends to the extent that she made it her personal mission to be custodian to many. She loved to travel, and she spent many hours in her car driving from place to place. She was in Colorado when she passed away, and it took several days for her to return home. Another choir member said, “Well, that’s just Stacy.  She’ll need to stop off several other places on her way home.”  This is so true.  Stacy loved Facebook, and I would be totally worn out and fatigued just reading her posts when she would be on one of her traveling jaunts.  Certainly no grass grew under her feet.

If there are lessons I learned from my friend, Stacy, they would have to be centered on just taking time for others and being available.  Stacy didn’t "work", and I used to think how much easier it must have been for her to be in so many different places. But now on thinking this through in more depth, I’m not sure it was a time issue, but more an issue of just making herself available.  Yes, I work.  I work more than 40 hours per week, so I do have a time restriction during those work hours. But I can still be available.  Available with a smile, available with a hug, available with a quick call to encourage, console, or for a quick “hello and thinking of you.”  I can be more available to schedule and plan events with my friends. Available to “step out of the box” and experience new things.

When someone so young, and with so many more opportunities “to do things” passes, it causes pause and reflection of how life is being spent. Stacy had recently posted on her Facebook, “Since none of us really know when the end of our journey is coming; love, laugh, and live like there is no tomorrow.”

Yes, Stacy, Life … Precious life.  God bless you and keep you.

Meet the Flood's

Isn’t it strange how we meet folks?

My Mother was always diligent about keeping flower arrangements on my Father’s headstone. She would make sure that Daddy’s grave site had Christmas flowers and Easter flowers.  Since Mother wintered in Florida, and my sister lived out-of-town, I was responsible for his birthday fresh bouquet in February, his green carnations for St. Patrick’s Day, and a purple arrangement for Lent. That would take us through the period from after Christmas right up to Easter, and Mother would take over from that point.

In March 2005, Easter was on March 27. The Saturday before Easter, Holy Saturday, Mother took me to the cemetery to see the arrangement she had placed on Daddy’s headstone. She was so happy with the outcome of the arrangement. She had worked directly with the florist to ensure that it was unique and had all the lovely spring colors that she and Daddy had always loved.  Little did she know, that she had picked out the flowers that would be part of her own headstone.  You see, Mother died very suddenly the Wednesday after Easter that year. She had placed those flowers on Daddy’s grave on March 24, and on April 1 she had been lovingly placed in her final “earthly” resting place. Note that I say “earthly” resting place. She and Daddy’s final resting place is in Heaven with our Lord.

After Mother’s death, I began visiting the cemetery daily or at least several times weekly. Within about the first 2 to 3 weeks, and after a quite fierce storm, I noted that the flower arrangement on the headstone was no longer in place. When I glanced around the immediate area, I saw an arrangement across the narrow road up against another tombstone.  I walked over to check it out, and I was almost 100% sure that it was my parent’s flower arrangement.  I picked it up and turned to take it back to my parents' grave. Then I had this terrible sensation that it might not be the one my Mother had so diligently picked out, and really did belong to the folks where it lay.  I looked at the name on that tombstone and the name was “Flood”.  It was a rather broad tombstone.  Not knowing the “right thing” to do, I said out loud, “Mother, I’m sorry if I am giving away your flowers, but I’m just not sure, so I will buy you and Daddy a new one.”  Then I placed the wayward floral arrangement atop the “Flood’s” tombstone.

It has been amazing to me that in the 7 years since that time, I have placed numerous arrangements on Mother and Daddy’s grave site. Some have lasted until they have faded and appear worn, and others have disappeared within a few days to weeks of being placed. But the “Flood’s” arrangement has never budged from that tombstone. 

I shared this story with a friend of mine, whose parents are buried in the same cemetery.   She, too, began to check out the “Flood’s” grave site. Together we would watch this same worn out arrangement placed atop their tombstone.  One Memorial Day, during the Mass held in the cemetery, the priest presiding remarked that he felt one of the saddest things was an unkempt grave. My friend, who was attending the Mass, immediately thought of the “Flood’s”.  So now, between the two of us, we have begun to maintain that grave site.

We have often wondered why no one ever came. Then we found the probable reason. We finally truly read their tombstone. There are 6 people buried at this site. Three on one side and three on the other side of the marker.  Their dates of death are, on one side 1937, 1910, 1939.  On the other side 1925, 1975, 1963.   I believe this little family may all be gone.  Five have last names of "Flood" and one just says "A Friend".  How special is that?

My friend and I will continue to place arrangements for the “Flood’s”.  We now feel a bond with them.  Maybe one day, we will all meet in Heaven.  It is indeed strange how we come to meet folks.

This Most Holy Friday

It is the holiest of Friday's for Christians. This last Friday in Lent ... this most holy Good Friday.  The color of the Bishop's, priest's, and deacon's vestments are in reverence to His blood.  The cloth draped over the cross for veneration the same sacred color.  When I come forward for the Veneration of the Cross, bow, and kiss the cross, it is truly the most solemn of actions in my Catholic heritage.

It is not about the fish fries or whether I've been able to hold true to my fasting of choice during these 40 days of Lent.  It is the culmination of the last 40 days of prayer, meditation, reflection, and renewal of my baptismal promise.

I remember as a child the Passion of Our Lord being read on Good Friday.  I remember the shifting from foot to foot and wondering if the priest would ever come to the end of the story.  Thankful that it was only read during this one period of time throughout the year. Glad, when at the end, he finally would say, "The Passion of Our Lord."  As a child was it even possible to understand what we had just heard?  And, as an adult, is it possible to absolutely comprehend the love that drives our salvation?  So often we get caught up in the mysticism of our faith, and we forget that this was a man in flesh and blood, with a mother and father, and friends who loved Him.  This man, made to carry the burden of His cross, and suffer unbearably so our sins could be forgiven. 

I find myself trying to stretch this into a longer written piece, when in reality I am not even worthy to approach this subject.  I will leave it where it is, and on this holy Good Friday, when I see the Bishop, priest, and deacon enter the church in their vibrant red vestments, my mind will be on the prayerful lyrics of a beautiful song written by Timothy R. Smith, "When I Survey The Wondrous Cross"...

"See from his head, his hands, his feet, Sorrow and love flow mingled down!  Did e'er such love and sorrow meet, or thorns compose so rich a crown?"   ... "Love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all."