Go Ahead, Again

In the process of juggling the heavy chalice and coarse white napkin during my first occasion of serving as a Eucharist Minister, I managed to spill the sweet, red, consecrated wine—the Blood of Christ.  It spilled all over my shaking hands. It formed a tiny puddle atop of the burnt red tile of the Mission Church floor.  I shook with panic and embarrassment, but could not manage any productive move in response to what I had done.  I had been careless with the gift of the Eucharist. I had spilled the Blood of Christ. And everyone watched me.

I was amidst an intimate evening liturgy with the Jesuit community and a small collection of guests from our university community.  There were maybe thirty of us in attendance.  Everyone could see me as I fumbled around with our Faith.  This was at the heart of my momentary, paralyzing anxiety.  My panic did not stem from a burden of personal shame about carelessly handling the Eucharist—I was confident this mistake was not unforgivable in God’s eyes.  It was the gaze of my fellow Christians that terrified me.  I knew how much the Eucharist means in our tradition, and I feared being judged a sloppy, unfit Catholic because of this incident.  In my struggle to participate and serve the community, I had committed a grave liturgical sin, and everyone watched me do it.

Sometimes I think this is what it is like, being a theologian, or a minister, or simply just a Christian in our world today.

Ash Wednesday on the Green Line

It was Ash Wednesday on the Green Line in Boston today.

Public transportation became a big part of my life this year. In LA I rode a bus and subway train to work.  In Boston now I do the same.  Often, when staring out the window on the bus or zoning out over the book in my lap, it has occurred to me that I feel so Catholic when ride public transit. Although this has been a recurring observation, I struggle to articulate why it is I feel this way.  What’s so Catholic about riding the bus?

Today this feeling made sense though, at least more than usual.  Soaking wet from the walk to the nearby train stop, I collapsed onto the first dry, stiff plastic seat I spotted.  I was uncomfortable in the bulky, water-proof parka I had hid under outside; its fabric rustled loudly as I moved in the seat. I clumsily tried to find a place for my wet, folded umbrella and struggled to retrieve my book from purse without shaking raindrops from my coat onto everyone around me.  Every moment was awkward, and everyone could see this.  I felt so vulnerable.

A Muslim Woman in the Pews

Read my latest post at CTA’s Young Adult Catholic Blog, entitled “A Muslim Woman in the Pews.”

A Community Needs A Soul…

A community needs a soul if it is to become a true home for human beings. You, the people must give it this soul.” –Pope John Paul II

I hold immeasurable gratitude for all the dear friends and family in Seattle who give this place its soul, who make this community a home for me. Thank you for your Love, and for this blessed season together.

Next blog post…from Boston!

Watching You Dance

On Thursday evening I looked over the balcony at Century Ballroom as my friends Katie and Frank danced to the final song of the night on the dance floor below. It was the last night of salsa before I head off to Boston, and the only night of the summer when the club hosts a live salsa band.  (I would have liked to think the special occasion was in honor of my departure, but I know it was simply a pleasant coincidence.)  Along with the best sounds the ballroom had heard all season, the live music brought out the city’s best dancers, which made for a night of both great dancing and fantastic viewing.  Of all the swift spins and fast footwork displayed by the evening’s talented couples, however, the most memorable dance, in my humble opinion, was that last one danced by my friends.

The three of us have gone dancing together at least once a week all summer long. And just as I, a clumsy beginner, went from counting out every step (1-2-3—5-6-7…) to moving unthinkingly along with rhythms I instantly recognize, so too had my more experienced friends improved their dance moves. While it was unnoticeable for me when I first began dancing, I have learned that a personal dancing style accompanies this sort of progress: when one attains a certain level of familiarity with the rhythms, steps, and moves, one’s personal style—which is often a reflection of his/her personality, training, and dance community—surfaces in his/her dancing.  Having danced with Katie and Frank for months now, I have gained a great affection for the idiosyncrasies of their styles.  For the neat steps of Katie’s three-count turns.  For the circular swing of Frank’s hands when he leads in open-position.  For the expressions on their faces when they concentrate during a spin sequence, or the sympathetic grins that occasionally break when someone acknowledges a partner’s misstep.

From the ballroom balcony, I treasured every glimpse of these personal tendencies. They were small, endearing reminders that I was not simply watching salsa dancing, but Katie’s salsa and Frank’s salsa.

Do I have patience, even for this?

“When I lead retreats, a bell sounds to indicate our transition from one part of the day to the next. The bell sounds, and immediately we shift mental gears, moving from meditation to preparations for mealtime.  What will lunch be today? Where will I sit? The bell rings, and we shift from walking meditation to preparations for a sitting meditation. Where did I leave my seat cushion? Will my aching back be a distraction during this sit? So much of life is like this–we are so quick to escape the present moment with anticipation and anxiety about what’s coming next.”

On Tuesday evening I joined my cousin for a meditation class facilitated by the Seattle Insight Meditation Society.  The class commences with a 45 minute meditation sit, followed by a lesson by one of the society’s Meditation teachers. That night, the talk focused on patience, one of the ten paramis, or “qualities of character that can be developed to support the path of awakening,” in the Buddhist tradition practiced by the group.  The teacher used this illustration about the bell on his retreats to demonstrate how much impatience we often have for the present moment.  Mainstream perceptions of life have taught us that the present is to dismissed for what ever is next.  We so hastily move from one thing to the next.

The teacher said that he has begun to ask his students to pause when they hear this transition bell at the retreat. It is an exercise in patience.  Rather than eagerly fleeing the moment, they exercise attention to the present by remaining where they are while the impending transition awaits its proper time.  The teacher said this intentional pause between one thing and the next is incredibly difficult for the retreatants.

This does not surprise me, for the bell has rung and I also struggle to pause in the present as I await the major impending transition in my life.  

Condemned to Greatness

Adam said, “I’ve wondered why a man of your knowledge would work a desert hill place.”

“It’s because I haven’t the courage,” said Samuel. “I could never quite take the responsibility. When the Lord God did not call my name, I might have called His name–but I did not. There you have the difference between greatness and mediocrity. It’s not an uncommon disease. But it’s nice for a mediocre man to know that greatness must be the loneliest state in the world.”

“I’d think there are degrees of greatness,” Adam said.

“I don’t think so,” said Samuel. “That would be like saying there is a little bigness. No. I believe when you come to that responsibility the hugeness and you are alone to make your choice. On one side you have warmth and companionship and sweet understanding, and on the other–cold, lonely greatness. There you make your choice. I’m glad to chose mediocrity, but how am I to say what reward might have come with the other? None of my children will be great either, except perhaps Tom. He’s suffering over the choosing right now. It’s a painful thing to watch. And somewhere in me I want him to say yes. Isn’t that strange? A father to want his son condemned to greatness! What selfishness that must be.”

I love this passage from Steinbeck’s East of Eden. It’s maybe my favorite of the whole book. When I read it for the first time, I was captured by Samuel’s recognition that greatness–which in my mind is really the result of anyone’s fervent and loyal pursuit of some vocation–comes at a cost. It is easy to glorify our goals and aims in life while overlooking the fact that a “yes” to one thing is often (if not always) a “no” to something else. I’d like to think that it isn’t as black-and-white as Samuel suggests; that real community and companionship is possible as we take on the individual responsibility necessary for major vocational commitments; that life infrequently occurs in this “either/or” fashion.

From the Pews in the Back: My First Reading

Check out my latest post on the blog that accompanies From the Pews in the Back: Young Women and Catholicism, a recently released book to which I have contributed. My post is called “From the Pews in the Back: My First Reading.”

If you are also reading the book, I’d love to know about your “first reading” too!

Champagne from the Bottle

“Well, folks…the cup I left on the table flew away, so do you still want to have the champagne…um….from the bottle?”

No, that was not a line from some classy college cocktail party gone wrong. The line was straight from my lips, and it was spoken during the Communion service at my cousin’s outdoor wedding last weekend.

The wedding officiant, a Protestant pastor and friend of mine, asked me to help facilitate the intimate ritual during the ceremony. When the marrying couple, the pastor, the two Best Men, and I, the Maid of Honor, circled around the small Communion table in front of 200 guests, I immediately noticed that the empty plastic cup I had placed there before the wedding was no where to be found. The mountain breeze must have carried it away during the vows!

We passed the grainy loaf around while the pastor read scripture, and I said, “This is Christ’s body, broken for you.” As we chewed my eyes darted around inconspicuously searching for the cup. “WHY did I pick a clear cup!” I wondered silently to myself. When our jaws stopped chomping and everyone’s eyes turned to the uncorked bottle of champagne we had grabbed before the ceremony (someone forgot the intended Communion wine), I divulged our Communion predicament.

Ritual, in friendship and faith

This afternoon Casey and I swung back and forth in the hammocks that hang between his front porch and the trunk of the large, leafy tree in front of his house. After a bit of catch up concerning the recent happenings of our lives, he had picked up his latest book, The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays of Wendall Berry. He wanted to read to me, and I had consented on the contingency that I could share a passage from my current read when he finished.

As I slid back into the perfect comfort of the blue hammock, I also felt myself ease into the familiar sound of my friend’s deep-toned reading cadence. During the three months we spent together in Europe this fall his voice carried me through well-over a thousand pages of words. There were times, in the midst of books like Brothers K or East of Eden, when he had had to stop reading because the text made us laugh so much, or because his throat grew tight with the feeling of impending tears. Casey and I share a special love of great books and deep thoughts, and reading aloud has become our shared passion in action–a physical, communal expression of the ideas that move us the most.