But...If My Life Was Perfect...

     But...if my life was perfect....
     I would not:
          Be sensitive
          Be compassionate
          Be understanding of other people--of the world around me
          Be flexible in how I approach and accomplish physical tasks
          Be flexible in how I view the diversity of people, beliefs, and cultures
          Be awe-struck by beauty around me
          Be wonder-filled about life within and around me--life distant from me
          Be appreciative of basic human capacities--thinking, and walking, to name a few
          Be attentive to how words are used--how I use words
          Be attentive to how my words and actions affect other people I know and do not know
          Be blessed with a sense of humor
          Be determined to live my life fully
          Be passionate about pursuing my interests
          Be interested in learning every day--each moment--of my life
          Be willing to apologize when I had offended someone else, or stolen someone's dignity
          Be dedicated to fulfilling my human potential, and encouraging others to do so
          Be open to the notion that this list is not complete
          Be baptized...be willing to seek an ongoing living of baptism        
     If My Life Were Perfect, I Would Not Be Human.

Corpus Christi. Mystery. Corpus Christi.

     Corpus Christi Sunday is celebrated in the Catholic Church today--the body and blood of Christ.
     I feel truly blessed by the faith community I celebrate Mass with each Sunday.  We are more than a physical structure....more than a scheduled time each week.....more than rote recitation of words....more than obedient people...more than repeated rituals shared each week....
     We are faith-filled.  We do celebrate.  We do celebrate.  We do celebrate Mass.  We do gather each Sunday. We do have a physical structure where we meet each week.  We do recite words we have heard many times.  We strive to obey--our prayerful, communal conscience, if not always that which other deem worthy of obedience.
     I confess.  I am drawn most to the Word when I enter the experience of Mass.  Throughout all aspects of my life, since I was a child, I felt most drawn to words.  Today's celebration of Corpus Christi drew me beyond the words into the experience of the celebration.  Words were the invitation to which I responded today.
    "Lent is a time when we empty our guilt, so as to enter into the fullness of the celebration of Easter."  Those were the homilist's words that spoke to my ears.  Quickly, I grabbed my pen to capture that essence.  All too familiar with the tipping of my mental wheelbarrow of short-term memory, my pen was the savior I sought.  My pen is the tool I grasp hold of to nail moments of grace to my long-term memory.
     Yet, in that moment, I was struck by the sin of squashing grace, or being so arrogant as to think I could preserve that moment for posterity.  Putting my pen away, trusting that what I need to remember I will remember, freed me to be graced by so much more.
    The four music ministers led us in singing liturgical music of celebration.  Guitar.  Piano.  Drums.  Four-part harmony.  Many times, I have seen the faces, heard the words, and the music.  Yet, this morning, I was graced with mystery.  Hearing--truly hearing--the four different parts--soprano, alto, tenor, and bass--of the musicians led me to mystery of wonderment.
     How is it that four individuals open their mouths and produce four different notes that produce such harmony?  Science may explain it, yet, it does not explain the wonder of the moment--the mystery of the experience.
    Spontaneous signing of Mass music by a woman, who lives with Asperger's Syndrome, was shown to my eyes.  No hearing impairment.  No rote recitation of words.  A simple expression of the words coming to her ears.  A personal response in tune with the singing voices of others.
    I have served as a minister of Word--as a lector.  I have served as a music minister,  though both were many years ago.  I have never served as a Eucharistic minister.
    This morning, the choreography of the Eucharist--the celebration of our human tapestry of gifts--was given to me.  I emptied myself of the words, and my eyes were opened to the diverse gifts of our faith community.  Our individual gifts stream to the front of the sanctuary to the hands of our priest, and his ministers of bread and wine.
    Corpus Christi.  Mystery.  Faith.  Body.  Blood.  Grace.  Word.  Music.  Corpus Christi.

My Way to be Christian

The Weapon...I am a Christian....the rest of the world be damned...
Have you accepted Christ as your Lord and Savior???
Do you have all of your questions answered???
The Weapon...I am a Christian...the rest of the world be damned...

The Instrument...I am a Christian....the rest of the world be peace-filled...
I know what Christ teaches about how to save myself and the world.
I listen...I question...I challenge the call to conform...
The Instrument...I am a Christian...the rest of the world be peace-filled...

The Instrument...I am a Christian...the world will peace-filled...
I live by Christ's words...I speak the words Christ speaks to me...
I live with Christ's heart...I act with Christ's hear...
The Instrument...I am a Christian...the rest of the world be damned...

The Weapon...I am a Christian...the rest of the world be damned...
Have you joined Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life...
Do you respect all of life...or do you respect only the life as you conceive it should be...
The Weapon...I am a Christian...the rest of the world be damned...

The Instrument...I am a Christian...the world be peace-filled...
I breathe Christ...
I respect life that differs from me...I am strengthened by differences in my life...
The Instrument...I am a Christian...the world be peace-filled...

The Instrument...I am a Christian...the world be peace-filled...
I am an instrument of thy peace...
Where there is hatred, I sow love...
The Instrument...I am a Christian...the world be peace-filled...

A Shared Ride into the Unknown.

This week, I saw
An intimate--not of my body,
An intimate of my life.

Ravaged.  Robbed.  Quaking.  Troubled.  Resigned.  Disturbed.
Ravaged steadiness.
Stolen dignity.
Quaking confidence.
Trembling, troubled--disturbed--future.
Resigned.

Our causes differ.  Our training--our preparation--from God differs.
Yet, we share an aimless search for the moving targets.
Parkinson's Disease....Osteoarthritis...
They differ in landscape.

Yet, they share--we share--
A roller coaster ride.
Not a steady demise from the sure footing of youth,
No, we share
An unknown ride on a track with hidden, unscheduled twists and turns.

We share a ride
Toward an unknown destination,
At an unknown arrival time.

Prayer...A Nascent Transformation...

     The Hail Mary.
     Shall we pray? Sister Immaculata proffered.
     Hail Mary, full of grace.
     The Lord is with thee.
     Blessed art thou among women,
     And, blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
     Holy Mary, Mother of God.
     Pray for us,
     Now, and at the hour of our death.
     Amen.


     Seat of wisdom, pray for us.
     The prayer was a reverential invitation to understand words new to me.  I was never sure whether the words were, "Seat of wisdom, pray for us," or, "Seed of wisdom, pray for us."  Yet, somehow, that detail did not matter.  Both Seat and Seed confirmed a nascent transformation yet to be lived. 
     Hail Mary, Full of Grace.  
     As inexplicable as the Hail Mary's beauty on my first hearing 30 years ago is its beauty today.  Whenever an ambulance passes by me, the Hail Mary comes to my ears.  I do not recite it at other times.  Yet, at the moments of urgent need--the need of others--the Hail Mary is given to me to utter.
     I have no Rosary beads.  I do not know the Rosary.  I do not pray the Rosary.  Not by my judgment of its value.  Rosary has been in my vocabulary for nary three decades.  Maybe in seven more decades, I will know the Rosary.  Maybe in seven decades I may pray the Rosary.
     Others better versed than I could recite the precise chapter and verse.  Yet, I have heard it said that we need not fear, when  needs arise we shall be given the appropriate words to utter.  Whether spoken aloud, or held in my heart, confidence is given, and fears assuaged.  Blessed by and with a faith-filled worship community, and Christians who care deeply about the heart and soul--far more than structures they enter, no longer is prayer a formula I grab from off the rack.  I cannot explain its shape--its form.  Thirty years ago, a formula.  Today, a precious mystery.  Thirty years from now?  A precious mystery to be lived, not feared.

Prayer...It Makes No Sense to Me...

      On April 25, 1982, had you asked me, "what does prayer mean to you," I would have said, "Lord Make Me an Instrument of Thy Peace," "The Hail Mary,"  and "Peace be with You." 
     Formulated.  Off the Rack prayers ready for those wanting to wear religion on their sleeve.
     Not quite.  I had--I have--a deep love for each of those prayers.
     Without knowing his name, The Prayer of St. Francis, St. Francis was introduced to me by a Christian choir director in junior high school--in a public school, no less, much to the chagrin of my parents.  A Christian--not a Catholic--choir director.
     Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace.
     Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
     Where there is injury, pardon;
     Where there is doubt, faith;
     Where there is despair, hope;
     Where there is darkness, light;
      And, where there is sadness, joy;
      Grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled, as to console.
      To be understood as to understand.
      To be loved, as to love.
      For it is in the giving that we receive.
      In the pardoning that we are pardoned.
     And, it is in the dying,
     That we are born to eternal life.
     My maternal grandfather--Ray, a man who abhorred anything Catholic--would be horrified to hear me say so, yet, his inheritance to me, "Don't feel sad when I die, I have made amends with everyone [with whom] I had differences," reaffirmed what St. Francis told me.
      Prayer.
      It makes no sense to me.  Words that speak such truth.  Words--it is in the dying that we are born to eternal life--far from affirmed in my childhood home, in my family--speak such truth to me.  It makes no sense.  Yet, they are true.

De-Baptism

Rene Lebouvier requested that his local Catholic church erase his name from the baptismal register

…

“Baptism is a spiritual gift, it’s bigger than we are,” said Bernard Podvin, spokesman for the French Bishops Confederation, who would not comment on the specifics of the Normandy case. “It can’t be confined to a purely administrative framework.”

      http://www.religionnews.com/index.php?/rnstext/growing_de-baptisms_reflect_europes_secular_drift/

     A dagger pierces my chest, as I read of Rene Lebouvier’s de-baptism.—Rene, and apparently many others in Europe.

     De-baptism.

     Pain.  Deep…deep sadness.

     De-baptism.

     I am a woman guided by deep respect, and admiration for the deliberate commitments other individuals make.  Deep respect, and admiration for such deliberation surmounts any disagreement I may have with the decisions made--with the individual deliberation.

     De-baptism.

     Yet, I feel pain.  Deep…deep sadness.

     De-baptism.

     I am neither a Church apologist, nor am I a crusader against the failings of the Church.

     I know people, who are committed apologists, and dedicated crusaders.  I know individuals, who have left the Church in anger, with deep hurt, disappointment, disillusionment, as well as for reasons I may never know, or understand.

     I know them.  I respect them.  I admire them.  I love them.

     Yet, none of that appeases deep...deep sadness this news delivers to my spirit.

     I do not feel anger.  No outrage.  No betrayal.

     Confusion?  Disillusionment?

     No.  Such call for more energy than is mine to give.

     De-baptism.

     Pain.  Deep...deep sadness.

     Baptism.  My own baptism.

     I remember that Day.

     Baptism day.  Sheer terror.  "Wait.  I can't do this.  I don't have all of the answers yet."

     Baptism day.  Sheer terror.  "Wait.  I am supposed to know much more than I do."

     Baptism day.  Sheer terror.  "Wait.  They are going to find out I am a fraud."

     De-baptism.  

     Sadness...deep sadness.

     Baptism.  My own baptism.

     I remember that Day.

     Joy.  Celebration.  An ecumenical blast.

     May individuals, who commit themselves to de-baptism, discover joy--be blessed with celebration.