Blessed Teresa of Calcutta, Jean Luc Picard, Kathleen Norris, and Carey Landry bopped me on the head.

I've been reading Kathleen Norris' The Cloister Walk for what seems like 74 years now. I even had to extend it at the library. It is a difficult book for me. Norris is a poet by trade, and well, it's obvious. But underneath the difficult prose are really meaty ideas. And underneath those meaty ideas is something that's been nagging at me, making me pick up the book again and again. Her stories about monks past and present keep drawing me in. The section on celibacy broke something free - a little something that's been sitting right on the tip of my tongue for a week now waiting for me to figure out what the heck it is and spit it out already (it's a hairy little something and it tastes a little funky).

A few days ago, my mother-in-law came over to babysit. She brought a book of songs with her. I thumbed through the book, singing songs that I remembered learning in elementary school. The book had quite a large section of vacation bible school songs. I recalled my favorite ever VBS song "Bloom Where You're Planted" and I sang it for my amused and befuddled audience. I guess you had to live through the "Hi, God!" phase of the 70s to really appreciate Carey Landry's lyrics. Singing that song with my friends accompanied by the gentle strumming of guitars is a happy memory for me, though. I can remember thinking that I would bloom where I was planted! I would be a beautiful daisy no matter what my surroundings!

A few weeks before the little blast from the past, I had a chat with a good friend. I don't remember the whole conversation, but I do remember that Mother Theresa came up. "In this life we cannot do great things. We can only do small things with great love."

These three topics have been knocking around in my head a good bit. I couldn't figure out why they kept coming to the front of my mind all the time, much less why one triggered the others. I'd be telling the kids to stop bickering, cooking dinner, and making to do lists in my head when, seemingly out of nowhere, I'd start humming that little song. So last night, when Jean Luc Picard popped into my head while I was mopping, it was a welcome reprieve. I dunked and wrung and pushed and then Jean-Luc-in-my-head said "ENGAGE!" I'd like to pretend it was an "aha" moment, but it was really more of a "well, duh" moment.

I believe that family life is my vocation. I have been called to marriage and motherhood by God - I have no doubt of that. But I sort of forgot that a calling is not an event so much as a way of life. I haven't fulfilled my vocation because I had a wedding or a childbirth (or two). I live my vocation by loving my husband and children. To be honest, that's been a half-assed effort of late. I've been disengaged. Now that I've had a little head bopping, though, I'm ready to really throw myself into my life again, to fully engage in all the little acts of great love that will fulfill my calling. And I can finally put down that book and start something else!

The St. Joan Problem

Yesterday was the feast day of St. Joan of Arc. For those not well-versed in the lives of the saints, St. Joan was a French peasant who lived in the 1400s. She heard the voices of various saints. These voices told her that she was destined to save France from English rule. She was to lead the army in support of the dauphin, in order to ensure France's independence. She was heartbreakingly young - 13 when she first heard the voices. She led several key campaigns in the war and was instrumental in the eventual French victory. The English captured her, then tried her as a heretic and a witch. One of her so-called heretical actions was wearing men's clothing. She was burned at the stake at age 19, abandoned by the government that she defended. A short while later, the charges of heresy were revoked and she was reclaimed by the French as their national heroine. She was canonized in 1920 - quite a while after her death! Honestly, I am very ambivalent about St. Joan. I admire her in so many ways. She had amazing strength of character and strength of faith. She embraced her calling and applied herself completely. At a time when women weren't valued, she managed to become a great leader (by the grace of God, of course). "Act, then God will act," St. Joan said. My faith demands application, demands thoughtful Christian actions both large and small. When I hear the gospel, I pray (as do all Catholics) "Be in my thoughts, my words, my deeds." Clearly, we are called to act. Clearly, St. Joan's life is worthy of study and consideration. But. And it's a big but. I am a pacifist. I believe, both rationally and viscerally, that I am not ever to intentionally harm any of God's other children. True pacifism is a difficult position that requires constant consideration. I question it regularly, but am unable to ever really accept any other position. Nor do I believe that God loves the French more than the English, or the Germans more than the Russians, or the Spaniards more than the Aztecs (although I certainly would appreciate it if He would give the Cardinals a little extra blessing). The idea that God called St. Joan to guarantee French victory is, well, difficult for me to accept. So, I seem to be stuck in a hard place. And since St. Joan of Arc is the patron of my parish, the problem is not just going to be pushed under the rug. I walk under a mosaic of an androgynous Joan holding her spear on a regular basis, making it somewhat difficult for me to just dismiss her. I could take the easy way out and claim that St. Joan must be viewed through the veil of history. And really, there is truth in that explanation. We are all of us products of our time. The trouble is that God is most assuredly not a product of any time, and so I cannot constrain St. Joan's calling by history. I obviously do not have any answers, just questions that raise questions. The marvelous thing about the questions is that they don't shake my faith, but deepen it. Even if I never manage to reconcile the St. Joan problem with my own absolute belief in pacifism, I can still learn and apply that knowledge to my own life. "Act, then God will act." So how am I to act? How can the inherent passiveness of pacifism become action?

13 Sacred Places

A few weeks ago, I heard a portion of a homily that really hit home with me. It was hard to listen - a different church, a different priest, Jake had a million questions, a bad time of day. So I missed a lot of the homily. But one thing that I did hear has been percolating around in the recesses of my brain since then. The priest defined "sacred place" as "a place where we meet God." So I've been thinking of all the places besides churches (because, well, of course I'd expect to find God there) that I've met Him in one form or another. Places and times that I felt as if I were intended to be there at that moment. And since we don't mark such places with shrines anymore, I'm marking some of them here. There are no burning bushes, but they are holy to me nonetheless.

1. A hospital
2. Door County, Wisconsin
3. Nehalem Spit, Oregon
4. A hiking trail in Pere Marquette Park, Illinois
5. The Lime Kiln Trail
6. A river in the Black Forest, Germany
7. The quad at Truman University (although it was NMSU at the time), walking with a friend
8. A breakfast table
9. Duck Lake, Michigan
10. Misery Bay, Michigan
11. Epiphany Fields (hey - it's not technically a church!)
12. The patio of a nursing home
13. The redwoods (how could I NOT?)

Reading over my list, most of these are place where I've been once, twice, three times and had seminal moments. I think maybe the challenge is to find (or bring) the sacred into the mundane.