Birthday Grace

As far as birthdays go, I'd say this one was pretty great.  I'm not gonna lie, I wasn't really looking forward to it.  I've been sick.  I had a midterm to finish.  My computer hard drive "failed" this weekend.  I woke up to major rain and ickiness.  I knew I'd have to go to class from 4:30-9:30.  It wasn't looking good.  Enter grace.

I woke up to a text message sent at 2am from a dear friend- my first official birthday wish!  My dear roommate snuck a card and a bag of Reese's (my favorite candy) onto my pillow while I was in the shower.  My parents called before going to work to sing "Happy Birthday" to me.  All day long, I got emails and text messages and phone calls...some from people that I haven't talked to in forever!  I was able to go to Mass and lunch with a close friend.  I had time to get all of my work done.  I got a bunch of real cards in the snail mail.  And oh the Facebook messages!  Wow.  I know that a FB message doesn't mean the world, but the sheer number was just overwhelming.  This many people thought about me today and sent a wish for happiness.

Overwhelmed is I think the best word, truly, to describe how I feel right now.  In a good way, you know- I am overwhelmed with love.  I feel like I could do anything and just run off this love!  So, one of my favorite things about birthdays is a tradition my dear friend Karen taught me- the birthday questions.  In an attempt to take this day to look back and forward, I will share my birthday answers here.

1. Describe the day you were born.

Well, it was a cold day in March, in the mountains of North Carolina.  My poor mom had been in labor for thirty-three hours.  I just didn't want to come out.  Finally, I was born at about 9:00 in the morning- as my mom always said, "just in time for Sesame Street!"  My maternal grandparents were in Australia at the time, and my parents had to send them a telegram on the Great Barrier Reef!  This telegram is still in my baby book :)

2. Describe a favorite birthday.

Hands down, my first year of teaching.  My kids planned an entire birthday party without me knowing.  I seriously was totally clueless.  (I have to admit, this worried me slightly in retrospect- that they would be able to extensively plan such an event under my nose without me knowing it...what else were they doing without me knowing???)  Anyway, I got called to the library and an aide popped in briefly.  Little did I know, this was so they could string up streamers, light candles on a cake, and get everything set up.  When I got back, they all went crazy, singing and yelling and just being SO excited- that it was my birthday, maybe- but mostly I think they were excited that I was genuinely so surprised.  I felt so loved.

Birthdays during my three UCTC years were also pretty great, because they were accompanied by affirmations.  I mean, when else do you get to sit and listen to a room full of people telling you why you are special to them and what they love about you?  So great.

3. What will you remember about the last year?

- Going on the Camino with my mom, brother, and sister
- Moving out of the convent and into a house!!!
- Doing my administrative practicum and learning a LOT about what it means to be a principal
- My parents' 30th Anniversary party with extended family and friends
- Earthquakes in Haiti and Chile
- Becoming a lector at my church
- Helping to plan a national conference last summer
- Being asked to bake communion bread for a friend's wedding
- LOTS of friends' pregnancies!

4.  What are you looking forward to in the coming year?

- Being offered a job as a principal, and having the opportunity to put everything I've learned into practice!
- Whatever else God has in store!

28 years...a significant amount of time, and yet, just a grain of sand in the hourglass of time.  Looking forward to the next 28!  Thank you, God, for birthday grace.  I am so blessed to be so loved.

grace in irony

irony, noun: unintended connection with truth, that goes strikingly beyond the most simple and evident meaning of words or actions
of course i made the comment on here yesterday that i wanted to record the abundance of grace in my life for days when it was not as visible.  and of course, today ended up being one of those days. 

that's not fair.  i should say that today was actually a quite perfect day- beautiful weather, quality time with a friend, time to catch up on work, a thought-provoking documentary, st. patrick's day(although i didn't really celebrate it for the first time in as long as i can remember) - until i got an email this afternoon saying that i was not selected as a finalist for the job i interviewed for yesterday.  immediately i couldn't see any of the grace from today or yesterday or any day; i just felt overwhelmed with doubt and rejection.

until guess what?

i got an email from my brother that turned it all around.  i'm copying it below because i can't adequately describe the sense of peace it gave me.  the hint he's referring to in the beginning is an opening at my old elementary school in fayetteville (st. patrick's).  here it is:

Hey Cait,
first, happy ST. PATRICK'S day! i'm sure you got the hint... anyways, i just wanted to tell you to keep moving forward, have confidence in yourself and your abilities and trust in others' judgment, you'll get a job, and you'll be great at it... you excel in everything that you do and these morons who decided to hire someone else didn't do it because the other candidate was better, they did it because they don't know you, all they know is the excellent academic, social, and work record on your resume and what they found out in a damn interview... theyre scared to take a chance on a youngin' but there is no doubt in my mind you are destined for greatness... all you need is a f'in chance!!!!!!!!! keep trying, your hard work will pay off,  i'll stay frustrated for you...
love you,
love, will

slightly inappropriate?  yes.  completely biased?  totally.  grace?  absolutely.  

thank you, God, even on tough days, for making your presence known. 

grace abounds!

seriously...it's just everywhere!  in the last week, i've encountered so much grace i can't possibly write a blog entry for each thing.  check it out:

• my dear friends who have been praying for a baby for six years and told their chances are slim to none recently found out they are 8 weeks pregnant!  they are thrilled beyond belief and credit God's grace for this little miracle which has already brought them so much joy.
• another dear friend is pregnant for the second time after tragically losing her first baby girl last year.  she is feeling well and just felt the baby move for the first time...14 weeks!  that reassurance that all is well as that little life continues to grow can only be described as grace.
• my dear friends who are pregnant with their first child after getting married less than two years ago came to visit this weekend.  it was so great to see them and have the gift of sharing quality time- a common love language :)  you know how people sarcastically say, "thank you for gracing us with your presence"?  well, no sarcasm here- their presence truly brought grace to my life! 
• another dear friend is pregnant for the first time and, although she is considered "high risk" because of her age, all is going well, and they just found out they are having a sweet baby girl!  grace abounds in healthy moms and healthy babies!
• wow!  i have a lot of growing bellies in my life!  what a blessing to have so many dear friends with wonderful, loving husbands, who are not only great examples to me of marriage, but now also of motherhood.  these ladies have struggled, laughed, cried, and been stretched on many levels as their bodies, minds, and spirits prepare for the next phase in life, but throughout it all they remain steadfast in their faith and in their love.  i am so blessed.  all of these pregnancies have really got me thinking about the miracle of life- and what a miracle it truly is!  i think sometimes we hear about so many easy pregnancies with healthy babies that we forget just that they aren't all that way.  if we truly saw our own lives for the gifts and miracles that they are, how would we live differently on a day-to-day basis?
• after four days of nonstop rain, to the point where many streets in boston were flooded and impassable, i woke up this morning to sun and a bright blue sky!  i think that was about all my spirit could take of that kind of weather (bless you who live in seattle!), and am so grateful to be graced with such a beautiful day!
• i had yet another interview today.  although i don't want to jinx it, i have to say that this one felt really different to me.  maybe part of it is that i'm starting to find my rhythm and get a good feel for how to best express myself in an interview setting.  but part of it was definitely that i just got a very different vibe from this place.  the people were friendly.  when i was waiting, the church secretary started chatting with me about the weather and how long she's lived in lawrence and how excited they are that tomorrow's st. patrick's day since they are st. patrick's parish.  then i went in, and everyone was just as nice as they could be, smiling, explaining who they were and where they were from...the questions were all ones i'd heard before and was prepared to answer, although i tried to do so in very honest, authentic ways.  i don't know if i can really put a finger on what was different, but i could see myself as part of this community.  it just felt right.  even if they don't offer me the job, although i will actually legit be disappointed this time, i really am just grateful to have had such a positive interview experience- one that i walked into feeling good and out of feeling good.  can't ask for much more than that!  it probably helped that i had my grandma's whole bible study group praying for me during that hour :)
• i have really just been overwhelmed with the amazing people in my life lately.  so many mentors- professional mentors and life mentors- people who encourage me and see that which i sometimes cannot see in myself, and lead by example so that i have direction and guidance for the kind of person i want to become.  an incredible family, who desperately tries to keep up with my crazy life, even across the miles.  a God who loves me so much that he died- on a cross- that i might live- and live to the fullest.  and the best friends anyone could ever hope for.  sometimes i wonder how i got so lucky- i certainly don't deserve them.
• it is good to record life's abundant graces on days like today, because then i can revisit this and remember them on days when they make themselves less noticeable.
• how has grace been working in your life lately?

grace in the mystery

i've been taking a meditation class this semester that has really pushed my thinking and self-reflection.  my professor is a buddhist lama.  to be perfectly honest, i didn't know all that much about buddhism coming into this class.  i knew the very basics of it from a historical perspective- that which i had to teach when i taught my sixth graders about ancient civilizations- but that's really about it.  i had always heard that it was not a religion but rather a way of life.  that description was never satisfactory to me because i believe that religions should be ways of living.  of course, often they aren't; they are just a set of beliefs that one supposedly claims as truth but never allows to enter the core of one's being and affect one's thoughts and actions.  too often there is great division between the religion professed and the life lived.

in this class, i really appreciate from a pedagogical standpoint that my professor acknowledges that most of us in the class identify with christianity.  he is not trying to convert us to his beliefs.  instead, he frequently challenges us to connect what we're learning in buddhist meditation practice with what we know from a christian perspective.  

today we were talking about the danger in thinking that we know people.  now, being someone who really values the relationships in my life and works hard to nourish them, i have to admit that i find it comforting to feel like i know a few people on this earth really well.  of course, i am really entertaining an illusion- what i know well are my perceptions of those people.  my professor writes, "as we begin to awaken to such pure perception in meditation practice, it dawns on us that we hadn't known others nearly as well as we had previously thought, even those nearest to us!  because now, rather than knowing them just through our familiar thoughts of them, we are starting to sense them from a deeper place." (awakening through love, p. 134)

although i am still learning, and not very far along on this journey, what i think this means is that, whether we choose to acknowledge it or not, every human being has great potential and mystery.  if we acknowledge it, we allow that person to live freely as they are, at the very depth of their being, and we free ourselves from limiting frames of reference.  if we fail to acknowledge it, however, we are likely to only see this person for who they are in relation to us.  we see the "good things" they do as benefiting us (if only by providing a model for right action) and the "bad things" they do as harming us.

from the christian perspective, we believe that all of humanity was created in the image and likeness of God, inherently giving it dignity and value.  when we fail to acknowledge each person's deep capacity for goodness, we fail to see them as part of God's creation.  this concept was easy for me to grasp when it comes to people that i judge negatively from a distance (for example, i don't like chris brown because although he is a role model to many youth- including my former students- he does not live up to that, but rather beats his girlfriend.  do i actually know the person of chris brown?  no.  do i actually know what is in his head or his heart related to this whole event?  no.  but i have written him off as a bad example because of this action that made the headlines).  however, it's a lot harder to admit that we limit our loved ones' potential when we think that we know them rather than seeing their mystery.  

this topic used to come up a lot when i was living in intentional community because we all tended to put each other in boxes, label them, and communicate and interact with the boxes, rather than the fathomless beings that we originally put in the boxes.  why do we do this?  because it's comforting to think that you know someone and that you are known.  but there comes a point where you feel trapped inside that box; you can't escape others' perceptions of you.  you're the sweet one, or the emotional one, or the selfish one, or the fun one, or the cheap one, or the practical one.  but any one person can be all of those things in different situations!

so where does grace enter the picture?  i think that grace is what allows us to transcend those labels/boxes/false perceptions and to allow room for the holy spirit to act in others.  because of grace, we can allow God to do the knowing and the seeing, and, with practice, we can experience glimpses here and there of seeing one another (perhaps even ourselves) in God's eyes- for the deep, fathomless mysteries that we all are. 

grace in discernment

all of you who are actually reading this blog know that i am yet again in a discernment process- this time as i attempt to discern where God wants me to be next year.  i have begun the process of applying for jobs, interviewing, etc.  last night, right before going to bed, i checked my email one last time and received my first "rejection."  i use that word because it's the one generally used in scenarios like this one, but i really don't see it this way.  the sheer fact that i didn't cry when i read the words tells me that i've come a long way in the past few years.  

of course it's disappointing to hear that you are no longer wanted somewhere, but if i were to focus on that, i would be ignoring the fact that from the very beginning, i felt pretty strongly that this particular school was not the one for me.  in fact, i almost didn't even apply.  i sent it in at the last minute, on a whim, and decided i had nothing to lose.  then i was asked to do a phone interview.  i hated every minute of that and felt certain that the process would end there.  then i was asked to come in for a live interview.  i felt confident about the questions i was asked and how i responded to them, but never got that feeling of this is where i belong- this is where i want to be.  i believe that i will have that feeling with the right place; it will feel like a good fit- a place where my gifts can be used to serve and a place where my service will bring me joy.

parker palmer, in his short but amazing book, Let Your Life Speak, talks about "way closing" and "way opening."  the traditional quaker way is to focus on "way opening" in an attempt to discern where God is leading us in life, but palmer stresses that for some, paying attention to the "way closings" can be just as meaningful and valuable.  i think for me, that has to be the first step.  i have to be able to come to terms with "way closed" and see it in a positive light- a compass offering me guidance, if you will- before i can necessarily see any "way openings." 

joan chittister, in her book, Called to Question, also emphasizes the importance of life's closed doors.  she says that no one ever promised that life, particularly the lives of Jesus' followers, would be easy.  she emphasizes the importance of the little crosses that we bear in our daily lives.  in her eyes, "it is the cross that teaches us hope.  when we have survived our own cross, risen alive from the grave of despair, we begin to know that we can survive again and again and again, whatever life sends us in the future."

in general, i don't do well with the "in between times"- times of transition and uncertainty.  i like to know what's coming next- or at least have an idea.  of course we never truly know, and i can handle that- i try to always be open-minded to "the more" that God may have planned in a given person or situation- but this really having no idea- that's hard.  it's helpful to me to think about other times in my life when i really haven't known what the future held.  guess what?  it was always better than i could have planned or imagined.  

lord, i believe.  help my unbelief.  (mark 9:24)