lenten grace...tuesdays with anna

not to be confused with "tuesdays with morrie."  nobody's on their deathbed here, thank goodness!  who is this anna, you might be wondering?  i don't quite know how to describe her, other than that i very much believe that it is no coincidence that our worlds collided back in september when she started grad school here in boston and began supervising student teachers with me every tuesday.  we made a major connection the first time we met, when we realized that her uncle john was my parish priest growing up in north carolina!  what are the odds?  i mean, really?

anna has taught me a lot since september.  she has helped expand my vision of what makes a good teacher.  she has pushed my boundaries of understanding what it means to live a just life.  she has taught me a LOT about baking.  she has taught me about being vulnerable and sharing faith and life.  she has taught me about sacrifice and the challenges and joys that accompany the first year of marriage (she got married last july).  most of all, her friendship has been an ignition of grace in my life.  i can't tell you how blessed i feel to have had her walk in at the exact time when i was mourning the loss of the community i had lived in for the last three years.  she is like a kindred spirit, and i can't believe we've spent twenty-some years of our lives not knowing each other.

when this semester began, we learned that we would no longer be working together on tuesdays.  however, we both ended up having tuesdays free in our schedules (another gift of grace from God!) and decided to continue to spend time together every tuesday.  this new tradition has encompassed coffee dates, pancake making, bread baking, thai lunches...all of these things always threaded together with rich, life-giving conversation.  during lent, we decided that we would add daily mass to our agenda for tuesdays, which we began this past week.  what a joy to share a new kind of bread- life-giving bread- and a sign of peace- amidst God's grace and love present in the liturgy.  

thank you, God, for the gift of grace in friends and the time to share with them.  thank you for tuesdays.  thank you for anna.

grace in ashes

yesterday was ash wednesday.  this day always comes with mixed feelings for me each year.  i remember as a kid, we would always go to mass as a school, and receive ashes on our forehead.  i would be mortified if we had to go anywhere after school because i didn't like the idea of standing out and looking so different- marked.  as i got into high school and then college, i think i began to see it much more as a part of my identity- this is who i am, and i'm proud of it.  i loved when people would ask me about it, so that i could explain to them why we did it.  of course, the down side is that it means lent is officially here and it's time to make some sacrifices.  nobody likes making sacrifices, and for the longest time, i didn't really see the point.  i got that i had to do it because everyone else was and the church said i had to, but that was about it.  it hasn't been until the past few years that i've really been able to understand the symbolism of the ashes.  we rise again from ashes.  ashes to ashes, dust to dust.  we came from dust, and to dust we shall return.  the ashes are an outward sign of our inner sinfulness and our mortality.  no, we don't particularly want to be reminded of either of those, but sometimes we need to be.  so often we focus on our differences, which is a dangerous slope that can easily lead to thoughts of superiority, prejudice, and all those -isms that nobody likes to talk about.  ashes remind us that we all came from the same place and we are all eventually going to die.  shouldn't that be enough to push us to live our lives peacefully together in between?  if not our lives, at least the forty days of lent?  perhaps within the ashes lies the grace we need to not just endure lent, but actually bring our whole selves to it and take something deep and profound away from it, and then rise to new life with Jesus on Easter Sunday. 

grace in scripture

i always try hard to listen to God's word at church and to try to find within it a message for me.  however, i love the weeks when i don't even have to try: it's just right there in my face, refusing to be ignored!  today's readings, for example...

Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send? Who will go for us?" "Here I am," I said; "send me!"
-Isaiah 6:8

"But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me has not been ineffective."
-1 Corinthians 15:10

Jesus said to Simon, "Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching men." When they brought their boats to the shore, they left everything and followed him.
-Luke 5: 10-11


i'm in the midst of a job search.  i've spent the last two years working toward a degree so that i am qualified to serve in the ministry to which i feel called.  now it's time to find the place that is the best fit: where their needs match up with my gifts.  it's a tough time.  it's a time of uncertainty, of questioning, and of faith.  i have to believe that God has given me grace i don't deserve and called me by name to serve his people.  i will not be afraid.  i will follow.

grace in great design

tonight i was asked to take the second reading at mass for someone who couldn't be there.  it is actually one of my all-time favorite readings.  for those of you who aren't familiar, 1 corinthians 12-26 truly speaks volumes about not only our church, but our world.  to quote:

12	For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.
13	For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body -- Jews or Greeks, slaves or free -- and all were made to drink of one Spirit.
14	For the body does not consist of one member but of many.
15	If the foot should say, "Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body," that would not make it any less a part of the body.
16	And if the ear should say, "Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body," that would not make it any less a part of the body.
17	If the whole body were an eye, where would be the hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell?
18	But as it is, God arranged the organs in the body, each one of them, as he chose.
19	If all were a single organ, where would the body be?
20	As it is, there are many parts, yet one body.
21	The eye cannot say to the hand, "I have no need of you," nor again the head to the feet, "I have no need of you."
22	On the contrary, the parts of the body which seem to be weaker are indispensable,
23	and those parts of the body which we think less honorable we invest with the greater honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty,
24	which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving the greater honor to the inferior part,
25	that there may be no discord in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another.
26	If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.

how beautiful is that?  to think that as part of his great design, God made each of us dependent on one another as a whole.  we can only truly be ourselves in the context of community.  we are all connected- you to me to our brothers and sisters in haiti- and we should all feel one another's pain and celebrate one another's joys.  this sense of individuals united, of many parts but one body, is grace.  we are the body of Christ.  we are his hands and feet here on earth.  where do we walk?  whom do we touch?  may God give each of us the grace to live up to his great design.

grace in the rubble

i have been trying to figure out for the last few days how i can write about grace related to the horrific devastation in haiti.  the vast majority of my students during my two years of teaching here in boston were haitian american.  they have many family members still in haiti, and many of them go back once a year or more to see them.  they have been deeply shaken by the effects of the earthquake, the most recent in a long history of tough breaks that the country has been dealt- and possibly the worst.  of all countries - why haiti?  that's what i keep asking myself.  it would be horrible anywhere, but haiti is constantly struggling- to feed its people, to keep the peace- and now- now the entire city of port-au-prince is homeless.  the latest numbers are saying 100,000 people are dead.  many are still trapped and have not been found.  looting has begun in the streets.  aid is arriving, but there is no easy and systematic way to distribute it.  all of the hospitals are in ruins, along with the cathedral and all government buildings.  ignorant bigots like pat robertson have the audacity to claim that the people of haiti somehow had this coming because they "made a pact with the devil."  ARE YOU KIDDING ME????  these are the most beautiful, faithful, spiritual people i have ever known.

amidst all of the rubble, the death, the despair, people are singing, working together, praising God, and helping those that are worse off than they are.  these two pictures really struck me, because they show people seeing God amidst the rubble- on the cross, and in the form of Jesus' body in the Eucharist.  how powerful that this bread of life may be the only bread these people will eat today.  that is grace.  God is there, in the hearts of the people of haiti, and the hearts of all who are able to go help, and all who are doing what they can from their homes around the world.  tragedy is always sad- and this tragedy is quite frankly, disturbing, upsetting, and disheartening at the deepest levels.  but even there- perhaps more noticeably there than in everyday life, God's grace is at work.

but for the grace of God go i

heard these lyrics by keith urban on the radio today:


"I can hear the neighbors
They're arguin' again
And there hasn't been peace on our street
Since who knows when
I don't mean to listen in
But the shoutin' is so loud
I turn up the radio to drown it out
And silently I say a little prayer

But for the grace of God go I
I must've been born a lucky guy
Heaven only knows how I've been blessed
With the gift of your love
And I look around and all I see
Is your happiness embracing me
Oh Lord I'd be lost
But for the grace of God

I can see that old man
He's walking past our door
And I've been told that he's rich
But he seems so poor
'Cause no one comes to call on him
And his phone it never rings
He wanders through his empty home
Surrounded by his things
And silently I say a little prayer, yes I do

But for the grace of God go I
I must've been born a lucky guy
Heaven only knows how I've been blessed
With the gift of YOUR love
And I look around and all I see
Is your happiness embracing me
Oh Lord I'd be lost
But for the grace of God"

how true!  as a single gal, i'm very fond of reading between the lines of love songs and finding ways to apply them to my life, even though i'm not in a romantic relationship.  there are so many people that have blessed me with the gift of their love, and it is such a good reminder to me whenever i get down on myself or on my life: no matter what i may not have, i need to think about what i DO have, which is many people in my life that make it a true gift, worth living, even on the toughest days.  

have you ever experienced a near-tragedy or near-accident?  i feel like these happen to me ALL THE TIME.  just today, a crazy bostonian cut off several people in traffic on my way home from school and i had to slam on my brakes to avoid a huge crash.  when it was over, i realized my hands were cramping from gripping the steering wheel so tight, my stomach was in knots, my teeth were gritting, and my heart had stopped.  my first reaction should have been to say a prayer of gratitude.  instead, i cursed at the driver who caused the mayhem.  my second thought was, "but for the grace of God go i".  

even on ordinary days, which are really not so ordinary at all, we can all say, "but for the grace of God go i."  we are not here by chance, and we are not here because we deserve it.  we are here because of grace. 

grace in the new year

i had a small yet powerful experience of grace yesterday. 

to give you a bit of background, my dad's parents have lived in raleigh for my whole life.  i have countless wonderful memories with them, but in the last five years or so, my grandma's health has declined slowly.  it started with her legs and having to use a walker after a hip replacement, then that slowly turned into a wheelchair.  she has lost the use of her hands and slowly her speech as well.  the only real way that she can still communicate is by blinking- once for yes, twice for no.  it's very hard to watch my once gorgeous, headstrong, refined and hilarious matriarch crumpled up in a wheelchair, unable to tell us how she's feeling or what's wrong.  as frustrating and sad as it is for us, i can only imagine that it's heartbreaking for my granddad, and worst of all for my grandma herself.  she must feel trapped inside a body that no longer works for her.  how often we take our bodies for granted!  

anyway, yesterday, mom, dad, and i went up to raleigh to take down christmas decorations and have dinner with grandma and granddad.  it was to be my last visit before flying back to boston.  all day i had been trying to rub her arms and kiss her cheek and show her how much i loved her, but not once did i get any response from her; she usually just closed her eyes.  it seems like she's always tired these days.  

after dinner, my mom was talking to grandma's nurse about my school and the work i am hoping to do.  she mentioned casually that i "learned everything i needed to know from grandma", to which i added, "everything important anyway!" and started recalling experiences that we shared with her as kids.  as i mentioned the joy of having your hair shampooed in the kitchen sink, her face just lit up; it was about as close as she could get to a smile...and to me, it was pure grace.  it will be the memory that i will carry until i see her again, however long that may be.  thank you, grandma, for all the lessons you've taught me over the years, and all the joy you've brought to my life.  and thank you, God, for this gift of grace as we begin a new year!

a picture of me and grandma six years ago at christmas: