GOING GREEN...WITH...????...

Older now, I

In a brush with hope

Surrender my crayon colors.

You, bartering for even the ole green stumps of envy, wanting everything

Even little broken sticks papered in crispy gloves, curling with grease..and age.

Prying them from my chubby fingers

In a mercy trade, unfair.

With highest hope, You exchange for me

Your very own green plume of light

A true color, luminous

Eternity now, shining out

From my box,

The slick shades of youth replaced

By the new wax
Of hope.

Your everlasting green

Breaking through invisible

Lines that lied to me

From sky to sea

So long the tide

Of current patterns

Had washed the waves

Over my head, murky

Until one day,

and then another,

and another

You stretched your hand

Beyond the reach of any man.

As You do .., and

Today I have hope

My hope

Is You.

Today as I was reading from the most amazing devotional, called DIVINE INTIMACY, I landed on a page entitled HOPE. Being a depressive and anxious type, I tend to stay away from such topics. Even the mere word, HOPE, teases my pessimistic nature. It sounds so...pollyanna, empty, if you know what I mean. POLLYANNA was a movie about a twelve or so year old blondie that changed a whole community with her upbeat way of seeing things, the poster child for hope. Yuck. I was educated (miseducated)? in the arts and philosophy in the sixties, and hope was not of the essence in those existential, beatnik -to- hippie days.

Those early days during which I nursed voraciously, suckling from the mishapen breast of the times, from a postmodern culture of cool cynicism, god-is-dead, stay -in-your -own -head. Life was most popularly described by echoes of Sartre and Camus, in stories like the myth of Sisyphus,who spent his whole existence pushing a Stonehedge size rock up an impossible mountain, only to roll it down again, hitting bottomm, all for naught and nought for all. Life's only meaning was meaninglessness, the meaning you made of it yourself. (Sound familiar? Today we are still reeling from the stench of that thinking). In the art world of the 60's, where I lived, an ugly painting was labeled beautiful, a truly beautiful one, just too trite-unoriginal. We called it the beginning of postmodern thinking. Today, I call it the emperor's new clothes, going around naked and lying about how great we look and how good it feels.

In those formative post-college years I did not know Christ, not the real Christ, and although I came from a devout Catholic family, I chose the road that seemed to me at the time, less traveled, the more unconventional way. The way of post-modern day thinking. So cool and artsy to be part of the avant-garde. It led me to...nowhere, and reinforced my natural anxieties about life. I seemed to be uncomfortably comfortable there..for a while.

Today, after quite a bumpy ride, I brake each morning at the sight of words that seem pre-highlighted in green, that seem written just for me, words like the ones I awoke to this morning, just as the conversation in my mind was dogging round and round in my endless hopeless circles of too much thinking, dreary predictions of boredom, fatigue, and bad news. These words shined a loving green light directly in through my blindfold. These words were the inspiration for the above poem, which burst forth from unpacking them.

CLOTHE ME, O GOD, WITH THE GREEN GARMENT OF HOPE. This morning's devotional went on to say that a living hope in Him gives the soul ardor, passion and energy, so much courage and longing for the things of eternal life, that by comparison with what it hopes for, all things of the world seem to it to be, as in truth they are, DRY, FADED, DEAD, and without value.

But my mind still insists, so what, I cannot wait that long. Waiting through what seems like eternity to get to Eternity? No. Eternal Life, when will that start? I have to live through this long night in a bad inn (as Teresa of Avila described life as we know it) and then die first. No.

And that, with just a faint ray of hope that someday all would be wonderful on the other end. No. Having never never been able to stick to a diet or exercise program, how could I be expected to make this kind of commitment,the ultimate challenge of delayed gratification. No, cannot do it, not from here.

I am just not green enough..yet.

But God, who has skills, suggests that I look it up. Look up the words eternal life??? A word study on the meaning of eternal life motivates me. It is head stuff. He knows how much I like that. After much research, I find that God defines eternal life as union with Him..and the good green news is that it begins...here and, my favorite word, NOW.

But always, He reminds me, it is a battle to stay in this lucious place, His now presence. The battlefield is my own mind, my head. Quite a hard place. He encourages me with this next line in the devotional:

LET HOPE BE THE HELMET OF SALVATION WHICH WILL PROTECT MY HEAD FROM THE WOUNDS OF THE ENEMY, AND DIRECT ME TO HEAVEN, FIXING MY EYES ON HIM ALONE, MY GOD. Scripture exhorts us to put on this helmet daily, preferably as part of morning prayer, reminding us that we are in the middle of a battle daily. It goes on to say, As the eyes of the handmaid are set upon her mistress, (for those of us that have handmaids..or caregivers) even so are my eyes set upon Him, until He comforts me with His Presence because He cannot resist my HOPE.

Now I am thinking of my seeds of HOPE as a sod lawn, watering and fertilizing, faithfully putting on my helmet, marked THINK GREEN, keeping the stubborn underground critters away, gophers, rodent pests, demons, the enemy. Armed with thoughts fixed on Him, soon my garden will be lush with His Presence, gracing my days, moment by moment, the King at my side. First comes hope, then ardor, then the helmet, leaving the enemy hopeless. March on.

The joy of the Lord is my strength.

Patron of Nagging Mothers

God bottles every tear a mother sheds in prayer for her children Saint Monica Feast Day – August 27 This holy woman seems to have spent her life crying, coping, and praying. She was married to a hot-tempered pagan husband, Patricius. They had a child, Aurelius Augustinus, born in the North African town of Tagaste, a village in the present day Algeria, near the border of Tunisia. Monica prayed for Patricius to be converted to Christianity. And later in life, he did convert. Although a brilliant student, Augustinus led a life of sin, pride and sensuality. He studied law, dropped it to take up writing and was involved in a cult. Monica, ever patient prayed hard to save her son, who eventually converted. He was baptized Augustine. Although he started his life in sin he repented and spent the rest of his life preaching and writing about God. Augustine late became the Bishop of Hippo. Monica dies shortly after Augustine converted, having fulfilled through prayers the vision the Augustine will be saved. Such is the dedication of a mother.

Never never, never give up praying!!!

Psalm to Saint Monica

                  praying together..St. Monica and me

Like you,

Have I birthed my own Augustine,

full of life

and lust

and love...disordered?

Like you,

would I
abandon ground
and take to sea

to follow a son

adrift from me?

Like you

I am wrenched

with sweat

with tears
with prayers, for years

weeping upon weeping

courting despair.

Now crying to you

to intercede through

the waste and rubble

of my augustine's trouble
Unlike you,

who sits so much closer than I

to his Majesty on High

Would you beg me a favor

of a word from our Saviour

Regarding my reply
Ask from our Father

Who knows all my fears

Ask from our Jesus

Who sees all my tears

Ask from our Holy Spirit

Who know when my hope

all but disappears

To My Son,

Far from your mother's side

You run and hide,

Our close connection seems to have died,

My love stalking you

through darkened steps,

ambushed by Satan's pride

and wordly reason. Angels breaking down fences

and entering in,

a holy treason. Now

I am at the devil's door, knocking fiercely

hearing your fears, bottling your tears .

I hold you tight

in my embrace,

Your fight is done

beloved son,

relax, it's won, and over

You are with Me, now

Your Father, Mother, Brother

your everlasting Lover!

When Lord????

I NEED YOU, LORD Today is the feast of St. Monica I keep seeking God for an answer to my problem and the answer keeps coming. TRUST ME, I AM DOING SOMETHING WONDERFUL. I need Mary's faith to help me believe in the wonderful outcome, the fruit of the hard work that Jesus and the angels are doing in my augustine's favor, just as she believed when she saw the incredible suffering that her son was enduring. Looking at his bloody body and tortured face, she must have cried inside and may be even wondered if she should be doing something to stop the pain. I need to have her trust. I am very sad about my augustine's circumstances even as I listen to EWTN's encouraging video about St. Augustine's life, Monica's prayers, and finally, his conversion. Why should I be in such misery if I really trust. If this suffering, his and mine for him, is permitted by God who loves him more than I, if it is ok with St. Monica, who has taken him on like her own son, with Mary, who is his real mother, why can I not accept it. Please help me to accept that this way is Your way, his way, and maybe the only way that my augustine will come back to you.

I should rejoice even in his impossible difficulties because I believe with my whole heart that God is at work in my augustine's soul, that someday all will see the glory of God and be blessed by what God has done in him, just as we are blessed by St. Monica's prayers and the conversion of St. Augustine.

I must go on and be happy and live as if I know it is happenning even as I write this. God is on it. St. Monica is on it. St. Augustine is on it. Mary is on it. St. Jude is on it. St. Martin de Porres is on it. Dom Bosco is on it. St. Joseph is on it. St.Michael the Archangel is on it. My grandmother, Charito, is on it. My holy prayer partners on this earth are on it. God cannot resist a mother's prayers, much less a sainted great grandmother in Heaven who was so devoted to him through all her losses. Please pray with and for us, for me and my augustine. I AM LETTING GO AS OF TODAY, of all my worries and fears about my boy, and I FULLY ACCEPT this crucifix, and die to myself, and want to be committed like MARY. I am ready to stand seemingly helplessly by as I feel I am losing my augustine, praying, hoping, and believing that miracles happen and that one is happening right now, in my augustine's soul ..and in mine. St. Monica, thank you for suffering as you did to bring me to this point. I trust you, Heaven. Heaven help my unbelief. FOR THOSE WHO THINK IT ODD OR OCCULTISH THAT CATHOLICS PRAY WITH DEAD CHRISTIANS, I.E. SAINTS, TO HELP THEM: Here's the deal. We believe that all the saints, including St. Paul and Peter, all the gospel writers, those who walked with Jesus in His lifetime and after, are alive and with Him now and forever, and minister to those whom He loves everyday. We believe that we can ask them to pray with us just as we ask fellow Chistians to pray with us as friends and prayer partners. When I am in trouble, I ask the holiest and most loving people I know to help me in prayer. Could there be any holier that Mother Theresa who lives today in Heaven, at Christ's side, and one with more compassion for wayward sons, than St. Monica, who lived through hers, and wept and prayed until her miracle came and in much greater proportions that she ever dreamt?? We know we need all the help we can get and have not any problem accepting the help that God has provided us to use in our fellow saints who love us through His Heart. In the Christian family, there is no dividing line between those who live with the Lord on earth and those who live with Him in Heaven. Thank God the Father, for giving us such a large and loving and powerful eternal family.

ONE MOTHERS' DAY AT A TIME, 12 weeks later

FINDING TIME We must be swift to obey the winged impulses of His Love, carrying Him to wherever He longs to be, and those who recognize His presence will be stirred like Elizabeth, with new life They will know His Presence, not by any beauty or power shown by us, but in a way that the bud knows the presence of the light, by an unfolding in themselves, by a putting forth of their own beauty

It seems His favourite way of being recognized is not by his own human features, but by the quickening of of His own life in the heart, which is the response to His coming. 
                                                                  The Reed of God by Caryll Houslander

Because I am back here in peaceful Lake Tahoe, I have time to get to know a new friend, Caryll Houselander, througth her book, The Reed of God. When I walked into a wonderful bookstore, the Agnus Dei, before I left for Tahoe, my eyes darted immediately to a little out of the way paperback with an author whose name I had some vague recollection of from high school days, now almost 50 years ago. Her name was linked with mystery and holiness and some unusual enthusiasm from the nuns of my Catholic education, an education I only came to appreciate years and years after the rebellion of my younger know-it-all stage- pieces of which still cling to my soul like static remnants. 


 Today, five decades later, this author, handpicked for me by the Holy Spirit, just as I entered innocently into Agnus Dei to visit the owner, a God loving woman that defies description-in a wonderful way, has caused me to see much deeper into the practice of the Presence, which this blog is all about. More unpacking of the suitcase I took home from the Mother's Day retreat, now about three months ago. 


Because I am back here in peaceful Lake Tahoe, with my two granddaughters, I have some time to really be with them. Because it is so difficult for their own mother to slow down from all the duties of parenting, I who have less responsibility for them and for household duties here as their grandmother, here to just enjoy them, I have opportunities to really be with them. noticed something that illustrates to me what Caryll Houselander describes about recognizing Christ. 


 Children so enjoy our presence in whatever little bits, even if it is just our being there doing the o so many things that adults do around the children. But when a grownup takes the time to enjoy playing with them and entering their world, which for our little girls, is a pretend world of little plastic horsies or piggies or other of their many farm animal characters to which they twitter away like happy chirping birds. Today it may be farm animals, another day making wooden spoons sing and dance like dolls with sticker faces and wrap around makeup skirts and whatever else catches their fancy as they make believe endless scenarios. 


 When I served them toast and apple chips for a snack this morning, they lit up with the stellar idea that I was their waitress at a nearby restaurant. Taking their orders diligently, recording them on a sticky chit, and serving them with real life formality brought such happiness to their little hearts. Then later, letting them use my arm as drawbridge for entering dignitaries, human or animal, in a castle and moat game they invented, brought massive giggles of joy. 


These two are almost always joyful, but something so much more comes forth from their faces and voices when I enter in. Entering in with children is not my natural tendency. I usually get bored very quickly and want to retreat to my own obsessive mental activities which court me mercilessly whenever any invitation arises to really be there with someone else, at the expense of my own self-interest. 


 Within just a few minutes of involving myself in their world, their faces seem to melt as they feel a gush of love toward me. Their faces seem to soften and ripen with a sweet expectant joy. Is she really enjoying playing with us? I know that something is touched inside them and begins to feel the sunshine seeping into the unnoticed parts and start blooming into smiles and a springing life that can only be celebrated, usually with spontaneous snuggling and the sweetest utterances, nannee, nannee, nanneeee, as they unfold with their own beauty toward me. Surely they recognize the presence of love and Lover, the unseen Host in me entering in to stroke their purring souls

.

Our presence to one another in this loving way is His Presence quickened and recognized in the stranger's heart. This Presence opens the human heart and burst natural understanding, just like when the disciples finally recognize Him along the road to Emmaus, not by His human face, but by the quickening of their human hearts to the presence of this Divine One. Their souls felt the Divine hug and it brought them back to Him.

When Mary took the uphill walk to visit her aging Elizabeth, I believe such a joy came over the waiting heart of her aging cousin, a joy manifested by the leap of her womb toward Mary's, not unlike the gush we feel when we really connect with one another on a sweet and deep level, however brief the encounter. 


The seed had been buried in dirt and waiting dry for some Holy watering. With faithful watering, regular sunshine, a seed long buried, will bud. In time it will peek out and smile, eyes dancing with a love it may not have known had we not shared our Cupful at the opportune time.

Time is all the cup we have.. today.

The soul is not imprisoned in the human body, and cannot really be contained by it. Instead, the human body is like a pulsing funnel, with one end opened tiny as a pinprick and the other, funneling out to infinity, opening to God Who fills it with His Immeasurable Self, to be poured out to others, as in a chain of funnels, larger ones, spilling to lesser ones, until all are filled and filling in this Eternal Link.

Time is our only opportunity to be part of this exquisite gift of co-creation. How carelessly we spill it, day after day..after day.

Lord,
Teach us to spend our days wisely, carrying You as a chalice to others, those we may least suspect are planted and parched, ready for a drop of your Holiness, to bring forth Life. This is a cup not filled with words of persuasion or knowledge, but with love and entering in. Please forgive us for wasting our time, like so many drops of your Precious Blood spilling on stone. Please help us question our own self-centered and deceptive agendas and know that you are waiting to really visit others who will recognize your Presence in ours, and quicken their hearts back to You.

A World Without Music

How Upside Down is My Thinking????

There have been quite a few accomplished people throughout history that because of circumstances surrounding their birth, many believe an abortion would have been justified. There’s a well-known story about a woman that had tuberculosis and a man that had syphilis. Together they had four children. Their first child was born blind. The second child was stillborn. The third child was deaf and dumb, and their fourth was born with tuberculosis. When she was pregnant with their fifth child, many in today’s society would think that an abortion would have been appropriate. That fifth child was Beethoven.

Sometimes it seems that we have things turned around, even upside down..even when our motives are loving...as those who advise abortion as appropriate.

I was born at the tip end of a world war and my mother was advised to have an abortion. However in her fifth month of pregnancy with me, my older brother died suddenly when he contracted malaria at the tender age of four. He was their first and golden child.

In those days where I grew up, in Hongkong, my family immersed in a superstitious joy luck club mentality, it was considered evil luck to touch death when one was carrying a child. As my young mother descended the steps of the hospital where she had to leave her only child without even a final touch goodbye, she felt for the first time a gentle kick from inside her womb, as God assured her at that very moment that my brand new teeny heart was beating for her. I was the privileged forecaster of blue skies ahead even though her heart would be seeing grey for what must have seemed to her forever. Five months later, in a post-war hospital on the last night of a long December of waiting, I was born.

From that first moment, God used me to help, long before I was completely formed in my mother's womb. Even though my brain was yet not fully formed, I could make a difference with my little being. She was certainly thankful then that she had not not considered the counsel of well intentioned others for her to terminate her pregnancy. Wartime is no time to have another, some advised. Little did they know, it would be the best of times for another child to come into my parents' broken hearts.

Yes, often, the downside of a child being born of or into negative circumstances is so frighening to so many of us that our tender hearts cannot bear to see it live, We take the iniative to protect it, him/her from imagined suffering-even at the cost of life.

Like my mother, who took a chance and kept me, none of us know the future and the purpose of life being given at that moment. Many of us advise others to play it safe. We choose safe without knowing what safe really is.

In doing so, we place our bets about this little one's future on the downside- the probability of a life without the necessary.. music. But what about the possible upside? A life that may bring with it wonderful music, in spite or maybe because of, suffering.

This possibility calls forth faith; it cannot come naturally from relying purely on human reason. Even the seemingly safer bet, one that comes from compassion, cannot be all -knowing. For it to be true compassion, it must be aligned with truth, about who this precious one really is and what his or her purpose may be in this mysterious life? And the truth is..we don't know everything or even anything for certain about the future of this new life.

Must these little people perish for our lack of knowledge?. Since we have not the light to see the conductor's notes, how can we blindly destroy His music, however dark it may seem. Isn't is safer to hold on to His hand in the dark, trusting Him to burst His song, giving life as He wishes to. Why would one dare to bear the weight of such supernatural responsibility as to decide what is in the best interest of another's yet unlived life, when we are utterly dependent for each breath we take to maintain our own?

Our Crazy Loving Unlimited One and Only Lord,

Exquisite ones,

even now ,..pressing close

to Your beating heart.

Sacred little lovers'

soaring above angels,

sifting through rainbows.

Promises, bursting forth.

Furious, sticky, and crying.

Fleshy, sucking and clinging.

Nuzzling to puzzled breasts

and clumsy hands.

Protect these fragile,

hampered children,

little ones marred

by rape,

by lust

by hate,

by hopelessness .

by drugs,

by drunkenness

by duty,

by one night stands

by spring breaks

by girls gone wild

by convenience

by inconvenience.

so that in the end,..

one by one,

would live

and grow

to know,

to love,

to serve

as You intended,..

from their beginning.

ONE MOTHER'S DAY AT A TIME, 8 weeks later

GOOD EVENING, ..LAKE TAHOE ! My mother is being wonderfully cared for by my brother and sister hovering over her with lots of love and smiles and their wonderful spirits while I am,once again, retreating.. in Lake Tahoe. Even though, I keep thinking I am needed home, I receive little assurances that all is well, maybe even better than if I were there because it gives my brother and sister more time to be with my mother, and they are being rewarded by seeing her improvement, her growing awareness of their presence and delight in their attention. It really has been a win/win for everyone. Thank You for showing me where I need to be, right here...and for my wonderful supportive family. This is the first time since we have been coming to Tahoe that I feel that I am living here, at least for a few weeks this summer. We have had the warm company of new and old friends who are here with their families at the same time, and we have shared moonlit evenings right at the lake, twilight barbecues on our little cabin deck, the night pines soaring through to violet sky. It has been good to have the time to really visit with friends in this peaceful place, being with other families and sharing stories of long ago, meeting new little characters, such as grandchildren whom we hadn't anticipated to be now enjoying a brand new generation of friendship. Around a campfire, the littles gasp and giggle, crazed by the snap and crackle of leaping flames, teased by the popping humor of teens who coddle them. For all this goodness, and the sweet smell of burning pine, melting chocolate, toasted marshmallows, for fire, and for the glow of Your presence on our firelit faces, I am grateful.

My stay has also been graced with the constant company of the two little superhumans, I am honored to call my granddaughters, who keep me surprised and delighted, night and day. Well, delighted by day with smiles and laughter, and often surprised by night...and whatever waking music they may choose to break up the monotony of a good night's sleep. Thankfully, they are blessed with the most loving parents, my amazing daughter and her even more amazing sainted husband i.e. John of the (family) Cross. His warm humor and easy-going patience keeps us all, his temperamental opposites, from both homi and suicide. Truly a modern day martyr, giving up his manly body to the cause of feeding a harem of hungry lionesses --two adorable babies, an amazing wife, and- this is where his seat in heaven is guaranteed ringside- a technologically challenged mother-in- law, who spends her time denying her handicap by insisting on learning to ewrite, keeping up a blog, while avoiding learning to read the ever-so-technical dial on a toaster-oven. Even with the variety of user friendly models she has tried, no real success has been noted. Yet, she insists on making friends with a computor. How modern of her. A special thanks to guardian angels that she did not burn down the cabin after leaving for a long family outing to cruise around the endless lake yesterday, with an innocent toaster oven left on high, charring away even the teeniest crumbs. Apparently, a visit from a forest fire expert, just the day before, to educate her on the perils of deeply bedded pine needles and the lack of defensible space around the outside of the cabin, was not lesson enough. Unfortunately, he neglected to educate her about the undefensible space around the inside of the cabin. How presumptuous of him. Heaven only knows the true account of forests saved by angels in the lingering smoke of half slices of charbroiled toast, one of her culinary specialties. We are grateful, Lord, for your patient son-in-law while she learns to make daily progress in the the complicated operation of the modern toaster oven. To quote him, we've moved from house to house, from kitchen to kitchen, from toaster over to toaster oven, but some things remain unchanged.

ONE MOTHER'S DAY AT A TIME, 4 weeks later

do i look tired to you???

The funk remains.. The weather has been cooperating with my mood, yuck and grey. I have been overeating before dinner, not wanting a real dinner, and not feeling as well as when I am eating fish and veggies. I am kind of or really disgusted with my body and how my brain feels too, waking up each night with dread and dreadful dreams and oversleeping. On Thurs morning I awoke before four am., did a bunch of housework, and some prayer, and nodded off again around 7. then I slept for a couple of hours and haven’t felt right since that. The yuck feeling was compounded by losing a night sleep on Sat night when the babies and my sister slept over and we tried doing it all together. Mistake. Sunday was a waste altogether. Since then I have also felt spacey from oversleeping in the morning and sometimes naptime. It seem almost impossible to shake off the sleepiness and weird dreams that result from prozac. I make an effort to see docs for heart check..and mental meds reluctantly. I know exercise would boost me but am so lazy and full of excuses. I feel empty……………………………………… ..care to stare into the ABYSS with me? Regards, the Grinch ,

PLEASE NOTE;

after i visited a new doc, I switched back to the brand name Prozac and away from the generic named Teva. This took away the spaciness, some of the sleepiness and depression. It may be that other generic brands may work for others, but this is what worked for me.

ONE MOTHER'S DAY AT A TIME, 3 weeks later

ABOUT MY MOTHER

I must admit that it was hard coming home because of my mother's waning condition. Even though she lives by my bedroom, somedays I just cant/don’t go in to see her. Today is one of those days. Forgive me for using the word, but sometimes when I pass her in her hospital bed, I think of her as a corpse, a living one. She is hardly with us anymore, but we all comfort ourselves knowing that she is in no physical pain and is well cared for by 24 hour excellent nursing care at home, with me hovering.

Adding to the weight of things at home, there was a sudden death of one of our caregiver’s own mother this week.

I love all of my mothers caregivers for that is exactly what they are. They humble me, (not an easy task), with their consistent kindness and reverence for my frail mother, who can hardly communicate with them anymore. They second guess at what she wants and are so sensitive to her every desire and needs, physical and emotional. They have the tasks of feeding her, lifting her up on a hoyer lift, showering her ever so gently, diapering her, keeping her skin glowing and healthy, and her smiling whenever she can.

About 3 years ago we were desperate for help and absolutely stumped by what to do next when her disease progressed to the point that she was encouraged to leave her sweet apartment for a nursing skills facility. I prayed and prayed and discussed incessantly with my two brothers and sister about what to do, what to do.

All of a sudden, at the last hour, we got a phone call that a whole family and a couple of friends would be available to take care of her around the clock. I had never dreamed that they would be people of such quality. Why He often likes to wait until after the last minute to rush the answer, is very scary. He’s odd that way, don’t you agree?

Above is my mother in person.. She is pretty cute in pink and we all have fun with her whenever we can get her attention. Somedays she just lays there and stares. On her better days, she wants to know when she will be picked up for work so she can do her cooking and catering. Often her hands are air-cooking and fixing arrangements for her parties. She is never really bored.

I think she is holding on because she’s a clinger, determined, yet fearful, and doesn’t like surprises. We know that soon she will be in for the most sublime surprise of her life --when she meets her Jesus, Whom she adores, surrounded by the whole celestial family. She has taken each small and so many impossibly difficult steps in her life with such innocent faith, even through the impossible sudden loss of her first child.

Of all the gifts my mother has imparted to me, none compares with the modeling of her humble faith, even though I spent my youth resisting it…and her. At every age, until now at 88, she has been a powerhouse in my life, and a force to be reckoned with ...in many others'. Until a few months or even weeks ageo, she still knew us and could talk and joke with us. She has had a odd and challenging few years, coping heroically with Parkinsons, arthritis, anxiety, and now dementia, yet these days she is unusually peaceful. Anyone with an ounce of discernment can sense Christ's grace surrounding her, even today.

Our Lord,

I thank you that you have given us our brave mother through all the hardships she endured to help our family survive difficult times, especially coming to America. She was so young and worked so hard, alongside my precious father, to keep us afloat as a family. I thank you for the model of a strong and holy woman who lived for You day by day. I thank you for her courage, her talents, and her love. I thank you for giving her to my children as a most loving grandmother, full of life, and stories, fun, and humor..and all that great sewing and cooking..and some scolding too!

As she nears her homecoming to You, please reward her for how hard she worked to model your love to us as our wonderful mother. Remember her when she comes soon..into Your Kingdom.

Crown her with Your love forever, Lord.

Thank You, Father.

ONE MOTHER'S DAY AT A TIME,2 weeks later

This week, two weeks later, my mood swings back down, mostly due to sleep/prozac issues and concerns about the children and my husband. I try to keep a perspective of what is happening in my outer life.


 Some significant answered prayer is surfacing. It has been a big week. My husband and I have made an important breakthrough in counseling and I know this is what the Holy Spirit is doing for us.


 I must not get discouraged and let my moods indicate and dictate anything to my inner life. But here is what is happenning in my inner life. As my higher thoughts take a plunge into the junk pile of old stinking thinking, so does my brain sink into old cravings for junk foods.


 As my appetite waxes, my energy wanes. I cannot seem to exercise asI did the first week. Symptoms of atypical (typical for me) depression, the kind that makes one fat and lazy, creeps back into my daily life and settles in my soul, stubborn as the neighbor's cat. I hate this cat. I try to whisper it away gently, tease it wildly, but it sits still like a buddha, patient,..and brooding. Scat...Hiss...Screech! Someone, help stop the scratching and tearing at my screen. Help me, please! I try the phone. Is anyone home? No one answers. I try to reach my prayer partner, but even she has traveled out of range. Pull...ease.., help me understand and change this negative pattern that is so familiar to me! 


Well, thank You! Today I have some quiet time at home after a strange and busy weekend. I note that, in spite of my discouraging inner life, in the real and outside world, several important changes have been made, thanks to prayer and working of the Holy Spirit. 


 Thankfully, God is not at the mercy of my moods. No. His Mercy is not dependent on moods. Like all of us critters, who mirror Him, He is passionate and feeling. Thankfully, unlike so many of us, He is not governed by moods, staying faithful and consistent, always clear, always creative, always productive, always life-giving.

During this time, since the mother's day retreat, He has been busy routing evil weeds and rooting good seeds. I see evidence of His footprints in my garden. I note the following clues: 1.My husband and I are communicating in a more healthy, loving way 2.Even when I was in a funk, I did not sulk around him, bringing him down from his ridiculous good moods. 3.I completed a challenging letter to each on of our adult children and shared them with my husband, collaborting instead of arguing. 


 Still this weekend I am nagging myself about my loss of motivation. I have been eating too much white bread and cheese, especially cheese from which I am told to abstain. I still have had no energy to exercise or get to the store to shop for healthy foods, which are quickly losing their attraction. I am (feeling)? fat and sort of hopeless. I have avoided washing my hair for days. I am sinking slowly, body and soul. You would think all the good news I noted would usher me out of this funk, but ............no, it's not like that. When everyone around me seems annoyingly upbeat and happy, this is how I know I am depressed...mildly, but depressed. Please help me out of this quagmire. Your child is sinking in quicksand!!! I am reaching for Your heavenly hand today.

ONE MOTHER'S DAY AT A TIME, One week later

After coming home, I was truly renewed and could not stop focusing on God and His instructions throughout the day. I spent my days walking , working out as instructed, and staying joyfully in His presence, whatever the circumstance. My usual thought pattern, obsessing over the children, was being replaced with a sense of peaceful Presence. I was in a continuous loving conversation with Him. No depression, only motivation and peace. I said several rosaries and lovingly attended Mass at Poor Clares every morning, and had rich devotional times in the early hours. I walked in the evening with my new best friend, the Rosary.. (I had never in all my life as a Catholic wanted much to do with the Rosary, not once. It was just too old school for me, or so I thought)

Leading up to Mother's Day, my time in the kitchen was notably spotty. But this week,I cooked wonderful healthy meals for myself and my husband. I even delighted him with a handwritten restaurant menu on our rooster chalkboard. I loved hearing him laugh his hearty laugh when he saw the formal menu. So unlike me. I did what I was guided to do…without any struggle. I ate more healthy foods and was satisfied with less. I had great energy. As my husband could sense, my tank had been filled,..with Premium. Martha, after sitting at Jesus' feet like Mary, was now equipped to better serve her household,..gourmet meals at that.

Whenever I started into a mystery of the Rosary, a familiar and exquisite peace would draw me in. I could not wait to read more about the inner healing in the Rosary. It meant so much more to me to pray the Rosary now. I had not had any experience of its power over me before this time away. A few days later, I had misplace the Rosary book and was frustrated by its loss,..at first.

A few more days flew by, when I finally came across the little book wedged between seats in my car, but my desire had cooled, and I no longer desired to read it . I am wondering what had happened to quench my thirst for grace? Was is not the real thing?. No, it was, it is real. As Brother Lawrence explains in his book, this does happen for various reasons, and when it does, one is not to get anxious, but get right back into the conversation, asking Him for His Presence, and just talking to Him about how it is.

ONE MOTHER'S DAY AT A TIME, The Retreat

Am I dreaming??? Look at me.. I am Goldilocks savoring tastes at the Three Bears’ family table, sipping from each of their sacred bowls, sitting crosslegged on their empty chairs.. …It's so quiet here, …somehow I sense that I am not alone, but at home with real family….shalooooooooooooooooommmmm.. 


  That first day, all I did was listen ..to Brother Lawrence on my iphone. Every word was bread and wine to my happy soul.. I attended Mass at little country parish on Monday morning. My closest friend who lived nearby joined me in the afternoon. Together, we listened to his words and delighted in what the Holy Spirit was doing in both of our hearts and minds.

As she left for home, I thought it seemed like I should go home too, yet I felt a tug to stay, that the Spirit had some more to say.. I decided at the last moment ..to stay another night. Here is why.. Later that afternoon after a massage, I was given special instructions about changing my daily schedule, and how to change my habit of anxious thinking. I needed to write down a wrap up of what I had learned from my time alone with God. I had four pages of notes. 


 The next morning, I arose early and met my prayer partner at the Carmelite Chapel on the way to Big Sur. The Mass spoke to both of us again about abiding in the Presence, as if the Holy Spirit was speaking in one voice, through Brother Lawrence and now through the priest at Mass. Obviously,He was sticking to His theme, exhorting us to practice moment by moment living with this unbroken sense of His Living Presence. 


 On returning to my room, we had a late breakfast on the small garden patio, setting the table with napkins and a red rose. In this session, we talked about the “directions” I had been given, reviewing in detail what notes I had written. We pledged that I would stick with this new path and that my friend would hold me to it. I felt supported. 


 Then we shared about the mysteries of the Rosary from the book, The Rosary and Inner Healing. It was obvious Mary was calling us to her side with this book. The mysteries became alive in a rich and relevant way. We had an appetite for the Rosary and could not wait to start a contemplative prayer time with the mysteries. 


This was what the Holy Spirt and Mary had on my agenda, thus nudging me to stay this extra day. Now I knew it was time to go. I was ready and felt peaceful and strong. I packed my bags for soon I would be home,..unpacking.