Latest Watercolor

Here is my latest watercolor attempt. This one is of a building at Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, MA.

The Gift of Multiplication

The lectionary readings for this Sunday spoke of two miracles of multiplication where many were fed with little. Elisha in the Hebrew Scriptures (2 Kings 4:42-44) and Jesus in the Christian Scriptures (John 6:1-15)were able to do much with little. The offering of one small gift was able to be transformed into enough to feed a multitude.

Fr. John Connors, the pastor at my parish, gave a wonderful sermon on the beauty of multiplication. God can take each of our gifts humbly given and create something wonderful out of them. By ourselves, we cannot feed the hungry of our world, but we can all contribute something to our local foodbank, and together all those somethings can feed a whole lot of people. By ourselves, we cannot tell everyone of the love of Christ, but we can each tell one or two people who can in turn spread the good news to one or two more, thereby creating a ripple effect that can change many lives. By ourselves, we cannot stop war and violence, but we can pray and work for peace in our own little corner of the world. If everyone did the same in their own families and neighborhoods, imagine how different our world could be. By ourselves, we are very small, but God can use us in ways we can hardly envision if we only turn our lives and our gifts over to him.

And there lies the challenge. We tend to try to do it ourselves. We get very independent. Even if we acknowledge that our gifts do come from God (and this is a very big step in the right direction!), we may then attempt to use them without turning over our efforts to God first. In the "Our Father," the prayer Jesus himself taught us to say, we state "thy will be done." Not my will, God, your will. It is easy to forget that. We may have wonderful ideas of what to do with our gifts and there is nothing wrong with that. But, if those plans are not what God had planned for us to do with our gifts, we will never reach the potential God created us for. Yes, God can multiply our efforts and work wonders with us but only if we let him.

Faith of a Child

Christine Alcott, one of the fellow members of the Catholic Writer's Group I belong to just let me know about her great new website The Faith of A Child all about children's spirituality. I've bookmarked it and will definitely be stopping by often!

Seeking Spiritual Direction

I just posted a review of Seeking Spiritual Direction by Fr. Thomas Dubay on my website. This was such a hard book for me to get through. I started it at the beginning of June. I read it through once and was really reluctant to go back and take notes on it (as I usually do with the books I review) because it made me feel so uncomfortable. I did, however, and as I reviewed the pages I had marked, the problem wasn't so much with the book (although it did have its weaknesses), as it was with me. It is hard to be reminded of how much work we have to do to progress in the spiritual life. It is hard to face one's own faults and the need for forgiveness and perseverance in pursuing a spiritual life. Jesus never said the road would be easy - in fact, he said the exact opposite - that the gate is narrow and that we would be rejected by the world. It is easy to become complacent in our spirituality, to think that because we say our prayers and go to Church we are just fine. We are all works in progress, and this book really served to remind of just how much more work I need.

Learning to Trust

This has been the summer of swimming lessons for David. He took two weeks at a local pool which was a total disaster. While he has no issues being in water, he absolutely hated holding onto the wall while he was waiting for it to be his turn (which was most of the time since it was a large class). I think he truly had a death grip on that wall because he always said it made his arms hurt. I am trying to teach him perseverance, however, so I made him stick with it. He survived the class but really didn't learn much of anything.

So, I signed him up again, this time at the pond where we usually go swimming. The class is much smaller, the lifeguard is wonderful, and he is loving it, as is Isaac because while he waits for his brother he can play in the water.

Meanwhile, I, too, have been trying to learn how to swim. I never learned as a child and have been well-known for my ability to sink! I have nearly drowned three times in my life. Last year was the first year we went to the pond and by the end of the summer I can say I actually felt comfortable in the water. This year, I have made it my mission to get as close to swimming as I possibly can. I am getting good at floating with a noodle, although even that took me a while. It took a lot of courage for me to lift my feet up off the ground. I always tell Bernie I have trust issues! But, I am learning to trust. I have been paying attention to David's lessons and try to practice what he does. Today I actually floated on my back with my head in the water (holding onto a noodle, but still!). I was so excited! One step at a time . . .

Finding Hope in a Surprise Pregnancy

Leslie Leyland Fields has written a book for every woman who has found out she is pregnant with a child she wasn't looking to have. "Surprise Child: Finding Hope in Unexpected Pregnancy" is for all those women who face that life-changing moment and wonder "What am I going to do now?" Fields knows of what she speaks. She herself experienced two surprise pregnancies in her forties. She had already given birth to four children and had finally returned to work doing what she loved. Starting the process over again was not what she had in mind.

Fields chronicles the stories of twenty-five women who faced these surprise pregnancies with the full range of emotions. "Each one here had her life interrupted, each one here has a child who came to her unbidden, and each one now cannot imagine her life without the child." Yet, at that moment when the pregnancy test comes back positive, such perspective is not so easy to find. Fields writes, "You are trying to live out the next two or three years of your life in these thirty minutes, in one day . . Everything you fear visits you in one chushing blow. You feel weak, vulnerable. You think you cannot do it. You are right -- it is impossible to live it all, to answer all these deep needs and fears in a single day or week. . . in this moment, you do not need to answer all the questions. There will be time in each day to find answers, to find reasons to hope."

I wish that I had access to this book as I faced my own unplanned pregnancy a few years back. Our first child was longed for and planned for. We tried for many months before the good Lord blessed us with our David. And yet, even with all that planning, motherhood did not come easy to me. As much as I loved my little boy, I felt shell-shocked and barely able to cope. When David was nine months old, my period was late. It will come, I told myself. It has to come. When I was five days late, I took a pregnancy test alone while David took his nap. I cried a river of tears when I saw the tell-tale line. How could this be happening? I could barely cope with one child. Why was God doing this to me? I told my husband but no one else. The following day I walked to Church with David in the stroller. Unfortunately, in my frazzled state of mind, I locked us out of the house. I had no keys and no wallet. I was not in a good place. I wanted to hide.

I give talks on Natural Family Planning to our annual pre-cana day at my parish. The next talk was scheduled just a couple weeks from that time. How could I go give this talk when NFP had just "failed" me? I was embarrassed and angry. In time, I came to terms with the pregnancy. When I found out I was having a boy, I was happy that David would have a playmate. We named him "Isaac" - "one who laughs." I knew what it was to love a child and I could and did love this unborn child within me.

The first few months after I had Isaac are a blur of sleepless nights. It was tough having two children under two. And yet, now I wouldn't have had it any other way. Isaac has brought so much joy to our family. With the hard time that I had after having David, I would have found it very difficult to make the decision to try for another child. God made that decision for me. David and Isaac are the best of friends. They are complete opposites and balance each other out perfectly.

Now, when I give my NFP talk, I tell engaged couples to plan their families but be ready for God to intervene. He knows when we need a child better than we do. In God, there are no "unplanned" pregnancies. He has planned each and every one of us since before time began. Both of my children are gifts from God, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

The Walker

Over at Lisa Hendey's blog, she wrote about a man she used to see walking the streets seemingly all the time. She knew nothing about him, and so she created a story about him. Now, she was reflecting on how she takes a walk every day and she wondered if other people thought her unusual or tried to figure out what she was doing.

The story reminded me of a man who used to run up and down the main thoroughfare in the small city I grew up in. He would run no matter what the weather and he always looked in such pain as he did it. We called him "Old Irish" because he always wore a "Notre Dame" sweatshirt. We never knew anything about him, although as he ran through blizzards and sleeting rain and the heat of summer, we did question his mental stability. That is, until the day he died. He was killed in a hit and run as he went on his old familiar route. It turned out he was the father of a girl I went to college with and a respected member of the law enforcement community!

Now, my own father walks those same streets an hour a day, a habit he took up once he retired a few years back. No matter the weather (although I think he does draw the line at blizzards), people see him out there. No doubt a few have questioned his sanity, especially as he walks in the bitter cold with his hat pulled down far over his ears. Just goes to show, you can't judge a book by its cover.