A Feast and a farewell

Today is the feast day of Blessed James Duckett, who was martyred after he converted to Catholicism during the reign of Queen Elizabeth. He is the patron of book sellers and printers because he converted after reading a Catholic pamphlet and from that time was fervent about distributing Catholic books on the sly. His bookbinder turned him in, hoping to receive a lenient sentence for another crime, but they both hung together. Duckett will always be memorable to me as a reader, and as a failed collaborator in a literary project.



Tomorrow I leave to go to my grandmother’s funeral. She died peacefully this past weekend after being diagnosed with a strange stomach cancer back in the fall. I’m so thankful for the visit we had in January. Her death was not a surprise except in that it was so soon and that it came without suffering, a mercy for my grandmother and my mother. My grandmother had nursed my grandfather through Parkinson’s and seemed fearful of being a similar burden.  My mother was looking forward to nursing her, but her prayers for answered.

And now we pray for her soul and for safe travels.

Back soon.

New Book

My copy finally made it all the way to Guam! After reading all the promos, I'm finally getting around to enjoying Style, Sex, and Substance, edited by Hallie Lord, and contributed to by all your favorite Catholic bloggers.

Way to go, Sister and friends!  Fun book!  I'm looking forward to sharing it with friends here. But I might not let my kids read it yet - they'll have a whole new perception of their aunt . . .

Resurrection week in review

Christ is Risen, Alleluia,

He is truly risen, Alleluia!

 … so much to say. Time for quick takes:

• Good Friday: A drawing by my son.    

And a mountain climb: On Good Friday, it is traditional in Guam to walk up part of Mt. Lamlam (the highest mountain in the world if you count the miles underwater to its source at the bottom of the Marianas Trench.) and pray the stations of the cross. A group led by our chaplain (really followed by our chaplain – the kids were a little quicker than he) met at 8 to pray our way up. By this time, most of the crowds were heading down.  The biggest group goes up before dawn. They carry up a new wooden cross to erect at the Mt. Jumalang crest.  Some penitents go up on their knees we’ve been told. We also were warned that we might see some people practicing physical mortifications, but we didn’t.  The kids were fascinated, though, by the blood left by some penitents on the small white crosses that mark the way.

 

• Holy Saturday: Spent the day making Too Much Food.  At the last minute we decided to go to the Vigil Mass. Yet again I was in a twit at my husband, because he spent the day running around shopping for a new camera, but didn’t buy one. Short-tempered from lack of food, I was peeved he wasn’t around to help with cleaning. Not the best attitude for the highest Mass of the year. But as the candles were lit, illuminating the expectant faces of the congregation, that dark cloud in my heart was banished away.

• Easter Sunday: Alleluia! Joy! Candy! Mimosas! And one spot of woe: In my rush of cleaning the day before, I mopped the back porch, where the rabbit and chick live and roam uncaged, with Lysol. But I didn’t take the time to move the animals to their outside cage.  When I went to feed them in the morning, the poor little chick, which was tame enough to come and sit on my lap on the porch swing, was quite stiff with rigor mortis.  And I felt quite guilty for causing its demise.  So we had to have a brief burial, a prayer of thanksgiving for the gift of pets, and some tears.  

• Then we were able to spend the morning celebrating the Resurrection with eggs and cinnamon rolls, before we welcomed a crowd to celebrate with us the rest of the afternoon.  I’m still not quite sure how many people showed up. What started as a get together with a couple of families grew and grew. And the food just kept coming. Everyone must have felt like showing their Easter Joy by cooking, because no one showed up empty handed. We ate well, then the teenagers hid some 500 plastic eggs for the thirty or so little kids. God smiled on us with beautiful weather.  Note for future parties: invite teenage girls who like to play with little kids. They got a kickball game started and kept the youngers entertained. Since the kids were happy, many of our guests stayed long enough to eat again.  And they all left with balutin.  But we’re still eating ham.

Palm frond Easter baskets

The dessert table

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• The rest of the week has been devoted to eating candy and learning to scuba dive.  It’s relatively cheap to learn to dive and to rent equipment here: $169 for the class –including a free boat dive!  We’ve been talking about doing it for months and when our trip to Japan fell through, we enrolled.

Scuba diving was not my idea. I love swimming. I love snorkeling. But I don’t love being underwater. I do not like being dunked, which probably dates back to the summer days of childhood spent at the YMCA, when my older brother thought dunking without getting caught by the lifeguard was a fun game.  That pool was always packed with screaming kids – I’m surprised there weren’t more drownings or asphyxiations by chlorine and suntan lotion.

My husband and older three sons really wanted to learn, and my husband, who turns 39 today, wanted me along for the fun.  I could handle the classroom work – aced my quizzes – but I was not much fun on the first dive.  First I couldn’t get my ears equalized, and then I couldn’t figure out how to clear my mask. You have to take your mask off, put it back on, and then breathe – or snort – out the bottom to clear the water. I snorted up the water, instead of clearing it. Then I started to panic. My sons stared on in amusement as their mother tried to ascend while the instructor pulled me back down.  I finally partially cleared the mask, and then the instructor swam with me back to shore to practice filling and clearing the mask about 100 times.

I went home exhausted and had terrible nightmares that night. They weren’t even about drowning – they were about having bowel accidents and trying to hide them. Odd.  I woke up about 4 in the morning and lay in fear for the next 2 hours before I finally got out of bed. I wasn’t really in fear of drowning, just in fear.  My stomach was in knots. I couldn’t get comfortable. I felt like I couldn’t breathe. I kept trying to come up with good excuses to get out of the class. I hoped I would throw up.  I can’t remember being this scared, not since the night when I was about 13 and I heard noises in the middle of the night. I thought we were being robbed. Turns out it was my grandparents arriving to babysit while my parents took my sister to the ER for an appendectomy. I wasn’t even really scared after our recent robbery.

But I had to confront my unfounded fears. I tried to come up with a mantra for when I grew nervous – I was thinking of the Divine Mercy chaplet. “For the sake…”: breathe in; “Have mercy …”: breathe out.  My husband suggested the yoga class closure: “Shanti, shanti, namaste” (We’ve been going to yoga once a week on the base – a fun, elasticizing date night while the kids are at soccer practice). But what kept going through my mind was “I am a fish, I am a frog, I am a waterlogged dog.”

So Thursday, I had to get back into the water and do the same skills we had practiced the day before and some new ones, like breathing out of my buddy’s extra regulator after having my air cut off.  And doing an emergency ascent exhaling for 30 feet.

And I did it. Fears defeated! My legs were like jelly when it was all over, and I was shivering like mad.  Gotta get my $169 worth.  For our last class this morning, I was able to get a good night of sleep and wake up undeterred. We had one last skills review, before we were able to go on an exploratory dive, and I was able to clear my mask on the first try.

Now I am a certified diver. But I’m not planning to dive again soon. I’m happy to snorkel with turtles rather than dive with sharks.  My kids are sharks though. My oldest didn’t lift his head out of the water after the last dive until his knees were bumping into the rocks of the shore.

Day One in the water

Ok, Buddies

Day three - much happier in a wet suit

• Front page headlines today: Fire Code Violations at a government facility. Island life. 

Holy Week at last

The Triduum has arrived. The forty days of Lent have sped by regrettably quickly.  I was really looking forward to Lent as a time to focus on spiritual growth, but it ended too quickly. I was too distracted. 

I gave up the usual things: sweets and alcohol.   It wasn’t until today, as we were filling plastic eggs for a neighborhood egg hunt on Sunday that I was seriously tempted by chocolate. A few little m&m’s wouldn’t matter would they? Just one marshmellow bunny to make sure they aren’t stale?  But they don’t look quite as delicious as usual.  My friend and neighbor has dampened my pleasure in pastel wrapped chocolates by reminding us about child labor and the importance of buying fair trade chocolates. I think these last three days will be the longest part of the sacrifice, as well they should.

Harder was declining beer and wine.  Several nights, especially after the recent break-in, I really craved a glass of wine after the kids went to bed. Their loud voices left my head ringing in a way that begged to be cured with a little tipple.  Watching Downton Abbey these last couple of weeks was been a great distraction from that temptation. Peeking into the foibles of the servants and aristocracy has caused me to prefer to drink tea, especially the calming, naturally sweet “Relaxing Tea” blend my sister-in-law sent me from the tea mixer at the Lancaster, PA, farmer’s market.

Actually, I think I’m suffering more from Downton Abbey withdrawal than from alcohol abstinence. Well done, PBS! Can’t wait for Season 3.

Sacrificing sweets and drinks may have been easier than usual because we took Sundays off.  I used to be more hardcore about Sundays, but I like the idea of Sunday being a “Little Easter” and want to reinforce that with my kids, especially the one preparing for First Communion.

On the other hand, I completely failed at fasting on Fridays. I didn’t commit strongly enough in the first place, so by midmorning when I was hungry for a snack, I barely hesitated after I had succumbed the first couple of weeks to hunger in the late afternoon. A lack of commitment is a failing I’ve struggled with before.  I talk and talk about what I think I’m going to do, until the deadline passes, or until I am distracted by another obligation.

Same thing with the Stations of the Cross. We started strong – went to the first four evenings of stations followed by a soup supper.  The group of attendees was small.  We didn’t sing the Stabat Mater.  Impromptu readers stumbled through the reflections.  But it was peaceful, if not deeply moving.  Then the last few weeks, things came up – like a spouses’ club party and a track meet – that seemed to take higher priority.  But the whole time I was at the party, I was sorry I wasn’t at Stations. 

I didn’t stick with my spiritual reading either.  I was doing well reading a little of  Kathleen Norris’ Amazing Grace and evening prayer and a little part of a Bible study book in the evenings, and  reflections from Benedictus in the mornings for the two weeks my husband was away. But he came home, and that quiet time seemed to disappear, although only by my own lack of commitment, not because of him.

Needless to say, acts of charity were few and far between. In fact I’m struggling to remember what it was I was going to do… we did host the daughter of a friend of a friend and her father for a couple days over the weekend.  We had to rearrange our schedule, but the sacrifice was minimal because they were such pleasant company.

So tonight I entered church unprepared for Holy Thursday. All my thoughts today were focused on cleaning house for the big party this weekend. An article I had read in the Thomas Aquinas College newsletter not too long ago came to mind as I sat down, about how good church architecture should inspire you to pray.  This is not one of those churches. From the outside it looks like a Hershey Kiss.  The inside is unremarkable, other than a large stone tree of life relief behind the altar, which actually I kind of like. Since the chapel is shared with the Protestants, it lacks icons or statuary. The stations of the cross are Roman numerals. So when I sat down behind a neighbor I forgot about praying as we whispered about the party until the processional began.

Happily, the Mass began to work on me.  The readings reminded me that I wasn’t sure if my 5 year old knows the reason for the liturgy, so I pointed out to her what was being said and listened anew to these old words myself. For the washing of the feet, families came up to the three different areas to wash each other’s feet. The kids giggled, but they will remember being involved. Various parishioners carried out the plants and linens as the altar was stripped.

But what really moved me was when the choir began to sing the litany of saints as the altar was stripped. The music at this church tends toward contemporary style.  The arrangement of this litany was new to me, but it was beautiful. The four singers harmonized perfectly.  And as I sat listening to the names of the saints called upon in song, I thought about my family members far away who share those names. I remembered the beautiful liturgies we have attended in other places with other friends.

It struck me that maybe this Lent wasn’t about struggling to fast from goodies and drinks or to read books by other people. Maybe God made it easy for me to resist sweets because He knew the sacrifice of time with our dear cousins and grandparents has been harder.  Being so far away from the people and places I have loved is my penitence.  Life in this tropical paradise has had a little part of desert. As I listened to their names, and prayed in song for their patron saints’ intercessions, I was filled with both sorrow and gratitude. I felt exiled but also in communion with that greater body of Christ.

Robbed!

Although I didn’t intentionally give up blogging for Lent, the last few weeks I have cut way back on social media both as a sacrifice and as a necessity.  Is it because I’m aging that March slipped away so quickly?  I finally started my taxes last Wednesday when I realized that we usually have our refund back by the first of April.

The taxes still aren’t filed.  While my husband was traveling last week, I started working on them.  I got about halfway through the process Wednesday night and decided to go to bed at 12:30. I was too tired to read small print anymore. Then I woke up at 3:35 am, thinking I heard my dry erase board fall off the wall, as it does on a regular basis because it is attached to the concrete walls with double-stick tape. I glanced at my watch, saw the time, and went back to sleep.

The next morning, my oldest son couldn’t find his ipod as he was leaving for the bus.  When I fed the rabbit, I got annoyed at the kids because the cardboard box where we keep the food was removed. I thought they had taken it to play with.  Then when I left the house to go for my morning run, I noticed the garage door had accidentally been left open all night.  Felt bad about that, but jogged on.

When I got home, I asked the younger kids if they had seen the ipod. “It’s over on the counter by mine,” said my daughter. Only hers wasn’t there.  Had I confiscated them for overuse and forgotten? I went to my closet to look if they were there.

They weren’t. Neither was my jewelry box where I keep my gold jewelry.  A pit widened in my stomach as the reality of what had happened dawned on me.

Someone had come into our house in the middle of the night. Someone had come into my room where I was sleeping alone, gone through my stuff, took what was valuable, and snuck away in the dark.

I called security.  The kids and I snooped around some more. Three boxes of jewelry were missing – two having been taken from inside a larger wooden box.  Two cameras and three ipods were gone. And the cardboard box.

Fingerprints were taken from the door and the left-behind lid of a jewelry box.  Later investigators found the box on the opposite side of the fenceline down the road a ways. They also found a box of dog food back there.  The neighbor discovered the back door of their porch closet hanging open. The thief or thieves knew what they were doing.  They must have had flashlights. They were silent. They knew where to look for valuables.

It’s somewhat ironic that our first robbery occurred when we live in a gated and guarded community, not when we lived in slightly sketchy, “transitional” neighborhoods.  I’ve been bad about leaving my doors unlocked during the day because my sons don’t have housekeys.  It’s been years since I was nervous at nights when my husband, the lock checker, is gone. 

But now I will be checking those locks.  I’ve been dragging the rocking chair in front of the back door every night to create an obstacle. Housing is coming to install inside locks like hotel rooms have.  We’ve asked for an outside light on the back of the house to be installed, but if housing doesn’t do it, my husband will rig something up.  We even went to the pound on Saturday to look at dogs, but I’m not sure I’m ready to commit to that, especially since the thieves evidentally are prepared to silence animals.

My husband returned from his trip the next day angry at himself and at the bad guys. He said if he had been here he would’ve grabbed his machete.  A bloody mess that would be. What if the bad guys grabbed it? A better weapon is the lion bludgeon he bought in Africa: a sturdy stick with a thick knot on top.  Even I wouldn’t hesitate to wield that thing, especially if I had a big surge of fight-or-flight adrenalin – mother/protector instinct, wake up!

It’s probably a good thing I didn’t wake up. I’m even more grateful none of the kids got up for a drink or to use the bathroom.  None of us were bothered. The kids’ rooms appeared undisturbed. The thief was probably afraid of stepping on Legos.

Sadly, most of the jewelry taken had little extrinsic value, other than a three-diamond anniversary ring that I should have been wearing and some gold necklaces. But most of it had some emotional value: some pins from Greece, a medal from Lourdes, earrings from Afghanistan, pearls from Croatia: mementoes of my husband’s travels. Also my Notre Dame monogram ring, baby rings from my kids, the earrings I got my ears pierced in, a cross that belonged to my great-grandmother.  The pawn shops probably won’t be interested (I stopped by a few over the weekend).

But a habit that bothered my husband protected some of my other jewelry: I had stuff in other places. There’s a great deal that wasn’t taken – like my purse and that tax information sitting out – for which I’m thankful.  And I had downloaded all the recent photos from the camera the night before, so those weren't lost either.  

And since it’s Lent, I’ve been trying to see this as an opportunity for spiritual growth. I’ve always struggled with detachment from sentimental things. Now’s the time to let those things go. They were things that I rarely wore, but hoarded for the memories that can’t be stolen.  And the kids were the first to remember to pray for the bad guys, not their capture but their conversion. So every time I’m struck again with sadness and guilt for leaving the door open, I’ve tried to remember to pity the thief. Is he so desperate and misguided that he needs my stuff more than I need it?  Is this a reminder to be more generous?

I am thankful that I have not been plagued by fears in the nighttime – my own or the kids’. It’s a small mercy that they haven’t had nightmares, especially when neighbors have been coming up to me all week and asking about the event, fearful for themselves, feeling outrage that I haven’t felt.  For the most part, I’m not angry at the robber or at the base for not providing better security.  I just replay the night: I imagine the thief in my closet, with his flashlight picking out the good jewelry and leaving behind the beads and cheap earrings, I imagine myself making a noise to startle the thief, and mostly I imagine myself double-checking the locks.

I came across this quote from St. Basil the Great in my Monastery Kitchen cookbook this morning when I was looking for recipes for the big weekend ahead:

“The bread which you do not use is the bread of the hungry; the garment hanging in your wardrobe is the garment of the one who is naked; the shoes you do not wear are the shoes of the one who is barefoot; the money that you keep locked away is the money of the poor; the acts of charity that you do not perform are so many injustices that  you commit.”