by Mary | Aug 19, 2008 | Uncategorized
…and you live in upstate New York, you may have caught my sweetie on the news last night, talking about the drastic budget cuts that are expected in New York at the urging of Gov. David Paterson. Speaking on behalf of the New York State Catholic Conference and the state’s bishops, Dennis was reminding everyone that the budget cannot be balanced on the backs of the poor and vulnerable, those most likely to bear the brunt of cuts since they are usually voiceless in the legislature. The Church doesn’t get a lot of headlines for this kind of talk, but it’s a mainstay of our teaching. You can watch it here:
by Mary | Aug 16, 2008 | Noah
Well, Noah has been having a great time at Boy Scout camp this week. (That’s him in his tent above.) This has been such a good experience for him — hanging out with friends, working on merit badges, sitting around the camp fire, swimming in the lake, and generally challenging himself to do things he’s never done before. I’m sure it wasn’t easy for him to be away from home for a week. I know it wasn’t easy for me to have him away from home for a week, especially when the phone rings and Noah is on the other end asking for advice on his pocket-knife injury. Fortunately, it was very minor. Still, the thought of my boy in the woods with a knife on his belt or at the archery range with an arrow in his hand is a bit frightening. After all, this is the boy who used to fall down spontaneously while just walking across the room.
We were at camp for Family Night on Wednesday, and it was such a treat to see Noah looking so confident and content. I was the only one in our family wearing old hiking boots that night, so Noah asked if he could lead me through the woods — which is a mud pit after almost daily thunderstorms — to his camp site. I walked behind him, looking at the mud splattered all over his legs and the look of determination spread across his face, and I was so proud. Although the prospect of Noah taking on some of the more difficult or dangerous aspects of scouting (white water rafting comes to mind) sometimes scares me, I have nothing but good things to say about the Boy Scouts. They are opening up a world for him that he would otherwise never see and I can only hope that he continues to Eagle Scout, which is his hope and plan as of now.
Here’s the garter snake Noah found in the fire pit.
Here’s the newt he found in the grass. (I thought these creatures had better camoflage.)
Here’s Noah with a toad.
Here are Dennis and Noah at Camp Rotary. Dennis was a chaperone for three of the six nights and loved every minute of it. He said he misses the quiet of his tent and the big night sky full of stars, some of them shooting.
Meanwhile back at the ranch…I took the girls to Five Rivers Environmental Center, which is a wonderful nature center just a few miles from our house. As you can see, the perennial garden is in full bloom. There are hiking trails and streams and a lake. Plus, in the actual center you can watch a really cool one-winged owl munch on a mouse. We love this place.
by Mary | Aug 13, 2008 | Uncategorized
It’s been a very strange week for us here at the Poust house. For three days now it’s been just me and the two girls. Noah has been at Boy Scout camp since Sunday afternoon, and Dennis has been serving as parent chaperone. Unfortunately, our all-girl extravaganza has been plagued by a virus that started with Olivia late last week and hit Chiara at the beginning of this week. Fever, sore throat, dizziness, and general misery. Lots of moaning and crying going on here — and I’m not just talking about the girls.
So I have pretty much been a prisoner of the house since the weekend, save for 45 minutes at Mass on Sunday. We did venture out to the library and Farmer’s Market late yesterday when Chiara seemed to be on the mend, but that was just a brief and somewhat stressful outing due to the almost constant threat of torrential rain and thunderstorms, something that has become a daily occurrence.
We have watched a lot of the Olympics, something I usually don’t do, and we’ve played restaurant at night, eating by the glow of some pink and purple candle stubs left over from Advent. What I’ve noticed is that when the boys are away, we eat like a Third World nation. When I go away, Dennis usually takes it as an opportunity to go out and buy something he knows I won’t eat — like a big, fat steak. I, on the other hand, see these kinds of times as an opportunity to make the simplest meals I can muster — pasta and peas, vegetarian refried bean quesadillas, brown rice with black beans. It becomes very clear that my vegetarianism isn’t just something I choose to do; it’s my default setting.
Dennis will return home this afternoon, but Noah will stay at camp until Saturday. Later tonight we’ll all head to the camp site for Family Night. I can’t wait to see Noah in all his Boy Scout glory. I’ve missed having him around, not just in a mom-missing-her-boy kind of way. I miss the boy who has become a real helper around the house. Noah went to camp last year, but this year is different. It makes me realize how much he’s grown up in the past 12 months.
by Mary | Aug 10, 2008 | prayer, spirituality
When I heard the first reading at Mass today, I felt a small smile spread across my face. It was the reading where Elijah is hiding in a cave waiting for a word from the Lord. He expects to find him in the strong and crushing wind, in the earthquake that shakes the ground beneath his feet, in the fire that follows. This is God, after all. Surely He will show up in some magnificent and awesome way. And yet, where does Elijah eventually find God? In a “tiny whispering sound” that makes him hide his face. I love this image, I think because I can find myself in Elijah’s story and because of the fact that the God of all creation is powerful enough to show up in a whisper. He needs no light show or thunder claps.
Clearly I’m not a prophet, so what makes me feel a kinship with Elijah? It’s the fact that I, too, am expecting God to show up in my life in some over-the-top and obvious way. Send me a sign, I often challenge, when I am doubting or in need or in a dark spiritual place. But what sign am I expecting? An actual voice from the heavens? A vision? A flood of epic proportions? Rainbows arching over my house? I hate to say it, but, in a figurative sort of way, yes, that’s exactly what I’m expecting. Come on, God, show me the money. Unlike Elijah, I do not know of any caves where I can hide, and I never seem to sit still or stay silent long enough to catch the “tiny whispering sound” that just might come rushing through my soul if it weren’t so clogged up with anxiety and fear and disappointment and doubt. I’m guessing that the whisper in my life ends up ricocheting off all the other stressed-out vibes I’ve got going on. I’m constantly talking to God, or, more accurately, talking at God, but I rarely give Him a chance to get a whisper in edgewise.
So how do I — or any of us for that matter — make a space for the tiny whispering sound of God when our lives are so busy and so rushed and so filled with the noise of our culture and our world? My initial reaction is to say, Retreat! As in spiritual retreat, not the run away kind of retreat, although that might be another option. But if we can only make a quiet space for God when we are in the silence of a retreat house, what happens every other day of our lives when we’re home or at work or in the grocery store, wondering what life is all about but unable to still our souls long enough to hear the answer above the din of the car radio or the telephone?
I struggle with this concept all the time, which you may have noticed if you read this blog with regularity. You can bet that every few weeks or so you will get a message from the angst-ridden side of Not Strictly Spiritual, the side that is constantly trying to find a spiritual place amid the busyness of the world. I tip my hat to those who manage to live in the world and still maintain that spiritual center that makes them radiate God’s love to everyone around them. I’m not sure what I’m radiating, but I’m guessing it’s less like joy and more like something they might dredge up from the nearby Hudson River.
I’m actually considering a brief silent retreat early next month, although it’s very iffy at this point. I’m not sure if it’s the right thing for me at this moment in my life. I think I’ll sit back and wait for a sign. Let the thunder claps commence!
by Mary | Aug 6, 2008 | Uncategorized
I looked down at the calendar just a few minutes ago and realized that today is Aug. 6. It was 10 years ago today that Dennis and I found out that the baby I was carrying died 11 weeks into my pregnancy. We went to the midwife for a regular check-up and she couldn’t find the heartbeat. A follow-up ultrasound hours later showed a silent, still heart. I will never forget that day, or the next day, when they had to remove the remains of my baby. Anyone who has ever suffered a miscarriage will know exactly what I’m talking about. I don’t forget the day it happened. I don’t forget the due date. I don’t forget the little person, whom I have always thought of as “Grace,” who never made it into this world.
Mine was not a typical miscarriage. I had something called a “partial molar pregnancy,” which required me to have weekly blood tests for a full year, in addition to occasional liver profiles and a lung X-ray for good measure. You see, if the doctors aren’t careful when they’re taking care of a molar pregnancy, they can miss some cells, and, for whatever strange reason, those cells can turn cancerous and move, in most cases, to the liver or lungs. It was quite a shock when my miscarriage came with a side order of “gynecological oncologist” in the event that my test numbers moved in the wrong direction. In the throes of grief over a baby lost, suddenly I was scared and confused by the prospect of getting cancer from a pregnancy.
Fortunately, I was blessed with an amazing midwife and an equally amazing doctor, who covered every base on this one. Still, it was a difficult year, one that made me question whether I would ever want to put myself through another pregnancy and the chance of another devastating loss. Fortunately, time and the support of family and friends led us to a place where not taking a risk was more painful than protecting ourselves from all the “what ifs,” and so we carried on and thank God we did. I can’t imagine my world without Olivia and Chiara.
Grace — and no, I never knew for sure if the baby was a boy or a girl but I had a feeling — may have had a very short little life, but she will never be forgotten. Although I never got to meet my baby, she still managed to change me and to shape our family, through her absence rather than her presence, which just goes to show that every single life — even an 11-week-old life still in the womb — has worth and value and a reason for being.
