by Mary | Dec 17, 2010 | Uncategorized
Before I get started on local gift ideas, let me just say that I have not set foot in a mall this Christmas season, which is always my goal. I don’t like malls any time, but I especially don’t like them before Christmas. And I figure if I made it this far, I’m home free because there ain’t no way I’m going to a mall or anywhere within a five mile radius of a mall in the coming week when all those crazy shoppers are fighting for parking spaces and sale items.
So…if you live in New York’s Capital Region, it’s just a short drive to my town where you can find lots of cool stuff without the nasty crowds. (And if you’re not in this region, get creative and look for similar shops in small towns near you.)
First I’ll start with food. Of course. In keeping with the theme of this blog, these suggestions won’t just be any foods but food with a spiritual connection.
Trappist Preserves make a nice, yummy gift or stocking stuffer. Although you can always buy them online HERE, folks in Delmar can pick them up right at Hannaford. That’s right, jelly and jams made by monks sitting on the shelf next to Smucker’s. Whodda thunk? Chiara will accept no other jelly on her PB&J. She prefers seedless red raspberry, although they make loads of flavors, typical and not so typical — like hot pepper mango jelly or Kadota fig preserves.
Cheesecake by the Nuns of New Skete is available in the refrigerated case at Delmar Marketplace, and word on the street is that it is unbelievably good. So this may be on my dessert list this year. This, too, is available through online orders (HERE) if you can’t get to the store or want an unusual flavor, like Irish cream or Kahlua. Or if you just need regular cheesecake deliveries, no matter what the season. Yum.
Moving away from food but keeping in our spiritual mindset, just walk across the street and head to Peaceful Inspirations, where you will find so many cool things you won’t be able to decide what to get. I have to restrain myself every time I’m in there or I would leave with arms loaded down with books and earrings and angels and wall hangings and incense. (For Facebook friends keeping score at home, this is where I purchased the myrrh incense I mentioned the other day.) One of my favorite items is a lotus candle holder (see photo at the top). They have them in so many beautiful colors and sizes, with stands or without. A really nice little gift for someone special. And they have tons of other things related to the spiritual quest, from meditation bells and Mala beads to books on Our Lady of Guadalupe and Celtic art to salt lamps and peace flags. And if you go there, you’ll be right around the corner from Perfect Blend, where you can get a coffee and something delicious to eat. (No, I am not being paid to advertise for these places.)
Of course, I Love Books is right next door to Perfect Blend. See how many places you can go without ever moving your car? At I Love Books you will have your pick of wonderful merchandise, but be sure to stop by the Local Authors shelf where you can get my book, “Walking Together: Discovering the Catholic Tradition of Spiritual Friendship.” (You can also get it online or wherever you buy your books.) Makes a great gift — for a friend, obviously.
Leaving I Love Books, head back across the street to the Breathing Room, a little yoga place where you can buy gift certificates for classes, yoga equipment, CDs and more. Don’t you feel more peaceful just thinking about it? Ooooommmmm.
Finally, if you are in the area tomorrow, Saturday, December 18, the Delmar Farmers Market will have its last day of the season inside the Bethlehem Central Middle School from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Hair of the Dog will be playing the entire time. Shopping and a show. For free. Can’t beat that, can you? Lots of local vendors. Stop by, but bring your reusable bags and even your reusable coffee cup. Think green Christmas.
Anyone else around here have any good ideas to share? Please do so in the comment section. And remember, even if you don’t live here, there are sure to be similar shops somewhere near you. Avoid the malls and the inherent headaches. Shop close to home.
by Mary | Dec 17, 2010 | Uncategorized
I have heard from so many friends telling me that my previous post about my difficult third week of Advent rang true for them. Apparently a lot of us are feeling the same joylessness, the same darkness and confusion at a time that is supposed to be filled with light and hope.
Then today a Facebook friend in Italy posted a beautiful reflection on this very topic. I guess some things translate across oceans and continents.
The post is from a certain simplicity* (uncomplicated creative living) and it’s just what I needed to hear, read, think about, absorb. I’ll get you started here and then link to the blog, because you should go there today — and any day you need a lift — to hear lots of positive things with servings of Italy on the side.
From Diana Baur’s post today:
The clutter, the discord and the difficulty are what produce the fertile ground of creativity.
On the day you decide to follow a creative path, you will have lesson after lesson handed to you. You will feel beaten, humbled, and alive. You will be aware of large churnings under the surface that no one can see or feel but you. You might smile at friends and family, talking to them about things you have always talked about, but inside you will be jumping hurdles, slaying dragons, praying for answers.
You will feel like you are running as hard as you can – in a bowl of mashed potatoes.
Your advances will be small, your badges earned. You will be a student for a very, very long time. You will wonder whether it was worth it. If you should not have just stayed where you were, in the land of mediocrity and perpetual indecision.
Continue reading…
Thank you, Diana, for giving me food for thought when I most needed to know I am not alone and I will move forward. Peace to everyone out there today who feels like they’re running hard but standing still.
by Mary | Dec 15, 2010 | Uncategorized
I began this week basking in the glow of Gaudete Sunday. The thrill I get when it’s time to light the pink, ahem, ROSE candle in the Advent wreath is a little ridiculous. It’s just a candle, after all. And yet, I fully appreciate the placement of rose in the third week rather than the fourth. It’s a little wake-up call, a sudden bright spot that urges us forward before it’s too late.
My Gaudete spirit only increased when I went to a nursing home with my parish’s youth ministry group last Sunday to sing carols and distribute little Christmas crafts. As we sang O Come All Ye Faithful, I spied a tiny woman hunched down in a wheelchair just to my right, singing away and smiling at me. She waved me over, and I tried to understand what she wanted me to do. Something with the Christmas craft. We tried to communicate in loud whispers so as not to disrupt the young girl reading from the Gospel of Luke, but I finally gave up and squatted down near her wheelchair to wait for a break in the show.
As I knelt there next to her, she leaned over from her chair and put her arm around me, squeezed my shoulder, and smiled. She did that at least three more times in the span of a few minutes. Talk about a bright spot in my week. When we finally managed to get back to the craft and what she wanted me to do, it became clear: She wanted me to have the Christmas decoration meant to hang on her door. After my futile attempts to make her keep it, I thanked her and took it home, promising myself I’d pray for Ruth whenever I saw it.
Then, due to the alignment — or misalignment — of a few events (too confusing to go into here), my rose-y spirit began to dampen and darken. Gone is the joy I had felt only days ago, gone is the hope that is supposed to be building with each day until it reaches its crescendo on Christmas, gone is my interest in or motivation for prayer. Zippo. Nada. Nothing. Darkness.
And so, during this season of dark and light, I find myself going in the wrong direction at the wrong time. Maybe it’s meant to be this way. Maybe I’m supposed to experience the heart of John’s Gospel in a real and felt way, knowing once and for all that the darkness can never overcome the light.
Rather than skipping through this week of Advent, I’m plodding and brooding and wishing the season would be over and done with. Then I stop and remember Ruth, smiling and singing from her wheelchair in a nursing home where life — as pleasant as the staff tries to make it — is difficult, at best. Every day. For Ruth and so many others like her — my almost-98-year-old grandmother, for example — life is never going to get easier at this point, and yet they carry on with the same determination and spirit that got them to this point.
I think Ruth was placed in my life last Sunday for a reason. When I find myself sinking into self-pity over my un-Christmasy feelings this week, I see her smiling face and feel her little squeeze around my shoulder and remember that light can come into our lives in the most unexpected ways and the most unlikely places. We just have to be willing to open the door to it.
by Mary | Dec 10, 2010 | Uncategorized
Ever since I first came in contact with the writings of Thomas Merton some 25 years ago, he has spoken to me. I know I’m not alone there. Countless people of every faith and persuasion have found meaning in his writings and his life. Of course, others will counter that with claims that he was too flawed to be held up as a role model, or, dare I say, saint. But that’s precisely why he’s a great example.
I find comfort in the fact that he carried on, following his path toward God, even when he was thrown off course by his humanness. I look at Merton and see holiness wrapped in weakness, and isn’t that where most of us are? We’re all called to be saints, but oftentimes our humanity gets in the way. In Merton, we can see ourselves, trudging ever closer to God despite mistakes — some of them pretty major — and confusion and doubt.
Today, on the 42nd anniversary of his death by accidental electrocution in Bagkok, I am taking time to remember and reflect, but Merton is never far from my thoughts because so many of his words are constantly ringing in my ears.
Hanging next to my desk is this Merton quote from Thoughts in Solitude:
My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going.
I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following Your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please You does in fact please You. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that, if I do this, You will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore I will trust You always though I may seem to be lost in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for You are ever with me, and You will never leave me to face my perils alone.
See what I mean? Comforting and yet challenging. I read those words and think, “Oh, good, Merton had no idea where he was going either.” Then I read a little more and think, “Oh, no, he trusted God completely. Can I do the same?” For me that’s a saintly role model, reminding me that I’m not alone but pushing me to go beyond my typical response and reach for something deeper, truer.
A couple of years ago, I received a wonderful blessing in the form of a silent retreat called “Merton in the Mountains.” By a lake in the low peaks of the Adirondacks I had one weekend of solitude and silence, a brief glimpse into Merton’s way of life. It wasn’t easy. In fact, it was downright difficult and more than a little frightening — to give up my voice, to sit and wait for God while trying to throw off the monkeys of worry and doubt and pride and ambition. Merton knew those same feelings, and yet he continued to return to the silence, the solitude because that is where he knew he’d find God.
Another quote from Thoughts in Solitude:
To love solitude and to seek it does not mean constantly traveling from one geographic possibility to another. A man becomes a solitary at the moment when, no matter what may be his external surroundings, he is suddenly aware of his own inalienable solitude and sees that he will never be anything but solitary. From that moment on, solitude is not potential — it is actual.
But perhaps the quote that always calls me back, the one that echoes in my head, is the quote below. It’s a constant reminder of my inability to ever know God if I try to make him in my own image:
God approaches our minds by receding from them. We can never fully know Him if we think of Him as an object of capture, to be fenced in by the enclosure of our own ideas.
We know him better after our minds have let him go.
The Lord travels in all directions at once.
The Lord arrives from all directions at once.
Wherever we are, we find that He has just departed. Wherever we go, we discover that He has just arrived before us.
Merton reminds me that I still have a shot, even when I don’t get it right on a pretty regular basis. Merton, with his beautiful and powerful words, gives me something to hold onto when God feels very far away.
Thomas Merton, pray for us.
by Mary | Dec 6, 2010 | Uncategorized
I am not a patient person. Not by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, I consider myself to be one of the most impatient people I know. If I start an exercise routine, I expect to see results the next day, or sooner. When I pray, I often do so with one eye half-open, as if to watch for some sort of lightning bolt answer that might come down from heaven right there on the spot. I don’t like to wait. Ever. Or, almost ever. There is one exception to my inability to sit still and let things unfold as they should, and that one exception is Advent.
As others spin with frantic holiday energy — buying gifts, baking cookies, singing carols, decorating trees — I am quite content to ignore it all and simply wait. Which kind of makes the rest of my family a little crazy. They want singing Santas and twinkling lights, but our house is decidedly unfestive at this point. If you were to stop by, you might even wonder if we plan to celebrate Christmas at all, so barren are our table tops and windows and walls. The only signs of the season are Advent signs: a wreath on the kitchen table, a purple and pink paper chain hanging from a window, the Advent calendar on the hearth, and a little Advent tree that my grandmother gave me. There’s something beautiful about the starkness of it all amid the abundance of Christmas that is so obvious everywhere else. And, despite my usual impatience, I have to admit that there’s something wonderful about the anticipation that continues to build every day, that expectant feeling that recognizes that something amazing is just around the corner but the time is not quite right, our spirits not quite ripe.
I find that my willingness to wait becomes stronger with every passing year, much like my love for the Advent season itself. When I was young, I didn’t feel a connection to the Advent season. I used to say I was a Lent person, always more comfortable in the desert than in the midst of a party. But then slowly, slowly, slowly I began to “get” Advent, which is a desert experience of a very different kind. Silence and darkness, waiting and watching, surrender and trust. This, too, is a time to pull away from the rest of the world and retreat to a quiet place where God might get a word in edgewise.
Of course, some of my pre-Christmas patience has a practical side as well. If I put up the tree on December 1, I know I’d be tired of it long before the big day finally arrived. And the last thing I want is to be ready to leave the party before the guest of honor arrives. Waiting makes the tree and all the trimmings seem that much more special to me, and I’m hoping that the feeling is beginning to trickle down to the kids.
This morning, when I said we’d probably put up the tree next weekend, Olivia jumped for joy. When I offered to put a few little snowmen decorations out after school today, Chiara could barely contain herself. Excitement is building little by little as we inch toward the main event, trying ever so hard to keep our focus on the constant light of Jesus and not on all those twinkling, temporary flashes around us.
Patient waiting…a pregnant pause, full of expectant joy, much a like a mother waiting for labor to begin. We are growing more ripe each day, more ready for what is to come. In the crisp, cold air we feel a warm glow that burns stronger and stronger each day, as our hearts cry out, Maranatha, “Our Lord, come.”
Before I get started on local gift ideas, let me just say that I have not set foot in a mall this Christmas season, which is always my goal. I don’t like malls any time, but I especially don’t like them before Christmas. And I figure if I made it this far, I’m home free because there ain’t no way I’m going to a mall or anywhere within a five mile radius of a mall in the coming week when all those crazy shoppers are fighting for parking spaces and sale items.
