A Mary Moment Monday post

It’s Thanksgiving week, which means, for a number of people in the United States, that there is A LOT to get done. Not only does Advent start on Sunday (no panic here, nope, not me), but there’s a meal of some sort or other to plan for Thursday. Or, if you’re not planning a meal, then you’re probably attending one. Or maybe it just means that your workflow is different than normal (by “different,” I mean “heavier as a result of a holiday weekend looming ahead of you”).

So, as gratitude is at the forefront of our mind this week (and last week, for some of us), I couldn’t help but think of Mary as a model of gratitude.

Her presumably predictable life was interrupted by an angel asking her if she wanted to be an unwed mother. Not only did she say yes graciously, but she thanks God.

And then, a huge trip while in the throes of morning sickness to see an elderly relative who’s unexpectedly pregnant. This whole trip smacks of pain-in-the-hiney to me, but we hear not a word about that aspect of things from her (and in fact have to do some research to find out the extent of the trip between Nazareth and Judea). She calls herself blessed, offers herself in service and support, and gives Christians everywhere a model of service as thankfulness.

Before her baby was even born, she found herself on the back of a donkey, headed to the middle of nowhere, where there would be no room and where she would give birth in the equivalent of a barn. We don’t have a record of a litany of complaints or criticisms. In fact, she welcomed a host of scraggly shepherds and probably the half of the town they brought with them while they were rejoicing through the streets after the light show in the fields. She was a gracious hostess when she was only a few hours post-partum and not even in a proper bed!

She does her duty and takes her new infant to the Temple and is told her heart will be pierced. Nothing like a dire prophecy to dampen your day, but Mary seems to just take it all in with, I imagine, a smile.

And then there’s Jesus, the twelve-year-old scholar, hanging out with the teachers and doctors at the Temple while his parents look high and low for him. Does she scold him? Not so much–it’s more like she reminds him of where he belongs even as he reminds her that he’s not really hers.

How often do I approach the interruptions and inconveniences in my life by thanking God? Am I cheerful and giving even when I’m in pain or sorrow? Do I look beyond my own expectations and joyfully accept the blessings God sends me through other people, even when they’re unexpected or different than what I might want? Am I open to God’s graces from every area of my life? Do I look for Jesus everywhere and involve him in all of my life?

As I enter the School of Mary most mornings, I can’t help but see, in every mystery of the rosary–and beyond–how Mary thanked God in her very being, in everything she did and said and was. She’s an example of being a human being and giving glory to God even while doing all the things that life demands.

So this week, I’m going to try to consciously look to Mary as I consider how very much I have to be thankful for. Can I be thankful even for those things that seem to be the opposite of what I want or need? Will I allow God’s grace to work through me, in me, around me?

image credit: Divine Secrets of a Domestic Diva

By Maria Johnson

We’ve all heard it – The Internet is an insidious source of distraction and evil in contemporary society. It’s true!

I blame a certain little addiction to cute farm animals and shiny pink tractors as one of those distractions. Thanks to family and friends mocking me at every obnoxious status update, I had an intervention and am pleased to report I’ve been Farmville-free for 18 months.

Of course, I’m making light of it – or am I? Social media, whether it’s Facebook, Twitter, Google + or [insert your favorite distraction here], can be a powerful time suck. It can be a black hole that takes us away from our families and friends, makes us less productive, and does nothing, nothing to make us better people.

Thomas Jefferson said the same thing about reading novels in his essay “On the Dangers of Reading Fiction.” You could say everything is relative. He was agitated that people were spending time reading adventures and love stories instead of reading Scripture or learning about history or philosophy. He even went so far as to recommend authors that he believed were edifying. It’s a good thing he never encountered the likes of Facebook in his day. He’d probably have a stroke.

Jefferson’s point, however, is well-taken. How are we spending our time on the internet, especially since so many of us both work and play on-line? Are we using this medium in a way that builds us up in the Body of Christ, or tears us down?

It’s an important question, especially for those of us who are not just consumers of Catholic new media, but producers. And I have a little news flash for you, gentle reader: if you are Catholic and using Facebook and Twitter, you are a producer of Catholic new media.

Don’t run away. I didn’t mean to scare you with that reality check, suggesting that you need be a super-apologist or something. I don’t have a degree in theology, either.In fact, on any given day my ability to get it right is more often than not overshadowed by how often I get it wrong.

Just think about it, though. If we are Catholic and doing our best to live our lives in an authentically Christian way, then everything we do reflects that. Everything. Right down to what we tweet.

Are we building up the Body of Christ or tearing it down?

A little meme is going around on Twitter – perhaps you’ve seen it. It’s one of those hashtags that you add to the end of a tweet, #gratefultweet. Matt Swaim, who produces The Son Rise Morning Show on Cincinnati’s Sacred Heart Radio evidently got it started and Father Schnippel at Called By Name took off with it and added some ground rules.

It’s a simple game: your first tweet of the day states something for which you are grateful. Do it every day. God knows where a thankful heart will lead us.

He really does.

image credit: The College Startup

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Maria Johnson is heavily involved in New Media, from her work with SQPN and as cohost of Catholic Weekend, to her tweeting as @bego and her blogging at Another Cup of Coffee. She’s been popping up at Patheos lately, too, most recently with a great piece about basketballs and nuns and movies.

a Mary Moment Monday post

Usually, by this time in the spring, I’m swooning over flowers. Though I’ve had my fair share of picked tulips, triumphantly handed to me by little hands, this year the phrase “May flowers” makes me think more of the blessings I feel showering around me.

It’s been a rainy spring. So rainy, in fact, that we had standing water in our yard–the first time in 20 years, say the people who know these things.

It’s been a spring full of other surprises, too. About eight months ago, I gave up completely–for the third time–the idea of building a house, one that was reliable, not a fixer-upper, safe for our children and peaceful for my often exhausted husband. We just couldn’t do it. There were a lot of reasons why it had to be, once again, put off, but I really had my hopes up (despite my promises to myself that I wouldn’t).

I think there was a point when, in my prayer, I looked at God and resigned myself completely. “Okay. This place might be falling down and I might feel like the bugs are part of my family, but you love me. You love my family more than I do. So I guess it’s your problem.”

About a month ago, a friend sent me an email, alerting me that the house just down the road was going to be sold. Would I be interested in contacting the seller?

It could be a coincidence that the seller is an old colleague of my husband’s. It might be chance that the house was about what we would have built (the floor plan we selected was almost the same as what this house is). It could be just lucky that we’ll be closing in the next week and will only have to move, essentially, across the street. It’s not, though.

Over and over, I’ve had this experience of God’s love, of his providing for me far better than what I ask. I didn’t see this coming; I couldn’t have predicted the answer to an ongoing plea to be such so far over and above what we wanted.

And would you believe this is only one of the many blessings I’ve experienced this spring?

This May, I’m feeling Mary at work in my life in a special way. The blessings flowers blooming all around me and filling my soul with their fragrance seem to be a bouquet sent straight from her. I have no doubt it was Mama Mary’s prayers that made the difference.

I can only utter a thanks to her, tears in my eyes. I can only imagine just how much she must love us.

image source

It’s hard, sometimes, to get into a mindset of thankfulness.

But I am thankful. I am overcome with gratitude, so often, as I look out of my window at the beauty surrounding me, as I look down at the little person grabbing my hand, as I lay my head on my pillow at night.

There is so much to be thankful for, and maybe familiarity makes it all-too-easy to overlook the specifics. Sometimes, I forget that instead of griping and grouching about this old farmhouse, I should be glad for all the benefits it brings to my life: shelter, yes, but also a lower payment than I’d have in a fancy new airtight house and a setting that often takes my breath away. There are times when I see my kids as interruptions from the work I think I should be getting done, instead of as the temporary gifts they are. And what about the abundance…of food, of friends, of family…that I just assume will continue?

Thanksgiving is more than just a day. It’s a mindset. It’s good, though, to have a day to remind me. It’s good to stop and list the things, big and small, for which I’m thankful, to stop and savor the people who eat my turkey whether it’s good or not, to stop and turn my soul heavenward to give the credit where it belongs.

A Mary Moment Monday post

It’s one of those weeks when there’s a lot going on and I’m feeling the weight of it all. It’s not just that there’s Thanksgiving: we’re staying home and just doing “us” this year, so I can’t pretend there’s pressure there. It’s not just the earlier deadline with the parish bulletin or the appointments this week or the gift shipping that needs done or the Advent preparation or the fact that I could drop a baby any minute.

In fact, it’s not any one thing. It’s the combination of them all together.

And so, this week, I’m looking for Mary even more than usual. Whether I get my rosaries finished each day or not, I’m going to make sure I sit down and hold her hand for at least a decade at a time. I’m going to keep myself from zipping and zooming and take one step at a time, complete one thing at a time, and leave the rest in God’s lap.

Mary must understand this craziness…despite the differences in time and space, she must have faced the same need for space, for quiet, for communion with God. I invite you to join me — there’s plenty of room in Mary’s lap, you know.

We’re not there.  We can’t be there for very strange reasons.

Today’s also the day of our five-year-old’s EEG, at 3 PM.

Any accident that’s the Mercy Hour?  No, I don’t think so either.  She seems perfectly back to normal after the big adventure from the other night.

All the same, my heart is in New Orleans, with family members I have been missing for years and who I long to hold.

We’ll have a chance to hug them soon, because the body is coming to Ohio early next week and there’s an interment, so he can be buried with his boys.

We have a few days before we’ll see them, before we can share the grief and gather around them and be family in person.  Before then, my husband’s face is going to haunt me, tug at me, remind me of many, many things.

Yesterday afternoon, he talked to Susie for the first time since this happened.  I couldn’t ask him what she said to him until four or five hours later, when the kids were in bed.  We both needed time to calm down, to breathe.

I’ve seen my husband cry twice before that moment.  I’ve never seen him cry hard or come close to sobbing.  I’m sure he has, but not in front of anyone, even me.

Susie told Bob some beautiful things yesterday afternoon.  It was a moment of grace for me, watching his face, hearing his responses, seeing his emotion, feeling his pain.

“I love you, honey,” he said to her, choking a bit on his tears, before he hung up.

All day yesterday, from the moment Lisa posted a request for prayers on her Facebook wall and continuing as I updated both on my blog and social networks, the comments and emails have rolled in, offering support and prayers and wisdom.  When Rebecca posted a prayer request last night, my site flooded with traffic, which included comments, prayers, support, and wisdom.

I joked with someone yesterday that I’m not a big fan of 2010 so far. Maybe I need to rethink that.

There has been a mountain of pain and there’s more to come, of that I’m sure.

But in that pain, I’m finding grace unlike any I’ve ever experienced before. I’m learning about things I had never considered and I’m growing closer to Mother Mary, knowing she walked this way first.  She feels our pain.  She knows our grief.  She sees our fear.

And though I may wonder, question, seek…she’s still there.  So is her Son.

Sometimes, the greatest gift is the presence of others.  Sometimes, carrying our crosses, we just need presence.  I am feeling God through all of you and in the daily hurdles of my children and the family members still here in Ohio.  Thank you for that.

Thank you too for your continued prayers for all of us.  You’re making these unbelievable moments of grace possible.  For that, we are all so very, very blessed.

I’m thankful, today, for the turkey that tasted delightful, along with all the sides served on my pretty green china, and for a day, quiet and full, in which to clean all the dishes and cupboards touched by what my mother-in-law calls “mouse dirt.”  (In the last 36 hours, my Nutcracker Prince has protected me from TEN of the little buggers, and my helpful MIL shared a stomach-wrenching statistic earlier today: where there’s one caught, there are ten in the nest.  *scream*)

I’m thankful for Advent, and I’m thankful for doing better at not hating Christmas.

I’m thankful for Mary.  Yes, I really am.  And you can hear all about it in this week’s (or, rather, last week‘s) Mary Moment.

I’m thankful for a few minutes — Sunday or no — to blog.

And, most of all, I’m thankful for this day six years ago, the Saturday before the first Sunday of Advent that year, when I walked down an aisle in a white dress, holding my dad’s arm and watching my strong, tall Prince Charming’s face, both of us worried about flower girls who hadn’t made it (turns out they were fine, just fine, though devastated at missing their spotlight).  (And I’m thankful for the post I wrote last year, which I just stumbled upon, started sniffling as I reread it, and think I will print out for him…)

I am.

So very thankful.

This year, in particular, I’m thankful for my family, both those I live with and will spend tomorrow with, and those who are scattered all around and will be gathering for themselves.

I wrote those three lines on Wednesday, intending to get back on and post pictures for a not-too-wordy Wednesday post.  Or, if it was late enough, I would have posted it for Thursday.

And then whatever hit my four-year-old for 12 hours on Wednesday hit me.  Much harder.

Thanksgiving Day rolled in with me huddled on a toilet, hugging a bucket.  You know the drill (and if you don’t, enjoy that ignorance).  I didn’t recover in 12 hours; I haven’t recovered fully in 40, though I can stand without the immediate urge to run to said position on toilet with bucket.  I’ve slept most of today, and my dear husband took the kids to his mom’s.  I want to get the presents in from his trunk (they’ve been there a week or more) and the dishes done and the laundry caught up…but mostly, I want to sleep.

Needless to say, the turkey’s still in the fridge.  We’re cooking it tomorrow.

While confined to the sofa, aching and nauseous, muttering prayers that I get it harder than ever to keep my husband and toddler from getting it (even as I screamed in my mind for it to just! stop! already!), I reflected on being thankful.  This post, after all, needed to be written.    (A blogger’s priorities…)

I’m thankful for the four-year-old “waiter” who brought me a popsicle and a bowl and a smile.  I’m thankful for the two-year-old turkey who squawked about not having Mommy and who blew me kisses (instead of climbing on me).  I’m thankful for the cheers Christmas “Vee-cation” brought from the four-year-old and the fact that I could, mostly, laugh along with it.  (Yes, I know it’s not really appropriate for a four-year-old to watch.  I don’t defend it.  We’re all imperfect.)  I’m thankful that the two-year-old went to bed without (too much of) a fight.  I’m thankful for a homemade get-well card, on my pillow, and a tray full of uneaten food.  I’m thankful that, this morning, her first words to me were “Are you feeling better today, Mommy?”

But mostly, I’m thankful for my husband.  In the last two days, he’s confirmed his Prince Charming status.  Rather than watch football and relax, he juggled kids and served us all.  Rather than putter around and stuff himself with turkey, he made Spaghettios for lunch and grilled cheese for dinner (with whatever I requested thrown in whenever he could get me to eat).  He talked on the phone, despite the fact that he really hates it, and he updated various family members (calling to wish us a simple Happy Thanksgiving) of my status.

Through the fever (that got a little scary), through the puking (which got a little frightening), through the poopy diapers and the clamoring…he was unswerving.

He’s my hero.

While I’m thankful for so many other things, this Thanksgiving, I’m especially thankful for the guy I married six years ago on Sunday.

This photo (and so many others that are favorites of mine) by Heather

• This week’s Catholic Moments features Deborah Schaben and her pilgrimage along the  Camino de Santiago de Compostela. Deacon Tom and I combined the Deacon Moment and Mary Moment and discussed my conversion to the Catholic Faith and how Mary was close to me during my journey into the Church.  And, big news!  We are thrilled to announce our partnership with CatholicMatch.com as they begin sponsoring this podcast.  Please support CatholicMatch.com and be sure to enter our current CatholicMatch.com for your opportunity to win a three month membership to the Leading Catholic Singles Community.
• Over at CatholicMom.com, you’ll find my latest column: “The Hardest Prayer I Have to Say“

The story of grace on a Friday:

My mood matched the gray weather outside.  I found myself yelling at the dog and the kids.  Things weren’t going well, in my head or during my day.

Sometimes, when this happens, I’m fortunate enough to have a friend or family member who I can pop in on, and my extroverted tendencies will pull me out of my funk.  But on that gloomy Friday, my only hope was the grocery store.

I rounded the kids up with a promise of going to McDonald’s and eating inside.  It got them moving, but once the car was moving, I promptly forgot the eating inside part of the deal.  As I pulled into the drive-thru, my four-year-old called from the back, “Hey!  You said we could eat inside!”

It sounded like a good idea in the house, but faced with the parking lot and the image of frowning faces and hyper kids and…well, you get the idea.

But I had promised.  And she was excited.

I sighed a big sigh and found a parking spot.

There was a line inside, and it looked like we were going to get Mean Grouchy Person as our cashier.  A woman with a boy who looked about four offered to let me go first, but I declined.  “No, you were here.  Really.  We’re in no hurry.  Thanks, though.”  My kids were being good, but I could feel that my hold on the storm inside me was slight, bound to slip at any moment.

And that’s when it happened.  It was just a little thing, hardly worth mentioning.

The tall man in the immaculate suit held out his hand and said, “Your turn,” letting me go next with a graciousness that I hope to someday emulate.  Then, after the juggling act of holding the almost-two-year-old while carrying the tray and getting drinks, I found myself in front of him again.  As I put the lid on my iced tea, I said something about being in his way, and he replied, “You’re doing a great job, Mom.”

That’s all.  Just a few words of encouragement from a stranger in a nice suit at our small town McDonald’s.

Later, as I was trying to keep the toddler seated and the four-year-old eating (she had chosen a seat right beside that mom with the young boy, and had a dialogue going), an older woman, who had been eyeing us, came over and smiled at me.  “You have such beautiful children,” she said.

Sitting by that other young mom, who I ended up exchanging phone numbers with (shock!), I couldn’t help but feel the Hand of God.  It wasn’t a bolt of lightening or a sign in the sky, but it was encouragement at a point when I really needed it.

And for that, I’m grateful.