Keep the Lights On

Most nights the porch light is on till two or three a.m. while one of my sons goes about photographing interesting sights and lights and shadows.  So, naturally, I do a dose of worry/prayer to keep him safe. Most nights I read for several hours by the light of my I-Pad. I read and think. Think about all sorts of people and situations since my childhood, little bits of this and that, faces, personalities and events. Mini-reviews of my life.

And I pray for them as their faces pop up in the video that runs in my head each night.

I watch the news in the morning; I watch the news at night. There is so much good in the world, yes, there really is. Good people, beautiful days, events filled with love and gratitude, laughter, joy and compassion

Gratitude might be the key here. ‘Gratitude, the Heart of Prayer’, a title of a book and good advice. (That and the ‘Spirituality of Imperfection’ are among my favorite titles in my bookshelf).

Of course, I know there is much that is not good. The doctrine of Original Sin covers some of that: we are good with a propensity for sin. I used to teach Baptism prep classes and at the time the trend was to emphasize community and welcoming and to shy away from the bummer that is the doctrine of Original Sin. One woman, a grandmother I believe, got up and left the class when she asked about when we were getting to that. I explained that we emphasize the welcoming aspect of Baptism. The one-with-community aspect, joining in our imperfect communion of saints.  We were leaving the whole Original Sin thing like an embarrassment in the corner.

I often think of that woman being annoyed with my noveau approach to teaching baptism.  I imagine she was raised in the St Augustine school of thought, as I was, that emphasized our need for grace to strengthen us against the real and present danger of sin and here I was telling the folks to baptize their babies because it is good to join in the community.

It is good to join in the community. It is good to not be alone against the evils offered by the world to ruin our souls. It is good to be washed clean of Original Sin, a doctrine that fell out of favor in the do what you will and its all groovy craze that took hold in the last half of the twentieth century.

But there’s that grandma leaving my come on in the water’s great class to search for someone who could deal with sin.

Good for her.

Because there is darkness and evil and yes, sin. You’d have to be very young or very naïve to think otherwise.  And I'm pretty sure that with every act of sin, the world gets a little dimmer, a little darker: veils layered between the sun and us.

But, wait. That is not what we hope, that is not what we place our faith in.

So, while most of us are feeling virtuous or massaging our own neuroses, there are people in the world who are keeping the lights on for the rest of us.

Pray-ers. That’s their job description. Monks and nuns in monasteries. Parents teaching their children the Our Father; parents staying up nights reciting the rosary or whatever prayers they learned in their youth to get their children home safely. Aunt Jule with her list of people she prayed for each night dating back to the 1890’s. People of all descriptions poking holes in the veil. And, boy do we have our work cut out.

This is how I picture it: with all the prayers against the darkness offered up by pray-ers, those layers separating us from the light are peeled back, worn away. But the darkness is unrelenting, you might say. Yes it is.  But it is our jobs, amateurs and professionals, to keep the lights on.

PS:  I've been away so long from this site because I was finishing up work on my novel, The Narrow Gate. Now, my quest is to find an agent and a publisher, so if you have a minute, could you pray that I find one?  Thanks.

Please visit  http://nojobforsissies.blogspot.com/2012/07/wordcraft-to-bear-witness.html  Melissa Embry's blog. I am a guest blogger on her post as of last week.

Women and Conscience

I’ve been trying to write something else. Something to play around with to start my next book. Something different than this. But.

I’ve spent years involved, one way and another, with the pro-life movement. I was a freshman in high school when the cases were coming to the courts, the court my father was involved with, the New York State Supreme Court. I had not heard of abortion before my freshman year in high school. I was horrified when I learned that some women, some mothers, would choose to end the life of the child growing in their bodies.

I am the fourth of six children. The image of the Madonna and Child was a family portrait. The holiness of life, the holiness of each individual life, and soul, underlined and contained the essence of the gospel reinforced by the images of saints and the stained glass windows that were an essential part of my living space. The consecration of the Eucharist and the culture of sacrifice that before I was born, for generations beyond counting before I was born, was imbedded in my DNA.

From the moment I heard that word abortion, I identified with the child. Not the mother. Not the father. The child. An Innocent. Each child breathed into being by the whisper of God. It wasn’t biology, it was divinity. It was elegant. Romantic. Simple.

At that young age I knew the mechanics of conception. Man and woman; egg and sperm. And I knew that it was wrong to engage in activity that might lead to a child if you weren’t married. That had certainly been scared into me in my Irish Catholic home and community.

I also breathed in the lessons that if anything ‘happened’ to a girl, it was her fault. Her fault for being attractive, for leading boys and men on by being herself.  I learned that women were ‘the occasion of sin’ just for being female. I heard my mother say that a woman should not accuse a man of rape because it would ruin the man’s life. The man’s life. I heard my father comment on girls ‘walking by in their summer clothes’ as Mick Jagger sang, who knew what they were doing by dressing in shorts and sleeveless blouses. They knew they were driving the boys crazy and they enjoyed doing it. And the boys couldn’t help themselves for the thoughts and feelings, and thus, actions, which such vixens would inspire.

Years ago I was asked to ghost write a newspaper article for a dear friend of mine who had an abortion when she was nineteen. By then she had four children and I was pregnant with my fourth child.

I struggled, gut wrenchingly struggled, with this task. How was I to write from the perspective of someone who got up on a table in a clinic, opened her body to a stranger for the purpose of removing this ‘product of conception’?

Then, slowly, painfully, I realized just how scared she was. She was engaged but not married. Her parents would turn on her, turn away from her. She broke the rules. She disgraced the family. At the moment she got on the table fear of her parent’s disgrace and anger was bigger than any bunch of cells threatening to turn into a baby. And years later, she mourned for that child. Mourned for that child and for herself for being shamed into doing something that betrayed who she was.

And now. With men in black suits and vestments, men who will never become pregnant, or in the case of Catholic priests, never become fathers, speaking out on Capitol Hill and in state senates and radio broadcasts, speaking of ‘conscience’ when it comes to contraceptives and their availability to women. Men who have no understanding, no empathy, no compassion, for women and all the responsibilities and burdens and depths of understanding of life and its mysteries, yes, mysteries, where women dwell, still, they are making policy and belittling women, echoing, if not quoting the old teaching that women are 'the occasion of sin' and they have asked for whatever happens to them.

I’m looking for an ending phrase, sentence, or paragraph to tie this post up, but I don't have one. There is nothing neat and simple about this.  So I will have to continue next time.

Another Scene

I haven't posted here in such a long time. I have been working on revisions for the book I mistakenly thought was completed. My timeline was out of order, so I have corrected that. I have filled out many scenes, and added many more. For whatever reason that urges such things, I thought I'd share one such scene with you. I love to hear from you, so please leave comments or questions. Rose takes the arm that Dennis offers as they exit the church. It snowed overnight and this morning Rose feels she is standing inside a pewter cup; the image of Don Quixote with the barber’s bowl on his head makes her smile in a quizzical way. The thoughts we have, at the oddest times, she thinks.

She takes her seat in the limousine next to Kieran and Marie. Dennis drives their car. The heavy clouds have snuck into her brain somehow, causing her to feel muffled. Every thought she has is dull and impotent, a soft mess of tragedy and comedy.

The hearse drives slowly through the stately iron gates that separate this bit of earth from the homes across the street on one side and the cars zipping by on Metropolitan Avenue on the other. Angels and saints and large stone crosses rise up alongside ancient trees that stand sentinel over the occupants covered in dirt and memory. This is a place of reverence; there is no rushing here, no need to rush ever again.

There is no direct route to the patch of ground this dark procession is heading toward. This is some kind of metaphor, Rose thinks, designed to symbolize the winding roads of life that bring us ultimately, here. The earth is blessed, words echoing baptism are proclaimed by the deacon whose job it is to minister to the dead, to sprinkle holy water and make the sign of the cross that bought our eternal life, so she has been taught since infancy.

The ground is still soft at the Banfry family plot, still rounded from when their father was buried just weeks ago. The big square hole next to Phil Banfry’s mound is deep.  The casket is suspended on straps so it can be lowered gracefully into the damp dark earth, to rest above the bones of their sister. Rose wonders what is left of Cilla, thirty years here. Surely the flesh is gone. In movies they open caskets to expose naked bone, hollows where eyes and nose once lived. Lips and face evaporated, teeth large and bold in a mockery of the once living person .

Ashes to ashes.

Her dress is probably still there, Rose thinks, covered in the dust that was once Cilla, that white dress she wore so proudly on her First Communion, holding a small bouquet, twirling the skirt out, tapping her white patent leather shoes on the tiles in church. The white is probably gray, maybe yellow.Empty dress. You’ve done your job. What was she spared, Rose thinks, for the first time, what was she spared being taken so young?

She turns back to her brother. In that box, such a lovely box, with brass handles, polished to a high degree.He slept on the floor in a room he never cleaned, now his broken body lies on satin, wearing his father’s suit. Our father. His dead face was not fit for viewing, smashed and torn on the rough asphalt. She had to identify him hours after he died. Yes, that’s my brother, that’s Jimmy. Though she only nodded and turned into her husband’s chest.

We had that one night, that last dinner of pot roast and beer. Do this in remembrance of me. He stood in the backyard, arms open to the rain, to the lightening. A second baptism; his last rites.Rose asked for the chaplain who served the morgue, asked for the anointing of the dead, though Jimmy may have scoffed at that, she asked for him because she needed to see her brother prayed over, signed with blessed oil.The ancient rites that join us generation to generation.Words of consolation and hope.Words of promise that this life was not in vain.This life mattered.

 And, sudden as a gust of wind, a terrible possibility indicts her.

Did I do this? I wanted to save my brother, didn’t I? I wanted to have him in my life, I wanted him to be whole. I wanted him to be someone other than who he was. Someone clean and happy and successful.

But more, I wanted him to know my wounds! See, you were not the only one hurt by them. I wanted to let him know that all the years I was alone had taken their toll on me. I wanted him to take some responsibility for this. He was my big brother!! Why didn’t he protect me? Protect me from that soul disfigured priest. Protect me from our mother who lashed out because I was the only one there. Protect me from the pain of the absence of our father.

Did I do this? Did I kill my brother? The questions echo in Rose’s head. Did I ask too much of him?

This wildness in her!  Standing here while the deacon reads from the gospels and they make the sign of the cross, even now, she makes the sign of the cross in unison with everyone while beneath these gestures, the real Rose is accused, tried and condemned because of her selfishness.

Pay attention! Here these men, strangers, in their dull black suits and black ties. Their uniform. Professional pall bearers. Professional mourners. We have to hire people  to show us how to do this, this act that is just as much a part of life as birth. They go home to their lives and tomorrow there will be another family to escort to the grave.

They are so careful with his remains.Would they have noticed him just last week? Would they have crossed the street if they saw him coming toward them? Disheveled, dirty. His anger contagious. His illness a disease to guard against. I would have crossed the street. Hell, I wouldn’t have even been in the same street with him to begin with.

What did he need from me? Need from me? I only thought of what I needed, wanted. I wanted him to go back in time and save me from that priest, save me from my aloneness. I wanted him to be the son my parents wanted so there would be peace in the family.Was that too much to ask? Why did you have to make trouble, Jimmy? Why did you have to move in with Kathy? Why couldn’t you just be good, like they wanted?

This is just a nightmare, right? A nightmare and now I’ve learned the lesson. Now I can awaken from this terrible dream and know not to have expectations of Jimmy that he cannot handle.

What’s the use of learning if the price paid for my mistake is his death?!

There is no coming back from death, no chance, no second chance, no third. I’ve learned my lesson, God. I’ve learned. Oh please, let me wake up!! Let me wake up and see my brother, alive, whole, happy. Let Me!!

Who am I yelling at? A God who will not hear. A silent God, a God whose only answer is that Jimmy will remain dead and I will have to live knowing that I killed him. Knowing that I killed Cilla because I was tired of her being sick all the time?

It’s time to go. Dennis steers her with her elbow back to the car.

Friend of Santa

What's the deal with dissing Santa? It's bad enough we can't have Nativity scenes, but now there's a major retailer putting Santa down.

I object.

I know, it's supposed to be humorous. But the defender in me always rises up when I see those ads about how the retailer can best Santa in the game of gift giving.

Just so you know: I'm a dyed in the wool, steeped in the DNA Catholic.

I love the sacramental infusion of the smells, the bells, the holiness of the ordinary, the ritual, the language,  the music, the art, the mysticism of Catholicism. And the gracious, non-deserved, no naughty and nice list of the Gift of Christmas.

And maybe, just maybe, that's why I love Santa Claus.

Long, long time ago, when I was a young mother of a two year old, I was standing in the back of the church, holding the Lectionary waiting to process up the aisle. Next to me was a woman, probably in her fifties, a kind of "church lady" with her sensible gray hair and plain grey skirt. It was Christmas morning and I was the lector at the 10:15 Mass, and she was a Eucharistic Minister.  I mentioned the fun of Christmas with my toddler daughter, the anticipation of Santa and the gifts.  She very plainly said, "oh we never bothered with all that with our kids. We emphasized the spiritual rather than the Santa aspect of Christmas."

She was of so sincere. And humorless. What a drag.

For just a moment I felt chastened. I had been corrected by my elder on the true nature of Christmas and what's important to teach children. But that didn't last long.

What's more Christian, more holy even, than a saint spreading the blessings of God on a world deeply in need of reminders of love?

We are physical, that is, incarnate, beings  not spirits just renting out space in a body--we need the sights sounds touch excitement, magic, yes magic, of Christmas and the  concrete expressions of love and undeserved gifts.

So when folks complain about the secularization of Christmas, I wish they'd leave Santa out of it. He's a holy man. A wise man. A magi.

And, man oh man, he's one of the best teachers of the holy that we've got.

Merry, Merry everyone.

Digging for Apples

Sure then I'm here! Digging for apples, yer honour!' `Digging for apples, indeed!' said the Rabbit angrily. `Here! Come and help me out of this!'  (Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland)

I'm looking for a scene.  I started my first novel with a writing prompt at a seminar-- I don't remember the prompt but what popped to my brain was a woman holding tight to a miraculous medal and praying for a miracle.

That little scene of desperation, of pleading, of praying for a miracle, was the beginning of something. Since there is no story without a problem, something to conquer or work through, something to change, that is, I needed to discover what was upsetting her.

That woman clutching her miraculous medal stayed with me, moved in with me, so to speak.

Soon I had her walking against the wind in lower Manhattan, waiting for a train on a lonely subway platform and arguing with God.  Bit by bit her struggles revealed themselves to me.  Soon I had a name, more scenes,  more characters and a few subplots. Soon is not really the right word, it took a long time for things to shape up and a story to develop. But it started with a scene that promised a conflict.

That's what I'm looking for now.

You might tell me that the world is full of conflict, problems, characters with something to solve. And you would be right. Various characters offer themselves up, but so far nothing has stuck to start my next novel.

So I'm digging for apples.

I thought NaNoWriMo (November is National Novel Writing Month) would be a good place to get my engine going.  I needed to produce  more that 1600 words a day to finish the 50,000 by the end of November.  Last year the challenge was a great help to me in moving my novel forward.  This year I hoped  the discipline of churning out that many letters on a page each day would help me find my next character or scene.

I started the month out with  more words than the daily goal, a tiny bit of insurance against the slacker days. But, I petered out. Not a surprise. I am a slow writer. I dip and dabble. Try out this and that. Ramble on  typing all sorts of stuff that makes little sense. That, after many years of trying to discover my rhythm as a writer, is how I work.

In one of my many 'how to write' books, a bestselling author said she never began a novel without having first figured it all out in her head and written an extensive outline. If I waited for that I'd never get anything done, and that includes writing out a grocery list.

I'm the kind of writer who discovers the story as it is being revealed to me. I don't know how it's going to end or who is going to show up. I don't know what my characters are going to say until I see the words pop out on the screen  from the tips of my fingers.

As I was making my attempt at the daily word count for NaNo, I discovered something. Sometimes writing gets in the way of writing. I was digging for apples, but I was digging in an empty field. (Really, I do know that apples don't grow in the ground, but that Lewis Carroll was never restricted by mere facts).

Boy, oh boy, I'd really like a nice juicy apple to bite into. Hey, isn't that what got Adam and Eve into all that trouble?