It’s always amazed me how the thing I need to hear often shows up exactly when I need to hear it. As usual, I was late to get around to reading an article (clearly I missed it the first time, it’s from 2023!) but Zina Hitz’s piece “Other Monks” in Plough found its way onto my reading list recently, and it was provoking–in a very good way.

Hitz lived for a time at Madonna House, a Catholic community founded by Catherine Doherty where laity and priests live together in community and simplicity, serving the poor. Her description of her experiences felt perfectly true to my own brief experience with community life (though to be fair, I chose my companions):

I learned to see that life with unchosen strangers laid bare one’s own faults so that one lives with a painful self-consciousness, regularly realized if not constant.

The sort of non-homogeneous community Hitz found at Madonna House is what we hope to move toward with our own Catholic Worker group – but for the most part I think we still fall into the same category with which Hitz labels her own friends of choice: “all bookish, and all middle class.” There is room for improvement in my own life if I want to love as Christ loved, leaving no one out. But that was not the insight that made me pause and blush with recognition, this was:

Among the forms of human speech sacrificed in common life are gossip, trivial comments about the lives of others: complaints, hasty judgments, salacious stories, speculations, cruel entertainments, and gratuitous criticism.

My first thought was, “If I said none of those things, my house would be very quiet…”

But how to break out of these habits of speech? This is not the main question of Hitz’s article, but it was the question the article raised for me. I could start any number of places – the way I correct my children, the stories I share with my husband, my reaction to the news, or traffic, or broken household appliances (I’m looking at you, mircowave)…and yet even as I consider how to stop complaining a little joke-complaint slips in. It looks to be an uphill battle.

***

A little later in the article Hitz continues:

[My friend groups] were, perhaps, intelligent, wise, authentic, morally upright, or edgy. Perhaps we drank fresh-brewed coffee rather than instant, read books rather than watched movies, or had in other respects excellent taste in consumer products. Nonetheless, such garden-variety exclusion is the antithesis of unconditional love.(emphasis added)

She held up a mirror, and what I saw was not pretty. I probably say something along these lines several times a day, I laugh about it, I have (mostly unintentionally) taught my kids to think like this. But I think Hitz is right: when we judge first, there is no opportunity for love to take root.

I don’t have a solution, or even a plan of action to work on this. Yet here, perhaps, is a place to start: with humility. However good I may consider my coffee or book choices to be, I am well aware that there are many things I just don’t know or understand. Could a stance of humility and curiosity – and, for me personally, a willingness to ask questions rather than play the part of quiet know-it-all – be a first step? My kids are very good at this; maybe I need to take some lessons from them.

I know what I don’t want: my hasty judgements, uncharitable speech, and “garden-variety exclusion” to prevent me from forming interesting, loving friendships with people whom my very limited imagination doesn’t recognize as good candidates for part of my community.

***

I just finished reading The Duty of Delight: The Diaries of Dorothy Day (how’s that for some alliteration). Over and over again Day prays that she will learn to control her tongue – to speak less, less hastily, and less critically. At the beginning of 1960 she writes:

This year I must strive for gentleness and listening–less talking, no passing judgements, no impatience. God help me.

And all I can say to that is, “Me too. Amen.”

Often when I consider Lenten reading, I turn towards spiritual classics or stories of the saints. Poetry, however, offers a meditative way to focus our minds and hearts on just what it is that we remember in this holy season. Herman Sutter’s Stations: A Poem Cycle and Nikki Grimes’ At Jerusalem’s Gate: Poems of Easter offer thoughtful re-imaginings of the events of Holy Week.

Stations: A Poem Cycle by Herman Sutter (Wiseblood Books) is a slim volume consisting of one poetic reflection for each of the stations of the cross. Shifting voices and forms keep the reader off-balance in a way that feels appropriate to the topic, and rich language begs for the sort or re-reading that facilitates reflection.

For example, “Station I: Pilate Condemns Jesus to Death” asks in Pilate’s voice, “Where is your throne?” The question is answered in part in “Station II: Jesus Accepts the Cross”: “Receive thy burnished throne; bear it away,/ thou silent king of all you survey.” This sort of linguistic and spiritual depth, with words and ideas sliding under the surface then reappearing a few poems later, pervades the entirety of the work. The different kinds and meanings of “silence” which these poems suggest would itself be a rich source of reflection.

Aimed at younger readers (the publishers recommend ages 10 and up), Nikki Grimes’ collection At Jerusalem’s Gate: Poems of Easter (Eerdmans Books for Young Readers) follows the Easter story from Christ’s entrance into Jerusalem through his encounter with his disciples on the road to Emmaus. She doesn’t shy away from the painful moments of the story, and reminds the reader that Easter only holds its full meaning if we recognize “the price Jesus paid…and that price included suffering on the way to the cross.” Rich with reflections and honest questions, At Jerusalem’s Gate is a book to share with older children as you enter into the mystery of Holy Week and Easter. 

“Evidence of Mercy” considers what was for me a new question: What must Malchus, the slave whose ear Peter cut off during Jesus’ arrest and whose wound Jesus healed, have thought of the crucifixion? Grimes gives Malchus a question that must have been in many other people’s minds. “[He] puzzled why/ one with such power/ would consent to die.” 

As if Grimes’ poetry weren’t powerful enough on their own, richly colored and moving woodcuts by David Frampton promise another way to enter into reflection on the events of Holy Week and Easter. At Jerusalem’s Gate may be intended for young readers, but its poems and images offer rich insights for Christians of any age.

If, as Plato (supposedly) suggests, “Poetry is nearer to vital truth than history,” then Stations and At Jerusalem’s Gate offer abundant opportunities to draw near the truth of our salvation this Lenten season.

At the start of October, I spent a weekend at the Catholic Imagination Conference hosted by the University of Dallas, and (though it has taken me an unconscionably long time to get started) I suspect it may be the topic of posts for the next several months as I unpack the many, many ideas I was exposed to over the two days of sessions. (It was a star-studded, tightly scheduled conference, so there’s a lot to unpack.)

One thing that struck me, as has been the case in other Catholic writing talks, essays, and conferences of my experience, was a bit of a doomsday view of our culture at large. (Though happily with the emergence of new small presses, journals, and National Book Award Winning-authors of a Catholic flavor, the laments of “Why aren’t there any more Flannerys?” seem to have died out a bit.)

By no means would I argue that our culture is flush with artistic expressions of the three transcendentals, but compare this distress to how Carey Wallace, author of The Blind Contessa’s New Machine (which I found rich and compelling), Stories of the Saints (which my kids love), and The Ghost in the Glass House (the first three chapters of which I have enjoyed to date), describes her thoughts on the “culture-making conversation” in her interview with Charlie Peacock:

…doomsday proclamations about the death of culture from both the right and left…seem blind to what I see as constant outbreaks of thoughtful culture from all kinds of unexpected quarters…

She continues:

I believe art doesn’t need to make an argument for itself, and that, outside of a small group of professionals whose livelihood depends on debate about the nature of art, everybody know this. One way or another, we all dance, sing, write, act. And when we’re done putting food on the table and a roof over our head, the first thing we do is reach for a book, turn on the radio, pick out a show. Art in all its forms is intimately connected with every aspect of all lives. We sing when people die. We dance when they get married. Even sports events and video games incorporate music, dance, images, theater. The things I make are only my participation in that constant, unstoppable swirl of creation. (emphasis added)

I, who hate conflict and always want everyone to get along, naturally prefer a middle ground, a nice Catholic “both/and” if you will. Art is not created in a vacuum, and thus an understanding of, engagement with, and (when appropriate) lamentation of the state of our culture at large can act as both a starting point and a stimulus for the creation of art. After all, it is difficult to enter into a conversation when one has not been listening. On the other hand, I believe it is wise not to spend so much time consuming (and, more particularly, lamenting) culture that little time is left for one’s own creative endeavors. Considering the saturation of our lives with media, and particularly digital media, this is a real danger.

If Wallace is correct, art doesn’t need our protection. It does, however, need our attention, as well as our intention to contribute beauty to our own cultures–whether they be as small as our own families or as large as the national literary scene. And I think we can all agree that the best way to create the culture we hope for is simply to create, and to create work that is so compelling in its truth, goodness, and beauty that it is nearly irresistible to viewers and auditors of goodwill, whatever their background or current creed.

Christmas is almost here, and with the last week of Advent comes the frantic rush to finish buying and making Christmas gifts. Despite my best efforts, it seems like there are always one or two people (at least) who still have me stumped right into the week before Christmas.

Usually, it’s not the kids who create the difficulty. Little boys in particular are good at rejoicing over all kinds of toys, and thankfully all my kids love books. And then there is something about the way a child receives a present. Sometimes I am a little disheartened by the expectation that my children exude at Christmas: “I can’t wait for my presents!” and especially, right in the middle of Christmas morning, “Are there more?”

I think (I hope, anyway!) that there is something else going on here besides sheer selfishness. I hope that our children, for the most part, know that their parents, grandparents, and other friends and family love them, and often show that love by giving them good things. So even if I’d rather they seem a little less eager, it makes sense that they would expect many good things from the hands of their loved ones – their experience (again, for the most part!) has taught them that this is how life, and especially Christmas, works.

I just finished reading Marilynne Robinson’s Home for the first time, and when I finished it, I had to re-read its sister novel, Gilead. (Which I highly recommend doing during your Christmas break – read them both, back to back, in the order of your choice. They are rich separately, but magnificent together.) Anyway, as I was reading Gilead right at the beginning of Advent, one line stopped me cold: “But I hope you will put yourself in the way of the gift.” (Page 114, in case anyone is counting.)

Put yourself in the way of the gift. Robinson’s character, Reverend Ames, writes these words to his son, specifically about his faith and his acceptance of their church. He hopes his son will allow God to speak into his life, so that he can receive the gift of faith.

I think about our kids at Christmas time hanging around the decorated tree and the presents waiting under it. When an adult walks by, their eyes are uplifted and eager. Their hands are open, ready to receive whatever is offered. They are ready: they have put themselves “in the way of the gift.”

This is the posture we need to assume in the spiritual life as well, as Reverend Ames recognizes. We can’t accept whatever God has to give us with our hands in fists and our faces turned away; rather we must open our eyes, hands, and hearts to the Holy Infant like children around a Christmas tree, ready and eager for the gifts we know He desires to give us.

I had intentions of writing a grand four week Advent series…but Thanksgiving got the better of me last week, and this has been the week of the Stomach Bug. By the time the clothes, sheets, comforters, floors, and dog were all washed, there wasn’t much time left for writing. So that carefully planned, well-researched series will have to wait. Maybe until Lent.

My writing wasn’t the only one of our plans up-ended by this very annoying little virus. Our oldest turned fifteen this week, but festivities were muted, to say the least. Dance classes, violin lessons, school (home- and otherwise) all had to take a back seat to laundry and naps. I couldn’t even manage the little Jesse Tree ornaments and readings I had planned for this Advent. We’ll be playing catch-up with those for a while.

We all had many opportunities this week to practice patience. Practice being the key word – we failed again and again, and just had to keep trying. And the girls spent a good bit of time delirious (from exhaustion and empty stomachs) which they seemed to enjoy and will probably remember fondly for years to come.

It was not exactly how I had hoped to start our Advent. I didn’t have big, outrageous plans to begin with…but I had hoped to be a little bit focused and intentional. The challenges of Week One have forced us to streamline – Advent wreath at supper, special night prayer. A pile of Advent and Christmas books available. Advent Calendar up and running. And that’s it.

Obviously there is still plenty of time to add decorations and get the Jesse Tree back on track. Still, our week doesn’t look terribly “successful” compared to many of the beautiful, complicated Advent decorations and homeschool schemes I like to read about online. But I know one thing: I probably prayed more and harder during the first week of Advent 2021 than any other I can remember. So despite the demise of my well-laid plans, I’ll call that one part a success, and be thankful for the chance to try again next week.

First of all, if you live in Lafayette Parish, please go vote “yes” for the library millage. If you’re wondering why, my own reasons are in this post and this post. Don’t worry – we’ll wait.

Now that you’ve done you civic duty, I have a couple of thoughts for you on the topic of community. First from Jayber Crow, by Wendell Berry:

“I have got to the age now where I can see how short a time we have to be here. And when I think about it, it can seem strange beyond telling that this particular bunch of us should be here on this little patch of ground in this little patch of time, and I can think of the other times and places I might have lived, the other kinds of man I might have been. But there is something else. There are moments when the heart is generous, and then it knows that for better or worse our lives are woven together here, one with one another and with the place and all the living things.”

I love that Berry uses “for better or worse,” borrowing language from a wedding ceremony. In Berry’s mind, our relationships to the people and place that make up our community resemble the commitments involved in marriage. When our hearts are “generous,” we recognize that there is, or at least ought to be, a mutual care between us and everyone and everything God has chosen to put in our lives each day. (I will refrain from pointing out how this could relate to public libraries.)

I also really enjoyed Susan Bigelow Reynolds’ article from Commonweal this week, “Going Gray,” also about aging and community – this time the communion of saints.

The nature and nurture of community is always buzzing in the background in my mind, but it’s come to the forefront lately. Several of my friends have been encouraging me to read Dedicated. The whole Commonweal magazine this month is focused on “Varieties of Religious Community.” And, to top it all off, my Bible reading has made its way to 1 Corinthians 12 – “many parts, one body” and the like.

I have no deep thoughts to add to any of this at the moment, but these kind of conjunctions always make me sit up and pay attention a little more. So much of the richness of faith, for me, comes from the people of the church, which makes sense, since the church is the Body of Christ. I’m grateful for all the ways I’ve been reminded of this this week.

Last week, I spent some time exploring the situation our local libraries are in and how we got here. This week, I’d like to continue the discussion by looking at some of the benefits a strong library system brings to our community — in other words, what we risk losing if the millage ultimately fails and the library loses the 38% of its budget those tax dollars represent.

I’ll put a nice long list of amenities the Lafayette Public Library provides towards the end of the post, but I’d like to start with something more personal. 

We’ve been homeschooling for roughly eight years now, and I can say with conviction that our homeschool could not function as it does — almost could not exist — without the public library. 

Last week when I took stock, we had over $1,000 worth of library materials (books and audiobooks) in our home. A good portion of those are “for fun” reading (which some of us call “building fluency”) but a good portion are also dedicated to learning new information. I recently returned a stack of books on Egypt. This year our assigned (library sourced) reading has also included a children’s version of Gilgamesh, Old Yeller, The Cricket in Times Square, books on ancient Mesopotamia and how energy works…the list goes on, and it’s barely November.

The point is, my husband is a school teacher, with a school teacher’s salary. I don’t really get paid to write. There is no way we could give our children the education they currently enjoy without our libraries, and we are grateful. We could be paying hundreds of dollars for the use of these “curriculum materials,” and it would still be a great deal. For the upcoming millage, we pay roughly $11. I couldn’t purchase any one of the books about Egypt for that price.

(There is a greater good here, as well — libraries are key to a strong democracy. Because they give everyone, regardless of their ability to pay, access to information, they lay the groundwork for an educated and involved public. This isn’t my idea — it was Ben Franklin’s. But to get back to our story…)

When we first moved to Acadiana, we lived in the wild Cajun prairie between Grand Coteau and Arnaudville. We soon learned that, despite our St. Landry Parish address, we could get a Lafayette Public Library card. The Sunset Community Library (St. Landry) was closer, but North Regional Library in Carencro was on the way to most of the places we went…and it had story time. Mrs. Anna, the children’s librarian, was pretty much my kids’ first friend in Acadiana. Every week I got four small children out of the trailer and into the magic of books, songs, sidewalk chalk, bubbles, and exploring the library. We didn’t have internet at home, so it was also my only computer time, and my only access to a printer. It’s hard to express what the library meant to us that year, but one word might sum it up: connection.

Again, once the library re-opened for drive-thru services after quarantine, it was one of the few options for entertainment at that time. I’d order books online (we did have internet by then, thankfully) and pick them up at the window, along with take-home crafts for the kids. We also, appropriately, borrowed the board game “Pandemic.” The librarians provided online story times and events to help parents cope and our community stay connected.

Which brings me to the promised long list of library services we risk losing if we don’t care for our libraries. There are the obvious things that can be checked out: books, music, movies, video games, board games, air quality monitors, musical instruments. Plus all the digital resources — magazines, books, newspapers, genealogy information, and research databases. And if our library doesn’t have a book, they will go out of their way to get it. Need an obscure book on life in Roman-occupied Israel? That’s what interlibrary loan is for.

There are the spaces open to all: meeting and study rooms available for reservation, a quiet place in a world that is noisy, a warm place in winter and a cool place in summer, a place where one is allowed to loiter in a world where people are often only welcome if they plan to spend money. Our churches are usually locked these days, but the library still provides a seat and a little rest for those with no where else to go.

There are the services: tax and legal and resume assistance programs, nutrition and exercise programs (some day I will make it to the Zumba class), literacy programs for children and adults, craft time and story time and speakers on all sorts of topics. My oldest two girls and I heard Ernest Gaines speak at our library a couple of years ago. When Lucy read A Lesson Before Dying in English this fall, she already had a connection to the author. That is priceless.

There is the equipment: access to computers, internet, and printers. In the Maker Spaces patrons can use sewing machines, sergers, 3-D printers, dye-cut machines, typewriters, and more.

And there is the community a library creates. Moms meet at story time and then schedule their own play dates. People meet at craft events and become friends; people meet at book clubs and learn from each other. 

If all this isn’t enough, libraries also mean good jobs and higher property values. Even if you never set foot in the library, you still benefit.

Some people in our community argue that these resources aren’t worth our tax dollars. I disagree. I think we should be hesitant to undervalue community, literacy, and an educated populace. As Catholics, we believe we have an obligation to develop the whole person towards holiness; our public libraries (rightly used, of course, but that is another very long post!) make the space and the resources available for people to do just that. If our goal is human flourishing, libraries are a step in the right direction.

All that said, the discussion circles around and ends where it began for me. For our family, the library, more than anything else, means books. Books mean stories. Stories are where we meet people like us, people unlike us, and ourselves. I believe in stories because I believe in the Word, and I believe one place in which we can encounter Him is in stories. So join me at the polls this coming Saturday, November 13, please, and support our community’s access to these stories.

It’s long past time I wrote about Kim.

First, the background. Craig and I were married the weekend between exams and graduation. That summer, we moved a solid 1,000 miles away from our families. We knew no one; our closest contact was my graduate program director, with whom I had had a couple of phone conversations.

We met Kim through our church. She was a recent convert to Catholicism, and a single mother of five children, ranging in age from early twenties (roughly our own age) down to four.

Kim invited us to her house for dinner. Almost immediately, this became a standing date. Every Tuesday was Kim’s house, and Kim’s house meant board games with the nine year old, non-grad-student conversation, cloth napkins, and always a steaming pot of tea.

We often say that our family’s emphasis on hospitality stems from reading so much Dorothy Day, and her writings (and Peter Maurin’s, of course) do provide much of the philosophy behind our way of life. But the person in whom this ideal of hospitality took on flesh in our lives was Kim.

Every week for nearly a year she fed us, but her influence went much deeper than that. There were the little things: Would I have ever thought to use cloth napkins for everyday if I hadn’t known Kim? Is it any wonder that, when we decided we needed a teapot, the one I picked out is a close cousin to the round, earthy brown one from which she poured every time we visited? There were also some big things — like how to offer what you have and how to listen with all you are.

The joy and welcome we found at Kim’s house went a long way towards grounding us in the radically new situation we found ourselves in that year. That hospitality is something we’ve tried to replicate our whole marriage. She planted a seed, showed us a way of life open to seeing and caring for whoever crossed our paths. I’m sure we thanked her before we left, but we couldn’t have known then just how much we would have to thank her for. Fifteen years later, her little seed is still bearing fruit.

I came across this passage in one of Dorothy Day’s monthly columns for the Catholic Worker paper the other day, written when she was staying with her daughter before the birth of her third grandchild:

“It has been a month of ‘ice, rains, snow and stormy winds,’ and every morning after the routine of fires, breakfasts and dressing has taken place, Becky, Susie and I rock in the wicker chair and sing, ‘All ye works of the Lord, bless ye the Lord; oh ye ice and snow, oh ye cold and wind, oh ye winter and summer, oh ye trees in the woods, oh ye fire in the stove, oh ye Becky and Susie, bless ye the Lord, praise Him and magnify Him forever.’ It is a song with infinite variations. You can include Mr. Clark’s cows, Leslie’s horses, the Hennessy goats, and all the human beings for miles around…What are we here for anyway except to praise Him, to adore Him and to thank Him? … and there is plenty to remind us of that in the country.”

-Dorothy Day, On Pilgrimage (in the CW paper – not the book) March 1948

We have our own verses to add lately. (Because of course you don’t have to be in the country to come up with more.)

Swallowtails and zinnias, bless the Lord.

Sprouts and seedlings, bless the Lord.

And as Hurricane Ida gets here, it will be winds and rains, bless the Lord. Fortissimo.

It’s a good reminder: we aren’t on Earth just to work and to suffer, we are here to praise God. Last week our praise (besides morning prayer) included our school work and dance and play-doh and some spent-grain bread; next week I expect it will include fallen-limb removal.

The pre-hurricane preparations are finished, except for the boards for the picture window, which we’ll do tonight. And then comes the waiting. And we get to be reminded just how small and not in control we are.

We studied the Holocaust in our homeschool a little while back. It was hard in so many ways, (how do you explain so much evil to children?) but it was past time I came back to it myself, and definitely time my older girls started to learn about it.

One of the things I had missed (or forgotten) about the concentration camps was the sign that hung at the gate of Auschwitz: “Work makes one free.” Which, obviously, was a blatant lie in that context, but it struck me like a slap in the face, because a part of me believes that, at least under normal circumstances, it is a true statement.

I would never have listed it as a tenent of my philosophy. “Work is good,” maybe. Or “Work is healthy.” Or “Work is necessary.” But seeing “Work is freedom” in that context made me realize that even if I wouldn’t say it, I often act as if it were true.

If I can just get the house clean, then I can relax. If I fold all the laundry first, then I can play with the kids. Or I tell the kids, After you finish your chores you can play.

Clearly there is nothing wrong with being conscientious about work and chores. But what I realized was that when that work comes first, and when I let it rule my life and come ahead of my family, ahead of prayer, then it’s no longer the life-giving “tending the garden” which God asks of us, and instead makes an idol of productivity.

(I should say this seems to be extra tricky for those of whose work IS our families – when is folding laundry doing the good work of the Kingdom, and when are we making it an idol that separates us from God and the very families we’re trying to serve? I would be open to any advice on achieving a balance here!)

The point is not that work is bad (another heresy common in our culture), but that it is not the source of our freedom.

Jesus Christ is the source of our freedom.

If we are too old or too young or too broken to work, we still have our value and freedom in Christ. When we start there, with our dignity as sons and daughters of God, then our work is no longer a title which defines us, nor a representation of our worth, but a gift we are able to share with our families and our communities.

I’m not advocating for a messy house either, necessarily. I know I am more at peace when the floor isn’t hidden under a pile of Legos and stuffed animals. But I believe there is something my kids need more than a spotless house: a mom who remembers where her freedom, and theirs, comes from. That is, they need a mom who is free to toss a ball or read a book, even if it means the laundry has to wait till tomorrow.

It’s time I add becoming that mom to my (long) list of works-in-progress.