I heard a homily recently centered around the idea of the “next right thing,” or “one small change.” When I got home and turned to the reflection book I’ve been praying with at night, I found this:

“The solution proposed in the Gospels is that of voluntary poverty and the works of mercy. It is the little way. It is within the power of all. Everybody can begin here and now…. We have the greatest weapons in the world, greater than any hydrogen or atom bomb, and they are the weapons of poverty and prayer, fasting and alms, the reckless spending of ourselves in God’s service and for his poor. Without poverty we will not have learned love, and love, at the end, is the measure by which we shall be judged.”

Dorothy Day, quoted in The Reckless Way of Love

Ouch. As usual, Dorothy Day shows me just how much growing I still have to do. Poverty? Our fridge is always full, and we just bought a new couch. I consistently fail at fasting. We’re so-so at alms. Prayer? I can say that I make an effort, but not that it’s always a whole-hearted one.

And after a few days re-reading Dorothy Day’s diaries (in the name of research) all these points have been driven home even further: she complains of so many people who wish “to do big things but not little ones.” ^[1]Jan. 25, 1946

Which brings me back to the “one small change” idea. Dorothy’s diaries show her repeatedly planning small sacrifices she could make: fasting from meat,^[2]June 18, 1950 practicing “joyful silence,”^[3]Feb 1944 not complaining about the radio.^[4]Feb. 24, 1953

I started small, too. First, I signed up to bring a meal to a friend who had a baby. And as for fasting, maybe I can start skipping my post-putting-Jacob-to-nap snack. Small things.

My week’s reading/research has also reminded me of the impact of doing the small things. As they were moving out of the Mott Street Catholic Worker house, Dorothy added up how many meals they had served to the hungry and homeless during the 14 years they had lived there. She came up with 2,555,000. Conservatively. ^[5]Nov. 27, 1950

Every day they cooked what they had, opened the doors, and fed people. Many days they felt like failures – the need was just too great. Yet over time their work added up to more than they could have hoped for.

What does the sacrifice of my one snack, day after day, week after week, add up to? Fortunately, that’s not the part I have to worry about. The math is up to God. He feeds the 5,000 with a few loaves and fishes. He makes our poverty and prayer, fasting and alms, however small, more efficacious than any work we might do on our own.

Dorothy again:

“Do what comes to hand. Whatsoever thy hand finds to do, do it with all thy might. After all, God is with us. It shows too much conceit to trust to ourselves, to be discouraged at what we ourselves can accomplish. It is lacking in faith in God to be discouraged. After all, we are going to proceed with his help. We offer him what we are going to do. If he wishes it to prosper, it will.”

Dorothy Day, House of Hospitality

“If he wishes it to prosper, it will.” One afternoon-snack-sized sacrifice at a time.

We did a silly thing. We went to a violin rehearsal, despite the flash flood warnings, with the thought that if the weather was really that bad, surely it would have been canceled.

Trying to get home, and circling helplessly with all the other soggy cars on the south-west side of Lafayette, I was at a bit of a loss. Kaliste Saloom Road was flooded. Ambassador Caffery was flooded. Broadmoor was flooded. I didn’t dare try Verot School Road. For all the hurricanes and flash floods we’ve lived through down here, I’ve never actually been in a situation where I couldn’t get home because of the water on the road, and it was nearing 8pm, so I wasn’t sure what we should do.

Fortunately, a good friend of ours lives very close to where we were stuck. The kind of friend one can call at eight o’clock at night and ask to drop in. I called her, and we spent an hour and a half on her couch, waiting for the water to go down and drinking lavender chamomile tea.

When it seemed reasonable to try again, we set out, with the assurance that we could come back and sleep on the couches if we still couldn’t get through.

Needless to say, I prayed all the way home.

And we made it – the road already looked like we had just had any normal rain shower, not a near crisis.

So it was late when I went to bed, but I had been slack about my prayer time during the last few days, so I picked up the little devotional I’ve been using (The Reckless Way of Love: Notes on Following Jesus, which is a collection of excerpts from Dorothy Day’s writings) and this was the reading up next:

Pouring rain today. I stayed in, resting – feeling exhausted. Sorrow, grief, exhaust one. Then tonight the prayers, the rosaries I’ve been saying were answered. And the feeling that prayers are indeed answered when we cry out for help was a comfort in itself. I had the assurance that they were answered, though it might not be now.

Dorothy Day, from The Duty of Delight, quoted in The Reckless Way of Love

Well. First of all, “stayed in, resting” sounded like what we should have done.

But we didn’t, and during the course of the evening I’d been getting these little nudges – “only do the necessary shopping so you can be back sooner.” Lucy finished early, and would have waited a half hour in the rain for me if I had done my usual Monday night rounds. “Turn around…” repeatedly. “Just call Danielle, already!”

When I read the next half of the devotional entry, I had no doubt that my guardian angel had been working overtime:

I would not perhaps see the results. “Praised be God, the God of consolation. He comforts us in all our afflictions and enables us to comfort those who are in trouble, with the same consolation we have had from him” (2 Cor. 1:3-4). Suffering draws us to prayer and we are comforted. Or at least strengthened to continue in faith, and hope, and love.

Dorothy Day, from The Duty of Delight, quoted in The Reckless Way of Love

Our friends were the consolation we needed – literally safe harbor in a storm. What could have been an evening sitting in our car in the Books-A-Million parking lot waiting for the rain to stop ended up instead being an evening of comfort and conversation. My panic was soothed: we had a place to sleep if needed. My friends’ superior knowledge of the roads in the area strengthened me to continue.

God knows that, despite his long history of faithfulness to me, sometimes I need a reminder that he will provide for me. This week, it came in the form of good friends and chamomile tea.

It’s that time of year again: May Madness. Finals, graduations, recitals, Mother’s Day, and we have a birthday (7th) and wedding anniversary (16th) in our family to round it all out.

Needless to say, I’m hiding in my bedroom with books of poetry more than usual.

Still, it’s amazing to watch our kids blossom. They’re stepping out of their comfort zones, getting in front of crowds (or cameras) and sharing the gifts God has given them. I’m constantly in awe of the beauty they’re already bringing into the world.

And as much as I cringe at the thought of making small talk (or worse, housecleaning) of course it’s always good to celebrate family and new beginnings. I usually even enjoy it. Especially if there’s cake, which there will be.

But I also look forward to June, and the calm after the storm. Time for lounging and reading, playing board games, going for family walks in the evenings. Basking in the flowers and good things to eat coming from the garden.

It all comes back to the garden again, that little bit of refuge where things are slow and simple. Even in the face of army worms, slugs, and flea beetles, it’s a comfort to see these tiny seeds grow and produce twenty-, or fifty-, or a hundred-fold. Such bounty!

A talk I was listening to this week mentioned the quote, “One plants, another waters, but God gives the increase.” I feel that all the time right now as I watch our kids grow. There is no way I can take credit for their talents, or their kind hearts, or their humor. God is causing the increase in them daily, and it is my privilege and blessing to witness his goodness.

I just loved this thread from Summer Kinard recently, about how what our world needs right now are “sea-level” saints. She says it much better than I ever could, but the idea is that as great as “up on the mountain” saints are, they’re not the ones physically in the trenches with our broken world.

We are.

So while the mountain saint is praying for all she’s worth, and enriching the world in that way, those of us down here on the flat land are close enough to reach out and touch people who are hurting. We are close enough be the physical presence of God to those who come into our paths, and maybe especially those who are so tired spiritually that all they can see right now is the physical.

I really appreciated Summer’s note that sea-level saints have to “find peace without silence.” Because in our house, for example, there is rarely silence, but that doesn’t mean we can’t have peace. (Do I crave the silence? Yes, I do. All the more reason I depend on God for my peace.)

Also, the lack of silence doesn’t mean we can’t be saints.

“Coming down from the mountain” is one of those images our team used often back in the days when we led retreats. The assumption was that we were sort of just down here mucking along until we could go back up, trying to hold on to the high of spending a weekend focused completely on our spirituality. The question was always, “How can we keep the mountain-ness with us after the retreat?”

I’m grateful to Summer for expressing so beautifully that the mountain isn’t the goal – Jesus is the goal, and he is not found only on the mountain tops. He is here, with us, walking the shore, talking to the fishermen…and the cashier at the grocery store, the elderly neighbor, and the guy in the line at the post office.

He is wherever someone is in need; he is everywhere that we reach out to that person in his name.

Now that Lent is over and the Easter season is in full swing, I thought it would be a good time (!) to share two Lenten reflection books that I really enjoyed this year. Probably I should save this post for right around the beginning of February next year…but there is little chance I’ll remember at that point.

The first is No Unlikely Saints by Cameron Bellm. For each week of Lent, this book considers a different (mostly modern) saint or blessed who speaks to our current moment. I learned a lot about some holy people I knew as well as some I hadn’t met before from the reflections, and the prayer suggestions were really challenging and beautiful. I’m considering using it again next year because I know I still have plenty of growing left to do in many of the areas it addresses.

Second, my older girls and I read Letters for Pilgrimage by Sarah Lenora Gingrich and A. N. Tallent. This one is directed at Orthodox Christian young ladies, but as a Roman Catholic adult I still found the reflections helpful. (I also learned what Clean Monday is, and felt slightly guilty at how easy Roman Catholic Lent is compared to Orthodox Lent!) Again, beautiful, hopeful, challenging, and encouraging writing from women “who have survived the wilderness of life,” as their publisher puts it.

I especially love that both of these books are written by what Julian of Norwich calls our “even Christians” – women just like the rest of us, just living our lives and trying our best to follow Jesus. That means their words are both challenging and possible – exactly what my Lent needed this year.

I set myself a writing goal for Lent: one poem a day, related in some way to the daily readings. I knew it would be a challenge, but I sit down to write almost every day anyway, so it should have been just the first part of my usual writing time, repurposed.

I did not expect it to be so hard.

I think I’ve missed one day so far, so that feels like a victory. (Jacob has decided he does still need naps after all, so that has made it much easier.) Quality is another matter entirely. Sometimes I look at the readings and think, “What could I possibly have to say about that?” Sometimes I don’t even get that far – I feel too tired to even read, much less make something of my own. In those times I do it just because I said I would, and sometimes I’m rewarded by a poem that isn’t totally terrible.

Needless to say, I haven’t written anything I’m willing to share. Yet.

Also, I will not be continuing this practice after Easter. I had a teacher in middle school who had stopped giving things up for Lent, because everything she gave up for Lent she ended up giving up for good. I’ve never had that problem, and don’t expect to start now.

On the other hand, this feels like a “storing up treasure” experience – besides the close attention it’s forced me to pay to Scripture, I’ll have forty-ish first-draft poems by Easter. That’s months and months of revisioning waiting to happen…and while some of them will certainly be left on the shelf, there are already a couple I’m excited to spend some more time with, to dig deeper into, and form something thoughtful and perhaps even beautiful.

Also, I am looking forward to Holy Week. I may skip the readings for Holy Saturday and write about the Exsultet. It includes bees. Twice. That’s liturgy I can get behind.

Check out my latest post over at Mighty Is Her Call!

I spent my snow-day laundry catch-up time watching this video of Malcom Guite’s book launch (if you haven’t experienced his beautiful poetry, check it out here), and I have some thoughts.

To give credit where credit is due, this video from Alastair Gordon and friends about art and faith (also laundry-folding entertainment in my house) started me thinking about some of these things. If you have time, both are worth watching.

Something that struck me about the artists (I’m lumping poets, writers, and other makers in to the group “artists” here) in both videos was their humble acceptance of the goodness of their work. I tend towards a shrug and a deflection on the odd occasion when someone complements my work. It still feels like an indulgence to take the time to “make” at all, and to think that my work is well done, or stranger yet, serves some greater purpose, feels arrogant.

So it was both jarring and illuminating to see artists discuss their methods, their motivations, and their finished work as if it were totally normal to spend a work-day sketching by the seashore or filling enormous canvases with paint or scribbling sonnets – and to do it intentionally for the glory of God.

At the same time, it was helpful for me to see people whose expertise is in different fields appreciating the art. Like maybe, just maybe, art isn’t some special language only accessible to people who have earned an MFA.

I love the idea of art being just another one of the many ways a person might be called to serve God and neighbor. I guess in my mind art has always been set apart – as if a special kind of people who lead a radical kind of life are the only ones who can make art. These chosen few have special studios and strange ideas and are often anti-social. (Although, by that standard, maybe I have two out of three – no room for a studio here!) They also have nearly unlimited time to work on their craft, perfect their style, and make lots of mistakes on the way to finished pieces.

It’s been hard to see myself as part of this world, however much I might enjoy creating in my spare moments. I suffer from a distinct lack of studio, precious little time, and a dread of mistakes.

So it was good for me to watch these artists be normal people with families and big ideas, and to see that they simply have made the choice to make art their lives, to hone the gifts they were given, and to think deeply about how to best share those gifts with the world. Not to say that that’s easy, but it’s so helpful to see both that it can be done, and a glimpse of how a person actually goes about doing it.

I have to admit that I was reluctant to begin reading Darkness is as Light…even though some of my own reflections are in it. It’s intended to be emotionally heavy (and it is) and I wasn’t sure that was what I wanted in my life at the moment.

On the other hand, I also felt guilty for not reading it. After all, here were other women like me who were willing to share their stories. I had already received emails from some of the other writers expressing how much they were enjoying the book (in general, not my contributions specifically.)

So I prepared myself to have my heart broken, and started reading. My reaction to these reflections really surprised me. Many of the stories come from places of deep pain, yet I found myself turning to God in prayer after many of the reflections not with sadness or anger, but with gratitude.

I felt I had to thank God for creating these women; for walking with them through their trials; for protecting them when they were in danger; for leading them to help when they needed it; for giving them the courage to share their stories. I found myself asking God to continue to bless these women I had never met, to guard them in their faith, to help them through their continued struggles.

The witness in these pages isn’t so much about pain as about faithfulness: our faithfulness when we turn to God in our in our joy as well as in our need, and His great faithfulness to us at all times. If there is one thing these stories brought home to me, it is that God is richly present in our lives.

So I just want to thank Summer Kinard and all the contributors for making this book happen. It has been a great blessing to me, drawing me deeper into prayer and reminding me of God’s unending care for each of us. It turns out it was exactly what I needed in my life right now.

Here’s my latest over at Mighty Is Her Call: