Transformations

This morning, the rabbit hole of the internet led me to this.  Go watch it.  Grab a tissue first.

It moved me so much that I made the chickadees watch it before they went to school.  The point that I wanted them to get was that how you perceive yourself is even more important than how others perceive you.  This gentleman, through the work of Degage Ministries in Grand Rapids, MI (Hi, all my many Mauric cousins!) sees himself in a different way at the end of the process.  He goes from  seeing his present reality (homeless vet, alcoholic) to seeing himself as he could be ("ordinary", put together) with the help only of scissors, a little hair dye, and a suit.  But, and I think this is most important, the ingredient that really does the transforming is the dignity with which he is treated. The care to detail, the attention he receives, the human touch.  This man, Jim Wolf, now sees himself because others have looked at him in love.   The moment when he sees himself in a mirror....  my God, it's overwhelmingly beautiful.  

It's really hard to break through that barrier of perception, the preconceptions we have of others because of the way they look, what they do, where they are.  Once, many years ago when I was a smoker and had just returned from Ireland (those things are related, BTW -- Ireland changed me from a social smoker to a regular smoker and, thank God, I've been smoke-free for many years), I was working at the Postal Rate Commission while I was in grad school. It was either All Saints Day or Ash Wednesday (it was cold) and a was a Holy Day of Obligation.  During my lunch hour, I went to mass at St. Patrick's Church downtown. As the congregants poured out onto the steps afterwards, they were greeted by a phalanx of homeless men begging for alms.  When one of the men approached me, I told him truthfully that I didn't have any money on me. He saw the cigarette I was getting ready to light in my hand and asked me for a smoke.  I gave him the whole pack.  He grinned hugely and grabbed me for a bear hug.  I'm happy to say that, as nonplussed as I was, I hugged him back. 

I've thought about that incident from time to time since then.  What I did was something so small and truthfully it wasn't very good for the poor soul. I can't imagine how difficult it is to be homeless, but I think that one of the most difficult parts must be the marginalization and the lack of ordinary, easy human contact.  I'm glad that I was able to really see my homeless friend.  I'm glad that I was able to overcome my own moralization and  and respect his need for a cigarette.  I'm especially glad that I hugged him.  I know that hug has kept me warm for 25 years.  I hope it warmed him.    

Fashion!

I have been reading some cool fashion blogs lately, inspired by my very fashionable and lovely friend, Jessica, from A Parent in America.  One of the blogs she referenced on FB earlier this week was Wardrobe Oxygen, which I love.  And... on Wardrobe Oxygen, there was a reference to a service called Gwynnie Bee.  Basically, it's a subscription clothing service, where you select clothing based on your personal style and some general parameters they provide.  You fill your closet with clothes you'd like to try and they send you selections from that closet.  You receive them, wear them, and return them when you are done.  The first month is free, so I thought that I'd give it a try so that I might see what I liked and what looked good on me.  Here's my initial closet:

What does this tell me?

• I think I like browns, greens, and pinks but I am drawn to blacks, reds, and whites.  
• I like a retro look in dresses.
• Maybe I'm ready to try some new clothes and have fun with how I look.  

Hmmmm.

It's all gone to hell

that's not how you nit-comb, you nit-wit.

TWhew.  What a weird and hard few weeks it's been!  After being very happy with my progress, I just fell apart.  Ate a lot of leftover sock hop pizza or nothing at all, ran around like a headless chicken, babysat my niece and nephew overnight (what an honor -- the first time their mama has left them in 11 months... but 11-month old twins!!, plus Chickadee #1 and #2!!!!), attended my second SJE social event in two weeks (though I wasn't organizing this one, thank God), had the kids home from school on Monday, and then today discovered that we have been infested with... I can't even write the word.  AARRGH!!!  I am so sorry I laughed at an early scene of Bridget Jones:  Mad About the Boy when she discovers that her two children have them.

I am so disgusted and freaked out.  And broke.  Treatment for the chickadees is going to cost upwards of a hundred dollars for a prescription med.  I bought all new pillows and a new blanket for our bed, which came to almost another hundred.  I'm treating myself just in case - another fifteen dollars, plus a replacement for the bottle of olive oil I poured over my head before wrapping it in Saran Wrap.  I'm throwing away all their combs and brushes and am contemplating ditching all the hairbands, hair elastics, barrettes and gee-gaws. I am going to pay someone to clean the car tomorrow.  Laundry is going to kill me over the next few days, and I'm already behind.  I spent the whole day addressing this problem and then worked for a bit over an hour on a project.  I still have remedial laundry to do, and I'm keeping the chickadees home with me tomorrow too, just to be sure they are completely cured, so it will be hard to work tomorrow too.

So, I got back on the scale this morning to find I was at the same place I'd been two weeks ago, after gaining back three pounds.  After I got the bad word from the pediatrician though, I decided Dove Salted Caramel Chocolate bites would make me feel better.  They didn't.  But they were tasty.  So meals today consisted of a cup of tea in the morning (I was planning on eating at home after a planned early morning well-child visit).  Then, at Target, waiting for the pharmacy to process my prescription, I gave in to hunger and anger and disgust with the world and had a sausage and egg biscuit from their little cafe.  Then at home, at 3 pm, one chickadee fed me Medifast cheese pizza puffs while I combed out her sister's hair with a very fined toothed comb.  However, for dinner, we had a wonderful traditional Polish meal in honor of Blessed John Paul II's feast day -- golumpki casserole (I did use the Skinnytaste version), pierogies (only had one), sauerkraut and fresh kielbasa, and smoked and spicy kielbasa.  Dinner was the best part of the day.  And I got to share my love of JPII with the chickadees.  What an amazing man.  He can make me feel better, even today.

Sigh.

Head on a String

While I was at the reunion last weekend, I found myself describing my college-aged self as a "head on a string".  This came up during my discussion this past week with my nutritionist, S.,  who was trying to understand my mixed feelings about the reunion and my TWELVE-POUND weight loss.  Twelve pounds.  I'm very happy about it, but I'm also really appalled at myself too.  S. wants me to celebrate my weight loss and to begin thinking of myself in kinder terms.  More frighteningly, she wants me to stand in front of my only full-length mirror (currently propped up behind the bathroom door and used only to make sure that my hemline is not obscene) and tell myself that I love and accept my body as it is today.  I told her I'm not sure I can do that, so we started to explore this weird mind-body thing that I have going on.  And it was very difficult.

It's difficult to acknowledge the longevity of the disconnect that I have with my body -- it's something that I remember from childhood.  It's in my earliest memories (falling down the cellar steps, falling out of the bunk bed). Later in my childhood, I learned to distrust my body and recognize what it couldn't do.  I learned to see my body as a betrayer and as something that limited me -- the mysterious "virus" in my hip that kept me bedridden for weeks, the regular visits to Dr. Diamond's clinic with the other disabled children, getting into trouble for playing "jump off the shed" with the other kids, tripping over every.single.one.of.the.hurdles on field day in sixth grade.  In adolescence, I don't really remember giving much thought to my body or the way I looked.  I was off in la-la-land much of the time and didn't want to be noticed the rest of the time.  My view of my body at that time was strictly utilitarian -- it contained my brain, which is where all the action was, where anything interesting was going on.  The body stuff... well, that was just running up and down the bleachers in high school, something that both bored me and terrified me, given my lack of coordination!

I think that, for many reasons, that disconnect between body and mind persists to this day.  That's why looking at myself in the mirror feels so dangerous to me.  That's why "affirming" the way I am physically right now feels impossible.

Here are some images.  The first two are pleasant photos -- they make me feel good about myself.  They are from a very happy time in my life, the Rome Semester, Spring, 1986.  How could I have not been happy? I was 19, healthy, and on a huge adventure.  These pictures also represent an idealized version of myself -- the standard against which I tend to compare my present.  I know that is stupid - 19 is many moons ago.  The funny thing is, I don't recall ever giving any amount of thought to my body or the way I looked.  As long as I was decently covered and warm (it was COLD in Via del Pescaccio, 103), that was enough for me.  Again, more utilitarianism, more instrumentalism -- the body is good only insofar as it serves to enable experiences for the mind and soul.  Yes, I know how it sounds.

Now, I contrast that idealized version of myself with the present reality.  Note that this is when I was TRYING to look good.  I called this image "uggh.jpg".  

A funny, and true story about this dress at the reunion (I feel the need for some levity, even if it's at my own expense):  In Haggar cafeteria on Saturday, I was talking to one of my friends, A.H., who reads this blog (hey A!).  She asked if I were wearing "the red dress" and I replied that I was.  I told her that I'd gone to Target in the morning and had gotten some Assets by Spanx pantyhose, that I'd also come prepared with a Spanx bodyshaper, and that the dress itself comes with something called Magi-sculpt, which is essentially a tube within the dress itself designed to smooth out all the places you want to smooth out.  But, I said, "There's not enough spandex in the world to take care of THIS situation."  We laughed so hard we nearly cried.  One of our classmates was at the table and was intrigued by our laughter.  He came up to me later and told me he had to know what we were laughing about because it was so great to see us.  Poor S., I told him.  His response was very funny.  See why I love these people?   

Here's another that is better. I look contented.    

Notice that it's a headshot?  Hmmmm.  

Most of the time, I don't really think at all about how I look -- I avoid mirrors, I don't wear makeup or do my hair.  As long as I'm decently covered and cool in the summer, warm in the winter, that is enough for me.  

You see the problem.

I think I need to read this again.  But I will do it in front of the mirror, which I've taken out from behind the bathroom door.  

The Spirit of a Place

I spent the weekend in Irving, Texas at the 25th year reunion of my graduating class (University of Dallas, 1988).  I've written about preparing to go the reunion but I don't think I've ever expressed what I'm about to say.  It took a meditative and solitary swing on a contraption outside Blakely Library (now the College of Business building) on Sunday evening for me to start to process what I thought of everything and how I saw myself fitting in to the whole scene.

First, I have to say that I had a great time at the reunion.  I have been so blessed in my life to know many wonderful people whom I met at UD.  Many of my friendships today have their origins in Catherine Hall or Jerome Hall or the Hotel La Villa (103 Via del Pescaccio), or the student apartments, or, even (heaven help me) Old Mill apartments.  I reconnected with some old friends and also talked at more length to some people whom I knew in school but didn't really click with.  I'm happy to say that they are all still as interesting and vital as they were decades ago.  Some of us are with God now and their loss is felt deeply.  Some of us have been scarred literally and figuratively by the intervening years.  And yet.  And yet.  There is still the kernel of the person, the child really, who came to UD ready to learn, to encounter life and knowledge in all its fullness.

I know that the kernel of that person is still within me.  I've really struggled at times in my life to retain a sense of wonder and joy in the every day.  I've struggled to be grateful for who I am, how I am, what I like.  I know that I've always been a bit unusual (the scarf-wearing, novel-writing days of high school, for example -- what was I thinking?). But sometimes it's really difficult to be so far out of the mainstream, especially in situations where everyone is pretty much out of the mainstream.  I mean, how weird do you have to be to feel marginalized in a group that happily included a guy who welded aerodynamic fins to his car one summer to see if it would improve the gas mileage between Pittsburgh and Dallas?  A real, bona fide scientific experiment which I remember hearing about in the cafeteria line  the first day back at school sophomore year.  To this day, I'm in awe that someone thought of this and actually DID it.  The guy was a senior when I was a sophmore -- don't remember his name, but do remember his experiment!

Anyway, there were points during the reunion where I felt so alienated and so sad.  So marginal.  At the Friday night party in the Gas Monkey (owned by a classmate and super duper cool) and at the Saturday night party in upstairs Haggar, few people asked me anything about my life or my husband, my children, or the work I'm doing.  Some people I talked to already knew a lot about me from my evidently amusing Facebook posts so I am sure they thought they already had heard what I had to say -- and maybe they were right (I recognize my own tedium sometimes!)  The "sidebar" conversations I had with individuals at breakfast, in Haggar, on the Mall, or in the Rathskellar were much more fulfilling, so maybe it's just a function of large social group dynamics.

But I'm at a happy place in my life in terms of accomplishments, yet I couldn't share them.  I found myself at points wishing I was just back at the hotel or even back at home. I know that much of that was coming from inside myself.  I'm an introvert and social situations are stressful to me.  I don't like to tout my own accomplishments and I much prefer to prompt others to talk than to really share what's going on with me.  But I still want to be rescued from my own introversion sometimes, you know?

On Sunday night, after all the brouhaha was over, I went back to campus, to my favorite spot -- one in which I spent a lot of time -- the Church of the Incarnation.  To me, it is a really beautiful church.

I especially love the Eucharistic Adoration chapel.  It brings me peace and was where I had the first of my God smacks:

One thing that really struck me was that, as I walked out of the church and up to the Mall (where I found my swing contraption and thought deep thoughts, about which more later), I noticed a student sitting on a little bench outside the church where there was a statue of the Blessed Virgin.  All was quiet -- it was about 5:30 in the evening.  This young guy was quietly praying the rosary.  No fanfare.  No "look at me praying".  No "let's go say a communal rosary".  Instead, a quiet moment of contemplation and prayer.  Books piled to one side, probably left over from an afternoon spent in the library. And I was filled with such gratitude to have been able to be in a place where this was not ridiculed or alien.  Where prayer was as integrated into campus life as much as studying, writing papers, drinking beer, and going to Club Schmitz was.  

So, despite my ridiculous melancholy, I am so grateful to have had this weekend.  I love that I'm a UD graduate.  I am grateful to my classmates for helping me to become who I am today.  I'm grateful to UD for giving me space to be a brainiac without shame.  And for introducing so much to my life that I love now.  I am grateful to have been shown a model early in my life where faith was not just affective or subjective, but part of a rich, millenia old tradition of reason and learning. 

Go Crusaders!

Profoundly Countercultural

I sing in the choir at church now.  It's a joy and a labor and every time I open my mouth to sing, my thoughts turn to St. Augustine of Hippo's famous dictum, “He who sings praise, does not only praise, but also praises joyfully… also loves Him whom he is singing about… in the song of the lover, there is love.” Popularly, this saying is often rendered "He who sings well prays twice."

This morning, I was reminded again of how profoundly counter-cultural I am and how radical Christianity truly is.  Our opening hymn was "Lord, We Have Deserved the Pain."  The tune is Aberystwyth, so listen here as you read these words:

Lord, we have deserved the pain 

That afflicted us again

Justly you have dealt with those

Who have disobeyed your laws.

But give glory to your name

That we may be whole again

And, O Lord, show us your way

And your mercy every day.

Happy those with blameless heart

Following the way of God

Happy those who do his will 

And with whole hearts seek him still

Blest are also those whose ways

Are God-fearing nights and days

God established his commands 

To be kept with diligence.

Help me, Lord, that I may keep, 

Your commands, make my ways straight.

I shall not be shamed at all,

With my eyes fixed on your law.  

With glad hear I give you thanks

That you teach your ordinance.

I shall follow in your way, 

Worship you, profess, and pray.

To the Triune One we raise

Glorious hymns of endless praise

Praise the Father, praise the Son,

Praise the Spirit, with them One.

As it was before all days,

It is now, will be always.

Grateful anthems we present, 

Giving Glory without end.

When do we hear sentiments such as these in popular culture or in our daily lives?   I can't think of one contemporary instance where the moral of the story is that we deserve chastisement (other people, maybe, but not us).  I can't think of one contemporary instance where we are encouraged to follow.

Instead, our culture promotes independence, self-sufficiency, edginess, charting our own course, breaking rules.  It tells us that faithfully following is suspect, for the weak-minded or the impressionable.  Even I do it -- at this week's School of Community, we discussed following, and my first reaction to the reading we were using was to think of the Manson Family!

I was reminded of all this again when I read Calah Alexander's (another UD alum!) blog post about Pope Francis and all the brouhaha about his recent interview published in America magazine.  In it, she says:

I suspect our culture has grown weary of its own sin. I think there is a general undercurrent of exhaustion with all this decadence, and despondency over the emptiness it breeds. I think our culture is absolutely desperate for mercy, but unable to understand why. And I think that’s why they are latching onto Pope Francis so voraciously. When an entire culture has lost a common vocabulary with which to discuss things like sin, forgiveness, and morality, they’ve lost the ability to see the truth, even if the successor of Peter is vanishing into it, the better to hold it up before their eyes. But if the successor of Peter steps out of the truth and looks straight at them, holds out his hand, and says, “let me heal your wounds”…well, that’s a different story. I don’t think the secular culture will be able to see Christ until they have been seen by Him. A patient who is dying of dehydration is usually so confused and disoriented that he or she doesn’t even understand what’s wrong with them. Why would it be any different with desperate afflictions of the soul?

I thought her piece was marvelous.  You should read it all.

The other night, my husband and I had a long discussion about Pope Francis's interview, as reported in the media.  T. was disturbed and thought that Pope Francis was setting himself up to be used by forces that hate the Church, hate Christ, hate Christianity.  He also thought that his remarks were potentially discouraging to people who had spent their lives fighting against the rot that we call our culture.

I contended that, first of all, NEVER NEVER NEVER accept the media or popular culture understanding of anything having to do with Christ, Christianity, or the Church.  These are the people who titilate us year after year with idiotic "proofs" that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene, that Jesus had brothers and sisters, and the like.  They don't understand anything about Christianity and don't particularly want to.  Headlines like the those in the New York Times, the Huffington Post, and CBS News* are revealing.  They distilled a twenty-page article to a couple of sound bites.  How can this be thought to be accurate analysis?  This piece in the American Thinker expounds upon this idea.

Secondly, and this is the most important thing, the Church can never be understood by the world.  As human beings, we are all subject to our own perspectives and prejudices.  We are great at categorizing things -- this is how we have survived and thrived on the planet.  THESE kinds of berries are good to eat, THOSE kinds will kill you.  People who have THOSE kinds of tribal markings are friends; people with THOSE kinds will kill you.  We analyze and categorize in every way.  And we think that we can categorize the Church.  It's liberal or conservative, it's old or it's new, it's good or it's bad, etc.

The crazy thing is, the Church is not liberal or conservative in a political sense or even a cultural sense.  Any educated Catholic can tell you that the Church's positions on abortion and birth control are completely of a piece with its positions on capital punishment (the Church is against all three because all three violate human dignity). In the political realm, conservatives are generally against abortion and for capital punishment.  Liberals are generally for abortion and birth control and against capital punishment.

No, the Church is not liberal or conservative -- it is radical.  It's about radical love, the love of a God who becomes a human being, who shares our skin, who shares our suffering.  It's about helping people understand that a real, lived relationship with God, with Christ, in my life RIGHT NOW is possible.  Christ, not as a guru, a historical figure, an idea, or an intellectual concept, but A PERSON.  The Catholic Church is the only game in town when it comes to the fullness of this Incarnational notion of God.  St. Teresa of Avila has the most beautiful prayer that talks about this idea of Christ being with us, in the flesh, living, breathing, moving, working, loving.  I think it really encapsulates the beauty of Catholicism.

So, Catholicism is not just about rules and regulations, although those are extremely important, since they ground us in the real and provide structure, which we crave.  The Church and all its rules and doctrines DO act as a bulwark against the technologically-enabled neopaganism that is our culture.  But, being this bulwark is not the telos (the end, the reason) for the Church, but a side effect.  The telos is to enable a relationship between each person and God.  Inasmuch as it does that, it will thrive.  Where it does not, it is lacking.  I think that Pope Francis is reminding us of that, as Pope Benedict XVI did in his way, and my beloved Blessed Pope John Paul II did in his.  We are blessed to have them all.  They help us to be truly and profoundly countercultural.


*Google it if you want, folks -- I'm not going to link to such tripe here, but my search was for "headlines about Pope Francis America article"

Beauty

Yesterday was a humdinger of day for self-esteem.  I'd been wanting to go to a local TJ Maxx that one of my friends had recommended -- I thought I might pick up some new clothing for my trip to the reunion.  You can't wear a red dress to EVERY event...

I think I've mentioned before how much I hate shopping -- if I haven't, it's A LOT. I don't think I know what looks nice on me and I desperately try to remember "tips" from the various What Not to Wear episodes I used to watch.  One of my good friends stopped by one day while it was on and thought it was really funny to see me watching it because she hadn't had me pegged as a fashionista.  Wonder why?  ;-)

Anyway, I have no patience for the TJ Maxx style of shopping, where you have to go through rack upon rack of misplaced clothes to find anything.  Compounding that problem is that I generally hate the clothing in the sizes I can wear and am attracted instead to styles of clothing that would look lovely on fashion models (as much as I fight against it, I know that I'm prey to common standards of beauty).  At the end of my initial pass of the offerings, I had chosen five things to try on:

From left to right, these are a sweater dress, a cropped open-front cardigan, a thigh-length open navy blue cardigan, a black-with-white polka-dots blouse, and a black sweater with a boat neck and elbow-length sleeves.

As I composed this photograph (and no, I'm not my sister-in-law who has a painterly eye for photography and takes some of the most wonderful pictures you could imagine -- go check her blog out, y'all), something struck me.  All these pieces have some things in common:

1. They are all on the dark side of the color scale -- I have two brownish things, one dark navy thing, and two black things.  Where are the colors?  Where is the vitality?  Where is the fun?
2. They are all shapeless.
3. They all looked awful on me.  The sweater dress was a joke.  Not a good style for me.  The navy blue sweater made me look washed out and I couldn't figure out what it was supposed to be.  The black-polka-dotted blouse didn't fit (there are some disadvantages to being, um, well-endowed, despite what my husband would say).  The black sweater was weirdly ruched in all the wrong places.  The brown cardigan was the only possibility I considered (and forgive this awful selfie):

See, this is the crap I have to put up with in the dressing room!  

I did (sort of) like the sweater and was going to buy it.  Nonetheles, I felt beaten down.  I called my husband to say hi, responding to his "how's it going" with "I'm in the throes of self-hatred" and then decided to make myself feel better by looking at some of the other fun things they have at TJ Maxx.  I ended up with a cart full of the sweater, a platter, a Misto Olive Oil sprayer, a hand soap/moisturizer duo in a wire holder, and an adorable little teal glass tchotchke (inspired by my same sister-in-law's house, which I visited this weekend for a stuffed-animal tea party). I went to stand in line, and thank God I looked at my watch -- I had 20 minutes to get to the kids' school from the store, a trip which Google Maps now tells me is a 24 minute trip in good traffic.  Saved myself at least fifty self-pity dollars there.  Whew.  

Undeterred, I'm going out again, this time to a new shop that I have not heard of before. They are evidently having a Buy One Get One for five dollars sale.

And now for something completely related:  This story from Rockefeller Center (the news show with Brian Williams) really touched me.  It's all about seeing Beauty in a new way.