On Parenting, When my daughter was two:

Nothing has given me more insight into God’s love than in being a parent. My daughter is at the age where my movement from one room to another is both remarkable and distressing. I recently had a dream about a little alligator that follows me everywhere and snaps at my heels. This is definitely a processing of the intensity of her need for me. I make a move to leave a room and she drops everything she is doing, everything in her hands, and runs to me. She then shows me with great effort her hands are empty. She does not put her arms up to be carried, but simply shows me she has nothing and she needs me.

This was a striking communication. I immediately thought of how we pray the “Our Father” in our church. We pray with hands held out to reflect our inner emptiness, to offer that to God. My daughter has inspired me with this genuine gesture. She is running to me and with that sweet action, seems to be saying, “I want to follow you, don’t leave me, see, I am not doing anything, take me with you!” and “I feel like crying if you do not see my hands are empty and you do not pick me up.”

This is precious. She is showing me how to pray, how to be with God. With the same pure expression I want to say, “Holy One, I could cry with the desire to follow You in Your Holy movement.” To realize God’s love for us is like a parent’s love is deeply affirming and heartening.

My daughter was so sick this weekend, with a fever that kept going up to 104.5 and 104.9 degrees Fahrenheit. The nurses are not alarmed by this kind of high fever. They say as long as she is not too lethargic it is alright. And if she has seizures from the fever I should not be alarmed. This seems like unreasonable counsel to a parent, dangerous even. My doctor’s child had the same high fever and agreed it was alarming and a serious level of fever. Finally, I thought, someone who is not so desensitized!

I really learned the vulnerability of loving and caring for my child. I was so agitated with adrenaline at seeing the thermometers reading. Diligently applying cool cloths and water to drink and cool baths to counter the heat in her, I thought I’d go mad with worried love. I kept in mind the harrowing trials of other parents and prayed with them and for all. My understanding opens, realizing the need for the compassion and sharing of prayer.

I think of God offering up his son for the sake of all life. That is now unimaginable to me, utterly unimaginable. When I was a young single person I could, fairly easily, find in my religious imagination the reality of God giving up His son’s life for all. Now, having become a parent, it is too horrible a pain to think of.

There is an immense Love that Reigns, and loves us more than the best of human parents love their children. A way that God accomplished and invites us to. I feel neither brave nor big hearted enough for this. Like the Archangel Michael said, “Who is like God?” I am aware of my own limitations in heart and mind. And like my daughter I am glad to face my limitations. And I seek to learn more.

I have noticed my daughter crying and protesting my discipline, yet the end result leaves her with more esteem and a happy relief in understanding.

What is discipline for a two or three year old, you may ask? For instance, my daughter may try to poke at the baby we care for in a rough way or pull the cat’s fur or tail or throw something at a person. She does not mean to hurt really, she does not fully understand. I patiently and calmly show and tell her how to handle the situation, with repetition. If she continues to be rough, despite my example I then know she is testing me. I gently and swiftly sit her down on the floor. I tell her she needs to sit down. I then, with great feeling, explain why, “That is ouch! to the baby, touch her nice, like this.” I pat her arm in a gentle way, so she can feel the way and imitate it, Or, “That is ouch! to the kitty, pet her like this.” And I show her.

Sometimes her actions give her a sense of power, in not listening and dominating with roughness. Sitting her down for a minute on the floor deflates some of that misguided power she is feeling. She sometimes cries in response, but it is a cry of will not of pain. We then talk about it. We talk about what delicate is and how to be gentle and what hurts. She seems to feel safer and more secure with the boundaries I mark for her. I can see she feels good about it, safer, despite the difficulty of the process. She wants those limits to be set, especially because she does not know how to.

This too has been a reflection of God’s love for me. I am humbled in my understanding and role as parent. My daughter teaches me the beauty of making myself empty handed for the Lord. I learn that although my responsibility to raise a child is great, I am utterly powerless to control all the things that could, would or might threaten us. I feel vulnerable as a child. I continually need to turn to God and hand things over to God. I realize God’s Love for all of us is much bigger than my heart is able to hold at this time.

“For God so loved the world, He gave up His only begotten son…” How much more I take into account the ramifications of this statement. Divine Parent, you gave up more than we can know, and Your Love made all things new. Through Love, death was/is conquered. My little lessons for my daughter are baby steps to a greater love.

CSS

Retrospection, Preparation for Christmas

I dreamt last night a young girl was busy tending to things she needn’t. She didn’t notice she had a new baby who needed her attention. I stepped in and told her she needs to take care of her new baby. The baby’s need is great. When I woke up from this dream it was 4 am, and I asked who the girl in my dream was, it came to me that she is me. Somehow I have a little infant to care for. Not literally, but still important. I thought of Christmas and it seems there is a need in me to think back and grasp the meaning of this time from a younger perspective within. Here it is:

A Pregnant Reflection, I am Changed:
(This was previously published in Vol. 1 No. 17 Fall issue of the Catholic Worker “Neighborhood News” 2000, in La Crosse, WI, it has been edited slightly since that time.)

Throughout this pregnancy I have found myself in reflection of many things. This will be our first born child. When we found out we were expecting, it was thrilling and joyous. In the first seconds, though, I felt apprehensive, uncertain, but as quickly as those feelings came, they were dispelled by a strong, sure sense all would be well, all would be taken care of. God reminds us of the care he shows the birds, in their needs and asks, how much more then, will He do to care for us. I remembered this.

Advent is a good time to be pregnant, enfolded in God’s Mystery and gifts. We have gone through child birthing class, baptismal preparation, had a shower, and have a room prepared, all that is left is the day of birth, which is known logistically, but really only God knows when.

There was a holy infant born in a manger with animals and strange shepherds looking in. There was a human father present, in faith, and a new wife and mother. This particular new mother was profoundly conscious of a great gift and responsibility before her.

Multitudes of angels showed their joyous excitement by appearing and praising God, scaring all who were there. So they had to stop singing and announcing in order to calm the fears of the people they showed themselves to. I am sure it was a wonderful fear. One that made all who were there all the more grateful and filled…and open. For Heaven itself arrived and all couldn’t help rejoicing the birth of God on Earth. Imagine the small little boy peeking at the Earth for the first time as a baby, the same as each of us. A lowly birth in a stable, what courageous majesty for Divinity to be incarnated in such an awkward place.

Jeff and I are in awe of the mystery of our child, a unique being from God, gifted to us-growing within me! An ordinary happening, but still miraculous. We have room for our child. We are gifted with clothes, blankets, many things. We do not have to worry about where our heads will rest or how and where I will give birth.

Early in my pregnancy I found the dreams I had were even stranger than usual. One night it was a frightening one and I awoke thinking of that passage in Revelations. In Revelations there is the woman “clothed with the sun” in labor and giving birth. A dragon threatens to devour the infant. A threat, but it is not accomplished. God’s hand is upon the child and the woman is also protected.

My reflection in the wee hours revealed a feeling that there is vulnerability in pregnancy, a specific one of each unborn child. I asked in prayer that night that I may clothe myself in Christ and be a shield and guide for my tiny baby. I had not ever thought before I might have a duty to ask to be spiritual protection for my child. So we learn.

I find it incredible, the communication/understanding I feel with this child. Certain things stimulate the child I carry: food, sermons at church, Jeff’s voice, my singing. I have a big feeling this little being is closer to God than I am at this point, and I am brought closer to the Lord through this child. My prayer has changed, my perspective of Jesus and His Mother has changed. Everyday things are more real. Prayer becomes day to day experiences of miracle.

We are changed. The truth and journey of Jesus and his unusual family speak with greater power to us now. I imagine the day our baby is baptized, I think of Jesus being described as tender and mild. I wonder how Mary thought about all of these things. We are told she was contemplative and aware. When it was late in the 9th month did that little tiny Divinity push on her ribs mercilessly? Did she grow weary, asking, “How much longer?!” I am sure she sensed a precious love stirring within her womb, perhaps that graced her with profound patience.

Entering this passage in life, there are times I have mourned who I was before this. Past that threshold now, a deep joy is growing, a peaceful acceptance is rooted firmly. What a priceless gift. Housing a living soul for a time.

I feed the birds in our yard with the remembrance of the Lord’s promise in caring for the birds, in caring for each of us. I feed them thinking God puts it in my heart to feed them. I should like to be in His plan to provide for others. I am deeply thankful for the care we receive.

Part of Mary’s journey was to lose her son. And she needed to find a peace in that to face her son’s death. So with the great blessing of “God With Us”, came also the agony of loss not far behind. So it is.

With the contemplation of loss there also comes fear. I fear being lost in it.

Yet, this baby who I have not yet met, has connected me to God in a new openness. Somehow, I have now found peace and understanding of loss as Sacred. What is Sacred holds Mystery and Love. The acceptance of loss is an embracing of God, a trust in His protection and care of all. He was born in a stable. Somehow I am comforted. It is a consolation, a mercy, a sign.

More than ever the Holy Spirit calls upon us to open our minds and hearts, our whole being to the precious vulnerable, demanding, needy, heavenly newborn. Each of us, each child unborn and born, needs the clothing of God’s Love. It is our right to have that, but it is also a gift given to us. A gift that often needs to be upheld by others through an insight, grace and compassion. A wise sister told me, prayer does more than we can know.

I pray that each child may receive this armor of love right now, in this world, at this time. May the many parents and caregivers of this age, in this world wear the Christ love as shields to nurture and guide the children with. May the Holy infant Jesus be brought to each of us in this time of Christmas, in a lowly, intimate, profound and beautiful way. May we know the awe of angels voices singing in our midst this day.

I send praise and thanks for the gift, the miracle of life. Amen.

–
peace and good will to all,

Merry Christmas!

Chan Sherin

Merry Christmas!

There were nearly 1,000 people at the funeral Wednesday night. Fr. Tom O’Neill gave the eulogy. He said, “I am a better priest and a better human because of Earl, can any of you say anything less?” Fr. Tom also spoke of the hope of eternal life, but stayed true in acknowledging the reality, the grief and sadness that is the here and now. That was true and good, much appreciated. Joseph, Rachel and Marci had the light of love in their eyes. Our prayers, love and Christmas wishes stay with them.

It is nearly Christmas. So often grief is woven through Christmas, despite the promise of joy and hope within it. It is a season of contradictions and the world appears to be covered in a darkness. I turn to an old friend,

“God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”
–C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain

“It is hard to have patience with people who say ‘There is no death’ or ‘Death doesn’t matter.’ There is death. And whatever is matters. And whatever happens has consequences, and it and they are irrevocable and irreversible. You might as well say that birth doesn’t matter.”
- C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

The memory of the newborn Jesus in this season brings forward the beauty of birth to our deepest pains and grief. It is a Divine Mystery. We step into the darkest day of the year and offer love and gratitude for all good and peace in our lives and soul.

Thank you God, for the water, the sun, the air, please bless it and us in all of this world, in all of it’s directions, with your Holy Spirit, and the newborn God.

Amen.

We so often find love in the midst of death and darkness, thank goodness for that. I find my own sorrow is lessened with the company of dear friends who also are bearing the sorrow.

The Psalms of the bible are songs. They were to be music, with singing and dance. My psalm is a song of grief, but it is woven with great love and faith. I think of how Earl would sing and Marci would dance.

In the Master’s program, in Earl’s stewardship class, he asked us to write a psalm. I wrote one, born of loss I was experiencing at the time and also greatly from Earl’s teaching and care he showed me and the class. I offer it again today for Earl and all who grieve:

Psalm:
Sacred Life, Love Eternal

Source of all Truth and Love,
Love in fullness and maturity,
Love of all Time, ever enduring,
Source of all Goodness,
Please, hear my cries of sorrow, sounding from the heart of my smallness.
Like a wolf, the grief seizes my throat.
Please hear my silent calls for you from the bottom of the deep well of loss.
I gaze upward; I see a graceful, strong three trunked tree stretching skyward.
You grace me with understanding in feeling and seeing.
Your compassion is unimaginably deep, profoundly outstretching, like the tree,
Like Beloved Jesus, who calms me, calms the waves of grief washing over me.
Your love is discreet, filled with dignity.
Your love is eternal and refreshing, like pure spring water flowing
Softly on a shining day.
As clouds gather and oppress me, when coldness seeps through me,
You do not leave. You never leave me.
Your Divine Mystery is my safety.
Your gaze is strong and knowing, making me squirm like a child.
Your Spirit’s Grace is unutterably good, ever unfolding, unceasing.
Your power takes hold within me, I tremble, I falter.
Dearest Holy Spirit, your unbelievable depth saves me, daily.
Your Holy Spirit cleans my breaking heart, tenderly embracing every piece of me.
Source of Holy Grace, send me your Love now,
Untold, unsaid, unutterably holy, hold me now in your understanding.
You have found me crouching in a hidden space,
Crying under the weight of death, and the ironic emptiness.
While life is still unfolding,
Please hear my praise for your Grace and Presence. You will not leave me.
This Love is Sacred and unending.

-C.S.S.

A Good Friend Has Died, We are all Grieving

A good man, a great man died yesterday, December 16th-2007, too young, too soon, we are forced to say goodbye.

Earl Madary is one who has empowered, inspired, brought wisdom, joy to countless people. The impact of his presence, relationship and commitment in this life cannot be quantified. However, we know it is significant and far reaching. He leaves behind an incredibly beautiful family, a wife and two teenage children, who he lived for, they are his treasure.

I met Earl when I was 16, and did not see him again until he and his wife, Marci and my mother and several others began a Catholic Worker house here in La Crosse. He remembered me well and I was surprised, as I was then in my early 20’s and just began to realize his remarkable capacity for memory and compassion. He began teaching at Viterbo when I began undergraduate work there.

Through the Catholic Worker and Viterbo I came to know and appreciate Earl and Marci and their children. They are the kind of folks who are always down to earth, witty, wise, compassionate, with strong moral spines and faith made of bedrock. Earl’s gifts are many, a musician, singer, theologian, musical liturgist, teacher, franciscan, prayer leader, youth leader, the list goes on and on. His humor was fiery and rich, his truth telling was fierce and healing at the same time.

Earl prepared my husband and I for marriage and sang at our wedding. He was one of my and Melinda’s teachers in the Masters program, who helped empower us to servant leadership. Our connection to Earl is not unusual, there are countless, countless people who have received generous gifts from Earl of his spirit, it is hard to impart to you his strength and goodness if you haven’t met him. Earl died in his 42nd year of life after a brave and miraculous battle with Cancer. He triumphs today in Spirit.

The loss feels raw and terrible right now. We all are holding Marci and the children in our hearts and prayers. Our grieving has only begun, and the empty space he leaves is so large.

Earl love-love-loved to canoe and share the Sacred in nature with his family and students. He found oneness with God there, and taught so well about it. He brought many to reconciliation through his humble wisdom, extraordinary knowledge shared with profound compassion. He had a startling, liberating ability to speak the truth. Earl’s religious beliefs and all he taught about religion was confirmed as true for him in his journey through the cancer. He shared that fact with me. He is sorely missed already. I miss his humor already. I join many, many others in this grief and remembrance of him with his family. It is a sad Christmas.

There is the joy of resurrection that we, as Christians believe in, but that does not alter the grief we have to walk through. I feel so happy and blessed to have known Earl, to call him a friend, to have shared in that goodness of relationship with he and his family. I feel deeply grateful for all we have shared. As for so many, he has been a guiding force of goodness and love in my life.
Thank you Earl for your love and generosity. I have learned so much from you. Talking with you was always enriching. Your voice is still here with us (I am listening to Gilead-Earl’s 2004 recording-so amazing and beautiful) and what you have built in this life will grow and live on.

much love and prayers,

Chan

Here is a beautiful piece about Earl from the La Crosse Tribune.

Advent, Plastic, Immigration and God:

A good friend of mine was embarrassed to tell me that she uses a plastic baggie to pick up her dog’s poop on walks. Embarrassed because she assumed that I would judge her, and that my own practices in relationship to plastic are pristine, maybe because I bring up the problem so much. I was surprised, and added sadly, that I too, use plastic baggies, and that I am trying to get a hold of some biodegradable ones, but they are only available on-line, and in small quantity for more money. I remain, like each of us, lacking, yet still trying dearly to make life affirming/healing choices.

It is like when I was asked if I eat meat. I said I do not eat farm animals. They responded sharply, “Do you wear leather shoes?” As if from my one sentence I had claimed to be pure and separate from the rest of the human race because of my choice to be compassionate. People want things to be cut and dried, black and white, rich and poor, dead or alive, pure or deficient, so that they do not have to suffer through the ambiguities, the contradictions of being and the pain of all the imperfect striving, trying and complicated living we all do. It isn’t fun to fail or to not live up to ideals or to disappoint people who want to look up to you, like a doctor or a pope.

I look at the packaging of my breads, chips, toothpaste, apples, vegetables in my hands, and two of my reusable shopping bags are made of nylon which is made with oil, just as the baggies are for dog walks….I realize this…
The truth of the situation is that if I were to live separate from plastic, I would not be living in this society. There is no purity, there is no perfection in this world. Our connections are linked and threaded through so deeply, there is no extrication of anything from anything else, at least not as things stand now. This does not mean that everything is futile. Action still has great impact and discernment still has enormous value. Sometimes it has to be “little by little”, as Dorothy Day would say.

And I cannot look at the daily defeats of plastic in my life each day and be defeated. This is an issue that is so urgent that we need to persist despite the thoroughness of its penetration in our lives. What a strange problem we have.

Plastic is as all things are, from the earth, though manipulated to beingness by men, still, natural to the planet. Yet its existence seems unnatural in light (a thinly veiled pun, sorry) of the way it does not deteriorate as most things do. So only light can break the stuff down and only into microscopic particles.

Listening to Studs Terkel today on NPR was so strengthening. His voice of wisdom and integrity is so needed. He is keenly aware of the fact that we need a great change. And he raised his blessed voice and said the truth, “We are all immigrants. This anti-immigration hysteria is obscene!” Indeed, we are all immigrants, and if there was a deep acknowledgment of this perhaps we could bring a historical healing to this country, who Terkel said has always been in conflict.

Mistakes, failures, defeats are not definitive of our identity or our value. They are par for this course. We choose how to respond, and maybe on our best days of achieving our ideals we actually fail in yet other ways, maybe in relationships in a personal or spiritual sense, what have you.

There are always ways in which to change and grow, hopefully, we believe this. Perhaps we will not see the benefits of our positive and lasting actions in our lifetime, and maybe we will. And we may have to wonder and not know, because we have been glued and sown to so many empty idols, and have missed, so many times, the Divine Presence –sitting quietly with us the whole time in awesome compassion that scares us with the breadth and depth of it. No, it isn’t either/or, and it is both/and.

I fail all the time, and it is embarrassing sometimes. But I learn and I realize one cannot attain perfection, and that is not even the point of this life. I know goodness and God in appreciating, in feeling gratitude in realizing beauty in graced moments, as I have mentioned before. It is the importance of recognition: Love all around me and all around you, and the sick, and the poor, the immigrants.

This cannot be stressed enough in this clamoring Christmas season. Advent is so not about clamoring or purity or perfection. Oh, Advent, I feel such a tear (like the tearing of fabric) within me at this time. Loss of loved ones is felt keenly now. Material possessions clamor for our attention. The desire to give, but with a swirling pushing confusion in finding what is meaningful. The desire and longing for wholeness, healing, truth, courage….

I want to sit still and contemplate Jesus’s mother, the Mother of God. In Luke she treasures all the gifts and happenings surrounding her child’s birth. She contemplates them deeply in her heart. I want to imagine her, protecting her thoughts and memories of the time with pure love–the gift of a child who has the capacity to hold the Divine within as no child has done before. His voice is filled with so much truth that thousands of years and translations do not muffle His Holy Spirit.

What a painful time it is, to seek that dirty manger within and grow faith strong enough to believe the King of Kings wishes to be born there, again and again. To learn from the Mother of God to nurture my love with maternal contemplation.

To have compassion is to “suffer with”, that is the meaning. First thing everyday, the Divine is having compassion with us, no matter how dirty or polluted our home, life, heart or mind is. With an invitation for each of us to seek to be Great in compassion too. The sooner we can dive deep into this knowing the sooner we can participate in the Holy Spirit’s movements in our lives and others lives. Like I mentioned yesterday, to be remembered, nothing is impossible for God, as this was mentioned in Luke as well.

Thank you for listening to my musings and genuflections today,

may you be blessed with grace filled recognitions of love this season,

with gratitude and prayers,

CSS

p.s.
Beth Terry left a great comment and has a lot to positively contribute re: plastic….

The North Pacific Gyre, The Plastic Vortex, The 8th Continent:

Looking for accurate and informative resources regarding the enormous amount of plastic garbage in the Pacific Ocean?

Follow the links below to better understand the importance/urgency of changing our habits, and drastically reducing daily throw away plastics and the general “throw away” mentality from our lives for good, and to seek positive solutions.

This page was last updated August 2009:

Most recent (August 2009):

National Geographic reports:  Plastic breaks down fast in the Ocean

Wallace J. Nichols posts on (April 2009) recent surveys and abstracts regarding the plastic pollution in the ocean and in sea animals, as well as reflecting the historical progression with graphs.

And for organizations dedicated to healing the ocean link to Ocean Revolution and also this Eco News Release with links to several other sites working to help the oceans, like adaywithoutplastic.org, LIVBLUE.org, shrimpsuck.org and seeturtles.org.

NPR on the vortex

Garbage from Hawaii to Japan-UK Independant

The Oyster’s Garter…re: images of the Gyre… and more

Greenpeace International on the plastic polluting the Pacific

Bloomberg.com on “Plastic mistaken for Plankton”

~

As I try to do my best to change my habits and really reduce throw away plastic and other needless garbage from my own daily life, especially, plastic bottles and shopping bags, I am mortified by how threaded it is through so many actions and things we take in a day. Suddenly I see the little wraps of plastic to seal the lid of a product or the packaging of something I am buying and I think of the dead and starving sea turtles, albatross and others with plastic filling their stomachs. This is obscene.

We as people need to take broad and firm action in this matter. Laws need to be passed that prohibit certain uses of plastics and reign in tightly the chaos of its production and disposal.

It is difficult, I have learned, from the above sources, to have a photo or satellite image of the plastic vortex. Most of it is submerged and breaking down, lots of it as tiny as plankton. It is a big complicated mess. There is not just one area of concern, there are many.

If we look for signs in nature with a spiritual eye, this is certainly one that does not speak well for us or for future. The animals who live far from us and our disposable lives are consuming plastics and dying of toxins and emptiness. May we recognize the urgency of this reality.

Certainly hope may rest heavily on the spiritual at this point. Faith must be grown strong especially in the darkest of times. Nothing is impossible for God. I am relying on this trust now, in a time when prayer and individual action may not be enough. However, there are countless loving, intelligent, capable people and groups/organizations who can make a difference here — young, old, and all the rest. May it be so.

with earnest hope and love for this life,

Chandra

Roots and Presence:

“Just to be is a blessing; just to live is holy.” –Abraham Heschel

All sacred truth comes along on a breeze, in a rock, in a moment, with the silence and the breath. When we open ourselves and submerge our hearts, when we choose to open our hearts bravely amidst this great and terrible myriad home, the Sacred answers, ‘Yes.’ and stays faithful, never abandoning such effort. It is relationship from roots to mountaintops. It is effort from soul to muscle. Grace comes to mind, and miracles.

Indeed, it is a marriage, to be truly alive. The vows all apply.

My embrace, my vow to embrace this life with all of my little life is the power to heal, to empower to honor the Sacred, all my relations. All is Mysterious and precious…as are you.

To seek right relationship, to resolve to seek the Sacred in all things in this life, despite complications and obstacles, is to proliferate death with great possibility and hope filled amazement that bridges on and onward into eternity.