God bless Archbishop Dolan

Give him a primetime slot like Archbishop Fulton Sheen...
here he is on CBS, explaining some of the teachings of the Catholic Church.

On Emptiness, c. Summer 2010

My little townhouse-that-could was almost empty, after days of packing and loading and driving and unpacking and square dancing around the boxes in my new house. Even with all of that, I didn't realize what was happening until the sound of my own voice startled me – I was skimming up the stairs to grab one last thing before break time, singing “Girl, put your records on…” when I heard myself reverberating off the stairwell.

I stopped, first to make sure it wasn't an intruder, singing a pretty song to lure me in…and then I sang a little more, just to test. The echo sounded nice, in the way that a wind instrument makes music when air is blown through the hollow body. The clean floors and bare walls were part of the production; the sounds that they shaped were haunting and pretty. Reminded me of the barbershop quartet in the Metro near Pentagon Square, or the daily Mass choir practicing in the Memorial Hall stairwell at Benedictine.

Plain, quiet, bare space is really very pretty, very peaceful. But to create that in my interior life, that's not an easy thing. I have to work to create space for myself to develop and process and reverberate. I just attempted to "blank slate" myself at the beginning of this summer, staying home with for two weeks to “get some rest” - sleeping in, waking with no expectations, making my "schedule" up as I went along. I could do whatever I wanted, and I did what I thought I wanted. But somehow, the empty boxes on my cleared agenda weren't freeing. The days ended up being dry and uninspiring, and my head rattled around in a daze. My life was relatively void of responsibility, and I had expected rest. Instead, I stripped away any rhythm, times, conversations and commitments that brought life, and my recreation re-created nothing. Real serenity wasn't afforded to me when I sought indulgent self-preservation, gutting my mind of thought.


Now, to speak of other emptinesses - ones cleared patiently, and filled with purpose:

Right now, in India, my friend is staring at her hotel ceiling, dealing with typhoid and other such movie star diseases. Far from glamorous, Tina writes this of her experience...

I spoke this week with another dear friend who had given birth to a baby boy. For the good portion of a year, this lady gave all that she had for a silent, little person - unseen, save the bloppy black-and-white sonogram that confirmed Liam was indeed in utero. I quietly cried happy tears into the phone to hear of her joy after waiting for nine months, arranging blankets in an empty crib.

In emptiness, beauty has space to echo. I’ve heard it before – “in the silence of the heart, God speaks.” In  the quiet, babies develop and minds process and sounds echo into something more than they once were.

Now read this.

The rhythm of spring is easier to dance to.

I believe in the enchanting mystery of winter, but I sure enjoy the whole day more easily in the spring.

Morning

The battle between the snooze button and subjecting your finally-warmed toes to frigid tile is lessened. Coffee is more of a delicacy and less of a lubricant. My drive to campus is pleasanter, as Nashvillians don't just abhor bad weather, they stand stock-still until it's gone...often in the middle of West End Avenue.

Midday

Sunshine gives stained glass the freedom to be all it can be. In every building, the Jr. High Biology Classroom on Video Day-feeling of dimmed lights, cold desktops, and heavy eyelids is banished.

Noontime

This is when the whole campus is buzzing, and you can safely assume that everyone...even musicians...have experienced some of the day. Welcome, all.

Evening

If you can practice carelessness, I do it in the spring. After dinner, I skip outside with no jacket, under no threat of frostbite or walking pneumonia. My idealized hope is that it's not so warm that people take too many clothes go off, but just enough...you know...so that you can identify friends from a quarter of a mile away. Or something.

Nighttime

The weather tells me that another day like this is coming, and that it's worth sleeping now to wake up for. Spring is the seasonal version of "the first day of the rest of your life," a phrase which I would have wagered a college textbook that my friend and I coined in our freshman year at Benedictine. It's fine, you can all use it.

Take yesterday, for instance:

Morning

I woke early, dropped my dear friend off at work, convinced myself on the way home that the weather warranted a celebration, bought myself a coffee, drank half, and called mission partners to thank them for being as in love with this mission as I am. Consolation Nation.

Midday

Walked into the Cathedral to participate in one of the sweetest, most beautiful Masses in my life. It was the Feast of St. Joseph, foster father of Jesus, and Angelle was receiving her First Holy Communion. Picture an angelic little girl, bedecked in white, looking as close to Original Innocence as she ever has, stretching her elbows all akimbo so they reach the top of the ornate kneeler, beaming at her mom when Father mentions her name in the homily. I would like to believe that God sees me looking like Angelle. And it is good.

Noontime

A friend and I take the Eucharist to Catholic patients in the hospital, and the Divine Physician comes to his sick with unparalleled medicine. We prolong the celebration at Fido, toasting with scrambled eggs and salsa.

Evening

I head uptown to run errands, and find a moving sale. It's warm enough for people to sell me their picture frames and dishes! A Civil War battlefield monument sign stops me, so I park to take a seven minute look around. Pulling into my driveway, I see a neighbor on her porch. We've never met, so I tiptoe onto her lawn and call out "We've never met, but I live next door and I like your wicker chairs!" She tells me her name, the name of her husband, and that her contractions are ten minutes apart. Their baby girl is coming! I start a short run, and wave as I go, shouting that I hope they are off to the hospital before I'm back to stretch. (Next day update: still no word. They probably are house-hunting for neighborhoods with no shouting.) I catch up on the phone with a good friend, and she is well.

Nighttime

Catholics know how to celebrate. A group of 20 women gather in the Frassati House and load the table with a baked goods extravaganza. We hear about the life of St. Joseph, and share our experiences from praying a thirty day prayer to ask for his intercession in our vocations. Game over. Day's a success. We bring a latte to the hospital for our sweet, on-call roomie, and fall into a deeeep sleep.

We love Vanderbilt+Catholic.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1icrzbafxXY

But I have promises to keep

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

BY ROBERT FROST

Whose woods these are I think I know.   

His house is in the village though;   

He will not see me stopping here   

To watch his woods fill up with snow.   

My little horse must think it queer   

To stop without a farmhouse near   

Between the woods and frozen lake   

The darkest evening of the year.   

He gives his harness bells a shake   

To ask if there is some mistake.   

The only other sound’s the sweep   

Of easy wind and downy flake.   

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.   

But I have promises to keep,   

And miles to go before I sleep,   

And miles to go before I sleep.

Overwhelmed by resolutions. Marveling at "It Bloggers"

Tala: "How do some people have time to raise kids, make real food and little crafts and BLOG about it? I'll never be that organized..."

Amanda: "And they don't just make any food...they...like...make food in the shapes of things that make people love God more!"

Riches galore

Like I do with any new season or event, I marked the start of this Christmas break by writing a "bucket list." I even posted it right here. As I titled it, appropriately, "Christmas Break Bucket List," I wrinkled my nose at the same-old-ness of it all. I have been writing...and ignoring...lists like this for years. I needed better vision for this dream-dreaming and goal-setting.

Then, I read a quote from a shiny photographer mom blog that I've been following for some time now. She visited Utah, and was enchanted by what she saw: 


"It's unreal. I tried to express my amazement of the place today, but every good word I thought of seemed to cheapen the beauty...so I used naughty words instead, because they're already cheap." -Kelle Hampton


Kelle. You may need a soapy rinse for your dirty mouth, but you're an everyday genius. Sometimes, when I'm struck with something that isn't easily communicated or completed, I roll over. I play dead, and breathe shallowly so no one will ask me to explain anything. I give the cheap response because I don't have to reach far to grab it, and at least people don't pity me for trying hard and failing miserably if I don't attempt things seriously. I write rote lists and attempt new adventures half-heartedly because it's cheaper and easier and it doesn't really hurt if I don't accomplish things that I didn't really care about in the first place.

That's absolutely not what this season is about. It's not supposed to be cheap. It's not spray-painted, shatterproof ornaments from the bargain bin. (Sorry, Target. My pink and green bulbs are cutesy and affordable, but so not legitimate. The paint is flaking off and the white plastic underwear is showing.) This time is delicate - like the mirrored glass of the Christmas balls that shatter into a million pieces if you bump them off of the tree. It's rich. It is real. It's not synthetic poinsettias. It's spicy evergreens that came from a tree that took time to grow.


Sooo...my bucket list. I bucked it. I took off any items that I added just because they generally seemed addable. I thought about what I ought to ask of myself, and what I could accomplish. I thought SMART: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Timely. I did not feel nerdy at all for using acronyms in personal list-making.


Some of these things are hard, some easier. Each are rich...rich like hearty foods, and jeweled colors, warm lights in the sharp darkness, and cozy layers in the biting cold. Substantial.

• Memorize a delicious little poem by January 1.  FAIL. Not an inspiring start.

• Read and relish in a work of fiction to celebrate the completion of the GRE, which left the lingering and unsavory vibe of fluorescent lights and buzzy computer screens and cheap plastic testing cubicles. (The Outsiders, by S.E. Hinton. Simple, sad, and sincere.

• Write and mail my Christmas cards to the mission partners who help me to do this incredible job and become my extended family - faux aunts and uncles, or "faunts and funcles." This was an EVENT. They should have brought in the mayor and the marching band when I dropped those 200 little gems down the chute.

• Bug my teammates and my disciples so they won't forget how much they love their FOCUS team. MOSTLY FAIL.

• Complete my grad school application by December 31 with pomp and gratitude (pomp+gratitude=promptitude? pratitude?). And right after I hit "Submit," we drove 3 blocks to "downtown" for New Year's Eve kareoke in the small town watering hole. Slightly awkward. Fully celebratory.

• Break in my new running shoes by running real miles. With my real legs. Once every other day, at least 20 minutes at a time. MOSTLY FAIL. But I did register for the Country Music Half. Giddy up.

• Water my first real Christmas tree in my very own living room. (*Well, a friend did it for me today. She even added sugar to the water. And apparently you have to do it every three days or something. Sheesh.)

• Drape the real evergreen garland on the eave and wrap the columns of the porch in greenery and white lights. FAIL FAIL MEGA FAIL. We carried this away when it was a moldy, frozen coil. (So, picture the doorway above looking a little less like it's in the Shire. Now picture the greenery lying on the ground beside the door. Put snow and ice on the greenery. Lots of it. You can't even see the garland anymore. Now imagine slimy evergreen boughs waiting to be unearthed in the spring. Ah, domesticity.)

• Find the perfect presents for Dad & Mom. (*Hm. Celebrating the birth of Christ with family? My presence? Check check. Presents from a store? Check that too.)

• Sleep 8 hours a night. Yeah! Pretty much!

• Prepare to be a Mistress of Ceremonies - find nuggets to share and songs about Baltimore to sing at the Baltimore FOCUS Conference besides that one from Hairspray. Thanks, Christine. I wouldn't have done it without your motivation. Honestly.

Oh that's riiiight...

There was a time when I knew how to calculate the area of a parallelogram without hesitation.

Now is not that time.

I would like to thank the GRE for this refreshing reminder.

God bless America.

Happy Birthday, Emily :)

Emily Dickinson's To-Do List
by Andrea Carlisle

Monday
Figure out what to wear—white dress?
Put hair in bun
Bake gingerbread for Sue
Peer out window at passersby
Write poem
Hide poem

Tuesday
White dress? Off-white dress?
Feed cats
Chat with Lavinia
Work in garden
Letter to T.W.H.

Wednesday
White dress or what?
Eavesdrop on visitors from behind door
Write poem
Hide poem

Thursday
Try on new white dress
Gardening—watch out for narrow fellows in grass!
Gingerbread, cakes, treats
Poems: Write and hide them

Friday
Embroider sash for white dress
Write poetry
Water flowers on windowsill
Hide everything

(Poster available from the Emily Dickinson Museum by artist Penelope Dullaghan. Seen here.)
A POEM BY EMILY DICKINSON
Fame is a fickle food
Upon a shifting plate
Whose table once a
Guest but not
The second time is set.
Whose crumbs the crows inspect
And with ironic caw
Flap past it to the Farmer's Corn —
Men eat of it and die.

The Third Place

I scored a spot at a velvet chair the color of an eggplant near the fireplace at Starbucks. There were flurries flying outside, and faux-flurry window clings stuck on the doors. I put headphones on and began "work" at Facebook, continuing to my blogroll.  It wasn't 'til I hit my email that I realized I hadn't ever turned on music...I was listening to the indistinct chatter of the 60-or-so people sharing the cafe floor. I clicked into iTunes and lasted 2 songs before deciding that I was missing out on something.

I caught snatches of the professor/student meetings happening on my right and my left. I hadn't spoken a word to any of them except the velvet-chairholder next to me. I knew no one else in the place, but felt little sense of aloneness. I surely wasn't comforted by productivity - for heaven's sake, I was browsing pictures of people that I barely knew, eating an over-expensive sugar cookie painted like a polar bear with a scarf. So...what was so great about this sociable anonymity?

I had sunk into the third place, "a term used in the concept of community building to refer to social surroundings separate from the two usual social environments of home and the workplace. Ray Oldenburg calls one's 'first place' the home and those that one lives with. The 'second place' is the workplace — where people may actually spend most of their time. Third places, then, are 'anchors' of community life and facilitate and foster broader, more creative interaction. All societies already have informal meeting places; what is new in modern times is the intentionality of seeking them out as vital to current societal needs."

Positive:  It was easier to see these strangers as people than if they were next to me on the road, shrouded in his and her own vehicle. Negative:  The fact that no one knew what I was supposed to be accomplishing there did allow me to waste my time and call it "restoring my energy."