Broken

"She was really upset," Caroline's teacher said, looking over my shoulder at the doll in my hands.  Caroline had brought her porcelain doll with her to school today, her "pottery doll" as she called her.  She'd come with her own little box that doubled as a wardrobe and a few old-fashioned and carefully crafted outfits.  Her delicately painted face now had a large crack hastily held together with a band-aid across her forehead.  In Caroline's clutched hands were more band-aids, presumably given to her to doctor her at home and to comfort her.

"She's broken, mommy," Caroline said sadly, her lip trembling.

There's so much broken right now, I wanted to respond.  But I just hugged her tight, and kissed her head and smelled her hair, reassured her that we would fix it, trying to not think about how I'd spent the last two hours crying.

On the way in I'd encountered another preschool mom, and something in the way she'd looked at me had made me ask if she was ok.

"No, not really," she said, and her face crumpled.  She had family in the town, nieces who went to ballet with the kids from the school that no one had heard about, a mom who taught grade school there for years.  She was just trying to hold it together for pickup, she said.

At eleven o'clock I'd prayed the rosary, the Sorrowful Mysteries.  Some other Catholic moms and I did it together virtually and in our own space, united for a small moment across miles through our burdened mother's prayers.  I grabbed the kids' rosary hanging above the desk; the large colorful wooden beads given to Caroline as a baptism gift seemed to fit today.  I don't normally say the words of the prayers out loud, preferring instead the staid properness of just slightly mouthing through them, like all the old ladies in church have done for forever.  But today, my sobs rang the words out loudly and brokenly.  I closed the shades so no one could see me.  When I got to announcing the first mystery, the Agony in the Garden, my heart turned toward the parents in the fire station, the ones who hadn't emerged trembling and thankful with their children.  The ones who stayed.  If there were a time for a person to fall to their knees, to beg God, to sweat blood, this would be it.

And that was when the cross fell off of my rosary.  It just thunked to the ground between my knees, as if the weight of the entire morning was too much for it, as if the Father and the Son and the Spirit and the Mother were also in pieces with us.  I paused, and stared at it, then picked it up and screwed it back on and kept going.

Just last night, I had a talk with Sam about the idea of us living in a broken world, how because of the way the world became corrupted bad things happen, how it's not what God wanted for us.  But how because of that, we can freely choose God.  How He didn't want us to be robots.  What I didn't tell him was that there are days I wish I was a robot, days I wish decisions were made for me for my own good, when I didn't have to keep choosing over and over again to love God in the face of brokenness.

I won't tell him either that after the first decade I suddenly forgot the words to the Hail Mary, a prayer I've said all my life, and had to look them up to keep going.  How I also forgot after that first mystery the extra prayer I always say at the end of a decade: "Jesus, forgive us our sins, save us from the fires of Hell, and lead all souls to heaven, especially those in most need of thy mercy."

Especially those in most need of thy mercy.  And I knew I'd forgotten it because it allowed me to not think about the perpetrator, to not be forced to pray for him.  I'm not a good enough Catholic to be able to offer up that prayer without it turning my stomach.  But I did it anyway.

After preschool pickup I took Caroline for a cupcake and to get her hair cut, forgetting for a few hours the speculation and rumors that passed for news that were being announced on the radio.  And a few hours later, I was at the school to pick up Sam.  My own kindergartener.

The car line was short.  The gathering of adults who had parked their cars and walked to the door was much larger.  His teacher didn't make an appearance as she usually does.  She's young, in her third teaching year.  I'd wanted to give her a hug, tell her we all loved her.  But I can't blame her for not being up for all that well-wishing.

I hugged Sam tight.  He comes up past my waist now, and his hair has lost that baby-fine texture and is starting to get rough and spiky.  But I buried my face in it anyway.

"Sam, I broke my pottery doll," Caroline said in greeting.

"Oh, I'm sorry, Caroline!" He patted her shoulder.  "Don't worry, we can fix it."

"I can glue the doll," I assured them.  "I'll do my best."

But I don't know how to glue everything else.

Lasts and Firsts

Sam and the enormous beyond.

Hoo, boy.  What a roller coaster of a day.

This morning, I dropped Caroline off at her new playgroup that she'll be in once a week this fall, and Sam and I headed out for our last morning together before he starts Kindergarten next week.  All this last year and some of this summer, he and I have had our Thursday morning date.  It usually involved a trip to Fresh Flours in Ballard for a latte for me and a shared pastry served up by our favorite barista, coincidentally also named Sam.  We'd sit in the window and people-dog-bird watch and chat, or read together a chapter book like Ramona or one of the Junie B. stories.  Then around 10:30, we'd amble over to the OAC for some time in the pool.  Sam is a fairly capable swimmer now, so we'd laugh and do laps together and occasionally I'd get creamed by a cannonball.  Then, we'd shower and get dressed and go to pick up Caroline.

This time, Sam wanted to do a bike ride.  We met a friend for coffee and a donut for fuel, then took our bikes on the Mothership to Gasworks Park.  We rode to the north edge of the U and on the way back stopped at an apple tree along the path, where Sam shimmied up the trunk and tossed down a few choice pieces of fruit.  We stuffed them in our pockets and washed them in the water fountain at the park, then climbed up Kite Hill while munching them.  Sam deemed his too sour and tossed it bites and all to the ambling geese, who greedily stabbed at it.  We both laughed hard when I tossed mine and it bounced unpredictably and hit a surprised goose in the butt, in the way things like that are only funny to a six-year-old and his mother.

I was on shaky ground by the time we got home after picking up Caroline and making a quick stop for lunch.  A few small, inconsequential chicken-peck type of annoyances sent me into a bit of an emotional swamp, so I turned on the TV to Curious George and hopped in the shower hoping to somehow gain some perspective while in there.  When it crossed my mind to contact a friend to pray for me, it occurred to me that I can pray for myself...I am actually allowed to do that.  So after getting dressed, TV still on and kids still occupied, I headed downstairs and grabbed my rosary.

Yes, the enormous kid rosary.

And the dam broke and the tears came.  Before the words of the Hail Mary were even out of my mouth, drops were dripping off the end of my nose.  As I traveled the beads, my mind was turned toward what had been playing around the edge all day:  Jesus' first miracle at the wedding at Cana, the nativity of his ministry, his reluctance to begin it ("Woman, it is not yet my time!") and Mary's gentle prompt ("Do whatever he tells you to do.").  If there was anyone who understood how hard it is to let go of a child and allow them to fulfill their destiny, no matter what it would hold or how wrenching it was for you, it was certainly her.

Sam is no Jesus, and I am certainly no Mary (I'm not very good at the "pondering things silently her the heart" part - I'm more of a "tell everyone loudly how she's feeling and maybe make a joke about it" kind of girl).  Kindergarten isn't exactly turning water to wine.  But there is a hard truth to this time.  Sam has started his path away from me and toward his own purpose.  Truly, it started from the moment he was born.  But this, in a little way, is the first of many small Canas.  I am urging him onto a path that goes away from me.  For the first time, he will spend more waking hours during the week away from me than with.  He'll be finding out who he is apart from me, what decisions he makes, what people he likes, what activities thrill him.  I'll be there to support, but he'll mostly be on his own in the hours he's at school.

What will he find out?  What will I find out?  It's a mystery, just as it probably was to that holy woman almost 2000 years ago.

But we both certainly could appreciate at the time the enormity of the first step on the path, the hesitant movement towards an unknown destiny, for both mother and child.

A Pilgrimage

Here's one of the things I love about being a Leen.  On Sunday late morning, I was a bit tired after a long brick workout and the kids and Mark were feeling a bit cooped up, having spent all morning at home waiting for me.  I have the summer off from my Sunday morning church gig, which meant that we had most of the day to do something fun together.

"How about a pilgrimage?" suggested Mark.

Ever since we saw the movie "The Way" last year, we've been fascinated with the idea of completing a pilgrimage.  However, we both realize that right now for many reasons the biggies of the Camino and Fatima or Lourdes are out of the question.  Not only could we not swing it financially, but packing up two small kids and flying them over to France and then hiking 200+ kilometers would require more than a Xanax prescription and would probably counteract any graces received.  It brings to mind Erasmus' criticism of pilgrims of his time who neglected their duties to complete a long, expensive journey to the Holy Land.  The purpose of a pilgrimage is to draw closer to God, not to go into debt and be driven to drink.

So, we've been thinking of ways we could achieve something like this on a smaller scale.  Presented with a free day, we decided to take a pilgrimage down to Olympia to visit the Shrine of Our Lady of Perpetual Help at the parish of St. George Byzantine Catholic Church.  Here's their website.

The Byzantine Church, although a separate entity from the Roman Church, is in union with the Pope and the Roman Church.  Although a smaller and less vocal presence in American life than the Roman Catholic Church (I'd imagine in part due to immigration patterns over the last few hundred years), Roman Catholics are allowed to partake of any of the sacraments available in the Byzantine Church, along with several other "brother" churches.  Need a chart?  I did.

Anyway, we hopped in the car with some snacks, said a prayer together for a successful trip, and took off down I-5.  An hour and a half's worth of driving later, we pulled into a gravel parking lot of the church itself.

Little Byzantine House on the Prairie

The modest building seemed out of place in the middle of Lacey farmland, with its gold spires and bright paint.  I wasn't sure what to expect when we walked inside, but I don't think my hopes were high.  Maybe I expected when I walked through the doors I'd be greeted by the typical modest but neat small parish church, a few statues and some drop ceiling tiles with a few charmingly missing pieces.  Here's what we got instead:

It's bigger on the inside.

There is no way this blurry picture does this justice but trust me when I say these people take beauty seriously.


Father Lee, seen in the above picture talking to Mark, is the delightful and accommodating administrator of the parish, and happily walked us through the church and all the icons with some wonderful and detailed explanations.  I'll include a few here, as well as what details I can remember from our chat.  If you want more information, a helpful page about icons can be found here.

Standing in the middle of the church and looking straight up, one is greeted by a ring of icons depicting the four authors of the Gospels and looking down on us, Jesus holding the Gospel.  This is the Icon of Christ.  One of its features is a Christ with larger ears and a smaller mouth, signifying that He hears all but speaks only holy words.  Handy reminder.  More information about this particular icon can be found here.

Every Byzantine Church has a wall and doors in front of the later and tabernacle, and it is traditional to have a depiction of the Annunciation on the main doors.  In the foreground is a small table with an icon on display.  I didn't get a chance to ask much about what was here, but I'm assuming that the particular icon has something to do with the readings for the particular feast being celebrated.

On the walls on either side of the Annunciation are other icons of saints, including this Madonna and Child:

I love this.  His arm is around her shoulder and his cheek is pressed against hers, as He looks up towards His Father and clings to her robe.  She looks directly at us as she gestures to Him.

Ringing the walls of the church are icons hung at even intervals.  At first, being Roman, I assumed that they were the Stations of the Cross, but when I asked I was told by Father Lee that the Byzantine tradition doesn't include the stations.  Instead, these were all traditional icons from their rich tradition.

Here are a few of my favorites with some explanations provided by Father Lee.

The is the Nativity.  In a departure from Roman tradition, Mary has given birth to Jesus in a cave instead of a manger.  One can see the familiar cast of characters surrounding her, but underneath her are a few additions.  On the lower left is Joseph, with a worried expression as Satan in disguise as an old man tells him that the child is not his.  On the right midwives who attended the birth are bathing the Christ Child.  Midwives in the Nativity FTW!

In Byzantine tradition, one of the Sundays following Easter is devoted to the Myrrh Bearers - the women who brought the myrrh to the tomb on Sunday morning and were greeted by the Angel.  You can see the tears falling from their eyes and the grief in their bowed heads, and the angel gesturing to the empty tomb and shroud.

The Baptism of the Lord.  I especially loved the depictions of John, in his camel hair shirt and with his wild appearance.  In all the versions of him I saw, he seemed to have an unusually long neck.  I wonder if this is a nod to his eventual fate?  And look at the early church fathers in the river riding fish!

...and probably my favorite, The Dormition of the Theotokos (God-bearer).  Although Roman Catholic and Byzantine traditions both believe that Mary exists bodily in heaven, reunited with her soul as we all will be after the last judgement, how she got there is a point of difference.  We believe that at the Assumption she was assumed bodily to heaven.  My understanding is that the Byzantine Church believes that Mary "fell asleep in the Lord" and her soul was taken to heaven, and then after three days she was raised bodily.  This feast day in the Eastern rite is preceded by 14 days of fasting.

In the icon, you can see the apostles present around her.  Tradition states that they had been scattered around the world doing the work of the new Church, and were miraculously transported to her bedside to be present at her death.  Except for Thomas, strangely.  Tradition states that he shows up on a cloud right as Mary is being assumed and she hands him her mantle.  I feel like there's a skit in there somewhere where Thomas arrives late like, "Hey, guys, what'd I miss?" and asks for proof, and all the apostles roll their eyes and say, "See??  That's why we never invite you to anything!"

In the center is Jesus, holding what appears to be a small child.  It is the soul of Mary itself, held in His arms in a paradoxical reversal of the typical Madonna and Child scene.  It is a touching and effective reminder that while Mary may be the Queen of Heaven, she only is so because her own son redeemed her as well as the rest of humanity.  She rests in his hands like a child, just as he once rested in hers.

After a while in the church with the attendant kid antics, we made our way outside to the Shrine.  Caroline led the procession with her Mary.

Caroline and Tiny Mary

Our Lady of Perpetual Help is one of the oldest existing icons in the Eastern tradition.  It took me a minute to figure out that that doesn't mean the object itself - it means the particular arrangement of the figures and items in the icon.  Eastern tradition states that the icon was originally drawn by St. Luke himself while Mary was still alive, and she saw and approved of it.  More information about the history of the icon can be found here.

And here she is:

The Christ Child rests in His mother's arms, looking over His shoulder with a worried expression at the two angels Michael and Gabriel, who hold two symbols of the crucifixion.  He has run to his mother for comfort, and in His haste has lost a sandal.  His hand rests on hers, seeking comfort.  While Christ is preoccupied with this, Mary is looking at us, inviting us to look to her son.

We sat for a while in the shrine while the kids ran around the field and dug for worms.  We said some special prayers for our family, for our Church, and for the world.  We each gave each other some alone time while we took turns with the kids.

I reflected a bit on the icons that I'd seen.  In so many of them, things are happening simultaneously - old church fathers appear with the apostles, midwives wash the Christ Child at the same moment he was born.  They capture moments of eternity, moments when time is no longer linear.  The timeline is broken, and all of heaven and earth exists in a single point of time captured in the images.  In a way, this is what we experience when we attend a liturgy.  Old, ancient words unite with people light-years away, and during the sanctus we hear the echoes of heaven itself in the "Holy, Holy"as a rift opens and we experience a small piece of heaven here on earth in the form of the Eucharist.  It's a form of time-travel, uniquely available to us here on earth during our time on it.

Icons, like the objects of liturgy, are holy because of the power God grants them to become something more, to transport us to a time we don't have the capability of understanding right now.  Now I see through a glass darkly, but then face-to face.  It's the reason the way in which Jesus is transported body, soul, blood and divinity into the Eucharist is a mystery, the reason Jesus was able to redeem his own mother before she was born is strange.  It's out of our time, it's God's time.  But we get a glimpse of it when we view an icon, when we are present at the Mass.

We packed up our things, said goodbye to the little church and drove back to I-5.  Pilgrims of old believed that it was not just the destination that was holy, but the journey itself that would draw us closer to God.  It might not have been a trip across the world, but a pilgrimage in our own backyard proved to be a fine way to spend a Sunday afternoon.


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End note:  The Shrine has a yearly organized pilgrimage weekend that is coming up August 10-11.  Individuals and families form around the area and from further afield will gather and camp out for a night in the field around the Shrine, engaging in food, confession, processions, games, and prayer.  If you live in the area, it sounds like an intriguing weekend!

Ash Wednesday

I'm hungry.

And not just because it's Ash Wednesday and I've been fasting. No. I feel like I woke up from hibernation ravenous, except my stomach is my soul. There's no other way to explain it. You know how when you've been sick with a long illness and you just sort of get used to it, and then suddenly you're well and you realized just how badly it sucked to be sick? Sort of like that.

I don't really think I was sick, necessarily. I think I got complacent. It can happen to any of us about anything, and without really thinking. We fall off the diet wagon, stop our good habits. Often, it's something sudden and jolting that makes us stop and look at our feet and realize we weren't really paying attention to the path. For me, I had sat on my spiritual laurels for too long. I had assumed that at one point in my life I had worked everything out in my head and my heart, so I was good. I didn't really need to keep practicing at it, keep searching. I was done. I could go on and just live life now.

Except faith isn't like that. Faith is endless.

I was reminded with some reading earlier this week that God, like all the things he is compared to - Love, Beauty, Truth - is completely unending. Totally infinite. And I realized that I had limited myself. I had told myself that what I had done was good enough, that where I was was fine. And it is fine. But there's more....so much more. I was barely scratching the surface of faith, and I thought it was a meal.

I spent a lot of time over the last month feeling disheartened and a little beat up over many things - the state of the world, my microscopic chance to make any lasting sort of change in it. I fell into what can best be described as a spiritual depression. Then, in the desperation of a convert, I reached out and felt a hand, and heard a voice.

It said, "Come with me. I want to show you something."

And I followed.

So now, I have book lists, and prayer lists, and things to write and look up, philosophers and theologians and saints. I'm sitting at a banquet, one that was always available to me. And the more I read and the more I pray, the more I see the beauty, and the truth, and the love that's there. Infinity.

I realize that to some this may sound extreme. After all, most of you know me already as a pretty devout Catholic. Not necessarily a good one, and I don't expect that will change much. But that's the wonderful thing about it that I found in these last few weeks. Conversion is a continual turning toward God, because there is always more turning to do. As C.S. Lewis writes in The Last Battle, there is always the call of Aslan the Lion, "Further up and further in!"

I plan to write a bit more about my faith journey here, especially as it intersects with the other areas of my life that I write about more often. In looking back at this blog, it becomes apparent that while I may have thought a lot about faith as a general principle, I didn't do a great job of exploring its daily application. I'm hoping that during this Lent I can work on changing that, both by walking the path more intentionally and by reflecting on it in my writing.

Here's to conversion. Further up and further in!

Caroline's baptism

We got our little girl baptized on Sunday! Unfortunately, she fell fast asleep in the cozy towel, and when Father Ryan took her out of it and lifted her in the air...

Ash Wednesday

Dear Lord, I will never, ever, ever complain about my children again. Ok, I probably will, but not for a while at least. I just got home yesterday from 3 days with Caroline in isolation at Seattle Children's Hospital. I didn't expect quite such a visceral illustration of Ash Wednesday to intrude on my life, but that's the way it works sometimes, isn't it? The ashes on the foreheads of some of the parents I saw walking around the hallways seemed a little redundant - like they really needed a reminder of how fragile life is. One man looked at me in the elevator and shook his head with a wry smile: "This place. You're glad it's here, but..." "You'd rather be somewhere else?" I finished, and he nodded tiredly. My own experience seems pretty paltry compared to theirs, but I have definitely had enough of seeing people poke needles and tubes into my little girl. On the night we arrived in the ER with breathing problems and a fever, she had to have a blood draw, a catheter to collect a urine sample, and (the one I really had to sit down for) a spinal tap that took three tries to get done. In order to open up the spaces between her vertebrae, they had to fold her practically in half and hold her there until they got the right spot. When they handed her to me afterward, she looked at me with vacant, cloudy eyes that showed that she had mentally gone somewhere far, far away to deal with everything that had happened to her. I don't think I've ever had a sadder moment in my life.

The diagnosis of RSV meant that we were in a room by ourselves for 3 days. My meals were brought to me, and I spent the days eating, watching TV, sleeping, and rocking her in the chair they found for me. I left the room when Mark and Sam came to visit so I could take Sam to the cafeteria or gift shop to have some time with him. When I wasn't holding Caroline, she spent much of her time in a metal crib, swaddled in two blankets with her little boarded IV arm sticking out at an angle and her oxygen prongs taped to her little face. She went away from me for a day or so, sleeping for almost 24 straight hours while her body fought off the virus, waking up just to eat every few hours (which she thankfully was still doing well), and getting diaper changes. On the second night, the antibiodics they gave her upset her stomach, and she spent most of the night writhing around and fussing, while I rocked her in the chair and nodded off holding her. Finally, on Thursday afternoon she turned the corner, breathing just room air and starting to come back to us. On Friday, she was fully alert and given the ok to go home.

We've been practically giddy having her back and having our family reunited. This was obviously hard on Mark and Sam, too. Mark told me on Thursday that Sam had pointed at a bus on the road and told him that that bus was sad because his mommy was far away. We made up for some lost time this morning by piling on the bed together as a family, reading a book and admiring Caroline. The real reward for me, though, was a moment that we two had by ourselves earlier that morning. She had slept peacefully in her cosleeper for most of the night, but by 6:00 she was fussy and not settling with my usual pats and rubs. So I picked her up and laid her little head on my arm and snuggled down into the bed with her, something I hadn't been able to do for 4 days. She rewarded me with me most gorgeous, peaceful smile before drifting back to sleep. We're all so grateful to have her back.