The View Up Here

Over the past few months, I've had many interactions with friends of mine that go way back - 20, 25, even 35 years - and they have asked some very good questions about this whole "discerning a vocation" business. I also picked up that a few of them had some concerns, which is a natural reaction, I think, if the process and the spiritual life inherent in the process is unfamiliar to them. Not to mention the actual concept of monastic or religious life. And for some, me returning to the Catholic faith and wanting to live a life within that context has been troubling. With all this in mind, I figured it might be good to do an FAQ.  Please click on the links I've provided for more info on specific topics and experiences. If you have any other questions, please send me a comment. Thanks for reading! 1.   I have been discerning a religious vocation (to become a sister or a nun) for almost four years, now. In that time, I have met with several and very different re...

CNS Rome bureau: Catechism, yoga, Zen cannot open people's hearts to God, pope says:  http://t.co/utL2Y7geou #CNSstory — Catholic News Svc (@CatholicNewsSvc) January 9, 2015 I cannot agree more with this little article, as a person who tried all kinds of ways in my younger adulthood to be healed and connect with...SOMETHING...I tried Buddhist meditation, EFT, Reiki, even pagan moon rituals. Nothing led me to the Love of God. The moment of my "resurrection" or conversion experience had absolutely nothing to do with my own effort. It was the Holy Spirit, a shaft of light piercing the darkness that had become my inner world, and the Spirit showed me the Heart of Jesus on fire for me. For me!  I'm not talking down to Buddhists, pagans, Yoga and Reiki practitioners, or anyone else... I know that those practices come from the same desire to be loved and to love. My own experience is that those are limited forms that do not do the "trick," and only God c...

Life in a new city, a new job, a new home - all of this and more have kept me occupied and not blogging. The third week of Advent is well under way, and in a week's time, I'll be on a plane headed to the Land Where I Was Birthed for Christmas and New Year's Eve. Not only will I be visiting my dear family and friends, I will also be continuing my discernment by staying overnight at the Carmel in Concord, NH , and visiting with the Poor Clares of Boston , located in Jamaica Plain. (Incidentally, Jamaica Plain is where my parents first settled when they moved from Elmira, NY to Boston back in the early '50s.) A few words on the full-time job I've held since August - I'm the Office Manager for Mt. Calvary Catholic Cemetery in Salt Lake City, UT, working for the Catholic Diocese of SLC. Certainly not rocket science, but definitely a ministry - in more ways than I would've thought. I've come to see and know a deeper vein of human experience and suffering...

My, my, my how time flies. The school year has ended, all my work is done. Tomorrow I leave for two splendid weeks of discernment, living in a Carmelite monastery in San Diego, across these three beautiful feasts of the Church. Can it be true? How did I get here? I hardly know... except to say by the magnificent, grandiose, spoil-me-rotten grace of God. I have specifically been asking to know the Holy Spirit more intimately. Holy Spirit is, to my mind, "the mover and the shaker" in the Trinity. The Father is Creator and Being, Jesus Messiah is Redeemer and Rest, and it is in His Body that I rest. So we have upcoming: Pentecost Sunday, Holy Trinity Sunday, and the Feast of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ (Corpus Christi). In fact it was exactly one year ago on Trinity Sunday that I first went to to the Carmel to visit - Carmel of the Most Holy Trinity. Come, Holy Spirit, come! The past year was really rough - those girls got to my heart and I ached and I spilled...