The View Up Here

2020 was the year that stretched and formed me more than any other in recent memory, and I'm not talking about the Covid. Last August, I started teaching full time at a small Catholic, Classical school in Rochester. While I love my work and my students, the 50-55 hours a week are grinding me into a pulp. No brain matter for anything else, really. It has forced me, though, to be attentive to how I spend the time I have outside of work. Prayer is my priority - resting in His Love and praying the Liturgy of the Hours. I'm back to reading akshual books, which is a great gift of itself. Current read:  A Severe Mercy by Sheldon Vanauken. But 2020 left me an orphan. After a year's struggle with gastric cancer, my brother Patrick passed into eternity on Nov. 27. Yes, the man who'd spent years in retail died on Black Friday. I can't help but think that was no coincidence.  Thankfully, we his family were with him during his last week. It was far more grueling than what I wen...

Yesterday morning, my heart was heavy. So heavy I had a hard time getting out the door and to work. I know it's a symptom of depression, that kind of darkness. It was the 10th anniversary of my mother's death, and I felt the wound of loss more keenly than I have since that night in 2009. It was as if my body remembered exactly what it had felt like.  I made it just barely in time for one of our killer 2-hour staff meetings, got ready to attend a service fair at the local college, and ate two hotdogs for lunch (which NEVER HAPPENS, people!). At the last minute I invited our seminarian Steve to join me at the service fair, and happily he was able to. Having him for company was a boon; he is a nerd and a man of spiritual integrity, so we get on very well. Afterwards, we grabbed a bite to eat at the local Wegmans, then I had a decision to make:  do I go to choir practice or go home and sleep? I was absolutely exhausted in mind and body. Steve, who is also in the Tradition...

Dear Friends and Family, Please pray for the repose of the soul of Br. Justin Young, OSB. He died suddenly on Wednesday, April 4, from a brain hemorrhage. Also please keep in your prayers his family members, brother monks of Mount Saviour Monastery (Elmira), and all the Oblates and many friends of Br. Justin and the Monastery.  Brother Justin was a dear friend of mine and of many others who sought his deep prayerfulness, winning smile, outrageous laugh, and constant thoughtfulness. He was the Porter at Mount Saviour, greeting guests and preparing their morning meals for them. He also did a hundred other things of which I'm not even sure. He was a creative and a mystic at heart, and that's how our bond developed. He often sought me out after Mass and gave me some little encouragement, prayer, or intuition that had come to him regarding my own spiritual journey. I will treasure always a copy of St. Francis de Sales' Introduction to the Devout Life that Br. Justin ga...

I am waiting in the silence for Messiah, the One who saves, the One who is Love, to come into my heart. Ah! He is already here, yet He seeks even more of my heart.  This Advent I was wracked with mono (since October) as well as stomach flu (last weekend). At first I was angry: how unfair, why did this happen to me, why now? I was planning to go "home" to be with family on the South Shore of Boston for Christmas as usual, and as usual, the hype and stress of getting everything done before I hit the road for a 7 hour drive to stay at other people's houses (even people I love) was starting to ramp up. To give you an idea of how this feels: One night in the midst of stomach flu ickiness earlier this week, I was awake, sweating, feeling so horrible I almost felt out of my body. And that's where I met Jesus. "Accept everything." That's what my spiritual director had said in his voice mail message that morning. "Jesus I trust in You." It...

2016 has rocked our GenX world as one pop icon after another has died and left a huge vacancy. For me, the moment of ENOUGH ALREADY didn't come until the death of Debbie Reynolds, a day after Carrie Fisher's passing. I truly thought it was some kind of bad joke when I woke up and read the headline, and my brain struggled with the seeming unlikelihood of it all - especially in light of the "fake news" that's been outed after the election. A small corner of my brain hoped it was another tabloid-esque false report even as I knew that if it's splashed all over BBC, CNN, Washington Post and FoxNews, it must be true. This morning I caught an article on the fake news of 2016 , and it got me thinking about how vulnerable we all are. The internet keeps us connected 24/7 with each other and the world, which has its light and dark side, as most things do. The light side:  knowing of injustice that we can then act upon, sharing pictures of family far away, sending em...

Normally around this time, I do a wrap up of the year in my own life and estimation. Although I don't remember if I did one last year. Anyway, I'm resuming the tradition.  After spending the Christmas holiday with my family, I arrived home last night to find a pile of Christmas cards awaiting me in the mail box. I had anticipated this and was delighted to open cards from friends and family in other states as well as right here in Elmira. What I wasn't prepared for was a letter tucked into a card from my friend Fr. David, a Trappist in Utah. His letter held some sad news, including the death of their Guestmaster, lay brother Michael. Michael was my first contact at Holy Trinity Abbey, where I spent many a retreat weekend during my year in Salt Lake City, and we had quickly become friends. I will always remember his New Jersey baritone, "We all love you, honey. We're praying for you."  So last night after doing laundry and watering my plants, I made my ...

On the first day of week, after Jesus had been crucified and laid in a tomb, Mary Magdalene arrives early, before dawn, to the tomb where he lay. She finds the stone of the tomb entrance rolled away, the blessed body of her Rabbi gone. She is distraught. She runs and tells Peter and John. They come back to the tomb with her and verify that it is, indeed, empty. Then they go away. But Mary, she stays. She stays and weeps. I completely understand this. When my mother died, I didn't want to be apart from her, even at the funeral home, where I stood next to the casket the entire time, even at the grave, when I didn't want to leave after the service was over. I wanted to stay and be still, to mourn and cry, and to be near her. There is something visceral about this experience, when the connection to the deceased is so strong that separation feels like an impossibility, and there is a sense of massive disorientation, like this person isn't truly gone, somehow. Mary turns...

I meant to blog last weekend, but the entire weekend sort of slipped away, and then it was time to go back to work for the semester, and then I got sick. So, here's what I would have blogged last week... Last Friday, Jan. 22, marked the two year anniversary of my mother's passing. I spent Friday night feeling pretty damned lonely, so I called Jackie, my dearest and oldest friend in the world who is also an experienced hospice social worker. She told me that the relationship Mom and I nurtured in the last years of her life was inspirational, and she remarked on the question my mother asked me about a year before her death. One day while I was at Mom's apartment doing housework for her, she told me that she was trying to think of things she had taught me, but she couldn't think of any. She asked me what she had taught me. I was stunned at this, because I owe 90% of who I am to my mother. I rattled off a list on the spot, and over the next several months, I continued to ad...