The View Up Here

I've been offline quite a bit this year. Another year of changes, as it has turned out. The big change is that I was invited to interview for an open Director of Faith Formation position at a parish two hours north of Elmira, in Macedon, NY, and I was offered the job. I accepted, but it meant a 3-week turn around on a move. Whew! That's not the fastest bug-out I've ever done - two weeks from interview to start date is my record (for the job at Cornell in 2005, NYS Move #2, incidentally). Because God is in the details, I have friends from college who live in Palmyra (next door to Macedon) in a giant 1800s farmhouse they've renovated over the last 20 years, and they invited me to stay with them while I looked for an apartment. I moved in on August 1st, started my job August 5th, and tomorrow, September 6th, I'll move into my new apartment just up Rte. 31. How wonderful! But really, moving, AGAIN. The older I get, the harder it is to move. God certainly keeps me o...

As 2015 comes to a close, I remember the joys, not the sorrows. I recall the unexpected blessings, not the disappointments.  I hold in my heart the sunrises over the Wasatch Mountains, the gift of the computer I'm typing on, my new friends in Utah whom I love, my old friends in New York and Massachusetts who have taught me lessons and supported me. I give thanks for the beauty of the ocean at sunrise here at Nantasket Beach where I stayed last night. I am exceedingly grateful for the foundation grant which will assist me in my student loan payments while I am in formation once I enter a religious community. I choose to focus on these blessings, not on the discomfort I may feel in the uncertainty of my future, my current lack of a "home of my own," and other factors.  Disappointments, discomfort and disarray are a part of life. There is nothing any of us can do to avoid this truth. The Buddha Dharma teaches that "Suffering exists." As a Catholic, I ac...

I really dislike winter. Well, to be more accurate, I dislike the long, cold, damp of winter in the Northeast. Specifically, in Western New York. Winter in Salt Lake was cold but dry, so it was tolerable. Winter here - and the scary thing is we haven't even begun, really, with all these warm temps in the 50s and 60s - is going be a bear. Since I can't change the weather, I need to change my 'tude. I also need to recognize that I can take better care of myself in winter. Maybe you have similar problems with Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) aka "the winter blues." Of course, exercise is one key way of being healthier in winter, but for many of us, it's not enough. Here are some ways to make the best of things this winter: Find beautiful places to go for a walk. Maybe it's close by your home, maybe you have to drive to get there. But seeing the beauty in wintry nature on a sunny (if cold) day will do much to lift your spirits. Take soothing hot ...

Thanksgiving is next week! What the... how did that happen? It seems like I was just in Giselle's garden in Salt Lake City, picking cosmos for the living room table, and cherry tomatoes and basil to make a batch of The Sauce. This year has been big for me - paying off credit card debt, getting new (bifocal) glasses and two root canals, moving from Utah to New York, and of course being granted a way to handle the student loan debt when I find the right community to enter. I also had my heart broken over two Carmels that didn't end up working out (it's okay! better things were on the way), only to be introduced to St. Clare and a deepening awareness of my own Franciscan/Clarian charism, leading up to my live-in with a Poor Clare monastic community in Massachusetts in January, 2016. I am humbled by all of this incredible grace. Can I just empty this thing and crawl inside until Jan. 2? And now we're all looking at the calendar, realizing that Thanksgiving is ...

I have no good excuse for not writing here. Reasons, yes, but laziness combined with a certain obsession with re-watching the Battlestar Galactica reboot from the mid 2000s really took up a lot of time that could've been spent elsewhere. So why the BSG binging? I'd been hankering to see it again, and after listening to some of the soundtrack on YouTube, I decided to dive in. What did I glean the 2nd time around? I didn't dislike the ending as much as I did the first time. I still have some issues with plot holes you could fly a, well, a battlestar through, and it still made no sense why Cavill would off himself at the end. But seeing the mixed human-Cylon settlers on "new Earth" decide to start over made sense to me, and it resonated on a personal level. How many of us want a "do-over" in our lives, or at least in some situation in our lives? The good news is this: we DO get to start fresh. Because when you reconcile with God, the sins and mistakes o...

Tomorrow is Passion (Palm) Sunday, the start of Holy Week. I'm very pleased to be singing in choir at my parish, and I hope that the experience will remain an inspiring one through the coming months. I believe it was St. Augustine who first commented that "A person who sings prays twice."   I haven't written here much since I've been busy with work (a full time job and an on-going string of free lance editing for which I am very grateful). A quick update: I'm still on track for paying off my last piece of personal debt by the end of June. Yay! I will be returning to NYS mid-June for my cousin's ordination (he is becoming a Catholic priest). At that time I will visit friends and family, and nose around some of my old stomping grounds in Elmira.  I will also be visiting the Transfiguration Monastery in Windsor, NY when I'm back for my summer visit. I'm very excited about finding them; interestingly, they were founded around the same time...