September, 2006: Plumber saints

I think we need to start praying to the regular saints. If a saint is, as the Catholic Church defines the word, anyone who has died and is in heaven with God, there are a lot more saints up there than the few famous ones the church has canonized. Heaven must be filled with regular folks who led very good, and in many cases, exceptional, lives but might not have had friends in high enough places to recommend them for canonization by the Church here on Earth. The Church recognizes them anonymously, in the “Communion of Saints,” but let’s face it — people like St. Therese, St. Anthony and St. Francis are the celebrities of the Catholic Church. Everyone hoping for a favor rushes to them to put in a good word to Jesus.

            I have decided that all these other unknown saints, who are in just as much of a place to pray for us, should be just as much of a part of our daily faith as their more famous counterparts. While I don’t know the names of these saints, I can guess at their professions, and I have to believe they must take a special interest in things going on here on Earth that are connected to their professions.

            Take all the saints who were teachers or principals during their tenure on Earth —how many people call upon them? What a powerful group of saints. If we have a child who is struggling in school, shouldn’t we pray that a saint who was a teacher intercede for our child? That teacher-saint probably knows better than anyone what our child needs, and can be a firm ally.

            I have prayed to social worker saints for “T”, a child who used to be our foster daughter and is now going through a hard time. I’ve also prayed to the all parents in heaven who made some bad choices on earth but who now see the error in their ways. I am currently praying that together, the social worker-saints and the parent-saints figure out what would be best for T, and advise God accordingly. I imagine a big meeting, where, since this is heaven, everyone is listened to and everyone is giving ideas truly in the best interest of the child.

            I’ve prayed to saints for things that seem trivial — very human concerns that I can’t quite see bothering Mary or Jesus about. I’m not sure if I believe that for the small stuff,  the saint is interceding on my behalf or if saints can just take care of small things themselves. When Jacob pitched for the first time this year in the little league majors, I figured that somewhere in heaven was a kid named Jacob who had played little league. Sheer numbers and the popularity of the name Jacob told me he had to be there. “St. Jacob the Pitcher,” I prayed silently from the bleachers as my Jacob stood on the mound, “just let him do okay. He doesn’t need to be amazing or strike everyone out, but for his first time, just let him do okay so he doesn’t feel he let his team down.” Jacob pitched a no-hitter for the innings he was in, and struck out the best hitter in the league. I thanked St. Jacob the Pitcher. I didn’t call on him again that season until the play-offs when I just needed him to help Jacob get a hit in the last inning when there were already two outs. Jacob hit a grounder and made it safely to first. I didn’t ask for a win, though, and Jacob’s team lost, but I feel it’s important not to be too greedy.

            I’ve prayed to plumber saints about clogs and author saints when I needed a title for my book. I’ve prayed to doctor saints for an aunt who has a serious health problem, and mechanic saints when it was 30 below zero and our van wouldn’t start 250 miles from home. And I prayed to all the saints who struggled with cancer when a dear friend of mine was diagnosed.  Does everything always turn out the way I want? Of course not. But praying to these unknown saints gives me a sense of the amazing community of believers I am a part of. It reminds me that the millions or billions of people in heaven are mostly people not so different than the people I see around me. It reminds me that the folks I come in contact with each day — the grocery clerk, the mailman, my next door neighbor — are souls who might one day be saints. Praying to saints makes me think of all the very much alive people I know who are so quick to lend a helping hand. During difficult times, praying to these ordinary saints helps me remember that our time here on earth is just a small slice of eternity. Important, yes, but not the final word.

In our relationship with God, we can only glimpse what those who have gone before us can now see fully. Our friends, our relatives, our neighbors, and many, many people we haven’t met, are living with full knowledge of God’s love. They stand ready to guide us in our journey — eager to help us find the place they know so well. They have walked the very roads we walk now, and they understand what it is to struggle and be human. They stand ready to help. We only need to ask.

August, 2006: Late to piano lessons

We’ve come rather late to music lessons. I’m not a musical person myself, and while my husband had years of piano lessons, I’m the one who generally scans the recreation department booklet for summer and after-school activities, signs the kids up and carts them to and fro. With soccer, baseball, swim lessons and an endless parade of birthday parties, I thought our plate was full enough, and I didn’t pursue music. It wasn’t even a conscious choice, completely. It was an idea that fell off my radar. (And if truth be told, after it fell off, it was probably run over by the minivan as I backed out of the driveway to yet one more sports practice.)

            Last summer, though, we moved in across the street from Hy Pitt, a retired man with a gregarious personality and strong opinions.

            “Your children should be taking piano lessons,” he told me one day.

I told him if he could work it out for me that I wouldn’t have to drive them one more place, I would be happy to sign them up.

            So it came to be that Jacob and Liam are receiving weekly piano lessons from 80-something Hy Pitt. Shortly after the boys started their lessons, Bill’s parents decided their piano would get more use at our house than at theirs.

            So now we have two boys who have each had approximately 30 piano lessons. And the theme of our home is Beethoven’s “Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee.”

            A relatively easy melody, “Joyful, Joyful” is the first song Jacob received from Hy that he had actually heard before. Hy uses either his or his children’s old piano songbooks to teach the boys, which means easy children’s songs popular in the fifties, when his children were young, or in the twenties, when he was young. Either way, our boys had never heard of the songs they were playing until “Joyful, Joyful.” Liam isn’t quite up to the “Joyful, Joyful,” level yet, and is still playing songs about random ducks or “crunchy flakes.” A child of the 70’s, I have never heard of them, either.

             The strange thing about Jacob’s piano habits, though, is he never sits down for a half-hour of practice. Instead, he grabs a few minutes here or there, and pounds out “Joyful, Joyful.” Often, he chooses to practice just as we are about to leave for an activity. Faster at finding and tying his shoes than his little brother and sister, he is ready to go a couple minutes before them. Transition times are not Jamie and Liam’s best periods of the day, so the scene becomes a strange mix of screaming and fussing to classical music.

            Joyful, joyful, we adore thee.

            “Liam, get your shoes on now!”

            God of mercy, Lord of love.

            “I can’t find them. They’re gone. Oh, Jamie has one! Give that back!”  

            Hearts unfold like flowers before thee.

            “Jamie, give Liam his shoe, please.”

            “NO!”

            Opening to their sun, above.

            Eventually, all shoes are on the correct children, and “Joyful” is abandoned as we rush to another sports practice or something.

            Later in the day, Jacob will hit the piano again — at a different transition time — say, Jamie and Liam’s bedtime, which is forty-five minutes earlier than his. For whatever reason, my mind always picks up on the line he left off on last time he played. I guess this is helpful, as it provides a different background for the fussing.

            Melt the clouds of sin and sadness.

            “She walked into the bathroom WITHOUT KNOCKING!”

            Drive the dark of doubt away.

            “My toothbrush!”

            Giver of immortal gladness

            “No, that is MINE. I don’t want YOUR GERMS!”

            Fill us with the light of day.

            Sometimes, I notice that if Jamie and Liam’s argument escalates, Jacob plays faster. It’s all Bill and I can do to get the two little ones in bed before they are launched into orbit by sheer emotion, and I worry that Jacob could actually break the piano by playing too hard and too fast. 

            Every so often, though, when all things align, Liam and Jamie have a transitional moment that gives me a glimpse of hope. Jacob’s playing slows, becomes beautiful, and I am so thankful that when I backed over the potential for music lessons, I did not crush them completely.

            Thou art giving

            “Goodnight, Jamie. Could I have a hug?”

            And forgiving.

            “I love you, Liam.”

            Ever blessing

            “I love you, too.”

            Ever blest.

            Ever blessed, indeed. Not because things are always joyful, joyful. But because every once in awhile, hearts do unfold.

July, 2006: Liam is Catholic

Liam, our seven-year-old, is all about being Catholic. Having recently received his First Communion, he is coming off a school year where discussion of the sacraments and Catholicism were front and center most of the time.

            Interestingly, Liam often uses “Catholic” the way many people use the word “Christian,” as a way to describe a person acting in a compassionate way. The first time I noticed it was a couple of weeks ago, when he and I were walking to his little league game. About a half block from the field, we encountered a little girl who was crying because she couldn’t find her mom. I asked the girl a few questions and then helped her locate her mother, who had just run to the car to grab her sunglasses. When we were out of earshot of the little girl, Liam turned to me.

            “Wow, Mom, that was really Catholic of you,” he said. “That girl stopped crying when she saw her mom. You helped her to stop crying.”

            I thanked Liam, and wondered if I should address the fact that what I did really wasn’t specifically Catholic, or even Christian. It was just the right thing to do — the thing that almost any adult, regardless of their faith, or lack of faith, would do in a similar circumstance.

            But I didn’t say anything. While helping the girl wasn’t specifically a Catholic action, it was in its own small way, in keeping with Catholic values. I decided I had plenty of opportunity to correct Liam for the many other things he says that really are wrong (most to his little sister or older brother) and I should to let this one go.

            But in the next few weeks, I noticed “Catholic: The Adjective” cropping up quite a bit in Liam’s day-to-day speech.

            “Jamie, thanks for sharing your chips with me. That’s very Catholic of you.”

            “That cartoon has people fighting. It doesn’t seem very Catholic.”

            “Mrs. Doerr smiles all the time. She is really Catholic.”

            Every time I hear Liam saying something like this, it’s jarring. On one hand, I feel that Liam is exactly right. TV shows with violence aren’t in keeping with Catholic values, but sharing and smiling are. If Liam could grow up associating being a Catholic with how people should be acting in their day-to-day life, Catholicism will have done its job. Without understanding what he’s saying, Liam is right to assert that to be Catholic should be synonymous with being very good. Being a good Catholic so much bigger than just noting the rules that make Catholicism different than other Christian religions. Too often, when I hear someone described as “very Catholic” or “a good Catholic” it relates to only one thing— the many children in the family. If we truly look at the teachings of the Catholic church, however — teachings on poverty and social justice along with Humane Vitae — we find that being “very Catholic” can look a lot of different ways, but all of them will somehow involve reaching out to others.

            The thing I don’t want for Liam, though, is for him to grow up thinking that Catholics have cornered the market on the truth. While right now, due to his Catholic school and Catholic extended family, he has very limited experience with non-Catholics, we are working on broadening his horizons. I went to a funeral of a friend’s grandmother a few days ago, and left the order of worship on the table.

            “Christ Episcopal Church,” he read, sounding out Episcopal syllable by syllable. He paused. “Do people who are Episcopal believe in God?”

            I laughed, thinking of the service, where the only thing different than the Catholic Mass seemed to be that we knelt to receive Communion. It was a good opportunity to teach Liam about the many Christian faiths. This led to a discussion about the many Orthodox Jews in our neighborhood and how, while they do not believe Jesus is the messiah, they and we share the same belief in God.

            That night, when I was tucking Liam in bed, we said prayers together. He had a long list — the school secretary who has cancer, his great uncles, his previous foster sister, and Bill, who was finishing his eighth grade report cards that night. After Liam finished and I kissed him goodnight, he smiled at me in the darkness.

            “I love being Catholic,” he said. “Everything about it is right. Not that the other religions are wrong. But I love being Catholic.”

            I closed the door, feeling that Liam put into words my own belief about Catholicism. There’s a piece of the truth here. And saying there is truth here does not diminish the truth that can be found in other religions. But this is what I have. And like, Liam, this is what I love. 

            

July, 2006 Am I blessed?

I love each of my children so much that the thought of losing any one of them can bring on a physical reaction.  Last night, a story of a little boy dying in a car accident made the news, and my mind, just for a moment, allowed that child to become my child.  Just for a moment, it was Jacob who died in that car accident.  The thought was so terrible that my breathing started coming in gulps, and I began to gag. I tried to pull away from the words and images, but my mind paid no heed. It went to that “what if” place that, on most days, I am able to avoid visiting. As I tried to screech my thoughts to a halt, my brain played out the scene, and I was dragged along, a reluctant viewer.

            Our children have had a very healthy time of it so far. In my eleven years of parenting, I’ve picked up prescription medicine for one of the kids a total of just three times. They’ve missed maybe ten days of school, combined, since our oldest, Jacob, started pre-school, eight years ago. We’ve had two broken bones so far, and three stitches. I don’t know if it’s because they’re coordinated or aren’t big risk-takers, but I doubt that we’ve gone through more than a couple boxes of Band-Aids in the past decade, not counting the ones Jamie wears just because she likes the way they look on her fingers. We are blessed with health, I would say, if the word “blessed” didn’t stick in my throat.

            I don’t know why my children are so healthy. While I can feel blessed, I’m hesitant to say we’re blessed, because it seems to imply that a parent with a seriously ill child isn’t so blessed. If God is giving my children their health, what does that say about all the other children who have chronic diseases or get injured — or killed — in accidents?

            God created a physical world for us, with physical limitations. Bones can break, organs can fail, cancer cells can divide. Hearts can stop. And while miracles do happen, it seems that more often, the course of an illness or injury is subject to the laws of nature and the limitations of medical science.

            My own faith hovers in that middle ground between nature’s roll of the dice and “everything happens for a reason.” The reason so many children are starving, after all, has nothing to do with God’s will for them and everything to do with an unequal distribution of wealth in the world.

            Perhaps good health itself is not the blessing. Perhaps the blessing of good health is that it affords us the time and energy to reach out to others.

            A good friend has a daughter with Type 1 diabetes. My friend has to spend hours each week managing her daughter’s care. She often gets up in the middle of the night to check her daughter’s sugar levels. She gives her daughter insulin injections at least four times a day. She is constantly aware of exactly when her daughter needs to eat and exercise, so her sugar levels don’t spike too high or dip too low.

            None of my children are diabetic, and because of this, I have many hours each week “free” that my friend does not have. It is not enough simply be thankful for my healthy kids and move on. It’s not enough to label them blessed.

If, as Jesus told the parents of the blind man, their son’s blindness was not God’s punishment for his sins or their sins, but rather a way to display the work of God in his life, so too, must parents of healthy children realize their children’s health is a way to display the work of God. With less to worry about in our own families, we are called to take that saved time and energy to concern ourselves with those who need us.

Statistics show that the lower an income a family has, the bigger percentage of that income they typically give to charity. So while the very wealthy often give the biggest donations in terms of actual amounts of money, it is the middle class and the poor who give the larger slice of their own family dollars.

I have seen the same to often be true in terms of families struggling with an illness. My friend with the diabetic daughter, for example, will be the first to make a casserole or pot of soup for a household with a new baby or a sick family member.

It is often the doing without — whether it’s money or health — that helps us look with empathy toward others also doing without.

So maybe it is when our own road is easiest— when it’s difficult to imagine the hardships that some families must go through— that we most need prayer. During these smooth-sailing times, maybe we need to go to God, not to simply give thanks for our blessings, but to ask, “What now? What would you like me to do?”

The answer we receive will be the real blessing.