The world in silent wonder waits…
How are you waiting today? Are you rushing from store to store trying to finish up your shopping? Are you preparing food for a big family dinner? Are you wrapping gifts, or cleaning house? Read more
Dec 24
Creating calm amid the Christmas chaos
Need a little less crazy in your Christmas season? Today I’ll be talking about restoring some sanity to your life — over at Huffington Post. I’ll start you here and link you there:
Chances are that right about now the Christmas season is getting the best of you. At least that’s how it’s going at my house. Just last night I suggested to my husband and kids — amid the fighting over who opens which door on the Advent calendar and who hangs which ornament on the Christmas tree — that maybe we should just pack it in and pretend there’s no Christmas this year, which is kind of missing the whole “reason for the season” in a pretty glaring way. So we tried to regroup and declare a do-over on the lead-up to Christmas. Read more
When are halos like hula hoops?
Every year at this time, I take out the Playmobil Nativity set, which has always been a big hit in our house since we bought it for Noah years ago. I think it has something to do with the fact that it’s out for only one month of the year, so it is eternally new. Chiara, however, has given us an exciting new twist on how to make the most of this toy. Read more
The perfect time to take a spiritual inventory
My most recent Life Lines column, running in Catholic New York and The Catholic Spirit this month:
I don’t know about you, but I tend to approach my prayer life – my spiritual habits or “skills” – from an unrealistic place. While I easily recognize the need to practice or work out in order to keep up my basic guitar skills or my jogging endurance, I expect to settle down to prayer and reap immediate rewards with little or no effort. Or I allow myself to fall into a prayer rut that ends up leaving me on autopilot, until the words I say have about as much meaning and feeling behind them as reading a recipe out loud. Read more
Covert Advent operations: Can we sink any lower?
You may recall that last week’s kick-off to the Advent festivities at our house deteriorated into fighting, screaming, a coin toss, and, eventually, a declaration (by me) that all fun Advent activities would cease at once and until further notice. (We did keep up our Advent wreath practice before dinner each night, however.)
So this morning I asked Chiara if maybe she’d like to retrieve the wooden Advent calendar from the basement, along with the Playmobil Nativity set, and the little Advent Christmas tree. Her immediate reaction was a panicked, “NO!” That seemed curious, so I persisted. In a teary voice, she said that she didn’t want to take out the Advent activities because she was afraid there would be more fighting.
Hmmmm…Things were getting curiouser and curiouser. Read more
Doesn’t everyone start Advent with a coin toss?
I wish I could begin this post with some inspiring story about how we returned from Saturday evening Mass and a lovely dinner out last night to gather around the Advent wreath and begin this season of hopeful anticipation with joy and love and peace. And I guess I could tell you that if I just wanted to sound good in print, but (as I mentioned yesterday in my welcome-to-the-new-blog post) this place is about honesty on the spiritual journey, and so I have to tell you what really happened. Read more
Win Lisa Hendey’s book in time for Advent
Every year when Advent rolls around, we set our Advent wreath at the center of the kitchen table, and before dinner each night, we pray. But I have to admit that more often than not we resort to our traditional grace before meals or an Our Father or some other old standard because we didn’t have time to pull something more appropriate together (not that the Our Father could ever be inappropriate). Read more
You had me at ‘Nativity play set’
The begging has begun. PLLEEAASSEEEE…Can’t we play Christmas music…watch Elf…get out the decorations? And my answer to every question is a frustrating (for the kids), “Not yet.” I don’t care if Thanksgiving is over; Advent isn’t quite here yet. That means no decking the halls until Dec. 2, or, if we go to vigil Mass on Saturday evening, Dec. 1. And even then, I’m talking only about the Advent wreath and the Advent calendar. The tree and other assorted angels and Santas and snowmen won’t show up until we’re well into December. Read more
Resurfacing for the Advent finale
I was out of the Advent starting gate like a shot this year, with my book of daily Advent reflections tucked under my arm and the words of the prophets ringing in my ears. The Advent wreath was aglow, and so was my Advent heart. I was sure that this year would be an Advent for the ages. Things were moving along nicely until somewhere between weeks two and three I hit a wall. Not only wasn’t I using my Advent reflection book; I couldn’t even find my Advent reflection book, which was, in many ways, symbolic of my entire Advent spiritual experience. It was fading fast, lost beneath the rubble of the responsibilities of the season and work deadlines that threatened to overwhelm me. Where other offices slow down in the days before Christmas so that people can attend parties and trade Secret Santa gifts, my office of one speeds up, and the faster the work piles on, the faster my Advent spirit begins to whither. I could feel a sense of sadness setting in, not because there was anything going on in my life that was particularly sad but because I was feeling disconnected from God at a time when I most wanted to feel that connection burning brighter than ever. Read more
Advent 2: When weather and wonder collide
I can’t think of a better way to start the second week of Advent than with the first real snow of the season. A perfect, light snow that coated everything with just enough white to make the yard look like a wonderland. (The photo above is from our back deck.) Now, with the sun shining brightly and glinting off everything in site, with ice and show melting slowly to give an extra layer of shine to grass and trees and railings, it’s more than perfect. It’s poetic. And that, to me, is just the right touch for this Sunday in Advent, when we hear, in the poetic language of the Prophet Isaiah, about John the Baptist, the “voice of one” crying out in the desert, telling us of the One who is to come, the One who will make crooked paths straight and mountains low. Read more
I am a mother, a wife, a chronicler of life, and a believer who understands that this journey leads us ever closer to God, even when I feel as though I'm standing still. 