Mary DeTurris Poust's Blog, page 15

Everyday mindfulness for everyone

I was recently asked to give a Zoom presentation on mindfulness for co-workers at the Diocese of Albany’s Pastoral Center. Because, as I’ve been known to say here again and again, mindfulness is not just for Buddhists. I thought other folks might be interested in this brief talk on what mindfulness is and how to weave into everyday life.

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Seeking light in winter’s darkness

One of my favorite things about this season of seemingly ever-present physical darkness is the occasional pocket or flash of light. Not just the leftover twinkling Christmas decorations, although that helps, but the “mundane” glimmers that, to put it in artistic terms, create everyday versions of the on-canvas beauty created by artists like Caravaggio through the use of “chiaroscuro”—a technique that contrasts deep darkness and brilliant-but-concentrated light in dramatic fashion.

Among all those everyday chiaroscuro moments I encounter, my absolute favorites are the glimpses of a glowing light emanating from a stranger’s living room window against a dark winter sky. As I drive or walk down a street, that figurative and literal window into someone else’s world warms my soul—not in a voyeuristic way, but in a from-a-distance appreciation of a freeze-frame moment in time witnessed in passing.

One evening recently, I came home from work and had to take our dog, Jake, out for a walk. I just wanted it done. I was tired and hungry. It was cold and dark. “Let’s get this over with,” I thought, or may have even said out loud to Jake, who sat with his head tilted ever so slightly to the side as if trying to figure out why I was in such a hurry on such a lovely night. I looked up and saw the stars just starting to come out and the thin sliver of a crescent moon hanging by a thread. Then I rounded the corner to find white twinkling lights on the neighbor’s trees and the sight of a family gathering around a dinner table through a brightly backlit window. I could smell the distinct scent of a fireplace burning somewhere, and I was suddenly overwhelmed by the beauty of everyday life in an artistic creation right outside my front door.

As I headed home, so grateful now for the chore I had originally dreaded, the blinking lights of a plane came into view overhead, its flight pattern cutting through the swath of stars and clouds over our house. Rather than feel annoyed by what might seem like a clunky intrusion on my otherwise Normal Rockwell moment, I saw not only beauty but felt awe at the sight of the silent jet racing toward the airport. “What a wonderful world,” was all I could think, the classic song playing in my brain.

At this time of year, with the holidays behind us and a lot more winter ahead, it can be easy to get bogged down in the darkness and drudgery as we trudge back and forth to work or school, bundled up against the cold, heads down against the wind. Our minds are already counting the days to spring and sunshine and warmth, wishing we could fast forward a few months of our lives away. What if, instead, we basked in the density of winter darkness, settled in for the season, and focused instead on the flashes of light and color and warmth that are even more brilliant than usual because of the stark contrast to the world around us?

I don’t know about you, but a glimpse of a fat, yellow moon rising up amid barren tree limbs over a snow-covered yard will bring a smile to my face and a sense of peace to my heart even if I’ve had a rough day. Simple joys hidden in plain sight can make all the difference, if we can learn to stay in—and appreciate—the now of our lives.

Just a few weeks ago, we celebrated the coming of Light into the world. That celebration didn’t end when we packed up the ornaments and put the tree out on the curb (or back into the basement). The Light is there always—around us, inside us. We may walk in darkness, but we have seen a great Light. Let’s not forget that during this stretch of Ordinary Time in our liturgical year. Look up, look around, seek out the light in your world and the Light in your heart.

This column originally appeared in the Jan. 17, 2019, issue of Catholic New York. 

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Fail again, fail better

A willingness to be vulnerable in front of other people is probably one of my best qualities. I know that sounds like a self-deprecating put-down, and for the longest time—most of my life—I would have agreed with you. In a world where the get-ahead motto tends to be, “Never let them see you sweat,” I have always been someone who is inclined to let people in on my weak spots. I tend to share more than self-preservation might recommend, to take personal or professional risks that might seem risky and to let others know, when they are broken or discouraged or doubting, that I’ve been there or worse, sharing the story of some fiasco that is sure to make them feel better about themselves and maybe even give them a laugh.

But being vulnerable isn’t valued in our society. It’s a habit or virtue that’s denigrated and denied, ignored and ill-advised—until you reach a point in your life where you realize that vulnerability is where all the good stuff starts to happen. For a couple of years, I had a variation of the famous Samuel Beckett quote on my desk at work: “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.” People would often stop and read it a few times, sure they must be missing something. Why would I promote failure? Because it is only through a willingness to risk failure over and over that we move forward. Like it or not, it is how we learn best; it is how we become who God created us to be. Otherwise, we’re like the fearful tenant in the parable who buries his talent rather than take a chance and do something to multiply and maximize it. He thought he was choosing best in choosing safety, which turned out to be the most dangerous choice of all.

In a TED talk on “Listening to Shame,” bestselling author Brené Brown discusses vulnerability and how it is a measure of strength rather than weakness. “Vulnerability is the birthplace of innovation, creativity and courage,” she says.

We all know the stories of famous inventors and authors who put that theory to the test: Dr. Seuss rejected 27 times; years of failed attempts by the Wright Brothers before flight was possible; Thomas Edison’s 1,000+ failed attempts at inventing the light bulb; J.K. Rowling’s years as a single mother on welfare before the dazzling success of Harry Potter.

Edison once said, “Many of life’s failures are experienced by people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.” He saw every “failure” as another step toward his goal. In a commencement speech she gave at Harvard University, Rowling said: “It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all—in which case you fail by default.”

It’s not easy to think that way, and it’s even more difficult to live that way. We want to stay on solid ground where we know the route and the outcome beforehand, or so we think. We can’t stand the thought of the perceived humiliation that might come with failure or the I-told-you-so comments from the peanut gallery, and so we choose to be a smaller version of ourselves than we are called to be.

As we head toward the new year, with its push for self-improvement plans that typically don’t deliver, why not approach the months ahead with Samuel Beckett’s word playing on endless loop: “Try again. Fail again. Fail better.” Don’t beat yourself up when you “fail”—a word we too often apply to even the most minor mistakes or infractions—but rather reflect on and revel in your newest discoveries. Like Edison you’ll be figuring out 10,000 ways that don’t work. Eventually, if you invest your talents rather than bury them, you’ll hit on success and realize that failure led you exactly where you needed to be.

This column originally appeared in the Dec. 5, 2018, issue of Catholic New York.

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Soul Seeing: Light, Love, Forgiveness

A few years ago, I was asked to write an essay for the Soul Seeing column that appears regularly in the National Catholic Reporter. That essay turned into a moment for me. What started as an assignment, became a journey, as is so often the case. The essay I turned in back in 2014 was the first in which I explored in writing my lifelong habit of collecting broken sea shells and looked at it from a spiritual perspective. That original essay grew into more writings on the topic and, eventually, into a retreat day I offer: “Broken, Beautiful, and Beloved: Learning to See Ourselves through God’s Eyes.”

Now my original essay is part of this wonderful collection from Orbis Books. I am so honored to have my writing included alongside that of spiritual writers such as James Martin, Richard Rohr, Joyce Rupp, Brian Doyle, and so many others. A special word of thanks to Mike Leach, publisher emeritus of Orbis Books and creator of Soul Seeing, for asking me to write that first essay and for inviting me to be part of this book. It’s a lovely collection, something that would make the perfect Christmas gift for anyone who’s traveling the spiritual path and looking for a little nourishment along the way.

You can order Soul Seeing directly from Orbis Books or Amazon. You’ll find me on page 179 under the title “Brokenness Lets Us See Where True Beauty Lies.”

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And after this, our exile…

Although I have had a lifelong struggle with the Rosary—I’ve always considered myself Rosary-challenged—I started praying this prayer more frequently of late, thanks to the encouragement of Pope Francis. A driving motivation for me in finishing five decades of the Rosary is the chance to end with the Salve, Regina, also known as the Hail, Holy Queen.

I first fell in love with this prayer when I was on retreat at the Abbey of the Genesee near Rochester and listened in awe as the Trappist monks chanted Salve, Regina in the darkened chapel as they faced an icon of Mary with the Christ Child, illuminated by a single candle. Haunting and beautiful, powerful and poetic, this is a prayer I will add onto the end of a silent meditation session, or say whenever I need a random dose of Mary and her intercession.

Interestingly enough, however, these days the thing about this prayer that resonates so powerfully with me has nothing to do with gorgeous chant and everything to do with one line, one phrase, really: “and after this, our exile…” Exile. In other words, this life right here, this earthly existence is our exile. For as long as we are here, we are separated from our true home, our place of ultimate belonging, by the thin veil that hangs between us and God, here and there, now and eternity.

We are, as the prayer says, “poor, banished children of Eve,” just biding our time until we can be reunited with the One who has existed since before time began, the One who loved us into being, the One who longs for us even as we go about our daily life, often without so much as a nod in gratitude for our many blessings.

All of this bubbled to the surface recently, when I learned of the death of Father Thomas Keating, O.S.C.O., another Trappist monk, famous for making contemplative prayer something that everyday Catholics could aspire to, yours truly among them. News of his death prompted me to pull out one of his books and play a video or two. In one video on death and dying, he recalls people in their final life stages and says, “Also striking is the sense of coming home, the sense of welcoming death at this point, of experiencing the life that is contained in death.”

Although we go through our entire Catholic lives professing again and again to believe in “the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come,” we often spend most of our time on earth pretending this will never happen or at least ignoring the inevitability of it all, which is remarkable given how often we have to face the deaths of loved ones, friends, strangers who die horrific deaths in the violence that seems to have taken grip of our world. We carry on, acting as though this life is the be all and end all of existence, rather than our exile, and avoiding the knowledge that at any moment it could be our own death that makes others pause.

At the risk of going from the sublime to the ridiculous, a new favorite TV show, “The Good Place,” which is about the afterlife, has inspired similar deep thinking for me. As the hapless characters try to outrun their earthly pasts and navigate their eternal futures, they serve the TV-watching public some serious philosophy and religious concepts in the comforting medium of comedy. We don’t know we’re being schooled spiritually until it’s too late and we find ourselves contemplating heaven and hell over a bowl of ice cream, remote control in hand.

It’s funny how God finds a way into our hearts and minds any way He can — through people and places, through sadness and laughter, through TV shows and pop music, through a single phrase that jumps out of an old familiar prayer to capture our attention anew.

This column originally appeared in the Nov. 7, 2018, issue of Catholic New York. Photo by Jeremy Bishop on Unsplash

If you’d like to know more about the Abbey of the Genesee, a wonderful place for spiritual retreat, watch this video below:

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Hail to the Morning

Hail to the Morning

There will be something,

anguish or elation,

that is peculiar to this day alone.

I rise from sleep and say:

Hail to the morning!

Come down to me, my beautiful unknown.*      —Jessica Powers

A beautiful sunrise can turn a typical morning into something mystical and mysterious. During a summer vacation at the New Jersey shore a few years back, I set my alarm every morning and ran down to the beach just before dawn to watch the sun break over the horizon. Every sunrise was different — some were bold and bodacious, with rays of orange touching everything in sight; some were subtle and simple, a perfect red orb inching slowly into the sky unfettered; some were surprising, with the sun disappearing midway into a patch of clouds only to transform into a “second” sunrise when it pushed through the layer of cartoon-like fluff; and some were barely noticeable, hidden behind a dense wall of white, somewhat disappointing and seemingly absent, except for the fact that I knew otherwise. But all of them were magnificent and worth the early wake-up.

It’s funny that when I’m at home during “regular” life, I almost never bother to watch the sunrise. If I catch a glimpse of color in the distance while I’m pouring my coffee, it may make my heart sing a bit, but mostly I take sunrise for granted, which is often the case for everyday life in general. Mornings begin with an alarm, a groan, a tap or two on the snooze button, and, eventually, the thud of feet on the floor in resignation.

Listening to the lyrical lines of “Hail to the Morning,” however, tinges that routine with a mystical glow that turns everything to light. What a gift to wake up to the world each day as the author describes, to accept that some days will bring sorrow and some joy but all are worthy of awe just the same.

Can we welcome, even beckon, the unknown, realizing there’s a chance it could contain some anguish? Can we open our eyes to each new day as if it is our own personal sunrise and watch with anticipation for what will unfold, gracious and grateful even if we get clouds instead of beams of light? Can we say yes, in imitation of Mary, and accept with a sense of faith and trust whatever God wants to send our way?

All of life is a “beautiful unknown,” although for most of us the human condition gets in the way of that gorgeous reality. We want elation, happiness, sunshine at all times, but God asks us to accept much more, and to recognize that joy is there even when it is cloaked beneath a dense cloud of struggle.

So shake off your slumber, and see how it feels to hail the morning unafraid.

This essay originally appeared in the September 2018 issue of Give Us This Day. If you don’t have a subscription, click here for a free trial.

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There’s beauty even in the fading…

I stood in the parking lot of a Holiday Inn Express in Syracuse one recent Saturday morning before dawn, fumbling with my car keys and coffee cup and thinking about the long drive and long day ahead. I wasn’t headed home but instead to a Eucharistic Congress hosted by the Diocese of Albany at the Shrine of Our Lady of Martyrs in Auriesville, where more than 4,000 pilgrims would converge on the sacred ground of St. Kateri Tekakwitha and the North American martyrs.

Driving east on the New York State Thruway, the darkness soon gave way to a slice of bright yellow light on the horizon. I sped toward my destination while the sun crept up bit by bit, treating me to a spectacular light show over the already scenic Mohawk Valley. As I sipped my coffee and sang along with “Blessings” by Darden Smith, a favorite artist from my life in Austin, Texas, in the late 1980s, I was struck by the perfection of that single moment, a glimmer of grace sparked by a sunrise and then cascading downward, catching me and my minivan in its grip.

Lately grace has been elusive or absent, or, more accurately, I’ve been negligent and distracted, which is usually the case when we think grace has up and left us. Amid the busyness of life and the heartbreak surrounding the current scandal in the Church, I’ve forgotten to notice the everyday moments that call us back to God, the miraculous in the mundane, the divine in the daily drudgery. I wrote an entire book about it, but the reality is that being mindful with an eye toward grace has to be intentional; we won’t find it if our literal and figurative arms are folded against it, against God, if we’re moving about our days mindlessly, or, even worse, with our eyes closed to potential beauty.

So, how do we make room for the divine in day-to-day life, especially if we’re struggling, whether that struggle is physical, spiritual, mental, professional, or just plain annoying? Sometimes it’s as simple as taking a deep breath and paying attention to what’s going on around you at that moment—birds chirping at your window, a lawn mower humming next door, the smell of cut grass tickling your nose, your cat purring on the couch next you, the last of the summer flowers nodding their heads. Such ordinary things and yet so full of life and blessing when we break them down, when we stop and pay attention to our own lives.

The morning after the drive to Auriesville, my husband and I were having breakfast in a café near our home. On the table near the door was a vase of rusty brown sunflowers. Although they were slightly past their prime, they looked like a Van Gogh painting come to life—a reminder that even in aging and fading there is beauty, sometimes a particularly profound kind of beauty. On the drive home a little while later, we stopped to take a short hike and spotted a heron standing statue-still on a small island of earth in the middle of a pond—a reminder that there is grace and power in simply being willing to stop and stay in one place for a while.

Of course, life can’t be all hikes and cafés and sunrises. Work and school, chores and challenges get in the way and make it hard to spot the grace hidden in plain sight, something that is magnified, I think, by the fact that the one thing that has always given us comfort—our faith and our Church life—is now mired in pain and confusion, snuffing out the sparks of grace that once came to us unbidden. Don’t let go so easily. Don’t let what’s happening out there rob you of what’s in here, in your heart and soul: an invitation, or, more than that, a right to a relationship with God.

This column originally appeared in the Oct. 10, 2018, issue of Catholic New York.

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Looking for truth at the bottom of the abyss

I didn’t want to go Mass this weekend. In the spirit of full disclosure, I did not go to Mass last weekend. I could not. The current scandal and apparent cover-up in our Church had left me numb, spiritually paralyzed. Actually, it had left me professionally numb as well, given the fact that I have devoted most of the past 34 years of my professional life working on behalf of the Church. There was no way I could sit and stand and kneel and sing, worshipping as though life as we knew it could go on as usual.

But, by the next day, I was feeling cut off from the Source, and so I made my way over to the other side of my diocesan office building for midday Mass, forgetting that there would be no Mass that day. I sat in a corner, quietly praying before the tabernacle and feeling the most peace I’d felt in weeks. Marie, the woman who prepares and plans our daily workplace Masses, came in to post a note reminding people that Mass had been canceled. When she spotted me in the corner, she noted that I could read from the lectionary, which was opened to the day’s readings. And so, on my way out, I stopped to read the first reading from the Prophet Ezekiel, and I stood there in stunned silence as I listened to Spirit speak, and, let me just say, Spirit wasn’t playing around:

“Thus says the Lord God: I swear I am coming against these shepherds. I will claim my sheep from them and put a stop to their shepherding my sheep so that they may no longer pasture themselves. I will save my sheep, that they may no longer be food for their mouths.” (Ez 34:10)

Week after week, through the “coincidence” of our lectionary cycle, the readings have been hauntingly on target in terms of the situation facing our Church, and many of us have been grateful, because we needed to hear something that addressed the madness, the sadness, the anger, the confusion that we all feel as the news stories unravel and untruths, half-truths and hidden truths pour out. We want to talk about this, at least I do, as do most of the people I engage on this issue. The elephant in the room cannot be ignored or swept under the rug anymore. It is here, and we want our priests and pastors to help us deal with it head on.

That doesn’t mean every homily has to be about abuse, but we are hurting, struggling, verging on not coming to Mass, and so, yes, we need more than spiritual platitudes, canned homilies or, even worse, homilies that pretend we are not peering over the edge of the abyss that is looming in front of us.

We want our priests to share their struggles: What does it feel like for you to hear these reports? How do you cope? Why do you stay? Why should we stay? Share with us, even if it’s uncomfortable. Your honesty and vulnerability at this moment could be the only thing keeping us in that pew when everything else is telling us to run.

I knew just how deeply this crisis had hit when I ran into a woman known for her complete devotion to the Church. She talked about how bad the news has been of late, and trying to convince myself as much as her, I said, “We need to pray.” And she responded, “Do you think that even works?” At that moment, seemingly so random, I stood face to face with the devastation of this latest scandal.

The people are struggling, questioning, holding on for dear life. They need to be listened to, but, even more, they need to be spoken to honestly, like equals, like people who have a stake in this Church. Because we are and we do.

This column originally appeared in the Sept. 12, 2018, issue of Catholic New York.

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9/11: Remembering like it was yesterday

Here’s the Life Lines column I wrote 17 years ago, in the days following 9/11. So much has changed since that time. Our world has changed. My family has changed. And yet, for me, this column still resonates with things that feel very much in tune with our world right now. Here’s wishing all of you, all of us a future of peace — peace in our hearts, peace in our homes, peace on our planet.

By Mary DeTurris Poust

Noah plopped down on the floor next to me the other day and asked me to read one of his favorite books, “There’s an Alligator Under My Bed,” by Mercer Mayer. As we turned the pages and followed the little boy on his quest to capture the elusive alligator that kept him up at night, I had an eerie feeling that the story was an allegory for what I’d been feeling since that terrible morning a few days before.

The night after the World Trade Center attack, I lay awake in my bed staring at the ceiling, filled with a sense of dread that I could not quite put my finger on. I was scared, but not by the images of horror that had flashed before my eyes for hours that day. Instead my fears seemed frivolous, not at all unlike the little boy’s alligator: Had I left the dryer on in the basement? Was the window over the kitchen sink still open? Were the kids’ pajamas warm enough? I felt a childlike fear of the dark, of things no one else can see, things we parents usually try to hush with a goodnight kiss and a night-light.

When morning finally arrived, I realized that my sleeplessness wasn’t really about what might go wrong within my four walls. It was about what had gone wrong in our world. Long after I had wiped away the tears of sadness that fell as I watched the World Trade Center collapse over and over again on television’s seemingly endless loop of horror, I fought back tears of a different kind — as I rocked Olivia to sleep for her nap, as I kissed Noah good-bye at preschool, as I hugged my husband, Dennis, at the end of a long day. Those were tears borne of fear, tears for tomorrow, tears for a world we don’t yet know. And I didn’t like how they felt.

Despite the fact that I have spent almost two years writing a book on how to help children deal with grief, the events of the past weeks left me in the unusual position of struggling for words. On the day of the attack, when Noah, asked if “bad people” might knock down our house, I reassured him that they would not. When he made a logical leap – at least for a 4-year-old – and worried that they might knock down his grandmother’s apartment building in New York City, I told him he was safe, that no one was going to hurt him or the people he loved. All the while I found myself wondering if I was telling him a lie.

But that kind of thinking leads to hopelessness, and when we lose hope, we leave a void just waiting to be filled by fear and despair and alligators of every kind. Through stories on television and in newspapers, I had seen unbelievable hopefulness in the face of utter destruction. How could I not believe in the power of the human spirit and the ultimate goodness of humanity and a better world for our children?

That night, as a soft rain fell, our house seemed wrapped in a comforting quiet that was interrupted only by the reassuring hum of the dishwasher. With Noah and Olivia asleep in their rooms, I lay down and looked up. For the first time in days I didn’t notice the enveloping darkness but saw instead the tiny glowing stars that dot our bedroom ceiling, a “gift” left behind by the previous owners. As I finally closed my eyes to sleep, I whispered a prayer of hope, a prayer for a world where the only thing our children have to fear are the imaginary monsters hiding under their beds.

Copyright 2001, Mary DeTurris Poust

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Hanging by a thread: What we need our priests and bishops to know right now

For the past few weeks, and especially in recent days, I have been hearing from readers of my monthly Life Lines column, from colleagues working for the Church, from friends and acquaintances, many coming to me with tears in their eyes, anger in their voices, and determination on their faces. Last month I wrote about casting light on the darkness of one scandal; now things have gone from bad to worse with the news out of Pennsylvania. The question I posed then has swelled to an agonizing cry now: How much more?

I didn’t even want to write about this topic again this week. I wanted to write about my two oldest children going off to college — something joyful and light. But the truth is that this is all I can write about, this is all I can think about, and, based on what I’m hearing from my fellow Catholics, it’s all any of us can think about. It has been a rough few weeks to be a Catholic, our hearts broken by news we hoped and prayed could not possibly turn out to be true. And then we saw the victims, clutching one another, turning their faces from the camera during the press conference so we could not see their tears, and we knew. We knew what others have apparently known for a very long time. How they kept silent about it, how they lived with themselves, knowing what they did, is beyond me, but it is a reminder of the way power and privilege can corrupt, how evil can break into even the most sacred spaces, and how the silence of some can perpetuate the abuse by — and of — others. Guilt by omission, guilt by association, guilt every which way you look at it.

“Preach the truth as if you had a million voices. It is silence that kills the world.” That quote from St. Catherine of Siena, one of my patron saints and a powerful woman who had to roll up her sleeves to help clean up the Church of her own time, hangs in my office and lifts me up when I am sinking. We have arrived at this current precipice in large part because of the silence of those who could have done something to change the outcome and save the victims from the hell they endured but chose not to, for reasons none of us can fathom.

Now we laity must find our voices, if we are not already raising them for all to hear. In whatever way we can, whether it’s through writing letters, speaking to civil and Church authorities, talking to priests, pastors, bishops, lay ministers about any problems we know about, we must speak out. And we cannot stop until we are heard and our Church is purged of the evil that has had hold of it for too long. Yes, I know, people spoke out before and no one listened. That was then; this is now. We have reached the tipping point, and there is no going back to business as usual.

Us “regular” Catholics in the pews are battered and aghast by what we have heard. Our hearts ache for those who have suffered abuse. Our souls ache for the spiritual trust that has been crushed under another wave of scandal, this one so big it feels more like a tsunami that threatens to swallow us whole. Many of us have considered walking away. We still teeter on the brink. We want to stay, but we’re not sure we can. It’s a lot to ask of us. We need our priests and bishops to know that. We are hanging by a thread, many of us. This will not be easy to forgive, and it should not be easy to forget. We will do our very best to stay the course in the face of this crisis, but in order for that to happen, we need you to do your best. That has to start with real honesty and transparency — not just in policies and procedures but in the pews and among the people. Be the shepherds we need you to be.

 

Photo by Fancycrave on Unsplash

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