Mary DeTurris Poust's Blog, page 6

La Dolce Vita: An Italian pilgrimage with Mary and Fr. Matt

From the moment my plane touched down in Italy years ago, I was in love. Visiting the country where my grandfather was born was the fulfillment of a promise I’d made to myself. I’ve been back numerous times since, and every time I plan to travel somewhere else, I find myself drawn back to Italy. It’s that good. It’s not “just” the amazing food or the world class art or the sacred sites that are too numerous to count. It’s the beauty of the Italian people, the history that seeps up from the cobblestones, the sweetness of life that really does make its home in you once you’ve experienced Italy up close and personal. I hope you’ll see for yourself.

Join me for a fabulous 2024 pilgrimage to Italy that will begin in Rome and take you to Orvieto, Assisi, Siena, Florence, Padua, and Venice. The trip of a lifetime in a country that is nothing short of spectacular. From the awe of St. Peter’s Basilica and the Colosseum to the quaintness of ancient narrow streets and open-air markets, you will get to experience the very best of what Italy has to offer. We will leave New York on Monday, September 30, and return Friday, October 11, The tour will be organized and operated by Select International Tours & Cruises. I will serve as your tour leader, and Father Matt Duclos of the Albany Diocese will serve as our priest chaplain. Cost: $3,995 land only. Airfare options will be offered as soon as group pricing is available. If you want to sign up right away to reserve your spot, you’ll be given an option to get the airfare pricing as well as soon as it becomes available.

For fun updates related to Italy and the cities we’ll be visiting, follow my travel page on Facebook: Italy: A Feast for Body & Soul
You can find my page on the Select International website HERE. Or click on the PDF of the brochure below for details.

 

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Is it okay to feel joy in a world of misery? It’s necessary.

During these tumultuous and terrible times in our world, it can be easy to spiral down into the rabbit hole of despair, thinking we have no right to be happy, no right to feel peaceful when so many others are suffering from any number of tragic circumstances: terrorism, hunger, ongoing war, oppression, racism. The list goes on and on.

One recent day, as I walked my rescue pup, Jake, under a clear blue autumn sky with colors bursting from the trees around me, I felt a swell of joy rise up in my chest, and immediately I said to myself, “I shouldn’t be happy.” Because how could I be happy when I was watching the terror attacks and larger-scale war unfolding in Israel and Gaza.

But in doing that — in refusing to feel joy and hope in the face of a broken world — what happened instead was that fear and anger rushed in to fill the void. Not just fear and anger associated with the larger world and those who rain suffering down on innocent families and concert goers and children indiscriminately, but fear and anger over even the little things in my own life, the “first-world problems” we so often joke about. Choosing not to feel joy in the moment because of suffering somewhere else does not ease the suffering of others, it only adds to the suffering in my little slice of the world, and that doesn’t help anyone.

“Today, if we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other — that man, that woman, that child is my brother or my sister. If everyone could see the image of God in his neighbor, do you think we would still need tanks and generals?”, St. Teresa of Calcutta once famously said. “Peace and war begin at home. If we truly want peace in the world, let us begin by loving one another in our own families. If we want to spread joy, we need for every family to have joy.”

And sometimes that’s the hardest thing to do, isn’t it? It’s easy to pray for peace and send love to those who are suffering half a world away, those whom we will never meet in person. It’s much harder to want those things for the people we know intimately who have hurt us — the neighbor who mistreats us, the friend or loved one who betrays us. We sometimes even turn that hatred and hardness of heart in on ourselves when we make mistakes or disappoint those we love. When we do that, we put our own little piece of “violence” out into the world, and everyone else is a little worse off. Just as love ripples outward from us, so does hate or despair, if that is what we choose.

So where to begin? How can we peaceful and joyful in the face of the horrific things we see unfolding in our fragile world around the globe? Only through Jesus Christ, who showed us with his own body what it means to love and hope in the spite of hatred and injustice, who told us: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.” (John 14:27)

As you move through the remainder of this beautiful autumn season, take the time to pause, breathe deep, and revel in the beauty and wonder that is yours in the moment. Feel the peace that can reside in you when you let go of the fear; feel the joy that bubbles up when you allow yourself to trust God’s words rather than trusting the rage you see on your screens.

Peace is an inside job. Joy is not happiness as the world knows it but a contentment that rests in God. Both of those things are your birthright, no matter what the world tries to tell you.

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Angel of God, my guardian dear…

Angel of God,

my guardian dear,

to whom God’s love

commits me here,

ever this night,

be at my side

to light and guard,

to rule and guide.

This was one of the first prayers I learned as a child, and it holds a special place in my heart, probably because I remember my mother sitting at the side of my bed saying it with me each night. But I have to admit that there came a point in my younger adult life when I felt I had outgrown angels. They seemed stuck in my childhood, a remnant of something long gone. And then came the pop culture angel fad. They showed up on everything from keychains to refrigerator magnets and that just made me like the little chubby winged cherubs of coffee mug fame even less.

But then something happened. I don’t know if was age or wisdom or the sudden realization that I could not protect my children on my own, but angels started making their way back into my life. First through my cursory spiritual nod to them every time we got in the car and eventually through my near-incessant pleading with them to watch out for me, my kids and just about anyone special to me, no matter how near or how far. Now it’s not uncommon for me to have a good long heart-to-heart with the guardian angel of a distant friend who just might need a little extra protection here and there. Frankly, I’m sure the angels are longing for the days when I had no use for them. I love knowing my angel is around, and there have been times in my life when I have sensed my angel nearby.

Having a guardian angel doesn’t ensure that nothing bad will happen to us — as know all too well through ongoing personal experience — but it does mean there is a spiritual being of the highest order hovering nearby, sometimes to ease our way, other times to be a comfort, and, eventually, to lead the way for us when we go home to God.

So today, on this Feast of the Guardian Angels, why not take a moment to reintroduce yourself, if you’ve been out of touch, and maybe say that old prayer — or teach it to your children or grandchildren, if you haven’t already.

The icon at the top of the page was written by Minhhang Huynh, a woman I met when I was on retreat at the Abbey of the Genesee in New York two years ago. This post was originally published  on October 2, 2013.

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Catching up to the curve of our own transformation

The poet David Whyte says that most people are “living four or five years behind the curve of their own transformation,” refusing to accept a new season of life or a change that is occurring within or before them. But change comes with or without our approval and acceptance. We can either jump into the fray or, as Whyte says, end up as “collateral damage” in our own lives.

Thomas Merton puts it in another way: “Yet the fact remains that we are invited to forget ourselves on purpose, cast our awful solemnity to the winds and join in the general dance.”

We can all look out at our lives and see a threshold of some sort ahead, something we will be required to cross. We can either dance across it with curiosity and hope or be dragged across kicking and screaming.

I remember when my youngest child was born, only two months before I turned 43. I marveled that when Chiara was leaving for college, I’d be closing in on 61. It seemed so far away at the time, and yet here we are. She leaves in two days. Our nest will be empty, with all three of our babies having flown the coop. It is a monumental threshold, a curve of transformation we’ve seen coming for some time, a season that will transform me and my husband, Dennis, as parents, as a couple, as individuals.

Our dining room is piled high with dorm supplies as we make the final preparations for Chiara’s giant leap across her own threshold, knowing that anything we are facing with this coming change pales in comparison to what she is facing as a newly minted adult preparing to test out her wings. And maybe that is a key in facing up to change in life as it comes, remembering that we are not unique and often there are others around us who are facing even bigger thresholds. As always, our greatest strength comes when we view ourselves and others through the lens of compassion, gentleness and love.

As our daughter prepares to leave, we tell her we are confident she is going to be amazing at her new life in New York City, and at the same time we remind her that we are here and if it turns out that this particular choice was not the right one for her, she can come home, regroup, and start again. That is a truth and a grace each of us can remember when we set out on a curve of transformation that may or may not go as planned.

Where are you on the curve of your own transformation? What season of life is approaching? Can you join the cosmic dance with a sense of wonder and hope, even if it’s tinged with some fear or doubt?

We live at a time when there seem to be frightening thresholds all around us, not just in our own lives but in our Diocese, in our universal Church, in our country, and in our world. It can be overwhelming to imagine crossing all of them and winding up in some unknown future. The trick is not to try to cross someone else’s threshold but to focus on what is ours to do right here and right now. Look out ahead and focus not on the steep cliffs and dark valleys but on the color of the sky at dusk and the sound of bird calls in the morning. Be amazed at what is rather than fearful of what might be.

“… no despair of ours can alter the reality of things, or stain the joy of the cosmic dance which is always there,” writes Merton in ‘New Seeds of Contemplation.’ “Indeed, we are in the midst of it, and it is in the midst of us, for it beats in our very blood, whether we want it to or not.”

So dance, run, fly.

Mary DeTurris Poust will be leading the Stillpoint Retreat at Pyramid Life Center on Sept. 8-10. For information, click HERE.

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Miscarriage: love and loss 25 years later

My annual tribute to the baby I lost 25 years ago today, the baby I call Grace:

For the past few days I’ve been looking at the numbers on the calendar, growing more and more introspective as we inched closer to August 6. It was 25 years ago today that I learned the baby I was carrying, my second baby, had died 11 weeks into my pregnancy.

With a mother’s intuition, I had known something was wrong during that pregnancy from a couple of weeks before. The day Dennis and I — with Noah in tow — went to the midwife for my regular check up, I didn’t even take the little tape recorder with me to capture the sound of baby’s heartbeat, so convinced was I that I would hear only silence. I went back for the recorder only after Dennis insisted. But somehow I knew. Because when you are a mother sometimes you just know things about your children, even when there is no logical reason you should, even when they are still growing inside you.

When we went for the ultrasound to confirm the miscarriage, we saw the perfect form of our baby up on the screen. I remember Dennis looking so happy, thinking everything was okay after all, and me pointing out that the heart was still. No blinking blip. No more life.

With that same mother’s intuition, no matter how busy or stressed I am, no matter how many other things I seem to forget as I race through my life at breakneck speed, I never forget this anniversary. It is imprinted on my heart. As the date nears, I feel a stillness settling in, a quiet place amid the chaos, a space reserved just for this baby, the one I never to got hold, the one I call Grace.

In the past, I have talked about the ways Grace shaped our family by her absence rather than her presence, and that truth remains with me. I am very much aware of the fact that life would be very different had she lived. She managed to leave her mark on us, even without taking a breath. She lingers here, not only in my heart but around the edges of our lives — especially the lives of our two girls who followed her. I know them because I did not know Grace. What a sorrowful and yet beautiful impact she had on us.

So thank you, baby, for all that you were and all that you have given us without ever setting foot on this earth. The power of one small life.

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Be Here Now Retreat

Early bird pricing for this weekend retreat expires on July 29. So if you’re thinking about joining me at the beautiful Bon Secours Retreat & Conference Center, Sept. 29-Oct. 1, now is the time to get that registration form in!

What’s this retreat all about? Details:

So often we rush headlong through our days, our weeks, our lives, missing out on the real moments, those places where the spark of the Divine is so close we could almost touch it — if only we’d been paying attention. We tell ourselves we don’t have time, but the truth is we don’t need more time but rather more presence. When we seek beauty right where we are, we discover God in our midst, in the ordinary events and mundane moments of our lives.

The Divine is not a distant dream but a daily reality. Join writer and retreat leader Mary DeTurris Poust for a weekend focused on this beautiful truth and how to let it unfold in your life day by day. This retreat will include not only formal presentations but guided meditation, optional yoga classes, journaling, poetry, collage as prayer, and small doses of silence to soothe the soul. Come away for a short time to restore your serenity, recharge your energy, and recognize God alongside you every step of the way.

Check in begins at 4pm and the retreat will begin after dinner. Lunch is included on Sunday before departure. Info and registration HERE.

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Adding leaven to our prayer

My Give Us This Day reflection on today’s Scripture readings. You can find the readings HERE.

A friend and I were discussing the problem of letting our faith remain in our heads rather than letting it settle into our hearts and lives. When we remain too much in our heads, grounded in the news of the day rather than the Word of God, for example, our faith can become reduced to a set of beliefs to which we respond with a yea or nay, rather than expanding into a relationship of complete trust built on a practice of prayer.

“But I don’t know how to pray anymore,” my friend said. Today’s second reading reminds us that we are not the first to struggle with this reality: “. . . we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes with inexpressible groanings.”

St. Paul’s description is so vivid. We can imagine the Spirit gently working to redirect our daily efforts to sidestep God’s will. With “inexpressible groanings,” the Spirit quietly accomplishes what Jesus describes in the Gospel: pulling away the weeds that threaten to devour us, nourishing the mustard seed of our faith, adding leaven to the yeast of our prayer.

Even if we do not know how to pray as we ought, the Spirit will come to our aid if we are willing to trust in the movement of God in our lives and get out of our own way.

From the July 2023 issue of Give Us This Day, www.giveusthisday.org (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2023). Used with permission.

Photo by Duncan Kidd on Unsplash

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Paddling past our fears

When was the last time you let fear keep you from doing something you really wanted or needed to do? Maybe it was a lifetime ago, something in the distant past that still haunts you. Maybe it was more recent, or perhaps it’s still looming before you right now. It’s amazing how we can let our minds keep us frozen in one place when we so want to be in another.

Throughout Scripture, we are told over and over to “be not afraid,” but “afraid” comes so naturally to most of us. We move through the world holding tight to what we know, trying to avoid change, and tip toeing around anything that might push us out of our comfort zone and into the unknown.

Then again, many of us tackle incredible challenges with grace and courage over the course of our lives without ever pausing to recognize how brave and bold we were when push came to shove. Whether it’s a serious illness or the death of a loved one, the loss of a job or the struggle of addiction, we are often forced to face things we’d rather not have to face.

Hanging on my office bulletin board is a quote from Eleanor Roosevelt: “Do one thing every day that scares you.” I can’t say I live up to that motto daily, but I often try, even when that little voice in my head suggests I take the easier path, whether it’s something monumental (like leaving a job) or something exciting but less significant (like learning a new skill).

Case in point: I recently had the opportunity to try a stand-up paddle board yoga class. Having never set foot on a paddle board, I came up with a list of reasons against this seemingly fun outing: I’m too old. I’ve got too much work. My family will be in town. On and on the list went. But the morning of the class, I had to admit to myself that the only reason for not going was plain and simple: fear. And while skipping a lakeside class is certainly not a big deal, to me it represented a willingness on my part to be frozen in place by nothing more than my mind telling the rest of me what I can and can’t do.

So off I went to grab my life vest and backup eyeglasses (fully assuming I’d be falling head first into Thompsons Lake). I headed to Thacher State Park with a little knot in my stomach but also with a fiery energy that comes from doing something I knew I was afraid to try but went forward with anyway.

There was a moment, when my paddle board and I were stuck in a patch of lily pads, that I felt panic rising and started to doubt my decision. And then there was the instant when I accidentally sent my anchor sinking back to the bottom of the lake at the precise moment I was supposed to be paddling toward shore. As I came back to my breath and said a little prayer for trust and calm, I found I could do things I had not previously imagined — standing, for example, as well as down dog, three-legged dog and a lot more — all while balancing on a board rocking on the rough surface of a lake on a very windy day. (That’s me with my teacher, Vivian, in the photo above.)

When I got back on land, it all felt like a metaphor for life: How often do we shy away from the figurative choppy waters ahead of us and cling to the solidity of an old mindset or comfortable habit? When do we throw down an anchor in the least likely place hoping we can stay put and not face must be faced? Where are the twisted vines of our own making that hold us down? Are we willing to loosen our grip and let God release us from the stranglehold of our sins and sufferings?

That favorite-but-challenging line from the Gospel of Matthew says: “So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today.” What version of tomorrow keeps you up at night or freezes you in your place? Can you let go of the reins, and trust that God will take you across the rough waters and back to solid ground.

If you’re interested in trying SUP yoga with Vivian and Jai Yoga School, click HERE for info.

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Stillpoint Retreat: Creating calm amid life’s chaos

The world moves at breakneck speed and expects us to do the same. Why not step outside the chaos and give yourself a weekend to nourish body, mind, and soul? As we enter the beautiful fall season at Pyramid Life Center, there’s no better time or place to reclaim your serenity.

Join me for the fifth-annual Stillpoint Retreat, which offers participants not only spiritual practices to help discover the divine in the everyday but the time and space to explore and dive deep. We will dabble in a little of everything: prayer, journaling, creativity, guided meditation, music, movement, and more.

The weekend is anchored by presentations to help you refocus your spiritual lives and guidance on how to put practices into place amid everyday life. Optional yoga classes will be offered both mornings. (Bring a yoga mat if you have one!) Our annual Saturday night bonfire (weather permitting) is a favorite way to connect with our growing Stillpoint community. A period of silence will be observed in the early mornings and through breakfast, providing another beautiful way to connect with the still, small voice of the Spirit.

My first experience of PLC was 15 years ago as a participant in the Merton in the Mountains silent retreat led by the beloved Walt Chura. Expect to find plenty of Merton (and quite a bit of Walt) in my Stillpoint retreat experience.

Cost: $205, all inclusive. You’ll get rustic accommodations at the always-beautiful Pyramid Life Center with its mountains and lake, island and waterfall. It’s a beautiful gem in the lower Adirondack Mountains, the kind of place you never want to leave and you always want to come back to. In addition, that price includes homemade meals, kayaking or canoeing, swimming (if it’s warm), and all retreat activities — from daily talks and reflections and optional daily yoga sessions to journaling and collage-as-prayer. Plenty of free time is built into the schedule for doing your own thing, in solitude or with a retreat friend.

Information and registration HERE.

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Not as smart as we think

Born in 1962, I am one of those tail-end Baby Boomers who doesn’t really fit the mold; my husband is at the leading edge of Gen X. All three of our children fall at various points in the Gen Z grouping, from the earliest year in that category to midway through the span. When looking at us as a collective, it’s easy to see the dramatic differences in the ways we were brought up, the ways we communicate and socialize, and the ways we use technology.

Even among our children, there is a significant difference between the son born in 1997, the daughter born in 2000, and the daughter born in 2005. Although they are part of the same generation, they are miles apart when it comes to how they use social media and their phones. But what I find consistent among all of us when it comes to smartphones and social media — despite the bad rap they continually get — are the ways this technology contributes to our connection, our social interactions, and our support networks.

My 17-year-old is far more social and far better adjusted than I ever was in the alleged “good old days,” when bullying happened on school buses and in school bathrooms where no one was around to catch it on video and bring the perpetrators to justice. Sure, there are technology abuses, but there are also tremendous benefits. I am grateful, for example, to technology for the way it allows my husband and me to keep in contact with each other and our children throughout each day. Our family text thread is not just filled with notes about upcoming vacations or breaking news stories, but with memories and photos and things that make us smile.

All of my children regularly receive text greetings from my godmother on important feast days. It’s not unusual for my kids to tell me that Aunt Margaret texted them “Happy Feast of Our Lady of Fatima.” Or for my daughter, Chiara, when we say grace before meals to remind us to pray for someone my aunt texted her about. If we’ve decided to blame smartphones and social media for our world’s woes and our children’s anxiety, we are taking the easy way out.

Just last week the U.S. Surgeon General issued a report saying, “While social media may offer some benefits, there are ample indicators that social media can also pose a risk of harm to the mental health and well-being of children and adolescents.” A lot of things pose potential risks to our kids. For example, guns pose the greatest risk to a child’s mental and physical health, and yet we as a nation seem unwilling and unable to address that horror. So, instead, we cling to social media as the big bad wolf in this story. We all know (or should know) that parents need to monitor and limit their children’s access to social media, not just in terms of time spent but content seen, just as I used to limit my children’s access to television and video games, back when those were the things we were told to fear.

Yes, our children have record-breaking levels of depression and anxiety. Perhaps because they go to school and wonder if they will make it out alive. Or they go to work on a subway only blocks from where someone was pushed in front of a train. Or they fear the savings account they are building up to buy real health insurance and maybe, gasp, a house might vanish in a world where even banks don’t feel safe anymore.

Unfortunately, technology is an easy target for people who are afraid of change. In the Bethlehem Central School District, the plan is to spend $27,000 to equip every student with a Yondr pouch to lock down phones all day. The intentions may be good, but the reality is short-sighted and possibly dangerous. Without smartphones, what happens in the event of a school shooting when a child can’t call 911 or text a parent, or when a teacher has a heart attack at the front of the room and no one can access their phone, or when a student simply has some sort of embarrassing situation that requires a change of clothes or an early pick-up but can no longer reach out to a parent during lunch to do so without advertising it to the teacher and, most likely, the whole class.

Rather than locking down phones and longing for the ways of the past, we should be helping our young people better navigate this wireless landscape. But here’s the reality: We can’t help them because we haven’t learned to navigate it ourselves. Maybe if the adults in the room would take an honest look at the ways they use these high-tech tools, they’d realize the kids are going to be just fine, if only we’d look up from our phones long enough to fix the real problems in our world.

This column first appeared in the June 1, 2023, issue of The Evangelist.

Photo by Paul Hanaoka on Unsplash

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