Faith: Found and Kept (part 2)

(This post is second in my "Faith: Found and Kept" series.  "Faith: Found and Kept" can be found here.)

During college, I, like most young adults, was in the midst of discerning my beliefs and values.  It's a time, for many, of trial by fire.  Or at least trial by error.  I knew I was pro-life.  I knew I was for helping the hungry and homeless.  I knew I supported my friends going on mission trips to dig wells in Nicaragua (though I never went -- I wish I had).  I knew I was opposed to political regimes imprisoning people under false pretenses, especially innocent people. And I knew I was for people getting the health care they needed to live their lives to the fullest, despite their socioeconomic status.  So I was happy to be part of a community that so actively supported events that raised money and awareness to remedy these problems.  Well, most of them.

Image: maya picture / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

When I became pregnant with my first child, "pro-life" became more than a label.  It became very real to me.  How any woman who has carried a child in her womb can deny that a fetus is a baby is a human being -- well, it's beyond me.  Something clicked for me.  Part of it was no doubt the effect of the tickle of tiny feet from within my skin.  But part of it, I think, was that I didn't feel ready.  Yes, I was married and wanted to be a mom, but the truth was, motherhood came sooner than we had planned.  We were caught off-guard.  We were not on financially stable ground yet.  We were not prepared.  And this lead me to empathize with those women in tough spots, who "choose" abortion because they are afraid and unprepared.  I was blessed with a loving husband and a strong support system.  I knew I was among the fortunate.  And so, while I gained a greater realization for the depth of the desperation a woman might feel, I also gained a more solid grasp on what a precious and magnificent gift a child is, and how amazing it is to be part of a miracle.  I knew wanted to help save these lives, both those of the children in the womb, and those of the mothers who were considering making the worst choice of their lives.

As the pro-life cause grew into a passion within me, I came to search for ways to get involved through my church.  But the most I could find was an annual tithe to a local Crisis Pregnancy Center.  There were no groups from our church who went to any of the pro-life marches (though groups went to protest the School of the Americas).  There were no drives to supply the local CPC (though there were regular collections of toiletries for AIDS patients and their families).  There were no Natural Family Planning teachers or support contacts (though there were always letters to write on the behalf of political prisoners).  And there were no speakers who would come speak out about the Sanctity of Life, though about once a year someone would come speak about health care for the poor.

I took this as a call to be the seed and to invite others to join ME in praying at the abortion sites and writing our legislators, in collecting funds for CPCs and goods for moms in tight spots.

No one took me up on my invitation to join me at the 40 Days for Life vigil.  But that year in 2008, there was a full house at the church hosted information session about health care reform.  I was there.  But at that point, it was in hope that my growing suspicions had been wrong.  I was hoping with a lonely ache that the church I had grown to love was not pro-choice.

To be continued...

Faith: Found and Kept (part 1)

Image: dan / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Two Sundays ago, I attended Mass at a church that I used to call home.  My husband and I had split up for the day because one of our boys was sick, so he took one healthy kid to Mass in the morning at one church, and I took the other healthy kid to another church in the evening.

During and after church, my son and I were approached by several members of the community saying how good it was to see us and asking if and when our family would be returning.

One woman, a lay leader, said, "... if you can find it in your heart to forgive us."  And I was taken aback.  I had never considered that I had anything to forgive really.  Just sadness for having grown apart.

But let me back up.

If you know me, I hope you recognize that I am a giving person and a forgiving person.  I also expect you've probably noticed that I'm a pretty conservative Catholic.  I am generally fiscally-conservatively minded, but I also embrace Catholic social teaching which calls us to stand in solidarity with the less fortunate among us and to be a voice to the voiceless.  But I guess I didn't always identify myself as that conservative Catholic.  I mean, don't we all go through events that lead us to do some soul searching?  Or that essentially knock us upside the head with a "holy two-by-four"?  Sometimes these events are subtle, slow shifts that nudge us from one school of thought to another.  Sometimes they are more jarring and more defined.

A decade ago I was a happy member of a small Catholic community that served the local college students.  I was one at the time.  I loved the warm and inviting community, the inclusiveness, the quiet setting of the church.  And I loved the priest who acted as our Campus Minister.  I noticed at the time that he did some things differently:  He used stoneware chalices and actual bread, not wafers for communion. And he invited us to speak the Doxology with him.  I loved these things and how they made Christ more tangible to me.  I needed these things at that point in my spiritual development. And it was good for me that I didn't realize these things were at odds with Church teaching.

To be continued...

move your feet when you pray, child

I just realized I need to run.

Or swing dance.

Either will do as long as I do it to the point past exhaustion.

not a happy bouncy post.

Cancer.

It's a recurring theme in my poetry and what my hypochondriac-in-denial self is sure to die from, if I don't die of a heart attack or in a car crash first.

The thought of it scares the crap out of me, turns my insides to mush, makes my throat tight. And that's when I think of someone else having it.

At the same time, I think I romanticize it in my head. Not that there's anything romantic about damaged cells going haywire, slowly overpowering a person's body from the inside out; nor is there a damned thing that's romantic about chemo or multiple surgeries or any of the other miserable things that cancer can bring. But with any serious illness, there's inevitably a bit of "do not go gentle...rage, rage" Dylan Thomesque romanticism.

I heard a bit on the radio last week about how cancer survival rates are steadily improving. This does not stop me from imagining a mole on my shoulder is mutating or getting sick over a lump in my chest that was just a cyst.

Cancer freaks me out. I don't drink pop anymore because of being paranoid about how the damage the acidity does & the free radicals the sugar creates. So everything is water or something with antioxidants or vitamins in it. Lots of antioxidants. Borderline obsession here. (In some nostalgic way, I feel sad that my kids probably won't know what it's like to down a quart of red Kool-aid in 30 seconds flat after running around outside on a summer day. I'll make them drink, I don't know, guava juice instead. That could get expensive. Still.)

The first person I remember dying was a classmate of mine in first grade. He was hardly there. And when he was, he got to wear his ball cap in class; he was bald from the chemo. I never really got to know him, but he was in our class picture at least. I think it was right at the end of the school year that Brian died of Leukemia.

About two and a half years later, my maternal grandmother went to the hospital. A short couple weeks later, we were at her funeral. At 59 years old, she had died of colon cancer that had spread too far before it was caught.

Not too long after that friend of the family died of a brain tumor. I think he was in his mid 30's.

A few months back, a close friend was dealing with a cancer scare. The worst part about it for me was that I had no idea how to "be there for her." I had no clue what to say or do. Any time the thought came up, I felt like retching. Other people have "survivor stories" to share, but for me, "cancer" means "death." Even if it doesn't.

Tonight at church, I found out someone who means a great deal to me & my family, someone who is a key reason why we live in the city we do, is going in for surgery on Wednesday to have a tumor removed from his colon. There are also spots on the liver that need to be checked out. The whole scenario is too eerily similar to my grandmother's story. I haven't been right since church.

So, do me a personal favor, will ya? Pray, meditate, send good karma his way on Wednesday and for his recovery thereafter. I trust God knows what He's doing, but happy thoughts can't hurt, right?

"Don't you know we are immortal
until our work is done?"

~ missionary Ruth Thompson
as quoted by Ellen Vaughn
in her book, Time Peace