Author: Maria Johnson

time for another Quick Takes Friday!

Check out the collection of other 7 Quick Takes Friday posts, hosted at Jennifer Fulwiler’s blog, Conversion Diary. 

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I spent last weekend in New Orleans for a forum on Learning Support and Student Success. That translates to a bunch of college professors sitting around discussing what we can do to help adult students get up to speed on the skills they need for success in college (dare I say, in life?). It ain’t easy, let me tell you. I don’t make it any easier by saying ain’t, now do I? This is the part where I say that I worked hard while I was there. By that, I mean I was where I was supposed to be during the day. I played the rest of the time, but more on that later. This topic of college-level remediation is an important one, as I see myself kind of drifting into the direction of teaching more and more learning support classes. It’s a kind of ministry, really. Really .

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Did I say I was in New Orleans? Yes?

YES! I had lunch with the delightful Catholic Foodie himself, Jeff Young, and the even more delightful Char Young!

We had our V-8!

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And then I took a little bite of heaven at Cafe du Monde

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Ate this ginormous mufaletta sandwich. Oh heaven, again.

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Finally, really trying to get to heaven, visited the beautiful cathedral for Mass before leaving.

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Had another little ole poem posted at  Catholic Lane. You can read it here. Tickles me to no end to be doing this…it’s like having a little cherry plopped on top of my week.

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And finally, joined the Son Rise Morning Show brackets for March madness. I’m doing okay, though you can tell that I’m doing better in the East.

mothers, miscarriage, and a voice

I often use this blog to post silly videos and random by-the-seat-of-my-pants entries to laugh a little at life. It’s a good outlet for me, and while I’m not necessarily interested in growing a huge readership, I know that I have a nice little group of stalwart followers (thanks, y’all!).

Every once in a while, though, I do get serious, and it’s always about something that’s close to my heart. If there’s one thing that my vocation as a teacher has exposed me to, and that I’ve taken absolutely to heart, is that each of us has a story that’s yearning to be told. Our lives are unique — filled with many joys, but also pains. They go hand in hand with this thing we call the human condition.

Bloggers are sometimes guilty of always presenting the best side of our lives. It’s lovely to share photos of family get-togethers that look like Norman Rockwell paintings, and I’ve been guilty a time or two (ha!) of taking a picture that is cropped just right so you don’t see the laundry basket or the pile of papers that gets moved from the table to the counter, and back to the table. It’s all about illusion, isn’t it?

While I love to get hilarious comments from readers over fun posts, it’s actually the serious disclosures, like this one, that get feedback. Why? Because we are all suffering in some way. Each of us, and we so often miss opportunities to connect with others and share these hurts. We can find much healing in the simple act of sharing and discovering that we are not alone in our suffering. Both empathy and sympathy are gifts.

Karen Edmisten, author of After Miscarriage: A Catholic Woman’s Companion to Healing and Hope talks with Pat Gohn this week on a special two-part edition of Among Women Podcast on a subject that is dear to my own heart. I experienced two miscarriages early in my marriage. Twenty-five years ago, the subject was not brought up in polite company. The doctors were horrible to me … one dismissed my second, very early miscarriage, as nothing more than a chemical pregnancy. I don’t even know what that’s supposed to mean. Needless to say, the scars from such an experience go beyond grieving for a lost child.

Pat and Karen discuss this topic with tenderness and honesty, two essential qualities that go a long way in helping women heal, connect, and hope. I hope you pass this along to other women. If we haven’t experienced miscarriage first-hand, the odds are very high that someone close to us has. Share it.

 

we can often solve our own problems

I love this video! How many times do we allow ourselves to be stuck on an escalator when all we had to do was keep walking?

Ideally, we should just keep going forward, but there’s nothing wrong with hitting the reset button every once in a while and going back to the beginning to take another route (like the stairs).

Hooboy! It’s kinda like going to confession, isn’t it?

a little mid-Lent pondering

Story-telling on the big silver screen — especially science fiction with cool special effects, captivates me. I recently re-watched Avatar, James Cameron’s blockbuster commentary on deforestation and celebration of generic Earth Mother spirituality, for the sheer beauty of the cinematography.

I could do without the enviro-politics and pantheism, but the relationships were compelling. In fact, I was struck by a beautiful bit of dialog.

The main characters express their love for each other by saying, “I see you.”

I love that. It speaks to a vulnerability that, I admit, can be very frightening. To be seen — really seen — by another person is both excruciatingly painful and terribly liberating.

What an act of love to open ourselves in a such a way. To be seen like this is to say here I am — this is all of me — and I hope it is enough.

It takes every weakness, every fault, and exposes it side by side with what we hope are our best qualities.

There’s no guarantee in that kind of exposure — what if when all is said…and done..and seen, it really isn’t enough?

I’ve been thinking about this for some weeks as I work through a consecration to Jesus through Mary. Like Mary, I’ve been pondering a lot of things. Things I’ve never really thought about too deeply.

In fact, I don’t think I’ve done much pondering in my life. It’s an old-fashioned way of saying thinking, but it’s more — it’s meditation and deep thought.

I admit I’ve been deep in thought, pondering the meaning of this consecration. I’ve sat for hours before the Blessed Sacrament, exposed on the altar (Jesus exposed? Me? Both?), and I’ve pondered many things.

On a very practical level, I understand that Jesus and Mary can see me, can look into my heart and soul and see what’s really there. It’s quite another thing to be an active participant in this relationship and consciously, intentionally, open myself — not to scrutiny, which is what we might fear in human relationships, but something much more — an intimacy beyond my understanding.

It is saying  here I am — this is all of me — but instead of wondering if its’s enough, it’s the consolation that all of it, all of me will be transformed, reformed, conformed into something, someone, better.

back with some Quick Takes

Check out the collection of other 7 Quick Takes Friday posts, hosted at Jennifer Fulwiler’s blog, Conversion Diary. 

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My inability to be present on social media has been a little random and mostly non-existent. At first I was distressed by it because it wasn’t necessarily a choice, but it has coincided with Lent, and working out rather nicely. I admit that I’m not all that distressed by it. I’m checking in a few times…in the morning, maybe late afternoon. It’s working out well for me…you know, not so many “I’m having a cup of coffee” tweets, instead, I’m enjoying some real time banter and then moving on.

–2–

Speaking of Twitter, had a hilarious exchange with my daughter. Actually, it was a couple of retweets, and her wry observation that followed. There was a lot of buzz about Leap Day, and these played nicely into that fun:

My retweet:

Her retweet:

Immediately after that I got this text message from her:

Your most recent retweet followed by my most recent retweet is a funny juxtaposition of our generation’s mentalities 🙂

It led to a really great conversation in real time, on the phone, and what’s not to love about that?

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Gonna have a little trip to New Orleans! I’ll take an epi-pen. Should I eat this?

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A series of delightful events this week reminded me of this lovely picture I took a while ago at the Sacred Heart Cultural Center in Augusta, GA. I posted a bunch of pictures here. I really like this picture because the sun beams illuminate the whole space. I’ve been thinking an awful lot about Mary’s fiat since I’m working through a total consecration to Jesus through Mary.

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Sometimes I get in wild moods and write poetry and actually share it, instead of shoving it under my mattress. A couple of people actually read it. I mean, besides my mother. The nice people over at Catholic Lane  are posting it! Click on my pretty little picture and you can read it, too!

 

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My honey gave me an early birthday present! In fact, it was a lovely launch for birthday week! (yes, my birthday is very soon).

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And the birthday week celebrations continue…this was breakfast, made by my own Honey, with some local honey. It better hold me til dinner 🙂

.

these are my favorite things…

Raindrops on roses
and whiskers on kittens
Bright copper kettles
and warm woolen mittens

Oops, that’s Maria von Trapp’s list…

Well. It could be my list, too. Except the copper kettles. I’d probably have to clean them. But I do love rain drops, yes I do, and it’s raining softly now, and I’m thoroughly enjoying the sound of rain on the awnings, and the soft breeze from a fan, and a glass of wine…. It just might lull me to sleep, and I’m okay with that.

It’s been a long week. A good week, with lots of work to be done, a lot to be accomplished, and a to do list that functioned exactly like it’s supposed to — with almost all the items crossed off.

I have a few items that are left and that I will tackle tonight — namely a chapter I need to work on in a new work of fiction. I’ve been riding a friend a little hard on her own projects, and my hubby pointed out I needed to get my own house in order. Nothing like love to pour on some loving 🙂

So, that’s another favorite thing…this sorting out of voices in my head and snippets of scenes that somehow get spliced together into a form that approaches a story.

It’s also the end of Random Acts of Kindness Week, the only thing I ever find palatable about the hype surrounding Valentine’s Day. It’s actually something that I very much believe in…not to be celebrated as a week, although the attention to it is nice, but that we must consciously be kind.

It doesn’t cost us anything, and the benefits are so rich.

Here’s my favorite quote about kindness, by Blessed Mother Teresa:

“Let no one ever come to you without leaving better and happier. Be the living expression of God’s kindness: kindness in your face, kindness in your eyes, kindness in your smile.”

It’s the hardest thing to do. And the easiest.

oh boy, Lent is soooo much work

It’s just plain easier to be a sinner. It ends rather poorly, so I’m motivated to make some life-changing…um, changes. It’s not easy, but I need to start somewhere, and the Corporal Works of Mercy seem a good fit for me this year.

There’s a lot to be said for getting ideas for Lent from the internet pit stops I make throughout my day. It’s like a giant spiritual smorgasbord, and I get to fill my plate with the tastiest looking, yummiest selections.

I’m happy to read these posts and make plans for implementing new practices on Ash Wednesday. Yet, I have to honestly ask myself why I need to wait until Ash Wednesday, or more precisely, why I think I should set a particular date to begin working on my redemption.

It’s like New Year’s resolutions. If I wait until January to start a diet, am I going to eat cheesecake every day for the next ten months?

Sounds sinfully appealing.

In today’s busy world, where we are pulled by our responsibilities to family, work, friends, and all the extra things we find piled on our plates, it’s probably not a bad idea to prayerfully discern a particular course for Lent. Why not get ideas from people who’ve managed to make it work, or managed to articulate it in a manner we can comprehend and apply.

So I give you my own idea. I hope you go read about it here.

Pat Gohn invited me to guest post at her column, A Word in Season, at the Catholic Portal at Patheos.com. Check out Pat’s work and all the other great writers at the Catholic Portal.

sometimes I don’t even believe it myself

Look, I promise the following conversation happened, I just can’t give any details about where it occurred:

I arrived at my destination hankering to tweet something…and got distracted by the conversation that followed. You see, I was driving through a little town outside metropolitan Atlanta when I encountered a pedestrian walking what seemed to be a little nervous dog. I was still a ways away, so I figured it was a nutty little Boston Terrier (I’ve recently befriended one, and found the breed to be delightfully nutty) or a wild little Jack Russell, like my daughter’s little puppy.

I was wrong.

This proud citizen was walking a chicken. On. A. Leash.

Who can believe this?

So I get where I’m going, and I’m trying to tweet, only I’m laughing myself into a silly state of ineptitude with the phone…and share what I’m laughing about, and that’s when I get the second surprise of the evening.

It turns out that walking a chicken on a leash is not only not weird, it’s commonplace around here!

Here’s a snippet of the conversation:

Woman #1: Y’all need to go down to the flea market on Moreland. They all bring their pet chickens on leashes. And they’re dressed up, too!

Woman #2: The chickens are dressed up? In clothes? What kind of clothes does a chicken wear?

Woman #1: Same as you’d put on a gerbil.

[okay, I need to stop here and ponder this a bit. What would one put on a gerbil? The astounding thing about all of this is how naturally accepting these folks were of all the components of this weirdness]

Woman #2, incredulous, to her credit: Gerbil clothes?! What kind of clothes do you put on a gerbil?

Woman #1: Well, I’ve seen them in dresses.

Woman #2: The gerbils? Or the chickens?

Me, now disappointed: I think my chicken must have been naked.

Man: I dress my chickens. Then I eat ’em. Fried.