Easter Renewal

As mass started yesterday morning– Easter Sunday– I didn’t feel my usual excitement about Easter. Even last year when it felt like everyone was wearing black (we all know I wasn’t!), I had that sense of renewal inside me and I wasn’t going to be swayed by the lack of hope of so many people. It wasn’t that I felt bad yesterday, I just didn’t feel the excitement I usually do on Easter morning, the times when the joyful music stays in my head long after I’ve left mass.

I admit this was my fault. I had been so caught up in finishing my book Route 66 Dreams when Ash Wednesday rolled around that my Lenten plans never got off the ground. I was ready to move onto a new book, to use that time to focus on a story that is partially finished, but I had to remain with the prior story and then I was too exhausted for several weeks to get my head wrapped around the “new” story.

However, as we traveled through the Easter mass yesterday, it was Fr. Steve’s homily that resonated with me. In particular, when he said–

“People are suffering and there seems to be nothing we can do about it. But God is mysteriously at work. We might not be able to make sense of it all, but God is doing something more wonderful than we can imagine. In due time, it will all be revealed. So, we live with hope, and we do what we can to alleviate the distress around us.”

That was what I needed. I don’t know that I realized it, but after he spoke it, I felt as if a weight, the weight of worry I’ve had for so many things– in my world and beyond– dissipate.

We all need Easter Sunday. While it might mean different things in different faiths, we all need to take a step back, to be reminded to let go, to have faith, to continue to pray and, mostly, hope.

Easter should be a day to refresh oneself for the journey. It was the end of the Lenten journey– however that looked for each of us– and start of a new journey. It’s as if we took a day to stop, to rest, to feel the warm sun on our faces or warmth of people around us, to smell the flowers, enjoy the colored eggs, eat a tasty piece of cake.

Now we have the strength to go forward and continue to believe.

The Ember of Hope

As I approach the 28th anniversary of my sister Denise's suicide later this month, I debated what message I would want to convey. I didn't know right up until Greg hit play on the video recording, but here it is, very reflective of where my journey is today.

Telling Stories

It’s hard not to get dragged down by the seemingly endless roller coaster ride we’ve been on.

Some days are better than others and I find that keeping my list of things to do long, that even though I don’t finish the list, at least I’m accomplishing something.

Somewhere yesterday the depression set in as it seems to do every few days. I had decided I needed to focus on doing things outside my office, those little things that pile up on the kitchen counter or in the laundry room, the ones that don’t take long to do, but we constantly walk by and say, “I’ll do that later.” And yet we don’t. Yes, those things.

I did them and then I settled into reading the multiple extra newspapers our very kind newspaper lady has been bringing me– while we subscribe two two newspapers, she brings me the day or two old returns for two other newspapers that are in the recycling bin. But I had gotten behind doing my sewing so I sat down to read them.

It was there that I found out that director Joel Schumacher had died (how did I not know this??) and the man who wrote the screenplay for “The Great Santini.” I also ready obituaries and stories about people I’d never heard of, many who rose above lives started with immigrant parents and somehow ended up in Los Angeles at least for a few years. There were threads in these stories– garment workers, the death of a parent.

I found myself drawn back to the one thing that probably makes me happiest inside, telling stories. It’s telling the stories in my head, of people whose lives are influenced by those I have read about. It was that feeling that brought me out of my passing depression as I was knocked on the head once again for my true calling in this life.

Sometimes in my frustration with the chaos in the world I start to veer a bit from my journey. But. thankfully, I am aware enough that it pulls me back quickly.

Believe

I obviously haven’t written in a month, not because I didn’t have anything to say, but because I felt like I was standing on a soapbox and I was talking to myself (or maybe at least my dogs, Lilly and Ash). It’s often hard in this digital world to know who sees/reads what I might have written. Without likes and comments, I didn’t know, nor did I know how many people who needed to hear my words were just scrolling by, not wanting to dig in deeper to find their hope and peace.

However, that doesn’t mean I don’t have anything to say and I knew I needed to return to my blog. I just didn’t expect the pain to once again explode over the past few days which left me not wanting to write. Again.

Yet this morning I streamed the daily 8:00 am (Pacific Time) mass from the Cathedral of Los Angeles, a place where Greg and I once attended mass, and something I’ve been doing nearly daily since the start of the pandemic. The priests, especially the Archbishop, have what I think of as very “thoughtful” words. The way the Archbishop speaks, I sense that he really has contemplated the words that he will speak, the words he is seeking to help people find hope and peace in this time.

This morning in his homily he said two very relevant things– “Everything is unfolding in the providence of God” and then “No matter what happens in our lives, the cross is the answer.”

I immediately thought I should post one of these to my church’s social media pages (of which I handle), that they are words many people would appreciate especially today.

However, something stopped me. I wondered, “What do I say to the people who ask, ‘Where is God in all this?’”

I believe there is a reason, a path, an opportunity, in all this pain. I believe (especially having worked with many grieving people), that everything happens for a reason and if we embrace the new doors and windows to open in it, somehow we will find our way through it. I also know that life isn’t meant to be easy and good all the time. Many storms are thrown our way and it’s how we react to those storms that helps us learn and grow.

It’s not fair. None of its fair. I have my moments of frustration and irritation and find myself having to work harder not to let it overwhelm me.

I don’t have the answers, but I also know that often in the thick of things we won’t find the answers. Sometimes we have to walk, to keep walking, to keep believing (no matter how hard that is), and have faith that one day we will understand.

Life has taught me many times that if I do that, at some point I will understand. Keep the faith, everyone. As the song goes, don’t stop believing.

The Patience of the Unknown

Fr. Josh, a priest I know, said once that he was praying to Mary because he needed help with patience and that was something obviously Mary knew well. It didn’t resonate with me at the time, but as I have found myself drawn closer to Our Lady of Guadalupe (essentially, the Mexican Mary) and on Thursday, December 12, I will celebrate my birthday on her feast day, I have awoken to what she is teaching me this year.

I have been writing recently that my job will end in late January and I’ve been busy trying to gain both traction and momentum as I await for new windows and doors to open. After all, I know well that if you want doors and windows to open, you need to work hard, too.

But in all of this, has been much frustration as I feel like I’ve been spinning my wheels, taking more steps back than forward, and feeling a start-stop-start-stop with all that I do.

Then one day it occurred to me, maybe it was because yesterday is the celebrated Immaculate Conception, that Mary didn’t know why she was called on to be Jesus’s mother. And that’s when what Fr. Josh said to me several years ago about praying to Mary to learn patience better made sense.

I feel like I know what I’m supposed to be, to do. I feel that I am supposed to be more, to do bigger things. And yet here I stand with a gorge separating me from where I want to be. I ask and ask and ask to cross it (and I’ve recently decided that it’s a gulf and that maybe I should swim across it), but it’s still start-stop-start-stop.

Every year this time I feel closer to Guadalupe, I feel a stronger sense of meaning on my birthday, that the day is more than, well, my birthday. It’s a day– and time– that Guadalupe comes closer and brings me messages for the journey, while we also are in the thick of the waiting and magic of Advent.

Patience. The unknown. All the things I hate. And yet Guadalupe is saying, “It’s coming. I’m with you. Keep walking with me. This journey will make sense and you’ll get across that gulf. But not on your schedule. On God’s, on mine.”

Stay the course, I often tell myself, just as we did particularly when running cross country. Stay the course. It will come, it will happen. Patience. The lesson has to be learned first.

Keeping the Dream Alive

I have this memory of my sister Denise. I’m not exactly sure where we were, somewhere in Florida, and we’re playing in the waves. I was in high school and she was in junior high. I remember us laughing and the sense of feeling free that we had, a trip Mom had taken us on when she worked for Midway Airlines.

On this past Friday morning while I was out running, I missed Denise. But as I thought about it more, I realized what I missed is not being able to share Chelle Summer with her because so much of what she and I did together– drawing, making houses and clothes for a our Barbies– and the late 1970s into early 1980s and the styles of that time– form the nucleus of Chelle Summer.

And then I remembered that she is with me. We can’t have a conversation, which is what I felt I wanted when i was thinking about her, but she is still part of this journey. I just wished I could share with her the influence our time together has on what I’m doing today– share it in a way where we have a two-way conversation.

Then I began to think how there probably would be no Chelle Summer if she were here. I probably would be a sports journalist or something similar. While I will never truly know, I’m not sure I would have tapped into our style and fashion history to build Chelle Summer.

The reality is that I can’t bring her back and because of that I’ve tried to embrace the journey as much as possible. This has become more prevalent to me in each passing year and the more I embrace it, the more creative I’ve become. So in a sense Denise is responding by helping me choose what I create.

And that’s enough for me, even on days when I doubt everything, that I am keeping the dream alive. And I won’t give up until I get where I want to be.

What do you say?

When my sister died– and it was over twenty-five years ago when there was much more stigma surrounding suicide than there is now– I remember thinking how could she end her life, believing that she valued and cherished life much more than I did. And that also meant people often didn’t know what to say to me.

But there is another time that leaves people speechless– after a suicide attempt.

What do we say to someone who has attempted life? Life is the whole of everything we do and believe and when someone tries to end it, we know it goes against everything we’ve been taught about preserving it.

In the years that I trained people in suicide prevention and in the experiences I’ve had working with suicidal people/attempters, I’ve learned that it’s an opportunity to be there for someone, a time not to speak, but to allow them to speak. Suicidal people are looking for a way to express their pain and when they don’t find it, they might attempt to end their lives.

They don’t need to hear from us how wonderful their lives are and how great they are. They are trying to reconcile feelings inside themselves that we might not have any idea are there.

We have a tendency to want them to stand in a sunny place with us. The spot where they are standing is stormy and they don’t want to move from it until they have an opportunity to express the pain they feel, the road that led them to the attempt, and how much they hurt. It’s like the clouds in the sky continuing to hover until they’ve had a chance to drop moisture on the earth. Expressing the bad allows us to see the good again.

It’s a relief for them to express their pain and sometimes enough for them to move forward. Others might need more help in the vein of a therapist or someone to walk the road for them as they try to find a way forward. There might be other circumstances around the attempt that they need to cope with as well. No matter the depth of their needs, there is a place for all of us to be there for them to some extent.

Ultimately, I think of the founder of the field of suicidology, Edwin Shneidman, who said that it came down to two questions: “Where do you hurt?” and “How can I help?”

Hitting the Reset Button

This weekend is Memorial Day, the official kickoff for summer. And also the time we plan everything that we're going to do this summer. However, what usually happens come Labor Day– the end of summer and start of fall? Often we find ourselves looking back on summer and wondering, "Wait, I had all these things I was going to do! What happened?"

The end of May is the perfect time to hit the reset button, both on what we had hoped to do this year but also what we want to do this summer.

Have we made headway on those goals we planted the seeds of back in January? If not, it's the perfect time to rethink them and maybe tweak them so that we're more likely to accomplish them. If the goal was too big and we easily felt lost and gave up, how do we break the goal down into smaller pieces to make it more manageable?

And if we have made strides in accomplishing our goal (or goals!), what do we want to accomplish next? How do we keep ourselves interested to keep moving forward? What new goals can we set?

Many people see summer as a time to slow the pace down– and that might be our goal for the summer– reading more, spending more time with our families, doing more creative activities.

Whatever you do this weekend, take a little time to reflect on where you're at and where you want to go this year. The start of summer is the perfect opportunity– and a three-day weekend!– to step back and make sure you don't reach Labor Day wondering where summer went. And everything you wanted to accomplish with it.

Questioning Faith

Recently I had my monthly spiritual direction visit with a priest here, Fr. Gene, and one of the things he happened to say was how he has come to understand questioning faith is part of the faith journey.

It took me a moment to absorb what he had said because it was the first time I could truly admit how much I doubted faith for so long.

Growing up, it was expected that we would go to CCD class, make our first communions, and then we could stop once we were confirmed. But I can now freely admit that all these years– and throughout high school after my confirmation– I doubted the existence of God. However, my mom had such steadfast faith that I never felt I could say I didn't believe. I knew I was expected to and kept it to myself.

It wasn't until my first relationship break up in college that I had to figure out where to lean for support and I started to attend church. Reflecting back, I now see that Mom set in place a coping mechanism for us by making us complete all our sacraments. Maybe I didn't need spirituality (my chosen word for it– I see religion as more meditative and choose to use the tradition aspect of it that way) then but it was there when I needed it.

And when my younger sister died two years later, I had a church community to fall back on because I was attending church fairly regularly at that point.

I believe that things unfold the way they do for a reason and that had I learned the lessons I wish had been taught to me (especially about letting go of my worries and giving them to God/the universe), my life journey wouldn't be where it's supposed to be today. A good example of it is writing this blog at this particular time. The whole idea probably never would have occurred to me had I never doubted my faith.

However, I also see that I was questioning my faith early in life when some people might be faced with the same questions later in their years. But as they were early for me, it's allowed me to explore and do other things I might not have been able to without the previous journey.

Our life journeys aren't interstate highways that often stretch for miles in what looks like a straight line (like through Western Oklahoma or any of the other Great Plains states!). Often we can't see where we are going which can be frustrating but that's the key part to trusting the journey.

I can't say that every day I am filled with complete faith but I understand the importance of trusting the journey, the universe, God. There is only so much I can do and life has taught me that by letting go of what I can't control and keeping my focus in the here and now and what's right in front of me, makes all the difference in the world to my outlook on life.