The past two days have been about as hard as it gets for a young person with the kinds of disabilities that shape our daughter’s life. Right now, I am not able to write about what has happened, though I hope I’ll be able to eventually. I can say this: the measure of our greatness as a country must depend, at least in part, on our ability to maintain spaces where a person as vulnerable as our girl is able, if not to thrive, at least be safe. There are parts of her life where this is possible and for that I am eternally grateful. There are other places where the failure is simply abysmal. And she is one of the lucky ones, woven into a community of love, power and privilege that will ensure that from this point forward, she, and hopefully others, won’t ever have to go through what happened to her earlier this week.

I marvel at the strength and resilience of the human heart. Yesterday we spent some time with our girl at BARC. We had been so worried about how she was doing. My funny little valentine girl was up for shooting some hoops, announcing herself as Lebron and baptizing me “Little Bow Wow”. We ran around the court, both of us clueless about the rules and form of basketball, laughing our heads off. We actually managed get that ball in the hoop more times than should have been possible for two gimpy legged, short and silly girls. And we held up our arms in the air singing “We are the champions”. At least of survival and refusing to allow ourselves to be erased, we most certainly are…

I write this to remember.  I was already moved by what was unfolding in front of the Capitol, quietly enjoying the sense of connection with people I love, scattered all around this country as we posted little comments on FaceBook.  My eyes stung looking at that beautiful young man, Richard Blanco as he launched into his poem.  But it was when I heard him describe all the ways we greet each other, ending with “buenos días
in the language my mother taught me” that I sobbed.  And I couldn’t stop as I watched Luis León, who was in Sherod’s DMin program with him, who ended his prayer — so very Episcopalian in tone and content — by turning and blessing our President and Vice President in beautiful, formal Spanish.

You cannot be a Latina immigrant, no matter how privileged, without walking carefully, speaking cautiously, knowing that something you say or do can easily unleash great anger and fear.  Today, we weren’t just visible.  We had voices, beautiful voices.  We mattered.  I know it is because we are a force for politicians to reckon with in the years ahead.  But still.  We were there.

This morning I was up at 4:30, not unusual for me on Sunday mornings.  I work on my sermon on and off all week, but I have found that it really helps me to finish working it over one more time, early, early on the day I am preaching.   Today’s lesson is one I love—the wedding at Cana and Jesus turning water into the best wine imaginable.  In my family of origin, special occasions were always celebrated with Veuve Clicquot  champagne.  Though I drink less and less nowadays, this year I found a bottle of Clicquot Rosé and bought it without hesitation.  I could have sat with that bottle in a corner all by myself, could have drunk the entire bottle in one sitting, though instead, it turned out to be a New Year’s Day treat with good friends.

For me, that champagne makes real something I read as I prepared for my sermon:  Wine brings life in intoxicating excess.  I revel and delight in the notion that we are immersed in a superabundance of life, an exhilarating, untamed, and shamelessly glorious creation.  In my own life I have experienced any number of ways in which God continues to make water into wine when I am fearful that it has run out.  This is the Sunday, three years ago, when I officially began my ministry on the campus of St Ambrose.  It seemed to me, as dawn was breaking today and I revised my sermon—actually, almost rewrote it—that it wasn’t just that God had kept providing for us.  I was so aware that we have been at a magnificent party thrown in our honor, a celebration that has not stopped, one that continues to insist I join in the joyfulness. With this community I have learned what it means to sing, “I come with joy to meet my [God]”.

Fast forward to this afternoon.  Sherod is still out of town and María has had a really bad cold so we haven’t done much together this week.  Today I knew there was enough staff coverage at BARC to make it safe for me to bring her home for 3 hours.  It’s the first time she’s been here since before Christmas, the first time I’ve taken that kind of risk by myself in many months.

Life with my daughter is parceled out in small and carefully measured moments.  I keep myself from hugging her too much.  I guard against expressing how very much I miss her, trying to avoid overloading her with my need.  I maintain enough emotional distance to always observe carefully, aware that if I can catch precursors to problem behaviors really early, I will avoid a conflagration that becomes dangerous in an eye blink.   And when I drop her off, I steel myself, I have to steel myself far more than I do to walk 13 miles.  It is an exercise in absolute self-discipline, the most extreme opposite of excess, a discipline necessary to keep from clinging to that precious body I so carefully bless with the sign of the cross before I walk back down the hall, and out to my car to drive away.

How strange tonight, to understand this profound paradox of intoxicating excess and scorching, pulverizing scarcity.  Not either/or.  One is not possible without the other.  This is my life.

Update at 6:00 PM:
I DID IT!
Avg Pace:15:27 min/hour
Distance:13.1 miles
Speed: 3.88 mph
I can do this thing. And Tina Turner and Shaquira are my BFF!!!

Sherod’s off to Alabama for the long weekend, to visit his mom and try out the new rifle he wanted as a Christmas gift. He stopped overnight in Crawfordville to gather up Charlie, his son, and Robert, his grandson. This is deer hunting season in that neck of the woods and I won’t be surprised to see Sherod bring home some venison. The picture of three generations of Mallow-men going up the road in the direction of those adventures is pleasing. I am also reminded that almost 25 years of marriage in no way erase the enormous distance between Sherod’s starting place in life and mine. We are knit together and the strands remain so distinct if you look closely. Continuing to mess around with metaphors, the arcs intersect for shorter, sometimes for longer, spans of time, but the trajectories are so much each our own, ours alone to follow.

It’s been a strange week. Maria has her ups and downs and there is no getting around that. Work was rough; towards the end of the week, really rough. By yesterday afternoon, I was ready to climb the walls so I started trying to figure out what I could do to have a bit of fun. Years ago, I had a remarkable friend called Genie. She is probably the most brilliant person I have ever met. I have not seen or talked to her for a couple of decades yet I constantly draw from some of the things I learned from her. I remember that she absolutely loved the Rocky Horror Picture Show so yesterday, when I went looking for a movie to take myself to, I was pleased to find out it was playing at midnight in one of our artsy, small movie theaters. I’m not quite sure why, but I decided to check with someone else I thought might know about the movie. Basically, my question was “thumbs up or thumbs down?”.

I got a very unexpected response. I had known that people dress up to go to this cult movie and actively participate in it. But yesterday I also learned that there are other parts to the experience. One piece is basically a hazing ritual for people who have come to the movie for the first time called the “devirgining ritual”. You get the idea: it runs the gamut from mildly amusing to totally outrageous, moving up and down the continuum of bawdy. One of the examples I read on line involves standing in front of the whole audience to imitate your favorite cartoon figure in the throes of the big O. What’s a little scary is I knew immediately which cartoon I would imitate and how. However, one thing was very clear to me: a place like Gateway at midnight is a point of intersection between my private life and my public life as a priest. My participation in anything unseemly would reflect not only on me, but on the community I am so honored to serve. I cannot willfully cause unnecessary pain and damage; there simply was no question that I could go.

As twilight set in, I felt so totally alienated from my life, I wanted nothing more than to curl into a ball and disappear. I’ll give myself credit for refusing to surrender completely to a pity party. I went out and did the grocery shopping I needed to do, came back home and served myself a healthy, delicious meal, read for a while, and watched an episode of Torchwood, a series that’s an off-shoot of Dr. Who. More than usual, I was glad for sleep. This morning, it is raining and everything in me resists the fact that I had set a goal to walk 13.00 miles today. I need to go ahead and do it in the rain because chances are pretty decent I’ll have to do the same in Birmingham next month. I will confess, though, as my last bit of self pity for the day, that I would love to climb into the TARDIS, go back about 30 years and try again. That’s a total waste of time. So in the absence of a TARDIS, I’m off to walk…

I realize this is probably only interesting to me.  But it is exhilarating and new and so unexpected.  I have stuck with my regular route for week-day training, focused on improving my pace.  Since I began measuring my pace, here’s what it looks like:

1/10–16:58 min/mi
1/14–16:23 min/mi
1/16–15:52 min/mi

Tomorrow I am going to enroll at the wellness center at the hospital closest to my house. About 1/2 of the route is hilly.  I’ve built some hill walking endurance by repeatedly going over the bridges around the downtown area of Ft Lauderdale.  But I think I need to do more.  At the wellness center, I hope to program a treadmill with the profile of the hill portion of the route in B’ham and do several training sessions building some speed and endurance on the hills.

I have no idea if I am training adequately or not.  I don’t even care that much.  What matters is the sense of agency and responsibility for my own results.  I like it. I like it a lot.  Thank you for your patience reading this boring stuff…

My training during the week is about shaving seconds off my pace. That basically means pushing myself, sometimes pretty hard, not allowing myself a lot of comfort. This is all so new to me, and tonight’s realization is that sometimes I have to fool my body to get across the resistance to do harder work. I have just recently become acquainted with Lindsey Stirling and there was this one song I kept repeating on my iPhone over and over again tonight because it was the one that kept me on the fastest pace (13.33 min/mile). In fact, at one point the music sounded so joyful that I found myself skipping and dancing down the street. So I am not the least bit surprised to come home and discover the name of this particular piece is Transcendence. I get to hear this young woman in concert next month–going to a real dive to hear her too–the week after the half-marathon. Is that very way cool or what?

View from the Good Vessel One More Chance

The day is winding down.  It started out well–I walked my 10.51 miles in 2:46, a little more slowly than last week but ramping up from 6 to 10+ miles in three weeks at that pace still seems respectable.  Did some housework, visited my daughter who is struggling again, now that school has started back.  So bittersweet, that first glimpse of her when I get to BARC, so hard to drive away at the end of a visit, such certainty when all is said and done, that no matter what, this is the best possible place for her to be. Tonight all the residents and staff are going to a dance somewhere.  Her eyes sparkled talking about DJ’s and Salsa and Merengue.  It has to be enough just getting the glimpses of a life that’s taking a course all her own.  This is no different than what any other teenager’s parents experience.

Then it was home to attend to work stuff that needed response.  And when that was done, a boat ride up the river. We saw egrets and herons, the flash of a fish leaping out of the water.  There was a majestic osprey perched on a bare tree, close to water’s edge, spellbinding in its stillness.

There’s some more work to do on my sermon and then, my weekend is over for all intents and purposes.  Tonight I would give a lot to be gathered with a community to sing evening prayer together. The Phos Hilaron suffices…

O gracious light,
pure brightness of the everliving Father in heaven,
O Jesus Christ, holy and blessed!

Now as we come to the setting of the sun,
and our eyes behold the vesper light,
we sing your praises, O God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

You are worthy at all times to be praised by happy voices,
O Son of God, O Giver of Life,
and to be glorified through all the worlds.

Last night for the first time, I hit a safety boundary while I was out walking.  Past the small park I’m so fond of, in a dark part of the street, I saw that I was closing in on a man that looked pretty shabby and was weaving as he walked ahead of me.  I was going at a fast clip and as I got close to him, realized he was leaving a trail of alcohol breath in his wake.  My first instinct was to try to go past him and then I realized how foolish that would be.  I turned around and headed back home, did an extra turn to complete my mileage.

I had been listening to a lively conversation between Krista Tippett and Kate Braestrup.  Kate Braestrup is a chaplain with the game wardens of Maine.  She wrote a beautiful memoir called There If You Need Me.   She quotes Tibetan Buddhism and says that how we live our lives is the way we practice for death; her book gave me a glimpse of what good practice looks like.  What I learned from her several years ago helped me walk with my mom all the way to the crematorium and then to the Rio Caldera where we scattered her ashes.  I was delighted to find this interview.

Last night, some of what she and Krista Tippett discussed converged with two conversations I’ve had in the past couple of days so what had seemed stagnant and turbid in my mind turned swift and clear and energizing.

In There If You Need Me, Braestrup tells a wrenching story about Christina, a young woman who was in the wrong place at the wrong time early one morning and was abducted, raped, and murdered before being buried in the woods.  As chaplain, Braestrup was actively involved in the events that unfolded over the next 3 days as a team of law enforcement folks worked feverishly to piece together what had happened, hoping against hope that they would find Christina alive.  Braestrup is so elegant and eloquent in her description of the miracle of people who do this work, observing that although they all hope that there will be happy endings and in fact, sometimes there are, many times the best they can do is find the body.  Braestrup describes beautifully the willingness of people who have this vocation to do what must be done, even knowing that most of the time they are not “superheroes” in any way, sort or fashion, but rather must confront the worst of evil, and still do their work with love and dedication.

In Christina’s case, this was true.  The person in charge of the investigation was a young woman detective named Anna Love (her real name—she changed most of the names of other people she portrayed in her memoir to protect their privacy but got Love’s permission because the name was part of the beauty of the story).  Braestrup and Tippett  marveled together at the intelligence, intensity and determination of Anna to crack the case, and how remarkable it was that Love pieced it all together so that within three days, the perpetrator was leading her and the rest of the investigation team to the site where he had buried Christina.  What made Love’s work so poignant was that all through those three days, she had to stop regularly and find an empty, private space where she could use a breast pump to send bottles of milk home for her newborn child.  Braestrup summarized all that in one exquisite sentence:  “a miracle can only be the resurrection of love beside the unchanged fact of death”.

My friend Robin is discerning how to respond faithfully to the congregation she serves out in the countryside of Ohio, a congregation that, like so many others in the mainline denominations, is in decline.  In response, a group of us have been exploring with each other the grace of hospice not only at the individual level but at a collective level as well.  Our denominations put superhuman effort into “church revitalization” and celebrate the heroes that turn congregations around.  Their work is worth extolling with joy.  But I am convinced that the kindness with which Robin is exploring alternatives to that approach bears consideration.

My own ministry has taken an unexpected turn.  For those of you who follow this blog with any regularity, you may remember that a several months ago we faced an enormously serious financial crisis of such proportions that I relinquished my salary.  Right before Christmas, the story took two unexpected turns and just like that, just like magic, we were back on more solid financial ground.  The slogging, painful work of improving our fiscal responsibility and accountability, work that a handful of people had done over the summer, will shape the future of this regional ministry for many years to come.  But much more immediately, we very unexpectedly regained much of what had been lost. The two pieces that came together as Christmas approached were more magical in some respects and therefore, more illusory and fleeting.

There was certainly a sense of reaffirmation that this ministry is well worth doing.  At the same time, embedded in all the “yeses”, some of them fantastic, some of them remarkable for the commitment and dedication they enfleshed, is also the  “unchanged fact of death” at least for me and the ministry I had hoped to facilitate.  Pieces of the more innovative aspects of a regional approach to ministry have given way to the practical necessities of survival for the institution I am a part of in this time and this place.  Though we will continue to make a difference for a long time to come I think, I am not going to get to do some of the edgy work I had been anticipating with great joy.

I am not one of the superheroes.  And I suspect that many, if not most, of the priests and pastors I know, love and respect, don’t get to be superheroes either.  A lot of the time, our work will be to carry on, aware that the story will probably not be one about astonishing turn-around and transformation; we will accompany communities through the valley of the shadow of death.  What runs swift and clear and true for me today is the certainty that if we practice; in other words, if we live our faith as authentically as possible, if we are mindful and observant and if we make ourselves available (si nos entregamos, as one would say in Spanish), maybe we can be so fortunate as Kate Braestrup and bear witness to the miracle of “the resurrection of love beside the unchanged fact of death”.

Camino Real Francés

Around my blogosphere circle, there have been some interesting discussions about choosing a word, a character trait, a virtue, as your own special word for the year.  Someone likened it to a star to follow.  Others have described it as a key for prayer and reflection, a way of bringing some focus to faith and growth.  I didn’t pay much attention, I must admit.  I’ve been busy, I continue to slowly but surely catch up on all the things that I fell behind on as I got through the hard days of the end of the year.  It’s not that I want to dismiss something as faddish or think it’s a trend to avoid.  It just wasn’t something that called me in any way.

Today I pushed myself.  I pushed myself pretty hard with the walking.  One of the  nice things about inhabiting my life now is I recognize a lot more parts of myself that I used to ignore.  One of them is how competitive I am.  I don’t say that out loud much, but it’s the truth.  My favorite way of dealing with competitions, especially as I learned about it with my uber-competitive older brother, was by bowing out, not finishing, or not even playing.  Signing up for this half-marathon walk has meant accepting that I am anxious not that I won’t walk the full distance but that it might take me too long to win the medal-thing they apparently give you if you complete it in under four hours.  I started out to increase my distance when I set my route for today.

But at 6:30 this morning, when I began to actually walk, the nagging anxiety had the chorus of itty-bitty-s&*^%y little voices getting me good and worked up so I thought, what the heck.  I am going to push myself.  If I get into a comfortable stride I’m going to try a little harder–not too much, but I’m going to try.  And then, when it was clear at 8 miles that even with a good pace, I still had strength left, I pushed a little more and altered my route enough to put in the full 9 miles.

Sometime about the time I had come off the 17th Street Causeway, a word began insinuating itself to me.  I had not been listening to any music, and wasn’t aware of thinking much of anything but this word formed inside my head, persistent and insistent.  Endurance.  Yes, I thought, I am building endurance.  From there, I thought, I need to look up the etymology of this word.  With lots of time on my hands I broke it down in my head.  En-dure-ance.  Right there in the middle is the key–dure. In Spanish, the word for hard is duro.  I imagined it was derived from something like dure and endurance is related to hardened.

Over and over, the word tumbled in my mind and with it all kinds of associations.  I wish endurance wasn’t related to being hardened. But the truth is, this year has hardened me.  When I stand and touch one of my legs, it feels like steel now.  I like that and I don’t.  I have a lower tolerance for games people play and my own.  I am less sentimental.  Les Miserable was cloying to me.  Give me some asperity any day.  Endurance tumbled this way and that. I remembered the prayer I wrote about in this post with that beautiful line, “Bring me the courage to endure what cannot be avoided for your will for us is health and wholeness”.  I have no idea how long I spent on this, and then, as if all along, there’d been a sifting, a process of discernment, I started thinking about El Camino de Santiago, that amazing pilgrimage pathway in Spain.

One of the last wonderful conversations I got to have with my friend Michael before he died was about his pilgrimage.  I remember him telling me about choosing boots carefully, trying dozens on before he found a pair that almost immediately felt comfortable, and how he put vaseline on his feet every day and never once got a blister.  But it was the journey to his own heart that I was so privileged to get to hear about.  As he told the story, I thought to myself–I would love to make that pilgrimage.  But by then, my hip was so riddled with arthritis (and I was so overweight) it was nothing more than wishful thinking.  I first began to really push myself in Gloucester last year (and it is precisely one year since I arrived at Eastern Point Retreat Center) and I was aware that all my walks were pilgrimages of a sort.

When I had walked for 9 miles today, in the light drizzle that went with me most of the way, when I made some mental notes about some training I need to put in place for myself for the hill-walking that will be involved in Birmingham, it was so clear as well that if there is a chance for me to do El Camino de Santiago, it will be because of my growing endurance.  And just like that, it had become my word for 2013.  I came back home and did some of that etymological research I had started.  Here’s a first, quick pass on endure, the root of endurance:

Endure: early 14c., “to undergo or suffer” (especially without breaking); late 14c. “to continue in existence,” from Old French endurer (12c.) “make hard, harden; bear, tolerate; keep up, maintain,” from Latin indurare “make hard,” in Late Latin “harden (the heart) against,” from in- (see in- (2)) + durare “to harden,” from durus “hard,” from PIE *deru- “be firm, solid.” (http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=endure).

A good word, that.  Certainly one that tells a lot about my life these days.

Then I went pecking for El Camino.  If you take the French path, the pilgrimage is almost 800 kilometers long.  If I were able to walk 9-10 miles a day, and accounting for the unaccountable, give it 6-8 weeks.  This is probably totally crazy, but I am going to start looking for sabbatical grants.  I have been in ministry for over 10 years now and the thought of doing this as my sabbatical, maybe even this year, fills me with great joy.  A whole lot else would have to fall into place.  But yes.  Endurance.  That is the word for 2013…

I have to walk at least 8 miles tomorrow as part of my training for the half marathon. There is a website called mapmywalk.com that allows me to plan out a course to accomplish that goal. Tomorrow, I will start from All Saints again, go across to the beach and over three bridges. This time, I will go a bit further north before heading back to my starting point. This is my route.

I’m definitely liking this planning and preparation stuff–until now my rambles have been just that: sort-of random. I kept increasing my distance until I plateaued at 6 miles, mainly because 2 hours a night is a reasonable amount of time for a workout. Now I am paying attention to pace and studying all this other stuff. This week I have to figure out what clothes I’ll need to wear. I’m hoping for some cool days between now and February 17th because it will undoubtedly be cooler in Birmingham than here and I need to train in what I will wear. I’ve been training in some Merrell Moab walking shoes which are pretty comfortable. If anyone has a different recommendation–speak now or forever hold your peace. What I have by next Saturday is what I will need to use.

Meanwhile, as I write, my husband is doing his daily workout. Working his remote-control helicopter (hovering just to the right of my laptop) with which he terrorizes Spot, Daisy and me. He tells me the laughter is good exercise for him. And that the running is good for Spot and Daisy. I’m not sure my cussing does much for any of us, but really, I’m very amused…

Update 1/5: I walked 9 miles at a pace of 15’17″/mile or 3.9 mph. That totally rocks for me!!!