Lenten Journal - 2020

I stayed at home all day today. The world outside is changing as the country begins to shut down -- although not fast enough, for my liking. I also suspended my DOK discernment process, via email. It felt like the right thing to do, especially since our discernment meetings are happening in a tiny little room without a ton of ventilation from the outside. In lieu of readings, I have been focusing on setting my apartment in order As I packed and scrubbed, my sister A. -- who lives in an upstairs unit in my building -- came down to keep me company and talk. I cooked us dinner, and she vented. A. has many of the same health issues I do. If anything, her asthma is worse than mine. Her lungs stay persistently inflamed, for big swaths of the year. A tele-doctor told her a few days ago to stay away from urgent care or ERs right now. She told me afterward that the look on his face -- and the sudden shift in his voice/tone -- gave her chills, as if he knew something she didn't. "...

My sister and I have been glued to the news for the past 48 hours, with few breaks. Unless you're living under a rock, you know that we're in the middle of a global pandemic -- and America is finally seeing community spread of COVID-19.  I am in multiple high-risk categories for this type of illness (asthma, hypertension, immune-system abnormalities). Last Sunday, I stayed home from services; this Sunday, I'll likely do the same. For a lifelong asthmatic, this illness is profoundly terrifying. Regular colds and flus have sent me to the hospital before, gasping for breath. As a result, I've spent a good chunk of spring break in my apartment, isolating -- although I did go enjoy a hike on Monday with my sister in Eisenhower Park, which is on the north side of my city (San Antonio, Texas). This wasn't the 40-day journey I was expecting this year. Tonight, however, I spent the evening with my boyfriend and his children, plus a few friends. The entire time, my he...

One of the activities we're doing as part of my discernment process for the Order of the Daughters of the King (DOK) is the completion of an online inventory aimed at helping you suss out your spiritual gifts. These were my results when I took the test tonight: None of it is particularly surprising -- except maybe the pastor/shepherd designation. I went back and did the inventory again, trying to refine my answers a bit in case I hadn't thought a question through well enough. That time, it showed up even higher: as #1, instead of #3. I suppose there's a joke in here about me having missed my calling -- but there are lots of ways to shepherd and care for other people. In a sense, that's what I do in my secular job when I mentor students. It's really rewarding to offer people a listening ear, and suggest wise guidance/options (without being pushy!) in order to help them meet their goals, or simply just grow. It's also a privilege to sit and hold space wi...

Most years, I try to read something new for Lent. For 2020, my boyfriend, J., suggested a book on atonement . He's got a tiny head start on me, and said he thinks it's excellent so far. We'll see what my verdict is. This weekend, we stuck to our usual Saturday night routine of watching SNL. Afterward, a local late-night preacher came on. J. likes him -- despite his very Evangelical Protestant outlook. I most decidedly do not.  The sermon was on love and dating. I cringed. I grew up in Evangelical culture, and I know pretty much what to expect from these kinds of sermons. Sure enough, by the fifth minute in, I was screaming at the flat-screen. (Hey ladies, guess what? Men will try to get away with whatever we let them get away with. So it's up to us to set the boundaries. ... Same predictable, gender-essentializing bullshit I've been gritting my teeth at since middle school.) J. didn't get why the advice was enraging. We wound up arguing into the wee hours....

This morning, my teenaged daughter, G., messaged me before my first class:  "I'm sad." I opened the chat window to check in. More IMs followed:  "My old camp counselor."    "The janitor was doing inappropriate things and I think they tried to fire him and then he came up with a gun." Then, she sent me a copied-and-pasted link to a news article . I don't know if any of us ever get good at mourning. I tried to tell her that it's OK to grieve a loss like this, even if the person touched your life for a moment or season. It's also OK to rage, when the reason they're gone is something that feels stupid to us, like another person's narcissistic, uncontrolled anger, or mere carelessness. * * * Last night, our priest encouraged us to push past our own navel-gazing and look around at our communities and our world. To mourn for our collective violence, indifference, and waste. Beyond mourning, though, there is a second task the li...

I'm sitting in my office; in a few hours, I'm going to meet a friend for services at my parish -- although I'll admit that I got Ash Wednesday started a little early by crashing the Catholic Student Association's Mass at school. (I know, I know. I'm a weirdo. This is the goth-est holiday of the liturgical calendar, y'all. I'm all about it.) This year, the Lenten season feels especially dynamic, from where I sit. Unsettling, even. It's hard to describe this sense to someone outside my own head; I'm not unhappy or restless in my faith, or even in the more mundane facets of my life, like work. There's a quickening in my soul, though. One of the recurring themes of my life, over the past twenty years or so, has been prophetic witness. I have repeatedly felt a calling toward this sort of spiritual vocation. While I am not, by nature, a confrontational person, I do feel moved to speak uncomfortable truths, to bear witness to topics and events that ...