home again, home again

Home is where I arrive after 12 hours of driving and there's a pizza party happening. Mom and Marshall and George and Christel and Jonathan and Kim and we're all talking loudly over one another because there's so much to say and share and catch up on that none of us can decide whether to listen or talk so we do both at once. Home is where my two-and-a-half-year-old nephew Brian hides behind his parents' legs before he gets over his shyness and talks to me. ("Thanks for cooking, Aunt Sheila!" he says three times during breakfast.) Home is playing Set with Matt and Julia, and seeing Julia paint Aunt Donna's nails, and hearing from Mary about the Christmas party they had with their neighbors last night, and eating the leftover apple cake from the party, and catching up on Penn State football with Mike. Home is watching Jeff play with his new camera flash, which works great because you can't take a bad picture of Brian anyway. Home is going thrift shopping with Mom and Sylvia and running into Kim at Goodwill. Home is the five-days-later Christmas where I try to convince everyone we should do one gift at a time but I compromise and say two and Debi takes over handing out gifts and almost forgets to open her own. Home is hanging out with my brother-in-law and godfather Craig who would rather be building something but he's content to be at a party for a few hours. He gets a Lowe's gift card for Christmas. Home is watching Susie run around and marveling at the effect Ken's voice has on her (we try for several minutes to make sure she doesn't eat the balloons that Kim is blowing up into animals but in the end the only thing that works is Daddy saying gruffly, "Susie, take that out of your mouth!" from across the room.) Home is seeing how amazingly grown-up my beautiful , newly married nineteen-year-old niece looks and wishing we could also see her husband, who is in Iraq. Home is seeing Ben and Vicki for the first time since Pearl's birth (not quite three weeks ago) and watching my grandmother Pearl hold baby Pearl for the first time. Home is saying goodbye to Jeff and Sylvia when they leave to put Brian to bed; they won't be at Jon and Kim's wedding in May because the baby is due in June, so I'll have to visit Canada this summer. Home is Marshall, at the end of an exhausting day, poring over maps with me to see if there's a better route back to South Bend. Home is a cup of tea with Grandmom before I leave early Monday morning; while we chat Mom makes me a fried-egg sandwich, which I eat an hour later on the highway and discover is the best fried-egg sandwich I have ever tasted.

Home is also where Anne got up at 7 AM last Thursday to say goodbye and then went back to sleep. Home is where I arrive after 11 hours of driving (better traffic) and walk right into a New Year's party and sit down to eat Elena's enchiladas, Bill's beans and Tony's avocado dip five minutes after getting out of my car. Home is where Laura and I toast to the New Year with all these "older folks" and then drive through the beginning of the snow storm to another party, this time with a much younger crowd. There's barely room to stand but there's abundant food and drink and conversations to be had. The ball drops and Laura graciously drives me home so I can collapse into bed. Home is where Anne and Dan know already when all the Masses for today are so they and Laura and I go to St. Joe together. Home is where my old friend Fr. Nate says Mass and my friend Carolyn's daughter Theresa cantors and I see the Boughtons and the Collinses and the Sgrois in different parts of the church. Home is using Dan and Anne's shovel and broom to get my car cleared off and cleared out and then using four years' South Bend winter driving experience to navigate the slippery and thickly-covered roads. Home is praying with Michael and Dan and Sarah and coming up with all sorts of ideas for the New Year.

Home is going to sleep tonight knowing that despite 23 cumulative hours of traveling this past week, I have always been at home.

meditation of the day

It is not enough to say that Jesus Christ teaches us the Truth about human life. The Christian faith affirms much more. The Truth of life is the Mystery at the origin of all that exists. All religions seek to discover this Truth. Only the Christian, however, will affirm that the Truth became a human being in the womb of a Jewish woman; that he was born as a baby and grew up as a man; that he was followed by people who were struck by the way he lived his life; and that he was executed by some of his opponents but rose from the dead victorious over space and time and is thus still present in his humanity in our midst. Only a Christian would say this. Jesus is the name of a concrete individual man who is the human embodiment of the Truth that all religions seek. He is the Truth made man. This is what we believe. It is not enough to say that Jesus is the name we give to the Truth. Jesus is the man who is the incarnation of the Truth. For this reason, before identifying himself as the Truth, Jesus calls himself the Way. Jesus is the Way to the Truth. To be a Christian is to embrace the Way to the Truth that Jesus is ... we do not seek solutions to the problems of life derived from religious sentiments, spiritual approaches, or philosophical convictions. We do not have answers to questions. In each circumstance of life, whatever it is, we seek not an answer but a Presence, the human presence that is the way to the "Answer," to the Truth. We do not come together as Church to find intellectual answers to our questions about the meaning and purpose of life. This is to reduce to the Church to an ideology. We come together not to find answers but to learn how to recognize and affirm a Presence. The Church is not "our way" of finding answers to our religious quest for the Truth; it is the method through which the Truth becomes humanly present to us. As the prolongation of Christ's presence in the world, it is the method through which the Truth becomes incarnate for us ... We come together as the Church to learn how to recognize the fact of this Presence, and to witness to it in any circumstance of life, especially when there are no answers. Jesus Christ is the way to the Answer. In him, way and answer coincide. - Monsignor Lorenzo Albacete

watch this video

Cool art/homelessness project in Albuquerque ... for every unique view this video draws during the holiday season Mudhouse Advertising will donate $1 to Art Street and Albuquerque Healthcare for the Homeless.

Christmas music

official Christmas albums of my childhood: Harry Simeone Chorale, and the Beach Boys Christmas. I would play that first one over and over until my dad pleaded with me to stop. The second one included a priceless greeting from the Boys themselves:

"Hi, this is Denny, and speaking for the rest of the guys
I'd like to say that it has been a great pleasure
for all of us to bring you this Christmas album.
We hope you will treasure it the way we do.
And if you hap happen to be listening to this album right now,
Mike, Brian, Carl, Al and I would like to wish every one of you a very merry Christmas,
and we hope the new year brings you as much happiness as this year has brought us.
Thank you very much."

what I'm listening to this Christmas: MercyMe's The Christmas Sessions, also Christmas with the Rat Pack. MercyMe's version of "O Holy Night" is my favorite ever. Another favorite is Chris Rice's song "Welcome to Our World." I've been listening to Bebo Norman's Christmas album a lot and I love his version of "Go Tell It on the Mountain." I also love the album "The Court of a King" by the Crossing but the CD is funny and will only play in my car.

I change the radio station immediately when I hear: Relient K's "12 Days of Christmas" (not my style); anyone singing "The Christmas Shoes." (worst Christmas song ever. No, worst song ever.)

What about you? What did you listen to growing up? What are you listening to now?

king of glory

moo

I've been told that perhaps I don't post enough anymore, so I wanted to put something up today, but I don't really have anything to say, so I found a link for you all to enjoy instead ... my mom e-mailed me this years ago, in college ... how to tell if your cow has mad cow disease.

Have a great day!
Sheila:)

uncle scrooge and nephew fred

Just a quick post because I haven't blogged in a while ... this past weekend I saw A Christmas Carol twice: Thursday night in South Bend and Saturday night in Amana, Iowa where Dan is doing his acting internship. Who doesn't know this story? and I have to say that the line "God bless us every one" has never inspired me in the least. But I haven't actually seen the play in years and I was surprised by a few things ... first by how modern Scrooge sounded as he talked about the "surplus population." Second by how quickly he changed once he was shown a new perspective (by the way, it was the showing, not a lifetime of people telling it to him, that changed him). By the time Christmas Present comes around, Scrooge really wants to see and learn and change.

But the thing that moved me the most (much more than that trite little Tiny Tim) was the patient love that Scrooge's nephew Fred had for him. For Pete's sake, if your uncle was Ebenezer Scrooge and he was mean to everyone and rejected all your invitations and shut himself off from all the world, wouldn't it be easy to just leave him there and stop trying? I was kind of touched by the way that Fred came in with all his Christmas spirit, undoubtedly knowing he'd be rejected again, and even more by how he joyfully welcomed Scrooge into his home once Scrooge has had his change of heart. He doesn't berate Scrooge for taking so long to get the Christmas spirit, he doesn't even question what happened, he just welcomes him in. Kind of like the Father's love for us. My hope this Christmas is to be more like Fred, to leave behind cynicism and self-righteousness and just invite people wholeheartedly into joy and love.