So, wishing you a rich and good Lent.  Into the desert.  Steady on…..

Or, our personal favorite: Shrove Tuesday.
Or, many other’s personal favorite: Mardi Gras.
Or, Fasching.
Or, Carnival.
You get the idea….

Yup, it’s the day before Ash Wednesday, the eve before the fast. The vigil before the beginning of the season of Lent.

Because you can never have enough pics of flipping pancakes...it's just fun (click pic for source)

Now some of us love those Mardi Gras celebrations, floats, beads, revelry….and it is our biggest American Carnival tradition. I’ve never been a big one for the real Mardi Gras. Maybe because I’m not from the Big Easy and I am simply a foreigner to it all. Maybe because I could never hold my liquor, or maybe because I’ve never been a night owl, or maybe because those masks (like clowns) just tend to creep me out. I don’t know.

But I do like the tradition of Shrove Tuesday and even more so with children. It’s a minor thrill for them to have pancakes for supper, it’s a fun and positive start to a challenging season. It’s nice to sit around the table and go over all the Lenten resolutions and discuss what we’ll each work on individually and also as a family. The kids look forward to this and remember it, each year, and it’s a good way for them to understand the richness to be found in both feasting and fasting. It’s a tradition, it’s bonding, it’s literally sticky (kids, syrup, ’nuff said).

So, Happy Shrove Tuesday.

A timely new world record! (click for source)

It’s not an official Church feast day, but it certainly is, unofficially, a popular and traditional day of feasting. And really, a little cheer right now is much welcome and how can you not grin at an image like this?

Enjoy your own Mardi Gras or Shrove Tuesday. Let’s go eat some pancakes.

{text reprinted from 2009, because Shrove Tuesday is fun no matter the year, and I”m busy clearing out my cupboards…I’m sure you understand!}

That seems to sum it up, really.  He’s good. He sounds like himself when we talk.  That alone is such a big deal!  He still has the essence of ‘him’ and doesn’t sound or talk differently when we chat on the phone.  Stupid, I know, to think he might.  But, ya worry.  Ok, I worry.  I worried. Past tense now.

This year is such a huge year of change for him; a radical year of leaving behind and choosing other…that I guess deep down part of me worried that I’d lose the essence of him somehow too.  But, I have seen and heard that it is not so.  In fact, of course, it is much the opposite.  He is becoming  MORE him.  That is the really radical beautiful part of this choice….by growing closer to God, we become more ourselves, our truest selves.  By him living this life, intentionally and fully without reserve, he too is growing closer to God and thus becoming more and more himself.  It’s kind of like a warp speed growing out and growing in all at the same time.  Rather Narnian. “Further up, further in!“ as the children were called into the Aslan’s country; and the land became bigger and more beautiful the further  and the higher in they went.  So too, it seems, novice life, Dominican life.

Not that Novice life is all easy.  It’s rigorous. It’s spiritual bootcamp, as I’ve noted many times before.  And, now, of course it’s February <Shudder>.  February is a tough month no matter where  you are, I think.  It is/was the dreaded month in the homeschool calendar.  It’s the  housebound gray cold dull month where everyone gets on each other’s last nerve.  Ok, well, it is here at any rate.  I can only imagine that it must be that way for the novices too.  I’m guessing.  But, still.  Thankfully, it’s the shortest month in the year.

Spring approaches.  But first, lent.  And this is where the real crux of the novice year (I think) lies.  The novices have completely settled into their life.  They have new clothes, habits.  They have new religious names: my son, now  Brother Peter Joseph.  They  have new jobs and learn new skills, they have classes, they study, the do work outside the parish in the community.  They know each other very well, are becoming a sort of family.

But lent is upon us and I have been told that this lent is the one lent they will get the opportunity to really, FULLY, live the liturgical season of lent.  I have been told its the most beautiful lent they will ever have (due to really mindfully living it, daily) but also the most rigorous and with the most spiritual growth.   This lent, this growth, will help lay the foundation these novices need if they are to go on and live the call to Dominican life.  If my son is called to this, I want him to have that foundation to stand on.  Thus, this next forty days will be an intense growth period for these young men.  It will be rigorous, challenging; filled with hard and beautiful both.   So, I will ask for your prayers for my son, for all these novices.  They will need them.

So, how is it going? It’s going well.  It’s a struggle, it’s a joy.  It’s funny and hard and happy and peaceful and difficult.  It’s a year of living prayer; of learning to live prayer.  Please, keep them in yours.  They are halfway through.  Further up and further in….

Now, they will be spending much much time in prayer over this lent, of course.  But this video shows the Irish Dominicans, having a bit of fun.  These Dominicans, globally, they have such laughter and fun, even with their deep prayer life – it just  makes me grin.  And it’s totally in sync with that whole ‘further up, further in” thing……

When you bring home a child that is older, you don’t get the time to slowly and naturally lay down tracks and habits that are unique to the two of you.  You kind of hit the ground running with a presumptive relationship, but without these small but ever so important stanchions in place.  Some of those really important things are the little habits and intimate niceties that you build up over time, typically from babyhood onward.  They are the inside the jokes, the significant looks, the nose tap, the habitual note in the lunchbox, the nickname or ‘secret codewords’.  They are the tiny mundane actions and anchors of a relationship, of family.

In the intentional attachment effort, you can try to craft these things, and you should, to a degree.   But only so much can be done at first, really, so much of it just takes time.  Marta has one trait that started out as good manners, I think.  Or possibly it was insecurity and/or a needy deference.  But nowadays, truly, on a good day, it has become a different thing altogether, it a sweetness, possibly even, ssssh, an act of love or loving feelings (which are just about as good, I’ll take em!).

Specifically, Marta gives.  She defers.  Not anymore with that uncomfortable submissive twinge of the early months;  now it’s from a different spot.  For instance, when we are going to pray our daily rosary, she will grab two rosaries and hand me the one that she likes best.  Every day.  I smile at her and say, “No, that one is good!” pointing to the other, plainer one.  She says, “No! This you.  This me good.” and she pulls her hand away and/or pushes the prettiest one into my hands. And every time I smile and roll my eyes a little, and then acquiesce, often with a hug.  Which makes her grin grow wider.

The reason I know this is different than before is that she has done this for awhile now. I’ve had time to see the change in tone.  When she first came home, she might do it with her eyes not connecting, and her face with that tightness.  Her stress and connection levels manifest in her body language instantly and irrefutably.  She can almost age before your very eyes with the way her emotions play across her body and face.  There is a difference, physically visible, between a tense submissive or worried giving and a relaxed loving or playful giving.  If you see it,  you can peg it in a blink.

Anyhow, not to make too much of all this.  But I think, I want, to mark this too.  She gives to me, to her dad.  Sometimes, on those relaxed days, to her big sister.  She gives the prettiest rosary, the ‘best’ or biggest brownie, will scoot her seat on the sofa over a spot.  We have to say, “No, no, that’s for you” sometimes. Not always. She’s still a kid.  She’s still a moody teen.  But more often now, and it’s sweet.

Marta has a verbal language impairment.  But happily, her language of love is not impaired even so.  She doesn’t need language to communicate when she is relaxed and feeling warmth towards us.  She finds the way to show us, we just have to make sure we are looking. I have to make sure I am looking and seeing and marking it down.  For both of us.

Posted this painting last year and will every year I think.  I like it.  I like kissing.  A happy day. 

• Marta has been home for 2 1/2 years now! And, honestly, it’s better.  It’s far far from perfect.  It’s nothing at all like any of us thought it would be.  But maybe (yup, I”ll say it out loud) just maybe that’s not only ok, but it’s a good thing.  It has it’s own sweetness amidst the baffling hard stuff

• She is the manager for the varsity girls basketball team.  This not only is something she enjoys, it has given her purpose, joy, and a greater sense of belonging.  Her job is simple, she keeps them in water and towels and fusses over the players a bit.  But, she loves it and the team has seemingly, blessedly, embraced her.  Her coach simply rocks.  And the girls on the team? An amazing bunch of players, but even better, really kind lovely girls.  The whole ‘manager’ gig: it’s all gift.  Thank you Coach Serra.

• She got a 75 on her 2d art test.  It was a written test, hard for her.  And while we had to discuss it (per her need, not ours, we don’t care what she gets in art), with a couple of tears over a couple of days, she accepted it without meltdown.  Sounds like a no big deal kind of thing? Au Contraire!  So, so big.  She is a perfectionist, a little crazed about it and wants to make an “A” in every class or assignment.  This, even last year, would have been enough to send her off kilter and into a meltdown, possibly for a rocky intense week or more.

• She made the honor roll.  She had her name in the paper and on the school website.  She felt famous.  Sure her classes are  in the school’s (amazing fantastic) special ed program; different classes/levels.  But, I propose that she studies about as hard as many of the kids at that school and she works possibly harder than most.  She earned it.  She’s so proud.  And so are we.

• She had a double ear infection last week.  And she coped.  Ear infections hurt. But she even went to school.  And she was a trooper.  This, coping with something  hurting, is a skill she did not have when she first came home.  Not for almost two years, actually.  This is the first time for real and a big step forward for her.

• And one of my favorites: she is more playful.  Play is a funny thing.   Marta didn’t really play when she came home, not for a long time.  We don’t know if it’s because of the transition, fear, insecurity, or her disabilities.  I’m sure it’s a big old mixture of all of the above.  But, nowadays, she is more playful.  NOT every day, not by a longshot.  She’s still a teen, of course, with all the moods and hormones that entails!  But, she is relaxed enough now, on a good day, to make jokes, to poke fun, to be silly, and to sometimes hang out while we visit instead of disappearing or interrupting to redirect the activity to go do something for her.  (It doesn’t last long, but, apropos of this post, I want to mark that it does happen.).

• Marta is a great pray-er.   I’ve mentioned before how she is a very devout girl. It’s lovely.  We pray together every day that we can, which is almost every single day  (unless there is a late basketball game).  And, for those in the know, once you make it onto her prayer list, well, you are there  (so far as I can tell) forever.  She is one of my two ‘secret weapons’ when it comes to serious prayer; they have a connection and focus I can only wish for.

• Last but not least, she has been unseated, for days or weeks at a time, in the “monopolize all the time and attention in the house and my conversation” status.   That might sound kooky or a weird thing to mark, but a dear friend noticed it last week when we were talking and it dawned on me that she was right.  Marta wasn’t top of the roster of my rambling and ranting measured reports anymore.  It’s a tossup on any given day who’s going to be the neediest or highest maintenance child.  She’s among the top three, typically, but to have lost the crown…..that’s a major game changer, right there.  So, I’m marking it.

My Little Man has been working through some stuff lately.   One of the things that doesn’t get mentioned much in the blog-o-verse, or even too much in the literature and the reference books on adoption is that birthdays can be a mine-field.  Of course, right?  Well, yeah, duh.  But, too often, that’s easy to forget.  Too often, it’s easy to overlook that part of it, the loaded moment, the undercurrents.  Because the kid is excited, amped, hyper, for their birthday.  It’s all about the presents and the party, right?  And the parents and family, ideally, they are also so bonded in that it’s just another happy day, another kiddy birthday party.

But, it’s not just that; maybe not ever, I don’t know.  As my kids get older we have moved into different waters in the adoption issues.  I have posts rattling in my head and am not sure how to get them out or if I should.  Heck, even this post was supposed to be a short mention.  But it’s almost impossible to snip this stuff down to a sound bite or a visual blip.

But for this post, we are talking about the heart of a birthday.  Specifically, the backseat voice of my son’s heart on this birthday.

We were driving to basketball practice, again…the night before his birthday.  It was dark in the car, kind of quiet, he had the sniffles and it was drizzly out, we were a touch late.  A standard night.

Then he said, “Mom, I remember when I was a baby and I first met you.”

I said, “You do?”  {He was three months old}.

He said, “Yes.  Do you remember?”

I said, “Yes. I sure do.”

He continued, “I remember you cried and you said, ‘Oh, I love him so much!’ Didn’t you?”

“I did, honey.  That’s right.”  I paused, kind of holding my breath, waiting to hear if he had more to ask or say.

He did.  “I also remember the last time I saw my birth mom.”

“Do you?”  {He was weeks old}.

“Yes, she was crying.  Do you think she cried then?”

“I know she did honey.”

“Well, I remember.  I remember her kissing me and saying ‘I love you.  Blessing, blessing over him. I love him so much.’”

I was blinking now, trying to drive in the drizzly dark with my sweet tender son in the back seat.

“Mom?”

I had to gulp, “Yup, buddy?”

“Do you think she said that? I remember?”

“You know, honey, I think she did.  I just bet she did.”

“Yeah,” he said “that’s what I remember.”

Just like that we were at the gym and he was clambering out of the car, running into practice.  Just like it was any night.

I guess, it was.  But I just had to take a minute behind him, to gather up the pieces of my heart that had just broke again a  little bit for my boy.

Adoption is an event.  But it is also a thread of attachment that continues to tug.  With echoing voices from the deep….from the deep jagged shoals in both of our hearts.  Just like that.

In a post last fall, Br. Ambrose wrote about how great it is to die as a Dominican.  Well, that extends to our parents as well. 

Each year, Mass is offered on Feb. 7 for the repose of the souls of our deceased mothers and fathers.  Each week, one of the Conventual Masses in each of our priories and houses around the world is offered for the deceased brothers, sisters, benefactors, familiars, and mothers and fathers of the friars for the same intention.  Moreover, each week five decades of the Rosary are also offered by every friar.  In other words, parents who give their children over to the Order then receive a gift back – a regular share in the Order’s prayers and supplications, each week and every year.

What a grace it is to die not only as a Dominican but also as a parent of a Dominican.

From the OP Vocations website, of course! Thanks Fr. Benedict!

See this?  Who knew?  I’ll take all the prayers I can get, now and beyond.

The idea that all those Dominicans are and will pray for me? For us old parents?  Boo-ya!  They must know, all too well, that we need it…..

It’s her memorial today!

St Bakhita lived a life full of hardship and unspeakable horror…and yet, she had a hope that did not die.  Despite the years of torment and slavery that she endured, she still had the strength and hope and fortune to finally reach and hold the shore of safety.  And once there, she  had the courage to resist those who would rest it from  her.  Thus she ended her years as a slave, no longer in Africa, but in Italy, in the home of the Cannossian Daughters of Charity.  Here she became a sister and member of the community, and lived until her death in 1947.  She was so loved and gentle and joyful that she became known as “Madre Moretta,” the “Black Mother” (an unusual sight, I would presume, in Italy in the first half of the 20th century).

Her fortitude and her joy in her faith, her faith in love, is striking:

“I am definitely loved and whatever happens to me—I am awaited by this love.  And so my life is good.”

In our  modern world and times, especially in the country of her youth, Darfur, there still remains atrocities, degradation, violence….especially for young girls.  This saint is a patron for them.  She ‘gets it,’ as no one else might.  Her ability to forgive and still love, astonishes me.  She is an example of dignity, that we can all witness, and wonder, and learn.

Each saint in the canon is unique, helping us see that we all can bring goodness and healing in this world, in our own small but big ripply way.  That’s why I love learning about them and thinking about the saints….it’s cool and fascinating, sometimes shocking, sometimes radical, sometimes gentle….but, every time, it enriches the band width of what’s on my radar and in my life.

At her canonization Pope John Paul II said this about  St. Josephine Bakhita:

“We find a shining advocate of genuine emancipation. The history of her life inspires not passive acceptance but the firm resolve to work effectively to free girls and women from oppression and violence, and to return them to their dignity in the full exercise of their rights.”

They  need this saint.  We need this saint, to remind us of inherent human dignity and hope and the possibility of joy.

St. Josephine Bakhita, pray for us.

He is eight today! Whoa.

I asked him how he felt this morning, did he feel different, did he feel good? He said, “Yes, I feel excited!”  And well he should.  I told him eight is a GREAT year!

Eight is the year when you are past being a really little kid, you are kind of a middle kid.  You’re not learning all the rights and wrongs anymore; mostly, you know ‘em.  You’re not caught up in the crazy hormones and boy/girl dramas.  You don’t have to get a job yet.  All ya gotta do is stay steady in school, do the  usual chores, and be a kid…a happy kid.  Play, preferably outside, a LOT.  It’s a great time.

That, just that, is what my birthday wish for my boy.  I wish for him to have a happy few years, starting today, of just “kid stuff.”  I’m not sure I can give him that wish or make it come true.  Life tends to be a bit more complicated than that it seems, and already for him it is, a bit.  But even so…his heart and laugh can carry him a long long way to having a few really simple happy kid years and we are gonna do our best to help him make them happen.

So, today on his birthday I’ve just gotta list a few pointers on my Little Man:

• He is a happy, good boy,
• with a heart that is bigger than most any others,
• and a keen sense of justice.
• He has energy to burn,
• if our best scientists could figure out how to harness it, we’d solve the global energy crisis with the greenest energy going: his.
• He is crazy creative,
• a talented artist and budding musician, already.
• 
• He is athletic and strong (and did I mention, energetic), and loving his basketball team and his teammates.
• He is not happy that the season is drawing to a close, he could play forever…
• and is gonna try.
• He is so fast.
• When he goes to steal the ball in a game and then rips off the other way with it, I can’t help but shout out, “GO! GO, GO!”
• He’s so fast and fun to watch play.
• He is so doggone smart, sometimes his warp speed mind spinning makes him distracted, but it’s because his attention and synapses run at Maserati speed.
• He is loving and sweet and, still – on the good days – writes me “love letters” or, even sweeter, talks them to me as we drive to/fro those practices.
• He is a night owl, the king of night owl’s.
• We need to find a career for him where this will be an asset, because this boy can’t seem to sleep much when the moon is high.
• He really does NOT like spiders or snakes, period.
• He is a great eater, especially if you are talking about cheeseburgers…not much better than a good cheeseburger in my son’s eyes.
• 
• I could brag on this sweet son of mine forever, but I won’t.
• But I will kiss his head today and hug him tight, feed him basketball cake and clap when he blows out his eight candles,
• and I will wish for him a few really simple joyful happy years of kidhood…
• to revel in the crashing loud happy singing quiet muddy wondrous years of middle kid time.

My Anthony, he is eight today.  He’s getting bigger at an astonishing rate; like they do.  So I will spend this year trying to really see him, with clear eyes and heart.  I will make sure we do all we can to have our hearts beat together, even as we shout and cheer him on through his fun middle kid years.

Happy Happy Eighth Birthday My Anthony.

We are SO very proud of  you and we love you so!