The First Fifty Years

Today was Mike's 50th birthday. One might expect a grand and glorious celebration. Not so much around here today. Actually, he just got back from a vacation in South Africa and decided to wait for Erin to return home from her most recent summer adventure on Saturday before having a "real"birthday celebration. However, we did not want this momentous day to pass with no acknowledgement, so we decided to have a period of reminiscence while we shared a gourmet dinner - taco salad,

We could have talked about all of Mike's accomplishments during the half century that he has been alive, or memories of his siblings, past birthdays, favorite toys, how nerdy we all looked in the 70's, living through the technological advance from 8-track to cassette tapes, the invention of the blow dryer, or TV before there was MTV. The possible topics were endless, and some of them even interesting. However, we focused on TV game shows.

How many of these do you remember?

• Match Game
• What's My Line
• The Newlywed Game
• Concentration
• Password
• The Dating Game
• High Rollers
• Hollywood Squares
• Treasure Hunt
• Let's Make A Deal
• I've Got A Secret
• Truth Or Consequences
• the 10,000 Pyramid
• Family Feud
• Joker's Wild
• The Gong Show

And if you remember the shows, do you remember who hosted them? Gene Rayburn, Chuck Woolery, Bill Cullem, Monty Hall, Allen Luden, Art Fleming, Peter Marshall, Ray Coombs, Kevin Eubanks, Wink Martindale -

Or, how about

• Who was the center square on Hollywood Squares?
• When you had to "shop" on the set with your winnings from Wheel of Fortune
• When people were ecstatic to win an avocado green refrigerator
• Jeopardy before Alex Trebek
• Wheel of Fortune before Pat Sajak
• Allen Luden's wife

It was a fun trip down memory lane. I'm not sure that current TV will spark such a conversation thirty or forty years from now. Most of what is on television now is not worth remembering tomorrow, forget nearly a half century from now. I may be wrong. Perhaps on Mike's hundredth birthday we will all be sitting around reminiscing about the 2009 American Idol upset and still wondering if Adam Lambert finished in second place because he was gay.

Date Night After Divorce

Lots of things change after divorce. Though life in the grand scheme is better, some things take a little adjustment, especially when one of you is paying alimony and the other is not getting much because, well, you are dating. Such circumstances send one's creativity, ingenuity, resourcefulness, and frugality into overdrive. I have to admit there is a bit of a thrill to the whole thing.

So here it is Friday night. We are the only ones home and have the entire evening to ourselves. All the light bulbs have been changed; we have single-handedly caused the extinction of dust bunnies around here; the refrigerator is free of all scientific experimentation; the dog is tired of playing fetch; and we have used all the words in the magnetic poetry on the fridge. What can we do with a goodly amount of time and little money? I have a solution. No! It is not what you think! That is free. We are willing to spend a few dollars.

Movies are the stereotypical dating adventure. I suppose this is because at some point they were relatively inexpensive. This definitely is not the case these days. Movie tickets are $7 to $10 and drinks and popcorn triple that cost. It all hardly seems worth spending over $30 to me to go see a movie.

So here it is - a great movie date night under $5. Have you seen the Red Box DVD rentals? They are all over the place from discount stores to McDonald's restaurants. One night movie rentals are a dollar! That sure beats $15 - $20 in theater tickets. We found 2 liter bottles of Diet Coke also for $1 and our favorite popcorn, Popcorn Indiana gourmet kettlecorn, for $2.50. There you have it - $4.50 total.

Okay, there are a few stipulations. You need a TV, preferably a big screen to help simulate the movie theater experience. Hopefully at least one of you got the TV in the divorce settlement. One of us did. A comfy place to sit is also an advantage. Again, hopefully someone ended up with a couch. If not, a stack of pillows, a bean bag chair, or old comforters piled high will work in a pinch. Fortunately, we have a comfortable couch; however, enjoying a movie from any of the above accommodations would add to the experience. How is up to you.

The $4.50 date night also has some definite advantages;

• No crying babies brought by those who could afford the movie but not a babysitter. (In our case there is the occasional barking dog but somehow that seems easier to tolerate than a crying baby.)
• The freedom to hit pause if you drink too much of the Diet Coke.
• The ability to hit rewind if you fall asleep or for other reasons miss part of the movie.
• You can watch the movie in your pajamas, or anything else, or nothing, if you choose.
• You are spared the embarrassment of all the teenagers behind you saying, "Look at those old people making out! I didn't think people still did that at their age!

See, the $4.50 date night is a great deal!

Oh. I guess there is one other necessity for this to work - a date. Sorry. You are on your own here. I can't help you with this other than to say that the perfect person most often walks into our lives when we least expect it and most need it.

Happy Fourth of July!

A little time travel . . . back to Italy tomorrow.

And So It Was God's Time

In many ways, living with God is like living with a toddler - you never know what God will do or say or or if you will be prepared to deal with the next unpredictable move.

It was after dinner on our first evening in Assisi before we ventured out by foot into the piazza. The night was cool and clear. As we wound our way among the eight hundred year old buildings, up the stone steps into the town center only yards away from Francis' family home, I was awe struck. At that moment, I was rendered speechless. I stood and stared for what seemed like an eternity but was probably only a few seconds. We walked the cobblestone paths as did Francis and I was taken back in time only to be jolted back to 2009 by the smell of cappuccino wafting from the bakeries whose windows were piled high with confections.




That night, as I took my first steps through Assisi, I was teetering between a past, the present, and a future. I spent the whole evening on one hand not knowing where I was and on the other feeling like I was at home. Weber must have sensed my weird state of being because that night before we went to bed he took me in his arms and asked, "Now that you are here, are you sure that you don't want to be a nun?" I managed to say, "I don't know." We went to bed with those being the last words we shared that night.

The next morning we got up and had what passed for breakfast in the convent - wafers, which are best described as the Italian version of graham crackers, and cappuccino. We then walked to the Basilica of St. Francis. The Basilica was breath taking on many levels. I will share more about that in a later post.

The six of us travelling together then went to the Portinucula and afterwards shared a fantastic Italian lunch. Because Weber and I arrived a day later than the rest of the group, we missed seeing Santa Chiara, the Church of St. Clare, with them on the previous day. They suggested that we do that during our free time that afternoon.

Santa Chiara is just off the piazza. In a small side chapel, it houses the "original" San Damiano cross, the cross that spoke to the young Francis and told him to "go and rebuild my church." This cross had previously hung in the San Damiano friary. After Francis' death, St. Clare and the sisters moved it to Santa Chiara, where it hangs today.

We walked into this chapel joining twenty to thirty tourists and several nuns who were praying the rosary. We sat down in an empty pew. I looked up at the San Damiano cross and again was filled with awe. I was looking at the very cross that had transformed the young Francis from a partying soldier to a fool for God. God, through his very cross, spoke to Francis, thus changing his life and the lives of many others forever. Realizing this, I knew what I had to do.

With tears streaming down my face, I looked up at this beautifully painted piece of wood and said, "OK. You spoke to Francis and told him what to do. I need you to do that for me. I need to know if you are truly calling me to test my vocation as a nun in the first order?" I'm not sure how long I sat there with tears rolling down my face with no words being spoken - not by me, or Weber, or the cross. I disappeared into the blur of my thoughts and my tear-filled eyes.

Some time later I looked up (I have no idea how long it was) to see a Franciscan friar walking toward us. He looked at Weber and said, 'Deutsche?". To which Weber responded, "No, English." The friar smiled and started to walk on. He abruptly stopped, came back to our pew and first blessed Weber by making the sign of the cross on his forehead and then he did the same to me. He then pulled from somewhere (I guess habits have pockets) a small piece of paper wrapped in cellophane and handed it to Weber saying that it was a gift for us. The friar then turned and left the chapel as gracefully as he had come in As we watched him leave, we realized that with this friar's arrival, the chapel had completely emptied The thirty or so people that were there when we walked in had all left. For that brief moment, it was just me, Weber, the friar, and God in that chapel.

We sat together in silence for a few more minutes before leaving the chapel as Vespers was about to begin. Once outside, Weber turned to me and asked, "What just happened in there? Why were you crying?" I told him of the question that I had posed to God via the cross. We then looked at what we had been given by the friar.

In the cellophane was a small rose colored card of handmade paper. Attached to the front is a dried flower and an antique colored gold heart charm. Inside, on cream colored paper, is a poem entitled, "Per La Via del Cuore", For The Way of the Heart.

We spent several evenings working to translate the rest of the poem. Our Italian vocabulary was OK, but lacking any real knowledge of Italian grammar made this task difficult. Though there is more to it than this, essentially the message we were given is that where your heart is, there too you will find God. I spoke to God through the San Damiano cross and in His time, he spoke to me through the friar. My question was answered.

First and foremost, my heart belongs to God; however, God brought Weber and me together and thus what we share is of God and for God - though not conducive to convent living!

These moments in Santa Chiara forever changed me, my relationship with Weber, and my faith in God.

"Santa Chiara"

Get Thee To A Nunnery . . .For Real???

In my list of reasons as to why I have not been blogging I quipped about personal computers not being allowed in the convent. By “personal computer” I mean a computer belonging solely to one person though there certainly are computers available to those living in community. I know this because I did consider seriously whether or not I was being called to live my life as a member of the First Order, to be a sister. Franciscans do not usually refer to themselves as monks and nuns but rather as brothers and sisters.

For as long as I can remember I felt called to a religious life. As a child being raised in a non-church going family I longed to go to church on Sunday mornings and CCD on Wednesday afternoons like all my friends were doing. Instead, I was home alone on Sunday mornings watching Davey and Goliath in claymation. In these early years I had no sense of different denominations and faith traditions. All I knew was that all the kids in my neighborhood were going to church except for me. The fact that they were all Catholic and I a cradle Episcopalian, though I didn’t really know it at the time, didn’t mean anything to me.

For many years I stumbled around wanting a relationship with God but not knowing how to foster that. Finally when in high school I had another group of friends who were Catholic. I now know that they must have been liberal and progressive Catholics because they took me in like I was the lost sheep. This was during the era of the Folk Mass so I was drawn to them and them to me through music. I attended the Catholic Church throughout high school never being confirmed and taking communion every Sunday.

When I got to college, I began to search again for a place to build on my relationship with God. I went to the Catholic Church for awhile, the Methodist church with my roommate, even sang in a Baptist choir for a year until I finally stumbled upon Canterbury the Episcopal student group. From that point to the present, I have been an active member of the Episcopal Church.

About fifteen years ago, I began to feel a yearning for something more, to be closer to God, to serve in a more profound way. This search led me to the Third Order of the Society of St. Francis, a community of individuals living our lives by a rule of life much like our first order brothers and sisters, but in the secular world. I was life-professed in 2003 after nearly six years in formation. During that time, I finally found the relationship with God that I had been searching for and hoping for for so long.

As I began to grow as a person, as a Christian, and as a Franciscan I started to feel that all too familiar tug pulling me to something deeper. I felt like I was being asked to consider a call to the first Order. It was ridiculous to consider such a radical call. I was married and was raising children, things that were not conducive to the monastic life. I pondered this question for several years.

When it became obvious to me that I needed to file for divorce, my first thought was that this was God opening the door for me to consider seriously this call. I agonized for several months over what to do. Because this whole notion seemed so “out there” I talked to only one person about it. And because God doesn’t want any decision to be made hastily (or easily) this period of discernment soon became complicated because of Weber coming into my life. Why did everything have to be so darn difficult to figure out?

As my marriage dissolved and my relationship with Weber grew, so did my level of confusion. I had no idea what God was calling me to do. I did tell Weber early on that I thought that I might be called to test my vocation in the First Order so I might not be the best person with whom to get involved. “OK”, he said and life went on. Almost daily my question of what I was supposed to be doing came up in my daily prayer and with some regularity it would come up in conversations between the two of us. We both came to the point of saying that we needed to be open to God and the answer would be revealed in God’s way and in God’s time.

We left for Assisi with me still wondering what I was being called to do.

Then, it was God’s time . . .

Please Don't Ruin My Picture!

Yesterday I said that when travelling it is important to have a sense of the place you are to visit before arriving. With regard to the practical, this is true, but after thinking about my statement, I believe that it needs a few caveats.

I have been reading the writings of St. Francis himself as well as the words that others have written about him for nearly vtwenty years. I have seen many images of this saint in icons, book illustrations, stained glass, various forms of art, even comics. Many descriptions of the sites of Assisi are also present in these readings and artistic representations. From these various portrayals, I had created for myself the St. Francis and the city of Assisi with which I was comfortable and comforted. This somewhat subconscious process is much like what we do when we read a good book; we make the hero or heroine be whom and what we want them to be - what they look like, what they talk like, their gestures, and so on. I must admit that I was a bit reluctant to give up my image of the roads that Francis walked for the real thing. What if I was disappointed? What if the places that were so filled with God's presence in Francis' time were cold and empty? Returning to my book comparison, I didn't want to feel the kind of disappointment I felt when the image that I had of Terabithia from Katherine Patterson't wonderful Newberry award winning children's was completely destroyed by its reality when the book was moved to the big screen. In many ways, this trip was a huge emotional risk - personally and spiritually.

This is my first glimpse of Assisi as we literally stepped off of the train.

I am happy to say that everything about this trip far exceeded my expectations. My imagination and my faith were not capable of expanding big enough to have even foreseen a glimpse of what transpired during that week in March.

Termini, Where Less Is More

When travelling, whether to a neighboring town or a far away land, it is usually a good idea to have some sense of what to expect when you reach your destination. A basic understanding of language, currency, tipping practices, and local customs will alleviating many scary and embarrassing situations. It is no secret that in Europe you must pay to use public restrooms, a practice that has long since disappeared in this country, though I can remember those dime slots in U.S. airports. Knowing this, I made sure to visit the facilities in the Rome airport, where the toilets were free, before we began the two train and several hour journey to Assisi. My beloved travelling companion kindly stood with the bags while I went to restroom, but failed to take advantage of this opportunity himself.

So begins our first tale from our glorious trip to Assisi. The following words are Weber's. Just as he kindly guarded our luggage for me in the airport, I returned the favor in the train station at Termini.

I had the good fortune to go to Assisi with my love and a group of good Franciscans (undoubtedly better than going with bad Franciscans). As I am just beginning the journey with Saint Francis, I consider my self fortunate to have the opportunity to walk in the places where St Francis and St. Clare walked at the very start of my own way; guided by others who have made the Franciscan journey.

Some of my reflections were deeply spiritual, some marvel at the wonder of being a visitor in someone else's home, and others simply convey elements of the practical This will deal with the practical. In fact very practical; as it chronicles my first experience with Italian public toilets.

I will skip the flight stuff and simply say we got to Italy as planned. The train ride from the airport to the city was uneventful and made me jealous of a place with a functional public transportation system. We arrived at Termini only to discover that because it was Sunday there were fewer trains to Assisi and we would have a nearly four hour layover.
I found I needed to heed the call that all must follow and went searching for the facilities. Having been forewarned that Italy has “a pay when you go system” of public hygiene and with a 5 euro bill I headed off in the direction of the “Servizi Ingenico” signs; the ones with the small icons telling the non-Italian speaker what is meant. When I got there I found the entrance to the facility blocked by a toll booth that required €0.80. “Non è un problema”; a change machine is conveniently located next to this potty portal. It had a place for coins and bills. You may not know that the Euro comes in 1.00 and 2.00 coins and there are not any bills for those denominations. So the logic, to me, is that the bill slot is meant for the 5.00 euro bill. But it was Sunday, and the machine was evidently, like my bladder, full. So it would only take coins. Exact change is required for the turnstile to relief which takes neither of the larger coins.

So off I went in search of the another facility, which was inconveniently located at the other end of the terminal. This is a considerable, but not impossible walk under normal circumstances. But for he of full bladder, it was the level of Hell Dante overlooked. Having no other options, with knees as close together as could be to allow walking, off I went. And when I arrived what did the change machine say “Monete solo per favore”; “Coins only please.” Torture most polite! So, back down the terminal I went. I asked at three shops for change. No one was giving change was given unless you bought something. (Economic stimulus Italian style.) The thought of buying a Coke in my present state was certainly less than appealing. This strikes me as a type of hard sell tactic bordering on blackmail. On the positive side, I did learn quickly that the ability to absorb an unknown language under duress is amazing.

And the pressure was on - literally and figuratively.

Finally a Panini place, sympathetic to my situation, gave me 5 euro coins for my bill and off I went to the pause that refreshes.

And so it began. Not some mystical experience but a down to earth practical lesson in language, money, another country, and the need to find peace.

This may not be the most inspirational story from our trip, but it was a study in humility. And hey, even the saints had to go.