Positively (Im)perfect

Around here, Autism Spectrum Disorder, Level 1—also called Asperger’s Syndrome—is a person. Here, Autism awareness is simply a part of everyday life. It’s the gift of someone who reflects the brilliance & creativity of the Creator—with his own intricate thoughts & experiences, joys & disappointments, dreams & imaginings, strengths, & weaknesses—just like every other person. It’s learning how to think in a new way, communicate in a new way. It’s learning how to empathize, understand, react, & see in new ways. It’s big marvels & little worries. It’s little marvels & big worries. It’s once-overwhelming unseens that are now just our daily normal, like the trek back & forth to ABA therapy that became a surprising time of family bonding. It’s the usual meetings & phone calls. It’s the pivotal moments of mama bear advocacy, where—despite the fire in my belly—I wonder if I’ll ever be strong enough, equipped enough, educated enough, effective

"Come and see." These were the words Jesus spoke in last Sunday’s gospel--His response when the apostles first encountered Jesus and asked where He was going. Our priest shared that praying on this passage had led to his vacation, and invited us to try too. “Ask Jesus where He is going and meditate on His response to come and see .” It's no secret that I'm a sucker for some good Ignatian meditation, and I brightened at the idea, thinking of all the ways Jesus might be calling me. Sinking to my knees after communion, I immediately went to my imagination—watching Jesus approach, feeling the possibility of adventure, the magnetic pull to follow. Where are we going? I sang out in my heart.  Where do You want to lead? The Two words that returned shook me from my prayerful, hope-filled reverie: “To Calvary.” Calvary?  I recoiled in fear, grasping to qualify it with some strand of hope—what was that my friend always said? “From the cross alway

Choosing Hope. When I found this article in one of my Endometriosis Facebook groups last week, I intended only to hit "share." But as I started writing words that I hoped would help others listen -- so that God willing, other women may be saved the same length and depth and breadth of unnecessary suffering as me--it was as if a dam broke open. 18 years of suffering poured forth into possibly the longest Facebook "status" I've ever shared. But for good reason. The more I learn along this journey, the more I understand that some information bears repeating. So I've copied both my words and the linked article here in hopes that it will more quickly ripple out to the women who so desperately need it. " Hear me loud and clear. Hear me through the 18 years—more than half my life—of suffering in pain so intense that even morphine barely took the edge off. Hear me as I echo every single word the woman who wrote this article has bravely shared . 

I’m sitting here today in a different state than years past. I’ve begun so many new years with the assurances of a young and confident yet somewhat naive mind intent on turning over a new leaf. But this year, my mind feels older, quieter, tired and spent...yet also somehow clearer and wiser looking into the increasingly cloudy future. For I see better today what I’ve tried to ignore before - today is simply a continuation of yesterday. Tomorrow, a continuation of today. An unbroken and hardly insignificant string yesterdays and yesteryears leading up to the here and now. Though a fresh blank calendar page holds infinite possibilities, it does not--cannot--sever today from the realities of yesterday—bad or {blessedly} good. I’m finally stepping into this new year freed from the delusions that the tick of a seven to an eight might solve the world’s problems or magically transform me into the person I intend to be all at the stroke of midnight. What I do now understand is

I. HATE. WAITINGGGG!” I actually yelled this aloud the other day in a painfully weak moment {thankfully no one else was around to witness my crazy}. Despite all the reflections on Advent and waiting, despite getting my world rocked that morning by my friend Mave's incredible Blessed is She devotion about God’s timing , and feeling utter peace in my soul—proclaiming to the world that “Jesus is in the waiting!”—only hours later I was once again cursing the wait and having an internal tantrum that would put a threenager to shame. Because human nature is a fickle and powerful thing. I’m in this weird space where there simply aren’t enough hours in the day and I desperately need more time, yet I’m also just aching to skip ahead to certain days that my heart has been hanging onto—almost as if life itself depended upon it—days that, in my mind, will bring happiness, hope, and maybe even healing. But I realized something today—it all finds its roots in my desire for control. I’ve set

11.13.17 Sometimes you get just plumb tired of life. Tired mentally from the drudgery and toil of demanding routine, tired emotionally from the struggle, tired physically from the pain and exhaustion.  And there’s just no way around it {but through}.  I used to think I could {& should} tell myself to suck it up and power through and be happy anyway. {Talk about unhealthy coping mechanisms}. But I’m learning—between the hard work of dragging myself from bed on these life-tired days and the endless to-do list that’s never actually done—that purposefully injecting intentional joy into my day helps balance the difficulty of the “through” and energizes me to do more of the hard stuff in the end. Today, I had the presence of mind to go beyond the mental exercise and actually write joy into my schedule. Today, after centering my tired soul with morning prayer, I felt compelled to make joy not just a nebulous task, but a visual goal. I started with something as simple as a pair

ST.  JUDE  SIDE  CHAPEL  |  ST.  PATRICK'S  CATHEDRAL 10.30.17 I got stopped dead in my tracks this morning while listening to this line from the First Reading {Romans 8:15}:  “For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into...”  ...and just as my brain tried to autocorrect the last word to “sin,” I heard a different word proclaimed, the very word my soul drags around like a weight just as heavy as sin: “fear.”  This verse, as you might know if you recognize it, goes on to tell us about our spirit of adoption in God. The one that invites—no, compels—us to call Him Abba. Daddy.  And words of the Bethel Music hymn ripped through me— I’m no longer a slave to fear // I am a child of God  I could almost hear God’s gentle chuckle. Because no matter how often I circle around it, no matter how much I stretch my spirit, no matter how hard I try and fail to wrap my mind around this Father-daughter relationship, He is lovingly, patiently, relentless in

Yesterday, my husband did the most exceptionally loving thing. He cleaned the windshield. You see, we were driving home from a weekend in the mountains, which had, naturally, caused our windshield to collect a fair amount of used-to-be-bugs. Also dirt: copious amounts from our time spent exploring the loveliest places on God's green earth--which, naturally, involved driving down some mud-puddle-covered, out-of-the-way roads. And on the way home we were going be driving past (or, rather, through) another one of these breathtaking places: a narrow canyon with rugged walls reaching toward the heavens, anchored at the bottom by a singing, snaking river. And, because I'm...well, me ... naturally, I wanted to get some good clear pictures and videos of it all. So I asked my husband in passing to run the wipers over the windshield smears or something of the sort, I can't quite remember. All I knew was shortly after we'd merged on to the highway with a fully fueled

I caught myself at it again while driving--lost in thought with eyebrows furrowed and face scrunched, worrying over something big. Immediately I relaxed my face, sighing and rubbing the crease between my brows--as if that would erase the line that I could literally feel deepening every time I caught myself in a deep-thinking scowl. Just a few weeks prior, I'd gotten up one fated morning, and--quite suddenly it seemed--met a new face in the mirror. It looked hauntingly like mine, but was definitely not the altogether spry young face I'd known for so long. Of course, in many was I still consider myself pretty darn young at my current thirty-something years. And I've always been in the camp that it's better to grow old gracefully, embracing it bit by bit, instead of trying to fight it. But it's one thing to know this in the back your mind, and quite another to so unexpectedly and literally arrive face to face with the gathering evidence that we are, in fac

Lent. Sweet, dear, long-awaited Lent. Oh, it's here--loud and clear. A few days ago, I wrote a nicely-packaged little sentiment about my Lenten goals before logging off social media for the season. It went something like this: I'm giving up social media for the first time! I'm hoping to be back for the Alleluia chorus with: • better time management   • a more vibrant prayer life   • renewed effort in nourishing one-on-one relationships   • & better discipline in first serving the people in front of my face who need me before I dive in to connect with those on my screen. I then came here and started this little ditty of a post to expand upon those points - so I could tell you that even though Facebook is officially meh, I knew it would still challenge me because social media has led me to some incredible community and amazing relationships, some even turning into real-life local friends. But then I was going to concede that I don't need to furth

Here we are again, looking ahead at the fresh new face of 2017. Wondering what it will hold. Intending to change. Drumming up a resolution or two or ten, or--as I've done a few years running--a 2017 word, a singular focus to help guide me through whatever big and little moments are contained in the months ahead. Last year, my word was control--as in, "letting go of control." Oh. Oh hohoho . It was a great idea. A beautiful phrase. I gathered all sorts of practical tools, made a pretty little wallpaper for my phone as a constant reminder, and created an image for my blog post of a  cute little balloon named "control"  that looked as if I could simply release it and smile at wanly as I watched it float into the peaceful sky. Come to find out, my attempt to let go of control was, instead, a reality in which I clung to it with the iron fist of a shaky addict clutching their last fix. Basically, it took this year to discover that my little m

“All that is good, all that is true, all that is beautiful brings us to God.” –Pope Francis We live in a world overflowing with beauty.  Yet we tend to relegate our ideals of beauty to pages of a magazine, places of intrigue, exotic destinations, a somewhere or a something new and different enough to jolt our senses awake and into an attitude of appreciation.  The truth, though, is that God has built a cathedral of ever-changing, ever-present beauty right in our daily sphere of being. So often, we walk past it with unseeing eyes and overworked hearts, overwhelmed by the craziness of work or family or holiday doings which keep our minds spinning and our stress mounting and our souls blind--blind to the simple, profound beauties created to punctuate our day with the kind of reminder that connects us at the soul-level with the truth of God’s love and creative genius. It's acceptable in the breakneck pace of our world to confine the when and where of our pl

It's been one hell of a "season" lately. Those who know me well know I don't say that lightly. My health continues to go down the pooper; I've made more appointments and gotten more sympathy from no-nonsense medical professionals than I know what to do with. But the only answers are guesses at best, the only suggestions shots in the dark.  I'm tired. So weary.  I'm told I hide it well, which I suppose is good and bad. I don't need to spend my days constantly weighing down the rest of the world with my woes, especially if there are good moments to be had [and there are, so much more than the bad].  But bad moments are also part of this reality. Some days, this endometriosis pain is just a real bleepword--no euphemisms or platitudes about it to soften the blow. The daily, sometimes hourly game of Russian Roulette ("will my body tolerate this food again or not? Will the pain be better or worse if I ____?") is physically and