Giving Thanks In All Circumstances

Photo by Bartholomew

I'm still savoring earth tones as these final autumn days slip by. I refuse to hurtle too swiftly into Christmas themes when Advent hasn't even begun. I remember in grade school, Thanksgiving and Christmas seasons were distinct. I loved making pilgrim hats and Indian headdresses and reenacting the first Thanksgiving dinner. Is that too politically incorrect to happen today? We would make construction paper cards for our parents and draw up gratitude lists. Counting our blessings is never out of season, but seems especially natural as Thanksgiving approaches. A reader just sent me this comment on my post Fifty-nine Things Mom and Dad Did Right: 

Honoring my parents made for
a great post! Thanks, Mom &
Dad.

Thank you for demonstrating obedience to God's command to 'Give Thanks in All Circumstances'. I think it is impossible to think of the things we are thankful for, and at the very same moment be discontent. So, to be content, be thankful!
I would like to say what I am thankful to my parents for: My father and mother would have heated arguments (behind closed doors but the sound would give them away). BUT, my father would always apologize and offer the first step to reconciliation to my mother in front of us. It was a first hand example and he took a risk to do so....she could have rejected it. For my mother, she was not perfect, of course, but offered so many phrases to live by that have become part of my being: "If at first you don't succeed...try, try again". "Do your best, that is all you can do". 
Thank you Marianna for the essay and encouragement to give thanks!"

Thank you, Dear Reader, for your parents and such a great reflection! I posted that original story just a year ago at Thanksgiving time, and I asked others to share what their parents did right. So I'll extend that invitation again. If you would like to honor your parents in a special way, go to my story and leave a comment, telling us how your parents have blessed you through life:  "Fifty-Nine Things" By the way, this story is my second most popular post of all time! So, many Thanksgiving blessings, from my house to yours. I'll close with a poem many consider to be the finest in the English language. My husband shared it with me in an email a few weeks ago. Now that's technology use at its best! :)

To Autumn

by John Keats
1795-1821

SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness,

Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;

Conspiring with him how to load and bless

With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;

To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,

And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;

To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells

With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,

And still more, later flowers for the bees,

Until they think warm days will never cease,

For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?

Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find

Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,

Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;

Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,

Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while thy hook

Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers;

And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep

Steady thy laden head across a brook;

Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,

Thous watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?

Think not of them, thou hast thy music too, --

While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,

And touch the stubble plains with rosy hue;

Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn

Among the river sallows, borne aloft

Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;

And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;

Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft

Miniature of John Keats by
Joesph Severn, 1819

The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;

And gathering swallows twitter in the skies

The Nature of Faith

Photo by Daniel Bartholmew

The Nature of Faith

We shape our lives 
by rebellion or acquiescence.

To rebel 
is to slingshot our identity 
into the netherworld

where questions stand 
thick and solid as skyscrapers.

To accept
is to ascend the tallest bell tower

with an overview of the city.

Most of us transcend 
then fall

transcend
then fall again 
trodding the same worn plot

like a sentry guarding city gates.

Determined to defend 
what seems unattainable

we guard we know not what

until, with faith,

we gain eternal entry.

By Marianna Bartholomew


Rebellion can either serve or defeat, as can acquiescence. To rebel against status quo in seeking excellence or truth is a great thing. If society tells us to "fit in," but also to set aside all that is moral or good, than obviously, we need to rebel against that pressure. 

Rebellion that sends us into the "netherworld"  is misdirected, often born of pride. To rebel, but then avoid a sincere search for truth, leads us to that existence "where questions stand thick and solid as skyscrapers." 


Fine. We are all inclined to rebel now and then, an instinct born of human nature. But do we use this instinct as a catalyst, taking time to really dig for reasonable answers? So often, people fling about in an orgy of experience and disbelief, seeking what "feels right," instead of filling in the gaps with some real answers born of research and reflection. 

Regarding tough questions about my faith, I've learned to launch an investigation, just as I would for any story I write. I explore early Church writers, Scripture, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, encyclicals. This kind of rigor is so satisfying when it comes to thinking and praying about life's great mysteries. In the end, I've discovered the beauty of informed acquiescence. 

Rebellion has another facet. Do we rebel against life circumstances? Sometimes, that type of rebellion can be productive, helping us transform a harmful home, school, work or even civic environment -- if we initiate change with a healthy respect and consideration of others. But if we are presented a tough circumstance, like a child with a terminal illness or a catastrophic accident, do we rail against that event, or accept and move on in faith?

Rebellion and acquiescence. How do I choose one over the other? God knows, my natural instincts lead me to push back fiercely at times, averse to pain or difficulty. But learning to thrive within certain limitations, builds rich character. To respect ourselves, we must put up a fight -- for the good -- learning to work optimistically and at peak level within restrictions. 


Who is God calling me to be? Moving blindly through an unexamined life is dissatisfying. Thank God for the light He gives, that turns rebellion into inspired acts, as the soul hungers to accept God's Will.

As for that "same worn plot," those old, ingrained sins get tedious after a while! Thank God for the Actual Grace of His sacraments, that frees us and strews flowers along the path. I am no Mother Teresa, who strived through decades of dryness. I've experienced time and again how God gifts the weak with consolations, like Padre Pio once fed chocolates to new converts. 


May our Holy Week be blessed! 


© By Marianna Bartholomew 2012


"Let us unite ourselves to the Passion and death of Jesus Christ in the conscious way we live each moment of our Holy Week so that our hope may grow." -- Father Pater John Cameron, OP, Holy Week, 2012, Magnificat.

Bridging cultural divides can be delicious

Photo by Marianna Bartholomew

Through junior high, my best friend was a black, Haitian-American girl named Gina. We sang in our Catholic church choir and whenever we were together. Her voice was as smooth and rich as hazelnut latte. Both her parents were cultured, well-spoken doctors. Aunt Regi helped care for the family, and when I visited, this ample Haitian in cotton housedress grinned and embraced me. I don't remember how much English she boasted, but I thought her French beautiful. For dinner, Aunt Regi fed us herbed chicken, fried plantains (like bananas, but not as sweet) and warm coke. If friendship had a taste, it would be that savory chicken! I wish I could replicate that meal just once. I've tried, but lack this jovial woman's hand with the spice jar. I'm actually test-driving a new recipe for Haitian chicken tonight. We'll see what happens!

A Filipino friend made my husband and I Pancit. 
Pancit means "noodle" in their language.
 Photo by Chboogs Putipina.

In college, friends joked I was an honorary member of the Asian Club, because many of my buddies were Filipino. I enjoyed standing eye-to-eye with someone for a change (I'm 5'00" tall), and liked their gentle ways. One Filipino welcomed my future husband and I into her apartment, and served yet another delicious chicken dish called pancit -- shredded chicken and vegetables on rice noodles. Ah, another dish to add to my "Friendship and Food" file.

One of these days. I'd love to try replicating the
handmade tamales a coworker at EXTENSION made. 
(Photo by Tatsuroo at Photobucket.)

At EXTENSION Magazine, I worked with African-Americans, Hispanics, Asians and Anglos, and pot-luck parties were spectacular. I threw in my own contributions of Shoo-fly pie and Irish soda bread (from my Pennsylvania Dutch and Celtic heritage), tried okra in my first authentic soul food, learned to crave handcrafted tamales in their cornhusk sleeves and the sweet custard flan, and sampled refreshing Asian salads, homemade pierogies and kolaches. Savoring everyone's favorite dishes, I gained wonderful memories, good friends and an extra pound or two! (These days, I bring Boursin cheese to parties -- adding the French herb chervil -- a nod to the third part of my ancestry).

Granddaughter of Catholic catechist
and Oglala Sioux Nicholas Black Elk
(cousin of Chief Crazy Horse),
welcomed me into her home and
served up the best meatloaf I've
ever had! I'll never forget her warmth
and hospitality. Photo above shows
Black Elk with his wife and daughter.

Fine meals punctuate memories like bookmarks. I'll never forget regional cuisines I sampled when writing about missions for EXTENSION. Maybe these events etched so deeply in my mind because I lived in an efficiency apartment in Chicago and cooked meals on a hotplate. In the South Dakota home of a granddaughter of the famous Black Elk, I was served the best meatloaf ever. (Okay, not a Native American delicacy, but it was so good. Several times, I've tried Indian fry bread, which tastes good, although it probably has about a million calories.) In a tiny Appalachian trailer, a little elderly woman sat me down and fed me succulent  peach pie. On a Cajun family's shrimp boat in Louisiana, I sampled delicate crab just pulled from the waters and boiled up in a pot on deck. Every time, food presented a safe topic for conversation, until we established a comfort level and could wade into deeper waters. Missionaries have a special name for this: pre-evangelization. It means being present to people, sharing meals and lives, to lay a foundation of trust and friendship.  

On assignment at Brother Thomas Pettite's homeless shelter -- Lazarus House in Lawrence, Massachusetts -- I felt overwhelmed at first by the dozens of clients who poured in at mealtime. Volunteers and the homeless shared prayer time in the chapel, before enjoying a delicious, hot meal. I remember mashed potatoes were on the menu -- and birthday cake, for one little, homeless girl. The weary clients bending over coffee put aside troubles to smile and sing for the girl. After the meal, I sat on the stoop with a young blond man who said he had spent much of his childhood "under the bed instead of in it," because of alcoholic, abusive parents. Freshly-emerged from sleeping under bridges, he was articulate, gentle and steering toward a better life. He helped me see how homelessness affects every demographic.

A comforting meal and a birthday cake 

lightened up the atmosphere and got 

people talking at a homeless center 

I visited in Lawrence, Massachusetts.

On the lighter side, my kids still cherish the night we dined with a Thai co-worker of my husband's. I always thought it was so brave of a bachelor to host a family of five. He cooked up Pad Thai and other savory dishes, and my family reciprocated later with barbecued ribs and apple pie. Years ago, another co-worker of my husband's invited us for Indian food. Although the roof of my mouth nearly blew off from the spiciness of the dishes, they were tasty and unforgettable, as was the scarcity of furniture in the spacious home, and the quantity of silk pillows and mats.


Befriending people of all cultures can be delicious as well as fascinating, because gabbing about our various backgrounds so often takes place around a table laden with unique dishes. Even so, have you ever felt out of your element trying to bridge the cultural divide? I did, years ago, when I was invited into a Mexican-American's household for dinner. I felt shy and overwhelmed as one of two Anglos (my two-year-old daughter was the other), amidst a sea of Spanish-speakers, and never got over that feeling all evening! Of course, it didn't help that this was a new, next door neighbor, and I had accepted a spontaneous invite over the fence to come share a family barbecue. It was a mild, summer evening, and I responded so eagerly, I stepped through the gate without any shoes. The event started with the sweet mother and I chatting, but her children, their friends, and then, extended family, poured in at an astonishing rate. My husband was in bed with a migraine, so I spent the evening trying to hide my feet, checking on my husband through our bedroom window screen that faced our neighbor's house, keeping my active toddler from knocking everything over, and doing a lot of nodding and smiling. 


When we feel that awkward, I guess we just have to laugh it off and try again. Later, my husband and I attended a feast day celebration of Our Lady of Guadalupe at a Chicago Hispanic parish. This time, I felt welcomed and comfortable as I watched the colorful procession honoring Our Lady. Children wore festive, traditional dress and a mariachi band strummed. The feasting later in the parish hall offered great company, and food better than at my favorite Mexican restaurant.

Honoring Our Lady of
Guadalupe is often
accompanied by feasting.

Food and friendship just seem to flow, one into the other. Often, we first experience this reality in a warm home environment (thanks, Mom!), and learn to extend this hospitality to others. A friend of Italian heritage, her mother, and her daughter, an Anglophile, just hosted my 17-year-old daughter and me for an elaborate "tea." Cucumber and roast beef sandwiches, orange spice cake, champagne grapes, pumpkin crackers, and lingering conversation over our tea, made a real event of the afternoon. Inter-generational talk about fine literature and art flows on such occasions, and I'm always excited to see how much great literature our daughters have read, and the fun they have discussing various plot lines, historical periods, etc. It's a treat swapping gardening ideas with the mom, an artist who's recently turned her back yard into a sanctuary for native prairie plants. It's also fascinating to listen to the grandmother -- of Italian heritage, but raised in Argentina -- speak a combination of Castilian Spanish and English. She abounds with tales about how her mother, a resident of Argentina, got trapped in Italy for seven years during World War I, and was taken in by cloistered nuns in Florence. 


A Catholic, Anglo friend hosts "Secret Garden" gatherings at her city property. Married to a Catholic, African-American husband, she invites women of various backgrounds and faiths. Her five children play host to pre-teen and teen guests, while women congregate under trees, and in outdoor "rooms" contrived from strategically-placed, salvaged architecture, wild ferns and blooms. Conversations spark as dusk falls. Faces flicker from the light of two brick fireplaces and dozens of candles. Tempting dishes are laid out on an assortment of fine linens, (gleaned from creative resale shopping). 


Oral traditions proliferate on these evenings, and people chuckle about the time an errant raccoon reached a hand from outside the circle onto one of the tables to snag a snack, or heavy winds threatened to peel the tarp off an outdoor party room. Perhaps these "Secret Gardens" have continued over the years because it's so much easier befriending someone new in a mysterious space resembling a scene from Narnia, and over a heartening bowl of tortellini soup, white-chocolate covered grapes, or chocolate ginger cookies. Newly-met guests at a Secret Garden this past Friday recommended good reads to each other, from The Long Walk by Slawomir Rawicz, about prisoners escaping Siberia, to the inspiring writings of Immaculee Ilibagiza, who personifies forgiveness, after surviving the 1994 Rwandan genocide (she escaped by hiding 91 days in a tiny bathroom with seven other women).

Not everyone has a solid family

tradition of eating together.
Father Leo Patalinghug
created this inspiring
cookbook to teach people
 how to build healthy relationships
 by preparing and sharing good food. 

Comfort food is a great icebreaker, a natural conversation-starter -- and it's becoming more rare as people with frantic schedules jam in fast food meals. Preparing and enjoying home-cooked dishes and serving them up in style is actually a virtue, and one to be shared! And if it helps bridge a cultural divide or two (or even helps heal relationships within our families), all the better!

See these sites, where Jeff Young (The Catholic Foodie) and Father Leo Patalinghug (Grace Before Meals) blog about a growing movement to encourage families and friends to draw closer to their faith and each other, by cooking and eating together: The Catholic Foodie; Grace Before Meals.


(To come, Part II: Bridging Cultural Divides through 
Faith and Fine Arts)

What's the point of World Youth Day?

What’s the point of World Youth Day (WYD)?

The Chicago Tribune said it well six years before the first WYD, covering the visit of Blessed John Paul II to the city October of 1979: “For forty hours, the visitor from Rome unites the city in spirit.”

I was 15-years-old at the time, and thrilled that Mom took my brothers and I from high school to attend the three-hour Mass in Grant Park that attracted an estimated 200,000 people. We jammed onto a train full of spirited people who spontaneously broke into singing familiar hymns as we headed east. Streets downtown were cordoned off and crowds surged toward Grant Park, praying, singing and introducing themselves to fellow pilgrims.

We stood at a curb for hours, waiting for the Holy Father to pass and Mass to begin.  A battalion of Knights of Columbus formed an honor guard along the street, and I despaired of seeing a thing. But when John Paul II passed in an open-air vehicle (no Popemobiles back then) and buoyantly greeted the crowd, I poked my head through the crooked arm of a caped Knight, and caught a full-face glimpse of the Holy Father. I’ll never forget his joy, the crowd's, nor mine.

Not every day do you experience 200,000 people fervently voicing together their Alleluias. During his homily, Pope John Paul II said, "Looking at you, I see people who have thrown their destinies together and now write a common history. . . This is the way America was conceived; this is what she was called to be. . .But there is another reality that I see when I look at you. . .your unity as members of the People of God."

Somehow, priests managed to distribute communion to the massive crowd. Silence at that moment was profound, broken only by priests murmuring “The Body of Christ,” and people affirming, “Amen (so be it),” as they received the Eucharist.

Later, we walked to Union Station and wended home in a standing-room-only railcar, again joining in spontaneous bursts of song.

Impressed by the joviality and kindness of a Knight of Columbus I had befriended that day, I wrote to the Knights sharing my growing conviction that I had a religious vocation. One wrote back, encouraging me to live prayerfully as a teen and focus on home duties and studies, while I continued praying and discerning God’s call.

My attraction to religious life faded, but when post-college desperation to find a job drove me to answer a blind ad looking for a secretarial assistant, I arrived for the interview to discover that EXTENSION was a Catholic home mission magazine. That led to my writing about the Faith and home missions for more than twenty years – a job that has blessed and enlivened my life and soul in more ways than I could number.

In January, 1994, I headed to Rome to attend the elevation to bishop of then head of Extension Society, Edward J. Slattery, now Bishop of Tulsa, Oklahoma.

My group attended a private audience with Pope John Paul II, and when the aged pontiff met my eyes and grasped my hand, I believe he said three words to me: “Family, family, family.” I was around ten weeks pregnant with my first child at the time.

When I think of my life’s formative events, experiencing Blessed John Paul II’s visit to Chicago, and meeting him in Rome number right up there with my Wedding, Confirmation and First Communion. When I’ve strayed or my spirit’s flagged, I’ve always had the inspiration from those encounters drawing me back.

What’s the point of World Youth Day? Look at all the crowds of young people gathered with Pope Benedict XVI in Madrid, with the Holy Spirit’s work hidden but active in each soul. Who knows how this encounter with the Holy Father and each other will impact each life? The meaning of World Youth Day is eternal, but for the needs of our suffering world NOW. 

City of Cards

Photo courtesy of Chitowndining.com

I love our nation's cities -- but twenty years ago, certain disasters had me reflecting on the fragility of the "urban webs we weave." I wrote the following from EXTENSION Magazine's Wacker Drive office in Chicago in 1992:


City of Cards


Looking down over this city I know
it could very well be made of paper
as brick and mortar.


These buildings
so broad-shouldered
could tumble tomorrow.


With the Los Angeles riots
the Chicago flood
and Malibu in flames


I am convinced of the fragility
of the urban webs we weave.
Yesterday, I might have looked on this city-scape
as an impenetrable fortress.


But no more.
Because these buildings have held anchor
for a decade or a century
means nothing, really.


An earthquake
a fire
an explosion of human rage


Could break this maze of efficiency
in a heartbeat.


Security
predictability
based on the works of man or woman
is an illusion.


We must look deeper.


By Marianna Bartholomew


I found this poetry tonight while I was clearing out papers, attempting to "flip" my basement from a storage area to a spot fit for human habitation! The space is looking much better already, and I'm finding poems and writings I haven't seen in a decade or longer. 


The stanzas above caught my attention, because of the scale of disasters shaking our foundations back in 1992, with the "Los Angeles riots,  the Chicago flood and Malibu in flames." I  worked many floors up in a skyscraper on Wacker Drive and felt vulnerable. 


Just think, I wrote this poem nearly 20 years ago, and life still rolls along. When September 11th hit, I remember feeling "the world will never seem safe again." And yet, here we are. Tonight, bombs are dropping on Libya and people in Japan are homeless and shivering...and yet the sun will probably rise tomorrow on a new day. 


In our world, unsafe since the Fall, people learn to be resilient. Many also learn to dig deeply into their hearts and souls to allow the light of faith in. I'm always amazed by the heroes and heroines that emerge through tragedy: the September 11th firefighters...the "Fukushima Fifty." 


Each of us is called to live heroically...stoically. Disasters shake civilizations to the core, yet we continue crafting beautiful lives for ourselves and our children by the grace of God, our only unshakeable foundation. Many of us have known extreme joy over these years, despite the sorrows. Births of children, friends and family members wedded, anniversaries celebrated...


Even in a "City of Cards," life goes on...may we thank God for each day of it!