I wasn’t planning on doing this but recently discerned that it’s time for a break. Along with my other Lenten commitments, I’m going to pause in posting until Easter to dive more deeply into Lent. I will continue to share my columns and other writings I produce for our local newspaper, and will look forward to resuming posts in April!
May your Lenten journey be exceptionally meaningful this year.
Peace Garden Mama
If you’ve been reading Peace Garden Mama for a while, you’ll not be surprised to hear that I happen to be OBSESSED with the sky.
On Saturday, I wrote about my skyward fanaticism again, but in a slightly different way than before. You’ll find a reprint of my latest faith column on Peace Garden Writer.
I do hope you’ll stop by. There’s a surprise at the end!
I still remember a time in college when I had not been attentive to the fact that I had a music theory test the next day. Not wanting to do poorly, I began seeking divine intervention. It was a glorious moment when I realized a blizzard would prevent the test from happening the next day.
Of course, I knew this wasn’t really an answered prayer, more a coincidental happening and one I didn’t really deserve. But I couldn’t help but recall that moment this weekend as my kids began collectively praying for a Snow Day.
It has to be pretty rough for our area to cancel school, but indeed it has come to pass, and the kids are jumping for joy.
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| View looking into the cul-de-sac Sunday afternoon |
Our weekend was filled as most of them are these days. Basketball camps and tournaments…
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| Beth tosses the ball to her teammate at the Detroit Lakes invitational |
It was also the weekend for the annual Generations Dance at the high school. Our oldest daughter had a date with her dad at Lucy’s Chinese restaurant, which was followed with the dance with our school’s own teen band, Feedback, providing the music. I can’t report on the evening because I wasn’t there, but from others’ accounts a great time was had by all.
Snickers doesn’t really have an opinion one way or the other…
I finally got to The Hobbit, which I’d been waiting on since before Christmas. I couldn’t help but think of how J.R.R. Tolkein could not have imagined the story in his mind being played upon the big screen in the way it was. I wonder if he would approve?
Finally, my first faith article appeared in the Forum. I won’t replicate it in its entirely here, but here are links for both the main article and its sidebar. Both appeared in the Saturday, Feb. 9, issue.
Happy Hunkering Down if you’re in a place that requires it.
PGM
Last night, I was privileged to dine with national Catholic radio host, author and apologist, Patrick Madrid.
I should probably mention there were 600 other people at the Catholic radio fundraiser he graced as keynote speaker, but I was honored to be at his table, #42.
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| Patrick Madrid, right, at our table, #42 |
I’ve been listening to Patrick on radio a long time now and greatly enjoyed his book, “The Godless Delusion,” which I read and discussed with him on Catholic radio a few years back. I’m now equally appreciating his memoir, “Envoy for Christ.”
Patrick led two talks Thursday — a midday luncheon and evening banquet — and at each of them, he made mention of something of which we should all be aware if we care about our lives: forced euthanasia.
Not a pleasant topic, no, but a reality that will almost assuredly affect us if we don’t pay attention.
Yes, that means you!
Patrick helped lead us into the topic by calling to mind the Titanic and the iceberg that started off the downhill spiral.
But as he reminded us, it wasn’t really the iceberg that did the big vessel in, but the lack of preparedness, the pride of many who designed the ship and set it afloat, and the failure to respond effectively once the block was spotted; these are the elements that inevitably caused the ship’s and its passengers’ demise.
Madrid point out that we, too, have an iceberg up ahead. Are we going to acknowledge its existence, and if so, will we collect our wits soon enough to avoid hitting it?
We have a situation now in which the population of our world is turning into an inverted pyramid, according to Madrid and others who study these sorts of things — the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, for example. And we know that many developed countries aren’t replacing themselves. That combined with medical technology that allows us to live longer could make for a highly problematic scenario soon.
Rather than having the base of young people at the bottom of the pyramid and the elderly population at the narrow top, we’ve got more and more older citizens at the wide top (above) and a waning number of youth to support everyone else.
Now, mix that with a culture that devalues the human being (think 40 years of abortion, consumption of pornography at an all-time high, and all kinds of other versions of objectification of the human person), and you’ve got a real issue: A whole bunch of old people who aren’t seen as valuable, and not enough young people to sustain them.
If we can justify disposing of our smallest children, Madrid pointed out, it’s going to be equally as easy to justify disposing of our elderly who have outlived their time of usefulness to us.
Seems logical to me, and frightening.
As a friend and I talked about this horrific possibility — a reality we’re already seeing in some countries, and beginnings of in our own — I mentioned that it could well be our generation that winds up first on the chopping block. “It will be those who put Roe v. Wade into place,” she said, who will first be nudged in line for an untimely death.
Again, I know, not a pleasant subject, but another friend of mine who visited a nursing home in France last year gave me a verbal tour of what could be our reality here someday soon, describing the desolation of the place and how little care the residents seemed to be being given.
God help us. Help us see the value in all of our citizens. Help us work on solutions that are life-giving and life-sustaining. You, Lord, are the author of life, and we are here because you loved us into being. Let us not desire to assume your post as Creator of all, but work to love one another while we can, and to help each other live as long as you will it.
Amen.
It’s true, and Shane certainly learned this wise lesson years ago.
Wait now. Who is Shane, anyway? Ah, soon you will know. But first, swing over to Peace Garden Writer. There, the revelation awaits…
[On Meaningful Mondays, I share my faith columns, published Saturdays in The Forum and reprinted here with permission.]
By Roxane B. Salonen, The Forum
Last week brought a theme of 50 into my life: 50 hours traveling on a bus with 50 teens and adults, and approximately 50 city blocks by foot around our final destination of Washington, D.C.
Part chaperone and all mother, I accompanied my teen daughter and other students from Shanley High School to the 40th annual March for Life.
Though my shins still ache and my neck muscles remain strained, my soul has been stirred after spending time with around a half-million youth and others in love with life.
Despite the main event taking place at the political center of our country, for the 145 in our three-bus caravan, the trip was more spiritual journey than anything else.
The Rev. Charles La Croix, school chaplain and fearless prayer warrior, continuously reminded us we’d come together as pilgrims.
Think not Mayflower variety but the North Dakota-Minnesota type, embarking on, as Wikipedia defines pilgrimage, “a journey or search of moral or spiritual significance.”
I’d signed up enthusiastically months ago, but as the day of departure drew near, so did my reluctance. Still processing the death of my father, I dreaded hanging out with hundreds of energetic teens when what I really craved was quiet reflection.
But by God’s grace I ended up receiving just what I needed. Each leg of the journey was marked by prayer, including Mass each morning and the gathering of chaperones with small groups for evening prayer each night.
Inspiring moments uplifted, including seeing the Washington Monument stark and proud against blue sky, hearing energetic speakers at a student conference and rally, and learning our school had earned a national award for its leadership and prayerful action.
I’m already predicting, though, that when the highs of the experience have subsided, my favorite memories will be the quiet conversations I had with the girls in my charge.
The soul-sparking nature of the trip opened them wide to some of the life’s biggest questions. Each night when I’d go to their rooms for evening sendoff, I’d find them moved by their experiences in D.C., and as a result, inordinately chatty.
And so I lingered, answering as well as possible their profound questions ranging from boys and babies to ghosts and God before offering a night-time blessing and hug.
The final night of our hotel stay, one of the girls stopped me before I left her room. “Wait, you need a blessing, too!” she said, reaching out her hand to trace a cross on my forehead.
Indeed, it was my turn to be moved; from this as well as watching students comforting a peer who’d fallen ill, volunteering to lead bus prayers and offering to carry my backpack when I’d grown weary from walking.
The journey was not without sacrifice, as my swollen feet will attest, but neither was it without significance, as a Biblical passage from Isaiah 43:10 on a wall of the Holocaust Museum reminded me, so simply: “You are my witnesses.”
Indeed, our young people – those “kids these days” – are deeper than what we see on the surface, with visions clearer than many of us adults. While I went on this trip intending to observe their transformations, in the end, I found my own heart equally expanded.
Saint Catherine of Sienna once remarked, “Be who God meant you to be and you will set the world ablaze.”
If these young people and their peers who’ve taken up edifying causes can stay focused on the sparks of flame they’ve witnessed, I’m convinced it’s only a matter of time before the world burns bright with love.
This column was written exclusively for The Forum.
Roxane B. Salonen is a freelance writer who lives in Fargo with her husband and five children.
Somehow, I made it out of D.C. alive.
There were times I wondered if it would happen, truly. For one, 50+ hours traveling on a bus with mostly teenagers, virtually no leg room and an aisle seat, and tons of walking running to get to the bus on time left me in physical pain by the end of the pilgrimage.
I also got lost on the day of the March for Life. Yes, the day 500,000 people surrounded, I stopped to take a photo, and by the time I looked up again, poof! My group had vanished; a group that included my daughter and the people I was there to chaperone and photograph.
Not good. I shed a few quiet tears after the fourth cell-phone attempt came up empty. Thanks be to God, after several stressful phone conversations, I ended up reunited with my group in time for the longest part of the March. God brought me back. Dad too, perhaps.
Though the March was an incredible experience, that’s not what I’m feeling inclined to share about just now. Rather, ever since arriving in D.C., a journey that was all about life, I’m still stuck on the death of it.
But please hang on. I’m not intending this to be depressing. Not at all.
Yes, it’s true. I am still a grieving daughter. The loss of my father on Jan. 11 still haunts. But my days since haven’t been without light and joy. And I have to say, especially after what I saw in D.C., that the Catholic approach to death has been a huge part of the exacerbation of my healing.
It struck me first at our first stop — the Franciscan Monastery of the Holy Land.
Death and dying, everywhere…
And yet so beautifully depicted.
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| Crypt of the Holy Land Monastery, St. Cecilia, patron saint of musicians. |
This was a comfort to me, so fresh from the deathbed of my father. There’s something about watching a loved one die that causes the grip of death to lose a bit of its power — at least for me.
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| Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception |
Yes, it was soothing to me to be reminded that death…is just another part of the life continuum.
I recall again a conversation I had earlier this year about the Catholic focus on the crucifix.
Yes, we are big on that, but it does not mean we obsess about death.
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| March for Life 2013, Washington, D.C. |
Rather, we acknowledge it. We don’t pretend it doesn’t exist. And in doing so, we are zeroing in on life. “This sad thing happens, but this good thing follows.”
In creating art depicting death, we declare ourselves free from the bondage of death.
Again, we are saying, this happens. And when it does, we weep, and that’s okay.
But…it’s not the end. Far from it.
It really is the beginning.
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| Meditation area – Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception |
A dear friend from Canada sent a book this week, and in a chapter on the Catholic perspective of death, this quote jumped out at me:
“God has not taken them from us; He has hidden them in His Heart that they may be closer to ours.” – Maurice Zundel
Praise be to God that this would be part of His plan; that this end is truly just a time of waiting for the beginning around the bend.
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| Crypt Church – Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception |
Took me a few days to find my footing again, but I’m finally ready to share a bit from my journey to D.C.
Here’s a glimpse from the bus. Yes, God had His hand in this trip the whole time it seems.
The rest, find here…
Yes, I know he’s gone, but I’m bringing Dad with me to D.C. anyway.
How so, you say? Hint: look to the center, and then visit Peace Garden Writer. See you over there!
[So that I can share my weekly faith columns that run in our daily newspaper, Meaningful Mondays will be a duplication of those essays, published Saturdays in The Forum and reprinted here with permission.]
By Roxane B. Salonen, The Forum
It starts sometime between November and December – the ruminating over our word of the year.
“Have you thought of yours yet?” she asks.
“Getting closer, but I haven’t pegged it quite yet,” I reply.
My friend Mary started this little exercise several years ago as a new year blogging challenge, and I quickly latched on. Since then, we’ve inspired others to similarly choose a word at the top of the year to define the one upcoming.
Though it’s not a complete science, the result tends to be a mix of hope along with our reality of the moment of choosing. Most years we revel at how synchronous our word and year turned out.
Because it’s what I was feeling at the time and wanted to hold onto, I chose “joy” for 2013.
My choice begs a bit of an explanation, however. After all, if I were to set out believing every day of my 2013 would be happy, almost inevitably I’d come out the other end disappointed.
But to me, joy isn’t synonymous with happiness, and that’s why I felt brave enough to lay claim on it.
It was a few years back that my writing friend Emilie Lemmons taught me about the true meaning of joy through a column she wrote for a Twin Cities diocesan newspaper just weeks before her death at age 40.
She’d been to church earlier that week and was lamenting the fact that the church bulletin had suggested cultivating “a joyous mind, heart and spirit.” She was incensed at how a mother with Stage 4 cancer could be asked to do such a thing. Seething, she endured the rest of the service “like a hard stone.”
Later that day, Lemmons picked up the book “Kitchen Table Wisdom,” by Rachel Naomi Remen, a physician and counselor who had done spiritual work with cancer patients.
In it, a passage on joy stood out, she recalled, through which Remen had mentioned “people with terrible illnesses who nonetheless choose to show up for whatever life may offer.” She’d described them as “intensely alive, intensely present.”
Lemmons further quoted Remen: “I had thought joy to be rather synonymous with happiness, but it seems now to be far less vulnerable than happiness. Joy seems to be a part of an unconditional will to live, not holding back because life may not meet our preferences and expectations.”
Remen concluded that joy seems a function of the willingness to accept the whole and to show up to meet with whatever is there and, in that way, “seems more closely related to aliveness than happiness.”
Lemmons thought of the passage later when, upon opening a gift from friends, she burst into tears. She recognized them as tears of joy, she wrote, but said they seemed to be “coming from the same place deep inside me where my sorrow dwells. It was as if joy and sorrow were intermingled in an intense response to life.”
Her column concluded on a hopeful note, and though Lemmons succumbed to the cancer shortly thereafter, I have to believe she is now experiencing a joy that never ends.
After I shared Emilie’s column on my blog recently, a friend sent me a quote she couldn’t attribute but had given her hope in a time of difficulty: “Joy is not the absence of suffering. It is being full of the presence of God.”
It is here where I find my definition of joy and why I chose it as my theme word for 2013.
I expect neither bliss nor perfection in the coming year. But if I can cultivate joy through working on my relationship with God and, through that, be more often than not “full of the presence of God,” my year will, indeed, be joy-filled.
This column was written exclusively for The Forum.
Roxane B. Salonen is a freelance writer who lives in Fargo with her husband and five children. If you have a story of faith to share with her, email roxanebsalonen@gmail.com.
