Runny Noses and Sweaty Brows

I think I just gave myself a heart attack.

My daughter and I haven't heard back from our neighbor in Simpson. I had a long day "on" with students, some of whom are very needy, and some who plagiarized research papers. Now I need to write the remainder of my critical paper on an academic tome by Jaroslav Pelikan. All together, this sends me to the kitchen for "relaxation." That means I become potions master, testing and trying combinations of salty and sweet and savory. In this case, my favorite salad: Braised lettuce with Braggs Liquid Aminos, warm olive oil, crushed Japones chiles and onion powder.

Then I got the idea to mix the remainder of the chiles, which are medium-hot to hot-hot, with crystallizing honey from the local vendor. My nose was running, my brow dripping with sweat, my teeth gummy with heat and sweet.

I'm back, still avoiding an academic paper, but mopped up. I'm waiting to hear if anyone will have mercy on me and spy on my old neighbor before I try calling and emailing and facebook again. I don't want her to feel I'm stalking her, but she's had surgery. She's on her own. She's taking pity on a kid who needs a whole network of supports. Her brother just died recently. She's got grief to spare. And it's a festal season. It's my anecdotal experience that God calls back many of his children at joyous feast times. We are left, trying to remember that resurrection is on their side, even if there is a sudden blankness here.

Today, I am thankful for

Emily Kirk: author and illustrator extraordanaire

1. The Resurrection of the dead. May God make Mike Egnotovich, Mikey Hoffman, and Jay Benson's memory eternal. He called them back during this Advent and Theophany season.
2. Chiles. To warm a person up.
3. Bhut Joloka. It really is crazy delicious.
4. Well water. It usually beats city water for good guzzling. I had some last night. I miss it.
5. The wild country.
6. Warm days in the middle of winter.
7. Sun in an Indiana January
8. That my mother-in-law is home from the hospital today.
9. Tomie DePaola books, especially about saints and Scripture!
10. Students who illustrate what it feels like to be a little kid again, the crown of the head on the ground, the body draped off the couch, and the wonderment of walking on the ceiling in your mind.
11. Free music.
12. Cool husbands.
13. Long runs, though I have been denied this for over six weeks, but who's counting?
14. The sacrament of confession. Even preparing for it makes me giddy.
15. Hot sauce. 'Cause if I'm not a rabbit, eating leafy greens, I'm "turning into hot sauce" as my daughter told me today. 

Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing

This morning, I leaned my head down on the snow-cone machine, pressed its grinder down to make my favorite ice, and let the sunshine stream through the window on my closed eyes. I just sat there. Last night, my mother-in-law was hospitalized for what is called a TIA stroke. It appears this is the second she's had in six or seven months.  In addition to this scary news yesterday, I came home from church to learn from Facebook that my friend  Jeff, whose parents head up World Missionary Press, lost his dad. Jay Benson died twelve days or so after he was taken to the ER with a headache. He had a brain bleed, lost consciousness, fell into a coma, and never came out. The family made the decision, based upon encouraging tests, to try to let him breathe on his own. When the breathing tube came out, they discovered he couldn't. He fell asleep in the Lord.

I am weeping as I type.

So today's list is just being thankful for words that are not mine, and things that sustain.

1. The hymn, "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing"-- Come Thou, Fount of Every Blessing. Teach my soul to sing thy praise. Streams of mercy, never ceasing, call for songs of loudest praise.
2. The Jesus Prayer: Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.
3. For Mother Christophora at Holy Transfiguration Monastery, Elwood City PA, reminding the priests' wives, just talk straight to God, even in the bathroom. -- I poured out my supplication before Him; I showed before Him my trouble.
4. For hot showers, where in quiet, I cry aloud to the Lord. +  I cried unto Thee, O Lord; I said: Thou art my refuge and my portion in the land of the living. Attend unto my cry, for I am brought very low.  Deliver me from my persecutors, for they are stronger than I.
5. For Sunshine in windows during which I pray:  "Bring my soul out of prison, that I may bless Your Name."
6. For the Psalmody in Great Vespers, where the enemy is power of darkness over my soul: In the way wherein I walked have they secretly laid a snare for me. I looked on my right hand, and beheld, but there was no man that would know me. Refuge failed me; no one cared for my soul.
7. ‎"Oh Lord, grant me the strength to bear the fatigue of the coming day with all that it shall bring. Direct my will, teach me to pray, pray You Yourself in me."
8. Now, the day is falling asleep and a warm dinner with friends is worthy of thanksgiving.
9. Thanks for boys who love trains and legos.
10. Richard Foster's The Celebration of Discipline
11. Wood Burning stoves
12. Persimmons, frozen, thawed and under some coconut milk
13. Rosemary, Basil
14. Books
15. Batter My Heart, Three Person'd God: 

• BATTER my heart, three person'd God; for, you
  As yet but knocke, breathe, shine, and seeke to mend;
  That I may rise, and stand, o'erthrow mee,'and bend
  Your force, to breake, blowe, burn and make me new.

Fantine's Finale- Finding Gratefulness Today

It's not happening again today. That is the thing about thankfulness. It's not magic. It's hard to cultivate a garden and dig up the weeds. It's hard to learn to love working out. I remember it took years to learn to enjoy running, to lose the fear of being out alone in the late or early hours, in the dark, around bears, big dogs, and worse people.

In my mountain area of Northeastern Pennsylvania, my daughter was the magic that made running possible. After the first mornings at St. John's Camp, running with Ally and Clara, I was about to head up and down roads where we'd seen momma bears and baby cubs, where fifty or sixty percent of my neighbors have one or more Brindle Boxers, Pit bulls and Rottweilers. They train or over-train them with shock collars and choke collars. These are dogs to precede the firearms, not to shoot bears, either. The same autumn, two hunters were killed by fellow hunters, in what police determined were vengeance killings. What? You got my buck? Who knew venison was so divisive?

I rose at five and geared up. My daughter rode the mountain bike along the country rode in the pre-dawn hours. We sang loud to scare the  bears. They are black bears, according to my National Forest Ranger friend from Promised Land State Park- Bill Delling. They are more scared of humans than humans are of them. I don't believe that after staring down at a habituated one eating from my garbage, or having the same she-bear raiding the neighbors bins while six kids screamed and played in the yard next door.  At least they aren't that aggressive.

My daughter did ride alongside me, pedaling slowly, for about a week. It was long enough for me to get my courage. It wasn't the bears, I realized, but the badly trained dogs, and humans, especially in Carbondale, which has a high drug-bust rate. My own Hoosier town is not much better, with all the ingredients for meth and bored farmk ids keeping each other company.

I learned to run though, in spite of the stitch in my side, in spite of my fears, in spite of the inconvenience of early hours, cold, heat, humidity, lack of sidewalks, sprains, lost music players, lonely hours.

Gollygeewhiz, that's how I'm going to learn thankfulness.

1.  Last night my husband baked Prosphora. The smell of baking prosphora is unlike any other bread. I can't eat it, with my gluten issues, but smelling it is almost as good.
2. I am thankful that I got out bed with the ability to pivot this morning. 
3. For a goodly husband, who let me weep in the car.
4. For long periods before loved ones die, when we get to prepare ourselves for the grief.
5. For cell phones that let us reach our living beloveds to say, "Call. He lost his father."
6. That our bodies and our souls/spirits, the physical world and spiritual one are not in duality. We are not just spirits in a material world. 
7. For trends these days that will allow my friends and family to prepare my body in the church, bury it without too many chemicals in consecrated ground, and for folks around me who want this as much as I do. Having a friend who lost his father yesterday, and having our two Orthodox Parishes blessing the waters today, to remind us that God redeemed all of Creation, and our two parishes working on natural burial and cemetery plans is a blessing.
8. For the slightly warmer morning. I couldn't run, but walking outside in the warm 36 degrees was refreshing.
9. For feast days, when the folks who are my second family join together in merriment and feasting under the auspices of Grace and Mercy.
10. Good food. Really. The borscht was awesome and good food can be ministerial.
11. For the people I know who have a way of bringing some kind of cheer in spite of their suffering- like Christina, and Joanna.
12. For the return of Downton Abbey. I really am looking forward to it.
13. For the pleasure of writing.
14. Still grateful for this treadmill, keeping me mobile during injury-recovery.
15. For the music in my head: Finale of Les Miserables, which points to the hope and the future, the resurrection of the body. 

VALJEAN:
Now you are here
Again beside me
Now I can die in peace
For now my life is blessed

COSSETTE:
You will live, papa
You're going to live
It's too soon to ever say goodbye

VALJEAN:
Yes, cossette
Forbid me now to die
I'll obey 
I will try

On this page 
I write my last confession
Read it well
When I at last am sleeping
It's a story of those who always loved you
Your mother gave her life for you and gave you to my keeping

FANTINE:
Come with me
Where chains will never bind you
All your grief
At last, at last behind you
Lord in heaven; 
Look down on him in mercy

VALJEAN:
Forgive me all my trespases and take me to your glory

FANTINE, VALJEAN AND EPONINE:
Take my hand
And lead me to salvation
Take my love
For love is everlasting
And remember
The truth that once was spoken:
To love another person is to see the face of god

ALL:
Do you hear the people sing?
Lost in the valley of the night
It is the music of a people who are climbing to the light
For the wretched of the earth
There is a flame that never dies
Even the darkest nights will end and the sun will rise

They will live again in freedom in the garden of the lord
They will walk behind the ploughshare
They will put away the sword
The chain will be broken and all men will have their reward!

Will you join in our crusade?
Who will be strong and stand with me?
Somewhere beyond the barricade is there a world you long to see?
Do you hear the people sing?
Say, do you hear the distant drums?
It is the future that they bring when tomorrow comes! 
REPEAT

Aaaaah, aaaaah, aaaah, 
Tomorrow comes!

Overcoming the Gloomy Passions of the Night

My room was hot, and the need to evacuate my bladder woke me up this morning. My mind bumbled out of dream state, but something from the images and narratives of subconscious clung to me. I swung my sprained pelvis carefully and pivoted in pain towards the bathroom, then lurched back to bed, to shake off the dream-haunts.

I have started having these again. Dreams were always vivid to me in my early childhood. Some dreams are still so clear, I called them visions for years on end. In high school, dreams of glowing hands of God, or fearsome beasts, morphed to mirror the horror movies I imbibed. Gruesome murders, involving people I knew, haunted me for days, recurring sometimes. After I broke up with my first boyfriend, I had seven years of dreams about him. I woke up for the first six years of marriage with mornings where I felt adulterous for longing for the man I had put away years ago.

Finally, around my thirtieth birthday, the dredges of my mind stopped rehashing the dream state. I also stopped sleeping more than six hours a night. For the four years we lived in Pennsylvania, I slept little, severed dreams from wakefulness, and thought I had beat back the "gloomy passions of the night" against which I prayed before sleeping and repented of with morning prayers.

In fact, morning prayers might have been part of why dreams did not cloy at me for hours into a new day. I beat my alarm clock to wakefulness like it's a race. I turn towards the small icon of Christ on my bedstand, and stumble out of sleep with the Trisagion. I move through morning prayers and into prayers for those on my list, the sick, the suffering, my children and god-children, my husband's ministry, the spiritually seeking. By the time my alarm goes off, I've wandered in and out of prayer-sleep and I'm ready to see the day with centered psyche, nous is what the Orthodox Christian calls it.

Not this morning. I woke up realizing I felt grinchy and stingy and that I'd fed my brother-in-law Miralax instead of Claritin, and it all felt so real I was checking to see if I guests. That's right. In my dream, I'm standing in my kitchen when my brother-in-law comes down and says he's hunting for some Claritin. I have some, I say and sprinkle what I take to keep regular on his drink. He gulps. It's all good until I wake up. It's laughable that I realized my error upon consciousness, and felt bad.

Later in my dream, a fellow priest's asked to get together on Sunday night. In my dream world, I wanted to say no. Sunday nights are how my husband and I center ourselves for the week. I could not bring myself to say No, though. That's pretty much me. I hate saying no. I will often say yes and break the bank of my emotional reserves, or our literal bank to fulfill obligations.  I do it all with a grinchy heart. A cycle of obligation and thanklessness feed each other.

Does anyone else struggle to find a place for gratefulness to free them for grace?

Now that I've prayed, written and tooled around, I am ready to begin today's list

1. Music. I'm surprised at how much music of any sort can be made into something beautiful. 
2. Learning to listen, moving towards listening. The discipline of good things like listening.
3. Fresh rosemary in the dead of winter- I'm eating it now.
4. The ability to write and surprise myself with words, and maybe, surprise others.
5. The serendipity of messages from friends that changes the tone of a moment, even the moments after getting a rejection letter.
6. Morning prayers and evening prayers, written wisely by saints who realized that even dreams spoil our healthy souls, and that prayer is healing.
7. If, you view the video above, I'm reminded to be thankful for even being able to walk, because walking is causing me a decent amount of pain right now.
8. Finding the unexpected beautiful "Something the Lord Made" in another person.
9. 2 minute talks with my husband, moving through the day.
10. Water, clean and running into my house to drink and clean myself. Being quenched.
11. Water as a metaphor for how I need to be dynamic, able to move around and yet be a powerful force in the world around me.
12. Water, by which Christ baptized and redeemed our sick and broken environment, and gave us the promise of cleanliness.
13. Reminders to loosen up, let go, be present.
14. Hot spicy food, like bhut joloka peppers and Valencia hot sauce.
15. Finally, because I just finished a great essay in Mystery and Manners, Flannery O'Connor's insights into story-telling and God.

60 Thanksgivings: Story-Power

I'm not saying I have it. Story-power, that is. I'm thanking the powers that do because story saves my sanity, and my life some days. The story I've been telling myself is that my daughter doesn't love me anymore, that a boy, a job, a device to text friends gobbled her up, but I remember doing this to my mom.

I remember the darkest days of my senior year, sitting on our six foot table in the semi-light coming through from the living room. My mother, asleep on the divan, arms crossed. Her chocolate permed curls off to the side, a bit of drool starting to glisten off the down slope of her face. My father would be home soon from second shift, and his hour long commute. I had what, maybe thirty minutes? I always got myself to bed before he came home. We hadn't talked in so long. Teenage daughters are aliens to their parents, sometimes. 

Mom would start when he came in. She usually woke up when I got in from a date, but I was very careful tonight. I don't know why it was so important to sneak in, not letting the spring-loaded screen door slam, or the inner steel door oomph into its jam. I sad on the table, frozen, with the kitchen knife. I was not too serious about hurting myself, or I would have one of the sharp Chicago cutlery blades that she kept in the back. This was an older knife, with a wooden handle, and I was gripping its blade tight in my fist, hoping it would cut in just a bit.

I slipped off my shoes, slipped up the stairs and sat in the bathroom, in the dark. I would see my father's headlights, bobbing up and down the stone drive. I would have a few minutes to open the door and hide in the tub, ever receeding into the cave. I was spelunking for courage to make the slice deep enough to scar, deeper than the mere scratches I was playing with. And, I had no idea why I wouldn't take this further, or why I had the urge to hurt myself in the first place.  

I sat on the edge of that table again another Friday night, this time, with the lights flung on. Bread was cooling on the countertop. My  mom was on the stool, chatting with me as I erped the yeast dough I'd pinched and nibbled while I kneaded the raisins and cardamom into the dough. We talked and talked. I told her my secrets on nights like those, when she wasn't the incapacitated mother of seven, drooling in her sleep, dreaming of her husband. In this scene, I brought light to her eyes. In the others, she was shrouded in the mystery of motherhood, in the commands, and exhaustion she brought upon herself. She fought battles she didn't need to fight. 

"Honestly, who cares if the beans stay back there one more night?" I begged, swirling dirty dishrags around the countertop, desparate to be free of the QC check for dinner clean-up.

"I do." Doing a job right was worth it on it's own account.

"Maria, come back here. You left crumbs on the counter, you didn't move the canisters to clean up the spilled flour and there is still crusty overboil on the back right of the stove."

"Damnit," I cursed very low, because my mother did not allow even geez in our house. Euphemisms! "Say what you mean." but "That is cursing, young lady."

On the nights we tiffed, I ran to woods, to the phone, out on dates, to be anywhere but there. On nights when my friends came over, my mother turned amiable. Hypocrite  I thought, until my frigid spirits forgave. Those nights we talked. That night, I said I wanted to see a counselor. But we didn't see counselors. We prayed. We spoke with our pastors. On that night, I said, I have a fracture in my soul. And the injury unseen healed up, maybe badly. Maybe that is why my run as mom has been so full of its own trips, sprains, falls. That is the story I keep telling myself. Or not. Because tonight, I am thankful that it's not the end of the reel.  The thing about stories is that they are snapshots and the story's always unfolding on and on, in the most surprising ways. 

1. Not only am I thankful for good counsel, but also,
2. that I grew up and my mom is one of my best friends, closest confidants, and still someone I want to make proud
3. that my dad and mom's story changed and they know the healing power of good counsel
4. that my dad is still one of the wisest folks around and it would break my heart to fail him.
5. for my spiritual genealogy, the litany of lives, of imperfect humans in the grip of the Loving God
6. For mercy, in its many forms
7. that my dad told me a while back, when I was being a dour mother, that I had forgotten to laugh,
8. for those healthy Tommy-Boy-Style 2x4's to face that knock something lose.
9. For laughter, in worthy way of experiencing and for CS Lewis reminding me there are hurtful ways to laugh.
10. for Ted talks
11. for praying alongside members of my church.
12. for folks who show up at prayers, even when I can't.
13. for not making a scar, for not having the courage, for being a wimp
14. that God has a hand on me and my family.
15. that the young people who, when I think of them I want to cry, have the rest of their lives yet and the story isn't finished. Lord, Have mercy.

45 Thanksgivings

Nothing derails gratitude like crankiness.

Nothing makes a mom cranky than having a fight or nagging kids.

Last night, I was flying high about how warmly my daughter and I communicated yesterday. We stood side-by-side at our Compline prayers. Usually I've annoyed the pieces off of my kids and they'd rather sit on the corner of the roof.  Then we got home, and I proceeded to fail a parental test about cell phones. Boo for me. I went to bed acting like I was the victim. I believe what I said was, "I hate being the family whipping boy." I said it low, but I am sure my husband heard me.

I woke up in need of repentance. A thankful heart is happy heart, sings Madame Blueberry in Veggie Tales, and I didn't have either.

Here is my list, which could only be started after de-linting my angry heart. I am thankful that:

1. My oldest living uncle's recent skin cancer tests came back benign and he doesn't have to go to Oncologist for six months!
2.  My daughter woke up and spoke warmly again. She is a good person to the core.
3. She just shared a yummy berry water with me.
4. My 6th grade son, who watched job interview assignments last night, was able to identify the qualities of a good speaker and use the term "projection" for voice.
5. Siblings who come back from a walk together on a cold day and are goofy and giddy.
6. Portlandia and well-written sketch comedy that reminds me of beloved friends (Pres. Elena Buck)


7. People to watch it with, including my husband, but also my friends, Beechams, Pattons, Garretts, Reynolds, Bucks.
8. The self-less ministrations of my husband, who is helping me recover from a painful sprain.
9. The self-less copy editing of my husband, helping my grandma and me finish my grandmother's memoir.
10. My daughter's excellent job cleaning the bathroom. It's the clean spaces right?
11. The Magnificat of Mary, which I'm reading and re-reading in advance of this semester's writing project- My soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.
12. My mother-in-law and Grandmother, giddy on facebook, seeing pictures of their kids, grandkids and great-grandkids.
13. The Gospel of John. For Light has shone in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.
14. For being able to talk to my daughter about the dark stuff of life- rape, suicide, cutting, addiction and coming out the other side with hope.
15. For friends, like Michelle, who help me with little and big things.

30 Thanksgivings

I'm treading between two notebook computers, a treadmill, workday and finishing more on my Grandma's book.

Today, I am thankful that:

1. The snow out back is clean and I can make my snowcones with a quick scoop. It's silly, but I love snowcones and eat them daily.
2. The work week started out measurably, with lots of reflective and learning time.
3. Doctors were more accommodating today than I expected, since my son needs a doctor, and right away, after three years without one. 
4. The sun is shining, even though that makes it much colder outside.
5. I have friends who can help me vet healthcare providers!
6. My daughter leaned her head on her dad's shoulder as they watched "Once"together last night.
7. My son Liam loves legos! They really are the greatest toys.
8. My daughter still trusts me with the big stuff.
9. I can cook some pretty delish stuff without a cookbook and on a shoestring budget--- curried red lentils with peas, sweet potatoes, apples, onion and garlic is great.
10. I have two mix cd's and a new Joel Henderson CD to get to know well before Feb. 7.
11. Oranges. They taste so good.
12. I'm learning to recognize great writing technique, not just for readability.
13. My tea from Amazon was produced locally. Local food is best.
14. Garlic, cumin and ginger. 
15. Telling my daughter she should think about being a counselor or therapist was not off-putting to her.

My husband posted this last night and I have a long long way to go:

The harshest form of covetousness is not even to give things perishable to those who need them. “But whom do I treat unjustly,” you say, “by keeping what is my own?” Tell me, what is your own? What did you bring into this life? From where did you receive it? It is as if someone were to take the first seat in the theater, then bar everyone else from attending, so that one person alone enjoys what is offered for the benefit of all-this is what the rich do. They first take possession of the common property, and then they keep it as their own because they were the first to take it. But if every man took only what sufficed for his own need, and left the rest to the needy, no one would be rich, no one would be poor, no one would be in need. ~ St. Basil the Great

15 Thanksgivings

All strength is in humility

because pride is fragile.

The humble are like a rock:

The rock seems to lie downward,

but nevertheless it is firm.

St. Augustine of Hippo

My first fifteen thanksgivings are here, though I'm still nursing the miles. My sprain is sore. I'm walking slow today and accomplishing a few tasks before I pinch my nose closed, and dive in the waters of the teacher's spring cycle, starting back up tomorrow. The winter break has been a respite.

I am thankful that

Grandma, Me, then Padre Joel, editing.

1. The break afforded time to go slower, read several books for fun.
2. Grandma Reynolds and I finished formatting and laying out her memoir. 
3. My husband went along with me to Dayton and is helping copy edit.
4. My husband and I had a 'state-of-the-marriage' talk that felt very healthy.
5. I antied-up on the realities of the future and began taking healthy steps to be prepared for all outcomes with work.
6. My daughter started her new job and loved it.
7. I have finished my first two of ten books for spring semester project in my MFA program.
8. I have started two other books for it, and read numerous extras, including the Protoevangel of James, parts of St. Maximos the Confessor and Sergei Bulgakov on Mary.
9. I watched a whole movie without stopping the other day.
10. I found out recently we can have a doctor in town, in spite of Pennsylvania-based insurance, and I have a working list to call tomorrow, since my son appears to have strep.
11. I can still walk 15 miles a day.
12. This treadmills hasn't pooped out yet!
13. I had tea or wine with at least three women over the break.
14. I sent two-thirds of my Christmas cards. Now, for the rest...
15. My daughter, her boyfriend, my husband, even my very sick son, played Quelf together until the wee hours of New Year morn.

Happy Feast of St. Basil the Great, writer of the common liturgy, brother to St. Gregory of Nyssa and St. Macrina, commentator on Scripture and Saint of God. May 2013 be a blessed year for you all.

Pray for me, a sinner.

The Eucharist Project

Thirteen months ago, on the day before Thanksgiving, my husband went to Kroger, bought a gift card and drained our bank account onto it. I finished my workday, stashed a twenty dollar bill between cards in my pocketbook and packed up the last of the food in the house, except for some flour, some dried beans, herbs and spices and a couple of bags of frozen food. As I recall, all the milk, cheese, cereal, oats, fruits and veggies- fresh and canned- were cleaned out. Almost every bit of food we had was in the coolers and baskets. Except for spending my twenty on the last gift, an Amazon gift card for a sibling, we were set to start out for the annual Reynolds' Christgiving. 

Our sixteen-year-old daughter carried her lime green comforter, stuffing coming out of huge gash in the seam to the Camry  Over her shoulder, she had slung a pillowcase, stuffed with her MP3 player, a couple of favorite stuffed animals, books, games, snacks and her coat. She squeezed her items on top of the packed out back seat and maneuvered her long legs in the cab. My son hefted in under his ratty blue comforter. --Back in our seminary days, when parishes helped Seminarian families buy the Christmas gifts, the kids had opened the blankets.-- This was our second year crawling out of seminary debt and scaling back on all those gifts. Liam too had a pillow case stuffed with toys for the drive. Both kids looked snowed in the back seat, but excited for our trip. 

For the twelve hours drivng, they sharing earbuds, groaned against the unbalanced baskets of gifts and food. Road-weary in the wee hours of the morning, they car-napped and snarked at each other.  We have driven this path so many times, it is no longer adventurous, especially when we cannot bribe them with sodas and Subway this time. 

During seminary, we drove from Pennsylvania to Indiana, for two weeks of Christmas or three months of summer. We stretched our hands and feet as we crossed back into the Hoosier state, joking that one of us had made it home first.

Now we do a four-day round trip in the opposite direction. It's not so bad on the way out, with the anticipation of Christgiving-- Christmas celebrated back to back with Thanksgiving in November-- It is a necessary tradition for an extended family with several ordained clergy. We smooshed together Christmas and Thanksgiving on a lark and ended up with the newly christened Christgiving, a lovely accident since it blends the gratefulness with Christ's gift.  It's a family kind of Eucharist. Eucharist is what my clergy husband and our parish offer up to God every Sunday. It means thanksgiving, literally. 

Last year, I trembled the whole trip, not with the joy of the Nativity season either. I was excited to see family I hadn't seen in months. I was excited to give out my handmade gifts, but spending our last two hundred dollars on gas and tolls scared me. The empty pantry, refrigerator and freezer flashed to mind as the mile markers passed. I pushed  back tears and gulped down the  lump in my throat. We were going on faith. There was no food or paycheck expected for the entire week following the trip. I reminded my husband to hyper-mile. He made up reasons the kids did not need sodas and fast food. In the backseat, they knew. They ate in silence. Thanksgiving felt like oxygen on a mountain peak, thin.

We made it home on what we had. My husband asked the parish for his check early. We bought groceries. In the following weeks, we had enough.

 We stuffed St. Nicholas stockings with socks, undergarments, candy and bubble bath. We bought our modest presents for the kids, even a small bit for each other. Folks in the parish gave us books, gift certificates and little extras. It was festive in a kind of restrained and beautiful way, like a slow and sparkly snowfall. That the week after Christmas, with a full heart, but empty pocketbook, I was looking for a way to give more outside our family. I started a 5000 mile challenge, of walking and running for the year, with the hopes of fundraising for several missionaries, mission groups, ministries and non-profits.

DISCLAIMER: Before I continue, I should tell you that my dream of raising a dollar a mile for the year resulted as well as a sales-drive test by Herff Jones went years ago. I am terrible at the ASK, that is the asking of money, it turns out. I got about five cents on the mile this year because I'm worried about putting people out. I went 5400 hundred miles. Actually, I'm finishing those as we speak, thanks to a free treadmill from my friend Melissa. It probably has 5000 miles on it since she gave it to me five years ago.

When I started a year ago, I was full of hope and thanksgiving, trepidation nagged at me, because I had just overcome a pretty nasty sprain. On Dec. 31, 2011, I was running a 9-minute mile. Still it seemed a good idea, a good gift for my running and my restless, worried body.

In the past year, I trained non-stop. Before my marathon this October, I was running a 7:21 minute mile. I ran the marathon well, though I tripped. i finished in 3 hours and 41 minutes. Within a few weeks, I hit my 5000 mile goal. The same week, I felt the sprain. It traveled down my legs and knotted up my feet.

I'm nursing it back to health, running once a week, at most, and slow. I'm running 12-minute miles. I hurt. And the thanksgiving this year, well, I think I'm cresting Mount Rainer, or K2. It's been thin and I'm ragged.

Twelve months ago, when I began, I acknowledged the unknown snarls that might undo my plans. Injury aside there was job uncertainty, and many demands and choices that years bring. I knew I would be facing the annual uncertainty that my position for a Pennsylvania virtual school creates. I live too many states away. If I were not such a committed teacher, they might have let me go, as they have to several friends who moved after me.  

I started a graduate program, to hedge those fears about my job. It's like working two full-time jobs, while being a mom to a teenage girl and 'tween son. Spice that up with a few other roles, like ingredients in my identity and energy: priest's wife, partner, supposedly a friend, sister and daughter. 

Of all of those, parenting has been the biggest challenge this year. Maybe because I feel time is running out with my beautiful daughter. She has a boyfriend, is apply to colleges, and starting her first job. She texts people all day and aces her AP and Honors classes. But, if you have heard the adage that parenting a teenager is akin to parenting a preschooler, heed it. Preschoolers need mom and dad at all hours and have no sense of time or general awareness outside of their sphere of existence. Teens are like this too, but the situation is deceptive, because parents can convince themselves this is not normal, that these kids are older and more mature than this needy-ness they exhibit. It is normal, and they are age-appropriate. -- Too bad I haven't been age appropriate. If I graded myself, I would get F's in some of those positions, and none would hold at higher than a B on some tests. Most F's come in the area of parenting a teenage daughter. Just when I need to be flexible to start a tearful heart to heart at 11pm, I am bleary eyed, demanding the shower, and nodding off, or just plain intemperate at her imposing need for reassurance at that hour of the night.

That's just speaking to my failure as a mother. 

So, when Rachel, who started going to my church this year, handed me a book last week, Ann Voscamp's 1000 Gifts, I got the sense it was providential.

Voscamp is a protestant, but she had me at her epigraph on Chapter Two, words from Fr. Alexander Schmemann from his book For The Life of the World:

Eucharist is the state of perfect man.

Eucharist is the life of paradise.

Eucharist is the only full and real response of man

 to God's creation, redemption and gift of heaven.

Remember that Eucharist is the oblation- the obedient offering- of Thanksgiving that involved the Body and Blood of our Savior. We say the Church is a hospital, that Christ came to save not the righteous but sinners, that the Body and the Blood are for healing, for the life of the world.

In thirteen months, in more ways that I can count, but close to 1000, I have not been thankful. I have grown sick and shriveled, akin to the figs on the tree cursed.

I need a 1000 thanksgivings. I cannot do all those liturgies in one year, I cannot take in the medicine, literally, 1000 times. I can begin, though. I can begin by offering a thanksgiving for every mile my feet take me this year. I would love to replace every curse, every complaint, every groan and growl, every sigh of hurt and anger with a thanksgiving, but I know my stubborn will. I will pair Thanksgiving with the use of my body, which gets hurt and tired, and joyful and energetic in seasons. I will learn thanksgiving like one learns prostrations.

And perhaps, I will find the joy of the Lord is my strength,

That He gives beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, a garment of praise for a spirit of heaviness,

His peace {He} gives to me, that passes all understanding,

That He clothes the lilies of field resplendently,

That he heals bruised reeds,

That he comforts those who mourn,

That He might be glorified.

Pray for me. At the end of this, there will be fasting, repentance, joy and peace, In short, Eucharist.