Meanderings and Quagmires


It has been two weeks today since Mom died, and I still don't think it's hit me yet. I haven't cried--I've shed tears, but I haven't *really* cried. Maybe I cried myself out in the months, and certainly the week, preceding her death; I have known for a very long time that her time was short, and have wept so much. My only weak time of day is when I am trying to fall asleep. Thursday night, my brain took me down the hall of my parents' house, and I could see is Mom's empty rocking chair, her characteristic red sweater draped on the back... no more Mama. I did cry, but was trying not to wake TJ up. I dozed off sometime after.

Last night, I envisioned her face. Oh, Mama...

I am so grateful that I cannot recall how her face looked at the Visitation/Rosary. Dad decided on the open after we all had seen her. Kim was skillful and really did lovely work; but death is death, and as she was seven days dead, there are things no mortician, no matter the skills, can erase.

Funny, I can recall my poor sister's gaunt face in her coffin 15 years ago, and I had refused to go closer than halfway up the aisle at the mortuary; I cannot for the life of me remember what Mom looked like, and I stood next to the coffin.

God is merciful.

~~

Today is Palm Sunday, and I can't believe it's here already. Next week is Easter. Oh my God.

~~

I'm sponsoring TJ's niece in her confirmation this year. I'm having grave reservations about the whole thing. How does one sponsor a girl who doesn't give a rat's bum, whose heart is hardened, whose mind is inflexible?

I know that it's partly her being the teenage daughter, the only child, of two lawyers--huge entitlement attitude--but I can also understand her disenchantment to a point. Her parish has Suze Orman's little clone running the catechism meetings, with the bane of corporate companies everywhere, the Dreaded and Never Popular "Ice Breaker" being performed on Thursday in the Church proper as part of the "Evening of Prayer"(!!!). The Church being used as a social hall, a quilt over the altar, cruddy and expensive workbooks afraid to use the word "Catholic," references to a feel-good God in a foofy-cloud life, no respect or veneration in the parish--no wonder! She has seen nothing of Her beauty and majesty, this Bride of Christ, and when one can't see that faith that has endured for a millenium, it's hard to bite off on.

She is, for the moment, a liberal crusader: pro-abortion, pro-gay, ardent women's rights advocate. She'll be pro-abortion until she *sees* the effect of what it does, either to the child or to a friend; she's pro-gay because her aunt is a lesbian, and on that score I can hardly blame her; and I'm all right with the women's rights, too, for the most part. But she claims she wants to be a Buddhist, as she's already vegetarian, and blah blah blah. She doesn't really believe God exists... or so she says. Maybe she wants some other religion. "I'm looking into them," she announced haughtily.

I understand she's fifteen going on forty, pushed into a premature sophistication. She's bright and brilliant and privileged and world-traveled. In the top five of her class as a sophomore, already getting letters from various excellent universities, going to hold out for Princeton. She knows what she wants to do with her life, which is wonderful (I wish I had). But I worry about her increasingly reactionary attitudes; the cynicism more appropriate for a bitter, jaded, lonely, drunken old hag in a bar of 46 than for a lovely young woman of not quite sixteen; the elitist attitude she's picked up with the encouragement of her father; and disdain for anyone who hasn't been raised as she has been, riding in the back of a Mercedes like the Queen of England.

It's also hard to sponsor someone who won't really talk to me. It's been true as long as TJ and I have been serious, then engaged, and then through our marriage--about eight years in all. I could chalk up the first years as shyness. I could blame the fact that she and I have not really been allowed to have a full-blown conversation with her in the intervening years--there was always someone around to interrupt, deliberately or not. I can also see the influence of her parents' attitudes of superiority above TJ and I in her, because she has yet to learn how to put that mask on. It's a morass of miscommunication and misunderstanding, exacerbated by an aura of self-importance and materialism encouraged by her parents. We don't wear labels, we don't drive a Mercedes, therefore we are peasants and unworthy of her consideration.

I want to take her to task; for example, I want to ask her which countries are Buddhist and/or have Buddhist factions, then ask her how these countries/cultures treat their women in light of her ardent women's lib position. It's not meant as a disrespect to Buddhists/Buddhism; rather, I want to point out with that example her hypocrisy and bigotry in holding the Catholic Church to a standard she won't apply to any other religion. And Buddhism isn't the only one she's "considering," remember.

But it's the parents, too. Mom would never step foot in the Church if it weren't for Niece; Father is a little better, but rationalizes his faith with scraps of history--little solace, to my way of thinking. Here's an example, though, of how little the trio as a whole regard their faith:

Niece calls up her mother from a Kumbaya-type Confirmation retreat (*shiver*--I sympathize!), and the first words out of her mouth are, "You owe me." So her mother is going to buy her a new pair of Abercrombie jeans to make up for her unhappiness with the retreat.

No positive spin, no "are you sure you haven't taken something away from it?" No. Just, "OK, we'll go to the mall this week." And, in this case, I don't blame Niece; I blame the parents for thinking that material things will solve the problem. They are, essentially, buying her off. What are they teaching her? I think it's frightening.

In a similar vein, the other night for the Evening of Prayer: they (honestly) forgot, didn't show, but offered to make up for it by buying dinner after tonight's Rite of Enrollment. My annoyance isn't really with crossing the Valley and being stood up, it's the idea that buying dinner will solve the bigger problem. It's a bad system, and it's creating a monster.

I pray about this a lot. I believe in the Franciscan mantra of preaching the Gospel at all times, and speaking if I have to. Should I speak? Or should I keep silent and let God work in His way? I can, and do, pray that she will allow the Holy Spirit to move in her life. I want to tell her, swearing on my mother's all-too-recent grave, that yes indeed there is a God, and he is a great God.

I think I'm hoping that what I read on various Catholic forums will come to pass for her: having moved away from, or even rejected, the Holy Mother Church, that she will wander from place to place and, after time, come home, joyfully, realizing that this faith is true and a real home, a real comfort, and feel His Real Presence.

~~

The interviews for Candidacy happened last weekend as I was burying my mother. So, that will be postponed. I have questions to ponder.

As a fellow inquirer told me, "Incidentally, I spoke with one of the ladies that is going through Candidacy one afternoon, and she said that when we go for the Interview, we should not go too far to the right or left and give brief answers... Just honest and truthful answers are what they want, no doubt." I'm not sure why this bothers me, though it is good advice. I can see it now:

Council Member: "What do you expect from the SFO?"

Me: <mystified> "Uhhhh, love. Peace. Yeah, peace and love. Pax et bonum, right? Peace, love, prayer, guidance... I guess."

Not that the prep questions are that off-kilter--they're right along the one in the exchange above. It what's not on that sheet that mystifies me. I'm not a good off-the-cuff question answerer (love that grammar).

It's time for some soul searching. Short, concise answers that stay to the center. Right.

~~

I will purge more about Mom and her funeral in the days to come. It was very interesting, as well as there being some incidents of incredible kindness and generosity and some supernatural moments that blew everyone's mind. Funeral planning in itself is an education.

Keep Dad in your prayers... he's concerned because it really hasn't hit him yet, but it will. He's still in shock, still in that numb state that main caretakers tend to be in as a protection against their emotions. He told me Friday that it's the first day he's felt like he's not in a fog, so I think it's coming.

Pray for Niece, that her heart and mind will be opened.

Pray for this world, which seems to be going to Hell in a handbasket.