Forgiveness is Hard

Forgiveness provides us with much graces.

Forgiveness can be a real pain in the butt at first.

The other day, while moving my cookie sheets into my new home, I spied our elderly neighbor.

"Do you go to that church?" she asked, pointing to the Roman Catholic parish just a few feet from our front porch.

"Oh, no," I started. "We are Catholic, but..."

But she didn't hear me. She waved her gnarled Rheumatic fingers toward the building. "I go there. I have gone there for 60 years," she said. "I just love it."

"How do you like the new priest?" I asked her.

"Who cares?" she asked. "He's alright. It's the Eucharist that matters."

True enough, I agreed and we started to talk like two cradle Catholics on a Tuesday summer evening on our porches - about All Saints Day parties and Easter egg hunts and house blessings and priests who used to like to play baseball with the kids of the neighborhood.

Gone are those days, I thought.

She asked where we had gone when we lived on the mountain. I pointed to the other Roman Catholic parish across town. She said her ladies club meets there once a month.

"Beautiful church," she said, allowing a wide smile across her face. A pretty face, even for one who has gone to the same parish for 60 years. "But not very friendly."

I just nodded, and told her nothing of my husband's hard work and effort there, of the three years he served the parish children in the Sacraments and religious education. And especially, I kept quiet about the youth group - his true passion - that he had spent more than a year planning, designing, regulating with the diocese, and fasting and praying over. And then how he was chased out the very first fall meeting, because Sunday nights interfered with sports - even though all summer the youth group had been growing and was quickly much-loved by a small group of local kids.

The old woman went inside her home to get me a bulletin from her veteran Irish parish. I did not read it until my sweetheart and I were back in our car, driving back up the mountain to the home we are selling.

Clear as day, the bulletin noted the "new regional youth group" being started by a brave new Director of Religious Ed.

Interesting...

When Lee left the parish, he left all his curriculum, his notes, his keyboard for music, his lesson plans, his diocesan contacts, everything a future youth group leader would need. They took it completely from him without a thank you, used his format, and then claimed all the work for themselves, and this new Director of Religious Ed gets paid handsomely, where my husband was told, "This will have to be volunteer, because we cannot even pay a janitor anymore."

This DRE takes all his work without notice and pretends the wheel has been reinvented and gets paid full time for Lee's work. Nice. We are getting kicked out of our home, in large part, because of all the work Lee did there without reimbursement, and this new youth leader probably gets that really great diocesan health care plan.

I hope the ungrateful parents who threatened the youth group last year, will at least, give this paid leader a tad more respect.

In one year, we get kicked out of our parish and then, out of our home...Thank God for the Russians. They make all other suffering seem so minuscule.

I have much to forgive. Thank God this week I go to confession.

Excerpt From My Daily Solzhenitsyn

Goryainov-Shakhovsky! The little old man, slovenly in his old age...he was purged in the interests of "freshening up" the staff. He went to Moscow, and returned with a note from Kalinin: "Don't touch this old man!" It was rumored that Kalinin's father had been a serf of the professor's father's.

So they did not touch him. They did not touch him in a way that was awesome. He might write a research paper in the natural sciences containing a mathematical proof of the existence of God. Or at a public lecture on his beloved Newton he might wheeze from behind his yellow mustaches: "Someone just passed me a note: 'Marx wrote that Newton was a materialist, and you say he was an idealist.' I reply [said the old man]: Marx was wrong. Newton believed in God, like every other great scientist."

From the Rosicrucians, The First Circle, by Alexander Solzhenitsyn (pronounced, Sol-zhen-neetzen, for those who were wondering and found the title too daunting).

14 Years

Yesterday, July 29th, Lee and I (sort of) celebrated our 14th wedding anniversary. It's funny, because only two days ago, while packing up books in the garage we are soon to leave, I found pictures from our honeymoon from Hilton Head Island the summer of 1995.

"Look how skinny we were!" I said to my sweetheart, who immediately replied with, "Look how much hair I had." But there was no enthusiasm in his voice.

We painted yesterday after Lee finished work, and I steamed most of the visible carpeted areas. We scrubbed all bathrooms and consequently, had no place to sleep last night. Our bed was covered in boxes to take outside and shove into the back of the Jeep the next morning, and we were too tired to move them back to the newly cleaned carpets. So we spent our anniversary sleeping on the floor, with Lee barely able to breathe since he had hurt his back carrying something heavy up the stairs of our rented home.

"Happy Anniversary!" I whispered before we fell asleep - which was hard to do since both our 9 year old and our 5 year old were sleeping with us in the living room. They on the couches, we on spread out blankets with the dog. Around 1am, a 5 year old fell off the love seat and onto our heads. He continued to sleep with his head on the ground and his feet on the couch. We had to reposition him back onto the love seat twice in the night. I had a headache this morning when I woke to drink hot Styrofoam cups of coffee with my sweetheart.

And while he showered, I had this thought...

I would much rather go through all that we have been through together (even before this present conflict) just to hold his hand for 14 more years. On the floor, with messy hair and a burping yellow lab, with children falling on our heads and calling out to us at all hours of the night...I would so prefer to have all that trouble just to have Leonardo for 14 years + forever.

Surrounded By Prayer and Oversized Dinners

Our friends are making our lives so much more livable.

Our pal, Nancy, has brought dinner two or three times. Catholic School Sister has worked her Italian magic and made us piles of sausage and stuffed shells ("manicot" as my Italian stepfather would say). My brother has helped us move boxes from this side of the mountain to the other in town. Nancy has also agreed to let our precious kitty (formerly her precious kitty) bunk with her family, because we cannot keep her anymore.

Our pal, Homeschool Jennifer, and her family, have agreed to let us rent their beautiful Victorian home from them. They are breaking their own rule of not doing business with pals, because we really need them and they are kind enough to understand that. They have also recommended us to some real estate investment acquaintances...we shall see what God allows.

Our friend, the Byzantine priest, has offered to bless our new home as soon as possible, and wonders of wonders...he is making time to hear my confession this week! True story!

Our pal, Lenya, has packed and cleaned and babysat for us. So has my sister who recently returned from her stately apartment in Europe to sleep in my parent's basement and look for new employment in this fledgling American economy. But she is a teacher, so she will find something soon, and we will help her as she has helped us.

Skinny Sarah called to suggest a mutual Latin Only friend who rents near the home where we are moving. "You could talk to her. I am sure she would help you as well." But we have not needed to do that. Still, she offered and is thinking of us and feeling our pain since she has faced her own financial crisis in the recent past.

My Pentecostal grandmother has prayed incessantly for us, insisting that the Holy Spirit has revealed to her that all will be fine in the near future. That this is all part of His grand plan. I absolutely agree.

Without our friends and all the oversized amazing dinners they have offered us, where would we be? Insane? Feeling completely downcast?

Even more than the dinners, and the cat-caring, and the house renting...prayers are the most coveted around here these days. And they are being offered for the Velez Family from all across the country and world. Even in Eastern Europe and in Africa, people are praying for God's will in our lives. We cannot lose.

And when our friends need us, we will be there. They can count on it.

Sea Sick

I feel like I am riding in a very narrow boat on a wide and randomly stormy sea. Today, I spoke with a representative from the office of the PA Speaker of the House. She informed me that many of our rights appeared violated, though she had no proof. And it is interesting that our mortgage company has been sued for discrimination against Hispanics in many more states than our own.

I have no idea where this will lead us. My prayer, and please pray with us, that we can simply offer the deed over and be able to offer some other family a beautiful new home to live in affordably. The attorneys - who refuse to mail us our reinstatement amount, which would allow us to stay in our home - are charging us $41.00 a day. Already, they have been working against us for more than 20 days. We did not even know they existed until they had already charged us several hundred dollars for two weeks. No one informed us of anything.

Some nights I go to sleep praising God that He simply loves us all enough to offer us His life. And other nights, my husband tells me, that directly after making both the Western and Eastern Sign of the Cross, I grind my teeth so sharply in my sleep that he prays that I won't bite off my tongue or break a tooth.

I have this sense of numbness now, like I am experiencing things from the outside of my own world. People stop me and ask me about the situation and I can actually speak about it as though it is someone else who is living through this. Perhaps, it is a survival mechanism of some kind. My pal, MT - the world's greatest shrink - could probably verify this for me.

But in the end, when I have awakened in the morning and have a strong cup of Swedish coffee in my hand, I am aware once again that God is the Reality that is more real than the world I touch every day.

Somehow, we are alive and well and will get through all of this. Glory to God for All Things...as every Orthodox I know says. Glory Be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit...as all Romans I know say.

The First Circle

"The happiness of incessant victory, the happiness of fulfilled desire, the happiness of success and of total satiety - that is suffering! That is spiritual death, a sort of unending moral pain. It isn't the philosophers ...but I personally, Gleb Nerzhin, a prisoner in harness for the fifth year, who has risen to that stage of development where the bad begins to appear the good. And I personally hold the view that people don't know what they are striving for. They waste themselves in senseless thrashing around for the sake of a handful of goods and die without realizing their spiritual wealth. When Lev Tolstoi dreamed of being imprisoned, he was reasoning like a truly perceptive person with a healthy spiritual life." Gleb Nerzhin, Gulag Prisoner.

"You are poisoned by the stink of prison-latrine talk - and you want to see the world through that haze." Lev Rubin, Gulag Prisoner.

- From The First Circle by Alexander Solzhenitsyn

Most of our lives are packed in medium to large size moving boxes. The realtor comes to our home this week at some point to put a price on the house we are leaving. The mortgage company wants the house before Halloween. Even sooner than Christmas. We shall see. I am supposed to be writing them a hardship letter, telling them why we were late a couple of times and why they should help us. This, after they have already told us that they will not help us. We still do not know what our reinstatement amount might be. They refuse to offer us that as well, even though they are required to do so.

Today, we did not go to Mass or Divine Liturgy. I accidentally packed everything except a pile of work clothes and some underwear. Not very liturgically appropriate. I emailed pertinent Fathers to let them know of our absence. So, we prayed the Rosary instead. Too covered in dust and debris to receive the Eucharist just now.

In one week, we were visited by the sheriff informing us of our right to argue foreclosure - though we have no idea what our rights are other than paying off the entire loan. No one will answer our questions.

My uncle is dying in a VA hospital in Oklahoma.

And my iron has fallen so low that I will shortly need a new infusion, because my iron loss is causing Dystonia. This is something that I have had for years, and was probably some of the reasoning behind an incorrect MS diagnosis, but it makes the muscles in my hands, arms, legs, and face contort and contract very sharply so that they cramp up and I can't use them. I have to quit my packing jobs every half hour or so. I have single handedly packed most of my 2000 square foot home, and I have to take pain killers every night to get and do more of it in the morning. The strangeness of all this has certainly made me far more acquainted with my local thrift store, where I have deposited a good 1/3 of our needless household goods.

Yes, even books. I have rid myself of 99% of all my Stupid For Funs. No more Grisham, no more Roberts, no more no names. Just Chekov and Hemingway and Joyce and Doyle. And Twain. All the classics - except my extra Les Miserables. I have a new version now. I kept that and gave the college version to the thrift store.

So, off we go soon. Off to a new home and new life. Truly. My parents can't peak in my windows or insist on weekly angry BBQs with doomsday talk on the horizon. Instead, we will be on our own without the entire world walking in and out of our front door like it is a revolving entrance to the Grand Marquis.

And no one will follow us the Eastern half of Catholicism, so we will be free to worship without irritation as well.

Just some friends. We have several who already live on the street we are moving to and this is great.

Sometimes good things happen in the middle of things that look very bad.

And just as a side note that proves such a notion...I am reading Solzhenitsyn right now at night when my arms get too monkey-like. The First Circle. I highly recommend the Russians when one is struggling with any life-changing event. Well, honestly...I recommend the Russians at any time. Books are my compass. Thank God for the Bible, or maybe I would have become a pagan. Who knows?

My American Hero

A couple of days ago, my father emailed me to tell me that my great uncle had finally succumbed to his Alzheimer's and that he had been admitted to the VA hospital in Oklahoma City. I have always loved my uncle. He is one of my truly favorite human beings. And even if he wasn't my uncle I would feel this way.

He has suffered from his disease for several years now, but even two years ago, he knew me.

"Darlin', I am so proud of you," He was speaking of my book. "I keep readin' the same parts over and over again cause my memory is not what it used to be. But I have a book group now and we talk about you every Wednesday."

And I couldn't figure out why. My Uncle AC served in the Battle of the Bulge and fought all over Europe against the Nazis. He kept a diary and, later, turned that into his memories of World War II. As Uncle AC lays in his hospital bed today saying his goodbyes and looking forward to heaven, I think of him with great pride in my own personal American Hero. In my own Private Ryan.

His memoirs have recently been published on a veteran's site for the state of Oklahoma. I encourage everyone to look through them. I leave the link below. And pray for my great uncle - who is truly great - a man who marched with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr in Memphis when it was still illegal for African Americans to eat at a diner table with a white man. And he fought Nazis and saw proof of death camps and still had the faith to be dedicated Christian all his life.

An excerpt from his experience in France at the end of the war.

About this time, we knew we were completely surrounded by the enemy. I am sure man's, especially young men's, hypocrisy shows itself more in war than at any other time. You do a lot of praying, Bible reading and agonizing. The next day, maybe the shooting stops and maybe you kind of say, "Lord I don't need you now that the shooting has stopped." Anyway, I thought it was predestined that we would win. Nonetheless, I was doing a lot of praying and Bible reading at this time. It was about this time that I read the following, "We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed but not in dispair; persecuted but not forsaken; cast down but not destroyed; always bearing about in the body of the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our own bodies." (II Cor. 4:8-10). I was scared a lot of times after this, but I always believed, after this that I would get home.

and on finding death camp survivors...

We went north along the west side of the Rhine, crossed the Rhine, then went south. We went through all kinds of areas where Kraut gas chambers had been used, but I never went to see all the dead bodies. The living were terrible enough. I can't believe one creation of God's could treat another that way. Let it suffice to say, we literally saw many walking skeletons.

Read on. This is your American Hero, too.

Click Here

Amidst the Bad News...

There is something wonderful happening in America!

A dream...

A miracle...

A birthday gift for me...

President Obama's ratings are plummeting!

Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!

Amen!

(Dont' screw this up, conservatives. Let's keep this trend going and squeeze our obese capitalist agendas back into 1600 Pennsylvania Ave)

Birthday Wishes and Really Big Bears

Today, after I packed up a good portion of the upstairs - while my kids played at a friend's house for the afternoon - I sat down to read the mail and drink a much-needed cup of coffee. Amidst the bills and newspaper (whose articles I have neglected to participate in as of late) was a card addressed to me from my pal, the Orthodox priest.

"Happy Birthday, Tiffani. May God bless you and your wonderful family for years to come."

Fr. N

Really? Priests do that? It was such a nice gesture, I decided to carry the card around with me all day in my pocket. A neat little reminder that we matter to people.

And then I had this thought...How do the Russians always seem to know when my birthday is, how to reach me nearly 20 years after our last conversation, when to encourage me? It is like they save their words for the most important moments. Like they get information whether I offer it or not.

"You survived Siberia. You can survive this."

Yes, and I thought you had forgotten who I was completely, because you rarely speak even when spoken to. And you never reply to emails or letters. I exist still in your world?

"Happy Birthday."

Did I ever mention my birthday? How nice of you to know it and to care. Truly. It makes me feel more like I belong somewhere in this world.

It was a wonderful and unexpected surprise. But still surprising. The Russians are like that. They are everywhere and nowhere at the same time. They appear and then disappear and then reappear again when you think they had finally disappeared for good.

"We are watching you, friend. Just know that you are still one of us."

And on my birthday, this gigantic black bear crossed through my yard and looked up into my window. I laughingly said, "Look now, kids! One of the Russians is coming!"

Can I use the big 900 lb bear as a representative at any foreclosure hearings? Cause that might make this whole thing quite enjoyable. I can put a hat on him and call him Uncle Volodja - just like my fictional horse in Siberia. I wonder if I might be able to train him to hold a briefcase and lie like an attorney?

The Russians have come, and they are wishing me a happy birthday and reminding me that I am stronger than I think I am. I am happy today not to be French. I would probably not appreciate a Baguette as much as a reminder that I had once survived Siberia under the forceful guidance of my quirky Russian friends who insist they are family. And I would much rather be reminded, by a card with an Orthodox cross on the outside, that birthdays are supposed to be happy occasions no matter the circumstances that surround it.

He Loves Mankind

Life is busy, and I am tired. Very tired. We are boxing up every inch of our lives except for the Icons and the Rosaries that most matter - the ones already frayed from years of prayer and contemplation. We won't actually wrap up any Icons and nothing that is blessed. We will hand carry all those very necessary reminders of the mighty cloud of witnesses who intercede for us - and all who need them - every day.

We are going to see our new home in a few days, and we are all looking forward - amazingly - to being out of this one. We are selling the big beautiful home and praying that it beats the foreclosure date. The sheriff stopped by today to very apologetically inform us of the court order against our property. Even he seemed surprised that we have been denied a reinstatement amount, and that late payments can result in such harsh treatment. We could have our home sold out from underneath us by Halloween. Even the mortgage company employees seem appalled for us.

Several friends have called or sent encouraging emails. My pal, Nancy, is making us dinner tonight - which is great, because I only have the energy to make everyone more peanut butter and jelly. Several people have told us how odd this treatment is, especially in this economy. Especially since we have been paying our mortgage all along. Several more friends have remained completely silent, and one even suggested that she really can't speak to us until this whole thing is over, because it is too upsetting for her. I know several more are rightfully (and hopefully) enjoying their much-deserved summer vacations, and will have no idea why we no longer answer our phone on the mountain when they return in the fall. Why the phone number no longer exists. I am not going to email everyone. I write about this for two reasons: One, I have no ambition to write about anything else. This is taking all my concentration. Two, because I know so many who are in worse places with their mortgages and it could be any day for them. Perhaps, our example will encourage them to starve the cable bill a bit. Not that we didn't. It seems that mortgage companies will work with those who have lots of extra money they are tossing at "non-essentials". On things other than food and gas. We don't have extra, so we are getting kicked out.

It's all very strange. To be moving this fast. But, in all this weirdness - while others who truly are behind in their payments remain safely in their homes - we are grateful for God's goodness, for His hand on our lives. What else can we do? Absolutely everything except our attitudes are completely out of our hands. It is a harsh realization that no one with a mortgage actually owns their home until the mortgage is paid off. Thus, it can be taken when payments are late. The true owner (the mortgage company) wants their property back.

I am reminded of the Divine Liturgy as I pack and run through reams and reams of Duck Tape..."For He loves mankind."

In all of this, I know His love is real forever. And this is all the information I am privy to these days.

You Survived Siberia...

You can handle this.

So said a friend of mine from Russia.

True. I did survive Siberia, but as an American traveling there. A little different than, say, those millions who survived it as Russians in prison.

Anyway...

Today, I am so incredibly exhausted, I don't even know how I am going to complete all the packing and painting for the rest of the day. I am way overdue for another iron infusion at the cancer center. I suppose that soon my doctor will order me one, and all I can think about is how much time that is going take me away from all the moving work I need to get done.

How am I going to paint when I have spent the day with a mega IV in my arm?

Oh, well. I survived Siberia, and my iron was probably low there, too. It's just that Siberia is so darn fun I was completely distracted from my fatigue.

We are praying our home sells soon. We care not at all if we make any money on it. We just want it to sell so that we avoid the foreclosure we had no idea we were even close to. The sooner the better. I think I packed most of the shoes and all the sugar, so only dog food and cereal is left. And the cable is on. One needs Lifetime, and other trashy TV, at a time like this. But one with four children cannot live this way for long.

Off to toss unsold Mary Kay eye creams into a used shoebox. I dream about Siberia...the Ob River and the cruise with the great cookies and the Volga where we swam until the rats chased us out, and how the sun never set so one could never sleep, and how no one in the entire country knew how to smile.

Yes, I can survive this. And the home I am losing is not my dream home in Siberia. Losing a wooden shack without running water and driving my horse to work would be really sad. Having to say goodbye to both would be devastating. The dacha and Dadja Volodja would be so hard to part with- this is what I would call my trusty Siberian steed. The impending winter would seem so insurrmountable. At least, I am losing my home in America. That's better.

Home Update

After my post about our sudden and unexpected move from the home we have worked for and lived in for nearly five years now, my pal, Nancy, sent me an email about MakingHomeAffordable.gov. We had not heard of this, so we called late last night, and well after midnight when my husband hung up, we discovered that we had several options - all of which could save us from foreclosure if our mortgage company chooses to work with us. Up till now, they have refused to speak with us, as had the attorney they sent us to.

A couple of things every American homeowner should know:

*Even if you are a day late on your mortgage, your mortgage company can slap you with foreclosure papers. So, if you are a couple of months behind and you have not yet heard from them, do not just hope for the best and think a late payment will cover you. Behind every mortgage company is a group of investors. Your investor may have information on your income and how much money you spend on "non necessary items". If that number is large enough to make your mortgage payable, they may have left you alone for a while, but sooner than you think, they will shut the door on you. Be sure of it. Time to get your money in order and learn how to spend reasonably, because when attorney fees start mounting on you, it will be hard to sell. If you do the calculation at the Making Home Affordable site and you are not eligible, it means that you have been spending money where you really do not need to be spending it, and it is time to streamline. This is your big advantage, your way out of the mess you are in. This may sound harsh or unfair, but trust me, to be within or below your means with no way out is even scarier.

*If you are eligible for this program, various lenders/mortgage companies have different options to help you. You might be able to have your interest rate lowered, have your loan lengthened up to 40 years, sell your house for the market value only, sell it for less than the market value within one month and still have all your debt forgiven, or hand over the deed to your home to the mortgage company. This last option is certainly not the best, but it is much better than a foreclosure and most mortgage companies will give you between $2,000.00 - $5,000.00 in moving expenses for willfully turning over your home when you know you can no longer afford to live there and selling is not feasible.

When we spoke to the woman last night, she went over all our expenses and immediately let us know that we should be easy for our mortgage company to work with, as we live well within our means. She was amazed at how little - if any - that we spend on entertainment and cable, on clothing or gifts for each other. Even our food bill was amazingly low compared to the average American household. She told us we had done the right thing paying off both our cars and cutting our utilities by barely using air conditioning and unplugging all appliances not in use. She said our mortgage company was not allowed to tell us that we could not speak with them, that we can always speak to our mortgage company. She also said that it may be too late for them to work with us, but she sent off some information to their loss prevention department anyway.

Now we wait and see, because our dear friends at Visionstone Properties have offered to let us possibly rent one of their homes, should we need it. When we saw the home, we became instantly excited and it propelled us to proceed with our selling idea no matter what. It's an amazing old home. They have done a phenomenal job at fixing this place up. No, you cannot take it from us. We may be in there very soon.

So, this is where we are now as we scrub and paint and pack and wrap China and try and figure out what we will do with our extra family members - my brother and the dog and cat.

Even the mortgage counselor who helped us last night was amazed that our mortgage company was so unwilling to work with us, as we have a great payment history, an excellent record of paying down nearly all our debt, and we live well within our means. She found it very upsetting, but not at all surprising, that we had worked very hard to improve our credit but the score had not risen with the hard work and effort. She said this happens a lot, especially in this economy.

She was a Christian and noted our consistent tithing, asking our forgiveness, but suggesting that we tithe with our time only. We do not give much, we just give every Sunday, and this is considered our one somewhat unwise note of money mishandling. Lee told her that we were not going to budge on this. Where we receive the Sacraments is where we offer God our thankfulness. She didn't make the suggestion again.

We have no idea where we stand at this moment right now, but we do know that in a couple of days we will find out if our mortgage company will work with us. If they won't, we are in a new old home as soon as possible and someone else will have the privilege of growing their family in our old new one.

I write about this - forsaking my well overdue news assignment to my local paper - because I know that most of my friends who have mortgages are behind by around 2 months. Fix that now, because you are already in the foreclosure danger stage if you are behind even one day. All those late fees will be accumulated and added to an attorney fee that you will be expected to pay along with your late mortgage payments and whatever else is due. Even if you do not qualify for mortgage help at Making Home Affordable, you can certainly speak to one of their credit counselors who are loaded with information and financial knowledge. Even if you rent, you can call them for advice.

By the way, renters, a recent study in a leading business journal suggested that renting in this particular economic turn down is the best way to go. It will save your credit and save you money. Renters, you are wise. Think before you buy even if an eager realtor tells you it is a buyer's market. Oh yeah, and thank you, Miss Nancy for your suggestion.

Our Sundays

This is where we have been worshipping in the Divine Liturgy lately. I just thought I would share the beauty of the Eastern Catholic Church.

This is where I am most at home. It is the perfect seam between East and West, between Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism.

So while we live through this difficult time in our lives, we find strength in the Ancient roots of the Catholic faith.

We who mystically represent the Cherubim,

and sing to the life-giving Trinity the thrice-holy hymn,

let us now lay aside all earthly care:

that we may receive the King of all,

who comes invisibly upborne by the Angelic Hosts.

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.

Amen

The End of the Beginning

Written while on assignment tonight for my local newspaper. I arrived a half an hour before my appointment time. So I wrote what was seriously distracting me in order to focus on what I had been sent to the township meeting for.

Today, July 16, 2009 - just five days before my 35th birthday - my husband and I sat on our neatly made bed and discussed creative ways to shield our children from the loss of a home smack in the middle of their Christmas break from school.

Already, we have dragged them all over the better part of a 45 mile radius - during the last few days of their lack-luster/watered down vacation and into our work week - to search for much more affordable housing. But today, every lender in a page long list (handed to us last night by a very kind elderly woman who'd walked us through five available homes far below the price of our current one) said we had no business begging for a loan from any of their fine establishments. It seems that all that hard work we have done over the past four years to improve credit long destroyed by medical bills is not being represented in our credit score. The many thousands of dollars we have spent paying old debtors, reinstating credit we barely use, and living frugally far away from the normal American spending radius, has amounted to absolutely nothing. Every door we have knocked on was immediately slammed in our faces if it was even opened at all.

As our lives stand right now, we have no place to go, and just about the time St. Nicholas is to arrive with promises of blessings, our home could be empty of the Velez family and opened for eager "house flippers" at the sheriff sale arranged to liquidate us. Only this time, the flippers will look to one another, salivating. "These people really took care of the place. They really loved living here."

They will get lots of money for our hard work and effort. Something we, apparently, have no right to. We don't even want to make lots more than we paid for our house. We don't want fancy food or new clothes or books that everyone else is reading. We tithe to three churches - even the one that slaps us continually in the face with indifference. All we want is what we were promised - that some people get without effort. Just a decent credit score reflective of our diligence. Some people get life very easy and others do not. All those people who come to our home so often for cups of coffee and my oatmeal, peanut butter, chocolate chip cookies will have to chose another home to do this in, because we may very well not have a home at all.

I realize we were stupid now in listening to all those snappy financial people with Jaguars and spiritual platitudes. That when they said, "Just pay down your debt any way you can. Refinance and take more money to pay off those medical bills. It will greatly improve your credit," they were only saying these things to line their own pockets.

It was a lie. It hate it when people lie to me. It is the hardest thing for me to forgive, but I hate it even more for people to lie to me in such a way that it will possibly hurt my children, punish their complete innocence by forcing them out of their home for a couple of late (not ignored/not unpaid) mortgage payments. How is it that some people spend months paying absolutely nothing and they are still sitting on their front porches?

We have no car payments. We have almost zero debt. We have paid nearly everyone - even those we probably would have stood a good case against paying had we wanted to pursue it. I did not sue the doctor whose reckless abandon in misdiagnosing me with a terrible disease I never had, and using equally terrible medication that has seemingly permanently made me only a partially functioning friend, mother, employee, nearly killed me. I prayed for him, and honestly, wished him no harm. I cannot physically sustain anything for very long, thanks to steroid induced anemia - thanks to steroid induced arthritis in my spine - thanks to steroid induced vitamin deficiencies that give me kidney stones - thanks to yet another lie from a professional I was urged to trust - at least - a little. Sometimes I think it would be better if kidney stones were deadly and I had some huge trust fund upon kidney failure to offer my children.

I willingly gave my doctor mercy. I was glad to give him mercy. I still am. I hope it was just an accident that he was able to reflect on and learn from. Where is my mercy?

A little has cost us a lot. The statutes of limitations ended before the proof of the damage he did me appeared.

What to do now?

Get a another job that will jar my kidney stones loose?

I called my mother for advice tonight.

"It's only going to get worse," she said, speaking of the nation's economic slowdown. "The Lord will take help you though. He will work it out."

This was only 10 minutes before the last rejection of the day arrived. No one, it seems, will give us any money. Just as my eager and obedient 12 year old had helped his mother pack away most of the kitchen where he prepares his famous egg sandwiches for his five year old brother every morning.

Unlike several sets of friends I have, we have no parents with which to live. I pray, at least, one set will find enough mercy to help us. Mine cannot. They care for my grandmother, and my sister has returned from her teaching job in Europe to live with them for a season before returning to Europe - via Spain most likely.

My brother - who we have supported for the past year - though now he has a job and is preparing for vocational training - still occupies the lower half of my house. My obedient 12 year old's former neatly cared for bedroom and our family room where - in better days - friends came over and watched movies and played air hockey in.

"Are you okay?" I asked him tonight when he heard me brainstorming with my husband on how to make our credit score reflect our efforts.

"Yeah," he said. But he has no idea how high the odds are securely stacked against us right now. But he is exceptional beyond his years - with secret and purposeful stealing of the Jerusalem Rosary to pray in the silence of forest he many get to enjoy for one more bright red and orange PA autumn. It is for him, the 12 year old who makes a point of pretending to be heading toward the bathroom after Divine Liturgy, but when he thinks we are not looking, is really heading toward the Icon of the Theotokos and the Crucified Christ to pray. It is for him that my heart breaks the hardest. For each of our four children. One, two, three, four. We obeyed and were open to life. Now we can no longer provide for it. My head swirls with terrible images of where we will end up with the Pocono winter sets in and the kids are well into the second quarter of the school year they are working so hard to make exceptional for our approval.

I hope God loves them more than He loves me.

If people who pay their bills can have such things happen to them, what more those of you who are even more overtaxed than we are? Heed the warning, and sell your mega house. Mine is far from mega, but it is better than we have ever had - by appearances. We will never attempt this again. For sure. We will tell all those who insist that my husband and I owe it to our large family to give most of them their own room, a large yard to run in, the perfect redneck school to attend - I am literally going to slap them with the attorney fees that have now been added to my ever exceeding home loan.

The one for the house so many have enjoyed, but who will maybe not see us with such gusto very soon.

"This is the beginning of everything for you guys!" one friend said when she first saw our four room bi-level four years ago. "You deserve this."

Really? Why?

I regret everything north of the tunnel that leads to where we are now.

I Know That My Redeemer Liveth

Handel simply copied Sacred Scripture, but he believed what he copied onto paper and set to beautiful Sacred music. He signed every work, "For the Glory of God". And it worked, because when people sing the Hallelujah Chorus, they sing the Mass without abandon. They sing of the glory of God, whether or not they even believe it. Even if they are simply copying Handel's words.

It is a good thing my husband and I have decided to sell the house. Yesterday, my sweetheart called the mortgage company to see what our payoff was, to find out what the lowest and highest is that we might be able to get according to what we owe. Already, because were behind - but only very slightly and nothing close to so many other Americans - our account has been sent to an attorney. No one bothered to notify us. It was done a while ago. While on vacation, we still had not decided to move. We were praying as a family to be able to simply keep our house, all the while our mortgage company decided that our dedicated payments (minus a couple sent late many months ago) were not enough.

Now we have to pack today. We have to box up the glasses and the books and sell 90% of what we have, because we certainly will not have room to take it. We have paint and scrub like our lives depended on it. We have to do all this in time for our children to start a new school they have never even laid eyes on.

Last night, we had already made earlier plans to view some houses. We found three we really liked. They are selling for about a third of the worth of our house. We are praying that someone will give us a new mortgage, let us move in before school starts. We are praying that our house sells fairly fast. I have several friends who have sold their homes in less than a month, and I find this miraculous - especially up in the PA mountains where we live.

Should I be blogging this? Who knows? I am not one to keep deep, dark secrets. In fact, I learned long ago not to toss my pearls to swine and share every important thing with everyone, and I learned, equally, that sometimes speaking your struggles out loud can bring the light of reality to them and put them in their proper place, and it can help those who are struggling also, but who are too ashamed to mutter the truth.

I have been there. And this situation is not the worst we have ever faced. We have gone without food and health insurance and without heat and hot water for months at a time in the past. I have had to give my babies half and half, because there was no more formula or pray that a friend invites us over for dinner, so that my little ones can eat something substantial. We have been there before and all while our upper middle class parents watched on and told us "this was God's way of molding and shaping us" and that their hands were tied when they clearly weren't. We faced eviction notices in the earliest part of our marriage and parenthood when I was still paralyzed and pregnant and recovering alone all day at home from Guillian-Barre Syndrome.

We have been in worse places.

This is why I took my brother in last summer when he had no place to go. Who leaves family behind when they are hurt the most? But this effort is what is costing us our home today. It is the bigger part of it. Taxes soared to nearly three times what they were when we moved in four years ago. Gas was $4.00 a gallon when we first began to struggle, supporting ourselves and my brother who remained out of work and solely dependent on us for 8 months.

So now what? We can only pray. We can only get slapped around and beg God for mercy. There is no other way around the many trials and trails of life. We can only know that while we may feel like lots around us is dying away, our Redeemer Liveth.

So said Handel when he wrote those words to music. If this is something you need to know today, I hope my story somehow will remind you of that. So pray for us, and we will pray for you.

"Faith is like a dark tunnel: God gives us the Light to take one step at a time. The Light is not given to see the end of the tunnel." Fr. Walter Ciszek

"Let God rule; be affected by Him. It is like being affected by TV. (contemplation) Learn the prayer of listening. With it comes unconcern, eternal wisdom, and a passive attitude with a total readiness to act." Fr. Walter Ciszek

Job 19:26 "And though...worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God: I know that my Redeemer Liveth!"

Highly Recommended Listening!

While scrubbing down my kitchen early this morning before all my babies woke up and started demanding breakfast (or at least wondering how it might magically appear without their personal effort), I decided to listen to Ancient Faith Radio, as I often do when working closest to my treasured coffee pot.

I dicovered an EXCELLENT podcast today. It is suitable for all listeners: Evangelical, Roman Catholic, Eastern Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Mainline Protestant, etc...My Jewish and Muslim brothers and sisters might disagree, but Christians will not. You won't regret this brief piece on Humility.

Listen Here to Descending Into Humility by Fr. John Oliver.

Don't be afraid, dear Baptist, AGer...It won't convert you. You won't start suddenly and unconsciously muttering Hail Mary's and Cherubic hymns. Promise.

In the Market for Less

I got many a reply to my last post. See below. Most replies were sent to me via email, but every single one of them was affirmative: Everyone agrees that times are hard, tightening the belt is needed. Our family has always been quite frugal, eliminating many things other family's consider necessary. We have gone without a TV for months at a time before, because we could not afford even basic cable. We have eaten what we refer to as "the WIC diet". Meaning, I have actually looked up the requirements for infants on the state agency, Women, Infant, and Children, and eaten the kinds of foods they cover, so that I know my children are getting all their nutrients, but I am shopping like I am on welfare - even though I am not.

Cheap. Cheap. Cheap.

We cancelled our away vacation to Maine this year. Instead, we packed lunches and hiked at various local state parks every day that it wasn't raining. We only ate at diners twice. Diners are cheap. Very cheap and most make excellent Reuben's. We camped in our own backyard and pretended it was the great New England wilderness. We have only driven away from our immediate area for vacation twice in our whole lives, and we always had to travel with others, so that someone else was paying for half of it.

I have attempted to work in the recent past, but I have CFIDS, so when I am tired, I can't move. That happens very quickly. This includes even writing. It sucks a little, but what can you do? Life is life.

And I don't mind my own personal cheapness. I am proud that I can do this and with a strange burst of adrenaline. "See how well I can feed all of you on cheese and Cheerios! You will be amazed!" And I get the job done. Or rather, God does. Just like He did with the loaves and the fishes. I wonder if that was a Friday...

So, we are tightening our crazy cheap belts a little more than usual, and attempting to aim ourselves towards our goal of selling our big and beautiful home for a smaller, beautiful one. Because wherever we go, we always think our life is beautiful. Except for that apartment complex way back when...with all the ladybugs and mice. We called it Plague Place. That was a long time ago though. We have already purchased two nice homes after much savings and work. We can do it again. And that is something I promised never to say once we had settled into our present house. "We can do it all over again."

But we will.

So many people emailed me and said words like, "I wish we could downsize, but we don't have anything to downsize to." I have two sets of pals who live with their parents. The husbands lost jobs and living in the Northeast is just too expensive to do on their own. One set doesn't see any future wisdom in moving out, and the other is purchasing a very nice manufactured home in a community with a pool and miniature golf course, because the husband has lost his job twice in several years.

Others said, "I don't blame you. If my husband could swallow his pride before we lose this house, we would be moving into a nice manufactured home, too. I would totally do it. But I fear we will just lose the house instead."

And what's funny, is that there are those who did not comment, but I have heard them say before that people who are struggling with their mortgages today are doing so because they got these huge interest rate or interest only loans. None of my friends did that. Neither did we. We acted very wisely and even greatly, greatly improved our credit which had been ruined by mountains of medical bills from one the world's rarest neurological diseases. We simply moved into an area that we could not afford, an area all our "wisest friends and family" insisted was the best thing for us. This is our stupid move. Though I do not doubt God brought us here. It's all too much of a mystery for me to personally decipher. We simply are not uber rich. Neither are any of my friends who suffer as we do, and none of them are one of those high risk mortgage people.

Things happen. Credit ratings do not effect entry into eternal destiny. So, we move on. All of us. And I have a strong sense that by the time we have made our actual move, several of my readers will have done the same thing. I don't say all of this, or share our personal story, because I somehow need approval or need for everyone to know our plans. It is simply that I know, without a shadow of a doubt, that many are doing the same thing, and they need lots of encouragement, because their cheapness bone does not run as deeply as mine. They need to read the story of others before they can create their own. As the Catholic writer, Matthew Kelly, might say...we are simply inventing a better version of ourselves.

An even more frugal version. We are in the market for much less material, thus offering us much more freedom. It's like the scene in The Mission where Robert DeNiro (Jesuit Priest) finally drops his old load of mercinary armor over the edge of the falls in South America. He joins the mission and finds his true life purpose - which wasn't ever truly created for "having it all".

Anyone who tells you that you can have it all is selling something, and it isn't going to amount to anything. No one gets to have it all. Sometimes, like we who never assumed everything would ever be ours, gets to learn again and again that only God Himself can truly sustain us - no matter the size our house, the rating of our schools, the quality of our parishes. The rest is all vanity, and mostly, a huge waste of time. To chase it will only spin you closer to a tired heart and an early death.

Life On the Cheap

From Big and Beautiful To Something More Like This...

Recently, I have started to hate the mortgage attached to the house I love. I said to an Eastern priest pal, "I love my house, but I hate my mortgage."

"Back up," he said to me, completely taking me by surprise. "You actually love your house?"

"Yeah," I said. "It's beautiful! It's almost 3,000 square feet, four bedrooms, three baths, two levels, two car garage, mountain setting, brand new - only four years old this fall..."



"But it's just a bunch of wood and metal and glass," he said, tucking his hands into his vestments. "You can't love it. It's not possible. Unless, of course, it has become your idol."



"Not my idol, exactly," I said, "but I definitely feel like my husband and I are its slaves - forsaking all others to meet its demands."



He just nodded. Both hands now inside the vestments, folded across his chest. "You are smart enough to know how you should take this from here, cradle Catholic. I am not going to say anymore."



True enough.



Our house never started out this way - too expensive. In fact, it was insanely affordable when we first purchased it. It was everything else that was taking too much of our funds - food, gas, car payments (which are also insanely cheaper than most couples). But, then we refinanced and took out a loan or two and paid off most of our debt. Which was all fantastic, but did you read the part where I mention taking out loans to pay down the debt? What have we actually paid off?



Our credit score is nicely high now. We can get approved for much less house now at any moment - thus, offering us much more in the way of happiness.



Time to scrub the floor and repaint the walls. Time to put the house of up for sale.



Everyone Lee and I know who are our age, or who have as many children as us (most of our pals), and who have a mortgage, are strapped these days. Only one of those couples, maybe two, is actually strapped because of job loss or because of lowered income. Most of us are trapped because once upon a time in our pursuit of the American dream, we were stupid. Real stupid. And now we are all slaves to our stupidity. To our needs to have bigger and better and nicer and brighter or the best. The best neighborhood, the best schools, the best church, the best friends, the best shopping, the best view, the best hiking, the best house, etc...



It's such a pale of pig slop, friends. It really is.



"We have to downsize!" I said to my husband excitedly during the last couple days of our vacation. "Why don't we sell our big, beautiful house and buy one of those hot ranch/modulars with lots of room and hot appliances, but with (literally, because I have done the math) one third of the mortgage we have now!"



At first it was hard to convince him, and then I said...



"I would never have to take one of those stupid jobs that I am too uninspired to keep. All that tension in the back of your whip lashed neck would probably leave. We would still have great friends, a great universal Church, an exceptional family, the best neighborhood (because we will have moved in:)! What do you think?"



He was still a little unconvinced. And then we drove around for three days looking at homes, speaking with realty professionals, etc...None of them thought we were insane.



"My mortgage has gotten too dang fat, and we have four children who still need raising and, at least, one of them is homeschooled. Maybe all of them will need to be again one day, and I don't have the time or blind ambition to leave my family all day to work outside my home. It makes me sick. Literally," I said to this one sales professional yesterday afternoon.



"I don't want something that looks like a trailer. Our big beautiful home is already a modular. But I am willing to take it one step down and live like one of my absolute favorite Orthodox priests and writers lives. I am ready to go manufactured and have a teeny weeny mortgage." I made a sign with my fingers as though I was holding a very tiny piece of something special.



"Makes perfect sense," said the guy who would get our tiny commission, should we buy something much less than we have now.



"You are not alone," said the woman we spoke to at another location who has dedicated herself to searching out the perfect home for our needs. "There was recently a family with four children who did the same exact thing as you. They had a lovely home in the Lehigh Valley, but two older kids going to college, and they wanted to actually be able to assist them, so they sold their home and bought one of ours. A three bedroom, but they completely made it work. You can make it work if you want to," she said.



This can be said for us keeping the big beautiful home as well. But, like I have said in past posts, I write because I can and because I can't do anything else adequately. So I can't actually add to the needs of this monster house anymore. I can only take care of the family I cooperated with God to create. Time to make that the center of my vocation and not how to help pay for this neatly formed collection of wood, metal and glass.



Downsizing.



And that does not include buying a much older home that I will have to spend billions on to fix up and soothe because of its many aches and pains of aging. I have done that before. It can lead you to the same exact place as a big and beautiful can.



Don't even try to talk us out of it. Get thee behind me, Satan, to all those who think I should - for some stupid reason - slave for a deaf, dumb, blind, and lame master.



"No man can serve two masters: For either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will hold to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon (emptiness)." St. Matthew 6:24



"...a man's life consists not of the abundance of things which he possesses, but in being rich toward God." St. Luke 12:13-21



Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also...



Time to push my mortgage out of my heart. Out of the heart of most of my prayer and make room for the needs of the starving and dying, of those who have lost their faith, for the pathetic nature of American Christianity....There are greater and far more important things with which to work so hard on in prayer.



The sum of my prayer life should not consist of begging the Master of the Universe for more income and a greater ability to leave my family, my much more beautiful children, my husband whose life and love is my true vocation... in pursuit of the things my big beautiful house (AKA: Mountain of Ugly Debt) demands of me.



Click Here For A Much Better Article Than Mine About Manufactured Housing.

Cradle Catholic in the East

So, if I have any friends left (after reminding them all I was on vacation) then, life is nearly perfect.

Yesterday, I went to a local Byzantine parish whose priest I have been in frequent email contact with. Lee and I have attended Divine Liturgy there already in the recent past, so it was great to bring the kids with us as well. The kids loved it. Before we had left the church for our usual Sunday summer drive after services, I spied my oldest venerating the icons of the Theotokos and Christ in the far corner of the church. He is completely taken with the Divine Liturgy.

"Mommy! That was the best Mass I have ever been to!" said my second oldest son. "Even though they don't have a coffee hour with doughnuts, I want to come back!"

"It was like Mass where people cared," said my oldest.

There was another half Hispanic/half blond family directly across the aisle from us. They had, at least, six children like us.

"It is very hard to find a traditional Catholic parish anymore in the Northeast," the mother said. "I converted from the Assemblies of God to Roman Catholicism (a very big trend, might I add), and was very disappointed with the very unCatholic edge to the parishes around here. So we have gone Eastern."

My husband spoke up and informed her that he, too, is a convert from that same denomination. I told her I was a cradle Catholic. The converts lamented together, but both seemed to have found a home in Byzantium. I know I have. It feels like Catholicism in the rest of the country, in more interested parts of the world.

"Father, that was a beautiful liturgy," I said to the priest as we cornered him outside the sacristy at the end of the Divine Liturgy.

He smiled. "Thank you."

Strange. I have not gotten a response like "thank you" from a Catholic priest in many years around these parts. I shared with him my complaints. He nodded knowingly.

"About half my parish is made up of disaffected Roman Catholics who are wondering where the Mass is going."

One last day of vacation, and it has started off perfectly at the DL, as my sweetheart calls it. We all received the Eucharist Eastern style and took a pal with us.

"Our Lord does not give us what we want all the time," said Father Michael this weekend. "He gives us what He knows we need."

Steaming Catholic

It is difficult being a Cradle Catholic. I am sure a convert from the Church of What's Happenin' Now, or from even a liturgical Protestant denomination (there is the Church and then there are all the denoms that denominated from it) still has a hard time. But we Cradles have a unique pain-in-the-butt experience with our Church. Especially if we are faithful.

Yesterday, while still on vacation with my beautiful family, I watched the movie Henry Poole Was Here. Great picture. But it nearly made me cry (death and illness), which is a hard thing for a movie to do. It didn't make me nearly cry for the obvious reasons though. It made me cry because it reminded me of where I grew up - LA - the same place where Henry Poole grew up and returned to when he grew into his thirties, lonely and dying. And it reminded me of the Latin Catholic Southern California where I learned to know God, to trust Him through my Church. It made me long in a very sad way, for that past. For that style of Catholicism that is completely foreign to the cold Northeast.

I hate the way my faith is twisted into Oktoberfests and mom and tots groups and nearly absent pro-life movements in this part of the country. I hate the way priests can live completely apart from Canon Law -as if the Pope is not their boss. Not their Holy Father. I hate that they can refuse me confession, because they have more important things to do. How they can rush me along in it, because my confession is "boring".

It must be hard for converts. If you convert while living in the dead, rapidly Catholic-shrinking, priest sex scandal Northeast, and you never experience that profound, devoted, Latin missionary version of the rest of the Catholic part of America, you might actually believe that this is all there is to Catholicism. That this is being Catholic.

That must suck.

It does for me. It sucks so much (I apologize for completely tossing aside all my years of study at great American universities and colleges to write like an eighth grader) that I have actually had to step over to the East in order to recognize that beautiful, incense-filled, Western Latin Church I grew up in.

"So, Father," I asked a wonderful Byzantine priest recently - whose liturgy I will be part of this Sunday - "is the tiny, mostly ignored East now saving the huge, elephant, train wreck West?"

"Not exactly," he said. "Most Catholics who were never taught to be Catholic - which is the Church in the Northeast - are just leaving or only showing up for Easter and baptism. They would never put up with all this." And he sweeps his hand across the view of the Icon screen, the Eucharist centered in the middle of the Church. "We are too strict. Too in line. But we are booming out West and in the Midwest. Even the Bible belt is loosing Christians in every denomination - including the Church. Don't let those Baptists fool you. They are shrinking like a soppy balloon, too."

Washington's Colonies are becoming Marx's thought center. "Religion is the opiate of the masses." Just ask anyone at Starbucks today.

I am still so freaking mad at my last miserable parish - the indifferent parishioners, the sad priests who quote popular movies in order to draw the sleepy congregation into the Gospel, the three-person 80 year old Rosary group, the parents who demanded that my husband forgo a much needed youth group - one of only three total youth groups in a diocese of more than 700,000 - because it was "inconvenient". Where as in Oregon, when I visited my father two years ago, every parish in the state had to have an active, Eucharistic-centric, youth group. "Otherwise we are fooling ourselves thinking the Holy Spirit is going to pull dead old Catholics out of their graves to fill the pews. We must allow God to envigorate the youth or else pay for the sin of completely ignoring them," said a kindly Indian missionary priest from Bombay when I visited this parish two years ago in the Portland Archdiocese

Thank God the West (of America) has figured this one out.

In the Northeast, they speak like the priests who don't really care if they hear any confessions at all. But they will rage if you screw with their summer fundraising beer gardens.

I am so mad. I can only take the Eucharist in the Eastern Rite. They still keep the Eucharist in the center - like they do in just about all other parts of the Catholic world. Even in Europe where they rarely go to Mass - they go with chapel veils on and mostly remain on their knees. You can't even enter a French, Spanish, Serbian Catholic parish without getting, at least, a piece of white paper slapped on your head if you are a woman. "Respect," they will say in their own language.

"It's not that we do not want you," says an Eastern priest to me. "It's just that we do not want our Church going in the direction of the Catholic Church. If you can even call it a direction."

So, in other words..."We don't want to look like those crappy partying parishes that only have pseudo membership unless they are 'illegally' 100% Latin. And that's where you are coming from, my dear. From the Catholic Northeast."

Yes. I would love to move "back home".

Yeah. But I am here. In the crappy version of the Catholic Church God chose to stick me square into the middle of. Why? What could I possibly do other than complain to disinterested collars or unknowing converts who repeat, "Well, everything seems fine to me. I don't even understand your complaints. It must be cultural."

No, former Evangelical. It is just that you got a sad catechises and you don't even know it. You have no idea how beautiful it is to receive the Eucharist in mid-genuflect. Unless of course, you have somehow discovered a hidden Latin only Mass ordered far outside High Mass times or in the basement of your local church.

It would be nice to go to confession about now....

On Vacation!

I know I have been gone for a few days. Vacation, friends. Remember? It seems that the minute I say, "Hey! I will be gone on vacation for a week - give or take a few days," everyone and their favorite dog has to send me an email, leave me multiple phone messages, ask me if I want to go grocery shopping with them since...'you're not really going anywhere.'"

I am on vacation. You are not on vacation with me, dear pals. Love you, but not hanging out with you.

Now, don't be offended. It's just that before this vacation began, my husband demanded, "You will not reply to any emails, you will not be around to encourage anyone, nobody is getting a ride, you won't be babysitting, you are not to answer the telephone."

Except for my father who keeps calling daily to report what he has forgotten from the day before - that he has a new webcam and wants to use it.

Except for my parents across the street who come over daily to see what we are doing and to ask if they can come along.

Except for my friends who leave me, oh.....at least four or five messages on the phone a day..., just to let me know that they are available to hang out should I want to make my vacation just like any other summer day where I am working my day around them.

Do I sound angry? I am not. I promise. Just without my morning coffee, and just leaving a final message (since I can't do it on my telephone and Hotmail does not allow me to via email anymore), "I am on vacation. Will return on Tuesday, July 14, 2009. Even if you see me in Walmart purchasing a new tennis racket, it is just because I am still on vacation and making good on the opportunity to play a snobby sport with my family."

I am just saying....this is why you are all being ignored.

Something Strange...

I was deleting old blogs I had connected to Blogger when, suddenly, one of my blogments here has disappeared. No worries...It's not like I can't rewrite things. I just don't want to.

So, in place of the post that is now lost somewhere in cyberspace (or dead to us all) check out the intensely cool place my sweetheart (AKA: Leonarrrrrrrrrrrdo) took me for dinner last night. He is so hot....xoxoxoxoXO!

Moya

And happy 4th, Americans!

And just as a note...(because the post explaining this is gone)...I am not a convert to Catholicism. I was actually raised this way...As much as I love them, please don't confuse me with the ardent, strident, stickler, Pope-like, converts. Please! I am nowhere near that great of a Catholic. My conversion happens every day - as yours should as well. And I am looking ever closer to Eastern Orthodoxy, because I love my Catholicism so much. I am a nerdy, Liturgical, incense addict. I just cannot get enough. This love began as some of my earliest vivid spiritual memories, from the "olden days" (around age 5 and when Charlie's Angels was still prime time) when I smelled the incense of the Novos Ordo and demanded from my Oregon-hippy-priest, "Fr. Schwab, is that what marijuana smells like?" And he introduced me to my first penance a full year before all the other kids were getting their First Holy Communion.

Yeah, that's me...the American Cradle Catholic. Enjoy!

On Vacation At Last!

We were supposed to be leaving for Acadia National Park in Maine this weekend, but because I had outpatient surgery on my back and Lee needs an MRI of his...we had to forgo the 10 hour drive and just keep the family here...to do this.

We are still "on vacation" and will not likely answer too many phone calls, meet anyone for get togethers, or eat more than hot dogs, burgers, and the usual fishy stuff on Fridays. But we will have fun. This is imperitive, and we'll take lots of pictures of places like this...

And we will marvel at small sights like this...





Sometimes it is great just to experience your own backyard.

Theophany

So I disappeared for a boring while, because I felt like it, and all my friends and readers (generally, one in the same) demanded to know...



"Where the heck are you?!"



Though some said with more passion and with some words I cannot post on a blog adorned by Blessed Mother Teresa.



Every now and again, I get sick of the view of my own words/the sound of my own voice, and I have to take a vacation into someone else's words. I am reading three books at once, and one is profoundly stupid - some of you will be pleased to know.



I begin a new blog here. Same old sidebar with a few additions.


Same old poor grammar, with a few exceptions. I think I can finally spell "occasionally" and "privileged". Though I had to spell check these. So maybe the treatment is not complete...



I am still attending Mass every Saturday night, and going to Divine Liturgy every Sunday morning. I am still heartily displeased with my wimpy diocese, but I realize I am at fault, because I am part of it. Part of the diocese, part of the problem.



I still love the Orthodox. Though I am not certain they love me after they have heard all my love/complaint for my own American Rome.



I have nothing exciting to say today. I had nearly 1,000 posts on my last blog. Today, I have just this one.



Feels good.



Say something, lurker. Okay?



Add your words, so I can get sick of hearing your voice and not just mine.

So here is my first post...and it's my name too. Theophany. Though, I can't blame God for any revelations I may have.