my 5 things, thing

I found out through my writer friend Jen’s blog (Ms. Conversion Diary herself) that there’s a thing going around called The 5 Things Thing, where bloggers share 5 things about themselves that readers might not know about them.

Thanks to Jen, I enjoyed also reading two new (to me) bloggers, Micaela Darr and Mary's Better than Eden. And -- since I don’t know who has or hasn’t participated yet, I’m going to tag some of my favorite and dear bloggers. We’ll see who joins the fun. 

Consider yourself tagged: Roxane, Marge, Donna-Marie, Mary, Fran, Renee, Woodeene

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Here are 5 things you may not know about me:

Thing 1 + I started college at the ripe age of 16. 

No, I’m not any sort of intellectual prodigy member of mensa. Moving to the U.S. from Puerto Rico was pretty traumatic and confusing for me as a teenager—and I never understood or fit into the “American high school culture.”  It’s still shocking to my children, for example, that I never went to a high school dance.

Dropped into this “Sixteen Candles” and “Mean Girls" culture, my solution was to graduate early, and go straight into college! I began my first semester at Louisiana State University the summer immediately after graduating from Robert E. Lee High School (Yes, we were, indeed, the Lee High Rebels! But THAT’s a different story).

Thing 2 + I received a vocal music scholarship to attend LSU.

I had a fantastic and pretty heavy accent as a Spanish speaking teen dumped into the U.S. public school system way before there was such a thing as an ESL program. I used to, literally, beg God to take away my accent!  But—singing, especially in a full choir, I felt that I belonged. My voice blended with others and my accent was not an issue.

At church and school, I was a member of various choral ensembles until Michael and I were married. At LSU and at the University of Texas, where I eventually graduated from, I was a member of each university's Concert Chorale.

Thing 3 + I have a tattoo.

Five years ago I had major surgery on my right wrist. Several surgical procedures, including a titanium plate and fusion of my hand bones, resulted in an impressive and most would say pretty ugly 5-inch scar straight on top of my predominant hand. (I have a 2^nd titanium plate in my body, but I’ll save that story for another fun facts list!)

Because of the many physical issues and surgeries I have endured in the past six or so years, a few years ago I designed a red Camino de Santiago pilgrimage cross that I had tattooed directly opposite of my wrist scar, on the inside of my right hand.  Since I don’t see the point of having a hidden tattoo, this is a visual reminder for me that my chronic autoimmune condition is my current and permanent life pilgrimage.

Thing 4 +  I have lived in our current house for 17 years! 

This may seem like a boring fact to most of you, but it’s a downright miracle for me.  As refugees, my family of origin moved around a lot, and so did Michael and I during the first half of our marriage.

Here are the numbers: From K-11, I attended 7 schools and lived in 9 different houses.  But the total number of houses before the one that I live in right now (counting prior to attending school and after marriage) is a whooping 20 houses!

Thing 5 + I collect sand. 

Since I’m an island girl, it’s no great surprise that I love to surround myself with all things related to the beach, from shells to a 15-gallon fish tank next to my desk. My sand collection started as a way of bringing home a visual reminder of some of my favorite beaches. Then, my children and their friends added small samples from far away places that they have visited. And now my friends will often take the time to grab a Ziploc or plastic bottle and fill it with sand from exotic beaches I only dream of visiting, like Hawaii and Tanzania

Not only can sand differ in coarseness, but it can also have different colors! It’s fascinating. I am constantly learning about it—and forgetting, then learning again J

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What about you? What’s a fun thing about yourself that most people don’t know? Why don't you surprise us and share with us here?!

The winner of CRAVINGS is...

We have a winner!

When I hosted the drawing for Mary DeTurris Poust's Cravings, I drew a name -- but have not been able to connect with that person. So, I will try again.

We have a winner… again... 

I am pleased to announce that Matthew Schiller has won a copy of Cravings. Matt, send me an address to receive your copy!

MLK, Jr: "I've been to the mountaintop" + announcing the winner of CRAVINGS

"And that's all this whole thing is about. We aren't engaged in any negative protest and in any negative arguments with anybody. We are saying that we are determined to be men. We are determined to be people. We are saying -- We are saying that we are God's children. And that we are God's children, we don't have to live like we are forced to live...

Let us rise up tonight with a greater readiness. Let us stand with a greater determination. And let us move on in these powerful days, these days of challenge to make America what it ought to be. We have an opportunity to make America a better nation. And I want to thank God, once more, for allowing me to be here with you...

Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land! 

And so I'm happy, tonight. 

I'm not worried about anything. 

I'm not fearing any man! 

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord!"

~Martin Luther King, Jr. [3 April, 1968]

Excerpt from Martin Luther King, Jr's final speech,

delivered 3 April 1968, Mason Temple (Church of God in Christ Headquarters), Memphis, Tennessee.

He was assassinated in Memphis the next day, April 4, 1968.

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And the winner of a copy of "CRAVINGS: A Catholic wrestles with food, self-image and God," is....

ERIN! Unfortunately, I don't have any specific information (other than her comment name) to let Erin know she won... so, Erin, if you're reading this, please drop me an email with your whole name and address! mymaria@me.com

What are you hungry for?

It's ironic, and more than a little funny, that I've been struggling with food and "hunger" all week. 

I say ironic because, since last Sunday, I've been featuring Mary DeTurris Poust's latest book, Cravings: a Catholic Wrestles with Food, Self-Image, and God. The book--and my posts about it--have provided me the opportunity all week for several insightful and thought-provoking conversations with friends and readers. 

Yet all week I have been "hungry" for all kinds of crazy things. Desserts that I never want. A second helping of something I barely enjoyed. Even a 7-11 hot dog was calling my name. I also found myself struggling and acting annoyed with situations and issues that normally don't faze me. To say I've been off all week is an understatement.

Cookie monster at bedtime

This morning, when it came time for the examination of conscience at Mass, our celebrant reminded us that Jesus asked us to give ourselves in love to three things: God, our neighbor, and ourselves. He also pointed out that, in his experience, most of the offenses for which we need to ask forgiveness are usually offenses against ourselves. I first winced when he said that, but still tried to imagine what he could mean by that statement.

So right there and there, I asked God to forgive me for the way I've been acting towards myself, and to show me what that means, exactly. 

As I pondered this throughout the day, the first thing that became obvious, is that I have not been taking my regular quiet time in centering prayer. I have good enough reasons for not doing it for every day of the week, but it doesn't change the reality. Problem number one, check.

I also had to acknowledge how hard I've been on myself. All week my little Fred Flinstone devil figurine has been flying above my shoulder whispering words of contempt: Nothing I do is right. How could I mess that up. Here I go, wrong again. Basically, I screw up all over, every day, in every way possible--which is, in and of itself, impossible! Problem number two, check.

Which leads me to my "hunger" all week. I've been turning to food to fill me, to make me feel better, to stuff the hole I feel inside me.  As Mary wisely asks in Cravings, the real question is: what am I hungry for?

"If we believe we are made by our Creator to be exactly who and what we are--nothing more, nothing less, nothing better, nothing worse--we can begin to let go of some of the shackles that bind us to false ideas of physical beauty and outward appearance. We can finally look inside and discover our true selves and the wellspring of love that is the Spirit of God within us... 

When we do that, or even take the first baby steps in that direction, we find, almost without realizing it, that our need for other things, whether food or alcohol, shopping or obsessive cleaning, suddenly begins to lessen. The good feelings we tried to obtain through an extra slice of of pizza or a hot fudge sundae are now suddenly there for the taking. No spoon required. No calories to count."

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NOTICE: This is it, you now have TWO hours and SIX minutes left to comment on this post in order to be considered for tonight's drawing: a free copy of CRAVINGS!  http://goo.gl/nSbqQ 

3 random thoughts: on baptism, being a 100, and tree-climbing oysters

3 RANDOM THOUGHTS:

#1 - From [Sunday 13th's] Feast of the Baptism of the Lord: 

"We proclaim this gospel to acknowledge and remember that we are claimed by God as His own no less than God claimed Jesus Christ. For having been baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, we have been, as it were, grafted into Christ and in communion with Him we are God’s own. Because of that, every time we acknowledge the presence of God and pray, we begin In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. When we do that in public, we are signaling to everyone who sees us that we are Baptized. We are God’s own children. We make that sign to draw brothers and sisters who are baptized into prayer with us as God’s claimed and chosen ones." ~Fr. Thomas Boyer, St. Mark the Evangelist, Norman, OK

"Today we celebrate the most important day in each of our lives, our baptism day... today we are reminded that God looks at each of us and says: 'you are my Beloved daughter/son, in whom I am well pleased'." [my own paraphrase] ~Fr. Brian McMaster at St. Thomas More, Austin, TX

#2  -  Although I still consider myself a newby Blogger, this is my 100th DAY BY DAY blog post. I've learned a lot about the Bloggesphere these past few months, but above all, I've learned just how much I enjoy blogging! Here are FIVE of my favorite posts:

+ Hope Begins in the Dark
+ Following the Shepherd
+ When Pain is Prayer
+ Not Yet
+ God and details

How about you? Do you have a favorite DAY BY DAY post so far?

#3  -  Did you know that in the Caribbean there are oysters that can climb trees?

Well, not exactly. Many Caribbean islands are lined with mangrove, shrub-like trees to which the local oysters cling during high tide. But when the ocean recedes the oysters are left high and dry, clinging for their lives. True story.

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Okay, one more random comment, for lagniappe:

You can still win a copy of Cravings by leaving a comment on this post http://goo.gl/nSbqQ You have until Sunday the 20th!

Cravings: A Catholic Wrestles with Food, Self-Image, and God

It is my pleasure to introduce to you my good friend and author Mary DeTurris Poust!

I've had the blessing of knowing Mary since the 1980s when we both lived in Austin and worked as freelance writers for the Catholic Spirit.

Mary is a talented, award-winning author, journalist, and blogger who has written for dozens of Catholic and secular publications. She is the author Walking Together, Everyday Divine, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to the Catholic Catechism, and Parenting a Grieving Child. Poust was a senior correspondent and contributing editor for Our Sunday Visitor newspaper and a regular contributor to OSV’s popular blog, OSV Daily Take. Her award-winning monthly column “Life Lines” has been published in Catholic New York since 2001.

Mary writes about family, faith, and the spiritual journey at: Not Strictly Spiritual. She lives in upstate New York with her husband and three children.

This Q & A with Mary is part of a Blog Tour launching Mary's latest book, 

Cravings: A Catholic Wrestles with Food, Self-Image, and God.

See below how you can win 

a copy of Cravings 

and enter a raffle for a

Williams-Sonoma $100 gift card

maría:   I'm thrilled to have this chance to visit with you about this great topic, Mary! A million years ago, I read a book called "When Food is Love," are you familiar with it? What I remember most about the topic was the clarity it provided for me regarding how I learned growing up to "use" food as a way of giving love, as well as a way of FEELING love. Your book impressed in me the same idea. how did we learn this? Once we're aware of this, how do we change this?

Mary:   I’m not familiar with that book, but I’m all too familiar with that feeling! I grew up with that same attitude. My mother loved to cook and was always making cakes and cookies and fabulous dinners for anyone who stopped by. You could pop into our house any day at any hour and she’d have a pot of coffee on and some sort of goodies to eat. Even when my rock band practiced in our basement (back when I was in college), she’d come downstairs with homemade brownies and cake. No wonder the guys wanted to practice at our house! 

It can be hard to break that connection – food as a reward, as a comfort, as a way to demonstrate love to others. I think what we need to do is understand that it’s not just the food that demonstrates the love or gives us comfort; it’s the community we build around the kitchen table, the conversations we share over cake and coffee, the comfort we give when someone is hurting and we make them a meal and offer them not just physical sustenance but emotional and spiritual nourishment as well. It makes food less of a focus, and we begin to realize that it was never really about what was on the plate but what was in our hearts.

Maybe that sounds too unrealistic. I understand completely what it means to come home from a disappointing or frustrating day and immediately peer into the pantry for something to soothe my spirit. What I try to do in Cravings is help people – myself included – look at why we search in the pantry when what we’re really hungry for can’t be found there but in quiet prayer, connection with God and with our true self. It’s a hard habit to break and one that requires ongoing awareness and vigilance. Even after we become aware of what we’re doing, it’s easy to slip back into old habits. So we have to become more mindful, to stop when we’re grabbing for food without really thinking and reflect on what’s going through our head and heart. Little by little we begin to break the hold food has on us.

maría:   In my Cuban culture -- like your Italian-American one -- food is not only central, it is in a very real way the avenue to building relationship, to grow as family. What are the gifts of this attitude? And what are the difficulties/hindrances of it?

Mary: Yes, in my Italian heritage family revolves around food. Maybe life revolves around food, and around special foods served during certain seasons. The up side is that something as simple as food can bring people together and fill us with joy. You should have seen the smile on my face when I arrived at my grandmother’s 100th birthday party to find that one of my cousins had made struffoli (fried dough, drizzled with honey). I don’t make it, so I was in heaven. The down side is that food becomes so central we can become a slave to it. I love the scene in “Moonstruck,” one of my favorite movies, when Loretta (played by Cher) comes to tell her father she’s getting married. Before they have the conversation, he says, “Let’s go to the kitchen.” It’s perfect. That is where life is lived out in many Italian families – in the kitchen, at the stove, around the table, even at the sink washing dishes. I have to say that it’s way more good than bad, at least in my book. 

maría:   I know you're a pretty creative "foodie" (I've long enjoyed your FB posts and pictures of the food you cook for your family!). I also know that you're a vegetarian. Can you tell me how you connect being a vegetarian to your attitude on food?

Mary: Originally, back in the late 1980s, I became a vegetarian for health reasons. My mother had recently died of colon cancer at the age of 47, and so I was looking for ways to avoid her fate. Cutting out meat and a lot of the fat that goes with it seemed like a good idea. Later I went back to eating meat because it was just easier with young children and a husband who enjoys meat. Then my middle child, Olivia, at age 7, decided she did not want an animal to die for her dinner (she’s pretty hard core), so she became a vegetarian and I joined her. (She is still vegetarian more than four years later.) But even my vegetarian life is sort of lived in balance with other things. For example, when I went to Rome two years ago, I decided that I would eat whatever was put in front of me. And I did – pork, chicken, fish, even veal. I felt I wanted to experience Rome as a Roman would. I think that’s part of who I am – I’m willing to follow certain diets or plans or ideals to a point, but I’m not willing to be someone I’m not. So I find what I like and what I don’t and I make it my own. So I’m a vegetarian 99 percent of the time, but if I go back to Italy, I will eat meat. I think it’s good for people to do what’s right for them when it comes to food because if you try to live according to someone else’s plan and it doesn’t fit you, it won’t stick.

maría:   If food is not the problem, what unique/specific attitude would you want a meat loving eater like me to consider?

Mary:   I’d say eat what you love but keep your balance. I’ve said before that our faith gives us the template. We feast and fast throughout the year. It’s not all or nothing. I think we can find examples in monastic life for this: Good food, whole foods, cooked in season, prepared with reverence and love, eaten mindfully and with a sense of the sacred. Granted, we can’t do that all the time, but even if we do it now and then, it seeps into the rest of life. Suddenly you’ll find yourself eating chips from the bag while standing at the counter and you’ll stop and notice what you’re doing and probably put the bag away. And, even if you don’t, you’re still likely to eat less than you did before you began this food odyssey simply because you are more aware.

maría:   I love the fact that every topic/chapter in your book includes a list of reflections, a practice, and a prayerful meditation. What do you hope the reader will walk away with as they go through your book?

Mary:   My main hope is that readers come to see themselves as beloved by God just as they are and that they develop some real, practical ways to reshape their relationship with food through prayer, mindfulness, and meditation. I tried to give people small practices that can result in big changes -- things as simple as eating a meal in total silence with no phone or TV or email or newspaper. Just you and your food. When you do that, if you’ve never done it before, you may start to realize just how mindlessly you’re eating most of the time, at least that’s how it was for me when I returned home from my first silent retreat. 

And I guess I hope that readers will know that they’re not alone, that so many of us face the same struggles. Change is possible, but it has to start and end with God. When we do that, everything – not just our food issues – can be transformed.

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Readers take note!

I have one copy of Cravings to give away. Please leave a comment below to be entered to win. You may leave separate comments if you share this post/giveaway on Twitter and Facebook. The contest ends at 8 pm CST on January 20, 2013. 

Ave Maria Press is also giving away a $100 Williams-Sonoma gift card. You can enter to win it here and may do so once a day until January 20th!

To see the remainder of Mary's Blog Tour, go here.

My take-away: embrace the high and low tides

"And I know what I have to do now. 

I got to keep breathing. 

Because tomorrow, the sun will rise. 

Who knows what the tide could bring?" 

~Tom Hanks' character, Chuck, in Castaway (2000)

Our time at No. Padre Island is coming to an end, and as usual, we find ourselves saying to one another, "do we really have to leave?"

sunset on No. Padre Island

It didn't use to be that my hubby enjoyed the beach even half as much as I do. The sand "everywhere" bothered him, and I couldn't answer Michael's constant question, what can I do now? In fact, one of the greatest birthday presents--and acts of love--that he ever gave me was planning and agreeing to camp on the beach for my 36th birthday. Yes, I do mean tent camping. Nothing is more delicious than going to sleep and waking up to the sound of the waves! And, yes, there was sand everywhere.

But we're older now, and perhaps a little wiser. We come to the beach to actually "do" nothing, both of us--to unwind, relax, and just "be." We no longer tent camp, but we still come to the same area that we discovered together decades ago. We come by ourselves. We come with our family. We come yearly in the summer with families who have been our friends for the vast majority of our lives.

In a very real way, this has become our second home. 

As I meandered up and down the shore these past few days, two types of shells stood out in my bounty: scalloped shells of all colors and sizes, and red shells of all kinds:

scallop shell = symbol for the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage

color red = symbolizes strong emotions; liturgically, it's the color of blood and martyrs--and the color of fire and Pentecost

I'm constantly learning about life and my spirit when I'm at the beach...

But just as not everyday can be a 23 mile day, I can't remain here forever, either.

On this time away, the sea reminded me what it means to be and feel alive, changing and welcoming what God has waiting for me from moment to moment. And how essential it is for my spirit to remain rhythmically connected to nature, and to my own daily high and low tides.

Important notice: 

be sure to read this Sunday's blog post in Day by Day, a Q&A with author Mary DeTurris Poust on the spirituality of food and her new book, Cravings. And -- you could win a copy of her book, as well as enter to win a Williams Sonoma gift card!