change #2, #SmallMerciesMiércoles: I'm grateful for feet, even when hopping on one leg

view from my office today!

People with arthritis often claim they can predict the weather, based on their joint pain level, and with good reason. Studies show a variety of weather factors can increase pain, especially changes… in barometric pressure (especially falling) and in temperature (especially lowering). 

A study from Tufts University in 2007 found that every 10-degree drop in temperature corresponded with an incremental increase in arthritis pain. In addition, relatively low barometric pressure, low temperatures and precipitation can increase pain. Researchers aren’t sure why this happens. They suspect certain atmospheric conditions increase swelling in the joint capsule.

~Arthritis Today magazine

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"'Man is a creature composed of body and soul.' We have recited that truth from the day we first learned our catechism. But until the body fails us, or pains us, or forces itself upon our attention by some little twinge or complete collapse, we tend to take for granted this first and most precious of God's gifts to man or to give it short shrift."  

"What came to me in the prison camps was a tremendous respect and love for the poor old body. It was the body that bore the brunt of all suffering, though the soul might well experience anguish. And it was the body that had to sustain you, for all the strength of will and determination it might have. It was the body that felt the sting of the wind, the bite of the cold, the cramp of aching muscles, the raw lash of cracked and bleeding flesh, the gnawing agony of hunger in the belly, the soreness and numbness of overtaxed sinews... and yet somehow it always managed to get you through one more day. It was the body that underwent the suffering, felt the agony, and carried the heavy weight across its shoulders of this daily passion and slow death of inhuman work."  

"It is in the body that we exist and work out our salvation. It is in the body that we see and take delight in the beauties of God's created universe, and in the body that we ourselves bear the marks of Christ's passion."

"God by his Incarnation took on a human body."  

"For each of us salvation means no more and no less than taking up daily the same cross of Christ, accepting each day what it brings as the will of God, offering back to God each morning all the joys, works, and sufferings of that day. But those are abstract words."  

"What it means, in practice, is spelled out as always by the poor old body. It means getting up each morning and going to bed exhausted. It means the routine, not the spectacular. It can mean drudgery, pain, putting aside pleasures, happiness, or the love the human heart craves until another time, so that what is necessary at the moment can be done. It means working for others, touching the lives of others, through the medium of the body."

~Walter Ciszek, S.J., 

excerpts from “the Body” chapter 

in He Leadeth Me.

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I am hopping on one leg today, literally. I’m not sure what’s causing it, exactly, but I’m having pain and swelling issues with my left foot. 

I don't even have a weird, fun story to go with it! There’s nothing broken, so it seems to be related to the inflammation problems related to my condition.

Which, believe it or not, leads me to the next “adjustment” that I’m proposing to myself!

Yesterday I wrote about keeping holy the Sabbath day, and my commitment to un-plug from technology on Sundays. In addition, I have decided to also work at being more regular with my writing time, including the frequency of the blog—and yes, within my physical abilities!

I’ve written before about the importance of  thankfulness and gratefulness, and how this attitude affects my life. And I’ve participated, however briefly (so far!), in CatholicMom.com’s #SmallSuccess Thursday Project.

So it seems like a natural sequel to developing my writing routine if I include weekly posts on what I’m grateful for, with specifics.  More on the details of this idea over the next few weeks, but for today… here’s what I’m calling #SmallMerciesMiércoles, which I will publish (¡con la ayuda de Dios!) every Wednesday.

#1   I’m grateful that I did not break any bones in the foot of my “poor old body”

#2   I’m grateful for the opportunity this situation gives me to stay home, put up my feet (ha!), and write!

#3   I am also grateful for my body’s reminder that God is here, incarnate, in every minute detail of my life and myself!

Ps. For those of you who’ve reached the age where your body helps you predict the weather – here are two helpful online sources to help you verify what you’re already feeling:

Over at ArthritisToday.org, an Arthritis Index based on a proprietary forecast by the meteorologists at www.AccuWeather.com. Click here! 

and over at weather.com, you can type in your zip code and get your “local aches & pains forecast”

or even peek at the “National aches & pains map”

The “aches & pains” forecast looks great for me today!  

What about your neck of the woods?

Christmas: it's not over 'till I say it's over

I’m not ready for Christmas to be over. 

No, with this statement I’m not trying to teach you something about the true meaning of Christmas. And I’m not making some kind of theological testimony about today being the final day of the Christmas season, liturgically speaking.

But I am aware that my hesitation in taking down Christmas lights and decorations is coming from somewhere deep within me. I’m not procrastinating or postponing the inevitable work that comes with packing up Christmas. Not this year.

Perhaps it’s related to having a beautiful new baby in our family, our granddaughter Sofia Maria. Perhaps it all went too quickly and I’m still digesting.  All I know is that I’m truly not ready to pack up the crèche and put away the Christ child, this God-baby born of a woman… I’m still pondering what this means in my own life, right now.

So, I’ve made a radical and significant compromise with myself. 

I will take down the Christmas tree—and most of the random Christmas decorations (towels, coffee mugs, etc) around the house.

But I won’t pack up my collection of Nativities throughout the house.

Not yet.

Ps.  I’m keeping the twinkling white lights up, too.

stress and anxiety at Christmas: open up your life

“We must go through the stages of feeling, not only in the last death of anything, but all the earlier little deaths. If we abort these emotional stages by easy answers, all they do is take a deeper form of disguise and come out in another way. So many people learn that the hard way—by getting ulcers, by all kinds of psychosomatic diseases, depression, chronic irritability, and misdirected anger—because they refuse to let their emotions run their course, honor them consciously, or find some appropriate place to share them.  Emotions are not right or wrong, good or bad. They are merely indicators of what is happening, and must be listened to, usually in the body. People who do not feel deeply finally do not know or love deeply either. It is the price we pay for loving. Like Job we must be willing to feel our emotions and come to grips with the mystery in our head, our heart, and, yes, our body too. To be honest, that takes our entire life. My emotions are still a mystery to me, and without contemplation they would control me.” ~Richard Rohr, adapted from Job and the Mystery of Suffering: Spiritual Reflections “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give it to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid.” ~John 14:27 “How better to celebrate again the presence of God among us than by learning from Joseph how to be free, fearless, and faithful, prudent, and wise? Faith for Joseph was an adventure that allowed him to walk with confidence into the unknown. He did not just open his home, he first opened his life. Three days before Christmas, the Church invites us to do the same.” ~Fr. Thomas Boyer

I’ve had a couple of days recently where waves of assorted emotions sweep over me, like an artic blast blowing into town. Often without warning, I feel a shift, followed by an immediate flow of feelings and tears.

I’ve written about anxiety and stress before. But this is different. I don’t know how to explain it better other than to say that something as simple as a song, a card, an email, even an image, reaches into my heart and I flinch. It seems to be frequently connected to a memory or a person, sometimes not.

Experts tell us that anxiety and being overwhelmed by memories and emotions is not unusual during holidays, especially at Christmas time. But this is new and unfamiliar territory for me.

I tried to describe to my friend Patricia the depth of emotions and how they have surprised me lately, and she wisely pointed out that, as we get older, the sensations and reactions at this time of year run deeper. 

Putting up the tree is no longer just about the task, but about the memories and emotions that each ornament brings. Setting out the nativity is not just setting out the pieces, but more about our unfolding understanding into this incarnational event that has changed us, and what it means to us now, as well as its significance in our pilgrimage towards eternal Life.

In Pat’s words,

“What is different now is that thru my life and my living I am in conversion.   I know now that I am a part of incarnation.  Christmas was Jesus becoming carnate, flesh, a baby.  A miraculous, difficult squeeze for God, for The Holy Spirit!  It is at Christmas that I realize I am becoming Spirit and that, thru my memories, loves and griefs, re-experienced thru reliving the traditions of the season, I a leaving my human life behind and squeezing slowly—oh, so slowly, into spirit.  We followers of Jesus, we adopted sons and daughters of God; have a difficult job trying to balance life in two worlds, working thru our life-long Rebirth.  Exhausting.  And in Advent the walls between seem thinner, the consequences clearer, and our joyful but breaking hearts speak to us out loud.”

In case it helps any of you facing similar moments over the holydays—especially when it feels like too much... here are my action steps:

#1, I let myself cry. The tears are my prayer.

#2, I tell a friend (and also my husband. Doing both helped a lot this week!)

#3, I go to daily Mass (where, of course, I inevitably tear up at communion ;-)

#4, I turn on all the Christmas lights, especially the new white tinkling ones I hung this year over the backyard French doors and across the mantle.

#5, I take a long walk with my hubby and my Siberian Husky Diego. There is nothing like physical activity to settle down the mind and the heart.

Yes, the walls between the here and the hereafter feel thinner during Advent... So go ahead: feel deep, breathe deep, sing and dance to music, laugh a lot… let this be your prayer of openness.

[photos around my house this weekend, following a very impressive ice storm!]

All in the family: claiming Jesus as one of our own

“The Christian religion asks us to put our trust not in ideas, and certainly not in ideologies, but in a God Who was vulnerable enough to become human and die, and Who desires to be present to us in our ordinary circumstances.” ~ Kathleen Norris

Our Lady of Africa

Images of the Virgin Mary throughout the world often reflect the physical characteristics of a certain race, ethnicity or culture. Much in the same way, I love the way that nativity sets from various regions or countries take on the physical attributes, clothing, and style of specific groups of people.

By giving the holy family our personal ethnicity, we claim them as one of our own, make them a part of our family. And in a very real way, we bring to life the mystery and wonder of the word ''Incarnation.”

As I wrote in an earlier post, my Cuban grandfather Alipio understood this truth as he built el nacimiento each year with a particular Caribbean flavor!

Our family's first nativity set was a generous gift from Michael's parents for our first Christmas. Not long after, one of our close friends in San Antonio, a Marianist priest who led a yearly archeological study tour to Israel, brought us back an olive wood nativity from Bethlehem. 

Over the past couple of decades, I have enjoyed collecting nativity sets from countries that we’ve traveled to, and thanks to Ten Thousand Villages, a few from countries I may never visit—like Bangladesh and Nepal.

As I set each nativity around our house for Christmas, I am reminded of our small “c” catholic (universal) Catholic faith.  We are, indeed, one in Him—the “infant wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger,” our Savior, Christ the Lord.

This reality is often difficult to conceive (pardon the pun). In God’s infinite love for each of us, for me, the Creator of life became a seven pound human bqby, one like us, in every way but sin. 

We have much reason to rejoice and celebrate!

Our Lady of China

This will be my final written blog post for 2012. But for the next week, I will post pictures from around our home of some of my favorite nativity sets, including what country they are from.

Thank you for walking “Day by Day” with me! 

May peace reign in your homes this Christmas season, and may Jesus be born again in your heart.