#SmallSuccess: New Beginnings

This week has been a big week for me. I am officially one month post-op and doing well. I feel like I'm starting to hit my stride again.

My energy is coming back and so is my focus. I still can't sing (much) and I also still can't climb the stairs without losing my breath. But I've gotten to the point that I can walk across campus without feeling like I've run a marathon.

And, in addition, I've gotten a few things off the ground this week.

1. Academic - Monday I took my first exam of the Semester - and got an A.

2. Blogging - Yesterday I launched a new feature at CatholicMom.com called Catholic Artist Spotlight. My first subject is the lovely and talented Bernadette Carstensen. I posted her work a couple of weeks ago as my Five Favorites post, but this interview gives you a deeper look into her creative process and how her faith informs her work.

I am truly excited about this new series because it will introduce some very talented and creative people to a larger audience.

2a. More Blogging -  I got my post for Beautiful Music Challenge's series on Liturgical Music researched, written and posted. (Actually, that's no small success. That's huge!)

I'm really excited about how much ground we've covered in five weeks. I am really hoping this information is helpful and beneficial for people who want to know more about where the music for Mass came from and how it works.

This week's post is on The Order and Ordinary of Mass and explains (briefly and simply) what they are and how they fit into the worship of the Catholic Church worldwide.

3. Spiritual Life - Since the beginning of the year, I've been trying to make it to daily Mass at least twice a week. I actually chopped time out of my schedule to do it this week. It's really the most important thing I can do and when I forget or push it aside thinking I don't have enough time, I am always sorry. Now, I've got to get back to doing some Adoration...

So, now it's your turn!
Got some things done this week? Share them with us!
Hop over to CatholicMom.com to share your blog post.

#SmallSuccess: Setbacks and Successes Go Hand in Hand

This week has been a big challenge. I'm not gonna lie.

Monday, I had an allergic reaction to some pan spray I used while baking and spent the morning at the ER and not in class.

I felt really stupid for not thinking to check the label. Seaweed derivatives, it would seem, are everywhere. And they're dangerous to me in a way that is terrifying.

The reaction swelled my throat shut and filled my lungs with fluid within about 20 minutes - as I was driving. Combined with the extreme cold, I have re-injured my voice and damaged the interior surgery site in my throat which meant no school for me yesterday, too.

"Disappointment" does not adequately sum up how I feel about this.

But, setbacks and successes go hand in hand. Because I had to stay indoors to help my throat heal, I have managed to get some significant work done on a couple of big projects.

1. I'm making good progress on my series at The Beautiful Music Challenge on liturgical music for people who aren't liturgical musicians. There's been discussion, which I'm very happy about. And it's been gaining readership, too, which is downright exciting!

2. I updated the website for Fiesta Cinco de Mayo (a fundraiser for the Missionary Servants of the Word Sisters who staff two parishes in our diocese). I am really excited about the updates.

I added a blog to the site so that people could see what the Sisters are doing every couple of weeks throughout the year. These ladies are amazing! Truly! Their work with evangelization is flourishing here, so please keep them in your prayers. And if you've got the inclination, and a few bucks to spare, please consider sponsoring their work.

3. I actually managed to close my computer, turn off my screens and visit with my husband for an hour last night. I tend to get lost in my work and ignore my "real people". This is a small success. Really. An hour out of twenty-four is paltry compared to the gifts that he gives to me. But it is a start.

4. I have five artists cued up for the Catholic Artist Spotlight Feature that begins on February 12th at CatholicMom.com.  I can't wait to share their stories and work with everyone. Now, I just have to make their responses into posts!

The goal for this new feature is to point to the visual and performing artists among us, whether their art is specifically religious or not. Beauty and the power to create are gifts from God and our faith naturally informs how they are expressed in the arts. In exploring the creative process of an artist, we can draw inspiration for our own lives - even if we don't share those particular talents. Plus, we get to meet new artists!


Do you have some small successes?
Maybe you got a little tiny job done that had been put off for larger tasks. Sometimes those are more important than they might seem.  Share them with us! You can share here in the combox or head over to CatholicMom.com to join in the link-up.

#SmallSuccess: Quietly Working

Lots of people think I'm an extrovert, but that's not really true.
I talk a lot in public, but it's a facade for nervousness.
Actually, I crave the quiet.

This week I have been working quietly at home following my thyroid surgery.

No, really. I'm being quiet. ish.

Actually, I've been trying to be quiet, but I keep getting excited about stuff and try to talk too much, which hurts my neck, so then I have to be extra quiet. But, I am healing well and things are getting back to what passes for normal around here.

Things that have surprised me this week:
- I can talk. I wasn't expecting this.
- I can sing/hum a very little bit and only in about a four note range. I'm not pushing it, though.
- I can whistle really well. A welcome replacement for singing to myself which I apparently do a lot.
- Homemade white corn meal mush with real butter is delicious. Especially when prepared by my husband.

Since I've been at home with not much to do, I've been working on a few new projects for the Spring and I'm really excited about them. Taking some time to step back and look at the resources and skills I have developed over the past couple of years has helped me set some goals, and I've determined a little more clearly where I'm headed and how to get there.

So, my small successes this week look a little preliminary, but they're a start.

1. I started work on a new set of posts at The Beautiful Music Challenge that talk about the physiology and science behind music and how it helps us pray.

Yep. Science. We are wonderfully made.

You can check out "What Is It About Music?" here.

2. I began my second semester as a junior in college with a request to present a research paper in early May for a collegiate competition. I was thrilled, honored and flattered.

3. I learned that prayer can be just offering up your inability to pray.
Pain (and the meds that control it,) sleep, a hospital roommate watching a marathon of "Say Yes To The Dress" are all great distractions.

4. Started work on a new series for CatholicMom.com that will spotlight visual and performing artists, whether their art is specifically religious in nature or not. We'll be exploring the intimate link between faith and art and meeting lots of new artists in the process. More on the series when we get it rolling! By way of introduction, I'll be writing about the link between Faith and the Artist coming up next week.



So, what are your small successes this week? Following the holidays are you taking stock and laying groundwork like I am? Is just breathing in and out enough of a challenge? (Hey, that's a success! Not breathing has some dire consequences...)
Share your successes in the combox or head over to CatholicMom.com to link up to your blog.

Epiphany and epiphanies

Every year we go to a party at one of my friend's houses for The Feast of the Epiphany (the 12th and last day of Christmas). She is a musician, like I am, and her husband is an artist. Though I only see him a couple of times a year, this particular gentleman is a man that I respect, not only as an artist, but as a person. He's unbelievably intelligent and insightful. He is charitable and prayerful, but in a quiet way. When I speak to him I get the sense that he is drawing from the springs of the greatest silences in the world. A place where things that have been unspoken dwell waiting to be given words to express what they are. He seems to have the gift to see right into your soul and say to you exactly what needs to be said at exactly the right moment. You find that you must listen carefully and completely to get the full impact of what he has to say because it is as rich as a really good cheesecake: you want to savor every morsel of it and get every crumb of meaning out of what he says.

Several years ago, I had quit singing. There were many reasons for the decision, some valid, some not so valid; some my own reasons and some were reasons that were foisted on me. My soul was just withering up and I was becoming a very bitter, angry and sad person.

I was at this Epiphany party and our host made the point to seek me out and talk to me. He told me that the music was as much a part of who I am as my body was. He told me that my particular gift was the ability to sing from"inside the song". He told me, "It's a gift that not all singers possess. There is something that moves me every time you sing at church. It moves me like no other singer."

As he spoke to me, I began to cry. I couldn't stop myself. I just stood there holding my wine glass and my plate of desserts with silent tears streaming down my face. My husband came to try to "rescue me", but I didn't really want to be rescued. I wanted to be told the truth. Not singing was eating away at me. I was dying inside.

My friend never broke eye contact with me, "I know this might be painful for you, but I really feel like I need to say this to you. I couldn't let you leave without telling you: You need to sing. You have to find a way to sing."

I nodded. I don't think I could even speak. I knew he was right. I did take his advice and found a way to sing. It truly has made all the difference. I couldn't pray without my music. Sure, there are times when it's nice to just go to Mass and not be "on". But, week after week, the music is where I find my prayer. It's where I find encouragement, a kick in the rear and comfort. With out it, I am diminished.

This year, I was chatting with him about this blog and about how I haven't posted much on this blog in the past year. He kind of smiled and said, "You know, I find that I have to wait a few years for things to become a story. If I try to write about things that are going on right now, they become to big and overwhelming to me. They have no perspective. It's better to let them sit for a while until they can be encapsulated into an 'episode' and then they can be dealt with as a story."

And, you know, again, he's so right. This past year was overwhelming. Between the four people in our family we had 10 hospitalizations, a car accident, a death in the family and all the attendant drama of being a modern family with special needs children. How on earth could I hope to give some perspective to that mess while I am still going through it?

I don't think it is an accident that both of these revelations happened on The Feast of the Epiphany. God puts people in your life at the most unexpected times and places. He provides guidance from the most unlikely sources. I never expected to have the direction of my life changed by idle cocktail chatter. But, that's how it is sometimes. Sometimes, Epiphany is quite literal.

In the meantime, I am so grateful to have friends in my life to help me get through the rough times. For all of you who have said prayers for us, sent us cyber hugs or just thought fondly of us in this past year, I thank you. My thoughts and prayers are with you all this morning.

Hopefully, 2010 will provide some perspective so that I can start writing again. I know it's not great stuff. It's not the height of political prowess. It's not the grandeur of life-changing prose or poetry. It may not be anything important or moving or consequential that I am writing about. But, I appreciate you reading it all the same.

Twitter and the Global Village

Right now, on Twitter, I live in Tehran.

Since I joined Twitter a couple of weeks ago, I have thought of it as a mostly useless tool. But following the tweets on #IranElection and #GR88 has changed my mind. With all of the journalists and photographers banned from Tehran, the only way to get any news out, has been through social networks like Twitter and Facebook. Even the US State Department asked Twitter to delay their planned service outage to preserve the link of communication that we have with people in Iran. Granted there have been many posts made that were not made by "people on the ground", but enough is getting out to make it a viable news source. Viable enough that the Iranian Government is now monitoring and shutting it down. CNN has been asked repeatedly to stop broadcasting the Twitter ID's of their sources because it is so dangerous.

I always think that communication technology is amazing. I am totally blown away by a fax machine. Seriously, it is so cool to me that I can put a piece of paper in on this end and send it to Japan and it comes out as a copy of what I still have in my hand.

Twitter is even more mind-blowing to me. In 140 characters a shot (or less), some brave souls are trying to bring change to their world. And the rest of the Twitter world is not just watching but is able to help, from wherever they are. You would not believe some of the things people are able to do. Hackers have paralyzed all of the state-run news outlets' web sites with the promise that they'll give them back when the cell-phone and internet communications have been restored in Iran. By changing their time zone in their profile, to +3:30 GMT, thousands of Tweeters have complicated the search for information leaks and saved people's lives (or so we are told).

I maybe be sitting in Columbus at this moment, but I am tweeting from Tehran.

You may, (if you follow this blog at all), be wondering why I have been silent for so long. It isn't that I have nothing to say. (I always have something to say.) I have started three or four blog posts and have found myself unable to finish them. Either I run out of steam, or time, or I can't think of how I want to say things. It has been very frustrating.

So, this weekend, I promise to finish something (anything) and post it. And maybe it will even be worth reading.

I really hope so.

Fire and belief

Without belief the phoenix
is just a bird on fire.
-Kate Horowitz

I have recently spent a lot of time "on fire". These past few weeks, especially, with Easter tuning, all the liturgies to prepare for Holy Week, family "fun", traveling, sickness. The doldrums hit me like a truck on Monday. The weather wasn't helping any either in going from overcast, to rainy, to continual downpour. I was burned out, wasting away, and sure of nothing except my weaknesses. And just when I was ready to stay in my bed and never get out again...the sun came out. Literally and literarily. (OK...I made that word up.)

When I checked in with all my blogs this morning, the half-haiku above was sitting in my "to read" box. It took me only a second to understand. The reason I was feeling burnt to a crisp was that I had allowed myself to stop believing that I could do it. I was the "bird on fire".

I just have to thank God for all the wonderful people in my life who believe in me enough to make me back into a phoenix again.

An Interesting Test

Thanks to Sarah, at Just Another Day of Catholic Pondering, for this one! This is a test of logic. I scored 13 out of 15. Not too bad for only being awake for about 10 minutes...
See how you do.

Tag! You're it!

I got tagged for a "meme", by Sarah R. over at "Just Another Day of Catholic Pondering". So here's the game: It's called the "Random Page Book Meme".

"Open the closest book to you, not your favorite or most intellectual book, but the book closest to you at the moment, to page 56. Write the 5th sentence, as well as two to five sentences following that. "

When I got this on Facebook from an old High School friend, I had to put the sentence as my status. The book I had closest to me was a History of the Diocese of Columbus. (I was researching for my novel, ok?) I had to put a sentence about Bishop Moeller paying off the debt for the construction of the Cathedral here in Columbus.

Today isn't much more interesting. I have been working on Liturgy Plans. I am home today with a tummy bug and once I could stand/sit up again, I got right to work. So, the closest book is, that's right: "The St. Michael Hymnal". I wondered if counted, but decided to forge ahead anyway. I figured I'd find a line of a hymn or some such thing and be done with it and have a good laugh about how boring I am.

I went to page 56 and what do you suppose I found? I was in the Order of Mass section of the Hymnal and, though it is hard to define what the 5th sentence on the page is between the rubrics and the actual words of the rite, I settled up on the actual words of Jesus from the consecration (in Latin):

"ACCIPITE ET MANDUCATE EX HOC OMNES HOC EST ENIM CORPUS MEUM, QUOD PRO VOBIS TRADETUR."

Which means (roughly, anyway):
"TAKE THIS ALL OF YOU, AND EAT IT
THIS IS MY BODY
WHICH WILL BE GIVEN UP FOR YOU."

I decided that I probably didn't need to follow that up with any further sentences from the hymnal. That basically told me all I need to know about myself today. It's funny how God consistently points me in the proper direction whenever I think of myself first. He reminds me that it's all about Him.

I am tagging all my readers. See what you find, and leave the results in the comment box or post it to your blog if you have one.

What Kind of Condiment are you?

I totally stole this. I was on the Ironic Catholic's blog and she is Barbecue Sauce.

Me? Well, my husband insists that I eat this stuff on everything (which is NOT true...), but I do put it on my Bratwurst. (All right, all you Germans...quit flinching.)

I really wanted to be Barbecue Sauce. It just sounds more exciting. But, alas...

You Are Ketchup

You are easy going and very measured in your approach to life. Popular and well liked, you get along with everyone. Seriously, everyone loves you! Your taste tends to be pretty mainstream American. You go for the classic favorites: burgers, fries, and apple pie. You get along best with mustard and mayonnaise personalities.

What Condiment Are You?

Well...at least I know I am loved! :) Your turn!

The Truth

I found a quote that I love on another blog called "The Ironic Catholic".

"You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you odd." - Flannery O'Connor

It's so true.

What I find when I go blogging...

One of my favorite blogs to visit is the wonderful Churnings and Burnings, by Utah artist, Cassandra Barney. Cassandra is the daughter of artist James Christensen and her sister, Emily McPhie, is also a wonderful artist. A friend of mine introduced me to Cassandra's blog back a few months ago, when I asked him for a lesson in art appreciation. I knew remarkably little about art, except that of the church persuasion, and wanted to learn more. So, one of the first people he introduced me to was Cassandra.

Only, I have found so much more than art in her blogs. She has, for instance, great taste in music and frequently involves the work of other artists in her blogs. It is a great "jumping off" place, if you are not sure what to look at and you are interested in the arts. Cassandra will post music, other visual artists' works and poetry. In addition, she gives little glimpses of what her life is like, day-to-day. It is a lovely place to visit.

I have also met Cassandra's sister, Emily, who paints from her experience as a mother of three young children. I find her art very poignant and moving. It speaks to the trials and joys of being an artist, mother and wife in a way that resonates with my own experiences as a musician, mother and wife. Her blog is called Tenderness and Toil. It is interesting to see Cassandra and Emily, as compared to their father. Their styles are so very different from one another, but there are definite "family resemblances". They are currently working on a project together called "The Tree of Life". I can't wait to see what they all come up with.

In addition to meeting Emily through Cassandra's blog, I have met a poet, Kate Horowitz. Cassandra and Kate recently combined their artistic forces in an exhibit in Oregon called "She Dreamed in Verse and Rhyme".

Kate recently wrote a poem that describes her experience with blogging that I think sums all this activity up quite nicely, called "On Blogging, In Gratitude".

On Blogging, In Gratitude
Small birds, all of us,
chirping without aim. And when
the breeze parts the branches
we discover one another, fat with song,
blinded by the sudden sunshine.

She is a way better poet than I will ever be. If you like poetry, check her stuff out at her Blog: Things Written Down.

I enjoy the people that I have met through the blogging scene, very much, and I am very glad to have the opportunity to expand my view of the world from right here at my computer desk. It is an amazing thing to me to be able to connect with artists, musicians and writers from all over the US (and even the world) and find such commonality of experience, yet deepening the richness of the fabric of my life with their own personal glimpses and wisdom.

I hope that you take some time to check out these blogs and enjoy some really wonderful, funny, and smart ladies in the art world!