Rituals

 I have been watching the funeral for Prince Phillip, Duke of Edinburg this morning.  I do have a weakness for the royal family, Kate Middleton being my favorite.  It’s been really neat getting to see all the rituals and ways of celebrating the life of the monarch, especially after all the criticism about whether the royal family will become extinct in this cancel culture time.  From the beginning I have paid attention to all the announcements and details being shared with the public about the funeral.  I am glad that even during the pandemic the family has the ability to give their loved a small yet proper good bye. 

In the Catholic faith we know the importance of ritual and even though modernity might try to rid of it, it continues because we are creatures who need more than bread to survive.  Rituals feed our soul; they mark points in our lives both beginnings and ends; they play a role in building our personal and cultural identity; they help shape our emotions and deepen our spirituality.  In times of good byes rituals help us to share our pain and begin our healing.    

In my culture, we have many rituals surrounding the death of a loved one.  It begins with anointing of the sick, viewing, Mass, burial followed by a novena and concluding a year later at the anniversary of death with a special Mass for the departed.  I have witnessed how healing the Catholic-Mexican rituals are to those left behind in mourning and it’s beautiful to have these norms passed on thru generations because they speak when words do not suffice. 

While people are saying that the British Monarchy has no place in the future, I am glad to see on difficult days like today that their customs and traditions are bringing the country together.  Even people across the sea are fascinated with all the details about the funeral and why things are done the way they are.  It’s great to be able to see from across the ocean to see the importance of ritual even today.

Evaluating My Roles

 I had a eureka moment recently, after a year of being limited in what I could and could not do I lost the understanding that as a Catholic I am meant to live my life intentionally.  Quarantine put a stop to many activities and I (like most people) gave up without a fight.  Overwhelmed with distance learning I have been living in survival mode and have neglected so many parts of my life.  One of those has been my role as a Catholic.  When the churches were closed I struggled having to give up all the things that give my soul sustenance, but as time went on I got used to not having to go to Mass on Sunday. I got used to not being able to go pray inside a parish or attend any of the many activities that I used to participate in.  Now that everything is opening up again, I find myself struggling with leaving my house.  I got so used to being at home trying to survive that entering the world and adding more activities is giving me anxiety- even if those activities are things that nurture my being.

The closer to the inside = Underperforming. I am only extraordinary in my eBay business.

As I have reflected on my identity as a Catholic I realized that currently I am underperforming and I think that I am not the only one.  This quarantine has taken away from each of us so much, while for me it has only been activities that filled me up – I am struggling with entering back into the real world and not hiding behind a Zoom meeting.  In my social media I see people entering the world doing all sorts of fun things and I am having difficulty leaving my house.  I have gotten so used to being home that even attending Mass gives me anxiety. 

I find myself thinking how did I do all the things that I did prior to COVID?  What I have realized is that life is meant to be lived intentionally.  Before the pandemic I lived my life doing things that made me a better a human being- I wasn’t focused on just surviving.  While distance learning still takes a lot energy, leaving me feeling like I just want to vegetate in front of the television to distract me from the anxiety that teaching virtually gives me, I need to start trying to bring normalcy back into my days.  At first doing things that required no effort before might be nerve wrecking, but as they become habits the nerves will vanish.  I kept criticizing myself for having such a difficult time making Sunday Mass a routine again, but now I know that it’s normal to feel anxious about change- even if that change is good for me.  I think building up my life again post quarantine will have it’s struggles and it’s ok to have those negative feelings, but the secret is not to dwell in the anxiety, but to work with it to slowly start living not just to survive, but intentionally as God intended.        

My Cross

“I am spiritual, not religious,” yep, I was one of those people. 

I have a cross to prove it.  After I started my spiritual journey as an adult I had to do a lot of growing up before I could accept the crucifix.  I felt a bare cross was way more beautiful, inclusive and kept me far away from religious fanatics.  I remember mom taking a trip to Mexico and asking me what I wanted her to bring back and I said, “I want a wooden cross, but without Jesus on it.”  My mom, a devout Catholic, perhaps saw my shame for religious things even so she had a beautiful mahogany cross made for me.  I still display it on my bedroom wall because it reminds me of my journey back to the Catholic Church and of my mother’s tolerance as I overcame my shame for my roots and identity.

My most difficult student has severe depression and anxiety and instead of acknowledging that she needs help she blames everything on her parents.  She says her depression is caused because she lives in an apartment and her parents have minimum wage paying jobs and only speak Spanish.  Her mom constantly calls me to vent, most recently because her daughter is refusing to speak Spanish to them.  I work with this student and try to penetrate her shields and show her that there is no shame in humble roots, but she is stuck in Shameville.  I try to get her to take responsibility instead of play the victim, but she has found a resting place in her own shame.

Yesterday, I was looking at my bare cross, thinking about my journey out of shame and into accepting that I am religious after all.  My bare cross a reminder of my mom’s unconditional love.  Before I found God, I was equally insecure and sometimes ashamed of my humble beginnings including the religion that my parents had passed down to me.  “Catholic” sounded so definite and conjured so many negative associations to a former loving Nietzsche Agnostic, thus hiding behind a barren cross I felt progressive.  Yet, as I fell in love with Jesus and got to know my Catholic faith thru him, I found the greatest strength to make the leap out of shame.  On Good Friday we venerate the cross, in services all over the world each person comes towards the altar to honor the cross with a reverent touch or kiss.  It’s one of the times that you will see a barren cross at a Catholic Church, it’s such a special service to me because it reminds me of my transformation, who would have thunk that one day I would say, “I am spiritual and religious.”    

Lenten Traditon BEach Via Crucis

Yesterday, I attended one of my favorite Lenten activities, our RCIA Via Crucis at the beach.  Thanks to working from home, I was able to meet my friends afterward to help with the setup of each station.  This year, while waiting for the students to arrive I saw a family of dolphins jumping delightfully close to the shore.  During the Via Crucis I got to see a beautiful a sunset, the moon rise and the beach empty becoming only ours while we prayed.  It was extremely cold around  9PM when we concluded, but the fruits of our labors were evident in the hearts of our students.  They were delighted by such a beautifully set introduction to our Lenten prayer and shared with us how they felt God’s presence intimately. 

Usually, I am in charge of taking pictures, but yesterday I wanted or rather needed to just focus on the prayer without any distractions because I so needed that moment with God.  Lately, I have been struggling keeping the flame alive in my spiritual life.  Sometimes I feel so overwhelmed by my job and the isolation and lockup due to the pandemic that I just have enough energy to get through my work day.  I am not only dealing with my personal feelings of anxiety, but also the emotional rollercoaster of the teens and the parents that I work with.  Before I was able to attend weekly bible study meetings and social events that filled me up.  I could run into a parish and be with Jesus or just sit in silence in a pew. My coping mechanisms and spiritual therapy were put on hold this past year and I have been running close to empty.  

Thus, being able to pray at the beach with my friends and students was the biggest Lenten blessing. I needed to be there in the company of faith friends worshipping God.  Last year we were unable to do our beach Via Crucis and so yesterday it was that much more special, a sign that life is slowly going back to normal.  In the years that I have done it I have never seen dolphins join us and seeing them yesterday warmed my heart.  I felt like God gave me a late Valentine by giving me a glimpse of the dolphins doing summersaults in the air.  I realized there’s a big world out there one with waves, sunsets and creatures living under water and sometimes I get lost in the small bubble that is my life.  The beach reminded me of my smallness and in doing so pointed me towards the greatness of our Lord. 

"Look at the birds of the air that they do not nor reap nor gather into barns and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they?" 

Pathway to SFO Profession

On Friday, after work I had my interview to enter into the new phase of candidacy in my Secular Franciscan Order journey.  Now after the Rite of Admission, I will have moved from my prolonged Inquiry State to the next level before my Rite of Profession.  The interview had me recall my journey, specifically the calling of the Holy Spirit towards the Franciscan life and I loved looking back at all the moments that I recall Saint Francis calling me towards his way of life.  To be honest, it was so refreshing and inspiring at a time like this to look back because during this quarantine I have felt so empty and void of sustenance.  COVID took away my bible study groups and Mass- it took away my tangible relationship with my faith community and with the Eucharist- making it such a challenging year without the things that keep sane and healthy mind, body and soul.

My story with Saint Francis is your typical love story, he just showed up in my life and slowly wooed me into the Franciscan life.  I remember not understanding and being quite apprehensive about the saints and one day in the first prayer group that I joined I heard “Make Me an Instrument of Your Peace,” which is often attributed to Francis and I loved the hymn so much that I wanted to know more about the composer.  Finding that he loved animals and nature (something that I do too) made me open my heart to him and slowly I began to find how beautifully original he was.  When I returned to the Catholic faith I feared losing myself and becoming a la Nietzsche a “brainless sheep follower…” I wanted so much to be able to be Penny and love God.  Francis showed me that I could continue being me because God made me uniquely me for a purpose.  I soon found I loved nativities and when I discovered that Francis had been the first one to create one, I loved him even more. 

After returning to the Church I desired to enter into a community that would help me live out my faith and a friend took me to a Dominican Third Order meeting and though the people were really sweet I didn’t feel like that was the path for me.  When I finally found the SFO Fraternity near my home, I attended my first meeting and even though all the members have white hair I knew that I was home.  I knew that I wanted to grow roots and live out the rest of my life as a Franciscan.  I think that God has been challenging me to see how strong my desire is for joining the SFO that I have been in formation for longer than usual first because we lost our Spiritual Leader and then because of a pandemic.  Like I told my fraternity members, “you better let me in, because I am not going away.”           

Hoarding The Beginnings

I grew up with the bare minimum, shopping from the sale racks for basic necessities.  While my classmates had school supplies with the latest Sanrio characters my materials were without adornment.  They would return from Winter & Spring Break wearing new clothes (that their grandparents had gotten), but I had no one spoiling me with material possessions.  The day after Spring Break the most popular girl in elementary twirled in what she called her “Easter dress,” proudly sharing with everyone that her grandma had taken her to Robinson’s May to pick it out.  My grandparents lived in Mexico and I rarely got to see them and when I did my parents were usually the ones providing for them…  My parents too grew up in Mexico sometimes lacking the basic needs.     

I lied on a job application and began working when I was fifteen-years-old as a cashier at a fast food joint.  Since, it's as Tupac would sing, “…I love payin’ rent when the rent’s due…”  Most of my life I would go to stores and look at items and think I can’t afford that and probably never will, but soon as I began providing for myself I began to buy the material luxuries that I went without. However, I couldn’t make peace with paying so much money for designer pieces and often I went with cheaper versions.  Until, I came into the world of buying preloved items.  At thrift stores I found treasures for a few bucks and thus my hoarding began.

I developed this love for things.  Shoes first because no matter what size the scale reads shoes are forgiving and continue to slide on the foot. That and the fact that I always saw kids wearing Nike sneakers and mine were always dupes.  As an adult secondhand shopper, I packed my closet full of the best material goods that only a few people can afford.  The thrill of excavating and finding the one-dollar Jimmy Choo’s was as much fun as putting the found treasure in a nice storage box in my closet.  Looking at all the wonderful designer goods and buying more and more made me happy for the longest time, but now my possessions are starting to give me anxiety.  I have too much and many of the items just sit like forgotten artifacts in an over packed closet.  Yet, equally anxious ridden is the thought of letting them go.  I think I have some hoarding symptoms that I need to work out in order to slowly simplify my life as I enter into the cadency phase of my (over-extended) Secular Franciscan process...           

Seriously who needs this many sunglasses?

Our First Snow Day

I went to the snow for my first time in over twenty years!  My first time was during my high school’s Senior Ditch Day.  Four of us drove up to Big Bear and found a cheap place near the bottom of the mountain to play in the snow.  I had my Nike sneakers on and I recall how wet my feet got, but even without the proper wardrobe seeing the snow for the first time was such a joy!  I, like many of my childhood friends didn’t grow up in families that made these trips or got to experience the many holiday adventures that other kids got.  I was from the barrio, living in a two-bedroom apartment with eighteen other people- our fun was going to Thrifty’s drugstores after Easter or Halloween with a couple bucks to raid all the holiday candy on sale.  My social highlights were weddings and quinceañeras were I sat on a chair taking care of the kids that fell asleep because the parties lasted way past their bedtimes. 

Now as an adult, I like to do things to make-up for the many experiences that I didn’t get to have.  Hitting the snow yesterday was such a joy to the little deprived child inside.  We went to Mount Baldy because it was close enough and didn’t require me to get chains on my tires. While there wasn’t as much snow as I hoped it was still such a delight to be out in nature.  My friend and I had quite a laugh riding the lift up for our very first time, because we got on the bench without directions and forgot to pull down the safety bar.  The park attendant was screaming at us to pull it down as we were quickly moving up the mountain.  After pulling the lever down we laughed terrified at our ignorance.

At the top we got to participate in snow tubing.  Though mostly parents with their children were the ones on this part of the park, my friend and I had a blast being children. Sliding down and then making the trek back up left us winded, but in a good way.  Due to Covid we were there with only a small group of people, thus we were able to go down the snow slide as much as we wanted.  Then we took a little break to build our very first mini snowman.  Working with the snow trying to shape a little figure was again an experience full of laughter.  I think for both of us it was our first making a snowman.  We finally, traded the idea of a hot chocolate for local ale and enjoyed the white mountain beauty as we sipped our beers.    

High Heels No More

Do you ever feel like wearing high heels? 

I do. 

Especially right now that I don’t have any type of social life. I look at my closet filled with shoes that would make Cinderella jealous, but they are parked lined like boats on a dock.  Even when things are normal and I have more places to go to most of my two-hundred pairs go unworn.  Some are so beautiful, but way too painful or come with a silent warning of "possibility of falling."  I took the risk of falling for the pure joy of wearing the towering beauties, but much has changed.

It all began with me falling down a staircase twice, while wearing what I considered to be sensible four-inch platforms or more commonly known as wedges.  Both incidents happened when I had my office job, I was coming down the stairs and forgot to hold on to the railing and I fell - my butt hitting the stair and one of my wedge sandals flying towards a civilian that was on the lower floor.  My embarrassment over the flying shoe made me jump back up from where I had fallen, hoping to grab the predator shoe before it caused more harm…

The second incident occurred on those same stairs a month later with a different pair of wedges.  Again, I was walking down the stairs, this time the shoes remained on my feet, but there were more people around who suppressed laughter in trying to help me get up from the floor.   Since, I have lost my confidence, my high heel mojo is gone. 

The nail on high heel coffin, came when in Mexico I sprained my ankle.  I went into my grandmother’s room to kiss her good morning and inform her that I was going to Sunday Mass and when I stepped outside of her room, this fickle stair played a trick and my ankle snapped followed by great pain.  It was Sunday and in the small pueblo doctors' offices were closed so I had to go to the emergency room where I was told that it was only a sprain and not a fracture.  After, I returned to the States I visited my doctor for more scans and the diagnoses was the same.

However, since that sprain I can’t tolerate heels over three inches.  Which means that I will have to part with many of my shoe friends.  My lifestyle even before the pandemic was one more consistent with flats, so though my mind knows that heels are no longer my go to, my heart just doesn’t want to part with a beautiful artistic shoe lifestyle.  Thus, I have created a Pinterest page so that I can store my beloved heels in a special place, so that even if they leave this home their memory will live on…  

To be continued… 

Real or Fake

I don’t like fakes and in my line of shopping I come across quite a few.  Usually, if they are a few bucks, I buy them and then write replica on the inside lining with a Sharpie and donate it again so that people will know the truth.  So that there won’t be an eBay victim who over pays for a fake.  Recently, I came across a Fendi Baguette at Salvation Army that I bought it to show you some steps in authentication because I do own a real one.  To the untrained eye looking from afar it can pass as the real thing, but a closer inspection reveals that it’s a fraud.

Take these two purses that look almost identical, on the right is the real piece and on the left is the replica.  On a closer inspection...

Let's start with the material, the brown jacquard fabric with the FF motif begins to unveil the truth. On the left fake the F's are bigger and the material is rough to the touch.  

True Fendi engraves it's hardware on atleast one side, the replica doesn't have any of these details.

When looking at the zippers, the true Fendi below shows a higher metal quality zipper.

Finally there's usually a serial number inside the bag that corresponds with the model of the bag, where it was made and the date it came into production.

When I find a designer piece at a thrift store, I am extremely critical and have done enough research to be a pretty good authenticator...  I don't like lies in my own fashion choices and it's only more true that I despise them in more crucial parts of my life.  So, if I have the means I buy the fake and write replica on it before donating again so that other's not so keen buyers won't get taken advantage of.       

What I Have Recently Learned

 Sometimes it’s difficult to be kind to ourselves…  It has now been a year of distance learning and it’s been personally such a rollercoaster for me.  I’ve struggled to leave my bed and take the few steps to my computer and turn on the camera to begin my school day.  Many times, the persistent feeling of failure has stayed with me like the strong scent of a skunk lingers in the air.  I’ve had my lot of meltdowns, of feelings like I couldn’t go on, but small rays of light shined thru to push me forward in this anxiety ridden path.  I have struggled with trying to lead the ship to shore always feeling like a failure for the mediocre level of teaching I am doing.  Yet, the more time in isolation I have come to realize that all schools are aware of the deficiency in learning taking place due to distance learning.  Perhaps, this awareness has taught me that sometimes for a teacher academics become secondary and the primary goal is just one of connection. Of overcoming the uncomfortable life on camera to bring to the many homes a beacon of hope, “My dear student, I am here and I care.  While life might be a chaos, in this space I am here because I love you.”

After Christmas Break, I was dreading going back to virtual school because I knew that soon conference week would be upon me and I was terrified that the parents would validate the feelings of failure that I have had all these months.  I was afraid that during each meeting I would get a reprimand from each parent on the shortcomings of this introverted, quite private person trying to work in atmosphere so unnatural to who I am.  I was waiting for them to say, you could be doing better, you could be doing more, my daughter/son deserves the best.  Yet, as I welcomed each parent to my virtual classroom I was surprised by the love that poured from the other side of my screen.  Parent’s thanking me for my work and sharing how much they have appreciated me working with their kids.  One parent said, “My daughter has had so many teachers, but with you it’s been so different- you really get her.  You have reached her after others couldn’t...”  The compliments just continued throughout the week as I met with parent after parent and my heart filled with love and gratitude because we all need encouragement.

When I went back to teaching, my motto was I want to show all kids that I come across the love of God.  Before anything, I want them to feel special, secure and loved when they are around me- then I will teach.  During distance learning I had to be reminded to try to do the same in this setting.  I got so focused in the quality of learning (which I feel like I am failing) that I forgot how important it is to connect with the students.  Now, I see that the parents too see that sometimes academics are secondary to having a teacher that truly cares and loves their kids.  My nephew only confirmed this when he shared with me how little he is learning at school, how even his honors classes are “a joke” as he put it.  In the end the quote says that in looking back what we will never forget is how others made us feel.  Perhaps, during quarantine we as teachers can only walk away with peace knowing that our primary goal is social and emotional connection, to turn on our cameras and say I am here, I care.