Writing, Parenting, and Working in the Mess: Authentic Spirituality and Social Justice

January 7 is Orthodox Christmas (for all the other Orthodox churches besides the Greek Orthodox), and St. John's Day for the Greeks. It is, in my tradition, the official end of the Christmas season.  In the Orthodox tradition, Epiphany is not the commemoration of the Magi's visit to Jesus, but rather the commemoration of Jesus' baptism. In the Orthodox tradition, it was the baptism that set in motion Jesus' ministry, not his birth--and that is when his identity became clear.  After a liturgy that is especially beautiful, everyone drinks a tiny glass of holy water and heads to the ocean (in any Greek community that has one nearby) to watch the young men jump into the freezing cold water to retrieve a cross. Whoever gets the cross goes around the village, blessing each home with the cross. I was lucky enough to witness this tradition twice in my life--once when I was 9 and once in my late 30s. In our church in Akron, Ohio, the priest visited homes and blessed t...

The Magi had a dream not to return to King Herod to tell him where the child was, but instead to take a different route home. On this day of Epiphany, which is also celebrated by some cultures (not my own) as Women's Christmas, I am thinking about the idea of going home by a different road. When my spouse and I opened our home to people in need and named it Petalouda House, we hoped to help people find healing and hope, to give them a home for a short or long period of time. We also hoped to help them transition to the home they would choose next--the one that would perhaps be more permanent. It has not always worked that way. Some residents have been removed suddenly against our will and theirs. Some have chosen to leave when we knew they were ready. Some we had to ask to leave before we knew they were ready, because they weren't safe or able to live here. Some have had to go to more restrictive settings, rather than less. Every one of them went "home" by a roa...

The holiday cookies are getting stale. The tree is sagging a bit, needles starting to gather around the tree stand. We lost the centerpiece of our outdoor decorations to the wind, though I insist on leaving all the decorations up until Epiphany and St. John's Day are behind us. Yesterday was one of the more difficult days of my life. The details are not something I can share here, but suffice to say I am exhausted. I don't have time to fully recover, because I need to finish a project at work today. Still, this morning between the first and second alarms I found myself breathing in each beautiful moment of the holiday season. My daughter and both her biological siblings together for the first time on Christmas, sitting around the table and making inappropriate jokes. Quality time with the adoptive father of one of her siblings--time at the coffee shop just catching up. The delight of our foster son opening his gifts on Christmas Eve, and his stocking Christmas morning. Ligh...

Is it true that no two snowflakes are alike? They must shape themselves while suspended between sky and earth--or allow themselves to be shaped by the temperature of the air, surrendering. I love the Charlie Brown Christmas special, and weep every year when I watch it. I know, I'm sappy. But every year when January comes, I always remember Lucy's statement that she never eats December snowflakes. January snowflakes are where it's at. All the others look puzzled--well, as puzzled as any cartoon characters from the 1960s can look.  I have been so busy this week, trying to keep everybody moving through a series of major and minor crises. The other day, though, I stopped on my front stoop on my way out the door and was surprised to see real, big, beautiful snowflakes falling. This has happened only a handful of times this winter; the ground is covered, but mostly we've been dealing with icy cold temperatures, not snow. I put out my tongue, letting the flak...

Fires were a big part of our Christmas celebrations. We always threw all the wrapping into a giant fire that blazed all day and evening at my aunt and uncle's house (and, often, at our house in the morning, too). Petalouda House has a fireplace. It's tiny compared to the giant, brick versions in the houses several of us owned in Ohio, all of them built by my uncle, who loved the fire most of all. This season it was -45 degrees (with windchill) for four days straight (yes, you read that right) and the best thing to do was sit in front of the fire. "Look, Mom. It's turning different colors. It's going away!" Our foster son is completely in awe of the fire's ability to change the shape of things, to ultimately consume them. He isn't often quiet, but he can get very quiet watching a fire. He wants to throw everything into the fire. I've had to rescue directions to some of his toys and newspapers I haven't read yet out of his arms before they ...

My grandfather on my mother's side had owned a neighborhood grocery in Akron, Ohio. It was how he was able to feed his family well even when money was tight. He loved his customers. At that time, there were people from all over--the Southern U.S. and many European countries, moving to Akron. He took the time to find out where everyone was from and learn to greet them in their native language. This was a man who was not educated, who had grown up on a tiny island in the middle of nowhere in Greece. (He died two years before I was born, so these stories have been passed down to me, and I feel as if I knew him even though we never met in this life). Anyway, he loved to try out new recipes based on what people were buying. There's a great story about how my family thought pizza was made on a regular loaf of bread (not a thin pizza crust) for years because he'd talked to the Italians about what they were making but didn't get the crust part right. And everybody was b...

Instead of New Year's resolutions, I choose a New Year's word each year. I started this practice in 2016 and it has served me well so far. The word comes to me in meditation, slowly taking hold of me over time. All three times I have been resistant to the word when it first arrived, but eventually, when I became sure it was the right word, surrendered to it. The word isn't about achieving anything. I am not sure I was more open, or better at waiting, at the end of 2016 and 2017. But I was more able to understand what it meant to be open, to wait. I was more able to notice when I wasn't open--to feel my heart closing, to be curious about why, to decide more consciously what to do next. I have learned that waiting isn't about needing something specific to happen but being open and ready for whatever will happen--developing that spiritual strength and capacity. But trust? So many people have broken my trust throughout my life that it is hard for me to trust anyone ...