A Good Advent

I think it’s been a good Advent.

There’s little to write about my life just now, because so little drama has been going on. How often has that been the case? I can’t tell you a silly story about how everything went wrong, because things are going reasonably well.

Adrienne has a few more days of public school, which she loves, and then there will be three weeks of break, which she also enjoys. Adrienne is at peace and growing to be a better, stronger, happier person every day. The Gang come over to play football from time to time, and I love all of them. But Adrienne is still a teenager who needs privacy, so I won’t tell tales.

I don’t have funny stories about the small neighborhood children just now because I don’t see them much: Jimmy’s boy and the Artful Dodgers and the Baker Street Irregulars stay inside when it’s cold. When I don’t see children for awhile, I get sad again, but less sad than I used to. It’s almost time to make and deliver Christmas cookies, and I’ll get to see them again.

I have been able to go to Mass, most Sundays lately.

I can’t sit in the congregation; I pace around in the back. I go outside and pray on the church steps during the homily. I still can’t stand to hear about Jesus from a priest or a deacon, just yet. Maybe that will come back some day.

I even went to Mass on the solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, even though the Virgin Mary is my biggest trigger and I usually stay home. I sang the harmonies on “Hail Holy Queen Enthroned Above” instead of getting sick just hearing it, which is enormous progress. I will never trust the Virgin Mary, but she doesn’t send me into panic attacks just now.

I have been praying in that little chapel near my house, whenever I can get away. Just a few minutes here and there, nothing organized. Sometimes I read the Bible and sometimes I talk to Him. Sometimes I scroll on my phone and ignore Him. If a Franciscan priest in a three-knot belt came into the chapel while I was praying and asked to hear my confession, I’d probably scream and run away. But I don’t glare at the statue of Saint Francis when I come into the chapel anymore.

I am still in that terrible place: I know that God is real and I would like to know God. The very best articulation of everything I’ve come to believe about God is the Nicene Creed. I have learned about God from the Gospels and the Catechism and the writings of the saints. I would like to heal enough that I can receive the sacraments without panic attacks. So I’m Catholic. But the Catholic Church took everything I had, traumatized me and ruined my life, and that won’t change. I was a lapsed Catholic for a bit, and now I am a broken Catholic.

I am sorry to all the people who were looking forward to my deconstruction ending with the exciting announcement that I was becoming an Episcopalian or an Orthodox Christian or a witch like my dear friend Holly, or an atheist. I’ve only become a broken Catholic.

In all of this mess I have found Christ, and lost Christ, and am beginning to find Him again.

I don’t trust Him very well, but maybe that will come back.

Recently I was sitting in the chapel, worrying, panicking a little, babbling at Christ that I was so sorry I was still so afraid to go to confession. I was sorry I couldn’t be a good Catholic homeschooling wife and mother and I ruined Adrienne. I was so sorry I didn’t measure up to any standard or ever do anything right, and I felt so dirty and rotten. But I was still trying, as best I could, to be good. And I was so, so sorry that I failed.

And maybe God answered me.

I’m not a Charismatic anymore. I understand that imagination and trauma and brain chemistry exist. I know that most often when you pray and a “word” comes to you, it’s just you remembering things. But let’s say that this one was God.

Let’s say that what God said to me was, “Maybe you haven’t failed. Maybe that’s all I want. Maybe I don’t want extraordinary things of you. This is your whole journey: to seek the good.”

I went out of the chapel, into the gloaming of a cloudy mid-December morning when nothing looked very Christmassy. But oh, it was Christmas in my soul.

I drove up through Pleasant Heights, then downtown through the Nutcracker Village and around again, admiring everything. Happy– truly happy. I was happy for the rest of the day. I feel as if I’ll be happy for the rest of my life.

I won’t, of course. My anxiety will come back. Things will continue to go wrong. I’ll still be a broken Catholic, and that hurts.

But I will continue to seek the good.

It has been a good, good Advent.