"If a man settles in a certain place and does not bring forth the fruit of that place, the place itself casts him out"

Our landlord has been cast out by the little lot he's purchased. In the year since his arrival, we've watched the lilacs wither away, the apple tree - whose blossoms once overwhelmed the side-yard - has barely any flowers, and the roses rot on the bush. Since his arrival, the domovoi has taken the throwing things and run up and down the stairs. He sets of smoke-detectors and flings clothes from the landlord's line.

I wonder if, in part, the house has cast him out because it knows it is onnly his second choice. The house he wanted sits across the street, still for sale, and priced just out of reach. How miserable it must be to be a second-best!

I'm looking forward to leaving, and I wonder if our blessing of the lower level will carry one after we leave. Do blessings of space linger forever, or do they fade? I think and hope it will linger, the new couple moving in are sweet, I'd hate for them to have to deal with a frustrated spirit full on.

It amazes me how many Catholics don't believe in spirits, or ghosts, or hauntings of any kind. How can we not? We who see the magic of creation. How can we put a limit on God's magic and imagination?

These aren't rhetorical questions - I really do hope someone answers!

"A good painting has always been to me like a friend. It keeps me company, comforts, and inspires."
~Hedy Lamarr

My life had for a while fallen out of it's creative stride. The days became repetitive: work, pack, plan, work.. and my art fell off, gathering dust amongst the boxes of things to be brought or left. Change, at least permanent change has always been something that throws me off-balance. I love travelling and wandering, I'm comfortable in wandering and uncertainties, but permanence is distressing. If I were less in love with our new land, I would balk at it all, as it is, I'm so wrapped up in planning that I manage to get very little done.

Tonight I refreshed my motivation. It's a rainy night and we listened to the wet outdoors while pouring over plans for things that must be done this weekend. Things that my husband is already accomplishing. We had roses blossoming beneath the Blessed Virgin again, and incense burning, and good white wine. Tomorrow I have a truck to test - drive, and books to pack away, pots to throw, and I'm thrilled to jump back into certainty again.

"There is something haunting in the light of the moon; it has all the dispassionateness of a disembodied soul, and something of it's inconcievable mystery."

~Joseph Conrad

This week I began packing for our move out of the apartment. I am only packing a little, we still have two months of living there, and I know from previous experience that I have a tendency to pack early and then unpack, messily, the many things I forgot to leave out. I do have 5 boxes of books packed for the move, and 1 box of books that will not be making the move with us. Some of the latter are duplicates, most are disappointments. Their box sits on the bookshelf that will also not be moving with us, looking lonely and rejected.

Our apartment spirit seems to be feeling the rejection as well, his antics have increased somewhat. I'm excited to leave him behind as well this summer, with the ugly bookshelf, the old washer, and the disappointing books. The apartment spirit is weak - though he seems more competent outside in the hallways and the upper levels of the house. He came with the new landlord and keeps the whole house about 10 - 20 degrees cooler than the outside. Occasionally he throws things in the bathroom, hides keys, lighters, and cameras, and recently he's taken to harassing the hallway fire-alarm.

Fortunately for us, my husband and I had the apartment blessed when we moved in, and our apartment has stood up reasonable well to our little demon's attachment. We've had only one, brief experience of feeling a "presence" in a distinct and disturbing way; though I wonder if our unhappy spirit may be contributing to the landlord's nervous condition, maybe he's had more encounters.

I'm not really certain whether our spirit is a discontent Domowoj, expressing his dissatisfaction with the new homeowner, or a demon who has attached himself to either our new landlord or the house, but I will be happy to leave him and his tricks behind us at the end of June.

"It is the responsibility of writers to listen to gossip and pass it on. It is the way all storytellers learn about life."
~Grace Paley

One of the benefits of working a side job as a writer is the constant exposure to people and their stories. My co-workers are people I'm not likely to meet outside of work, our lives run in such different directions, and business is so slow, that the workplace has become a "safe place" for many of them to gossip, share stories, and complain in ways that might be awkward among friends.

It's interesting how comforting distance can be. I've met people on buses, at shops, and at work who will gladly unburden their souls to a complete stranger - relationship advice is the most common. I've had older business women confess to affairs, a college-aged co-worker admit to a sudden, and short-lived marriage, a drug-dealer gush about his beloved pet rabbit, and a bus driver discuss his neighbor's infidelities. When we don't know the person personally, it's easy to view them as we view the priest in the confessional: symbolic, representational, standing in for the people we really need to speak to.

"Coffee and tobacco are complete repose." -Turkish Proverb

There is something so deliciously indulgent about sitting down to sip coffee in the morning. Tea has a similar effect, but only in the late afternoon, and it's less indulgent - more contemplative. Morning coffee is indulgent. I'm sipping at a tiny cafe. The coffee is not so good as my home cup, but the novelty is more than enough to improve it. I'm sitting in front of a big window, watching the street. It's not a pretty view, but I can see across the street to where a man is smoking in a downstairs apartment - he looks as relaxed and comfortable as I feel, chatting with a woman on a wooden chair and taking long, slow drags. It's an ugly, grey apartment building, his porch is sloping dangerously away from the door, but I think my happy man has found his little bit of paradise. I wish him all the best.

"I find myself in a world where everybody has his compartment, puts you in yours, shuts the door and departs."


~Flannery O' Connor

I'm always surprised when people I know begin to describe my husband to me: "He's such a hippie." "He's so conservative." "So clever!" "Oh, he's just a laborer." Each time, it reminds me how very comfortable we all are with compartmentalizing the people around us, and how limiting those compartments are. When folks meet him at Liturgy, they often assume that he is an extreme traditionalists, because we attend the Old Latin Mass instead of the Novus Ordo. But when they discover that we chose not to support Wal-mart, and other companies that fail to respect the dignity of the person there is confusion: liberals do that, but liberals don't go to Latin Mass.

Compatmentalizing people causes problems. Sometimes when people discover that my husband and I are not what they thought, they distance themselves. They realize that we don't fit in the compartments they've made for us, because we're people who strive to live in imitation of Christ, not in imitation of the common image of "American Catholic," and then the walls come up. In can be frustrating and it can be isolating at times, but it's something that everyone must do at times if they are ever to be truly themselves. Nobody can fit and grow and thrive when they are have been put in a compartment and the door has been shut.

Begining to understand the attitude behind this compartmentalizing has helped me to recognize when I do the same thing to other people. Without intending to, I make assumptions without allowing myself to know the true person. Part of truly living, though is realizing and actively correcting this habit, which I'm only able to do when I allow myself to see people as they are and as they strive to be.

Blessings and joy to all.

Prawdziwie zmartwychwstal!

"The religious sense seems to be bred out of [modern people]...And it's bred out of them double quick now by religious substitutes for religion."
~Flannery O' Connor

I've just read that Maine ranked third for "most secular state" in a gallup poll on American religious views. It's something that isn't surprising in any way - though it is disappointing and sad. Yet at the same time the news is very hopeful.

It's hopeful because the practicing Catholics we meet here are often the least "Catholic" in their "religious sense." As far as theology goes, they can be more-or-less orthodox, but in their worldview, in their sense of mystery and sacramentality, many Catholics tend to be down-right secular; whereas the "secular", non-religious types are often more able to see the magic of God at work in the world. This, I'm certain, is in many ways the fault of a New England "puritan" approach to Catholicism that, for example, admires and studies the saints, without attempting to know them personnally. It's a business-style Catholicism that leaves those who are truly searching for an intimate relationship with the Creator feeling as though they don't belong.

While I don't understand how one can be Catholic without falling into the delightful world of mystery and magic, I do understand how one can immerse himself in mystery and still miss the Church - at least for a little while, and especially when the Church as he sees her represented lacks any awareness of her own powerful presence. I'm certain that when we Catholics in Maine stop thinking of the Church as a corporate and political entity and learn to live again as the Body of Christ, the beauty of the Catholic imagination will attract those who have learned elsewhere to see the world with eyes of wonder.