Tag Archives: family

The Dignity of Love and Public Service

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Today would have been my parents’ sixty-fifth wedding anniversary. Theirs was a partnership that was grounded in their love of God, one another, and all of God’s people, especially those who are experiencing poverty. This morning in prayer, as I reflected on what is happening in our country and to the very weft and weave of our democracy, I give thanks for all they taught me through their example about the dignity of love and public service. I am also calling for their intercession for our country at this time.

They both began their careers in public service before they met. My Dad came to Washington from Iowa in 1956 to work at the US Patent Office before going to law school at George Washington University. My mom grew up in the DC Suburbs and worked in office administration for the Department of Justice before working for NATO in Europe (Yes, she was in Paris in the 1950s!).

In my Dad’s memoir, Me? I’m from Iowa, he shares how during their courtship and after they were married, they talked about faith and politics, which were always intertwined throughout their lives.

“After meeting in May, we went out a lot. And we talked, and talked. Starting with religion, we discussed why we were both Catholic, and found that we had some devotions in common. We talked about international issues, Communism and its failings, and the need to get involved in politics. … Following up on the political discussions we had during our dating and while on our honeymoon, we said now is the time to move ahead.”

Over the course of their marriage, my parents participated in the political campaigns of others and for my Dad’s own campaigns for local elected office. Dad served as an elected judge and later member of the County Council for several decades, before moving into transportation policy at the state and federal level. Mom worked on the staff of members of Congress and in the area of social work to support incarcerated people. Throughout it all, they were guided by their faith and the Gospel call to seek justice, especially for the most vulnerable.

My siblings and I grew up with the expectation that it was our responsibility to leave the world a better place than we found it, and most importantly to use our God given gifts in service of the common good. We learned first hand the promise and possibility of good government to make systemic change in support of human dignity, such as when my Dad helped to pass fair housing laws and desegregate the public schools. We saw how important it is to use our voice and influence to advocate for justice, such as when my Mom joined protests organized against discriminatory housing sales practices in our town. There are so many more examples of their witness in action. It is no coincidence that at one point or another, all of their five children worked directly in public service.

Me in the corner at the feet of my Mom (Left), as my Dad (Right) talks with Senator Barbara Mikulski at a political event

During these times, I am feeling the pull to call on our Cloud of Witnesses. This morning I am asking my parents to pray for our country, for all public servants who are under attack, for the health of our democracy, and for those who are already being impacted by the takeover of government agencies and the rapid dismantling of life-saving programs. Eileen Schmelzer Francois and Frank Francois, pray for us.

Limitless Family

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Holy Family, St. Mary’s Church, Unterägeri, Switzerland

Today on this Feast of the Holy Family, I share a reflection and prayer from my book My Friend Joe: Reflections on St. Joseph.

The story of the Holy Family is alive and well today and will continue long into the future. For Christians, the Holy Family is our family. Pope Leo XIII asserts that this divine household “contained within its limits the scarce-born Church.” Mary, mother of Jesus, is the mother of all Christians. Jesus Christ is our brother. And Joseph, our foster father, “the Blessed Patriarch looks upon the multitude of Christians who make up the Church as confided specially to his trust, this limitless family spread over the earth … It is, then, natural and worthy that as the Blessed Joseph ministered to all the needs of the family at Nazareth and girt it about with his protection, he should now cover the cloak of his heavenly patronage and defend the Church of Jesus Christ.”

We are part of a limitless family. No matter our own experiences of family—nuclear, extended, or chosen—as Christians we are part of the family of God, a limitless family spread over the earth. And Joseph, who first was called to his role by the message of an angel, is there for us when we need him, ready to spread his cloak of mighty love around us, guiding us, comforting us, and protecting us as members of this limitless family of love.

Prayer for Families

St. Joseph, pray for us, your limitless family, bound together in love. Be with all families in good times and bad. Take special care of families separated for whatever reason. Defend us from ourselves, from our growing pains and insecurities, our hurts and complex family dynamics. Share our joy at new life and the promise of tomorrow. Be our comfort in times of trouble, and our guide always. Teach us your way of mighty love for our human family and daily care for Earth, our common home. St. Joseph, husband of Mary and father of Jesus, pray for us. Amen

On the Value of Work and Leisure

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When I was a novice, we attended classes with those in formation with other religious congregations. One day, we were sharing the words of our different Constitutions on the vows. That is when I discovered that what has become one of my favorite passages in our CSJP Constitutions is rather unique. Not only does it talk about the value of leisure, it is part of our vow of poverty section!

In solidarity with our sisters and brothers

we engage in human labor

as a means of service and sustenance.

We recognize the value of leisure

as contributing to restoration and wholeness.

In these ways we come to share

in the creative power of God.

(Constitution 54)

Work is good and important and part of the way we participate in the creative power of God. But so too is leisure. We are called to be whole persons, and this requires making time and space for rest, relaxation and renewal.

I am so blessed to be a Sister of St. Joseph of Peace for many reasons, including this commitment to holding each other accountable to this balance.

Starting today I am stepping away from my day to day ministry life for a mix of some restorative work and leisure. Over the next ten days or so, I will be visiting with friends and family. I will also be joining two sister writer friends for a writing retreat. Did I mention how blessed I am that my community supports me in making time and space for this in my busy life?

How are you making space for restoration, wholeness, and the creative power of God in your life these summer months?

Gratitude amid the mess

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I am grateful for today, for every day really. Yet today is a day set aside to give thanks and, as one is able or in the mood, to celebrate these gifts in the company of family and friends.

This week in the United States has seen the tragic and bloody consequences of violence, the power of the gun lobby, and the consequences of division and hateful rhetoric. It sets an odd context for giving thanks.

This month began with elections that mirrored the polarization and division in our land. Sadly too it seemed that even the Bishops conference was not immune.

Wars continue amid our global family in Ukraine, Ethiopia, and far too many other countries. As we speak families are on the march through the dangerous Darien Gap while others have finally safely reached our borders to seek asylum, only to be turned away.

Our human family is in the midst of a mess. And Earth our common home is caught up in it all too.

And it is in this context that we are to give thanks?

Yes!

Thanks for the gift of life and love.

Thanks for the possibilities and opportunities to turn things around for the common good.

Thanks that the sun rises and sets each and every day, most often with amazing artistic touches.

Thanks for the people in our lives and the air that we breathe and the creativity within our hearts and minds.

Thanks for all that is and was and will be, even if it is messy. Thanks that God is with us in the mess.

Thanks for companionship, family, friends and four legged friends.

Thanks for the gift of hope.

Today we celebrate and give thanks.

Tomorrow the work of making the world a better place continues.

On this Day

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On this day in 1902, my grandfather Ludwig Lincoln Schmelzer was born in Pennsylvania to German immigrants, Anton and Ida. They chose Lincoln as his middle name because he was born on Abraham Lincoln’s birthday. A lot to live up to for a baby!

My granddad Ludy had a kind heart, wise soul, and gentle spirit. He loved my Irish immigrant Gandmother Eileen to bits. Theirs was a love story for the ages–there are love letters to prove it, written by him, that would make your heart melt.

In their later years, my mom’s parents moved in with us. I was in third grade, and so I grew up helping my mom in her tender loving care of her parents. My grandmother passed away first in 1985. Granddad followed when I was in high school, in 1987. I’ve always said that he died of a broken heart, missing his love.

Journeying with my grandfather through those last lonely years was an honor and a privilege. He would watch his wife’s soap operas each day, shows he’d never cared for. He had a routine, and he stuck to it! I remember watching his independent self carefully, as he’d make his way with his cane from the study, which had become his bedroom, through the house to the family room each day. He’d eat, watch his wife’s shows, maybe some golf it was available, and then suffle back to his room. When he passed, he was more than ready to be reunited with my grandmother.

Earlier memories of Granddad are of his scratchy beard. His hugs. His delicious candy canes (he came from a long line of candy makers). And most of all his love. Today would have been his 119th birthday, and it is his 34th birthday in heaven. He has long been reunited with his wife Eileen, and his daughter Eileen (my mom) joined him 17 years ago.

Also on this day, 16 years ago, I wrote my letter to the Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace taking my first official step on my journey into religious life, requesting to become a Pre-Candidate. What a journey of love it has been! I know that all the love I received from my Granddad as a kid, watching his loving relationships lived out to the end, and my mom’s loving care for both her parents, had a lasting impact on my own life and nurtured own desire to be of loving service.

Happy Birthday Granddad! Celebrating the gift of you.

Granddad and yours truly on my 4th birthday
My grandparents with my Mom Eileen (it was her 4th birthday) and my Uncle Jim

Heart Bubbles

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This post is dedicated to the people in my life who are most directly impacted by the sin of racism.

My prayer of late is percolating, filled with emotion and low on words. I am a very strong “T” on the Myers Briggs (those who know me will not be surprised), but my thought bubbles right now are being outpaced by my heart bubbles.

Love for the people in my life most directly impacted by racism. Frustration at the daily challenge they face just going through life, microagressions, burdens, barriers and other things I can intellectually try to understand but never really will. Care and concern for them, especially at this time when everything is, just, everything.

Anger at the lives lost and put in danger because of the lie of white supremacy. Kids with candy or toys killed. Young men running or walking killed. Young women in their own homes or cars killed. Enough says my heart. When will it stop cries my heart.

Suprise that many well meaning people with skin tones close to mine, who normally don’t see color, are now making the NYT nonfiction best seller list decidedly anti-racist themed. Grateful even if they are late to the party. Worried that a crash course or binge read may not be the best way to do systemic work.

Hope. This moment does feel different. Fervent hope that it truly is different.

Because of the LOVE I feel deep in my heart for the people I have been blessed to call friend and family and community who are most impacted, each moment, each day, each hour, each minute by the sin of racism.

Because of the LOVE that created us and knitted us together. In the beginning, now and forever.

Laundromat Lessons

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Life circumstances have meant that I have had to go to the laundromat from time to time in recent weeks. I don’t mind. For one thing I get it all done at once. For another, I remember my mom all those years when our washer and dryer were broken and visits to the laundrymat, as I called it, were part of the routine.

Memories flood back from some forgotten place, summoned by the sounds and smells.

Saturdays and weeknights at the laundromat. Plugging coins into the machines. Playing make believe. Helping Mom fold (I am sure she had to refold most of it). Making laundromat friends.

I found myself wondering about those boys and girls I knew as I watched kids bonding amidst the too clean smells and preoccupied adults.

Tag. Tossing a stuffed animal. Conspiratorial whispering. Jumping off the sorting tables until an adult looks up and intervenes. Dancing to the music.

In my memory I played.

But more often I was really more like the little girl across from me now. Self suffcient in her pink tennis shoes and practical ponytail, she observes it all, arms crossed.

What impresses me most of all is the working moms–and dads–filling the car with the laundry on a busy weeknight after a very full day. Then filling the car again with kids and heading to the laundromat to be about the business of life, one load at a time. Rinse. Repeat.

Just like my mom, doing what needed to be done. Day by day.

Contemplative Lessons

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Today is my Mom’s 15th birthday in heaven. As often happens around anniversaries, she’s been on my heart and mind a bit of late.

I am grateful to her for so many things, not the least of which is the gift of life!  She taught me so much by her love and example.

My mom was a true contemplative in action.  She could stop and stare for hours … at the forest, at the ocean, at her own backyard.  She saw the love of God reflected in creation and knew instinctively how to soak it all in.

Mom

I used to love just watching her as she stared at the embodiment of God’s love all around us.  My Dad took this picture in West Virginia. It’s classic mom.  She’s probably a little older than I am now in this picture.  She’s got her book on her lap, but she’s contemplating the book of creation instead.

Nourished and fed by the love of God, be it at Sunday mass or all around her, my mom put it into action.  Dust did not settle under her feet.

Over the years in her work, helping prisoners at the local jail learn decision making skills or as a congressional aide helping citizens navigate our system, she found herself on the right side of justice and helped to build the kindom.

In our community, she was a leader in ways we never even knew until her wake, when person after person came up to us to tell us how she helped them with x, y and z.  So unassuming, she just did what needed to be done.

At home, journeying with her own parents through chronic illness and death, welcoming them into her own home, raising five kids, supporting her husband’s call to serve the wider world, she was most always grounded and exuding love.

Even when she herself was very ill, she would sit and ponder and teach us how to love and be loved.

I still miss you mom, and always will, but I will also always be grateful for your lessons in contemplation, action, and love.

This Must Stop

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Stop Gun Violence Now.pngLast night I was perusing the CNN Exit Polls and discovered that 59% of midterm voters polled support stricter gun control measures.  I was sad to see that number so low, especially after all the amazing activism of young people after the Parkland Shooting and countless other senseless mass shootings.

Then today, just after reading about the latest shooting at a nightclub in California, I received a text from my sister.  It started out saying that my niece Eileen was dancing at the Borderline last night … the nightclub where the shooting I’d just been reading about happened.

my heart stopped.  what if?

I closed my eyes, said a prayer, and went back to reading the text.  She and the friends she was dancing with escaped with their lives after the first shots were fired. They have since discovered that at least one high school friend is among those killed.

Active shooter drills were not a thing when I was in school. I guess I should be grateful that my niece and her friends knew what to do in the moment.  Eileen told me that she’s not hurt, except for rug burns on her knees from crawling her way out to escape, close to the ground.  Of course her spirit is wounded.  As should ours be.  We allow this to continue to happen.

Yes, it’s a cliche that it’s different when something like this happens close to home.  And this certainly did.  My other niece lives down the hill from the club.  My sister is a professor up the hill from the club.  The shooter is from the town where they went to high school and where their little sister goes to middle school.

Given the lack of common sense gun laws, this will happen close to you one day too.

We must pray.  We must act.  We must join together.  We must make gun violence stop. Now. Seriously. Now.

If I haven’t convinced you yet, please read this column written by Emma Gonzalez and David Hogg, two of the students from Parkland, that appeared in the Washington Post the day before election day and a few days before my niece escaped the Borderline with her life.

Over eighteen months before the shooting at our school, 49 people were killed at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando. Four months before Parkland, 58 people were killed at a concert in Las Vegas. And on Oct. 27, 11 people were killed at Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh. In all that time, not a single federal law has been passed that addresses gun violence. Not a single law. Our nation’s leaders have failed to protect citizens where they live, where they learn and where they pray.

As they note in their last sentence:  not only must young people (and All people) vote, “the day after the election, the real work begins.”
  • Be the voice of reason.  If you have friends who are part of the 37% who do not think we need stricter more common sense gun laws, tell them about my niece and her friends.
  • Bother the you know what out of your representatives in Congress, no matter what their party.

    My niece lived in Alabama as a child, and her Godmother who still lives there just posted on Facebook that she tried to call her representatives to call them to support gun reform that would have protected her Goddaughter and was HUNG UP ON.

    Not ok.  But they hang up … we call back.

  • We write.  We text.  We march.  We become a broken record and a strong loud voice speaking for every man, woman, and child who can no longer speak for themselves.
Because silence is not an option.

On Retreat

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Time away you need ... hmmm. Retreat you must go on.
Time away you need … hmmm. Retreat you must go on.

The summer months are a good time for rest, relaxation, and renewal.  Growing up on the East Coast, my family always spent time each summer at the beach. Our preferred beach in question (Ocean City, Maryland) was somewhat busy and offered many opportunities for fun, from skeeball to movies to miniature golf.  Given that I have a late July birthday, I spent many birthdays at the beach.

In addition to the regular summer beach fun, I also learned the value and beauty of the contemplative opportunities the ocean provides from my mother.  While we kids were out and about doing who knows what, my mother was generally settled in on the balcony. Sometimes she’d be reading a book, but most often she would just sit there, gaze out at the ocean, and bask in the freedom to simply be.

As I’ve gotten older, and especially since I’ve entered religious life, the contemplative opportunities of the ocean have become a greater draw for me.

This afternoon I will be heading to the ocean for just such a purpose.  You see, it is time for my annual retreat.  In our CSJP Constitutions we say:

We nurture our life of prayer
by reflective reading, particularly Scripture,
by periods of solitude and silence,
and by an annual retreat. (Constitution 30).

Retreat is a special time to reconnect with my loving God.  No email or Facebook. No meetings or to-do lists. IT is simply a time to pray and reflect on God’s daily invitation to seek justice, love tenderly, and walk in the way of peace.

As it happens, I will also be on retreat on Monday when I turn 43 years old.  I look forward to waking up early to watch the sun rise on this next year of life.

Pure gift.