New Years

In my world, there's no apostrophe between the "r" and "s" in New Years. This is because each year from September through December, I have at least three opportunities to start the year anew. Take this years, for example.

Shortly after Rosh Hashonah, I realized that 5768 was probably not going to be a terrific year. Did I get upset? Certainly not. I knew another new year would begin in 80 days. Indeed it did and so far I'm liking Year A, Cycle II. But what if I'd thought this liturgical year was a bummer? No big whoop. Another new year would begin in 29 days.

In any event, I'm not all slappy happy excited about new years eve 2008. My year-end festivities haven't been the same since I began using Quicken to organize all my tax data and last night I vacuumed the one and only cat who would let me. Welcome to my world.

My Lofty Experience of Singing

Singing this year's Christmas Vigil with a choir turned out to be the healing experience I'd hoped for and clearly needed. How lovely to be so generously invited by a choir director and so warmly welcomed by the regulars. How glorious to sing next to a soprano whose voice transformed the descants into brilliant shooting stars of sound. And on pitch, too!

I was grateful to be standing where I was for another reason. I'd been placed directly across from the Crucifix above the altar -- a presence hovering over Real Presence, and face-to-face with me. Thanks, I needed that.

It doesn't matter whether I'm singing as a parishioner or a choir member, my perspective on the liturgy changes literally and figuratively whenever there's a choir loft in use. In both instances, I'm more focused on what I'm doing, which is praying, whether my voice is floating up or down. This is why I've become such a big fan of choir lofts. Too bad they've been ditched by church building committees.

A liturgist I know says this relatively recent development in church architecture is as much about economics and acoustics as it is about inviting the pew people to participate. Makes sense, I guess. But now having experienced singing from a loft several times, I've become positively retro on the matter. I'm certainly much better able to appreciate Thomas Day's book, Why Catholics Can't Sing: The Culture of Catholicism and the Triumph of Bad Taste, first published in 1990 and still brutally hilarious. Note to self: come up with music selections for my Mass of Christian Burial now.

A Child's [Jewish] Christmas in New Jersey

Yes, many American Jews really do deal with the annual Baby Jesus Birthday Bash by going out for Chinese food and then to the movies. No, this is not a goofy offensive stereotype. "Chinese and a movie" is a treasured memory of my Reform Jewish childhood in the New Jersey suburbs. This, by the way, was the childhood I was forced into having when my parents moved from the Holy Land (New York City/Brooklyn) to the New World (Bergen County).

Lifetimes -- all of them mine -- have passed since those years of Suburban Captivity and although I've long since converted to sushi, I start jonesing for Chinese food on the morning of Christmas Eve. It's probably a good thing that the Chinese chow of my childhood is almost impossible to find these days. It was often dreadful. We thought it was delicious.

During the 1950s and 1960s, "going out for Chinese" meant going to a Cantonese restaurant, usually located in a shopping center, a few doors down from the supermarket and the one-and-only pizzeria in town. Cantonese cuisine was so subtle as to be nearly without flavor; totally unlike the Schezwan style that's now ubiquitous. It was a great corrective to the heavy, acid reflux-inducing fare of Eastern Europe. It was also a great way to assert assimilation and flirt with forbidden food for a greater good, viz., repudiating Christian holy days.

My parents had no problem eating treyf inside or outside our home. The rules of kashruth had been laid to final rest, along with the Orthodox family members who had faithfully observed them. My parents were not unusual in this (dis)regard. Thus, it would come to pass that an entire generation of Jews celebrated Christmas by scarfing down the following, carefully selected from columns A & B:

Won Ton SoupBarbecued Spare RibsEgg RollsMoo Goo Gai PanWor Shu OpSweet and Sour Pork
Pepper SteakShrimp with Lobster SauceWhite Rice or Pork Fried RiceFortune Cookies(Not Green) Tea

I don't remember anyone ever using chop sticks.

What am I eating before tonight's Midnight Mass? Chicken soup.

ADVENTure Continues (4th Week)

It's the fourth Sunday in Advent and I'm busy sucking on lemon mint herbal throat lozenges. My throat doesn't hurt, I just like the taste of church music. It's the closest I ever get to synesthesia.

I'm getting ready for Christmas and excited about singing with a choir again. I haven't sung the Christmas Vigil Mass at midnight in years. My reasons?

Quite frankly, I was growing tired of spending Christmas Day wiped out with oratorio-induced adrenal fatigue. While I loved the rush that resulted from hours of singing, I did not love the subsequent crash. Or, for that matter, the time tripping. It's one thing to stay up all night at home, wandering around in flannel jammies and eating pretzels. It's quite another to begin peeling off pantyhose, swabbing off make-up, and chowing down a full meal at 2:30 AM. Plus, I couldn't help but notice that prayer was slowly being eclipsed by performance.

The lemon mint herbal throat lozenges that had once tasted like hymns, anthems and psalms, started tasting bitter. And so, I opted out and focused on making a joyful noise unto the Lord in my acoustically superior shower stall.

Whenever I think that healing happens in the strangest ways, I remind myself that nothing is impossible -- or strange -- for God. In June, I participated in a Gregorian chant and polyphony workshop. Last month, I went to lots of funerals and sang everything, including whatever the Cantor was offering up.

At one funeral, the healing mercy of God appeared to my right in the form of a former choir mate, one whose voice is like molten gold with threads of silver and flashes of sapphire. By the Alleluia, we were one voice interwoven and lifted in prayer. Shortly thereafter, I realized that singing with others was, for me, an essential spiritual practice. As for singing Christmas Vigil, this seems like the perfect time to celebrate birth as well as resurrection. Gloria in excelsis deo, et in terra pax hominibus bonae voluntatis!

Betta Testing

Is it my imagination, or are the Betta Boys gazing at me with great apprehension as Christmas Eve draws near?

"Relax,"I murmur while sprinkling food pellets along the watery surface of their individual tanks. They cannot be together in the same bowl, but I've noticed how they do not at all like being too far apart. They hate being bored as much as they love being fed. They absolutely love being fed. Who doesn't?

"The Feast of the Seven Fishes has absolutely nothing to do with you," I explain reassuringly. Is it my imagination, or are the Betta Boys finning more frantically as the final Sunday of Advent approaches?

"Relax," I coo while overfeeding them. "When it's finally time for you to be with , you can count on receiving the most divine fish funeral. Just like the others received."

Purple Madonna

This gem arrived in this morning's email from one of my whimsical and super-literate friends who always finds great stuff while wandering the world wide web. Here's the Story of the Day at Story People:

Purple Madonna

One time on Hollywood Boulevard I saw a young girl with a baby. It was a crisp winter morning & her hair shown dark purple in the sun. She was panhandling outside the Holiday Inn & the door clerk came out & told her to be on her way & I wondered if anyone would recognize the Christ child if they happened to meet. I remember thinking it's not like there are published pictures & purple seemed like a good color for a Madonna so I gave her a dollar just in case.

Email Question: Shabbat Observance

Love getting reader mail so much that I'll actively solicit it. I mean, of course, mail from readers who are friendly and curious. I could do without snarky emails from readers who, for example, want to argue about the definitive translation of theotokos. No joke.

Just the other day, someone at Doubleday forwarded such an epistle from a religious sister. I guess I should be grateful that Sister Mary Isn't Divine reported me to the principal instead of disciplining me herself. I wrote back to the Doubleday rep, who is now all worried about Catholic bookstores dumping The Catholic Home. I explained how I'd already changed the translation of theotokos in the paperback edition in response to another reader's concerns. Another religious sister. From a different religious order. Not even Eastern Orthodox. Sisters, have mercy, please.

What a delight, then, to receive email from Gail. Gail is married to a non-observant Jewish man. She's raising their children Catholic and added Hanukkah festivities to this year's holiday mix. The kids loved it. Now she's thinking about having Shabbat dinners on a regular basis. Her email continues:

My mother in law is also moving in town to be near us next month and I thought maybe this would be a good way to include her in our weekly life...from a Catholic perspective, would you consider this okay to do?

In a word: yes! Observing Shabbat with a family dinner would be a wonderful thing to do. Setting a day apart is a divine commandment shared by all Abrahamic religions (i.e., Jews, Christians, Muslims). Gathering your entire family at the table is a great way to reinforce shared heritage.

As your children get older, titrate in teaching about shared symbols (i.e., candles) and rituals (i.e., table blessings, blessings over candles and bread). For example, you can make connections between the berakhot (blessings) said at your table and during the Mass. You might want to experiment with a Middle Eastern meal. Roasted chicken is customary fare among Ashkenazic (Eastern European) Jews. A Sephardic menu would allow you to introduce new foods while noting the geographic origins of Jesus, as well as his Judaism.

Opportunities abound but take it slowly, especially if your husband and mother-in-law aren't all that interested in Shabbat observance. Start by focusing on gathering your family together, giving thanks for the week past, and for whatever rest you can carve out on Saturday or Sunday.

You can learn more about Sabbath observance in Christopher Ringwald's fine new book, A Day Apart: How Jews, Christians, and Muslims Find Faith, Freedom, and Joy on the Sabbath. He does a magnificent, comprehensive job of explaining the biblical and historical origins of Sabbath observance. A Catholic and father of three, Ringwald writes with great passion about the blessings of Shabbat observance in his own marriage and family.

Note: this is not a how-to book, but in an Appendix, Ringwald provides practical, detailed tips about keeping the Sabbath. I recommend reading this first and then savoring the rest of the book at your leisure. As if a mother of two littles and a newborn has leisure time. What could I be thinking?

ADVENTure Continues (3rd week)

Pink was the "ewww gross" color for an entire generation of women, a generation that didn't even use the expression "ewww gross." We who were among the very first readers of Mad Magazine adopted the word "yeech" to express disgust.

Who could blame us for being repulsed by what was then the color of gutless girl silliness. The reigning pink was insipid, without depth or nuance. It was totally unworthy of its plosive "k," a sturdy stop consonant which virtually demanded that an exclamation point be added. That pink? Who would want to be clothed in that? Yeech. Ewww, gross.

But pink with blue added becomes pink with oomph. It becomes pink! Ironies abound in the factoid that it takes those two primary colors of light to make this vibrancy happen. And take away one "o" from "oomph" and look who appears: OMPH. Super pink!

Today is Gaudete Sunday. The entrance antiphon invites us to "rejoice in the Lord always..." (Phil 4:4) The candle for this third week in Advent is pink, although the Roman Catholic church insists upon calling it "rose." The generous explanation for this nomenclature is that rose, both in color and scent, represents the BVM. I, however, suspect other motivations come into play. Here's a hint: yeech.

Nevertheless, the glimmering shimmering pink candle represents joy. Happy are we to continue our journey to welcome the Light of the World. This is pink I can and do embrace with delight. I say it's pink!

Reorienting the Three Kings

I was delighted to receive email from someone who attended my recent talk about Advent, delivered to parents engaged in "whole family catechesis."

These brave souls are parishioners at The Cathedral of St. Francis of Assisi in Metuchen, NJ. Lots showed up. They had to; it was required. But they laughed, took notes, and asked if I could come back, so I'm thinking they didn't mind me being their assignment. I certainly had a great time with them!

My Advent presentation includes a heartfelt mini-tirade about how it is not "pre-Christmas" but a liturgical season unto itself. I also wax on about the Three Kings and describe a folk custom with great catechetical value. And so, I was very happy to learn that someone did, in fact, go home and move the Three Kings. Her kids "LOVE" looking for the wandering royalty every morning. There's still time to adopt this custom, even if you don't have kids.

Here's the deal: Do you have a Nativity set? Is it set up? If so, where have you placed the Three Kings? If they're anywhere near the manger (i.e., crib) , then right after you finish reading this post, push away from the computer, get up, and move them. They should not arrive on the scene until the Feast of the Epiphany (January 6).

Until then, have them trooping along your window sills or wandering across your kitchen counters. My Wise Guys are making their way along the tops of several adjacent picture frames in my hallway. They will travel throughout my home during the next few weeks before ending up by the manger which, by the way, will not have Baby Jesus in residence until Christmas Vigil.

See? It's never too late to have a happy Catholic childhood. For my 100-word reflection about the childhood I did have relative to Christmas, check out today's entry on the Advent calendar at BustedHalo.com.

ADVENTure Continues (2nd Week)

Since the second candle on the Advent wreath represents the Bible, I figure it's a good time to write more about what I do, technically speaking, whenever my mind leaps to scripture during the writing process. I'll start by noting how it's a minor miracle that my mind leaps to scripture at all. It wasn't always thus.

For the past two decades, however, regularly reading scripture and practicing lectio divina has clearly had an impact on my life. As a practical matter, I rely on tools when I write. I use a combination of references to chase down full citations when scripture snippets occur to me, or to discover what has been recorded about specific concepts or events.

Bookmarked on my computer: SearchGodsWord and the New American Bible as available on the USCCB site even though I generally can't abide the NAB translation.

By my desk:

• A. Colin Day, Roget's Thesaurus of the Bible, which I find easier to use than Strong's Concordance. I rely on a 1998 paperback edition that I found remaindered
• The Catholic Comparative New Testament, great for comparing translations.
• Tanakh:The Holy Scriptures (Jewish Publication Society translation). It doesn't use the customary two-column page design, which makes it easier to read as narrative.
• I also refer to a copy of the NIV (New International Version) translation. Its version of Hebrew scripture is remarkably consistent with the JPS translation. Imagine that!

You can count on me having much more to say in future posts about how writing is itself a spiritual practice.

Shedding light on Light.

Thanks to a comment left by, JanJan, my esoteric knowledge has become a bit more esoteric. I love when this happens! She writes:

"... it's not menorahim...Menorot (it's feminine). Actually the thing we use on Chanukah is a "chanukia," which I didn't know until I grew up and was already Catholic...."

So what, pray tell, is the difference between a "menorah" and a "chanukia"? It's all in the branches. Yes, "branches" (Exodus 25:32) . Upon seeing the word "branches," my mind leaps almost immediately to Isaiah's prophetic passages about them, many of which show up as Mass readings during Advent. (I'll have more to say in another post about what I do after my mind leaps to scripture.)

The chanukiah/chanukkiyah has nine branches -- two more than a menorah, which has seven branches. It's supposed to symbolize the burning bush on Mt. Sinai, so some menorot have branches that are straight rather than curved. There's also conjecture by those who spend much more time pondering this stuff than I, that the chanukia has more branches to preserve the sanctity of the Temple menorah.

Wait! There's more!

Kwanzaa is celebrated by lighting a kinara, a candelabra with seven candles. The center candle is black but guess what? Three of the candles are red and three are green. And when is kwanzaa celebrated? December 26 through January 1.

I'm having a minor epiphany about the Jewish origins of all this light-o-centric celebrating, but I tend to see Judaism's influence in just about everything. At some point, I'll write more about my latest insight about the Jewish origins of Bingo, which is still being played at some Roman Catholic parishes. I do so love these sacred traditions.

Where there's Light, there's food.

Hannukkah/Haunkah/Chanukah/Chanukkoh begins at sundown on 24 Kislev 5768, aka December 4, 2008.

Jewish holidays remind me of quiz shows. A whole lot of questions must be asked and answered before anyone is allowed to tuck into a meal. This is most exemplified by the four questions that are posed during the Passover seder. The key question for Chanukah is, "Why are the lights kindled?"

The correct answer to this question involves retelling the legend about a flask of oil that provided light for eight days. This miraculous occurrence provided more evidence of God's grace, plus the rationale for frying potato pancakes in oil, and eating donuts. Starting in the 14th century, before anyone realized the prevalence of lactose intolerance among Sephardic and Ashkenasik Jews, cheese dishes were also traditional fare for Chanukah.

Starting around the 17th century, the correct answer shifted to focusing on the Hasmonean revolt, victory against the Syrians, and re-dedication of the Temple's altar. (Judah Maccabee, his bros, and volunteer militia were Hasmoneans.) While this explanation is more historically accurate, I think it's perceived as less appealing because no food is involved. I could be wrong, given the number of NJKs (nice Jewish kids) currently enrolled in martial arts training. I'm a little out of the loop.

I haven't celebrated Chanukah en famille for many years. As a result, I rarely get my share -- let alone fill -- of latkes, chocolate Chanukah gelt, and donuts these days. Although there's certainly plenty to eat during the R.C. liturgical year, I probably should have thought through the gustatory specifics of religious conversion. Pretzels, if anything, are traditional for Advent because Advent is a penitential season. The Catholic cholesterol-a-thon doesn't happen until Christmas. I'll undoubtedly have more to say about that in a few weeks.

By the way, none of the menorahs (menorahim?) we had when
I was growing up were either as colorful or fun as the image I've artfully uploaded to this post. There was one exception -- a diminutive brass menorah. I still have it. The fact that it holds birthday candles is one reason I have it on my fireplace mantle next to a sweet little reproduction of "The Annunciation" by Fra Angelico.

ADVENTure Begins (1st Week)

If you ask me, Advent, not XCmas, is the most wonderful time of the year. I love the season's invitation to contemplative hopefulness and anticipatory joy. I appreciate today's Gospel call to, "stay awake!" (Mt. 24:42 NAB). God knows, I'd much rather snooze my way through the deep midwinter. Yes, Advent has deepened in its meaning since Roman Catholicism became my preferred expression of Christianity.

This year I've added a new Advent ritual to my personal roster of traditions. Since today marks the beginning of the liturgical calendar, I spent erev Advent writing out a list of last year's frustrations, disappointments, sorrows, displeasures, and whatever psycho-spiritual drek I could tolerate recalling.

My intention? To toss all of it into the purifying fire of the first candle's flame while praying that last year's occasional darkness might be extinguished by the light. I was only a teensy bit tempted to chant, "Om Swaha" as an homage to the crypto-Hindu yoga stretch of my journey from Judaism to Roman Catholicism. This, in turn, prompted me to wonder what the "Magnificat" would sound like in Sanskrit or Aramaic. Having a multiple spirituality disorder can be very entertaining.