Prayers for the lost

I'm celebrating my birthday this week. My family indulged me yesterday, today and will tomorrow. I've sat by the pool in my jammies, drinking wine, eating strawberries and reading a vampire romance novel, enjoyed barbeque pork ribs and cole slaw and watched goofy girl movies. Today, I'm in Galveston at the San Luis resort enjoying a fabulous view of the gulf, walks on the beach, great food and more trashy reading. I'm a very lucky girl.

My room is on the 16th floor overlooking the gulf. I have no idea how I was upgraded to the top floor, consierge level of the resort. From here I have a bird eye view of the beach. I know that is true because the pelicans fly in from below me and cross at eye level to ride the currents on their hunt.

I am in complete appreciation of the wonder, power and mystery of God. I walked the beach today. It's not the first time this year but it was different. This is the stormy season on the north Texas gulf coast. Not hurricane season. That starts in June. Unlike our summer hurricanes, the spring and fall storms originate in the north. Today the gulf and sky were the color of grey flannel, the waves crested in beige foam and left white lace wakes. Maybe because of the change of currents or winds, there is a startling amount of debris on the beach.

This is not my first time here after Hurricane Ike. I am not a macabre tourist in this town. Like the rest of Houston, Galveston is my extended neighborhood. It has been suprising how much progress has been made here following the devastation. Today, however, it has been suprising what the sea is giving back. The beaches are full of rebar, concrete, broken plastic. I saw a 30 gallon trash can buried in the sand, a wooden door stuck in the rocks, building facing bricks along the beach. Tonight it's raining again. I wonder what else we be stirred out of the gulf or washed further away.

More than a hundred people remain missing. My prayers are with them and thier families and those who are still recovering from the losses of their homes and property. It could have been any of us.

Stand up, sit down, kneel... oops

Well, who knew. Sometimes I get a good dose of just how much I have left to learn. Yesterday, I entered full communion with the Roman Catholic Church, feeling very much a part of the community. This morning I attended weekday mass for the first time. Maybe I should have anticipated that the weekday format would be different. Clearly I am an entering freshman, at best. There is much to know.

I live to learn and grow. I love comfort and laughter. Very often the two combine in unexpected ways or are at odds in extremely unpleasant ways. I will be 48 years old this week and find myself in the position of remaking myself...again. When I was young, I thought I would be fully baked by now. Yesterday, I thought I was on my way. Today I begin again.

Thank you for joining me on this new journey. It will be a long strange trip. I promise we will laugh along the way.

One holy catholic and apostolic Church

I've been asked recently if I have enjoyed the process leading up to becoming a full member of the Roman Catholic Church. It has been a remarkable time marked by soul-wrenching, uncertain, self-doubting, faithless, joyful, enlightening, confusing and peaceful moments.

Several years ago, I went on a business trip to Singapore, India, Indonesia and Hong Kong. When I got back I was asked the same question, did I enjoy the trip. Not to be picky, but enjoy is not the word I would choose. I have always said it was the best trip I ever had that I did not enjoy having. It was eventful: being tested by our Chinese hosts to see what they could get us to eat, India with the Taj Mahal, pollution, snake charmers, color, chaos, poverty, disease and promise, in the midst of the Bataam jungle shown the Indonesian cook's special choice for my lunch - a live, 3 foot iguana held in a Tupperware tub out back that he wanted to butcher and prepare at my table, the web of dark alleys full of shops and life woven behind the high-rent, high-rises of pre-China Hong Kong. It was fascinating, mind-numbing, revelatory, exhausting, funny and horrifying. And I will never experience it again.

Now, that is the second best trip I have ever had. Today, I and my two children were confirmed in the Roman Catholic Church and recieved our first communion. It's interesting to me that a trip to the most foreign place I have experienced and joining the Catholic Church somehow equate in my mind and heart. I am a military brat. New and different is not new and different for me. It is a way of life. I feel as though I have come home and I feel as though, while I may not have walked through the fires of hell to do so, it did get a bit warm and there was definately a whiff or two of brimstone.

I gave this decision, maybe because of my age, or maybe the because of the process to get here, much more prayerful consideration than my marriages. Becoming a member of the Roman Catholic Church is a sacrament, one of seven visible signs of an invisible reality in which God is uniquely active. As a Protestant, there were two - Baptism and Eucharist (Holy Communion). Because they weren't sacraments, I could move my church membership or divorce at will, and did. Today, I was welcomed into a faith that I will embrace to death and beyond. That's kind of a big deal.

It's been an amazing few weeks. I want to thank Arlene, our loving friend who gently guided us through our journey, my daughter for following her heart, being persistant in her belief and encouraging us along the way and my son for his openess, faith and humor.

Tonight, after many weeks, I sit here writing to you peaceful, tired and, finally, with much to say.

Cleverly disguised as a responsible adult

Most of the time I'm sure you can see the real, goofy, screw up I do, tripping all over myself trying meet my own expectations. It seems the older I get the more inept I feel. Recently though, I've noticed some subtle changes.

More than a month ago, I was asked to write a letter to clearly express my desires and intentions as they relate to joining the Roman Catholic Church and to bring it to the retreat this weekend. It's been an awful lot to think about. I apologize if I've left you hanging while I've worked through it.

My desire is to follow the path I have been called to by God. My intention is to follow that call no matter where it leads. I do not want to convert from my Methodist upbringing. I am the 6th, and my children are the 7th, generation baptized in the church my great, great grandfather founded.

I do not want to be Catholic. I did not wake up one morning on yet another lark to do something unusual and provocative. Among some of my Protestant and, particularly among my non-Christian friends, my new affiliation has been suprising, dismaying and downright confusing. As I was called to be a mother, called to study the word of God, gifted to teach and provide comfort and truth, I am called to be Catholic.

Sometime this weekend I will go to reconciliation (confession). I am scared to death. Really. I've been "quite a pistol", as my grandmother said daily, carefully disguised as a responsible adult. I have never, NEVER, spoken out loud the things I have done to hurt others and myself. I have never spoken it to myself. I really prefer to ignore my failings and move on, trying to do better next time.

I am trusting the process. There have been people, with just the right amount of loving and support, to guide me through this far. They will be there for me through reconciliation and confirmation. When it is over, when I have bared my conscience, I pray I will be freed of it in a way I can not let it go myself.

Why am I asking to be admitted to full communion with the Roman Catholic Church? Because I believe the doctrine, teaching, ritual and traditions of the church. I believe to find truth we must go back to our roots. For me, that is the original church. I love being Catholic.