Be Still…

(This was originally posted at the Parish Blog of St. Edward the Confessor, but is being re-posted here. All are welcome at our services, so please consider joining us! Evening Prayer is held every Tuesday during Lent, at 7pm.)

Tonight we began again… Evening prayer in Lent at St. Edward the Confessor started tonight. What happens here is so beautiful! I hope that you will consider this an invitation and find yourself among us on any Tuesday evening in Lent. – all are welcome! (We do this during Advent as well.) This is an hour of peace, serenity and the opportunity for union with God and one another.

This is what – our third year? I’ve lost track now. I can’t imagine… Continue reading at the Times Union blog.

Trying kindness on for size this Lent.

In the video shown above, Jesuit priest, author, speaker and culture editor of America Magazine, James Martin SJ, speaks about being kind for Lent. I really liked what he had to say and he gave me a lot of food for Lenten thought. That’s the kind of food, I don’t have to fast from! (FYI, for those of you who are interested, Fr. Martin will be keynote speaker at this year’s Spring Enrichment here in Albany.)

When I returned to the Roman Catholic Church after a prolonged (18 years is prolonged, don’t you think?) in 1990, I was going to do it up right! Oh the fervent energy of that kind of thing… I’m far too exhausted for that these days. Lent was going to be all sackcloth and ashes for me that year, so that I could emerge 40 days later, all nice and shiny for Jesus! Forgive me if I sound flip, but I view my 1990 self with a mix of tender regard and a more than a dash of embarrassment. “Really Fran?” is what I want to say to 1990 self, and then I would hug me for having such passion, but without boundaries or wisdom. This may be one of my more well-intended, but ridiculous behaviors that I have forgiven myself for. There has to be something good in that, right? I guess that I would be kind to myself. See, this might be off to a good start!

That Lent I gave up everything except breathing and going to work. Well, not exactly, but that was what I was aiming for. This approach was awash in all sorts of problems, to say the least. And it was also a minefield of Lent-y disaster, with me falling short of my lofty goals about 437 times, give or take…

Thank You

(For the time being, I will start posts here, but direct you to the TU site…)
A week ago if you told me that I would be typing the words thank you into a blog post on the TU site, I would have had a good laugh. Well, here we all are! Thank you for such a warm welcome. From Mike Huber, and everyone else that I met at the paper on Monday , as well as readers and commenters. Some of you know me in real life, some of you came from the original blog, some of you are new. I am grateful to all.

The past few days have been a bit crazy, I have been running on grace and grace alone. Today being Ash Wednesday, well it will be yesterday at least by time you read this, I hit the wall. I’m not complaining, I’m grateful. But for a woman who gave a talk on Tuesday night entitled “Too Busy for Lent,” I guess

Too busy for Lent?

It is Ash Wednesday, the time we are invited into Lent, as our foreheads are marked with ashes, a reminder of the call to always be ready to change, and be transformed; the call that says that we all need to die. We are asked to repent – what a loaded word that is. However, if we stop ourselves from rejecting this term because it sounds like “too much,” we find that repenting is simply re-orienting ourselves by re-thinking, and thus re-storing, re-turning ourselves to the great promise of God. That all might sound good… Or not! It sounds hard if you ask me! What is this call of Lent? Can I do this? Do I have to do it again?

Lent. The word looms over us! Lent is an invitation to all, a seeming impossibility for some, a feeling of dread for a few and a mystery for others. Lent – 40 days of hope stands before us now. Lent, a time of promise and fulfillment; God as ever, waiting for us to respond to God’s invitation.

What will we say or do in response to God come this day, this Ash Wednesday?

When asked by a journalist, what might be the greatest of our spiritual ills, the prolific monk,author and contemplative from the Abbey of Gethsemani, Thomas Merton replied

There will still be bread, just from a new oven.

I don’t know about you, but I loathe moving. As it happens, I am moving today… This place is actually great, and I did spend so much time trying to get it going in WordPress, but now the blog will be published at the Times Union website. I guess it is a good thing that I did learn WordPress after all!

In any case, if you are here, chances are that you know me, so this post will be redundant to you in some ways. Feel free to keep on reading if you wish.

There is an element of bittersweet going on here, but I am very pleased to have the larger platform to blog from. When Mike Huber, the interactive audience manager and overall boss o’ the bloggers there contacted me, I was a bit shocked! It took me a day to sort out the pros and cons, and I feel great that about making the move.  I do hope that if you are reading this, you will come over and read at the Times Union blog pages as well.

The comments are all moderated; it is a newspaper blog, so that has to be the policy. Please be patient as I moderate them.  And the aforementioned Mike won’t like it if things get ugly… and neither will I, so let’s keep that in mind.

In any case, here we go…. 3…2…1…

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Hello Times Union blog readers! I’d like to introduce myself to you today. My name is Fran Rossi Szpylczyn, I’m a long-time blogger who is new to the TU blogs, and looking forward to connecting with you via these pages. I am so pleased to be here; what a privilege it is to be part of the expansive company of Times Union bloggers.

So, who am I?

I live in Clifton Park with my husband Mark Szpylczyn and my stepdaughter Erica. We have a dog and a cat who like to ignore each other, which is a good thing! Born in the Bronx, I grew up in White Plains, NY and spent most of my life in the New York City area. The bulk of my work life was spent working

Believing

Just a short post for today. I wrote another short post over at Pastoral Postings, the blog that I host for my work parish, The Church of the Immaculate Conception, but I’d like to say the same thing here.

Today’s Gospel from Mark reminds us – well it reminds me, anyway – of some pretty important words. They are:

“I do believe, help my unbelief!”

Do I believe? Of course I do! Do I have many moments of unbelief? Of course I do! Not conscious, oh-I-do-not-believe moments, but how about all the times I feel hopeless, helpless and filled with despair?

These words are a reminder that believing happens on a continuum, they are not a simple stop on the journey. So it is with a faith that is relational.

And while I am a woman of faith, I need help all the time!

Don’t you?

(For the record, I did *not* believe that I could make it up those steps. Worse yet, once I did, I did *not* believe that I could come down those steps. I lived  to tell the tale of both! God definitely helped my unbelief that day, a day that changed my life.)

Cardinal Timothy Dolan

Quick post… a photo of newly elevated Cardinal Timothy Dolan, sent to me by my boss, Father Jerome R. Gingras, who is in Rome at this time.

This blogging hiatus is being interrupted to bring you breaking news!

So much for the blog break, I have to interrupt it for some breaking news. I was not planning on any of this, but it seems that my bread-y little blog will be moving. We have been invited to show ourselves over on the Times Union blogging pages!

The launch will be on Tuesday, so I have a lot of work to do. The blog break will continue!

There is another piece of news, but while breaking it has not yet fully broken! I will keep you posted!

 

 

What’s Up?

 

This and That From Lotsa ‘Splaining to Lotsa Complainin’!

I had a great time on Saturday… I drove to Kripalu and had a mighty fine Facebook-y, blogger-y meet up with Karla McLaren.

Karla is Mattyboy’s sister and Mattyboy is blogger zero for me. It kind of all started with him and he will always have a special place in my heart.

Anyway, I’ve gotten to know Karla via Facebook and we have some lively and spirited conversations. We have very different points of view, but we share a love of critical thinking and… well, spirited conversation! It was great to meet her and we had a wonderful time eating lunch at Kripalu. (Oh food, how I love you so. Healthy food, good food, beautiful, organic food.)

We also went poking around and found the mosaic of St. Ignatius of Loyola, now behind a cloth, but we did see it. Thanks to James Martin, SJ, who filled me in on where and how to find it and to Richard Michaels, one of the founders of Kripalu, for good background on why the mosaic is still there. Now that I am blessed to know both Jim Martin AND Richard Michaels and that they were in conversation on my little Facebook page regarding my time at Kripalu with Karla… well that just makes me smile.

Now to my complaining. I am pretty tired of all the everything going on in the world and while I am celebrating the diversity of conversation here, I am also mourning relationships ended, challenged or shaky, as a result of current events.

As a result, I think I will take a bit of a blog break. I will be back in a week or so for Lent no doubt.

Be well, play nicely and no fighting kids! And don’t ignore the saint behind the curtain either.

St. Ignatius, I know that you are back there!