Sr. Snuffles

It's Lent, no treats.

It is a good gratitude practice to picture the faces of kindness that have come and gone in our lives. It is especially good to do this in the space we are living in; it’s orange and dark out there - a non-stop Halloween of sorts.

The primary reason I practice my faith is that it provides bookends for La vida loca. I can’t imagine one long ass year with no “reset” breaks in between. I like Advent, I like Lent, actually, I need them.

This is the 23rd day of my fast. The same fast I have struggled with for 50 years. I still remember the morning my corrective catholic mom busted me in the olive green kitchen. It was just a week or so before Easter, and I found the hidden candies. I grabbed the cherry Pop Rocks, swallowed, and like Snuffles[ circa:1970 Hanna Barbera] I floated to the top of the tiny kitchen. There I was, popping and floating, and in she walked.

Buzzkiller. Sugar was, and remains, my drug of choice. I have at least 24 giant malted milk balls staring at me every morning as I pour my coffee. But I am stronger now- no floating, it is the great wait after all!

I need the bookends to keep me awake, to practice simple discipline, and to reflect on the deeper, non-orange moments of my little life. I want to be a kind face that shows up for someone along their way. And, we are truly on the path of pain. On these paths, we all need Light.

Last week, I was thumbing through the magazine that the Catholic order of sisters from my high school publishes. Sitting on my patio with my coffee and no malted milk ball, there she was all of a sudden! Sr. Marie Kathleen. The dean of discipline for Our Lady of Angels, 1982....

I was 3 months from graduation and had 2 demerits over 40. 41 was the expulsion number. Oh, now I was going to die in that olive kitchen. My head was going to pop off with my mom’s when she opened the letter about yet “another damn discipline meeting, Laurie Lynn.” We headed toward the wooded panel room at the end of the marbled walls. We passed 2 angels on the way, at least 5 pictures of Jesus, and of course, 3 of my plaided friends sneaking into the “off limits” elevator on their way to the roof for an early am smoke.

Stern and unwavering, the sister was. She read all 40 of those infractions. Like Bill Clinton in his recent grilling, it was hard for me not to smile at some of them because they sounded so ridiculous. My poor corrective mom. She shook her head and knew the end was near. I had already secretly decided that I would run away and live at the zoo. I worked there on the weekends, and no one would discover me eating monkey biscuits in the gibbon tunnel.

The older, stern nun did not smack my fingers with a ruler. Sister Marie Kathleen was a Franciscan sister who had chosen to put aside all attachments and to love and serve God. Her stern eyes must have seen something in the other 4 teary, popped eyeballs across her long desk. While I was thinking about monkey biscuits and my mom was suffering from embarrassment, Sr. Marie Kathleen showed Grace. “You’re not bad, but you make bad decisions, Laurie. Don’t make one more, and you will graduate. Your choice.” Praise God, I graduated with my friends.

Seeing her face last week reminded me that I still must choose Light over dark, or I ride that forbidden elevator again and again. Darker times need Lighter people, disciplined people, truly kind people. I am always 1 milkball from being there fully, but thankfully, I have faces in my story that “show up” and remind me of the power of mercy and dignified kindness. Love has no particular domination, just right action. God knows we all need more of that... I think the Christian bookends help me get a bit closer to my best self.

Equip Us to Serve

By this merit may I become enlightened.

Having become enlightened, may I defeat all evils.

Through the endless storm of birth, illness, old age, and death,

may I help all beings to cross the ocean of suffering.

Mahayana Buddhist dedication prayer