As my husband, Dennis, and I searched out items on our lengthy list, I did what I do any time I’m in an unfamiliar place, be it a new city or a new grocery store: I engage with the people around me, usually through some sort of goofy humor. Before I knew it, I was laughing with another mom in the trail mix section, as we both sought out particular mixes requested by our children. Later in the cheese section, not one but two women recommended an inexpensive-but-tasty cheddar they said I should not pass up. Done! Finally, a worker in the chip aisle came to my aid several times as I searched for a variety of unusual treats. I found myself giddy with the fun-loving community I discovered among the shelves, the kind of community that reminds me of what many of us are looking for when we go to our parish churches.

We go to church not just for Mass, to be fed by the Eucharist and the Word, but to be among those who are searching, just as we are, for something that is not always easy to find in this crazy world of ours. And just as we might shy away from a place in our everyday life that leaves us overwhelmed, we often do the same on the spiritual journey. Rather than dive in and sidle up to someone else who is trying to navigate the same challenging path, we try to figure it out on our own.

Our lives are busy. We often rush into Mass with only a few minutes to spare and rush back out again, not because we don’t want to linger, but because life and its demands can make lingering feel like a luxury or an impossibility. And yet those human interactions are vital to our lives as Christians and as compassionate people on a troubled planet.

My family often jokes about my penchant for striking up a conversation with anyone who happens to be near me — in the grocery store, the library, the doctor’s office. But I find that when I let down my guard and approach someone not as a stranger but as a companion on the way, they almost always respond with happy surprise. I have navigated entire cities like this, relying not on Google or Yelp to get me to locations or restaurants but rather the kindness of strangers and the good advice of those who have been there before.

And isn’t that a lot like our faith journey? We are all on the path together, and each of us has something to offer based on the way we have encountered God. It is only when we are willing to turn to strangers on the sometimes-challenging terrain of our spiritual landscape that we find the spiritual friends and the community that will point us toward the thing we are seeking and remind us that we are not alone.

I’m going to guess that most people don’t go to Trader Joe’s and come home with spiritual revelation packed up alongside the vegetable dumplings and sourdough bread, but the truth is that God’s mystery and majesty are always swirling around us. We think of mysticism as something only for saints who spend hours in contemplation, but it’s always right there, waiting to be plucked off a shelf and gathered into our heart.

This column originally appeared in the Aug. 22, 2024, issue of The Evangelist.

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Ours is not a linear path with a neat end point and victory lap, at least not this side of heaven. We’ll never be done. There will always be another step, a new lesson, and occasionally a switchback that makes us feel as though we’re moving in the wrong direction. And while all of that may seem overwhelming at first glance, the truth is that this spiritual reality is completely freeing if we are willing to accept the mystery and majesty of a life lived in the constant presence of God right where we are at any given moment.

How do you approach your private prayer life? Is it a laundry list of words to be said and boxes to be checked? Or is it an ongoing conversation with God that includes not only talking but listening deeply? While the prayers we memorized as children and love as adults are wonderful tools in the vast treasury of our Catholic prayer life, those very same things can sometimes become stumbling blocks to our spiritual growth when we get so hung up on specific requirements that we close ourselves off to the movement of the Spirit.

When I wrote my book Everyday Divine: A Catholic Guide to Active Spirituality, I described it like this: “When you take prayer out of that box and unwrap all the beautiful and varied ways of speaking to God, you begin to realize that prayer does not require anything more than a willing heart…As soon as you feel that desire within to deepen your connection to the divine, as soon as you turn to face God, you have already begun to pray, no matter what words you say or whether you say anything at all.”

And that is where prayer begins, with an intention and a heart and soul hungry for God. When we release ourselves from following specific “rules” and allow an inner conversation to flow, we begin to recognize more clearly and easily that God truly is with us at every moment. We begin to talk to God as we would a best friend, in an open conversation that requires no memorization, no notes, no user manual.

If you don’t believe me, listen to the words of St. Teresa of Avila: “For mental prayer, in my opinion, is nothing else than an intimate sharing between friends; it means taking time frequently to be alone with Him who we know loves us.”

What would it look like if you allowed yourself to share your joys and struggles and worries with God not only in dedicated prayer time but as you go about the tasks of your day — as you drive across town, shovel snow, cook dinner, walk the dog. This is where we learn to pray without ceasing. Our every breath becomes a prayer, and we begin to understand that prayer is not something outside us that we have to achieve; it is our very life.

In The Way of Prayer, Pope St. John Paul II said: “How to pray? This is a simple matter. I would say: Pray any way you like, so long as you do pray…Sometimes it takes courage to pray; but it is possible to pray, and necessary to pray, whether from memory or a book or just in thought, it is all the same.”

So just begin. Right where you are, with words or without. No expectations, no goals, no accomplishment in mind. Just an openness to the journey that will inevitably unfold when you begin a conversation with God.

This column originally appeared in the Jan. 18, issue of The Evangelist.

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What’s this retreat all about? Details:

So often we rush headlong through our days, our weeks, our lives, missing out on the real moments, those places where the spark of the Divine is so close we could almost touch it — if only we’d been paying attention. We tell ourselves we don’t have time, but the truth is we don’t need more time but rather more presence. When we seek beauty right where we are, we discover God in our midst, in the ordinary events and mundane moments of our lives.

The Divine is not a distant dream but a daily reality. Join writer and retreat leader Mary DeTurris Poust for a weekend focused on this beautiful truth and how to let it unfold in your life day by day. This retreat will include not only formal presentations but guided meditation, optional yoga classes, journaling, poetry, collage as prayer, and small doses of silence to soothe the soul. Come away for a short time to restore your serenity, recharge your energy, and recognize God alongside you every step of the way.

Check in begins at 4pm and the retreat will begin after dinner. Lunch is included on Sunday before departure. Info and registration HERE.

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I woke up in the middle of the night with this psalm verse running through my head. This is not one of my “favorite” psalms and this sort of thing does not typically happen to me, so how and why did this particular psalm end up in my sleepy subconscious. When I got up I Goggled the verse because I honestly had no idea where it came from in Scripture, but I was intrigued that it decided to show up for me. Now I find myself pondering what I’m supposed to take from it. (And turning it into the graphic you see here.)

For me it is a reminder that I am called (and I think we are all called) to find “the house of the Lord” right where we are. It is not somewhere out in the distance of space and time. It is now, here. If we look at life through the eyes of wonder and with the heart of gratitude, we find God’s house right in front of us at all times, around us, within us. I think that verse came to me in my sleep because I need to do a better job of being present in my own life and aware of God’s abiding present there with me. What does this verse say to you?

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As we settle into our non-holiday routines, our churches devoid of poinsettias and manger scenes and our homes swept clean of pine needles and tinsel, it would be easy to fall back into spiritual lives stripped of the extra prayer time and devotion we mustered during Advent and Christmas. So often, when these special liturgical seasons end, we take it as a signal that our spiritual life can shift to the back burner for a bit. But Ordinary Time is really the perfect time to use our ordinary and everyday lives to dig deeper into the extraordinary and transcendent gifts always at our disposal. In the post-Christmas season before us, can we look at our mundane tasks and challenges and recognize that Jesus and the Holy Family faced much of the same during the period of his life not narrated by Scripture, the period that probably looked like an ancient version of our contemporary lives?

After all, Mary and Joseph had to face many of the same struggles new parents face, on top of the frightening realities heaped upon them as parents of the Savior. They had to feed and change the infant Jesus, hoping he would take a nap or sleep through the night. They had to teach him to dress himself and say his prayers, take him to temple and tend to him when he was ill or hurt. Joseph worked and taught Jesus a trade; Mary cooked and cleaned and helped raise her son in the Jewish faith. I’m sure there were many days when they wondered how bringing up the Son of God could be so ordinary.

But that is the miracle and gift of the Incarnation. God comes among us as one of us and experiences life in all its messy, glorious, challenging reality. When something in our life upends everything and makes us wonder how we’ll get through, we can turn to a God who has been where we are. It’s incredibly comforting and confounding all at once. We look up to a God who is almighty, as we should, but we can never forget that our God was also one of us, making our entire faith a celebration of the extraordinary that always exists alongside the ordinary.

Ordinary Time gets its name from the numbered — “ordinal” — Sundays and not for its lack of pizazz. While it is not one of the notable liturgical seasons (Advent, Christmas, Lent, Easter), it is still important. In fact, it offers us its own endearing challenge: recognizing the majesty amid the mundane, the divine amid the everyday.

Here’s how the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops describes this season: “The Sundays and weeks of Ordinary Time… take us through the life of Christ. This is the time of conversion. This is living the life of Christ. Ordinary Time is a time for growth and maturation.”

What does that mean for us? How might we grow and mature in faith in the weeks between the end of Christmas and the start of Lent? As we approach the First Sunday in Ordinary Time on Jan. 15, can we make a plan to seek God not amid twinkling lights or the barren desert but right where we are today, no matter how ordinary?

Photo by Stephanie Harvey on Unsplash

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@marydtp518

#jellyfish #letgo #gowiththeflow

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There will be something,
anguish or elation,
that is peculiar to this day alone.
I rise from sleep and say:
Hail to the morning!
Come down to me, my beautiful unknown.*     —Jessica Powers

A beautiful sunrise can turn a typical morning into something mystical and mysterious. During a summer vacation at the New Jersey shore a few years back, I set my alarm every morning and ran down to the beach just before dawn to watch the sun break over the horizon. Every sunrise was different — some were bold and bodacious, with rays of orange touching everything in sight; some were subtle and simple, a perfect red orb inching slowly into the sky unfettered; some were surprising, with the sun disappearing midway into a patch of clouds only to transform into a “second” sunrise when it pushed through the layer of cartoon-like fluff; and some were barely noticeable, hidden behind a dense wall of white, somewhat disappointing and seemingly absent, except for the fact that I knew otherwise. But all of them were magnificent and worth the early wake-up.

It’s funny that when I’m at home during “regular” life, I almost never bother to watch the sunrise. If I catch a glimpse of color in the distance while I’m pouring my coffee, it may make my heart sing a bit, but mostly I take sunrise for granted, which is often the case for everyday life in general. Mornings begin with an alarm, a groan, a tap or two on the snooze button, and, eventually, the thud of feet on the floor in resignation.

Listening to the lyrical lines of “Hail to the Morning,” however, tinges that routine with a mystical glow that turns everything to light. What a gift to wake up to the world each day as the author describes, to accept that some days will bring sorrow and some joy but all are worthy of awe just the same.

Can we welcome, even beckon, the unknown, realizing there’s a chance it could contain some anguish? Can we open our eyes to each new day as if it is our own personal sunrise and watch with anticipation for what will unfold, gracious and grateful even if we get clouds instead of beams of light? Can we say yes, in imitation of Mary, and accept with a sense of faith and trust whatever God wants to send our way?

All of life is a “beautiful unknown,” although for most of us the human condition gets in the way of that gorgeous reality. We want elation, happiness, sunshine at all times, but God asks us to accept much more, and to recognize that joy is there even when it is cloaked beneath a dense cloud of struggle.

So shake off your slumber, and see how it feels to hail the morning unafraid.

This essay originally appeared in the September 2018 issue of Give Us This Day. If you don’t have a subscription, click here for a free trial.

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Driving east on the New York State Thruway, the darkness soon gave way to a slice of bright yellow light on the horizon. I sped toward my destination while the sun crept up bit by bit, treating me to a spectacular light show over the already scenic Mohawk Valley. As I sipped my coffee and sang along with “Blessings” by Darden Smith, a favorite artist from my life in Austin, Texas, in the late 1980s, I was struck by the perfection of that single moment, a glimmer of grace sparked by a sunrise and then cascading downward, catching me and my minivan in its grip.

Lately grace has been elusive or absent, or, more accurately, I’ve been negligent and distracted, which is usually the case when we think grace has up and left us. Amid the busyness of life and the heartbreak surrounding the current scandal in the Church, I’ve forgotten to notice the everyday moments that call us back to God, the miraculous in the mundane, the divine in the daily drudgery. I wrote an entire book about it, but the reality is that being mindful with an eye toward grace has to be intentional; we won’t find it if our literal and figurative arms are folded against it, against God, if we’re moving about our days mindlessly, or, even worse, with our eyes closed to potential beauty.

So, how do we make room for the divine in day-to-day life, especially if we’re struggling, whether that struggle is physical, spiritual, mental, professional, or just plain annoying? Sometimes it’s as simple as taking a deep breath and paying attention to what’s going on around you at that moment—birds chirping at your window, a lawn mower humming next door, the smell of cut grass tickling your nose, your cat purring on the couch next you, the last of the summer flowers nodding their heads. Such ordinary things and yet so full of life and blessing when we break them down, when we stop and pay attention to our own lives.

The morning after the drive to Auriesville, my husband and I were having breakfast in a café near our home. On the table near the door was a vase of rusty brown sunflowers. Although they were slightly past their prime, they looked like a Van Gogh painting come to life—a reminder that even in aging and fading there is beauty, sometimes a particularly profound kind of beauty. On the drive home a little while later, we stopped to take a short hike and spotted a heron standing statue-still on a small island of earth in the middle of a pond—a reminder that there is grace and power in simply being willing to stop and stay in one place for a while.

Of course, life can’t be all hikes and cafés and sunrises. Work and school, chores and challenges get in the way and make it hard to spot the grace hidden in plain sight, something that is magnified, I think, by the fact that the one thing that has always given us comfort—our faith and our Church life—is now mired in pain and confusion, snuffing out the sparks of grace that once came to us unbidden. Don’t let go so easily. Don’t let what’s happening out there rob you of what’s in here, in your heart and soul: an invitation, or, more than that, a right to a relationship with God.

This column originally appeared in the Oct. 10, 2018, issue of Catholic New York.

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