The Art of Conversation at the Work & Life Conference

Friends, I am delighted to share that on Saturday, November 2, I will be speaking at the Yuma Center’s Work and Life Conference in Washington, DC. This is a great event for women at all levels of professional life and if you’re in the area, I encourage you to register! My talk will be on “The Art of Conversation.” Here’s a description:

Great conversation never goes out of style. As our world becomes increasingly digital, the critical skill of holding a good conversation - speaking with interest, charm and clarity - becomes even more desirable. Whether in a job interview, on the train, at a party, or on a date, the ability to confidently converse face-to-face is a true advantage. This workshop will present the benefits of strong conversational skills, the basics of being present for the conversation at hand - both as the speaker and the listener - and most importantly, how to genuinely enjoy life’s daily dialogues.

See you there!

One other thing - I turned my last post, “The Art of Losing Isn’t Hard to Master,” into a full-on article that will be published this week at Catholic Stand. I will share when it is up, and I hope it is helpful if you are suffering a loss.

God bless and have a great week.

The Art of Losing Isn't Hard to Master

I thought of this poem today, “One Art,” by Elizabeth Bishop:

The art of losing isn’t hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.

—Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident
the art of losing’s not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

Loss is an inevitable part of life, yes, but when it happens to you - I mean, when it happens to me - I find I am unprepared. There is a sense of injustice, an automatic, “Why me?” I know St. Ignatius would have something to say about my attachments there.

Right now in the daily Mass readings we are in the midst of hearing the tale of Jonah, who fled Nineveh when God asked him to stay and speak to the unrepentant people. Why did Jonah flee? Not because he was afraid to talk to them, but because Jonah found the Ninevites’ behavior so terrible, he went ahead and decided they deserved their fate.

“Jonah was greatly displeased
and became angry that God did not carry out the evil
he threatened against Nineveh.”

Jonah made himself judge.

Jonah reluctantly returns to Nineveh, gives the town warning as requested, then scurries back out of town to pout and wait. Keep in mind he’s also already spent a few days inside a whale, and is clearly feeling the victim.

“Jonah then left the city for a place to the east of it,
where he built himself a hut and waited under it in the shade,
to see what would happen to the city.”

It’s almost comical, how angry and self-involved Jonah is.

But God is patient, and he does something nice for Jonah, which is that he makes a gourd plant rise in the night over Jonah’s resting place to provide shade. We learn that “Jonah was very happy over the plant.” In a turn of events, God sends a worm to destroy the plant, followed by burning winds, both of which are enough to cause Jonah to say, “I would be better off dead than alive.”

It is the question and answer that follows between God and Jonah that struck me:

“But God said to Jonah,
’Have you reason to be angry over the plant?’
’I have reason to be angry,’ Jonah answered, ‘angry enough to die.’
Then the LORD said,
’You are concerned over the plant which cost you no labor
and which you did not raise;
it came up in one night and in one night it perished.”

Holy cow. You are concerned over the plant which cost you no labor and which you did not raise.

Apply this everywhere: you are concerned over the child, the grades, the promotion, the dinner plans, the ministry, the date, the marriage, the relationship, the house which cost you no labor and which you did not raise. Do not give me that the house “cost” you - everything, everything is a gift from God. And if he deems it suitable to take it, he will, and that is that.

So I called to mind this line from Job, who had everything taken from him, and who therefore can be our authority:

“Naked I came forth from my mother’s womb,

and naked shall I go back there.

The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away;

blessed be the name of the LORD!” (Job 1:21)

Loss is inevitable. A lot of times we actually mourn our future, or the imagined loss of the things we think we deserve - not even the materials things we have, as Jonah has done. Of course, his sense of loss is about more than the plant. Really, he is indignant that God will not bend to his will. I am seeing that any sort of indignation over loss really is this, at its heart. Our task is to learn to love and accept God’s will, even when its meaning is unfathomable, even when it is, after all, a disaster.

JD Flynn tweeted this quote from soon-to-be Saint John Henry Cardinal Newman: "God will give us what we ask, or He will give us something better." I pray I receive the grace to believe it.

A Saturday reflection on the 4th Joyful Mystery

This being a Saturday, it is the day to pray the joyful mysteries of the rosary. Recently in meditation on this set of mysteries, I thought about the fourth, the presentation of the child Jesus in the temple, and what it tells us about giving back to God what is His.

Mary and Joseph went to the temple “in accordance with the law,” because as good Jews, they were asked to present their firstborn male child to be consecrated to the Lord. So they were doing what was required and following the law. It is written that the fruit of this mystery is “obedience.”

I have always wondered how it felt for Mary to have a son that didn’t fully belong to her. I wonder if, in this moment of presenting her son in the temple, she felt a foreshadowing of how he would never truly be hers, because he was sent as a Son of Man for the whole world.

Beyond that, I think of our own call to present our gifts to God. Jesus was a gift to Mary, but one that she could not keep for herself. I have no doubt she understood that profoundly, deep in her soul.

A very wise person (my great-aunt Sister Andrea, OSB) recently told me, “A gift is just that - meant to be given away.” You may not have carried the Son of Man in your womb, but all of us have gifts or talents that make the world a better place and which must be returned to God - in other words, used in service to others. I think that is the definition of a talent or gift, that it cannot exist for its own sake, but as something to be shared.

What do I mean by that? Well, gifts take all forms. If you have the gift of counsel, for example, do you think it is better to keep it to yourself or, well, counsel others when they ask for your help? When looked at this way, it is apparent that everything in life is a gift - your time, your home, your intelligence, your woodworking skills, your ability to mimic voices, your ease with children, your ability to decorate cakes. Everything. Therefore, it is not that all can be given away, but that it ought to be.

What do you lose by generosity? Understand I do not mean acting as a doormat or letting others take advantage of you. But rather, living freely, with trust in God’s abundance which is exponentially greater than what we can conceive. And which will put to good use whatever it is we think we have to hold on to with clenched fists.

Live with obedience as Mary did when she presented God’s son back to him. She gifted herself back as his mother, his teacher, his home. She trusted in God’s plan for her life.