God Stuff

Cathleen Falsani 8-01-2012
The author during her first August in the Hamptons, 1971.

The author during her first August in the Hamptons, 1971.

All our life should be a pilgrimage to the seventh day; the thought and appreciation of what this day may bring to us should be ever present in our minds. For the Sabbath is the counterpoint of living; the melody sustained throughout all agitations and vicissitudes which menace our conscience; our awareness of God’s presence in the world.
—Abraham Joshua Heschel
The Sabbath

IF THE SEVENTH day is the Sabbath of my week, August is the Sabbath of my year. For most of my life, August has meant vacation. As a child, my parents would pack my brother and me into the station wagon, head to the ferry dock on the Connecticut side of Long Island Sound, and float across the water to the Hamptons, where my mother’s best friend, Patti, lived.

August meant long days in the sun at the beach and long dinners around Patti’s table with fresh zucchini, snap peas, tomatoes, and corn from the farm stand down the road. Some days—some of the most magical of my childhood—before dinner, Patti would hand me a little metal bucket and lead me across her gravel road to a bramble-laden field where we’d pick blueberries.

Nearly 40 years on, the muscle-memories I have of plucking those indigo gems from their prickly rests have not faded a bit. While I usually collect my blueberries these days from Trader Joe’s, I still pick through the berries as Patti taught me to, looking for the few errant green stems left behind by the processing plant.

Cathleen Falsani 6-01-2012

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, / the world offers itself to your imagination, / calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting / over and over announcing your place / in the family of things.
—From “Wild Geese”
by Mary Oliver

Late June. School’s out. The days are long, their pace slowed—languid and languorous, in the best sense of those descriptors. Could there be a better time to embark on a wild goose chase? I think not.

As luck would have it, just after the summer solstice this June, fans of such adventures—devotees of that sacred, untamable squawking bird—will gather on a farm in North Carolina for a weekend’s worth of music, art, the exchange of ideas, and the pursuit of the Spirit at the (aptly named) Wild Goose Festival.

The fest, a cousin of the U.K.’s venerable Greenbelt festival now in its second year on this side of the pond, takes its name from the Irish An Gé Fiáin (“the wild goose,” pronounced “On Geh Fee-an”), which some folks believe is a metaphor for the Holy Spirit traceable to ancient Celtic Christianity.

The idea (and it is a provocative one) is that rather than a dove, the Holy Spirit is more like one of those big, gray geese—wild, unruly, coming and going as it pleases, announcing its arrival with honking, bluster, and ample attitude.

Cathleen Falsani 4-01-2012

The lesson for me, as the parent of a middle school child, was to pay closer attention.

Cathleen Falsani 2-01-2012

The apostle writes his letter to folks who are feeling anxious, worried, insecure, and unsettled. They don’t know what the future holds for their lives, the church, their well-being, their community. Sound familiar?

Cathleen Falsani 7-01-2011

None of us is free until all of us are free.

Cathleen Falsani 6-15-2011

Even the weakest faith can give us the strength to move mountains -- or climb them.

Cathleen Falsani 1-01-2011

Jan. 20, 2011, marks the 50th anniversary of the inauguration of President John F. Kennedy, our nation's first (and still only) Roman Catholic head of state. At the time, Kennedy's Catholicism was a matter of great public debate and, in some quarters, great alarm.

What did it mean to the presidency to have a "papist" sitting in the Oval Office? Would his first allegiance be to the pope rather than the American people? Collective hand-wringing ensued. But no one doubted whether Kennedy was what he said he was: a Catholic.

Half a century later, interest in the president’s spirituality has not waned. The religious predilections of our current president, Barack Obama, the nation’s first African-American president—and the only U.S. commander in chief to have familial ties, however tenuous and nominal they may be, to the Islamic tradition—is perpetual fodder for heated debates in the public square.

But something has changed since Hatless Jack took the oath of office. Today, some don't believe the president when he says what he believes about God. It is a troubling progression.

Nearly seven years ago, I sat down with Obama, then a young state senator running for national office for the first time, for a lengthy interview about his faith. When my "spiritual profile" of Obama ran in the Chicago Sun-Times, it was greeted with modest interest, mostly for the novelty of a Democratic candidate speaking at length about religion. To date, that interview remains the most exhaustive Obama has granted publicly about his faith.

Cathleen Falsani 11-01-2010

For more than 15 years, I didn't go to church (except for lots of visits in my professional capacity). When I was in my early 20s, the Episcopal church I attended regularly split.

Cathleen Falsani 8-01-2010
Dragonflies have a way of turning up at threshold moments -- like God's early warning system for amazing grace.
Cathleen Falsani 6-01-2010
Virtue is the road map for answering the question, How are we to live?
Cathleen Falsani 4-01-2010
Jimmy Carter is imperfect; that's what makes him appealing.
Cathleen Falsani 2-01-2010

Ah, February, the month that is, for those of us in northern climates, the coldest, darkest, and, blessedly, shortest month of the year. It is also the time when, as the St.

Cathleen Falsani 12-01-2009

"Your plan," God laughs. "Your plan!"

Cathleen Falsani 9-01-2009

“No pleasure, no rapture, no exquisite sin greater than central air.” — The demon Azrael in Kevin Smith’s film Dogma

Cathleen Falsani 7-01-2009

Patience may be a virtue, but it’s definitely not my strong suit. I hate to wait. H-A-T-E it.