reconciling things

Babies and Bathwater

Daja Steuer

May 27, 2021

Jordan Peterson talks about how you know a friend is a real friend. He says the first mark is that you can tell them bad news and they won’t make you feel stupid or that all your back luck is your own fault. The second mark is that you can tell them good news and they will rejoice with you. They won’t be jealous or make you feel like you don’t deserve it or that they wished it had happened to them instead.

I know people who cannot be excited when someone announces a pregnancy because they long for a child. I know people who don’t want to attend any weddings because they long for marriage. I know people who will not rejoice over your promotion at work because they hate their job.

I have been thinking about this—how we keep space for those we love in the bad times and good. Life is such a mixed bag of emotions and experiences. Our responses to that mixed bag has far more to do with what is happening interiorly than what is happening exteriorly.

These ramblings are mine and mine alone and I have no cred except a lifetime of mixed emotions and learning to come to terms with them. I feel like so many people are scared to embrace the negative emotions. They hurt—hurt like bloody hell. And so we numb. We numb with work or social media or alcohol or ice cream. Because we don’t want to feel the pain, we avoid.

When you see me walking…

Daja Steuer

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May 17, 2021

“Sometimes, at the dinner table, a man might get up

and go outside and walk and walk,

simply because there’s somewhere in the East a church.

And his own children consider him dead.

Yet another, who dies in his own house,

stays put, living on in his table and glass,

so that this time it’s the children who walk

to the church their father forgot.”

Rilke, The Book of Pilgrimage

There is a question that nags in the night. It doesn’t matter if all day I rode the struggle bus or if it was a day full of mirth. When all is dark and the babies have been tucked in and the cat let out and the gentle hum of the dishwasher is the only background noise, I light the candle on my bedroom altar and watch how the flickering light illuminates the face of the Infant of Prague.

“God set me up” and other things I said in the Confessional

Daja Steuer

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May 9, 2021

I am not a terribly efficient confesser. This is a thing I know about myself, so I don’t usually line up 15 minutes before Mass when I know other people want to get in. I make an appointment or go at a daily Mass. (It’s my little sacrifice. Not all heroes wear capes.)

The typical confession—simply listing number and kind of transgression—is all well-and-good. Certainly valid. Probably appreciated by our good and faithful priests. However, one thing going to Confession frequently does for a person is a peeling away of the layers, revealing deeper desires and core motives.

Sometimes it is not enough to say, “these are my sins…”

Sometimes I have to say, “these are my disordered motives…”

Sometimes I can’t say, “these are my actions…”

Sometimes it comes out like, “my interior life is chaotic.”

Which is exactly how I began a recent Confession. I had my little list ready. I could have just tried to read them off. But when I looked at it, it became clear that outward actions stemmed from inner chaos. My interior house needed some cleaning. I eventually got to the outward stuffs. But first I dumped all the messiness of my heart at the feet of Jesus.

April Highlights

Daja Steuer

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May 6, 2021

April—Eastertide, friendship, spring, gratitude.

Usually it is Israel’s job to carve the butter lamb. But as he was in school, the girls inherited the job.

Easter basket to be blessed. Bread, butter, lamb, sausage, sweets, wine, eggs, cheese, and salt. See the blessing on my Instagram. Preparing this basket each Holy Week is a special tradition. The kids and I take this quite seriously.

Holy Monotony

Daja Steuer

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April 29, 2021

We live in a world where innovation is highly valued, disruptive technologies sought after, fresh ideas praised. It is as if what is current is interchangeable with what is important and the only relevant ideas are those which can be captured in a sound bite in the 24 hour news cycle.

There is always the temptation to be on to the next best thing.

This temptation draws us away from the romance of daily life, from rhythms and rituals, and practices as old as the world itself.

The world is old—at least in terms of humanity. (The world is young in terms of the eternal God who made and sustains it.) And the sun rises each day the same way. We can count on the seasons, the ebb and flow of the tides, the days of the week slipping in and out book ended with liturgies and weekend chores.

Adoration at the Blessed Sacrament Chapel

There is this sameness about the world—despite cars that drive themselves and phones that listen to my conversations in order to advertise to me things I neither need nor want. The sameness of things can either feel stifling or grounding, depending on my perspective and how much I let the monotony speak to me of things eternal.

March Highlights

Daja Steuer

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April 1, 2021

One time, a few years ago, I went to this awful lecture with friends called “Finding Joy In March In Maine.” Sounds good, right? It wasn’t.

It was terrible and kind of depressing actually and laced with inaccuracies and near heresies. So, my friend leaned forward and whispered “Check your phone” into my ear. She had sent me a text that read, “If you want to get out of here as much as we do, pretend this is an emergency text and make for the door. We’ll follow.”

And so we got the heck out of dodge. Found ourselves a table at a pub. Ate nachos and drank beer and found our joy in March in Maine the way real people do.

This year I didn’t have trouble finding joy in March in Maine. Yes, the weather can be dreary. And it is also true that the divorce was final this month, which came with its own set of feels that had to be dealt with or resolved at the bottom of a tub of ice cream. (Dairy-free, of course, because still healing my gut…)

But also there was grace. And laughter. And children who got muddy and into scrapes. And friends who pressed in. And true love. And cuddles. And warmer temps.

I’m here for it, y’all. I’m here for all of it.

I’ve got questions…

Daja Steuer

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March 31, 2021

Forgive me while I take a break from my usually pondering of life and love and grief. Because I have some questions…

If you believe so strongly in the vaccination that those without it are in danger of death why would you refuse the life-saving Sacrament of Confession to such a person? Don’t they need it the most?

Unless you don’t believe in the life-saving Sacrament of Confession? Yet you believe in the life-saving vaccination? In which case is your faith in science rather than in God?

How will this be enforced? Will people have to show their IDs and vaccine cards? In which case how does that not violate the anonymity of Confession?

If someone shows up without a vaccine, will they get reported? In which case does this not violate the seal of Confession?

Will showing medical history be a prerequisite for the Sacraments? Because there are other contagions other than the current viral obsession. Should we also be aware of our status on those? And what if you already had the virus, rather than the vaccine? I mean, it would come to the same end, would it not?

If you refuse people Confession you are also refusing them the Eucharist, the source and summit of our Faith and how can that be justified?

If people are not turned away from the Eucharist because of things like divorce and remarriage or publicly endorsing sin, but they are turned away because of lack of vaccination, is not getting vaccinated now one of the seven deadly sins? Which one is it replacing?

And if it is a sin not to receive a vaccination, that person should go to Confession.

Oh wait…

Psssst….one more thing….

If you’re writin’ your own rules for the Sacraments, you’re a Protestant.

Grief and other lovely things

Daja Steuer

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March 26, 2021

A friend asked me recently if I wrote a book what would it be about. I said, “I don’t know. Grief and other lovely things, I suppose.”

That is said without an ounce of sarcasm, by the way. I have been in a season of grief for a while—the kind of grief that was at first paralyzing and numbing, then painful, then just raw, and finally motivating. I have grieved people and a former life I loved. I have also grieved an illusionary future that felt very real, but was never to be.

“The most painful state of being is remembering the future, particularly the one you’ll never have.” (Soren Kierkegaard)

In The Footsteps of St. Joseph

Daja Steuer

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March 19, 2021

Today is St. Joseph’s Feast Day. I have an ever increasing devotion to Jesus’ foster father. This man who was chosen by God to look after Our Lady and Our Lord. The Liturgy this morning says, “You served the Lord and His mother, and you were their constant companion both day and night. You carried on your arm the One Who carries the world, and you supported the One Who supports all mankind. You spoke with the eternal Word, and you were the guardian of His mother, the blessed virgin betrothed to you in purity. O mystery of Jacob realized! O true and perfect dream come true! how blessed are you among the saints and honorable among virgins.”

Over my first cup of coffee this morning, I was pondering this mysterious St. Joseph who isn’t recorded as saying anything in Scripture, but how loud his faith echoes through eternity!

As I sipped my coffee by my cozy fire, I pondered how in the absence of a man of the house Jesus has generously given us his father. We daily place ourselves under his protection and patronage. If, as the Litany says, “He made him lord over his house hold and prince over all his possessions” that includes my little family and our old farmhouse too.

February Highlights

Daja Steuer

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March 9, 2021

Oh February! The month of love, the beginning of Lent, my birthday, and the dead cold of winter. We survived some stuff. Like some serious emotional stuff. And God was good. And friends were kind. And we laughed and we cried. And we got through, hopefully, a little deeper in His Sacred Heart. Here are some highlights from February.