reconciling things

Temporary Vegan

Daja Steuer

August 7, 2021

Today begins the Dormition Fast in the Syriac church. Our Byzantine fam has been fasting for a week already. Our Roman fam is not required to fast…but that doesn’t mean you can’t.

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As promised here are some meal ideas for your big ol’ hungry family for the fast. But first let me mention two approaches to fasting. The first says that if it is tasty and you enjoy it that it is not really fasting. The second says the bare minimum requirement of the law is enough. Can we find a happy medium and a proper understanding of the fast?

Then They Will Fast

Daja Steuer

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August 3, 2021

I spend about 10 minutes in the mornings looking at the headlines. I probably shouldn’t, because more often than not it’s depressing. The world has gone mad. Where are we all going? And why are we in this hand basket?

Our collective health, mental well-being, economy, and energy is overextended. In response, the powers-that-be print money in hopes to stimulate the economy. Nevermind that consumerism has never led to internal peace. We can update our post-pandemic wardrobe or join a gym to get sculpted. We can find a better car, a perfect latte, or a guide to being an at-home mixologist. Yet, at the end of the day, when we look in the mirror, we just have ourselves and whatever bit of eternity we hold within us that we haven’t managed to snuff out with our excesses.

It’s the people…

Daja Steuer

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August 2, 2021

We drove. About 7,000 miles (give or take a thousand). We saw both coasts. Canyons, mountains, rivers. We watched elephant seals fight on the beach and an otter swim up river. We drank California wines and Colorado beer and ate hotel breakfasts which is always a thing all its own.

But the best part of everything was people.

First of all, the people with whom we traveled—the family. All shoved in a van, blasting music, eating too many snacks, laughing, napping, sometimes fighting, praying the Divine Mercy as close to the hour of mercy in whatever time zone we happened to be in. (You can still view those prayer times on our Instagram.)

Also the people we visited. It was precious. Some friends were new. Some friends date back decades. It has been a lot of years since we have hugged some of these people. We have grown and changed and so have they. And yet, to embrace them again—there were some tears, because our hearts are still connected. Bless God for that. As the kids say, if you know you know.

The Adventure Begins (or continues…)

Daja Steuer

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July 15, 2021

It has been 8 years since we have taken a family vacation. That was a simply magical month of road tripping with only 8 kids. And we have had a lot of miles as a family since then.

Surviving and somehow coming out thriving after the last couple years has been nothing short of miraculous. This vacation is a grace, a gift, and is full of Thanksgiving. The kids and I are well and healing body and soul.

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June Highlights

Daja Steuer

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July 9, 2021

June….where did it go?

We saw the end of the governor’s state of emergency for the pandemic (Which really changed our lives not at all, because we never changed them in response to the government overreach anyway) and the lifting of the dispensation not to attend Mass (which also did not change our lives at all, because the Maronite Bishop kept the liturgies open so we never missed Mass all year), we celebrated the big 2-0 for my oldest love bug, planted a garden, and I got good medical news. We also went on some beautiful hikes.

Besides the weather being like Satan’s armpit for a good portion of the time June was healing and fun and made me fall in love with my community all over again.

Acceptance of Rejection

Daja Steuer

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June 13, 2021

“What you do matters—but not much. What you are matters tremendously.” (Catherine Doherty)

Today I wrestled hard with my heart. I am not sure if my will or my emotions won or if it was a draw. Nothing causes you to face what you really are like rejection. My life has been a school of rejection. I never quite connected the dots until my spiritual director pointed it out and suggested I read On The Cross of Rejection by Catherine Doherty. (You know how the backside of every crucifix is empty? That’s the cross of rejection reserved for true disciples.) I read it two years ago, right before I officially separated from my husband. This book cut like a knife and healed like a balm.

And the lessons are not finished. They are like a spiral staircase going ever deeper. I have to circle back around the same theme, as God reveals me to myself and draws me a little deeper into his Sacred Heart. The thorns encircling the Sacred Heart go deep.

May Highlights

Daja Steuer

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June 1, 2021

May was a month full of so many beautiful things. There were crosses and trials and reasonable illusions. And yet, so much beauty.

Babies and Bathwater

Daja Steuer

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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.