reconciling things

In The Footsteps of St. Joseph

Daja Steuer

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.

All the things we don’t say…

Daja Steuer

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March 5, 2021

I have been guilty of saying too many things or perhaps just the wrong things. In my younger days I was overly critical of others and rode my high horse like I was in a parade. I could tell you exactly the three easy steps you needed to take to get your shit together. I played by all the rules and look how well my life was going. You could do the same.

I am wiser now, with far less answers.

I have walked through some tragedy. I have experienced being on the receiving end of harsh criticism and other people who know exactly how I should respond to said tragedy.

The Healing of the Woman

Daja Steuer

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March 4, 2021

The third week of The Great Lent in the Maronite tradition celebrates the Healing of the Hemorrhaging Woman.

I have been that woman.

“Her life flowed out with the blood that flowed from her. Pain and sorrow filled her days. Doctors disillusioned her; healing was a dream she chased and her world was dark as night. Yet she was determined still, so she touched the cloak of Christ, and his love embraced her faith. She obtained a cure at last…” So goes the entrance hymn as the Divine Liturgy begins.

I know those days filled with pain and sorrow. I know the disillusionment. I know what it feels like to think healing is just a dream.

How to fail at Lent

Daja Steuer

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February 22, 2021

And so Lent begins. Another Lent full of dreams of transformation. Or maybe just survival.

I wonder at the people who get excited about Lent. Lent has been rebranded in recent years. Parish programs promise a “Lent you will love” or the “Best Lent Ever!”

Yes, Lent is good. Fruitful. Necessary. Even beautiful. But I find every year that it is also grueling. It is following Our Lord into the desert for 40 days. For 40 days I come face-to-face with my faults, lack of charity, all the thin spots of my personality that I have so conveniently filled in with the noise or temporary pleasures of the world. Rilke tells us that it is not our acceptance of sensual pleasures that is bad, rather “the bad thing is that most people misuse and squander this experience and apply it as stimulant at the tired spots of their lives and as a distraction.”

Lent is the hardest work we do all year.

Exhale

Daja Steuer

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February 16, 2021

I got in my car, alone. Put it in drive and headed down the road. I adjusted the thermostat and settled in for the hour and a half drive. About 30 seconds later, the tears came. They came in great waves of grief. They came in the kind of shedding that you can feel coming up from your center. Those pent up tears that feel like a great exhale.

I have been in a long season of letting go—a long season of being redefined. I had to let go of my Protestantism in order to embrace the Catholic Church. Although joyful and wonderful and I wouldn’t change a thing—there was a letting go, a goodbye, and a kind of grief. I knew that by saying “Yes” to Jesus’ call to follow him into the Church many people would say goodbye to me. Not everyone could hang with me, I knew it. Counting the cost, you know?

That was a warm-up to all the letting go that was to come. And there has been a lot of letting go. And each letting go comes with its own grief, its own goodbye, its own invitation to count the cost and to take a step of faith.

Building the life you want…with the stuff you have

Daja Steuer

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February 5, 2021

When I moved to Mongolia twenty years ago, like any new bride, I brought my collection of family recipes to my new home—those trusty old standbys of comfort foods. Problem was, I was now living in the frozen tundra, a post-soviet country that was just finding her beautiful way. Half the ingredients in my recipes were not to be found. Holidays were the most challenging. Those are the times you really want your traditional foods, but if they don’t exist in the country in which you abide, you have to learn to let it go and to do without.

Or maybe you just find a work-around.

I became the queen of substitutions. I learned to adapt and adjust and get the end result I wanted with the stuff I could actually find.

My kids do the same thing with their LEGO blocks. If they decide that they are building a ship and don’t have the pieces they need, they improvise brilliantly.

It’s like life.

January Highlights

Daja Steuer

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February 1, 2021

Just a few bits from the Tribe’s highlight reel for January.

Went to evening prayers at the Russian Orthodox Church.

Climbed a little mountain under the full moon with these adventurers!

Hiked Kearsarge Mountain with this little brother

Adopted this darling into the family. Meet Madame Zeroni!

Watched the inauguration and cried so many heartbroken tears for the world, lit candles, and prayed acts of reparation to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

This young man started guitar lessons with my big brother

Made some herbal magic. No really. I did.

Went to a little rebel March For Life after Hands Around The Capitol was canceled.

Did yoga nearly every day and found my home in my body again.

You know the date of the calendar whether 2020 or 2021 does not matter. How much better to spend time doing interior work of conversion than to wait fo the calendar to deliver us from the present evil. There are mountains to climb, dear friends. There is work to do. There is magic to be made. Let us begin. And as Rilke says, “Resolve to be always beginning—to be a beginner.”

Hello February. What lessons do you have for us?

On Grief and Bliss

Daja Steuer

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January 30, 2021

Social media has this delightful little gimmick that reminds you of what you posted on this day in past years. All is well and good when the memory was a refreshing green smoothie enjoyed after a run. It’s a little tougher when the memory hits a raw spot in your heart.

Thomas Merton wrote that short of perfection, “created things do not bring us joy but pain. Until we love God perfectly, everything in the world will be able to hurt us. And the greatest misfortune is to be dead to the pain they inflict on us, and not realize what it is.” [New Seeds of Contemplation]

An Inconvenient Life

Daja Steuer

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January 23, 2021

As I grate cheese by hand, “You know the store sells cheese that is already grated, right?”

As I chop piles of vegetables for fermenting, “Why don’t you own a food processor?”

As I light dozens of candles in the evening, “Why don’t you just turn on the lights?”

As I mix herbs and store them in jars and soak them in vodka to use later, “You know there is such a thing as Advil?”

My choices are not always the easy ones, the quick ones, or the convenient ones. However, I am far from being the self-sufficient die-hard. I like my hot showers, my WiFi, and my Kitchen Aid mixer. Yet, often I find myself doing things the inconvenient way. And I like it. I choose it. I wouldn’t trade it, even if you offered to buy me a microwave.

I had dinner out with one of my teenage sons last night. I love those longish car rides when we just talk about anything and everything. I asked him why he wasn’t interested in a certain youth activity much anymore. He said it was because they try too hard to be cool and to appeal to teens. “They try to make everything fun. I mean, if we were doing something boring like praying the Rosary, I would be there for that. But, trying to make religion into something entertaining doesn’t interest me. I can play games at home.”

“Say the Holy Rosary. Blessed be that monotony of Hail Mary’s which purifies the monotony of your sins!” (St. Josemaria Escriva)

My heart was so convicted. Yes, it is true. We were not given a very convenient religion that caters to our feelings, the trends, or that cares about being cool. Christianity has never been perceived as relevant by the world. Which is precisely why the world needs it.