Thinking of discernment about one’s state in life — married, single, religious, ordained — brings a flood of warm memories from my adolescence and early adulthood. I remember sitting beside my mother, the seat of practical wisdom in my young life. “What will I grow up to be? Will anyone ever fall in love with me?”
“In due time,” she smiled and replied, “like the song, ‘Que Sera, Sera.’” Her advice, so wise and so ordinary: wait and pray. And during the waiting and praying, I studied and worked, embroidered tea towels for a hope chest, and dreamed the fantasy daydreams of generations of young girls. I would have a house in the suburbs, a white picket fence, a loving husband, and babies — someday. All at once, I was twenty years old and it all happened, more or less, as I imagined.
Thirty-eight years passed. The children grew and married and had children of their own. Parents, once care-givers, now needed care, then declined and passed away. And it was Jim and I, alone together, at last. And then Jim was gone one day, and I wasn’t even there beside him at the end of life.
When I contemplate my state in life now I hear the ill-fated word, “widow.” It’s not a vocation, as much as the absence of a vocation. It is a role that was thrust upon me, from which I have made every effort to escape. What choices do I have? How can I rationalize God’s Will with an unfortunate accident that has become my way of life? Since I was first asked to write this article for the Springfield Dominican Sisters’ newsletter, Just WORDS, I have been praying: Who am I called to be in widowhood? It has been elusive. For over a month now, I have gradually come to sense that the Holy Spirit would give me a revelation if I but followed my mother’s advice: wait and pray. The Spirit spoke through a chance meeting in the parish parking lot.
“Father!” I called out as I trudged toward my car, teacher’s book bag in hand. Since his retirement, I had not seen or spoken to the priest who had hired me years before to teach in the parish school. Now, we stood in the cold November afternoon, exchanging quick updates, as though years of experiences could be shoved into minutes.
“Are you still writing?” he asked, “It is your gift.”
I told him of my writer’s block in trying to describe the role of discernment in widowhood.
“Discernment isn’t needed for the circumstances that thrust you into widowhood. Discernment is needed to decide how you are going to react to it.”
He was spot on. “Just as you taught me,” I replied, “I am living in the question.”
“Surviving,” he corrected, “You are surviving in the question.”
“No, I’m thriving in the question.”
“I think you’ve written your article,” he observed, wry smile fluttering across his face.
And so, I work at unpacking what this conversation helped me to see. First of all, I have learned that I cannot be the architect of my future now anymore than I could as a teenager. Technology is different now; lonely hearts seek out Catholic Match websites, rather than write to Dear Abby. Yet, that’s not me. I cannot force God’s hand. Any of my half-hearted attempts in this direction have been wrought with pathos. Nor can I intrude in the lives of my children. I can dimly remember when frequent communication with my parents was a heavy burden in my life, and as a thirty-something wife and mother, I wanted some freedom from my own birth family. Now, the reverse scene is playing out. I see a thousand small ways that my children, their spouses, and my grandchildren are kind to me. But, their focus is necessarily on their own nuclear families.
In prayer, I see these events as part of the pruning that must take place for me to grow. I feel summoned to wait and pray, love’s once and future advice to my soul. But there’s more pruning afoot. With the promise of change comes the possibility of new life. God isn’t finished with me yet. There is a joy that comes with anticipating the future, a mellowness of spirit. I feel God’s presence, remembering St. Therese’s “little way” of reaching God. I do not need MapQuest instructions to reach the next level; God will see me through this life passage just as God has done through every transition to date. I can almost enjoy this period of doldrums, where Jesus’ own presence dilutes any aloneness that attempts to engulf me. It feels much like Mama’s hugs.
There is no formula for discernment. It often happens in the groaning of the spirit. God in me prays on my behalf, too intimate for verbalizing, yet real and effective as grace always is. Way will lead on way, and I will follow. As I move to the rhythm of grace I know God still has much for me to be and do. And so I travel with this prayer on my lips and in my heart, "Send me, Lord. I’ve come to do your will ."
