Kathy Coffey

“And I was beside [God] as a craftsman, and I was [God’s] delight day by day, playing on the surface of [God’s] earth…”

On a particularly gorgeous stretch of God’s earth called Yosemite, John Muir played with delight. His quotes about nature fill many books, but just one is illustrative: “No pain here, no dull empty hours, no fear of past… or future. These blessed mountains are so filled with God’s beauty, no petty personal hope or experience has room to be.” Swinging high in a tree to fully experience a storm, building a cabin at the foot of a waterfall, hiking for miles—Muir burrowed deep into his experience of wilderness and thrived. He warned others about the threat of industrialization, valuing “nature’s peace which will flow into you as sunshine into trees.”

So I was somewhat puzzled by the time in his life biographers call the “domestic chapter,” when Muir, who married at age 42, settled with his wife and two daughters into a farmhouse in Martinez, California. An “Italianate Victorian home” with 17 rooms including a “formal parlor” seems an odd setting for a mountain man.  Furthermore, this impressive mansion had indoor plumbing, gas lighting, and a phone installed as early as 1885. All the modern conveniences for a man who survived for many years on hard crusts of bread?

Then I visited the home, now maintained by the National Park Service.  It was heartening to see the huge fireplace for roaring logs Muir installed after the 1906 earthquake, the balcony where he’d sometimes pitch a tent, probably still longing to sleep beneath the stars, and the bell in the cupola, used to call the family home from work in the surrounding orchards or hikes on Mt. Wanda, named for the oldest daughter. (She said “Father was the biggest, jolliest child” on these adventures.) The ranch of over 2,600 acres in the Alhambra Valley must’ve been especially beautiful when the fruit trees were in bloom.

But for me the best was the “scribble den,” Muir’s office cluttered with piles of notes and pictures on the floor, lovely art of mountains on the walls, a microscope and pine cones on the desk beneath the big window with a lovely view. What touched me most was the tiny typewriter on which Muir wrote most of his books and articles. “This is where it all began,” I thought. The environmental movement, the massive efforts to preserve wilderness, the start of the national parks and Sierra Club—origins right here. Visitors should remove their shoes to stand on holy ground.

It turned out that the orchards begun by Muir’s father-in-law were lucrative enough to finance Muir’s writing and travel for the last 24 years of his life. He didn’t write with ease; in fact, he compared the process to the grinding of a glacier. But he loved his daughters, taught them about nature, and wrote them stories about the wilderness adventures of his dog-companion, Stickeen. He also took breaks from domesticity—his wife encouraged his trips to Alaska, Europe, Asia, South America and Africa. In the long arc of his life, the last chapter must’ve been a happy one.

Touching too, to see recipes hand-written by his daughters, for oatmeal cookies, coffee cake and cornbread. For 17 years, the family had a Chinese cook, the near-starvation of Muir’s earlier years finally assuaged. Muir never owned the land; it was passed on to his wife and daughters. Seems fitting for a man who objected to building a chapel in Yosemite; he maintained it was the cathedral.

Twists and turns in any life, but satisfying to see them so splendidly resolved in another person’s.

Ka-BOOM! Sha-ZAM! Roofs raised, doors rattled, windows bulging, peace disrupted. Fun to write a cartoon version of Pentecost? Maybe not far from the original: the Spirit of Pentecost is sudden, wild, driving, fiery red, not soft pastels nor earth tones. Its music throbs, an insistent, direct pulse, no polite beating-around-the-bush: “Come Lord Jesus, send us your Spirit.” Now, when we need it, not “whenever it’s convenient” or “if You get around to it…”

This feast disrupts our glib assumptions, nudges beyond our complacencies, bursts through the locked doors of our self-imposed limits and defenses built since childhood. It bends what we once thought rigid, the boundaries of time and space. Jesus, who slips through the barriers fear erects, died several days ago. The astounded crowd outside (interesting, that none were the “in” group of disciples) hears in the speech bubbles their own first languages. No matter how many we learn later, the first is dearest, words of soothing lullabies, nursery rhymes, prayer. So, in chaos, the Spirit leads us home, to the first love, God’s, and the deep anchor, rest in our Creator. Even if we currently live in a place of pain, constraint, anger or frustration, it’s not our permanent residence.

Pentecost calls us to More—not as superheroes, but even better: as beloved children, each essential to one body, each with Spirit’s unique gift. Myriad languages, not all verbal, praise God. The Spirit understands if we speak in sports, dance, gardens, hospitality, humor, liturgy, art or healing. No swashbuckling achievements here: all is gift.  

Kathy Coffey, “A Daring Transformation,” from the May, 2025 issue of Give Us This Day giveusthisday.org (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2025), Used with permission.

Sometimes women’s conversations can strike a spark. Or in this case, a conflagration. As scripture scholar Elizabeth Johnson points out, this meeting and outpouring occurs in Elizabeth’s home, traditional female domestic space. Zechariah, the only man around, is mute. “Such quieting of the male voice is highly unusual in scripture.” And in the hush, two pregnant prophets call out a message that will echo for generations.

Both Mary and Elizabeth lived under Roman oppression, but they knew that no matter how corrupt or cruel the state was, the last word is always God’s. God’s cherishing energy endures in a long line from their great-grandmothers to their great-great-grandchildren, us. God had been faithful to their people, who didn’t always deserve it, and God’s nature hadn’t changed. The brutality of the Roman Empire had conquered the known world, but their power would fade. Their soldiers would kill Mary’s son, but he would rise, offering hope and proof that violent bullies didn’t have the final say.

Human hope clings to our plans, but divine hope means immersion in God’s plan. Mary didn’t have a script in advance; didn’t know how her story would end. She simply did what we all must—walk one step at a time into mystery, trustfully.  

It would be natural for the women to complain—both are most inconveniently expecting—instead, they praise. In contrast to her husband’s confused questioning, Elizabeth, clearly attuned to her own blessing, can recognize the grace in Mary. Mary responds with a song of joy and social upheaval. The God of the Impossible will feed the starving, overturn the powerful, and remember the promise of mercy. Both women rejoice in this crazy kettle of fish—as should we.

Just as there are annunciations in every life, so too visitations: making a new friend, appreciating the long arc in the life of a friend from high school; discovering a new author or finding new insights on one we’ve always liked; meeting kindness in its many modes; savoring the fresh start of spring; welcoming a vista or activity never before experienced. The God of surprises hasn’t changed, and continues to flood us with the joy of the unexpected.

The context of Jesus’ farewell today is the last supper; the friends to whom he speaks are understandably confused and anxious. Earlier, they had questioned his allusions to leaving them. Temporarily? Or forever? He’d seen beneath Peter’s bravado (“Why can’t I follow you? I’ll lay down my life for you.”)

Under the arrogance, the needy, vulnerable child who desperately needs comfort. Jesus, not focused on his own imminent ordeal, looks fondly on his friends: bedraggled, flummoxed, sloppy, dear. And dreading more than anything, as most children do, being abandoned by those they love.

A similar situation is described by the marvelous poet and U. of Indiana professor Ross Gay in his book Inciting Joy, which traces the dance between sorrow and joy, the first state carving space for the second. His family, gathered around his dying father, leaves the hospital briefly for “a somber dinner…a pallor over us, edging toward the world without this person we loved.”

Like Jesus, his dad has been more focused on his loved ones than his own liver tumor. A week after the dad’s diagnosis, his son Ross gets sick. Dad cares for him, bringing a cold rag for his feverish neck, making lightly buttered toast, and when he feels up to eating more, a plate of supper he’s kept warm in the oven.

Ross doesn’t gloss over the fact that like most dads and teen-aged sons, they’d had a rough patch during his adolescence. But their relationship as adults shows how one can dwell in the other forever. They share a love for playing basketball, cooking, and smelling lilacs. “He would close his eyes to breathe [the fragrance] in, and I would do the same without noticing I do it, too.” Ross recognizes in himself the same bluster his dad shows when he’s “insecure, threatened, small, dumb, or not enough, which is not exactly infrequent.”

During their last goodbyes, Ross notices his father’s freckles, “like a gentle broadcast of carrot seeds… through my tears I saw my father was a garden… And from that what might grow.” Ross Gay’s community garden is a refuge from racism, and a deep source of joy, described in his Book of Delights. Another inheritance from his father, and a striking parallel to Jesus, who suffered and rose in a garden, bringing spring life. And how are we, maybe without even noticing, like him? From us, what might grow?

Hang on for what may be a stretch—the imaginative connection between Jesus’ farewell to his friends, a selection of the gospel read in some churches this weekend, and schools all over the country drawing their years to a close. Both events are full of goodbyes and glories.

In the glory department, consider the first grade teacher who begins the year with three students at a kindergarten level. They have no pre-reading or writing skills as the other children do; they require a separate curriculum. Their teacher puts in many hours after school; volunteers work one-on-one with these children. Initially, they resist the nudge to work by creating games with pencils and erasers. Cheerful and apparently happy, they have little to no focus on the subject matter. When other children hunker down with a chrome book on their own, they look for chances to play.

Fast forward to May. Amazingly, these three are now slowly but surely reading. It feels like wheels are turning as they connect letters with sounds to say aloud. They can even sound out a word, approximate its spelling and form wobbly letters on a page.  Only a total cynic could say a miracle hasn’t occurred. Inch by inch, this trio has acquired the basics of skills that will get them not only through second grade and further education, but life.

Recently, I saw a Treasury of Dick and Jane, which must’ve been designed for Baby Boomers who learned to read with this little family. Father wore a coat and tie, Mother an apron and heels, and Baby Sally was endearingly round. The pastel illustrations and simple sentences brought back a rush of emotion: This was the beginning. For me, reading has enriched a lifetime, starting with children’s authors like Beverly Cleary and Katherine Paterson or series like Nancy Drew. It’s helped me endure boring stretches, long flights and disappointing days. Without it, life would be colorless and bleak. Fear of losing vision for reading keeps me eating spinach and popping eye vitamins.

On the back cover of my book, A Generous Lap: A Spirituality of Grandparenting there’s a photo of six grandchildren and meself, all of us wearing t-shirts that proclaim, “I’dRather Be Reading.” Our stance applies to all the arts: I marvel when a choir director wrangles middle schoolers into memorizing lyrics, rehearsing, producing beautiful sound and performing their spring concert. Easily distracted and improbable vocalists, they concentrate on the leader, move in disciplined ranks, and master difficult harmonies.  

Praise to teachers, students and May, the season for grateful graduations, goodbyes, beginnings—all giving glory to God.

Jesus as Good Shepherd may seem a difficult concept for readers whose experience is primarily urban. But the more I think about it, the richer it seems. Never mind that shepherds say the critters they tend are stupid and smelly. No odd aromas nor slow wits deter Jesus. He simply says, “I know my own,” placing no blame.

On Easter Monday, the gospel mentions the women running from the tomb with a cocktail of emotions, “fearful yet overjoyed.” “And behold, Jesus met them on their way and greeted them” (Mt. 28: 9). No matter how meandering our ways, through grocery stores or gyms, offices or schools, retirement centers or prisons, Jesus, eager to see us, meets us on each unique and personal path. We needn’t be running a marathon or ascending to an altar—he’s there waiting, arms open wide.

Few of us look out our windows to see shepherds with flocks on the hillsides, but if we broaden the imagination, we can see them in unique ways. People shepherd creatively, perhaps never dreaming that they model one who gathers the sheep in his arms. For example,

A mom with a demanding job and two young children nevertheless stays at the vet with her sick dog overnight and throughout another day. She can’t bear to leave him, frightened and alone, so she sacrifices her sleep. Just what the Good Shepherd might do…

In Oakland, CA, over 100 volunteers read in 14 elementary schools to 5,000 students for Asian-American and African-American months, shepherding children from a variety of backgrounds towards, or re-acquainting them with, fascinating cultures.

Dean William Treanor of Georgetown Law shepherded his school when the Trump administration threatened to bar their students from federal jobs if diversity, equity, and inclusion continued to be part of the curriculum. With a clear, succinct “No,” he said, “that is not who we are.” Uncowed by bullying, Treanor wrote: “The First Amendment… guarantees that the government cannot direct what Georgetown and its faculty teach and how to teach it.” As a Jesuit and Catholic institution, they have always welcomed people from diverse backgrounds and perspectives—and will continue to do so.

A guard at the Louvre museum in Paris noticed a small girl crying. She’d been pushed out of the crowds so eager to take a selfie with the Mona Lisa, they’d shoved her aside. Afraid she was lost, the guard found her grandmother and led them to a clear space in front of the art, took their pictures and stopped the tears. Of course he didn’t have to do it, but the shepherding instinct runs deep and kind.

As it does for a man who explains somewhat shyly that he’s kept his housekeeper when he no longer needs one. “But she’s 65—and where would she go?” he asks from a large and generous heart.

A religious sister who works in prisons introduces “Project Bedtime Story,” where inmates read to their children, their voices then electronically conveyed home to the kids. Both men and women’s prisoners even add back up choruses, singing the ABC song or whatever works as their friends read aloud.

So the Shepherd strolls, maybe where we least expect…

The skunking of the tired disciples in John 21:1-19 reminds me of Sandra Cisneros’ comparison of fishing to writing. The author of The House on Mango St. and many other works celebrating her Mexican heritage said the writing process is like assembling your gear, your tackle, your bait and your boat. Then after all that preliminary work, you row out, cast your line into the water and wait for a tug. A fish? Or for a writer, an inspiration, the words on the page falling together with a pleasing cadence, the ideas or the characters aligning surprisingly well.

How must they have felt, then? Jesus’ friends, after a discouraging night, suddenly find a net so full they can barely pull it in. Then, they don’t even need to arrange a celebration—Jesus has it all prepared. The maternal Jesus—a man who cooks–invites his tired, bedraggled disciples, “come, children, have breakfast.” He’s waited till dawn on the shore for them, now speaks to the hungry and bewildered a word of comfort, offering exactly what they need.

No fulmination, no revenge, no recrimination. Just a silhouette against the sunrise, and the tenderness of a parent feeding a family. The scene is so close to home, it affirms and underlines all we know best: goodbyes past, the warmth of fire, beauty of water, relief of food when we’re really hungry. Before asking Peter to feed the flock, Jesus makes sure his friend is well fed himself. He knows how wavering and uncertain our human nature can be. But he also knows, like a good mom, how to nurture.

Theologian Karl Rahner, SJ says “the resurrection means we become all we could ever have been. All the limits of this life are lifted and we are all we could ever hope and desire to be.” What potential! My imagination runs amuck with this—becoming a fine poet, a marine biologist, a really good wife and mother, a ballerina, an activist for justice, a world-renowned artist or musician, an environmentalist, a doctor-without-borders, an Olympic gymnast/skater/swimmer.

Even naming these must mean the seeds are in us, which will someday flower. So our own resurrections mean not only entering into infinite love, but also achieving all the goals we didn’t even attempt on earth. If limits on time and space are off, we can return to our favorite, most beautiful places in this world—with no check-out time.

In light of Pope Francis’ death, those who’ve seen the movie “Conclave” might remember the homily given by Cardinal Lawrence, played by Ralph Fiennes, to cardinals assembled for the new pope’s election. “Certainty is the deadly enemy of unity. If there were only certainty, there’d be no mystery and no need for faith. Let’s elect a pope who doubts.” St. Thomas would’ve approved.

Where we might have expected glory and trumpets the first Sunday after Easter, instead we get typical, honest, human groping towards truth. A splendid reunion between Jesus and his friends? Not quite. But maybe something better: Jesus’ mercy, meeting them where they (and we) are stumbling, extending his hand in genuine understanding and compassion.

Despite the fact that it has been celebrated for centuries, the quality of mercy remains an abstraction. Today, Jesus gives mercy a human face and touch.

Before we criticize Thomas too much, we should ask what we might do in a similar situation. Would we also be skeptical if our friends told us that someone had returned from death? Wouldn’t we want to see for ourselves? Thomas may simply voice the questions most disciples harbor secretly.

The first disciples, caught in fear and confusion, are hardly the finest spokespersons for the gospel. But then, neither are we. We have the same mixture of doubt and certainty, anxiety and joy that they had.

Jesus responds to us as he did to Thomas—without harsh judgment. He understands our needs for concrete reassurance. After all, God created us with five senses to help us learn. And if Thomas—stubbornly insistent on tangible proof—can believe, maybe there’s hope for us all.

To us as to him, Jesus extends the same merciful invitation: “touch me and see.” Only by coming dangerously close to this wounded Lord will we know transformation of our wounds—and resurrection. Doubt isn’t evil: it’s the entryway to hope.

In chilly, dark December, we sing with gusto, “Oh we need a little Christmas, right this very minute. Need a little Christmas now!” Maybe this year, we should echo, “We need a little Easter, now!”

With each day’s news bringing another crushing assault on our democracy, and every new headline describing major, cruel policy shifts we never voted on, let’s try to turn our thoughts to Resurrection.

We have a preview in the parable of the prodigal son where the phrase “he got up” or “he has come to life again” recurs four times. The deliberate repetition leads us to ask, “where do we rise up?” At a certain age, simply getting out of bed in the morning is a triumphant act of courage. And if we uplift our attitudes, we learn to think of the day not as “what drudgery must I do?” but “what awesome surprises does this hold? What gifts does God have in store today?”

Surely the tender, tiny leaves emerging on trees sing of new life. As Thomas Merton wrote in When the Trees Say Nothing, “beech leaves are the loveliest things in creation when they are just unfolding.” Other small signals call us to hope in the larger arena: the spark in a substantive conversation, the surprise call or e-mail, the shared understanding that sometimes comes without words.  The delayed, reluctant reader sounds out the first word, and the women find the tomb empty. From a group of unruly, distracted middle schoolers, a choir director coaxes beautiful song; Mary hears her name in familiar tones.
 

A contemporary death-to-life story is told in “Blink,” a touching National Geographic documentary streaming on Disney +. A family in Montreal learns that 3 of their 4 children will gradually go blind. The mother recounts with painfully honesty how she rushed online to research the condition, reading there, “no cure.” With considerable bravery and luck, the parents set out on a world-wide tour to give the children visual memories, images they can store in their mental banks when their vision is gone. A safari in Africa, a trek through the Himalayas in Nepal, rides on camels in Egypt, a zip line through the rain forest in Ecuador—everything on the family bucket list gets checked and experienced.

Even the frustrating parts of the journey are recorded—squabbles, getting stuck on an aerial gondola in Ecuador for 9 hours, fatigue, cold rain and sad, encroaching signs like loss of night vision. But the joy is evident and the resurrection continues in a quieter vein when they return home and learn to navigate with seeing eye dogs.

As Jim Finley says on his podcast, “Turning to the Mystics,” Jesus always approaches people who are caught in something unresolved. He sees beyond the current impasse to what endures: God’s infinite love for God’s child. Post-resurrection, that continues with the disciples walking towards Emmaus. The hallmark of an Easter people is always joy, because as theologian Karl Rahner says, “If they can take it away, it’s not God.”  

Sometimes it helps to see parallels between the passion narratives and our daily experience where we find many kinds of Eucharist. At the grocery store recently, choosing the wrong check-out line as always, I wound up behind a customer who engaged the clerk in a lengthy discussion of measles. Every symptom from childhood on was discussed at great length. By the time we hit “my sister at age 5,” I glanced at the guy behind me.

Big, young and sweetly shy, he had a beautiful assortment of flowers in his grocery cart, which I complimented. “Odd assortment of groceries, huh?” he responded. Along with the flowers were many small packets of jello and rice pudding. “I work at a nursing home,” he explained. “We’ll put a flower on each lunch tray.” “And jello will be a treat!” I finished. As the conversation ahead turned to dog diseases, I was grinning at “a cart full of jello and joy.”  

Like Eucharist, Christ’s Good Friday continues in the suffering of the Mystical Body. The pain inflicted on Jesus gives us a framework to hold the current cruelty of the U.S. government. When Trump and Musk ended the U.S. Agency for International Development, probably illegally, reporter Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times traveled through East Africa and reported on the devastating, preventable deaths that have already resulted. (https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/03/15/opinion/foreign-aid-cuts-impact.html?campaign_id=45&emc=edit_nk_20250317&instance_id=150222&nl=nicholas-kristof&regi_id=73769963&segment_id=193680&user_id=2a4e71af79d7b498d29e2d0c1faa1e7d)

Kristof’s clear, dramatic diagrams show the heartbreaking numbers who will die without the medicine and health workers the U.S. once funded. And how much money will the billionaire’s cuts save, presumably for his rich cronies? “The cost of first-line H.I.V. medications to keep a person alive is less than 12 cents a day.” Joseph was betrayed by his brothers for 20 pieces of silver and Jesus by Judas for 30…

No logic can explain it. No words can wrap around the bottomless grief of a mother losing her child in S. Sudan, or Mary’s at the crucifixion. The eyes of faith can turn only to the broken bones and bloodied hands of One who suffers in innocent orphans and desperately ill, malnourished people. He is with us in our worst brokenness. Thomas Merton once wrote about his younger brother’s death in war: “and in the wreckage of your April, Christ lies slain.”

Questions are unanswerable, but One goes before us who shares the agony. And those with a conscience, those who celebrate Holy Week must answer Kristof’s challenge (3/19): “pulling back aid… largely silent about the world’s worst humanitarian crisis… comes painfully close to complicity.”