Peace and Pekoe

Thoughts on Facebook...

2012-02-07T07:33:00.000-06:00

I took a break from FB, and the forums, for most of January. It was good in a lot of ways, but I knew it was a temporary break so it didn't result in calling people more often or anything like that.

I have a friend who dropped FB permanently and it's actually improved our relationship, even though she is long distance, because we email much more often, she writes more indepth stuff on her blog or on Google+ than she did on FB, and when we do talk it seems, well, less shallow, in a way.

It's got me thinking about how FB has changed the way I use the internet and connect with other people. I have a much larger group of people I keep in contact with and it is a lot easier to keep track of what people are doing, babies born, life events, etc....but I feel like I say less that is worth listening to, and so does everyone else. I used to be in the middle of the Catholic blog scene, and those connections I made with other bloggers seemed more substantial...but now even those internet friends seem to primarily use FB or Twitter and there are fewer long thoughtful posts.

On the other hand, maybe what I really need is the discipline to limit my use of FB so that I do more of the actual reaching out. It's just so much easier (in a number of ways, since I'm somewhat prone to social anxiety) to log in to FB and create an artificial feeling of connection by 'liking' a dozen updates and links than it is to maintain an email correspondance or find time to pick up a phone and call someone.

Thoughts?

Thank you for your prayers!!

2012-01-29T13:33:00.000-06:00

The door is reopened to reconciliation, though we're hampered by the distance between us and the amount of personal work that needs to be done. I have hope again. I'm grateful for all of your prayers and I hope you will remember us occasionally since this is bound to be a long road to travel!

Tear-struck

2012-01-27T10:13:00.000-06:00

and blown away to find that my prayer request has been linked to by the fabulous Simcha. If you've come over here from her blog, thank you. I am in great need of your prayers.

And thank you Simcha, for linking to my previous post, 'a blanket apology'. The first thing I saw in my email this morning was a comment on that post, which made me reread it. I needed that reminder today that my value lies in my beginning and end in God.

Fasting and Prayer

2012-01-26T18:07:00.000-06:00

If you are moved to, please consider joining me in fasting and prayer for my marriage tomorrow, the last day of the novena I mentioned in my last post.

2012-01-05T10:52:00.000-06:00

Thank you (whoever is still reading here) for your love and prayers over the years. 2011 was a year of a lot of upheaval for me and my family, with most of the roots of the upheaval going back years further.

I won't go into more detail at this time, but the sum result is this: my children and I are living with my parents in Ontario. My oldest son is no longer homeschooled, but attends a public Catholic elementary school. I am trying to scratch the beginnings of a living together out of various work from home opportunities, since I don't have a car and my parents home is very rural.

My husband is still in New Orleans. He and I are estranged. I want to reconcile, he doesn't feel able to. I've given him a deadline of the end of January to decide. I'm trying to hand him and our marriage over to God, but I don't feel very able to do that. I keep worrying about the consequences to our children if he opts not to try to save our marriage.

If anyone is reading this, I ask you to pray for us. This is the novena I will be praying this month: http://www.desatadora.com.ar/novena-i.htm

Thank you. 2011 was a horrible year, but it showed me the character of many of the people around me, and by far the majority of our friends and family have shone. I'm grateful for all the many small acts of kindness and thoughtfulness which serve to balance the hurt I experienced at the hands of a few.

A blanket apology...

2011-08-26T14:18:00.005-05:00

...to everybody I have ever given advice to as though I know anything at all about anything.

No, I'm not depressed or getting down on myself. I am, however, realizing how much I have let pride and insecurity (nice combo, right?) drive my actions, decisions, and words over my lifetime.

I'm writing it here so that I will be able to find these words again when I need them:

My value is not dependent on being right.
My value is not dependent on my performance as daughter, mother, wife, friend, mentor, teacher, writer, homemaker, or student.
My value is not dependent on whether I am living the 'good life' my peers, community, Church or family wish for me or for themselves.
My value is not dependent on having made the best decisions possible in the past, my decisions now or my decisions in the future.
My value is not dependent on whether others think well of me, admire me, emulate me, respect me, or seek me out. It is not dependent on the love or esteem of my spouse, children, parents, community, pastor, friends, neighbors, strangers or people on the internet.
My value as a person is not dependent on whether I succeed in living out those values I have embraced in the past, embrace now, or will embrace in the future.
I am not a better, holier, or even more fortunate person for having been a SAHM, a homeschooler, a cloth diaperer, a co-sleeper, a home birther, or any other label or lifestyle. Labels apply to positions and preferences, not to people.

Corollaries: I am not so important. My children's entire future does not depend on having an ideal childhood now. My husband's happiness is not my responsibility. I do not have the ability to choose good or evil for another person. I cannot save others by pretending to be more, or less, than I am. I am not the Saviour.

So what is important? Where do I find my value and purpose?

In Being.

I guess I'm a slow learner, but maybe it won't take too many more lessons to really learn the truth in this: I am a Child of God. My substance subsists in His substance. My Being is contingent on His BEing. My value derives from my origins and my destiny: I come from HIM, I live to return to HIM.

Nothing else counts. The rest is all....window dressing. Means to an end. Yes, I want to live a good life - but it is only a good life if it helps me to pick up all of the scattered remnants of myself to offer to Him.

"Man cannot fully find himself except through the sincere gift of self." (John Paul II, Gaudium et Spes 24). There's a conundrum in this - how can you give what you have not yet found? But surely I cannot find myself by hiding behind labels, abilities, occupation, even vocation. And how can I give myself to others when I am still defending my insecurities, fear, and pride?

So. I'm sorry. I'm sorry for all the times I've judged someone else for their choices, mistakes and sins, for any time I've withheld mercy and compassion. I'm sorry for every time I have offered my own 'wisdom' when I should have just listened. I'm sorry to everyone I have tried to fix, everyone I have tried to teach what I have not yet succeeded in learning.

I'm sorry for the times I have boasted of my own successes or talents, or indulged in self-pity over my failures and shortcomings. I'm sorry for the times I have defended myself when I should have been humble or, worse, pretended a false humility in order to 'take the higher ground' in my own estimation.

Please forgive me and be patient with me.

Book Review - The Boys Upstairs

2010-12-02T22:04:00.004-06:00

The Boys Upstairs, by Jane Lebak. E-book, Museit Up Publishing.

Fr. Jay is a veteran, a cripple, a pastor, a former hell-raiser turned father-figure and provider for the homeless boys he now shelters under his rectory roof. This task is complicated by a lack of resources and, at times, by the boys themselves.

His brother, Kevin, is a police officer who is both drawn in by Jay's altruism and repelled by his priesthood and the Church and God he serves. The Boys Upstairs is as much a story about the boys these two once were and the men they have become as it is about the boys referenced in the title.

More than that, this brief novella tackles some weighty topics over its eighty-odd pages. Themes like suffering, death, faith, sin and conversion are handled in an easy conversational style that only occasionally seems over-packed. Here's a brief excerpt to show you what I mean:

“The police and I are doing the same work.” Jay sat back on his heels, rubbing the dirt granules from his palms. “They're cutting off the leaves, and I'm pulling out the roots. What you're going to learn, Spider, is that evil has taproots. You can slice it apart all you want, but if that root's intact below, the leaves will show up again. You've never completely weeded a garden. But it helps to be doing something, and both kinds of work are worthwhile.”

“I don't really get you. You became a priest to fight bad guys?”

“I became a priest because I fell headfirst into something I didn't understand but loved anyhow. Keeping up the fight is an unexpected bonus. It's like getting back something you thought you'd lost forever.”

I really enjoyed this refreshing seasonal read. This is the perfect story to get you in the real holiday spirit - and looking around you with a renewed perspective.

You can buy the e-book The Boys Upstairs by Jane Lebak from Museit Up Publishing. For the cost of a couple lattes it is a lot more affordable than the seasonal offerings that pop up in bookstores this time of year, and better yet you can get a discount up until the 10th. From the author's blog:

Here’s a super-secret discount code that will get you 25% off the cover price (which is $4.50 Canadian; it drops to $3.38 with the code). Put HC2010D at checkout in the discount code box before going to Paypal. (That’s good until December 10th.)

Thanks Jane for sending me a copy and letting me review your novella!

Nature Study

2010-11-22T12:24:00.001-06:00

Gui found this gorgeous Orchard spider in our yard this morning. Isn't it lovely?

I would like to direct your attention...

2010-11-18T19:16:00.002-06:00

...to the blog of the wonderful Mary Poppins Not, who has some insightful words to say about what's wrong around here.

The Torch

2010-11-10T23:21:00.001-06:00

You are the dead. Long years ago
you fought, and died, were laid below
the crosses, there in Flanders Field.
Ninety Novembers now have pealed
Church bells and speeches for the dead
by dwindling rank of comrades led,
to honor you - - John McCrae,
and all who stood in danger's way.

Your poem -- it haunts me now as when
I memorized first, at ten.
(So many children have). But I
-- I hear the larks sing in the sky
and shiver at the dead below
the crosses, laid in Flanders Field.

...And wonder at the final verse.
Would you have thought of us the worse?
Have we kept faith? Is our torch bright?
Or are we too ashamed to fight,
call evil false or good things true
like those young men who stood with you
to Flanders Field.

We are the living - you are the Dead,
not for you the poppies red,
blooming today for us below.
This ragged torch is burning low
but brave young men can still be found
hallowing some foreign ground
with earnest blood, while I at home
peck away at my short poem.
Lt. Col. John McCrae-
remember us, this November day.

Reposted from last year and the year before, in memory of John McCrae and all those who have died for honor, country, and freedom.

Happy Birthday, Mom

2010-10-30T22:52:00.003-05:00

So, I didn't keep up with the "Things My Mother Tried to Teach Me" posts. Which is perhaps ironically appropriate, as I've not been a terribly good student of my mother's lessons all these years.

Bits of Mom's wisdom I wanted to cover but didn't get to:
-The difference between private inspiration and public revelation (and how confusion between the two can cause difficulties in Christian circles).
-The multiplicity of solutions to any given problem (granted, I still usually wish there was just one clear answer, and someone else to take over for me).
-Love of music. I usually give my Dad credit for this, but it was my mother who gave me my first piano lessons and who harassed me to practice.
-A sense of the value of being a SAHM. And about frugality and butter. (This really should become a post someday).
-That being family and keeping family takes an investment of time, effort, and intention.
-Love of learning, computers, encyclopedias and other research tools.
-People are more important than things.
-Don't drag a dead cow out of the ditch. (This means essentially the same thing as "Don't beat a dead horse." It used to come up whenever a disagreement was endlessly rehashed).
-Hospitality.
-Faith. We were never a family that was going to have daily family devotionals, which didn't stop Mom from trying. Years of stalled attempts to get us all to say the rosary or the Divine Office together every day taught me a very valuable lesson - that faith is worth it, worth trying for, something for even us imperfect people who can't get our acts together.

There's more, I know. But it's late and I could never list it all in one blog post anyway. It's not as though any of us can really capture the myriad subtle effects our parents have on who we are.

I was born the year Mom turned 30. Now my own 30th birthday approaches and I have a sense of how *unfinished* a 30 year old is - indeed, how unfinished we all are. I find it easier to forgive my parents the perceived shortcomings which I once (as a teen and young adult) judged much more harshly. I hope that my own children will someday forgive me mine. I am more impressed, year by year, by the things my parents have accomplished and the virtues they possess. And I find that even when I thought they had nothing to teach me, they were planting the seeds of many lessons that are only now beginning to bear fruit.

So here's to you, Mom. You put up with me during my insufferable years and love me anyway. You raised 7 children to adulthood and instilled in us so so many things - none more precious than the Faith. You raised us - and then you set us out in to the world with a grace I am learning is rare and valuable.

This is my gift to you. This propensity for putting words together to find meaning, which I inherited from you, so that even this gift is something I had first from you. I hope your birthday is a happy one and that every year to come holds even more joy than the ones that have passed.

with love,
Kate

Guest Post - Things My Mother Tried to Teach #4

2010-10-10T20:30:00.002-05:00

Some more of Mom's lessons as recalled by my oldest sister Emily:

What I learned from Mom:

That having problems with the times tables is not the same as being bad at math (and that math would become more interesting).

If something isn't working try a different approach. From advocating for a different approach to spelling to her standard brainstorming approach with more suggestions then any one person could follow, mom showed me that if the essentials are taken care of , the little things don't matter. “in essentials, unity; in doubtful matters, liberty; in all things, charity.”

The essentials are to be found in our Faith.

  Learning is lifelong, there's no such thing as being too old to learn.

One of the things I've been most grateful for was her advice when Richard and I were courting. From warning me about the need to take him and his heart seriously to advice on the realities of a mixed marriage, her advice was much appreciated.

Emily

Things My Mother Tried To Teach Me #3 - Reading

2010-10-06T08:58:00.000-05:00

My mother collected Dick and Jane readers, and the Catholic John and Jane variants.

When I was learning to read in the early 1980s, Dick and Jane were no longer being published and the schools used a variety of simple phonics-friendly books. (My first grade reader, as I remember, featured 'Mat the Rat').

But my mom likes Dick and Jane. From all accounts, we kids liked Dick and Jane too. I know I have fond memories of mastering the first story in the first reader - a story that consisted entirely of the words "look, see, oh, Dick", and "Jane."

Ok, so it wasn't great literature. :-)

And I can't say we learned how to read from Dick and Jane. But, for the most part, my siblings and I started school with a love for reading already implanted in us. My mother taught us to read herself, before sending us to school. I think she enjoyed teaching and watching us discover something she herself loves so much.

I can say that my mother taught me to read in more senses than one. My mother taught me to read before I entered kindergarten, starting with the word "look" and my own name. Later, I learned to read for fun, enjoyment, and comfort, following the example of my parents and older siblings. Still later, as my mother read every book that came into the house it seemed, including the ones I brought home as an adolescent, she taught me to read critically, with an eye to ideas.

Now...I revel in watching my son devour books and I find happiness in passing on this good gift to another generation.

Things My Mother Tried To Teach Me #2

2010-10-02T20:22:00.002-05:00

"Only boring people are bored."

Ok, ok, so this isn't so much a lesson as a reprimand, but it still echoes through my head when I find myself staring off into space battling acedia, and sometimes the words come right out my mouth when my 5 year old looks at me and whines, "but Moooooooom, I'm so boooooored."

And then I have to look over my shoulder to see how my mother got in the room before I realize that was ME talking.

This wasn't meant as a put down, lest you get the wrong idea. My mother, I wager, did not actually think that any of her children were boring people, but drove home the point that we had no excuse to be bored. Just as I have no excuse today. There are always more tasks that need to be done, more projects that could be started, people to be interacted with, books to be read, ideas to think about. Ultimately my internal resources - my mind, my will, my spirit - have been so fortified with education, experience, and imagination that whatever my exterior situation there is no reason to succumb to acedia.

It only took me 20 years to figure that out. So I suppose I can look forward to 20 years of telling my own children that 'only boring people are bored' and helpfully volunteering to give them chores to do to relieve the tedium. :-)

Granola

2010-10-02T08:56:00.003-05:00

(For Jess)

I made my first batch of granola yesterday.

Well, actually, I made my first two batches of granola yesterday.

I burnt the first batch rather badly. I guess my oven runs a bit hot, or at least I have hot spots in my oven. The second batch, however, turned out splendidly.

Jess asked for the recipe I used, so here it is. More of a guideline or formula than a recipe, really.

Basic Granola Recipe

4 cups grains (I used oatmeal and some mixed grain oat cereal)
1/2 cup nuts (almonds and pecans for me!)
1/2 cup sweetener (I used honey, but it could be any mix of honey, maple syrup, or brown sugar thinned to a syrup with water)
1/4 cup oil
1 teaspoon vanilla (I added 1/8 tsp almond extract because I had it in the house)

Preheat oven to 275F. Mix the grains and nuts in a large bowl. In a smaller bowl, mix the sweetener, oil, and vanilla. Add the liquids to the large bowl and stir to coat all the grain mixture. Spread on to baking sheets and place in oven.

Here was the tricky part. The original recipe I looked at called for 325F and stirring the granola at 10 minutes for a total of 20 minutes toasting time. That was waaaaaay too much! I lowered to temperature, but I also checked on the granola and stirred it every 5 minutes instead. It was done in 10 minutes!

Since your oven may be different than mine I recommend checking the oven often and paying attention to the smell. 'Done' smells just like oatmeal cookies do when they are done - the kitchen fills with the yummy smell of baked oats!!

After your granola is lightly toasted you can add raisins or other dried fruit to it to suit your tastes.

Things My Mother Tried To Teach Me

2010-10-01T12:59:00.003-05:00

Clean up as you go.

I'm pretty sure Mom had years where she pitied our future spouses because of our collective inability to even see dirt and mess, let alone clean it up. She was forever imploring me to just wipe the table after having a snack, put the book on the bookshelf instead of the closest flat surface, just how hard would it be to PUT THE CUP IN THE SINK.

I'm not any paragon of order now, but at some point over the last few years it sank in that it is a lot easier to have an orderly existence if you KEEP order, rather than just go on a frenzy of cleaning every month or so.

I make my bed in the morning, sweep and spot clean the dining room floor after meals, and put my things away when I finish with them....mostly. I even wash mixing bowls while my baked goods are in the oven.

So Mom - all your admonitions and reminders were not wasted. I'm still hearing them in my head to this day! And eventually I'll learn to clean up as I go every time, instead of just most of the time.

A new series of posts...

2010-10-01T10:43:00.003-05:00

To honor my Mom, who has one of those big-number birthdays coming up the last day of October, I'm going to run a series of posts all this month entitled, "Things My Mother Tried To Teach Me."
"Tried", because there are many lessons of hers that are only now starting to sink in. LOL.

Hopefully I'll get some of my siblings to guest-post. The first installment should be up later today.

Kate

Mmmmm....Chapatis and Curry

2010-09-28T08:55:00.005-05:00

The weather finally cooled off this week and cooking has become fun again. So last night I reached back to my memories of a dish I last made in highschool home ec., read through a few recipes on the internet, then threw together my own version of curried chickpeas with chicken and chapatis.

I found it worked well to make the chapati dough first, then make the curry and leave it simmering while I cooked the chapatis.

Chapatis (Indian flatbread)

2 cups flour (white, whole or a mix)
1 tsp salt
2 tbsp olive oil (ghee would be really good too, I imagine)
3/4 hot water or as needed

Stir together the flour and salt, mix in the olive oil and add water, a little at a time, to form a dough that is smooth and elastic but not sticky. Transfer to lightly floured surface and knead. You want to knead it to a silky smooth softness to make it the final product tender and chewy. Divide into 10-12 balls (ping pong ball size) and let rest for an hour.

When you are ready to cook the chapatis, heat a griddle or well-seasoned pan until very hot. Roll each ball of dough out until thin like a tortilla or crepe. Cook for about a minute, until you see small bubbles in the dough, then flip and cook the other side, pressing lightly around the edges with a folded dish towel to encourage bubbles to form. Keep wrapped in clean dish towels until ready to serve.

If you really want to have fun with the chapatis, after lightly cooking the sides as above, hold the chapati with some tongs over a gas flame until the air bubbles inside make the chapati puff up like a balloon. You can also get the same effect by putting a chapati directly on the oven rack with the oven quite hot - but you have to watch closely because the chapati should come out as soon as it puffs so you don't burn it! This gives you chapatis with a 'pocket' like pitas.

Curried Chicken and Chickpeas

Chicken (however much you have on hand)
1 tbsp olive oil
2 cups red onion
2 cloves garlic, crushed and finely chopped.
1/2 tsp each paprika, ginger, black pepper, and turmeric (and cayenne, if you like more heat).
1 tbsp flour
1 1/2 cups chicken broth or stock
1 can chickpeas
1 can peas (I used about half a can)
1 diced tomato (I used half a can diced tomatos and chilies, which is why I skipped the cayenne earlier).
1 tbsp parsley.

I started with some cooked chicken breast I had in the fridge, but it would work fine with raw. Cut into bite size pieces and saute in a pan with a tablespoon olive oil, 2 cups chopped onion, and spices until chicken is browned and onion is translucent.

Sprinkle on flour and stir, scraping the pan. Add chicken broth. Turn down heat and simmer until thickened. (This is a good time to cook the chapatis).

Rinse and drain chickpeas and peas, add, along with tomato and parsley. Heat through.

Serve with warm chapatis.

Both the boys loved the chapatis and tolerated the curry. I am looking forward to having the leftovers for lunch, and thinking I need to make chickpeas a pantry staple.

Sorry I haven't been posting much...

2010-09-27T19:09:00.001-05:00

Fortunately Arwen just posted something on one of my favorite topics, so I'll just ditto her and send you on over to read Pushing Back Matters.

The Best Kind of Surprise

2010-09-17T20:33:00.002-05:00

subtitle: the skinned knee duet

Tale of Manaeth

2010-09-14T21:33:00.003-05:00

A college friend of mine mentioned on Facebook recently that he had written a book, so I offered to read it and give my opinion.

The book is the Tale of Manaeth.

From the webpage:

As the youngest girl in a family of six, Manaeth is an unlikely candidate for the throne of the Kingdom of Asylia. But when her entire family is murdered by agents of a cruel foreign king, she becomes the heir to the throne and the unexpected source of unity for her scattered and persecuted people. Though desiring peace she is forced to become a sovereign of war, and through fortitude and the shedding of much blood (and the supernatural assistance of a mysterious stag) she labors to free her people from foreign oppression.

Which sums up the plot and themes pretty accurately.

As for my opinion/review: If you would have read the Silmarillion even if you'd never heard of or read the Hobbit or the Lord of the Rings, and read it straight through, you may enjoy this historical-epic style tale of a kingdom (ahem, queendom) and its travails.

If you love the Iliad, the Odyssey, and the Aeneid for their genre and form apart from their historical and literary significance, than this is the novella for you.

At 151 pages, this slim volume captures the flavor of ancient epic, without actually being ancient. The setting is fictional but has a classical flavor that will appeal to anyone who, upon completing the Aeneid, really wished Virgil had been bankrolled for a few more epics.

Personally, I prefer more naturalistic writing, even in my semi-classical tales - Until We Have Faces by CS Lewis comes to mind - and the author so successfully located the tale as a history of a specific fictional land and culture that I was somewhat alienated by the lack of applicability of the themes from the book to my own life. To tell the truth I would have a hard time telling you what the themes are (I had a similar problem with the Aeneid). Although the writing is stylistic, it is not particularly dry or difficult to read, and often rather lovely.

In the end, Tale of Manaeth is very successful at being what it attempts to be - a new contribution to the genre of historical-style epic - and I hope it may find its audience and give them as much pleasure in the reading as the author obviously found in the writing.

There's something to this unschooling business...

2010-08-17T12:05:00.002-05:00

I think Gui has learned more during the last month than he did during our entire last 'school year'. First there was the obsession with anatomy. And then there are the many many days that wind up like this.

Somewhat less than genius.

2010-08-10T23:23:00.004-05:00

I commented on Facebook last night that I did not know what to write about. My friend Luke suggested I write poetry in traditional meters about the Saints. Unfortunately, all I could manage was sub par limericks. :-)

Yesterday was the feast of St. Larry
who towards death did not tarry
in his memory we grill
and merrily trill
"it's done on that side" as was St. Larry!

Today is the feast of St. Clare
who led a life quite austere
by St. Francis sent
to found a convent
of simplicity exceedingly rare.

August is a Marian time
The Assumption a feast sublime
St. Bernard praised her deeds
and St. Dom prayed her beads
and St. Max...wait, I've run out of rhyme.

For My Brothers

2010-08-09T19:19:00.001-05:00

I was the kid with the hump seat.
h/t danielle bean

Some Questions...

2010-08-06T15:34:00.002-05:00

And I would love to get input on these.

1. Can you think of a time when someone else was able to persuade you to change your mind or practices with regard to some deeply held belief?

2. Did that dialogue happen, in whole or in part, online, or was it mostly or all in person?

3. Was that person who changed your thinking someone you have a relationship with, or someone you knew only incidentally?

4. Was your mind changed by example or by discussion?

5. If it was through discussion, were you persuaded by open ended sharing, or by debate?

6. If by debate, was it moderate in tone or heated in tone?

7. Have you ever been persuaded by someone who was incapable of or uninterested in understanding your initial position?

As you can tell, I'm still pondering the form dialogue should take online...and whether there is even any purpose in dialoguing online. Does it change minds? Does it foster understanding? What are we hoping to achieve when we sit ourselves down at the keyboard and start typing. And is it possible we all really need this?

The Light Yoke, The Easy Burden

2010-08-06T11:35:00.003-05:00

I want to write on this idea that the Christian life is so hard and arduous that it somehow cannot at the same time be positive and optimistic...I think this is one of those mysteries where contradicting statements must both be true - that the fruit of the Christian life is peace, love, joy and yet the price of the Christian life is persecution and division. That in the Church we are all part of Christ's body and yet the wheat and the tares will grow together. That we must embrace hope and faith that in Christ all things come to good for those who love him, and yet every day we experience disappointment and the cost of our own sin. We are both our brother's keeper and we are commanded to leave judgment to God.

Anyway...thinking about all of these things and trying to figure out where to start sorting out my own thoughts on the subject, I remembered that the pastor at the parish DH and I used to go to had a homily we heard from him on a couple of different occasions that tackled this mystery head on with an exegesis of the verse "my yoke is easy and my burden light." I looked to see if the homily was available on the parish website and lo and behold, there was the full text.

An excerpt:

How close does Jesus want us to come to Him? He wants us to come close enough so that the yoke is easy and the burden is light, so that our experience of the fruits of the Spirit is real in our life. And what are the three primary fruits of the Spirit that everybody wants: love and joy and peace. Sometimes we delude ourselves into thinking that love and joy and peace is a consequence of a stress free life. Well, the only people that have a stress free life are probably pre-natal folks, and it’s only stress free because they don’t know any better.

Please go and read the whole thing. It was exactly what I needed to read today.

And what's wrong with Pollyanna?!?

2010-08-05T21:15:00.006-05:00

Recently the bloggers at one of my favorite Catholic blogs were accused of promoting “Pollyanna Catholicism” and "happy-clappy" homogeneity because they have a comments policy that seeks to foster a positive attitude and welcoming atmosphere.

This group of sincere Catholic women post several times a week on their personal thoughts, struggles and aspirations to an audience of thousands of readers. The blog states that it's mission is to "work toward building a Christ-centered community where we can encourage and support one another in the joyful, challenging, important work of Catholic living.”

Lately some of the comments in the comments boxes have been of a different sort - critical, difficult, holier-than-thou, demanding. This innocuous and peaceful website apparently enrages some folks so much they would make a special trip over there just to troll in the comboxes.

Why? What is it that bothers people so much about focusing on the positive, choosing to eschew rhetoric or divisive debate in favor of support and discussion?

Coincidentally, this discussion came up during a time when I had taken refuge in a book about positivity, hard work, virtue, and its reward.

No, I haven't been reading Pollyanna. I've yet to actually stumble upon that book which has become synonymous with optimism and naivete. But I have been reading "Five Little Peppers and How They Grew," a book from the same genre, if an earlier era - children face adversity with kindness, optimism and cheerfulness, and brighten the lives of all around them by their happy attitude, eventually coming through trials into good fortune.

Wikipedia says that the original Pollyanna plays something called 'the Glad Game' where she tries to find something to be happy about in every situation, and that this actually inspired people to found 'Glad Clubs' all over the US to promote positive thinking.

But somehow Pollyanna has turned into an insult. Books of this genre may be loved by children and odd folks like me, but they are rarely ever considered good literature or worthwhile adult reading. Our culture celebrates 'realism' and grittiness in books, media and, I am afraid, in day to day interactions. There is a sense where we seem to think that it is more "real" and thus more worthwhile to look down in to the muck rather than up at the stars. When life gives us lemons, we like to commiserate at how sour the lemons are and bristle when someone offers us a recipe for lemonade. The fear seems to be that if we focus on the positive and strive to be better than we are, we may someday stumble and be disappointed and surprised by how many things are still wrong with our lives...that if we aim high we might fall on the way up and be hurt.

Well, let me tell you something.

Life offers plenty of opportunity for hurt just as it is. No matter how positive you are there are some hurts and imperfections that will haunt you every day you live. Original sin has done a pretty good job of ensuring that none of us can really get through life living 'in a bubble' and thinking we are above pain or sin.

And there are plenty of voices who will make sure we hear negative things about ourselves, our countries, our neighbors, our families, our beliefs, our aspirations, our world, our humanity. No shortage of pain and sin there.

So what harm does it do to love to dwell on the positive, the uplifting, the inspiring? What good does it do to dwell on our shortcomings, our divisions, our sins, our pain?

Last week was not a good week for me. I had some disappointments, some conflict, some grief, some pain, some frustration. I ran into obstacles. I ran face first in to my own sin.

Then I picked up a book from the library by an author I had read and enjoyed before. But this book wasn't like the others which I had enjoyed. This one featured an anti-hero as he recovers his memories of doing horrible things during a time of war and upheaval. He remembers, and occasionally revels in the memories, of committing atrocities and brutalities. And despite my expectation and hope that the narrative would bring him to a point of decision and redemption...the protagonist remembers who he is and chooses, ultimately, to be that same person still and again, rejecting his chance to change himself for the better, and rejecting any sorrow at his actions.

I put it down and felt completely unprepared to take up my life with its small trials and start again. All day long I walked around in a funk, depressed by this portrait of sinfulness.

Now do I believe that there are people who choose sin over good and evil over redemption? Sure I do. Does it enrich my life or the lives of anyone around me to think about that at any length at all? Not in the least. So I stumbled around, rather soul-weary and numbed, for most of a day before I spotted my other purchase from the same sale - a copy of 5 Little Peppers and How They Grew that I bought thinking I would read it to my sons someday.

And it was balm to my sore soul and sweetness to my thoughts. I rose from the last chapter early this morning and set about my daily tasks with cheerfulness and peace. I smiled to myself spontaneously through the day as I remembered particular characters and lines and I wallowed in the feel, the atmosphere, the zeitgeist of the Peppers and their 'little brown house'. All the damage that the first book did to my peace and my spirit, this subsequent book healed.

So this is what has been on my thoughts today, in reference to books and to communities, and these are the words I leave you with to end my (very long) post:

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. Phillipians 4:8.

True. Noble. Right. Pure. Lovely. Admirable. Excellent. Praiseworthy.

Think about such things. Rest your mind in those things.

For what is true and good and beautiful is of God, and He is our destination, more Real than anything in this passing world.

Oil spill

2010-06-22T20:51:00.002-05:00

No, no, not THAT one.

I learned a few lessons today:

1. No matter how rushed you are or how little space you have in the cupboards, it is never a good idea to leave groceries on the kitchen floor when there's a two year old in the house.

2. A gallon of olive oil is a lot. It looks and feels like even more spread out on the floor.

3. Oil clean up is HARD. I feel for those guys out on the Gulf. I wonder if cleaning wildlife is as difficult as de-greasing a slippery two year old?

So. My kitchen smells like olive oil, dish soap, vinegar and floor cleaner. The floor is now very very clean. My kids smell like a LOT of soap.

Dad

2010-06-20T08:00:00.004-05:00

I'm the kind of girl who still calls her father "Daddy."

Not in a got him wrapped around my little pinky kind of way. But just because it fits.

I miss my Dad. It's hard being so far away. I could tell you in an instant what I miss most about my father because hardly a week goes by that I don't think of it. I miss singing with my father. All of my favorite memories of my father involve singing. My father is undoubtedly to blame for my love of singing (I can blame Mom for the piano-playing, but Dad turned me into a choir junkie, for better or for worse).

When I was at that horrible difficult age, somewhere between being a kid and having adjusted to this teenager business, I was assigned to work the Sunday morning milking with my father. Sometimes I worked a Saturday afternoon milking instead - which was fun because then we listened to CBC radio together - but on Sunday mornings more often than not the radio was off and Dad would just sing. "My Wild Irish Rose" was a favorite, or "The Riddle Song", or (because it made me laugh) "K-k-k-katie". Dad was taking vocal lessons at the time, just to be a better singer, and after the vocal lessons he joined a barbershop chorus for a while. And there was the church choir we both belonged to. So there was always something to be singing.

Dad has a collection of hymnals and we're both halfway decent sight-singers, with maybe a note here and there plunked out on the piano for reference. So when we're together, we'll pull out a book and flip through it until something strikes our fancy, and then we attempt to sing in harmony. I sing alto, and Dad sings bass, so we tend to switch off singing the melody so the other one can have fun with the harmony. When we were in the same choir together we often practiced just our harmony parts together, which sounds a bit weird sometimes without a melody part or accompaniment. But then when it was time to sing with the choir I would hear Dad's bass from one corner of the choir loft and it would anchor me, give me that familiar counter-point to sing off, orient myself by.

I live on the nether side of the continent now, in a different country from my father, and I miss him. I miss his voice. I miss his company. I miss reading Robbie Burns or Robert Service at the dining room table and discussing theology or history over dinner. I miss singing with my Dad. I realize more and more as I move through the world how impressive my father's example of faith - he was a convert to Catholicism - and steadfastness is. My dad's life has been an example of the ordinary heroism of just waking up each morning and getting on with the business of working, doing what needs to be done, supporting your spouse and being present for your children. There are not a lot of accolades given out for mucking stalls or fixing tractors or singing old old songs with your daughter on a Sunday morning milking the cows.

Still, when I feel lost or just can't quite remember why I signed up for this challenge of family life and faith, my father's example, and his presence in my life from his corner of Ontario, is still a counterpoint that anchors me and keeps me on key.

Six Years

2010-06-19T15:36:00.003-05:00

Then...

And Now.

My husband is my best friend, my sweetheart, and my favorite raconteur. The more years we have together, the better.

RIP, Frank Frazetta

2010-05-12T09:08:00.003-05:00

This post is for the geeks among us, for anyone who remembers the covers to the classic Tarzan novels, and especially for my sister and that book of great sci-fi and fantasy art I used to sneak into her room to read.

Frank Frazzetta, the man who created those Tarzan covers and left his mark all over the world of fantasy and science fiction illustration, died two days ago, May 10th.

Looking for an image to accompany this post was a little difficult. I try to keep my blog pretty well family friendly, and much of Frazetti's work was filled with scantily clad, well-muscled women in more or less provocative positions. I'll stress that this is not the aspect I admire him for.

But I admire the ability to capture and transmit a sense of the exotic, the unknown, the dangerous...his most futuristic landscapes are some of the most primitive, his lighting is always foreboding and dramatic, the very land is rugged, the spaceships irregular and jagged. He influenced several generations of artists whose drawings and paintings formed my mental images of beloved characters and worlds.

I'll let you read more from someone who knows something more about art than I do.

Where my husband has been this morning

2010-04-28T12:29:00.003-05:00

Waaaaaaaaaay up in the air.

Woke up this morning to this lovely quote...

2010-04-28T06:20:00.002-05:00

...posted at Conversion Diary. It's from one of the letters of St. Francis de Sales:

Soon we shall be in eternity and then we shall see how insignificant our worldly preoccupations were and how little it mattered whether some things got done or not; however, right now we rush about as if they were all-important. When we were little children how eagerly we used to gather pieces of broken tile, little sticks, and mud with which to build houses and other tiny buildings, and if someone knocked them over, how heartbroken we were and how we cried! But now we understand that these things really didn't amount to much. One day it will be like this for us in heaven when we shall see that some of the things we clung to on earth were only childish attachments.

I'm not suggesting that we shouldn't care about these little games and trifling details of life, for God wants us to practice on them in this world; but I would like to see us not so strained and frantic in our concern about them. Let's play our childish games since we are children; but at the same time, let's not take them too seriously. And if someone wrecks our little houses or projects, let's not get too upset, because when night falls and we have to go indoors -- I'm speaking of our death -- all those little houses will be useless; we shall have to go into our Father's house. Do faithfully all the things you have to do, but be aware that what matters most is your salvation and the fulfillment of that salvation through true devotion.

Click on through to read Jen's very well-written reflection on this. I think we all need this reminder sometimes.

Super Bug!

2010-04-26T18:47:00.002-05:00

A little taste of my evening.

2010-04-24T23:43:00.002-05:00

Jazz fest

2010-04-24T23:11:00.003-05:00

Today I went to the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. A friend of mine volunteers there and got me a ticket to go today and see Simon and Garfunkel!!

It was a great concert- a little rough since Art was obviously under the weather and unable to sing the whole set - but that in itself led to some very sweet moments of artist-audience interaction and the most tear jerking performance of "Bridge over Troubled Waters", so I'm not going to complain.

(I did come home and comment that it did just make me want to take Art Garfunkel home for a bowl of chicken soup. The man is old, and that stuff is hard to sing even when you're young and healthy!!)

The best parts - the breeze, the open air, the not-storming (despite doom and gloom weather forecasts), the moments shared with my two best new orleans gal-pals. Dancing to "Diamonds on the soles of her shoes". Watching the distant stage with the tall skinny figure in untucked shirt and skinny tie and the short guy with the driver's cap and pretending to go back in time. Wondering about the identity of the fantasticly talented guy in the band who sang, played guitar, clarinet, cello, and everything else, better than anyone else on stage (it was this guy, btw. people like that keep music happening, imo). Squishing my toes in the mud. Singing all the songs that I memorized as a kid from that one cassette tape. Singing 'the Boxer' with many thousand other people. Walking through the waning light back to my friend's car still singing, still excited, and just plain happy.

It's been pointed out to me that I don't make a priority of doing things like this for myself very often. I think usually the logistics of doing anything apart from the kids just kinda exhausts me before I've even half thought it through. This opportunity fell in my lap practically fully formed. It was going to happen whether I asked for it or not - and I was pretty willing to ask for it! Even the thunderstorm and nasty weather forecast for today seemed to have decided not to mess with my lovely inevitable wonderful day.

So... thank you God, for the wonderful weather. Thank you Sarah, for the tickets and for wanting me to come. Thank you Mike for volunteering to babysit before I even had a chance to start asking!

I feel pretty darn good right now. I think I'm going to sit here and wallow in it a little while longer.

Ciao!

Dinner Guests

2010-04-22T21:43:00.004-05:00

We had guests over for dinner tonight. Because one of the guests is fellow blogger Rose's son, I thought I'd go ahead a share a picture. Besides it lets me show off how nice my dining room looks with it's new coat of paint. :-)

Boys and Cars

2010-04-22T00:31:00.002-05:00

Courtesy of Uncle Donal and the mailman.

When duct-tape doesn't cut it....

2010-04-13T18:04:00.000-05:00

...how do you keep diapers on a buttless nudist-wannabe two year old?

We've tried preventing access to the diaper by dressing him in one piece outfits and overalls...but he's such a skinny and long kid that he just slides his shoulders out between the overall straps or pulls at the onesie until the crotch unsnaps.

So I resorted to duct tape on the diaper, but he's taken to wiggling out of the diaper, duct tape and all. (Even with me wrapping the whole waist of the diaper with a layer of duct tape as tight as I dared.)

I don't think he's ready to potty train, more to the point *I* am not ready for potty training and all the mess and focus and extra effort (and laundry) that entails.

But twice today the kid has removed clothes and a clean diaper, wandered (TWO ROOMS OVER) to the nearest patch of carpet, and pooped on the carpet. Oh, but the second time he also apparently followed this up by sitting on the couch and wiping himself with a guest's shoes.

I am almost out of carpet cleaner and patience. PuhLEEZE tell me there's some solution to this I haven't yet thought of!!

A new book meme...

2010-04-09T00:23:00.002-05:00

Had a funny little discussion on Facebook recently that got me thinking about 1) the books we recommend to others and 2) book memes. My friend seemed to contend that firstly, most recommendations seem to be ill-tailored to the recipient and are thus somewhat pointless, and secondly, that book memes often fall prey to the desire to impress others with our erudition and learning - or at least make a good impression.

Naturally, more discussion led to a more nuanced understanding of what she was actually saying (and what I actually thought about those things). But it did get me thinking about all the many books I've had recommended to me over the years - and some of the ones I picked up because they were repeatedly mentioned by bloggers or writers I respect - and how interesting it would be to see which recommendations have hit home, both for me and for others.

So my next post is going to be a new book meme - the "Recommended Reading" meme, wherein I (and others so inclined) would list the 10 books I am MOST grateful to have had recommended to me by others - and a shorter list of 5 recommendations that fell flat.

Ready?

Ch-ch-ch-changes

2010-04-08T23:58:00.002-05:00

So, it's been a while.

Yeah.

Some changes since I last posted:
(when did I last post? Thanksgiving?)

- We moved. Not far, still in the same neighborhood, still renting. There were health problems with the last house and the decision to move was...accelerated...but we needed something a tiny bit larger anyway. So we have a new address, one more room, and...a BACKYARD!! Completely fenced in. Praise the Lord, how did I ever care for two active boys without one?!

- In conjunction with the move, I now have a really truly adults-only bedroom!! Both this house and the old one are shotgun style, which means the rooms are all stacked in a row, each leading in to the next. Our bedroom was right in between the living room/Gui's room and the kitchen before, which made it feel like a hallway sometimes. Now our room is at the very front of the house, and since there are several doors opening from other rooms on to the side porch, there's no need for anyone to enter our room at all. There's a lock on the door and blessed, blessed, privacy and peace within. :-)

- Which reminds me...Pascal is night weaned and no longer co-sleeping. We still let him come in for cuddles in the morning, and I in no way regret co-sleeping with each of my boys when they were toddlers. But it is lovely to bid him goodnight and leave the room too!

- I had my first eye exam in 6 years with a local optician and bought three (3!!) new pairs of glasses from Zenni Optical. I am thrilled with the new glasses, even more thrilled that the low price (EIGHT dollars/pair!!) motivated me to be more adventurous in my picks than I would be normally. I am at this moment sporting a pair of incredibly comfortable fuschia plastic frames - and I LOVE them.

- I also dyed my hair- a sort of warmish chestnut color. Just because. :-)

- Both the boys seem to have had growth spurts along with birthdays - Sweet Pea turned 2 in February and The Bug turned 5 in March. I can't believe I'm the mother of a 5 yr old!

- And...I've ordered a new camera so I should be able to post pictures of all these changes in another couple weeks!

Mmm...Pie....

2009-11-26T10:01:00.003-06:00

Lemon Meringue pie. One of three pies I made for Thanksgiving this year.

Didn't that meringue turn out luscious?

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!

The Torch

2009-11-11T11:14:00.002-06:00

You are the dead. Long years ago
you fought, and died, were laid below
the crosses, there in Flanders Field.
Ninety Novembers now have pealed
Church bells and speeches for the dead
by dwindling rank of comrades led,
to honor you - - John McCrae,
and all who stood in danger's way.

Your poem -- it haunts me now as when
I memorized first, at ten.
(So many children have). But I
-- I hear the larks sing in the sky
and shiver at the dead below
the crosses, laid in Flanders Field.

...And wonder at the final verse.
Would you have thought of us the worse?
Have we kept faith? Is our torch bright?
Or are we too ashamed to fight,
call evil false or good things true
like those young men who stood with you
to Flanders Field.

We are the living - you are the Dead,
not for you the poppies red,
blooming today for us below.
This ragged torch is burning low
but brave young men can still be found
hallowing some foreign ground
with earnest blood, while I at home
peck away at my short poem.
Lt. Col. John McCrae-
remember us, this November day.

Reposted from last year, in memory of John McCrae and all those who have died for honor, country, and freedom.

Why I Love Halloween

2009-10-29T11:47:00.002-05:00

I love Halloween. I always have.

When I was a child, I loved Halloween for the same reasons as children everywhere. The fun of dressing up and, of course, the free candy. The adventure of going to so many houses and being out after dark. The delightful thrill of pretending to be scared of the spooky decorations and spooky costumes. My parents were less openly enthusiastic, but I know my mother's creative side enjoyed coming up with new ways to use our costume pieces each year, and my father drove us (we were country kids) from house to house without complaint.

Now that I'm a parent myself, I have found some new reasons to love this autumn occasion. Here are my top 5 reasons to love Halloween for grown-ups:

1) No housecleaning. I love thanksgiving and Christmas as much as anyone, but honestly, isn't it stressful trying to get the house into holiday condition? Halloween doesn't require inside hospitality, and it's not one of those holidays that calls for photo-perfect indoor backgrounds. Instead, throw a couple pumpkins on the porch and a paper ghost on your door and you're good to go! Is any other holiday so easy on the keeper of the home?

2) No cooking. Yes, I know the Martha Stewart types violate this and #1 by hosting halloween parties with themed dishes and decorations. What can I say? I'm no Martha Stewart. And fortunately, no one expects me to be. A variety pack of mini chocolate bars in a bowl, and your duty to the costumed masses is satisfied.

3) The creative outlet. I really enjoy planning my kid's costumes, even when they are nothing more elaborate than a letter pinned on a shirt and a blanket/cape around the shoulders. I keep face paint in the house year round as a fun thing to play with on rainy or dull days. Halloween takes that fun and expands upon it as little or as much as you like and have energy for.

4) Meet the neighbors - pressure free. Halloween is like speed dating for neighborhood adults. Greeting each other while the kids root through the candy bowl looking for the best treats allows just enough time to be friendly and catch up a bit, but not enough time to make any embarrassing social blunders.

5) The chocolate. C'mon, admit it. Deep inside, the kid in me still finds it magical that so many people just give candy away! For free! To strangers who come to their door. It's wonderful to be on the giving side too. Giving and getting something for nothing can make everyone involved feel good about the world and their place in it.

So tell me...do you love Halloween?

Geek Humor

2009-10-23T19:08:00.001-05:00

From XKCD

Ambitions

2009-08-21T07:26:00.003-05:00

When I was a child, my ambition was to be a concert pianist, or a singer, or maybe a psychologist. (Seriously. When I was 10, I wanted to be a psychologist. I was a weird 10 year old.)

But pretty much from the age of 15, my ambition has been to be a stay at home mom, like my mother.

These days, my ambitions all have to do with what kind of SAHM I want to be. There are sub-genres, you see. And I've been thinking about these ambitions more as I gather materials and try to prepare for our first real year of homeschooling.

These are hopes, really, plans I'm making that I recognize could fall by the wayside at any point (or never materialize at all) - but I'm laying them out here to remind me what I'm striving for.

1. I want to be a predictable mom and teacher with regular routines and a pre-planned schedule.
My son frankly requires that I cultivate the small part of myself that thrives on order and routine - because HE thrives on order and routine. This is the boy who asks me every evening and every morning, "what do we do on this day?" I need to have an answer for him that doesn't have me extemporizing and desperately improvising every day.

2. I want to be a decent housekeeper.
Maybe this will happen if I build it into those routines we were just talking about?

3. I want to cultivate small adventures.
So that those routines and schedules don't become an excuse to stay in and do what is easy rather than what is memorable.

4. I want to fuel this all with daily prayer.
Even if the daily prayer is a single Memorare a day.

What are your ambitions for this school year?

Life lessons

2009-08-14T00:44:00.006-05:00

I mentioned in another post that my Handsome Husband has a new job. There's a story (maybe 2 or 3) to this job, and a lesson. Maybe even an aphorism or two. ;-) Let's start with a corny saying:

"When life closes a door, God opens a window."

In this case, Handsome left his previous full time job early in the new year when a hip injury required him to avoid strenuous physical activity for a while. By the time he recovered enough to go back to work, the company was no longer in a position to rehire him. To tell the truth, I'm not really sure what we've been living off of these last 8 months.

But during the time Handsome was sidelined by his physical condition, he found himself volunteering for a position he would NEVER have contemplated had he not had more time on his hands than he knew what to do with: chairing the parish building committee. Which was, at that point, pretty much non-existent.

Which leads us to the next lesson:

When you don't know what to do, do what you love.

Taking on the building committee had no immediate tangible benefit for our family, other than giving Handsome a way to feel useful during an otherwise frustrating time. But my husband has a passion for old buildings, and a passion for his Faith, and this offered a way to satisfy both of those loves.

Along the way, we realized something else - that Handsome's passions also qualified him to give more in that position than anyone else available. And that what the restoration of the church building really needed was someone with passion, someone with vision, and someone with the requisite experience and connections to squeeze every drop from the available funds. The task was (and is) a full time task and it needed full time attention from someone... like my husband.

It took 5 more months after that realization before Handsome was able to turn his volunteer position into full time employment, but eventually his passion convinced everyone involved, from the pastor to the diocesan building office to the bishop.

Which leads to the next aphorism:

If at first you don't succeed...

...make another phone call. This one was hard for Handsome, I think. He doesn't like to make a nuisance of himself or seem too needy. But with so much going on, even with the pastor in his corner, it was a constant effort to keep the process of creating a job position moving along. Three times we were told it was just around the corner...next week, or the week after...sure to be approved...the funds were in an account... each time we got our hopes up, each time we picked ourselves up from our disappointment and kept on, through diocesan politics (ick!), parish drama, and just plain human failing. My husband was incredible, working all the time at whatever small contracts and odd jobs he could find, keeping the building committee afloat and getting people excited and involved the whole time, until finally there came the time that it really was all final, here's the paperwork, welcome to church employment. Welcome to our parish Sexton, the man in charge of the maintenance, restoration, and repair of our church buildings.

The best lesson of all:

God has a purpose.

We have been married for 5 years now, and so little has made sense during that time. Despite our faith that God has a plan for us, it has never been possible to really see that plan take shape. We fell into financial trouble in the very first year we were married, moved to our current location in the wake of those troubles, had a difficult landing here and some definite culture shock, endured soul searching as we looked for a parish home, went through a dry spell when we wondered when God was going to reveal His reason for keeping us here so far from our families, watched with trepidation as our new parish was thrust into the middle of a controversial diocesan parish restructuring.

But there is something exciting brewing, even outside of Handsome's new job, although that puts us right in the middle of it. This parish is on the verge of a great renewal - not just the facade, the building, though that is shaping up to be part of it. And now it is easy to see what we couldn't have seen before - how God worked to bring us to this place, to this parish, how He moved Hamdsome among the right people and the right places to learn everything he would need for this work, how God knocked him off his feet to slow him down long enough to open this door, and how He placed us among His people to be part of something larger than any individual piece.

This is an exciting time for us - exciting because of the new job, which is honestly a dream job in so many ways, a literal answered prayer - exciting also because of this glimpse into where trust and hope have brought us.

One last little note. A joke.

When Handsome was still pretty young, he heard God calling him to serve His Church. Being young, he assumed that the only way to answer that call was priestly ministry, and he spent years assuming that God would lead him into the seminary before God made it clear to him that He had other plans.

So now I joke that Handsome is sort of an inverted St. Francis of Assisi. Francis heard God call him to rebuild his church, and initially assumed that God meant him to literally rebuild a physical church, until God set him to rebuilding the CHURCH.

But Handsome thought God was asking him to build up the CHURCH and it turns out that what God had in mind was that he should rebuild a church, this one.

I'm sure Francis is amused. We certainly are.

Beauty Tips from the Toddler

2009-08-13T10:51:00.001-05:00

It's not mess, Mama, it's a yoghurt facial!

If I smeared food on my face on a regular basis, do you think I'd get skin as smooth as his?

2009-08-12T15:17:00.003-05:00

Every morning this week, no matter how poorly the day started, I have sipped my tea with the comforting thought, "well anyway, see how God loves me?"

Which He does. Of course He does. But this week I've had a little extra proof of it with every cup of tea.

You see, Liam started a new job last week. Which by itself is proof of God's constant provision, and I'll have to tell that story in another post. But the kicker has been that the new (salaried! Yay!) job is paid monthly. So we're going from the week-to-week, day-to-day cash flow of odd jobs and self-employment to trying to make do for a month until that first pay check.

Just about when I realized this meant we would have to be even more frugal than usual, I realized that I was down to my last couple of bags of tea. Which I simply could NOT justify replacing. Not when the $4 for another box of tea could be better spent on eggs or milk or fresh fruit. I resigned myself to stretching the last few pots as far as I could and doing without until September, but not without a quick exasperated mutter, "C'mon, really?" directed more or less at the ceiling.

Then I went back to worrying about other things. When I told my husband about the tea shortage later that day, it was more in the way of warning than complaint. I really didn't expect him to be able to do anything about it. So it was a bit surprising when he said, "you know, I think there is box of tea at the office that doesn't belong to anybody. I'll ask around. It's still in it's packaging, unopened, and it looks like it's been there a while."

It put a little spring in my step the next day to think that God, in his wisdom, may have provided tea to tide me over - a box of Lipton, or Red Rose, forgotten by some long-gone visitor to the office, waiting for this week to be a comfort to me.

But God, as is so often true, exceeded my every expectation. For what Liam brought home, after establishing that it really was unclaimed and unwanted by the rest of the denizens of his new workplace, was not a box of Lipton. It wasn't a generic 'orange pekoe', or a box of Red Rose.

No, what Liam brought home is proof positive that not only did God intend to provide for me, he knows me and LOVES me. Because what Liam brought home - what was sitting abandoned in a cupboard - was not a second-rate discount tea but a genuine box of loose-leaf good quality PG Tips!!

(PG Tips is a British tea - not fancy by any means, but much MUCH better in quality than anything of a comparative price here in the US. It's my preferred every day tea but I can only find it at Whole Foods and I've never found it loose leaf hereabouts.)

How awesome is that? God meets not only my needs, but even my wants. (Because, let's be honest, I really could have survived a month without tea). And then, to pile mercy upon mercy, He goes one step further and exceeds my hopes by meeting even my preferences. Like any perfect gift, the message is clear: I know you, and I love you.

So, things may be tight this month. They may be difficult. I may not always know how we are going to overcome each little crisis. But I do know that God will see to our every need.

I know, after all, how well He loves me.

Has it really been a month?

2009-08-12T11:06:00.003-05:00

I guess blogging kind of fell off my radar this last month.

Can I give you a picture as a sort-of-apology?

Mommy Morning Math

2009-07-09T10:02:00.002-05:00

Number of times this morning that I have...

...picked up the same laundry off the floor and placed it back into a basket: 3.
...asked my still undressed 4 year old to pick out some clothes and dress himself: 2.
...peeled super-velcro-sweet pea off so that I could accomplish something: 8.
...answered a question about butterflies: 4.
...picked up the same easy-reader books and placed them back on the bookshelf: 2.
...passed my teapot without the leisure to pour the first cup: 3.
...said, "yes, I hear you" after the zillionth repetition of something: some multiple of a zillion.
...tripped over or narrowly avoided tripping over toys in doorway: 4.

Tasks I have accomplished this morning:

2 breakfasts made and consumed (I ate a banana).
1 breakfast mess cleaned up.
1 load of laundry sorted, folded, and put away.
1 load laundry in the washer.
2 bags garbage taken out.
2 large trash cans moved to curb.
2 emails answered.
1 dryer rack of dishes from yesterday put away.

Great Is Thy Faithfulness

2009-06-24T22:53:00.002-05:00

This hymn - not Catholic by any stretch, nor (for a change) English but an old protestant standby - has been on my heart and lips this week. Actually since last week. We suffered a bit of a dissapointment and I was bitterly upset, with the emphasis on bitter. So it makes no sense that I should find myself singing this song of praise and thanksgiving, except that I am. And in the Divine Economy, I'm sure it makes the kind of sense that eye has not seen, nor the mind of man comprehendeth.

You may find the words here.

Some thoughts, and a poem.

2009-06-24T22:16:00.005-05:00

2009 has been long, strange, and somewhat rocky for our family. Health and employment issues, mostly. The strangest and hardest part has been the feeling, the sense I just can't shake that this time is an interim, an intermission, before the next chapter God has planned for us. This sense that something good and right is around the corner ... and even as each corner we turn shows us only more of the same, it still feels as near. It would be reassuring, if it weren't so frustrating.

Though, come to think of it, I suppose all of life is merely an interim moment before the Real and Good thing begins.

So, onwards.

...

I've been meaning to write something about the readings from last Sunday, which really struck me. To remind you (or, for the non-Catholic, to inform you): the first reading was God answering Job's complaint.

Then the LORD addressed Job out of the storm and said:
: Who is this that obscures divine plans with words of ignorance?
: Gird up your loins now, like a man; I will question you, and you tell me the answers!
: Where were you when I founded the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding.
: Who determined its size; do you know? Who stretched out the measuring line for it?
: Into what were its pedestals sunk, and who laid the cornerstone,
: While the morning stars sang in chorus and all the sons of God shouted for joy?
: And who shut within doors the sea, when it burst forth from the womb;
: When I made the clouds its garment and thick darkness its swaddling bands?
: When I set limits for it and fastened the bar of its door,
: And said: Thus far shall you come but no farther, and here shall your proud waves be stilled!

Now, there's a lot here, though the entire chapter can be summed up as, "God makes Job realize how dumb and small he is and how great God is."

But this is what I took away from it. The God who created the earth and the sea, the light and the dark is also the God who set boundaries on these things. The God who makes the storm brings the sun and rainbow. The God of the mighty waves is the God who says "Thus far shall you come but no farther."

Like Job, I am small and God is large. I am limited and God is limitless. Yet God sets the limits that his creation abides by. He allows Job to be tested, but only for a time. Whatever it is we face, it is in God's timing, and in His hands to decide thus far but no farther.

Sunday's Psalm was from psalm 107, verses about those on the sea, buffeted by waves, and how God stills the seas. Then, to complete the theme (and how I love that the lectionary is laid out this way), the Gospel was of course Matthew's account of Christ calming the waters.

They woke him and said to him,
"Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?"
He woke up,
rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, "Quiet! Be still!"
The wind ceased and there was great calm.
Then he asked them, "Why are you terrified?
Do you not yet have faith?"

It comforts me that although Christ rebukes the disciples for their lack of faith...he still calms the waters first. How many times have I worried that my worrying would be sign of such a lack of faith that I would be punished with more trials as a lesson to me? I know, it's a twisted way of thinking. But there it is. Christ hears and answers their plea, even though even the way they wake him is somewhat insulting. You can imagine the frustration and anger of it; "DO YOU NOT CARE!!!?? THAT WE ARE DYING??" But He does care, and he saves them, and then asks them why, after all they had seen of his works, they did not yet have faith. But of course, like all of us, they did not know what God had planned and so they feared for the present moment.

...

This, though, is the phrase from Sunday that is still resonating in my heart, striking up that aching, hopeful, scary, fragile, enduring feeling of just-around-the-corner, one line from the epistle:

behold, new things have come.

Maybe they have. Maybe they have.

...

To complete the theme of storms and silence, a poem I wrote last year around this time. Appropriate for hurricane season and pretty much every other season of life as well.

Silence

You know what storms and tumults stewing
wait to wake us from our rest-
what sloughs and cliffs, what troubles brewing
like vipers startled from the nest.

For now, we are, and are together
one roof uniting over all
no winds disturb, no cruel weather,
no demon cant or raging squall...

We are, we rest...
...I watch them slumber,
am heavy, full with being blessed
and to Your waiting presence, wonder
if, at mortal's weak behest
You, oh Lord of rolling thunder,
might find out silence suits You best.

Attachment and Detachment

2009-06-05T09:00:00.000-05:00

I'm not one to blindly follow any parenting theory. I do believe that parents should continue to think critically and intelligently about the decisions they make with regards to raising their children, and there are a lot of books and resources available to help with that. But I don't think there is any one method that will work equally well across the board with every parent and every child, and so primarily my parenting philosophy can be summed up like this:

1. Know your child, as well as you can.
2. Give your child what they need.
3. Find room for what you need.
4. Find compromises that work for your family when those things are in conflict.

Don't ask me about discipline, I'm still figuring that out.

Anyway...

By and large I've found that a lot of the things that work for me and my family belong to a family of ideas and methods known as "attachment parenting". I have never had a problem being identified as an Attachment Parent, because by and large I understood the term to refer to my rule #1: Know your child. Obviously, spending lots of time with your child will help you pick up their quirks, preferences, dislikes, and needs, particularly in infants who don't have the language to communicate any of these things. I do a fair bit of babywearing, and I breastfeed longer than the average American breastfeeding woman (22 months with The Bug, 16 so far with Sweet Pea). I generally don't start my newborns on a schedule, preferring to let them work out their own (which I then regularize, and which changes about every 8 weeks).

But then, there are a whole host of other things AP moms do that I don't do, or don't have time for, or don't have patience for, or that seem to backfire with my kids. There's something called "positive parenting" that is popular in the same circles and which is as foreign to me as Chinese and makes me wonder if there really are children like the ones described. (There are. I've met a few. Tried some playdates with one little girl who was perfectly well behaved and responsive to her mother - a beautiful thing to see - but she was terrified of The Bug so there was never a second one.) Somewhere it dawned on me that some of my parenting instincts - a certain laissez-faire attitude about dirt and germs, a preference that my kid hash out disagreements with other children himself when possible, a strong appreciation for natural consequences, and a reluctance to schedule my kid in classes, playdates, etc. - made me somewhat of an oddity in many of the circles I travel in.

Is there something wrong with me that I worry more about some nosy neighbor thinking I'm neglectful than I worry about what my 4 yr old might get up to playing - mostly unsupervised - on the sidewalk in front of the house with his 5 and 7 yr old friends? That I don't put sunscreen on the boys for every run to the grocery store? That I haven't thrown out all the phthalate-containing plastic containers and dishes in our house?

I'm a homeschooling SAHM, but I let the kids play, mostly unsupervised and undirected, for an hour or more a day while I do housework. And sometimes I read a book instead. I make them both nap in the afternoon every day I can, whether they need it or not, so I can spend time online. Recently, when I had a bit of work, I spent most of a day distracted and on the computer and read not one book to The Bug until bedtime.

Is there something wrong with that? Does it make me a bad mommy?

I don't think it does. And I don't think there's anything wrong with my friend Jen either, who wrote on her blog recently:

Things keep shifting in my life right now, and I can't always see where they are going or landing. Life as a mommy of young ones is constantly changing. I'm not always the best at it, but sometimes my best has to be good enough, and accepting that I'm less than perfect is sometimes what represents the best of my best. I think, sometimes, being less than perfect but relieving my kids of fulfilling my every emotional and egotistical need is a good trade. At least it feels that way, to me.

I think it's tempting sometimes to think of life-as-it-is-right-now as some sort of aberration from life-as-it's-going-to-be, or life-as-it-really-is; that what we are doing when the unexpected pops up and life changes again and we're thrown off balance is a temporary situation that we merely endure while waiting to regain equilibrium - and that REAL parenting takes place in that equilibrium. As though our job as parents is to provide our children with a predictable, regular, mostly unchanging environment, one with green lawns and soccer practice and maybe a puppy, and if we don't have that we aren't really parenting. Or something.

But life is always in flux. The appearance of unchanging stability? An illusion. Even families that seem to have it all figured out are vulnerable to the lost job, the career change, the mortgage-in-default, the sudden illness or the hidden weakness. Not to mention that children grow and change and need different things with every year.

No, the parenting we do now, in the midst of the chaos, is real parenting. And, I'm convinced, the most important part of that parenting is the part where our children learn by being, as children are, keen observers of their parents. How I deal, how Jenn deals, when life is shifting; who we become, how we take the circumstances in front of us and act and react and make something both of our lives and of our selves; that IS the lesson to our children, that IS the parenting we do when we are too harried, hurried, and harassed to take time to sit on the floor with our children or plan and supervise their every, enriching, activity.

This is both scary and reassuring.

Scary, because what if I fall short. What if I screw up? What do my children learn if I am sour, disappointed, crabby, distracted, selfish?

Reassuring, because IF I keep my mind on each day, take each task, not as a means to some mythical balance where real life can finally start, but as a chance to BE and BECOME that model for my children...then there is no division between living and loving, no division between supporting my children and raising my children, no split between being ME and being Mama.

"I think, sometimes, being less than perfect but relieving my kids of fulfilling my every emotional and egotistical need is a good trade."

I didn't even go where I wanted to with this post - I wanted to talk about expecting our children to fill our emotional needs, about freeing our kids of the burden of being our fulfillment. I wanted to talk about the way we talk about the choice to birth children and about how that has changed, and what that change has done to our expectations for parenting and mothering in particular. I was going to draw a connection between perceived "freedom" and perceived responsibilities with regards to childbearing and childraising.

I was going to link to FreeRangeKids and talk about childhood autonomy, about training children to be adults rather than grooming children to be better children, about 'safety' and the force of public disapproval.

I'd even thought of working in a reference to recent research showing how women have become less happy, both relative to men but also absolutely, over the last 50 years. I wanted to speculate about how as women's freedoms have increased so has the pressure on all sides - including the parenting front - making it virtually impossible to ever succeed in that way that lets you say to yourself, "well, I did everything anyone could expect from me."

But, you know something? I think you all can make those connections. I can write more about it another time, or not. Right now, I need to get back to imperfectly raising my two kids.

Later.

Sin, Struggle, and the Journey of Redemption

2009-06-01T06:15:00.000-05:00

More of the best of "Heart Speaks to Heart". This post was written in July 2007. Topical details aside, it continues to be relevant. Interestingly enough, most of the comments on the original post had to do with modesty...but the conversation I am interested in having here is about our reactions to "hypocrisy".

Every once in a while I am reminded how alien Catholic thinking is to the secular world.

A few things brought this to mind recently. First, Dawn Eden wrote about a reporter who was skeptical at the finding that men find too-tight clothing and excess makeup unattractive:

"It doesn't seem to even cross the reporter's mind that a man might be momentarily distracted by a skimpily dressed woman and yet not want to have anything to do with her."

Ms. Eden's comment is born out in her comments box where a number of men attest to their dislike of having their sexual drive yanked about by women who are dressed immodestly. They don't want to look, but they do - and that doesn't mean that they are liars when they claim to prefer more modestly dressed ladies.

The second thing to bring this to mind was a discussion I took part in on a breastfeeding forum. The general gist of the discussion was whether or not covering up while breastfeeding perpetuates the idea that breastfeeding is somehow shameful. I observed that it depended on the company - I have too much respect for the men in my life to want to make things more difficult for them if a display of flesh is going to be an occasion or temptation to lust for them. The response I got was "well, if a friend of mine couldn't help but look, he wouldn't be a friend any more."

The third event to prompt this post is the revelation of Sen. Vitter's past liasons with the D.C. Madam. Senator Vitter is a Louisiana politician who has fought for family values, and the local reaction has been rather harsh, mostly from liberal types who are angry, not that Sen. Vitter engaged in an illegal and immoral act, but that he would dare try to pass legislation compelling others to be moral while himself living a lie. Hypocrite is possibly the most kind thing that has been said of him.

Echoing in my head through all of this has been these words from St. Paul:

"I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good. ...I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do." (Romans 7:15-19)

St. Paul goes on to affirm the value of setting your mind on the things of God, even if your body is still enslaved to sin:

"To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God's law, indeed it cannot; and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

... But if Christ is in you, although your bodies are dead because of sin, your spirits are alive because of righteousness." (Romans 8:6-8,10)

How is it that St. Paul could say, "I do the very thing I hate" and the turn around and tell the early Christians that "to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace"?

The truth is that to be Christian in this world does not require perfection. It is scandal to the world to see this, but it is also the hope Christianity extends to all those trapped doing "the very thing [they] hate." The hope is that, while we were sinners, Christ came to save us. The hope is that "God sent not his son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved." Christ himself said it when, after being criticised for breaking bread with tax collectors and sinners, he asked in reply whether it was the healthy or the sick who need a doctor.

Knowing what is good is no guarantee against sin. Sen. Vitter knows this, I am sure. The gentlemen commenters at Dawn Eden's know this. They know what kind of men God would have them be. But they fall short, even knowing that. And it is their very failures that cause them to cling more closely to He who saves - who helps them find their feet and stand again.

After all, what is the alternative? We know we are weak - that is why we need a Saviour. It seems to me that we have two choices, and those two choices only. We challenge our weakness by clinging to the Lord who saves, or we cater to our weakness by excusing it and wallowing in it.

Larry Flynt, who has made it his mission to catch family values politicians with their pants down, has obviously chosen the second path. He makes his living extending Satan's nets further so that he will not have to be alone in the trap of sexual sin. I do not know Senator Vitter's heart, but I would like to believe that he is choosing the first path - the path that seeks redemption, getting back up and brushing off the mud to try again after every fall into the gutter. We all fall into sin. Do we try to surpass it, try to save others from it? Or do we surrender to it and pretend it is no big deal?

My husband's comment on all this was to say that "any man who strives to be someone worthy of respect must accept that he will at some time be a hypocrite." That is to say that when we set our sights high, we will inevitably fall short. But we can't rise at all if we do not take that risk.

The truth is, redemption is a journey that takes a lifetime...and sometimes more.

I think our society, as Christian as its inheritance is, has forgotten this truth. Forgotten it, in part, because it never knew it. When I did youth evangelisation, years ago, we did a testimony writing workshop. Now, the basic template was one used widely in protestant circles, but as Catholics we needed to adjust it somewhat. You see, while a born-again evangelical has only one testimony, one moment to point to as the moment of his transformation in Christ, I have many. I don't have to pretend that my life changed completely when I let Christ into my heart. It did change, but I have had to let go of so many things over the last decade to make more room for Him. My relationship with Christ changes daily; grows, I hope, daily; and changes me, daily. I don't have one testimony. I have hundreds.

Our society has heard that all it takes to change your life completely is to accept Christ as your personal Lord and Saviour. No wonder it is angry to meet Christians who love God, and yet sin.

Our Church knows this. I have heard it told that the Church is a hospital for invalids, and it is true. I have heard it said that the Church is a life raft for the drowning, and it is true. We are all saints-in-training, but we aren't there yet. God willing, we will all get there someday.

I guess my final thought in all this is a prayer for those who are struggling, particularily with habitual or compulsive sins. Too many men find themselves trapped in a cycle of sexual sin, unable to get out. It is out of compassion for that struggle that I try to be modest, to aid those who are fighting their hardest to keep custody of their eyes. Too many of us find ourselves confessing the same sins over and over again, feeling like we have made little progress in our spiritual journey. May we be as merciful to each struggling soul as our merciful God is to us.

And may we all fight the good fight, with our eyes fixed on Jesus, the source of "peace and life."

make a lost world your home...

2009-05-31T01:44:00.000-05:00

Spirit divine, attend our prayers,
and make this house thy home;
descend with all thy gracious powers,
O come, great Spirit, come!

Come as the light; to us reveal
our emptiness and woe,
and lead us in those paths of life
whereon the righteous go.

Come as the fire and purge our hearts
like sacrificial flame;
let our whole soul an offering be
to our Redeemer's Name.

Come as the dove, and spread thy wings,
the wings of peaceful love;
and let thy Church on earth become
blest as the Church above.

Come as the dew and sweetly bless
this consecrated hour;
may barrenness rejoice to own
thy fertilizing power.

Spirit divine, attend our prayers,
make a lost world thy home;
descend with all thy gracious powers;
O come, great Spirit, come!

Pentecost!

2009-05-31T01:30:00.002-05:00

Come down, O Love Divine! Seek Thou this soul of mine,
And visit it with Thine own ardor glowing.
O Comforter, draw near, within my heart appear,
And kindle it, Thy holy flame bestowing.

O let it freely burn, til earthly passions turn
To dust and ashes in its heat consuming;
And let Thy glorious light shine ever on my sight,
And clothe me round, the while my path illuming.

Let holy charity mine outward vesture be,
And lowliness become mine inner clothing;
True lowliness of heart, which takes the humbler part,
And o’er its own shortcomings weeps with loathing.

And so the yearning strong, with which the soul will long,
Shall far outpass the power of human telling;
For none can guess its grace, till he become the place
Wherein the Holy Spirit makes His dwelling.

The Ethical Dimension of Manual Labor?

2009-05-26T16:15:00.004-05:00

This New York Times article was a fascinating read. Not only because the first paragraphs do a good job of identifying the strangely mixed condescension with which the trades are treated in North American society, but also for the thought-provoking insights in to the contrasting nature of different sorts of work. The author writes,

... mechanical work has required me to cultivate different intellectual habits. Further, habits of mind have an ethical dimension that we don’t often think about. Good diagnosis requires attentiveness to the machine, almost a conversation with it, rather than assertiveness, as in the position papers produced on K Street. Cognitive psychologists speak of “metacognition,” which is the activity of stepping back and thinking about your own thinking. It is what you do when you stop for a moment in your pursuit of a solution, and wonder whether your understanding of the problem is adequate. The slap of worn-out pistons hitting their cylinders can sound a lot like loose valve tappets, so to be a good mechanic you have to be constantly open to the possibility that you may be mistaken. This is a virtue that is at once cognitive and moral. ...
This active concern for the motorcycle is reinforced by the social aspects of the job. As is the case with many independent mechanics, my business is based entirely on word of mouth. I sometimes barter services with machinists and metal fabricators. This has a very different feel than transactions with money; it situates me in a community. The result is that I really don’t want to mess up anybody’s motorcycle or charge more than a fair price. ... [emphasis mine]

Now, I think that much of the contrast in the article has to do with the difference between entrepreneurship and middle management, the contrast between responsibility to the client vs. responsibility to an employer. Certainly, there are non-manual jobs that can involve some of that sense of community, responsibility, and the challenge and excitement of solving a problem and being directly accountable for it. Having pride in a tangible result.

On the other hand, I found that snippet, quoted above, about the ethical dimension of habits of mind compelling. It seems reasonable enough that there must be some real differences in cognitive development between the person who interacts with physical puzzles and products every day vs. those who only think and read and write and interact primarily with computers, pencil and paper. I see traits in my carpenter husband that seem organically connected with his trade, as though being a craftsman is a character trait like being introverted or optimistic, and I've learned to recognize some of these traits in other tradespeople as well - not that I find it easy to describe what exactly those traits are, without being guilty of over-generalization or romanticism. It's more a mode of being, thinking and doing, I think. In any case, I appreciate it and often envy it and I wonder sometimes whether anyone else has noticed this - this imprint one's work seems to make on one's soul - or whether I am alone in this.

Fences and Freedom

2009-05-25T06:06:00.001-05:00

This was originally posted in September on Heart Speaks to Heart. I continue to dream of a fenced in yard for my family.

One of my little frustrations with our home is that I have no yard. When Gui is bouncing off the walls from being inside all day, I have to decide whether to let him play on the sidewalk in front of the house, or pack the boys up and go to the local playground.

If he plays out front, I have to be out front as well, to watch him. He is limited to the space in front of our house, between our car and the bushes - a narrow strip of sidewalk and gravel. He can play with chalk, or swing 'lightsabers' around with his friends next door, but can't play with balls or any other toy that might get knocked on to the street and pose a temptation to run out in traffic. If I need to go inside to change the baby's diaper, cook dinner, wash dishes, or any other reason, Gui needs to come inside as well. If he strays too far one way or another, he is corrected and brought back, and told to 'stay near the house', and if he strays too often after a warning, we go back inside.

So...we often go to the local playground instead, even though to do so is to commit to hours outside (which can throw off my housework bigtime ;-)). We've always enjoyed the playground but it has become even better in the last couple months since it went from partially to fully enclosed. There is fence on all four sides with one gate on each side to let kids and parents in and out. Once we get to the playground, I get a chance to stop hovering. Secure in the knowledge that Gui can't get out without my seeing him at the gate, I can sit on a bench in the shade, read a bok, chat with other parents, or sit with the baby in the grass while Gui kicks a ball around, climbs play equipment, or just plays tag with his friends. I rarely need to speak sharply to him at the playground. There is no need to remind him of his boundaries or worry about a toy gone astray. As a result, he is happier, and so am I.

The happy medium, I think, would be to have a fenced in yard at home. To be able to watch my child play outside while I wash dishes and cook inside. To be able to give my son the freedom to go outside and play as he will without the exhausting hovering and without neglecting my home.

All of this was on my mind as I read this post on marriage. The aithor has hit on a great truth here, the same truth I've learned while trying to give my son more freedom. TR says,

"It may seem obvious, but making choices enable you to go much further, and I feel that many people don't see it that way anymore ... Marriage is a structure. That gives you a frame so you can define more clearly what you expect, what to do and how. It's very reassuring and empowering."

I think this is another way at getting at this truth: Boundaries give us greater freedom.

Strange, isn't it? To think that fences = freedom? But it's true. TR points out that the married couple is free to make plans for 5, 10, 15 years down the road. They are free to dream, to make choices based on the restrictions they accepted when they married: fidelity and constancy. Yes, life may still surprise, but there is still a freedom there that can't exist in a relationship where there are no givens.

Like the generous front yard of my dreams, the boundaries of marriage define marriage, even though marriage is much more than merely boundaries. I can't talk about the yard I want to have without describing the boundaries I want it to have - the outer limits of the space which enclose it and give it definition. Fences do not make a yard, but they do let you clearly know where it begins and ends so you can better appreciate the lushness and refreshment of the space inside. Likewise, marriage is more than merely not having affairs and not divorcing...but that fidelity and constancy set the marriage relationship apart from friendship and other human relationships. Within those bounds, we are free - to give totally to each other, recklessly, knowing that the other will be around tomorrow and all our tomorrows...to have bad days and months and know there will be more months and days to make it up...to make decisions about children and jobs and money and health and know that even if we don't always quite live up to our good intentions, we aren't going to lose each other in our efforts. When we were postponing pregnancy after Gui, I worried sometimes about the health risks and the financial strain if we were to concieve. But I never worried about whether the father of my children would be around to raise them, planned or not. Know what I mean?

Promises and laws may be fences, but sin and selfishness are more like a leash. The person determined to be ruled only by their own desires and inclinations winds up...ruled by their desires and inclinations. I have watched souls throw off the 'fences' of family and faith only to become leashed to habits and dependencies, circling around and around in the same well-trodden path of drinks, indulgences, and shallow relationships. After all, if there are no standards but your desires, there is no argument strong enough to counter desire, even unhealthy desire.

My parents had a fenced in yard in front of the old farmhouse. It wasn't there when they first moved there, but was built after an incident with our dog, a young, excitable mutt named 'Frisky'. Frisky discovered that a neighbor down the road had chickens, and that chickens are a ton of fun to chase. Finally, he caught one - maybe it's heart gave out while running, maybe he just caught up with it - whatever the case, Frisky was caught red-pawed, and it became clear that his life depended on being broken of the chicken-chasing habit. We kept Frisky inside the house or leashed for a few days, but his whining and scratching to go out were heartbreaking. So my dad built a fence.

Sure, Frisky preferred roaming free to being fenced in - but unlike the leash, the fence let Frisky run around with us kids, play fetch, roll in the grass and jump in the air and just be a crazy, energetic dog. Letting Frisky outside the fence to do what he liked wasn't an option - As long as Frisky remembered what fun chickens were, he was going to go back to the scene of the crime, and if he were caught killing chickens he was likely to be shot. The fence gave Frisky freedom - not only to run, but to live. (He was allowed out of the fence after a few weeks, and to my knowledge never chased another chicken, living to a ripe old age). In much the same way, moral laws give us freedom.

Sorry for the dearth of posts

2009-05-23T15:46:00.002-05:00

I'll make up for it. Life is happening - in good ways, mostly - and I haven't had too many free moments to sit in peace and put thoughts together. But I do have a couple posts brewing.

In the meantime, I'm going to re-post some of my favorite writing from the old blog, Heart Speaks to Heart.

All Creatures Great and....Small?

2009-05-14T13:12:00.002-05:00

Are we sure God intended to make cockroaches and slugs?

Ok, so I've long believed that cockroaches are a result of the Fall. But I actually think - thought - that slugs are kind of cool. Slug trails are fairy-like silvery things, and I respect any creature that manufactures it's own slip n' slide.

But now, I am a gardener. And the tiny little size of my amateur little garden is all the more reason to grieve when any individual plant suffers. As my beans and tomatoes are suffering!

You'd think I'd have spotted the glittery trails and made the connection sooner, but no, I had to catch Mr. Slug in the act before I realized that slugs are the culprits ravaging my plants.

So, on to my trusty friend and guide for advice - the internet.

Enter, the Egg Shell Plot.

I like to avoid chemicals if I can, mostly because the kids play among the leafy greens and Pascal still puts everything in his mouth. Besides, we want to eat whatever these plants can be coaxed to produce.

But apparently, a snail's Achilles heel (envision THAT for a moment, if you can) is that that slippery rippling underbelly is incredibly sensitive. Website after website recommended small sharp gravel or broken eggshell, placed around the stem of each plant. Snail can't glide over the eggshell, can't get up the stem to get to the leaves, and my plants are spared.

Side benefit - the calcium in the shell is also good for the plants.

And the best part, from a mother's perspective, is that saving, crushing, and spreading egg shell is FUN, as far as a 4 year old is concerned.

heart-warming breastfeeding story

2009-05-02T22:31:00.002-05:00

I found this story very compelling. And only partly because I am nursing my baby boy now.

Women step up to breast-feed motherless infant
Charles Moses Martin Goodrich was born at 3:26 a.m. Jan. 11 at Marquette General Hospital. Eleven hours after giving birth, his mother Susan Goodrich, 46, died of amniotic fluid embolism - a rare obstetric emergency that is not age-related, Goodrich said. Moses is the Goodrich's second child - Julia was born in 2007 - and Susan's fourth. Still in shock over his wife's death, Goodrich realized he had to figure out a way to feed his newborn son.
"They didn't carry any breast milk," the history professor said about the hospital, so a nurse looked into getting some for Moses. As it turned out, the nearest place to get breast milk was in Kalamazoo, and it would take several days to have it delivered to Marquette.
In the meantime, Goodrich received a phone call from family friend Laura Janowski of Marquette, who was still nursing her fourth child, 1-year-old Emily. In her message, Janowski offered Goodrich to nurse Moses.
...
A schedule was put together with feeding times at 9 a.m., noon, 1:30 , 4 , 6:30 and 8 p.m. Six times a day a different mother has been feeding Moses for the past two months. During the night, Goodrich bottle-feeds his son breast milk that was pumped by the women.
"What amazes me is they are so committed," Fraire said. "They would do it for anyone because they believe in this. They didn't take it lightly and they don't miss a day."
Goodrich added: "It's commitment, passion - it's love. It's an act of love."

One of the forums I used to spend time on took an informal survey about cross-nursing. In a group of crunchier-than-average moms, about three quarters were pretty uncomfortable with the idea of someone else nursing their baby. In contrast, there was almost universal willingness to nurse someone else's baby.

Anyway...reading this story made me wonder about cross-nursing. How common is it now? More common in other cultures, I'm sure - it's hard to be more Puritan about these things than the average American. And what about group cross-nursing as described in this news story?

The father in this story hits on something that a lot of talk about the importance of breast-feeding misses. The benefits conferred by breast-feeding are not merely the result of superior nutrition - they are as much about the mother-baby time, eye contact, communication...in short, TIME. Something that bottle-fed babies can get too, if the bottle isn't propped up and left, but something even the breastmilk fed baby can be denied if they are fed expressed milk from bottles propped up by distracted individuals.

That's the real grace of this story, too. I don't actually think it would have been a horrible thing for this father to give his baby formula. Considering the circumstances, it would have been pretty understandable if he hadn't thought about it at all, just accepted whatever the nursery staff suggested. And his baby would grow up just fine.

But his desire to honor his wife's wishes, and his desire to give their baby the best he knew how, opened the door to this lovely thing - a whole community of nurturers, a plethora of caregivers. No replacement for a mother, certainly. But in this tragic circumstance, what a blessing for both baby - and father.

But then, I'm a sucker for that sort of thing.

H/T Bearing Blog

One more

2009-05-01T22:14:00.002-05:00

on body/soul.

Erin at Bearing Blog did some thinking about Christ's humanity, about embodied-ness, and about being limited in understanding. Of particular interest to me, she gets there by meditating on the experience of having a panic attack:

... How on earth can the omnipotent and omniscient and eternal "fear" his own willed temporal suffering? Fear comes from a lot of places -- not knowing, for example. (But God knows all.) And being out of control. (But God is in control, even in the person of Jesus who submitted to others.) And the threat of annihilation. (But God is eternal.) Isn't fear something that is fixed by knowing, by control, by the promise of continued existence? Well?

...

What came to me was something that happened to me years ago. Have you ever had a genuine panic attack? I have. I had a string of maybe five panic attacks over a period of about six months when I was in college. I never knew why they appeared, and I never knew why they went away again -- I've never had any since. I remember it vividly though, one of the most surreal things ever to happen to me.

It was surreal because at every moment I knew exactly what was happening to me. I recognized the sensation as a panic attack. I knew I was, in fact, safe. I knew there was no thing that could have triggered a legitimate fear response. And yet my body was behaving as if I was in terrible danger. ...

Do, go thou and check it out!

Good stuff

2009-04-29T10:26:00.003-05:00

Some thought-provoking posts from other blogs. First, this from Dawn Eden:

For Valenti, the idea that virginity even exists is "a lie." She came to that realization after her first sexual experience at age 14 left her feeling unchanged, as she writes in Chapter 1: "I fail to see how anything that lasts less than five minutes can have such an indelible ethical impact." (Now, there's a proposition for moral theologians to consider: One could theoretically break all ten commandments with no permanent ethical consequences, provided one did so in less than five minutes. Kids, don't try this at home.) With her book, the author intends to "outline a new way for us to think about young women as moral actors, one that doesn’t include their bodies."

...

The author's certainty that "healthy" sexual conduct flows naturally from the absence of moral guidelines recalls the experiments performed by a 16th-century Indian emperor. He isolated babies with a mute nurse to see what would be their "natural" language. Lacking an example, the children grew up unable to speak.

Be sure to check out the comments box on that post for a discussion on modern body-soul dualism.

Then check out this painfully honest post from Catholic blogger extraordinaire, the recently widowed Amy Welborn, on the resurrection of the body:

It has always confused me and caused me to wonder and even doubt the sense of all that I say I believe. I believe in the resurrection of the body...but the body is still here, the body disintegrates, so when....at the end of time?

This question really came to the fore pretty dramatically for me when we visited the Capuchin Crypt in Rome. I wasn't grossed out, but I was...startled. Even though, intellectually, I knew that cemeteries were full of bodies still on earth in varying states of decay, walking down the hall of that series of rooms brought my questions into stark relief: But where are they now? Has heaven even started yet? (No, I'm not that stupid - but it sort of captures the essence of my confusion.)

And then I think...well, there is no time in God. In God, all of this is done and finished - including your life, Amy - and...

...my brain explodes.

Do read the rest to see where she ends up with this.

2009-04-29T08:03:00.002-05:00

Garden Thoughts

2009-04-26T14:12:00.005-05:00

I broke ground for my garden recently.
Broke, in fact, an ancient concrete slab
Strained to move the larger pieces
revealing clay and earth below
tight-packed with weight and years untouched.

I kicked and shoved the shovel's blade
to bite into the clay,
levered up, foot by foot
to free the rich dark loam
to find the home of earthworms digging low.

Mixing in new soil from bags
and, turning to the hoe
I hacked each clump, each lump
and clod of thick pale clay
and earth, turning turning turning

Hacking, pushing,pulling
in my little garden plot
And my tired arms were heavy
and my back is sore.
But it is my hands that finally complained,
that had not handled a shovel in,
oh, these many years.

***

A slug has left his trace
before the lintel of my door.
It throws off glints and
gleams unevenly
in a long, shiny, wavering trail.

The girl I used to be likes slugs
(but only at a distance).
She decorates herself with sparkles
and store bought glitter
and does not know that slugs make glitter too.

***

I come out again the next day,
in the heavy afternoon
while my children sleep,
to set aside the rocks and the debris
I am as critical of lumps as a cook
whipping gravy.

I imagine some new-green tender sprout
fighting to rise towards the sun
and blocked by unfeeling clay.
I want to smooth the way.
And ease the sting of disappointed hopes.

Gardening, I have found, is about hope.
Preparing, planting, weeding,
each labor to it's own day.
Each with the end in mind.

And yet, even should nothing grow
in my little garden plot -
these are still good days
And a good day's work.
To do, and to have done.

Is there personality in heaven?

2009-04-21T09:38:00.002-05:00

This is the question I asked on Facebook last night:

"If someone's personality changes significantly because of brain damage...which personality manifests in heaven? Is there personality in heaven?"

Fortunately for me, the brilliant Therese numbers among my Facebook friends, and answered me thusly:

oooh.... well here's the Thomas Aquinas version of the answer: personality (likes/dislikes, tendencies, temperament) is a function of individual bodies (which makes a lot of sense, given what we know about the relationship between personality and brain chemistry). But these bodily dispositions eventually shape the soul in a particular way through the habits it develops, so that it tends to think about certain topics and desire certain things more than others. Thus Thomas says that in Heaven, although the soul is able to know anything it wants to, it tends to consider the items of knowledge it most often thought about on earth, and desires to be with the people whose company it most sought. Which is why, despite marriage being dissolved in Heaven, one still has a special bond with one's [former] spouse there, because their souls are "shaped towards" each other.

So ... I guess one's "separated soul personality" would be restricted in Heaven to these cognitive and affective habits formed on earth, but one's "resurrected body personality" would include the tendencies and temperament proper to each individual body in their most perfect and well-ordered form.

Of course, this still leaves open the question of what the 'most perfect and well-ordered form' of any particular body might be. To this end, fellow blogger Jen (of just jen posits this:

I think one could make a really fun argument that our fallen natures are in fact a form of brain damage--and that none of our brains are completely whole and fully functioning. The fact that all brains are full of unrealized potential and that decay begins from the moment of birth, you can say that none of us enjoy our "personality" in ideal form here on this plane and have a fully restored personality to look forward to in heaven

What do you all think?

Oliver Sacks, the Incarnation, embodied souls and ensouled bodies.

2009-04-19T21:46:00.007-05:00

Forgive me if this is somewhat incoherent, I'm rather tired but want to get this out and up while it's fresh.

I'm really enjoying reading Oliver Sacks "An Anthropologist on Mars", just as I enjoyed "Awakenings" when I read it a few years back, and for much the same reason. Sacks is such a respectful researcher - even as he delves into individual case studies seeking insight into brain chemistry, anatomy, and adaptability, he never loses sight of the individual, the person, and the unique way each person co-exists and in some ways is identified with symptoms of their illness. Rather than being reductionist, each case study opens up a window into the wonderful complexity of the thinking human person.

(The estimable Oliver Sacks, corporeality and all.)

Sacks most endearing quality - his desire to study his patients and subjects from the inside, from within their subjective experiences, rather than solely from the standpoint of the objective, detached observer - this quality is also responsible for the disquieting effect reading his essays has on me. It is difficult to read them from any distance. Instead I am drawn in to imagine with Sacks the life each subject lives - the things they have lost, the things they might gain. And naturally enough, I imagine myself in their position, or in the position of the family, friends, and caretakers who witness these often strange, bewildering or unearthly transformations. "An Anthropologist on Mars" deals mainly with stories of people who are lacking some commonplace ability - memory-building, sight - or who process and interact with the world differently, through autism or color blindness or Tourette's syndrome. The essays attempt to show how these individuals adapt, often thrive alongside these neural differences. It is fascinating...but, as I said, unsettling to read in such vivid detail, especially when the differences are the result of injury or illness.

What it all has me musing on tonight is the fragility of being embodied. I believe we are embodied souls, ensouled bodies, intricately and (while alive) inextricably intertwined. There is no separating the soul from the body, no calling one good and the other evil, no denigrating the body and elevating the soul - as a Catholic, we are pretty clear that humans are inherently embodied creatures and will be resurrected in body as well as soul. That actually gives me a basis for enjoying discussions of neurological origins of behaviour that might bother some believers, since I have no problem entertaining the thought that the body affects the soul (and vice versa, for you pure materialists :-P). In fact, I asked a question about bodies, personalities, and souls on FB, and received a fantastic answer which I hope to reproduce for you in another post. But, back to the point...we are embodied creatures, and there is a whole host of material evils that can impact these fragile, eggshell bodies and scramble our tender, meaty heads into new configurations...and contemplating that makes me want to wear a helmet for the remainder of my natural life.

(Did this lady forget her helmet?)

I mean, I'm already a less-than-totally-with-it person, mentally. It's a memory thing - I score pretty dang well on IQ tests, and I actually test well for courses and things I can study for, but my ability to hold on to information in the long term, or even access it on cue in the short term, is pretty shaky. I love bloggin because I can have about a million tabs open with websearches for all the bits and pieces I can almost remember, and so I can sound like a knowledgeable person. (As my closest friends know, in actual conversation I can sound pretty feather-brained as I attempt to reference things that...who was it? what was it? only worse feeling is realizing afterwards that I have misattributed something on the fly and have mislead someone because i was unable to admit that i just can't remember). My friend Jen P. would probably say that I am using the new technology to extend my intellectual tendrils further, using external tools to extend my neural networks...and she'd be right. It's handier than stacks of books with post-its in them. But I feel already a modicum of that frustration at having to find ways to deal with a shortcoming that others, and reading so many accounts of people who have been irrevocably changed by injury and illness, without warning and without reason...

It's scary. It makes me feel how fragile this life is, how suddenly it can change, how suddenly I could change - or any of the people I love. And it invokes one more reaction....

Wow.

God became MAN. Embodied. God has a body! One of these strange, fragile things that changes us and is changed and is so very very vulnerable. God was embodied, knowing where it would end up, knowing that His body would be beaten, whipped, pierced, hung, killed. And he didn't get to trade it in for a new one either - nope. Christ's body is as much Christ as is his soul - an embodied soul, an ensouled body. So he rose from the dead and he was still wounded, and Thomas put his hands in Christ's side and his fingers in Christ's hands and believed and knew Christ because he knew that body and the person who died in it and with it and is it.

I mean, the Incarnation. Wow. Wow.

More on bodies, personality and eternity in another post.

Thoughts upon reading an essay on Porous Memory and the Cognitive Life

2009-04-17T23:41:00.002-05:00

Thoughts upon reading an essay on Porous Memory and the Cognitive Life, presented in villanelle form. Dedicated to the brilliant Jen.

The hippocamp's the home of memory

Or so I'm told. I do not know the thing.

It's all poetry to me.

Descartes opened up a skull to see

the place where wet and wild notions ring:

The hippocamp, the home of memory.

His British peers liked their memory dry

and rigid, separate in rooms and halls and wings -

it's all poetry to me.

The brain's a coil – or a library?

A cabinet? A place for everything?

The hippocamp's the home of memory -

- but what does hippocampus mean to me?

My thoughts are fluttery insubstantial things.

It's all poetry to me.

Still I read and hope to find the key,

fantastical or plain, to opening

hippocamp' and home and memory.

But all of it is poetry to me.

Ok, I'm a total sap, I know...

2009-04-16T20:19:00.002-05:00

This story is one that seems designed to touch your heart...and I can be somewhat cynical about such things (knowing how good these tv shows are at manipulating our emotions through clever editing etc.)

but...
but...
but...

...every time I watch the video or read about her or see her speak, I am choked up by the Cinderella story that is Susan Boyle.

It is a satisfying story, and more satisfying for being a true one - about unrecognised talent, about subverted expectations and ugly ducklings who turn out to be swans... and it does the heart good.

meet the new politics, just like the old politics

2009-04-14T12:35:00.004-05:00

When was the last time, post-Washington, that you ever heard of a president or a federal government relinquishing a power, regardless of where or when that power came from?

Well, the current administration is no different.

One of Bush's critics takes offense at the current administrations failure to reverse the very same invasions of privacy and failure of due process abuses that now-President Obama once campaigned against.

Which is why, among other reasons, I was wary of such things as the Patriot Act and other privileges the previous administration claimed to need. Plenty of conservatives defended Bush's ever-growing executive powers because they believed it was necessary in the fight against terrorism and they trusted him not to misuse them. This is incredibly short-sighted - as I pointed out to some friends at the time, 'your guy' will not always be in office, and do you really want your ideological opponents and whoever else may hold that position for the life of the republic to have those powers?

(Speaking of life of the Republic...story is that the DHS now consider that members of groups promoting the rights and powers of states are 'right-wing extremists' and potentially dangerous. So much for the Republic. I welcome debate on whether we're heading to true democracy or towards oligarchy).

I'm feeling pretty justified regarding my cynicism about politicians in general and one Chicago politician in particular...not that I wouldn't prefer to be wrong! I don't, however, think that it will be very easy for this guy to hold on to a second term if anyone even half-decent can be found to oppose him. He's already proven to be completely tone-deaf with regards to the Vatican, disabled persons, British leadership, pro-lifers, muslims, personal liberties activists, French President Sarkozy, and more. I took some flak before the election from friends that thought I was being partisan and ignorant in my reservations about Obama (the partisan thing is funny, since I'm not even able to vote). Isn't this a time for Unity?? Change?? Hope??

But we can't have any of those things - Unity, Change, Hope - if we are not agreed upon what we are hoping for, what we want to change, and unless we have some substantial common ground to unite upon. Without real work to address real differences all of these words are empty, meaningless show and puffery.

So there. I rarely write about politics, since there are so many other voices out there, most of them with more time and greater inclination to follow each and every intricacy. Every once in a while though it spills over, usually when I have it confirmed for me once again that the qualities necessary to attain power and the qualities necessary to wield it well and justly are rarely, if ever, co-existant in the same man. There is no place for another President Washington in Washington, DC.

Newman inspired anti-Nazi heroine and martyr

2009-04-07T11:27:00.002-05:00

Those of you coming here from my old blog will recall my love of Cardinal Newman, whose motto I took for my own: Cor ad cor loquitur, "Heart speaks to heart."

One of Newman's most misunderstood principles is that of the 'primacy of conscience'. If that sounds familiar to you it is because it has made it's way into Church documents, where it has then been often misinterpreted by folks on both extremes of conservative and liberal as giving some kind of license for individual interpretations of moral teaching.

I can go into why that is an incorrect understanding of the principle in another post. What I want to do here is point to an example of Newman's principles put into action.

From The Catholic Herald, a British Catholic newspaper:

New documents unearthed by German academics have revealed that the writings of the 19th-century English theologian were a direct influence on Sophie Scholl, who was beheaded for circulating leaflets urging students at Munich University to rise up against Nazi terror.

...behind her heroism was the "theology of conscience" expounded by Cardinal Newman, according to Professor Günther Biemer, the leading German interpreter of Newman, and Jakob Knab, an expert on the life of Sophie Scholl, who will later this year publish research in Newman Studien on the White Rose resistance movement, to which she belonged.

....

Under questioning from the Gestapo Scholl said she had been compelled by her Christian conscience to peacefully oppose Nazism.

Sophie and Hans both asked to be received into the Catholic Church an hour before they were executed but were dissuaded by their pastor who argued that such a decision would upset their mother, a Lutheran lay preacher.

The article goes on to mention the influence of Newman on other members of the ant-nazi resistance.

It makes me think...every week I ask pardon for "what I have done and what I have failed to do". Sophie Scholl felt a moral duty to do the good that her conscience commanded that was as great as the moral duty not to do evil.

Do I really accept that I am as culpable for my sins of omission as I am for my sins of commission? Do I seek to form my conscience so as to be more sensitive to the voice of God speaking to me? Do I feel bound to do good, and not merely avoid evil?

Would I do what Newman did, in converting to the Church, and face losing my home, job, friends? Would I do as Sophie did, in opposing the Nazi's, and face losing my very life?

Would you?

Choir lofty thoughts

2009-04-04T14:52:00.004-05:00

Tomorrow is Palm Sunday, and I am so looking forward to it.

I love routines and rituals, the way something done a million times can manifest itself differently and have a different impact every time. The way a familiar, well-read book can contain surprising revelations the 4th time through, or a thread bare phrase can suddenly glow with meaning. The sacraments and high holy days of the Church are even more this way - in the familiar interplay between celebrant and congregation, one part of the ritual giving way to another, the ebb and flow of prayer and response, and the intersection of the vertical and the horizontal - the divine and the mortal - in this interplay, as I began saying in this incredibly run-on sentence, I find both comfort and inspiration. The familiar rites and rituals, already known and understood on a multitude of levels, open themselves up for meditation, prayer, revelation - to being understood deeper, more truly, more personally - every time they are taken up.

So. On that front, anyway, I love all of the movement of the Church calendar.

But I am particularly excited about tomorrow. Because, in addition to the challenging depth in familiarity of a Church feast and holy day, I get to partake of one more familiar sensation, albeit in a new context.

I get to sing in the choir loft.

I'd say, I get to sing with the choir, except that as of yet there really isn't one. There is an organist-slash-choir director. There is a cantor. There is a single bass and a single soprano, who may or may not show up. And then there's me, the lone alto. And we haven't practiced anything together more than once. It will be different from the choir I grew up singing with, every Sunday (and rehearsals every second Thursday) from the day I turned 8 until I graduated highschool. And it will be different from the choirs I've been in since then.

But I'll be in the choir loft. And I'll sing harmony on at least one hymn. And in the weeks to follow - God willing - there should be more of us, and more singing, and more Sundays in the loft, thrilling to the familiar feeling that is something like nostalgia, something like performance high, and something as simple as just knowing where I am and what comes next.

I'm a stranger in a strange land. But this part - this part feels like home.

Peace and Pekoe

Thoughts on Facebook...

Thank you for your prayers!!

Tear-struck

Fasting and Prayer

A blanket apology...

Book Review - The Boys Upstairs

Nature Study

I would like to direct your attention...

The Torch

Happy Birthday, Mom

Guest Post - Things My Mother Tried to Teach #4

Things My Mother Tried To Teach Me #3 - Reading

Things My Mother Tried To Teach Me #2

Granola

Things My Mother Tried To Teach Me

A new series of posts...

Mmmmm....Chapatis and Curry

Sorry I haven't been posting much...

The Best Kind of Surprise

Tale of Manaeth

There's something to this unschooling business...

Somewhat less than genius.

For My Brothers

Some Questions...

The Light Yoke, The Easy Burden

And what's wrong with Pollyanna?!?

Oil spill

Dad

Six Years

RIP, Frank Frazetta

Where my husband has been this morning

Woke up this morning to this lovely quote...

Super Bug!

A little taste of my evening.

Jazz fest

Dinner Guests

Boys and Cars

When duct-tape doesn't cut it....

Recommended Reading Meme

A new book meme...

Ch-ch-ch-changes

Mmm...Pie....

The Torch

Why I Love Halloween

Geek Humor

Ambitions

Life lessons

Beauty Tips from the Toddler

Has it really been a month?

Mommy Morning Math

Great Is Thy Faithfulness

Some thoughts, and a poem.

Attachment and Detachment

Sin, Struggle, and the Journey of Redemption

make a lost world your home...

Pentecost!

The Ethical Dimension of Manual Labor?

Fences and Freedom

Sorry for the dearth of posts

All Creatures Great and....Small?

heart-warming breastfeeding story

Women step up to breast-feed motherless infant

One more

Good stuff

Garden Thoughts

Is there personality in heaven?

"If someone's personality changes significantly because of brain damage...which personality manifests in heaven? Is there personality in heaven?"

Oliver Sacks, the Incarnation, embodied souls and ensouled bodies.

Thoughts upon reading an essay on Porous Memory and the Cognitive Life

Ok, I'm a total sap, I know...

meet the new politics, just like the old politics

Newman inspired anti-Nazi heroine and martyr

Choir lofty thoughts