Updates and Miscellania.

I'm slowly composing a new post on life in my head, but it's not quite coming together. I wanted to thank everyone for their thoughts and prayers and suggestions: My back pain is finally lifting! I seem to be on the upswing with the help of a home TENS unit (frabjous machine!), some serious strength training (think Buffy!), and lots of encouragement from near, far, and online (hail, friendship!).

In the meantime, here are a few miscellaneous items.

A friend just let me know about CERC (Catholic Education Resource Center), which brings together articles from all sorts of resources in the Catholic publishing world. I haven't been able to dig through much of it yet, but there seems to be an article on just about every imaginable issue.

One of the newest posts is "The Romance of Domesticity," by Nathan Schlueter. It's simply marvelous. You must read it. If you're looking for a Valentine's Day poem to copy over for your True Love, here's Schlueter's 2006 poem to his wife.

Real Love (2006)
When I am overwhelmed by the thickness of the world
I understand why God chose this life for me

Because I don't paint pictures I write poems
Because I don't eat chocolate I drink gin
Because I don't read history I study mythology
Because I don't tell jokes I listen to music

Then I return:And soon I find myself grasping, desperately.

to the smell of Emil's diaper,
Helen is in despair (her baby is cold),
Leo can't get his Lego car to work (the wheel keeps coming off)
And dinner isn't ready, you tell me,
All at once

I am grateful for you, beyond words,
Beyond all reckoning, for your splendor
And your solidity.
Zossima was right: Love in reality,
compared to love in dreams,
Is a harsh and terrible thing.

So be it! So be it!

Beautiful. Good. True.

The article first appeared in print in Touchstone magazine, "a journal of mere Christianity." We were given a subscription for Christmas, and wow. I appreciate especially that most of the articles can be read in the 15 minutes before I fall asleep at the end of a day.

And, looking toward my own incubating post on suffering, "Refusing to Suffer is Refusing to Live," by Chelsea Zimmerman, was a good read this week.

But enough for scattered miscellania. Have a lovely Valentine's Day. And it's okay to celebrate love along with Hallmark.