The Philosopher Mom

Brother's Keeper: In Defense of Caring.

2012-01-22T15:01:00.007-05:00

Rarely does Facebook's format serve the interests of human discourse. Facebook is for letting the world know what you ate for breakfast, keeping in touch with old friends, sharing thought-provoking articles (where something resembling discourse can happen), and--primarily--for "saying the good things that men need to hear." Encouragement. Camaraderie.

Once in a while, a question appears in a status that demands more respect than the FB can give. For example, here is a good question, although it was probably intended rhetorically. It appeared in the status of a friend (what does it mean?):

Here it is, paraphrased:

"Why do people care? So what if your next door neighbor takes birth control ...? Who cares if the guy down the street holds the hand of another man when they take their morning stroll? Who cares if some woman has sex with multiple men? How do their choices affect you?"

It's a good question and a common question. I'm going to take a blind shot and assume that it's a common reaction to traditional Judeo-Christian beliefs. Why do I care whether the gay couple down the street just adopted two children? Why do I refuse to call a legal partnership "marriage"? Why can't I just do my thing in my house and leave the rest of the world alone? I assume that I should also refrain from teaching my children to believe what I believe--because then they, too, would care about other people's private lives.

It's a good question--don't dismiss it! The answer you give could destroy or cement your dearest friendships and family relationships.

Given the recent, state-sponsored, all-out attack on the religious freedom of Roman Catholics, Orthodox Jews, and some Protestant groups, my first reaction was, "I don't care. But if I leave y'all alone, will you just the heck leave the Church's schools and hospitals alone?" I know the answer: no. We won't be left alone, because what we believe is offensive and freakish--and we believe that we should care.

But that was a bad answer to an honest question.

Here is the good answer.

First, let's define what we mean by "care." "Care" is not "morbid curiosity." My friend is absolutely right: It is twisted for anyone to investigate and watch (MTV?) what goes on in someone else bedroom. I can mask the ugliest, nosiest prying under the veneer of "Christian charity" (you know, you want to know so you can pray for her!). But just "wanting to know so I can be entertained by my own disgust" is ugly and wrong. And, no, in that sense we should not care.

I also do not care in the sense that I want to impose my convictions on the minds of my fellow citizens. Because, you see, dear friend, the heart of my conviction is a free and total submission to the Triune God. The very idea that "caring" for another human being involves imposition of certain behaviors, or even judgement of the state of another's soul, is nonsensical to the Catholic heart. The Church never "cares" by imposing. In that sense, you are alone. Only you can impose the form of the Cross on your heart.

But there's something equally perverse in saying, "Just leave me alone, I'll leave you alone, and we'll all do whatever the F*** we want as long as we don't hurt anybody (or don't get caught hurting anyone)."

That is because no man is an island.

I will always "care" in the sense that I will forever propose to every man I meet that vision of a life lived in conformity to the Cross and in hope of the resurrection. That is the sense of caring that the Church demands of her children:

"No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were... any man's death diminishes me." ~John Donne

Human beings are weak, dependent creatures. We need to care and be cared for by other human beings. Every human act--hidden or plain--affects the happiness of every other human being. (In fact, is that not why the idea that someone is "imposing" her morality on her neighbor so repelling? We know that to judge someone else is not to care, but to kill.)

Ignoring each other, not caring, this is inhuman.

We hear in Schindler's List that, "If you save one man, you save the whole world (the original is in the much more poetic Talmud)."

A human being should care what his neighbor does, because his neighbor is as himself. I am man. She is man. He is man. The whole of what is good and worthy and beautiful lives or dies in the life of a single human being.

Now, I know very well that this view carries no resonance with most of the world I live in. If there is no heaven, if God has no mercy, if there is no hope of happiness in this world, if Christ did not come... then no one should care. In fact, no one will care about the woman down the street who takes birth control and sells Marie Osmond. No one will care to ask her over for lunch. No one will care to bring her a meal when she's sick. No one cares after she dies (except for the annoying sense of grief that afflicts the living--the dead don't care, anyway).

But if God did make us, he made us to be together. In this month's Touchstone, Anthony Esolen provides a much more profound defense of caring. Read the whole thing, but here's the heart:

'In other words, the good of a man is the good of man, and the good of man is the good of a man;and both find their fulfillment in God. This is not an equation to be solved, but a mystery of love to be lived. The man who understands it does not say, “My good is in its essence inferior to the good of a million others taken together,” nor, “My good is my own, and I will pursue it, and let the other millions pursue theirs.” Human society is a whole, says Maritain, made up of wholes, and the wholes are persons, meant for the joy of love. That means that we can never purchase our good at the price of another person; his good is mine.

But we may, for the good of others, engage in heroic acts of love: “And when the person sacrifices to the common good of the city that which is dearest to it, suffers torture and gives its life for the city, in these very acts because it wills what is good and acts in accordance with justice, it still loves its own soul, in accordance with the order of charity, more than the city and the common good of the city,” just as the hermit, who, “seeming to forget the city,” contemplates beauty and truth, and in so doing, “still serves the common good of the city and in an eminent fashion.”

How does my neighbor's sexual behavior affect my life, today, right now? I don't suppose "breaking my heart" counts. The truth is, I don't think we can claim to know how any one, isolated human act affects the lives of human beings--now, in the past, or in the future. We're too small.

But we can know THAT every action affects every human being who ever existed or will exist. I know that what Margaret Sanger--even though she never imagined that I, Erika, would exist--believed 100 years ago changed forever the world in which I live every day. I know what St. Peter did on Good Friday before dawn changed forever how I can hope in mercy--even though he lived worlds and ages away. I know that what the Russian Tsar did to a little village in Lithuania in 1904 frightened my grandparents into leaving, and that means that I exist (thank you, Russian Tsar?). I know that because my parents cared about what I chose to do with my body, I became a woman who could marry Todd and have three beautiful girls. We cannot know that immense good, or evil, our choices bring to other human beings.

But we know with certainty: No man in an island.

A little Hopkins for a Thursday.

2012-01-19T15:46:00.002-05:00

The words are wild.

'The child is father to the man.'

How can he be? The words are wild.

Suck any sense from that who can:

'The child is father to the man.'

No; what the poet did write ran,

'The man is father to the child.'

'The child is father to the man!'

How can he be? The words are wild!

~GM Hopkins

The Chicken and the Egg.

2012-01-17T20:17:00.004-05:00

Sunday evening, the Philosophical Family sat down to a simple meal of pasta, salad, and hard-boiled eggs.

Bella (age 3) observed matter-of-factly, as she peeled her egg, "We arwe eating the baby chickens!"

To which Ana (age 1) replied, "BAAAYY-BEE!"

Miriam, the prescient 6-year-old, however, was not so sanguine.

"Dad, are we really eating baby chickens?"

"No, there are no babies in these eggs. They are unfertilized." Scientist Dad replied. "Do you know what 'unfertilized' means, Miriam?"

"Uh. No." She took a bite, refusing to pursue the definition of "unfertilized."

I could see it coming, and--after a prolonged but thoughtful munch on the not-baby-chicken--The Question came.

"Dad, why are there no babies in these eggs, but there are babies in other eggs?"

I did what you should never do: I giggled.

Scientist Dad did what you should do: "Well, what do you think, Miriam?"

"I have no idea!" She really didn't.

I stopped giggling and, as penance for my sin, stepped in.

"Well, Miriam, who lays the egg--the girl chicken or the boy chicken?" I asked.

Now she was back on familiar ground, "The girl chicken!"

"Who has babies--girls or boys?"

"Girls!"

"And if there isn't a daddy, can a girl be a mommy?" (Chickens don't deliberately use IVF, to my knowledge. Scientist Dad confirms this to be so.)

"No, she can't. There has to be a boy chicken, too."

"It's like that with these eggs: the mommy has the eggs ready for the babies. But if there's no rooster nearby, there will be no babies in the egg."

"Oh!" she saw. "I see! If the Daddy Chicken doesn't live near the Mommy Chicken, then there are no babies in the chicken's eggs!"

And that, my friends, is how it is.

I repented my giggle, Miriam got her answer, and the Scientist Dad enjoyed a good meal. Be ready the next time you boil an egg for your child. You never know where the dinner conversation will go...

Plato on the well brought-up child.

2012-01-12T10:06:00.003-05:00

The well-trained child is one "who would see most clearly whatever was amiss in ill-made works of man or ill-grown works of nature, and with a just distaste would blame and hate the ugly even from his earliest years and would give delighted praise to beauty, receiving it into his soul and being nourished by it, so that he becomes a man of gentle heart.

All this before he is of an age to reason; so that when Reason at length comes to him, then, bred as he has been, he will hold out his hands in welcome and recognize her because of the affinity he bears to her."

How beautiful. How true.

Ghost sex.

2012-01-10T16:31:00.003-05:00

That Bad Catholic has written a fabulous post on "How Descartes Ruined Sex." It's pithy, it's simplified, and it's hilarious (you laugh or you cry).

I was a bit miffed because he's made my latest idea, "Descartes' Bad Sex," moot. But that's just vanity. This, however, is just dead-on:

"Biology and anatomy are a bit brusque with this issue: Sex is the reproductive act, all else is imitation. In fact, if one must qualify sex as to its location, use mechanical devices to have it, or otherwise separate its form from its function, then it is specifically defined as being ‘not sex’."

He doesn't quite explain the leap here:

"But notice what its advocates use in its defense, or in the defense of any other exotic form of foreplay being ‘sex’ itself. They will, in one way or another, split the body and the soul. They must. It’s impossible to argue that parts of the body besides the genitalia were meant for reproduction, so they will move on to “sex is what the partners make of it,” or something of the sort. What your body is doing isn’t important, whether it be anal sex, oral sex — whatever. You can have sex without sex. The union of the sexual act can be achieved without the true, natural union of your body. You can have the soul without the body."

I think what he's arguing at the very end is this: The "soul" of sex is that union of two persons, the "body" is the physical act of reproduction (or the simultaneous use of the reproductive organs--yes, they're physical organs. But the world of the flesh (as in, sarx) tries to divorce the union of the reproductive organs--which normally leads to reproduction--from the union of the whole persons. They try to have the soul of sex without the body.

And it's all Descartes fault?

No. But he sure did help the whole durned thing to collapse.

All gifts that are given.

2012-01-03T14:37:00.005-05:00

The most prevalent mantras I've encountered in the "parenting magazine" world have to do with "gifts."

"Gifted children."

"We need to discover our gifts."

"Moms need to have their own time to use their own gifts."

"Time! Talent! Treasure!" (That's from my "Catholic pew" world.)

"Everyone is special."

"Allow the child to explore her talents."

The idea is that your happiness in life is predicated on the identification of your YOU and then your freedom to explore and exploit these gifts to their utmost. This will result in a life "with no regrets," a "full life."

This is well and good, but the Philosopher Mom can't shake the question, "What about after the life fully lived?" It's a conversation stopper in most playgroups: "What about when the child dies?"

If all those talents are somehow financed and honed so that the child can excel enough to make a living from them, or even leave behind a "classic" for future generations of gifted children, what becomes of the gifted child when her skills grow dull, her mind weakens, and her body fails?

As a mother, I wonder, is there a danger that I am encouraging my child to place her hopes in a false promise? When the glory and energy of life have faded, how will my daughter find herself?

I do not believe that children should be taught to identify themselves solely in their gifts (anymore than we should tell them they are only their faults). The gifts are not an end in themselves; they are not the end-all and be-all of our selves. They are a means to an end and a tool given freely in order that the child might discover her true dignity and worth.

So, if talents and gifts are tools--beautiful tools, but still merely tools--then what is their purpose? Why do we work so hard to leave time for a child to enjoy herself and become good at a certain habit or skill? Why do we train them to do good works, to pray, to give?

The end purpose of all skills, talents, and gifts is quite simple, but almost impossible to find:

It is love.

All gifts will vanish. They are given and they are taken away. Only love and its free reward remains: "Prophecies will end, languages cease and knowledge fail, but love will never cease." (I Cor. 13.8) A child's talents and beauty are given for a time for the sole purpose of cleansing her heart and training the eyes of her heart: They exist for a brief moment so that she may behold God forever.

As we parents train our children up in the ways they should go, we must also teach them (and ourselves) that all that we do right now is a means. It is only a looking-forward to the things to come, which will never fail. If I am investing in my child so that she will have a brilliant career, a good living, and a vast array of skills, then my goals for her are short-sighted and beneath her true dignity.

Noticing that gifts--dancing, music, languages, teaching--are for a purpose beyond themselves is not to refuse to enjoy them. When the joy of dancing transforms into the joy of dancing for our Creator, when our dance joins the dance of the stars and all Creation, then the enjoyment of our gift is complete. There is nothing so thrilling for a physicist as the moment--and there may be only one--when his research breaks through time and space and touches the Other Side of the universe. There is nothing so lovely as the artist who has painted the face of a child only to find that her heart has become that Child.

If I help my daughter to grow in goodness and truth and beauty for no other purpose than that she might one day see her Creator and love Him, pure and without stain, then I am truly helping her to realize her gifts and surpass them.

Lord, have mercy. I think I need a glass of Merlot.

The Saints in My Life.

2011-12-30T14:42:00.002-05:00

Fr. Benedict Groeschel has been a great friend (via his books) for many years. The Saints in My Life, however, is now among my favorites. In it, he profiles 19 saints who have played significant roles in his own life. He begins with a beautiful explanation of what saints are in the Church--and of what they are not. He writes not only for Catholics but also for those who are simply interested in what Catholics mean by "the communion of saints."

In each chapter, he writes a brief biography, a short glimpse into their theological or mystical contributions to the Church, some personal anecdotes of who they have been for him, and a selection of the saint's writings.

His selections include the predictable "superheroes of heaven"--Therese, Teresa, Catherine of Siena, Augustine--as well as the lesser-known or the "helper saints"--Catherine of Genoa, John Fischer, Catherine Laboure, Saint Pio of Pietrelcina. These are only a few of the many, delightful lives.

The book is perfect for the distracted mother or father--each chapter is a whole unto itself, even though the saints all together tell the story of Groeschel's life. Small, baby-sized bites. It would also be a great present for someone you know who is entering the Church this year (or recently entered) and wants to get to know some new friends.

This review was written as part of the Catholic book reviewer program from The Catholic Company, and the reviewer received a free copy of the text in exchange for her opinion. Visit The Catholic Company to find more information on The Saints in My Life. They are currently having an end-of-the-year sale!

Booklist 2011.

2011-12-27T07:08:00.006-05:00

2011 was not a great year for reading, but here are the real standouts. I did a lot of re-reading, which is always a little like coming home to find a good friend waiting.

The best book I read is actually not yet in print. Wait for it! But here are the highlights--in no particular order--of what money can buy.

The Road, Cormac McCarthy -- So maybe a mom suffering from postpartum depression should not spend three days in the bleak midwinter reading Cormac McCarthy (he also wrote No Country for Old Men, of movie fame). This novel is, however, just fabulous. Set after some un-named apocalypse in the near future, it is the story not of the rape of nature or even of the worst in man, but of the very best. Written by a man often described as a nihilist, it is anything but nihilistic. He is dark, but he is not dark about nothing. I loved it.

Arise from Darkness, Benedict Groeschel -- After reading McCarthy, this was absolutely necessary.

Catherine of Siena,

Sigrid Undset -- Undset's Kristin Lavransdatter trilogy is possibly my favorite fiction of all time (Brideshead Revisited is the possible rival). I was so excited to discover that she wrote a biography of Catherine of Siena, the peculiar mystic who ordered popes around. Undset is a master class in medieval thought, customs, and imagination, and she brings all of her skill to her work. She is not afraid to offer natural explanations for some of the phenomena surrounding Catherine, but never dismisses the supernatural either.

The Rage Against God, Peter Hitchins -- Christopher Hitchins' less famous, but possibly more interesting, brother. The book is less a point-by-point argument against atheism than it is a painting. Peter Hitchins draws a sketch for us of his life behind the Iron Curtain and his own encounters with a world without God. It's ugly, and you suddenly see--with the eye of the artist--the suddenness with which the world can change. Worth a gander.

Busman's Honeymoon, Dorothy Sayers -- I re-read all of the Sayers mysteries during my battle out of depression last winter. In the dark hours, I would read and read and read her whimsical prose. Perhaps I was being obsessive, but it worked. And, aside from its therapeutic qualities, her fiction is wonderful, grown-up brain candy. Busman's Honeymoon is my favorite: It has to be one of the best treatments of sex in modern fiction. It's real and beautiful without glossing over the humor of the conjugal act. She maintains a perfect modesty without being prudish in the least. Oh, and it's a great mystery. You learn a lot of Donne while having a lot of fun. (Oh, that was bad.)

Doomsday Book, Connie Willis -- I read this on Melanie's recommendation. I haven't read science fiction since high school, but I enjoyed the novel enormously. The basic story involves time travel, exchanging deadly viruses across centuries, medieval Oxfordshire, and the bubonic plague. Anything set in England, 1348, is bound to be slightly nauseating. I am grateful for Purell and soap on a deeper level.

And that's the Best of 2011. The Booklist for 2012 is already much longer--I'm feeling ambitious as per usual during Christmas vacation. If you have any suggestions, please send them this way.

Happy reading!

Nativity 2011.

2011-12-24T12:53:00.003-05:00

The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. We have seen his face.

And we hope to see Him again. Merry Christmas to all! Joy and peace and all that is good, true, and beautiful.

~The Philosopher Familia

Delighting and grieving.

2011-12-22T07:07:00.002-05:00

"The Lord delights in those who revere him

In those who wait for his love." ~Psalm 147:11

The days have been short and the nights long. The waiting for Christmas was interrupted this year: my Uncle Billy died suddenly last Thursday night. The family is so close, and that makes it both easier and harder all at once.

We've all been feeling as though it will be "always winter and never Christmas."

This morning, the Office was perfect. The perfect pattern of prayer.

Psalm 143--the song of those in distress: "Lord, listen to my prayer..."

Isaiah 66-- the quieting of the crying child: "Oh, that you may suck fully of the milk of her comfort!"

Psalm 147--"He binds up all their wounds..."

And then 147 ends with that oddity: "The Lord delights in those who revere him

In those who wait for his love."

Grief and fatigue leave me--from a human perspective--anything but delightful. If death is the end of all things, there is no more delight in a person. Memories may bring a smile or some comfort, but only with the thought that "things will never be the same."

But the Office, after allowing us to rail at God and weep, after promising to quiet us like a mother quiets her screaming infant, tells us that "the Lord delights in those who revere him."

One of the great blessings of the funeral home was that its men walk the mourners through every step. They let you grieve, but also help you move through the necessary motions. They tell you what to do so that you can survive those first few days.

In a similar way, that last Psalm tells the grieving soul what it must do: First, praise the Lord, for he is good. His wisdom can never be measured. Consider his creation. The mountains are covered in clouds, the ravens cry to him for their bread.

And then, sad soul, know this: The Lord delights in you.

The soul must know--must contemplate--this. She, who praises God in her grief, is a joy. God's infinite love is entirely directed toward her, and her praise opens her sad heart to receive this knowledge. "The Lord delights in those who revere him." Only those who revere him can know this.

So, once again, the Divine Office walks us through our days. We know it will not always be winter. We know Christmas will come, and that the Final Day will come, as well. Then we will see clearly, as my uncle sees now, the face of God who delights in us.

for my uncle, who died suddenly one night.

2011-12-17T19:57:00.002-05:00

“These souls cannot think,‘I am here, and justly so because of my sins,’
or
‘I wish I had never committed such sins
for now I would be in paradise,’
or
‘That person there is leaving before me,’
or
‘I will leave before that other one.’

They cannot remember the good and evil in their past nor that of others.

Such is their joy in God’s will, in His pleasure that they have no concern for themselves but dwell only on their joy in God’s will,
in having Him do what He will.

They see only the goodness of God,
His mercy toward men.
Should they be aware of other good and evil theirs would not be perfect charity.

They do not see that their suffering is due to their sins for that awareness would be a want of perfection
and in purgatory souls cannot sin.

Only once do the souls understand
the reason for their purgatory:
the moment in which they leave this life.
After that moment, that knowledge disappears.

Immersed in charity, incapable of deviating from it,
They can only will or desire pure love.
There is no joy save that in paradise
to be compared with the joy of the souls in purgatory.

This joy increases day by day."

~St. Catherine of Genoa, Treatise on Purgatory.

Heart set free: John Cassian gets real.

2011-12-12T15:35:00.006-05:00

A trusted friend gave me John Cassian for the Advent season. It's required reading, and I must admit I was a little frightened. Cassian is one the earliest (c. 365-435, A.D.) writers on the monastic life. He lived out in deserts in Egypt, caves in Provence, and swamps around Marseilles. He wrote for monks. I am anything but a monk, and the times I've tried to be monkish have usually ended in frustration.

(See photo. Don't I wish.)

But this was required reading, so in a spirit of obedience in I go. And here is section 6 of his first conference:

"...[A mind which lacks an abiding sense of direction veers hither and yon by the hour, and by the minute is a prey to outside influences and is endlessly the prisoner of whatever strikes it first.]"

Well, that doesn't sound like it's only for monks. I'm a little less apprehensive. In fact, now I'm desperately longing to find out a remedy for this "hither and yon" heart. It's particularly poignant this Advent season: the world is a mass of sensations, feelings, activities--all striking the soul again and again. The busy-ness is overwhelming--spiritually, physically, and emotionally--and the endless entertainments do not set us free, but take us prisoner.

We are slaves to our entertainments, addictions, preferences. John Cassian, I'm right there. Tell me more:

"This is why we see many who, having given up the greatest wealth not only in gold and silver but also in splendid estates, nevertheless become very upset over a knife, a scraper, a needle, or a pan."

Ha! That's the hassled housewife he's describing! I've given up doctorates, careers, substantial incomes, ridiculous little worldly pleasures to be a Good Christian. And I'm still upset by... pans.

"If they had looked unwaveringly to the purity of their hearts they would never have become involved with such trifles and they would have rejected these just as they did great and valuable possessions. There are some who guard a book so jealously that they can barely endure to have someone else read it or touch it."

Ouch. Oh, stop it, John. That hurt the book-nerd in me.

"They have given away all their wealth for Christ and yet they still hold on to their old heart-longings for things that do not matter, things for whose sake they grow angry."

This is such a good reminder in these days: Books and pans Do. Not. Matter. Becoming angry, or driving yourself to anger, over these little things is a sure sign that something is misplaced. Our hearts are not pure, they have become slaves to what is outside because they have lost sight of what is inside--the life of God himself.

Then, in section seven, he goes on:

"This is why we take on loneliness, fasting, vigils, work, nakedness. For this we must practice the reading of the Scripture... we do so to trap and to hold our hearts free of the harm of every dangerous passion and in order to rise step by step to the high point of love."

"To trap and to hold our hearts free"--the glorious paradox of the divine life in human flesh. We can only be freed from our books and pots and pans if our hearts are captured for something else. The loneliness, fasts, and vigils or the housewife are not the same as those of a monk. But they can serve the same purpose: "to rise step by step to the high point of love."

And what mother (or father) who has spent those long nights in vigil with the newborn can say that she still cares as much for her books and her clothes as she did before the child was born?

Who can say that life together in marriage does not offer countless opportunities to be freed from our attachment to things that do not matter in order to preserve the love that does matter?

John Cassian, I believe we are going to be the best of friends.

(See photo. Is this what your 3 AM looks like?)

Gaudete! and a new order is born.

2011-12-11T14:02:00.002-05:00

In honor of "Pink Sunday" (I mean, "Rose"), Miriam and Bella decided to found a new religious order. Bella is the rich Queen who is giving all the money to the convent.

Miriam: "In our order, we have no blankets. Except for you because you're not really a sister, just the rich lady who gave the poor sisters money."

Bella: "OK. I like to have blankets."

Miriam: "Yes. Some sisters don't have pillows either, but in our order we do have pillows because you bought us some."

(silence)

Miriam: "That was grand silence. We are supposed to practice silence."

Bella: "Yes, but I want to talk about it to Mary."

Miriam: "Okay, we need to talk about the silence."

Ah, yes. We talk a lot about silence here.

Saint Nicholas and why I don't say 'Merry Christmas.'

2011-12-06T14:39:00.006-05:00

Happy Feast of St. Nicholas! Down with Arius!

This is just great: 19 days before Christmas my kids get to open presents and eat chocolate stuff. It's almost as good as being Jewish and opening presents for 8 nights in a row while all the Gentile kids are still doing their Advent penance (My best friend growing up was Jewish for Hanukkah, and I envied her.). We did it up in style this morning, thanks to a dear old friend who sent a play kitchen for the girls. We'll do it up again Thursday for the Immaculate Conception and then hunker down in the bleak midwinter until Christmas Eve.

Advent isn't very long and, punctuated by all these feasts, it becomes even shorter. It's like a pregnancy--a time of waiting and preparing--made brief by the birthdays, feast days, and celebrations of a bustling family life.

In years past, I felt inescapably annoyed for most of Advent. I bought into all those movements to "Keep Christ in Christmas," I felt righteous when we saw the insistent manger scene in the Town Square, I rolled my eyes when the White House ended the tradition of the Christmas Tree. "It's Christmas time!" Not "holiday time," no "holiday parties," no Kwanzikahmas for me.

And it's still that way sometimes. I've been less bothered this year by all the frantic, secular holiday decorations. The songs in the grocery store roll off a little more easily. Go ahead. Play "Rudolph" and "Winter Wonderland." If the world feels weird about saying "Christmas," that's fine.

Actually, it is more than fine. It is good. The words match the reality. Bill O'Reilly makes a yearly grump about "Christmas," but we shouldn't insist on saying "Christmas." There are two reasons.

First. It's not Christmas. For the apostolic churches--the Orthodox and Catholics--it isn't Christmas. The weeks before the great solemnity are a time of fasting and preparation. If the clerk in the grocery store doesn't wish you "Merry Christmas," he's doing you a favor. It's not Christmas yet. The "Holiday Tree" lighting in town is just fine. It's not Christmas on the day after Thanksgiving. Word matching reality.

Second. Our culture is not Christian. Observant Christians are a subculture. It is folly to expect the popular media and stores to celebrate Christmas. We were Christian long ago and in a different era, but those days are fading even from our oldest generation's memory. For our children, looking forward, the world is a different place. The more secular the "holiday season" becomes, the more obvious becomes the difference between what the Church celebrates and preserves and what the sitcom "holiday specials" promote. This could be a good thing. Words matching reality. Symbols finding their true meaning.

So, we're letting it go. I won't immerse our kids in the holiday culture--we stay at home more these days--but I won't avoid it either. Todd and I have chosen to propose an alternative to them: a liturgical year that follows the liturgical years of all the ages. And unto ages of ages. Amen.

And besides, we're too busy practicing to be St. Lucy.

Doctors of the Church.

2011-12-04T15:54:00.003-05:00

Bl. Pope John Paul II made the Wednesday audiences famous with his series of catecheses on the Theology of the Body. These weekly addresses continue and offer endless food for thought.

Doctors of the Church collects Benedit XVI's catecheses on 32 men and women from throughout Church history, who have "been recognized for both holiness of life and profundity in learning." The result is an outstanding--and highly inviting--history of Christian thought, spirituality, poetry, song, and high adventure (for adventure, check out Catherine of Siena!).

I really can't say enough about Benedict's writing. It is clear, simple, and... best of all for the busy among us... concise. Each address gives a biography of the saint, the historical context of his or her work, and then a brief lesson on the major contributions he or she brought to the search for God. You will become fast friends with them all: Even the headier saints, it turns out, have something to say to a little housewife in the 21st century.

This book is great for anyone exploring the Faith for the first time, for RCIA classes, high school classes, and just any Catholic who wants to know her pope and her forbears more intimately. A great buy.

Sadly, it seems to be out of stock over at The Catholic Company (it's that good!). But you should still receive it by Christmas if you order now!

This review was written as part of the Catholic book reviewer program from The Catholic Company, and the reviewer received a free copy of the text in exchange for her opinion. Visit The Catholic Company to find more information on The Doctors of the Church. They also have some beautiful Christmas gifts!

Oh, blawg.

2011-12-01T17:15:00.000-05:00

I miss you, too. Be back soon, if it please God.

What the Church should do.

2011-11-25T14:34:00.003-05:00

Yesterday I went to my final Mass in the old (it's old) translation of the Novus Ordo (it's novus). For the last time, I responded to the priest's "The Lord be with you" with "And also with you." Tomorrow evening, at sundown, the Catholic Church in America rejoins the rest of the world: "And with your spirit," "my most grievous fault," "on earth peace to people of goodwill."

There are many more changes--some small, some great--and we are blessed to have them. It is always good to be reminded that the Church in America is not the center of salvation history, but rather only one, small place that is home to a small number of saints among the vast throng of the saints throughout time and the world. Our words can be more closely joined to theirs and so our hearts and minds formed to be more like theirs. (Note to Catholics who haven't been to Mass in a long time: You may feel confused and alienated if you come home this Christmas. Don't worry--everyone else is a little lost, too!)

The "change," which is more specifically a reform, has been in the works for decades. Along the way, at every mention of it, in every social, academic, and liturgical circle I've walked, I have heard the invariable phrase, "The Church should..."

"The Church should..." is often followed immediately by, "The Church has not..." or "The Church isn't doing it right." Then--if the conversation continues--we hear that "the Church burned the heretics." "The Church persecuted Jews." "The Church has failed to listen to its people (meaning, to me)." "The Church never explained that very well."

All change inspires such a litany of accusations and complaints.

The missing element of these litanies, however, is this: I am a piece of the Church. What I find the Church has failed to do, I have also failed to do. What I believe I have done well, the Church may rightfully claim it has done well in me. I am as guilty of this as... well, as the entire Church. I find smug self-satisfaction in complaining about priests who have hurt me, priests who have failed to teach, prophets who have spoken falsely, and theologians who claim the authority of bishops. It's so easy and nice for Catholics--and for any apostolic church--to blame the "institution," rather than ourselves. It's so convenient to blame the Catholic Church for why I am a Bad Catholic.

If we feel that "the Church" has failed to educate us in the Faith, that we have been handed this translation with little or no explanation, and that "the Church" has, once again, just told us all what to do, then we would do well to take action. But the action should not be to tear down "the Church."

The action is, first, to assume the best. The Church is, for all her broken members, our Mother. We have never been betrayed by our Mother--only by her very bad children. The first action is to make this distinction in our hearts.

The second action is this: run to Mother. That means: get on the Internet (you're on already!), search Google, and find what the Mother says. Ignore the Bad Children. The Mother--the apostles, the Desert Fathers, the Doctors, the saints--has spoken. Her words are available to us (in English!) directly. There is no end of resources for Catholics today: no one with Internet access or a library card can claim that "the Church" hasn't explained herself. If you feel like there's no real reason for some teaching, some reform, some change to the liturgy, then go find out what the reason is. There is always a reason--usually more reasons than we could grasp in a lifetime.

The third action is this: pray for submission. "Submission" is an ugly word around these parts (i.e., America and the West), but think about it. "Sub" means "under," and "mission" comes from the Latin for "to send." The mission of the Church--what God has put before us to do--is something we should want to be "under." If we don't, we should at least want to want to be under it. Our hearts can change from the frustrated, petulant "the Church should..." to a humble, peaceful "I should."

There is profound joy in submission--even for amateur intellectuals. There is profound freedom and peace in the realization that my failure is my own, but my goodness is the power of God--beauty of the eternal--simply being in me. So, when changes come and our hearts fret and we feel betrayed by "the Church," let us assume our Mother loves us, let us seek to know her mind, and finally let us pray for hearts conformed to her mind.

And let the feast begin!

(Not)Dead Poets Month: a guy named Brandon.

2011-11-25T14:28:00.002-05:00

This was floating around Facebook. Thank you, Melanie!

A Bit of Thanksgiving

I thank you, Lord, for fruitful fields,
for wide and healthful skies,
and for the fact not everyone
who is out at war will die;
and for the limits you have placed
on corruption and despite,
that we need only deal with them
a dozen times each night.

I thank you, Lord, for cheerful suns
that rise at every dawn,
and that my students learn to hide
the sound and sight of yawn,
that education is a joy,
filled with love and awe,
and, on those crazy grading days,
that there are murder laws.

I thank you that we live here free
in houses without bars,
that there are things that we can own,
that no one owns the stars,
that joy and virtue freely flow
without a market price
while we have markets fully full
of grain and fruit and spice.

I thank you, Lord, for politics,
for presidents and such,
that they work so hard to get their way,
that they never get it much,
who teach us that the foolish thirst
to rule and reign on high
dishonor brings upon our hearts
when to ourselves we lie.

Thank you, Lord, for infant smiles
and children bright at play,
for all the crabbed and silly souls
who annoy us every day.
(We appreciate those most, O Holy Lord,
those crosses that we bear,
and we thank you that we are not bald
from pulling out our hair.)

Thank you, Lord, for mirrors,
for when I most despise
the follies of my fellow man,
I look, and see pride's lies.
And thank you, God, for mysteries
you have left for us to solve
upon this strangely floating ball
that rotates and revolves.

Thank you for your mercy,
which saves us from the brink;
and thank you, Lord, for righteous wrath,
we need it more, I think.
Thank you for all gentle souls
who can their tempers keep;
protect them, Lord, from the rest of us,
lest we kill them in their sleep.

And for all the blissful marriages!
There are three of them, at least,
and given how hard the whole thing is,
that's quite an abundant feast.
And for all the others as well, my Lord;
they stall and sputter and spin
like well-loved cars that barely move,
they're so nicely broken-in.

And also for the ones that fail,
as they might have been worth the try
if they had words that told it straight,
and laughs, and gentle sighs,
and that they in their saddest loss
yet stand as vivid sign
that the commitment is to person there,
not a signature on a line.

Thank you, Lord, for critics
who attack with whip and flail,
and for reviewers and polemicists,
and, because of them, for hell.
And thank you, Lord, for stupid folk,
that we can clearly see
all the things that shock the mind
from which none of us are free.

And thank you for those shocking times
when pedants who lecture all
on every foolish folly
into those follies fall,
for it teaches us the wisdom
of gentleness and restraint,
lest we in turn be painted
with the brush by which we paint.

Thank you for absurdities;
they overflow the bank,
so if I but thank you for each one,
I'll never cease to thank.
And thank you for sweet irony;
it gives the wit to see
that all the things we moan about
may be thanksgiving's seed.

But most of all, I thank you, Lord,
that long before we die,
we can see ourselves with wry regard,
and laugh until we cry.

Dead Poets Month: Joy Davidman.

2011-11-23T09:34:00.002-05:00

We have snow, so casual, lovely, for Thanksgiving. I can only think of this poem, by the woman who would later be famous for marrying CS Lewis. A formidable poet in her own right.

Snow in Madrid

Softly, so casual,
Lovely, so light, so light,
The cruel sky lets fall
Something one does not fight.
How tenderly to crown
The brutal year
The clouds send something down
That one need not fear.
Men before perishing
See with unwounded eye
For once a gentle thing
Fall from the sky.

~Joy Davidman

Dead Poets Month: the Psalmist.

2011-11-22T06:32:00.002-05:00

I've been fretting.

Christmas songs blaring in the stores. Somehow, "Let it Snow" sets off all my puny rage and I spend the day in a funk over the ills in the world. Everything--from Soviet Russia to Health and Human Services to dirty socks under the couch--brings me to tears.

And then, the psalms step in. Perhaps the greatest poetry of all time, the psalms take all the darkness, name it, and give it over to light.

From today's Office of Readings, here is Psalm 37.

Do not fret because of the wicked;
do not envy those who do evil:
for they wither quickly like grass
and fade like the green of the fields.

If you trust in the Lord and do good,
then you will live in the land and be secure.
If you find your delight in the Lord,
he will grant your heart’s desire.

Commit your life to the Lord,
trust in him and he will act,
so that your justice breaks forth like the light,
your cause like the noon-day sun.

Be still before the Lord and wait in patience;
do not fret at the man who prospers;
a man who makes evil plots
to bring down the needy and the poor.

Calm your anger and forget your rage;
do not fret, it only leads to evil.
For those who do evil shall perish;
the patient shall inherit the land.

A little longer–and the wicked shall have gone.
Look at his place, he is not there.
But the humble shall own the land
and enjoy the fullness of peace.

Dead Poets Month: Isaac Watts for Christ the King.

2011-11-19T21:19:00.004-05:00

The liturgical year draws to a close, and the man-God reigns from the cross. My heart is singing "Crown Him," but Isaac Watts' beautiful words and the gentler, peaceful melody fit the November days.

Have a beautiful feast, give thanks for the year, and remember you are a son of the king.

When I survey the wondrous cross
On which the Prince of glory died,
My richest gain I count but loss,
And pour contempt on all my pride.
Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast,
Save in the death of Christ my God!
All the vain things that charm me most,
I sacrifice them to His blood.
See from His head, His hands, His feet,
Sorrow and love flow mingled down!
Did e’er such love and sorrow meet,
Or thorns compose so rich a crown?
Were the whole realm of nature mine,
That were a present far too small;
Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my soul, my life, my all.

It ain't poetry, but it's close.

2011-11-17T19:48:00.003-05:00

Regarding the outright disdain layered upon parents of large families, Rabbi Shmuley Boteach tells it like it is.

“Why are people impressed that Jay Leno owns 20 motorcycles, but disgusted that some religious families choose to have 10 children?

Let’s not finesse the response. We all know why. A world that has lost its innocence has trouble appreciating beings who are innocent. A world that has become selfish has soured to the idea of leading a life of selflessness. A world that has become grossly materialistic is turned off to the idea of more dependents who consume resources. And a world that mistakenly believes that freedom means a lack of responsibility is opposed to the idea of needy creatures who ‘tie you down...’

By just looking at my children, I become more innocent. By loving them, I become more noble. By spending my money on them rather than myself, I find transcendence. And by being a father and liberating all of the love in my heart, my spirit soars free."

Amen to that.

Dead Poets Month: George Herbert.

2011-11-16T06:37:00.003-05:00

From a dear friend, this by George Herbert.

Love (III)

Love bade me welcome, yet my soul drew back

Guilty of dust and sin.

But quick-ey'd Love, observing me grow slack

From my first entrance in

Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning

If I lack'd anything.

"A guest," I answer'd, "worthy to be here."

Love said, "You shall be he."

"I, the unkind, the ungrateful? ah my dear,

I cannot look on thee."

Love took my hand and smiling did reply,

"Who made the eyes but I?"

"Truth, Lord, but I have marr'd them; let my shame

Go where it doth deserve."

"And know you not," says Love, "who bore the blame?"

"My dear, then I will serve."

"You must sit down," says Love, "and taste my meat."

So I did sit and eat.

Visions of Judgment

2011-11-15T14:44:00.005-05:00

With the end of the Church year upon us, HG Wells' short story "A Vision of Judgment" seemed appropriate--both to the liturgy and the general malaise settling over the political candidates and their constituents alike.

Wells is not (disclaimer!) attempting to communicate facts about the End Times, nor is he attempting to formulate new and heretical doctrine about the nature of God and the new heavens and new earth.

The point of the story is that evil is banal. Sin is boring. The narrator arrives at the Day of Judgment and sees everyone: Darwin and Henry VIII make an appearance, as does his publisher. The first man to be judged is lifted up onto God's palm and ordered to tell all of creation his sins. He does so:

I was a king," said the little figure, "a great king, and I was lustful
and proud and cruel. I made wars, I devastated countries, I built palaces,
and the mortar was the blood of men. Hear, O God, the witnesses against
me, calling to you for vengeance. Hundreds and thousands of witnesses." He
waved his hands towards us. "And worse! I took a prophet--one of your
prophets----"

"One of my prophets," said the Lord God.

"And because he would not bow to me, I tortured him for four days and
nights, and in the end he died. I did more, O God, I blasphemed. I robbed
you of your honours----"

"Robbed me of my honours," said the Lord God.

"I caused myself to be worshipped in your stead. No evil was there but I
practised it; no cruelty wherewith I did not stain my soul. And at last
you smote me, O God!"

God raised his eyebrows slightly.

"And I was slain in battle. And so I stand before you, meet for your
nethermost Hell! Out of your greatness daring no lies, daring no pleas,
but telling the truth of my iniquities before all mankind."

He ceased. His face I saw distinctly, and it seemed to me white and
terrible and proud and strangely noble. I thought of Milton's Satan.

God asks whether all this is true. The Angel Gabriel answers that, well, yes. In a manner of speaking, all this is true. But then he goes on to tell the true story: The king had a bad stomach, he ate too much... the Angel reads out all the little, stupid sins and weaknesses that destroy "the dignity of defiance."

The king who imagined himself a great individual, unmatched in his accomplishments (evil though they were), was in fact not unlike the hairy prophet he tortured and killed. An upset stomach tempts us to rage. An embarrassing belch tempts us to imagine our importance offended. And on and on.

By the end of the litany, shame overcomes the little king.

The Wicked Man on God's hand began to dance and weep. Suddenly shame overcame him. He made a wild rush to jump off the ball of God's little finger, but God stopped him by a dexterous turn of the wrist. Then he made a rush for the gap between hand and thumb, but the thumb closed. And all the while the angel went on reading--reading. The Wicked Man rushed to and fro across God's palm, and then suddenly turned about and fled up the sleeve of God.

The whole story is really a treat. I should like to read it to my children--once they have reached the rhetorical stage. It is good to laugh at sin, especially when the evils of the world seem to weigh us down and the hours are long and dark in the night.

We are all as infants before God, before judgment. We can't even distinguish our selves from others by rebellion. There is nothing new under the sun.

There is only home. We only need the sense to run toward it.

Image source.

Dead Poets Month: Gerard Manley Hopkins

2011-11-15T14:28:00.004-05:00

This one is new to me. I'm leaving in the accents found on Bartleby's website, because Hopkins is so very odd in his emphases. Read it out loud and try bobbing your head every time you say an accented word--it helps with the rhythm.

Line 11 is the reassurance and the reasoned line: The just man "acts in God’s eye what in God’s eye he is." To do this is to live authentically, to be fully human: to act in accordance with who we are. Do it, momma, do it.

34. As kingfishers catch fire


As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies dráw fláme;
As tumbled over rim in roundy wells
Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell’s
Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;
Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:	5
Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;
Selves—goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,
Crying Whát I do is me: for that I came.

Í say móre: the just man justices;
Kéeps gráce: thát keeps all his goings graces;	10
Acts in God’s eye what in God’s eye he is—
Chríst—for Christ plays in ten thousand places,
Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his
To the Father through the features of men’s faces.

Dead Poets Month: D.H. Lawrence

2011-11-14T14:34:00.003-05:00

I'm barely familiar with Lawrence, but this poem reminds me of falling in love when I was 16. 

And because he was Todd, the story has a happy continuance.

Letter from Town: The Almond Tree

You promised to send me some violets. Did you forget?

 White ones and blue ones from under the orchard hedge?

 Sweet dark purple, and white ones mixed for a pledge

Of our early love that hardly has opened yet.

Here there’s an almond tree—you have never seen

 Such a one in the north—it flowers on the street, and I stand

 Every day by the fence to look up for the flowers that expand

At rest in the blue, and wonder at what they mean.

Under the almond tree, the happy lands

 Provence, Japan, and Italy repose,

 And passing feet are chatter and clapping of those

Who play around us, country girls clapping their hands.

You, my love, the foremost, in a flowered gown,

 All your unbearable tenderness, you with the laughter

 Startled upon your eyes now so wide with hereafter,

You with loose hands of abandonment hanging down.

Dead Poets Month: the Wisdom Authors

2011-11-12T07:12:00.002-05:00

I often forget the power of the Book of Wisdom, one of the seven Sapiential books in the Old Testament (it is not included in the Bibles of the Protestant communities).

These lines open today's first reading in the Liturgy of the Word.

When peaceful stillness compassed everything

and the night in its swift course was half spent,

Your all-powerful word, from heaven's royal throne bounded,

a fierce warrior,

into the doomed land,

bearing the sharp sword of your inexorable decree.

And as he alighted, he filled every place with death;

he still reached to heaven, while he stood upon the earth.

Wisdom 18.14-16

Dead Poets Month: John Updike

2011-11-11T11:08:00.002-05:00

November

The stripped and shapely
Maple grieves
The ghosts of her
Departed leaves.

The ground is hard,
As hard as stone.
The year is old,
The birds are flown.

And yet the world,
In its distress,
Displays a certain
Loveliness.

~John Updike, A Child's Calendar

Image Source.

Dead Poets Month.

2011-11-09T14:21:00.003-05:00

November is usually my Dead Poets month. Not because I liked the movie (I didn't).

This year, however, we have somehow arrived at November 9 without a single living poem from a dead man. To remedy that, and because all philosophers desperately need poetry in their lives, here is my darling Yeats.

To a Young Girl

My dear, my dear, I know

More than another

What makes your heart beat so;

Not even your own mother

Can know it as I know,

Who broke my heart for her

That she denies

And has forgot,

Set all her blood astir

And glittered in her eyes.

Through the Year with Padre Pio.

2011-11-09T14:07:00.003-05:00

St. Padre Pio became one of my very dearest friends last year--he battled for me when I was too exhausted or depressed to even pray. If you buy me a coffee, I'll tell you the whole story.

So I jumped at the chance to review Through the Year with Padre Pio, a collection of his letters and sayings edited by Patricia Treece. This book is so sweet: for every day of the year, there is a brief excerpt from Padre, followed by a parallel Scripture passage. It's simple, gentle material for lectio divina and a great companion to the Divine Office.

The prevailing popular impression of the Padre is one of a cranky, crotchety old gheezer who yelled at women in the confessional. There are grounds for that impression (although, don't you think that even church ladies ought to be yelled at once in a while?). But the overwhelming written evidence is of a man filled with mirth, gentleness, wisdom, and peace. After spending several weeks with him, day by day, you will be chastised but happier.

This review was written as part of the Catholic book reviewer program from The Catholic Company, and the reviewer received a free copy of the text in exchange for her opinion. Visit The Catholic Company to find more information on Through the Year with Padre Pio. They also have some beautiful Advent wreaths!

Miriam and a postcard from the volcano.

2011-11-04T19:44:00.005-04:00

Yesterday, the Scientist Dad stayed home from the university so that I could go meet with a priest for spiritual direction and Confession. It was blessed.

This afternoon, as I sliced red peppers and whisked together the curry, 3-year-old Bella queried:

"Miwiam, why dost (she really says dost) Mummy have to go to Kerfeshun?"

The Mother Superior responded, "Well, Belly, sometimes Mommy is a Bad Catholic. So, she has to go and tell the priest, who is really Jesus just for a minute, that she was a Bad Catholic. Then she is a Good Catholic again, until she does something else bad. Then, if she wants to be a Good Catholics again, she has to go back and tell Father."

Yes. That just about sums it up. It's simple. Baptism: We are all good Catholics. We get lazy, we drift, we fall asleep on the watch, we sin. Bad Catholics. The fix is simple: if we want to be good again, we just tell father.

I loved the "if," which reminds me:

I'm finishing Lucy Beckett's A Postcard from the Volcano, a fabulous crash course in 20th-century history, the Western canon, and... well, all of Western philosophy. (I have raved about her In the Light of Christ, a more formal introduction to the canon.) Not to give it away, but one of the main characters, originally a convert to Catholicism, ends up spending three years without the sacraments. He attends Mass, sitting in the back row, but never reconciles with the Church. In effect, a Bad Catholic.

Max's dearest friend, Adam, questions him: Why has he stayed away so long? His affair had ended, his 18 months of the lusts of the world had ended, tragically in an abortion. Why had he not confessed, been absolved, and returned home? Max's answer is poignant.

During his time of "real life," in the world of sex, drugs, and jazz (no rock 'n' roll in pre-War Germany), he had found himself feeling alive, feeling unhappy, but electric. His lover would tell him, "You're not really a Prussian bureaucrat who only likes Brahms. You just look like one, talk like one, work like one. Take it all off with your clothes." And he did. He even felt relief when she had the abortion--although he also immediately left her--just because he wouldn't be tied down to her forever.

He tells Adam he is uncertain now--after it all--of who he is, what he believes, even of God's interest in him. Confession seems too certain, Mass only a fragment of his self. How can he confess a sin he enjoyed, a sin that he felt relief at?

Adam listens--and this is good--but then brings Max back to the simplicity: "Now listen to me. Eros is the only sickness for which we volunteer. You are anwerable for what happened between you and Eva, in a way that she's not, or not yet--no one knows... Your reaction to the abortion shows that you know [there was hardly any connexion between you]. It also shows that you understand the self-indulgence, the distance rom God, of the whole thing. You understood this all along. The fact that Eva didn't understand helped you to hide from the fact that you did."

Adam continues, "What I would like you to do is this. Tomorrow is Sunday. The village Mass is at nine. Come with me half an hour early and make your confession to Father Stanislaw. He's a good man--not that it matters what he's like. Tell him the simple facts. Be given absolution. be given Communion. Pray for your child. Pray for Eva. And for me."

And that is what they do. Then Max takes the train back to Breslau and realizes that he can once again play Bach. "Adam had restored him to a place where the truth was steady."

That's what Confession does. The sloth of sin and the the grime of accumulated falls make the world spin. Reality is unsteady. Was it really so bad? Did I even mess up? Does God really care?

The only clarification is in absolution. When you want to be a Good Catholic again, after you fight through all that grime and grasp the rock, the light breaks through.

I can play Bach again.

Miriam has the instinct, if her vocabulary is a little reminiscent of the 1950's CCD teacher. Mommy was, for a little while, a Good Catholic again. And I found that the truth was steady.

Come to think of it, I think Miriam's ready for her own First Confession. Next month.

Image source.

The Way and the Saints.

2011-11-01T07:13:00.002-04:00

One of the most beautiful feasts of the year: The Solemnity of All Saints.

Reading and meditating on the lives of the saints is an act of true devotion to Christ. There is no better way, for such social creatures as human beings, to know and love God's ways, which are truly "not our ways." In them, God's light shone so clearly. We can only love God more for having known His children. And we, too, can only become His children in the company of our elder brothers and sisters.

"To become saints means to fulfill completely what we already are, raised to the dignity of God's adopted children in Christ Jesus... The saints bring to light in creative fashion quite new human potentialities... The saints are themselves the living spaces into which one can turn ... There is no isolation in heaven. It is ... the fulfillment of all human togetherness." ~Benedict XVI, via Magnificat

"I believe..."

2011-10-30T14:12:00.002-04:00

This looks like it could be grand. I have the highest respect for any one of these Christians, and fond memories of the glory days of First Things. Give it a try!

It's for sale here.

That bare minimum mode.

2011-10-26T15:18:00.006-04:00

Jen over at Conversion Diary is asking about those seasons of life called "Bare Minimum Mode." And, oh, do I love to dish on the intimate details of those darkest days.

For our family, Bare Minimum Mode can be very, very long (I'm thinking the entire first year of Ana Therese's life), more to middling (those first three months of pregnancy), or a few days (flu season!). The longer stretches share several characteristics:

1. We ask for help. We have never, ever had the funds to hire a nanny or even a mother's helper. We beg. I have begged my parents to adopt my small children for three months and take me in as a patient. I have begged my deacon to find older couples to come cook, clean, and entertain kids. I have begged college students to donate hours of their time to change diapers or just take the kids away and return only for bedtime.

2. People come out of everywhere to help. Seriously, we have made the most wonderful friends during our Bare Minimum Time. Men from the Knights of Columbus have cooked amazing quantities of food. Their wives have played with babies. Students have taught my children how to read and paint and knit. Without exception, every person among them has thanked us profusely for asking for help. And we, of course, just gape and thank the good Lord for the communion of saints, for bringing us to our knees, and providing such company in the vale of tears.

3. Nap time becomes sacred. This echoes Jen, but ain't it the truth? Nothing touches the 1-4pm. No one. Nothing.

4. Post-dinner, too, is sacred. No one comes near the Philosopher Home after 8pm. This is time for nursing the baby down, catching a nap while Scientist Dad holds the baby, doing physical therapy, a just winding down and encouraging each other.

5. Laundry is not folded. Now we get to the knitty-gritty: I put two laundry baskets on th living room floor. One is for clean Grown-Up Clothing. The other is for clean Childrens Clothing. I don't care if the 6-year-old puts on the 3-year-old's underwear every day for a month. It's clean, the kids are warm, and I didn't spend my sleeping hours folding laundry.

6. The kids' routine is simplified, but not abandoned. They eat sitting together three times per day. They have snack. They may watch more movies, but also have play time (usually in the happy, morning hours). They have nap (or quiet-time). When their lives are sane, it's easier for the parents to stay sane.

7. Confession and Mass. Both mom and dad must cling to the sacraments. This is the hour. Whatever else goes away--homeschool, ballet class, recreational reading, exercise--these two sacraments must never go away. Monthly Confession and weekly Sunday Mass. It's hard, but these indeed are the Bare Minimum.

It sounds cliche, but it's so true: These times are passing. They come and they go. We always emerge from them blinking a little in the glare of day. Did that really happen? During the dark times, life becomes so physical but also so pure. Our focus is narrowed, but single-minded. We escape the distractions and flurry of ordinary life, and even in the suffering we find a certain peace.

A little plug: UPDATED.

2011-10-23T20:44:00.004-04:00

UPDATE: Here is the link to "Parenting Advice" (previously run here).

I haven't had much time to explore CatholicLane yet, but it looks like a great home-on-the-web for Catholics. My favorite bit so far is that they have two liturgical calendars: "In the Ordinary Form" and "In the Extraordinary Form." That's the spirit! No, literally. That's the spirit.

And I have a column going up there tomorrow. Keep your eyes peeled!

That pesky sixth commandment.

2011-10-23T16:54:00.002-04:00

Miriam and I were reviewing the Ten Commandments this past week. She's regulation-oriented and loves a good "To Do" (or "Not To Do") list. I didn't censor any words, had a headache, and was relieved when we got through "Thou shalt not commit adultery" without comment.

We finished the list, and she turned to me and asked, "Mom, what's your favorite commandment?"

"Oh, gosh," I mumbled. "Uh, I guess the first. It sort of sets the whole stage for the rest."

"Mmmm," she nodded wisely, glancing up and down the list. "Well, that's okay. My favorite is, of course, number six."

Oh, she did not just say that, I choked, "Huh. Well, Miriam, why is that?"

"Well, I just need you to tell me what adultery is. Then I will explain."

Of course. "Okay, well. You know how Daddy and Mommy are married?"

"Yes."

"And what if I decided I was tired of being married and left Daddy to marry some other guy? That would be adultery. If you pretend someone is your husband who is not really your husband."

Her eyes grew very wide, "Oh, that would be a bad decision. That would make lots of people very sad. And if Daddy pretended there were more mommies, that would be bad, too."

"Yes," I concluded.

"Well," she sighed, "That's why it's my favorite commandment. Because I love just one mommy."

At this point Belly chirped in, "Well, I would like to have morwe mommys."

And that, as they, say, is that.

Wait...

2011-10-21T06:46:00.001-04:00

... it's Friday again?

Parenting advice from the brink.

2011-10-17T14:45:00.004-04:00

The Gray Lady ran an opinion column this weekend by Emily Rapp, mother to 18-month-old Ronan. Ronan has Tay-Sachs disease and, by all medical estimates, will die in a particularly gruesome manner before he is three.

The subject is chilling, but I was particularly struck by her critical analysis--wisdom gained in suffering--of our parenting culture. Today's parenting advice, she writes, is entirely future-oriented:

"All parents want their children to prosper, to matter. We enroll our children in music class or take them to Mommy and Me swim class because we hope they will manifest some fabulous talent that will set them — and therefore us, the proud parents — apart. Traditional parenting naturally presumes a future where the child outlives the parent and ideally becomes successful, perhaps even achieves something spectacular. Amy Chua’s “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother” is only the latest handbook for parents hoping to guide their children along this path. It’s animated by the idea that good, careful investments in your children will pay off in the form of happy endings, rich futures."

Then she throws the punch.

"But I have abandoned the future..."

Emily, I know you say that no one ever asks advice from the parents of a terminally ill infant. But I have learned so much from you, and from reading and knowing the mothers of children who have died. Your particular wisdom is this:

"But the day-to-day is often peaceful, even blissful. This was my day with my son: cuddling, feedings, naps. He can watch television if he wants to; he can have pudding and cheesecake for every meal. We are a very permissive household. We do our best for our kid, feed him fresh food, brush his teeth, make sure he’s clean and warm and well rested and ... healthy? Well, no. The only task here is to love, and we tell him we love him, not caring that he doesn’t understand the words. We encourage him to do what he can, though unlike us he is without ego or ambition."

While parents of dying children didn't ask to be signposts, they have in fact become reminders of a truth all parents forget at their own peril: Our children are not ours first. Their lives are not directed to an imagined future, a blank slate on which we get to draw what we would see. Children themselves are not future-oriented. They live now and today.

Miriam loves ballet class today, in this moment. She dreams of getting bigger and making stronger leaps and more powerful turns, but those dreams do not yet diminish the drills and little jumps she can make right now. Belly loves to work out puzzles and build towers, regardless of the future I imagine for her of mathematical prowess or craftsmanship.

For these little people, their lives are already a whole. If Miriam were to die tomorrow (and who knows what the hour is for any one of us?), Todd and I would be devastated and the world would wonder, "What could have been?"

But she would not.

The one who dies has made a complete life. The end and the beginning are known to her and to God.

So, before we parents of the healthy, strong children leave Emily Rapp and Ronan to the mercy of God, perhaps we can admire her wisdom and learn from her how to prepare our children for the only future we know: that moment when the veil between this world and the next lifts. Are they ready to step peacefully from God's hidden presence into his unhidden presence? Have we reassured them that death is not the end or the destruction of dreams? Is our confidence in the victory of life over death the guiding principle of our parenting style and our parenting advice (which we so freely dish when it comes to sleep schedules, slings, and breastfeeding)?

If first things are first, then in our homes, too, "the day-to-day is peaceful, even bliss." And the end will be awful, but it will not be the end.

Image: Antonietta Meo.

New look. Same blog.

2011-10-13T20:38:00.003-04:00

It's finally time for a little makeover. For those who know me, this not-so-radical change will appear right in line with my more conservative tastes. They will also feel my melancholy as the blog of yesteryear turns to the blog of today.

Or perhaps I should Just Keep Quiet and Nobody Will Notice.

Enjoy!

Holding on to Hope.

2011-10-12T14:52:00.003-04:00

Before reviewing this book, I have to make a full disclosure: I have not actively done the exercises in it. I have read it, but not done it. And this is definitely a book that was written to be worked through, to be actively engaged. Sr. Kathryn J. Hermes, FSP, is the author of Surviving Depression and now brings us Holding on to Hope: The Journey Beyond Darkness. She intends this book as a sort of sequel or "something more" than her first. Holding onto Hope is for those who have survived depression and now are at a place in their lives when they are ready to be healed.

First, the good news. Sr. Kathryn's use of Scripture and her obvious love for the prophets and patriarchs is beautiful. Her choice of texts and some of her more personal stories are touching and really can give comfort and hope.

But the over-riding vocabulary of the book smacks often of contemporary psycho-babble. It is "therapy speak," with lots of dream-symbolism, discerning our "true feelings," and self-limitation and self-conceiving. I don't think it ever crosses the line and stands against the faith, but the packaging of her otherwise much-needed message of hope just turns me off.

The exercises provided by co-author Sr. Helene Cote, PM, are kind of silly. I'm not a licensed "inner healer," and these guided meditations may provide some real peace to some people. But I'd rather stick to a more traditional Scriptural meditation that does not include unScriptural "guided imagining."

On a happier note, it looks like Sr. Helene had nothing to do with Surviving Depression, so I might give that a gander. I also found an interesting recourse on Christian cognitive therapy over at Eighth Day Books; it looks a little more promising. I'll stick to Scripture and the Fathers for now.

This review was written as part of the Catholic book reviewer program from The Catholic Company, and the reviewer received a free copy of the text in exchange for her opinion. Visit The Catholic Company to find more information on Holding on to Hope. They also have great resources on and copies of icons.

A secret.

2011-10-11T19:38:00.001-04:00

From Evlogia, via Melanie at Wine Dark Sea: How to do it all. I love this bit:

No one does it all and the more stretched a life, the less well it’s lived. It’s not about doing it all. It’s making sure that all you’re doing is the work He’s really given you. Not only the art of saying no, but the art of doing things unnoticed. The greatest lives are lived small, doing the little things that only God sees. A life magnified by grace.

Great books, great source.

2011-10-09T16:37:00.003-04:00

Eighth Day Books' printed catalogue is in itself a source of great insights and fodder for blog posts. The little bookstore in Kansas has as its mission to offer "an eccentric community of books based on this organizing principle: if a book—be it literary, scientific, historical, or theological—sheds light on ultimate questions in an excellent way, then it's a worthy candidate for inclusion in our catalog.

"Reality doesn't divide itself into "religious" and "literary" and "secular" spheres, so we don't either. We're convinced that all truths are related and every truth, if we pay attention rightly, directs our gaze toward God. One of our customers found us "eclectic but orthodox." We like that."

They manage to be eclectic without crossing the fine line between ecumenism and syncretism. I want to read everything they print.

For example, here is a little-known, 131-page book by Orthodox layman Jean-Claudet Larchet, The Theology of Illness. The bookstore's blurb-writer for the printed catalogue (how do I get that job?) begins:

"... Larchet makes a bold pronouncement, possibly even startling: 'There is no question that people today have far fewer resources than their ancestors did to deal with the entire problem [of physical illness].' While he accedes that modern medicine has acquired extraordinary skill in diagnosis, therapy and prevention, its treatment of the body addresses only our biology and not our spirituality. As strange as it sounds, being deprived of illness actually limits our means of dealing with death, doing little to help us assume the redemptive powers of suffering and humility."

Come to think of it, I don't know when I'll have time to read 131 pages. But a snippet like that will keep me thinking for a week. At least.

Image Source.

Can a creature so beautiful...

2011-10-07T17:05:00.004-04:00

... have come from us? Yes, yes, she did.

SHE walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that 's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellow'd to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.
One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impair'd the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o'er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.

And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!

A little plug for classical education.

2011-10-04T16:15:00.004-04:00

This email came from a friend this morning (reprinted with permission, names changed to protect the innocent). It gave me a chuckle as I prepared with some trepidation to distill the Viking Exploration for a 6-year-old:

"So, I found myself at a restaurant dinner recently with a nice middle-aged woman on my left and her college-aged son on my right. She was understandably proud of her handsome boy, Dave, and noted how well he was doing at a state university (major undeclared). To be polite, she asked about my son, Norman, a student at St. Gregory Academy, a conservative Catholic all-boys boarding high school that boasts 'no technology' as a policy. This point slipped into my succinct answer to her question, and it stunned her.

"'No Facebook? No iPads? No Google searches? No laptops? No software skills?'

"'No,' I said. 'We see it as a distinction between classical education and technical training. We think Norman can pick up applicable computer skills after we get his head filled with great thoughts. Our view, and that of the school, is that there are only so many hours in a day, and we’d rather have Norman spend time on Aquinas and Homer than PowerPoint and Excel.'

"'But you can’t just skip computers,' she said. 'All of Dave's school work is done with computers. And he knows all that classical stuff, too.'

"I turned to her son. 'Dave, what are the two great epic poems of Homer?'

"Dave smiled. 'Simpson?'”

An open letter to Secretary Sebelius.

2011-09-27T16:23:00.003-04:00

Below is a copy of what the Scientist Dad and I sent in. Please email the Department of Health and Human Services (Kathleen.Sebelius@hhs.gov) by Friday to comment on the health care reform regulations. It may be "but a drop in the bucket," but I will in future years be glad I said something rather than nothing.

Dear Secretary Sebelius,

We would like to express our opposition to the current religious exemption which Health and Human Services has granted to healthcare institutions in reference to the new health care reform law. As Roman Catholics, we are deeply concerned about the implications and precedence this regulation holds for religious freedom and the free exercise of conscience.

The current proposed religious exemption applies only to those organizations employing and serving primarily members of their own faith community. It requires these institutions, such as Catholic hospitals, to proselytize those citizens coming to them for help.

We are aware, Madame Secretary, that you are yourself a professed Roman Catholic. Although we also understand that you hold a very different view of human reproduction and fertility than we do, we hope that we can appeal to you and your Department on the level of fellow citizens and members of the same faith community. It would violate the whole purpose of the Catholic Church's service to the poor for the government to require that we provide services (e.g., contraception and sterilization) that violate our deepest held beliefs about the human person. It would also violate the American view of public service to require Catholic institutions to either close their doors to the poor or proselytize those coming to seek comfort and aide. Please remember what you do love about your own faith community--it's free service to the poorest of the poor--which cannot be forcibly divorced from its ancient respect for the human person.

We disagree with your political stance on reproductive rights, but we are also glad that you are free to exercise the dictates of your conscience. Please protect the rights of Catholic healthcare workers and administrators to do the same.

Expand the religious exemption to allow Catholic institutions (and all other religious institutions) to serve and employ the entire population without recourse to indoctrination.

Thank you for your service to our country and for your consideration.

Sincerely,

Etc....

Oh, those eyes.

2011-09-26T14:41:00.001-04:00

...look so much like my Belle's.

Let it all hang out!

2011-09-22T07:11:00.002-04:00

Head on over to Catholic Exchange today for my article (post?) on abstinence in marriage. This is a sort of combination of my two previous posts here and here, with some added twists thanks to y'all's profound commentary.

Feminine Genius: We know D.R.A.M.A.

2011-09-21T14:06:00.005-04:00

Dorothy Day and Mother Teresa: Girls are OK.

(First, a note! Some commenters on "Abstinence in Marriage: Que Pasa?" were unceremoniusly dumped into my spam folder. Sorry! Now you're published, as you should have been long ago. Y'all are brilliant.)

After confirming that I "really have three girls," the next insight offered me by most strangers is, "Oh, your poor husband."

The third apothegm runs along the lines of consolation to the downtrodden, "Oh, well, don't worry. Girls are so much easier than boys."

If I have allowed the conversation to get this far, I am obviously too weary to deflect their advances with humor. Either that, or I have become so accustomed to the inane babblings of the pre-schooler mind that two or three more idiocies aren't likely to bother me.

But, really, people. Girls are easier than boys? Have you spent much time with a 12-year-old girl? Have you spent much time with any woman between, say, the ages of 10 1/2 and 51? I hear echoing in my head, "The days are coming, sayeth the Lord, when I shall strike the land with doom."

We are sugar and spice for about 5 years, then fade into a sweet sort of lemon-zest dessert, and then. Just plain lemon juice.

Poor Miriam. She's had a brilliant 5 weeks (almost) of homeschool. She's had a brilliant childhood, in general, to be honest. She's smart. She's gorgeous. She's good at almost anything (except opening doors or jars). She is sweet and eager to please.

But oh, the drama.

Today the world fell apart. I asked her to narrate for me (just me! her mother!) the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes. She knows this story (we've been reading it since she could talk!), she loves to narrate (she's been talking since she was 10 months!), and she has memory like glue (when she was four, she memorized an entire Dr. Seuss book!).

But today, she froze. She couldn't even begin. Because I was asking her to do something different: "Just tell me the story."

"Mommy, I can only think if you're writing it down!"

"Miriam, I'm not going to write this one down. I'm helping Belly build her Lego house, and this is also an important way of telling for you to learn. Just tell me."

Tears. A full-out fit. Neither of us backed down. But what struck me was her (ir)rationale: "Mommy, it's too embarrassing!"

Embarrassing is her code word for: I might mess up. I'm going to make a mistake. It's not worth trying, because I can't do it perfectly.

It's the same reason she won't try her new bike: I might mess up. I might get hurt. It's not worth trying.

It's the same reason she won't play the new piano song: I might mess up. It's not worth trying.

Embarrassing.

This runs deep in the family: It's too hard. Our over-achiever front belies a deep insecurity: What if I mess up? It's better not to try.

I remember piano pieces I refused to learn, races I refused to run, classes I quit, and professors I never went to for help. All because of this fear, paralyzing and ugly. The woman hates to be wrong, but even more so to be caught being wrong. I don't mind a mistake that no one can see, that I can fix on my own (Spanx, anyone?), but oh! to be seen in my imperfection. That makes me throw a fit.

So, today's drama was less about my daughter than about me: I can see with a magnifying glass into her soul, even at the moment she feels most alone.

And that, too, is a mark of a woman. We hate to be caught in the fault (as do men), and all those hormones and intensity of feelings can make us cry and fight and throw ourselves to the floor in despair. But that intensity also gives us--poor children of Eve--the possibility of that deeply personal bridge: I know you. I have been where you are. I will be there with you again.

I want to try to teach my daughter, poor little daughter of me, to take that drama all locked up inside herself and let it out. Let her recognize that her struggle goes on in the hearts of so many others. Let the drama breed, not more drama, but womanly compassion and a fierce devotion to the weakest souls still in the grip of that struggle. Let her drama and fear of embarrassment translate into understanding and gentleness.

The feminine genius, without which the world could not be saved.

Image source: Dorothy Day and Mother Teresa.

Image source: The Repentant.

If you came this way.

2011-09-15T14:22:00.004-04:00

Here is Eliot for Thursday. Ten years ago, I was studying in England and coping with being abroad for 9/11. I will always think of England as "the end of the world" and of Eliot as my voice of those days.

From "Little Gidding," No. 4 of 'Four Quartets'

"I. .... There are other places

Which also are the world's end, some at the sea jaws,
Or over a dark lake, in a desert or a city—
But this is the nearest, in place and time,
Now and in England.

If you came this way,
Taking any route, starting from anywhere,
At any time or at any season,
It would always be the same: you would have to put off
Sense and notion. You are not here to verify,
Instruct yourself, or inform curiosity
Or carry report. You are here to kneel
Where prayer has been valid. And prayer is more
Than an order of words, the conscious occupation
Of the praying mind, or the sound of the voice praying.
And what the dead had no speech for, when living,
They can tell you, being dead: the communication
Of the dead is tongued with fire beyond the language of the living.
Here, the intersection of the timeless moment
Is England and nowhere. Never and always."

Image source.

The Difficult Lesson.

2011-09-14T10:54:00.004-04:00

We read whole chapters of the Gospels aloud. I let the girls color and play, and I just sit and read the words. I don't ask them to narrate the stories or sayings, but just to listen as they can while they play. Today we read Matthew 10. I didn't think Miriam was listening (she was coloring the Hagia Sophia and singing about the "barbarians who stole your tabernacle").

But she was.

Miriam: "Mommy, why does Jesus say he comes to bring a sword and not peace? Because, he is the Prince of Peace. I am confused."

That is confusing. So, here's what I tried for a little exegesis.

"Well, it is confusing. Let's think about Jesus' commandments. If we love Him, He says, we will follow His commandments."

"Yes," she said, still coloring and humming.

"So, people have to make a choice: they can either walk to Jesus in the light or turn around and walk the other way into the dark."

"Yes," she stopped coloring.

"I think that is the sword he might mean: If some people choose to walk to Jesus and other people choose to walk away from Jesus, then who has the Peace of Christ?"

"The people walking to the light," she nodded.

"Yes. But what happens if you choose something dark?"

"Then you don't have the Peace of Christ!" she was very happy now.

"And not having peace is like a sword?"

And we were both happy. This is why she's at home this year.

Miriam the Dominican.

2011-09-12T20:02:00.005-04:00

Four little girls in pink and white, seated on the hardwood floor at the feet of their ballet teacher, listening with rapt attention to Angelina in the Palace.

"... and Angelina said, 'I won't make a mistake! I will be perfect!'" reads the lovely lady. "But, girls! No one is perfect, isn't that right?"

Noooo, three little heads shake.

Noooo, all the watching parents shake their heads.

Noooo, the ballet teacher approvingly shakes her head.

"That's not true!" says one little girl named Miriam, offended.

Everyone looks at her, the tallest girl dressed all in white.

"Well, I wonder..." begins the teacher.

"Jesus never makes mistakes. He is perfect." Miriam's eyes are anxious, but firm. Her cheeks and neck are flushed. I wince. I've been right there in her seat.

"Well, I wonder," says the teacher, "I really wonder..." She continues the story and it all brushes past.

Miriam sits stolidly in her rightness and in the immutable rightness of God. I am in the corner of the room, hugging my toddler, throwing graham crackers to placate the baby, and wondering... "I wonder.... I wonder." I wonder at the perfect Word made flesh. I wonder at the spine of steel in my little girl, and I wonder how it will all be for her.

Image source.

September 11, Ten Years

2011-09-11T08:02:00.001-04:00

Just a song from one of my favorite artists.

Abstinence and marriage, Part II: Bueno!

2011-09-07T14:43:00.003-04:00

I've read some exquisitely thoughtful and transparent comments from yesterday's post, Abstinence and marriage: ¿Que pasa? The only worthy response would be to continue with a few more thoughts.

Jen wrote that she finds an inherent difference between priestly (or monastic) celibacy and periodic (or permanent) abstinence in marriage. I think she's right on this: Celibates (priests and religious) have freely vowed not only to live a life without sexual intercourse but also detached from the particular, one-on-one friendship that the marriage vows demand. Very few men and women get married expecting years and years of sexual abstinence. One anonymous commentator wrote that "the single person and the religious are both called to live chastity for many years. What makes it possible for them is fidelity to the spiritual life and the life of prayer. What is four weeks in comparison?

My response would be that four weeks living in the same, close quarters after years of a shared bed, shared sleeplessness, shared affection, and shared tears can make the shift from "sexual active married couple" to "sexless married couple" very different from life in a cell or large, lonely rectory. I'm not denigrating either sacrifice, I just think it might seem callous to compare (much like comparing the struggle of an infertile couple to my struggle).

The same anonymous commentator makes, however, an excellent point about the nature of human life: The great equalizer for all vocations and states of life is the call to sacrificial love. It's a difficult teaching, but, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life."

Anonymous: "My recommendations to you aren't rocket science— daily Mass, weekly confession, weekly adoration, weekly fasting. Fasting, in particular is key to taming one's desire to engage in the marital act. I know that this sacrifice isn't easy— but it's part of what the marital vocation calls on you to do— but in a marriage— every step of the way is paved by sacrifice..."

April puts a positive slant on it: "God is making us into saints and THAT is beautiful. That is life-giving." She's put her finger on a truth we hold dear: All suffering can give life. It is all able to bear fruit.

I was listening to Abbot Tryphon this afternoon. He said, "When we are free, there are no battles. Life is a constant battle with the material world." As we battle in our desire to have it all--sex, health, avoid pregnancy, achieve pregnancy, Brownie Sundaes, a slim figure, plenty of sleep, completion of all projects--we inevitably feel the pull of the "flesh" (as in, the things that are transitory) to compromise. "If I just used a Pill, I could have sex and avoid pregnancy." "If I just made myself throw it all back up, I could eat Brownie Sundaes and be slim!" The killer argument comes from the psychologist: "You will go crazy if you don't have it all!"

But new life is not born of these compromises. It is born of becoming free of the desire to compromise. I think anonymous #2 gives good suggestions for training our souls and bodies to become free: fasting, prayer, the sacraments. It is only if we live in the very life of Christ himself that we can be free as he is free.

The Abbot also said that--as he was feeling miserable one day in all his accumulated wealth--he realized suddenly that this life was given him only as a time to prepare for eternity. The married life is only a sign of that real life: eternal consummation of our union with God. It is a means, not an end, to bring us to our true end.

In a sacramental and faithful marriage, abstinence is going to happen. For various reasons--voluntarily or involuntarily--we cannot always come together physically. Another friend pointed out to me the many examples of saints and blesseds who have chosen abstinence within their marriages either permanently or for a short period of time. We can join secular culture and psychoanalyze these men and women to pieces, or blame the Church for bashing sex in honoring them, or we can assume the best: They were seeking freedom, total freedom for the things of God. Their joy and final victory doesn't denigrate large families or sexually active marriages: It uplifts "those who are bowed down" under a battle they did not originally anticipate.

I am grateful for your company and witness.

Image Source: Blessed Luigi Beltrame Quattrocchi and Blessed Maria Corsini

Abstinence and marriage: Que pasa?

2011-09-06T14:25:00.005-04:00

A friend and I were ruminating under the hurricane about the meaning and role of sexual abstinence in marriage. She is a pre-Cana NFP coach and noted that, "We just don't seem to be preparing couples for the reality of abstinence: It's going to happen." We also noted frustrations with the tendency to present NFP as the Catholic birth-control (it's not!): Safe! Effective! Simple! Morally Upright!

Since the good Lord has seen fit to grant unto me some serious reasons for postponing pregnancy right now (oh, that's a whole 'nother discussion), I've been discovering the realities of prolonged periods of abstinence and what they mean for our particular marriage. The old NFP courses I took long ago (nine years!) warned, "Couples may need to abstain from the conjugal embrace for up to two weeks in order to guarantee avoidance of pregnancy."

Try three or four weeks. This is sacrificial.

And that's three or four weeks of feeling deep sadness (we would love more children--they're so different and irreplaceable); guilt ("Are you having any more?" "Look at the Martins! They have seven! What a good, Catholic family!"); and frustration. We sometimes feel fruitless, when our deepest convictions tell us that marriage is intended by God to be fruitful.

But I do not believe that, simply because pregnancy is not currently an option (again, a whole 'nother subject, so just trust me on this one), we have to cease being fertile or sexual or, in the combination of the two, fruitful.

The question is, just... how?

What new ways of bearing new life are there for us? What does this time of abstinence mean for us? How will it build up our life together? Because, you know, the trendy answer is, "Sexless marriage!? You're dooommmmmmed!"

No, we are not. Fidelity means life.

I've only just started mulling this over. The first fruit of abstinence was obvious: Sacrifice! Offer it up for the world! Well, that only goes so far. Anyone who has suffered chronic pain knows that sometimes "Offer it up, and the holy souls will get to heaven" is no justification and little comfort.

Look! Joseph is offering it up for holy souls while beating a fig tree to ward off temptation!

Please leave comments here, because there are more women out there who have lived this vocation for much longer than I. I'm looking for opportunities and joys that come from a life of abstinence together: What are the positive ways in which abstinence affects your marriage, your children, your friends, and the Church? What could we tell young couples who are about to set out on a difficult life, sacramental marriage, to encourage them that this is a beautiful and holy life?

I think of another kind of difficult life: the religious vocation.

The most convincing argument for entering an order and taking on the vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience is surely the joy of those already living it: men and women have been very happy, have found the strength to sacrifice everything the world holds in value, and have--through their vows--been gentled and molded into the image of Christ. In spite of all the very wicked priests and religious, the fact remains that many have become very good through this way of life. The religious life, therefore, bears great fruit in spite of the fact that it is an odd way to flourish as a human being. It is not un-natural, but it is surely supra-natural.

I think the same thing might be said of a marriage that is periodically sexless for long periods of time: the only way I will ever convince myself or anyone else that this is a holy and happy life is if I myself become holy and happy through fidelity to my vows, both my marriage vows and my baptismal vows.

Check back in when I've completed my course and run my race. I have great hope that you will be convinced, by the grace of the Father. Ora pro nobis. But also, please add your encouragement:

What are the fruits and peculiar marks you have seen in marriage during the hard times?

Favorite NFP and posts:

Yes! Every sperm is sacred.

Do I want more kids?

Is 'planned' a dirty word?

Miriam's narrative.

2011-09-03T14:34:00.004-04:00

We're two weeks and one hurricane into the Ages of Grace curriculum. Miriam, the 6-year-old 2nd-grader, is in love with learning: She loves the books, the copywork, the icons, and the hymns. She loves poetry and arithmetic and maps. "Mommy, I think second-grade is the most wonderful grade in the Whole World, because you get to learn so many things! I want to be a monk--or maybe a nun--so I can copy books all day long everyday and study every day." Second-grade with one student is sugar and spice and everything nice.

Well, pat me on the back, but two weeks in and I sure look like a pro. The hardest part has been keeping the littler ones happy and semi-quiet so that I can explain something or finish a story out loud for their big sister. Bella, 3 years old, will listen well to most of the stories (think, Tomie de Paola and Trina Hyman), but loses focus as I try to explain nouns. The baby is into everything, and my clutter-standards have dropped drastically.

I've been happy with the curriculum thus far: I haven't added in the Prologue readings yet, but plan to do so this week. There has been no tension between East and West as of yet, since we're only to about 500, A.D. The saints are saints for all (such as today's Gregory the Great, Patrick, Columba, and Helena).

The pace seems just right, as well: We're spending three or four weeks (as needed or desired) on the British Isles and the fall of Rome. I'm using The Story of the World at the moment for a sort-of history spine. I anticipate dropping it, however, before we get to 1500. Lines such as, "Queen Elizabeth's greatest accomplishment was that she allowed her subjects to choose whether they wanted to be Catholic or Protestant," leave me wondering about the objectivity of its treatment of the Church. The first few chapters on the pre-Reformation West are decent enough, however. I'm still looking for that elementary-level history text that doesn't ignore 400-1500, takes a universal view of salvation history, and doesn't exude this "History is the story of progress" motif.

Let me know if you find it.

For now, I'm glad to rest in Level A, where no real textbook is necessary. We can read endless chapter and picture books and simply absorb the beauty of Christendom. There will be time for hard questions later.

Gregory the Great, Gregory the Humble

2011-09-02T20:00:00.002-04:00

On September 3rd, the Church in the West remembers one of the great successors of Peter. Gregory the Great (or Gregory the Dialogist) was the son of a saint, the evangelist of post-Roman Europe, patron of the arts, and would-be simple monk.

"At length being anxious to avoid all these inconveniences, I sought the haven of the monastery… For as the vessel that is negligently moored, is very often (when the storm waxes violent) tossed by the water out of its shelter on the safest shore, so under the cloak of the Ecclesiastical office, I found myself plunged on a sudden in a sea of secular matters, and because I had not held fast the tranquillity of the monastery when in possession, I learnt by losing it, how closely it should have been held." ~Moralia

Gregory always sounds a little wistful--he would, at the natural level, much rather have stayed in his cell (the days are many when I can completely relate). But he took on his vocation to the papacy with great strength and grace (may I do the same).

I have a soft spot for Gregory: I wrote my 40-page thesis at Oxford on his understanding of the vocation to marriage. The pages are lost (these were the days before Gmail, after all), but I still love him. He spoke words that brought me home to Todd and marriage.

So, sweet Gregory, pray for us. Pray for your little sisters and brothers still here on this side of death. Be with us in our own turmoils, and ask the good Lord whom you served to grant us His Mercy.

Irenians.

2011-09-01T19:44:00.003-04:00

Children of the storm.

Well, it wasn't quite as bad as all that (but doesn't "Irenian refugees" just sound desperately romantic?). We were very fortunate to sustain no damage to house or cars or selves. We even got to host a refugee from New York City for a couple of days and really enjoyed her company. We slept all downstairs the night the hurricane hit and woke up to the wind and rain. We ate pancakes cooked over our gas stove and sang songs on the ol' guitar.

But we are still without power. I have headed north to the great state of New Hampshire where my parents' home sits as a place of refuge and rest. And I can access the Internet. I felt rather like an addict as I logged into Facebook for the first time and drooled a little. Oh, sweet, instant gratification!

I hope you are all safe and well. My one recommendation: Next time, stock up on candles. Their light is far superior to any noisy generator or waning flashlight.

Christian music that's more than bearable.

2011-08-23T15:11:00.000-04:00

10 Things That Would Have Made Me Catholic.

2011-08-22T15:46:00.002-04:00

I've been snatching moments with G.K. Chesterton's The Well and the Shallows, which opens with a chapter on "The Six Things That Would Have Made Me Catholic Had I Not Already Been One."

His examples include the Lambeth Conference and the Spanish Civil War. A little dated. So, I got to thinking and came up with my own list. There's a book to be written here, but in no particular order, I present:

The 10 Things That Would Have Made Me Catholic Had I Not Already Been One

1. Humanae Vitae and the defense of sacramental marriage. Seriously. This Church is either totally crazed or it's the only true Church.

2. St. Gianna Beretta Molla. Again, a Church that honors a woman who died for her unborn child in 1962 is either messed up or has something special.

3. Ecumenism done well. Read Touchstone or check out the Manhattan Project or read about the pope's approach to the Orthodox Churches.

4. The Arab Spring. Not so springy as the Solidarity movement.

5. Of Gods and Men. You have got to watch this film.

6. Amanda Marcotte. Just read Jennifer Fulwiler--forget the content, just note her language and manner of engaging. Then compare her style to Marcotte's vulgarity. Then back to Fulwiler's response. I'd rather be Catholic.

7. The iPod "Confession App" controversy. There are some things (e.g., God) that just can't be replaced.

8. The loss of religious freedom in the West. Just trace that history: Luther to today.

9. The men (and women) of Courage vs. Gay Pride.

10. John Paul II's contrition.

11. Oh... and that inscrutable factor: the grace of God.

Again, I don't have the time to defend or fully explain these. But they're what come to mind when I wonder: why am I still here?

What would you add or subtract? What makes you Catholic?

Strength in Darkness

2011-08-22T14:43:00.003-04:00

The Catholic Company has brought me Strength in Darkness: Wisdom from John of the Cross. How appropriate. The editor's opening line is: "Have you ever had that abiding sense that you just can't get through something?" Why, yes! Yes, I have!

What follows are simply excerpts from the writings of John of the Cross, the great Carmelite reformer, a doctor of the Church, and friend of Teresa of Avila (note: friendship with a saint sure helps in becoming a saint yourself).

As someone who has struggled with depression recently, however, I would offer a word of caution. John may not be the man to read at the moment when that "abiding sense" of despair is strongest. Ask your confessor or a trusted friend first, because John's Dark Night can seem so challenging and so full of confidence that we less hardy souls may read him, shrug our shoulders, and abandon his way.

John encourages us that in darkness, we have received an invitation to go deeper and to go through whatever it is we are facing. The dark night is the only preparation for total union with God: "Furthermore, in this union for which the dark night is a preparation, the soul in its communion with God must be endowed and filled with a certain glorious splendor embodying innumerable delights. These delights surpass all the abundance the soul can possess naturally, for nature, so weak and impure, cannot receive these delights, as Isaiah says, 'Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it entered any human heart what he has prepared (Is 64:4).' As a result the soul must first be set in emptiness and poverty of spirit and purged of every natural support, consolation, and apprehension, earthly and heavenly. Thus empty, it is truly poor in spirit and stripped of the old self, and thereby able to live that new and blessed life which is the state of union with God, attainable by means of this night."

This, as the apostles said, is a difficult teaching. Who can bear it?

For the soul struggling with depression or intense suffering, John can be either the dearest friend or that well-meaning, but obtuse, well-wisher who stops you after Mass and says, "I've heard you're having a tough time. Don't worry, God sent you this for a reason."

I would save John of the Cross for a dark night that has begun to fade into morning: Once the worst has lifted (even if only for a moment), once you have a friend to read him along with you, then John's teaching has no compare. He can convince with the language of the heart: "In the first place it should be known that if anyone is seeking God, the Beloved is seeking that person much more...."

Once your heart is ready to accept this, then John of the Cross becomes the great spiritual director. He is able to prepare you for future suffering and give you hope that the dark nights you have known were not suffered in vain.

This review was written as part of the Catholic book reviewer program from The Catholic Company, and the reviewer received a free copy of the text in exchange for her opinion. Visit The Catholic Company to find more information on Strength in Darkness. They also have great resources on the new translation of the Roman Missal!

Chaput on Religious Freedom.

2011-08-18T15:11:00.003-04:00

Archbishop Chaput (almost of Philadelphia!) has been urging the youth in Madrid to holiness in all sorts of venues. You've got to love this blurb from his address in the Madrid stadium during the “Noche de Alegría” (Night of Joy):

“Ultimately, it will not be how you feel that will determine how genuine and profound your encounter with Jesus is,” he told pilgrims.

“Instead, it will be determined by how much you are transformed into Him and how much you burn in the desire to bring Him to others, by announcing the Gospel, by serving the poor and the needy, by defending the unborn, by securing a culture that is not hostile to the growth of Christian families,” he said.

The address that really struck me, however, was on religious freedom. Ever since Health and Human Services mandated contraceptive coverage from healthcare providers, I've been chewing on the concept. What is religious freedom, anyway? Can it be that we've reached a point in American history when the very idea of religious freedom no longer has any real meaning? It's a bothersome thought, and I was feeling rather reactionary. I'm no extreme Tea Partier (I prefer coffee. Wah-waaaah.). I wear pants. I don't mind women wearing the hijab around the park (Miriam thinks they're all nuns).

But I just can't shake the nagging feeling that, in the West, our freedom to profess and practice our faith in public ain't what it could be. Or what we like to imagine it is. Chaput said:

"Religious freedom means being able to worship as we choose."

Unfortunately, I think most of us tend to stop there. But Chaput goes on:

"It’s also the liberty to preach, teach, and practice our faith openly and without fear. But it involves even more than that. Religious freedom includes the right of religious believers, leaders, and communities to take part vigorously in a nation’s public life."

He then distinguishes two premises that underlie our Western belief in the freedom of religion: First, we assume that, because human beings are free, we are free to believe or not believe in God. Second, we assume "
that questions about God, eternity and the purpose of human life really do have vital importance for human happiness. And therefore people should have the freedom to pursue and to live out the answers they find to those basic questions without government interference."

He's saying that if either one of these two premises is absent, so is the basis for our defense of the freedom of religion. I'm not so sure that the West in general believes in either premise any longer.

He continues:

"Freedom of religion cannot coexist with freedom from religion. Forcing religious faith out of a nation’s public square and out of a country’s public debates does not serve democracy. It doesn’t serve real tolerance or pluralism. What it does do is impose a kind of unofficial state atheism. To put it another way, if we ban Christian Churches or other religious communities from taking an active role in our nation’s civic life, we’re really just enforcing a new kind of state-sponsored intolerance—a religion without God."

He then presents a sort of survey of the state of religious freedom world-wide. You'll want to read the whole thing.

And if the whole thing leaves you a little morose, or even (heaven forbid) nostalgic, then remember this: This has all happened before. The Church has never taught that the world is progressing ever-forward; nor do we believe that "it's all going to pot." GK Chesterton offers some solace:

"Today this is the way the world is going, if there is any such thing. But in fact there is no such thing. A Catholic perhaps should have seen it from the first; but many a Catholic has only seen it in a flash at the last. There is no way the world is going. There never was. The world is not going anywhere, in the sense of the old optimist progressives, or even of the old pessimist reactionaries. It is not going to the Brave New World... any more that to the New Utopia. The world is what the saints and the prophets saw it was; it is not merely getting better or merely getting worse.... [It] wobbles.

"Now that is fundamentally what the Church has always said.... [She says] that we must not we must not count on the certainty even of comforts becoming more common or cruelties more rare.... We must not hate humanity, or despise humanity, or refuse to help humanity; but we must not trust humanity.... 'Put not your trust in princes or in any child of man.'" ~The Well and the Shallows

And so it is. The world is not our home, and so the betrayals and disappointments we suffer should drive us neither to despair nor to self-deception. We don't need to pretend that religious freedom is alive and well. We don't need to bemoan our fate for living "in such times." We only need, as Chaput concludes, one, total act of submission. But not to the world:

"We can’t change the direction of the world by ourselves or on our own. But that’s not our job. Our job—and especially your job as young leaders—is to let God change us, and then through us, God will change others and the world. We win the world by winning one soul at a time for Jesus Christ and his Church, starting with ourselves. We win the future by beginning right here, right now, in this time we have together.

"Ignorance of the world is a luxury we can’t afford. Being uninformed about the world and its problems and issues is a sin against our vocation as disciples. Love Jesus Christ as your brother and Lord. Love the Church as your mother. Know your faith, know the world and its struggles—and then open your hearts. Let God use you to bring others to the salvation that God intends for all of us."

Image source.

The Assumption of the Mary

2011-08-15T09:22:00.006-04:00

The Assumption! (Before I start, I just have to point out the icon to the left. I loved it because, at first glance, I thought it was Mary up in heaven throwing down a rope so that we could climb up to be with her. It's actually Thomas catching her girdle as she throws it down to him. Ah, well. It's still beautiful.)

Today we celebrate the pledge of the resurrection of our human bodies: our belief that God took his Mother, Mary of Nazareth, body and soul to heaven at the end of her life. As she is now, so we someday hope to be.

There is always some angst over this feast day. We Romans of the West tend to think of it as "something we have to believe" because Pius XII said it was so in 1950. This is not the case, as Pius himself emphasizes repeatedly in his declaration (which is in itself a masterful and fascinating survey of the history of Church liturgy and theology).

The reasons we--and our brethren in the Eastern Churches--believe that Mary now lives in her resurrected body in heaven are based on the living traditions of the Church--our understanding of Scripture (particularly Revelation 12), the ancient liturgies and Church fathers, and the evidence of the earliest Christian churches in the Holy Land. Wikipedia actually has an amazing run-down of the what the feast is and is not for both the East and the West.

What the feast is not, for the West, is the commemoration of Mary's death. Pius XII left that question open--Roman Catholics are not bound to believe either that Mary died before her resurrection or that she was directly assumed into heaven without suffering death. The Eastern Churches, in general, hold--but not dogmatically, as is their custom--that she did physically die and then was raised to heaven on the third day after the manner of Christ himself. Pius XII chose not to define that dogmatically, for reasons unknown to this Philosopher Mom. The question was also left open by some Church Fathers, so maybe Pius just didn't see himself as setting in stone what the ancients left to heaven.

The point of today is not dogma. It is not wrangling. It is this: "As the most glorious Mother of Christ, our Savior and God and the giver of life and immortality, has been endowed with life by him, she has received an eternal incorruptibility of the body together with him who has raised her up from the tomb and has taken her up to himself in a way known only to him." ~St. John Damascene

And this:

"When this mortal thing hath put on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: Death is swallowed up in victory." ~St. Paul

As she is, may we also be! And to end: This icon (below) is also a favorite. Look! It's Jesus holding his mom's little tiny soul! How much do I just want to swaddle up and nestle in his arms? So sweet. So real.

Save me, Lord.

2011-08-09T15:13:00.006-04:00

Today I remember, with the whole western lung of the Church, one of my Top 5 Gals: St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein): She wrote against Heidegger's claim that human life is an anxiety-ridden hurdling toward death. He made the case that the only "rational human attitude" is "a passionate ... consciously resolute and anxiety-stricken freedom toward death."

To which she replied: "By no means. The undeniable fact that my being is limited in its transience from moment to moment and thus exposed to the possibility of nothingness is counterbalanced by the equally undeniable fact that despite this transience, I a, that from moment to moment I am sustained in my being, and that in my fleeting being I share in [eternal] being. In the knowledge that being holds me, I rest securely. This security, however, is not the self-assurance of one who under her own power stands on firm ground, but rather the sweet and blissful security of a child that is lifted up and carried by a strong arm. And, objectively speaking, this kind of security is not less rational. For if a child were living in the constant fear that its mother might let it fall, we should hardly call this a rational attitude."

This reminds me (finally!) of that post I meant to write, based on a homily I heard this past weekend. That day was a darker day: I sat in a soaring, neo-Gothic church in old New Haven, cradling a sweet, sleepy Bella on my lap, lamenting my sins, nursing my grudges, and fighting back the latest anxiety attack and bout of depression. Rain fell gently outside, but my heart felt more like a hurricane. It seemed that all the water I'd been treading was covering my head again.

Then the priest climbed the high steps to read us the story of St. Peter's own walk on the storming waters of the Sea of Galilee. He saw Jesus walking toward the boat in which he and the other apostles were fighting the wind and waves. In a fit of love, zeal, and passion, he cried: "Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water!"

"Come."

Peter stepped with bravado out of that little boat, the brave saint among the cowering and sinful band of brothers. In that moment, surely he felt so confident and unafraid.

But then, life happened.

The winds and the rain, the waves--the storm overwhelmed him. He could not go on. He knew he was going to die, and he sank. "Lord, save me!" Jesus said, "O you of little faith, why did you doubt?" And he helped the sinking leader of the Church back into that beleaguered little boat.

This is the parable of every life: we begin with a fervent promise, our Jesus Prayer, "Lord, whatever you want me to do, I will do it!"

"Lord, I would gladly give my life for you!" (Peter himself says this later, too, before he falls so grievously on Good Friday.)

I remember those moments: the heady days of intense silent prayer, daily Adoration, daily Mass, the thrilling discovery of John Paul II's theology, the life-long commitments made in the madness of youth. And there was nothing insincere about them. We--all of us--meant it: we converted, we we threw out our birth control, we kept our vows, we quit that high-paying career path, we decided to tithe more than we could "afford," we humbled ourselves and begged forgiveness from those we hurt; we swallowed all insults and responded in love. And it was good, because we were following the very words of God himself.

What we did not realize in those first flushes of sanctity--and what no one could have prepared us for--was that, when we follow Christ, death is not a distant possibility. It is a certainty.

(Thank you, dear Dominican priest!)

When we did realize that our brave choice was costing us our lives, we faltered. Life happened. We suffered for those choices. Our humility was repaid with more insults. Our openness to life was repaid with heartbreak at the death of our children. Our fidelity was repaid with infidelity. Our sacrifice was mocked. We sank and cried for help.

Life did not feel like sanctity anymore. It felt like failure. Surely, we thought, we deserved condemnation. O me of little faith.

Todd asked me, "When you read that story, do you think Jesus was angry with Peter?"

No. I have never thought that. It sounds more like a parent's gentle chiding, "Why didn't you trust me? Here I am." And Peter accepted that reassurance. He took Christ's hand and got back in the boat.

But, the father reminded us, we don't stay in the boat anymore than we stay with the initial feeling of zeal. We get out of that boat again and again. We sink over and over again. And over and over, we hear that gentle reproach, "Why did you fear? I am with you."

I would step out into the storm a million times to hear that voice every day. I know that voice: I have heard it in the darkest moments, at the point where I just want it all to end. Why does he visit us only in those moments? No, he is always there--after all, he was the one who called us to walk on water (impossible) in the first place. He watched our first, confident steps; he saw our sinking.

It was only when I sank that I wanted to hear him again, that I knew my limitless need. And his eternal mercy.

So, like Edith Stein, I want to respond to all the false bravado of our age. It is not in ridding ourselves of anxiety by our own firm resoluteness. It is in being held, like a child, that we can bear the transience of life, the endless changes, the suffering.

Save me, Lord.

2011-08-09T15:13:00.005-04:00

"Come."

Peter stepped with bravado out of that little boat, the brave saint among the cowering and sinful band of brothers. In that moment, surely he felt so confident and unafraid.

But then, life happened.

This is the parable of every life: we begin with a fervent promise, our Jesus Prayer, "Lord, whatever you want me to do, I will do it!"

"Lord, I would gladly give my life for you!" (Peter himself says this later, too, before he falls so grievously on Good Friday.)

What we did not realize in those first flushes of sanctity--and what no one could have prepared us for--was that, when we follow Christ, death is not a distant possibility. It is a certainty.

(Thank you, dear Dominican priest!)

Life did not feel like sanctity anymore. It felt like failure. Surely, we thought, we deserved condemnation. O me of little faith.

Todd asked me, "When you read that story, do you think Jesus was angry with Peter?"

It was only when I sank that I wanted to hear him again, that I knew my limitless need. And his eternal mercy.

Stomach bug....

2011-08-08T10:09:00.004-04:00

...is when you have three brilliant ideas for posts. And then can't think of them in the least. One had to do with Peter sinking, another with the ecumenical councils, and one is about the skunks we smell but never see.

Ah, well. Brilliance strikes like lightening, but rarely at the keyboard.

But I do remember this: Happy feast of St. Dominic!

Many blessings of joy and grace to all my dear Dominican friends, near and far. To Sr. Anna, Sr. Alexandra, Sr. Beatrice, Sr. Mary David, the Ann Arbor sisters, and Fr. Shanley, Fr. John Paul, Fr. Jonathan, and all those Dominicans we're getting to know at St. Mary's.

In honor of the Domini Canus, why not help this happy young lady become one of his daughters?

Hideous Kinky: Contra contraception.

2011-08-02T19:52:00.007-04:00

Yet another tragic chapter in our political landscape, and this one is a hot ticket: I haven't seen so many ignorant ridicules of the Catholic faith on Facebook since, well, since two weeks ago. The Philosopher Mom hasn't had a political commentary in a while, and I thought it was time to give it a go.

As I scratched my head and tried to think charitably about Washington's debt ceiling wrangles, the Obama's Health and Human Services yesterday announced mandatory copay-free contraceptive drugs and counseling for all new healthcare plans:

"The Affordable Care Act helps stop health problems before they start," HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in a statement announcing the guidelines. "These historic guidelines are based on science and existing literature and will help ensure women get the preventive health benefits they need."

Oooh! Preventive care! That sounds great: women will now have free access to preventing the Fate Worse Than Death, pregnancy.

But wait, Philosopher Mom, Sibelius promises that these guidelines are historic, because they are based on (1) science! and (2) literature! (by which she means scientific literature). New benefits will include:

• Well-woman visits (Great!)

• Screening for gestational diabetes (Good!)

• Human papillomavirus (HPV) DNA testing for women 30 years and older (Wonderful!)

• Counseling for sexually transmitted infections (I'm still on board.)

• Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) screening and counseling (Yes.)

• Breastfeeding support, supplies and counseling (Breast is best!)

• Domestic violence screening and counseling (Yes. Absolutely.)

• FDA-approved contraception methods and contraceptive counseling (Wha...)

Everything sounds good: Preventive care for STD's, HIV, HPV, and domestic violence. Breastfeeding is one of the best preventive measures against obesity, so science tells me.

But that third-to-last item doesn't fit in this list. Contraception is intended to prevent one thing, and one thing only: pregnancy. The assumption that pregnancy is a condition requiring prevention is barbaric, to say the least. The further assumption that it is in the state's interest to protect its citizens from pregnancy is totalitarian. These are philosophical objections, but medical appeals can also be made: even when approved by the FDA, the side-effects of some of the most common forms of hormonal birth control are, at best, sketchy.

Put philosophy and medicine aside, however. These measures are hardly a surprise, but are only a predictable symptom of our culture's general attitude toward female fertility (where are the calls for co-pay free vasectomies?).

The new guidelines are especially disturbing in their disregard for the public role played by religious institutions and devoutly religious members of society. The bottom line is here: “[U]nder the new rule, our [Catholic] institutions would be free to act in accord with Catholic teaching on life and procreation only if they were to stop hiring and serving non-Catholics,” says Cardinal Daniel DiNardo.

That is, in order to decline to provide contraceptives, an institution must prove that it (a) exists primarily to prosletyze; (b) employs primarily Catholics; and (c) serves only Catholics. While I have no illusions that most Catholic institutions will close en masse, the thought of even one such hospital or home for women being forced to turn out all non-Catholics is a tragic thought. Whether you ascribe to the Church's teaching on contraception or not, there is no doubt that these guidelines purposefully quarantine the Catholic (and Orthodox Jewish and devout Muslim) conscience. And that is a cause for concern to every American, fertile or infertile, sterilized or unsterilized.

But there is hope.

Because this has happened before. And we have the witness of those who stood firm in their conscience, without threat and without insult to their persecutors. They were mocked and misunderstood, by their co-workers and their families. But they remained faithful. They were more than faithful to a tenent: they allowed their hearts to break out of love for their country, their city, their friends. They did not condemn, but allowed themselves to be condemned by the world.

I will learn to love and to forgive. I will beg for the mercy of Christ. Because if I cannot love Kathleen Sebelius or Barack Obama, then my fidelity to any moral teaching is worthless.

My man.

2011-08-01T14:50:00.003-04:00

The Art of Manliness seems to be making a comeback in the margins of the Interweb. You can find, hidden in cyberspace, all sortsof blogs dedicated to the revival of such skills as classy tattoos, shaving with a badger bristle brush, and holding the door for the ladies (or just women, if ladies are in short supply). It's a subculture, and it's pretty cute.

One Catholic blog is devoted to Castiglione’s “sprezzatura,” sometimes translated as "noncholance," as outlined in his Renaissance work The Art of the Courtier. Castiglione writes that the true gentleman exudes this quality: I have found quite a universal rule which in this matter seems to me valid above all other, and in all human affairs whether in word or deed: and that is to avoid affectation in every way possible as though it were some rough and dangerous reef; and (to pronounce a new word perhaps) to practice in all thing a certain sprezzatura [nonchalance], so as to conceal all art and make whatever is done or said appear to be without effort and almost without any thought about it..."

I'm thinking that, from a lady's point of view, YES. There is something irresistable in the man who performs in a seemingly effortless way--appearing unpretentious and at ease in al things. This is true, I believe, about men I don't particularly like for other reasons, e.g., Frank Sinatra and John F. Kennedy. Is it sprezzatura that makes most male comics funnier than the women (Seriously. I'd watch Bill Cosby over Lucille Ball any day.)?

Thanks to a dear friend from long ago, I have a brief list of qualities in the true courtier. A guy can hardly exhibit the sprezzatura and still be a jerk, a dawdler, or a coward around the ladies. What think you?

Swift. This is not to say the masculine male is hasty, but rather that he doesn't Muck About. In romantic parlance, that means, "If you're going to marry the girl, ask her. If you're not, stop dating her."

Adroit, but Humble. It takes a person of considerable talent to not only court the lady, land the job, start the business, father the children, and hold the door, but also to do so with an effortlessness and humility that inspire others to seek their best.

Friend. He never fails to greet people with a smile and is ever ready to assist in times of sadness, confusion, or celebration. For those of us who know the Man personally, it is no understatement to call his friendship one of life’s privileges. And he's attentive to his mom.

Poised. While he always looks dapper, it is his grace of bearing and personal presence that truly reflect his inner self and make the stronger impression. In a time when many mistake accoutrements for the source of personal style, he reminds us that how we carry ourselves is just as (if not more) important.

Patron. His pursuits of objective truths through scientific study support his appreciation (and support) for endeavors in the arts and humanities, which—as he often reminds us—also speak to deep truths about humanity and God.

A whole man. Recognizing that we only know Truth insofar as we practice Truth, he is unabashedly devout, drawn to the Truth by the timeless “lens of Beauty” and the admiration of goodness. That worldview compels him to be actively involved in his country as a citizen and as a witness to the gift of all life.

Thank you to the men who are these things to us.

Best social commentary.

2011-07-31T16:46:00.001-04:00

My new favorite commercial... This is living.

Don't lose your groove.

2011-07-23T10:04:00.001-04:00

This is just phenomenal from Like Mother, Like Daughter. It is enough.

Baby worship...

2011-07-21T10:44:00.001-04:00

"THE two facts which attract almost every normal person to children are, first, that they are very serious, and, secondly, that they are in consequence very happy. They are jolly with the completeness which is possible only in the absence of humour. The most unfathomable schools and sages have never attained to the gravity which dwells in the eyes of a baby of three months old. It is the gravity of astonishment at the universe, and astonishment at the universe is not mysticism, but a transcendent common-sense. The fascination of children lies in this: that with each of them all things are remade, and the universe is put again upon its trial. As we walk the streets and see below us those delightful bulbous heads, three times too big for the body, which mark these human mushrooms, we ought always primarily to remember that within every one of these heads there is a new universe, as new as it was on the seventh day of creation. In each of those orbs there is a new system of stars, new grass, new cities, a new sea."

G.K. Cheserton, "The Defendant"

Another Mason-classical approach.

2011-07-21T10:04:00.003-04:00

A good friend recommended I look through the educational plan of St. Jerome Classical School in Maryland. Oh, wow. If anyone with more experience than I wants to help start one of these schools in the New Haven area, please let me know! I am only half-joking.

It's so good to know that schools like St. Jerome exist: for now, homeschooling is still our best option. But St. Jerome's plan will certainly help me with the tweaking I foresee in Ages of Grace.

Teaching the Kids, Part III

2011-07-18T20:21:00.006-04:00

I've been writing through our educational decisions for the year, and I'm at the point where it's time to consider particular curriculums out there. I've decided against piecemeal and making it up as I go--both because I'm lazy and I'm eager to learn. Most curricula have been designed by women (and men) who have taught their own children steadily, at home, for years. They've been there, they've invented that wheel. I want their wisdom, and I want my children to reap the benefits of wisdom wherever it can be found.

Charlotte Mason has always attracted me: I love the idea of learning through "living books," of bringing history and its characters into the home and imagination. I believe--and have found in my own education--that it is immersion in history through the imagination that makes all the disciplines attractive to the child. In living stories, I discovered the drama of the human condition, the redemption, the abyss of evil, and the heights of the divine: these exist and thrive in human history, in society, and in every human heart. I have these seeds in me: this was the thought the so enchanted me as a child through the living books of history.

I also ascribe wholly to the educational philosophy of Dorothy L. Sayers: that through the various stages of development, children revisit the same content again and again but with new capabilities and new skills. Hence, the tradition of the trivium and quadrivium.

So, I'm looking for a kind of smash-together Charlotte Mason/Classical approach. And I'm also a complete snob about art and music. It's true: I have a hard time swallowing those 19th-century prints of Jesus and St. Joseph wearing eye-shadow. A lot of poetry in Garlands of Grace is... just smooshy. I want strong beauty, masterful language, and work that has stood and will stand the test of time.

Unfortunately, a lot of Roman Catholic offerings are just saturated in books published between 1880 and 1960. Not that there's nothing good to be found in them: they have that blessed imprimatur. They really and truly are sincere and orthodox (little "o") in their fidelity to the Church. But there must be something better than catechisms and Church histories that use terms like "Hottentots" or "Negroes" (Could someone please write a 21st-century translation of Laux?). Again, these are great books and students who read them will receive a good education. But we can do better: I think I will either have to go much earlier or write my own (someday when I, too, am a seasoned homeschooler). Hence, my foray into an Orthodox curriculum.

In Evlogia's (Katherine Johnson's) new Ages of Grace, I'm hoping to find the tools to make that Mason-Sayers mesh while, at the same time, exposing my children to the ancient beauty of the Church (in both her lungs, East and West). The language of the Eastern liturgies, supplemented with our Western Liturgy of the Hours and Gregorian chant, is something I want them to hear. The power of the icon, the depth of the Church Fathers, the Jesus Prayer--these are a common heritage for East and West. Evlogia has made a sort of reconciliation possible.

I also love the concept of the history cycle: the six ages of the world, presented in three levels as the children grow, are a beautiful vehicle for understanding the movement of history and the story of salvation.

And, quite frankly, my budget for the year is: "$200, but it would be really good if you didn't spend more than $150." Yeah, a full-blown Catholic curriculum is not an option right now. I steal paper from neighbors' recycling bins. That's our budget.

Ages of Grace is entirely electronic, making it so much more manageable on a budget (Did I mention the interface is aesthetically gorgeous, too?). And our library consortium has all of the books in Level A. It's affordable, it's doable, and it will demand just enough tweaking on my part (as a Roman) to keep me from falling into the "workbook/checklist" mode.

I'm anticipating the need to substitute in a Roman calendar, but this should not be difficult given the plethora of calendar-based saints books for children in the Catholic tradition. I'm also very glad that she's starting in the "Middle Ages," so I'll have a couple of years to discern how best to teach the so-called Reformation, the Counter-Reformation, and the post-Schism councils.

I'll let you know how it goes. And, I'm not an expert. I'm just a nerd with Internet access and a love of the true, the good, and the beautiful. Sayers says we are all entitled to have educational opinions: "There is also one excellent reason why the veriest amateur may feel entitled to have an opinion about education. For if we are not all professional teachers, we have all, at some time or another, been taught. Even if we learnt nothing--perhaps in particular if we learnt nothing--our contribution to the discussion may have a potential value."

Suggestions and encouragement welcome: you were, at some point, taught, too.

Image source: Blanche Fisher White.

Image source: Icon

OOPS! Update: Thanks, Dianna, for catching my blooper. I meant to link to Seton, not Catholic Heritage. Corrected.

Teaching the Kids, Part II

2011-07-15T15:58:00.000-04:00

So, first I had to (still have to) reassure my self that I can teach my own children. Even if I yell at them. A lot.

Next, the question arises: How am I going to do this?

My singleton brother, who has done some pretty amazing things, gave me the admonition: "KISS" (Keep It Simple, Stupid). And, yes, he's right. It is very simple: Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on us, sinners. I want to give my children the tools they need for two things: to wonder at all times and to pray in every circumstance. With these tools, they will be able to be holy and thus happy should they choose.

And now, the how.

My firstborn is only 6 years old. I know almost nothing about teaching my own children, in the home, day after day; I haven't had to get up in the morning and trudge through hours of mathematics with seven recalcitrant children whose intellects have been darkened and their wills warped by the lingering effects of original sin. The days are coming, says the Lord.

In a way, however, I have been living in the world of home educators for at least six years (plus my own experience of being homeschooled for five years). The wonderful school at which I taught in Georgia, Regina Caeli Academy (do you want to start your own? The director offers seminars!), offered two days per week of seminar-type courses for home educated students. I taught the Mother of Divine Grace curriculum (a 4C: comprehensive, classical, Catholic curriculum) at the 6th through 12th grade levels, with a few dabbles in earlier elementary. Through the teacher training and classroom experience there, as well as through friendships up and down the East Coast, I feel like I've been handed an ocean of homeschool techniques and methods, book lists and syllabi.

There is so much to sift through and think about! A nerd's paradise (that's me)! A party girl's nightmare.

Before I actually had to make decisions about teaching Miriam, I loved to dabble here and there, reading about various sources. I wanted to try everything--unschooling with National Geographic! Charlotte Mason with Flower Fairies! Neo-classical entirely in Latin! But my child is not my in vita experiment. She--both by temperament and by her human nature--needs some sort of stability, some consistency, some theme in her education. Life will happen, and plans will have to change. But her little person is not my playground for indulging my latest book-fed whim.

At the beginning of last year I was ready to piece together my own curriculum. This is what a lot of moms do, and it works well. Between chronic pain, a newborn, moving, and some serious postpartum depression, however, I ended up abandoning all planning time and then feeling guilty for not "really teaching" her anything. We made it through about half of the Saxon math curriculum (and really only completing about 30% of each lesson) and 75 lessons of Teach Your Child to Read. The rest was painting, crafts, and saying, "Go outside and bring me a rock that you like." But you know, I think she's doing fine. Lesson learned: a first grader who falls in the middle of that learning spectrum (i.e., is basically "normal"--ah! I said it!) can pretty much un-school and be quite happy.

While she did well, I'm the one who's going to need a little more help now. With three small children, I'm not going to be creating my own Spanish course, hymn study, nature journals, scopes and sequences, or coming up with enough glitter-crafts to distract a 3-year-old for 20 minutes while I plan the second grader's next lesson. Not that a second-grader needs much planning. In the grand scheme of things, if I read to her from the Scriptures, take her outdoors, bring her to Mass, and maybe play with numbers, she'll figure out what she needs to figure out. But I need some visible goals, some visible results.

Piecemeal schooling works well for some families. It worked well for us during a year of health problems, financial stress, and a new baby. Now, however, I feel the energy coming back: This is a year to practice some discipline in myself and some intentional planning.

So, for the busy mom who doesn't have time to plan, that means it's time to look at what someone else has already planned.

That's next.

We interrupt this broadcast...

2011-07-15T10:11:00.003-04:00

I was sitting down to write some more about our homeschooling decisions for this year (preview: We're going Orthodox! Not ecclesially, only curriculum-ly.).

But I was distracted. Online. Can you imagine?

Inspired by a snippet on Ancient Faith Radio, I found this amazing collection called Prayers by the Lake, written by Nicolai Velimirovic, a Serbian monk. They are a beautiful reflection, before God, on the ways in which creation can lead us to the Creator.

This is from Prayer 16 (I've chopped out the "brood of vipers" litany, but you can read the whole thing here if you're feeling a need for a reminder of your wretchedness):

"Arise O sons of the Sun of God! Arise, the merciful sun has risen and has begun to pour its light lavishly over the dark fields of the earth. It has risen to set you free from sleep's gloom and terror.

Your sins of yesterday are not written out on the sun. The sun does not remember or seek revenge for anything. On its face there are no wrinkles from your forehead, nor is there any sadness, envy, or sorrow. Its joy lies in giving, its youth-- its rejuvenation -- lies in serving. Blessed are those who serve, for they shall not grow old.

What if the sun were to imitate you, my neighbors? How little light it would shed on earth, you misers! ....

Oh how fortunate it is for the world that the sun will never imitate you, O sons and daughters of earth!

Indeed, the sun does not know many things as you do, but it does know two things eternally: that it is a servant and a symbol. It knows that it is a servant of the One who kindled it and that it is a symbol of the One who put it at His service.

Be servants of the One who illuminates you with the sun on the outside and with Himself on the inside, and you will taste the sweetness of eternal youth.

Be a symbol of the One who put you among the animals of the earth, and you will surpass the radiance of the sun. Truly all the animals around you will swim in happiness beneath the rays of your goodness, even as moons swim around suns.

Yet what are the sun and all the stars except piles of ashes, through which You shine, O Son of God? Piles of ashes that lessen Your radiance and sift it through themselves like a thick sieve? For indeed, in Your full radiance nothing would be seen except You, just as in total darkness nothing is seen except darkness. ...

You alone know the measure of our needs, O Lord, glory to You!"

Teaching the Kids, Part I

2011-07-13T09:38:00.004-04:00

I've written about my reasons for homeschooling before: I believe in togetherness, respect for individuality and contemplation, personal attention, integrity of life, letting children care, and giving children time to be children and parents time to be parents. This is not to say that these principles can't be found in other education systems, but I truly believe that homeschooling gives us the time --raw minutes and hours -- to focus on childhood and learning. And I get to design my own uniforms (check out the painting to the right! I think I'll go for ridiculous lengths of red robes this time!). Just kidding. I'm lucky if we're all dressed by 11am.

Seriously, though, it's time for me to think about homeschooling again: goals, theories, and practical decisions. It's that time of year when mothers and fathers everywhere turn to thoughts of, "OHMIGOSH! It's the middle of July! It will soon be AUGUST!" Walmart was Back-to-School ready last week. Writing is how I process and make decisions, so here it goes.

Now, we must begin with a confession: School is fun for me. I love to pour over the books and possible curricula, I love to make maps and timelines, and I love love love to practice Gregorian chant and purchase beautiful art prints. This is because I am a nerd: Facebook is my crack, and books are my stiff drink at the end of a long day.

You do not, however, have to be a nerd to homeschool. You may hate graphs and charts. Lists of books and the course syllabus for 1st grade Math may give you hives. You may have flunked Algebra I. You are still the best teacher for your child (especially in the early elementary years) simply because you are Mom or Dad. If you can read Little Bear, you can teach first grade.

So, as I write about my decisions and thought-processes over the next few weeks, please don't think I'm especially suited to teaching my children. I'm not. I yell at them daily, I lose my temper. I love books; I'm not so good at housecleaning. I'm really good at finding saints' biographies; I'm not a saint myself.

The only qualification I have to teach my children is this: They have been entrusted to our care by their Creator. He who puts us to the task will give us the strength to do it: if we are called to educate them at home, we can. Period. Those are qualifications I share with every parent out there, nothing special to see here, folks.

First Friday.

2011-07-08T13:56:00.002-04:00

The madness of the move!

I was convinced that today was the first Friday in July, but found it to be the second. I was sure it was Saturday, but then it was Friday. The second Friday.

I woke up thinking I was in Georgia, but I was in CT (I'm still not ready to try and spell that).

I dressed thinking I still lived in the woods, but Todd reminded me that our bedroom window looks into ... the neighbor's bedroom window. Oops.

It is good to be here and to start what we hope to be our life in a permanent location (Deo gratias), but we are all a little disoriented. So, instead of a blog post weighing the responsibilities and gifts of a Roman Catholic using an Orthodoc curriculum; instead of a post contemplating the meaning of mortal sin; instead of wondering about the human condition, its application to 3-year-old angst, and the repercussions of sleeplessness on my NFP charts...

I give you, TS Eliot:

Here is a place of disaffection

Time before and time after

In a dim light: neither daylight

Investing form with lucid stillness

Turning shadow into transient beauty

With slow rotation suggesting permanence

Nor darkness to purify the soul

Emptying the sensual with deprivation

Cleansing affection from the temporal.

Neither plenitude nor vacancy. Only a flicker

Over the strained time-ridden faces

Distracted from distraction by distraction

Filled with fancies and empty of meaning

Tumid apathy with no concentration

Men and bits of paper, whirled by the cold wind

That blows before and after time,

Wind in and out of unwholesome lungs

Time before and time after.

~"Burnt Norton," s. III

Today's prayer.

2011-06-30T14:58:00.004-04:00

Feeling grateful. Because I have seen that, without him, I could lose him.

If time were ever to wear you away
If circumstance should blind me
If age should bring a dark night on my soul
If fear and doubt should bind me

Please stir my heart
Take me back to the fire
Bring to me a recollection of joy
Renew my first desire

If pains and trials come to me
And I cannot stand strong
If fools adjust my theories
To believe Your truth is wrong

I swear it never will happen to me
But how can I know
For Peter swore the same to Thee
O, hear the cock crow.

~Sara Groves

Love, power, and Hans.

2011-06-28T14:59:00.004-04:00

I've been thinking a lot lately about love and how to communicate love. One of the biggest catalysts has been the debate over same-sex marriage in New York: I think the debate points to some disagreements so fundamental that we, as a society, have lost the ability to even have this debate. And so, there is no debate: There is, in the end, only power.

But power is not credible. Power is not satisfying, I believe, even to the one who holds it. Love alone is credible, and as a civilization I believe we have lost who love is: the true, the good, and the beautiful.

And, hey! I've read books about love... So here, with a few revisions is a re-post of my analysis of the third chapter of Hans Urs von Balthasar's Love Alone is Credible.

Hans presents two approaches to speaking of the love of God.

Eros. First, we can begin to think in terms of personalism: One person cannot presume to master intellectually another person's gift of love. I can't break down my husband's love empirically or even explain it in terms of his "humanity"--the minute I do, I lose him.

Beauty. The second approach to love is through beauty. "In the experiences of extraordinary beauty--whether in nature or in art--we are able to grasp a phenomenon in its distinctiveness that otherwise remains veiled. We encounter something we could not have invented, but which is nevertheless deeply compelling. It satisfies us in a way we could not have satisfied ourselves.

These two approaches are, of course, just "signs." Von Balthasar emphasizes that, unlike a piece of art, God's love is not something "produced," nor does it exist in order to "fill my need." But both eros and beauty come together and are transcended by God's revelation of his love.

Divine love replaces human love as "agape"; divine beauty is "glory." Von Balthasar insists that both terms are needed for us to perceive that majesty of divine love: because it is beauty, it possesses an authority. When this authority shows itself, it demands our obedience; we long to be obedient when we see it, because it is at once so glorious and so intimate.

He has a beautiful little meditation on authority in the middle of the chapter--addressing the authority of the ecclesial office (bishops), the Scriptures, and the "living proclamation of the Word." All three, he says, are "merely word." They do not take on flesh until God himself takes on flesh: "The sole authority is the Son, who interprets the Father in the Holy Spirit as divine Love."

The authorities we obey here on earth have authority in obedience to Christ's mission. They--the Church--"prepare man to perceive the manifestation of God's love and to give it its due." This is a lovely way to think about Church authority and all the "rules" and doctrines; they have authority insofar as they exist to prepare us to see God face-to-face.

Von Balthasar leaves us with a warning: We must interpret Christian revelation "either wholly in terms of the self-glorification of absolute love or else we simply fail to understand it."

Receiving the beauty of love--the glorious majesty of God--requires the eyes of faith, eyes that neither presume too much nor shrug with false simplicity.

On groaning.

2011-06-28T14:20:00.004-04:00

Ah, I love those desert fathers. They are always groaning. Unlike me, however, in their groaning they hear a voice:

I saw the snares that the enemy spreads out over the world and I said groaning, "What can get through from such snares?" Then I heard a voice saying to me, "Humility."

~St. Anthony the Great

Myself and not myself: Bringing back skepticism.

2011-06-23T10:47:00.007-04:00

The postpartum depression diagnosis introduced me to the world of psychotherapy and psychoanalysis. I went, curious but reluctant. I associate psychology with Freud and Jung, not bad men, but perhaps superficial men.

On the other hand, I know self-knowledge has always been an important part of the Judeo-Christian tradition. If we do not know our true condition, how can we undergo that transformation, that metanoia, from misery into joy? So much of our human suffering is rooted in isolation: from others, from creation, and from ourselves. Redemption begins when the divine life bridges those chasms between us: knowledge and love of all that the Father has created makes us at once more like God in his knowing and in his joy. Depression healed.

And so, I began the sessions with a secular psychologist with a mixture of apprehension and hope. At that point in my struggle, my basic instinct was, "Why the heck not? Self-knowledge tells me: I need help!" I had no idea what to expect or what that help would look like.

The beginning sessions were familiar: Know thyself.

Naming my demons (only figurative demons; she is, after all, a secular psychologist!) was the order of the day. Anger, envy, self-hatred... We examined various situations I found myself in, and I tried to uncover hidden emotions or "narratives" that were expressing themselves in depressive thoughts and behaviors.

All good. It was even fun to spend an hour every week just examining my conscience, even if the doctor couldn't absolve my sins.

But then.

I began to notice that we were hitting a wall. Every time I would regale her with a story of angry feelings, she would listen and say, "Good for you!" I would mention that I told my husband I felt angry: "Good for you!" Hidden anger was bad. Expressing my anger was good, she explained, because I would name it for what it was. It would no longer have the power to depress me or manifest itself in chronic pain.

Then she counseled me: "You need to tell Todd (or person x, y, or zed) that you feel angry. Don't try to explain it or fix it. Just tell him and ask him to know your anger with you. Be transparent."

"I don't want to always be angry," I said. "I hope to someday receive all these stresses of life with more grace. More graciously."

She smiled and fretted, "Oh, dear."

The message was: This anger is your self. Receive yourself. Express yourself. Do not allow anyone or any religion or any code to suggest that your experience of yourself is untrue or deficient. It is what it is. Be. Any attempt to transform yourself will mean more pain, more depression.

Again, this all sounded vaguely familiar. There is that strain in Christian thought, too: God accepts us as we are. We come to him broken, and he sees our brokenness and has mercy.

She, "Have mercy on yourself, just like you believe God has mercy on you."

My self. My experience. My truth.

So, I bit the apple. I took that fruit and ate it.

It was death. Not to be too dramatic here, but that self-affirmation almost literally the death of all love. Once I started down that path of "express your anger," "receive all your emotions as gifts," I felt great. It felt good to just let it all out, like a 3-year-old at the end of a long grocery trip. "You make me feel trapped! I feel rage! Don't take this personally, it's not your fault, but dammit am I angry with you!"

That is not love.

You see, I began to notice that the "truth of my experience" was that I expressed my feelings and let it all just hang out precisely when love called for discretion. The truth of my experience was that I stayed silent and failed to express joy exactly at those moments when charity demanded I speak. The truth of my experience of self is that myself is unreliable, weak, and destructive. Left to myself, everything I touch will turn sour, because I touch with both love and hate, joy and anger, healing and cruelty.

Because myself is fallen. That is the truth of myself. My sweet, lovable, sister Ass self --and I do love myself, both with a perverse and a true love-- is in desperate need of more than herself.

I returned to the psychologist's office one last time before we moved away forever.

I gave her a biography of Teresa of Avila, who knew both light and darkness and chose the light. And I said, "I believe suffering is an essential part of the human condition. I cannot escape it."

"Good," she smiled.

"And I believe I can be changed. I can in future receive suffering more graciously because of the life that is in me."

"Oh, dear," she fretted and shook her head. We parted in disagreement. I'm sure she's expecting to land right back on another leather couch within months. I may. I may not.

I do not believe those hours on her couch (yes! I actually sat on a leather couch!) were wasted. In fact, in a sense I found myself. But instead of naming myself holy, I named myself wretched. Along with acceptance of my wretchedness, I rediscovered my true and unfailing hope. The fulfillment of hope is not in me, but in something outside of myself.

How is it that any therapy --without reference to repentance or transformation-- could touch and heal the effects of that original wound in my soul?

I reject the idea that myself is immutable, unchanging, something I can abase only at my peril. I am more than pop-psychology can affirm; the psychologist has no idea how fearfully and wonderfully I am made. I turn instead to the Author of myself, who is not myself. He is greater. He is the awful, awesome, loving Father, who alone is perfect and who alone is holy. The eternal Word, the Logos, the Crucified One who lives and through whom all things have their being. The Paracletus, the Comforter, and Spirit. The three in one and one in three.

I reject self-actualization in favor of being a creature. I'd much rather my being be written by him --a God like the God of the Scriptures-- than by me. A healthy self-skepticism alone allows me to freely--and without any fear--submit once again to his healing touch.

A self-skeptic's Bibliography:

Frederica Matthews-Green, "Self and Skepticism" podcast

Peggy Noonan, John Paul the Great

The Sayings of the Desert Fathers

Blaise Pascal, The Pensees

Of fathers and Trinity.

2011-06-19T09:57:00.003-04:00

Jeffrey Goldberg shares an inimitably tragic and glorious tale of a father's martyrdom. The story of Thomas Vander Woude's plunge into a septic tank to save his drowning son moves the heart as few others can.

Not every father is faced with the choice to either let his son drown in sewage or drown in sewage himself. But I believe every true father--every father who chooses to live his fatherhood--can identify with Thomas's brave decision. The gift of life may begin at conception, but the father continues always to give life--abundant life--to his child.

This is true of those priests who constantly die to themselves in order that we might live the sacramental life.

This is true of those adoptive fathers who give more abundant life to an abandoned child.

This is true of the Father of Lights, from whom every good and perfect gift comes. He made us, we belong to him, and he constantly holds us in being.

As Thomas held his son above his own submerged head.

Fatherhood is manhood, and manhood is fatherhood. I can think of no greater testimony to the power of grace and the beauty of human nature than the father who loves his children.

A blessed Trinity Sunday to all our fathers, of all kinds.

This

A Hiding Place.

2011-06-11T14:20:00.003-04:00

The holding pattern has broken, and the Ahern clan is living... all over New England for the next month. Our worldly possessions (the least important part) are holed up in North Haven, CT. The Scientist Dad will be living and working in Amherst, MA. And the girls and I are up in the wilds of NH, enjoying the finer things in life at my parents' home.

I have always told my mom that, even long after her last child left for college, that she is still a stay-at-home mother. She chose not to pursue a career outside the home with her free time. She finished a Master's degree in theology and makes beautiful art on commission. She creates a home. And she has remained available to her grown children.

Together, she and my father have made for us a hiding place: a place, or sometimes a phone conversation, to which we can withdraw with our burdens and cares and fears. They are a place, a home, a conversation of love where we can enter without fear of any sort of rejection. They are there. And as my father is working and bringing home the bacon, as it were, mom's frying it in the kitchen.

Ah. Metaphors are not my strong suite.

How beautiful, though. We have relied on them for many material gifts over the years of grad school, illness, and sundry. There is no greater gift, however, I could have asked than this home. All my mother's years of daily grind for her are, for me, a joy and rest. I realize when I am with her that all the days that are, for me, grind and stress in my own home will be, for my own children, an unsurpassable gift.

Nothing was wasted. All was grace and love. In my hiding place with them, I have hope.

Holding pattern.

2011-05-31T14:41:00.002-04:00

We're gearing up for another major move in the next few days--this time from MA to NH for a month. Then it's down south to central CT, where the Scientist Dad has landed a cushy professorship (doesn't that sound grand?). We're hoping and praying that this move is a move toward home.

Meanwhile, the madness of planning, packing, and sorting has descended. The kids are a little discomforted, I'm relapsing into stress-mode, and it's hot. We're in holding pattern, just waiting and counting down the days.

At first, I was just sad. Western MA has got to be one of the most beautiful places I've been blessed to live. I don't want to leave, even for the golden egg of a tenure-track position. Then I was angry: What the heck? Another move? Then mad at myself: And why is this bothering me so much? I chose this life. Suck it up, Momma!

I'm still sad and mad, but starting to feel the anticipation of a new life. The idea of really being able to set down roots somewhere (even in suburban CT) is so appealing. That restless, insatiable desire of the heart for a real home is giving me the strength to keep packing.

In the wee hours, I try to turn that desire and exhaustion to heaven, our final home. It's not that hard to do: it is a common (and possibly universal) human tendency. We long for home.

As we approach the end of the Easter/Pascha season and the great feasts of the Ascension and Pentecost, the whole trajectory of the Christian mystery comes into view. The long, dark Lent and the radical light of the resurrection -- they've all pointed to this moment when the Lord rises into heaven to receive his crown. The fruit of this mystery is hope: And hope does not disappoint.

I haven't seen much of our new home in CT. I have heard good things, but am still stepping into the unknown. Another death: another resurrection. "Eye has not seen, ear has not heard, what God has prepared for those who love him."

Miriam the Philosopher.

2011-05-23T15:49:00.003-04:00

Miriam offered to do the dishes last week, and I figured that a little splashing in the sink wouldn't hurt anyone. To my delight, she actually washed them effectively! She has been happily doing my lunch dish work for the last few days. She's thrilled to be a big girl. I'm thrilled to let her do the dishes.

As she approaches 6 years old (oh, wow), she's also becoming quite the existentialist.

If you have any answers (that do not involve Sartre) to the following, please let me know.

Miriam the Platonist: "Mummy? If Daddy had married a different Mummy, would I be Miriam?"

Miriam the Thomist: "Mummy. If God had not made me to be me, who would I have been?"

Bella (3 years old): "Miwiam is so silly!"

Miriam the Wittgensteinian: "Mummy? If Daddy had married a different Mummy, would he live in this house?"

Miriam the Aristotelian: "Mummy. Why is the world so wonderful?"

Mummy the Husserlian: "Mummy! When I am not here, the trees will still be here!"

Yes to everything.

2011-05-19T14:40:00.000-04:00

This is a re-post from last year's Lent (so long ago...). I've been reacquainting myself with my Mother in heaven. Or rather, she's been chasing me down lately. As May draws to a close, I wanted to honor her.

One of my Lenten disciplines will be to renew my consecration to Jesus through Mary in the mode of Louis de Montfort. The plan (emphasis on "plan") is to post the daily reflections (not all the prayers, though!) here. The three-week period of preparation starts this Thursday, March 4, but here's a little Marian reflection from Hans to get us going.

He's been discussing the foundation of contemplation, which is a listening to the Word of God in Scripture and the person of Christ.

He writes:

"The hearer par excellence is the virgin, who becomes pregnant with the Word and bears it as her Son and the Father's. As for herself, even as Mother she remains a handmaid; the Father alone is Lord, together with the Son who ish er life and who fashions it... She still carries him within herself, even after she has given birth to him; to find him, all she has to do is look into her heart, which is full of him."

I love the image of a virgin--a sort of symbol of purity, of a person who is completely emptied of all else (including herself) in order to be "full of him." Certainly it is an elevated vision of virginity, and not one we encounter on primetime!

He continues:

"With all the strength she can muster she listens to this Word as it grows more and more vast, divine and seemingly alien; its dimensions almost tear her asunder, yet it is for this, for everything, that she gave her consent right at the start. She lets herself be led where she 'does not wish to go'--so far is the Word she follows from being her own wisdom."

This section--right in the middle of a discourse on virginity!--speaks to me so much as a married woman trying to follow the Church's teaching (which is the Word of God in a certain form) on spousal love and fertility. Isn't it just a learning what my original vows meant? Every time I am led "where I do not wish to go" in this married life, I must remember that it was "for this, for everything, that I gave my consent right at the start."