On Giants' Shoulders

Life Among "Arians"

2012-01-10T07:28:00.000-08:00

In my last post I talked about the word "consubstantial" and how people like St. Basil and St. Athanasius fought against the Arians to retain that concept. Life among the Arians wasn't easy. Catholics who fought for the doctrine that all orthodox Christians now hold to were martyred, persecuted, and exiled. Today we are beginning to see what it's like to live in a culture where orthodox Christianity is reviled.

For a long time it's been possible for us to co-exist with people whose version of Christianity is little more than a warm fuzzy memory. Recently, however, things have gotten a whole lot dicier. In my own extended family there are those who are pro-gay marriage, and vocally so. These views are expressed with absolute contempt for people (especially Christians) who hold any other view. We are not held to be merely of differing opinions (which was how my mother would have been treated by my Methodist pastor cousin's family). We are held to be wrong, evil, uncharitable, monstrous. This morning there was a pretty nasty post on a social network by one of my family members. That's what really inspired me to write this.

Now I realize that my cousins don't really hate me. If we sat down in person and avoided controversial topics they would treat me as kindly as they ever did. I suspect that even if we spoke about the controversial topics they would still treat me kindly. However, in other arenas with broad brush strokes they paint those of us who believe what has always and everywhere been believed by Christians as somehow less than Christian. They have, like those who followed Arius, bowed to the popular culture. The "emperor" is "Arian", thus being "Arian" is not only the safe thing to be, the popular thing to be, but in their eyes it is the obvious and right thing to be.

I'm sure they would see it differently. I'm sure that those Methodists, Congregationalists, Episcopalians etc. who embrace gay marriage don't see themselves as walking away from Trinitarian faith. Yet, they seem to forget that it was Jesus who spoke very definitely of what marriage was. If Jesus was wrong there, if He, who never bent to popular culture, was merely bending to popular culture then, what does this say about His omniscience or His honesty? It's far easier at this point in time to bend to the popular will. It was far easier in St. Athanasius's time to be an Arian.

I'm about to read Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman's book about the Arian period in history. It seems to me a good way to remind myself that it's not the first time that orthodox doctrine has been ridiculed. Standing with St. Basil, St. Athanasius, and St. Nicholas may not be popular today any more than in their day. I'm pretty sure, however, that this is where Christians who hold to the historic faith are standing.

Some nearly 25 years ago now I made the observation that it looked as if in my grandchildren's time only the Catholic Church would stand for historic Christianity. I made that observation when I would have still identified myself as solidly evangelical Protestant. I had no interest in becoming Catholic, and I was rather annoyed that it seemed to me that this would be the only option for my grandchildren. Less than 10 years later I found myself standing in the front of a Catholic Church being received as a convert. Now I am thrilled that my grandchildren will be Catholic and I am doing my very best to help my daughter and her husband pass the Catholic faith on to their little girl. I may not always like some of the actions of the hierarchy. I may get very annoyed at the way in which some bishops don't actually follow all of the teachings of the Church. I may be profoundly tired of diocesan flunkies who sometimes are more concerned about the way they look to the well heeled among us, than about following the teachings of the Church about a just wage. Believe me I don't have blinders on. At the end of the day, however, I still know that the Church teaches faithfully, even when some of her shepherds fall down on the job.

I'm sure that for a lot of my extended family, as it is for the culture at large, to stand with all of those Church fathers is simply to be old fashioned, and out of touch. They believe that the Church must move with the times, must interpret the faith in a new way. They believe they are acting with compassion and that those who oppose them are acting out of hate. They cannot see the concern for souls that our opposition includes.

My petition for this week is St. Athanasius, St. Basil, St. Nicholas pray for us. We need your prayers because our culture is in deep deep trouble, and unfortunately much of my family has embraced the culture rather than the faith.

That's a Fighting Word

2011-12-14T07:39:00.000-08:00

This morning I finished reading a slightly fictionalized biography of St. Athanasius on my Kindle. Towards the end of the book there was a conversation between St. Basil and a man named Modestus. Modestus says to St. Basil "Would you not like to have the emperor in your congregation. It would be so easy. You have only to strike that word "consubstantial" out of your creed."

St. Basil's reply is not harsh, but it is courageous: "Gladly would I see the Emperor in my church; it is a great thing to save a soul; but as for changing my creed, I would not alter a letter for the whole world."

St. Basil and St. Athanasius lived in a time when the Arian heresy was popular in many parts of the empire. As a matter of fact the emperor himself, at that time, was an Arian. St. Basil and St. Athanasius understood how important to the faith a correct understanding of the nature of Our Lord is.

Recently the English version of the Mass has been retranslated to more closely reflect the Latin text. One of the changes in the translation occurs in the creed. Previously we said "one in being with the Father." Now we say consubstantial with the Father. Some people are most upset about this. They aren't familiar with the word. Perhaps they don't understand the concept. What they don't appear to know is that this was a word that Christians in the years following the Council of Nicea fought over. Blood was shed, Catholic Christians were martyred because they insisted that the Son was eternal, just as the Father was eternal.

Today there are lots of sects where the doctrine of the consubstantiality of the Son is either denied (as in the Mormon religion, or the Unitarian religion) or in many cases merely glossed over. There are lots of members of the United Church of Christ (some of them pastors)for example who don't view Jesus as much more than a great teacher (the followers of Islam see Him as the last of the great prophets, second only to Mohammed). Orthodox Christian believers, however, are still creedal and they still proclaim Jesus consubstantial with the Father. I don't want to pick on the UCC, it just happens that I know some of those parishoners, and I've met some of those pastors. So I can speak from personal knowledge there.

I think that it's an extremely good thing that people are now being forced to have their tongues stumble over consubstantial. I hope that some of them will actually decide to look it up and see what it means. I hope that people will actually become better catechized as a result.

We don't belong to an individualistic faith. We don't belong to a Church where everyone gets to write their own definition of what it means to be a Christian. Yet we live in a world where that very practice is not only common, but popular. "Mega churches" feed into that very practice. In attempting to be "seeker friendly" they water down the message of the Gospel in order to appeal to the lowest common denominator. They think of things like communion as times where people can declare a commitment not as sources of grace. Now since they don't have a valid Eucharist, that truly is pretty much all they can offer, but unfortunately there are those even within the Catholic Church for whom individualistic approaches to faith really has an appeal. They don't like the priests who discuss doctrine in their homilies, much less the ones who are tough on sin. What they prefer are the ones who tell nice stories with a Hallmark greeting card, or Helen Steiner Rice soothing message. The Christians of St. Athanasius's day weren't like that. They knew what was at stake if you watered down the truth of the Gospel. That's why for them consubstantial was a fighting word. Today when it's a fighting word it's merely because people don't understand it, or perhaps it's because when they do come to understand it they realize that it wasn't exactly what they'd been believing all this time.

There are no new heresies, there are only old heresies with new names. Let's embrace the new translation and be happy that people may actually become acquainted with both the fighting word and the doctrine it makes clear. Oh, in case you'd like to read that book about St. Athanasius the title is Saint Athanasius: The Father of Orthodoxy, the author is Francis Alice Forbes and it's available for a click of a button on your Kindle.

Forgotten Author

2011-12-11T15:51:00.000-08:00

I mentioned RH Benson in my last post. I have been so enjoying some of his books on Kindle. This morning I stayed in bed about 20 minutes extra so that I could finish The King's Achievement. It's a wonderful story about the period of time in England when Henry VIII is dissolving the religious houses, and insisting that the English Church answers to him. The family at the center of the story has two daughters and two sons. One son becomes a trusted aid to Cromwell, and the other becomes a monk and then a priest. One daughter becomes a nun, the other marries another faithful Catholic (albeit a fairly hot headed one). The father remains faithful to the Pope, his wife is inclined to be faithful only to the king. Tension thus arises not only in the country, but in the family as well. It's a beautifully told story, and really highlights the difficulty faced by those people who found themselves suddenly seen as traitors for merely living the faith in the way it had been lived for centuries. If you want to see English history of that period through the eyes of characters who are living in it, this is an excellent read. You'll find well crafted characters, and get some good historical perspective at the same time.

Benson is better known for his novel The Lord of the World. This is actually one of the first of the dystopia novels of the 20th century. I actually did this one with a group of homeschoolers a few years back and we all enjoyed it thoroughly. Benson sort of contrasted his end of the world scenario in this one in his book The Dawn of All, but The Lord of the World seems to be the better known book.

I don't remember which of the Benson books were free and which ones cost a pittance. I just know that they are helping to make this Advent season an enjoyable one.

The Marvels of Kindle

2011-11-28T07:23:00.000-08:00

When I first became Catholic I got interested in reading older Catholic literature. I heard people talking or writing about authors like Robert Hugh Benson, G.K. Chesterton, Hillaire Belloc, Maurice Baring and others and I went in search for books. What I found was that the local library had none, Amazon had very few (generally expensive), and that the UVM library had a smattering (all in the annex which was difficult to access if you lived nearly 70 miles away). This summer I gave myself the gift of a Kindle. What I've discovered to my great delight is that the books I could never find (or never afford) are now available to me cheap. Many of them can be downloaded for free, some cost up to $5. Now I'm sure that I'm not alone in loving RH Benson, etc., but I'm also sure that probably they don't make the Kindle best seller's list (they don't even appear in the top 100 list on free Kindle books). I have to say though I am now drowning in riches. I just read Benson's conversion story, have downloaded his By What Authority (and am part way through it), have Newman's Callista waiting for me, etc., etc.

It's really neat when the books you most wanted to read are in the public domain and available literally at the touch of a finger. I still love actual print books, but I must say that I've become a huge Kindle convert. I can take it with me places where I wouldn't want to carry a stack of books, it's making my book addiction that only more affordable, but one that doesn't cause quite so much clutter around the house.

Of course current books are available as well, and I do occasionally spring for something that costs more than $5. However, I must say that this is becoming more and more rare, and that I am really enjoying the riches of literature written before 1950. I know that I already have more than saved the cost of my Kindle in books that I wanted to buy, and would ultimately have purchased.

I don't usually like to sound like an advertisement, but I really hope people are aware that they can find some really, really great stuff that's practically unavailable except in rare book form otherwise. Even the current books are generally less expensive in Kindle format.

Just Like Teenagers

2011-07-21T10:51:00.000-07:00

One of the pronounced tendencies of teenagers is to go along with whatever the in crowd is doing. I've never been sure how the in crowd becomes the in crowd, or who decides what the latest fad is, but I've sure known when I was behind the times, starting with not wearing pencil skirts in 3rd grade, or not knowing who Fabian was in 5th. The tendency doesn't go away for a lot of people when they become grownups. It's hard to buck the crowd. It doesn't even matter which crowd you're bucking. It wasn't easy to become Catholic when it meant listening to someone tell me I would go to Hell as a result. There have been a lot of those moments in my life. The odd thing is that when I was in high school I wanted more than anything to be acceptable to the in crowd. I had parents that forbade a lot of the activities the in crowd was doing, and I went to a Pentecostal church that pretty much guaranteed that I'd never have in crowd status, but, man, it's what I wanted.

Somewhere in my late twenties or early thirties something flipped in my brain. I'm not sure whether it was marrying into the weird Swift family (known for being not exactly conventional in some respects), deciding to breastfeed for longer than 3 months, or deciding to homeschool. However, something happened, I became no longer quite so concerned about what "they thought." Well, that is, I wasn't quite so concerned what the general public thought, I still wanted to fit in my nice evangelical community, in my nice LLL group, and in my friendly homeschool support group. Over the years, however, I've had moments where I've had to become a pariah in each of those communities as well. Increasingly, I've become less and less concerned about what any of "them" think and more concerned with what God wants me to be doing. Sometimes that means standing up for unpopular ideas with a minority of people, sometimes it means flat out standing alone.

Recently, I sent some book suggestions to my Methodist minister cousin who was about to chair a forum on how Christian churches should respond to the gay marriage law in NY state. They weren't about gay marriage, but they were about how to figure out what orthodoxy means. Not unremarkably he didn't respond to my suggestions. I hope that doesn't mean what I suspect it does. However, I was even more bothered to find that the Cardinal of our own archdiocese apparently is beginning to figure out how to make some accommodations with the Rainbow people as well. Good to know that we don't have to believe that Cardinals always make the right decisions.

It seems to me that the Protestant churches and even the Catholic clerics who are trying so hard to nuance things so they don't sound like fuddy duddies are just like I was in high school. They're desperately trying to hold on to who they are while trying to still be socially acceptable to the in crowd. Back in the 1970's when the in crowd was declaring pedophilia to be a mental defect that could be treated with counseling (or in the case of at least one of the guests on one Phil Donahue show, simply something that was being treated with prejudice while adult/child sex was not harmful at all), the bishops went along with the in crowd. They sent their "kiddy loving" priests off to counseling and then on to a new assignment. Well that worked out really well. They also allowed their priests to teach parishoners that their own conscience should inform them as to whether they could use artificial contraception or be divorced and remarried. Now we have a panel justifying its decision that contraception should be required in all insurance plans by the observation that 98% of Catholics in the U.S. contracept. That worked out really well also.

We have young Catholic couples who are trying so hard to keep up with the secular world and its standards that they are losing track of what the Church really teaches about openness to life and the value of sacrifice. Pre-Cana classes are convincing couples that using NFP will guarantee them the same sort of spacing that their secular counterparts are achieving with a combination of artificial contraception and sterilization. When that doesn't happen some couples are feeling like the Church has sold them a bill of goods. In some respects, they're right. Telling couples that NFP will allow them to have the same frequent sex and no babies as their contracepting counterparts isn't always accurate. In some cases it means less sex to have no babies, in other cases it means more sex, but more babies as well. Better that the Church should be honest and say that marriage entails sacrifice. It may be the sacrifice of a significant amount of abstinence if you have a serious reason to delay pregnancy, or it may mean the sacrifice of serving a little person when you'd rather be enjoying a high power career or dinners out at a fancy restaurant. But to be honest like that is to admit that to be a serious Catholic means to not follow the in crowd. It requires carrying a cross, it requires remembering that the way to destruction is broad and the way to life is narrow.

For a lot of years in America anti-Catholicism wasn't all that evident. Oh, sure, not many people wanted to become Catholics, but Catholics had begun to be treated like just one of the many flavors on the Christian list. In towns all around, the Catholic priest was part of the local pastors' association, and there were lots of ecumenical services. Church Women United included Catholics as well as Protestants. And, you know what, the Catholics kind of liked it that way. They didn't have to feel so different anymore. But the times they are a changing. It's no longer the Calvinists and the certain Baptists who are anti-Catholic, it's not even the atheists. Mainstream Protestants are starting to level their guns at the Church as well. Gay marriage may well be the issue that brings back anti-Catholicism in full force. Or, it may be the call for priests to be required to violate the confessional as is being proposed in Ireland. There are those within the Catholic community who are still desperate to hold on to the "gains" they made. They really liked being part of the in crowd. They have already started clamoring for the Church to change with the times. They don't want to be different. They don't want to stand out. They don't want to be seen as the frumpy fuddy duddy when everyone else is dressed up in brand new stylish clothes. The fact that the clothes are really those of the emperor in the fairy tale doesn't even seem to occur to them.

Unfortunately, our bishops lost a lot of their credibility with the whole abuse scandal. Now there may have been fewer Catholic priests than school teachers guilty of abuse. There may have been no more Catholic priests than Protestant ministers, but the fact is the world expected more of Catholic priests. The world knew that Catholic priests and bishops were supposed to be different. Bishops made a major error when they used worldly wisdom to deal with pedophiles rather than the moral teaching of the Church. But in the same era worldly wisdom was being offered to problems like usury, contraception, divorce and remarriage, and the political stance on abortion by Catholic priests, and even bishops and Cardinals. It's no wonder that now some of the faithful feel that the bishops are only playing politics with the Eucharist rather than having a genuine concern for souls.

It's going to take a long time for the bishops to regain their credibility, but the only way that will happen is the way of the cross. They are going to have to cease any attempt to play ball with the in crowd. They may have to live with a loss of tax exempt status. They are going to have to stop running their dioceses like business entities with business men with secular ideas as their advisors. They are going to need to be radically Christian like the bishops of the early Church. Being Catholic may be about as popular as it was when Elizabeth Ann Seton became a Catholic or perhaps that's too hopeful. It may be as popular as it was in the time of Nero, or Mao. The numbers in the pews may well shrink if the bishops hold fast to what the Church teaches. The Episcopal Church may well gain members as the culture Catholics find it a more in crowd sort of place. The bishops and the faithful may find themselves having to be like Jesus Himself, who was spat upon and reviled by the in crowd.

If you grew up desperately wanting to be one of the rich kids, one of the popular kids, one of the kids with clout, the idea that you might choose to identify with a people who lack worldly power is a pretty scary prospect. It's a lot more fun to think you might actually play your cards right and become one of the movers and shakers of the world. It's easy to believe that you can have it both ways. It's easy to believe that you can be part of the in crowd and not lose your soul in the process. The time is coming soon, if it isn't already here when people are going to have to choose. It's hard to stand up against a lie. It's hard to be charitable and still speak the truth. It's hard to feel the criticism of those around you when you don't follow the culture. At the end of it all, however, it's not the culture that's going to judge us. Far better to be despised by the world and hear the words, "well done, good and faithful servant" than to be part of a crowd that hears, "depart from me." Simply being a Catholic isn't going to cut it, simply being a priest isn't going to cut it, simply being a bishop isn't going to cut it. There's a reason that Dante put some clerics in the Inferno. Only obedience is going to be enough and sacrificial obedience isn't popular with the in crowd.

Around 1987 (long before I really contemplated becoming Catholic) I had a day when I got a glimpse of the future. The thought went through my mind that my grandchildren might well have to be Catholic because only the Catholic Church was remaining faithful to so many of the clear teachings of scripture. Now my evangelical friends would doubtless argue that wasn't true, but I saw even then a shift in the attitude about divorce and remarriage, and a less than consistent teaching on abortion. In the past twenty years or so things have gotten worse. In 1987 I never imagined that ten years later I'd be Catholic. I was pretty upset at the idea that my grandchildren might need to be Catholic. Now I am immensely grateful to be Catholic, despite the problems, despite the truly bad bishops, or the less than wise ones. It's clear to me that despite the bumps in the road that the Church is still not backing down and denying the faith. There may be dissident priests, and dissident bishops. There may be those in the Vatican who play politics, but at the helm there's a Holy Father who's really trying to call all of the Church back to fidelity. It's not an easy job, it's as difficult as trying to rein in a household of rebellious teenagers who've gotten a taste of being part of the in crowd, but he's holding firm. I truly have no desire to go back to the drifting Protestant world where entertainment passes for worship or where political correctness trumps orthodox faith. It's not always easy to be Catholic, but at the end of the day I'll take the Church where Jesus is front and center at every Mass over any Protestant congregation where the Real Presence isn't there at all. And frankly, it's a lot more satisfying than trying to be part of that illusive in crowd.

Suffering In Silence

2011-06-21T21:12:00.000-07:00

Jesus talked about not letting the right hand know what the left hand was doing. We're not supposed to be parading our works before men, and I suspect that we aren't supposed to be parading our suffering either. The saints certainly didn't. Sometimes in an era when complaining about your lot in life seems to be the major content of blogs, tweets, Facebook statuses etc. it's hard not to join in. It's hard to not complain about things when everyone else is, particularly when your own particular complaints seem more worthy of notice to you than some of what is being yammered about. It's hard to watch people with more than you have complaining about how they don't have enough of this or that, or how their brand new house had to have the contractors come back and redo something, and how inconvenient that was. It's not ever easy to not compare and it's very easy to begin to feel very sorry for yourself that you don't even have what they don't even appreciate.

This week we've watched someone in the public eye refuse to take the course of Padre Pio and suffer in silence. Whether he was falsely accused is something none of us know, but the course of action he's choosing to take is more in line with a current secular attitude than it is with the life of the saints.

Silent suffering isn't popular these days. A couple of weeks ago I was at confession and a dear friend from the parish emerged from the confessional. I'd been dealing with a whole lot of lack of faith myself, and feeling very much like my prayers weren't getting any further than the ceiling. When I saw her, however, I was really ashamed of myself, because she's had a lot more unanswered prayers and heartaches in the past decade than I have. Not everyone knows about a lot of them, and I suspect there are probably some I don't know about either. She doesn't complain. My kids say she's a saint, and I think they're probably right in that assessment. I've watched her have to give up her home, have her kids turn away from the faith, her husband get his hours cut back while she was out of work do to surgery, etc., etc. Yet she keeps on trusting and she's faithful to the Sacraments.

If I have to have a role model who isn't already canonized, I think she's a good one. She's certainly a better one than some of the celebrity Christians who find submission to authority to be too painful a thing to suffer.

Interested in Sourdough Breads?

2011-04-08T07:59:00.000-07:00

Anyone interested in sourdough might like to follow this link.http://www.keeperofthehome.org/2011/04/sourdough-a-to-z-ebook-win-a-copy.html

How Do You See the World

2011-02-07T14:38:00.000-08:00

A little over a week ago I had to go to the eye doctor to get tested for new glasses (old ones had a broken ear piece). It was an interesting process, new eye doctor, computer mapping of the inside of my eye, etc. At one point I commented that with my alternating eyes I didn't have very good binocular vision, and the eye doctor corrected me, "you don't have any binocular vision." It's really odd because I see the world differently than people whose eyes work together apparently. I have pretty poor depth perception as a result. So it's hard to park a car, sometimes hard to even thread a needle. However, I see, well, the way I've always seen. I didn't know for years and years and years that I didn't see just like everyone else. It causes all kinds of odd problems. I have a very difficult time reading a number that has multiples of one digit in a row. The other day I was trying to type out an e-mail address and had a terrible time figuring out if it had two lls in one of the words. I sometimes have to take a pointer and point to each separate letter. It's the reason I can see the ends of the lines of the eye chart and not so much the letters in the middle.

I think that sometimes the way we see the world in other ways can be just as deceptive. Our culture teaches us to see the world from one perspective, a Muslim culture, or a truly Christian one would see it from a very different perspective. Now the dictatorship of relativism would say that all of these ways are just different ways of seeing that there is no one true right way. Yet the serious Muslim, the serious Christian, or even the serious atheist would disagree. Either some of these things are true, or they simply are not. My way of seeing with my eyes is a distortion of what is really there. It isn't that my way of seeing is just as valid as anyone else's way of seeing. I am at a disadvantage because I can't tell whether there's enough space to park between two cars, unless there's actually more than enough space. I'm at a disadvantage because trying to back between two cars in the driveway inevitably brings me too close to one in an attempt to avoid the other.

In the same way, if the way we are seeing the world philosophical is flawed it may have even more eternal consequences for us.

I've been involved of late in a difference of opinion with some people. It doesn't matter how logical my argument, we just come at it from two different points of view. A lot of the time I feel like my pragmatism is battling against a warped sort of idealism. I think I'm seeing clearly, but so do they.

The way we are seeing, and whether we are truly seeing clearly makes a big difference. From the outside no one can tell that my depth perception is absent. It's not like my blind niece, who clearly can't see (although sometimes one would think she could, with all that she's able to do). I wonder whether the same thing is true sometimes with people who aren't able to "see" clearly on other issues. Perhaps there's a sort of depth perception missing. Or maybe it's me that's lacking binocular vision there as well. My family gets pretty sick of my lousy depth perception. People get really tired of having to do things like back my car out of a driveway crowded with vehicles. I get pretty tired of having to ask for it. I get pretty tired of having to explain a legitimate factual point over and over again to someone who's holding onto a prejudice. Patience is a virtue, however, and sometimes it takes a lot of patience to help someone see a different view of the world or to understand their's. Sometimes, someone just has no binocular vision.

No Doesn't Mean You Weren't Heard

2011-02-02T04:52:00.000-08:00

My granddaughter is only talking a little bit at this point. However, she has a very strong sense of what she'd like to be doing at any hour of the day. She tries to communicate that as best she can. It's very clear sometimes that she thinks she's not getting through to us. Sometimes she has a "melt down" in frustration when the plan she has for the next span of time isn't what the grownups choose to do. We find ourselves trying to explain that, yes, we know she wants to climb the stairs again, or that, yes, we know she doesn't want to get in her car seat, but that she is going to have to follow a different plan than the one she has in mind.

What I suspect she believes to be a break down in communication, since her needs have been pretty thoroughly met up until now, is actually not that. The big people in her life have agendas that she can't necessarily understand and those agendas may mean that she has to conform to their plans. That's not always a happy moment for a little person.

Now we do try as much as possible to allow her plenty of stair climbing, and her parents do try to avoid any more car trips than necessary (she isn't just riding around in the car so that her mommy can indulge in pleasure shopping at the mall). However, at some point the stair climbing has to stop for the day, and at some point she does have to get into the car seat to go home, or go to Mass, or even go to the store.

As kids get older and more communicative, they sometimes still have the sense that the grownups don't understand. Now it's not necessarily the words the grownups don't understand, but the depth of the need they are expressing. After all don't you need the same can-can petticoat (a total need when I was about 9) that all the other girls have? Don't you need to wear a pencil skirt when everyone else is (even if you are only 8 and pencil skirts don't really allow for playground activities)? Don't you really need an I-pod if all your friends have one? Don't you really need to wear a skimpy bikini, or hang out with your friends in questionable places? On and on it goes. Answers of practicality, expense, age appropriateness, or moral values tend to land on death ears sometimes. At that point, sometimes the only thing a parent can say is: "yes, I've heard you, yes, I do understand, but the answer is still no."

Teenagers in particular can argue that the family budget would stretch to allow for the I-pod, the cell phone, the Kindle, the new computer, the latest video game console if only the adults would give up their Dunkin Donuts coffee habit, or waste less money on gasoline, or stop buying the daily paper. However, the adults are not very apt to sacrifice their small pleasures in order to satisfy the grasping appetites of a teenager whose "needs" will doubtless be influenced in a week's time by the newest fad that everyone "must have. It isn't that the teenager isn't being heard, it's that the judgment that's being made is that the family budget won't stretch far enough to satisfy all of his whims.

As grownups we don't ever exhibit that sort of behavior, right? We don't ever throw a temper tantrum of sorts when we feel that someone isn't really hearing us because we aren't getting what we want. Well....Not exactly. We complain that the government isn't doing things our way. We complain that the bishop isn't handling things the way we think he should. We complain about the parish priest who's choices are contrary to what we think they should be. And in some cases our reaction isn't terribly far off from a toddler's temper tantrum. It may have a more adult look to it, but the emotional value is much the same.

Recently, I've watched a battle unfold in an organization. People are screaming and yelling in internet communities that they aren't being heard, they aren't being respected, they aren't getting the things they need. The leaders at the top of the organization on the other hand have rather thrown their hands up in despair because the messages they've sent downwards haven't been heard either. The resulting fiasco has been anger, hurt feelings, fear, and stomping off in a very good imitation of my three year old years ago, whose jumping up and down tantrum failed to get the desired results.

What I've realized in looking at the two ends of the spectrum, my little granddaughter and these grown ups is that the problem is that frequently we take a no answer as an indication that the other person didn't understand us. In fact, they may have understood us perfectly, but the answer may still be, "we need to do it this way for the greater good, even if it makes you unhappy." That is not an answer that a 20 month old likes to hear. It's not an answer that a 12 year old likes to hear, and it's not an answer that a grownup likes to hear. Sometimes as grownups we think that if we argue convincingly enough we'll change the course of things. Sometimes we actually manage to do that. However, sometimes we simply are not looking at the full picture any more than my granddaughter is looking at the whole picture when she's unhappy to get plunked in the car seat. Frequently we see things from our angle, and fail to see the other factors that are being considered. Sometimes we can't even see as far down the road as the people in charge, anymore than my granddaughter always understands that at the end of the car trip is something she's really going to like (an opportunity to play on a slide, a chance to play with Anders, a weekend at Grandma's house). We frequently want the end defined for us, even when that's not even totally predictable. Now sometimes, it's true, the people in leadership are being selfish, they are being corrupted by power,sometimes they've been influenced by the wrong ideas, sometimes they are being corrupted by being treated to perks. If those things are true, we may well be correct in trying to change the situation. However, we need always to be careful that we are actually judging the situation correctly. Sometimes it's simply that they aren't doing things our way. We may well have been heard loud and clear, but the answer may still be no.

Sock Obsession

2011-01-19T21:42:00.000-08:00

Tonight my current knitting project was upstairs and there was a bag with several skeins of sock yarn next to the couch. So did I trek upstairs and work some more on the sweater. Nope, I cast on 60 stitches and started another pair of socks. There is just something very soothing about knitting socks on DP needles. The sweater is in this iffy category. One book says I've got enough yarn to make it, but my sweater wizard program says I'm 700 yards short. That means I need to go buy some contrasting yarn in order to make it work. The socks, well, I know I've got enough yarn to finish them... So the sweater will simply be my upstairs project until I get to the yarn store and find some lovely merino to at least go with what I've got (no way will I find matching yarn, but it won't be the first time I've had to go with a different color for the yoke and sleeves than for the main part of the sweater). Meanwhile the socks...well they can go anywhere.

I did decide tonight that this has become very addictive. I really don't enjoy watching TV without a knitting project. I've also realized that I like knitting best when I DON'T have a deadline. When I have a deadline things get tense and my hands and wrists end up getting tense. When I don't have a deadline knitting is one of the most relaxing things I do. Now if I could consistently pair knitting with reading (I still haven't figured out how to keep the book from closing on me), things would be just perfect. Don't believe I can read and knit at the same time? Ask my tutoring students to whom I read out loud from a book about Lewis Carroll while knitting. That book fortunately cooperated and laid flat.

I wonder if I could actually finish 24 pairs of socks this year? I'm into my fourth pair this month and it's only the 19th. Of course, I should admit that one pair were for my granddaughter, so didn't take much time. However, one pair was for her daddy and I also finished her Grampa's pair this month as well as knitting another whole pair for myself. You see what I mean...Sock Obsession!

A Late Knitter

2011-01-13T16:07:00.000-08:00

When I was a little girl my mother attempted to teach me to knit. After all she'd learned to knit as a little girl, her mother had learned to knit as a little girl, her grandmother had had to do her "stint" each day before she was even 6 years old. However, the lessons didn't go all that well. I sort of learned the knit stitch, and I did learn to cast on, but purl totally eluded me. I started a scarf on white plastic needles. My little sister got hold of it and unraveled it. That was the end of the knitting.

Fast forward to college (I hadn't touched knitting needles in the interim). It felt like all the girls on my dorm floor were knitting during noisy hours. Liz and Debby Ryan were knitting Aran sweaters, my roommate Linda was knitting something with cables for her fiance. I decided to give knitting another try. After everyone got thoroughly sick of rescuing me from dropped stitches and an inability to purl, I gave it up as a lost cause.

Several years later after becoming a reasonably accomplished crocheter (thanks to the efforts of my friend Maryann). I decided to attempt knitting again. This time I was smart. I found a garter stitch pattern that totally avoided purl. After all I knew how to do the knit stitch, I knew how to cast on. With the help of the pattern I figured out how to cast off, and how to do decreases. I made a knitted vest out of blue acrylic yarn and wore it proudly. It was a pattern my daughter later could have made at 9 (probably without any help from me), but I had finally successfully knit SOMETHING. It gave me enough confidence to attempt purl once more. Within a few years I was tentatively knitting lace panels for a bunting (ok it wasn't fine lace work, but even in worsted weight it was lace) and a sweater with cables for my husband. I knit booties with bobbles and eyelets for the lacing. About this point I read Elizabeth Zimmerman's Knitting Without Tears and got a whole different perspective on the craft. From that point on there was no turning back.

My daughter was not a late knitter. She claims she doesn't remember a time when she couldn't knit. Since I taught her the basics at around 6, she's probably right. She actually made her first mittens at 8, her first sweater at 9, and knit an Aran sweater that still amazes me at 16.

Looking back on it I think there are a number of reasons why I didn't take to knitting all that quickly. First of all, coordination isn't my strong suit. Secondly, although my mother and my grandmothers could knit, they rarely did so (although in her retirement years my mother did take to knitting afghans). My mother never knit a sweater, I never saw my grandmothers knit at all. My aunts didn't seem to knit. Knitting was not a frequent activity anywhere around me. When I didn't appear to be a natural knitter these not very passionate knitters sort of gave up on me, just like my college friends. It took a few books and some solitude to turn me into a knitter. It also took being in an environment where no one was judging my efforts.

My daughter had a knitting mother who was also well aware that knitting doesn't necessarily come easily. Her first attempts at knitting didn't go all that smoothly, and I decided she wasn't quite ready. However, a couple of years later we tried again, and lo and behold she was ready and things flowed pretty easily. I've taught quite a number of kids to knit since then. Some of them took to it like ducks to water, others were like me and it didn't come easily. However, ultimately they all turned into knitters.

I think it's like that with a lot of things. Often in our culture the kids who "get" a particular skill easily whether it's playing soccer, batting a ball, playing an instrument, trimming a sheep, riding a horse get all kinds of compliments. Their proud parents get compliments too. No one much compliments the little kid who bats away at the ball missing far more often than he hits, even if he's being persistent at trying. I well remember watching the kid in my daughter's riding lesson who wasn't a natural equestrian. The teacher never had a kind word to say to her. It's easier to be the parent of the kid who learns to read early or be the soccer star at 5 than it is to be the parent of the kid who does things just a bit later than the other kids. I know this because, well I had a kid who did some things late. He didn't ride a bike independently until his 3 years younger sister could ride hers. He didn't tie his shoes until after she tied them for him. Some things came early for him (he said a distinct yes at 13 months), but a lot of things didn't. His sister was one of those kids that things came easily to. She read chapter books at 5, she was a natural at horseback riding, sheep showing, and just about every craft known to man. She didn't have perfect articulation at 13 months, but she talked in sentences at about the same age as her brother.

So were we somehow better parents, more successful with our daughter. Can we take some kind of credit for her natural "seat" on a horse? Her brother had no natural
"seat" at all. He excelled at archery and other shooting sports, but at most other sports he's always struggled. However, I can't take credit for the fact that his sister was climbing at an age where her brother was content to be building with blocks. They were too different people and had very different gifts and personalities.

Sometimes as we parent our kids we forget that there are in fact late bloomers. My son took up bike riding again last summer and rode for further distances than he'd ever ridden before. I suspect that bike riding for him may be rather like knitting for me, something he's coming to later in life. Sometimes we forget in our congratulating ourselves on how well we've done when our kid is a star, that the kid who's willing to hang in there and keep trying may be learning a lesson that the star rarely manages to learn as well.

Today my friends have a hard time believing I ever struggled at knitting. They watch me knit socks without a pattern in front of me, watch me make up my own sweater patterns, and knit things using different yarns than the pattern calls for (including my own homespun) and figure that I'm just a more talented knitter than them. What I know is that it took persistence and an awful lot of practice to get where I am and that there are still things I haven't been willing to try. My daughter is much more fearless, but she grew up convinced that if she could read the pattern she could make the article. I grew up having heard that knitting on double pointed needles was difficult. Moreover, when it didn't come easily no one really encouraged me to try again.

I'm sure my granddaughter will eventually knit. Whether it comes quickly or slowly won't matter to me because I know that with patience and encouragement even the most inept uncoordinated person really can learn to knit. After all I was that inept uncoordinated person and now I'm an obsessive knitter. Fortunately, it's easier to learn knitting from books than ice skating. Now there's something where persistence just wasn't enough...

Christmas Isn't Always Happy

2010-12-20T05:37:00.000-08:00

I've been pondering, not the unhappiness surrounding our Christmas, but the unhappiness that must cast a bit of a shadow over the Christmas of some of the people I care about. I just found out last month that my cousin who lost his wife of over 30 years a few years back had remarried and then been divorced by his new wife 3 months later. He will certainly probably spend Christmas with some of his children, but there's got to be an empty space in his heart as well. My brother-in-law is celebrating his 7th Christmas without my sister. Now I'm sure he will spend some of the time with his daughter and her in-laws, but he's a fairly shy guy and I'm sure that celebrating in the midst of someone else's Christmas isn't all that much fun for him.

I've only spent one year in the middle of someone else's Christmas. It was the year my father died and my mother and I were staying temporarily at my aunt's. What I realized is just how hard it is to be in someone else's space, in the midst of someone else's traditions. It happens to most of us once we get married and spend the requisite Christmas with the inlaws, yet usually we manage a bit of our own celebration as well. When death intrudes (especially when it does so close to Christmas) it can put a pall over the whole celebration. My husband's mom also died close to Christmas 5 years ago, so my Christmas more than once has been surrounded by the shadow I'm talking about.

I think that the secular nature of much of the festivities actually makes the pain worse. When you are spending your time focused on the actual event that we are celebrating it's possible to remind yourself that death is not the end, that the Incarnation was about bringing us an inestimable gift that death cannot take away. I'm pretty sure my cousin (who's a Protestant pastor) is spending his Christmas focused on the right things, and will be less busy than he was as a young dad many years ago. Yet I'm also sure that he's missing someone whom it feels like should be there.

It's possible to get so focused on the "perfect Christmas" that we forget that for some people even a tolerable Christmas will be hard to pull off. We've had the odd Christmases here. The year my husband was in the hospital with a broken leg is one example. This Christmas will seem a little odd as well because my daughter's family won't be here for the first time. I've also been too sick this month to really pull off anything close to the perfect Christmas. However, I've been sort of hoping for a Christmas miracle of peace and joy not only for us, but for the lonely people out there for whom Christmas can seem mostly like a day to be endured. My prayer is that the O Antiphon for today will really be true for them: "Oh Key of David, O royal Power of Israel controlling at your will the gate of Heaven. Come break down th prison walls of death for those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death, and lead your captive people into freedom." Isaiah 22:22.

Traditions, Choices or Impositions

2010-12-10T08:46:00.000-08:00

I've been watching from a slight distance as my daughter incorporates new traditions into their holiday celebrations. She's made a Jesse Tree (something I once attempted and failed at miserably), has decoupaged the O Antiphons, will be making St. Lucy's bread from my friend Karen's recipe, and has purchased a nice Nativity set. She's made either a conscious, or unconscious decision to drop some of our traditions (like not setting the Nativity up until Christmas Eve, and bringing the tree in earlier than we do). It's made me think again a little bit about our own "traditions." What I realized as I did so is that they came from various places, that like her and her husband we made conscious choices to embrace some things that neither family had done, and we kept some parts of both families traditions as well. As I watched Alton Brown last night talking about Christmas foods I had to laugh because some of his Christmas foods were things like Wassail that were attempted here, but essentially bombed (should we give that tradition one more try before we discard it entirely, I wondered last night), were things we've never done (like oyster stuffing) because the whole idea was distasteful to some one or another of the participants, or were something he found a substitute for (a duck is not a goose Alton!). His traditional foods mostly came straight out of Dickens (and he had Dickens there to prove it!). Some of our traditions (like plum pudding) came straight out of Dickens as well, neither of our families ever attempted them. except for a very small number of things (like plum pudding). For years we've made my mother's Christmas bread (which my son told me last year that he really dislikes) and my father's omelet (which my daughter admitted a couple of years ago that she's not all that fond of). Other than that our traditions were my in-law's traditions Christmas Eve church, decorating the tree on Christmas Eve, and Auntie's tea cookies or shared traditions like Christmas stockings, tree, and mince pie. We've experimented with Christmas dinner for years. My parents always did ham or turkey, we started with turkey, but switched to roast beef because it was easier. In recent years my son started clamoring for goose, so we did both roast beef and goose, which was harder than just doing a turkey. Chesterton talks about tradition being the democracy of the dead, so by bringing in things that former generations did were we being somewhat democratic, taking our elder's opinions into account, I think we thought so.

But, wait a minute, just how far back did any of those family traditions actually go? The Christmas tree and stockings probably made it back to at least my parent's generation on 3 of the 4 sides. My maternal grandparents didn't do Santa Claus, stockings or a Christmas tree. I guess that probably the only solid universal was of all things, the mince pie (which the Puritans tried so hard to suppress). My parents and my in-laws actually embraced parts of Christmas celebrations that none of their parents or grandparents had embraced. They made choices we followed a lot of the choices they made. In many respects it almost seems like their choices were based in large part on how the culture as a whole celebrated the Christmas season rather than for any specifically religious context other than the Christmas Eve service that my in-laws routinely went to (I've got to ask my husband whether they actually did that when their kids were little, I'm not sure). Our church had a Christmas program at some point during the holiday season (always before Christmas, we didn't "do" Advent), but that was more a bone of contention than a joyful thing, since my mother could rarely get my father to go to it.

Our choices (other than the Dickensian ones) were based more on trying to have a religiously based holiday. We read books like Clem the Clumsy Camel, Born in a Stable, Santa are You for Real, instead of poems like Santa and the Christmas Mouse. I remember making a felt banner to put up at the beginning of Advent one year and we tried repeatedly to have an Advent wreath. Doing the readings seemed to peter out pretty quickly every year and the wreath itself became a fire hazard long before Christmas. We waited until Dec. 24th to set up the Nativity set and baby Jesus, Mary, and Joseph didn't arrive until after church on Christmas Eve. The Wise Men didn't arrive until Epiphany and the tree stayed up until at least then, while everyone else's trees were in the garbage at least by New Year's.

We didn't do Santa Claus the way that my parents and grandparents did. Rather we put the emphasis on Jesus's birthday and read the story of the real St. Nicholas.

Through the years things have gotten dropped, things have been added, and things have inevitably changed. We no longer have 10 or more people around the table on Christmas Day. This year there will only be 4 of us. There are foods we've tried in the past, but don't bother with anymore. There are things like sugar cookies with frosting that my mother always did, and that I did when the kids were little, that just don't seem to make it onto my list of things to do. However, because none of those things are of particularly long tradition they don't seem like a huge loss.

What would seem like a loss (and did to my daughter a couple of years back when she was ragingly sick on Christmas Eve)would be to not go to church. In a family sense it's not a tradition of longstanding, but for us it's an important choice we've made (even before it was a Holy Day of obligation for some of us).

I sometimes wish that we had traditions that went back for several generations. I wish we really had a family history where we could participate in that kind of democracy of the dead. I wish there were a history of reading the Gospel of Luke on Christmas Eve before bed instead of a tradition of frantically wrapping presents. My daughter is doing far better there than we have. Her gifts were all purchased by December 1 and she's spending Advent doing meaningful Advent things. I'm scarcely half finished with my shopping and I can absolutely guarantee that my husband and son haven't even begun. However, that seems to be an important part of making someone feel like Christmas around here. That last minute hustle is apparently an important part of the tradition to my husband (his family were all last minute shoppers as well). What we seem to have to a large part is traditions that are one generation or so old. Yet, I think to my children there was a sense of we've always done it this way, that some people don't have. At least I hope that's the case.

My mother and my in-laws were very good about not imposing Santa Claus when we said we'd rather not do that particular myth. I hope that my children never feel we are imposing something on them (or their children) that they'd rather abandon. Traditions are important in helping us to remember that we are celebrating and even in helping us focus on what we are celebrating (there actually was a symbolic reason for many of the foods associated with Christmas). However, a tradition that's only one generation old is certainly one that can be examined and discarded. For example, my mother's Christmas bread (which we've always had on Christmas morning) was not something we had on Christmas all the time at my own house. It was a bread my mother made for her Home Dem club Christmas party every year. She only made it for us once in awhile. The omelet we have on Christmas morning was one that my father made yearly, just not necessarily on Christmas. In point of fact I don't really remember Christmas morning breakfasts all that vividly at all. They were far more ceremonial in my current family than in my birth family. Christmas dinner was a far more memorable thing. So, if I abandon Christmas bread this year since it my son doesn't like it, my husband is ambivalent about it and my daughter isn't going to be here, will I be abandoning something of import? I hardly think so. Can my daughter actually secretly rejoice that she's going to miss the plum pudding (which she's never really liked all that much) and decide never to make it for her own family? Of course. Plum pudding was something I introduced, she doesn't need to keep that tradition going. Does she have to have oyster stew on Christmas Eve? Well she's scarcely likely to since her husband doesn't eat shell fish. Will we continue to have it? Oh, yes, we will, not because of tradition, but because it's something I really look forward to. Could she decide to do a Buche de Noel instead of plum pudding, certainly.

What if, like some families we know, they decided to abandon Christmas tree or Christmas stockings. Wouldn't that really be denying the democracy of the dead? Well, probably not really. Christmas trees really never made it into anything other than Lutheran celebrations before the 19th century and Christmas stockings aren't a whole lot older. I'd be more concerned if they abandoned the creche or Christmas church. The fact is that all of the traditions surrounding Christmas really are for the most part a matter of choices made by families within just a very few generations. If the choices of the current generation are somewhat different out of a conviction of trying to make Christmas more about the Savior then I have nothing but kudos for the attempt.

As Catholics we have traditions from all over the world to choose from. My daughter's husband has Irish, Yugoslavian, and Puerto Rican roots. If they choose to add some of those elements to their Advent and Christmas celebrations it would be entirely appropriate, just as it's been appropriate for us to look back into English cultural history and add plum pudding, goose, and oysters to ours.

I think the only time that Christmas makes me sad and tired is when I'm trying to live up to someone else's rules and expectations. My in-laws really imposed very little, but one thing which was intended to make things easier was an imposition of sorts. It made me tired when I had to do all of the shopping for my kids when they were little because the family gave us money for the parents to spend instead of shopping themselves. It made me sad and when I felt like I had to buy more for my sister's family than I felt I could afford, but wasn't allowed to buy for my sister-in-law's family that I was closer to. Last year I actually sort of enjoyed Christmas because I did a whole bunch of knitted gifts, and did a lot of the rest of my shopping online. What I realized is that while I like giving gifts, I don't really enjoy shopping. This year I've decided I'm only doing the things I actually enjoy and find meaningful, and I'm doing them on my schedule (which is why the plum pudding still isn't made!). It doesn't mean I'm ditching tradition. We'll still have a tree, a goose, plum pudding and mince pie. We'll still have presents, we'll still go to church. However,I'm not stressing that the plum pudding wasn't done on Stir Up Sunday, nor that the Christmas cards haven't been addressed. I want to spend Christmas in a peaceful fashion with people I love. We'll find some new ways to do he day after Christmas this year. I'm campaigning for goose and plum pudding on Christmas, roast beef and mince pie on St. Stephen's Day and oyster stew before church and eggnog around the tree after Midnight Mass.

Who Are We Communing With?

2010-11-23T07:05:00.000-08:00

I was reading a bit of Scott Hahn's book Signs of Life yesterday morning and something struck me in a way it never had before. As Catholics when we receive communion we actually commune with God. We actually enter into a special relationship with the Son of God himself.

As a Protestant communion was an important celebration to me. It engendered all sorts of good feelings. However, Protestants, because they do not in fact receive the Body and Blood of Christ, are not communing with our Lord in the same way that a Catholic is. The communion they have is mostly a remembrance service and they really commune with each other. Now some Protestants have a higher view of the service than that and see themselves communing spiritually with God as they receive the elements. Yet that communion is really no different than any other sort of prayer time for them. For a Catholic there is a distinct difference between a spiritual communion and an actual reception of the Body and Blood of Christ.

On Sunday as I gazed at the Monstrance with the Blessed Sacrament exposed I pondered about the fact that the dear Protestant brothers and sisters I grew up among would be so thrilled if they only could believe that here they were in the actual presence of Jesus himself. Sadly, most of them have never been given a good explanation of either what the Catholic doctrine means, nor the antiquity of the belief. They have been walled off from worshipping in the presence of the Lord by centuries of misinformation and prejudice. Unfortunately, in most cases the prejudice keeps them from ever discovering the misinformation. I've been there. I've felt the fear. I'm just so glad that somehow my desire for truth overcame my fear.

I Really Do Have a Plan

2010-11-10T04:27:00.000-08:00

Frequently my daughter bemoans that she needs to go shopping because there's no food in the house. In her case that may actually be true. Here it rarely is the case. While I may need particular ingredients, there's nearly always something I can throw together from what's in the cupboard, refrigerator and freezer. It may be nothing more than onion soup and bread, or a cheese strata, or macaroni and cheese, tuna wiggle,sausage made from ground lamb, or even peanut butter toast and cocoa, but there's always something. I can nearly always even come up with an idea for a dessert if we need one (even if it's only hot fudge pudding or gingerbread). So why is that? Well it's partly because of the way I shop.

My daughter shops with a specific list and a specific menu. I frequently have a general idea of what we'll have for the week, but I more shop with an eye towards filling the gaps in my staples. So if I'm nearly out of flour, sugar, canned stock, onions, potatoes, tomato paste, or pasta I'll buy them, even if I don't have a specific menu plan for them. When Abby went off to grad school we took her grocery shopping for her first apartment. She took a cart and proceeded to buy the sorts of things that would be on her menu for the week. I took a cart and bought what she considered to be very strange random items (cocoa powder, spices, sugar, flour, vanilla, peanut butter etc). Later that day when we were very far away and she was very homesick I was on the phone with her. She was so sad, and she hadn't had anything to eat. She was so sad that no food even appealed to her, but I knew she'd feel better if she got her blood sugar up. So I suggested she make herself a cup of cocoa (which she could do because I bought cocoa powder vanilla, and sugar). She lived for the next few days on cocoa. She did ultimately adjust to being so far away and she cooked lots of things in that apartment, many of them with the staples I bought for her.

Now she does have some staples in her house, she is learning, and her house has more staples than a lot of other people's. She's a good cook, and she's learning to be a frugal one. However, she still thinks of my way of shopping as strange. It's the same way when we shop for things like yarn. She shops for specific projects, I may buy several skeins that I haven't totally decided on the end use of yet. Eventually they may become hats, or socks, or scarves, but what they are right now is simply raw material.

This week I'm carless. The car is at the mechanic's and it's totally unclear how soon we'll be getting it back. There are some frustrations involved in that, yet yesterday I had a pleasant day finishing a pair of socks, made dinner from stuff in the fridge, the freezer, and the cupboard, read books from my own collection, and contemplated what knitting project to work on today. I've got things to do, food to cook, etc. without going to the mall, or even going anywhere. However, it's the case because I shop the way I do, and keep raw materials around.

Shopping with a menu is one way of shopping with a plan. It's not a bad way to shop. However, shopping with a staples list is another way of shopping with a plan. It's a way of shopping that leaves you laughing in the face of blizzards or unexpected guests or even a carless week. When you live within walking distance of a huge grocery store I suppose you don't need to have such a large store of staples. However, the huge grocery store I shop at is a 20 minute drive away, and the farmer's market where I buy most of my meat only happens once a week. So for me planning ahead is pretty essential. It's just a different sort of planning ahead. I shop this way in part because it's the way I learned to shop. My mother also lived far more than walking distance from the store and her budget was subject to lots of ups and downs (more downs than ups). When I was in high school we lived mostly on what we produced ourselves. So my mother's style of shopping rather did involve buying things like salt, flour, sugar, and baking powder and then getting things out of the cellar, out of the cupboard, out of the freezer. She shopped that way just as her own mother had shopped that way.

I won't say there's anything wrong with having a menu plan. I'm more given to flexibility myself, which is one reason the linguica sausage that was supposed to become part of Kale soup last week hasn't quite made it there yet. However, there's actually another reason for that fact. I was sick the day I was going to have that soup, and no one else has felt like such a spicy dish yet. However, today the Kale soup will finally happen. Because I've got the staples, it's not a problem. I used potatoes, onions, and stock in other dishes in the last few days, but I've got more potatoes, more onions, and more stock. Shopping with a staples list has some real advantages. It means when you have a week where someone throws a monkey wrench or two or three into the mix that you don't end up just having to order in pizza. You may decide to order pizza because you're tired or just in the mood for pizza, but the monkey wrench may inspire creativity. It may inspire popovers and corn chowder, it may inspire chicken pie for unexpected company from the canned chicken in your cellar (it frequently did for my mother), it may inspire tapioca pudding for a delicate stomach. The advantage of a rich store of staples is that you can face that glitch in your week and laugh at it. That's my alternate plan.

And Sometimes Tea: The most daring thing

2010-11-09T06:07:00.000-08:00

And Sometimes Tea: The most daring thing

For C.S.Lewis Fans

2010-10-11T07:16:00.000-07:00

I have yet to decide whether I actually totally agree with the premise of Michael Ward's Planet Narnia. I haven't finished the book yet, as it's one to savor and ponder not one to rush through pell mell. What I can say is that it's a book I can really already recommend to anyone who likes to read about all the literary influences on Lewis, or who wants to be exposed to his poetry, or who'd like to see more of the connections between things like The Discarded Image, the Space Trilogy, and The Narnia Chronicles.

I bought this book after listening to a CD of a talk Michael Ward gave at the American Cheserton Society conference a year ago. The talk showed connections between the fiction of Lewis and Chesterton's The Man Who Was Thursday. Reading the book has been a real delight. I'm threatening to buy copies for Christmas presents for some of the other Lewis geeks in the family.

Michael Ward is an Anglican priest with an obviously extensive education in medieval literature as well as an extensive familiarity with Lewis. He references Spencer, Dante, Chaucer, and Shakespeare with the same ease that you would find in Lewis himself. I have to admit to reading The Discarded Image simultaneously with Dante's Divine Comedy myself and seeing the resonances between them. If you're the sort of lit geek that loves to do things like that, I think you'll enjoy this book. If the very idea of reading literary criticism of the Lewis variety, or reading the Divine Comedy or Spencer's Fairie Queen makes you yawn, you probably should pass this one up. However, if you really love Narnia you might have a go at it anyway, it might actually lead you to new worlds further up and further in.

Beetles, larvae, and babies

2010-09-28T15:19:00.000-07:00

By now most everyone on the web has heard about the Similac recall. There has been a lot of gloating among breastfeeding moms (or maybe it's just big sighs of relief) while formula feeding parents have one more reason to feel guilty. Some formula feeding parents have been giving Abbot Labs kudos for the recall, others have been looking at a class action suit against them.

So what's a lactavist to think about it all. Well first of all, I don't blame the parents. Some of them made uninformed choices about formula feeding based on the marketing schemes of formula companies, the experience of their own parents, and the lack of information from their doctors. Should they have made better choices? Given the education system in our country, and the degree to which mass media influences consumer choice, I don't put a whole lot of blame on their shoulders. Some mothers attempted to breastfeed, but got poor information, lousy support, and/or were faced with a fast turn around back to work. Their babies had to eat, I don't blame them either. A few moms fell into the category of women who simply can't produce a full milk supply. Some of them have been limping along, but they needed formula supplement. I certainly don't want them feeling guilty about not being able to produce all the milk their babies needed.

So, should any parents feel guilty about this. Well, perhaps. There are well educated parents who chose to formula feed because they thought it was less demanding, allowed the father to have an equal role, gave opportunities for nannies or other family members to care for the baby on weekends so they could go away for lovely baby free jaunts. Those parents were placing their own wishes ahead of their baby's (and even the mom's) health. So maybe they should feel guilty, and powerfully annoyed that the company didn't have better quality control. Of course most of them can now afford to switch to liquid formula that is doubtless beetle-free.

Formula manufacturers are dealing with the same problem that happens in kitchens around the country. However, they need to be operating on a level that is a higher standard than other food processors. Their product is the only food that an infant will consume for 4-6 months of its life. It needs to be produced in as sterile an environment as possible. They need quality control that is exceedingly high, not just ordinary quality control. If they focused as much effort on producing the best quality product possible as they do on marketing that product they might not have these sorts of problems. If my family wouldn't want me feeding them rice that had been contaminated by meal moths (I just had to throw a container out recently), how much more so should we expect to not be feeding pests to our babies.

Unfortunately, the reality is that formula manufacturers like other manufacturers are more responsible to their shareholders than they are to the consumer. They have to practice risk management, and figure out what an acceptable level of error is. No consumer should be deluded into thinking that these are anything other than hard-nosed businessmen for whom the bottom line is the most important consideration. Don't be duped by their P.R. people, this is business.

Here's where government can have a role. The government can put inspectors in plants and essentially hold the feet of the manufacturers to the fire. Instead of creating more bureaucratic positions in Washington, how about some food safety inspectors in formula plants?

If formula were available as a drug rather than simply as a food the manufacturing code might be more stringent. In addition, parents would realize that it's not the "normal" way to feed a baby. It may be in some cases the necessary way to feed a baby, but it isn't the normal one.

I truly hope that this particular recall will actually alert some parents to the dangers inherent in formula feeding. It isn't that breast is best, it's that breast is normal and formula feeding entails risks. If one mom tries a little harder in the first weeks with her baby and succeeds at lactation, well it will be the silver lining to this particular cloud.

The other thing I hope this recall does is to alert parents to the fact that formula powder is not sterile. So often parents simply mix it up with tap water thinking that all the sterilizing their grandmothers did was overkill. The World Health Organization has an excellent publication on formula preparation that I truly hope formula feeding parents read. Beetles (as gross as they sound) are actually the least of the things parents should be afraid of in the formula. Check out the publication and find out what else you should be concerned about and how to prepare formula to minimize the risks involved in using it www.who.int/foodsafety/publications/micro/PIF_Care_en.pdf

Babies can't take care of themselves, we have to do it for them. Optimally as far as feeding is concerned that means milk from their own mother for at least the first year of life. When that isn't possible the substitute needs to be as safely made both by the manufacturer and the parent as it can be.

Still Me?

2010-09-18T06:15:00.001-07:00

I had an epiphany this week about why some people may be refusing my requests to be Facebook friends. These aren't people who have a history of problems with me, some of them are cousins with whom I haven't had a lot of contact in the past decade or so, but who have always been cordial to me or they are friends from my high school and college years with whom I simply lost touch. I put in a friend request to another one recently and after a few days got a message that they didn't know who I was, so would I identify myself. I did and have since had a nice communication back. The person said essentially, "oh I thought it might be you, but I wasn't sure."

Now my Facebook profile has a picture of me as well as a few relevant facts about me. The picture that was posted was from my daughter's wedding reception and my hair was down differently than I generally wear it, but otherwise I looked pretty much the same (older obviously, but nearly as slender as when she saw me last - unlike at the present moment). So why didn't she recognize me? Obviously, not everyone recalls women's married names, but I don't think that was the difficulty. I honestly think what happened was she saw my first name, looked at the picture, and then read down the profile. I highly suspect that when she got to the religious preference line she figured this wasn't someone she knew. I also suspect the same thing has happened with some of my cousins. The cousins who've been closest to me know that I converted to the Catholic Church, the ones who haven't been close (and I have a whole slew of cousins scattered all over the country), don't.

While people wouldn't necessarily be surprised if my hair color were different, my weight were different, or even if I had a new last name (after all our generation has been peculiarly unsuccessful at staying married to the spouse of our youth) they really didn't expect this particular change. I was militantly Protestant when these people last talked with me. I was an enthusiastic homeschooling evangelical Protestant. I wasn't the sort of person who became Roman Catholic. For most of my contemporaries becoming Roman Catholic was something you did if you married a Catholic, it wasn't something that you chose to do for religious reasons. You certainly didn't go from being a serious evangelical Protestant to being Roman Catholic. So obviously, even if the picture looked vaguely like their old friend, or their long lost cousin, it obviously was a fluke. Couldn't be me, not possibly.

Yet, it is. My hair color is still roughly the same (just peppered with some gray), my weight seems to go up and down like a yo-yo, but I'm the same shape now as I was when I converted. I'm still married to the same guy as I was 35 years ago. We still live in the same town on the same plot of land. The one big change is that I'm no longer an evangelical Protestant I am a thoroughly convinced Roman Catholic.

My genetic code is still the same, but in many ways I am not the same. I could walk back comfortably into houses I used to live in (even dreamed the other night about purchasing one of them and moving there). What I could not do is to return to being Protestant. I've gone to Protestant funerals, and even a couple of other Protestant church services with family. There is no nostalgic call there for me. While the hymnody sometimes speaks to me when I'm driving by myself in the car, the reality of a Protestant service for me now speaks only of emptiness. I think Catholic, I dream Catholic, I live Catholic (not perfectly by any stretch of the imagination).

So the me that they encounter truly is a bit of a stranger. Some, like my friend Sandy, will say things like, "but why Catholic?" Others will be too polite to ask. They will shake their heads at the peculiar notion and doubtless chalk it up to religious mania (being Pentecostal wasn't weird enough for her). However, I'd rather that they did ask, and that they'd really listen to the answer. It's just that the Church I entered is under a lot of fire lately and the idea of voluntarily becoming part of her becomes an even stranger notion to a lot of people. At the point I became Catholic the abuse scandal had only begun to get press. I was aware of it and aware as well that it reflected badly on some priests and bishops, but that the Church remained the Church, no matter the failings of some of it's leaders. If the Borgia popes couldn't destroy it neither could some bad men now.
I must say I felt real admiration for the people who were received into the Church this Easter when controversy was all over the news or even for my son-in-law who came into the Church much more recently than my children and I did. However, the truth of the Catholic faith is not changed by the failure of some of her children. We didn't become Catholic because it was popular, or successful, or entertaining. We became Catholic for the sole reason that we became convinced that here was where the truth was found. Here were the sacraments that would change us and give us the grace to become more holy. Here was the place where sins could be forgiven. Most of all here was Jesus, body and blood, soul and divinity. All those Protestant churches with all of their lively music, their friendly congregations, their opportunities for involvement, their lively Sunday Schools and youth programs were void of the presence of Jesus Himself.

So, still me, yes indeed. Yet in many ways a very different me. I hope that some of these people will do what my old friend Susan did and ask the question, "is that really you?" However, I hope they'll go beyond it to ask what the me that I still am is now a Catholic me. I'd love to show them the treasures I found in an unexpected place.

Irrevocable Choices

2010-09-06T06:22:00.000-07:00

I've been lately re-reading Rumer Godden's incomparable book In This House of Brede. I read it many years ago before becoming Catholic and frequently recommended it to my daughter after she loved China Court. Abby very deliberately chose not to read it until after she got married. She was certain she had a vocation towards marriage and was afraid that a book about nuns might confuse her. She's recently read it and discovered, as I had before her that a book about nuns actually does have relevance for those of us who are called to the vocation of marriage and motherhood.

One of the things that has struck me in this re-reading is the idea that some choices are irrevocable. There are points where nuns can decide not to take the next step in the process, but once the final choice is made it is an irrevocable one. That seems odd in light of the number of vowed religious and priests who left their vocation in the 1970's, but there is a sense in which running away from an irrevocable choice does not change it's character. Those former nuns, those laicized priests (since once ordained a man is a priest forever) have something unsettled about them. The ones I've met have a grudge against the Church, wanting Her to somehow be as changeable as they themselves.

We live in a time when nothing seems terribly certain. Large numbers of children grow up in fractured homes, large numbers of spouses find themselves abandoned by those who promised to be faithful til death. People hop from church to church, from job to job, from community to community, from hobby to hobby. Restlessness seems to plague us, we need constant diversion, new thrills, new forms of entertainment.

The life of a Benedictine is one of vowed stability. Once a Benedictine enters they stay in that community for life, unless a special mission has them temporarily assigned elsewhere (a pretty unusual occurrence it would appear). In marriage we are supposed to be vowed to stability as well. My parents, my in-laws, nearly all of my aunts, uncles, cousins seemed to understand that concept. My uncle married a woman later diagnosed as a schizophrenic, yet he stayed married to her until the day he died. Her trials were his trials, and sometimes a bigger trial to him than to her.

A sacramental marriage is irrevocable. It intrinsically changes both partners. While people can choose to walk away from the relationship, it does not mean that they can go on to make another sacramental marriage. Any relationship they have from then on until their partner dies is in fact an adulterous one.

Having children is irrevocable. A baby can be given away for adoption, yet there will always be a tie to the biological parents. I saw this with my friend who spent many years yearning to know the parents who gave birth to her. The baby you have may not be the baby you dreamed of. The child you give birth to may turn out to be a personality you don't particularly enjoy, but they are irrevocably, unalterably your child.

When I stood at the altar and signed my name in the book, I knew that becoming Catholic was one of those irrevocable choices. I will be Catholic forever. I could be a Catholic who ends up in Hell because of other choices, but if that were the case I'd still be a Catholic because of the sacraments I've received.

Lately there's been a lot of grousing about how the Catholic Church should change, should follow in the wake of the Episcopalians and allow homosexual marriages, abortion, divorce and remarriage, the ordination of women. The thing that people currently have against the Church is that She won't change. Yet the thing that they have against the world much of the time is that it does change so rapidly that as Yeats said, "the center cannot hold." Change can be for the good, or it can simply be an unending restlessness and dissatisfaction.

Those Benedictines knew something. They knew that stability is the thing that causes the change in us that is necessary to bring us to maturity, to sanctity, to charity. Only when we can't run away from a problem can we truly face it. Only when we recognize that some choices are truly irrevocable and are God's way of refining us will we settle down enough to allow ourselves to be refined.

There have been very few decisions in my life that were irrevocable. Getting married, having children, choosing to baptize those children, becoming Catholic. Those all were irrevocable. Each of them altered who I am in a fundamental way (yes, even choosing to have our children baptized as infants changed me as well). I can't go back to who I was before any of them. There are decisions we make that can be altered. We can decide to change majors, change jobs, change houses, change cars. There are choices we make that fundamentally change who we are. Those choices are like indelible ink on our souls. That stability is an invaluable gift in a restless world, if we'll only embrace it.

Rearranging

2010-09-02T12:11:00.000-07:00

Years and years and years ago I switched things around in my kitchen to make it easier for my kids (who were short at the time) to get their own bowls and plates (and set the table as well). The bowls and plates got put in a lower level cabinet and there they've stayed. Of course in the meantime no one in the house is all that short anymore and now having those things in a lower cabinet meant bending for everyone, even those of us for whom bending and squatting is increasingly less easy. So a month or so ago I finally bit the bullet. I evicted a bunch of stuff from an upper cabinet and installed plates and bowls there instead. The lower cabinet still needs a major overhaul (it also had serving bowls, casserole dishes, tupperware and plastic storage containers in it), but I've made a start.

What since I rearranged is how much the long time arrangement had been a. annoying me and b. making it harder to do some jobs. The lower cabinet made it harder to keep the plates neatly stacked because they were at the very back. The cabinet was so over full that it was difficult to get things back into it without spillage. Like the problem I had a few years ago with the pots and pans cupboard I was putting up with an arrangement that worked at one time one one level, but that clearly wasn't working anymore.

What I really need now is a fairly substantial kitchen overhaul. We have a lot of big or heavy pots and pans, that get used on a frequent enough basis that storing them in a poorly accessible location doesn't work, but the current arrangement is starting to bug me as well. I'm campaigning for either an island in the center of the kitchen with deep shelves or else some deep shelves just around the corner in the laundry area. For the moment, I'm wondering whether that bottom cabinet can be cleared out enough that some of those big items can get stored in there. It would still require bending (which is why deep shelves just outside the kitchen sounds like such a great idea), but at least it would get them actually put away without having them either too high for me to reach or creating an avalanche every time I need to get a frying pan out of the pots and pans cupboard.

I'm realizing that the inefficient set up I've had has grated on me so much that it's impacted on how easily or cheerfully I can even do a clean up in the kitchen. I'd claim that we simply had too much unnecessary stuff were it not for the fact that the stuff actually gets used on a regular basis. What I've come to realize is that I've been trying to cook like my mother and my grandmother, but that both of them had far more storage space for their kitchen equipment. We're not talking about multiple food processors, but things like stock pots, dutch ovens, cast iron fry pans, water bath canners (one that serves as a dye pot), to say nothing of mixing bowls, casserole dishes, baking pans, etc. It's a 35 year collection of kitchen equipment, most of which gets used at least several times a month. However, my kitchen cabinets are not the old fashioned type. They're the type that fit the needs of people who rarely do big time cooking. I did try to talk my husband into deeper cabinets (and more of them) when we were building the house in the first place. However, that would have meant custom built cabinets which would have cost probably 3 times what ours did. So for 25 years I've scrambled to try to find space for everything and have spent a lot of time complaining about where I've ended up putting things.

Efficiency and organization have never exactly been a strong suit around here, but I'm beginning to realize that a bit more efficient arrangement might lead to a more cheerful accomplishment of certain quotidian tasks. It might even make the process of making daily tasks into meditative ones less of a pipe dream. There's a long road ahead, but at the very least when I empty the dishwasher now it's really nice to simply reach up to put the plates and bowls away. Meditative housework, well I'm still working on that.

The Battles Over Breastfeeding

2010-08-20T08:08:00.000-07:00

A couple of years ago I got re-involved in a community that I left decades ago. I was a breastfeeding mother and La Leche League Leader back in the 1980's. The numbers of moms who initiated breastfeeding back then was lower than today, and the moms who chose to breastfeed were sometimes seen as oddities. However, we didn't encounter a 10th of the hostility that seems to be out there right now. Everyone agreed that breastmilk was a superior baby food, but the majority of moms seemed to also believe that formula was somehow just as good (illogical, but that really did seem to be the attitude). Fast forward three decades and all sorts of groups from the AAP to the WHO to the U.S. government are all saying that not breastfeeding has potentially serious health consequences to babies. What has happened as a result is what seems to be all out war.

Far more people are complaining about women breastfeeding in public. Despite laws protecting breastfeeding wherever a mother has a right to be, women have been asked to leave restaurants, malls, courtrooms,buses, and airplanes because they were breastfeeding their babies. There continue to be physicians who play down the advantages of breastfeeding, and formula companies who continue to push their product on third world mothers who can't afford it. There continues to be little information passed on to parents about safe formula preparation, and parents seem blissfully unaware that powdered formula is not sterile and potentially can contain some very serious bacteria that would only be killed by preparing the bottles with water hot enough to destroy those touted pro-biotics the manufacturers are currently adding. Breastfeeding advocates are being called Nazi's, breastfeeding mothers are being called sanctomommies. The picture is not a pretty one.

As a LLL Leader in the 1980's I did very little in the way of breastfeeding advocacy in any political sense. I still do very little of that sort of thing. I spend my time talking with individual moms who are interested in breastfeeding or who actually are breastfeeding providing them with information and support. I don't spend my time shaming formula feeding moms. I've even given a lot of support to moms for whom breastfeeding didn't work out. However, I also put links on my Facebook page that offer actual information about breastfeeding. Simply doing that angered some people who weren't interested in breastfeeding, or who didn't breastfeed their own children. It really strikes me as strange that they had a stronger reaction to this particular subject than to some of the other topics I posted links to (say religious or political ones, even when they disagreed with these as well).

I have to say that before I got re-involved in this community I was blissfully unaware that there was a battle raging. It seemed to me that as more information came out about the scientific support for breastmilk that more women would choose to breastfeed. There certainly will always be moms for whom this isn't possible, sometimes for physical reasons, sometimes for social ones. It continues to be very difficult for a mom to breastfeed if she has a very short maternity leave followed by a return to a job that makes pumping difficult. There are jobs where breastfeeding, while not impossible, becomes such a tremendously difficult undertaking that it proves to be more stressful and energy consuming than the mother can manage. That's not an indictment on mothers (many of whom have no other choice but to continue in those jobs in order to keep food on the table). However, for many other mothers, including those who have to work full-time, the choice to bottle feed is made partly out of convenience, partly out of family culture, and partly out of blissful ignorance. They haven't necessarily made a fully informed decision. Yet if there is a push to provide them with the information, there is a backlash that accuses the breastfeeding advocacy community of acting like Nazis.

It's interesting that the same charge was not leveled against the anti-tobacco lobby, nor the groups campaigning to get soda machines out of schools. There isn't the same resistance to campaigns encouraging us to get more exercise, or to avoid excess sun exposure. In each of those cases we've looked at the evidence and found health risks and benefits and people have been encouraged to make informed choices. Now some people still choose to use tobacco, still choose to drink soda, still choose to not exercise, still choose to tan to a leathery brown. But we do set limits on behavior that effects other people. Second hand smoke is banned in most public settings, many schools have replaced their vending machines. Support for breastfeeding is in fact support for the health of babies and mothers. It may in fact be more inconvenient in some ways for business to support that (although the Business Case For Breastfeeding demonstrates an overall benefit to employers), and it may be uncomfortable for some people to see a mother nursing her baby (even discretely). However, it's also inconvenient for people to not be able to light up on buses, airplanes, in restaurants etc. Much of my young life was surrounded by smoking adults, despite the fact that no one in my own family was a smoker. In that era the rights of smokers trumped the rights of non-smokers. Today the tide has turned. I hope that the same will eventually be true for breastfeeding moms and their babies.

What has seemed ironic to me is that in a period where we knew far less about the dangers of formula feeding that there was far less persecution of breastfeeding mothers. We breastfed our babies in all sorts of settings (I breastfed one of mine at funerals even) and no one ever asked us to leave or go sit in a bathroom. It always seemed to me that my formula feeding friends recognized that breastmilk was better, even while they made the choice to formula feed because they thought it was easier. However, they were still my friends, we didn't get into huge battles over the issue. Now, if I get involved in an online discussion and even attempt to correct a piece of misinformation about breastfeeding I am quite apt to get flamed and called a breastfeeding Nazi. Most recently it happened when I pointed out that painful nursing is a sign that something is going wrong, not something that a new mom simply has to endure. A mom who had chosen not to endure it, but simply to quit attacked me quite vehemently simply for providing the information.

There is a boatload of bad information out there, some of it coming from people who claim to be lactation experts. There are people who are contending that breastfed babies should be on strict schedules and should be sleeping through the night 12 hours very early in life, despite the fact that these practices are associated with lowered milk supply and failure to thrive in many, many infants. There continue to be doctors who prescribe formula to mothers whose babies have a "milk sensitivity" instead of providing mothers with the information about how alter their own diet to accommodate the needs of their babies. As I was ranting about this a few months back my son pointed out that most doctors actually know very little about nutrition at all, and that it was the lactation consultant community who really needed to be getting the information out to mothers. Unfortunately, when the lactation community does work at public information campaigns there are loads of people who see this as an attack on feminism, on doctors, on parental choice.

It's really sad because most of us who love working with breastfeeding mothers and their babies want only what the moms themselves want; for the mom to have a lovely relationship with their baby that leads to the best nutrition and the best parenting that they are capable of providing. I suspect that most bottle feeding mothers want the same thing. The formula companies play into that desire with their ads. What the formula ads don't do is tell the full story. Unlike the ads for birth control that now have to list the negative side effects of hormonal birth control, the formula ads still don't have to reveal that formula use leads to an increased risk of SIDS, diabetes, respiratory illnesses and obesity for the baby as well as an increased risk of breast cancer, heart disease, and osteoporosis for the mom. Putting those risk statements on birth control ads has not kept people from using hormonal birth control and I suspect that similar messages would not dissuade some people from choosing to formula feed. Some moms as I pointed out earlier would still have to formula feed because of the difficulty of providing their own milk for their baby. At this point, however, it would seem as if the battle to get the facts out there is too heated to even campaign for those risk statements to be included.

We all make choices with parenting that involve risk. We sometimes buy houses with pools, we feed our kids foods that other parents would avoid, we choose to place them in one day care setting or another, one school or another, one camp or another. We choose to give them horseback riding lessons, or let them ski or snowboard or not... Life is full of risks and we each have to judge where the risk is worth taking and where it's not. To provide parents with the full information about the risks of formula is not to denigrate them as parents anymore than to provide the full information about the risks of having a back yard pool. Some parents choose to get rid of the pool, others choose eternal vigilance. Some people choose to provide their children with human milk, others choose to provide formula, deciding that on balance the risks are worth the benefits. Some of those parents with backyard pools will suffer tragedies, others will end up with kids who are great swimmers and who avoid obesity due to a love of exercise. Some of those parents who choose formula will end up with kids who live in a financially more affluent household because of parents who remained on the career fast track. Their kids may or may not be less healthy, but they may well be able to afford better health care to deal with any illness than the family whose mom remained at home nursing her baby. The one thing that should happen is that parents should make those choices based on the best evidence.

One question parents should ask themselves, however, is "who's making money trying to influence my choice?" Not only are the formula manufacturers making money when parents choose breastfeeding, some doctors are making money as well, some hospitals are getting funding, some nurses are getting perks. Volunteer breastfeeding support groups like La Leche League are not in the business of making money, they are simply there to help the women who seek out their services. While IBCLC's do get paid money for their services (which require more sophisticated education than most LLL Leaders have), they generally have sliding scales, and rarely in our area make much money at all. In fact most of the IBCLC's I know in my area are also LLL Leaders and provide all of their phone help for free as well as providing free support at the LLL meetings they lead. What formula manufacturer provides his product on a sliding scale? Even moms who are provided formula under the government run WIC program have to buy some of their formula at retail rates. There is no financial incentive for LLL Leaders to provide their services. They pay for their own continuing education, they answer phone calls in the midst of family life. The only satisfaction they get is the satisfaction of seeing a mother happily breastfeed her baby. La Leche League currently provides even its publication New Beginnings free on the internet for anyone who cares to read it. Thus the organization that's been known as the premier source of accurate information on breastfeeding for decades is offering support for free. In a world where you rarely get something for nothing, that's a pretty remarkable thing. It seems sad that the response to that is to get called a Nazi.

New and Improved

2010-07-29T05:56:00.000-07:00

It has struck me lately how difficult it is to get original formula anything. Last week I went looking for original Crest toothpaste since that's what Dr. Ellie Phillips recommends. I ended up having to buy it online since all the stores around here had only the "new and improved" versions. I'd run into a similar problem with shampoo recently. I'd discovered a formula that actually helped my hair about a year ago. However, the last time I went to buy it, it was not on the shelf, instead there were a variety of other new and improved versions of the same company's products. I did finally find what's reported to be their new and improved version of the formula, but I'm still finishing up a bottle of one of their other formulas at the moment, so I can't really say whether it's improved or not. What I know about the toothpastes is that there are ingredients in them that are certainly suspect (like the whiteners).

Yesterday I was watching a television show and every commercial that was not a commercial for some other television series was a commercial for a new and improved something. One of the methods that formula manufacturers have been using to lure consumers and doctors to their formula is the "new and improved" route. However, there is as yet no proof whatsoever that what they've added has made any improvement to the health of babies. Similarly, the new and improved foods on the market have yet to compete with eggs from pasture raised chickens, or tomatoes fresh from the vine. That's not to say that there are never any genuine improvements. Certainly some advances in technology are a clear improvement over the previous one. IBM selectric typewriters were a definite improvement over jamming keys for example. However, some of the "improvements" end up simply being marketing devices, a way to make a consumer feel that they need the latest and greatest.

If your current_________________________(you fill in the blank) is meeting your needs, and is not broken, why does it need to be replaced? Why must cell phones be upgraded every year or so? Why is basic laundry soap not good enough (don't even get me started on the fact that buying simple Ivory Flakes is no longer possible!)? Many of the so called improvements have ultimately proven to not even be good for our health. Crisco was touted as a huge improvement over lard, now we know that it as actually far worse for us. However, advertisers are in the business of trying to lure the consumer from one brand to another, or back from another. To motivate the consumer they have to convince them that they have something better to offer.

Recently a new bakery opened up in our town. It's a tiny operation that bakes bread in a very traditional manner (as in a very long process rather than the more speeded up version now usually used). They didn't really advertise at all. They got one shelf at the mom and pop store and put the bread out. One version is sold out within an hour of the bread arriving and every loaf disappears before they come back to restock. It happened with no advertising at all. They have a good product at a reasonable price and if it's new and improved, it's only because it's old and predictable. The same thing has happened with the farm where we buy our milk. It used to be that there was milk from a day or two before in the cooler when you got there to buy milk. Now they have so many customers that if you don't get there before noon you'll have to come back the next day. They also have done no advertising. People buy milk from them because their friends recommended it. The milk isn't new and improved, it's just normal unadulterated, unmonkeyed with milk.

When things are produced locally on a small scale these are the sorts of things that happen. The reputation of the producer is at stake because he's depending on a small customer base that he needs to keep happy. It's ecologically more sensible because things aren't getting shipped all over the country, but it's also cheaper for the small producer because he doesn't have to appeal to people with expensive advertising. He can count on word of mouth to bring him all the customers he can handle. Now I'll grant you, the local bakery and the local farmer are not going to become the next Sam Walton. They may make a reasonable living, but they aren't going to get rich. They will have a personal relationship with the people in their community that is a sort of wealth of its own. I'm really liking buying my vegetables (the ones we don't grow) at the farmer's market or the farmstand, my bread from a local bakery (again when I don't make my own), my meat, eggs, and milk from local farmers. It may not be new and improved, but it tastes better and it's better for us than the new and improved whatever that the fast food restaurants are hawking this week.

Many Mothers Have Found

2010-07-19T09:26:00.000-07:00

The title of my post today is a phrase I've used probably hundreds of times in my life as a La Leche League Leader. It's nice to be able to quote studies that demonstrate scientific results, but a lot of the time the research simply hasn't been done. We're left with the experience of other mothers as our guide until such time as the researchers actually catch up.

This last couple of weeks I've been doing as thorough a scouring of the research on early childhood caries as I could because my granddaughter just got diagnosed with cavities. It's been a pretty frustrating experience in some ways because there seems to be really no definitive research, no matter what ADA policies would seem to indicate. There are, however, a lot of anecdotal reports from moms who have either halted or reversed decay in their breastfeeding infants. So while I can give my daughter the results of one double blind study on the effect of xylitol on ECC, for the most part all I can really say at the end of the day is "many mothers have found." What many mothers have found makes sense, what they have found fits the biological norm, it looks at the whole child. While it would be wonderful to be able to cite a wonderfully constructed research study that demonstrated the same things that study has apparently never been done.

It's difficult to do medical research on children. If you suspect that a particular practice might cause harm and that altering some aspect would help there are ethical questions about using a control group where you alter nothing. Thus withholding something you know to be good has ethical implications (even if some dentists don' necessarily recognize that fact). Consequently, we are frequently faced on making medical decisions based on case studies (a very weak form of research in general). However, when the case studies do seem to point to an answer it's better to go with case studies than no research at all.

So the best advice I can give my daughter or anyone else at this point is: xylitol has research support behind it, and many mothers have found that following a xylitol protocol they were able to halt cavity production in their toddlers while continuing to breastfeed ad lib. Some of their babies had teeth that actually re-mineralized. We know from other biological research that breastfeeding through the second year is incredibly beneficial to toddlers. LW at this point is on a xylitol routine and continuing her breastfeeding relationship.

Any questions about how to use xylitol? One helpful website is (www.askdrellie.blogspot.com).

Help Wanted

2010-06-22T08:08:00.000-07:00

First a little bit of background. I was a La Leche League Leader back when my own two children were little. I loved the volunteer work and did it enthusiastically. However, there came a point where LLL's "family first" philosophy meant that I needed to very reluctantly retire as a Leader. I had dreamed at one point of becoming a Lactation Consultant, but that dream too seemed to die and I plunged into the world of homeschooling and sheep raising, without really looking back. Then I plunged into the world of elder care for several years. Finally the last of the elders died and I found myself with time to do something different. I decided to look into both getting my lactation consultant certification and returning to La Leche League work. I've done both. Now comes where I need some help.

I have observed that one of the things that can make breastfeeding more complicated is an unsupportive grandmother. Some of these grandmothers are truly hostile to the whole idea of breastfeeding, some of them are simply uninformed about the subject, and some of them truly want to be supportive (they may even have breastfed their own children), but have a lot of misinformation to pass on along with some wisdom. I've watched both situations where the mom succeeds at breastfeeding, but ends up having to deal with repeated criticism from a grandma and situations in which the proffered bottles by grandma end up in a very premature weaning. I know it doesn't have to be that way. I've seen some grandmas who have done a good job supporting their daughters or daughters-in-law. I'm interested in doing at the very least a pamphlet on grandmothers and breastfed babies. What I'm looking for is input from both moms and grandmas on the ways the grandmas can help and the ways that grandmas can hurt.

I have to say that, while neither my mother-in-law nor my mother breastfed their own babies, both of my children's grandmas were largely supportive. I never had to deal with some of the horror stories I've heard of grandmas who gave formula while the mom was sleeping or who told their daughter that nursing a baby was gross. I've only heard these stories second hand. On the other hand now that I am a grandmother I know that sometimes even well intended help or information isn't always perceived as helpful. Young moms do like to figure some things out for themselves and when they've made what seems to be an informed decision they don't like to be constantly second guessed.

My observation as a LLL Leader is that grandmothers advice is a particular problem with some of the younger lower income moms in our area. Unlike their older college educated middle class contemporaries some of them are quite close both emotionally and geographically to the grandmas of their babies. They are far more apt to listen to them at the end of the day than to a La Leche League Leader or a Lactation Consultant. So in order to make real progress in improving breastfeeding rates and duration we need to get the grandmas on board. What I would like to do is to write something that not only gives some vital information to grandmas, but does it in a way that they can accept, instead of in a way that makes them react negatively because it stirs up all sorts of feelings of being judged, being disappointed, or of regret.

So moms, how have you dealt with the grandmas in your baby's life. Grandmas, what would you like to know? How can we inform you and still be respectful of your feelings and even perhaps your choices? If you are the happy grandma of a breastfed baby what would you like the less than happy grandmas of breastfed babies to know about how to develop their own relationship with those babies? If you prefer to post anonymously that's fine. I'm not interested in stirring up flames in an already volatile relationship with your baby's grandma by having you post personally revealing information on-line. I'm simply interested in some input that will perhaps help me craft something that might help bring some peace to the situation for other moms.

Domestic Day

2010-06-14T14:27:00.000-07:00

Well today was one of those at home days where I really try to accomplish something. I ran laundry and hung it out to dry. I loaded and ran the dishwasher. However, mostly I spent the day sewing. I finally finished a top for LW finished,unless of course her mommy wants to topstitch it, which would be nice, but I'm not willing to do until my sewing machine gets put in a better spot, or I get a better chair to use with it. I did do a bunch of fiddly hand sewing on it which took about an hour or so. Then I sat down with the two hour skirt to finish the hem. That took another two hours. So now I'm really not at all sure what they meant when they called it a two hour skirt since the hem alone took over 3, but maybe they've got a speedier way to do a hem than a blind hem stitch by hand.

In the midst of the sewing I had to run out(quite literally run) and rescue my laundry before the rain truly came down in torrents. I got to it before it was more than sprinkled on. Now I'm waiting for hamburg to thaw and inspiration to hit before I begin making dinner.

One thing I discovered is that while I don't love doing all parts of sewing, I don"t actually mind hemming. It's sort of like knitting in that it's a kind of mindless task. Everything is all pinned together, you aren't dealing with a machine that might suddenly yank things in a direction you don't want to go. It's just you, the fabric and a needle and thread.

Nothing terribly profound about today, just ordinary life, but somehow the very simplicity of it just makes me feel very rooted and real. It's sort of like spending time with LW, the rest of the world sort of ceases to matter and just watching her and interacting with her makes me feel very "in the momment." So much of my life I feel like I'm chasing to a meeting, doing absolutely necessary errnads etc. It's nice to be able to have a day when I can gauge my progress entirely by dried and hung up clothes and completed sewing projects.

Revisiting An Old Friend

2010-05-21T06:51:00.000-07:00

Thinking of babies and books reminds me of a cherished book of my own. As a young mom I found a book written by a serious Protestant Christian, Gladys Hunt, called Honey For A Child's Heart. It not only gave solid suggestions for books to read to your children at various ages, it also outlined a philosophy of reading aloud that underscored what I did with my children from the very earliest years. I didn't do everything exactly as she said, we adapted, but in very real ways this book influenced how I read to my children, and what I read to my children. I can't give enough credit to her for the number of fine selections I would never have discovered if it hadn't been for her. For awhile this book was one of my favorite things to give to young mom's as a baby shower gift (I know, weird...).

So now I'm recommending it to you. If you're Catholic, you'll find places you disagree with her theologically, but if you can get by that and simply catch the enthusiasm she has for children and books and children and books together you'll be well served. A number of other people have written books about books, and I actually own several of them (Michael O'Brian's, Jim Trelease's, Elizabeh Wilson's, Laura Berkwith's, Madeleine L'Engle's) and yet none of them have come close to being the guide to literature that Gladys Hunt's was for me. Check it out. I believe it's still in print, but if it isn't it's worth looking for a used copy.

Babies and Books

2010-05-20T11:29:00.000-07:00

In some families books don't make much of an appearance until after the child's first birthday. Some parents seem to find it a waste of time to try to introduce books to a younger baby. I'll admit to being one to push the envelope on this score. Our first born arrived on November 29th and I bought him books for his first Christmas. By 5 months he actually had a "favorite" book (God Made Me, which if I could only locate among the boxes in the attic I would have introduced to LW long before now!). By 11 months he would sit for up to 40 minutes listening to books. Now it was not books with story lines of course, but sing songy type books and books that labeled things. His little sister at the same age was only willing to sit still for 20 minutes worth of books, but she's more than made up for that over the years.

There are books that even now bring a smile to my face when I see them Goodnight Moon, I Am A Kitten, Millions of Cats, Paddington Bear, Make Way For Ducklings and countless others. I bought books for birthdays, books for Christmas, books for Easter, and books for no reason at all other than that there was a good book available. We also frequented at least 3 libraries, hit up the library book sales, etc. It was a very happy day when the library discarded our beloved "Isabelle and the Library Cat" (it's awaiting LW being old enough to enjoy it).We undoubtedly have a collection that rivals the children's room in our local library.

I honestly believe that introducing babies to books very very early is a really good thing. The predictable book that drives adults mad after several readings is a joy to a very little one. My son-in-law recently railed about Dr. Seuss, I'm not sure which Seuss he's read once too many times, but I heartily disagreed with him. I've read Green Eggs and Ham to more than one little child more than dozens of times to each, and the book still never fails to make me smile as well. LW is still a little too young for Green Eggs and Ham, but One Fish, Two Fish is a good choice for her right now. I was absolutely thrilled to find a lovely copy of the Berensteins' Inside Outside, Upside Down for her last fall. It was like time traveling for me to sit with a baby in my lap reading that book. The cadence with which I read it hasn't changed over the past 30 years and I still love the last line, "Mama, mama, I went to town, inside, outside, upside down."

There will be books that are far more sophisticated in the future. The day will come when the Little House Books, Narnia, and Anne of Green Gables get pulled out. However, I must admit I'm looking forward to two and Make Way For Ducklings, Katy and the Big Snow, Blueberries for Sal, The Honey Hunt, and Peter Rabbit. In the meantime, I've got to rustle up our copy of Mr. Paint Pig, Papa Small and Mother Goose. LW is about to turn one and that's a wonderful time for books as well.

For little babies it's the rhyme, and the predictable words. For one year olds the labeling becomes important. Books are a wonderful way to help a child expand their vocabulary and they become a window to a wider world. City children learn about things in the country and life on the farm. Country children learn about things like subways, and taxi cabs. Actual Bible stories, like other books with more complex story lines don't really seem to catch on until around two, but books that remind a child that God loves them, that Church is a special place, that they have a guardian angel. Those fit well sometime in the second year.

Poetry is good from the beginning. I've been singing Over In the Meadow to LW since she was a tiny little baby, but I can't wait for her to be old enough to appreciate "Whenever I Walk In a London Street," "They're Changing the Guard at Buckingham Place," "Animal Crackers," and other favorites from my own children's early years.

Children may be "carnal" lovers of books as they don't understand that books aren't for eating or ripping, but one of the joys of life is to have a little person drag a favorite book out of the stack and bring it to you to read. It may in fact be tiring for some adults to read the same story over and over again, but for me it's a reminder of G.K. Chesterton's thought that "Our Father is younger than we are." Chesterton pointed out that God says to the sun each day, do it again. So I'll continue to respond happily to "read it again."

Saga of the Skirt

2010-05-19T05:24:00.000-07:00

The two hour skirt is finally nearing completion. After 2 tries I got the casing sewn. After 3 tries I got the elastic in. Now all I have to do is stitch the seam in the elastic, close up the gap where the elastic got inserted, get it pinned up, and hem it. I figure that's probably at least another hour worth of work.

When my dd was here this weekend she looked at the skirt with a little bit of disdain and asked why it took me so long to sew just a few seams. She said she'd made skirts like that with zippers in them that didn't take more than 3 hours even with the cutting out. She's right, she has. That's why she can get a pattern with just numbers off the internet, create a paper pattern, and tackle making her own pocket diapers. I did mention that she didn't get her sewing ability from me didn't I?

Not to be defeated by the sewing machine, I bought more patterns on Monday. Abby was getting material for the aforementioned pocket diapers. I got what are supposed to be (please, Lord, let them be) easy patterns for little tops, shorts, and dresses for me to make some things for LW with the leftovers from skirt material, and remnants. I keep believing that good grandmothers sew for their grandchildren, and I did make dresses, shirts, shorts for her mommy when she was little. What I could not find, and don't apparently still have is the incredibly simple dress pattern I used to make a dress for Abby when she was about that age. Of course I also can't find the knitting pattern I used to make a dress for her when she was 4 either, but I'm still searching for that one.

The Two Hour Skirt

2010-05-13T14:20:00.000-07:00

In case no one was aware of this I am not the seamstress that my grandmother and my sister were, nor the seamstress my daughter is. I can read a pattern (if it's not too complicated), run a sewing machine, even do a bit of hand sewing. Anything like tailoring, flounces, ruffles, etc., well I avoid them.

I've been looking for skirts lately, and although I managed to get a couple at TJ MAXX I sort of wanted more than two skirts for dress up wear. So I decided I'd sew some. After all I'd just gotten my 35 year old sewing machine rehabbed. So I went to the store and picked out two patterns. One was marked easy, which is Simplicity's term for something that will be right at the edge of my challenged zone probably, and the other was marked two hour skirt. It had no zippers, no darts, and no notions required. I assumed it probably had a drawstring at the waist, although I didn't see one, because the envelope didn't say you need elastic.

Well their two hours obviously doesn't count the time it takes to cut out the tissue paper pattern, and I don't think it even counts the time it takes to pin the pattern on the cloth, and then cut out the pieces. Obviously, it didn't count the time required to pre-shrink the material (a step my sister taught me years ago is necessary). So I get all that preliminary stuff done and I'm already way past two hours, but that's ok.

I sit down to sew. The first seam makes it very clear that the tension on my machine is seriously out of whack. This is a very frustrating moment because one of the things I'd taken the machine to the shop to get done was adjust the tension. So I took a piece of scrap material and tried every single setting on the tension wheel and none of them were significantly better. A light bulb finally went off in my head and I took the bobbin out and checked it. Yup, I hadn't gotten the thread all the way through the correct doo hicky slot. Bobbin reinserted correctly, tension set at 3.5 all that was left to do was rip out the first lousy seam. That's ok, ripping out is my speciality. Of course this whole procedure ate up at least another 20 minutes or so. Finally I was sailing along quite sweetly, I didn't just keep right at it because life kept happening. One thing that became evident as I read along in the pattern was that despite the fact that neither the pattern envelope nor the front of the directions said so, elastic was needed. So after my lit class with Brigid I went to the store and picked up two packages of 1" elastic, because I recalled seeing something about 1" in reference to the elastic in the directions. I should have read more carefully...

It turns out when I finally got to the casing step that the directions didn't specify the size of elastic, but it did specify the size of the casing: one inch minus the 1/4 inch raw edge you turn under. Hmmm, that means that what I really needed was not 1" elastic but 3/4" elastic (wish they could have specified that in the first place). So today after Mass I went back to the store and got 3/4 inch elastic. Hopefully by the end of the weekend I will have managed to mark off and press under the 1 inch casing (not marked on the pattern, unfortunately), stitch it down, put the elastic through it, and get someone to pin the hem up so I can hem it.

The only part of this that could have possibly taken only two hours (and only if I worked really, really fast is the 8 seams with the pressing required, the casing, and inserting the elastic. Pinning up the hem is at least a half hour job, sewing the hem will be closer to an hour (and I'm a darn good hemmer).

Now the second skirt may come closer to the two hour mark since the pattern is already cut out, the material is already pre-shrunk, and I now know how the whole thing goes together, but it's pretty clear to me that Simplicity is to say the least very optimistic in their description of projects. Tow hour skirt - yeah right. Easy pattern - well for a clothing and textiles major perhaps.

The positive note of this whole thing is that I've got left over fabric. I think it's enough to make a dress for my granddaughter - if I can just find a pattern.

The Little Things

2010-05-11T18:08:00.000-07:00

In the car this week I've been listening to a tape from an earlier American Chesterton Society conference. The topic is Distributism a System or A Value. The author's conclusion is that while it may not be realistic to see Distributism as a political movement that will compete with current political parties, or even as a competing economic system, that it's more important for us to embrace the values associated with it and in that way to not only change the world around us, but live authentic lives ourselves.

It got me thinking about the little things I do, and have done that were actually representing that viewpoint long before I ever heard of distributism. To homeschool our children was a distributist sort of thing to do (doing things at the smallest level rather than allowing the state to take over our children's education and direct their values by doing so),as were building our own house, growing a garden, raising animals for meat, making some of our own clothes, caring for our own elderly relatives, reading aloud, teaching other people's kids to knit, being a La Leche League Leader.

Sometimes it feels like we haven't made much of a change in the world. It feels like we've been heading towards A while everyone else was racing towards Z as John Holt once commented. Yet when I look back I wonder about some of those small things. If even the death of a butterfly can change the world, than what sort of an impact does having property where humming birds can find bee balm and butterflies aren't poisoned by weed killer. How many babies are there out there who ended up with more breastmilk because their mom spent time on the phone with me? Has it really helped that my sister and I patronized small yarn shops and bookstores? Does it make a difference when I give meat to people whose budgets are tight? What impact did it have when nurses in the hospital heard me reading to Auntie or singing to my mother or my mother-in-law? Did it help them see a different way of dealing with dying people? I don't know. I will probably never know whether anything I did had an particular impact. I take great comfort in Mother Theresa's comment that God doesn't ask us to be successful, he just asks us to be faithful.

I will almost certainly never be famous and highly influential. I will almost certainly only have an impact on one person at a time and in little ways with little things. It doesn't feel like saving the planet to use leftovers to make an omelet for brunch instead of stopping at MacDonalds, or sewing a homemade skirt instead of buying one made with slave labor. It doesn't change the world to have a discussion about Dorothy Day with my daughter, a discussion about Small Is Beautiful with my son-in-law, or medieval guilds with my son it only means living a life where all of us are actually thinking about the way that Christian doctrine intersects with our actual lives.

I'm only following in the path of people who were more own mentors. Shari who welcomed the stranger and even the strange, a mother-in-law who let her grandchildren make operation dolls and Bible trees, a mother who stayed up far into the night canning tomato juice or freezing home grown chickens, a grandmother who made dolls out of scraps of cloth and a grandfather who made a wooden cradle out of packing crates, a father who valued education (although deprived of it himself) but also demonstrated how to work physically incredibly hard even when his body was giving out.

What I realize the more I read about distributism and Catholic social teaching is the extent to which it feels right largely because it reflects so much of what I grew up being taught. Somehow my parents and my parents-in-law as well had a far more open approach to the poor, the odd, the drunk, the delinquent than a lot of their contemporaries. So did my pastors. Consequently, although I grew up in a pretty pietistic environment I wasn't anywhere near as sheltered as some of my friends. I knew what Weeks School was like (although I'd never seen the place), I knew people who were recently out of mental institutions, I encountered drunks, and old ladies with second grade educations (who made the most beautiful braided rugs you've ever seen). My parents didn't approve of the drinking done by the drunks, but my father kept right on hiring them, believing that they were still people worth taking a chance on. So while I didn't grow up in a Catholic Worker house, I grew up with a lot of the type of people who ended up there.

So did it make a difference that my father hired those people? Did it make a difference that our pastor didn't just serve the upwardly mobile? Did it make a difference that my mother provided rides to Sunday School and prayer meeting to a little old lady with a second grade education? On a global scale, on a national scale, even on a community scale, it doesn't feel like it made much difference at all. Yet on a human scale, it made all the difference in the world because it taught my sister and me something about the unique value of each human person. So, I guess I'll continue on doing the little things, being a distributist in the little ways and believing that St. Therese, Mother Theresa, and of course Chesterton knew what they were talking about.

Distributists, Catholic Workers, and La Leche League

2010-05-05T17:35:00.000-07:00

So what do all of the above have in common? Well, for one thing they all read Chesterton and seemed to quote him frequently in the past (some Catholic Workers no longer do and LLL doesn't seem to anymore either). The movements all got started by people who were familiar with papal encylicals like Rerum Novarum and embraced Catholic social teaching. The Catholic Workers movement of today seems to encompass a real diversity of viewpoints, some of them not Catholic at all (despite the name). La Leche League also embraces a variety of viewpoints and claims no connection with Catholicism at all (again despite the name). Yet, the Catholic worker movement and La Leche League still retain some of the philosophical positions that they began with. Catholic workers are still devoted to hospitality to the poor and La Leche League is still trying to help enhance the mother baby relationship (you can't get more small and local than that).

I've spent a lot of my time lately reading about the Catholic Worker movement. The most recent book I'm tackling is Mark and Louise Zwick's The Catholic Worker Movement, Intellectual and Spiritual Origins. I'm finding this one really helpful, almost even more than The Duty of Delight (which is the edited journals of Dorothy Day). It's helping me get some perspective on the founding principles of the movement and to understand the ways in which critics have frequently misunderstood both Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin. They were not Communists, nor even Socialists. Despite the impression given in "Entertaining Angels," Dorothy Day was not even particularly interested in the movement for women's suffrage (and in fact never voted herself). I'm still not sure I always agree with them, and I continue to believe that some of the ways in which the Catholic Worker branches have sometimes moved away from the Church have to do with the way that things were set in motion at the beginning (and particularly as pacifism became such a prominent feature of the movement).

I must say the more I read both about the Catholic Worker movement and about Catholic social teaching on economics the more Chestertonian I become. I have also found of late that when I'm struggling with the muddled thinking of some people around me (even when it has nothing to do with theology, philosophy, or economics directly) that reading Chesterton has the same effect as splashing cold water on your face when you're sleepy. His very lucid thinking has a way of waking you up and helping you think clearly.

This is a post from a while back, but it seemed apropos to post it again. I went looking today for links between distributism and La Leche League and low and behold my own blog post came up in first place.

Hey Check Out Her New Blog

2010-05-04T15:48:00.001-07:00

My darling daughter is blogging again after a long hiatus. She's also writing again after a long break during which she a: got engaged b: got married and c: had a baby. d: combined a new baby with a part-time telecommuting job. It was sort of a whirlwind couple of years and somehow she didn't do much writing. I can't imagine why. Anyway, if you're interested in what she has to say check out Writing Living Epistles by clicking on that my links. I tried putting the link in here, but I'm obviously not doing it right, so you'll just have to click in the sidebar. She isn't kidding when she says that a large part of her day is spent trying to keep the Little Wum from eating lint. LW is more efficient than most vacuum cleaners.

It's nice to see her writing again. I enjoy her thoughts on paper as much as her thoughts in real time. She enjoys other mom blogs, I hope some of you enjoy hers.

The Blog of the American Chesterton Society: GKC: the first cataract of innocence

2010-04-22T16:03:00.000-07:00

The Blog of the American Chesterton Society: GKC: the first cataract of innocence

Finishing Well

2010-03-30T04:46:00.000-07:00

This week we hear the passion story once again. Once again we hear about Judas. Judas was one of the twelve disciples. At one point he certainly must have looked like a believer. We don't actually know what went on in his heart, but I suspect that he probably at one point actually thought of himself as a true follower of Jesus. At some point did he become disillusioned? Did he think he knew better how to actually bring on the kingdom? There have been lots of theories about what happened to Judas, but the fact is that whatever happened, however he began, he did not finish well.

As Father Groeschel has pointed out Judas could have repented like Peter. Despite the horrible betrayal he could have thrown himself at the foot of the cross instead of committing suicide. Had he done so he would have become St. Judas, but he didn't. He went out in great sorrow, but not to come back to Jesus. He became instead an example of how not to finish well.

Through the years we've seen examples of Christians who started well, but ended badly. There are the nuns who began with a shining face and an enthusiastic desire to follow Christ who somehow wandered off into a morass of New Age Spirituality and secularly inspired feminism who now have very little connection to Christ at all. There are the priests who began with what seemed like a genuine devotion, but ended in prison after years of being enamored with the philosophy of NAMBLA and years of abusing children. Some of them died while apparently still in this state of mind. They did not finish well.

There are the people who grew up in the Church served as altar servers or carried the crown at May crowning, but who drifted away from the faith in college never to return or fell into the habit of cultural Catholicism, and now are aiming angry words at the Church for not being willing to embrace the political correctness of gay marriage, contraception, abortion on demand, and women priests. They are not finishing well.

There have been converts to the faith, enthusiastic at the beginning, holding to whatever the Church taught, whom have become disillusioned because things weren't being done the way they thought they should have been done. They've forgotten that the Church is a place where the wheat and tares reside together, they've forgotten that there is only one pope and they aren't him. Sadly, some of them have left, even more sadly, some of them have stuck around, but do continual damage with their words discouraging, other people from even considering the call of the Church, teaching in CCD and other places doctrines that are contrary to the constant teaching of the Church. They began well, but they are finishing badly.

I'm old enough now to really think a lot more about the finish line. I'm still in reasonably good health, but I can't look forward to another 50 years of muddling along. Thirty perhaps (my mother made it that far) I can even dream of making it to 100, but already I've lost a lot of people I started life out with. My younger sister has died, our neighbors across the street (both younger than me) have died, numerous cousins only slightly older have died, my best friend from high school and a girl I played with in grade school have died. The finish line may be 30 years out, but the possibility of it looming up much more quickly is certainly a reality. I truly want to finish well. Yet some days I only see how much work remains to be done in order to reach that goal.

Finishing well means not holding onto hurt feelings, it means being more disciplined in prayer, it means being willing to be sacrificial even when my knees are hurting, or I'm tired instead of just when I wake up with a boatload of enthusiasm and the sun is shining. It means being willing to trust even when the answer to a prayer is still wait. It means being tolerant when I'd like to simply be critical, and it means being less wishy-washy when I'm tempted to gloss something over that I really need to not. Sometimes it means to forgive readily, sometimes it means to confront boldly, and finishing well means in part knowing which is which. Mostly what finishing well means is to make Jesus most important and tangential things less important, to love people for the love of Jesus, to enjoy beauty as a reflection of Him, to be thankful for God's good gifts by not indulging in too much of them. It also means remembering each day that each new day is a gift, not an entitlement. The finish line may be around the next bend, and I do want to finish well.

Pride Goeth Before a Face Plant

2010-02-24T10:01:00.000-08:00

Well, my Knitting Olympics sweater was coming along nicely. I'd not been able to knit for a few days but in an afternoon and part of a morning I got the first sleeve done, and I had the body of the sweater done up to the joining round by last Friday. So it looked like I was heading for the homestretch with maybe not time to spare, but time enough. Then as I was matching the sleeve up to the body to admire how well the stripes matched, I saw it. There was a horrible, unfixable mistake in the second change. I only did 2 rows of color 3 instead of 3. So I had to rip it all the way back. I doubt I'll even finish the body by tonight, and I still have a whole sleeve, plus the yoke of the sweater to do. I think I know how some of those athletes who didn't win gold, but face planted or otherwise flopped under the pressure. Oh well, the lesson in Introduction to the Devout Life today was on humility. Nothing like a face plant to deal a blow to pride. Now back to my knitting. Maybe I can at least get it done before we go to New York in 9 days.

Knitting Olympics

2010-02-13T11:49:00.000-08:00

Well, the nice symbol somehow didn't get posted on my blog, but I am doing the knitting Olympics this year. I feel like a figure skater who decided to change the long program at the eleventh hour, however. I started out thinking I was going to do a three color sweater with stash yarn, only to discover that I didn't have quite enough of any one color to do the bottom and the sleeves, so I've changed my design. I am now doing a "Ringing the Changes" sweater with 5 colors from my stash. It's rather like taking all of your scrap cloth and making a quilt, instead I'm taking yarn left from an Abby project, a Jim project, and a couple of Luci projects and turning it into a striped sweater for me. It's a design I've wanted to try for awhile.

The object of the knitting Olympics is to cast on during the opening ceremonies (done) and then finish the project by the closing ceremony 17 days later. I overslept this morning, so I'm feeling like I'm already falling behind, but I've got the ribbing at the bottom done, and I'm onto the second color change.

So now it's back to the needles pondering whether it wouldn't have been more prudent to do a "Ringing the Changes" sweater for Luci instead of me....

Just Polite Talk

2009-12-27T21:59:00.000-08:00

Have you ever encountered people who are effusive with what I like to term "polite talk?" They will tell you how much they would love to get together with you, how much they miss you, how much fun it would be to "do lunch" sometime. However, when you try to get around to the specifics they are always too busy. They urge you to come and visit, but when you've found a space of time when you can, they suddenly find multiple excuses for why it's not going to be convenient, and this is the case each and every time you suggest the possibility. The fact is that while they do experience some warm feelings when they think about you, they don't really want to have a real relationship with you that requires any degree of sacrifice on their part. I have a couple of these friends who've been urging a visit ever since last spring. One of them was invited to my daughter's wedding and RSVP'd with a yes, but never showed up and never called to let us know why. These are not the people to call in the middle of the night when you're in a crisis. One might call them fair weather friends, but the fact is that they are really only casual acquaintances who think of themselves as your very, very dear friends, but who have tons of other very, very dear friends whom are also, at best, casual acquaintances. Some relationships were closer at one point, but have fallen into the former friends category. Time, distance, or circumstances have changed the relationship and there's no longer any effort being put into it to keep it current. However, I know people who will describe those old acquaintances as their very, very dear friends despite the fact that they've had no contact for over a decade. The reality simply doesn't match the talk.

Some of these people are casual acquaintances or "former friends" of Jesus as well. They will proclaim that they love Jesus at Christmas. They'll sing the songs, they'll send the cards, they'll celebrate His birth, they may even show up at church. Then they'll go back to ignoring Him, they'll go back to living a life that has no connection to Him, and they'll reject any and all invitations to get closer. Does it hurt His heart the way that the rejection I experience from those "polite talkers" hurts me? Some people would say no, but I remember Jesus lamenting over Jerusalem and I'm not so sure. All I know is that day after day, week after week, year after year He's still there and if the "polite talk" ever becomes more than just "polite talk" that He will welcome the prodigal with open arms.

Sometimes it's tempting to wish that all of those people who simply engage in polite talk at the holiday time would simply be consistent with the rest of the year and leave Christmas to those who actually believe. Yet, as my friend Karen has pointed out, these are opportunities for grace. At this time of year we can legitimately send greetings with a spiritual message that won't automatically offend. At this time of year, the messages of hymns may actually be able to penetrate into their otherwise secular brains. The message may be presented in a pretty banal fashion in some TV presentation of the nativity or it may be well presented in a homily at church, but it's the one time of the year that the possibility of being open to the message is actually there. It's easy to be skeptical about the possibility of change. After all the message has been presented year after year. They've celebrated Christmas season after season with no lasting result. But we never know when this might be the year that it's different. If God is going to continue to welcome the prodigal, it's probably important that we not get too cynical about the possibility of their conversion.

The Church continues to open her doors to these people with their once a year devotion in hopes that eventually it will be more than that. Mass yesterday was particularly well attended. Can we hope that perhaps it's a sign of things to come, a sign that for some people polite talk was replaced with the beginnings of a new life? Let's pray that's the case.

There Are Days When You're Better Off Just Knitting

2009-12-18T15:44:00.000-08:00

Today was clearly one of those days. I actually did spend a good share of the day knitting, but finally braved the cold to drive to the post office, where I knew there'd be packages (one of the consequences of having to shop online for things that aren't available locally!). So I drive down (leaving my cell phone at home because I was only going to be gone a few minutes) and parked in a great spot. Of course my great spot was on the downhill side of the parking lot so I put on my parking brake. I went to the post office, got my packages and got back in the car. When I went to release the parking brake it didn't release. So I tried again, repeatedly. Then I decided to see if moving the car would help. I managed to get the car into the nearby library parking lot, but the brake still wouldn't release. I tried backing up, still no go. So I gave up, went into the library and used their phone to call my husband. No answer at the office other than the machine. Then I called home and told my son what had happened and left a message with him for my husband.

I spent the next hour reading a book about Alzheimer's disease in the library. When David finally arrived he had no better luck with the car then I had, but he did manage to get it moved to a better location (I waited in the warm library while he did this and read part of Sarah Palin's book Going Rogue). Then he thought he'd gotten it to release, but only managed to get it stuck on a patch of ice. So he came back to the library to get me so that I could sit in the car (which was now in the middle of a side street) with the lights on while he went to get sand. Fortunately, he got back before I ran it out of gas (the needs gas light came on at some point in the midst of all of this). A little sand got the car off the ice and into yet another parking spot. Then we came home in the truck.

So the car is now stranded until Monday when our mechanic will actually be on duty. I can't do last minute Christmas shopping this weekend and I've had to cancel my dentist's appointment for Monday. So I guess I'll spend the weekend knitting, re-watching The #1 Ladies' Detective Agency movies, reading Alexander McCall Smith novels, and knitting some more.

This was all on top of the printer running totally out of ink and my credit card number somehow getting stolen (thankfully the company caught it before there was a major problem) and the replacement cell phone freezing up the same way the original one did. It hasn't been a great week for anything but knitting. The bread I made on Tuesday was less than a stellar success for some reason, one present I've been trying to buy is suddenly unavailable everywhere (including online), and my jeans are suddenly too tight (wonder what could have caused that??).

So I definitely, absolutely am better off knitting. On the plus side, I did manage to do all of the ordinary errands (like bill paying ones) before the car problem. Also on the plus side, I bought more yarn yesterday.

Did I mention that I love to knit.....

The Wisdom of Children

2009-11-22T15:46:00.001-08:00

Yesterday on the way home from Massachusetts I listened to a most depressing account of why some people reject the Christian teaching about life after death. One of the most intriguing parts of an otherwise pretty sad presentation was the admission that belief in life after death is in effect the default position. Children, absent teaching on the matter believe firmly in life after death. That belief has to be taught out of them.

It reminded me that Jesus admonished us to become as little children because the kingdom of God is made of such as them. It also made me very sad because of something that happened at the home of my hostess on Friday night. At dinner the family joined hands as if to say grace. When I bowed my head, instead of grace they began singing Oats, and Beans, and Barley Grow. Their little girl explained to me afterwards, "We don't pray." This is a very nice family, they clearly love and respect each other, they have nice things, they do kind things for other people. They are creative and involved in all kinds of activities, but they don't pray and their little girl was most aware of the fact.

I like a lot of the points that Chesterton made about children. He knew that young children knew more than grownups some of the time. He learned that both from his own childhood and from the teachings of the Church. He knew the importance of fairy tales, the importance of play, and the importance of being like a little child. There are few worldly treasures that many of us can hand on to our children and grandchildren. We live in a culture where handing on those worldly treasures has taken on paramount importance. Chesterton would join Jesus in warning us that we need to become like the children and lay up treasures in heaven, not because we despise the beauties that God has given us on earth, but because we know that to lose the ultimate treasure is the biggest tragedy of all.

A Girl and Her Horse

2009-09-21T07:08:00.001-07:00

Abby's horse Eclipse died yesterday. She had been diagnosed with an intestinal obstruction on Thursday, but when the blood test results came back on Saturday, it turned out that she was in kidney failure. Even heroic measures would have been pretty unlikely to change the course of things and Eclipse was actually too weak to be transported to a medical facility anyway. So the hard choice got made.

I've spent a lot of time thinking about Abby and Eclipse the past few days. I've realized that, although I've never spent a great deal of time with Eclipse by myself, that much of my time with Abby during her teens was spent on Eclipse related activities. There were the early morning trips to the stable for Abby to work off part of the board for Eclipse. There were the training sessions in the afternoon that I drove her to. There were riding lessons on Eclipse. There were trips to saddle shops to look at saddles for Eclipse. There were escapades of trying to get Eclipse onto trailers to go from home to a stable, from a stable to home again. There were the trips to the feed store to try to find something to keep the gnats off Eclipse since she was so incredibly allergic to them. There were trips to the fabric store to buy material to make Eclipse a blanket to wear at the stable. There were the trips from home to Shoreham both for riding lessons and for regular riding sessions when Eclipse was staying there. There was the day that Eclipse got bred by the Arab stallion. There were photo opportunities on the front lawn at home. There were the days when I held Eclipse while Hope was getting her feet trimmed or vice versa. There were the trips to bookstores to pick out books on horse training. There were the schemes to try to figure out how to build a round pen (that one never came to fruition).

I'm not a horse person. A lot of the time in a certain sense I was only along for the ride. I drove the car, I tutored in order to pay for riding lessons, I read John Lyon newsletters to better understand the whole process, but ultimately it wasn't my project. I was a facilitator, not an instructor.

Often people ask me how high school works for homeschoolers. They have this idea of parents teaching algebra and French, Shakespeare, and physics and are daunted by it all. Now for the most part Abby learned algebra from a textbook and had the gaps filled in by a wonderful instructor at UVM when she took Pre-calculus math. We tried French (and I did have 18 hours of college French so this wasn't a totally wild thing to do), but never really got as far as either of us probably thought we might. We did do some Shakespeare (I was an English major after all), skipped physics, and she took chemistry at CCV. I honestly think, however, that Abby learned more from Eclipse and because of Eclipse than she did from any of the more conventional school type stuff. She ended up majoring in Animal Sciences with most of her course work centering around equine science. She went to college on a scholarship and graduated magna cum laude, so clearly something worked.

It strikes me now how many of those high school hours were spent on horse related activities. Abby learned to drive largely by driving to and from Shoreham. We often used those drives as a time for me to read to her from one book or other that we were working our way through. I specifically remember reading Peter Kreeft's The Summa of the Summa, but I know there were others as well.

Today is just the sort of fall day that Abby loved being a homeschooler. It was a day like today that she would do schoolwork for awhile and then go hop on Eclipse for a short trail ride or go work on lounging her in her paddock. She would comment on how the other kids were in school while she got to spend time with her horse. She'd then work on algebra or something else late into the evening, but it was a small price to pay for having spent the afternoon with her horse.

Abby's job right now is as a medical fact checker. Her college coursework is now paying off. That college coursework that looked like simply indulging her love of horses for a few more years is helping to pay the bills. She has a job that is allowing her to stay home with her baby while still earning some much needed cash. So the end result of all those years with Eclipse is that a a different dream came true.

There were lots of dreams that never did come true. Abby never did get to take Eclipse to a John Lyon clinic. She never did get to do endurance riding with her. She never was able to do the amount of riding with her she would have liked to because Eclipse spooked too easily for it to be safe for Abby to ride her on the trail by herself and there really wasn't a good place to ride her around here. She never even got to get a registered Morgan baby out of her because the paperwork to register Eclipse herself got messed up. However, she did get a registered half-Arab baby who is now at a wonderful home with a wonderful trainer who keeps Abby updated on her progress regularly. We had hoped that once Eclipse hit the older horse stage that she'd be calmer and Abby would be able to take her out on the trail. Unfortunately, that was another dream that had to die because Eclipse came up permanently lame awhile back and was no longer really rideable at all.

I suspect that Abby is more grateful today for the dreams that did come true. She got to spend hours and hours with her horse. She got to take her to college and ride her nearly every day in a great facility. She had the fun of raising a foal and training her to the point that someone else with a better facility and more time could take over and finish the job. She learned lessons about training that will serve her well someday when she has the time and the place for another horse. For I'm pretty certain that ultimately there will be another horse. It won't be for awhile, and it will never be quite the same, it will be a different horse for a different time in her life. There will never be another horse to grow up with. This was the horse that saw her grow from a 10 year old to a grown woman. This was the horse that heard about the broken heart after broken relationships, the horse she missed while she was in Pittsburgh, the horse that taught her that training has to include firmness as well as gentleness. The best parts of the dream, to have a horse to grow up with were there. And me, well the best part for me was that I got to go along for the ride. I got to watch it happen. I saw the confidence she learned, the maturity she developed, the resourcefulness she exhibited, the patience she showed, even the acceptance of the deaths of dreams. Watching my daughter become a horsewoman required a great deal of courage on my part. I was frightened, but I had to not let her be. Ultimately, taking a chance on her abilities really paid off.

Someday I hope my daughter, the sometime writer, will write her own story of Eclipse. After all I was just the observing bystander. I wasn't the person who felt the horse beneath me, or fell off on occasion. I was frequently the hander of things, often the payer of bills, hopefully the adequate cheerleader, and of course the car service. Ultimately , the story of the girl and her horse will have to be written by the girl.

Update

2009-09-20T05:54:00.000-07:00

Well, last week I made major progress on the sweater, got the measurements for LW's new sweater, took herbs to my daughter, cleaned out a corner of the computer room, finished all my fair paperwork and got it to the proper people, got books at the library to start my classes with Brigid (this is the library in Burlington, so one day got chewed up with a B-town trip), went to my doctor's appointment, got minimal amounts of exercise, but did walk the 4 flights of stairs up to David's office one day, made a vet appointment for my daughter's horse, finished watching season 3 of Heroes so I'm all ready for season 4 when it starts up, and did the random housework I do every week. It doesn't look like much when I set it all down, but the paperwork entailed a trip to Rutland which with one thing and another ate up all of one afternoon, the sweater knitting and Heroes watching ate up much of Tuesday, the computer room cleaning ate up a goodly chunk of Weds., the Burlington trip ate up all of Thursday, then Friday got eaten up with getting ready for the doctor's appointment, getting ready for company, going to the doctor's appointment (and waiting, and waiting, and waiting), then coming home to make dinner etc. Saturday got eaten up with horse related stuff and baby rocking (a most pleasant occupation by the way). So here we are at Sunday, and while there weren't major mistakes in the week there weren't any major accomplishments to speak of either.

It actually turned out to be a sad week. My daughter's horse (which she raised from a newborn foal) was diagnosed as terminally ill. We didn't even know she was sick until this week. Initially it was thought that she had some sort of intestinal blockage, but it turns out that she's in kidney failure for some unknown reason, but there really is no way to fix it. In the best case scenario she'd have to be transported to Saratoga for expensive treatment and there would be no guarantee that they would be able to fix what's wrong with her since we don't know the underlying cause. Eclipse hates being trailed under the best of circumstances and we're pretty sure the stress of being trailed would kill her anyway, even if we could justify the thousands of dollars in a heroic effort that might be pointless anyway. So the vet will be coming this morning to euthanize her. It's a really sad day for all of us. Eclipse has been one of only two horses I've been comfortable with (and I've never even really ridden her, I just got walked around on her once). She's been the one horse here I could walk up to and pet and not worry about getting kicked. I've watched Abby train her and ride her, and become a more confident person because of her. Abby's the horse person, not me. I don't cry over horses dying, but I'm crying over this one. So while last week didn't have major mistakes in it, it still turned out to be a bummer of a week in some respects. It's a good thing I started it with energy because it ended up taking all the energy I had.

A Brand New Week With No Mistakes In It

2009-09-14T06:53:00.000-07:00

The last couple of weeks have been hectic, scattered, sometimes frustrating. So today is Monday, yesterday being the last day of the fair (with its attendant checking out of the stuff in the 4-H building) felt more like the end of a week than the beginning. So I'm now looking at a fresh new week with no mistakes in it as Anne would say. It just has the mistakes of past weeks still in it. This week brings up a doctor's appt., that will underscore the mistakes of a year (I've gained back about 15 pounds!), a trip to Rutland to take the final paperwork to the 4-H office. That's because of a mistake I made last week in not xeroxing out a copy of one piece of paperwork. It also means a possible trip to the furniture store to try out mattresses because the new one seems to be a mistake (I'm still waking up every 2-3 hours all night long). So the mistakes of the past are following me into this new mistake free week.

Yet, I'm still feeling like it's a brand new week. The sun is shining, I ate a healthy breakfast, there are new pictures of my granddaughter to print out. I'm feeling more energetic than I have in a couple of days . I'm actually thinking about perhaps getting some actual exercise. None of those particular mistakes of the past week, or past year are beyond repairing, unlike some sorts of mistakes.

I've been reading Art and Larraine Bennet's book Understanding Your Temperament, and I'm realizing that my upbeat attitude towards a new week probably has a lot to do with my basic temperament. I'm a sanguine, no doubt about it (just ask my kids!). I have the attention span of a Labrador Retriever puppy, I start projects with enthusiasm, but have to force myself to finish them. I'm a sidetracked home executive, a failure at FlyLady, but I bounce back like Tigger. Reading the book helps me understand not only myself, but the other members of the family as well. It also helps me understand why they don't always understand me. What our family is lacking, pretty much across the board, is a driven choleric who could take charge and make things happen. My father was one of those. We have melancholics, galore, several phlegmatics and well at least a couple of sanguines. The problem with this mix is that, the phlegmatics have a difficult time getting started on a project, the melancholics are too perfectionistic to tackle it, and we sanguines are great starters but have no real sticking power. To add to the problem sanguines are really sensitive to other people's moods so when the discouraging words do come from the melancholics it's far too easy to simply give up (something we sanguines do easily enough without discouraging words).

Soooo, I'm trying to harness all of the self-discipline I naturally lack, and bringing my no mistakes yet enthusiasm into this week, actually accomplish some of the tasks I've set out for myself. I've got a sweater I'm working on, a pair of socks to finish (just got to pick up the stitches around the heel and knit down to the toe), there are peppers in the garden that need to have something done with them, I've promised to visit a friend this week, and to bring some herbs to my daughter in the big city. Then of course there is that aforementioned doctor's appointment, as well as getting set up with my tutoring schedule for Brigid. What with housework, exercise, eating right it could be a busy week. However, right now it still looks like this wonderful blank sheet of paper with no blotches on it. I'm praying for the grace to make it productive, a week filled with loving acts, and no mistakes in it.

I Still Think About This So I Ran It Again

2009-09-02T14:15:00.000-07:00

You might notice that I've put a link to an older post here. I did it so that it could be linked from Jennifer's Et Tu site. It's supposed to be my representative post, and somehow it seemed pretty representative for me. It's about family, it's about giant's shoulders I'm standing on, it's about the past and the future.

I've had a little over a year as a mother-in-law now and I certainly hope that I'm doing my own mother-in-law proud. I'm certainly trying to. I think my new son-in-law probably has made it somewhat easier for me than I may have made it for my own mother-in-law. Unlike the characters on sit coms who complain about their in-laws there's no complaints here. I had a wonderful set of in-laws and I have a terrific son-in-law.

Today at our LLL meeting we talked about the ways in which the grandparents of new babies made things either easier or more difficult. It was interesting because the stories were all so very different. One mom, who had a very difficult delivery and recovery was blessed to have her own parents move in for a month and do everything except feed the baby. Another mom talked about how her father had defended her against criticism from his wife (not her own mother), and how proud he was of her for following her own instincts. There were some complaints about grandparents who'd tried to interject uneducated advice, but for the most part the moms seemed to understand that the advice came with good intentions, but from an uninformed perspective. I asked them what would be most helpful from grandparents, one said she'd like her mom to be more open with her, another said educating themselves about the facts about breastfeeding and babies sleep needs. They all reiterated over and over how important it was for grandparents to trust the instincts of the parents and not undermine them. One even had a book to recommend for me to read before I write my "pamphlet for grandmothers." Overall it was a fun meeting for me because I was getting some real insight into what the needs of these particular moms were, but also what the needs of the moms of this generation are. They aren't totally different from the needs of moms of my generation, but there are some new wrinkles. I was amazed to find how many of the moms were dealing not just with parents and in-laws, but with step parents as well. That really did seem to complicate the picture a great deal, and it's something I had not thought about as I began to approach the topic.

I wish sometimes that I could sit and talk with my mother-in-law again and ask her how she managed to be such a wonderful support despite the fact that she hadn't nursed her own babies. Perhaps it really was because she attempted to be an intuitive mother despite the fact that she bottle fed and despite the fact that she had no modeling for being a mother-in-law. I'm not sure how she managed, I only know that standing on her shoulders I hope I can approximate what she did.

On Giants' Shoulders: What I Learned From My Mother-In-Law

2009-09-01T06:05:00.000-07:00

On Giants' Shoulders: What I Learned From My Mother-In-Law

The Personhood of Babies

2009-08-27T18:08:00.000-07:00

I wonder whether part of the reason that we have such a difficult time seeing unborn babies as persons is that we have a difficult time seeing babies in general as people. Babies are an attraction, for sure. But so often in the clamor to hold the baby, pass the baby around from Aunt Clara to Uncle Bob, to Great Grandma Hoosier, Great Aunt Agnes and Mrs. Mc Gillicutty from next door, we forget that this is not a teddy bear, it's a real little person. It's a little person who doesn't yet know that their mommy and they are two separate people and so feels real distress when they are far from her or their daddy's arms (babies learn about daddies pretty early because the daddy is the other constant person in their lives). Pass the baby, kiss the baby are both practices with a lot of cultural acceptance, but they aren't necessarily great for the baby. Newborns, in particular should be being colonized with their mother's bacteria (to which they get immunity from her milk) rather than the bacteria of every Tom, Dick, and Harry in the neighborhood, or even Great Aunt Agnes. Babies stay oriented best by smelling their mother, they develop their immune systems best by being skin to skin with her. The time for relationships with other people will come. If we really respect the baby as a real person, we won't treat them like the present at a birthday party that simply gets passed around for all to see.

This is true for newborns and some people even accept it for newborns (because of the germs etc), but it continues to be true later in the first year. Babies may very often not like to be held by strangers (and if you aren't in the retinue of people who see them for upon hours every day they may well class you with strangers), sometimes they don't even like to make eye contact with strangers. Some family members respect this, others behave as though they're being insulted. I remember a friend whose little girl saw her grandmother nearly every day (they lived just a couple of doors away) who at 9 months wouldn't leave her mother's arms to go to her grandmother. My friend was distressed, the grandmother was upset, but I assured her that she simply needed to give the little girl time. In a few months grandma was happily one of the people Shannon was comfortable with; it was simply a developmental stage.

Some babies are quick to warm up to strangers, even at the most separation anxiety ridden stages. Other babies are slow to warm up even to their fathers (trust me, I had one of those). It is so important for family members, neighbors, friends, etc. to let the parents be the judge of just how comfortable their particular baby is at each particular stage of growth. If the parents are carefully respecting the individual personality of their baby, it's because they are respecting the baby as a real person instead of treating them as some sort of human doll.

We have a long history in this country of trying to make babies adapt to adult's wants instead of adults adapting to the baby's needs. Scheduled bottle feedings, letting babies cry it out to "train them" to sleep through the night, frequent separations from their mothers, and little concern about consistency of child care providers are just a few of the things we have done in our effort to make sure that a baby doesn't "disrupt" adult priorities any more than necessary. Mothers whose babies go on a schedule early, whose babies sleep through the night at an early age, whose children will go to any adult their parent hands them off to without complaints are congratulated on having done a good job. Mothers whose babies nurse ad lib, whose babies sleep close to them and wake in the night, and who prefer their mother's arms to a strangers are accused of spoiling their baby and having not done a good job. But it's the smart baby who knows where the best food is, who sleeps lightly and avoids SIDS, and who is well attached to its parents. That baby will eventually eat at family meals, sleep through the night, and make friends with people outside the immediate family circle, they will do it at the developmentally appropriate time for them and we need to respect them enough to wait for the appropriate time.

When my daughter was 2 our church had a Sunday School class for 2 year olds. Up until then Abby had gone into my class with me (in the back pack) or I had co-taught the class with her daddy and she was in arms with one or the other of us. The year she was 2 I taught a class of older children and she went to the 2 year old class, with her daddy. The teacher of the class was a first time mom with a two year old of her own. She was very critical of the fact that David went to the class with Abby, despite the fact that with him there Abby was having a good time and he was actually a help with the other kids. She said that we were encouraging clingy behavior and that Abby would never be independent. I assured this young mom that we knew what we were doing and that independence would come at the appropriate time. It did. As a matter of fact she was always by far our more independent child (once she was developmentally ready that is). If I'd been a first time mother I might have been coerced by that teacher, but by that time I knew something about children and how they come to learn independence. There was another little girl in our Sunday School whose mother listened to those coercing voices and kept putting her little one in the nursery during church. I happened to be the only one of the moms this little girl knew well, and I wasn't in the nursery for the whole of nursery time every week. I stayed in church until Abby and "had enough" and then she and I went to the nursery. Every week when I got there this little girl would be in nearly hysterical tears, until I picked her up. She wasn't completely happy then, but she was mollified sufficiently to be reasonably calm. The absolute only difference was that she knew me, and didn't know the nursery workers.

There is a myth still going around that crying is good for a baby's lungs. It's not. While some crying may happen with nearly any baby, crying is a sign of stress, it results in raised cortisol levels, and the other things that accompany stress. One job of parents, particularly with infants, is to reduce the stress, not to compound it. Comforting a baby, putting them back in a more comfortable situation is not spoiling them, it is respecting their personhood.

We need to remember that Our Lord treated children as people of importance. When the disciples saw them as a nuisance He told them, "Of such is the kingdom of heaven." And that we must become like little children. Scripture tell us that perfect praise comes out of the mouths of babes and sucklings. Babies are not playthings or things to be manipulated for the benefit of adults. They are real people.

Often we have to warn our toddlers to be gentle with babies. Sometimes what we tell them is babies are people too, so they must be careful of them. It's important for us as adults to listen to those words as well.

The Fun of Being Grammy

2009-08-24T15:45:00.000-07:00

You might think that the fun of being a grandmother is getting to hold a new baby. Or you might think that it's getting to buy cute little baby items. You might even think that it's getting to take all sorts of cute pictures and show them to your friends. Well, yes all of those things are sort of fun. However, it's not what I like the best about being a grandmother.

What I like the very best about being a grandmother is watching my daughter and her husband develop as parents. I'm loving watching them learn to respond to their baby and learn her preferences. I'm loving watching them talk to her in funny little made up words, and watch her respond back to them. I'm loving watching them learn that things they thought were silly and unnecessary became much more sensible and important once there was a real little person who needed them. I'm loving watch their priorities shift and less important activities fade into the background while becoming a family takes a much more important place. I'm especially loving watching my granddaughter grow strong and healthy on her mommy's milk. In short, I'm loving seeing them transition into the sorts of adults I knew they were going to be. Sometimes when your kids are teens or even young adults you wonder whether you passed on anything valuable (and certainly THEY seem to doubt that). It's really fun to see my daughter doing some things that I didn't even tell her to do, exactly the way I did it.

Eventually, I will have my very own relationship with little the Little Wum (as her parents have nicknamed her). Eventually, there will be tea parties at Grammy's and long discussions around the table. Eventually, I'll teach her how to make Grammy Rowell's filled cookies or some other long cherished family recipe. Eventually, she will have a relationship with me and her grandfather and other family members that is somewhat separate from her relationship with her parents. Eventually. But for right now that's not the case. Right now she needs her mommy and her daddy as the prime people in her life. She is secure in their arms and I love seeing her there. I'm certainly willing to be an "extra pair of arms" when needed, but if the extra arms aren't needed that's just fine too.

At the moment my relationship is still principally with her mommy and daddy. And that is as it should be. They still need support and attention just as they did before she was a part of the picture. I marvel at the fact that the young man whom we had come to cherish over the course of several years became part of our family sacramentally just last year. Now we are not only tied to him sacramentally, but biologically as well. His daughter carries his DNA, but she also carries ours. So with her birth he became even more connected to us than he already was. Since he was already incredibly special to us it makes it just so much nicer. My daughter still is the person I want to provide mothering to and I hope my son-in-law doesn't mind a little extra mothering from me as well. My granddaughter, however, has her own mother and she's doing a super job, LW doesn't need mothering from me.

I never felt when my children were little that we were taking them to see the grandparents. I always felt more that we were going to see my in-laws or my mother and the kids were going along, because, well they always went where we went. The grandparents always related to us as us, not as was the case with some of my friends, as merely the parents of their grandchildren. That was the case despite the fact that our son was the first grandchild on both sides of the family, and our children were my in-laws only grandchildren for nearly 7 years. The kids were dearly loved, incredibly included, but never the sole focus of their grandparents (or the aunt's and uncle's) attention. I want my daughter and her husband to feel that they continue to be important to us. I still want to find time to talk about books with my daughter, to talk about theology and politics with my son-in-law (even when we have a heated debate on the subject!). They are incredibly interesting, fun, and generous people and I don't want our relationship with them to take second fiddle to baby gazing (even when baby gazing is such a fascinating occupation).

We are fortunate to have had a number of years to get to know our son-in-law. Some families don't have quite that luxury. Sometimes an in-law arrives in the family in a remarkably short period of time from the standpoint of the new mother and father-in-law. If there is then a baby very soon it's hard for the focus to remain where it should be. It's far easier to have the baby become the "shared interest" and stop doing the work of really getting to know the new in-law. I think that it was somewhat more difficult for my own in-laws to get to know my brother-in-law's wife because they didn't live nearby and they only saw her a few times before the wedding. However, they really made an effort to try to do so, and I know that my mother-in-law in particular made a real effort to be sympathetic to Susan's attempts to fit into a very close knit family.

Now that the previous generation has died, I am so very glad that they made the effort to focus on the adults in the family. I am friends with both my sisters-in-law and my brother-in-law. We have differences of opinion, we don't always see the world alike, we live in different places, yet we have an essential family identity that the children of the family can easily recognize. It's particularly special for me because my own biological family is no more. My father died when I was 25, my mother died 9 years ago, and my sister died 5 years ago. Were it not for the family I married into there would be no one who really knows me, the me of my 20's, the me of my 30's, 40's, 50's. I am so glad for in-laws who felt that I was important as me, not just as the mother of their grandchildren. I had the gift of wonderful in-laws and when I see so many people who lack that gift I recognize even more how special it was.

As I told my son-in-law quite some time ago, I want to be the sort of mother-in-law that I had. I want to support him in his decisions, I want to hear his opinions, I want to be interested in who he is as a person. That's the gift I want to give him, but it is also the gift that I want to give my daughter because I don't want her to feel that she has to have divided loyalties. I want her to know that we love him as part of our family as well. I always felt at least as much a member of the Swift family as I did of my own. I actually joked that I married into the family I should have been born into because I truly felt so much at home there. I hope Jim can always feel like he is comfortable with us in that way.

I've thought a lot about what a good grandparent is over the course of the last year. I'm watching a lot of my generation make the transition from parent to grandparent and I've watched the results of some good and bad patterns. I'm considering writing something for grandmothers of breastfed babies this fall because one of the problems I've seen as I work with nursing moms is the conflict that many of them are having either with their mothers or their mothers-in-law.

In Vermont today something on the order of 85% of babies start out their lives as breastfeeding babies. This is an enormous change from a generation ago. It makes passing on motherly wisdom a difficult task for the grandmothers of this era. The rules appear to have all changed and the grandmothers are unsure of their role as a result. When they were raising their babies most of them were using bottles, keeping babies on schedules, giving bottles of water, feeding solids by 3 months at the latest, and putting their babies to sleep in their own cribs, in their own rooms, on their tummies. Now their daughters are being advised to breastfeed on demand, to not give water, to delay solids until 6 months and to put their babies to sleep on their backs in the same room as their parents. Now most of this (other than the sleeping on their backs) is no big piece of news to me. The current advice is very consistent with what I was taught in La Leche League 30 years ago. So for me there is not such a big transition. I'm simply (like generation upon generation of grandmothers before the beginning of the 20th century) seeing my daughter mother her baby in the same fashion she was mothered. However, for the majority of current grandmothers this is not the case. Everything seems to have been turned on its head and it makes them feel rather adrift about how to be helpful and included. They've been anticipating babysitting and feeding a bottle to the baby and often they are not happy when they find that the young couple prefers to pack the baby along with them. They feel like they have no place in the process. What I hope to do is to show them where they do fit in the process, how important their support is for their grandchild to get adequate amounts of milk and appropriate parenting. They are important in the process, they are just important in different ways than they anticipated. They too need to learn that their relationship with their grandchild will be separate and special eventually, but that right now their grandchild principally needs its parents.

Today I was in a discussion with a number of other breastfeeding advocates. We were talking about working moms and transitioning babies to spending time with caregivers other than their mom. I asked what the best way was to transition a baby who was nursing on demand onto a schedule for the caregiver. It seemed like a logical question, but imagine my surprise when my co-leader in LLL said that even bottle babies should be getting cue based feeding, not be fed on a schedule. Even I as a long time breastfeeding/natural feeding advocate had thought that somehow the "rules" were different for bottle babies. I'm still learning too! So I entirely sympathize with a grandma who starts much further back on the learning curve.

The reason for all these changes in the "rules" have to do with research and what's called evidenced based medicine. In part because of the work of La Leche League and other breastfeeding advocates the importance of human milk and biological mothering has become much more recognized as the norm. It's going to take awhile for the culture to catch up. Social policy will need to change, people's expectations are going to be rocked occasionally. Laws are already being written to reflect this new, but old, way of doing things, but in families it can cause a bit of an upheaval. I honestly believe that the grandmothers who didn't nurse their own babies need the support of the grandmothers who did. We have both the experience of having nursed our babies like their daughters and the experience of having parented in the same era they did. We know what it's like to confront moms who get their information off the internet instead of out of Dr. Spock. We know how different it is to use a forehead or ear thermometer instead of the mercury rectal ones of our era. We do in fact have shared wisdom to impart to these young parents. Any of us can in fact assure them that baby acne does go away, that even clean babies occasionally get diaper rash, and that evening fussiness sometimes just has to be endured. The grandmothers who bottle fed don't automatically become non-givers of wisdom, but they will be better able to sift through what is truly wise from what was simply the practice of another era if they begin to understand what biological mothering is all about. Or so I hope at least. I really want them to experience becoming a grandmother as the fun thing it is rather than being the source of conflict that some of them are finding it to be.

Sometimes Your Best Still Doesn't Get the Result You're Looking For

2009-07-28T07:53:00.000-07:00

We have a mythology in this country that if you simply give it your best, try as hard as you can that you can achieve anything. We tend to think that those people who aren't succeeding aren't succeeding because they aren't trying hard enough. Yesterday I took a very hard exam which I've been studying for intensely for months. I came out with no idea in the world whether I had even passed it and it wasn't at all for lack of trying. A lot of the things I had learned over the course of months of study weren't even touched on in the exam and a number of things that were on the exam either were minor topics in some book that I never got to, or else they simply didn't appear in my study materials at all.

There are lots of things in life that are like that, parenting can be like that a lot of the time. The end result is not always due to the effort of the parents. We've all seen people whose parents broke all the rules of good parenting who at the end of the day are nice people, and we've also seen the people with parents who made efforts over and above what anyone would expect who've turned out to be not very nice people at all. Effort in doesn't always result in perfection out. I've even had it happen with recipes in the kitchen where it seems like the harder I try the bigger the mess I've made (I remember these homemade ravioli that were a prime example of that).

There are lots of times in my life that I've gotten better than I deserved for an effort (the B on my geometry final, the better grade in European Civ than my roommate (who actually went to class regularly), a much higher math SAT than I had any right to), so I do know what it's like to do better than you deserve. But I also know what it's like to try your very best and simply not make the grade.

That's why I'm so glad about grace. We can't possibly do enough, we can't possibly be good enough to deserve heaven. I'm so glad we don't believe in a scales of justice test at the end of life where what you've done gets weighed and only if you've done enough are you allowed in to heaven. I'm glad that every single thing I do that's a good thing is inspired by God's grace, enabled by God's grace, and crowned by God's grace that it's not just about my efforts.

Is the Glass Half Full?

2009-07-05T13:32:00.000-07:00

One of the facts of life, especially for idealists, is that we live in a fallen world with fallen people. Nothing is ever perfect. Even the most perfect picnic probably has a few mosquitoes at it as well as people who like their burgers more or less done than you do.

I've been pondering this a lot lately. I've gotten pretty disillusioned about a particular group of people and I'm realizing that the reason for it is that I had very high expectations that are met by some members of the group, but not others. The group isn't religious, it's a purely secular group with very specific goals. It's a group that I will always be part of a sub-set of and that sub-set may well be shrinking.

The Church can sometimes feel the same way, especially to enthusiastic converts. Sometimes it's easy to be disillusioned there as well. We come into the Church expecting people to actually believe and live what She teaches, and a lot of the time we find that even some of the priests and bishops may not. Today, newly ordained Father Naples talked about the fact that priests are ordinary people with an extraordinary charism. He explained it so well, and it was a reminder once again, that what we honor in a priest is not his ordinariness and his failings, but the character that was imparted to him at ordination. We can choose to see the glass as half full and pray for an even deeper filling of the Holy Spirit and more gifts of wisdom and faith, or we can see the glass as half empty and pick at the ordinariness and failings. If we spend our time picking things apart we will miss the very gifts that the charism of ordination offers to us as lay people.

This is also true as we deal with other believers or as I deal with the people in the organization I'm thinking about. I can value the good things and strive to help people become better, more knowledgeable or I can carp about the fact that they sometimes seem to act contrary to the purposes of the organization itself. My mom always said you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar and I suspect that giving the people I disagree with respectful treatment instead of sarcasm probably will yield more positive results.

It's hard being an idealist in a less than perfect world. I've spent a lot of time trying to achieve the standards that some people have set, only to fall desperately short. I'm not a perfect person, I don't live with perfect people, and lots of love is frequently needed to cover the multitude of imperfections. However, I choose to see the glass as half full (or at least I try to - I'll admit to being a disappointed idealist a lot of the time).

If you expect perfection or nothing, you'll usually get nothing.

I Recommend Clarissa

2009-06-12T07:17:00.000-07:00

I took a bit of a breather from reading about lactation yesterday evening and instead spent some time reading Spilling the Beans, the autobiography of the Clarissa half of Two Fat Ladies. It's a sad story some of the time so far, but is interspersed with Clarissa's humor in such a way that it makes it seem a bit less sad. It's also a testimony to the fact that she not only has the ability to bounce back from things that would have destroyed some people, but that she had some wonderful people along the way to make things more bearable. I've probably been bugging my son with son of the funny anecdotes, but since he actually likes to read Clarissa's other books, I'm not sure that he really minds.

I've seen awful reviews of this book, but I'm really enjoying it, despite the fact that Clarissa is very rambling in her prose. Perhaps I simply sense a bit of a kindred spirit here.

Anyway, if you liked the Two Fat Ladies, you might also enjoy Spilling the Beans. At the very least you'll get to read some interesting comments on food and some delightful ghost stories.

It's Time To Get Serious

2009-06-11T09:47:00.001-07:00

It's time to get serious about studying for an exam that I have to take in just over 7 weeks. It isn't that I haven't been studying, I have, but not really systematically (but when did I ever in my life study anything systematically:). Still there are topics I definitely need to know better than I do right now. So the question is do I bite the bullet and spend money on more health e learning courses or not? I also need to find a time to actually shadow my local LC before taking the exam.

Everyone I know tells me I'm going to do fine, but every time I try to actually recite the proteins in found in human milk, or describe the components of a good latch I feel like my brain has turned to mush. I'm trying mnemonics to remember the proteins, but then I forget the mnemonic. I do know that the ingredients that fight infection include lactoferin, bifudus factor, lyzosome, interferon, macrophages and some others that I would recognize if I saw them in a question as being among the anti-infection agents, but which I can't seem to list at the moment. I know that a good latch is assymetrical, that the lower lip should be neutral, that the tongue should cover the bottom gum in the front. The problem is that what I'm realizing is that a latch can "look" good and still not necessarily "be" good. I'm also realizing more and more how little I really know (and from what Diane Weissinger said at the LLL conference) how little perhaps any of us actually know about how a particular dyad is going to work their way into coming together successfully. I do know that some of the tried and true practices of maternity nurses (jamming babies onto the breast) may work to a degree in the short run, but seem to create problems in the long run. I'm also realizing, to my dismay, that the protocol one book claims is best will be disputed by another book (and not just because one book is older than the other either). That means that in addition to the texts I'm having to become somewhat familiar with research studies. The good thing is that I do have the IBLCE's book that has the Core principles and I should be ok if I go by those in answering questions. However, that's where the mnemonics and memorizing come in and so far that could be going better.

What all of this studying has done so far is to instill in me a real sense of wonder. I marvel at the incredibly complex system that lactation is and how incredibly well it has been designed by the Creator to allow us as women to nourish our babies with something that the smartest men in laboratories have been unable to replicate. You don't have to be a rocket scientist or a biochemist to produce the perfect food for your baby. All you have to do is put it to breast. The other thing I'm marveling at is the amazing way in which mothers and babies if given time, space, and encouragement find their own way to work through the various wrinkles in the process. They may have to work on fit for awhile, but eventually if they keep at it, it does work.I still want to become an LC, but what this year of study has taught me more than anything else is that the LLL founding mothers had it right all along. The most important thing we can teach a mother is to listen to and watch her own baby. Occasionally she may need some additional information, and rarely even some devices, but for the most part if she just pretends she got stranded on a desert island and her husband is off killing a pig or picking coconuts, she and her baby will figure out how to get themselves connected and the milk will flow.

That's the normal way of things and that's what I want to encourage. Learning all these facts are simply a way of getting to the point where I can have credentials to help more moms. I feel sort of like I'm cramming for this big test when in fact most of the information is something that I will be able to refer to books to remind myself once I manage to get through the exam. Since I've always been pretty good at cramming, it shouldn't be a big deal. The fact that I've paid so much money just to get qualified for and be able to take the exam makes it a bigger deal than it would be otherwise I think.

So...it's back to the books. Meanwhile, I can breathe a sigh of relief that my daughter and her baby are doing well and finding their way along this path. I can be fascinated by the differences in the babies in our LLL group who can be the same age and totally different in size, personality, and skills while all being totally normal, and at the same time totally incredible. I can honestly say it's been a very interesting year and a half. I'm amazed at how much of learned, I'm amazed at how much I already knew (and hadn't totally forgotten). I'm amazed at mothers and babies. What makes me angry is the fact that so often from the medical professionals that make birth an abnormal experience to the society at large that discounts the value of mothering. we have taken this totally normal human experience and made it more difficult than it has to be. Thus the need for Lactation Consultants to advocate for and help mothers and babies back to a place called Normal Fed.

The Little Girl Has Arrived

2009-06-04T13:47:00.000-07:00

Our lovely granddaughter arrived on Monday morning at 11:31. She was bigger than expected by about a pound (8lbs 8.5 oz). She has (as I sort of expected) loads and loads of dark hair. As a matter of fact the hair is the first thing people notice about her. Her daddy had hair just like it as a newborn, as did her "great" cousin Amanda, and her Great Auntie Gayle. Her mommy had just a smidge of strawberry blonde hair, but I sort of suspected that her daddy's genes would predominate on that score. She has her mommy's hands right down to the fingernails, and seems to have her mommy's long torso as well (she measured in at 21" long, so she's longer than her mommy was at birth).

The new family is resting, recuperating, and adjusting to life as a threesome.

Stay tuned for brags from her grandmother as she begins to do more than eat and sleep. She's already discovered that she loves to nurse (she really is her mother's daughter!). She smiles in her sleep and has the prettiest cupid bow lips. Her mommy and daddy are proving to be the excellent parents that I expected they'd be. And you know what, I was right. The most special moments for me were seeing her in their arms.

Product, Process, or Relationship

2009-05-24T06:03:00.000-07:00

For the past year and a half I've had my head back into a subject which (while never gone from my memory) had not been at the forefront for many years. I've been studying human lactation in preparation for taking the International Board of Lactation Consultant Examiners test this summer. Becoming a lactation consultant was, I thought for a long time, a dream whose time had come and reluctantly passed. It turned out that the time simply hadn't yet been right to do it. Some people assumed that it was my daughter's pregnancy that sent me scurrying down this path, but, in fact, I started the process before she ever even got engaged. It had to do with picking up something that I was good at, that I really loved (i.e. working with nursing mothers) and beginning to do it again.

It's been an interesting time. I've done a ton of reading, some simply in order to get reactivated as a La Leche League Leader, some towards getting my CLC accreditation last fall, some in preparation for the IBLCE exam, and some simply because I frankly find the topic fascinating. I can quickly bore those who don't find it interesting (a fact which my son and husband will readily attest to) with various arcane facts I've learned. I attended a lactation counselor's class last fall which was interesting, informative, etc. I've been attending, and now leading La Leche League meetings for the first time in 20 years. That is an interesting experience in itself.

What all of this has done, in addition to preparing me for the exam, is raise questions in my mind about breastfeeding in our current culture. When I first encountered a breastfeeding mother when I was in junior high school it was certainly a novel experience. I'd not only never seen a baby breastfeed before, but I didn't know that anyone outside of the jungle even did it anymore. However, my reaction was positive and pretty much instantaneous. I was doing a Girl Scout badge in child care about the same time. One of the things I'd had to do for the badge was demonstrate feeding and bathing a baby using a life sized doll. The feeding part required taking the plastic lid of the bottle and using it to carefully push the nipple through the hole in the screw cap without ever touching the nipple with my fingers. It was the one part of the demonstration that I thoroughly blew. My reaction was, "Well it really doesn't matter to me, because I'm going to breastfeed my babies." Now that may be an example of how to turn failure into success or simply an excuse for being a butter fingers, but, in fact, I never changed my mind. I chose breastfeeding based on what I saw with that one encounter with a mom in my neighborhood. I liked what I saw of the relationship between her and this tiny person (who was in fact her 9th baby).

Through my teens and early twenties I did encounter the rare breastfeeding mom, but most of my friends' babies were on bottles. I was fortunate that the wife of the pastor who married my husband and me was a breastfeeding mom. Her one piece of pre-wedding advice was, "When you have a baby get in touch with La Leche League." I'd never even heard of the organization, but I filed that piece of wisdom away in my brain. Fortunately, the local La Leche League leader happened to be a member of the church my husband and I attended after we got married, so getting in touch with La Leche League didn't involve calling up some strange person. It's a good thing, because Glenna did stop by after the baby was born, and I did need her help. I didn't actually start going to La Leche League meetings until after the baby was born (a mistake in retrospect), but once I did, I became fascinated not so much by the process of breastfeeding as by the relationships.

I became a La Leche League Leader when my son was about a year and a half old. What I knew at that point was a lot about how to help mothers with typical difficulties, how to support mothers in their breastfeeding experience, how convenient breastfeeding was, and what a wonderful relationship breastfeeding produced not only with your baby, but with your husband and with these other breastfeeding moms. To this day there is nothing more relaxing to me than sitting in a room with a bunch of moms who are nursing their babies (even when my own "baby" is 27 and about to become a mother herself). It is such a different environment from other social settings, it often feels like someone turned off the clock, although we do have to sort of keep an eye on it so that we end somewhat nearly on time.

What I knew less well at that point was about human milk as product. I certainly read "The Specificity of Human Milk," and I read the increasing studies that were coming out at that point postulating the importance of human milk in Type 1 diabetes prevention, the prevention of severe allergies, and even SIDS prevention. However, much of what is now known about the importance of human milk had yet to be discovered. We did know that it was vital for third world women to nurse their babies, but thought that was largely due to water contamination and lack of money for formula. We didn't know the extent to which breastfeeding could make a difference in infant morbidity and mortality even in the first world. We weren't focused on product, we were focused on the mother baby dyad and supporting that relationship.

Last fall as I went through the CLC class I learned a tremendous amount about process. It meant unlearning a few things that I used to know and learning new things about latch, scheduling, skin to skin, self attachment, and ways of dealing with complex problems. It was a course well worth taking, yet at the end of the week I came away wondering if it weren't so process focused that the participants lost sight of the fact that what we were talking about was an important relationship. I wrote to the leader who was in charge of my LLL reactivation about the class and about my concerns that we were so overmedicalizing the process instead of focusing on the mother and the baby, and encouraging the mother to become the expert on her own baby. The class made me really wonder what I would want to do with the LC certification once I got it, because I couldn't really see myself being as clinical as some of what was being suggested. While the clinical information is important, mothers and babies are not simply pieces to a machine to be assembled correctly and the overly clinical approach can convey this impression.

Recently, I spoke with a someone whose daughter-in-law "failed" at breastfeeding, but succeeded at pumping. With her second baby she chose to not feed the baby at the breast at all, but to simply pump. This is an example of focus on product. We have convinced mothers that human milk is incredibly valuable, and it is. However, what they seem to be learning, is that they can be producers of human milk as well as producers in the workplace without having to take the time to establish that delicate dynamic between mother and nursling. In short the product has, in a bizarre way, replaced the relationship. It isn't that these are bad mothers, it's that a mother who never feeds her baby at the breast is not having the same relationship with that baby as the one who does. The mother who only pumps is actually missing out on something, and she doesn't even know it. Some mothers may pump in order to maintain the nursing relationship. They pump to provide bottles for a couple of feedings a day so that they can have the nursing relationship the rest of the time. That's a very different thing from simply seeing human milk as a product to be supplied. We live in a world that is dominated by production of product, how sad that one of the most fundamental relationships a person can have would be altered to become a matter of providing a product.

I read an article a few months back about mothers being turned into their own wet nurses. It talked about ads showing the corporate mom in her Prada shoes tripping gaily off to the office breast pump in hand. My daughter actually worked for someone who did just that. The baby was mothered most of the time by a nanny while the mother continued to work at a very high paid job. She clearly loved her child and wanted her to have the best in life, but her relationship with that child was to a large extent secondary to her career and the very affluent lifestyle she had carved out for herself. She was making an enormous effort to continue to provide breast milk for her child, but taking a year off for mothering wasn't something she was willing to consider.

In our efforts to encourage parents to be to consider the case for breastfeeding, or to encourage employers to consider the business case for breastfeeding it is easy to focus on product. I know that when I talked with my son-in-law about breastfeeding I focused on the evidenced based studies, the value of human milk, and the cost of formula. Those are great selling points to males. As we attempt to turn hospitals into baby friendly places instead of advertising arms of the pharmaceutical industry, it is tempting to focus on product. We can look at human milk direct from mom as simply the top of the hierarchy of feeding choices with number two being the mother's pumped milk, number three human donor milk, and the pharmaceutical industry's artificial baby milk coming in dead last. However, if all we focus on is the product we are missing a vital part of the picture.

Our society has been focused for a long time on what people produce. I once read a piece that talked about breastfeeding mothers not contributing to the gross national product in the way that formula feeding mothers do. Of course the flip side of that is that breastfeeding mothers also don't have the impact on the environment that formula feeding mothers do. There is none of the waste associated with formula containers, or formula manufacture. However, I wonder whether part of the reason that breastfeeding has been so devalued, even as we recognize the value of the milk, is that we have fallen into the trap of only valuing those activities we can put a price tag on.

We could create situations where mothers don't have to choose between product and relationship. We could create workplaces where infants are welcome, we could create systems where maternity leaves were long, we could create more jobs where mothers could actually work from home. Our world, our country, does not have to be baby unfriendly. It is possible for babies to be present at church, at funerals, at meetings, at work places if we choose to make that happen. It is also possible for us to continue to have raised eyebrows when a mother brings her baby into a meeting or discretely nurses her baby in church. If we don't value the relationship we will say things like: "why doesn't she get a sitter," or "why doesn't she use a bottle."

I honestly believe that it is a huge mistake to think that we are merely substituting the breast for the bottle (even if once upon a time a medically oriented community encouraged us to do the reverse) when we breastfeed our babies. Nursing your baby, while it certainly is about feeding, is not just about feeding. Nursing your baby is simply the easiest way of mothering your baby. It doesn't always feel like that in the first weeks. There is a learning curve for both mother and baby. Relationships are like that. There are intangibles here that no one but another mother who has breastfed her baby can understand. It's those intangibles that don't get measured in our "evidenced based" studies. In the long run, though, it's those intangibles that keep mothers going when the society around them is unsupportive, when there is little encouragement from friends and family.

This spring I went to a conference where one of the speakers spoke about the way that the profession of lactation consultancy had become too technically oriented. She, like me, was concerned that we were forgetting why most of us had nursed our babies in the first place. While we have convinced mothers of the value of human milk, the profession was falling into the same trap of having 1000 techniques all of which mothers "needed" to know in order to nurse their babies. The mothers were getting overwhelmed in the process. She suggested that we go back to the description in the earliest Womanly Art of Breastfeeding and rethink the approach. It isn't that those 1000 tricks don't have their place. It's great to know that there are techniques to help mothers who truly run into unusual problems. However, we shouldn't be looking for zebras every time we see a field of horses. Most mothers will do far better to simply focus on their baby, not on the techniques. Most lactation consultants and counselors will do far better to encourage mothers to look at their own baby.

It isn't the product (while the product is of inestimable value), it isn't about the process (although knowing something of the process may be helpful, your body does remarkable things without you knowing how it does it), it's about a relationship with a tiny new person. The job of a lactation consultant, lactation counselor, La Leche League volunteer is to gently encourage you as you get to know that tiny new person. We should be attempting to support mothers in this relationship, not get so caught up in how many ounces the baby has transferred, how many suck/ swallows they've had in a minute. Some babies will always feed quickly, other babies are gourmets who savor their meals. When we become too fixated on process we attempt to hurry the gourmets along in the name of efficiency. We start saying things like "feeds shouldn't take more than 20 minutes." Mothers start listening to "experts" who tell us things like: "you shouldn't need to do night feeds after 3 months." We need to encourage mothers to listen to their babies, to focus on the delicate dance that they are doing with this little person and not be pulled away from that dance too early.

So what will I do with the certification if I manage to pass the test? I'm still not completely sure. What I know is that I love being part of a community which supports moms in that delicate dance. I want to be someone who helps mothers be all that they can be. I've known just enough mothers in the past who needed just one phone call's worth of my time in order to go on to successfully nurse their babies. I've been thanked enough times for my support after toddlers have finally weaned, to know that it's a job that's well worth doing. I want to be part of a community which helps the larger community begin to understand he delicate dance and to value it as well. It may not contribute to the gross national product, but it just may change the face of our society if we begin to consider people more important than things and value the breastfeeding relationship as well the milk.

Not A Native, Never Will Be

2009-05-17T06:31:00.000-07:00

When you grow up in a place you have a sense of things that those who move in from somewhere else never have. Vermonters are notorious for being proud of being native and also for being somewhat skeptical about non-natives and their motivations. Consequently, I understand this native, non-native phenomenon pretty well. However, this entry is not really about Vermonters and "flatlanders". It's about cradle Catholics and converts.

I'm a convert, and I'm a convert who had a fairly winding road to get to the end of the journey. Unlike a lot of cradle Catholics I didn't grow up in one church building where my parents had also grown up. Let me explain a little about the journey and you'll understand better why sometimes some cradle Catholics are an enigma to me.

When I was a little girl my mother, my sister and I attended a tiny (the place would hold no more than 55 people) little church that was actually simply a room in a house. The room had a raised platform at one end with seats crammed in as tight as possible. It would never get past the fire inspector today because it was a genuine fire trap for anyone sitting in the inside seats. This was particularly true since many of the people were elderly and unable to move quickly.The building is now the rectory for the Episcopal church that was always located next door. So going back to the church I was dedicated in is really no longer possible.

Our family moved just as I was beginning high school and so went to a different church. This congregation was meeting in an unused Baptist church, which had actual pews and a lot more room and people. It was, however, a different denomination than the one we'd previously attended. The doctrine was close, but not identical, so that meant some shifts for my mother, particularly. For example, swimming on Sunday was no longer banned since the pastor took the youth group swimming on nice Sunday afternoons in the summer. Halfway through high school the congregation managed to build its own church building. That was the church I was married in. It's not a church anymore either. Now it holds school offices and the congregation has built another building a few miles away. It holds more people, but it looks more like an auditorium than a church. So no going back there either.

After my husband and I got married, although there were a couple of forays to other churches we pretty much settled in the Congregational Church he grew up in. Our kids were baptized there, although interestingly, not in the same parts of the building. Our son was baptized in the basement (where the congregation met during the winter to save heating expenses) and our daughter (a spring baby) was baptized in the main part of the church building. I actually spent more years in that church (about 20) than any other church until then. That building is still there, I even occasionally end up in a pew there for funerals. We've even thrown showers in the church basement because it's a convenient location to rent.You might think I wax nostalgic when I do, but I don't really. Every time I walk in the thing I experience most is absence. The Blessed Sacrament isn't there. The place feels, well, empty.

I love the parish church we attend. I personally think it's one of the prettiest churches in the state. After 13 years there I know a few people and it's as much home as I can imagine a huge church like that being. There are nearly 2000 people on the parish registry I think and it's technically the parish of a lot of lapsed Catholics not on the registry. So it doesn't exactly feel like a family, unlike most of the other churches I attended through the years . My relationship with the Church is not so much a relationship with the particular people as with the institution as a whole. I joined the Church because I embraced the doctrine, not because I felt so welcomed by the congregation. In point of fact, in general, I don't feel welcomed by the congregation. I feel like one of those "flatlanders" who moved into a very tight native Vermont community. People may smile and say hello to you, but you sort of know that on a very essential level you are a stranger in the midst.

This really came home to me a couple of weeks ago at a book group I was attending for the first time. It wasn't that anyone was unkind or anything, it was nothing like that at all. I wasn't even the only stranger in the midst. It was a story someone told about being part of a group that staged a sit in to protest the closing of a parish in Massachusetts. It was realizing the degree to which that person's Catholic faith was wrapped up in a particular building and a particular community. This was the building she was married in, that her husband was baptized in, that her kids were baptized in. This was a community that she had been part of, even though she now lived somewhere else. This for her was her Catholic home, and its continuation as a parish was incredibly important to her Catholic faith. Doctrine was much less central from her point of view, and from the point of view of at least one of the other participants in the group, than this sense of place and community. I came away realizing the gulf that exists between me and at least some cradle Catholics on that particular issue.

It's also the gulf that in part keeps one person in my life from swimming the Tiber. It's not so much the doctrinal issues, it's the loss of the place they grew up and the community among whom they grew up. They are willing to make all kinds of doctrinal compromises in order to "stay native." I grew up living more like an Army brat who never really got to stay connected to one place all that long. Other than living in Vermont my whole life there was nothing that stayed the same. We changed houses, we changed towns (multiple times), we changed schools, we changed churches. I once counted the number of separate places I lived from the time I was 13 until I was 25 and the results were in the double digits. Somehow the lesson I learned was that we have here on earth no permanent dwelling. I've lived in the same house now for 23 years and in the same neighborhood (almost the same plot of land) for nearly 34. I do understand the value of continuity. My kids can actually come back to the family home (even the home of their grandparents), I can't do that. My grandparents' homes have burned down, the homes I grew up in are owned by other people and radically changed.

Now, the fact is there are both two kinds of natives, and two kinds of newcomers. There are those people who move to Vermont because they've heard about the values, the beautiful countryside, the slower pace, and they want to embrace all of it. There are other people who move here because it's a pretty place, or they married someone who lives here, or they just happened to find a job here (although that's becoming rarer), but they don't really want the traditional Vermont lifestyle. They complain about the lack of malls, the lack of delis, the open spaces seem too open, and they're upset if cows, horses, sheep, or pigs escape and get on their lawns. They really want Vermont to be like where they came from, with perhaps a little less crime and cleaner air.

There are also natives who resent the fact that Vermont hasn't gotten more with the times. They think we should have more malls, more entertainment, more interstates, more high tech gadgets. In short, they'd like the whole state to look like Chittenden county, only more so. The grass for them is always greener on the other side of the state line, but it's home so they stay. There are also natives that think change has come too fast, and without a whole lot of thought about what's been sacrificed to the great god Progress, and who wonder whether we wouldn't be far better off if we re-embraced the traditional values. They even wonder if the rest of the country wouldn't be better off to embrace them as well. As our congressman pointed out, Vermont didn't get the banking crisis that some parts of the country got, in large part because they hadn't embraced the same practices as some parts of the country.

I'm sure you see where I'm going. There are cradle Catholics who are Catholic, not just because that's how and where they grew up, but because they've truly embraced the faith. Some of them think change came too fast, and without sufficient reflection and are thankful for a Pope who has recognized that.There are also cradle Catholics who look longingly at their Protestant friends. As one of them told me while I was still Protestant, she could never become Protestant, but she wished she had been born one, she wished the Catholic Church was like that. They are the Catholics who think the Church hasn't gone far enough. They are the Catholics who stay because it's home, even if they don't really like home all that much. They are the Catholics who find converts downright perplexing, or at least my kind of convert.

There are also converts who became Catholic because they married a Catholic, or because the liturgy was attractive, the commitment to philosophy appealing, or the church buildings far more aesthetically pleasing than the other options around. They may have thought that it was a good place to be an agent of change. It certainly had a better educational system than the UCC . Additionally, unlike the mainline Protestant churches, there were actually families here rather than a bunch of old people. However, honestly, other than the ones who married Catholics, I don't understand why they chose to become Catholic. I find those kinds of converts perplexing and they don't understand me either. Why join a Church when you don't really believe what it teaches? Why join a Church just in order to change it? If you don't believe in hierarchy why didn't you become Congregationalist? If you do, well why not become...Episcopalian? Newark is to crime ridden and crowded, well what about the New Jersey countryside where you're still close to the malls. I'm sure you see the parallel.

I will never really be a native. I will never be able to quite be like the cradle Catholic who totally embraces the faith. So much of what is like breathing to him is still relatively new to me. I still have to think about syntax too much. It's like speaking fluent French, but with an English accent. You can be understood, but it''s a rare person who speaks a second language fluently enough to be mistaken for a native. In some ways, even those culture Catholics who don't particularly like the Church are going to look and feel Catholic in a way I never will. Perhaps my grandchildren will feel that way, they, after all will be cradle Catholics, but I suspect it may take more than one generation for the family to actually feel native.

I wish that those cradle Catholics who haven't yet fully embraced their faith would. They'd have so much going for them that I don't. Holy cards, baptismal gowns, the Infant of Prague, how to greet a bishop, what to give for ordination presents, all of those things are part of their native tongue. I will probably always need a bilingual dictionary of some sort. Just as the neighbors across the street from us will never be "real Vermonters" I will never be a cradle Catholic. To the end of my life, I will always be a convert. Thankfully the Church has room for all of us. The doors are open wide and the more faithful kind of Catholic is thrilled to see us arrive. They may not always understand our enthusiasm, and they may be amazed that we seem to have read Catholic authors they've never heard of, but they are often inspired by us (or so they tell me). What I continue to pray for those culture Catholics is that they will one day embrace all the graces that came with their baptisms. I have the same prayer for people who joined the Church without fully embracing who She is and what She teaches. After all I've seen it happen to those kinds of converts before, I've seen it happen to those kinds of natives before. It's called grace.

Vinegar Update

2009-05-17T06:27:00.000-07:00

Well, it really does seem to be doing the trick. We have had the occasional setback when someone put something into the dishwasher that caused the spray arm to get blocked or when it got overloaded, but, even then it's been the occasional glass with something on it, not every glass in the load. It does help if you make sure that neither side of the sink is closed (so no thawing meat in cold water while the dishwasher is running. In general though, although it still needs a degree of pampering, my dishwasher is finally doing its job.

The Vinegar Solution

2009-03-10T11:23:00.000-07:00

It looks like I may have found a low tech solution to a high tech problem. We have this dishwasher that has been the bane of my existence ever since we bought it 5 years ago. Unlike the other dishwashers we've had it frequently left food deposits on the glasses and mugs that were placed in the top rack. It didn't do it every time, but nothing seemed to prevent it. We tried being sure that there were no corn kernels, grains of rice, pieces of pasta on the dishes, yet still the spray arm seemed to manage to get clogged pretty frequently and even when it wasn't clogged (I was rinsing it out after every load) there were still food particles on the glassware.

I tried using Jet Dry. I tried changing dishwasher detergents. I tried gel packs, liquids, tablets. Nothing worked. It was at the point where even nearly pre-washing the dishes (and what's the point of a dishwasher if you have to wash the dishes before putting them in it) wouldn't guarantee that it didn't happen again.

This week I got desperate. I'd tried running vinegar through the dishwasher when it was empty and while that might work for one load, it wasn't working consistently. This week I tried instead filling the rinse dispenser with vinegar before each load. I have now run 6 loads of dishes through the machine and there's been no deposits on the glasses. I think I may have found the solution.

Now the up side of this is that if this continues to work, a gallon of vinegar is cheaper than a small container of Jet Dry (which wasn't working all that well anyway). Since I'd already figured out that baking soda works better for cleaning my stove than Soft Scrub, I'm beginning to wonder if green isn't only better for the environment, but better for my pocketbook as well.

This probably seems like a small annoyance to most people, but if you only knew how much of my time in the past few years has been spent re-washing dishes and listening to the complaints of people when a glass or a piece of flatware didn't come clean, but did end up in the cupboard (I plead nearsightedness for that) you'd know that if this solution works it's going to really improve the quality of life around here.

The Right Tools For the Job -Unexpected

2009-03-08T06:12:00.000-07:00

I started working on a baby blanket this week. The pattern is similar, although not quite identical to the one that Aunt Drucilla made for my first baby so I was excited to begin it. I got the first twelve rows (all ribbing) done and started on the pattern. Here's where the problems began.I had a hard time knitting two together across the row with the metal needles I was using, but I did manage it. On the next row where it was knit in the front and back of each stitch it seemed to be going ok, but obviously at some point I dropped one of the stitches because when I finally got to the purl across row two patterns later I only had 171 stitches instead of 172. So I had to ravel back and start over again. I got up about two rows again and caught the needle in the belt loop of my blue jeans pulling a bunch of stitches off (obviously these are very LONG needles). I pondered whether people should knit with long needles while wering pants with belt loops. Then I sighed and raveled back again (only to the ribbing of course, it's easy to pick up stitches at that point). I got about 3 patterns up when my stitch count was off again, this time I only had to tink back about a row and a half to find the problem because I was counting a LOT more frequently. I tried to decide what the biggest problem was and I realized that my problems were actually twofold. First these needles were so slick that the stitches slid off way too easily and secondly it was more difficult to manipulate that knit front and back thing and the knit two together thing than I wanted.

Eureka! In my knitting needle collection I had these ugly plastic needles. They were old, came from my mom, and looked vaguely like the very first needles I ever knit with some 50+ years ago (may have even been the first needles I ever knit with). They weren't as slick as the metal ones so might provide just a little resistance to slippery stitches. They were just a tiny bit flexible which would make manipulating stitches just a bit easier. I was right! They work. The blanket is now beginning to take shape. There's a long way to go. I've only knit 3 inches and it's supposed to be 34 inches long when I finish, but it's finally going easily instead of with frustration every other row.

There are lots of old tools out there that people have rejected for being not pretty, old fashioned, not modern enough. Perhaps it's time to dust them off and see if perhaps they actually fit the job you're doing better than some of the shinier, newer options. You might just be surprised.

What Are You Reading, What Are You Watching?

2009-03-06T06:15:00.000-08:00

I spent some time lately reading a collection of Dorothy Days journal entries. One of the things that I came away with as an insight was that she was shaped by what she read. When she was reading devotional literature her attitudes reflected it, when she was reading some other types of things her focus became much more political (and sometimes not in what seemed to me to be healthy ways). I've noticed with other people in my life that what they have been reading doesn't just influence their opinions, it also seems to effect their moods. Same with what they are watching on television or for movies. I've noticed the same thing is true for me. It's far harder to focus on simplicity and not get caught up in the worldly models if I spend my time watching What Not To Wear, for example.

I've noticed as Lent has begun and I've been working harder at at least getting the Office of Readings in every day that what's in the daily reading seems to pop up again in some way later in the day. On Sunday I was amazed again at how the readings for the Office tied in with the readings and the homily at Mass. However, I've also been amazed at these serendipitous (or providential) moments on other days as well when other reading I'm doing, something I'm watching on TV, something I hear on the radio, will also tie in with the reading.

Now, I'm not criticizing non-devotional literature, I'm not even abstaining from non-devotional literature during Lent. I just think that it's important to be aware of what we are putting into our minds, just as we focus on what we are putting into our bodies. We can be aware of this when it comes to things like pornography, but less aware of it when it comes to things that stir up feelings of resentment or discontentment. A lot of what passes for news these days seems more designed to stir up emotions than to truly inform. This is true not only in the secular press. It's also true in blogdom. I think that one thing I want to do this Lent is to take a step back and look at what I read and what I watch effects me. I hope I can look at things with the eyes of the Church instead of being simply formed by the world around me. I hope you can do the same.

Missing Auntie

2009-01-10T05:33:00.000-08:00

I realized today that one of the things I'm missing about Aunt Drucilla is pictures. Auntie always had her camera around at holiday time or at any other important family event. She always took pictures of us at Christmas, and pictures of our tree as well. We had a really nice one this year and no one thought to take a picture of it, nor a picture of all of us either. This was our first Christmas with a married Jim and Abby and we don't have a picture of it. Auntie would never have allowed that to happen. Shame on us!

Auntie would have so loved the wedding pictures, and the wedding itself, of course. If she'd been born just a few years later she would have enjoyed posting pictures on the internet like her grand-nieces do. I suspect she would have been far more adept at handling the technology than I am. If I were better at these things there'd be pictures on my blog...

I also just realized that I didn't make Auntie's tea cookies for Christmas. I did make them this past year, but for a bridal shower. Somehow at Christmas I got so busy with all the knitting that I cut back on the baking. I'm probably better off for it when I step on the scales, although I do have holiday pounds to lose, but somehow it doesn't make me feel better that we didn't have Auntie's cookies, even if we did have Grammy's carrot salad.

Sometimes I feel as if we've had a heavy weight of responsibility laid on the shoulders of the adults of our generation and that we aren't doing a very good job of living up to the legacy that was left to us. We are forgetting to do some of the small things and not doing a very good job with some of the big things either. We could use a whole lot more mentoring, but our mentors are no longer with us. The things that they did with seeming ease, we struggle to do at all. The things they did routinely, we just plain forget. So one of my New Year's resolutions is to try to remember to do the things that Auntie, or Ma, or even my own mother would have remembered to do, including to get pictures...

Traditions and Transitions

2008-12-08T03:36:00.000-08:00

This, for us, was a year of transition. We went from being part of the middle generation to, not so suddenly, but inevitably, the oldest generation in the family. We also gained a new family member and within weeks of that got the news that we were going to be meeting a new grandchild in the spring. So it will soon be three generations of family again, only we'll be the oldest of the three, not the middle one. Of course the last two parts of the transition (the wedding and the baby) mean that some of the traditions surrounding the holidays will be changing. It won't be the 4 of us at midnight Mass, for starters. Jim and Abby will be with his family on Christmas Eve this year. Next year, with a new baby, who knows what Christmas Eve will bring. I'm trying to figure out a way to make this Christmas Eve feel special rather than diminished.

Last Christmas Eve there were also just three of us at Mass. Abby was horribly sick and had to miss it. Hopefully she'll at least be able to enjoy Christmas this year without a horrible fever and headache.

The last pre-marriage Christmas I had was also not a fun one. My father had died a few weeks earlier and my mother and I were staying at my aunt's home. Everyone tried to be very nice, but, it wasn't in any way shape or form the same thing. My sister and her husband were at his parent's, we had none of "our" decorations, none of "our" favorite foods, not even "our" type of Christmas cookies or my father's omelet for breakfast. Ironically, I think that made things easier the next year. I was able to embrace being part of a new family, embrace having our own tree, our own nativity set, the beginnings of our own traditions. Once again my own family wasn't there. My sister was at her in-laws, my mother was in Florida with her brother. However, my "new" family welcomed me in with such warmth that I truly did not feel the lack.

Our first Christmas together was a pretty meager one economically. David was an out of work carpenter, I was a stay at home wife, although I had done a little part-time work as a homebound tutor and substitute teacher. We did our Christmas shopping at discount department stores. We still have a couple of ornaments we bought that year and despite the fact that they are definitely cheap plastic kitsch, they are among my favorite ornaments on the tree because they speak of new beginnings. That was the year that I made my brother-in-law a flannel shirt, my sister-in-law a crocheted afghan, and my mother-in-law a crocheted vest. None of them were elegant, all of them were made with inexpensive material. That was back in the era where I used discount type acrylic yarn, not the nice wools I knit with today.

That was also the year when we began some traditions that survive as well as tried out a few things that were sort of "one time only" affairs. I began baking my mother's Christmas bread, not just for us, but for David's family as well. That was a tradition that continued. I found a recipe for plum pudding and we had flaming plum pudding at Christmas dinner for the first time. That was also a tradition that continued. We made spiked eggnog and served it to all and sundry (including David's cousin and his wife - Dick as I recall really appreciated the eggnog). That was a tradition that somehow didn't continue.

One tradition that survived was actually one of the important traditions from my own home. When I was a little girl, the thing that made Christmas really Christmas was not the tree, although we had a tree and I loved it. It was not the stockings (truly old stockings not special ones made out of flannel until I was nearly all grown up) that made Christmas feel like Christmas. What made Christmas really Christmas was our nativity set. Now growing up the nativity set was simply made out of cardboard. The figures folded out and every year they got just a little less sturdy. However, I knew it was truly Christmas when that box got taken out of the bottom of the chest and we were allowed to set it up. When David and I got married we bought a nativity set at Woolworth's. We couldn't afford a nice set, so we got this little cheap plastic one complete with sheep, cow, donkey, camel and Wise Men. It always bugged me that the baby Jesus was stuck in the manger and that Mary and Joseph were stuck in the stable. It always bugged me that the angel didn't necessarily stay perched on top where it belonged. However, like the cheap nativity set of my childhood, it became an integral part of Christmas for me. A few years back it got relegated to being the kitchen nativity set when we got a nicer set for the living room. Now part of each year's tradition is unwrapping the nativity set again and putting things out in their proper order. Now the creche and animals appears before Mary, Joseph, the infant Jesus and the angel. The shepherds come in a bit later and the Wise Men don't appear until Epiphany. Somehow, however, despite the changes I have managed to bring along with me one thing that makes Christmas sing like Christmas to my heart.

My daughter and I have been talking a lot about traditions lately. We've talked about traditions that connect us to earlier generations, and about families without as many traditions. What I've realized is that a lot of what I cherished about my own growing up Christmases had little to do with my mother's family at all. Her family never had a Christmas tree until she was an adult and bought one for them. They didn't do stockings or read about Santa Claus. Christmas was the Christmas program at church, a nice dinner and a few presents along with a reading of the Christmas story. The festive atmosphere simply wasn't part of things at all. My father's family was a little less austere than that, but still had far less Christmas spirit than our home. My mother was given to encouraging letters to Santa Claus (I recall one I wrote in crayon that she sent to the Santa who read the letters over the radio and the thrill of having my letter read!). She always baked Christmas cookies. I still have the cutters we used when I was 4 and they are among the ones I still use. Christmas wasn't necessarily lavish at our house, but it definitely was celebrated. Sometimes we were home for all of it, sometimes when I was little we were at the grandparents.

Our extended family Christmases got ruptured early, however. My father and his brother had a huge falling out when I was 6 and there was never another big Drown family Christmas again. We sometimes went to my Grandmother's and a couple of times we went to my aunt's, but there was never ever again the gathering of the clan complete with a present from the person who's name you'd drawn. Any traditions that came from that side of the family just stopped. So Christmas became whatever my parents chose to make it. They did their best, but it felt diminished. Christmas at my aunt's wasn't a whole lot of fun because my aunt and her husband tended to spend much more lavishly on their kids than my parents did on us and their kids gloated in that fact. My father didn't like going to his sister's because she wanted to serve things like an Italian chicken or pasta dish instead of turkey. It wasn't that she was Italian or had married an Italian, it was just upwardly mobile suburban attitude of let's do something different and less old fashioned (she read a lot of women's magazines I suspect!). As far as my father was concerned Christmas without the turkey was ruined. Consequently, we brought the turkey or we stayed home.

Over the past 33 years we've developed our own set of traditions. Some of these come from David's family (like going to church on Christmas Eve, and putting up the Christmas tree right before Christmas) some (like my father's omelet and my mother's Christmas bread, presents on Christmas morning rather than Christmas Eve) come from mine. However, much of what we do is something we, or to be more accurate, I initiated. I'm the one who started the plum pudding tradition. I'm the one who first insisted on oyster stew on Christmas Eve (with an alternate soup for the non-oyster eaters among us - Jim isn't alone in his aversion to oyster stew!). I'm the one who began making fruit cakes for Christmas, who bought "Santa Are You For Real" and "The Twenty-four Days Before Christmas" to read to the kids along with the nativity story and "The Night Before Christmas." I'm the one who bought the St. Nicholas statue and began the custom of special cookies on Dec. 6. Here again the tradition sort of holds because it was my mother and my mother-in-law who were responsible for tradition starting in their families as well.

Santa Claus was a huge part of my parents focus at Christmas and a huge part of the focus at my in-laws. We rather relegated him to the background (by mutual decision!). He was clearly a storybook character, not someone who arrived at Christmas. We focused on Jesus and for years put candles on the Christmas bread and sang Happy Birthday to Jesus on Christmas morning (that particular tradition died sometime around the time our oldest hit junior high age). I still like the idea of focusing on the Christian saint rather than the commercial Santa Claus figure, but we'll see how the next generation handles all of this.

In some ways our Christmases have had more in common with the spirit of my grandparents' Christmases than the Christmases of the 1950's. We've tried really hard to make the focus of things be the birth of the Savior rather than a winter saturnalia complete with a jolly old elf. Yet, we have tapped into another tradition as well. We have, long before the kids and I became Catholic, tapped into the tradition of the feast and festivity. We've had Advent wreaths and Advent calendars, we've had Wise Men trekking their way around the room towards the stable, we've had candles in the windows to welcome the King. We haven't had inflatable Santa's on the lawn or fake snow Santa's stenciled on the windows. No one dressed up like Santa Claus, the kids didn't get their pictures taken with the Santa at the mall. In some ways I think perhaps the focus being where it's always been makes the transition easier. In so many houses Christmas is a holiday for children and when there are no children it hardly seems like Christmas. Now I'll freely admit to being more than ready to welcome a child back into our Christmas celebration. I'm looking forward to reading the old stories with a new little person, to baking Christmas cookies with a new little person, to finding ways to share all of this joy with a new little person. However, we can have a meaningful Christmas even when the little person still resides inside his or her mother, even when we're in a time of transition, even when the people who made Christmas special have died or moved far away. The gift of Christmas is not simply the celebration and festivity, it is the gift of Christ himself. The celebration and festivity are supposed to be in joy and thanksgiving for His gift of himself. The gifts we give each other are supposed to be in thanksgiving for the ultimate gift to us. So long as we can remember that we can live through times of transition, we can include old traditions and institute new ones. We can warmly welcome new family members in while still holding onto memories. We can be thankful for family, whether the family of the Church or the human family to which we belong.

In the final analysis my father was both right and wrong. It can be Christmas without turkey (we frequently have done roast beef or goose or both), but it is important to retain some sense of continuity. Some traditions continue over generations some get dropped along the way. For years someone gave my parents a box of Whitman's chocolates for Christmas. I told David about that, and nearly every year he got one for me. In recent years it's been more apt to be a different kind of candy and somehow it doesn't really matter. I still remember my mother storing the box of chocolates on top of the refrigerator when I was little and the solemn ceremony of choosing just one. My love of Jordan almonds began with those boxes of Whitman's chocolates, now they will always be associated with a wedding. In can in fact still be Christmas without the Whitman's chocolates, even if a box of them still evokes Christmas to me. We no longer go to Christmas Eve service in a Protestant Church, but we usually go to midnight Mass. This year midnight Mass will be very different for us because our parish has transitioned to new priests this year and the bishop is going to be celebrating midnight Mass with us. Some things will be different, many things will be the same. The continuity of tradition helps us know where we are, helps us know who we are, but changes sometimes simply underscore when we are.

My in-laws were very wise people (as I've pointed out many times before). They allowed us to bring new ways of celebrating into the mix while retaining much that was important to them. Grammy Swift cherished her special icicles and loved wrapping the Christmas ornaments away in a ceremonial fashion sometime after Epiphany. She loved having an Advent log, and going to church as a family on Christmas Eve. However, she also came to enjoy a flaming pudding and Christmas bread, one a tradition of my family (even if it was only one generation old), the other something that I had begun (even if in the large context of things it goes back many generations). Now we are in the midst of welcoming new family members and new traditions. I pray we'll have both the wisdom and the charity of my in-laws as we do so.

Made a Mess? Frog it!

2008-11-25T05:04:00.000-08:00

I've recently been working on a knitting project which promises to anticipate my time in purgatory. I have, so far, ripped back the body of the sweater three times. The first time it represented 8 inches of knitting (on roughly 240 stitches), the second time 20 inches of knitting, and the last time (so far) about 15 inches of knitting. I have also ripped out one attempt at a sleeve (although I have both sleeves knit at this point). In short, I've already done more than one sweater's worth of knitting, yet the sweater is nowhere near completion. I had hoped to finish it by Thanksgiving, but that's looking more and more doubtful.

Now part of the ripping back is due to a certain type of perfectionism not seen in most of my life (the second time), but the first and third ripping backs were due to some actual mistakes that would have altered the shape of things (a twisted first row does not produce a wearable sweater, although I suppose I could be going for a new fashion statement and a right seam that is a half an inch away from where it should actually be would definitely alter the drape of the sweater). My husband, watching me start again after the second frogging said he didn't think he'd have the patience to do it. I didn't even admit to him or my son that I'd had to rip out that attempt as well.

Sometimes life feels a bit like this sweater. You work as hard as you can, do the very best you think you can do, and things still don't turn out the way you anticipate. So you have two choices, you can give up, move on , don't try harder, or you can heave an enormous sigh and start over again. The starting over again is a bit easier with knitting, although I'm not sure my yarn is going to look the same without washing if I had to do it a fourth time, but even in the rest of our lives it is possible. There's a reason why marriage vows include the words for better or worse. We don't have the option of opting out when our spouse does something we find unacceptable. We don't have the option of opting out when they no longer look like they did at the altar. That's why parents are supposed to love unconditionally. We don't get to throw away the kid that didn't turn out according to our expectations. We only get to love them more and try to see in them the unique person that God created.

Re-knitting is not without pain. In order to get this project done anywhere close to my original deadline I'm spending some of my knitting time with sore joints. It's stopped being a stress reliever and become the source of a bit of stress. Yet in the end I'm going to have a sweater with a better design than I would have had at the beginning. I've discovered a better way to make the sweater drape properly, I've figured out better placement of the seams, the whole process is making me a better knitter (although spending two hours obsessively counting stitches to get the stitch count between seams right probably only made me learn buckets of patience) and teaching me some lessons about careful beginnings.

I wouldn't have been this obsessive if the sweater were for me. I've fudged lots of things on my sweaters and lived with them. This sweater is for someone else, someone I love, someone who deserves my best., not a "good enough." Our lives are like that too. We are not our own, we are bought with a price and as servants of our Lord we need to be willing to start over as many times as needed. In the end, this sweater won't be an example of a perfect sweater. There will be lots of knitters who could do it better. It will only be the best sweater I could make with the design and the materials I had. In the end, I won't be a perfect person. I won't ever be the Blessed Mother or Saint Therese. The question is will I be the best person I could be given my make-up and my history. The jury's still out on that one. I try to remind myself of Father Harl0w's admonition that we should all be striving to be saints. So far following that admonition has required lots and lots of frogging.

Knitting Fever

2008-11-18T09:17:00.000-08:00

That's what anyone would think I had to have seen me lately. I've surrounded myself, since right before the election, with knitting books, knitting needles, yarn and a huge knitting project. I've tried to avoid political blogs and have mostly gone to knitting blogs (although I've had to escape from some of them because they suddenly went political on me). The end result is a 3/4 finished project and a sore right wrist. Consequently,. today I am avoiding knitting (at least the actual doing of it) while the wrist recuperates. Apparently, knitting for 8 hours a day for three days (at least) in a row isn't good for arthritic joints. However, since I'm now at the big decision point in the project (having nearly run out of matching yarn, what will I do with the yoke of this sweater?) it is a good place to take a break. Now if I can just find some more books about knitting to read while I'm on hiatus from actual knitting.

I apparently am a woman of few addictions: reading, chocolate, knitting and tea, not necessarily in that order. It's too bad I'm not quite as addicted to putting away the clean laundry...

So right now, I guess I'd better confine myself to tea and reading. If I throw in much chocolate I'm going to put on unwanted pounds and if I try to knit I'm simply going to make the wrist hurt more which doesn't exactly have the stress relieving effect for which I was aiming.

They REALLY were wise

2008-11-13T06:19:00.000-08:00

I just watched at short video at:www.glumbert.com/media/dangerchild that discussed dangerous things you should let your children do. My in-laws let their kids (especially my husband and his brother) do all of them (except the one with the computer stuff because computers weren't available yet). We let our kids do most of them as well as a few things that weren't mentioned (like sticking their hands inside of sheep or leading full grown rams). I'm sure my kids were allowed to do some of those things mainly because my in-laws allowed it. In this particular case I think it may have been more my father-in-law's wisdom since my mother-in-law was a more timid sort. Anyway you might find the video fun and it might inspire you to let your kids have a fire or a pocket knife.

Sort of a Newsbreak

2008-11-06T17:16:00.000-08:00

For most of my family this is old news. For some of my internet friends, this is old news. Just in case it's not old news to you... We're expecting a grandbaby come sometime in May. We're excited to say the least. It's incredibly cool to now be related not just by marriage but by blood as well to our terrific son-in-law. Please pray for mother and baby and for the father as well.

When Does Wisdom Come?

2008-11-06T13:51:00.000-08:00

When I got married my new mother-in-law was about the age I am now. I didn't realize initially how wise she was, or how much I was learning from her. It took a number of years for me to figure out that this woman who saw things very differently from me on a lot of issues had an enormous wealth of wisdom to share. If she were here today and still able to argue and discuss, we still wouldn't see eye to eye on everything. There would be areas where I'd changed her mind, areas where she'd changed mind and areas where we agreed to disagree. Sometimes I think that I learned so much from her, from my own mom, from Aunt Drucilla, from my Uncle Stanley, from some of my favorite writers that I must be a little bit wise now. On other days and there've been a lot of them lately, I simply don't feel very wise at all.

My mother-in-law learned a lot of lessons in endurance while she was hospitalized for TB. I learned a lot of lessons in endurance when I was hospitalized before the birth of my daughter. I thought I'd learned all the lessons in patience etc. then. But I hadn't. As it turned out she hadn't either. She had long lessons in endurance to learn when my father-in-law was diagnosed with lupus, when she herself was diagnosed with cancer, when my brother-in-law was diagnosed with diabetes. I suspect that there were lots of days when she was tempted to bug out. But she didn't. I doubt that she knew she was being trained in wisdom through all those years. I doubt that she ever knew how much her lessons of wisdom meant to me. I doubt that anyone knows how much I miss her now and wish that I could talk with her again.

Perhaps it's the month of November when we think about departed souls. Perhaps it's having been to the cemetery this week. Perhaps it's feeling this overwhelming sense that I honestly don't have the wisdom to deal with some of what life has thrown at me that makes me miss my mother-in-law, my mother, my sister. Right now being the oldest person in the family is not a particularly happy thing to be. I don't feel wise, I don't feel competent, I feel like I need those older women in my life who are no longer here. As I said in a post back in January, I don't feel so smart anymore.

So why was Ma so smart at an age where I'm not. Did she know she was wise? What made her wise? From whence does wisdom come anyway?

Sometimes it would be easier to be 25 again and sure I knew all the answers. I try to remind myself that thinking you know the answers when you really don't is no substitute for true wisdom, but it certainly does give one a sense of assurance and competence that I honestly no longer feel.

It's been a rough week, even my knitting has not gone well. I just had to frog nearly 8 inches of my newest project (all the way back to the beginning) because my gauge was seriously off and the resulting project was going to be far smaller than I intended. So assurance and competence just doesn't seem to be on the schedule this week. But, I fully intend to pick up the needles and yarn and begin again. The frogging gives me a chance to rethink the whole project a bit. I'm going to begin it differently because I didn't really like the beginning rows anyway. Perhaps there's wisdom in not giving up on a project when you hit snags, even if you do have to do a lot of frogging and re-knitting. I'm going back to reading the Yarn Harlot again because it seems to me that she understands both knitting and philosophy, even if I don't necessarily agree with her politics.

Hopefully the next time I write I'll at least be making progress with the knitting even if wisdom is still an illusive dream.

Calling All Saints

2008-11-04T03:52:00.000-08:00

This is a day to call upon all the saints to pray for our country. In particular I should ask for the intercession of the Blessed Mother, Saint Therese, Saint Catherine of Sienna, St. Margaret Clitheroe, Saint Thomas More, and St. Jude.

Our Lady of Victory

2008-10-27T06:20:00.000-07:00

By the way today is Day one of the Novena to Our Lady of Victory. Protestants may not want to pray for her intercession, but they could join us in prayer for the next nine days (a very Biblical prayer period after all!).

It Could Have Happened

2008-10-27T05:07:00.000-07:00

Sometimes it's interesting to speculate, even though it can make you very sad, on some of the "might have beens" of history. So let me indulge myself for a moment.

The year is 1968. The political campaign has already been particularly contentious. Richard Nixon has the Republican nomination all but locked up. He has come out in favor of liberalizing abortion laws and is the darling of the pharmaceutical companies who are watching their profits sky rocket with contraceptive sales. They have more and more ideas of how the free love culture can pour even more money into their coffers.

The Democratic nomination is no sure thing. Three candidates have emerged to battle it out after President Lyndon Johnson announced he would not seek re-election. One of them is still committed to the Vietnam War, the other two would seek to disentangle the U.S. from it. In California Sen. Robert Kennedy has just managed to win the state's primary with it's huge slate of delegates, but the nomination is still not secure. Sen. Kennedy is about to leave the hotel by the kitchen when his wife stops him. "Bobby, I have a bad feeling about this, let's just go meet with the reporters in the ballroom." An off duty police officer notices Sirhan Sirhan loitering in the kitchen and spots his gun. He alerts the security team and the potential assassin is arrested and taken to jail.

Kennedy meets with reporters and then returns to his hotel room unaware for hours of what nearly transpired. The next month after Pope Paul VI issues his encylical Humanae Vitae Kennedy announces that if he is elected he will ask that the FDA do a more thorough investigation into the side effects of the artificial birth control pill. He also announces that in his presidency more aid will be provided to pregnant women and that the U.S. for the first time will have a law ensuring that all mothers will have paid maternity leave of at least one year after the birth of their child with a guarantee of their job being there for them to return to for up to three years. He gives a rousing speech where he talks about the Democratic party being the party of the "least among us, the widow, the orphan, the pregnant woman, the unborn child, the disabled, and the elderly." He says that the Republican party is the party of the rich and the advantaged, that he speaks for those who cannot speak for themselves.

In November, in a close election Kennedy is elected over Richard Nixon despite heavy campaigning by anti-Catholic fundamentalists. Soon after the Inauguration in January negotiations begin to end the Vietnam War. Through incredible diplomacy the war ends with the south retaining a degree of autonomy similar to what Hong Kong has in 2008. The Kennedy Family Protection Bill is passed over fierce Republican opposition in July. Republican Senators claim during their 42 day fillibuster that it will destroy the economy and wreck family life. New York state attempts to pass a liberalized abortion law, but due to heavy lobbying by the White House the measure goes down to defeat. The FDA determines that the artificial contraceptives are implicated in breast cancer as well as causing an unacceptably high number of pulmonary embolisms and blood clots. The drugs are removed from the market and the administration is praised for having prevented a tragedy on the level of thalidomide. Richard Nixon, attempting another run at the White House declares that the Kennedy administration is dragging American women back into the Dark Ages. When a supreme court vacancy occurs President Kennedy names Adlai Stevenson to the post. In 1972 the Roe v Wade is narrowly decided against the abortion lobby with Stevenson casting the deciding vote. The Kennedy Family Protection Act works well and women around the country stop clamoring for abortion rights when they see that they're valued as mothers as well as workers.

The economy rapidly improves as government money is available for job creation once the expenses of the war are gone. Under the Kennedy administration educational opportunities are expanded and more educational choices are encouraged including vouchers for private and parochial education. The resulting competition results in the improvement of public schools which are forced to compete for tax dollars for the first time. Inner city black children compete for places in the Catholic schools and several dioceses have to expand their parochial system to meet the demand.

With the improved economy more young mothers choose to stay home with their children for the first few years knowing that there will continue to be work place opportunities for them due to the Re-entry Law which provides for time spent caring for children to be considered as relevant experience by employers in most fields and requires employers to not discriminate against women who have spent time raising children. With more mothers choosing to stay at home due to generous child credits in the income tax law, fewer children and teens end up in trouble with the law and juvenile crime plummets. The Republicans continue to decry the Democrats meddling with the marketplace, especially in light of protectionist legislation that encourages people to buy American made due to heavy import fees, but Nixon goes down to defeat again in 1972. Catholic voters proudly vote for Kennedy and are pleased to see that interest in the Catholic Church has increased dramatically in the United States.

Despite the continued Cold War threats, the U.S. becomes a beacon of hope in an ever more dangerous world. The Republican party is forced to regroup so they attempt to get the gay community and Hollywood mogels to join them. In the 1976 election they run a candidate who favors same sex marriage, promises the right of all women to abort their babies, and artificial hormone contraceptives for men. They go down to flaming defeat. The new Democratic president quotes a book titled Small is Beautiful in his inauguration address and pledges to offer more support to small businesses and encourage the U.S. to adopt alternative energy sources. Regionalization of agricultural marketing insures that farmers in all areas of the country are able to make a living. In addition, transportation costs for foods such as milk, eggs, flour plummets and fewer fuel is wasted. Increased subsidies to railroad transportation makes travel more pleasant and affordable while also saving fuel.

Well, it could have happened that way... Ok, perhaps some of it is a pipe dream. However, in all seriousness, there was no particular reason why the Democrats should be the party of death. Both Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan were in favor of more liberal abortion laws than Robert Kennedy. There was no particular reason why the Democrats should have fought FOR the drug companies, Planned Parenthood, euthanasia, or abortion instead of against them. In many ways they had been the party who spoke for the little guy. A marriage of Republicans and the gay alliance (a significant number of whom are quite well to do) was not all that unlikely (look at the number of Republicans who've turned out to be part of the gay alliance!). That it didn't happen that way may well be the result of a well aimed bullet.

Just think of the possibilities: no Watergate, no Roe v Wade, no breast cancer epidemic perhaps, possibly no need for a War on Drugs. Perhaps no oil crisis, perhaps no banking crisis, no Iran Contra, almost certainly no Bush administration. Perhaps no 9/11...

I'm well aware that Bobby Kennedy was not perfect, he was no Messiah, but what he had going for him was a serious Catholic faith and a Rosary praying mother. Perhaps that serious Catholic faith informed by Rerum Novarum and other Catholic teachings might well have helped him create an administration which truly did care for all of the least. Maybe he read Chesterton. We'll never know. What we do know is that at the present time we don't have a candidate who will do any of those things, but we have one candidate who has pledged as his first act as president to sign into law a bill that will force medical personnel to kill babies (whom he considers not an unexpected blessing but a punishment) regardless of their personal convictions, that will deny parents the right to information about their daughter's seeking an operation that will do her serious harm, that will even overturn informed consent laws. God help us all. Two years from now, no matter how this election goes, we may be really sorry that Sirhan Sirhan managed to get too close to Bobby Kennedy.

Nothing to Say?

2008-10-16T23:37:00.000-07:00

One might think that that's why I haven't posted lately. Actually there's been a fair amount of things going on, but some of them are not blog worthy and others are not yet bloggable. I did take a lactation counselors class in September and if I passed the exam will get a lactation counselor's certificate. The class also gives me all the lactation credits I need to sit the lactation consultant exam next summer.

The lit girls and I have been working our way through Orthodoxy. We missed the Rochester Chesterton conference because it interfered with Eastern States and was at the end of a grueling week of classes for me. We were all disappointed about that.

Lately I've been spending a lot of time hunkering down trying to save money, pay off bills, get ready for winter. I've felt like I've been in the doldrums in the midst of all that. I think the political season which I've tried desperately to ignore has really begun to get to me. It's awful to feel like there's no one that you want to vote for and two candidates that you'd happily vote against. I don't feel like the election of either presidential candidate will be something I can rejoice over, so frankly it's rather like being in an aristocracy where you simply have to put up with what you get. The frustrating thing is being told you have a choice when in fact you really don't.

I see the places in my life, perhaps in all of our lives where I can make a difference and they are all small places. I can make a difference by shopping locally and encouraging other people to do so. I can make a difference in our own budget by making my own yogurt (and saving $4 a quart doing it), by using up left overs, by baking bread. I will soon be a La Leche League leader once again and I can help mothers and babies. I can do nice things that aren't required or expected. I can recall a phrase Francis Schaeffer used, "there are no little people and no little places." Or I can recall that St. Therese encouraged us to practice the little way. Mostly of late that's what I'm doing: little things, that aren't even particularly appreciated a lot of the time. But little things done for the love of God are often all that we can do.

I've read and heard a lot of angry voices lately. There are angry voices on the left and angry voices on the right. It's true in the world of faith, it's true in the world of politics. The angry voices make my stomach churn. I don't like hostility. I don't like it when people say exaggerated things that they don't even really mean, just for rhetorical effect. I've come to realize that some people like debating, even loud angry debating, but loud debates remind me far too much of a period in my life where loud angry words often disintegrated into someone (often me) getting slapped in the head. I recognize that there are things to be angry about, but so much of the angry debate seems so totally unproductive. Arguing about who to vote for is stupid in a state where the outcome is a foregone conclusion. Saying nasty things about one candidate or the other is only hurtful in the long run. Saying exaggerated negative things about one candidate or the other falls into the realm of calumny far too easily. Believing that either candidate is going to be able to fix what's wrong with this country falls into the category of being naive at the very least. I can fear that we are headed for some very bad times ahead, no matter who gets elected. I can fear that Christians are going to find themselves losing their jobs rather than participating in evil., but I can't take that fear and turn it into hateful angry speech towards people who happen to see things somewhat differently.

I think that the lack of charity between believers this year has bothered me most of all. I've watched people bait each other and snipe at each other and criticize each other all in the name of Christian morality. It all makes me very, very sad.

One of the things that has really bothered me of late is the fact that Christians who take their faith seriously have been the target of not only ridicule by the media, but hateful comments by at least one candidate as well. I don't happen to be a fundamentalist Protestant anymore, but I used to be and the characterizations of that group by the media and some candidates as ignorant, racist, and hateful are just plain inaccurate. Yes there are ignorant, racist, hateful fundamentalists. There are also ignorant, racist, hateful atheists (I would point out that the Nazis were certainly not fundamentalist Protestants nor are the current skinheads). To characterize a whole group by the rantings of a strange pastor from a tiny church in Kansas or the behavior of a Benny Hinn is unfair to say the very least. To some extent there are leaders of the so-called religious right who have brought this on themselves. They have attempted to be king makers and have gloried in access to the seats of power. Yet to paint all serious pro-life Christians with the same broad brush is unfair. To once again draw lines where you in essence say anyone who isn't part of the Eastern/urban elite is not worth listening to is to merely perpetuate the red/blue problem that everyone has talked to death. Most of the people of faith whom I know, both Protestant and Catholic are decent people who pay their bills, don't cheat their employees or employers, help their neighbors, attempt to raise their kids right, don't beat their wives or cheat on their spouses, don't sell drugs, or shoot up the neighborhood. I think even the Eastern elite would rather live in a neighborhood of fundamentalist Protestants than a neighborhood of drug dealers or brothels (although I suppose I could be wrong about that ). I guess all I'm trying to say is that satire can be funny, but it can also be a way of simply attempting to silence someone you don't want to listen to. It can be a way of dehumanizing someone.

So I guess I had some things to say. .. even if I didn't comment on the smell of wet leaves, Mom V Many. I try not to go smell wet leaves because they exacerbate my fall mold allergies. Now I'll get back to sock knitting, yogurt making, bread baking, house cleaning, and pattern selecting. I probably will find myself in the voting booth next month, but I hope until then to not have to listen to one more political debate (televised or otherwise), and I hope that I'll be forgiven if I decide to write in None of the Above.

What Have I Been Doing

2008-08-22T04:06:00.001-07:00

This was supposed to be a really productive week. I was supposed to tackle all these cucumbers and make pickles. So how am I doing on that score? Well, after nicking my finger on the mandolin while slicing the first batch of cucumbers and ending up at the walk in clinic for a tetanus shot (but no stitches needed) I managed to get 9 pints made. Then yesterday I managed another 8 pints without the need for band-aids, or shots, or even burn ointment. Of course I still have this pile of ripe cucumbers that I've got to peel, seed, salt, and then process...

Pickling is a series of existential crises (as Ramona would say), even without nicked fingers. I seem to run out of essential ingredients routinely. First it was vinegar, then it was pickling spice, then it was mustard seeds, then the celery seeds that I KNEW I had were nowhere to be found (I found them only AFTER buying a new huge container of them right where my husband left them after making cucumber salad the night of the wedding rehearsal), yesterday it was onions, now I can't make anymore ripe cucumber pickles until I buy more sugar. The first batch of ripe cucumber pickles was accompanied by burned fingers because I couldn't find my jar lifter (which my daughter had borrowed to make jam for gifts for wedding participants). She later told me it was in the trunk of the car (OF COURSE, what a logical place for it!). So the whole pickling experience has had a lot of stop and go to it. That is to say, a lot of stop what you've started and go to the store. Some of the time I've planned ahead, consequently, I bought pickling spice and turmeric at the co-op where it was cheap. Some of the time I've been caught off guard and had to shop at our local store where things are more expensive.

Today, in addition to buying more sugar, I've got to go back to the dark and dingy (ok, I'll be honest - the totally trashed) basement to see if I have more canning jars. If I don't I've got to buy more jars before I do more pickles. I suspect that I'm nearly out of pint jars, and I'm pretty sure I'm out of jar rings, so I'm probably going to have to go buy rings, lids, and jars as well as sugar.

I began the week trying to de-clutter and clean the house as well as embarking on the pickle making project. I actually made some progress last week, but then my son came back from the fair and all the surfaces that had wedding debris removed from them now have fair debris on them instead. I must move the Peace Lily out of the living room (and it's a HUGE plant) because we suspect that's what's causing our NEW son to sneeze up a storm whenever he's in that room. I also need to vacuum the drapes, upholstery, and floor, and spray some anti-allergen spray around. Today is also the day that the water and sewer bills are due, which means a trip to the town offices.

I feel like this has been a week where I've been busy all week, will be busy all day, and will have very little to show for it. No matter how hard I try, I will not have a sparkling clean house this evening. I will likely not have a gourmet meal for the newly weds. I will only have 17 jars of pickles done because the other pickles are at least a two day process and I'm not at all sure I'll manage to get the two hours of peeling and seeding accomplished this afternoon. I probably won't manage to get to confession again this week. And you dear readers will get nothing more from me than one existential crisis after another...

We have MORE Pictures

2008-08-14T06:48:00.000-07:00

For all of you who've been following the wedding saga, the photos are now available for viewing online. They're at Team Yu Photo Blog. If you click on weddings on the links on the side it's the first of the 18 weddings posted. If you can't figure out the password e-mail me and I can give it to people I'm familiar with, I'm not sending it out to the entire blogsphere.

The honeymooning couple is back to normal life starting today (as in the bride is back in her office and the groom is back to job hunting). We had a nice afternoon and evening with them on Tuesday. They did miss out on a family adventure yesterday. We headed off to Orleans County Fair with the sheep. By the time we got to Berlin my son's car's exhaust system had a hole in it, then by Hardwick his brake cylinder was seizing up. We abandoned his car, got him and his gear (and the sheep to the fair) then proceeded to find a garage just two miles from where the car was, got the car to the garage, arranged for them to do repairs today, and came home. Now we're going to have to make an extra trip in order to get the car to him, but fortunately there was a garage close by that was still open at 6 in the evening. However, what would a long trip with the sheep be without some sort of adventure attached to it? It evidently wouldn't be a normal long trip with the sheep for our family. We knew things were going too smoothly...

Sometimes Dreams Really Do Come True

2008-08-03T03:48:00.000-07:00

The wedding was beautiful. The bride was gorgeous, an absolute vision who just kept getting prettier as the day went on (I know that's the mother of the bride speaking, but it's really true!). The groom was handsome and clearly besotted with her. The ceremony was just right. Father La Valley's homily was as incredible as I expected. The Mass was beautiful celebrated. The father of the bride was handsome in his tux and the mother of the bride didn't look too bad either (one friend of Abby's who hadn't seen me in years actually didn't recognize me when I came in, he thought I was Abby's aunt because I looked something like Abby's mom, but clearly wasn't her !). The reception went fantastically well and everyone had a good time. The brother of the bride and one groomsman managed to decorate the car and throw a little rice on the couple (very illicit of course). Now they are off on what will hopefully be a lovely honeymoon.

During Mass I realized that at this wedding Jesus was there, not only in spirit, but there Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity. I'd never been to a wedding before where that was the case. To have this wedding celebrated in the midst of the Eucharist was just so just plain RIGHT! I've been praying for them after communion for a very long time, they've been among the requests I offered up at the Consecration for a very long time. It just was so incredibly wonderful to be celebrating Communion in the midst of answered prayers. I feel like I'm not beginning to express the incredible joy of the moment.

Oh, and God cooperated very nicely in his distribution of weather. There was nary a drop of rain until the middle of the reception and it had stopped again when everyone was leaving. After everything was all over and we had the wedding gown safely back in the house (from where I have to take it to the cleaners), it started to pour. However, by that time the young couple were safely at their evening destination. So the day was truly perfect, perfect setting for pictures, perfect weather for in and out of the church.

Of course their were minor glitches, the flowers got deposited in a place in the church where the groomsmen didn't know they were, so they didn't get their flowers on until the last minute, ring bearer was temporarily AWOL right before the procession headed down the aisle (the flower girl found him), the organist goofed on part of the responsorial psalm, but these were very minor, minor glitches. All of the major stuff went incredibly well and it truly was the wedding of my daughter's dreams. Now we need to continue to support them with our prayers.

I walked around all day with an "stupid" smile on my face. The father of the bride was clearly pleased as well (he even danced 3 times, which was totally unprecedented).I don't think I've had any day in my life that was any happier. My own wedding day and the days my children were born are the only ones in same category. I guess that's appropriately so because after all yesterday I became mom to a new son.

So Cinderella has taken off the beautiful gown, I'm sure the just married sign is washed off the car. I've shampooed the hairspray out of my hair and am back to looking just normal again. The ball is over and we're back to normal life. There's wedding debris all around the house and still one set of guests to entertain, but clearly it's a new phase in life. Now if I can just get my daughter's cell phone to her (it got left in my jeans pocket after the hair salon yesterday)...I guess there's at least one more mommy errand on the list, so maybe the new phase won't be all that incredibly different (from some perspectives anyway).

Wedding Bells are Ringing

2008-08-02T01:20:00.000-07:00

Well here it is nearly 4:30 in the morning. I can't get back to sleep. The rehearsal went off with only a couple of hitches (mostly to do with the sound system -hopefully the organist will understand the mikes better than I did last night). The rehearsal dinner was relaxed and fun. The maid of honor's dress fits (WHEW!!!). Nearly everything on my to do list got done (I'm going to just live with the scratchy jacket, I guess because I don't think I can make my nervous fingers sew right now).

At this point as long as we don't leave something crucial at home and the rain holds off until at least after we get to the church, I think we're in good shape. The bride was cool as a cucumber. The MOB managed to not panic too badly when things weren't where they were supposed to be last night, although I must admit to having prayed an incredibly frantic prayer to St. Anthony.

Watching my husband escort my daughter down the aisle at the rehearsal brought everything into very sharp focus. This is the real deal. This is not simply a fantasy. We really are having an honest to goodness wedding. We really are watching two families unite. Dreams sometimes really do come true. As the deacon went over the vows last night I realized once again the seriousness with which the Church takes marriage. Perhaps not everyone pays attention, but it's not just for better for worse, although that's there too. It's the promise to be open to children and to raise them in the faith. I've never heard those words at any Protestant wedding I ever went attended. It's the question, "do you come here freely and of your own accord." I never heard those words at a Protestant wedding either. This is marriage taken incredibly seriously. Even though they'd already been through Engaged Encounter and a series of questions with the priest who will be conducting the wedding, there was yet another series of questions of them before the rehearsal last night. I'm so glad to see the very care the Church takes as a couple approaches the Sacrament of Matrimony because this is the way it's supposed to be. It's supposed to be a big deal. Becoming one flesh is a life altering event. Sometimes the party aspect overshadows the significance. Thankfully the Church brings things into sharp focus (at least for those who are willing to pay attention) and makes it clear that while there's plenty of time for celebration, and a party afterwards is very appropriate, that this event is sacred and hence celebrated in the midst of Mass. God is supposed to be at the center of Christian marriages, and that's what happens at a Catholic wedding. The musicians are at the side, not front and center, music is ancillary not central. The celebration of the Eucharist, the nuptial blessing, all make it very clear that this is Christian marriage we're looking at.

When my daughter became Catholic I knew I wanted her to marry a convert. God has a marvelous sense of humor because while Jim was brought up Protestant, he was baptized as a Catholic as a baby. So technically he's a cradle Catholic. In actual practice he's been Catholic for half the time of my daughter. All I care about is that he's an incredibly faithful Catholic now and he loves and cherishes my daughter.

So, soon it will be off to the hairdresser, then make a quick stop for flowers for the flower girl's basket, to the bride's maid's motel room to get dressed and then to the church.

It's really and truly my daughter's wedding day. I really and truly am getting a brand new son. This is a very BIG milestone in all of our lives. Thanks be to God!

Check List

2008-07-31T04:49:00.000-07:00

Mountain climbed: Check
Emergency Kit assembled: Check
Surprise basket put together: Check
Groom's cake boxed: Check
Weight back at goal: Check
Condo cleaned: To Do
Food for rehearsal made: To Do
Punch bowl run through the dishwasher: To Do
Cheese for cheese basket purchased: To Do
Who does what when list made: To Do
One final attempt to make jacket unscratchy: To Do
Letters to Bride and Groom: Written, but need to be printed off

So, I guess you can all figure out what I'm doing today and tomorrow...

Can you believe it? The wedding is in TWO days!!! We covet your prayers for a lovely ceremony (that truly touches hearts), passable weather (thunderstorms are predicted), a fantastic reception, and a relaxing honeymoon, and a most blessed married life for Jim and Abby.

5,4,3,2,1, Blast Off

2008-07-28T05:15:00.001-07:00

Well, the countdown has truly begun. Next week at this time all the fuss, all the planning, all the last minute panic will be over. Today that's still hard to believe because I feel like I have 13 impossible things to do before breakfast. It isn't actually that many and the only truly impossible thing I have to deal with is my hair. Hopefully the salon will be able to work more magic on Saturday than I've been able to manage of late. I think I'm feeling anxious today because I got a task given to me yesterday that means I've got to go back yet another time and deal with the music director at church. She's an older nun who, while I'm sure she's trying to be nice, has made me feel at every encounter that I'm entering the principal's office after having done something wrong. I'm dreading having to do it again. Because we have new priests I no longer have the option of simply giving a quick call to Father Mayo to ask him the question and I'm not yet at the point of feeling comfortable giving a quick call to Father Baker. I think only my daughter understands just how uncomfortable this particular aspect of things is, and is really grateful she doesn't have to do it. Everyone else, I'm sure thinks I'm making a mountain out of a mole hill, but it is truly a mountain for me.

This week I need to: put together an emergency wedding day kit (sewing supplies, Motrin, etc), put together one gift basket (plus another little surprise one), pay the restaurant, cancel some hair appointments, figure out who does what when, clean the condo where my brother-in-law and niece will be staying, dye my hair, make some food for the rehearsal dinner, make sure the guys get to Burlington to pick up their tuxes, lose two more pounds (ok, I'm being obsessive now!), write nice letters to my dd and her new husband. Most of this falls into the category of housekeeping details, but the last item really does not. In the midst of a whole lot of hub bub it actually feels like the most important thing I'll do this week. I've been working on it for a while now (mostly in my head) and I'm not yet satisfied with what I've come up with.

Months ago I told my daughter I wanted them to have this time before the wedding be a time when they could prepare not just for a party, but for marriage. I think they've done a pretty good job of balancing both of those things, and I've tried to not only help with the practical stuff, but add lots of prayers for them into my schedule as well. I'd appreciate all of your prayers for us this week. They want this wedding to truly reflect what they are aiming for in their marriage. They want all their guests to understand what this sacrament is all about (including the fact that it IS a sacrament. A lot of work and thought has gone into it and it would be really nice if it all comes together the way they have dreamed it would.

So very soon we'll be a reconfigured family. It's going to feel different in some ways, but not all that different in others. Jim has been a part of our life for long enough now that it feels like he's been a part of the family for quite awhile. Abby's lived away from here enough that there is no huge transition to make on that front. Because of gas prices they probably won't be down as often as they've been in the past few months, but I certainly know the way to Burlington.

Once the wedding is over, the guests gone home, the presents gathered, the couple off on the honeymoon I'm beginning a new undertaking. Or maybe I'm simply going back to an old one. Next week I go to my first La Leche League meeting in about 20 years. I'm in the process of getting reactivated as a leader. Now that my own kids are all grown up I can go back to doing something else I love. For this week, however, that and nearly everything else (including the weeds in the garden) are on the very backburner as we prepare for the biggest day we've had in a very, very long time.

A Strike Against "The Man"

2008-07-13T12:07:00.001-07:00

Or at least that's sort of how I see it. Our propane bill suddenly skyrocketed this spring. When you couple that with the increased price of gasoline, the increased price of food... well, a lot of us who aren't oil barons or growers of corn destined for bio fuels are feeling the pinch. This weekend we struck back. My plea to my husband for a clothes line has finally been heard. I now have four beautiful lines hanging from a sturdy wooden frame in my back yard.

Now grant you this means I'm going to have to do some planning. I'm going to have to run several loads on one day (when I know the drying conditions will be good) rather than loads at the last minute. In short, I think I'm going to have to have a washday. It's going to mean carrying laundry baskets out the front door, across the side yard to the backyard (because we don't have a usable back door on the house at the moment (not until the back deck gets built anyway). However, WW's friends, just think about all the activity points I'll rack up carrying laundry baskets all those steps.

I used to have a clothes line when the kids were little (and didn't have a dryer). For years now I've had a dryer and no clothesline. I've missed my clothesline. I've missed the smell of air dried clothes. However, I've also gotten pretty spoiled at being able to dry stuff at the last minute and not having to use drying racks on rainy or wintery days. I've now got to haul the drying racks out of storage and up to the one room on the second floor where I can make space for them. The dryer is going to become something used rarely, not usually. I probably won't make some propane producer in Texas cry, nor will I cut into the profits of the local distributer very much. However, every little bit counts. One real advantage of line drying is that if something is stained, and it doesn't come out in the wash, said stain will no longer be set in by the heat of the dryer. As I recall, line dried clothing is a whole lot less apt to shrink as well. Now, if I can just avoid trapping wasps in anyone's pant legs, this whole thing may be really a boon to all (except the propane people).

My goodness, have I really become an apron wearing, sock knitting, wool spinning, bread baking, cloth dishtowel using, woman who has an actual washday? By, George, I think I have. I think I may be slowly turning into my grandmother, just in time to have grandbabies. (did I mention we're having a wedding this summer????). Now, I think I perhaps should take one more page from her book. Last week our new priest exhorted us to read through the Bible. I actually have done it (twice, if you count one whole time through the 66 book Protestant canon), but I think perhaps it's time to do it again. My Grammy and Grampa Lyon did it every year. I don't want to be exactly like my grandmother (we have very different tastes in reading for the most part, and I'd just as soon be a bit fitter than she was), however, her life teaches lessons about how to survive in economic hard times. I think I'm really ready to learn them.

New Link

2008-07-13T11:35:00.001-07:00

If you check on my links you'll see I added a new one today. It's the link to the New Distributist League. I actually discovered this site in my search for information on Orestes Brownson (19th century convert, great American thinker, one time friend of Bronson Alcott, and fellow Vermonter). To find that particular post you'll have to go back to April 8th. However, there you will find an interesting essay by Brownson on the topic of the oppression of "free labor." If you are as frustrated as some of us are with the inability of many people to find jobs that actually pay them enough to support a family while others in the same community are living in the lap of luxury, well you'll find that Brownson was frustrated about the same things. He has largely been forgotten by even American Catholics, but then Thomas Aquinas was forgotten for awhile as well.

I'm currently reading a biography of Brownson and I know at least one person I'm going to strongly recommend it to when I finish. He had an interesting story, a fascinating journey, a tough life in many respects, he had satirical poems written about him, traveled from place to place for years. Yet he had a voice that was heard by at least some people. John Henry Cardinal Newman claimed he was the greatest thinker the United States ever produced. Considering the stature of Newman, that is high praise indeed.

So click on the link, read some Brownson, check out the site. It will at least be a respite from the current crop of politicians who talk out of both sides of their mouth, but ultimately are in the pockets of one group of rich capitalists or another.

Vindication Raises Some Questions

2008-07-10T19:28:00.000-07:00

Once upon a time there were doctors who thought you could diagnose people's personalities by the bumps on their head (this was known as phrenology). We laugh at the notion now. Once upon a time people believed that pouring alcohol into certain sections of the front of the brain was good medicine, we cringe at the thought. Once upon a time people believed you could determine someone's guilt or innocence depending on whether they drowned when you threw them into water, now we see that as foolishness. Once upon a time people believed that if you hooked people up to a machine and asked them questions in a threatening manner you could determine if they were telling the truth. Oh wait, some people still believe that...

Today the paper announced the news that John and Patsy Ramsey (and their son Burke as well) have been cleared in the murder of their daughter Jon Benet. A lot of the reason that people believed the Ramsey's to be guilty was because of inconclusive polygraph test results. There's a tendency among police officials and some other government people to think that anything but a blazingly clear polygraph indicates deception. Of course, they realize that some guilty people have a result that indicates they're telling the truth, but don't confuse them with facts when their minds are already made up.

John and Patsy Ramsey didn't suddenly become not the perpetrators of their daughter's murder today. It's just that it's only now that the evidence that cleared them has become available. Yet when they took those polygraph tests they were telling the truth. The machine simply wasn't able to demonstrate that fact, for whatever reason. Some people are not good subjects for the machine, some operators are inept, some operators are so busy trying to illicit an emotional response that they render their results meaningless.

Yet, the polygraph is being depended on more and more for things like pre-employment screening. Some candidates lie and get past the machine anyway, some candidates are scrupulously honest and get inconclusive results with the result that they aren't hired, some lucky candidates take the test and pass it while telling the truth. I imagine that some people had the right shape head bumps when phrenology was all the rage as well. I also imagine that a lot of the people who didn't drown when thrown in the water were simply people who had somehow learned to swim. Of course, the ones who did drown, didn't exactly profit by their demonstrated innocence.... I suspect that a couple of hundred years from now people will be laughing at their foolish ancestors for believing that truth could be determined by a machine. It's just that today, for people unjustly accused of crimes, or being denied jobs there's really nothing to laugh about.

Musings While Weeding

2008-07-10T06:29:00.000-07:00

I've been doing a lot of weeding lately. I'm taking today off because I overdid it so much yesterday that I ache nearly from head to toe. However, it's been an interesting process, and the source of some reflection.

Our garden got very weedy, very quickly. This was in part do to a lot of rain, and in part due to the fact that it didn't get hoed early (according to my son, who prefers hoeing to weeding). I did weed part of the garden before our trip to St. Louis, but didn't get to all of it. When we got back I had to redo what I'd already done, made a bit of progress, but managed to get the mother of all sunburns and so was out of commission for weeding for another week. When I finally got back to it, the weeds were pretty phenomenal. I've been working my way through them and have done at least 3 hours worth each of the last couple of days.

Some of the weeds were really tall (as in up to my chin). They had stubborn roots and they certainly were heavy to pull and toss onto the pile. They overshadowed the actual vegetables.
Some of the weeds were things that, in another context wouldn't have been weeds at all. For example, our garden seems to be rich in something sometimes called Withywindle, it's a form of morning glory. Outside of the garden it's beautiful. In the garden it's destructive. It's more common name around here is bindweed. It attaches itself to the plants and is tremendously difficult to untangle and pull up without pulling up or damaging the plants themselves.

So, I began having some reflections on spiritual matters. I wondered whether Pope Benedict ever had to weed a row of onions awash in a sea of pig weed and bind weed. The pig weed hid the onions to a degree that I thought perhaps my husband had only planted half a row. As I got through the weeds I discovered more and more onions. Perhaps the Holy Father is able to look past the seed of weeds and see the true wheat in the Church. Perhaps also he is able to see that some things people see as good are more like bindweed: good in some settings, but not necessarily good as part of Mass.

One of the things I've noticed, however, is that when the weeds have grown really tall, the plants have actually come to depend upon them for support. Sometimes you have to cut the weeds, but leave them in place to allow the plants a chance to grow in the sunshine and become strong before you actually pull the weeds out. Simply pulling willy-nilly is apt to pull up plants, or damage the ones that are too weak to stand up by themselves.

Some plants seem to thrive in spite of the weeds (mustard, kale, turnips are examples of this) while others (like parsnips) are overwhelmed by them. Other plants muddle along in the midst of the weeds (chard for example), but don't really begin to grow until the weeds are pulled out. I'm sure there are parallels with the Church here as well.

One thing that happened yesterday was most annoying, and I'm sure that the Holy Father has experienced his own version of this. As I was weeding the onions, a great demon hoard arose (actually a swarm of mosquitoes) to vehemently object to what I was doing to their habitat. Clearly, they loved the sea of weeds, and didn't appreciate my uprooting them. I had to go to the house twice for various anti-bug remedies and even then they kept flying right around my eyes.

I'm still far from done with the weeding, but the garden is beginning to look more like a proper garden again and we have a chance of a decent harvest of onions, chard, and turnips, as well as the current enjoyment of all sorts of salad greens. Pope Benedict's weeding job is also far from completed, but we're beginning to see some fruits of that as well. Just don't be surprised when even some of the plants complain that the bindweed is being removed. They don't realize that some of it is about context. Clowns are great at a birthday party, but they are out of context at Mass. Ballet is beautiful, but not at Mass. Novelty has its place, but not at Mass. Let's continue to pray that the Holy Father will be able to gently untangle the Withywindle and provide an environment where the plants can really grow.

What About Wants Anyway

2008-07-08T04:16:00.000-07:00

The question just keeps circling around this week: what's the difference between needs and wants, and how much right do we have to get our wants met when other people aren't getting their needs met? It started with a discussion between my son and his soon to be brother-in-law who were discussing justice relative to the way a certain Catholic school was paying its staff. Was it right that parents of children in that school were driving luxury vehicles and living an opulent life style when the school couldn't afford to pay its staff a living wage (some of the summer staff are being paid only $8.50 an hour). The question of needs and wants entered in as well as the rights of people to a proportionate amount of their income.

Then on Sunday our new priest talked about the difference between needs and wants and pointed out that while shelter is a need cable TV is only a want. Today there's a discussion going on at Danielle Bean's site as to whether women should get their wedding rings upgraded when their financial situation improves.

Clearly, we are living in a time when some people, including some Catholic people, have a lot of disposable income and other people don't have enough money to live on. We don't happen to quite fall into either category. We're mostly just scraping by, although I'll admit we do have a satellite dish and DSL, which both fall into the category of wants, not needs. We drive older cars, we heat our house with wood, we wear clothes until they wear out, not until they go out of style. We try to practice charity, and we try to be good stewards of what we have. I watch a lot of people really, really struggling right now. Either they are unable to find jobs, or the jobs they can find are inadequate to pay for basic needs as well as being jobs that don't tap their actual abilities. Meanwhile, other people (generally not quite so young) are being paid exorbitant amounts of money, and frequently have their jobs not because of their ability, but simply because they happened to know the right person, or be in the right place at the right time.

So, are we entitled to keep all the wonderful extra money that falls in our laps, or should we be funneling that extra money to people who don't have enough? Should we perhaps be helping create worker cooperatives that can pay a just wage, or giving more money to our parish school so that they can pay their staff a just wage? Some people would say that as long as we are giving an appropriate percentage of our income to the Church, we can do what we'd like with the rest. I'm just not so sure about that, but I'm also uncomfortable about what sometimes gets defined as needs. Clearly, what most people think of as needs now, are socially perceived needs, not actual needs. People need shelter (including heat - which threatens to be VERY expensive next winter), they don't need cable, they don't need air conditioning, or matching furniture, or a dryer. All of those are nice conveniences, but since my grandparents managed to raise 15 children between two families without them, clearly they aren't needs.

Clothing is also a need, even reasonable looking clothing is necessary in order to find and keep a job that will pay for your other needs. However, an extensive fashionable wardrobe is a want. There is some justification for paying more for clothes, if it means you are not subsidizing slave labor in China, but to do so probably means having very few outfits, and perhaps buying your clothes at the consignment shop.

Food is a definite need, but chicken breasts, instead of legs, strip steak instead of ground beef, high priced prepared foods, expensive restaurant meals are wants. The foods that used to be celebratory foods have become ordinary fare and most everyone thinks they are entitled to them. There are ways for most people to keep a food budget under control, and eat within their means, but often that means that someone has to eat things that aren't their most favorite items (perhaps tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches instead of grilled chicken breast Caesar salad, or egg salad sandwiches instead of deli meat). Some families are surviving only because of community food shelves, but often, even there, people are rejecting some of the offerings because they don't like them. Truly hungry people eat a lot of things that sort of hungry people don't think they should have to eat.

The rich have a responsibility to be just with their workers, to be charitable with their excess. The poor have a responsibility to not envy, and to be sure to identify their true needs rather than their wants. All of us have a responsibility to encourage just wages for all workers (not just the ones in our own backyard) and to be responsible stewards of what we have. There will be moments for celebration at which celebratory foods and dress are appropriate. There will be times when abstaining from celebratory foods is appropriate.

We live in an era where people think that sexual desires are needs not wants. Hence the horrible percentage of couples who are already living together when they finally make the trip to the altar. Of course part of the delay also comes from "needing" an expensive wedding. Part of the reason that some couples are delaying children, or keeping the mother in the work force is that they are still paying off that expensive wedding. An expensive wedding is a want, not a need. It is possible to have a very nice wedding on a budget, although we've found it is a challenge to do so. However, better a simple ceremony in street clothes than a marriage that begins on the wrong foundation.

There is something somewhat obscene about the Mc Mansions that have sprouted up on Spear Street in Burlington. They are houses that could easily provide bedrooms for 10 kids, but probably don't house more than 2. They are an example of conspicuous consumption, a way of telling everyone around that the owners have made it. Americans are really good at conspicuous consumption, would that we were as good about ensuring that everyone had a living wage. I would challenge anyone thinking about a purchase that's really just a way of demonstrating your wealth, whether it might not be better to contribute the money you're about to spend on jewelery or a luxury car or a more opulent house towards making it possible for someone else to have their basic needs for clothing, transportation, or shelter met. It's nice to appreciate fine things, but our appreciation needs to be proportionate. It doesn't seem fair to be paying a lower tuition to a Catholic school then you would to a posh private school, and then driving a luxury car while the staff at the Catholic school often can't afford to drive at all. I'm not so much in favor of big government give aways as I am in favor of people being paid a just wage from top to bottom (which may mean the people at the top make a whole lot less and the people at the bottom somewhat more) and jobs enough so that no one would be without one who needed one. I'm also in favor of an economy which makes it possible for babies to be cared for by their own mothers rather than parked in a day care center for 9 + hours a day. I honestly believe that babies need their mothers, that it is not just a want, but a genuine need, for the best physical, emotional, and mental growth. There's something wrong with a society that puts the wants of adults above the needs of babies.

Now I realize one person's decisions to spend conspicuously or not probably don't impact things all that much. However, each person's decisions do contribute to an overall climate. Each time we say yes to conspicuous consumption we are helping define who we are as a society. We place more and more pressure on everyone to conform. There's a reason why the young mom in my neighborhood is working instead of staying home with her toddler. She could live on her husband's income, but she couldn't dress her daughter in a fashion that would keep her among the best dressed in her kindergarten class. She wouldn't be able to provide the dance lessons that the wealthier families provide. So in order to keep her daughter in the social race she leaves her toddler at day car for 9+ hours a day. She's bought into a media sponsored lie about just what her daughter needs, but every time families make the decision to have their child wear designer clothes, or the newest toys, they put pressure on the less well off to try to "keep up with the Jones's." No one wants their child to feel left out. No one wants to be poorly thought of, but the cycle of conspicuous consumption creates a monster where people attempt to get fulfillment from things.

Jesus had a radical message: Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven. His message to the rich is equally radical: It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than a rich man to inherit the Kingdom of heaven. We don't need to all be vowed to poverty like St. Francis, but we do all need to be aware that we should be laying up treasures in heaven, not on earth.

WOW! It worked!

2008-06-27T07:01:00.000-07:00

Of course the link spread way too far across the page. So now I have to do a bunch of mindless blathering in order to move it down to where it isn't running into other text, right???

Well maybe instead of mindless blathering I'll try for something a bit more intelligent. We spent a lot of time this past week riding the rails. We took Amtrak trains to and from St. Louis where we attended my niece Laura's wedding. The employees on the train for the most part were helpful, courteous, friendly, everything you'd want. The only thing we got somewhat frustrated with was the crew from Chicago to St. Louis not keeping us updated about the delays. Other than that the crews were great.

The sleeper cars were among the best parts of the whole trip, but riding coach on The Texas Eagle wasn't bad either. The food was actually better than I expected until the very last meal (a rather forgettable hamburg and something that passed for key lime pie, but really didn't make the grade). The breakfasts were really good as was the one dinner we ate on board.

Where Amtrak falls down, still, is in its schedule. We ended up staying overnight in Chicago (at Amtrak's expense) because we missed our connection on the way back. This was totally due to the dispatcher's decisions, not the fault of the train crew. If the dispatcher had held the same southbound train that he held when we were on it a couple of nights earlier, we would have made our connection. Ironically, it worked out well for us. We got to spend a night in a fairly posh hotel, spent a day in Chicago, and got an on board upgrade to a sleeper car (after being told they were all sold out all day) which cost us $500 less than our original sleeper. If you aren't in a hurry even their quirky schedules don't have to be more than a minor inconvenience.

Apparently, a lot more people are riding the rails these days with the increase in gas prices. Coach seats, in particular, are really affordable, but a bedroom is not a bad way to go for up to 3 people. They say in their literature that 3 is a squeeze, but my son and husband are both fairly big guys, and we didn't find it a squeeze at all. With a sleeper your meals are included, you board the train first, get a newspaper in the morning, and get first dibs on the dining car. With the standard bedroom there is a small bathroom attached to the bedroom with a toilet and shower and there's a sink in the bedroom itself. It's not a luxury hotel, but it's a whole lot nicer than anything an airline will provide. Even the coach seats in the worst of the trains we were on gave more leg room and seat room than an airline coach seat (I've never tried an airplane's first class section).

I honestly believe that upgrading our rail system and putting more money into that instead of into highways would actually improve the energy efficiency of the country while still allowing people to get where they need to go in an economical fashion. Apparently, other people are starting to agree. The trains were all nearly totally full in both the coach and sleeper cars. The rest of the world uses trains more than cars. I think it's time the U.S. did so as well. Now if Amtrak can just fix their schedules....

Pictures, We Have Pictures

2008-06-27T06:45:00.000-07:00

Ok, If I've done this correctly, I should be getting a link posted which will show you my daughter and her fiance in a series of photos taken in Boston by the folks who are doing their wedding photos. Being technologically challenged I'm dubious as to whether this is going to work, but here goes: http://teamyuphoto.blogspot.com/2008/06/jimabigail-engaged-and-very-ready-to.html

The Baking Soda Solution

2008-06-05T08:20:00.000-07:00

Well, I guess an old dog can indeed learn new tricks... Today I discovered that a. baking soda works better than Soft Scrub for cleaning burned on gunk off the stove b. that it works as well as Comet for cleaning stains off the counters c. it works better than stainless steel cleaner for cleaning the teapot and d. it works better than anything else I've tried for cleaning the shower. What's more it's a. cheaper than all those other products and b. far less toxic. It also doesn't leave any noxious odors around. I suspect that those "green" cleaners that you can buy for oodles of bucks at the health food store don't work any better either. Since I've been using vinegar for cleaning the microwave anyway, I'm suddenly realizing that I may actually begin saving money on cleaners. Now if I can only find a way to wash clothes that doesn't involve laundry detergent which is getting more expensive every trip to the store. Good old Ivory Soap Flakes don't seem to be available around here. If they were I'd go back to Ivory and Borax (which is what I used to use on the kids diapers). My husband says maybe we need to start making our own soap. After all we have the wood ashes and we could easily get the fat from the next sheep we slaughter... I'm not sure about that, it sounds pretty complicated. The baking soda solution, however, is quite simple.

Why Aren't They Quoting GKC???

2008-05-31T11:49:00.000-07:00

That's the question I've asked myself a lot lately when I've read books or articles about things like the movement towards being green, or the localvore movement, or the progressives talking about encouraging small farmers, or Bill McKinnon in Deep Economy, or even Wendell Berry. Sometimes it rather feels like they are trying to reinvent the ideas of Chesterton, Belloc, the Distributist societies, the Antigonish people in Canada etc. Of course all of these were really only seeking to extend the Catholic ideas articulated in Leo XIII's Rerum Novarum.

So often these people aren't even aware of someone like Schumacher who actually did get a bit of a hearing in the 1970's. I'll bet none of them have even read Joseph Pearce's book Small Is Still Beautiful. Yet they are all articulating similar ideas. We need to scale back, buy our food from people producing it closer to home, practice household economies, cut back on our use of energy. These people would have loved living at Belloc's country house where there was no electricity. It's just so ironic that they are missing out on the ideas of some people who actually saw how all of our problems have common roots. Perhaps if we can only encourage them to actually read what Chesterton and Belloc wrote, they might see some of the ways that various things are tied together.

So if you have a friend who's concerned about the earth, concerned about the economy, etc. how about recommending some Chesterton: The Outline of Sanity, or if they're more into fiction Tales of the Long Bow, or The Flying Inn, or Napoleon of Notting Hill. Or you could recommend Belloc's The Servile State. Or if they are snobbish about reading contemporary writers only recommend Joseph Pearce's Small is Still Beautiful. Promise you'll read something like Ed Begley's book or Bill Mc Kinnon's book if they'll only read some Chesterton, Belloc, or Pearce and then discuss it with you.

There's lots of food for thought there and it's a good way to point out that, despite some notions to the contrary, Catholic thought actually has good contributions to make to the dialogue. It isn't just the Buddhists and pagans who care about the earth, serious Christians do as well.

The Next Stage of Mothering

2008-05-30T11:12:00.000-07:00

When you have tiny babies, mothering is a very intense and stressful time. You listen to their breathing at night, you worry about every little temperature, odd diaper, strange cry, etc. You think things will get easier as they grow. In some ways they do, but at every stage there are new things to worry about, new challenges to face, new decisions to be made. A lot of parents figure that once the kids are eighteen the job will finally get easier or that it will in essence be done. Well that's not quite true. There is a sense in which you are done. You can no longer tell them what to do, you are no longer responsible for them legally. Yet there is a larger sense in which you really aren't done. They will continue to be your children, albeit grown up ones, for their whole lives. The stage of mothering that involves adult children can be fraught with all kinds of anxieties, tears, and agonizing prayers. What's hardest is that most of the time there isn't a great deal you can actually DO other than offer those agonizing prayers.

Over the past few months I've had more than one occasion to talk with moms whose grown up children are in one way or another disappointing them. Each of these moms have some grown-up children whose choices they are proud of, and others who are constantly driving them to their knees. It just goes to show that kids can grow up in the same household with the same parents and yet make very different decisions.

There are all kinds of ways that this stage in life can bring heartbreak. Within the past few weeks one family lost their beautiful daughter in a car accident while another had theirs arrested in a drug enforcement sweep. Which family is experiencing the greater grief? Is it the family whose lovely Christian daughter is no longer physically with them, or the family whose more rebellious daughter is facing a 5-40 year federal sentence if she's convicted of dealing crack cocaine? Is it harder for the mom whose daughter is living with someone she isn't married to, but planning a wedding in the not too distant future or the mom whose daughter had a baby several years back and now seemingly has no prospects for marriage at all? Is it the mom of the young man who seems to be drifting, but remains steadfast in his faith or the mom of the young man who has a successful career, but who has turned his back on everything his parents taught him to believe about God?

St. Monica had a son who for a long time was both a success and a disappointment to her. His career path had him on a trajectory towards success, his moral life was a failure. Later he had an encounter with God, but that led ultimately to a totally different career path. Monica had to let go of one dream in order to have the other come to fruition. She never got it all. With the joy of his conversion came the disappointment that he was not going to marry the daughter of a rich man after all.

Our children, like Monica's need our prayers. I think there are a lot of mothers who wish that there were a St. Ambrose around to lift them up and say, "the son of those tears will not be lost." We may not have an Ambrose around, but we can be encouragers to the moms whose children seem to be very lost right now. We can offer our prayers for their children and for them. We can encourage them to continue to love their children, no matter what. And the other thing we can do is to not judge them. It's so easy to play the what if game. What if they hadn'tlet their daughter date that young man, what if they hadn't sent their kids to that school, what if they had sent their kids to that school, what if they hadn't had so many kids, what if they'd had a few more, what if the mom had stayed home instead of working, what if the mom had gotten a job instead of just staying home, what if they had spanked less, or spanked more. On and on it goes. At this point the what if's really don't matter, what they really need is our love, our compassion, our encouragement, and our prayers. I've joked a lot in recent years that we need a La Leche League type organization for the mothers of grown up kids. Perhaps we could call it The Saint Monica League. Only humble or humbled mothers need apply. Equipment required: boxes of kleenex and kneeling mats, a listening ear and a shoulder to lean on.

Baking Memories

2008-05-27T11:07:00.000-07:00

Often when I'm in the kitchen baking the very process stirs up particular memories. For example, kneading bread makes me think about my Grammy Lyon and watching her knead bread in her pantry. The very act of kneading bread brings back smells of aromas, the feel of her metal counter, the sight of her apron. Or when I'm making chocolate chip cookies I remember the very first time I helped make them, not at home, but at Susan Demasi's house which I think I only visited one or two times. Today I made my friend Martha's banana bread. Well actually, it's only a recipe that Martha gave me that she came across when we were in the process of doing a recipe swap. She hadn't even made it herself until then. Still I always think of it as "Martha's Banana Bread," even when, as today, I make it with variations (like adding chocolate chips and walnuts). Or there's the tea cookies that Aunt Drucilla always made at Christmas. I made them for Abby's shower a little over a week ago. Somehow I doubt there were nearly as special to the rest of the guests as they were to the few of us who counted on Auntie bringing them for Christmas every year. There are memories of making lemon meringue pie with my mother, and messing up a meringue the first time I tried to do it by myself.There are even things like Grammy Rowell's filled cookies that in fact are more someone else's memories.

I wonder whether my children have baking memories. We certainly did a lot of baking together when they were growing up. From the pies that my son made with graham cracker crusts and instant pudding when he was 4 to the apple pies that Abby learned to make with her dad to enter a pie in the fair, we were always a cooking together sort of family. I wanted us to make memories as well as food, but I don't think I knew how much some foods would end up reminding me of some people.

I never actually baked anything with Martha. I sometimes baked things for her, and she sometimes made things for me. She was my first contemporary friend in town, the first other young married person I knew here. She was younger than me, but more experienced in a lot of ways. That is to say she'd been a wife longer and was already a mother. She was suffering from secondary infertility when we met and we were both struggling to achieve a pregnancy while it seemed like around us pregnant women were blossoming like dandelions. Eventually we had both had babies. Our sons were born 13 months apart and then my daughter and her youngest son 7 months apart. That's the happy part of the story. From there things began to go horribly wrong. Ultimately she lost her husband at age 44 and then she died herself at 48. The years in between weren't friendly to her and our friendship also stagnated.

Still I remember her for her genuine thoughtfulness to others, her ability to keep a n immaculately clean house in the midst of incredible turmoil, her fierce love for her children even when they disappointed her. So when I bake banana bread I remember all the good things about her, and some of the not so good things sort of drop away. She's one of the people I try to remember to pray for when we're praying for the dead, and she's one of the people I put on my Mass intentions in November. As far as I know she died while still struggling with her relationship with God and the Church, although she did receive last rites while in a coma.

I'm going to share her recipe for banana bread with you. Even though you won't have any memories of her, she may be able to use your prayers anyway. So if you say prayers for the dead when you bake it say a prayer for Martha. If you don't say prayers for the dead you might at least remember that once upon a time I had a friend who baked, but whose life was far less happy than it might have been, but who is remembered with love.

Martha's Sour Cream Banana Bread
1/2 cup shortening (Martha used Crisco - I use butter)
1 cup sugar
2 eggs well beaten
1/2 cup sour cream
1 cup mashed bananas
2 cups of flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon of salt

Cream the sugar and shortening together, then add the eggs and bananas. Mix the dry ingredients together then add to the creamed mixture. Pour into a greased loaf pan and bake 45 minutes to an hour at 350 degrees.

Now for my variations: I like to add about a half to three quarters of a cup of chocolate chips and a half a cup or so of walnuts (chop them if you like, I don't always bother).

The recipe says to bake 45 minutes to an hour, but the loaf I took out of the oven today took over and hour. That may be because I simply through in bananas without measuring to see exactly how much volume there was there, or it may simply be that my accubake oven isn't all that accurate. So bake it until a toothpick comes out clean when you insert it into the center of the loaf.

This is a really moist banana bread and it remains so even if you use non-fat sour cream. Enjoy!

Ch, Ch, Ch, Changes

2008-05-26T03:45:00.000-07:00

Yesterday at the end of Mass Father Mayo told us that the bishop had announced the priest assignments for the next year. For the first time in 10 years there is a change at our parish, and it's a very major one. Both of our priests are leaving. Father Mayo is moving to Senior Priest status and will be returning to his home area. This means that while he'll be helping out in parishes etc. he will no longer be a pastor. After 45 years and at age 70 it's time to slow down. That was not totally unexpected. He had told our RCIA class 11 years ago that he would probably take this step at 70 . What was less expected is that Father Mattison is leaving as well. He will be becoming pastor of a parish about 45 minutes to the south.

So we get two new priests. I don't know either of them, although my daughter is familiar with one of them. The new pastor is currently pastor of a parish 45 minutes to the north and is about 25 years younger than Father Mayo. The new parochial vicar (assistant pastor) is a priest from Nigeria. So the changes will certainly be big for him. I'm so tremendously glad that Africa has so many priestly vocations that they can send priests to America to minister. It's so exciting that we get to have one of those priests at our parish!

I must admit that I'm both excited and nervous about the changes. It's certainly going to be different. Having to switch confessors is going to be a real change. While I've certainly been to Mass many times with priests other than these two celebrating, it's been at parishes other than my own, going to another parish was a bit like going to another family's home for dinner. This is going to be a change at home, so to speak. I've certainly seen these changes in the Protestant world I came from, and in fact in the first two years I was at Christ the King we actually had 3 different parochial vicars. So it's not as if change was a truly new thing. It's just that for 10 years there's been no change at all. There's a familiarity about that, and familiarity is one kind of good feeling. However, this change is ripe with possibilities.

One somewhat sad element in this change is that the priest who celebrates Mass at my daughter's wedding will not be either of the priests who have been here throughout her years at Christ the King. Fortunately, the priest doing the wedding ceremony itself is a priest from another parish who happens to be very special to my daughter and her fiance. It's only the Mass itself that will be celebrated by one of our two new priests. So their new beginning will be marked by our new beginnings as well.

So hold onto your hats folks, the winds of change are blowing through.

Corpus Christi

2008-05-25T15:55:00.000-07:00

Today is the Feast of the Body and Blood of Christ, formerly called the Feast of Corpus Christi. It's one of the most essentially Catholic feasts out there because it celebrates a central belief of the Catholic faith. Today is the day that we focus especially on what we receive at every Mass, Jesus really present in the Eucharist. To understand this concept it's important to look at the readings from Sacred Scripture which we heard today at Mass.

First there was a reading from Deuteronomy: "Moses said to the people: "Remember how for forty years now the Lord your God, has directed all your journeying in the desert, so as to test you by affliction and find out whether or not it was your intention to keep his commandments. He therefore let you be afflicted with hunger, and then fed you with manna, a food unknown to you and your fathers, in order to show you that not by bread alone does one live, but by every word that comes forth from the mouth of the Lord.

"Do not forget the Lord your God, who brought you our of the Land of Egypt, that place of slavery, who guided you through the vast and terrible desert with its saraph serpnets and scorpions, its parched and waterless ground; who brought forth water for you from the flinty rock and fed you in the desert with manna, a food unknown to your fathers."

Here we come face to face with the first "bread" that came down from heaven. Manna was a "type" (something that foreshadowed) of the bread from heaven that would come later. This is like seeing the Passover lamb as a "type" of the Lamb of God who would die on the cross on Calvary (at the same hour as the passover lambs were being slain according to some sources I've read). In each instance in the Old Testament the "type" points to something in the New Testament, which is always greater than the type itself.

The second reading was from the letter of Saint Paul to the Corinthinans: "Brpthers and sisters: The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? Because the loaf is one, we though many, are one body for we all partake of the one loaf." There are no words about this being a mere symbolic act, rather it is a participation in the body and blood of Christ.

Finally there was the gospel reading from St. John's gospel: "The Jews quarreled among themselves saying, 'How can this man give us his flesh to eat?' Jesus said to them, 'Amen, amen, I say to you unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood as eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him. Just as the living Father sent me and I have life because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Unlike your ancestors who ate and still died, whoever eats this bread will live forever.' "

Many of Jesus's hearers were scandalized on that day and left him. He did not call after them saying, "Hey, guys, you misunderstood, it's just a symbol." Today many are scandalized as well. It's far easier to not be scandalized by a mere symbol However, if you read carefully what Jesus said, what St. Paul said, what the early Church fathers said, you quickly get the picture that this doctrine was not some development tainted with paganism (as I was taught in my Sunday School class) or something that suddenly came on the scene with Medieval scholasticism as some people think. While this is a doctrine which has had thousands and thousands of words written in an attempt to explain it, it is one which was clearly held by the earliest believers.

When I was a little girl the church I went to was a little fellowship which was essentially little more than a house church (in fact the meeting place was in a room in a house, not a separate building). Outside the house was a sign which probably proclaimed it to be Bethany Full Gospel Assembly of God. The pastors we had faithfully attempted to proclaim the full Gospel, not just parts of it. However, somehow the epistle that was read at Mass today and the section of St. John's gospel that was read today, never got dealt with. Not then, not in a similar church I attended in high school and through the early years of my adulthood. Nor did those verses get dealt with by the Protestant pastors through the rest of my middle years. By not dealing with those passages these pastors were staying true to their Protestant and Zwinglian roots, but they were inadvertently presenting us with a truncated Gospel, not the full Gospel. I don't blame them; most of them had never been taught any better themselves. It took me until I was in my forties to discover that there was more to the Gospel than what I had been taught.

Once you "get" the bare bones of this particular part of the Gospel, you begin to understand why so much could be written about it. Every author comes at it from his own vantage point. Every homily I've ever heard on the subject was a little bit different. But in the final analysis the question really is: is this Jesus or isn't it? If Jesus is really there in the sacrament and you claim to follow Him, how do you stay away? If you think He isn't really there, then what do you make of His words, of St. Paul's words, of the words of the earliest believers? Even the earliest of the Protestants held to a far higher view of the Eucharist than most Protestants today. Why was this? It was those very questions that sent me on a journey which ended at a Catholic altar 11 years ago. My challenge to my Protestant friends is to start reading all the Scripture passages dealing with communion and read them with an open heart. Then read what the earliest Christians had to say on the subject. There's a Penguin edition of the writings of the early Church fathers that has some relevant passages. Then sit back and prayerfully think about what you've read and ask God to show you how it all fits together. For my Catholic friends, the same reading plan might be helpful, if only so you can explain the full Gospel to your friends who've received only the truncated one. To make this an important issue is not simply a Catholic agenda., it was made an important issue by the Lord himself. He offers Himself to believers, that's what this Feast is all about.

End of Life Care

2008-05-12T05:31:00.000-07:00

This is an issue that our family has had to face four times in the past 8 years. Today there is an article at Catholic Exchange that goes into detail about what the CDF has clarified about this issue. Thankfully, from my perspective anyway, I found that the way that we dealt with each of these situations was appropriate according to the current guidelines. I truly wish the guidelines had been out there 8 years ago when we had to face these issues the first time. I'm glad that the guidelines are there now. I'm glad that we had doctors who were willing to treat patients this way, even though in each case they also offered the more expedient route. Each case was unique, but in many ways in each case we were faced with similar decisions. We had good experiences with hospitals, caregivers, visiting nurses,Hospice, and doctors. We had bad experiences with hospitals, caregivers,visiting nurses, Hospice, and doctors.

Our bad experiences with Hospice made us reluctant to use their services ever again. I report this with some reluctance because I know that Hospice has been of tremendous help to some families. However, our experience was that Hospice was willing to withhold care at a point where this care actually would extend the life of the patient and would provide relief from discomfort as well. When we coupled that with the willingness of physicians to suggest withholding IV fluids and feeding we became pretty convinced that there seems to come a point at which the medical community stops being as concerned about their primary patient and starts focusing their concern on the family. It seems to take a pretty determined family to get the focus back on the patient and provide the care needed to ensure that life is not ended prematurely.

These issues don't generally have to be considered until your parents are aged, and the first time you are confronted by them you may find yourself less knowledgeable than you should be. There is, however, no guarantee that you won't have to confront them earlier and in a crisis situation. This kind of crisis happened for my sister's family when she had a pulmonary embolism at age 51. She died less than a week later, but the family in that period had been faced with the question of removal of IV's, whether to continue with a ventilator etc. They were told at one point that she could remain in her current state for years. As it turned out, even with IV fluids, the ventilator, and medications her body began to fail. We were not being faced with a long term situation, but one in which she was at the end of life. She had IV fluids to the end and died peacefully in her sleep.

I would recommend this article to all serious Christians. I would also caution people that hospitals and doctors sometimes do things (like suggesting the withholding of fluids, refraining from using artificial feeding, and pushing pain meds) in large part for the family's "benefit" even if they don't know the family's wishes. When my husband's aunt was in the hospital a year ago the doctor was suggesting simply stopping feeding her. She was suffering from her third bout of pneumonia in a year and she had become less and less able to swallow. We ended up explaining our perspective in a written document and he had a feeding tube put in. Auntie lived for another 8 months, she clearly wasn't quite ready to die yet. When she did die, it was peacefully at home with a caregiver by her side. The visiting nurse who saw her the day before her death and who signed the death certificate saw us as an unusual family because we were willing to give the level of care we did. I think we saw it as only the care that we owed Auntie and the responsibility that we as Christians had for someone at the end of life. What we have discovered, however, is that you have to fight to provide this kind of care. The other kind of care is far more easily available. We may not have doctors who are actively killing their patients (although the use of morphine in some cases does raise questions in this respect), but there are a lot of doctors more than willing to convince families that withholding care is an appropriate course of action.

I honestly think that doctors are responding in part to families who do consider disabled people as simply a burden. I think they are looking at families and believe that they can provide relief to them when actually curing the patient is beyond their skill. I think that they don't see the value in the long patient hours spent by a bedside, not just in the life of the patient, but in the life of the family as well. I think they certainly don't appreciate the spiritual benefits that can be derived.

Because I would hate to see other families go into this process without being familiar with the guidelines, I am suggesting that everyone go to Catholic Exchange and read them. The article isn't one of the main ones, you'll have to scroll down to find it. However, I honestly believe it's important enough that you should take the few minutes it takes to read it and then save it for a time when you may actually be in need of the information.

Making Bread the Easy Way

2008-04-30T15:36:00.000-07:00

My new find this month is a book called Artisan Bread in Five Minutes A Day by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois. They really aren't kidding, that's about how much hands on time it takes (of course there's also the time for the dough to rest and the time for the bread to bake - total about an hour and 10 minutes for those two together). However, this book helps you create Artisan loaves like those you pay around $4 apiece for in the grocery store's bakery section. You know the ones with the crispy crust and the tender inside.

The key to the whole thing is a very wet dough that never, ever gets kneaded. If you have a heavy duty mixer you can mix the dough up in about 3 minutes. The dough then rises on the counter for a couple of hours (or in the fridge for about 8). Most of the recipes require the use of a pizza peel and a baking stone, but are super simple to make. You simply shape a loaf, put it on the pizza peel and let it rest for 40 minutes, then you slash the loaf then slide it onto the preheated baking stone, pour some hot water into your broiler pan to create clouds of steam, and shut the oven door. Thirty minutes later you will take out the most wonderful loaf of artisan type bread. The book has explicit directions and lots of pictures. The extra dough gets stored in the fridge ready for baking on another day (it stores for up to two weeks).

The book has tons of recipes, even for things I'd ordinarily use regular kneaded dough for like cinnamon rolls or pizza. So far I've done the basic white bread boule and the deli rye bread (easily the best rye bread I've ever eaten!).

Now I'm still doing regular kneaded bread as well because some of the family prefer it for sandwiches, but the artisan stuff is great for with spaghetti or soup or, well anything you like that sort of bread for. I also happen to think it makes fantastic grilled cheese sandwiches, but some of the family disagrees about that.

I just think that this is the way to go for busy moms who like bread with a crisp crust or who don't own a bread machine.

The biggest problem for me was finding a big enough place in the fridge for the container of stored dough. Now that I've got that one solved, I'm keeping a batch going all the time. By the way I bought my stone along with a pizza peel for under $16 at Bed Bath and Beyond. That together with the book cost me around $45. It took me under two weeks to make enough loaves of artisan bread to cover the cost of the stone, peel and book. Now I'll admit we eat a LOT of bread around here. But I am no longer buying the expensive $3-4 a loaf stuff, I'm making my own for a whole lot less.

By the way as a long time bread baker I was extremely skeptical about this book. I wondered whether the recipe could live up to the promises made for it. Well it absolutely does. The one loaf that didn't come out quite as well was one where I attempted to make a twice as big loaf. I didn't bake it long enough and it was doughy in the middle. Now that I'm back to 1 pound loaves all is well again. I'll try a bigger loaf again some day and bake it a lot longer instead of just a bit longer. For now, however, the one pounders are just fine. They disappear before the next day, but that's ok because there's more dough there to make more.

This book is even a good one for bread baking beginners because the directions are so explicit and the recipe so simple.

This bread is good enough that my lit girls want their mom to have the recipe and the librarian in town (after tasting a slice of the rye) is buying a copy of the book for the library and one for herself. So it's a good thing to put on your Mother's Day gift list.

This is not a paid testimonial, it's just the enthusiastic response of someone who loves good bread, especially when it requires so little effort...

Bowing to the Floor

2008-04-06T15:24:00.002-07:00

One of the discoveries I made this week in reading a book about St. Therese was that the Carmelites in her convent were not allowed to defend themselves when unjustly accused or criticized. That goes so against our current way of thinking. We are so quick to defend our actions, defend our motives, and be very touchy if someone criticizes us unjustly. The Carmelites would bow and kiss the floor before their accuser. Now that goes about as counter to our culture as you can imagine.

I'm not thinking about adopting the bowing to the floor custom (imagine the reaction that would cause!), but I'm thinking that perhaps we should examine the attitude behind it. It's an attitude that attributes the best of motives to the person criticizing us. It's an attitude of acceptance of humiliation. It's recognizing that even if the other person doesn't recognize the efforts we are making, or misunderstands what we have done, that God does understand. God accepts our feeble efforts, our awkward attempts, and even our mistakes, just as we accept the bunches of weeds that our small children bring to us so lovingly. We want so much to be bringing God beautiful paintings, beautiful vases full of blossoms, and we find ourselves with love producing stick figures and juice glasses of dandelions. St. Therese embraced her "littleness" and it was that very embrace that made her a saint. Embracing littleness while still making every effort we can is difficult.We want so much for the other people in our lives to feel love in our actions when sometimes they simply don't because our efforts don't measure up to their expectations. And we sometimes don't feel the love in their actions for the same reason.

We don't live in Carmel according to a strict rule, yet we can practice some of the principles behind the rule. For instance we can offer up those criticisms instead of rushing to defend ourselves, and we can attribute good motives to those around us, even when they've done something we don't like. We can accept their loving efforts, even when it doesn't meet our expectations. Their efforts, like ours, may simply be dandelions offered to a Heavenly Father who simply revels in dandelions and stick figures as long as that's the best His little children can offer.

2008-04-06T15:24:00.001-07:00

The Little Way

2008-03-26T07:43:00.000-07:00

I'm going to ask St. Therese to be my "guest blogger" today. Here are some snippets of her thoughts that I've come across in the last couple of days. I hope you find them as helpful as I do.

"We must do everything that is within us, give without counting the cost, practice the virtues at every opportunity, conquer ourselves all the time and prove our love by every sort of tenderness and loving attention. In a word we must carry out all the good works that lie within our powers -- out of love for God. But it is truly essential to put our whole trust in him who alone can sanctify our works, since he may even bring forth children of Abraham from the very stones. It is necessary for us, when we have done all we can to confess that we are unprofitable servants, while hoping that God in his grace will give us all that we need. That is the way of childhood."

"Being little means not attributing the virtues we practice to ourselves in the belief that we are capable of them, but recognising that the good God places this treasure in the hands of his little child for him to use when necessary, but the treasure remains God's always."

"You must never believe, when you don't practice virtue, that it is due to some natural cause like illness, time, or grief. You must draw a great lesson in humility from it, and take your place among the little souls, since you are able to practice virtue only in such a feeble manner. What is necessary for you now is not to practice heroic virtues but to acquire humility. For that, your victories must of necessity always be mixed with failures, so that you cannot take any pleasure in thinking about them."

Holy Week

2008-03-18T08:32:00.000-07:00

So it's Holy Week again. I'm past the "I hate Lent" phase that I was in briefly a couple of weeks ago (what I really hate is planning Lenten meals because there are so few meatless things that everyone likes). I'm finding some really valuable stuff in St. Francis De Sales Lenten sermons, and Father Lavalley's sermons and am reading The Hidden Face (a book about St. Therese of Liseux). At some point I want to take John Henry Newman's book of poems and sermons and do the stations of the cross using his meditations. Holy Week is making its way into my heart.

What I'm not doing (ok, so I'm really procrastinating here...) is planning Easter dinner, and Easter baskets, etc. One of the difficulties for wives and mothers is that in the midst of a somber week we have to begin preparing for the joys of Easter. Instead of Holy Saturday being a day of reflection, it ends up being a day of shopping. Of course I perhaps could transfer most of the shopping to Wednesday (all except the things that need to be very fresh), but I still will almost certainly end up baking some sort of bread and doing some sort of shopping on Saturday . For the bread I'm thinking about making the recipe that was in Canticle this past month. I've never tried baking eggs in the shell, but the recipe looks like it would be a good one to serve on Easter morning. Of course there are still cross buns to be made for Good Friday as well.

I think part of my frustration is not so much the preparation but the sense that, once again, the world is rushing the season. I drove past a sign last Friday that advertised an Easter Egg hunt last Saturday. It simply feels like everyone is rushing to get past Holy Week and jump into Easter. I'm sure I've felt that way in the past myself. However, I'm beginning to realize the gift that Lent is to us, the gift that Holy Week is to us, if we allow it to be. So while I know that I can't put off planning a menu (which has to have something other than or in addition to a leg of lamb) and I know that part of my vocation does entail planning for the feasting, I still intend to spend as much time as I can this week appreciating Lent. After all there are 50 days of Easter coming. It seems like we could spend just one more week in preparation not just preparation of our houses, or preparation of the meal, but preparation of our hearts. After all isn't that what the spring cleaning and the feast preparation is supposed to symbolize anyway? Lets be careful that in the midst of the outward preparations we don't forget the "best part?"

Picking Up Pins

2008-03-11T15:18:00.000-07:00

I read a quote from St. Therese last week on someone's blog about the infinite value of picking up a pin for the love of God. It got me thinking about small things and also encouraged me to re-read St. Therese. I realized that often the things I do are "hidden" and that I am not always recognized for doing them. I also realized that I was beginning to resent that. I didn't really like "picking up pins. " I particularly resented it when the "pins" got dumped again, or when someone accused me of never picking them up. So "pins" were becoming a problem. But Fr. Mattison helped, and reading St. Therese helped.

What I realized thanks to Fr. M. is that if I do something for the love of God, that it really doesn't matter whether the people I also do it for appreciate it, or even recognize it, because I didn't really do it for them. What I realized after reading St. Therese is that a. there is true value in doing the hidden thing, and b. that being criticized unjustly is actually good for me because it can help me become more humble.

I also realized where St. Therese probably got the idea of the hidden thing from. It's the scripture about not giving alms so that you might be seen for doing it. If you give your alms publicly you have your reward, if you give them secretly God will reward you instead of you receiving human acclaim. We're so used to giving and receiving human acclaim that the principle gets lost in the shuffle. I think that perhaps one of the things that drives some women in our society to leave their homes to do paid work is that very lack of affirmation for the things they are doing. However, I like being at home, I don't have any burning desire to get affirmation in someone's office or store and St. Therese says that that desire for affirmation is tied up with self love. My problem was I needed to figure out a way to do the hidden thing without resentment. I needed to find the value in the hidden thing.

I wondered that if I could begin to do as St. Therese recommends and do these things strictly for the love of God, I might begin to find the infinite value in that exercise. So I decided to try an experiment. Jen over at Et Tu is doing a radical experiment in prayer. I'm going to do a radical experiment in "picking up pins." Each day I'm doing a job which I hope no one will notice. I'm going out of my way to find little things that haven't been done for awhile, that no one really notices haven't been done, but that if they actually were done would make things just a bit nicer around here. However, I'm not going to count any big things as part of this project. If it's big enough to actually get noticed, then it won't count, it will still have to get done, because big jobs do have to get done, but it won't be part of the experiment. As a matter of fact if people notice the small thing, I'll find another small thing to do to make up for the fact that they noticed. I'm hoping that this exercise will help wean me of being resentful when people fail to notice the things I do. It's not that I won't appreciate affirmation, I'm just hoping I'll be less annoyed when I don't get it. I'm also hoping that perhaps lessons in doing the hidden thing will have value in some other ways, as I offer up those hidden things for particular prayer needs. So far, I've had 4 days of "picking up pins" and it does seem to be helping, even when it comes to bigger jobs.

So I'll recommend that my readers look for pins as well. It won't get you fame, or acclaim, but the Church has recommended Theresian spirituality with good reason. And Lent is a good time to begin to practice "the little way."

So Who Will Be the Leader?

2008-03-06T07:56:00.000-08:00

For the past few months the primary season has been upon us. Starting the January candidates began to be weeded out. There weren't all that many whom I really liked to begin with and by the time that our primary finally happened in Vermont the only ones left that I really liked also had no realistic chance of winning a nomination. At this point I can't honestly say that I like any candidate, I have issues with all of them, and I honestly am not sure whom I will vote for in November.

However, the last few days it has seemed like the psalmist got there ahead of me. The psalms have been pointing out that we shouldn't put our trust in men anyway. "Put no trust in princes, in mortal men in whom there is no help. Take their breath, they return to clay and their plans that day come to nothing. He is happy who is helped by Jacob's God, whose hope is in the Lord his God, who alone made heaven and earth, the seas and all they contain. It is he who keeps faith for ever, who is just to those who are oppressed."

So I've been thinking a lot about believers in other times, believers who didn't have access to a ballot box anyway and for whom a change in who the Roman emperor was could make even bigger changes than those we've seen over the past 50 years. They had no way to make any changes at the political level, and yet somehow over the course of a few hundred years they managed to change everything. It's not that it's wrong to get involved in politics, or seek to have policies change. It's that sometimes we forget that the place where we can actually be most effective is not in the public arena, but in the small choices we make in our own daily lives.

For example, my friend Karen's kids are involved in packaging nutritional kits to be sent to starving children. Other friends have been involved to a crisis pregnancy center that actually provides assistance to mothers after their babies are born. As a family we spent hours over the past few years fighting for elderly people in our family, making sure that they got appropriate medical care to the end of natural life (not as easy as you might think). In each of these cases it is people having an impact on only a few people, sometimes only one person. Yet in a sense the impact goes beyond that to the other people in their lives, to the medical workers who see a different example than what they often see, to the friends and families of mothers who are having a baby "out of season" so to speak. The Church makes a very strong case for Lent being not just a time of giving things up, but a time of almsgiving as well. If we can take the money we don't spend on meat, have a more frugal meal and give the extra to the poor and needy we will be speaking in a language that the poor can perhaps understand. It may be a way to have an impact far greater than our vote at the ballot box.

So as we look at no good choices at all at the ballot box, we need to remember that God is still in control. Of course, sometimes he leads his people through a wilderness and we do need to be reminded that Tertullian said that the blood of the martyrs was the seed of the Church. We are not promised ease we are instead asked to be salt in the world. Our voices are often not welcomed in some places, orthodox Christianity is ridiculed by many in the media and in other circles of importance. However, we follow one who stood with a crown of thorns on his head being mocked. We follow one who was ridiculed all the way to the cross, and then ridiculed some more while He hung there. But that was not the end of the story, and any election of any presidential candidate is not the end of the story either.

"Our Lord is great and almighty;
his wisdom can never be measured.
The Lord raises the lowly;
he humbles the wicked to the dust.
O sing to the Lord, giving thanks'
sing psalms to our God with the harp.

He covers the heavens with clouds;
he prepares the rain for the arth,
making mountains sprout with grass
and with plants to serve men's needs.
He provides the beasts with their food
and young ravens that call upon him.

His delight is not in horses
nor his pleasure in warrior's strength.
The Lord delights in those who revere him,
in those who wait for his love."

So let's revere the Lord, wait for his love, trust in his care, and put no trust in princes (or presidents).

Planning for a Wedding

2008-02-28T04:10:00.000-08:00

Yup, that's what we're doing around here. We've been dress shopping, photographer shopping, DJ shopping, cake shopping, restaurant shopping, etc. It's gotten me thinking about another wedding feast, however. As we look at the guest list for this wedding and sadly look at the fact that it must be limited due to expenses, I've thought about a wedding feast where many who've been invited will fail to come.

We are invited to the marriage feast of the Lamb. The invitations have been mailed out. The wedding garments have been provided. The only gift we have to bring is our submissive hearts and our praise. The meal has been prepared, and we've even been given a foretaste of it, so we know it's going to be fantastic. No photos will be needed for the feast will be unending. No DJ will be required for the hosts of heaven will be putting on a command performance.

The bridegroom has already given himself for his bride. No expense has been spared. Who will say yes to the invitations? Who will find themselves otherwise occupied, too caught up in other things to say yes? Who will be too set on their own way to offer the gift of submission?

In fact, at this wedding those who come will not simply be guests. They in fact will make up the Bride at the feast. However, those who say no to the invitation will find themselves shackled to their own passions and sins forever, instead of being a part of the spotless bride. If we want ourselves more than the bridegroom we will be allowed to make that choice. This bridegroom does not want an unwilling bride. The gift of submission, however, is one that many who have been invited will be unwilling to give.

I'm sure that we will receive some "regrets" to the invitations we will be mailing out in a few months. There will be some people for whom the distance is too far or the date inconvenient. These people will miss a day that for us is of great importance. However, far more important than whether they say yes to our invitation is whether they say yes to God's invitation. For to send "regrets" to that invitation is to end up with regrets forever.