Author: JenniferFitz

Insomnia Hazards

Wednesday afternoon I think I accidentally used regular instead of decaf.  Someone maybe should consider “reading the label” as a useful habit, hmmn.  So about midnight I got out of bed, roamed around a little, and landed on what I was sure would be the perfect cure:

Diagramming Sentences. Don't Let It Keep You Up at Night.

 

It didn’t work.  I read the WHOLE THING.  And learned how to diagram, I might add.  Nicely done book, highly recommended.

Then I skimmed the New Missal Latin book, also pulled from our box of Kolbe-ware, and then I was able to go to sleep.  Sneaky coffee, causing me to be educated.

But here’s the worst part.  So the next afternoon, I was writing up my little entry for the campground blog, and you’ll never believe what happened me: I felt compelled to put both a subject and a verb into every sentence.

You can see it has worn off now.  But wow, for a while it was close.  Careful what you read.  It could mess with your grammar.

****

Funny grammar story: Once I refused to sign a petition, because it did not contain complete sentences.  I couldn’t figure out what it was we were demanding.  I inquired, but my fellow activist was strangely silent.  I think he decided he didn’t need a rabble-rouser on his team after all.

My Thursday Reading.

Links Round-Up today:

John McNichol has up part 1 and part 2 of the Argument from Design for explaining God’s existence.  The man breathes apologetics for teens.  It’s as if he does this for a living or something.

Mrs. Darwin has a cautionary tale about writing. If it seems like people wrote better books in the past, it’s because you haven’t been made to read them all. I buy vintage books from thrift stores — I know.  She tells the truth.  (That said: I have found some absolute treasures in catholic non-fiction that are now out of print.  Kills me.)

–> Mrs. D goes on to share Betty Duffy’s happy news, which is why Mrs. Duffy’s writing career is apparently again on hold for procreation.  (Congratulations!).  I’m so there.  (Not pregnant, just educating people.)  Ever used the expression, “Don’t you have anything better to do?” to criticize somebody?  When I think about my vocation, that’s what I ask myself.  Is there something better I could be doing?  Well, I could put the kids in the school, any little ones in day care, and pursue a number of other more profitable and prestigious careers.  They’d be fun.  They’d be worthwhile.  They would be good work.  But none of them would be better.  I’m doing the best one.  The riskiest one, too.  But worth it.

Dorian reviews a nice Catholic music curriulum.  My two oldest did Kindermusik one year, and it was great — huge help — and so I’m with Dorian.  These things are good. But here’s what, and follows my plea: I listened to the sample tracks.  They are quite musical.  But my fifth graders would fall apart laughing if I played one of those in class.  Yes they would.

Dear Music Publishers,

Please, please, oh please record a plain, boring, musically non-descript sing-along CD for use in catholic religious ed.  Miniscule ranges.  Transparent accompaniments.  NO CHORAL VOICES.  Sung by some lady (or guy) who sounds like a fifth grade teacher, not a Famous Musician.

Thank you.

Jennifer.

And if you haven’t bust out laughing like a 10 year old after listening the music samples (perhaps you are not a 10 year old?), read  this review of the IC’s Communion of Saints book by Allen’s Brain. It is funny.  The Communion of Saints series is even funnier.  Highly recommended.

 

I’m outta here. Happy Thursday.

 

Everyday Theology and the Wider Culture

This post at Real Hope for Haiti is part of a larger series, but I think it stands on its own.  The topic is: How do (rural) Haitians view God and the spirit world in general, and how does this impact their lives?  It matters to Christian missionaries, because it turns out [I am told] that if you show up in Haiti expecting to evangelize the same way you did back home, there are going to be a few misunderstandings.

I like the article most of all because it makes me think about American Christianity.  What are our spiritual assumptions?  What is it, when we turn to God, that we are seeking?  Or when we don’t turn to God, what keeps us away?

–> As I mentally run through the hypothetical scenario, How would I explain Christianity in a way that is meaningful to a rural Haitian?, it turns on a part of my brain that I need to use more.  Because the people I actually know (none of whom are rural Haitians, as it happens), they have problems and assumptions and experiences that matter.  Eternally matter.  If I am to be of any use, I need to meet them with the Gospel where they need it most.  And that’s probably a different place than where I am myself, or ever was.

***

The funny thing is that you can get a little nervous.  We explain God this way ________.  If I change how I explain God to someone else, am I changing the Gospel?

Always a risk, of course.  But there is also this: God is immense.

–>  I’ve never had anyone ask me, “I’m trying to figure out how to deal with the spirit world, because this Christianity thing is interesting, but there are these spirits I need to placate, and I need to make sure I’m not going to end up in more trouble rather than less.  Can you help me out here?”  So I suspect that conversation might go a little differently than my usual 5th grade CCD class.

But it would be the same God.  An unchanging, logically coherent, morally watertight God.  No relativistic your-truth-is-different-from-my-truth wishwash about it.  The answers aren’t different because God is any different to a suburban American 5th grader and a rural Haitian farm.  The answers are only different because the questions are different.

[And no, neither of them are allowed to remarry if they murder their spouse.  Bet that question comes up both places.  Sheesh.  People.]

 

 

 

 

Books for people willing to be happy

Ooh I’m so excited.  Look what I got today:

 

Walked into church this morning feeling a little rumpled and not quite myself, and who had set up shop in the narthex? My favorite local catholic bookstore.  Which is sort of like running into the ice cream truck, Santa Claus and your best friend all at once.  Happy happy.  Tons of cool stuff on display, but I had to stop looking after I spotted Manalive and Julie Davis’s book.  Doesn’t do to spend too much on books when the spouse is so very nearby.

***

So, about the book. (Happy Catholic’s — not the other one by the other happy catholic, because I haven’t read it yet, plus probably you have):

Apparently I have this secret fear that my favorite internet authors will write bad books.  I thought Eric Sammon’s book would be too hard for me, because he is so much smarter than me.  Not so.  I was sort of nervous about Julie Davis’s Happy Catholic book for the same reason.

I was double nervous about the Happy Catholic book because it is inspirational. And sometimes inspirational-genre books have heart-warming stories about boys named Johnny who teach their parents important lessons about The True Meaning of Christmas, and then the mother dog who sacrifices her life to save the puppies and three orphaned children . . . you know what I mean.  One takes ones chances.

Julie, on the other hand, tackles questions like: Why does Han Solo deserve our attention?  How shall we rank Oprah, Miss Manners, and Jesus?  And is it possible Monty Python is more catholic than we realized?  Even in The Life of Brian? Plus lots of Fr. Benedict Groeschel quotes, so that pretty well settles it.

Four-and-some reasons this one is a keeper:

  • It’s reliable.  Solid catholic thinking, neither to the right nor to the left.
  • Written for ordinary catholics.
  • You don’t have to read the whole thing.  You just open to a random page.  Better than a magazine.
  • It’s entertaining.  So you’ll probably mean to read just one quote-n-meditation, but then stick around for the next one.  Worse things could happen you know.

What I like most: Julie grapples with popular culture head-on.  Lots of quotes from popular books, TV shows, movies.  And she doesn’t always agree! Sometimes, there’s a quote that sounds good, the kind of thing that someone says at a dinner party and everyone’s nodding and agreeing with it, and you want to say something very uncharitable because really even though it sounds so wise, it’s just drivel.   Julie takes quotes like that and answers them directly:  What’s the underlying truth?  What’s the lie?  What’s a catholic to do with that sentiment?

–>  For this reason, I think this is a great book to keep lying around in reach of teenagers.  It’s a textbook on critical thinking in disguise.  Oh and a sermon or 200.  And a lot of Wizard of Oz.  With an index.

I give it an I’ll-think-you’ll-be-pretty-happy-with-it Recommend.

 

 

 

Dear Caesar,

Finally got the taxes in the mail.  Summary of my thoughts for the 2010 season:

  • Gee those forms are getting complicated.  I had all easy ones this year, so no big deal.  But wow, that’s a lot of laws.  I printed off a 1040EZ for my form-loving daughter to play with, remembering the nice simple document the EZ was last time I looked at one, over a decade ago.  Not so.  Even the EZ isn’t EZ anymore.
  • Making work pay?  Mmmn.  Well, I appreciated the discount.  But . . . a) What about our federal debt?  and b) See “complicated forms” above.  Always one more thing.  If we can afford to lower taxes, let’s just lower them, no Schedule M required.  If we can’t afford to, then what’s with the populist pandering?
  • (Yes, I know what’s with the populist pandering.  Yes I do.  Smart Alek.)
  • I kinda missed getting my packet of forms in the mail. I think the move to 100% digital was brilliant, and a necessary cost-saving measure.  In the end I printed out my 1040 instructions and stuck them in a 3-ring binder, which turned out to be much easier to work with then the old newsprint booklet.  But despite all that, I did whine a little . . .
  • Because I like getting stuff in the mail!  Plus that big envelope is handy when you have a lot of forms to send in!  I had to stuff everything into a little office envelope this year, ’cause it was all I had lying around.  Plus, I almost forgot to do my taxes — (I know!) — because there was no 1040 booklet sitting on my desk to remind me.
  • Still, I support the switch.  IRS gets a thumb’s up once again on a useful and well-run website.  Was able to find everything I needed easily.  Well done.  Yay IRS.
  • LOVED the fillable Adobe forms this year.  That was a highlight.
  • Count me in the six remaining people still mailing in paper forms. I was pleased to see there’s now  a free electronic filing option for those of us who do our taxes by hand.  But sorry, not enough info on which company is running the program, and what their reputation is, and all of that.  I would have used the electronic file if the IRS were running it themselves.  I’ll consider outsourced e-file in the future, once I get more info about how it worked this year on the guinea pigs.

In all it was  a pretty good tax year, probably my fastest one in the past ten years.  No weird stuff to monkey with, so the spreadsheet was ready to go as-was from 2009.  Our real federal income tax rate was about 4%.  That’s not counting self-employment taxes, medicare or social security.  Just the amount of income tax  as a percentage of gross income.

Sounds low, but I don’t think it is.  –> Taken as part of the larger tax picture, where you add in state income tax, the various social welfare taxes, property taxes, etc., that percentage seems okay to me.

Which tells me maybe the federal debt equation is better managed by spending less.  Hmmn?

***

If anyone is game for comparing real federal rates, I’m curious.  Please don’t post any income information! Just the ratio of the total federal income tax you owed (roughly, line 55, less any credits from lines 63-71) as compared to your gross income on line 22.

This will be a very individualized number, so kindly refrain from explaining it, since you may end up sharing more personal details than are seemly, even for the internet.  Just the percentage.  That’s what financial policy geeks care about most.

my life.

Prelude: How to get the people to eat lunch.

It’s one o’clock.  The little people have lost momentum and scattered to various activities that are neither school nor chores.  They seem unaware of the checklist.

“Okay, everyone, it’s one o’clock.  Let’s do a clean up.”

“But I haven’t had lunch yet!”

Three more people surface, suddenly starving.

“Okay.  Eat lunch and then we’re cleaning.”

***

Part 2: Purgatory.

I’m making my own lunch. (Well, I had breakfast at 11.  Did I say I was organized?  No I did not.)  Female child squeals “Ow!” in the eating area.  I look over to see what Mr. Usually Guilty is doing this time.

He’s just standing there.  And there is no female child in sight.

I look under the table.  Sure enough, eldest daughter is hidden among the chairs.  Other two girls are down the hall.  “What are you doing under there?” I ask.  Still trying to find out what her brother has done this time.

“We’re hiding from the bomb!”

Ah.  The bomb.  That would be the microwave.  Every time it beeps, it’s a bomb going off.  You have to run down the hall to be safe.  Don’t ask me how this one started.  I have no idea.

Microwave beeps.

“Ahh!  The bomb!  You’re dead mom!  You and Mr. Boy are dead!”

Death looks eerily like my kitchen.  Well, the boy is right here with me. “I’m afraid we’ve died and gone to Purgatory.”

***

Things homeschoolers do. So the Kolbe lady calls me today, because she’s packing up the books I ordered, and everything is single copies except for two copies of the student workbook for Famous Men of Rome.

“Well, both kids are going to do Roman history next year, so I got them both a workbook.”

“Okay.  Well I saw you also got the Greek history . . .”

“Umm.  That was just because my history-nut child wanted to look at it for fun.”

A little more back-and-forth, confirming order is correct.  Friendly lady tells me books will be shipping out this afternoon, should arrive late next week.

I have to tell you: It felt very weird yesterday, buying textbooks.  For one, they’re expensive!  I’m not used to having to by that exact book.  I usually just get the one that someone’s selling real cheap and it looks pretty good.  And then: A whole year (or more) of school in just one book? You mean I won’t have to go to the library? That’s the point, of course.

New experience for me.  I guess it’s the way people feel about sending their child to kindergarten.You know it’s the right thing for right now, and you hope it will work out, and it’s exciting, but it’s . . .  so much.

***

Children are dispersing again.  They seem to have forgotten that whole “clean-up” thing we talked about forty-five minutes ago.  Better strap on my dictator powers and see what we can do.

marriage, murder . . . the theme won’t go away

If you’ve been pregnant in the last decade or so, you’ve already figured it out, I hope.  But here’s a good article at Public Discourse on the prenatal testing industry.   Key point: 99% of babies who test positive for Down Syndrome are aborted.

The antidote is Be Not Afraid.net – support for parents with poor prenatal diagnosis.  Take a look.  Keep in the back of your head.  Easy to remember.  Useful.  Good.

Kolbe – episode 2

So we decided to go ahead and register with Kolbe for next year, for the two big kids.  Here’s the beta, for those who are considering a similar plunge:

Glad we registered silly early. Kolbe lets you send in your registration (and tuition, of course) as early as you like, and then you school year still runs for the 12 months you indicate.  So we mailed forms in March, but that is to cover the year running August 2011-July 2012.  Why bother registering so early?

  • Avoid overwhelming the staff during crunch season.  We had a big box of course plans and parent information on our doorstep within a week.   One item was missing, and it was no problem to whip out an e-mail and the registration guy could just pop it in the mail.  You don’t want to be sweating waiting for materials a week before you need to start.
  • Time to look through the course plans, and get an idea of how the recommended books will be used.  So you know whether ________ supplemental text is something your student will really need, maybe want, or can do without.  Handy.
  • Time to bring the kids up to speed on their weak subjects.  Which is why . . .

The Assessment Tests are Gold.  Get them. These are the tests that measure how much of the current year’s work your student has mastered.   And here’s the secret that nervous, overwhelmed parents need to know: You don’t have to administer the test. If you’ve been teaching your student one-on-one, you can probably just look at them and get a good idea of how your student stacks up to plan.

For example, you might look at the end-of-third-grade grammar test, and say to yourself, “Egads! my 9-year-old has never even heard the word ‘Predicate’!  Somebody, quick, find me a grammar book!”  And so you google “free grammar practice worksheets”, and find this great site, and you spend the rest of the spring introducing your child to the wonders of formal grammar study.

No need to traumatize anyone by actually administering the test.  You can traumatize yourself just by looking at it.  (And, also, be reassured that the idea of a ‘predicate’ is pretty easily explained, once your child learns what nouns and verbs are, which is also pretty easy.  Which is why you weren’t sweating grammar up till now anyway.)

***

So that’s what we’re doing this spring.  Intensive grammar, math, and penmanship; structured unschooling for the rest.

 

***

PS: Funny conversation with the boy:

Mom: I think you’ll find the history next year pretty light.

Mr. Boy: Kolbe must not really care about history.

Mom:  No, actually they care quite a lot about history.  It’s that most kids your age don’t read adult history books for fun.

Mr. Boy: Oh.

(FYI rest assured, not all my children are like this.)

Repeat after me: “Murder is Never the Solution”

UPDATE: Fr. says I had it right:

Actually, you are correct.  If you murder your spouse, you are not free to marry.  You are impeded due to the fact crime and public propriety come into play in this situation.  It does not matter if you murder your spouse or another person’s spouse.
See how much simpler it is to just ask your pastor, instead of the internet?  Ha.  I’m practically a Luddite.  (Have I mentioned my parish gets all the best priests?  We get all the best priests.)
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Original post:

 

That was us last night in 5th grade.  Because we were learning about Marriage.

–> And it appears I misquoted canon law, just a little.  Request for help at the bottom.

It was all going so nicely.  Marriage as one of the sacraments of service.  Husband and wife, till death do us part, open to children = new eternal souls, responsibility to educate those children, teach them right and wrong, introduce them to the church, teach them their faith . . . we were on it.

Naturally divorce came up, as it ALWAYS does, I don’t care how many times I don’t mention it even once.  But hey, no problem.  Quick explanation of nullity on the one part and separation of bed and board on the other, these kids were sharp.  No worries.  Off we launch into Holy Orders, when I my new favorite student raises her hand, and whispers, “I have one more question about marriage.”

Sure, no problem, go ahead sweetie.

“What if you murder your spouse because you don’t want to be married anymore.  Can you get married again after that?”

I should have just whispered “No,” and gotten back to bishops.   But I am not so smart.  I let the whole class in our little conversation.  Boys start howling, thrusting invisible knives at each other, thinking up little kitchen ‘accidents’ . . .

And hence the chant.  Repeat after me: “Murder is Never the Solution”.  Replace one boisterous activity with another.  It’s loud (I wonder if anyone is listening in the hall), but it’s focused.  Class back on track.  Quick let’s find those bishops again before someone starts the “Is it a mortal sin?” scenarios.

So that was our class last night.  [Great talk on Holy Orders.  Only excitement was another new question: “What if you don’t like your Deacon?” We all agreed: Suck it up, get along.  Disclaimer: Our parish has awesome clergy.  It was a hypothetical question. Nice talk about how every single sermon might not be written especially for you personally, some weeks it’s your turn to sit quietly and pray.  And if you were up there preaching, not everyone would be so excited about you either.  Get over yourself.  The kids *totally* get this.  Love it.]

***

Anyhow, speaking of bishops, I’m not sure I sure I got my murder question quite right. Here is canon 1090, which seems to be the one I had imagined:

Can. 1090 §1. Anyone who with a view to entering marriage with a certain person has brought about the death of that person’s spouse or of one’s own spouse invalidly attempts this marriage.

§2. Those who have brought about the death of a spouse by mutual physical or moral cooperation also invalidly attempt a marriage together.

So this is all about murder in anticipation of a particular future marriage.  Doesn’t say anything about murder just to generally open up your options again.

Someone help me here.  Was I wrong?  (I think so).  Right enough? (For practical purposes, don’t think any little children were led wildly astray of the narrow road.)

Opine, opine.  I’ll ask Father just to be sure.

At the conference . . .

. . . Naturally I didn’t plan on spending very much time at the Online Catholic Writer’s Conference this year.  Trying to keep school moving, clean out the house, get the garden in, all that.  But of course I am there anyway.  If you are, too, you’ll recognize me by my mysterious user-name, “Jennifer_Fitz”.  So say hello if you see me there.

Jen.