7 Quick Takes: PSA’s

Many thanks to our hostess Hallie Lord, who is not taking attendance while Jen Fulwiler is on writing-leave, so hopefully I won’t be demoted for participating late.

1.

Funnix is running the free-download program again.  I don’t see the deadline, but I’m going to guess it is only during February.  (They did this last year.  Thank you kind phonics people.  Also thank you to my internet acquaintance Cynthia for pointing me and other moms to the link.)  I have no particularly opinion on the program other than that some people like it and, look! free!

2.

I’ve entered this new special time in my life as an internet person, when I receive not just spam, but Catholic Spam.  It’s sorta weird.  But here’s the unsettling part:  Sometimes I really cannot tell if I’ve gotten a Catholic-Spam Troll Form Letter, or if there’s a human who knows me (if only via a blog) and is trying to communicate useful information, but has accidentally written an e-mail that has the look-n-feel of Spamalot.

So anyway, the PSA is this:  If you are a real live person who wanted to share a link or tell me about your great works, and the first time you e-mailed me it got lost in cyberspace and you never ever heard anything . . . just e-mail me again?  Okay?  With some extra words this time that maybe tell me how you know me (this blog, or the CWG, or you’re a friend of my friend’s cousin’s uncle-in-law, or whatever) and anything else that would help establish yourself as a sentient creature who knows my name.

Thanks!

4.

What kind of dog is this?

A stray dog.  Possibly a lucky dog.  Well, lucky whether he ends up here or moves to the local no-kill, where I’m sure he’ll find a home because he is both cute and nice.  If energetic.  My facebook friends are voting Jack Russell, with maybe some Fox Terrier or Bull Terrier.  Any other votes?

5.

A few months ago I subscribed to the Jimmy Akin Secret Info Club.  Yes, yes, of course it exists to help the man sell books.  He writes good books.  And no, the information is not truly secret . . . in the sense that comes from sources that people treat as classified documents but actually you are allowed to read them, such as the Bible, or the Catechism, or the writings of the Church fathers.

But hey, it’s a handy little newsletter.  About once a month I get a short e-mail that is a refresher on some topic related to the faith — for example this month’s was on private vs. public revelation.  Nothing earth-shattering, but sort of a continuing-ed workshop delivered straight your inbox.  Worth checking out.

6.

It’s that time again. Allie Hathaway.  Pray.

7.

If you like to write, go register for the Catholic Writers Conference Online.  No, really.  Even if you aren’t Catholic*.  It is free, open to the public, and you can participate as much or as little as you like.  Which means if you discover you hate it or you’d rather be learning something else that week, nothing lost.  Because remember, free?

Registration closes . . . I’m not sure when.  I thought March 1, but I don’t see the date, so I can’t be 100% sure.  But look if you obey your local blogger and just sign up right now, it won’t matter when registration closes.

So what’s the catch?

You would be, in your own small way, cooperating with the mission of the Catholic Writers Guild.  Which is to fill the world with more better writers.

 

*It is like attending any Catholic school, you have to be polite and not say mean things in class.  But whereas the specific mission of the CWG is to promote Catholic writing and publishing, the online conference includes topics of interest to any writer.  If you read here, you totally have what it takes to attend the online conference and enjoy it.

 

3.5 Time Outs: Eye Candy

Thanks once again to our host Larry D. at Acts of the Apostasy.  It was time for a new theme picture, and I thought it should fit the reality of Larry’s attempts at Internet Conquest:

There is no escaping the girl power, Larry.

1.

St. Barbara:

This is a close-up of my friend Sandra’s Icon of St. Barbara that she painted for a fundraising auction.  You can see the whole thing at her art page.  FYI, this is a pic of the almost-completed icon, I think she still had some details to work on when this was shot.

2.

By the same artist:

3.

And something completely different:

The tulips he bought because he loves me.  The photo he took because he needed it for his presentation this Friday.

3.5

It was because a certain child threatened a sibling with, “I’m going to put a bag full of dirt in a pillowcase in your bed for a pillow.”

Of course.

For the record: I am so grateful the threat was never fully carried out.  After about 7pm, I don’t do drama.  Just no.  No.

Icon and manuscript copyright Sandra Lagnese, used with permission.

The Catholic Faith – Serve that shot neat, please.

Gun season opens Wednesday night at religious ed.   It’s time to study the Sacrament of Confession, which means another exciting of round of the game I do love, Is it a Mortal Sin?  I say things like, “If you commit a mortal sin, you need to go to Confession,” and “Here are the three conditions for a sin to be mortal.” Then I say something really outrageous, like, “Do you have any questions?”

This is the students’ cue to inquire about the pizza guy who got mugged, and what if a Nazi comes to your door*, and what do you do if you think the bad guy is going to shoot your best friend but you aren’t 100% sure . . . all that stuff.

Last year was surprisingly quiet on the shooting scenarios, though I did get asked if a person who murders his spouse is free to re-marry?  (No.)  But here’s what I love about teaching fifth graders: They want to know the answers.  I’ve had more than one student ask if it were a sin for a soldier to shoot the enemy during combat — fully ready to accept that if that were the case (no), they’d need to put away the plastic Army men and think hard about how to break the news to friends and family.

The other fun part of 10,000 Gun Questions Night is keeping it strictly Catholic.  I often hear a double complaint about the Church:

  1. How can we possibly have a firm teaching on anything?
  2. And if so, why don’t we have a firm teaching on everything?

As if it were somehow more logical to worship a god who gave out brains and then refused to let you use them.  [Catholic moral theology tip: If God gives you something, He’s got a plan for how it’s supposed to be used.  Thy body is not a knick knack.]   The challenge with the 5th grade questions is that within the guidelines of just warfare and legitimate self-defense, Catholics are free to hold any number of opinions on what makes a good gun law, or whether those soldiers ought to be over there doing that.

***

I enjoy teaching as precisely as I can.  To be as aware of the limits and definitions of Catholic doctrine as I am able, and therefore hopefully pass on a view of the faith that veers neither right nor left.

In the short run, I avoid undermining the student’s family, and I like that.  If your mom has chained herself to the gate of  a nuclear weapons facility, or your dad is president of Kids Need More Guns Inc., those are positions a Catholic of good will could hold and still be faithful to the teachings of the Church.  At any age, students deserve to learn the faith without having it mixed up with personal opinion; in fifth grade it is particularly important to stay in the middle of the narrow road.

–> At ten and eleven, kids aren’t ready to form their own opinions on open questions. They do delight in wearing the opinions of the people they love. Politics is best left to parents.  (It is bad enough I’ve got to break the news about divorce and remarriage, and also about how, yes, you really do need to come to Mass every week.)  It makes for a better course if I acknowledge there is more than one legitimate opinion, and leave my own opinions home.

In the longer run, teaching plain old Catholicism gives students a firmer grounding in their faith.  As they grow older and are wondering if Mom should have chosen a different sort of peaceful resistance, or maybe Dad carried it a tad too far in his love of the Bill of Rights, they have already been told that the Catholic faith is not the whole crazy package of everything every Catholic they ever loved might have said.  They’ve already been told: You can disagree about _________________ and still be Catholic.

Teens and adults need to be able to sort through the world of ideas;  the Faith has to stand up to testing, and it will.  But to do that effectively, you have to know where the faith ends and opinion begins.

*Actually Nazis threaten the hypothetical doors of internet grown-ups much more than they disturb 5th graders.  10-year-olds tend to stick to situations being reported in the local news.  But sometimes, yes, the Nazis make their appearance.

Curmudgeon Gets Comeuppance, Enjoys Cute-Jesus Book

Here’s my weird day:

1) Dropped kids off at Grandma’s house.

2) Stopped in at local Catholic bookstore to say hello to owner, give update on catechist booklet progress, pretend I was there to buy books.

2a) Of course I knew I’d find books to buy, so I wasn’t dissembling.

3) My friend Sarah Reinhard’s lenten booklet, Welcome Risen Jesus, was smack in the center of the Books-for-Lent display.  Yay for Sarah!

4) Well it isn’t expensive, and my DRE will like it, so I pick up a copy.

5) I read it.

See, here’s the situation.  Look at this cover:

Do you not see the problem?   I’ll give you a second to observe.

.

.

.

Cute-Jesus.

I am a curmudgeon.  I’ve been grumpy and old at least since the age of reason, and I expect much, much earlier than that.  My favorite people in the world are 80-something and crotchety.  [They keep dying.  I have to make new friends pretty often.  Luckily other people get promoted.  There seems to be something magic about the big 8-0 that really brings out the critical thinking skills in a new way.  It gets even better at 90, but not everyone makes it that far.  The world can only bear so much common sense, I guess.]

My favorite weather is foggy.  Silent.  Nobody around.  My religious art runs to icons and creepy gothic statuary.  This is a book cover: Gargoyles.

I don’t do Cute-Jesus.

Happy?  Okay sure.  Friendly?  Yes.  I like people.  Even cute people.  Jesus loves cute people as much as He loves anyone else.  But I would not see Cute-Jesus and think, “Look at that cover!  There’s a book I need to read.”

And that’s awkward, because it turns out?  It’s a book I need to read.

I should not have been surprised by this.  I know Sarah R.  Yes,  she is undeniably cuter and perkier than me. But she’s on the mark.  Head on straight, clear-thinking, no-holds-barred normal Catholic lady.  Of course she’d write a great book.  And if it takes Cute-Jesus to get her message into the hands of people who need it, bless those Liguori artists who make it happen.

I have commissioned my children to make a Curmudgeon-Approved stamp to put on the front of these types of things, to assist any of my readers who might have been likewise thrown off by the artwork.  In the meantime, here’s what you need to know:

  • There’s a meditation for each day of Lent and the octave of Easter.  Practical, no-nonsense Catholic spirituality.
  • Each day comes with a different suggested prayer, personal sacrifice, and act of charity.
  • I’d say it’s best suited to maybe ages 5-and-up.

The suggested sacrifices are very Thérèse.  Don’t complain one day.  Drink only water one day. Sleep without your pillow, and offer up your discomfort.  I really really like the changing up of the sacrifices, because it gives some realistic focus for those of us who want to do everything, but actually we’d completely stink at even doing a couple things all Lent long.

It’s a Lent for normal people.  I love it.  I repent of ever thinking grumpy thoughts about cartoon-y Bible-story pictures.

Okay never mind I did not really repent I am not that holy.  But seriously.  Good book. 100% buy-recommend for readers who want some good solid achieveable Lenten goals, no saccharine, no goofiness, just reliable practical advice grounded in every thing that one particularly sensible parish priest you had* was trying to tell you all those years.   You could cover it with some nice gargoyle stickers if that would help you.

UPDATE: The boy has applied the stamp of curmudgeon-approval:

 

*He’s 80 now.  Or was for a while.  Or looks younger but actually, yes, he’s fully grown-up on the inside, don’t let the smooth skin fool you.

Perfect Contrition

Last night I answered one last question about eternal salvation with a real quick “Yes.”  Under my breath I promised my stricken sidekick, who no doubt cringed to see me treat the subject so briefly, “We’ll cover ‘perfect contrition’ next week.”

We needed to keep moving with the class.  “Yes” was an accurate answer; Perfect Contrition was the detailed version.  We will cover it.  I assure you.  Do not think, dear junior theologian, that I would for a moment water down the faith.  No way no how.

***

Very late at night, I remembered where it was I learned those words: Perfect Contrition.

I was 17, kind of Catholic, and way behind on sacraments.  This beleaguered pair of faithful, practicing Catholics was tasked with the job of turning slackers like me into confirmandi.  Fast. We met once a week in a small group, and they walked us through the most essential essentials of the Catholic faith.  What do you do if you are bleeding to death by the side of the road and you are guilty of a mortal sin?  Perfect Contrition.  [If I recall correctly, they brought motorcycles into it somehow.  Fit the audience.  Totally.]

I can’t remember the name of the couple who taught me those words; I do remember their daughter was my friend (she went to a different school), and that she gave me a rosary for my confirmation, because I’d never had one and I’d told her how much I wanted one.

It eventually broke from excessive use, but that was later.  Also, I went to college and left the Church.

***

The parable of the sower popped up this week.  Several years ago my pastor helped me greatly (and presumably everyone else who heard his homily), by pointing out the gardening solution to the problem: Compost.  If the soil isn’t so great, keep working on it.

There’s something else, though, that Perfect Contrition brought to mind: Weeds.  And wanted plants that act just like ’em.

Have you ever completely given up on a plant . . . determined it was dead and gone, and never to be seen again . . . and then it pops up one summer when you’d given up all hope?  That’s weediness.  The ability of one lone seed to sit hidden in the ground for years, and then when the time is right, it shoots up and takes over.

That’s what those words, Perfect Contrition, were to me.  That little good-weed seed.

***

Catechists, don’t lose heart when everything you say seems to get lost.  When you watch a student who was once so eager to learn about God suddenly grow up and move out and completely walk away from the Catholic faith.  It wasn’t that you did nothing.  It wasn’t that all your work was a failure.

The human heart is not some tiny little square of the garden, stuck with its rocks and thorns.  It is a vast and varied territory.  What you teach becomes these tiny grains of faith that spread everywhere into your students’ souls.  There’s good ground somewhere in that garden.  Somewhere in a corner you didn’t even see, didn’t even realize your words had reached.

And twenty years later, your very words — words like Perfect Contrition — come sprouting out of  a mouth you’d had every reason to assume was a lost cause.  And they come out, and your long-ago student who can’t even remember your name, who might have once even said, “I didn’t learn anything in religious ed,” your student knows exactly where that seed came from, and who it was who cooperated with the grace of God to put it there.

***

Also, God knows.  And He does not lose track.  Not ever.

3.5 Time Outs: Paying Attention

Thanks once again to our host Larry D. at Acts of the Apostasy, who is proof dark lords must have many skills.

It's still the New Year. I know because I keep writing the wrong date on my checks.

1.

There’s a short list of things I can only do with 100% concentration:

  • Clean my desk.
  • Order a new toner cartridge.
  • Read Pope Benedict.

I’m sure there are others, but those are the one’s I’ve noticed.

2.

Which is why it is taking me 10,000 years to get my review done for this book:

So I’ll just tell you it’s a good book.  At least, the first half is.

–> But last week, St. Alphonsus Liguori was our saint for the chapter for religious ed, and of course I knew he was going to rock, but I secretly thought he might be a boring saint, but look, he’s a Doctor of the Church, and hey I have this partly-read book and maybe he’s in it.   Sure enough, yes, Liguori rocks.  Seriously cool saint.  Definite patron-to-catechists action going on.

Funny story though: I always research our saints because usually kids prefer a good re-telling with lots of dramatic (but censored) details, and I didn’t want to show up at class and just read from the textbook.  But I told the kids to flip to the page in their book with the big picture so they’d have something to look at . . . and they just wanted to read aloud.  So I let them.

3.

Today I discovered one thing I can do with a steady flow of distraction and interruption: Work on the homeschooling book.  Indeed, sitting on the couch staring at the backs of two children who have to be watched constantly in order to get their homework done?  It practically inspires.

I think I can knock out a 1,000 words a day just between 11am and noon, after littles have been sent to recess, and I’m sitting there playing overseer to the big people.

3.5

The other thing I do to keep from going barking mad while kids are doing school homework and can’t really be left alone but also don’t need help the whole time?  Mindless cleaning jobs.

Which is how I finally got around to asking what I’d started to ask last time I attempted to clean the porch: “Why do we have a bread bag full of dirt stuffed in a pillowcase?”

7 Quick Takes: Friends, Romans, Republicans

The other people are talking about things more interesting than politics. Click to go see.

1.

I watched the debates last night.  Seriously entertaining.  Much more fun than any political debate I’ve seen in ages.  Also, enlightening.

2.

Here’s the thing: I live in a cave.  I don’t enjoy TV the way other people do.  So I had never, ever, seen any of the four candidates speak on TV.  [I’d heard Santorum live once, but in a completely different context.]  Now that I have seen them, many mysteries are solved.

3.

For example: Newt Gingrich.  As a child in metro-DC in the ’80’s, yes, we talked about politics in the backseat of the car as our parents shuffled us around the beltway to youth group activities.  I remember then, that Newt was this creepy, untrustworthy politician guy.

[I also remember my dad being livid, livid, at the evisceration of Poindexter.  Who until scandals broke I had known of only as ‘a dad of one of the one the boy scouts’.  Apparently a super nice guy in regular life.]

So, Newt.  When I heard he was running for president this year, my thoughts were:

  1. He’s still alive?
  2. I mean sure, Strom-Thurmond-Alive, of course.  But Running-for-President-Alive?  It was a stretch.  I guess when you are a kid, people seem so much older than they turn out to be later.
  3. He’s this shifty beltway insider named after a reptile an amphibian.  What is the appeal?

4.

My goodness that man is charming!  CHARMING.  Did you see him open that debate?  He’s brilliant.  Utterly untrustworthy, anyone who is that smooth.  That loveable on stage.  But now I get it.

In order of Charming:

  1. Gingrich.
  2. Romney.
  3. Santorum.
  4. Paul.

So if you get your politics from TV and not from print, yes, it all suddenly makes very much sense.

5.

But you know what makes me angry?  Back last century, everyone knew that torture was wrong.  It was the stuff of satire.  Now, suddenly, it is very difficult to find a candidate who opposes torture.  You can expect to be treated as daft and unsophisticated if you insist your president be the non-torturing type.

People want charming.  Kingly.  From last Friday’s Mass reading:

6And the word was displeasing in the eyes of Samuel, that they should say: Give us a king, to judge us. And Samuel prayed to the Lord.

7And the Lord said to Samuel: Hearken to the voice of the people in all that they say to thee. For they have not rejected thee, but me, that I should not reign over them.

8According to all their works, they have done from the day that I brought them out of Egypt until this day: as they have forsaken me, and served strange gods, so do they also unto thee.

9Now therefore hearken to their voice: but yet testify to them, and foretell them the right of the king, that shall reign over them.

10Then Samuel told all the words of the Lord to the people that had desired a king of him,

11And said: This will be the right of the king, that shall reign over you: He will take your sons, and put them in his chariots, and will make them his horsemen, and his running footmen to run before his chariots,

12And he will appoint of them to be his tribunes, and centurions, and to plough his fields, and to reap his corn, and to make him arms and chariots.

13Your daughters also he will take to make him ointments, and to be his cooks, and bakers.

14And he will take your fields, and your vineyards, and your best oliveyards, and give them to his servants.

15Moreover he will take the tenth of your corn, and of the revenues of your vineyards, to give his eunuchs and servants.

16Your servants also and handmaids, and your goodliest young men, and your asses he will take away, and put them to his work.

17Your flocks also he will tithe, and you shall be his servants.

18And you shall cry out in that day from the face of the king, whom you have chosen to yourselves. and the Lord will not hear you in that day, because you desired unto yourselves a king.

We insist our president be “presidential”.  Impressive.  Someone the Europeans and the Iranians will respect.  So that’s what we’ll get.

6.

Allie Hathaway.  You know what to do.

7.

If you want regular normal-people election coverage of the SC Primaries, of course you would never read this blog.  Instead you’d visit Brad Warthen.  Whom I love the way my dad loved Poindexter, so just you be quiet (here*) if you don’t like his politics.

 

 

 

*Rant away at his place.  He’ll love it.  Plus my FIL arrives tonight, so if you post here for the first time and your post gets stuck in moderation, it is not because I hate you, nor because I fell into a bottomless chasm.  I’m just busy seeing flesh-and-blood people this weekend.  Also, voting.  I’ll catch back up with the Internet come Monday or so.

Which Republican?

Assuming there’s more than one candidate left by Saturday morning . . . . which one?

–> My father-in-law arrives tomorrow night, and I’m sure that eight hours of talk radio will help him advise us.  He’s a DC-area plumber, so he’s totally at ease with that feeling that you’ve done something necessary, but now must wash your hands*.

In the meantime, I depend on my internet friends.  Imagine my voting in the Republican primary Saturday will somehow impact which candidate faces off with Obama in November.  Which button on the touchscreen should I push?  Why?

*I actually enjoy plumbing work.  It is peaceful. Satisfying.  In contrast, though I take perverse pleasure in living in an open-primary state, and therefore every year getting to see who has the most interesting ballot, then wandering down to the corner school to meddle a bit . . . I always feel like whether I vote or not, either way requires sacramental absolution after.

3.5 Time Outs: Catholic Insomnia

Thanks once again to our host Larry D. at Acts of the Apostasy, who reminds you, Men Can Blog Too.

Click to read Manly Topics.

1.

Dark pleasures of homeschooling parents:  Listening from the other room as your spouse valiantly tries to help a child with his homework . . . and noting that your spouse, too, is on the verge of breaking into swear words.

 

2.

Who took the dry-erase marker off my refrigerator?  I need it because . . .

3.

Middle of the dark I wake up with busy-brain.  I hear the neighbor’s truck outside.  Must be getting near dawn.  Which means: Stay still.  Do not go to living room and read The Doctors of the Church for a bit to settle down.  DO NOT GET A DRINK OF WATER.

Because: I need an undisturbed waking temp. Need.

Need.

***

I lay there a while.  I wonder if the truck I heard was not my neighbor but the people who go around breaking into cars.  I wonder if those people ever did read the Teacher’s Manual they stole last time.  I wonder if the SuperHusband set his car alarm so that we’ll know when the car-breakers are opening his minivan whose side doors only open when the vehicle is locked and the alarms are set.  I wonder what the car-breakers will think of the giant load of junk filling the back of my truck.  Do they want old children’s games with missing pieces?

No, it is not the car-breakers, because the neighbor starts his truck up again and begins moving it around the yard.  He does this.  He loves backing up.  Precisely.  He has to back up many times.

And then he drives off, and it is silent.  And still very dark.  I worry: Is it actually close to waking-up time?  Or is it the middle of the night and my neighbor is doing his late-night things that he sometimes does?  Nuts if I’ve been laying here all quiet and still with no drink of water and no prospect of sleep, and it’s actually 1 am and not 6 am.  I wonder why I have no clock on my side of the bed.  About three times a year, I want one.

***

I give up.  Grab thermometer, head to living room.  Yay: 6:45.  Double-Yay:  99.0.

One of these years my kids will understand why they sometimes find summer-weather temperatures written on the door of the fridge in the middle of January.

3.5

Roman Holiday.  Of course.

A Recipe for Poverty

A friend of mine lives in one of those helpful European countries with nationalized health care and social services and everything you could want.  And I know from experience that these systems can work pretty well for a lot of people.  I understand the appeal.

But my friend’s recent struggles to get the care she needs (nothing wildly expensive) leads me to think nationalization of social supports is a very bad solution. Here’s why:

Government-run services are much harder to shut down if they become corrupt, incompetent, or unsafe.  It takes, literally, an act of Congress.  (And then some).  In comparison, privately-run services can be boycotted by consumers, or in the case of safety-violations, legitimately shut down by government regulators.

When the system doesn’t work, there is nowhere else to turn.  Taxpayer-funded, universal-enrollment systems squeeze out private providers.  The money I could have spent on private fees has already been mailed to the government in taxes.  I no longer have that cash on hand.  The vastly diminished demand for privately-provided services also means therea are fewer private providers available to choose from.

“Universal” services shortchange the poor.  The supposed reason for creating nationalized services is so that the poor have access to the essentials they need, such as medical care or education.  The reality of government-run bureaucracies, however, is that they favor the upper-middle class — the people who have the resources and connections to work the system to their advantage.

How, then, to help the poor? By helping the poor.

Those who truly cannot provide for themselves do indeed need our assistance.  One can reasonably argue that in a large, diverse, and mobile society, government-provided alms are a legitimate way of caring for those who might otherwise be overlooked by private charities.

But the whole nation cannot need alms.  It is a mathematical joke.  We cannot all be poor all the time.