Teen Boy Develops Alzheimers Prevention Program

Citing a family history of dementia, and mounting evidence that his 40-something parents “are losing it,” a South Carolina teen decided it was time to intervene.

“I got the idea from those animal enrichment exercises they do at the zoo,” the boy explained, “Like putting the treat inside the toilet paper tube, and that stuff. Research has found that mental activity can delay the onset of dementia, so I thought: That’s what I need to do, for the good of my parents.”

Noting that aging parents are generally not motivated by normal rewards, like pop tarts and video games, he encourages other teens to “think like a boring person — what’s important to them?” For example, “When I put the dishes away, I never put them away in the same place. That way they have to using spatial problem-solving skills to consider what places the bowls might fit, or what might be hiding inside that large stock pot on top the fridge.”

An essential part of program is helping parents develop long-term persistence at challenging tasks. “My mom’s been looking for that blue lid that goes with the baking pan for weeks now. It’s really cute watching her try to guess more places it could possibly be.”

For the elderly, regular routines can help them remember day-to-day tasks. “My program uses visual cues to help parents remember what they are supposed to be doing. For example, the main thing my parents do around the house is give orders. So I fill the sink with dirty dishes as a visual cue that it’s time to tell a kid to do the dishes. If they didn’t have that cue, they might forget.”

He encourages other teens, “Even if it seems like your parents don’t really have anything to do, it’s important to give them that feeling of ‘contributing’. Letting them be the person who wakes you up in the morning can give them a sense of accomplishment they’ll never get from whatever else it is they do all day.”

Is it hard, caring for aging parents? “Sure, sometimes it takes real persistence and patience. The other day, I had to lay in bed pretending to sleep until 10 o’clock, before my parents finally noticed and did their ‘getting the teenager out of bed’ chore. But it’s worth the sacrifice. If you love your parents, you’ll sleep in as late as necessary.”

Verse and Censure for the Feast Day + Chris Tollefsen at Public Discourse

Since we’ve been speaking of wealth ’round here lately . . . a limerick for today’s feast:

When faced with a room full of clutter,

I’ve been known to piously utter,

“Help me to know,

what should stay, what should go?

Oh blessed Teresa of Calcutta!”

In other news: Chris Tollefsen writes brilliantly at Public Discourse today. I’m a shameless Chris T. fan, so no surprise that I like the message. But I don’t get to say it as often as I’d like: This is far and away his best piece ever. That I’ve seen, anyhow. Go take a look.

In places NOT to look: Front Porch Republic, which I subscribe to but very rarely read, because publishing just a snippet for the feed reader is a very effective way to discourage me from reading your work, recently ran a piece about liturgy and limericks. The idea was spot on, unfortunately the chosen limericks were dreadfully lewd. Really? Was that necessary? No it was not.

To which end, perhaps not the most incisive wit, but making the same point as the FPR piece:

The rabbit who traveled by plane

said, “Security can be such a pain.

They opened my baggage,

and out fell my cabbage,

and I had to re-pack it again.”

The point FPR was making? A good genre, delightful in its context, is not necessarily the right genre for the holy liturgy. And another example, same rabbit theme, we have quite the collection growing*:

To my door came a poor little bunny,

who needed to earn some money,

“I’ll cut your grass for a dime,

one bite at a time–“

But in the end, the lawn looked quite funny.

See? Perfectly moral, g-rated limericks. It can be done. And the argument FPR wants to make is stronger when you acknowledge the genre isn’t used soley for smut. Show tunes are wrong at Mass not because Hollywood’s a den of sin, or because the cabaret / jazz / pop sound is always and everywhere associated with immorality. It’s because these types of music are about something else — something that can be beautiful and true and good and inspiring — but it’s something other than the worship of God.

And thus a final contribution for today:

On the feast of Teresa of Calcutta,

this pundit is likely to mutter,

“You’re housed and you’re fed,

but your brain is half dead,

’till you rescue your wit from the gutter.”

Happy Feast Day. Straighten up and fly right, FPR.

*The limerick fest began because, to my genuine shock and surprise, no irony there, my teenage boy does not love his poetry course for literature. I was stunned. A teenager? Not like poetry? Really? It’s all about love, death and self-centered dramatizing . . . that should be just the thing! Certainly was for me at that age. SuperHusband wisely suggested we begin with something a little lighter. And thus I succeeded, not in converting my skeptical teen, but in launching a festival of animal-themed verse among the the two youngest.

I’ll take my victories where I can.

Meanwhile, any poetry recommendations for less-romantic, very modern boys, who mostly read Dr. Boli?

Rabbit Photo: Larry D. Moore [CC BY-SA 3.0 or GFDL], via Wikimedia Commons

NFP Misery Awareness Week

Check it out . . . even the Pope has doubts about those glowing reports of NFP Joy:

“Surely in no way do we wish here to be silent about the difficulties, sometimes serious, which the life of Christian husbands and wives encounters. For the, as for each of us, ‘the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life.’…..Therefore let married couples freely take upon themselves the hardships destined for them, strengthened with faith and that hope which ‘does not disappoint: because the love of God has been poured forth in our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.’ With persistent prayer let them beg for Divine help. And especially let them draw grace and charity from the unfailing font of the Eucharist. If, however, they are still held back by sins, let them not be discouraged, but as humble and resolute people take refuge in the mercy of God, which the sacrament of Penance dispenses abundantly.

Pope Paul VI,On Human Life (Humanae Vitae)

Stolen from my Family Honor course work, where I’m getting piles of good pope-quotes. Of course now my instructors, if they are goofing off here, know exactly how far behind I am on my homework. But I’m catching up! I am!

For those who want awareness of my thoughts on NFP, here’s “Should NFP be Easy” over at my friend Sarah Reinhard’s place, and here’s another post on NFP vs. Contraception, which look, Bearing says you should read (and she adds helpful comments that cause it to make more sense).

Now back to homework catch-up time.

Book Review: Getting the Marriage Conversation Right

(There’s a book review coming at the bottom of this, but I need to lay out some preliminary matter first. And this is a post concerning sex. Not for children.)

To be Catholic is to be aware of a long list of my own faults. Let’s review a few of them: I goof off too much (not just on the internet, everywhere). I lack patience for the most trivial of inconveniences. When I’m irritated, I use my verbal powers for evil and not good. I spend way too much money on myself, and far too little on the poor. I procrastinate. On any given day, there’s a decent chance I spent the time I meant to spend praying (not an exorbitant quantity) doing some other more entertaining and entirely optional thing. For those who are familiar with the Little Flower, we could safely describe me as the Little Weed. The anti-Therese.

And that’s just my public sins. For every one you see on the kitchen floor, there’s a hundred more in the walls. If Therese is one of our few Doctors of Church, I’m guaranteed a spot among the vast number of Patients of the Church.

So be it. Some people talk about so-called “Catholic Guilt”, and those people are invariably the ones who missed out — in whole or in part — on the real deal: Catholic Mercy. If I don’t crumble in despair at the state of my soul (and yes, actually despair is one of my sins as well), it’s because there’s hope for me. Not hope that I’m going to wake up one morning suddenly meriting Heaven. But because Someone Else has gone ahead and opened Heaven for me. He loves me with His whole being, and will do anything — anything — to give me an shot at eternal happiness, mine only for the asking. And not just me — He loves everybody that way.

My experience with evangelization is that few of us are converted because we suddenly discover how wretched we are, and thus desire to jump into the cosmic shower. Quite the opposite: We long to know God, and having been drawn to Him, we begin to see, bit by bit, what life in Heaven looks like. And what kind of baggage we’ll be leaving at the door when we get there. Some things we drop like an old stinky garbage bag, in a flash of horrified understanding. Other things we keep stuffed in our pockets, sure they are part of us, or sure that these are little treasures we can sneak through eternal security . . . and it is only late in this life, or at the beginning of the next, that we catch on to the fact that, oops, we’ve been running around with the spiritual equivalent of a moldy rotten banana shoved in that coat pocket.

I’ve got rotten bananas in my pocket. (Usually only spiritually, though there was that one time I waited a month to clean out my tote bag . . . ick.) But if your argument consists of, “Jen, you stink!” my response is, “Um, why yes, I do.”

I hate the topic of Gay Marriage.

Hate it. Let me count the ways:

1) Because I know that the people who favor gay marriage do so for entirely understandable reasons.

2) Because I’m not an idiot. I’ve known plenty of folks who favor same-sex unions, and who are, put simply, better people than me. And they’re far and away better people than some of our rotten-to-the-core unrepentant clergy who’ve spent decades hiding despicable offenses.

3) The division concerning gay marriage doesn’t have its roots in questions about homosexuality. For the last fifty years, the going cultural norm has been that whatever I desire, sexually, should be acted upon. That marriage vows are no vow at all. That children and marriage have nothing to do with one another. That children have no particular need to be raised in a home with their mother and father. That any parent-type figure will do just fine.

An aside: People have a hard time accepting that adopted children feel a genuine grief concerning their biological parents. That very illusion — that your parents were unable to care for you, but hey, you have nothing to cry about — feeds into the destruction of marriage. Something my dad said to me very plainly when he remarried after my mother’s death — I knew it, but he was absolutely right to lay it on the table — was, “Your stepmother is not a replacement for your mother.”

It is a beautiful and wonderful thing when some loving person can step in and fill some portion of the blank left by the loss of loved one. But it doesn’t erase the loss. Acknowledging the loss makes it possible to delight in the sheer gift of this new and full and lively relationship, because we can accept it on its own terms, not pretend it is the other gift now gone.

4) A significant portion of the so-called Christian world doesn’t even acknowledge the horror of abortion. An even larger chunk, including many people whose genuine faith in Christ I don’t doubt for a moment, think sterilization and contraception are AOK — desirable even. And I don’t want to contemplate the numbers in the Church who approve or encourage the sin against purity we used to discreetly but emphatically call “self-abuse”. Before you start citing the ancient Jewish law concerning homosexual acts, review the details concerning Onan, eh? Struck dead on the spot? Actions speak louder than words. Disapproved.

5) I know that condemnation is the way of the world. To ask for so-called “mercy” in the wider world is to heap condemnation upon yourself. So I know that for many people dear to me, if I ever say, “Well, actually this one thing you’re doing is wrong,” those people I love will hear my words as code for, “Actually I hate you and I was just faking nice.” Which isn’t true. See my sins above — faking nice is not one of my virtues.

So to discuss gay marriage, at all, is to be accused of hatred. I can discuss contraception, and people just think I’m a little daft. I don’t mind that. But I dislike the fact that to open this topic is to have a number of people I respect, admire, and count as friends, be tempted to assume the worst about me. Well, the worst about me lies elsewhere.

[For the record: People hate you just as much if you talk about modesty in any specific terms. Which I will be doing at NewEvangelizers.com in a couple weeks. I’m racking up the voodoo rays this month.]

On to the Book Review

Getting the Marriage Conversation Right: A Guide for Effective Dialogue by William B. May is a short, readable booklet, written for a Catholic audience who wants to defend the sacrament of marriage, but suffer from poor rhetoric. The assumption is that you the reader agree with the Catholic teaching, but perhaps you articulate it poorly. You may even be currently basing your arguments on any number of details that simply aren’t Catholic.

Or you may be a Catholic who wants to follow Church teaching, but doesn’t understand why the bishops are so adamant about not allowing civil unions as a peaceful live-and-let-live alternative.

There is a single refrain that explains the disconnect between reality and popular culture. The going definition of marriage in our society is this:

“Marriage is the public recognition of a committed relationship between two adults for their fulfillment”.

And let me observe right now: If this is your definition, it is logical to accept gay marriage. Trouble being, that’s not what marriage is. It is what civil marriage has become. But it’s not what it is supposed to be. Here’s the Real Ale definition of marriage, the one the Church is trying to defend, too little too late:

“Marriage unites a man and a woman with each other and any children born from their union.”

This is the radical reality that animates the entirety of Christian thought on marriage and sexuality. Each child has a need to be raised by his mother and father.

Sometimes bad things happen — death, or serious sins such as an abusive parent, or a rapist father — that make this need impossible to fulfill. When that happens, we have no choice but to go with the next best thing, whether it be single parenting, or remarriage, or adoption. The next best thing, in the context of a response to tragedy, becomes the very picture of self-giving love. Anyone who steps into fill the void for a child who is unable to be reared by both his mother and his father? A true hero.

We live in a fallen world, and marriage faces countless obstacles. Getting the Marriage Conversation Right addresses each of these difficulties in turn, and explains how we are to understand a proper response to _______ problem. The book repeatedly admonishes us to avoid the temptation to condemnation, and maintains a thoroughly Catholic — that is, merciful — response to the many problems that individuals may face.

No hate-spewing. No tsk-tsking. No “they deserve what they get”. None of that.

Who Should Read This Book?

The audience is those who accept, or wish to more fully accept, Catholic teaching on the sanctity of marriage. If you aren’t interested in being convinced, you won’t find this book convincing. It’s a book of explanations for why the Church teaches as she does, and how to effectively communicate that teaching to others.

The reading level is all-adults. The tone is conversational and the word count is short and to-the-point. This is an excellent resource for a parish study group.

Helpful for Outsiders?

If you are in favor of same-sex unions, will this book help you understand the other side? A lot depends on your mentality. This is an unabashed defense of the Catholic teaching, written by and for those who want to agree with it. There is no effort to create, within the book, an apologetic geared towards the worthy opponent. Yes, if you read the booklet with a desire to understand, in the spirit of true dialogue, why people oppose same-sex unions, you will in fact learn why people oppose same-sex unions.

But if it’s going to make your blood boil to see anyone lay out a defense of a position you abhor, then yeah, it’s going to make your blood boil. No way around it.

Summary: Good book. Short, readable, gets straight to the heart of the matter. This is the first title I’ve read on this topic, and it does a good job at what it does. For those who oppose same-sex unions, but don’t really know why, or how to explain their position, this book makes a good start.

Boilerplate:This review was written as part of the Catholic book reviewer program from The Catholic Company. Visit The Catholic Company to find more information on Getting the Marriage Conversation Right. The Catholic Company is the best resource for all your seasonal needs such as First Communion gifts as well as ideas and gifts for the special papal Year of Faith.

3.5 Time Outs: Tigering

Thanks once again to our host Larry D. at Acts of the Apostasy, who is himself Mr. Thankful today, good guy that he is.

3.5 Time Outs Tuesday — Click and be amazed.

Yesterday the kids and I turned out at the parish gym to help get the St. Vincent de Paul boxes of Thanksgiving food put together. It was our first time. It’s a two-step operation, well-run, which is what happens when you have a ministry put into the hands of a large group of retired professionals. We arrived during opening prayers; long tables were already set up with different food-category stations on each table, clearly labeled. Green beans, corn, other vegetables, canned fruit, snacks, pasta, breakfast, cranberry sauce . . . etc.

In one corner was the haul of imperishables donated by the parish the previous day. Our first job was to grab bags of unsorted food and walk the tables, getting all our food to the proper piles. Three big kids worked independently, with the occasional, “Mom, what is this?” question about mysterious food items. My only rule was Please Do Not Pick a Bag With Glass Jars In It.

6-year-old and I worked as a team. She was quite insistent about putting all the food from her bag up on the tables herself. If I impulsively reached in to help her quickly get all her creamed soup cans shelved, she’d complain, and I’d have to let her put up one of my food items as compensation for her missed opportunity.

The second job was to get the freshly-organized foods into the baskets. Our leader walked the aisles and estimated how many of each item we had, and thus how many could be put into each box. Then each person or team was given a food product to distribute. We were the Stuffing People. Two boxes of stuffing in each of the hundred boxes. Half-dozen Hispanic families had their boxes pulled aside, and our venerable Spanish Lady (a real live 80-something lady originally from Spain, with a brilliantly German last name) saw that all the salsa and tortillas went into those boxes. Hint: If you are more of a salsa person than a weird-packets-of-instant-gravy person, if you ever need food relief, give the SVDP ladies a Spanish-sounding pseudonym.

Tigering is the new verb around our house.

Tigering is what The Tiny Tiger does. All the time.

What with the Groaning Ladies Show having come to season’s end, Sunday and last night we watched The Dust Bowl. Good way to get your head on straight for Thanksgiving.

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Fifi the resident cat does not care for the Tiny Tiger. But she seems to be getting along with the young interloper better now that the Tiger has been taken on as the Chief Pot-Licker’s protege. Last night during The Dust Bowl, all pots having been duly cleaned, they spent a full two hours rough-housing in the living room.

So the dog knows that the bunnies and chickens and the cat belong to us, and that the kitten is an orphaned puppy in need of a good upbringing. She also knows that squirrels and voles are for hunting, but that SuperHusband will step in and take over when it comes to possums. There was confusion the other week though, about what to do with the big fuzzy

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Well, that’s all for this week. Tuesday’s Link Day, which is when instead of e-mailing fun things I ought to post but forget to, you just tell the world all by yourself. Entirely optional. I’m pretty swamped with real life but I’ll try to post updates here as I work through my to-do list elsewhere on the internet. Have a great week.

3.5 Time Outs: Entertained.

Thanks once again to our host Larry D. at Acts of the Apostasy, who has his own entertainment post up today.

At CatholicMom.com, I have a post up for November about how to get along at holiday parties, even if people bring up the topic of homeschooling. Apparently I hit a chord, because I’ve gotten some good feedback. Mostly from non-homeschoolers. Also, it was a great excuse to use this photo:

It would be convenient if I had married a guy who liked to take pictures of homeschoolers, and CCD classes, and stuff like that. (Um, except, we’re not allowed to publish photos of CCD kids, so I guess it would just be some adult teaching and a bunch of blurred-out backs of heads.) Instead every month I amuse Lisa Hendey with my proposed alternate illustration for the homeschooling column. So far she hasn’t rejected any. Patient lady.

Sunday night I helped out in a colleague’s CCD class by dressing up like this venerable creole candidate for sainthood:

I own absolutely nothing that could be described at mid-19th century clothing, but the 6th graders were very polite, and overlooked the fact that my costume was really more like Faux-Edwardian-Pulled-From-late-20th-Century-Closet. Also, I learned a surprising number of the kids had some knowledge of the French language. I’d estimate 2/5ths of the class.

Heartening: 95% of the class had no difficulty with coming to Ven. Henriette’s same conclusion, that having a wife in the countryside and a mistress in the city was not the Catholic way. Good for them. The other 5% just weren’t paying attention, but once they heard what I had said, they too, agreed. I guess it’s easier in 6th grade, when who wants a girlfriend anyway?

Eldest daughter and I have recently gotten hooked on The Groaning Lady Show. So-called by the guys in our household. Who always come and watch it.

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St. Monica, of course. In other homeschooling news:

a) We’ve completed Q1 with varying amounts of success, and are jumping into Q2 today with varying amounts of enthusiasm.

b) I tried to vote mid-morning, but estimated the line was about an hour long, not so fun for young children, particularly the one with a nasty scrape on her hand from tripping on the walk down the block, plus an un-fun headcold. We retreated, charged the iPods, and will give it another shot after lunch with entertainment in hand. Most years there isn’t much of a line, but apparently people are a touch worked up about this election. Go figure.

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Henriette Delille: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Henriettedelille.gif [Public Domain]

3.5 Time Outs: Charisms

Thanks once again to our host Larry D. at Acts of the Apostasy, who’s got the best hurricane photo going.

SuperHusband & I went to the state Catholic Charismatic Conference this weekend. Friday evening began with such a promising start that we dragged the kids along Saturday so we could both attend all day. Yes, I bribed them. They seem to be okay with that.

I don’t actually have a charismatic bent, but it’s comfortable enough once you’ve traveled in Evangelical circles for a while. Here’s what we liked:

All the songs were about God, and directed to Him.
The guest speaker taught the Catholic faith.
The people were friendly.

Yep. I will totally turn out for that.

The retreat leader was Fr. Peter Sanders from New Pentecost Catholic Ministries. The topic was “The Character of Christ”, the focus being on using the cardinal virtues to conform your life to Christ. Knowing nothing else about the guy than what I saw and heard Friday and Saturday, I’d recommend him if you are looking for a guest speaker. 100% Catholic, no patience for New Age nonsense, and no patience for the showboating that can swirl around certain Charismatic circles (not something I’ve ever seen from a local, FYI).

Recall that SuperHusband reverted to the Church less than two years ago, though he’d been attending Catholic churches for all his vacation/travel church attendance for years prior. This was the first time he’d ever heard of the cardinal virtues. Next day at dinner he was telling some friends about the talks. “What a great framework! Apparently it’s this well-established thing. Very useful. I wonder why I’ve never heard a sermon about it? You’d think it would be the kind of thing priests would teach in their homilies.”

I’ve been Catholic much longer, and I think I’ve heard a priest mention the virtues in passing one time. Note to priests and deacons: “The Cardinal Virtues” isn’t being overdone these days. You could preach about that. Thanks.

Because homework is not his charism, our boy is currently living the iPod-free lifestyle. Which means he needs some kind of other music to listen to when he does dishes. So he’s taken to composing fake VBS theme songs. Yesterday’s was, “I’m a Little Bitty Platypus in a Great Big World”. Took me hours to get the tune out of my head.

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I went crazy and volunteered my own house for the annual homeschool All Saints Party (long story), because certain of my children have been planning their costumes for months. Eldest daughter did a saint-change on account of how even though it’s very cool to carry around eyeballs on a platter, St. Lucy is just too easy to guess. She’s going with a more obscure saint. And the youngest is of course going to be

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Well, that’s all for this week. Tuesday’s Link Day, which is when instead of e-mailing fun things I ought to post but forget to, you just tell the world all by yourself. Entirely optional. I’m pretty swamped with real life but I’ll try to post at least once more this week as I work through my review-backlog. Have a great week.

3.5 Time Outs: Family Life

Thanks once again to our host Larry D. at Acts of the Apostasy, who is nothing if not a family kinda guy.

This weekend I met a couple of the ladies from the Society of Joyful Hope. I’d never heard of such a thing! A real-life support group for families that use NFP! A true support group, btw, not just your NFP instructor checking in to remind you what Acheiving-Related Behavior tends to achieve. The group prays together, and then kids do activities and the parents talk about parenting. Very cool.

1.A You can see their website here, and though the events page is a running behind on updates, they are an active organization. I’m in that blissful state where I am not the least bothered by people who are running a tiny bit behind on website maintenance. Ahem.

1.B The nice thing about openness-to-life is that eventually you don’t need to go visit the NFP instructor to be reminded what Achieving-Related Behavior acheives. Your children are there to remind you. All the time.

1.C I was showing around Sarah’s new pregnancy book, and the Joyful Hope lady exclaimed when she saw Hallie Lord’s endorsement on the cover. Solving the mystery of what it was that had caused Betty Beguiles to pick up and move south. Wow. I had no idea.

1.D More cool: Fr. Kirby at Charleston Vocations gave us a bunch of t-shirts to give away for prizes at our Family Life reception.

1.E Triple Cool: Eldest daughter has been reading assorted fiction and lives of saints from Pauline Media, causing her to ask all kinds of questions about the Daughters of St. Paul. Mostly: What do they wear? So it was neato to walk into the Doughnut Room and, surprise!, there was Sister Francis, whom I’d never met before, but it turns out is very good at chatting with girls interested in all things Nuns Who Publish Books. Less cool: I had no money with me for book-buying. Because of course the girls found something they liked.

Coolness aside, here’s the real topic: How Good is Your Parish at Doing Family-Friendly Ministries?

I had a conversation with a young mom, not at my parish, who had moved up from Florida (St. Agnes’s in Naples, I think?), and she really missed the number of family events and activities at her former parish. I got to thinking about it, and realized that one of the things sabotaging some of my own parish’s ministries is a lack of Stuff for the Whole Family to Do.

It’s not like families with young children are really going to turn out for ministries five nights a week, don’t mistake me. There’s only so much a person with humans for children can do, time-and-energy-wise. But in order for a family with young children to do anything. at. all., there has to be provision for the whole family. The crying people. The climbing-the-curtains people. The elementary-aged people. The teen people. The female people. The male people. All of them. And if we’re feeling broad-minded, how about the elderly-relative-living-with-you people? Or the not-so-polished-in-the-social-skills-for-reasons-beyond-their-control people?

–> Because otherwise, church stuff breaks apart the family. Oh it’s all lovely to get together with just the girls, or just the fathers-n-sons, or whatever it is. We do that here and there. Sunday afternoon our girls met for Little Flowers while our boys went mountain biking. It was good. But there are only seven nights in a week, and people keep insisting we eat dinner together at least a few of those.

[Without wishing to pull out the Evangelicals Are Smarter Than Us card, I will point out that on Wednesday nights around my town, most of the other churches are hosting an evening of this-n-that, in which you can bring your whole family, and all y’all get your faith-formation or ministering-to-people fix in one fell swoop. It’s only one night a week. But it’s one night a week. Some of the churches do the same thing Sunday nights too. Or Fridays. Or whatever.]

So anyhow, that’s my question: If your parish is successful at getting families involved in the life of the church, what is it that works so well?

Happiness is agreeing with your editor.

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fairy wings and magic wands. Works great.

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Well, that’s all for this week. Tuesday’s Link Day, which is when instead of e-mailing fun things I ought to post but forget to, you just tell the world all by yourself. Entirely optional.

3.5 Takes: Halloween Wedding

Thanks once again to our host, Larry D., who is no doubt terrified by this post.

When my friend real-life friend Sandra told me she was planning a Halloween-themed wedding, let me assure you: I was skeptical. But it turned out absolutely lovely! Which you would expect, if you know Sandra and her beloved Larry L.. Here’s the tour, in 3.5 parts.

1. The Dress.

The event was held at the Robert Mills House (civil ceremony), so you’ll recall Sandra was thinking of a regency-era theme. She raided the silk remnants at the upholstery shop, and put together this:

Awesome period touch: detachable sleeves.

2. Ceremonial Innovation Done Right.

Recall also that I am a curmudgeon’s curmudgeon, and if you tell me that as part of your ceremony you’re going to do some groovy sand-art activity with your children, I’m going to be very, very skeptical. But Larry L. came up with an idea for including the boys in the ceremony, and it went over beautifully. I was impressed. Not many people can pull that off. Well done.

3. Reception = Costume Time.

I think the key to making a Halloween wedding work is to not have a Halloween wedding. Normal wedding, costume-optional reception. Tons of fun.

The decorators-in-law used a deft touch in decorating the reception hall. There were spider webs and all that stuff, but it didn’t pop out like I’m Back In Elementary School For Orange Cupcakes And Candy Corns. The wedding cake was probably the most Halloween-y moment. Which is about right. Wedding cakes are ~~supposed~~ allowed to be fun. Is a giant hairy spider really that much goofier than a chintzy plastic bride-n-groom?

I wish I had a picture of the buffet table, but I’ll just tell you that the secret to a tasteful theme-wedding is to put out a fantabulous spread of good food. Then all the stuffy friends and relatives who might otherwise complain about the decor are too busy noticing the hummus and the curry and the peanut sauce, and the rest is just background. But if you want to put on a Sponge Bob costume, you can.

Or, if you’re a young groomsman, add sunglasses, earbuds, and a suitable weapon, presto-chango, Secret Agent Boy:

(Shown here posing the following day, before we rushed the tux back to the rental place.)

3.5 SuperHusband went medieval for the reception, which is the most comfortable thing you wish you could be wearing anyway. Girls and I stuck to our ordinary wedding attire, but added

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Well, that should give you something to talk about for this week. No, I haven’t ~~finished~~ started my sidebar renovation, so I’m still taking link suggestions.

Hey and while we’re on the topic of good things worth doing right: This week my editor at Liguori is doing her edits on my Classroom Management for Catechists manuscript. So you could say a little prayer that she gets it all cleaned up so that it’s as helpful to readers as possible. Thanks!

3.5 Time Outs: The Distracted Life

Thanks once again to our host Larry D. at Acts of the Apostasy, who has exceeded himself once again. Go look!

On Tuesday mornings we’ve been watching Fr. Barron’s Catholicism DVD’s at the nearby parish (not ours) that has the most convenient times. Excellent. BUT, episode three is a ~~little~~ a lot abstract for the kids. I’m hoping it goes back to more concrete story-telling type episodes in the weeks ahead.

I could tell my 3rd-grader was not fully paying attention, because her feet were in the air. You know how you raise your hand to ask a question in class? Or you raise two hands in air to communicate secret messages from referee to fans, or from evangelical praise-and-worshiper to God? It was just like that, only with feet.

I’d told the group leader we’d be slipping out right after the DVD, and not staying for the group discussion, so that we could get home and get started on school work. Kids and I discussed the Problem of Evil (subject of episode 3) on the way, and curiously, the boy proposed “God testing us” as one of the possible explanations for evil things in the world.

I challenged that notion, but I’ll tell you I do think it’s one of the explanations for good things in the world. Because as we pulled in, our shy-but-friendly bachelor neighbor, who never comes over, was poking around our entry way, looking for us. Because he’d found this:

3.5

The contention, then, that the civil government should at its option intrude into and exercise intimate control over the family and the household is a great and pernicious error.

True, if a family finds itself in exceeding distress, utterly deprived of the counsel of friends, and without any prospect of extricating itself, it is right that extreme necessity be met by public aid, since each family is a part of the commonwealth.

In like manner, if within the precincts of the household there occur grave disturbance of mutual rights, public authority should intervene to force each party to yield to the other its proper due; for this is not to deprive citizens of their rights, but justly and properly to safeguard and strengthen them.

But the rulers of the commonwealth must go no further; here, nature bids them stop.

(Paragraph breaks added for legibility in blog format. See the source here.)

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I see that I’ve hit my deadline for sidebar updating, so I guess I’ll officially slide that onto my to-do list. But I’m open to suggestions as long as the work in is progress. And of course, Tuesday’s Link Day, which is when instead of e-mailing fun things I ought to post but forget to, you just tell the world all by yourself. Entirely optional.

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