3.5 Time Outs: Mardi Gras

Thanks once again to our host Larry D. at Acts of the Apostasy, who makes Tuesday everything it should be and then some.

3.5 Time Outs Tuesday — Indulge yourself! Click the photo to see a veritable feast of internet treasures. Or a picture of foreign donuts.

Catholic Blog Day. What I had planned to do today (actually, yesterday, but let’s not quibble) was empty out my inbox of the 10,000 fabulous links kind people have sent my way lately. You will have to wait. Only the very most last-minute one makes it today: The first Catholic Blog Day is tomorrow, Ash Wednesday. The topic is penance. Remember that you can use your scheduling super powers to post ahead of time, if you are planning to fast from blogging for some portion of the next 40ish days.

Hey, listen, how about we just make Tuesday a post-your-link-in-Jen’s-combox day? Would that be so bad? No. You would love it. One link per comment so you don’t fall through the automated trap door into the Spam Dungeon, where I never ever look anymore, because, ick, lots of spiders.

The Festival of Cleaning is not my favorite thing. Let’s just say that Lent is going to hit very, very hard around the castle. Should I do like I did a different year and also give up yelling at the kids? I think yes. I mean, every time I go to confession I resolve to give it up, so I guess Lent would be that time, right?

[Re-cap for the un-initiated: This year our family is going to Clean Up After Ourselves for Lent. Reminder for the familiar-with-fitzes: Try not to laugh so loud. You’re shaking the internet.]

This book looks really cool. Now I want to read it.

Also: Registration deadline for the [free!] Online Catholic Writers Conference is Feb. 29th. That’s both for registering as a participant and/or as a presenter. If you are newly-registering, it takes a couple days for the final approval to go through, so don’t panic at the wait. You should sign up now, because you probably will not hate the whole entire thing, but the only way to be sure is to register and then go look when the time comes and see. FYI it is for everyone of all skill and experience levels.

Oh and hey, in fixing 50% of the typos in take #3.5, I was reminded that Tollefsen fans should note the new article up at Public Discourse, “Mandates and Bad Law“.

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The spiders reminds me of a true story, which if I’ve told you before you are going to hush and not spoil it for the people who want to read the second half next week:

When we first built the green castle, that summer Ev would not play in her little kitchen in the basement. She kept telling us, “I’m afraid of the bad spiders,” and she wouldn’t go into it. Eventually we got around to investigating. And then we were glad she’d held her ground on refusing to associate with the bad spiders, because it turned out they were . . .

3.5 Time Outs: Feminine Genius

Thanks once again to our host Larry D. at Acts of the Apostasy, without whom Tuesdays would be so . . . different.

I don’t see an official announcement yet, so I won’t spill the beans on the details, but I’ve been instructed to spend the next month or two pondering the word women. I can’t decide if I was the intentional choice for that one, or just lucky. There are so many seriously-girlesque-with-hearts-on-top ladies out there in the Catholic blogosphere, and here I am, feeling pretty fashionable when I’ve got on a new black t-shirt and jeans instead of an old black t-shirt and jeans. Then again, I am not the only Catholic homeschooling mom at my parish who played rugby in college.

But anyway, it’s got me thinking about that word. Okay I’m familiar with the biological details, but what, exactly, is it that makes girls different enough to get their own apostolic letter?

Ladies, will somebody please tell Larry the secret code for getting all those cute little post-it-notes above his frog? Dorian? Hallie? Fulwilinator? Anyone? Anyone? Please? He’ll never even own half of Tuesday, if that frog keeps hiding away his linkfest inside the frog cave. Maybe someone should check with Mrs. D. to confirm he’s in good standing and can be admitted to auxiliary membership.

UPDATE: Larry says you get what you pay for. Not his fault he’d rather spend his cash on the worthy Mrs. D. Masculine genius, right there. I’m with it.

Internet Valentines:

At CWG, Karina Fabian applies the bacon analogy to the new non-compromise. If you like her post, she asks you to please share it around.

Also hidden in the CWG Monday line-up (yes, I am personally responsible for the post pile-on, go ahead, flog me), Ellen Gable Hrkach tells you the cold hard truth about the work required to succeed at self-publishing. Now you know what it is traditional publishers have been doing all these years.

And super-bonus: Today we have an actual Valentine-themed post. Ordinarily Kathryn writes on third Tuesdays, but I bumped her up a week when I saw what she had planned.

I think the similarity of color-schemes between the CWG blog and the Vatican website is coincidental. Only Ann Lewis knows for sure. Has anyone noticed whether she’s got the Vatican-spy secret decoder ring?

If you know someone who takes that last question seriously, you need a dose of masculine genius:

Perfect valentine for your budding junior apologist. Nothing like a good argument with a lunatic to really make an adolescent boy enjoy religion.

Free girl-book, today only: My friend’s mom Christine Bush has her kindle romance Cowboy Boots on sale today for Valentine’s Day. Free download. I haven’t read it yet, but thought it was worth a look at that price.

From my inbox: The Catholic Company is offering 14% off all orders today only, use coupon code LOVE14 during checkout. Timely if you owe your godchildren across-country some good Lenten reading. I imagine there are other discounts to be had today, feel free to share your info in the combox.

3.5

Sursum Corda? I saw it on a Confederate battle flag. SC’s 7th Batallion. The full motto is Sursum Corda – Quid Non Pro Patria? on a field of blue with a cross made of stars in the center. It was made by the Ursuline nuns in Columbia. Very cool detail: metal sequins on the stars.

If you go [no visit to the Inferno is complete without a quick stroll right past the inner door to the State Museum and on to the end of the hall where the good exhibits hide], call ahead and arrange a tour with the curator for education, Joe Long. He isn’t Catholic, but ask him to tell you his St. Anthony story. It’s a classic.

Dehydrated Water - SC Confederate Relic Room — The only kind of water that ever, ever, touches the single malt my Valentine sent me.

7 Quick Takes: People, Places, Things

7 Quick Takes Post-It Notes — Click to see more takes at Betty's place.

Until yesterday, I had no idea — zero — about the history of shipping orphaned British children to the colonies to work as indentured servants. I did know about the American orphan trains, thanks to the picture book on the subject.

You can read about the British Home Children at Rose McCormick-Brandon’s site, The Promise of Home.

This week we met the governor’s dog, Simba. I can’t find an image for you, but if you book a (free) tour of the SC Governor’s Mansion, the odds are in your favor. (We also caught sight of the first gentleman, but he saw the tour group through the window and slipped around to a back entrance.)

This is my new favorite historic building tour for kids, because it is a real live occupied home. Which means nothing is roped off, and you are allowed to touch things. Mostly the kids did not touch things, because they have sense and know better than to put their fingers on somebody’s dishes or plop down on the living room couch. The downstairs area that you tour looks exactly like your grandmother’s formal living room that even your mom isn’t allowed to go into without permission. So you put on living room manners.

But the tour guide did have us all pull out dining room chairs to inspect the deer-hoof carving on the feet of the chairs. If you poured out a bottle of SC Concentrate, that building is what you’d get.

After a jumbled first-round of Sacrament of Confession last week, I re-booted and had a much better second half. Helped that we had laid the groundwork the week before; also that I revised the study guide so that the students didn’t have to copy so much off the board.

My trusty teenage assistant was out sick last week. Lucky for him, we didn’t do 10,000 Gun Questions until this week. He agreed, it is a very fun class.

I’m still only halfway through writing report cards for Q2. Quarter break is almost over. Need to crank the rest out and mail off a couple quarters worth of grades and work samples to Kolbe. Not something that Kolbe requires (unless you want a transcript from them), nor that is a legal requirement for us. But I am finding that it helps me teach better, if I have that extra grown-up looking over my shoulder.

My daughter (the Bun – #3 child) loves beanie-snaps. She’s having some for breakfast-dessert. These:

#4 would eat sour cream exclusively if we let her.

Pray for Allie Hathaway. Also for the repose of the soul of Fr. Robert Fix.

3.5 Time Outs: Sursum Corda

Thanks once again to our host Larry D. at Acts of the Apostasy, who, I am sorry to learn, does not like leftovers for breakfast. Read the whole tragic childhood tale by clicking the photo:

You’ll never guess where I saw the words Sursum Corda last Friday, when I was busy not getting my seven takes up on time for that other person.

***

Also I learned later in the day: Though “Sursum Corda” sure sounds like the name of a papal encyclical, it isn’t.

Which means: I gave somebody a little bit of wrong information. Nuts. But I also gave a lot of correct information. For example, you would have found it in this book – p. xxvii. And others like it.

But you know, if you google the words Sursum Corda + Pope Benedict, you get a lot of hits. Is it my fault I spend too much time on the Internet reading this stuff until it becomes one giant jumble of confused trivia? Wait, don’t answer that.

You may have noticed that adolescent boys don’t necessarily google these same topics. Which is why I have begun a massive print propaganda campaign, in which I subscribe to the publications I think my child should read, then leave them on the bathroom counter for him to discover when he’s hiding from his math homework.

Might I add that Catholic Answers, Envoy, OSV and The Register run some seriously good articles? It is as if all the stuff you read for free online is not the very best of contemporary Catholic writing, and that there is value to be had in paying writers for their work. I never guessed.

3.5

So your hints for the solution to #1 are:

A.) The Inferno.

B.) In which city you can still see this guy’s house:

C. ) And this hat. Which causes me to pun horribly every time I see 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:

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.

By the same artist:

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?”

The Unbelievability of Sexual Abuse

[Note: I’ve changed minor details below in order to respect the privacy of the people involved. Also, this is a sensitive topic. Please skip this post if you suspect it may distress you.]

In light of the recent Penn State sex abuse scandals, Mark Shea wrote an excellent piece about Betrayal and the Power of Relationship, and Mary Graw Leary on Sexual Abuse and Moral Indifference. I agree with both. But I want to add one other observation:

Sexual abuse is very difficult to believe.

I once read about a woman who had murdered her school-age child. The neighbors were all quoted as saying “they couldn’t believe it,” she was, “Such a good mother.” They pointed to her diligence in making sure the child brushed his teeth — small things that showed her humanity and her visible love for her child. Whom she murdered.

Sin is like this. It is a corruption of something very, very good. Think of the devastation of a natural disaster — even after the land is ruined, there is still evidence of what once was. We see the few good and beautiful things that are left. We look for them.

It is a rare human (I have not met one) who is so consumed by sin that not a shred of goodness remains. And because sin prefers darkness, we all put our good parts forward, and conceal the rest. The more shameful the sin, the more diligently we cover it.

Sexual abuse violates something so sacred, so private and personal, that of course we want it hidden. Even the victim wants it hidden — that is, though of course wanting justice, does not want this very painful and intimate wound put out for the world to gawk at.

Because it is such a shocking violation of the one thing that should never be violated, it is difficult even for the victim to believe in it. Violent stranger rape? Yes, that is undeniable. But the subtle, groping hand of the pervert making his first tentative reach? It is easy to dismiss the internal shudder, the instinctive recoiling, as an over-reaction, perhaps a misinterpretation of a harmless gesture. The molester certainly wants it perceived that way.

I once had to review the background check of a creepy guy. You would not like this guy. Inappropriate comments, inability to hold down a steady job, lousy hair, a thousand clues that added up to one thing: Run a background check. I gave it a 75% chance he had a record. I didn’t know what — bad checks maybe? — but I knew it was likely we’d find something.

What we found was this: Lewd acts with a minor.

And it was hard to believe. Here was an obnoxious, unpleasant, barely-literate and sometimes-delusional jerk, but you know, he was also a nice guy. Held doors for people out of genuine consideration. Kept his work area neat and clean out of personal pride. Would do small kind things for others, expecting and wanting nothing in return. Original sin and personal sin corrupt, but they do not completely destroy all that is good and pure in a man.

I could have believed bad checks. I could have believed armed robbery. But lewd acts? Really?

Most of us understand greed, selfishness, foul temper, impulsiveness, desperation. We are tempted to pass our smallish 13-year-old off as two years younger, in order to get the child discount. Though we would never rob a bank, we can connect the dots and understand that a poorly-instructed man might fall into that temptation.

But sexual perversion is not a sin we understand so easily. That a man would hop in bed with a grown woman? Certainly. But not with a child. It is unthinkable. Men who have no qualms about murder, or robbery, or arson, instinctively and violently lash out against the fellow prisoner who is guilty of sexually harming a child.

How could you do that? It is like a lightning on a clear day, or a hurricane in a desert. We cannot believe it. It is utterly foreign to all that we know.

The abuser knows this. And so keeps it very, very hidden.

If someone had come to the officials at Penn State and said, “We believe the coach is embezzling,” or “Someone saw him doing crack in the men’s room,” there would have been an investigation. Reluctant, perhaps. But it happens — great men can be tempted in these ways. We understand it.

But sodomizing a young boy? It is easier to believe in a false accusation. That, after all, is motivated by jealousy or revenge or greed, emotions we all can understand. It is easier to believe my creepy, seedy colleague was victim of a viciously slanderous ex, than to believe he molested a child. How much more difficult to believe someone so polished, so successful, so good and kind on such a grand scale, could do something so vile?

Our culture doesn’t believe much in either sin nor forgiveness. Out of a desire to do what we like, we re-categorize sinful acts, calling them innocent so that we might indulge ourselves. Out of fear of condemnation, we justify yet more, giving them particular names that explain our extenuating circumstances. The person who questions immoral actions is the villain — called a prude, puritan, pharisee, or hypocrite — whatever can be made to fit.

How can we believe in unbelievable sins? We have to first believe in the smaller ones. And then we have to forgive — not excuse — those sins. Good, kind, lovable people do evil things. Cultivating a heart of mercy and forgiveness is the only way bring ourselves to be willing to see that evil.

God with us.

As good an Advent post as you could want:

I don’t know how to tell her that my soul is thirsty for these words I’m speaking to her. Hungry for the kind of words you can write down on paper but starving for the Word that became flesh and walked this wounded planet. I need to know He’s here. I need to know He’s in this. That He’s near to all of us who are broken. That he’s near to those who can’t seem to find the good in what He’s doing. That He’s near to the people who want to quit, who have counted the cost and are asking for their money back. That He’s near to people who are struggling to trust Him. Are you near to all of this, God?

Read the whole story of Marie Lourdes, Mrs. Hendrick, and a good father probably murdered at Sit A Spell, “When Hope Happens”.

Love you cannot feel.

SuperHusband was out of town the other night, so about nine o’clock he phoned. When he is home, at nine we put everything away, and then talk to each other until ten. It takes about half an hour of steady effort for a conversation to really get going, but most nights it is hard to go to bed at ten, because we are enjoying each other’s company.

The phone is not this way. We each give a quick summary of our day, discuss any topics that require spousal input, and then that’s it. Like a business call. Only with two tired people who already did enough business that day.

“I love you,” he says.

“I love you,” I say.

And then we hang up.

And I thought to myself as I put down the phone, “Really? Do we love each other?”

We say it automatically. Maybe when he said it to me, he was feeling all warm and fond and grateful inside. Doubtful. But possible. I was feeling tired and distant and still a trace irritable from my lousy mood the day before.

It is like water, the answer came immediately. Like warm water.

When you stick your hand in warm water, you notice it. Before, cold. After, warm. Ahh, you say. So nice.

After a while, you don’t feel it any more. The water is still warm, but now so are you. If you were to pull yourself out, you would suddenly feel very cold. But while you are in, you don’t notice the warm. You don’t notice anything. It’s just where your hand is.

To be swimming in love. Love so reliable, so steady, you can’t even feel it anymore. Happy.

Kolbe update, week 5

We just started week 5, thought I’d give a little report on how things are going. Re-cap: This is our first year using Kolbe. 6th and 4th grader are enrolled, and mostly following the plan with a couple substitutions. 2nd grader and kindergartener continue to do the home-grown, relaxed-schooling thing.

Overall Impression: Very happy with the decision. On a day like today (evil dictator felled by an evil-er cold), wow it is SO MUCH BETTER having the plans ready-to-go. Oh I know, it is so easy to make your own course plans. Oh, I know, it only takes a few minutes to type them up each week. But wow, being able to growl at a child and say, “Where are you in your homework?” is even easier.

–> Without ready-made, day-by-day plans, two big kids would definitely still be on the relaxed-schooling plan, which I really love for the little guys, but is not the ideal choice for our older kids. Way too many disruptions in the school year so far (exhibit A: evil dictator with evil cold), no way I could have held together a formal curriculum if it relied 100% on my willpower alone.

Some comments on specific subjects:

Latin: Mr. Boy is doing the first year of New Missal Latin. I like it pretty well. Like the kolbe-published supplemental resources. Will say this: In my opinion, the teaching parent needs to either have a smattering of Latin under the belt, or be ready to learn-along. Having already done the intro to classical Latin in previous years, these first few weeks have been largely review for Boy & myself, and yes that is very nice. Now is not my time to be learning a new language. No really. Sometimes it is not that time.

(Remind me also I have some other comments on this particular Latin program and the pro’s and con’s. For a post another day.)

Grammar: No shock here, I’m one of ten people in the known universe who actually likes Voyages in English. So far, no difficulties. Definitely if you haven’t diagrammed sentences before, you want the intro to diagramming booklet as a supplement.

Composition: I failed to observe that there is a separate composition book for 6th grade in addition to the vocabulary and grammar books. Kolbe plans call for one assignment a week from that book. I’d already maxed out the book budget. So I typed up 36 composition assignments for the Boy, and stuck those in his plan book. Conveniently, 6th graders do not use the composition portion of VOE, so I borrowed from there.

Spelling / Vocabulary: The kids hate this. Lot of work. I keep reminding them that a good PSAT / SAT score is worth cold hard cash. They get that. We’ve used Spelling Power in the past, and have good results with using that study method for studying the words missed on the pre-test. The whole amount of Kolbe-assigned words is a lot, though. And we’ve had a couple weeks with enough disruptions that I couldn’t keep up my end on this one through the whole week. We just move on to the next week, rather than piling up.

Word Study: Oh, yeah, and word study. Gee these children get a LOT of language arts. They tell me this one is easy (MCP Plaid). It is also good for them. Happy there. Decided this was one workbook the kids could write their answers in, would be a royal pain to have to do the assignments on a separate page.

Geography: Lovin’ the geography books. Short, easy assignments, genuinely useful map skills. Makes me happy.

Religion: Of course I like it (Faith & Life), I was already using it anyway. This is the other activity book I let the kids write in. Pretty happy with the addition of the St. J’s Balt. Catechisms as well, serious retro power going on there. My DRE also likes the program. She’s experimenting with one section of F&L for 8th grade CCD this year. (Rest of us are using our same Loyola Press books from previous years. Which are fine. But I’d still make my kids do F&L at home.)

Science: Not a demanding program, which works for me. We skip the Monday “investigation” every week, so far there hasn’t been one worth the hassle. Also, I have the workbooks but the course plans don’t call for them, and both kids have decided we are happier not doing them. I’m good with having them do just the textbook reading and review questions, and they can unschool any other science they desire. I like that balance. [Recall: Two real microscopes in my living room. Engineer at the dinner table every night. Unschooling science is a viable option.]

Literature: Um, where are the study questions? Apparently they are in some other place than the course plans. I guess a Kolbe booklet I was supposed to buy? For the uninitiated: You acquire the book you are studying — White Fang and Misty of Chincoteague to start, for us — and then the course plans give you chapter reading assignments and a weekly short essay to write, book report at the end. And those plans also mention these “study questions” and “vocabulary” and stuff. But they aren’t in the plans. And no, I can’t be bothered to go look back at the Kolbe catalog, nor to post a question on the Kolbe forums. Because, um, my magic pen of you-don’t-have-to-do-this works great! I just cross out assignments! We love it!

–> As a result: I let the girl take her final exam open-book and open-dictionary (Misty only takes 5 weeks), since it would be requiring her to have memorized study questions she’d never seen. Flipped around the final week course plans to have her do the exam first and write the book report second.

Math: Not using Saxon. Nothing against it. We’re just still happy with Math-U-See, didn’t see a reason to switch when that was already working.

History: Recall everyone’s doing Rome this year, which would ordinarily be the 5th grade course. Very happy both with using the program as written for Mr. Boy, and subbing in History Pockets for the first two quarters for the girl. Not much else to say. The Kolbe-recommended course is very good. And one of my children really needed to meet Ancient Rome in a perkier manner.

[But yes, I had to pick up a library book on the Aztecs, because HP fails to mention the, er, human sacrifice, those amazing wonderful ancient Aztecs were practicing during the European renaissance. Yeah, I’m a western culture snob. Facts are facts. I vote for the no-live-beating-human-hearts-in-the-hands-of-the-priest every time. Give me self-flagellating, slightly sore-backed penitents over flayed-alive sacrificial victims any day.]

Funny story though: We’re planning to go see our local Roman legion when they gather not so far from us in November. Except the girls only want to go if they get to dress up. So a certain growing 4th grader is going to be let loose with some discount linen between now and then. Luckily the rest of us already own passable garb that still fits.

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