Category: links elsewhere

Invalid Salad – Real Sacraments, Fake Sacraments, Illegal Sacraments

My latest at AmazingCatechists.com: “Invalid or Illicit? Keeping Straight the Sacraments,” in which I have more fun than I ought, talking about my favorite, rhyming way to keep track of whether a sacrament is illicit, invalid, neither, or both.

What I owe the world is a post about the fabulous Ela Milewsak and the National Initiative for Adolescent Catechesis.  That’s coming, soonish, along with an overdue book review (two here, one there), the end of the Kolbe series, all kinds of stuff.  But this other fun topic came up in conversation this morning, and I couldn’t help myself.  Invalid salad.  I just love to say it out loud.

3.5 Time Outs: Awestruck

Thanks once again to our host, Larry D. at Acts of the Apostasy.

Click and be amazed.

1.

This week I learned that someone was in awe of me. I advised her to seek counseling.

Not actually.  I did tell her she has a vivid imagination. That explanation makes it a reasonable mistake – imagine you knew me only on the internet, and furthermore had seen pictures of my home when it wasn’t that terribly terribly out of control — it could happen.  You’d be deluded.  But an honest mistake.

2.

I saw the most amazing floors this weekend.  Clean.  You’re chuckling now, thinking you’ve seen such a thing before.  No.  Quite possibly you have not. I hadn’t. These were VERY VERY clean floors.  They shined.  They were smooth underfoot.  No tiny grains of sand (of course we removed our shoes at the door).  No coarse edges.  No lint.  No crayons.  Clean.  And my daughter who babysits for this family reports these floors are always this clean.  Always.

Now to my knowledge, this family has no cleaning help.  They do have a new baby, a preschool boy of the usual energy level of preschool boys, and a homeschooled rising kindergartner.  Yes, this family does crafts.  Yes, this family eats dinner.  Yes, the children are home all day. And no, the mom is not a powerhouse of non-stop energy.  She is just a very, very, clean person.

This is what she loves.  I think she spends as many minutes cleaning as I spend writing, and as many minutes decluttering as I spend reading, and those two facts explain her home, my home, and our respective literary outputs.

Other than that, we’re both normal people.

3.

Now if you have spent an evening in one of these homes, it is truly a marvel.  It was relaxed and comfortable — the furniture was simple and unpretentious, the food was home-cooking, the children chased each other in loops through the kitchen, changed into 70 different dress-up outfits (actually just three, rotated), and there was the rhythmic thud of a boy jumping off his toddler slide onto a pile of cushions into what would have been the dining room, if these were the sort of people who were interested in impressing rather than welcoming.

Instead it was just luxurious.  So clean.  So peaceful (to someone used to preschoolers). Plus: Jello-Whip Cream Salad, green.  And I did marvel.  Wow.  God made a person who loves cleaning this much.  It is truly a work of art.  A gift to the world, however small and humble.

But because I’ve known Mrs. E all these years, I wasn’t intimidated.  She’s a normal person who happens to have this one gift.

So that was great, and now I remind myself when I’m intimidated by someone, that it’s because I’m only seeing some small side, and not the whole picture. And when I’m unimpressed by someone — same story.  You know there’s another side that tells much more.  Just have to dig for it.

3.5

Chickens.  Just two.  Strictly as pets.

Pets you can eat.

***

Well that’s all for today.  Tuesday is Link Day for all topics, help yourself if you are so inclined.   Post as many as you want, but only one per comment or the spam dragon will eat you up and I’ll never even know.  Have a great week!

3.5 Time Outs: No Time Out

Thanks once again to our host Larry D. at Acts of the Apostasy, who has earned your sympathy this week..

1.

People have stopped asking when we’ll be done with school. The answer is: Never.

At the beginning of the school year, it sounds great when you say, “We’ll take breaks during the year, but it means we’ll have to go longer into the summer. ”  This is, after all, one of our big reasons for homeschooling.  The weather is better September through May.  But come mid-May, even people in my own home start saying, “We’re almost finished with school for the year, right?”

No.  We are not.

Calendar says we’ll finish at the end of June, giving us six weeks break before starting back, which is all I could stand anyway.  At the beginning of Q4 I gave two big kids a checklist of everything they needed to finish, and specified that although they had to do Math and Grammar every day, they could do the other subjects in whatever order they liked, but they were chained to the desk until everything was done.

This did not cause fairies to come replace my children with super-diligent, homework-completing robots.

2.

So I predict we’ll be done with almost everything by early July, and certain sore topics by . . . much later.  SOME children might be sitting NEXT TO the pool doing homework, while other children swim IN the pool.  I’m not shouting.  I am not shouting. I. AM. NOT. SHOUTING.

Totally happy homeschool mom here.  Oh yes.  No irony whatsoever when my 10-year-old armchair physician says, “I think we all have ADD.”

Yeah.  Just maybe.

But it really is easier to do school after all the school-year activities have ended.  Much easier.

 

3.

Why is it I do all my school planning on a day after a very productive school day?  Causing me to write up plans I know will overwhelm us.  It’s like packing.  I should put everything in the box, leave it for a week, and then come back and take out half.

3.5

Speaking of ADD . . . we’re getting a new species of pets.  Come mid-July, we’ll have to have built housing for . . .

***

Well that’s all for today. I’m having one of those, “Is it really Tuesday? ^&*%$” days.  Return to substantial topics coming . . . oh I don’t know when.

Tuesday is Link Day for all topics, shouting and fake curse words not necessary.  Help yourself if you are so inclined.   Post as many as you want, but only one per comment or the spam dragon will eat you up and I’ll never even know.  Have a great week!

Soldiers Breastfeeding in Public

UPDATE: In the combox, Larry L. explains the mysteries of military rules that civilians tend to miss.  This story explains it well:

Reference on uniforms and the idea of changing clothes…. True story and a friendlier than most of my military stories…. During lunch I run down to the bank to deposit some cash(in uniform). I get stopped walking into the bank.(navy federal) and get told I am not allowed to go into a civilian location in working uniform. I go back to my ship and no kidding…. you are not allowed to wear your working uniform anywhere but to military locations. If stopping to get a soda at the local 7-11 you can’t do it in “working” uniform. “Dress” uniform perfectly allowed though.

Thanks, Larry L.  Makes perfect sense.  In that special military way.

***

Original Post:

Since I was so pointed in my criticism of  Time Magazine’s pornesque breastfeeding cover photo, I wanted to observe that this photo that showed up in Yahoo news this morning is just a plain old breastfeeding photo, nothing to get freaked out about.  The mom with twins is not so discreet,  which I don’t care for.  I wouldn’t stick it on a billboard, any more than I’d post a mom doing wholesome mom things but wearing a dress or swim suit with similar amounts of cleavage showing.

(I would put that picture in a brochure for new mothers, which would be an appropriate place for a little technical instruction.  I’ve noticed in the past that sometimes formula companies will issue “breastfeeding guides” in which the explanations and images of breastfeeding positions are so uncomfortable and impractical that if you tried them, you’d be sure to give up and switch to formula.)

–> Even for nursing in public, I am far more inclined to give a pass to the breastfeeding mom-o-twins than any of the other 10,000 utterly avoidable situations where women not feeding children decide to create a temptation for hungry babies everywhere.  On that day when every other woman in the US manages to cover it up?  We can have a talk with the moms of multiples about whether there’s a more discrete way to do the one thing those breasts were actually made to do.

Bad journalism in an effort to stir up controversy:

“Also forbidden while in uniform: eating, drinking, . . .”

Er . . . no.  I imagine they meant to say something that was true.  But they didn’t.  Maybe, if I read the whole sentence and guess about how it’s punctuated, what they mean is “eating while walking” and “drinking while walking”.  Maybe?

Anyhow, I’m not military and so my thoughts on what soldiers do in uniform counts for very little, except that sheesh, yes, mothers need to feed their children.  If you’re going to have soldiers who are mothers of babies and toddlers, this is all part of the package.

Breastfeeding your baby is not some optional thing that ought to be saved for leisure hours.  It’s the normal way of feeding a baby.  It’s wonderful that safe, healthy alternatives exist for moms who can’t do it the usual way.  But it would be mighty bizarre to insist that every mother do the artificial work-around to solve a non-existent problem, just because someone’s got it in their head that normal isn’t normal.

3.5 Time Outs: Busy Beavers

Thanks once again to our host Larry D. at Acts of the Apostasy, who is also taking it easy today.  Post-holiday light blogging.  But scroll down he’s got some interesting stuff there — Where is the Daddy War? caught my attention.  I’ll come back to serious topics a different week.

Click and be amazed.

1.

This morning I emerged from the bedroom, and found an assortment of children in PJ’s huddled around Sesame Street.  Not surprising.  An odd collection of blankets and pillows and trash paper spread about the coffee table.  Not surprising.  My five-year-old sitting there with paper in her mouth.  *That*  I had never seen before.

2.

“Why do you have paper in your mouth?” I inquired.

“We’re beavers.”

Ah.  Beaver teeth. I had heard rumors of bunny teeth being made last week; after a weekend playing at the river, beaver teeth is the next logical thing.

I looked again at the coffee table.  Everything covering the table was brown.  Around it on the floor?  Blue. And the bits of crumpled up tissue paper were either rocks or whitewater, depending on who you ask.  The kindergartener crawled over to a length of 4″ PVC pipe with a green t-shirt top, made a buzzing noise as she chewed with her paper beaver teeth, and felled the tree.  They only have one tree to chew, so they re-erect it after each meal.

3.

This is why I homeschool*.  Because every now and then I can borrow Rocky Mountain Beaver Pond from the library, and all the kids abandon their regular school work in order to watch, even though they saw it already when they were in K5 or 1st or 2nd grade and in theory the big guys should find it boring by now, but they don’t.

And then instead of telling thirty kids, “Make a diorama about Beavers,” my kids build a live-action diorama in the living room when I thought they were just goofing off being edu-tained.

3.5

What is the proper place for the pink bunny and the purple hippos and the real live family cat, in a living room Beaver pond?  The negotiations are fascinating.

 

***

Well that’s all for today.   I’m catching up on the plugged-in life after the long weekend, so be patient with me as I work through the inbox.  I noticed over at CWG there’s a nice set of Memorial Day posts from today on back through Saturday, go take a look.

Tuesday is Link Day for all topics, not beavers only.  Help yourself if you are so inclined.   Post as many as you want, but only one per comment or the spam dragon will eat you up and I’ll never even know.  Have a great week!

 

*Other people have more impressive reasons for their educational choices.  But seriously.  I’m in it for the beaver pond.

About that picnic . . .

From the blog that’s Memorial Day all century long:

Early last week I got an e-mail from one of the Veterans Collaborative coordinators asking if I would be willing to speak to the staff of  her agency about Memorial Day.  One of their missions is to support military families and she had been surprised and a little horrified to find that many of her colleagues did not know the meaning of Memorial Day.

Read the whole post here.  And subscribe.  There’s always something excellent chez Lee Ann.

By Andrew Bossi (Own work) [CC BY-SA 2.5], via Wikimedia Commons

World Communication Day & Promote Catholicism Day, part 2

Time for part 2 of the  Catholic media fest:

Then, on Thursday, May 24, please share the fruit of that day of prayer and silence with everyone, by posting your answer to the question: “What in Catholic Media has had an impact on me during the past year?” Share it on the New Evangelizers website at: http://newevangelizers.com/forums/topic/catholic-media-promotion-day-2012/

Half of you may have noticed, my efforts at internet silence were not so successful.  So this will be fruit-of-the-noise as well.

1.  Have I mentioned how much I love the printing press?

I’ve got an old version of one of these guys, not the hardback, and the spine’s peeling away.  I think most of my friends who do book repair are also solidly anti-Catholic, which makes it awkward to ask for advice.

2. SuperHusband swears by the iBreviary. It is indeed super cool.  I mean, yes, wow.  But I still prefer paper.

3. Review Books.  Yesterday in my failure to sit on my hands, I stumbled on RAnn’s list of Top Ten Sources for Review Books.  My current title from The Catholic Company is Benedict of Bavaria.  I picked it because that little voice told me I should, and my brain informed me that it was time I made myself read something substantial for a change, and this looked like it.  Ha!  I love being wrong.

“Substantial” is my code word for “thick” and “slog through long paragraphs written by people who need to get re-acquainted with the period key, and also not use the word ontological quite so much”.  Not so.  Eminentally readable, and super interesting — quite the departure from my usual association of Pope Topics = Too Smart for Me.  I love the printing press.  Love it.

4. Local Catholic Bookstores.  OSV Weekly has this cute little sidebar about “How to Read More.”  It’s like telling someone on a diet How to Eat More.  No, really, I read enough already.  If the meat thing doesn’t work out, Not Reading is my most painful alternate penance.

But the pleasure of the review programs sponsored by the big guys is that a) It supports the bookstores who provide for those who don’t have local bookstores b) sometimes I find a great book my local store doesn’t know about, and then I can pass it on, and c) I still have my book money left to spend with the local guys.

Support your local Catholic bookstore.  If you don’t have one, and your parish has a spare coat closet they can spare, consider starting one.  Nothing beats being able to browse in person, especially for kids.

5. A great book my local bookstore is about to find out about.  One of the tremendous pleasures of Catholic New Media has been getting to know other writers online.  Which is how I ended up with the announcement of this book in my inbox yesterday:

I can’t wait to the see the inside.

Another great moment in New Media e-mails yesterday . . . Julie Davis let me look at a sneak preview of a project she’s working on.  That’s all I can say right now.  But listen: There is a super-awesome, unbelievably gorgeous book in the works.  When the time comes, I will so tell the world it’s gonna be sort of annoying.  If your name is SuperMother-in-Law, I’m getting you one for Christmas.  (Not this Christmas.  You have to wait until it meets the printing press, which is still a ways off.)  With my own money.

6.  And that’s something I love about the Catholic new media: Catholic writers being able to connect with one another and collaborate on projects.  Writers in general can be a little paranoid.  What if someone else writes my book before I do?  In the Catholic world, yes that fear can be there.  But when your mission is  to evangelize, most of all there’s a tremendous sense of relief: Thank goodness someone wrote that book so I don’t have to.

When you’re still in that long aspiring-writer time of life, with 10,000 book ideas swirling in your head and a powerful desire to write them all, you don’t feel that way so much.  But once you actually go to write a whole book and make it see light of day, and you’ve gotten past the about the 4th draft of a completed manuscript, and discover how much work is required to write anything halfway decent . . . yeah, please.  Thank you all seventy-bazillion Catholic writers for being on the job.  You are so desperately needed.

7.  Um, there’s not much money in it.   Just so you know.  But listen, accounting is a great.  Engineering?  Janitorial work?  Lots of ways to support that writing habit.  And it’s all Catholic.

***

When I was first staying home to raise kids, I’d listen to Focus on the Family, and there was often mention of the incredible loneliness of the stay-at-home mom.  The internet has eased that isolation, especially for those of us introverts who would rather read and write than chit-chat at one of those mingle-y things.

Whenever you get to know somebody, no matter how, you only get to know part of them.  You never know the whole person. And at first, you only know a very small slice of the person.  The internet is only different in which slice you meet.

I love, LOVE, having a way to meet people from the inside out.  To not be distracted by their clothes or their accent or their weird habits or lack of weird habits.  To cut out the small talk and go straight to the issues . . . it takes so long at Donut Hour to find someone willing and able to hold a substantial conversation.  I love small blogs because you can have real conversation.  Yes, I’m like a moth to flame, leaving comments at Jen Fulwiler’s and Simcha’s and Msgr. Pope’s blogs.  But I always go to Darwin’s personal site, and not The American Catholic, because it’s small enough you can actually exchange ideas, and not just shout to the stadium.

So to you who write only very small blogs, let me say THANK YOU.   The big guys are doing an important work, and I’m grateful for them.  But small blogs fill a spot no one else can fill.  Keep going.

***

Also I beg you.  If it is at all within your power, please change your blog settings to allow the “subscribe to comments” feature.  Thank you.

Don’t Tread On Us

So our federal government’s gone and gotten all totalitarians-in-training on us.  Enjoy using what amendments we’ve still got left:

Feeling shy?  Freedom’s not just for Catholics!  The whole point of religious freedom is that you get to choose whether and how to practice your faith.  Is it really so important that your employer set aside money for birth control only, instead of giving you the same amount of cash into a general-use health care savings fund?  (Or just cash, if you run libertarian.)   We all love to see a ‘win’ for our own cause.  But regardless of where you stand on contraception, healthcare, or organized religion, the Bill of Rights just rocks.  Defend it now.

World Communication Day & Promote Catholicism Day

Via Sarah R. via Lisa Hendey via I’m not sure who, but I finally got the memo.  How to join in the annual Catholic new media blog-love-a-thon:

This year, in keeping with the theme of Pope Benedict XVI’s message for World Communications Day 2012 — Silence and Word: Path of Evangelization — we’re asking you to do something different.

On Wednesday, May 23, we’re asking you to take a one-day break from posting on blogs, Facebook, Twitter, Google +, Pinterest, etc… and use that day to reflect on the Pope’s words about the role of silence in communication and evangelization.

Then, on Thursday, May 24, please share the fruit of that day of prayer and silence with everyone, by posting your answer to the question: “What in Catholic Media has had an impact on me during the past year?” Share it on the New Evangelizers website at: http://newevangelizers.com/forums/topic/catholic-media-promotion-day-2012/

Because I totally needed an excuse to:

a) not post anything

and

b) write about the Catholic Media.

You too, huh?