When I’m praying the 4th glorious mystery of the rosary, that’s what I think about. Mary entirely entrusting herself to the will of God. At the hour of our death, we all be come childlike — our fate entirely in the hands of the Lord, whether we intended it or not. You really cannot enter the kingdom of Heaven any other way. Scientific fact.
But before that? Eh. Not so easy.
One of the surreal side effects of trusting in God, is knowing that in the middle of the something miserable, we can look forward with hope, and in my case, curiosity, towards the future. How’s He going to sort this one out? But surreal, because the miserable is still, you know, valley of tears.
***
All of y’all need to get yourself to Mass today, because it’s an HDO. And I know sometimes that’s not possible, or it’s possible but it’s not easy, or you honestly forget, because you didn’t goof off on the proper internet sites in time . . . so many different opportunities for offering up the disappointments or frustrations of a double-glorious day. And if you’re looking for a cause towards which to direct your prayers . . . I could use a few. Thanks.
I almost wasn’t going to post today, but the awesomenity of Larry D. at Acts of the Apostasy convinced me.
Click and be amazed.
1.
When someone makes you feel like crawling into a hole? It’s really nice to have other people for friends. Thank you, friendly people, for being out there.
2.
We’ve guessed all summer that there was a hummingbird’s nest in our apple tree, because Mrs. Hummingbird has been especially aggressive about chasing off birds that get to close to her portion of the tree. The little guy has started coming out now, and here’s the funny bit: He sits down to drink.
3.
<insert your item here>. We’re going to Chik-Fil-A.
3.5
Book department update: Good news, hopefully to be announced this time next week?
***
And with that, I’m back to regular life. I’ll keep y’all in my prayers, and I’m trying to work through my blogging backlog in addition to doing all the other stuff I need to do, so look for me to pop in with this or that, time permitting. Have a great week!
(And yes, you can post links. I am, by the way, reading comments. Oh, about once a week, but I am. And trying to reply as well.)
Since the arrival of the chickens, I’ve been noticing how much better we understand the English language now that we have two hens in our yard. So here’s the discovery today: Our chickens, who are indeed chicken when it comes to many things, managed to scare away the cat. Because apparently, in addition to being catty (which we knew – ouch), she’s also a fraidy-cat. I guess that tells you how to rank your insults, when measuring cowardice.
3.
I already knew, before Sunday, that Brandon who writes at Siris is the smartest guy I read. (I only read him some of the time — he exceeds me mightily more often than I like.)
But so, here’s the thing, and I’m not sure how bloggable this is, because I don’t want to embarrass too many philosophers in one day, or alienate real-life friends . . . I had a different philosopher tell me this, and I paraphrase: “I noticed sometimes you link to Brandon’s blog. He’s the smartest guy I know. He teaches at this community college, and he doesn’t publish except on his blog . . . and he’s the smartest philosopher out there.”
Book department update: I’m editing like a crazy person trying to make my book deadline AND be happy with the final product. Meanwhile, this morning at Mass the reading was about Peter walking on water, and not walking on water, and yeah, just what I needed. Pleasantly surprised later this afternoon when good things happened exactly where I was afraid everything was going to fall through.
(Um — even though it didn’t matter? I have special nervousness powers. But you know, the thought of trying something and failing? It’s daunting. It is.)
In defense of Peter: Neither chickens nor cats would’ve gotten out of the boat to begin with.
***
And with that, I’m back to regular life. I’ll keep y’all in my prayers, and I’m trying to work through my blogging backlog in addition to doing all the other stuff I need to do, so look for me to pop in with this or that, time permitting. Have a great week!
(And yes, you can post links. I am, by the way, reading comments. Oh, about once a week, but I am. And trying to reply as well.)
So one of the reasons I’m so crazy busy right now is because of the Catholic Writers Conference coming up at the end of the month. So I was going to write one thing about that, but it’s that day, so I’m going to see if there are seven.
1. The one thing: If you are going to be in Arlington, TX the week of August 27 – September 1st and you read here, please find me and say hello? I’m sorta shy and I can’t keep names or faces straight, and also I stink at small talk. (Teaching? No problem. Public Speaking? No problem. It’s thinking up random things to say when nobody has any questions I need to answer, that’s what kills me.)
So what you do is you look for the Catholic Writers Guild people, and you ask around until you find me (I’ll be volunteering, so there will be someone who can find me), and then you say:
“Hi Jen, I’m _[it doesn’t matter too much what you say here, so you could make something up — really a functional description is better than a name, you know?]__, and I read your blog. And now since you stink at small talk, I’ve thought up some things to say, or else I have some questions, or else look, I see you rented your daughter’s camera, maybe someone could take our picture with it [I am NOT photogenic — you want the other Jen F. for that, but she has a long line, you know?].”
Or you could say:
“I’m just as introverted and lousy at small talk as you are. Maybe even worse. How about if we just stand near each other?”
That would be great. Anyway, I really do like meeting people. I remember people. Not their names, and not their faces, but them. Because you know, you aren’t your name or your face, you’re you. You have this whole story. And I do remember that. Totally. And I love to hear it. So if you’re in Texas when I’m in Texas, find me.
2. You know how bad I am at that whole face-recognition thing? I was reading Why Students Don’t Like School by David Daniel Wallingham, and there was this picture of a set of identical twins to illustrate some point. And I thought: Those are twins? Really? They just look like these two guys. I guess they’re the same-looking. Or not. I dunno.
Useful book, though.
3. So, Texas. I’m going. I give up, I’m not making seven this week. Back to work. Have a great weekend!
Oh wait, look, we haven’t prayed for Allie Hathaway in a long time. Give her #’s 4 and 5, and her dad 6 & 7. That worked. Thanks!
Thanks once again to our host, Larry D. at Acts of the Apostasy, who has not kicked me off his minion-list despite my poor attendance.
Click and be amazed.
1.
Please keep Sandra L. of this combox in your prayers today. She has a super-miserable tough day today, and it won’t be an easy week either.
2.
Please pray for the strength and consolation for a friend’s sister-in-law, who is very close to death, and for all her family. They’ve moved up a planned wedding of one of the children to this weekend, in the hopes the mom will be able to attend before she dies.
3.
<Insert your intention here.> I know there are plenty of other needs out there.
3.5
Still need prayers on the writing front. Whatever God wants is AOK with me. But knowing what that is and being sure it happens? Pray! Thank you.
***
And with that, I’m back to regular life. I’ll keep y’all in my prayers, and I’m trying to work through my blogging backlog in addition to doing all the other stuff I need to do, so look for me to pop in with this or that, time permitting. Have a great week!
(And yes, you can post links. I am, by the way, reading comments. Oh, about once a week, but I am. And trying to reply as well.)
Of course you’ll pray for Allie Hathaway. And click for more quick takes at conversiondiary.com.
I spoke with a longtime friend yesterday – a grown man, forty-something, never sheltered, long acquainted with death and suffering, life and hard work, and also kind, intelligent, and spiritually pulled together. He was distraught. His mom had died.
1. Death is not natural. People who say “death is natural” are full of baloney. It is normal, in that it happens to most everybody. But it isn’t natural. We aren’t made for death. We are made for eternal life. Every death is an insult to our very nature. A tearing apart of something that was never meant to be torn.
2. We never love as well as we would like. It impossible. There are too many people to love, and we are so limited by time and space and our own human weakness. It is physically impossible to call enough, to hug enough, to help enough, to smile enough — it cannot be done. When someone we love dies, it will nearly always come at a time when we wish we could have done more.
3. The rupture of death leaves raw, open ends. We humans are created to live in time. Living in time means change and growth and processes that start now and end later. Death interrupts. We were about to call, going to visit, starting to forgive, just remembering the birthday we forgot . . . when death leaps in and steals the chance to finish the work we had started, however imperfectly, however incompletely. It is impossible, because it is contrary to our very nature as creatures living in time, to live each day, each minute, with every work finished, every relationship complete.
4. Agonizing over the work left undone is a shoddy plot device. In cheap fiction, lazy writers build drama around the “if-only’s”, as if there were some merit in pretending to have super-human powers, and then flagellating yourself for failing to use them. Yes, examine your conscience. Yes, repent. Yes, move forward. Yes, start anew. But don’t build a shrine to your own imperfection.
5. You can miss the sinner without missing the sin. Humans — loveable, loved, wonderfully complex, maddenly flawed — can be so, so, obnoxious. And sometimes much worse. It is possible, normal, to grieve the loss of a parent or close kinsman who was a brutal, oppressive tyrant. But for many of us, by the grace of God, the one we love was only very annoying, and not all the time. We would defend to the death the honor of someone who, in life, we studiously avoided at crucial moments.
It is okay to both weep openly for the loss of a relative, and also be relieved you can now post your vacation pictures on Facebook without being asked, “Why didn’t you invite me? And what’s wrong with Dayton for a family vacation? Pick up the phone!”
6. Distance changes grief. When you are the one bearing the exhausting physical and emotional work of caring for, or overseeing the care of, the dying person, day after never ending day, death is different. When you are immersed in the horrifying physical agony of your loved one’s never ending suffering, death is different. It comes as a release. At least she can be happy now. At least he is free of his affliction.
When you are far away, or when death comes too soon and too suddenly, you do not love less. But you grieve differently. You are not the one crushed in the winepress, begging for mercy however terrible. You are the one who is hungry for more of the life you remember, the part of life that still feels possible, because you have not been flooded with misery until all hope has been washed from your imagination.
These are two sides of the same hope. When life offers nothing, we finally set our sights on eternal life. When we find ourselves hating the taunt of eternal life, because we still have some shred of joy here on earth? It is a testament to reality. We are not made for death and separation. We are not meant to have to imagine a world of happiness, we are meant to live in it.
7. Jesus wept. If anyone was certain of Heaven, Jesus was. If anyone, on the day Lazarus died, had reason to hope, it was our Lord. He held in his hands the power to raise Lazarus to earthly life and to eternal life, and he knew he would do both. It is not a mark of insufficient faith if we mourn the death of someone we love. It is not short-sightedness, or an unhealthy attachment to earthly pleasure, if we are troubled at the end of life on earth. There is no special merit in putting on a big smile and singing happy-clappy songs, as if the mark of true faith were an inability to feel pain. Do we hope? Yes. Is joy inadmissible in the face of death? By no means.
To be a carpenter is one way to live out the calling to be fully human in our work. Making sure there’s enough wine for the wedding is one way to be fully human in our concern for others. They are not the only ways. But they are important models. Left to our own flights of fancy, we might decide building houses or throwing parties was somehow too earthly to be a spiritual work. We might admire the way this great theologian or that austere hermit set aside all earthly concerns and seemed to live only for heaven, and suspect that those whose lives were more immersed in earthly realities are the second-rate Christians. As if to be fully human is to fail to notice the very earth on which humans were placed from the beginning.
Not so, says He who gave us this world. I made it good. Every rip, every flaw, every sorrow that mars a once-perfect world? Our Lord grieves. We are not alone.
An internet friend pointed me to Ova Ova, a fertility awareness site.
It’s sleek, modern, and explains the basics of NFP. In addition to the usual caution that FAM is secular-feminist amoral NFP with all the completely different set of issues that surround that world (and much that is good and true as well), let me also say quite vigorously . . .
2.
Please do not use condoms during your fertile time.
3.
Unless you’re trying to conceive, that is. Recall that 100% of condom failures occur during that one week of your cycle when you are actually fertile. Which means the condom effectiveness rates are massively overstated — 75% of the time, the condom isn’t doing anything at all, it’s just a decoration.
I completely understand that couples who don’t have moral objections to NFP might be tempted to use a condom during the non-fertile time of FAM, as “back-up”. Sure, whatever, this is not the place to lay into someone who’s willing to try NFP, or something like it, but is not 100% on board.
But listen: When you know you’re fertile, if you have a serious reason to avoid? Avoid. Maybe you could watch cable or something. Not that channel. A different one. Or how about hard physical labor? And separate bedrooms states. That works great.
4.
Okay, backing up a decade or three and completely changing topic, my daughter loves PrincessHairstyles.com. The YouTube channel is hair4myprincess. Given too much time on the internet, very little competition for the hall bathroom, and two younger sisters as willing victims, a girl can get pretty good at this stuff.
Weirdly, although this is the same child who is also the junior photographer, I can find no pictures of her handiwork on the PC. Sorry.
5.
I’ve got a couple of trips planned this summer, including the Catholic Writer’s Guild conference, where of course I’ll want to take lots of photos.
Small hitch: I own no camera.
Ellen Gable, Sarah Reinhard, and an empty space waiting for . . .
Solution: I’m renting the 10 y.o.’s camera – 25 cents a day. It’s a good deal all around. I need a few lessons in how to use it first.
6.
Don’t forget to pray for Allie Hathaway. Thanks!
7.1
I am so tempted to just leave the review for le Papillon here from last week. It doesn’t seem to be generating sufficient enthusiasm, so I persist in my mission. Here’s the picture to remind you that you should watch this film next time you get the chance:
7.2
Back on Tuesday (aka: Man Day), I posted part two of my Teen Boys and Chastity Bleg. If you are visiting here from Conversion Diary, might I ask you to take a look? You might know a gentleman who has a few ideas to add.
7.3
The difference between Catholic blogs and Evangelical blogs is not the statues or the rosaries. It’s the liquor*. If you didn’t see it already, visit Darwin’s Give That Woman a Drink. You can count on the Darwins for good Catholic drinking posts. My grandmother always had an old fashioned at the family get-togethers. Now I know what’s in them.
*Kids: Drunkeness is a sin. So is disobeying legitimate civil authorities.
This morning I woke to the sound of the septic guy’s truck rumbling outside my bedroom window. I started to panic — they weren’t supposed to be here until next week, and I still needed to move some plants out of their way. Then I realized it was just the tank-emptying guys, not the installing-new-drain-fields guys, and I relaxed. But I quick put on yard clothes and went out to investigate anyways.
2.
And learned that the drain field guys would be arriving in twenty minutes.
3.
The drain field guys helped me get the last of the plants out of the ground. Thankfully it’s been wet all week. Now I’ve got homeless plants sitting in bins in my back yard, waiting for me to decide where to put them.
4.
The most interesting thing was watching the septic guys dispose of trash. The trench for the drain field is about six feet deep. They lay the drain pipes, and big columns of mesh-wrapped packing peanuts that are the new gravel of the septic world. And then anything that needs to be thrown away — shrink wrap, tin cans, old pipe dug up in the process of cutting the new field — they just toss it in the trench.
My sense of order was disturbed, but I reminded myself that if not here, then these items would just be hauled off to be buried in some other patch of earth. Jon pointed out that you would not want to touch the old drain lines — better to just let the backhoe nudge them back underground.
5.
It is really cool watching a skilled backhoe operator work in a tight space.
6.
Don’t forget to pray for Allie Hathaway. Thanks!
7.
Le Papillon is a mighty good movie. It’s French, very French, but no humans die and it has a happy ending. (It does have the obligatory smoking scene.) Beautifully rendered, the language is artful and the English subtitles do it justice. My five-year-old has watched it more than once, and she doesn’t seem to mind not knowing the words. The seven-year-old minds – but she needs to practice her reading anyhow.
Helpful film for the French student because the dialog is spare but covers lots of good language-learning territory. Advanced students will appreciate the word play and the chance to learn a few interesting idioms. Head’s up, the film ranges over a number of touchy subjects (abortion, mental illness, honesty, fit parenting, the Final Judgement, etc.), so parental presence is called for. You wouldn’t want to miss this anyways. Excellent film. I could watch it three times in a week.
Thanks once again to our host Larry D. at Acts of the Apostasy, who is nothing if not good for Death Star-themed humor.
TV is my friend.
1.
SuperHusband took the relatively healthy contingent to the family reunion [Bethune Homesteaders spared infection — castle residents went straight to our ancestral family’s farm, Curley family kept safe] and I stayed home with the weekend’s victims. Got a lot of writing done, that’s nice. But look, Barbecue!
2.
Having spent a weekend holed up in quarantine with an iPod, the Boy returned to the land of the living in order to show me this:
3.
And also this:
3.5
Not half a take, but themed on the halves: You’ll be pleased to know that while I learn slowly, I do eventually learn. Monday I promised my would-be publisher I could have the manuscript on the new, expanded, book-length version of the catechist booklet done by June 30th — and assured her that I what meant was “I plan to have it done by the 15th, so there’s two weeks of padding in there.” Which I felt pretty good about saying, because I know I could get it done by the 1st.
See? Take the estimated time to completion and double it — twice. My operations management professor would be so proud.
Curiously, in checking those dates for the writing of this post, I accidentally set my computer’s clock ahead to June 29th. Don’t worry, I put it back.
***
PS: Link day. Help yourself if you are so inclined. Though I can’t imagine there’s anything on the internet to top Barbecue-Zombie-Stormtrooper Day. 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.
Thanks once again to our host Larry D. at Acts of the Apostasy, who’s got a time machine of his own going on this week.
One day is like 30 years, 30 years is like one day.
1.
I finished reading Eric Sammons’ new book, and hey, it’s pretty good. A lot good, in fact, and a review is forthcoming. But today let me caution you: There’s a humility component to this holiness business.
Exhibit A:
Why do my renewed efforts at holiness always coincide with the arrival of a nasty evil throat-lung-stomach virus in our home? Doesn’t our Lord know I have important holiness work to do?
Exhibit B:
Why does a resolution to be more Therese-like and offer up little annoyances for some general heavenly purpose get transformed into:
1. A multiplication of petty annoyances, and a sudden intolerance for them?
2. A friend suddenly coming down with a horrid affliction (probable bone cancer — femur — please pray for Mrs. P) for which to offer all these things?
3. Thus destroying any sense of virtue I might have otherwise relished, and instead leaving me with a crotchety personality and the knowledge of just how petty it is?
So don’t say I didn’t warn you. Good book otherwise, though. Great book.
2.
I’m going to Dallas!!!!!!! Yes, all those exclamation points truly are needed. Because look, it’s like a giant crack convention:
A. The Catholic Writer’s Conference, which means meeting in person all the people I get to work with on the CWG blog, which really is that exciting because when you get to know these people . . . you want to get to know these people.
C. And then in case I just wanted to be near the superstars of Catholic internet, there’s the Catholic New Media Conference right there as well.
Quadruple bonus: I double-checked the back cover of my copy of Happy Catholic, and sure enough, Julie Davis lives in Dallas. It says so right there. (I knew it was some place in Texas, but I can never keep Dallas and Houston straight, except to know that confusing the two means wow, a lot of driving time.) So maybe, just maybe, I’ll get to live out my dream of one day buying the woman a cup of coffee. Or something.
3.
So here’s the thing: What’s the etiquette on bringing books to be signed at these events? Because I don’t think I can carry that many books to Texas, and yet it would pain me, just pain me, to miss my chance to get some autographs. I’m so conflicted.
3.5
Because I met the guy — that’s why. Neat person.
***
PS: Link day. 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.
PPS: Thus far I myself appear to be spared the evil thing — I thought I was coming down with it last night, but this morning I’m good. So here’s your mission: Imagine you’ve already finished praying for Mrs. P and your other serious concerns . . . Would you consider offering up a little prayer for our family, that my other dream of seeing the Bethune Catholic homestead is not thwarted by more plague later in the week? I so want to go. I pass the place every non-plague year on the way to the family reunion, and I totally want to get a child to bake some brownies, and a different child to pack some airsoft guns, and stop in for an hour or two. Goodness I might even mix up the brownies myself.
I was about to ask that we’d also be miraculously able to attend religious ed tonight (last night of the year), but #2 came staggering into the study with glazed eyes and feverish misery, so I don’t think the virtue of prudence will let us get away with that, even if there were miraculous recoveries in the next six hours.
