7 Quick Takes

--1--

Recently Sophie's been very... well, two. It's especially evident in the matter of getting dressed. The way it used to work was I took clothes out of the drawer and put them on her and then she was dressed. I might have had to chase her a bit and then wrangle her a bit like a cowboy roping a calf; but that could be fun and games if I let it.

Now though. I pull a little pink shirt out of the drawer and she starts screaming: "No! I don't like it." I don't want to be mean mommy, I don't want to be unreasonable so I pull out a different shirt, a purple striped one. More screaming, this time the volume is perhaps tuned up a notch. In this way we work ourselves through the entire drawer full of shirts and then I finally give up because I realize she's not being reasonable. So I pick a shirt and then I hold her down, kicking and screaming while I put it on her writhing body. As I do so I calmly explain that if she had wanted a different shirt, she could have picked one. After I release her, she pulls at the shirt for a minute, trying to take it off. Then she forgets it was ever unwanted and goes about her day.

Oh yes and I have to repeat this whole process for the pants too.


--2--

That's why I was so thrilled yesterday morning when the dressing of Sophia occurred without any interference from me while I was nursing Ben.

For some reason Bella decided she wanted to get Sophie dressed. She picked out a cute yellow sundress and matching bloomers (which when she's not being 2 Sophie loves because she calls them her "underwear"). Then Bella somehow managed to help Sophie put on both the bloomers and the dress. The process wasn't pretty; Bella doesn't yet have any finesse. But it was a heck of a lot calmer than if I'd been trying it. Not a single tear or raised voice.

I guess all that dressing and undressing dollies has finally paid off.


--3--

Of course today Sophie decided to not be so very contrary. Instead after she'd pulled off her pajamas and spent the requisite amount of time running about in just her diaper, she decided that she absolutely had to have the "Pooh shirt".

I was making oatmeal for Ben and myself at the time so I sort of ignored the request, thinking that she wanted me to find the shirt that goes on her Pooh doll. Finally, though, she became so insistent... I want the Pooh shirt.... I want the Pooh shirt.... I want the Pooh shirt.... a constant whine, that Dom stepped in. He was able to determine that she wanted to wear a shirt with Pooh on it. She was unable or unwilling to go and find said shirt in her drawer. So I gave in and went to help her out. I knew Dom didn't stand a chance in trying to find the right one because she doesn't actually have a shirt with Pooh on it, mind you. But she does have one with a teddy bear on it. In Sophie's world all bears are called Pooh.

So I found the shirt and she was so thrilled and I put it on her with no problems. She was so happy that she didn't even kick up a fuss about the black corduroys.


--4--

It looks like today it's going to be all about Sophie.

Another thing that's been changing recently is nap time. We had got into a routine where I would hold her on my lap and read two or three or four picture books to her and then I'd move her to her crib and read another book and then I'd sing to her until she fell asleep. Which didn't take more than about five minutes tops.

Then out of the blue it wasn't working anymore. Just getting her to sit in my lap for the stories was a struggle. And so was transferring her to the crib. And then when I tried to sing she'd either whine, rejecting song after favorite previously-beloved song, or else she'd start to sing along. Suddenly she no longer wanted the Butterfly Song or Amazing Grace. For about a week I was able to sing her the Litany of the the Blessed Virgin in Latin from a little devotional rosary pamphlet that we'd picked up somewhere. Latin chant is nice and soothing and she couldn't sing along. Then one day that wasn't working either.

So finally I hit upon Pooh. My old standby from when Bella was two. The stories are interesting enough that she will usually stop flailing about in her crib and listen calmly. And they are long enough with complex enough sentences that they eventually lull her to sleep.

I've missed my afternoons with Pooh and Piglet and Owl and Rabbit and Kanga and Roo and Tigger and Christopher Robin oh and don't forget Eeyore. Milne really is one of my favorite authors. His stories are so clever, so full of little funny things that adults will get but that aren't made at the expense of the child. His sentences are elegant and his vocabulary is simple and sophisticated in turn, the perfect balance that neither talks down to the child nor talks over his head.

Yes, I'm happy to be back wandering through the Hundred Acre Wood, hunkering down at Pooh Corner and dropping in for a little something at Rabbit's house. I hope this trend lasts a little longer and not just because I don't know where to turn next if she stops falling asleep to Pooh.


--5--

After lunch we took a short walk around the block. I was sort of hoping Ben and Sophie might just fall asleep in the stroller and make my life easier. But no go.

As I returned from putting the stroller back in the van, I saw my three beautiful children framed in the doorway, a lovely little vignette. Of course by the time I'd stepped over them into the living room, fetched my camera, and stepped back outside, the perfect moment was gone. But I snapped a few shots anyway.



You can see Ben's crushed face as he realizes I'm not picking him up.

Bella asks, "What are you doing, mommy?"

Sophie, Sophie is clearly ready for a nap; but I'm too busy snapping photos to herd her to her room. I'm going to regret that in a bit.


--6--



Then Ben's distracted as Bella gets up and wanders off into the yard in the middle of the photo shoot, leaving her shoes behind for him to play with.

Sophie is still looking glazed.


--7--



Finally, Ben's distracted by taking off his socks. I think that's a smile and not a fuss.

By the way, that's the 'Pooh shirt" that Sophie's wearing. Can you make out the little bear? She loves it.


That's all I've got today. I thought I had more quick takes; but I can't remember what they were. So I cheated and spread # 5 our to fill up #6 and #7. You don't mind, though, do you? Because really they rest of them are probably too long anyway.


Visit the ever-fabulous Jennifer at Conversion Diary for more quick takes.

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Join Me?

Charlotte has asked for specific prayers tomorrow (Friday) at 8 am (CST).

May God continue to strengthen Charlotte and help her during this difficult time.

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Prayers

Tonight my heart is breaking for dear Charlotte, grieving the loss of a little one known all-too briefly.

And yet, as Charlotte reminds us, God is good all the time, in good times and in bad, in sorrow and in joy.

Charlotte, you and your family are in our hearts and in our prayers. May God send you abundant consolations as you mourn your little Izzy.

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Sophie's Got Braids!

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Dandelion Days, Mama's Helpers

Today Bella picked these beautiful flowers for "Hail Mary".


Bella helped me make my bed this morning. And you know she actually was helpful. She stood across the bed from me and tugged at the sheets and the blankets, pulling them into reasonable straightness. Then when it was done she and Sophie carried the dirty sheets to the laundry room and put them into the washing machine for me.


Bella's new fascination is with learning how to fold the laundry. A couple of weeks ago she called out to me to watch as she folded her doll blanket and neatly rolled it up-- just like I roll the bath towels: "Look what I can do!"

Since then she is getting pretty good at folding towels and washcloths and even managed a couple of pairs of pajama pants. She sat with me as I folded laundry and helped me fold and was pleasant company and though the work didn't really go any faster, still she tried. Then she and Sophie both helped me put away the folded laundry.

And then after that they helped to put away the clean dishes from the dishwasher. I couldn't believe how quickly the dishes got done with two little helping hands! I handle the glasses and the ceramic plates and bowls while they do all of their plastic plates and bowls, all of the plastic food containers and lids, and all of the utensils except the knives.

After dinner Bella and Sophie both cleared their dishes away and put them in the sink. Then they helped me pick up the living room and tidy their bedroom. They both put their dirty clothes in the hamper. How nice to have a (reasonably) neat house when I come out from tucking them into their beds!



Bella said this is a picture of dandelions.


They can both fetch diapers and other small objects and Bella can go fill up a sippy cup from the Britta if I take the lid off for her. She can even carry a full cup across the house without spilling it (usually).

Bella can go to the bathroom with no help and even remembers to wash her hands, flush the toilet and turn off the light.

One day last week I'd taken the hand towel out of the bathroom to wash it and had been distracted before I could hang a new one in its place. Later when I went into the bathroom I was surprised to see a fresh towel hanging on the rack. Turns out Bella got it out and hung it up on her own initiative. (No one else was home except me and the kids.)

Another day I was nursing Ben after breakfast and Bella decided she was still hungry. She served herself a bowl of oatmeal from a pot on the stove top and then served Sophie some too. She didn't even make a mess!

Today Bella pushed Ben on the swing (while I watched to make sure she didn't push too hard.) Oh it gladdened my heart to hear them both laughing and laughing at each other. Ben just adores his big sisters and they fawn over him.

Sophie is really becoming a little singer. Even though Bella has lost a bit of interest in saying prayers with me and singing the Regina Coeli, Sophie has stepped up to take her place. Oh joy to start singing and then hear her little voice joining in.

I am glimpsing the future and it is a beautiful thing. Working with my sweet daughters by my side.





Every table should have a dandelion centerpiece!

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Nazareth

In a book I was reading for Lent, Journey to Easter: Spiritual Reflections for the Lenten Season, a retreat that then-Cardinal Ratzinger gave to Pope John Paul II and the members of the Roman Curia at the beginning of Lent in 1983, our current Holy Father argues that the renewal of the Church is in the hidden, humble heart of the family at Nazareth not in the halls of power.

In fact, to work with Jesus the worker, to plunge oneself into "Nazareth," became the starting point for a new idea of the Church, poor and humble, a family Church, a Nazareth Church.

Nazareth has a permanent message for the Church. The new covenant did not begin in the Temple, nor on the Holy Mount, but in the Virgin's humble dwelling, in a worker's home, in an out-of-the-way place in "Galilee of the Gentiles" from which no one expected any good to come. The Church has always to start again from here, begin healing from here. She cannot give the right response to the revolt of our century against the power of riches if Nazareth does not remain in her as a lived reality.

I've been meditating on that passage, thinking of how insignificant Mary and Joseph and Jesus must have looked to their friends and family in those hidden years. Who could have guessed that in that humble home was the turning point of the history of the world? Jesus, God who came to dwell among us, chose to spend most of his time on earth not in public ministry but in a family.





Recently I saw someone argue that the family-- specifically the domestic church-- is to the modern age what the monasteries were in the Middle Ages, protecting the small seeds of what will later spring up to be a renewal of culture. I like that image. The idea that what we mothers do in our homes, small and hidden and unvalued by much of the wider world, is the last, best hope for the future. (Ah, I just found the link to the blog post at The Common Room, which didn't actually use the words "domestic church" that was evidently my own interpolation.)

Certainly motherhood and public life are not mutually exclusive when one looks at the entire span of a lifetime. Both before and after these hidden years there is much scope for women to do good work in the world. However, I think that especially during my children's earliest years they need me to be as fully present to them here in the home as I can possibly be. Moreover, I believe I do more for the world at large by performing all the myriad small acts of love and self-sacrifice that being fully present to them entails.

These children have been entrusted to me, not to anyone else. No one can do the job of raising them better than I can because no one can do it with the sort of love I have for them. If I paid someone to take my place, I would be buying a poor substitute. What job in the world could I possibly be doing that would be so important that it could make that trade-off make sense? I can't think of a single one.

But it's more than that. It's hard to articulate what I glimpse of the profound significance of what I'm doing here. I am merely a steward faithfully carrying out the charge that has been given to me. But I believe in God's eyes this is one of the most important tasks he metes out. Tending to these immortal souls, raising up, hopefully, with His help, saints.

Is it possible the cultural revolution begins here with breastfeeding and changing diapers and cooing in small babies' ears and holding them close, teaching them the meaning of safety and home and love? Can this hidden sacrifice change the Church? Change the world? I'm betting my life on it.

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Divine Mercy and the Clerical Sexual Abuse Scandal

Recently I was on Facebook engaging in several discussions about the clergy sexual abuse scandal. I tend to avoid writing about that kind of controversial topic here. In my mind I've always relegated that kind of discussion to Dom's blog. Though he doesn't currently write about such things, when we first met he did and I would often jump in to the conversation but it was the kind of thing I didn't want to bleed over into this space.

Then when I was recounting one of my Facebook discussions to Dom, I had an insight that I did want to record here. I'm hoping not to open too much of a can of worms but I did want to put this idea out there to see what other people might think.

To contextualize, I'd been discussing this Newsweek article that argues that priests seem to abuse at the same rate as everyone else. A friend argued that the outrage wasn't so much over the fact that priests committed abuse as over the attempts to hide the abuse. And yet it also seems to me that cover ups also happen in the Church no more than they do in any other institution. Which isn't to say that it isn't still a scandal and an outrage and that the Church shouldn't be held to a higher standard.

But to take it a step further, it occurred to me that one can view the exposure of both the abuse and the cover-ups as a result of the grace of God working in his Church. Give me a second and follow my reasoning.

It is human nature both that sexual sin happens and that those in power will attempt to hide those sins because they are in denial, or from a sense of shame or in an attempt to protect themselves or in a misguided attempt to protect the institution. No organization in which adults have authority over children will be free from the plague of sexual abuse. It happens in churches of all denominations, in secular schools, in families. And yet I can think of no institution in which the extent of the abuse and the cover up has been so completely exposed to so much outcry and media attention and which has as a result undertaken self-examination and reform. The same Newsweek story points out that hard numbers of the rates of abuse are only available for the Catholic Church because the Catholic Church is the only institution which has undertaken such a study.

The Church is the Body of Christ and it is a wounded body. And yet the recent attention to the extent of the sexual abuse is to my mind nothing but a blessing. For the only way we can begin to heal is if we first acknowledge that there is indeed a problem. Only then can we beg Christ the physician to heal His Church. Surely the recent outcry is a sign that his Spirit is already at work pouring the healing balm of his grace on those exposed wounds.

As if to confirm that I am on the right track here's what Pope Benedict said on April 15 in a homily during a Mass with members of the Pontifical Biblical Commission:

"I must say that we Christians, even in recent times, have often avoided the word 'penance,' which seemed too harsh to us. Now, under the attacks of the world that speaks to us of our sins, we see that being able to do penance is a grace."

[. . .]

"We see how it is necessary to do penance, that is, to recognize what is mistaken in our life,"

[. . .]

The pope said Christians know that "to open oneself to forgiveness, to prepare oneself for forgiveness, to allow oneself to be transformed, the pain of penance -- that is to say of purification and of transformation -- this pain is grace, because it is renewal, and it is the work of divine mercy."

[. . .]

The promise of eternal life is also the reason why it is a grace to be able to recognize one's sins, perform penance, ask pardon and know that God will bring forgiveness and healing, Pope Benedict said.

(See full CNS story here.)

What do you think?

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Book Notes: Just Finished, Currently Reading, and to Be Read

Just finished:


Bel Canto by Ann Patchett -- A Japanese businessman is lured to a birthday party in an unnamed Latin American country by the promise of a guest appearance by his favorite opera singer. The country hopes his company will be convinced to establish a factory there. But things go tragically awry as the entire party are captured by terrorists, hoping to capture the president of the country, who skipped the party in favor of staying home to watch his favorite soap opera. The standoff between the terrorists and the government troops last for more than four months, during which time a group of hostages and terrorists are confined to the grounds of the Vice President's house. Classic Stockholm Syndrome as lines are blurred. Music creates unexpected relationships among the terrorists and hostages.

Could Mr. Hosokawa say [. . .] that this was the happiest time in his life? Surely that could not be the case. He was being held against his will in a country he did not know and every day he found himself looking down the barrel of some child's gun. He was living on a diet of tough meat sandwiches and soda pop, sleeping in a room with more than fifty men, and although there were irregular privileges at the washing machine, he was thinking of asking the Vice President if he could kindly extend to him a second pair of underwear from his own bureau. Then why this sudden sense of lightness, this great affection for everyone?

I found the ending most unsatisfying and wish I was still in contact with the friend (a colleague at Salem State) who originally recommended it years ago so I could talk about it with her.


Prince of Thieves: A Novel by Chuck Hogan -- A mystery-thriller follows four young thieves in Charlestown, MA, then-capitol of armored car robberies.

This book also has an unsatisfying ending. Unsatisfying in rather the same way. Really, how can a book that makes you feel sympathy with criminals end except unsatisfactorily? If justice is to be served, they must receive their reward; but because they are sympathetic, you are secretly rooting for them to get away with it.

I mainly liked this book for all the local color. The detailed descriptions of Charlestown, where I once held a summer temp job; the cinema heist at the Braintree cinema next door to Dom's current office.

Interesting aside: I was curious about the author, assumed he must be local with all the detail. So I looked him up. The official author bio was very scant of information; but I found this article from the Canton Citizen. Turns out Chuck Hogan went to high school with Dom. More, they were both Sharks in the same production of West Side Story.



Currently reading:


Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner. -- I'm supposed to be reading this for my book club. I'm not making any progress. Faulkner isn't agreeing with me right now and I can't quite bring myself to care enough to make an effort. Not with so many other books calling my name. I was hoping a support group would help pull me through; but it doesn't seem to be happening right now.


Of a Feather: A Brief History of American Birding by Scott Weidensaul -- I'm only a few pages in; but it's fascinating. I didn't used to be the kind of person who read non-fiction. And now, well, I stayed up too late last night reading this book. I found this was as hard to put down as any novel. The little bits of bird trivia, the fascinating characters.


Sex au Naturel: What It Is and Why It's Good for Your Marriage by Patrick Coffin -- Yes, Dom is mentioned in the acknowledgments). Dom read an early chapter of the book back when we were dating. I read it over his shoulder too. (Patrick is a friend of his from Steubenville.)

This is a great short exposition of the Catholic teachings on sexuality. It's approachable, humorous but doesn't dumb it down. He also does a great job of explaining why it's important at all.

"For Catholic teaching against birth control asks that one be willing, when the occasion warrants, to keep in check one of the most imperious, at times unruly, appetites within the human person-- the sexual urge. Our culture routinely fails to differentiate sex from love, as if the former were the sole, infallible proof of the latter."

I'm competing with both Dom and Tree for this book, so I've only got a few chapters in.


Godly Play by Jerome Berryman. Berryman is a Protestant minister who studied with Sofia Cavalletti. I'm only a few chapters in; but I'll confess so far his approach to a Catechesis of the Good Shepherd-style of learning doesn't connect with me in the same way Cavaletti's does. The difference is definitely one of world-view. His is Protestant and hers is Catholic. That doesn't mean he doesn't have something to offer, however, so I'm going to push forward and read further.


The Good Shepherd and the Child: A Joyful Journey by Patricia Coulter. This rather feels like a Cliffs Notes version of The Religious Potential of the Child. Not dumbed down; but briefer. I wish I'd read this first as it provides a quick overview of the broadest concerns.


Organizing from the Inside Out, second edition: The Foolproof System For Organizing Your Home, Your Office and Your Life by Julie Morgenstern. I've found this book really engaging. Even though it's geared more toward businesses and professionals, she also addresses homemaker's concerns. She begins by helping you identify the root of your organizational problems and building up systems that will work for you. I haven't finished the book yet; but even if I never get any farther (and that's possible as the library won't let me renew it any more times) It's given me hope. It already motivated me to get started on one project.


Organizing for Your Brain Type: Finding Your Own Solution to Managing Time, Paper, and Stuff by Lanna Nakone -- This one did nothing for me at all. I didn't see myself in any of her four brain types. I didn't even finish the self test because every question left me scratching my head. I wasn't A, B, C or D. I skimmed the rest of the book and found it all equally unhelpful. I'm sure she's describing some people; just none of them is me.

Come to think of it, I feel the same way about the medieval four temperaments (choleric, sanguine, melancholic, phlegmatic). I know many people find them useful. I've never felt like I really fit into any of the categories or that they helped me understand myself or anyone else. No, I'm a Myers-Briggs kind of girl. That just makes sense to me.


GENERAL AUDIENCES: JOHN PAUL II'S THEOLOGY OF THE BODY by Pope John Paul II -- During Lent I started reading the audiences one a week on my iPod. I'm finding it much easier to read in that format than in a book. Somehow having just a small part of the text in front of me at a time makes it much easier to absorb. I haven't touched it in a few weeks; but hope to get back to it soon. This is the sort of thing that will literally take me years to get through as I can't see myself reading it at a much faster pace than the original talks were given. I think JPII was wise to break the material up into such manageable chunks, spaced at the rate of one a week. It is so very dense. My sister is also reading too and we've had some good discussions.


Introduction to the Devout Life by St Francis de Sales. Also on my iPod. This is another that I'm taking very slowly, picking up and then putting down and then picking up again.

My dad recently directed me to a later section of the book. I tend to be a bit of a perfectionist and have a hard time giving myself permission to skip around in books. But in this case that was really quite helpful.

Jennifer of Conversion Diary said this was one of those books that she didn't feel made a great impression her first time through but to which she keeps returning with new and greater insight. I hope to eventually make it through the first time because I also feel it will be good to return to.



To be read:


Microbe Hunters by Paul DeKruif -- I haven't started it yet; but glanced at the first sentence and can't wait to read.

This one and the next came in at the library at the same time as Of a Feather. Three non-fiction books that highlight the biographies of pioneers in three different biological fields. I seem to have hit on an unintentional theme. I believe I put all three on hold becasue they were recommended at various blogs. The sad thing is I probably won't be able to get through them all before they are due. This is why I am perpetually owing the library money.


The Dangerous World of Butterflies: The Startling Subculture of Criminals, Collectors, and Conservationists by Peter Laufer -- This one was recommended by Melissa Wiley. We've been on a butterfly kick round here. Bella loves butterflies and I'm running with it. This book is beyond her of course; but no reason I can't allow her passions to discover new rabbit trails for me to follow. Can't wait to get started.

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The Great Escape

Ben's been crawling for a few weeks now and has been pulling himself up to a stand on anything and everything. But he hasn't been able to sit up when he's flat on is back. Whenever he fell over he would just lay there like a little bug, kicking his arms and legs and screaming, outraged, until someone came and helped him up.

So since all he did in bed was roll around, I've left the bassinet insert in the portacrib. It makes it much easier for me to get him in and out.

Then two days ago I went in to get him up in the morning and found him sitting up. He'd finally figured it out. The same again today. Little sitting up baby, beaming at us. I should probably have then taken out the insert because if he can sit up then he can stand up. And if he can stand then he can fall out.

But I'm a slow learner.

So when I heard him squawk at the end of his nap this afternoon, I shouldn't have been completely shocked to find him crawling across the office floor. But I was.

Happy little baby boy in a white shirt and long blue sleep sack happily crawling to meet me. I'm glad he didn't hurt himself on the way down.

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mater et magistra

Speaking of winning copies of mater et magistra magazine, have you seen that Mary Ellen of the Bonny Blue House is giving away a subscription this week?

And so is Jen Mack of Wildflowers and Marbles.

To enter leave a comment by Friday April 23.

Mary Ellen has a whole slew of lovely giveaways this week. Go check out what else she's giving away.

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The Price of Choice

First, check out these absolutely amazing videos that red cardigan links to in this post


Then, I really liked the point she made in the comments:

One of the things I liked about the videos at the site above is that they show living babies in the womb. Pro-lifers argue about the effectiveness of the graphic abortion pictures, but there's nothing at all graphic about showing an amazingly tiny unborn child moving her hands or responding to a stimulus. I think that women are capable of great generosity in the face of these kinds of images, even when they are in a crisis pregnancy.

The lies about "choice" never really show what a desperate thing abortion is for some women. I've heard from some post-abortive women who said the greatest irony of the whole "choice" framing is that abortion is something you do when you don't believe or can't believe you have any other choices.

She puts her finger on exactly why I am so opposed to graphic images. They do not, cannot inspire virtue, only revulsion, shame, fear, regret. But shouldn't we seek more? Generosity, love, courage.

Christianity is not a negative message about how to get out of hell, how to escape the penalty of sin. It is a positive message of love and healing for a broken world. By only warning people of the errors of their ways, we are not showing them true love because we only offer condemnation without offering the hope of redemption.

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Undone

I've got about five quilting projects gathering dust on my sewing table. Haven't touched the machine since the end of last year when I had a brief pre-Christmas fling with a couple of quilt blocks for my virtual quilting bee. I've got more unwritten or partially written blog posts than I can count. So many books unread, emails unanswered, organizing projects half-done. And let's not even talk about the unending tasks of running a house and tending small children: laundry, cooking, dishes, shopping, cleaning, diapers....

Right now I'm feeling incomplete. If I let myself stop to think about it I might be overwhelmed by the number of unfinished things in my life.

I think it started before Ben was born. Late pregnancy, things got put off. Then there was that newborn phase. And then just when that was easing off we all caught the Thanksgiving flu and then there was Christmas. And then we went to Texas and everyone got sick and then somehow Sophie and Ben never did seem to get back on track after that. Finally they were both diagnosed with ear infections. And then that seemed to settle down and now teething has hit. Both of them. At the same time. One thing after another. I'm sure I'm forgetting a few.

Thinking about my past in academia, there is one thing I'm nostalgic for and that is finishing a semester. Everything tied up neatly. The assignments are completed... or not. The grades are turned in. All is over and done with. A clean slate ready to start over fresh the next term. Ah, bliss.

I'm always telling myself there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Soon enough I'll be able to find the time again for catching up. I'm starting to wonder who I'm fooling. Will things ever settle down and be like they were before Ben? Maybe that's just wishful thinking and I should give up on the pipe dreams and settle into making do with the new normal. Maybe there just isn't room in my life with three kids for quilting.

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Broken Beauty: Seeking an Adult Christian Aesthetic

An interesting conversation has sprung up here in Pentimento's comment box and I started to go get a bit long winded and realized I really wanted to explore the subject further here to fully explore the topic rather than feeling constrained by what would fit into her comment box. Also because I fear I am roaming a bit far afield and writing more to satisfy my own curiosity about something which is perhaps only tangentially related to Pentimento's question.

Pentimento writes:

While doing research for my book project recently, I came across an essay entitled "Wounds and Beauty" by the painter and scholar Bruce Herman. Herman suggests that the prevailing Western notion of beauty since 1750 has been an emblem of the Romantic longing for the lost Golden Age: "Beauty," he writes, "is everywhere colonized by the Romantic longing for perpetual youth." Herman posits

the possibility of a clear-eyed adult aesthetic that bears the marks of Christ's resurrected body -- marks that memorialize suffering but move beyond it to redemption, healing, and eternity. The ascended Christ still bears earthly wounds, and his new body can be treated as a starting point for a new aesthetic -- a broken beauty if you will -- and a means of working through and beyond pain to a perfection that need not participate in [Romantic] idealization.

Herman suggests that Romantic yearning is not only untenable, but unsavory, even antithetical to the Christian longing for heaven. Indeed, the thread of complete personal annihilation, certainly antagonistic to the Christian ethos, hangs heavily over the Romantic quest for a lost Golden Age. We should, Herman exhorts, long for the future in heaven, not for the past.

I replied that I'm much more satisfied by the idea that beauty = nostalgia is a legacy of the Romantics than that it's a universal idea. (In an earlier post Pentimento had recounted that a friend of hers says that all poetry is based on the premise that things used to be better than they are now, a claim I find very problematic.)

In the middle of my college career I reluctantly decided that somewhere along the line I'd fallen out of love with Romanticism. It felt like a betrayal of my former self. And yet suddenly I had no patience for the endless nostalgia, the pining for a Golden Age that never was. It felt like a big lie. And I hated to see what agonies it put my best friend through. Very unsavory indeed.

I love the idea of "a clear-eyed adult aesthetic that bears the marks of Christ's resurrected body -- marks that memorialize suffering but move beyond it to redemption, healing, and eternity."

That seems to me to be a fairly concise statement of what I've been searching for for most of the past decade. Perhaps that is at the heart of my failure as a grad student. I was in search of an adult Christian aesthetic in a department adrift in adolescent post-modern theoretical naval-gazing. I needed a clear-eyed mentor to help me realize what it was I was longing for and instead all my profs were more lost than I was.

I'll probably never return to academia. I'm definitely one of those women who welcomes being "circumscribed" by my domestic circumstances. Somehow I see much more clearly here among the sippy cups and poopy diapers than I ever did in the halls of academe.

I have found much wiser mentors and greater discussions of books and ideas here on the internet than I ever did in graduate school where it seemed like walls were thrown up in my way any time I ever started to get close to my clear-eyed aesthetic.


Pentimento asked me to recount more of my journey away from Romanticism and toward what she calls an aesthetic of Christian motherhood. I'm afraid my attempt to recount that journey from Romantic teenager to where I am now, contemplating an aesthetic of resurrection, is going to turn into a nostalgia piece (ironically) wandering through my past, revisiting my academic career. I'm going to ramble and get off track but it's hard for me to pinpoint exactly how I got to where I am now without retracing my steps. And maybe that's because her question seems to get at something I've been wanting to write about for a long time but haven't quite known how to approach: coming to terms with the utter failure that was my academic career, which died a premature death while I was completing my MA at Boston College. Strangely, it was the death of my academic pretensions that led me to the Church and my vocations as wife and mother and which ultimately has led me closer to that which I was originally seeking in academia.


First, to go back to the beginning and Romanticism. I won't linger there long but it seems to me that a Romantic aesthetic is a natural one for adolescence. Romanticism is the air she breathes and the food she eats. The teenager is in-between worlds and as much as she can't wait to be taken seriously as an adult, she still clings fiercely to the icons of her childhood. At least for me, there was a very self-conscious nostalgia. It is the task of adulthood to learn how to detach, to move on from a self-centered worldview of childhood to one that is ready to take on the sacrificial mindset that is the real hallmark of mature adulthood. But in a society where adolescence lengthens year by year, many people never make that transition.

My adolescence was certainly saturated with nostalgia. Not only did I spend much time longing for the past, in thinking about the future I always projected a me who was longing for now.

I was lucky as an undergrad to be at a small Catholic college where at least some of the professors allowed their faith to seriously inform their work. The idea of literature as redemptive and healing was one I must have come into contact with there. Certainly from Dr. Louise Cowan. (Sadly her essay, "Poetry and Therapy" is no longer online or I'd link to it here.)

I can't really pinpoint a specific turning point, just a gradual awareness of changing tastes. Certainly by my junior year I'd drifted into a strong preference for a robust Christian aesthetic. I did my major project that year on T.S. Eliot and fell in love with his later works: Ash Wednesday, The Journey of the Magi, and most of all The Four Quartets. It was an environment that somehow escaped the general skepticism and ennui that has eaten away at the heart of most English departments where most professors don't seem to believe in literature at all anymore.

Perhaps in part I was able to let go of Romanticism because my college career began with a strong dose of the ancients: The liad, The Odyssey, Prometheus Bound, The Oedipus Cycle, The Aeneid, Beowulf, The Divine Comedy, etc. Can the myth of a lost Golden Age withstand a deep immersion in the worlds of Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, and medieval Christianity? I suppose for some people it can; but for me these works were like a stiff breeze that swept away the clouds of romantic nostalgia. By the time I encountered the Romantics again in my junior year, they seemed anemic by comparison.

I knew I wanted to go on to graduate school and yet my senior year I was terribly depressed and I couldn't bear to think about the future. It was five years before I began to apply to graduate schools. Now UD has a graduate program in Literature. The only one I could find anywhere that promised to develop the kind of robust Christian criticism that I longed for. And yet somehow I balked. I'd heard too much scorn heaped on the heads of people who stayed on at their undergraduate institution for graduate studies. I was afraid of stagnating, or perhaps it was fear of failure of a sorts. Also I wanted to travel to another part of the country, escape my native Texas. All sorts of possible reasons led me to Boston College and their Irish Studies program. (And of course I can't ignore that it all led me to Salem and Dom and my vocation as wife and mother.)

At UD we'd had one course on contemporary criticism. So I'd previously encountered feminist theory and postcolonial theory and all the other methods of eisegesis. But somehow I thought they couldn't really have taken over all literary studies departments everywhere. I naively thought I could carve my own path and find a way to stay true to my inner vision of what literature is. But my real experience in graduate school was one of making one compromise after another.

It didn't take long for me to be disillusioned with Boston College. By the time I left my attempts to pull together for myself some sort of Christian grand unified theory of literature were in tatters.

First, there was the moment when my Joyce professor looked up during a discussion of Ulysses and asked if something were a Biblical reference. I remember thinking that if one is supposed to be an expert on Joyce perhaps one should have attempted to understand the Catholic faith that was such a key to his understanding of the world. That even if one isn't Christian, one should still be fairly conversant with the Christian Bible if one is going to be an expert on a literature so steeped in Catholicism as Ireland's is.

Then there was the paper I wrote on Dracula and presented to a graduate student conference. It started off with an earnest question about Van Helsing and the Eucharist. By the time it had gone through three drafts it had somehow become a paper about colonialism and the fear of miscegenation. My question had been co-opted by my professor's pet theories and I was helpless to withstand the tide of influence.

Last, there was my final project, the independent study that became my oral exam topic. I wanted to look at Catholic themes in several major Irish poets. The entire project was adrift from the moment I set forth. I didn't have a clear idea of what I was looking for and every time I tried to steer toward some fleeting glimpse of the land I was seeking, the stiff winds of my teacher's influence blew me further and further off course.

In my second year of graduate school I started going to daily Mass as often as I could. I instinctively knew the rudder I needed was there. And then in the fall of my second year at BC, Scott Hahn was invited to speak at my parish church. (Dom was the one who arranged for him to come and if that isn't a clear sign of the hand of God working in both our lives I don' t know what is.) Listening to Scott Hahn unpack the Bible was like finding a lush oasis in the midst of a desert waste at just the moment when I was about to die of thirst and heat exhaustion. It sparked a crisis of identity. What on earth was I doing reading second-rate Irish novels when there was this great and glorious treasure trove of the Word waiting to be explored? Perhaps I was in the wrong field. Maybe I should have been studying theology and not literature.

Two years later I found myself in Dom's living room as he lead our parish's young adult group in a Bible study. I found myself in the company of people who took their faith seriously.Most of all there was this very knowledgeable guy who every week helped me to dig into the scriptures in a way that fed my intellect as well as my soul. I eventually went back to the sacrament of Confession. I began teaching CCD classes. Eventually we began dating and then were engaged and finally were married. I realized that I really wasn't cut out to be a theologian but that the Bible study had revived something in my that had atrophied. During this time I studied the Bible and read works of apologetics and began to reach a mature understanding of my faith. Still, it was a leap from that intellectual love of the Word to an understanding of how to integrate all this rediscovered faith into my intellectual life. How to integrate it with literary studies?

The world of Catholic blogs began that process. There are so many intelligent Catholic bloggers out there who write about books. Slowly as I explored the Catholic blogosphere my understanding of how all of this lived faith could be integrated into the fabric of an intellectual life.


And where am I now? I'm not sure. In some ways I've given up. Or, no, I've put the search on the back burner; but I can never really give it up. But reading, for me these days reading is a completely different experience. I used to frequently spend entire days reading. Huddled in bed, draped on the couch, basking in the sun with a book in my hand. Lost in a different world. Everything else forgotten. I devoured novels in the same way I devoured boxes of chocolates, gobbled them down without thinking.

Now I can't even imagine the incredible luxury of so much time to myself. Oh if I could snatch the time I would, no doubt about it. But there are all these insistent little people with their insistent needs. I feed them and clothe them, change diapers, organize expeditions to the playground, the library, the grocery store, the pediatrician.

It's not that I don't read. I am seldom not reading at least two or three books at a time. But I read in snatches. A bit in the bathroom, a minute or two over my breakfast or lunch, a page or two snatched while nursing the baby, a few more before going to bed. I'm not sure where I find the time and yet somehow I do still read.

I don't feel like I think very clearly about what I read. All too often I'm just too tired. My thinking is clouded by hormones or exhaustion. And so if I've developed any sort of new aesthetic sense it is more a result of my daily lived experience. Somehow I've started to let go of the past. I've always been a book hoarder, compulsively saving everything I've ever read and liked. And now I am slowly letting go. Books that once seemed so dear have become dust and ashes. I no longer want to walk in those worlds.

More, there are many books that I am suddenly seeing through the eyes of a mother. Some day Isabella and Sophie will learn to read. Some day in the not to distant future they may be like me, hungrily grazing the common shelves and devouring everything in sight.

That's how I first discovered the Norton Anthologies, how I first read A Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man. I plucked them from the shelf and jumped in with no tour guide but my native wit. I don't think I understood much of Joyce at all; but I fell in love with his language on the first page and knew I'd discovered something fine and precious.

So one day Isabella may do the same. Now I look at my books, my old friends, and wonder if they will be fitting companions for my daughters. Some will stay, others will be shown the door. It isn't so hard to let them go as I would once have thought. My hope for the future of my children has conquered my romance with my past and now I can look at books with a much clearer eye.


Call this a rough draft. I'm not sure I've explained anything at all. I'm not sure any of this at all approaches an answer to Pentimento's question. Maybe it's just been necessary mental housecleaning before I can get to the real answer. Still, I have a little hunch that I'm too tired to follow right now. A suspicion that somehow this turning away from academia will lead me closer to the real questions and perhaps eventually to some answers. Motherhood, the daily struggle to die to self, to live to serve, this gets me closer to the Body of Christ, the source of the broken beauty.

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This Week in Pictures

Last weekend we started a bunch of seeds. Some tomatoes and peppers. A bunch of green leafy vegetables and some sunflowers, marigolds and nasturtiums.

Bella and Sophie both helped.









Sophie put this outfit together all by herself. She's got Bella's snow boots on with a sundress, pants, sweater, and of course the hat.





One morning I opened the curtain in the girls room and was greeted by a festival of pink flowers.

Here Bella shows Sophie the peach flowers.

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Beause It's Never too Late to Say Thanks

While googling my own name (because a friend mentioned in an email that she'd seen my name mentioned somewhere but didn't include the link.) I stumbled across this blog entry, announcing the winners of a giveaway I'd entered:

November 28’s giveaway, the one-year subscription to mater et magistra, goes to Melanie Bettinelli. (A confession: This choice was not completely random. Well, okay, not random at all. I noticed on Melanie’s blog, which she links with her comment, that she just found out she is pregnant. You all won’t mind if I direct a prize she entered to win towards her as a way of saying congratulations, would ya? Congrats, Melanie!)

Somehow at the time I missed this announcement. (Somehow... yeah it could be because I was pregnant and sick and exhausted with trying to keep up with Bella and Sophie while gestating Ben.) Anyway, I got an email from Barry at the time and was so excited to have one. I had no idea that he'd rigged the contest in my favor.

Now, sadly, Barry is no longer blogging and I have no idea if my emailed thank you will even reach him. So I wanted to just put this public thank you out there because I am very moved by his kindness and generosity.

And I should add that I am still loving my mater et magistra. The current issue is in the magazine basket in the bathroom and I am learning all sorts of fascinating things about clouds, iridescence, lesson plans that combine art and science, and Our Lady of Guadalupe.

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Good Fences Make Good Neighbors

Our neighbors whose house is directly behind ours had their fence replaced this week.

The girls spent much of Tuesday morning perched in their playhouse, staring over the back fence at the workers.

On Tuesday afternoon when they woke from their naps, the workers had moved on to the fence that divides our yard from theirs. Bella refused to go outside with those strange men in our yard.

On Wednesday morning Bella decided that maybe it was ok to sit on the back step and watch the men working.

By lunch time she was sitting with Tree at the plastic table in the yard, about six feet from the back door.

When I went to call the girls in for their naps they were sitting on the overturned plastic slide about ten feet away from the workers and the back fence and Bella was chatting with them.

An hour or so later my pumpkin muffins had come out of the oven and cooled down and I handed two of them to Bella to share with her new friends. She handed one muffin to one of the men and then sat down on her chair with the other muffin. I took a third muffin out to the second man and chatted with them for a while. They told me that Bella had been telling them about her trip to Texas.

I can't imagine what she was telling them; but she certainly gave them an earful.

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The Toy Manifesto: In which I attempt to articulate a philosophy of toys.

I know I have plenty of strong opinions about toys; but I've never really tried to spell all of them out in any sort of methodical way. Participating in this discussion about Barbie at Kate Wicker's blog has got me wanting to sort through them and give a reason for the convictions I have.

It should go without saying-- but I've got enough years logged on the internet to know it probably needs to be said anyway-- that this is just my working out and explaining what works for me. I mean no criticism of you or your tastes or your parenting if you welcome and heartily embrace any of the toys on my black list. (Just, please, don't give them to us.)





1. Natural is better. To me cloth and wood are always and everywhere preferable to plastic. I'm not sure if this is merely an aesthetic preference or if there are deeper principles that are at play. I just know I feel strongly about this and have for a long, long time.

Although I might add that with all the scares in recent years about unsafe toys from China, there does seem to be a pragmatic health component to preferring natural toys when you've got a wee one who is constantly putting everything in his mouth.

Note: This does not mean I never buy plastic toys; just that I have a strong preference. We bought Bella a plastic tea set for Christmas because I don't think the girls are ready for porcelain.





2. Handmade and unique is better than pre-fabricated and mass market. This is really just an extension of #1. But I do think it deserves its own line item as you can have mass market wooden toys or cloth toys.

Again, this is a preference and you wouldn't necessarily know it looking at our toy collections.





3. I prefer toys that are open-ended and encourage creative play. I prefer toys that don't come with a script for playing with them, toys that not only can be used for other purposes than the ones the designers intended; but that in fact don't have any message at all about what is the right and wrong way to play with them. I prefer toys that demand my children's creativity in determining how to play with them. There is no script for how to play with blocks or sticks or pieces of fabric.





4. No batteries required. No flashing lights or bleeps and beeps and blips. No musak for babies. No push the button to get your daily dose of positive reinforcement.

I've got a hermit's soul, I think. I like quiet. I hate noise. I can go days, weeks without turning on music or the television. I tend to get angry and resentful when my neighbors pollute my air with their noise pollution. But I've written at length about this before.

One other thing I'd add is that most of the time battery-operated toys are the worst offenders in not being open-ended. They demand that you push a button and push it again and push it again. Then you listen to the prompt and push another button. There's a right way and a wrong way to play with them.

This is my primary complaint about the Leap Frog line of products. They may be educational; but all the information they convey can be conveyed to my children in other ways. I don't like the mindless repetition of the script. The voices drive me crazy and I'd much prefer to use bedtime stories and alphabet magnets to prepare my children for literacy than speaking toys and talking games.





5. I'm allergic to anything that at all ties in with a television show or movie. That includes Disney Princesses, Barbie, Dora, Barney, Elmo, and any Winnie the Pooh products that don't look like the E.H. Shepard illustrations. (It will probably also extend to the American Girl dolls when the girls get to that stage.)

In general my mom didn't encourage us to have any toys that you'd see advertisements for on television. No My Little Ponies or Strawberry Shortcake or Holly Hobby or Cabbage Patch Dolls. Unless we got them as gifts; but that almost never happened. There were plenty of ties when I bristled and argued; but she stood firm and in the end I inherited her strong suspicion of merchandising. In fact, I usually go further than she ever did.

My feelings about this are quite strong and extend to clothes as well. When the girls are given bags of hand-me-downs I usually weed out any clothing that has tv characters on it.

And while I'm ranting, can I tell you how much it irks me that there isn't really a good, character-free generic option for Pull-Ups? The off brands are just not well fitting or absorbent enough so we've had to put up with the dreaded Disney Princesses in this one instance.





6. Fewer is better. (Also known as the Laura Ingalls Wilder Principle or the Charlotte Rule.)

As Kate said:

Wouldn’t it be nice if each of our kids only had one toy but it was a really, really treasured toy - like Laura Ingalls’s beloved doll named Charlotte? (I wish that part of Laura remained deeply planted in my daughter.)

I often wish my girls could have just one beloved "Charlotte". But that's not going to happen with generous family members who bring gift bags to almost every social occasion. The best I can hope for is not to drown in toys and to weed out some old toys every time we get some new ones.





7. What's wrong with Barbie? (Some of the special issues with Barbie mean she gets her own category. This is probably the result of sloppy thinking; but I'm too lazy to edit this and tease these out into the separate categories.)

We never had Barbies when I was a kid and I don't recall ever missing them. Except maybe just because I felt odd sometimes that I was the only girl I knew who didn't have them. I never wanted Barbie for herself, she was always an icon of fitting in, of keeping up with the Loris and Jennifers.

Kate writes:

I worry about how Barbie’s perfect and unattainable beauty and curves might impact my daughters’ body image. I loved Barbie as a kid and while I don’t for a second blame her perfect beauty on my own tortured relationship with food and my body, I don’t completely discount her from sending some sort of subliminal message that if you want to be valuable, powerful, and/or happy, work on getting yourself a great pair of legs and you-know-what-else.

I agree that body image is a huge part of what's wrong with Barbie. But I think it goes deeper than the fact that Barbie is too skinny and out of proportion and it's more than just the message that beauty comes from how you look and what you wear. To me Barbie's body language also perpetuates the idea of woman as sexual object. Perhaps it ties in with the Theology of the Body. (I'll have to think about exactly how at a later date.) I'm not sure I can put my finger on the heart of the matter but somehow Barbie's body language is all wrong. To me it says that woman is a sexual being and that sex is divorced from reproduction. Just look at that chest and those hips and that stomach!

I can't imagine Barbie nursing a baby with those breasts. (I can't see her comfortably carrying a sling or an Ergo for that matter.) It always comes up in every discussion of breastfeeding: our society is uncomfortable with nursing babies because it has sexualized the breast. To me Barbie may be one of the worst offenders in perpetuating the idea that breasts are for looking pretty and not for nurturing babies. So many women today say they feel icky and uncomfortable with the idea of breastfeeding their children. I wonder to what extent Barbie is responsible for that?






Lastly, while I know that creative children will use their Barbies for all sorts of role playing, I still think that the design of the toy and the way it is marketed make it clear that the way it is intended to be played with is all focused on acquiring clothes and possessions, at changing outfits and looking pretty. Kids aren't dumb; they get those messages. I know I certainly did as a little girl. These are the messages I'm fighting against. Barbie is about a lifestyle and it isn't my lifestyle.

I agree that girls can certainly play with Barbie and still get positive messages in other places, can still come out being fine with a great body image and a well cultivated imagination. I know many fine examples of that principle. Still, I see no reason I should give any message I disagree with any toehold in my household and in my kids' minds. I'm the mommy here and I draw the line at Barbie.

I prefer toys that don't come with a script for playing with them, toys that not only can be used for other purposes than the ones the designers intended; but that in fact don't have any message at all about what is the right and wrong way to play with them. (See number 3.) Barbie doesn't challenge girls to step out of the box and find creative ways of doing things. She encourages conformity and sticking to the script. And all the doctor Barbies and astrophysicist Barbies and Nobel Peace Prize diplomat Barbies in the world won't change the basic script.

Now I know people are going to respond with plenty of stories about how they used Barbie off-script. And yet all the counter-examples in the world do still reinforce my point: with Barbie we all know what the script is supposed to be and we know when we've strayed off of it. There is no script for how to play with blocks or sticks or pieces of fabric. And even baby dolls have a more open-ended script than Barbie does.





There may be other categories I could add to this manifesto; but I am not going to hold off publication on that account. I've been doing that too often lately and am starting to realize I need to just let go and post things that are perhaps slightly unfinished.

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Ben at Nine Months

22 pounds

27 3/4 inches

He's begun really crawling this week and he can pull himself up to stand. But he can't figure out how to sit up when he's flat on his back.

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Paper Moon

It came up on my iPod's shuffle as we were pulling into the driveway this morning.



It's been haunting me ever since.

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Easter Views

Catching up on my photo posting. Here are some of my favorite snaps from Easter Sunday.

I didn't catch any photos of the girls with their Easter baskets before Mass. We had an egg hunt when we returned from Mass.



Sophie didn't really get it. Once she found one egg and discovered it had candy, she was done.








Bella, on the other hand, enjoyed herself immensely. Even if Dom did have to help her find most of the eggs.








Of course Bella generously shared her haul with her sister.










Now where could she possibly have seen this pose before?




Such joy!


We went to my brother-and sister-in law's for Easter dinner.

Ben had to be stripped down so he could enjoy his grub. Oh did he enjoy it! At one point he grabbed a big hunk of lamb off of my plate and sucked on it like a popsicle. He still smelled like lamb the next day.



After dinner he enjoyed standing around and smiling at everyone.

Then he crashed in my sister's arms.





So I took the opportunity to snuggle with my newest niece, Zelie. Isn't she the sweetest?

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Christianity and Mediocre Art

In the comments to this post Pentimento remarked on how most images of the Divine Mercy are so saccharine and in response I wondered why it is that Christians are so willing to settle for mediocrity in art. Why do so many people enshrine in their homes saccharine images of Jesus and Mary and the saints instead of seeking out the truly beautiful?

It isn't that there is a shortage of fine religious art. In fact the finest art of the Western tradition has been religious art. And then there is the great treasury of icons from the churches of the East, both those of Byzantine Catholics and those of our Orthodox brethren.


Then I was reading this interview with Barbara Nicolosi-Harrington, who has some choice words about the decline of the role of the Church as patron of the arts:

The Church needs to get back into the work of the Beautiful. It needs to get back into the work of subsidizing and training and mentoring artists and guilds. It needs to feed people who can sing and write music, and commission their works. In a previous day, we would have commissioned statues and paintings. Today's Church should commission novels and movies and screenplays.

The fact that there is not a single Christian university in the top twenty film programs in the world is a sign that the Church has lost its way in modernity. We are not seeing ourselves as people of this moment.

The saddest realities to look at are not Hustler magazine and Big Love. Much more tragic is what you find on EWTN and CBN, because these things are devoid of creativity and devoid of respect for the audience. They are banal. They may be produced with the best of intentions, but they have no sense of the appropriateness of the art form, of using the medium to its full potential.

Sad though it is, you would never call the Church the patron of the arts today. Never. You would be laughed down. I know that to be true. I used the phrase with a class of undergrads. A young woman raised her hand and said, "Who is the ‘patron of the arts'?" I asked the students who they thought the patron of the arts is. They looked at me for a while, and finally one kid raised his hand and said, "The Bravo Channel?"

"Patron of the arts" used to be the moniker of the Christian Church. But this generation has no experience of the Church being a patron of the arts. We are so far behind in being a compelling voice in the culture. We have allowed our voice in culture to disappear.

John Paul II said that this generation of Christians will have to atone for its failure to use the media to spread the gospel of life. This generation of Christians will be called to account for its failure to use these powerful gifts we have in our hands to create global community and to move people to tears. Others will be asked why they did not recognize Jesus. We will be asked why we did not make television shows.

I know why Catholic television isn't making beautiful programs. It's because there isn't the funding. But that begs the question: Why are Catholics unwilling to invest in the beautiful?

I suspect utilitarianism is a part of the answer.

I'm sure many more words could be written on this topic. Maybe even by me. But not right now.

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Kyrie Eleison

This morning in his homily Father M gave a beautiful explication of the Divine Mercy image. He explained it to the children, as we go to the "family Mass" but really it was for all of us. It was nothing knew to me and yet I had tears in my eyes.

I've been thinking again about this post from last September, about the word eleison: "Eleison literally translates into an image of one pouring oil on a wound.... When we pray Kyrie elesion me, we are asking God to pour His healing Grace on our wounds and heal us. We are asking God to make us whole."

How powerful it has been for me in recent months to contemplate that image of God's mercy as a healing balm rather than a sort of judicial reprieve. It's become a touchstone for me in times of trouble. It is so different to plead for mercy when I understand that what I am asking for is for Christ the Physician to come and heal me rather than for Christ the Judge to remit my sentence.

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Therefore Let Us Eat the Feast

In the comments at The Philosopher Mom's blog, a kind reader left a link to this beautiful Easter homily by St. John Chrysostom, pointing out his wise words about those who arrive at the eleventh hour and the negligent and those who have disregarded the fast.

Here's an excerpt:

If anyone is devout and a lover of God, let him enjoy this beautiful and radiant festival. If anyone is a wise servant, let him, rejoicing, enter into the joy of his Lord. If anyone has wearied himself in fasting, let him now receive his recompense. If anyone has labored from the first hour, let him today receive his just reward. If anyone has come at the third hour, with thanksgiving let him keep the feast. If anyone has arrived at the sixth hour, let him have no misgivings; for he shall suffer no loss. If anyone has delayed until the ninth hour, let him draw near without hesitation. If anyone has arrived even at the eleventh hour, let him not fear on account of his delay. For the Master is gracious and receives the last, even as the first; he gives rest to him that comes at the eleventh hour, just as to him who has labored from the first. He has mercy upon the last and cares for the first; to the one he gives, and to the other he is gracious. He both honors the work and praises the intention.

Enter all of you, therefore, into the joy of our Lord, and, whether first or last, receive your reward. 0 rich and poor, one with another, dance for joy! 0 you ascetics and you negligent, celebrate the day! You that have fasted and you that have disregarded the fast, rejoice today! The table is rich-laden; feast royally, all of you! The calf is fatted; let no one go forth hungry!

Let all partake of the feast of faith. Let all receive the riches of goodness.

Read the whole homily here.

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Let Us Rejoice and Be Glad

There are so many recent pictures I've been meaning to upload... Here's a start on that.


Holy Saturday was beautiful. We all spent some time in the back yard soaking up rays, swinging in the warm breeze.















Bella made sand pies...






And had herself a little picnic.

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This Is the Day the Lord Has Made

Thanks to everyone for all the prayers. I have had so many beautiful consolations poured out upon me yesterday and today. I can't even tell you haw full of joy I am right now. I know they are the result of all the love you have been showering on me.





Last night I put Ben down at 8 and he slept until 6.

Yes!!!

Ten. Hours. Straight.





I only got five hours of sleep myself because after the previous wonderful night I wasn't all that sleepy and stayed up till midnight, reading blogs, writing, reading a novel. I woke up twice during the night too. But I still feel wonderfully well rested today. It's not only about how much sleep, it's about when and how it's interrupted.





And despite the rain and gray skies, everything looks rosy to me.





This morning the girls and I cuddled and did our hair. Bella put half a dozen butterflies into her own hair and then ordered me to take my hair down and started to play with it. She gave me a half dozen barrettes. Then she grabbed a couple of handfuls of my hair and ordered me to braid them. So I did.





Sophie went through our bag of hair supplies and picked out all the remaining barrettes one by one and asked me to put them in her hair. I think she must have had at least twenty of them. Plus four rubber bands holding up her topknot.





Then Dom forgot his lunch this morning so I decided to drive up to take it to him.

I also packed a sack lunch for all of us so we could join him.





A special treat for him and for us. (It was wear your Red Sox gear day for some kind of food bank fundraiser.)





The girls and I all sported out cool hair dos. Yes, I went out in public with all the plastic barrettes adorning my head. And the funky braids. I was that mom.





Ben had fun too. He insisted on eating orange peels. And really that's ok.

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Mercy

I'm terrible at remembering novenas. I've really wanted to pray the Divine Mercy novena but of late I've been sound asleep at the hour of mercy. God knows I probably need the nap more than the prayer. (I know you can say it at other times; but that's when I usually think of it.)

But God who is all loving sometimes reads the wishes of our hearts and grants them in unexpected ways.

This morning Bella and Sophie were playing at singing. They hold open board books and belt out songs at the top of their lungs. Some real songs, some they make up on the spot. Except for the times when it devolves into screaming, I really love it.

Then Bella started singing bits of the Divine Mercy chaplet: Holy God, Holy Mighty One, Holy Immortal One, have mercy on us and on the whole world.... For the sake of his sorrowful passion have mercy on us and on the whole world. I smiled and told her that was the divine mercy prayer.

"Can you help me say it, mama?"

Oh dear girl, yes. Yes I can.

I surfed over to my favorite recording, from the the National Shrine of Divine Mercy, Stockbridge Mass. . This is the very first version of the divine mercy prayers I ever heard, when some of the beautiful sisters came to the Proud 2B Catholic concert and prayed along with us. Unfortunately I haven't been able to find this version on cd or in any downloadable format.

The girls listened along with me to all fifteen minutes, praying along for almost all of it.


I sometimes have trouble remembering that I can still pray a part of the Novena even if I've forgotten the first few days. I let my perfectionist tendencies get in the way of doing what I can when I can. Fortunately my girls are not yet slaves to that mentality.


What a wonderful gift on this rainy morning.

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Follow-Up to Yesterday's Post

First, thank you to everyone who commented on my last post or emailed me. Your words of encouragement have meant so much to me and I definitely have felt your prayers.

Last night I got a really good night's sleep. Ben woke at 12 and Dom put him back down and then he woke again at 1 and I thought it was going to be a terrible night. He thrashed and kicked while I tried to nurse him back down and it looked like it was going to be a very long night. But I decided to try to put him back down in the office playpen. We'd put him down without his fleece sleep sack because it was so warm yesterday. But I decided to close the windows, turn on the AC and zip him in. It was evidently exactly what he wanted because he went down with very little fuss and slept until 5.

I woke feeling better rested than I have in a long time. And immediately went and ordered a summer weight sleep sack. And then I got a good nap this afternoon. (One helpful bit of advice from my doctor-- he really is a good guy-- is affirmation that naps really do help when you are fatigued.)


For those who have expressed concern, my thyroid levels were back up to normal at my checkup.

Also, I'm pretty sure I don't have post partum depression. I've battled depression in the past. I was on medication for it for a time back in college. This doesn't feel the same. It did occur to me to consider the possibility when I read Kate Wicker's recent article and Elizabeth Foss' and Suzanne Temple's follow-ups. But as long as I'm having very interrupted sleep that seems to be the most obvious explanation. As Elizabeth said:

But I've learned to stop myself and ask if I'm genuinely depressed or just so tired that I can't cope. When you are tired day in and day out for many months (years), you stop recognizing fatigue for what it is.

It's not hard to diagnose fatigue as the cause of what ails me. I've had interrupted sleep. In fact I can count on one hand the nights in the past few months when I have had more than four hours of uninterrupted sleep at a stretch. I've been recognizing all sorts of signs of fatigue. I've had memory lapses, an inability to concentrate. The other day I found myself putting the dried cranberries away in the refrigerator. I also lost my bottle of cran-pomegranate when I put it away in the freezer. I need my afternoon nap. I fall asleep while trying to say my prayers. I promise, though, that if I'm still feeling off-kilter after getting a few nights of good sleep, then I will seriously consider the possibility of PPD.


My dad, who recently was installed as a spiritual director for the Diocese of Austin, sent me to St Francis de Sales (who he calls "the salesman"). There's some great wisdom there and I will be re-reading the Introduction to the Devout Life this week.

Should you, my daughter, ever be attacked by this evil spirit of sadness, make use of the following remedies. “Is any among you afflicted?” says S. James, “let him pray.”

Prayer is a sovereign remedy, it lifts the mind to God, Who is our only Joy and Consolation. But when you pray let your words and affections, whether interior or exterior, all tend to love and trust in God. “O God of Mercy, most Loving Lord, Sweet Saviour, Lord of my heart, my Joy, my Hope, my Beloved, my Bridegroom.”

Vigorously resist all tendencies to melancholy, and although all you do may seem to be done coldly, wearily and indifferently, do not give in. The Enemy strives to make us languid in doing good by depression, but when he sees that we do not cease our efforts to work, and that those efforts become all the more earnest by reason of their being made in resistance to him, he leaves off troubling us.

Make use of hymns and spiritual songs; they have often frustrated the Evil One in his operations, as was the case when the evil spirit which possessed Saul was driven forth by music and psalmody. It is well also to occupy yourself in external works, and that with as much variety as may lead us to divert the mind from the subject which oppresses it, and to cheer and kindle it, for depression generally makes us dry and cold. Use external acts of fervour, even though they are tasteless at the time; embrace your crucifix, clasp it to your breast, kiss the Feet and Hands of your Dear Lord, raise hands and eyes to Heaven, and cry out to God in loving, trustful ejaculations: “My Beloved is mine, and I am His. A bundle of myrrh is my Well-beloved, He shall lie within my breast. Mine eyes long sore for Thy Word, O when wilt Thou comfort me! O Jesus, be Thou my Saviour, and my soul shall live. Who shall separate me from the Love of Christ?”

That last part really resonated with me. In fact I've had a draft of a blog entry about song as prayer sitting unfinished for a long time. I need to dust that off.

I've taken St Francis at his word and have been singing and singing today. Getting back into teaching the girls the Regina Coeli. (Sadly, Bella's forgotten most of the words since last Easter season.) And singing God We Praise You, God We Bless You, my favorite version of the Te Deum. It warmed my heart to hear Sophie singing along with me today.

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Acedia at Eastertide

I keep forgetting that it's Easter and have been praying the Angelus at noon and six instead of the Regina Coeli. This small forgetfulness seems to me emblematic of my mood since last week. I can't quite wrap my mind around the fact that Easter came despite my not attending any of the Triduum services.

Easter Sunday felt like just another Sunday. Sure there were more people and more flowers. Our wonderful cantor sang the Sequence so beautifully for just a minute I felt something like the Easter thrill I remember from former years. But there was the single entrance hymn with Alleluias and the rest were the usual collection of blah, blah, blah. Can't we offer up anything more beautiful that the usual dreck on Easter at least? Is this really as good as it gets?

I love spending the holidays with family. And I hate it. All the kids get off their schedule-- and I do too. They eat too much sugar and candy and desserts and not enough real food-- and I do too. I don't get my introvert recharge time. Because we've been rushing to get out the door the house is a mess. Monday morning dawned with Saturday night's dishes still in the sink and on the stove. The floor was littered with Easter grass and egg shells and bits of foil candy wrapper and all the spring dirt and mud that the kids weren't tracking in during the long winter.

Or perhaps it's that I'm so dissatisfied with my own spiritual progress during Lent that I want a do over. I don't feel like I'm a better person for having slogged through those forty days. In fact, I feel like I've backslid. Despite my New Year's Resolution to make it to confession at least once a month, I didn't make it to confession at all during the month of March. I didn't finish my Lenten reading. I didn't fast enough. I didn't pray enough. I feel like I am less patient, less kind, less the wife and mother I want to be.

Or maybe it's that I told myself the lack of sleep was part of my Lenten penance. And now it's Easter and I'm not sleeping any better. Which is funny because now Ben is sleeping eight hours at a stretch in the office. But he wakes up between 3:30 and 4:30 every morning and I can't get back to sleep. That really throws me off. So for whatever reason I don't feel any more rested or less exhausted. (It's quite possible the fatigue is in large part responsible for the meaner, less patient me. But I feel like I should be able to defy my body, my hormones and my exhaustion and still be sweet and smiling and the soul of patience.)

I went to the doctor for a medication check on my thyroid on Tuesday and he asked the expected question: Did I seem to be feeling better? I replied that, well, the medicine could very well be working perfectly but I can't tell. I can't remember the last time I got a good night's sleep. It's been months and months. I feel sure if I could just catch two or three good nights in a row things would really seem much, much easier, much brighter. He told me to go check myself into a hotel and get some good sleep. As if.

The sun is out, it's ninety degrees today. And yet for whatever reason I'm not feeling the Easter joy. I feel dusty, dry, flat. I have a headache.

Here's the place where I'm supposed to pull off a neat little twist about how joy isn't about feelings and how Jesus rose whether I feel it or not. Or something like that. But I'm all out of positive feel-good messages right now.

I don't feel much like blogging at all, really. But I'm hoping that by writing I may be able to purge this acedia demon. And maybe I can stop feeling envy of everyone else's Easter. And maybe I can kick the impulse to leave melancholy notes on everyone else's blog. Also, I feel a little guilty that this space is as dusty and neglected as every other corner of my life. And I feel vaguely like I owe someone somewhere an explanation, an apology.

I probably shouldn't post this. I don't want to get lots of well-meaning but unhelpful advice and posts like this seem to make people feel like they need to offer something. Still, its written, I might as well put it up. And maybe there's someone else out there feeling the same way and reading this will help them out.

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Iowa

Because Pentimento has me on a Dar Williams kick this afternoon.

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Alleluia! Christ Is Risen Indeed!

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The Lord's descent into the underworld

From an ancient homily for Holy Saturday

Something strange is happening – there is a great silence on earth today, a great silence and stillness. The whole earth keeps silence because the King is asleep. The earth trembled and is still because God has fallen asleep in the flesh and he has raised up all who have slept ever since the world began. God has died in the flesh and hell trembles with fear.

He has gone to search for our first parent, as for a lost sheep. Greatly desiring to visit those who live in darkness and in the shadow of death, he has gone to free from sorrow the captives Adam and Eve, he who is both God and the son of Eve. The Lord approached them bearing the cross, the weapon that had won him the victory. At the sight of him Adam, the first man he had created, struck his breast in terror and cried out to everyone: “My Lord be with you all.” Christ answered him: “And with your spirit.” He took him by the hand and raised him up, saying: “Awake, O sleeper, and rise from the dead, and Christ will give you light.”

I am your God, who for your sake have become your son. Out of love for you and for your descendants I now by my own authority command all who are held in bondage to come forth, all who are in darkness to be enlightened, all who are sleeping to arise. I order you, O sleeper, to awake. I did not create you to be held a prisoner in hell. Rise from the dead, for I am the life of the dead. Rise up, work of my hands, you who were created in my image. Rise, let us leave this place, for you are in me and I am in you; together we form only one person and we cannot be separated. For your sake I, your God, became your son; I, the Lord, took the form of a slave; I, whose home is above the heavens, descended to the earth and beneath the earth. For your sake, for the sake of man, I became like a man without help, free among the dead. For the sake of you, who left a garden, I was betrayed to the Jews in a garden, and I was crucified in a garden.

See on my face the spittle I received in order to restore to you the life I once breathed into you. See there the marks of the blows I received in order to refashion your warped nature in my image. On my back see the marks of the scourging I endured to remove the burden of sin that weighs upon your back. See my hands, nailed firmly to a tree, for you who once wickedly stretched out your hand to a tree.

I slept on the cross and a sword pierced my side for you who slept in paradise and brought forth Eve from your side. My side has healed the pain in yours. My sleep will rouse you from your sleep in hell. The sword that pierced me has sheathed the sword that was turned against you.

Rise, let us leave this place. The enemy led you out of the earthly paradise. I will not restore you to that paradise, but I will enthrone you in heaven. I forbade you the tree that was only a symbol of life, but see, I who am life itself am now one with you. I appointed cherubim to guard you as slaves are guarded, but now I make them worship you as God. The throne formed by cherubim awaits you, its bearers swift and eager. The bridal chamber is adorned, the banquet is ready, the eternal dwelling places are prepared, the treasure houses of all good things lie open. The kingdom of heaven has been prepared for you from all eternity.

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The Passion of Christ Illustrated by James J. Tissot

In looking for pictures to illustrate my previous post I stumbled across this site that has links to Tissot's paintings of the life of Christ. All the links are nicely organized into a narrative of the passion. In some ways this is nicer than the Tissot book I have because it is easier to "read" them as a story, to meditate on the images without the distractions of the text.

Bella and I spent some time looking at them this afternoon during nap time. A good way to meditate on the passion. I think we'll return to them tomorrow. Not a bad way to spend some time on Good Friday.

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I Want to Burden My Loved Ones

Perfect for this Holy Week, an article that highlights the sacrificial nature of love.

My sister recently drew my attention to this article in First Things, a beautiful reflection by Gilbert Meilaender about end of life issues and what it means to be a family, what it means to love: I Want to Burden My Loved Ones.

Is this not in large measure what it means to belong to a family: to burden each other—and to find, almost miraculously, that others are willing, even happy, to carry such burdens? Families would not have the significance they do for us if they did not, in fact, give us a claim upon each other.

[. . .]

It is, therefore, understandable that we sometimes chafe under these burdens. If, however, we also go on to reject them, we cease to live in the kind of moral community that deserves to be called a family.

I hope, therefore, that I will have the good sense to empower my wife, while she is able, to make such decisions for me—though I know full well that we do not always agree about what is the best care in end-of-life circumstances. That disagreement doesn’t bother me at all. As long as she avoids the futile question, “What would he have wanted?” and contents herself with the (difficult enough) question, “What is best for him now?” I will have no quarrel with her. Moreover, this approach is, I think, less likely to encourage her to make the moral mistake of asking, “Is his life a benefit to him (i.e., a life worth living)?” and more likely to encourage her to ask, “What can we do to benefit the life he still has?” No doubt this will be a burden to her. No doubt she will bear the burden better than I would. No doubt it will be only the last in a long history of burdens she has borne for me. But then, mystery and continuous miracle that it is, she loves me. And because she does, I must of course be a burden to her.

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