Author: simchajfisher

When we look at our own lives, we tend to believe that everything in the past is part of our old, discarded “before” lives, and whatever it is we label “after” is by definition more mature, more nuanced, more refined. Well, sometimes we’ve just been spiritually sitting on the couch eating pizza and Fudge Rounds, and that’s how we got where we are today.

Read the rest at the Register.

An interview I did with Sean Salai, S.J. is in America magazine today. Here’s an excerpt:

Some critics accuse the Catholic Church of being “anti-woman” for opposing abortion and artificial birth control. As a woman, how do you respond to them?

I think the secular culture is responding for me. For instance, Cosmopolitan magazine, of all publications, has recently run several articles about how women have been patronized and lied to, and how their health has been destroyed, by the contraception industry. More and more of my non-Catholic friends are realizing that they don’t deserve to be treated like defective machinery just because they have functioning ovaries.

As for abortion: what a filthy offense against the dignity of women. The church, at least ideally, says to women, “Life is good. Come on over; maybe we can help.” The abortion industry says, “There’s no help for you unless you choose death.” Tell me how that is pro-woman?

Others may see N.F.P. as a “religious thing” rather than a medically sound practice because they associate it with Catholicism. What do you think about that?

Modern methods of N.F.P. use cutting-edge technology and research. It’s scandalous how ill-informed so many OB/GYNs are about true reproductive health. More and more secular women are realizing that their fertility may be complicated, but it’s not a disease, and they’re sick of being patted on the head and told they can’t possibly understand their own bodies.

Also, it doesn’t take a religious fanatic to think, “Hey, why is the whole burden on me, just because I’m a woman?” N.F.P. is unique: it invites both husband and wife to think about fertility as a joint concern, and to make sacrifices for the benefit of each other and the family. Contraception says it’s for the benefit of women, but in practice, it gives men the impression that women should be available 24/7.

Read the rest of the the interview here.

Today’s image is brought to you by a long streak of ninety-degree weather, which renders me incapable of putting together a simple graphic. But what’s the first rule of blogging? YOU GOTTA HAVE A PICTURE. If there’s not a picture, people won’t read it; and if the picture is the same as yesterday’s picture, people won’t read it.

So here’s your picture, with a chainsaw! Courtesy of John Herreid, who also designed the actual cover of my book, The Sinner’s Guide to Natural Family Planning, which currently is #159 in Catholic books on Amazon, mainly because I keep linking to it everywhere in hopes of funding a chainsaw for my husband for Christmas. I don’t think he actually wants one. I just want him to have one.

If you enter today’s contest by leaving a comment, go ahead and do it with a chainsaw, see if I care. That reminds me of the time that our old pastor, Monsignor Dan, gave a long, impassioned sermon about how important it is to commit to each other in marriage. He warmly and repeatedly implored cohabiting couples to come see him, and he promised would do whatever he could to normalize their situations so they could be in full communion with the Church.

After Mass, my husband goes up to him and shakes his hand. (This is after we’ve been going to this church for years and hogging more than a full pew with our offspring, mind you.) And he says, “Great sermon, Father. And you know what? I think we’re really ready to get married now.”

And poor Monsignor Dan. He just froze. Stopped breathing for a second, and froze, and his apple cheeks went pale.

And then he goes, “AHHHHH, you’re a funny guy!” Poor Monsignor Dan. I guess he has to be ready to hear anything, when people meet him in the back of the church.

So here it is, hot, and I’m giving away another monitor, this one generously donated by  . . .

Lori and Eric Doerneman, a mother-son duo, who are founding a new online resource to educate parents on how to be positive and effective communicators with their children about porn. Stay tuned for an interview! 

Here are the other generous sponsors of the other monitors:

Monday: Dr. Michael Czerkes, pro-life and NFP-only OB/GYN at Women’s Health Associates, St. Mary’s Regional Medical Center in Lewiston, ME.
Tuesday: Dave Singleton in honor of A Simple House.
Thursday: An anonymous, loving Catholic family of eight from South Dakota, who would love to have more babies in the world.
Friday (US): An anonymous donor
Friday (UK): An anonymous donor

And now les details d’raffle:

How do I enter? Use the Rafflecopter form below. It gives you several ways to enter. If the form doesn’t show up, click on the link that says “a Rafflecopter giveaway” at the bottom of the post. Only one prize per household.

How often can I enter? You may enter once per day, using as many options as you like from the Rafflecopter form. It will show up as “x/6” — so, for instance, if you complete two types of entries today, it will say “2/6” at the top of the form. If it says “0/6,” then your entry did not go through.
Each day is a separate raffle. Each raffle runs from midnight to midnight, eastern time.

Can I win if I live outside the US? Not Monday through Thursday. HOWEVER, if you have a mailing address in the UK, you can enter on Friday. I’ll be giving away two monitors on Friday: one for a winner in the US, and one for a winner in the UK. If you live in the UK, please only enter the UK contest on Friday! Sorry, residents of other countries are not eligible to win. Sorry with a chain saw!

When will winners be announced? I’ll choose one winner each day on Monday through Thursday, and two winners on Friday (one winner in the US, and one in the UK). I’ll announce all the winners on Friday, or possibly on Saturday if I am a terrible person.
If you are a winner, I will notify you using the address you provided to Rafflecopter.

Do I have to provide my actual email address, even though I worry that you will use it to steal my soul and then go on a shopping spree at Forever 21? Yes, please use an actual email address. I don’t even want your soul. Your valid email is the only way I have of getting in touch with you if you win, so please make sure that when you sign up for Rafflecopter, you use an active address! If I can’t get in touch with you, I’ll pick a different winner.

I think that’s it! Good luck, and thanks again to today’s sponsor, Lori and Eric Doerneman. Chain saw not included.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

You’re here for the free monitor, I know! But if you’re using NFP, you’re already used to delayed gratification, har har. So first, here are a few notes about other NFP Awareness Week activities around the web:

Yesterday, Couple to Couple League launched a weeklong appreciation of Humanae Vitae, which came out 48 years ago on July 25th. I’ve been enjoying reading the short essays and watching the videos produced for CCLI’s blog. Check them out! Humanae Vitae is about so much more than contraception vs. NFP. It’s about love and its fruits, and it’s essential reading for everyone, and it’s short, and it’s really readable. You can follow CCL’s updates to this campaign on Facebook, on Twitter @coupletocouple, and you can fine shareable images about NFP on their Instagram page.

Helen Alvare’s Women Speak for Themselves encourages us to spread the word about Natural Family Planning with the hashtags #thanksNFP and #ByeBC. I know so many women (and men, too) who have ditched artificial birth control for NFP, and who have found it immensely enriching and valuable despite the sacrifices it entails. If this is you, don’t keep the benefits to yourself! Follow WSFT on Facebook and on Twitter @WomenSpeakForThemselves, and share what you know.

AND NOW FOR THE CONTEST, DAY 2!

Thanks to some wonderfully generous donors, I’m able to give away six Clearblue Fertility Monitors this week — one per day on Monday through Thursday, and two on Friday. These monitors are used for the Marquette method of NFP, and run about $200 each.

Today’s monitor was donated by Dave Singlton to let people know about one of his favorite organizations, A Simple House. 

[img attachment=”113485″ align=”aligncenter” size=”medium” alt=”A Simple House Logo” /]

Dave says:

A Simple House is a Catholic missionary organization that is serves the poor in some of the poorest neighborhoods in Washington D.C. and Kansas City.  Full time missionaries live in solidarity with the poor and serve them through what they refer to as “friendship evangelization.” While they do provide for the material needs of the people who they serve, there is an important emphasis on walking along with them in friendship which opens the door to real relationships.  It is in these relationships that they can then encounter the whole person and serve their spiritual needs as well.  Please check them out at asimplehouse.org and consider donating.

Thank you, Dave! This is the perfect charity for the year of mercy, which challenges us not just to throw money at a problem, but to look the suffering poor in the face and to see Christ in them.

And many thanks to our other generous sponsors!

Monday: Dr. Michael Czerkes, Dr. Michael Czerkes, pro-life and NFP-only OB/GYN at Women’s Health Associates, St. Mary’s Regional Medical Center in Lewiston, ME.
Wednesday: Lori and Eric Doerneman, mother-son duo, who are founding a new online resource to educate parents on how to be positive and effective communicators with their children about porn. Stay tuned for an interview!
Thursday: An anonymous, loving Catholic family of eight from South Dakota, who would love to have more babies in the world.
Friday (US): An anonymous donor
Friday (UK): An anonymous donor

The raffle details:

How do I enter? Use the Rafflecopter form below. It gives you several ways to enter. If the form doesn’t show up, click on the link that says “a Rafflecopter giveaway” at the bottom of the post. Only one prize per household.

How often can I enter? You may enter once per day, using as many options as you like from the Rafflecopter form. It will show up as “x/6” — so, for instance, if you complete two entries today, it will say “2/6” at the top of the form.
Each day is a separate raffle. Each raffle runs from midnight to midnight, eastern time.

Can I win if I live outside the US? Not Monday through Thursday. HOWEVER, if you have a mailing address in the UK, you can enter on Friday. I’ll be giving away two monitors on Friday: one for a winner in the US, and one for a winner in the UK. If you live in the UK, please only enter the UK contest on Friday! Sorry, residents of other countries are not eligible to win.

When will winners be announced? I’ll choose one winner each day on Monday through Thursday, and two winners on Friday (one winner in the US, and one in the UK). I’ll announce all the winners on Friday, or possibly on Saturday if I am a terrible person.
If you are a winner, I will notify you using the address you provided to Rafflecopter.

Do I have to provide my actual email address, even though I worry that you will use it to steal my soul and then go on a shopping spree at Forever 21? Yes, please use an actual email address. I don’t even want your soul. Your valid email is the only way I have of getting in touch with you if you win, so please make sure that when you sign up for Rafflecopter, you use an active address! If I can’t get in touch with you, I’ll pick a different winner.

I think that’s it! Good luck, and thanks again to today’s sponsor, Dave Singleton on behalf of A Simple House.

And before you asked, yes, that giveaway graphic is the worst possible graphic I could come up with. I’m turning the air conditioner on now, don’t care.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

What’s the best way to mark NFP Awareness Week? How about becoming aware that you’ve won a brand new fertility monitor, to make NFP both easier and more like Star Trek?

Thanks to some wonderfully generous donors, I’m able to give away six Clearblue Fertility Monitors this week — one per day on Monday through Thursday, and two on Friday.

This is the monitor that is used in the Marquette method of natural family planning. It uses test sticks to measure hormones in the urine, and it’s a great choice for couples who are looking for objective information to help interpret their fertility status . . . and it costs about $200. Like I said, wonderfully generous donors!

The donor of today’s prize is Dr. Michael Czerkes of Women’s Health Associates, St. Mary’s Regional Medical Center in Lewiston, ME.

[img attachment=”113198″ align=”aligncenter” size=”medium” alt=”czerkes” /]

Dr Michael Czerkes is a pro-life, NFP-only OB/GYN in Lewiston, ME, and is currently accepting new patients.  He received his medical training at Michigan State University, completed a residency in OB/GYN at Maine Medical Center, and is trained in NaProTechnology.   He works to bring authentically Catholic women’s healthcare to a state that he loves.  

Thank you, Dr. Czerkes!

The other sponsors are as follows, and I’ll be telling you a bit more about each one throughout the week:

Tuesday: Dave Singleton, in honor of one of his favorite organizations, A Simple House
Wednesday: Lori and Eric Doerneman, mother-son duo, who are founding a new online resource to educate parents on how to be positive and effective communicators with their children about porn. Stay tuned for an interview!
Thursday: An anonymous, loving Catholic family of eight from South Dakota, who would love to have more babies in the world.
Friday (US): An anonymous donor
Friday (UK): An anonymous donor

Isn’t that lovely? All the donors on this list basically want to make life better for a stranger. Catholics, sometimes I love you.

The raffle details:

How do I enter? Use the Rafflecopter form below. It gives you several ways to enter. If the form doesn’t show up, click on the link that says “a Rafflecopter giveaway” at the bottom of the post. Only one prize per household.

How often can I enter? You may enter once per day. Each day is a separate raffle. Each raffle runs from midnight to midnight, eastern time.

Can I win if I live outside the US? Not Monday through Thursday. HOWEVER, if you have a mailing address in the UK, you can enter on Friday. I’ll be giving away two monitors on Friday: one for a winner in the US, and one for a winner in the UK. If you live in the UK, please only enter the UK contest on Friday! Sorry, residents of other countries are not eligible to win.

When will winners be announced? I’ll choose one winner each day on Monday through Thursday, and two winners on Friday (one winner in the US, and one in the UK). I’ll announce all the winners on Friday, or possibly on Saturday if I am a terrible person.
If you are a winner, I will notify you using the address you provided to Rafflecopter.

Do I have to provide my actual email address, even though I worry that you will use it to steal my soul and then go on a shopping spree at Forever 21? Yes, please use an actual email address. I don’t even want your soul. Your valid email is the only way I have of getting in touch with you if you win, so please make sure that when you sign up for Rafflecopter, you use an active address! If I can’t get in touch with you, I’ll pick a different winner.

I think that’s it! Good luck, and thanks again to today’s sponsor, NFP-only OB/GYN Dr. Michael Czerkes.
***

a Rafflecopter giveaway

[img attachment=”98244″ align=”aligncenter” size=”medium” alt=”whats for supper aleteia” /]

Sometimes you look at what the future holds, and you think, “What can I make without using my brain at all?” Here is what we had for supper this week:

SATURDAY
BLTs, root beer floats

Birthday! Kiddo requested this meal; she’ll have a party later. Meanwhile, we increased our stilt ownership by 100%.

[img attachment=”112933″ align=”aligncenter” size=”medium” alt=”stilts” /]

Never thought I’d be buying special, patterned duct tape to help us tell all our stilts apart, but here we are.

***

SUNDAY
Pizza

Made by Mr. Husband. I forgot my shopping list, and so bought ingredients for pizzas, tacos, and quesadillas, but I forgot cheese. Toldja I had no plans to use my brain.

***

MONDAY
Tacos, guacamole, tortilla chips

I had a cheap attack in the middle of the supermarket, and decided to cut the ground beef with some ground turkey that was on sale. I also balked at Hass avocados @ $1.29, and instead chose the somewhat thriftier travesty known as Florida avocados, a vegetable entity which sometimes compounds the offense by introducing itself as a “SlimCado.”

Wikipedia tells me:

in the United Kingdom, the term “avocado pear” is still used as applied when avocados first became commonly available in the 1960s.^[18] It is known as “butter fruit” in parts of India and goes by the name “bơ” [ɓɘː] in Vietnamese, which is the same word that is used for butter.^[19] In eastern China, it is known as è lí (“alligator pear”) or huángyóu guǒ (“butter fruit”). In Taiwan, it is known asluò lí or “cheese pear”.

You see? We do have options, preserving at least our dignity and integrity. And yet here we are, consenting to vote for something called a “SlimCado.” If you were watching CNN last night and wondering, “How did it come to this?” — well, this is how. One SlimCado at a time. Concession and compromise after concession and compromise. Things fall apart; the center cannot hold because it is all withered and false, not like a real avocado pit at all; but they’re counting on people thinking, “But this is an emergency! I have no choice! I better just buy this, this thing here, because it says it’s an avocado . . . ”

I bought two SlimCados, and I’ll probably do it again, if they’re on sale. I am what’s wrong with America today.

So, the guac was the wrong shade of green and gravely inferior in texture and depth of flavor, and the taco meat kind of balled up, but we ate it.

[img attachment=”112915″ align=”aligncenter” size=”medium” alt=”taco” /]

It was also on Monday that I sent the following email:

[img attachment=”112917″ align=”aligncenter” size=”medium” alt=”Screen Shot 2016-07-22 at 10.48.55 AM” /]

Cleverly, I sent it not to my husband, but to the Special Projects Director at the Office of the Bishop in Colorado Springs, where I am going in a few weeks to speak to a local Legatus chapter. I blame the treacherous SlimCado. This is what happens when you’re alligator cheese-deficient in the brain pan.

***
TUESDAY
Hamburgers, pasta salad, broccoli and carrots with dip

NTR. But the pasta salad included basil that came from my very own terrible garden!

[img attachment=”112921″ align=”aligncenter” size=”medium” alt=”burger” /]

Not the broccoli, though. I tried growing broccoli once, and got some gorgeous, water-hogging foliage with a little ornamental broccofluff on top.

***

WEDNESDAY
Hammy Sammies, Cheezy Weezies

Yummy little recipe: You buy a package of little rolls and cut the tops off without even separating the rolls from each other. Lay ham and Swiss cheese on, and put the tops back on. Cover them with a sauce made of melted butter, worcestershire sauce, mustard, and poppy seeds. Let it sit for a while, then throw them in the oven.

[img attachment=”112931″ align=”aligncenter” size=”medium” alt=”hammy sammy” /]

Here’s the other thing you need to know about me: This is not the first time I’ve gotten this message from my computer:

[img attachment=”112922″ align=”aligncenter” size=”medium” alt=”Screen Shot 2016-07-22 at 10.56.11 AM” /]
Yep, I’ve spent most of my adult years downloading photos called “ham and cheese.” I am what’s wrong with etc. etc.

***

THURSDAY
La Brea Tar Pit Chicken, Cole Slaw, Grits, Peaches

An actual new recipe, actually, suggested by several Facebook pals when I put out a call for help re: boring drumsticks. You mix up soy sauce, red wine, sugar, and ginger, heat until the sugar is dissolved, and pour the sauce over the chicken. Cook for a while, turn it over, cook it some more, and it turns out looking like La Brea Tar Pit Chicken.

This doesn’t have anything to do with the post. I just added it to remind you all why you read Aleteia.

***

FRIDAY
Quesadillas, brown rice, frozen corn

What, because Hillary’s so much better, I guess?
Oh, sorry, I thought we’re just supposed to say that every few minutes now. As you were, AmeriCaCado.

It keeps coming up, so I’m going to keep answering.

In my recent post #DontPray is trending. Do they have a point?, I said that it’s shameful to merely pray in the face of horrible crimes, rather than asking ourselves what we can do — whether it’s working directly on the actual problem, or working to sanctify our own families and our own souls, so that horrors may be overcome by good.

A reader calling himself “Charles, an Atheist,” left this response:

Don’t pray. Two hands working do more than a thousand clasped in prayer. Praying does more harm than good. Praying gives people a false sense of accomplishment: they’ve done nothing, but felt like they made a difference. Many people forgo actually helping in times of crisis or tragedy, because they believe that they’re doing their personal share by praying. So they contribute less than if they contributed in material ways. So if you really do want to solve the world’s woes, or to help a good cause, then do something with your hands, or donate resources.  Peace, friends.

I was struck by his courteous tone, and his obvious desire to do good in the world. Like Charles, I have met people who feel that praying (or writing blog posts, or calling in to radio shows, or Tweeting with self-righteous hashtags) is all they’re required to do to help their fellow man, and they feel proud of themselves for saying the correct words and then going about their business as if they’ve accomplished something. This kind of empty gesture does replace action, and it’s nothing to be proud of.

That’s why I write about this topic so often: I want to remind religious people that if we’re able to act, then we’re required to act. Faith without works is dead. Works take many different forms, but unless we’re contemplative religious, we may not simply pray and call it a day.

Also, I want to remind non-religious people that some prayer is private. A good many of the world’s most effective humanitarian workers do pray before, during, and after they work; but they follow the Lord’s explicit command to do so privately, behind closed doors, because it’s a true conversation, and not done for show. So if you see someone who is active and effective, he may also pray fervently, without anyone knowing it.

Regardless of whether anyone knows you’re praying or not, what is the primary purpose of prayer? It is to meet God, to speak to Him and to listen to Him while we living our lives. In prayer, we turn our lives over to God, and we ask for His guidance, strength, courage, and wisdom when we think, speak, and act. Prayer, action. They go together.

My morning prayer is from the Psalms (and, for what it’s worth, I’m locked in my private room as I write this, okay, heavenly Father?):

A clean heart create for me, o God,
and a steadfast spirit renew within me.
Cast me not out from your presence,
and your Holy Spirit take not from me.
Give me back the joy of your salvation,
and a willing spirit renew within me.

No matter what comes next, this covers it. As I pray this prayer in the morning, I often have a very clear sensation of strapping on armor, getting my marching orders for the day, and preparing my heart to be ready, open, and resolved to carry out whatever it is I need to do, whether I want to or not. This prayer covers the predictable things, which I’ve been training for and have specific orders about, and the unpredictable ones, which I might be winging it.

Sometimes, the get-ready prayer is stirring and encouraging, and I’m raring to go:

Sometimes it’s a little darker, and I can’t see how it all will end. How did it come to this? All I can hope for is to be on the right side, with the right heart and the right intentions before the enemy is met:

Okay, maybe even something like this

(although when I end a prayer with “Groovy,” I’m usually asking for some divine comeuppance).

Prayer doesn’t excuse me from action. If anything, praying a “get ready” morning prayer like the Psalm above makes much harder for me to ditch my duties to other people, because I’ve made it official that I’m making plans, and not just drifting along. You can’t pray a prayer like this and then claim you had no idea that a follow-up was required.

Of course, there are other kinds of prayer. There are prayers with no obvious action involved: prayers for mercy, prayers of gratitude and joy, prayers for forgiveness, prayers of anger and grief, and sometimes prayers of bafflement, when you have absolutely no hope of doing anything useful yourself, and the only thing that’s left is prayer, so you do it because it couldn’t hurt.

As I’ve said before:

Prayer is like deciding to use both hands to tie your shoe. It’s like taking off your sunglasses when you’re looking at sculpture by Bernini. It’s like filling your pen with deep, black ink. It’s like remembering a joke you heard when you were a child, and finally getting it.  It’s like adding the catalyst that changes everything.  It’s like telling your beloved what’s really on your mind, and being delighted to realize that your beloved already knows. It is the conversation that happens before, during, and after everything great and small that we do. Prayer doesn’t make things happen. Prayer makes things possible.

And of course there will always be phonies: those who put on armor, take a picture of themselves for Instagram, and then shamble down to the basement to play World of Warcraft the rest of the day. Humans gonna human. It’s lame and useless to pray and then refuse to act, just like it’s lame and useless to get a “namaste” tattoo or you attach a “nomorewar” hashtag to everything you say. Big deal, who cares? Talk is cheap, whether you’re talking to God or Reddit. Let’s see some action.

Christians really ought to know better. So let’s be sure that our prayer and our action go hand in hand. People who pray are people who act — or at least, they should be.

The younger kids came home from the first day of Totus Tuus camp wearing strings on their wrists. I asked why, somewhat nervously — hoping that no one had pressured them into making some kind of pledge or consecration that they’re not ready for. My seven-year-old cheerfully explained, “Oh, we have to wear this all week, and if we show up without it, we have to sing a silly song.” How cute! I thought. Then the next day, she showed up with a second string on her wrist, this time a green one. She casually explained that these are the liturgical colors, and she could tell me what they stood for. And that, if you forget to wear them, you have to sing a silly song.

Read the rest at the Register.

***

Pictured: Not an official Totus Tuus Bit of String. They are actually thinner. I don’t know why I felt compelled to disclose this, and yet here we are.

Is it my imagination, or has the internet been on fire with smart ideas and good writing lately? Maybe it’s just that everything that’s not about the Hillary Trump Dumpster Fire looks smart and worthwhile. But I don’t think so – I think the world is just bigger than All That. Here are some great reads you may have missed:

1.One of Us: Superman and the Incarnation by my sister, Abigail Tardiff, at Catholic Exchange:

In the recent flop Batman v Superman, Superman has the same problem as God: America has taken its democracy so much to heart that we see any kind of hierarchy as a sin. It’s not just King George who offends us, by making laws for us to live by that we don’t have a voice in. It’s the whole idea of a king. It’s God Himself, now, Who offends us not only by the things He does, but simply by Who He is. We object to the idea that Someone exists Who can make decisions about us without our say.

2.Policing with Velvet Gloves from The Atlantic, on police officers who want to learn how to serve people with mental illness:

“‘One day, one of you officers will have to come to my house and you might have to shoot and kill my son,’” Ernie[San Antonio police officer Ernie Stevens] recalls her saying, still shaking his head at her resignation. “‘And I want you to know that if that happens, that’s OK. Because I want you to go home safe to your families. You don’t know what it’s like to live with this.’

“At that moment, everything changed for me,” Ernie remembers. “To see her resolved to the fact that her son would eventually be killed by a police officer, and to know she couldn’t possibly be alone … I just thought, there’s no way that this can be.”

3. 6 reasons to request prayers on social media A good little synopsis by Elizabeth Dye.  I definitely need to reel in my social media activity, but at least it makes me pray for people all day long.

4. Jennifer Fitz on Active Participation and the Things We Do with our Bodies at Mass:

I remember this night at Mass when active participation ceased to be about marching around or singing along.  I was at OLCC, sitting in the pew because standing was not on my to-do list (decrepitude), it was some feast or another, and the Gloria was going on forever, and ever, and ever.  The choir would sing some line of the Latin, and then sing it again and again in fifty different variations of hauntingly beautiful soaring tunes.  Then on to the next line.

Not a Sing Along.

It was a Pray Along.

I finally got, for the first time in my life, a chance to pray the Gloria with something that felt like justice.  No more wincing at the splendor of tu solus sanctus then quick keep moving, time for the next big idea.  Each idea, one at a time, washing over the congregation, swirling around in a whirpool of words, seeping into our thoughts and wetting the soul’s appetite for the next line of the prayer.

5. Begotten Not Made: a short piece by Glenn Arbery, my college professor and now president of Wyoming Catholic College, on a revelation via the gift of one of his daughters, who has Down Syndrome:

[21st-century neo gnostics] don’t feel free unless they can will whatever they do, including making themselves.

But it seems to me that the phrase in the Creed is wonderfully liberating. We are not responsible for making our children—educating them, to be sure, but not turning them into products. They arrive with their own natures, and we accept them and work with those natures, as we accept and work with our own. What a relief to be given what one is: begotten, not made.

6. From the Register‘s Joan Desmond: NY Times Tells Liberal Parents It’s Okay to Freak Out About Porn:

[NYT’s Op-Ed columnist Judith Shulevitz] writes:

Parents don’t have to believe that such material is a direct cause of sexual violence to be driven a little crazy by it. It’s bad enough that it’s giving our sons and daughters some very creepy ideas about how they’re supposed to look and act.

Anticipating a hostile response from liberal readers, who generally oppose restrictions on sexual content as a form of neo-Puritanism, Shulevitz holds up her own progressive credentials:

I’m not against the proliferation of internet sexualities …. I just don’t want my preteens watching actors having sex with corpses, even fake corpses, before they’ve begun to date.

Well, you gotta start some place.

7. From another of my talented sisters (I have four talented sisters!): Devra Torres at The Personalist Project with the encouraging thought that Maybe Everything We Know Is Wrong:

How do you assess, for example, the suffering of a 40-year-old man living when the average lifespan was 30, but the aged were revered? How to compare it to, say, the suffering of a woman who dies at 75 in a nursing home where the aged are despised and hidden away? Or how to measure the physical pain of a 12th-century peasant without ibuprofen or antibiotics, against the spiritual agonies of a 21st-century atheist who, as far as he knows, has no reason to live?

8.And have I mentioned lately that I’m on the radio every week with my friend Mark Shea? We’re live on Mondays at 5 Eastern (Breadbox Media live stream here). You can listen to podcasts of previous shows here (Mark is on every weekday, and has a different regular co-host for each day). Here’s a recent show where Mark and I talked about poetry and how to read it, and we read some of our favorite poems, including some by Hopkins, Richard Wilbur, Theodore Roethke, and Edward Lear, and two by Mark himself!

9.And finally, the dumbest thing I’ve read lately: Some doofus at the Huffington Post has decided she’s offended at one of the best parts of the Mass, the part where we tell God, “Look, you know and I know that I’m a mess, but thanks to you, it doesn’t matter, because you love me.” Yeah, let’s do away with that, doofus. (This dovetails pretty well with Abby’s “Superman” post above, actually.)

Aleteia’s David Mills responds handily and gently with You can’t be having too much grace:

It’s a gift, meeting people who are so good. The good man and woman is a beacon, is the light of an open door at the end of a dark hard journey. It’s a gift to feel unworthy in the presence of goodness, because that goodness comes from a God who wills us to become worthy and has provided the means at great cost to himself.

10. Hold everything.  Finally finally, here is a dessert which I insist someone rush over and make for me: Grilled peach splits from Smitten Kitchen. Check it out: Grilled peach halves drizzled with maple syrup and cinnamon, filled with vanilla ice cream, with a crumb topping of pecans, coarse sugar, and bourbon, and of course vanilla whipped cream. I would trade my left foot for one of these and laugh all the way to the hospital. Ew. I’m sorry, I only wanted to talk about peaches, but that went bad.

 

 

1. America, democracy, etc. 

But let’s talk about something else, shall we?

2.The van. Oh, you’re tired of hearing about my van? I’m so terribly sorry. Think how much worse you’d feel if you were within a fifty-mile radius of us, and you could hear my actual van, rather than just hearing about it.

A mechanic once wrote on the repair estimate, more in sorrow than in anger, “misfires badly under any significant load.” Oh, yes. That was the first time I ever gave a van a hug. I used to wonder why I could never come up with a name for my van, but after I read this diagnosis, I knew why.

I already know what her name is.

I already know.

3. The lawnmower. The other day, in a neighborhood far, far away, I saw a wee sprite of a girl tooling around handily with a lawn mower, doing her part to keep the family manse tidy and trim. I wondered why my own rotten kids don’t mow our yard. I have four teenagers. Four! Some of them quite hulking! And yet my husband and I are the only ones who mow.

Then I remembered that our lawnmower has several good features, such as: all of the wheels turn. But it’s old, and it’s not well-maintained, and it keeps forgetting to put itself in the shed when it rains, and so it runs a little rough. Last time I mowed for longer than ten minutes, it took two full weeks to regrow a sort of starter layer of skin back on my palms.

4.My transition off Zoloft. Hey, nobody’s reading this anyway, right? So I says to myself, I says, “I’ve been on this drug for a good, long time, and it’s pretty good, but there’s this and that reason, and thus and so, and maybe I can start weaning myself off it, and just see how it goes.” Therapist says great, doctor says fine, so this is what I do. And it was going okay, it really was. It was going great, to be honest. I took my final dose, said goodbye, threw out the bottle.

Twenty-three hours later, eleven different kinds of hell broke loose. Of course they did. Any one of these things would have been reason to start taking an anti-anxiety drug.

In short:

5. My garden. If you went out there, you’d think, “Hey, this garden is going okay, considering she keeps forgetting she has a garden. It’s pretty weedy, and she needs to stop talking about putting up a fence and actually put it up, and maybe a little insect control couldn’t hurt. But things are certainly growing. Basil fat and hearty, string beans throwing off the blossoms of youth and getting down to business; tomatoes flourishing, radishes chugging along, lettuce and radicchio doing their part; lonely eggplant keeping busy, watermelons taking their time but not dead yet. Yes, this garden is going pretty smoothly, overall.

No.

I’ll tell you what the problem is. It’s those freaking pumpkins. They look great, right? Here’s just a few of my pumpkin plants:

[img attachment=”112450″ align=”aligncenter” size=”medium” alt=”pumpkin vines” /]

Leaves plush, vines ramping all over the place, flowers flowering. But it doesn’t mean anything, not anything at all. I’ve been down this road before, and it’s all a sham.

Right about the time when all those overachieving 4H kids (mere children!) are propping up their rapidly swelling Jarrahdales, their Howdens Huge Boys, and their Rouge Vif D’Etampseses on a bed of straw so they don’t crush themselves with their own massive girth, I’m standing there, tapping my foot, wondering why I used up so much valuable garden space for a bunch of yellow flowers that are too shy to go out and meet a girl.

[img attachment=”112451″ align=”aligncenter” size=”medium” alt=”pumpkin blossom” /]

One year, I was so desperate for some pumpkin action, I actually set the alarm for just before dawn so I could get up and hand-transfer the pollen with a delicate paintbrush from the stamen of one flower to the stigma of another. “Stigma” is right, yeesh. Let us never speak of this again.

And it didn’t even work! I also tried the thing where you shock the flowers into doing their manly duty by leaping out at them with a baseball bat and shouting, “YOU KEEP MY LITTLE GIRL OUT PAST MIDNIGHT, YOU BEST HAVE A WEDDIN’ RING IN YOUR POCKET, SON!” That didn’t work, either.

Yeah, I know you can fry pumpkin blossoms. I just don’t want to, okay?

6. Route 9. For Totus Tuus day camp this week, I find myself driving on this road four to six times a day, for a good half hour at a time. And it is gorgeous. Enchanted. Shimmering with water lilies on one side, solemnly robed with majestic pines on the other. There are gardens, cultivated and wild, and dancing fields of copper grasses, trimmed with purple and crowned with luminous coronets. Exuberant copses of trembling poplars give way to swaying curtains of wild grapes. The road unfurls and the intoxicating chorus of July mounts and then, when you’re so charged with green you cannot think that there could be any color but green: the river. Oh, the river. Oh, that deep, romantic chasm, and and oh, that fabulous blue! It just makes you want to

BRA-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-AP.

Rumble strips! So rude! So jolting! Any time you happen to slip even the teensiest bit off the very center of the lane, you get smacked with these stupid, unnecessary rumble strips. I don’t appreciate it at all when I’m trying to enjoy my nap, I mean drive.

Things are not going smoothly, I say.

***
Airplane! photo courtesy of Movie Stills Database