10. You’re not going to get an ideal education in a brick and mortar school. You’re also not going to get an ideal education by home schooling, or by unschooling, or by semi schooling, or co-schooling, or private schooling, or charter schooling, or attending-all-the-conferences-and-working-yourself-into-a-damp-spot-on-the-carpet schooling. Some schools are better than others, but since we are dealing with finite time and human nature, there will always be gaps. Expect this, fill in what you can, and remember that your kids are people, not empty mason jars waiting to be filled up with the perfect combination of ingredients. We’re making people, here, not soup.
Author: simchajfisher
I have a job for you, baby.
Not the little guy who just kicked me for the first time, that I could feel, just yesterday (yay!). I mean the other one, the one I lost. I wrote about how hard it was not to have a body to bury. You want to be able to take care of your children with your own hands, but I couldn’t do that, and it hurt.
Now, as the months have gone by and the pain of loss has receded, I still find myself bewildered about what to do with the baby’s soul.
When I found out I was pregnant last time, I prayed for the baby’s protection constantly, and turned him over to God. So I have a strong hope that, whenever it was that he left us, he was already baptized through our desire and intention to do so, and he went straight into the arms of his loving Papa in heaven. This is a good thing! I am not worried. I love him, but God loves him more.
But, what to do when I pray for my all children, one by one? I was never sure when I got to this child. It didn’t feel right to pray for him. Even though I know no prayer is wasted, it seemed like asking for something that was already given.
And I know that many parents pray to their lost unborn babies, and that seemed reasonable, but felt odd, too. Probably this shows that I have a poor understanding of the saints in heaven, but praying to him felt like turning him into a spiritual being, which made him foreign, elevated beyond the family, not really our kid; and at the same time, it felt like too much to ask of such a little guy. I’m not going to tell my five-year-old when Daddy is having a hard time at work or Mama is worried about school; so why would I spill the beans to a seven-week-old fetus, even if he is enjoying the Beatific Vision? I know, I’m over thinking it, but it just felt weird!
But yesterday, it came to me: Baby, you pray for the new baby. You two hold hands and be good to each other. Take care of each other while Mama is taking care of the rest of them. Aha! Everybody needs a job. We are at our best when we know what we are here for.
At the Register: The Culture of Blechh
What kind of person responds to someone’s joy with an agenda? I don’t even care if you’re right or wrong: that’s dehumanizing (and last I heard, most people on both ends of the political spectrum are generally opposed to dehumanization). You’ve heard of the Culture of Death, which teaches people to sneer in disgust at the good, the true, and the beautiful. What we have here is its sad sack cousin, the Culture of Blechh, which teaches people to turn every occasion, whether happy or sad, into a basin to catch the Very Important Message they perpetually disgorge.
My dream self is a raging jerk.
A reader had this dream about me last night:
You had some sort of Catholic women’s gathering at your house, and women from all over were coming. When we got there, there was a sign on the porch that said, “This ain’t no Edel gathering.” We went in and on some tables was the food. You said, “I’m pregnant and I like peanut butter and I like sausage. So you can make yourself a peanut butter sandwich, or a sausage sandwich or a peanut butter and sausage sandwich.” There was a large can of peaches with a spoon in it. You said, “after you eat, go outside and find some twigs and make a craft or something.” I mentioned to you that I was expecting our 5th baby in November and you just snorted and said, “Amateur” and walked off. Then I woke up.
I can’t tell if this means I’ve arrived, or that I’ve departed.
Fine, I’m pregnant!
See?
Too tired and gassy to come up with any announcement more adorable or original than this, but everything is looking good so far. God willing, Fishie #10 is due in late Feb./early March. Hooray!
At the Register: Lessons from the ER
–One of the greatest functions of the ER is to illustrate for your children why you do not pay for TV at home. Ninety nine channels, ’round and around and around you go. See, kids? There is nothing on. Nothing.
–If you are holding a catheter tube, and I say, “Careful, she is little, but she is strong,” then you should listen to me.
Read the rest at the Register.
PIC I’m a bad doctor
Faith, reason, depression, and help
PIC bug in jar
There’s a lot of bad information about depression, suicide, and faith swirling around the internet this week. Here are a few things I know:
No, depression and mental illness don’t necessarily take away your free will, turning you into a helpless victim who wings straight to Heaven if you commit suicide.
No, you can’t just pray away the sadness, will yourself to be joyful, or do this one weird trick that will earn you emotional stability and peace.
The truth lies, as is so often the case, lies somewhere in the middle of all these extreme bad ideas.
Many people who are severely depressed are suffering from some combination of spiritual and physical ailments.
Many people who are severely depressed are dealing with some things that are out of their control and some things that are within their control.
Many people who are severely depressed need sacrificial love and patience from friends and family, and also some kind of hard work and self-knowledge in order to make it through the dark times.
And many people who are severely depressed need both faith and reason to help them through. This is not a new idea! Here is a passage from Sirach:
9 My son, when you are sick do not be negligent,
but pray to the Lord, and he will heal you.
10 Give up your faults and direct your hands aright,
and cleanse your heart from all sin.
11 Offer a sweet-smelling sacrifice, and a memorial portion of fine flour,
and pour oil on your offering, as much as you can afford.[e]
12 And give the physician his place, for the Lord created him;
let him not leave you, for there is need of him.
13 There is a time when success lies in the hands of physicians,[f]
14 for they too will pray to the Lord
that he should grant them success in diagnosis[g]
and in healing, for the sake of preserving life.
15 He who sins before his Maker,
may he fall into the care[h] of a physician.Sirach 38:9-15
And here is a post from John Herreid, writing as a guest on my sister’s husband Bill Herreid’s newish blog,Life, Liberty and Absolute Crap:
Depressed Catholics: God Wants You to Get Help.
Please read it, and please forward it to anyone who could benefit from hearing an honest account by a faithful Catholic who suffers but has gotten help.
John’s experience of depression is different from my own. I haven’t been fascinated with death ever, that I can recall. But I have had the experience where it physically hurt to draw a breath, to move, to get out of bed. I would hear people talking about feeling better, and that was not what I wanted. I just wanted to die, so that I would not feel anything anymore. There was no experience of anything but pain, ever. I could see the world, the people who loved me, the things I used to enjoy, and it was as if I moved around behind a dome bulletproof glass. Nothing could touch me, and I couldn’t do anything but feel paralysis and suffocation. I couldn’t say anything true, feel anything genuine, express anything worthwhile. The only thing I knew was that I had to live, and I didn’t know why I deserved that.
So. If someone is telling you to see a doctor, see a doctor. Ask someone to help you make that phone call. Even if the first treatment you try, whether it’s drugs or therapy or something else, doesn’t work, try something. Name the lie that you can fix yourself by trying hard to be a better person. You need help, and God wants you to get help.
At the Register: What does the Church teach about suicide?
The modern Church understands that depression and other psychological disturbances that might lead a person to suicide are true illnesses, which can significantly mitigate both a person’s understanding and free will.
Moreover, even if a person’s death seems quick, with no time to repent before the end, we have no way of knowing what happens between their soul and a merciful God, who wants to bring all of His children home to Himself.
Give me a dumb kid any day.
Today, we went for kindergarten screening with my five-year-old (here in the persona of “A Snooty Waitress”)
The teacher showed her three sets of dominoes: a group of two, a group of three, and a group of four. She asked my kid to show her which group had two in it. Kid points to the group of three and the group of four.
I, being the greatest mother in the world, didn’t say a thing, because this is my kid’s moment to shine, and whatever happens, happens. So the teacher gently encourages her to count how many dominoes are in the group of four. “One, two, free, four.” And how many in this other group? “One, two, free.” All right, now can you show me which one has two in it? She again points to the groups of three and four.
Then the other teacher points out that my child is indicating which groups include individual dominoes with two dots on them. There are, indeed, two groups with two in them. Ta dah!
This reminds me of my nephew, who went for a well-child check-up. I think he was about five, too. A tricky age! The doctor held up a green crayon and asked him what color it was. He hemmed and hawed and wasn’t sure. The doctor carefully recorded this slightly worrisome deficit.
My sister, his mother, asked him why the heck he didn’t just tell her what color the crayon was. “The doctor was holding her finger over the label,” he explained, “So I couldn’t read if it was Forest Green or Jungle Green. ”
Smart kids. Making us look bad.
Fearless Clare, Intercede for Iraq
Today is the feast day of St. Clare, the abbess who faced down the invading Saracens with a fearsome weapon: the Holy Eucharist.
While the marauders were scaling the convent walls, Clare, ill as she was, had herself carried out to the gate and there the Sacrament was set up in sight of the enemy. Prostrating herself before it, she prayed aloud: “Does it please Thee, O God, to deliver into the hands of these beasts the defenseless children whom I have nourished with Thy love? I beseech Thee, good Lord, protect these whom now I am not able to protect.”
Whereupon she heard a voice like the voice of a little child saying, “I will have them always in My care.” She prayed again, for the city, and again the voice came, reassuring her. She then turned to the trembling nuns and said, “Have no fear, little daughters; trust in Jesus.” At this, a sudden terror seized their assailants and they fled.
The details are, of course, different: today’s Muslim jihadists aren’t mercenaries vying for control of the Papal States. But to the Christians trembling inside the walls, the enemy is the enemy, and the picture is just as bleak. St. Clare, pray for your defenseless children now.
PIC St. Clare stained glass