Author: simchajfisher

Polio and Mumps are manageable diseases

Here’s something I just saw on Facebook, in response to an article about lies spread by pro-vaccine doctors:

These illnesses are manageable. Here are some children managing polio:

PIC children with polio on all fours

And here is a baby managing whooping cough (pertussis):

I’m closing comments on this because there is NOTHING TO SAY. I understand being afraid of vaccines. As with so many worthwhile things, vaccines have some risk. But to say that the diseases they prevent are “manageable” — well, there is nothing to say, except stay the hell away from my kids. I like them breathing.

 

At the Register: Teaching Contempt for Rules

Yay, my hometown made national news! Boo, my hometown is exactly like I remember it, which is why I’m here and not there.

Can you help my hard-working friend?

This weekend, my friend Robin Broun of Kentucky launched a GoFundMe campaign. Her goal is to raise $3,000 to buy supplies for a soap-making business in her home, so she can support her family.

I know there are fundraising pleas allllll the time. I’m not going to try to guilt you into supporting this one (although if you could take a minute and share the page on Facebook, Twitter, or elsewhere, that would be wonderful).  The soap is gorgeous and luscious in its own right, allergen-free and lovingly crafted. Take a look at this picture:

Is it weird that I want to eat this soap? Fine, so it’s weird.

I just want to tell you a bit more about Robin.

You have seen movies where a girl grows up and gets dealt one bad hand after another — but she keeps struggling? And where she grows up and has children of her own, and wants a different life for her kids — and keeps getting knocked back down? But she keeps struggling?  And where malicious and cold-hearted people seem to hound her at every turn, and no matter how much personal sacrifice and humiliation she goes through, she picks herself up and tries again the next day? And she keep struggling?

This is Robin. She has a number of medical problems which make it impossible for her to work outside the home — but she can’t quite qualify for disability services, because she appears healthy enough to work. She wants to work. She just can’t, right now — not outside her home. She has no car, she often has no phone minutes, and, probably worst of all, she feels like people are constantly judging her and blaming her for her desperate situation. She is afraid that people will think this is just a lark or a hobby she wants to diddle around with.

It’s not. In fact, it could be a life-changing project, something that could lift her out of a truly desperate situation, into self-sufficiency and stability.

Right now, she suffers from constant and severe panic and anxiety. She is selling off her furniture — not nick-nacks, but things like her couch and TV — to make rent.  She is working steadily on patching together a more stable means of income, but anyone who’s tried to navigate the social services system — especially with no car and an unreliable phone — knows that these things take time, and sometimes leave you high and dry. She works so hard to keep her family together and to give her kids a stable and dignified life, but she just has so very little to work with.

Robin is very proud of her eight years of Army service. She is very proud of her lovely daughters. She has eleven years of experience making this cold-process goat milk soap.  This soap making venture is sensible and achievable.  She explains the process, the ingredients, the benefits of goat milk soap, and lists the items she needs to buy to get started on her page.

So I am asking you to donate if you possibly can — even five or ten dollars (although more would be superb!). And whether you donate or not, please share this post, or share her page directly wherever you can.

 Robin Broun Handmade Goat Milk Soap! Spread the word!

And please, of your kindness, say a prayer for Robin’s success and peace of mind. Thank you, my friends.

Jane Fonda’s Incomplete Workout

Look what I found!

We used to drink $1 beers and play darts at Penuche’s all night, then come back to campus and do this workout. Tried it this morning. Lasted 11 minutes. Hello, again, treadmill, which I can do while keeping and eye on the kids and reading Call of the Wild.  I think we understand each other.

Seven quick, gratifying reads

–1–

Okay, so this

Pope Francis waving

 

is not exactly this

Agentinian Pirate guy

but if you want to understand someone, it’s always helpful to learn a bit about the culture they come from. From Matadornetwork.com (huh!): 15 differences between a normal friend and an Argentinean friend. Cute.

 

–2–

A quick and insightful post from Clare Short, The Mantilla Blues, which is not really about veiling, per se, but about how we think we can hide from God by doing God stuff, and God is like, “Stop it, silly. I can see you.”  Short, sweet, smart.

 

 –3–

A longer but just as insightful piece from Jessica Griffith (yay, I found a great new author! New to me, I mean): “Against Gratitude.”

[I]t seems it’s no longer enough to endure or even embrace the endless Sisyphean chores of parenting and life. We Christian parents must enjoy them, and our children must enjoy them, and the key to obtaining this joy—and the measure of our faith—is our gratitude for it all.

We mean well, but our current obsession with gratitude is just another indication that we’ve lost our heads in a race to make the mundane glorious. We aren’t shocked to find God hiding beneath the salt cellar, as the art critic John Berger once put it—we fully expect him there. We’ve already Instagrammed the saltshaker and tagged it blessed.

This no longer strikes me as worshipping a God of small things, the little way of St. Therese or Brother Lawrence, but as making gods of small things, holding up the trivial and the banal and calling it transcendent.

Not to beat a dead horse, but I think she’s getting at something that I wanted to drive home when I was responding to the claims that you can so guarantee fidelity in marriage, because grace. Griffith says,

It is good to be mindful of [the presence of God making good out of all things]—of course it is—but the moment we think we can trace his movements through our days is the moment we deny the mystery of those movements.

“Truth is not something that can be possessed like a tea-cosy,” Caryll Houselander wrote. Or, as her publisher Frank Sheed put it, “Really seeing it includes seeing why we cannot see more of it.”

Yes.  Many critics groaned that I was  overemphasizing the pain and suffering that are possible or even likely in marriage. In fact, I was rebelling against the taming of marriage. Love doesn’t fit inside a goody bad marked “grace” that you get at really nicely planned weddings. It’s heavier than that, but in many cases, it’s much, much,ever so much bigger and better than that.  I was talking with Fr. Dwight Longenecker about this yesterday, when we recorded a radio interview (to be broadcast later):  we need to stop expecting love to be like Disneyland — and we need to stop wishing that love will be like Disneyland. Not because it’s too much to expect, but because it’s too little.

 

–4–

So, Jennifer Fulwiler’s memoir, Something Other Than God, is coming out soon. I read it. On my treadmill. I stayed on my treadmill longer so I could finish reading it. That’s how good it is.  And how good is Jen Fulwiler? She is offering a free ebook to anyone who pre-orders her book.

Details here. The ebook is called The Family-First Creative:  47 Tips for Following Your Dreams While Putting Family First.  Nice!

 

–5–

Remember the wonderful photos of Pope Francis hugging that hugely joyful little boy named Dominic?

PIC Francis embracing Dominic

 

Well, his family recently did a fundraiser to buy one of these brilliant new devices, which allows disabled children to walk along with their parents.

I didn’t even hear about the fundraiser until it was over — because the project was fully funded in five hours. See, there are good things in the world and even on the internet!

 

–6–

And not even a read, but definitely gratifying. Or, not gratifying, but, look, if you like this kind of thing, it’s exactly the kind of thing you’ll like:  Celebrities that Look Like Mattresses.  For instance, Mickey Rourke and his doppelmattress:

PIC Mickey Rourke and mattress
It was hard to pick one photo that would give you an idea of what this feature is about, because I really don’t understand what it is about.

 

–7–

And finally, either the most or least gratifying thing you will read all week:  my son’s 4th grade teacher sent me this artifact from his recent classroom political campaign:

 

Okay, so he doesn’t even know how to spell his own middle name, but that’s actually not a bad life plan: Think hard, try to do what is right, and then just walk away.

I will be on Busted Halo’s Sirius XM radio show Friday at 3 Eastern

The Busted Halo Show with Father Dave Dwyer

The Busted Halo Show on the Catholic Channel (channel 129) with Fr. Dave Dwyer. Hope you can catch it!

At the Register: Great New Children’s Book about the Papacy (updated with link this time!)

Our Holy Father, the Pope:  The Papacy from Saint Peter to the Present would make a very good addition to the library of any Catholic child.  Quick review here. This week or next, I’ll be doing a few more book reviews of some of the excellent children’s books coming out of Ignatius/Magnificat.

Why I will never be a real New Hampshire girl

I mean, besides that I’m not a girl. This car decal is cropping all over the place. I mean all over the place. Stop at any traffic light in the state and you will see it on at least three or four cars. It really bothered me, because it seemed to suggest some kind of infernally complicated tool, like a pair of Goth pliers modified for torture. It also suggested the legs of a dancer with a set of extra arms, tortuously morphing into . . . something else, I know not what, but nothing good.  Here is the decal:

Sinister, eh?

Well, the other day, it finally hit me: it’s a deer. It’s made by a company that sells hunting products. I suppose you all realized this right away. Well, too bad! I’m not always thinking about deer all the time. Sometimes I’m thinking about Goth pliers modified for torture. I suppose that makes you better than me, deer freak.

They even have his-’n’-hers decals, with a buck and a doe intertwined

which, when you think about it, is not very romantic, because BANG BANG. But what do I know. I’ll never be a real New Hampshire girl.

At the Register: Simcha Fisher (1974 – 2014)

Sad news.

Suzanne Bercier

Earlier this week, my dear friend Suzanne Bercier died. She had cancer, which is never fair, but Suzanne especially was so beautiful and so good.  We were college roommates.

She was from rural Louisiana, and everything you’ve heard about gracious, mellow Southerners was true in Suzanne. She had a merry eye, and thick, glossy hair; she was tall and slender, and when you sat down at her table, she made you feel like she’d been waiting all day for that moment.

She had an unshakable faith in the power of the Holy Name. When her room filled up with chatty, catty girls who veered into gossip and viciousness, she would whisper the name of Jesus and wait for the conversation to right itself.  She always invited, never pushed. The cafeteria was right next to the chapel, and when it was late afternoon, I met Suzanne hundreds of times:  she was heading to the bright chapel for daily Mass, I was fleeing to my smelly room for evening despair. And she would smile and invite, invite, invite. Want to come to Mass? Want to join us for a rosary? Okay, see you at dinner!

One clattering drawer of her dresser was full of bottles and powders, and every afternoon she would wince her way through a tall, clotted glass of some kind of chlorophyll drink.  Maybe she would have been sicker without all those handfuls of vitamins, I don’t know.  She endured so many colds and coughs, but holy cow, she worked, and worked, and worked. The idea of leaving an assignment undone was unthinkable to her, and she muscled her way through every dense text and incomprehensible passage. She chose Wallace Stevens for her junior project, because she was always looking for beauty.

In four years, I never heard her say an unkind word. She would laugh at herself, but never at anyone else.  She was a fountain of generosity. When we came back to school our sophomore year, I saw her in the parking lot, she held out her hands to me, and for a moment, we danced. It was strange, and I broke away laughing, but that is how she was: she was glad to see you, and held out her hands.

God rest the soul of Suzanne Therese Bercier, and God comfort the family that she loved so much and missed so much when she was away. And one more time, here is the song that could always get her to sing along: