Behind the curve as usual, I’ve discovered a new game that was hot a few months ago: Scale Back a Book. You take a famous book title and just . . . take it down a notch. (Check out #ScaleBackABook on Twitter for plenty of funny stuff.)
Here’s what I’ll be checking out of the less-visited wing of the library no time soon:
A Tale of One City
The Adequate Gatsby
The Patina’d Testament and The Refurbished Testament
On the Shoulder (by Jack Kerouac)
To Intimidate a Mockingbird
Wuthering Hummocks
The Jungle First Draft
1983
The Sun Also Tenses Its Glutes and Hamstrings
The Mauve Letter
Misdemeanors and Written Warnings
The Viscount of Monte Cristo
Atlas Shifted Uneasily and Then Resumed the Position
Request for an Interview with the Vampire
The Third Sex (0r should it be The First Sex? Or The Sex 2.5? I can’t decide)
Thus Implied Zarathustra
and
Fleurs de Naughty
Whatcha got? And gosh, don’t you have a job or something?
A few times a year, I find myself flying here and there around the country, giving speeches about this and that. Lots of people do this; no big deal.
The only reason I’m bothering to tell you about it is because this is not the kind of thing I do. I mean, I do it, but it sure doesn’t come naturally.
I didn’t even learn to drive until I was 23. I didn’t even learn how to look people in the eye until I was 26. I’m pathologically shy, wracked with anxiety, and utterly lacking in self-confidence. I’m easily intimidated, have poor body image, tend to mutter and babble, am afraid of flying, have face blindness, don’t know how to apply eyeliner, get lost in the town I’ve lived in for eight years, hate leaving the baby, and never know how much to tip.
However, those 30-45 minutes when I’m actually in front of the microphone? Love them. And I love having met people and having made friends, even if the process of actually encountering them for the first time is terrifying. For better or worse, traveling is part of my job now.
I’ve learned some survival tips for the surrounding logistics, to prevent me from falling apart or coming completely unmoored when I’m away from home:
At the hotel, go ahead and call the concierge for anything, from “What’s the number of a pizza place that will deliver to my room?” to “Which hotel exit do I use if I want to walk over to that big rock thing I can see from my window?” to “How can I tell if my alarm clock is on?” They’ve heard much stupider questions, and even if they haven’t, who cares? You’re flying away and probably never coming back. If you ask a dumb question and the concierge gives a useless answer, hang up and call again. You’ll probably get a different concierge and you can start fresh.
Same is true if you’re at the airport and have gotten overwhelmed. For some reason, airports are designed to be confusing, and each airline has a slightly different brand of confusingness. So go ahead and wave your important bit of paper at anyone with a lanyard around their neck, and ask them repeatedly what you’re supposed to do next. If it’s the wrong bit of paper, they’ll tell you. Are you a terrorist planning to blow up the plane? No, you are not. Therefore, you have the right to expect them to help you.
If you do get overwhelmed and are about to cry in public, speak to yourself (in your head!) in a firm but compassionate voice, in the third person: “Now, Simmy, I know you’re exhausted, but I really don’t think you’re going to cry. You’ve gotten through this kind of thing before. It’s okay to stand still for three minutes, and then I want you to walk over to that kiosk and ask advice, okay? You can do this!” It’s ridiculous how well this works.
In a fabulous new city? Got a wonderful opportunity to explore untried vistas and climb new climes? Finally have a little bit of time to yourself, with no one else’s needs or plans to consider? Feeling horribly guilty because here you are in your hotel room, squandering it all by holing up on your Naugahyde lounger, eating granola out of the pouch with the AC cranked up? You’re fine. You’re fine. If this is what you want to do with your free time, then go ahead and do it. Shy, introverted people need to recharge before and after meeting other people, so it’s not wasted time, it’s preparation time. If you push your limits now, you won’t have anything left when you really need it.
Go ahead and stream your hometown radio station. Normally, that fool announcer who groans when he breathes is the last thing you want to hear, but when you look out your hotel window and see weird, alien kinetic art installments and mountains that are the wrong shape, and outside your door are chattering ice machines, sad-looking housekeepers, and some kind of wall art made of neon lights, fish gravel, and wheat . . . you go ahead and stream your hometown radio station. Find out what the weather is back home.
Speaking of housekeepers, you can tell them to skip your room and come back tomorrow. They won’t mind, honest.
Stay away from magnifying mirrors. I know you’re thinking, “Hey, I have forty minutes before I have to be out the door and get on stage! I’ll just take a peek and see if my eyebrows couldn’t use a little touch up!” No. Stay away. Trust me on this one. Or if you don’t trust me, trust Liz Lemon:
Shut it down!
If you have to make conversation, ask people about themselves. That is what people really want to talk about. Also compliment their jewelry, their babies, their car, their lovely downtown area, or their shoes. Line up some questions ahead of time if you need to.
If you have unassigned seating on the airplane, your best bet is an old person, preferably an old man. He is far less likely to make hideous conversation, snap his gum, blast the music in his earbuds, shove his knees into you, use up more than his share of the armrest, watch filthy things on his laptop, or try to impress you with his carry-on-stowing prowess. He will likely make little phlegmy noises in his throat from time to time, but you can manage that until he falls asleep.
And finally:
Find Jesus. It doesn’t matter what city you’re in, how bizarre the neighborhood is, how peculiar and foreign the architecture is. If you’re anywhere near a church, go find the tabernacle and you’ll be at home.
Pro-lifers are rightly distraught by this high number of Americans who would accept a late-term abortion of a Zika-infected baby. By 24 weeks gestation and beyond, we’re talking about a child who’s been unmistakably kicking, dancing, and hiccuping inside his mother for many weeks — a child whose face she’s probably seen in an ultrasound, and whose sex she knows, whose name she may have already chosen. By 24 weeks, it’s likely she’s bought clothes for her baby, maybe even had a baby shower to welcome him, and planned a space for him to sleep at night.
So what would make a woman seek an abortion this far along, after she gets the diagnosis of Zika? Pro-lifers must look more deeply at this question, beyond just saying “Be pro-life!” Especially in an election year, we must think of the bigger picture, at the issues surrounding a woman’s decision — and we must vote accordingly.
A woman carrying a baby with Zika-induced defects might abort because . . .
She thinks her child’s life will be worthless because of his defect. This is not an idle concern. Zika does not always cause microcephaly, and microcephaly itself can cause a wide range of defects, from mild to severe; but at its worst, microcephaly is associated with
Seizures
Developmental delay, such as problems with speech or other developmental milestones such as sitting, standing, and walking
Intellectual disability (decreased ability to learn and function in daily life)
Problems with movement and balance
Feeding problems, such as difficulty swallowing
Hearing loss
Vision problems
No mother wants this for her child.
But can she accept it? It may be easier for a mother to resolve to show her love for her baby by giving birth to him and caring for him as best she can, if she has help. If she knows that there is a support network available, and that she and her child will not be alone, she may feel more hopeful that it’s worth it to give birth. Private and public-funded organizations that support and encourage people with disabilities and their families are invaluable, and they can make the difference between a life of agony and a life that is difficult but rewarding. They can make a difference between choosing death and choosing life. We must consider public policies that make it easy for such organizations to function.
Can we vote for policies that fund the support a disabled child needs to have a good life? Pro-lifers must consider this.
Why else would a loving mother consider aborting her child with birth defects?
She thinks her child will be too hard, and too expensive, to care for. And this is not an idle concern either. Caring for a child with a severe disability is exhausting. It is only manageable if parents have access to lots of help from the medical community: trained therapists; schools that are equipped, encouraged, and funded to include special needs students; respite care when parents needs a break; help with things like transportation to and from medical appointments and childcare for their other children; and the assurance that the unthinkably high medical bills they incur will be paid.
And a mother must know that she can afford to live, eat, pay her rent and her electric bill, while she is caring for her child.
Can we vote for policies that readily fund all the primary and ancillary care and support that a disabled child and his caregivers will need? Pro-lifers must consider this.
And the third reason, possibly the most important of all, that a woman might choose late-term abortion?
She thinks her child will be rejected and outcast by society, and people will treat him as if he’s less than human because he looks and behaves differently. This is also not an idle concern. More are more, we applaud leaders who encourage us to automatically reject, demonize, and physically thrust away — out of the room, out of the state, out of the country — people who don’t look and act like us.
If we learn the habit of despising the alien, this attitude will not sequester itself to one class of despised people. Hatred is hungry, and is always looking for more hateful classes of humans to consume. The one who despises the refugee, the poor, the foreigner, the helpless will also inevitably despise the baby with the malformed skull, who cannot speak, who cannot pull his own weight, who cannot give us easy, comforting answers about what life is for.
Can we vote for leaders who teach us to despise the weak? Pro-lifers must consider this.
Being pro-life means being willing to look at hard, ugly questions without easy “pro/con” answers.
Before you vote, look at a crucifix and tell me that we’re only supposed to be pro-life when it’s easy, or cheap, or doesn’t make any demands on our sensibilities or our wallets. Look at a crucifix and tell me that we’re called to join in that unspeakable sacrifice only as long as our taxes don’t get too high and we never have to hear a foreign language that bothers us. Look at a crucifix and tell me that all that agony was only meant for the useful, the strong, the wholesome, the familiar, the whole.
When we call ourselves pro-life, we must not only consider the basic issue of accepting abortion or rejecting abortion. We must look at the reasons that women seek abortions, and we must look at what she needs to reject those reasons. If we want fewer women to seek abortions, then we must do all we can to make life with her child seem possible, even joyful and worthwhile.
And we must keep all this in mind when we vote.
It’s easy for a candidate to say three syllables: “I’m pro-life.” It’s harder for a president (or a state rep, or a governor) to sign bills that will shape a world in which pregnant women realize, “Maybe I can do this.”
If you can’t vote, then so be it. Despite what you may have heard, I haven’t stated or even decided whether I can make myself vote in this election, much less for whom I will vote.
But do not tell me that a candidate is pro-life, when every policy and attitude a candidate promotes would push a mother to kill her child. I won’t have it. I won’t sit back and let that happen to the phrase “pro-life.”
Look at a crucifix, and ask yourself if you can let it happen. Think of the mother who wants to carry her baby to term. Think of what she needs, and think of what you can to do make that possible.
On Wednesday, I traveled to Colorado to speak at the monthly meeting of Silver Springs Legatus. Wonderful people, wonderful food, great conversation, and a really neat town. And I didn’t go home empty-handed!
The two run the popular website TheCatholicCatalogue.com, and their new book gives Catholics a whole year’s full of suggestions for how to incorporate Catholic traditions and practices into your daily life.
There’s a whole generation of young Catholics who think they’ve been baptized into endless culture wars. We’re not denying the reality of issues that must be confronted and debated and struggled with or against, but we want to call them, and ourselves, back to the foundation of our faith, which is neither a political theory nor an ethic, but a daily life of prayer and work, fasting and feasting, of going out to encounter Jesus. Before we ever began fighting—and, granted, that began early—Christians were setting tables and welcoming guests, caring for the sick, burying the dead, receiving Eucharist, marking the hours of dawn and dusk, keeping prayerful watch through the night, honoring and remembering martyrs, just as we continue so to do 2,000 years later.
One reviewer describes the structure of the book well:
The book is divided into three main sections: Smells and Bells, Seasons of the Church Year, and Seasons of Life.
The first main section, Smells and Bells, deals with the things Catholics keep, wear, or use. This includes relics, holy water, vestments, scapulars, candles, and even daily prayer.
The second main section, Seasons of the Church Year, is subdivided according to the liturgical year. The subsections are Ordinary Time, Advent, Christmas, Winter Ordinary Time, Lent, Easter, Summer Ordinary Time, and Autumn Ordinary Time. Each of these subsections has between three to nine chapters on various topics. Some of these topics include the Liturgy of the Hours, feast days, and various traditions.
The third main section is Seasons of Life. The subsections are Childhood to Adolescence, Young Adulthood, and Adulthood. These are the sections that deal with the sacraments. There are also chapters about spiritual direction, pilgrimages, and vocations.
The tone is lively and encouraging, without making the reader feel panicked or guilty about not following every suggestion. It includes prayers, stories, and tidbits from history, and gives simple directions for how to enrich our lives with crafts, celebrations, rituals, song, and food. The Catholic Catalogue is less of a regimented meal plan and more of a smorgasbord: “Just look at the feast before us!” is the message. The book would make a lovely wedding gift for any Catholic couple.
I was also presented (and I apologize for not catching the name of the woman who gave it to me!) with a lovely steel cross, just the right size to hold in the palm of my hand. It’s etched with “JESUS” on one side and says “P – T – J – F” etched on the other side, for the four cardinal virtues of prudence, temperance, justice, and fortitude.
The accompanying laminated card explains each virtue in a few lines, and the card and cross fit neatly into a linen drawstring pouch. It would fit into a pocket, a wallet, a pencil box, or a dashboard compartment. (The cross does not seem to be available for sale online yet, but I will post about it when it is. The company is Thomas Peters Designs in Colorado Springs, Colorado.)
A simple thing, but what if it went with you everywhere you go? So often, I begin the day with all the best intentions. I make a morning offering, and it’s all going great . . . and then the first time I’m challenged, it all goes out the window. Half the time, I don’t even realize I blew it until much later.
The steel cross and the book both have the same goal: to imbue our daily lives with reminders of what makes our life meaningful. Ideally, it should be hard to tell where our religious practices begin and our everyday life ends. One way to encourage more seamless incorporation of faithful practices in our lives is to surround ourselves with reminders of who we are and what we believe, every day and every place we find ourselves.
I’m working on filling the house, and even the car, with more religious items: little crucifixes, icons, statues I find at yard sales. I used to be terribly fussy, and would only deign to use the most tasteful and striking visual reminders of our faith. But now I’m casting a wide net. My goal is to make it hard to go anywhere or do anything and forget that I’m Catholic! I need all the help I can get.
[img attachment=”98244″ align=”aligncenter” size=”medium” alt=”whats for supper aleteia” /]
Last friday was all about raffles and NFP, so I skipped the Friday food post. There was only really one meal worth reporting on last week anyway, but it was a doozy:
Coconut curry shrimp on basmati rice.
Eh? Eh? I used Pioneer Woman’s Coconut Curry Shrimp recipe, which she claims is “scrumptious and exceedingly fast/easy.” AND IT WAS. The thing that took the longest was peeling all the shrimp. The rest of it went together in no time, and it was swoonfully delicious.
Next time I will use less honey and more curry, but man oh man. Next time shrimp is on sale, look out! (I’m talking to the shrimp, I guess.)
We had leftover coconut milk and leftover lime juice, so we threw it in a blender with some sugar, ice, and some rum. It was okay — a little too “Tahitian Tee-Hee” for my tastes,
but I could have used less sugar and more ice. I mean, I drank two of them, but I didn’t like it or anything. Needed more ice. We never have enough ice. Those rotten kids eat it all day long, and then when the adults get home and really need some ice, there’s only a little bit left.
***
SATURDAY French dip beef sandwiches, broccoli, farro
Completely delicious again. I splurged a little so we could have a nice meal together before I went away for a speaking gig in Colorado. My husband slathered the steak with melted butter, salted and peppered it, and put it under the broiler, then sliced it thin. We piled the meat on rolls with provolone and sauteed onions and mushrooms. I put horseradish sauce on mine, and put the whole thing under the broiler to toast it up.
The French dip was made of beef broth with pan drippings and scraping from the meat, plus Worcestershire sauce and some bourbon. In the picture, you’ll see that I had my French dip in a drinking glass. This is not because I was just drinking it straight, no sir. I would never!
I think the broccoli was just served raw. I think I may have dipped it in the French dip.
The farro was completely unnecessary. I was afraid there wouldn’t be enough food, even though there was actually leftover steak — leftover steak — after everyone was staggering around with round bellies like Rotten Ralph after his tragic catharsis is complete and his family gives him lobster and cupcakes because they still love him, even though sometimes he is hard to love.
But I ate the farro anyway. I doused it in French dip, too.
***
SUNDAY Grilled chicken and salad, oven fried potatoes
I made a marinade out of fresh garlic, fresh basil, freshly ground pepper, salt, oregano, oil, and fresh lime juice. I hate how much of a difference it makes to use fresh ingredients. Boo! Work! Boo!
My husband sliced the potatoes up thin and fried some on the stove top, and mixed up the rest with oil and seasonings and put them under the broiler. It was one of those meals where you don’t have enough of something, so you decided to stretch it, but then it turns out to be more work than you expected, so you use another method, but you’ve already committed to the first method, so you end up having not quite enough food, but twice the effort. At least it’s an ethos!
Oh, the salad was organic baby arugula. What have I become?
***
MONDAY Tacos, tortilla chips
Nothing to report.
***
TUESDAY Hamburgers and chips
This was the first day of my trip. My husband is an excellent cook (cf. above: “slathered the steak with melted butter”), but we thought it made sense to keep meals simple while I was gone.
So I’m in my hotel enjoying a fine dinner of Dasani and granola from a pouch (I like to keep it simple when I’m gone, too), and I get this missive from home:
[img attachment=”115078″ align=”aligncenter” size=”medium” alt=”hamburger and ketchup” /]
Protein and a vegetable! And I’m pretty sure someone ate the plate, too, so fiber.
***
WEDNESDAY Pizza
They had pizza. I had stuffed mushrooms and hot crab dip, blushingly tender beef medallions, baked potatoes stuffed with cheese, bacon, and green things, tournée-cut zucchini*, and what may have been caramel flan with white chocolate garnishes. I had to abandon my dessert because they apparently wanted me to give a speech, not just sit there shoveling food into my face.
*I just spent a good ten minutes looking up what you call vegetables cut into that football shape. I told my husband that I desperately hope this kind of pointless attention to pointless detail is essential to my writing, and he said that since I was the only one who had vegetables this week, he wasn’t going to argue. I did eat both my little footballs.
***
THURSDAY Chicken burgers and cheez items
Nothing to report. I got home before dinner, and was not technically still on a trip, but frozen chicken and bags of orange things that my husband put on the table still seemed like a good life choice.
***
FRIDAY I think we are having spaghetti or something.
Last week, for NFP Awareness Week, I recorded a podcast of Humanae Vitae. I regret that I waited so long to read it myself for the first time, because it’s so short, so easy to understand, so profound, and, most of all, so encouraging. I really wanted other people to enjoy it, too.
The podcast is hung up in Techno-Idiotland, because I guess I pressed a button while editing, and a big chunk of it is missing. Duh. I’ll get back to it as soon as I can, and will post it on this blog when it’s ready.
In the meantime, I wanted to share just a small part of what Paul VI says toward the end of the encyclical.
After he acknowledges where we are at as a society, and acknowledges that population is growing quickly, and kids are expensive and exhausting, and after he reaffirms the Church’s authority to speak on matters of human sexuality, and after he gives a fair hearing to all the reasons the Church ought to rethink her teaching, he talks about what human beings are, and what love is, and what marriage is. (I’m serious, you gotta read it.) Then he famously predicts what will happen if we abandon the Church’s guidance in favor of embracing contraception (and he was right).
And then, he encourages public figures, scientists, doctors, priests, and bishops all to be courageous and faithful in specific ways.
This is the part that kept coming back to me this past week. He says:
[G]reat fruits are to be expected when the divine law is kept by a devout soul. The most outstanding of these fruits results from the frequent desire of spouses to share their experience with other spouses. Thus it happens that a new and especially worthy kind of apostolate is added to the already ample vocation of the laity: like will minister to like. That is, spouses fulfill their apostolic mission [munus] in behalf of other spouses by becoming guides for them. Among all the forms of Christian apostolate this apostolate seems most suitable today.
That is exactly what I’ve seen happen. Everyone likes to complain about how the internet has ruined society, turned us self-centered and crass, and made people cold-hearted toward each other. And yes, it has done those things.
But it has also opened up a great, wide avenue for “like to minister to like” in ways that would have been totally impossible before. Pope Paul VI would approve.
Just think: last week, six people, whom I’ve never met, shelled out $200+ dollars to help six other people, whom neither of us have ever met, to use Marquette NFP. This is not something you do because you want a line or two of ad space on some housewife’s bloggy blog. This is something you do because you are on a mission.
And I’ve seen more: Women encouraging other women when their husbands are not on board with NFP. Men encouraging other men to do the right thing, even when all their pals got “fixed” and think he’s a freak of nature for using NFP (and for not using porn, going to strip clubs, etc.). NFP instructors advising and encouraging strangers when they’re baffled over confusing fertility signs. And people praying, praying, praying for each other.
And making jokes about NFP to encourage each other. And weeping on each other’s shoulders when they are struggling with infertility, or horribly-timed pregnancies, or repeat miscarriages, or the cruel judgment of people who don’t understand why we do what we do. And praying for each other some more.
Imagine how encouraging it is for a fearful NFP newbie to search for an online support group, and to discover that there are hundreds and thousands of us out there (even if they are spread all around the world).
Like is ministering to like, and God is with us.
When I mentioned that I was thinking of recording a podcast of Humanae Vitae, someone asked, “Really? Just for funsies?” Nah, no real funsies involved. It’s just that I realized I’m never going to be an NFP teacher, because, in the words of NFP Barbie, science is hard. I’m never going to be a scholar or an academic, because I make too many butt jokes. However, I do have a mic on my computer. I do spend tons of time on Facebook. I do know a thing or two about love. So I’m going to do what I can do with where I am right now.
So good job, everyone who contributed even in the smallest way to spreading the word about NFP! And that includes people who are willing to admit that they’re struggling, because you can’t spread the truth if you’re not going to be honest.
If you’re talking about the Church’s teaching on human sexuality, reaching out, praying for each other, asking for prayers, willing to answer questions honestly, and picking yourself up and trying again when you fail, then you’re doing what you’re supposed to do. Paul VI specifically asked us to do just this. Paul VI knows it’s hard, and it makes you feel weird, and it’s not what everyone else is doing. Paul VI just wants you to try, because he loves you, and so does God.
I’m on a mission, and so are you.
***
So, about the picture. I’m far from home and didn’t sleep much and gotta get dressed and find a shuttle to get to town to give a speech, and I had a long, draw-out nightmare all night about trying to get an unwilling Mother Teresa to buy me lunch. So I Googled “on a mission” and this is what came up with no copyright issues.
You clicked, right? Ha! Mission accomplished!
By Yves Tennevin (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
I’m headed to the airport on the way to Colorado Springs, so this will be a quickie! I seem to be on a jaunt back to my childhood of the late 70’s and early 80’s in my spare time. Here’s what I’ve been enjoying lately:
I’m watching . . .
Stranger Things, that Netflix original series. Love it. As several people have noted, this is by far the most authentic early 80’s world I’ve ever seen recreated on the screen. (Everybody’s smoking! When I was little, my father used to turn out the light and spell out our names with the end of his cigarette, and it was wonderful.) This series grabs and exploits all the sensations of movies of this era, but somehow boils off all the cheapness, so it feels like you’re meeting very familiar, beloved movie that’s grown up since you saw it last.
And who knew Winona Ryder could act? I’m only up to episode 3, so don’t spoil anything for me, but wow, what an episode. No wasted scenes or dialogue, and it’s truly creepy and thrilling. You care about not one but several characters. Top notch. Recommended for age 12 and up. The first few episodes have a sex scene or two to skip over (although they nicely portray casual fornication as cheap and depressing).
Here’s the trailer:
I’m reading . . .
Live Free or Die by Ernest Hebert. This is book five in the Darby series, the first of which I recommended earlier as the ultimate “yeah, that’s exactly what it’s like where I live” book. Live Free Or Die is set in the late 70’s, a “two world collide” kind of book (rich and poor, upper and lower class, wilderness vs. development, etc.), and I’m a little disappointed. He keeps telling you what the characters are thinking and why, and explaining what it means that it’s uphill from one part of town to the other, and I already got it. Oh well. That “show, don’t tell” advice is really worth taking, even though it means lots of readers will miss important stuff. Unless you’re writing for a newspaper or for Ikea, it’s okay to let the reader do some work, as long as you do your work.
I’m listening to . . . ABBA. What? I’m not made of stone. This is the music of my childhood, when my neurons were still fresh and malleable, and when my high school-aged sisters looked like they were seven feet tall and moved around in a cloud of disco awesomeness. The little kids and I sometimes watch music videos when Daddy is working late, and ABBA is a huge favorite. Check out “Take a Chance On Me”
So. Much. Winking. I love how the blonde lady can’t actually dance at all; she just kind of swoops back and forth.
Okay, and now “Mama Mia”
But beware the permanent retinal impression of Benny Andersson in ruffled shorty overalls that you’ll bear with you for the rest of your life. WORTH IT.
Yesterday, at Mass, I glanced up to see one of the lectors hustling down the aisle after a young girl. Our church is a genial space, and commotions are rare, so I watched to see what was happening. The lector caught up with the girl and forcefully whispered something — and the girl guiltily pulled a Host out of her pocket and ate it.
When I realized what was happening — when I realized that someone was walking away with Our Lord held loosely in her hand like a snack, I panicked. It was like at the county fair, when you look around and realize that a child is missing, has been swept away with the sweaty, malevolent crowd. The little one is lost, kidnapped, trampled, vanished. Where has he gone? Your limbs light up with adrenaline, the ground lurches and you don’t know whether to run or fall down.
And then it happened again. Another ignorant kid wandered down the aisle, there was another anxious hustle to chase her down. Another whispered demand, and the girl gamely popped the Host in her mouth, puzzled at the fuss.
I saw the Host rescued. Everyone turned up safe; there was no abduction. And, just as it happens when we find a little one who was lost at the fair, relief turned my choking panic into tears of rage.
“Where have you been?” I shouted in my head. “What is the matter with You? Don’t You know You can’t just go off like that?” I stormed. “You must stay with me, right with me where you will be safe!
“Don’t You know You could have been hurt?”
Ah, He does know.
I shouted, and Christ turned His head and looked at me, and my world was unmade. The fear-turned-anger tumbled back into fear again. God have mercy, I had forgotten: The one who binds the world in existence, second by second, allows Himself to dissolve on the tongue, any tongue, all tongues. My tongue, which I use to shout at Him.
And I am afraid. This should not be. Where does this leave me? Where is my firm ground, if the unmoved mover has a Son who makes Himself so portable? Where is my firm ground? Not under any feet of mine, even though I know and follow all the rules for the reverent reception of the Eucharist.
I thought I was crying for Him, out of outrage for the shockingly careless offense that was done to Him. But I am crying for myself. If He goes off like that, then where do I stand? Where do I stand, and how can I think I can offer Him safety?
With me, He knows He can be hurt.
The ground lurches, and I don’t know whether to run or fall down. Christ have mercy on my careless, rule-abiding soul.
In the US, the winner of Friday’s contest, sponsored by St. Clement ePress, is:
Kelly Heffron
and in the UK, the winner of Friday’s contest, sponsored by an anonymous UK donor, is:
Vicky Davila.
Congratulations to the winners! I’ve sent you an email with instructions about what to do next. Thanks, once again, to all the generous donors who made last week so great.
We have winners for the first four fertility monitors! I’ve sent emails notifying these four winners, who were chosen at random. They are:
Marie Heimann Olivia (Tuesday July 26 at 11 a.m.) Jenna Gabel
and Katy ‘Fusz’ Connors
Congratulations! Please check your inboxes for an email from me.
Thanks once more to the sponsors of these wonderful prizes:
Dr. Michael Czerkes A Simple House Lori and Eric Doerneman and Anon in S.D.
I’ll announce the winners of the final two monitors on Saturday. You still have time to enter both contests, one for US residents, and one for UK residents. Good luck!
![Country Mouse by Joseph Jacobs [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3APage_15_title_from_The_Fables_of_%C3%86sop_(Jacobs).png){kind=link}
