Advent is coming. Keep it simple! UPDATED

I know, I know, you’re focused on Thanksgiving right now.  Just bookmark this for next week.

Advent is coming!  I always feel a little silly saying that, because the word “advent” actually means “coming.”  But that’s how life is when you’re In Charge of Stuff:  you even have to plan about planning ahead.  So, if you haven’t looked it up yet, the first Sunday in Advent is Nov. 30, which is . . . soon.

We do try to put off celebrating Christmas until it’s actually almost Christmas.  I claim this is because it would be a violation of the integrity of the spirit of penance and preparation to behave as if Christmas has already arrived; but actually my main reason is that my fine young sons see decorations as a challenge.  A punching challenge.  When some new vision swims before their eyes, whether it’s a pillow or a brother or gorgeous centerpiece bedecked with fragile berries, gilded bells and trembling, cinnamon-scented miniature pine cones, they say to themselves, “Gotta punch that.”

So I put off Christmas as long as possible for Christmas’ own good.  I don’t want Christmas to get punched.

Advent, however, can take a little smacking around.  One of the great things about any kind of Advent preparation is that, by definition, you have to keep it simple and spare.  A lush, lavish, complicated Advent makes about as much sense as a simple, understated fireworks display on the Fourth of July.

So as Advent approaches, I always remind myself that, while there are lots of wonderful ideas out there for how to observe the season, it’s not only impossible to do it all, it would be contrary to the spirit of the season to go overboard!  I plan small, and we can always add things later on years when we’re feeling ambitious and energetic.  We aim for simple, inexpensive, and edifying.

We do two things without fail every Advent.  The first is to make and light an Advent wreath, which we attempt to light every night while singing “O Come, O Come Emmanuel” (adding two verses each week); but some years, it’s mostly a Sunday thing.  I just bought a cheapo twisted twig wreath at the dollar store, then use about forty yards of thread strapping evergreen branches down thoroughly.  If I can’t find purple and pink candles, I just use white, and tie on bows made of ribbon or cloth in the right colors.  Oh, and after a lifetime of trying to attach candle holders to a wreath, I just gave up, and now use (again, cheapo dollar store) glass candle holders, which I set inside the wreath.  I put the whole thing on a pizza pan, so I can easily move it off the table and store it in a safe, unpunchable place when it’s not in direct use.  Some years we have little golden balls and berries and doves, but other years, it’s just the greenery.  Here are prayers for each Sunday.  Print it out now, along with a few copies of “O Come Emmanuel,” and tape it to your pizza pan or something.

If this sounds unpleasantly practical and workaday to you, remember:  Advent is dark.  Lights out.  Once you have candlelight and acapella singing, it’s just as magical and luminous and mysterious as whatever the Vatican is doing on that same day.

(The child pictured above is utterly failing to think, “Tippy candle?  No pinecones?  This Advent is not impressive at all!”)

The second thing we do for Advent is we all go to confession once or twice before Christmas.

That’s it.  That’s the bare minimum, and some years, it’s also the maximum we can manage. There are plenty of wonderful Advent ideas.  But please remember, KEEP IT SIMPLE.  Don’t go overboard.  Pick one or two, and don’t make it elaborate.  And make sure you get to confession!

If you want a hands-on project for your kids but aren’t feeling very crafty, here is a free printable chain from  Life Made Lovely.  Print it out, cut the days into separate strips, and staple or tape them into a long chain.  You can hang the chain on your Christmas tree if you have one already, or anywhere in the house (hang it high, to avoid punching).  Starting on Nov. 29 (which is Saturday, the vigil of the first Sunday in Advent), you cut off one link each day and read what’s inside. This particular one just has a short description and a Bible verse to look up and read, and is designed for little kids; but if you Google “advent chain 2014,” you will find other styles, some more elaborate that others.

UPDATE: Rebecca Salazar hunted down a link that I thought was lost, so now you can also print and use the Advent chain links that my sister Abby Tardiff made up. These have complete short verses, plus pictures to color, on them. Link here.

If you like, you can color or attach the  paper strips to construction paper strips before you make them into a chain:  purple for the first, third and fourth weeks, and pink for the third week. I like the idea of a chain, because you can see it getting smaller and smaller as Christmas approaches.  You can explain to kids that it reminds us of the chains of sin, which get weaker and weaker until our Savior arrives — and then the chain is gone.

If you do an advent chain that has pictures on it, you could also use the cut strips as ornaments for a Jesse Tree, adding one ornament each day of Advent.  Or, if you’re feeling brave and have kids who are old enough, you could just dump all your craft materials which you have carefully kept organized and . . . sorted . . .

Tohu wa-bohu.

Tohu wa-bohu.

on the table, assign different symbols to each kid, and go hide for a couple of hours and see what happens, repeating the phrase “it’s only once a year” to yourself, and with the firm understanding that glitter on the floor doesn’t count as a mess unless it actually impedes your walking.  We do this some years for our “day after Thanksgiving” tradition.  Lacking space for a free-standing Jesse Tree, I just clip a branch from a bare tree and bolt it to the wall.  It looks good and weird, like a Catholic home should.

Another very easy Advent tradition that we manage to keep as a family most years is to “fast” from dessert except on Sundays. I take what money I would have spent, and buy extra food for the church’s food pantry.

What are your Advent plans?  On the years when you really followed the spirit of the season, what was it like?

***
[This post originally ran on the National Catholic Register in 2011.]

When I saw this kid with PSW, I felt sorry for her and her family. What she did next blew my mind.

Have you ever felt overwhelmed? Ever faced a task and thought, “I simply can’t”? Ever told yourself, “Why even bother trying”? These phrases are not even in the vocabulary of young Benedicta Fisher. Though born with normal use of her arms and legs, she showed signs of Pervasive Systemic Weirdness from an early age, and her condition has only progressed as she grows. But her PSW isn’t slowing her down. Just witness this gutsy kid painting a picture of “Dog Going to Church in  Batman’s Airplane with His Muvver.”

Inspiring.

Inspiring.

Remember, her arms work fine. And yet she is using her teeth like a champion. And what have you accomplished with your teeth today, huh, huh? Yeah, that’s what I thought. Boy, you  kind of suck, compared to her. Still not blubbering like a fool? Then check out the way she responds to her own mother, who questioned why she was painting with her mouth. Is this kid going to buckle under the normative familial pressure ? No, she is not.

Inspiring.

Inspiring.

Yes, it is inspiring.  Also, her name is Elsa. Not Benny. Elsa.

Bite this, CNN.

don lemon

So I very, very reluctantly watched the clip of someone apparently named “Don Lemon” interviewing the woman who says that Bill Cosby raped her when she was 19.

Gawker transcribes the really hair-raising part of the interview, as follows:

Lemon: Can I ask you this? And please, I don’t mean to be crude, OK?

Tarshis: Yeah.

Lemon: You said this last night, that he — you lied to him and said, “I have an infection, and if you rape me, or if you do — if you have intercourse with me, then you will probably get it and give it to your wife.”

Tarshis: Right.

Lemon: You said he made you perform oral sex.

Tarshis: Right.

Lemon: You — you know, there are ways not to perform oral sex if you didn’t want to do it.

Tarshis: I was kind of stoned at the time, and quite honestly, that didn’t even enter my mind. Now I wish it would have.

Lemon: Right. Meaning the using of the teeth, right?

Tarshis: Yes…I didn’t even think of it.

Lemon: Biting.

Tarshis: Ouch.

Lemon: Yes. I had to ask.

I know I’m supposed to be horrified at the idea that everyone is still, still focusing on telling women that they should have done a better job of defending themselves.

I’m supposed to be horrified that that message far outpaces the messages that men should not rape, must not rape, must not joke about rape, must not fantasize about rape.

I’m supposed to be horrified that that message far outpaces the tremendously useful message that men who hear another man talking about rape, joking about rape, or doing something that seems even a little rapey should beat the shit out of that other man.

But the thing that got me was . . . this is CNN? We’re now talking about biting penises on CNN?

Francis to meet with Catholics on the autism spectrum

Rather than seeing their Church as a refuge where they can meet God, parents of kids with autism often report that their children are more isolated than ever at Mass – either because other parishioners disapprove of their behavior, mistaking it for irreverence or a lack of discipline, or because the liturgy itself provides a sensory overload that is too much to bear, or because sitting quietly and listening is not always possible.

If you have a family member with autism, or if you are on the spectrum yourself, what would you say to the Pope? What would you like your fellow Catholics to know about what it’s like to a member of the Body of Christ who is on the autism spectrum — either while you’re at Mass or other church functions, or just in general?

Read the rest at the Register. 

Are WHO and UNICEF secretly sterilizing Kenyan women with a tetanus vaccine? Maybe, but probably not.

Last week, the bishops of Kenya accused the WHO and UNICEF of secretly lacing a tetanus vaccine with a hormone intended to induce miscarriage and sterility in Kenyan women of childbearing age, in an effort to reduce the population. The bishops issued a press release, saying:

[W]e shall not waver in calling upon all Kenyans to avoid the tetanus vaccination campaign laced with Beta-HCG, because we are convinced that  it is indeed a disguised population control programme.

We do know that the WHO and UNICEF do not take seriously the bodily integrity of poor families, especially women. The West has a shameful history of exploiting third world populations in the name of humanitarian efforts. So the bishops’ allegations are understandable, and if they are true, this is a dreadful crime against humanity. But if the allegations are false, then spreading the story could have disastrous results. Neonatal tetanus brings a prolonged and agonizing death to tens of thousands of children every year. If Kenyans are afraid to vaccinate against tetanus, people will die needlessly.  That’s why I didn’t write about this story, even as it cropped up everywhere. All I could find  was the same facts and sources in every story, no new information. Now we have some new information, and there is more on the horizon. The story is far from settled, but there are strong reasons to suspect that the bishops’ allegations arise from a misunderstanding and there has been no sterilization campaign.  Catholic News Agency did an excellent job of reporting the story in a balanced way:

“There are aspects of this that need to be raising red flags because of history and because of the way it was all being done. But raising red flags doesn’t mean that there’s something that actually has occurred,” said Dr. Kevin Donovan, director of the Pellegrino Center for Clinical Bioethics at Georgetown University.

The red flags are primarily: (a) that the vaccination campaign targeted women of childbearing age, raising suspicions that the effort was tied to population control, and (b) that, when the vaccine was tested at the request of the Kenyan bishops, hCG was found. HCG, in high enough quantities, can induce miscarriage and sterilization. But these red flags can both be explained.

The WHO said that they decided to focus the vaccination campaign on women of reproductive age “because of the focus on eliminating maternal and neonatal tetanus.” They also said that the methods needed to provide adequate protection against tetanus for unborn and newborn children require a different testing schedule than the one usually used for other forms of tetanus.

But what about the hCG detected in the vaccine? Why would it be in a tetanus vaccine at all, even in low levels “millions of times less than the amount needed to trigger this contraceptive response“? The WHO and Donovan both noted that the techniques used by the labs who tested the vaccines, and the reports they produced, are irregular and problematic. One likely explanation for the small levels of hCG detected? A false positive. Donovan explains:

“If these were labs that were using tips to test for pregnancy and such, they may not be the appropriate measuring techniques for picking up small amounts of hCG, leading to false positives.”

“I suspect that the tests that the hospital labs tried to do for the Catholic bishops weren’t really designed to test the way that they did, maybe giving them erroneous results,” he added.

For a detailed and rigorous explanation of why it is by no means certain that the tetanus vaccine is anything but a tetanus vaccine, Rational Catholic has once again done the legwork , sifting carefully through the possibilities of what may or may not have happened here, and explaining in detail how a false positive could have been found. Rational Catholic also notes:

I have seen the lab results from the tests performed at the request of the bishops in Kenya, and my understanding is that they will be published shortly in an online news source.  I will update and link to them when that happens.

The main obstacle to finding the truth seems to be that the local government in Kenya did not initially take the bishops’ concerns seriously, but that may be changing.According to a Kenyan newspaper, (link courtesy of the Rational Catholic post)

[T]he Parliamentary Committee on Health ruled that a joint team of experts from the Ministry of Health, Catholic Church and other stakeholders would conduct a fresh round of independent medical tests to end the controversy on the safety of the vaccines.

There is mistrust and bad feeling on both sides, but it is clear that both the Kenyan bishops and the Kenyan government are eager to make sure that Kenyans are not dissuaded from protecting themselves from a vaccine that saves lives, so we can only pray that the new round of testing will be definitive and that the results will be shared in a clear and transparent way. In the mean time, I urge concerned readers with good intentions to stop spreading the story that the vaccine was deliberately and secretly contaminated. This has not been proven, and can only add to the general confusion about vaccine safety.

The Splat Life

PIC Wallace on train

 

The train is whizzing out of control, and he can’t get off, slow down, or change course. In desperation, Gromit snatches a box of spare tracks and frantically lays them on the floor ahead, just split seconds before the train he’s on thunders over them.

This is more or less what it’s like to raise a child. Yes, you have to work frantically to stay ahead of that train; but no, you’re not exactly in control.

Read the rest at the Register.

The Accidental Marriage book winner!

Congratulations to Serena Sigillito! Serena, be on the lookout for an email from me so you can claim your prize. Thanks for playing, everybody!

Have you heard the latest about Cardinal Burke?

I haven’t, and I’ve made it a point not to know what’s going on.

Why not? Because it’s not important to me. Me, as a layman with a job and a family and a personal conscience that keeps me busy enough all by itself. And if you were honest, you’d admit that it really isn’t important to you, either — not unless you work directly for Burke, or are his personal friend and will miss him when he moves to sunny Malta, the lucky son of a gun. It only seems important if you are addicted to following all the ins and outs of a 24-hour religious news cycle that has about as much to do with the Gospel as the schematics for the HVAC system at the Metropolitan Opera House has to do with music.

Read the rest at the Register.

I got nothin’, so we’re making muffins

Pumpkin muffins. This is our favorite, no-fail recipe: Downeast Maine Pumpkin Bread. Today we were short a few eggs, so we just mushed up a couple of bananas in their place. Sometimes I put demerara sugar on top, sometimes I add wheat germ, sometimes I add walnuts, almonds, or (to everyone’s chagrin) raisins, but mostly I just make the recipe as is — except I double it, which yields 24 muffins and two loaves. They are lovely and moist, and very good for adding to the kids’ lunches; and while, okay, they are essentially cake, pumpkin is a vegetable! It’s a vegetable.

Here is Benny from last week’s muffin adventure. She was saying, “Look at me, Mama! I greatest.”

benny muffins
Hard to argue with that. Give that girl some muffins!

 

PSA! Lazarus for Chrome will save your bacon

lazarus recoveryIf you write, you will know that there is nothing more throw-uppy than losing everything you just wrote. I finally got around to installing Lazarus, a free extension for Google Chrome. (I believe you can use it for other browsers, too; I just always use Chrome.) Here’s the description:

Autosaves everything you type so you can easily recover from form-killing timeouts, crashes and network errors.

Ever had one of those “oh $*#@” moments when you’ve finally finished filling out a long form, and hit submit only to see an error message? And when you hit the back button, the form was blank… If so, you know you need Lazarus. And if not, you have a chance to install Lazarus before disaster strikes! Lazarus saves everything you type so if the worst happens you can recover the whole form by simply clicking a menu item. The data can be encrypted and is saved on your machine so you know it’s safe.

It downloaded in about thirty seconds and has already saved my bacon more than once. Recommended!