I’m a member of numerous women’s groups, and one question comes up time and time again: Someone I care about (my mother, my adult child, my husband, my brother) behaves such-and-such a way. What can I do differently to change it?
The best answer is: Nothing. You can’t change how other adults act. You can influence it, but how people behave is their decision, not yours. How they feel is their responsibility, not yours.
Really, truly. Not yours. Even if they tell you that they do what they do because of you. Even if, your whole life, they’ve expected you to take responsibility for their behavior and their emotions. It’s just not your job; it’s theirs.
But in our culture, it is so deeply ingrained in women, especially, to take on this responsibility that we don’t even realize we’re doing it, and we actually mistake other people’s emotions for our own. We think that feeling what other people feel is just part of love, part of caring for others.
Some of it does properly go along with love, and is normal and healthy. We are made to be connected to others, to care for them and to take their suffering seriously. But this sense of connection becomes an unhealthy entanglement when we can’t tell the difference between what someone else is feeling and what we’re feeling ourselves, and when we therefore assume that someone else’s anger or unhappiness is always a sign that we’ve done something wrong.
The truth is, if someone is unhappy or angry, maybe we’re doing something wrong, and maybe we’re not; but it’s very unhealthy when someone else’s sadness, anger, disgust, or distress automatically prompts us to rush around, searching for what we can change in ourselves, so their emotions and behavior will improve or at least make sense.
The problem comes when we set up our lives in such a way that other people are never left to deal with their own emotions and their own behavior, but automatically look to us to take responsibility. This is unfair to everyone concerned. It crushes the one who takes responsibility, and it stunts the one who refuses to take responsibility.
One of the great skills I’m learning in my mid 40’s is the skill of sorting out whose emotion is whose. It’s liberating, but it’s difficult, and a little bit frightening — partly because it’s new and unfamiliar, and partly because it feels a little bit forbidden or impious. When Catholics learn to become more psychologically healthy, we sometimes have the haunting feeling we’re turning our backs on our faith, or that we have to choose between emotional health and holiness…Read the rest of my latest for The Catholic Weekly.
I haven’t done a food post since … Dec. 18? Is that possible? Since then, we had the rest of Advent and then Christmas, then Damien got appendicitis, then it was New Year’s and a birthday, then school started up again, and now there’s another birthday. Specifically, Damien’s birthday, and for his present, he got to keep his appendix. Did you know they could do that? They caught it early, and are treating it with antibiotics, no surgery. But if it acts up again . . . CHHHHHTTTT!! [that’s a throat-slitting noise, to indicate that someone is a goner. Corrie has been practicing it during Mass, so that’s how that’s going]
Also like this:
I guess I’ll do this week’s food round-up, then pick up some highlights from past weeks.
SATURDAY Calzones, cheesecake with strawberries
Saturday (New Year’s Day) was Sophia’s birthday. The kids spent the day playing Dungeons and Dragons with the fanciest snacks Aldi had to offer. I didn’t get any good pictures because we hung up some atmospheric dungeon decorations (plastic tablecloths), and it was pretty dark in there.
I made a cheesecake the night before, using a recipe from my friend Elizabeth. It was a tremendously delicious cheesecake, about a foot high, fluffy and creamy, no cracks.
I would share the recipe with you, but I’m pretty sure Elizabeth would CHHHHHTTTT!! me. But it turned out so well.
I over-baked it a little bit because we were watching A Day at the Races and I forgot to check it, but that just gave the top a kind of caramelized taste which was actually very nice (and now the kids know the “Thank you” — “Thank YO” bit, so it was worth it). I dipped a bunch of strawberries in chocolate, and then used the leftover chocolate to add a little drippy garnish.
I think the chocolate dip recipe is 12 oz of chocolate chips and 2 tablespoons of shortening, melted together. The shortening is so it hardens when it cools. Note: Aldi chocolate chips do not melt well, so spring for name brand, but not Nestle, because they’re evil. It was partially a selfish choice to do this rather than make a glaze, because if you are someone who gets migraines from chocolate, you can easily pick this stuff off.
The cheesecake recipe a bit of an ordeal (the ingredients all have to be at room temperature, and there’s lots of scraping and dropping the bowl, and it’s baked in a water bath, and you have to let it cool in the oven for many hours, and you have lost the bottom to your springform pan so you have to buy a new one) totally worth it. I made the crust with graham cracker crumbs, butter, and a bunch of ground walnuts I had leftover from when we made rum balls or something. We served it with additional strawberry glaze topping from a can, which I had bought when I thought January strawberries would be worse than they were. Whether Sophia liked it or not, I have no idea, as she is 15, and fifteen-year-olds tell no tales.
TUESDAY Old Bay chicken wings and drumsticks, baked potatoes, carrots and dip
Not exactly a recipe. I sprinkled the chicken heavily with Old Bay seasoning and cooked it, then drenched them with melted butter and more Old Bay, and cooked some more to crisp up the skin.
For some reason, possibly because I was very hungry and because I couldn’t find the Old Bay seasoning and almost resorted to making a homemade approximation, I thought this chicken was going to be AMAZINGAMAZING chicken. And it was just good and nice.
WEDNESDAY Vermonter sandwiches, salad, king cake
Very popular sandwiches. Toasted sourdough bread, a thick slice of grilled chicken breast, a few pieces of bacon, a thick slice of sharp cheddar, some slices of tart Granny Smith apple, and plenty of honey mustard. Some people use deli meat and add turkey, and some people use maple mustard. Just follow your heart. This is a bad picture, but a wonderful sandwich.
We got confused with fake Sunday epiphany and actual epiphany, but Clara leaped into the breech and made a wonderful, pneumatic king cake, stuffed with sweet cream cheese filling and glazed with some kind of lemony thing,
with colored icing and sprinkles, and a lucky . . . uh, baby.
You’ve heard of the Infant of Prague?
Infant jesus of prague – Das Prager Jesuskind- El niño jesus de Praga. Prague
Now get ready for the INFANT FROG.
I don’t know. Somebody turn this into a real joke and get back to me.
THURSDAY Gochujang pork ribs, rice, nori, pomegranates and kiwis
Now this was a very fine meal. I made a double batch of this excellent gochujang sauce
which was enough to marinate about 15 pork ribs. Then I broiled them to a little char, and they were so spicy and good.
If you have boneless pork, you can cut it into little strips and marinate it along with sliced onions and matchstick carrots and sautée it all up together, and this is gochujang bulgoki, which is also a wonderful meal, but more time consuming.
We had good rice leftover from New Year’s Eve, which I decided to cook rather than save for a special occasion, because maybe the world will end soon. We also had leftover nori, and some pomegranates I had forgotten about, and some kiwis that were sitting around neglected
and it was just a lovely meal. High flavor, low skill, just my speed.
FRIDAY
Today is Damien’s birthday! He has requested bacon cheeseburgers, name brand Doritos, guacamole, and strawberry and chocolate ice cream, which I believe can be accomplished. He’s feeling much better, thank God.
Okay! Now let’s pick up some loose ends.
The last thing I wrote about was making noodle kugel for the last day of Chanukah, which turned out to be the day after the last day of Chanukah, oops. Well, we were out of eggs, oops, so I sent my son out to buy some, and then I baked it, but forgot to add the eggs. Oops. The one thing you can say about Jewish cooking is that it sure has a lot of eggs in this, so this kugel was . . . well, it smelled nice. I ate it, but it really wasn’t what it should have been. Gonna try again sometime, because the blonde rum raisins and apple bits were good.
I had mine with a little sour cream and caviar because no one stopped me.
This seems like a good time to remind you that you can make latkes at any time of the year, and cheap caviar is still caviar.
Word on the street is you can just rinse the shredded potato in cold water, and that will be enough to keep it from getting discolored. You apparently don’t have to keep it actually in water. We learned this tip too late, but will definitely try it next time.
As I look through my photos, gosh, we did a lot of baking and sweets-making. I made rugelach, rum balls, and buckeyes; Clara made gingerbread cookies and Benny made chocolate chip cookies; and we strung popcorn and cranberries. Ugh, I have so many lovely Christmas photos languishing on my phone. Je suis overwhelmèd. Just tell me if you want any of these recipe I didn’t include, and I’ll add them in.
I also tried making beef bourguignon for the first time, using this recipe adapted from Julia Child. It was a lot of work. SO much work. It took all day.
We had it on noodles.
Doesn’t it look sooooo, so good? Well, it tasted . . . fine. I would honestly just as soon have a cheesesteak, or beef stew I can throw together in 20 minutes. Just not worth the hassle.
Now if you’re looking for something that is NOT a hassle, may I suggest baked brie, which we had on Christmas eve while decorating the tree?
It was just a little lump of cheap brie with some honey and pecans on the top, heated up in a little pan until the insides were gooey, served with crackers. My goodness, it was delicious.
I also have this photo on my phone, and I can’t even remember what this means or why it was so funny
but we laughed pretty hard.
Christmas morning we had cinnamon buns FROM A CAN AND IT WAS FINE, orange juice and eggnog, and crazy grapes the size of plums, and for dinner we had a pupu platter take-out as usual. The next day, Damien made his fantastic Chinese chicken wings
These chicken wings are like a three-course meal in themselves, with the crackling skin, the juicy meat, and then the whole skin-and-meat-together phenomenon. I’m not explaining this right, but they’re so good.
I made the lo mein with ramen-style noodles, but it turns out I definitely prefer something wider. Still an easy, tasty recipe.
Looks like we also had muffaletta sandwiches, which everybody likes. I made an olive salad in the food processor with manzanilla, black, and kalamata olives, marinated red peppers, and I think maybe some banana peppers.
Olive salad for muffaletta sandwiches is supposed to have a very particular balance of flavors, but I just throw in whatever we have in little bottles. I guess some olive oil and pepper and fresh garlic.
We cut up some baguettes for the bread (I think real muffaletta sandwiches use a sweet, soft bread) and an assortment of meats, ham, smoked salami, capicola, and a little prosciutto, and I think maybe provolone? It feels like so long ago. This was the night Damien got appendicitis. I am not sure if he ever did get his sandwich.
We had tons of leftover rice from Christmas and tons of leftover eggnog, which I always forget nobody really wants more than a sip of, so I made Instant Pot eggnog rice pudding. Nice and easy with a pleasant taste, but the eggnog flavor was very faint. Anyway, I used up the eggnog.
On New Year’s Eve, we had DIY sushi, plus lamb on crostini. I had been stashing away boneless legs of lamb for months whenever it was on sale. I used Tom Nichols’ grandmother’s easy recipe,
and it was tender and tasty. Kind of weird combination of foods, and could have used a bit of cheese or horseradish sauce, but looking back, it’s a miracle we were all still upright at this point, much less making a coherent menu.
For the sushi, we had more than one setback, but ended up with . . . let’s see. Sushi rice, some raw tuna, cooked shrimp, and I guess cucumbers, pineapple, mangoes, and I guess caviar and ginger and whatnot. I feel like there was more, but I dunno what. I also tried something new, a Hawaiian dish of spam musubi, which is thin slices of spam simmered in a sauce and then cooked until crisp and caramelized
then served on a scoop of sushi rice with a strip of seaweed wrapped around it.
The spam by itself was more salty and harsh than anything, but together with the rice and nori, it was surprisingly delicious. One of those magical food equations where it adds up to more than the sum of its parts.
There was a lot of leftover olive salad, so I ate it for days along with leftover lamb, and this gladdened my heart. It’s been a RATHER DIFFICULT couple of weeks, to be honest, but we did have good food! So much of it. I haven’t worked up the nerve to get on a scale yet, and Damien just brought pizza home, so.
This is the basic recipe for cheese calzones. You can add whatever you'd like, just like with pizza. Warm up some marinara sauce and serve it on the side for dipping.
Servings12calzones
Ingredients
3ballspizza dough
32ozricotta
3-4cupsshredded mozzarella
1cupparmesan
1Tbspgarlic powder
2tsporegano
1tspsalt
1-2egg yolks for brushing on top
any extra fillings you like: pepperoni, olives, sausage, basil, etc.
Instructions
Preheat oven to 400.
Mix together filling ingredients.
Cut each ball of dough into fourths. Roll each piece into a circle about the size of a dinner plate.
Put a 1/2 cup or so of filling into the middle of each circle of dough circle. (You can add other things in at this point - pepperoni, olives, etc. - if you haven't already added them to the filling) Fold the dough circle in half and pinch the edges together tightly to make a wedge-shaped calzone.
Press lightly on the calzone to squeeze the cheese down to the ends.
Mix the egg yolks up with a little water and brush the egg wash over the top of the calzones.
Grease and flour a large pan (or use corn meal or bread crumbs instead of flour). Lay the calzones on the pan, leaving some room for them to expand a bit.
Bake about 18 minutes, until the tops are golden brown. Serve with hot marinara sauce for dipping.
Serve with sour cream and/or apple sauce for Hanukkah or ANY TIME. Makes about 25+ latkes
Ingredients
4lbspotatoes, peeled
6eggsbeaten
6Tbspflour (substitute matzoh meal for Passover)
salt and pepper
oil for frying
Instructions
Grate the potatoes. Let them sit in a colander for a while, if you can, and squeeze out as much liquid as possible.
Mix together the eggs, salt and pepper, and flour. Stir into the potato mixture and mix well.
Turn the oven on to 350 and put a paper-lined pan in the oven to receive the latkes and keep them warm while you're frying.
Put 1/4 to 1/2 and inch of oil in your frying pan and heat it up until a drop of batter will bubble.
Take a handful of the potato mixture, flatten it slightly, and lay it in the pan, leaving room between latkes. Repeat with the rest of the mixture, making several batches to leave room in between latkes. Fry until golden brown on both sides, turning once. Eat right away or keep warm in oven, but not too long.
Serve with sour cream and/or applesauce or apple slices.
Trump’s true believers were still with us, but there hadn’t been election day riots, and it did seem like there would be a peaceful transfer of power. We’d just have to deal with a lot of crazy and dishonest people on a societal level; but at least the political system was intact. It felt like the country had passed an important test. The constitution had held.
Then came Wednesday. It felt something like the early hours of 9/11, when I stood in the kitchen prepping dinner, slowly realizing that what I was hearing on the radio was not normal political chatter, and that the news was not normal news, but that something new and dreadful was in progress. A violent mob was swarming the capitol building. Shots were fired. Congress cowered in fear.
The president’s fans tore down the American flag and hoisted a Trump flag in its place. There was blood on the floor of the senate. And when his arm was twisted to try to bring peace, the president recorded a message telling the men and women waving a flag of sedition, “You are very special. We love you.”
Four people are dead.
The president is still in office.
Can you understand the horror, the dread, the boundless disgust of this day? I don’t know if citizens of other countries feel about their governmental system the way many Americans feel about theirs.
But when I slowly realized that a MAGA mob was in the capitol building, smashing windows, scaling walls, clowning, capering, screaming, peeing on the carpets, rifling through private papers, and secreting pipe bombs while our representatives scurried into lockdown, it was — well, it was like going to bed feeling grateful that your beloved mother was doing so well staying sober, and then waking up to find that she discovered cocaine and is currently standing in your children’s bedroom with a pistol and a flamethrower, screaming that no one loves the family as much as she does.
And I thought, That’s it. It’s over. The foundation did not hold. They broke the constitution.
Welcome to your late 40’s! This is the season of life that brings wisdom, confidence, interior strength, and silver wings in your hair, but it can also bring some less welcome changes. Mood swings, weight gain, decreased libido, heavy or irregular menses, spotting, migraines, skin changes, hair changes, and a special hamper just for poo poo undies can all be normal if unwelcome developments.
Luckily, there are remedies available. But first, it’s vital to pinpoint your specific symptoms so a treatment plan can be tailored just for you.
Heavy menses: This may be a sign of low progesterone.
Spotting: This may be a sign of low progesterone.
Very light menses: This may be a sign of low progesterone.
Irregular menses: This may be a sign of low progesterone.
Any kind of mensy menses: [screechy monkey voice, accompanied by trombone] This may be a sign of lowdy-low-low progesterony-wony.
Mood swings: Go fuck yourself.
If you opt to treat your symptoms with progesterone supplements, there are many forms to choose from. One of the most popular is a bioidentical progesterone cream, which is made from wild yams. This nature’s way of reminding you that, biologically, you’re very close to a bloody sweet potato and you’re lucky we even let you into a real doctor’s office with your whiny little bitch problems, you stupid whiny bitch. It may also help with mood swings.
Timing is very important. A woman’s body is like a sacred clock, and, like any timepiece, it must occasionally be adjusted; but precision is a must. So if you’re using progesterone supplements to help regulate your cycle, it’s vital to use it after you ovulate and not before, and not too late, but not too soon, or else either it will make everything worse, or it won’t do anything and you’ll just be standing there rubbing yam cream into your elbow like a weirdo. It’s simple to calculate the proper time, because all women always ovulate exactly two weeks before their period. To calculate ovulation, simply count two weeks back from your period and then make sure you have already used progesterone cream starting two weeks ago. It’s simple. It’s yam simple.
There are also progesterone suppositories, because of course there are.
Progesterone isn’t the only remedy, of course. Some women who are experiencing unexplained weight gain, loss of libido, migraines, mood swings, and irregular bleeding opt for the mini pill, which alleviates these problems. Just be aware that the mini pill causes weight gain, loss of libido, migraines, mood swings, and irregular bleeding of the yam. This is the only treatment your insurance will cover.
Have you tried exercising? Low energy and mood swings can often be corrected by something as simple as getting moving. Just pour your ponderous cottage cheese thighs into some shiny leggings, why don’t you, and go hit a treadmill with a mirror in front of it. This will make you feel better. Whoa, your knees look like cinnamon buns. Cinnamon buns that hurt.
You can also achieve remarkable effects by simple dietary adjustments. Make an effort to avoid sugar, alcohol, chocolate, caffeine, salt, gluten, nitrates, tannins, HFCS, MSG, soy, dairy, wheat, nightshades, endives, carrageenan, joie de vivre, and marshmallows for six months, and see if that doesn’t help. Many women have also experienced profound relief through seed cycling, a practice that’s starting to get the attention of mainstream medical professionals who are clearly just buying time by sending women home to eat flax for a few months, and then sneaking them off their patient records and saying it was an insurance glitch. Some women have also achieved promising results in balancing estrogen by avoiding testosterone-dominant foods such as bananas, zucchini, very turgid cucumbers, and red hot wieners of all kinds. No wieners for you, ya’am.
If all else fails, some women opt for a subalvectomy, which involves removing everything below the waist. Just get rid of it. Chop chop, problem solved. This is usually day surgery, because you have to get home in time to fix dinner.
Above all, remember this is just a season, and like the seasons, it will pass, and eventually you will die. And no one tells the dead to eat more yams.
My brother is a therapist, and he says his clients don’t talk much about being hurt by their parents.
Okay, that’s not true. Let me back up.
When I first started seeing a therapist, I had a lot to say about the things my parents had done wrong. I was doing so many things differently, and better than my parents had. I also had a lot to say about the things I had done wrong AS a parent, and how afraid I was that my kids would be justifiably angry at me for all the ways I had screwed up.
It’s a strange place to be in: Simultaneously recognizing just how wrong your parents were, and being honest about how much it hurt you, and recognizing just how wrong you often are yourself, and being honest about how much it hurts your kids. How do you even live that way? How do you move forward?
In my less fraught moments, I had to admit that, for all the stupid and awful things they did, my parents had certainly done better than their parents — and it was also likely that my grandparents had done better than their parents. I floated the idea that, if things kept up on this trajectory, and every generation improved on the previous one, then within a few decades, we’d be a race of gods. I’ll have to get back to you about how that works out.
The pattern is a real one, though — up to a point. We see what our parents have done wrong, and we don’t make that mistake. No, instead we invent brand new mistakes to make instead. We would hate for our kids to miss out on all the delicious angst and resentment that should come along with childhood, so we make sure we come up with something for them to correct when they have kids of their own.
I’ve thought about it a lot, and there is a real answer to the question “How do you live that way?” — that is, there is a way to live with yourself when you’re simultaneously aware of how much your parents did wrong, and how much you’re doing wrong yourself.
Someone on Twitter asked, “What is your favorite line from a hymn—one line that is so rich, you think on it over and over again?”
How strange and wonderful to read the responses. I was familiar with some of the verses that people carried with them, and had never heard of others. Some seemed like things that any human would take comfort from, and others pointed to the fact that there certainly are all sorts of people in the world with all kinds of taste; there certainly are.
My own choice? “He is Alpha and Omega; He the source, the ending, He.” This is from “Of the Father’s Love Begotten,” the most musically and textually perfect hymn I know, and it has come back to me, over and over again, since the day I first heard it. Listen:
It is a doctrinal hymn, which explains why it gives you so much to think about (not that more emotional, lyrical ideas can’t grip your mind and stay with you!)
Of the Father’s love begotten ere the worlds began to be, he is Alpha and Omega, he the Source, the Ending he, of the things that are, that have been, and that future years shall see, evermore and evermore!
I’ll add the rest of the verses at the end. This hymn is a flawless marriage between sound and sense. This recording begins with what I consider the ideal arrangement: A single male voice with no accompaniment but some medieval bells and chimes. This puts it into that otherworldly space of quiet brilliance on blackness, as if you’re witnessing something outside of time, which is what the song is about.
The first two lines, “Of the Father’s love begotten/ere the worlds began to be” climb up and then slightly down the scale somewhat tentatively, like an explorer coming upon something that compels him but fills him with awe; but “ere the worlds began to be” ends on a long note, searching for a clear view of what we’re talking about. And then we see it: In “He is Alpha and Omega,/He the source, the ending he,” the voice rises and then returns back down, digs down and then climbs back up, with the tune following the sense of the words: Wherever you go, Christ is there. Then finally, with the last three lines, I hear a little portrait of human life: “Of the things that are” gets a quick mention, and then “that ha-a-a-a-ave been” gets a more lingering treatment, because my gosh, we have been through a lot. And then “and that future years shall see” is almost muttered in a lower voice, because it is still shrouded in the future; but then: Evermore and evermore! Ah, back to Jesus. It’s always Him. All is cared for, in him. Nothing is unaccounted for.
You guys, I got so lost this year. I can’t explain it here, but I became angry and hurt and confused, and I turned my back on Jesus until I couldn’t even remember what the big deal was anymore. You get used to being cold and you don’t feel cold anymore, and you forget what it’s like to be warm. But it is coming back to me.
I hear all the jokes about how 2021 is just going to be another miserable year, and how foolish it is to hope for something better. But I can’t help it! It’s not about the things that ha-a-a-a-ave been and that future years shall see. It’s about Jesus. I know everything’s a big mess. But nothing is unaccounted for; no one will be lost or forgotten. He is so bright and so good, evermore and evermore.
Everyone who reads this, I pray for comfort and solace, answers and illumination, and rest in Jesus.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
2 O that birth forever blessed,
when the Virgin, full of grace,
by the Holy Ghost conceiving,
bore the Savior of our race;
and the babe, the world’s Redeemer,
first revealed his sacred face,
evermore and evermore!
3 This is he whom heav’n-taught singers
sang of old with one accord,
whom the Scriptures of the prophets
promised in their faithful word;
now he shines, the long expected;
let creation praise its Lord,
evermore and evermore!
4 O ye heights of heav’n, adore him;
angel hosts, his praises sing:
all dominions, bow before him
and extol our God and King;
let no tongue on earth be silent,
ev’ry voice in concert ring,
evermore and evermore!
5 Christ, to thee, with God the Father,
and, O Holy Ghost, to thee,
hymn and chant and high thanksgiving
and unwearied praises be,
honor, glory, and dominion
and eternal victory,
evermore and evermore.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Image: Christ Anapenos (Eyes never-closed) Icon – By the hands of Christian Tombiling, of Indonesian Eastern Catholic Community CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons . The description reads: Christ is sitting on His bed with arms supporting His head, watching over us. He is inside the cave, eventhough the cave is too small to bear Him. Background is sky of star. The inscription is written, taken from the Psalm 120: “Behold he shall neither slumber nor sleep, that keepeth Israel”
You know that friend you have, the one who is constantly reinventing herself? Every six to eight months, she breathlessly announces that she’s found a new direction, a new purpose, a new passion, and everything is going to be different now.
If she’s religious, she’ll say she’s finally learned to listen to what God wants for her life, and from this day forward, she’s dedicating her life to this new thing that is absolutely where she is supposed to be and what she is supposed to be doing.
That friend is probably wrong. Whether or not she is selling something, she is probably going to fail. How do I know? Because of that word “new.”
This isn’t just true for people who are prone to fads. I knew a woman who had an intensely rich interior life. She was very generous, but tended toward being withdrawn and insightful. But with the best intentions in mind, she would frequently announce a whole new approach to life, a radical reinvention of herself. I remember one time when she thought the Lord was calling her to be less negative and to say “yes” to literally everything. Even unreasonable requests from unreasonable people. I guess she thought that she was too closed-off and focused on self, and the way to remedy this was to be radically open.
That didn’t last long, nor should it have.
This is not to say that God never wants us to do something new. He wants this constantly, in fact. It’s terrible how much he wants it, and how radically. But it’s also true that what God wants from us is the development and perfection of what we already have. Or, more properly, he wants what we already are; and if we are looking to please him, that is where we should always start.
Here’s the crazy thing: God will even use the bad things that we already are to bring about good. I guess being without limit allows you to take the broad view, even of human beings.
Ladies and gentlemen, do you suffer from . . . . PRESENT MADNESS?
Present madness is when you find yourself choosing, paying for, and possibly even being ecstatic about a gift, even though it is stupid and insane and nobody wants it. You do it because you’ve been caught up in the panic and hysteria of Christmas shopping, and after a certain point, your brain takes one look at your emotional state and decides it wanted no part of this, and leaves. So you end up paying too much money for something that is objectively garbage, but it presents itself to you as if it’s not only a good present, but the thing without which Christmas simply will not happen.
If this has never happened to you, then please consider the following essay my gift to you, so that you may be happy in the life you have chosen. If what follows is familiar, then this is also your gift: The gift of knowing it’s not just you.
It happened to me back when I was single and had time to wander around a mall unimpeded, and yet somehow I ended up buying my younger brother a rubber steering wheel cover decorated with red and yellow flames. (My brother did not own a car.)
It happened to me last year, when I came within microns of pressing “order” for a pair of Harlem Globe Trotter Heelys for a child who not only never expressed an interest in Heelys, but doesn’t know who the Harlem Globe Trotters are and may not even know what basketball is.
And it came very close to happening this year, when we went to GameStop (ptui, ptui) a week before Christmas in search of a very specific item.
Before you judge us for what I’m about to relate, please remember that we had “finished shopping” weeks ago, and were smugly resting on our materialistic laurels, quietly sneering at those inferior parents who had squandered their Advent praying or serving the poor or whatever. We, being wise and prudent, had Christmas literally in the bag. We had ordered almost everything online, and let the goodies come to us, and honestly, most of the gifts were wholesome, thoughtful, and occasionally delightful. But, about a week before Christmas, we locked ourselves into our bedroom to make sure everything on our list was actually in our possession.
Oh dear. It turned out two items we had ordered were still in transit, and expected Thursday (Christmas eve). One item had quietly changed its expected arrival date to March 25. One apparently hadn’t realized it was coming all the way from China, and in a panic, sent us a rather hostile email saying that there’s no way it would make it on time unless we coughed up an extra $40 in shipping, and we had to say yes or no two weeks ago, and it went to spam. And one was still meekly sitting in an Etsy cart, hoping and praying I’d actually order it.
The lo, the twinkly world of Christmas joy became dark in our eyes. And so we succumbed to Present Madness.
We shouted something vague at the kids about being back soon, and we went to, uh, seven stores, looking to just pick up a few things to fill in the gaps in our carefully calibrated present list.
And we found nothing. Walmart, Target, Michael’s, the local toy store, the local comic store, even the retail wasteland known as TJ Maxx, but NOTHING.
To GameStop then we came, burning burning burning.
If you’re not familiar with GameStop, it’s a sort of geeky gehenna that sells video games, used video games, and a horrifying array of spectacularly useless game-related merch. The rug smells funny, the air is bad, the employees are all shriveled monsters, and whoever sets the prices should go to prison. Last time I went to GameStop, many moons ago, I went to advocate for my gangly, curly-haired teenage son, who had somehow gotten himself embroiled in a complicated situation involving a box of special edition Sonic the Hedgehog breakfast cereal. I don’t ever want to talk about that. But the line was moving turrribly slowly, and I soon saw that the delay was being caused by a middle-aged woman with stooped shoulders and baggy eyes, who was passionately arguing for justice on behalf of her gangly, curly-headed teenage son. Something about reward points and the collectable My Hero Academia shoelaces he had ordered.
And I says to myself, I says, if I wanted to look in a mirror, I could do that in the comfort of my own home, and at least I could sit down. So I never went back, until last weekend, when we had nowhere else to turn and GameStop knew it.
My feet hurt so much, they were audibly whimpering. My nose was running behind my mask, and I had to go to the bathroom. We hadn’t made a dent on our list at all, except that we had bought one thing that took care of one kid, but which shifted the balance of presents so that now a kid who had formerly been done suddenly needed a little extra present to even things up. Yes, I said “needed!” Don’t question me! I’ll cut you!
So we made the ultimate sacrifice and went to Game Stop, and we still didn’t find the thing we were looking for, because it’s Game Stop. We circled around and around to make sure the thing was not there, and it was not. But. What is this? What is this amazing thing? It is so amazing! It is, and you’re not going to believe this! It is a Dragonball Z hot air popcorn maker that lights up! So cool! And we knew exactly who would want such a thing: A child who didn’t need any more Christmas presents. But it is on sale! And it is a limited edition! Or maybe it doesn’t light up, but is just orange! Hard to tell from the box! Only six left! And her birthday is in April, so we could pack it away and be ahead of the game! We’d have to be insane NOT to buy it! So we grabbed one and got into line, chortling to ourselves at what a wonderful present we had scored, and how much progress we were making, because look at us, buying something!
Luckily, it was GameStop, which means the line was moving slowly. As we waited, we had time to stop and reflect. And we realized that we were about to spend $30 on absolute garbage that would make zero people happy. So, get this, we put it back, and we left the store without buying anything.
Just this once, we triumphed over Present Madness.
Except then we went to Walmart and bought a Frozen II Karaoke machine and also a rose gold microphone at Aldi, in case we need it. We might need it! I’ll cut you!
Maybe you think this is an essay about how we learned our lesson about excessive materialism, and how, having renounced the Dragonball Z Air Popper and all its empty promises, we vowed to realign our hearts toward the Christchild, who was born in Bethlehem with only swaddling clothes to cover him and only a choir of angels to sing him to sleep, and that was enough. That was enough.
But no. One of my sisters just mentioned on Facebook she’s eyeing a self-stirring mug they just put out at Walmart, and now I need to find my car keys. I honestly think the angels will still be singing when I get back.
Ansgar Holmberg, C.S.J., 86, didn’t paint her O Antiphon series to edify or instruct anyone. They were meant only for herself.
Ansgar (she likes to be called by her first name) has been with the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet for 67 years, and although she has spent time teaching children and offering spiritual direction, she created these seven paintings over the course of three years as a personal way to contemplate Scripture.
“I had read what other people had said, but I decided to paint them for myself, for me to understand them better. That’s one of the ways I learn,” Ansgar said.
Now the seven paintings, done in brilliant gouache (a kind of opaque watercolor), are gathered in a small book, Praying the Advent Names of God, paired with poems composed by another sister in the community, Joan Mitchell, C.S.J.
The O Antiphons are a series of seven verses dating from the sixth century and prayed during vespers during the last week of Advent. Each antiphon is a name of Jesus taken from Scripture, and they are the basis for the popular Advent hymn, “O Come, O Come Emmanuel.”
Ansgar’s images are saturated with color and inhabit a strange space between iconography and myth. Ansgar said she did not set out to express a theological idea with her works; she simply followed her intuition.
“I didn’t have any rules or laws or requests put upon me, but it was my own expression of where I was at that time as I worked with these,” she said. “I put my own spin on it, and it went a bit more cosmic.”
Wisdom, for instance, is frequently portrayed in Western art with symbols like a lamp, a book or a female form enthroned; but in Ansgar’s conception, Wisdom is a figure descending fluidly from the heavens, grasping the sun in one hand, breathing out waters and engraving the bed of a riverbank with the other hand. Wisdom, Ansgar said, is proceeding from the womb of God.
Advent at the Fisher house includes singing, lighting of candles, opening a door on the Advent calendar, reading the passage from the calendar’s matching booklet, picking the appropriate homemade ornament and hanging it on the Jesse tree, looking up and reading the corresponding passage from scripture, and plucking the chocolate out of your own personal Advent calendar, if you haven’t already eaten them all, if you haven’t already brushed your teeth. Well, brush them again, then.
Fisher family Advent has, in short, transcended tradition and achieved rigmarole status. And there’s nothing wrong with that. I’m happy to be doing special things that we don’t do at any other time of year. It’s a nice combination of scripture and aesthetics and memorable lessons, perfect for children and adults alike. It wouldn’t really feel like Advent without it.
But it would feel even more like Advent if I didn’t yell at everyone the whole time we were doing it. It would feel more like Advent if I focused less on reading the right Bible verse in the correct tone of voice, and focused more on being open to the word of God. If I lit a flame in the darkness and let that symbol speak to the kids’ hearts’ directly, rather than correcting them for pronouncing “Is-ra-el” wrong, or brooding in my heart that I’ve raised them all wrong, and we need to start doing scripture drills every night, and I need to start being a better mother so I will have better kids who do things better.
If, in short, I prepared a way for the Lord for the sake of the Lord, rather than preparing for the sake of getting preparations done.
Shh, there’s a little baby nearby!
That’s what I’m trying now to keep in mind. This thought, this image of a newborn nearby, helps make my Advent a little more like Advent. It makes everything a little gentler, a little quieter, a little more slow and thoughtful, just as if there were a tiny baby in the next room, someone I don’t want to disturb, someone I don’t want to grieve. Someone whose world I want to make warm and quiet, soft, welcoming, and kind.
I can’t always control what I have to do during the day, but I can control how I do it. For the sake of the baby nearby, I can take a breath and give a mild answer if someone insults me. For the sake of the baby, I can offer help to someone who’s struggling, rather than waiting for them to ask. I can warmly compliment someone for achieving something small. I can hush my tone of voice; I can apologize sincerely when I screw it up. I can try again without flagellating myself for my inevitable sins. I can skip the sarcastic remark; I can forego the conversation that will only lead to irritation. I can think of the baby nearby, think of the kind of world I want him to grow up in, and I can do what I can to make it a little softer.
I can recognize that I have been noisy and quarrelsome, critical and demanding, and I can think of the baby nearby, and I can hush.
This is what works for me, since so much of my life has been dedicated to caring for babies. But what about you? What if you don’t have a baby in your life?
Oh, but you do. You have someone helpless, someone in need, someone who needs patience, someone who is easily frightened or overwhelmed. Someone overlooked. Someone who is just starting out, someone who isn’t getting much done but could still use some praise. Someone whose world would be better if you decided to act out of love.
The “baby” may look like a snotty teenager, an obnoxious co-worker, or a difficult parent. It may look like a pushy stranger on the sidewalk, or a rude cashier. It may look like a priest who’s disappointed you, or an internet troll who really is out to get you. It may look like someone who never thinks of what you need.
Or it may even be yourself. We can be so extremely hard on themselves at this time of year, keeping up a constant interior litany of blame and reproach for not doing it right, telling ourselves terrible things that we’d never dream of saying about anyone else.
This is what people are like: Needy and demanding, fussy and inconveniently fragile. Would we respond any differently if the people we encountered were new babies? Could we be a little more gentle?
What if you remembered that you, yourself, were a little baby once, and even though you can feed and care for yourself now, you still deserve to be treated with gentleness, even if only by yourself?
At all times of the year, but especially at Advent: It’s always about the person closes to us – or, if you like, it’s all about the baby nearby. And this is how we serve the Person who, liturgically speaking, is nearby, about to be born. We tell our kids that Christmas is Baby Jesus’ birthday, and the kind of presents he wants is for us to be good to each other — and yes, to ourselves. Sometimes the best kind of goodness we can offer is just a little gentleness, a soft touch, a decision not to make noise. A little hush, for the sake of the baby. This is a good way to make way for the Lord: With gentleness.
