From the Archives: The Triduum, Kidterrupted

I started this post yesterday, and then had no time to finish it.

I must've been kidterrupted in the middle of it.

I scrapped what I started yesterday, because today I see that Alicia noticed the same thing I was pondering, and in this post at Studeo, she shares some beautifully apt quotes from St. Francis de Sales on patience. And, really, I should just send you over there and leave it at that, because Alicia's post sums that up so nicely.

But, I'll take up my own musing again anyway.

I keep thinking about the idea that we envision a certain thing -- in this case, a certain thing about Holy Week and how it will, or should, play out -- and then we don't get what we wanted. We either don't get it at all, or we get some altered version of it, or we get frustrated with the final result.

Now that I've been through 13 Holy Weeks as a Catholic mom, I'm going to pretend that I'm an expert. And here's what I've learned over the last 13 Holy Weeks with kids:

* Very small children don't have to attend every liturgy of the Triduum. We have done it various ways, and each way we tried was simply what we needed to do that particular year. (The last two years it has actually worked for us to attend all of it, including the Vigil, and we've loved that. But that wasn't always the case.)

If the whole gang attending works well for your family, that's great. If it doesn't work for your family, for whatever reason (and please, people, let's not judge what the valid reasons are) then that's okay, too. Holy Thursday and Good Friday are sublime observances that can enhance one's celebration of Easter tremendously. But, the Church doesn't require you to be there. If you can't make it for some reason, don't be harder on yourself than the Church is. Do what works best for you and your domestic church.

* Very small children do not have to understand everything about Good Friday and all of its implications. They just can't always separate the solemnity of Holy Thursday/Good Friday from the approaching joy of Easter, and that's okay. They will learn to "get it" as they get older, with your teaching and guidance. That's why they're called children. They aren't grown up yet, and they don't get everything.

* Understanding that little children don't understand every nuance of Good Friday doesn't mean I'm sending you out to join in every local Easter egg hunt you can find. We happen to skip community Easter egg hunts that fall on a solemn day, but I don't keep Ramona from playing on Good Friday. As a matter of fact, I took incredible delight in her play this morning. We were outside on the swings, and talked about it being Good Friday and she belted out at the top of her lungs (to the tune of "If You're Happy and You Know It"): "If you love Jesus and you know it, shout Amen! Amen!"

She was pretty delightful yesterday, too, when, to celebrate Holy Thursday she drew a picture of Jesus and His apostles and then starting gift wrapping things she found around the house, because "people should have presents when we're happy." Did she understand all that we would feel and remember at last night's Mass? No. Did she understand that we were happy that Jesus gave us the Eucharist? Yes. The rest will come.

And that's what really got me started thinking about this post. I watched Ramona yesterday, when she drew her picture of Jesus. Her eyes were shining, and she was brimming with joy. And I thought, for a moment, that one of the reasons the Church wisely gave us Lent and penance, Holy Thursday and Good Friday, is that we grown-ups sometimes forget to shine.

We need reminders to shine properly. Lent is that reminder for me. The old cliche, "You don't know what you've got till it's gone?" It holds true for Lent. Loss brings renewal, and Ramona's shining eyes remind me that someday, God willing, I'll enter a paradise where I never again have to give something up in order to appreciate it. My eyes will shine all the time.

And I'll sing eternal praise that little children don't "get it" all the time, and that the many kidterruptions that happen in Mass, in Holy Week, and in life, were really small whispers from God, telling me how much He loves me.

(from Holy Week, 2008)

A Daybook Entry

I've never done The Simple Woman's Daybook, but I always read such lovely little snippets at The Bookworm.  And since today my mind is packed full of so many things that it risks paralysis, I thought I needed a template in order to move forward.

~~~~~

Outside my window... I hear birds singing. And the starlings are building their nest on the back porch. 

I am thinking... about how grateful I am for Holy week, for a liturgical calendar and its rhythms, and for my conversion.

I am thankful for... my husband and children. Family. Friends. For blogging, which has brought beautiful connections with other converts as well as connections of all kinds that have enriched my life.

From the learning rooms... it will be a relaxed week. Violin, vet-shadowing for Anne, reading, lots of spring cleaning (i.e., home-ec class.)

From the kitchen... this is never very interesting when I'm in charge, but yesterday Atticus made a delicious, spicy chili. Saturday he baked bread.  I've been making wheat bread more often, a quick recipe that we all love.

I am wearing... black pants, a t-shirt. My uniform.

I am creating... some writing projects are in the works. More on that story as it develops.

I am going... to the orthodontist with Anne this week, shopping with girls for spring dresses, to the laundry room numerous times.

I am reading... Mary, Mother of the Son, by Mark Shea.

I am hoping... that prayers for various family members will be felt.

I am hearing... the click of a keyboard. Birds. Traffic. Tea being slurped (it's not the same as coffee, but God has been good to me this Lent. It was a needed substitution.)

Around the house... there are messes. Thus the spring cleaning.

One of my favorite things... is Holy week. The way God works so quietly in lives. The way He sometimes shouts.

A few plans for the rest of the week: preparation for Easter. We all got to confession again over the weekend. Yesterday we made our caterpillars. Cleaning, reading, baking. Prayer.  Mass. Readying ourselves to celebrate His Resurrection.

Here is a picture thought I am sharing:

Poetry Friday extra: Happy Birthday, Robert Frost

Be sure to visit Jama Rattigan's Alphabet Soup for a wonderful post on Robert Frost. And thanks, Jama, for reminding me that it's his birthday.

"And were an epitaph to be my story I'd have a short one ready for my own. I would have written of me on my stone: I had a lover's quarrel with the world."

~~ Robert Frost 

Poetry Friday

Holy week is almost here, and I am reflecting on changed lives ....

The Convert
by G. K. Chesterton

After one moment when I bowed my head
And the whole world turned over and came upright,
And I came out where the old road shone white.
I walked the ways and heard what all men said,
Forests of tongues, like autumn leaves unshed,
Being not unlovable but strange and light;
Old riddles and new creeds, not in despite
But softly, as men smile about the dead

The sages have a hundred maps to give
That trace their crawling cosmos like a tree,
They rattle reason out through many a sieve
That stores the sand and lets the gold go free:
And all these things are less than dust to me
Because my name is Lazarus and I live.

from The Collected Poems of G. K. Chesterton (1927)

~~~~~

The Poetry Friday round up is at The Drift Record. 

I Didn't Know Cupcakes Were a Craft

Yesterday, between Ramona and me:

Me:  "Tomorrow is the Annunciation! We could do some kind of craft. Maybe we could think about .... "

Ramona: "Cupcakes!"

Okay, yes.  Maybe we could think about cupcakes.

We could also -- silly me -- think about Mary's fiat:

 
Help me, Lord, to say "yes" to you in these remaining days of Lent, and always.

(The painting above is "The Annunciation" by Henry Ossawa Tanner, 1859-1937. There are so many incredible, beautiful pieces of art from which to choose for the Annunciation.)

I'm at Faith and Family Live Today

You'll find me over at Faith and Family Features this morning, talking about crickets, cups and trusting God in the darkness:


Cricket in a Cup is here.

The best time to serve the Lord

from Daily de Sales:

March 22
 
So you want to know the best time to serve the Lord? It is the present time, which is in your possession here and now. The past is no longer yours; the future has not come yet and is uncertain. The best time is really the present, which you should spend in serving God. If you want to recover lost time, do your best, with fervor and diligence, in the time that still remains to you.

 (Sermons 16; O. IX, p. 132)

How I Decided What to Give Up for Lent

I wasn't sure I was going to blog about this, but as with most of the subjects I write about, I mention it just in case it's helpful to someone else.

On the day before Ash Wednesday, I still hadn't fully settled on what I wanted to/needed to/should do for penance. A few ideas were bouncing around my head.  Coffee occurred to me a few times, but each time I immediately dismissed it as an insane thought. "No," I told myself, "something more meaningful."

Besides -- I didn't want to give coffee up. Please.

I was bouncing around on the internet, too. Reading blogs. And I saw that this sweet reader had taken my ramblings to heart and planned to give up buying any new books through Lent. She had read my "Meaningful Lent" post which said, "If it's a struggle to give it up, we're inordinately attached to it."

And then, I practically heard the word, before I even had time to cross examine myself about my own inordinate attachments:

"Coffee." It was so loud.

The Lord can just be so annoying sometimes. Like when He tells me what I really need to do.

I wanted to swat the word and the thought away, like a fly, like the pesky thing it was. But I knew it was true. I am inordinately attached, and I have never given coffee up for Lent. There was no more dodging it.

So, coffee topped the list of material penances. 

Ash Wednesday went beautifully. Atticus had a lovely cup of tea ready for me first thing in the morning. This won't be so hard, I thought (rather pathetically.) But, ummm, yeah. It got harder. But I've hung in there, thanks to God, and I'm so glad I did.

And why am I talking about it now?

Because it's not too late to try to give up something that you might have considered and rejected as a penance. If you're feeling that you  fudged a little, compromised, chose something easy rather than something that would make you rely on Him instead of "it" (whatever "it" is for you), then there's still time to give that penance a trial run if you want to. We're in Passiontide, and Easter is still almost two weeks away.  That's long enough to feel it, and short enough to survive.  And there's still a Solemnity coming on Thursday, and one more Sunday -- havens (and I do duck in to the havens.)

Giving up coffee has been beneficial for me in so many ways.  I'd love to tell you that I'll be giving it up permanently, that I've seen major health improvements, have lost weight, now adore tea and I just won the lottery.

None of that is true.

I know I'll go back to coffee. But, thanks be to God for several things: for His help, that we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us (Phil. 4:13), and for the Body of Christ as experienced through blogs and readers and the blogs of readers. I know that He can conquer addictions large and small, and on Easter Sunday, I'll have some coffee because I want to, not because I have to.

Bits and Pieces of Our Days

On Friday evening, the Solemnity of St. Joseph, we had a lovely (meat-filled) feast with some friends. One of our priests comes from a Sicilian-tradition-packed family and he cooked for us. Having the Solemnity of St. Joseph fall on a Friday in Lent is a treat.

~~~~~

There's one more Solemnity to come -- don't forget that Thursday the 25th is the Solemnity of the Annunciation.

~~~~~

Reading the Little House books to Ramona has been delightful, of course. We're doing all the homeschooly things one associates with Little House: making butter, making dolls, sewing.

But also fun is to re-experience them with my older girls, who are listening in on the lunchtime readings. They're so funny:

When we were reading The Long Winter, at one point Ma says to Charles, "Oh, Charles, I should have known you'd provide for us. How did you do it?"

Anne-with-an-e, in her best Charles voice, replied, "I sold my hair, Caroline."

When Ma was, in her subtle way, telling Pa to stop singing such a sad song, Anne interpreted for us: "Knock it off, Chuck."

In another section, which I probably don't need to describe in order for this to be amusing, she said of Ma, "She won't let Pa sing a heathen song about good luck charms, but she jokes about spouse abuse?  Sheesh." 

It's just, you know, a little different perspective. 

~~~~~

We're in Passiontide.  More here, at Women for Faith and Family.

~~~~~

Last week, when we had a warm, sunny day, Ramona got on the swings and I thought she would never get off. I pushed, she soared, and when a school bus rolled by on the highway, she said, "Oh, poor them! I loooove the homeschooling life!"

~~~~~

We are committed. We decided to stop renting Betsy's violin and instead to buy it, thus taking advantage of the "apply the first six months of rent to the purchase" policy. I love our violin teacher, I love the instrument she found for Betsy, I loved the price and I love that my daughter is learning to play Bach. I love that she loves it all. 

~~~~~

I Can Bargain with the Best of 'Em

I asked my older girls to please play something with Ramona for just a little while. Ramona requested Pollies.

Betsy said, "I don't want to have to play Pollies!"

I sweetly asked if she could just play Pollies for about 20 minutes, while I did something else.

"Fifteen," she countered.

"Okay, fifteen," I agreed. I turned to Ramona, who had been watching this exchange.

"Ramona," I said, "how about fifteen minutes of Pollies with the girls?"

"Okay!" she said happily. "Mommy, you're a good haggler."

Poetry Friday: Trust

This is a thoroughly satisfying poem to me, on every level.

It plays into the anxieties I regularly feel in relation to just about everything, but also to the wildly crazy blind trust in God that I just as regularly feel, call on, employ and hold dear. The trust that I trust.

Trust

by Thomas R. Smith

It's like so many other things in life
to which you must say no or yes.
So you take your car to the new mechanic.
Sometimes the best thing to do is trust.

The package left with the disreputable-looking
clerk, the check gulped by the night deposit,
the envelope passed by dozens of strangers—

(Read the rest here at the Poetry Foundation, or listen to Garrison Keillor read it aloud here, at the Writer's Almanac.)

The round up today is at Some Novel Ideas. 

What a Difference a Day Makes

Yesterday, Ramona said:

"Hey! Except for the snow that's still in the yard, it looks just like summer!"

Then, the temps reached 60-something, and only tiny little bits of snow could still be seen in the far reaches of the yard.  We reveled in the warmth and sunshine.

Today, I expect to hear from Ramona that except for the calendar -- which clearly indicates it is mid-March -- it looks just like winter out there.  The ground is covered with snow and it's still coming down.

Happy Spring in Nebraska! 

The Solemnity of St. Joseph!

It's an oasis in the desert, a Solemnity (read: "It's as big as a Sunday!") Today we're celebrating the earthly foster father of Jesus.

My beloved St. Joseph is the model husband and father ... giving of himself completely, pouring himself out in body and spirit, offering a total self-donation for his wife and foster-son. May he hear our prayers and cries for intercession, and may he intercede before the throne of God for our family, for all fathers, and for all who call on him with love and faith in the Savior whom he raised.

~~~~~

I find nothing sweeter to my imagination than to see the celestial little Jesus in the arms of this great saint, calling him father a thousand and a thousand times in his childlike language, and with a heart all full of childlike love.

~~ St. Francis de Sales,
from The Mystical Flora of St. Francis de Sales

Our St. Joseph statue, bundled up by Ramona and Betsy, a couple of winters ago.


(Image above is Georges de La Tour's "Christ in the Carpenter's Shop", 1645)

Why My Kids Should Not Be Allowed to Grow Up

Yesterday, for St. Patrick's Day, I colored the milk.

Fun, green milk for breakfast. And what did my oldest (who is not a morning person) say to me?

"Mom ... umm, can we have normal milk for our cereal?"

I said, "Hey, what's the point of putting artificial chemicals and dyes in your children's milk if they don't drink it and pour it on stuff?"

"Well, yeeeeah ... okay," she agreed.

They're spoiling my fun.

And from me ...

A rerun of last year's St. Patrick's Day post, but it's definitely worth the rerun. Be sure to listen to the clip if you have time.

~~~~~

After you've prayed this beautiful prayer today, be sure to listen to "The Deer's Cry" (St. Patrick's Breastplate set to music, hauntingly sung by Rita Connolly) here. Rita Connolly is the wife of Shaun Davey, who composed the piece.

St. Patrick's Breastplate

I bind to myself today
The strong virtue of the Invocation of the Trinity:
I believe the Trinity in the Unity
The Creator of the Universe.

I bind to myself today
The virtue of the Incarnation of Christ with His Baptism,
The virtue of His crucifixion with His burial,
The virtue of His Resurrection with His Ascension,
The virtue of His coming on the Judgement Day.

I bind to myself today
The virtue of the love of seraphim,
In the obedience of angels,
In the hope of resurrection unto reward,
In prayers of Patriarchs,
In predictions of Prophets,
In preaching of Apostles,
In faith of Confessors,
In purity of holy Virgins,
In deeds of righteous men.

I bind to myself today
The power of Heaven,
The light of the sun,
The brightness of the moon,
The splendour of fire,
The flashing of lightning,
The swiftness of wind,
The depth of sea,
The stability of earth,
The compactness of rocks.

I bind to myself today
God's Power to guide me,
God's Might to uphold me,
God's Wisdom to teach me,
God's Eye to watch over me,
God's Ear to hear me,
God's Word to give me speech,
God's Hand to guide me,
God's Way to lie before me,
God's Shield to shelter me,
God's Host to secure me,
Against the snares of demons,
Against the seductions of vices,
Against the lusts of nature,
Against everyone who meditates injury to me,
Whether far or near,
Whether few or with many.

I invoke today all these virtues
Against every hostile merciless power
Which may assail my body and my soul,
Against the incantations of false prophets,
Against the black laws of heathenism,
Against the false laws of heresy,
Against the deceits of idolatry,
Against the spells of women, and smiths, and druids,
Against every knowledge that binds the soul of man.

Christ, protect me today
Against every poison, against burning,
Against drowning, against death-wound,
That I may receive abundant reward.

Christ with me, Christ before me,
Christ behind me, Christ within me,
Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ at my right, Christ at my left,
Christ in the fort,
Christ in the chariot seat,
Christ in the deck,
Christ in the heart of everyone who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks to me,
Christ in every eye that sees me,
Christ in every ear that hears me.

I bind to myself today
The strong virtue of an invocation of the Trinity,
I believe the Trinity in the Unity
The Creator of the Universe.

Hibernian Guest Post from Atticus, part dó

Atticus here again to do another St. Patrick's Day guest post.

I'm going with a short passage from Dubliners again, this time from "Araby." (Karen rightly rejected a not-so-family-friendly passage from Ulysses. Hey, it's her blog. If I had printed the nixed passage here, Scott Peterson would never again ask, "Why you got no blog?") In this passage, the poor, deluded protagonist describes the intensity of his adoration for Mangan's hypnotic sister:

One evening I went into the back drawing-room in which the priest had died. It was a dark rainy evening and there was no sound in the house. Through one of the broken panes I heard the rain impinge upon the earth, the fine incessant needles of water playing in the sodden beds. Some distant lamp or lighted window gleamed below me. I was thankful that I could see so little. All my senses seemed to desire to veil themselves and, feeling that I was about to slip from them, I pressed the palms of my hands together until they trembled, murmuring: "O love! O love!" many times.

Kaboom. At times reading Joyce is like a deep pull on a rich, cool mug of Guinness. One is forced into the contemplation that except for love there may be nothing better this side of heaven. God bless Sir Arthur, and God bless all of you on this St Patrick's Day.

Teacher In-Service

I declared one yesterday.

Once in awhile, a homeschooling mother needs a day to clear her head, her files, her piles of paper, her junk mail, her planner, her To-Do list, her "Mom, these stories need to be edited and corrected" pile, her feeble idea of meal planning, and her laundry room.

Yesterday was that day.

Around lunchtime, the girls asked if I might want to sit down and read something to them while they ate.

"No," I said. "I'm not here. This is an in-service day. I'm not here. You're not here. When Dad has an in-service, he doesn't see his students.  You can't see me. I'm not here."

Fortunately, my children have a sense of humor, and they sometimes enjoy being invisible to me, just as I occasionally need to be invisible to them.

And that pile of papers, junk mail and stories?

It doesn't live here anymore.  We each, in our own way, had a very good day.

Bits and Pieces of Our Days

Our whole family worked together yesterday to make soft pretzels -- it's silly that I think of these as a Lenten thing, when we all enjoy them so much.

*****

We've had a couple of stray cats hanging around our house, and the girls have named them Matt (for sleeping on the welcome mat) and Scholastica (because we've been seeing her since St. Scholastica's feast day, and apparently -- this is what I get for reading about the saints on their feast days -- Scholastica fed stray cats.) From the looks of Matt's eyes, and his incessant scratching, I'm envisioning many vet bills. Urgh. 

*****

Hey, new homeschoolers: 

You know how you worry about every little thing? And you wonder if you're doing it right? And if you're providing your children with all that they need? And if you're up to this?  Welcome to homeschooling high school.  In some ways, it's starting over again -- I'm figuring out new things, new approaches, my style, hers ... it's an adventure. 

*****

Daylight Savings Time. 
Hmmm. Well. 
As Auntie Em, in the Wizard of Oz, said, for years "I've been dying to tell you what I thought of you! And now... well, being a Christian woman, I can't say it!"

*****

Why do I have time only for Bits and Pieces lately? Is this about that homeschooling-high-school thing again? Or stray cats? Or too many pretzels?

Laetare Sunday! Rejoice!

Did you see pink at Mass today?

Or does your priest prefer to call it "rose"?

We've had both kinds of priests here. One of them used to say "real men can wear pink" on this, Laetare Sunday. The fourth Sunday of Lent is cause for rejoicing ... we're more than halfway through the penitential season, and we eagerly await the joy of Easter and the celebration of the Resurrection.

More information on Laetare Sunday can be found here and here.

Have a blessed, joyous day.

That's, like, not romantic

Yesterday, Anne-with-an-e and I were listening to the soundtrack from August Rush. She mentioned that she and Betsy have a minor thing for Jonathan Rhys Meyers and that, somehow, everything sounds more romantic when spoken with an accent from anywhere in the U.K.

"Except," she added, "something like, 'Can you give me a ride to the courthouse? I'm late for my hearing.'"

I almost spit out my drink laughing.

I love spending time with these people.

Poetry Friday: When You Are Old

This morning, Atticus asked what I was planning for Poetry Friday.

I said, "Oh ... I don't know."

He said, "I think a little Yeats is in order."

"I dunno," I said, but I was thinking, I do really love When You Are Old. 

"Why don't you do When You Are Old?" he asked.

And so, because Atticus is the man who loved the pilgrim soul in me, and still loves my changing face, I must share When You Are Old today, and murmur, most gladly, that love never fled.

When You Are Old

by William Butler Yeats

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,

And nodding by the fire, take down this book,

And slowly read, and dream of the soft look

Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,

And loved your beauty with love false or true,

But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,

And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,

Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled

And paced upon the mountains overhead

And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

~~~~~

The round-up is at Becky's Book Reviews.

Bits and Pieces of Our Days

The other day, when Ramona came in from playing in the snow, she said, "My mittens are soaked to their little cloth bones. Poor dears." She'd been busy making this guy:

*****

Betsy got the part of an angel in a play at church (last year I was the director, but this year I will be a calm, contented audience member.)  I'm happy for Betsy because she got just the part she wanted.  And although Betsy is a wonderful actress, this part won't be much of a stretch. She is an angel. She is walking, breathing proof that God is good. She's a middle child, just as I was, so I do worry about her a little for that reason. But mostly I just look at her and sigh. Where does God get ideas like Betsy?  I don't know, but I'm just so glad He gave her to us.

*****

Anne-with-an-e (who is also walking, breathing proof that God is good) is eagerly awaiting an upcoming unit in her biology class: dissection. Her best friend and lab partner, S., is not terribly eager and wishes we could stick to virtual dissection, as in the squeamish-friendly website, Froguts.  I seem to recall, from my high school days, thinking that dissection, while leaning toward the icky, was actually quite interesting.  Anne takes it beyond "quite interesting."  She loves this kind of thing. So why doesn't she enjoy making dinner and prepping raw chicken?

*****

Ramona loves to draw. Yesterday she presented me with the following picture of "Mary, the Blessed Virgin" which, since it was drawn on a whiteboard, I had to capture on film:

*****

We went to confession last week. We stopped in at a church in the area that has a relic of the Cross near the Tabernacle. I'm always tempted, with relics, to fall into a new realm of awe, to consider what (and Who) has been in the presence of a given object. The Cross? Really? The wood that actually held His Body? But then, I'm always overcome by a different, familiar, yet-never-old, always-new kind of awe, the awe that drew me into the Catholic Church, the awe that keeps me there, the awe that moves me to tears and makes me feel very small and incongruously large in God's eyes: the awe that comes from the knowledge that I have the opportunity to receive that very Body at each and every Holy Mass that I attend. He's always there. More real than wood. Every Catholic church is holy ground.  And for awhile, after I have received His Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity, I am walking holy ground for a time. I cling to that, as tangibly as one can cling to wood.

*****

This morning, as Atticus and I sleepily prayed Lauds, I was suddenly reminded of a quote from Garrison Keillor:

"Thank you, God, for this good life, and forgive us if we do not love it enough."

*****

It's my Baptismal Birthday! Twenty years ago today, I was baptized in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.  

Thank you God, for this good life.  

from the Archives: Confess the Mess

In this post, I want to share my three best tips for a meaningful Lent.

They are:

1. Go to confession.
2. Go to confession.
3. Go to confession.

And, if I haven't mentioned it lately, I also think going to confession would be a good thing to do.

If you love going to confession, good for you. Keep it up.

If you hate going to confession, consider giving up "not going to confession" for Lent.

If you hate to go, but love having gone, you may be a Dorothy Parker fan. (Of her profession, she said, "Hate to write ... love having written.")

I am a Dorothy Parker sort of confessee. Hate to go. Love having gone. Love going regularly, even though I hate going. (And, although it has no place in this post, I'll share another Dorothy Parker quote: "This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force." Love that, although it's completely out of place here.)

And, finally, one more Dorothy Parker quote that does have a place here:

“It's not the tragedies that kill us, it's the messes.”

Confess the mess.

And, that's the last of Dorothy Parker I can share. If I repeat her most famous stuff, I'll have to head straight to confession.

(I first ran this post last year during Lent.) 

Holy Week: Are we there yet?

Nope.

Lent is -- what, really? -- not quite half over.

I haven't been talking much about it, as I'm afraid I'll whine about the things I've given up.

One of the things I gave up is about as objectively good as it gets, and I'll not lie and say that I don't miss it. I do. But it's also good to know that I can actually live without it. Today when Atticus and I did Morning Prayer, one of the petitions asked that we be delivered from "slavery to the senses which blinds us to goodness."

What an excellent petition to return to again and again during Lent -- because isn't that why we make these sacrifices? To be released from such slavery? Instead of whining about what I miss, I should be rejoicing.

I'm working on that part. Inside, I'm cheering. Really.

When I Was an Atheist ...

... I knew people who said and believed that unless one knew Jesus Christ and accepted Him as one's Lord and Savior, one would go directly to hell.*

But I used to wonder about the "knowing" Him portion of that idea.

I seem to recall someone telling me that I couldn't possibly, being an American, not know Jesus. It's a Christian country, isn't it? How could I grow up (I suppose the reasoning went) without knowing what it was to be a Christian?

I recall thinking that I knew of Jesus (as in, "I've heard of Him ...."), that I knew bits and pieces about His life (as in, "Christmas is His birthday, and Easter is about Him rising from the dead, right?") But I certainly didn't know Him.  Being exposed to someone's name or knowing when his birthday is celebrated -- and even knowing that people worship Him -- is not on a par with a personal connection.  Knowing my friend is married to a man named Roger doesn't give me the same relationship with Roger that she has.

Being told that I'd failed at or rejected a relationship that I'd never really had a fair shot at seemed decidedly unfair to me, not to mention that the idea betrayed a lack of understanding of real relationships. If I was going to love this God, this Man, I had to get to know Him. And I needed people who loved Him to be His representatives to me. In other words, I needed to see Him in action, through the actions of His followers.

That is indeed what happened for me. True lovers of and followers of this Man called Jesus slowly revealed Him to me. They did it with patience. With long talks. With understanding of the fact that I had not grown up steeped in Christianity. With the knowledge that to be American is not ipso facto to be a Christian. With a firm grasp of the fact that many, many people -- like the person I was -- have never truly heard the Gospel, despite the fact that we may have grown up with a church on every corner of our town.

During the years of this slow revelation of Jesus to me, I was not always particularly lovable, and I sometimes stubbornly held on to past sins and ways of life, to past viewpoints that were not compatible with Christianity and Catholicism. But my friends, one in particular, kept showing me a side of Jesus that I had never encountered before. Slowly I began to realize that I had indeed developed a relationship with this Man, and it was time to either make some commitments or break it off. And so I was baptized. And so, five years later, I embraced Catholicism.

And now that I am no longer an atheist nor an outsider to Christianity, a question I often ask myself is, "What am I doing to show Jesus to someone else?"

Am I assuming that they already know Him? Or am I doing everything I can to let Him shine through the imperfection that is me?

Some days I don't care for the answer to that question.  Other days are better.  All days are a cause to thank Him for the people He sent to me, and a cause to pray that I can be that kind of person.

~~~~~~~~~~

*The Catholic Church teaches the following about Jesus as the way to salvation (this is from paragraphs 846-848 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church):

"Outside the Church there is no salvation"

846 How are we to understand this affirmation, often repeated by the Church Fathers?³³⁵ Re-formulated positively, it means that all salvation comes from Christ the Head through the Church which is his Body:

Basing itself on Scripture and Tradition, the Council teaches that the Church, a pilgrim now on earth, is necessary for salvation: the one Christ is the mediator and the way of salvation; he is present to us in his body which is the Church. He himself explicitly asserted the necessity of faith and Baptism, and thereby affirmed at the same time the necessity of the Church which men enter through Baptism as through a door. Hence they could not be saved who, knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse either to enter it or to remain in it.³³⁶

847 This affirmation is not aimed at those who, through no fault of their own, do not know Christ and his Church:

Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience - those too may achieve eternal salvation.³³⁷

848 "Although in ways known to himself God can lead those who, through no fault of their own, are ignorant of the Gospel, to that faith without which it is impossible to please him, the Church still has the obligation and also the sacred right to evangelize all men."³³⁸

(Photo courtesy of Stock.xchng.)

The Rewards of Being a Mommy

One of them is finding notes like this:

Is it readable?

From Ramona, it says: "Karen: A name that fills your heart with joy and sweet love and warmth."

My heart went pitter-pat. 

Poetry Friday: Travel Directions

 

I am extremely fond of this poem for a few reasons. The first is that this is exactly the way  I give directions. Instead of providing street names or anything that might call a compass to mind, I say, "You go for a little while down that one street -- you know the one we were on that time we met for lunch and you got the French toast?"

The second reason is that it reminds me I am not alone in this method of explaining how to get from here to there. People in small towns often do this kind of directing, too. Oh, yes, they also make use of those maddening terms, "North" and "South" and so on, but they often use rural landmarks that, when I first encountered them, seemed both foreign and familiar. 

I'm remembering, with greater affection than I actually felt at the time, the first year we lived in western Nebraska. Some new friends invited us to dinner at their home. Atticus and I had been married about five years when we moved "out west," where Atticus took a teaching job. We had no children, and no intention of having them.  But in the two years that we lived in what I sometimes called, ironically, a God-forsaken town,  I was being transformed into a Christian (I had nothing to do but read the Bible, you see, and that's such a chancy proposition for an atheist) and even, imperceptibly, into someone who might want to become a mother, though I didn't know that any of my experiences there would lead me to where I am now. All I knew was that I wanted life to stop hurting (though, yes, that was a pipe dream, and life still hurts sometimes when one is a Catholic, but I perceive hurts -- both the enormous and the petty ones --  differently than I used to; pain and suffering have a different meaning now.)

Anyway, living in that tiny, isolated town, when our new friends -- the onion farmer and his wife, the English teacher -- invited us to dinner, we received directions that sounded like this: "You head down the highway and go past the second pile of sugar beets and take a left ...." I knew that I could be friends with these people. They understood how I needed to understand how to get from here to there. 

And because getting from here to there is rarely easy, and is generally fraught with the unexpected, the sublime, the sad, the unforgettable, the delightful, the metaphorical and lingering memories, I have arrived at the final reason I love this poem: its truth and poignancy.  And, of course, for its mention of Bach, for whom I'm a pushover.

So, head down this page, and take a turn into the poem. Stop for a moment and look around. If you drive straight through, you might want to double back and retrace your steps; enjoy the scenery for just a bit.  Look for the sugar beets. And for the tiny tweaks that reinvent a heart. Watch for that place we met that time for lunch. 

Then, when you are ready to move on, follow my direction to click to the rest of the poem, here, at The Writer's Almanac.

Travel Directions

by Joan I. Siegel

There ought to be a word
for the way you know how to get some place
but don't remember the names of streets
the number of turns and blinking yellow lights
so that if someone asked
you really couldn't say
except you know the road starts out straight
and when it's sunny the branches blink across
the windshield making you want to rub your eyes
then the road turns sharply uphill past a red barn
where a black dog jumps out to race you for a quarter mile
and finally recedes in the mirror like a disappointment
and you remember the road dips downhill
into the shadows of the morning
where you hear Bach's unaccompanied 'cello

....
~~~~~~

The round up today is hosted by Teaching Books.

(Photo courtesy of Stock.xchng)

Quote for a Tuesday

"I think we are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not.  Otherwise they turn up unannounced and surprise us, come hammering on the mind’s door at 4 a.m. of a bad night and demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, and who is going to make amends."

~~ Joan Didion, Slouching Towards Bethlehem

(Thanks, Jack, for just the right quote to sum up what I was talking about.)

They are as nothing

We are well into Lent.

And as I struggle, sometimes, with my little sacrifices -- giving up objective goods, giving up bad habits, habits I normally barely think about -- I turn to one thing for comfort, courage, strength. 

And perspective.

My little efforts? They are as nothing. 

(Photo courtesy of stock.xchng)

O Flesh, Flesh, How Art Thou Fishified!

That's one of the lines my girls loved in Romeo and Juliet. I suspect they will also be calling people pestilent knaves. Yesterday I heard, "How now?" from Anne, and of course, "wherefore" in lieu of "why" has become commonplace. 
 
We just finished reading the play together this morning, and together is a wonderful way to experience Shakespeare.

We've had such fun, getting up early, before Ramona is stirring, reading and sipping tea and, one day, watching Alan Rickman as Tybalt:


(Thanks to Atticus for remembering it.)