Bits and Pieces of Our Days: What We've Been Reading

Ramona and I just finished The Curious World of Calpurnia Tate, Jacqueline Kelly's delightful* sequel to The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate. We did it together as a read-aloud and were both sad to reach the end of our time with the Tate clan. And who needs a science curriculum with books such as these? Love them.

* ETA: Just fyi: It does tackle some serious themes, too, so some of you might want to preview it and/or be ready to discuss those. 

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While we're on the subject of science, though, we're working our way through Fruitless Fall together. If you've never fallen hard for honeybees, you need to pick up this book. 

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Betsy is doing some reading aloud with Ramona, too. Last night they finished The Son of Neptune, from Rick Riordan's Heroes of Olympus series. 

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Her own stuff: Ramona recently finished Andrew Clements' Things Not Seen, which she said was "fun, and interesting, and there was more to it" than she thought there would be. She recommends it. 

Then she moved on to Tanita Davis's A La Carte, which she desperately loved. It left her with a book hangover, drifting and unsure of what she wanted to pick up next. She just wanted more time with Lainey. 

She eventually moved on, though, and is currently reading The Importance of Being Earnest. 

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Last month I read The One-in-a-Million Boy, by Monica Wood, and it was lovely and sad and uplifting. Recommend, recommend, recommend. 

I just finished Connie Willis's newest book, Crosstalk. It's basically a romantic comedy, lightweight fun. I think the story could have been told in a shorter book, but I still enjoyed it. I've been told I need to read To Say Nothing of the Dog, so that's on the TBR list for lightweight Willis. I think Doomsday Book (not lightweight) is still my favorite of hers. 

Right now? I'm rereading Madeleine L'Engle's A Circle of Quiet. I adore her Crosswicks journals. 

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Final book note: 

Did you know that yesterday was, as my friend Beth at Endless Books calls it, the Literary Day of Days? November 29th is the birthday of Madeleine L'Engle, Louisa May Alcott, and C.S. Lewis. 

Why did I not have this day highlighted on my calendar? Why are there not banners and fireworks? I assure you, next year the Literary Day of Days will be celebrated to the fullest extent allowed by law and bloggery. 

For this year, I will simply rerun this picture of a note I received from Madeleine L'Engle many years ago. (The story behind it is here.) Happy Belated Literary Day of Days! 

Poetry Friday: Any Common Desolation

This is all I can muster this week. 

Any Common Desolation
by Ellen Bass

can be enough to make you look up
at the yellowed leaves of the apple tree, the few
that survived the rains and frost, shot
with late afternoon sun. They glow a deep
orange-gold against a blue so sheer, a single bird
would rip it like silk. You may have to break
your heart, but it isn’t nothing
to know even one moment alive. The sound
....
(Read the rest here, at Poets.org.)

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The round up this week is being hosted by Friendly Fairy Tales. 

5 Things You Can Do to Model Joy and Optimism for Your Children

I first posted this over a year ago, but it feels more fitting than ever today, so I'm sharing it again.

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It's an ugly world out there. I don't even have to sum up headlines for you -- you can just pick the one that depresses you the most and we'll go from there.

When all the news everywhere seems bad and the future seems precarious, what do we do? And what do we tell our children?

My instinct is to look for the good (which is kind of funny, since by nature I'm a melancholic INFJ, or, in Inside Out Speak, the character of Sadness.)

Things have always been dire. From the time Moses despaired over the ingratitude of the Israelites ("Please do me the favor of killing me at once!") to the first-pope-elect who denied Jesus not once, not twice, but three times, to the Church Militant (which has regularly fallen down on fighting the good fight), to each of us sinners in our fallen state ... the history of humanity is the history of a mess.

But kids are basically optimistic by nature and they're always looking forward to the Next Great Thing, so I like to try to help mine find it. Hope, after all, is one of the theological virtues:

"The virtue of hope responds to the aspiration to happiness which God has placed in the heart of every man; it takes up the hopes that inspire men's activities and purifies them so as to order them to the Kingdom of heaven; it keeps man from discouragement; it sustains him during times of abandonment; it opens up his heart in expectation of eternal beatitude. Buoyed up by hope, he is preserved from selfishness and led to the happiness that flows from charity." (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1818)

With that in mind, here are five steps on the road to Joy and Optimism, aka Hope:

1. Remind Yourself and Your Kids What True Joy Is 

And it's not the stuff of this earth -- it's not about jobs, cars, money, success. (There is joy to be found here on earth -- witness coffee and books -- but it's not the main event.)

There will always be pain, challenges, and difficulties in this earthly life. Despite the struggles, the constant disappointments, the inevitable suffering, there is the joy that is my faith. It's something bigger than and different from happiness. It's the firm belief and the reason-defying knowledge that there's something more out there -- that He is out there -- and that everything He allows for me is meant for my good.

He is here with me. There's nothing more joy-inspiring than that sure knowledge.

2. Remind Yourself and Your Kids That Jesus Started the Church and the Holy Spirit Is Guiding It -- i.e., He's Got Things Covered

And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it. Matt. 16:18

Free will, by its nature, allows the existence of evil and evil choices. That has been true since Adam and Eve, and it will be true as long as time exists. There will be many crosses to bear in this life, but we can't lose sight of eternal life, our final, and ultimately our only, goal.

"Hope is the theological virtue by which we desire the kingdom of heaven and eternal life as our happiness, placing our trust in Christ's promises and relying not on our own strength, but on the help of the grace of the Holy Spirit." (CCC 1817)

The gates of hell will not prevail.

What am I doing to help build up the Church, this incredible gift, that Christ gave me?

3. Remind Yourself and Your Kids That Prayer is the Best Reminder 

"Hope is expressed and nourished in prayer, especially in the Our Father, the summary of everything that hope leads us to desire." (CCC 1820)

When facing a trial, when listening to the news, when pondering evil, when healing from pain, when wondering what to do ... pray. Remind your kids to pray. Stop what you're doing and pray. Pray alone, pray with them. Remind them to pray for a strengthening of their own faith, for your family's faith and unity, for all sinners (including ourselves), for the church, for the pope, for the world.

Remind them that prayer drives away hate and strengthens love.


4. Remind Yourself and Your Kids To Be Grateful (Especially When Things Are Going Wrong.) 

It's so easy to complain, and so easy to let our kids see us do it. I fail at this a lot, but when I'm being mindful, I actively search for things to be grateful for. When life is chaotic and I'm exasperated, it's helpful to seek out one tiny part of the situation that I can count as something good (or at least as something that could have been worse.)

For every time I ask Jesus, "Why do You allow ....?" He replies, "This is why, and here's why you can thank Me in the moment."  Or, if He isn't making the "why" of it clear, I can still say "Thank you" anyway. He always has His reasons.

Say all of this stuff out loud to your kids.


5. Look to the Gospel 

The Good News is simply, as St. Augustine said, this:

"Wake up, O man! For your sake God became man!"

When we remember that earth-shattering and humbling fact, then we can stop wringing our hands  and just get to work. Do corporal and spiritual works of mercy. Love our families. Give to the poor. Learn and live our faith.

As Pope Francis said, “Everyone is invited to enter this door, to go through the door of faith, to enter into His life, and to allow Jesus into their lives, so that he may transform them, renew them, and give them full and lasting joy."

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Recently, something was going wrong around here (I can't even remember what it was -- nothing horrible, but just something really frustrating) and Betsy said, "Well, there's a bright side! At least we can be grateful for--"

I cut her off and said, "Why are you so chipper about this? I'm so annoyed."

"Hey," she said, "You raised me. I get this from you."

Model and embrace the joy and hope and your kids -- I'm guessing from experience? -- will have no choice but to do the same.

To Autumn

It has been a gorgeous autumn here. Unusually mild weather, with winds low, so that the lush palette of leaves has not been swept prematurely away. It's been a busy autumn, too. October gave us a trip to Michigan for a family wedding, a weekend away for Atticus and me, spent with old friends, glittering gems in the landscape of our lives. October gave us the 23rd birthday of my eldest daughter, and sadly -- but then happily, for she is doing very well -- a sudden surgery for my mother, her second double bypass operation. (She is home now, and recovering beautifully, I'm delighted to say.)

Ah, "Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness," just as you "load and bless with fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run" you load and bless my life.

Ramona and I talked yesterday about this weather, this extended warmth, the golden trees. I said, "I know that in a week or two we could have snow on the ground and only ten degrees," I complained. She philosophically reminded me to embrace what I have in the moment. "Just enjoy this warmth, and when it gets cold, enjoy that. Sweaters, and boots, and candles. Hygge," she said.

"Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?" writes Keats. "Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—"

Oh, yes. Thanks to Ramona and John Keats for reminding me to seize the day and relax into the music of the beauty of the moment.

To Autumn
John Keats

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep,
Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cider-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too, --
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft,
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

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Laura Purdie Salas has the round up at Writing the World for Kids.

Photo courtesy of FreeImages.