My letter to a Congressional candidate

Sir,
I see from a link on WRAL.com that you are one of our candidates for Congress, come November. I've been working in another county and hearing about one particular race, which accounts for my being late in "meeting" you.

I want you to know that I will be voting for Howard Coble in the General Election.

I've become increasingly disinfranchised with the Democratic Party I grew up hearing revered by my father. Its support for liberal causes, like gay "rights," offends me. I say that I contributed to the gay rights movement when I gave my ex-husband his marital freedom through divorce. That was more than enough for a lifetime.

I also disagree with the economy rhetoric. Interesting that, in the past two years, since the DNC controlled the House, and the US economy through its electoral powers, gas prices (and the costs of everything else, consequently) have more than doubled. I wrote of this incongruity to Mr. Kissell over in Biscoe, over the weekend... he has not replied to me.

Moreover, I'm concerned that the DNC is on a bandwagon opposing the war that they unanimously supported back on 9/11, 9/12, 9/13.... 2001 - for a damn good reason. President Bush warned this country that the war against Terror would be slow, difficult, and costly - and not a damned Democrat dared to argue with him in the passion-filled aftermath of 9/11. He was right; the DNC is wrong to have turn-coated. Shame on the DNC.

But most of all, I will not be voting for a Democratic candidate because the issue of Sanctity of Human Life is so vitally important that I have been a single-issue voter since 1976, when I was first eligible to vote. The DNC's pro-
"choice" plank is so offensive to me that, were I to agree with you about the economy and the war, this one issue would be the deal-breaker.

All the nice talk about helping Americans with ... everything we could possibly need? health care, tax relief (ha!) and all that other stuff - doesn't mean a thing if you are going to say that the unborn are disposable property that can be "liquidated" (horrible choice of words for which I do not apologize) at will. Until America chooses to treat her most vulnerable citizens with respect, then all the other programs you can come up with are a lie.

Just wanted you to know how I - a voter, a blogger, and an outspoken citizen - feel about things.

Laura Lowder

A great pro-life blog

God bless "chimakuni," for her wonderful blog, LIFE Thoughts, over here on blogspot. She's open about her own abortion, her work with Rachel's Vineyard, a wonderful ministry for women who have had abortions - and a fervent advocate for Truth.

Check her out!

You ought to read this editorial on recent Supreme Court decision granting hostile aliens full constitutional rights. sigh.

Obama the War on Terror expert

Of course we can expect Mr. Obama to criticize GOP handling of the War on Terrorism - but one of his complaints, but one of his complaints is that it should be handled as a police action, not a military one.

What I'd like to know is how Mr. Obama proposes to send the NYPD and other law enforcement from the U.S. into hostile foreign countries to find and arrest these terrorists. Hmmmm?

a-yup. Keepin' it in th'fam'ly

A great southern tradition...

He Wishes For The Cloths Of Heaven by William Butler Yeats

Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

Obama gets this one right

I'm pleased to be able to give Mr. Obama credit for calling on black men to own up to their responsibility as fathers. Only a black man of his visibility could get away with it, in the current climate.

I'm so tired and angry at hearing black kids at the local high school talking as if laziness, promiscuity, lack of self-control, low- or non-achievement were uniquely black cultural entitlements. On more than one occasion, I've cornered the kids by saying, "I hope you don't mean what it sounds you just said - because it sounds as if you just said that black people are not capable of ..." whatever it was they were talking about: making good grades, doing honest work, achieving moral integrity, or whatever.

Their reaction is amusing - they deny, vehemently... but then they think about it for a second or two... and then they re-direct their conversation in a more affirming tone. I hope it does some long-term good.

The culture wars - Assisted Suicide

News reports today announce that Washington State is considering allowing physician-assisted suicide for terminally ill individuals. Such a short step from "assisted" to "mandated."

What was it someone said? Evil triumphs because good people do nothing? I'll have to look it up -

But the time is upon us: Christian people cannot be passive; we must enter the battle as soldiers of Christ - prepared, obedient, and willing to suffer the martyrdom of ridicule and insult in order to serve our Master.

Election 2008

Like it or not, and I generally not, it looks as if the ol' grey mare is going to have to get involved with politics this year.

I'll announce off the top that I'm going to vote for John McCain. I like the Libertarian candidate (checked out his profile on Project Vote Smart last night), but a vote for a minor party candidate will split the ticket so badly that Barack Obama will walk away with the nomination.

And we must not see Obama elected President of the U.S. in November.

Barack Obama is a very smooth rhetorician - a point frequently pointed out by those of my acquaintance who are embarrassed at President Bush's frequent verbal crepitudes. But the meaning behind the rhetoric is frightening.

He is vocally, adamantly pro-abortion, not pro-choice, but pro-abort, and he has the vigorous endorsement of every pro-abort organization in the U.S. It has been a frighteningly brief leap from abortion on demand granted in 1973 with Roe v. Wade to physician-assisted suicide, euthenasia and terminal medication; I fear that an Obama regime (not, you note, administraton) will see the U.S. embarked on a course of ridding itself of unwanteds and "undesirables" - the disabled, retarded, elderly and infirm - reminiscent of Nazi Germany in the 1930s and early 1940s.

A blog noodling for another day: the bitter irony of a black man supporting a movement founded on the eugenics principles of an open, vocal racist.

His position on the economy is also frightening. Bad enough that the DNC-controlled Congress has thwarted President Bush for the past two years, allowing gas prices to more than double and the cost of nearly every other commodity in the marketplace to follow suit - If Obama and the DNC sweeps the national elections in November, Obama has promised to raise taxes and increase government spending on programs I feel we simply do not need.

After all, a Democracy not only allows citizens the privilege of governing themselves, but also the responsibility to take care of ourselves. When the Government becomes responsible for our needs, we become artificially dependent - witness high school students with no plans and no ambitions, having been raised on Welfare and intending to live on it - and the societal structure erodes ... eventually collapses.

Obama would also make a horrible Commander-in-Chief. I fear for the future of this nation if a man who has made friendly overtures to the enemies of our nation - leaders of the radical Islamic world - should suddenly be installed as the head of our armed forces. We would be, effectually, handed over to our enemies, gift-wrapped.

More later. I'm pressing several of my politically-astute friends for help in increasing and improving my political education. I feel a grand passion developing - and will likely mouth off a bit more in the coming months.

More on school controversy

If you are so inclined you can go to The Pilot's web page and look on the left-hand side for the Opinions Page. There are several very interesting letters to the editor around June 11, and a very interesting - actually a not-bad editorial from June 8.

However, the editorial writer left out an important consideration, in my (never) humble opinion: schools are not the arm of government, but of the people of the community. At least, that's how they started out to be in this area.

When I was growing up, each town school had its own School Board. My uncle was on the School Board for West End School for a number of years, and my ex-father-in-law ran for the School Board for Southern Pines (I don't remember whether he won the election). The schools reflected the needs and expectations of the communities they served.

I grew up, until at least the fifth grade, with a daily devotional - a reading from Scripture, a prayer, and the Pledge of Allegiance. In the third grade, Mrs. Pullen required us to memorize the whole first chapter of the Book of Genesis, which I can still recite, mostly accurately, today.

I also remember the third grade vividly as the year we seemed to do nothing but conjugate verbs and memorize multiplication tables - sans calculators, of course! and we probably got a good start with fractions that year, too. There were no ubiquitous calculators in 1964-65, nor were there spell-checking and grammar-checking word processing programs; we had to learn the principles of both arithmetic and grammar in our own little heads.

We also learned Civics - the value of responsible American and community citizenship. Along with the Pledge to the Flag every morning, we learned to treat that symbol of American liberty with respect - how to honor it from saluting it to retiring it.

Somewhere in the mid-1960s, Mrs. O'Haire, that famous atheist, began her campaign to remove prayer from the public schools, and about the same time, governance for our schools was transferred to the County and State levels. Mrs. Pullen's rigorous morning devotionals were pronounced "Un-Constitutional." Grammar became an outmoded and unnecessary exercise, Civics was replaced with a succession of increasingly watered-down "heritage" courses, Math became largely a matter of preference... and somewhere along the line the Latin classes I'd heard people proudly brag of hating (even while they would show off by declaiming Virgil) also disappeared from the curriculum.

Discipline also began to change. At Aberdeen school, paddling was allowed, and standing in silent, straight lines in the hallway as we processed from our classes to another class, the library or the cafeteria was required. When a local bully made noises on the school playground and in the underpass under U.S. 1, parents informed the principle with the solid expectation that the bully would be dealt with - and he was.

But by the time I got to Pinecrest High School, corporal punishment - like grammar, systematized mathematics study, Civics and Latin - was pronounced decidedly passe. We had a smoking area! and cutting class and other shenanegans were met with ... were there any consequences? I don't recall any. We didn't have standard classes; we met in large open classrooms: on Monday, Wednesdays and Fridays we had "Small Group" with a small class; and on Tuesdays and Thursdays we had "Large Group" where we all gathered together to hear a teacher give lectures, usually with the aid of the overhead projector, from which we were supposed to take notes. We didn't have textbooks; chapters were reproduced in mimeographed packets called "LAPS" (Learning Activity Packages), and courses were theoretically self-paced.

We were supposed to be part of a great educational revolution - which failed, obviously. Some time between 1975 and 1996, each of the large rooms was divided into four smaller ones, books returned to the classrooms, and more traditional methods were re-instated. However, calculators had been introduced and become de rigeuer for all students (in 1975, only the really advanced students would have invested the couple hundred dollars for a calculator), and an appalling number of students had to use the damned thing to figure out simple addition - I've seen them, literally, adding 2+2 on a calculator; they swear it's easier than thinking.

And grammar has been re-introduced - but it is really nothing more than Parts of Speech, which 9th grade teachers scramble to work in because it's usually part of the 9th grade State End of Course exam; forget the beginning differentiations between nouns and verbs that we experienced as early as the first grade. The systematic study of how words work together in order to convey meaning is unheard of - in fact, most high school students demonstrate an appallingly inadequate stock of words (vocabulary).

Education used to be the community's means of preparing children for a responsible, productive, active adulthood, in which that child was expected to grow up to make responsible moral and civic decisions. In those days, education was what we'd now call "wholistic" - academic, intellectual, moral and spiritual. Nowadays, removed from the community and consolidated into larger, "more useful" geographic units, it is merely the passing on of a few basic skills (how to operate a calculator and use a computer) and the instilling of certain bits of information, mostly geared to render graduates incapable of rational independent thought and wide open for propaganda ploys from a liberal intellectual elite.

God help us.

A worthy remembrance.

I was here. I missed seeing the black Catholics I'd gone to high school with - didn't know they were Catholic until I became one. The community of Our Lady of Victory was a powerful one, laid down before I was old enough to know it -

I suspect Bishop Waters was a bit premature in merging the two parishes; after all, in 1963 even our local schools had not yet adopted "Freedom of Choice," the first step toward complete integration. It must have been very difficult and painful for this community in West Southern Pines to lose their center and their unique identity.

Prayers were offered for the souls who have died since leaving the Church and for the reconciliation of their families to Mother Church, on Sunday. It really was a very moving event.

And I have my say again...

Amy Lorber's husband has written an op-ed piece for The Pilot to further promote his wife's position about religious-based service at the local high school.

I sent the following email to Steve Bouser, Editor of The Pilot, in response. It'll be interesting to see whether I receive any response:

Steve,
Since I've had my letter to the editor published just last week, would you please be so kind as to forward this to Mr. Simon in response to his editorial about religious inclusiveness in school?


Mr. Simon:
While I appreciate your concerns about religious inclusion and exclusion in the schools, I do believe you have missed some very important points. Actually, you had my sympathy up until the point your wife threatened to involve the ACLU. Then you lost me. Completely. But I'd like for you to consider a few things, here.

First of all, you're in the Bible Belt now. The Jewish community is quite new to the Sandhills. When I was growing up, in Aberdeen, in the '60s, "religious diversity" applied to the friendly (and sometimes less-than-friendly) competition between the Methodists and the Baptists (or the Baptists and everyone else). Catholics were few enough we didn't even think about them, most of the time, and the "holy rollers" were in a class completely by themselves.

No one intends to be snobbish or offensive in matters of religion around here (I speak as a native whose family has been born and raised within 100 miles of Pinecrest High School for at least five generations on all sides, and a known eight generations on one). We just aren't used to you folks of different faiths being here. We're accustomed by l-o-n-g habit to think in terms of Baptists, Methodists, and Presbyterians... and once in a while we remember there are Episcopalians, Congregationalists, Quakers, and Catholics. And LDS... when we see the nice young men on their bicycles... And now we get to become accustomed to remember there's a Jewish community here, too.

In fact, if I didn't sub at Pinecrest, where I know a teacher who is a member of your congregation, I might not have even known a Jewish community exists here, now.

You also need to remember that the event held in the Robert E. Lee Auditorium was not a school event. A local cooperative group of (Protestant) churches rented the facility. You can rent the auditorium. Heck, the Zoroastrians can use the space, if we have any of them around here. All it takes is a few procedural steps with Moore County and appropriate rental fees... there's nothing discriminatory on the schools' part, in the event held last week for graduating seniors.

What we locals do have a problem with - and it is a very big one - is when people move here from other parts of the country - usually up North - and decide that we're a sorry, backwards bunch of so-and-so's who have to be fixed and brought into the Modern Era and taught how to think like you want us to think. We've never had a Jewish community before you folks came to Foxfire - but you have accused us of being deliberately discriminatory. We have men and women here who fought Hitler to liberate the Chosen People from concentration camps in Germany and Poland - and you accuse us of being bigots. We have people here, Christian men and women, who support the Nation of Israel as the political expression of God's Chosen People - but your wife wants to sic the ACLU on us because a group of long-standing Protestant churches got together, informally, to hold a religiously-oriented service - at the only venue in the area large enough - to bless our graduates as they officially cross the threshhold into adulthood.

Mr. Simon, anti-Catholic sentiment runs strong in the Bible belt (in fact, although I never heard anything derogatory about the Nation of Israel or about Jewish people - quite the opposite! - I grew up hearing anti-Catholic cant) but you don't see a bunch of Catholics screaming "foul!" over this Protestant endeavor, or threatening legal action against area Protestants, do you?

Now. Don't you think the nice and effective thing - the neighborly thing to do would be to have called Deborah Richardson, who coordinated this event (and is another long-time native to this area, and a very nice lady - I graduated from Pinecrest with her), and said, "Hey - next year, can we work together to do something that includes non-Christians, too? Like our Jewish kids?" Dollars to donuts, Mrs. Richardson would have said, "That's a terrific idea! I'm so glad you called!" And if there are still those Christians in the area who prefer a Christocentric religious observance, that doesn't mean there can't be more than one celebration - does it? I don't think so.

So - I find serious fault with your tactics. If I could get past your tactics, I might have some philosophical differences with the forced "inclusive" rhetoric you use; but for now I'll settle for ironing out the tactical offenses.

Wishing you all the best -

--

MUSIC!

Music arrived today for the Eucharistic Congress to be held in Charlotte this October - See list below.

One of the ongoing arguments I faced - frequently - during my former endeavors as a music director was "Why will you not do the music that other diocesan musicians do? I go to events at other parishes, and they do this music you won't do!" - Well, my answer is that the music I chose is in keeping with the choices made by the Diocesan Director for Liturgy and Music, Dr. Larry Stratemeyer, and his associate, who happens to be in charge of this year's event.

Advent: The Angel’s Greeting: Brahms

Marion: Ave Maria: Victoria

Christmas: And the Glory of the Lord: Handel

Lent: In Memoria – Vivaldi

Palm Sunday: Children of the Hebrews: Robert Schafer (sent from St. Barnabas)
Holy Week: Lamb of God, What Wondrous Love: arr: Allen Robert Petker

Easter: This Joyful Eastertide: arr: Charles Wood

Trinity: Hymn to the Trinity: Michael Burkhardt

Pentecost: O Holy Spirit, Praise to You: Howard Helvey

Corpus Christi: Three Eucharistic Motets: ed. Richard Proulx

Ordinary: A Jubilant Psalm: Emily Crocker

NOTE: There's not a Haugen, or a Haas, or a Talbot or a Joncas, or a Schutte among them!

HOT!!!

100 yesterday, today, tomorrow, Saturday, Sunday - we're breaking records all over the place, earliest we've ever hit 100 here - well, since records have been kept. Makes me rather dread July and August.

No, I'm not blaming global warming. Okay - maybe it's global warming, but not the Al Gore variety; the earth cycles, and we're on the hot side of the cycle. Geological evidence supports this, as does historical. Remember the painting of Washington Crossing the Delaware? All that ice and snow? That's not typical, but it was what he and the Revolutionary troops experienced that year - part of a "mini ice age" in the cycle.

That doesn't absolve us from living more responsibly, but it does place the onus of responsibility on you and me, and not President Bush. We've got to get over this mentality of being entitled to our luxuries - the gas-guzzling autos, the a/c, the electricity-burning gadgets and widgets and Whatsese.

Yes, I've got my Victory Garden started - the tomatoes, peppers and eggplants are in, organically augmented with decomposed horse manure, and mulched with locally-grown wheat straw. Squash family will be going into the ground - probably very very early Saturday morning since I'm working tomorrow. I have enough trouble getting out of bed by 6 or 6:30; I'd have to get up at 5:30 to get it done tomorrow (still not a bad idea!)

Sentimental anniversary -

33 years ago today, this ol' grey mare graduated from high school! Wheeee!

Rant, part 2

The more I think about it (having slept on it, of course!) the madder I am at Amy Lorber's protest against local churches providing a religious service for our local high school seniors (see previous entry, just below).

I grew up in this community; in fact, most of my family has been born within 100 miles of where I now sit, for at least five generations. This IS the Bible Belt. Protestant Christianity is the long-held norm of religious expression, until the past ten years or so fairly exclusively so (except for a growing number of transplanted Catholics).

I'm not sure which makes me angrier: one woman's attack on religious freedom in our community, or her flagrant contempt for this community, its citizens and its customs.

Hell, blast and damn! if she doesn't like it here, why did she MOVE here?

Insanity hits the Sandhills

It was only a matter of time before the paranoia over religious observances hit our little community.

A parent has lobbied a protest against a religious service to be held at our local high school on Thursday.

Our superintendent has caved to loud-mouthed tactics backed by no sense whatsoever before. I expect that she'll work now to prohibit the free exercise of Religion as guaranteed by the First Amendment of the Constitution.

I've written to her and to our local paper. You may certainly do the same if you are so inclined.

bragging on myself for a moment -

Hot. Tired. Achey -
And 8 tomatoes and a pepper (need more) and some other stuff are IN the garden. And heavily mulched with straw, and composted with well-rotted horse manure - And my neighbor, Greg, is coming over tomorrow to plow part of the garden...and to bring me some more horse maure - and I'll have to resort to Round-Up for one bed of something nasty, but that won't be too bad, and I can hit the poison ivy in the hedge row while I'm at it.

And tomorrow afternoon I'm supposed to meet a girlfriend for a drink and gab - something we don't do nearly often enough, we women -

And I've worked most of this week and will again next week -

And my knees are still functioning and I'm tired but happy.

Ah, summer!

Another travesty of law-making

Once again, the U.S. has watched the judiciary branch of government overstep the bounds of what is supposed to be the role of the legislative branch - presuming to legalize gay marriage in California. Our national system of checks and balances seems to have been re-defined from within the judiciary system.

How is the balance of powers to be restored? I know - evil triumphs when good men do nothing. But how are good men to wrest the presumption of law-making from bad judges to return it to the legislators who are entrusted to write law?

The email below - I love it! Nora sent it to me today -

I've said for a long time that the cloud of depression has its silver linings - and this cartoon illustrates it wonderfully - that often the burdens we bear are precisely the gift we need to get to Heaven.

A fantastic email - going to share with you

Awesome!! We complain about the cross we bear but don't realize it is preparing us for the dip in the road that God can see and we can't.

Whatever your cross, whatever your pain,

there will always be sunshine, after the rain...

Perhaps you may stumble, perhaps even fall;

But God's always ready, to answer your call....

He knows every heartache, sees every tear,

a word from His lips, can calm every fear...

Your sorrows may linger, throughout the night,

But suddenly vanish, dawn's early light...

The Savior is waiting, somewhere above,

to give you His grace, and send you His love...

SUMMERTIME!!!! and general noodling - same old, same old

Just got back from the neighbor farm across the creek - bought two gallons of strawberries (a little soggy and diminished in flavor after Tuesday's rainfall) and a small bag of the first peaches of the season!

Sorry - nothing more profound than that, but it's enough: summer is now officially arrived to the NC Sandhills.

I'm getting ready to boil the jars to make strawberry preserves, and I'm going to be eating fresh local squash with my grilled chicken breast tonight, and new potatoes...

Had a very good email exchange with my friend Matt last night, in which he reminded me (kindly, as always) that I fret too much. Consequence of my upbringing - which btw I am exploring in some fiction exercises - and hard to escape, the trying to find balance in so many things and to please so many people at once, even those long dead.

I am the daughter of a distance trucker and a high school dropout. I have shattered all expectations for my adult life - by being divorced, by having a college education, by entering graduate school, by my well-educated friends (who include Ph.Ds and MDs), by a variety of experiences and anticipated adventures (Europe!) -

I got a lot of mixed messages when I was growing up, many of them the consequence of Mom's drug addiction and subsequent character deterioration; like a great many of us who grew up in dysfunctional families, I am a whirlwind of contradictions. I was told to work hard to better myself - and not to get above my raising. I was told I ought to go to college, but I was simultaneously discouraged from it, apart from a strictly pragmatic application (my mother thought I ought to become a nurse or an accountant); I was told I was too smart to waste my abilities, and that I wasn't smart enough to follow my dreams.

Etc.

I grew up in a house so filthy that my mother only washed dishes (even with an automatic dishwasher) only when the cupboards were empty of dishes; the living room floor was hidden beneath piles of magazines, newspapers, books, piles of trash - except for the path from doors to chairs to television. There was no order, no discipline - I was not only not taught or expected to contribute to the order of the house, I was actively discouraged from it because everything I did "worried" my mother and "gave her headaches."

and now I am in a sphere that my upbringing didn't prepare me for - that defied me to reach. That, and loving someone far beyond my expectations, leaves me fighting for balance. I'm afraid of failure, so most often freeze in a reflective stillness (or inertia) - try to put things to words, but that's hard when I'm in unchartered territory.

Matt says, to live AS IF I believe, AS IF I trust - and he's right, I know it, and then I'm paralyzed by the HOW of it, as if there could be only one way and if I don't discover that one restrictive way then I'm doomed to more failure -

What a mess! But it's summer at last, and with the warm weather and fresh air pouring into my house (trailer) I'm feeling hopeful again. I'll figure this thing out, somehow.

Won't I?

Weather or Not ...

Okay. The weather seems to have passed. I didn't see any more severe weather here, just several episodes of rain showers - but WRAL has noted that fire depts in my county responded to reports of a tornado sighted near/in Pinebluff - whose phone district I am in (also fire district, so that's CLOSE) -

I've got the windows back up, and the air smells so fresh and cool and sweet. A pine tree must have had some hail damage, or maybe lightening strike? I smell strong pine in the air.

It's been a nice evening, really. I turned off the Metaphysics lesson I was listening to when the rain started, because the pounding on the roof was so loud. It was lovely to watch, in the twilight, even the bolts of lightening (some distance away, thankfully!)

It reminded me of summer showers when I was a little girl. Maybe no drought this year?

It's more ice than we saw either of the last two winters - and I have only a second because the next band is almost upon us -
Rain started at 6:00, was solid hail, about the size of a malted milk ball by 6:15 - flattened weeds, temps drastically cooler - steam rising off the fields -
Back in a bit!

Happiness is -

according to one set of self-proclaimed experts, not having children!
Now - I'm estranged from my own daughters, so I'm hardly one to quibble this point. But my daughters are STILL the joy and consolation of my life, the best reason I can point to for justifying my own existence. The hours I spent with them, rocking them, cuddling them, singing to them, reading with them... how can you compare such wonder and beauty with an extra hour of TELEVISION???

The world is going to hell in a handbasket.

Billie C - RIP

Billie Chiricuzio was a long-time moderator at Catholic Online, where I began my investigation into the Catholic Faith in hard earnest in 2000, 2001. She was an amazing woman - funny, wise, articulate; she wrote amazing poetry, gave good counsel, was a comfort in times of confusion and sorrow.

She suffered from emphysema for years, and a couple years ago was diagnosed with lung cancer. Because of overall health issues, there wasn't a lot that could be done - she resigned herself to waiting out her life's end and beginning into Eternity in God's hands. She never quit caring for those of us she corresponded with.

Father Z posted the news today that dear Billie has entered into Eternity. I shall miss hearing from her, but I am so happy for her, too.

Oh, yeah - 2d midterm

Passed Sacraments mid-term... barely.
I don't do well on objective tests - much better with concepts and ideas, etc - need to communicate with the professor -
also there's that little "trick" that questions involving Protestants beg the question: WHICH ONES????? {wink}

I spent a delightful weekend housesitting for friends over in Pinehurst. Oh - and dog-sitting; mustn't forget Tucker!

Watched entirely too much tv and did nothing else of what I had planned to do (study) but Turner Classic Movies showed some wonderful movies this weekend! LOL

Have you ever noticed how incredibly chaste - nay, STIFF - old movie kisses are? The actors come together - she lifts her face to his, and their lips mash together without ever moving in the slightest toward a pucker. Certainly no open-mouthed kissing!

And the bedrooms are furnished with twin beds! It was very effective when Claudette Colbert (in "Since You Went Away") jumps out of her own bed and hurls herself, sobbing, into her dear husband's bed, the first night he's away to join the Army. But in Mrs Miniver you know it's a matter of the Morality Code at work.

Times sure have changed since the 40s! Now we're more concerned with "realism." Those old movies, though, have a quality that the new films are missing.

And on a similar note - THREE CHEERS to Masterpiece Theater for making Cranford available for viewing via internet streaming! HOORAY!!!!

And the first one is in ...

I'm relieved it's my Theology of the Church midterm. I actually enjoyed answering the essay questions Dr Martin provided. It was a chance to get personal with the lectures and the readings to date -

and I made an "A"

Now - to await the Sacraments results - and I have a sinking feeling it's going to be an "F" - I never could get my mind around the Matching, Multiple Choice and True/False format.

I mean - when you talk about Protestant sacraments, my first and overwhelming thought is WHICH PROTESTANTS???? Anglicans have either five or seven - but the Quakers threw them all out... and everyone else falls somewhere in the middle.

Understanding Women - Part one: the simple (OBVIOUS) stuff

Men like to roll their eyes about how hard it is to understand women, and yet, while I agree we are a lot more complex than they are, it's really quite a simple thing to understand us.

First of all, autonomy, free will, is as important to a woman as it is to any man. The freedom to choose what to wear, whether to wash up immediately after supper or to leave the dishes until morning when one is refreshed - even serious issues like whether and when to apply for an annulment - these are things that we are not wiling to have dictated to us.

Men should understand this. They don't want to be told what to believe, how to spend their time, what to say to this person or that... - so why is it so difficult to recognize this love of individual liberty in us?

We also want to be respected even as men expect us to respect them. John might want sympathy and admiration from his lady friend over a difficult work or family situation - but when he is resentfully intolerant of her advice, when he thinks he can freely provide her with advice how she should improve herself in order to be good enough for him - that is flagrant disrespect.

Why is this so hard to understand? Why is John so surprised, so bewildered that Marge is mad at him for trying to fix - not a situation, but her very self?

Education concerns

See here for some interesting reporting on NC education. I'm "lauraleigh" in the comments section.

Hi-ya, Dr Thompson and Staff!

Great big greetings to my friend at the Dental Office of Dr Mark Thompson - the Caterer-to-Cowards par excellence! He tugged out a broken off root from an old root canal, this afternoon - they're popping by here because I wanted them to see the Tanner Annunciation -

They've got this amazing painting of the Crucifixion in the office - forgot to ask if I can have a photo of it - would like a photo of them all, too -

(But my jaw does feel as if you tried to push that root into it!) - I've taken my Lorcet like a good girl, and I'm heading to bed for a woozy-headed nap!)

Warning: General WHINE

There's something unnatural about ruining a perfectly lovely, pain-free spring day by voluntarily undergoing pain and suffering - but I'm on my way to the dentist to have a tooth pulled. Never been able to keep a crown on more than a few months, and this crown popped off a couple years ago - the good DDS says it's time to have the root OUT, I've been procrastinating too long as is.

sigh. and sigh some more, ladies -

If you have Hotmail or AOL

I'm having trouble with you again. I'm trying to send PRAYER WARRIOR bulletins for a friend, and for 2d day in a row I'm getting permanent delivery failure messages.

Do pitch a fit, won't you? Better yet - switch to Gmail.

Prayer Need: Father J

You'll see his name added to the prayer list in the sidebar.

I received, just a few minutes ago, an email from a friend in his parish, asking for prayers. Fr J has ended each of the Masses he has celebrated today with the announcement that he is leaving the parish, and the confession that he is an alcoholic and leaving to enter a treatment facility.

I've lived with alcoholism and addiction - grandfather, uncles and cousins on both sides of the family, my mom, my second husband...

It's a nasty business, chemicals dominating a person's body and soul, demanding more and more for itself and leaving so little a shell in its wake. I've been enjoying Adrienne's posts on the 12 Steps for Catholics in large part because - even though I seem to have escaped the addiction gene - alcoholism still shapes a lot of the person I am, and am constantly trying to make and keep peace with.

One of the worst facets of addiction is the denial that there's a problem. That's why the First Step toward recovery, admitting that one has a problem, is so monumental an accomplishment.

It seems even more impressive to me that this priest should take this step now. He has had to greatly humble - even humiliate himself - before his parishioners - and this goes completely against the grain of a Church where the authority (even when it unhealthily feeds his ego) of a priest is sacrosanct. He owed his parish nothing in the way of an explanation; he might have saved "face" by not revealing the details behind his exit.

But he has chosen a better way, I suspect, and for that I admire him immensely.

Email from a friend - PRAYER NEED, please!

My da is in the neurosurgery ward in Beaumont Hospital. He has an abnormality on his brain and they'll either do an operation to remove it immediately or a biopsy to see if it's a tumour or not. The biopsy will take 3-4 days to come back and both will be under general anaesthetic. The head surgeon is off for the holiday weekend so we will see him Tuesday and he'll discuss the options with us. My family is thank God, pulling together instead of falling apart. S and M (my sisters) and D (my nephew) are doing shifts with me and my ma. He keeps wandering off and thinks he can get a taxi to go home and then the boat to Birmingham where they used to live. His eyesight is all blurry too. That's just a shortlist of what's happening to him.

We really really need your prayers, and if you remember him after the consecration at Mass and when you get Holy Communion it will be so powerful. I would really appreciate if you could pay a few dollars and have a Mass said for him, his name is Eddie M. Our Lady said they are like candles to light up the way when a person dies and of course it's the most powerful prayer on Earth. I will keep you updated. God keep you always in the palm of His hand.

Leaving the office

It was time. I'd been in the position for two years, kept being beaten against the same brick walls - It was time. So I handed in my resignation, and I guess my former boss agreed with me, because - well, I just called him my former boss - he declined the month's notice I'd given in order to allow him time to advertise and to find someone else for the position.

I went today, cleaned out the office and turned in my keys. It wasn't as hard as I'd anticipated it would be. My office is one corner of a storage closet, so the space was small, and most of my possessions were consolidated in odd places, making it easy to pick them up, tuck them in a box, and be done with it. Threw out lots of paper trash.

Had a good visit with the office staff -

Then went in to the church and did something archaic and excessive: I lay down on the floor, prostrated myself before the Lord in the Tabernacle, and asked Him, "What now, Lord?"

My mind was too full of busy-ness to really hear any answer, but I'm pretty sure He heard me.

I'm contented.

Introversion I

(I'm a crappy poet, but here's the latest effort:)


We go deep,
Not content merely to scud the surface
and to be moved by minor ripples there,
We dive deep -
Poets, mystics, visionaries -
All looked within in the music of our
Solitude
To see the vision placed by God.
Our knowledge becomes vapor
Distilled
Drop by sometimes-resented drop
Into world trapped happily by externals.

It is the grace,
The hope.
We sense, think,
Know
in viscera
things the frenetic happy-go-lucky
extrovert
cannot.
Ours is the perception
of deeps not suspected
by the one on the surface.
Clarifies our vision,
Equips us for the fray.
We hear the Order -
We see the Call -
We count the cost
and gladly pay.

Oh, goodie, goodie-

A dirty phone call. Make that THREE dirty phone calls, in rapid succession. Obviously a kid, offering to perform a particular "service" for me - as if he were old enough to know how -

The first time I got an obscene phone call, I was 19 and it scared me to death. Now, major YAWN factor.

I decided to report to the sheriff's dept. After all, this kid is on a cell phone that his parents probably pay for, and it's too easy to graduate from dirty prank calls to porn and other more insidious activities...

Very nice deputy. We had a good laugh about the whole thing.

Too Young to be so Old!

I hadn't read the book in a long time - it's the story of a young girl sent to live with a spinster aunt after her mother dies. I used to read the book because Julie, the heroine, was my age and I identified with her. Yesterday, I realized that I identify now with the spinster aunt.

I'm actually older than that aunt would have been, I think. And it is alarming how staid and unemotional and self-controlled and elderly she seems. Of course, the story is told from the point of view of the young girl, and a woman in her forties could appear elderly to a youngster...

But I look through the other books on my shelf, and not a one of them features a middle-aged woman as anything interesting.

This is shameful! This is heartbreaking! It's dishonest, what's more, and I hope someone will do soething serious about it before long. I don't mean a comic series like the "Miss Julia" stories (which I couldn't enjoy because of how implausible they seemed to me, when I read the first one) - but a real romance, in which a middle-aged woman is allowed to fall in love with all the wonder and amazement and even greater beauty than happens with the young folk.

I may be fifty, but my heart is as light and as capable of devotion and passion as it was when I was twenty - no! even more so, because the experiences of the past thirty years have taught me what a gift, what a treasure it is to be able to love - and to be loved.

In fact, I strongly suspect (and would dearly love a chance to prove it) that we older folks could make the youngsters blush with the ferocity of our passions - and not just the erotic ones, but the rest as well: the simple affections, the joys and delights of companionship, the fierceness of our loyalties, the power of our devotion, the joy and sense of privilege in our mutual service -

We have so much more, now, to bring into loving someone than we did as youngsters. Kids have the capacity, but not the refinement; we have been tried in a great many fires, and consequently are capable of loving better, more truly, than when we were young and green and innocent of the world.

The Hell with it (edited)

If being Catholic doesn't mean anything -
- If it's about us,
- If it's about our feelings, our egos,
- If it's about making us comfortable,
- If it's about making us feel good about ourselves,
- If it's just some pretty old traditions,
traditions that we can ignore or modify to suit ourselves,
- If it's about being entertained -
or having our emotional euphoria titillated,
- If it's about the convenient,
- If it's nothing more than "social justice" (because even an atheist can be just)
- If our core tenets and liturgical norms can be changed on a whim, meaning that they had no real meaning in the first place,
- If it's all about aesthetics -
- If it's really nothing different, or more, or better than Protestantism -
Then the hell with it.

I want a Faith that matters,
that demand something of me,
that means something bigger than I could create out of my own imagination,
that reaches into history and Eternity with equal power and authority,
that creates real saints,
that brings us Christ, and fits us to enter His Holy Presence -

Nothing else is good enough.

Musings on suffering

It's been a hard 72 hours. Something that I said in good faith, a criticism of a thing, hurt someone's feelings; she feels personally insulted. Her husband raked me over the coals. I feel attacked.

This could have been avoided if other people had followed a reasonable protocol for providing information. No matter, the job has been done, and I feel scraped raw in the process.

It's my nature to take such incidents entirely to heart, to assign for myself more than my fair share of blame. I used to believe (because I was told so by my parents) that if someone got upset, or was offended, or had their feelings hurt, it had to be my fault. Now I know that isn't always true; sometimes people are emotional, sometimes they look for reasons to be offended and upset. Another person on the committee I spoke to about this issue assured me that my comments were perfectly lucid and reasonable, and with that I am contented.

Of course, I had to wallow in my misery for a while. It's painful being alone on such occasions - not that a husband or sweetheart could "fix" anything for me, but even a smile on such an occasion (and I could go for a hug, too) goes far to affirming that one is not alone, that one's sorrow and distress matters to someone who loves us.

But after my habitual tossing and turning, I've found some peace in the matter. And I've had an odd experience of very rich intercession for other people in the midst of this. Sometimes I know things - and sometimes people just tell me things. Both have been my experience during this conflict, and it's been sweet to be in a position to be able to pray for them.

Am I possibly learning to "offer it up"? to look beyond my own wounded ego to a greater Truth? I hope so - if some of the complacent crust is crumbled so that I am more earnest and more real in my prayers, if my prayers are effectual, I'll be contented.

Hi, Adrienne!

If there's anyone here who hasn't popped in to Adrienne's place, you should. I've been enjoying her series on the AA 12 Steps as an AlAnon person. And she's just cool -
Besides which, she makes me happy when she tells me to "preach on!"

It appears we were good -

Here's a review of our performance, Saturday, of the Verdi Requiem. Enough good cannot be said about our soloists; for the first time in mind, I've come from a concert not disappointed. The Mezzo, Christy Brown, particularly deserves praise - her range extended from a G below middle C all the way up to a high A, and she made it sound soooo easy -

Funny that the reviewer should mention the "Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves" ("Va, Pensiero") from Nabucco and"Lament of the Scottish Refugees" from MacBeth; we just sang both a mere two weeks ago! (Indeed, we did!)

Spiritual warfare: within the ranks

It's understandable that we ought to expect to be at war with a secular culture, with a world that doesn't acknowledge the Ownership of the Creator and who is determined to have things their own way in flagrant defiance of the Creator's "terms of service," if you will -

But when we see the battles brought into the Church itself, it's shocking.

The Church - how do I begin to express the multiple dimensions of what it means to be Church? Bride of Christ, Deposit of the Faith, home of the Faithful, the place where God enters time and place in very specific ways, through the liturgy and very literally through the Eucharist - the training ground where we're supposed to be equipped for life in the world, the place where we're supposed to be prepared and shaped and made ready to face Eternity......

And so often it seems we're finding the Church to be on the side of the world. Well, particular priests, catechists, liturgists and other leaders - sad to say - have adopted practices in flagrant violation of the Rules of the Church. We hear of priests badly counselling couples about abortion and artificial birth control, sexual experimentation, divorce - too many priests even reduce the Holy Eucharist to mere symbolism.

Music and liturgy are seriously crippling the Faithful and retarding their growth in Grace. I've worked with a well-known (in my diocese) music director twice, and both times, in the pep talk he gave his choir, he told us all to "go out and have a good time, because it's all about you!" I wanted to stand up and shout, "IT IS NOT ABOUT US! IT'S ABOUT THE CREATOR OF THE COSMOS COME TO US IN THE EUCHARIST!!!" but I was a guest and I kept my mouth shut.

Have you read some of our most popular songs, lately? Frightening, the heresies we are injecting to the consciousness of the Faithful through horrid music! Music that is narcissistic (or "Isn't God so lucky to have us!"), that reduces the Eucharist to mere symbolism, that promotes a social activism divorced from theological grounding...

And that doesn't even take into account the lame, banal, trite and saccharine songs that were all I could find in Louisiana, seven, eight years ago (can anyone say "Glory and Praise Songbook"?)

We are in such a crisis, in this Nation - a crisis of Faith and of Culture. I'm not into politics, but you don't have to be a political scientist to see that our upcoming elections have far too much at stake to be taken lightly and unintelligibly. We Christians must be salt and light in the world, or the world is lost and without hope.

We must deliberately, intelligently engage in knowing our Faith, in entering the act of Worship and in living consistently as the sons of adoption.

Tagged again...

Write a memoir of your life in just six words.
Post it on the blog.
Tag 5 others.

As seen on Digi's blog.
and Angela Messenger's -
Angie's memoir:

THE LORD WAS MERCIFUL TO ME.

I think I'd have to say, hmmmmm -
1. When I failed, He abandoned not.
2. Not being loved, but loving, transfigures.
How's that?
Whoever wants can pick up the thread for yourself, okay?

Cheers to Father Neuhaus

... for pointing out, during EWTN's coverage this morning, that the liturgists arranging the Mass at Nationals Stadium in Washington appear never to have read the multitude of articles, interviews, and other works of the Holy Father on Church Music.

It is also evident, nay obvious! as I am listening to the performance during Mass of that black gospel song that the person responsible for this music as also never troubled himself or herself to read Musicam Sacram or the GIRM or any other document governing music and worship -

This is such an embarrassment! The Holy Father deserves so much better than this - Our Eucharistic Lord deserves better -

Am I a selfish pig for hopinghopinghoping that this sparks horrendous mess results in some serious oversight and overhauling of American liturgy???

The Journey of the Magi - TS Eliot

A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.
And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.
There were times when we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.
Then the camel men cursing and grumbling
And running away, and wanting their liquor and women,
And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,
And the cities dirty and the towns unfriendly
And the villages dirty and charging high prices:
A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears, saying
That this was all folly.

Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,
Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;
With a running stream and a water mill beating the darkness,
And three trees on the low sky,
And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.
Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,
Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,
And feet kicking the empty wineskins.
But there was no information, and so we continued
And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon
Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory.

All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.

Il Papa has LANDED

He's here! Here on American soil at last - I was having my nails done when ABC News interrupted the broadcast of Oprah (Hallelujah!) to show the arrival of the Holy Father. I watched, enthralled, for several minutes after my nails were done and baked and dried - 

Did anyone else watch in awe as this 81-year old man almost trotted down the steps from that jet? 

What an amazing man! 

H/T to Eddy for helping me pull things into line to be able to stream EWTN's broadcasts for this historic visit -

More Tanner artwork -

Well, Grace, you did it - you sent me looking for more of Tanner's work. This is Tanner's Two Disciples at the Tomb -

Tanner's Annunciation -

It's back. When I changed templates for the blog, the background painting, Henry Tanner's Annunciation didn't transfer, and it's taken SEVERAL tries to figure out how to bring it back!

I love this painting. Don't remember where I first learned of it - I heard about it through Fr Benedict Groeschel and my friend Matt at about the same time. Learned this week that it's in the museum of Art in Philadelphia, and got a very intimate glimpse into what it means to actually get to stand in front of the painting and look at it, from one who has done it numerous times, so often, in fact, that he came to refer to it as "his painting" to his sons. "Let's go look at Dad's painting...."

I love this painting. The setting is so simple, so homey. There's no opulence or grandeur here. The wall hangings and the rug are clearly homespun, the floor local earthenware tiles - it's a simple home. It's a believable home - the rug has been kicked up and doesn't lie flat on the floor - Mary (like me) has not made her bed yet that day -

I love this painting. Look at that angel! No anthropomorphised European males with chin-length, curled-under hair and incongruous wings sprouting too-thinly out of their backs. No! This angel is decidedly Other-Worldly, he conveys all the Mystery of those beings of fire and light whom God uses as His Messengers -

I love this painting! Look at Mary! - no beatific Arian, pale, anemic-looking, frail; this Mary is dark, young, strong; she fits Steve Ray's description of her as "a tough little Jewish girl with dirty feet!" She looks like a young teenager who might be undergoing all the trauma of changing hormones and the onset of puberty. Look at her hands, her face - incredulous - as Matt said, she looks as if she might be asking, "Are you sure you're at the right house?" But you can see in her face the coming of that great Fiat: "Behold the handmaid of the Lord. Be it done to me according to thy word."

You know how this painting feels to me? It feels as if I might have been there, as if I might have just rounded a corner through one of those archways and witnessed it all for myself. I feel the reverence and awe of being an accidental witness to one of the holiest moments in all of human history.

Wow.

More on liturgy and music

This is too good not to share - and Thanks! to Matt for sharing -

Opera!

He could be anywhere between the ages of 25 and 60, possessing a yuthful appearance but such incredible presence and power, not to mention expertise, that defies youth. And he, Maestro Francesco Maria Colombo, is conducting an opera Gala with the Opera Company of North Carolina this weekend.

It is my first experience singing opera.

Odd business, this. I'm the descendant of the Puritans, almost 100% English (a little Dutch thrown in a few generations back), with that stiff upper lip and deeply ingrained reserve the English are noted for - not to mention the traditions of self-denial and constraint of the females of the American South. And here I am singing opera choruses by Italian composers, being instructed by this Maestro to emote, to feel in the music as I'm not "supposed" to feel in real life.

"More sex!" he commanded for the women's trio of the Triumphal March from Aida. "Ladies, put more sex into your voices - use hormones!" We laughed, a little nervously I noticed.... how does one put sex into the voice????? But we appear to have succeeded; maybe those among us who have sung opera before know what he meant.

He told us to put more soul into "Patria Oppressa" (the Lament of the Scottish Refugees from Verdi's MacBeth) "It is the saddest thing Verdi ever wrote," he told us (and I'll take his word for it) - "the audience should be in tears!"

Emotion! Unaccustomed, a bit frightening -

We rehearsed ... was it last night or is it still tonight? I got home at midnight, the cat woke me up at quarter til four... - here I am, posting - with the orchestra and soloists. Wonderful cast! (See here) Simply magic. I don't know Italian, and I don't know how a true proficient would rate these singers, but for my money (considerable with gas at nearly $3.30/gallon and that long drive to and from Raleigh) these men and women are outstanding - clear, impassioned, gifted...

The music touches something in me, and it's a bit scary. I found my thoughts going places I didn't want them to go, listening - places of such intense feeling that I am almost afraid of. I was taught to suppress feelings, to control them - but for me it's gone too far, I've lost the ability to cry even when it is appropriate and needful. During the rehearsal I felt frighteningly close to tears several times. I'm a little (!) concerned that I might break over and shed tears during the performance -

and, once begun, not be able to stop.

It occurs to me that there is something cathartic and therefore therapeutic about this music - I only wish I had a mentor to teach me how to use it well.

Better, thank you all!

The back is better, thank you for caring - went to the chiropractor Friday and got an adjustment -
Still "on ice" part of the time, and I missed the glorious concert with the NC Symphony this weekend - Bach! I missed singing Bach! (wailing, here) -
But I did make it to Mass and choir rehearsal this morning, and made it through okay - early mornings are a little tight and unpleasant, but as I move around a bit things get a lot easier.

More musings soon - being laid up and unable to do much is great time for the brain to wander in all sorts of interesting directions......

which is worse?

-being in severe pain from a pulled muscle, lower back? or
-being alone while in such straits?

someone flip a coin -

Way to go, Louise!

I almost wish I were British, so I could cast a vote for my friend Louise Bagshawe for Parliament.

I "met" Louise a few years ago on one of my favorite Catholic websites. Her passion for politics, and her keen knowledge thereof, not only impressed me, it intimidated the daylights out of me!

Then I find out she's one of Britain's best-selling "chick lit" authors - and she very kindly sent me a copy of a newly published book a few years ago (I still have it - one of my "treasures")

To top it all of, she's a darned serious Catholic. She gets the issues in a Catholic moral sense -

So when I learned she's running for a seat in Parliament, I cheered - and now I'm sharing it with you!

Remodeling work

Yes, I've changed templates. So much in my life, in my self, is changing the past couple months, the pink of the old template was annoying me to pieces! LOL

I also wanted a format that would be easier for me to manage on my own, without having to plague dear Christine every time I wanted to change something in the sidebar. She is lovely to help me out, but I like being independent where I can't reciprocate service.

I'm undertaking a parallel course at home. I was sitting in my mother's rocker a month or so ago, knitting, and it suddenly occurred to me, in a complete non sequitur that I don't own a single chair that a man would be comfortable sitting on! and then I began to look around and to realize that my ersatz cottage look was too fussy and cluttered and had become annoying to me - almost overnight!

So, as with my house, so with my blog - a cleaner line, more subtle and sophisticated (just like the New Me!)

and more to come -

h/t to Angie for telling me about the changes here at Blogger that allow me to do all this.

but in the interest of fairness -

We were talking at the restaurant a couple weeks ago, and someone said something about raising kids, and I turned to the friend sitting to my left and said how grateful I am (especially since I didn't get to have a second family) that I was able to be a stay-at-home mom with my daughters.

A fellow sitting across the table heard me and proceeded to turn the conversation into an argument that SAHMs don't necessarily make all that much difference - while my point was that it had mattered to ME -

My daughers' first words were spoken to me. When they took their first steps, it was into my waiting arms. There was no "Miss Judy" my children couldn't wait to go see in the morning, or to give me a detached report of all that I had missed in my children's lives when I picked them up ten hours later.

No! The essential milestones of my daughters' lives were witnessed and celebrated by me - and often by their father.

Which brings me to a confession in the interest of fairness:

We were young when our daughters were born. Sarah, the younger, was born one week before my 24th birthday; Dan is just a couple months older than I. He was in school and holding down a full-time job to support us.

But he agreed that being a mom was the most important thing I could do, and he made those sacrifices and more and I never heard him complain about them. And, when our daughters were small, he was very involved with their little lives; it was his ritual to tuck them in at night, and it was with him, not me, that Christy explored metaphysical concepts ("Daddy, what is dead?")

Since receiving the Declaration of Nullity from the Diocese of Charlotte and the Archdiocese of Atlanta, I've been able to remember, without sting or bitterness, that there were some very good moments in our life together. I couldn't, before.

Does the authority of the Church go so far as this, even - to bring about this deep a healing?

You bet She does! and I'm ever more grateful for being part of Her.

more thoughts on being the ex-wife of a homosexual

Talked on the phone with my friend Molly last night. Molly is also the ex-wife of a homosexual man. We talked about the risks and anxieties of re-entering the dating world after our experiences, which are so similar as to be uncanny: married young to sons of Protestant/evangelical pastors; the marital dynamic mirrors one another's, and we both feel we were lucky to escape with our sanity more or less intact.

At the moment, for Molly, it feels decidedly less. She's dating a man she met in Church, and as they spend more time together and she becomes better acquainted with him, sees more of his personality and his character, she suddenly doubts her ability to discern.

After such experiences as ours, which common sense tells us any normal or rational person would surely have seen through and avoided early on, we doubt ourselves to a sad degree. We don't quite trust our own judgment, have to analyze data and experience to a molecular level.

The recurring theme in our conversation last night was what is normal masculine behavior, and where does it cross the line into trouble? Having spent so much time in such close, exclusive proximity to decidedly abnormal male behavior, we distrust our ability to recognize and to discern what is healthy and what is not.

Case in point: I married a seriously pathological drunk, second time around - was so blinded by the overwhelming relief that he was, at least, straight, that I didn't have all my mental gears operating normally to be able to recognize that he was simply oozing with spiritual sickness, was a chronic and elaborate (and rather gifted) liar, that he was looking for someone to take care of him rather than a genuine life partner, that he was mean as a snake and about as trustworthy as one.

Both Molly and I were married to gay men who transferred the full responsibility for the failure of our marriages to us. We were too needy, we had unrealistic expectations, unreasonable and idiotic ideals... We couldn't help internalizing the condemnation heaped on us, and so now we are afraid to love and to trust.

"He said so-and-so. Is that okay?" We've got our radar up for warning signs of misogyny, deceit, and more serious psychological disturbances. Where does his need for affirmation end and his egotistical disregard for our needs begin? Where does his anger at his former wife end and a more over-reaching contempt for women in general begin? Is he eager for me to know his mind, or is he demonstrating a chronic need always to be right? Am I expecting too much???" These are some of the questions that haunt our waking moments, and often even our dreams.

The really infuriating thing that I come across from time to time is the realization, the reminder, that our exhusbands do not care about the damage they have inflicted on us. Somehow, they rationalize and justify it so as to make us to blame even for the abuse. My ex-husband continues to insist to our daughters that our divorce had nothing whatsoever to do with his being gay, and that I was solely to blame for his decision to move out of the marital home.

Both Molly and I wonder whether we've been so damaged that we'll never be able to enter into a truly spiritually healthy relationship with a good man.

I really don't get it

A woman posts on a forum - she's dating a Catholic, he says his faith is important to him... now they're talking about marriage and he's telling her she needs to go through a nullity proceeding... and she's all upset, admits in her posts that she knows nothing about Catholicism.

All the time they've been dating, and she hasn't even been curious about something he says is important to him

Okay, somebody tell me: Which one of them is the stupider? Him for courting a woman who knows NOTHING about his Faith, or her for not trying to learn before now?

Mid-Life Crisis?

The woman at the web forum was talking about her mid-life crisis, evidenced by her sudden and irrational yearning for a red sporty convertable.

My mid-life crisis is being answered very practically, in going back to school, in giving way to latent ambitions and longings.

ROME is my "red convertable." I hope to be there in less than three years, studying, not just being a tourist visiting all the touristy spots, but really living there in a little apartment, shopping in local markets, cooking - the whole nine yards.

I'm going to spend the rest of my life alone, I believe. There's the inner knowledge that there's only one man in the world for me, and recent events cause me to question my vision of him, make me wonder whether he is only a beautiful construct of my imagination - and I know I'd not be satisfied with less than I saw him to be. Better to be alone than "bound in chains of law to one I loathe." (thanks, William Blake, for that wording) -

Meantime, I live out my midlife crisis by ordering some clothes in online outlets and buying three new pairs of shoes to support my poor falling arches - LOL - and wearing perfume even when I'm home alone and splurging on a sweet variety of flowers at the Fresh Market this week because I know I need them for my very spirit, and wearing skirts and tops to work this week, not the slacks and plain and practical tops I'm accustomed to wear because they're so "practical."

My new glasses proved their worth as I was driving home from Raleigh, last Tuesday, the day I picked them up. The anti-glare coating is an extravagance, but it was raining and nasty, and I could really tell a difference in how things looked and felt and my fatigue level (from squinting and being tense) was hugely reduced.

It's slow going, but I really am enjoying this life revision process very much. Since receiving the notice of the nullity of the marriage to The Fairie Prince, I've enjoyed a new decisiveness about myself - an ability to walk into a room, target an item (say, certain clothes I've been wearing for ages, or the hairdryer Rusty had before we were married, or even the broken stereo that only plays radio any more) and say "This has GOT to go!" - no prevaracations, no guilt for the extravagance and impracticality of the decision... just relief and joy.

I'm learning this new computer - will take and download some journalling type photos soon.

Gosh! it's good to be me!

Prayers for Hope

Hope is one of my girlfriends from that website that shall henceforth remain nameless (until I forget I resolved never to mention it again LOL) -

Got an email from her a few minutes ago - she is scheduled for an angiogram tomorrow morning, Friday, 2/22. Some weird physical feelings had her uneasy, so she went to the doctor, just to play it safe -

The first round of tests were concerning, so this angiogram It could be as simple as false readings on the first tests, all the way to major trouble requiring surgery.

Hope's a young woman, in her 30s I'm sure. Please hold her in your prayers. Update will be posted as soon as I have one.

Belmont Abbey in the News

I don't understand why some people simply Do Not Get It.
http://www.catholic.org/national/national_story.php?id=26877
http://www.catholic.org/national/national_story.php?id=26873&cb300=vocations

God bless our dear friends at Belmont Abbey for taking this stand. Pray for the College President and for Abbot Placid as they face a whole lot of heat from an anti-Christian world.

And check the archives for my visit to Belmont!

Hank

Hank entered into Eternity late in the afternoon, Wednesday, February 13. His wife of 56 years was with him, and she told me it was a gentle, peaceful passing.

I've watched Dorris over several months, and it has seemed to me she has been growing in radiance and peace. Hank's health had not been good for a long time, and he'd suffered quite a bit. Anxiety had taken a toll on her. But recently, the lines in her face have smoothed out and her smile has been sweeter and her countenance, also. It has seemed as if she'd taken on a literal glow.

This is an amazing gift of Grace, to be carried in such a way.

I ache for Dorris, parting with a life companion like this. I learned at the funeral Mass yesterday, they'd been together since she was 17. Their lives were so wholly connected with one another -

I have to confess, though, that I envy her even this pain. Dorris has had a privilege I covet - of being able to serve, in such full self-donation, a man she loves, of literally handing him to the Father in those final instants of his earthly life. As much as she misses him, as hard as the days ahead will be, there is still something precious that she has given of herself that any woman would want to be able to give the one she loves.

IN SCHOOL!!

Doin' the Happy Dance - well, my heart is; my knees simply will not cooperate. I'm afraid I'm looking at surgery - will have to see an orthopedist when my financial aid disbursements roll in.

But I'm not blogging about my yucky knees. I'm blogging about -
SCHOOL!!!!

My first three courses arrived on Wednesday, and I've listened to the first two lectures in all three and begun reading the assignments in Plato's Republic and in Henri de Lubac's (the very name has me in awe) The Splendor of the Church.

This same course that requires de Lubac also has a supplemental package containing... POETRY - T.S. Eliot (Four Quartets), Tennyson, John Henry Newman ("Dream of Gerontius") -

Poetry in a theology class!

Which got me thinking - and of course poetry belongs in a theology class. Theology is poetry, the only possible medium for speaking of the Eternal, the Ideal, the Beautiful, the Ineffible. Prose is the language of pragmatic things, the delineations of rules, regulations, and measures. Only Poetry can move beyond the practical to the glories of the Mysteries of vast, eternal things.

I've now got a new medium for reading the Catechism (required in two of my courses- Theology of the Church and Sacraments) - although that great work is arranged in Paragraphs, it is no more Prose than Aquinas' Corpus Christi hymns; it is Poetry, through and through. And suddenly it is ever so much friendlier to my heart.

Name Meme - Thanks, Angela!

Rules:
1. You have to post the rules before you give your answers.

2. You must list one fact about yourself beginning with each letter of your middle name. (If you don't have a middle name, use your maiden name or your mother's maiden name).

3. At the end of your blog post, you need to tag one person for each letter of your middle name.

L-Loyal (fiercely)
E-Educated (and becoming more so - thank you, Franciscan U!)
I-Intelligent
G-Giddy (over annulment and starting school!)
H-Happy - yes, I really am!

Do I really have to tag FIVE PEOPLE????
If you don't have a blog, answer #2 in the Comments box -
Laura Rios, Courtney, Sinead, Adoro, Randy (if you still read)

How many memes do I owe Angela? LOL -

All the same - here's a sharing making the internet rounds -

1. WERE YOU NAMED AFTER ANYONE? not that I know of

2. WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU CRIED? I don't remember - too long ago, evidently

3. Do you like your handwriting? most of the time, yes

4. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE LUNCH MEAL? ham sandwich with tomato soup

5. DO YOU HAVE KIDS? YES-- 2

6. IF YOU WERE ANOTHER PERSON WOULD YOU BE FRIENDS WITH YOU? You betcha!

7. DO YOU USE SARCASM ALOT? publicly or privately? - not much in public.

8. DO YOU STILL HAVE YOUR TONSILS? no

9. WOULD YOU BUNGEE JUMP? NO - HELL, NO!

10. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE CEREAL? rice chex

11. DO YOU UNTIE YOUR SHOES WHEN YOU TAKE THEM OFF? Sometimes

12. DO YOU THINK YOU ARE STRONG? not physically, but emotionally I thin I'm too strong.

13. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE ICE CREAM? What! There's more than one flavor??? (Chocolate! )

14. WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU NOTICE ABOUT PEOPLE? Their eyes

15. RED OR PINK? Both

16. BEACH OR MOUNTAINS? Yes

17. WHO DO YOU MISS THE MOST? My daughters

18. DO YOU WANT EVERYONE TO SEND THIS BACK TO YOU? YES

19. WHAT COLOR PANTS AND SHOES ARE YOU WEARING? khaki slacks, white athletic shoes

20 WHAT WAS THE LAST THING YOU ATE? Roast beef, potatoes and pintos (this was Thursday night, by the way, when I first answered these!)

21. WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO RIGHT NOW? The radio - WCPE - a production of Verdi's McBeth

22. IF YOU WHERE A CRAYON, WHAT COLOR WOULD YOU BE? grey

23. FAVORITE SMELLS? ripe pine straw, rain on upturned earth,

24. WHO WAS THE LAST PERSON YOU TALKED TO ON THE PHONE? Steven

25. DO YOU LIKE THE PERSON WHO SENT THIS TO YOU? Yes - and have for a long time!

26. FAVORITE SPORTS TO WATCH? Whatever my friends are watching... except "wrestling" and NASCAR

27. HAIR COLOR? greying dark ashe blonde

28. EYE COLOR? mostly green/hazel

29. Do you wear contacts? No

30. FAVORITE FOOD? yes

31. SCARY MOVIES OR HAPPY ENDINGS? HAPPY ENDINGS

32. LAST MOVIE YOU WATCHED? The Philadelphia Story with Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant

33. WHAT COLOR SHIRT ARE YOU WEARING ? navy blue

34. SUMMER OR WINTER? summer

35. HUGS OR KISSES? from whom? Frankly, I suspect I've forgotten how to kiss..... sigh.

36. FAVORITE DESSERT? Chocolate anything

37. MOST LIKELY TO RESPOND? not sure I'm going to forward it

38. LEAST LIKELY TO RESPOND?

39. Which book are you reading now? Plato's Republic. Yes, it's for school.

40. WHAT IS ON YOUR MOUSE PAD? no mouse pad - I'm using a laptop

41. WHAT DID YOU WATCH ON T.V. LAST NIGHT? I can't watch tv right now - broken remote so can't get the one channel I receive here.

42. FAVORITE SOUND? rain on a tin roof

43. ROLLING STONES OR BEATLES? BEATLES

44. WHAT IS THE FARTHEST YOU HAVE BEEN FROM HOME? Monterey, CA.

45. DO YOU HAVE A SPECIAL TALENT? I don't know what it is - all my talents are shared with so many people....

46. WHERE WERE YOU BORN? Pinehurst, NC

47. WHOSE ANSWERS ARE YOU LOOKING FORWARD TO GETTING BACK? All of them

48. WHAT TIME IS IT NOW? 8:37 pm

Ash Wednesday noodlings

Like one of my email friends said, Ash Wednesday has "snook up" on me, too. I still have Christmas music rolling around in my mind, it seems, and here, today, we begin the hymns of penance and sorrow for our sins.

Lent is a season for prayer, penance, and works of service. My prayer life is getting a hard start. It seems as if this week a multitude of prayer needs have come to me, via email or personal conversation. Hank's heart surgery was Monday - Steph's pneumonia hasn't responded to treatment - another friend knows someone with MRSA - a friend's romantic relationship isn't what it ought to be - another suffers terrible food allergies - - -

Just what I don't want to do: pray for other people! I'd much rather wallow in the self-indulgence of my own disappointment than take my eyes off myself and look at the sorrows of others! I want their prayers, not to exert myself for them!

It's cute and clever to joke about giving up chocolate for Lent, but the real issue is the one I've been confronting this whole past week: self-denial, not in petty indulgences like chocolate, but in real issues of egotism and selfishness.

Thankfully, I've begun spiritual direction from a retired priest settled in this area. Fr. John has recommended I begin with reading St. Augustine, and so I've dug out the Confessions for my Lenten devotional reading. I loved Augustine when I was in college, twenty years ago. I'll ask him, when I see him next week, about St. Francis de Sales, whose Introduction to the Devout Life had caused me to seek him out in the first place.

I know, too, that during this Lenten season I shall have to take a deep breath and pay a visit to a couple of the more difficult and unpleasant people in my life. I've been procrastinating for so long, they may throw me out of the house before I can do more than say hello. I shall try not to take personally, or hold a grudge against, any ugliness that might arise in the course of our time together.

It is, after all, about killing that self-centered bit of the ego - or is it the Id at this point? Let it be crucified with Christ -