Obedience Struggles

I'm blessed to be a part of a Mother's Rosary Group in a suburb of Washington D. C. The kids and I started going when I lived with my grandfather. Despite moving 45 minutes away nearly two years ago, we still get to our Tuesday meetings regularly.

Father Jaffe shows our group incredible kindness. He gives us a private Mass on the first Tuesday of the month and hears our confession on the last Tuesday. (The rest of the time is informal where we moms chat & pray the rosary together and let the kids play together.) Lex has really benefited from being able to watch older boys sit quietly during Mass. I've loved having a regular confessor in Father Jaffe.

Last Tuesday, Father gave us a Question and Answer Session.

Here's my question:

"Can [Father] define the virtue of obedience for us? And give us a working definition of the goal we are trying to reach with our children in that area? Maybe give us some concrete examples of why that trait is so critical in a priest or an adult lay Catholic? It's been a long year of telling my two year old "No, don't hit your sister with your fork," & "You need to pick up your Legos the first time I ask you and not the third!" I get tired of picking up a squirmy kid and putting him in the time out chair over and over again. I could use some encouragement in this area!"

Father Jaffe, who is such a merry priest, answered with good humor. First, he explained that the etymology of obedience comes from the latin word "audire" or "right hearing." All this work of the "naughty chair" is training my son to "hear rightly" or recognize the voice of truth. This constant repetition, which drives me so crazy, is actually an important stage of development. Because I'm the one who is enforcing the rules, my son is learning to trust me (and his father) as a source of truth. Father further explained that this trust is pretty revolutionary. My son is well below the age of reason (for most kids this is around age 7). All he has in the way of guidance of his behavior is his ability to trust me. He doesn't have the ability to abstractly reason out his behavior. So his emotional ability to "trust" his mom is all that is standing in the way of total chaos right now.

I was encouraged by Father saying that even though he doesn't raise kids, he can still see pretty clearly this "flip" that happens when kids reach the age of reason. All the sudden they know when they did something wrong and are sorry for their sins. I've got to really remind myself that Lex is not "sinning" when he disobeys me. I tend to get hysterical sometimes, especially when it involves safety around Maria. (Thank goodness that girl is growing bigger and more resilient by the hour!)

I also appreciated Father explaining that our authority as parents stems from God. As a result, we can't "order" our child to do something that doesn't conform to the "truth" or God's law. That's where Sophie Scholl like civil disobedience comes in. It's also reassuring, because I'm pretty rebellious in my own family. It seems strange to say because I don't sport any nose piercings or dyed hair, but in terms of the Rupp family rules-- succeed in the world to reflect well on the family, have kids carefully spaced out five years apart, etc. They sound silly, but my parents are serious about them. My Dad didn't talk to me for six months after I told him that Lex was going to be born 18 months after Hannah. (Dad was convinced I just ruined Hannah's life by not using birth control). So its been an intense journey wrestling with the "honor thy father and mother" bit because after becoming Catholic so many of my actions are in opposition to their will & advice. What does obedience mean when a Protestant father demands his adult Catholic daughter do things contrary to her faith? And how can I expect Hannah to follow me if I'm not following my parent's will?

This "right hearing" thing makes more sense to me. I'm helping Hannah hear and happily follow God's rules. Sometimes, as Father explained, I can add some of my own rules for ease of family life (such as, we take off our shoes at the front door). But I can't order Hannah to do something contrary to the rules of faith. If every day, I try to confirm more closely to the truths of my faith- and admit when I fall short of the mark, then my parental authority is under God's authority.

Anyway, it's a tough thing, this wrestling with obedience question. I much preferred the clear lines of "don't hit other kids" and "don't run into the street" Those rules were about the child's safety and proper socialization. Now I've got all these other rules, some because I've got three kids age 4 and under now, and it's feels like I'm a police woman most days. Thanks to father, I'm aiming to be a more cheerful police woman who gives many breaks to the under seven set.

Do you struggle with any of these issue at your house?

Aeneid Quote

Forsan et haec olim meminisse iuvabit

Someday we shall recall these trials with pleasure

Translation by Russell Barker, from Growing Up, pg. 216

How A Four Year Old Measures Time

Yesterday, before Maria was born.... (4 1/2 months)

Yesterday, before I had Tinkerbell sheets on my bed . . .

(10 months?)

Hospitality

My family hosted a college friend from Australia and her family last week. There were physical and spiritual challenges. Jon & I spent each night sleeping on the floor of the kid's room. Alex did avoid hitting & biting anyone not related to him by blood for an entire week.

This unusual occurrence was overshadowed by her husband's insistence, he is a music teacher with sensitive ears, that my children avoid all noise in the living room or in the car. The objected noises included humming, squeals of delight and random shuffling noises made from kicking feet against the carpet. Meanwhile, my friend finally disclosed that her hatred of the Catholic church stems from being baptized in the faith but not brought to Mass until age 16. She felt embarrassed not to know the words and never went back. So there was many opportunities to water my seeds of meekness during the week. After a few missed turns on the Capital Beltway on Saturday afternoon, I got them to Dulles Airport in their rental car with time to spare to make their connecting flight to L.A.

At 7 PM on Saturday, while the kids are jumping on the bed in the room that has been forbidden territory all week, Jon takes a call from my nervous friend. She misread the time of take-off. The family has missed the plane and can't leave for Australia again until Monday. They needed shelter for two more nights. I love my husband. Without missing a beat he says to a stranded family without a rental car, without a car seat, and that has recently been not so nice to him, "Of course you can stay here, we'll be right out to pick you up."

So we practiced hospitality for an additional seventy-two hours. It was way beyond what me, my kids, my husband and my tiny, colicky newborn could handle. But you know what? It was awesome. I prayed and prayed for grace from Our Lady.

She let me know that she had a special plans for this family. The husband, an Anglican, ended up taking home my "Devotion to Our Lady." He confided that is reading up on St. Theresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross. Best of all, he announced that he was taking his wife and his one year old daughter to church again once they got home. My friend had all of these excuses, "it's to hard to take a young baby to church, etc." I sat in silence, holding little Maria, not sure what to say. Then I realized that I didn't have to say anything. Her husband was all decided that they needed to start going again. That's when I made this powerful realization. When you go to Mass- after a hard week as a hostess, and your husband handles a 4 year old, a 3 year old, and a newborn all by himself while you sing in the choir for the first time in two years- your actions matter.

As our beloved St. Francis of Assisi says "Preach the gospel aways, sometimes use words." I'm so thankful that my family had a chance to stretch the limits of our virtues this week. I'm excited that our home is noticeably Catholic-not just from the blessed crucifixes on our walls, but from our daily interactions as a family. And while it's uncomfortable to have friction with a former friend who knew me in my pre-Catholic, pre-parent days, that friction is also a marker of how far I've grown in faith in the three years since her last visit. I hope to grow even deeper in the faith by 2010.

My Bibilical Namesake

My biblical namesake was a real inspiration to me this past week. As a wife of King David, her story is not well known. So I thought that I'd share her heroic virtues with you.

1 Samuel 25: 3, 14-28, 30-35, 40-42

“The man was named Nabal, his wife, Abigail. The woman was intelligent and attractive, but Nabal himself, a Calebite, was harsh and ungenerous in his behavior.”

[King David sent servants to request donations of food from Nabal after his soldiers protected Nabal’s shepards earlier in the year. Nabal pretends that he doesn’t know who King David is and denies that he received any benefit from him. King David is outraged and about to lead 400 soldiers against Nabal & his family.]

But Nabal’s wife, Abigail was informed of this by one of the servants, who said “David sent messengers from the desert to greet our master, but he flew at them screaming. Yet these men were very good to us. . . Abigail quickly got together two hundred loaves, two skins of wine, five dressed sheep, five seahs of roasted grain, a hundred cakes of pressed raisins, and two hundred cakes of pressed figs, and loaded them on donkeys. She then said to her servants, “Go on ahead; I will follow you.” But she did not tell her husband Nabal.

As she came down through a mountain pass riding on a donkey, David and his men were also coming down from the opposite direction. When she met them, David had just been saying ‘Indeed, it was in vain that I guarded all this man’s possessions in the desert, so that he missed nothing. He has repaid good with evil. May God do thus and so to David if by morning I leave a single male alive among all those who belong to him.” As soon as Abigail saw David, she dismounted quickly from the donkey and, falling prostrate on the ground before David did him homage. As she fell at his feet she said:

“My lord, let the blame be mine. Please let your handmaid speak to you, and listen to the words of your handmaid. Let not my lord pay attention to that worthless man Nabal, for he is just like his name. Fool is his name, and he acts the fool. I your handmaid, did not see the young men whom my lord sent. Now, therefore, my lord, as the Lord lives, and as you live, it is the Lord who has kept you from shedding blood and from avenging yourself personally. May your enemies and those who seek to harm my lord become as Nabal! Accept this present, then, which your maidservant has brought for my lord, and let it be given to the young men who follow my lord. Please forgive the transgression of your handmaid, for the Lord shall certainly establish a lasting dynasty for my lord, because your lordship is fighting the battles of the Lord, and there is no evil to be found in you your whole life long. . . And when the Lord carries out for my lord the promise of success he has made concerning you and appoints you as commander over Israel, you shall not have this as a qualm or burden on your consciences, my lord for having shed innocent blood or for having avenged yourself personally. When the Lord confers this benefit on your lordship, remember your handmaid.

David said to Abigail: “Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, who sent you to meet me today. Blessed be your good judgment and blessed be you yourself, who this day have prevented me form shedding blood and from avenging myself personally. Otherwise, as the Lord, the god of Israel, lives who has restrained me form harming you, if you had not come so promptly to meet me, by Naval would not have had a single man or boy left alive.” David then took from her what she had brought him and said to her “Go up to you home in peace! See, I have granted your request as a personal favor.”

[Nabal this is struck dead by the Lord for his sin]

“David then sent a proposal of marriage to Abigail. When David’s servants came to Abigail in Carmel, they said to her, “David has sent us to you that he may take you as his wife.” Rising and bowing to the ground, she answered, “Your handmaid would become a slave to wash the feet of my lord’s servants.”

On the Book Shelf- Russell Baker

“Growing Up” is a light, enjoyable autobiography by a local writer who grew up in the nearby Virginia Mountains and later moved to Baltimore, Maryland. Baker’s life was a journey from the Victorian Era into the Modern Age. He was born in the 1920s to poor tenant farmers. His early childhood was similar to life in the pre-Civil War South. After his father’s early death, his mother spends time with various relatives and finally moves into a home of her own in Baltimore, Maryland.

Baker’s wife Mimi grows up in an orphanage. (I’ll leave it to you to find out her surprising relationship with the Catholic Church.) Mimi has a tense relationship with her mother-in-law that begins at their initial meeting at an extended family Sunday dinner. Mimi’s off to a bad start with the five things that signal to Mama Baker that she is not a “good girl”—Mimi lives alone, she has no family, she wears a lot of make-up, she bleaches her hair and she entertains men in her room. Forty-five years later Russell asks his wife this question while outside his mother’s nursing home room.

“Remember the first time you came over here for Sunday dinner?” I asked Mimi.
“What I remember about your mother’s house is how clean and happy it felt, and what a warm feeling there was with all those people there who were related to each other.” (pg. 343)

What a lovely quote about the importance of mothering straight from the mouth of an orphan. She notices immediately that the home is clean, happy & has warm family relationships. This is my inspiring goal for the week as I attempt to set this in order after a week of house guests.

This book is also a remarkable chronicle of life during the Great Depression. The Depression alters life for the Barker family profoundly. As a widow of less than forty-eight hours, Mrs. Baker faces the agonizing choice of giving away her youngest, ten month old daughter to her childless brother-in-law to raise. Her pain in that section of the book was so profound, I had to walk away from the story for a while. (Jon’s Dad was an identical twin who was “given away” at age one to his paternal grandparents to be raised after his father’s death. My father-in-law’s pain at being sent away while his brother was “kept” made Jon & I think for a long time that the twin brothers were raised many miles apart instead of less than 100 yards away.)

Mrs. Baker moves her two remaining children age 5 and age 3 into her brother’s home in New Jersey. She moves in thinking that she’ll need to stay only three months until she finds a job and can afford an apartment on her own. Instead, since this is 1931, there are no jobs to be found, even for a woman who has some college education. She ends up staying with her family for the next six years. The family doesn’t actually start to head out of poverty until she marries a railroad brakemen nearly ten years later.

Even after the marriage, college seems an impossible dream for Barker as a bookish, high school senior.

“The idea of becoming a railroad brakeman entertained me for a while that winter. Any job prospect would have interested me then. I was becoming embarrassed about being one of the few boys in the class with no plans for the future. The editors of the high-school yearbook circulated a questionnaire among the members of the senior class asking each student to reveal his career ambition. I could hardly put down “To be a writer.” That would have made me look silly. Boys of the Depression generation were expected to have their hearts set on money-making work. To reply: “Ambition: None” was unthinkable. You were supposed to have had your eye on a high goal from the day you left knee pants. Boy’s who hadn’t yet decided on a specific career usually replied that their ambition was “to be a success.” That was alright. The Depression had made materialists of us all; almost everybody wanted “to be a success.” (pg. 241)

This quote helped me to understand my maternal grandfather better who started college in 1933. We’ve had many clashes about career goals during my many years of post-secondary school. I pursued fun topics like “Modern Greek Literature,” while he wanted me to study something more practical. My decision to pursue a $30,000 job after incurring $90,000 in graduate school debt left him so infuriated that refused to co-sign for my Sallie-Mae educational loans for the first time in seven years. I spent the first eight weeks of my last year in law school with no money for tuition or living expense until my Dad was able to track down another co-signer.

So we’ve had bad blood in the past about my belief that the fundamental purpose of education is far beyond finding “money-making work.” This quote helped me find more empathy towards him. The Depression era was unique and left a lasting mark on my grandfather. It should be no surprise then that he is still clashing over career goals with his granddaughter seventy years later.

My Son

Happy Third Birthday Alex!
This is us hanging out together in the winter of 2004.

Year Two was a big year for you. You've transitioned from your baby name "Alexei", into "Lex" and now "Alex." You figured out how to share (mostly), how to avoid hitting your older sister and how to gently kiss your younger sister. You've gone from extremely shy to cheerfully greeting strangers on the playground. You got your first big boy haircut and your first big boy bed. You started your obsession with Thomas the Train, Lighting McQueen and Spider man.

Your constant fascination with engineering is the revenge for my haughty dismissal of all those MIT boys in college. Because of you, I know that you are holding an American train as opposed to an English one.I know how pistons work on steam trains. I can identify all of the characters in "Cars" and all the villains in Spider man.

Because of you, I understand your father so much better. I have a sense of how men are different and yet complimentary to my sex. I'm kinder to your Daddy and more tolerant of my brother.

You've made me into a Nationals baseball fan with your happiness at attending your first baseball game and receiving a real foal ball. This picture is of you cheerfully home at 1 AM.

You are a rare gem Lex! You are a caring brother, a sweet son and a funny boy. We hope we get to celebrate many more happy birthdays with you.

Living the Visitation

This week we host a family from Australia for five nights. I don't think I'll be able to post much on my blog. I'll be back on Sunday.

Please pray for me. I've got a colicky newborn. Last week, I became convinced this visit would be a disaster. Now, I'm hanging on to the image of our Blessed Mother at the visitation of St. Elizabeth.

Dog Church

On Saturday, I attended my first blessing of the animals, in honor of St. Francis of Assisi. What an adventure. After five years, I'm still not used to how Catholics manage to appear exactly 20 seconds before Mass begins. At 10:52, my family and my 11 year old dog were standing in an empty field beside our parish house. Did I dream up this event at 11 AM? I started making an apology to the kids, when more and more cars started to appear.

Soon there was a little circle of pet lovers. Mostly seniors, with three or four young families. The two cats were encased in crates and kept far from the dog pack. "Boxed Lunch!" exclaimed one of the girls. In reality, all of the dogs, including ours, was well behaved. There was only one dog, a Rottweiler, they said, who had to stay in his owners car.

We're in a new parish, so I didn't know anyone at the service. It was a friendly place to share your dog with other pet lovers. One woman asked if she could pet our dog. She said she just lost her dog a few weeks ago. "We're just cat people, now" she said sadly motioning to her husband holding their cat. Another mother timidly asked if we had seen her missing dog. "We live next to the church. Our dog ran away Thursday and we can't find him. Our other dog has become so depressed she stopped eating." No one had seen the dog.

Father came with a visiting priest from Togo, to start the service. It was simple, and sweet. Nothing odd about promising your dog will be with you in heaven. Rather there was a reminder that the animals are a part of God's creation. Animals were saved by Noah from the flood. Our beloved pets are companions who help us reach heaven. My husband, who is a steely non-crier, got a little misty thinking of how Sara has given us a feeling of protection and security even after our move to a big city.

Father gave a brief homily about how St. Francis told a wolf to stop hurting an Italian village. Then he threw holy water on each of the pets. Maria (age 4 months) was in her car seat carrier. "Is there another pet in there, Father asked, after blessing our dog." "Oh, she's a human." He laughed. "Well, here's little Holy Water for her too. Can't hurt!" So Maria got blessed also. At the end of the service, we prayed for the lost dog to return to his family.

Today, we were in the car on our way to Sunday Mass, when Hannah said "We forgot Sara!" I had to explain that we only did a special service once a year in honor of St. Francis. This message had to be repeated a few times.

Finally, Hannah knowingly said. "Yes, Dog Church is only once a year. Regular church is a lot of times a year."

I hope you each had a holy Sabbath.

Three Things My Parents Did Right

First, my parents have remained sincerely married, college sweethearts for 37 years. Mom & Dad had a blind date on the second Saturday night mom spent on campus. She was 17. He was 18. They share the same birthday, September 25. The dating drama they experienced came from external events. Dad frequently lost his car keys. The Kent State massacre closed down their nearby college and sent them abruptly home without taking final exams. Inside their relationship, however, the future was always certain.

Mom and Dad dated happily for the three years that they both attended college. Dad graduated and got a job teaching middle school in nearby Columbus, Ohio. A fluke in his paycheck (Dad forgot to get a TB test and couldn’t get officially paid until it was resolved) left him with an unexpected bonus in November. Dad found the best diamond ring he could buy. He proposed to Mom at the annual Fifty States’ Christmas Tree Exhibit by the White House on Christmas Eve.

I grew up staring at my parent’s black and white wedding album. I laughed over Dad’s 1970s sideburns. I admired the elegance of Mom’s choice of a champagne fountain for their luncheon reception.

Since my mom’s best friend in college ended up married by my dad’s best friend, I heard lots of stories whenever that couple came to visit. My favorite story is when Bob and Daddy drew up a fake post office slip that stated that one of the girls’ roommate's had a delivery of live lab mice waiting for her. The girls raced out only to find that the boys had filled Barb’s car full of crumpled newspaper print by patiently stuffing sheet by sheet through an opened sunroof. The girls realized that the car prank was from their boyfriends. Undeterred, however, they still unloaded every once of newspaper in a race to make it to the post office before it closed for the weekend. At this point in the story, my Dad would just about burst his spleen laughing at this memory. My mom always made the same retort, “Our frenzy was perfectly reasonable. After all, Alice was a science major!”

I grew up with those stories, Bob & Dad, Barb & Mom. Stories of late nights at cheap pizza joints. Stories of how Mom & Barb frantically typed the overdue pages of Dad senior thesis. Those stories imparted a deep feeling of security.

I knew that it was only a matter of time until I met my future husband. I believed that dating could progress smoothly into marriage and then life with children. The view of my maternal grandparents’ holding hands on our couch while watching “Murder She Wrote”, also imparted confidence. I knew that “I knew” when I decided to get engaged at age 25. I stepped out of dating and into marriage, with ease, thanks to my family’s legacy of happy marriages.

Second, my Dad modeled for me the benefits of working a job that you love, even if it comes with a small, or in the case of stay-at-home motherhood, a non-existent paycheck.

My Dad is a college professor at a small Methodist college. (My mom is now one, too). He spent years finishing his PhD. Money was tight. His TA stipend, and my mom’s public school teacher paycheck, had to cover the expenses of a family of four. After all of that sacrifice, he had no immediate payoff. Dad couldn’t find a professorship. So Dad packed up his entire family, moved back to Columbus, and became an insurance agent at his father’s business.

Dad enjoyed the insurance business and brought home a huge paycheck compared to his student days. Dad never gave up looking for work in his chosen profession, however. He found a part-time job at an OSU extension school in Marion, Ohio, two hours away. During my elementary and middle school years, Dad spent two to three nights a week away from his family in a small hotel room. For extra money, he kept up his insurance work part-time.

Despite the challenges, Dad excelled at his new job. Dad had an amazing rapport with students. He enjoyed teaching prisoners at the local jail. Dad helped an upcoming congressmen win on the campaign trail. For his beloved community of Marion, Ohio, Dad made the first television documentary of Warren G. Harding. Dad wanted to record the town's memories of the Great Front Porch Campaign. In his 40s, Dad finally found reward in a tenured faculty position in a small town in West Virginia.

All of Dad’s actions left me a legacy far deeper than my fondness for presidential trivia. I went to law school, like 90% of my classmates, with the intention of working in public interest law. My friends all wanted to become District Attorneys or to save their local watershed as Environmental Lawyers. At graduation time, however, only three of us had jobs in the public interest. I was one of the three. Now as a stay-at-home mother, I still wrestle with many insecurities. Believing that my self-worth is tied up with the size of a paycheck isn’t one of them. Thanks Dad!

Thirdly, my Mom instinctively knew how to nourish a bookworm. I "owned" my library card. I got to direct my own reading list. I picked out my own books. I made my own trips to the library.

It took me a long time to understand the mechanics of reading. (I was still spelling words without vowels in third grade.) Once I finally pieced reading together in Ms. Seubert’s class, I discovered the joy of chapter books. Then I read stacks and stacks of books. I brought so many books home from my local library, that I had trouble fitting them all into the double wire baskets of my red bike.

(My Dad read out loud to me until at least the sixth grade. He picked out his favorite books for us to read together each summer vacation trip. I still remember exactly where we were during my favorite scenes from “Cheaper by the Dozen” and the funny poodle short stories by James Thurber.)

My Mom never restricted my choice of books to my current reading level. If I was interested in a book, she told me to go for it. Once, I showed interest in a Saturday afternoon movie staring Meryl Streep. “Was it real, Mom?” “Did the lady really smuggle money through Communist Russia by wearing a hat stuffed with American dollars?”

“Why don’t you find out for yourself,” my mom answered.

So I biked to the library and asked the librarian to find me the short story titled “Julia” by Lillian Hellman. The librarian insisted that she had never heard of a children’s author, “Hellman.” I biked home, discouraged. My mom said, “How ridiculous! She’s a grown-up author and I’m sure she’s listed in the card catalog.” The next family trip to the library, she made sure I got my requested book. (I still love Lillian Hellman and read her short story “The Turtle” to my husband on one of our early dates.)

For all her patience with weekly spelling word lists, her payment of overdue library fines, and her late night edits of English papers, I’m grateful to my Mom for encouraging my love of books.

On Marriage

There's a thread on dealing with the frustration of washing your husband's balled up socks on Danielle Bean's website today. Most of the wives have posted inspiring ideas of dealing with domestic strife with sacrifice, forgiveness, and other heroic virtues. I'm just a baby Catholic, so my virtues of meekness and obedience are in the barely budding stages of development.

The thing that keeps our domestic engine running is the deep friendship that I have with my husband, Jon. When we met on a snowy night in January 2000, we started this fascinating conversation which hasn't stopped in seven years. At our first coffee date, he poured out his entire life story over a Venti cup of Breakfast Blend. I left the date feeling comfortable and "heard."

Then I realized that Jon wore bicycle clip tennis shoes (the kind that snap directly onto bike petals). His shoes made this annoying clumping sound on the sidewalk payment as we walked out of Starbucks together. Saying goodbye to Jon over the distracting noise, I thought "This guy is way too green for me!" Those shoes placed Jon firmly into the "friends only" category for a few more weeks.

Even so, our interesting talks kept me wanting to hang out more with this unusual fellow. The "dating deal breakers" of Jon's tattoos, rambling aimlessness in a career path, and service in the Army Reserves, eventually, seemed to matter a lot less than his incredibly kind heart.

Now, after even more time, I've come around. Jon is the one with a steady paycheck, while I'm the one whose career is aimless. His army medic training comes in handy every day as a father of three. As for the tattoo? How can I not laugh over a biology major's decision to tattoo a salamander to his arm because it is one of the key indicator species of environmental health in his beloved Adirondack State Park?

Meanwhile, the fascinating conversation keeps rolling along-- art, religion, philosophy, biology, world history, along with the added observations of "Today Maria rolled over!" and "Is organic milk worth the price?"

When I'm petty and refuse to talk to my husband over stupid disagreements- the thing that tends to correct my attitude isn't heroic virtue, it's the feeling of being lonely. Remember how you felt in third grade when you fought with your best friend during class and then discovered that there was no one to play with at recess? It's like that feeling, multiplied by a thousand. The emptiness of losing my best friend, and some days what feels like my only friend, turns me fairly quickly around.

That is how we survive the entanglements that lovers, who are roommates and not sleeping well because they keep having babies, occasionally fall into.

And Oprah, I can easily answer the "Why Did I Get Married" Question. I got married for love. Pure, simple, & profound, love.

INGRID MICHAELSON ON MSG, NY - 7/18

Michaelson is so charming in this video clip. She still lives with her parents on Staten Island! (Is it wrong to hope that at least one of my brood becomes a dancer or artist, just so she can happily hang out at mom and dad's house for free rent after college graduation? Age 18 seems to soon to lose my funny kids.

HT: My hip husband who suggested that the commercial jingle I've been singing for days was actually a real song.

Ingrid Michaelson on Carson Daly -

If you haven't been able to get that Old Navy "sweater song" out of your head, here is the full tune.

St. Francis of Assisi

October 4th is the Feast Day of Saint Francis of Assisi

Sermon to the Birds

"My little sisters, the birds, much bounden are ye unto God, your Creator, and always in every place ought ye to praise Him, for that He hath given you liberty to fly about everywhere, and hath also given you double and triple rainment; moreover He preserved your seed in the ark of Noah, that your race might not perish out of the world; still more are ye beholden to Him for the element of the air which He hath appointed for you; beyond all this, ye sow not, neither do you reap; and God feedeth you, and giveth you the streams and fountains for your drink; the mountains and valleys for your refuge and the high trees whereon to make your nests; and because ye know not how to spin or sow, God clotheth you, you and your children; wherefore your Creator loveth you much, seeing that He hath bestowed on you so many benefits; and therefore, my little sisters, beware of the sin of ingratitude, and study always to give praises unto God." Saint Francis of Assisi - c 1220

These words come out of a beautiful context. Saint Francis eventually felt torn between a life of solitude & prayer, or one of continued preaching. He asked Saint Clare for advice. She told him to keep preaching. When the messenger came to St. Francis with Saint Clare's words, he was deep in the forest. Immediately after hearing her advice, he started running down the road. The first living thing he came to was a flock of birds. He started preaching to them. His words still make an impression nearly 800 years later.

If you want to explore Giotto's painting which wonderfully reflects this event check out this link.

Tonight we are having pasta for dinner, & biscotti for dessert (rumored to be St. Francis last food request on his death bed.) We'll be saying the "Canticle of the Sun" and "Make me an Instrument" prayers together as a family. On Saturday, our dog, Sara, will be blessed for the first time at the pet blessing service at our new parish. Are you doing anything special at your house to recognize this great saint?

A Mother's Work

I'm psyched that my actual "worth" as a stay-at-home mom ($181,604) can pay off my law school loans twice over. It's a little disheartening, however, to realize that $132,000 of this calculation is simply due to "overtime." Is there any parent who isn't on call at odd hours? Truth be told, I'm also not sure if I fairly calculated the above activity- Mama sleeping during the day after a colicky infant kept her up all night. Does this qualify as intensive attachment-parenting, as my husband kindly suggests? Or am I just a woman who happens to work the night shift?

Make your own paycheck here and leave your results in my comment box. (And no, it is not fair to say that you spend 168 hours a week on laundry, even though it feels like you do it 24/7!)

HT: Blessed Among Men

Martha Washington Tea

Hannie & I had a thrilling time at the Martha Washington Tea at Gadsby's Tavern Museumon Sunday. An expert guide, dressed as the first, first lady herself, instructed us on fashion, deportment, tea ceremonies, and dancing. Our favorite was learning how to dance the steps George Washington himself designed to the tune "Yankee Doodle Dandy." If your in Alexandria anytime, check out this amazing bit of colonial history.

(Gadsby's tarvern is a preserved historical tavern which hosted George Washington, John Adams, & Thomas Jefferson. There is a ballroom upstairs which hosts 18th dance classes and an annual Jane Austen ball. The downstairs tavern is also a restaurant with 18th food. There are "toddlers at the tavern" family time for $15 per family each month. The Martha teas are repeated every three months.)

"The War" Episode 6

Tonight is the last night of the latest Ken Burn's saga "The War."If you've missed any episode, check out the survivor's accounts here

One of my favorite eyewitnesses in this series is Sascha Weinzheimer (pictured above with her brother, Buddy). At age 10, she was living in the Philippines on a huge plantation with her mother, father, an older sister and a brother age 3 months. Her paternal grandfather lived in California. When Sascha's mother wrote to ask if she and the grandchildren could move in with them, the grandfather wrote back that the rumors of World War were over-rated. Within a few months, the Japanese captured the Philippines. Her family spent the entire war in a POW camp called Camp Santo Tomas. Her diary excerpts get me a little teary. I'm reminded how terribly vulnerable I am as a mother, but also encouraged by how much her mother's attitude was able to shield her children during this desperate time.

Sascha Weinzheimer: Diary excerpts "We got our chow from the lines in tin cans, then we would eat in our shanty, and Mother said that no matter what happened we would eat off our bridge table with a table cloth with our colored dishes and small bowl of flowers so long as we could."

"Thanksgiving: We had half a can of Spam, cooked one extra cup of rice and got enough talinum from our garden for a salad with three whole garlics chopped up in it. We thank God we are all together and not really sick like so many people in here are. As usual, we talked about our next Thanksgiving. Buddy wouldn't know what a turkey was anyway, but I still remember what good food we always had."

"Christmas: Mother said it was best to forget Christmas this year but we can't on account of the little kids. She told them because of the anti-aircraft guns in Manila, Uncle Sam told Santa to keep away this year and leave his gifts for the kids in San Francisco."

Finally, Ken Burn's has been able to find the actual columns from this amazing
small town newspaper reporterAl McIntosh. Here's his description of a war time4th of Julyin Laverne, MN. Watch and be reminded of how kind words can uplift the morale of a tired solider.

We Look to the Resurrection of the Dead

I didn't intend to be a catechist on the resurrection. I was content to focus on the "Jesus as the Good Shepard" motif and let the entire "resurrected body" thing be as vague to my children as it was for me growing up. Then my son died, and suddenly the whole family was thrust front row, center seat into swirling questions on the meaning of death, the fate of the soul, and the resurrection of the body.

I didn't have any preparation for this. My own parents, who were sort of furious that I was making such a big deal of a miscarriage, shook their heads and said "this is what comes of sharing baby news before the fourth month." My mother-in-law told me how she just "changed the subject really fast" every time Hannah mentioned having a baby brother who died.

Yet for better or worse, we are an open family. Hannah and Alex knew that we were expecting a baby, they knew the baby was sick, they knew the baby died, and they saw us bury him. So to explain this process, I skipped the biological "death is a part of nature" message of the "Lifetimes" book that a friend sent over from Hospice and, instead, relied on the wisdom of the church.

I explained the funeral as a time when our priest would bless their brother's body and we would pray for his soul to join with God. After the funeral, we left his body in "the special garden," their name for a cemetery. Their brother's soul wasn't in the garden, however, his soul was in heaven with God. (Because we had the intention to baptize Francisco, our priest allowed us to have a full Catholic burial for him.)

We visit the cemetery a few times each year. (The cemetery is far from our house, so we go whenever the mood takes us and we're in the area.) Francisco is buried in a special children's section, so there are lots of toys left on graves nearby. I pray some Hail Mary's by the grave while Hannah & Alex check out all new toys. The changes remind me to include all the area's grieving mothers in my prayers.

We usually leave a token of our visit. I don't have a gravestone there yet, just a statue of a newborn baby boy. At the one year anniversary of the funeral, Alex changed the statue to one of a toddler playing with his Dad. On our last visit this weekend, we left a tiny pumpkin and Hannah dropped off a fan from her tea with Martha Washington.

Whenever we visit the cemetery, I've always stressed that this is where Francisco's body is, but that his soul is in heaven. So for the past year, Hannah's said "my brother's soul is in heaven, and his body is in the special playground."

After my great-aunt's funeral service, Hannah altered this a bit. There is this graphic bit at a Mennonite service where the preacher says "this is the place where Evelyn's body will rise up to answer Jesus' call on the last day." This must have made some kind of impression on her because now Hannah will volunteer, "My mom's aunt died, but that's okay because one day she'll get her body back."

Hannah's extemporaneous statements are a bit of an eyeopener for relatives. My clarifying, "yes, we believe in the resurrection, don't we Hannah" tends to exaggerate rather than soothe their worried glances. Just what do we odd Catholics teach our pre-school children?

This Sunday the words "we look to the resurrection of the dead" jumped out at me. (We recently switched to a new parish which uses the Nicene Creed instead of the Apostles Creed.) "We look to" seems to fit so much better than "we believe."

I'm not sure enough of my exact "beliefs" in this subject to explain it clearly to a 4 and 3 year old. What does the resurrection of the dead mean? How does the body come back? Will Francisco have the tiny 4 inch body he had at his death? Or will he be a full grown 35 year old? All, I know for certain is that Jesus in his resurrected body could walk through walls and eat fish.

So instead, I'm going to start sharing this with Hannah and Alex: We are people who "look" to the resurrection. We hope. We know for certain that resurrection is possible and so we constantly look for the signs--and this "looking" process applies to lost brothers, and to lost peace in the world, and to seemly hopelessly lost relationships with our neighbors.

A Wrinkle in Theology

Madeline L'Engle recently passed away. She graduated from my college, so I thought that I'd reread her classic book, A Wrinkle in Time, in honor of her passing. When I read her work at age 14, I didn't like her protagonist Meg or the book's ending. This time I objected to her work on entirely different grounds.(L'Engle had always been described as a Christian sci-fi writer to me, do to her frequent mention of God in her work and her devout Anglicanism.)

Here's the passage that first alerted me to trouble. Read carefully, there is a quiz at the end.

"And we're not alone, you know children [in the fight against evil], came Mrs. Whatsit, the comforter. "All through the universe it's being fought. . . You think about that, and maybe it won't seem strange to you that some of our very best fighters have come right from your own planet, and it's a little planet, dears, out on the edge of a little galaxy. You can be proud that it's done so well.

"Who have our fighters been?" Calvin asked.

"Oh, you must know them dear," Mrs. Whatsit said. . .

"Jesus!" Charles Wallace said. "Why of course, Jesus."

Of course Mrs. Whatsit said, "Go on, Charles, love. There were others. All your great artists. They've been lights for us to see by."

"Leonardo da Vinci," Calvin suggested tentatively, "And Michelangelo?"

"And Shakespeare," Charles Wallace called out "And Bach! And Pasteur and Madame Curie and Einstein!" pg. 88-89

The problem with the passage displayed above is

a) Jesus did not come from earth
b) There were no "others" like Jesus
c) A Guardian Angel would never stoop to the nickname "Mrs. Whatsit"
d) all of the above

The Communion of Saints

As a former Protestant, I'm unused to relying on the intersession of the saints. I said the line "I believe in the communion of the saints" in the Apostle's Creed a million times. I never used it. Saint Francis, was just plain Francis of Assisi to me. He was an exciting hero whom I admired greatly. Yet I would no more think of calling on him for help in my daily life then I would say, my namesake, Abigail Adams.

As a new Catholic, I've inched towards an understanding of the saints. In the beginning, I thought nothing of turning to Jesus directly for every little barked shin. I hesitated, however, to bother the saints with anything but the most serious prayer requests. It seemed impolite, somehow, to trouble them. They were in heaven, they had earned their right to rest. Jesus was divine. I knew that he had to be patient with me. Endless patience from the saints, I wasn't so sure about.

I'm growing in devotion to Mary through the work of St. Louis D Montfort. Prayers to Saint Joseph have always come more easily to me. Yet the Saint that has really helped me bridge this gulf, is Saint Jude. This Saint has never, ever let me down. I go to him all the time for lost things.

At first, I only asked St. Jude to find important items, such as my husband's missing passport. Then I had a major breakthrough during the long episodes of morning sickness with baby Maria. Alex and Hannah would come to me and say "Mama, I can't find my tea set!" I'd want to help them, but there was no way I was moving my aching body for something trivial. So we struggled for a few weeks. Then I finally hit upon a formula. "Go pray to St. Jude first. If you can't find it then, I'll come help you look." Man, if that didn't work every time.

I don't know how it works. St. Jude had a photographic memory. I don't know if he telegraphs the likely location of the missing object or after praying to St. Jude we all take our search much more seriously. I just know that it always works.

Despite six months of constant success however, my search goes something like this.

"I desperately need to find the baby's pacifier."

"Pray to St. Jude, Mama" says Hannah with perfect faith.

"St Jude, help us find Maria's pacifier" I say out loud. But then mentally add "But if you can't find it this time, that's okay, I'll still believe in you."
Then wham, the pacifier appears in an unlikely place. "Oh, thanks St. Jude."

"But if you can't find it this time . . ." still mentally adding that coda despite St. Jude's perfect track record of success.

I'm sure St. Jude is doing far more important work at your house than finding lost pacifiers, tea sets and beloved spider man comic books. I'm grateful, however, that he is patiently teaching me that the saints will never ever let us down. Hopefully, some year I'll reach the stage where I'm not anxiously checking on the Internet, "Did Oliver Hill Farm get saved?" Rather, I'll confidently know in my heart "of course our Blessed Mother took care of that need for us."