Guest Blog by Mxyl: Favorites from Crimora (Accompanied by a philosophical rant about photography)

By "favorites" I mean the Prime Minister and I rounded the 153 photos I took during the trip into these 12. 

To the pessimistic eye, photographing nature may seem like little more than creating a pale reflection of a former reality.  For my eye, however, is serves a different purpose. 

When I look to document many subjects, the concepts of Plato come to mind, describing how art is a step downward from actual nature, as it merely imitates, rather than reproduces, reality.  I would agree with his statement of art as imitation; however, I feel a part of the beauty of this imitation is how it can grow our appreciation for the real thing.

Video game technology has made massive advances since its beginning in 1969, having leapt from bitmap graphics to polygons and image maps.  Yet in the end, even the most advanced of games are still just made of these; upon looking closer, any model will still become blocky and its textures blurred, even if it takes a closer look than it used to to see the difference.  However, reality has no such limits; a closer look at nature only yields more detail and intricacy.  To me, this points to video games not as poor imitation but as highlighting the detail and beauty of the reality it imitates.

Photography, to me, brings with it much of the same thing: it gives attention to that which is already real, especially things we normally wouldn't stop to pay attention to.  The point in documenting isn't creating something less, but drawing attention to something more, letting others see beauty in things they hadn't seen in that way.





I feel part of photography comes down not only to philosophy but even to the Divine.  The Earth, despite the political turmoil we largely remember it for, is ultimately God's gift to us; every scene of beauty is something He made for us to wonder at (or sometimes just laugh about), even though we rarely recognize such a gift.

I feel this is where photography steps in: we can't hope to perfectly replicate such an immense world, but we can capture and imitate little bits of it, not creating so much as displaying the beauty of something we typically take for granted.  God gave us this world, so I view our attempts to showcase its beauty as a way to say "thank you" in our own way, expressing our gratitude for those experiences. 

In fact, "experiences" can apply not only to nature but also to our everyday lives.  I spoke in my previous guest blog about how art can allow one to share his or her view with others and to widen his or her own.

While this is true, I also feel photography can highlight smaller moments much like how they highlight nature, making them stand out in a Kant-like faculty of resistance that adds a theological justification for the moment's existence (okay too much) by revealing the beauty in our lives.

Especially in times of international turmoil and hardships suffered by all too many lives, we all need a reminder that life is inherently good, and our imitations of such moments highlights this point, just as it does the beauty of our surroundings.  

Guest Blog by Mxyl: Reminiscing

Sometimes it's good to get back to the roots, however small they may seem.  Seeing what you've done can help to inspire you to go further, and it can also remind you why you're doing what you're doing in the first place.  Going through the past can result in a much better perspective, as it contains both mistakes to avoid repeating and once-buried ideas that can inspire greater ones.  To quote a considerably unlikely source, "building the future and keeping the past alive are one in the same thing." 

The Prime Minister is recovering well, slowly but surely (as the previous post shows), and during her recovery, she decided to look and read through a few print-outs of our blog in its earliest years with a few Zoomlians.  Reading together can be a very close time for families, so I decided to try and capture the moment as best I could.

 Here she is reading with Oob--when the Prime Minister started the blog, Oob was just a few months old!  He was very interested in seeing the stories from when he was that age.  It's very strange for me to see him looking back on what had happened a decade ago, especially since it's a time I can recall fairly easily, whereas he may be hearing about some of his early life for the first time. 

Going back and hearing about the past isn't just about retaining memories.  Reading, recording and documenting life can also help share it with others--even my taking these pictures can help give a taste of life from someone else's perspective, be it the Prime Minister's or Leena's in this photo.  Much like how reading even fictional books (as a certain high school English teacher I know can attest to) can give you a glimpse into how other people view the world, reading the Prime Minister's posts from several years after the actual stories can help give us--especially as Zoomlians--a look into how the Prime Minister viewed the events of the past decade, rather than just going by our views alone.  As an amateur filmmaker, I believe this even ties in to what I want my works to do--the characters, worlds and stories in film can help spread different perspectives to others, allowing them to ask questions that may not have occurred to them, and perhaps leaving them thinking about the world slightly differently. 

Even if things are going slowly, we're still going strong.  Hope to be back soon! 

Blood Donor

For a lot of my life, I haven't been able to donate blood (pregnancy, nursing, already donating at the lab, etc.), but now I'm a fairly regular blood donor.  It's something that has always seemed important to do, if I could.

I've donated about 20 times (which sounds like a lot, until you spread it over 46 years), and they always ask you a battery of questions about your health and life style, but just this once, I was asked a new question: why do you want to give blood?


 I had never thought it through before:
I give blood because some one once gave blood for me, and it saved my life. 

I can give a pint fairly painlessly, but when he gave blood it hurt. 

A lot.

And it was all 8 pints. 

But he did it gladly for me, and for my brothers and sisters.  In the face of that example, how can I not give a little of my blood to help those brothers and sisters?

Not everyone can give blood, some for medical reasons, some because it gives them the heebie jeebies and they pass out.  Please don't give blood if that's you!  But for me, I have no reason not to, and one very good reason to be a blood donor.

Poem of the Week, plus Aristotle!

I've been reading Aristotle with Mxyl as he makes his way through his philosophy course. I had been listening to a course on the philosophy of ethics, and was encouraged to read Plato's Dialogues and Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics. I did read Dialogues - food for another post - but didn't have a copy of Ethics... until Mxyl needed to read it for his class!

Aristotle is very interested in the question, "What does a good human do?"  He means it in the sense that, we know a good dancer is one who dances well, and a good writer writes well.  So what does a good human do well?  If you can find the answer to that, you know in a profound sense what it means to be truly human.

I am quite sure that this poet read Aristotle, and I wonder if this poem is partly his own answer to Aristotle's question.  At the end, I'll tell you the answer Aristotle found.

As Kingfishers Catch Fire

By Gerard Manley Hopkins
 

As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;

As tumbled over rim in roundy wells

Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell's

Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;

Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:

Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;

Selves — goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,

Crying Whát I dó is me: for that I came.

I say móre: the just man justices;

Keeps grace: thát keeps all his goings graces;

Acts in God's eye what in God's eye he is —

Chríst — for Christ plays in ten thousand places,

Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his

To the Father through the features of men's faces. 

HT: Poetry Foundation

Aristotle's answer was virtue.  What makes us distinctly human is our ability to reflect and make moral choices, so the one who is best at making moral choices is best at being human.

Not far off from Hopkins, is it?  Although the poet has the advantage of Revelation.

Cleaning Up

Before

 Have you noticed that every time you undertake a big cleaning project, the rest of the house falls apart?

After The Great Library Sort of 2014, I felt like I was chasing chaos around the house into progressively smaller rooms.  I think I may have actually, for the first time ever, caught it! Unless you want to think about the back basement, which I do not.

The penultimate last bastion was the home school room.

We call it that, because it holds most of our home school resources (except that a lot of the books have migrated to my office). Some people expect desks and black boards...

Instead it has the museum, art and craft supplies, games, puzzles, plants, experiments, seismographs, random other scientific equipment, castles, electronics, private drawers (not underwear, just drawers set aside for specific Zoomlians), and a giant floating Angry Bird.  And lots of other stuff.

After

The idea is that you could walk in with nothing to do, and decide to make a wearable paper mache mask of Iron Man, or extract DNA from bananas, or  make soap, or mess around with magnets, or watercolor  painting. The list goes on and on!

The up side is that it really is a room full of wonderful things. It's a kid magnet, and usually a young visitor's favorite room.

The down side is that it's hard to keep orderly.  I feel like we're always one giant messy art project away from disaster in there... a frequent occurrence.

On the other hand, it's the most fun room for me to clean, as I always find new fun stuff whenever I excavate  tidy it up.

Zorg and Choclo's room

I think that organization is always going to be a challenge for me, partly because I am not naturally organized.

Also, it's a moving target: the older Zoomlian's expand their horizons, the younger Zoomlians leave the interests of younger kids. We enter and leave new phases and seasons, sometimes with a sigh and a tear in the eye, sometimes with grateful relief!

But it feels good to pass on things we've loved but can't use.  And it feels great to have a clean house!

I think this is bigger than cleaning house, though.  It's trying to readjust my life and my space to the kids I have now. It's trying not to be attached to stuff.  It's trying to find the balance between prudence (I might need this some day) and trust in God's Providence.  Sue has promised a post on what she is calling "minimizing,"  and I am very curious to see if she is talking about something similar.

Trust me, you don't want a "Before"

I will say one thing, since some of the older Zoomlians have asked for more philosophical posts.

As a young (and very disorganized) mom, I made a specific decision that, when a child wanted to do something, I would not say "no" just because it would make a big mess (although I might say we need to do it after the dinner party).

And really, I haven't.

We've made some pretty big messes, but we've had a  lot of fun!








Did you think I was kidding about the giant floating Angry Bird?

Are You Done Yet?

I used to get that question a lot when all 6 of mine were little.  I think people were just a little awed/terrified/amused at seeing me in the store with the baby in a sling, toddler in the cart seat and two kids hanging on  each side of the cart.

 I still get that question from time to time.

My answer to, "Are you done yet/ do you want more?" has always been, "Yes, we'd love another baby, but you don't get babies just by wishing."  Meaning, I don't know if we'll be able to have another.  Which is true and it refocuses the discussion with the view that each child is not only valuable, but rare in the sense that you you may or may not be able to have even one. 

It also turns out to be a kind answer when the person asking isn't able to have kids.  About half the time the person who asked the question then shares that they weren't able to have children, and many others reveal that they couldn't have as many as they wanted.

And then we lost the 4 babies after our number 6, so I've been really glad that has been my answer!

I know there are a lot of more clever replies out there, and they're fun to read, but I'm not sure they really help anyone, especially since so many people asking are coming from a place of pain. 

I'll admit, my answer to, "Are they all yours?" was, "Just the cute, well behaved ones." Which, I (and the cashier who had asked) thought was funny.

And once, when quite harried at the grocery store, I was asked if I were babysitting and I told them that I was NOT crazy enough to take 6 EXTRA kids to the grocery store.

But I have never gotten a mean question about my kids, unlike many friends with large families, and my response to a rude comment would be different.  It amazes me how some moms get targeted in front of their children with mean/rude comments (like "don't you know what causes that/were any of them accidents/don't you have a TV?").  It's not a matter of bad kid behavior attracting those kinds of comments, either.  My friend that gets the most mean spirited comments has the best publicly behaved kids I know.

I think it's a matter of diffidence versus confidence.

I do not look like an easy target for mean people. Oh, I'm (hopefully) pleasant enough, but I don't look like a person who would be "too nice" to respond to a snarky comment. My friend looks (and really is) too nice to respond in kind.  I once did get a person who was about to make a rude remark, and I just looked at her, waiting.  She changed her mind and turned away.

But I did once get reported (anonymously, of course) as having an unlicensed daycare! :D

Wise Child

Choclo and the Emperor were talking about seasons and the Emperor was explaining that "equinox" means "equal night," referring to the fact that the lengths of day and night are equal on the equinoxes.

Choclo: Isn't there a character in Batman, the Brave and the Bold named Equinox?

The Emperor: That's right.

Choclo:  Isn't he half good and half bad? 

The Emperor: Well, supposedly.

Choclo: Yeah, supposedly, he wants everything to be equally good and bad, but that doesn't make any sense.  You know why?  If you mix together a cup of water and a cup of mud, you know what you get? Mud!

Old Spice

I'm not sure I can articulate exactly why I find the Old Spice commercial so offensive.

No wait, let me try: I DON'T WANT TO LOOK AT YOU! MY HUSBAND IS WORTH 50 OF YOU ANY DAY AND I DON'T CARE WHAT YOU SMELL LIKE!!!

Yes, I know the commercial is intentionally a parody. It just bugs me.

On the other hand, I find the parodies of the parody absolutely hilarious. Go figure!

Here's my favorite with a big hat tip to Zoe at Inside Catholic:

Apple Picking, Almost

With the return of the cool weather, we made our semi annual trip up to Larriland to pick apples.

Mea culpa, I didn't check before hand, and the apple picking wasn't starting until the next day...

So, we (The Emperor, the Zoomlians and I) had a lovely time picking raspberries. It was a picture perfect day: warm sun, cool breeze, blue skies and surrounded by sweet jewels of fruit.

That's a day that I want to always remember... Which I will have to do myself since I forgot my camera. Fortunately, The Queen Mum (The Emperor's mom) had brought her camera. Unfortunately, it was out of batteries... sometimes you just have to enjoy the moment, I guess!

We picked 7 pounds of raspberries and went home to the unheard of indulgence of having as many raspberries as we liked! I don't believe I've ever had that pleasure before!

Jam was a possibility, of course, but we instead ate half as raspberry shortcake, and half as (just) raspberries with whipped cream. Bliss!

We did pick broccoli, too. The main problem with picking broccoli is that every Zoomlian wants to pick a large head for themselves, and while fresh broccoli is lovely, I couldn't see us eating fifteen pounds of it with whipped cream, for example.

We did buy a half bushel of mixed apples at "The Big Red Barn."

And we bought my favorite squash! It's called Banana Squash, although to me it doesn't say "banana," possibly because it's 3 feet long and pinkish. I bought one more or less accidently one year and found it made the best "pumpkin" pie I'd ever had. I cooked it down today and got 18 cups: 9 pies! (I don't make them all at once, I freeze it in portions)

Realistically, it was a perfect trip: we got to see a working farm in action, we got to see how food grows in a tended field, and we got to see that when we don't get what we plan for, we can still have a wonderful time.

Besides, would you rather eat an apple or a bowl of raspberries?

Annual Post Mortem

I actually haven't done much with US History besides collect great books from the library. The fact is, my brain stuck in relax mode. I think I kinda maxed out last year with too many evening commitments.

Everything was good and important: teaching CCD, Dominicans, DJM, another DJM group, Scouts/Girls' Nights, and working every co-op Wednesday. The thing is, I'm an introvert and it was all energy being expended. Add to that some family health crises and I overloaded the system a bit. As in, gee, we have TWO free evenings this month, isn't that great?

I did some great stuff with the kids last year, but I didn't have the energy and creativity I wanted to have. And I had very little social life!

We also went more places and did more stuff than we ever have (field trips and stuff) and I think that was great. There have been a lot of years where I wasn't able to do that because of pregnancy or tiny ones, so I think it was the right year for that.

Still...

I've cut back a bit: cut out teaching CCD, cut back on co-op (only 20 weeks this year), cut back on DJM, cut back on teaching Dominican Novitiate, and my term as moderator of my Dominican chapter ends this year. And no one in my entire family will have any health crises. (Hope that works!) And I'm going to vegetate this summer and not feel guilty.

So far this summer, we haven't done too much relaxing. The first two weeks were the obligatory doctor and dentist appointments plus the camping extravaganza and the retreat and house guest.

I noticed that when that was over, I did not spring into action and clean the back basement. Or teach the kids Spanish. Or whip myself into shape with a fabulous exercise routine. In fact, I wasn't really in the mood to do anything I had planned to get done this summer.

I took it to prayer and felt God was telling me to rest and recover. It was like He took me back through the year. I suddenly remembered that last Fall, I thought my Dad wouldn't be here for Christmas. I saw all the meetings and teachings and all the great stuff that came out of that. I saw all the medical stuff with my kids, and all the trips we took and things we did. All the birthdays and anniversaries. All the swim lessons (we got a membership to an indoor pool and did 3 sets of swim lessons back to back September through March) and the oldest three finally swimming independently.

You know, it's a lot. It's enough. I think the back basement will still be there in September when I am ready for action again.

This summer I'm going to focus on resting in the Lord and enjoying my family.

An Appalling Thought

Do you remember A Conneticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court?

A 19th century smith is transported back in time, and wows King Arthur with modern technology.

If that happened to me, with 2 centuries more technology, they would be considerably less impressed.

What would I do? Build them an airplane? How about a computer? Umm. A car? Anything?

I think the best I could do would be to pull out my cell phone and show them the screen lighting up (until the battery ran out)!

I'm not worried that I am going to be swept back in time (with a career as the Village Idiot), but it is an uncomfortable realization that my own level of technology- the things I understand well enough to recreate, is probably lower than that of the average person 100 years ago.

My friend Bill, on the other hand, probably doesn't need to worry about these things!

Good Vs. Good For Me

Last night, a well meaning friend tried to get the Emperor to join a very good group that does very good works. He declined as politely as possible and we ended up talking about it later.

Discernment is so important! What is God asking you to do? What should you be doing? Just because it's good , doesn't mean you should do it! The group was good, but if you try to do every good thing (either for yourself, or your kids) you end up exhausted and missing the joy in your life.

One thing we have noticed is that when we get too busy, our relationship devolves into "co-workers." Don't get me wrong, the Emperor is amiable, creative, and hard working. He makes an excellent co-worker, and that's always an aspect of our relationship. But he's also my best friend and spouse! We need time to talk, to have fun, be silly, be romantic, discuss current events, movies, and big ideas.

I think that if you only have a few kids, you can probably get away with a tighter schedule because you only have young kids for a short period of time. You know you are making a sacrifice for a particular period of time. With a lot of kids, all bets are off! I can't put my relationship on hold while my kids are small... nor can I put off growing as an individual. This is my life!

I think that's something I like about this time in my life. I live much more in the present than I used to. I enjoy the here and now and I like to see what I can do with it. I also have become fairly protective of my time. We have a number of health issues (doctors appointments - currently 8+ hours a week) and solid commitments (Dominicans, DJMs, Scouts, co-op) as well as the main job of home schooling, of course. I also think it's important to have time for the people I love and those who need help.

It's a priority for me to have time for the Queen Mum (my dear MIL). She drops by an afternoon a week to have tea and visit. It's a priority for me to have time and space to lend an ear or a shoulder or some baby sitting for my friends. Do I let it take over so that I can't do stuff with my kids? No, I try to be balanced. Have I got the balance right? NO! Right now, I don't have enough time scheduled in for excercise. But I'm getting better! And a big part of that is not scheduling every moment.

I am curious to see how the balance will shift as my kids get older and more involved.

Bumps in the Road

Sorry about the lack of posts, we hit a few bumps in the road.

Blue Streak (12 passengers) went into the shop, so we spent a lot of time carless or "squeeeshed" into White Knight (7 or 8 passengers).

The dishwasher died a gory death which caused the ruination of the ceiling in the chapel (and, even more dreadful, the hand washing of all dishes for a week!).

The washing machine died a less gory death (bailing but almost no mopping). It's old friend, the dryer, does not want to go on without it.

One of my closest friends lost her job.

My beloved MIL had a health scare.

Blue Streak is back and fixed. I was glad to have the intermittent problem make up its mind to break and be done with it in a visible way while still under warranty.

I've never been so happy to have an appliance die as I was when the dishwasher went. It had stopped actually cleaning the dishes a while back and it was driving me crazy.

We put a washer and dryer on the top floor when we built it a few years ago (suggested by my brilliant MIL!), and it was the 30 year old pair in the basement that quit. Hard to find fault with that!

My friend is starting her dissertation and will be able to focus on that before she needs to look for another job. Not what we would have chosen, but we'll stick together through it.

My dear MIL's scare was by far the worst thing, but it looks like she's all right.

It's really a matter of perspective, isn't it? Also last week, my SIL asked for prayers for a friend of a friend. Her name is Hyatt and she is a young mom with a three year old and a 5 month old. Last week her heart suddenly stopped. She was fine and then her heart just stopped and she stopped breathing. She's in intensive care now and basically needs a miracle. If you'd like to know more, her family started a blog here. We're praying for her. Please also pray.

Since You are Entitled to My Opinion

The excellent Queen of Carrots has a thought provoking post here on What the Founding Fathers Would Do.

It also referenced the question (which I have always found amusing), What Would Jesus Drive? It really is remarkable how the answers to these sorts of questions mirror our own perspectives (although the Queen puts it better than I could). For example, I have known people who answered that question, "Jesus would have driven a tiny hybrid because He would care about the environment (having made it Himself)." I have also heard, "Jesus had 12 apostles to cart around, He would have driven an SUV!"

My personal answer? I think Jesus would have taken the bus and sat next to that bad smelling lady who is talking to herself. I'm not saying He wouldn't have borrowed an SUV or hybrid or whatever He needed (like He borrowed the donkey), but since He didn't have a house, I have a hard time picturing Him owning a vehicle.

The real question is: what does Jesus want me to do? That's (mostly) obvious in the original WWJD, but it gets lost in the knock off questions.

Personally, I do own a house and I drive a 12 passenger van (Hey, He could borrow Blue Streak!). Actually, in a way, He does borrow Blue Streak. In fact, it might be more proper to say I borrow Blue Streak. Blue Streak is a gift. Driving Blue Streak is one of the ways I use His gifts to care for the people He has sent me to take care of. I don't think it's what Jesus would do, I think it's what Jesus wants me to do.

Mowing the Lawn, Living in Reality, Stacking the Deck

I mowed the lawn this morning. For a long time I didn't like to mow the lawn. Maybe "I resented mowing the lawn" is more accurate. It was a half unconscious annoyance.

Eventually I followed that nagging discontent back to it's source and found, as is often the case, a nasty little lie in a dark hole. Dragged out into the light, it went like this: I do most of the cooking and cleaning, ergo the Emperor should do the yard work.

Really? Even if he has grass allergies? Even if he hates to do it? Even if he does other, more important stuff around the house like take the kids so I can blog? Even if I actually kind of like to mow the lawn? Even if it provides me with some much needed exercise, fresh air and a task that stays completed for up to a week and makes me feel really good to have it done and it lets me think without interruption for nearly an hour? The lie evaporated and now I just mow the lawn. It's Living in Reality instead of the irritating misery of stewing about How Things Should Be.

One advantage to letting go of How Things Should Be, is that you can do a lot more of what you actually want or need to do. Here's a good example: I hit the point (on the scale) where I knew I needed to exercise. So far I have found very few ways to exercise that I actually want to do, and most of those, conveniently, are things I don't have access to: ice skating on a lake, for example or fencing, or swimming, or horseback riding. Well, I still needed to exercise, but, of course I didn't have time. More importantly, I needed to increase my prayer life, but, of course, I didn't have time for that either and the time I did have was maddeningly inconsistent from day to day. How Things Should Be: I should be able to exercise (and pray) every day at the same time doing exercises I enjoy. I can't, therefore I can't exercise, I'm off the hook! No heart disease for me, it's not my fault! Ditto for prayer!

It turns out, there is a way of Living in Reality that solves these problems: I stack the deck. I schedule exercise and prayer times throughout the day (3 times each) at times that might work. Do I ever hit them all? Not in the 2 or 3 months that I have been doing it. All it takes is a kid to get up early, someone to get sick or something "special" to be going on to knock out any individual prayer or exercise time. But, it also hasn't yet happened that every time was knocked out! Even if I hit a day where I can't do any of them, I will know that I did my best, and that was what God asked me to do. How's that for Living in Reality? God never asks you for something and leaves you no way to do it.

If you are curious, the 3 exercises I actually, regularly, do are 1. walking/running/chasing the kids on bikes on the way to Mass in the morning, 2. the Core program, and 3. Wii fit (I like to think of it as Wii fit into our jeans again sometime real soon now). And mowing the lawn!

The Mission and the Mistake

The Elizabeth Foss post discussion has mutated. I talked with Angel and The Emperor about it and we decided our fascination wasn't about our house (or your house) being clean or not. It's really about our understanding of what God is telling us and our specific missions as families and individuals. [Edit: the rest of this post is not actually about Elizabeth Foss! Her post just provided the jumping off point for the discussion. See the comments for more information.]

I think that when God gives us a clear understanding of what He wants us to do, we have a strong inclination to think it is what He wants everyone to do. God often tells us what He wants us to specifically do. God very rarely tells us what He wants everyone else to specifically do.

I'm not talking about general things like "Love each other" or "Thou shalt not kill." He's covered those things already in a nifty little book! Please don't interpret this as a diatribe against all external standards!

I'm talking about, as an example, knowing that God is a God of order, discovering how He wants you to reflect that order in your life (all good so far!), and then applying your discovery of God's plan for you to those around you. It's a bit like this logic: The Church is infallible. I am part of the Church. Therefore, I am infallible. :) That's great (except it's a terrible mistake).

Honestly, I think this error is the basis of the Mommy Wars. God has told me in no uncertain terms to stay home/go to work/home school/public school/whatever, therefore for anyone to do otherwise is wrong. But the gift (of knowing your mission) was to implement it in your own life and possibly to help others with a similar call.

I say possibly because, even if someone has a very similar call to yours, if you impose your call over theirs you are robbing them both of the joy of discovering that call and their natural unique growth in response to that call. But I think we fall into the trap of wanting the reinforcement of everyone doing it our way.

Angel also raised the point that, to avoid the mistake, the focus needs to be on God. Let's say that I have the insight that God is infinitely loving, nurturing, and creative and that my home school needs to reflect that. It is far better for me to write a post examining these attributes in God and then use examples of how I try to integrate that knowledge into my home school than for me to tell you that mine is The Godly Way to Home school. This gives you the gift of the insight and some practical ideas but let's you determine what (if anything) God would like you to do about it.

A Short Tirade

HT to Danielle Bean for bringing this article to my attention. It's a long tirade against Angelina Jolie and other stars (and presumably ordinary women) who have large families. It's all a compulsion it turns out. They/we "collect babies" because they/we are really depressed. Oh yeah, and anecdotal evidence (do I have a statistician in the audience?) suggests "that children from large families don't fare as well..." To be fair they do have some opposing comments.

It's 4 pages long, but what got my goat was the phrase "collecting babies." The biggest problem with the world view presented by the article is a lack of understanding about what babies are.

Newsflash! Babies aren't items we can collect or own or even deserve. Babies are... small... young... people. People do not exist to satisfy our needs and wants. They exist to be loved.

Age Before Beauty

I don't know if you heard about this fashion search for models over 40. The lovely 25 year old at left was the winner. She's actually 43.

I have issues with this. To be fair, I have issues with the whole beauty industry, in part because it presents only one vision of beauty: a 25 year old, heavily made up woman, provocatively dressed, who has nothing to do with kids.

Ok, here we have a 43 year old, heavily made up woman, provocatively dressed, who actually has 3 kids, but looks like she doesn't. And she looks 25. So she's "beautiful."

I don't know anything about this woman, she may well be a beautiful person. I hope so.

I am irritated by the view of womanhood which equates beauty with sexual attractiveness and translates that to the worth of the person. It's a lie, an ingenious lie intended to turn you into a fountain of money in the pursuit of the fountain of youth. If you can't be worth anything unless you look 25, well, you can't look 25 for very long without help... Ka-ching!

I have often thought that the TV is the most expensive appliance you could ever own because, if you watch it, it will tell you over and over that you are unhappy with your life and unhappy with yourself. That's what it's designed to do. And, of course, it offers you salvation in the form of the stuff that will make you happy if only you buy the right: food, clothing, age defying wrinkle cream, or whatever. What, you thought it was for entertainment?

This model thing is the TV problem without even pretending to be entertainment!

The Truth requires a shift in perspective. Happiness comes from who and what you are in God's eyes. An extension of this, if you are married, is how you look in the eyes of your spouse (this is about more than externals, obviously). If we are being honest, how does it help a married woman to be sexually attractive to random men?

The big lie here is that if you only stay looking 25 (and how many women look like that at 25?), you will be happy. Really? Aside from the time and money, would you be happy? If you fit a particular standard of beauty, does it follow that you will be happy? How happy were you at 25?

25. That was before I had kids. I was happy then, but I am far happier now. I've grown in so many ways since I was 25. I've lived another 12 years and it shows. Late nights show. Six pregnancies show! Hours and hours of laughter show. I'm 37 and I probably look a little older.

The real irony for the beauty industry is this: I look into my husband's eyes and I see myself reflected and there I am very, very beautiful.

Domestic Church vs. Domestic Monastery

This article (HT: Ask Sr. Mary Martha) is about a group of Evangelical Christians trying to form a monastic/communal life in the inner city, a laudable goal.

You know the feeling you get when you see someone about to do something you tried and it burned you but you know they aren't going to believe you or take your advice? I bet there's a German word for that.

Anyway, this is not a personal memory, it's a Catholic cultural memory that flares up when we see our Protestant brothers and sisters doing certain things. Like having your spiritual leadership also try to take temporal charge? We know your minister would make a great senator, but we also remember why you left us. We know you want it for good, but it's just not going to end well.

We know you don't see that. If you did, you'd be Catholic.

This is another one of those. Living in communities like those in Acts never disappeared. It's been tried many times and refined pretty well under the direction of the Holy Spirit. New variations and trials are popping up all the time. They're called religious orders (or communities). The gift of 2000 years of history is that the Church remembers what doesn't work.

Families don't work like this. Families weren't designed by God to work like this.

Not that families can't live in community, near each other, or even in the same house, but that families don't work without time and space for the spouses to be together as spouses and to be with their children as a family. As parents you have obligations to your children, yes, to raise them to be active Christians, but also to protect them from drug addicts.

I just see see so many ways they could have been helped by the wisdom of the Church. What does it mean to live a simple life? Visit the Poor Clares, the Cistercians, and the Trappists. Need to work out community rules or figure out a healthy balance of work and prayer? Look at the Rule of St Benedict. How do you incorporate families? Look at the Society of Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity.

Wait a minute! I haven't even mentioned my order! For the very perfection, see the Dominicans!!! ;)

Seriously though, this is close to home for me because my own parents, while they didn't join a community, took a lot of people in when I was growing up (no, this is not going to turn into an abuse story!). We had children from foster care who had been abused, we had women fleeing abusers, we had people who were mentally unbalanced, old people, young people, but mostly pregnant moms and babies who needed help.

In some ways, it was a good way to grow up. My parents were pretty protective of us in terms of whom they would allow in. It was certainly a great witness. But, when I talked to my Mom about it later, she told me she wished she hadn't done it that way. She wishes that she had waited until we were older and had been more fully formed, that we had been given more time to develop as a family (although we did have times when no one else was living with us). Now that I am a parent, I see what she means.

The penultimate test (of "Is this the right thing for me to do?") is not, "Is it good?" There are a lot of good things. It is, "Is it faithful to my primary vocation?" (whether you are called to the single, married or consecrated life) And the ultimate test, of course, has the title: Universal Call To Holiness, "Is it what God wants me to do now?" :)

Bottom line? Every family is called to be a Domestic Church, but very few families are called to be Domestic Monasteries.

Beowulf the Movie

Since we have been so deep in Beowulf, I thought now would be a good time to talk about the movie. I don't like it. This post contains spoilers.

Neil Gaiman wrote the script using the historical critical method. If you follow Biblical scholarship, this is the method which was so woefully misused by The Jesus Seminar to "prove" that Jesus didn't actually perform miracles, rise from the dead, or claim to be God. The theory of the historical critical method (when misapplied) goes like this: "the writer and subsequent editors each have their own agendas" and "the older the text, the more changes have been made." Therefore, they try to "discover" what the original text might have been. Alas, having their own agendas, we often discover only what the scholar would like to have been true.

In the case of Neil Gaiman and Beowulf, the reasoning went like this: this is a very old text, passed down in the oral tradition in a pre-Christian culture and it must have been written down by monks since they were the only ones who could write. Fine. Therefore, (uh oh) the monks must have Christianized it by adding all the stuff about goodness and removing all the stuff about sex. Excuse me?

In the movie, therefore, Grendel is the son of King Hrothgar (the king whose hall he is pillaging) and, well, Grendel's mom (who is a shape shifting monster who can look like Angelina Jolie). Queen Wealtheow is removed from the story. Beowulf does still kill Grendel but only claims to have killed Grendel's mother. He is, instead, seduced and becomes the father of the dragon who kills him many years later.

Hmm. That's pretty creative. There could be a great story there (maybe portrayed in a less titillating fashion) about the wages of sin being death (have we heard that before?). BUT IT IS NOT THE STORY OF BEOWULF!

Beowulf is, at its core, a story about heroes. It's a story about goodness, courage, self sacrifice, generosity, and humility. Why is that not allowed? It's not realistic. Unlike the shape changing monsters. If we really believe that sin and degradation are the ultimate reality (see reality TV) then we have accepted a rather stupid lie.

The message of Beowulf is that we grapple with flesh eating monsters which take all our courage, strength and virtue to overcome. Do I overstate the point? Can monsters like Pride, Lust, and Envy really tear apart your home and devour your heart? Look around and say it isn't so.

But, the dark struggles with the light and can not overcome it. Maybe that's a Christian part of the story which Mr. Gaiman should have left in.