My friend Rachel’s brother is a priest, and he lives at St. Michael’s Abbey in Orange County, California. The Abbey is releasing a new chant CD, called Anthology, due out on February 10th.

Here is a YouTube audio sample.

And you can buy it here or here or here.

They also have a Christmas CD.

…do eventually boil.

Jennie had her baby yesterday – Thursday. Not Wednesday or Saturday, as she predicted. Must be a boy.

Waiting for details…

…but in the meantime, CONGRATULATIONS!!!!

Bill has posted two Superbowl videos. Do NOT watch the first one with children in the room (uh, Bill: warnings might have been helpful. If Jenny throws out a few choices phrases later, I blame you).

But the second video is impressive, mainly because of the ages of the performers, listed at the end (between 11 and 13 years old). They almost make me want the Steelers to win. Almost.

Last weekend, I finally got around to C. S. Lewis’ Abolition of Man. Two quotes I want to remember:

“When all that says ‘It is good’ has been debunked, what says ‘I want’ remains. {snip} My point is that those who stand outside all judgements of value cannot have any ground for preferring one of their own impulses to another except the emotional strength of that impulse. We may legitimately hope that among the impulses which arise in minds thus emptied of all ‘rational’ or ‘spiritual’ motives, some will be benevolent. I am very doubtful myself whether the benevolent impulses, stripped of that preference and encouragement which the Tao teaches us to give them and left to their namely natural strength and frequency as psychological events, will have much influence. I am very doubtful whether history shows us one example of a man who, having stepped outside traditional morality and attained power, has used that power benevolently. For without the judgement ‘Benevolence is good’ – that is, without reentering the Tao – they can have no ground for promoting or stabilizing their benevolent impulses rather than any other.”

And the concluding three sentences:

“If you see through everything, then everything is transparent. But a wholly transparent world is an invisible world. To ‘see through’ all things is the same as not to see.”

A friend’s article.

Jon Stewart is truly the funniest man in America.

Thanks for the laugh, Jennie.

“What’s tomorrow, Mom?” Fritz asked me yesterday.

“Martin Luther King Junior Day.”

“Oh, so that means nobody has school!”

“You have school.”

“But it’s a federal holiday!” he complained.

“Your dad has to work, so you have school.” Life is unfair.

Yesterday, Bill drove to a remote location to help man a backup-to-the-backup operation center in the event that catastrophe strikes the DC metro area on Tuesday. Terrorists could bomb the area, but have no fear, the National Guard stands ready and waiting. At least he’s not one of the thousands of Guardsmen who will be standing on street corners politely pointing out the line for the few Porta-Potties.

I had really wanted to take the older kids to the Inauguration. Bill went four years ago, and this was my turn, by golly. But over the last few months, as the restrictions became public and as the predictions for the crowd size grew, my interest quickly became tepid. Even if Bill did not have to work, the clincher would have been the kids’ piano teacher, a young, black woman, saying she was going to stay home and watch it on TV. Well, if she thought the best place to view history-in-the-making was from the warm comfort of her own living room, who was I to drag three kids through freezing temperatures, snow flurries, and crowded streets?

So, even though the area schools are closed today and tomorrow (and, for some reason, next Monday and Tuesday as well), my students will be complaining hard at work. And, through the magic of television, we will take a field trip tomorrow to the Nation’s Capitol to see the world’s finest example of freedom and democracy: the peaceful installation of a new American President.

I have found the perfect way to keep busy while Bill is deployed.

I hope they won’t mind the kids tagging along. Anybody know what the homeschool laws are in Australia?

“That’s her third bowl,” he complained, knowing such excesses were not permitted.

“Yes, but she threw up the first one,” I explained.

Thanksgiving is not just for November.

Today is the feast day of St. John Neumann. I am thankful for his intercession, and grateful that all of my children have good health.

“Go home to your family and announce to them all that the Lord in his pity has done for you.” Mark 5:19