04.21.09
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Because linking is easier than writing today

How to be Awesomely Holy – Part One

There are many people you are going to meet every single day who will be intimidated by you even uttering the phrase, “I want nothing more in life than to be a saint, and that means I have to do everything in my power to make you a saint as well.”

People don’t like that and they certainly are not going to sit back and let you just try to be a saint. They are not going to just say no, they are going to actively try to bring you down to their level. It is much easier to bring someone down to your sin rather than try to bring yourself up to imitate their resolve. This is why any time you try to work harder than anyone, lose weight, pray more, or improve your life, you will lose friends.

People hate when others are more successful then they are and they will try to stop them.

How to be Awesomely Holy – Part Two

I don’t know how else to say this other than to state the fact that the Communion of Saints is made up of people, so learn to like them now. That means you have to give more than you take. That means you have to make people your priority and you have to love them where they are. Stop trying to change everyone around you and just be holy and love them. If they ask for your advice, give it; otherwise, lead with your example.

04.19.09
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Definitely a girl

Stereotypes exist because people act stereotypically.

I got Mary dressed this morning in a pretty blue dress she had never seen before. “Ooooo,” she said. “Yes, pretty,” I agreed. Then I said, “Let’s get your shoes.”

Mary didn’t want her shoes, apparently bored with the same old same old. She walked off to play with the toy kitchen. “Look,” I said. She blatantly ignored me and continued to occupy herself with plastic vegetables. “Mary, look,” I insisted. These weren’t her usual shoes. These were new sandals, something she had never seen. Finally, I waved them in front of her face.

“Ooooo,” she said and immediately lifted her feet for a try-on. “How nice,” her sisters cooed. Once on, she bent over admiring them.

“Let’s go show, Daddy,” I suggested. She liked that idea, grasped my finger and off we toddled. First she saw Fritz and lifted her feet for him, then she showed Daddy her pretty new shoes. She babbled excitedly and continued to look at her feet as though getting new shoes were the greatest joy on earth.

Because, for a girl, sometimes, it is.

04.19.09
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No "I" in TEAM

Fritz wants to pitch. He’d probably be pretty good, too. He did well last year as pitcher.

Fritz is not on the pitching roster.

Fritz is the best fielder on the team. I’m not being prideful. He has the advantage of having a birthday just a few weeks past the age deadline. He is a really old ten year old and one of the oldest kids on the team. This is his fourth year playing baseball. He knows how to play the game.

Fritz is the third baseman.

Today, they played 4 innings before time was up. That’s 12 outs. Six were strikeouts and six were not. Of the six outs made by somebody other than the pitcher, three were by Fritz and he only played 3 of the 4 innings.

The coach is a wise man putting him at third. Overjoyed might be a good word to describe how he felt about Fritz’s performance today. Fritz, he said (rather giddily), if you are in the field, you will be at third, always.

Unless I’m pitching, he says to me, with hope.

Son, you aren’t going to be doing much pitching, I told him. I had my own story about wanting to do one thing, but having my talents needed elsewhere. I can sympathize.

But that’s the thing about team efforts. It doesn’t matter what I want. The point of team sports is (should be) learning that the self is sacrificed for the benefit of the team.

Good lessons.

04.18.09
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Good article on Susan Boyle

The beauty that matters is always on the inside

But it is often evidence of a life lived selflessly; of a person so focused on the needs of another that they have lost sight of themselves. Is that a cause for derision or a reason for congratulation? Would her time have been better spent slimming and exercising, plucking and waxing, bleaching and botoxing? Would that have made her voice any sweeter?

{snip}

Susan is a reminder that it’s time we all looked a little deeper. She has lived an obscure but important life. She has been a companionable and caring daughter. It’s people like her who are the unseen glue in society; the ones who day in and day out put themselves last. They make this country civilised and they deserve acknowledgement and respect.

h/t Praying for Grace

04.16.09
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Easter Sacrifices

“They” say that Lent isn’t about losing weight. I agree.

However, if you are the sort of person who loves to eat just for the love of eating (as I do), and you are guilty of such eating perhaps too often (as I am), and you focus many of your Lenten sacrifices around curtailing such behavior (as I did), then it is likely that you will lose weight during Lent (as I did).

And that is fine.

However, now that Easter is here, such people (like me) may need to be reminded that the Easter feast is not intended to be 50 days of gluttony, either. At some point (like right now), the excessive consumption of chocolate needs to stop. Did I not just spend 40 days learning that I do not need butter to be happy?

A few weeks ago, my pastor suggested that every meal every day is an opportunity for some small sacrifice: skipping sugar in the coffee, for example. This man is full of great ideas. He did not say that we are required to abstain from sacrifices during the Easter Octave (as many people seem to be insisting in this post last year, so don’t even bother leaving comments to such effect in the combox – I won’t listen to you).

Just like during Lent, sacrifices involving food during other times of the year are not about weight loss or weight control. They are ways to remind ourselves that food will not make us happy if our souls are unhappy. They help us exercise detachment of earthly things.

And I, for one, need constant practice in such detachment.

04.15.09
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Two months, and counting

The boys’ opening day of baseball season is this Saturday. Their practice schedule hasn’t been too bad – mainly thanks to the weather which has drowned out most of the attempts of the coach to gather. And half the practices were during Holy Week, so they would have missed them anyway (the coach actually suggested batting practice for Sunday the 12th until I pointed out it was Easter Sunday).

But as baseball is gearing up, other activities are, mercifully, winding down. Three, count them, three more CCD classes. Billy has only four more den meetings for Cub Scouts. The girls have Girl Scouts today, and then only two more. Nine more weeks of piano and ballet before their final performances – but at least we can count that on two hands.

It’s not just the flowering trees and the blooming daffodils and the backyard mud patch sprouting grass and the empty tomb that are putting me in a good mood. It’s the sense of impending freedom. Where my highest priority is boiling noodles so I can make a pasta salad to take to the pool for dinner, and my to-do list consists of wishes, not mandates.

Nobody loves summer break more than a teacher.

04.13.09
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Home Decorator Confession

Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.

It has been three months since the last major holiday.

In that time, I have not really done a good job of putting away the decorations. I did mange to (mostly) get them out of the living areas. I still occasionally find an M&M guy with a red stocking hat in the basket of baby toys. And it was only last week that I insisted the string of lights around the boys’ bedroom ceiling must come down and finally collected the extra nativity set from off the piano. Yes, a creche in April on my piano.

But worst of all has been the garage/dumping ground. Instead of wrapping them in protective paper and snuggling them in for a long summer’s nap, my army of nutcrackers has been forced to do sentry duty on a spare table. Plastic kids’ cups with gingerbread men on them, miscellaneous ornaments in various stages of wholeness, and the stray felt reindeer candy cane cover were piled nearby.

A bag of lights – do they work or not? A Christmas music CD – where is the cover? This package of 12 ornaments has only 10 – I know we started out in December with a full collection.

I firmly resolve, with your help, to do penance (clean the garage), to sin no more (I swear I will do better next year), and to avoid the near occasion of sin (except for the Easter baskets, I’m not getting out any other decorations).

Have mercy on me, Lord.

04.12.09
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Alleluia! He is Risen.

Happy Easter!

Random thoughts:

Regular coffee, heavy on the latte, never tasted so good.

Neighbors who gear their annual Easter egg hunt and party around my Mass schedule are wonderful.

Chocolate: the breakfast of champions and hyper kids.

I think I need to get to work on a new blog header. Totally forgot about that.

I’m eating a decadent breakfast. I’m too lazy to do links and recipes now. Maybe later this week. Plenty of Easter to enjoy – 50 days!

Splurged on flowers and bushes to transform a bare part of my yard to beauty (even though my husband has to be convinced that spending money on someone else’s property is worthwhile). Planned to get them in the ground yesterday, but it poured until late afternoon. Can’t wait until tomorrow to get my hands dirty.

I really missed comments and love notes in my email. Happy to leave my hermetic blogging life.

Happy it is Easter. Lent was good. Easter is better.

04.09.09
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Stupidity and Ignorance Reign at Brown

Brown University Kills ‘Columbus Day’ for ‘Fall Weekend’

The faculty of the Ivy League university voted at a meeting Tuesday to establish a new academic and administrative holiday in October called “Fall Weekend” that coincides with Columbus Day, but that doesn’t bear the name of the explorer.

Hundreds of Brown students had asked the Providence, R.I. school to stop observing Columbus Day, saying Christopher Columbus’s violent treatment of Native Americans he encountered was inconsistent with Brown’s values.

“I’m very pleased,” Reiko Koyama, a sophomore who led the effort, told the student newspaper, the Brown Daily Herald. “It’s been a long time coming.”

Just in case you too have been duped into thinking Christopher Columbus enslaved and tortured peaceable Native Americans, please allow me to set the record straight: Christopher Columbus was a poor administrator, a bad leader, and a terrible PR man. But he did not himself abuse Native Americans nor did he encourage, approve or tolerate the abusive behavior on the part of the men who sailed his ships and settled somewhat in the new lands. His second or third voyage, in fact, was manned by convicts who were granted release from prison if they went, since he could not muster a crew willing to go. Hello? Send murders to America and then be surprised when they…murder?

So, instead of admiring a man who refused to give up, who remained persistent in following his dreams, who did, in fact, find a whole new world that nobody had any idea existed before (yes, he was wrong in that it wasn’t India, but 500 years later we have proven to be a much better discovery than India, doncha think?). Instead of that, we’ll blame him for the crimes of others and completely negate any of the good that he did do.

History, especially history based on gossip and lies and spin, is a harsh judge. Learn the truth, dear, wise fools of Brown, and may you be spared similar treatment at the end of your time.

Oh, and to what purpose does it serve to change the name of a holiday and still take the holiday? If you really want to protest the day off, go to class on Columbus Day.