December 31st! New Year Resolution

I will post more. I will edit what I post before I post it, and it will be either funny or profound or in the best of all possible worlds, both.   But for now, enjoy this piece I wrote on New Year Resolutions over at Eat Sleep Write!

See you in 2015!

Eat Sleep Write

I didn't get to post this one as we were busy celebrating Christmas.   Here's a writing lesson I wrote over at Eat Sleep Write.  It's funny too.   So go visit.  Enjoy!

Announcing, In the Back Pew!

Over at the Catholic Standard, I'll be posting for the family blog, entitled, "In the Back Pew."  (It's where we tend to sit).  

Here's my first piece....Celebrating the 12 days of Christmas!

Over at Eat Sleep Write

Writing about the reasons for writing humor today, and dealing with getting a son out the door at the same time. I'm a mom.  I multi-task.  

So go over and read at Eat Sleep Write!

Small Success Thursday

It's Thursday, come join us over at Catholicmom.com!



Hope to hear from you!

A Christmas Piece

We do writing assignments in my writing group, and they requested each of us do a Christmas tale.  So you can read A Year of Presents over at Eat Sleep Write!

Over at Eat Sleep Write

One of my writing projects is to run a humor writing room on Facebook. I critique, provide lessons and occasional exercises.   It's a lot of fun, and recently, we've been discussion writing humor and more specifically, dark humor.  So I have the first fruit of that discussion up over at Eat Sleep Write!

Growing Our Christmas

It started with what I thought was a rather flippant post on Facebook.  

I know liturgically, we have four weeks of Advent, but I think next year, to help myself get a handle on Christmas, I'm going to pretend it's like Lent and circle November 15, so I think...40 days to prepare and make ready. At least then, maybe I won't get to two weeks from Christmas and think, I'm still so very not not not ready. Or at the very least, I'll have longer to be ...not ready.

But it struck a nerve.  

This should be a time of blessed waiting, but very often, it is a time of frantic anxiety, with too many projects, too much work, too much needing to be done, not done, too many things to buy that cost too much.  It is easy to have the peace and joy of anticipating Christmas drowned by the tinsel and clang of "Martha Stewarting" or Saint Marthaing our preparations.   

Knowing I'm not the only one who suffers from this I haven't done enough, there's so much to do I can't start, I'm writing today to invite whoever has not really begun to look up from the sheep and look at the star to stop.  Put on some good Christmas music and put out one decoration today. Then take way one bag of stuff or things to give to charity or get rid off.  You will feel more of Christmas.

Then, tomorrow, do it again.  Bit by bit, day by day, Christmas will draw nearer, to your heart as well as the actual event.  

What will people remember of Christmas, what you gave willingly. These are the gifts that touch the heart.  So prepare, but let yourself recognize the why of this preparation, and anticipate how what you do today, will cultivate Joy to be given full flower come Christmas day.  

Small Success Thursday

There are only fourteen more days of Advent, so come over to Catholicmom.com and rediscover awe as part of your Small Success Thursday!

The Job of Not Sleeping

Yesterday I dealt with bedtime.  Today, it's time to get up!

Alarm clocks and alarm apps do little to rouse the slumbering adolescent. Schedules and bus times, breakfast and the occasional need of others to have access to the bathroom also hold little weight in any discussion with teens about about getting up in the morning. Experts in parenting books about teens advocate talking to your children about conflicts which occur regularly, to brainstorm about how to problem solve such issues.

That sounds great in theory, just like diets, budgets and five year plans. 

Read the rest over at Eat Sleep Write!

Taking on Bedtime

I'm trying to get back to writing at least three humor pieces a week, and Eat Sleep Write is publishing them.  I've got the eating and the writing down, but this piece is about the challenge of getting everyone else to grab some zzzzzzzz's.

Theory of Relative Time Management

Parenting magazines give top ten tips to help your toddler with bedtime. I read the advice, but none of it has ever worked for me, for any of my children.

Advice tip #1 Have a routine. We have a routine. I put them to bed. They get up. I put them back to bed. They get up. I put them to bed and threaten to revoke breakfast. Quiet ensues until they think I've been sufficiently distracted....Read the rest at Eat Sleep Write!

Lost Interview

Catholic Fiction hosts writers and somewhere they ran the interview they did with me, but it was lost in cybersapce until now.  They ask interesting questions.  I hope you enjoy it.

Creating a relationship between the reader and the words.

Over at the National Catholic Register

This past week, I had the opportunity to review the new exhibit at the National Women's Museum of the Arts.  They are hosting a fabulous collection called 'Picturing Mary.'  You can read about it at the National Catholic Register.  If you can't get to DC for the showing (from December 5 through April 14), go to the online version here. 

But if you can go to the exhibit, this is a wonderful way to spend some time this Advent or Christmas.    Thanks for reading, and for sharing the article on Facebook, twitter and with your friends.  

Future Food Network Judge

Hey, I have a new piece over at Eat Sleep Write all for you!

Small Success Thursday

You know it's Thursday, so come join me over at Catholicmom.com!

Oh, and if you haven't read Lisa Hendey's book, The Grace of Yes, yesterday I got to catch up on my reading and hit chapter 4, the Grace of Integrity.  Up until now, I've enjoyed the book, but this chapter hit me with its wisdom.  I'm going to reread it today, and look at the reflections offered over in the book club at Catholicmom that is going through the book, one chapter at a time.  It's a great way to assess for Advent.  That's my reward for finishing the financial aid forms (working on it), and finishing an article on the exhibition at the National Women's Museum of Art, Picturing Mary. 

A Giant of a Man

A good man died. I know it happens every day, but I knew this one. I knew his wife. I fell in love with her. Back in college, I thought I knew everything, because what Junior in college doesn't? Taking a 200 level English course would be a walk in the park, in fact I planned to phone it in, this was my easy A. She'd be lucky if I showed up.

In walked this five foot nothing snow haired coke bottle glasses woman with the warmest smile and she introduced herself. She started as an associate professor, teaching French and Social Justice, and now 19th Century Short Fiction. I'm still not listening. I'm daydreaming about the date planned for that evening. Tuesday nights we went for pizza and to watch tv in the student lounge. Most people wanted Moonlighting, we liked Remington Steele. She mentioned her husband taught law at Notre Dame. I registered this fact, maybe he taught my Dad. She said she'd lived in France. They'd raised seven children.

I sat up. Seven? Who has seven children? This tiny woman. She saw she had my attention. She winked. I don't know why, maybe she already knew she'd caught me. She went on to talk about how we'd be reading Emma and Madame Bovary and Wuthering Heights, and discussing rationalism, romanticism, and reality in the context of all three. I took notes. She wanted an essay comparing the three women's concept of love by the end of the month, five pages. I'd give her ten.

We became friends beyond the class, phoning and talking for hours, girlfriends across the decades. I'd meet her for lunch whenever I made it to the campus. She'd laugh when I had another kid, and delighted when I lapped her, finishing at ten. She'd tell me stories about trying to manage four while her husband Bob was teaching at the campus or in Italy. She recalled the parade of the children into the ancient homes of the church, their patent leather shoes clacking on the elegant tile floors, and the time when one daughter fought with her brother in front of the priest. (We were trading war stories about going to mass with a large young crew). We'd hit all the important topics, food, Catholicism, poetry and our families. Every conversation ended with wanting to make sure we did this again soon, though soon came less and less when health compromised her memory.

We'd still talk over the phone, but I knew he was managing her, protecting her, not telling me, but knowing I knew, not everything was alright. When we dined together last, he sat next to her and though we talked for three hours, the malady never came up. He kept steering her when she'd get lost, and I knew, this was his opening of the door, courting his Emma by walking her in the garden, letting her not be the victim of her maladies. He finished the stories she couldn't. He told her jokes to keep her from dwelling too long on the knowledge she didn't know something she knew she used to know. While sharing dessert, I felt struck by the reality, this was a courtly love, and his eyes still delighted on his beloved even as she ate or spoke or sat silent.

Last January, he had a fall and couldn't care for her anymore and I lost contact with my funny snowhaired coke-bottle glasses poet friend. She'd been put in a home to get around the clock care, and not being a family member, I didn't know how to find her. Today, one of their sons contacted me through Facebook. A giant of kindness and chivalry no longer walks the earth, and I'm very sad I can't be there to hug my friend through the fog where she walks, hoping again to meet her knight that always walked with her up to now.

Prayers for all of their family, and for the repose of Bob Rodes' soul. I hope he and my dad are having a great conversation with C.S. Lewis.

Storytelling today

My son's fifth grade class wrote myths and I thought, what a great assignment, so I did it too and you can read it over at Eat Sleep Write today!

Advent Day 1 Begin Clearing the Stable

In the exact spirit of Christmas, not Advent, I made a list.   I'm now checking it twice.   But I now write for DeTours (school newsletter to alumni), the Catholic Standard (freelance), the Catholic Digest (freelance), Catholicmom.com, some of my stuff is being posted and run at Eat Sleep Write,. I also moderate a writing page, and am currently editing a book, working on a book and blogging.

Then there's the non writing life.  Raising ten kids, managing the needs afar and near, ranging from 21 to 3 about to turn 4 takes time.  The house, well, there are a lot of piles that need at least a day's attention to become something other than a pile I put somewhere else. And I need need need more than anything, to be present to my family, to be a person in Advent, a person who prepares and is watchful.

But you can't prepare if you're overwhelmed.

Something's got to give.

So what am I doing?

I will still write, but this blog will be a place where I post links to pieces that are published.

You can't double post in the writing world, it's a big No-No.  Apparently Google punishes your site if you do. So I will do as others before me have done, and post lead ins here to links where the work gets published.

I'm sad that all my old stuff is now considered published, and thus unusable elsewhere.   Seven years of stuff that can't even be recycled on the internet unless I take the whole thing down, and that would involve saving the entire blog to files and combing through them.  Not really interested in that level of a project on top of everything else.  I have to let go of it.  It's not an easy thing to surrender.

It's a good step, one that's been coming for a while, but which I'd put off because I thought I could do all the things. (It's what I always think).    But today, I was reminded, no matter how hard I work, I'm not in control.  I can't always do it.  I started thinking about all that needs to be done, and I felt overwhelmed.  Until I went up for the Eucharist, and it was God's way of saying, "Don't worry Sherry, I've got this.  Just be willing to give up a bit of your handle on this, and I'll flood in the difference beyond what you could hope."   I'm not supposed to do all of it.  I'm supposed to facilitate all of it that I've been given.

So the blog is the first step in clearing out the cluttered nature of my stable.  

This week I go to the Marian exhibit in DC and get to do an article for the Catholic Digest on Portraits of Mary over the centuries.  I'm really looking forward to Wednesday.  I'll be thinking of my mom as I look at portraits of Mary, as I know she'd love this even before I walk into the place.  

I also have to write the newsletter to take that off my plate.  They are the baby steps I need to take to start in earnest removing the piles away, to empty my soul of all the clutter that keeps it from being a open place for Christ.  Happy Advent.

No Matter Who You Are or What You Do, There's a Buzzfeed Quiz for That

I'm posting over at Eat Sleep Write today.  Serving up humor all fresh for you.

Small Success Thursday...one day late

I know, this blog feels like it's withering on the vine. I promise I'm still writing, it's just it's all been for articles or editing or Penelope.   I'm trying to see if I can make a go of writing, and use the blog as a place to keep stuff, but for submission.  

Here's the link to this week's Small Success Thursday over at Catholicmom.com.

I promise, once Advent starts, to be better about this blogging business.

Small Success Thursday

Come join us and count your blessings of the week!

Grace of Yes Day

Lisa Hendey is a longtime friend of mine. She published my pieces at Catholicmom.com back when I first started writing in the blogosphere and she put up with a lot of experimentation.  She helped encourage me to continue and pound out a style and cadence.  She's been a virtual friend for going on 7 years, though I hope one day we meet in person.

She's written several books, the most recent of which is decidedly both poignant and personal while touching on what I think is the universal means by which we begin to walk down the road of Holiness.  Her book is called  The Grace of Yes.

The little fish is named Fiat, and represents each of us jumping out of our comfort zone, trusting wherever we land with our "Yes" is where God intended.  It isn't a fatalistic leap, but a leap of faith, jumping from the safe controlled bubble tank of our constructed lives, into the ocean of God's love. Who wouldn't trade a tank for the Ocean?  Who wouldn't want the more of God?  Us.  We like our comforts, our control, and the safety of being where we have the illusion of being in charge.   Saying yes means expanding our world and encountering others, and the unknown, being stretched and grown by more than we would opt to do on our own.  

I've only plowed through the first two chapters, but she asks the big questions and recognizes when she's not asked the questions.  She reveals the need to discern why are we saying yes and what are we saying yes to?  And what should we be saying yes to?  The answer of course is, to God.

The vocation of our lives is the How business of saying "Yes" to God, or no to other things.  So I'm trying to say "Yes." to my children first, and to my husband, rather than "wait," or "Not yet." or "I'm tired." or "I'm busy." It's too easy to put off people for things that often aren't important.

Last night, my daughter said, "Come play Heart and Soul with me Mom."   I didn't want to, I was in the kitchen, cleaning up from dinner.  I need to learn to stop.  I should stop and play.  She was working on "Heart and Soul."  I hate that song.   But she loves it. She's just learning it.

"Come and play Mom." she asked, which is really, "Come and waste time with me."  Wasting time is the surest proof of love, the willingness to do nothing or anything, with someone else, not because of what it is we're doing or not doing, but because of who we are with.   I missed out last night. I stupidly chose dishes over duets.  How dumb am I?  Very.  So Very!

So today, I'm dusting off the piano, and I'm hoping I get the opportunity today to receive the Grace of Yes.

P.S. I have an extra copy, if you would like to have it, leave a comment in the box and I'll pick a winner!

Why These Moments Matter

It has taken forty-eight years to grasp the reality of how good things happen, they are an act of the will on the part of someone.   As a child, Mom made dinners happen and took us from point a to point b and Dad would orchestrate game nights and visits with cousins and aunts and uncles, but as kids, we drifted from big event to big event. So to us, as kids, it felt organic, natural, ordinary. This was simply what you did.  

As an adult, I began to see the effort involved in reunions, especially in deliberately gathering for non event events.  Parties became tied to reasons for parties, like weddings, baptisms, birthdays and sadly, funerals.  The ordinariness of getting together with family became less ordinary as we all grew older, moved, and began establishing lives that focused on lesser things like jobs, homes, and school.  It wasn't a lack of love for anyone, but there was a lack of will to practice that love, a form of familial sloth that crept into relationships, rendering them a collection of fond memories, rather than an ongoing experience of each other.  

Going to a wedding, one of the last weddings of the generation of cousins, everyone began to feel the hard march of time, and how the hardening of familial arteries could cause ongoing damage if left unchecked.  We would have to will ourselves out of that funk, to will ourselves beyond our comfort zone if we were going to have connections not dominated only by whenever someone had a wedding, baptism or funeral.  We'd have to have moments of ordinary time, and to have those, someone would have to "Will it."  

So we made a start, an invitation to do things, which is again, like anything else, a beginning, hopefully of a greater experience, of all of us growing closer together.   What I hope, is everyone will make that brave start, issue beginnings, so that we turn what is a momentary inspiration born of recognizing we want to have relationships that are more than in name only, into a willful habit of fellowship, and tie us as family beyond the cumulative memories of past events.   

The Beginnings of Something

This morning, I jumped on my emails, perused my writing forum for assignments, tweeted my links to Small Success Thursday and I'm linking to Catholicmom.com here.  Then I read the news and visited my favorite sites.   Asking for a Mission and what that means.  

This past week, a piece ran over at Catholic and Enjoying it, I am Arnold Abbott!, where the mayor and city counsel of Ft. Lauderdale, Florida made it illegal to feed the homeless on the street, illegal for the homeless to sleep in public, and illegal for them to own private property which they keep on public grounds. (The police can seize it on these grounds).   My heart hurt that a city would take this approach --to "help" the homeless.  They went so far as to arrest a 90 year old man and two pastors for feeding those who showed up for the meal.  

I read and researched other articles on the issue, and the spin was that they didn't want to stop feeding people, they wanted to regulate feeding these people.   Yeah.  So charity without a license, not allowed.  I could understand the copious reasons given for wanting this regulated.  It is still wrong to outlaw the impulse to charity. It is still wrong for a society to penalize people helping others.   There can be debates until the next century about how to solve the problem of homelessness with dignity, and there can be legitimate concerns about safety, both of those served and those serving, but it's still an odious society that hamstrings those with the least power, to serve the comfort of the "common good." I can't not fight it.   

Then I heard on NPR from a consultant who argues against any giving of money or food to the homeless except when it is tied to a program.  He claimed a 85% reduction in homelessness in the cities where such an aggressive policy has been enacted. I tried to find a link today, but could not after multiple searches.  What I wanted to know was if the reduction in homelessness was a result of policies getting people into programs and thus not homeless, or because they went elsewhere where the cities were more hospitable to those lacking homes. It's clear that many cities feel so frustrated by homelessness, they view these sorts of measures as a viable answer.  I don't claim to have an answer but I know it isn't to harrass those without homes or those who try to minister to them.

So when the Vatican announced it was building showers to let those who live outside, come in and get clean, I cheered.  This is the beginnings of the answer.  The answer is not a systemic program or government outreach, but one person to one person, outreach to meet the people and thus their needs.

I was feeling great until I saw this response:  How in the world do showers help??? Where are the change of clothes and the free mobile phones? Where are the shelters, etc? The proposition is ludicrous on its face... What is needed is for the PRIVATE sector in Rome and the WHOLE of the USA, to partner with multiple charities to create shelters, jobs, thrift stores where they can work, etc... The Saint Vincent DePaul Society does a GREAT job of this, why don't we help them there???? DUH.

To me, the showers help each person who uses them, to feel clean, refreshed, to have a sense of dignity, and that is the beginning. We are always at the beginning of serving, not the end.  When we die, if we've done this even sort of correctly, we will get the grace to continue the work as intercessors, to pull more people to continue this service to others, so that even more people will receive the gifts of grace squeezed into their heart.  It isn't that we shouldn't help Saint Vincent DePaul Society, but the goal is always to pull more people in. Some don't see the Saint Vincent DePaul Society, but they might see what Pope Francis is doing, and thus be pulled in to the Church, to encounter Christ, either by the help of the showers, or by what the showers represent.

The person asked, "Isn't that self defeating?"  Who is going to take a shower and put on their old stinky clothes? 

I would argue it's not. Because it still is the beginning, and every kindness removes some of the pain, some of the hurt, some of the loneliness.  What's self defeating is to not see them, to not invite them to eat even if they smell, or to think because I cannot solve every problem, I should not start to solve any problem.  Or worse, that the problem should be solved by other people or organizations or the government.   The rich man is condemned to Hell for doing nothing.  For refusing to treat Lazarus as even as he did his dogs.

But again the response: Pointless. Many will say it will be as if you are feeding stray dogs or cats...They will continue to come back over and over and over and the problem will multiply...Why? Because your ilk is not willing to address the fundamental issues of this scourge: Death of the Family, Immoral Business Practices and Immorality!!!

I'm ilk.  It's true.  Today, the county I live in has a deluxe shelter for stray animals.  It is beautiful, spacious and pristine but I do not know where the homeless in our county go when it is cold.  So he's right to charge I should do more, at the very least, learn more.   And once again, I know, "It is the beginning." 

Leaving aside the comparison of human beings to animals, which is itself so very wrong, these people are Christ in his distressing disguise.   Why act?  There are graces that come from performing corporeal acts of mercy, even on those we cannot permanently cure.  Jesus told us the poor would always be with us.   He calls us to love and to serve, not to create utopia.

However, here's the rub.  If all of us heard the call Pope Francis is issuing, to be neither cold or lazy in our care of the poor, how much closer all of us would come to beginning to build up the Kingdom of Heaven while here on Earth. 

 



"When a poor person dies of hunger, it has not happened because God did not take care of him or her. It has happened because neither you nor I wanted to give that person what he or she needed."

- Blessed Mother Teresa

None of us come close to Blessed Mother Teresa.  We can see the people on the corners of streets, some of them for years.  I agree, things cannot continue on as things are much longer.  If we are to be a people of hope, we need to hear and harken and harden not our hearts, toward anyone, roll up our sleeves and figure out how to get out there.  I'm going to find out where they go when the weather turns for starters.  We're called to catechize by being catalysts.  We're all the beginnings of something if we say "Yes."

How?  Ask.  Ask what beattitude God wants you to live out in faith.  Then seize it and live it.  You'll know, and then it will simply require of you, that you give back to God, the one thing you can give to God, The Grace of Yes.  

My article is up at the Catholic Standard

Busy working on an interview article with Marie Helene Mathieu and a review of her translated book,  Never Again Alone.

So enjoy the most recent piece for the Catholic Standard, detailing the annual White Mass held in DC to honor people with disabilities and those who care for them.  

Small Success Thursday

Come join us over at Catholicmom.com.

Be Not Afraid, I Promise You

I listen to Catholic radio.  It started when I decided listening to the news made me too angry and listening to music sometimes meant my toddlers knew tunes I didn't want them to know.  At first, it was just mass. I'd put it on while I cleaned the house and while I still grumbled when I found the occasional apple core or yogurt cup hidden by some hungry child who knew they weren't supposed to sneak snacks, I grumbled less and felt less irritated by the mere repetitiveness of having to clean again the next day with mass to look forward to as company.  All of Heaven and Earth could sing to me while I wiped down the counters.

Yesterday, I heard a husband who sounds broken, because his wife is afraid.  They are expecting their third child, and that baby has been diagnosed with Down Syndrome.  She fears the future. She fears what God is asking.  She is considering the unthinkable, thinking abortion will take away her fears, her worries.  Hearing the pain in his voice, I don't need to imagine the fear in hers, I've felt afraid of the future when I expected our ninth.  I know people whisper to you, "Abort. Try again. Do over." in so many words.  

But each of us is unique.  Each of us has a soul.  Each of us is part of God's masterful luminous joyful glorious plan.  It is only sometimes sorrowful because we live in this fallen place, but the divine reality of each of us being a gift is baseline.  I wish I could hug this woman and tell her what I know.

This child is a gift.  This child will be different, but the future is not unbearable, it is simply unknown. It just feels unbearable because all the unknowns come crashing down at once when you get a diagnosis of anything less than perfect.  

All children come to us helpless and with struggles we cannot yet know.  Some have severe allergies, others learning disabilities, some have tempers and others struggle with making friends.  Each child comes with an unknown future.  Oddly, with children who don't have genetic markers for conditions, we don't agonize about the future nearly as much, though they will still have to weather illness, school, bullies, frustrations, heart breaks, skinned knees, bad dates, bad haircuts, disappointments from others and from themselves and yet, we think only of the glittering promise of the unknown with genetically "normal" children.  I promise you, he will surprise you out of fear with his capacity and his love, and your capacity for love.

 Because this child has a fragile aspect you already know, holding him will feel all the more precious, all the more delicate, and you'll celebrate his speech, his walking, his everything as if it were winning the Boston Marathon, because for him, it is.  He will come and bring with him, the opportunity and purpose of many holidays and feasts.


I also promise you out there, if you are faced with a diagnosis of a child with a less than perfect genetic or physical or mental make up, this is not the end of your world, don't let it be the end of his or hers because you were afraid.  Love stretches our hearts the way pregnancy stretches our bodies.  We will never go back to being the smaller creatures we were, once we begin loving someone new.  And it's okay to be afraid, it's just  you have to know, you have to believe, you have to trust, that love is always always always, stronger than fear, stronger than death, stronger than all of the unknown.  

It is our job as parents to welcome each child into the present, and to show them as much love as possible in the present, and little by little, to chip away at how to make the next moment of the present, more luminous.   It's work. It's hard work, and it takes a lifetime, but every one of us requires a whole lifetime of being loved, none of us survive without constant doses.  

The last thing I'll tell you my unknown sister, is hold tight to your husband.  Hold tight to each other and God and it won't be all drudgery, it won't be all darkness.  You'll be stunned when the sun breaks through in your heart, and you find you can smile and even laugh, and all things again seem possible. 

 Please pray for this unknown sister and her husband, and for their family that they will be wrapped in love, wrapped in courage, and given the knowledge that this baby is a joy for them to discover, not discard.     This little boy is a gift.  He will grow all of their hearts, and he will be a source of light and joy to the world that seems to covet darkness.

P.S. I wasn't going to write on this, I'd already called in and asked fellow Catholic writers to pray for this family.  Then I looked at the Loyola 3 Minute Retreat for the day as I cleared out my inbox of emails.  I don't normally, but today, the Holy Spirit prickled.   If you haven't clicked on the link, the first words are from Genesis 22: 11-12.  "But the Lord's messenger called to him from heaven, "Abraham, Abraham!"  "Yes, Lord," he answered.  "Do not lay your hand on the boy," said the messenger..."  and so I'm writing here for whoever reads this, asking you to pray for this family, pray for their three sons, for their marriage, and for them to know God loves them all.

Next Year's Halloween Makeover

I used to love Halloween. I loved the costumes. I loved the candy. I loved the decorations. Then, like everything else I've ever loved in this world, professionals got a hold of it and ruined everything. Pros made the experience of carving a pumpkin, putting together an outfit and tripping out your house for the holidays, activities which require advanced degrees in creative design, special effects lighting, and a budget that rivals the line items for NASA research and development.

Now a days, if your pumpkin isn't strobe light animated to have Darth Maul or Elsa from Frozen sing "I'm all about the Base." you're slumming.

All the go to easy costumes of prior years, vampire, pirate and zombie, have been relegated to the no longer acceptable, annoyingly sparkly, or made so over the top by recent movies and television shows, as to require actual effort to assemble. Gone are the simple white sheets with holes for the eyes. Gone are the grab six sashes, tie them across your waist and head and call yourself a gypsy. Gone are the classic black capes and pointy teeth. Every witch now looks like something from Anime, Harry Potter or Wicked.

Working the door on October 31st, I pined all night for some kid to come to the door wrapped in toilet paper as a mummy, or made into a robot using tin foil, or wearing their mother's prom dress as a princess. Instead, I got 27 Elsas, and heaven knows how many other princesses, all from Disney, all glittery, all beautiful, and all done via a Visa card.

Something was lost in all these pre-processed costumes, the same thing lost in looking at my kids loot when they got home. Everything was the same. All treats now are bite sized chocolates in foil wrappers except for the bottled water which indicated someone really doesn't like Halloween or wants their house wrapped.

I remembered getting homemade popcorn balls and multi-colored marsh mellow chocolate stained glass windows, caramel apples and straws of sugar. We tolerated the dentist who gave out toothbrushes, we understood it anyway.

But I recall the teenagers of our neighborhood t-ping the one home with the mean guy that handed out raisins. Everyone of us kids felt he deserved it. We were cowboys and football players, queens and rabbits, The oldest teen was Robin Hood and he wore his bow across his chest, and had real arrows in a homemade quiver. His dog was dressed in a burlap sack with holes cut out for his feet and a rope around his waist. He was Friar Tuck. That was part of the fun. We made up everything. Everyone made up everything. Creating what we did not have, inventing what we wished we could buy in the store brought joy...which now, we get at the seasonal costume shop, but the joy feels artificial, like fake salt.
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So I've decided. Next year, we're going to make costumes. I'm going to give them felt and paper bags and foil and tape and hopefully, my kids will discover what we seem as a people so intent on forgetting, that the fun of a Holiday is not how close to perfection we come with our look, but how perfect our look is when we go through the process of creating it. We'll have fun and it will be messy, but it will be real. And I'm going to go find some retro candy to give out like sugar straws and teach my kids how to t.p. the people who gave out bottled water and scolded my kids about their teeth. It's a matter of principle for me. They weren't even dentists!

Happy Halloween!

Small Success Thursday

Come join us over at Catholicmom.com!

Thoughts on the Synod

Okay, I've read what amounts to "Wait until They're Done with this" to discern what's what, and its opposite, panic, "Something Wicked This Way Comes."   I've read articles that declared the discussion of the working document an earthquake, and other that said, meh, molehills.  

Having looked at the actual documents, there is a mixed bag, such that anyone can find something to like and something that gives pause.  I also read "Vatican bemoans premature release" , Advice for the Pope, and The Great Catholic Cave in that Wasn't.

The big issue for me was what is the Synod on the Family and why is it?  So I did some more homework...I found out the actual theme of the Synod at the USCCB website: 

 Q: What is the theme of the III Extraordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops?

A: "The pastoral challenges of the family in the context of evangelization."

The writings that spurred so much controversy make much more sense in light of the theme of these discussions.  

I get what troubled people because it troubled me enough to pester some of my favorite Catholic writers before I settled down to do my reading rather than reacting. I wrote asking why the bishops were discussing what I knew to be settled doctrine.  That's the impression one got from Earth shaking and Ground breaking....press releases.

The bishops weren't discussing doctrine.  They were discussing pastoral care on a universal level.  Going out to reach those who for whatever reasons, (doctrinal objections or lifestyles) refused the Church, would require acknowledging these sheep needed to be found, and that it was the job of every bishop to seek out each soul, and bring them all back. 

Since the outreach of this Synod is to address the problems of modern life, in order to bring all back into the fold, recognizing the innate dignity of persons who identify themselves as having this orientation, is a good starting point for getting them to hear the Church's message of all of humanity having infinite dignity and being welcome.  

While changing the terms to simply read "Sinners" would satisfy those who thirst for an affirmation of doctrine, it wouldn't let anyone hear what was said, because few even amongst the faithful, are willing to admit openly, belonging to that category.  We aren't those type of sinners.  Or we don't do those type of sins. We may be a church of the fallen, but everyone likes to believe everyone else is more fallen, meaning somehow, we're less in need of God's grace.  Naming those being sought, helped those being sought hear what was said next.

The goal of the Synod is to have the Church's good news, the message of Christ's love for all of the people, everywhere, heard. Unfortunately, it won't be heard over all the arguments and the reactions and the worry.

Naturally, those who consider themselves inside the pen, (and everyone in the church thinks they're in the pen), feel ignored for not being singled out.  

Everyone want to be affirmed, petted and told we were good sheep.  

It is the human failing, the moral failing of presumption.  It becomes very easy to sympathize with the older brother in the story of the Prodigal son, or the workers in the vineyard who served all day and get the same as those who came last if we're in it for the accolades of the Father, and not for love of the Father. 

We all want to somehow merit more praise than the other.  We all want the Church to say, "Well done, good and faithful servant." when what we should always recognize "You, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, 'We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty." (Luke 17:10).  

It's hard, because such sublimation requires anyone who seeks to be faithful to recognize, we're not there yet.  We're in deep deep spiritual swampiness if we think because of how we've lived or are living, we somehow merit something.  All is grace.  All is a gift.  We merit nothing.  Either we are servants who love the Church, and thus serve freely, or we are slaves to tradition, and derive our satisfaction as do the Pharisees, from making sure the outside is clean, without ever considering the inside.   Either we trust and believe the Holy Spirit will guide the Church (and the gates of Hell shall not prevail) or have declared it to be a mere human institution.  In which case, we're all wasting a lot of time and energy on something to make ourselves feel good when there are a whole host of other things that would give us pleasure and require much less of us than everything.

For those still fearful, be not afraid.  If we seek a friendship with Christ, Christ will find us, and if we love Christ, we will be changed by that relationship.  This spiritual reality is universal, no one who seeks Christ, will not have Him knocking at their hearts.  The Synod has people who have considered themselves not part of the church because of their practice, wondering if they belong inside of it.  It is as if the doors have been thrown open, and the servants are going out to invite everyone, come eat.  We will have do decide whether or not to attend.  When we hear that call, we will either sell everything and follow, or walk away sad.  God never echoes our heart, we echo His. So when we fall into the trap of wanting the Church to say what would please us, comfort us, honor us, it means we're wanting the Church for us, and we've made an idol of our religion instead of Worshiping God.  

This is not an urge to faithful Catholics to wring their hands at themselves, it is a reminder of why we do what we do.  I get the confusion, now that I understand the why of how things were written.   I do not think "Nothing is troubling, don't worry," necessarily helps anyone, because the words put forth do require clarification, both of context and intent.  But that clarification will come, not spin, discernment.   

Catholic means Universal; there is no limit to who should be invited into the wedding feast, and no sin which if repented of, can keep a soul from Christ.  Everyone is invited.  The message of the Synod isn't finished yet, but it will need the help of everyone who considers themselves a follower of Christ, prayers, fasting and a joyful heart, plus a willingness to extend to both our brothers and sisters from whom we are separated, and to the princes of the Church, a trust that all is being done in good faith, even if all is not being done perfectly well.  One thing is for sure, if we want to make sure we come to the wedding feast after getting the invitation, all our hearts are going to have to get bigger.  

Small Success Thursday

1) Come count your blessings over at Catholicmom.com!

2) As you can see, I can't quit it.  The words will explode out of me if I keep them bottled up and that would just be messy.  I also have a piece over at Eat Sleep Write!

3) My brother and his wife have a new baby boy!   Yay!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So lots to celebrate today.  Come join us!

How We Should Be Holding onto Time

There is a family, I've linked to the mother's blog, Passionate Perseverance, clinging to, celebrating every minute their daughter has left to share with them in this life.  They do this despite the other trials that make up their day, like clogged collapsed toilet lines and jobs that might end and bills that seem impossible to pay.  They celebrate the warm sweaters, the baked goods and beautiful flowers that show up from strangers and friends, and they hold their daughter through her seizures, knowing that one way or another, they will stop, and life will either keep going on, or not.  It takes great courage to get up and face the cross each day, and they do this with passionate perseverance.

Online, I have another friend, who goes and make sandwiches, whole loaves of sandwiches to hand out to the homeless with his children, and he too is holding onto each moment, every moment, hoping that this moment isn't the last one.  He hints that all is not well, and that all will not last but goes on as if today is the most important.  Neither family is rushing to the end, both are sipping the cup of their lives, savoring each minute, the beautiful, the painful, the hard and the costly, because all of the moments matter.  All time we have here, is precious.

So when I read about the state enabled despair of Brittany Maynard, as she's planned her death for All Saints' Day, it breaks my heart and at the same time, makes me mad.

In this day and age, voicing online or in person anything other than approval makes me heartless.  I don't know her suffering.  But I do know these other people, they suffer, and they are sticking it out.   There are whole countries of people less fortunate than this woman in what she has done and they get up and go through the day no matter how hard.   I  can't not see taking medicine to "end life on my terms" as anything  other than being afraid of what it takes to live to the last breath.  I could get being afraid.  But bragging of one's decision to die to make a statement about desiring to die and demanding everyone else affirm one's decision as good, I won't do.  Damn it Brittany, live.  Live until you die.  Live because it is harder than climbing  mountains or running marathons.  Anyone can check out early.  Anyone can quit when it gets hard.  Don't.   You've climbed mountains, you've run marathons.  You could finish this race by running to the end if you willed to do it.  I wish you would.

Make no mistake, brain cancer, tumors, it is all horrible.  It is horrible.  I wish she would reconsider, because given the unknown limited time she has left, she shouldn't be so quick to want to shorten the journey.   She could be a great voice and witness to the courage it takes to get up each day, never knowing if this is the last.   But we've become so incapable as a society of bearing what life brings, we now call choosing death a right, and get self righteous about declaring our own autonomy.   We call checking out brave, but I think it far braver to face the minute to minute messiness of this business called living. Praying for her and her family, and for all those who face the mysterious grace found only by being at the foot of the cross.

Work in Progress Blog Tour

Hello.  I'm posting here as part of a Work in Progress  Blog tour of writers.  A. M. Justice tagged me in a post, she's reviewed my previous work, The Book of Helen, and is part of a writer's group that seeks to keep all of us writing and improving, both as writers and human beings.   

When she invited me to participate, I wasn't sure I should, having just suspended my blog.  But it's fair to say I want to keep writing, and baring my taking on a full time position somewhere, I need to keep working if I'm to remain a writer and not a want-a-be. I'm still considering what my blog should be, but in the meantime, I'll update everyone on any and all progress on all things writing.

 So...where are we with Penelope...I'd say we're looking at all these threads and wondering how we are going to weave them into a coherent whole.  But Penelope is more patient than I am on any given day, so she's kept at me to keep reading, keep reflecting, and keep writing.  She's currently 81K, and I hope to get to 100 by the end of October.  Doable, but I need to press.     

What else are you doing Sherry?  I applied for a position as a reporter and became part of his freelance pool.  I have secured some assignments.  I'm still editing a manuscript for another author, and I still produce the weekly column for Catholicmom.com, Small Success Thursday.  Writing still remains very necessary to my every day.  

Now, I get to tag five writers and help them promote what they are doing and why.  

So for starters, I chose Erin Manning, a fellow Catholic writer who blogs over at And Sometimes Tea.  She's a more thoughtful writer than I am, she takes more time with her posts, whereas I fire and forget.  She's also forayed into fiction, so like me, she wears many hats.  

One of my favorite people runs a blog Confessions of a Sleep Deprived Momma.  She also runs a charity, volunteers, and keeps up with her very active family, but the posts she puts up are funny, real, and reveal a bigger reality than just...today we went out and I read a book sort of stuff.   So Shelley Colquitt, I hope you'll take the challenge and dust off your blog to let others know what you're doing.

John Konecsni is a fried via the Catholic Writer's Guild and he does a bang up job on thrillers with accurate Church history.  He has a trilogy called  The Pius Trilogy, which I've had the privilege of reading and enjoying so I'm tapping him for his current and past work.  

Karina Fabian is one of the most prolific writers out there, and always has at least three projects she's putting out for the eager reader.  I'm partial to her dragon detective Vern, but she also dabbles in zombie stories, time travel and I'll let you find out what else over at Fabian Space.

Last but certainly not least, one of my favorite people, the editor of all my Small Successes. Sarah Reinhard blogs at Snoring Scholar.  She reads voraciously and is also a Catholic speaker and helps with the website Catholicmom.com.    So Ladies and Gentleman, please consider yourself tagged, and use the opportunity to update your readers and mine on your current works in progress and projects. 

Thanks Amanda for tagging me! 

Sablogital

I'm taking a break from blogging to discern what I should do with writing, to make sure what I am doing is not a pursuit of the ego.  Time is the one commodity a stay at home mom has, so I need to spend it well.  It has become harder and harder both to carve out time for words and to find words worth pulling out of the air.  Dry spells in writing happen, but they mean something.

The rule in writing is to write through the writer's block. This isn't writer's block. I do have that, but this feels different. This is a moment to breathe and figure out, what is the purpose of this blog?

It long since stopped being a humor place though I can occasionally spin out a funny bit.   It isn't helping me write my second book or promote the first.  It isn't helping me submit columns to places that pay.  Now a days, it isn't even helping me make sure I write. 

So what is it?  It has been a means of keeping the stories of what happens here in our home, but even that is limited.  My teens have a right not to have their adolescence preserved beyond momentary snapshots and stories.  More of my children are children than toddlers these days, so the stories have grown more personal, more complex, and I do not want my family as a reality television show.  

Is that putting your family under a bushel basket?  With ten? Not possible to be discreet in anything.  Any story I write reveals the reality.   Any errand we run reveals the reality.  Anyone who sees our car, knows the reality. 

So I'm not giving a date when the blog will return, because I don't know the answer.  I'll just say, thanks for reading.  Thanks for being here.  Check back, say "Hi." and thanks. 

Small Success Thursday

Grattitude comes from stopping to realize, we are so blessed. Come visit Catholicmom.com today, not because you're Catholic or a mom, but because every one of us has blessings to count. It's good for every soul to remember, our cups runneth over. Come and share with the world all the ways in which you and your family are celebrating small successes.

Them's Fighting Words

Recently, Forbes published a photo essay touting the results of a study done by Wallethub.com ranking the 150 largest metropolitan areas to determine where the most educated are most likely to settle.

The researchers weighted the population based on the percentage of adults over the age of 25 who had varying advanced degrees. They also weighted the quality of education provided in the area based on the public school ranking, the average quality of the university or universities in the area, and the number of students enrolled in top 200 level Universities per capita.

On the face of it, these parameters seem reasonable but when the tag line on the Forbes article proclaimed my hometown of Beaumont, Texas to be the least educated city in the United States, I dusted off my Stetson, straightened my two diplomas from Saint Mary's College, Notre Dame and Boston College respectively, and went to work.

Why?

Because the Texan in me says, "That dog won't hunt."

Before you dismiss my argument because I'm just a home team kind of gal, I'll concede the point. Born in Houston, raised in Beaumont,  I still have many people I love and seek to visit when I get the opportunity, living there.  But it doesn't mean I'm wrong.

I see problems with the generalizations created by this study --problems I don't see examined or discussed in the results as published.

So I started looking at the original study which proclaims Ann Arbor, Michigan, the number one educated city in America.

Ann Arbor, Michigan enjoys a population of 116,112.  The University of Michigan is located there. The University of Michigan employs a total of 25,274 part and full time faculty and staff at its university, serving the undergraduate, graduate, medical and law schools respectively.   As a result, before you count the general population, 21% of the people in the city of Ann Arbor, by virtue of the State School, pad the stats in the city's favor.  

Beaumont, Texas, clocks in at a population of 118,228, so it's comparable in size.   It has Lamar University. Its faculty totals 552, or  less than one percent.   But Lamar is a community/commuter college and can't be compared to the University of Michigan. A more proper comparative might be the University of Texas in Austin, in terms of size, faculty and the like.  UT has roughly 24,000 faculty and thus is a parallel size university.  It's an apples to oranges kind of thing or should be.

So college towns which hold a State University will be unnecessarily and in a sense, unfairly weighted to come out better. if the means of measurement is a college degree.  One wonders the point of a study that essentially looks at the data and ultimately declares, CITIES WITH COLLEGES HAVE MORE PEOPLE IN THEM WITH COLLEGE DEGREES! as if that somehow needed researching.

Obviously, if you live in a city with more than one school, you're going to rank high on the scale, and if your general population is small --if the college is the primary or only dance in town, your ranking based on the percentage of population having the criteria of a higher degree, will be affected positively.  But the result of such a damning statement on a city, on my city of Beaumont, "Worst Educated in America" is an evil not deserved.  It will further dampen opportunity for my hometown, and that's not very nice of Wallethub, especially when the rankings simply reveal where the degrees are, and doesn't take into account the why of it.

Indeed, if you look at the top ten cities, Ann Arbor, Mi, Raleigh, NC, Durham, NC, Provo, Utah, Manchester, New Hampshire, Seattle, Washington, San Jose, California, Colorado Springs, Colorado, Baltimore, Maryland and Boston, Massachusetts, you probably can name at least one if not two universities located in the heart of them without breaking much of a sweat.  Looking at those ranked lowest using this means of measurement, Beaumont, Texas, Salinas California, Rockville, Illinois, Brownsville, Texas, Modesto, California, Visalia, California, Bakersfield, California, Lakeland, Florida, McAllen, Texas and Fresno, California, what's the big difference?   Name me a university that just rolls off the tongue for any of them.

For the record, I did look at Fresno, California which boasts 17 colleges and 47,960 students enrolled but which because the colleges themselves are small, and the population of Fresno large (505,882), found itself among the bottom of the 150 metropolitan list in this study.

The stated purpose of the study was to figure out what attracts educated people to move to a metropolitan area.  Answer, probably jobs.

Cities which boast a place that can employ a person with an advanced degree, will probably lure people with advanced degrees so that they can use said advanced degrees. It doesn't take an advanced degree to figure that out.  It does however seem to require a study.  Maybe listing the cities to cite where the schools/ph.d's are helps but I'm not sure how.

If the secondary purpose was to brainstorm about how to attract educated people, the researchers might want to delve beyond the easy stat comparison to find real or absolute numbers.  How about leveling the playing field to determine something more meaningful than ranking, namely the underlying why there are more college degrees in one place than another, or to see what percentage beyond that generated by employment via a university is educated? What percentage beyond that generated by employment is warranted?  What are the economic demands for said degrees in each area and are they being met, and if not, why not?  The name of the game is supply and demand.  University towns both supply and demand advanced degrees.  Cities with other industries do not always require that degree of degrees.

Maybe Wallethub could do an advanced version of this same study, go beyond the numbers, dig deeper into the stats they've already done.  Drop out the population that works at any and all universities for each city, as being self fulfilling stats and try again.  The results may change some, and reveal whether or not the general population is educated, and what might be masked by the skewing of the data via the comparison of large to small schools where there is no adjustment for population size/needs of the area for advanced degrees.

So yeah, I'm a home girl, but I know people in Beaumont, and they're smart, resourceful, strong, kind and worth knowing.  They're some of the best people in the United States whether or not they have the pieces of paper on the wall to vindicate their intellect to people drafting a study.  I'd invite the good folks of Wallethub.com to come visit and talk to us.  They might learn something other than what they expected.

Why do I know?  I grew up in Beaumont Texas.

The Big Red Scare

Everyone knows about the Terrible Twos.  Threes however, are a closely guarded state secret. If parents of children 1095 days or older knew of what lay in waiting, well....let's just say, it's something one has to grow into. 

Exhibit #1 Blacklisting Clifford

Anna was being read a bedtime story by her older sister who is eight.  The older sister read from the big book of Clifford the Big Red Dog series.  I forget that three year olds are terribly self absorbed and literal.  So when she heard about the little red puppy jumping through the cream puffs and destroying the pies and then the wedding cake, she got very upset. 

"Clifford is ruining my beautiful cupcakes."  she said, and began to cry.  The story was over, the moment lasted much longer.  No amount of explaining, this wasn't real. Clifford wouldn't really do that, they aren't your cupcakes, could release America's favorite crimson hound from the emotional doghouse of my toddler's mind. 

Exhibit #2  Her name is Lola...

I don't know where she gets her ideas, I think she's secretly coming downstairs and surfing the net.  We'd gone to a doctor's appointment for me, and she'd brought her favorite pink and red stuffed animal.  She calls it a kitty, but the tag says Chihuahua.   The nurse saw my daughter and tried to small talk with her. "What a cute little pink dog you have...." Big mistake.

The face was turning red, the fists were clenched with shaking fury, "SHE'S NOT A DOGGIE..." she started.  "HER NAME IS LOLA! SHE'S PINK and RED!"  The nurse gave me one of those, "Okay then." sort of looks.  I burst into, "Her name is Lola, She belongs with Anna, and she's a pink and red kitty not a Chihuahua."  and then it was my turn to get the "Okay then" look.   I probably shouldn't pun or sing when preparing to have blood drawn. 

Exhibit #3 Tip Me Over and...

I've learned with this three year old in particular, that when she is hungry, tired, thirsty, hot, cold, sick or bored, we have a default setting and that is the tea kettle scream.   If you correctly guess the immediate need and meet it, you get a smiling gracious practically singing child.  If you don't, it's very unhappy.  So I run through the checklist whenever I see my little tea pot short and stout getting steamed up.   The big problems come when facts in reality don't line up with the accepted facts in her head. 

We've been discussing potty training. She has plans to have a red cake with red frosting when she succeeds in being a big girl.  She also says, this is what she will have at her birthday when she turns eight.  Now she knows how to count, and in some cases has made it up as far as 15, and she knows she's three.  She also insists she won't be potty trained until she is a big girl. 

Really hoping she just thinks 8 comes next, the way Lola the Chihuahua is a kitty.  But if it turns out she wants to be stubborn about things...I'm doing her 4th birthday party in all Clifford stuff.

Anna at the beginning of her 3 year old year, before she didn't like the Big Red Dog.

 

Blocking the Writer

A writer who stops writing isn't.  That's the problem with being a writer, you're only a writer if you write.   You can be a teacher and have summer vacation.  You can be a lawyer and not have a case.  You can be a mother even if you're not doing anything, even if not doing anything is so rare as to be thought mythical.  But writing and being a writer requires daily production and lately, I haven't had the time, energy or drive to write.  Writers if they're professionals, write when they're not inspired. They write 1000 words a day minimum even if it gets edited down to two.  

I've done that but lately, it's been more, other things had to take priority and so writing always came last.  After a week of letting writing be last, I began to feel shaky about being a writer, knowing I'd logged only about 2000 words that week, an all time low even factoring in weeks I took off from writing and those when I gave birth!  Reading and researching still count toward growing one's skills as does editing, but to be a writer, you have to churn words the way Michael Phelps swims laps.  You can't be a writer if you don't write, you can only be a want-a-be-writer if you make it a hobby. 

So I spent the day looking for something, anything to carve out a column from, and found my writing senses decidedly dulled, blunted by the lack of use, as if brain atrophy had already taken over when I'd jogged those mental muscles for 365 days a year for now going on 7 years.  It doesn't take much for the brain to stop playing with words, just neglect which turns to sloth which turns to never.  I can easily recall days when columns hung low like ripe fruit, but today, the harvests are few and the labor much.

Fortunately, I belong to a writer's forum where the leader/president of the writing group discusses common aliments of writers, and saw myself in his piece.  His advice? Write the blah blah blah until something better shows up.  Pushing through the fog of writer's block is not because the author/writer doesn't have anything to write, but because the drive/ the heart of writing seems blunted and stunted. The writer doesn't feel like writing.  His prescription? Pushing through by punishing your brain, writing an extra hour or an extra 1000 words.  

So I've started here.  I'll be over on the cloud working on Penelope until I get to 80K.