Seven Quick Takes Friday

1. I love this season. I love the decorations, the food, the gift-giving, the songs, the traditions and most of all, the joy of celebrating our Lord's birth! I am grateful every day for the fact that I'm healthy this year, and can enjoy the season to the fullest. I have been baking, decorating the house, shopping and wrapping, and we are 100% ready for Christmas day. I even have everything I need to make our Christmas dinner, woo hoo!

2. We made a gingerbread house the other day, and gingerbread men with the leftover dough, and I am having to stop myself from ducking into the kitchen every three minutes to eat another one, they are that good. I used coconut oil instead of the prescribed Crisco, because ew! Crisco! and they are soft with just the right amount of chewiness. I am definitely going to add this to our Christmas holiday traditions.

3. One of my favorite things to do to celebrate the holiday is watch White Christmas. I just love that movie; it's so campy and sappy and perfect. I love the whole 50's look, with the skirts and heels and red lipstick, hair perfect in every shot, the girls wearing makeup to bed and everything. It's a sweet little fantasy, a romance with a "misunderstanding" to make things interesting, a musical with kickin' dancing, and it's all for the troops, to boot. We also watch every version of "A Christmas Carol" that we can get our hands on, including the Muppets and the 1936 version, which is my son's and father-in-law's favorite.

4. I am keeping those less fortunate in mind this season, as well. For a few years now we've been setting aside $50 a month for use at Christmastime, and it makes it possible for me to get presents for a family through our Church giving tree. I can't even express the joy I get from being able to do that. I think I may have gone a bit overboard this year, but I have decided I'm just going to be generous and trust that God will find a way to cover it.

5. Christmas is a bit of a difficult time for my husband's side of the family. My FIL's dad died around Christmas, and his mom lost a baby at 41 weeks around this time, too. There was always a kind of sadness and sense of loss attached to the holiday. I know that for many people, this season does bring back hard memories, and it's hard to find joy sometimes. So I try to keep that in mind, and pray for those going through difficulties.

6. Having my kids at home all day is a mixed bag. On the one hand, I love watching them interact with each other and getting to share their enthusiasm for the holiday. We've done a few fun projects (like the gingerbread house) which we just don't have time for usually. On the other hand, it's hard to be without the relief of school so at least I can get a handle on the cleaning and cooking, plus when things go bad, there are more people to escalate the situation.

7. We received a HUGE snowfall yesterday (between 10 and 27 inches in various areas) and it reminded me of that old Chinese story about good fortune and bad fortune. We got lovely snow at Christmas! YAY! Except that my car got stuck in it. Boo! Then the neighbors came and pushed me out! YAY! And then it got stuck again. Boo! But we were close enough to walk home. YAY! But then I couldn't get a meal to a friend with a new baby like I had promised. Boo. But that meant I didn't have to cook dinner for us. YAY! Except we were trapped at home all day. Boo! So the kids built a snow tunnel and played outside. YAY! Which meant they tracked mud and snow all inside. Boo. So I used the opportunity to clean my kitchen floor. YAY! I could go on in this vein for some time but you get the idea. I just thought to myself: God makes all things good for those who love Him. Gotta roll with it, right?

Merry Christmas to one and all!

See Jen's blog for more Quick Takes.

Taking a Leap

It's pretty clear to me what I am being called to do. This post, and this one, and this one, and the first comment on this one all point to the same conclusion: Stop trying to do it all yourself and just give it to God.

And these are all posts within the last week or so.

When I began this blog, I wanted to highlight the ways we, as blessed inhabitants of a wealthy and prosperous nation, can live our lives in solidarity with the poor. My path was waylaid immediately by what I thought at the time was an obstacle: my husband's opposition to giving to charity. So I changed my focus and dedicated myself to budgeting and saving, non-monetary giving, and prayer.

It's not at all that I think I made the wrong choice or anything, but I think I had the wrong attitude about it. I thought at the time, "I'll just do all these things in obedience to what God is calling me to do, and He will change my husband's heart so we'll be able to give to charity." I also thought, "God will help me save money so we will be in a good financial position and have extra to give to the poor."

Um. So. That totally hasn't happened. At all. The irony is, we are in excellent financial position. We have paid off all our debt and saved three to four months worth of salary for emergency spending. My husband has gotten a raise. We've made improvements on our house that actually saved us money in the long run (winterizing, etc.)

But we don't seem to have any money for the poor. My husband had suggested that any money left over in the monthly budget could be split 50/50 between savings and charity. Not only have we not had any money left over for the last year, but we have been overspending our monthly budget by hundreds and hundreds of dollars. In fact, just from overspending, we've gone back into debt.

My husband is dumbfounded. "How is this happening?" he asked me the other night. "We used to be able to get by with less! We have more money than we ever have and we're spending more!"

I didn't have an answer for him, but in praying about it (and reading blogs that coincidentally all say the same things) it seems pretty obvious to me what the problem is. We're not giving God His money. The whole idea of budgeting and scrimping so we can save some "extra" for the poor has the entire thing backwards. We should be giving freely to the poor, and trusting in God to provide for us, as He did when we gave $100 to the IRC instead of buying groceries.

I am petrified. And completely at a loss. This whole trusting God thing is exceedingly difficult for me, and I am very, very worried about how it might affect my marriage. Can I be completely honest? It's not even that I worry about our financial situation, or making my husband mad. My real fear, the deepest, most central fear that's stopping me from taking a leap of faith, is that it won't work, and it will be just one more reason for my husband not to believe in God.

What if we do this, if we give to God and then He doesn't provide? I've seen friends who attempted great things for God fail utterly and completely (in the eyes of the world.) It didn't rock their faith, they were never in a situation where they had no food or no home, and I think it led them to a better place, but as far as my husband is concerned, they listened to a voice that wasn't there and completely ruined their finances. I don't want to fall into a prosperity gospel trap here and move forward recklessly, expecting that strangers are going to drop checks on our porch to pay my kids' tuition. But if my husband and I are not on the same page when it comes to tithing, we might not hear the same message, and what to me is a sacrifice for the greater good might to my husband be a failure or an untenable compromise.

And of course, I care more about what God wants me to do than what my husband may or may not think, but it doesn't seem right to me that I am forced to choose. It doesn't seem to me that God would ask something of me that would harm my marriage.

Which leads me to think that He is in control of this, and that good will come of it.

But I'm still petrified. And I don't know how to start.

Picture credit: Movie still from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, brain child of the illustrious Mr. George Lucas (George Lucas & Jeffrey Boam, Paramount Pictures, Lucasfilm, May 24, 1989.)

7 Quick Takes Friday (Procrastinator's Edition)

1. I left the house yesterday morning at 8:25 and didn't return until 4, then had to accompany my daughter to a Halloween party which began at 6, so I feel I have some excuse for not getting this quick takes out yesterday. (Of course, one might have written it on Thursday were one truly committed to getting it out on time...)

2. I don't know why I can never find the camera when the cutest moments are happening. Last night my daughter wanted to go to the party as Ursula the Sea Witch, so I stuffed two pairs of silver dotted black tights with pantyhose and pinned them to her black skirt/leggings so they looked like tentacles, spread purple eyeshadow all over her face, and put on some red lipstick. The baby, in her borrowed frog costume, couldn't have been cuter. And I went to the effort of doing up my eyes for an Egyptian Queen costume I've had since college...and we could not find the camera for our lives. And then this morning I located it in my purse, where I'm sure I checked last night. Darnit.

3. My son wants to be Lion-O from the Thundercats. I loved the Thundercats as a kid and have been sharing his excitement about the reboot on Cartoon Network. Unfortunately, they don't make Lion-O costumes that you can buy. So since I am a pie-in-the-sky dreamer with an inflated sense of my abilities, a perfectionist, and a procrastinator, I am only about 25% done with the handsewn Lion-O costume I promised to make him for Halloween...which is on Monday.

4. I, um, won't be doing much for the next two days except trying to figure out how to sew a Lion-O costume.

5. I am getting raw milk for the first time on Monday! I am so excited about this. For those who may not know, raw milk is unpasteurized so it contains all the beneficial enzymes that conventional milk does not. I've found a great local source, thanks to Dyno-Mom, with milk from grass fed cows delivered to my area weekly. My daughter is lactose intolerant with constipation and stomachaches, and we have denied her milk for the past 8 months with varying degrees of success. I am so excited that she may do well on raw milk and we can add this important food back into her diet.

6. Every year at Halloween, I go out and buy two big bags of candy (I go for our favorites: Milky Way/3 Musketeers/Snickers combo bag and Reeses Peanut Butter Cups) and every year we get around 10 Trick-or-Treaters, leaving us with 2 lbs of temptation. My kids go out and get tons more, enough to fill up the big black cauldron I have for the purpose, and then spend the next two months begging for candy and throwing tantrums when I remind them it's one piece a day after dinner. So this year, I only bought 16 pieces of candy (2 8-packs at the dollar store.) When my kids bring candy into the house (they've already gotten about 15 pieces from trick or treating at the Halloween party last night, getting "booed" by friendly neighbors, and earning treats at school for good behavior) I'm going to bundle it all together and pass it out to whomever comes to our door. I'm kind of hoping that by not buying very much candy this year, we'll not be left with an insane amount at the end of the holiday. Ideally, I could let the kids gorge for a couple nights and it'll be gone and out of my life. Isn't that the way it's meant to be? I sure as heck don't remember Halloween candy lingering through Thanksgiving!

7. I'm trying not to grocery shop until Tuesday and we're running pretty low on stuff. Anyone have good recipes involving carrots, rice, cannellini beans and frozen fish filets to share?

More Quick Takes at Conversion Diary!

Checking In

I'm still here, just not posting much. I've been such a bad blogger of late. Mostly it's because I'm trying to get a handle on my real life. I found the camera, so I can show you!

This was the parlor with bins from the storeroom in the midst of being organized.


And here are the 5 big garbage bags of clothes donated to Catholic Charities, woo!

I still need to get the study taken care of as it's a huge disaster. I can't even vacuum in here. Baby is adorable and fun, older kids are wonderful though challenging in unique ways. Everything is busy and blessed.

I was thinking yesterday about my efforts to Take the Poor With Me and how limited my success has been because I'm so focused on my family and my home. In some ways, that's not a bad thing. I know my primary vocation is as a wife and mother and God calls me to focus my energies there for a reason. Also, I need to get a handle on our family spending; it blew way out of proportion while I was sick and we still haven't gotten ourselves back on track. Part of that is the vacation we took into the mountains last month, but a large part is also that I'm not taking the time to sit down in front of my spreadsheet. I need to find that time and break it all down or our money gets away from us like a herd of fleeing wildebeests.

However, it is a problem for this blog because instead of reading books and articles about the plight of the poor, I am reading books about food allergies and de-cluttering. Instead of giving money, I am volunteering my time, which gives me even less opportunity for research. Instead of blogging, I am cleaning and cooking.

I have been successful in my prayer life. Anna posted a while back about the power of her daily Rosary, and I've been inspired to dedicate a decade each time I pray. The immediate benefit is that it has brought me a huge amount of peace. Mostly I am praying for the future (my children's chastity, their vocations, our adoption, my husband's conversion) and knowing that I am able to do something NOW about these hugely important issues is very comforting.

I've also been praying for those who suffer. It's so hard for me to calm my spirit when I am troubled by the state of the world. Even something like watching a few minutes of Fiddler on the Roof while the baby is nursing will torment my heart for days. If I can do nothing else for the poor of this world, I can pray for them. I say a Trinity Prayer (Our Father Hail Mary Glory Be) while I wash dishes or fold laundry, offer up my aches and pains, and ask God to bless others when I thank Him for my blessings (like a clean glass of water or my bed.)

I don't know if I will have future insights on this topic. It hasn't stopped being near and dear to my heart, even if I have shifted my focus to my immediate family for the time-being. I am trying, as much as I can, to think of the poor while I am taking care of my family and being active in my community. I am trying to remember that caring for my children is caring for Christ. For now, that's all I am able to do. I hope soon God will show me a way to do more.

Seven Quick Takes Friday

1. I'm back home after my annual trip to northern Michigan. Every year, I compare coming home to re-entry from a space flight: it's fast, rough, and shakes me right down to my cells. Every year I think, "How do I do this all by myself?" and I have a few days of panic. Then I get used to the mess, clutter and craziness and it becomes routine.

2. Dan got me 4 hours with a professional organizer to help me get a handle on the kids toys, storeroom and study. Those who are not married to a practical person might think he was making some kind of statement about my pathetic inability to handle my own house. Actually, he is throwing me a lifeline. When he told me over the phone that he was going to do this, and was this something I would like? I responded YES!! before he even finished the sentence. Solving problems is his love language, so this is the equivalent of diamond earrings from my man.

3. The organizer did not faint, laugh or run screaming when she saw my house. That proved to me she was a true professional! She gave me so many helpful ideas. Nothing earth-shattering, but stuff I wasn't thinking of, like that if I put up some shelves in the playroom, I could keep my 5 year olds toys in separate bins that could be taken down one at a time and played with, instead of having everything in one big bin that then gets dumped on the ground and never picked up. Or that I could move some of the junk cluttering up my bookshelves in the study into the basement closet, which was mostly empty.

4. Of course, sometimes to make things better they have to first get worse, and now my front room is full of bins, clothes piles and bags of stuff to be donated. Here's a picture:

5. I went to take a picture and the camera battery is dead and I can't find the charger in the mess. I'm just going to have to let it go for now and trust that true organization is waiting for me on the other end of this project!

6. Did I mention that she came two weeks ago? I have been trying to do a little every day, but I also have to do my regular job like cook dinner and do laundry, plus I want to do things with the kids, like take trips to the pool while the days are still warm, and of course I'm stopping every hour or so to nurse, change or rock a precious baby, so my progress has been minimal. Maybe I should have had her come after the kids started school...

7. We're heading into the mountains this weekend for our first every family camping trip! Because I am not completely crazy, I rented us a cabin at the Y campgrounds. They have guided outings, a craft lodge, two restaurants and tons of activities for all ages. We're all super excited about it (well, not the baby, but she'll look back on pictures and be happy that she was there from a very young age.) Oh, I guess if I want to take pictures I need to find that battery charger and get it going. Okay, that's all the time we have for today, folks!

Check out Jen's site for more Quick Takes!

Archbishop on the Move

The Archdiocese of Philadelphia has announced today that Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI has appointed Archbishop Chaput to their diocese as a replacement for Cardinal Rigali.

My primal reaction is, "HEY!!! That's MY shepherd!"

Which is, of course, completely uncharitable and unproductive. Still, I can't help but feel sadness at the departure of this wise and inspiring man, who has done so much to guide my faith. I truly admire the spirit he has infused into the Church in Denver.

John Allen has a great interview with him up on the NCR site. I particularly like his description of himself as not conservative, but rather faithful to the traditions of the Church while creative in applying them to modern life. Here's what he has to say about personal prayer:

What about your role as a spiritual leader for the archdiocese? Is there any particular devotion or practice of prayer, for example, that you want to promote?
I'm firmly convinced by a lifetime of being in the church that the traditional practices of the church are the ones we need to follow, and if we follow them, we really will be able to engage in all these issues in an appropriate way. The first thing is regular prayer, and for priests that means the divine office and the daily celebration of the Mass. Beyond that, we should embrace the sacramental life, which means personal confession as well as encouraging others to enter the sacrament of confession. There's also fasting … Jesus tells us that 'some devils can't be driven out without fasting.' We need to find time for spiritual reading, especially the reading of the scriptures. I don't think adding new devotions to the traditional practices of the church is necessary, and sometimes it's confusing and end up sapping away time.
Many people find praying the rosary daily to be a very important thing. Certainly devotion to the Blessed Mother is an intrinsically necessary part of Catholic life, because Mary is the mother of the church and our mother personally. Christ gave us Mary as our mother, and we should take that seriously. If we believe these things and faithfully apply them to our lives, we'll work our way through this.
I think devotion to the saints is also an important part of this. As a bishop, I have a huge devotion to St. Augustine and to St. Charles Borromeo. I've been blessed to have Charles Borromeo as my personal patron. His feast day is my name day. I really do depend on them a lot in the Communion of Saints. Also, St. Francis is in some sense the foundation of my spirituality.

Sigh. Denver's going to miss him so much! No word on his replacement, as far as I know. I hope Philadelphia realizes how lucky they are!

Brain Drain

A really interesting article on brain function appeared in the Atlantic recently. The author intends mainly to show that criminals may not be as culpable as we consider them to be, but his arguments can easily be applied to the poor as well.

Among other things, he writes:

Genes are part of the story, but they’re not the whole story. We are likewise influenced by the environments in which we grow up. Substance abuse by a mother during pregnancy, maternal stress, and low birth weight all can influence how a baby will turn out as an adult. As a child grows, neglect, physical abuse, and head injury can impede mental development, as can the physical environment. (For example, the major public-health movement to eliminate lead-based paint grew out of an understanding that ingesting lead can cause brain damage, making children less intelligent and, in some cases, more impulsive and aggressive.) And every experience throughout our lives can modify genetic expression—activating certain genes or switching others off—which in turn can inaugurate new behaviors. In this way, genes and environments intertwine.

How many of us are guilty of uncharitable thoughts about our charitable giving? Do we give freely of our time and treasure, with love for those we serve, or do we feel in our heart of hearts that they aren't truly deserving because of their attitudes or choices? If someone is struggling with an addiction, are we less inclined to help them? What about someone who is fired from job after job for being late or insubordinate? What about the attitudes that are shaped by a lifetime of poverty: the hopelessness, the resentment, the depression and apathy?

Having struggled briefly with depression myself, I have a whole new understanding and compassion for others in that situation. It took every bit of strength I had to cart the kids from activity to activity. Sometimes I would sob while driving (very dangerous.) I functioned like an automaton, cooking dinner, putting it on the table, and eating it in silence. My relationships suffered, I lost all my creativity, and everything felt as if it took so much more effort than it was worth.

The scariest part was the feeling that I had completely lost control of who I was. I didn't WANT to scream at my children over every little thing. Yet I watched myself do things I didn't want to do, and had no power to stop.

If you can, imagine growing up in an environment that alters your very brain chemistry. Physical or sexual abuse, maternal drug use, mineral deficiencies, and lack of access to health care can shape behavior by altering the normal pathways in the brain. This can make people more aggressive or impulsive, impair their reasoning, or increase the likelihood that they will commit a crime or use drugs.

It would be nice if we were all dealt a fair hand, but that simply isn't the case. The fact is that those in impoverished areas have to work twice twice as hard (if not more) to achieve success as those of us born to privilege, and there is less margin for error. In many cases the problems we encounter (abuse, illness, mental disorders, job loss, natural disasters,) or the bad choices that we make, cause only temporary setbacks in our lives. We have a network that assists us in recovering. The poor not only encounter more problems (due to both environmental and physical factors) but have less ability to recover and less assistance, too.

This doesn't mean that we should write off bad choices or give blindly without considering how the money is being used. Whether someone steals because of dysfunctional brain chemistry or lack of education or desperation, stealing is still wrong. As a society, we can't tolerate behavior that harms our framework of individual rights. However, I feel strongly that our approach should reflect an understanding of the root causes and address them appropriately.

Tying food or housing assistance to behavior compliance doesn't help someone when their problem is physical. The more I work with at-risk populations, the more I have come to believe that access to heath care is the primary need, and that housing and food assistance will be less necessary if populations are healed from addictions and mental disorders. One of the many reasons I like Catholic Charities is that they have a comprehensive program to help people spiritually, physically and emotionally.

I have always wondered how those in prison ministry are able to love those who are unlovable. Perhaps they understand intuitively what science is just beginning to grasp: that people are more than their choices, more than their circumstances or desires. God, who sees into the heart of each person, loves each of us with an abiding and consuming love -- enough to die for us. That sort of love is a hallmark of Christian faith, and something that I hope to cultivate in my own life much more deeply through compassion and forgiveness, especially of those who I don't believe deserve it.