Back Bay View

A mixed review

2012-02-11T07:23:00.001-06:00

Is the weekend already here? Where did the week go? I think I spent most of the week in a tizzy over my inability to make decisions. I certainly didn’t spend it winning any home school of the week awards.

It IS February. That time of year when thou mayst in me behold lethargy, apathy, and general malaise. I spent most of yesterday ignoring my children, hiding in the bathroom and the back porch, in order to read a frustrating book. Actually, it was a book I could have loved and I would’ve loved, if it weren’t for a few choices the author made. The book is The FitzOsbornes in Exile by Michelle Cooper, written for young adults. It is the second in a series, but I didn’t realize that when I checked it out from the library. The concept is fun: a group of 4 young royals (and their illegitimate cousin) from the sovereign island nation of Montmaray, hypothetically across from the coast of Spain, escape to England to live with their aunt when their island nation is captured by the Nazis. It’s 1937, and the aunt wants the girls to be debutantes, so there’s talk of dresses and parties, but the two older girls (actually cousins) are more interested in British literature and pre-World War II politics. The aunt supplies all the finery for coming out and sets up their social calendar. Even though they are royals, their nation was not rich, and they lived like commoners there. So they have to learn how to behave in society and figure out how to reclaim their island, if they can.

In the meanwhile the Germans are advancing across Europe, but the British are adhering to their policy of nonintervention. So the young FitzOsborne’s cause scandal with their bad manners and for standing up to Fascists and stuffy Conservatives. They don’t quite go to the length of becoming Communists, but they and all of the smart characters are atheists; even the Jewish tutor is an atheist Jew. The only religious character is the crazy house-keeper who is locked up in the insane asylum because she attempted to murder one of the main characters. In addition to being an atheist Communist sympathizer, the young king of Montmaray is in love with his male cousin. I think he’s supposed to be a version of Sebastian Flyte from Brideshead Revisited, but neither he nor his sisters have any angst over his sexuality or lack of faith. They are all too enlightened.

They aren’t able to win back their country, but they do make the government aware of their plight. The book ends with World War II just about to explode, and the sequel is on the way. I wish I could like this book and look forward to the sequel, but I’m frustrated by young adult books that try to undermine faith and morals. I have a double standard for books for kids – I don’t mind reading about an atheist in a book written for adults, but I don’t want my kids reading books that normalize behaviors that I don’t want them to have. Is this being a controlling parent? I visited the author’s blog to find out more about her and came across this discussion: http://michellecooper-writer.com/blog/2011/11/that-gayya-thing/ . Interesting. I guess I’m one of those readers like the Youth Librarian who holds YA lit to a different standard. Censorship of children's books is an issue I have conflicted feelings about. I want to hide from issue books, if not hide them.

They made a good choice

2012-02-10T03:58:00.000-06:00

Wendell Berry was chosen by the NEH to present the 2012 Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities.

http://www.neh.gov/news/archive/20120206.html

It would be a treat to attend.

from An Embarrassment

If a lonely soul
did ever cry out

in company its true
outcry to God,

it would be as though
at a sedate party

a man suddenly
removed his clothes

and took his wife
passionately into his arms.

Shakespeare: always timely

2012-02-06T22:26:00.002-06:00

On the docket for tonight’s class: A Midsummer Night’s Dream. I’ve asked the students to bring in lyrics to a love song of their choosing to compare to the theme that the course of true love never did run smooth. I mentioned it to a friend, who warned me that I may get some undesirable language. We may have to do some bowdlerizing.

While searching around for fun ideas, I came across this video:

From the article at The Guardian:

The danger – if there is one – in such an approach, is that it might be seen as both patronising and naff to use hip-hop as a backdoor to introducing young people to what is often viewed as "high culture". Is turning Sonnet 18 into a rap the equivalent of turning children's food into funny animal shapes in order to get them to swallow something unpalatable? Keith Saha runs the innovative 20 Stories High theatre group in Liverpool and he thinks it can be if it's handled wrongly. "All sorts of industries use hip-hop as a branding tool to sell to a yoof market that they don't understand and can't connect with," he says. "Unfortunately, the arts, and theatre in particular, is one of them. Akala is a great example of a genuine artist who has a passion for both hip-hop and Shakespeare and what he does really works. But a lot of the time big arts organisations are clueless in how to attract young people to their venues; they have boxes to tick in terms of attracting new audiences and the results can be embarrassing, misguided and often offensive."

I may be one of the "clueless," but I'm not opposed to trying to make Shakespeare more accessible.

Akala says the aim isn't that limited: "It's about showing them what's attainable. And if Shakespeare is presented as the most unattainable, highbrow entity, but then it's made relevant to them, what else might be? It's part of a wider effort to open kids up to what they wouldn't traditionally be interested in." Chanelle Newman, project manager for the Hip-Hop Shakespeare company, is already seeing the effects. "By the end of the workshops you get to see that it opens their mind up to other things such as theatre acting or going to see more Shakespeare plays. "

Too bad the classroom doesn’t have wi-fi.

Ironically, or not, this theme ties in nicely with our life lately. My husband and I spent about a few days last week at cross purposes. Miscommunications, perceived slights, wrongs resurrected – the typical angsts of marriage. So it’s not surprising that the sparring between Oberon and Titania caught my attention. When lovers are at odds, all else in the world seems disordered. Thankfully, our quibbles have nought to do with infidelity, but it would be nice if we could argue as eloquently as this :

O: Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania.

T: What jealous Oberon? Fairies, skip hence.

I have foresworn his bed and company.

O: Tarry, rash wanton. Am not I thy lord?

T: Then I must be thy lady; but I know when thou hast stolen away from Fairyland

Fortunately, like Oberon and Titania, our moods are as inconstant as the moon, and after a decent sleep, all is reconciled and right with the world:

O: Come, my queen, take hands with me,

And rock the ground whereon these sleepers be.

Now thou and I are new in amity,

And will tomorrow midnight solemnly

Dance in Duke Theseus’ house triumphantly

T: Come, my lord, and in our flight

Tell me how it came this night

That I sleeping here was found

With these mortals on the ground.

Providentially, one morning I opened up Benedictus (recycling through) to this quote from Pope Benedict:

“No one can arrive at knowledge of himself just by looking within himself and trying to build up his personality from what he finds there. Man as a being is so constructed for relationships that he grows in relation to others. So that his own meaning, his task in life, his advancement in life, and his potential are unlocked in his meetings with others. From the starting point of this basic structure of human existence we can understand faith and our meeting with Jesus.”

Growing in relation to others is sometimes painful, but always fruitful. Does literature count as a meeting place with others? Can this class become a meeting place to grow in knowledge of self? Reminds me of this article: Can Tolstoy Change Your Marriage?

from http://29.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lu82zpVNoc1qdrwy3o1_500.jpg

January Reading

2012-02-04T04:42:00.000-06:00

On the plane ride to and from the states I got quite a bit of reading done. I spent a number of hours engrossed in the literature textbook for my class, but I also did some fun reading. Only some of the reading wasn’t fun because it made me second-guess my own choices.

First, I finished the biography of Mother Antonia, which was inspiring and made me question yet again whether I am doing enough, whether I am doing what I’m supposed to be doing. Am I satisfied being a status quo Christian? Shouldn’t I be working a little harder to do something radical for Christ? I could give more. And yet I fail at the very things that are closest, that need to be done most: prayer, loving my family, reaching out to neighbors. Mother Antonia was twice divorced, she raised 7 kids, and then she made private vows and went to live with Mexican prisoners in Tijuana. Eventually her vows were recognized by her bishop. But here is a woman who followed a call to the extreme.

We have friends here who are foster parents. There are three times as many foster children on Guam as there are homes for them. Our friends were hoping to adopt the baby they have been taking care of for six months, ever since she was a few hours old, but her grandfather has now decided he wants her. They are crushed. It’s like having a death in a family. I admire them for being so generous, but I have these little pinpricks of guilt that I keep using the excuse that we would be ineligible to be foster parents because we have too many children and not enough room in our house or car. And could I love a child and then give her back to a situation that I know is not perfect?

The other book that got under my skin was Atlas Shrugged. Read it for the spouses' book club. I’m pretty sure few or none of the other ladies will stick through the whole 1026 pages, and I almost quit on it myself. I admit I skimmed quite a bit of the last half. The book needs a good editor. I don’t think you could argue that here is a work of great literature. The characters are flat, the premise is preachy, the language is utilitarian. The plot is interesting, but slow moving. It’s Ayn Rand’s philosophy that makes the book interesting and compels you to keep reading, and to question how you support your beliefs under a well-thought out attack like this one. Reading it on the tail of reading Mother Antonia’s story was a real study in contrasts.

I last read Ayn Rand back in my late teens and was intrigued by The Fountainhead, enough so that I thought it was romantic to fall in love with an architect myself. But I didn’t get all the ramifications of her philosophy back then. I think all I took away was that you should always try to do your best, and that geniuses have to be content to walk alone or suffer persecution. But now I see how passionately she wanted to overturn the prevailing Christian message of self-sacrifice as the highest good. And she makes a strong argument for how this message has been abused by those in political power.

Her philosophy relies on her faith that if people felt free to pursue their self-interest, they would choose what is best. She didn’t believe in original sin. Nor did she believe in self-sacrifice. On the one hand, it should be easy to discard her philosophy because it doesn’t fit with human experience. There might be a few men of genius who can look after their own self-interest without becoming selfish, but the rest of us have to contend with selfishness, jealousy, laziness, gluttony, etc. Plus where do children and old people fit in her vision of society? On the other hand, what gives her book power is the realism of the bad guys and their misuse of language. She seems prophetic in her depiction of the government using the language of Christianity - love, self-sacrifice, mercy - to justify socialism and the leveling of society. Especially in light of the recent efforts to quash religious liberty and the implosion of the economy, Rand’s book made me wonder how it could be possible to reclaim these words.

And now I need to go reclaim an attitude of love towards my children who are berating each other while I let them sort out their conflicting self-interests because I’m busy pursuing my own.

On Looking into Fitzgerald's Sophocles

2012-01-30T03:12:00.000-06:00

It’s been a busy week since my return. We’re back into the throes of homeschooling, and I’ve begun teaching a literature class at the community college. After the second meeting, a student came up and asked what kind of group projects we were going to do. Ahhh, I usually don’t love group projects. He encouraged me to include a lot of interactive activities, and he mentioned that the students were having trouble understanding me. I guess I talk too fast and too soft. An air conditioner runs in the middle of the room, so that makes hearing difficult. And I have a this midwestern accent. I also need to remember that none of these students is a literature major. This is a general education course for them.
Looks like I have some work to do. I’ve got to come up with some ideas to make this stuff interesting and engaging. The class runs from 8-9:30 pm, so whatever we do also needs to keep everyone awake. Anyone have any suggestions for making introduction to literature classes fun and exciting? In college, I just liked reading the stories and talking in class. As a matter of fact, I hated group projects. But I’m going to have to stretch myself if this is going to work.

We’ve started the course with Oedipus the King. I decided to do drama first because this is the oldest text in their anthology, after Antigone. I like chronological order as an organizing tool, and drama has the added benefit of being easy to read aloud. We'll end the semester with poetry, which has a lot of possibilities for projects, but it is going to be a challenge to find projects to go with the short stories.

Tomorrow night is our last of three classes on Oedipus, and then we move to A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The kids know little to nothing about Greek mythology, but seem interested in it, so I’m going to bring in some artwork, since MND also alludes to Greek mythology. For a project, I think I’m going to have them get in small groups and come up with a short skit about what happens to Oedipus next. Then surprise! I can tell them about Antigone and Oedipus at Colonnus.

Does that sound fun? Personally, I’d rather sit around and discuss Oedipus’s search for his identity, since this is a theme tugging at my heart right now. “Fate and Free Will” is always advertised as the main theme, but Oedipus’ search for knowledge of the truth strikes me as just as considerable. Should Oedipus have given up his search and remained comfortable, or did he make the right choice in pursuing truth, despite the suffering he has to undergo? While “Could he escape his fate?” is an interesting question, I think the students may find it more relevant to ponder what consequences come from a lack of self-knowledge. Creon tells Oedipus after he is completely humbled by the truth that “you are ready now to listen to the god.” The position of suppliant makes Oedipus an even greater man. I suppose it would be too personal to ask students to share about a time they were forced to confront an uncomfortable truth about themselves… maybe this is on my mind because married people are forced to face those kind of truths all the time.

The other theme that resonates with me while reading Oedipus this time around is “exile.” Exile is nearly equivalent to death to the Greeks. When did the fear of exile lose its power? When travel became easier? During the age of exploration and adventure? The age of colonization? Does anyone fear exile any more? I suppose jail is a kind of exile. Exile is a symbol for being at odds with God, out of touch with divine order. Another sort of alienation from truth. Personally, I find being far from roots both exhilarating and exhausting. At times a sort of frenetic state of indecisiveness threatens to overwhelm me. It takes time and energy to figure out where to go and what to do and whom to turn to in a new place. And when I fail to cultivate a true sense of directedness toward heavenly things, the things of earth can threaten to engulf my wellbeing.

Returning to these familiar books is a sort of antidote, a reminder that here are things I love, things I’d forgotten I loved, things that point to the beyond. Sophocles, I’ve missed you! Mr. Robert Fitzgerald, I love your note on translation that almost needs its own translation! “The style of Sophocles was smooth. It has been likened by a modern critic to a molten flow of language, fitting and revealing every contour of the meaning, with no words wasted and no words poured on for effect. To approximate such purity I have sought a spare but felicitous manner of speech, not common and not ‘elevated’ either, except by force of natural eloquence.” Eloquence, indeed. Dear students, I may fail to impress one single bit of knowledge on you, other than that there are people out there that love this stuff, and it is up to you to figure out why. And maybe in the process you’ll fall in love with it, too.

There and back again

2012-01-25T17:54:00.002-06:00

Guess where I’ve been?

The Land of Ice and Snow

back home…

I hesitate to write “home.” But really, why can’t I have two homes? I have my home with the family I’ve made with my husband and six kids, a place that shifts locale every couple of years, and I have my rest home, heh heh. Other people have summer homes where they go when they have time off of work; I spend a couple of weeks a year at my old Indiana home with my extended family instead of going to Disneyworld or Naples, FL. And every time it feels like coming home, that happy, peaceful, want-to-hug the whole world kind of feeling.

When we moved to Guam, I really didn’t expect to return to the mainland for at least a year, but I flew back to Indiana last week, a trip that averages about 20 hours or so, depending on layovers and headwinds, to see my grandmother, who has an unidentified, fast-growing tumor. My husband suggested it would be better to go home now and have a good visit (and be able to get a ticket for less than $1500) instead of waiting until the last minute, and maybe missing it.

Chicago snow removal crews at work

And I did have a good visit, a really good visit. Was it because I was traveling without the kids? My husband took a week of leave to be the home school dad, while I played globetrotter. I have to admit, it is a lot easier to maneuver through security when traveling solo. And all the reading time! Instead of stressing about losing a child or breaking a tchotchke, I was positively giddy when we touched down in Chicago, and I could browse the duty free shops and people watch while sipping a fresh brewed coffee. (Fashion! Taste! Grumpy delayed travelers! The drama of young lovers saying goodbye!) I’m sure I irritated some busy businessmen rushing to the gates with my dreamy stroll through the terminal.

First sight in the Indpls airport. It reads: Back home
on the ground we discover that the gift the great wings
gave us is new eyes to see that this place where we live
we love more than we knew.

But I was sorry my husband and kids missed out on the reunion with family. They would have been thrilled to play in a little snow with their cousins and then drink hot chocolate in front of the fire place. It felt so good to be cold! And then to pull on jeans and a sweater and feel cozy! Better still was to burrow under about 5 or 6 layers of blankets and flannel sheets and to lay my head in a nest of pillows after a long day of travel and talking. Sweet sleep!

My Old Dog who stayed behind. He likes winter too much
to move to the tropics.

Although I missed the fam, it was nice to be available to my mom and grandmother, who ended up being hospitalized with pneumonia a couple days after I arrived. We spent the better portion of three days visiting in the hospital. My role was to park the car after dropping people off at the door, to go get snacks from the hospital café, and to be a distraction. Since grandma was in the hospital, some of the cousins I haven’t seen in awhile also came by, so I was happy to catch up with them, especially since one just got engaged after a long search for Mr. Right.

When she was well enough, my grandmother came back to my mom and dad’s house. She has lived on her own up to this point, but my parents are anxious for her to live with them. This is supposed to be a temporary stay until she regains her strength after the pneumonia, but eventually it will become permanent. She keeps insisting she wants to go home, but after having some long conversations about her childhood and her years as a mom, she seemed to find some comfort in seeing a pattern of daughters taking care of their mothers. Her grandmother lived with her and her parents until she was 8 or 9 years old, and then 30 some years later, her mother moved from Oklahoma to Indiana to come live nearby, and eventually with her. And now another 40 some years later, it is her turn to live with her daughter. More than once she told her nurses how grateful she was to have a daughter, even though she doesn’t like being bossed around.

My sister and I had the opportunity to tell my mom what to wear while getting ready for our night out to the Indianapolis Symphony’s Happy Hour concert, a treat for me since there aren’t many concerts on Guam. This was a great excuse to indulge the desire to play dress up. Since I didn’t bring any dressy clothes of my own, I was able to beg, borrow, and then get my niece to steal my sister’s favorite boots for the occasion.

The Happy Hour series is designed to attract young professionals with an early start time, free hors d’oeuvres and drinks, and experimental music, and the formula is working. The symphony center was packed, mostly with people in their twenties. I felt old. Back in the days when my grandparents used to take us to performances, you rarely saw anyone without gray hair, except for a few awkward orchestra students like myself and my sister. But this group was young and hip and enthusiastic. And the performance, led by a trio of young graduates from the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, one of whom is the concertmaster for the ISO, who perform as Time for Three, and vocalist Shara Worden of My Brightest Diamond, who sounded something like Bjork, was energetic and engaging. The hors d’oeuvres were the only disappointment, so we had to stop for a bite to eat and more conversation before heading home.

Not only was I able to catch up with mi familia, I was also able to catch up with the news. Do I admit I had never heard of the candidate who dropped out of the GOP primary race? I watched one of the debates with my dad and still remain undecided. Surely the right guy is out there somewhere…

I also didn’t know the Superbowl was going to be in Indianapolis until I was departing the plane and saw the logo on the ramp. Downtown was already decorated: roads rerouted and renamed, new murals on the overpasses, football sculptures in the planters. We went to Mass in our favorite downtown church and heard parking directions for the next week. Then we ate at a favorite kosher deli and saw welcome fans signs.

And then I got hooked on Downton Abbey, after watching with my sister in between watching the Golden Globes. I haven’t figured out whether it’s on here in Guam, but my kids will be so thrilled that I want to watch TV!

The entire visit was confirmation that I have much to be thankful for. I’m grateful that I have cousins who are more than just names. We grew up together, and although we don’t see each other often anymore, the bonds of those childhood relationships stretch over a lot of years. We slip back into conversation easily. I’m also grateful to have parents I love who welcome me home, despite all the grief I gave them as a teenager. They have taught me a lot about generosity and forgiveness. They live in a beautiful place. They even get up at 3:30 in the morning to drive me to the airport after an ice storm. And I have a sister whose friendship is a constant comfort. It is good to have someone you can fight with and share clothes with, who knows your flaws, and still wants to spend time with you. Maybe the peace of being with family is the lightness from removing all the layers of accumulated self.

And of course, one of the best parts of being away is returning, and the thrill of seeing seven joyful faces greeting me after a long, tiring journey. They all were overflowing with stories about their week that they vyed with each other to tell first. No matter how good the vacation may be, with these seven is where I belong. Ideally, we’d live down the gravel road from grandparents, but time and distance are relative, a truth that is hammered home when you cross the International dateline. Is it Friday or Saturday? I came home to a clean house and happy kids, proof that my husband loves me. And now we’re back in the swell of life that rushes us along. All too soon I can see myself where my grandmother is, looking back at her story. I pray that, like her, I’ll have loved ones around with whom to share these memories.

With my grandmother, Christmas 2010

Garden Critters

2012-01-11T06:23:00.004-06:00

Some creatures lately sighted around the house:

Friendly neighborhood banana spider

Baby banana spiders. They grow fast.

A new praying mantis

Another mantis nymph

Mantis nest on our Barbados cherry tree

Mom or dad mantis? on the plumeria

One of multiple geckos who live on our porch.
I never knew geckos clicked.

Potter wasp and nest

Remnants of sea creatures

Mantis laying a nest on the porch screen.

Leaf hopper

A book review for 2012

2012-01-08T21:39:00.000-06:00

I don’t know what it is with starting the new year by reading a disappointing book three years in a row. I just finished John Connolly’s The Book of Lost Things, and have to rescind any suggestion that it should be recommended to young readers. I’m sure I read a positive review of this book somewhere; if I remember, I’ll be much more conservative in what I take as a recommendation from this source in the future. On the other hand, I can’t stop thinking about this book; I can’t figure out just what stance to take on it.

This is not a book for children, even though it I picked it off the YA shelf. It’s a part of the trend in YA lit, movies, tv shows, etc., to use fairy tales as part of the plot. A lot of the familiar conventions are present: wolves lurking in the woods, brave knights, trolls under bridges, but the familiar tales are revised to make them more into a nightmare of a fairy tale. The story begins sadly with the death of a young boy’s mother, and just keeps getting darker and more frightening. Connolly graphically describes decaying bodies, attacks by wolves, impaled heads, and severed hands and appendages, to name just a few of the nightmarish details.

The plot follows a typical coming of age tale: a young boy’s mother dies, so his father remarries and has a new baby. First son thinks stepmother is wicked and fears that father’s love is lost, and can’t get over the loss of his mother. A Trickster begins to lurk in the shadows, and one day the boy is pulled into fairytale land, but this land is bleak, in perpetual twilight, and peopled by some of the scariest villains I’ve ever encountered. Connolly seems to be able to combine some of the worst fears of childhood into beasts that surpass the usual witches and demons: wolves that are part human, a huntress who cuts up children and animals and then combines them together to make new prey to hunt, a monster that splits open and disgorges maggot-like offspring, a cannibalistic, bloated Snow White. Hints are dropped about bestiality, incest and pederasty. The boy’s protector is a gay knight who disparages religious faith and leads him into a sorceress’s castle where he thinks he finds his mother, but ends up having to fight this whirling eyed, fanged sorceress in a battle described in horrific detail.

I remember reading those English fairy tales about babies being eaten and giants being cut in half and the heads of fair maidens hanging by their hair. But Connolly seems to take the gore a step further. Yet I couldn’t stop reading. I kept thinking that soon I would get to the redemptive ending part. And the book does end with the boy making all the right choices in order to vanquish evil. Although he has lost his innocence, he returns home with a greater empathy for his parents and with a mature acceptance of his place in the world, despite some foreknowledge of more sorrows to come. All the scary things were in some way related to his fears about being unloved and left out and about the war. The ending leaves open the reality of the fairy tale land, with a strong suggestion that it exists only in the boy’s subconscious mind, but Connolly also makes it seem just real enough that a kid reading this book would be so drawn in by the vividness of Connolly’s descriptions to believe in it.

Although I objected to the content of this book on a number of levels, especially as a book for young readers, there’s just enough of interest in it to prevent me from just throwing it in the trash. While reading, I questioned whether I should finish; after reading, I questioned what kept me reading. What is it about scary stories? Is it the need for catharsis? The need to witness a hero vanquishing the dark? I read a couple Stephen King books as a teenager and still remember the grip of fear that compelled me to keep reading until the end, even though I felt like I had to read them on the sly – another reason to feel fearful.

Connolly does write with talent, although some of the horror feels forced; he picks up on things that make kids squirm, like suggestions about their parents’ love lives, about betraying their siblings, about the possibility of the imaginary world bleeding into the real, shadow people lurking in dark corners. These things make me squirm. And what makes me squirm more is trying to hate this book that has so much ugliness but also some truth, so that I might have to go back to it again to nail down what to think about it. Or I could just be content with the dichotomies, and accept the contradictory feelings this book draws out.

Resolution time

2012-01-04T23:25:00.000-06:00

I've been trying to come up with some meaningful resolutions, and this year I'm going practical. In the past, I've been a little more namby-pamby, which is a set-up for forgetting what my resolutions are (ah, the usefulness of a blog: Here is a link to what I said last year and the year before!).

But I still like the idea of resolutions, so I am not giving up at trying to reform my wayward soul. Actually, after watching the 7th part of the Catholicism series last night on saints, I'm inspired. Fr. Barron comes down hard on those of us who excuse ourselves from trying to be a saint because we can't see how we compare to the giants of faith. He urges us to reject spiritual mediocrity, or at least to give up making excuses for not trying to be a saint. So after watching this dvd, I realize I really should resolve to

1. Refocus yet again on loving God and my neighbor, especially, as Mother Teresa reminds us,* the neighbors who live in my house. Which in practical terms, means ... um.... responding with love ...hm ... maybe what I should work on is affirming others. I often forget to dole out praises, among other ways in which I fail to love without limit.

and 2. Read more Edith Stein and finally read Story of a Soul.

So those are my Spiritual goals. I figure my list of books to read lays out some Intellectual goals. I am still waiting to hear if I am going to get to teach a class next semester, but even if I don't, I want to reread another Shakespeare play, yet to be determined, and Oedipus Rex. And I'm working on my syllabus. I keep getting sidetracked by good quotes and diversions. I have to thank Sally, I think, for the recommendation of Perrine's Sound and Sense. A very sensible literature textbook. Love it. Another little gift to myself.

On to Practical Goals: First and foremost, I am resolving to drink more water. Water, water, water. I am vowing to drink at least one glass of water for each cup of coffee, plus water at every meal. When I was in training mode back in college, I used to keep a water bottle with me at all times. I would drink 3 or 4 20 oz. glasses of water or diet sprite mixed with cranberry juice at every meal in the olde dining hall. Back in my nursing days, I was always thirsty, so I did a little better, but I've realized lately that I can go all day drinking nothing but coffee. Not advisable in a climate where the temps never dip below 75. Wrinkles are showing up everywhere, which reminds me of those articles about supermodel health secrets: They all listed drinking water as their secret weapon against aging. I'm probably too late to slow the aging process, but at least I can try to avoid getting dehydrated on a trail run.

If I can keep up with watering myself, I think this will be the year I start increasing my mileage running. I'm already doing a bit more, but I think one of these days I'm going to do either a half or full marathon. I have run one of each, and still remember the emotional high of completing them, although I think I have forgotten most of the pain. I realize this is not a very forceful statement of intention because it could conflict with resolution number 1. The catch: finding time to train without taking away from family and reading time. Too many good things in life.

Finally, I'd also like to get involved in some kind of community service project. I truly miss our visits to the nursing home back in Mississippi, and my minimal work with St. Vincent de Paul, where I answered phones and listened in to the always interesting conversations of the clients. I also admire a friend here for being involved in foster care. Our Thanksgiving service with Salvation Army was a good time, but it was a one-time event. I haven't yet figured out where my place is, and "volunteerism" is not a big movement here. I miss being a part of a parish in the community, although I think we're in the right place in the chapel on base. Excuses, excuses, I know. So I resolve to come to a resolution about this resolution soon.

*The quote from Mother Teresa: It is easy to love the people far away. It is not always easy to love those close to us. It is easier to give a cup of rice to relieve hunger than to relieve the loneliness and pain of someone unloved in our own home. Bring love into your home for this is where our love for each other must start.

What can you do to promote world peace? Go home and love your family.

Next up: Reading Goals for 2012

2012-01-02T06:44:00.000-06:00

I have a few books already in a stack to be consumed. I’m still reviewing short stories from Gioia and Kennedy’s Literature text in hopes of getting a class at the community college here. Will know soon if the class makes. I may have doomed it by asking to teach a class from 8 to 9:30. P.M. Crazy, but that was a slot they had. I didn’t make it up.

Some recent purchases I have to get to: I bought Cutting for Stone for the Navy wives’ book club which I’m hosting. It hasn’t showed up yet. Maybe I’ll get it in time to read on my flight to Indiana. For February they’ve picked Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, which was the people’s choice for best book of the century in one old list I found amongst my notes. I am debating reading this. I read it as a high school student and felt smart for reading such a big book. That’s about all I remember about it, although I can remember bits about The Fountainhead, maybe because it featured an architect, and just a couple years after reading it I started dating an architect. And since he was a nicer guy than the character in the book, I married him.

Next up: some purchases I made for the kids: The Book of Lost Things by John Connelly. Looking forward to this one. I also have been meaning to read the series of “Secrets” by Pseudonymous Bosch, which my 11 year old has been enjoying, but I’m really not sure if I’ll get around to them. My sixth grader also wants me to read The Last Hero books, but after reading the first round of Percy Jackson books, I’m not really in the mood for more. We started reading The Wizard of Oz outloud before Christmas, but lost momentum, so we’ll return to that. We'll read Galen and the Gateway To Medicine aloud since we'll be studying Rome. And I realized the 5 year old has missed out on a lot of Beatrix Potter and Winnie the Pooh. I'm not sure she even knows some of the classic fairy tales. There are definitely holes in her education.

I gave myself Wendell Berry’s collection of poetry Leavings as a present for home schooling and look forward to reading ISI’s new The Humane Vision of Wendell Berry, especially since I have to brag that I know some of the contributors.

I also bought Flannery O’Connor’s Mystery and Manners for myself – part of my “pro gear?” - when I was ordering home school books. What's one more small volume, especially one I have checked out from the library multiple times.

Back in when I was ordering school books, I also bought Fr. Robert Barron’s Catholicism to read. We have thoroughly enjoyed the first 6 videos of the series. This purchase was justified since I have confirmandi in the house. Worth the price.

A Protestant friend lent me a book about a nun: Mother Antonia’s Life of Service in a Mexican Jail by Mary Jordan and Kevin Sullivan. I like being loaned books because it forces me to read them, and I'm curious to see what she liked about it.

There are other books I’m tempted to order: one I’ve seen advertised on the Image blog: Bearing the Mystery: An Anthology from Image. I like what I’ve read there. Heather King’s book is also on this list of books I’d like to read if I can make space, physically and temporally and financially. And I sent my year-end list to Semicolon and got these recommendations in return, none of which I've read. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon, Saint Training by Elixabeth Fixmer, and The Passion of Mary-Margaret by Lisa Samson. I'm impressed with her ability to come up with so many titles.

There are so many good books out there! These are just ones I already have piled up. I don't like to prognosticate too much about what I'm going to read, because so often what I read is what I pick up at the library or receive from an friend, but I do want to try to read at least one work by Dickens, one by Shakespeare, and one by a Bronte or Austen, or something similarly British and a couple hundred years old at least, to exercise my brain.

I suppose this is a start of a New Year's Resolution. Can I even remembered what I thought to do last year?

Year-end Reading Review

2011-12-31T19:50:00.003-06:00

It turns out that 2011 was the year of the Classics for me. I finished 71 books this year. A lot of these were rereads or YA books. Since I made my little foray back into teaching at the community college, I also reread a lot of short stories and poetry and essays about these short stories and poetry, and remembered why I wish I could just be a perpetual student. These re-reads were definitely the highlight of my reading year. Rereading monuments of British Lit, Jane Eyre and Middlemarch, with the good ladies of Reading for Believers was another joy.

So without further ado, a short “Best of 2011”:

Favorite YA book: The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak. A moving portrait of unlikely friends and the power of words. But we all got a good laugh out of reading aloud The Best Christmas Pageant Ever.

Favorite Nonfiction: I think I’m going to say A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah. It was striking – both in the subject matter and in the telling.

Favorite Contemporary Fiction: This is a tough call. Can I include Dorothy Sayers’ Gaudy Night as contemporary fiction? Does Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis fall into this category? Mrs. Mike? Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky was another favorite that doesn’t quite fit “contemporary” – maybe I should call it “Favorite book printed in the last 100 years.” Looking over my list, most of the newer books I read were YA books or nonfiction. Not intentionally, but there you go.

Favorite Classic/Reread: Another tough call. This year was heavy on the classics. As much as I enjoyed revisiting Homer, I have to admit I lean toward the 19^th century Brits, Eliot and Bronte, reviewed on Reading for Believers here and here. But I also enjoyed reading Percy and Faulkner again while in their native region.

Best Spiritual: Easier choice: Deep Conversion, Deep Prayer by Thomas Dubay and Light of the World by Benedict XVI. You can’t top the Pope for wisdom. But I was convicted by Dubay’s book. And I stuck with those convictions for about 2 weeks, but I keep remembering them with compunction.

Biggest Waste of Time: One of the first of the year: Nanci Kincaid’s southern chick lit Eat, Drink, and Be from Mississippi, and one of the last: Follet’s Fall of Giants.

The Official Christmas Wrap-up

2011-12-29T23:55:00.002-06:00

Well, we’ve done it. After relying for 15 years on our relatives to give our kids a happy Christmas, we finally had to do it on our own. I was a little worried, especially since as I mentioned, some of our packages didn't arrive. In fact, some Christmas catalogs just showed up today. I don’t know why these marketers waste their money sending us magazines full of flannels and scarves that we are never going to order despite their cozy appearance. Our Christmas looked nothing like the one they are selling - think flip-flops instead of boots, swimsuits instead of sweaters...

But back to the story: After the Christmas baking fail, and making three attempts to get to confession on time, and then a failed attempt to join the homeschool group for caroling at the nursing home, (I wrote down the wrong day and missed it. We took some boxes of toiletries to the home, which was one of the most luxurious nursing homes I’ve ever seen, with a huge nativity set in the beautiful courtyard.) I was a little nervous that the kids might be disappointed with their Christmas. One of the challenges of living on an island is that the stores feature what most people want, and they are not continually restocked. But we managed to find the main things each kid wanted. It helps that my thirteen year old asked for duct tape. I was surprised to find the curlers the girls wanted. And every kid wants band-aids and a toothbrush in his stocking, right? Then we found ourselves the recipients of a few gifts from new friends for whom I hadn’t bought anything to reciprocate. So my Christmas lesson was learning to be a grateful receiver and to swallow my embarrassment. I don’t know if I did a very good job of it. I should draw a religious analogy…

Fortunately, Christmas Eve was a beautiful day. Despite both my husband and I fearing for our sanity, we caved to the kids’ pleas to go to midnight Mass. We started a marathon of Christmas movies early in the evening, rightfully hoping that the youngers would fall asleep and catch a short nap before Mass. The 5 year old didn’t wake up until almost time for Communion, even though we changed her into a velveteen dress just before dumping her in the car.

I felt a little guilty for skipping out on our little chapel community, but the Cathedral Mass was just what we expected: a soul-lifting celebration. The music was breathtaking, the nativity (“belen”) was beautiful (everyone lined up to have their photos taken in front of it), angels were hung all around the sanctuary, the liturgy was both solemn and celebratory. And perhaps the best part was the gift at the end of Mass: the bishop sang “Feliz Navidad” in Chamorro. My husband had earlier commented how every Christmas party ends with that song. At first I wanted to laugh, but the bishop sang so well, with just the right tone of subdued joy, that my heart was won over. At the end of the celebration, the 8 or 10 attending priests came out with lifesize baby Jesus statues for everyone to reverence before they headed off to the courtyard, where hot “bunelos dagu” were served at 2 in the morning. These are fried yam donut holes served with syrup. We were in such high spirits afterward that it was no chore to stay up until nearly 4 doing what parents do before Christmas morning.

And Christmas morning was a flurry of delight. No one was disappointed. We ate chocolate and drank coffee and sang "Happy Birthday Jesus" and called all the relatives to wish them peace and good will.

Even with just a few hours of sleep we were able to pull together a Christmas dinner for friends. One family hosted appetizers, we fixed the main meal, and another family made desserts. It all came together nicely. A few “singles” joined us, including our priest and a favorite ER doctor. Although we missed being with our extended family, it was nice to have a community to share the love with. Everyone went to bed fat and happy.

The rest of our Christmas break has been quiet. I was hoping to write a report of a trip to Japan, but we failed to get seats on a military flight to Okinawa, although we tried twice. Maybe I’ll write that story another time. It would have been a cheap vacation to a foreign country: military flights if space is available are free, we found lodging for $40 a night, and an 8 person rental van for less than $100/day. Instead we’ve been in a lounging mode, conserving energy for next semester, I suppose. The youngers have been putting some miles on their new bikes, and the olders have been reading their comics, Pearls Before Swine, Far-Side, and Foxtrot. They don’t seem to mind that the books show signs of having been purchased used off a major internet retailer.

Our plans for New Year’s Eve are subdued: a family bowling party. But I’ve been taking the time to get some reading done and to semi-plan for school. Perhaps I’ll think of a resolution before the end of the weekend. In the meantime, some of the few Christmas photos. Usually I take enough pictures to fill an album. Next time I'll try to get the settings on the camera right.

Exchanging sibling gifts Christmas Eve. Everyone was thrilled
even with obviously regifted items.

The Cathedral

The belen before El Nino Jesus was brought in.

Wishing Baby Jesus Happy Birthday

The belen completed.

The rush.

New bike, new shoes, new pajamas, new doll, new backpack.

Instead of flying to Okinawa, we explored Tarague Beach.

Finding shells.

Tide pools.

What was found in the tide pool.

A hermit crab nest

from Guam

Christmas Eve Quick Takes

2011-12-23T23:36:00.003-06:00

Christmas Quick Takes

1. I really shouldn’t be doing this right now. My husband is out making a last run to the store. (Next year I’m ordering online EARLY. Multiple gifts have not shown up in the mail.) There are dishes and pans and powdered sugar and crusted debris all over the kitchen. My Christmas baking has been a failure. Shaped sugar cookies? Had to use some whole wheat because I ran out of flour. Chocolate crinkle cookies? Turned into a huge mess of runny dough. Something got left out. Hip Cakes? Underbaked. Can’t figure out how to package. Last ditch effort to make those pretzel bites with Rollos and nuts? Dumped them all over the bottom of the oven. I guess the neighbors are going to get a cheery greeting.

2. My Christmas cards have not gone out yet either. They are in a stack on the table waiting signatures and a short note. My husband doesn’t understand why it takes so long to get these folded up and sent off, and I’m not sure if I do either. Maybe because I keep falling asleep when I try to sign them. Or because I keep getting distracted by kids and other fun things. I keep thinking I might send fewer cards next year. Some of these friends I haven’t seen in 10 years. And some I may never see again. But then I think of how much our family likes receiving cards. I like knowing that someone thought of me enough to spend a couple minutes and $.44 to send me a card. And so I want these people we’ve met over the years and miles to know that I’ve thought of them and remember our friendship fondly. They’ve all touched our lives in some way. And maybe someday we’ll be together at that big Christmas party in the sky.

3. But they’ll have to be reminded of my affection after Christmas, because I’ve been a little distracted. For instance, this morning we played Ultimate Frisbee with some families in the wardroom. This was ultimate fun. I forget how much I love playing games like this with parents and kids. The soccer league also had a parent/child game which was the highlight of the season for me. I don’t have very good skills: I can’t throw a Frisbee straight or kick a ball hard, but I can run around and wave my arms and be a distraction to the dads who pretend not to take the game seriously.

4. Even though it’s “winter,” we spent several hours the other day on a hike to Cetti Falls. I thought it might be a little rigorous because it was an adults only climb, but I didn’t realize it would be an extreme adventure. The hike down the ravine and up the river was easy, but then we reached the falls, which could only be scaled by rope climbing, which I have never done in my life. You grab ahold of an old rope tied off to some rebar on the top of the falls and hope it holds. About halfway up I thought I was stuck. I looked down and realized I was scared to death. But I couldn’t figure out how to get back down. So I had to turn my brain off, brace my back against the side of the rock cliff and actually use my arms to climb. Then when I reached the top of the first climb, I looked ahead and realized the second climb was even higher. Fortunately the last 3 falls were shorter, although one had to be scaled through the water. No dry rock close to the rope line. I will not do this climb again, even though I have insurance. I have a weeping rope burn on my elbow to remind me that I should stick to hikes that don’t require ropes.

5. Extreme sports have not been the only thing that have kept me from Christmas preparations. Last weekend we went to a concert given by the Redemptoris Mater seminary here on Guam. The seminary is fairly new, but housed in a beautiful old hotel with ocean views and a nice courtyard where the concert took place. The seminarians are from all over the world, so their program was appropriately carols from Europe, Central America, the Pacific Islands, and Africa.

The tree. Need more lights.

Finding a place for stockings.

I can’t say the music or the sound system was professional, but the men were having a good time, and so was the audience, even though it rained a bit. The highlight was when the Bishop, who was on his ad limina visit to Rome, Skyped in. The video was projected to big screens, so everyone could see. Unfortunately, the bishop’s computer was low on batteries, so for the first few minutes of the “visit,” he and and his companion/technical consultant, a newly ordained priest from Brazil, were recording in a bathroom outside the Vatican. Then the young priest grabbed the laptop and ran around the piazza so everyone could see the colonnade and the façade. This guy was just like one of our kids in front of the Skype camera: he hopped up and down, gave the peace sign, waved a photo of himself with the Pope, and kept trying to talk over the Bishop about how cold it was in Rome. (40 degrees) It was worth the drive to the seminary.

And now we are large donors to this seminary because we placed the opening bid on a motor scooter in their silent auction. This is not an item that was on our wishlist, although I think my husband has secretly wanted one ever since he spent a year in Rome as a college student. The boys pestered him into making a bid and what he told me is that he thought he would get outbid. I’m sure we can sell this thing eventually, if no one crashes it first, but it was taken up some of our time to get it inspected and registered and insured, since its engine is big enough to fall under the rules for small motorcycles. At least we also got to eat at the seminary; after the concert there was a huge fiesta meal with the amazingly ubiquitous multiplying red rice.

6. Our other Christmas activities have been performing in the evening of lessons and carols at the Chapel. My four younger kids made up exactly half of the children’s choir. Despite sparse attendance, it was a heartwarming service in conjunction with the Protestant community on base. There are surprising talents hidden in the crowd: the Protestant chaplain’s wife plays a lovely bassoon, and it turns out my next door neighbor is a flutist.

7. Then the kids were able to showcase their caroling abilities again last night when we went singing with friends around the neighborhood. I think we frightened the first house we sang to. Everyone was off key, the little kids were scattered across the lawn, the older kids were trying to hide, and people were singing different words to “Joy to the World.” Do you say “Let heaven and nature sing” or “Let saints and angels sing?” Nonetheless, we made a joyful noise, and by the end of the evening everyone’s spirits were high and voices were worn out.

Caroling at the mini-mart.

So tonight we will try to retain our high spirits through midnight Mass. The kids all want to stay up and watch Christmas movies until it’s time to go. My husband and I are wondering how we are going to stay awake. But we also don’t want to dampen their enthusiasm for going to Church. Since this is our first year to be on our own for Christmas, we don’t have a script for how Christmas should go. My hope is that what is under the tree is neither a source of disappointment nor the highlight of the day. Neighbors are coming over for dinner. I’ve got cinnamon rolls from a can for breakfast, a simple pleasure for the kids. We’ll call all the family back home. We’ll try to retain a sense of the sacredness of the day amidst the unwrapping and cooking. And I’ll pray that the spirit of anticipation that marks Advent will continue to inspire a desire for the greater gifts of eternity.

Guam version of a reindeer.

See Jen for more.

From the middle school band concert: Saxophonist extraordinaire.

The Christmas light display at the Air Force base.

Photos from the last couple weeks:

From the Air Force Christmas walk

Guam snow: soap bubbles.

The gingerbread man meets some sweet dudes.

Santa can get on base!

We did not attend this event at the next village over, but we met
a guy who showed us his fighting roosters. They
looked vicious.

Christmas concert link

2011-12-20T19:22:00.000-06:00

St. Thomas Aquinas College has a video and downloadable songs available at their website. A beautiful Christmas gift!

Picking a place to settle

2011-12-19T06:38:00.001-06:00

Several weeks ago, Pentimento posted something about city life that I meant to respond to, but I found I couldn’t quite figure out what I wanted to say. I sympathize with her nostalgia for the place where she spent most of her life. And because most of my growing up was done in a rural setting, my initial response was something of a defense of country life. Anthologies are full of odes to places in the country that have meaning and resonance for poets and artists. And while in a small town, you can't help being known, you can still find places to hide, to escape into obscurity, like the old bridges and cemeteries no one visits anymore.

But I can't really claim that country life has superior merits, because I keep thinking of cities that I have loved. I suppose there are city people and there are country people, like in Aesop’s fable, but I find it hard to argue that one way of life has primacy over another.

I didn’t really grow up in the country, but the town where we lived most of my childhood was more rural than urban. I’ve always sympathized with the country mouse in the fable; Aesop seems to want you to. I wanted to live in the days of Laura Ingalls Wilder and have horses and a goose named Alexgander. I always thought I’d be a farmer’s wife or the farmer when I grew up. My parents waited until I was married with children before buying acreage, and cows and horses and chickens to inhabit the acreage, but I can still claim a family farm in my ancestry.

And now living the country life is cool. It’s what people who are passionate about food do, or people who are passionate about family life, or about wine or about horses. Hasn't there been a minor exodus of people leaving cities for the country with high-minded ideals about sustainable living?

But people who have always lived on farms don’t always come across as passionate. They work hard, they get dirty, they don’t spend a lot of time thinking about what other people think of them. They are a bit grey, like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz says.

And it’s easy to acknowledge the stereotype of the rugged individualist that Pentimento mentions. Most of my parents’ neighbors seem like the kind of people who don’t wait around for things to be done for them. They fix stuff for themselves. They have the equipment and knowledge to move the earth they way they want it to go. In comparison to the do-it-myself attitude of the rural resident, city dwellers seem to be more apt to wait for someone else to fix things for them. I admire the independence of the county dweller; at the same time that I wonder if I could hack it on a farm.

Most of my grown up years have been spent in urban areas, or near urban, although this duty station is different. Since being married, my husband and I have lived in apartments near downtown Dallas, near downtown Newport, near downtown Norfolk, and near "downtown" Biloxi. (When in Illinois we did not live near downtown Chicago, but we lived near the center of our town.) These are small towns in comparison to NYC, but they were an urban enough that I often didn’t need a car, and we could smell our neighbors’ dinners and hear the murmurs of their evening conversations. Sometimes our next door neighbor in Norfolk would chime in to our conversations because we always had our windows open.

I knew her, and now I know all the folks on our street by name, and a good number of those on the next block. But I didn’t know the names of the people who lived on the floor above us in 3 of our first four apartments. And in the fourth one, I didn’t know the guy above us, or the name of our landlord, even though he came to do our yard maintenance very so often, because we worked through a rental agency. This was partly a failure of nosyness on my part. But it was also a necessary form of protecting our privacy, when the neighbors very well could have been privy to the most intimate of our conversations through the waterpipes.

So I have learned to love cities, both because of and despite the anonymity. When we went back to visit Dallas last summer, my heart soared when I saw those great white highway overpasses silhouetted against the cloudless blue sky. A monument to ingenuity.

And I will always feel a rush of adrenalin from driving up from the south to the great crowded toll booths undercharging to experience Chicago, my favorite city. I think I’ve had a peek at some of the US’s biggest: LA’s downtown seemed lifeless in comparison to Chicago, New York too large, Houston too sprawling, St. Louis too shabby. San Francisco was beautiful, but too hip for me. DC is a great place to visit, but I’ve never wanted to live there. Boston has charm, but is too elite for my Midwestern soul. I have to vote for Chicago.

Meanwhile, my parents, out on 80 acres in the center of the Midwest, know their neighbors for the next five miles, and know pretty much everything public about them. Gossip gets traded at the tractor repair shop, at the mini-mart, at the parish festivals. Even in the small town where I did most of my growing up, gossip got around. I couldn’t run around town without wind of my roaming getting back to my family. The grapevine quickly spanned the distances between people. But it didn't reveal motives or interior struggles.

My husband and I have recurring conversations about where we’ll settle when the Navy is done with us. I need green space and open roads too much to make my forever house in a large urban area. But my husband has commented more than once that he is nervous sometimes out in the county. I like to tease him about this, but there was a family a mile or so from my parents’ farm who were massacred by their crazy son-in-law shortly before my parents moved to the area. My husband also is concerned that educational options are limited in the country. Rural living didn’t shortchange people like Thomas Jefferson, but I can’t help but admit that there are more opportunities in an urban area.

So we’ll probably compromise and live in a medium-sized town – maybe a college town. Ideally it would be someplace with a town square that had a good book store and coffee shop, and plenty of places to run. It’s pleasant to daydream about living in one of those lively little vacation towns in the mountains or lakeside like Charlottesville or Berea or in Michigan (although I’m getting spoiled with mild winters).

But in the long run, where I really want to live is close to family. We've been reading The Wizard of Oz outloud lately and came across the source of Dorothy's toe-clicking quote: "No matter how dreary and grey our homes are, we people of flesh and blood would rather live there than in any other country, be it ever so beautiful. There's no place like home."

I hope my kids develop a sense of home. I want them to settle somewhere near us in our old age. I don't think they'll feel called to return to Guam. As much as we try to make our place homelike by hanging curtains and familiar photos and pictures of the family, I still don’t feel rooted here. This is like a 2 or 3 year vacation. Kinda like the rest of our sojourns. Probably what I should be daydreaming about is not the someday home, but about how to live the present wayfarer’s life more fully, more rooted in faith. A good reason to feel grateful for Advent.

Amateur economics

2011-12-15T19:18:00.000-06:00

I have a theory about our economic woes: it’s cheap stuff causing all the problems. I’m no economist, and I’m about six months behind in my contact with the daily news, so don’t quote me. But my thought is that at least one factor in the decline of the economy can be attributed to a decline in quality. It’s all the fault of cheap plastic. If appliances were still made of steel and toys were made of wood and wool, and clothes lasted more than a season, and furniture wasn’t glued together, maybe we wouldn’t be hearing about so many lay-offs because our economy would be built upon things that have value, instead of on products designed to be thrown away after a few uses. If our products are disposable, then it isn’t hard to assume that our producers are disposable, also. And a whole mountain of false wealth has been constructed on goods and services that are unnecessary and without worth. So no wonder it has all collapsed.

I know this theory is full of holes. If things were made better and lasted longer, they would cost more and would be produced more slowly. People wouldn’t be able to buy as much with their dollar. There wouldn’t be as much wealth. Likewise, if small farms had remained the only source of our food, milk and vegetables would be much more expensive. But maybe then people wouldn’t eat so much junk food. Junk food might not even exist. Diabetes might disappear, along with a good amount of heart disease.

As it is, or was, people had too much money to spend. So with all the extra money left over from buying cheap stuff, it’s no wonder that over-consumption of food and goods has resulted in the failing health of the economy and of the person. If people hadn’t been sold on the idea that everyone needs to own a car, that everyone can and should own the latest tv, multiple phones, the newest gadgets, a closet full of synthetic clothes and cheap shoes and big plastic bins full of more clothes and toys and shoes, and a house for that closet, etc, maybe the temptation to spend too much and loan too much would have been curtailed.

So I’d like to blame this recession, not on Wall Street, but on Walmart. In my ideal economy, Walmart wouldn’t exist. Maybe the Walmart workers could get jobs making high quality clothes and toys. The need for repairpeople would rise, too, because things would be worth getting fixed.

Maybe I’m just frustrated from my shopping experiences lately. Can you tell I’ve been wasting too much mental energy trying to figure out what to buy for Christmas? I wish my kids liked things that were well-made of high quality materials. But they prefer cheap stuff – which is the big problem with my theory. People don’t want to pay a lot for stuff, myself included. I want good stuff for cheap prices, which I can only find at thrift stores. The problem I’m facing right now is that I can only find cheap stuff at high prices. You’d think that stuff made in China would cost less here, but I think a lot of it goes to the United States first, and then back here.

I’m trying to be a conscientious shopper, but I’m struggling with the shipping rates the high-quality places charge – fair prices I’m sure, but I just can’t justify spending an extra $50 on a doll toy that already costs $50 more than the plastic one. So despite my good intentions, I’m contributing to the downfall of the American economy.

And the truth is my kids are beginning to grow out of toys anyway. What the older boys want for Christmas is money to buy new i-gadgets that will be outdated by next year. The middle son is begging for the latest Harry Potter Wii game. My older daughter wants clothes and shoes. I still want to buy them wooden castle sets and soft baby dolls. Instead, I’m frittering dollars away buying a little of this and a little of that.

At least, I’m contributing to thesupport of the theories of all those economists who say we need to spend to get out of debt…

An easy way to waste time but feel festive

2011-12-13T22:47:00.000-06:00

Check out some of these videos from Homeschool Freebie of the Day:

Bring a Torch Jeanette Isabella, by Gregg Miner on the harp guitar:

A discarded toy comes to life in a video from 1945, proving he is still lovable, even though he is worn out and scary looking:

An early animation for Frosty, with groovy moves:

Another wintry character, Suzy Snowflake:

Designed to wrench some tears. The kids liked finding the connections:

Total Eclipse

2011-12-11T07:43:00.000-06:00

... and we pretty much missed it, even though the view from Guam was supposed to be one of the best in the world. Makes me feel like a lame home schooling mom. At least I knew that there was an eclipse coming since my high schooler told me.

What is amazing is how exact the predictions about the timing are. We read online that the eclipse would begin at 10:47; at 10:52, I stepped outside and saw the very beginning of the earth’s shadow blocking just a nip of the bright face of the moon. I went back in and tried to wake up the older boys, but they had been up since 4 am, and were immovable, even though they had only been in bed about half an hour. Before retiring for the night, we had made plans to set our alarms at midnight, but I didn’t hear my watch alarm, and my oldest accidentally set his alarm for 12 noon. And my husband decided not to set his alarm.

So we slept.

It had been an early morning for us all, since we participated in the USO’s Run for the Heroes. The whole family did something: My husband, oldest son, youngest son, and I ran; the two middle boys passed out water with their boy scout troop, and the girls collected the stubs from the runners’ numbers for the raffle prize drawings. They also somehow edged their way into helping with the drawings.

It must have been our lucky day because not only did we take home some t-shirts, but I won a bottle of wine, my youngest son won a gift card to the office supply store for singing “Baby, baby, baby, O,” and our neighbor’s friend ended up giving us the bike he won. There are generous souls in the world.

We tried to give back a little later in the day by volunteering at the Christmas dinner for foster kids on Guam. The statistics are that there are over 200 kids in foster care, but only 31 foster families, so most of the kids are in group homes, the orphanage or with family members. The turnout for the dinner wasn’t great, but two of the shelters on the island brought the kids that live with them, and a number of families came. They were able to leave with loads of “balutin” or take-home boxes, because more people were expected than came.

Donations of toiletries, laundry detergent, and clothes, and goody bags with art supplies and treats were also sent back to the shelters. We had made centerpieces of stryofoam trees and candy, which the kids took away, also. The foster families’ cars were loaded down.

I was moved by the sight of several foster babies being carried in slings and snuglis by their foster moms. Although I haven’t quite felt called to have another baby, I could see us opening our home to a small child who needed a temporary home. One of our friends here has become a foster parent, and she said we have too many kids of our own to participate in the program, but we could be trained to do respite care for other foster parents. Apparently you need to have a room for a foster child. We already had to sign a waiver with the base housing office to allow us to have our 2 oldest in a room together, so I’m sure housing wouldn’t be thrilled for us to have 3 in a room.

But as of now I haven’t taken any action. It’s easy to have ideas and good intentions, harder to act on them.

The event was a joint effort between the Catholic and Protestant communities on base, and the Baptist Church out in town. I’m glad I acted on this idea - I think the volunteers enjoyed the event as much as the families, especially since we got to eat the good food also. That sweetened the deal for my kids who weren’t especially happy about giving up their whole day to work. But they ended up having a good time running around making balloon animals and passing out candy canes.

So it is understandable that they couldn’t keep their eyes open for the eclipse.

In a way they did experience an eclipse -- as they complained this evening getting ready for bed, they had no time for what they wanted to do. Family time usurped the whole weekend. Their opportunity for video games and movies was eclipsed on Sunday by tree decorating and a trip to the Guam Symphony Orchestra’s “Christmas by the Sea” concert. Again, we had to bribe the kids with tasty picnic food – Pringle’s! Pepperoni! store cookies! They grumped around the whole car ride, but listened in between snacking, once we got to the park and set up our chairs and blanket. I tried to find something Christmasy to wear, but most of my red things are long-sleeved or velvet – not tropical holiday wear.

From people watching, I discovered that holiday wear here is a tropical shirt or muumuu in red and green. And rain does nothing to slow anything down. A downpour opened up on us about half way through the concert. The orchestra was under the shell, so the people in the park just pulled out their umbrellas or huddled under their picnic blankets. And the show went on, pausing only for a visit from Santa in a carabao pulled sleigh.

As Santa threw candy, his dark hair was visible. My middle son asked
if there was a "Santa Fail" blog.

The opening act: the UOG jazz ensemble

The unhappy audience.

Shelter from the storm

Getting in the spirit

2011-12-08T18:47:00.003-06:00

Happy Feast of the Immaculate Conception!

There’s nothing like walking into a beautiful church for making you feel holy. After weeks of attending the less than inspiring, nearly nondenominational church-in-the-round on base (I think they move the Mary statue out for the Protestant services, but the puny stations of the cross are permanently attached – they are small enough not to be noticed when the chapel is used for events like retirement ceremonies), we went to the cathedral of Guam, Dulce Nombre de Maria, for the feast of the Immaculate Conception. It’s a major feast day here, and most people on the island had the day off. Schools were out. Only the heathen federal government didn’t shut down.

Each parish here has a big celebration for its patron saint day, usually a novena of rosaries and a procession, followed by a huge dinner. Since this was the feast for the Cathedral, it was an especially big celebration. I’m kicking myself for not making the effort to get out to at least one night of the novena. Nor did we make it to the procession earlier in the day, which apparently is hugely attended. I let the boys go to soccer practice instead. Next year…

We did do some coloring pages during the day – our typical feast day craft - and made meringues for our white supper of flounder and lumpia and white sweet potatoes. (A funny combination, because I need to go to the grocery.)

But it wasn’t until we walked into the Cathedral, through the lingering crowds outside in the plaza, which is where nearly all of Guam’s Christmas lights are located, that I finally felt the spirit of peace descend. By most standards, the Cathedral isn’t huge, but it is spacious inside, with a pretty coffered wooden ceiling.

When we entered, we naturally followed the crowd and joined the line to venerate the statue of Santa Marian Kamalen, which translates roughly as “Saint Mary of the Barracks" or "the shed.” I had to look up her story when we got home, even though we have a votive candle with her image on it as part of our typhoon supplies. She is about three hundred years old, and about three feet high with real hair and a fancy gold crown. There are several stories about her origin – one is that a scantily-clad fisherman saw her on the bottom of the ocean floor, but when he dove to retrieve her, she kept receding, until he went home and put on his Sunday clothes, and then he could pick her up. She was taken to the Spanish presidio and kept in the barracks there until the church was completed, hence the name. She has survived fires and earthquakes, bombings and raids, and at least three thefts in the last 50 years. Most recently in 1992, she was missing for two months until a parks and rec. worker saw her waving in some bushes not far from the Cathedral. A recent restorer believes she was carved in the Philippines prior to 1690, and was attached to a ship as protectress. (see guampedia for more.)

Photos from the Pacific Daily News

The younger kids are always apprehensive about venerating statues, not from any theological quibbles, but I think because they don’t want to kiss something in public. Fortunately for them, the statue was high on her rose-bedecked processional, so only really tall people could have kissed her. A number of women rubbed her with their rosaries and missals and handkerchiefs; all who approached had genuine reverence.

The spirit invaded. I couldn’t help but feel in love with everything. I loved the plump lady in her silk muumuu, the teen-aged boys wearing red ties who stood as attendants to the statue, the couple with the barefooted blond toddler and cranky bald baby who sat next to us, the gifted cantors, who passed their dark-headed baby back and forth as they sang with gusto in beautiful voices that filled the cathedral with joy. I loved the homily by the priest who began by reading his script in a formal tone about Mary’s sinlessness, quoting from the catechism, and then reverted to a casual tone that revealed his devotion when he compared her to the tabernacle, the holy of holies. And everyone loved the choir from Palau, an impressive group of talent from a tiny island. They represented the Micronesian Islands at the Madrid World Youth Day.

We capped off the evening with a visit to the Capuchin Friary’s Christmas village display. The Friary is a well-cared for building at the top of a hill overlooking the sea, and the monks there have provided a space for some of their friends to set up an elaborate miniature winter wonderland. Several electric train sets wind through three rooms where little houses and carousels and nativity sets and holiday statues, including chubby caroling monks, are arranged on carved white foam covered in cotton to look like snow. The kids were charmed, although this display paled in comparison to similar layouts we’ve seen in other places. They enjoyed looking for the incongruous parts, like outsized statues of St. Francis in front of all the churches, or people with broken legs, or anachronistic matchbox cars. They were delighted further with the dessert table at the end of the show, although they reached for the Little Debbies over the homemade coconut empanadas, rice cakes (which do have a funny taste) and the gelatinous pink mochi.

again from the PDN

We drove home filled with a Christmasy spirit, the most festive we’ve felt since lighting the first Advent candle. Since temperatures are still in the 80s, and we’re not planning travels home to visit family, Christmas still seems far away. But over the next couple of weeks, more activities are on the calendar: a Christmas party and serving dinner at the orphanage this weekend, a couple band concerts next week, an ornament exchange, a cookie exchange, caroling, lessons and carols at the church, other parties. There will be plenty of opportunities to feel celebratory; I hope this evening's reflective celebration set the tone for the rest of the season.

Extreme sports

2011-12-05T06:18:00.000-06:00

I’ve been known to be a worrier. I have permanent squinting lines from fretting (and sun damage) around my eyes and mouth. Some of it is genetic – or I learned it from my dad and grandma. But as the kids get older I’m learning that I need to give them longer leashes.

Ironically, another home schooling mom commented not too long ago, as I was pulling my seven year old off the top of the swing set at the park, that she thought I was pretty free with how much I let the kids roam. I had let that same 7 year old ride down to her house by himself to see if her son could play. She said she talked to her husband and her neighbor about whether she was too protective and decided she wasn’t. I couldn’t tell if she was criticizing or just commenting, but I decided I would encourage my son to play with some other kids the next few times he was feeling lonely.

Still, I tend to err on the side of caution. But living in a place like this, where the weather is great, the neighborhood is safe, and the beaches and woods are open for exploring, is making me loosen up a bit. This Saturday the boys and I woke up before dawn to go and meet some friends on the south side of the island to swim across a channel to another little island, Cocos. The boys had camped there last weekend with the scouts, and while they were describing it, we decided on the spur of the moment to try to swim to it.

One friend thought it was 1.5 miles, another 2. At any rate, we were looking at over an hour swim. The reality of it didn’t really sink it until the night before. I wouldn’t go run for an hour and a half without training for it, but I really haven’t done much endurance swmming here at all, just paddling around in coral reefs and laps a few times at the pool.

But sometimes it pays to shove realism to the back of your mind.

Our safety was taken care of: a friend rented some kayaks and gathered a few other friends to kayak or paddle board along with the swimmers. Four of those happened to be my husband and boys, whose life-saving skills are untested, but they had extra life jackets and a space in their boats if something happened.

Fortunately the sea was calm, and the tide was out. We were swimming before I was fully awake enough to be a pessimist.

It was a beautiful swim. Nothing bad happened. I never felt exhausted, and in fact, paddling back in the kayak was harder work than swimming. I did have a moment of anxiety when I was out in the blue, and I couldn’t see anyone close to me. Far off I could see some kayakers, and I worried about my boys flipping their boats, or letting someone else sink (although all the other swimmers were completely competent – one was a former swimmer for the Guam Olympic team- his claim to fame: he asked Michael Phelps to get out of his practice lane.) For a moment, I worried about my own sanity. I’d been swimming for 40 minutes or so, and still had a long way to go. The ferry to the island was going to start running soon. It might not see us. Sharks could be out here. I started thinking about Louis Zamperini in Unbroken, stranded in the middle of the ocean beating sharks off with a life boat paddle. So I started saying the Divine Mercy chaplet, have mercy on us, have mercy, to turn off my brain. And eventually, I sited one of the other swimmers and the kayak with my 11 yr old. My confidence returned. A rainbow even stretched across the blue morning sky, although it wasn’t raining where we were.

Finally, we hit the lagoon, and the water was too shallow to freestyle, but I was determined to swim the whole distance, so I crawled on in to the beach, in a less than an hour and a half.

Scarier was letting my 14 year old test out his claim that he could have swum the crossing. Another of the guys was already planning to swim back – he too had been a competitive swimmer and a swim coach, so he encouraged my son to swim with him. I was off finding a private spot in the woods at the moment they decided to go, so I didn’t have a chance to nix the plan with my worries. I wanted to be angry at my husband for okaying the arrangement – the 14 yr old hasn’t swum laps in years! But he has been playing football and baseball, so at least he has some conditioning. Since the other adults were being good sports about paddling with us, I tried to keep my worries to myself.

The current was stronger on the way back, and the waves were taller. If I had taken in a few mouthfuls of seawater during my swim, I knew he’d be swallowing twice as much. I was somewhat behind him, in a kayak with the 13 year old, trailing a 3^rd guy who also had decided to swim both directions. But my protective mother instinct was kicking in. Even though a friend on a paddle board was up alongside my son and the former swim coach, I was in a boat that had extra life jackets. As I began to envision my son tiring but being too hard-headed to admit it, my heart began racing, and automatically, I was paddling faster. Forget this dude I was spotting. There was another kayak right behind me. He was a grown-up. I was going to row right next to my kid.

We nearly ran over him.

It took all my willpower not to pull him into the boat when he kept changing his stroke from freestyle to breaststroke and back again way too frequently. But I figured if I ordered him out of the water, he’d be more stubborn and more likely to drown. So I bit my tongue, repeatedly.

Finally, finally, we grew nearer to shore. With about half a mile to go I let the 13 year old jump out to swim. I can’t tell you how relieved I felt when we reached the area where he could touch again. But he didn’t stop swimming. He was slow, but he swam all the way in.

Hurrah! Everyone clapped, even though they had to wait at least an extra half an hour for him to finish. I think he was too tired to feel proud of his accomplishment at that moment, but he was happy to eat a whole Snickers bar on the ride home.

Some things really satisfy.

(Sorry, could resist…)

Advent in the Tropics

2011-12-02T02:18:00.001-06:00

... in quick takes form.

1. We celebrated the first Sunday of Advent by running to the store to buy Advent candles. It’s been years since we bought new ones, but we couldn’t ship candles, so I had to throw out our old Advent stubs when we moved. Fortunately, the Exchange carries them, so we didn’t have to search around. The Exchange also brought in Christmas trees this week. The rumor is that they are flown in on a refrigerated plane. Although I was the original proponent of live trees when we first married, I was ready to buy an artificial one here. Since pines and spruces don’t grow here (except ironwood trees. Everything here is evergreen, but not many conifers.) and have to be shipped express, I felt artificial might be the sustainable choice. Plus, I thought the real trees would be costly and dry. But surprise!, for $35 we got our biggest, freshest tree ever. It by far beats the spindly one we picked up a few years ago that was actually spray-painted green.

2. We also pulled from the closet our three bins of Christmas décor. We didn’t empty them all – didn’t put anything on the tree yet - but the idea is to add a few more decorations each Sunday. The focus this past weekend was on greenery. Usually I get a pretty powerful rush hanging the greens and twining garlands. They add a jolt of drama to the brown and grey tones of the winter landscape. But the impact was dampened this year, because, well, outside it is still so green. I’ve even got a tomato plant and a pepper plant in bud. I noted the incongruity of working up a sweat while hanging Christmas lights around the front porch columns, even though I was wearing shorts and a t-shirt.

Nonetheless, the lights are still a cheery sight when welcoming home the night bus after soccer practice.

3. In addition to hanging greens and setting out a few of the Christmas doo-dads, we talked after dinner about what we were going to do to prepare our hearts for Christmas. The little kids proffered that they were going to give up cookies, perhaps thinking about Lent, but they promptly forgot that offering when they made shape cookies yesterday (eaten before they could be frosted). The older kids are supposed to talk nicely to each other and their siblings, but again that civility extends only when they are not truly irritated.

4. So instead of focusing on penitential practices, we’re doing some positive steps: in addition to the wreath, which usually is the center of drama, as kids argue over who gets to light the next candle, we have a little Advent book of prayers and reflections for kids that I’m reading in the mornings with the home school bunch. Another tradition is the annual halfhearted decorating of the Charlie Brown Jesse tree that I made about 10 or 12 years ago. I keep meaning to remake the felt ornaments, which are pierced on with straight pins, later becoming potential sources of tragedy as they fall onto the floor, but since my older boys helped make them, I have a sentimental attachment. They cut and glued some of the figures. That also means it is very hard to decipher out which symbol is which, but since we usually fall off the rails with the Jesse tree about halfway through Advent, the ornaments remain. I’m hoping this year, since we’re homeschooling, that we’ll be more deliberate about reading the prophecies, especially since we don’t have an Advent calendar, a first in a while, but I couldn’t locate one here, and it’s too late to order one to be shipped.

5. Staying up until two on cyber Monday to fill virtual shopping carts and then empty them, was not a part of my Advent plan for spiritual growth, but I realized I was ordering stuff just to order stuff, and needed to slow down, especially since I can’t do what I usually do and buy a bunch of stuff and then run take it back and then buy a bit more.

6. A better part of my plan is pulling out our Christmas books, which are a random assortment of thrift store finds, instead of legitimate Christmas classics, except the Peanuts Christmas book, which always reminds me of the Peanuts priest at Notre Dame, who always had an exemplar in his sermons from the cartoon. And since I’m homeschooling again, we now have more time to sit and read these books together. Although we have our moments when I’m ready to ship one or more kid off to school, I have been happy with the way our early mornings have been going since we’ve been homeschooling. I’ve been able to keep more in tune with the liturgical year, as we do a little reading each day, either about the day’s saint, or from the Book of Virtues, or from one of the art or music books we have, depending on the day, and then I read a Greek myth since we’re doing Ancient Greece for history. My 7 year old has been fascinated by the fake gods, and asked lots of questions about them. Some days the kids do a coloring page about the lesson or draw their own picture, which is about as close to notebooking as I get.

7. I’m most enthused about our most deliberate Advent practice, which is watching Fr. Robert Barron’s Catholicism DVDs. Since the two older boys are in confirmation class this year, I felt justified in dropping the wad of dough on the movies. We’ve only watched the first 3 episodes, but they keep getting better. The first one was visually appealing, but the content was so familiar that I began to wonder if the series was over-hyped. But the two succeeding videos have improved on each other, so now I’m hooked. Even the younger kids are watching attentively.

My conscience was piqued by Fr. Barron’s reference to Kierkegard’s statement that the saint is only concerned with one thing. He also talked about having no ambiguity in your heart in order to achieve holiness (a quote from someone I can’t remember), but distraction and multitasking are definitely hindrances to my holiness. I also appreciated the comparison of concupiscence with addiction, especially since I decided my own Advent penitential practice would be to limit mindless browsing of social media. (My husband would question whether I’m doing this or not, but what I have been doing is mindless shopping online – a difference!) In a weak attempt at sharing the good news, I offered to loan the series to the chaplain if he wanted to show them for the parishioners. He sounded interested, but noncommittal, although he did ask me to help out with a dinner the chapel is trying to get together for one of the local orphanages next weekend.

I am excited about this project, and plan to get the kids to help out as much as possible, in hopes that perhaps they’ll be distracted from their Christmas lists. (The five year old’s now numbers 29 things, mostly written by her sister. Lots of baby doll stuff, but also Gatorade and a box of chips are included.) The tropical weather has not deterred them from making Christmas cards with snowmen and evergreen trees. It strikes me again that all the wintry Christmas décor and unit studies and even some of these Christmas books are slightly biased against equatorial regions. At least St. Nick around here wears luau prints.

As always, for more quick takes see Conversion Diary...

Thanksgiving Dinner at Chamorro Village

2011-11-28T01:51:00.002-06:00

So Thanksgiving is over, and the first Sunday of Advent has arrived. We still haven't finished the leftovers, and we didn't even read all of our Thanksgiving books (okay, the one we didn't read is the one with lots of text that intimidates my early readers, The Pilgrims of Plimouth), but we've put up some Christmas greens and placed the Advent wreath on the table with a new braided palm frond decoration. We couldn't pack candles so I need to find some candles somewhere. But even though Advent has begun, here's a rehash of helping out at the Salvation Army's Thanksgiving dinner, courtesy the Guam Pacific Daily News online since I didn't take any photos. The event was held at the Chamorro Village dining area, which wasn't nearly big enough for all the volunteers and participants. People arrived by nine for lunch at 11. Volunteers from the air force base were in charge of carving hams and turkeys donated by the local hotels. Our family mostly served as runners from the carving stations to the serving stations, although we also helped carry food to the man'amkos, or elderly and handicapped. The servers were heaping the plates, and I feared that the food would run out. Even little kids were getting plates loaded with meat, red rice, stuffing, pancit, cranberries, corn, rolls, and other vegetables. And the desserts! But this must have been a case of the multiplying turkeys, because by the end of the day, after everyone had been allowed to go through the line again if they so chose, there was still food on the line, which was taken across the street to the soup kitchen to be made into stew.

Of the various performers, a couple of young brothers on ukulele's
were the most talented. They drew a crowd, including my two
youngest, sitting on the floor down front.

The serving line at Chamorro Village.
One of my kids is in the orange hat in the background

Perhaps not the most talented, but the most entertaining of the performers
was this couple. The husband, whose shoes and back were emblazoned with
"Elvis Loves You," seemed to have bones of cartilage. He danced like
Kermit the frog, only groovier.

The lieutenant governor serves red rice, while my husband chats
in the background.

The Just Say No hiphop dance group.

A sampling of pies and cakes. Since I wasn't sure what time we'd
be back from serving, I invited people for dessert.

The turkey was so pretty I wished we had company
to enjoy it. Considering we've been eating it for 3 days
now, I figure it was enough to feed at least 24.

On Happiness

2011-11-25T06:54:00.001-06:00

While shopping at the exchange book store a couple weeks ago, I came across the print version of The Happiness Project, after the blog by Gretchen Rubin about living out advice for happiness. It was a cheap paperback, and the print was so small as to look blurry – or are my eyes aging? Reading that book would not make me happy; it would give me a migraine.

Anyway, the existence of this book seems to suggest that you can make yourself happy if you just do X, Y, and Z. Keep your nails painted a happy color, organize your house, and set fresh flowers on the table - you’ll be happier than if you don’t. Actually, after looking at the blog, I found that most of the advice is about being polite, smiling when you don't feel like it, and trying to make other people happy, which requires you to be happy yourself. Start by telling yourself you're happy, and you begin to believe it.

But it seems that something is missing in the idea that happiness is something you can maintain for a length of time. Isn’t happiness something of a fleeting emotion, not a state of being? Maybe I’m spinning a different meaning for the word happiness than the author intends. Can you describe yourself as happy if you never are sad? Or if happiness is a case of living well, as Aristotle argues, then simply trying to live the examined life virtuously should be enough to be happy, or rather, content. Reminds me of that article I referenced some time ago about how people who seek their own happiness are sometimes unhappier than those who don't.

I have a problem with too much self-examination. Am I happy now? Am I happy still? Why am I not happy? I find myself most unhappy when I start asking myself these kinds of questions. I can’t count how many times I’ve been asked if we like Guam. I like Guam just fine when I am not thinking about whether or not I like it. But when queried, I can’t help but think of the things that could be better about it. Not a lot of wildlife here, lots of rain, lots of potholes, lots of mold. My husband calls this being pessimistic, especially when I mention it to people who might possibly entertain the notion of spending a few thousand dollars to come visit us, but I prefer the tag realistic.

The thing is, I don’t think about those things on a regular basis, especially when we’re out and about with other people or when they are hanging out at our house. We’ve gradually been adopted into a group of friends. We go to each other’s kids’ sporting events, we ate an early Thanksgiving dinner together, we hang out at the beach sometimes. Last week we got together at Pizza Hut for a surprise party for one of the guys. It was just cake and pizza and all the kids chasing each other around while the parents talked, but it was fun. It made me happy.

But I can wake up the next morning and make myself miserable just as easily by thinking about something I'm missing out on, or something I don't have or can't do. I have to remind myself of that magnet that says, "Happiness consists not in being served but in serving others."

With Advent and the holidays approaching, happiness is much on the mind. How can I make this a happy season for the kids when they are not going to see their grandparents and cousins? They are not going to get all the toys on their lists.

But we are planning to go to the school band concert and the hanging of the greens at the chapel, and we are semi-joking about wearing elf hats to carol around the neighborhood with these friends and then imbibe wassail and eat cookies together. This will thrill my youngers and make my elders plot ways to escape.

In the back of my mind I seem to remember my mom saying something about how her job wasn’t to make us kids happy. That’s actually a rather liberating feeling – my job isn’t to make my kids’ lives pieces of pie but to teach them to deal with what they are dished out.

Don’t get me wrong – I don’t deliberately try to make them suffer, unless they’ve done something to deserve a dose of castor oil. And I waste a lot of time wrinkling my forehead trying to decide whether to let them do what they want to do or make them do what I want them to do, if it means a more frenzied schedule.

What I should ask myself before I give them something or give in to something is not whether this thing will make them happy, but whether it will add to, be neutral, or detract from what will help them live out their vocations. I want them experience wonder and awe and joy on Christmas, but I don’t want those emotions to be tied to the gifts under the tree. I’m trying to teach them to be loving and generous, to want to praise the greatness of creation and the Creator, to desire and attain eternity. I want them to value excellence and beauty and truth. And if that makes them happy, all the better.

Tarzan Falls and other things to be thankful for

2011-11-23T07:16:00.003-06:00

Last weekend we drove about 4 miles, hiked about 40 minutes and ended up at this beautiful spot: Tarzan Falls.

Wild orchids are still blooming.

The top of the falls. This would have been pretty enough.

The teenagers trying to find a way down.

You can't really see it, but a little eel is stuck in the right arm of the Y-shaped crack.

A lesson in ingenuity and determination from a tree growing out of a rock.

Nature's spa.

Don't walk under the swarming wasps!
These are not the dreaded boonie bees that can sting repeatedly,
but some other large wasp.

Bromeliads along the way up.

What I'm most thankful for.

What Would You Fight For?

2011-11-22T03:43:00.000-06:00

Go Fighting Irish!
Their commercials might be better than the football team...

I admit partiality.... Dr. Fallon was one of the professors I studied with -- but that classroom is a lot nicer than the ones we used.

Happy Feast of Christ the King

2011-11-20T08:05:00.002-06:00

A Sacramentary from the Getty Collection.

I can’t believe it is the week of Thanksgiving. The sun is shining. We went snorkeling and hiking in shorts this weekend. I have a sunburn.

I know it’s snowing back in the states. But out here, we’re still in perpetual summer. I guess I’ve noticed that the Halloween candy bins are now full of Christmas candy, and in the front of the commissary, there are flats of pumpkin pie filling, canned cherries, canned yams, flour and brown sugar, but the reality of the season hadn’t really sunk in until we were invited to a Thanksgiving dinner last week with friends who are traveling over the holiday.

And now today was the Feast of Christ the King. We have twice attended parishes called Christ the King, and the one we belonged to used to put together quite a celebration for the feast day, complete with a group from the symphony playing at Mass. The service today was much simpler, but moving, nonetheless. Our priest gave a stirring homily about serving Christ, in worship and in the poor, and preparing for Advent, but more memorable was the blessing he gave to his Sacramentary. As he closed Mass, he explained how he had been given this book 17 years ago by his parents and had used it every day since then. He got a little choked up as he prayed over it, retiring it, after its last use this morning. I wonder what he’ll do with it when he switches to the new missal.

He started incorporating some of the changes several weeks ago, and really the only one that trips me up is the “And with your spirit.”

So now my spirit needs to prepare for the holidays, as does my body. We went to the Exchange this weekend, and the kids picked up the toy catalog. They’ve been crafting wishlists for the past 24 hours, asking for junk that I don’t want in the house. For instance, although we have a great wooden kitchen set I scored at a garage sale years ago, my five year old was getting spun into a tizzy describing how on Christmas morning she was going to wake up and find a new Little Tykes walk-in kitchen. It would be the biggest present in the room, and I would think it was mine, but then her dad would say, no, that’s for her! I quashed her dreams, saying that Santa would not bring things that we already have. Nor would he bring any of those the ugly dolls advertised lately – Monster High and the button eye dolls? The Exchange stocks the newest and most popular toys – not the finest quality.

But there are not many other places to shop. One of the nice side-effects of living on a small island is that shopping opportunities are limited. I can’t just run to Target or Walmart for one thing and spend $100 anymore. While a number of wives complain about this, I find it liberating to no longer feel compelled to browse through dollar bins. I'm freed somewhat from buying what I don't want or need because it's on sale. But I'm fearful my kids may turn out like what Thomas Merton describes:

The modern child may early in his or her existence have natural inclinations toward spirituality. The child may have imagination, originality, a simple and individual response to reality, and even a tendency to moments of thoughtful silence and absorption. All these tendencies, however, are soon destroyed by the dominant culture. The child becomes a yelling, brash, false little monster, brandishing a toy gun or dressed up like some character he has seen on television. His head is filled with inane slogans, songs, noises, explosions, statistics, brand names, menaces, ribaldries, and cliches. Then, when the child gets to school, he learns to verbalize, rationalize, to pace, to make faces like an advertisement, to need a car and in short, to go through life with an empty head conforming to others, like himself, in togetherness."

In order to liberate my children from the gimmes, I trashed the catalog after they went to bed tonight. I would like to liberate them from the idea that Santa will bring them whatever they want, but even though I don’t promote Santa fantasies, I can’t bring myself to disabuse the youngers of their beliefs, and the olders haven’t taken the opportunity to deflate their siblings’ dreams. Perhaps since we're talking about ancient Greece, I'll have them copy this from Socrates: "He who is not contented with what he has, would not be contented with what he would like to have."

Furthermore, I’m going to make them write their lists of what they are grateful for as a handwriting list. They so quickly forget how much they already have. Maybe we’ll cut up pictures to make a gratitude poster, or at least try to do some activity that diverts their attention for a short time from what they want to what others need.

Since we don’t have family within a few thousands miles, we’re going to go serve dinner with the Salvation Army this year, something I’ve always wanted to do. I’m even going to dry out our own turkey to consume after our shift at the Salvation Army. We’ve put out an open invitation to some friends and some single junior officers to join us. Maybe nobody will come, but at least I’ll have the motivation to scrub the bathrooms.

It won’t be the same as being with family, but we’ll gather some photos and paste the cousins and grandparents into our poster. At least they’ll be present in thought.

Unguilty pleasures

2011-11-17T00:16:00.000-06:00

I've been indulging again in juvenile fiction...

Firrst Word after Word after Word by Patricia MacLachlan -

Sometimes MacLachlan can be a bit too sweet. But I can't read her picture book All the Places to Love without crying, even when I'm not pre-menstrual. Her new chapter book for young readers was sentimental, but I was drawn into the story, and even better, my 9 yr old, who only wants to read Judy Moody or Harry Potter books, liked it. Hurrah! Word after Word after Word is Maclachlan's response in novel form to "Why do you write" questions. I felt like I was in the classroom with the students, silent, listening to the mesmerizing voice of Ms. Mirabel. My throat thickened when the fictional author dumps a bag of prairie dirt on the table and exclaims "This .... is landscape!"

Suddenly, I'm back home. I want to gather all that dirt up in my hands and shove it in my back pocket. A touch of homesickness. A longing to return. The slightest twinge of regret that we didn't plunk down some theoretical cash for a rectangle of dirt in southern Indiana, and then pack some up in a Ziploc to bring along.

But here we are. And someday we'll miss here, I suppose. I appreciate that yesterday was one of those breezy, sunny days that brought hordes of kids out to the playground in the middle of November. And I love the way you can just stick a twig in the ground, and it will sprout. And nothing quite compares to the shock of discovery when you dunk your face underwater in the coral reef, and what looks like a bunch of rocks from the surface becomes a kaleidoscopic fantasyland of living creatures.

But the dirt is red here. If you dumped in out of a plastic baggie, it would thunk, all clumped together. It's clay. It's resistant to movement.

Maclachlan admits in the author's notes that this book is somewhat autobiographical, and that she really has bags of dirt on her desk and next to her bed and in her pocketbook to remind her "of where I began as a child and the stories I brought with me." I have a friend who has a collection of sand in bottles from all the beaches she's visited. Ms. Cash, the classroom teacher, has a bottle of ocean water. We've got quite a collection of little shells from past duty stations and vacations. But I wish I had a little bag of dirt to open and sniff every once in a while like a black organic drug, a sedative.

I suppose this emotional response was just what Maclachlan was after when she decided to write about words, "the writer's tool."

The other book I just consumed was When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead, which was the Newberry winner a couple years ago, and the subject of a number of favorable reviews. For a couple chapters, I questioned the reviews - the book is set in a gritty NYC apartment in the 70s, and the main character a sixth grade girl. Where is this going to go? The way of Francesca Baby, that awful example of Scholastic after-school-special literature we had to read in 7th grade so we'd sympathize with children of alcoholics?

Fortunately, it doesn't go that way. Miranda, the main character, becomes more likable, and although the book starts out feeling like a melodrama, it makes a shift for the better. It's hard to describe without giving away the surprise plot element, which may be why it hasn't been selling like some of the fantasy fiction for preteens, a least that I know of. I wonder if kids who hadn't read A Wrinkle in Time would enjoy it though.

The apparent naturalism of this book did remind me of an reading by Norman Juster in honor of the 50th anniversary of The Phantom Tollboth on NPR last week. He made the remark that at the time he had finished his book, publishers weren't interested in fantasy. They were afraid it would disorient children. Now fantasy books take up 85% of the shelf space in the YA section.

And finally an unguilty pleasure that tastes like a guilty one: Chocolate Zucchini cake. A nod to the cuisine of my past. A guaranteed way to make kids like eating zucchini. Made some today in order to appease my twinge of homesickness. A more appealing evocation of midwestern dirt than dirt.

Chocolate Zucchini Cake with chocolate chips:

1 c. sugar

1/2 c. butter

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

2 1/2 c. flour

1/2 c sour cream (I used vanilla yogurt, since I didn't have sour cream)

1/4 c. cocoa

1 tsp soda

2 c. shredded zuke (I used two grocery sized - a little more than 2 cups)

6 oz. chocolate chips

1 c. nuts if you like them.

Mix it all together and bake at 350 in a 13x9 pan for 40-45 mins or until done.

Can you see the zucchini?

St. Margaret of Scotland

2011-11-15T17:42:00.000-06:00

Just because I liked this picture of Margaret, queen and homeschooling mother of eight, yet never to busy to wash a dirty beggar's feet:

http://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/Scotland-History/StMargaretofScotland.htm

This one by William Hole from her rescue after shipwreck is pretty, too.

I like how she saw through her son's equivocation when he tried to protect her from the news of her husband's and elder son's deaths: "I know how it is." (from here.)

Learning to read through metafiction

2011-11-11T18:36:00.000-06:00

One of the delights of homeschooling has been discovering some new beginning reader books. Lately our favorite library books have been Mo Willems's Elephant and Piggie books. Despite the antiquated, underfunded status of our library, it does have a section of brand-new books it receives through a grant program. These are loaner books, and my understanding is that after a period of time they will be passed on and a new set will arrive. By then, maybe we'll be tired of reading Elephant and Piggie, but maybe not.

My favorite so far. Way better than Dr. Seuss. So much clever expression in so little text!

via: http://torontopubliclibrary.typepad.com/.a/6a00e5509ea6a18834015432ebd87e970c-pi

My five year old giggles just like elephant when she reads this.

And I'm happy she's enjoying reading a book about reading.

Proof of the Power of Positive Thinking?

2011-11-08T22:38:00.002-06:00

There’s a facebook post going around that shows two photos: one of soldiers from WWII, and the other of Occupy Wall Street protestors. The caption is something about how 20 yr olds in 1944 gave everything while 20 yr olds in 2011 want everything. It stood out to me because I just read a book about a WWII soldier and the nature of survival. I don’t care much about the Occupy Wall Street movement, because I don't understand what they want, and I don't think they do either, but I wonder if the perseverance of the protesters isn’t due so much to their dedication to the cause, as to the euphoria of hanging out together. There’s a lot you can withstand when someone else is going through it with you.

Hence, I attend book clubs. I like hanging out. Usually the talk at the officer spouses’ club book group centers around upcoming events, the pros and cons of different duty stations, comparing lists of who knows whom, etc. We might talk briefly about the book, especially if there’s a movie version. But book talk usually expires quickly. Either people don’t read the book, or they share the same opinions of it or are afraid to voice a contrarian position.

Surprisingly, the talk at the first meeting of the book club here really stayed on topic – even despite the fact that there was delicious food to yum over. Nearly everyone read the book, which also helped.

The book indirectly talks about the importance of camaderie for survival. It was Laura Hillenbrand’s Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption, the story of World War II survivor Louis Zamperini. The Wall Street Journal had run a big review when it was came out, but the review focused on the contrast between the author’s Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and her subject’s indefatiguable spirit. Louis Zamperini is now an active 94, which is pretty incredible, considering what he withstood as a 20something.

I don’t usually pick up historical biographies, so I don’t know how this book compares to others, but it provides great fodder for conversation. Is that because of Hillenbrand’s writing or Zamperini’s life? He did lead an incredible life, and he survived horrendous suffering during WWII. But I’m sure there are other lives just as miraculous – in fact Hillenbrand notes several unpublished memoirs sent to her by other soldiers which she consulted for details about the Japanese prisoner of war camps and about the Army Air Force of which Zamperini was a member, as well as other information about experiences of war. Their stories are probably just as interesting.

Part of what we found interesting in discussion about Zamperini was his change from a rebellious teen to Olympic runner to airplane bombardier to prisoner of war, then alcoholic and, finally, convert. He went from hopelessness to glory, back to hopelessness and to, hopefully, final glory. Growing up in depression era Southern California, he stole and fought and ran around like a hooligan. Wait, he was a hooligan. His brother finally talked him into running track, which he did first to attract girls and then because he was good. His training for the Olympics was amazingly brief, proof of his natural talent. He qualified for the 1936 Olympics in his third 5000m race, even though he was a miler at heart. A favorite scene for me was when the Notre Dame coach came to Zamperini to wish him good luck. Six(ty) degrees of separation?

When Pearl Harbor was bombed he joined the air corps, and survived several missions, before the plane he was on went down while on a rescue mission. Miraculously, he and two other men survived the crash and then lived for 47 days in the life raft, without any stores of food or water. Think Life of Pi, which I thought incredible, until reading this. One of the men dies, the one who was new to the plane crew, but Zamp and his best friend Phil keep each other alive, even battling sharks and fire from a Japanese plane.

They finally are rescued by the Japanese and taken to a war camp. Although they initially are nursed to semi-health, their POW experience goes from bad to worse. The pictures in the book add to the drama. Here are all these handsome young men who died. The few POWs who survive the torture and deprivation narrowly escape annihilation when the war ends.

So the question debated was how did they survive? Did Louis Zamperini have special physical and mental gifts that enabled him to overcome the suffering and setbacks he experienced, or did he channel an inherent ability to survive and remain positive that everyone possesses, although many people don’t use it?

One of the wives, who has overcome a snake phobia and taken up triathlons after being a lifelong coach potato was convinced that will power was the answer. And she believes that everyone could do more for themselves just by making up their minds to do it.

It’s an interesting question. I wanted to agree with her. And I do, sort of. People DON’t exercise their wills – or their bodies – nearly as much as they should or can. I definitely agree that most people give up much too easily, not on life per se, but on exercise programs, reading, name your self-improvement program. I know I’m guilty of making resolution after resolution that I don’t follow through on just because I’m lazy and selfish. (Heck, I felt like I was going to expire from endless waiting at the DMV the other day. Torture!)

But I’ve also seen that it’s possible to decide to do something and do it, even though you think you may not be able to. Running a marathon for instance, or even just running a 5K. Running a mile for some people. A person of average health should be able to will themselves to run a mile.

There are a lot of things that sound overwhelming, but can be accomplished simply by doing and not overthinking. Learning a language. Moving is another one. Traveling with kids. Cooking dinner. Fixing a toilet flusher. Waiting in line.

The lady who had the irrational phobia of snakes wasn't even able to go outside in snake season, from the time she was little. When she found out she was coming to Guam, she had to make herself look at snakes so that she wouldn’t be afraid to go outside. She went to see a therapist, but he wanted to talk about dreams, so she made up her own program to gradually get used to looking at snakes, including watching a snake show on tv, which she wasn’t able to do before, and buying a toy snake.

I tend to be skeptic about therapists. Could people who are depressed cure themselves by getting outside and doing some hard labor, so they stop thinking about how bad life is? Someone mentioned that the new thing is to tell returning soldiers that they shouldn’t accept a diagnosis of PTSD as a label because then they will allow themselves to use it as a crutch or an excuse to avoid change and responsibility. Could the same be said of some people who are diagnosed with depression, or, as Laura Hillenbrand was, with chronic fatigue symptom, or other disorders that are difficult to pinpoint physically?

Even though I agree to an extent with the lady who thought people hold the power of change in their mind, I tend to think that that there are people who are just wired differently. The guy who dies in the boat when Zamp and Phil survive may have been one of them. Maybe he let himself die because he felt guilty about eating the one chocolate bar they possessed, or because he didn’t share the connection that the other two had. Maybe his will was weak, but maybe he just didn’t have a temperament that allowed him to stay focused on living.

Of course, men of all types of personalities survived the POW camps, despite sickness, beatings and deprivation. Did Louis have an even stronger constitution to withstand the extra beatings he receives because he was an Olympic runner, or did he simply will himself to stay alive?

Can someone train themselves to be more positive? Can someone change their temperament through will and practice?

The example that came up was the Navy wife who never is happy where she is stationed, versus those who make the best of it, who make friends and explore. In a way this is a question of survival. If you don’t have a choice to pick up and move across the country or across the world, you do have a choice whether to enjoy it, or to be miserable thinking that everything is better somewhere else.

I like to pride myself on my endurance and tolerance for pain. I can run and run and run. I can drag children across the world. I can push six kids through a tiny hole into the world without pain killers and drag them in and out of ER’s and temper tantrums. But could I survive the privations that Louis undergoes? Could I beat back sharks and catch and kill an albatross and eat it raw? Could I stand up under repeating beatings and punishments while suffering from dysentery and starvation? Then overcome alcoholism and flashbacks in a single conversion moment? Is that a miracle? Was Louis Zamperini given extra gifts from God, or was he just good at using the gifts God gave him?

Adventures with Tofu

2011-11-06T06:32:00.002-06:00

As I showed my ID to the checker at the commissary last week, she announced, “Cases of tofu for $1.” Behind her on a flat were about two dozen cases of tofu.

I had passed by and was headed to the produce section before what she said registered.

Cases for $1.

I don’t have any love for tofu. Does anyone? I knew what my husband would say when he saw 12 packages of tofu in the refrigerator. But $1!?!

No one else was picking them up, so in an effort to be a good steward and help the commissary dispose of their overstock, I added a case to my cart.

It has been well worth $1 to experiment with this gelatinous soybean product. The first package went into a traditional stir-fry: frozen mixed vegetables, soy sauce, sesame oil, chunks of tofu. Everyone complained, but they ate it, albeit reluctantly.

The second box went into a smoothie: frozen mixed fruit, milk, OJ, tofu, a couple packs of stevia. My teenagers and their friend sucked them down. I didn’t tell them until later what was in them. At first my 14 yr old berated me for hoodwinking them, but I tried to remind him that tofu is good for building muscles.

Another box got mixed into a batch of chili. I thought the tofu would take on the color of the tomato sauce, but it stayed whitish. So I told the kids those white chunks were like pieces of cheese. The 5 and 7 yr olds were deceived, and the older kids kept the silence because they were hungry and the tofu was in small enough chunks not to be noticed.

Box 4 went into chocolate mousse. I loosely followed a recipe my vegetarian friend gave me after I gave her 5 boxes of tofu. And actually, this mousse is pretty tasty and a nice texture. And easy! Melt chocolate chips and then add melted chocolate, the tofu, a couple tablespoons of cocoa to the blender with a sweetener and blend until smooth and fluffy. Then chill a couple hours before devouring. The recipe calls for maple syrup, but I didn’t have any. I thought it would be ruining the integrity of the tofu to use corn syrup, so I used my last teaspoon of honey, a little molasses and some stevia packets. Unfortunately, the molasses taste is noticeable, but not enough to slow anyone down from eating this fluffy stuff. I can barely call it dessert. It’s nutritious!

So now I’m down to my last couple packets of tofu. At least one will go into another smoothie tomorrow afternoon. Suggestions for the last box?

Stepping back in time

2011-11-03T08:22:00.001-05:00

My son stood over my shoulder while I was typing this, and asked what I was writing. "Is that a book report?" he asked. Of a sort, I replied.

"You're writing a book report because you want to?!" He spoke with disbelief.

Dear son, maybe someday you'll read books you want to talk about, too.

*******

The library on base is a step back in time – not just because it shelves histories, but in the use of the card catalog, the date stamp, the way they manually check out books by signing your name on a card.

It also has a nice collection of classics in heavy duty binding left over from the 1960s – and before. The materialistic bibliophile in me loves the heavy paper stock that is imprinted by the type, the musty smells, the indestructible covers, the black and white illustrations. Gotta love the substance in these books too. Just finished two – one that I read in high school: Goodbye, Mr. Chips by James Hilton, and one I just saw mention of somewhere: Mrs. Mike by Benedict and Nancy Freedman.

Both of these books would send someone who deplores the reek of sentimentality running. Goodbye, Mr. Chips makes a lot of lists of classics, but I hadn’t heard of Mrs. Mike, and maybe I dreamed about reading a review of it because I can't find it now. (It is here!) But sometimes sentimental is what you’re in the mood for: a good story about good people told cheerfully. No Oprah Book Club melodrama. Just happy tales that both happen to hit on a similar theme: that suffering is not something to be avoided, but something that makes you who you are.

I won’t rehash Mr. Chips, since the story is familiar. When I initially read it, it fueled my desire to experience British boarding school – the kind of desire that I suppose is now initiated by Harry Potter books. But I remembered little about Mr. Chips the man, and what a good sort he was, despite being a bit mundane. He recognizes that the kind of greatness he can achieve, a minimal kind but something nonetheless, requires faithfulness in the little things: having students over for tea, eating with the faculty, doing your job as well as possible, even if not in a flashy way.

All with a good sense of humor.

Although his life is quiet, Mr. Chips is not without his tragedy: the loss of his wife and child. Perhaps if Mrs. Chipping had lived, Mr. C might have been an even better man. But even in the brief time she shared with Mr. C and the academy, she changed him, and some of the other faculty. Her death could have derailed him. The death of all his students in the wars could have demoralized him. The attempt of a young headmaster to fire him could have doused his spirit. But he perseveres in being the kind of man he is, nothing more, nothing less. And he is loved for it. (Which is similar theme #2: people have more effect on your life than you realize even if you only meet them briefly.)

While many people apparently believed the imagined Mr. Chipping was a real person, Mrs. Mike, Katherine Mary Flannigan, actually was a real girl, even though I initially thought she was pure fiction. I googled the book to see where I came across the reference (and didn’t find it), but I found a few testimonies about how beloved this book was by women of a certain age. Apparently, it has had a resurgence of interest with the advent of internet recommendations, and has had a reprinting.

Maybe the book isn’t first class literature, but I will add my name to its list of fans. The story is episodic, like a Little House book for grownups, or a teenaged Caddie Woodlawn set in Canada. But the effect is that all the episodes add up to make you feel like you’ve been in northern Canada yourself. I think I could begin to understand Cree. I had to sit in the car an extra fifteen minutes after soccer practice yesterday to finish it. And then I wanted to go back and reread the best parts.

Initially, I thought that Mrs. Mike – Kathy - was too obvious and too chipper. She’s a spunky Irish lass sent to her uncle in Canada to recover from pleurisy. She meets a handsome Mountie named Mike Flannigan, and falls in love with him while pretending to disdain his flirtations. Within weeks they are married, surprisingly quickly considering she’s only sixteen. And right after their wedding they head up to the uncivilized north to Mike’s station. It happens so fast, you almost forget to think how unlikely that should be.

But as impetuous as her decision to marry and follow Mike Flannigan is, Kathy is steadfast in her love. If initially, she is all cheer and good humor at the beauty she sees all around, she begins to notice the ugliness: mad women sent away, dead men in the snow, Indian women called “klooches” beaten and berated. Her husband Mike is a realist, and where she sees injustice, he sees why the women stay around. He intuits honesty and dishonesty in the people who come to him to arbitrate their disputes. He doesn’t fear doing his duty, whether it be pulling a tooth, fighting a fire, or sawing off a leg.

As Kathy grows into adulthood, her innocent idealism fades away, and she becomes more interesting. The struggles she experiences and witnesses become more poignant, and Kathy becomes more dimensional. She meets another white woman whose children keep dying. Kathy calls her “a mother of sorrows.” But the woman remains unbroken.

Kathy also realizes that the Native women are not all abused. She takes in a young girl from the mission orphanage, and promises the nuns that she will keep the girl safe from a young halfbreed, Jonathan, who is in love with her. The young man is the son of a rebellious father, and he has run-ins with the law. But as Kathy and Mike learn about his background and his character, they realize he values honor and dignity, especially after he takes the blame for a murder that a mad woman committed, rather than put her in trouble and defend himself. Eventually, Kathy understands why her young friend, Mamanowatum, or “Oh-Be-Joyful,” is in love with the young man, and she allows them the freedom of belonging to each other.

Kathy suffers her own tragedies, and even at one point leaves Mike. So although the book starts out with the two of them so happily married and so perfectly suited to each other, and it seems that it will simply recount their adventures, it does take a dark turn. Sorrow drives the two of them apart, and Kathy goes back to her mother. But she realizes she doesn’t fit in city life anymore. The insignificance of some of the arguments she witnesses between her mother’s boarders amaze her. Their pettiness seems pale beside the disease and destruction she has experiences. She realizes she has grown to love the north, and has become a different person, one who can’t run away from her sorrows, and so she returns.

The book ends on a hopeful note, of course. Jonathan reappears at the end of the book, bringing the sorrowful news that Mamanowatum has died. He brings their baby to Kathy and Mike to raise. The mother had named the baby Kathy, after her “almost-sister,” even though they hadn’t seen each other for 8 years. Kathy welcomes the baby, but mourns her friend, especially since her other friend has also just died. She contemplates how their lives have intersected, even when they weren’t in communication. “You could see that events were like the people they happened to. Oh-Be-Joyful’s life had always had that intense emotion and pathetic grasping after happiness that my mother said was characteristic of those ‘who are not long for this world.’ Perhaps on another day I would laugh at this and consider it superstition, but this day, watching Oh-Be-Joyful’s baby in Mike’s arms, I saw the pattern too. . . . Oh-Be-Joyful had cared for and loved my children, and now it was I who was to care for and lover hers. Mike was right: the pattern of a life isn’t a straight line; it crosses and recrosses, drawing in and tying together other lives, as I do when I gather in the ends of my thread to make a knot.”

Kathy realizes that even though she has suffered much, she has also had great joy, even if just for a little while. And the remembering of those pleasures, especially of her lost children, brings more pleasure than pain.

To be honest, maybe the reason I loved this book is that it is so easy to identify with Kathy: marry young and idealistic, take off on an adventure, meet with hardship, but recognize the heavier suffering that so many others have, meet people you grow to love, lose them, feel like throwing in the towel, but finally realize that all these experiences are fitting into a pattern that is more amazing than can be predicted, even if the book is predictable like the happy ending we all hope for.

For the Feast of All Saints

2011-10-31T17:29:00.000-05:00

Fun and educational!

Spooky things

2011-10-30T07:33:00.003-05:00

Halloween is creeping up, and I’m afraid my 7 year old is going to collapse from nervous excitement before it gets here. Every day he has a different costume idea. Every day he is jumping around in the persona of some superhero or another. I’m about ready to ban him from trick or treating, so that the hyperactivity can simmer down without being fed candy.

If there were a reason to ban trick or treating in our family it would be this craziness both before and after the main trick or treating event. Plus, my kids have bad teeth already. But I'm not going to ban trick or treating, because I'm feeling defensive of Halloween lately, after hearing attacks on it from some of our new home schooling acquaintances. Since we’ve resumed homeschooling, we have fallen in with some evangelical families. Just like some of the families we knew in Virginia, these families don’t do Halloween. They have Harvest fests and chili suppers (some of our friends in VA had a Reformation Party to mark Luther’s nailing of the 95 theses on October 31), but no scary costumes, no skeletons, no bloody props. At the Christian bookstore I peeked into the other day, looking for secondhand home school stuff, I was offered a tract called “Say no to Halloween.” I didn’t take it, or I’d quote it. (A p.s: Melanie of Wine Dark Sea shared this link about the problems with celebrating Reformation Day.)

I don’t have any great love for Halloween. Theoretically, I'm opposed to all the sugar and artificial colorings, but in practice I have a hard time staying out of the goodie bags. I don’t love really gory displays of dismembered corpses and scary clowns that some neighbors set up for decorations, but I can't help driving by and recognizing in myself that perverse urge to scare the kids like my dad used to do when he would drive by old cemeteries and slow down, telling us to look out for ghosts or men with iron hooks for hands. I get tired of listening to my kids whine and beg for costumes and décor and candy. But I like the chance to visit with the neighbors.

I’m sorry I’m not more confrontational sometimes. I should just speak up when I'm told that Halloween is pagan, and say that we are celebrating Halloween because of All Saint’s Day (although my kids are in it for the candy). Do I need to reply that the dates chosen for Christmas and Easter also coincided with pagan celebrations? I was happy to see in our diocesan paper a short defense of Halloween. I suppose the author also received one of the tracts.

It is disconcerting to be warned about the potentially detrimental effect on the soul that dressing like a mummy and pretending to be a witch can have. Costumes and decorations have become more gory and scary. But are kids really welcoming the occult - or do they just want to impress their friends and get the most candy.?

I don’t remember anyone being against Halloween when we were growing up. On the other hand, we didn’t see as many gory or skanky costumes either. We dressed up as things like hobos, old ladies, gypsies, and baseball players because we could put those costumes together with odds and ends that were lying around the house. My mom didn’t have time to sew after we hit and certain age, and costumes at the store were cheapy plastic, and mostly characters from Star Wars. One year my friends and I got creative and wore garbage bags and said we were the California Raisins. The scariest costume I ever wore was a black get-up with my hair ratted and my face powdered white. I was Death, and my friend, dressed in a thrift shop bride dress, was The Maiden. I guess since she came up with the idea, she got to be the pretty one.

What I wonder is if the explosion of Halloween commercialism, including the increased gore factor, is what really started the evangelical humbug about Halloween. Or maybe their voices were out there, but there just weren’t enough of them to be heard back when I was growing up.

It would be nice if the commercialism would die back a bit. I’m not going to buy lawn décor for Halloween, and as a matter of stubborn pride, I don’t like to buy costumes, except the occasional prop. I'd be happy to boycott sexy costumes for preteen girls. And 20-something guys who dress up as mass murderers are definitely creepy.

But I like sitting out in the driveway with the neighbors, adult beverages discreetly poured into plastic cups, comparing notes on the best get-ups. I applaud the parents who dress up with their kids, although I’m not going to do it myself. I’m happy to give an extra handful of candy to kids who show some creativity and dress as “cereal” killers and million dollar bills.

The Halloween party poopers are right to notice that there are some really scary people and things out in the world, but trick-or-treaters don’t really qualify, do they? Especially if they get a lesson in sharing their candy (or paying their taxes, as I like to call my share of their collection), and then get hauled off to a Mass and a cemetery the next day in honor of the feasts of All Saints and All Souls. Maybe if more Catholics, including myself, were a little better about pointing out the connection between the celebration and the solemnity that follows, those little Ban Halloween tracts wouldn’t be making the rounds.

Briefly noted

2011-10-28T03:58:00.002-05:00

Some Halloween fun: a Chamorro ghost tale about the Taotaomo'na. The new spin in this story is that it hunts out foreigners. What we've been told and read in our Folk Legends of the Marianas Islands book is that this spirit protects the woods. One story is that if you want to see one, you rub dog doo in your eye. If you don't want to see one, you let the steam from rice come in your face. They don't like perfume, and if you do something they don't like, they pinch your arm hard enough to leave a bruise. Someone else said you have to ask the taotaomo'na permission before peeing in the forest. Or at least say "Excuse me."

A video of Guam. Not sure why the reverse footage is included. Both of these works I found on the website of the University of Guam's student newspaper, Triton's Call. But for mi familia, this is what we're looking at.

For those of you who have heard that the brown tree snake is a problem here (they have decimated the bird population, including the flightless koko bird.), here's a photo to show that the boys are doing their part to rid the island of these imported pests.. Just helping out the USDA which is paying big bucks to trap them with mice in little cages.

This is my friend the cane toad, another foreigner. Taotaomo'na doesn't need to pinch him because his relatives are squashed all over the roads. We've been having great lessons in anatomy from the roadkill.

Does this count as school work? I sort feel extra credit is due to the 7 year old for the artistic photography.

Below, another son hard at work at homework, beneath his father's handiwork: lofts a step above college dorm room quality.

We recently puppy-sat for this little poodle. I have harbored prejudices against poodles, a prejudice rooted in my family's deep suspicion of small dogs. But this little guy was awfully lovable. He hasn't replaced our labrador in my heart, but we all felt a little bereft when his owners came home and took him back. It was gratifying when we saw him on a walk the other day, and he scrambled over in excitement to see me. I was glad he didn't puddle on my shoe.

Although this is more than seven quick takes, here is another attempt at catching the sunset from across our front yard:

See Jen at www.conversiondiary.com for more.

Not that far away

2011-10-27T07:54:00.005-05:00

News travels slowly here. NPR only broadcasts briefly, our Wall Street Journal subscription was too expensive to forward, I can’t seem to stay awake for the news on TV. I know, it’s all on the internet, but I only catch glimpses of it.

And I did catch a glimpse of the news about Kadhafi’s capture and death. I wish I could feel more of a sense of victory but after Bin Laden’s death brought little change, it seems precipitous to hope that change for Libya is coming. Kadhafi’s successor might be a worse despot. The regime change in Egypt, too, seems to be even less tolerant of Christianity. The persecutions of Christians in the Middle East seem far away.

But after reading Persepolis, a graphic novel about a young girl experiencing the tumult of the Shah of Iran’s rise to power in 1980, these events seem closer.

After the moral soul scrubbing of reading Deep Conversion, Deep Prayer, I meant to stay away from novels for a bit while I worked on that weak will problem. I went back the A Mother’s Rule of Life, which rubbed me the wrong way when I first read it, and braced myself to make a schedule and to again rededicate myself to setting priorities, like going to bed at a decent hour instead of staying up late reading. With homeschooling, I have more time for prayer with the kids and more motivation to stick to a schedule, but I also have a greater temptation to give myself chocolate+coffee breaks and social media breaks and turning off the brain breaks. Then suddenly it’s time to run to soccer practice, and the kitchen’s a disaster, and nothing is planned for dinner.

But in the name of previewing some literature for the older kids, I gave myself a novel break to read a graphic version of King Lear by Gareth Hinds and Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi. And I think I can make an argument that both of these “novels” are a kind of lectio divina.

Lear needs no excuse. Hinds retains Shakespeare’s language but places it in word bubbles above sketchy drawings of the main players. In the interest of space and illustration a couple minor characters and a few speeches were cut, but I was happy – excited even – with the book. I’ve been trying to get my older boys to read a few classics in between homework, practices, and ipods, and this was a great intro to Lear, if they can’t see it performed. The illustrations give expression to lines that might be difficult to interpret on a page of text. And it was easy to keep track of who is who. Some of the subplots between the brother-in-laws were still a little confusing to the boys, but the duplicity of Regan and Goneril was obvious. And the tragedy of Lear’s descent and the blinding of Gloucester were movingly conveyed by the illustrations. But of course the real power is Shakespeare’s wordsmithery. I had forgotten how despicable Regan and Goneril are in their grasping for Edmund, and how tragic the ending is. Shakes lets you believe that Lear and Cordelia might survive, that good will win out in the end, but then kills off the characters who could redeem the treachery.

Here you have food for meditation on the nature of parental duty, on aging and death, on loyalty and truth, on the brevity of life and what makes it worth living. And Shakespeare makes it all seem so dramatic and important – and beautiful - as if all of life were concerned with these Big Topics. Hinds's illustrations don't distract from all that.

Persepolis is quite a different creation, but it also set my head spinning. Its form is more like a traditional comic book: black and white drawings in little squares for distinct actions and conversations. But this story of a 12 year old girl living in Iran in 1979-1980 is incredibly moving. Genre-wise, it’s really a memoir, not a novel, but the form removes what could come across as melodrama in a traditional memoir.

The story reminds me a little of Reading Lolita in Tehran. An educated family in Iran is thrilled when the government is overthrown, but then overcome with disbelief at the fundamentalism of the Shah. Why don't they leave? It’s a topic that fascinates: how does such an evil regime come into being? Why do people accept the dictator’s decrees? They live in fear because their friends and relations are killed off.

But Marji retains a spunky, free-thinking attitude. She wears tight jeans under her burkha. She sasses her teachers. She questions the propaganda. Her parents are upper-class, communist-leaning, idealists who believe the regime is going to get better. But it doesn’t. Arrests, death, and exile follow

Both of these books raise the question of whether a graphic form traditionally used by “comic” books is effective for tragedies. I suppose you could argue whether Persepolis is by classical definition a tragedy or not, since Marji escapes the country and flourishes in France, but she loses her family and her homeland, along with whatever innocence she had when the Shah takes over.

I lay down in bed after finishing the book with my mind replaying the events in the life of Marji’s family and thinking about the tumultuous experiences of the people of the Middle East today. We have it so good; we are so blessed. But how easily it could all be lost. The news is often grim – and here we are on an island much closer to places like North Korea that could easily erupt into violence. But these stories of perseverance in the face of tragedy provide hope at the same time that they taunt “this could be you. . . . What are you doing to help?”

Reading for confirmation

2011-10-24T23:51:00.000-05:00

My neighbor stopped by today to borrow some books. Her daughter and my two older sons are in the confirmation class at the base chapel together. While our last church had a 3 year confirmation program for high schoolers, this chapel has the superfast confirmation for eighth graders. One of the hazards of moving is making sure you don't miss any sacraments. So this program was supposed to be a year, but the archbishop for the military is coming in January, so it is being shaved down to a 5 month program, minus holidays. Not ideal, but I feel like the boys have a pretty good grounding in the faith, and we're doing a little catechesis of our own at home on an irregular basis.

Meanwhile the neighbor's daughter is a little more precocious. She is frustrated in the class because it rehashes all the catechesis that a regular participant in religious ed. should have picked up years ago, but because stragglers show up for sacramental classes, I guess the thinking is that basics like the parts of the Mass need to be covered AGAIN. Meanwhile, she's being pressured to accept for life a faith that she's not sure she is ready to assent to. From what my neighbor has told me, I guess after being a quick learner of all the Bible stories and faith as a child, as a preteen she is beginning to question the contradictions in the stories, the corruption in the history, and the apparent conflict between science and faith.

Since I'm not her mom upset by her doubts, I think she's showing a lot of maturity for an 8th grader. Questions about God's existence and Christ's divinity haven't come up at our house. If our boys have them, they aren't asking us.

Anyway, her mom and dad have a pretty good grounding themselves it sounds like, but her mom asked if I had any books at home to loan her. I sent her home with a stack, but I'm not sure any are just what she needs. The one that came to mind first was Augustine's Confessions, maybe because St. Monica was just in our reading book. Too hard for an 8th grader? Or will she relate to the story of another young adult's questioning, rejection, and final acceptance of the faith of his birth.

Since the Thomas Dubay book was written for someone seeking to deepen his faith, not accept it, I didn''t send that. But before I had finished Thomas Dubay's book, I had picked up a couple other books on faith at the libary. I skimmed 15 Days of Prayer with Thomas Merton by Andre Grozier. I meant for it to be a part of this prescription for change, and the book is intended to be a guided meditation book, something to spend some time with, not to skim. But while quotes from Merton provide plenty of substance for meditation, the questions this book asked were rather bland. “Think about a time you felt… What do you remember about… How did you feel when….” I should just read more Merton. He is a fascinating figure, but I seem to only find books about him at the library and not books by him, except the Seven Story Mountain.

Perhaps what interested me the most in the 15 Days book were the last couple chapters about interreligious dialogue. I also happened to pick up off the library shelf a book on the same issue, God is Not One by Stephen Prothero, out of curiousity. This book is a comparative religion survey, meant to be an unbiased look at the teachings and characteristics of the major world religions. It might actually be of interest to my neighbor's daughter if she is sincerely wondering what other religions teach. Prothero begins with an argument against the idea that most religions are similar and share the same God, the God of Abraham. He also rejects the idea that all religions are different roads travelling to the same location – some sort of metaphysical state of transcendence. He argues that it’s a fallacy to focus on similarities between world religions in order to downplay religious zealousness or superiority and to encourage tolerance. But instead, downplaying differences encourages misunderstanding.

Rather,Prothero argues that even though major world religions share the qualities that make them religions (ritual, community, creeds, metaphysical longing), at heart they are quite different. They are like members of a family who outwardly resemble each other, but whose personalities and talents are completely different. So while Jews, Muslims, and Christians all worship one God, Prothero argues that because they worship in different ways, profess different dogmas, and describe God differently, it is a falsehood to claim that they have much in common.

So rather than diffuse radical fundamentalism by saying all religions are one, Prothero proposes to move toward understanding the differences in each religion by studying what each religion believes is the primary problem of human existence, its solution, its techniques to reach the solution, and its exemplars. It’s disingenuous to say that it doesn’t matter to true believers what god you worship because true believers are convicted.

I only skimmed the book, but it’s provocative.  Prothero does seem to evaluate fairly and without prejudice each religion, and seems to have genuine respect for believers. I would guess he’s an agnostic who appreciates the willingness of believers to ask big questions and seek their answers. I agree with him that it is important to understand what other believers profess and how they worship and live in accordance with their faith.

I’d like to be able to hand a book to my older kids and say, here read this, and then ask them how they would defend what we’ve been trying to teach them.  But I’m not sure if they are quite ready for that challenge.  I remember being in high school and sitting in the library reading books about the Dao and Buddhism, maxims of Marcus Aurelius and the sayings of Confucius, and wondering what the Jewish holy days were all about, trying to figure out what my own answers to the big questions were.

Now I can't lay a finger on what convicted me about Catholicism. Reading magazines at Crisis and First Things at my grandparents' house probably had something to do with it. The example of my parents. The Christian emphasis on love and serving your neighbor matched well with all the novel reading I was doing. Confirmation retreats. Lots of little pieces.

So a prayer that my sons' and my neighbor's daughter will pick up and put together some of those little pieces, too. At least my neighbor's daughter is honest about it and doesn’t want to be a hypocrite by taking the sacrament just to make her parents happy.  My husband and I sat down with our boys the other day and asked them some questions about confirmation and what they would say to an unbeliever, and they were able to parrot back the idea of a First Mover, and the idea that the order of the universe suggests an Original Designer, but from our conversation it was hard to tell if these arguments are personal to them.  At the cusp of adolescence and young adulthood, they seem ready to start taking ownership of what they believe. It’s an interesting age.

Island Fair

2011-10-20T06:43:00.002-05:00

This past weekend we were able to experience a little more of Chamorro culture on Guam at the Micronesia Island Fair. I was expecting something a little more extensive, more like a county fair, but it was not quite that large. There was a plant booth, but no animals, other than the carabao available for $3 rides. The other booths sold arts and crafts, food, and books about the islands. The kids were disappointed that there were no carnival rides - I wonder if there are carnies on Guam. Since the event was small, we were able to linger longer at the booths selling shell crafts, coconut candy and oils, wooden carvings, and other crafts.

Coconut candy in a biodegradable container

Shells for sale for those who aren't divers

Watching the dancers

A man carving a walking stick in a hat that reminded me of Don Quixote's helmet.

A handmade proa - a traditional boat like a canoe that can be sailed.

Workers constructing a new proa

We also enjoyed the interactive children's booth, where an organization that promotes the teaching of Chamorro culture in the schools taught us some weaving skills and coconut shredding.

Learning to weave palm fronds

My oldest learning to shred coconut from a man in native dress - or undress.

Completed slipknot bracelet

Coloring pages that teach Chamorran for Happy Thanksgiving and Merry Christmas.

The dancers' ornaments

Orchids for sale.

The best part of the day were performances by dancers from some of the nearby islands, which include Yap, known for its stone money, Palau, famous for coral reefs, Pohnpei, Kosrae, and Chuuk.

More photos at the local paper's website.

On Motivation and Prayer

2011-10-17T00:42:00.003-05:00

Some time ago I posted about Walking the Literary Labyrinth, a book in which the author talked about “providential books.” The phrase felt familiar at the time, but I couldn’t think of a particular example. But I just finished a book that definitively belongs in that category. I want to go around proclaiming it as a great book, but I don’t know that it would strike anyone as particularly brilliant. It’s just that I’ve read it at a time I needed to hear what it had to say.

Is it also providential that my mom sent Thomas Dubay’s Deep Conversion, Deep Prayer to me just when I was ready to put aside the youth fiction and turn back to some spiritual reading? (after being disgusted by Dork Diaries, which my daughter snagged at the library. I have to admit I found Diary of a Wimpy Kid somewhat amusing, but this knock-off was bad enough that I want to flush pages down the toilet and pay the library fine, so they wouldn’t have it on the shelf.) I’ve been stuck in a malaise for some time, in need of spiritual renewal, which I suppose my mother intuited, because its message was just what I needed to hear.

With our recent move, I’ve been focused on material things, organizing, furnishings, schedules, etc, to the detriment of my soul, or at least to its neglect. I’ve had this nagging feeling that I need to be doing something, to living my faith more radically in some way – not necessarily selling everything I own and heading out to proclaim the gospel, but something akin to that. On the other hand, I’ve found it hard to feel rooted in the faith when feeling rootless in the world, although I suppose that is just the time to turn to God as a safe harbor.

Now that we finally have found a home and are unpacked, I can read this book and focus on making some of the changes it recommends – which are simple really. Dubay writes for the person who recognizes his or her life does not live up to Christ’s call to “be converted and accept the gospel” (Mk 1:15), who sees that change is needed but doesn’t have the motivation to enact it. Dubay quotes St. Bernard’s famous saying that “There are more people converted from mortal sin to grace, than there are religious converted from good to better.” So this book is directed to the person stuck in venial sin who repeatedly gossips, is lazy or wasteful, overeats, is habitually late, or simply puts little energy into the state of his soul.

Sounds familiar.

Fr. Dubay even accuses that person of confessing these venial sins and then falling right back into them, as if true penitence and the firm resolve to amend their souls was absent at confession.

Uncomfortably familiar.

Like the person who knows all the healthy foods to eat and has access to them, but still binges on junk food, the person who knows what a saintly life looks like but doesn’t change has a greater culpability than the hardened sinner who doesn’t know any way out of the dark depths. I cringed as I read this. I’ve read plenty of books about saints and theology and prayer. I shouldn’t be so halfhearted in my attempts to become more loving, more forgiving, more prayerful.

Describing conversion as a change from vice to virtue, Dubay writes, “from the point of view of attention to and intimacy with God, supreme Beauty, supreme Delight, conversion includes a change from little or no prayer to a determined practice of christic meditation leading eventually to contemplative intimacy, “pondering the word day and night, ‘ leading to a sublime “gazing on the beauty of the Lord” with all its varying depths and intensities.” (Ps. 1;1-2, 27:4)

So basically, the real goal is to move from moral mediocrity to moral excellence, which requires developing a deep prayer life and turning away from the little sins that distract us from this goal. These little sins all signify a deeply rooted selfishness and egotism. In other words, a lack of real, selfless, sacrificial love.

Dubay's prescription is to offer a list of motivations to prayer. When people pray, they learn to love truth and goodness. "When we come to love objective truth and goodness, we have made progress toward conversion from our radical 'I-ism'. This fundamental transformation is completed with the love of beauty, first the beauty of God, and then the beauty of man and the rest of creation Altruism and egocentrism are opposites. . . . When honest men love objective reality, the way things actually are, and then go on to pursue the goodness of all the virtues and are sensitive to genuine beauty, they are like a starving man sitting before a banquet. He immediately sees the answers to his needs. When people who love truth, goodness and beauty hear the gospel, they spontaneously love it. This means of course that they immediately see its attractiveness and splendor, how it magnificently fulfills their human aspirations and needs." We naturally want to overcome mediocrity, and are drawn to the unity and beauty of the gospel.

Just a few pages into Dubay’s book, I was convicted with guilt for the selfishness and lukewarmness and laziness that Dubay describes. I also recognize that desire for beauty that Dubay says is the beginning of conversion. I just struggle with moving out of the inertia of selfishness.

My husband and I were talking about selfishness, and he commented that it’s a part of being human, like having hair. We’re all ego-centric, we all have a deep-ingrained selfishness. The manifestations I see in myself: Ignoring my children’s requests, ignoring my husband in preference for reading or blogging or whatever distraction is at hand, a messy house indicating misplaced priorities, wanting to talk about myself, a fear of getting asked to do stuff, but also a desire to do stuff just to gain recognition, envy, etc. I won’t list all my confessional items, but you get the picture.

So I know, and have known, I need to break these bad habits, and to silence that voice that says, hey, those aren’t really anything to get worked up about; why bother. It is going to take a sharp tool to uproot that vice. This is where I wish Dubay’s book were a little more inspiring.

Rightly, Fr. Dubay points out that love is the inspiration for change, and that love for God is nourished with prayer and contemplation. If my love for God were more intense, I’d have more motivation to shut my mouth or turn off the negative voices in my mind. For example, married couples don’t get married believing that they’ll grow more selfish and demanding. They believe they’ll become more selfless and giving. But so many marriages don’t improve as time goes by because people forget the intoxication of early love that encourages selflessness. Dubay even writes that "real love is uncommon in our world because full conversion is uncommon." I certainly see in myself the tendency to become more protective of my time, more stingy with my affection, more demanding of my own desires, instead of more willing to make sacrifices. My kids probably will remember me as being a grumpy, nagging mom, not a calm loving mother, unless I can kick myself into gear, beginning with spending more time in contemplation But what will make me pray?

Dubay's list of reasons that compel a deep conversion includes contemplating the shortness of life and endlessness of eternity, studying the "sheer goodness and beauty of the saints," describing the joy inspired by deep conversion, envisioning the evangelical effect of becoming a person infused with real love, the improvement of human relationships especially within families when spouses are of one mind about the nature of real love.

But we slip so easily back into egocentrism, just like the Hebrews complaining to Moses, and the lukewarm Christians scolded by St. John, so Dubay also exhorts his reader to be specific and persevering. People spend billions of dollars and hours of time on physical beauty; we need to spend just as much energy on our spiritual beauty.

Actually, that image of what my kids will remember is perhaps one of the biggest motivators for me. I want them to see me as someone who was joyful and generous. I want them to recognize the beauty of creation. I want them to see how acts of service bring joy, to see the face of Christ in the people they serve, to feel the person of Christ acting through them when they serve another. And getting down on my knees more often is probably the only way to move from someone motivated by selfishness to someone motivated by love.

As I'm typing this up, I'm aware of how often I've read the same advice. I've written this advice down to remind myself before. And I've failed to persevere time and again. But here we are in a new place with a new routine. So here's to a new start.

Not quite a walk in the woods

2011-10-13T08:05:00.001-05:00

The trail was easy to follow at first, but my Tevas were not comfortable once they got wet and muddy , and we were heading downhill.

In honor of Columbus Day, our family went exploring. We didn't discover any new lands, but felt like we were in the wilds on our hike, known as a boonie stomp in these parts. This is because you literally have to stomp through the boonies to get to where you are going, in our case a couple of waterfalls on the east side of the island. Taking a hike here is not like the kind of walk in the woods you do at a nice state park, or even a small wildlife refuge, where you walk along a well marked path with a clear idea of where you are going and what you face along the way. Instead you look for an opening in the brush and head towards water.

You know you are in the boonies by the deserted cars.

We weren't sure if this guy was friendly, so instead of cutting across his property, we walked through the creek.

Some friends who lived here a few years ago gifted us their “Best Boonie Tracks on Guam” book. Though printed in 2004, we were able to find the dirt track it described as the head of the trail. But the rest of the directions were a little vague and in some cases, downright wrong. Nonetheless, we were able to find the falls, if not climb down them, and enjoy the surroundings.

Trying to decide which way to go according to the book.

An abandoned structure. Is the carabao skull to warn away the taotaomo'na, the ghosts of the wild?

My 7 year old wondered if this used to be a daycare.

While walking through an abandoned structure, I wondered if this was what it was once like in England, when novel people set off across the countryside on an amble of a couple hours. Only hotter and more humid and buggier.

What looks like tangerines in the back are kalamansi, which are bitter when orange, and lemony when green.

Bananas or plantains?

One of the falls. The pool at the bottom was too shallow for jumping.

Excuse the bad date caption. I just loved the expression of our youngest hiker.

Adventurers trying to figure out a way down. Only these two made it to the bottom.

Although the trek was only about a mile and a half, according to the guide book, it took us nearly three hours, including stops to play in the pools. We made it back to the car in front of a torrential downpour, and only were lost once for a short time. No one fell or was injured, other than a few sword grass slices, and we all enjoyed the adventure of exploring and the slight adrenalin rush of not knowing whether a mad carabao was going to rush us, or an angry boonie dweller chase us off his property.

I think we will have to have designated boonie stomp clothes and shoes: the mud refuses to be washed out of the white t-shirts the boys had on, and the shoes, although hosed off, are still tinted by the red clay.

Must have been a wild big wheel ride.

According to the guide book, we still have a lot more waterfalls to discover, some mountains to climb, and some caves to explore, including a couple with ancient paintings and a replica of the cave where a Japanese soldier hid until 1972, apparently unaware that the war was over.

Scenes from our first boonie stomp, with just the older boys and me, when I led us all astray on the way home. Fortunately, we could just look for electric lines to lead us back to the road.

Although the trail was more discernible here, it split into multiple tracks, probably for mountain bikers, so we got a little turned around.

Colorful dirt. The blue isn't as vivid in the photo as in real life.

I think this is bamboo orchid.

In which we take up homeschooling

2011-10-11T07:14:00.001-05:00

I might have mentioned awhile back that I was thinking about home schooling again - well, here we are. The older two are going to school, eighth and ninth grades. But the 11, 9, 7, and 5 year old are staying home with me. They asked for it.

I couldn’t bring myself to commit until we actually arrived here. “I’m thinking of home schooling” I told anyone who asked. But really, the fact that I didn’t research schools before we left means that I already was committed. And I packed home school books in our advance shipment, so we could start as soon as we set up housekeeping.

My ambivalence about admitting we were going to home school may be partially rooted in a fear of the work. I knew I’d have at least one student who would rather read than practice math facts. I knew I’d be saying no to a lot of things I’d like to do. But I also didn’t have a lot of confidence in the schools here. I don’t have any basis for that, other than repeated testimonials from other Navy spouses about the problems in the public schools. But I haven’t met anyone who sent their kids to the Catholic schools, so I don’t have any first hand insights.

Now here we are homeschooling. And so far, other than one reluctant learner who regularly threatens to run away if he has to do anymore writing and one student who likes to claim to have done work that she hasn’t, school is going relatively smoothly. The older kids leave for the bus at 7:30, so everyone is up and mostly dressed by then. On the days when I jump right into action, everyone seems to cooperate better. But the days when something happens to distract me – a phone call, a late alarm, a message to respond to – we have a hard time getting on the rails. As soon as a moment arises for someone to slip away to play Legos, it’s had to return to learning.

So a peek into our days: Rise early to exercise and make lunches for the older boys. Shower, get dressed, and eat breakfast before the younger kids are awake enough to start playing. Then get their stack of books from the closet and start the day with a little reading aloud. If I can catch them while they are still half asleep, they’ll sit and do school for much longer.

That last sentence reveals we are not unschoolers. I make the kids do worksheets and coloring pages, even though at heart I would like to dismiss these as unnecessary and have the kids do more experiential learning and more writing of their own. To my dismay, I have yet to birth a child who likes writing.
It’s interesting to me, if not to anyone else, to note how my approach has shifted since we home schooled last a couple of years ago. Much of what we’re doing is the same: We’re still doing Saxon Math for the 4th and 6th grader, although I haven’t been keeping up with mental math and the timed drill sheets. For the younger two, we’re using MCP, as we did last time around. It seemed to work, and I’m too intimidated to try a new program. I’ve got the books; keeps it simple.

Along those lines: I’m trying to avoid looking on the internet for home-school ideas. That was one of my pratfalls last time around. Too many good ideas translates into too little consistency. Focus, focus, is my mantra.

The biggest distraction: History and science materials. When we homeschooled in Virginia, we did a lot more subjects together as a family. I read history and science out loud and the kids illustrated what I read or answered questions. We went to art classes and science classes at a co-op and at museums. Here each kid is a little more spread apart, so the 6th grader works independently, while I follow up more carefully with the 4th grader. I read aloud to the 2nd grader and kindergartner, but they distract each other and don’t want to illustrate scenes from history.

So my approach to history and science needs a little more structure. We’re sort of taking a classical approach to history – we just finished a spending about 4 weeks on Egypt, and now we’re moving to the Ancient Middle Eastern cultures. But I have all these good materials: The Story of the World book I, A Child's History of the World by Virgil Hillyer, the Seton Before America book, the Catholic textbook All Ye Lands, Usborne Explorers books, Eyewitness books, Greenleaf guides, historical novels, etc., etc, etc. My own bookshelves are a distraction. I keep looking at all these books, but the kids ignore them. Although I have in my head a trajectory of what we want to cover this year, I really need to cull through my stuff and figure out what we’ll focus on, and then try to figure out how to make it interesting to my younger kids.

Here’s another shift: My older boys were verbal learners; they could sit and read and absorb the material. My younger kids need a more kinaesthetic approach. They love crafts and projects. Some of the Story of the World/Greenleaf ideas like making relief maps from salt dough and playing dress up appeal more to them than listening and making timeline illustrations, whereas the olders found crafts unnecessary. Since I’m not naturally crafty, I have to put more thought into this.

The same thing goes for science. I’m trying to keep it simple by using the Abeka science books for 4th and 6th grade that I already owned. Although I like the classical idea of focusing on one discipline at a time, this more traditional approach makes it easier for me, although since we are on a tropical island, doing some of the suggested activities like collecting leaves and flowers is a little more difficult because our varieties are so different from what is in the book. No seasons here. But I think the days are shortening. I was wondering if that would happen here or not. I guess we are enough north of the equator that we’ll notice a little solstice shift.

Since science was one of the subjects I taught at our co-op, you’d think I’d jump right back into that curriculum I had come up with. But it was geared toward a group setting with a short lecture, a demonstration and then an experiment. (I taught physics for middle schoolers, even though that was my weakest discipline. I had to do a lot of relearning. Same thing with Latin – even though I came up with all this stuff for the classroom last year, now with just 2 students, one ahead of the other, I’m finding it difficult to make things interesting.)

With the younger two, we had been reading one of those Little Nature Readers for science, which bored even me, and supplementing with library books. I have to admit I prefer Magic School Bus. Thorough for the age group and entertaining. More hands on activities for science are something to add to the plan. But I know in school they would be doing very little science in kindergarten and 2nd grade, so I don’t feel quite as driven as I did when my older kids were learning.

Ironically or not, for my favorite subject, language arts, I tend to rely on workbooks. I want to find or devise a unified language arts program, and I know some of them already exist but I’m falling back on pre-existing material. I like the Charlotte Mason idea of narrations and copywork and dictation, so I sometimes have the older two read and retell a story, but I’d like to work out an arrangement where I come up with spelling words that have a phonetic relationship or are enrichment vocab words that come from the reading selection for the week, so that one lesson could be a dictation from the reading that includes spelling words as well as an illustration of the grammar lesson for the week. My sixth grader does Lingua Mater, which I like for the most part, although it’s not enough reading material, and the grammar seems basic for a middle school text. I also bought him a diagramming book that we both like – makes grammar a game almost and brings out language’s structural beauty. I treated myself to Sister Bernadette’s Barking Dog: The Quirky History and Lost Art of Diagramming Sentences by Kitty Burns Florey, which I just started. It’s not quite as fun as Eats, Shoots and Leaves, but I’m not far into it yet.

Religion is the one subject that seems to be a more natural learning experience. Since the kids are doing the Faith and Life books at CCD, we’re paying more attention to the liturgical year at home, looking up the saint for the day or reading from a book like My Path to Heaven by Fr. Gregory Bliss, with the intricate illustrations by Caryll Houselander, and stories about how you can be like the pilgrim who tries to take the cart across the bridge and gets stuck or like the pilgrim who sells all his attachments and crosses the bridge with ease. It’s religion class for me, too - and more time to pray. And we even do crafts: the second grader is making a ten commandments book, the fourth grader is making a rosary book, and the sixth grader is illustrating the creed.

The rest of the day we fill with piano practice, quiet reading time from an assigned book, trips to the pool and the library, occasional geography lessons. Some days we do a little art appreciation or look up pictures that go with a history subject or the saint of the day in one of my art history books. This is a Charlotte Mason addition that I didn’t do with the older boys. I also just bought Mona Brookes’ book about teaching kids to draw, but we’ve only done two lessons and neither time did the kids seem interested in trying. I love the image of all of us sitting down to draw with quiet music playing and the kids focused and trying their best, but this remains a figment of my imagination.

In fact many of my home school plans remain imaginary. Most days the kids either rush through their work just to get done, or disappear to go play before their work is finished. My second grader especially despises anything that resembles work. I wonder if home schooling is the right choice for him. He didn’t have behaviorial problems at school, but at home he throws temper tantrums and threatens to run away and throws things as soon as he is frustrated. My biggest daily challenge is trying to remain calm in the face of his storms. I don’t succeed often. This takes a lot of the joy out of the whole project, and makes me question whether or not I should be doing this at all. We’re all miserable when I have to argue with him all morning. Everyone else gets whiney waiting for me. Then I get whiney waiting for my husband to come home.
The other challenge is saying no to invitations. I keep getting email and facebook notices about spouses’s club events: boonie stomps, book club, dive club, lunch bunch, events to raise money for charity, Bible studies. Since most of the military wives don’t work, and everyone is far from their families, the military community plans a lot more social events here. I probably wouldn’t go to most anyway, but I have to admit that there are a lot of days I’d rather go diving or on a boonie stomp than stay at home trying to keep a seven year old from losing control.

Now that I've written this, I have to admit that our current home schooling experience isn’t so different from our previous experience. Our routine is similar, but with the two girls now fully involved, we are much more organized. They do school like it’s a game, which actually is kind of nice. The biggest thing we lack is the great community of Catholic home schooling friends we had, although we’ve met quite a few other homeschooling families who attend one of the evangelical churches on the island. They’re all very nice, but since they don’t let their kids read Harry Potter or trick or treat, I fear they might consider my kids a bad influence. So we miss the friends we’ve had who have been almost like family who encouraged us in our trials. But people are always coming and going, and we’ve only been here a short time; we’re sure to find a community of friends soon. In the meantime, my goal is to try to forget the tantrums and record in my memory the pleasant moments on the couch when we all are reading and pouring over illustrations, when everyone is happy and engaged.

A life of historical significance

2011-10-06T07:44:00.002-05:00

The older boys were talking tonight at dinner about Steve Jobs’ death, and his short but amazing life. I didn’t realize or just didn’t remember that he had cancer, which the men at the table informed me everyone has known for years. Ironically, my 8^th grader just had to turn in a report and diorama about someone who has changed the course of human history. He chose Neil Armstrong, probably because he’s an iconic figure, rather than because of any interest in space exploration, but he commented that Steve Jobs would have been an interesting person to profile. He certainly has changed human history. Was his death a little more peaceful knowing he had made such a contribution to society? And he lived a life of apparent virtue. A hero for modern times.

Perhaps I shouldn’t mention it during this time of national mourning, but I find myself asking whether or not Jobs changed history for the better. I feel old because I can remember the introduction of personal computers. As a high school journalism student, I even became something of a Mac snob. I say something, because it quickly faded away when my foray into journalism ended. I jumped on the email bandwagon in college, but that was the last time I was ever on the cutting edge of technology. It changes too quickly for me. It costs too much to upgrade frequently, especially for something that I use primarily as a glorified typewriter and encyclopedia. Even the cell phone: I downgraded from the iphone to a little flip phone that doesn’t even have a camera after we moved here. And I don’t miss it. I've been having a down-on-technology moment for some time.

Obviously, I indulge in the social media stuff, but I’d really rather prefer if someone wrote or called to tell me about their lives. I wouldn’t want to do away with all the improvements in medical care and research and criminal justice that computers made possible -- just the criminal activity that computers make possible. It’s certainly handy while homeschooling to look something up quickly on the internet or to show the kids a film clip or play a piece of music. But the information I seek could be located elsewhere were the internet still a figment of imagination.

Not too long ago, I read this passage in John O'Donoghue's Eternal Echoes: " The instrumentalization of contemporary life pushes us ever farther away from Nature. Even farmers do not really get their hands dirty anymore. Years ago, when you looked at a farmer's hands, they were like miniature lexicons of the landscape. The hands were worn and roughened through contact with soil and stone. . . . It was a powerful image of living hands reminding us that those hands were originally and would again be clay. People dressed in their Sunday best to go to Mass. Serving Mass, you would see perfectly dressed men come to the altar for Holy Communion. They would stand reverently and offer a pair of withered earthened palms on which the white host would glisten: the bread of life on hands of clay. This is a vignette from a vanishing world. Generally, when we lose individual contact with Nature and with each other, we gradually lose our depth and diversity of presence."

What has me riled up lately is that the director of the Department of Defense schools, a woman with a business degree who moved up through the contracts department, recently visited the boys’ schools to promote the use of tablet computers in the classroom so that students can take better notes and become more organized.

So that they can become more distracted, is what I would say.

Can’t they just use an agenda? A little notebook to write down their assignments in? Isn’t there a study somewhere that shows students learn more when they write something down?

I’m sure teachers can be instructed in getting the most out of tablets for education, but I imagine students might enjoy getting what they can out of them without the teachers catching them playing apps or checking Facebook. I can’t think of one thing about classroom instruction that would be improved by giving students tablets. They are there to be educated, not entertained. They need to be encouraged to use their brains a little bit instead of making it easier for them to find answers. They need the "depth and diversity of presence" in the classroom, not the mindlessness that comes from spending too much time attached to a screen.

I’m know I’m a minority on this issue. I’m sure there are a million and one ways that tablets can be used to enrich learning.

I’m just not sure that students will learn any more than they did in 1991. Or 1981. Or 1901.

Steve Jobs was still amazing. May he rest in peace.