Friday Favorites for June 29

OK, I just have to ask: ARE YOU GUYS READING THIS STUFF? I think that every time I put together one of these lists of links. "This stuff is so great, I hope people are checking out these links!" Since these posts don't lend themselves to comments it's hard to tell.

Anyway, here are my favorite 12 posts that I came across in my blog reading this week:

1. "My NFP conversion story": Stevie has a great post about why she and her husband came to agree with Church teaching on contraception, as well as the changes it brought to their lives. This humble, honest account of their "conversion" is a great read (and has inspired me to start working on a post of my own on that subject).
   
   
2. Modern Catholic church or coal mine?: What a great idea for a post. Can you tell which ones are pictures of modern Catholic church buildings and which are coal mines? (I couldn't).
   
   
3. Courage and faith in the face of execution: Elena Maria Vidal always has the most beautiful posts detailing the personal lives of historical figures. This excerpt from a letter from 1794 details the amazing conduct of a Catholic woman sentenced to die by guillotine. I hope that I would have half her faith and courage in that situation.
   
   
4. Gifts and clutter management: Kristen made herself the unofficial Clutter Expert of the Catholic mom blogosphere with this post that pretty much everyone has linked to by now. She follows that up with a great Q&A about how they manage to pull of their minimalist lifestyle.
   
   
5. Catholics and Fridays: Seminarian Matthew has a nice reminder of what Friday means to Catholics.
   
   
6. Beauty is truth: Stephanie writes of her longing for classic beauty rooted in deep truth that is so sorely missing from the modern world. This post brought to light something I'd never been able to articulate about my own conversion: once I came to see God I finally understood why I'd always known on a gut level that some art was truly beautiful while other art (e.g. most "modern art") was just junk -- because the former is rooted in truth and reflects something of God, the latter does not.
   
   
7. Evaluating yourself by your relationships: Almost every post Mansheed writes leaves me saying "wow!", and this one is no exception. She talks about the spiritual exercise of evaluating herself through her relationships with others, and her stunning realization that "there was NOT ONE relationship where I could say I'd given my all, that I'd truly loved and truly tried to know the other person and truly given of myself". Great idea for a spiritual exercise, great insight, great blog.
   
   
8. "If you are a parent, you ARE the curriculum": I loved this post from Starry Sky Ranch about how to approach daily challenges. Kim points out that when we approach seemingly mundane, thankless work like mopping or dishes we should "consider that what we are modeling is not simply how to clean but how to persevere, how to remain gentle spirited, how to maintain grace under pressure, how to serve the least of those around us. Our tasks may well just be the venue chosen to relay those lessons and not simply an end in and of themselves."
   
   
9. Pint-sized conscience examiners: The ever-eloquent Kristen candidly tells of how she felt when she behavior she didn't like in her daughters...and realized exactly who they got it from. She says so much about parenthood when she notes that "these little ones reveal my sins more clearly through their tiny mouths and hands than any of my lengthy personal reflections."
   
   
10. Appreciating what you have: Another interesting post from Tienne, who recounts her mother's life of poverty in Croatia and notes that "it's no surprise that the more society attempts to pursue pleasure, comfort and excess, the less satisfied we are with what we have."
    
    
11. The woman who dared to stay home: Mrs. Alexandra tells a poignant tale from her childhood in an Eastern European communist country about a neighbor who dared to be a housewife. There are so many lessons here -- about judging others, gossip, courage, staying home with children, and motherhood, just to name a few. Great stuff.
    
    
12. "I looked for happiness everywhere...": Everyone who came to faith after going through serious doubts or atheism should read this.
    

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

Talking to your kids about death

I took the kids over to my mom's house the other day and we found a dead bird on her porch. My mom, a friend of hers, the kids and I were trying to figure out how to deal with it (no big deal for those of us from the land o' scorpions) when my two-year-old son asked, "What happened to the birdie? Why is it sleeping there?"

My mom and her friend looked at each other and then at me, and both seemed really uncomfortable. I interrupted their hemming and hawing about the birdie going night-night and just said, "The birdie died. That means that he's going to live in a place where we can't see him, and just his body is going to stay here." Not high theology, I know. It was just the first thing that came to mind.

My mom's friend pulled me aside later and said, "Isn't it a bit early to be talking to him about DEATH?!"

I actually hadn't thought about it. It didn't seem like that big of a deal to explain the concept to him and I didn't have any plans to withhold the big "death discussion" until he was at a certain age. I can't tell if I'm on the right track or if maybe I'm being way too laid back about it. I'm still so psyched about the whole "God exists" thing that maybe I'm not sensitive to others' trepidation about the subject.

I was still an atheist when my son was born. At some point when he was a baby the subject of talking to your kids about death came up, and it made me feel so depressed. How on earth can I ever break it to him?, I thought. Is there maybe some Barney episode that could handle this one for me, where he sits down with the kids and explains that everybody will die one day? Maybe he could incorporate a little song to soften the part about how there's no eternal soul or memory beyond the grave so you simply cease to exist. But then you just know that that nosy kid with the glasses is going to ask, "But Barney, doesn't that mean that my existence and all of human history is utterly meaningless?", and then Barney's going to do something like rhyme "abject despair" with "a fun day at the fair" to the tune of Pop Goes the Weasel and just annoy me further.

But anyway.

Back then death used to be this thing too dreadful to think about. Something so profoundly depressing that I rushed the thought from my mind whenever it came up -- and certainly not anything I wanted my kids to think much about. So it was one of the most wonderful moments of my conversion when it occurred to me that if all this stuff that I had come to believe on an intellectual level was really true...then...death isn't something to fear anymore. You'd have to be a convert from atheism to understand how it feels when you first realize that.

And although I'm sure it will be a difficult, painful thing to work through when we experience the shock of losing someone close to us, death as a general concept is not something that it even occurred to me to shy away from since my conversion. My take on is something like, "Yeah, we all die, and that's kind of freaky when you first think about it, but I have some really, really good news for you on that matter..."

But I can't help but wonder if I'm missing something. Am I too nonchalant about all this with my kids? How do you all approach the topic in your family?

How to talk to your spouse about homeschooling

Lately I've heard from quite a few people (in person, via email and in comments to posts like this one), who are drawn to the idea of homeschooling but know that their spouse is not interested.

I know that I have quite a few homeschooling readers, so I thought I'd throw the question out there to tap into your wisdom: how do you approach the topic of homeschooling with a spouse who isn't interested? Does anyone have any experience with that who might have tips to share?


For what it's worth, I'll throw out some homeschooling myths that I used to believe that were a big part of my disinterest in the concept:

- Myth #1: You have to run your home school eight hours a day, five days a week, just like regular schools. When you can give each child customized attention and tailor the curricula to his or her unique needs, you can have your "school day" take up far less time than in public schools. Most of my homeschooling friends are done with the book-learning part of school time by lunch time (though they typically view learning as part of every aspect of life, so in some ways the "school day" is 24/7).

- Myth #2: Your kids have few opportunities to interact with other children and therefore aren't well-socialized. I threw out statements like "I don't want to homeschool because I want my kids to have friends and opportunities to interact with groups of children"...without having any facts on what group opportunities were available for local homeschooling families. Once I actually checked into it I found that there are various classes, field trips and groups that meet almost every day of the week that my kids could attend. There are tons of opportunities for them to be around other kids. Also, as Steve G. noted in the comments, it's not like the Lord of the Flies atmosphere found in so many schools is the ideal way for kids to learn about socialization.

- Myth #3: I'm not up to the challenge. This may be true for some people -- I'm sure that homeschooling is not the right path for every mom. However, too easily I brushed off the idea with "I couldn't do it." When I put some serious thought into what I actually learned during, say, elementary school, I realized that it actually would not be hard at all to make sure that my children learned all that same stuff at home.

- Myth #4: Once you make the initial decision, you're committed to homeschooling through high school. To be honest, I'm still not sure that homeschooling through high school will be the right decision for us. I'll worry about that sometime after I get through potty training. But, as a homeschooling friend pointed out, plenty of homeschooled kids make the transition to regular school during high school just fine. There are also increasing opportunities through universities and community colleges for kids to go to class for individual subjects if, for example, you didn't feel that you could cover chemistry or biology well enough on your own.

- Myth #5: I'd never have any time to myself. I have to admit, for a while I was looking forward to when the kids started going to school so that I could have a bit more time to myself. But after observing homeschooling families I realized that, for the moms who still had little ones at home, they actually had more breaks than I did (as well as cleaner houses!) since the older children were around to help out with chores and the younger children.

I throw those ideas since they were some of the major roadblocks to my interest in homeschooling. But take what I say with a grain of salt since my oldest is only 2.5.

I'd love to hear from other homeschooling parents, especially anyone who's had experience bringing up the topic with a reluctant spouse. How do you make the case for homeschooling with a spouse who isn't interested?

(Also, once again I direct anyone interested in this subject to Sally Thomas' must-read article called Schooling at Home.)

Now that's what I call an answered prayer

Remember my two posts about how every baby comes with a loaf of bread under his arm (here and here)? I always knew that all those situations were answered prayers. I couldn't prove it on paper to a skeptic, but I just knew.

And now, a follow-up to Part I of my "loaves of bread" post:

As I mentioned, the shots that I have to give myself (in the stomach!) throughout pregnancy because of this clotting disorder are very expensive. One of the things that most made me feel like the rug had been pulled out from under me when I saw the positive pregnancy test was that it's critical that I have this medication during pregnancy, but I couldn't afford it. My insurance covered part of it, but my part was over $800 per month. We're just out of range for qualifying for financial aid, and since it's an uncommon drug there isn't a lot of financial support out there for people who can't afford it. Combine that with the fact that my insurance didn't even cover pregnancy and I'm no longer a candidate for (cheaper) midwife births, and I was feeling pretty down.

In my original post I told the story of how the pharmacy told me over the phone that my insurance had started denying this medicine for some reason and that I'd now have to pay $2,418 per month for these shots. I went down to basically beg for some free samples and the lady interrupted me to tell me it'd be a $30 copay. I told her that that's not what I'd been told and asked her to confirm it. She assured me that it was correct, I paid my $30, and walked out with a box full of shots.

And now for the update:

Last month my husband and another man with the same business decided to become partners (very much guided by the hand of God, I believe, but that's another post). One of the many wonderful results of this merger was that we now have good health insurance. It covers this unexpected pregnancy -- even though I was already pregnant when we signed up -- and it covers my shots with only a $50 copay.

So a few weeks ago, in the final few days that the old insurance was still in effect, I decided to go ahead and refill my prescription since the old insurance's copay was only $30. And when I went to pick it up they told me, "Your portion is $872."

I told them that the last time I'd picked it up it was only $30. The pharmacist was puzzled as she looked through the records on the computer. After some typing and clicking around she said that there's no way that that's what I paid. There's no record of that transaction. It's very clear that my insurance requires me to pay the $800 amount. She politely assured me that I must be mistaken.

As I walked out, smiling to myself since I only had to wait a couple days until the new insurance was in effect and I could get my medicine for $50, I thought to myself, "Now THAT'S what I call an answered prayer!"

Resolution to the wish list panic attack

Big thanks to everyone who commented on my "wish list panic attack" post! I found all the comments to be very helpful, and have reorganized my wish list accordingly. In case you're interested, here's what I ended up ordering.

Hold On to Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More Than Peers by Gordon Neufeld - I got this one because I've heard so many good things about it, and because it's a good fit with my decision to homeschool. Also, I think it will help me put to words something I've been feeling lately: when I drive around my neighborhood and see young people, they're almost always alone or with maybe one other friend. They never make eye contact or smile, even if I wave, and always seem so sullen. This is exactly how I was as a teenager. I know that it's normal for teens to pull away from their parents and rebel a bit, but something about these kids (and my own experience as a teenager) just doesn't seem right. They just radiate frustration and depression, and I can't help but feel like something is terribly amiss every time I see them. I'm hoping that Neufeld's book helps me articulate what it is I think about all this.

Introduction to the Devout Life by St. Francis De Sales - I got this for two reasons. 1) Because so many of you told me I should, and 2) because I'm currently reading his book Finding God's Will for You and it is simply amazing (a must-read!).

My Life With the Saints by James Martin - This one I got almost entirely because it was recommended by commentors. Also, as I've mentioned, I've been especially drawn to the saints lately and want to rely on them more, as sources of strength and inspiration for my life.

Thanks so much for all your comments! Every one of them was helpful.

The Catholic Guy - tomorrow at 5:00pm EST

I'll be joining Lino Rulli once again on his show The Catholic Guy on Sirius Channel 159 Thursday 6/28 at 5:00pm EST. For those of you without a subscription, it's quick and easy to get a free trial.

Beautiful video about the priesthood

I just found this stunning video about the Catholic priesthood over at the Deacon's Bench and couldn't wait until my Friday Favorites to post it. I'm not sure if this is some pregnancy hormone thing or what, but Part II left me crying like a baby. Either these are some beautiful videos or I'm really overdue for a nap. :)

Part I:


Part II:

Trying to be a saint

My husband casually mentioned something he heard on Relevant Radio yesterday that I found to be life-changing: evidently, it's OK to specifically aim to be a saint.

He was listening to an interview with author Bert Ghezzi about his new book, The Heart of a Saint: Ten Ways to Grow Closer to God. In the interview Ghezzi mentioned that one thing all the saints he profiled had in common was that they all specifically aimed to be saints. Obviously I'm sure he didn't mean that they spent time visualizing the grand celebration in Vatican City that would happen upon their canonization, or even that they aimed to be canonized at all, but that they simply said, "I want to be as holy and as close to God as the great saints were."

For whatever reason, I didn't realize you could do that.

For a long time it's appealed to me to hold myself to the standards of the great saints, using their conduct as a model for my own. But then, subconsciously, I'd talk myself out of it, feeling like aiming to be as saintly as, say, St. Francis would be either ridiculous or just too prideful to think that someone like me could ever come near his holiness.

I'd never realized until the chat with my husband last night that I'd set a pretty low bar for myself. My spiritual goals were less along the lines of "to be a living St. Gianna" and more along the lines of "to be a less ornery version of Jen". And that attitude throws open the doors for my natural tendency to cut corners and make excuses for myself, like, "Yeah, I wasn't charitable to the customer service rep at the insurance company and I snapped at the kids too often but, hey, I'm no saint and I've got a lot on my plate right now." It's hard to picture Mother Teresa or St. Clare shrugging off any bad behavior, however small, with "Gimme a break, I'm no saint and I've got a lot on my plate right now." And neither should I.

So, all this is to say, I find it really inspiring to know that it's not a bad thing -- and is actually a really good thing -- to specifically aim to be as saintly as the saints. Though there are people like me out there who could probably manage to turn it into a prideful endeavor ("Now which picture should I have them use for those 50-foot tapestries they hang from St. Peter's at the canonization ceremony?"), simply aiming for the holiness of the great saints is a very worthy goal.

The sign of peace for the socially awkward

I often describe my personality as being "an introvert with extrovert Tourette's" -- I'm a hardwired introvert but I like people so I always end up putting myself in social situations, usually to the discomfort of all involved. Perhaps a more accurate description would be just "socially awkward".

Because of this, my second-least favorite part of Mass is when we offer our fellow parishioners the sign of peace (my least favorite part is when one or both of my children throw a tantrum, though I hear that that is not actually an official part of the Tridentine Mass).

When I first went to church a couple of years ago, I was completely caught off guard by this practice. I was sitting there, minding my own business, when the priest said:

Let us offer each other the sign of peace.

And suddenly people started interacting with one another. "What?!" I thought, "This is chaos! Offer who the sign of peace? The people in front of me? The people behind me? Ack! I just made eye contact with that guy a couple rows up! Do I have to now shake his hand as well?" And though these days I'm not quite as shocked as the first time I experienced it, to a socially awkward person like myself this whole process just seems like anarchy, rife with opportunities for me to do something inappropriate and/or offensive.

I would like to propose that we change this part of the Mass. Perhaps we could all just stand quietly and think something nice about the people around us. Or, if we must interact, I would propose that the priest offer a little more clarity on the matter to prevent it from being the unruly hand-shaking free-for-all that it currently is. I suggest the following:

In a moment we are going to participate in a ritual in which we offer one another the sign of peace. The introverted and the socially awkward may want to take a moment to prepare yourselves, as this involves speaking to and even touching the people around you.

Offering the sign of peace involves shaking the hand of another person and saying the words "peace be with you," and preferably includes a smile and at least one full second of eye contact.

Offer the sign of peace to all persons within a four foot radius of where you are seated. This includes people seated in front of and behind you. If, however, any of the people within this radius are part of a group, it is customary to offer the sign of peace to everyone within the group, up to a maximum of ten people. It is acceptable though not preferable to pretend like you are not able to lean over far enough to shake all of their hands and alternatively offer a small wave and lip-synch silently, "Peace be with you." Some parishioners may choose in this case to spice things up by pantomiming an "air handshake" in lieu of a wave, though this is not required.

Offer to shake the hand of anyone over the age of two. You do not need to shake the hands of very young children and babies, though you are required to acknowledge them and comment on their cuteness.

In the even that there is nobody seated within a four foot radius of you, you must offer the sign of peace to the following people:

• anyone seated in your same pew, even if outside the four foot radius, provided that there are fewer than five people total in the pew; and
  
• anyone seated anywhere in the pews in front of or behind you, even if outside the four foot radius, provided that there are fewer than five people total in either of said pews.
  

It is not acceptable to pretend to forget about the people seated directly to the rear of you. This is sometimes called the "Jennifer F. Dodge" and is frowned upon by the Church.

If there is nobody in your pew, the pew in front of you or the pew behind you, you are not required to offer the sign of peace to people more than one pew away, though the wave and lip-synch method (see above) is recommended if there is anyone two pews in front of or behind you.

You may safely ignore anyone seated more than two pews in front of or behind you, provided that you do not make eye contact with them. You must at least smile at anyone with whom you make eye contact during this time. It is not acceptable to pretend that you need to tie your shoe or brush something off your shirt in order to avoid eye contact with others; this is another form of the "Jennifer F. Dodge" and is strongly discouraged.

If you are seated on an aisle, you are not required to offer the sign of peace to those seated across the aisle from you, though it is fine to do so. The wave and lip-synch method (see above) is also acceptable in this circumstance.

It is acceptable to say only "peace be with you". If so inclined, you may feel free to include additional spontaneous salutations such as "hi" or "good morning", but the Church does not require that you do so.

It is customary to wait a full thirty seconds before wiping your hands with antibacterial towelettes.

And now, let us offer each other the sign of peace.

Now that's the kind of interaction with the public that I can handle.

I recently had a Birkman personality assessment done and the administrator joked that I may have missed my true calling to be a desert hermit. Sometime I think she was right.

Contraception and a woman's self-image

On the rare occasions that I used to think about the prospect of having a large family before my conversion, one of the first things that would come to mind is, "Just think of what my abs would look like! And years and years of nursing babies wouldn't exactly leave me looking like a Victoria's Secret model!" and with a shudder I'd perish the thought. There were other reasons that the prospect of having many children didn't appeal to me. But the issue of what my body would start to look like somewhere around baby number five or six was actually a pretty large factor.

Was I just shallow? I'm not so sure.

I was the product of a culture that takes contraception for granted and believes that the primary purpose of sex is for pleasure. Sure, it can be one of a variety of methods for creating life, but the main reason it exists is just for pleasure.

Given that worldview, it kind of makes sense for a wife to prize preserving her physical appearance over bringing new life into the world. If it's true that a fundamental part of marriage is sex, and sex is for pleasure, and men are visually-oriented when it comes to physical attraction, it doesn't seem so unreasonable that a wife would take great pains to look young and fit as long as possible, and perhaps even value that above additional children.

This sort of thing also came up back in college when my pro-choice friends and I would rage about these awful pro-lifers who tried to tell women that they should carry an unexpected pregnancy to term. The horror! Didn't these people know what pregnancy does to a woman's body?! This assumed, of course, that there would be circumstances upon which a pregnancy would be totally unexpected (a la the contraceptive mentality), and that any physical trauma to a woman's body would be so terrible as to be a justifying factor in terminating a pregnancy.

Thinking back to those discussions, we so abhorred the idea of what a pregnancy does to a woman's body because this was our value. What we looked like physically was so intertwined with our value as human beings that to tell us we should have to carry a pregnancy to term -- with all the weight gain and stretch marks and physical changes that would entail -- was to say that we should make our very selves less valuable as women.

It is the same pro-contraception worldview that motivates women's magazines to talk about little else other than "how to be SEXY", for pop culture to insist that older women are STILL SEXY, and for well-meaning people to assure women of varying body types such as the overweight or the disabled that they CAN BE SEXY TOO.

And I believe that it's this same worldview that's changed how the ideal woman is depicted. I thought of this as I looked through this beautiful video of women in art throughout the ages. Contrast the soft, mysterious, classically feminine beauty portrayed in ages past to the hyper-sexualized images we see of women today.

For women in our culture, to be "hot" or "sexy" is to have value. There are a variety of theories as to why this is true but, from my experience, it goes back to the acceptance of contraception and the idea that the primary purpose of sex is for pleasure.


None of this had really crystallized for me until, one day last year, I put on a swimsuit to go to the pool with the kids. I checked my appearance in the mirror and with my pale skin and post-baby figure the word "Yeti" came to mind. I chuckled at my glowing wit, made a mental note to cut out the new habit of ice cream after dinner, and threw a towel over my shoulder to head to the pool. But something about that moment nagged at me, and after thinking about it for a while I realized what it was: how very, very different my reaction was to seeing myself looking a little heavy in a swimsuit than it would have been just a year or two before.

What had happened? Years and years of intense focus and worry about my physical appearance had seemingly just melted away into a much more calm, reasonable expectation of what I should look like.

It was then that I realized how much the Catholic Church's teaching on contraception and the purpose of marriage and sex had changed my life. I had thought of my agreement with and acceptance of Church teaching on the matter to be a purely intellectual decision. But I realized that day that it was so much more than that. It had fundamentally changed where I derived my value as a woman, and where my husband and I had derived the value of our marital life.

Shortly after the swimsuit incident my husband and I attended a marriage course required by our parish to have our marriage blessed in the Church. Oddly, it was Christian but not Catholic, and in their segment called "Great Sex" they completely separated sex from the creation of life, explaining that sex is a gift from God for our pleasure. The odd, elephant-in-the-room exclusion of having children from the entire discussion impressed upon me how hollow our society's view of sex really is: Why would we bring up something as un-sexy as pregnancy and having babies? We're trying to talk about sex here!

I left the course that night feeling sad. Sad for the years I spent mentally compartmentalizing sex and the bringing forth of new life, and the effects that had on my self-image as a woman. Sad for the slightly overweight lady at the table next to me who shifted uncomfortably as the instructors peppily emphasized the importance of staying in shape if you're going to keep things "exciting" in the bedroom. And sad for all the couples who were there because their marriages were troubled, since I'm sure the overly detailed advice they received on how to have a good sex life only added pressure to their stressful situation.

As I listened to the instructors offer tips and tricks for how couples could better bond through the marital act, I couldn't help but think that it seemed like they were just missing it. It almost seemed as if they themselves knew that they weren't exactly hitting the nail on the head with this topic. They offered suggestion after suggestion for how spouses could be romantic, show each other unconditional love, let their partner feel accepted and cherished, etc., involving touch and eye contact and flowers and candy and surprises and back rubs and...whew! I can't even remember them all. Though all of these things sounded nice enough, they seemed so weak and pale compared to the ultimate way of showing your spouse devotion and unconditional love: to implicitly say with every sexual act, "It's OK with me if we should create a life together with this act." What's more romantic than that?


I don't mean to be too hard on the marriage course instructors, who seemed like very sweet people who were genuinely trying to do something good for couples. And I don't mean to alienate or criticize couples who do choose to use contraception. I just wanted to share my thoughts on this aspect of my conversion since it's changed my life in such a big way. Even with challenges like tricky medical issues, financial difficulties and unexpected pregnancy, seeing the world in this new light has brought me more peace than almost anything else I've experienced in my conversion.

A wish list panic attack

Do you ever have a wish list panic attack?

Sometimes when I look through my wish list at Amazon I have this panic-stricken moment of, "I CANNOT DIE UNTIL I HAVE READ EVERY ONE OF THESE 298 BOOKS!" I'm having one of those moments right now.

I'm about to finish up the last of a stack of books we got earlier this year, and it's finally time to order some new ones. But, looking through my Wish List, I just don't even know where to start. It's so long, and they all look so good!

I'm definitely going to get Hold on to Your Kids by Gordon Neufeld because regular commentor Steve G. raves about it, and because it fits in well with my recent decision to homeschool. But what else? Assuming I can find some good deals on used copies, I'd like to get another couple of books.

So what should I read next? Below is a selection of the books from my main list that I have ranked "highest priority". (I know, it's ridiculously long, but I just couldn't cut anything out.) Has anyone read or heard good things about any of these? Is there something on there that I simply must drop everything and read right now? Also, for those of you who are also looking for good stuff to read, all the books on this list come highly recommended from people whose opinions I respect (you may recognize some from some of the book memes that were going around recently).

Tell me what to read next! Here are the candidates:

Deep Conversion/ Deep Prayer by Thomas Dubay

Architects of the Culture of Death by Donald De Marco, Benjamin D. Wiker

An Infinity of Little Hours: Five Young Men and Their Trial of Faith in the Western World's Most Austere Monastic Order by Nancy Klein Maguire

Rosary: Mysteries, Meditations, and the Telling of the Beads by Kevin Orlin Johnson

The Hiding Place (Corrie Ten Boom Library) by John Sherrill

In My Father's House by Corrie Ten Boom

The How-To Book of Catholic Devotions: Everything You Need to Know but No One Ever Taught You by Mike Aquilina

Controversies: High-Level Catholic Apologetics by Karl Keating

Hail, Holy Queen: The Mother of God in the Word of God by Scott Hahn

Love and Responsibility by Pope John Paul II

The Way of a Pilgrim by Walter J. Ciszek

Sacrament of the Present Moment, The by Jean-P De Caussade

The Practice of the Presence of God, and The Spiritual Maxims by Brother Lawrence

Faith and Certitude by Thomas Dubay

Behold the Beauty of the Lord by Henri J. M. Nouwen

The Evidential Power of Beauty: Science and Theology Meet by Thomas Dubay

Mystics & Miracles: True Stories of Lives Touched by God by Bert Ghezzi

Our Lady Of Guadalupe: And The Conquest Of Darkness by Warren H. Carroll

Swear to God: The Promise and Power of the Sacraments by Scott Hahn

Introduction to the Devout Life by Francis De Sales

Four Witnesses: The Early Church in Her Own Words by Rod Bennett

Christianity for Modern Pagans: Pascal's Pensees by Peter Kreeft

To Know Christ Jesus by F. J. Sheed

No Wonder They Call It the Real Presence: Lives Changed by Christ In Eucharistic Adoration by David Pearson

Modern Physics and Ancient Faith by Stephen M Barr

An Exorcist Tells His Story by Gabriele Amorth

Hostage to the Devil: The Possession and Exorcism of Five Contemporary Americans
by Malachi Martin

The Lamb's Supper: The Mass as Heaven on Earth by Scott Hahn

Truth And Tolerance: Christian Belief And World Religions by Pope Benedict
XVI

The Mind on Fire: A Faith for the Skeptical and Indifferent by Blaise Pascal

My Life With the Saints by James Martin

Great Heresies by Hilaire Belloc

Stumbling Blocks or Stepping Stones: Spiritual Answers to Psychological Questions
by Benedict J. Groeschel

There are No Accidents: In All Things Trust in God by Benedict J. Groeschel

Winter parties and crazy sock day

I think we've pretty much decided that we're going to homeschool. It's funny, only about eighteen months ago I wrote this post saying that I didn't understand why people wouldn't just send their kids to regular school. But after a lot of research and prayer and (probably most importantly) meeting a bunch of homeschooling parents, it now seems to me to be the only way to go for our family.

My decision was based on the quality of education I could give my children as well as my belief that true education encompasses far more than sitting in a classroom memorizing dates and formulas (I direct you to Sally Thomas' amazing article Schooling at Home for more on that -- yeah, what she said).

And though I am happy to discuss the data I read and the observations I've made about homeschooled children and will readily offer a dry list of the educational and intellectual benefits I think the environment would provide for my children, what gets me most animated when the subject comes up is this: winter parties. It's not the main reason I decided to homeschool but, man, I just can't have my kids going to winter parties.

When I was a kid in public school we had Christmas parties. I wasn't a Christian, but I always loved those events, where we'd take a break from tormenting one another for an afternoon to celebrate Christmas with red and green cupcakes and maybe even a classroom visit from Santa Claus. It was a chance for us all to come together to celebrate something that was meaningful to so many people. Though Christmas was not a religious event in my household, it was fun and interesting to see how much the holiday meant to the other kids, to sing age-old Christian songs and hear about who got to play Mary and who had to be one of the three wise men in the local church play.

A few months ago, when I was still on the fence about homeschooling, I lamented to a neighbor that I'd heard that public schools had those watered-down "holiday parties" now. The neighbor, whose son goes to the local elementary school, shook her head and informed me that those were phased out a few years ago lest they offend someone. They now have "winter parties" -- and red and green decorations are forbidden. (Kudos to the creativity of the school board to find a way to water down holiday parties -- that's quite a feat!) Easter is celebrated with a "Spring fest", and instead of Halloween they have "crazy sock day". Crazy sock day?? I think that was the straw that broke the camel's back in the decision-making process.

I realize that homeschooling is not a fit for every family, and that it's certainly possible to get a good education out of the public school system. But, for us, I think homeschooling is the way to go. If nothing else, if I end up rounding out the social studies curriculum with episodes of Dr. Phil and only get as far as "how to make mommy's martini extra dry" for our chemistry class, at least they will have the distinction of being able to say they never attended a winter party. :)

Friday Favorites for June 22

Twelve great links for your Friday web surfing pleasure:

1. Blogging and gossip: Adoro te Devote has some thoughts that all of us who write and comment on blogs should keep in mind.
   
   
2. They weren't ready: Don't miss this amazing poem.
   
   
3. Looking your best for God...or the world?: I found two somewhat-related posts on this topic to be interesting. I liked the discussion that resulted from this post at Mothers of Many Saints, about how moms of big families present themselves. And Ouiz has some good thoughts about skirts.
   
   
4. NFP-only doctor in Dallas/Ft. Worth: Spread the news to your Catholic friends in D/FW! I'd love to stop by his reception on July 7 if I were in the area. Kudos to Dr. Behan for having the courage to convert his Obstetrics and Gynecology practice to NFP-only since he'll probably lose a lot of his existing patients.
   
   
5. Building your own house: Amber and her husband have me all excited about the possibility of building our own house one day. In this post they were kind enough to answer some of my questions like, "How much cheaper is it?" and "How on earth did you decide to build your own house?"
   
   
6. Environmentalism as religion: I've heard a lot of comments about modern environmentalism morphing into a sort of religion, but this is the best, most concise summary of the issue I've heard. Definitely worth reading.
   
   
7. Kim's miracle baby: Kim, who had no idea she was pregnant with #9 until well into the second trimester, had to have her little boy delivered at 25 weeks while she was out of town. They're now in a NICU 1.5 hours away from their home and their other children. Kim wrote in one post, "I had every single day in my planner filled this summer. [God] said no. All my projects are for later. He has different plans."
   
   
8. Dogs are the new kids: Kristine Franklin doesn't mince words as she talks about yet another crazy side effect of contraception culture: people valuing animals equal to (or sometimes more than) people. Speaking of which, this article must be seen to be believed. (via Domestic Vocation)
   
   
9. Tips for taking the kids to church: I found these nine suggestions to be really helpful! I was also reminded of Catholic Mom's great post about church shoes from earlier this year.
   
   
10. We are not promised tomorrow: Heather continues to eloquently chronicle her experience with brain surgery, cancer and chemo. Here she talks about struggling to accept her new appearance after her hair started to fall out, realizing that cancer has not changed her heart.
    
    
11. Free customizable, printable calendars: How did I not know about this? (via Many Little Blessings)
    
    
12. "The most beautiful thing this side of Heaven": I'm enchanted with this video of a High Mass from the 1940s. You can feel how mysteriously beautiful it was even from this old black-and-white video. I hope that one day I'll get to see something like this in person.
    

Prayer and bad days

My purpose with this blog is to honestly chronicle my experiences as I attempt go grow in my newfound faith (new readers are thinking, "I thought this was a blog about scorpions!"); and on that note, I have a little story to share:


This weekend I felt particularly inspired about the upcoming week: I would make sure to say the daily offering every morning, to grow in my patience, to seek the peace of Christ in all frustrating situations. I planned to be all Benedictine and calmly, prayerfully work through my daily tasks, accomplishing much both physically and spiritually.

Each day I have started the day with the morning offering. Throughout the day I have kept my thoughts close to God and prayed for the grace I need to handle any challenges that may arise...And I have had a terrible week.

Not terrible in the "my children are starving" or "my house has been leveled by a natural disaster" sense, but it's been one of those weeks where one little thing after another has just worn me down. Now that I'm in the third trimester I often find myself exhausted and short of breath. This is like throwing gasoline on a fire since I have a natural tendency toward laziness and procrastination, and the result is that I've hardly gotten anything done at all. I'm overwhelmed by clutter and disorganization (as some other moms are discussing as well). The best I can say is that the house is "a mess" instead of "a disaster area".

Combine all that with my toddler and the baby having a couple days of extreme fussiness, that nagging question of "how on earth am I going to do this when I have a newborn?!?!", and the typical financial stresses of trying to live on one income, and I've been left feeling pretty overwhelmed.

Though it's definitely been a worse week than usual, I've reacted to it all worse than usual as well. It really didn't feel like I received any grace or help from God this week -- it was just Jen and her bad attitude left to deal with the milk spilled on the couch, the clothes tumbling to the floor in the closet because it's so disorganized, and the baby who prefers screaming as her main method of communication. In fact, I actually joked to myself that maybe I should stop offering up my days to Christ since everything has been going to badly since I started doing so. :)

The culmination was last night when my toddler threw a fit about going to bed and woke up the baby and I had two over-tired little ones screaming until 10:45. It had been a loooong day, and this was a frustrating if not apropos way to end it. I sat on the edge of my bed, asking God for the grace to see how minor this all was in the grand scheme of things, to better appreciate my blessings, and to even see some humor in it.

None of that happened. I grudgingly consoled the inconsolable baby and told my toddler that he needed to settle down and go night-night through clenched teeth, all the while with a laser focus on how inconvenient it all was for me. I felt overwhelmed, upset, unhopeful about what tomorrow would bring, and not at all peaceful.


I'm not sure what to make of a week like this one. Perhaps God is testing me to see how serious I am about the whole offering all my sufferings of this day to him? Perhaps it's shallow of me to expect instantaneous results, to be filled with grace simply because I actually took thirty seconds to say the morning offering?

Whatever the reason, I do feel better today and am more hopeful about the rest of the week. I offer this story not to whine (OK, a little bit to whine), but because I think stories like this are often left out of tales of conversion. Coming to the belief that God exists didn't make all my worldly problems go away. Attempting to live by his rules didn't make me a living saint. I still have bad days -- sometimes really bad days. But I'll take the worst day with God over a good day without God any time.

You first

When I think about my conversion and how very drastically my life and my views changed in a relatively short time, I often try to pinpoint what they key experiences were that kept me on track. I had so many doubts, went through so many spiritual dry spells, had so few emotionally powerful experiences -- I sometimes wonder why I didn't throw in the towel and go back to the comfort of atheism that I'd known all my life.

One big reason is simply that, on a purely intellectual level, I came to believe that God exists and that what the Catholic Church teaches is true. (The details of that are the subject of a different, very long post.) Though this was a critical factor, it wasn't the biggest reason I stayed on the path to God. The lure of a worldly life and the comfort of selfishness would probably have led me to slip back into functional atheism at some point.

The biggest reason I never gave up is simply because I began to have faith. Rather suddenly, I began to feel God's presence in my life and the world all around me. What I thought to be true on an intellectual level I now knew to be true from the bottom of my heart. I had prayed and prayed and suffered one long spiritual dry spell after another for two years and then, seemingly out of the blue, my doubts faded away and I was aware of Christ's presence in a subtle but important way -- like being aware of the beating of my heart (to borrow from John C. Wright's phrase).

So what did it? How did I finally come to believe in my heart after so long of believing only in my mind? I've thought a lot about this lately, and I think I finally have the answer: I dusted off the mirror.

After I re-designed the site and was going through the archives to add categories, I came across this post. Little did I know at the time, this would be one of the key turning points in my conversion. When I wrote the post I had recently come across this quote from C.S. Lewis, which was to change my life:

When you come to know God, the initiative lies on His side. If He does not show Himself, nothing you can do will enable you to find Him. And, in fact, He shows much more of Himself to some people than to others -- not because He has favourites, but because it is impossible for Him to show Himself to a man whose whole mind and character are in the wrong condition. Just as sunlight, though it has no favourites, cannot be reflected in a dusty mirror as clearly as in a clean one.

When I read that I realized that I was asking the all-good God to come into my heart...yet it was a heart where envy, resentment, anger, selfishness, and all sorts of other nasty sentiments lived. My philosophy up until that time had been to hold off on doing the "hard stuff" that comes with Christianity like forgiving those who've hurt me, serving others selflessly, not indulging in my feelings of wanting to launch a bazooka on cars who cut me off in traffic, etc. until God showed himself to me.

I was basically telling God, "You first." Prove yourself to me and fill my heart with your presence, and then I'll start worrying about all that forgiveness and selflessness stuff. Until then, where's that Eminem CD I was listening to...?

What I totally missed, however, was that this would be like holding up a dirty mirror to the sun, and telling the light, "You first." The sun cannot reflect off of a mirror caked in dirt, just as the Source of all that is pure and good cannot fill a heart that is already jam packed with self and the world.

When I realized this, I admit that it was a painful process to start living as if I were some devout Christian when I was really very dry spiritually and still had plenty of doubts. (At the time my family was involved in a passive-aggressive suburban version of a Romeo and Juliet type drama involving some neighbors and our Home Owner's Association. As I said a prayer for the writer of our third threatening certified letter instead of cursing his name as was my custom, I recall gritting my teeth and thinking, "This Christianity stuff had better be true!")

And yet, an interesting thing started to happen. A sort of snowball effect was put into action, where the more room I made in my heart for God (however reluctantly at first), the more I understood his pure love and goodness, the more I genuinely desired not to sin, the more I felt remorse for those sins that I did commit (even the "little" ones), and the end of this process always left me closer to God than I had been before.

And one day I woke up and realized that I had faith. I believed. Not just on a vague intellectual level, but in my heart and soul. And it all started with taking that first step to make just a little bit of room in my heart for God, dusting off the mirror of my soul so that it could reflect even just a small fraction of his light. You only need to experience that once. I may have bad days and dry spells and doubts in the future, but I know that I'll always know God is there on a deep, fundamental level. Because once you experience his presence -- even if it's only in the small way of a barely repentant lifelong atheist -- you know there's no going back.

MegaMom Interviews: How do you make sure each child gets enough attention?

I'm delighted to share another installment of my email interviews with moms of big families. Today I have answers from two "MegaMoms". Ouiz of Chez Ouiz is currently pregnant with baby number seven, and Hope of Mothers of Many Saints is a mom of eight.

Today's question is one of the ones that most perplexes me. I am an only child and even an only grandchild on one side of the family, so one thing I was particularly curious about is:

Q: A frequent concern for those of us who grew up in and around small families is getting to spend enough quality time with each child. What is your philosophy on that, and do you feel like you're able to spend enough one-on-one time with each child?

Ouiz answered:

I will always worry that I'm somehow short-changing someone in the attention department. With 6 little ones, it's very hard to give everyone the same amount of attention as everyone else. That's just life.

I try to look at it this way: the Lord knew that child X would be the middle child in a large family...or whatever...and will give him the grace he needs to be in that role. On days when I'm beating myself up agonizing over whether I've spent enough time with each child, I remind myself that He loves them even more than I do, and will take care of them and supply what they need when I've fallen short.

Over the course of a week, I try to make sure I've done SOMETHING with each of them -- asking them to help me cook, or taking a few minutes to have a cup of tea with them while they tell me a story, or reading a special story to "just the boys", etc. One of the best things I can do is make sure I give them my attention when they are talking to me...a small thing that sometimes is one of the biggest sacrifices I can make, but let's them know that they are important enough for me to stop and listen to.

Where I am unable to give each child substantial chunks of time, their siblings jump right in. My children usually "pair up" and play with each other quite contentedly, so no child is ever "alone" unless he or she has specifically sought it out. There is ALWAYS someone to applaud their efforts, see the big tower they just built, or read them a story. There is a WHOLE LOT of laughter in this little house, so I must assume that they are growing up contentedly and happy.

Hope answered:

I think this is a concern for every mom in some regard, and is the root of the "mommy guilt" that is popularly referred to so often in the media. All loving mothers wonder if they are doing enough. The question is, though, what is enough, and then, enough of what? It comes down to determining what kids really need and then making sure that that is what they get. It's all about priorities. On the flipside, smothering children is not good for them either.

What my kids don't get because I don't have time: sun screen slathered on them every time they step out the door, their shoes and socks and coats all put on by mom (they figure it out), and hypervigilance over every bite at every meal (they learn, if you're hungry eat, if you don't eat, you'll be hungry), or fussing over every sniffle.

Sometimes I feel guilty, but I have learned how competent even little children can be at caring for themselves, and how this acquired competence can lead to confident independence. I am also so glad I don't worry over every little thing I hear some other mothers worrying over, I'd drive myself (and my children) crazy!

What my children do get because I make time: clean clothes (that they fold and put away), nutritious and homemade meals, a neat and organized home, a good education, lots of spirituality, and breastfed as babies.

One book I read that really helped me out was How to Really Love Your Child by Ross Campbell. He writes that it is important to give your children three things -- focused attention, eye contact, and physical affection. I really try to make sure that each kid get some of this every day, and it's easy to do, simply by giving some attention to the story of a bad dream they had or an interaction with a friend, looking them in the eye when they walk in a room and giving a smile, or offering little back rubs or running my fingers through their hair as I walk by.

I may not be at every soccer game, but I am at every bedside every night. I spend a few minutes with each child talking and praying and giving back scratches, eye contact and blessings. Even when I'd rather be done with it, I am committed to this time with my kids.

Another consideration is homeschooling. Homeschooling affords me hours and hours a day to be with my kids. If I were working and they were in daycare or school, I don't know how I'd give even a couple of children they attention they need. Sometimes I wonder at what people are thinking, as it is often the same people who question about quality time in big families who have their kids in a classroom all day with 20 kids and 1 teacher. My adult/child ratio is much better than that!

Additionally, I have learned that it's not all about me. It is not all about the attention I give my kids because they give a lot of attention to each other. Mothers are irreplaceable, but so is a house full of siblings who love you.

Two fabulous responses, and another book to add to my Wish List. Huge thanks to Ouiz and Hope! For more great insights be sure to check out their blogs Chez Ouiz (Ouiz) and Mothers of Many Saints (Hope).

An inspiring mother

A friend just emailed me this video and I wanted to share it. What an inspiring woman!