7 Quick Takes Friday (vol. 86)
Queen of Angels Monastery
We’re here! After about eight hours of travel we arrived in beautiful of Mt. Angel, Oregon for our monastery vacation. Mt. Angel is a very German town, with Bavarian architecture and names of streets and restaurants in German. Evidently up until recently most of the people spoke German. Also, it’s so weird to be somewhere where you need to wear a jacket in the evenings and early mornings — very different from our 98-degree highs and 72-degree lows in Texas.
Prayer garden at the Shalom HouseRight now we’re staying at the Shalom House of the Queen of Angels Monastery of the Benedictine sisters. Our plan was to stay at Mt. Angel Abbey the whole time, but they were booked for the first two days we’d be here, so we ended up here at Shalom. I’m so glad it worked out that way, because we love it here.
The sisters run a nursing home, food bank, homeless shelter, and of course the retreat house. My husband had a nice conversation with a 95-year-old nun who’s been here for more than 70 years. She said that originally they’d planned for people to stay at the homeless shelter no more than a few weeks, but they wouldn’t make people leave if they weren’t ready, so now they often have folks there for months. My husband asked her some question about how they were going to handle some aspect of the shelter, and she replied that it was still too new to know, saying, “We’re not sure yet — we only started it in 1988.”
Living room at the Shalom HouseAt the Shalom house there are private rooms, but everyone shares a common living room, and common men and women’s bathrooms. As The Most Introverted Person in the World, I was a bit apprehensive when I first saw that setup, but I’ve found it to be surprisingly comforting to be so connected to other guests. It feels like we’re all one big family. Most of the other guests are iconographers who are here for a seminar, so it’s been fascinating to chat with them.
I had one of those moment where I forgot that social awkwardness is one of my charisms when I thought I might try to make conversation with the iconographers in Spanish; they all speak some English, but most are originally from Mexico. Wouldn’t it be nice to try to chat with them in their native tongue rather than having them speak English? I thought (my guardian angel shouting, “No! Don’t do it!” over my shoulder, as he does any time I try to interact with other humans.) Long story short, there was a bit of an awkward moment after I told them that I have a relative who is a monkey at Mt. Angel Abbey (confusing monje, monk, for mono, monkey).
When we booked this trip we signed up for the plans at both Queen of Angels and Mt. Angel Abbey where you get both lodging and meals, eaten in common with the nuns/monks and other guests. When we first arrived, I looked at the schedule and thought we’d made a terrible mistake. I didn’t like the idea of having to be somewhere at a certain time if I wanted to eat, and actually thought about canceling the meal plan. We ended up trying it, and it’s amazing how much it transforms your whole day to live according to the monastery schedule. I’ll write more about it later, but suffice it to say that it’s already been a powerful experience.
I printed out your prayer requests — all 50 pages of them — and look forward to going into the chapel to pray for you! I haven’t had a chance to do that yet, but I did have a rough day of travel to get here, and I offered up my suffering for all the intentions on that list. (Also, I just now saw that there are some new requests that recently came in. I’ll include those too!)
This morning I woke to the bells ringing across the monastery grounds, calling us to prayer. We got ready and headed over to the chapel, where the sisters chanted Psalms for about thirty minutes, then we had Mass, then everyone ate breakfast together. I knew it was time for lunch when the bells started ringing again. It makes me wish I lived close to a monastery: even if I couldn’t join them for prayer every day, there’s something so comforting to have the movements of the day announced by the music of bells.
This trip has already been an amazing experience, and we’ve only been here about 24 hours. I’m so grateful to be here!
I look forward to reading your posts!
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The final push
About 1/3 of the books that have piled up on my desk during the writing processAfter two years, 600 pages, and 200,000 words, I think I’m finally close to having a completed draft of my book. (Lest it sound like I confused my story with War and Peace, that’s the the total pages of the first draft, this draft, and some epic outlining exercises in between.)
A quick review for those of you who aren’t familiar with the saga:
In 2008 I signed a contract with the Ted Weinstein Literary Agency to write a memoir about how I grew up atheist and ended up Christian. An unexpected pregnancy derailed the entire process, which caused me some mild consternation (read: I whined and cried like a child who’d had her candy taken away) but I ended up clueing in that God’s plans just might be better than mine. Not only did I have a precious baby girl in early 2009, but the extra time I had thanks to the delays gave me just enough space to realize that the draft was no good. It read like…well, like it was written by someone who had never written a book before. It was strained. It was humorless. It was layerless. I was trying too hard. I scrapped the whole thing, devoured approximately two gazillion books about how to write books, sought expert advice, committed to care more about whether it’d be fun to read than whether it’d impress critics, and I started over. (And yeah, that first day I sat down in front of a blank Word document after a tossing out a year’s worth of hard work, my first thought was something like, “Dude. Seriously?”)
And now I’m finally in the home stretch of the writing process. It’ll be a huge milestone to have this new draft under my belt, even though there will still be lots of editing and revision to do later. I don’t have a hard deadline with my agent, but I’m shooting to have it done by Sunday June 20, the feast of Margaret Ebner.
Other than popping in on Fridays I probably won’t be blogging much these next couple weeks as I work to wrap up this draft. If you have a moment to say a prayer for my little project, I’d appreciate it!
So what do you have going on this summer? Cool vacations? Ambitious gardening projects? Home improvement extravaganzas? I’d love to hear about it! (In as much detail as possible. Seriously. I’m going to be spending all my free time chained to my desk for the next two weeks, so I’d truly be fascinated to hear all about what’s up with you this summer!)
Some notes about this week
- TUESDAY: I’ll be chatting with the folks at Moody Radio on 90.1 FM/1110 AM in the Chicago area at 8:10am Central time. We’ll be talking about conversion and my Two Lists article.
- WEDNESDAY: I’ll be on the SonRise Morning Show at 7:10am Central time. It’s live in Cincinnati on 740 AM and will be rebroadcast later on EWTN Radio.
- FRIDAY: I won’t be hosting Quick Takes this week since it’s Good Friday. I look forward to “seeing” everyone again after Easter!
I hope you all have a blessed Holy Week! If you want read a thought-provoking reflection to get your week off to a good start, check out the Anchoress’ recent words about fear of silence.
My plans for Lent
The main point of this post is just to make this announcement:
I will only be doing 7 Quick Takes Friday posts during Lent. I’ll resume regular posting after Easter (April 4).
If you have any interest in the backstory, here it is:
One lesson I learned earlier this year was the importance of discerning the difference between the life changes you want to make vs. the changes you feel called to make. I was reminded of that lesson around January 5th, when I had already dropped the ball on pretty much every New Year’s resolution I’d made. I was left scratching my head, wondering why this year was such an epic fail when I’d actually had a lot of success in the New Year’s resolutions department in the past few years. Then I realized: I’d made a list of what I wanted to do, and spent little to no time discerning what God wanted me to do.
Last week, I caught myself making that same mistake when I thought about Lent.
I kept thinking about what sacrifices I felt like I should make, or what things would be nice to do, all without putting so much as ten seconds of focused prayer into it. When I actually carved out some time for silence to try to discern what I was led to do during Lent, I had an entirely different vision of what the next 40 days should look like for me.
Interestingly, through prayer I discerned that I should sacrifice less than I’d been planning to. I was left with a much more calm resolution to give up a couple of small things rather than an anxious, overzealous drive to become St. Clare by Friday.
I’m planning to give up a food item, set limits on my recreational internet use time, and increase my prayer time. I’ll finish the fantastic Severe Mercy soon and bought Peter Kreeft’s Jesus-Shock on a whim as my main Lenten reading.
The other thing I feel “called” to do (to use the term loosely) is to put some serious thought, prayer and effort into the book. I hesitate to say that because I don’t want it to sound like a “GOD TOLD ME TO WRITE THIS BOOK BECAUSE IT’S SOOOOOO IMPORTANT” kind of statement. I just have a feeling that this Lent is going to be a time of great inspiration in that department, and I think I should take a little time to give it some intense focus.
That means, as you can guess from the beginning of the post, that I’ll need to spend less time doing other things I love, like blogging. I will still do Quick Takes since those posts are so fun and easy to write, but I won’t be writing regular posts. It’s a little painful since I enjoy writing posts so much, but I think it’s the right thing to do.
Blessed Ash Wednesday!
7 Quick Takes Friday (vol. 67)
My mother-in-law, Yaya, was here all this week, leaving me to wonder once again why we do not have our own reality TV show. (For those of you who don’t know what I’m referring to there, read this or this.) Also, in proof that her zeal for potty training knows no bounds, she decided that it’s time to start potty training our youngest. Who is 11 months old. I will admit that it actually kind of worked, in the sense that she did use the potty whenever Yaya put her on there. I kept trying to silently mouth “Don’t encourage her!” to the baby when Yaya wasn’t looking, but she would just chew on her fist and giggle.
While Yaya was here I spent a lot of time writing at a local English tea shop. I loved being there, except for the fact that their tea was so nasty. It tasted delicious, but at the bottom of the cup there was always this layer of mushy sludge. Occasionally I’d catch the British owner looking at me, and she’d smile and ask me how I liked it. I’d smile back and say that it was lovely; I hated to tell her that she didn’t know how to make tea. Poor woman.
IMPORTANT PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT: Per the above, this morning I learned some critical information about English tea traditions: when they serve you tea, there will a small object on the saucer next to your teacup. It will look remarkably like one of those all-natural brown sugar cubes, leaving you to wonder why they gave you an extra piece of sugar when you have plenty in the bowl on your table. Before you plunk it in your drink and start stirring it around, as I have been doing for more time than I’d care to admit, you should know that IT IS A COOKIE, not a sugar cube.
One wonders what the tea shop owner thought as she saw me drop a cookie into my drink, mix it in, and then grimace as I scraped the sludge out of my cup when I was finished. Probably something like, “Poor woman.”
While I’m on a roll, here’s another one from the “Why Do I Leave the House?” files: Last week my two-year-old’s Mother’s Day Out teacher let us take home the cherished class storybook. It’s a little story with the same style as the famous book Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?, only with pictures of the children in her class (e.g. “…I see PAYTON looking at me!”)
I knew this had disaster written all over it. Between pushing the baby’s stroller, gingerly holding artowrk with wet paint, getting jackets out of backpacks, signing everyone out and chasing down escapee toddlers, our trips from the school building to the car are like something out of The Iliad. So I lost the book.
The next time we were at class, I didn’t know how to break the news — I felt so terrible about losing the irreplaceable class book. I thought I, umm, might even tell a little white lie, just to emphasize how very much I appreciated it, lest the teacher think it was lost out of carelessness. “We sure did love reading it!” I was all set to exclaim. “Last night she asked us to re-read the page with Reese on it over and over! We must have read it ten times this weekend!” And, after that, I would tell her we misplaced it.
For a long time, I will be debating whether it’s more of a lesson that you should never tell white lies or that people like me should be kept away from society that the teacher interrupted me before I had a chance to speak and said, “Hey, Jennifer, you forgot to bring the class book home last time!” and handed me the book.
A reading update: I just finished Lit by Mark Karr and Four Witnesses by Rod Bennett, which I look forward to reviewing soon. Now I’m about to start A Severe Mercy by Sheldon Vanauken and The Story of the Church by Alfred McBride. Anyone else reading anything good?
In case anyone’s wondering why I always read two books at a time, it’s because I always have an “upstairs book” and a “downstairs book” going. The upstairs ones are usually ones that require some serious thought, since I can read them at night when the house is actually quiet. The downstairs ones are more light reading, something I can escape into while sitting at the kitchen table if I need a break from the chaos to recharge my batteries.
Funniest comment I’ve received in a while: A couple weeks ago, Matt of St. Blogustine wrote:
I have to ask….Am I the only GUY who ever does this 7 Takes thing?…I suddenly feel like I’ve stumbled into the ladies underwear department at Sears….*blushing*
No worries, Matt! 7 Quick Takes is an equal-opportunity carnival, with guy bloggers like Darwin and Fr. Christian Mathis being semi-regular participants. But, yeah, they’re usually outnumbered by chicks. We need to hear from more men!
I look forward to reading your posts!
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7 Quick Takes Friday (vol. 64)
I used to have all these romantic ideas about cold weather. I realize now, however, that they came from periods in my life when my parents and I lived in cold climates and I had no real responsibilities. I had these vivid associations of winter weather = relaxing next to the fireplace while holding cups of steaming hot chocolate. But now that winter means doing all the stuff I normally have to do, only freezing while doing it, it’s much less romantic.
I know, I know — we’re talking Texas cold, with lows still in the teens. Yesterday my dad sent me a link to an almanac page that showed temperatures for one December when we lived in Bismarck, North Dakota. The high one day was -20 degrees F (-28 C). Because I’m a boring person who enjoys weather chat, I ask: What’s the coldest temperature you’ve seen lately?
A big “thank you!” to Marcel LeJeune who mentioned me in his Top 12 Catholic Bloggers of 2009 list. His blog is one of my favorites, so it was an honor to be included.
I’m amazed at what a difference it’s made to downgrade from our oversized dinner plates to smaller “lunch” plates. Here’s the same scrambled eggs and veggie portion, put on the old plate and then the new plate:
It definitely makes it less tempting to over-eat when your food takes up more space on a plate!
Our refrigerator broke earlier this week. We’re trying to fix it ourselves to save money, so it will be at least a couple more days before we can use it again. I am amazed at how much I’ve learned about myself in this situation. For one thing, I’ve learned that when sloth and gluttony are in competition, sloth always wins. I’ve probably lost five pounds this week because I’d rather just be hungry than go into the cold garage to get something out of the little fridge out there where we’re keeping our fresh food. Honestly, if we could just move our kitchen upstairs, where I’d have to work to get to food, I think I’d be a size 8.
As I get into the second draft of the book, one of the things I recall about my earlier years is that my friends and I could scarcely utter a breath without using profanity. I mean, chatting about the weather would require at least three f-bombs. As I recount conversations from that phase of life, it’s hard to avoid using four-letter words; it would be like writing about New York City construction workers and keeping it clean.
When I first started writing those sections I thought long and hard about whether I should use profanity when recounting dialogue that happened during that time. On the one hand it would be more authentic; on the other hand it would offend some people, and it’s not exactly ideal to throw around four-letter words. As a book nerd, I found the whole “authenticity vs. etiquette” subject fascinating to think about. What are your thoughts on profanity in books? Never? Only if quoting someone who used it? If it fits the book’s style?
Speaking of the book, I’ve been trying to think of a new title. I used used this title generator and plugged in words from a word cloud generated from my 70-page outline. It came up with: A Church Above Biggest Years; Loving for Books; and A Happy God. Back to the drawing board.
I was so touched to the emails I got in response to my mention of our friend in San Antonio in take #6 last week! A few kind souls offered to strike up a correspondence with her since it obviously brightens her days to receive letters. I love this idea! The only problem is that I need to work out the logistics: how to introduce the idea to her, seeing as how she doesn’t even know me very well (“Dear Mrs. X: do you know what a ‘blog’ is?…”), and how to arrange it so that I’m not giving out her home address? Any ideas?
I look forward to reading your posts!
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Happy Thanksgiving!
As part of my goal to have a low-stress Advent and Christmas, I’m going to take this week off from blogging to focus on getting things in order around the house. I won’t be hosting 7 Quick Takes this week, but will be back next week. I hope all you Americans have a great Thanksgiving, and happy week-before-Advent to those of you outside the U.S.!
(Also, speaking of Advent, if anyone out there is as confused about that part of the liturgical year as I used to be, here’s a post where I asked readers to summarize Advent in 25 words or less a couple years ago.)
A week without noise
I’m doing something crazy this week:
I’m shutting down my computer. For a whole week. No email, no blog reading, no blogging, no web surfing, no Twitter. No Word, Quicken or Photoshop. I’ll live a computer-free life for seven days.
For some people that wouldn’t be that big of a deal; for me it’ll be a huge deal, and that’s why I’m doing it. I realized at the end of last week that for all of my adult life I’ve been hyper-connected. When I worked in the high tech industry I spent ten hours a day in front of a computer. Even now that I don’t work, my computer is a huge part of my life — I communicate with my parents and husband and friends primarily via email throughout the day, and my main hobby, writing, puts me in front of the computer even more.
There’s nothing wrong with any of that per se, but I realized last week that I’d become addicted to the “noise” of constant communication, running over to my computer to see if there’s a new email or blog post or blog comment or news story to give me a few seconds of distraction and amusement any time things get the slightest bit tough. I like the idea of completely fasting from it all for a week to force myself to re-adjust to silence (I don’t mean literal silence, of course, since my house is about as tranquil as the howler monkey cage at the zoo, but “silence” in terms of a lack of a constant buzz of outside stimulation and information). I like how fasting from anything gives you a fresh perspective on what is normal, that when you re-incorporate it into your life even the smallest doses seem like a lot since you’re used to having none.
I’ve felt called to do this for a while, for weeks doing that thing where God sends me clear signals along the lines of “STEP. AWAY. FROM. THE. LAPTOP.” and I’m all like “Step away from the what? The map shop? What? Let me get back to you after I’m done checking email…” and this past weekend he finally hit me over the head in a way that I could no longer ignore.
So after I hit publish on this post I’ll shut down my laptop and put it over on my bookshelf until next Monday. Needless to say, I won’t be hosting 7 Quick Takes this week, and I won’t be checking comments until next week (which is why I closed comments on this post). Since I’m horrible about replying to emails I doubt anyone will notice a difference in that department.
This’ll be the first time in my adult life I’ve spent a whole week completely “unplugged.” Oddly enough, I’m really looking forward to it. See you all next week!
UPDATE: 20 things I learned in a week without my computer
RELATED:
- A fascinating video about the desert hermit experience (this is well worth the time to watch if you haven’t already seen it)
- A day in the life of a mommyblogger
- Blogging and the water well
- Becoming more human (a post by Betty Duffy with lots of good food for thought)
