Me and My friend Seth

Gangs of New York, 2002

My friend Seth is forty years old and has outlived at least half of the 9 lives allotted to even the feistiest cat. We now live a thousand miles apart, as we have for most of our adult lives. He has remained in our hometown, built a family and a life there around the seasons, while my husband and I came north fifteen winters ago. Our connection is sporadic but always warm and fraternal, like a big brother who has seen anything I'm about to show him but endures my antics anyway.

Seth's mother braided my hair and baked apple pies for all of our childhood. When his cat gave birth to kittens in his bed -- a handbuilt lofted bed perfect for forts and scary stories -- his stock rose exponentially in my five-year-old mind and has stayed there since. We played hide and go seek among the spruce trees and trailer parks of our densely forested, working-class Alaskan island. The snuggly rhythms of early memory gave way to some chaos in our respective homes, and we've also shared the messier milestones of adolescence and adulthood.  

Our parents are probably more surprised to see us raising ten children between us and baptizing them into a faith neither of us were raised in, than they were to pick us up from the police station together off and on in the early 1990s. Seth taught me about weed, subversive music and the delicate balance of supply and demand. We played F*ck the Police at top volume and did our best imitations of the bravado presented on MTV. His father was my only visitor when I was shipped to a nearby island for residential drug treatment. 


I will note here Seth's physical presence: he is massive. Foreboding, even. An uncle of mine who employed him as a commercial fisherman remarked that Seth is the quintessential gentle giant. He was a wrestler in high school and has always kept his strength in check; never bullying and even using his imposing physicality to defend would-be victims from teasing or worse. There's one particular story about the school bus that brings me near tears each time I tell it -- and the irony seems to be that the boy being bullied was of correct breeding and political class but wispy and nerdy, while Seth was the scrappy hero. That boy from the bus went on to some really prestigious East Coast college I can never remember the name of and now works for a Fortune 500 in the art dept (last I knew), while Seth put down roots in the same neighborhood from which the school bus shuttled him to & fro. When I watch the (glorious) movie Overboard I still see Seth in the oldest son. Noble and quiet but certainly not without spine. Perhaps his power lies in the suggestion of violence without having to deploy it. 


I thought of Seth in a special way after reading this piece. I emailed it to him, along with a half dozen other men and women, childhood friends all, with whom I often share banter about current events. We don't agree on every issue nor seek to convert each other -- we just like to stay in touch and rap about lifestyle and philosophy between diapers, work and errands. We're able to learn from one another without resentment or bitterness, pride or retribution. I see now that our unity may be a threat to those without agency in the present White House. Seth shared the piece on social media only to be accused of racism and effectively silenced. I would laugh if it weren't so sad and entirely missing (or proving) the point of the post.

Today, taking stock as if I were a raven perched in the treetops, listening to the foment of human pettiness in the wake of President No Good Really Bad, reading scribes from all corners, ruffling my feathers -- I see that the erudite leftist minds neatly bunch us all together. We are White. We are to be aggregated and educated, or at least ignored. Our varied opinions and experiences do not matter, for we share the embarrassing ethnicity of being Anglo-Saxon. Our immigrant stories are irrelevant, for we must absorb fresh wisdom, prostrate ourselves to the latest arrival. We're descended from countries that lack the exotic pedigree to grab the audience of National Public Radio with tales of victimhood. 
 
Never mind that Seth's children aren't even white, or that my husband is only second generation American, with grandparents who came as illiterate teenagers hoping to earn enough money to return to Portugal and buy a horse. If that hints at a certain pride, it's simply pride in the achievements and perseverance of someone else. It would never occur to me to ascribe pride to my race. I don't need census bureau stats to validate my existence, and I have 2,000 years of cultural heroism in Christ and His Bride to "fall back on" for identity. My kids attend a school with just seventy students. Laotians, Alaskan Natives, African Americans, Hispanic children from pockets of Central and South America, Caucasians. No one notices. We have families with foster children, families of truckers, clerks, engineers, physicians, pilots, families built by adoption and those with transient children. Our stated goal is to make saints. We look to martyrs, soldiers and scholars with equal fervor. We are not divided and we are not afraid.

As I said in the email scribbled to friends when I shared Dreher's post this morning, the weird alt-right thing gets no traction with me -- but the objective point being made by his commenter is quite illuminating.  Foreboding? We'll see. I do know this: the guidance of a nuanced gentleman who takes no guff is an invaluable force for children. Come what may, both Seth's children and mine have that in their fathers. 

If the American Left insists on fragmentation along lines of race, the carnage is predictable and its genesis rests squarely on them. They play with fire. Although the USA is unique, and this experiment of unity is worthwhile, we are all still human beings. I grieve the idea that men like Seth (who I use here without permission and not as a mythic hero; he's just a dude I know) are being trashed. Again to repeat myself --- white men are allowed to be anything except victorious. I would submit that the creepy racism of America was exposed, burst like a boil on Satan's ass, not with the election of a black man to the Presidency, but of a white one. Why is that?

Unused Creativity Becomes Toxic

So, my friend Rikki set me up with this lady by a few piercing quotes and I've been hooked ever since. This is a long interview, and far-reaching, but even if you have just ten minutes or so I say she's worth a gander. Groudbreaking points --- and not just one chick blathering, but the result of extensive research. It makes me thankful for the music teachers, hippies and counselors who cross(ed) my path.

VOX

Look at our school's high school newspaper!

A Childhood Idyll, Wm. Bouguereau

And along that vein, there are a few things I can't restrain my hysterical sentimentalism about. The best of which is the Class of 1996 ~ feeling thankful that our kids have their own crew scattered around Anchorage and the Valley, growing together in a similarly poignant way.

* GK said it best, just today *

Podcast Rhymes with Broadcast

This guy always gives a provocative argument ~ with the exception of keeping in touch with beloved and faraway friends and family, John Zmirak is probably my most valuable takeaway from wasting time on Facebook over the years.

And this site is a neat peek into how personal tech evangelization can become. SQPN stands for StarQuest Production Network. Cute? His podcast is among the oldest of podcasts, as he tells it, since the genesis was in 2005 upon the death of Blessed John Paul II. Check out 'The Break' for commentary on one of my favorite topics on Earth, Sesame Street and its international versions. The right sidebar has a bunch of other podcasts too. Be aware that the host blathers pretty genially & aimlessly for the first thirty minutes of the link, so it's worth skipping ahead. Otherwise, 5 Stars on that site overall. Its clean, artistic appearance seems very now.

Father Roderick's reflections about the creativity of the Holy Spirit are particularly cool.

To Arrive Where We Started

All I've ever really wanted to be is a Grandma. I guess I should say I've wanted the persona, irrespective of bearing children --- the liberation, daffiness and solitude is what appealed to me about the stage of life. In fourth grade I wanted to be sixty years old. I wore fake pearls and collected stray cats.

My grandparents passed to me a love of writing, and to a lesser degree, reading. Since I grew up in Alaska and they lived in California and Minnesota, we didn't share books in the way we might have, had we been neighbors. But no matter. Our written exchanges were nearly constant through the stages of my life; their penmanship marked each milestone -- the joyous events like birthdays and holidays, as well as conflicted times like my parents' divorce, and my own drinking and drug-addled college days. Even to the casual observer it was incongruous enough --- my first roommate remarked that she'd never met anyone who drank so much whiskey or got so much mail from their grandma. I'm not sure if these traits were impressive on their own, but together they warranted commentary! My grandmothers were none of the things I listed above as a Grandma profile: both of them would be more aptly described as refined, self-possessed and quite social. They reinforced a dignity and zest for living with each note and card they sent.

Although I treasured our letter-writing as much as I was capable of while it was happening, I sometimes think about how much I held back. A desire for approval led to editing and restraint where it was unnecessary. Grandma Ruby, Grandpa Bob and Grandma Katherine were unavoidably on a pedestal --- I'm at peace with that in retrospect. However, I wish I had been more brave. Their decades of living, plus their unconditional love, allowed for much fuller exposure than I allowed. I played it safe, you know? Spoke of achievements, aspirations and observations. I wish I would have asked them more pointed questions, about the world and their place in it. But I was a kid.

They have all died within the past nine years. God rest their beauty-filled, unrepeatable and generous souls. (I'd be remiss not to mention my Grandpa John. His pen may not have overflowed with prose, yet every occasion of my young life was marked with a punctual gift check filled out by Grandma Katherine and bearing his sturdy signature. Work is love made visible, and sharing the earnings of that work is certainly a loving act.)

Anthony and I are considering a 1,000 mile move -- a permanent return to Southeast Alaska -- to my hometown of Petersburg, where we met and were married (twice, actually. A reunion that may not have happened without the counsel of Grandma Ruby).

Recently I compiled a list of our reasons in favor of living in Petersburg, and a contrasting list of all that we'd be leaving behind. The list is revealing, entertaining, and might make a neat blog post sometime.

For now, I'm satisfied to share that this possibility is setting me free in unspoken places. I trust my grandmothers would approve.

"We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time." --T.S. Eliot

Language @lert

The Hermit, Gerrit Dou

Norman worried me. He seemed seven feet tall, constantly fingering a hand-rolled cigarette and yelling about systematic incompetence in one place or another, though he was more likely to describe it as "corrupt bastards, every last one of 'em". Blustery on most topics -- downright wild-eyed on the right ones -- I grew a tolerance to his opinions that rivaled my tolerance to whiskey itself. Just like a proper drinking career, sobriety comes with a certain social price. The difference is that one destroys personal dignity, and the other helps to restore it by first leveling our false pride.

God sent Norman into our life by way of the hardest knocks. My husband Anthony arrived in Southeast Alaska with the interruption of his journey to Somewhere Else, Alaska. The 747 had a mechanical failure on the November day he fled Orange County for good. Anthony found himself deposited on a marshy isle called Wrangell, where the one-room airport's phone rang and he was summoned to the call by a desk agent. On the other end of the phone was Norman, a stranger to him. He was, however, known to the Episcopal priest who was known to the fish mogul/street preacher who had years before burned a path between Southern California and Southcentral Alaska, goading all around him to do the same. Uncle Mike wasn't around this time, but his people were. And so the world shrinks when you need it to. The interrogation was brief, jarring and provided passage to Petersburg. Norman's voice boomed through the phone with gruff extroversion.

"You drink?"

"No, Sir." 

"If you're lying to me I'll rip your (expletive) eyeballs out."

That my husband boarded the ferry boat to such an invitation says enough about his mental health and hunger for adventure at the time.

Within this spiritual and physical journey there was to be a blooming courtship between Anthony and me. Norman would later become a chaperone of sorts, spending hours offering us the simple gift of self which unlocks the mystery of recovery from chronic addiction: we hang out together and don't get high. He'd drive us to deserted logging roads, park his two-tone Chevy pickup and assemble the accessories of an Alaskan hike: guns, dog, smokes. Our walks ended when Norman said it had been three miles, which was clearly random from one day to the next, but we didn't care. Not drinking is a full-time pursuit in the very beginning, and any diversion of this focus is gratefully welcomed. 



The Dutch Housewife, G. Dou

We spent a lot of time with Norman and his wife Merry in the coming weeks and years, their tireless devotion to suffering souls being without parallel. We cooked together, celebrated holidays, passed the time with card games and stories. Their modest home was usually bursting with guests, from the scrappy newcomers like us to the local doctor or recently transplanted state trooper. Their open door signified everything that was behind it: hospitality for anyone, warmly offered regardless of status. Elegant-souled Merry has many one-liners that ring in my heart to this day, a favorite being "Take your time in leaving (her house), but hurry back."

She also demures when complimented for her generosity, answering simply, "You can't outgive God." As an art school dropout who now drinks in good philosophy wherever it's served, I continue to hear strains of Merry's folksy wisdom from the most rareified minds I can plop myself down in front of. She knows the human condition intimately, after four decades of ministering to addicts. I'd contend there's literally nothing someone could confess that would shock her.

While making enchiladas, I once said something about "a good person" and Norman went mildly ballistic at my term. "She's not a person, she's a woman. These women's libbers have made knowing what we are into a problem we're supposed to fix, now? Buncha hogwash."

I dismissed him as crazy and kept chopping onions.

It is nearly twenty years later, and the crazed refrain that our language has been hijacked no longer displaces my sensibilities. The obvious offenders are notable but tired, and the effects are intentional and insidious.

In terms of personal pronouns, we slowly strip away everything that makes a person unique, with this insistence that equality means feigning utter homogeny. What a bore.

Indoctrination is most effective when the subjects perform it on themselves, and we see this in the hunger to be hip and relevant with the trendy rejection of reality. Often coined 'privilege awareness', it addresses a narrow spectrum of personal traits which none of us had a hand in choosing, and paints a hierarchy we must name, claim and reject in order to relate to anyone else. White European Guilt pales in comparison to Privilege Awareness, and comparison is the name of the game. Rather than welcoming a new friend or associate, we're called to flatly survey the balance sheet of their experience on this planet, and reduce our expectations (of ourselves and others) according to the prevailing prejudice. Content of character is now secondary to this frenetic labeling.

Privilege Awareness is different than useful thought exercises because it's based in gibberish and ends in policy. As an elementary school student, I remember a simple and powerful classroom activity about discrimination, probably in tandem with learning about Rosa Parks. Many readers of my generation will be familiar with it too, and I've used it in discussion of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to our young daughters. Our teacher separated our desks acoording to eye color, granting "good seats" to only the blue-eyed children for a whole day. (No doubt this would be hatcheted into unnecessary complexity today, or railed against by parents who don't grasp the specific and gentle nature of the lesson.) 

My ears are now pricked up for the codification of left-wing preference as the default setting of common sense. I'm encouraged by the beauty of actual intelligence which is capable of examining cause and effect, and unimpressed by the poorly thought out offerings of those who are really impressed with themselves.

Lots of tributes lately at the Lox. I'm thankful for people who are at least willing to shout rather than fiddle while Rome is burning. Especially if they value truth above their own reputation. People like Norman are right about everything, even if our first urge is to dismiss them to preserve our own comfort.

Being Smart Is Not A Virtue

My favorite radio guru (yes, I'm this juvenile) and Jewish thinker Dennis Prager gives an enlightened diatribe against "My Child Is An Honor Student..." bumper stickers. Of all things! Being raised in the feelings-laden 1980s, I was at first puzzled why something so fluffy and happy woud grate on his nerves. Then I listened and found his logic worthwhile.

His argument is threefold: first, bragging is in poor form. Next, to emphasize academic accomplishments so exclusively is to elevate certain children over their peers, and even their own siblings. This creates resentment and sadness more than incentive. Third, Prager bluntly summarizes, "I don't care if your kid makes a 4.0 in school. I care if he's nice to the fat kid." I would add that much academic boasting has more to do with parents displaying their own achievements --- and schools promoting their name, or as a friend once put it, "kids as pets".

By this power of the Spirit,

God's children can bear much fruit.

He who has grafted us onto the true vine will make us bear

"the fruit of the Spirit: . . . love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control."

"We live by the Spirit"; the more we renounce ourselves,

the more we "walk by the Spirit."

(Catechism of the Catholic Church, 736)

I'm no anti-intellectual, but I can't manage the full Tiger Mother, either. This isn't to promote a bunch of mental slouching. It promotes an ideal moral standard which every child can meet. Let's be real: as Catholics, we rely on the intercession of too many illiterate Saints to pretend otherwise. God meets His aims through our willing hearts, and Jesus never wrote a single line (at least that we can cite).

If you are a parent, think of the kids with whom you prefer your child(ren) to spend time. Do you most look forward to gatherings with the very smart or the very kind? We cultivate what we value, and while God's gift of human intelligence is unique and vital --- it's unevenly distributed.

Today my gratitude is for a Faith which challenges me by being unafraid to list exact virtues as well as sins, compared to a culture which treats both as punchlines.

Oh Very Young, what will you leave us this time?

Backwards Sex (ual Teaching, that is)

Stained glass depiction of
First United Methodist Church
Chicago, Illinois

I bombed the first time someone challenged my faith. Visiting a friend in Chicago, I was dazzled by her city. Truth be told, Cassandra had dazzled me for twenty years prior. We grew up together in soggy Southeast Alaska, although she moved away when we were seven years old. Her parents are my godparents, a role they generously fulfilled by offering endless hospitality and Good Literature.

She attended a real live Boston prep school with which her family is affiliated, and I stuck around Alaska, marrying a boy from Orange County. Cassandra and I wrote letters and sometimes visited each other. Through the years, her edgy handwriting offered blythe notes about ski trips, grad school fellowships and punks with trust funds. Our bond, though tender and far-flung, is still quite sincere.

During that three-day trip with my toddler, our days were a marathon of first class museums and happy wandering. I rode the El and eavesdropped on ebullient strangers after witnessing the White Sox win the 2005 World Series. Each night I dutifully ordered a new variety of Chicago's famous deep dish pizza.

While walking her dog and my baby in her Rogers Park neighborhood, talk turned to travelling with babies.

I mentioned (rather pridefully and without cause) that earlier in the day, Lucy had finally fussed to sleep as I chanted the words of the Hail Mary against the hum of the basement laundry room. I had been a confirmed Catholic for less than six months and was still clumsy with the words of this prayer, but drawn to its meditative use. Cassandra answered with a casual question about being Catholic, specifically "as an intelligent woman". I demured, unprepared. She wasn't hostile and I wasn't resentful, but nothing was gained in the way of understanding. I had all the personal thrill of conversion, but so little to offer my inquiring friend.

It's trite but true --- we often take the gift of our faith for granted, not even sensing our lack of evangelization until we're stuck.
Such has been my conclusion while watching the adroit "Catholic responses" to the Jefferson Bethke's viral video. The answers are truly beautiful, but am I wrong to assume they appeal mostly to people who are already Catholic? While my regretful moment was that of a fresh convert unaware there was an entire field called apologetics --- the call remains the same. To drink deep, of a Love so visible that we will be approachable, but ready with a defense of our Mother.

The Catholic Church is not a response to Protestantism.

Without Permission

A brilliant friend once confided that by the time she is fifty she hopes to have written a Good Novel. We're the same age ---- thirty when she penned those handwritten words. They scared me, impressed me, and I've treasured them ever since. This acknowledgement of aging, and of unmet goals, is energizing. It's the epitome of living in the moment. It's the only way to Get Awesome.

Name-calling

They get to do cooler stuff, anyway.

Much has probably already been written about this story. A lone girl scout in Ventura County is promoting a boycott of her organization after a seven-year old transgendered child (in this case, a boy who identifies as a girl) was allowed to join a troop in Colorado.

Without addressing the finer points of her claims about safety or the family's case, I'll say that I'm mostly sad to see adults use this as a chance to display their own free-thinking tolerance at the cost of a child's innocence. I live with a seven-year old, whose view of the world is carefree and full of whimsy, as it should be. Were she burdened with an interior struggle of this magnitude, my role would be to guide and form her conscience with a goal of providing hope and clarity ---- not teaching her that the world must conform to her view of herself in order that she be fulfilled.

The two obvious camps in this debate are the religious dullards vs. the science-based thinkers, but which case is made by the evidence here? And who is operating on little more than a wish, a leap of faith in its own right? Our bodies have parts, which have names, which are but a hint at the glory of love and cooperation with one another and the Divine. To take our functional definitions of this elementary fact from a child's questioning mind is lazy and craven. That the Girl Scouts themselves initally rejected this family's request and later reversed their decision reveals their own philosophical confusion, if not cynical strategizing.

Anecdotally, I had a puzzling experience as a child which defined boundaries that I disagreed with at the time. I remember telling my third grade teacher, Mrs. Rosvold, that I would be writing the name "Christine" on my assignments, after coming to the conclusion that I'd really like to be named Christine. I approached her desk with all the self-importance I could muster, eager and nervous to reveal 'the new me'. She barely looked over the top of her glasses as she informed me that I would be using my given name on all of my work, and that was that. Was she imposing her vision on me, crushing my creativity and spunk? What would've been the harm in allowing me to do this for a few weeks? Maybe, and probably very little, but she was busy and I wasn't the focal point of the universe. This needed to be corrected for efficiency if nothing else. And to think it through, the brief deflation of being dismissed was preferable to the embarrassment of having to backtrack from this faux-reality once my fickle mind had moved on.

We do children no favors by following their lead, in most cases of discernment; we're entrusted with the task of ushering them into a world in which we've figured some of the hard stuff out already. The other choice, a painful morass of moral relativism, has no end. We would do well to ponder the complex gift of human sexuality , which my friend Mindy recently addressed quite personally and eloquently.

So much of our lives and selves are indeed tabula rasa, filled with wonder and freedom. Let's have the courage as adults to recognize biology as well as our own authority. May the otherwise venerable GSUSA grow a pair of you-know-whats on this matter.