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?

Be Where Your Hands Are

A mantra for summer ~ free from expectations or anxiety.
Guide my hands to align my intellect with God's will. Focus. 
I will be where my hands are.

Today marks five years since my Grandma Ruby's death. Next month will mean ten years without my Grandma Katherine. Along with my cousins and our parents, I still miss the comfort and dignity of their love. Living a life they could approve of is one of my stronger desires.

Veronica Suzanne, our first November baby

We recently had a pet laid to rest, a milestone I can't quite face on the poetic plane yet --- but a quick depiction of my Grandmas' differences is their approach to precious kitties. Grandma Katherine would've termed them exactly that, with the regal Peaches and Plummy reigning in her Minnesota home for nearly twenty years. Just as tender is Grandma Ruby's response to seeing Stella, our cross-eyed , wiry little Red Point Siamese.  Although she was thoroughly Californian by the time I was born, Grandma Ruby's voice always hinted at wry Texan debutante:
"what -- is that?"
"That's Stella, Gramma."
"Weyhll, you need to get rid of it."

That was at least twelve years ago, and I still laugh when I tell the story. Last night my husband said to my giggling recount, "...She was right."

But Stella's at my side this very moment, so my hands will guide the rest of me today --- every gesture increasing the distance from life with Oscar.

What the Mahoneys Mean to Me

It's Father's Day. The guys are a few paces ahead of me on the homestead, as the languid sunshine propels us toward another family's story. I'm following an informal pilgrimage at the speed of happy toddlers and aging dogs, having momentarily left behind the annual Mahoney Grotto picnic. Our kids moseyed up to the barbeque buffet a few hours before, adding bananas, cookies and tea to the homemade sausage, roasted chickens, varied casual food and salads.

In front of the picturesque log home, I watch a guy whose name I'm unsure of pet a horse and smile shyly towards the camera. Another newly sober friend takes his picture with an iPhone. My heart is pierced by the simplicity of what's going on and the profundity I know it to be --- peace of mind, freedom of movement. Walking down a road among friends, without heroin or its effects as part of today's journey. I may not know his name, but I've heard this young guy impart Christian mercy towards his still-drunk mother on a candlelit Mother's Day. He has memorably intimated a Bush Alaska childhood with every abject sadness that can entail --- followed by the despair of aging out of foster care and directly into the dope house. The loneliness of belonging nowhere.

But not today. Today he's with the Mahoney family. And what a fold to be welcomed into, under the crisp blue mantle of Our Blessed Mother and the Alaskan sky, in a space built to honor their earthly mother.

Car after car parks across the outer reaches of Wasilla's Schrock Road, depositing more smiling faces, absorbed into still more giddy embraces.

Two and a half generations of men play football through rain and shine, with a mix of manhood and gentility that comes from staying close to the earth and each other. At one point, there were haphazard games of Frisbee being played through the middle of the football scramble, and our three-year-old son became fixated on possession of the yellow Frisbee. They humor him for awhile, but then a big boy crouches to explain the rules. "You have to throw the yellow circle, you can't keep it for yourself. You can play with us, but you gotta do the game." The shock of being asked to uphold any standards is immediate. He wails for his mother, allows me to hug him and cluck over the injustice. Then he grows quiet and rips straight back into the action. My role fulfilled, I return to the assembled brothers, sisters and cousins who have invited us for the day.

Back at the towering pod of birch splashed near the grotto, lighthearted Jungian psychology ensues, followed by a dissection of comedian Chris Rock's brilliance, then trading of recent travel stories, updates on work and worship, and an absolute fireside contentment with the human condition. Siblings and nephews check in on family business and health affairs, with tears and triumphs quietly exchanged. Babies wander to greet their grandfathers from perches against tree trunks, low-slung chairs and truck tailgates.

Throughout the afternoon, at least seven pots of coffee are brewed and shared. During this particular party I'd come without diapers for my toddlers, not a mishap new to me, and apparently not one they've never seen before either. In fact, I've never met so many grown men with Pull-ups and baby wipes stashed in the cabs of their beefy pickups. Ten-year-old boys stand stick straight and acknowledge children who are new to the fold with uncanny verve --- grilled hot dog in one hand, the other extended to greet friends with a handshake. Children ride past on the golden bare backs of horses, and a four wheeler crawls by with a dozen bouncing faces laughing from its trailer. My kids are in there somewhere. I overhear James, a local cabbie, asking what a grotto is, and Barney explaining it's Latin for crypt and means a place to pray. James asks permission to add his own rosary beads, from an ACTS retreat in Juneau years before, to the offerings inside. A few times I usher my kids away from the votives and statues, but I eventually give in to the friendly, insistent tones of Mahoney mothers young and old: they are perfectly welcome in there. Please.

I can now include myself in the tender rank of moms-in-need for whom Barney Mahoney has been known to produce dry clothing, diapers and a hot meal. A guy who knows the ropes once confided that it's Mahoney policy to stop for all hitchhikers, regardless of circumstances or disruption to his own schedule. Barney accepts no money for rides, often towing and fixing the stranded vehicles himself. Sometimes a tank of gas is the solution. Sometimes, single mothers are given the bad news that their cars are broken beyond repair, followed by the gift of a used car that runs just fine. I knew a lady who said his treatment of her was the first noble exchange from any man she'd known in forty years.

The Mahoneys don't fit into any prescribed camp: they're at once sincerely humble and born orators. A five-minute chat reveals them to be philosophically airtight, but with cowboy swagger and grammar to match. They are both wild-eyed and utterly serene. Their devotion, workmanship and credentials make heads swivel. I've seen them diffuse borderline psychotic, volatile characters with a reprimand and a hug. There would seem to be little place for saccharine piety among them -- considering the unflinching duty to truth and mercy they personify -- yet their poetry rings 100% sentimental Irishman. They are trappers, miners, steel workers, storytellers, musicians, entrepreneurs, hunters, fishermen, blacksmiths, woodworkers, bikers, builders, and farmers. (And those are just the six or seven of them that I know...) They are here to honor their mother and their father. They all know how to cook. On this day, they're willing to roast marshmallows for a continual stream of children, provided each one have dinner first and mom's permission.

Photo by Bill Hess

The two brothers I'm closest to share the story of their father's final days, including over six years spent building the grotto by hand, with random stones and statues being deposited by unknown people from all over the world, in hopes of helping the project. The mysterious Canadian squatter who came out of the woods long enough to roll a hulking, man-sized boulder (which became the grotto's roof, after being split lengthwise a few times) down their mountainside in order to contribute. The force of their father's passion for the Eucharist. The quiet heroism of their mother's twenty years of successive pregnancies in the wildnerness. Her fidelity to the establishment of a Catholic church in Wasilla --- a dream dismissed by many, considering there were parishes already built in Palmer and Eagle River. The patronage of Saint Jude.

I spend a lot of time with a lot of people who talk a lot of shit about faith, hope and charity. If the greatest of these virtues is love, why does this day look so different from most stuff I read or hear? The Mahoneys make it look easy. Joyous. Immediately possible. Their sacrifice and toil on each others' behalf is borne without calculation, shrill preaching, or pecking order. They just love. This family overflows with love, heaped on with human frailty, God's strength, and more love. Even though this isn't my first visit to the grotto, and I've logged hundreds of hours with Patrick, Paulie, and Barney, I'm thrown off kilter by the whole experience. Their rough-hewn setting and elegant hearts are healing people, through the grace of God. This is the grit that social workers, municipal food banks, SWAT teams and prisons cannot touch. I feel silly for ever wanting to buy a tapestry with the corporal works of mercy woven into it.

Since becoming a wife and mother, I've been increasingly drawn in by chatter about the Benedict Option, and set out with a hunger for it, visited often by the idea as life unfolds ~ for a fleeting sunny day in June, we were immersed in the fruits of precisely what Alisdair McIntyre describes in the final paragraph of After Virtue. My favorite depiction is contained in John T. Goerke's recent analysis: "The Benedict Option then is not a retreat into a cave, but an advance down the barrel of a shotgun."

Paul and Iona's descendants are indeed preserving their traditional culture, yet standing at the ready to receive the walking dead of modern culture, with a greased wrench in one hand and a rosary in the other. Their good-natured, fearless proclamation of God's Kingdom is magnetic. I felt like a fellow traveler, even among the dozen-plus Mahoneys previously unmet. Supernatural forces were unmistakably present. Part of me wanted to stay forever.

Another part of me knows that I witnessed nothing more than a hardworking bunch of people, hard at play on their family ranch. Let their welcome not be wasted on me, I pray. The good life is within reach --- of anyone who's willing to reach out to the guy next to him.

Surely I'm flattering myself, but I'd like to think the Mahoneys are my kind of people.

Photo by Bill Hess, 2012

"The most extraordinary thing in the world

is an ordinary man and an ordinary woman

and their ordinary children." ~ G.K. Chesterton

my Blessed Mother Ship

"I know your Mom --- she's da awesomest." Those were the recent words of our four-year-old, and I might add to them today, in the spirit of parental odes and the month of May, which is special to my family in many ways.

Who can be objective about their own mother? Maybe that's a futile goal anyway --- since the unique status of mother and child means a tenderness that defies general description. My brother and I have felt the ferocity of our mother's protection in a hundred ways, giving us a timeless oasis of security. It was memorably expressed when he sought to deploy her talents on some high school official who had smited him: "Give them your Cruella Deville, Mom, I know you can do it." (She declined, as I recall --- and he got to sit in detention.)

Anyone who knows my mom sucks air if I mention that she's a twin ~ their disbelief is suspended when the clarification comes. A twin brother. Fraternal twins. We all know there's only one Margaret.

If Gilda Radner and Jacqueline Onassis commingled into one being, my mom would still be cooler. She favors Elle, Vogue and Vanity Fair: I'll be in the corner with Strunk & White. In hindsight, I realize she knew all about Dylan Thomas --- but she let me breathlessly share my discovery of his work and the companionship I found there. Ditto Marlo Thomas, St. Jude himself, Janis Joplin, romanticizing tragedy, Indian food, and the open road. She'd seen it all before.

From her I inherited my terrible driving, patience with weirdos, unflinching optimism, hunger for a storyline, and social groove. She never limited my interests or dictated morals, meaning there was no sting of judgment when heartbreak or disaster visited. I got to own it. Similarly, achievements and joy have been mine to savor, with her constant encouragement but never co-opting. My mom let me become the person I was meant to be. She seemed unthreatened by the emotional risks of raising children --- which I now know to be impossible --- today, I appreciate her allowances as trust, that God and goodness will prevail.

Even recognizing that freedom, each time over the past ten years I've thought I'd lost one of my children (in a water park, at a gas station, the bluegrass festival, and so on) my dominant fear has been disappointing my mother. Some things aren't real until you have to explain it to Mom, right? In every such brief, grave episode my brain seemed to illogically skip straight to remnants of my misspent youth: "My mom is going to be so pissed, you guys. She really liked that baby."

Parking lot derelictions aside, I've had to work diligently to shock her over the years. She did seem pretty mad when I worked in that Nevada brothel for a few months.

Moms imbue so many traits before we realize they're unique. If I am a little iceberg bobbing around the universe, my mom is the piece of Earth from which I calved ~ at once adaptable, immovable, and regal. If I've ever been fearless, dignified, unconventional, it's because I'm her daughter. My favorite compliments are when she compares me favorably to her own mother. I expect my daughters feel the same.

Happy 36 years of motherhood, Mom. Veronica is right --- you da awesomest. I praise God for the multitudes you contain, and for your continual willingness to sail me home.

* * *

(so Tori Amos is probably a little ponderous for my mom's tastes. She's more of a Chaka Khan lady.)

But, here we go -- nobody vamps at a piano with quite the same depth ...   

"Well I can't believe that I would keep
Keep you from flying
So I will cry 1000 more
If that's what it takes
To sail you home
Sail you home
Sail you home
Sail
Sail you home"

{{ for My Dad on the eve of his birthday }}

Happy Birthday, Dad. I love you and hope the day is great.

The complexity and beauty of our bond has been a model for all other close and complicated relationships in my life. Any man I admire today has at least one trait I first admired in you: strength of intellect, masculinity, gentleness of heart, intuition, curiosity about the world and her people, generosity, humor and perseverance.

I remember being seventeen years old, the way you inspired me not to conflate an adolescent urge for activism with love --- nudging me away from my first felonious crush with, "There are no shortage of women writing letters to men in prison. The world doesn't need one more and it doesn't need to be my daughter." When I think now of how you probably felt at the prospect of my devotion to that cause, your diplomacy seems heroic.

Aside from the countless expressions of love and adventure you filled my childhood with, the restraint you often showed as I neared adulthood turns out to be a most tender part of our story.

When I was incapable of continuing college and begged you, squaring off at some preppy fountain in downtown Seattle on that sunny Autumn day, to bring me with you --- you didn't add to my disillusionment by mentioning the wasted scholarship. The wasted child standing in front of you was your only concern.

Three years later, we circled that same city in a rental car as I looked for a meeting of the 12-Step group that continues to ground my spiritual life. Hours passed and we never found it --- if you were exasperated, you didn't let on.

I'm not a model of filial duty, and I regret that. I sense that I've disappointed you most intimately when I've been unkind or deceptive towards others. Thanks for loving me through it.

When I ponder stories of desertion by fathers, I'm pierced by imagining a child not knowing their Dad as life deals its mixed bag of joys and blows. My humanity springs from yours, my perception of authority forever echoes your authority, and I have no problem conjuring a celestial image of God himself as a loving Father, because of you.

And here I am, typing to you at the last minute, partially in awe that my Daddy is 67. Maybe this could've all been written in a card and sent privately, but I trust you've long known that my procrastination and spaciness are matched by my desire for an audience. I'm working on it. : )

Thank you, above all else, for the baby brother. He's a solid man and a natural Uncle. His enthusiasm and creativity showered over our children feels just like being with you. Almost.

+++

My life, it don't count for nothing.
When I look at this world, I feel so small.
My life, it's only a season:
A passing September that no one will recall.

But I gave joy to my mother.
And I made my lover smile.
And I can give comfort to my friends when they're hurting.
And I can make it seem better for a while.

My life, it's half the way travelled,
And still I have not found my way out of this night.
An' my life, it's tangled in wishes,
And so many things that just never turned out right.

But I gave joy to my mother.
And I made my lover smile.
And I can give comfort to my friends when they're hurting.
And I can make it seem better,
I can make it seem better,
I can make it seem better for a while. 

+++

"We are a pack of fornicators...."

Anthony Esolen gets jiggy

Oldies but Goodies

The photo on the bottom is part of my computer's picture drive that plays a slideshow, and I like seeing it occasionally. A great source of perspective with politicians comes when I hear my kids pray for a few by name. It reminds me that Jesus seeks the heart of the individual, not en masse, as well as the bracing paradoxes that draw us towards his love: surrender to win, least of these, those willing to lose their lives, and so on. Kids tend to see the humanity of a president, rather than the dazzle of an office, more clearly than adults. And I'm going to get some new pearls ASAP.

 

 

from the dedication of the GWB Prezzy Library, April 2013

 

Iditarod Anticipation

Meet and Greet this musher on Friday, February 28 at 6 p.m. Clarion Suites Anchorage. I can't overenthuse enough about the reasons to spend a few hours learning at the heel of Aliy Zirkle --- her trail stories are personable, strong and inspiring. She and her husband (Allen Moore, who just won the Yukon Quest) offer a great glimpse into the world of mushing with and doting over their dog teams. Elite athletes all.

Around here I use the Last Great Race for an annual descent into the mayhem and wonder (the opposite of order and wonder?) of unit studies for the kids' lessons. The Iditarod comes at the perfect time of year for diversion from winter doldrums, and as the kids grow they're able to draw many subjects into their little studies. Zirkle herself reminds me of Alaskan icon Susan Butcher and of my Godmother, Linda Squibb: balanced, driven and unendingly gracious.

disorienting moments, a compendium

Here are times when the world feels foreign:
*    When I hear anyone rag on the Aerosmith/Britney Spears SuperBowl  halftime show.
*    When my eyesight is continually affronted with neon colors in fashion accessories.
*    When my older daughters tell me they've never been to a wedding or seen a kitten. (lies! but they hold this belief steadfast and know it makes me verklempt)
*    When surrounded by people who schedule events 6-8 months in advance.
*    When I remember my first obstetrician blithely offering to abort my baby.
*    Much more recently, the day my father praised the Seattle Seahawks.
*   When Sesame Street is just screaming Common Core interdisciplinary mediocrity at me, first thing in the morning.


Do your thing and do it well!

Okay, maybe seven things isn't really a compendium. But that's a word with a lot of syllabic harmony, so it stays.

Happily, there are many more moments that life just clicks, on a level of unmistakable harmony. I guess the pagans call it synchronicity. All the sweeter is to witness that universal "fitting" and know it to mean a loving God directs the galaxy. Faith really is a gift. May it be used to the maximum service of those who suffer.

Buon Natale

Dear Pope Francis (standing, second from left), who taught me the word Lampedusa, whose smiling face I felt beaming from Time covers all over New Sagaya last Sunday, and who is celebrating Christmas Mass in Rome this day --- Merry Christmas! May your earthly mother rejoice in her work being carried to such completion and your blessed Mother ensconce you in her mantle.

This is such a humbling, overflowing time of year. The cold weather (-17 this morning as I picked up one final gift) ensures that we'll probably stay parked for the next few days. I do not sled or stroll in single digits. We wish you a Merry Christmas. May your mug overflow and your public radio stay wired. Snuggle in! The miracle isn't dependent on us doing a thing, planning or preparation-wise. God is great.

I'm always in search of a resplendent Christmas(s), and regret that an impressive strain of stomach flu will keep me home tonight. I'll light candles and remember that Mary herself knew the resplendent Soul, with no need of the trappings I'm tempted to chase. It's the warmth of love, from one soul to another, that gives us security. So at this time of year I try to balance my sensory desires with the knowledge that God alone fulfills me. I've been reading a little bit of St. John of the Cross. He rivals Augustine in threatening the allure of my own appetites. Thank you to the friends who passed the book along. The guy is hardcore and I knew little of his biography until now.

I still like sparkly stuff.

 

sthughofcluny.org

 

 

As for me and my house

Order, Wonder and the Historical Trauma of last-minute Christmas Shopping

So, a few weeks ago I was ogling Advent wreaths online, wondering if I could swing across the modernist divide and embrace something like this:

*****
NEVERMIND, the picture won't load and my friend in Texas wrote something better than my planned drivel about overconceptualized (crappy) religious art.

Even better than blogs about schedules (my subtopic), which are admittedly my favorite kind of blog posts to read.

In any case, please heed her warning at the top, because it's sincere. She has a certain vantage point --- it may not be for everyone. But I would ask anyone who wants to bristle at her style to consider the potential audience. I've been thinking lately about how much of the dysfunction we seem to mourn can be traced back to the cultural expectation of living in a state of unending gratification --- sexual, consumerist or otherwise. "If it feels good, Do it" is quite the mantra. We pay.

Much like Peter Hitchens being unfazed by Dan Savage's juvenile attempts at antagonism, the world needs women who can talk like this to girls out there. And priests who can talk to both. We all have that God-shaped hole in our heart, and those who minister to us do well to accept the ways habitual sin has made us blind. And to carry on, with a burning love of souls. God bless you, Mrs. Stacey Adams.

From Ho to Housewife, How Jesus Changed Everything

{insert here Diego Rivera, Woman at a Well. If photos would load to Blogger today.}

St. Francesca Xavier Cabrini, Virgin

November 13 is the feast of one of our family's patronesses for home education. Mother Cabrini is the first American citizen to be canonized, and she established 67 schools, hospitals and missions in her 67 years. She was physically small and sickly all her life, yet a magnetic force of love and piety in all she did. The inclusion of Xavier in her religious name is a nod to her own plans & designs (she hoped to go East), yet Pope Leo XIII asked that she serve the Italian immigrants in New York City.

I think she wouldn't have much patience with me and my tangential flakiness; maybe that's why I like to think she'll pray all the harder for our family.

You know how sometimes the lives of the Saints seem inaccessible, overly pious or just foreign to our times? I'm finally reading "Story of a Family" about the Martins. It's an engrossing read, they're terribly inspiring, especially since they're laity, but overall ... slightly exotic for me. I do love the way the temperaments of holy men and women run the gamut. Something about Mother Cabrini really appeals to us, and I cry when we read this slim jewel aloud during the first week of school lessons each year. While I haven't planned anything Italian or special (our day is too packed and the biggest of the little ones are recovering from head colds) to memorialize her, my constant prayers to conform my will to God's will are boosted by her example today.

Can an Atheist Get Sober?

After the most grievous, fruitful season of my young life, I'm sorting through the lessons. Through my limited scope, I'm discovering a fraction of what it feels like to love, and to be powerless. If God's inexhaustible Love for us feels anything like this for its Source, I'm happy to remain a fleck on the windshield of life.

Part of this summer's journey has meant a return to the 12-step meetings that saved my life fifteen years ago. I selfishly gained the gifts of sobriety (becoming employable, a husband and family, a busy life) and left my duties to still-suffering drunks behind. I also left behind the spiritual growth that propels us, one day at a time, in recovery. Although I didn't pick up a drink or a drug in the six years that I stayed away from meetings, I retreated into my faith. This isn't a fact I'm overly maudlin about, but it is a fact. We either 'grow spiritually or die', is a recognized truth for addicts. I've moved through the deep shame and regret of leaving this first facet of good living behind --- that progress being due to the unfailing welcome of beautiful strangers who now inhabit my heart and my home. Thank God they were still there when I put my hand to the doorknob. The worn carpet, bad coffee and tattered slogans on the wall spoke in sacred, silent tones. May I never forget where I came from.

In a flash, I was relieved of my embarrassment at the realization that I'd concocted two different Gods: one for alcoholism and one for Christian living. I had a merciful God and a legalistic God. To reconcile the two was not the kind of protracted analytical exercise I first expected; rather, God returned wholly to me the same way He first appeared --- in my utter surrender. We know the expression 'there are no atheists in a foxhole', hinting at the simplicity and willingness of the human soul to cry out for divine aid when all other hope is lost.

The Twelve Steps are undeniably rooted in Christianity, even mirroring Ignatian and Benedictine spirituality so closely that Bill Wilson (their author) was once asked by a priest if the rumor was true --"had the Steps in fact been written by a Jesuit seminarian?" These roots are not restrictive, however, and the program is presented in the most unobtrustive way. Any seeker of God is free to their conception of a Higher Power, and this is no doubt a wellspring of their efficacy. The fruits of Christian love and service abound, free from moral authority or hierarchy. We exist in concert with recovery from profound, intimate trauma, and humans of every possible stripe are well-represented in our numbers. We are bikers and doctors, mommies and felons, sometimes all in one person. It's this variety of experience plus the purity of our mission, that gives us the ability to reach one another. And here I come to the question first posed --- can someone who denies the existence of God make use of the 12 Steps? YES. A thousand times yes.

Picture a symphony. If you have any experience with a musical instrument this will be easy.  I played the clarinet gleefully and with mediocrity as a teenager, never reaching first or second chair but learning rapidly and deeply enjoying the experience. And we had a conductor who was one in a million. This conductor exists and is leading the show whether I acknowledge him or not --- a 'higher' power, if you will. I can reasonably get by and gain new techniques by copying the person sitting next to me. I never even have to look at the Conductor unless and until I'm willing to find that specific direction. What's vital is only that I discard my way, my self-will, and my ideas about how it should go. Humility, that elusive condition, is essential. I can copy the technical skill of another player, I can merely pretend to play ('fake it 'till you make it'), I can dither between numbers and let others carry the weight. I don't even need to be copying a player of the same instrument; I may play the clarinet but be enamored with the bassoon. It doesn't matter. All have varying results but all are different than hiding in the gutter or the catwalk --- if I'll come in, sit down, assume some postures, and allow for a new way of living from the inside out, I have a chance.

Taken as a straight parallel, any souse has already done this. In active addiction, many of us eventually exit polite society, learning a new vocabulary, new cultural norms, and a host of frightening new "skills" as we descend into hell. We trust in all kinds of unseen forces, for better or worse, to carry us through to the next fix. This mimicry of addicted life is much like the map out of the morass and into healthy and whole life --- just copy the people who have what you want.

The principles of getting well after a period of degradation so bleak that we find ourselves beyond human aid are universal and personal. It works to replace 'atheist' with the spiritually arrogant (hi!), the proud, the lazy and the skeptic: we lay aside our old ideas in exchange for a new way of living. This is simple yet difficult. If it were easy, Skid Row would be empty. As usual, this painful, privileged sojourn is best summarized in the perfect locution of wounded healers, reaching for their own:

bring your ass and your heart will follow.

When Evangelize Sounds More Like Scandalize

It's been observed that having a judicious temperament includes knowing when to simply be quiet. What's the opposite of judicious, then? That's the one I have. The temperament of a defendant, or maybe a plaintiff, but I wish to be no one's Judge. And thank God for His wisdom on that. We could take a moment of silence to observe it, even.

Blogging has served a thrilling mix of the accessible and the impossible for me, since jumping in with both feet two years ago, after an annual Christmas letter mailing just left me overflowing with more to say. A convert to Catholicism, I find endless study, joy and conversion in the tenets of our faith. Reading certain blogs has urged me along the journey. It's also been helpful to express these beliefs by writing them down, in the sense that I could refer to authoritative teachings and teachers while paddling alongside them in my own way. It's been cool.

None of this is to say that writing publicly in my limited scope has helped me to become a stronger Christian. It hasn't. With the exception of highlighting my own scholastic and spiritual weaknesses --- a focus I'm thankful for --- this has been mostly an exercise in networking. Still valid, still gratifying and productive. But not growth, for me. There are graceful women who can avoid being unfairly combative while elucidating Truth, and I commend them.

"I write to make sense of my life," is a sentiment I heard twenty years ago and loved immediately. It now sounds slightly vain and limited, but as far as it goes is still true for me. My faith makes sense to me now, and writing about it has been a small but vital part of that.

I am newly sensitive to the formulaic cheapening of our faith for cynical gain, after an exchange heralded by a popular Catholic blogger, in which "traditional" Catholics were prompted to decry the secret anti-Semitism amongst the people they worship with. Hardly a light charge. Stuttering denials and outrage ensued. Crazy anti-Semitic (the word crazy being descriptive, not a qualifier, for there's no other kind) things were typed to the blog author in response. However, all sane voices claiming to run in traditionally-minded circles but never hear such filth were ignored. A pattern emerged: either tacitly cheer the hip blogger and mock the square kids in skirts, or prepare to be shunned. Una Voce, people.

Sometimes I read the posts offered here and see a predictable pattern: "Orthodoxy (from the Greek, 'straight, upright', no?) rules! Believe me and St. Augustine --- and if you don't, allow me to shock you with a sordid, self-referential anecdote." Formulas are tiresome, and if there's one thing I learned from the smirking condescension lobbed my way this afternoon, it's that guilt by association has a formula all its own. When an accuser is intent on proving their point over discovering even a hint of new data, no defense is possible. I trust God alone to direct my soul, and have no doubt that the gift of reason will serve me in discerning the company I keep at mass or anywhere else. I don't need edicts from the internet or a Facebook pep rally about bravery to do so.

And so it follows that I now assess my associations. Let God find me in a Latin mass all day long before He sees me bowing down to self-appointed spiritual directors posing as bloggers, so hungry for plain old meanness and detraction. We must be careful that leaps to rashness and amusement at the expense of charity don't become idols in themselves. I'm comfortable saying 'we' because I mean 'me'. I must be careful of this.

Lox Populi, in its name, is a claim that the voice of the people is not, after all, the voice of God. (Plus my daffy nod to the superiority of Alaskan seafood.) I wonder if that's an irrelevant claim to stake online, where being loud and pithy too often passes for virtue and truth. Mob rule has no charity. It seeks evidence to fulfill a foregone conclusion, and ignores any contrary testimony. There's no judicious temperament required, only a grudge and a megaphone.

If I began writing in this space with at least the clarity of knowing I have much more to learn than I do to teach, that clarity remains. And I want to write about motherhood now, with many of the same intentions (mostly justifying the suspicious amount of reading I like to do). My motivation is growth as a writer --- with opinions and observations about modern culture through the prism of Catholicism coming naturally. Joyfully swimming upstream towards the shared aim of sainthood, and challenging myself to excellence, these all still matter very much to me.

This blog will stay active, but I envision a season of learning and sharing more on the personal topic of vocation: if you'll join me, please find newer posts at The Reasonably Redneck Childhood.

If Ever You've Lived On An Island

My friend Tonya's parents had this poem framed near their dining table, as I recall. Next to sliding glass doors that practically touched the beach ...

If ever you’ve lived on an island
 if ever you’ve lived by the sea;
 You’ll never return to the mainland
 once your spirit has been set free.

If ever you’ve smelled the ocean
 or tasted the salt in the air;
 You’ll know you’ve discovered a hatch
 that is uncommon, precious and rare.

If you’ve ever seen the whales play
 or watched the eagles in flight;
 You’ll remember, again, why you live here
 and why it feels so right.

If you’ve ever seen the sun set
 as the ferry passed the shore;
 You’ve seen the beauty of the island
 that will be with you forever more.

If you’ve heard the seagulls
 the waves, a foghorn, the winds;
 Then you’ve heard the song of the island
 and the peaceful message it sends.

Indeed, if you live on an island
 if you’re lucky to live by the sea;
 You’ll never return to the mainland
 as your spirit has been set free.

-J. Earnhart © ’92

Petersburg.

I am nine years old and trying to fake being impressed by the Redwood National Forest, since my Grandma brought me and all. Giant trees, springing from a moss-carpeted world that has no need of human aid?

I know a place like that.

I am nineteen and sitting in college. The professor speaks of Alaska's 'brain drain', and how often the same qualities that isolate and cheapen our view of hometowns while in our twenties will draw us back as priorities shift later in life.

I know a place like that.

I am thirty years old and enrolling my first baby in a school. A school which fosters interdependence among its member families, by drawing on their God-given talents to keep the lights on. Politics tone down when passions pour forth. Those who craft with wood and fiber will do so; the harpists will teach music because their passion is magnetic; the natural cooks will feed the children from the Earth's bounty, and the storytellers will entertain. Also, math.

I went to a school like that.

I am staring at my father in a foreign country. His friends are nice, they seem to love his company, and his wife is a born hostess in any hemisphere. I cry myself softly to sleep every night in Australia. These friends are nice but they don't have Grandma Neva, julebukking, or the contented pace of island life.

I know a place that does.

We are sitting in the forest on a rushed commuter's campout. The black birch trees frame the night sky like the ventricles of my heart. I am at home. My kids are visitors.

I'm from a place like this.

I am listening to an urban theorist, who expounds on the diverse talent, technology and tolerance that make a vibrant community. He claims it's unique to cities. I disagree. It flows naturally from love and necessity.

I'm from a place like that.

I am looking at my husband, who has hung the stars for me since the second day we met --- he's saying he wants to catch a fish, take a walk, grill some burgers, watch the children grow from right up close.

And I know a place like that.

 

 

 

 

You Don't Have To Stay Home, But You Can't Come Here

Worthy conversations abound about the role of Catholic singles among our parish life and beyond. We're all enriched by having friends or relatives who don't have kids, for the perspective and levity they can bring to kid situations. (Not to mention the hope of recruiting a babysitter from time to time.) Among my fellow mommy friends, I can predict pretty accurately their individual reaction to queries or stories about family life. They are wise, introspective and filled with experience. That said, it's often refreshing to hear my bachelor Uncle or childhood friends' responses instead.

I remember once describing a harried morning with toddlers and a twenty-pound sack of dried pinto beans as "White Trash Montessori", a description met by the guttural laughter of a lifelong pal who was pregnant with her first baby at the time. Since the climax of the tale was less about the gleeful, malicious pouring of the beans in our tiled entryway, and more about how it took me three solid days to entirely clean up the mess, it helped to have a friend laugh at the story. It was funny. It was over. It didn't need further discourse.

People without kids who are content to be amused by kids are a treasure. I sense they're becoming a minority, and wonder if the root of 'brat bans' is the self-congratulatory stance of the larger child-free movement. As our society has relegated sex to a weekend adventure, and embraced contraception and abortion, the necessary lie becomes that little kids are the realm of the clueless and the careless.

Before I'm nailed as laissez-faire or unrealistic, I should clarify: many places are intended exclusively for adults. For the sake of sanity and unity, it's great to know those boundaries exist. A business owner can and ought to create the environment he believes has maximum market attraction. A party host(ess) has every right to request their celebration be without children. I wish them well. Conversely, I'm not lobbying for any one 'parenting style' over another. I realize the Europeans do it differently, often to mixed reviews.

After witnessing two women in particular who captured the essence of Matthew 19:14 ("But Jesus said to them: Suffer the little children, and forbid them not to come to me: for the kingdom of heaven is for such." (Douay-Rheims 1899)), it's obvious that living this requires patience and willful abandonment to Love. In social invitations and leading Children's Eucharistic Adoration, theirs is an influence I've been grateful to receive. I'm really sloppy at imitating their gravitas, but nonetheless thankful for the examples. Likewise the gregarious priests whose comfort level or conviction allows them to encourage motherhood in the devotional and public sphere.

I'd love to highlight some realm outside of the insular Catholic homeschooling world as doing it correctly: accepting childhood as a valid state of being, using high expectations to instill pride and excellence in behavior, letting kids be kids without projecting hostility towards their parents. I try to venture out regularly. But go beyond the gates and we sound pretty clueless. No one wants to raise sullen jerks who stare into iPod screens, but the risky business of ushering kids from littleness to bigness has become a liability we'd rather not confront.

We're just not sure where kids fit anymore. We have the United Nations' Rights of the Child, but in daily life such global poetry is proving to be tough competition for actual children who make noise and eat food and learn manners and mess up.

Our family attended a performance art festival earlier this winter, which featured a few storytellers. They offered artful renditions of the Snow Queen and other classics; our oldest daughters, ages 5 and 8, were rapt. The younger kids were happily seated until I had the grand idea to usher them down to the dancing area, which only made them aware of the wide staircase, which made them antsy to climb the stairs. As a mom who refuses to let her little kids disrupt gatherings but operates under the human limitations of time and space, I've grown nerves of steel for the forty seconds required to swoop up the toddlers and duck out the door at the first sign of mutiny. The big girls and I have our pantomimed exchanges nearly perfected for any venue --- they're either given permission to find me in the foyer afterwards, or they're begged to grab coats and bolt at the next polite break. This January day found me circumspect, and before my escape I noticed the pinched faces of old white men with silver ponytails, visibly peeved that Storytime was being ruffled by the presence of children. Really?

I recently watched a Facebook comment stream about leaving children in a parked car while using an indoor restroom with particular interest. On its face, the attitude of those who disagreed with this practice was purely one of concern. But something more complex is at work, in many cases. Like the reflexive brother of the Prodigal Son, much of our culture wants the 'rightness' of their choices confirmed by maximizing the discomfort, even to the point of humiliation, of the 'wrongheaded' people. The confidence and serenity (also expressed as "benign neglect" by the ones with a sense of humor) that typifies the experienced mother or father is anathema to those who have convinced themselves that babies ruin everything. This mindset not only violates charity, it removes the chance to be of service to others, which destroys our sanctification. The devil himself would have set it up just so.

Nowhere is this schizophrenia more starkly presented than at church. Today I called a local parish to inquire about the plausibility of (me) offering childcare if parents wanted to attend a Saturday brown bag luncheon talk being offered there. I was either cordially rebuffed or given reluctant permission --- I still can't figure out which. The idea was met with a despairing sigh after mentioning that I'd like to attend with my five children. This is sad. I profess a Faith which upholds the dignity of welcoming a new baby each year if God so deigns. Pro-life posters in the stairwell are nice, but showing up to casual events with babies in tow? Poorly conceived, it seems.

Kids are a handful. They'll spill the beans everywhere, on purpose, and you'll be surprised how stealthily a single pinto can poke underfoot, days later. It's fair to be frank about their messy joys and surprise graces. Moreover, kids are the way we get new people, for better or worse. May we heed the words of PJ O'Rourke --- who said in endorsing Jonathan Last's book, "the only thing worse than having children is not having them."

Rise and Dream

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