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?

You can't spell "straight dope" without OP

thank you, Allison Grace

Vivaldi says get to work, kids.

and each of the friends who tread with joy along this path. Teresa, Tana, Joy, Michele, Anne and your 45 (!) children, plus all the happy faces we continue to meet through your acquaintance.

wildflowers and marbles ~ she says it like you would, and *with lists*

for everyone who's drawn to this, not just homeschoolers : )

this guy ~ Jesus

"...Our happiness is not contingent upon anything here on this Earth"

I have totally wondered that

about re-making beds and self-esteem! Glad to know that such nonsense has a basis (in the usual place -- ingrained psychobabble ...) I was re-reading a biography of Lillian Gilbreth, the mother of Cheaper By the Dozen fame, and reflecting a bit the perceptions of housework and homemaking, which is endlessly fascinating lately.

I love Leila for making Order and Wonder come alive for our family in small ways, for somehow illustrating that tending to hearth is for smart girls too, and (have you seen her new book? You should read it. You'll like it!) for probably my favorite one-liner ever about homemaking:

 

"Unless you have someone coming over in the next thirty minutes to do all of this for you, it's really your duty to figure it out. Now. Get to it." 

 

Something like that. I've fallen back on her

brand of gentlefirm prodding more than a few times.

She first won my heart here...

The Third Way

Homosexuality and the Catholic Church

Two Lessons

Bully Before, Norman Rockwell

This morning, one of our Godsons stood up for himself to a much older boy, and while I'm still reeling a bit from witnessing an actual playground scuffle involving someone we love, I'm really proud of him. I also feel utterly unprepared to raise boys if it involves moments like that. It was all so overt and raw and risky. Compared to the safe, covert machinations of girl children --- in which I'm working on four separate PhDs, if you must know. (Their names are Vivian, Margo, Veronica and Dorothy.) May God steer them towards good men, wherever they roam.

I wish his family could have seen him. I wish I would have affirmed him more in the presence of the Offending Child in the Chilean Team Jersey. I'm hoping his own confident, but measured display brought a rush of righteous affirmation, a reward in itself. If so, any cheering from me would've been so much background noise.

We can add this as evidence that wrestlers will school soccer peasants where it counts ~ any day of the week. Love ya, Lukster.

Bully After, Norman Rockwell

Mourners remember quiet, helpful Army doctor (may we do the same)

He was a soldier, a respected doctor, a steady-handed pilot, all qualities worth bragging about. But Matthew Philip Houseal wasn't the chest-beating type, his sister said.

• Photos

Dr. (Major) Matthew Houseal, God grant eternal rest unto him

                             

He often melted quietly into the background. For that, many people knew him as "the invisible man," she said.
"He always was there for people," said Anne Houseal, a U.S. Air Force colonel. "He was a great example of service and honor."

Family and friends gathered Tuesday at St. Ann's Church in Canyon to pay their final respects to the slain Amarillo physician. Hundreds of American flags waved outside the church as a bell tolled and a lone bagpiper played softly in the distance.

Heads bowed and eyes welled with tears as a military color guard brought his flag-draped casket into the church. Arms curled gently around heavy shoulders.
"It's a sad day in America," said Jack Barnes, president of America Supports You Texas. "A good man was taken away from us."

Houseal, 54, a major in the Army Reserve, was one of five soldiers killed May 11 when a U.S. soldier allegedly opened fire in a mental health clinic at Camp Liberty in Baghdad.

In his sermon, the Rev. Phu Phan praised Houseal for sacrificing for his country and for placing the needs of others, often strangers, above his own.
"He found meaning in his desire to help others," Phan said. "We need to thank God for the gift of his life." Troubled by the rising suicide rates among veterans, Houseal joined the reserves to use his training as a psychiatrist to help stem the tide.
Houseal's body was taken to Llano Cemetery in Amarillo, where hundreds of other military personnel are buried.

There, Houseal's daughters laid long-stemmed flowers on his wooden casket. His wife, Dr. Luzma Houseal, hugged the casket and mouthed the words "I love you" while dabbing her eyes with a tissue.

Raised in Michigan, Houseal was a psychiatrist at Texas Panhandle Mental Health Mental Retardation in Amarillo. The father of seven had worked there since February 1997. He was in Baghdad fulfilling obligations as a reservist.

Anne Houseal said her brother never focused on his accomplishments. His penchant for helping others emerged early in life but seemed to intensify in his college years, when he also developed an "insatiable appetite for learning," she said.

Houseal, a certified flight instructor, often gave flying lessons to aspiring pilots while putting himself through medical school. Early in his career, he also practiced his scalpel techniques on stuffed animals, fixing them up to give to young children.
"Matt would never define himself as a hero, and he would never ask for or expect anything like the honor he's receiving today," his sister said. "Truly his service was a gift to our nation."

(all text and photo from lubbockonline.com)

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. 

+++

Dear Larry

On Thursday a friendship of twenty-plus years came to an end when my mom called with the difficult news of death. My first pen pal (besides Lil and the foreign kids from the back of Archie comics), my first professional boss, and the first gift sobriety gave me: Larry King.

Do you ever picture a certain friend or relative, and just sense they'll never be an ailing 97 year old in a nursing home? This friend was like that, and I'm relieved he is no longer constrained by his earthly body. Larry was somehow ageless: eternally 55 or so, but in many ways a carefree 17-year old guy. He personified the gratitude a recovering addict carries with them --- to be aware of a generous universe, our rightful place in it, and the immutable hand of a loving Creator. And he was a good counselor. Maybe that's why he stayed in the chemical dependency field when he could've chosen a half dozen careers with relative ease and acclaim: music, activism, educational guru, and so on. But he remained a counselor, walking with lost souls trudging towards clarity --- witnessing all the pain and madness without being swallowed by it. He was a real shit disturber where it mattered, and a voice of perfect trust in God when life seemed too much.

Among the things he illuminated for me was an absolute riddance of self-pity and fear. As a clinical director he was patient, meticulous, and funny. As a friend he was endlessly comforting without losing his own serenity. He let me bring my dog to the office every day, wryly declaring her a therapeutic presence. He spoke highly of both of my parents, and had great stories from the 1970s and 80s about many people in our town. I think now about his monk-like existence, the confidences he took to his grave ~ he instilled in me the sacred trust (not to mention a near-holy fear of federal privacy mandates) of receiving another's pain or joy, which is especially vital in an isolated community.

Larry intentionally lived by the ocean, nesting and creating stability wherever he roamed. He was somewhat itinerant in his mission -- knowing when to move on, but fully immersed while he lived in a place. He really was the kind of personality that helps knit a small town together. His physical presence was fixed, immovable: keys jangling, quips exchanged, tie dye and denim blazing through. Spiritually, things settled a bit when he asked questions. The world slowed to a pace of wonder and hope.

He was alternately known as Easy Eddie and the Frog King, both nods to personas and passions. On any topic, he had a joke you saw coming but didn't hurry along to its conclusion, since conversation was an art in which he delighted and excelled. The currency he traded in was profound, sincere, and exacting of truth in himself and others. There was no pretension in Larry. To say he "looked for the best" in people would be trite, since I think his skill was a deliberate routing of the best in a person, inviting them to live better and do better in a most unselfish way.

While I reflect on the magnitude of his service, the tenderness of our bond, and the role he played in so many lives, I trust that my grief will subside while his impact will remain. My life has been fortified by a thousand tiny points of light that Larry delivered, always allowing me to claim the discovery as my own. It's sobering to learn of the hundreds of people who felt precisely the same way about him. May God grant eternal peace and majesty to his soul.

Norwegian Robert Sorlie's Return, 2014 Iditarod

Read more here, Team Elkonor is formidable this year!  Allen Moore described visiting these guys in Norway in the past year, and named them among the 20-22 teams he & Aliy see as contenders.

Gingerbread Recipe calling for (c)old coffee

Even before I cared much about cooking (y'know, like ten minutes ago), I've long appreciated people who can ramble tidily in narrative form about recipes. It makes it all seem very do-able for those of us who prefer to eat like 7th grade boys at a SuperBowl party. I like Greek salads & Mexican food. That's it. why mess with success? Children eat yogurt and steak with guacamole quite happily... Okay, but in real life I must feed this growing brood, do it frugally if it's going to be any fun, and get a general game face going about long-term meal planning.

Anyway. Internet, anyway.

Eagle River, Alaska

So encouraging, so joyful, just Ask Auntie Leila. As I say, she's FlyLady without the hysterics. : ) Speaking of Like Mother, Like Daughter --- I had a Pretty, Happy, Funny, Real sequence in my mind as we drove to a picturesque spot yesterday, and on arrival it was just as I'd hope it'd look: hues of gold, frigid blue set against pink mountains... then I realized I'd left my camera at home. Next time! I have to go for now. The neighbor's dog is here to visit. Joys of Alaskan winter.

And if you prefer the erudite gent

(making much the same case as Savage, here you go)

As Simcha says, on a totally different topic ---  "Our main job isn’t to apply “censor” bar across everything that doesn’t come straight from the Baltimore Catechism.  We take what is good. We’re supposed to be experts at identifying what is good.  We’re not supposed to be screaming meemies who bite our lips and blush every time someone dips into a minor key.  We’re supposed to use sifters, not dump trucks, when sorting through culture."

Ed and Dorothy

A few years ago, for a few years, I kept a regular holy hour. I had just two children and it was in the middle of the night, a straight shot up a long road dotted with intersections every few blocks in a quiet Anchorage parish. We subsequently moved much closer to that parish, but I floundered at the habit which had previously become a life preserver. I often remarked that I'd barely get into the chapel each week, but had such a sense of spiritual rejuvenation that I knew it was a great aid at keeping me afloat during the week. The Coordinator of Perpetual Eucharistic Adoration at the time was such a gentle prophet --- raising the standard of what I expected of myself and my children without a whiff of patronization that we weren't already there. Do you know what I mean? The kind of teacher whose heart welcomes your heart, and everything else is superfluous. She taught me to use alarm clocks, sure, but suggested above all else asking my guardian angel to prick my brain for the 2 a.m. wakeup call. It really works!

I still long for that hour and that practice --- the solitude, the intimacy with Jesus, and much about the routine. I now understand that it's controversial (or at least debatable) to have a reading library in an adoration chapel, but I'm so glad "mine" did! I discovered a treasure in there and I want to share it with you.

(an aside: I can't overstate my amusement/God's providence/the heart of Catholicism when a book written by friends of Peter Maurin converges with SSPX books on Amazon's "People Who Purchased this book Also Purchased" list. Humanity is a circus. There's something fantastic about what that represents. I want everyone to have this little jewel and be able to discuss it! It's available on Kindle ... and in my opinion, the blue version titled 'Motherhood...' was a memorable read, but doesn't pack the same punch as the red book.)

So. Background --- Ed Willock was born in 1916 to a large, working class Irish American family. He became enamored of the early Catholic Worker movement and went on to publish Integrity magazine for ten years with his wife Dorothy. The couple and their hep cat friends were the main contributors, many writing under pen names. Rather than attempt to summarize the individual essays, I'm going to transcribe them into pages on this blog --- found along the right sidebar and beginning here. The main themes are social action which in turn forms familial vitality (rather than the other way around) being the aim of men, and the father's role at work and home. Attention is also given to the economic philosophy of distributism. The magazine refused any commercial ads, which, along with competition from larger publishers, finally proved unsustainable and the magazine ceased printing in 1956. (Much of their desire to stir lay Catholics found a voice in the intent of the Second Vatican Council.) Peak circulation was around 150,000 copies and a few of the principals went on to work in the Catholic press with some renown. A dozen of Willock & others' essays were compiled for the little burgundy book I found.

One more thing: naturally, it turns out that this effort has Dominican roots, with Father Wendell, O.P. being the first to introduce Carol Jackson and Ed Willock, who went on to become co-publishers of Integrity magazine for its ten-year run.

Overflowing Brain

Someday I'll re-organize my blog to include a category of overflowing, weekly links posts ~ until then, I appreciate tolerance of the occasional freakout post (necessary since I gave up Facebook, which was my refuge for these cathartic e-moments. Cathartic moments along Muldoon Road at 6 a.m. go in a different category...)

So I read the Acton Institute newsletter and like the tension between the nitty gritty and the ethereal. For example, this video. Father Sirico reports that he handed a copy of the Poverty Cure curriculum to our Holy Father in Rome just this month.

Get Back in the Closet, Christians

Like every self-aware mother of my generation, I'm prone to announce unprompted that our family doesn't subscribe to cable television. For years, my pop culture and current events were filtered through the custom aggregation of Facebook's news feed. There were all-caps screech posts about Duck Dynasty shared by my friends; I thought it must be a cartoon and snubbed it accordingly.

Then I saw the boxed DVDs for sale in our local gas station, displayed at eye level in a slick A&E cardboard diorama. Grizzled men, posing in front of some kind of towering manse, with a chick in a red evening gown? $12.99? Sold. To its target demographic, no less.

Reality television disclosure: Three years ago, I had a regrettable winter courtship with Real Housewives of New Jersey. Parked on the couch with a nursing newborn, I tried my hand at scheduled television devotions. I really loved that show. The husbands were these sort of bruiser man-child amalgams of Elmer Fudd and Keanu Reeves surfer characters, paired with wives depicted as glossy, treacherous overgrown girls. It was like all of my fantasies of adult life from tenth grade had come to fruition onscreen, and the results were horrific. Exercise clothing mixed with gaudy jewelry (worn by both sexes), in-home music studios, drunken brawling at baptisms, weekend retreats with a batch of lifelong friends, catty revelations in the kitchen about suffering souls in the next room --- it was all there. My husband would stroll past me and mumble things about my moral integrity becoming more fragile by the moment. In his tones it was more like, "You are so much better than this. Watching this is beneath you. You're not even embarrassed? I feel embarrassed enough for both of us." He sounded a lot like my mom during the decade she endured my teenage fixation with General Hospital ~ although she usually ended her clucking with approval of the Tracy Quartermaine's wardrobe. In a sense, me and soap operas go way back.

I delivered the DVDs to our nine-year-old daughter and hoped for the best. Our loyalty has been incrementally won over, and I've grown content to hear episodes of Duck Dynasty playing from the TV in the family room. Season Three will be under our Christmas tree. We muse about the appeal ~ has family life become so exotic?

This clan, from whom I expected the behavior of backwater clowns, now seems charming and relevant. The Uncle Si 'character' in particular made me realize that these people are very real, as well as coy enough to play to type without losing grit in pursuit of irony. Their story is sincere. Mrs. Robertson is everything I aspire to as a wife and mother: gracious & maternal, with enough sassy loyalty to keep her afloat as she serves God through her family. I may have chosen Anne Romney's cookbook over Miss Kay's for Christmas this year, but it's only because Cajun treatments of seafood run against my grain. The regal feeling of gathering my family around the dinner table each night for a meal is unmatched in this world. I trust women who make it their lifeblood.

Enter the crudeness of the comments highlighted in the GQ interview --- at their core, it was a heterosexual man expressing his preference for heterosexual sex.

If queried, I imagine all of his sons believe precisely as he does. We've entered a realm where a man asked to define sin gives a rough sketch of the Ten Commandments, and quasi-hysteria ensues. Even if clarity abounds in real life, it's obvious that idiocy too often reigns.

Loyalty to masculine men disclosure: I've got it. I see a double standard. Would Mister Duggar, the men of Real Housewives fame, or even the younger Robertson men be ushered off Stage Left, for ascribing publicly to this doctrine? I guess not. They're allowed to exist as a bucolic source of de-fanged entertainment. But one watches Phil Robertson and gets the sense that he means this shit. There's nothing he'd rather go down swinging for than God's laws. He wasn't goaded into saying it by a sly reporter, and it wasn't staged to spike ratings or allow him an exciting exit from the series (both scenarios I've seen offered by fans...) He accepts the grace of Christian redemption and won't parse the terms. I commend his sense of scale.

Like it or not, this is the Cosby family for a generation of Americans --- and the idea of a disposable father figure is absurd. The Powers That Be of A&E might be embarrassed by what Phil said, but without him there's likely no Duck Dynasty. As our six-year-old said when I broke the news in vague terms, "But he leads the prayer every single time. He can't be fired from his own family."

Before we begin crowning martyrs for the faith (I told my girls I'd buy a tabletop model of Mt. Rushmore with the Duck Dynasty guys' faces on it, at this point), it should be acknowledged that in practical terms this is almost entirely American theater. We can safely feign horror at a description of gay sex, because everyone is free to have it. I'd like to say the same for Christian faith. Actual Christian oppression and slaughter exists, committed largely by men whose faith calls for dealing with dissenters by violence and subjugation. We should try to follow that plot, with or without well-packaged gas station DVD display towers.

In the end, it's not so much noteworthy that Mr. Robertson was fired by A&E, but that he was ever hired at all.

pencil portrait of Phil Robertson by Rick Kills. "...he's not grouchy, he's just strong." Says Vivian, age 9.

my husband has a phrase for this

I think he says "Satanica Pandemonia". Lord, have mercy. And but for the grace of God, there go I. Too much. Violent topless mob attack men defending Cathedral.

And, lest we rest  in the hope that our shores prevent such incivilities ~ here are some American teens.

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.

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K i s k a I s l a n d

I've been wanting to write a blog post about how contented we are to return to rural Alaska --- the little things: daily life on a smaller scale, Alaska on a larger one, and the specific blessings of the Mat-Su Valley. Wasilla is a great fit for us. Add to that the accessibility of Anchorage (church, Costco, the quiet thrill of feeling like a complete yokel, standing in Snow City Café in an ankle-length skirt while my husband's pickup truck idles in a no-parking zone...) and it's even better.

Wasilla doesn't ring 'rural' Alaska to the casual glance: the commercial real estate is charmless, the streets stretch beyond view in every direction, coupled for an effect that's much the definition of unchecked urban sprawl. Those who know say it looks like Anaheim, California in the 1970s, development-wise. I don't think we have a zoning board. And I'm pretty sure we collectively don't want one.

It's not utopia --- franchise businesses are outpacing mom & pop shingles, and we're touched by every kind of depravity you'd find in a larger town. So while the aesthetics might belie the quality of life available, I have so much happiness (happiness is different than pleasure, correct?) at a gut level about being here. We loved our five years in Anchorage, to be sure, but the wideness of the sky and the smallness of the human community here is a joy.

It's little things, mostly personal and petty, but these offer a sense of permanence. Alaska can be a transient place to live (I'm often in the minority for being native to the place), so finding pockets of generational grooves means something, socially and spiritually. This past Memorial Day, a friend with roots here whispered as we watched a huge group gather around their family graves. She ticked off the businesses owned by them, collectively. It felt like being slipped the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. All of that exists in any city, of course, but you can't be from nowhere and wander into it as easily. I am from nowhere, compared to this population hub of AK (Wasilla, Palmer + surrounding areas comprise the fastest growing section of Alaska, by quite a margin) and my husband is from Orange County (truly Nowhere, culturally, hahaha), yet we've wandered into a close-knit, ever-expanding circle of friends who are like extended family to us. I trust that one hundred years from now, God willing, our babies will know their babies.

A big source of Alaska's revolving population is the military. Today we honor their inexhaustible bravery and sacrifice. And, while on the topic of the Valley, a link to today's newspaper front page. Did you know that my state has the highest per capita population of veterans? I've met so many aging vets who say they were stationed here long ago, and returned with their families as soon as possible, upon retirement. We're thankful !

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