Family Life Committee notes

Before heading off on our trip, I wanted to make a few notes about the Family Life and Spirituality Committee that we are on for our parish. This committee was formed after the Diocesan synod on Amoris Laetitia last year. A few parishes were chosen as pilot parishes to observe, to be witnesses, to plan, and to host events to help strengthen families and communities  - in other words, to share the joy of the gospel of love.  Our parish picked three populations to focus on: young adults, married couples with or without children, and divorced or separated people. Someone mentioned we don't have a focus on singles, so that is something we will probably add in the future.

Our parish already offers an array of programs that offer opportunities for fellowship and catechesis, but we talked about making sure we get the word out and make personal invitations to these events, but also that we focus our attention on having just one or two events per quarter in each of four areas: fellowship, social outreach, catechesis, and spiritual life.  So each group is supposed to plan some events or help promote already existing ones.  So we've had a date night with a concert, a talk by a couple on attachment theory in marriage, an Oktoberfest for families, a food packaging event for social outreach, and then a blessing for couples celebrating their anniversaries this quarter. An evening of Taize music and adoration is planned in Advent. The challenge is not to overload people but to offer enough events that if someone misses something, they can come to the next thing. And the bigger idea is not to offer events just to have a full social roster, but to offer opportunities to deepen our friendship with Christ and our neighbor and to strengthen bonds among family members so that they live the joy of love.

A challenge for our parish, I think, is to encourage people to take advantage of the sacraments more - come to daily mass, or confession, or one of the small groups that prepare for Sunday's Mass with a gospel reflection, come to the rosary prayer group, come to adoration, which is always offered on Wednesday and Thursday morning.  People in our community have rich social lives, but may need an invitation to enrich their spiritual lives.

Last Saturday the Diocese had a review session for the pilot parishes. It was an opportunity for idea sharing and review of what works and what doesn't. The diocese has hired four new staff members to work on outreach to young adults, those preparing for marriage, married couples, and divorced/separated. The Diocese also just held a mass in honor of the anniversary of "Always our Children" for families of those who identify as LGBT.  The man who organized it was very moved by the responses he received to that event.

The morning review was very positive. There are lots of exciting things going on and LOTS of people excited to share Christ and the blessings of a vibrant parish community with others.  It was an encouraging event, and the room buzzed with the energy and enthusiasm of these people dedicated to encouraging the Joy of Love in action.

Here are some notes I made from the day:

Every church has a slightly different charism so no one model works everywhere BUT

1. One church has a family catechesis breakfast every other month. They also have date nights and do a book study with married couples. Several parishes were promoting date nights with or without a program (videos, adoration, meet the clergy were some suggested). 
2. Scheduling activities around Mass seemed popular
3. Having family service projects was popular idea - I concur
4. Another church had a praise and worship concert for families that was well attended
5. Involving young adults/youth in liturgy keeps them coming to Mass
6. One parish has a young adult dinner with the priest - 6-8 young people once a week by personal invitation it sounds like.  Another group did this with young married couples, but dinners were hosted by deacon and wife.
7. Need for charismatic leaders was emphasized - need to form leaders.  Diocese is trying to train more young adults to be leaders with a retreat coming up.
8. Marriage mentors was an idea that was shared by a couple groups
9. Another parish has a welcoming committee to welcome new families
10. Welcoming separated and divorced to come to Mass is important.  Having a BBQ suggested, reaching out to parents and kids. 
11. Spirituality also important to address - helping people get to know Christ and welcome Him into their homes: Adoration, Bible studies, and small groups all seemed to be successful events to foster prayer life. 
12. One idea on a poster from the divorced/separated table was the suggestion to teach ongoing relationship skills.  Another was to offer workshop on healing
13. After going to the marriage prep day last Saturday, it struck me that most of the couples were looking for practical advice more than theology, so maybe offering talks or workshops on things like Financial Management, Practical Parenting Skills, Communicating Effectively, Anger Management, Managing Social Media  - but with a Catholic perspective might be helpful.  
14. Another thought I had - Find ways to celebrate events in the Church calendar in a small way to help families make Catholic traditions a part of family life. This is something home schooling families do well: Have special saint day celebrations with foods associated with the saint. The All Saints Day Mass is a great witness of this, and May Crowning - any way to involve the parish in the school event or have an additional parish May Crowning? And the St. Patrick's Day dinner and Oktoberfest events are a great example of this - so maybe nothing new is needed. Perhaps other ways to celebrate: give kids something for Epiphany or Pentecost: red balloons? Special donuts with little flames or doves on them? Crowns for the kids on Christ the King? Something special for Feast of Sacred Heart?  Something - coffee and donuts or cookies? - to celebrate on each of the Holy Days of Obligation?  Nothing big but a little reminder of feasts and fasts - kids quickly pick up on special traditions.

This Saturday we were going to observe the Diocese's new marriage prep program, but the presenters on marriage and military life cancelled, so we got to give a little testimony. It went much better than the last time we had to give one, but we still need to work on our message.  We spent too much time at the beginning on introductions and telling our story and ran out of time to summarize the "lessons" we have learned - which is what they want to hear. As my husband and I were talking it over on the way home, we came to the conclusion we need to start with the lessons and then share little stories to illustrate how we learned them.  Our lessons were based on something I had posted on this blog before, but I think we need to revise them for an audience of people just starting out.  Anyway, another lesson for marriage is that doing things like marriage prep and sitting on spirituality committees makes you realize how much you need to live your own advice. Another lesson: constant education and review is helpful for keeping track of what's good in your marriage - and what needs work... usually in your own self. 

20 Years!

Last week we celebrated 20 years of wedded bliss and all the reality that goes with it.  Our marriage is out of its teens, but it still feels young! We used to do marriage prep classes when we lived in the Chicago archdiocese 15 years ago, and on the evaluations, we received positive comments because we were young. I thought I knew a lot about marriage back then. Now we're middle aged, and I feel kind of the same way about marriage that I do about parenting. I don't have the answers anymore, but all the work is worth it!  

Some fun exchanges about marriage in the New York Times recently: Alain de Botton's essay urging a more realistic view of marriage over false romanticism, and the letters in response.  De Botton explains the irony of his title in the last paragraphs:

"The person who is best suited to us is not the person who shares our every taste (he or she doesn’t exist), but the person who can negotiate differences in taste intelligently — the person who is good at disagreement. Rather than some notional idea of perfect complementarity, it is the capacity to tolerate differences with generosity that is the true marker of the “not overly wrong” person. Compatibility is an achievement of love; it must not be its precondition.

Romanticism has been unhelpful to us; it is a harsh philosophy. It has made a lot of what we go through in marriage seem exceptional and appalling. We end up lonely and convinced that our union, with its imperfections, is not “normal.” We should learn to accommodate ourselves to “wrongness,” striving always to adopt a more forgiving, humorous and kindly perspective on its multiple examples in ourselves and in our partners."

I love the comments of the last letter writer (a man who was married 47 years): "But binding your life together, creating a family and warmly remembering it all as one’s days become numbered is my definition of marrying the right person."

Cheers to 20 more years! Were we old enough to drink? 

To celebrate our anniversary, we went out for sushi. But we didn't stay out late because we had to go home to finish washing sheets and searching for nits in the kids' hair.  One of our dear children greeted me with a "Look what I found!" when I came in from doing something outside. One his finger was a nice, fat, louse. Thank the Lord, I did not find anything on the 8 other heads in our family (although I'm suspicious that my husband didn't check me thoroughly). But we still all washed with lice shampoo and used the comb-out gel. And I stripped all the beds, bagged on the stuffed animals, put all the pillows in the dryer on high heat, and had a great time combing each others' heads.  Lice is apparently almost at epidemic proportions out here in Southern California. People aren't the only things that love living here.

Here we are having fun on our anniversary! Just finished 9 lice treatments!
Thought we needed a photo to remember the day. 

Still loving life!

Lots to celebrate over the past few weeks: Memorial Day events, awards ceremonies, end of the school year parties. We have an eighth grade promotion and a high school graduation at the end of the week.  The calendar has been packed.

Awards ceremonies

Remembering the fallen 

Concert in the park 

More awards ceremonies -- an a haircut!

At another awards ceremony

Heading back to school after an end of the year picnic at the park.

Soccer is over, yay!

Exploring the botanic gardens with cousins.

The 18 yr old got a record player. Garage sale finds.

Linkage

Interesting ways to spend time:

First off: Let me plug my own kid's music!  He and a friend have formed a duo, The Righteous Cubicles.  I think I would call their style Americana.  Not sure really. They are their own songwriters and play banjo, guitar and ukulele. The friend's little brother also plays accordion on one song. They just recorded a cd with 7 songs. The quality of the recording is low, but their lyrics and music are good, according to this prejudiced mom.  I love listening to their CD, which is now available for the incredibly low price of $5.  It is priced so affordably because they have only performed live once - at the school talent show - and because they are producing it themselves - and, moreover, because I have bankrolled part of the production costs (Color copies!) Get a preview here:  https://soundcloud.com/righteous-cubicles
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I love my teenagers. I can't believe I was so afraid of having them.  Maybe because my brother and I gave our parents a difficult time in high school. And then my sister went through a difficult time in college.  My younger brother, the quintessential phlegmatic, never intentionally gave my parents a really bad time. He did drive their van into a corn field off a gravel road and got his ears pierced. But he let the holes grow in and is an upstanding father today. Hope for all!

My own kids give me the occasional heart stopper, but usually it is accidental. Like a car accident. Or because I am overcome with pride.  Or because, TIME!  I saw a post from an old friend about her son participating in a senior class Mass. Wow, can he be that old!  But hark! My OWN son will have a baccalaureate Mass in just two weeks!  I am not ready.

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Part of my fear of teenagers is rooted in knowing teenagers who acting like the kids in "Greasy Lake" by T. C. Boyle, always a favorite in my lit class. Well, maybe my acquaintances weren't quite that 'bad,' but they had their sins.  One of my students is writing about Boyle for a research project, so I went on a rabbit trail. He was once a Catholic and counts Flannery O'Connor as an influence.  Maybe someday he'll come back.  Somehow, I got linked to reading about a book about Mormons, always fascinating to me: Latimes review of Elders by Ryan McIlvain, which lead to an article about Marilynne Robinson and her book When I was a Child I Read Books and on to a literary magazine called The Believer I never heard of before.  All interesting.

Needless to say, I didn't get to bed early that night.
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My late night computer habits can sometimes cause a strain in our marriage. I try to keep them to Phase 2, when distance is imperative, at least for now. (Some friends and I just read The Sinners Guide to NFP by Simcha Fischer for an informal book club. Really enjoyed it and the conversation. I left it sitting out in the living room, just in case my teenagers happened to get curious. Perhaps the easiest way to talk about these things with teenage boys? "Here. Read this." End conversation.)

I wrote this about marriage meaning to post it sometime, so now: I have said that marriage is a thing. An object unto itself. Not perhaps a material being capable of being touched, but an idea to be contemplated that is made physical. In the meeting of bodies, love is incarnated.  Here in these bodies of children lolling and lagging about me. Clinging and clashing. Pulling and pushing. A roiling mess of humanity under a roof too low to hold all the emotion and energy that pulses sometimes faster, sometimes irregularly, sometimes in even steady syncopated beats all of one accord.  Not me, not you, not even you and me, but us and it and them. Impossible to decline.  This marriage is not just the two of us, but the household, the furnace at its heart.  Where it is weakest is where the selves attempt to move alone or to grasp too hard.  "Most like an arch"  writes John Ciardi so wisely, falling in when not leaning toward. 

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I love poems about marriage. And here is an article about Wendell Berry on poetry and marriage.  I need to read it more closely, but at first glance it was intriguing.

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And I'm running far again. Thought I'd do a half marathon while we lived here, but can't bring myself to drop $100 on a race I can't win.  Nonetheless, I've started running a 10 miler regularly on the weekends.  It is surprising how easy it is to do this when you have a friend to run with.  Really. An hour and a half of running flies by when you are talking.  Blessedly, one of the Navy wives is right where I am with running, and I really like her. There are certain people you meet with whom you know you have a kinship (also the women in the NFP book club). You see them and know they are kindred spirits even without speaking.  What breaks my heart is when you don't really get to start to know them until it is time to move away. Alas, alack.

Like this quote by Earl Nightingale from seemomrunfar:

"We are at our very best, and we are happiest, when we are fully engaged in work we enjoy on the journey toward the goal we've established for ourselves. It gives meaning to our time off and comfort to our sleep. It makes everything else in life so wonderful, so worthwhile.
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Also like this article on surfing and God by Peter Kreeft. So many good things to read out there, so little time.  

In my year of little reading, my latest novel to finish is a YA book called Here's How I See It by Heather Henson about a girl whose dad runs a summer theater. The main character, Junebug, is having a difficult summer because of her parents' troubles and her own foiled hopes. Lots of Shakespeare and Chekhov quotes. I'd put it as a book for the 8-15 yr old crowd. And it ends happily! Hooray!

I'd read more if I didn't have a smartphone.  In the old days, when I nursed babies, I sat around and read.  Now I read emails and Facebook.  Lots of people who need prayers out there - for comfort and for gratitude.  At least Facebook is good for keeping track of people who need prayers.
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My days of nursing are growing shorter and shorter. Baby can go all day and has gone 1 whole night without it, but she doesn't like milk, and I don't mind using her as an excuse to sit in a quiet room every once in a while. 

All too soon she'll be graduating from high school.

Knowing what I want

Last night, children, husband, and I converged at the house about 7:15 pm from different practices and events. We were all hot, tired, and hungry.  My husband grumbled because I didn't order pizza, even though I thought about it. I grouched back because I had been listening to a screaming baby for the last half hour and couldn't make a phone call in the car.

Then he pulled lobster out of the refrigerator.

Ah, fresh lobster for dinner! Elegant, refined, succulent and delicious! I'm supposed to be thrilled.

But all I saw was a fishy mess ready to be made, complaints from the kids ready to be heard, and my own hunger unsatisfied.

I wanted a nice soft-boiled egg on toast, not lobster.

But then another kid called because he couldn't get a ride home, and I volunteered to go get him. I'd make my egg when I got home.

On the way to the pick-up, I applauded myself for 1. Walking away from a ticking time bomb of an argument.  2. Knowing what I want.

Being decisive is a victory for me.  I am now mature enough to admit that I don't really like shellfish.  It's chewy and unsatisfying.  I do like shrimp, and I have had scallops perfectly prepared once.  But although I love a good piece of salmon or trout, I do not prefer crustaceans and shellfood.  Perhaps it is a cultivated taste that I haven't indulged in enough, but I like to think I have given shellfish a try over and over, on the East Coast, on the West Coast, in the midwest, in Europe, in Japan, and on Guam.  And I am still halfhearted about it.

I'd rather have a tasty, filling egg over lobster caught the night before by my resourceful, lobster-trap-loving brother-in-law.

But when I got home, the lobster was cooked with some fusilli in olive oil and rosemary, so I lined up behind the kids with my plate and was served my portion, joined them at the back patio table illuminated by the full moon and ate it. And it was good. A little chewy, yes, but the rosemary cut the fishiness. My husband, his good spirits and blood sugar restored with protein and pasta and a pumpkin ale, delighted in the compliments from the kids.  I didn't withhold my thanks and admiration, although I didn't pitch in on the clean-up. (The baby!)

So now I add a third lesson: 3.Let the person most concerned decide.  And 4. Eat what you are given. And 5. Give thanks for a husband who likes to cook, and kids who can do the dishes.

Meanwhile, my decision making faculties remained moderately impaired.  An article in the WSJ last week perfectly described my husband and me - he the satisficer, me the maximizer.  He can make a decision on the fly, without regrets or thinking twice.  I usually have to investigate all the options, compare prices from several providers, look into alternative solutions, etc.  Together we balance each other out.  We have some big decisions looming that are tougher than what's for dinner, but if the past 18 years are any indication, we'll make them eventually and all will be well.  Sometimes at the end of the day, our hard edges are exposed and our faculty for understanding is weakened by hunger and exhaustion, but a good meal and a moment on the back patio with a bright night sky and a full stomach (and sometimes full glasses) does a great deal to restore that balance.

Happy Anniversary to Us

June already! The first of June was our eighteenth anniversary.  My husband had to leave for some travelling Sunday morning, so we toasted our marriage's longevity with our favorite Cook's "champagne" the night before after having dinner with friends.

How can we have been married eighteen years? I don't feel like I'm old enough to have been married that long. I feel like I'm still this age:

Teenagers in love

We went to a graduation party this past weekend and I had a conversation with a student's brother who just graduated from college. He was excited about starting a job two weeks after he graduated. We were excited about getting married two weeks after my husband graduated. (I had been out a whole year.) Were we too young?

Our church has the nice practice of praying for couples celebrating anniversaries during the intentions at Mass. Another couple married the same week as us is celebrating their 60th anniversary.  Cheers to them! Praying we'll make it to 60 since we got an early start.

These are the "hard work" years people told us about when we were engaged.  We didn't believe we'd have those years at the time. The card I gave my husband said something about "life in the fast lane." (This year I went for the humorous card with cute dogs on the front, instead of the romantic one.)  Like others, there are many days when our conversations are to-do lists: who's picking up whom, what time we have to be where, grocery lists, appointment reminders, etc.  There are some days when we don't talk because I'm being peevish. There are some days I talk at my husband because I am anxious about something. There are some days when he is gone and our phone conversations are simply a catalog of what has happened that day because I am too tired to think of anything interesting to say. But, thankfully, there are some days where we fit in a morning walk or sit down on our back patio and have a glass of wine - usually cheap, like Cook's - and talk for awhile. The night of our anniversary eve, our teenagers came out to join us (not for wine) after they got home from a social event and filled us in our their night. We didn't mind the interruption. We are discovering that one of the pleasures of being married a decent interval is that our maturing kids are pretty fun to talk to.

There have been some studies about whether married people or people with children really are any happier than single, childless people. But you don't get married because it is going to make you happier, (when are you ever happier than in the midst of young love?) but because you can't imagine going through life without this person who has the good of your soul in their care. Marriage opens you up to all kinds of potential miseries. But it also opens up a world of joys.

Like this cute person:

And now because poets say things about marriage better, I'll let them. I can't remember if I have copied this poem here before or not. I like John Ciardi.

Most Like an Arch This Marriage

BY JOHN CIARDI

Most like an arch—an entrance which upholds   

and shores the stone-crush up the air like lace.   

Mass made idea, and idea held in place.   

A lock in time. Inside half-heaven unfolds.

Most like an arch—two weaknesses that lean   

into a strength. Two fallings become firm.   

Two joined abeyances become a term   

naming the fact that teaches fact to mean.

Not quite that? Not much less. World as it is,   

what’s strong and separate falters. All I do   

at piling stone on stone apart from you   

is roofless around nothing. Till we kiss

I am no more than upright and unset.   

It is by falling in and in we make

the all-bearing point, for one another’s sake,   

in faultless failing, raised by our own weight.

John Ciardi, “Most Like an Arch This Marriage” from I Marry You (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1958). Used with the permission of the Ciardi Family Publishing Trust.

Source: The Collected Poems of John Ciardi (University of Arkansas Press, 1997)

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/176395

And for fun:

Yes, I'll Marry You

Pam Ayres

Yes, I'll marry you, my dear,
And here's the reason why;
So I can push you out of bed
When the baby starts to cry,
And if we hear a knocking
And it's creepy and it's late,
I hand you the torch you see,
And you investigate.

Yes, I'll marry you, my dear,
You may not apprehend it,
But when the tumble-drier goes
It's you that has to mend it,
You have to face the neighbour
Should our labrador attack him,
And if a drunkard fondles me
It's you that has to whack him.

Yes, I'll marry you,
You're virile and you're lean,
My house is like a pigsty
You can help to keep it clean.
That sexy little dinner
Which you served by candlelight,
As I do chipolatas,
You can cook it every night!

It's you who has to work the drill
and put up curtain track,
And when I've got PMT it's you who gets the flak,
I do see great advantages,
But none of them for you,
And so before you see the light,
I do, I do, I do!

http://www.wedding-references.com/poetry_on_marriage.htm

Pessimism/Optimism

My husband came home with news the other day that a friend from college was in a rehab center for alcoholism and anorexia.  Wait a minute. I thought I got a happy-looking Christmas card from that family with photos of their four cute kids...

Turns out our friend's husband has been managing for a few weeks with the help of a babysitter and family members to work and run the house.  I don't know how long she'll be in rehab or how long after that her real recovery will take.

And what I really don't know is whether or not I write to her. "Hey I heard this about you. Just wanted to let you know you're in my thoughts and prayers!" Would it be a comfort or proof that the gossip network spreads far and wide?

I can't say I'm surprised that this friend suffers from anorexia.  All of my college friends had weird eating habits. We were high achieving college student-athletes.  The alcoholism part is a bit of a surprise, but I could certainly understand how anyone in a similar situation could drawn into a substance abuse problem. There are a number of our friends/acquaintances who probably also need to cold turkey quit some substance or another. I tend to think most people have secret vices they barely have under control.  So it doesn't surprise me that much to hear about abuse, infidelity, addiction, etc.

My husband and I have an ongoing discussion about whether this makes me a pessimist. I like to think I'm a realist - Sin exists and everyone sins.  War, poverty, disease and criminal behaviors are never going to disappear.  We're at the age when marriages start falling apart.  Not as much fun as the post-college "Everyone's Getting Married" stage, or, a few years later, "Everyone's Having Babies" stage.  Now it's the "Who's Next in the Line for the Counselor" stage.  Unfaithful spouses, substance abuse, children getting into trouble with the law, parents getting sick and dying.  The next decade is when we earn our wrinkles and gray hair. The future sometimes look bleak.

While it doesn't surprise me to hear about people having problems, usually of their own making, I'm not sure this makes me a pessimist. I also have this sort of expectation that people are usually more fascinating - more intelligent, more talented, more together - than they usually are. Easy to assume about people in the internet world: everyone presents their best side to the camera.  But I also assume it about the people we meet. And sometimes it's true - we've met some people with really great stories and experiences.

Nonetheless, usually people are a lot more normal than I anticipate. Their houses aren't always perfectly clean. They forget things, they lose their cool with their kids, they may have had a homebirth but they feed their kids McDonald's. And sometimes they are alcoholics or embezzlers or unfaithful.  No matter how often I witness or experience failure, I still don't think I expect it as a pessimist would. It's not surprising that most of our efforts fall short of our goals or that sometimes we fall into deep pits of despair and disappointment and disillusionment, but rather than throw up our hands and quit trying, we dust ourselves off, try to crawl out of the pit, and try again to live a faithful life. Even better is when we try to help each other up.

Besides, there would be no stories without conflict or suspense or impending disgrace, without a potential redemption in sight.  That is the end of the story, right? That's why it's not pessimistic, but Christian, to expect failure and shortcomings and disappointments, as long as you equally expect people to survive, to endure, to be broken and then healed.  I do believe my friend and her husband will endure this difficult time.  Maybe it will take years. They won't be the same people. Their children will suffer, too, but they will, hopefully, learn about forgiveness and mercy and the need for grace.

The need for grace is why we get married after all - not because we believe in fairy tales of happily ever after, but because we believe life is a struggle and we need a companion who holds our soul's sanctification dear, someone who will be Christ to us, someone who will forgive us over and over and over. I admit, I was perhaps more optimistic about marriage as a newlywed, but I also knew that marriage was not just about the pretty pictures - plenty of people warned us about the "work" of marriage.

Here's Pope Francis from last October's pilgrimage of families:
And that is what marriage is!  Setting out and walking together, hand in hand, putting yourselves in the Lord’s powerful hands.  Hand in hand, always and for the rest of your lives. And do not pay attention to this makeshift culture, which can shatter our lives.

With trust in God’s faithfulness, everything can be faced responsibly and without fear.  Christian spouses are not naïve; they know life’s problems and temptations.  But they are not afraid to be responsible before God and before society.  They do not run away, they do not hide, they do not shirk the mission of forming a family and bringing children into the world.  But today, Father, it is difficult…  Of course it is difficult!  That is why we need the grace, the grace that comes from the sacrament!  The sacraments are not decorations in life – what a beautiful marriage, what a beautiful ceremony, what a beautiful banquet…But that is not the sacrament of marriage. That is a decoration! Grace is not given to decorate life but rather to make us strong in life, giving us courage to go forwards! And without isolating oneself but always staying together. Christians celebrate the sacrament of marriage because they know they need it!  They need it to stay together and to carry out their mission as parents.  “In joy and in sadness, in sickness and in health”.  This is what the spouses say to one another during the celebration of the sacrament and in their marriage they pray with one another and with the community.  Why?  Because it is helpful to do so?  No!  They do so because they need to, for the long journey they are making together: it is a long journey, not for a brief spell but for an entire life! And they need Jesus’ help to walk beside one another in trust, to accept one another each day, and daily to forgive one another.  And this is important!  To know how to forgive one another in families because we all make mistakes, all of us! Sometimes we do things which are not good and which harm others. It is important to have the courage to ask for forgiveness when we are at fault in the family. Some weeks ago, in this very square, I said that in order to have a healthy family, three words need to be used. And I want to repeat these three words: please, thank you, sorry. Three essential words! We say please so as not to be forceful in family life: “May I please do this? Would you be happy if I did this?”.  We do this with a language that seeks agreement. We say thank you, thank you for love! But be honest with me, how many times do you say thank you to your wife, and you to your husband?  How many days go by without uttering this word, thanks! And the last word: sorry. We all make mistakes and on occasion someone gets offended in the marriage, in the family, and sometimes - I say - plates are smashed, harsh words are spoken but please listen to my advice: don’t ever let the sun set without reconciling. Peace is made each day in the family: “Please forgive me”, and then you start over. Please, thank you, sorry!  Shall we say them together? [They reply “yes”] Please, thank you and sorry.  Let us say these words in our families! To forgive one another each day!

Please, thank you, and sorry.  Again and again. To each other and to God.

I also started reading Evangelii Gaudium, finally.  Pope Francis begins by acknowledging the darkness in the world:

 2. The great danger in today’s world, pervaded as it is by consumerism, is the desolation and anguish born of a complacent yet covetous heart, the feverish pursuit of frivolous pleasures, and a blunted conscience. Whenever our interior life becomes caught up in its own interests and concerns, there is no longer room for others, no place for the poor. God’s voice is no longer heard, the quiet joy of his love is no longer felt, and the desire to do good fades. This is a very real danger for believers too. Many fall prey to it, and end up resentful, angry and listless. That is no way to live a dignified and fulfilled life; it is not God’s will for us, nor is it the life in the Spirit which has its source in the heart of the risen Christ.

3. I invite all Christians, everywhere, at this very moment, to a renewed personal encounter with Jesus Christ, or at least an openness to letting him encounter them; I ask all of you to do this unfailingly each day. No one should think that this invitation is not meant for him or her, since “no one is excluded from the joy brought by the Lord”.[1] The Lord does not disappoint those who take this risk; whenever we take a step towards Jesus, we come to realize that he is already there, waiting for us with open arms. Now is the time to say to Jesus: “Lord, I have let myself be deceived; in a thousand ways I have shunned your love, yet here I am once more, to renew my covenant with you. I need you. Save me once again, Lord, take me once more into your redeeming embrace”. How good it feels to come back to him whenever we are lost! Let me say this once more: God never tires of forgiving us; we are the ones who tire of seeking his mercy. Christ, who told us to forgive one another “seventy times seven” (Mt 18:22) has given us his example: he has forgiven us seventy times seven. Time and time again he bears us on his shoulders. No one can strip us of the dignity bestowed upon us by this boundless and unfailing love. With a tenderness which never disappoints, but is always capable of restoring our joy, he makes it possible for us to lift up our heads and to start anew. Let us not flee from the resurrection of Jesus, let us never give up, come what will. May nothing inspire more than his life, which impels us onwards!

Without Christ, I would be a pessimist. But although my faith waivers often because I am so frequently caught up with my own "interior life" that crowds others out, including God, I know I have witnessed healing and redemption, and the reality of these "resurrections" confirms my belief in the goodness and grace of God.

I don't know if I'll write to my troubled friend or not. Perhaps I lack courage, though I tell myself I don't want to embarrass her. But I have thought and prayed for her. And I'm optimistic about her recovery.

Marriage and Poetry

I know the rest of the country is suffering in the Polar Vortex, and California is suffering from the worst drought in a century, and the Middle East is still entangled in violence and political upheaval, and the goodwill of the Olympics is threatened by bombs, and the moral fabric of America is crumbling, and all over the world suffering and travail seem to suggest the world's end will come soon, but right now here at our house, there has been relative peace. I've entered that nice, cozy, nesty stage of pregnancy. My round belly makes a suitable shelf for a cup of tea. I don't feel guilty about walking away from supper dishes to sit in a comfy chair because my ankles feel the tiniest bit swollen and need to be put up. I ask for things and the kids bring them to me. They, and I, like to poke at my belly and watch the resulting waves of movement as their sister squirms away. They've been pulling out photo albums of their own baby days to try to predict the baby's appearance (each one so similar, so different) and resurrecting memories that seem both far distant and like yesterday. And I like to think that my husband has been happy that I've rebounded from the sloughs of anxiety, and we're now on one of those pleasant plateaus of affectionate marriage that happen every so often, even when the future seems bleak and the rest of the world cries out with lamentation to the Lord.

Not that everything around here is perfectly blissful, of course, and my husband may question whether I really am less anxious than usual or not, and maybe it's just the combination of hormones that last trimester pregnancy generates to facilitate labor which result in a sense of well-being, or maybe it's just time. On a walk the other evening, my husband and I were reminiscing about our naivete during our engagement when people would tell us how much work marriage was, and we'd just laugh. We perhaps put off the work of marriage for a few years of newlywed bliss, but certainly these middle years of marriage have required a far amount of exertion to plough through the rough spots. If we were still doing marriage prep, we'd have more experience of both the work of marriage and its reward, these periods of peaceable companionship.  Saints talk about the consolations of faith; these moments are what sustain and strengthen faith and love in marriage and faith.

On the Image blog the other day there was a query about television and film writers depicting healthy marriages. The writer was particularly interested in film imagery - I couldn't think of anything offhand except "Cheaper by the Dozen," but I think the author, Brad Winters, had more serious dramas in mind. My daughter and I just watched "Little Women" from the 1970's after she finished the book. Lots of happy marriages there. And if book adaptations count, there are the films of Jane Austen's books, but she also has some unusual matches. The book I just finished shows happily married Mormons. Because a good drama involves conflict, troubled relationships make better movies. But healthy marriages are the ones that endure conflict and distress even with very few consolations.

Melanie posted a poem by Joseph Mills, "The Good Nights," that describes a simple moment of consolation - a late-night glass of wine: "this evidence/ even after all these years/ of the unquenchable desire/ for each other's company."

It reminded me of this poem of Galway Kinnell's making - - this is what good marriages are like; this is what makes marriages good.

After Making Love We Hear Footsteps

For I can snore like a bullhorn

or play loud music

or sit up talking with any reasonably sober Irishman

and Fergus will only sink deeper

into his dreamless sleep, which goes by all in one flash,

but let there be that heavy breathing

or a stifled come-cry anywhere in the house

and he will wrench himself awake

and make for it on the run—as now, we lie together,

after making love, quiet, touching along the length of our bodies,

familiar touch of the long-married,

and he appears—in his baseball pajamas, it happens,

the neck opening so small he has to screw them on—

and flops down between us and hugs us and snuggles himself to sleep,

his face gleaming with satisfaction at being this very child.

In the half darkness we look at each other

and smile

and touch arms across this little, startlingly muscled body—

this one whom habit of memory propels to the ground of his making,

sleeper only the mortal sounds can sing awake,

this blessing love gives again into our arms.

- See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15927#sthash.JXK7764N.dpuf

Anniversary sop

June 1st was our 16^th anniversary. Our marriage is old enough drive, as a friend pointed out. Although 16 years of marriage doesn't usually merit a party, it does show up on gift lists: according to the gurus of anniversary gifts, appropriate selections are silver hollowware or peridot.  Since neither my husband or I care too much for silver teapots or chafing dishes, we decided to celebrate by going out to dinner.  But here is what happens when you have been married for 16 years: one kid has a drama performance in the afternoon, another has a sports awards banquet in the evening, and one wants to go to the middle school dance, even if his mother insists he can only go if she serves as the chaperone. So you spend the day driving around, and the evening at different kid functions. After the kids are all finally in bed, you fall asleep on the couch after a glass of champagne while watching “Anonymous,” the Shakespeare conspiracy theory movie that suggests the Earl of Oxford wrote all the plays and paid Shakespeare, a bumbling actor, for the use of his name, because of the politics and plots of the day.  I can't tell you exact details, because I slept through a third of the movie, but what I saw was entertaining.

We postponed our date night to Saturday, which my husband pointed out is the first time since we’ve lived here that we have gone out just the two of us.  We’ve left the kids many nights, but usually for a group activity.  Since this was such a momentous occasion, we had trouble deciding where to eat, and actually went to three different restaurants before deciding where to dine.  The food was exceptional, especially the butterfish encrusted with macadamia nuts and garnished with roe and lemongrass.  But it was the kind of place where you have to order Perrier because they don't serve tap water, so we probably won't go there often, if ever again. But there was live music in the lounge, a guy who sounded like Kenny Rogers singing Barry Manilow. Very romantic.

Even though the night of our anniversary wasn’t a particularly notable evening, I still think our marriage lives up to this little poem:

Married in January's roar and rime,Widowed you'll be before your prime 

Married in February's sleepy weather,Life you'll tread in time together 

Married when March winds shrill and roar,Your home will lie on a distant shore  

Married 'neath April's changeful skies,A chequered path before you lies  

Married when bees o'er May blossoms flit,Strangers around your board will sit  

Married in month of roses - June,Life will be one long honeymoon  

Married in July with flowers ablaze,Bitter-sweet memories in after days  

Married in August's heat and drowse,Lover and friend in your chosen spouse  

Married in September's golden glow,Smooth and serene your life will go  

Married when leaves in October thin,Toil and hardships for you begin  

Married in veils of November mist,Fortune your wedding ring has kissed  

Married in days of December's cheer,Love's star shines brighter from year to year. 

source

Here’s to being on a lifelong honeymoon!

Shakespeare: always timely

On the docket for tonight’s class: A Midsummer Night’s Dream.  I’ve asked the students to bring in lyrics to a love song of their choosing to compare to the theme that the course of true love never did run smooth.  I mentioned it to a friend, who warned me that I may get some undesirable language.  We may have to do some bowdlerizing.

While searching around for fun ideas, I came across this video:

 From the article at The Guardian:

The danger – if there is one – in such an approach, is that it might be seen as both patronising and naff to use hip-hop as a backdoor to introducing young people to what is often viewed as "high culture". Is turning Sonnet 18 into a rap the equivalent of turning children's food into funny animal shapes in order to get them to swallow something unpalatable? Keith Saha runs the innovative 20 Stories High theatre group in Liverpool and he thinks it can be if it's handled wrongly. "All sorts of industries use hip-hop as a branding tool to sell to a yoof market that they don't understand and can't connect with," he says. "Unfortunately, the arts, and theatre in particular, is one of them. Akala is a great example of a genuine artist who has a passion for both hip-hop and Shakespeare and what he does really works. But a lot of the time big arts organisations are clueless in how to attract young people to their venues; they have boxes to tick in terms of attracting new audiences and the results can be embarrassing, misguided and often offensive."

I may be one of the "clueless," but I'm not opposed to trying to make Shakespeare more accessible.   

Akala says the aim isn't that limited: "It's about showing them what's attainable. And if Shakespeare is presented as the most unattainable, highbrow entity, but then it's made relevant to them, what else might be? It's part of a wider effort to open kids up to what they wouldn't traditionally be interested in." Chanelle Newman, project manager for the Hip-Hop Shakespeare company, is already seeing the effects. "By the end of the workshops you get to see that it opens their mind up to other things such as theatre acting or going to see more Shakespeare plays. "

Too bad the classroom doesn’t have wi-fi.

Ironically, or not, this theme ties in nicely with our life lately. My husband and I spent about a few days last week at cross purposes.  Miscommunications, perceived slights, wrongs resurrected – the typical angsts of marriage.  So it’s not surprising that the sparring between Oberon and Titania caught my attention.  When lovers are at odds, all else in the world seems disordered.  Thankfully, our quibbles have nought to do with infidelity, but it would be nice if we could argue as eloquently as this :

          O: Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania.

          T: What jealous Oberon? Fairies, skip hence.

            I have foresworn his bed and company.

          O: Tarry, rash wanton. Am not I thy lord?

          T: Then I must be thy lady; but I know when thou hast stolen away from Fairyland

Fortunately, like Oberon and Titania, our moods are as inconstant as the moon, and after a decent sleep, all is reconciled and right with the world:

       O: Come, my queen, take hands with me,

         And rock the ground whereon these sleepers be.

         Now thou and I are new in amity,

         And will tomorrow midnight solemnly

         Dance in Duke Theseus’ house triumphantly

     T: Come, my lord, and in our flight

        Tell me how it came this night

        That I sleeping here was found

        With these mortals on the ground.

Providentially, one morning I opened up Benedictus (recycling through) to this quote from Pope Benedict:

 “No one can arrive at knowledge of himself just by looking within himself and trying to build up his personality from what he finds there. Man as a being is so constructed for relationships that he grows in relation to others. So that his own meaning, his task in life, his advancement in life, and his potential are unlocked in his meetings with others. From the starting point of this basic structure of human existence we can understand faith and our meeting with Jesus.”

Growing in relation to others is sometimes painful, but always fruitful. Does literature count as a meeting place with others? Can this class become a meeting place to grow in knowledge of self? Reminds me of this article: Can Tolstoy Change Your Marriage?

from http://29.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lu82zpVNoc1qdrwy3o1_500.jpg

A little history of our romance

My husband and I were married two weeks after he graduated from college and was commissioned in the Navy, a week after I turned 23. I had graduated the year before on the traditional 4 year plan, while his degree in architecture took 5 years, because his class spent a year in Rome studying classical architecture and living the Euro student life – late nights, long hair, lots of wine. While he finished his undergraduate degree, I went off to grad school and spent a year living with a friend in Dallas, the one and only year I supported myself on my own dime. The wedding was a gift from my parents.

Even though we were married at the tender age of 23, we had been dating for a little more than three years. In fact, we met when we were 19, so this year we crossed into the age when we have known each other half of our lives. We did quite a bit of growing up together.  Another gift from my parents was the freedom they gave me to fall in love and grow up with someone although I was barely mature enough at the time to know how to take care of myself, let alone take care of someone else.

I was flipping through some old photos while "cleaning" my desk area yesterday and couldn’t resist scanning a few since I was feeling nostalgic about those early years.

Here we are at one of the first dances we attended together. I think we had known each other about a month but had been meeting daily for breakfast at the dining hall, site of our introduction. We had gone on our first date: roller skating, and our second: a dumb movie with Richard Gere and Jodi Foster, but we were still at the flirting stage, still uncertain about our connection. My sister happened to be visiting with our cousin at the time of this dance, and I set them up with a couple of the skinny boys from the cross country team, so we all went out to dinner together. Always one to put people on the spot, dear Betty asked if we were boyfriend and girlfriend, causing us to blush and giggle. But I think from that moment on it was inevitable that we were going to get married. That question opened up the possibility of commitment with familial approval.

Although my sense of chronology is shaky, that dance photo follows or is preceded by a couple of photos from the spring break that year when I went home with my roommate from New Jersey. She and I met up with my future husband and his cousins in Philadelphia, which was only an hour from where my husband was visiting his grandparents and cousins. So there is a photo of us running up the steps to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, singing "Eye of the Tiger," exhilarated by being young and unchaperoned, wandering a strange city in a pack of adolescents who thought they were all grown up.

We played at being grown up again the next year, when my soon to be husband went abroad to Italy to study. We wrote love letters for months until Christmas break, when I flew to Europe to meet up with him and some of his classmates for a whirlwind tour of 13 cities in 12 days, the kind of traveling only college students find effortless – sleeping on trains and in hostels, carrying all our belongings in packs or locking them up in train stations, skipping breakfast and lunch to have money for a decent dinner, walking for miles because on the map it looks like the museum is just over there.


My memories of this trip are still vivid, even if the photos, snapshots taken with a 110 camera, are not. I was still in training for track, so we ran many mornings: In Brugges and Paris, past cathedrals in Milan and Florence, for hours lost in Venice, and on cobbly streets in Rome. We ate a lot of good crusty bread and creamy gelato. We sought out the masterpieces from our art books in dark chapels. I had a vivid vision of him proposing as we walked along the Seine. I picked out cheap souvenirs for everyone in the family and brought home postcards for myself instead of an engagement ring.

My parents actually gave me money for Christmas to help finance this trip, which because of their strictness with us as high school students, completely surprised me. Giving me money to go on a two week vacation with my boyfriend? Maybe they felt sorry that I wasn’t going to get to spend a semester in Europe myself. Maybe they could tell already that this kid was the person I was destined to marry and didn’t want him to get away. Maybe I sold them a story about how we’d be traveling in a group of young adults, staying in bunk beds in hostels, and learning about classical art and architecture. Maybe because they also married young, they figured I was mature enough to gallivant around Europe. Maybe they could tell that my future husband respected me enough – and feared my father enough – to live up to their expectations.

The Darwins posted recently on parental faith in “good kids,” which made me wonder if earning my freedom might have had an influence on my parents’ decision, although my senior year of high school I had really challenged my “good kid” reputation by sneaking around and generally thinking I was bigger than my britches. I made some pretty poor choices, but the parents seemed to recognize the depth of my repentance. And to my chagrin, they never let me forget my ignobility.

Whatever the case, I have to give my parents credit for stepping back their parental involvement when I began to fall in love. That’s the moment where I’m afraid I’ll be tempted to take over. Give my kids privacy? Allow the possibility of the pain of a failed love affair? I don’t think so. But already in their young adolescence, I can sense my boys drawing back. I don’t want to be the overbearing mother from whom they hide all their secrets, but rather the inobtrusive mom in the wings, ready to offer support and encouragement. praying that they receive the gifts of the Holy Spirit for discernment, and feeding them books and ideas that hopefully inspire them to be highminded and deep-souled while in love.  And I suppose at some point you have to take the St. Monica role and just pray as hard as you can.

Another photo of us playing grown-up on our honeymoon on Orcas Island.