A Sparrow's Worth

Wednesday Gratitude Journal

2012-01-25T17:30:00.000-05:00

The first soft scoop of ice cream from the carton - at breakfast, no less.

Welcoming new friends home.

Softness of a mist-folded world.

Rush and roar of the creek after rain.

Sitting side-by-side on the couch.

Homemade pancakes with homegrown raspberry preserves.

Broad transcriptions of "Kroger"

2012-01-24T22:30:00.000-05:00

At dinner:

"In my mind I call Kroger [kroʒei'] - you know, like how some people call Target [tarʒei']."

"I've never called it [kroʒei']...but sometimes I think of it as [kra'd͡ʒr]."

The nerdy linguist part of me found this hilarious, anyway.

Panade

2012-01-22T21:18:00.000-05:00

This recipe caught my eye the other day, and I made it for our dinner on Sunday night. It was a hit! I've modified the recipe below to reflect some changes I'd make next time. It's a great way to use up old bread.

Panade
Adapted from Simply Recipes

Ingredients:
1 loaf dry bread, cut into 3/4" cubes
3 c thinly sliced onions
4 cloves garlic, minced
16 oz button mushrooms, sliced 1/4" thick
12 oz chard, ribs removed and leaves roughly chopped
1/2 tsp dried thyme
1/2 c red wine
1 Tbsp honey
2 qt homemade stock
1 c grated cheese (the original recipe calls for Parmesan, but I say use whatever you like best)
Salt, pepper, olive oil, butter

Method:
Preheat your oven to 350 F.

Toss the bread cubes with olive oil and salt, and spread in a single layer on baking sheets. Toast in the oven for 20-30 mins, until nicely browned. Remove the bread from the oven, but leave the oven on.

Meanwhile, heat a couple tablespoons each of butter and olive oil in a 5-7 quart Dutch oven (or other dish that is both stove- and oven-compatible.) Saute the onions until they start to caramelize and brown, about 15 minutes. Add the garlic and cook for another minute or two.

While you're cooking the onions, heat up another pan over medium-high heat. Dry saute the mushrooms until they've released some liquid and browned.

Heat up the wine and honey just enough so that the honey can dissolve into the wine.

Remove half of the onions from the Dutch oven, and spread the rest out evenly over the bottom of the pot. Add half the chard, then layer half of the mushrooms on top of that. Sprinkle with pepper, thyme, and salt. Add a layer of bread cubes. Repeat with the remaining ingredients. Pour the wine-honey mixture over everything, followed by the stock. Finally, sprinkle on the cheese.

Cover the pot securely with foil (not the lid!) and cut a few vents for steam.

Bake for 75 minutes. Serve hot, perhaps with some extra breadcrumbs and cheese on top.

Serves 6-8.

Quote Journal

2012-01-22T19:16:00.004-05:00

"He thought, Once you get used to spending your nights with someone else, then you are sunk for this. Once you learn how it feels to wake up and see another face near yours. And have another person flop over against you in the early hours of dawn when the room gets cold. It's more than sex. Sex is over within a few minutes. This is peaceful, and it goes on as long as you have her lying with you. It puts an end to an awful thing: it starts something better than anything else in life."

-Philip K. Dick, In Milton Lumky Territory

Quote Journal

2012-01-21T10:40:00.000-05:00

"I do not think that military might is the solution to our problems. It may defend our pocket books, but it will never defend our liberty. Liberty begins inside [our] own souls. Our souls cannot be free if we believe only in money and power and comfort and having a good time."

-Thomas Merton, A Life in Letters

Wednesday Gratitude Journal

2012-01-18T20:59:00.001-05:00

Breathing cold fresh air after hours of wearing a respirator underground.

A tortoise-shell cat with big round eyes.

Showering clean.

Sitting cozy (or cramped) in the back seat.

Singing Disney songs instead of grumbling.

Co-workers of better humor than I.

on hospitality

2012-01-14T12:13:00.002-05:00

Our lone winter group week has just concluded on a sunny, bitingly cold January day. The house is clean and bright and empty, the driveway uncrowded. I am tired, but full of thoughts to capture in words.

One of the volunteer-planned prayers this week was about hospitality, with readings from a book about the Benedictine tradition specifically. It made me look back and realize how important, though often unspoken, the value of hospitality is and has been in my life as a Christian. Hospitality was a major part of community life for Chicago Cap Corps last year; it seemed like there were friends visiting at least twice a month, and there was Saba too, who became a fourth member of the community in many respects. Sometimes I would be tired or not in the mood for visitors, of course, but I never regretted taking people in afterwards. It is a joyful and life-giving thing to welcome people into one's heart and home, and that book this week gave me a much-needed reminder.

Our ministry here at Bethlehem Farm is in many ways an embodiment of hospitality as well - with the volunteers, of course, but also with the homeowners we serve. It is perfectly possible to do good works with a closed heart, without letting the doing change you. I am often guilty of that myself: doing repair work on a home without any real interest in the homeowner's life; working with volunteers without feeling any urge to get to know them, and so on. I am afraid, maybe, of letting people into my life and making it messier. But now that I recognize that tendency, and how it is contrary to hospitality, I hope to do better.

Hospitality at its core is a recognition of the dignity of each person you meet, a recognition of Christ in them. It is an openness to giving and receiving. A home is a sacred place to its inhabitants, so perhaps you cannot truly welcome another person into your home without also inviting them into your heart.

When I first moved here, I found it a little awkward to give our "Welcome Home!" hugs...but I think I am starting to understand the full depth of that simple message, and how important a welcome is. It's a full-circle sort of neatness, that I realized all of this because of a group week prayer. I'm finding that group weeks are a time of spiritual renewal and reflection for me, even if they are physically exhausting.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: I love my job.

Wednesday Gratitude Journal

2012-01-11T18:16:00.001-05:00

Amateur jam sessions.

Fiery prayers.

Working slow but steady.

Affectionate cats purring.

Gentleness of candle-light.

Wednesday Gratitude Journal

2012-01-04T21:37:00.001-05:00

Ephemeral magic of a double rainbow.

Snow wrapping all things ghostly.

Books that grab me and don't let go.

Coincidences like a wink from God.

Snuffly dog love.

Quote Journal

2011-12-29T19:26:00.000-05:00

“Every one of us who was attracted to the poor had a sense of guilt, of responsibility, a feeling that in some way we were living on the labor of others. The fact that we were born in a certain environment, were enabled to go to school, were endowed with the ability to compete with others and hold our own, that we had few physical disabilities – all these things marked us as the privileged in a way. We felt a respect for the poor and destitute as those nearest to God, as those chosen by Christ for His compassion. Christ lived among men. The great mystery of the Incarnation, which meant that God became man that man might become God, was a joy that made us want to kiss the earth in worship, because His feet had once trod that same earth.”

-Dorothy Day, The Long Loneliness

Wednesday Gratitude Journal

2011-12-28T18:00:00.000-05:00

Golden hills and gnarled branches under a dusty blue sky.

Singing along in the car.

Silvery tips of olive trees.

Packing a suitcase snug.

Anticipation of homecoming.

Wednesday Gratitude Journal

2011-12-21T21:53:00.000-05:00

Smell of turkey roasting and good things cooking.

Painstaking dicing of mushrooms, meat, vegetables, tofu - celebration food always takes a lot of time to prepare.

California sky, cloudless and brilliant in all seasons.

Fragile beauty of blown glass.

Being able to laugh at old sorrows and pain.

Meyer Lemon Bars

2011-12-19T15:27:00.000-05:00

My parents have a dwarf Meyer lemon tree in their newly landscaped backyard, so I thought a pan of lemon bars would be just the thing! I dialed back the sugar to compensate for the reduced tartness of Meyer lemons, and added vanilla to the crust because everything is better with vanilla.

Recipe adapted from Smitten Kitchen, adapted from Ina Garten.

1/2 lb unsalted butter at room temperature
1/2 c sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 c all-purpose flour
1/8 tsp kosher salt

5 large eggs at room temperature
1 1/4 c sugar
Grated zest and juice from 5-6 Meyer lemons (about 5 tsp zest and 2/3 c juice)
2/3 c flour

Preheat the oven to 350°F and butter a 9x13" baking pan.

Cream the butter, sugar, and vanilla until light and fluffy. Add the flour and salt and mix gently until a dough forms. Gather the dough together and flatten into the baking pan as evenly as you can. Bake for 15-20 minutes, until just lightly browned. Remove crust from oven to cool, leaving the oven on.

Whisk together the eggs, sugar, zest, juice, and flour. Pour the mixture over the crust and bake for 20-25 minutes, until the filling is set but the edges have not browned. Allow to cool before cutting. Dust with confectioners' sugar, if desired.

Quote Journal

2011-12-19T14:43:00.001-05:00

"I have lived through much, and now I think I have found what is needed for happiness. A quiet secluded life in the country, with the possibility of being useful to people to whom it is easy to do good, and who are not accustomed to have it done to them; then work which one hopes may be of some use; then rest, nature, books, music, love for one's neighbor - such is my idea of happiness. And then, on top of all that, you for a mate, and children, perhaps - what more can the heart of a man desire?"

-Leo Tolstoy, "Family Happiness" (as quoted by Jon Krakauer in Into the Wild)

Gratitude Journal

2011-12-16T15:35:00.003-05:00

(Just because there are so many things to be thankful for that I can't believe I didn't think of on Wednesday!)

Comfort-food diner breakfasts.

City lights in winter.

Long conversations over coffee about everything and nothing.

Hugs from a whole congregation.

True absurdities.

Four people sitting in three chairs.

It's like we never left, were never apart.

Poignancy of goodbye tempered by sureness of love.

Wednesday Gratitude Journal

2011-12-14T23:04:00.000-05:00

Clear-sky sunsets.

Stretching and breathing and smiling.

Brainstorming a just-right Christmas present.

Finding what I thought was lost.

a thought on decentralization

2011-12-08T10:31:00.001-05:00

My favorite chore these days is starting up the woodstove in the morning. I enjoy the methodical process of clearing out the old ashes and building a new fire, and it's very satisfying to watch the flames leap up and stay up.

When cold weather sets in at the Farm, the woodstove is the natural congregating place. On any given night, most of us will be reading or crocheting or just sitting and talking around it. The fire draws us in, but unlike a TV, does not require our unwavering attention. I didn't give this any thought until a recent night when it was warm enough outside not to have the fire lit. After dinner and dishes, everyone dispersed - to their own rooms, to the office, to the basement TV room. Without the fire's warmth and light, there was no gathering.

That got me to thinking about other areas of a home that can be gathering places, and how our modern first-world way of life has eroded that centrality. The kitchen, where food is made and eaten - but people don't spend so much time cooking anymore, and with different schedules, people don't always eat together either. The fireplace - but most homes don't need those for heat anymore. The TV? People may sit together in front of it, but the TV takes our attention away from each other.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think TVs and central heating should be abolished at all. I just wonder if something has been lost, when there is nothing in a home that naturally brings people together anymore. Multiplied over time and a whole society, that lack must foster isolation and solitude instead of community. I wonder.

Wednesday Gratitude Journal

2011-12-07T17:00:00.000-05:00

Chickens investigating all things.

Music that is prayer twice over.

The simple bounty of fresh herbs in winter.

Star-glow of Christmas lights in the dark.

The anticipation of travel and reunions.

Wednesday Gratitude Journal

2011-11-30T17:59:00.001-05:00

Fingers learning old and new music.

Checking off items on a list of work goals.

Mapping out schedules in a blank planner.

Satisfaction of successfully building and starting a fire in the stove.

Wednesday Gratitude Journal

2011-11-23T21:29:00.000-05:00

Dancing flames in the woodstove as smoke itself burns.

Sun glittering on new-frosted world.

Listening to the rain outside from underneath warm blankets.

Chicken soup and hot ginger tea.

Late-night conversations by firelight.

Quote Journal

2011-11-16T21:31:00.001-05:00

From "Sustainable Economic Development", an essay by Herman E. Daly in The Essential Agrarian Reader edited by Norman Wirzba:

"Somehow the digestive tract has been less inspirational to economists than the circulatory system. An animal with a circulatory system, but no digestive tract, could it exist, would be a self-enclosed perpetual motion machine. Biologists do not believe in perpetual motion machines. Nor do ecologists, who understand that living beings cannot survive alone but exist from and through their memberships with other organisms and their sustaining habitats. Economists, however, seem dedicated to keeping an open mind on the subject."

Wednesday Gratitude Journal

2011-11-16T17:11:00.001-05:00

Laughing so hard I can't stand up.

Heavy stillness of air and lingering mist after rain.

The prospect of new sheet music.

Soft thick winter fur of a cat.

Feeling at home in a new room.

Wednesday Gratitude Journal

2011-11-09T17:46:00.000-05:00

Making a meal with loving hands.

Snapping in stubborn siding.

Chickens all a-flutter to leave the coop in the morning.

Singing along to musicals in the car.

Meeting like-minded people and thinking there's hope after all.

Wednesday Gratitude Journal

2011-11-02T21:11:00.003-04:00

Sun shining on icy crystals of morning frost.

Drowsiness of gathering around the hot stove.

Baby learning new words every day.

Books like deep pools to dive into.

Campfire smell of autumn.

Capitalism, ecology, and a book review

2011-10-30T18:26:00.000-04:00

There are some who say that giving capitalism free rein is the reason we are in our current environmentally and socially disastrous predicament - that it must be strictly regulated or abandoned altogether in order to stop the destruction.

There are some who say that capitalism and the free market can fix themselves and the world, if only we let them operate properly.

Who's right? And does it matter - can anything really change?

I just finished reading a book called Ecological Intelligence, by Daniel Goleman, which proposes a possible solution in the second category. The author's basic idea is to fix the free market system through radical transparency - that is, making comprehensive data about the environmental and social impact of every product available and easily accessible to everyone. This transparency, combined with an increase in ecological intelligence - "a collective understanding of hidden ecological impacts and the resolve to improve them" - should then result in free market forces that favor sustainably made products. If consumers know exactly which products are the best (or least bad, anyway) for the environment and their fellow humans, Goleman argues, then they will buy accordingly and companies will have incentive to be socially and environmentally responsible. The problem we have right now is that consumers and companies alike don't have the information to make those buying choices - but if we could just make that information accessible, the free market will fix everything. He offers many concrete examples of how radical transparency is beginning (with such companies as GoodGuide and Earthster), and of companies that are already taking some initiative in social and environmental responsibilities. Being a psychologist by trade, he offers insight into the workings of the human brain and how psychology factors into his solution.

Of course, in practice this is all a bit more complicated than the theory suggests, which Goleman is not blind to. He acknowledges the difficulties of verifying data in a complex global supply chain, the possibility that only high-profile, name-brand companies would be affected by transparency, the overwhelming amount of data that must be processed and presented in a user-friendly way, and so on.

It sounds like a great idea, one that empowers consumers and makes us all change agents. I have some questions, however, that I don't feel Goleman addressed adequately:

1. Having more information doesn't necessarily equate to action. Goleman's solution depends heavily on consumers everywhere caring about social and environmental ills, and caring enough to do something about them. How do we get people to care in the first place - or even believe that bad things are happening? I mean, there are plenty of people who still scoff at climate change. What if there aren't enough people who care to tip the free market balance?

2. Suppose radical transparency works like Goleman hopes - what if it is too little, too late to stop or reverse the ill effects of what we have already done? Which brings me to....

3. Is shopping smart the sum total of our responsibility? Goleman doesn't challenge the consumerism mentality itself. What about being a producer of your own goods, instead of persuading companies to make what you want?

4. Who is going to set standards for what is "sustainable", "renewable", etc?

5. Who is going to oversee the collection of massive amounts of data about production processes? How can we know that the data are accurate? Is it really possible to have authoritative, impartial, and comprehensive information about everything?

6. What incentive do businesses have right now to contribute to radical transparency? How will we get to that point where it becomes more profitable to be transparent than not?

I am not convinced that the system is so easily fixed from within.

Wednesday Gratitude Journal

2011-10-26T22:11:00.000-04:00

Catching the mail truck just in time.

The trust of a baby.

A well-organized spreadsheet.

Walking the driveway on a crisp fall day.

Crossing items off the to-do list.

Giving and receiving help.

on mission

2011-10-24T10:59:00.000-04:00

We just wound up our last two group weeks of 2011 – whew! It’shard work, but I think we live out our mission most fully when we are hostingvolunteers.

Bethlehem Farm is a Catholic community in Appalachia that transforms lives through service withthe local community and the teaching of sustainable practices. We invitevolunteers to join us in living the Gospel cornerstones of service, prayer,simplicity, and community.

Sometimes this idea gets submerged amid the everyday shuffle of office work, emails, meetings, etc. Group weeks help me re-focus, re-center, and remember whyI am here. Yes, we help our neighbors by fixing their houses. Yes, we try to model a way of life that respects all of Creation. These are important parts of our work together, but our ultimate goal is to transform lives – the lives of volunteers, the lives of ourneighbors, and our own lives. We want to hold open the door for God’s grace tocome pouring in.

As a Caretaker, it is my job during group weeks to not onlylead a work site team, but also to foster relationships. That’s kind of ironicbecause I have never been a particularly outgoing person, or much inclined toleadership. I am just as afraid of being vulnerable, just as afraid of failureas anybody else. Being a Caretaker challenges me to let go of my fears in theservice of others. So you see, all of our lives are transformed together.

It isbeautiful and humbling to see how people change over the course of just a handfulof days. To hear how a simple hug and a greeting of “Welcome home!” begin thebreaking down of boundaries. To share the joy of giving and receiving, lovingand being loved.

This job doesn't pay much...but the benefits are great.

Wednesday Gratitude Journal

2011-10-19T17:19:00.001-04:00

Discovering interests in common.

No rain on yet another outside work day.

Perfectly level siding.

Aroma of dinner cooking to welcome us home.

Small children entertaining each other.

Wednesday Gratitude Journal

2011-10-12T09:30:00.000-04:00

Setting sun painting bellies of clouds vivid.

Moon shadows.

Relying on others and being relied upon.

Kittens all fuzz and beseeching eyes.

Clouds but no rain on a work day.

Tree leaves dying in bursts of red-gold flame.

This list will probably get longer

2011-10-08T15:09:00.003-04:00

The diverse array of skills I would like to learn during my time at Bethlehem Farm:

Home repair (obviously)
Car maintenance
Canning (already got a start on this one!)
Sewing
Gardening
Chopping firewood
Hunting
Grantwriting
Fundraising

Wednesday Gratitude Journal

2011-10-05T17:20:00.000-04:00

Mixing and measuring just right.

Wind whispering through pines.

Cobalt autumn sky.

Light and shadows amid trees.

Baby almost-word noises.

Why live in community?

2011-09-30T17:21:00.000-04:00

Why do I live in community?

Because it challenges me to be less selfish and more honest.

Because it shows me my own strengths and weaknesses - I know myself better in relation to other people.

Because it nourishes my faith, my prayer life, and my intellectual life.

Because of the efficiency of resource use - seven people sharing one house use fewer resources than seven people in seven separate houses.

Because many hands make light work.

Because the fullest experiences in life are the ones you share with other people.

Also, because I hate being alone in a house at night.

Wednesday Gratitude Journal (a little late)

2011-09-29T23:13:00.000-04:00

Teaching and learning together.

Smell of autumn on a clear-skied day.

Thick cushion of years of leaves underfoot.

Lavender sky at sunset.

The anticipation of planning for group weeks.

Quote Journal

2011-09-25T10:39:00.002-04:00

On the cycle of poverty in Appalachia...

"Corporate monopolization of major resources

leads to

an inequitable and undemocratic economic and political system

which leads to

political powerlessness, economic and cultural exploitation and environmental destruction

which leads to

poor education and social services, minimal income, hopelessness, and out-migration

which facilitate further

corporate monopolization of major resources."

-David E. Whisnant

Modernizing the Mountaineer: People, Power, and Planning in Appalachia

Wednesday Gratitude Journal

2011-09-21T17:22:00.001-04:00

Fragrance of bread baking.

Leftover venison stew for lunch.

The weight of warm blankets on a cool night.

Slow crunch of gravel under tires.

Old ladies sharp and sassy as birds.

Wednesday Gratitude Journal

2011-09-14T20:49:00.003-04:00

Morning mist over the mountains.

Sweet cherry tomatoes eaten off the vine.

Swiss chard stems glowing ruby in the sun.

Sunset over the river.

Saying yes to something feared.

In which we enjoy the great outdoors

2011-09-13T17:48:00.000-04:00

Today we were all at our neighbors Bill and Betty's house down in Talcott, putting up a new painted steel roof on top of the old shingled one. I learned the basic practices of metal roofing installation, practiced my drilling skills, broke in my new work boots, and learned how to use a metal nibbler - not bad for one day! What with maneuvering large pieces of metal (wet and slick in the morning, hot in the afternoon!), wearing long sleeves and jeans in the sun, and walking around on a sloped surface all day, though, I'm beat. Bill and Betty haven't actually lived in the place in years, but that's where they raised their kids. I loved the inside of the house; it was very 1950s, with turquoise kitchen appliances.

Anyway, this weekend we (meaning Moira, Laura, Joe, and I) wentcamping with summer servants in…Indiana. Yep, that’s right, we live in themountains of West Virginia but we went camping in Indiana. It makes no senseexcept that we were meeting up with summer servants who all live in theMidwest.

As Moira, Laura, and I were waiting for Joe to arrive withthe rental car, we speculated on what color the car would be – and we were allwrong. It was yellow. Bright yellow.

I haven’t been camping since my brother’s Boy Scout outingsin, I don’t know, elementary school? But I successfully helped set up our tent.

We all took turns cooking meals with the camp stove, and weate very well during our stay: pastawith no-cook tomato sauce, pancakes, veggie wraps, burritos, s’mores, eggscramble...plus 3 bags of Kettle chips between us. Man, those things areaddictive.

On Saturday, after finishing breakfast at noon, we spent theafternoon hiking in Turkey Run State Park, which is quite an interesting and picturesqueplace.

The Nature Center had some particularly thoughtful features,such as a cross-section of a live honeybee hive and a room withfloor-to-ceiling windows where you could sit and watch all kinds of birdscongregate around the feeders outside.

After the park, we spent a while trying to find the localCatholic church so we could go to Mass. We’d spotted a sign for the church withMass times, but the sign turned out to be nowhere near the church itself. Why would you put up a sign advertising your church outside of an apartment complex several miles away? It's a mystery to me. Luckily, Carly’s GPS saved us and we made it just in time.

Saturday night was beautiful; the moonlight was so brightthat we barely needed flashlights. We sat around a campfire by the silver-lit creek,our fingers sticky with fair-trade-chocolate s’mores, listening to Anna’sguitar and lovely voice.

Sunday morning arrived all too soon, and we busied ourselvespacking five people (Anna rode with us back to Cincinnati) and our stuffinto a very small car. Somehow everything (just barely) fit, and it was goodbyeto the Midwest again. The drive back featured showtunes and a full golden moon - a good end for a wonderful weekend trip.

Wednesday Gratitude Journal

2011-09-07T17:15:00.000-04:00

Rain!

Rain saturating all colors dark.

Sunlight glittering off Griffith Creek, flowing again.

Fresh earth smell of the world after rain.

Listening to rain drumming from a dry rocking chair on the porch.

Wednesday Gratitude Journal

2011-08-31T19:56:00.000-04:00

Frothy pink flowers on fire with orange sunset glow.

Strands of spaghetti squash.

Cutting a straight line with the circular saw.

Valiant young lettuce plants transplanted to garden.

on weather

2011-08-29T17:04:00.003-04:00

When I was a city girl (or at least a suburbs girl), which was my entire life until a month ago, the weather generally did not have much impact on me outside of wardrobe and travel decisions. In truth, the weather functioned mostly as a conversational filler (I think Chicagoans in particular specialize in "Complaints About Weather" as a social bonding experience). I never really thought about, or had to think about, the weather's effect on anything and anybody except me - and that was only a superficial effect anyway, since I spent most of my time indoors.

It's a different story now that I tend to the plants that grow my food. This morning I was out watering the garden - filling can after can, watching the water sink instantly into the bone-dry soil, and hoping that there was life yet in the withered leaves and unsprouted seeds. I thought of our farming neighbors, who must be praying for rain as well. It was as if my contact with the land, the literal physical contact of my fingers in the soil, connected me with all those who would also bend down to touch the parched earth with worry in their hearts.

This year has seen an unusually dry summer for our part of West Virginia, and that has real consequences for people who depend on agriculture for their lives and livelihoods. Seeds don't germinate and plants don't produce the same way when it's hot and there's not enough water. It means harder times for plants, animals, and humans alike. Our neighbor Anne told me that nobody she knows has been able to get a second cutting of hay - meaning that many people won't have enough hay to feed their livestock through the winter.

So this afternoon, when the clouds finally opened to drench the glad earth, I understood like never before the idea that "God is in the rain" (to quote V for Vendetta), and the words of Psalm 72: "May he come down like rain upon the mown grass, like showers that water the earth".

I don't think I will take the weather - be it sun or rain or snow - quite so much for granted anymore.

Photojournal: summer servants, canning, the state fair, Sandstone Falls

2011-08-26T08:20:00.000-04:00

Our last summer servants of the year: Colleen (aka "Collittle"), Chelsea, and James.

The fort built out of Seventh Generation toilet paper.

The kitchen set up for canning.

A colorful cooking session! (Grapes for jam and pasta sauce for dinner).

Jars of pickles loaded in the canner.

Chelsea fondly regarding her funnel cake at the state fair.

Baby cows at the state fair!

Noodles the cat, in a typical afternoon pose.

Sandstone Falls.

Wednesday Gratitude Journal

2011-08-24T17:17:00.000-04:00

A letter waiting in my mailbox, written in dear familiar handwriting.

Clouds and cool breezes in the hot sun.

Good conversations with friends new and old.

Noodles the cat and Roxy the dog keeping me company during animal chores.

Butterflies with wings like ocean shadows, indigo-purple shading to robin's-egg.

Things to remember about canning

2011-08-19T16:12:00.004-04:00

DON'T TOUCH ANYTHING WITH YOUR GERMY HANDS.

FOLLOW THE RECIPE EXACTLY.

IF YOU SCREW IT UP, PEOPLE COULD DIE.

in which either God or Satan does not want us to reach Nazareth Farm

2011-08-18T17:39:00.004-04:00

The first sign that this was going to be a bumpy ride was that the Forester wouldn't start. There was absolute silence upon turning the key in the ignition, although the battery was working. Moira tried it, I tried it, then we called over Trevor (the son of a family that had stayed the night at the Farm) and somehow it immediately worked for him. Feeling foolish but relieved, we rumbled off down the driveway.

First stop: gas from the BP in Alderson. As Moira and I don't have Farm credit cards yet, Laura gave hers to Moira while she went to the bank next door. Moira accidentally entered the wrong zipcode, so the fuel station rejected the card and told her to go to the cashier...where she forged Laura's signature and pretended she had forgotten her photo ID (though she was wearing a Bethlehem Farm t-shirt). Meanwhile, Laura was walking through the drive-through ATM, where she attempted to the force a check into the wrong slot. The machine did not show a deposit, but neither was the check visible any longer. As it was Sunday, there was no recourse for Laura but to leave and call the bank on Monday. (She was also anxious because an uncle was once arrested for walking through a drive-through...although, granted, he was intoxicated and it was a Taco Bell drive-through).

We continued on our merry way. Now the Forester is an older and well-used vehicle, so there is a certain amount of shaking and rumbling that is normal for it, especially on the highway. A noticeably abnormal thunking noise began to alarm us, however, about two hours into our drive. I told the story of how the front passenger wheel of my Cap Corps car had popped off on the freeway in February. We pulled off the interstate to check the car, and discovered not only low tire pressure on all sides but also a broken-off bolt on the rear passenger tire. The gas station attendant told us there was a Chevrolet dealership down the street that we could try, but it turned out to be closed. A woman was cleaning inside the building, and she shouted to us through the glass door that the main dealership "up the hill" opened at 1 (it was then about 12:15).

We rolled painstakingly over to said dealership. Moira called Triple A and got a few local mechanics' phone numbers - but this being Sunday, nobody was open except NAPA (the last number she tried). They had the right part, and even referred us to a man by the name of Dale who did roadside assistance. They said they would leave the part out on the counter for him to pick up on his way to us. Dale was duly contacted, and arrived half an hour later in what looked like a converted ice cream truck. He had respectable handle-bar mustaches as well. Having spent about half an hour extracting the broken bolts from the tire, Dale said, "Well, time to go get that part!" He left the dismantled bits of our tire and his equipment on the ground and drove off. Laura, Moira, and I made friends with the young woman at the front desk of the dealership, and enjoyed the air-conditioned shelter from the hot sun.

$160 later (Laura told Dale we were tax-exempt as she handed over the credit card, and Dale reassured her that, "Oh, I don't do that tax stuff."), we were back on the road. Moira was supposed to meet her friends in Clarksburg at 1pm, but at this point it was about 2pm and we were still 1.5 hours away. Did I mention it was a hot and sunny day? Five minutes after we got back on the interstate, it started pouring so torrentially that we could barely see even with the wipers going at full speed. The Forester is also due to have its wheels replaced this month, so we could feel it sliding on the road. Like the other sane drivers, we pulled off at the nearest rest stop to wait it out.

Thus it was 9 hours after we left Bethlehem Farm (normally the drive is only 3.5 hours) that we finally rolled into the driveway of Nazareth Farm. Was it Satan throwing obstacles in our path, or God telling us we belonged back home? The jury is still out...

Wednesday Gratitude Journal

2011-08-17T22:32:00.005-04:00

Haloes of candles lit in the dark

Tiny fingers and toes on a newborn baby

Glimpsing far-off mountains from the highway

Homecoming to a clean house and dinner ready

Wednesday Gratitude Journal

2011-08-10T21:02:00.002-04:00

Bright pearl moon in a periwinkle sky

Sunflowers that sleep standing up

Wrinkled lips of an old horse eating carrot

Scruffy black cat meowing at the door for food

the unasked

2011-08-08T15:53:00.004-04:00

Before I converted to Christianity, one of my main problems with believing in a good God was this: If there is a God, then why is there so much evil in the world?

I never thought to ask the opposite question: If there is no God, then why is there so much good in the world?

That first question tries to shirk human responsibility - we ask why God does not stop us from doing bad things, without asking why we cannot stop ourselves. In truth, the cause of so much of human suffering can be laid at our own doorsteps: violence, oppression, poverty. With every step we have a choice between God's ways and the Devil's ways, and too often it seems that the latter is the easier and more frequented path. Can we blame God for the choices we make?

The second question leads us humble to a loving God. How much credit can we take for the good things of the world, except where we are stewards of God's creation? We never made sun shining and rain falling and trees reaching, but if we could remember that they are gifts - that our lives are precious gifts - maybe we would nurture and share them better than we do.

(Inspired by Ann Voskamp of A Holy Experience).

Review of the week

2011-08-06T15:40:00.001-04:00

Although by Saturday morning I was tired to the point of stupidity, Family Week was a wonderful introduction to group weeks at Bethlehem Farm. We did good work, ate good food, and it was a deeply prayerful experience. There was an element of family reunion to the atmosphere, as some of the families have returned to the Farm annually for several years.

I was still mainly in the role of observer this week, so I rotated around different sites with different work crews. On Monday we all did work in the gardens - harvesting, weeding, clearing beds, mulching, etc. I made the mistake of wearing short sleeves, which resulted in a patchwork of bug bites up my arms. On Tuesday I went with a group to Bill and Betty Mann's place, which shares a driveway with the Farm, and painted aluminum sealant on the barn roof. Betty made us some delicious cucumber salad and fried potatoes to go with our cooler lunch. On Wednesday I helped put up J-channel siding around the windows of a house, the owner of which had a menagerie of friendly cats and dogs. After work we had a dip in the Greenbrier River. On Thursday I helped paint and put up more siding on a house in Alderson. The homeowner was a very sweet woman named Dreama, who treated us to muffins and coconut cream cake while her teenage granddaughter roared around the yard in an ATV. On Friday I was on home crew cleaning and preparing meals, and it was probably busier than the work sites!

So those are things that I did, but they don't capture the whole week's experience. Although we had a full schedule every day, I somehow felt that there was always enough time to slow down and focus on the present moment - and there were so many memorable moments.

Shoveling manure with Dan's lift-from-the-legs advice in mind.

Chasing bemused chickens by flashlight and carrying them back to the coop.

The satisfaction of nails hammered in straight and siding fit together just right.

Walking through sun-dappled woods and talking about linguistics.

Celebrating the Eucharist together under a bowl of sunset sky.

The music of fiddles, banjo, and guitar outside after community night dinner.

Morning prayer that asked the question, What will you sacrifice today?

Laura laughing with baby Miriam.

The taste of raspberries still warm from the sun.

Joining hands in a circle and hugging everybody at least once every day.

Lying on blankets watching for shooting stars in the labyrinth field at night.

Making mistakes and being met by forgiveness and patience.

First days

2011-07-31T13:31:00.003-04:00

Well here I am at Bethlehem Farm! I thought I should get a blog post in before 32 people arrive this evening for Family Week. I'm mostly unpacked, but the fact that I will be living here is still sinking in - how can this whole rambling place possibly be my home?

The tags around the house with my name on them do help. (Especially the hooks that are placed lower where I can easily reach!)

Lunch today: hummus, cheese, and pickles on oatmeal bread with a peach on the side. Everything but the cheese was homemade!

Now that I get no cell phone reception at home, I am realizing how much I took that ability to call and be called anytime for granted. Of course I can still use the land line or Skype, but it's just not quite the same, is it? I predict more letter-writing in my future.

goodbyes and hellos

2011-07-28T10:22:00.000-04:00

Goodbye Chicago...hello Pence Springs.

Goodbye Midwest...hello West Virginia.

Goodbye Lake Michigan...hello Greenbrier River.

Goodbye glittering skyscrapers at sunset...hello tree-lined mountain horizon.

Goodbye gridlock traffic at 1am on Sunday...hello winding roads where you wave to every other driver you see.

Goodbye gold Taurus...hello full-size pickup trucks.

Goodbye El and Metra...hello Amtrak.

Goodbye orange street-lamp glow...hello starlight.

Goodbye concrete...hello grass.

Goodbye A/C (or lack thereof)...hello wind.

Goodbye omnipresent hum and distant sirens of the city...hello whispers of trees in the quiet night.

Goodbye business casual...hello getting-dirty-working-outside clothes.

Goodbye Hyde Park Produce...hello farm garden.

Goodbye 2338 East 99th Street...hello Farmhouse.

Goodbye Our Lady Gate of Heaven...hello Saint Mary of the Greenbrier.

Goodbye (for now) Dan and Laura...hello Eric, Colleen, Laura, Joe, Moira, and little Miriam.

Goodbye Cap Corps...hello Bethlehem Farm.

Oh Chicago, don't forget me
as the miles between us grow

Lake Michigan stay
endless and painted in sky
goodbye

-Vienna Teng, No Gringo

Quote Journal

2011-07-26T11:36:00.002-04:00

From One Thousand Gifts, by Ann Voskamp (author of the blog A Holy Experience):

"I know there is poor and hideous suffering, and I've seen the hungry and the guns that go to war. I have lived pain, and my life can tell: I only deepen the wound of the world when I neglect to give thanks for early light dappled through leaves and the heavy perfume of wild roses in early July and the song of crickets on humid nights and the rivers that run and the stars that rise and the rain that falls and all the good things that a good God gives. Why would the world need more anger, more outrage? How does it save the world to reject unabashed joy when it is joy that saves us? Rejecting joy to stand in solidarity with the suffering doesn't rescue the suffering. The converse does. The brave who focus on all things good and all things beautiful and all things true, even in the small, who give thanks for it and discover joy even in the here and now, they are the change agents who bring fullest Light to all the world. When we lay the soil of our hard lives open to the rain of grace and let joy penetrate our cracked and dry places, let joy soak into our broken skin and deep crevices, life grows. How can this not be the best thing for the world? For us? The clouds open when we mouth thanks."

do you remember?

2011-07-25T23:09:00.011-04:00

Do you remember chasing those last moments, driving side by side before the freeway split? The signs blurred when you were gone and I wept for memory.

Do you remember a rescue mission to a gas station, with epic classical music playing?

Do you remember eating Thai food with a piano in the truck parked?

Do you remember joy of piano at home for the playing?

Do you remember three-part harmony of voices?

Do you remember getting lost in conversation on the way to the friary, and then just plain getting lost?

Do you remember "shut the front door", "oh hen", and "what the fun"?

Do you remember Vaguely Hispanic Pie?

Do you remember root beer floats in plastic cups, and a cashier newly arrived from Africa?

Do you remember painting the walls of the art room with purple and grey?

Do you remember a bad version of the Lion King on TV that very first night?

Do you remember all those spreadsheets in Google Docs? (They're still there!)

Do you remember playing catch at Calumet, and tennis all bundled up?

Do you remember two scheming to surprise the third?

Do you remember breaking bread together in the chapel for Transitus?

Do you remember the tree fallen across the road at Lake Thunderbird?

Do you remember driving through the snow-white landscape from Detroit?

Do you remember deep silence and deep cushions before a roaring fire at Advent retreat?

Do you remember East of Eden read and sung?

Do you remember picnics in the park at night?

Do you remember the penguin dance?

Do you remember three of us making tortillas together?

Do you remember shoveling snow in February?

Do you remember stones shaking with bells tolling for Easter?

Do you remember mist over the lake at Mundelein?

Do you remember supper upstairs in a blue-checked room with A/C?

Do you remember finding the CD player in the Taurus?

Do you remember driving to polka tunes and Sunday school songs?

Do you remember driving to Iowa three abreast with no radio?

Do you remember omelette breakfast with the Knights of Columbus and ham ball lunch with the Lutherans?

Do you remember driving back to Chicago with enormous jars of coffee at our feet?

Do you remember dizzy rush and joy of rolling down hillsides?

Do you remember falling asleep to Blue Planet?

Do you remember the most comfortable blue blanket in the world?

Do you remember the spinning together and away of three minds writing an essay?

Do you remember "I AM A LION" and "I am a mouse"?

Do you remember lying on grass listening to jazz in Grant Park?

Do you remember moving hips in zumba class?

Do you remember dinner made of bread?

Do you remember bread pudding with rum sauce?

Do you remember "Our God is gracious, amen"? (Do you remember that our God is gracious?)

Do you remember French Silk pie from Jewel at 11pm?

Do you remember holding frostbitten hands?

Do you remember listening to rain and thunder through the skylight?

Do you remember brother bedbug? (He sleeps with thee!)

Do you remember delight of choosing free ice cream?

Do you remember digging trench for potatoes behind the church at night?

Do you remember eating corn on the cob and bread with peanut butter amid skyscrapers?

Do you remember dressing up for dancing but going to a movie instead?

Do you remember balmy summer night meandering by lighted pillars on the Midway Plaisance?

Do you remember smell of coffee and pancakes for early breakfast?

Do you remember taste of cowboy beans and cornbread with honey?

Do you remember sweet-as-childhood richness of chocolate-peanut butter bars?

Do you remember seating twelve around the dinner table?

Do you remember how opening our house to guests knit us closer just the three?

Do you remember how our souls reached out blind-vulnerable and caught each other?

Do you remember?

we said goodbye at the gas station

2011-07-24T16:07:00.006-04:00

I started this blog last year as I was saying goodbye to college....I suppose it is fitting that I re-start it now as I say goodbye to Cap Corps.

This is what I said about my work at our farewell liturgy:

My name is Mariana, and this year I was in Chicago working at Maria High School, an all-girls Catholic school serving mostly low-income minority students. My official title was Educational Aide; in practice I did everything from play piano for the choir to painting "Home of the Mystics" on the dugout this summer.

Almost all the teachers at Maria are white, and almost none of the students are - I have no doubt that that influences what we all think of each other. But the more you get to know someone as an individual, the less you see them as members of categories. I just told you that I work with "low-income minority students", but I don't teach "low-income minority students" - I teach Kayla, Jackie, Mykia, Maura, Tylar, Tierrah, Stephanie, Shivon...and when I think of this year at Maria, I think of: Kayla's daily greeting of, "What up Miss Lo my g-folks!". I asked her what that meant once, and she said she didn't know either. Jackie's obsession with Justin Bieber, who was the subject of all her creative writing assignments and whose picture she would sometimes take out during class to sigh over. The time when Mrs. Dalcamo asked the class where Constantinople was, and Maura guessed, "Wisconsin?" because she said it sounded like it might be, and I couldn't disagree with her.

I remember finding out that two of my freshmen, 14-year-old girls, had babies of their own. That one of my sophomores hadn't seen her father in two years because he was in the military, and his trip home was cut short.

I imagine that being a teacher is a dim echo of being a parent - I want the world to be a better place for my students because they are like my children and I have shared their sorrows and joys, if only briefly. And I think that the drive for justice begins there, in that sharing.

--

As for what I have to say about my community and the relationships I have formed this year...I have no words to express the depth of my love, my joy, and my gratitude, because the sorrow of parting is still too fresh.

on spontaneity, and letting life happen

2011-06-19T21:05:00.004-04:00

I don't know if it's a direct result of my Cap Corps experience, or just growing up in general, but I realized today that I've learned to "go with the flow" much more than I used to.

Things I did this weekend that the "old me" would not have been ok with:

1. On Wednesday, I made the decision to take a trip up to Milwaukee for a Cap Corps Milwaukee birthday, since Dan and Laura were both going to be out of town for other reasons.

2. I booked tickets on Thursday to go up on Friday after work and come back on Sunday, via Amtrak and Megabus.

3. On Friday afternoon I changed my Amtrak fare to an earlier time, since I was leaving work earlier than usual.

4. After arriving in Milwaukee, I took a leisurely wander through the lakefront park with Amy and Antonio, later joined by Mike and Amy's friend Cryssy, with no particular plan or time in mind.

5. On Saturday we didn't get going out of the house until about 1pm. We went to the art festival around 4pm, stopping for a rummage sale along the way.

6. Saturday night we went to a party with the JVCs, where I sat around and genially drank with 10 people I didn't know.

7. Sunday morning we went to the Polish Fest mass. The songs were mostly in Polish, and some of the readings too.

8. Instead of taking the Megabus home, I got a ride with Rich, our local Cap Corps coordinator who's in Milwaukee for the summer - though I couldn't get a refund for the Megabus ticket.

Probably none of this sounds like a big deal. But it was unusual for me in that I wasn't antsy, anxious about the time, about hanging out with people I'd just met, worried about everything and nothing.

Quote Journal

2011-05-04T17:57:00.002-04:00

From today's reading of Wendell Berry's Citizenship Papers.

"A corporation, essentially, is a pile of money to which a number of persons have sold their moral allegiance. Unlike a person, a corporation does not age. It does not arrive, as most persons finally do, at a realization of the shortness and smallness of human lives; it does not come to see the future as the lifetime of children and grandchildren of anybody in particular. It can experience no personal hope or remorse, no change of heart. It cannot humble itself. It goes about its business as if it were immortal, with the single purpose of becoming a bigger pile of money."

"Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that."

2011-05-03T00:09:00.006-04:00

Wise words from a wise man - Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. They are true not only of events on a global scale, but on a personal one as well.

Sometimes I can't say what I feel, or I don't know where to start the unraveling of feelings. Often this means I don't try to express what I feel at all; I sweep it under the rug and shrug. I sweep the feelings I don't want into the deep recesses of my soul, into darkness, as if leaving them hidden will make them disappear. I am afraid to bring them to light.

So today I am grateful for silly inspiration, for a cartoon drawing that I laughed at even as it bared the ugly twisted things lurking in the depths of me.

I am grateful for hugs that are too tight to breathe in.

For the tears of brothers and sisters running mingled.

For murk not merely settled back to the bottom, but drawn clear out of the water...into the light.

on gluttony

2011-04-06T22:15:00.003-04:00

This week may set my personal record for least amount of sleep over a 5-day period. What was I doing late at night that was so important, you may ask. Well, nothing really - watching lightning through a skylight, half-dozing during a movie, talking sleepily with Laura. When the three of us are curled up on the couch together, I just have a terrible time making myself get up.

I was pondering the problem today, and it occurred to me that what keeps me from going to bed at a decent hour is really fear of loss - and the complementary desire for good things to last forever. Cap Corps is ending in less than four months, and Dan, Laura and I will be going our separate ways. My anxiety is heightened in anticipation of this departure, and I am afraid of missing any opportunity to be together. I am afraid of not having enough time, and that fear morphs into a sort of gluttony for time - an overindulgence to the detriment of my mental and physical health.

Recap

2011-04-03T22:37:00.002-04:00

Have had a jam-packed couple of weeks - first my trip to West Virginia, then tech week for the school production of Bye Bye Birdie (I played the Mayor's Wife).

West Virginia was wonderful; though I didn't get to experience much of a group week, I was able to shadow the different caretakers at Bethlehem and see a range of work that they do. I met local residents, collected eggs from the hens, picked and planted salad greens, helped install a storm door, helped at a thrift store, went to a yoga class...and along the way, got to hear a lot about West Virginia. Interestingly, a significant portion of the 20-something population in the area are the children of back-to-the-land hippies who moved there during the long 60s, so there's an infusion of that coffee shop-yoga studio vibe in the culture. I was pleasantly surprised. Other highlights:

1. Seeing ebelskiver on the menu of a lovely coffee shop called The Chestnut Revival in Hinton, WV. It was a converted house, with a book exchange and corner for live music - the kind of place I'd love to run if I were to be a small business owner.
2. Picking a big bowl of salad greens from the garden for dinner, with homemade lemon-honey dressing.
3. Watching the sunset from a slightly creaky porch swing.
4. Noodles the farm cat purring.
5. Sitting by the furnace while a storm raged outside.
6. Making s'mores at the bonfire circle with the group week volunteers.
7. Holding baby Miriam and sniffing her head.
8. Trading life stories with Sandy, a lady from Alderson, on the train back to Chicago.
9. Taking a nighttime walk without a flashlight.
10. Climbing up a hill on a sunny day, with a view clear out to Virginia, accompanied by Roxy the farm dog.

I did experience a bit of separation anxiety from Laura and Dan, admittedly. I still feel like I haven't really been home, since this past week I've been at work for 14 hours a day, what with play rehearsals. I was feeling somewhat overwhelmed, but it was a great show - we had some very talented students playing the leads. I got to faint onstage in response to hip thrusts (a la Elvis) by a teenage boy...scandalous.

Tonight we finally made it to Home Depot for garden supplies; we have great ambitions! Hopefully they pan out, because right now there are 11 bags of soil sitting in the trunk of Laura's car, and a good number of seed packets. We also finally cleaned out and organized the garage, in the name of finding tools and equipment for the garden. We unearthed some treasures - including a beautiful turquoise glass candy jar, a set of rounded-square plates with a leaf motif, and a marble paper-towel holder. It was quite a productive weekend.

As seen on sophomore Global Studies tests

2011-03-14T18:34:00.002-04:00

It was a fill-in-the-blank using terms from a word bank, and we got some interesting combinations....

Hitler was born on November 10, 1483.

Martin Luther nailed his 95 Lutherans to the door of a church, which explained his grievances with the Soviets.

After World War 2, the U.S. took control of West Germany, and the Catholic Church took control of East Germany.

Johann Gutenberg was the inventor of the Christian Bible.

Quote Journal

2011-03-09T18:31:00.000-05:00

"...their eyes didn't grab at you like the eyes of country people. Several of them bumped into him and this contact that should have made an acquaintance for life made nothing because the hulks shoved on with ducked heads and muttered apologies that he would have accepted if they had waited."

- Flannery O'Connor, "You Can't Be Any Poorer Than Dead"

On community

2011-03-07T19:19:00.009-05:00

Last weekend, the three of us drove out to visit Dan's hometown in rural southwestern Iowa. It was a whirlwind trip that did not involve much sleep at all. We left after work on Friday night, arrived in Audubon about 3:30 a.m. (due in part to a leisurely dinner with an uncle of Dan's); the next night we went to Omaha for a play, went out for coffee/beer afterwards, and did not get back until, again, about 3:30 in the morning - then got up for 8:30 a.m. Mass. On Sunday night we got in to Chicago just after midnight, after a stop for pie and coffee with another uncle.

So maybe it is only the lack of sleep making my brain fuzzy, but I feel like this is an experience I need to write and reflect on. Not only was this my first visit to Iowa and Nebraska, but also my first real exposure to small-town America. It made me realize how hungry I am to belong - to a place and a community both.

What I long for is Saturday brunch with neighbors stretching into dinnertime. Cards and conversation for a long golden afternoon, while the children (young and grown) play in the living room. No need to lock the car, lock the house. I want the lady down the street who babysat me as a child to babysit my own daughter. I wish I could point and say, My grandfather made that. I wish I could take you to the park and show you the fish I painted there in sixth grade.

Growing up, my family certainly didn't get to know our neighbors more than superficially. Perhaps anonymity is a suburban malaise. I think part of that was also the language/culture barrier for my parents. I look back and realize now how isolated we were, how disconnected from the people around us. I'd be hard-pressed to recall names or faces of even our next-door neighbors. I sold wrapping paper and Girl Scout cookies door-to-door, but never stepped beyond the threshold of those houses - nor did any neighbors ever set foot in ours. After I graduated high school, my parents sold our house and moved away to a less expensive area.

When I go back to Saratoga, I no longer belong there. Nor do I belong to the subdivision where my parents live now, since I am never there for more than a week or two at a time. I have lived in Chicago for over four years now, yet I am not sure that I belong to this place either - my college friends have largely moved away. As I ponder what I will do and where I will go after Cap Corps, I realize I have no place to call home and return to. This is freedom, yes, but it is a frightening freedom.

The U.S. has a culture of mobility now, and perhaps has always had it. The archetypal rags-to-riches story is that of a country boy (or immigrant) who sheds the confines of his rural upbringing and finds success in the city. Our immigrant heritage is undoubtedly also a factor, for what is a mere relocation across states when one has already crossed an ocean? We are a country sprung from people who cut their ties to the old country in favor of new beginnings.

But what we've lost to our mobility is continuity, and it's hard to build a community of people without any continuity.

Eventful news

2011-02-15T18:03:00.004-05:00

Good news! After passing a written application and phone interview, I am heading out to West Virginia over spring break, for an on-site interview at Bethlehem Farm. It is my fondest wish to be a caretaker there for the next year or two, so I am psyched to go! It is a Catholic community that does home repair and other services for the local community, hosts retreats for college/high school students, and tries to live out the meaning of "sustainability", both ecological and social. Also, they have two pianos.

In other news, Dan and I were involved in a minor car accident on the way home from Milwaukee on Sunday night. The front passenger-side wheel popped off while we were driving down I-94. I screamed (but luckily didn't hit the brakes or swerve), Dan grabbed the wheel, and we gently steered over to the shoulder. Fortunately, there weren't any cars directly behind or next to us at the time, so it was all very anti-climactic. Dan even retrieved the errant wheel. About 10 minutes later, one of the city's emergency towing vehicles showed up to haul the car off the highway and us to Walgreens. After a few rounds of phone calls, a Capuchin who had Triple A coverage kindly agreed to come out and call a tow truck for us.

At that point, Dan stayed to accompany the operation while Laura and I drove home in her car (thank goodness we got a second Cap Corps car a couple months back). Dan didn't end up getting home until about 11, and we held dinner for him, so the pork chops we'd stuck in the oven to keep warm were pretty well dried, but we didn't mind.

In other other news, I started keeping a gratitude journal a couple weeks back - I was inspired by the book One Thousand Gifts, written by Ann Voskamp (whose lovely blog, A Holy Experience, I have linked on the sidebar). It's good.

Place name of the day

2011-02-10T23:09:00.000-05:00

Lake Chargoggagoggmanchaugagoggchaubunagungamaugg, also known as Webster Lake, in Massachusetts. The English translation of the name is given as "Fishing Place at the Boundaries - Neutral Meeting Grounds", or more humorously, You fish your side of the lake, we'll fish our side, and nobody fishes in the middle.

Snow day recipes

2011-02-02T20:38:00.007-05:00

School's off for today and tomorrow. The epic blizzard began yesterday afternoon...but really, it has been more of a reprieve than a disaster for us. My first instinct when homebound? Make food! We weren't able to make it to the friary for our weekly dinner, so I made moussaka instead. (Note to self: Don't buy eggplant from Jewel. It was hideously expensive.)

Dinner tonight is sausage and peppers, on home-baked Italian rolls. I also made a giant loaf of zucchini bread, the giant-ness of which is due to my accidentally putting two loaves' worth of batter into one loaf pan. It still turned out yummy, though!

Moussaka
Adapted from Food Network Kitchens

3 large eggplants, unpeeled, sliced into 1/2-inch thick rounds
Extra-virgin olive oil
Kosher salt and freshly-ground black pepper

1 medium onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 lb ground beef
1/2 tsp dried oregano
1/8 tsp ground allspice
Pinch ground cloves
1/2 of a cinnamon stick
1 15-oz can diced tomatoes, drained
1 bay leaf

5 Tbsp unsalted butter
6 Tbsp all-purpose flour
3 cups milk, room temperature (prefer whole, but can use lowfat)
1 tsp salt
Pinch ground nutmeg
1 large egg + 2 yolks
3 Tbsp freshly grated Parmesan

Bake the eggplant: Preheat the oven to 475 degrees F. Brush eggplant slices with olive oil and lay on foil- or parchment-lined baking sheets. Season with salt and pepper. Bake until eggplant is soft, about 25 minutes. Remove from oven and set aside.

Make the custard sauce: Melt the butter in a small saucepan over medium-low heat. Whisk in flour until smooth; cook, stirring constantly, until mixture is golden-brown. Stir in the milk, salt, and nutmeg. Bring to a gentle boil, whisking constantly, then simmer until thickened. Remove from heat and set aside to cool. When cooled, whisk in egg and yolks.

Make the meat sauce: Brown onion in olive oil in a large skillet. Add garlic and cook for another minute. Add beef, oregano, allspice, cloves, and cinnamon stick. Cook over medium heat, stirring, until browned. Add tomatoes and bay leaf. Simmer, covered, until the sauce is thickened and fragrant, about 20 minutes.

Assemble the moussaka: Set the oven to 350 degrees F. Oil a 9 x 13 Pyrex dish. Layer half of the eggplant slices on the bottom. Cover with half of the meat sauce, then repeat with another layer of eggplant and a second layer of meat sauce. Gently pour the custard mixture over the top, smoothing with a spoon. Sprinkle evenly with the Parmesan.

Bake the moussaka until the top is browned and bubbly and the custard is set, about 1 hour. Before serving, allow to rest for 10 minutes out of the oven.

Zucchini Bread
Adapted from Simply Recipes

2.5 c all-purpose flour
0.5 c whole-wheat flour
1.5 tsp baking soda
2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp salt
1 c chopped walnuts
1 c raisins
2/3 c melted unsalted butter (or a mix of melted butter and olive oil)
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 c white sugar
1/3 c brown sugar
2 cups grated, packed, drained zucchini

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

In a bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt, spices, walnuts, and raisins. In a larger bowl, briskly mix together the butter, eggs, vanilla, and sugar. Stir in the zucchini. Gently mix in the flour, stirring until just combined.

Pour batter into 2 buttered 9 x 5 loaf pans. Bake until browned and the top springs back when you pat it gently, about 1 hour. Cool in pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a rack to cool completely.

Sausage, Peppers, and Onions
Adapted from Simply Recipes

4 Italian sausage links
3 bell peppers of varying colors, sliced into 2-inch strips
1 large onion, sliced into 1/4-inch thick half-moons
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 15-oz can diced tomatoes
1 Tbsp dried oregano
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes

Heat up some olive oil in a large skillet (preferably cast iron), and gently brown the sausage on all sides. Remove from pan and set aside.

Turn the stove up to high and add the peppers and onions to the pan. Cook, stirring occasionally, until they begin to soften. Sprinkle with salt and add the garlic. Cook until peppers are seared a bit around the edges.

Stir in tomatoes, oregano, and red pepper flakes. Add sausages back to the pan, and simmer until the peppers are soft and the sausage is cooked, about 25 minutes.

Serve with Italian bread, polenta, or pasta.

Italian Bread Rolls
Adapted from Joe Valencic

5.5 c bread flour
2.5 tsp active dry yeast
1 Tbsp brown sugar
1 Tbsp salt
2 c lukewarm water
2 Tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
1 egg white, lightly beaten

Mix flour, yeast, sugar, and salt together in a large bowl. Add water and stir until dough begins to form. Drizzle in the olive oil. Mix/knead, adding flour as needed, until you get a smooth, firm, elastic dough.

Transfer the dough to a large, lightly oiled bowl; brush with oil. Cover bowl with a plastic bag to keep out the drafts, and set in a warm place (I put it in the turned-off oven) to rise for about 1 hour, or until doubled in size.

Press the dough down with your hands, then turn out onto a work surface dusted with cornmeal. Split the dough into 8 pieces. Roll up each piece of dough to form a cylindrical shape, pinching the ends in. Place seam-side down on a baking sheet dusted with cornmeal. Cover with damp paper towels (or a clean, damp kitchen towel) and set in a warm place to rise until doubled again, about another hour.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Brush the rolls with egg white, then make 1/4-inch deep slashes along the tops of each. Spritz with water before placing in oven.

Bake for 3 minutes, then open the oven and spritz the rolls with water; bake another 3 minutes and spritz again. Bake until the rolls are golden and crusty, and sound hollow when thumped with a wooden spoon (13-15 minutes). Cool slightly before serving.

my side of an unexpected conversation (part 3)

2011-01-31T09:21:00.006-05:00

Perhaps I should clarify. Judeo-Christian thought certainly does not have a monopoly on moral ideas which are common to many human cultures, but I'm saying that that is probably where you and I get them from, due to the specific culture in which we were raised. I'm sure that somebody born and raised in, say, rural India could get similar ideas from Hinduism. And just because the historically dominant background of American society is Judeo-Christian doesn't mean that everyone has exactly the same beliefs, either (obviously). It is a large influence, but it is not theonly influence.

Conjecturing about evolutionary psychology is a pretty dodgy way to address the basis of human morality, I think. I could just as plausibly argue that individuals who didn't display altruism/conscience would have had the upper hand, since they would have had no compunction about killing off competitors and ensuring their own genetic succession. Nice guys finish last, right? Anyway, I don't believe we are all such creatures of pure instinct that evolutionary advantage is the only determining factor for the presence or absence of morality.

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>>But don’t you think it’s a little bit odd that all throughout the world people more or less share the same idea that “hurting others is wrong”.

No, I don't think it is odd at all, because it is part of what we hold in common as children of God. That's what I've been getting at all along, but I've been trying to use the language of reasoning without God, since that is where you are coming from. But the bottom line is, I believe the ultimate source of human morality is God.

As for your last question - non-procreative sex is still sex. And sex should not be treated as some form of casual recreation.

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Modern science grew out of what was called "natural philosophy", which was usually the domain of theologians - themselves usually monks or priests - so clearly belief in God does not equal lack of scientific curiosity. Quite the opposite, historically.

If there is a God who created everything, then nothing is "random" - which is to say, everything that exists or happens is part of a larger pattern. (In any case, to prove that something is truly random would require infinite data, which is impossible for us, as humans, to possess). If I don't understand some phenomenon of the natural world, but I believe that everything exists/happens for a reason, then the question that naturally follows is - what are the reasons for this phenomenon? What is the pattern here? At no point do we have to "give up" on thinking to say that God is the ultimate reason (by which I mean intention as well as cause)...because God gave us reason for a reason, too.

To have sex with somebody when you are not married is to counterfeit love. Love is not only an emotion; it is manifested in actions. To have sex (which is supposed to be an act of love) outside of the choice and commitment to love (marriage) is to lie, with actions if not words. Are we agreed that lying is wrong?

Also, to say something is wrong "because God says so" is a perfectly valid reason if you believe in a loving Creator. Presumably, He knows what He's talking about, and He's looking out for our ultimate good (both collectively and individually). So to say "this is wrong because God says so" is to say "the One who created us and knows us completely has advised us that this is wrong".

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You wanted to know what I believe, and why I believe it, so I told you. I'm sorry if you can't, or don't want to, understand.

Maybe, just maybe, Christianity has hung on for so long because people recognize that it speaks truth. You can attack and belittle it all you like, as many have done before you, but that doesn't change what is true and what isn't.

I think this conversation has gone as far as it can go.

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It is hard to discuss beliefs when we are coming from such radically different worldviews, and it doesn't help when you make juvenile, snide remarks. I mean, you've said things that I find extremely repugnant as well as incomprehensible, but I've tried to give you a fair hearing...

As I was trying to tell you with the whole idea of the nonrational - beliefs cannot ultimately be explained/proven in the same way that we can prove physical facts about the world. I can't show you some concrete way to verify the existence of God as described by Christianity (otherwise, of course, it wouldn't even be a question), and that's what all the other beliefs I'm trying to explain boil down to. Just as all your moral beliefs boil down to a statement that you can't give any good "reasons" for.

When I first started to read about Catholic teachings (not just the generalities parodied in the media but what faithful people actually believe), it was like hearing somebody explain my own thoughts to me in a fuller, more articulate way. It brought coherence to scattered ideas, suspicions, questions that I had had before, from my own experiences. Christianity connected the dots for me, as it were. (I get much the same feeling when I read essays by Wendell Berry). This is undoubtedly connected to the increasing disillusionment I felt with regards to the empty promises and vapid ideals of the mainstream liberal culture that I previously believed in. Point is, there wasn't some single fact or moment that made me start believing in God - it happened within a fairly short span of time, but it came from an aggregate of small "I see!" and "yes, exactly!" and "so I'm not crazy, other people have noticed this too!" moments.

I had to re-examine the reasons why I was an atheist. I wasn't raised to have any particular ideas about religion; my parents aren't religious, and they just never brought it up. It wasn't until college that I really became deliberately atheist. Religion was my scapegoat - to be blamed for all the problems and errors of humanity. If only we didn't have religion, the world would be so much better! Religion is what's holding us back! It's a cop-out for lazy escapists, and an excuse for bloodshed and persecution! Part of it was a moral outrage - if there is a God, then why is the world such a shitty place? In a weird way, I was proud of my cynicism, my bitterness, my "willingness to face the hard reality that there is no God". I wanted to think that I knew better than all these so-called Christians making asses of themselves in the news. Later on, I was in love with someone who wouldn't compromise his Christian beliefs for my sake, and I really wanted to prove him wrong. Not exactly great reasons...mostly my own pride and self-righteousness, combined with gross oversimplifications and misunderstandings of what Christianity really is. Really, many atheists are just as close-minded and bigoted as they accuse religious people of being.

Also important is how I have changed because of being a Christian. I'm fairly certain it has made me kinder, gentler, more patient, more open to people, more hopeful, and much, much more reflective and self-aware. I know there are people who are all of these things without being Christian, but I wasn't one of them, and I doubt that I would ever have had the impetus to change otherwise. So if we're only looking at the results of my believing vs. not believing, Christianity wins that comparison.

I am quite sure that other religions can and do speak truth as well, and people who don't belong to any religion are not excluded from that either - truth is truth no matter whose lips it comes from. But as far as I have seen, Catholic Christianity offers the most complete account.

Anyway. This is all from my personal experience. I am trying to explain something that can't always be explained, only experienced. And I don't think you can experience it until you are at least willing to entertain the possibility of God. I can't convince you just by sheer force of argument.

my side of an unexpected conversation (part 2)

2011-01-27T22:48:00.007-05:00

But see, you are still speaking from a mentality where children are an "inconvenience", an "unfortunate accident". The idea of being open to life means seeing children as a BLESSING, as a GOOD result. That doesn't make parenting all sunshine and rainbows, but it means you don't dread becoming pregnant. You don't "put up" with being a parent - it's a very important part of your life's work, if not THE most important.

The intended difference between NFP and artificial contraception, is that NFP requires sacrifice, whereas artificial contraception lets you have your cake and eat it too. You're right that NFP is enabled by modern knowledge of the human body, but it still requires that people abstain from sex for a week or so every month (during the fertile period). So the fact that you can't afford to have more children at the moment directly results in having to abstain (if only temporarily). This maintains the link between sex and reproduction, and it's a decision you have to revisit together month-by-month. Also, I think I mentioned in a previous email that sex has TWO aspects: the reproductive and the unitive. The bonding/pleasure aspect of sex is still valid and important - it just shouldn't be the ONLY aspect. Just like eating has two aspects - nutrition and pleasure - but it's not good to eat ONLY for pleasure.

You are right that NFP can be used with a contraceptive mentality, just like artificial contraception. So like I said, it comes down to a matter of attitude. It's not about how "pure" I am compared to other people, it's about being right in my relationship with God - which I believe is affected by my sexual behavior/mentality. Based on my experience and my thinking, I believe it's for my own good, and the good of all humanity, not just some arbitrary dictate.

You are also right, of course, that being Christian or any other religion doesn't make people less humanly fallible. But I do believe that Christianity (which is what I have experience with) gives me a standard by which to measure myself, and gives me support in my effort to become a better human being. Without a standard, how do we even know what a "good guy" is?

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Oh, I was going to talk about inconvenience earlier - must have gotten sidetracked. I also realize that this discussion of my attitudes toward children is largely theoretical, since I don't have any kids and don't foresee having any in the near future...heck, I don't even know if/when I'm going to be married.

True, raising children isn't "convenient", meaning that it would complicate my life, and I'm sure I won't always be happy about it. Um, so what? What's so sacred about convenience, that we should view inconvenience as so terrible? When my life is "convenient", that means nothing is happening - I'm just passing the time. It's like only having easy math problems to do... sure, there's some satisfaction in completing an easy task, but ultimately what keeps you interested is the difficult stuff, the stuff you have to struggle with. The rest of life is no different. Of course it's nice to have some times when we can just coast along, but what makes life interesting and rewarding are the challenges. That's what makes us grow; that's what we end up remembering. It's not that we have to deliberately seek out hardship...but neither should we go around terrified of inconvenience. Being involved in other people's lives will always mean inconvenience, sooner or later, but that doesn't mean we'd be better off living without friends and family. So, I am sure that there will be times when I get frustrated and stressed and perhaps overworked - but that's life, and I'm not afraid of it.

You're right, NFP is not perfect; there is always room for human error. That means you have to acknowledge the possibility that pregnancy may result. Doesn't mean you can't have sex, you just have to be ready for possible consequences. When you're on the Pill or other artificial contraception (in my experience and that of others), by contrast, you definitely DON'T acknowledge that possibility - and if you did get pregnant, you would be totally aghast, because you took no ownership of that possible responsibility.

Also, in terms of number of children one might have, you should realize that people don't get pregnant EVERY time they have sex, for heaven's sake =P And if you already ARE pregnant, that's at least another 10 months (or up to 1.5 years, if you breastfeed) before pregnancy even becomes possible again! Plus, if you have a lot of kids, the older ones can help you take care of the younger ones! (I'm being a little tongue-in-cheek here). No, I don't have ambitions to have 10 kids, and I don't exactly have child-bearing hips here, but...I leave that up to God. Which is much of the point.

You say that you can figure out what is good or bad for yourself, without somebody else telling you - starting from scratch, as it were. Well, I don't believe it's possible for any human living in a society of other humans to truly build a moral system from the ground up, because we are inevitably influenced by the existing views of the people around us. You define an immoral action as one which causes damage/hurt to another person - but why? What makes you believe it's bad to hurt other people? What if you had to choose between saving yourself or saving another person's life?

Another problem with your fundamental statement of morality, as you said earlier, is the question of imperfect information. Furthermore, what we FAIL to do can have just as much effect on others as what we DO. As individuals, we can't possibly track all the consequences of our actions (or inaction) beyond a certain level, nor can we see the aggregate effects of many people making certain choices. That's why we need guidance beyond what we can see for ourselves. Much of what makes us human is this need (and ability) to learn from people who have gone before us, instead of having to figure everything out by trial and error. You might well think of religion as the accumulated wisdom of thousands of years of human experience, the observations of generations of humans trying to figure out what's good for us and what's bad.

It's not like I personally have all the answers here, either...I'm still very much in the process of thinking these things out.

I don't think your beliefs are all that unusual, in that they follow logically from many of the prevailing attitudes/opinions of mainstream culture. Ever heard of "reductio ad absurdium"? Colloquially, it means "if you're coming up with crazy/contradictory conclusions, then you need to rethink your premises".

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Well now I'm just waiting for Hitler to make an appearance in this discussion =P

I did misunderstand what you meant by "inconvenience". Of course, it would be a much more difficult situation if I were in such a perilous circumstance as near-starvation. (Although this brings up a whole other facet of my life goals, in which I hope to be as independent of the industrial food system as possible). I would say that first of all, I shouldn't get married if I can't afford to have kids. If something happens later which reduces our circumstances to the extent you describe, such that we are absolutely sure that there is absolutely no way we could support another child, then we would probably have to choose complete abstinence until things improved. Tough luck...but there's some job motivation for ya! In the event that disaster occurred after I was already pregnant, I might have to consider giving up the child for adoption. These would really be very extreme cases, as you said, but that's the best answer I can give.

OK, so your very precise definition of morality still boils down to your intuition, because it is based on what you ALREADY have decided is moral or immoral. And what I want to know is, how/why did you make those original decisions? You said you don't have a good answer, so really all you are doing is constructing a formal justification for intuitive beliefs. Those beliefs had to have come from somewhere, and I would like to know what you think that ultimate source is. I would argue that your beliefs ultimately come from the Judeo-Christian basis of Western society, and that there's really no way to distance yourself from that. (And I say so with the full recognition that, when I was an atheist, I really hated it when people said that to me....ironic, no?).

Religion might also be considered a system of justification for intuitive beliefs, so I suppose the task is to discern which system holds the most, or most complete, truth. And I agree, one should not blindly accept something as true just because one is told that it is so. But, to paraphrase Wendell Berry, not all truths can be immediately and objectively proven like the truths of math...they are only subject to the slow authentication of experience (both our own and others').

my side of an unexpected conversation (part 1)

2011-01-26T21:02:00.005-05:00

Hi ____,

Sorry to hear about your relationship troubles...though you know, the cliche about time healing all wounds is actually true.

I guess I'll be straightforward too: a sexual relationship is no longer a possibility. It's nothing against you personally, it's just that I've moved on with my life and my views on sexuality have changed. I hope you can understand.

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Well, to keep the story short, I converted from atheism to Catholicism early last year. This was in no small part because I came to understand why the Church's teachings on sexuality are both reasonable and advisable (contrary to popular opinion).

So you can see how that would entail a major change in my views on the subject...

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Well there've been thousands upon thousands of pages written by Catholic thinkers on the subject of sex and marriage...but let's see if I can summarize some of the core ideas. You're right that premarital sex is considered a no-no, but sex itself is not a bad thing at all - only when it is misused.

So. Marriage. The Catholic conception of marriage is a total self-giving of a man and a woman to each other. Sex is the physical expression of that gift - and children are the further physical embodiment of the love between husband and wife. Therefore sex in its intended form has two aspects: the unitive and the procreative (or, to be alliterative, bonding and babies).

The problem with our modern idea of sex is that it separates these two aspects. Babies are no longer the intended, or welcomed, result of sex. It's just supposed to be physical pleasure without consequences. We see sex as being solely the concern of the two people involved, but that isn't true - even if a woman's on the most reliable contraception, she could still get pregnant (99.7% effective means 3 in 1,000 women still get pregnant). And that means there is a potential third person involved, who would become the responsibility of the parents. This is not something to be taken lightly! You wouldn't have children with somebody you didn't absolutely love and trust - thus why would you have sex with that person? Doing so only cheapens the gift which marital sex is supposed to be.

Then there's the usual rhetoric about sexual liberation and all that. I used to be under the impression that having casual sex was part of being a modern, empowered woman, or whatever. But I realized that mainstream feminism doesn't really empower women to be women - it just tells us we should be more like stereotypical men (aggressive, ambitious, etc). So the message is still that being a woman is inferior to being a man. Which is bullshit.

On sexual needs. It's important to acknowledge that they do exist and they can be really frustrating; however, as human beings, we have the ability to choose what we do about our desires. My craving for sex is no more the boss of me than my craving for chocolate. I have a choice. Plus, what I really want (and maybe what anybody really wants) isn't just sexual pleasure, but real intimacy with another person - and that is not to be found in the casual encounters section of Craigslist. Having "meaningless sex" is like eating fast food...it tastes good in the moment, but we know it's bad for us, and in the long run it can do a lot of damage.

So there you are. Obviously this is a brief sketch and there's a lot more to be said on these topics, but it's hard to separate from the rest of Catholic theology.

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Right, exactly, it's because we're all in the habit of thinking of pregnancy separately from sex that people feel abortion is a "right" - because we "shouldn't have to" take responsibility for pregnancy when we "didn't intend" for it to happen. Because we no longer think of pregnancy as the successful result of sex (which, biologically speaking, it is).

I used to be adamantly pro-choice too - although the question of whether abortion is right is separate from the question of if/how we legislate the matter. Fundamentally, it's an issue of when you believe that human life, and therefore human rights, begins. The Catholic belief, of course, is that life (and therefore the right to live) begins at conception. But even leaving God out of it, is it wrong to kill a newborn baby? I think most people would say yes. OK, so what about a month before birth? Three months? Where do you draw the line? I used to think it was fair to draw it at the point where the baby could survive outside the womb - except that's no hard and fast boundary, depending on the specific circumstances. And we don't know everything about fetal development anyway, which is why pinpointing the moment that a fetus "becomes" a human is a point of contention. If we hold human life to be sacred, which I think most humans do, then perhaps we should err on the side of caution.

On doing what you want....all right, but our ideas about what we want, or what we think will make us happy, are inevitably influenced by the people and culture around us. For better or worse. Humans are social beings, so our happiness is largely inextricable from our relationships with other people, and that means we do care what they think, even if we don't realize it or don't want to admit it. There's plenty of research to show that having good relationships is a key factor in how happy we are.

You said it yourself, maybe what you really need is just more friends. And why is it that American men tend to have few close relationships (compared to women) outside of their girlfriends/wives? Maybe because of an aversion to seeming gay...maybe because being close to someone requires you to be vulnerable, and we have a social norm that says men shouldn't appear vulnerable...you see how personal happiness still ends up being tied to what society teaches us?

You said that casual sex between consenting adults isn't wrong. But, you don't want to have sex with a lot of girls either. Maybe you should ask yourself, why is that? Also, why is it bad to be "a hopeless romantic"? What would the alternatives be, and why would they be better?

I don't want to talk your ear off, as it were, so I'll stop here - but I hope I've at least given you some interesting food for thought =)

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(It's funny, you know, I would never have predicted having any of this conversation with you...)

Hmmm, I guess in my experience (and the experience of friends I've talked to about it), casual sex can in fact be very emotionally damaging. Possibly it's different for men. IMHO, the prevalence of casual sex makes us, as men and women, less open to each other, less trusting...because physical intimacy is no longer a sign/reflection of emotional intimacy. Instead, we have subverted the natural desire to bond with the person you're having sex with - rather than a confirmation of a pre-existing emotional connection, sex becomes a mutual, impersonal use of each other's bodies. Which seems pretty cold, whether one is a hopeless romantic or not.

On abortion - it's not about what's legal or illegal, or could be made so; that's definitely not the same as right and wrong. It's just a slippery slope, I think, to assume we have a right to make judgment calls about when a human life is or is not "fully human". Seemingly objective criteria can be used to justify all kinds of inhumane practices - and any standard we use for self-awareness or consciousness is probably flawed, due to our incomplete knowledge of how consciousness even works. I mean, if you can abort a baby based on the assumption that it's not self-aware, then what about senile or mentally impaired adults? Should we have the right to kill people who have advanced Alzheimer's or dementia? Or even if we don't kill them, should we have the right to do things like harvest their organs or conduct drug trials on their bodies, in the name of benefiting people who are healthy? Like you said, it's scary to extend this type of reasoning to its logical extremes. To give ourselves this right to judge the humanity of other people is very, very dangerous. That's why I think the Catholic respect for human life from conception to natural death makes the most sense, even from a secular standpoint.

On my conversion - I don't know that it's something I can really describe adequately. I suppose I had an intellectual as well as emotional conversion. I did a lot of reading about what the Church actually teaches, and why (which turned out to be quite different from my previous assumptions about Catholicism). I was convinced enough by what I read to re-examine some basic assumptions I had about life. I sort of...dared myself to live as if there were a God, to see what that would be like. To my immense surprise, I found Catholicism to be a weltanschaaung that resonates too deeply for me to reject it as false. I've found a hope, idealism, and purpose which I did not have before. For me, it's no longer a matter of "proving" God's existence. Even if we have it wrong and there is no God, or heaven, or anything, I would argue that it's still better to live by the creed of "Love your neighbor as yourself" - better that than the cynical, self-serving relativism under which I previously operated.

Or, to use the terminology I learned in Cultural Psychology - religious beliefs (like any social/moral beliefs) don't fit in the dichotomy of rational/irrational. Rather, they are in a third category, the nonrational or arational, where the question of logical justification is simply inapplicable.

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Yes, I see your point about the video game analogy, and I would otherwise agree with you - except that video games don't result in babies. Sex can't just be a recreational activity when it creates (or has the potential to create) new life. That's what sets it apart.

Sure, you don't HAVE to be Christian, or even believe in a religion, to be a good person...but it gives you a framework of support, it gives you real motivation which you don't find elsewhere. Utilitarianism (the greatest good for the greatest number of people) isn't the same as love. And it still doesn't tell you WHY you should love your neighbor. Like I said, I probably can't explain this at all adequately. I certainly would have blown off anybody trying to convince me to believe in God, prior to taking my own initiative on the subject. But even before I converted, I had to concede that the most loving people I'd met in my life did happen to be Christians...and I'm the person who went around chalking anti-religion quotes on the Quads after some group went around writing Psalms.

Nonrational IS an aspect of "the usual way" of explaining things. It describes normative beliefs, like "Stealing is wrong". Why is it wrong? Well, it just is. I mean you can make some arguments based on evolutionary psychology and whatnot, but most people don't use that rationale - explanations boil down to "it just is". That's why the question of logical proof doesn't apply, because "proof" is not the point. Also in the nonrational domain are beliefs like metaphysical naturalism, which says that everything that exists or happens can be explained by natural or material causes (denying the possibility of the supernatural)....

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Ah, but part of the Catholic conception of marriage (pun intended, haha) is that you are "open to life" - meaning open to having children as the result of sex for the entire duration of your married life. Of course there are still practical considerations to having kids (financial situation and such), which is why the Church approves of Natural Family Planning (via tracking of such fun things as cervical mucus and basal body temperature), though not artificial contraception. This may seem like a spurious distinction (family planning vs. contraception, natural vs. artificial), but it really comes down to a matter of attitude - what the Church wants to avoid is the mentality where children are unwelcome and unconnected to sex. Unfortunately this message has not been received well by many Catholics.

I'm sorry to hear about your bad experiences - I think religious education is something the Church really, really needs to improve, because the stuff you learned is about the exact opposite of what I've learned! And I know what you mean, one of my main beefs with Christianity used to be that there were so many hypocrites and assholes who said they were Christian. But I also knew people at the other end of the spectrum, as I said, and those are the people I would consider true Christians.

This is what I believe: There are ways to help people beyond just handing them money, because you may indeed be enabling their vices - if you know for certain that they will go and do something bad with the money, then you probably shouldn't give them any. In the case of panhandlers, you may do better with alternatives such as pointing them to other resources, or actually buying them food. Ultimately, however, I believe it is better to give freely, with love, and to trust that God will bring good out of it. That's what it means to have faith, hope, and love.

Also, we certainly don't get to heaven just for believing in Jesus without doing anything about it (though there are/have been Christian denominations that assert that). Truly believing in something requires action, and that's straight out of the Bible: "Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me." (John 14:21), and "For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead." (James 2:26).

Furthermore, as Catholics we shouldn't even be leaping to judgments about who's going to heaven and who isn't - because we don't know. The only people that the Church authoritatively says have gone to heaven are the saints. Jews certainly don't go to Hell just for being Jewish, because they have a covenant with God (as seen in the Old Testament), and God doesn't break His own covenants. (Though Christians believe that the covenant of the Old Testament was fulfilled by the coming of Jesus). In the end, we cannot judge the fates of others; it would be supremely presumptuous to think we can know what somebody else's relationship with God was like. We can only trust in God's mercy and justice...because again, that's what it means to have faith, hope, and love.

Right, the statement "Stealing is wrong" cannot be judged as objectively true OR false - that's why it's nonrational (meaning neither rational nor irrational). Right and wrong are not the same as true and false; it's just a different axis of measurement. Does that help at all?

Whew.

on school lunches

2011-01-26T17:51:00.003-05:00

Today I had to buy "chicken rings" for lunch at the school cafeteria, as I was unable to locate the sandwich bread this morning.

Somebody please tell me, what part of a chicken comes in the shape of a ring? And why would such a shape even be considered appealing?

the things kids say

2011-01-22T14:32:00.003-05:00

During Period D, right before lunch...

Student A: What's for lunch today?
Student B: [deadpan] Didn't you hear, President Obama's going to be here today.
Student C: Yeah, and he's ordering pizza for everybody.

[General laughter.]

Student D: Oh, I hope he brings Sasha and Malia.

[pause]

Student E: [completely serious] ...also Justin Bieber.

on usefulness and productivity

2011-01-18T13:06:00.002-05:00

Today I called in sick to work. I've been nursing a sore throat for about a week now, which is a ridiculously long time for me, and this morning showed little promise - I woke up and felt like I was swallowing barbed wire. If I had an office job where I could get away with not speaking, I would have gone to work anyway, as the rest of me is feeling just fine. Since I'm in a position of authority at a school, however, I would be obliged to speak (and loudly, at that). So I figured I might as well stay home and drown the inflammation with tea.

Being an enneagram type 3 personality, though, I don't like to feel useless. To assuage my pangs of guilt over missing work, I decided to at least get some things accomplished while I'm at home. So far I've scheduled an eye exam, fixed my printer, straightened up and vacuumed the house, and taken out the recycling. Next I'm going to bake some pumpkin bread for the faculty potluck on Thursday, go to the store for a few ingredients, and make a pumpkin-coconut-rum soup for tomorrow (to use up the leftover pumpkin from the bread).

As I sat eating lunch (incidentally, using up some leftover cooked lentils from last week), I realized that I derive a lot of satisfaction from such domestic duties. I realized that whenever I dislike the prospect of some chore or other, it's because I feel tired and stressed from work. When I have a free day like today, I like cleaning, cooking, and food-shopping. I like making a home, quite possibly more than I like having an outside job.

Maybe that's just a function of my job satisfaction (I often feel more useful at home than I do at work). Maybe I wouldn't like hanging around the house by myself all day, every day. Still, it is food for thought as I try to figure out what to do with the rest of my life...

on the American Dream

2011-01-16T16:26:00.005-05:00

(Continuing thoughts on racism)

One of the factors that helps perpetuate racism in America is that we believe that our society is a pure meritocracy; you can do anything, or be anything, as long as you work hard enough. I definitely bought into this idea myself. Problem is, while this belief does encourage a positive work ethic, it also justifies a type of social Darwinism - if all you need to succeed is hard work, then the people who don't succeed must not have worked hard enough. In other words, those who are at the bottom deserve to be there. This fosters racism in the U.S. because, for historical reasons, race and socioeconomic class are closely linked in this country.

What we don't acknowledge is that (to mix in some sports metaphors) it's not a level playing field; not everyone enters the race on equal footing. To acknowledge that, really acknowledge it, would shatter our belief in the fairness of our society, our belief in individualism and the "self-made man". It's much easier to believe that everybody has the same chance for success, because that way we don't have to take responsibility for those who are unsuccessful.

Around the house

2011-01-14T18:58:00.010-05:00

Since I used my Christmas gift certificates to acquire a new camera (hooray!), I thought I'd start documenting life in pictures again. Although I'm not very good at remembering to do this, here are some to start with.

1) The slightly ludicrous amount of coffee-related paraphernalia in our house.

2) The piano (the story of whose acquisition I recounted back in September, methinks).

3) Our "Christmas tree". (Note the star on the top!)

4) The legacy of Cap Corps past...

We found this chicken in our freezer tonight.

Please note the "Sell by" date.

in which certain illusions I had about myself are broken

2011-01-13T17:08:00.002-05:00

One of my goals-in-progress (as opposed to New Year's resolutions, you know) is to continue my education, despite not being enrolled in any formal institution of learning. This mainly involves a lot of reading - luckily, I not only have access to the Chicago Public Library system, but also my roommates' books.

My reading for the last couple days was White Privilege, a collection of essays edited by Paula S. Rothenberg, which addresses the flip side of racism - that is, the unspoken advantages of being white. One of the pieces contained in it was one of the preparatory readings that we had for Cap Corps orientation. In face, since beginning my service with Cap Corps, the issue of racism has been on my mind much more than it ever was previously.

In my experience, Asian Americans nowadays are perceived as one of the so-called "model minorities" - meaning, on the spectrum of race, much closer to white than black. As one of the authors in White Privilege pointed out, assimilation of a minority group in the U.S. often means that said group must buy into the preexisting hierarchy of races - that is, joining ranks with white racism against black people (and often Hispanic people too).

Now, I grew up in one of the most affluent suburbs in California, where the population was about 30% Asian American and 70% white. I think there was maybe one black girl in my entire high school, and pretty much the only Hispanic people you'd see around were gardeners and construction workers. I never thought of myself as racist, but then, I never really had much opportunity to test those ideals; it's much easier not to be racist when you're only thinking about it in the abstract. This held true for college as well, despite the fact that I was on the south side of Chicago - the University of Chicago is sort of in its own little bubble.

This is not to say I've never experienced racism directed towards Asian Americans. There have been occasional isolated encounters with ignorant or rude individuals; I've had to put up with jokes about Asian female drivers and the like. And more subtly, many of the choices I made in high school were influenced by my desire to get away from stereotypes about Asians. I didn't want to be just another bespectacled, meek, piano-playing, straight-A Chinese student, even if those adjectives did apply to me. To that end, I joined drama instead of orchestra (and was one of about three Asian people in the whole theatre department), dated a white boy, decided not to attend UC Berkeley or UCLA, and even seriously considered going to an art college instead.

The thing is, however, that I never had to confront my own racial prejudices until I started Cap Corps. Living on the far south side of Chicago means that 99% of the people I might encounter on an everyday basis in the neighborhood are black; I'm probably the only Asian person in at least a 5-mile radius. The student demographics where I work are about 50% black, 40% Hispanic, 10% everything else. By contrast, almost all of the teachers are white.

In this situation, I have discovered that I am, in fact, racist. And so are many of the adults I work with. It's not always an obvious racism, maybe, but it's there - in the "us vs. them" comments, the "it's their culture" explanation for difficult students. I know that part of this is the teacher-student generational gap that's present in any school, but I cannot believe that race does not come into play when there is such a huge demographic difference between the teachers and the students.

It's a very uncomfortable thing to realize that I am not nearly so free of prejudice as I thought I was. As I would like to be. The question is, what am I going to do about it? It's one thing to see and acknowledge that I have racist thoughts and beliefs - but how does one overcome those deep-seated assumptions?

I think it has to be an on-going process of becoming aware of my own motivations, and then questioning them. Not only that, but I need to have the courage to counter the prejudiced remarks of others...which brings its own set of difficulties, in that I don't want to assume racism where it doesn't exist, and neither do I want to exude a holier-than-thou attitude.

This is something I still need to spend some time pondering, clearly. I am grateful, though, that my eyes have at least been opened a little.

DIY shampoo and conditioner!

2011-01-09T23:26:00.003-05:00

Over winter break, I did a bit of experimenting with alternatives to my regular full-of-strange-chemicals shampoo and hair conditioner. After some online research, I decided to use baking soda to cleanse and honey and vinegar to condition. I also had some essential oils lying around from past projects that turned out to be really good for hair too. I'm happy to report that this stuff works - my hair actually feels cleaner and softer than it does with the store-bought stuff! So here is what I use:

Shampoo
1 heaping Tbsp baking soda
A dime-sized amount of jojoba oil
A few drops each of essential oils (I use tea tree, lavender, and rosemary)
6 oz hot water

Instructions: Add baking soda and oils to an empty bottle (I use old plastic body wash bottles). Add water and shake until the baking soda is dissolved. In the shower, squeeze the mixture over wet hair and massage into scalp. Rinse well. Your hair may feel rather rough, but don't worry!

Conditioner
2 Tbsp apple cider vinegar
2 tsp honey
8 oz hot water

Instructions: As with shampoo, dissolve the first two ingredients with hot water in a bottle. After washing with the baking soda, pour conditioner mix slowly over hair and comb through with fingers, paying special attention to the ends. Let it soak in for a couple minutes, then rinse thoroughly (ending with cool water, if you can stand it; that helps seal the hair follicle).

If you have short hair, you can use less water. I've also read of a popular leave-in conditioner alternative that consists of 1 tsp of honey dissolved in 1 qt hot water, which you do NOT rinse out, but I haven't tried it.

After a certain point....

2011-01-03T22:51:00.005-05:00

...a continued series of mishaps begins to take on the shade of comedy.

Today I am thankful for:
My mother's generosity, as overbearing and fussy as it can sometimes be.
My sister leaving me 30GB worth of good music on her old laptop.
Being able to store files in the Internet cloud.
My roommates, who left a lovely clean house to come home to.
The CTA (really).
New sheet music for old familiar songs, and a piano at my fingertips.

Holiday thoughts

2010-12-25T20:05:00.005-05:00

I believe it is normally the case that people to look forward to the holidays - to time off from work, time with family and friends. My feelings toward these things are tepid at best. I always seem to regress back to the maturity level of a hormonal 14-year-old girl when I'm with my family; I become short-tempered, defensive, sulky, and otherwise unpleasant to be around.

Of course, this was a fact about myself that I disliked even before I converted, but I found ways to blame it on other people (principally my mother). Never did I suffer pangs of conscience over my behavior, or try to bite my tongue for the sake of family harmony.

I had hoped for a while that being baptized, in addition to washing away past sins, would magically give me the ability to be patient and cheerful with my family. This is certainly not the case, and I find myself taking another look at my own words and actions - and realizing that a lot of my unhappiness is, to a great degree, my own fault. Because I'm closed to the possibility of friendly interaction with my family, I actually prevent it from happening. I assume my mother is going to criticize me, and I react accordingly - I go on the defensive, which puts her on the defensive, and we both get frustrated together. Being friendly and open is a much more vulnerable position to take than being cynical and suspicious. I suppose I don't trust my family enough to be that open, and that's probably the case on all sides. But somebody's got to break the cycle. I'm afraid that maybe the task will fall to me, and I'm afraid I'm not strong enough to do it. This is a place where I really, really need the Lord's help.

I see a similar thread in my relationship with God, too. Why do I sin, or hesitate to reject sin? Because at some level I don't trust God to provide for me - so I have to go out and seize what I think it is I need, what I think is good for me. I suspect that I'll miss out otherwise. But my task is to live righteously and faithfully, not to worry about what clothes I will wear or what food I will eat. If what I want can only be gotten through sin, then that's not what God has intended for me, and I should trust that He has something better in mind. Only it's hard to let go of that control, sometimes.

So I guess I have some trust issues to work on...

in the winter morning

2010-12-13T17:29:00.003-05:00

little paw prints at our door, leading under the cars

crunch-creak of white crushed under boots

magical glitter of snow in the street lamp dawn

tugging futilely at ice-crusted doors for long anxious minutes

(note to self, don't leave the ice scraper in the car)

I'll add 15 minutes to my morning routine, for the daily excavation

Vaguely Hispanic Stew

2010-12-10T20:28:00.002-05:00

This isn't really a recipe so much as a recounting of what we threw together last night...

Ingredients:

1 15-oz can chili (with or without meat)

1 28-oz can kidney beans, drained

1 28-oz can tomatoes

1 c frozen corn

1 medium onion, diced

2 c leftover cooked rice

Combine all ingredients in a large pot. Bring to a slow boil and simmer over low heat until onions are cooked and stew reaches desired thickness. Serve with fresh cornbread and honey.

Impressions from retreat

2010-12-08T08:20:00.003-05:00

Sudden realization: snowflakes do in fact look like lacy fractal crystals, just like the ones we make out of paper.

Winter is the beauty of form instead of color - bare slender nakedness of branches, the sweeping smoothness of snow-covered ground.

Love is a parcel of candy (from St. Nick, of course) waiting at your door in the morning.

The warmth of deep cushions before a roaring fire.

The thrill of seeing a flock of wild turkeys in the distance. Later, finding their tracks in the thin snow.

Wind chimes tolling, to call me to the labyrinth hidden under the white.

A secret path through the pines, evergreen in the sunrise.

Listening to the silence and stillness of winter.

The stillness of God.

Quote of the day

2010-12-02T20:51:00.003-05:00

"The best lint is found outside laundromats. That's because it is the lint of poor people, and I like poor people lint."

A typical day

2010-12-02T19:22:00.001-05:00

5:33 a.m. My alarm goes off. I hit the snooze button.

5:37 a.m. Alarm goes off again.

5:39 a.m. In a concentrated burst of willpower, I get out of bed.

6:20 a.m. Oatmeal (with brown sugar, raisins, and Saigon cinnamon) is done cooking. I spoon out our three portions into bowls; leave two bowls covered with plates on the counter for Dan and Laura.

6:36 a.m. I leave the house, catching a glimpse of sunrise if it's not cloudy.

6:48 a.m. I cross State Street on my way to work. The vents in my car are finally producing warm air rather than cold.

7:22 a.m. A student comes into my Period A room (the computer lab) and asks if she can print out a paper. For the thirty-seventh time, the answer is no - students must go either to the library or to the lab across the hall.

7:49 a.m. Morning announcements conclude with prayers. I ponder the possible contradiction of praying both for "peace and an end to all violence" and "for our armed forces, that they may return home soon and safely". If you're a soldier and you come home safe...that probably means somebody on the opposing side didn't. Don't we want peace and safety for everyone, not just our own?

8:39 a.m. Bell rings for end of Period A. I go down to the office to fax my Chinese students' homework to the Chinese teacher, who is based at another high school. I then head upstairs to Mrs. D's room, where I am in charge of grammar lessons for the freshmen and sophomores.

10:45 a.m. Partway through Period D (sophomore English), my stomach starts notifying me that it's been 4.5 hours since this morning's oatmeal.

11:19 a.m. Period D ends; Periods E and F are lunch. I have cafeteria supervision duty for one period every day, alternating between E and F. I am slightly appalled at the content of the students' preferred meals.

11:45 a.m. Warning bell rings in cafeteria, signaling the girls to start cleaning up. I am again slightly appalled, this time at the amount of packaging and uneaten food that goes straight into the trash cans (though there is recycling for cans and plastic). I remember that I ought to follow up on my compost heap proposal.

11:47 a.m. Lunch: sandwich of whole-wheat bread with jelly and homemade yogurt cheese, baby carrots, fruit. Listen to teachers talk about goings-on at school.

12:18 p.m. For Period G, I go down the hall to play piano for the choir.

1:14 p.m. Freshman math - the basics. The girls seem to like asking me to help them with their work, and I hope I don't confuse them with my attempted explanations. I wonder how it happened that none of them know their multiplication tables...what was going on at their previous schools? It's difficult for me to understand their difficulties sometimes; there is such a gap between my experience and theirs. I realize how privileged I was to get such a good education.

2:01 p.m. If I have not been called upon to substitute for an absent teacher this period, I go down to work the reception desk in the basement. This position also includes being the school nurse, despite my complete lack of medical training. I pray that no one will ever show up with an ailment that can't be cured by ibuprofen, ice, or lying down on the cot for a while.

3:05 p.m. Ten minutes after school gets out, a student takes over my post and I leave.

3:35 p.m - 4 p.m. I arrive home sometime in this range, depending on traffic. Possibly I stop by at Jewel to pick up bread or oatmeal.

5:18 p.m. I meet Dan and Laura at the YMCA. The front desk staff knows who we are, probably because of the fuss we had to kick up to get our discounted memberships. And probably also because there aren't that many other young white or Asian people who come in.

6:45 p.m. We arrive home, and dinner preparations commence, interspersed with showers and plinking at the piano or guitar. After dinner, washing up.

9:49 p.m. Dan says, "We could watch a movie...". Migration to the living room ensues. Blankets are doled out and couch cushions are settled into.

10 p.m. My bedtime goes shuffling by, unnoticed.

11:11 p.m. Dan falls asleep on the couch. Laura and I pay no mind.

11:35 p.m. I realize that my bedtime is long past, groan, and begin preparations.

Stage direction of the day

2010-09-28T11:28:00.004-04:00

[Crochets indignantly.]

(Twelve Angry Women, Act II)

Impressions from the weekend

2010-09-25T23:14:00.003-04:00

taste of mint tea and honey

several phone calls later, realizing I am not alone

the familiar-forgotten rough sweep and flick of a paintbrush on canvas

a herd of clouds on the horizon over the lake, clustered like they're stuck in traffic too

printed words filling the silence

sometimes...

2010-09-23T18:06:00.002-04:00

Sometimes I wish the rest of my family would get their act together and their priorities straight, and at least try to do the right thing...

or I wish that it didn't hurt so much when they don't.

A recipe for leftovers

2010-09-22T15:44:00.004-04:00

Vaguely Hispanic Pie
Makes 1 9x13 dish

(Amounts are approximate):
6-8 corn tortillas
5 cups leftover cooked rice and pinto beans
1 bell pepper, diced
3 oz mild cheese, grated
Hot sauce, to taste
1/3 c Barbecue sauce
1 loaf's worth of batter for your favorite cornbread

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.

2. Line the bottom of a greased 9x13 baking dish with a single layer of tortillas.

3. Mix the diced pepper, hot sauce, and barbecue sauce with the rice and beans, and spread it evenly over the tortillas until the dish is about 2/3 full.

4. Sprinkle with cheese, and pour the cornbread batter carefully over all.

5. Bake at 400 degrees for about 45 minutes, then lower the temperature to 350. Bake until the cornbread is deeply brown around the edges, and lightly browned on top - about 15 minutes more.

This recipe is merely a suggestion; you could do different things with the vegetables, cheese, meat, etc.

BTW

2010-09-22T15:35:00.005-04:00

I've decided that all my posts will now be in fragments, because that is about all I can manage without feeling overwhelmed...

Seen on a sophomore's geography test:

Describe the human characteristics of your city/region.

Funny, respectful, honest, & Mexican.

Seen on (more than one) freshman's vocabulary quiz:
Maria High School is a Catholic school, which means we are biodegradable in our religious beliefs.

Fragments

2010-09-21T18:37:00.001-04:00

Morning, dim classroom.

Computer lights softly blink -

fireflies on standby.

Rounding swell of a sophomore's belly -

what does it feel like,

having a new human being in there?

she knows; I don't.

More adventures

2010-09-06T12:41:00.002-04:00

There's always so much going on here that I hardly have the time to sit down and write about it! On Friday I gave out my first detention...it was nothing too crazy, just that one of my girls in Chinese was checking out celebrity gossip online, after I had warned the class twice that school computers are not for such personal uses.

Friday night we had Dan's open pasta night - four folks from the Augustinian Volunteers came over for dinner. We couldn't find (and still can't find) our corkscrew, so we had to open the wine by pushing the cork through with a hammer and nail. Good times. Dinner also included intense discussion about politics and moral theology, which was, well, intense. Dan and Saba continued arguing about the criminal justice system long into the night.

Saturday morning, Laura and I went to the bank so she could open an account and I could deposit a check. The line was about 30 people deep, and we were pretty much the only non-black people in the building. It was a curious feeling. Then we went up to the Chicago Jazz Festival for the afternoon, and met up with my former boyfriend John. It was a beautiful, crisp sunny day - definitely the first of the fall weather. We lay on the grass listening to music, attempted to fly a kite, and walked along the lake to Navy Pier. It was quite late when we got back and started dinner, but the delay was worth it - homemade tortillas with beef and rice, sliced fresh peaches, fresh iced tea, even pie and ice cream for dessert.

Sunday I took Laura and Saba to St. Thomas the Apostle for Mass. It was another lovely morning, with the sun streaming through stained glass to softly light the interior of the church. After lunch we headed out to Laura's friend's family's lake house, to the southwest of Chicago. What a day! Laura persuaded me to try tubing, and it was a blast - terrifying, but exhilarating. When we were finally dislodged from the raft, by means of it flipping completely over, I swear I did corkscrews before I actually hit the water. It was great. We drank wine and watched a cloudy sunset over the lake, with that tired contented post-beach feeling. Our generous hosts fed us lavishly, and we had yet more intense discussions about the Church over dinner.

At about 11pm it was time to go home, and we drove off - only to find an entire (small) tree blocking the road out. Dan and Saba got out to try to move the thing, but the main trunk was just too much. Fortunately, a man and his sons drove up in a pickup, and they were able to drag the tree off with the truck. The pickup driver also very kindly showed us the way back to the main road, cheering us with his open beer can as we waved goodbye.

Sometimes I have to wonder at the course of events that brought me to where I am...

Well.

2010-08-30T17:43:00.003-04:00

It is rather strange not to have homework, or reading, to do in my spare time - it is strange to have the whole glorious weekend to do whatever I like. Saturday we went downtown, caught a free movie at the Chicago Cultural Center, and wandered around Millennium Park. Sunday we hopped over to Hyde Park, spent hours browsing the used bookstores, and lay on the grass in the Quads, reading.

Unfortunately this lovely idyll was marred by the fact that, while we were at Mass on Sunday, somebody came into our house and stole my and Laura's laptops.

Tired

2010-08-27T23:20:00.002-04:00

There's never a dull moment around here, I have to say. Wednesday night we (meaning Dan, Laura, me, Dan's mother, and the former owner) moved a piano into the Cap Corps house. It is quite out of tune, but nevertheless it is glorious to have a piano right there for the playing! Apparently it is an antique too, because the makers (P.A. Starck) went out of business in 1965. I've been up long past my bedtime the last two nights, playing.

In fact, I don't think I've had more than 5 or so hours of sleep a night for this entire week. It definitely showed today - I got my students' names mixed up in Chinese this morning, fell asleep during afternoon classes, and was generally slow on the uptake all day. It is terrifying to drive through Chicago in such a state, what with all the jaywalkers and impatient drivers.

In other news, today I found out that one of the 13-year-old freshmen in my teacher's classes has a 1-year-old son. Yes. Meaning she had a child when she was barely an 8th grader. What kind of a world is this, where girls have babies while they are still children themselves?

Adventures

2010-08-23T22:08:00.002-04:00

Crazy weekend! We drove to Milwaukee on Friday to stay with the Milwaukee volunteers and go to Irishfest. The drive up was a bit of adventure: torrential rain to the extent that I couldn't see the lane markers and could only blindly follow the lights of the car in front of me. Whew. Saturday night we went to a free salsa lesson at a local club, which was a lot of fun! Sunday we went to Mass at Irishfest, which was lovely but not very conducive to prayer. Spent the rest of the day wandering around the festival itself - harp music, a bodhran lesson, a taste of mead...then it was time to go back to Chicago.

Did I mention the piano? Yes, we are (trying to) get a piano for the volunteer house. We actually found someone who'd give it to us for free as a tax-deductible donation, and were intending to pick it up on the way back Sunday night. Alas, it was not to be, because Dan's truck broke down just inside the border with Wisconsin. There ensued several hours of driving, and we got home around 1:30 in the morning. Then my alarm naturally failed to go off this morning, so that I was late to work. Not that that's a huge problem, since today was only the second day of classes and I have yet to actually do anything useful.

Dinner tonight: New Best Recipe's corn chowder, kale mashed potatoes from 101 Cookbooks, and homemade unleavened bread. Oh, and cheap beer from a Milwaukee gas station. Yum!

Day One

2010-08-15T21:43:00.004-04:00

Well, after a whirlwind orientation in Milwaukee, here we are! We moved into the Chicago house last night and spent most of today cleaning and unpacking. Too tired to write a coherent post now, but some highlights...

1. Dan's car is like a magic knapsack from some fairy tale - judging from the contents we unloaded from it, it must be much bigger on the inside than it is on the outside.

2. We arrived late at Mass today because we thought it started at 10am, but it actually starts at 9am. Nonetheless, we were in time for Communion and even got to introduce ourselves to the congregation.

3. The technology we've encountered in the house makes me feel like we've gone back in time. VHSes on the shelf in the living room, an old (and heavy) vacuum cleaner, cars that play cassettes instead of CDs, ancient beige-grey computer parts in the closet...

4. There are some ants in the house. As long as they're the biggest crawly things we see, though, I'm not complaining.

5. In-unit laundry is a real luxury, after 4 years of lugging hampers down to basements with dirty coin-operated machines!

6. It's been so hot recently, I keep thinking of this line from a Vienna Teng song: "One bedroom, one bath / AC was fine 'til yesterday / One bedroom, one bath / eighty-nine degrees today..."

7. I realize I have very little actual experience trying to keep a strict budget, since my parents generously paid for my living expenses during college.

Church aesthetics

2010-07-10T19:55:00.007-04:00

The church where I was baptized, St. Thomas the Apostle in Chicago, is a beautiful place. It doesn't have the dazzling, humbling glory of a cathedral, but it does have a certain venerable elegance. Sadly I did not think to take any good pictures of the church before I left Hyde Park. The ones on this page give a general idea, though they do not do it full justice.

It is a building that holds a feast for the senses. First there are the massive old red doors with their heavy bronze handles, the doors to a fortress of faith. As eyes adjust from the sunshine outside to the cool interior, a shallow pool of holy water invites a dip of the fingers. Inside the nave is muted brightness - light from the tall stained glass windows gleaming on dark wood paneling and pews. The lingering scent of incense, candles, and chrism instantly reminds one that yes, this is a church! A closer look at the walls reveals the Stations of the Cross inscribed in bronze. Suspended above, in front of the sanctuary, is a large image of Christ on a cross, robed in splendor. On either side of Him are colorful banners, hand-sewn many years ago by a parishioner. In an arc above the perimeter of the sanctuary are seven red candles - all of them lit for Easter. The eyes are drawn to the great golden tabernacle, surrounded by flowers and candles on the old altar. On either side of the sanctuary, there are smaller shrines to Mary and Joseph, with more candles burning in their red and blue glass holders. When Mass is over and the church is dark and quiet, the candles burn on, watchful sentinels.

Accustomed to such modest splendors, it was quite a shock for me when I went to confession at one of the two Catholic churches in my parents' area. The pale grey walls and plain wooden statues were unrelieved but for a few green streamers on the ceilings. I know there must have been a tabernacle but I couldn't see it. This was not helped by the fact that the blonde wooden pews did not actually face the altar - they were lined up facing the center of the room. There were no kneelers, no candles, no stained glass. There was no rich smoky hint of incense in the air. It was all very new, shiny and modern, and it hardly felt like a church at all - much less a Catholic one. I like minimalism well enough sometimes, but in my opinion it does not belong in a church.

Now of course, not all parishes can have venerable old buildings, nor should everything be carved and ornamented and gilded to the nines. But I think it's good for churches to delight the eye with a bit of color and detail, don't you? A space for worship should do homage to the beauty of God's creation. It should be a place we can revere, a place that makes our hearts leap a little bit, to see the gifts He has given to mankind. It should be special. Shouldn't it?

Food and I

2010-07-10T00:50:00.007-04:00

During college, I was on a pretty regular flight schedule between Chicago and California; I think I've earned at least 2 or 3 free roundtrips through Southwest over the course of 4 years. Whenever I'm waiting in an airport, I allow myself the indulgence of buying 2 or 3 food magazines to pass the time (though I have yet to find a replacement of equal caliber for the now-defunct Gourmet). I love to savor a good description, ponder lists of ingredients, linger over a luscious photograph. We taste with our eyes first, don't we? If I can't afford to vacation in exotic places or dine at world-famous restaurants, reading about them is the next best thing.

I've also been an avid follower of food blogs for a few years now, which have the advantage over magazines of being free. Vast, encyclopedic sites like AllRecipes.com are great when you already have an idea or an ingredient in mind, but food blogs are good for meandering, for tasting here and there - one recipe at a time. It's more personal, like getting a recipe from a friend instead of a cookbook.

I found this soup through The Kitchen Sink. It's meatless, but still very nutritious; I think it's equally good in winter or summer. In the winter, it makes a refreshing change from heartier, richer fare; in warmer weather, it's filling but not too heavy. Also, it's quite simple to make.

This soup may not look like much, as Kristin says, but the lively flavor belies its dull appearance. There's the fresh zip of lemon juice, the mellow sweetness of onions, the stolid earthiness of lentils and chard...what can I say, it's good!

Lentil and Swiss Chard Soup

Food and Wine, by way of The Kitchen Sink

The original recipe includes 1/2 c chopped cilantro, which I omit.

1 c brown lentils, rinsed

4 c water

4 c chicken stock (I use Better Than Bouillon)

1 large onion, diced

4 cloves garlic, minced

1 bunch Swiss chard, ribs removed, leaves coarsely chopped

1/3 c fresh lemon juice

salt, fresh-ground black pepper, crushed red pepper

Put the lentils, water, and stock in a medium pot; bring to a boil, then simmer partly covered for about 25 minutes, until the lentils are just tender.

Meanwhile, cook the onions in a large skillet, with a bit of salt and crushed red pepper, until fragrant and lightly browned. Add the garlic (plus cilantro, if using) and cook until the garlic starts to turn golden. Add the chard leaves, a big handful at a time, and cook until just wilted.

When the lentils have cooked as specified above, add the skillet mixture to the soup pot. Simmer, partly covered, until the soup has thickened slightly (about 15 minutes). Stir in lemon juice, plus salt and pepper to taste.

Serves 4-6.

One day at a time

2010-06-22T23:27:00.002-04:00

I'm back in California now, living with my parents for about a month. It's a challenge, but less so than before my conversion. I've been praying about the difficulties of my relationship with my mother, and what did God send me but this: The Work of All Kids: How to Forgive Our Parents, by the wonderful Ann Voskamp of A Holy Experience. I took her suggestion and stuffed two little tea tins full of thank-you notes, gifts for Mom and Dad both. Reading Ann's post, and remembering all the things I wanted to thank my parents for, gave me a new perspective. It was truly an answered prayer.

It also helps that I've found some activities to get me out of the house on a regular basis. There's a soup kitchen in my town that always needs volunteers, so I've been able to sign up for several shifts over the four weeks that I'm here. And there's always the local library to escape to!

Sunshine after the rain

2010-06-18T21:29:00.004-04:00

A ferocious thunderstorm rolled through Chicago this afternoon - 75 mph winds, orchestral thunder and lightning, rain pelting the windows like pebbles, sudden darkness after a sunny morning. After it passed, the air was beautifully cool and the sun shone with that particular post-rain glitter.

I've been doing a bit too much brooding with my recent posts, I think, and it's time for the sun to come back out. Better to count my blessings rather than my troubles!

A few things I am grateful for:

Good health for myself and my loved ones. A healthy body is so easy to take for granted - we don't notice it until something hurts, or we are unsatisfied with some aspect. But every breath and blink and beat of the heart is a miracle. As Regina Spektor puts it: I've got a perfect body, just sometimes I forget / I've got a perfect body, 'cause my eyelashes catch my sweat / yes they do, they do

The freedom to serve with Cap Corps next year. No matter what my mother says, I'm lucky to have this time - no dependents, no major financial burdens or anything. That is unlikely to be the case for the rest of my life, so I am glad that God led me to this opportunity now.

Daily Mass. Even when I show up late and sweaty, wearing shorts, and trip over the names in the first reading, and can't take Communion because I accidentally ate a veggie chip half an hour ago. Which was what happened today.

Long conversations with good friends.

Wild thunderstorms, and shelter to stay out of them.

Sunshine.

Lord, thank you so much for this day and for all your blessings.

Foolishness

2010-06-17T23:04:00.010-04:00

In my last post, I waxed indignant about my mother's lack of support for my year of service. I forgot that, from a non-Christian perspective, what I'm doing really doesn't make that much sense. Living on a bare-bones budget and serving as a teaching assistant for a year? Laudable intentions, perhaps, but hardly an impressive endeavor.

My parents immigrated here from Taiwan in the 1970s for graduate school; they worked hard to give us kids a comfortable middle-class life. In their eyes (and the eyes of society in general), success means a well-paying and stable job, a nice house in the suburbs, two cars, and two or three children. They paid for my expensive college education to give me a boost towards this vision of success - not so I could fritter it away on a volunteer job that pays almost nothing.

Christ, however, calls us to a radically different path: a life of service to others, where success is measured not by how wealthy we are, but by how well and truly we have loved each other and the Lord. We are Christ's hands and feet in the world; we are the conduits for his love. And God loves mankind with a wild and unreasonable love, such that Jesus would say:

What man among you having a hundred sheep and losing one of them would not leave the ninety-nine in the desert, and go after the lost one until he finds it? (Luke 15:4)

I always thought this was crazy talk. Father Pat from our campus Catholic center confirmed that in a homily the other day. Any shepherd in his right mind wouldn't leave the rest of the flock for the sake of one sheep that he might or might not find. It would be stupid, illogical. That is why I say God loves us with a wild and unreasonable love, because he does go after that one lost sheep. He doesn't give up on anyone - even if we humans do.

In the face of this love, how could I do anything but throw in my lot with God? Why would I choose the path of material success, as if I knew better than the One who made me?

I should not, therefore, be angry at my mother's incomprehension, nor should I expect the world to respect my choices. That is not my goal, and it is only because I am too full of pride that I desire such praise. My goal is to follow Christ as best I can, to seek His approval above all. Perhaps my foolishness may even inspire my family and other non-Christians to take a closer look at the Christian message...that would be a greater reward than any six-figure salary.

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

-St. Francis of Assisi

Obedience

2010-06-16T23:56:00.006-04:00

I am looking forward immensely to my year with Cap Corps. A year of living in intentional community, a year of helping young women succeed, a year of prayer and service to the Lord.

My mother, on the other hand, doesn't think much of the whole volunteering enterprise - she told me that I should start looking for jobs for 2011, so that I don't "waste another year". She already assumes that I will get nothing "useful" out of the experience. According to her, volunteering with those less privileged is beneath me, because it "doesn't require brainpower". And my father is only half joking when he says that I can serve society...by making a lot of money and then giving some of it to charity. Which is true, to some extent, but it's not quite the same...

It's hard for me to go against my parents' wishes. There's an adjective in Mandarin, guai, which describes obedient, meek, quiet children who do what they are told. I am used to being guai. Even when I know my mother is wrong, her disapproval activates little voices of self-doubt and uncertainty in my mind. My mother carried me for nine months, gave birth to me, raised me - don't I owe her obedience? Having been around for 40 years longer than I have, wouldn't she know what she's talking about? Maybe I should listen to her. Maybe I'm wrong.

But now there is a higher authority than hers that I must obey. I want to be guai in God's eyes, not in the eyes of others, even my parents. I must honor my mother and father, yes, but above all I must honor and serve God. I cannot serve two masters.

If anyone comes to me without hating his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.

(Luke 15:26-27)

The trouble is, God often speaks with a quieter voice, a voice that can be ignored - unlike my mother's! So I need to get better at listening.

Laughing matters

2010-06-06T23:08:00.005-04:00

Since becoming a Christian, I’ve also noticed myself becoming...well, the type of person my old self would have told to “lighten up”. It’s a rather unsettling feeling.

Tonight, for example, I and several friends went to an Improv Olympics show which was part of our Senior Week programming. Almost all the jokes consisted of sexual innuendo, with nothing particularly subtle or creative about it. Requests for ideas from the audience elicited more of the same, with the occasional alcohol-related reference thrown in. People around me were laughing and clapping, but I didn’t see why the show was entertaining or funny at all.

I used to relish making sexual jokes myself, the more unexpected the better. South Park and Sex and the City were among my favorite TV shows. Feeling uncomfortable and faintly disgusted at this type of content is a new development. Am I being a prude? Should I just “lighten up” and stop being so easily offended?

I don’t think that’s the solution. Being respectful is not the same as being dour and humorless. I don’t believe there are many things so sacred that they can’t be funny in some context, and humor is a great ally against fear, anxiety, despair. But there’s a big difference between being light-hearted and being gratuitously crude. Unfortunately, most of the humor in our mainstream media is of the latter variety these days.

The trouble is, nobody wants to be a “downer”, or make other people uncomfortable by objecting to inappropriate humor. We isolate ourselves beneath veils and masks of humor, afraid to share our other feelings. When we make everything a joke, it becomes difficult to actually have serious conversations when we need to. It is good to laugh together, of course, but that is not the highest pinnacle of human relationships. A friendship built only on laughter is incomplete; the deepest trust comes from sharing pain and sorrow. The same could be said of our relationship with God - we cling closest to Him in our times of darkness, rather than in our times of joy.

Perhaps laughter is not always the best medicine, after all?

Trusting God

2010-06-05T11:51:00.002-04:00

To love is to trust. A large part of loving and serving God is simply trusting Him rather than myself.

This is something I often struggle with. I have always been the sort of person who likes to know everything in advance and plan ahead. I like to be in control. As a student I always disliked group projects and preferred to get things done myself, even if it meant more work.

Of course, this kind of fore-knowledge and control is an illusion – no one can truly know what the future will bring. Better to remember the One who really is in control, and trust in His plans for my life.

It is hard to let go of the illusion, though. It is hard to see beyond my immediate hopes and desires, to accept that God would deny me only because He has something better in mind. It is especially difficult in this period of transition in my life, when nothing is certain and I haven’t the faintest idea where I will be after next summer.

On the other hand, if I did know the course of my life in advance, it is quite likely I would neither enjoy the present nor have the courage to face the future. Such is human nature!

God, give us grace to accept with serenity 
the things that cannot be changed, 

Courage to change the things 

which should be changed, 
and the Wisdom to distinguish 
the one from the other.

Living one day at a time, 
enjoying one moment at a time, 
accepting hardship as a pathway to peace;
taking, as Jesus did, 
this sinful world as it is, 
not as I would have it;
trusting that You will make all things right 
if I surrender to Your will;
so that I may be reasonably happy in this life, 
and supremely happy with You forever in the next.
Amen.

-Reinhold Neibuhr