Class Reunions, and other stuff

Last Friday and Saturday night I attended my 30th high school reunion events in Clarksburg. It was wonderful! I got to reconnect with my best friend from high school (the only person for whom I have ever been a bridesmaid) and lots of other classmates.
Friday night we had a dinner and dance at a banquet center....I got to dress up (which I don't get to do very often) and cut footloose on the dance floor to some good 80s tunes.
Saturday night a bunch of us met at a little bar downtown, but then decided we'd rather go out to the Red Caboose instead. It was a BLAST! I got to talk to more classmates and had some yummy shrimp scampi.
Two great things about the weekend: no one recognized me (and I was told several times that I look great, which made me happy and proved I have a long way to go in the humility department), and I didn't hear anyone complaining about people who like to do fun things that have no other purpose besides being fun. Quite refreshing.
Hopefully the ones of us who are still local will be able to get together more often!
Other random things:
I read somewhere that rickets is on the rise. Makes me glad I don't make my kids smother in those wetsuit-looking suits....I also don't contribute much to the financial success of the sunblock manufacturers.
Oregano and Barbecue are laying regularly every day now. :)
If anyone has any suggestions for dealing with a stubborn, borderline defiant, destructive, disrespectful child who never has any remorse or regret for misdeeds, please share.
I'm reading an interesting book right now about the 1960 Rome Olympic Games. Once I get this Blogger app figured out I'll post a link, but it should be on Amazon.
We have thunderstorms right now, and the wind is from the north which is pretty much opposite of the way it usually comes. We had hail the size of marbles!
I think that's it for now.
Happy Labor Day!

hailstones!

What I'm Reading

Right now I've got several books going.

The Soloist, by Steve Lopez.  Story of a newspaper columnist who befriends a talented musician who suffers from mental illness.  It's my 'downstairs' book, the one I read over lunch, or when I am waiting for a client to arrive for a fitting appointment. I'm about a third of the way through this. (When getting the link to the Amazon.com listing for this, I discovered that it has been made into a movie).

The Last Ship, by William Brinkley.  Naval novel of nuclear holocaust leaving just one American ship and one Russian sub. I've read it before so it's going quickly this time around; I'm in the final quarter of the book. This is my 'light bedtime reading' book.

On the Holy Spirit, Saint Basil the Great.  Discussion on the third Person of the Trinity by one of the greatest of the early Fathers.  This is very slow going, as there is a lot to digest in every paragraph.  I expect it to take me about a year to finish this. I generally pick this up in the morning before I start work, while I'm waiting for my iron to heat up.

What have you read recently, or what are you reading now?

What I'm Reading

I may have mentioned this before but I can't go to sleep if I don't read something before turning out the light.  Right now my current book is Stalingrad:  the Fateful Siege 1942-1943.

A story of two military forces, the ideologies behind both of which I completely disagree with (my, that is bad grammar, but I'm too lazy to edit right now).

Evidently the climate in that part of Russia is particularly harsh in the wintertime.  Add to that the problems of the Nazi German forces being spread very thinly over an enormously long Eastern Front (so thin that in some places they were 'drafting' overrun civilians instead of treating them as POWs); also the distances in Russia are simply LONG and Stalingrad is a very far distance from Moscow, communications were not as instant as we have today, and there you have the recipe for a long, drawn-out tragedy.

Stalingrad held, but just barely, and at what a price!  Party commissars attempted to micromanage every part of the battles without understand anything of basic military battle strategy.  Hitler and his top advisers refused to acknowledge the truth of the fact that their forces were extremely ill-prepared for the conditions they encountered both while advancing the Front towards the city, and the determination of both the civilian residents of Stalingrad and the Soviet forces tasked with defending it.

War is a nasty, horrible, tragic business.

I Hope I Get Points for Trying; or, the Meaty Book that stuck in my throat

A friend of mine lent me a book - The Restoration of Christian Culture by John Senior - which I have been trying to get through for the past couple of weeks.  As 'meaty books' go, it's pretty meaty.  But it reminds me more of a pot roast that's been left a bit too long in the oven and then served without gravy, potatoes or vegetables to make a complete meal. Mr. Senior's writing style is very much like Pope John Paul II of blessed memory; extremely dense, with circular statements that wind around themselves and require several re-readings of the text in order to make sense of them.  Had this been my own book, I would have found it helpful to use my handy-dandy marking crayons and a pen to underline and make notes in order to better understand what he was getting at. As it is I managed to make it through about half the book before deciding to skim the remainder out of charity and not further subject myself to a literary-induced headache (in addition to several episodes of wanting to find the author and fling the book at him in utter frustration).

It goes without saying that the author despises television.  But he also inveighs against radio and recorded music as well.

Electronic reconstitutions of disintegrated sounds are not real sounds any more than reconstituted, sterilized lactates are milk. ... Catholics have accepted some of the worst distortions of their Faith in the order of music, art and literature without a shiver of discontent because they never really heard the "Tantum Ergo" or the Ave maris stella" - not for lack of faith, but because there had never been ordinary music in the home to have created the habit of good sound and sense.

And just where are we supposed to hear those two hymns?  Not in any parish around here on a regular basis.  It's lovely if one has a parish where the traditional hymnography of the Church has been preserved and fostered, but the reality is that most of them have lazy, cowardly music directors who think the purpose of a choir is not to lead and support the congregational singing, but to perform for and entertain the assembled people (because, you know, they are too stupid and dense to have an original meditative thought or to have the ability, much less the desire, to actually pray the Mass).

A little later in the book is a section about work.

But one of the bitterest questions the majority of us must ask is whether, even if we do a good job, the work is good to begin with, that is, if it is really necessary to the common good. ...

A test of your own good work would be to think what you will say some day to your grandchildren when they ask, "What did you do in your day, Grandpa (sic)?"  Burke said that though it is true that there is a dignity in work, not all work is dignified - hairdressing, for example.

Unfortunately Mr. Senior doesn't elaborate on his opinion that hairdressing is 'undignified' work.  I imagine he might think that my work, inasmuch as it is not 100% liturgical/clerical tailoring, is not only not necessary to the 'common good' but is also not dignified unless my talent is being put to use for the Church. I don't know whether that's objectively true or not; I only know that there are certain regular monthly expenses of maintaining a household and providing for my children that must be met, and God having given me the gift or talent of being able to sew and tailor clothing, I use that talent to provide as best I can for my family; much of the time the end of one month meets nicely with the beginning of another without undue stretching or monetary panic.

He goes on at length about Latin too, but I freely admit I practically skimmed over that part.  Yes, we are Catholic, but there's more to Catholicism than Latin, and while I like Latin and the Extraordinary Form of the Mass, I am much more at home with prostrations and Hospodi, pomiluj instead of genuflections and Domine, Miserere nobis.


The kind of Catholic home that the author imagines as ideal is all very nice if it's possible, but at the risk of confirming to the friend who lent me the book that I really am a despicably secular person it probably won't ever happen here at Magpie Manor. The sort of life Mr. Senior advocates as ideal is impossible without a community of like-minded folks with whom to share the journey, and for my family to undertake this would be like mountain climbers attempting Everest without the aid of the Sherpas.  Neither I nor my children receive anything but the most perfunctory overtures of friendship from other Catholic families we know (excepting the family of the friend who lent me the book; I'm beginning to think she's taken me on as a sort of special project) - I think the fact that I'm divorced is really scandalous to most of them, and I'm just not outwardly pious enough to suit them.

Greater Perfection

This is the title of the first of my "Meaty Books" project for 2011.  The author is Sister Miriam Teresa, a Sister of Charity of St. Elizabeth.  It was originally published in 1928 and is a series of transcribed conferences given to the Sisters, written under holy obedience to Sr. Miriam's spiritual father.

Sr. Miriam was a Novice, which makes the depth of these conferences all the more amazing.

I truly enjoyed the book, and have hopes that at least some of what I read over the past several weeks will bear fruit in my life.

I would like to share with you the prayer at the end of the book:

Most Holy and Blessed Trinity, unplumbed and fathomless abyss of divine charity, consume this impetuous victim in the fiery sea of Thy love.  My Father, Thou Who from all eternity didst will my creation and preservation according to nature and grace, receive the holocaust Thou hast desired as an act of total annihilation.  My Jesus, my Uncreated Treasure, take Thy spouse into Thy Heart as a token of complete submission to the least impulse of Thy good pleasure.  Eternal Spirit, on the innermost altar of Thy sanctuary, accept the oblation of Thy chosen one as the seal of entire abandonment to Thy absolute control.

God, the Father Almighty, my Creator, preserve me.

God, the Son, my Redeemer and Spouse, save me.

God, the Holy Ghost, my Sanctifier, enlighten and govern me.

Holy Trinity, one God, perfect me in love.

Holy Trinity, one God, I love Thee. 

 

I think that just about says it.

My next book is "The Conscience of a Conservative" by Barry Goldwater.  Copyright 1960, Victor Publishing Company. This one shouldn't take long to get through; it's a paperback and only 127 pages.  One the back cover are some blurbs from publications which reviewed the book; one of them is from the Soviet "newspaper" Pravda: "A Dangerous, Unwise Affair .... Goldwater will 'End Up In a Pine Box'" (March 21, 1960).  

 

 

 

Meaty Books

I found a nice meaty book last night.  Greater Perfection, by Sr. Miriam Teresa of the Sisters of Charity of St. Elizabeth in Convent Station, NJ.  Copyright 1946.

It's a collection of spiritual conferences to the Sisters, as written under obedience to Sr. Miriam's spiritual father, and only published after Sister's death in 1927.

The first chapter is on religious humility, but much of what she writes applies equally to a lay person.  Lots of people think living a Rule of Life must be onerous and not much fun, and I suppose people who aren't serious about their religion and the state of their souls may think of the ten Commandments, the Virtues and all the other guidelines that Christ and Holy Church have given us to help us grow in holiness as party-poopers.  But I wonder if they've ever bothered to try obedience and humility, seriously and sincerely, for just a few days even.  They might find, as I did, that humbly adhering to a Rule (even if it's just really concentrating on keeping the Ten Commandments in all seriousness) is quite liberating.

And really, all baptized Christians are, in a sense, religious (now there's something to ponder, yes?)  And "it is the keeping of the rule, not the donning of a distinctive habit, that makes ... a religious."  The ultimately simple manifestation of a rule for a lay person is to keep, attentively, the Ten Commandments, the Two Great Commandments of the New Testament, and to cultivate the virtues (and thereby eliminate vices).

Stay tuned......

What Are You Reading?

I'm currently reading several books; I don't seem to be able to stick to just one book at a time.  I'm very slowly and thoughtfully working my way through The Art of Prayer: an Orthodox Anthology and Saint John Climacus' The Ladder of Divine Ascent.

From the introduction to The Art of Prayer:

The Art of Prayer, then, represent the fruit of careful reading over many years in the monastic life....the bulk of the extracts come from Russian writers during the second half of the [nineteenth] century.  Taken as a whole, Father Chariton's anthology sets before the reader the spiritual teaching of the Orthodox Church in its classic and traditional form....

A random quote:

 If you are not successful in your prayer, do not expect success in anything.  It is the root of all.

I have a long way to go, really.

My "lighter fare" right now is A Time for Trumpets: The Untold Story of the Battle of the Bulge by Charles B. MacDonald. It's very well researched and not at all dry and boring.  I find the battles of the European Theater of World War II to be fascinating.......funny that should be so, since the family members who served did so in the Pacific Theater.  That whole period of history really interests me, and it is an endless puzzle and an amazement how everyone got into the 'war effort' at that time - and how different it is today.

So, what are you reading?