That’s it!

I turned on EWTN tonight and just finished watching the show Crossing the Goal. It was a first time but I just love when I turn something on and get just a glimmer of wisdom. It was speaking on the subject of Society and the topic of “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s. And how we don’t give to God anymore in our ever increasing desire for “freedom” from religion.

The words that touched me were this: We should have freedom to do what we ought.

BRILLANT. YES. That’s it. We don’t necessarily need to do what we WANT because sometimes what we WANT is not necessarily the right thing to do. We should have freedom to do what we ought. They also pointed out that the reason we have so much more external monitoring is because our internal compasses, our consciences are not formed as they should. When we lose our conscience, the role of outside “consciences” like the police and the like take over for us.

So, freedom to do what we ought, seems to go hand and hand with forming our conscience. Yes, that sounds right.

 

Being thankful

I’ve heard so many people lately angry, bitter. People who are wondering who are upset over how this current economic times are treating them.

Life isn’t perfect in my household but I have my health, I have my husband, I have 3 gorgeous children who are all healthy. I have wonderful in-laws who give us new-to-us pianos and TVs.

I still have my mother to talk to, though her health isn’t perfect. I have a beautiful and generous sister. And because of the loss of my 2 brothers, I can appreciate my last sibling more. Because of the loss of my father, I am grateful each day for the time I have with my mother and know that we don’t have forever.

We may not all be sitting in the lap of luxury. But my kids have food. We have a roof over our head we are not in danger of losing anytime soon. My husband works hard to support us and I work hard to support my home. I know what I believe and my eyes are wide open.

So, I guess, I am typing this message as a reminder to myself that no matter my daily struggles there is always someone out there going through some other struggles, different then mine, possibly worse than mine but still maintaining their faith.

I can complain I can’t afford all the best food for my child, but out there is someone who can’t afford any food for their child.

I can complain that I get no sleep with my infant or that I have not been blessed with a girl–but out there is someone who gets no sleep because they can’t conceive or carry ANY baby.

I can complain that my baby nurses constantly, but out there is a mama who would do anything to nurse her child and was unable.

I can complain that my husband is gone all night and I miss him terribly, but out there someone doesn’t have a husband or their husband is gone for months at a time.

So, really, yes we can all complain, but out there is someone who would like to be in our shoes and we should be thankful for all our blessings, especially as we move into Thanksgiving.

So, I am thankful I have found good friends. I am thankful for an amazing husband. I am thankful for my faith and belief in Jesus and praise him always. I am thankful for my beautiful boys. I am thankful that I figured out all I had to be thankful for before I didn’t have it any longer.

And I am praying for Suzanne. A beautiful mama raising saints in my neck of the woods who is now facing Stage IV cancer. Please Lord give her the strength to get through this trying time and Don Alvaro please grant us a miracle and give her the time her kids need with her.

 

On heating pads

When I was a little girl we had this heating pad. It rocked. Yeah, so if you laid on it a bit too long, you could get a red spot and could possibly get burned. But that sucker got hot! And you felt that heat.

So a couple days ago I strained my back. It is not a fun experience. Going into a laying down position brings huge pain and tears. So, like a good girl, I called my mommy to check in. Yup, I still call my mommy.

Anyway, she suggested I get out my heating pad. Now, we have one but I’m always so disappointed in the little bit of heat it generates I almost feel like why bother. But, mommy is the best doctor and she knows best so I went into the closet searching for the heating pad and brought it out.

It still can’t compare to that lovely one we had as kids, but I think it did some good.

 

How do you know

that you are on the right path to vocation vs just a job? You can’t quit. No matter how crappy a day has gone, there is no “I’m not going to do this anymore”. Just as Jesus can’t give up on you no matter how many times you turn your back on him, there is absolutely no way to quit. When I got that sucky boss at work, I totally said, Well, I don’t have to work for you, you suck. And I walked away. No problem. I can’t walk away from my kids. God can’t walk away from us, I can’t walk away from them. Not if what I am doing is right and true.

Now, of course, you can see that this is a blessing in good times and a curse in bad right?

So, on a day the kiddos decide to act up you realize, your whole life is entwined in them. Your life is THEM. And some might see this as a bad thing; these days everyone says you should have an “out”. You should always have a resource to get away. But, really, this is why we fail at so much, because we don’t bother to fully commit. How would we really feel if Jesus said, “Okay, I’ll stick around for a minute or two, but at the first sign that this person is going to be an idiot, I’m bailing.” Now, that wouldn’t be a very strong faith, right?

So, you realize that you can’t take away doing school for them, you can’t take away feeding them, bathing them, reading to them. Because all the things you would think to take away because they are misbehaving are all GOOD for them. Well, darn it. So, all you can do is keep pushing forward. Keep teaching them the right path. And praise them when they do the right thing. And mourn when they don’t. And you have to mourn in silence, just as Jesus does.

You know He is disappointed in your failings. Just as the kids know you are disappointed. But, other than show you the right way to go, He won’t take away the good things you need. He will continue to provide. And wait for you to do good once again.

So, even on a day when things are not going as well as I would like, I know I am on the right path and I keep plugging along. It is about living your faith. Every moment is living your faith. Every moment is about Jesus. My vocation is to be like Jesus.

 

Neglectful much?

I’ve kind of been neglecting my blog. I know, I suck. I really don’t have much excuse other than it’s hard to get coherent thoughts down on the sly.

Life has been…busy, to say the least. The babe has been getting around so much and getting into everything, plus of course he is super clingy. Balancing keeping up on the house, keeping up on schooling 2 boys, trying to maintain my exercise routine, keeping up with a clingy baby, there is that husband… Plus, my sister got married and I’m helping start a new playgroup as well.

The other reason for the neglect is I don’t really have the words to express some of my feelings. I’m not unhappy. I feel I have found myself in so many ways and I know the path that I should be on. I still have good days and bad days with it of course. So, do I spend my time just talking about those good days and be completely braggy, OR do I spend my time whining about the bad? Yeah, hard to tell.

I still have these moments of feeling SO HIGH. Like, I feel that I’ve finally figured it out. And then I feel like I’ve been tackled by the entire football team and I have never felt so low.

This past week was my birthday. I turned 34. Hubby took off 5 days. It was wonderful and amazing. I’ve never felt so high. Now, things got neglected–like not ALL the chores got done, and the exercise routine was a little shot, but I got some rest, I got to spend lots of time with the hubby, I finally got to play with my new toy–aka the sewing machine. I even got a moment to do some cross stitch. And I realized how much my crafting life has been neglected because those are things you need both parents around so that one my parent has a chance to do it. And, both parents are only around when I am doing school or otherwise engaged in activities that don’t include relaxing or free time.

And just a few moments ago, hubby left to go to sleep and we return to our schedule. And considering so many don’t have jobs at a all, I’m really trying not to complain about missing him so much, but…. I miss him so much. I really do.

So, lately, my life is going back and forth between the two extremes. Super high or super low. Whatever happened to middle of the road?

Anyway, I’m going to attempt to return to my blogging. I think for me, the extreme emotions are more raw, leaving me more naked and vulnerable, so yeah, that’s probably why it is harder to form thoughts when blogging them.

 

My parenting choices and my faith, together!

Now, myself and a group of Catholic moms realized a while back that Attachment Parenting completely fits into our Catholic Faith. It is wonderful that now Martha and Bill Sears have realized it as well and have come home to the church!!!

FOREWORD TO NEW EDITION OF PARENTING BOOK BY DR BILL AND MARTHA SEARS [Gregory Popcak]
	9/29/2009
	Lisa and I are currently working on the 2nd edition of Parenting with Grace. It will be an updated and expanded edition with much new information.  Parenting with Grace, of course, is the first and only parenting book to apply Pope John Paul II’s Theology of the Body to parenting and that emphasis, which was implicit in the first edition, will be even stronger in the updated edition. Dr. Bill and Martha Sears have very kindly agreed to write the foreword for the new edition.  They came back to the Church in March of 2008 and have been overwhelmed by how the Catholic view of the person and Catholic theology dovetails with Attachment Parenting approaches.  I thought I would share what they had to say about Parenting with Grace (2nd edition–Updated and Expanded). Foreword:  Parenting with Grace (2nd edition) Dr. Bill and Martha Sears We are honored to be asked to write a foreword for this edition of Parenting with Grace. We are in love with this book.  Of course, we are in love with all things Catholic, and for good reason. Though we were both raised and educated as Catholics, we have been away from the Church for 37 years – until a year and a half ago.  On March 11, 2008, we made our way Home. We left the Church in the early 70s, looking for spiritual fulfillment elsewhere because our own Catholic faith hadn’t matured enough to weather the storms of young adulthood, early marriage, and parenthood.  Not only away from the Church but away from God, too, we got pretty beaten up - our marriage almost ended because we were looking for “God” in all the wrong places.  Only our love for our two boys kept us together (that, and the Holy Spirit in the form of the dictum “Marriage is forever”).  We sealed our recommitment to each other by having our third child, another boy.  We got him baptized in a Catholic church, “just in case it is all true” but then we moved away to a place where the local church didn’t inspire us. Still searching for God (somehow we missed Him, growing up in families that were struggling in their own ways to understand Grace), we stumbled onto the Gospel message in another denomination.  The message of salvation for the asking was like water in a parched desert, and it took root and grew into a 30 year “personal relationship” with Jesus.  By this time we had our fourth child (you may know her as “The Fussy Baby”), and we were happy to know that we had our spiritual lives in order.  Our faith grew stronger with each child, eight eventually, and then with two major health crises that came along:  colon cancer for Bill and a 10- year-long struggle with depression and anxiety for Martha.  As we recovered from these trials we learned some important lessons about mental and physical health, and our book count has escalated.  Then, just when we thought life couldn’t be fuller or better, we were invited to go with a friend to the Holy Land – with a bunch of Catholics! There we were, in the Holy Land, attending daily Mass and seeing Catholics whose faith had matured, (having weathered the storms of life), believing what they said “Amen” to.  We were drawn irresistibly back to the Eucharist and now, two years later, have never been happier spiritually.  Our marriage, good as it was before, has never been better.  We’ve had many “Aha” moments in these past two years, learning all over again what it means to be Catholic. And one very big “Aha” came as we read this book. It seems that all we’ve been writing about  Attachment Parenting fits right into not only God’s design for babies but into a uniquely Catholic concept, that of self-donation,  something Pope John Paul II wrote extensively about.  We started seeing the term “self-donation” in books about the Theology of the Body – an odd-sounding term at first, but one that makes perfect sense when you think about it.  This is exactly what we have experienced as we have come back to the Sacraments:  God reaching out to us and giving us his very Self in the Eucharist and in Reconciliation.  No wonder we are so happy – we are being Attachment Parented by God! And now we are reading, in Parenting with Grace, about the Catholic vision of the family as a “self-donative community of love”.  We are seeing so much more than just the scriptural basis for Attachment Parenting – we are seeing the spiritual basis for it, and for all of family life.  Since we have come back to our Catholic faith, through this amazing reversion experience of God’s grace, we have had not only our individual lives and our marriage revitalized, but our family life, too.  The Theology of the Body is truly a gift from God (who would ever have thought that a Pope would know so much about this), and what the Popcaks show us from that body of work, about parenting, is so important.  And now there is new information on the effect of attachment on the developing brain – science (Aquinas’s Book of Nature, they point out) is showing, over and over, that attachment-based parenting practices and positive discipline really are what is best and most effective for the child. One final thought, from Martha:  Her aunt, Mary Bea, was a religious sister of the Sacred Heart order, a teacher/librarian.  The times that she visited us, she made many observations that affirmed our parenting practices.  Sr. Mary Bea always did her best to convey that loving guidance was what our children needed.  This helped us see that we were on the right track, and it gave Martha the affirmation she needed from this respected Auntie.  Now looking back, and seeing those memories in the light of Parenting with Grace, we see that Catholic teaching really did inform us all those many years ago, despite what our own rearing had been, and that we can thank Holy Mother Church for being our inspiration, and our saving-grace, all along the way. We wish you many blessings, Dr. Bill and Martha Sears Authors of The Sears Parenting Library from http://www.exceptionalmarriages.com/weblog/BlogDetail.asp?ID=42327

 

Where there is life, there is hope

“It is a poverty that a child must die so that you may live as you wish.”  -Blessed Mother Teresa

Yesterday was Respect Life Sunday.  Here are the facts.

Profile of the Abortive Mother

She is Christian – 70%

Of the Christian denominations, she is most likely Catholic – 38%

She has never been married – 67%

She used a method of Contraception – 54%

She probably lives in Florida, ranked third in the nation of the number of abortions, or California, New York, Texas or New Jersey, the states where 50% of U.S. abortions occur.

She has been pregnant previously – 73%

More than 1 of every 4 pregnancies ends in abortion.

In California

It is estimated that about 233,373 abortions take place each year in California. That’s about 639 abortions each day.

In 2005, 208,430 women obtained abortions in California. That is 27 of 1000 women.

This is a rate decline of 13% from 2000 when it was 31 per 1000 women.

Abortions in California represent 17.3% of all abortions in the U.S.

In African American Women

Minority women constitute only 26% of the female population age 15 to 44, but underwent 36% of the abortions.

Since 1973, black women have had about 10 million abortions. There are currently 31 million African Americans in the U.S. The abortions make up a 35% loss for the Black community.

A highly significant 1993 Howard University study showed that African American women over age 50 were 4.7 times more likely to get breast cancer if they had had any abortions compared to women who had not had any abortions.

“Truth is not subject to a majority vote.” – Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger

CHOOSE LIFE.

 

Annoyed

I can’t believe a friend of a friend on facebook just posted this:

“So does that mean a mall should provide a toilet or a urinal for people to go use right out in public? After all urinating or defecating is a natural process and those parts are there to do these actions, so why should they be secret? I will be down with woman whipping out their tits for little things to suck on when it is socially acceptable for me to take a dump in the middle of the mall.“

This is of course in regard to a mother being able to nurse her child in public. If mother’s are NOT allowed to nurse, does this mean that moms who use formula should not be allowed to as well? It’s the same thing, nourishing a child.

Breastfeeding is eating. Comparing it to a bowel movement is highly offensive. I really could say some very disparaging things about formula or that I find bottles offensive but really, if you are going to ban breastfeeding in public you are banning mothers to never leave the house until their child weans or at least can go long enough between meals that they won’t have to nurse. So the choice would be starve a child if you have a long errand to run, or starve yourself because there is no other way for you to get groceries from the grocery store.

And really to compare it to going to the bathroom? If you really are going to relegate mothers who breastfeed to the bathroom as the only place they can feed their child, then YOU should also be taking your meals in that public restroom. If it is good enough and sanitary enough for my child, it should be good enough for you, right?

 

Hypocrisy all around us…

If Christians would really live according to the teachings of Christ, as found in the Bible, all of India would be Christian today.

–Mahatma Gandhi

So today is the day that the President gives a speech to all students. The general premise is stay in school, work hard. Which, that in itself is not a bad message right? But don’t we all not want to listen to hypocrites? I mean, really, if the President is saying that he needs ALL children and ALL students, shouldn’t that include the 1 out of 4 that is being aborted every day?

If you are a staunch liberal, can you really not see that someone who is against killing babies may see some of the lines of the speech as empty and have a hard time stomaching it? BE HONEST, if you are a conservative, if the same speech was given by someone you liked, would you be able to listen to it without any problems? Most likely. And liberals, if the same exact speech was given by Bush, would you be able to stomach it? As someone who can’t listen to ANY politicians empty speech with any enthusiasm, I know, I have this problem.

So, yes, when the President is giving his speech and speaking of all the possibilities of jobs that are out there, conservatives are silently adding in “and doctors and nurses who will perform abortions” and so, don’t really want to see the value in the rest of the speech.

I do think it is amusing though that everyone is pointing the “hypocrite” finger about now though. It just seems so silly to say someone else isn’t open minded when given the exact same circumstances in reverse, you know for sure you would not be open minded either.

Will my child be watching the speech? Um, not so much. He is only 6 and I doubt very sincerely he would follow along. If it were someone else giving it, would he be watching it? No, because he is only 6 and really, I have not introduced politics to him quite yet. I think 8th grade might be a good time for a child to watch a political speech, but 1st grade is just a tad young for me.

Now, if all politicians and all people actually practiced what we spoke, I think life would be very different…

 

Transformed by Truth

“Start by doing what is necessary, then do what is possible, and suddenly you are doing the impossible.” St. Francis of Assisi

Tonight at mass was an emotional one for me. The readings touched me deeply, especially upon hearing the homily the Father gave with it. The Father spoke on being transformed by our faith. That if we are not transformed by our faith, then we have not embraced our faith. That our faith changes us.

A friend spoke today about her husband who used to be very liberal and is now conservative. Now didn’t that jab me right in the side! Her SIL was basically telling her that now that her husband has conservative views, he is not as high level a thinker as he was when he was liberal.

Just FYI, being “liberal” is mainstream and it is super easy.  You rarely have to explain your point of view and no one questions your thoughts. Changing your liberal/mainstream views to conservative views? Man, that is crushing. You are beating yourself up thinking “where the heck is this coming from???” and everyone around you is calling you backward and behind the times. They are calling you close minded, when in fact, for the first time ever, you have opened your mind. You KNOW and SEE both sides of the argument. You have LIVED both sides of the argument and you still came down on the other side. It is a true transformation and it is earth shattering. It was MUCH easier to be “liberal” then it is to be whatever the heck I am now. The facebook quiz says Libertarian but I like to keep myself open.

And I don’t say that to say that all conservatives are enlightened, but when you HAVE truly lived as a mainstream and converted to an “other”, that is a true transformation.

The key here is that one researched and truly opened themselves up to look at both sides. Not with a “but I know so-and-so and” mentality but with a true thought to the actual issue at hand. Not just looking at what will make everyone happy, but also looking at the consequences. Seeing how the lives we lead and the chances we take have caused problems. And there are “quick” fixes, but if we just started living better, that would fix things, without the negative repercussions.

And by living better I mean following the social teachings of the church, not just going with the status quo of society. I mean, allowing ourselves better eating habits and working towards improving are all around health instead of just accepting that society is just going to keep getting fatter like in Wall-E or something and keeping making the pants sizes bigger so people can pretend they aren’t as big as they actually are.

The transformation is freakin’ hard sometimes and sometimes I’m going kicking and screaming and honestly, sometimes, I wish I didn’t know the truth and I could be blindly ignorant again. Cause darn it, it is much easier to be ignorant then to know the truth. And yet it isn’t. You can wallow in your sins and do anything and everything you want, but that’s not necessarily going to bring you the happiness you are truly seeking.  I’m happier with the truth and I am free from so much! And darn it it feels good to be free! But, as the Father said, I am a sinner and I always will be. And so, sometimes you do kick the sand like a kid and wish you could just eat the whole tub of ice cream. But now that I know the truth, I can’t slip back that notch. I just can’t. But I have to continue to move forward and find the next challenge on my path to sainthood. And there I go whining and complaining again, fighting myself and telling Jesus it’s too damn hard! And what does he respond?

Okay. Maybe, just maybe, that was a little bit harder then me learning not to lose my temper. Maybe that was a little bit harder then me learning to not gossip or whine or complain. Sigh.