Prayer Like Newsfeeds

When I am going through my day something will happen and I'll think, "That would make a good Facebook status." Sometimes I will even take the moment to log on and post it. It's a way to check in. Like a lot of you, I use Facebook to keep in touch with family and friends. I check in a lot.

Today, as the girls were rolling a mason jar full of cream back and forth to make butter, I thought up a butter churning status update. Since I was also catching up on some baking and pickle making while cooking up dinner, I knew I'd never get around to it before I forgot.

"Too bad," I thought. "My sister would get a kick out of that."

Then I got back to work, but the idea of posting nagged me a little. Cooking is one of those things that busies the hands, and when my hands are busy my mind chases thoughts down their various rabbit holes.

Being a mom of six, let me just tell you how marvelous and luxurious it is to get a chance once in awhile to complete an entire thought. Ahhh....I love cooking thinking.

So, while thinking I thought this today: What if I stayed caught up with God as much as I keep up with Facebook? What would my day be like if I was constantly checking in?

"Look, God. How cute. The girls are dressed up and having their 4th tea party today. Don't they ever get tired of it?"

"I got too much salt in these beans. I know just the fix. Chop in some raw potato to absorb the excess."

I don't mean that I'd replace my regular prayers, but merely supplement it with something more like a friendly check in.

So I tried it and I didn't feel silly or awkward. It was just like composing those Facebook statuses. Instead of sharing them online, I just shared them with God.

I might be on to something here. What do you think? Prayer as social media. Maybe it'll help my prayer life if I pray like God's reading my status updates.

Facebook has trained me to frequently check in. What if I took that habit and made it better? I wonder...

I wonder if maybe I just need more sleep.

Wifey Wednesday

My husband and I are in that happy/tired state of blissfully getting to know and love a newborn. In our sleep deprived state, we are barely managing to eke out the routines of daily life as we learn to make room for the newest member of our family. It's all good. It's all worth it. Like all parents do, we're falling more deeply in love with each other as we fall in love with the baby, but as to working on the relationship? At this point, we're thrilled to find some time alone together...it means we can nap!

This is one of those times that a couple doesn't rely on words to keep the marriage going. It's enough for the next few weeks to simply smile sleepily at one another in passing. It's in these moments of married life that couples are able to rely on the grace God pours into the Sacrament, knowing that soon enough, shortly enough, things will get back on track.

In the meantime, we will pray for one another. Sometimes keeping in touch with the Lord is the best way to ensure that you want to keep in touch with your husband, even while circumstances temporarily get in the way.

Speaking of...the baby is crying. Night everyone!

The Divorce Cure?

My son asked about adultery today and I was all ready to yank the last vestiges of media from his life to save him from the Big Bad World when come to find out he'd heard about it in Church.

"Stupid Commandments," I grumbled to myself as I tried to figure out a way to discuss sexual sin with an innocent. I punted, "It's when people act like they are married to each other when they are married to  other people."

His brows came down into a frown. "That would be bad," he said.

"It's very bad," I agreed.

It led to a discussion of divorce, naturally enough, and a promise exacted from my son to never pretend I was married to anyone but his daddy. He also promised solemnly to do the same for his wife.

I'm glad he's already thinking and praying for my future daughter-in-law. I pray for her, too. Living in a crazy world where half of all marriages end in divorce, everyone could use some prayer.

Which brings me to this startling statistic. Though the divorce rate for the general population is 50%, it is 5% for couples who practice Natural Family Planning (more on that in next week's podcast) and it is 0.3% for couples who pray together (source: Our Catholic Marriage). In other words, one couple out of 300 will wind up divorced if they take the time to pray. The couple who prays together really does stay together.

I find that heartening. I also find it terrifying.

I have been naked and frisky in front of my husband, I have been sick with all manner of illnesses, and I have both given birth and miscarried before his very eyes, but I have never felt so exposed and vulnerable than when we have opened up to God together. Let's just say that there is intimacy and then there is Intimacy.

According to Scripture it is the heart that prays and what is the heart?

The heart is the dwelling-place where I am, where I live; according to the Semitic or Biblical expression, the heart is the place "to which I withdraw." The heart is our hidden center, beyond the grasp of our reason and of others; only the Spirit of God can fathom the human heart and know it fully. The heart is the place of decision, deeper than our psychic drives. It is the place of truth, where we choose life or death. It is the place of encounter, because as images of God we live in relation: it is the place of covenant. (CCC 2563) 

Praying with your husband means bringing him there.

Kinda scary. As modern wives we're used to bringing him into our bodies, into our day to day life, even into our thoughts and hopes and dreams, but are we called to bring our husband into our very Truth, to that place in our soul where each breath God asks of us is sighed out, "Yes!"?

Yes, yes, yes.

The two shall become one, yes. We two shall become a reflection of God, a unity of Three Persons, so yes.

Couples do this, they really do. My sister and her husband do this. My neighbor does this. In fact, not praying together is kind of a modern thing with couples.

About as Modern as the 50 percent divorce rate.

There is help out there. To break the ice, you can get started with a sincere and nightly recitation of the prayer Christ taught us, the "Our Father." When you are ready to move on, there is this resource: Coupleprayer.org. It's ecumenical in nature and designed to get you praying daily. It's also just a little bit fun.

Just like we worked our way past the awkwardness of learning how to be intimate with each other as Newlyweds, we worked our way past the awkwardness of learning how to be Intimate on this level as Oldlyweds. We worked to make daily prayer together a habit. We knew it was worth it.

Seriously, bumping a 50/50 chance of success to 300 to 1 odds?  Discovering couple prayer is like finding a cure for divorce! Who wouldn't want that?

For more on Couple Prayer and some good old Christian common sense, tune in to tonight's Garden of Holiness Podcast at Deeper Truth.


--------------------------

This has been a Wifey Wednesday Post. To have an even more Wifey Wednesday visit Sheila Wray Gregoire at To Love Honor and Vacuum.

7 Quick Takes and a Prayer

--1--

Isn't it a blessing to be comfortable enough to have the means for all of life's true necessities and yet to be working hard enough to get them that a bag of coffee and a quart of cream makes for a fine, fine Christmas gift? Of course, it's easy to be grateful for a bag of Mystic Monk. Thank you oh so very much, neighbors!

--2--

Everyone waiting to see Sissy's gift!

By American standards, we celebrate a small Christmas. We try to keep the focus on our faith and each other and not on an ever growing pile of goods under the tree. For the past few years we have chosen not to go into credit card debt but instead have set a cash budget and have kept to it in spite of all temptation. We actually give the majority of the funding to the children to spend a modest amount on each present they need to buy for each other, my husband and I, grandparents and Godparents. Most of their Christmas gifts and most of the excitement come from what they carefully choose for each other. It's sweet to watch the children hover around the recipient as each gift is opened, to hear them calling out, "That's from me!" and "You got that from her?" We think we're on to something. This year, as every year, was the very best.

--3--

A No-Filing Filing System of Monthly Bills
From Echoes of Laughter

We had our first test of our new bill paying system the other day. Our propane company called concerned that we hadn't paid our bill. All it took was a quick look in my notebook to be able to say, "It was mailed a week ago Wednesday." Before they even found their clerical error, I already knew the check had cleared the bank and all was well. It was a nice experience compared to the frantic search through a pile of unfiled paperwork that was my previous system for responding to such phone calls. If you are interested in changing the way you track and file your monthly bills, this is the system we're using. I can recommend it from personal experience. It works!

--4--

Enough crowing! How about a nice wife fail to round out the list? Last Sunday, my husband was sick and staying home from church and work. The kids were also sick and were dozing and quiet so while I was getting ready, he and I had the rare opportunity for a real adult conversation. It got pretty deep into the usual topics of the New Year, self-improvement, and I wanted to give him a little boost. Meaning to remind him that nobody is expected to be perfect but to simply persevere I said cheerily, "You know you are going to fail, right?" I meant to go on and explain myself better, but his look prevented much more than some stammering and apologizing. It took me awhile to untangle what I really meant from what I'd said and by the end of it we were laughing at my failure to communicate. He isn't teasing me too hard about it yet, but he has whispered in my ear once or twice as I'm beginning a job, "You know you're going to fail, right?"

I already did, babe. Got that skill down pat.

--5--

"Resolving to Sin No More"

Garden of Holiness Podcast for Deeper Truth

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Listen to internet radio with Deeper Truth on Blog Talk Radio

Wednesday's podcast on combating sins with virtues turned out pretty well. My friends over at Deeper Truth are putting it in their "Best Of" list. Since it expands on some of the points I made in Wednesday's post, I thought I'd share it. I had a chance to talk about some of the ways even the practice of Virtues can be twisted around on you if you aren't careful. Speaking from personal experience, of course. *ahem*

--6--

No word yet on the foster care paperwork. It's all in and undergoing review. I'm waiting as patiently as I can, figuring our social worker is taking a few days to spend some time with her family.

--7--

Speaking of, thank you for your understanding and patience when I took some time off from blogging to be able to relax and enjoy the season with my family. In fact, the entire crew of Martins thanks you and wishes you a very happy New Year.

 --A Prayer--

Two of my blogging friends need prayers. Both are pregnant and both have been hospitalized this week: Jennifer Fulwiler at Conversion Diary (an update) and Kelly at The Careless Catholic (an update). Thank you.

What's with all the saints? And the nature of prayer...

"Saints and the Garden of God" Podcast

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What's With All the Saints?
And the Nature of Prayer

Originally Posted on 9-16-2011

"I'm having trouble with praying to the saints. I know it's possible, I just can't see why it's necessary." This question came from a fellow convert. Her conversion, like mine, was emotional and total and nearly as instantaneous. God simply handed her the Truth of the Church and reduced her (and continues to reduce her to tears) at the beauty of 2,000 years of the Faith laid out like a welcome mat before her. We both (and indeed we all) have been graced with the one true faith; what we don't know is the details. This type of conversion of the heart means that the mind sometimes takes a little while to catch up, so my young friend will ask me questions on occasion, knowing I went through a similar process. Sometimes, I have looked into it already. Sometimes we have to go looking for answers and off we trot. This was what I found out in answer to her question.  Unlike me and my spiritual meanderings, she comes directly from a Protestant background, so Biblical references are helpful to her. I've listed them below so you can read them at your leisure. For the purpose of this explanation, I am going to assume that you, too, know the truth, but are hungry to know why it should be true. The Prayers of Petition: Who Needs Them? 1) God doesn't need you. You need God. First off, we need to understand that God doesn't need anything. He Is. He can do what He wants, with or without our input. Petitioning God for you and your own needs or even intercessory prayer (a prayer that asks God to do something for another person) does not turn God into a slot machine. Insert prayer, pull handle, receive blessing. As we all know, every petitionary or intercessory prayer is answered with either a yes, a no, or a wait awhile.We need to ask. God wants us to ask, but He has no need of the asking. 2) Prayer is a gift. The act of prayer is not even our own. It is our response to grace. The desire to pray is placed in our heart. It is a sign that we are beginning to cooperate with the Will of God, no matter how imperfectly. It is often the person praying that God changes in order to answer the prayer. So, for example, even though you may be praying for a stubborn coworker who drives you batty, the answer to your prayer may look a little like this: You haven't thought about that obnoxious co-worker much lately, but in the middle of an tense discussion with your husband you are suddenly graced with a vivid understanding of how petty you are being. You are given the insight to see that he is bothered by your demands, but is perfectly willing to do it your way to keep the peace. Not only do you see your own pettiness, but you can see a direct correlation between your pettiness and the pettiness of that coworker you've been praying for. The insight into your own character is in answer to that original prayer and if you could put it into words it would be something like: "Is it any wonder that this coworker bugs me so much? Everything he does pricks my conscience!" I try hard to remember that there are an infinity of irritants in the world and most of them bounce off with little notice. It's the irritants that resonate with our own faults that catch and hold our attention. I know this may seem off the topic, but it really has a lot to do with the question of praying to the saints. It has to do with our needs, rather than God's. My point is that God does not need to be asked to act, and in a similar way, God does not need the saints to ask either. Neither do the saints need anything, being in Heaven already. When we pray to God to change something in our life, we are responding to the grace to pray and are cooperating with His will. He will use our cooperation to change us, to make us more of who He created us to be.  3) Intercessory prayer increases our communion with the Body of Christ. It is a spiritual no-brainer to understand that praying increases our communion with God. You have to talk to someone to get to know them better, so that sort of truth about prayer can be intuited without much research or contemplation. Something about intercessory prayer that might not be obvious is that we begin to commune with each other as we pray. Prayer is communication. When we pray for others part of our communication is our communion with God and also with the person we are praying for. In other words, we are strengthening our relationship with that person through God. Strengthening the bonds with another strengthens the unity of the Body of Christ here on Earth. It brings us together in community here and helps us remember that we are, in fact, related and necessary for one another. Asking the saints to pray for us is the same thing, only with the larger Body of Christ. The saints don't need our prayers, being in Heaven already. God doesn't need our prayers, being God, nor does He need the saint's prayers. We have need of the saints, though. We need to be closer to those who have triumphed. We need to build stronger bonds with Heaven and the residents there. It helps us remember that there is our home, the more we call upon all the loved ones there.  Our focus should be Heaven. Our actions should be Prayer. Our life should be God's. Prayer helps us to make that happen. Prayer is so much more than what we bargain for and thank God for it!     Scripture Proofs (from this link) I. We are One Family in Christ in Heaven and on Earth Eph. 3:14-15- we are all one family ("Catholic") in heaven and on earth, united together, as children of the Father, through Jesus Christ. Our brothers and sisters who have gone to heaven before us are not a different family. We are one and the same family. This is why, in the Apostles Creed, we profess a belief in the "communion of saints." There cannot be a "communion" if there is no union. Loving beings, whether on earth or in heaven, are concerned for other beings, and this concern is reflected spiritually through prayers for one another. Eph. 1:22-23; 5:23-32; Col. 1:18,24 - this family is in Jesus Christ, the head of the body, which is the Church. 1 Cor. 12:12,27; Rom. 12:5; Col. 3:15; Eph. 4:4 - we are the members of the one body of Christ, supernaturally linked together by our partaking of the Eucharist. Rom. 8:35-39 - therefore, death does not separate the family of God and the love of Christ. We are still united with each other, even beyond death. Matt. 17:3; Mark 9:4; Luke 9:30 - Jesus converses with "deceased" Moses and Elijah. They are more alive than the saints on earth. Matt. 22:32; Mark 12:27; Luke 20:38 - God is the God of the living not the dead. The living on earth and in heaven are one family. Luke 15:7,10 – if the angels and saints experience joy in heaven over our repentance, then they are still connected to us and are aware of our behavior. John 15:1-6 - Jesus is the vine and we are the branches. The good branches are not cut off at death. They are alive in heaven. 1 Cor. 4:9 – because we can become a spectacle not only to men, but to angels as well, this indicates that angels are aware of our earthly activity. Those in heaven are connected to those on earth. 1 Cor. 12:26 - when one member suffers, all suffer. When one is honored, all rejoice. We are in this together as one family. 1 Cor 13:12; 1 John 3:2 - now we see in a mirror dimly, but in heaven we see face to face. The saints are more alive than we are! Heb. 12:1: we are surrounded by a great glory cloud (shekinah) of witnesses. The “cloud of witnesses” refers to the saints who are not only watching us from above but cheering us on in our race to heaven. 1 Peter 2:9; Rev. 20:6 - we are a royal family of priests by virtue of baptism. We as priests intercede on behalf of each other. 2 Peter 1:4 - since God is the eternal family and we are His children, we are partakers of His divine nature as a united family. 1 Cor. 1:2; Rom. 1:7 - we are called to be saints. Saints refer to both those on earth and in heaven who are in Christ. Proof: Acts 9:13,32,41; 26:10; 1 Cor. 6:1-2; 14:33; 2 Cor. 1:1; 8:4; 9:1-2; 13:13; Rom. 8:27; 12:23; 15:25,26, 31; 16:2,15; Eph. 1:1,15,18; 3:8; 5:3; 6:18; Phil. 1:1; 4:22; Col 1:2,4,26; 1 Tm 5:10; Philemon 1:5,7; Heb. 6:10; 13:24; Jude 1:3; Rev. 11:18; 13:7; 14:12; 16:6; 17:6;18:20,24; Rev 19:8; 20:9 - in these verses, we see that Christians still living on earth are called "saints." Matt. 27:52; Eph. 2:19; 3:18; Col. 1:12; 2 Thess. 1:10; Rev. 5:8; 8:3-4; 11:18; 13:10 - in these verses, we also see that "saints" also refer to those in heaven who united with us. Dan. 4:13,23; 8:23 – we also see that the angels in heaven are also called “saints.” The same Hebrew word “qaddiysh” (holy one) is applied to both humans and angels in heaven. Hence, there are angel saints in heaven and human saints in heaven and on earth. Loving beings (whether angels or saints) are concerned for other beings, and prayer is the spiritual way of expressing that love. Top II. God Desires and Responds to Our Subordinate Mediation / Intercessory Prayer 1 Tim 2:1-2 - because Jesus Christ is the one mediator between God and man (1 Tim. 2:5), many Protestants deny the Catholic belief that the saints on earth and in heaven can mediate on our behalf. But before Paul's teaching about Jesus as the "one mediator," Paul urges supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people. Paul is thus appealing for mediation from others besides Christ, the one mediator. Why? 1 Tim 2:3 - because this subordinate mediation is good and acceptable to God our Savior. Because God is our Father and we are His children, God invites us to participate in Christ's role as mediator. 1 Tim. 2:5 - therefore, although Jesus Christ is the sole mediator between God and man, there are many intercessors (subordinate mediators). 1 Cor. 3:9 - God invites us to participate in Christ's work because we are God's "fellow workers" and one family in the body of Christ. God wants His children to participate. The phrase used to describe "fellow workers" is "sunergoi," which literally means synergists, or cooperators with God in salvific matters. Does God need fellow workers? Of course not, but this shows how much He, as Father, loves His children. God wants us to work with Him. Mark 16:20 - this is another example of how the Lord "worked with them" ("sunergountos"). God cooperates with us. Out of His eternal love, He invites our participation. Rom. 8:28 - God "works for good with" (the Greek is "sunergei eis agathon") those who love Him. We work as subordinate mediators. 2 Cor. 6:1 - "working together" (the Greek is "sunergountes") with him, don't accept His grace in vain. God allows us to participate in His work, not because He needs our help, but because He loves us and wants to exalt us in His Son. It is like the father who lets his child join him in carrying the groceries in the house. The father does not need help, but he invites the child to assist to raise up the child in dignity and love. Heb. 12:1 - the “cloud of witnesses” (nephos marturon) that we are surrounded by is a great amphitheatre of witnesses to the earthly race, and they actively participate and cheer us (the runners) on, in our race to salvation. 1 Peter 2:5 - we are a holy priesthood, instructed to offer spiritual sacrifices to God. We are therefore subordinate priests to the Head Priest, but we are still priests who participate in Christ's work of redemption. Rev. 1:6, 5:10 - Jesus made us a kingdom of priests for God. Priests intercede through Christ on behalf of God's people. James 5:16; Proverbs 15:8, 29 - the prayers of the righteous (the saints) have powerful effects. This is why we ask for their prayers. How much more powerful are the saints’ prayers in heaven, in whom righteousness has been perfected. 1 Tim 2:5-6 - therefore, it is because Jesus Christ is the one mediator before God that we can be subordinate mediators. Jesus is the reason. The Catholic position thus gives Jesus the most glory. He does it all but loves us so much He desires our participation.

7 Quick Takes Sunday (Better Late Than Never)

1 Small Town Life

Statue of Local Hero and Airport Namesake, Rick Husband

We had an early morning adventure yesterday taking my husband to the airport. Our Daddy works there so everyone on staff knows our kids and it was so early we were the only people in the entire section other than airport employees, so this was a fairly "safe" adventure of negotiating the escalators. We all wound up in the same place eventually, but at one point, I had one child at the bottom of the escalator, one on the escalator, and three descending the adjacent stairway. My husband called me to laugh about the fact that he'd heard all about it prior to boarding his flight. News travels fast in a small town airport!

2 Coupons from Betty Beguiles!

Shabby Apple, Modcloth, and other retailers some of my friends just love (but can't afford) are running discounts through Betty Beguiles. Head on over to get the coupon codes and some awesome end of season savings!

3 Models of Grief

My grandmother in February. My friend in April. Andy's sister in June. His grandmother just this week. Almost every family goes through those times when the losses seem to come in like the tide. When the latest call stopped me in my tracks, my kids alerted to the tone of my voice and clustered around silently to comfort me as I tried to comfort my mother-in-law. How do we know how to do this? How do we find the words when words won't do? Comforting another seems like an impossible task, yet how necessary it is to try.

Because of all this, the grieving process has been front and center around here lately, and as a family we stumbled across some new information we'd like to share. I'm sure everyone has heard of the stages of grief. Come to find out, those stages actually observed and documented the stages the dying person went through. It was applied only anecdotally to the family members grieving the loss. So, those documented stages of grief that we all know like the back of our hand may be undergoing some revisions soon. Here's the link to the article I stumbled across. It is calling for a new grief model. You just might find it interesting.

4 *Cough Hack*

We have all succumbed to a summer cold around here. Two days ago my son used his iPad to complain "Sick and Tired" on his Proloque2go app. I passed it off as a fluke. Today, when the other four came down with swollen glands, sniffles, and sneezes, he flashed me his patented "I told you so!" smirk. The little smarty pants!

5

I came across this and loved it. You may see this one again as it has generated plenty of pondering. Had to share it!

6 How It Is Supposed to Work

1. God
2. Spouse
3. Kids
4. Me

Looks simple enough, doesn't it? Sensible. Regardless of what my good intentions are I keep slipping up to the number one slot. I don't know how I keep managing to wind up there. I just seem to reset to the pre-Galileo I'm-at-the-center-of-the-Universe-self-esteeming mindset. Then, if that's not bad enough, I'm missing a whole class of people: my neighbor. The "Love Thy Neighbor" thing has to fit in there somewhere, doesn't it? I haven't even begun to add them to my "Supposed to Do" list!


My actual list looks more like this...

1. Me
2. Me
3. Why are you bugging me?
4. Oh, whoops.
5. Confession.
6. Repeat.


Why do I seem to continually get this whole Christian Life thing wrong? Le sigh.

7 Prayer Request

Please pray for the repose of the souls of my sister-in-law Catherine and my husband's grandmother Julia and all who love and miss them. Thank you so much.




_____________

Thanks to Jennifer Fulwiler, a fellow Texan, for hosting

7 Quick Takes Friday 

over at Conversion Diary.com

Pray for those who persecute you

Christopher Hitchens never persecuted me directly, but he inspired some of my friends to say some pretty unfriendly things. Since that's nothing compared to being shot in church, burned at the stake, roasted alive, skinned for faith, I can take a little ridicule here and there. God made sure I had such a firm certainty that I don't need everyone I meet to agree with me before I'm certain about Him. I know in my bones. If you don't believe or if we disagree? It's not my job to convince you. It's my job to live as perfectly as possible in harmony with Truth so you can see the light shining through despite the way I tend to muddy things up.

Conversion is God's job, not mine. I'll only debate you up to the point where it becomes pointless. Then I'll sic a saint on you. If you want to call me names in the meantime? So be it. I have one friend in particular who can't wrap his head around my conversion. I used to be interesting. I used to be creative. I used to be relevant. How could I do such an infantile thing? I've devolved. He comes back around to irritate himself over me two or three times a year. I bite my tongue when he insults me, and he knows me well enough to know exactly how to insult and hurt me, but that's what you have to do when you are a hate mongering Christian.

The death of Christopher Hitchens is wrapped around my feelings for this old friend of mine, mainly because my friend admired him and quoted him. So I've prayed for this man. I will continue to. It's funny what will inspire prayer. I probably would never have uttered a word to God about Mr. Hitchens if it wasn't for my friend and I quietly battling over the state of my soul. Gotta love the irony.

That said, I don't have much to say about the man, but this post by Frank Weathers sums up what I would if I did.

Christopher Hitchens, Requescat in pace

Posted at Why I Am Catholic on December 16, 2011 by Frank Weathers

One of the practices Catholics engage in that really infuriates the world is that we take Christ literally when he says,

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your heavenly Father, for he makes his sun rise on the bad and the good, and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust.
For if you love those who love you, what recompense will you have? Do not the tax collectors do the same?
And if you greet your brothers only, what is unusual about that? Do not the pagans do the same?
So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.

And so we pray for the repose of the soul of Christopher Hitchens. He was enigmatic, and had depth of soul. Gifted writer, militant atheist, enemy of Christianity, brilliant debater, wordsmith extraordinaire, and secular humanist who endured “waterboarding” (to prove that it indeed is torture), he was one of God’s children and will be missed.

Pat Archbold has a piece worth reading that marks his passing well. And his post helps explain why Catholics will pray for the repose of the soul of Christopher Hitchens. Because infuriating the world is something Catholics have been doing for over 2011 years.

There is no sense in stopping now. Besides, Our King’s order still stands.

Once you’re gone, you can’t come back;
when you’re out of the blue, and into the black.

Tell it, Neil.

On the Battle Ground of Marriage

Gird your loins, ladies. Sheila Wray Gregoire is calling us to battle! I can't say enough about this woman's take on marriage, both her words and the guest bloggers she invites to write on the topic. Although not a Catholic source, she is excellent in understanding and expressing the ways that Christian marriage is the battleground on which you will fight for your eternal life--yours and your husband's.

Click here to go to the blog To Love Honor and Vacuum
Don't forget to tune in each week for Wifey Wednesdays

Here's one quote from her latest Wifey Wednesday post: "God’s Word doesn’t say that marriage is designed to bring us happiness. In fact it says that it will be an area of struggle and hardship. Genesis 3:16 He told the Woman: 'You’ll want to please your husband, but he’ll lord it over you.'"

And another: "If Satan attacks married people first and foremost through their spouses, in order to render their hearts useless to God, doesn’t it make sense that two strong believing Christians may have more problems within their marriage than non-believers? "

She gets it. She really gets it. I would like to encourage you to read her insights, discuss them, and then get busy battling your temptation to fight fire with Hellfire (letting your husband's sins be an excuse for your own). Even if your husband is not behaving in a way worthy of a Christian man, you are to behave like a Christian woman. Remember, always, that you are serving God by your service in marriage. It isn't about what he deserves from you, it's what He deserves from you.

Get to it, ladies. The war is on!

Be a Prayer Warrior

To Get Started Today:

3 Steps to Make an Immediate Improvement 

in Your Marriage

1. Apologize
Even if you are only responsible for 1% of today's problem, apologize for it, then say no more. Even if he's a jerk about the apology, you have done your best to heal the matter.

2. Do More
Do three things every day that you don't want to do, just to please your husband.
Again, pleasing him is your surest bet to pleasing Him. Face it, we treat strangers we will never meet again way better than we treat our spouses. It's time to break that bad habit.

3. Smile
Make your face a friendly place. Sometimes our face is a bad representation of our innermost selves. You may be worried about tomorrow's schedule, but your face reads as grouchy. Check your expressions a few times a day. Let a smile and an open countenance open doors in your husband's heart.

These improvements are meant to improve YOU first. You are a major component in your marriage and are responsible for YOUR behavior. God is responsible for changing your husband. Be an avenue of change and grace for the marriage so that God can do His work. You can't change anyone else but you, even in your own marriage. Truly, the secret to a better marriage is prayer. The best thing you can do is to pray for your husband, for his good, for his blessings to increase, for God to pour grace and love into his soul. Let God in. Pray and make room.

Pray and Make Room

Splinters: The Nature of Time

Because I'm of a teacherly bent, my talent is to make complexities simple while pointing down the path to further study. The larger the subject, the more imperfectly it can be rendered simply, Teaching being such a frustrating science. It has been 10 years since God used His Holy 2 x 4 to get my attention, and I'm still unpacking the experience. While talking about everyday matters, I'm suddenly waxing philosophical. My husband likes to call these weird little insights of mine splinters. 



The best way to begin this little insight from my conversion is to assert, imperfectly, that it is almost as if our souls once had clear senses in the same way we have bodily senses like sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell. As a friend of mine once put it, "Before The Fall, our souls had eyes." With Original Sin, those senses of the soul became damaged beyond repair. Perhaps in our soul's roiling paroxysms of shame and horror at the advent of personal sins, we each damage these senses further. But it is a mercy of God that we can no longer know the lacerations we unleash upon ourselves and upon reality and the world with the slightest of our sins. We are now numbed to the consequences of sin, thank God.

All of that aside, for a moment, because I could get lost in such essential tangents and never take us down road I intended to take.

One of those senses that is damaged, or muddied up, by sin is our sense of time. Although we live in the Eternal Now, because there is no other time but Now, we perceive now as a continually shifting moment. We feel as if we a slipping from this now to the next now, when in reality it is all one. Part of the damage is our perception of our past and future. Instead of it being integrated into our present, we see each as distinct and somehow fixed. We can dimly see the error of this by our understanding of our ability to affect the future by our choices now, but it is harder to see how dynamic our past also is. Those of us who have gone through experiences like a conversion, which radically changes one's perspective, know that perspective has an immense effect on memory--our only access to the past remaining to us. Radical changes of perspective radically effect history by the explosion of insight into past situations. Such explosions flood our past with new color and light which essentially change that experience for us.

All of time can be reduced to Now. Now is all that matters because Now is all that there is. You are here now, reading this, and somehow you are experiencing every now that you will ever experience in this same moment. That is the nature of Eternity, which we will understand more perfectly when our souls are healed after our slip through death into the perfection of the Eternally Present. When the eyes of our souls are finally healed by the Touch of God at the end of our brief perception of our earthly now, we will see and experience this now so much more perfectly. So, if you can follow me into the end of a prayer while carrying such an insight, you will see that our earthly life hinges upon two moments eternally: Now, and the other vitally important moment when we surrender, ultimately and for all time, to God. How we surrender at our final earthly now that intertwined gift of life and love He has entreasured us with determines how we will perceive our eternal now: eternity itself.

How impossible it is to wrest from language spiritual truth! My frustration has reached it's limits, so I will quit with this now in the hopes that a window has opened upon reality by the briefest brush against the pane. I wish to express to you that it is no mistake that one of the sweetest prayers is an appeal to the sweetest of created beings to pray for us at the most essential moments of our existence: now and at the hour of our death.

Amen.

Jacob Wrestling with the Angel
Wresting Truth from Language is akin to this.

A rose by any other name...

...or three reasons I love the rosary:

1. A rosary is 20 minutes of meditation on the life of Christ. Reciting it daily steeps you in the Gospel as you focus on the meditation for each decade. It keeps Him very much alive in your imagination. There is nothing better to fill your head with than the life of Christ--the Annunciation, the Visitation, the Incarnation...
   
   
2. 20 minutes of prayer a day is not too shabby. Of course, it has nothing on my friends in Africa who spend entire 24-hour days in prayer, but for a lazy, self-indulgent American it isn't bad. The discipline of taking the time to recite a rosary is only one of it's many charms.
   
   
3. God rewards the treasure seeker. I say one rosary each day for my husband and then sit back and watch as it bears fruit. You have to remember how weak and silly I am--how well God understands my smallness--that He allows me to catch tiny glimpses of His grace at work when I do what I ought to do. I am fully aware that I am petty and immature in my faith; He has to reward me instantaneously in order to keep my attention. I am no Mother Theresa that He will trust me with a dark night of the soul or any dryness in prayer. I pray for mostly selfish reasons and God holds my little hannie because I am not steady enough to walk on my own. I can't expound upon the work He is doing in my husband's soul without betraying the bonds of matrimony. I can only tell you I am so very well rewarded for my efforts I would be foolish to ever stop. 

On that note, let me conclude this too brief praise of a lovely Christian prayer tradition and take a moment to request a prayer from you. Would you be kind enough to pray for me that I persevere in prayer? I am only wise enough to know I am a foolish woman. I could so easily fall out of the habit of prayer, and I could use all the help I can get.


Click here for a link on how to pray the Rosary...

Why it matters...

Prayer is often more about the pray-er than the prayer. Here's some stats to prove it.

People who pray every day (whether or not they go to church) are 30 percentage points more likely to give money to charity than people who never pray (83 to 53 percent) And people saying they devote a "great deal of effort" to their spiritual lives are 42 points more likely to give than those devoting "no effort" (88 to 46 percent). Even a belief in beliefs themselves is associated with charity. People who say that "beliefs don't matter as long as you're a good person" are dramatically less likely to give charitably (69 to 86 percent) and to volunteer (32 to 51 percent) than people who think that beliefs do matter.

--Source The Loser Letters: A Comic Tale of Life, Death, and Atheism by Mary Eberstadt quoting Arthur C. Brooks Who Really Cares: America's Charity Divide; Who Gives, Who Doesn't, and Why It Matters.