This Interruption Brought to You By a Narrow Eustachian Tube

My kind of girly has never been the vapory, cute and charming type. The first time my husband had romantic thoughts of me, I took his breath away, sure, but that was only after I'd made him laugh until he cried over my chicken impersonation--inchickenation? It was the cow impression, my finale, that knocked him flat, though. He really did fall out of his chair laughing. He said he knew right then he'd never forget me. He never did. My impromptu impressions made an impression, and yet I'm not at all like the type of gal he's ever dated. His type had always before been dainty, wispy, and delicate. He married me, though. Maybe because I have a strange way of dealing with awkward pauses, which is why I broke the ice with "Want to see a chicken?" all those years ago, but I think it's mostly because I can still knock him out of his chair laughing.

I do have one "dainty" part of me. It is my Eustachian Tube. Because of it's delicate nature I am the only adult I know who still gets regular ear infections. Everything else is a solid "medium to large," alas. At any rate, being upright the last few days has been a challenge, but today, I'm feeling better. After I am done shoveling out my laundry room, I'll get back to blogging!

7 Quick Takes

Hosted this week at Betty Beguiles

1
My grandmother's funeral is today. I am already missing her terribly. Since I moved to Texas, I had the opportunity to get to know her, adult to adult. We were alike in many ways, especially in our humor. What a delight she has always been in my life. Memories will have to serve somehow.

2
My children will be attending the funeral. As my husband is a pall bearer, we decided to bring a babysitter to serve as a "second pair of eyes." Even though we only have five children, one of them can respond unpredictably, so we tend to do things a little differently than other families. Being "in church" is predictable and structured, so my son with Autism understands what to expect and how to respond. The looser structure of mingling after the services can be difficult for him to manage. Socializing is a foreign language and he tends to leave when he feels overwhelmed by social cues. Usually my husband or I stay with the other four if the other has to dash off in a sudden chase, but he will be occupied in those transitional moments today. Hence today's sitter.

3
We spent a year attending Daily Mass around our diocese in order to help my kids understand how to behave in church. Once a week wasn't enough for our family, so we spread our noisiness among several churches and went six. Other than having to stand in a vestibule rather than sitting, kneeling, and standing in Mass, there were no real consequences for my kids. Over time, each one of them began to grow quieter and more reverent. The other attendees not only tolerated my children, they taught them by example. For the most part, due to that year, we can "do church."

4
"Doing church" may become an anachronistic skill in their lifetimes, if not mine. The Catholic Church has seen governments come and governments go. She has endured persecutions for 2,000 years. Her scholars and visionaries have been quietly pondering if it is time to begin ringing the alarm about us, in this country. As the present media debate has been turned from stunned disbelief that our government would dare to redefine religious freedoms by a Presidential mandate to squabbling over birth control, I will leave you with a 2010 prediction from Cardinal Francis Eugene George, Archbishop of Chicago, "I expect to die in bed, my successor will die in prison and his successor will die a martyr in the public square."

5

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On a much lighter note, have I told you recently about my love of maps? One day while perusing Google Maps, I discovered that Bethlehem is five miles from Jerusalem. I'd always wondered why Joseph and Mary had seemed to hang around Bethlehem after the birth of Jesus. Today I discovered that there is some sort of church located on the corner of Nelson Mandela Ave and Nelson Mandela Ave in Harare, Zimbabwe. Go to the link and then put the guy at the intersection. I will have to ask my friend who lives near there what the church is, but it takes him a few days to get back to me, their Internet being so iffy. Anybody know?

6
It isn't often that a blogger gives her readers a homework assignment, but that's what we used to call "Value Added" back in my pre-schoolteacher days in marketing.

7
Today's services were beautiful. The songs were like echoes of my youth: four part harmony from a congregation singing a capella. Sweetness and light, like a gift. Thank you Mawmaw.

An interesting thought...

A friend of mine returned from a Bible Study with this gem...

We've always considered death as the penalty for sin, but it might also be a mercy. Imagine a world where Pol Pot, Adolf Hitler, Genghis Khan were immortal.

Pondering a world like that...

I know I should post today

and I am so not in the mood to write anything, but I've been working on not doing what I want to do. It's a spiritual exercise. Anything I want to do that isn't the best? Not doing it.

I want to sit on my butt and roam around Facebook or Plurk, catch up on the blog posts, enjoy a popcorn feeding frenzy and shut off my brain awhile. That's not the best way to spend the Sunday.

So instead I will share a strange little moment from Church with you. We've got our little choir. Those who follow the blog regularly know that I'm the director and it's made up of two families and sometimes (well, just the once, actually) my sister and her husband. We sit in the back, sing a capella, and wrestle with wee Martins. We have some fine musicians and excellent singers amongst us and every once in awhile we really nail a song. We sound like a choir not sitting in the back trying to sing around the slings and shoelaces of outraged children. Sometimes we sound heavenly.

Today was the day. We had a song end in the wrong spot of the Liturgy, so we chanted "O Radiant Light, O Son Divine." Chant is what we do best when we do our best. Today we managed it. As the beautiful song, beautifully rendered, ended, my husband and I looked across the aisle at the same moment and saw what God had done. Staring at us was a woman, wiping her eyes and crying.

Her heart was opened wide by the song. I don't know how I knew it and how my husband knew it, but we knew. He nodded his head at me and, without thinking it through, I went and sat next to her. (I asked first.)

She scootched. We sat. No big deal. She cried a little. I cried a little, too. At the Sign of Peace I had to go back to the choir pew for the logistics of being in position for Communion and the Communion Hymn. When I went to shake her hand to say, "Peace be with you," we hugged instead and she whispered, "Thank you!" in my ear.

I don't know, exactly, what happened there. I didn't even catch her name, but I'm glad of it, whatever it was.

And now that my 20 minutes of me time is up and I spent it with you. We sat. You read. No big deal. I hope something happened here, too.

An odd note to hit on a Wednesday morning

Moral relativism means, ultimately, there is no difference between good and evil. There is no objective standards from which to judge. The moral relativists who frighten me the most are the ones who lived through the horrors of the last century, who were alive when the concentration camps were emptied, who watched as the wall came down and who can still say that evil is merely a construct of the mind. The people of the Americas merely witnessed these crimes, so they are likely the next ones to be seduced by the lie. I tell you that down the road, I can see people taking power who will take advantage of the shallow thinkers the Information Age has produced. These will be the people who think that the fascists and communists of the last century were not a failed experiment, but merely an idea ahead of its time--because ultimately it is only one idea that drives them, that man is the ultimate end of man and there is nothing that transcends us. I feel it in my bones, what is coming, but I am not afraid. I know, in the end, Who wins. I only pray for the strength to endure.

From Cambodia