A good friend

My wife's closest friend called her today, and told her that she missed hearing her voice, as they hadn't spoken in two days.

I could relate.  It's hard being separated from such a good friend, even when you're glad for their sake that they're away for a while . . .

Sibling love

A young friend posted a funny interchange between himself and his sister, the gist of which consisted of:

"I love you," she concluded.

"No, you don't," he replied after thinking he'd hung up the phone.

"Yes, I do, Buttwipe!"

Another reminder of how much I miss my sister.  We got on each other's nerves so much as kids, and were only beginning to learn to appreciate each other when she died, too young.

Today's word

Actually from earlier in the week, but I'm just now catching up:

duckboard - a boardwalk or slatted flooring laid on a wet, muddy, or cold surface -- usually used in plural

Burlesque

It's odd how the echoes of my coming-of-age bounce around at unexpected times.

Last night, the young lady I accompanied on guitar over the summer was opening for a burlesque show at a local comedy club.  Our - well, my - plan was to go hear her sing and then leave. But everyone in the group was sticking around, and it ended up being a good thing that we did, as the musicians ended up closing the show, as well.

After their first set, they were immediately followed by a couple of comedians. The first apparently wasn't able to evoke a laugh from anything except crude humor, and when that didn't work he really didn't have a backup plan. The second, who was really the first because he was the host of the program, did a much better job with his much funnier material.  Then came the burlesque girls.

Now, first of all, I was in a really tough position to watch any of the show, as the stage was at about 8 o'clock relative to how I was facing, and there was room neither to turn my chair nor to put my legs if I could have. Secondly, the "girls" - these women couldn't have been younger than 40 - did the first part of their dance routine in the aisle that was directly behind me and one table over. Still, they finished on the stage, and I was able to turn my head to take in the end of their quite amateur performance, as the more daring of the two struggled with her brassiere, with her back to us, of course, so we could see her fumbling with the rear-facing hooks - so that she could reveal her pasty-clad breasts at the end of their number.

Still, despite this, I found there was more than my spiritual sensibilities at play in my emotional response. No, I wasn't at all aroused by the performance, just very uncomfortable. It took me a while in the evening to realize that, even though the mood, the atmosphere, and the context were very different, this whole striptease evoked the uncomfortable lunches and evenings out with my stepfather, into the strip joints and porn shops of the Baltimore area.

Sigh.

So it seems I can't even process the issue of whether there was anything wrong with me being there last night strictly on its own merits. There are times when I wish that the Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind was real . . .

1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

Could the reason that we're told to rejoice always, pray constantly, and give thanks in all circumstances have anything to do with that being the only way I feel hopeful?

Not sure how I feel

So a couple weeks before Christmas, my wife attempted to communicate with our daughters a query into whether it was their desire to exchange Christmas gifts with us. I learned of this by way of my middle daughter, who didn't show me the text but shared the giIst of it with me. As I have come to expect, it was communicated without any sense of how the words might appear to the recipient, and conveyed a very different message from what (I hope and trust) she intended.

Perhaps I should have done a better job of extending my damage control efforts to our other daughters, who did not raise the issue with me, but I wasn't really sure how to broach the subject with them. I suppose I could have explained to them how I became privy to message contents that were not addressed to me, and suggested that what was meant to be conveyed was likely something very different from the message they received.  In the process, should I have also pointed out their mother's obvious inability to couch her communication in terms that do not give offense?

Having not figured out how to handle that, how do I now deal with the difficult combination of very hurt feelings and resentment I'm now experiencing?

I feel hopeless.

(So I guess maybe I am sure, after all, how I feel.)

Abjectly

I really didn't think it was possible to feel like a more complete failure as a parent . . .

The Joy of Christmas

"For what greater grace could God have made to dawn on us than to make his only Son become the son of man, so that a son of man might in his turn become son of God?
"Ask if this were merited; ask for its reason, for its justification, and see whether you will find any other answer but sheer grace." - from a sermon of St. Augustine


I wanted to record this thought from Christmas Eve here, too, along with this:

"Dearly beloved, today our Saviour is born; let us rejoice. Sadness should have no place on the birthday of life. The fear of death has been swallowed up; life brings us joy with the promise of eternal happiness.
"No one is shut out from this joy; all share the same reason for rejoicing. Our Lord, victor over sin and death, finding no man free from sin, came to free us all. Let the saint rejoice as he sees the palm of victory at hand. Let the sinner be glad as he receives the offer of forgiveness. Let the pagan take courage as he is summoned to life." - from a sermon of St. Leo the Great

I must remember to focus on these things when I am  in the midst of things that crush my spirit.

Fr. Matthew Kelty

I haven't had time to post while he's been on my mind, but I learned last week from a friend who just made a retreat to the Abbey of Gethsemani that one of my favorite priests has gone home. As long as he was able, Fr. Matthew Kelty brought his love for poetry to every evening's closing reflection, after Compline, with the retreatants. His gruff voice somehow made more tangible his gentle spirit, and he shared eloquently of a compassionate, loving God, whose mercy exceeds all bounds. As I shared with him my grappling over how to conform with my need to live honestly, he shared a tender insight with me in Reconciliation that forever changed how I view the balance of integrity and mercy in my life.

Rejoice in God for all eternity, Fr. Matthew, and pray for us.

Today's words

Two words I've frequently used in one way or another without understanding their proper meaning:

echelon - 1. a steplike arrangement  2a. one of a series of levels or grades in an organization or field of activity  b. the individuals at such a level

escalade - an act of scaling especially the walls of a fortification

Reassurance

I will not put my hopes in my bow,
my sword will not bring me to safety;
for it was you who saved us from our afflictions - from Psalm 44.

I tend to attribute too much of my security and my success to factors which I'm able to convince myself are under my own control. There's a difference between using my gifts as I should and putting my faith in them. I need to remember that God will provide for what we need, even if my inventory of available resources looks to be coming up short.

Does a woman forget her baby at the breast,
or fail to cherish the son of her womb?
Yet even if these forget, I will never forget you.- Is 49, 15-16

These are reassuring words, in this day when we routinely forget the children of the womb, or at least try to. In times when I feel despondent, I must remember that God will not fail to provide for my needs.

Today's Office of Readings

Today's entire second reading from St. Ambrose is worth reading, but for me it is important to recall that these reflections from the early church fathers aren't Scripture. So, for instant, Elizabeth cannot prophesy under the influence of her son in the way that Mary can under the influence of hers, yet the Holy Spirit who prompts John's leap then influences Elizabeth's words. I'm probably quibbling. More pertinent for me is this essential truth of Advent:

According to the flesh only one woman can be the mother of Christ but in the world of faith Christ is the fruit of all of us. For every soul can receive the Word of God if only it is pure and preserves itself in chastity and modesty.- from St. Ambrose's commentary on St. Luke's Gospel.

Of the three comings of Christ which we commemorate in Advent, this is the one that has the most bearing on our lives. Yes, the children of Israel waited centuries for the promised Messiah, and Jesus fulfills every prophecy. Yes, we believe that Christ will come again in glory to bring all his precious ones to the place he has prepared for us. Yet it is Christ's coming to us, by the Holy Spirit, where we are today, that determines whether those other advents are of any consequence to us whatever. Only to the degree we have received in faith the child who became incarnate to deliver us all does any other coming of Christ matter to us.

How can we expect Christmas to be filled with the light and joy of Christ's presence if we do not enter into that presence each day? Thus does St. Ambrose go on:

The soul that has been able to reach this state proclaims the greatness of the Lord just as Mary did and rejoices in God its saviour just like her.- ibid.

And yet, those of us who are not quite there yet will yet proclaim God's greatness to the degree we allow his presence to permeate our lives.

Returning to the scene

I had to go somewhere today I hadn't been in over 15 years. It was not such a pleasant experience, back then, though it could have been far worse. The thing is, I wasn't at all haunted by the past while I was there. It felt kind of, well, normal, to be there.

I really thought that episode would define me - to myself - for the rest of my life. This is the second set of events over the past couple months that has shown me that it apparently doesn't anymore. I have a lot of people to thank for helping that come to be, but I think the first person is probably the second person (after God) is the one I see in the mirror every morning.

Heavy heart

I haven't had much chance to get to know many cats. Mom hated them, thought they were all sneaky. We briefly had a kitten anyway, when I was a kid, until my sister spoiled it by picking it up every time she walked past for the first couple weeks. Then she walked by without picking it up one day, and it scratched her, right under the eye. Goodbye, cat.

We had a couple of them here, shortly after our baby girl graduated high school. She and a friend got them from someone who had them on the side of the road, free to a good home. My wife doesn't hate cats so much as she fears them, so every time one of them jumped, so did she. Since they were kittens, that meant there was a whole lot of jumping going on. It only took about a week of that, after my daughter and her friend abandoned them to us, for us to decide they had to be donated while they were still young enough to be adopted. It was either that or hire a divorce lawyer.

I like cats, but I've never had the good fortune to live in a house of people who share my affinity.

So when I had the chance, Christmas before last, to cat-sit for some friends - whom I wanted to be better friends with anyway - it was definitely a two-birds-with-one-stone situation. I couldn't say yes fast enough! Every day I went over and spent about 20 minutes hanging out with Jackson. He seemed glad for the company, and condescended to allow me to pet him the whole time I was there, after feeding him and filling the bird feeders, of course.  He was quite friendly, and would purr loudly pretty much the entire time I was stroking his fur. My friends added upside to upside: they thought this was worth gifting me for, not realizing what a gift they were already giving me. I still use the guitar tuner I bought with their gift card, all the time.

I think I got to sit him one more time before he moved away with them, and of course got to see him whenever I was over at the house. We were even reunited once at his family's new place, when my company sent me to that area on a business trip early in the year. I'm probably being silly, but it seemed like he was happy to see me, too.

Now I'm not going to see him any more.

I'm going to miss you, Jackson. Not like your family will, I know, but still.

Odd conversation from this morning

"Oh crap!" I jump out of bed.

"I know what that's about!"

I dash to get the trash and recycle to the curb. "Let me grab the trash from this trash can." There is scattered mail paper on the floor around the overflowing can, as well.

"Just throw that whole thing in the recycle bin."

"Well, that might have been an option before I threw trash in there."

"What trash, when?"

"Well, this just now, and that," pointing to the dust and dirt I'd swept up, "the other night." I pick up some of those things off the floor and toss them in, too.

"Why are you throwing out those coupons!"

"I assumed they were trash!  What are they doing on the floor?"

So, stuff to keep goes on the floor. An overflowing trash can full of recyclables. I'm so confused!

Odd conversation from last night

"I must have worked out more vigorously today."
"Oh, why do you say that?"
"Because I finished 5 minutes faster."
Confused look.
"Well, normally, by the time I've warmed up for 5 minutes, then work out for 20, then cool down for 5, my CD is almost over, but today I had a whole song left."
Really confused look.

Then, I was being unreasonable for being confused.

Today's QC

Worry Town

Today's Office of Readings

O Lord, listen to my prayer
and let my cry for help reach you.
Do not hide your face from me
in the day of my distress.
Turn your ear towards me
and answer me quickly when I call.- from Ps 102

So many people I know are in great distress in this week of preparation. Family, dearest friends, prayer partners and coworkers are all dealing with grave difficulties, bearing heavy burdens. On their behalf, I offer up this psalm which, Lord Jesus, you yourself prayed as you walked with us.

Answer quickly, O Virgin. Reply in haste to the angel, or rather through the angel to the Lord. Answer with a word, receive the Word of God. Speak your own word, conceive the divine Word. Breathe a passing word, embrace the eternal Word.- from a homily In Praise of the Virgin Mother by St. Bernard, abbot.

This reading I've excerpted is worth consuming in its entirety. Though St. Bernard is writing to implore the Blessed Mother or, rather, to praise her in recognition of the challenge of her situation, these final three sentences apply equally well to us as we weigh our own "Yes" to Christ's presence in our lives. We fret over what our submission to God's will might cost us. It may be a concept we hold dear, or a freedom we embrace out of proportion to its proper place. It might be our self-determinism, being able to decide for ourselves what is right and wrong, without the influence of any authority to interpret sources we deem irrelevant to our day. Yet despite these reservations, it remains an unfathomable exchange rate. For a word which passes - at the latest, with our own passing - we receive the eternal, infinite Creator of all that is. We, too, must reply in haste!

Why do you delay, why are you afraid? Believe, give praise, and receive. Let humility be bold, let modesty be confident.- ibid.

Well, in this day and age, it generally isn't modesty that causes our hesitation. Nonetheless, let us not be afraid, but rather believe, give praise, and receive. The life in Christ is full of blessings!

First things first

Pray first, then gripe. (If I pray first, maybe I won't still want to gripe?)

Conflicting needs

Sometimes two sets of needs conflict so directly that it's obvious that both can't be satisfied. That can make for a contentious argument with the potential to deeply undermine a relationship.

Sometimes, though, it's obvious to anyone with the slightest ability to look at a situation objectively which set of needs shouldn't - or can't - submit to the other. In these situations, it falls to the other person to, first of all, recognize the truth. We often get so wrapped up in the plan we've developed to meet our own needs that we perform great feats of emotional gymnastics to convince ourselves that we are right and the other is being unreasonably demanding. But when we see that isn't the case, it gets way easier to yield. The challenge can be to do so without fomenting resentment, both immediately and in the longer term.

It can be kind of humorous when the other person seems geared up for an argument that they don't get. The room can resound with conflict scenarios until the self-fulfilling prophecy dynamic has a chance to dissipate. Patience becomes important.

Hopefully not to be continued . . .

Today's words

These were both right there: not quite in my recall vocabulary, but I'd have probably known them both in context:

kegler - a person who bowls : bowler

raillery - 1. good-natured ridicule : banter  2. jest

True glory

And so when my heart grew embittered
and when I was cut to the quick,
I was stupid and did not understand . . .
Yet I was always in your presence;
you were holding me by my right hand.
You will guide me by your counsel
and so you will lead me to glory.- from Ps 73

These words struck me this morning. When I am not spending regular time with God, considering his glory, basking in his love, it is easy for me to forget how I am blessed and to be overwhelmed by my burdens. Have I not demonstrated, over and over again, that my own strength is too puny for the challenges that I am going to face? I find the strength I need only in the Lord.

And yet I go weeks without setting aside time with you, Lord. I make time for the things that feel more important to me, and my soul grows weak, and I become embittered rather than thankful for your abundant, ever-present love.

God is man's glory. Man is the vessel which receives God's action and all his wisdom and power . . . If man, without being puffed up or boastful, has a right belief regarding created things and their divine Creator, who, having given them being, holds them all in his power, and if man perseveres in God's love, and in obedience and gratitude to him, he will receive greater glory from him. It will be a glory which will grow ever brighter until he takes on the likeness of the one who died for him.- from a treatise Against Heresies by St. Irenaeus, bishop

The degree to which I, fearful of how my desires might conflict with God's will for me - despite my good intentions to the contrary and even the reality that they do not - withdraw from God's presence so as to not risk whatever other thing I am idolizing in his place, I will find myself drifting and vulnerable. I may cling to my idol, which I will then have for myself, but it will bring me no joy or strength, and I will find myself drowning in the middle of the ocean.

It is only in seeking and entering into God's presence that I find the peace, strength, and joy that otherwise elude me.

It's only a *song*!

I know it's only a song. So why does my sphincter tighten up when I hear it? Why do I leave the room, leave the building and walk around outside in the cold, until it's over?

It isn't as if I'm ever going to be able to go to an event without hearing it. I should just accept it peacefully.

But that would feel like I'm suggesting that my experience there wasn't so bad.

The Lord is close at hand; come, let us worship him!

This is my favorite type of Advent, that ends with Christmas on a Sunday. Next year I will feel a little cheated that the fourth "week" of Advent only lasts two days; at least, since it will occur during a leap year, we'll miss out on that dreadful Christmas Eve on Sunday dynamic. At any rate, even though Christmas falls on the same calendar date, I have more time to get spiritually ready when the fourth week of Advent is longer. This year I needed it, as I've had so much going on emotionally that I didn't really start preparing in earnest until a week ago.

In today's Office of Readings, St. Leo the Great discusses the necessity of our being saved by one like us, using the ways God has appeared to his people throughout salvation history and the first Adam's effect on all humankind to prepare us for Christ's uniting of the divine and the human. I love how he seamlessly works his way toward the joyful difference that this wondrous truth makes in our lives today, as the same Holy Spirit who by whom the Divine nature took on human nature allows our human nature to take on the Divine. But he does a much better job in expounding on it than I do summarizing, so it's worth reading in it's entirety.

This week's readings will build to the climax of Christ's Incarnation and birth, and I love that we get all of them this year! Now I just need to make the time for them - though preferably not around the same time the monks of Gethsemani pray this hour daily!

A character statement?

So I was meeting some people for dinner, driving separately because I was going straight from work.  When I arrived, I looked around for their vehicle.

I was taken aback when I spotted it, in a space reserved for expectant mothers or parents of young children. They are neither.

Blind sided

I was reading an article this afternoon by an advice columnist, answering a question about how adult siblings who have their own children are going to handle their gifting. The siblings have decided to gift the children, not the adults.  The sibling who wrote in has no children.

None of which matters to me as much as this: in a moment, I realized how much I miss my sister.

The very next moment I realized how long it has been since I realized how much I miss her.

Channeling a 1970's comic:

Love is . . . doing what's best for the loved one, even when it isn't what we want to do.

(Oh, it's still around?)

Begging for a reality check?

One day I will learn not to write stuff like I wrote last night. I swear I will.

Another application of La noche oscura del alma concept

We must then dig deeply in Christ. He is like a rich mine with many pockets containing treasures: however deep we dig we will never find their end or their limit. Indeed, in every pocket new seams of fresh riches are discovered on all sides.  - From a spiritual canticle by San Juan de la Cruz

I suppose this is what keeps me coming back, no matter how often I may question my faith. Each time I do, I find something more, something deeper, that feeds me and helps me grow in a new way. I've found nothing to compare to the depth of Christ.

Would that men might come at last to see that it is quite impossible to reach the thicket of the riches and wisdom of God except by first entering the thicket of much suffering, in such a way that the soul finds there its consolation and desire. The soul that longs for divine wisdom chooses first, and in truth, to enter the thicket of the cross. - ibidem

I find myself applying these words in a different context to that intended by St. John, and yet maybe it is actually the same context.

I am greatly blessed to have a relationship with my wife which nurtures the both of us, allowing us to grow both as individuals and together, and to be amazed by the love we discover together through one another. Yet it has not always been thus. Far from it. We each entered into our marriage burdened with great impediments to our union and to our individual spiritual and emotional maturity. We gave each other ample cause to break off our relationship permanently, and the occasion when we were (I was) most determined to do so was thwarted only by our economic circumstances (God's perfect providence).

Because we bore with each other through these difficulties and, more importantly, entered into the thicket of much suffering which it took to make the changes we needed, we have discovered the riches and wisdom of our relationship together, finding there our consolation and desire. That isn't to say we're there yet. We each have ways in which we need to continue to grow, and we may not yet be finished needing help to get there.

St. Paul emphasizes how the marriage is a metaphor for God's love for us, so I think St. John would accept my misappropriation of his concept. We husbands are told, "Love your wives as Christ loved the Church." - Eph 5, 25.  I have heard this paraphrased as "Go the way of the cross for your wives." Yet we attempt to bear our crosses under our own effort, and insist on seeing them as impositions upon us rather than as a choice we make freely to love fully. As a result, we too often feel we lack the strength to carry a much smaller burden than Christ would easily bear through and for us.

So this concept for which St. John is known most distinctly, the dark night of the soul that leads us into a deeper, fuller experience of God's love than we could ever know without entering into it, embracing it, hungering within it for God's presence and knowing that no other food could satisfy our ravenous appetite, applies to the marriage, as well. Yet our society rejects the idea that there could be a hunger with any purpose other than its own satisfaction. Our analgesic culture rejects the efficacy of pain. Our solutions must be instant, or we are ready to move on.

We should not tolerate or enable abuse. Aside from that, we would do well to bear the crosses of our marriage as burdens of love, through which both we and our beloved become the people we are to become.  When you come right down to it, in each case that is a far greater person than who we may have thought we were dealing with as we entered into our marriage.

Likewise, when we struggle for any sense of God, we would do well to embrace our darkness for a while and give God a chance to brighten it in ways we could never imagine.

Another Fine allegation

I've got to quit reading about this shit. (Yes, I said "shit." We should never use polite language when discussing sexual abuse.)

I think I've suggested as much before.

But I can't.

Today's word

conversazione - a meeting for conversation, especially about art, literature, or science

And just when I was thinking I wasn't going to have anything to say here today!

Grace

Lord, when I feel like I'm failing again
at being the man you call me to be
when I can't break a habit of thought, word, or deed
please, help me to just let you be, through me.

Prolix?

After starting the year off fairly slowly, I seem to be finishing with my most prolific month ever, at least in terms of quantity of posts. As for quality, I leave judgment to the reader!

Season of longing

I suspect that most of us, myself certainly included, are actually pretty good at longing. It's longing for what we really need that escapes us.

Do I long for happiness, contentment, and the things that I think will deliver those elusive emotions?

Or do I long for the One who alone can fulfill me, and for the interior changes that draw me nearer and allow him to live more fully within me, and thereby find the happiness and contentment for which we tend to long?

Blue Advent

Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help, who depend upon horses;
Who put their trust in chariots because of their number, and in horsemen because of their combined power,
But look not to the Holy One of Israel nor seek the Lord! - . - Is 31, 1-3

I think we have become a society who has come to depend on the gifts of this world rather than accepting them as God's providence for us and continuing to depend on him. We seek the best answer that the available resources seem to present, rather than doing what we know to be God's will for us and trusting that the resources we need to do it will be there.

I'm not advocating reckless abandon. Taking stock is prudent. Yet sometimes we do what we know to be wrong because we can't trust enough to do what we know to be right. We look everywhere else for answers first, rather than looking to God first and then looking around to see the resources God provides for us to do as he reveals. And we seek our joy in the blessings around us, making them an end in themselves rather than a means to draw us closer to the One who provides every blessing.

I don't have anyone else in mind as I reflect on this. I just think that this may be the part of my present ennui.

Matthew Kelly has said that we can never get enough of what we don't really need. Maybe it's that we can never get enough of anything, of any combination of finite things, to which we may be looking instead of our infinitely loving God, who is in fact what we need.

Advent is a time of longing, and each year I embrace its tone. It looks as if I have finally entered the season.

Back to the reminder:

Rejoice always, pray constantly, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. - 1 Thess 5, 16-18

God always provides the means for us to do what is His will for us.

I've professed this often.

I have experienced that God can provide the means for us to do what is His will for us even if we resist it. That is, if a course of action or decision is clearly to be ours, and we desire to follow that course, and yet the path that appears to lead to it is not one that we are willing or equipped to take, I have seen God bring it to be over my objections with regard to the path, because it was the only way to bring me to the course I was willing to accept, which was God's will for me. I have seen God provide me the means to do His will for me after crying out in frustrated resignation that I could not do it myself.

The Truth is greater than our limitations.

I believe this.

The Scoundrel and the Saint

An athlete seeking glory for his name
A criminal condemned to die in shame
That teen shoplifting from the local mall
The scoundrel and the saint will clash in all

A mason painstakingly laying bricks
An addict stealing money for a fix
A businessman pursuing corporate fame
The scoundrel and the saint in all the same

A husband washing dishes for his bride
Clandestine lovers clinging to their pride
Magicians captivating with their tricks
The scoundrel and the saint both in the mix

A coach abusing one who cannot run
A banker striving for a big return
A loving father frolics on the floor
The scoundrel and the saint ever at war

I have within my heart two polar factions
and each awaits to see my chosen actions
Christ bore the cross to redeem all of me
And dreams that I will choose the life set free

More sports-related sexual abuse allegations

On the one hand, I think it's a good thing that the world of sports no longer provides safe haven for sexual abusers of boys. The allegations against Bobby Dodd seem to testify to that, and it seems as if the AAU has learned from the intial response mistakes at Penn State and Syracuse. The thing is, men who've developed that behavior pattern should be scared to death now, and likely can't see any positive outcome. That may serve them right, but there is a very forbidding-looking road forward that can lead to healing for them and for their victims. They can't avoid the label they despise, but can still seek help for themselves and the boys they've hurt so deeply; to do so, they will also have to brave the legal consequences of their crimes. There just isn't any way around it.

At the same time, I'm waiting for the bombshells of sexual abuse committed against girl athletes to start dropping. I can't believe all of these allegations of crimes against boys don't have counterparts in the world of girls' sports, too. Perhaps (I hope!) there is far less same-sex abuse committed against girls, but I can't believe there are that many more abusive male coaches abusing boys than girls.

Today's words

swivet - a state of extreme agitation

I think I may have heard this word before, but I'm not going to work myself into a swivet trying to remember for certain. A Kentuckyism, evidently.

favonian - of or relating to the west wind
plausive - manifesting praise or approval

These latter two were from today's Dictionary Devil puzzle. It's my favorite of the Merriam-Webster site's rotation of daily games, and it's usually serves me up with new vocabulary more frequently than the word of the day does. In this case, I was able to guess plausive based on the root plaus, common to both applause and plaudit.

More on mercy

You are good at excusing and justifying your own deeds, and yet you will not listen to the excuses of others. It would be more just to accuse yourself and to excuse your brother. - The Imitation of Christ

I was reflecting on this tendency of ours just this past weekend in our men's fellowship group, and yesterday here. I think it is rooted in what Fr. Spitzer refers to as the comparative identity. The only way many of us know to feel good about ourselves is in comparison to others, and life becomes a sort of competition by which the "best and brightest" of us are the privileged few to merit God's favor (along with the rest of life's blessings). Even if we're aware of this dynamic, we tend to do this all the time, and we instill it in our children from a very early age.

The gift of Christ's love to one who knows they don't deserve it can set us free to discover our true value, which isn't in comparison to others but simply in being so loved by the God of the universe! Then we strive to respond to that love independently of how others may respond, but in the uniquely contributive way in which we are called.

There is joy in finding Christ present, even as we long for him to be present to us more fully!

Yesterday's reminders

Here's the thing about yesterday's reminders, especially the first one. (I expect this to tie in with a post from October, too.)

When I first read the Thessalonians reading with our men's fellowship group on Saturday morning, I was immediately struck by how far I've gotten from it in just a few weeks. It is so easy for us to have our attention on the things that we're displeased with, especially frustrating circumstances that we can't really do anything about. When I get into that rut, I am easily discouraged and unappreciative of the many blessings I have, most especially the people who love me. The song of my life becomes a lament, a dirge of dissatisfaction. Unchecked, the death they herald is my own, as I become an unfruitful wasteland.

(Perhaps that, too, is overly bleak. Plants need a dormant period to recharge, and maybe we do, too.)

But the gift of praise, lifts us out of that quagmire, keeps us from being dragged down by the mud that otherwise weighs down our feet and steals the joy that motivates us to run the race with abandon. There is no set of circumstances in life that we should allow to rob us of the gift of rejoicing! If we are Christ's, what can the world set against us to steal from us our joyful gratitude!

The season of Advent is a good time to recognize whether dissatisfaction and grumbling has become our modus operandi. We're not using a wreath this year: no one bought candles. (It is my favorite sort of year for one, too, containing a full fourth week due to Christmas falling on a Sunday. This won't happen again until 2016.) When we use one, I pray by its light in the early morning, and love how the mornings gets gradually brighter as I spend time week by week in prayer. The joyful light of Christ's presence becomes gradually more evident as I am drawn nearer, eventually cascading into the brilliance of Christmas itself. I miss that this year. Now I must be faithful to my fresh awareness of the effect that my Advent preparations have on my life, and seek daily time to remember my many blessings and, most importantly, the perfect Gift of which they all serve to remind me.

The grace of salvation

"O Lord, salvation is your gift and your blessing is upon your people; what else is your salvation but receiving from you the gift of loving you or being loved by you?" - William of Saint-Thierry
 
This idea that we have that the love of God is our birthright, by virtue of our being basically good people, is the chief obstacle to our practice of mercy. We think of ourselves as good people who make our questionable choices for good reason; others are asses. 

Insofar and in such ways as we are good, this is the gift of God to us, too. Let us then be steadfast in sharing the mercy and grace we receive from God with those around us, and exercise that mercy in our thinking toward them, recalling even in the midst of our frustration that they, too, are God's precious sons and daughters.

The humble voice

I thought this from St. Augustine was worth sharing in its entirety:

John is the voice, but the Lord is the Word who was in the beginning. John is the voice that lasts for a time; from the beginning Christ is the Word who lives for ever.

Take away the word, the meaning, and what is the voice? Where there is no understanding, there is only a meaningless sound. The voice without the word strikes the ear but does not build up the heart.

However, let us observe what happens when we first seek to build up our hearts. When I think about what I am going to say, the word or message is already in my heart. When I want to speak to you, I look for a way to share with your heart what is already in mine.

In my search for a way to let this message reach you, so that the word already in my heart may find place also in yours, I use my voice to speak to you. The sound of my voice brings the meaning of the word to you and then passes away. The word which the sound has brought to you is now in your heart, and yet it is still also in mine.

When the word has been conveyed to you, does not the sound seem to say: The word ought to grow, and I should diminish? The sound of the voice has made itself heard in the service of the word, and has gone away, as though it were saying: My joy is complete. Let us hold on to the word; we must not lose the word conceived inwardly in our hearts.

Do you need proof that the voice passes away but the divine Word remains? Where is John’s baptism today? It served its purpose, and it went away. Now it is Christ’s baptism that we celebrate. It is in Christ that we all believe; we hope for salvation in him. This is the message the voice cried out.

Because it is hard to distinguish word from voice, even John himself was thought to be the Christ. The voice was thought to be the word. But the voice acknowledged what it was, anxious not to give offence to the word. I am not the Christ, he said, nor Elijah, nor the prophet. And the question came: Who are you, then? He replied: I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness: Prepare the way for the Lord. The voice of one crying in the wilderness is the voice of one breaking the silence. Prepare the way for the Lord, he says, as though he were saying: “I speak out in order to lead him into your hearts, but he does not choose to come where I lead him unless you prepare the way for him.”

What does prepare the way mean, if not “pray well”? What does prepare the way mean, if not “be humble in your thoughts”? We should take our lesson from John the Baptist. He is thought to be the Christ; he declares he is not what they think. He does not take advantage of their mistake to further his own glory.

If he had said, “I am the Christ,” you can imagine how readily he would have been believed, since they believed he was the Christ even before he spoke. But he did not say it; he acknowledged what he was. He pointed out clearly who he was; he humbled himself.

He saw where his salvation lay. He understood that he was a lamp, and his fear was that it might be blown out by the wind of pride.

The gift of humility is to recognize the source of our gifts and to remember that their purpose is to glorify God, not ourselves.

A pair of reminders

The first was from today's second reading.  This is 1 Thess 5, 16-18:

Rejoice always, pray constantly, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

The second was from our bulletin, in the promotion for tonight's Evensong in honor of Our Lady of Guadalupe. They were the words spoken to Juan Diego:

Am I not here, who am your Mother? Are you not under my protection? Are you not happily within my fold? What else do you wish? Do not grieve nor be disturbed by anything.

Now, to receive these words as an encouragement and reminder rather than an indictment!

Unmotivated

I feel like one of the people Goat starts off this strip complaining about. (Yes, I know it's just a setup for the stupid gag.)

The Saga of the Two Trees

 - My Last Tree Farm Visit Ever?

- or, How I Came to be Blogging Here Instead of Playing Guitar at 5:00 Mass

This year's tree hunting excursion got off to a later than expected start. I should have known that my second meeting would take up the entire morning. Even though the ministry teams' portion of the meeting has allegedly moved to earlier in the agenda, the music ministry needs to be in on the planning discussion for the quarterly gathering, plus we have an all-day healing workshop coming up in February that I'll also be supporting with music. My 10:30 early departure didn't occur until noon, at which time the meeting was still going strong. I needed to come home and eat, and the ladies (my wife and our daughter) couldn't gear up in their layers until we were almost ready to leave because they'd have sweltered. We probably pulled out around 1, with a plan to be back in time for Melissa and I to go to 5:00 Mass. That would give Teri plenty of time to get to her young friend Emily's dance recital at 6.

Our Shih-Poo, Col. Potter, comes along with us each year, and seems to relish some off leash time running around in the fields once we get out away from other tree hunters. Tracking down the right tree is an involved process, requiring a diligent search for the perfect specimen of whichever variety happens to strike our fancy. Scotch pines were always my mom's favorite, but we're more concerned with height and fullness than species. It generally takes us quite a while to find one we can agree on, which to my analysis is most directly dependent on our getting cold, tired, and frustrated enough for our standards to match the quality of the product available. I'm convinced that, by the time we choose our tree each year, we could go back to a half dozen we'd earlier rejected and they would be just as acceptable as the one we end up with. The whole process provides plenty of opportunity for Potter to get in a few longer runs. Since I'm less patient and mostly less picky than my family members, it has become a real plus for me when the weather is cold on the day we're tree hunting, as everyone else seems to make up their mind faster. I've started joking that I'm going to take a book along, sit in the car and read while they pick out a tree. Then they can call my cell phone when they've agreed on one and direct me to them.

The process is complicated by the fact that we're usually looking fairly late in the season. We've been going to this tree farm for a very long time, maybe longer than we've been in our house (18 years?). They've been open for a couple weeks now, but we usually end up buying ours around mid-December, early enough to get a lot of pleasure from it but late enough so we don't feel like we're pushing Advent out of the way too quickly, and so that the needles aren't falling all over the place by the time we take it down, usually around Epiphany. At any rate, because of when we like to buy, a lot of the best trees are already harvested by the time we start looking.

When we got to the farm today and asked where they had which varieties ready to harvest this year, the very friendly associate (well, everyone has always been friendly there) made sure we were aware that there were four rows of half-priced trees in an area they were trying to clear. Since Teri has always wanted a tree downstairs, too, I suggested this might be the year for that if we could find an acceptable specimen among the bargain trees. We agreed that our standards would be lower for this one, that even a "Charlie Brown" variety would be fine. So we took off for the far southerly reaches of the farm, giving Potter some of his off-leash time to bound through an area that was cleared of trees but had quite a bit of tall grass which he had to deal with. He was having a fine time.

It turned out that we found our "second tree" first, and it's no scrawny thing, either. It wasn't tall enough to suit us as our primary tree, but is actually fuller than I wanted for downstairs. The trunk was at the upper limit of what our existing tree stand will accommodate, so sawing this one down sapped me of quite a bit of energy. We loaded it up onto the tree wagon and resumed looking for our main tree.

Every tree we saw was either not tall enough, not full enough, or both.  Scotch pine, blue spruce, white pine, Douglas fir; they'd all look fine from the north, but the only ones that passed muster from the south were too short for our taste. I finally found a lovely shaped pine, but it got rejected for height. The thing is, we can live with some barrenness on one side, as long as it doesn't extend too high, as we put our tree in front of our living room window so that the lower part of it is facing a wall. But too short is always a deal breaker; aside from the unwritten-but-generally-accepted family standard, it looks silly in the window.

We'd finally resigned ourselves to traipsing over across the road to the north end of the farm, after rejecting at least a half dozen trees I thought would be fine in our space. I made a snarky comment (or four) about it obviously not being cold enough for tree hunting, or that we clearly hadn't gotten cold enough yet. As we started working our way back, we kept looking at trees along the way, when what to our wondering eyes should appear but an acceptable tree! The problem was, we were going to need another tree wagon to get our two trees back to the main barn and our van.

Now, when I mentioned this dilemma, it was obvious that I would stay and start cutting on our main tree. Fortunately, the trunk was a little smaller than our other tree, though this one was taller. My foolishly unspoken assumption was that one of the two ladies would stay to push against the tree, providing a gap to keep the blade of the bow saw from getting pinched, while the other went back to get another wagon. Next thing I know, both ladies are headed toward the outlying barn, with the dog, in the direction of the main barn. This second barn was probably about a quarter of the way back, and they were definitely too far away for me to call either of them back. So I set to work, eventually getting the width of the saw blade cut all the way around the base of the tree very near the ground. Now, this was my second tree, and my arms were growing considerably tired, plus I had no one providing a push against the tree, so the blade was starting to pinch. I had taken a couple breaks to look back down the path and still didn't see any sign of the ladies or Col. Potter, so I got out my phone to call to check on them. No answer on the first of their cell phones. No answer on the second cell phone. Finally, as I'm composing a text message, my phone rings.

It seems that a couple of things transpired. First, all the trudging around had both my wife and daughter worn out, the latter of whom was also experiencing pain in her back. More disturbingly, Potter had apparently gotten into an altercation with a loose dog at the main barn. They thought he was probably okay, but weren't sure. So, couldn't I just put the two trees on the one wagon facing opposite directions and pull the both in that way?

Well, seeing as I couldn't seem to finish getting this second tree cut down by myself, I rejected that plan and asked for some help. Very begrudgingly, my wife acquiesced to trudging "all the way back out there, and then all the way back again," and would bring another wagon with her. I went back to work on felling the tree. I'd been trying to push against it myself, and instead of bending where I had been cutting, the stump was moving in the ground. Where I'd been laying to cut it was frozen, but there'd been a bed of needles under the tree and especially around the trunk, and with all the rain we've had I'd been dealing with quite a bit of mud. I finally got a few more strokes of the saw through each side of the trunk, and was able to push the tree over to finish the job of sawing through it. But there was still no sign of the ladies walking toward me, and I was beginning to worry that maybe Potter was more seriously hurt than they'd thought. I thought I'd spotted my wife's baby blue coat a couple times, but the first was on a guy out tree hunting with his family, and the second person stopped by the stone house next to the outlying barn. I tried doubling up the trees as the staff had suggested to her, but they were both just too full for that.

When I called again to check on her, I was scolded for not knowing how far it was out there and for calling again to check on them, and told that they had reached the outlying barn. I soon saw the three of them, our daughter draggin' the wagon toward me, and Teri and the dog walking by the barn and appearing to then go back to the stone house next to it. When our daughter had covered about the remaining distance, moving very slowly because of the pain in her back, I met her and took over the pulling. I loaded the second tree up on the wagon, and told Melissa to start pulling "the lighter one," not realizing the shorter one was actually a little heavier. I pressed on ahead of her with the other tree, intending to get it back to the main barn and then return to help drag the other one back in. That actually went according to plan; I met them about halfway back toward the secondary barn and dragged that tree back in, too, after greeting our dog, who now seemed to be doing fine. He sure was skittish, though, when we got back to the main barn.

By the time I got both trees loaded into the van, it was about 4:15. Meanwhile, my wife had gotten a phone call indicating that the dance recital was from 4:30 to 6, rather than starting at 6 as she'd been told earlier. We rushed home and I got the trees out of the car right away so she could leave, but by the time she parked she was too late to see her young friend dance. There was absolutely no way for me to get the trees into water and get cleaned up for Mass.

On the way home I told her, "You have a year."

"A year for what?" she inquired.

"For me to forget that I've just sworn that I will never do this again."

Feeling middle aged

Good thing. Much longer and I'd be old already.

Oops. Too late.

The thing is, most of cures that people (men) turn to for that ailment are illusory.

Why?

I write for the same reason I breathe: because I must.

I've never wished I could just stop writing, though.


(No, I'm not currently wishing I could just stop breathing, either.)

The news cycle

That Dottie Sandusky is convinced her husband is being lied about in the cruelest possible way and, in her viewpoint, grossly persecuted, is either pathetic or noble, but either way, IT ISN'T NEWS.

That Jerry Sandusky was arrested on additional abuse charges and can't make bail is news.  By all means, report it. But that the wife of a purported perpetrator thinks that he's innocent, never heard a boy downstairs screaming for help, can't imagine that her husband could have done such a terrible thing? This conveys nothing other than expected information and contributes NOTHING to the news cycle. Now, if she had known about it for some time? That would be news worth reporting.

Humility, cont.

The part I left out was the idea that gave me the title of the post.  I play pretty well, but let's face it: no one's experience of Christmas liturgy is much enriched by what I do on the guitar.

(No, I am not fishing.)

Today's word

Wallaroo - 1. a large reddish-gray kangaroo (Macropus robustus) -- called also euro.  2. either of two kangaroos (Macropus antelopinus and M. bernardus) related to the wallaroo

I've heard of kangaroos (of course) and wallabies. This is the first time I've noticed the wallaroo.

Freaks

An old high school friend has posted that she wants to know when "they" are going to "protect our children from freaks like Jerry Sandusky." Please don't take offense, Kathy, but there are at least two things wrong with that. First of all, sexual abusers are entirely too commonplace to be referred to as freaks. Secondly, "they," as in "the government," cannot protect us from people like him.

A commonly quoted statistic is that one in three girls and one in six boys are sexually abused before adulthood. I'm careful about quoting such stats as fact without knowing the method behind them and whether the study has been replicated, neither of which I know in this case. But for every serial abuser we know about there are untold others others who commit their offenses against people they know, family members or friends who are vulnerable or who are in a vulnerable position. I can give you four examples I know of from my own family, only one of whom ever faced the consequences of his actions in this world (though two have gone on to face whatever awaits in the next; I pray it is, somehow, mercy). Still, it isn't freaks who sexually abuse children; it is ordinary-appearing men and women (yes, it happens to be men in the news now, but there have been plenty of women, too) who are broken in ways that drive their behavior in directions even they don't fully understand. It would be a huge mistake to excuse sexual abuse because of that, but likewise to demonize everyone who abuses as if such offenses are only committed by freaks. Either approach impairs our ability to effectively deal with this difficult and scary issue.

The government cannot protect our children from abuse, though neither can it abdicate its responsibility to prosecute it and protect our children from further offenses by the same perpetrator when it learns of them. Even diligent, loving parents can't always protect them, but that is the first and best defense. For children who lack such parents, other concerned, attentive adults in their lives are indispensible. But it is crucial that all of us ensure that appropriate boundaries are in place to keep our children safe. The two-adult approach isn't foolproof, but it's a start.

I'm sure to need to write more on this.

Humility

I'm having to remember that Christmas is no more about the cool new music than it is about the gifts or the lights or any other trappings that we associate with it.  Each of those plays a role in what we're supposed to be celebrating, but none of them replaces the simple truth of Christ's presence with us, that we will never again be separated from the One who loves us most.

So as everyone is practicing their cool new music and I don't have any, I have to let go of the jealous resentment that will otherwise poison my Christmas.

Remote blogging

I was going to set up mobile blogging, about which I had some concerns. Then I remembered that I've already set up e-mail blogging, which is at least as easy (he said, assuming in advance that this test will work).

Cleaning up

When I entered the kitchen to get breakfast this morning, I was greeted by the scene on the left and the stale, pungent aroma of last night's fajitas. The onion put a particular damper on my appetite, but I was probably most frustrated by the dried out remnants of cottage cheese in the container visible in the sink; this needed to be cleaned out before it could go into the recycle bin. Still, ten minutes later the kitchen and I were both ready for breakfast, and the mrs. had hers under way as well, as evidenced by the oatmeal envelope. (I should have put those toothpicks on the stove away before I snapped the second photo.)

I somehow doubt that this experience will teach me to spend that 10 minutes to take care of things before bed . . .

The inexorable march of December

Today began an annual series of events spaced six days apart that always walked me through each December.  My oldest cousin's birthday is December 7th.  Six days later was my parent's anniversary. In another six days followed my sister's birthday (now it's also one of our grandson's). Of course, the 25th was the best day of the year, and six days after that was New Year's Eve.

In memory, there feels like an undertone of anxiety around it all. I don't know if it was because of my dad's and uncle's alcoholism, or the effort to make sure the birthdays didn't get lost in the shuffle, perhaps the never-quite-articulated stress of the adults trying to make sure things were ready for Christmas, or some combination of it all. But in retrospect, even though this was the time I so anticipated, the memory feels a little tense.

Hmmm . . .

Not rhetorical

Is there a practical difference between not being appreciative of what you have and not being satisfied with it?

If so, and further, if I must strive for improvement to become who I am to be - for us to become who we are to be - how do I make sure that I live on the latter side of that line without crossing over to the former one?

On the other hand

My last real post (from this afternoon) ended up being a strange blend of theology and therapy. I should probably be honest enough to admit that I struggle not only to live that way, but to even want to.

Just wondering:

Why are almost 60% of my page views from Russia?

Feed my sheep

When those who are tending Christ’s flock wish that the sheep were theirs rather than his, they stand convicted of loving themselves, not Christ. And the Lord’s words are a repeated admonition to them and to all who, as Paul writes sadly, are seeking their own ends, not Christ’s.
 
Do you love me? Tend my sheep. Surely this means: “If you love me, your thoughts must focus on taking care of my sheep, not taking care of yourself. You must tend them as mine, not as yours; seek in them my glory, not yours; my sovereign rights, not yours; my gain, not yours. Otherwise you will find yourself among those who belong to the ‘times of peril,’ those who are guilty of self-love and the other sins that go with that beginning of evils.”

So the shepherds of Christ’s flock must never indulge in self-love; if they do they will be tending the sheep not as Christ’s but as their own. And of all vices this is the one that the shepherds must guard against most earnestly; seeking their own purposes instead of Christ’s, furthering their own desires by means of those persons for whom Christ shed his blood.

From a treatise on John by Saint Augustine, bishop

Although the audience of this writing appears to consist of pastors within the Church, this section from today's Office of Readings reminds me of an important and easily-forgotten truth. As a husband, I must think of myself primarily as shepherd of the flock entrusted to me: my family. It is far too easy to get wrapped up in what I think other family members should do and how their decisions affect me. It puts things in a very different light when I remember this other way of thinking of my loved ones and our roles in each others' lives.

A thought or two is also called for regarding self-love. St. Augustine is obviously using the term very differently from how we have come to embrace it today. We are seeing great emphasis on how important it is to accept that I'm a flawed human being and not hate myself for that. There is also a popular approach that suggests that I  must look to my own needs ahead of those of others. I have seen both of these perspectives applied appropriately and also misused. Living a life of healthy balance between my needs and others means that I will draw appropriate boundaries for both my benefit and the good of those I love, and an inner conviction of my lack of worth can drive me to many unhealthy types of decisions, both consciously and otherwise. Yet it's also possible to exalt myself, using self-love as a rationale for justifying my viewpoint in conflict with others. Augustine is obviously using the term self-love to refer to this type of self-indulgence by which the pastor places his own well-being over the needs of the flock, or his desire for personal glory above his striving to glorify Christ.

The importance of applying these ideas appropriately should be obvious, but I'm going to speak to them anyway. I must not interpret and respond to my family members' behaviors and needs primarily based on their effect on me. It's easy to think that it's all about me, when it really isn't at all. Yet this becomes a self-perpetuating thought-feeling-behavior habit that interferes with living and loving as we're called. It isn't that my family members are pulling my chain, or that they're inconsiderate. Yes, we may have some conflicts to resolve, but it's way easier to do that - to want to address them in the first place, and then to approach the situation in a helpful way - when I apply the proper perspective to my own thinking.

It is our underlying beliefs about ourselves and those around us that form the context in which we understand and respond to everything. These are the chief driver of our personal happiness (or lack), and the single area most directly under our control, as opposed to the circumstances to which we most often attribute it. Yes, our situations have very real repercussions on our emotional state, but these are often beyond our control and don't play as deep and lasting a role as our underlying beliefs do. When we focus on our happiness - the "outflow," to apply a concept from Oswald Chambers in a slightly different context - and on the way that others' actions directly and outwardly affect us, we fail to address our own foundational thoughts and attitudes, which most basically and profoundly effect our satisfaction with life and provide us the tools we need to deal with others' actions and our circumstances most effectively.

It's a bit like a sports team that focuses on winning to the exclusion of preparing to execute the actions that produce the greatest chance for victory.

That's okay, I guess

I need to go to bed anyway.

Drums keep pounding rhythm to the brain

The late Red Sox clubhouse manager isn't really news, right? I mean, he was accused in '02, pleaded guilty in Florida, the club settled with plaintiffs in '03, he died in '05. I get that the newly identified victims have every right to come forward, and why they might not have before, even. I just don't get why it's news.

Give me a break, please. 

please.

I'm not asking as a member of the public tired of hearing about sexual abuse. I am pleading as a survivor who just needs a rest from reconsidering it all the time.

La di da di dee, La di da di die

The supper fail

With the mrs. out of town for the weekend, I figured I'd welcome her home with a nice dinner.  I'd talked with her more than a week ago about recreating this really great potato chip appetizer we'd had at the Cap City Fine Diner, with hollandaise and Maytag bleu cheese. I thought it was delicious, and was kind of surprised the she'd seemed to like it, too, seeing as she's never liked bleu cheese.

I was a little worried about the hollandaise. I've never made it; whenever I've been tempted before, I've been put off by how tedious and tricky the recipes look.  I'm never very good at patience on this sort of thing.  It seems like I always have too many things going at once to pay enough attention to such a sauce, like it was by its very nature a recipe for failure, and I'm good enough at that without setting myself up for it! But by yesterday I'd forgotten about that history, and found this simpler-looking one that uses a blender to pull things together in way less time. It ended up working pretty well, too, except for the constant splatter through the hole in the blender lid as I was adding the butter.

The next trick was to get out the slicer we inherited from her dad. It needed some cleaning up, but the instructions were clear and, because of dad's great organization, present! I set it a little too thick for the first potato, not factoring in that the raw potato would probably push out on the blade a little. The second one was pervect. I got the slicer cleaned back up, dried and put away, including putting a bag over it so that it probably won't need to be cleaned before the next time we want to use it again.  And the chips came out crispy and tasty!

Finally, I decided on a chuck roast, but wanted a recipe without onion because of how much my daughter hates it. By finally excluding onion from my search, I found this recipe with cranberries; I knew the mrs. probably wouldn't like the cranberries, but as she enjoys jellied sauce I figured she'd enjoy the gravy without any actual berries in it. By the time I got the roast started, I was concerned about getting it done in time, but when the text message announced they were almost home it was apparent that it would be in fine shape.

Aside from the fact that I was cleaning up some spilled albumen when she walked in the door, and was still in scramble mode and needed for her to tend the chips for me while I finished the sauce, everything came together pretty much as planned.

So, where's the fail? Well, it turns out she wasn't as much of a fan of the chips as I'd assumed based on how much she'd consumed at the diner. And that she doesn't like hollandaise any better than bleu cheese. And that the roast was too sweet for her liking. And I suppose the boxes of Christmas decorations that I didn't get squared away because I was busy preparing a meal that she didn't care for and which were therefore cluttering the family room didn't add to her homecoming experience.

I'm afraid that last paragraph might read as if I think she's picky, or even downright bitchy, for not fully appreciating my efforts. That's not the case at all. I'm just disappointed that I wasn't able to please her as I was trying to.

Today's words

thane -  1. a free retainer of an Anglo-Saxon lord; especially : one resembling a feudal baron by holding lands of and performing military service for the king.  2.  a Scottish feudal lord
mana - 1.  the power of the elemental forces of nature embodied in an object or person. 2.  moral authority : prestige (definition 2?)

I can't remember which comic led me to the first word, a comment on which led me to the second.

A useful article

From Dana O'Neil, at ESPN

News cycle

I'm drawn to news from Syracuse and State College like, well, any simile for attraction you can imagine, and probably a lot you don't want to.

Today's word

geniculate - bent abruptly at an angle like a bent knee
 
As a "cradle Catholic," I've known today's word-of-the-day - genuflect - for as long as I can remember.  Can't say that I'd ever heard of this related adjective they mentioned in its write-up. 

Understandable questions, reasonable answers, sensible denial

Edited, 12/1:

A couple questions that arose from a resident of Syracuse regarding her skepticism over the Fine allegations:

"Why give (the tape) to ESPN and not the police?"
The police made clear to Davis that they wouldn't be able to charge Fine even if they had undeniable proof of his alleged abuse of Davis and his stepbrother, due to the statute of limitations for child sexual abuse in the state of New York.

"Why use that tape now and not initially?"
The tape was provided to ESPN years ago, who through long-established standards of journalistic integrity would not run this story without at least one corroborating witness or accuser.  When Davis' stepbrother came forward in the wake of the accusations against Jerry Sandusky at Penn State, they had their corroboration and ran the story.
 
The media have great power, and I don't think any of us want the standards of journalistic integrity tossed aside so that anyone can be publicly accused of such damnable acts without appropriate evidence of their veracity.
 
Why did this woman - indeed, why do we in general - need to ask such questions? Because we don't want to believe such accusations. Because the good part of our nature wants to believe the best of people, and we'd far rather think an accuser lying than that he or she might be telling the truth about the abuser.  Because the heinousness of sexual abuse offends our sensibility, and we misunderstand the nature of abuse and abusers. Because the abuse is evil, and we insist on believing that evil is only perpetrated by evil people. Certainly no one we know well and love could ever do such a thing! But the truth is as Solzhenitsyn observed: the line between good and evil passes right through every human heart.
 
This is the part most of us miss about the mission of Christ, who came not for the righteous (of whom there are none), but sinners.  There are no righteous because each of us has evil within us.  Although we may usually choose righteousness, we often choose some degree of sinfulness in its place, perhaps dismissing it as merely playful "naughtiness."  Although we may not choose such a great evil as to molest a child, we also rarely understand the brokenness that drives such sin.  I do not excuse it, based on that brokenness.  Yet I desire healing for abusers as well as the abused, while still expecting them to face the consequences of their actions and to take every step necessary to prevent ever again repeating them.
 
When we strike a balance between the antipodes of blind denial and retribution, we find healing that astounds.