bearing blog

bearing blog


bear – ing n 1  the manner in which one comports oneself;  2  the act, power, or time of bringing forth offspring or fruit; 3 a machine part in which another part turns [a journal ~];  4  pl comprehension of one’s position, environment, or situation;   5  the act of moving while supporting the weight of something [the ~ of the cross].

  • Big day for MJ.

    Mj_baptism_weekend_019 Mary Jane Frances was baptized on October 1:  the memorial of St. Therese of Lisieux and also Respect Life Sunday. 

    Baptism was outside of Mass, and the service lasted almost an hour.  Much to the surprise of our guests, whom I’d told to expect about fifteen minutes’ worth of stuff.  Oops.

    The only mar on the baptism service was the middle part of Father’s remarks:  a pro-spanking, "kids these days don’t get enough discipline" diatribe.   Did you know that kids’ ears are on their backsides?   Oy.   

    We had a pewful of attachment-parenting friends in attendance; the seven attachment-parented children, sitting politely in a row, could easily testify otherwise.  He’s an exceptional priest, but… Somebody send the man a copy of the Popcaks’ books, please.  I’m perfectly aware that it’s my Christian duty to discipline my child, part of the baptismal promises; and I’m also pretty sure that I have tools at my disposal, other than whacking them, to accomplish it.   

    It was also, of course, Respect Life Sunday.  Amy asks what we heard.  The theme of the homily in the Mass that preceded the baptism was abortion as a symptom, rather than a source, of our culture’s sicknesses.  That outlawing abortion tomorrow, though a reason for celebration, would not fix the underlying problems; that the culture must change first, and it must begin in our own homes. 

    I thought, what a blessing for MJ to be a sign of new life that day.

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  • September 30: A rosary for my daughter on the eve of her baptism.

    Blessed Virgin Mary, pray for us.  St. Jane Frances de Chantal, pray for us.   St. Therese of the Child Jesus, pray for us.   

    In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  I believe in the Father, etc.

    I pray for my little girl’s father and for all fathers that they may guide their families with love and constancy:  Our Father who art in heaven, etc.

    That she may preserve and defend the faith:  Hail Mary, etc.  That she may be ever hopeful, and a sign of hope:  Hail Mary, etc.  That she be ever inclined to charity towards all:  Hail Mary, etc.

    The first Joyful Mystery is the Annunciation to the Virgin.  O Mary, you responded immediately to the angel’s announcement with your full assent to the will of the Lord.  Pray that my daughter know her vocation and that she respond with your wholehearted assent to the life that God asks of her.   Our Father, etc.  Hail Mary, etc., x10.  Glory be, etc.

    The second Joyful Mystery is the Visitation of Mary.  O Mary, you went with haste to your kinswoman Elizabeth at the news of her pregnancy.   Pray that my daughter be greeted always with joy by her kinswomen and friends and may she bring Christ in her own flesh to all of them in return.  Our Father, etc.  Hail Mary, etc.  Glory be, etc.

    The third Joyful Mystery is the Nativity of the Lord.  O Mary, you brought forth your firstborn son and laid Him in a manger.  Pray, O Mary, that my daughter may be physically strong and healthy, to bear children well or to do whatever other work the Lord may ask of her.  Our Father, etc.  Hail Mary, etc.  Glory be, etc.

    The fourth Joyful Mystery is the Presentation of the Lord.  O Mary, you and your husband brought the newborn Christ to the Temple and redeemed Him with two pigeons according to the Law.  Pray, O Mary, that my daughter may be ever faithful to the precepts of Your Son and that she may be ever grateful for His gifts, returning God to God all the days of her life.  Our Father, etc.  Hail Mary, etc.  Glory be, etc.

    The fifth Joyful Mystery is the Finding of Jesus in the Temple.  O Mary, you and your husband searched for the boy your Son among all your traveling companions, and on returning to Jerusalem found him a teacher in His Father’s house.   Pray, O Mary, that my daughter look always for Christ in other people, and yet return continually to receive Him where He can be found truly in His Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity.  Our Father, etc.  Hail Mary, etc.  Glory be, etc.

    Hail, holy Queen, mother of mercy, our life, our sweetness, and our hope, etc.

    St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle, etc.

    O Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on us.  Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us.  St. Joseph, pray for us.

    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, amen.

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  • Cold showers.

    Provocative article on corporal mortification at GodSpy. 

    In our society, it’s considered perfectly normal to mortify our bodies so long as the reason is secular and the goal is physical. No one bats an eye at cosmetic plastic surgery, Botox, tattoos, and body piercing. Even physical fitness taken to extremes is looked upon as almost de rigeur. I’m all for staying in shape, but when I see joggers here in Florida sweating in 95 degree heat during their run at lunch hour, I have to wonder: Are you trying to have a stroke?

    … But if you perform corporal mortification for religious reasons, to achieve some spiritual good, you’re an oddball. To borrow an analogy from Boston College professor Peter Kreeft and give it a twist, if I were to announce at a cocktail party that I just got my tongue pierced, I would be surrounded by an eager crowd of spectators. But if I were to announce that each morning before work I take a cold shower as a religious ritual, I would soon be talking to myself.

    h/t:  Amy

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    1 comment on Cold showers.

  • Closed!

    Finally!  We closed on the sale of our duplex yesterday afternoon.  Since we have to look at it every day, living next door as we do, this will be a huge load off our minds.  It’s gone!  It’s not ours anymore!  Hurray!  Down to one mortgage!

    The market in Minneapolis is slow, very slow.  The duplex market has ground to a halt.  It is so slow that "average time on the market" is a meaningless metric right now.  A few weeks ago the best way of characterizing our neighborhood was like this:

    Duplexes on the market:  51

    Sales of duplexes pending:  0

    And then, miracle of miracles, the second number ticked up from 0 to 1, and we were the chosen ones!  Yes, us!  I mean, our duplex was. 

    We attributed this miracle to (1) Mark’s laborious refinishing and repainting over several months, which surely must have set it apart from others, (2) our realtor’s aggressive marketing of the duplex among Spanish-speaking realtors, as our area is very close to a vibrant district of predominantly Spanish-speaking businesses, (3) the offer of a thousand dollar bonus to the realtor of the buyer and also that we would pay closing costs.

    Who was this foolish person who was willing to buy our duplex at the asking price in a buyer’s market without any haggling? 

    He was Adrian, a Mexican-born man about our age, friendly and very halting in his English.  His realtor translated for him as we worked (I listened with interest to see if I could understand any of the Spanish, but mostly what I caught her telling him, as she pointed to documents, was:  Su nombre aqui.  Y aqui.  Y aqui.  Y aqui.  A closing is not a very interesting thing to listen to) And then, after we had been sitting across the table from him for about an hour, our realtor, making small talk, asked his realtor, "So when is Adrian going to move in?"

    She replied, "Well, he will take his time, because he lives next door."

    At first, confusion.  No, you’re mixed up.  WE live next door.   But no!  It is the neighbor on the other side!

    The first thought that occurred to Mark was this:  Man, I could have saved us about eight thousand dollars if you’d have just knocked on my door.

    The first thought that occurred to me was this:  Oh my God.  You’re the nice guy who indicated "don’t worry about it" after I collided with your parked car last year and ran a big scratch all up the driver’s side.

    I had to explain that last bit to Mark later, when he wanted to know why I looked excessively embarrassed.  I think I will make an extra-special effort not to hit the man’s car again.

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  • My new resolution.

    There’s a pun in there somewhere.

    I’m not a camera person.  This means that I enjoy my vacations and my life in general without staring constantly through the viewfinder.  But it also means I do not have very many pictures of my children.

    Vacation pics aren’t really what I want to look back on and remember, as much as Life Itself.  But I do want pictures of my growing family to have someday.

    So I resolved to pick one day every month, in advance, and take my camera with me and take some pictures that day — not a lot, just a few.   And then to upload them immediately to Shutterfly.  After accumulating fifty or so, then, I can get prints all ready to go in an album.

    Yesterday was my first attempt.  Here’s what we got chronicling wake-up, breakfast, and errands including a trip to Noodles and Company (which is a great restaurant to take kids — my kids anyway).

    Photo_dump_2006_137 Photo_dump_2006_138

    Photo_dump_2006_139 Photo_dump_2006_141 Photo_dump_2006_146 Photo_dump_2006_148 Mark took the last one after I got home from shoe shopping.

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  • Shopping.

    I never used to think I liked shopping very much. 

    Last night I was going to go get my hair cut.  Mark promised to watch the boys and
    I was going to take MJ with me.  But at the last minute I thought of how for Sundays and restaurants, the last three months or so, I’ve been wistfully spit-shining the scuff marks on my seven-year-old black heels (bought to go with the new black suit I wore at my preliminary oral examination, before I had my first son) and how I’ve got two new nursing dresses with no shoes to match.  And I said, "Darn it!  I’m not going to get my hair cut.  I am going SHOPPING."   

    Mark recoiled in shock.  But didn’t object.

    So I took MaryJane with me in the sling and went to the mall — not the Mall of America, because the department stores are too far apart for efficient shoe shopping — and bought 3 pairs of shoes.

    Photo_dump_2006_002_1

    One pair was on deep discount at Marshalls, the others full price at Macy’s, I’m sad to say.

    Now that I have children, I’m beginning
    to understand what a luxury it is to be able to go shopping, occasionally, with the freedom to try things on and walk from store to store to compare choices.  It’s really not fair to kids to try to take them with you for this kind of thing.

    The trip inspired me to drop an email to my best friend from high school, with whom I used to wander the malls of suburban Ohio for want of anything better to do.  I attached copies of pictures of cute Mary Janes.

    Photo_dump_2006_003_1 Photo_dump_2006_001

    Over coffee this morning I thanked Mark for taking care of the boys for four hours (and cleaning up the dinner and doing the laundry too).  I said, "I guess I always took ‘shopping’ for granted."  He said, "Hmph.  I guess  I married a girl after all."

    Then he related a conversation he had at the company offsite meeting, where he was seated at a table with several other men and no women. 

    ONE GUY:  I guess this is the "shopping table."  Ha ha.

    MARK:  Hey, that’s not fair.  I’m the one to do the grocery shopping in our family. 

    ANOTHER GUY:  That’s not shopping.

    FIRST GUY:  "Shopping" is for anything under $1000.  Above that, it’s called "buying."

    MARK:  Hey Jim, you go shopping for tools, don’t you?

    JIM:  I make sure never to spend less than $1000.

    I don’t know if my new shoes qualify as super fantastic, but I like them, especially the high heeled Mary Janes (was going to buy something much more boring that looked exactly like my old black heels, but was inspired by new baby daughter to buy more stylish shoe), and I think the Manolo would approve.

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    1 comment on Shopping.

  • “God is not great.”

    A thoughtful post at the Shrine.

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  • Body art, body of Christ.

    Ann Althouse discusses a BodyWorlds-type exhibit — to include a crucifixion.  She points out that, if it’s offensive to depict crucifixion this way, it really can’t be just because it’s graphic.  We have a long tradition of pious, graphic crucifixion art.  There must be some other reason.  (And, as I point out in the comments, the word "blasphemy" is inaccurate.)

    I’ve had mixed feelings about the BodyWorlds exhibit ever since I saw it in the Science Museum of Minnesota.    Some of the bodies and body systems and body parts were displayed in the tradition of anatomical models:  fascinating, informative, respectful.  Others are displayed as "art" and while those were also fascinating and informative, I was repelled by my own fascination.  I left the exhibit uncertain about whether this use of the human body was improperly respectful of it.

    Enter the thought experiment:  what if, instead of being depicted riding a horse or pulling back a bowstring, the plastically preserved human body was depicted as Christ on the cross?  Yeah, that would offend me.  It’s more a gut reaction than an intellectual analysis, I admit, but unlike my uncertain reaction to the horseman or the archer, my reaction to the hypothetical depiction of the Crucified One is definitely repulsion and sorrow.   Obviously any depiction of the Crucifixion ought to inspire repulsion and sorrow — but at the suffering of Christ, not at the art itself.   This is why graphic depiction is not the problem.

    I conclude that von Hagens’s art is inherently disrespectful (not to accuse von Hagens himself of  a sin of disrespect, not knowing his state of mind; he may not intend it or be aware of it).  If it were legitimate depiction of any human being, it would not be an inappropriate depiction of Christ.  But the fact that it seems improper to use it to depict Christ, means that it should seem improper to depict any human being (an image of God) that way. 

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    1 comment on Body art, body of Christ.

  • Five things.

    Ray from MN tagged me with the Five Things meme.  I think this is the first time I’ve been tagged for anything since elementary school.  Anyway, sez Ray, "Just make a post listing five items you have in your Freezer, a Closet, your Car, and your Backpack."

    OK.

    Freezer:

    1. Mary Jane’s placenta
    2. Coffee beans
    3. Eight pounds of butter from grass-fed cows
    4. Several boxes of popsicles
    5. Two quarts of homemade tomato soup

    Closet:

    1. The oak dresser I had in my childhood bedroom
    2. A maple dresser from Mark’s grandpa that Mark stripped and refinished (the dresser, not the grandpa)
    3. A plastic bag containing my late mom’s jewelry
    4. Laundry
    5. Cell phone charger

    Car:

    1. Box of emergency granola bars
    2. Rosary
    3. Spare set of clothes for each child
    4. Shovel
    5. Roll of paper towels with the core stuffed full of plastic grocery bags

    Backpack’s empty right now, gathering dust in the attic…

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  • Irreplaceable property.

    Does artificial reproductive technology lead to the attitude that children are a commodity?

    Well, this is somewhat interesting:   Couple sue clinic over lost embryos

    In their lawsuit, filed Wednesday in Hennepin County District Court, the Keoghs argue that both Morbeck and the clinic were responsible for destroying their "irreplaceable property."

    Umhm.

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  • A homeschooling bleg.

    OK, here’s a question for the homeschooling Catholics.  Answer in the combox or on your own blog; please e-mail or put it in the combox and I’ll link to it.

    How do you work prayer with your kids into the school day?  I have always had trouble with this and I’m looking for more ideas.    Help.

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  • Summing it up neatly.

    As reported by Amy Welborn.

    "There’s a controversy in the United States [about evolution and creationism and "intelligent design"] because there is a lack of awareness of a thing called philosophy," said [Father] Fessio, whose Ignatius Press publishes Benedict’s books in English.

    "Evangelicals and creationists generally lack it and Catholics have it," he said.

    "When you look at the world and see what appears to be order and design, the conclusion that there is a designer is not a scientific conclusion, it’s a philosophical one."

    "Intelligent design" theory, in my view, is a clumsy attempt to reconcile two opposing worldviews that are not worth reconciling because they are both fundamentally lacking.  It’s not that "evolutionism" (which I define here as the view that there is certainly no Designer and that the theory of evolution coupled with the collection of data is sufficient to explain everything important about life on Earth) lacks one thing which creationism supplies, and that creationism lacks something else which evolutionism can supply, so that all that’s necessary is to bring them together and cancel out contradictions.  No, what is needed is something that is different from either.

    "Are you a Creationist or an Evolutionist?" is a loaded question that doesn’t deserve an answer, on par with "When did you stop beating your wife?"

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    1 comment on Summing it up neatly.

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