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].

  • How do you read Huckleberry Finn to children? Or do you?

    The recent news about an upcoming edition of Huckleberry Finn scrubbed of the word "nigger" sparked discussions all over.  I participated in the discussion at Ta-nehisi Coates's blog, (read the comments here — they are much better than the original post).

    At first I was tentatively in favor of the existence of such a thing, on the theory that so many students are deprived of the novel because the schools won't use it, maybe it would be better for them to get an abridged choice than none at all; and also because maybe it would be a more appropriate choice for very young kids, and parents might prefer that..   I retreated from that position some as the discussion went on, though.  If it is necessary, I guess it's of the necessary-evil sort.  

    Either way, I disagree that the idea is stupid or evil or even "a ridiculous bit of political correctness."   I think we can assume good intentions on the part of the redactors.  Look:  It's a problem when possibly the single most important American novel can't be used in many schools because of policies governing its vocabulary.  I also think it's fair to take people at their word who are made uncomfortable by the word "nigger" in Huck Finn — people of all colors.    Publishing a redacted version probably will get a form of the book into more classrooms, and may help some students read it who might reject it otherwise.  

    Is that better than fewer classrooms reading the real book?  I am not at all sure.  I'm a homeschooler who loves old books, and consequently I redact all the  time while reading aloud.  Most of the words I have to remove, however, are there because of the author's blind spots.  In HF, "nigger" is there because of the author's clear sight.  It's an artifact of its time and it is absolutely central to a complete understanding of the book.  We are still grappling with it BECAUSE of what it means in HF.  It's not incidental to its position in the canon of American literature.

    Some people wrote that if a child is too young to be exposed to the "offensive language" in HF, then they are too young for HF.  I am sympathetic to this argument to a point.  Obviously the entire power of the book is not going to be absorbed by young children, but that's not an argument against using it early.  I think the book might best be encountered twice:  once for the adventure story, later for the social criticism (strengthened by a love for the adventure story).   But if you're going to do it that way, I think it'sreasonable for the teaching parent to introduce the book in redacted and possibly abridged form.  We know our own kids.  

    I told a story in the discussion at TNC's blog:

    I am a homeschooling parent. My oldest is ten. We are white (which is relevant).

    Last year, I covered 19th-century U.S. History, with lots of focus on the Civil War, mostly using literature. One thing we did was study the writings of W.E.B. du Bois and Booker T. Washington in order to see the differences between their philosophies. I let the kids (my son and a friend his age) discover the similarities and differences themselves, though I had to select the text excerpts of course. 

    Anyway, I was pleased with what they learned, except for one thing. Afterward I had to aggressively train my son, who kept forgetting, in the fact that he can't walk around referring to people as "Negroes" or "colored." (as in: "Mom, I met a new friend at the Y today. Did you see him? It was that Negro boy with the blue shirt.") He just hadn't had any occasion to hear the words yet.

    SO. Coming around to Huck Finn. It's a great, great book, and it's a travesty that, if you are committed to using it exactly as it was written, you have to be EXTREMELY careful if you use it with children or else delay using it till high school. I was worried enough about my son innocently referring to another child as "Negro" because I didn't foresee him taking it in as ordinary vocabulary. I'm not about to expose him to "nigger" unless he's reached an age where I can be confident he can understand that it is not ordinary vocabulary.

    My friends who have read Huck Finn aloud to their elementary-school children have *all* bowdlerized it in the reading aloud, usually replacing "nigger" with "slave." It is a wonderful adventure story with much to teach middle-school kids, but I think it's reasonable for parents to choose not to burden YOUNGER children with the vocabulary of ethnic slurs. 

    Some people are framing this as a matter of delicate sensibilities; me, I don't want MY kid to accidentally hurt someone ELSE's feelings. I'd rather he not hear and possibly become desensitized to "nigger" until he's old enough to have a frank discussion about it.

    Discussion (and it's really great discussion, thought provoking) continued in the comments thread at this post here.  I came away from it feeling a little bit more confident about being able to overcome the language problem I described above.

    But I felt that it really culminated today:  This writer tells how he shared the book with his own children.    I think he's answered my question for how to deal with it.  What do you think about his approach?

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    3 comments on How do you read Huckleberry Finn to children? Or do you?

  • Taking kids to restaurants.

    Jill Lewis at The Heavy Table, a local food blog, has a restaurant column called "Take the Kids?" in which she reviews restaurants from a family perspective.  A recent column about a local restaurant that generally gets rave reviews but didn't work as a family destination drew a comment from me that I thought I'd share.

    Thanks for the review.  We try to make a point of taking our four kids (ages 1, 4, 7, 10 now)  to a "real" restaurant at least once a month — how else are they going to learn how to behave? — but I'm not interested in places where they will be viewed with disdain!  

    The existence of a kids menu or discounted drinks or a so-called "family hour" doesn't much affect whether we feel out-of-place at a restaurant.  Every parent knows (I hope) that "family hour" at any restaurant is early on a weeknight!  If you ask me, the factors that make a restaurant really easy to enjoy with several young children are these:

    •  - some lively background noise to mask little outbursts (unless the children are sensitized to it — mine aren't).   
    • – high-backed booths (thank you, Black Sheep Pizza!) or tables tucked into corners 
    •  - unbreakable cups available on request 
    • – spacious bathrooms with changing tables
    •  - french fries in some form on the menu (face it, everybody loves french fries) 
    • – servers who behave as if children are people who might grow up to come there and spend money 

    Things that scare me away include

    •  tables that are made of slate so that a glass breaks just from being tipped over
    •  - glass-topped tables — they are LOUD  
    • – dangly tablecloths that little feet get tangled in 
    • – tippy chairs
    •  - layouts where the only tables for parties of six are smack in the middle of the room at giant round tables 

    One of the biggest factors is something that successful restaurants probably can't do much about without altering their customer base, and that has to do with the expectations of the other people who dine there.  Every restaurant has a "culture" (it may be different at lunch vs. dinner, or weekday vs. weekends, of course) of the customers who come there and have a certain expectation.  Some restaurants, kids just aren't what the diners expect when they go there.  And we're going to feel it if we walk in and people stare at us.  And so, you know, we're not going to come back.  

    Nothing wrong with that; our money will go where we feel comfortable.  There are plenty of restaurants around town who help us feel comfortable, some not what you would expect.  Wasabi [this is a hip, warehouse district sushi place] is one.  Muffuletta [another upscale restaurant in St. Paul with great weeknight discounts] is another.   

    It was a little tongue-in-cheek for me to write that about family hour being early on a weeknight — but when we try a new restaurant we always try to go at that time, since even if it turns out to be a bad fit for us, we won't be there at a busy time.  Another time we often go out is after 9 p.m. on a Thursday, after a show at the Children's Theater Company.  That often brings out the best in servers and other diners, since our kids are all dressed up and in a good mood.

    It seems that if a restaurant is also a bar, it is usually a good place to take kids.  People are more relaxed and noisy, and the servers tend to be more cheerful.  I don't know why that is.  Televisions are a problem though.

    I am not disdainful of restaurants that happen to have clinky tables and quiet dining environments with soft music — but I don't try to take my four children there because I know we will stand out like a sore thumb.  They just "aren't my style" at this stage in my life.  Maybe not in general, since I like background noise.  

    Can you list features of restaurants that make them "kid-friendly" or "kid-unfriendly," things that go deeper than whether they have a kid's menu or advertise themselves as a "family" restaurant?

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    13 comments on Taking kids to restaurants.

  • Two recent posts about finding your tribe.

    From Kara at Mama Sweat:

    … have slowly been building my safety net of neighbors. You know what I mean: a neighbor you ask to go to the bus stop when you're stuck in traffic; a neighbor who will dog sit when you're out of town; a neighbor who will run with you when you don't feel like going it alone. I have found these blessedly nice people and even a bonus: the neighbor who can stitch up a wound in her own kitchen…

    Short of having sister wives, a good safety net of neighbors can ease the stress of motherhood, especially when it comes to childcare. The ultimate in friendship is being able to take on a friend's brood when she needs a quick getaway or her scheduled sitter has left her high and dry. Or, if you're me, you need a workout. Bad.
    So when my neighbor Cara (I know! Same name! I've never had a friend with my name before!) asked if I could watch her two boys for her I was honored that she would ask. When she offered to bring me lunch, I politely turned her down. I don't want lunch. I want the luxury of a workout in the middle of the day unencumbered by children.
    '
    Cara got what she needed. Kara got what she wanted. I think Cara and Kara have the beginning of something beautiful.

     

    From ChristyP at It's a new day every day:

    Two related items:
    1) One day last week I got home from work early to grumpy kids. The verbal one requesting to play with a friend. I called one who graciously said "Come over!". Kids played. We drank wine, and I (barely) helped her assemble dinner. We had leftovers at home. Afterwards, there was a Facebook exchange about playdates during 'the witching hour' and why didn't we do that more often.

    2) Yesterday a friend emailed to invite us over for the evening. I suggested cooperative dinner and delineated what I planned to make (sweet potato and corn chowder). Kids played. She and I cooked in parallel. We all ate together. No more effort for me (except the drive) than cooking for my own family, probably less in fact because the kids were entertained with an extra small person and her unfamiliar and therefore enticing toys.

    The lessons here will not be new to at least some of you (bearingblog readers), but I still think that they are worth repeating.

    1) Be open to possibility. 
    2) Take a chance then evaluate what worked and didn't (last night kids were too busy playing to eat very well and required more bedtime snack than usual).
    3) Reach out. I'm feeling inadequate on this point at the moment because in our current living situation we lack the room and chairs to entertain well (i.e. without guests sitting on the floor).
    4) It doesn't have to be perfect. 
    5) People you treat as family don't have to be related to you.
    6) Make a plan and then execute it.

    If it doesn't work with one person, try  someone else.  It's worth it.

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    5 comments on Two recent posts about finding your tribe.

  • Day in pictures.

    Breakfast at Blackbird Cafe in South Minneapolis.  The daily special: Root vegetable hash with roasted kale and bacon, topped with eggs over easy, hollandaise sauce and dried cherry tomatoes.

    Jan8-1

     

    Outside the St Joseph chapel at the Basilica, which has a Saturday morning confession hour.   About fifteen of us in line.

    Jan8-2

     

    Afterwards, a nice peaceful time in the church proper.  The Basilica of St. Mary is America's first basilica, did you know that?   I drive by it almost every day; I should stop in more often.  The clerestory windows are beautiful, and just look at that wonderful altar and canopy.  People were quietly taking down the Christmas greenery around the periphery of the church; I was glad that they had not yet touched the greenery in the center; it almost looked like the trees and flowering branches had grown up there around the altar.

    Jan8-3

    Then a trip to the gym to try out my new, less-cushioned running shoes, expressly recommended for forefoot running.  Dig that color!  

    (Shoe is the Saucony Kilkenny, which I had to buy a size and a half larger than my usual size.  It is a cross-country flat racing shoe.)

    Jan8-4
    Later, a trip to the new location of Peapods, our favorite local boutique-y kids' store, for a new Maya Wrap baby sling.  Peapods is great!  They have an online store; check it out next time you need to buy a gift for your crunchiest friend's baby shower, or some cloth diapers, or natural baby toys, or a breastpump.

    And then I swung home to pick up my 7-year-old boy for a trip to another local store I love, Shoe Zoo, for dress shoes AND gym shoes. I remembered to bring my email coupon, and found the dress shoes in the outlet store, so I managed to save some money.   

    Some of which we immediately turned around and spent on cappuccino and chai.

    Jan8-5

    Day's not over yet… maybe I'll post some more later.

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    6 comments on Day in pictures.

  • Guest post/bleg from ChristyP: Recruitment for an NFP study.

    Here's a guest post, with a request, from bearingblog friend, commenter, and epidemiologist Christy Porucznik, PhD, Assistant Professor in the Division of Public Health at the University of Utah.   The good Dr. Porucznik writes:

    Natural Family Planning (NFP) is a topic of interest to many different people. There are many different NFP methods based upon systematic observation of biomarkers – changes in cervical fluid and basal body temperature. There has been rigorous research on some of the methods.

    The Creighton Model FertilityCare System is a natural family planning method that teaches couples to recognize and chart the signs of fertility and infertility in the woman’s cycle and to use that knowledge to either achieve or avoid a pregnancy.  The method is natural, safe and effective, and it helps the couple understand their fertility.  Trained practitioners at FertilityCare Centers teach the Creighton Model across the country and internationally. 

    One facet of all types of NFP that doesn't translate well to research methods generally used for 'contraceptives' is the ability to use the method both to avoid a pregnancy and to achieve a pregnancy.  In usual contraception research, women planning to avoid pregnancy for a year are recruited into the study given the method to be researched and every pregnancy is considered to be a failure of the method. 

    University of Utah researchers are conducting an IRB-approved international study to evaluate the effectiveness of the Creighton Model for users wanting to avoid pregnancy.  While past studies have shown that the Creighton Model is a highly effective method, this study will use new ways to measure how well it works.  This is important because the knowledge gained will improve comparisons between the Creighton Model and other family planning methods.  The study will also explore intentions and behaviors of couples to avoid or achieve a pregnancy.

    Recruitment is ongoing.  At least 300 couples will be needed to conduct the study.  If you or someone you know are searching for a different method of family planning and wish to avoid pregnancy, you may be eligible for the study.  Not only will you be learning about your own fertility, but you will also be contributing to important research that will help future users of the Creighton Model.

    If you are interested or you would like to learn more about the Creighton Model or the study, please visithttp://medicine.utah.edu/dfpm/Research/CEIBA/index.htm,  call 801-231-6434, or email us at ceibastudy@gmail.com.

    This study is being funded by a grant through the Office of Population Affairs (under the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services) and the Health Studies Fund through the Department of Family and Preventive Medicine at the University of Utah.

    If you have questions for ChristyP, either about whether you're eligible for the study or how you can promote it, feel free to leave questions in the comments.

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  • Introduction to the Devout Life 5-18: Final advice. And reader question.

     I'm planning on putting some thoughts down today or tomorrow in anticipation of the Feast of the Lord's Baptism on January 9, which was the day St. Francis recommended for beginning the annual review.  Which brings me to a question –

    I know some people are reading along with this series – I was wondering if anyone has been following along enough to pick up the book (or bookmark an online version) and is thinking about following St. Francis's method?  Is anyone (besides me) thinking of beginning an "annual review and renewal" on Sunday and going to use the book for it?  I ask because I could, if you like, open a daily comment thread for discussion over the ten days or so following 1/9.  Anyone interested?

    On the other hand, is there anyone who's waiting for me to finish nattering on about the book and organize my notes so they can attempt the Devout Life from the beginning?  If there's interest in that, then I'll be happy to start a daily comment thread for that purpose (but probably not till the end of the month or so — I might be able to manage the summing-up by Ash Wednesday, which will give me a good excuse not to give up the Internet for Lent).  Please don't wait on me, though.

    + + +

    For other posts in this series about St. Francis de Sales's most well-known work, follow this link to the index, also available in the right sidebar. 

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    This, the very last chapter of the book, isn't the last bit I'll write about.  I still have to come back and look at the Author's Preface, so hang in there.  

    Chapter 5-18 contains advice which pertains not to the annual renewal and review of devotion which is the stated theme of Part 5, but really to the whole book.  Let's look at the tips it contains, all of which have to do with preserving devotion throughout the year between the annual renewals.

    Renew your resolve on the first day of every month….

    So I guess you take a moment to do a little bit of mini-renewal once a month.  Sounds good — maybe coinciding with a monthly trip to the confessional.  I recently received the advice to go to confession monthly, something I've never tried, and so the suggestion to renew my resolve monthly is timely.

    …[A]t all times protest your determination to observe your resolve, saying with David, Life-giving are they commands, O Lord, never to be forgotten.

    "At all times" — daily, whenever you think of it, and (I suppose) especially when tempted to despair.

    Should you experience any disorder in your soul, humble yourself upon your knees, your protestation in your hand, then read it through with heartfelt devotion and it will bring you relief.

    So, here is another mention of the written "protestation" that the reader who is trying to live Francis's program will have written out and signed when following the instructions in Part 1, and will perhaps have re-committed herself to during the most recent annual renewal.  I like very much the notion of having in hand an expression, in writing, of one's desires to become devout and one's promises to take action.  Keeps you honest.

    Confess openly that you wish to be devout; I say, that you wish to be devout, not that you are devout.  Never be ashamed of taking the ordinary means necessary to progress in the love of God.  Acknowledge quite frankly that you try to meditate and that you would rather die than fall into mortal sin; that you desire to frequent the sacraments and follow your confessor's advice…

    This frank profession of our desire to serve God and to consecrate ourselves whole-heartedly to his love is most pleasing to our Lord, who does not want us to be ashamed either of him or of his Cross; moreover, such frankness serves to silence the contrary suggestions of worldly people and commits us in honour to live up to what we profess.

    So:  "Don't be afraid to mention it to other people."   That last bit about committing us in honour to living up to what we profess has always been a sticking point for me.  

    We all know someone who hates the Church or rejects Christ because of the behavior of Christians he has known or imagined.  My own failures in the Christian life are painfully obvious and glaring.  I am not ashamed of the Cross; instead, how can I not bring shame upon the Cross by associating myself with it?  And yet that's such a self-centered way of looking at it, seeing my own faults as looming larger than the sacrifice that redeems the whole world.  On and on in an inward and downward spiral.  

     I guess St. Francis is asking us all to trust that if we speak the truth (yes, I try to love God and my neighbor; yes, it has turned out so far that I still SUCK AT IT) then we are doing what we can and must do, and He will take care of the results.

    The next line gives another reason for openly confessing our desire for devotion.

    Philosophers used to proclaim themselves philosophers that they might be allowed to live as such; so should we profess our desire to be devout that we may be allowed to live devoutly.

    Hm, perhaps this is translated, "If you repeat your desire to be devout often enough, all your naysayers will eventually give up bothering you about it."

    If anyone says that we can live devoutly without practicising all these exercises, do not deny it, but answer quietly that you are so weak that you need more help and assistance than others.

    There you go:  Truth and humility rolled into a nice little sound bite.  

    I would like to add that it might feel phony to say something like that, especially if you (like me) don't often think, "Gosh, I feel awful today.  What I really need is to get to Mass/adoration/prayer/etc."    

    The truth is:  I'm not constantly aware of my weakness.  I don't intuitively flee to the sacraments and to prayer.  Look, most of the time I go to Mass on Sunday because I have to, right?   I get dressed and get the kids dressed and herd everybody out of the door because that's what we always do on Sunday mornings.  It's not till I get there that I remember why I do it.  Oh yes — I forgot I would run into You here!

     So it sort of sounds fakey-pious for someone like me to say "Oh yes, you are right.  It's not necessary to do all these things to be devout.  But I need the help." 

    But I think I could say them.    Though I would not spontaneously speak such words from the depth of my heart, I cannot deny that they are true.  It is not a lie to repeat them.  This is why I love the Church.  I don't have to feel things are true to know they are true.  If it doesn't feel "true to my heart" to do and say the right thing, I can be true to another Heart instead.  This is a relief.

    Finally, Philothea, by all that is sacred in heaven and on earth, by your baptism, by the breasts which nourished your Saviour, by the heart with which he loves you, by the infinite mercy in which you hope, by all these things, I entreat you to continue and persevere in the practice of the devout life.  Our days pass away and death is at the door…

    [L]ook up to heaven and do not forsake it for anything on earth; look down into hell and do not cast yourself there for the sake of transitory things; look up to Jesus Christ; do not deny him for the sake of the world, and should the labours of the devout life seem hard to you, sing with St. Francis [of Assisi]:

    "Because I seek eternity, /All labours here are light to me."

    So the last bit of advice is simply:  Don't give up; keep your eyes on the point of all this, which is heaven.

    May Jesus reign, to whom, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, be honour and glory now and forever.  Amen.

    That's the end.  The next post will be about the Author's Preface — yes, that's right, the beginning.

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  • “Wakefield’s article linking MMR vaccine and autism was fraudulent.”

    Wow. If the allegations referred to in this British Medical Journal editorial are true — that scientist Andrew Wakefield, who was being paid by law firms who wanted to sue vaccine companies, deliberately manufactured data linking vaccines to autism  — then Wakefield has blood on his hands.

    Count me in among the mothers who (back in 2000 when my first child was born) chose to vaccinate on a delayed and modified schedule in part because of the doubts engendered by reports like Wakefield’s 1998 paper in the respected British journal Lancet.

    It has been suggested for a long time that the preponderance of the evidence since Wakefield’s report tended to refute the alleged vaccine-autism connection, and I had come  to believe that it was in error — one of those common dead-end pathways in scientific research.  Eventually, the paper was even retracted, as does happen sometimes when there prove to be mistakes.   I no longer had a concern about vaccines and autism specifically.  I hadn’t been following the story closely since then, and so I wasn’t expecting a finding of fraud.

    Full disclosure:  I’m still unhappy with vaccines that have a fetal-tissue connection.  I still prefer to give kids one vaccine at a time the first time they get one, so that the cause of any reaction can be known.   I’m supportive of religious- and philosophical-exemption laws.  And I am aware of the concerns about vaccine reactions of other kinds, and am understanding of the nervousness with which many parents approach them, as well as being generally sympathetic with a low-medical-intervention and individual- rather than population-focused medicine.

    But this?  Outright falsification of medical data that affected vaccination decisions (and possibly disease outbreaks) in several countries, as well as influencing the direction of autism research?

    I can’t figure out whether I’m outraged more as a mother or as a scientist.

    (Knowing me, probably as a scientist.)

    Mainstream-type folks often like to characterize alternative-type folks as crackpots.  Homeschoolers know this.  Home-birth parents know this.  Folks who breastfeed longer than the U.S. average know this.  Consumers of alternative medicine of all kinds know this.  People who source some of their food outside the mainstream production/processing industry know this.  Hey, religious people know this.  It’s annoying to see experts whose knowledgeable advice you rely on, referred to as crackpots, or evil.

    It’s even more annoying when some of the  “experts” DO turn out to be  crackpots, or evil, or both.

    Chemistry blogger Derek Lowe weighs in:

    The 1998 paper that linked MMR vaccination with autism has had a long way to fall. It made, of course, a huge media sensation, and energized the whole vaccination/autism controversy that still (in spite of evidence) goes on. But it didn’t look very robust from the start, scientifically. And over the years it’s gone from “Really needs shoring up” to “hasn’t been reproduced” to “looks like there’s something wrong with it” to “main conclusions retracted” to the final, lowest level: outright fraud.

    Here’s a good history of the whole affair in the BMJ. And here’s the first part of a series of articles by Brian Deer, the journalist who dug into the study and found how fraudulent it really was. Not one of the 12 cases in Wakefield’s original study hold up; the data were manipulated in every single one to make it fit his hypothesis. His hypothesis that he was getting grant money for. His hypothesis that he was already planning lawsuits around, before the study even started.

    His hypothesis, I might add, that has led to completely unnecessary suffering among the unvaccinated children this scare has produced over the years, and has diverted enormous amounts of time, energy, and money away from useful study of autism. This sort of deliberate action is really hard to contemplate, as a reasonable human being – it’s like some sort of massive campaign to persuade people to throw bricks through the windows of ambulances.

    In a better world, we’d be getting expressions of sorrow and contrition from all the celebrities and others who’ve profited from this business. But that’s not going to happen, is it?

    Don’t hold your breath.

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    10 comments on “Wakefield’s article linking MMR vaccine and autism was fraudulent.”

  • Co-schooling exchange.

    I'm setting up for a repeat of the coschooling-by-Skype that Hannah and I did on Tuesday.  This time I hope I've got things a little bit more pulled together.  I'm going to try to get all the other schooling done by lunchtime, and have a plan in place for the others during the Skype time (probably National Geographic videos on Netflix, possibly mixed in with the 7-y-o reading to the 4-y-o).

    In case you missed it, commenter Tabitha asked in the comment thread on that Skype post for some co-schooling tips, and Hannah appeared in the comments with about a dozen thoughts on the matter.   If you're interested in the idea of sharing homeschool days with another family, you might check it out (and of course there are more posts on co-schooling in the Co-schooling category).

    ADDED:  I have posted on "missed days" of co-schooling before — here is a long list of different things to do when one family has to cancel.

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  • Introduction to the Devout Life General conclusions: 5-17, two objections.

    For other posts in this series about St. Francis de Sales's most well-known work, follow this link to the index, also available in the right sidebar. 

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    Part Five of Introduction to the Devout Life ends with two chapters that thematically belong outside it in a separate "Conclusion," as they refer back to the book as a whole.  

    (Hubris check:  I find myself itching to take St. Francis's masterpiece and cut it up and move the bits around and re-label a lot of the headings, as the writing is beautifully applicable to modern life but the organization is just a little bit, er, medieval.   No one is going to hire me to adapt it anytime soon, I suppose, so I'll have to content myself with a bunch of blog posts that maybe will work as a study guide when I have the chance to do a round-up.)

    So, anyway, 5-17 is called "An answer to two objections."  These are, I reiterate, hypothetical objections that "worldly people" will make to the entire contents of the book, not objections to the annual renewal that's presented in Part Five.  

    Objection 1:  "[A]nyone who tries to put all these counsels and instructions into practice will have no time for anything else."

    Objection 2:  "This Introduction is not suitable for everyone" because "I nearly always presume the gift of mental prayer in [the reader], whereas this is not always the case."

    Both of these objections boil down to "This so-called 'introduction' is too hard for ordinary people!"  Let's take a look at Francis's answers.

    (1)

    No time for anything else.  Remember that Francis is writing this book very specifically for people living in the world, who have a great deal of everyday duties.   I can tell you personally that the recommendations in this book are quite realistic, at least for this busy mother of four — what I have tried so far, I have found to be flexible and accommodating, and I remain optimistic that I could incorporate even more of its suggestions as I become more practiced.

     But here's Francis:

    It would be true if it were necessary to practice [all the counsels and instructions] every day, but, in fact, it is only necessary to practice them as and when the occasion demands.  Think of the innumerable laws in the civil code; they must all be observed by only when they apply, and this does not happen every day.

    So the first point is that, while his program is detailed as a whole, on any given day only some of it is necessary to put into practice.

    The second point is that we have examples of very busy people who nevertheless managed to put a great deal of time into the spiritual life:

    King David used to practice far more spiritual exercises than I have advocated, despite the fact that he was constantly occupied with very difficult affairs.  

    St Louis… used to hear two Masses every day, say Vespers and Compline with his chaplain, make his meditation, visit the hospitals, and go to confession and take the discipline every Friday, frequently attend sermons and take part in spiritual discussions; yet he never wasted any opportunity of working for the public good, and fulfilled his public duties with every care…

    He finishes with an appeal to Providence:

    Be courageous… in putting all of these instructions into practice as I have suggested and God will give you sufficient leisure and strength to fulfil all your duties… We always do enough, when God works with us.

     

    (2)

    Not everyone has the "gift of mental prayer."  I confess that this one stymies me a little bit.  I can't really imagine what it is not to be able to make a "mental prayer."  But it's pretty obvious that Francis thinks that "mental prayer" — which he implies is different from "vocal prayer" — is a skill that can be learned, and maybe must be learned by some people who don't naturally incline to it.

    I think what he means by the difference between "mental" and "vocal" prayer is one of these two things.

    Possibility 1 – "Mental" prayer is any prayer not spoken with the lips, but instead dwelt on by the mind – either prayer without words, or with words that unspool in the thoughts (sort of like a song that gets stuck in your head.  "Vocal" prayer is any prayer spoken with the lips and voice.

    Possibility 2 – By vocal prayer he means a prescribed text, such as the traditional prayers of the Church or a written meditation; by "mental" prayer he means spontaneous prayer in one's own words.

    I think the first one makes more sense, but I'm not entirely sure.  I find it easier to imagine "not being able" to come up with spontaneous words for prayer, but maybe when he talks about mental prayer being difficult for some people, he means that they are easily distracted.  On the other hand, perhaps here in our day we are more comfortable with spontaneous prayer than 16th-century French Catholics were; Protestant culture, in which we are steeped whether we like it or not, views spontaneous prayer as the norm, whereas it views prescribed prayer-texts with suspicion; maybe 16th-century French Catholics were sort of the other way around, and found spontaneous or creative prayer intimidating or perhaps a sign of arrogance, and maybe few people actually tried it much.  (I googled around and found this interesting roundup of writings on "mental prayer.")

    In any case, for our modern ears and attention-span, we can substitute the objection that not everyone is able to pray for very long without getting bored or distracted.  It amounts to the same problem anyway:  Worldly people will say that not everyone is able to attend to all this meditation stuff you're going on about.

    So what does Francis say about this obstacle?

    It is true that I have presumed this and it is also true that not everyone has the gift of mental prayer; nevertheless, there is no doubt that nearly all, even the most stupid, are capable of acquiring this gift, provided that they have a good spiritual director and are prepared to give it the attention it deserves.  

    In the rare cases where this is not possible a wise director can easily teach them how to read through the meditations carefully, or to listen to them being read out, in such a way that they compensate for this defect.

    I think Francis's answer — that almost anyone is able to learn to pray, and that the few who aren't can compensate by carefully reading along — applies just as well to the modern problem of distractions as it did to whatever medieval problem kept some people from thinking they had the gift of mental prayer.

    + + +

    This is not the only place in the book where Francis tries to refute objections from "the world" or "the worldly" — those show up in other places as well — it would be good to try to draw them all together — maybe I can do that in another post sometime.

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  • Co-schooling via Skype.

    Hannah's 8yo threw up this morning while she was loading the car, so we tried something new today:  co-schooling via Skype.  

    After a few technical glitches, we agreed to connect at 12:30 and try to run through some of the older boys' schoolwork.  I moved one of my cool school desks in front of the computer desk to provide more table room.

    First Hannah went over the grammar lesson with our 10- and 11-y-olds.

    Skype lesson

    Then I taught Latin.  And finally we set the boys to working together over the connection on their history.

    Overall, I'd say it worked better than we thought it would.  But we learned a few things.

    (1) It really required supervision from both of us on both ends.  Which meant that it was kind of tough to keep tabs on what the other kids were doing at the same time as the 10 and 11 year old boys were having their learning time.  Even while Hannah was teaching, my 4yo and 7yo were wandering around feral, and eventually I set them up with Netflix to keep them out of my hair.

    (2) Which means that the best strategy on a Skype-co-schooling day is probably to do all the non-Skype schoolwork in the morning, and then settle down for a Skype session after lunch, without trying to do anything else at the same time.

    (3) And we have to have all the necessary papers printed out ahead of time and right at the ready.  Fortunately we both pulled it together well enough to email each other copies of all the stuff we'd be using.

    (4) It takes a few minutes for the silly faces and noises to stop. 

    (5) Little girls can also practice their nursery-rhyme recitations over Skype, by "challenging" each other to recite their memorized poems.

    (6) But we're not sure this would work at all with seven- and eight-year-old boys.  Based solely on the amount of silly faces and jumping and such that occurred every time one entered the frame.

    (7) It was even possible for us to sit down "together" and have our ritual of tea-and-how-did-the-teaching-go-for-you at the end.  Nice!

    I think we'll try it again on Thursday, as I fully expect Hannah's family to have several days of The Christmas Bug That Swept The Nation.  This time, I'll be more ready for the disruption.

     ADDED:  I have posted on "missed days" of co-schooling before – here is a long list of different things to do when one family has to cancel.

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  • Introduction to the Devout Life 5-15 and 5-16: General considerations in conclusion and sentiments to be preserved.

    For other posts in this series about St. Francis de Sales's most well-known work, follow this link to the index, also available in the right sidebar.   I outlined the structure of part five here.

    + + +

    I'm blogging my way through Part Five, the annual review and renewal of devotion, which Francis suggests beginning each year at the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord — since that's a week away I'm going to try to finish by then.  In the last post we looked at the five daily meditations Francis prescribes following the examination of conscience.  Today we look at the sixth meditation, which ends with an exhortation to go to confession.

    I find this a little bit unusual.  Most of the time, the E. O. C. is supposed to be done right before going to confession, right?  Here, confession is prescribed at the end of 7-9 days' worth of spiritual exercises, with the E. O. C. at the beginning.  Interesting.  I'd just like to point out that that practically makes it into a novena.

    Well!  Let's dive into the "general considerations in conclusion."  Francis begins by putting the words in our mouths.

    'My resolutions are the beautiful tree of life planted by God himself in my heart and watered by my Savior's precious blood to make it bear fruit.  I would rather undergo a thousand deaths than allow any storm to uproot this tree.  No vanities, pleasures, riches, nor afflictions shall divert me from my purpose.  

    'You have planted and preserved this beautiful tree in your fatherly heart, my God, from all eternity, ready for my garden; and how many others have not been so favoured!  How shall I ever humble myself enough before your mercy?

    'How beautiful and sacred are my resolutions; if I keep them they will keep me; as long as they live in my soul I too will live; may they live forever, then, as they have lived eternally in the mercy of my God, and may I never abandon them.'

    "As long as they live in my soul I too will live."  Francis sounds confident that the intention to pursue the devout life, resolved as part of his "program" for the devout life, is itself identified with the state of grace, at least in one who has participated in his spiritual exercises.  It is hard to argue with this logic, when you consider what these resolutions are.

    The resolutions to pursue the devout life — which resolutions, Francis wants us to pray will never leave us — are not to be confused with the intent to pursue specific means of fulfilling the resolutions, though — these will change according to time, season, and situation.

    Now Francis moves on from dictating the words of prayer, to instructing us in how to form our own intentions and words:

    After these considerations, decide on the particular means necessary to fulfil your resolutions, protesting that you desire to make faithful use of them; such means for example as

    • prayer
    • the frequentation of the sacraments
    • good works
    • the amendment of the faults you have discovered
    • the avoidance of the occasion of sin
    • the practice of your confessor's advice
    • and so on.

    Can I point out that, obviously, everyone is called to make at least some use of all the above-listed means of receiving grace?  But Francis wants us, I think, to identify "particular means" to focus on — the one or several means that will be most helpful to our particular resolutions.  I'm seeing here (in the word "particular") an exhortation to concentrate your will and effort on one or a few places.  If prayer is what's needed most, identify a time, place, and method; if more frequent reception of a sacrament, plan where and how and when; if amendment of faults, identify a plan of attack; and so on.  In the meantime, the other means of receiving grace retreat into the background, always a support but not taxing us with a feeling of obligation or of having to "work" at them.

    After deciding on the particular means:

    Then, summoning up all your strength and fervour, make countless promises of fidelity to your resolution, dedicating, consecrating, and sacrificing your whole being to God, protesting that you will never retract your offering, but leave yourself forever at the service of his holy will.

    Ask God to regenerate your whole life and bless and strengthen your renewed resolve; invoke our Lady, your guardian angel, St. Louis [the patron of France, where Francis was writing], and other saints.

    Then go to confession:

    In these dispositions go to your confessor, accuse yourself of the principal faults committed since your general confession, and, having received absolution, read and sign your protestation in his presence.  

    A note on "read and sign your protestation."  In Part 1, chapters 20 and 21 — that is, at the starting-point of the devout life — Francis supplies the text of a solemn resolution (you could of course compose your own) which he implies you should write out and carry with you into the confessional, then sign just before receiving Communion.  Let's look at that bit from 1-21:

     What a wonderful contract you make with God, Philothea, for in giving yourself to him you receive in return eternal life and God himself!  All that remains is for you to take pen in hand and with a sincere heart sign your resolution; then approach the altar, where God in his turn will sign and seal your absolution and his promise of paradise by setting himself, in Communion, as a seal upon your purified heart…

    I take it that when Francis says "read and sign your protestation" he has in mind a repeat of the same "signing" that was performed when, after his prescription, you did "sign your resolution" just before approaching the altar.

    As before, this exercise ends with communion:

    Finally go to Holy Communion and unite yourself, thus renewed in spirit, to your Saviour, the source of all your life.

    In the next chapter, chapter 16, Francis offers some advice for the remainder of that same day as well as on the following days.

    On the day you renew your resolution, and on the days following, make constant use of aspirations… saying, for example

    • "I am no longer my own; whether I live or die I belong to my Saviour."
    • "I have nothing of my own, I belong to Jesus and all I have is his."
    • "The world remains the same, as I have remained till now; but I will remain the same no longer; my heart is changed and the world which so often deceived me will be deceived in me; not noticing my gradual change, it will think of me as Esau when in reality I will have become Jacob."

    (This last bit reminds me of the beginning of Part 4, "Worldly Wisdom," one of my favorite chapters in the book, about the world's folly and criticism of the devout.)

    So there you go, finish up your renewal with several days' worth of frequent aspirations — remember, these are the short ejaculatory prayers that can be said quickly and quietly as often as you remember, or that you can remind yourself to pray each time the clock chimes or something like that, to draw your heart toward God.  (More on how to pray aspirations is in part 2, chapter 13.)

    Then Francis concludes with a familiar recommendation for a gentle transition from prayer to ordinary duties, one that functions both as a recommendation for each of the day's transitions and as a more general recommendation to pass from the time set aside for annual renewal, to the rest of the year's efforts to grow in holiness:

    These sentiments should rest quietly in your heart and you should pass from your considerations and meditation to your ordinary affairs and occupations gently, without straining either mind or body, lest you spill the precious balm of your resolutions before it has penetrated into the very depth of your soul.

    That concludes the consideration of the Annual Review — and with a week to go before the feast of the Lord's Baptism.

    There are a few more sections in the book which cover some more general topics, and be assured I'll get to them soon — but perhaps not before January 9th.   More on that in a bit.

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  • Switch.

    Readers who have been interested in following some of the threads about personal change — becoming an athlete, overcoming gluttony, detaching from time, and maybe even beginning the devout life à la St. Francis de Sales —  might be interested in a quick-read book I just finished, one that Mark got for free at work after the author made a presentation there.

    The book is Switch:  How to Change Things When Change Is Hard by Chip Heath and Dan Heath.  It seems to be aimed at the business/management market, and indeed most of the many and very interesting anecdotes have to do with encouraging behavioral change in other people, but there is a sprinkling of stories about personal change as well.  I don't think the logic is perfectly crisp (and Mark wasn't terribly impressed by the author's presentation), but I think it's worth reading, if only because the anecdotes are so fascinating and varied.  For example:

    • How aid workers permanently improved child nutrition in a Vietnam village with no extra resources
    • How hospitals reduced medication errors by discouraging staff from distracting nurses
    • How therapists taught child-abusing parents techniques that dropped re-offending rates from 65 to 20 percent
    • How one hospital nearly eliminated IV-line infections with a single policy

    … as well as some other examples of effective techniques from popular gurus that will be familiar to many readers of this blog, such as Dave Ramsey (the get-out-of-debt-with-cash-in-envelopes guy), "FlyLady" Martha Marla Cilley (the clean-your-house-by-shining-your-sink lady), and Brian Wansink (the lose-weight-by-shrinking-your-plate professor).

    Chapter One of the book is available on the authors' website here.

    + + +

    Nowadays when I read self-help books of any kind, I find myself testing them against my own experiences making serious, deliberate changes.  I have made two life-altering, "previously impossible" changes now:  I've gone from being mostly sedentary to regular vigorous exercise and even athletic competition; and I've gone from being a habitual and even compulsive over-eater to, well, not being one at all anymore.   Those are fairly recent, within the last three years, so they are still fresh in my memory, if not entirely completely understood and processed yet.  

    I can go back farther and remember a couple more successful changes.  One significant, life-altering change was made about ten years ago in conjunction with another person, my friend Hannah, when we with our (then) one baby each quite deliberately set out to create a "tribe," a sort of extended family for ourselves and for our kids and husbands, by sharing one day's worth of our work each week.   Hannah and I had to make another deliberate change about three years ago when we realized we absolutely had to integrate our homeschooling efforts if we were going to keep up our (now two days a week) schedule.  

    So when I look at a book like this — a book that purports to explain how to make difficult changes happen — I feel that I can really evaluate it on the merits, at least as far as personal change is concerned.  (I've never been a manager, and I've never had to enforce any really major changes in the family's behavior, so I can't really evaluate it in terms of encouraging others to change.)

    And my judgment is that this book meshes really well with my experience.  Let's take a look.

    +  +  +

    The Heaths organize their book around a borrowed image of something I've written about before, the divided self.   They envision:

    • the logical, decision-making, long-term-focused self as the reins-holding Rider; 
    • the emotion-driven, pleasure-seeking self as the much more powerful Elephant; 
    • and the environment or situation that influences both as the Path.  

    The various chapters in the book offer advice on how to "direct the Rider" (that is, how to show the intellect where to go and what to do, what steps to take;  how to  "motivate the Elephant"  (that is, to get the emotional side on board with the change and thus harness its power, or at least, how to reduce its resistance); and how to "shape the Path" (that is, how to change the situation to make the desired change easier for both Rider and Elephant).

    At first I was a little skeptical about this way of framing the divided self, but as I went through the book I came to see that it is indeed an apt analogy (and a neat organizational principle as well — which always appeals to me).  

    Here's a quick outline of their main points, with comments about how these fit into my two recent experiences with personal change:  becoming an athlete and overcoming a lifetime of overeating.

    + + + 

    I.  Direct the Rider

    A.  "Follow the bright spots:  Investigate what's working and clone it."  

    The only recent exercise I had successfully stuck with was YMCA swimming lessons once a week.  So when I decided to exercise twice a week, I picked swimming.  

    I didn't know about any normal-eating "bright spots" before I started, but an example of this would be if you picked up a book like Thin For Life:  10 Keys To Success from People Who Have Lost Weight and Kept It Off by Anne Fletcher – which is based on data from the National Weight Control Registry — and tried to follow their recommendations.

    B.  "Script the critical moves.  Don't think about the big picture, think in terms of specific behaviors."  By this they mean, identify one or two specific action items that pack a big punch.  

    The perfect example of this is the four-point "No S Diet" published by Reinhard Engels.  It goes like this:  "No snacks, no sweets, no seconds, except on days that begin with S."  Easy to remember, and really quite effective for many people.    As for me, it took a long time for me to discover the critical moves for reducing my own weight, but now that I have them, the task of maintaining is much easier.  They are:  no seconds, no bedtime snacks, sharply curtail alcohol, use small plates.  If I concentrate on those four rules, my weight goes down surprisingly quickly.

    As for exercising, I guess you could say that my "specific behavior" was "Get in the pool twice a week."  If I do that, I get enough exercise.

     C.  Point to the Destination:  Change is easier when you know where you're going and why it's worth it."  

    I didn't need much intellectual convincing that it was a good idea to get some exercise.   Here's a post I wrote about the non-weight-loss benefits of regular exercise.

    As for overeating, you might think that I would know intellectually my whole life "where I was going," but actually I didn't.  It wasn't until my intellect grasped the (should-have-been-obvious) fact that I was simply eating too much food that I was able to make the change.

     

    II.  Motivate the Elephant.

    A.  Find the Feeling.  "Knowing … isn't enough…"

    One of the things that went "click" for me and let me stop overeating was the onset of a feeling – the feeling of being really sick of overeating itself.  When I suddenly started to feel disgusted with my behavior (rather than with my appearance), I started to act to change.  And (before I decided it was bad for my sense of compassion) I used to deliberately linger over watching other people's disgustingly gluttonous behavior, e.g., at salad bars.  Effective, if spiritually damaging.

    B.  Shrink the change.  "Break down the change until it no longer spooks the Elephant."

    Oh yes, this is a big one:  measuring my successes meal by meal, snack by snack, and workout by workout.

    C.  Grow… "Cultivate a sense of identity." 

    I definitely did this.  I set out to create an identity of myself as a person who exercises, an "athlete."  I imagined myself as a "person who goes to the gym" — and then I tried to do what I thought that person would do.  It is more than just "Well, she'd go to the gym, duh!"  When it's an entire identity, you have to fill in lots of details of character.  

    A person who was like me, except she goes to the gym…. well, she'd have two sets of workout clothes, not one.  And she'd keep her bag packed all the time and in the car so as not to miss an opportunity.  And she would be the sort of mother who expects her kids to manage in the gym child care for half an hour, not the sort who would reflexively reject gym child care.  And she would occasionally take a yoga class if she happened to arrive at just the right time.  And she wouldn't care if occasionally slipping that workout in meant she would wind up washing her hair twice in a day, or that she would have wet hair or wrinkled clothes when she got where she was going. "Sorry I look like a mess, I just came from the gym," she would say.

    As for overeating, well, that's the power of the mantra, "I don't do that anymore."  I have observed before that when maintenance requires me to go back to extra-careful eating, it takes me a few days to settle back into the pattern of impulse resistance, almost as if I had forgotten how to do it.  I wonder now if it doesn't take a few days to switch into the "identity" of a non-glutton.  

    III.  Shape the path. 

    A.  Tweak the environment.  "When the situation changes, the behavior changes."

    So many strategies here.  Buying smaller, divided dinner plates was, I'm convinced, the single most helpful environmental change that I made.  

    B.  Build habits.  "When behavior is habitual, it… doesn't tax the Rider.  Look for ways to encourage habits."  [including checklists and what the authors call "action triggers," i.e., decisions "to execute a certain action…when you encounter a certain situational trigger."]

    I've written a lot about habits, so that's nothing new, but I like the concept of the "action trigger," which the authors recommend for motivating people to "do the things they know they need to do."   One example of an action trigger might be, "I'll change the batteries in my smoke detectors on the same day that I change the clocks."  The authors say that dreaming up an action trigger reduces personal resistance enough to be like creating an "instant habit" — and if that's correct, then it's powerful indeed.

    An example from my overeating life would be when I decided that when I finish my first plate of dinner, I'll get up and get a cup of coffee or a piece of gum.  From my exercising life:  "I'll head to the Y right after the preschool music class every week."    

    Everything gets a lot easier when you're in the habit, but making these little micro-plans — basically just deciding when and where you're going to do something, and taking a moment to imagine it happening — could perhaps carry you along until the habits are established.

    C.  Rally the herd.  "Behavior is contagious.  Help it spread."  

    This one has more to do with encouraging change in a group (for example, how managers might get a whole slew of employees to adopt new safety rules) but I still think I saw some of it in my own change.  For one thing, I tried very hard to look to my fit and active and not-at-all-gluttonous husband as an example, and as part of my change — it's hard to see which came first here — we reinforced our whole-family identity as "a family who does active things together."

    And I am sure that it helped me feel comfortable in my new role as "a person who exercises" that I was part of a larger organization, a member at my local YMCA, and that two or three times a week I was literally surrounding myself with people who already were who I aspired to be:  "a person who goes to the gym."  I felt that identity coalescing as I found that I knew the names of the staff and they recognized me, as I nodded hello to the same people I saw from time to time in the locker rooms, as my kids got comfortable in the child care and made "favorite" friends among the staff.

    I think that blogging about it helped too.  There is a certain risk you take in announcing to the world that you're making a change.  I admit that I feel responsibility toward "the blog" to stay on habit at this point!  I don't want to let you all down!

     + + +

    This post has gone on long enough, so I'll end here, but I'm pleased at how it coincided so neatly with the start of the new year!  I'm not making any new year's resolutions myself, but I wish the best to any of you who are.  

    (Just do it at some other YMCA, not mine.  The parking is bad enough as it is.  Ah, January…)

    —

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