Recipe successes: food from the yard

This past weekend included some social functions that involved tasty snacks. After my husband tried to go a week without eating sugar, the temptations of the weekend were too difficult to resist.  But sweets weren't the only delicious items: I'm happy to report some successes with food from our backyard.  So some food notes: 

First event: Ok, I have to admit I didn't make this appetizer, but I'm getting my kids to make it in the future.  (Short on time, I just brought Trader Joe's herbed goat cheese and pita crackers to the meet and greet we went to on Friday.) But this would be so easy to do: take grape tomatoes, (which are coming to an end in our garden right now, but I am going to have the kids start some new plants,) and cut them in half and layer them with a basil leaf (my basil needs some fertilizer but is still healthy) and a slice of mozzarella string cheese (or good mozzarella if you are nice.) The lady who brought them left them plain, but I like the balsamic drizzle.  And slicing isn't really even necessary.  

On Saturday we went with the cousins to the Goleta Lemon Festival. This was a slightly disappointing event. My sister-in-law and I were hoping for an abundance of lemon themed food: some lemon curd, lemon marmalade, lemon steak, lemon delight, lemon lemon...  Well, the festival was a bit smaller than we expected.  There were more people on the soccer fields at the other end of the park than there were at the lemon fest. But we did sample lemon beer, lemon cotton candy, lemon ices, and lemon pie.  The lemon bars didn't look nearly as good as the ones I make with my grandmother's recipe, so we passed on those.  The lemon cotton candy tasted like lemonade mix whipped into a fluff.  The girls loved it.  They also loved the idea of trying out the array of bouncy houses, but we bargained them down.  Who wants to pay $5 for 5 minutes of bouncing when you can jump for free at every other birthday party?  Instead we gave them each $3 for a flower headband from one of the little booths (NOT lemon themed: most were local insurance companies, cable providers, and health supporting industries offering free pens and magnets, with a couple vendors of tchotchkes from China.) The highlight of the afternoon was watching a group of girls from the local dance school perform flamenco dances. Wish I had a photo to share. The girls looked beautiful in their brilliant dresses, red lipstick, and bright flowers pinned in their dark hair. Our girls were fascinated by the concept of fake eyelashes -were they wearing them or were they not? 

Hungry for more lemon foods, I asked a bored kid back at home to try making lemon meringue pie for our dinner than night with the cousins.  Success!  My 14 year old son (with help on the crust and meringue from Dad) made the lemon meringue pie recipe from Grandma's Joy of Cooking.  I could have eaten the entire thing myself.  The crust was a little underdone, but the filling was lemony perfection. Way better than what we bought for $3 a slice at the fair.  Our lemon tree produces a very sweet little lemon that made a light colored filling.  It isn't as sour as some varieties, so I think it is a Meyer lemon, but I'm not sure. It produces all year round. I've been watering it lately because I don't want it to perish in the drought. 

I didn't take a picture of the boys' pie, but here is an idea:

And the recipe from Joy of Cooking for the filling: 

The Lemon Filling

Ingredients for the filling

• 1 9-inch pie crust
• 1 ½ cups sugar
• 6 tablespoons cornstarch
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• ½ cup cold water
• ½ cup fresh squeezed lemon juice (3 large. lemons)
• 4 each large egg yolks, well beaten
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
• 1 ½ cups boiling water
• 1 teaspoons lemon zest, grated

Procedure steps for filling 

1. Using a fork poke holes in the sides and bottom of the crust every few inches or so to allow air to escape while baking, thus preventing the crust from bubbling. Bake the crust in a 425° F oven for 20 minutes or until evenly browned. Remove and cool the crust. Turn oven temperature down to 350° F. (Now go to step 1 in the meringue section below.)

2. Combine the sugar and cornstarch in a 2-3 quart saucepan.

3. Gradually blend in until smooth the cold water and fresh lemon juice.

4. Add the egg yolks and blend thoroughly then add the butter and fold in stirring constantly.

5. While stirring gently slowly add the boiling water. Bring to a boil and allow thickening slightly, reducing the heat to very low and simmering slowly for 1 minute.

6. Fold in the lemon zest then pour into the baked pie shell.

7. Spread the meringue (see recipe below) onto the outside edges and anchoring it to the crust and filling, then working toward the center with the remaining meringue. Use a rubber spatula to create peaks throughout the top of the meringue. Bake for 20 minutes in the 350° F oven or until meringue peaks are golden brown.

8. Cool completely on a rack and then serve or refrigerate for up to 3 days.

Since I'm holding a sleeping baby, I'm not getting up from the computer to fetch my cookbook and copy the recipe exactly but this blog claims this is the Joy of Cooking recipe: from http://morethanburnttoast.blogspot.com/2011/08/classic-lemon-meringue-pie-from-irma-s.html

The other event we cooked for was Sunday dinner for 3 families from my husband's work.  He decided to publicize this party as a bacon-themed dinner, so someone brought bacon wrapped jalapenos and cauliflower and bacon salad, we had bacon mashed potatoes and bacon wrapped pork tenderloin, someone else brought bacon and cheese and tator tot casserole, and the other family brought a salad with kale, peppers, peanuts and bacon bits.  We also had bacon bits to mash into guacamole.  The guacamole was devoured. We've been getting avocados from our tree for several months now and while production has slowed down, we're still able to gather a few ripe ones regularly.  Again, I'm not sure of the variety.  These avocados are HUGE and mild. I think they might be the "Mayo" variety or "Choquette."   I've been experimenting with guacamole and this batch turned out pretty well: used a generous amount of lemon juice, Camp Dog Cajun seasoning, garlic powder and cumin.  I probably won't be able to replicate the results because each batch has a different ripeness and quantity of seasoning, but the Cajun seasoning added a really good zing. 

http://ucavo.ucr.edu/Images/Varieties/Mayo.jpg

So we've been eating deliciously if not healthfully. I've got a couple friends who are doing detox diets and are very enthusiastic about how great they feel and how they don't feel deprived on these restrictive diets.  They seem convinced, but I believe part of their excitement is related to the fact that they are paying a premium for supplements while doing the detox.  You know how you always LOVE something you pay a lot for? A car, a stereo, a blender -- I call this the Vitamix effect, although I'm sure psychologists have a better name.  

In a similar vein, last week the moms' group at church hosted a chiropractor who advocates for natural living - very Californian. Her enthusiasm almost has me convinced to try drinking apple cider vinegar mixed with honey and water and to take colloidal silver to prevent infections.  But life without lemon desserts and rich appetizers seems too bland.  It's almost time to start feeding the baby real food, and I know I'll try to withhold sugar from her as long as possible, but even though sugar seems to be at the root of so many health problems, it provides so much sweetness to life that I believe to deprive her of the joy of dessert would be akin to sending her out in the cold without a coat.  Lemon pie, chocolate, coffee, wine, guacamole -- small vices that yield great delights. We all need something to help us through dark days. 

The Kindness of Strangers

Remember the ticket I moaned about a little bit ago?

Well, I'm slowly resolving the issue.

I threw a little party in my mind yesterday when a letter arrived saying that my petition to dismiss the assessment leveled against me for missing my court date was granted.  Champagne all around!  I feel like I'm $300 richer, even though it just means I don't have to pay that $300.  I have a court date in October to explain my situation to the judge.  I think he could rule either way on whether I'm guilty of running the red light, but at this point, I'd be happy if he'd remove the late fees and assign me traffic school so that the ticket doesn't go on my record.

Oh, to have a clean record!  I felt half a criminal just to be called guilty of failing to appear in court.

I didn't know until I went to court the first time that my license had also been suspended because I didn't come to court.  Good thing I didn't do any other lawbreaking during the interim!

So my mind has been eased somewhat because this little issue is being cleared up and swept away, just like so many other little stumbling blocks in life.

What really improved my outlook, though, has been the helpful attitude of the courthouse workers.  When I first found out about the ticket and called the court collections office, the agent was patient and listened to my long sob story and took her time clarifying the steps I needed to take.  I showed up at the courthouse with my baby to get the process started, and the security guards were kind about moving me to a shorter line to go through the metal detectors.  I didn't have to wait in line at the collections window. The agent there listened to my story again and gave me paperwork and an appointment to go to a hearing to request a hearing. (not sure what this is called - the arraignment?) The judge at this hearing was a most patient soul.  I was a part of a group of about 20 other scofflaws, all accused of traffic infractions, several who also had excuses for missing court.  80% of them had to ask for deferments or payment plans in order to pay their tickets.  The judge's easygoing demeanor didn't change, even when one jittery kid got up and hopped his way through his assessment, even when multiple people asked over and over what their options were, although the judge had explained them at least 17 times, even when one unbathed woman with a grocery cart full of notebooks painstakingly detailing a story about how the police were out to get her wanted to tell her story then and there, but the judge very politely interrupted her and reminded her that her opportunity to argue her case would be at her future court date.  The bailiff kept up a joshing banter with a lawyer.  The stenographers typed away smilingly.  Everyone seemed in such a good mood even though I, and all the other accused, were anxiously agitated.

So compliments to the county courthouse employees!  On a daily basis they encounter people at their lowest moments.  They deal with the innocently accused and the guilty, the repentant and the unrepentant.  They come face to face daily with people who don't want to be there and who consider them enemies.  But they smile! They come back to work! They are polite! Three times I had to go up to the collections office for paperwork or to file the paperwork.  Each time I was greeted kindly.  The third time they treated me like an old friend.  My own story was not too dramatic compared to some of the other situations I had the occasion to overhear.  But the workers seemed to know they needed to have a gentle demeanor in the face of all this sadness.

It could be that I just happened to show up on the days that all the nice people were working. I'm sure curmudgeons work at the courthouse, too.  The building has hardly any windows; I would be gloomy after spending hours there listening to people complain and offer excuses.  What grace to be able to work there with a smiling face and to respond to all the distress with kindness, instead of impatience.  Just by listening to my story and offering some advice, these strangers elevated my spirits.  Blessings on them.

Reasons to run

On a completely different note, because I've returned to running and reading about running, answers to another "why": why run:

I run to eat.

I run for a few minutes of solitude.

I run to think.

I run to be healthy.

I run to make my resting heart rate more peaceful.

I run to have more energy and to use up negative energy.

I run to keep my legs in shape.

I run to be outside.

I run to hang out with other runners.

I run to compete with other runners.

I run because Chariots of Fire makes me cry.

I run for the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat, even if I'm only racing my watch.

I run because I feel good when I'm done.

I run because every once in a while I feel good when I'm running.

I used to run to exercise the dog.

I run to have something to do with the kids.

I run to have something to do without the kids.

I run away from and back to.

I run because it helps me blow off steam, literally and figuratively.

I run to put things into perspective.

I run to see what's going on in the neighborhood, what changes are made with the seasons.

I run because I like comfy running clothes and shoes.

I run because I usually notice something to be thankful for.

I run because I'm thankful I have a body to use.

I run because it is a gift.

I run as a time for and a form of prayer.

I run because I love running.

And now I know, because I read Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen by Christopher McDougall, that I run because of deep seated biological necessity.  The human person evolved as a long distance runner to hunt down dinner, and so the human body is designed to run long, slow distance.  Or so he claims.

This book was what encouraged the barefoot running trend a few years ago. It came out in 2009, and Vibram Five Finger shoes were just coming out on the market. Now the trend has reversed again and mega-padded running shoes are back in demand.  I didn't buy into the barefoot runners, although I had some racing flats back in the day.  I can understand the arguments for barefoot running across a field or a beach, but when you run on concrete or asphalt every day, a little padding and protection from debris is essential.  But how to run isn't the essential message of the book - it's more about why people run far.

This book is incredibly readable, even for the non-runner, I would think. McDougall moves back and forth in time and place between a narrative about a contemporary ultra-marathon, histories of long distance running and running trends, a look at evolutionary biology, and the description of a "lost tribe" in Mexico. His style is entertaining, he throws out a few outrageous claims to keep you intrigued, and he creates interest in his characters.  He makes runners take pride in their history of impressive magnanimity and great camaraderie.  I might recommend it to non-runners looking for inspiration to start running as a means to find peace and health, and runners will definitely find something to enjoy in it, but it's not a must-read.  I picked it up at Goodwill over the summer, and after it sits around here a couple more months to see if any of the teenagers want to read it, it will go back to Goodwill.

But not before I note these quotes I liked:

"That was the real secret of the Tarahumara: they'd never forgotten what it felt like to love running. They remembered that running was mankind's first fine art, our original act of inspired creation. Way before we were scratching pictures on caves or beating rhythms on hollow trees, we were perfecting the art of combing our breath and mind and muscles into fluid self-propulsion over wild terrain. And when our ancestors finally did make their first cave paintings, what were the first designs? A downward slash, lightning bolts through the bottom and middle -- behold, the Running Man."

"'There are two goddesses in your heart,'" [Coach Joe Vigil] told them."'The Goddess of Wisdom and the Goddess of Wealth. Everyone thinks they need to get wealth first, and wisdom will come. So they concern themselves with chasing money. But they have it backwards. You have to give your heart to the Goddess of Wisdom, give her all your love and attention, and the Goddess of Wealth will become jealous, and follow you.' Ask nothing from your running, in other words, and you'll get more than you ever imagined."

"Vigil wasn't beating his chest about the purity of poverty, or fantasizing about a monastic order of moneyless marathoners. Shoot, he wasn't even sure he had a handle on the problem, let alone the solution. All he wanted was to find one Natural Born Runner -- someone who ran for sheer joy, like an artist in the grip of inspiration -- and study how he or she trained, lived, and thought. Whatever that thinking was, maybe Vigil could transplant it back in American culture like an heirloom seedling and watch it grow wild again."

"Was [a Czech runner] a great man who happened to run, or a great man because he ran?  Vigil couldn't quite put his finger on it, but his gut kept telling him that there was some kind of connection between the capacity to love and the capacity to love running. The engineering was certainly the same: both depended on loosening your grip on your own desires, putting aside what you wanted and appreciating what you got, being patient and forgiving and undemanding.  ...

"Perhaps all our troubles -- all the violence, obesity, illness, depression, and greed we can't overcome -- began when we stopping living as Running People. Deny your nature, and it will erupt in some other, uglier way."

"Like Caballo, the Tarahumara secret had begun working for me before I even understood it.  Because I was eating lighter and hadn't been laid up once by injury, I was able to run more; because I was running more, I was sleeping great, feeling relaxed, and watching my resting heart rate drop. My personality had even changed: The grouchiness and temper I'd considered part of my Irish-Italian DNA had ebbed so much that my wife remarked, "Hey, if this comes from ultrarunning, I'll tie your shoes for you." I knew aerobic exercise was a powerful antidepressant, but I hadn't realized it could be so profoundly mood stabilizing and - I hate to use the word -- meditative. If you don't have answers to your problems after a four-hour run, you ain't getting them."

"Running didn't just make the Seris a people. As Coach Joe Vigil would later sense about his own athletes, it also made them better people."

Manifesto

Still thinking about "what I should have/could have said" last week.

Where do you begin to answer when someone questions the way you live?  When it is obvious that you are religious because the number of children piling out of your large vehicle make it look like a clown car - or perhaps because of the way you dress, your necklace laden with saint medals instead of charms, the fact that you never use the "f" word, your tendency to reply you are "busy" when invited to do something on Sundays, at some point you are going to be asked why. Why live this way?

I don't think I could articulate the answer to that briefly. I'm always left without words when my faith is challenged.  Where to start?  How to articulate why and what I believe to someone with preconceptions about what faith is?  I think I need to write my own manifesto of faith.

As I mentioned in my last post, when challenged about my beliefs and choices, my first response is to defend.  I'm tempted to mount an argument; I feel belligerent.  I want to turn to statistics and experts and studies to prove that I am right.  But that attitude and those "scientific" responses aren't really convincing. They only invoke a similar reply from the questioner - I want to write "the opposition," "the adversary," "the opponent."  But even thinking in those terms belies a flaw in that approach.

I've started to think the only way to begin is by offering an apology. It might actually be kind of funny to say, "I'm sorry my children/appearance/actions make you uncomfortable with your life choices," but of course I mean an apology in the sense of an explanation.

Only again, where to begin?  Beginning with a defense of NFP doesn't really work if someone doesn't have faith.  You might be able to pique people's curiosity in it by showing how it is all natural and organic, but without a deeper understanding of sacrifice, many people might say no thanks.

Why make sacrifices?

Why give up something you enjoy, comfort, normalcy?  Why choose something hard?  The simple, seemingly trite, answer comes down to love. When you love someone, you want to do things for them. You want them to be happy. You are happy. You want to spread happiness to the world. Love pours itself out.  Love multiplies. When you are in love with one person, loving a multitude is easier.  Love is really the only thing that makes life worth living. Love naturally seeks to replicate itself. Love others, love the world, love the possibilities of others and the world.

And love the Source of all these beloveds.

Because I grew up in a home where faith was central, I have always thought it was important to love others because that is the way you love God.  But when I made my faith my own and began to ask why love God, I was convinced to do so, not just from arguments I learned in theology class, or from Scriptures that I heard at Mass, or from the witness of others, although all those things strengthened my faith, but also because of the fact that love - and lovable things - exist.  People, Truth, Beauty, Metaphysical Desires.

So whether you believe in a loving God because you love others or whether you love others because you believe in a loving God, you begin to build your life around that belief and your choices about how to live flow from a desire to create more Love and keep Love alive and growing.

So that is why we do NFP.

And why I believe in God and in the Church and what the Church teaches.  And why I agree with the teaching that family life is a path to sanctification because it is where love is conceived and nurtured and challenged and made stronger. And I want sanctification because I desire the Divine encounter face to face.  And when we come face to face with others we sense God and ourselves in them.  And we learn to live and to love others face to face in the family.  And I believe in Heaven because I believe the world is a beautiful place, and yet it isn't home, and we long for a home, and we feel a connection with those who have died, and a longing for immortality.  And I agree with Pascal that I can either wager that God exists or that he doesn't, to believe or not to believe. And if I believe and Heaven doesn't exist, no harm, but if I don't believe, and Heaven does exist, than I may be looking at eternal absence or Hell.

I don't think it is because of a weakness of faith that I come back to the idea of a wager.  Every day we have to make choices that are based on a belief, or a bet, that the outcome will be what we expect and hope, but we really don't know.  So I bet on the existence of eternal happiness.  I choose to believe in an immortal soul in each person which makes each person a child of God and my brother or sister.

And my relationship to my brother or sister, even when they annoy me, is predicated upon love.
I choose to believe that my siblings, my children, my spouse, my neighbor, and myself are created in an act of love, out of the overflowing love of the Creator, so they deserve honor and respect.
And all that is good exists because of that outpouring of Love from the Creator. So the world itself is predicated upon love.
And the creative instinct is the effect of being created in the image of God.
All that is beautiful is a reflection of that Imagery.
Beautiful things open our hearts to Love and lead us back to it and multiply it within us.
A baby is a a beautiful thing.
Life, though difficult, is a beautiful thing.
Love, though capable of causing great pain, is also the source of great happiness, a beautiful thing.
Because love requires suffering for and with others, it isn't easy to practice.  It isn't easy to witness to the joy that family life can bring. It isn't always easy to remember that in our interactions with our family.
Not everyone, especially me, is easy to love. It is hard to love some people where they are, perhaps especially the people closest to us when they don't behave how we expect or desire.  We want them to love us as we are and to understand, comfort, congratulate us, but we don't always have the grace to give them the same gifts.

If a friend questions why I do something unconventionally, I don't need to create a sophisticated defense for why we practice living our faith; instead I need to learn how to live so that every action tells the story of our life in the faith.  I need to practice enshrining Love into our family because we may act in ways that are unloving sometimes,  often. We complain about hardships and disappointments. We hear about the hardships and disappointments of others. We fail Love constantly.

Confession, reconciliation, redemption.  Best storyline ever.

I am not a theologian or a poet.  But I trust that both of those visionaries have insight into immortality and the love that makes it possible.  If I had more time, I'm sure I could find a poem that expresses all this jumble more eloquently.   Perhaps that should be my quick answer to "Why?"  -- a poem that expresses the idea that Love of and for others and of and for God liberates, redeems, creates all the beauty that makes life worth living.


Or maybe a picture. A couple old ones:

Conforming

Our weekends lately have been packed with sports, social events, errands and projects.  Labor Day weekend we had multiple social events that required a lot of small talk.  It took me a week to recover. First, my husband's brother had a party for the first Notre Dame football game on Saturday. On Sunday we met up with some old neighbors who now live in central California but came to the coast for a weekend with some other friends. And Monday we went to a promotion ceremony for a friend who is in the medical community.  At each event we knew someone very well, and the rest of the people we knew not at all.

So we were introduced: "These are our friends with the seven kids!"

I know it's a good way to remember us.  I identify people by their children also: "That's the lady with twins.  That's Johnie's mom. That's the other lady with seven kids."  I don't mind being known as that lady.  But I'm not quite sure how to respond when people I barely know feel compelled to tell me their fertility stories.  Maybe it's how their husband didn't want more than two kids. Or that "they took care of that problem." Or they ask "Oh, are you religious?"  Maybe it's because we have a baby that people start to tell me about their husband's vasectomies.  In a way it's kind of fascinating: in the past few months, I've heard more personal stories from people I barely know than ever before.

I usually respond pretty vaguely to these stories, something along the lines of "Oh really?" or "Interesting."  I know people are curious about how other people live and why they make the decisions they make.  And some people's choices, because they are moral decisions and not value-free, challenge others: vegetarians, people who don't own cars even when they could afford them, priests and religious, and, presumably, people with large families.  So even though I don't ask people about their contraception or actively promote not using contraception, the fact that I have had a large number of conceptions means I have placed a value on conceiving life rather than preventing it.

I know family size is determined but a multitude of factors, and not everyone with a small family uses contraception and not every large family doesn't use contraception. We knew some people who had six kids who told us that their 6 different kinds of contraception that failed.  I try not to make assumptions about people who have one child or people who have ten. And to be honest, I don't mind being an object of curiosity.

But last weekend I started to get edgy when a guy we know very well began telling me I should read Dan Brown's latest book, Inferno.  He thought I might like it because Dante figures so largely in it.  I pretty sure, without reading the book, that Dan Brown misreads Dante.  But that wasn't what bothered me; it was the ensuing talk about how the bad guy is trying to kill millions with a virus, and how this might be a good thing because the world is overpopulated and how a natural disaster or plague might restore balance in the world because the Church keeps trying to prevent people from using contraceptives. Brown (and his fans) apparently loves to hate the Church.

It's a tired argument, as is this rant about feeling persecuted by people who don't get why we have a lot of kids. I didn't get into a debate with this person about how food production has outpaced growth, or how most of the developed world has a negative birth rate, or how the real problem is over-consumption rather than overpopulation.  I only rehearsed those arguments later in my head.  My sleep that night was interrupted by great comebacks.

The next morning (Sunday) I regretted that I didn't engage.  Had I passed over an opportunity to evangelize?  Should I have defended our choices?  At the time, I couldn't think of any thing to say.  I felt mostly dumbfounded that this friend either felt that we needed to be persuaded to stop populating the world or that we need to be persuaded to leave a Church that seems to believe the world should be overpopulated.

Maybe I should have questioned what "over" populated meant?  Perhaps my response should have been "Who gets to decide who reproduces? Who decides who should be eliminated?" Doesn't he see that those decisions should not be made by a human being about another human being?  It's always useful to compare your adversary to Hitler, but in this case the comparison is apt.  Even in the Brown novel, it is the VILLAIN who wants to eliminate people.  One of the novel's flaws (crushing secular review here)  is that Brown makes the villain's argument seem valid - Brown seems to suggest that only the villain's means are devilish.  (Catholic review here.)

My weakness is that sometimes I forget why we remain committed to NFP when we fail at so many other Christian virtues.  I have not felt called to defend NFP because I know my own will has been wanting. At one point in my life, my defenses would have been set into motion by these encounters with people who question our choices about family size.  But now I feel more humbled by them.

At Mass last Sunday morning, the readings seemed to be directed toward the state of my aggravated heart.

First the complaint against God in the First Reading from Jeremiah 20:7-9:

You duped me, O LORD, and I let myself be duped;
you were too strong for me, and you triumphed.
All the day I am an object of laughter;
everyone mocks me.

Whenever I speak, I must cry out,
violence and outrage is my message;
the word of the LORD has brought me
derision and reproach all the day.

I say to myself, I will not mention him,
I will speak in his name no more.
But then it becomes like fire burning in my heart,
imprisoned in my bones;
I grow weary holding it in, I cannot endure it.

Yes, sometimes I feel the Lord has duped me.  I don't like being an object of laughter.  But that last stanza contains the crux - how can you live without the Lord?  God's name is like fire in the the heart- in other words, it is like Love, which can't be held in without being extinguished. Love by its nature must be poured out, overflow to others.  

The Second Reading from Paul to the Romans (1-2) seems to be the response to the first reading's lament:

I urge you, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God,
to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice,
holy and pleasing to God, your spiritual worship. 
Do not conform yourselves to this age
but be transformed by the renewal of your mind,
that you may discern what is the will of God,
what is good and pleasing and perfect.

Finally the words of Christ in the Gospel of Matthew:

“Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself,
take up his cross, and follow me. 
For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it,
but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
What profit would there be for one to gain the whole world

and forfeit his life?"

I need that transformative renewal of my mind, to remind myself of why we live the way we do, especially when we are confronted with the comfortable lives of those who have chosen differently.  My body has been sacrificed, as have many dreams and ambitions, for a good cause, for love and life.  But sometimes I need to be reminded of that cause.

Several years ago, I felt our family needed to live more in the world, to be salt and light - partly because of our situation, partly out of a missionary desire.  So we have tried to cultivate friendships with people who live a more secular life.  We still kept up our friendships with our friends trying to walk the Christian path, but we also reached out to nonpracticing friends.  So somewhat intentionally and somewhat because of where we are living, we ended up socializing with a more secular crowd.

At the same time, we've had this seventh child, this sign of nonconforming.  But I often miss the shelter of being around others who understand, who "get" us, to whom we are not a circus show.  And I am tempted by thoughts of conforming.  Sometimes I want to lay down the cross and be free and easy for a while.

Temporarily.  That last line, "What profit would there be for one to gain the whole world and forfeit his life?", is the clincher.  Sometimes I need to be reminded of that future when we will be confronted by Love. In my quest to be a witness, I sometimes neglect to nurture the Relationship that should be coloring every interaction.  Were I to feed my soul more faithfully the questions of curious onlookers would not be persecutions, but opportunities.

The truth is that for every person who seems to think we are crazy for having a large family, there is a person who comes up to us and admires the baby. Several people have told me how much they love seeing our big kids hold the baby.  People are always happy to see a baby and to see that baby being loved by its siblings.  The kids squabble and disagree like all siblings, but they also enjoy having a ready made crowd.  Strangers have come up to tell me not just their sterilization stories but their stories about their connections to big families - their own or their grandma's or their cousin's.

Maybe that is the best form of evangelizing: witnessing the love of a family, the love that creates a family, that is a foretaste of that Perfect Love.  

Outlaw

Just when everything seems to be falling into place, and life is resuming a relatively normal pace, something jarring occurs.  Today it came in the form of a call from the person who lives at an address we lived at 10 years ago.  This resident called to inform me he's been getting my mail from the DMVs of both Illinois and California. Somehow our California address never made it into the IL system.  So I am delinquent on my license plate renewal, and it turns out I am also the recipient of a now almost $900 traffic ticket for running a red light in a photo-enforced zone almost 6 months ago. Now it has several late fees assessed to it, including one for failing to show up in court.  I feel like a criminal!  I have to go to court tomorrow to get a court date to figure it all out.  Meanwhile I am crying inside, and I can think of nothing else. Wah.  What luck that I am getting paid almost $900 to teach an online class, although I had in mind several other ways to spend that money. ..

My hope is that I'll be assigned a merciful judge who will dismiss the case. I admit that I did actually get caught by the red light camera, but my excuse is that I was in bumper to bumper traffic and to stop would have caused an accident.  I was behind a large delivery truck and couldn't actually see the lights. The judge could say that I shouldn't have moved until I saw the light, but I am a human being and when the car in front of me moved, so did I.

So I may have to pay, at least the ticket if not the late fees also.  I keep telling myself it is only money.  We are still going to be able to put food on the table.  What happens when this fine is given to someone who isn't getting paid? Who can't put food on the table if $900 goes to the courts?  This punishment seems completely out of proportion with the crime.  Had I been seen by a police officer, he might have frowned at me or given me a warning, but most likely he wouldn't have been able to move in the traffic, Cameras, on the other hand, are impartial.  They don't care if you are just trying not to be hit from behind.

Boo hiss to automated systems.

As the courts and traffic enforcement and DMV renewals and banking and classes and practically everything move to automated systems, what will become of our humanity? Will the judge be the type who believes the camera doesn't lie? Or that the camera doesn't tell the whole story?

So do I have anything sunny to post?  I had my first class on Monday evening and all went well.  The students were interested.  Their first written work, a response to one of three prompts (the short version: write your own obituary, describe your favorite character, or how are you like/unlike other members of the Millennial generation), indicates that I will need to spend time on the basics, but a couple of the students commented that they weren't as worried about this class when they left the room as they were when they entered.

If this writing class were online, as many are, it would be harder to address the concerns and needs of the students.  I can set up discussion board after discussion board on the online learning platform, but those computer responses only mimic the learning that comes from sitting face to face in dialogue.

Well, it's all been said before with a sigh.  The way we do things continues to change rapidly.  Hopefully, people will still ponder the whys.  They will also continue to act irrationally, committing both incomprehensible acts of evil and indifference and unimaginable acts of generosity and goodness.

Last weekend, inspired by their friend's stint at St. Thomas Aquinas College's high school summer program, our boys invited a few friends over for "Socrates and S'mores."  Ok, maybe I prodded them a little bit... "You guys can do that at home!  Here's a selection to read!"  They took over the initiative and invited the some kids, cooked some ribs, found the marshmallows, and sat out back around the fire pit for three or four hours talking about truth and goodness.  These are good kids, even if they do stupid things every once in a while.

All of my kids went back to school on Thursday last week.  They seem to like their teachers.  And I get to spend my days with my pinchable friend.  The camera doesn't lie about her lovableness. 

Site seeing on the fly

We just returned from a brief but happy last weekend of summer vacation.  Although the to-do list isn't any shorter, we dropped everything and headed north.  All for good cause - the trip was a happy little jaunt that went off better than I expected for the lack of planning.

The pretext was visiting a family friend, a retired priest who moved from the East Coast to the West Coast about the same time we did. My aunt has been worried about him, and I was anxious to see him in hopes that some of his scholarly wisdom would inspire my kids to seek the good, true and beautiful.  He didn't lecture about noble things much, but conversed with the kids over pizza and ice cream and showed them a tin soldier toy store in his town that enthralled them.  And although he is in his 80's, I think he enjoyed the toy store, too. It was almost a museum of specialty soldiers set up in realistic battle scenes true to historic details - a treat since we had just finished Edward Eager's Knight's Castle not too long ago.

From his hillside retirement retreat, which also houses a winery (we didn't have time to taste, but grabbed a bottle to take home), we zoomed by Santa Clara University in San Jose - home to another mission, which we only glimpsed (just as we just waved at San Juan Bautista from the highway) because we couldn't find easy access parking.  Then we continued north to San Francisco. Our first item was to drive across the Golden Gate Bridge and then see some redwoods.  I wanted to stop and walk across part of the bridge, but it seemed like everyone else in California had decided that this weekend they wanted to go to San Francisco also. It took us an hour to go about 10 miles. The line to park at the foot at the bridge was so long that we probably could have sent a contingent across the 1.7 mile bridge and back before parking. So we didn't walk but drove across the bridge.  But where are the redwoods? My husband had done this trip back in his college days and thought the forest was right across the bridge.  And we'd seen Dawn of the Planet of the Apes at the free movie theater on base - those big trees provide shelter for the apes right across the bridge!  But we drove and drove and didn't see what we recognized as a forest.  Around twisty turny roads through the Muir Wilderness we wandered, but eventually we gave up, stopped at a scenic overlook, let the kids out to pretend to fall off a cliff, and then turned back to the city.

From the pristine air of the Muir Wilderness we went to the malodorous airs of Fisherman's Wharf, the very touristy tourist trap in SF.  Why here? To see all the weird people, my youngest daughter assumed. She was disgusted by the people begging for marijuana and money and hawking bad art and off center religions, except she did like the vendors selling crocheted character hats.  I wasn't charmed either.  A stop at the Ghirardelli outlet for a free sample and a bag of chocolate chips (maximum amount of chocolate for minimum price) restored our good spirits. And everyone cheered as we drove up and down some of the precarious streets of Nob Hill.  Free thrills!

From there we headed to Chinatown, but the place had mostly shut down, as by that time it was nearly eight o'clock.  Drove by City Lights bookstore but didn't stop as parking was again impossible and the night clubs in the neighborhood were starting to pick up business.  So we turned our car toward our hotel in Oakland, where I found a Marriott where we could stay for free with points.  Dinner was at a little Thai place that was delicious. Our waitress was dumbfounded that we had seven children. She called the entire staff out to gawk at us. "Seven! Seven!" She sounded like she was about ready to cry, I'm not sure whether from joy or disbelief.

Sunday morning after eating our fill at the free breakfast and packing up (short stay - didn't even swim, usually the highlight of our rare hotel vacations), we drove a little ways to Palo Alto to go to Mass and tour Stanford, which was prettier than I thought. My oldest has said he doesn't want to go to college in California, but I like visiting campuses and admiring libraries. I was impressed by Stanford's chapel , but my 16 year old suspected Masonic connections (too much conspiracy theory reading).

From Stanford we headed to Carmel-by-the-Sea to see the burial place of Junipero Serra at the Mission San Carlos Borromeo, which was beautiful, but the boys were more impressed by the luxury car show in town - 3 Lamborghinis! 2 Rolls Royces! Bentleys, Ferraris, Teslas, and a McClaren!  The Corvettes were outclassed.  They ohhed and ahhed as we strolled toward the beach and a view of Pebble Beach golf course. I sipped luxury coffee.  Then we ate a picnic lunch from the grocery before hitting the PCH for the drive home.

It must be whale migration season because we didn't just see one or a few whales along the coast; we saw dozens. According to the internet, July - September is humpback and blue whale migration season.  We didn't have binoculars or a big enough zoom lens to tell what kind we saw.  After awhile, the novelty of "Oh look! A whale!" wore off.  But "Oh look! A hippy!" never wore out.  Big Sur is on our list of places to go back to and camp, with all the VW vans.

At any rate, although it was a short trip most of which was spent in the car, it was still vacation.  Everyone was mostly cheerful.  Well-timed snacks are essential for this kind of travel.  I was able to get some reading at my children done - selections from Fr. Schall's Another Kind of Learning, which I finally completed.  Excellent.  Hoping to inspire the older boys to take charge of their reading beyond what is assigned in class.

Muir Wildnerness

Fisherman's Wharf

LCJC and me with a mermaid nursing statue, Ghirardelli Plaza.

Stanford Chapel

Figure of Philosophy, Stanford Library

Mission San Carlos Borromeo

Burial Place of Junipero Serra

Wine country

Bl Junipero Serra's cell

Your chariot awaits...

Why, yes, that is a Lamborghini...

Happy Baby

All those white dots are whales spouting or jumping.  Need to get a better zoom lens...

She reads!

Matilija Poppy