Cooperating

One of the volunteer duties I've taken on this year is actually a blessing to me more than anyone else.  A friend and I are collaborating on a preschool co-op for our three-year-olds. She was homeschooling 4 of her 6 kids, the oldest 4, but sent them to school this fall to give more time her two youngest, who are three and 14 months, among other reasons.  We both wanted to have some social/entertaining/educational resources for our threes, but much of what is offered by the recreation department and area museums and preschools is pricey and time-consuming.

So we are making our own social/entertaining/educational resources. We convinced 4 other moms to join us and are plotting our way through the school year.  On Mondays we meet for 2 hours for circle time, sensory learning and crafts, snacks, music and movement and a closing story and prayer time.  Then on Wednesdays we meet for field trips. We've been to the living history farm, the Spanish story time, a new park and next week we tour the post office. Trips to the zoo, a pumpkin patch, the fire station, and a monthly visit to the nursing home are planned, and we have a long list of other places to visit.  The idea is that every month we'll go color and do puzzles or read stories at the nursing home, check out a new park around town, and take advantage of group rates for museums.

In addition to two mornings a week dedicated to playgroup preschool, we are pretty regular about attending Mass one morning a week with the high schoolers on their late start day, and going to the mother's rosary group on Fridays after Mass. Then Tuesdays, we often meet up with friends for library story time and park play. There is something nearly every day, but other than our morning class on Monday, I don't feel bad about skipping one morning's activity if I need to. The structure keeps the three-year-old happy and worn out in the afternoons until the kids come home and perk her up again.

So what is our pre-school curriculum? Here is the fun - and frustrating part: I bought two curriculum books. One Memoria Press's Junior Kindergarten program, which is fine, but I didn't love all the book choices and the themes are random, and it involves too much seat time.  The other is a Circle Time Resource Book, which I found on Amazon. It has good suggestions for sensory learning and games, but also seemed to lack unity.  I debated about buying some of the other Catholic preschool curriculum guides, but none seemed to fit our vision just right.

So we have been designing our own program based on themes we picked to coincide either with the calendar (St Francis and animals this week), or a letter of the week (last week was B for bananas, blueberries, bubbles, and our theme was senses.) My friend and I sat down one day this summer to pick 26 themes, which gets us through the spring and all the letters fo the alphabet. Moms are rotating roles in the classroom (which is at our church) and once every six weeks, a turn for a week off shows up. This month I've been the circle time mom, but next month I am helping with music and movement.

It's an amateur program and the kids are still pretty young for two hours of concentration, although we have snack and free play in the schedule.  I'm discovering some new picture books at the library - a simple creation book by Cynthia Rylant and a version of the Canticle of the Sun by Reeve Lindbergh called Circle of Days.  I Hear a Pickle was cute, but didn't hold everyone's attention; our age group preferred a simple story about senses at the beach.  I'm learning that for read-a-louds in a group, simple words, preferably rhyming, and big pictures go over best. Also popular is the letter bag, with small toys and objects that begin with the letter of the week. Stamping, sorting, skipping, and gluing are all a part of sensory learning/craft, and songs and parades and little hand motions are the extent of music and movement.

The kids love it. It is the highlight of the week for them.  And I like being motivated to find little activities and learning games online or at the library.  There is so much available, and this compels me to spend a little time playing with learning and making connections. A win all around.

And here is a pretty little poem from The Writer's Almanac: https://writersalmanac.org/episodes/20170906/, where you have to read the whole thing,  via Karen Edmisten:

Nature Walk

by Gillian Wegener

The fern fronds glow with a clean, green light,
and I lift one and point out the spores, curled
like sleep on the back, the rows so straight,
so even, that I might be convinced of Providence
at this moment. My daughter is seven.
She looks at the spores, at the leaf, at the plant,
at this wise, wide forest we are in, and sighs
at my pointing out yet another Nature Fact.
But look, I say, each one is a baby ready
to grow. 

...
But she is already moving down the path
toward the bridge and whatever’s beyond.

“Nature Walk” by Gillian Wegener from This Sweet Haphazard. © Sixteen Rivers Press, 2017. 

Stuffed

Our garage is looking a little overstuffed.  Boxes line the walls, full of unshelved, unread books, old certificates and artwork, mementos packed in tissues, binders from past jobs, and clothes that don't fit anyone. Bikes hang from the ceiling and lie across the floor, entangled with scooters, roller blades, and ripsticks. Wetsuits drip-dry from a line suspended from hooks hanging down from the ceiling. Suitcases are stacked haphazardly on top of placeless dining chairs. Three old coffee makers await the ewaste pickup day, missed three times.  A "rescued" road sign one of the college kids picked up one night gives me grief because it has no place, and I don't know how to get rid of it and the teen who picked it up is off at college and can't toss it in a dumpster himself.

Six tennis rackets, a box of model trains, dive gear, bike repair tools, a shelf full of offsize cleats, a bin of balls and wooden swords, three sets of golf clubs, 8 folding camp chairs, 2 bins of camping supplies, an overflowing box of sleeping bags. Old blankets, a pack n play, a stroller, a car seat. An old desk, an unused rocking chair, a cupboard full of VHS tapes and CDs. And then a workbench cluttered with tools and hardware and paint and oil and broken things to be fixed. Bags of t-shirts to make into a t-shirt quilt for a graduation present for the kid who graduated three years ago, or throw away.  Three coolers and a water jug. Unnecessary lamps. Bins full of decor for Easter, Halloween and Christmas times four.

The catalog could continue, but you get the idea.  We have a lot of stuff that is used rarely, if ever.  Every so often, once every couple of years usually, we go through things and shred some papers, cull some belongings for the giveaway truck in an attempt to half our belongings, so we don't go over the weight limit when we move. Since we already have more beds, mattresses, chairs, and dressers than the average family because we have a larger than average family, I always feel somewhat concerned about our worldly possessions adding up to more poundage than the average family is allowed.

Since we didn't move this summer (my husband just started a new job for the Navy in an office across the bay and a few miles down the road), I feel out of sorts.  The St. Vincent de Paul truck came to church last weekend, so we loaded up the Suburban with some unused shelves, several bags of cargo shorts and other unstylish clothes, the old crib, extra tennis rackets, and a kid-sized rolling suitcase (because we still have three others), and I meant to throw in an extra scooter no one rides. I even gave away some books.

I would like to keep shedding, to go through boxes of documents and mementos, to get rid of stuff and move on to a new place, despite the glorious weather, pristine gardens, and friendly neighbors at our current location. I would like to move someplace where the rent is less, the yard is more, and the local Catholic school is Catholic and affordable, where the church has an active youth group for teenagers, where we meet with some people who are less concerned about temporal things and more concerned with eternity. I would like to someday be able to paint the walls the color I like and plant a tree that I will see fruit.  I would also like to quit some volunteer duties gracefully - by moving.

But the Navy still has the upper hand for a few more years, and here we stay for at least two of those.

In my mind and heart, I know that we are lucky to get to stay. A lot of people would be thrilled to stay put for a few more years, especially with a senior in high school.

But I feel the weight of the stuff. It accumulates with time, and fear keeps it around - a fear of needing it the next time around, of getting rid of it and then wishing we had it. Or maybe it is a fear of forgetting, of not having a history without it.  The longer something stays around, even if it is something silly like an old paper, the harder it is to part with it.

All the natural disasters the past few weeks are a reminder of how quickly stuff can be lost. And of how unnecessary it is to survival.  Carrying the weight of having to stay in a place long enough to get tired of the responsibilities, the duties, the frustrations with schools, the disappointment with the okay youth program, the potential for what could be good, but just doesn't quite measure up,  the burdens of friendship and not-friendships, of fees and uniforms, and teams is tiring. This is my lament for the week.  Tomorrow I'll feel grateful again, and I'll move on to the next thing, and try not to think about everything in the garage basement for a few more months.

Instead of quitting it all, finding a dumpster, and moving away, I will stay put and keep at it, or say I'm sorry, I can't, or find someone else.  I will be grateful for the chance to stay with something for a change. At least I know a few someones now.

Hypotheticals

Sometimes you find out something you weren't supposed to know.  Then what do you do with that information? Do you keep the secret? Especially if it is a harmless one, or one that only wounds the original keeper?

Or do you reveal that you know? Perhaps drop little hints, so that the secret keeper feels comfortable to share? Especially if the secret keeper might be liberated or healed by sharing?

How often are the little secrets that we think we keep, in fact, already known to others?  How often do we keep secrets that aren't necessary to hide? That by keeping, we prevent mercy and compassion from overflowing? That we prevent the cascade of grace that comes from asking and receiving forgiveness?

More than once, our teenagers, each of them, have violated parental trust.  What seems so obvious to us as adults - that with trust comes freedom - doesn't always seems intuitive to teens. And every time trust is lost or broken, rebuilding trust takes a little longer. Why don't teenagers realize that although honesty and openness may be slightly uncomfortable, that discomfort is better than the alternative that occurs with a lie or an omission?

Why don't adults, also?

Houselander on emptiness and seeking

 This past Monday, my Catholic ladies book club discussed Caryll Houselander's Reed of God.  I have always loved this little book, and even this third time reading it revealed small epiphanies I didn't receive before.  Houselander creates a pattern in her design of the chapters, moving from a description of emptiness in the beginning to an exploration of body and soul, and then to a meditation on how we seek Christ to fill that emptiness, reminding us that a sense of completion or fullness is only found in Heaven at the end of the book.  I needed the reminder that emptiness can be a gift, that seeking can be a way of living a life of faith.

One of my friends didn't love the book because she thought it was going to be more narrative. I was always drawn to it because of Houselander's imagery and lack of sentimentalism, and because she presents Mary to be emulated, rather than venerated. Even sixty years after it was published, it seems contemporary to me.  Although the book is a series of meditations on Mary as an example of living the Christian life, it still opened up conversations for a book club. For instance, in the first chapter on emptiness, she asks readers to consider whether they fill themselves with trifles or causes or busyness, instead of being empty to receive Christ.  Her encouragement to look for union with God through ordinary things, or the presence of God in ordinary moments, is not a revolutionary idea, but one that needs frequent reminders.

So, too, is her reminder that all of the things that seem like stumbling blocks can be used for God's glory. He can use our losses and missed opportunities and brokenness and unhappiness, but only if we empty out our own will to make room for His grace. That's the hard part.  To live like Mary means surrender and trust and discipline our will. My own will seems to be my biggest stumbling block most of the time. She writes,  "In the world in which we live today, the great understanding given by the Spirit of Wisdom must involve us in a lot of suffering. We shall be obliged to see the wound that sin has inflicted on the people of the world . . . we shall see the Christ in others, and that vision will impose an obligation on us for as long as we live the obligation of love; when we fail in it, we shall not be able to escape in excuses and distractions as we have done in the past; the failure will afflict us bitterly and always." 

Despite the acknowledgement that failure and suffering and rejection are a part of the Christian life, Houselander always comes back to the consolation of God in the word and in the ordinary things of the world, voices, laughter, folk songs, bird songs, " The Word of God uttered in Christ's human life is a folk song. In it is all the primal love and joy and sorrow of all the world. It explains and simplifies all human lives all times." 

Houselander also meditates on the miracle of incarnation and the intertwining of flesh and spirit, another source of God's presence and grace: "Although human beings smear everything they touch, they leave touches of beauty wherever they go, too; evidence that the sense receive their unique gifts of grace, wonder, joy, and gratitude because of the beauty that is their environment. St. Thomas says that the Being of God is the cause of the beauty of all that is."

If, as Houselander suggests, "seeking" can be another expression for "spiritual life," then seeking beauty is a way of seeking Christ. Loving the ordinary things, ordinary responsibilities, little things, little people, not making idols, but looking face to face at one man:

"Face to face with one man, we cannot forget, we cannot fail to know, what he wants and what he needs. For he has a life like our own, woven of joys and sorrows, anxieties and fears, work and loves. He has a wife and children, or else the problem of living without them. He needs to think, to learn, to have poetry in his life; to see an inward meaning in the things of every day. He needs faith and sacraments; he needs some explanation of suffering; he needs wise guidance and education to help him to grasp the truth of justice; he needs sympathy, stimulus for courage; he needs work which will not only bring in the food for his body but will content his soul and will be the means by which his likeness to the Trinity can be restored to him. He needs a reasonable measure of solitude, and he has the right to the secrets of his own soul, the right to set his own standard, to suffer his own sorrows; and above all, he has the right, the necessity, and the obligation to adore. 

"All of this can be forgotten and left out when one thinks in terms of 'humanity,' but face to face with one man it cannot be forgotten.

"Before God there is one Man, Christ."

The final third of the book explores the idea of seeking Christ.  Do we recognize that "the survival of all that is worth the cost of a man's blood depends on how we foster the Christ life in the souls of the children and not only in the children but in  all the reborn of any age?"  

Not always. I need frequent reminders to desire Christ, not idols, not what I think I want, not what I think is lost, and to seek Him in small ones, in small things, in all that bears his Hand, in love and in forgiveness;

"... Those who seek the lost Lord will find traces of His being and beauty in all that men have made, from music and poetry and sculpture to the gingerbread men in the Patisseries, from the final calculation of the pure mathematician to the first delighted chalk drawing of a small child. 

"Only complacency can take away the sharp edge of love; boredom cannot do it and neither can aridity, for love is known as desire, which is stronger than we are and drives us as the wind drives a sail. 

 It is expedient that Christ should go, because we shall then seek, and seeking, touch the edge of the truths we cannot yet bear; because in the search we become aware of the wonder and mystery that contentment blinds us to."

What tastes better than a crisp, tart apple from the tree?
Memory relived.

Seeking fruits of the Spirit

Fall color

We don't get the traditional fall show of oranges, yellows, and reds as the deciduous foliage loses its chlorophyll. Instead, my garden is still full of pinks. My eleven year old got a hold of the camera the other day and snapped some artistic flower portraits, as well as a portrait of her 15 year old sister ready to go to her friend's quinceanera.

Oleander

Plumeria

Two types of hibiscus

St Fiacre

Suffering bougainvillea

Flying the colors

Three types of geranium

 

oleander

Fragile pink climbing rose

Blooming

Ready to go

Fall's return

Midway through September, Fall's cooler weather has yet to return.  Neither have we quite returned to the semblance of a regular routine. Schedules are still in flux. Houseguests are still coming and going. But the initial flurry of back to school parent meetings and fee deposits have slowed, and I predict that by the end of the month, we won't be doing the constant checking "What do you have tonight?"

This school year the kids are in even grades, and we again have a senior in high school, but no kids in elementary school. While I should be more prepared for the senior year stress, it still has the capacity to cause blood pressure to rise.  Why didn't he do more preparation over the summer?  Why didn't I have more conversations with this son about vocation and life purpose and the meaning of education before this moment? While he has made a stab at writing a personal statement, the current drafts aren't memorable essays. But now the craziness of a heavy load of school work has descended. This same son is still working at the candy store and half-heartedly participating on the cross country team.

And yesterday I cause more stress by killing his and his sister's guinea pigs by leaving them outside too long.  They were in the shade, but apparently it was warmer than I realized. When I brought them in, they both were panting.  There was a moment when I thought they would revive, and another moment when I considered taking them to the vet for IV fluids, and then the moment that I realized first one, and then the other, weren't going to make it. Woe! They were only pet store rodents, but they have cute faces, and suffering and death are always hard to witness.  I couldn't bring myself to do anything to hasten their death, even when I realized it was inevitable. Instead I spent a good part of the day trying to cool them and give them drops of water and gentle pats and fretting about taking any action beyond palliative care. The three year old was quite attentive, and she heard me talking to the vet and wanted to go. I almost thought it would be a fun field trip, but the cost of IV fluids would have been many times more what we paid for these pets, who were often ignored and who had no great chance of survival anyway.  I tried to channel my inner farmgirl attitude towards small animals, but still it is difficult to be the cause of death of a small cuddly creature that your child loves.

In better news, we spent the past two weeks hosting my husband's parents, who came out to California from Oklahoma with a loaded camper trailer, following the path of the Joads. They came for my husband's promotion to captain, which barring some unforeseen event, will likely be his terminal rank.  The ceremony does not have the pomp and circumstance of a change of command or a retirement, but it is traditional to host a party afterward. We just had pizza, cake, and beer and wine, and invited military and civilian friends, and in addition to my in-laws, hosted my cousins and my brother-in-law and his family. It wasn't a huge event planning wise, but all were in good spirits.

We took the grandparents to a few San Diego sites, the most unique being a new facility for special warfare communities which was a building project my husband has been working on. But they were mostly content to just hang out with us and to enjoy their camp spot on the bay. Which, as you can see in the photos, had a great view.  They stayed at an MWR facility, as my father-in-law is a retired 28 year Coast Guard veteran. These types of recreation sites are one of the oft overlooked perks of military life, and the quality of this particular location is outstanding. This trip was a major drive for them, but it came off without incident. They are still on the way home, taking their time stopping at the Grand Canyon and Santa Fe. We pray the return will be similarly rewarding so that they'll come again!

The grandparents' view with kids on paddle boards

Administering the oath of office

Circa 1996 commissioning as an ensign. Note 1 bar

Attaching the new shoulder boards

Cap'n Cook

Interior of the iconic I-bar, familiar to many from Top Gun

A change of command ceremony for my husband's outgoing/incoming bossses on the USS Midway. Note the proliferation of white uniforms. 

Our friend, a Navy doctor, paired up with another doc and had a much more elaborate promotion party, which is called a wetting down. We joked that they thought it was a wedding down. They rented a venue and had this lively live band.

Labor day weekend pool fun

Enjoying the warmth of a mid September sun.

Summer Reading and Unrest

It seems every year, my reading list gets shorter. I thought I might catch up on some reading this summer, but it just hasn't happened.  We've had a busy summer, and with everyone home and a series of houseguests, I haven't had a lot of quiet time. I've also been planning a pre-school co-op for next fall, tutoring a couple ESL students, and revising my class for the fall term, which will meet once a week instead of just three times a term. 

But I also admit I don't read as much because of the iphone.  Many hours that I used to spend reading are now spent checking in. (Did you see the article: "Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation" at The Atlantic someone linked to on Facebook? The irony of reading this on an idevice when it was linked to on social media isn't lost. Another article that falls short of its title that I spent time reading and plotting a response in my head was this one: "How American Politics Went Insane". The author, Kurt Anderson, describes a lot of fringe groups, but I don't think he fully answers the question in the title.  He makes some suggestions, but I was left unclear about why the pendulum of left/right extreme fringe groups swings when it does. The article does not seem without bias, and when I finished skimming it, I wasn't sure what sane politics looks like, if it even has ever existed (Anderson does seem to think the Reagan years were a period of relative civility.) I also think he could give more responsibility to the internet for the spread of vitriol, rigidity, and incivility, along with eccentric ideas like conspiracy theories.) I did cut down on social media this summer in between travel and company, but I still would like to limit more of that time. Especially after reading that article about the role of the internet in youth development, I want to set a better example for our kids.

While I pat myself on the back for not letting my kids have smart phones until they are 18, they have plenty of access to media.  We have a communal iphone and an ipad, and computers. The 17 year old has an old iphone that doesn't have cell service which he uses for messaging, music, and Instagram. All of the teenagers have Instagram and Facebook accounts and get text messages from friends.  They aren't out of the loop.

In addition to reading the Atlantic article, I did read a couple of other books that have increased my desire to opt out of the fastpaced digital world, even though I am only marginally a part of it.  One was Rod Dreher's The Benedict Option.  I was excited to see this book at my mom and dad's while I was visiting, because I've been wanting to read it, but didn't want to buy a new book that I didn't have time for.  I really only skimmed it - but I don't need to be convinced that Christians are becoming increasingly marginalized and that we need to support each other in living in the world while not becoming a part of it.  The book blends an historical review of Christian thought, an analysis of Moralistic Therapeutic Deism and the "After Virtue" world Alisdair MacIntyre prophesied and then provides strategies for Christians in a post Christian world, as the subtitle suggests. Some profiles of people who are managing to find community and support for living a life based on Christian virtues are also included. Some of the suggestions include not giving your children phones and free access to the internet, home schooling, forming friendships or joining ecclesial movements or other groups that provide fellowship and mutual support in the Christian life, and taking part in the sacramental life of the Church.

As commentators have pointed out, this conversation has been going on for years - millennia - but each generation must find a way to continue the conversation. The struggle between straddling and sacred and secular worlds has been ongoing in my own life.  Waves of momentum in my faith life have been followed by times of fallowness. Dreher's suggestions all seem good - but some of the critiques also seem justified, namely that in his profiles, he fails to examine the lives of minorities who have traditionally formed strong bonds through Christian communities while being oppressed and persecuted, and that Christians should be more or less politically active or more or less involved in the life of the world.  Especially in light of the recent political upheaval sweeping the country, it seems both necessary to form and nourish strong communities, but also to take action in the wider community. How do we balance service and preservation?

This quandary and others are at the heart of Bishop Barron's Vibrant Paradoxes: The Both/And of Catholicism and in C. S. Lewis's The Screwtape Letters. Both address the fine lines between virtue and vice, between the will and emotion, between action and contemplation, etc.  (The Screwtape Letters has much that is timely - for instance the devil encourages bias, excess emotion, uncertainty, and false humility - a great line about how democracy can be used by the devils to increase a sense of superiority in order for people to distinguish themselves - while God loves the opposing virtues of freedom from bias, acts of free will, rhythm and harmony, and appreciation/gratitude.) For that matter, the fourth big book I read this summer was Anne Fadiman's The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down. This book, too, examines intersections (isn't "sectionality" a buzzword in literary studies these days?) and the challenges of attempting acculturation and assimilation while preserving and respecting the practices of traditional communities and cultures.

Really there are no easy answers to the question of how then shall we live.  My husband, son, and I had a good conversation the other night about current events, in between the rise of white supremacists and extreme nationalism in our own country and the terror attacks across Europe.  The role of media in feeding extremist or fringe groups can't be underrated: social media increases a sense of isolation, victimization, and tribalism - the attitudes that increase the likelihood that a young person will identify with a cult or reactionary organization. I also feel that poverty of literacy education has a large role in the inability of  young people to empathize (I acknowledge my bias towards the importance of literacy.)

Our son will be in Barcelona in a few days, right where the most recent attack occurred.  While it is true that cycles of rising abuse of power and oppression, followed by the response of violent and/or peaceful revolutions can be identified throughout all of history, it nevertheless is no less upsetting to live during the upheaval. How do we respond?  How do we encourage justice and the preservation of peace, in the world and in our hearts?

My instinct is to retreat, to pull the curtains on the outside world, and to focus on addressing the fires and flares in our own household and local community.  This is another reason to turn off media feeds. But I also believe that we have a responsibility to our brothers and sisters in the wider community.  We continue to try to do our little bit in between making donations, signing up to serve dinners at the homeless shelter, tutoring, etc.  Stepping away from social media may be described as refusing to stand up against bullies, but in order to have the time to serve others, we need to turn off the devices.

Hmmm, I am out of time, and I think this post may be too disjointed and too undeveloped to be worth posting, but I'm going to throw it out into the evil web anyway.  (Another interesting conversation with our 20 year old was about the deep web, the dark web, and bitcoin.  All of these topics are fascinating in an unsettling way and need further thought and research ... )