Love God Right There

I was reading Fr Z’s excellent blog. He said something in this post on one of the prayers of the liturgy about application of Church teaching being specific. If I can see someone I am to love God right there in that person. If I am to do some task I am to love God right there in that task. We are called to love and desire God’s will in concrete situations, in the details of life, especially when those details are little to our liking. We must love God in this beggar, this annoying creep, thisJesuit, not in beggars, creeps, and … Continue reading

Marriage and Men

I wrote a bit ago on my take on the role of the wife in marriage, reframing the “wives submit” to “I am my husband’s second, I have his back” and I wanted to speak on the husband but without attempting to advise husbands from my own thoughts so much as point them toward men I think who would be good for them. Enter ROMAN CATHOLIC MAN.  Here is a web site that speaks to men about being men in our culture and framed by scripture and the Catholic faith. I am impressed by it. So husbands I advise you … Continue reading

I Am My Husband’s Second

The whole concept of submission in marriage has taken on some very non-catholic baggage these days. I think we need to reframe the Catholic teaching on submission in marriage so as to avoid all the negative stuff and get at the heart of a proper Catholic understanding of “wives submit to your husbands…”(Ephesians 5: 21 etc)  Replace the language using “submit” with this: “I am my husband’s second, I have his back in the spiritual war we call life.” I chose this because in Catholic teaching men and women are of equal dignity. We are partners, we are part of … Continue reading

Useful Books I Keep At Hand

I see many people online asking about the best way to begin to learn the Catholic faith. I looked over my shoulder to the stack of books I keep at hand nearly all the time, even when I must dig through piles of books, these three stay on top: The frog helps to prevent other books from being placed on top to annoy me when I reach for my Bible.  That is THE DIDACHE BIBLE put out by Ignatius Press in partnership with the Midwest Theological Forum. The translation is the RSV-CE, considered by many Catholic scholars to be one … Continue reading

No Voice, No Voices

My puppets sit silent. This bug has ravaged my throat and I am lucky to be able to speak. Today, Saturday, on the Epiphany of the Lord, I will not make Mass, and certainly will not sing. I will strum on my autoharp and try a few new songs. I will hope to be well enough to get to dance class on Monday. I will pray the antibiotic works. This really SAD picture is of my pile of soft puppets, in a heap, waiting for me to recover enough to get back to them. I haven’t dared to pick them … Continue reading

New Year thinking–on writing

Each year I put a new set of good things I would like to work on, to improve, expand, change, or grow into for the next year. I divide my 18 boxes in my planner into two groups, those that are about me, and those that are about others. Then I decide on 18 areas that I would like to grow in 2018. One of those is about my writing, but also about my use of social media. I write, it is rather constant. But this past year I’ve done some of my deeper comments on life in discussions on … Continue reading

I want God to tell me, “What is my purpose in life?”

The plaintive cry of a devout soul praying and seeking guidance as to her purpose in life. That was me quite some years ago. I loved Jesus then, I love Jesus now. The difference has been that I have moved from, “God, tell me, what is my purpose?” and waiting to be told, to “Thank you Jesus for making me. I offer you my day and ask you to help me please you with it.” What changed? Mostly perspective.  It finally sunk in that God had been speaking all along but because I was looking for a supernatural locution or … Continue reading

Cardinal Burke Quote

I enjoy certain blogs. I read several daily, and a few when they post more or less frequently, and I even enjoy the video blogging I watch on Youtube. This morning I was reading Fr. Z’s Blog and ran across a quote from Cardinal Burke which I liked, so I am sharing it here: “We as Catholics have not properly combated (the culture) because we have not been taught our Catholic Faith, especially in the depth needed to address these grave evils of our time. This is a failure of catechesis both of children and young people that has been … Continue reading

Puppetry and Ventriloquism

Ventriloquism is to Puppetry as Square is to Rectangle.  A Ventriloquist IS a puppeteer, but not all puppeteers are ventriloquists. I am irked when ventriloquism and puppetry are separated out as if they were two different things. They are not. The misunderstanding comes from the time when the popular ventriloquists of the day used the hard figure or ventriloquist dummy exclusively, but ventriloquism is not limited to the use of these traditional style instruments. Shari Lewis’ Lambchop is a ventriloquist figure but is not a hard figure. These days ventriloquists talk of hard figures and soft figures to differentiate between … Continue reading

The Bee Keeping Home Educator

Kinesthetic learners do best when doing. Hands on, action, and linking this with the material to be mastered. This has been a huge shift in my understanding of my vocation as a home educating mom. I’ve a bug nut. This is the kid who for most of her 7+ years has followed insects through the grass, getting up very close to see what they were doing. This is the kid who rescues bees from water buckets and places them on leaves to dry out and does not get stung. This is the kid who needs to be channeled into pollinators … Continue reading