An April Meditation

Second Sunday of Lent




Of all modern notions, the worst is this: that domesticity is dull. Inside the home, they say, is dead decorum and routine; outside is adventure and variety. But the truth is that the home is the only place of liberty, the only spot on earth where a man can alter arrangements suddenly, make an experiment or indulge in a whim. The home is not the one tame place in a world of adventure;
it is the one wild place in a world of rules and set tasks.

~ G.K. Chesterton

 

There is no dart in the quiver of the godly soul for anything but the Divine target."

- Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen

H/T: Wendy at Cukiersky Apostolate

(Painting by the inimitable Howard Pyle)

Some Timeles Wisdom About Aging

~ Age seldom arrives smoothly or quickly. It's more often a succession of jerks. ~Jean Rhys
~ Middle age is when you choose your cereal for the fiber, not the toy. ~Author Unknown



~ The aging process has you firmly in its grasp if you never get the urge to throw a snowball. ~Doug Larson


~ Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter. ~Mark Twain

~ I'm not 40, I'm eighteen with 22 years experience. ~Author Unknown

~ You are as young as your faith, as old as your doubt; as young as your self-confidence, as old as your fear; as young as your hope, as old as your despair. ~Douglas MacArthur

~ Growing old is mandatory; growing up is optional. ~Chili Davis

~ Age does not diminish the extreme disappointment of having a scoop of ice cream fall from the cone. ~Jim Fiebig

~ In a man's middle years there is scarcely a part of the body he would hesitate to turn over to the proper authorities. ~E.B. White

~ I don't do alcohol anymore - I get the same effect just standing up fast. ~Author Unknown


~ Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been. ~Mark Twain, Following the Equator

~ Old age isn't so bad when you consider the alternative. ~Maurice Chevalier, New York Times, 9 October 1960

~ Do not regret growing older. It is a privilege denied to many. ~Author Unknown

~ Middle age is when your age starts to show around your middle. ~Bob Hope

~ Forty is the old age of youth; fifty the youth of old age. ~Victor Hugo

~ There is always a lot to be thankful for, if you take the time to look. For example, I'm sitting here thinking how nice it is that wrinkles don't hurt. ~Author Unknown

~ Age is opportunity no less,
Than youth itself, though in another dress,
And as the evening twilight fades away,
The sky is filled with stars, invisible by day.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Morituri Salutamus

~ It's important to have a twinkle in your wrinkle. ~Author Unknown

~ Old wood best to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust, and old authors to read. ~Quoted by Francis Bacon, Apothegm

~ To know how to grow old is the master-work of wisdom, and one of the most difficult chapters in the great art of living. ~Henri Amiel

~ The first forty years of life give us the text; the next thirty supply the commentary on it. ~Arthur Schopenhauer

~ Inside every older person is a younger person wondering what happened. ~Jennifer Yane

Don't let aging get you down. It's too hard to get back up. ~Attributed to John Wagner


~ Middle age is having a choice between two temptations and choosing the one that'll get you home earlier. ~Dan Bennett

The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same

Besides G.K. Chesterton, Will Rogers is my favorite quote resource. It's amazing to see how his wisdom is as pertinent today as it was in the 1930s.

Here are a few good obervations of Will's:

* The more you read and observe about this Politics thing, you got to admit that each party is worse than the other. The one that's out always looks the best.

* Communism is like prohibition, it's a good idea, but it don't work.

* Live in such a way that you wouldn't be ashamed to sell your parrot to the town gossip.

* Nothing you can't spell will ever work.

* Alexander Hamilton started the U.S. Treasury with nothing, and that was the closest our country has ever been to being even.

* If Stupidity got us into this mess, then why can't it get us out?

* If you make any money, the government shoves you in the creek once a year with it in your pockets, and all that don't get wet you can keep.

* It's a good thing we don't get all the government we pay for.

* Last year we said, 'Things can't go on like this', and they didn't, they got worse.

* The man with the best job in the country is the vice-president. All he has to do is get up every morning and say, "How is the president?"

* Things in our country run in spite of government, not by aid of it.

* What the country needs is dirtier fingernails and cleaner minds.

* When you put down the good things you ought to have done, and leave out the bad ones you did do well, that's Memoirs.

* The worst thing that happens to you may be the best thing for you if you don't let it get the best of you.

Nightowl Reports...

Staying up to read the news so you don't have to...

Here's what I found out tonight:

Women May Be Starting to Rediscover What Our Grandmothers Knew All Along...

* That what we really want is not what the feminists tell us we want.

* That more children mean more blessings.

*That saving money makes money.

That anything cooked at home is just better..

And that you don't need to spend $4 at Starbuks for a good cup of coffee. Or mocha. Or frappuccino.

There ya go...

A Most Worthwhile Read

This one has been circulating a while, I think, but I haven't seen it until this morning. It puts things in excellent perspective and comes to some simple, profound conclusions. Well worth the time to read, I thought.

"The other day I was reading Newsweek magazine and came across some poll data I found rather hard to believe. It must be true, given the source, right? The Newsweek poll alleges that 67 percent of Americans are unhappy with the direction the country is headed, and 69 percent of the country is unhappy with the performance of the President. In essence, 2/3's of the citizenry just ain't happy and want a change. So being the knuckle dragger I am, I started thinking, ''What are we so unhappy about?'

"Is it that we have electricity and running water 24 hours a day, 7 days a week? Is our unhappiness the result of having air conditioning in the summer and heating in the winter? Could it be that 95.4 percent of these unhappy folks have a job? Maybe it is the ability to walk into a grocery store at any time, and see more food in moments than Darfur has seen in the last year?

"Maybe it is the ability to drive from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean without having to present identification papers as we move through each state? Or possibly the hundreds of clean and safe motels we would find along the way that can provide temporary shelter? I guess having thousands of restaurants with varying cuisine from around the world is just not good enough. Or could it be that when we wreck our car, emergency workers show up and provide services to help all, and even send a helicopter to take you to the hospital.

"Perhaps you are one of the 70 percent of Americans who own a home. You may be upset with knowing that in the unfortunate case of a fire, a group of trained firefighters will appear in moments and use top notch equipment to extinguish the flames thus saving you, your family and your belongings. Or if, while at home watching one of your many flat screen TVs, a burglar or prowler intrudes, an officer equipped with a gun and a bullet-proof vest will come to defend you and your family against attack or loss.

"This all in the backdrop of a neighborhood free of bombs or militias raping and pillaging the residents Neighborhoods where 90 percent of teenagers own cell phones and computers.

How about the complete religious, social and political freedoms we enjoy that are the envy of everyone in the world? Maybe that is what has 67 percent of you folks unhappy.

"Fact is, we are the largest group of ungrateful, spoiled brats the world has ever seen. No wonder the world loves the U.S., yet has a great disdain for its citizens. They see us for what we are. The most blessed people in the world who do nothing but complain about what we don't have, and what we hate about the country instead of thanking the good Lord we live here.

"I know, I know. What about the President who took us into war and has no plan to get us out? The President who has a measly 31 percent approval rating? Is this the same President who guided the nation in the dark days after 9/11? The President that cut taxes to bring an economy out of recession? Could this be the same guy who has been called every name in the book for succeeding in keeping all the spoiled ungrateful brats safe from terrorist attacks? The Commander-In Chief of an all-volunteer army that is out there defending you and me?

"Did you hear how bad the President is on the news or talk show? Did this news affect you so much, make you so unhappy you couldn't take a look around for yourself and see all the good things and be glad? Think about it...are you upset at the President because he actually caused you personal pain OR is it because the 'Media' told you he was failing to kiss your sorry ungrateful behind every day.

"Make no mistake about it. The troops in Iraq and Afghanistan have volunteered to serve, and in many cases may have died for your freedom. There is currently no draft in this country. They didn't have to go. They are able to refuse to go and end up with either a ''general'' discharge, an ''other than honorable'' discharge or, worst case scenario, a ''dishonorable'' discharge after a few days in the brig. So why then the flat-out discontentment in the minds of 69 percent of Americans?

"Say what you want, but I blame it on the media. If it bleeds, it leads; and they specialize in bad news. Everybody will watch a car crash with blood and guts. How many will watch kids selling lemonade at the corner? The media knows this and media outlets are for-profit corporations. They offer what sells, and when criticized, try to defend their actions by 'justifying' them in one way or another. Just ask why they tried to allow a murderer like O.J. Simpson to write a book about 'how he didn't kill his wife, but if he did he would have done it this way'...Insane!

"Stop buying the negativism you are fed everyday by the media Shut off the TV, burn Newsweek, and use the New York Times for the bottom of your bird cage. Then start being grateful for all we have as a country. There is exponentially more good than bad. We are among the most blessed people on Earth, and should thank God several times a day, or at least be thankful and appreciative. 'With hurricanes, tornados, fires out of control, mud slides, flooding, severe thunderstorms tearing up the country from one end to another, and with the threat of bird flu and terrorist attacks, 'Are we sure this is a good time to take God out of the Pledge of Allegiance?' "

Jay Leno 2007
(Yeah, Jay Leno!)*
H/T: Nicole B.

* Addendum/Correction: Thanks to a careful and wisely skeptical reader, I need to correct the attribution for this article! You know the old saying: If it seems too good to be true, it probably is... As much as we might want a public figure like Jay Leno to be the author of such a piece, Snopes reports that Leno can only claim responsibility for the last line of this essay. Pity for him, but kudos to Craig R. Smith, who actually wrote it!

Happy Mother's Day!

I remember my mother's prayers and they have always followed me. They have clung to me all my life. ~Abraham Lincoln

One of the very few reasons I had any respect for my mother when I was thirteen was because she would reach into the sink with her bare hands - bare hands - and pick up that lethal gunk and drop it into the garbage. To top that, I saw her reach into the wet garbage bag and fish around in there looking for a lost teaspoon. Bare hands - a kind of mad courage. ~Robert Fulghum

It's not easy being a mother. If it were easy, fathers would do it. ~From the television show The Golden Girls

With what price we pay for the glory of motherhood. ~Isadora Duncan

The only mothers it is safe to forget on Mother's Day are the good ones. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic's Notebook, 1960

Grown don't mean nothing to a mother. A child is a child. They get bigger, older, but grown?

What's that suppose to mean? In my heart it don't mean a thing. ~Toni Morrison, Beloved, 1987

Now, as always, the most automated appliance in a household is the mother. ~Beverly Jones

Any mother could perform the jobs of several air traffic controllers with ease. ~Lisa Alther

My mom is a neverending song in my heart of comfort, happiness, and being. I may sometimes forget the words but I always remember the tune. ~Graycie Harmon

If evolution really works, how come mothers only have two hands? ~Milton Berle

When you are a mother, you are never really alone in your thoughts. A mother always has to think twice, once for herself and once for her child. ~Sophia Loren, Women and Beauty

An ounce of mother is worth a pound of clergy. ~Spanish Proverb

Women's Liberation is just a lot of foolishness. It's the men who are discriminated against. They can't bear children. And no one's likely to do anything about that. ~Golda Meir

Some mothers are kissing mothers and some are scolding mothers, but it is love just the same, and most mothers kiss and scold together. ~Pearl S. Buck

A mother is a person who seeing there are only four pieces of pie for five people, promptly announces she never did care for pie. ~Tenneva Jordan

Being a full-time mother is one of the highest salaried jobs in my field, since the payment is pure love. ~Mildred B. Vermont

Advice from Will Rogers

The following makes the e-mail rounds every so often, and is always such sound and true advice, I thought I'd share it in case y'all hadn't seen it in a while.

Will Rogers, who died in a plane crash with Wylie Post in 1935, was probably the greatest political sage this country has ever known. Enjoy the following:

1. Never slap a man who's chewing tobacco.
2. Never kick a cow chip on a hot day.
3. There are 2 theories to arguing with a woman...neither works.
4. Never miss a good chance to shut up.
5. Always drink upstream from the herd.
6. If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.
7. The quickest way to double your money is to fold it and put it back in your pocket.
8. There are three kinds of men: The ones that learn by reading. The few who learn by observation. The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence and find out for themselves.
9. Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment.
10. If you're riding' ahead of the herd, take a look back every now and then to make sure it's still there.
11. Lettin' the cat outta the bag is a whole lot easier'n puttin' it back.
12. After eating an entire bull, a mountain lion felt so good he started roaring. He kept it up until a hunter came along and shot him. The moral:
When you're full of bull, keep your mouth shut.




H/T: Tom S.

St. Francis of Assisi, Pray For Us!

"He devoured fasting as a man devours food. He plunged after poverty as men have dug madly for gold. And it is precisely the positive and passionate quality of this part of his personality that is a challenge to the modern mind in the whole problem of the pursuit of pleasure. There undeniably is the historical fact; and there attached to it is another moral fact almost as undeniable. It is certain that he held on this heroic or unnatural course from the moment when he went forth in his hairshirt into the winter woods to the moment when he desired even in hs death agony to lie bare uon the bare ground to prove that he had and that he was nothing. And we can say, with almost as deep a certainty, that the stars which passed above that gaunt and wasted corpse stark upon the rocky floor had for once, in all their shining cycles round the world of labouring humanity, looked down upon a happy man."

~ G.K. Chesterton

Quizlet on Children's Temperaments

The following simplified quiz is designed to help determine the temperament of your child. Recall, as you read, the numbered descriptions which most aptly describe your child then scroll to the bottom to read which temperament likely belongs to him or her.

At the age of two:

1) child walks along top of couch, balancing as if on a tightrope, reaches the end, flips off onto the floor, thinks about crying, then grins widely when everyone applauds.

2) child organizes VHS tapes into neat piles, according to color, cries when brother knocks them down.

3) when told that it's time for bed, child gets blanket, goes upstairs and goes to sleep.

4) child determines seating arrangements at table, and expects express wishes to be obeyed.

By the age of twelve:

1) child knows how to juggle, remembers every joke he/she ever heard, is first at the door to go anywhere.

2) child keeps a journal, has memorized all the presidents, states and capitals, gets upset when the schedule planned is not adhered to.

3) child is is almost always helpful and affectionate, but rides under the radar to avoid making waves, is usually game for adventures, but isn't the one that plans them.

4) child calls family meetings to to make sure all his/her meetings, events and plans can be accomodated on family calendar; has tendency to compete with Dad for the Chair at this meeting.

By the age of twenty:

1) child has a cellphone and e-mail contact lists longer than your arm and is rarely home, except when a party is planned or free food is available; plans for the future are still shaky.

2) child has life mapped out, with contingency plans, has several organizers which are consulted often, remembers everyone's birthdays and has cards stamped and ready to send ahead of time.
3) child loves to hang out at home or at a favorite friend's house, loves the familiar; has many friends but doesn't go out all that often; knows a lifeplan should be made and is working on it.

4) child has already applied to a graduate school and has at least the blueprints for an entrepreneurial enterprise, a couple of patents in progress and is the president of at least one organization.

What's the temperament?

If the answers for your child were:

Mostly #1 ~ Your child is a sanguine, or has largely sanguine characteristics. The sanguine is fun-loving and enjoys being the center of attention. This child needs a learning environment that stimulates him/her. He/she often has trouble completing assignments and can be easily distracted, so it is very important to teach self discipline from an early age.

Mostly #2 ~ Your child is likely a melancholic. Melancholic personalities love order and pay wonderful attention to detail, but can miss the bigger picture and can be absent minded. It's important to make sure these children learn practicalities or "street-smarts." As the term implies, too, melancholics can sometimes be moody and pessimistic; these are tendencies that need to be countered at a young age. Should also be encouraged to socialize.

Mostly #3 ~ These tendencies are usually related to phlegmatics. Phlegmatics are delightfully easy to get along with and are usually the peace-keepers of any group, but they can have trouble making decisions and, having weak motivation, are sometimes easily led. It's important that these children learn their priorities and how to stick to them. They also need to be taught a strong work ethic.

Mostly #4 ~ This child is probably a choleric. Cholerics are natural leaders and are very adept at seeing the big picture. They are often academically gifted, but lack social smarts, and the virtues of charity and mercy should be stressed with them. Early on they should be taught not to over-extend themselves, and to complete the details of one task before moving on to another.

Why I think this is pertinent information:
(Just in case anyone wants to know...)

My wh and I have been students of the temperaments for many years and have found that this knowlege has been one of the most useful tools in our arsenal, not only as parents, but as citizens of the planet, and children of God. The Church has sanctioned and encouraged the understanding of the temperaments, as it can be a great help in our own perfection and in the practice of charity, by seeing the work of God in the temperaments of others, and in practicing mercy as we see that we all share the same struggles in perfecting each our own temperaments.

We've read several books on the subject, but the most easily read and comprehensive series on the subject, though it's not from a Catholic author, are the Florence Littauer books. If I could figure out how to make a link to them, I'd provide that here, but, alas! I haven't worked out that technical wizardry yet! (Anyone out there who can instruct me in this with single syllables, I'd loooove the help!) Personality Plus is, I believe, the first in the series. It has changed how we look at ourselves, and it has helped enormously in raising our children. Our life has been a lab for understanding the temperaments, and our children (Heaven bless them!) have been the chief guinea pigs!

I could go on and on with whys wherefores and examples, but you get the gist already, and you don't need me to write the book; it's already been written! If you haven't already read it, you really need to! Along with knowing the learning styles (which is a whole other post!), knowing the temperaments helps keep me sane as a mother, and especially as a hometeaching mother, because it enables me to make sense of all these people and helps give me a plan for how to work with them. God is good to give us these aids for understanding one another!

I hope it's not out of line for me to close with a word of warning, though. Using the temperaments to instruct our children is a very good thing to do; using them to perfect ourselves is highly recommended; but, using the temperaments to instruct others outside of our immediate families, is a very risky business. Having this knowlege can and should help us know how to deal with others, not how to lecture to them. If, for instance you were to say to someone, "Stop being such a choleric!" you will likely do nothing but make the person angry, and accomplish nothing but exhibiting a certain prideful authority in your apparent knowlege of him or her. Adults needs to learn their own temperaments and correct them; we can't do it for them.
Darn it, anyway.

(BTW: Those who know us no doubt can pair the above examples with the appropriate Davis child. I dare you to try!)

A Good and Helpful Quote

From: Holiness For Housewives and Other Working Women
By Dom Hubert Van Zeller

"Imagined sanctity is no sanctity. A religion that exists in hypothetical circumstances cannot endure the pressure of actuality. To presume to a service of God that the present framework of life does not allow is sheer pride. What sort of service can it be that has its only reality in someone else's vocation? How can obedience to God's will (which is all that religion amounts to) rest upon a concept that is not being realized and may never be?

"The only thing that really matters in life is doing the will of God. Once you are doing the will of God, then everything matters. But, apart from the accepted will of God, nothing has any lasting reality. Once you really appreciate this truth, and act according to its implications, you save yourself a lot of unnecessary heart-searching and resentment. The whole business of serving God becomes simply a matter of adjusting yourself to existing conditions. This is the particular sanctity for you."