I Too: "On Account of the Angels"

I know I have mentioned at least once my discernment over veiling myself at Mass. A friend who has greatly helped this prayerful process sent me this article, about women and veils and femininity. While the author takes the Bible more literally than I do, for better or for worse, and thus carries teachings to a different level, I have a good deal of fellow feeling for her.

I too am discovering how to live as a woman, and what that means in the context of Christianity. I too am living in a world where the equalizing power of mainstream feminism makes sense and does not make sense. I too want a Christianity that recognizes the dignity of women.

That being said, I am still stuck on the why, however. So the angels care, okay. But why do they? Nothing happens in the Church without meaning and I love the richness of the physical symbols of Catholicism. Why does this particular physical symbol have this particular meaning? I understand that sometimes we don't get all the answers at once, but I have to keep searching. I am never content with "we don't know."

How to Motivate 7th Graders

In many ways, the 7th grade is my particular challenge this year. Although I go through rough bits with the other two classes, 7th grade remains a constant struggle for various reasons. Long and short of it is, they don't like me. I don't lose sleep over it at night, but when it became my duty to stay behind for 10 minutes with the middle school students who did not have permission slips for a field trip and when those students were only 7th graders, I was less than thrilled.

As it turns out, the few that did not have permission slips thought they were staying behind with Ms. C, a TA and parent of an elementary school student. Ms. C was coming late, however, so they saw my face as the smiling presence of the study hall. And all of a sudden permission slips started materializing! Their teacher continued to spread these rumors and all the missing permission slips made it into her hands.

Maybe it's perverse, but she enjoyed tricking them into coming like they should, and I enjoyed being able to motivate the lucky 13 to do something at last!

Name Day!

A friend and fellow pro-life feminist recently posted about her niece, who is currently hiding inside her sister-in-law. Take a look.

She discusses her brother and sister-in-law's decision to find out the sex of their child and name it before its birth. This decision results from their knowledge that the little girl is already a person, perfectly and wonderfully formed and forming.

If I have children, I want to do it the same way. It seems silly to look at preborn children who are in danger of death and speak of them as already people, but not to do the same when they're not.

Sometime Mind-Readers

xkcd takes the cake today. I have this conversation with myself periodically, trying to figure out what keeps most people from breaking the rules, and if that whatever-it-is forms the line between "sanity" and "insanity." What happens if you start breaking the rules?

Defend the Truth

Wednesday started the annual Lenten 40 Days for Life campaign. I went for my first hour today.

My greeting was similar to one I had last year, as I walked up to an abortion facility in Richmond with a guy friend : the person on the shift before me saw me walking purposefully towards the facility and tried to talk me out of having an abortion. Last time, I thought it was a good joke; we had parked deliberately near to the facility, and we all got a good laugh out of it.

Today, Ana dropped me off. To the people already praying, here I come, fitting the age demographic, getting out of a friend's car... Don't worry, ma'am, I'm here to pray with you.

Although I chuckled a bit this time too, the incident set me thinking. When I first started holding signs and praying (as part of a Life Chain, not 40 Days) I was young enough, that I identified with the preborn children. They would have been my friends, my classmates, my kindergarten buddies. As I grew, I attached to the idea of the Death Roe survivor : not only were my classmates missing, but I had survived. Not only was my potential best friend, lab partner, next door neighbor, boyfriend absent from my life, but I was something special for being here, a gift, a choice, an affirmation. At this time, my focus remained with the child. Not that I didn't care about the women who had the abortions, but I wasn't them. I was the possibility that had become reality -- or hadn't, depending upon which perspective you were taking.

Now, I am a young woman age 18-24, out of her parents' house, unmarried, economically stable for now, but with little to spare. At first glance, if I am walking towards a Planned Parenthood, I am not there to protest; I am there for services from them.

My change in perspective came somewhere around college. The president of SFL my sophomore year, a liberal, atheistic feminist, had a huge impact on how I defined pro-life. At the same time that she showed me by example how to reconcile feminism and pro-life beliefs, I was becoming part of the statistic that has most abortions. I began to think : what if I were pregnant? What would it mean for me to choose life? As I get older, I find myself speaking of abortion with my hands on my abdomen, cradling an unborn child in my womb, rather than holding my hands out to a baby.

But... but I am still a Death Roe survivor. I am still missing a potential best friend, colleague, house mate, boyfriend. I am still a miracle, a choice, an affirmation. My generation is pro-life because all of a sudden we are both. We identify with both victims of abortion -- the children and the parents -- because we could have been (or are) one or both of them. We are pro-life because we understand what the other option is both intellectually and emotionally. And even though it hurts for time to pass with abortion still legal, this strange position in which we find ourselves will not change. We will merely raise more children and young adults with similar sensibilities as we grow older.

These were the thoughts that accompanied my vigil today : how long we've been working and how much I've changed. As well as what we still need to do. So once again I return to the question and answer of my calling and vocation to the pro-life movement.

How to Use a College Degree, Part II

II watched Notting Hill last night. After a stressful day, a break from the intense competition of the Olympics was much needed, and a chick flick much in order.

My favorite scene occurred on the rooftop of William's (er, Hugh Grant) apartment : the two lovers were going over lines together and William points out that her play is neither Jane Austen nor Henry James. My heart skipped two beats (one for each author) and I fell madly in love. Any girl can know Jane Austen, but how many people could catch Henry James -- and the subsequent Wings of the Dove reference?

My current sorrow? Anna Scott (Julia Roberts) acts in a Henry James filmic adaptation at the end of the movie. William (Grant) is supposed to listen to lines, but cuts out early, so we as viewers never hear the lines. I picked up that the movie was James from the earlier reference and the period costumes, and I wanted to see if I knew which one. Alas, if we got any hints (I don't think we did) I did not piece them together.

That Strange Mark on Your Forehead

In high school, I attended Ash Wednesday Mass at 6:30 in the morning. In college, I tried to make it to the noon-fifteen at the Wren Chapel. These services, leaving a grey smudge across my face, left me self-conscious and defiant of the world that might judge me. However, aside from the occasional, "You have something on your forehead," I never experienced any sort of negative reaction.

Cue my first year at a Catholic school. I only had to turn around to eye 7th graders talking during Mass to be laughed at for the bold black cross blazoned across my forehead. Seventh grade sees my color the most of any class, which was part of it. I never thought about how ashes look on different skin tones until that group reacted, and the other students noticed all day. At the end of the day, tutors from a more upscale boys' high school came to join us, and I noticed the ashes, a proud scar. The grey blended in more with my students' skin, although most of the rubbed it off anyway.

I have become so used to people knowing what the ashes mean that it's hard for me to remember where I was in 8th grade, let alone where my students might be. On Ash Wednesday, we wear our penitence on our faces, something very different than the closed-doors confessions we are used to and scared of. Catholics come out for Ash Wednesday to get the mark of their Catholicism, but I imagine that if most of them realized the full import of the mark, they would think twice about coming. I know I don't, not fully. They are meant to say what so many people are loathe to say : I did wrong and I regret it.

Consider the mark that Cain received in Genesis. God wanted to tell people that Cain had done wrong, but that didn't mean he was cast out from the world. Our ashes, which remind us of our mortality, also place a holy mark on our foreheads. What do these contradictory signs mean together?

I'm not sure. Nor am I sure how to explain even the slightest bit what penance means to 8th graders who have very little concept of personal responsibility. So I'm struggling with this Lent a bit.

An Explanation

In the past few weeks, I've neglected my blog, as well as other parts of my life. However, I have a justification : I am applying to grad schools, and as a result, I had to take GREs. When I registered in early January, I downloaded free review software. I've been reviewing the Pythagorean theorem and congruent sides of triangles and pi-ness and factorials (!) ever since. But on Friday, I wandered across SLU to test finally. Now that I have passed that hurdle, I have a lot of life to catch up on, both on this blog and elsewhere.

Renewal Weekend II

Last weekend we went on retreat to the provincial house across the river. The Daughters in St. Louis loaned us their giant green mini-van, dubbed the Pickle-mobile (that's another story), so we all fit into one car for the slush-filled drive.

Even in the grey mush of our arrival, the grounds of Mater Dei were gorgeous. The building we stayed in hosted several different communities of Sisters, besides the retreat rooms in which we dwelt. We each had a private room and bathroom, stocked with votive candles, a long candle in a lamp, a rocking chair, and a waterfront view. The building is designed so that every bedroom faces the large pond (small lake?) behind it.

Friday night, we prayed, played games, and lit a fire in the fireplace. It was my first time working in a fireplace (versus a fire pit or a wood stove) and we lacked kindling, so my attempt was kind of a fail, but the postulent of St. Louis saved the fire. We made s'mores and debated marshmallow roasting techniques.

For the bulk of the day Saturday, we hung out Sisters in various stages of Sisterhood and life, while following Bible figures and Saints. The woman leading the retreat had come in from Little Rock and she led us through parallels between Biblical figures and Vincentian Saints. It was a very different renewal weekend than the last one, because of the presence of people outside of our community.

Sunday morning, we took off early to get to Mass and arrive in St. Louis in time to spend the Superbowl with the Daughter of Charity.

Superbowl

I don't have to poke around much online to see and hear about the pro-life messages during the Superbowl. I especially enjoyed two commentaries: my friend Liz's blog about the commercials and Catholic Femina's post about Drew Brees.

The Cliffs Notes version of their ideas and my own musings :

Kudos to CBS and to Pam and Tim Tebow.

While some feminists got offended by the very idea of the Focus on the Family ad, a good number wrote editorials condemning their compatriots and supporting the "choice" that Pam made. I applaud Focus on the Family for creating an ad that made it onto TV on Superbowl Sunday, but I have to admit I agree with what Em told me that night : it had no teeth. The "aha!" moment, where you realize what an ad is really talking about is a powerful moment, and there wasn't one there. However, the controversy surrounding the ad may be nearly as important as the ad itself. I learned about the Tebows and their values not from the 30 second commercial, but from all the hype leading up to it. Hopefully, that message made it further than the ears of only those people who already have their minds made up.

Catholic Femina pointed out another player, Drew Brees, as giving pro-life witness.

His immediate victory celebration was with his baby, and he chose to celebrate with wife and child over partying with the team. I only have the word of this blog that this happened and no insight into Brees's mind, but this action does say something about the primacy of family.

Still, I have to agree with Liz that two commercials take the cake for the strongest yet subtlest pro-life messages of the night. The Dove commercial that showed a man's life started by showing sperm fertilizing an egg. Wait -- when does life begin?

Some activists might find it hard to figure out, but Dove knows. (Side note : Major kudos to Dove, for this ad and their Real Beauty Campaign. Secretly pro-life perhaps?) Not only that, but the commercial celebrates life's little and big moments.

And the Google commercial.

Besides being utterly adorable, it shows life events happening in a specific order : meeting, falling in love, getting married, having a child. But more than that, it defines a happy ending. So much of the media depicts a "happy ending" as the two protagonists finally realizing they are in love with each other. The happy ending comes in the form of some sort of physical consummation of this love. Maybe there's a marriage at the end of that. However, Google takes it one step further. The happy ending includes starting a family, completing romantic love by sharing in creation. Whether they realize it or not, Google has some Gospel values.

Sad, But Cute

I want to add witty social commentary when I post web comics, but sometimes xkcd says it all and other times there is no commentary; I just want to share.

Promise and Poll

This post stands as my official promise that I will give updates regarding retreats, school, and snow days. But for now, I recently stumbled across this high school trend:

http://www.formspring.me/

People can ask you anonymous questions, and you get to answer. Some of the questions seem harmless enough : What's your favorite color/type of dog/Super Bowl food? But when you ask a questions, you type it in, so you can pick anything : Who is your favorite friend? What actually happened between you and x? What do you really think of y?

The concept reminds me of the honesty box of Facebook. In fact, if the honest box and the worst features of Live Journal (or poorly done blogs) had a baby, I think it might turn out like this website.

Now that I've offered my harsh opinion, I want to know my readers'. Oh faithful three, what do you think about formspring.me? Fun idea? Dangerous idea? Possible consequences?

Teacher Instincts

I've started to develop twitches. They remind me of the eye twitch that appeared during finals time every semester at W&M. Instead of being physical, they are verbal.

There are certain triggers. I spent one entire school day (9 hours!) trying to excise "Pants on the Ground" from my earshot. It worked -- I have not heard it since. The penalty, however, became obvious when one of my housemates started singing it and I almost said, "I don't want to hear it!"

A friend, making a pun about some controversy involving the Special Olympics, called the dispute "retarded" in his G-chat status. Despite the fact that I was sitting in an empty room as I read it, I almost answered out loud, "Pick a new word." Ana and I are a two-woman campaign to remove "retarded" and "gay" from the insult repertoire of the middle school students.

While my "Pants on the Ground" spree met with relative success, "retarded" and "gay" are uphill battles. Ana and I each have had serious, "Come to Jesus" (thanks to my roommate for this teaching term!) talks with various groups of students, and the word usage has gone down, but it's hard to break a verbal habit, especially when you only have two teaching assistants who enforce it.

Skin Deep, Etc

I don't remember the exact date, because I did not record it as a good blogger would, but some few days ago, I went to the Art Museum with the 7th grade. The Anti-Defamation League hosts a tour, "Concepts of Beauty." The 7th grade can be a wild class, but they are small enough that when well-managed and on top behavior, they can be a decent bunch of kids.

Thoroughly motivated by a promise of the chance to earn a Valentine's Day party, the 7th graders departed with their teacher and me, only slightly late due to a broken down bus. We were greeted by a tour guide from the Anti-Defamation League and a pair of docents, who whisked us off onto a fascinating tour.

The docent led us first to a "Bust of a Black Man." She held up two boxes, one a credit-card sized brown jewelry box, the other a smaller, square, glittering passage. She asked how many people would choose each, if given the choice to have one or the other. She looked surprised when so many of the students picked the brown box. Their logic : it's bigger. I think she was going for the sparkly one to win because it looked nicer. My sociologist ears immediately perked, and I wondered if this difference came from our particular demographic. The point of the activity, unsurprisingly, was not to judge a person's inside based on their outside.

She next turned to the bust behind her, explaining it was created in the 1600s in Italy. She then said that no one knows the identity of the model and solicited ideas. Unanimously, the class decided he had been a slave. Their main reason : the color of his skin. Of course, I disagreed. His clothing, even from the little we could see, was too fine. The docent shocked the 7th grade by explaining that Italy, in the 1600s, did not have race-based slavery. He was likely a sailor or a merchant.

We next moved to two portraits of women. One sat at her dressing table, reminiscent of Pope's Belinda as she styles her hair in the mirror. Sadly, I was the only one thinking of The Rape of the Lock. The girls in the class pointed out that she was rich and had nice stuff; they also taught us a new word. Boojy (as far as I can tell, both on spelling and meaning) refers to the quality of someone who has nice stuff and wants everyone to know, letting it get to his or her head. The docent explored why the girls had thought this and eventually acquitted the woman of such a quality, since the painting didn't tell us.

The other woman sat sober-faced in black, dressed much more austerely. The students assumed that she was poor, until their teacher pointed out that she had on nice jewelry. The docent explained the religious (Calvinist) reason for her way of dressing and asked for reasons that the students dressed as they did. A dialogue debating the relationship of fashion, personal decision, and celebrity/culture influences ensued. I loved it and wanted to leave it complex and unresolved, though the docent wanted the tidy answer that culture forms ideas of fashion.

After these women, we found a statue of a young dancer. The model had danced at the Paris Opera House, a position low in society. We learned that she had led a rough childhood and her adult life was no better. We used her to explore female ideas of beauty. Three questions went to three groups. I hung out with the group discussing what the girl would want for her body as she grew older, if she were a 14 year old girl today. Hips and chest and butt, they answer. They attract people, the girls answered me. What kind of people? They fumbled around before finally realizing I wanted them to say the obvious answer : boys! Once again, the docent did not seem prepared for their answer. She had been looking for "skinny," not "having curves."

We found a picture of Indians and discussed the treatment of Native American subjects; then a gender-ambiguous Buddhist god (I am confused, having been under the impression that Buddhism has no gods) to discuss gender stereotypes. The Native Americans did not capture their minds the way that the other pieces did; and the girls did NOT think that "in control" or "tough" belong exclusively to boys. "Ain't no man in control of me!" Good for you, ladies!

After lunch, the Anti-Defamation League guide debriefed by discussing identity with them. While it worked as a discussion, I'm not sure how much they connected the ideas that race, gender, socioeconomic status, age, historical background, etc. all play into identity. However, they definitely got the idea of each person as a unique individual composed of personality traits.

I know that they gave many of what they sensed as "right" answers, rather than honest ones, and I know that one trip to an art museum cannot possibly fully open minds that have been brought up closed, but it's a start. I keep telling myself that they are hearing this at least once, and what we have to do is repeat it until it becomes truth for some of them