In Which I Learn How to Jump a Car

In preparation for the garden work this weekend, Joshua took me out shopping to Lowe's, and Ana tagged along for the ride. Or rather, since Joshua's car wasn't clean enough for three people, she drove along for us.

It was a warm sunny day with blue skies, so how could it be anything but a relaxing trip as we rolled down I-64 with the windows down and country music up? Then we hung out in the section of Lowe's where the smells make me think of home and of my dad. We picked out seeds for plants, gloves for hands, chicken wire for compost (so much joy!), and lumber for garden beds.

I've spent enough time in gardens to feel the competence of familiarity in the lawn and garden section; yet, in the company of a "master gardener" (I have no idea what that means), I knew enough to know my ignorance. So I had the fun combination of learning about something I already love.

In addition to all the things we bought right then and there, we also ordered a huge amount of dirt -- several different kinds. I learned that when you buy more dirt than will fit in the bed of a pick-up truck, let alone a two door sedan, you can have Lowe's deliver it.

After a long time at customer service to arrange tax-exempt information and delivery details, we loaded up Ana's car. We hopped in -- she turned the key -- and the engine fluttered like a large insect trying to take off in flight. Ana tried again and got the same reaction from her engine.

After a phone call to her father, which made us worry that it wasn't the battery, we described the problem to a passing stranger, who listened and said it sounded like the battery. Turns out, Lowe's is a decent place to break down, because they let Ana borrow jumper cables. An older man in a pick-up truck jumped us.

The battery hadn't just run down; it was dead, and we had to get a jump to leave school that day too. By the time we'd watched it twice, I think Ana and I both pretty much learned how to jump-start a car. In fact, we probably could have managed it the second time on our own, but once again, a man in a pick-up truck helped the damsels in distress, and how could we take that away?

Getting My Hands Dirty Again

Over the past 2 or 3 weeks, I have started my favorite project yet at the school -- a garden! Louise (of dog treat fame) networked us with a young man who was looking to start a gardening/sustainability project at a school. I sat in on his first meeting with my boss and asked for the project. Over the past 5 years, I have missed playing in the dirt -- as much grief as I have my dad about helping outside, I love gardening and being close to the earth.

Joshua (you guessed it -- another pseudonym) helped me get started with some easy indoor projects --earthworm composting, quick-growing indoor greens -- to give the kids something to do right away. But the big project is the outdoor garden, where we will grow beans, popcorn, pumpkins, tomatoes, herbs, and other food produce to eat at school and teach nutrition and a love of dirt. This weekend (while I'm in Virginia) a veritable army of volunteer (it's a father-son event) plus Joshua and Ana are digging the ground and putting in soil to have garden beds ready to plant Monday!

When we started the indoor projects, some of the kids were squeamish about getting their hands in the dirt. They think it's gross that I'll touch potting soil with my bare hands -- while I can't wait to get dirt under my nails outside. A seventh grader had a moment of triumph when she picked up an earthworm while wearing a latex glove. A sixth grader used all her courage to poke one worm quickly with the tip of one finger. But my favorite was the 7th grade girl who at the end of her first class had her hands as dirty from potting soil as my own.

Story Time

Once upon a time, a little girl lived with her father. She had a string of plastic pearls which she loved very much. They were beautiful pearls and she wore them all the time. Every night, her daddy would come to put her to bed, and she would fall asleep wearing those plastic pearls. Every night, however, as he was tucking her in, her father would say,

"Honey, you know I love you?"

"Yes, Daddy," she would say, "and I love you too."

"Do you trust me, honey?"

"Yes, Daddy."

"May I have your plastic pearls?"

"Oh no, Daddy, not my pearls!" she would answer.

This sequence happened night after night for days, for weeks, for years. Eventually, when the little girl was not so little anymore, the story changed:

"Honey, you know I love you."

"Yes, Daddy. I love you too."

"Do you trust me?"

"Yes, Daddy, of course I do."

"Then, honey, may I have your plastic pearls?"

The little girl may have been older and bigger, but she still loved that strand of plastic pearls. Still, her daddy had asked for them -- had wanted them from her for years. So, with a huge sigh and much reluctance, the girl took them off her neck and handed them to her father.

Her father reached into his pocket and gave her in exchange, a strand of real pearls that he had been carrying for years, waiting to give to her.

Christopher West ended the story by asking : What "plastic pearls" are you clinging to?

It Is No Coincidence That Ephesians 6 Follows Ephesians 5

Can you believe that I am still getting Christopher West summaries on here? (By the way, if you are my Facebook friend, you can see him -- I just posted a picture from the second night on Facebook.)

At this point, having just learned that God loves us with a spousal love, that He desires to marry us, and that we can reach union with Him in the Eucharist, we're pretty pumped. After all, if God wants us that badly, what can stand in the way?

Christopher West told us to write down the next sentence he was going to say. It was the most profound thing he was going to say all three nights. Ready? "It is no coincidence that Ephesians 6... follow Ephesians 5." The whole room giggled, self included, but I still jotted it down. Christopher went on to explain that Ephesians 5 is about marriage, the union between man and woman and the union between Christ and the Church. Ephesians 6? Battle. "Put on the armor of God," St. Paul tells us. When we live in union with God, the enemy does not like it and will use all his power to stop it. If our sexuality can point us so strongly towards heaven, then Satan will attack our sexuality. He creates fracture, rupture -- in allegorical terms, divorce.

When you want someone to trust you, you tell them something that is true. I have to admit, this point hit home for me. If there is one thing my experience of sexuality in this world has confirmed, it is that it is broken, fractured, dysfunctional -- not what it should be. So of course, I started listening very hard, in hopes that the next talk would convince me that this teaching held the answer of what it should be.

"This teaching," Christopher West now explained, focused on two questions that ground the two parts of JPII's teaching : 1) What does it mean to be human? and 2) How do I live my life in a way that brings true happiness? Under each question there are three sections :

1) Meaning of our humanity

-Our origin (Creation)

-Our history (Fall and Redemption)

-Our destiny (Resurrection)

2) Living in true happiness

-Celibacy for the Kingdom

-Marriage as a Sacrament

-The Language of Sexual Love

A disclaimer if you are intensely interested in the 2nd question : Christopher answered that one night three, the night that I could not make it the talk. So when I get to the end of my notes, I might read the workbook he gave us and try to give an overview of those points, but that's a maybe and won't be as detailed as what I actually heard.

To Live Would Be

We are an Easter people. The Pope has said this. My principal says this every time he stands in front of the school. Liz quoted Augustine saying it on her blog. It's true.

If you really pay attention to the Catholic Church, it's obvious that we are. The essential Liturgy of the Church, the Mass, changes for three days at Easter time. We bring out bells, incense, fire, water, lights, darkness, processions, and music like nobody's business. We celebrate Easter in highest form for not one but 8 days -- and then carry on for 42 more days before our season finally comes to an end. Even during penitential seasons, Sundays merit a break -- because every Sunday represents an Easter moment.

That's how we show it. But what does it mean?

It relates to the title of this blog. (Yes, I know it's Peter Pan.) "I came so that they might have life and have it more abundantly," Jesus says. Easter isn't a fluffy holiday about jelly beans (yum!) and a bunny and the arrival of spring. It's about the action that made life meaningful. Without Easter, to live won't be "an awfully big adventure." Without Easter, life is just about coasting along until death catches up with us. With Easter, to live is an awfully big adventure. And Peter Pan's words in the movie ("to live would be an awfully big adventure") relate beautifully to his words in the novel : "to die would be an awfully big adventure."

Death was the end of life. The separation of body and spirit, the taking away of what (remember Theology of the Body?) makes us human. The sin of Adam and Eve won that end for us.

Yet priests everywhere sang in the Exultet last night : "Oh happy fault! O necessary sin of Adam, which gained for us so great a Redeemer!" We are an Easter people because we live according to that redemption, rather than according to that death. Body and soul may be separated, but we believe in the Resurrection of Christ and because of that, the resurrection of our own bodies. We also believe in death to an existence rooted in sin and life in Christ in the here and now -- life and death are bound up together. And so our Easter salvation encompasses all that we are : in it we live and move and have our being.

Triduum, Day 1

As today is Good Friday, yesterday was (of course) Holy Thursday. I attended the service at Pius V, as usual. I knew two things coming in. 1) Pius knows how to do liturgy. Their Masses are reverent without sliding into the inaccessible. 2) This Triduum would be different from the four(ish) years of CCM Triduum. And Holy Thursday, with its Eucharistic procession, would be the most different of all.

Both true. Pius was no CCM, but it was far enough from it that it could be a beautiful expression of the same liturgy. We started with a presentation of the Holy Oils, by a Sister who ministers to the ill, a woman who helps with RCIA, and a boy who's about to be confirmed. The Gloria burst forth with much joy, and the congregation had been invited to bring bells. (Em, Triss, and I had forgotten them.) So the burst of joy not only came from the choir and the voices of the people, but all the noise they could make.

The liturgy continued as per normal Mass until after the homily. Rather than inviting 12 people forward as representative of the congregation and symbolic of the Apostles, Father invited anyone who wished to come forward and have their feet washed, or wash a loved one's feet. To my surprise, only a small portion of the congregation came forward. While I like the idea that anyone can have his or her feet washed, the symbol of unity fell short, because so few people came forward. I felt a little awkward going back to my pew when I realized that I was one of only a handful who had left.

After the footwashing and subsequent petitions, the congregation brought forward Rice Bowls, offerings for Haiti, and offerings for the St. Vincent de Paul food pantry. Instead of baskets passed around, people approached the altar, making an act of offering that trumps any offertory procession. These gifts remained in front of the altar for the rest of the liturgy.

The Liturgy of the Eucharist stood as it usually does in the Church -- not much can change there, but Father did chant parts, giving it the feeling of high offering. When I came up for communion, the presence of the offering and the footwashing basins, pitchers, and towels struck me. The fact that nothing had been removed emphasized the connectedness of it all -- our services of love, our servanthood, our physical offerings, our spiritual offerings, and our unity in the Body of Christ -- and how it all centers on and springs from this Sacrifice that is the Eucharist and is the Cross.

After communion, Father incensed the Host (there was incense through the whole service -- one of the best parts of the Triduum!) and processed it to the altar of repose at the rear of the church. Immediately afterwards, a host of ministers came forward to strip the altar, so that the church darkened and emptied itself with the congregation still present. I've never seen the stripping of the altar performed like that, but since I could not participate in the stripping this year, it made me feel more complete, like I had a greater share in the liturgy.

We left a silent empty church. I hate the bareness of it -- there is nothing lonelier than a stripped altar, standing silent vigil over an empty, open tabernacle, its candle extinguished and taken away.

"They Call Me a Communist"

It has been a while since last I commented on Stephen Colbert. Unfortunately, the internet in our house streams his show very slowly, so it takes a long time to load and, even then, plays haltingly. However, when Sarah, who lived here last year, posted a clip regarding Catholic Social Teaching, I had to watch it.

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Glenn Beck Attacks Social Justice - James Martin
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Reform

Glenn Beck apparently commented (some weeks ago now) that Catholics should keep an eye out for the words "social justice," and if their priest preaches it, they should take it up to the bishop -- as if the bishop would object! Colbert also showed a clip of Beck comparing those who support Catholic social teaching to communists and Nazis.

After going through his usual satirical spiel, Colbert brings in a Jesuit priest to discuss the matter. If CST is the "best kept secret of the Church" (which I've heard; though I've also heard it has some competition from ToB), hopefully this frank discussion about Catholic doctrine from both Colbert and Fr. Martin cleared things up for a huge number of viewers. The Catholic Church could use more publicity like this.

By far my favorite part occurred (I think) unintentionally -- or else Colbert is much more into the subtle subtext than I imagined. He jokes that his God is in favor of people making money; that's why his symbol is a + sign. If he cared about social justice, "he would have put something on it that inspires empathy... Like a kitten." For the Catholic Church, however, there is something on the cross to inspire empathy : the bloodied, beaten, broken body of a man who did nothing to deserve it but love us.