bearing blog

So, do you blow out candles, or what?

Clayton Emmer posts about the anniversary of his baptism as an infant.  It's a lovely post, including scanned 70s graphics and remembrances from relatives who were there.  (H/T Amy Welborn.)

This is the first year I've decided to make a point of celebrating the anniversary of my baptism.

...I guess Pope John Paul II thought this sort of thing was a good idea, as did a fourth-century saint:

We should celebrate the day of our baptism as we do our birthday! All Christians should reflect on the meaning and importance of their own baptism. - John Paul II, 1/12/1997

This post inspired me to dig in the folder labeled "Records. Misc. Erin" deep in the filing cabinet until I found my Baptismal Certificate.  Turns out my baptism day is February 16th (1975).   I think I'll mark it on the calendar.

The best discipline is self-discipline.

Recently I've been working on implementing the ideas in this book:

A Mother's Rule of Life: How to Bring Order to Your Home and Peace to Your Soul  by Holly Pierlot

Pierlot looks to the Benedictine Rule for a philosophy of daily living.  By following the steps outlined in her book, the reader is led to examine her priorities in the proper order (note:  housework comes last), sets her own standards for meeting her obligations to God, self, and family, and develops a self-discipline appropriate to the vocation of motherhood.

I'll post more on how I've worked with it later; for now, I just wanted to recommend it to anyone who's struggling with "getting it all done" and still having time for herself or for prayer and other spiritual exercises.

That... that LIGHT! What is it?

We missed it already this year, but I think it's cool anyway.  Not that I live in New York or anything.

At Stonehenge, the special day is the summer solstice, the first day of summer, when the Sun rises in perfect alignment with several of the stones.

Manhattan has two such special days: May 28 and July 12. On these days, the Sun fully illuminates every single cross street during the last fifteen minutes of daylight and sets exactly on the street’s centerline.

Check out the nifty picture.  H/T Chowflap.

Someday, I am going to yell at the parents who buy clothing for their daughters with words on the butt.

Lileks riffs on the "John Roberts's family is too well-dressed" meme.  I don't know why that man is always apologizing for being incoherent.

I liked this:

I dress casually in the summer, because it’s hot. But for the last few years I’ve returned to good slacks and decent shoes and a crisp shirt and a tie. Grown-up clothes. Dad clothes.

A man ought to be able to put on a shirt and tie without thinking he’s putting on a costume to deal with The Man; he should regard it as the Rainments of Masculinity, the costume we wear to project the impression of seriousness. If we’re not serious, it’ll be apparent quite soon.

Likewise if we’re a peacock, a grifter, a poseur, a drone, a cog – the uniform only says that you’re part of the hard plain world, not whether or not you really belong there. I just know that I feel different in a shirt and tie. I stand up straighter. I don’t feel as though I’m owed more respect; on the contrary, I feel obliged to be more respectful. It’s hard to describe, but to paraphrase a drunken Marge Simpson after six Long Island Iced Teas – you guys in the audience, you know what I’m talking about.

I know what he's talking about, too.  Mark's been wearing a tie more often (to church, not to work---heavens no---we're engineers in this family, do you want him to be garroted by the roll stand?) and I've been surprised how much that appeals to me.  Um, the tie, not the garroting.

I will admit to "feel[ing] a surge of resentment when I put on hosiery" sometimes.   I love dresses and skirts when I can wear them with sandals and no hose.   I'm not so into them in the Minnesota winter.

Answer: Because the bracelets would take too long to explain.

Why is it always "What would Jesus Do?"

Why isn't it "What would Jesus tell ME to do?"

Thank you and good night.

Generally, sin; specifically, impurity.

Michael Dubruiel at Annunciations writes a post entitled "Does Sin Keep Us From Seeing the Glory of God?"

Well...

"Blessed are the clean of heart, for they shall see God."

It follows that insofar as we are not clean, or pure, of heart, we won't be able to see God.  I mean, yes, sin obscures God, but it's specifically lack of a clean heart that does it.  The sin of impurity.

I think Christopher West uses this point to argue, specifically, that our lack of sexual purity causes us to be blind to the images of God that are other human persons, seeing them instead as objects.

What I need is a needle THIS BIG.

Item from the newspaper today (the source is supposedly the Congressional Budget Office):

In a recent poll, 19 percent of Americans thought they were in the richest 1 percent...

If your household income is about ...

• $15,000 ... you're in the bottom fifth of the income distribution.
• $34,000 ... you're in the second fifth.
• $51,000 ... you're in the middle fifth.
• $76,000 ... you're in the second-highest fifth.
• $185,000 ... you're in the top fifth.
• $380,000 ... you're in the top 5 percent.
• $950,000 ... you're in the top 1 percent.

What does it mean to be poor?  To be rich?  To be middle-class?  Mark and I have joked that in America, everyone believes himself to be middle-class, but apparently at least 19 percent of us either don't believe that or have some serious cognitive dissonance.

You could start with a given middle class and define "poor" as what's below that and "rich" as what's above.  So who's middle class---the folks clustered around the median?  $51,000 per year is not precisely the median---it's the mean income of the 20 percent in the middle---but it will do for an approximation.    But getting definitions of "rich" and "poor" from that is arbitrary.  It all depends where you draw the dividing line that marks the bounds of the middle class.

Instead, you could start with  given populations of "poor" and "rich" and define the middle class as whoever is richer than the poor and poorer than the rich.  But, again, there is no inherent way to draw the line.  Try it.  "If you can't meet your basic needs, you're poor."  Good concept, but who defines what needs are "basic?"  This too is arbitrary.

Our pastor said something surprising in today's Sunday homily.  I'll paraphrase: 

"Sometimes the rich have figured out that money can't make them happy.  They've tasted it, they've experienced it.  It's the middle class who believe that a new car will make them happy.  It's the middle-class ethic that is always grasping for more stuff."

I call that surprising because I'm used to the rich receiving warnings from the pulpit, as if it is pre-supposed that the rich do not know, or are tempted to ignore, that money can't buy happiness; as if it is pre-supposed that the non-rich understand this better than the rich do.  Jesus seemed to think so, at least in the words that come to mind soonest: 

"Amen, I say to you, it will be hard for one who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven.  Again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for one who is rich to enter the kingdom of God."   (Mt 19:23-24)

If "rich" means "satisfied, not grasping for more" then it doesn't match too well with what Jesus said.  It seems that it would be harder to enter the kingdom of heaven if one was fixated on getting more material things.

What about the poor?  The temptation is to think that Jesus included "Blessed are the poor" in the Beatitudes, but it was, of course, poor in spirit (see Mt 5).  Theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

If some are poor in spirit, are others (less blessed) "rich in spirit?"  Is there a middle class in this scheme?  Is the "one who is rich" in Jesus's camel in opposition to the economically poor, or to the poor "in spirit?"    The young rich man who prompted Jesus to say this was told by him to sell what he has and give to the poor.  Would that make him "poor in spirit?"

Some information about what the words "poor" and "rich" actually meant to Jesus and his contemporary fellow-men would be useful here.

If I believed this assumption, I would not be where I am right now.

Common assumption: 

"A mother who cares for her own children is isolated in her house with them all day, the monotony broken only by swim class and music lessons."

Common corollary: 

"A parent (mother or father) who works to provide for the family's material needs is away from the home and the children all day."

Common conclusion made by folks who believe it's natural, normal, and right for mothers to care for their own children: 

"It's natural, normal, and right for moms to be isolated in their houses with their own kids all day, the monotony broken only by swim class and music lessons."

Common conclusion from the corollary: 

"It's natural, normal and right for dads to be away from the home and children all day."

Challenge the first common assumption and the rest falls to pieces. 

And why should it hold?  It hasn't always.  The "farm family" paradigm didn't fit that assumption.  The "nomadic family" didn't fit that assumption. 

In other words, it takes a short memory and a simple mind to look to the 1950s for an idea of the "traditional family structure."  Why not look back before the Industrial Revolution?  Why not look back, even, before the Agricultural Revolution?   I don't mean that we should become farmers or nomads, but that we should look at our lives and think how to structure our family roles, at least if we seek what's natural, normal, and right for human beings (all of us---mother, father, children, elders) to thrive.

Women care for babies, sure---look at our bodies and you can see that that's what we're meant to do, while we have babies.  But are we meant to be totally in charge of older children?  In a truly natural family model, women would be (mostly) in charge of the care of babies and the supervision and training of daughters, not necessarily just their own daughters. Men would be in charge of the supervision/training of sons, not necessarily just their own sons.

This isn't what happens today.

(Stop and focus for a moment on boys.  We expect our boys to be raised almost exclusively by women.  At-home mothers are women, of course.  So are nearly all preschool teachers.  So are nearly all elementary school teachers.  So are most high school teachers.   So are most religious education coordinators. So are an increasing number of athletic coaches and Scout leaders and other people charged with the formation of men.  Exactly how is this supposed to work?  Is it no wonder that boys fit in so much more poorly?  Is it no wonder that we have a dearth of good men?)

It is superficially impossible to return to this deeper tradition.  Modern schooling and even homeschooling is at odds with it.  And Dad can't bring his boys (or girls) to the office to start their apprenticeships as fresh-faced young patent attorneys, nor can he ask his employer to flaut child labor laws and let them learn a manual trade at his side.  Besides, children in a complex society have the opportunity to live a life that's different from their parents, which (though it can create family division) is not something I want to give up.

But we can return to it in spirit by following a key principle:  Question, confront, and minimize modes of thought and behavior that isolate us.  Replace them with mode of thought and behaviors that integrate us. 

Must Dad be isolated from his family in a cubicle ALL DAY?  Can the family come back together for lunch?  Can Dad take care of some of the "homey" responsibilities, e.g. do the grocery shopping with the kids in the evening (a tradition in our home)?

Can Mom share her daily work with other sets of moms-and-kids during the day?  Can older kids shadow Dad, working with him and learn from him when he does work around the house on weekends and evenings?

What else is possible in an essentially one-earner family?

Not a catastrophe.

A friend emails:

an assignment from me.... get something in your 'on raising
kids' category that isn't about catastrophes, ok? <bg>  Lessee, sids
study, finnian falling in the fire, poison control.....

OK, OK.

Revelation of the day:  It's easier to teach math your kindergartener if you put your toddler in a high chair at the same table and give him some work of his own to do, instead of ignoring said toddler while he pours milk on the floor, or instead of interrupting the lesson every thirty seconds to respond to the toddler's activities.

But you knew that, you say.  Well, some of us are slower than others.

The Vatican on fetal-cell-line vaccines.

The Vatican has responded to a request for clarification of the moral issues surrounding mandatory vaccinations with vaccines developed from fetal cell lines. 

The summarized statement includes a good review of the differences between formal cooperation and material cooperation; between proximate cooperation and remote cooperation; and between active and passive cooperation in evil.

Making and selling the vaccines is unambiguously illicit:

As regards the preparation,  distribution and marketing of vaccines produced as a result of the use of biological material whose origin is connected with cells coming from foetuses voluntarily aborted, such a process is stated, as a matter of principle, morally illicit, because it could contribute in encouraging the performance of other voluntary  abortions, with the purpose of the production of such vaccines.  Nevertheless, it should be recognized that, within the chain of production-distribution-marketing, the various cooperating agents can have different moral responsibilities.

We have a moral obligation to insist on alternatives if they exist:

Therefore, doctors and fathers of families have a duty to take recourse to alternative vaccines (if they exist),  putting pressure on the political authorities and health systems so that other vaccines without moral problems become available. They should take recourse, if necessary, to the use of conscientious objection with regard to the use of vaccines produced by means of cell lines of aborted human foetal origin. Equally,  they should oppose by all means  (in writing, through the various associations, mass media, etc.) the vaccines which do not yet have morally acceptable alternatives, creating pressure so that alternative vaccines are prepared, which are not connected with the abortion of a human foetus,  and requesting  rigorous legal control of the pharmaceutical industry producers.

The document concludes that is our right to abstain from these vaccines if we can, but we may, licitly, temporarily have recourse to them in the face of "the danger of favouring the spread of the pathological agent." 

The reference is specifically to rubella, a disease which primarily harms unborn children.

H/t.  Amy Welborn.