holiness

31 Days to Gratitude, 10/13

October 13, 2012 by Rhonda Leave a Comment

I am grateful for family. We had two birthdays in the family this week – my brother and my cousin. Happy birthday to them!

Yesterday was also the first anniversary of my grandmother’s passing. With the exception of my brother, who had been driving from Idaho to Oregon to be with us, we – and by we, I mean, we, the entire extended family – and that’s a lot of people, people – were all at Grandma’s bedside to wish her farewell.

She was a beautiful lady.

I am grateful that this lady is back on my desk:

This picture of St. Thérèse of Lisieux is a favorite of mine. Piercing eyes, knowing smile, full of life and light. You wouldn’t know that she was suffering a slow, painful death from tuberculosis.

My husband, knowing how much I detest almost all depictions of St. Thérèse in religious art (pour me some saccharine), gave me these photographs of her some years ago:

Isn’t it wonderful having saints in the modern age? We have photographs of them!

A philosopher friend of mine, Michael, once mentioned how wonderful it was to pour over the works of the Scholastics, learning much about God, but then to switch gears and read St. Thérèse’s The Story of a Soul. “Ah!” he thought. “That’s right. It is about loving God.” St. Thérèse is the Doctor of the Church that the Church did not expect.

I am also grateful for our newly-arrived storm windows:

These storm windows are not just any storm windows. They are Mon-Ray storms, designed for historic preservation, sound abatement, environmental protection, etc. – any task where one might want to keep one’s original windows and still get some new window bennies. A friend recommended getting these instead of new windows, as new windows have a short life, whereas our lovely original old-growth wood windows, with some TLC, should last forever and ever.

Our contractor, who is working with these for the first time, is duly impressed. They’re solidly made and fit our windows like a glove.

Not only does the arrival of the Mon-Rays point toward a less-drafty house, but they represent the final stages of our home remodel. Soon and very soon, we’ll be able to close up our 203K paperwork. And for that I am grateful.

(with thanks to Colleen for hosting)

Filed Under: C'est Moi, House & Kids, Religion Tagged With: Birthdays, Catholic, Death, Faith, Family, God, Gratitude, Grief, holiness, Homemaking, house, housekeeping, Life, Link Ups, Mourning, Personal, saints, virtue

Wha-wa-waaaa… Faith?

October 9, 2012 by Rhonda Leave a Comment

Adding to the chaos.

Let me ask a potentially blasphemous question to start the Year of Faith:

Faith in what?

If you answered, “Faith in God,” either you are very, very holy, well on your way to canonization (though you might not think so yourself, you humble soul), or you are a Catholic automaton, spitting out what our Protestant brethren call the Sunday School Answer.

Read the rest at CatholicMom.com…

Filed Under: Religion Tagged With: Catholic, Faith, Family, God, holiness, house, housekeeping, kids, Life, Motherhood, Parenting, Personal, prayer, saints, Toddlers, virtue

7 Quick Takes, 10/5/12: Good Morning, Good Morning!

October 4, 2012 by Rhonda Leave a Comment

Linking up with Jen at the always-interesting Conversion Diary.

1. Stayed up late and woke up early:

2. (We’ve been on a Singing in the Rain kick around here – can you tell?)

3. The God’s Embrace Renewal Center is offering a program of spiritual formation to both parishes here in my town, and, hearing hints of deification/theosis language in the leader’s pitch for the program (having heard all about deification from my patristic-studying husband), I decided to look into it.

Verdict: Meat-and-potatoes. They’re giving us real stuff, and without being draconian and Pharisaical.

What has struck me most is the presence of joy in the facilitators of the program. You can’t fake that funk, you know? Joy means something.

Stay tuned; I’m sure I’ll be writing more about this program.

4. Of course, meat-and-potatoes is hard to follow through on. There is much Resistance (thank you, Steven Pressfield) against doing an examination of conscience every night. Of course! Because it’s worth doing! And because I have to, you know, look at myself honestly.

And then, reading Scripture every day…
And then…

Parts of the program are easier for me than others, and, thankfully, the program lays a “table of plenty.” But, still. Darn concupiscence.

5. Speaking of joy, do you remember my pondering over “learning the craft of writing” several months ago? You do? Good. Happily, I’m no longer seeking an answer to that conundrum. I can take classes, either enrolled as a matriculating student or as a guest, at the college where my husband teaches, for FREE! No waiting period.

Can I get a wha-wha?

6. And, thanks to my mother-in-law, I finished the application. Wha-wha, redux.

Speaking of, follow the linky on that post to join up with Colleen and her Attitude of Gratitude. You won’t be sorry!

7. Oh, Canada!

(Longest post I’ve written in several months. Have fun.)

UPDATE: Check out Dwija’s post and see all my scandalous doings here in Michigan.

That’s all for me! Quick Takes done quickly and without editing – for once. Hop along, Cassidy, to the other linky-uppers.

Filed Under: C'est Moi, House & Kids, Religion Tagged With: 7 Quick Takes, Canada, College, Faith, Gene Kelly, God, Gratitude, holiness, Life, Personal, Singing in the Rain

Keep Calm and Carry On

August 30, 2012 by Rhonda 7 Comments

It may be have been my fault, today. I might have stayed up until 1:15 a.m. last night, fiddling around on Facebook. I might have slept a mere four-and-three-quarters hours before our nearly two-year-old jumped out of bed and began running all over the house, squealing and whining for his breakfast.

A hypothetical case. It could have happened.

While running errands, my son might have also stood up in the shopping cart at the hardware store, thrown a fit, and refused to get back in. He also might have cried and screamed all the way through a long grocery store trip.

Our groceries might have been placed in weak grocery bags, and a large glass jar of salsa might have fallen and broken all over the driveway, splattering all over my skirt. And, in the same moment, my son might have been descending the rickety stairs leading to the basement dungeon while I attempted to haul groceries into the kitchen.

A swear word might have escaped my lips.

He might have then been penned up in the bedroom. He may have screamed bloody murder while I finished unloading the groceries, stepping over chunks of tomato and shards of glass. He might have, for the first time, figured out how to climb over the safety gate. There may have been a crash and a bumping of heads on the newly refinished pine flooring.

We may have had a witness to this madness, in the form of a contractor working on our upstairs remodel. The neighbors might have heard something through the open windows.

And my son might have wiped his wet eyes and running nose all over the couch cushions.

What do we do on days like this? What do we do in the crisis of the fever, at the peak of stress?

Nothing. That’s what.

Take a deep breath. Say a prayer. Attend to first things first. It passes. It gets better.

The groceries will get put away. The toddler will get his lunch, which might have been part of the problem. I will change my clothes. He will go down for a nap. The house will one day be painted, we will one day be able to move upstairs, and the lion will lay down with the lamb. Peace comes in the morning.

Now, if you will excuse me, I need to go clean up some salsa.