Advent: Radically Reorienting Life. A beginning.

The priest started with a definition of conversion: A radical reorientation of our whole life... I didn't hear anything else for a while. Those words: radical reorientation of our whole life, made their imprint in my brain and send the wheels turning. Maybe that is what I need: a radical change, a turn around.
The image came to my mind, slowly taking form:  there I was at what seem the end of a road, a wrong road. What person that realizes she is walking along the wrong road doesn't turn around and start anew? Who would continue down the road that she knows is not getting her where she wants to go? Only an idiot!

The priest's voice crept into my thoughts again. He was talking about the reading from Isaiah:

A voice cries out:
In the desert prepare the way of the LORD!
Make straight in the wasteland a highway for our God!
Every valley shall be filled in,
every mountain and hill shall be made low;
the rugged land shall be made a plain,
the rough country, a broad valley.

Prepare the way of the lord, make the road wider, smooth the rough spots, remove the the obstacles. Advent calls us to repentance, to change,  to being again. The calendar year is drawing to a close but, the Church year has already begun. It starts with Advent's call to conversion, to radically reorient our lives. The Church in her wisdom knows that after the weeks of Ordinary Time we are ready for some change. The spiritual inroads of Lent and Easter have grown stale. Our old demons are back and our soul feels fatigued and disillusioned. We are struggling again. But the Church reminds us, reminds me:

Here is your God!
Here comes with power
the Lord GOD...

 I need a change. I want a change. And this is a good time to start. For me, this message of change and conversion issued during Advent, is often lost in the fray of Christmas shopping. I don't hear the voice of John the Baptist inviting me to repent. I don't hear the invitation to conversion. All I hear is the voices in my brain reminding me that the house needs to be decorated, that the cookies need to be baked and the presents bought. A thousand and one voices, getting louder and louder, and crowding out the voice I need to be hearing.

I am glad for the time of quiet at mass when the words of the priest worked themselves through the funk, and made me hear and think. It is time for me to clean house, to de-clutter my brain, to focus on what is important. It seems that Advent should be the time of new resolutions.

It seems that I am setting myself up for failure. How can I de-clutter my brain at a time like this. Haven't you heard that there is a Christmas show to put on? Radical reorientation... Radical means from the root. And anything with the word radical in it can't be easy.

No matter. Just in case, I'll start small.

Today, on this Second Sunday in Advent, and because it is never too late, I want to make a new resolution: for the next couple of weeks, it doesn't matter how busy my schedule, how long my to do list, I am going to carve out a pocket of time to be with the Lord. The renewal of relationships begins with time spent together in conversation.

One of my favorite prayers from the Morning Prayer of the Liturgy of the Hours is this portion of the Canticle of Zechariah taken from the Gospel of Luke:

“In the tender compassion of our God, the dawn from on high shall break upon us, to shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death, and to guide our feet into the way of peace"

This Christmas I want to experience the dawn from on high. And I don't want to miss it because my eyes are  looking somewhere else.

Llámenme Ignorante

Llámenme ignorante, pero yo pensaba que los taínos estaban extintos. Nunca se me había ocurrido pensar en el hecho de que están vivos en muchas de nuestras tradiciones (al menos en el campo) y sobre todo en nuestra lengua.
OK, yo sé que hay ciertas palabras taínas que sobreviven en nuestra lengua y que usamos con frequencia: Quisqueya, hamaca, barbacoa, etc. Sé también que el casabe es de origen taíno pero leyendo este artículo, escrito por el Doctor Pedro J. Ferbel he aprendido de la sobrevivencia de la cultura taína.
Claro que, como bien dice el artículo, aún cuando hay una al parecer indiscutible influencia taína en la vida dominicana; el dominicano no se identifica con el taíno. Y como va a hacerlo si siempre se nos ha dicho que los taínos están extintos.
Sería interesante hacer un estudio, o leerlo se ya alguien lo ha hecho, de la identidad del dominicano. Yes que a mi me parece que el dominicano tiene un problema de identidad. Lo cual no me sorprende porque con la sopa biológica que somos cómo saber quién somos.

Habit #2: Maintain Key Friendships-from The 10 Habits of Happy Mothers by Dr. Meg Meeker.

Happy mothers know their value and happy mothers maintain key friendships. They know that loneliness is an enemy to be fought. They know they need other women and they don't apologize for it.

At a certain level we all know that friendships are important but, as Dr. Meeker says,

"The truth is, when something needs to be cut out in the crunch of daily demands, friends are the first to go. Sometimes friendship seems expendable, unnecessary. "

Some of us might think that our needs are being met by our family and husbands,

"this is extremely important, but they don't fully satisfy our relational needs because the others in the relationship are too dissimilar from us. Husbands can't be everything to us and certainly children can't be."

I am sure my dh is grateful that I have a group of women I meet regularly with! It is not that I keep him out of parts of my life. Far from it. It is that there are things proper to being a woman that he can't relate to. And I shouldn't expect him to. It goes without saying that my relationship to him is primary but he is not expected to be my all in all. I think he is relieved.

Loneliness can be a great enemy. It is in loneliness that our problems magnify: our thoughts get darker,our sorrows get deeper, our sadness consumes us, our joys go unshared and unseen. Loneliness is crushing. It is in loneliness when we start asking, "What is wrong with me?"

" A mother who feels lonely believes on some level that she is unlikable, even unlovable."

Dr Meek reminds us that "friends are a necessity, not a luxury." I truly believe this. We are not meant to be alone. I am not meant to be alone. I read once in book about social development for children that kids don't need tons of friends. Just one friend can carry a child through the developmental years. Just one friend can make a difference between a normal childhood and miserable one. I think the same is true of us.

*For more discussion on The Ten Habits of Happy Mothers see Elizabeth Foss' blog . She is the one that got me interested in reading the book and she is doing a great job at discussing it every Thursday.*

It WAS Hard to see her go

I thought it wouldn't be hard this time. I did it last May. I did it all. All of it, the crying, the sadness, the emptiness. The things left behind spoke of her absence. Loud. It was hard then but,I knew she will be back at the end of July. Now I don't know when the house will be filled with her joy, her presence.

It was hard to see her go.

It doesn't matter how much I tell myself:

-you will text (btw, I retract everything I said about texting)

-you will Skype (oh the blessedness of technology!)

-she will visit for holidays (would her work schedule permit her?)

-all mothers go through this (well, I am not all mothers)

-your mother went through that (yeah, but I was 25, not 18)

-it is the American way (well, I am not American)

It doesn't matter, it was still hard to see her go.

Part of me felt as it was not going to happen. When she got back, she fell right into our routine. She filled her space and our lives like always. It felt as if she had not gone at all. Maybe I dreamt it? My whole Dominican self hoped, maybe it is a dream.

But it wasn't a dream... This morning it was time to go. My whole Dominican self cried (inside) not yet! it is too soon! she is too young! this is not supposed to happen until you get married! But it did. This morning. In her new car.

With her dad.

It doesn't matter how much I tell myself

- she is with people we love and trust.

- she is doing what she feels/discerned the Lord is calling her too.

Both these things are a great comfort but, it was still hard to see her go.

All our parenting career points to this moment. This is what we have prepared her for. Her quiver is full, or is it? We did our part, or did we? Nagging thoughts fill my mind: did we prepare her well?

Here again is a lesson in trust.Trust that we did our best, that we did it adequately, that we taught her the skills to supply what we did not teach; and most of all, that the Lord will supply what we might have lacked.

It was hard to see her go but, she was ready. She has been a caterpillar for a while and now she is ready to be a butterfly: beautiful, graceful, and free. She takes with her part of us, part of me.

Now, I look at my two boys left at home and I hug them a little tighter, look into their eyes a little more frequently, pay attention a little closer, savor the moments more earnestly. Some time, sooner that my mother's heart is ready for, it would be time to see them go. And it will be hard.

Any Homeschooling books lying around?

Need to make room for more books?

Have some homeschooling books you can't sell?

Like to read but don't want to spend a lot of money buying books?

Consider swapping your books at Paperback Swap!

I had a bunch of books that I had try to sell on some homeschooling loops or boards with no luck. I decided, instead of donated them to a bazaar or Goodwill, to swap theml. At least I get some other books out of the deal! Today I mailed 20 books. Most of them were homeschooling book but there were some fiction books too. I get one credit for every book mailed. I can then use those credits to request other books.

If you decide to do this here is a tip:

Don't do like a I did a post too many at a time! I have spent the whole morning wrapping books to mail.

Acting as if I love God

In Mere Christianity C.S. Lewis says, " Do not waste time bothering wether you 'love' your neighbor, act as if you do." As soon as I read this line it reminded me of my relationship with God.

Do I love God? Does He love me? those questions have come to me time and time again. To reason God's love for me is not difficult. I can see it in creation. I can see it in the sacrifice of his Son. I can see it in the many details that form my daily life. But, do I love him? Do I return his love? I think my problem is, as Lewis puts it, I "cannot find such a feeling" in myself. I do not have strong feelings of love of God.

C.S Lewis says the answer is to "act as if you did." And I think,without thinking about it, that is what I have done. My choices, my preferences and priorities speak of love. It is not that I have always made perfect choices, or that my priorities are always in order, or that I always prefer that which is good. No, far from it. But, I try. And that counts. And God knows that I try. And that counts too.

Today, C.S Lewis reminds me that,

Christian love, either towards God or towards man, is an affair of the will. If we are trying to do His will we are obeying the commandment, 'Thou shalt love the Lord thy God.' He will give us feeling of love if He pleases. We cannot create them for ourselves, and we must not demand them as a right.But the great thing to remember is that, though my feelings come and go, His love for us does not.

St John Vianney, whose feast day we celebrate today, has a good advice, " your hearts are small, but prayer stretches them and makes them capable of loving God."

I intend to follow it.

The Ten Habits of Happy Mothers-Habit #1 Understand your Value as a Mother

I have heard that society doesn't value mothers.

I have heard that women don't value motherhood.

I have heard that people look down on stay at home moms.

Yet, I don't know where the accusers are. All my mothering life has been surrounded by women who either stayed at home, longed to stay home, or who had stayed home. Maybe I have lived under a rock. I don't know.

All I can say is that my battles have all been fought with myself and within myself. It is not other people who have laid obstacles in my path. It is I, who has had trouble with being just a mom. Just a mom wasn't part of my experience growing up. My mother is an excellent mother and she always had a career. Always busy, she owned her own pharmacy and taught Chemistry at the university.

I don't remember feeling neglected.

I don't remember feeling she was absent.

I don't remember seeing her torn between two worlds.

I don't remember angst on her part.

I think I knew she was a mother with a career.

And I knew that we came first.

What is different for me? For one thing, she wasn't expected to do it all. She didn't do it all. She had maids to do the cooking, the cleaning, the laundry, the gardening, and, the minding of children. When she was home, she was home. She managed to be present even when she was absent. She was always reachable. She was always mom.

I have never talked to her about this. I don't know why she worked. I know that making ends meet in the Dominican Republic is difficult with only one salary. But it never occurred to me to ask her if she worked because she needed it, because it fulfilled her, because it was what was expected of her. I don't even now if she posed those questions to herself. I don't even know if she valued herself as a mother. I don't know if it is a question that she would've asked. Someday soon I am going to ask her.

It never crossed my mind that I will stay at home. Enter the United States and the daycare world and, I had to ask myself some hard questions, the main of which was, Did I want my children to be raised by others? The answer was NO. I wasn't pressured into this decision. It was made in freedom. My husband, who wanted me to stay home- I know- would have accepted my decision, had I wanted to work. So, I can't say that my doubts have come from a forced decision.

And yet, there have been doubts. Nobody has looked scornfully at me and, asked "Don't you know that these days women do not stay home?" "Have you heard? we are in the 21st century." It is I who have asked those questions. It is I, who have wondered, "Would I make it in the real world?" "Do I have anything to offer?" "Am I good at anything?". It is I, who have watched successful women and wondered, "what does it feel like to be be good at something and know it, and know that the world knows that I am good?"

In her book 10 Habits of Happy Mothers, Dr Meg Meeker reminds me of my value as a mother.

"If we could wrap our mind around our true value as a woman and a mother, our life will never be the same."

Our value doesn't come measured in salaries or talents or gifts. Our value comes from something simpler: we are needed and loved. We can do for our children what nobody can. I can love, nurture, comfort, feed, guide, train, my children like nobody can. I matter to them. I matter because I am me, their mother. There is a unique bond between us just by the simple fact that I am their mother. All I do extra, builds and strengthen that bond. I don't have to woo my children to love me. I don't have to perform to earn their love.

It is so simple and I make it so complicated.

I don't struggle with my decision anymore. I don't question it. I wouldn't have it any other way. I still wonder, though, if I have anything to offer to the world at large. Is there a place for me beyond the boundaries of my family? Is there something I can contribute? Dr Meeker reminds me that,

"In addition to fulfilling our purpose as good moms, we were born to do more, in time"

What I have to regain is not my self. I think that throughout my career as a mother I have kept a healthy sense of self. I don't feel guilty having a life separate from my kids. Never have. What I have to regain is my trust in the Lord. Trust that, in time, I will discover what lies ahead. I will discover what He wants me to do next. Trust that life is not over at 50. Trust and put to the wondering to rest. Concentrate in living my life now.

I think it is about attitude. Dr Meeker says, "love the life you are supposed to be living and you happen on fulfilling the deep meaning of your life. It works. The energy comes, you get bolder, and you live less fearfully."

The deep meaning of my life is not a hidden treasure in the future, it is the here and now.

Summer Reading Notes

What I have been reading of late:

• Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh: Laugh aloud funny satire of British society of the 1920s. I had only read Brideshead Revisited by Waugh. A very different book. I was glad to be introduced to this side of Waugh. It made me want to read more by him.
• Memento Mori by Muriel Spark : I think I saw this book mentioned on Melissa Wiley's blog . Muriel Spark was a convert to Catholicism. I had seen her pop up several times in other blogs about Catholic writers. I wanted to read something by her. After finishing Memento Mori, I realized I had read another book by her,The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, which I didn't like at all. Mercifully, I didn't remember, because maybe it would've kept me from reading MM. In one of those serendipitous reading acts, MM was a great follow up to Vile Bodies. Both were British, both were satirical, both were funny, both had a depth behind the comical.
• Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis: I have to confess I am not a big fan of Lewis. I know that is probably heretical to most but, it is the truth. Thankfully, Mere Christianity is different. I have been meeting weekly with some ladies to discuss this book. There is so much to talk about! I am not finished with this yet and I wish I had started blogging about it. It would make it stick better.
• Crooked Adam by D.E. Stevenson: Satisfying, is the word for this read. A good old fashioned spy story, Crooked Adam (if I remember correctly) was published during WWII. It is fast paced and keeps your interested. A great summer reading! (Recommended by A Library is a Hospital for the Mind ).
• Mansfield Park by Jane Austen: I listened to this from Librivox. Books on this site are read by volunteers, not professionals, so the quality of the reader varies. That was certainly true of the reader of MP, some where very good and some, not so much. But, hey! it is free. I am not complaining. I enjoyed MP immensely. It was a great companion while cooking, cleaning or folding clothes. (note: the 1999 is awful. Nothing like the book!)
• Before Pentecost, I picked up John Paul II encyclical on the Holy Spirit (Dominum et Vivificantem). It is a challenging reading but so worthwhile. I am three quarters into it and planning on re-reading so I can write about. It would be a great way of digesting the information.
• No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy: Violent, violent! It was like watching a Clint Eastwood movie. The first 100 pages I wasn't sure I was going to finish it but, it kept me going. This is one of those books that you need to have somebody to talk about it with. So, I gave it to M. to read.
• Simply from Scratch by Alicia Bessette: Just OK. Nothing great. It is her first novel and somehow it felt too formulaic, to cliché, kind of like a chick flick between too covers.It wasn't bad but it is forgettable.
• Son of Charlemagne by Barbara Willard (with the kids): we are not completely finished with this one. Good story and it has created some rabbit trails. It had us searching all over the net about Charlemagne and his family. It also led us into a search for information on the Saxons and this, in turn, took us to the Vikings.
• Yesterday, I began Vanishing Act by Jodi Picault. Not much to report on this one yet. But it promises to be intense as any other Jodi Picault book I have read before.
• After Mansfield Park, I decided to give the Itunes U a try. I have been listening to some lectures on European Civilization from the 17oos to 1945. It is an interesting course. The lecturer, John Merriman, manages to pull some interesting lectures, even though he has this annoying stammering habit, and he curses and, he has a somewhat dislike of the Catholic Church. Even with all those strikes against him, I am still enjoying the class.

Emilia Pardo Bazan

De vez en cuando pasa que el autor de una obra me fascina casi tanto como su obra. Este es el caso con Emilia Pardo Bazan la autora de Los Pazos de Ulloa. Indagando un poco acerca de ella me encuentro con una señora interesante. Una mujer con inteligencia y agallas,una mujer que supo superar las limitaciones impuestas a su sexo. Siempre he admirado a los autodidactas. Quizas es el "homeschooler" en mi pero, me gusta conocer la vida de aquellos que han tomado su educación en sus propias manos, aquellos que de manera metódica se lanzan a explorar los diversos campos del saber. La Condesa Pardo Bazan tenia una amplia gama de intereses. Todo le llamaba la atención: la ciencia, la politica, la filosofía, e incluso la cocina.

Buscando en el internet encontré varias cosas interesantes:

-En la Biblioteca Visual Cervantes encontré un documental acerca de su vida.

Luego de ver el documental se me ocurrió pensar ¿qué fue de los hijos de la condesa? Encontré este articulo que detalla el patrimonio de Emilia Pardo Bazan .Claro el artículo no responde mi verdadera pregunta ¿fue ella una buena madre? ¿prestó atención a sus hijos?

Aqui dejo un artículo que enfoca su feminismo.

Y aquí hay una biografía en Google Books,La Luz en la Batalla por Eva Acosta

Los Pazos de Ulloa por Emilia Pardo Bazán

Impresiones


Los Pazos de Ulloa se trata de un sacerdote joven, acabado de salir del seminario, que ha sido asignado como capellán a los Pazos de Ulloa. Una casa noble que ha visto mejores años, donde la decadencia se nota por todas partes: en la casa, en la capilla y sobre todo en la gente. La gente embrutecida, empobrecida, sin religión aún cuando la religión los rodea. Julian, el capellán, se enfrenta con una serie de personajes que se enfrentan en una lucha entre el bien y el mal, la santidad y el pecado; y donde muchas veces es dificil saber quien ha ganado.

Esta novela española del Siglo XIX me recuerda, en cierto modo, a novelas como Cumbres Borrascosas o Rebeca: Novelas donde hay una presencia maligna que prevalece durante toda la novela. Esta presencia lleva la novela. Te mantiene en vilo, esperando el suceso que parece va a suceder a cada vuelta de página. Hay una continua sensación de tragedia inminente. Senti que la novela me envolvía a pesar de las a veces tediosas descripciones llenas de palabras a mi parecer rebuscadas. Leia y leia con esa sensacieon de que algo trágico iba a pasar. Pero, al volver la última página, me quedé con la sensación de no conocer los personajes. El único personajes que llegas a conocer es Julián y a veces la verdad que quería retocerle el pescuezo. El no es mi idea del sacerdote -demasiado rezo y no suficiente pantalones. No que rezar es malo-claro que no- pero mi mentalidad del Siglo XXI se rebela a la devoción casi ciega de este sacerdote. Y lo que es más, al final te preguntas, ¿de qué sirvió tanto rezo? ¿querâ decir la autora que rezar no sirve de nada?

El libro me dejo con muchas preguntas: ¿Qué nos quiere decir Pardo Bazán? ¿Cuål es su visión de la naturaleza humana? ¿de la iglesia? ¿del sacerdote? Me perece que algo de lo que dice es una denuncia de la vida sin educación, del daño y el embrutecimiento que produce. Para mi este es uno de esos libros que implora tener alguien con quien comentarlos.