7 Quick Takes - 1/27/12

1. I've been reading a great little book of meditations based on the writing of St. John Henry Newman, most mornings. It is called Take Five and it's by Mike Aquilina and Fr. Juan R. Velez. I am really enjoying the pithy but thought provoking meditations. I read while I'm waiting for my kettle to boil for my first cup of coffee. Usually they address something that's been floating around in my life somehow and I get a little moment of crystallization. This morning's meditation was especially on target for me and my state of mind. Newman was giving advice to a new convert (of which I am not, but I always seem to be in the state of permanent conversion!):

"She should give herself to the contemplation of obedience and holiness, and reading of the lives of the saints; and set herself deliberately to the business of self-government, of changing herself where she most requires it, of gaining perfect resignation to God's Will, of unlearning worldly opinions, motives and principles, and living as if in sight of the things invisible - and that without impatience at apparent failure or apparent slow advance."

I bolded the last part, because that's the part that really rang true as a message I needed to hear this a.m. Thank you St. John Henry Newman!

2. Another prayer help I've been utilizing this week is one that send novenas to your email so you remember to pray them. You can find it here at www.praymorenovenas.com. I think I found out about this on the Unschooling Catholics yahoolist.

3. I've started reading Don Quixote! I've never read it before. I haven't gotten far though. In fact, I haven't gotten past the Prelude. The Prelude is 167 pages long but it is wonderful. It is written by the translator, Walter Starkie. I was so charmed by his writing style that I looked him up. What a lovely man! You can read his wikipedia article here. I love stumbling on obscure (at least to me) literary history. This version of Don Quixote sat on my parents shelf for decades. It's an old edition but it is missing the page that has the copyright so I don't know the year.

4. We went to the March for Life on Monday and I've been trying to recover all week. It was rainy and cold and the conditions seemed pretty miserable at first, but once you got into the enormous crowd and started walking, things got much more comfortable. I haven't been to the march personally in about 25 years I think. It has grown incredibly. It reminded me of those photos of MLK's speech, where you just see a sea of people. Really, really huge. The minute we started marching everyone got separated. This proved to be a bit stressful, to say the least. However, we finally managed to meet up again in front of the Supreme Court. The staging wasn't set up due to some snafu, so we couldn't really see anybody speaking and we only got to hear a few minutes before we were told we had to get back to the bus. We got stuck in the crowd right before some counter protestors. We saw this women there. It was disturbing and baffling to us. But I must say they are courageous to speak out when there were at least a quarter of million people there, maybe more, I am horrible at estimating numbers (who were directly opposed to them). I wonder if they'd be so bold for any other movement. Instead people apparently were approaching them in good will to engage them in conversation. The whole mood of the crowd is one of love and peace. Everyone is praying, singing, or chanting slogans (like: we love babies, yes we do. We love babies, how about you!). I think that says something wonderful about the pro-life movement and our country. That we can be so peaceful.

5. But the March really bothered me, just because of my own personality. I am not meant to be political. It truly upsets me and makes me lose sleep and hope! I was particularly upset at the lack of coverage by both the New York Times (who I hear hasn't covered this enormous annual event in 5 years! Anybody who trusts news from that paper has their head buried in the sand!) and the Washington Post (which almost to a ludicrous level, underreported the event. No integrity there at all. Deliberate manipulation of the facts!). I was having an discussion with a staunchly liberal relative. When I dared to criticize the objectivity of these two institutions I was heartily scoffed at. The Crescat also talks about the duplicitous coverage of the March by mainstream media.

6. Update on changing to a Nourishing Traditions style of cooking! Well, the one thing I've really stuck to is the soaking and slow cooking oatmeal; it is great! Today we made popcorn on the stove with olive oil, butter, cheddar cheese and sea salt. The kids loved it. A good, but sugarless snack. I think I did pretty well with dinners this week, except for Thursday when we got carry out pizza. But Monday we had scallops wrapped in bacon, Tuesday we had tacos, Wednesday we had roast chicken. Tonight we are having wild salmon, corn, sweet potato fries, sauteed mushrooms and then some sliced cucumbers. The problem, though with all these meals is that the kids don't eat much of them at all. But we are working on it. Becky has refused to eat oatmeal for the past three weeks but this a.m. she had a couple of spoonfuls after she witnessed Sean exclaiming over how good it was. So there's something! And I'm thinking if I get rid of my own negative attitude (which can only be done by the Holy Spirit because I know I'll never change on my own!) and just keep steadily presenting food as attractively as I can while at the same time educating them on what is healthy and why so many bad carbs and sugars are so awful for them (I mean they are living with a woman who had to get her leg amputated due to complications from diabetes!) that we can make progress. I have to remember to sign and send in my contract with a farm where we can get fresh meat, milk and veggies delivered once a week to our town. I wonder when the pick up is though.....

7. Speaking of leg problems (bad segue there!) for some reason Tillie, our Sheltie, keeps limping. This has been going on since June! She'll just start limping very badly and then the next day or two it will go away. The vet had given me some medicine for her, but it got used up over the months. Everyone kept chiding me for not taking her to the vet to get it checked out again. I made an appointment a couple weeks ago but then she mysteriously stopped limping, so I cancelled. This week she started limping really badly on Monday, I mean she was only walking on three legs. I had a crazy busy week and I just couldn't make time to take her in until Thursday. She limped on Tuesday, on Wednesday and on Thursday up until the point of taking her into the vet. Then she didn't limp at all. AT ALL!!!! The vet checked out her paw very thoroughly anyway, and could find nothing wrong with her. She gave us more of the same medicine. The visit cost $110. I took Tillie home and 1/2 hour after she got home she was back to walking on only three legs again!!!!! What is up with that???

For more quick takes please visit Jennifer Fulwiler's blog, Conversion Diary.