This is our family's favorite charity. We first learned about it years ago when Hannah was about Becky's age now. A homeschooling mom who has lots of experience in theater proposed to put on a musical version of A Christmas Carol. (I might note that she's never done it since! I think it wiped her out!!!)
The idea was that the group would ask for donations. The goal was to get $2000 to buy a house for a homeless family in the Caribbean through an organization called Food for the Poor. I had never heard of it and was a bit suspicious. However, we did some research and it turns out that it has a very good rating. One of the best charities out there in terms of how many dollars go directly to the poor instead of for overhead costs. The Christmas Carol musical was a great success and the children did indeed raise enough money to buy a house for a family. And ever since Food for the Poor has played into our Christmas giving. We've done it different ways; sometimes the kids give a portion of Hannukah/Christmas to them; sometimes we donate in their name. The organization has become a bit like Heifer International, in that you give money for specific things like enough beans and rice to feed a family for a month or to buy them a chicken for eggs and that sort of thing.
So check out Food for the Poor for Christmas!
Wednesday, December 5, 2012
Tuesday, December 4, 2012
40 Days for the Poor - Day 20 - Pope Benedict's On the Service of Charity
Someone posted the link to Pope Benedict's Apostolic Letter to the bishops on Charity on an email list. It becomes official on December 10th.
I'm posting it here because it fits in with my theme and because I want to save the link for later, when I have time to really read it.
I'm posting it here because it fits in with my theme and because I want to save the link for later, when I have time to really read it.
40 Days for the Poor - Day 19 - A Heart for the Poor
It looks like I only missed Sunday and Monday in this 40 Days thing, so this will be Monday's post retroactively and Day 20 should be today. I never have been good at keeping track of things!
Two other people who I have found especially inspirational are Blessed Mother Teresa and St. Vincent De Paul. I wrote about the Society of St. Vincent De Paul but it is great to learn more about him. There is an excellent old French movie that I highly recommend. I found it very inspiring. I haven't actually read anything more about him other than little references or occasional articles I might come across that mention him.
And of course Mother Teresa is a powerhouse when it comes to developing a heart for the less fortunate. I read Kathryn Spink's biography of Mother Teresa. A very solid story of her life. But the movie Something Beautiful for God is wonderful! I highly recommend it.
Out of time again!
Two other people who I have found especially inspirational are Blessed Mother Teresa and St. Vincent De Paul. I wrote about the Society of St. Vincent De Paul but it is great to learn more about him. There is an excellent old French movie that I highly recommend. I found it very inspiring. I haven't actually read anything more about him other than little references or occasional articles I might come across that mention him.
And of course Mother Teresa is a powerhouse when it comes to developing a heart for the less fortunate. I read Kathryn Spink's biography of Mother Teresa. A very solid story of her life. But the movie Something Beautiful for God is wonderful! I highly recommend it.
Out of time again!
40 Days for the Poor - Day 18 - Dorothy Day
(Oops, got busy doing other things and didn't get to this 40 Days for Poor project for, hmm, I think three days. I'll have to go count!)
I think one way for us not-poor-people (like me)to cultivated a heart for the poor is to read about admirable people who really do put the poor first. Dorothy Day, who was just named a Servant of God by the Catholic Church, is one such person. I remember when Dorothy Day died. I had never heard of her but I had an appointment with my academic counselor at college. Tacked up on his door was a newspaper article about Dorothy Day. She had just passed away. While waiting outside his door for the student ahead of me to finish up, I read it. My appointment turned out to be more of a discussion about Dorothy Day than about my academics! I didn't act on my new found knowledge, but I thought about her often.
Fast forward a couple of years and somehow I picked up a copy of Day's book The Long Loneliness. I've read a couple other collections of her writings as well. I have also see the movie Entertaining Angels. It has a made for TV quality about it but it is very true to her story and for that kind of movie, I thought it told her story well.
I used to be attracted to The Catholic Worker. I read the newspaper and I met some folks who worked at The Catholic Worker house in DC many years ago. I have to say they struck me as being part of the tribal social justice left who are more political leftists than Catholic. Which is not true to Day's legacy. She was very devout and orthodox in her faith, but lived it out in a very radical way. The weird bifurcation of Catholic social teaching by U.S. politics is so sad. The "seamless garment" got ridiculed and rejected by the right while the political left decided bigger government always means justice for the poor. I am oversimplifying for sure here! But in my opinion neither side has remained true to the gospel or Day's legacy.
Anyway, maybe 10 years ago I stumbled on the astonishing fact that my grandfather, John Brophy, knew Dorothy Day! Here's an open letter to him (they misspelled his name initially) published in the Catholic Worker. Here's another article where Day refers to a conversation she had with my grandfather.
Anyway, all this just thrilled me. And I am very excited that Dorothy Day is now on her official way to Sainthood. I think for the new year, she will be my patron.
Even though the left has loved her for years, I have noticed that more typically conservative voices are starting to speak with admiration as well. That's good! And gives me hope.
Dorothy Day, pray for us!
I think one way for us not-poor-people (like me)to cultivated a heart for the poor is to read about admirable people who really do put the poor first. Dorothy Day, who was just named a Servant of God by the Catholic Church, is one such person. I remember when Dorothy Day died. I had never heard of her but I had an appointment with my academic counselor at college. Tacked up on his door was a newspaper article about Dorothy Day. She had just passed away. While waiting outside his door for the student ahead of me to finish up, I read it. My appointment turned out to be more of a discussion about Dorothy Day than about my academics! I didn't act on my new found knowledge, but I thought about her often.
Fast forward a couple of years and somehow I picked up a copy of Day's book The Long Loneliness. I've read a couple other collections of her writings as well. I have also see the movie Entertaining Angels. It has a made for TV quality about it but it is very true to her story and for that kind of movie, I thought it told her story well.
I used to be attracted to The Catholic Worker. I read the newspaper and I met some folks who worked at The Catholic Worker house in DC many years ago. I have to say they struck me as being part of the tribal social justice left who are more political leftists than Catholic. Which is not true to Day's legacy. She was very devout and orthodox in her faith, but lived it out in a very radical way. The weird bifurcation of Catholic social teaching by U.S. politics is so sad. The "seamless garment" got ridiculed and rejected by the right while the political left decided bigger government always means justice for the poor. I am oversimplifying for sure here! But in my opinion neither side has remained true to the gospel or Day's legacy.
Anyway, maybe 10 years ago I stumbled on the astonishing fact that my grandfather, John Brophy, knew Dorothy Day! Here's an open letter to him (they misspelled his name initially) published in the Catholic Worker. Here's another article where Day refers to a conversation she had with my grandfather.
Anyway, all this just thrilled me. And I am very excited that Dorothy Day is now on her official way to Sainthood. I think for the new year, she will be my patron.
Even though the left has loved her for years, I have noticed that more typically conservative voices are starting to speak with admiration as well. That's good! And gives me hope.
Dorothy Day, pray for us!
Sunday, December 2, 2012
The Velvet Room - Book 53
If my goal was to read 52 Books in 52 weeks, do I get extra credit for going over????
The Velvet Room by Zilpha Keatley Snyder is a lovely book. I read it aloud to Becky. This is our second Snyder book. I am enjoying going down memory lane, revisiting this favorite author of my junior high days! This book is even better than The Egypt Game I think, but it might be out of print sadly. I had to buy it used.
It is set in the late 1930s. Robin Williams (this was before the actor/comedian was known!) is a 12 year old girl whose family is on hard times. Due to the Depression and her father's habit of developing pneumonia, the family has been reduced to real poverty. They have been homeless for three or four years and have spent their time traveling from one farm to another in a dilapidated old Model T, as migrant farm workers in California. The Model T gets a flat and they wind up settling at Las Palmeras where there is a slightly spooky but supremely intriguing abandoned old mansion. Inside this mansion, Robin finds the velvet room.
It is a wonderful story with lots of suspense, lots of well drawn characters, lots of love and understanding as a young girl grapples with the hardships and tough choices her lot in life hands her.
It has a really great, satisfying conclusion. Two thumbs up!
For more book reviews see Read 52 Books in 52 Weeks.
The Velvet Room by Zilpha Keatley Snyder is a lovely book. I read it aloud to Becky. This is our second Snyder book. I am enjoying going down memory lane, revisiting this favorite author of my junior high days! This book is even better than The Egypt Game I think, but it might be out of print sadly. I had to buy it used.
It is set in the late 1930s. Robin Williams (this was before the actor/comedian was known!) is a 12 year old girl whose family is on hard times. Due to the Depression and her father's habit of developing pneumonia, the family has been reduced to real poverty. They have been homeless for three or four years and have spent their time traveling from one farm to another in a dilapidated old Model T, as migrant farm workers in California. The Model T gets a flat and they wind up settling at Las Palmeras where there is a slightly spooky but supremely intriguing abandoned old mansion. Inside this mansion, Robin finds the velvet room.
It is a wonderful story with lots of suspense, lots of well drawn characters, lots of love and understanding as a young girl grapples with the hardships and tough choices her lot in life hands her.
It has a really great, satisfying conclusion. Two thumbs up!
For more book reviews see Read 52 Books in 52 Weeks.
Hittite Warrior - Book 52
And the 52nd book I have completed this year is . . . . Hittite Warrior by Joanna Williamson. I actually have a dim memory of reading this before a few years ago, but I really, truly didn't remember much of it at all, except that Deborah, the lady judge from the Old Testament, makes an appearance.
I read this with Sean who was assigned it in his Aquinas Learning coursework for Literature and Composition. It is a fast-moving, young adult novel with a complicated plot that involves many of the ancient civilizations we read about in our history books. The book is told in first person by Uriah-Tarhund a young Hittite boy whose family is killed by the 'sea people.' He travels down to Canaan to find a friend of his father's. Traveling through the city of Tyre, he gets waylaid for a while with a family who takes him in. This family is half Canaanite - half Egyptian. Later he travels inland and meets the Israelites (this is where Deborah comes in). Later, we encounter an evil Philistine and his equally evil sidekick from Crete. It is a veritable soup of ancient tribes fighting and trading in the Eastern Mediterranean!
The plot is quite swift-moving and pretty complex with lots of characters with strange names to try to remember. There's a lot of coincidences that happen too, that make things slightly less believable than I found satisfactory. However, the book really reinforces the history learned of these peoples. And the tie in to the Old Testament was neat. We learn about Moloch, Baal, the Egyptian god Aton and the Hebrew God Yahweh. The strongest element of the book for me was the way it really recreated the atmosphere of the ancient world.
A worthwhile read for sure! For more reviews go to 52 Books.
I read this with Sean who was assigned it in his Aquinas Learning coursework for Literature and Composition. It is a fast-moving, young adult novel with a complicated plot that involves many of the ancient civilizations we read about in our history books. The book is told in first person by Uriah-Tarhund a young Hittite boy whose family is killed by the 'sea people.' He travels down to Canaan to find a friend of his father's. Traveling through the city of Tyre, he gets waylaid for a while with a family who takes him in. This family is half Canaanite - half Egyptian. Later he travels inland and meets the Israelites (this is where Deborah comes in). Later, we encounter an evil Philistine and his equally evil sidekick from Crete. It is a veritable soup of ancient tribes fighting and trading in the Eastern Mediterranean!
The plot is quite swift-moving and pretty complex with lots of characters with strange names to try to remember. There's a lot of coincidences that happen too, that make things slightly less believable than I found satisfactory. However, the book really reinforces the history learned of these peoples. And the tie in to the Old Testament was neat. We learn about Moloch, Baal, the Egyptian god Aton and the Hebrew God Yahweh. The strongest element of the book for me was the way it really recreated the atmosphere of the ancient world.
A worthwhile read for sure! For more reviews go to 52 Books.
Saturday, December 1, 2012
40 Days for the Poor - Day 17 - Caring for the Elderly
I come from a big family. When I was little, my older sisters were off at college and then getting married. So it used to be arranged that every once in a while we younger ones would get to spend a weekend with our older sisters and their families, aside from when they might come home for the holidays. I think I might have been about eighth grade or so when I visited my older sister LeeAnne. LeeAnne had trained as a nurse before she married. And then somehow along the way she'd also gone to what they called Beauty School. Do they still call it that? She loved to do people's hair. She still does! She did my hair for my wedding. When Aunt Jackie lived here last year, LeeAnne would come over and do her hair too. In fact when she goes to visit Aunt Jackie at her new digs in the retirement home she moved to, LeeAnne does her hair.
Anyway, when I went to visit her this one time, she took me with her to a nursing home near her house. It turned out that she would go and do various patients hair for them. For free. That was her ministry. My sister is a very warm, chatty person, with an easy laugh, so she shines at stuff like this. It was wonderful to see her walk into that nursing home and how the faces just lit up when they saw her. She had an appointment to do two people's hair that day. That's all I remember anyway. She did one old lady's hair. And then there was a woman there who was younger and had some terrible disease where she shook uncontrollably. Maybe it was MS? I can't remember. I just remember how she shook so much she couldn't sit up, so my sister put her in the bed and arranged pillows all around her so that she would be comfortable but somehow my sister could still do her hair. I remember my sister patiently putting make up on her too because the woman's children were going to visit her that afternoon and she wanted to look nice. It was so sad, but I remember how much I admired my sister for doing what she did.
I think that was the first time I ever was in a nursing home.
Taking care of the elderly even when they are at home and fairly well off financially is still a big deal. It takes lots of planning and patience. But for those who get stuck in nursing homes, it really is a wonderful ministry to go and visit them. I am thinking about this today because Becky's American Heritage Troop is going to sing Christmas carols at a nursing home today. They do this every year and for some reason every year we miss it! We always intend to go but something comes up. This is the third year this has happened! Becky woke up with another fever yesterday and threw up all day long. She didn't keep one ounce of food in her stomach. Absolutely miserable. This a.m. I checked on her and her fever is gone. She woke up for once second and said 'Mommy, I feel so much better!" But she still isn't going to sing at any nursing home today.
However, we have tried to go to various nursing homes over the years. When Hannah was in Little Flowers, they used to go yearly to do the same thing (sing Christmas carols). When my boys were in Cub Scouts, they'd go and put on funny skits. This was not at Christmas time, but on Presidents Day and the skits always had a patriotic/American history theme.
I knew of some people who made it a regular family ministry to go and visit Alzheimer's patients every week. I was so in awe of this I decided we as a family would try to do the same. It ended in fiasco. One of my impulsive kiddos did something that upset a patient who began screaming obscenities at him! So that was the last time we did that! The nurse was so appalled and felt so bad for my son. He was pretty traumatized by it. So it ain't all sweetness and roses!
A couple years ago we joined 4-H. I would have loved to have stayed in 4-H but things didn't work out. But while we were part of it, we did get to have a really fun Christmas party which the group apparently held every year at a nursing home. It was a very fun party and the kids really enjoyed mingling with the patients there. Each 4-Her had made a pretty Christmas ornament to give each person in the nursing home and we sang carols and put on silly skits.
Oh, and I just remembered that our parish youth group is going caroling at the nursing home near our Church on 12/14. I have to put that down on my calendar.
I do think a lot of stuff happens at Christmas and then nursing home patients get ignored by groups the rest of the year, it seems.
So once again we are very inconsistent about helping out the lonely and elderly. However, there is an order of sisters who devote their lives to taking care of the poor elderly. They are the Little Sisters of the Poor. So if you can't be very consistent with actual visiting and assisting the elderly, you can give a donation to these lovely women who spend their lives caring for those who are too poor to afford a nursing home.
Anyway, when I went to visit her this one time, she took me with her to a nursing home near her house. It turned out that she would go and do various patients hair for them. For free. That was her ministry. My sister is a very warm, chatty person, with an easy laugh, so she shines at stuff like this. It was wonderful to see her walk into that nursing home and how the faces just lit up when they saw her. She had an appointment to do two people's hair that day. That's all I remember anyway. She did one old lady's hair. And then there was a woman there who was younger and had some terrible disease where she shook uncontrollably. Maybe it was MS? I can't remember. I just remember how she shook so much she couldn't sit up, so my sister put her in the bed and arranged pillows all around her so that she would be comfortable but somehow my sister could still do her hair. I remember my sister patiently putting make up on her too because the woman's children were going to visit her that afternoon and she wanted to look nice. It was so sad, but I remember how much I admired my sister for doing what she did.
I think that was the first time I ever was in a nursing home.
Taking care of the elderly even when they are at home and fairly well off financially is still a big deal. It takes lots of planning and patience. But for those who get stuck in nursing homes, it really is a wonderful ministry to go and visit them. I am thinking about this today because Becky's American Heritage Troop is going to sing Christmas carols at a nursing home today. They do this every year and for some reason every year we miss it! We always intend to go but something comes up. This is the third year this has happened! Becky woke up with another fever yesterday and threw up all day long. She didn't keep one ounce of food in her stomach. Absolutely miserable. This a.m. I checked on her and her fever is gone. She woke up for once second and said 'Mommy, I feel so much better!" But she still isn't going to sing at any nursing home today.
However, we have tried to go to various nursing homes over the years. When Hannah was in Little Flowers, they used to go yearly to do the same thing (sing Christmas carols). When my boys were in Cub Scouts, they'd go and put on funny skits. This was not at Christmas time, but on Presidents Day and the skits always had a patriotic/American history theme.
I knew of some people who made it a regular family ministry to go and visit Alzheimer's patients every week. I was so in awe of this I decided we as a family would try to do the same. It ended in fiasco. One of my impulsive kiddos did something that upset a patient who began screaming obscenities at him! So that was the last time we did that! The nurse was so appalled and felt so bad for my son. He was pretty traumatized by it. So it ain't all sweetness and roses!
A couple years ago we joined 4-H. I would have loved to have stayed in 4-H but things didn't work out. But while we were part of it, we did get to have a really fun Christmas party which the group apparently held every year at a nursing home. It was a very fun party and the kids really enjoyed mingling with the patients there. Each 4-Her had made a pretty Christmas ornament to give each person in the nursing home and we sang carols and put on silly skits.
Oh, and I just remembered that our parish youth group is going caroling at the nursing home near our Church on 12/14. I have to put that down on my calendar.
I do think a lot of stuff happens at Christmas and then nursing home patients get ignored by groups the rest of the year, it seems.
So once again we are very inconsistent about helping out the lonely and elderly. However, there is an order of sisters who devote their lives to taking care of the poor elderly. They are the Little Sisters of the Poor. So if you can't be very consistent with actual visiting and assisting the elderly, you can give a donation to these lovely women who spend their lives caring for those who are too poor to afford a nursing home.
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