Christian Parenting for a World Gone Mad

Up till now I haven’t had anything to say about Sean Harris, that evangelical pastor who favored/favors beating sons who seem effeminate or gay. David Gibson RNS summed up his rant, his retraction, and his mystification.

Even my apology is being judged by those who are supposed to be the most tolerant as insincere. At this point nothing seems sufficient.

I don’t know the man. I can’t judge his apology as sincere or otherwise. There seemed to be some disconnect between his original speech and what he later claimed he would never do or say. So perhaps his critics are pointing to obvious gaps in the truth–in one place or the other. The issue seems to be less one of sincerity and more one of veracity. Pastor Harris regrets the criticism against him: that’s easy to get. I believe that 100%.

As for his original notion that parents exist (in part) to toughen up their children, this strikes me as the Gregg Williams approach to parenting. Except that instead of offering bounties on the players of opposing teams, the program involves cutting the knees out from under one’s own. That’s teamwork for you. Should one imitate the non-Christian attitudes of the secular culture: violence, domination, anger, radical surgery–in order to prepare one’s daughters and sons for what awaits them in the wide world? That’s not the way I would do it.

We have relatives who spank. My wife and I once had two nieces in our charge for a day. One misbehaved–not drastic, but significant. Will your dad spank me, she asked the young miss.

Oh no, you’ll go to timeout.

Timeout? What’s that?

They put you in a corner and don’t talk to you for five minutes.

The girl started crying, really bawling, as if we had just pulled out a horse whip or something.

I think that in some ways, I am a tough parent. The first night she came to live with us, I fixed macaroni and cheese from scratch–no box mixes for my child. Supervised tv-watching only. She had to learn to read to take her turn to read to us. No more sugar cereal. (“Apple Jacks are good, Dad. There’s more apple than sugar in them, right?”) I’m sure this poor little girl must have thought those social workers placed her with the Stepford Parents.

I don’t mind admitting I share with Pastor Harris grave concerns about living a Christian life in the big wide world. We part company on what makes for effective and virtuous parenting. He wants to be a good dad and guide other people to be good parents: I get that. I wouldn’t mind having a conversation based on that.

 

Gambit At The Door

The call of the wild …

Little does he know that a white cat is ill-adapted for life in the wild.

 

Prayers For Algebra

The young miss has an algebra test in a few hours. This semester has not been going well for her. She dropped off the soccer team partly because she insists she can bring up her math grade from a C. (Father’s aside here: I would have been willing to cut her slack on household chores rather than watch her quit her favorite sport in an attempt to rise to a B or B-minus.) For some reason, she’s tested very poorly in algebra the past several weeks. Homework assignments are the only thing keeping the fourth-quarter grade above an F.

She hasn’t been feeling well, either. She texted me to pick up wild cherry cough drops at the store. I texted back that I would and wished her luck on her test and that I would be praying. Her reply:

Thanks I forgot about til now lol but thank you :)

Last Friday I suggested she call a boy who is a good friend and who excels in math to help her study. She liked the idea … at the time. But I noted she spent about three hours on the computer yesterday afternoon doing some drawings and working on some artistic things she likes. I suspect her mind just drifted on this test.

It’s difficult for me not to nag. Or be perceived as nagging. The young miss is very independent and very self-directed. But sometimes, a young person has to take the initiative and ask for help. My wife tells me other parents are complaining about this math teacher. It might be that his tests are a little off-kilter. But I’m really reticent about jumping on a parent-complaint bandwagon. They do a lot of that in this town. The grade she gets, while important, is less essential than learning how to be a good math student. I didn’t learn how to be a good math student till I was a senior in college. And by then, I was already drifting out of a career in science.

 

Loss of a Symbol

Having a few days off after Easter has given me time to catch up on a few things. Taxes. Yard work. Today I was mowing past the six-foot high trunk of an apple tree felled by lightning shortly after we moved in. I gave the tree a friendly push, and a creak and a few seconds later, I had a huge chunk of cellulose crashing into the grass. And another small project to maneuver it into the woodpile. (Wood that we never burn because my other family members dislike the smell of burning tree chunks.)

Anyway, I noticed a tear in the finger of my left work glove, and gave it little more thought. I finished the mowing and after stripping my gloves off, noticed my wedding band was missing. What a catastrophe!

On moving day almost four years ago, the diamond plucked off her engagement ring, and that was traumatic enough.

Despite growing up as the son of a jeweler, I’ve never felt comfortable with things on my fingers, wrists, and around my neck. Never worn a cross. I gave up wearing rings in college. I lost a wristwatch in 1982, and switched to keeping time in my pocket. Now I have a phone.

I loved having a wedding band, though, even if I frequently played with it. I did notice with weight loss it was looser on my finger–I was even able to get it on my thumb, with a twist. It would have been safer there, I suppose. The rattling of mower engine or the rolling of a person-size stump across the backyard wouldn’t have dislodged it from my finger.

My wife said insurance would replace it, and we could get it blessed and renew our vows. And I suppose that’s a comfort. I poked and moped around the backyard for about a half-hour, then decided to tell the world. How often do people lose wedding day rings? How do you treat the loss of such an important and symbolic object? The love and commitment and sacrament it represents is much more precious, of course, But still …

 

Reboot

That was more of a disaster than I was counting on.

I’ll get the Dance posts back up when I reconstruct the brackets. Maybe by Saturday. Home pc had a bigtime meltdown this week. Replacement, the first in a decade, is now up and running. Meanwhile, the usual stuff on the GIRM, the GDC, and maybe some funeral readings–we’ll keep going on that.

Good thing the bank account information is all backed up. I wouldn’t be looking forward to reconstructing a year’s worth of deposits and payments.

 

Spring Break Update

In the past week, I’ve had five blog visitors from Vatican City. Not too bad for such a small European domain. I wonder what they came to look for and what they saw when they got here.

The single most common reason for people to visit Catholic Sensibility is to check out Scripture readings for weddings. Sirach 26 is always a big draw. Maybe because so few other bloggers have written about it.

Scrutinies are getting some action this week, too. We know why.

Only a few more hours left in the balloting, and “Prayer of Saint Francis” by Temple has a 19-6 lead. “Parce Domine” has inched out ahead of “Hosea” 14-11, with about 24 hours left in that balloting. “The Servant Song” has a wide lead over Bob Hurd, but there’s still over two days of decision-making on that score. Nothing really surprising. If you’re waiting for a Hail Mary, don’t look to the songs behind in the balloting; just wait till midnight tonight.

Today was sort of a medical and clean-up day. Wife escorted to the doctor and dentist this morning. Mint Oreo blizzard for her to soothe the trauma. The young miss is currently enduring the trauma of cleaning her room. Serious deep spring cleaning. I’ve already hauled two bags of trash out to the bin, moved an old desk down to the basement (she does her homework at the kitchen table anyway), and I’ve got two old aquariums airing out on the back deck. Don’t ask me about the eight water bottles (those were the ones with water in them) or the missing frog (skeleton not found … yet). I’ve been banished while the women figure out girl stuff. I will be called back to duty to rearrange furniture.

After a long hard day of trauma, I’m thinking some grilled pork, mashed potatoes with gravy, some nice green beans. After a few days off work, it’ll be time for me to head back in tomorrow. See what my work e-mail and phone messages have in store for me.

How about you?

 

Reset For Lent

The young miss came home yesterday from a weekend with her aunt. While I was at church last night, something happened to the home computer. For some reason, the browser reset and I seemed to lose about a thousand well-organized bookmarks. Usually, I’m pretty cautious about downloading software and things. My daughter perhaps less so.

Strange, but losing ten years of bookmarked sites did relatively little for me. By the time I asked my family about clicking inviting boxes online, I was calm about it. And now, this morning, I’m thinking it may be a blessing in disguise. So much for anger.

Lent is coming, and I have to ask myself: Do I really need to read all those sports sites? Those Catholic Right blogs? Those cookie-cutter Catholic info sites? If I really need to reference Ad Gentes or the BBC, I can do a search. It’s not like I’m still living in the year 1996.

I can reorganize bookmarks in a better way. My wife and daughter can handle setting up their own link trees and do it the way they want.

Lent is indeed coming. Technically, the liturgical season doesn’t begin until Sunday–the traditional counting method is forty days from the first Sunday to Holy Thursday sundown. Wednesday through Saturday is just a prelude, a warming up period.

As usual, I will be devoting a few Lent practices to my internet routine. Posting will continue. I may try to make a significant dent in the backlog of funeral readings. Wouldn’t it be nice to have all those readings linked by the end of Spring? A few friends out there have said they would write on funeral choices. Just let me know before I take your favorite passage. If you want to see what’s already written about and what’s not, just check the funeral readings page.

Comments on other sites will probably drop to zero, especially with people with whom I disagree. As I rebuild my links to other blogs, I will visit, but probably hold my tongue. By the way, if you link me on your site, drop me a note and I’ll return the favor.

I think that’s about all for now. Enjoy the day.

 

A Musical Adventure/Interlude

Last night I went clubbing for the first time in years, if not decades. My cousin Sam from back east was passing through Iowa on the way to a week-long series of gigs in Colorado with his band, Thunder Body. “Roots reggae and experimental dub” is how they describe it. Very definitely 21st century music. My cousin is a really fine player. He’s pretty seamless with this band, for having other musical territory of his own, and for being new to the line-up. I like the blues feel he brings to the genre.

My brother gave me the heads-up, so it was a fairly busy Saturday night–why not pile a road trip to Des Moines on top of a long day? (Church musicians and liturgists are not made for twenty-hour days topped by very loud music in a club until nearly 1:30AM.) My Iowa sister-in-law came too. We had a nice chat about music and family on the ride home. Whenever I hear good music, I’m less moved to dance and more to play. Actually, that’s even true of classical concerts. The instinct to play runs deep. Must be a family thing, my sis said. It would be way cool to jam with many of my musical cousins. (Like this one.) Can’t think of any other sort of family reunion I’d rather go to.

Ah well. It’s great to be living in the 21st century and enjoying all kinds of music.

 

Scamming the Scammers

I’ve been following the story of what appears to be a ticket scam by an Iowa woman. One victim complained he took out a loan on his house, hoping to sell the tickets at a profit, repay the loan, and give the overage to charity. The charitable plan may well have been the intent. On the other hand, maybe payday loan operators are doing a service to the community.

My wife has fielded several calls from these folks looking for a D______ S_________. They don’t seem to take to the suggestion that no such person has had my wife’s phone number since 2006. They keep calling. I called one of them back today after they hung up on my wife. They hung up on me, too, but not before I grilled them for three minutes on the nature of their business, their location, the number of people who worked for them, and the like.

It’s interesting to get a phone employee off script. They often get flustered. They asked me for my wife’s name. Not giving that, I said. I did permit them to check the phone number they just called. They pleaded it was not in their database. That was a quick deletion, I thought. My representative declined to connect me with his supervisor, even after I tried to assure him I was not looking to get the poor schmuck in trouble. So then he hung up. I guess three minutes and ten seconds of not collecting a debt wasn’t very profitable.

I suspect that Mr S_________ scammed at least three or four payday loan outfits, using a random phone number that happened to be my wife’s. I told my spouse that if I’m around the next time she gets a call, turn the phone over to me. I can keep someone talking, and I’ll consider it my civic duty. I figure if I’m on the phone, that’s one more employee who isn’t going to get scammed by an unscrupulous borrower. And one more employee who isn’t going to scam a person who really needs coaching in personal finances. And in all things, I will be entertaining to those witnessing this duty. And besides, I need to break my personal record of 3:10.

 

Don’t Phone, Please

I don’t think telemarketers quite get it. My daughter has been getting bugged by calls from an 800-number. She asked me today if I could get them to stop. For me, that’s an easy solution. And for many, maybe most adults, it’s quite simple. Answer the phone and request that the calls cease.

My daughter and I (who still have our 816 area code, by the way) were getting tons of robocalls from Republicans in December. There’s no real way to stop them. They don’t identify*. The only solace is that by election night you know they’ll be moving on to another state–hopefully not Missouri.

So yes, the operator to whom I spoke earlier today was truth-talking (I’m sure) when she said, “All your daughter had to do was to answer the phone two months ago and tell us it was the wrong number.” But there are other truths here. Some teens are still children in some aspects. Some young people don’t like talking to adults. Some adults don’t like to talk to teens, nor do they listen to them. Sometimes when you’re calling a number for two months and you don’t get any results, you chalk it up to the other person–whoever they are–not wanting to talk to you for any reason. And during an election year, sometimes even adults don’t want to be bothered talking to strangers. Sometimes you don’t need to talk to get the message.

Meanwhile, I will encourage my daughter to stand up for herself and, when appropriate, tell strangers who call her to stop the attempts and remove her number from their lists. For her part, the young miss will probably remind me that teenagers usually roll their eyes, grunt, and/or mumble, and that usually is enough to scare away the adults.

* Personally, I would prefer to see no anonymous calls at all anywhere. I think if every caller had to identify herself or himself, and communicate that in some way, we would have a greater level of honesty and truthfulness in telephony.

 

Waiting is Difficult

Home from the hospital about an hour ago. Snack for the young miss. Walk for the dog. Petting for the cats. Everybody needed reassurance, but the patient headed straight for bed.

While at the hospital I read a whole book, did thirty-some puzzles in a puzzle book, ate a mindless lunch, and when I tried to pray, I dozed off until my wife returned from post-op. I really dislike waiting. I need something to do. When the young miss got her heart patched several years back, I drove my wife crazy in the waiting area. And that was up through the femoral vein, not even under the knife. I can’t imagine being there for the youmg miss’s three open-hearts. They would have to sedate me, and ship me somewhere round-trip.

I’ll get to the daily post on the GIRM in a few hours. I need to hit the pharmacy for some hydrocodone-acetaminophen (aka Vicodin), and maybe the grocery for a bit of comfort food. The latter may be as much for me as for the patient. Posting may be light for a few days. Friday I’ll begin a daily series of a novena for St Thomas Aquinas, my parish’s patron saint. If any parishioners are tuning in, you can begin this prayer on Saturday, as we observe the feast on the nearer Sunday, the 29th. I haven’t heard if Neil is doing his annual reflection on Christian unity. I hope so.

We’ll be getting busy on this site the next two weeks or so. So come back often.

 

Children Born in Bereavement

As many of you know, we’ve had some health uncertainties with my wife the past month. Surgery is scheduled for a non-cancerous tumor next Wednesday. A friend stopped by my office to pray with me tonight, and he suggested Isaiah 49. The servant song I’m familiar with. Likewise the “can a woman forget her child” passage at verse 15. But this bit I’d never noticed before stood right out for me:

The children born in the time of your bereavement
will yet say in your hearing:
“The place is too crowded for me;
make room for me to settle.”
Then you will say in your heart,
“Who has borne me these?
I was bereaved and barren,
exiled and put away
— so who has reared these?
I was left all alone
— where then have these come from?” (Isaiah 49:20-21)

In these difficult times, formative things do happen. I think less of actual children (my own is happily healthy) and more the other fruits of life: my marriage, ministry in the parish, writing, and music-making. Will I look back on these days of difficulty and see the thread of God in my life? Will I look back on the crappy holiday season of 2011-12 and wonder, “Where has all this grace come from?” Will God’s graces be too numerous, too much to attribute to my own hand, my own workings? Isn’t that the point? God works in all of this, especially in bereavement and barren places.

 

Perspective

No, not Crystal’s blog, which you should certainly visit. The Little Planet Projection makes an appearance in today’s Astronomy Picture of the Day.

We’ll always have Paris, yes?

A hundred here.

The young miss has not had an easy time of it in her elective this semester, photography. She had signed on for a second term stint in 2-D Art, which I understand is some kind of computer graphics course. For some reason, despite other students lifting her supplies, loaning out a camera to a friend, having someone open the door while she was in the dark room, and not getting along with the teacher, she’s pondering a switch to Photography II. I like my daughter’s perspective. If at first you don’t succeed, continue harping away until you get satisfaction. Don’t we live on a little planet, we two.

 

Whew!

A mostly good report from the pathologist today. Either my wife has a large but typical benign cyst or a very unusual non-cancerous tumor. “Uncommon” is the worst it could be. Minor surgery looks like it’s on the horizon, but there should be no problem with it.

During a pause in today’s consultation, I whispered, “You’re uncommon, sweetie.”

I got shushed.

For those who knew, your prayers were much appreciated. I was under orders not to make this news wide and public knowledge. I told God earlier today that I wasn’t up for a bad diagnosis. I’m the parent of a teenager–I’m not prepared for medical drama on top of that. There’s only so much a guy can take. I didn’t want to insist on a recall.

About 3pm this afternoon, I felt I could breathe. For about the first time in two weeks.

 

Home With The Winds

Our weekend getaway to Kansas City is complete. A rush of nitrogen and oxygen buffeted our mid-size car on I-35 on the way north this afternoon. Otherwise, it was a good beginning to a year which, hopefully, will be an improvement on what was a mostly crummy 2011.

Years, I think, are successful or crummy to the extent we are able to engage their obstacles and emerge unscathed, if not smiling. I count up a good pile of obstacles: financial slippage on the rental house in Kansas City and my wife’s continuing worries about “losing everything,” a brother sent off to eternal life (my young nephew in contrast, lost a dad, a grandpa, a great-grandfather in 2011), a mostly ridiculous MR3 translation. On that last point, I noticed my old KC parish had a significant number of worshipers using the old words. Who knows why: ticked off at the bishop; upset about prioritizing deck chairs above the safety of children? Anybody’s guess.

Speaking of my old parish, my friends reported on an Advent penance service there designed to help people work past anger at Bishop Finn and mismanagement of predators and child safety. I have to say I’m less angry and more worried. My wife reported our daughter sang at Mass for the first time in months and even recited the new Creed.

Saint Paul advises that a bishop be blameless. This is certainly not the case in my old diocese. I’m sure that parishes are paying dearly for this. Not to mention the hemorrhaging of the Body. I’ve been debating internally about writing my last bishop. Not to ask him to resign. From a ministry viewpoint, I think he probably needs to go to a monastery somewhere. But he might need to hear from a worried parent concerned that he and his priest have damaged the faith of a young person who, to the best of my knowledge, only got as close to a predator as the harming of her peers.

Ah well. Bishop Finn is at war. I don’t think he realizes which one. Happy New Year all. We’re going to  need one.