Boredom

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I’ve started reading Peter Kreeft’s The Angels and the Ants again (didn’t finish it the first time). I’m not Catholic (Kreeft is), but I like the way this guy thinks; this is the most useful book about combining sanctity with daily living that I have ever found. One chapter is entitled, How to Become a Saint While Changing Diapers. I’ll probably share some excerpts from that one later.
I started typing this excerpt to respond to another blog, and decided to include it here (in a more complete/expanded form), since I was writing it up already.

~~~

From the chapter entitled:

Boredom.

Every serious social problem that is tearing our society, our families, and our lives apart today– drugs, promiscuity, violence, infidelity, divorce– can be explained by this motive…

Here is an amazing fact: “The word boredom did not enter the language until the eighteenth century. No one knows its etymology,” according to the acclaimed novelist Walker Percy in Lost in the Cosmos.

Almost the same thing can be said of atheism: it hardly existed at all before the eighteenth century.

The relation between the two is evident: Only God and the attributes of God– Love, wisdom, beauty, joy holiness– are infinite and inexhaustible; therefore, without God everything is eventually boring.

Weren’t people bored before the eighteenth century? They got tired of cutting wood for ten hours, but they didn’t get tired of everything. That’s what boredom means.

The only possible explanation for this modern madness is this: It is not the world that is boring, but the self. Since it simply isn’t true that everything real, everything in objective reality, is boring, therefore the source of boredom must be within. The bored self projecting it’s own inner emptiness onto reality…. It reduces the big world to a small world by projecting its own littleness onto its world…

Heaven is not boring. In fact, only heaven (and heaven’s colonies on earth) is not boring…

The alternative to boredom, the cure for boredom and the cure for all the ills of the modern world that are rooted in boredom– is sanctity.

Sanctity– a relationship with God– is essentially letting God be present, letting heaven rule its colonies, establishing the kingdom of heaven on earth, in human hearts and human lives. Sanctity is essentially “the practice of the presence of God,” as Br. Lawrence put it in the title of his little classic.

Saints “do all for the glory of God” (1 Cor 10:31). Sanctity is not only willing to do God’s will, it is also thinking God’s thoughts. We are to love God with our whole mind as well as our whole heart (Mt 22:37). Sanctity means seeing everything has a purpose– in fact, that everything has the same purpose, that “all things work together for good” (Rom 8:28); and that that purpose is the most joy-filled, glory-weighted purpose any heart has ever imagined: receiving and giving back infinite, absolute, unconditional divine love forever.

~end of excerpt~

This is definitely a challenge to examine ourselves before we complain of our environment.

The Olive Branch

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I gave my current rough-draft to my brother to read.

I was very reluctant to let it leave town (i.e. have it available to others to see) but I didn’t think of it before today and he leaves first thing in the morning.

He’s been telling me to write a book (I don’t think he cares what kind, he just feels I’m capable, so he keeps trying to push me toward that), so I wanted him to read what I have so far. He’s not a big reader, so handing him 10 double-sided pages was somewhat intimidating, but I think he sees it as the effort for peace I mean it to be. Something special between him and me.

Only my husband has read it so far.

Benj made some joke during good byes that I’d better keep plugging at it (the book) and charged Jay with encouraging/pushing me back-to/forward in this project. Jay’s smiling affirmation that he intends to was more encouraging than I could say.

Just this morning (while I was spell-checking the document– the only editing I allowed myself to do today), I bemoaned the fact that I haven’t done anything new in weeks, and hadn’t read any of the highly anticipated/recommended books I ordered right before all my work halted. Jay said he expected I’d get back to it once things settled down, and pointed out there’s no real way I could have been working on things, even if my mind was there…

I really needed to hear that from him.

Poems and Grandma

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She died yesterday.

It is interesting to me that I found her poem right before my brother called to say the end was really near, and he was coming to bring me back to the hospital (playing musical cars has been one of the challenges of this time).

Here’s what we’re printing in the program, as a description of her. You must read by the punctuation, not the line breaks, to sound the best.

One Year to Live
Mary Davis Reed

If I had but one year to live;
One year to help; one year to give;
One year to love; one year to bless;
One year of better things to stress;
One year to sing; one year to smile;
To brighten earth a little while;
I think that I would live each day
In just the very self-same way
That I do now. For from afar
The call may come to cross the bar
At any time, and I must be
Prepared to meet eternity.
So if I have a year to live,
Or just one day in which to give
A pleasant smile, a helping hand,
A mind that tries to understand
A fellow-creature when in need,
‘Tis one with me, –I take no heed;
But try to live each day He sends
To serve my gracious Master’s ends. Continue reading »

Other People’s Words

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I subscribe (is that the right word?) to the theory that we never totally forget anything; that we only require the appropriate “trigger” to bring it back.

This is how I explain my tendency to speak in other people’s words.

What I’m thinking will frequently be encapsulated in a line from some show/movie/book, and I find myself thankful for a simple, apt way to convey what I’m feeling.

I suppose it’s only natural to find more pithy expression in lines that were (one may assume) designed to be effective.
Today’s examples:

“Good feeling’s gone.” Marlin (Nemo’s dad in Finding Nemo when he comes face to face with an angler fish)

An exchange on House M.D.:

“Think about him, he’s the one dying.”

“It’s easier to die than to watch someone die.”

We don’t know that Grandma is dying particularly faster than the rest of us, but it is becoming more obvious she’s not getting better like she should. And that is very had to watch. That “good feeling,” the sense of security I had about the operation, that’s been used up.

Telling details have always intrigued me in writing/reading, and now I have small painful examples in my own world.

  • Inability to make understand and decisions (“I don’t know,” is the most frequent thing she says).
  • numbers and colors being confused (she couldn’t line up the tiles in Rummikub tonight).
  • The bread at the hospital is always bad.
  • She cares enough not to eat it, but not enough to ask for something better.

We’re praying. Many people are.

~~~

The question that comes back to me–it first entered my “trembling mind” the day of her operation– is, “How do you prepare to lose someone?”

The phrase “practice dying” is in my head from somewhere. And the two are tied together in my mind. Here are two things you can’t possibly “practice.”

There is the exception of Mary/Martha/Lazarus, I suppose… I really wonder if they handled it better the second time around…

Malaprops

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From Dictionary.com

[After Mrs. Malaprop, a character in The Rivals, a play by Richard Brinsley Sheridan, from malapropos.]

Word History: “She’s as headstrong as an allegory on the banks of the Nile” and “He is the very pineapple of politeness” are two of the absurd pronouncements from Mrs. Malaprop that explain why her name became synonymous with ludicrous misuse of language. A character in Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s play The Rivals (1775), Mrs. Malaprop consistently uses language malapropos, that is, inappropriately. The word malapropos comes from the French phrase mal à propos, made up of mal, “badly,” à, “to,” and propos, “purpose, subject,” and means “inappropriate.” The Rivals was a popular play, and Mrs. Malaprop became enshrined in a common noun, first in the form malaprop and later in malapropism, which is first recorded in 1849. Perhaps that is what Mrs. Malaprop feared when she said, “If I reprehend any thing in this world, it is the use of my oracular tongue, and a nice derangement of epitaphs!”

~~~

I was thinking of two of my favorites (one from Grandma this weekend) and looked up the word to see where it was from. I thought the results were interesting enough to share (emphases mine).

And now the two stories:

Last Saturday (when I was hanging out with Gma at the hospital) the nurse was giving her a “chin-up” talk, trying to encourage her, and ended with, “Best to just get it started so we can get it over with.” Grandma nodded and said,

“My sediments exactly.” I couldn’t help laughing (you’ve noticed, I’m sure, things are funniest during stressful times), and leaned down by her ear.

“Sediments?” I asked. Grandma laughed and laughed.

~~~

Some time ago now (Melody’s first summer) I came back from the Saturday service at Door of Hope, and after putting the kids to bed decided I wanted some ice cream (this is a very common occurrence).

I asked Jay if he wanted any, and he admirably declined (we’d each had a tiny serving before I ran off to the service). When I returned with a more realistic portion, I expressed my admiration of his strong will, and he admitted that he’d had all he wanted while I was gone.

“I’m sedated,” he said, smiling and rubbing his belly.

So appropriate. But not intentional. We finally decided he meant satiated.

I am Such a *Writer*

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(Also posted at Family News)

Do you ever find (if you’re not a swear-er, especially) that certain words escape as if you were swearing?

My 87-year-old grandmother (I guess you could say we’re close) has been in the hospital via the emergency room since late Friday night. I spent most of Saturday at her bedside, keeping her company while folks tried to figure out how to “fix” her (she’d been ailing since Sunday, and it finally came to a head).

The whole time I was juggling my Mama (10-week-old Elisha was with me) and Granddaughter hats, my mind, against all my attempts to ration my frazzled resources, continued to frame how best to put the experience into words.

Made me positively angry.

from Moon Tiger

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I haven’t read the book, but I loved this excerpt when I came across it:

“I can remember the lush spring excitement of language in childhood. Sitting in church, rolling it around in my mouth like marbles– tabernacle and Pharisee and parable, trespasses and Babylon and covenant.”

— Penelope Lively

Al-i-guy-all

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I was reading Dr Seuss’s ABC book to Melody this morning and on the A spread (which the text proclaims as “Aunt Annie’s Alligator”) Melody pointed to the critter and shouted, “Ridin’ an Alligile!” (Pronunciation above).

I loved it. She seemed to decide half-way through the word it was a crocodile instead of an alligator.

~~~

Everyone was playing together so nicely this morning. At one point the girls started tossing the cat’s dingle-ball back and forth (a situation with great potential to begin with).

After Natasha threw the ball over Melody’s head, and was waiting for her to fetch it and return the favor, she turned to me and giggled. “We’re playing throw!” she said. The ball went whizzing past her and she went after it, still laughing.

This is a very appropriate name. For obvious reasons you can’t call it catch yet.

Even on Television

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I like just to enjoy a good story wherever I find it. Even on Television. (If you came from my original blog you already know I like House M.D.)

I find it fascinating the… essentially, snobbery that comes through when some people announce they never watch T.V. (Perhaps I read too much into the statement, thinking of my sometimes-attitude when I would announce that).

Not that I think they should watch television; it’s only that avoiding is not in itself virtue. I lump these people in with the group that wants you to know they don’t eat fat, or don’t eat meat. Both of these practices are fine, appropriate (and, theoretically, even enjoyable) for some people. The problem grows when those practicing this level of discipline want to be affirmed in their decisions and acknowledged for their superiority.

The funny thing is, they frequently are, even though in any other context I imagine everyone would find this attitude insulting. Think of these comments:

“You don’t have a T.V.? That’s so great. We tried getting rid of ours once…”

“No fat [meat] at all?! You are amazing! How do you do it?”

Both express the speaker’s admiration and also a sense of inferiority.

The same words can, of course, be just plain conversation too, but even if the speaker isn’t lowering him or herself when speaking, s/he is elevating the listener.

I suppose this doesn’t have to be a bad thing, but I do wonder sometimes.