Leila Marie Lawler's Blog, page 51

{bits & pieces} and bread

The weekly “little of this, little of that” feature here at Like Mother, Like Daughter!

Around this time of year, three years ago, I shared with you about how my bread baking had been progressing.

At this point, baking my basic loaves is so second nature to me that I don’t think about it much from week to week. I bake either three or four loaves at a time and those are our breakfast toast, our sandwich slices, and our dinner bread-and-butter bread. It’s just a basic part of life (as bread has always been for most people)!

Flour, water, yeast, salt, olive oil. So simple, and yet some days are better than others.

Here’s a recent batch:

The loaf on the left had one more kneading than the loaf on the right. (Here’s how to braid your bread efficiently.)

Much nicer than that original batch in the link above, right?

 

This week’s links!

On frankness, open conversations, and standing up for the truth in all circumstances:

This piece about Small Acts of Cowardice is indicting. I bet that most of us can think of a situation in which it seemed easier to just let the thing slide than to raise a fuss at the particular moment… “maybe next time I’ll say something…”


Here’s an awesome story of a strong woman who can perhaps be a patron for us to our efforts to stand up against people who want to control our thoughts or force falsehoods upon us: The Tough Nun Nurse who Stood Up to the Nazis


How we phrase our thoughts matters, too: truth is not just a matter of “feelings!” Stop Saying “I Feel Like.”


This is from a business context, but I think the principles could be helpful in a marriage and/or family context: Create a Culture where Difficult Conversations Aren’t So Hard. Relatedly, the advice that The Artist and I received at our marriage-prep conference was that positive-to-negative feedback ratio should be 20:1!


And let’s not forget that yes, there can be an organized regime for undermining all culture, orchestrated indeed by someone with an evil agenda! Creative Destruction – this is why what we say on a daily basis matters.

 

Miscellaneous:

Are you a mollusk enthusiast? Or just wondering about the holes in stones on the beach? Piddocks – anything but boring.


If you’re in the mood for an exciting, detailed birth story, I think you’ll enjoy The Birth of Maeve Cecelia from my friend Nicole.

This coming Thursday, if you are able, join the Congregation of St. Gregory the Great for Solemn High Mass in the Ordinariate Use!

 

In the Liturgical Year:

Today is the feast of St. Eugene de Mazenod

 

From the Archives:

Quilting, thinking about the Liturgical Year


Making a Shawl, Thinking about Things


Ask Auntie Leila: A Little Misunderstood

The post {bits & pieces} and bread appeared first on Like Mother Like Daughter.

{b&p} and bread

The weekly “little of this, little of that” feature here at Like Mother, Like Daughter!

Around this time of year, three years ago, I shared with you about how my bread baking had been progressing.

At this point, baking my basic loaves is so second nature to me that I don’t think about it much from week to week. I bake either three or four loaves at a time and those are our breakfast toast, our sandwich slices, and our dinner bread-and-butter bread. It’s just a basic part of life (as bread has always been for most people)!

Flour, water, yeast, salt, olive oil. So simple, and yet some days are better than others.

Here’s a recent batch:

The loaf on the left had one more kneading than the loaf on the right. (Here’s how to braid your bread efficiently.)

Much nicer than that original batch in the link above, right?

 

This week’s links!

On frankness, open conversations, and standing up for the truth in all circumstances:

This piece about Small Acts of Cowardice is indicting. I bet that most of us can think of a situation in which it seemed easier to just let the thing slide than to raise a fuss at the particular moment… “maybe next time I’ll say something…”


Here’s an awesome story of a strong woman who can perhaps be a patron for us to our efforts to stand up against people who want to control our thoughts or force falsehoods upon us: The Tough Nun Nurse who Stood Up to the Nazis


How we phrase our thoughts matters, too: truth is not just a matter of “feelings!” Stop Saying “I Feel Like.”


This is from a business context, but I think the principles could be helpful in a marriage and/or family context: Create a Culture where Difficult Conversations Aren’t So Hard. Relatedly, the advice that The Artist and I received at our marriage-prep conference was that positive-to-negative feedback ratio should be 20:1!


And let’s not forget that yes, there can be an organized regime for undermining all culture, orchestrated indeed by someone with an evil agenda! Creative Destruction – this is why what we say on a daily basis matters.

 

Miscellaneous:

Are you a mollusk enthusiast? Or just wondering about the holes in stones on the beach? Piddocks – anything but boring.


If you’re in the mood for an exciting, detailed birth story, I think you’ll enjoy The Birth of Maeve Cecelia from my friend Nicole.

This coming Thursday, if you are able, join the Congregation of St. Gregory the Great for Solemn High Mass in the Ordinariate Use!

 

In the Liturgical Year:

Today is the feast of St. Eugene de Mazenod

 

From the Archives:

Quilting, thinking about the Liturgical Year


Making a Shawl, Thinking about Things


Ask Auntie Leila: A Little Misunderstood

The post {b&p} and bread appeared first on Like Mother Like Daughter.

{pretty, happy, funny, real}

What is this {pretty, happy, funny, real} you speak of?

~ {pretty, happy, funny, real} ~

Capturing the context of contentment in everyday life ~

Every Thursday, here at Like Mother, Like Daughter!

Come over to Instagram to see some pictures of our Europe trip. I don’t want to be that tedious person who shows you all their slides (I remember this well from the days when it took a lot to get overseas and was a really big deal to get the photos printed and mounted in the slide carousel, sometimes turning out to be the wrong direction, necessitating a complete reversal of the order, or else recounting the trip backwards… but that’s another story).

On the other hand, I have lots of photos!

I’ll just show you a couple, randomly pulled out:

This is the ceiling of the church at Castel Gandolfo, dedicated to St. Thomas of Villanova. Very light and pretty.

Here we are on the Pont Neuf, over the River Seine in Paris. People put their little padlocks all over the fencing there.

And here is Bridget at the Tower of London, with the Tower Bridge in the background (I have a hard time typing “bridge” and not making it “bridget”!)

But now we are back to the {real} of our lives. I need to recover these cushions on this settee. I had gotten this furniture on Craigslist back in the day, and couldn’t handle recovering it at the same time that I did the free set a friend gave me (that jungle print just had to go!).

So I finally found more of the fabric and will do these cushions. It’s not as cheap as the first time I found it, but it’s still cheap.

And there’s planting to be done:

The lettuce has come up…

My pear trees look pretty good:

Well, this one is still un-pruned, but ah well:

Garlic:

Beds yet to be overhauled:

[image error] Loading InLinkz ...

The post {pretty, happy, funny, real} appeared first on Like Mother Like Daughter.

Chatty and informative as to the goings on.

Here it is in the middle of May, which I know only because it’s my birthday! Otherwise, I’d be pretty sure it’s the end of April and I have plenty of time to accomplish the many, many projects I have going on.

One reason that May got away is that we took our European vacation — the weekend after I had a speaking engagement in Seattle. This is not really me, to go bombing about in that relentless fashion… but there you have it.

I had a couple of posts ready for you while I was gone, so I don’t know if you noticed. I tried to fool the internet bad guys and leave Habou with a sense of peace, and it seems to have worked, as the house and her well being are intact.

Here we are at St. Peter’s, the very day of our arrival. The whole time we just dashed about, usually on foot, making the most of every day. I won’t go on and on about it here, I think, but if you want to get a few more postings in the next couple of days, I’ll be recapping on Instagram, so follow me there.

We went so many places at such a pace that we basically did the main tourist things, because those are indeed important.

Thanks to Nick and Natasha, we were gloriously accommodated everywhere we went. I recommend having kids with generous hearts and good taste and lots of hotel points. We also had the grace of occasionally being rescued from the mad walking enjoying the hospitality of friends, who provided a respite that cannot be too highly regarded and extolled. For us, the highlights were the meetings with these friends and the meetings with our friends the saints in the various and plentiful shrines we visited. Truly, the communion of saints, both living and dead, is the joy of life! The whole time, whenever I stepped into a church and went to a crypt or chapel of a particular saint, I was overwhelmed with a sense of loving presence and friendship.

I want you to know that I prayed for your intentions everywhere — especially at St. Peter’s tomb and at that of St. Francis.

One day we left Rome for the little train stop of Santa Maria delle Mole to visit the University of Dallas campus nearby where faculty friends, the Glicksmans, gave us a lovely and traditional Umbrian Sunday repast.

We met with students who were taking a dessert break before their final push to their last exam. Then we had a little jaunt to Castel Gandolfo which is nearby. The weather turned brisk, so we wrapped up, but the view is amazing, is it not? We also met the family, the Assafs, who run the Thomas More College campus in Rome, who joined us there. (If you have the chance to send your kids to one of these schools, their Rome semester/year will be a truly amazing experience, I can assure you!) By this time, Bridget had already left for England, so we did not see her until later in the trip.

And so it went on in that delightful fashion…

(It wasn’t all walking, either… later, friends treated us to punting on the River Cam, which if that isn’t a dream come true, I don’t know what is.)

 

Now that we’re home, I’m hoping to tackle some good posts for you. You will be happy to know that the hive split has taken nicely and that the bathrooms are ready to be painted. I will keep you apprised. Bridget will be home tomorrow, yay!

The garden is calling me! Not to mention sewing… and quilting… and knitting…

What are you up to? Let’s chat!

 

The post Chatty and informative as to the goings on. appeared first on Like Mother Like Daughter.

A green Saroyan shawl with your {b&p}

The weekly “little of this, little of that” feature at Like Mother, Like Daughter!

 

What do you think?

I’m making shawls like summer’s never coming. Inspired by pretty yarn and a new phase of life where I am not exactly sure if I’m warm or cold or what (to put it delicately), I’m on a shawl-making binge. This one was the subconscious linking of leafy green with leaf pattern, and I think it turned out well if I do say so!

If you look this pattern up on Ravelry, you will find notes in projects about how to make the ends pointy rather than squared off. That is what I did, not without the usual lost-in-a-dark-wood-wandering phase of not having a clue how to make it happen. Just stick with it.

I will load my own notes soon. Meanwhile, here is the pattern: Saroyan shawl.

On to our links!

An interview with Deirdre’s hubby The Artist’s friend Matthew Meehan about Shakespeare:

What Shakespeare Teaches About Statesmen and the Way They Lead

 

Another Artist’s friend: Deacon Andrew Linn, who’ll be ordained this month:

Priesthood was always on Deacon Linn’s mind

Mother’s Day has come and gone. What is the real meaning of mothers for the world today? And very much to the point, is it possible that women have a vital vocation that is hidden in plain sight — one that goes right to the heart of man’s mission in the world, to be instruments in bringing God’s truth to the ends of the earth? My friend Stella Morabito has an insightful post about this topic:

A Little Mother Prevents Big Brother

An excerpt:

All social engineering programs—from mandatory pre-kindergarten to gestational surrogacy to enforcement of the transgender ideology—have the effect of attacking a child’s sense of self and severing the organic mother-child bond.

This is best undertaken when mothers are separated from their children, and the earlier the better.

In all of these programs, especially when forced on children in the schools, the child ends up displaced, deprived, and de-sexed. All are destabilizing influences that an attentive mother’s unmolested presence would neutralize. But devoted mothers are an obstinate breed. As C.S. Lewis wrote in his prescient 1947 essay “The Abolition of Man:” “We may well thank the beneficent obstinacy of real mothers, real nurses, and (above all) real children for preserving the human race.

I often reference Little House books and WWMD (What Would Ma Do) here on the blog. (Read these books out loud again and again to your children, if only so that you have ample time to reflect on the wisdom for your parenting life that they contain!) Here’s a great post on respecting your child’s mistakes. Key thoughts: Don’t expect instant results and/or feedback. Don’t freak out when your child does something wrong. Stop scolding constantly and… try to have a sense of humor! Honestly, if Pa, the most reserved, dour man in the history of the world practically, could laugh at Laura’s naughtiness, so can you.

Tomorrow is the great feast of Pentecost. May the Holy Spirit fill your heart and all of our hearts, and enkindle in us the fire of His love!

Don’t forget to catch up on your Spirit of the Liturgy reading. Looking forward to more discussion!

A dear reader on our Facebook page recently asked for the post about how to figure out where to move. This was the one: Relocation Priorities and the Desirability Quotient.

~We’d like to be clear that, when we direct you to a site via one of our links, we’re not necessarily endorsing the whole site, but rather just referring you to the individual post in question (unless we state otherwise).~

Follow us on Twitter.
Like us on Facebook.

Auntie Leila’s Pinterest.
Rosie’s Pinterest.
Sukie’s Pinterest.
Deirdre’s Pinterest.
Habou’s Pinterest.
Bridget’s Pinterest.
Habou’s Blog: Corner Art Studio.
Auntie Leila’s Ravelry.
Auntie Leila’s Instagram.
Rosie’s Instagram.
Sukie’s Instagram.
Bridget’s Instagram.

 

The post A green Saroyan shawl with your {b&p} appeared first on Like Mother Like Daughter.

{pretty, happy, funny, real}

What is this {pretty, happy, funny, real} you speak of?

~ {pretty, happy, funny, real} ~

Capturing the context of contentment in everyday life ~

Every Thursday, here at Like Mother, Like Daughter!

 

Do you ever cook with farro? I only discovered it recently, but we are in love. Lately I like to cook a big pot in broth (thereby upping the protein quotient and the tastiness at the same time) at the beginning of the week, then add various veggies and proteins (almost always leftovers) to it to make tasty lunches.

 

 

This one is a leftover pork chop sliced, leftover roasted vegetables, sweet potatoes (I cook them a bunch at a time to have on hand), and green onions. Everything was done beforehand (because lunchtime generally means at least one boy is asleep, perhaps even both, and I’ve got things to do, projects to dive into, books to read, naps to take!), so I just put it all on the plate and tossed a little vinegar and olive oil on. And then took a picture.

 

 

A few weeks ago the sun was shining, the grass was green, and I put my baby on a blanket, gave my toddler a shovel, hung up my laundry, and puttered in my garden.

 

 

(We have a constant struggle over how high things should be hung, since the height range of the adults in the house is a good sixteen inches. When the Quack was hanging my clothesline for me, I asked him to please make sure I’d be able to reach it! I think we can agree that I was worrying for naught.)

 

 

The previous tenants of our rental house had a nice big garden out back. In fact, when I moved in back in October I got a few veggies out of it, even though the house had been vacant for a couple of months! So we just had a little bit of weed-fighting and sprucing up to do. So lucky!

 

 

Since then we’ve had weeks and weeks and probably even MONTHS and AGES of dreary days. Toss in a week-long sickness for Freddie, the kind where he’s contagious so we can’t go out, and he feels poorly enough to be cranky but not enough to stay on the couch, and I am feeling the cabin fever. It’s supposed to be nice here in May!

 

 

So today after naps were over we had a little trip to the hardware store for paint and seeds. I have two dressers, a small bookcase, and a high chair to paint. I’ll show you how we progress on that. The high chair is high priority!

 

As for the seeds…if the sun ever shines again we’ll be ready for it!

 

 

[image error] Loading InLinkz ...

The post {pretty, happy, funny, real} appeared first on Like Mother Like Daughter.

How we split the beehive.

A couple of weeks ago the Chief split the beehive. I’m going to explain to you what that means and why you do it. You have bees, right? You should get some.

Bees are individual little creatures, but their colony can be thought of as an organism unto itself. (I thought this was a super insight by the Chief but the other day I read that Aristotle had made this observation. Sometimes the Chief does this to me — passes off some ancient knowledge as his own, and even after almost 37 years of marriage I’m still all “he’s so smart.” But then, it is smart to read — and remember — Aristotle, and also to keep your girlfriend interested.)

So the bees lay eggs and hatch new bees (their eggs are called brood)… but at a certain point, if the colony gets pretty large, there’s another way they can reproduce: they split the colony, making two colonies from one, and swarming.

They do this by making some of their brood into different kinds of cells called queen cells. They just go on laying their eggs in the ordinary way, but at this point they direct some of them for this other function. This is a mystery.

The queen is quite a bit larger than other bees, and her cell that she starts out in is also quite a bit bigger. So the beekeeper sets himself the task of checking the brood, to see if the laying is going well, but also to see if there are these larger cells developing. Every once in awhile you pull the brood frames out and give them a little look. (This post has lots of pics and also VIDEOS — very short, as I personally get impatient — they are below.)

The one thing you do not want is for your bees to decide they need a new queen and start making their plans to swarm away!

On the other hand, if they are getting so big for the hive that they want to do this, and if you manage it, you essentially have free bees! You can take that developing new queen and some of the bees and set them up in a new hive — getting yourself two hives for the price of one, which is a pretty sweet deal, let me tell you! (The colony is the bees relating to the queen. The hive is the place they live.)

If the bees have made it through the winter (always a source of anxiety when you live where we do), when things start warming up and the plants start to produce pollen, you can be pretty sure the bees will start to think about swarming. You really have to catch them before this happens, because unless you are lucky and they swarm to a nearby low-hanging branch or something, they just… leave.

We do have one beekeeping acquaintance whose bees do just that — they go to a nearby little fruit tree and all he does is shake them into a box and put them in a new hive. Bees often swarm to the same spot (having left markers behind), so this fellow really has it made — he has his own little colony production service going, and he even made a dedicated box that fits right over the particular branch they swarm to — that’s how often they do it!

But here at the Manse that’s not how it works. They just leave.

We have an empty hive ready to go. This year, we are really trying to keep our bees happy and feeling uncrowded. We normally manage to get 40 pounds of honey in a harvest; our new goal is to see if we can get 100 lbs.

You can see: nothing is going on here in this hive. No bees at all, because the rather weak colony died over the winter, sadly:

 

He’s really well suited up because it turns out that he tests as extremely allergic to honey-bee stings. Yikes. He’s taken the treatments and I hope they have worked, because he’s determined to continue with all the gals.

Me, not so much (and actually, later I ditched the suit altogether because it’s hard to take pictures with a veil on):

 

This is the busy hive… very:

 

He pulls out the frames of the busy hive to look at them. (26 seconds)

Nothing unusual in this one:

 

These do seem to be queen cells — see them there, below, at the top of the frame, the two bigger, lighter blobs than the others?

 

Here’s more on that (9 seconds)

(But, full disclosure — we are not absolutely sure, so this is all experimental here — it’s just that with one thing and another, we had to do the splitting right then. We’ll see if it takes. In any case, this is what you do.)

So this frame goes in the new hive. You are taking out the empty frames in the empty hive, sticking them in the busy one, and putting full frames of brood in the empty one. Swapping, as it were.

 

Here’s a video of that process (1 minute 8 seconds):

 

How do the bees not go nuts and sting everything in sight?

Well, you have your calm demeanor, your preternatural lack of fear, and possibly a good bee suit. You also have your smoker:

 

 

A tip from the bee-whisperer, our former bee inspector Ken, who kept hundreds of hives, drove around Massachusetts tending to people’s bees, and also consults with NASA when they send bees to space (which they do, interestingly enough): keep the smoker as cool as you can — it’s the smoke that slows them down, but the heat riles them up. Put some green grass on top when it’s going nicely.

Now, this new hive will need honey and, obviously, bees. Normally, the bees do tend to the brood they are with.

So you put some honey frames in the new hive and you shake — really bang! — bees on top. Here is a view of that (17 seconds):

Now the brood frames are in the new hive, along with some honey frames and some extra bees. All that remains is to put a spacer box on top for the feeding jar (10 seconds):

The busy hive also got a spacer for a feeding jar.

Here, he is replacing the entrance reducer, which just prevents them from having to guard a large area from robbing bees. If another colony somewhere (and bees go really far to get food) finds that there is a nice store of honey right here, they will rob. Don’t want that!

 

Here Phil is putting on the inner cover and smoking them (15 seconds):

You can see that they have more stories and are looking hopeful.

Now, for extra insurance against the good colony swarming, try checkerboarding. This is when you intersperse the frames with brood with empty frames, so that the queen doesn’t start feeling that her job is done. And then an extra box gets put on top because that way, they all have room to expand without wanting to move out!

A few days ago we checked to see how things were going in the new hive. Signs of life and activity! Let’s hope it takes!

 

 

The post How we split the beehive. appeared first on Like Mother Like Daughter.

Nature or history in worship? Or both? ~ The Spirit of the Liturgy: A Book Club

{Book Club: The Spirit of the Liturgy}

I hope you will read along in this book club (or just read my posts, that’s okay): Joseph Ratzinger’s The Spirit of the Liturgy.
(When you buy something via our Amazon affiliate link, a little cash rolls our way… just a little. Thanks!)
I’ll post on Fridays, although for this longer book, perhaps not every Friday. I’ll give you your homework, I’ll talk about what we read, we’ll discuss in the comments. Even if you read later, the comments will still be open.

Last time: Apostasy or Worship?

Homework: Read Chapter Three of Part I.

Chapter Two, Part I: Liturgy — Cosmos — History

In the previous chapter we read about how God intervened in history to make clear what He wanted worship to be, both exteriorly and interiorly — the rules for worship and also for the interior disposition of those who worship: To go to a certain place but also to be different there by living a certain way.

The interesting question arises of how worship looks elsewhere. It seems that man always has the idea that the gods sustain the world, so he attempts to offer them propitiation for what seems to be their preoccupation with willfully ignoring, taunting, or harming humanity.

But in a funny way, this kind of worship leads to the sense of having power over the gods! Frighteningly, this power further affirms man’s suspicion that he can destroy himself. By the way, I find this a deep insight, kind of tossed off the way Ratzinger does, then coming back to sneak up on you and hit you hard: MAN IS SUFFERING FROM EXISTENTIAL ANXIETY. All because he was anxious to start with and got an anxiety ball rolling.

Anyway.

The Sabbath, God’s first covenant with man, offers freedom. Creation and covenant occur together: if creation as we can see becomes “the space for the covenant, the place where God and man meet one another… then it must be thought of as a space for worship.”

And thus we can see that it’s a mistake to misunderstand freedom and think of the Sabbath as “a pure vision of a liberated society as the goal of human history,” taken apart from creation itself. So very often if we disconnect the vision from the place, we end up with a sort of idealization that is ever receding into the future.

So how to understand this tension, the tension between worship as ideal and existing in the realm of the unseen, as well as the undeniable fact that it is rooted in creation — that creation is not some sort of receptacle to be tossed away, but has meaning in itself for salvation?

Actually, the whole of the rest of the book is going to be an answer to this question. Because it is the question! Somehow, true worship must take into account everything, and reconcile it all.

Step by step, we will get there…

I love the paragraph, beginning on the bottom of page 26, to support this thesis of the unity of cosmos and history in God’s plan. It has to do with the giving of the ceremonial law in Exodus:

Seven times it says, “Moses did as the Lord had commanded him,” words that suggest that the seven-day work on the tabernacle replicates the seven-day work on creation. The account of the construction of the tabernacle ends with a kind of vision of the Sabbath. “So Moses finished the work. Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle.” (Ex 40:33f.) The completion of the tent anticipates the completion of creation. God makes his dwelling in the world. Heaven and earth are united. In this connection we should add that, in the Old Testament, the verb bara has two, and only two, meanings. First, it denotes the process of the world’s creation, the separation of the elements, through which the cosmos emerges out of chaos. Secondly, it denotes the fundamental process of salvation history, that is, the election, and separation of pure from impure, and therefore the inauguration of the history of God’s dealings with men. Thus begins the spiritual creation, the creation of the covenant, without which the created cosmos would be an empty shell. Creation and history, creation, history, and worship are in a relationship of reciprocity. Creation looks toward the covenant, but the covenant completes creation and does not simply exist along with it. Now if worship, rightly understood, is the soul of the covenant, then it not only saves mankind but is also meant to draw the whole of reality into communion with God.” [my emphasis]

The next couple of pages, 28-30, are very interesting for trying to express cosmos and history in terms of some sort of diagram. Is time an arrow, as Teilhard de Chardin would have us think? Is Jesus an “energy”? Is the future some sort of synthesis? (Spoiler: T. de C. is always going to make us feel pretty good while we read him, but is, as Jeeves would say, “fundamentally unsound, sir.”)

Rather than the arrow, Ratzinger reminds us of the cross… and then the circle. Neither the arrow nor the circle quite capture the Christian idea of how to think about reality, although each contains some element at least of experience; but it should come as no surprise that the cross is a better image!

If you are wondering about exitus and reditus (going and coming or returning), obviously Ratzinger has a lot to say about this motion — leaving and entering, falling and redemption. We are not going to get sidetracked into that, but we are just going to realize that everything — creation, history (especially as depicted in the Bible), and each person’s experience — is just this: coming from God, and going to Him. Our end is with Him. Also: He comes to us, in order to make this “return/reditus” possible.

Knowing this means that we can also know that sacrifice — that one factor common to all religions — does not mean destruction. A bit later in the chapter, Ratzinger tells us that the cross of Christ demonstrates that in dying, He makes us a gift of Himself, which of course “has nothing to do with destruction.”

Back to the diagram. Two things I want to throw out there for your delectation, figure-of-the-cross-wise, related to exitus/reditus and the cosmos:

First, when viewed from earth, even though we speak of the stars as circling in the sky, we observe a “cross-shaped movement” in the planets’ occasional retrograde motion.

Second, that cross made by the stars (planets) reminded me of a time that Suki and I heard a Bach scholar performing and speaking about the Prelude and Fugue in C-sharp minor (BWV 849). I don’t have the time or space to delve in the significance of this work, but will merely point out that it too contains a “cross” motif (which also happens to be the “Bach motif” — the melody formed by the letters of his name) — undoubtedly meant to represent and actually present to the listener the image (or sound!) of Christ’s cross. You can read a little about the cross motif here, and give a listen. There’s another discussion (relating to a different Bach piece) here (scroll down).

My only point here being that actual things in the universe — natural things like the planets and artistic things like music —  almost fling the cross at us, just when we think we’ve figured out the pattern.

I also want to plug my very own image or motif for how to represent the reality of worship, avoiding the closed-in-ness of the circle or the unreality of the arrow, and that is the spiral. In our book, The Little Oratory, David Clayton and I discuss how fitting the spiral is to imagine the Liturgical Year (which, as Pius XII says, is the way for us to encounter Jesus Christ). Each turn of the spiral returns to something that has gone before, but the whole is ascending to the heights of Heaven and our ultimate home.

But the spiral is only a good image if it’s grounded in the reality of the turning of the year, the cosmos, and the knowing of the past, history. Otherwise, it becomes an ascent that the “knowers” embrace, leaving the “simple ones” behind, and this is Gnosticism.

“In early Christianity, the clash with Gnosticism was the decisive struggle with its own identity.” This is an easy line to miss (because it’s near the bottom of p. 31), but it’s an important one. Gnosticism is the error that’s the easiest to fall into, the one that seems “most identifiable” with the Christian message. But you’ll know it by how it hates, precisely, matter and creation.

But here comes the Good Shepherd, to rescue the sheep from the thicket. Again, just as we get worked up trying to figure religion out and make it all work as it ought, Ratzinger cuts through with not only an image from the Bible, but the one image most appealing to the childlike in us (as opposed to that sophisticated philosopher strenuously attempting to get up to the heights on his own, that Gnostic!). “The shepherd who rescues him and takes him home is the Logos himself, the eternal Word, the eternal Meaning of the universe dwelling in the Son… Man is given a homecoming.”

“The circles of the cosmos and of history are now distinguished” in the Paschal participation. “The gift of freedom is the center of created as well as of divine being, and so the historical element has its own irrevocable meaning, but it is not for that reason separated from the cosmic element.” Christianity is new, but it “does not spurn” the old.

Thus it restores creation to its true identity.

Do share with us what you think of this chapter! I look forward to your comments!

Click here to see our previous discussion of Romano Guardini’s The Spirit of the Liturgy, which you can read free, online. You can also purchase it here, although be warned, this edition does not have the footnotes, which stinks.

The post Nature or history in worship? Or both? ~ The Spirit of the Liturgy: A Book Club appeared first on Like Mother Like Daughter.

{pretty, happy, funny, real} ~ that time we went camping but not in a tornado.

What is this {pretty, happy, funny, real} you speak of?

~ {pretty, happy, funny, real} ~

Capturing the context of contentment in everyday life ~

Every Thursday, here at Like Mother, Like Daughter!

Over the weekend, we went on a little adventure to the Chickasaw National Recreation Area, a few hours from here in south-central Oklahoma. We’d never been there before, and didn’t know much about it — we basically just tried to find the prettiest-looking place to spend a few nights camping that wouldn’t require us to drive too far. We rented a camper trailer from the adventure center on base, which was a fun way to try it out (we periodically throw around the idea of getting one of our own and fixing it up) and to get to do the camping thing without having to actually do the sleeping on the ground thing.

The plan was to leave on Friday, but there were severe storms rolling through that afternoon, and it doesn’t take much of a tornado threat to convince me to stay in my house instead of getting into a travel trailer and driving out of cell phone range.

So it ended up just being one night — a shorter trip than we’d planned, but still a lot of fun.

The weather was perfect, and the park we stayed in was just beautiful. I would’ve liked to have more time to explore, but even the little we saw was amazing. (This is sounding like a sponsored post. It’s not.)

The rivers and streams were so clear — I don’t know if I’ve ever seen anything like them. After Mass on Sunday we hiked to one of the springs that feeds the streams. (And by “hiked,” I mean walked along the wide gravelly path the half-mile or so that it took to get there. It was just our speed.)

It was most satisfyingly spring-like, with the water just pouring right out of the rock. As if, as my husband said, Moses had struck it with his staff.

The camping itself went about as well as we could have hoped — we did get some sleep, and the kids, naturally, had a great time. We were pretty sure they would, no matter what happened. There aren’t many camping hiccups that can’t be fixed with a s’more. (The ones I can think of are being eaten by a bear and being blown away in a tornado, both of which we cleverly avoided.)



It also helped everyone’s spirits that our actual campsite,in addition to being clean and quiet, was neatly edged with rocks and covered in gravel. There were cute little lizards living nearby, and I’m not sure what it is about gravel, but all three of our kids love to play in it, and eating gravel is one of Nora’s very favorite things in the world. She picks up a little piece and pops it in her mouth when I’m not looking. She just keeps it in there until I notice, fish it out, and chastise her. Then she toddles off and surreptitiously sneaks another one. To the best of my knowledge, she has never swallowed any (or choked on it, for that matter), but still. Babies just have no standards, do they?

[image error] Loading InLinkz ...

The post {pretty, happy, funny, real} ~ that time we went camping but not in a tornado. appeared first on Like Mother Like Daughter.

Featured St. Greg’s Pocket: Milwaukee!

This is the second of a series of posts in which we’ll feature individual St. Gregory Pockets — your Pockets! We asked for you to send in pictures of your get-togethers, and we’re sharing them, one at a time.

Our next featured Pocket is: Milwaukee, WI!

How sweet and cheerful is this group? If you are in or around Milwaukee, you should totally join this Pocket and become the friends of these friendly ladies!

And if you’re not in Milwaukee and there’s no Pocket near you, remember: you can always start your own!

 

From Milwaukee Pocket member Kaethe:

We moved to Milwaukee a little over a year ago and I was able to connect with a newly formed Pocket group here. So far we have enjoyed a few playdates and family potlucks which were great fun. When my twins were born and immediately began screaming for the first few months, it was my Pocket friend Susanna who came over with her handmade slings and showed me how to properly wear a newborn. The babies were soothed and I was able then to make a batch of muffins with my mom to enjoy with my older girls after school, and I’ve used that skill almost daily after that. The wonder of community!



We also went through a thankfully short season of unemployment for my husband this fall and we were blessed by your post about “Things Worse than Debt”. We looked at each other many times during that season and said “You know what the Bible calls riches? Children!”. God provided a wonderful new job for him and we were provided with peace during the uncertain time. Again, I was thankful to read all of your posts on such topics then and to be reminded of God’s providence.

As our Pocket group celebrated a “Tenth Day of Christmas” Family Potluck this weekend, complete with plum pudding, I wanted to make sure that I thanked you and your family for the difference you have made in this virtual community. God bless you and keep you in this New Year and always,
Sincerely,
Kaethe

We’re so happy that you’re doing this, Kaethe! And all you lovely Milwaukee folks in the Pocket! Thanks for reading LMLD and for sharing your words and photos with us!

~~

We want to see your Pocket next! The happy faces of your local Pocket could be up here!

– Send us your photo! We want to see you, and we think that seeing you will give others encouragement as well! Just send your photo to LMLDblog [at] gmail.com. (Make sure that everyone in the photo is okay with it ending up posted on the interwebs!)

Related posts:

Instructions for starting a group.

A vision for the type of friendly community you want to achieve.

Being bold in seeking friendship.

Some practical notes on the St. Greg’s Pockets.

Is it scary to form a St. Greg’s Pocket? Some tips.

The post Featured St. Greg’s Pocket: Milwaukee! appeared first on Like Mother Like Daughter.