The Holy Spirit and the everyday May 30, 2009
Posted by philangelus in religion.12 comments
Since it’s Pentecost Sunday this weekend, I’ve been praying the Holy Spirit novena and thinking more about the Holy Spirit. I feel the Holy Spirit gets short shrift a lot of the time. While a part of the Godhead, the third person of the Trinity gets almost no mention.
The first time I read Acts of the Apostles, I was struck by how the focus had changed from Jesus to the Holy Spirit. The Spirit takes over the same role Jesus had, doing surprising things and talking to surprising people.
As I worked through the novena (published day by day over at Happy Catholic) I read through each of the descriptions of the Gifts of the Holy Spirit and thought, “Yeah…I want that…” for all of them.
But here’s what struck me from the prayer for Wisdom:
The more usual thing, however, will be to find God in everyday life, with no special effects but the the intimate certainty that God watches over us, sees what we are doing, cares for us as for his children, at work or at home. The Holy Spirit teaches us that if we are faithful to his grace, our everyday affairs are the normal way to God, there we serve him in this life and prepare ourselves to contemplate him in Heaven for all eternity.
Think about that: our everyday affairs are the normal way to God.
Making coffee. Scrubbing the toilet. Driving to work. Answering the phone. Putting a band-aid on a scraped knee. Picking out a book at Barnes & Noble. These are the normal way to God.
As humans, we goggle over Signs and Wonders and Gee Whiz Moments. And as God, what God likes is to sit at the kitchen table as we wash the dishes.
Personally speaking, there are only a few times in my life when I can say absolutely without a doubt that the Holy Spirit took command and made sure something was done right. I know He’s been more active than that, but I’m talking about moments I can pinpoint with certitude. And they have one common denominator:
I had no idea.
I was writing something or talking to someone, and while doing that, I happened to write or say exactly the thing this person needed to hear. I didn’t find out until later. At the moment, it just seemed to be something I ought to say. No angel of the Lord appeared and commanded, “Thus says the Lord! Tell him that he must {whatever I said}.”
No, it was more like, “Oh, yeah, I should tell you this,” and I said it, and later the person said, “That absolutely changed my direction. It was exactly what I needed to hear, and I wanted you to know.”
Meanwhile I’d gone bumbling through the rest of my life, totally unaware that God was at work. Which is typical of me. When I find out something like the above happened, I generally want to curl up under my blankets and shiver because it’s obvious God did it — look at the cruddy tool he used!
This goes back to what I said earlier, that sometimes God only wants our willingness to do the right thing in order to make the right thing happen. We don’t even need to know we’re participating, but the Spirit knows the needs of our hearts and helps us give one another what we would, if only we realized the need.
When you change but the writing doesn’t May 29, 2009
Posted by philangelus in Seven Archangels: Annihilation, The New Novel, angels, writing.10 comments
In June I’m supposed to talk with the publishers of Seven Archangels: Annihilation and discuss the future of Seven Archangels: An Arrow In Flight and Seven Archangels: Sacred Cups.
In prep for that, I rewrote one of the sections of “An Arrow In Flight” and then began browsing the rest of the manuscript.
The last time the file was updated was in 2007. Since then, I’ve finished one novel and written all of ♥My Book♥.
I guess “shocked” is my best word to encapsulate how I feel as I re-read the manuscript. Because in the intervening two years, I’ve learned something I didn’t realize I needed to learn. Namely, how to keep tight management over the mood of the piece.
I wrote Arrow first in 1991, around the same time as The Guardian, and set it aside. Five years later I revised it. In 2006, I revised it again, with final revisions in 2007. I thought it was done. DONE. Finis. It had been put through the literary food processor. Ivy and Wendy had read it and given it a passing grade.
Only now I read it and see the banter as annoying, the mood as completely out of control, and the scenes unfocused. ♥My Book♥ is tight-tight-tight and Arrow is ranging all over the place.
I feel like a contractor looking over a project and scrawling on the estimate, “This no be cheap.”
It’s worst because I pass from scenes that had their first start in 1991 into scenes written for the first time in 2007, because there you can see the difference in control. The 2007 scenes are bang-on, focused, and even when the mood temporarily lifts from intense to humorous, it’s still a dry, focused humor.
I’m going to need to play german shepherd to this flock of words, obviously. Culling out huge sections (I’ve already earmarked one to go) and rolling up my sleeves to get in the depths of this story with a shovel and a chain-saw.
I had three side-stories I was planning to use as “bonus material” on the book’s website, but one of them may fit in now if I pull enough other material out. Because ironically, the side-stories were written in 2006 and therefore show at least the beginnings of competency.
I hate that moment of “Criminy, this is garbage.”
I love the moment of “Oh my goodness, this is the best fix ever!” But you can’t get to that if you don’t go through the “criminy” moment first.
Do other artists experience this as well? Do visual artists feel the urge to re-draw old pieces in light of new skill levels? Cricket, do you have the same experience with story-telling? I’d love to ask my favorite violinist if he listens to old recordings of himself and flinches, wanting to re-record with whatever technical skills he’s improved since then. I know Yehudi Menuhin looked at a recording of himself, 40 years earlier, playing “Air on the G String” and said, “I’m surprised I played so well when I was so young.” Does the opposite happen too? Surely it can’t be only writers who have this experience.
Editing is both a blessing and a curse. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a scythe to sharpen.
My sacrilegious cat May 28, 2009
Posted by philangelus in religion, sarcasm.13 comments
Since I posted about the rosary two days ago, here’s a rosary funny.
It was February 2006 when I got hungry for prayer again, and every day I was asking (at first) for the grace to pray it again the next day. Kind of a recursive prayer request, but it helped. God looks out for fools, drunks, the United States of America, and me (because I guess I amuse Him.)
At any rate, I found the most convenient time to pray was right after I set my then-three-year-old up with the television. He was allowed two TV programs per day, and after I got him set up, I’d head upstairs, get my rosary, and sit by the window to pray.
Since prayer is good, it’s not a bad assumption that the enemy wouldn’t like it. Within a couple of days, I began to be harassed to stop praying.
In the form of my cat.
Who would immediately run from wherever she was in the house, get on my lap, and start head-butting me.
Shortly, the second cat began to do the same. In fact, they’d compete to see who could get to me first in order to disrupt my quiet time of prayer.
I said to my Patient Husband, “Cats are enemies of prayer.” He didn’t believe me.
Of course, eventually I figured out the secret. Cats are smart in a self-centered way. They’d figured out that when certain things happened, I would sit for fifteen to twenty minutes not doing anything with my hands. They had an idea of something I could do with my empty lap and my nearly-still hands.
Their cue? Once just for the sake of science, with no intention of praying, I turned on the TV, went upstairs to my bedroom, and picked up the rosary.
Two cats appeared.
Our new cat? She’s already figured it out for herself too.
I’m all for a good supernatural thriller, but I’m pretty sure Satan, or the Basement Cat, had nothing to do with this one.
see more Lolcats and funny pictures
The lawn defeated me May 27, 2009
Posted by philangelus in family.21 comments
Two weeks after my first lawn mowing adventure, the grass had become another hairy-hairy, and it was time to repeat. I’d meant to do it during the week, but the schedule never permitted it. On Sunday, after church and church-breakfast, I applied sunblock and mosquito repellent, my New York Yankees cap and my sunglasses, and went to mow the lawn.
I wondered, does mosquito repellent plus sunblock produce some kind of noxious gas? Well, too late for it now…
Out came the lawn mower from the shed. I looked it over, noticed some grass residue in the engine housing but thought nothing of it. Then I had a thought: do I need to add gasoline? I fetched my Patient Husband, he of the black-belt in lawn mowing, and asked. He said he’d check.
He too noticed the grass in the engine housing and said, “That’s no good, having dry grass on the parts that get hot.” He said that had never happened before. I pointed out how deep the grass had been when I’d mowed last, so while he checked the gas tank, I started pulling grass from the engine housing where it stuck out. Eventually I got a stick and began digging it out.
If you know where this is going, please don’t think I’m an idiot. I am, but more to the point, this can be chalked up to lack of experience. Because the next thing that happened was I screamed.
It wasn’t fear: it was horror. Baby mice. First one, then a second baby mouse fell out with the grass bits on to the lawn-mower base. That wasn’t dried grass from the last lawn-mowing adventure: that was a nest!
The two of them were about an inch and a half long. They had their ears flat and their eyes shut. And they emitted these pitiful squeaks. I kept thinking, oh my God. Oh my God.
They were going to die. I couldn’t put them back with their mother. I couldn’t feed them with an eye-dropper, could I? Should I? They were only field mice, but still. And I certainly couldn’t start the lawn mower now.
I could see the mother mouse running around the inside of the engine housing now. She could hear the babies, but she couldn’t get to them.
My Patient Husband and I went into high gear. I found a tiny box, put the dried grass into it,and tried to put the baby mice into the box. By the time I did that, though, one of the baby mice was already gone.
It was a relief to know the mother mouse could get the baby and carry it. But I wasn’t sure what else to do. I had the one baby in the makeshift nest in the box, but the mother wouldn’t go into the box to get it. And once she did, what would I do with her?
My Patient Husband was an ace. We took the top off the lawnmower. (He adds, “And why did it take three different size nut-drivers to remove three nuts?”) and he tried to catch the mother, but she escaped. We removed the remains of the nest (with three more baby mice) and finally I was able to get to the one the mother had fetched off the lawn mower base. Now all five were in the box. Of course, there was also oil all over the base of the lawn mower.
I knew where the mother had run, and I set the box with the baby mice beneath that bush. She stared at me as I set it beneath the bush with her. I backed off.
The mother mouse came into the box, picked up a baby, and darted beneath the shed.
That’s the point where I started to sob. I don’t know why then, when I should have been pleased that the baby mice would survive with no help from me and an eye dropper. My Patient Husband held me while I bawled, and the mother mouse retrieved each of the five babies, then made one last pass to make sure she’d gotten everyone.
My Patient Husband called, “Good work, Mrs. Frisby!”
We proceeded to clean up the lawn mower. We’ll take it to a small engine repair shop to make sure they didn’t chew through the wiring.
“You know,” he said as we returned inside, “if you didn’t want to mow the lawn, you just had to say so.”
Thank God I didn’t try mowing during the week. Thank God.
Saint Philip Neri May 26, 2009
Posted by philangelus in religion.2 comments
One of my favorite saints has his feast day today, St. Philip Neri. He had a great sense of humor, reformed the church in Rome, and he’s Italian.
There’s so much more. He was influential in the lives of St. Charles Boromeo, St. Francis de Sales, and St. Ignatius Loyola. He founded the Congregation of the Oratory (and also was influential in founding the kind of music called the Oratori0) and I could go on and on.
But here, someone else already went on and on for me.
He’s a great guy and I consider him one of my “patrons” whose prayers I ask for. Take a little time to learn about this awesome saint today.
Rosary video May 26, 2009
Posted by philangelus in religion.7 comments
Some fun stuff here, if you happen to like the rosary:
I’ve written about the rosary before, and my current streak is three years and three months without missing a day. (Including the time on vacation when my guardian woke me up at 10:30. “Why am I awake?” … “This is about the rosary, isn’t it?” !! ”Oh, fine.”)
I keep looking into the future and finding an end date where I won’t be able to do it any longer (“After Kiddo#4 is born, I won’t be able to do it.” “Once we move…” “Once Kiddo#4 stops napping…”) but I keep finding the time to do it one more day, and one more day has lasted three and a quarter years.
I don’t own the t-shirt.
For Memorial Day, a memorial May 25, 2009
Posted by philangelus in angels, family, politics, religion.2 comments
This is a repost from September 11th, when I found and photographed a local war memorial. I pray for the souls of our veterans and all those who have lost loved ones to war.
–
I thought I’d seen it all in the “angel statue” genre. From the “angels pushing children” to the female Archangel Gabriel, I’ve looked at all of them, admired some, laughed at many, and spent too much money to count. And then I saw this one.
En route to a furniture store, I saw it from the road. Standing high in a cemetery, it was an angel holding a man’s body, kneeling before the Virgin Mary in full Queen of Heaven regalia.
If you’ve read Seven Archangels: Annihilation, you know I don’t really go for “Queen of Heaven” robes and a crown. I’d rather imagine Mary in a sweater and jeans, baking bread and with a pot of coffee brewing for anyone who wanted to come talk to her. But the statue had me wondering. Who was the man? What scene was that supposed to be?
My first thought was the angel was holding the body of Jesus, but that made no sense with the Queen of Heaven regalia.
My second thought was that this was the guardian angel of a soul, and the angel was praying for the soul and asking Mary for help. Or maybe the angel of death delivering a soul. But I couldn’t prove either theory. I googled the cemetery and couldn’t find anything about the statue.
Well, providence struck. We needed to go back to the furniture store, so this time I brought my camera. You can click all these pictures to make them bigger if you like.
It’s a war memorial. The graves immediately in front of the statue are all veterans. The man in the statue is wearing a uniform. The statue bears the inscription “In honor of our beloved servicemen, Gift of William W. Gunn 19*8″ (that part isn’t clear on my picture) and the back is inscribed “Knowles Co. Dorchester.”
In her arms, Mary is holding the child Jesus. That’s his “Prince of Peace” iconography if you’re not familiar with the various ways Jesus gets rendered in religious art. And they both have a tender, welcoming expression on their faces. Her hand is extended as if to say, “Come.”
Then there’s the angel. I don’t have as good a vantage on this as I should have gotten, but he looks concerned. His wings aren’t just planted there on his back (as in so much angel statuary) but they’re raised a little as if he’s startled. His body is curved forward, pleading, and although the soldier is in his lap, he’s looking at Mary and Jesus, not at the man.
I’m still not sure whether the angel is the man’s guardian or the angel of death. But either way, you can see the care. There’s gentility in the way his hands rest on the man. I’m leaning toward guardian here, just because he looks a little surprised, as if he’s caught off-guard in the moment and he’s just looking up as Mary approaches with her son.
And there’s also the double-meaning of the guardian of American freedom having his own guardian.
Overall, it’s quite impressive, and I’m glad we ended up going back so I could spend a little time by the graves of the soldiers who were willing to sacrifice their lives to protect our country. Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and may your perpetual light shine on them. May they rest in peace. Amen.
Just a thought…haiku edition May 23, 2009
Posted by philangelus in sarcasm, writing.9 comments
Schoolwork haiku hell.
Haiku’s not a known job skill.
Mom does all the work.
—
As snowflakes gather
Millions on millions, so do
my five year old’s words.
—
Frosty school morning.
Waiting parents bunch in a
Single ray of sunlight.
—
Bus stop children dodge
drops sprayed on each circle pass.
Sprinklers are such fun.
—
Ideas have run out.
Leave your beautiful haiku
in the comments box.
If you’ve been attacked for being Catholic May 22, 2009
Posted by philangelus in religion, sarcasm.16 comments
…and I have been attacked for being Catholic, please check out Mark Shea’s hilarious “Behold: The Spam of God!”
If you aren’t Catholic, it’s still funny. If you happen to be one of the people who attacks Catholics, then I’m not sure why you’re at my weblog, but you might not want to pop over there because Mark Shea has a good laugh at the anti-Catholics’ expense.
(By the way, I like a good debate, but that’s not what he’s talking about. Debate enlightens both sides. And comparative faith-sharing is awesome. But drive-by theological shootings are just ridiculous.)
How can you not love something that contains the line, “When I converted to Catholicism, it was the statue worship that appealed to me the most”?
Enjoy!
It came out in the blocking! May 22, 2009
Posted by philangelus in knitting, religion.16 comments
I’ve been making a baby blanket to raffle off at a charity event to benefit a local 4 year old with Stage IV cancer. About halfway through, I looked at the blanket and realized it was nothing but a series of interlocked mistakes, worthless. No one would want it for her baby. I should just toss it.
The same night, I realized ♥My Book♥ was nothing more than a series of stupid sentences, so I put two and two together and realized I wasn’t being rational. But my urge to knit the thing had been sapped.
Last week I awoke at 2 AM hearing my inner voice telling me I was a hideous, loathsome human being because I hadn’t even made that baby blanket. For some reason, that spurred me into high gear, and four days later, the second half of the baby blanket was completed, bound off, and the ends woven in. It still looked like a series of mistakes loosely looped together, but there was nothing for it. I’d done what I’d set out to do.
I tossed it into the washing machine (it’s acrylic, yet another reason to hate it) and tried to forget all about it.
When it came out, I spread out the thing, and behold:
The mistakes were gone.
Long, long ago, Ivy told me one of the most common knitting mistakes is to say to oneself, “It’ll come out in the blocking.” That what you see is, in general, what you get. And yet here I was, staring at this lovely blanket with all the uneven stitches evened out by a simple trip through the washer and dryer.
And it makes me wonder, is this what happens after we die, when God binds off our souls and tosses us into the divine washing machine? All the uneven little bits get washed and spun into evenness, and the pattern itself becomes visible as everything it ought to have been. The truth nature of what we’ve become is evident, and we’re blocked: the lace becomes straight, the slubs become even.
I’m not saying our small sins — the moments we snap at people, the good deeds left undone — are unimportant. But maybe over time, those are things God can easily wash out of us. Whereas the larger defects — a row of knits instead of a row of purls, or a lifetime of stealing — actually change the nature of the fabric we’ve created.
Maybe Grace and Mercy make up for a lot of our human nature, a lot more than I ever thought. Maybe in the end, God looks at our souls and is pleased with what he made, and says, “Look! It came out in the blocking!”
