Lysistrata's Daughter

The Padre and I made the decision to put Mr. A in the local public school for kindergarten. It looked like a nice little elementary school--plenty of play space, a garden, a good score on the standardized tests. It was a nightmare. The way some people carry on about public schools, you might think that I'm going to follow up that last sentence with a litany of horrors about BDSM demonstrations on the play ground and the bowl full of strawberry flavored condoms on the principal's desk. Actually, no. Perfectly ordinary parents took their children there every day. Our problem wasn't with some kind of moral outrage, but rather with the education itself. Let's start with what was missing from Mr. A's kindergarten class room: blocks, any toys at all, finger paints, those little math manipulatives for patterning. What was there, you ask? A few computers, which frankly, rank second only to television in terms of "kiddie speed" for Mr. A; worksheets; desks; ...

No one ever tells the whole truth about motherhood. We hear a lot about how much love you have for your children, how you'd do absolutely anything for them. This is true. I won't deny it. But why doesn't anyone ever talk about the fact that sometimes, marbled in with the love that is so great it breaks your heart, is a massive dollop of irritation so great that you just can't bear to hear their sweet little voices any more? How, after a monologue by your five-year-old, that's lasted twenty minutes, you feel that if you hear, 'and Mommy, do you know what?' once more, you will just rip your own face off. Or, when your infant has been screaming for almost four hours, and your ears are ringing with the sound even when he's quiet, you wonder how it was that you never got around to scheduling that hysterectomy after the first one was born. You were warned, after all. There are nights when I look at my sleeping children, and though I know, objectively spe...

So I'm almost 42 weeks pregnant. I've had a lot of time to think about the rather strange state of childbearing in this country. On the one hand, since the decision Roe vs. Wade in 1973, every woman is guaranteed the right to decide whether or not to carry a pregnancy to term, at least through about 20 weeks or so. To be honest, I can think of no circumstances under which I'm likely to take advantage of this. I think, though, that there are a lot of reasons that people feel the need for such a provision. Arguments are made about the difficulty of caring for severely deformed or mentally deficient children; about victims of rape; about women who have been abandoned by the child's father. Many people have the sense that pregnancy can be an unbearable burden for women, particularly those who do not have a partner or access to resources such as good health care and child care. Along with this is the sense that men should not be able to tell women what they can or cann...

I picked this book up at the library a week or so ago, on a whim, because when Mr. A has picked out his books, he's ready to go. Now. Mostly I was just intrigued by the cover and the title. This book is beautifully heartbreaking. It begins in 1964; a blizzard forces Dr. David Henry to deliver his own children. The first child is a boy, perfectly healthy. Then a little girl is born, with Down's syndrome. He hands the girl to the nurse, Caroline Gill, who is assisting him and tells her to take the girl to an institution. Caroline, however, after seeing the institution, cannot bear to leave the child there. So she packs up her apartment and leaves town. David tells his wife that the little girl died shortly after being born. The book follows David and Caroline and the twins throughout the next twenty five years. David and his family slowly disintegrate; the absence of the second child and the wall erected by the lie David tells oppresses them and pulls them apart from on...

http://asksistermarymartha.blogspot.com/ Hop on over and read her hilarious thoughts on Lent and cremation and a whole bunch of other stuff. She also has an etsy shop where she sells kitchy Catholic medals.

Y became Fr. Y on February 8th, and we spent the rest of the month packing and moving into our new house in the Valley. As in, I am now, like, totally a real Valley girl. Weird. The rectory is palatial. We finally have room for all the books! So that's more or less why I haven't been posting lately.

Link to text published on oca.org January 18, 2009 To the Venerable Hierarchs, Clergy, Monastics and Faithful of the Orthodox Church in America Dearly Beloved in Christ: The Lord Jesus Christ emerged from the waters of Baptism, and heard the Word of the Father: "You are my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." The Lord's word to each and every human being, to each and every being which bears the image and can actualize the likeness of God, is the same: You are my beloved. It is the very Word of God who, by His incarnation and assumption of our whole life and our whole condition, affirms and blesses the ultimate value of every human person--and indeed of creation as a whole. He filled it with His own being, uniting us to Himself, making us His own Body, transfiguring and deifying our lives, and raising us up to God our Father. He affirms and fulfills us, not simply as individuals seeking happiness, but rather as persons with an infinite capacity to love and be loved,...