Saturday, February 2, 2008

Random Bullets before Lent

Things I should give up for Lent for wholly unspiritual reasons:


Thing(s) I want to give up for Lent for wholly unspiritual reasons:

  • Housework!!

Things I should do more of during Lent (in no specific order):

  • Pray
  • Write a dissertation
  • Play with a toddler
  • Spend time with a 'tween (I only use the term as a tribute to Tolkien)
  • Read (anything, really)
  • Meditate
  • Exercise
  • Cook (especially meals from monastery cookbooks!)
  • Think happy thoughts!
  • Recognize the beauty around me (physical and spiritual)

Things I have thought about recently (in wholly unconnected ways):

  • The very natural-seeming portrayal of Tevye's relationship with God in Fiddler on the Roof
  • Whether the Tevye stories would be worth finding & reading
  • Undergraduate & graduate education and the right relationship between the two
  • More job market issues
  • Children's media and the very excellent show "Charlie and Lola"
  • Breastfeeding & NFP
  • Hormones, mental health& genetics, and panic attacks (little ones)
  • The beauty of children
  • The difficulty of children
  • All that stuff about children & relationships that didn't seem relevant until child #3
  • Upcoming Baptism plans (March 1!)

What have you been thinking about?


*In fact, I think we owe it to the brothers to step up our coffee consumption during Lent so that we will need to purchase more, thus contributing more to help them to establish their monastery in the mountains of Wyoming.

5 comments:

mrsdarwin said...

I read the Tevye stories many years ago, and they're very worth finding. The author's name is Sholem Aleichem.

Literacy-chic said...

Excellent! Thank you!

Melanie Bettinelli said...

"he very natural-seeming portrayal of Tevye's relationship with God in Fiddler on the Roof"

Yes, I always loved that.

Thanks to you and Mrs. D. I think I'll add the Tevye stories to my wish list too.

I've mostly been thinking about the likelihood of the baby arriving before or after the due date and when I should have my mother fly in. That and the dread of going very far past my due date. The doctors are pressuring me to go ahead and schedule a c-section for some time past the due date so they don't have to do an emergency one because they won't induce.

Literacy-chic said...

I got Fiddler for Christmas. It's one of only a couple of musicals that I like, and I love it. And having been thinking more about prayer in the past few years than ever before in my life, the scenes of conversational prayer, which I always liked but didn't think much about, are of particular interest to me. It's an interesting model of prayer because it is honest about frustrations and questioning, sometimes supplicating, grounded, very reverent, and always ends with a word of praise or thanks. And it's not phony. Listening to the tone (if not the content) makes me think about Adam & Eve talking with God in the garden--suddenly God is not ineffable in quite the same way, but close to humanity. Tangible. Real. As he should always be to us, but doesn't always seem to be. (Of course, that's why He revealed to us other persons in the Trinity to whom we can also pray.) Thanks for giving me the opportunity to tease that out a bit without taking the time to devote a whole post to it. There's the seed of a new post there, though...

Melanie--I forgot...you had a c-section for Bella, no? So induction wouldn't be a safe option, really. And you weren't about to find someone to do a VBAC, right? (I'm just trying to remember what you've written about--sorry!) Was Bella late? I hope the month is a relaxing one for you in spite of all of the planning, and will be thinking about and praying for you, the new baby, and the whole family!

Melanie Bettinelli said...

"Listening to the tone (if not the content) makes me think about Adam & Eve talking with God in the garden--suddenly God is not ineffable in quite the same way, but close to humanity. Tangible. Real."

That reminds me, somehow, of C.S.Lewis's Perelandra. I love the conversations with the Lady and the way she talks about talking with God. Again, that idea that He is close, tangible almost. I may have to go re-read that soon too.

I had to switch OBs mid pregnancy when my former OB decided he wasn't going to deliver babies anymore. So mow I'm with a larger group practice, the only thing I could find. I've been meeting with a different doctor at every other visit, only twice at most with any one of them. So the story is rather hazy. They seem ok with VBAC, though the hospital has discontinued actually offering VBAC classes as they lost their teacher. I've really had a hard time getting my act together to do any further investigating. So I'm relying on the childbirth classes we took almost two years ago and am not really sure what issues I might be facing with VBAC. I don't have a road map or a good working relationship with a doctor I trust and am basically playing Russian roulette as far as who the attending is going to be at the birth and whether we'll have even met before hand.

Bella was actually born five days past her due date. I know second babies often come earlier, but don't know if that holds true when the first was a c-section. Probably not. Not sure about whether labor will be more like a first labor in terms of length since I've not actually done that before. Probably will. I'm trying not to dwell on it too much as stewing doesn't seem to accomplish anything. I don't really have many options at this point anyway, just hoping and praying for the best outcome for all of us.

I appreciate your prayers, though.