To Clarify. . . -or- The Angry Momma Post

My last post was intended primarily to raise a couple of issues: that when a married Catholic female decides to "live her marriage," as it's called, according to Church teaching, there is the possibility of unplanned pregnancies, whether because of miscalculation, lack of self-control, liquor, whatever. In the event of an unplanned pregnancy, particularly one that is "too soon" if you will, the intellectual class will wonder, particularly if she is in their midst, why she allowed this to happen to her. While it is true that certain professions are less supportive of frequent procreation than others, this was not the primary motivating factor behind my post. The reason my question of whether married Catholic women belong in the workplace was rhetorical, and the reason I clarified that I thought that married Catholic women do indeed belong in the workplace, is that I anticipated being told that when God blesses one with children, it is one's duty to stay home. I didn't really want to get into that. My real question was, how does one deal with the inevitable sneers in the event of an "oops" (or blessing)? Does one ignore and rest secure in the knowledge that one is doing God's will, and if so, how does this enter casual conversation? Does one try to raise consciousness and assert that children are not incompatible with careers? What I am hearing instead might run something like this. . .

HEADLINE: "GOD PLAYS DIRTY TRICK ON CATHOLIC WOMEN"

After allowing her to pursue her interests and develop intellectually for the better part of two decades, in the hope that she can make a livable wage using her God-given talents, God decides that the archetypal Catholic woman is not meant to pursue that path anyway, and instead blesses her with a large family. Unfortunately, her husband, in order to support her efforts, has been working in a job that is insufficient to support the large family economically rather than searching all over the country to find a livable wage for the large family that they didn't know they were going to have. Obviously, this is her fault for not being aware of her calling before she entered graduate school.

As one friend was told (jokingly, I assume) by her husband, she's just going to have to take this one up with God.

Gotta tell you, friends, if I really thought that this was the essence of Church teaching on the role of women in the family, I would probably have been a deathbed convert. As it stands, I do not believe that unplanned pregnancies are a signal to change vocation.

But what if they were? There is a definitive test for the vocation of motherhood. When you look at the little stick and see two lines instead of one, it means that God wants you to undertake the vocation of motherhood. It's a pretty easy sign to read, especially when you consider that there are digital ones nowadays that say "pregnant" or "not pregnant" instead of leaving it up to the women to interpret a "+" or "-" or the single- or double-lines. So that's good, no mystery there.

But what about you single women? I don't think a litmus test has been invented yet that you put on your tongue and it says "career path," "religious life," "marriage and kids in your future." God's calling may show itself a lot more subtly in your lives than in ours, I think. And when the time comes, you may not want to choose "either-or," but both. I, for one, believe that God made us capable of serving him in multiple ways, even within one person's lifetime.

"It's Just a Catholic Thing" (?) in the Professions

A few months after my daughter (now 16 months) was born, I had her with me in my department, likely for a meeting with my dissertation adviser. A professor whom I had never met saw me, and, being an outgoing, friendly type, he proceeded to tell me about his daughter who was expecting, to tell me that two children is sufficient because that's one for each knee, and a number of other things that I have now forgotten. He asked me if I had any other children, and, as I responded affirmatively, he asked slyly, "They're not Irish twins, are they?" Now, I thought cluelessly, my husband is part Irish, but I'm not. Obviously, I had no idea what Irish twins are. Asked to explain, he informed me that Irish twins were siblings born within one year--which, of course, would be unlikely given the likelihood that impoverished Irish Catholics (he wasn't talking about Orangemen, after all) would be breastfed. A few minutes later, he repeated the joke for the benefit of my officemate, herself raised Catholic, and we agreed with good-natured disapproval that this was a thinly-veiled Catholic joke.

The joke evokes nineteenth-century immigrants with families of 5-12 children, overworked women, shabby brown clothing, tenement housing, clothes lines--you get the picture. So my question is, how do contemporary intellectual Catholic women deal with such a situation? Over the past couple of years, I have had at least three friends ask themselves this question in one way or another. All were working, one a Ph.D. student. Two were using NFP and one not. In these situations, "oops-s" or "what the heck" moments inevitably happen. So then what? One friend had been married for long enough that she could easily pass it off as "we've been trying" or "we were ready," or whatever. One friend decided that since she had been married for less than a year and people had just given her presents, she would ask not to have a baby shower.

This question comes to mind for a couple of reasons. First, well, people ask the most audacious questions! When I was pregnant last, the father of one of my son's friends from school saw us in Target, expressed surprise, and asked, "Were you trying, or was this a surprise?" One of the aforementioned friends remarked, as we discussed similar such remarks, "Do they realize that they're asking you whether you're having sex?"

O.K., so people are nosey. But it goes beyond that. In certain circles, it is just the unspoken rule that you should space your children according to your career goals. Hence, one female professor mentioning that her youngest was her "tenure baby," though it was unclear if he was the result of the celebrating, or her award for accomplishing the task! Within a year of my entering the M.A. program, one of my professors had her "last chance" baby, and two months after I had my daughter, my almost-adviser had her post-tenure baby. Others waited--and advised their grad students to wait--not until tenure, but until getting the tenure-track job. Recently, the female grad students in the department have decided that A.B.D. is a convenient time to have children, a decision I support wholeheartedly, obviously! But there is still somewhat of an unspoken consensus that children are to be spaced rather further apart that one to two years. While my "spacing"--a new baby with a 7-year-old--drew attention from a school dad (also a professional, incidently, but a professional father), spacing children every two years (considered ideal by those who are actively growing their families) is a professional faux pas. So what about Catholic professional/academic mothers?

Some, of course, believe that these terms are contradictory, and I could point you to the blogs to prove it. My friend who works at a Catholic high school has been condescendingly treated to the casual assumption that she would not be returning to work--EVER--by her colleagues for the last several months. But the role of Catholic women in the family is not my purpose for this post. Rather, I am embarrassed to admit that popular opinion is my concern.

Morality and Church teaching aside (though very much bound up with this post, as I hope is obvious), "accidents" are for teenagers, low-income households, minorities, and Catholics? All of these are stereotypes, but stereotypes which the average enlightened intellectual holds in the deep recesses of her politically correct heart. Just look at Amanda Marcotte.

This begs the question. . . Do married Catholic women really not belong in the workplace? This question is rhetorical. I do not expect an answer. Rather I am using the question to imply its answer--that of course married Catholic women belong in the workplace, if they so choose! So then, what about the "oops" factor? NFP "works," but people have different levels of resistance, and error and the Will of God are always factors! ;) Perhaps married Catholic females belong in the workplace to enlighten the masses, and should cling to the beatitudes for encouragement: that those who suffer mockery in the name of holiness will have their reward. But if asked, "You're pregnant again?" that's hardly an answer that will satisfy the average enlightened intellectual, provided the discussion occurs openly rather than in a series of sneers and snickers (yes, I am hard on my fellow academics). I have even encountered resistance to the motherhood-academic combination in Catholic academic circles (circles formed to discuss the intersection of faith and professional life!), so how much more should secular academics resist the Catholic academic's attempt to live her marriage faithfully, understanding its possible consequences (blessings)?

Large families and accidents--Catholic stereotypes both. Neither FEMLA, nor tenure procedures, nor enlightened liberalism allows for those realities. I don't know the answer, and I hate a cliff-hanger post. I further hate admitting that the sneering disturbs me. But it does. So while married professional women wait to reproduce until they reach their goals, what does the Catholic woman do? Stay home? Or not marry until after tenure/promotion?

Beyond Fish Sticks: Quick Lenten Meals #1

I thought I might share some favorite meatless recipes as I think of them. I only ask that no one decide to, you know, enter any Food Network Challenges or anything, because I might have to ask for a share of the prize money! ;) But seriously, this is my recipe for "Quick Crab Creole," as I like to call it, and while there is a lot of "to taste" involved here, this gives you a basic idea of how I make the dish.

Quick Crab Creole

1 onion, finely chopped
1-2 Tbsp butter
2 pouches real lump crab meat
1/2-1 can tomato paste
1/2-1 c milk or cream (the fattier the better, but skim will do in a pinch)
salt, pepper, and cayenne to taste

2-3 c cooked rice (Texmati is mighty nice)

1. Melt the butter over low heat. Sauté the onion in the butter until onion is more or less transparent. Add a few dashes of cayenne and black pepper. NOTE: Salt does help the onions to "wilt" somewhat, but as there is salt in the crab pouches, you might just want to do the salting at the end. Also, be aware that the "heat level" of the cayenne increases as it cooks--don't overdo it!

2. Add the crab from pouches, including the crabby liquid, which imparts a good amount of flavor. You might add a bit of water to the pouch & swish around to get the crab bits that are stuck to the sides of the pouch. Cook until most of the liquid has evaporated off, then add a bit more water, probably about 1/2 cup.

3. Add the tomato paste to the crab and onion. Remember that tomato paste is a thickener. If you want to stretch the crab in this dish (which can be kind of pricey) add the whole can. If you want a more intense, concentrated crab flavor and smaller portions, add 1/2 a can (the flavor is good either way). Work the tomato paste into the liquid, integrating the solids and breaking up clumps of crab. The final texture should include crab "strings," not lumps.

4. Add the milk--again, if you use less tomato paste for more concentrated crab (that is, more that you can feel in your mouth), you will use less milk. The dish should be a nice creamy-orange color. Theoretically, it could probably be thinned into something like a bisque, but I suspect you would need more crab to make that work. This should probably be about the consistency of your favorite pasta sauce or a little thinner, to go over rice.

5. Once you have added the milk, cover and continue to let the sauce simmer so that the flavors blend. It is basically ready at this point, but it's good to wait another minute or two.

6. Serve over rice & enjoy!!

I would estimate that you can get about 6 generous servings, but "portion control" is an unknown phrase to me. This would be about 6 bowls' worth as poured over a generous 1/2 cup of rice or so.

Let me know if you try it!

An Inspired Idea

Courtesy, once again, of Darwin Catholic: Lenten Mediations on the Divine Comedy. The idea is to rediscover the spiritual purpose of Dante's work. As I wrote in the comment section of this blog, the Commedia is one of two creative works that I credit with my own conversion--the other being Lord of the Rings. The Commedia is, at its root, an intensely, even tangibly spiritual work. It is also one of the first works that got me to think in a serious way about reading--in this case, misreading. The Commedia is as much a work about the Christian way of reading, which leads one closer to God rather than providing distractions--as opposed to the pagan way of reading represented by Virgil (though he is an enlightened, proto-Christian pagan poet)--as it is about spiritual salvation. As a poet, the joining of the two was essential to Dante (a man who knew his vocation!). I will be looking forward to this blog, as it is sure to be insightful!

A Unique Perspective. . .

. . . On Natural Child Spacing!

Book Notes: The People of Sparks

A week or so ago I finished reading The People of Sparks, which is the Second Book of Ember, a series that began with The City of Ember, which I mention here, here, and here. Obviously, the first book was interesting enough to merit reading the second, and once again, I was fairly pleasantly surprised. It was not as good as the first, but avoided the didacticism I feared in a book about rebuilding civilization after an apocalypse, particularly one written post-9/11. However, a couple of features of the book merit a brief mention.

Towards the end of The People of Sparks, I had a revelation, as I did at the end of The City of Ember. However, while The City of Ember evoked Plato, The People of Sparks evoked no less illustrious an author than Dr. Seuss. Now, I love Dr. Seuss, but was surprised when, likely by no conscious design of the author, I considered the moment when the people from two competing cities were, to their own eyes and to each other, indistinguishable, and thought, "The Star-Bellied Sneetches"! This moment in the book, the moment of resolution, was rather simplistic. We are building to a crisis that could result in war. One or two individuals are trying to provoke the war (or at least failing to see a solution other than violence) while one or two are trying to prevent the war. In the tense moment before the violence--or perhaps in the tense moment after the onset of violence--a disaster occurs that threatens to destroy the livelihood of one group. This presents the perfect opportunity for a "joining together," spurred by the bravery of one individual.

Now, the actions involved were noble, but it does beg the question, which, ideally, should be considered by the reader--what would have happened had the disaster not occurred? Likely violence. So does this mean that it requires a disaster for the proactive individual to take the step--doing good instead of evil, or at least avoiding doing evil--that is necessary for the prevention of violence? This strikes me as a bit of the Deus Ex Machina. I would have liked to see the people work things out without near-divine intervention (or pure chance, which frequently substitutes for the divine).

Another rather surprising element of the book, in retrospect, is the almost complete lack of heterosexual pairings--there are no traditional families! Well, O.K., there's one. But we do not feel this to be the norm. Admittedly, there are displaced persons (better not to call them refugees) who have to create alternate living arrangements for the sake of space, but among these, there are many young people who are mentioned independent of any parental figures (not wholly unknown in children's fiction). The "families" are generally single-parent. The main characters have a father on the one hand (an entirely male family of two), and a foster-mother and a sister on the other hand (an entirely female family of three). These alternative families existed in the first book, but events at the end of the second book throw them into sharp relief.

One alternative family arrangement consists of a single doctor and her neglected orphan nephew. Our heroine, her sister, and their guardian move in with the doctor and her nephew. There is another nephew, a "roamer," who is the apple of his little brother's eye. When he arrives with a female "partner" (in roaming), things begin to go awry. However, the "partner" considers him unfit for companionship, which, indeed, he is--but he didn't have to be. This was a creative choice on the part of the author. So this non-traditional female escaping from her home city, a failing city, joins forces with our own heroine, and befriends her. So far, so good. Eventually, this large, soft-spoken female joins with the other large, soft-spoken female--the former greenhouse keeper--to become her apprentice and learn about growing plants.

At nearly every turn, heterosexual unions--or close heterosexual friendships--are avoided. There is even a teeny-bopper who falls in love with the most charming male present, usually a sweet-talking con-man or rabble-rouser, who clearly signals the dangers of charismatic men and unchecked heterosexual attraction (not a bad message, and one that can also be found in Louisa May Alcott). The notable example is the hero and heroine, who remain (wonderfully, in my opinion) good friends with no hint of a pre-adolescent romance.

In contrast to the other books intended for this age range, which are largely over-sexual, this can be seen as a significant improvement. However, the lack of viable heterosexual couples remains troubling, particularly for a civilization that is trying to rebuild itself. In the declining City of Ember, where dysfunction would have been understandable, there is nevertheless more of a "feeling" of family unity. I suppose we are to surmise that the hope of the future rests with the pre-adolescent generation, which is fitting for a pre-adolescent book with post-adolescent appeal.

#11

One more thing I will not give up for Lent (or try not to): EXERCISE! (See this post. . .)

Tomorrow is Ash Wednesday

Since I'm in Texas (and not in Galveston), Mardi Gras isn't a big deal, though I will be subjecting my students to some Louisiana, New Orleans, and Mardi-Gras-specific images for our continuing discussion of Visual Rhetoric tonight. In lieu of festivities (though I might be persuaded to go to my favorite seafood restaurant for a pre-Lent shrimp-fest), here is a list of 10 things I will NOT be giving up for Lent:

1. email
2. blogs (reading and writing)
3. teaching
4. grading
5. writing the dissertation
6. cooking supper (occasionally)
7. laundry
8. Jane Austen DVDs (especially Pride and Prejudice--the A&E version)
9. SHRIMP! (I did one year and it nearly killed me!)
10. involvement in my son's education (even if it does kill me!)
    

Lenten meditations more solemn than this one to follow. . .

Great Moments in Literacy

Great Moments in Literacy

A video worth watching is posted on the Ironic Catholic blog. I couldn't get the darn thing on my blog, though...

Happy St. Valentine's!

I figure with the rest of the world trying to shorten "Valentine's" to "V," either to resemble the similarly shortened the "V" Monologues (and thus make Valentine's Day a celebration of that anatomical morsel), to remove traces of the saint for whom the day is named, or from the sheer linguistic laziness that is so prevalent, especially in electronic media, I will keep the "Saint" and the "Valentine" and forget the "Day"--at least in my title.

Actually, I almost did forget the day! It's been an exhausting week since last Wednesday, when my daughter developed a stomach virus right before beginning her Amoxil for an earache. So today, since things have calmed down and for the first time since last Tuesday, I was the only one home (my husband was also sick for a few days & I was happy to have him home, but not happy that he was unwell!), I tried to get back in my routine while getting a little emotional rest & reading the book I've been working on for pleasure. It occurred to me mid-morning that it was Valentine's Day, something I remembered before going to bed (after midnight), but had forgotten by the morning.

Valentine's Day is a curious holiday for me. In spite of its origin with a saint who was martyred for his covert celebration of sacramental marriage, it seems to be largely enjoyed by a category of people best described as single-yet-attached. It is a holiday peopled by clueless men. It is the holiday of expectant or disappointed women, of expectant or disappointed men. These thoughts occurred to me while driving around this evening among the flurry of excitement, or walking around stores observing the last minute purchases--and purchasers.

When my husband & I first found each other, we shared a mutual dislike of the holiday, having never had someone to share it with. We therefore threw ourselves into it the purchasing of gifts and cards with gusto our first few years. There was one year of disappointment after our first child was born, as I was unable to go shopping and regretfully, did not manage to contrive a gift. This post was intended to be about my changing attitude towards the holiday: the fluctuation from dislike to excitement, to sentimentality, to something not quite resembling apathy--more the quiet feeling that accompanies the opportunity to appreciate having someone that I love deeply, while acknowledging that cards and gifts do not have the power to express this love (especially after the anniversary of our Convalidation in October, his birthday in November, Christmas in December, my birthday in January. . . we're gifted out by this time!). This was how I envisioned the Valentine post this afternoon, as I sat rocking my baby to sleep: I was going to commemorate the holiday by downplaying it a bit, mentioning the beauty of everyday love and the hassle and expense of finding babysitters.

My intentions changed when, as I was sitting on our futon reading, my husband walked in with a dozen pink roses. It really is amazing how moving a small gesture can be, and it was all the more moving since, unlike the multitudes of women who woke up this morning or went out this evening, I had not expected it!

We moved through the rest of the evening doing ordinary things: we went to dinner (with the kids!), went to Target to buy ourselves iTunes cards, ran in to a store or two for essentials. An ordinary, yet extraordinary, romantic evening.

Sometimes I hate this

What is it about blogs that draw me in? I think I will be taking a break for a while. I've been composing an entry that I call "Skirting the Issue" about people who narrowly define what is "feminine." It is in response to this post and, to a lesser degree, this post, which includes the following comment from a reader:

It's important to also remember that the Tridentine does not allow disruptions such as the laity hand-shake/kissy face/hugging fiesta, nor does it have the holding hands Protestant innovation during the Our Father, no musical instruments other than the Organ, only sacred music or Gregorian chant and polyphony; no women on the altar, kneeling reverently to receive Blessed Sacrament only on the tongue, no talking in Church, only reverent dress, no slacks for women, etc. (emphasis mine)

I have become caught up with thinking about the issue of traditionalizing femininity, especially in a Catholic context, and I am frustrated that, for one thing, so many of the blogs I am reading voice this opinion in one way or the other. I have become inarticulate about the matter. Luckily I know that the Church in no way endorses the attitudes that these bloggers/serial commenters represent. Rather, they are viewing the theology narrowly, for their own ends, and defending/asserting their claims with narrow-minded arguments and persuasive techniques (the type I teach my Freshman to analyze, then to avoid). This is not my last word on the matter, but I don't want to spend the time and effort on the response right now, as I am tired from a long weekend of caring for a sick baby, and I don't think my blood pressure can stand the stress. What I object to most are the personal attacks and misrepresentation--after all, if I disagree slightly, I am the enemy--emblem of all they are fighting against. This has ceased to be fun for me right now.

Blog Evolution, Genesis, and Science Fiction

One of the wonders of blogging is the ways that various streams of discourse merge and branch off again, merging, converging, flowing and continuing in other forms. Perhaps its a new version of the immortality that Shakespeare noted with the advent of print--then, the writer was immortal, but preserved in presumably changeless form (unless you consider the horrendous mistakes, printing and editorial liberties, rewriting, etc. that ran rampant in early printing history). In the blogosphere, the evolution of thought--how one influences another, how it continues in new form--creates that kind of monument to the original author, but in a less sterile manner, as the thought inspires creativity rather than existing for itself and the original author alone.

This rather circuitous late-night theorizing is occasioned by my decision to post in response to some thought I gleaned from DarwinCatholic's post on Coulter, Evolution, and Catholicism, which, in fact, I requested because of a post on Roman Catholic Blog.

In the course of explaining the compatibility of evolutionary theory and Catholicism, answering the question that I found most interesting, Darwin explores some of the oddity of Genesis--the items that complicate the traditional children's storybook version of Creation, namely, the presence of humanoid creatures and the question of who Adam's & Eve's offspring married. Darwin writes:

The idea of there being other human-ish creatures wandering the Earth at the same time as Adam and Eve doesn't fit well with the standard Sunday school version of the story, but the Bible itself is slightly odder than the children's version. Recall that at several point in the early chapters of Genesis people are mentioned as going off and interbreeding with other creatures (giants, 'the sons of heaven', etc.) Indeed, after the initial description of the time in the garden itself, one doesn't necessarily get the impression that Adam and Eve are alone in the world. (Why, for instance, does Cain fear that when he is banished people will kill him? He's just killed one of the four named people in the world up to that point, and the other two are his parents.) Rather, Adam and Eve seem to be described tribally: as the tribe of true humans, but not necessarily the only creatures on Earth. Now, the idea of early (ensouled) humans interbreeding with (soul-less) human-ish creatures is unappealing. But then, the idea of Adam and Eve's children having no options other than incest isn't exactly appealing either.

My knowledge of this part of Genesis derives from C. S. Lewis who, in the Chronicles of Narnia, makes reference to the "first wife" of Adam--Lilith, mother of giants and jinns and other human-like or half human creatures. (While Lilith is from the Kabbalah, my investigation of Lilith led to other discoveries.) Interestingly, in Prince Caspian, one of Lewis's characters states that while humans may be good or evil, human-like creatures, things that should be human, used to be human, but aren't, are always involved with evil. I guess that's why it was O.K. for Adam to divorce Lilith! In Out of the Silent Planet, the race of creatures is not humanoid; in Perelandra, by contrast, he creates a race of green (new? fresh? innocent? untested?) humanoid beings who succeed where Adam and Eve failed, and successfully avoid the Fall. This is not a C. S. Lewis post, but I was reminded of Lewis at several points.

Initially, as I commented on Darwin's blog, the intermarriage of ensouled and soul-less humans reminded me of a plot from Star Trek or perhaps the novels of Robert Heinlein--Methuselah's Children comes to mind, and not because of the Biblical allusion in the title! However, this concept was problematized for me by commenter CMinor, who writes:

Likewise I can see why we might find the thought of souled humans interbreeding with unsouled humans unsettling from our position in time, but I'm not sure it's a rational concern. As souls are not externally discernible, there's no reason to assume that souled and unsouled humans would be any different in any other respects, to include intelligence and behavior. The sole (no pun intended--really) difference could be that souled humans had a point of contact with God not available to unsouled humans.

I believe I was more comfortable with the idea of unsouled and souled humans (or human-like creatures, if humans are defined by the possession of a soul) interbreeding when I imagined the unsouled humans being somehow different--lower on the evolutionary scale, perhaps, to which CMinor also alludes by mentioning the evidence that Neanderthal and Homo Sapiens interbred (intermarried?). Considering the idea of humanoids equally intelligent as ourselves who merely had no "point of contact" with God--or maybe a different point of contact with God?--reminds me hauntingly of the destroyed planet in Arthur C. Clarke's "The Star," which (in the story) provided the light by which the wise men found the Christ child (sorry for the spoiler). The story is profound and beautiful, if in a profoundly beautifully troubling way. With the planet, an advanced humanoid race capable of artistic expression and technological development has been destroyed, presumably to provide the light announcing the Incarnation. The narrator and ship's science officer is a Jesuit priest who must decide, at the end and beyond the borders of the story, whether to reveal this calculation.

I once had a heated debate with a professor and a room full of undergrads over whether or not the story makes an ultimate condemnation of religion. Others maintained that in the context of the story, either God did not exist, or God was evil. I felt certain that there could be a theological answer to this that did not include either of the two aforementioned conclusions. Is this the answer?

Theorizing theological responses to science fiction, albeit theologically reaching science fiction, aside. . . What would be the implications of soul-less and ensouled humans (or humanoids, in the case of the former) marrying or interbreeding? In the Old Testament we already have the history of a people who were chosen by God as special, set apart from other people. In the New Testament, it is revealed that the Incarnation of the Son of Man is for all people (see my post on Epiphany!). So, then, is the ensouling of Adam and Eve the first "choosing" of God from among His creation? First, He chose a very select group, from whom we inherit Original Sin; then, He chose a race, the Hebrews, the Isrealites, from among those who interbred with the soul-less humanoids; finally, in a late stage of our development, He chose to give to all people the opportunity to choose Him (I would have to suggest that we already had the capacity to choose, but without knowledge of religious Truth, our Free Will--on which I am not the expert, see An Examined Life on Free Will--was not, perhaps, as relevant as it later became with reference to our spirituality).

Returning to science fiction, then, the planet in "The Star" is peopled with the non-chosen. By contrast, although his fantasy repudiates the humanoid as anthropomorphic evil, C. S. Lewis's science fiction "other worlds" are populated with ensouled beings--humanoid and non-humanoid alike. For Lewis, all are "chosen."

Does this bring us any closer to theological or evolutionary truth? Not really. But it does demonstrate the ways in which literature is a working out of various theories of the authors, and further demonstrates the beauty of reading, and the ways in which literate activity affects the consciousness, opening the psyche to the possibility of things beyond our narrow experience. Literature invites us to come in without wiping our muddy boots, allows us to muck around a bit, trying out our ideas in new context, or trying its ideas on for size. When we leave, we are invited to take what we want before moving on--or not. Now that's hospitality! (So much for the literacy plug!)

Finally, I agree with CMinor, who says that we must "let God be God."

Is it a Sin. . .

. . . to believe that certain people shouldn't procreate? I mean, yes, we know that the Catholic Church teaches that all forms of artificial contraception are wrong, but to look at someone who is not Catholic and Thank the Good Lord that She Will Never Procreate. . . Is that wrong? For more, see this post and the articles to which it refers, especially this one. I mean, so much hate must tarnish the gene pool somehow.

What if?

Imagine that there is a chemical that could be injected into young children that would counteract the cancer-causing carcinogens that come from smoking tobacco. Further, imagine that the state in which you lived began to mandate this treatment for all children, since many children at some point in their lives take up smoking, try smoking, or are exposed to smoke. Presumably there would be resistance to such a practice. After all, not all of the children who would be subjected to the (admittedly easy) treatment would actually be affected, since not all children actually take up smoking, try smoking, or are exposed for long periods of time to cigarette smoke. Moreover, this "cure" for lung cancer, by removing one of the major obstacles to the habit, might actually allow for an increase in consumption of cigarettes, thereby increasing sales and indirectly funding the tobacco corporations. Well, this might be enough to get most people upset. After all, why subject children to a treatment that would benefit today's most vilified corporations?

So maybe this scenario would be better, as it removes the economic objection: Imagine that there is an immunization developed that protects against HIV. Somehow, this immunization would adapt to the mutations of the virus, and prevent anyone exposed to the virus from becoming HIV+. Or I guess they might already be HIV+, since the immunization would be based on the virus in some form, but it would either be benign or unable to multiply or whatever. (My background is not scientific.) So in order to prevent the spread of HIV, and in order to prevent (as in the chemical treatment that protects against lung cancer) insurance and Medicaid expenditures, it is decided that a certain portion of the population must be immunized. This is a mandatory immunization. But because it is fairly costly, the most at-risk population would be singled out and required to participate. Once again this has to be done to fairly young members of the population, before they are sexually active, so the decision is made to screen children for character traits that would make them most at risk to contract the disease. This might cause some concern. Parents might fear that their children would be stigmatized by being identified as "pre-homosexual" or at risk for intravenous drug use later in life. Some might object that since anyone can contract and spread the disease, it is unjust to single out people with certain personality traits.

So the necessary funding is acquired, and now all children will be required to be immunized for HIV between the ages of 8 and 13, or they will not be admitted into public high schools. While this is not an air-borne illness unlike (oh horrors!) chicken pox, because this is still a public health risk, and because the treatments are still costly for the government and for insurance companies, all involved agree that it is necessary to impose this sanction on those parents who refuse this sensible precaution. Some might venture to suggest that, since not all people are ever exposed to the virus, indeed, some (though it might seem hard to believe) never even engage in the activities (including intra-venous drug use) through which the virus is contracted, this is an unnecessary precaution. Further, it might be suggested that since the consequences that deterred young people from engaging in activities (including intra-venous drug use) that promote the spread of the disease have been removed, the activities themselves would be rendered more attractive.

Clearly these scenarios are far-fetched. A vaccination could never be forced on us or on our children to prevent a condition that arises from the deliberate choices and unhealthy actions of an individual (an exception should be made for those who contract HIV through the actions of others, including blood transfusions, or perhaps the infidelity of a spouse; the only exemptions for smokers would be those who began smoking before the health risks were known, and these are a shrinking number). Or could it?

I was concerned when, while in the hospital after bearing my second child, a daughter, I read an article in the local newspaper about the immunization that has been developed against Human Papilloma Virus. Two things in particular worried me: first, that it was being promoted as an "immunization against cancer"; second, that those targeted for the immunizations were young girls, around the age of 12.

I am a minimalist when it comes to medical intervention. Which doesn't mean that I am against medical intervention altogether. I believe wholeheartedly in modern medicine when home remedies are exhausted or the condition necessitates bypassing home remedies, and I am very, very happy that Jonas Salk was a genius. But I am increasingly skeptical of the numbers of immunizations to which we are "required" to subject our children.

I am also worried about the messages that are sent to us and our children about responsibility--or perhaps the messages that are not sent to our children about responsibility. You see, dears, there is a preventative or a quick-fix for everything in life--indeed, for life itself! So when I learned of this immunization for an STD that they didn't talk much about when I was in sex ed, this "cancer causing virus" that affects young women, I was afraid. And now the illustrious governor of Texas is proposing exactly what I feared: the immunization of all young girls against HPV.

Now, to my mind, this is a punishment for those young women who remain celibate. It is also a punishment for those young women who are tricked or seduced, either by young men or by our culture, into not remaining celibate. Furthermore, it is punishment for young girls, by virtue of the fact that they have a cervix and therefore are susceptible to cervical cancer if they should happen to contract the virus from a young boy who has in turn caught it from another young woman and so on and so on. It also represents the removal of one more of the consequences of uninformed, indiscriminate sexual behavior (even among those who feel that they are well-informed, discriminate, and emotionally mature--these are also subject to the tricks and seductions of contemporary society). I'm not sure our inhibitions need to have any of the limited "checks" that still exist removed. But even if this were really a public health issue, I would have a further objection.

Don't get me wrong! There have been objections, but those objections have to do with financial contributions to the governor's campaign. It is only a matter of time before some other illustrious politician proposes the same, and it is rather an accident of fate that Rick Perry should have been paid off in such an obvious fashion instead of a less obvious one. So if this is about money, which it surely is, rather than about cervical cancer, then why not immunize all who can contract the virus? Aaah. . . Because boys can't really be harmed by it. So think. . . If boys couldn't get the virus, who would pass it to the girls, thereby exposing them to the possibility of cervical cancer? Exactly! So I propose this: either don't introduce mandatory vaccinations for anyone, or vaccinate boys only! I'll vouch for my daughters!

Celtic Music, Anyone?

I don't know if I'm suffering from an excess of ideas this week, or if none of my thoughts on any given thing, idea, or incident are fully formed. So instead of just rambling on whichever topic I happen to catch as it passes by, I will offer this public service announcement (at least I think it's a public service!).

I've had an on-again, off-again thing going on with my iPod. I love the idea of the iPod, but I don't tend to find myself in situations that allow me to block out the rest of the world. I don't walk across campus, since when I am on campus, it is generally to teach or meet in "my" building (we've all got one. . .). I miss the walking, especially on cool, crisp sunny days. I have one of those little doohickeys that allows me to broadcast my iPod to my car stereo, which is cool, but I don't always remember to bring it to the car, etc. Until recently, I had to download my podcasts at school because of the high-speed connection. Now we have DSL. And I remembered to update my iPod. And it's charged.

So. . . I've been listening to an incredible podcast sporadically for several months, and I just had to spare some words for the Irish and Celtic Music Podcast. For those of you in Austin, it's done by Marc Gunn, who is in your neighborhood! I met him once at a Sci Fi, etc. "con" at the university where I currently exist, signed up for his band's (The Brobdingnagian Bards) email list, until Yahoo! kicked me off because I hadn't checked my email in, oh, years. . . So imagine my surprise to learn that he has an awesome podcast! At the time, I was wondering how I could discover new cool music with an utter absence of decent radio stations in my area. Problem solved! The Irish and Celtic Music Podcast is currently in the top 25 podcasts in iTunes, so check them out if you like Celtic music.

Just to get you started, the "new year" podcast was a collection of listener favorites from last year, and is quite a nice mix. It is #29 and was released on January 4, 2007.

Many of my favorites from the last year are included on episode #29, but some other favorite songs/artists have been:

Podcast #25 -"Old Carrion Crow" Michael William Harrison
Podcast #25-"The Scottish Song" Seamus Kennedy (MacBeth in a nutshell--a must hear!)

The Brobdingnagian Bards have a number of amusing songs, and of course, the ones that make you spit out your coffee in the car are the easiest to remember (include in this category "The Scottish Song," above). So from the Bards:

Podcast #24-"Now It's Time To Go" (from Memories of Middle Earth)
Podcast #17 -"The Orange and The Green"
Podcast #16 -"The Unicorn Song"
Podcast #15 -"Jedi Drinking Song"

This turned out to be much more of a Bards plug than I intended, but they have the funny songs, and like I said, funny sticks. This podcast is, overall, great celtic music--funny and serious, so enjoy!

The St. Jerome Award for Crotchety Catholics

This post from the Carolina Cannonball inspired the creation of the St. Jerome Award for Crotchety Catholics. It celebrates the fact that it is possible to be holy and crotchety at the same time, which is one of the reasons I chose St. Jerome for my patron saint (that, and he was a scholar). So you can call me Hermione. I'll be on the lookout for more award winners, and if you see a likely candidate, please email me!

Better than Expected!

I finished The City of Ember a little while ago, and I was very pleased with the book as a whole. Even my disappointment with the cult of the "Believers" was redeemed. Though their actions suggested a certain flavor of Evangelical Christianity, their faith was misdirected. In quite a nice passage, a "something better" was suggested:

Doon watched until the moth disappeared. He knew he had seen something marvelous. What was the power that turned the worm into a moth? It was greater than any power the Builders had had, he was sure of that. The power that ran the city of Ember was feeble by comparison--and about to run out.

The wonderful surprise (that I hope will not be a spoiler), is that the book is heavily influenced by Plato. That it was a surprise is a testimony to the talent of the author. Now to find out if the sequel is as oddly engrossing and fascinating. Best read in a while!

Sunday Mass and the Catholic Toddler

BabyCatholic (my daughter, who is 15 1/2 months) writes. . .

Every week there a couple of days when Daddy and Brother are both home all day. At the end of this time, towards evening, they take me to a place where they splash in water, but they won't let me play in it. And there are no duckies. They sing, but only let me sing at certain times. They especially won't let me yell and talk when they're on their knees. A man is talking up front, but he won't notice me when I try to get his attention. There are books in front of us that I can't play with. And if I try to take one of the thin pages out of the books, boy do they get upset! Tonight, all I was trying to do was get off the padded step-thing on the floor and get out onto the aisle to explore a little and say 'hi' to all the people who were looking at me, but would they let me? No. So of course I had to scream! What's a baby to do? Clearly Brother didn't train these parents well enough!

My mother used to say that when faced with the decision of whether or not to have me baptized as an infant, she decided against it because she would have had to promise to bring me to church every Sunday, and she just didn't feel like she could do that with a baby. In a similar gesture, my grandmother stopped attending Mass when she had three young children at home. And, to add another generation to this saga, I (we, actually) have had our share of challenges, though we do not give up so easily!

BabyCatholic is at the age when she is still very, very cute when smiling (most of the time) and quiet, or chattering happily. But she is at the stage when people feel compelled to shoot those "can't you shut that kid up?" looks when she lets out a pterodactyl scream (one of her nicknames is Banshee) or otherwise asserts her independence. (Incidently, we are not really born with Free Will. We acquire it between the ages of 10 and 20 months.)

The "shut that kid up" look comes most often from parishoners who do not particularly mind when the 20-somethings discuss their after-Mass plans during Communion, or when the well-to-do family of 8 comes in after the Gloria and takes the front pew, no matter who happens to be occupying it. Many of these generous, non-judgmental souls have grown or semi-grown children of their own. However, for some reason, the priests also seem to take mild- to moderate offense if the Eucharistic prayer is interrupted by a shriek or if there is an audible rip from the direction of the baby with the hymnal. I'm sorry, Father, but didn't you notice that she was quiet during the Consecration? There has to be a special place in heaven for parents who wrestle with babies in Mass.

I do wonder whether there is more that could be done to make parents of young children--particularly young children of the squirmy ages--feel more welcome at Mass. My options all involve either vexing clergy and laity alike, or separating my family. One parish we have been attending lately will likely be our new parish home because they offer a 5:30 P.M. Mass (the only time locally that does not conflict with a baby meal time) and a nursery. The first time I used the nursery was three weeks ago today. I pretty much stormed out with SquirmyCatholic (you know who I mean!) during the first reading, deposited her with two friendly women, and returned for the Gospel. The entire time I was looking back to make sure they were not bringing her to me crying. Much as I enjoyed the opportunity to focus on the Mass, I felt that there was something missing. Perhaps because there was. It feels somehow wrong to split up the family during Mass. I remember when she first noticed the statues of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Conception. She pointed to Jesus and said, "hi! . . . hi! . . . hi!" This evening, she tried to investigate the contents of our mouths after Communion. There's something special in these moments, if only because her innocence redirects our attention to certain elements of the Sacred.

The Orthodox Roman Catholic has beautiful, evocative words to say about Sacred Silence. I have experienced the silent, reverent beauty of the Tridentine Mass--before I had my second child! For me to do my part to provide for the Sacred Silence in the Masses I attend, someone must be exiled--my baby, or perhaps myself. I could, perhaps sit in the windowed second-story room constructed as an afterthought in the renovations of the student parish we had, until recently, attended regularly. The view is. . . Wait, what view? The room can not accommodate more than 2 adults with a child each. In the parish that generously provides a nursery, the "crying baby room" is actually the Narthex. From The Catholic Encyclopedia:

"In early Christian architecture a portion of the church at the west end, separated from the nave by a low wall or screen and reserved for the catechumens, energumens, and penitents who were not admitted amongst the congregation."

From Wikipedia:

"The narthex of a church is the entrance or lobby area, located at end of the nave, at the far end from the church's main altar. Traditionally the narthex was a part of the church building, but was not considered part of the church proper. It was either an indoor area separated from the nave by a screen or rail, or an external structure such as a porch."

This provides a good indication of the location, I think. Basically, it's the foyer--the first level, where one partakes of Holy Water in preparation for entry into the church proper (or the Church proper, as the Baptismal font is also located in this area in this particular church!) Noisy children and their unfortunate parents are treated as "catechumens, energumens, and penitents who were not admitted amongst the congregation"--not quite worthy of admittance. We either sit together in the isolation booth, or we split our family, which, unified and fruitful, born of a Sacramental Marriage, is supposed to provide an example to others within the Church.

This evening, the pastor was rehashing a Pro-Life homily that he has given almost verbatim at least two other times in our memory. Unhappily, I was left with the message, "We're Pro-Life, but we don't want them crying in church." In all fairness, I don't believe this is what he would have wished.

What do we want from children's literature?

Recently, courtesy of my search for suitable and stimulating reading material for my son and a great blog/conversation on Little House on the Prairie by DarwinCatholic, I have been considering and reconsidering the topic of children's literature. I say "reconsidering" because children's lit has long been an interest of mine. It is the one and only subject on which I am published--well, that and ecocriticism, but it's the same article.

It is inevitable that children's literature should try to teach. After all, it is difficult to find work of literature in which the author (who after all, does not exist in poststructuralist literary criticism) does not seem to have something that she or he is communicating to the audience. Even if the work seems to be "just a story" (whatever that means), there is some "exigence" (rhetorical term I taught to my students this past week meaning some reason that the writer wrote that story and not something else).

Having said this, in spite of my lifelong love of the Chronicles of Narnia that began when I was 10 and culminated in my M.A. thesis (and the above-mentioned article), I, like Neil Gaiman, who expressed the sentiment at the Mythcon 35 conference, which I attended in 2004, felt utterly betrayed in high school when I realized the religious subtext. Yes, I am one of the three or so readers who did not catch on to this on the first, second, third or fourth read. I can't say when I caught on, but I think it was the fuzzy white lamb who turns to Aslan at the end of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader that did it for me. In my defense, I did not read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (the most Christological) as often as the others because I found the story to be less interesting than many of the other books, and did not acquire a copy of The Magician's Nephew, with the Creation story, until after I had read the rest twice, as the (Baptist school!) library where I first encountered the Chronicles had lost their copy. When I did read MN, I was taken by the symmetry of the series--the discovery of who "the Professor" of LWW really was--rather than by the Creationism.

I lost interest in Harry Potter when it became clear that book 3 was, in the first three chapters, more concerned with establishing its anti-capital- and corporal-punishment slant (not to mention the house-elf slavery sub-plot) than its main storyline, at least initially.

Yet, I find myself concerned, while reading The City of Ember, that the author's only mention of religion is mockery--brief mockery, and mockery of a kind of extreme Evangelicalism, but mockery nonetheless. I find myself thinking that there is enough of this kind of mockery to be found in everyday life, and asking whether in need intrude upon the most compelling early adolescent book I have encountered in many a year.

I have not made it a habit of studying new releases in children's literature. I have been busy studying--or avoiding studying--early 20th century Brit Lit (the whole "life's work" thing). But since my son is going to a school with a library this year and a screwy reading program that awards "points" for reading, and since he is in the "tweens" as far as book-level and book-content, I have been paying more attention. I have no interest in the more or less "realistic" pre-teen fiction. I didn't even read it when my friends were busy with The Babysitter's Club series. Since HarryPottermania, the standard formula for children's fantasy goes something like this:

1. Young person has difficult family/school situation.
2. Young person discovers something extroardinary about him or herself, some extroardinary creature, or an otherworldly realm.
3. Young person is faced with a crisis that pertains directly to the ethereal plot device mentioned in #2.
4. Having discovered the fantasy element, young person puts it to good use, growing and learning about him- or herself in the process, resolving the issue satisfactorily, usually heroically.
5. Young person's life returns to normal, and s/he is able to resolve difficult real-life issues due to the intervention of the deus ex machina.

It's amazing how many variations there are on this now. The formula is effective, if done well (though Tolkien thought the fantasy lessened by the entering-the-secondary-world-through-our-world motif). But to do it well in the wake of the acknowledged masters is difficult. And I hate to say it, but dragons are getting old.

School stories are trite. Fantasies are becoming poorly- and overly done. I don't approve of books that preach, unless one knows what is being preached to one. And yet cheap jabs at religion are objectionable, too. The classics are a bit above his reading level, though Treasure Island is on the agenda. I will be working on getting him to read the Little House Books, because they have a rare quality about them--honesty. And perhaps that is what I am seeking, really. Even C. S. Lewis, I came to realize, is not quite genuine in his fiction. He comes close, but he doesn't quite believe in his characters or his world. He does have fun with it, though, and there's something to be said for that! If Little House on the Prairie is teaching anything, it is doing so because the ideas communicated were so well-ingrained in the author as to be second nature--they couldn't not be there. Religion is not self-conscious; it is not intrusive; it is just a way of life. And isn't that how it should be, really?

I haven't yet decided what makes The City of Ember so compelling, but it is. I'm not entirely sure what it's trying to communicate. There is self-reliance, with the realization that one does need help sometimes. The children are mature, but still act like children. The fantasy world is fantastic, but has an air of reality. Society is dark and has dystopic elements, but it is not a dystopia. It's even got that healthy fatalism that is so entirely missing from entertainment media these days. (The same healthy fatalism inherent in Return of the King or the poems of W. H. Auden, though non-Christian existentialist fatalism--a fatalism makes it unsuitable for my son, unfortunately.) It would be perfect (so far) if not for the "Believers."

Feminism, Family, and Femmes Politiques

I was referred by a friend to an article on "Feminism and Politics." While I usually like to avoid political posts, this one intersects somewhat with my musings on motherhood and work from a while back. Here's an interesting side note--when I read the "I'm a Woman" song that the author reprints with reference to a perfume ad, I was reminded of Miss Piggy. Seriously. There's a Muppet show sketch with Miss Piggy and some has-been brunette (offhand, I forget who!) with whom Piggy was competing for Kermit. Hardly an emblem of the woman's movement, even for the sake of argument!! This is also kind of funny given the reference in the quote to bacon.

What questions does this article raise for me? I'm not sure. Perhaps what it says about what we want to believe women are, or do, or whatever. The point seems to be that, while ostensibly, all choices for women are equally valid, in the political arena, this is not the case. This is no new news. Certain "choices" are definitely represented as being "rights" more often than others. However, I'm not entirely sure when the correct choice for professional women became to have a family and a career. Or, indeed, to have a family before a career, which really seems to be what the women in question represent. Rather, career first, family later has seemed the way to go, which is why unplanned pregnancies, and especially unplanned pregnancies before a certain age are deemed damaging and burdensome. Or did I misunderstand something all this time? I don't think so. So is feminism rethinking itself (again)? Is it in crisis? Is it obsolete? Or is it just imperfectly represented for political expedience?

Or am I, in concert with the author of the article, merely focusing too hard on meaningless offhand remarks that likely meant very little except for image-building purposes? Probably. And I can even make a literacy-orality reference. In our era of recording technology, remarks uttered in a specific context, that otherwise would have evaporated after being spoken, whose context could not have been recreated after the utterance was spoken, are preserved. We can hold those who spoke the words responsible for their offhand remarks as if they had been written. We can, of course, alter the context through selective editing, but then written words can be taken out of context also. However, the fact remains that we have the words, and the lives of the women who are holding themselves up as our role models. Would they have represented themselves the same 10 years ago? 20? And does this say more about what the women of the country want to hear, or what message these women want to convey?

Lest anyone consider too conservatively the assertion that "[m]ore young women at elite colleges are planning to stay home with their children," it should be mentioned that doing just that is becoming a status marker among young women, at least in certain parts of the country. The idea seems to be, why work if you don't have to? An extension of why should I take an elective if I don't have to? or why should I pay for my own car/apartment/college/etc. if my parents are willing to do so? I'd like to follow-up on that survey and see how many of those who decide to "stay home with their children" have them in child care before the age of one year for one reason or another that is not economically-based. Is this the rise of the family, or of a voluntarily leisured class (instead of involuntarily chained to the home, or voluntarily working)? Who knows?

I apologize if your self-righteousness meter is off the charts, here. The article raises a number of questions, and I have related them with a hearty measure of cynicism. I will not say, with the author of the Post Chronicle quote, "O.K. now, ladies, stop the cat-fight!" I think that what is at stake here is larger than bi-partisan sisterhood. I think it has to do with how each and every one of us views family in general and motherhood (or mothering) in particular, how our politicians think we feel about these issues, and how our media thinks we ought to feel. Now, who can tell me which is which?

Canonization and "the Canon"

While doing some research on Virginia Woolf for the dissertation recently, I ran across the following quote. It comes from Plain and Ordinary Things: Reading Women in the Writing Classroom by Deborah Anne Dooley. Discussing Welty's story "A Worn Path," Dooley writes, "In her rewriting of the Christian myth, Welty's heroine sings a story that no nation will make its epic, no literary high priest will canonize" (Dooley 90). What struck me was the final phrase: "no literary high priest will canonize." For all the discussion in English departments about the "canon," in spite of the fact that I am familiar with the concept of canonization of saints, I had never considered the relationship between the two words. How did this slip the notice of those who have sought to do away with the canon and combat the forces of patriarchy in the academy?

I confess to being rather attached to the more-or-less traditional canon, supplemented by those works of demonstrable worth, or at least moderate compelling content, that have been rediscovered by valiant scholars on their way to tenure (the "valiant" is meant to be only slightly tongue-in-cheek, as I respect any sincere efforts to promote a favored or admired text). After all, can one study the English Romantics without discussing Blake, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley, and Keats? Perhaps. But the definition of "Romanticism" (in English) would be severely lacking without reference to these names. Start with Germany, and the situation is quite different. Romanticism is an international movement, so it is a fitting example. Only once you have established the context that others were working in reference to--or against--is it possible to understand the excluded or the dissenters. So much for my reason for wanting to uphold the traditional canon. I should also mention that many who talk about getting rid of the canon merely mean the supplementing of a new set of texts for the old--not dissolving the canon, but overthrowing it. The canon is in a constant state of flux, incidently. Not an English major I know has had to read Hemmingway for decades, and D. H. Lawrence and E. M. Forster are similarly scarce.

However, in the discussions of "the canon" or the "literary canon," which are less about what to value than what to teach, no one has mentioned the root of the word--or the word of which "canon" is the root.

From WordNet, "canon" refers to

• a rule or especially body of rules or principles generally established as valid and fundamental in a field or art or philosophy; "the neoclassical canon"; "canons of polite society"
• a priest who is a member of a cathedral chapter
• canyon: a ravine formed by a river in an area with little rainfall
• a contrapuntal piece of music in which a melody in one part is imitated exactly in other parts
• a complete list of saints that have been recognized by the Roman Catholic Church
• a collection of books accepted as holy scripture especially the books of the Bible recognized by any Christian church as genuine and inspired

So, in our secular academics, we adopt this religiously charged term. Our canon is our collection of sacred texts. When we hold authors up as "courseworthy," we are granting them sainthood. They are our aid to worship, our models for the holy literary life, those who demonstrate the fullness of grace, those who occupy the blessed realm--which further begs the question, is the classroom really the blessed realm for academics?

But before I have too much fun with this, let me mention a short story by E. M. Forster, "The Celestial Omnibus" (PDF available here). In this story, a boy takes an omnibus "to heaven," which is populated by various literary figures. He gets along well with all of them, preferring the "homey" figures to the more exalted, like Dante. When he brings an unbelieving literary friend to the heaven, he is scolded for his bad taste. The boy triumphs while the literary "snob" falls. With all of the things Forster does in this story, he also manages to tap into the real implication of the literary "canon." Brilliant!

Audiobooks, Books & Literacy

My thoughts have dried up somewhat over the past few days--perhaps in contrast to the wet weather. I have started a few thoughts, but did not finish. This at least may prevent me from being too hard on my composition students this semester, who will be writing blogs as part of their daily/homework grades. To fill in the gaps, a few collections of words. . .

Today, to test out our new DSL connection (yay! no more dialup!), my husband was looking through the iTunes Latino audiobooks store. I found several of the top 10 downloads rather inspiring:

2) Don Quijote
4) Pablo Neruda reading his own work
5) The Little Prince by Antoine De Saint-Exupery
6) The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros
8) The Illiad
9) 1001 Arabian Nights

The English language top 10 in the U.S. iTunes store are not so inspiring:

1) Stephen Colbert at the White House Correspondents' Dinner
2) How to Make People Like You by Nicholas Boothman
3) The Art of Happiness by the Dalai Lama
4) The Audacity of Hope by Barak Obama
5) Plum Lovin' by Janet Evanovich
6) The Funny Thing is by Ellen Degeneres
7) The Secret by Rhonda Byrne
8) Rich Dad, Poor Dad:What the Rich Teach their Kids about Money - That the Poor and Middle Class Do Not!
9) How to Not Suck at Sales
10) This American Life: A Very Special David Sedaris Christmas

I suppose both lists may have one element in common: they may demonstrate that those who are downloading them have some kind of impulse toward self-improvement, though I would venture that the term would be defined differently in each case. However, in the case of one of the lists, pure aesthetic enjoyment could as easily be a motive for listening. How few on the second list are fiction! I am struck in particular by number 8. I would like to see the book titled, What Those Who Have Had to Live Without Money Can Teach Those Who Have Had Too Much of It. When it is published, I hope to be notified.

It strikes me that audiobook downloads are a marker of something that is not quite literacy, but is related. Listening to an audiobook requires a different level of time commitment than reading. It may be accomplished during a commute, a road-trip, a cross-country drive. . . My family has developed a ritual for road-trips. Listening to Tolkien. With weeks in between, we listen more or less sequentially to all of the books of The Lord of the Rings, which my husband and I have read multiple times each. At times, I may select a "moment" of Middle Earth and start from there.

Having read the book, I am able to listen to the book; I can not listen to a book I have not read. My first experience of audiobooks was disorienting, at best. Traveling to a conference with a friend and her husband, I listened with them to mysteries--something set in the South and involving lawyers, Grisham perhaps. I admit that this is not my taste in books, but I was literally spatially disoriented. I could not imagine being able to locate a sentence--even a scene!--in a book that was only heard and not read. I believe that the experience is one of "secondary orality," as I understand Walter Ong's term--scripted orality, speech that can be replayed. I confess to be utterly dependent on language made visible.

My other thoughts are also book-related--one disturbing, one pleasing. The first is a Christian teen book titled something like One God, Many Churches. In the future, I will try to avoid titles which, in 'hip' language, try to explain denominational differences. For me, for now, the offending phrase is the equation of "Sacraments" with "rituals."

I have been reading a book I discovered while looking for reading material for my 4th grade son. It is perhaps a bit dark for him, but I am enjoying it--The City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau, an odd science fiction that reminds me, vaguely, of the "feel" of Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities. The city in the book--a city in darkness whose lights are failing--reminds me of one Calvino may have written. It feels real, somehow surreal. I look forward to reading more, which is unusual of late! (at any rate, for fiction)

Words Written, Sounds Heard

It is incredible the thoughts that seem worthy of writing when you know you have a venue for them.

This occurred to me the other day as I was driving and a car near me honked, I believe to let the car in front know that the light had changed. Of course, it could have been to tell the idiot in the car to pay attention. The result would have been the same--a beep or two on the car's horn. What made me consider this is my recognition of the complete inability to know whether the honk was intended as a gentle reminder or an impatient, irate admonition (at least, if the recipient of the honk could not see the facial expression or flailing arms). I must have been in a good mood, or I would have assumed that the gesture was meant to cause offense. Of course, it is easier to think of these things objectively if one is not on the receiving end.

Although the car honk is non-verbal, the issue is one of tone, as it is in written communication--notably, email. Arrangement of words alone is usually inadequate to convey the sense in which the meaning was meant. This comes across in the user profile of The Ironic Catholic, who writes, as illustration of her definition of irony, " I.e.:This is a joke, people." The words themselves do not necessarily communicate the tone of voice in which the sentence would be delivered, but since we are used to hearing this phrase, the ", people" provides sufficient indicator. Ignoring that context on the side of the page, one might take this humorous post literally--and did, until one realized the spoof in the middle of an email to me about the post. Hence, net culture has developed the smilies, and variations on the smilies, to indicate mood, or tags like "(ha, ha)" to indicate jokes. Or we fail to do either, and are misinterpreted.

I assume that I was misinterpreted by the blogger who deleted my comment on this post (link removed). Who knows? I was being sincere, but could not necessarily indicate it. Political posts get so nasty so fast; I usually avoid them completely. Even agreement can be taken as mockery.

The ability to change what you have said, or what someone else has said in response to you, rather contradicts my idea at the beginning of this post that thoughts have to be "worthy" of being written--an idea that can be traced to our cultural impression that writing has a privileged position, and that something, once written, is permanently fixed. With the blog, however, you can delete me, I can delete you, I can delete something that feels particularly vulnerable if I choose to do so. But does that really feel honest? Or genuine? Or do these things really matter, since blogs are, after all, "virtual"?

After the fact, I decided that I would assume "technology failure" from the deleted comment and not give the link. Further calling the permanence of writing into question. . .

Yoga & Spirituality

This is a conversion story, of sorts. Or, more accurately, it is part of a conversion story. Sorry about that. Consider yourself warned.

Yoga taught me about prayer. Not about New Age spirituality, but about real, honest, Christian prayer. You see, I didn't really know much about prayer, really. Or spiritual prayer, anyway. I was taught "Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep" as a child, but I was always a little uncomfortable about the whole dying-in-my-sleep-as-a-child connotation. And I knew the Lord's Prayer/Our Father. My sister says she remembers our grandmother teaching her to pray the Rosary. I had no such experience, but I was less taken with shiny things. When I was older, I was always uncomfortable with the praying-in-a-group thing, with one person speaking for everyone. While it removed the responsibility from the individual, it nevertheless puts the individual on the spot in an odd sort of way--perhaps the pressure of conformity, since you couldn't really walk away from those situations. I knew that prayer was personal, individual; I just didn't really know how to do it.

I was plagued with fears as a young child--fourth grade or so. I was too aware of stories of weird deaths, crime, etc., and these fears found their way into nightmares. My most heartfelt prayers as a child--the only kind that went beyond the "bless so-and-so" variety, involved an end to these nightmares. These prayers persisted through many of my younger years--and they worked. I later rationalized away their success. During these same years, when I was attending a Baptist church sporadically, I also would lie on my back sometimes in broad daylight imagining that deceased relatives whom I had never known looked down on me from heaven, and I imagined myself talking to them, expressing my own love and thankfulness for their watchfulness. In my naiveté, I was reaching towards the idea of the Communion of Saints and the practice of meditation. These were not things that came to me from any of the churches I attended--Lutheran, Baptist, First Assembly of God (who did, however, use the Sign of the Cross!). So what does all of this near-prayer-experience have to do with yoga?

As an amateur and occasional yoga practitioner, I like guided practices. The yoga DVD is not my preferred means of acquiring such guidance, but with a toddler, it will do, since I have found some that are not too offensive--you know, not MTV yoga. So as I was entering into final relaxation (Savasana or Corpse Pose), when the yoga instructor tells the viewer/practitioner that this is a time to focus the mind inwards. We spend most of our time focusing our minds outwards, and, seemingly, this is the time to correct that, to restore the balance. However, what struck me is that this is not my experience of yoga, or of the world. Rather, it is my experience that many of us spend time focused rather intensely inwards--on our own hopes, fears, desires, etc. This was clearly one of my obstacles with prayer (the "bless the people I know & take care of me" prayers), and still, admittedly, is. Perhaps this is not the inwards-focusing she meant, but it is internal. When we direct our energies outwards, isn't it to satisfy some inner selfishness--some goal that we have, some desire, something we need to accomplish because of a drive deep within (even a shallow one)? Anyway, in the final relaxation stage, during which the body--exhausted from the effort of the workout--is still and heavy, the person is guided to relax further, both physically and mentally, by consciously relaxing muscles, being conscious of breath, envisioning relaxing spaces.

It must be that with yoga, the mind is caught off-guard, and feels no need to rationalize and reject the spiritual experience. When practicing yoga, I can say, "It's only exercise; I'm only exercising; I'm relaxing; there's nothing spiritual here; I'm not vulnerable to anything outside of myself." At least, that's the only way I can account for my submission to it--that, and it feels really good. (See my earlier post on exercise.) Rereading even my own description here, it sounds very New Age spirituality, but recently I was quite perplexed at finding Catholic sources representing yoga very negatively, albeit the context was in reference to an ex-nun who became an ex-nun to pursue this very New Age spirituality, and in fact teaches yoga.

My experience with "live" yoga was not very spiritual. It was a modestly priced class-by-class fitness option at the rec center of a public university. No one was seeking enlightenment. Most were seeking tighter abs and a Spring Break bikini body, and soon found that they were in the wrong class. Because there is a Christian tinge to this large state school, the yoga instructor sometimes reassured the class that this was not a religious thing. But it could have been, and in those moments of relaxation at the end of the hour, I felt it. It could perhaps have been a bad thing to experience something spiritual in such a secular setting, and I may have been drawn into eastern mysticism or religion-of-self. At the time, however, I was moving hard & fast in the direction of Catholicism. As I lay on the yoga mat, I reached outwards. In an RCIA (the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults) class session, we were asked to visualize a place where we felt absolutely comfortable and at home. I felt uncomfortable, self-conscious, silly even. My mind was closed. However, when told by the yoga instructor to visualize a place where I felt absolutely at peace, comfortable, relaxed, I tended to have alternate images--neither a real place: the first was what I knew to be a mountain or tall hill with tall, soft, sun-kissed grasses waving against me as I lay looking at the blue sky, hemmed in by taller mountains or hills; the second was an hexagonal-shaped room of a wood-framed house with three wall-sized windows overlooking a pine forest at night in a downpour of rain. Floors were wood, furniture was sparse. It feels odd putting these images into print. I didn't connect--or contrast--the two experiences at the time.

What I noticed more than anything, however, was that after the relaxation, when the instructor would say "Namaste," what I wanted more than anything else was to make the Sign of the Cross--as if a prayer had ended for me. I must have felt that yoga was not an end in itself; looking back, I recognize it as a beginning.

Shopping at a Christian bookstore for a rosary at about this time, I was surprised to have the woman who unlocked the case for me describe Catholicism as intensely spiritual--it caught me offguard and perhaps frightened me a little. . . I was looking for the rational, not the irrational in religion. But gradually, I have come to accept that the two can coexist. And I don't even have to be sweaty to see it.

Housewife, Peasant woman, or Academic mom?

The current generation of working women is still rebelling against the housewife-image perfected by the Donna Reed and June Cleaver generation. I firmly believe this to be true. Feminism was founded on a rejection of the domestic standards upheld by the women who are no longer our mothers, but perhaps now our grandmothers. However, having lost touch with the actual experience of that familial life, are we rebelling against an idea that is hollow--the TV sitcom version of the dutiful wife/mother--or is there any remaining offense to be had?

Consider this. . . The woman of the 40's and 50's was an updated "angel of the house," if you will. She was the ruler of the domestic sphere, until her husband returned from work to find his steak and mashed potatoes on the table. She cooked and cleaned, shopped on a budget, raised children, and perhaps not much else. Who knows anymore? She was the apple of the eye of product developers and advertising agencies. More commercials and products were geared to this woman than to any single consumer today. Well, no. Children are the number one target today, and what does that say about who runs the household? But you take my point. We look at her full skirts and her plastic smile and listen to the Stones' "Mother's Little Helper" to understand all that was wrong with our perfect image of her. Of course, my generation doesn't really have an image of her that is separate from the criticism. She is not my grandmother, though they were contemporaries and share some of the same problems. And so I, also, reject this image, as I have been taught.

During (and perhaps immediately after) my younger child was born in the autumn of 2005, my dissertation adviser (and friend and confidant) had a running joke about me--that I was one of those "peasant women" who give birth in the field, then strap the baby to their backs and keep working. Strictly speaking, this is not true, though it was great for a chuckle. I emphatically did not want to, or, more accurately perhaps, feel that I should have to work in the months immediately after my baby was born. It turns out that I did not merely stay at home and bond with my baby, but that's another tale. . . I have colleagues who were in the classroom within weeks of giving birth. I freely admit that I could not have done this! Instead, I waited through October, November, and December, took on a less-demanding-than-teaching assistantship, and eased back into teaching in the summer and fall. I also took a class on professionalism in the fall.

I have heard and read many discussions recently about childcare, from a friend who is confused & vexed, a blogger whose husband became distressed after she recovered somewhat from first-time daycare blues, from a committed stay-at-home blogger mom lamenting "outsourced motherhood."

[An aside: my 15-month-old just dialed a play phone, help it to her ear, and said "bye bye" before the recorded voice!! Cute!!]

My own experience with childcare is limited. My husband & I did not put our son in any form of child care until he was 3; rather, we "swapped" child care duties literally between graduate classes. Until after kindergarten, which he attended part time, one of us was with him for most of the day. Last August I sincerely tried to place my baby in a church mother's-day-out program one day a week, but after two days of observation/trial, I simply could not. I just do not trust others with my baby--both for emotional and hygienic reasons. We both became very ill after that day of observation, which did nothing for my resolve or self-confidence.

[Just changed a diaper and had my daughter take 3 steps to me!]

Working-woman daycare culture is clearly not for me. However, while I have arranged the past 2 semesters so that I could stay with my daughter during the day and teach in the evenings, when she could be with Daddy, I can not identify myself as a "stay-at-home mom." I criticize both camps, perhaps too freely. That's not my purpose here, however.

It is ingrained in my consciousness that a mother needs to take care of herself while taking care of her children, insofar as it is possible to do both. In spite of extremely difficult situations, including a stretch as a single mother of me and a marriage that was even worse than the first, my mother managed to raise 6 children to believe that taking care of children is valuable, and that one can accomplish a great deal while doing so.

We have a rather unhealthy dichotomy in our contemporary conception of motherhood--a word that good feminists would avoid because it connotes an identity rather than an act--"working mother" is set in opposition to "stay-at-home mom." These terms are interesting in themselves, as "mother" lends more of an air of seriousness to the former situation than the less formal "mom." Hmmmm. . . Of course, working part-time in order to parent also connotes certain personal and financial sacrifices for family. I am aware of a married couple who divorced due to their conflict over whose career was more important. No children without compromise! For me, academia, perhaps grad school in particular! offers a reasonable compromise between these competing versions of motherhood. And dual academic careers are ideal.

But I wanted to think again about the 1940s housewife and the "peasant woman." We base our rejection of "traditional" motherhood on the former, but include the latter in our conceptualization of oppressed women of previous generations who had no choice but to bear children, etc. We differ because we have autonomy, can choose careers, can choose to mother, the possibilities are endless! But are our choices presented fairly? Are we always sacrificing something that the other choice offers? Two roads diverged, and all that. . . I choose to multitask--to work with a baby at my feet (not on my back!). I take care of her; she is mine; I am mine.

Exercise and the Academic

I have come to a realization recently that, having put into writing, I can not longer take back or deny, even to myself (barring catastrophic server failure--my how the "rules" of literacy are changed in the online environment!); namely, that exercise does increase intellectual productivity. I will revisit this post in my months of sloth later this semester, when I am lamenting all of the things I have to do, seemingly lacking the energy to do them. Exercise is something that I enjoy when I do it regularly, but that, in times of sloth, I look back on with fear and loathing. Why? I'm not sure. Perhaps what I remember is the sweatiness, not the faint pleasure and self-satisfaction that comes from slightly sore muscles or the pleasure of the warm bath afterwards (preferably with bubbles). Or I dwell on the seeming impossibility of making time to visit the rec center, the embarrassment of taking out fitness tapes in the living room, the worry that the yoga mat will get trampled by dirty feet. . . So having overcome all of these things, primarily because of Target's display of fitness items in the dollar (in this case, $2.50) spot in the front of the store, and having warmed up to the idea of exercise by playing a few rounds of Dance, Dance Revolution Mario Mix (I only do the Mario version), I have found that I actually do domestic tasks and perform intellectual acts in the same day. Trust me, this is a profound difference for me. I am actively working on the dissertation and preparing for the course I will be teaching starting next Tuesday, and I have even mustered the will to visit the library rather than having the items delivered to me electronically or via my very accommodating husband, who works there and pampers me by dutifully responding to any random Library of Congress call numbers I happen to send him during the day. I can only attribute these things to exercise, which I know gives physical energy, but which I've never found to deliver mental energy.

So I was thinking, what does this do to our image of the sedentary academic? You know, that outdated image that (for me anyway) still holds some charm--the "ivory tower" image, where the white male professor in tweeds collects dust among his books while writing his books. It occurs to me that the film (and play) Educating Rita exploits and subverts this image by portraying Frank, the professor, as depressed and frequently, a slobbering drunk. A lovable, crotchety, burned-out husk of a man, played brilliantly by Michael Cain. I also admit to having in mind the figure of J. R. R. Tolkien, who was incredibly prolific with his fantasy, enjoyed plenty of social intercourse with the Inklings, and also published the occasional scholarly work while reading, taking notes, teaching, learning ancient Scandinavian languages and the like. He had the tweed thing going on, and could be envisioned spending hours in a musty, dusty room. It does occur to me, however, that he loved to walk--to hike, more specifically, and that Professor Ransom in Lewis's Space trilogy--an active guy who goes on Australian-esque "walkabouts"--was in fact based on Tolkien. This specific example can perhaps be considered with the general walkability of college campuses built before--or largely in scorn of--automobiles. I have always wanted to attend such a college: brick buildings, large (undiseased) trees of various sorts, pavements (not concrete), ponds, etc. Alas! for state school aesthetics. In the past, or perhaps still in other places (with more walkable climates!), academics were, indeed, active. All this by way of trying to motivate myself to get some exercise each day. Whew!

Some other intellectual stimulants: warm baths and Republic of Tea Blackberry Sage Tea. That second one is especially important. They market it as a "Tea of Wisdom"--believe them. It does something to the brain--stimulates thought, cures headaches--beyond the power of ordinary caffeine. It is also a mood-altering drug with no counter indications.

Tea and baths; I am a hobbit indeed. Let's not even talk about mushrooms! So to end in a hobbitish fashion:

"Sing hey! for the bath at close of day
that washes the weary mud away!
A loon is he that will not sing:
O! Water Hot is a noble thing!"

Epiphany!

My epiphany is not Joycean, though I am, in a broad sense of the term, a literary Modernist. It was not an epiphany that inspired me to create this blog; truthfully, it has been a long time coming. I have gradually been drawn out of my net-phobia by friends who have successful and compelling blogs like Mommy, Ph.D. and Stuff as Dreams are Made on. Not that I'm promising the same, mind you! But here I am, jumping on the blog-wagon. Rather, I am writing on the day of the liturgical celebration of the Feast of the Epiphany. Had I started this blog yesterday, as I intended, I wouldn't have to be so legalistic about it! But I still feel justified in claiming today as Epiphany.

Being as it is an "introductory" blog, I feel that a bit of background isn't totally out of order, though I will try not to repeat myself on my profile. Epiphany has been special to me since I was a little girl in New Orleans. Although we weren't Catholic, the culture was, and still attached significance to January 6, the Feast of the Three Kings, or, alternately "Little Christmas" or Petit Noël--albeit small significance. As the beginning of the Mardi Gras season, Epiphany was also (more importantly!) the first day King Cakes could be sold! I mourn for the day the bakeries decided to sell King Cakes year 'round. It's not that I didn't want to eat them other times of the year, it just didn't seem right somehow.

Since I have become Catholic, Epiphany is more significant as the real, liturgical end of the Christmas season. This year, I really didn't get into the Christmas spirit until, well, Christmas. It crept up on me, somehow, and I wasn't feeling very festive. When Christmas ended, I wanted to buy Christmas music, I found myself humming Christmas carols. Now, it's officially time to throw out the tree and pack up the lights & ornaments until next year. And to go to the Mass that celebrates the racial inclusiveness of Christianity. As St. Paul said, the Messiah isn't just for Jews anymore (loose paraphrase). There's a profundity about that that I didn't appreciate until I became Catholic (a little over 2 years ago now). It's diminished somewhat by the toddler squirming on my lap, but still profound. Tonight, in particular, the question put to us was, so there's no Star to follow. . . So why (pourquoi "for what," if you will) are we gathered here? What, indeed. A very personal question. Perhaps I'll return to it sometime. I'm not sure we know each other well enough yet!

"The" Epiphany is the end of a journey, but a theological beginning; "an" epiphany, revisiting the Joyce reference for now, is typically the end of a story, but the beginning of the unknown that is beyond the borders of the story. So I begin my blog, if not exactly on Epiphany, at least by writing about Epiphany. Watch for my blogs to become less self-conscious; it's definitely something I'm striving for.