Happy Easter!!

Hope everyone's Lent was what they wanted it to be. . .

I am back for a brief hello, but I will probably not be returning to my old blogging habits--at least for a while. I will keep posting family updates, and will stop by here from time to time.

Lent was not particularly spiritual for me, regrettably. Easter was beautiful, as always. The Triduum I watched parts on EWTN--not really the same, but about all high spirited toddlerhood allows. I had many parenting ups & downs; the latest: potty-training! Aaaah!!! I started an online diet but stopped because it was taking as much time as blogging. But wanna know something crazy? In the first 2 weeks of not blogging, I wrote a 47-page chapter (some of the material was recycled) and scheduled my defense (mark "Pray for Literacy-chic" on your calendars for May 5)!! I also finished an additional chapter. So I have good drafts of all 5 of my chapters--some of which are quite exciting for me--and only have the conclusion left to do. This I need to finish in the next week or so so that I can give the full draft to the committee in early April. I received a revise and resubmit on a journal article (wait, you know that, don't you?), received my assignment for the Summer--to teach Science Fiction--applied for and got a post-doc lectureship for the fall, applied for one last grad student award for summer (not counting on it) and still felt like I was more attentive to my little girls at home. WOW! It has been a blessed Lent, no? My position for fall is special, too, but I'm not at liberty to divulge too much (especially online--sorry!!). It carries a reduced teaching load, one upper-level team-taught course, and some administrative duties that will be very good vita fodder--it's a good thing someone's looking out for me, because I need all the vita help I can get. (Two pregnancies don't count for much on a job search!) I'm working on the kinks right now, but I have some time & options (I think). . . This might explain why I plan on making myself scarce. I've also got assistantship duties to wrap up in a big way in coming weeks. But it's all pretty exciting. Taking "off" Lent to seriously evaluate whether I could still accomplish all of this was a good idea, I think, and I feel less guilty for not giving up any food items! I do regret that I didn't do as much spiritual preparation as I would like, though I know the opportunities for spiritual development are not limited to Lent. I will be an RCIA sponsor for someone (don't want to say too much about that until I know I am at liberty to do so) in the next RCIA "cycle"--yay!! That will be an opportunity for spiritual development in itself. As a side-note, I am investigating St. Benedict medals for my sister's apartment because everyone who stays there--including her!--has back-to-back nightmares of scenarios with people dying. My mother experienced it last night. *shudder* Anyone have any experience with St. Benedict medals?

I think I have rambled to the end of this post. I will check back, probably once or twice a week (if I can maintain the discipline). Until then, Happy Easter! May the blessings of the season be with all of you!

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.