true motherhood

new blog

2006-04-22T12:30:00.000-07:00

I have abandoned this blog. I am now posting on my new blog grounded.

Catching a few rays

2005-11-18T19:50:00.000-08:00

This week I went to daily Mass by myself for the first time in YEARS. Mass here in Cortland, NY, is 7 am and I figured that I could sneak out and get back before the kids were really coherent enough to damage themselves or the house. My oldest is almost 12, so she is "in loco parentis."

It was amazing. Let me say first that daily Mass was everything that I remembered it to be. . . the echoes of prayers said in a Church that is mostly empty, the cold pews, the three sentence homily. At first I found myself wondering how it could be that this handful of folks could be lifting up the Church with their prayers. It all seemed, if you'll excuse me, a little pathetic. But then, after communion, I felt such joy at the real presence of Jesus within me. With no little children to distract me, He seemed very close. . . "more inner than my inmost."

I pray often for the "radiation" of God's fatherhood. If you have not read the play "Radiation of Fatherhood" by Karol Wojtyla, then I highly recommend it. I have read the whole Theology of the Body and all of the encyclicals, but my favorite is "Radiation."

I yearn to feel this radiation, to behold the face of the Father. Like everyone else, I guess, I want to be chosen, to be anointed. In Mass today, it seemed possible.

Are you still with me?

2005-11-15T12:52:00.000-08:00

I was shocked when I read when my last post was! Moving is like being in a time warp. Good thing my husband is paying the bills these days.... As I said, he is still in Michigan, now I'm here in Central New York. Here to live out the dream (!) I'm still trying to get my act together with regard to New York's homeschooling laws and so not so much communing with nature (the hills, the barns, the stream...) yet. But we have ploughed a good-sized garden and planted a cover crop. And so the spring will be much anticipated.

It is hard to put together deep thoughts here, although I think much about anonymity. Maybe it is the generation I grew up in (or the one that parented me!), but, despite the immense satisfaction I get from being at home with my children, I still wish I were "someone out there in the world." Fr. Francis Martin said that 90 percent (or was it 95 percent) of what we have in our brains is heresy. I think that my definition of what constitutes "the world" may apply.

The Move

2005-10-14T13:53:00.000-07:00

I have been a really bad blogger of late. The reason: we are moving to a farm in upstate New York. Finally, the chance to "live out" all my crazy ideas. It is I and the children who go first, husband to follow (pray to St. Therese and St. Maximilian for us!). True motherhood, indeed.

Hans Urs von Balthasar talks about the "constellation" of persons who stand behind each mission. These are the "saints," canonized and otherwise, by whose lights we are guided. For me the "stars" are John Paul II, Balthasar, Gertrud von le Fort, Therese of Lisieux. But right now I follow Wendell Berry, still alive and still the sole member of his own sect...

More on penguins

2005-10-09T14:51:00.000-07:00

The article mentioned that penguins have no external sexual organs and that the sign of their gayness was observed "bonding" behavior Maybe these penguins are just friends! Can two fathers raise a child and not be gay? I don't see why not.

Penguin Sex

2005-10-09T14:41:00.000-07:00

Thanks to all who attended my talk on marital sexuality yesterday in Pinckney, MI. Feel free to click the comment link below to ask me any questions.

Now, some thoughts on penguin sex. It seems that because a couple male penguins were hatching babies (provided, of course, by a female) together we are once again uncertain about whether heterosexuality is "natural" or not. Please, my dear Catholic friends, recall the story of your origins. We were created but sinned, and that sin polluted the entire ecosphere. We are good "by nature" but that nature, indeed all nature, is touched by sin. That is why there is plenty of violence in the animal world. Are we surprised that penguins are gay? We shouldn't be.

The only difference between them and us is that we can choose to rise above our lusty flesh and let grace transform us. Granted, it is not easy.

The Diet

2005-09-28T18:54:00.000-07:00

A poem for y'all.

I have been put on a diet-
No more fat or lard.
Just a thin slice of meat
And a grape
For me.

Or maybe a little kiwi.

For He likes to train,
To train my likes,
To change my appetite.

Mind and intellect,
Soul and sinew,
Trained anew.

Changing faces

2005-09-26T19:27:00.000-07:00

You’ve heard me complain about my body. I’m thirty-six and my friend Beth tells me that this is the magic age for the transition from the 30s body to the 40s body. After baby number six, none of the fat has rearranged into its traditional spots. Now I have love handles, rolls above my waist, and that ultimate sign of middle age, fat on my upper arms. Sigh.

Which brings me to my topic this evening: plastic surgery.

For the first time in my life I have sympathy for women who have it done. Hey, I see all the same magazines in the checkout line. I go to movies (well, at least a couple times a year). I watch TV. (We don’t have cable, but I have friends and relatives who do.)

But I am not going to do it. My opposition to plastic surgery is not coming from my own body, but my understanding of what the body is supposed to be in the divine plan.

Tonight, the short form of the Theology of the Body. (I knew those degrees would pay off sometime--look out Christ West!).

With John Paul II, we turn to that critical moment in Genesis where the woman, newly created, is presented to the man as the one creature that fulfills his longing, a "helper fit for him." In this moment Adam sees Eve and joyfully exclaims, “Bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh.” He is affirming that she is a gift to him. The gift of her whole person is present in the vision of her naked body. Because Adam is without sin, he can experience her as a gift, and he can glimpse the supreme love that is at the source of her creation--for our God created us from nothing and called us good. In this moment, therefore, he can see that he himself, who is bone of bone and flesh of flesh with the woman, is a gift. Because he is without sin, he experiences his own body in the same way—as a gift, a manifestation of his person which is not to be separated from it (contra Descartes).

When Jesus, in the back-and-forth with the Pharisees about the issue of divorce, directed them back to "the beginning” he directed us to this very moment as the heart of marital communion. In point of fact, however, this moment is not only important for our understanding of marriage, but for our general understanding of the body itself. It reveals the real meaning of bodily life—hence John Paul II’s “nuptial meaning of the body.”

Now, as regards plastic surgery (here I mean cosmetic plastic surgery), there are two reasons a married woman (like myself) might choose to have plastic surgery: because she is looking at other women, TV, etc., and feels unhappy with how she looks to herself, or because she wants to please her husband.

Lets take the first reason first. If it is the case that the body is a gift then a woman really has to see her physical imperfections as part of the gift. The body is redeemed in Jesus Christ, but it is not simply returned to the original state. Jesus suffers in the body, and, even in his redeemed state, his body retains the signs of the suffering—“Probe the nail marks, put your finger in my side…” We could say that, in light of the suffering and death of Jesus, it is precisely the physical frailty of the body that reveals its giftedness. We can suffer for others, we do suffer for others. A woman who has had children has suffered for others. And this suffering is evident in her body. Her body is a witness to a life lived for others. The medieval artists had it right: Mary offering her breast parallels Christ offering the blood from his side. (Granted, it is not a sagging breast!).

And so, the woman can rejoice, with Paul, that Christ’s suffering is being manifested in her own body.

Second reason, hubbie wants it. Lets talk about this man. The husband is called to love his wife’s body as he loves his own body (Ephesians). This is what Adam didn’t do when he sinned, he didn’t look out for Eve (I believe I got this from Scott Hahn). Paul articulates a return to that first moment when the woman is bone of his bone. The woman’s body is a gift that reveals and communicates the giftedness of her person. When we really love a person, we see in their body, their face, their presence, the authentic gift of their personhood. So, it is hard to see why a husband would want his wife to undergo plastic surgery unless he really is only seeing her body as an object for his own desires, not as the manifestation of her person.

And in this day and age, this would be the result of his having seen way too many other women who are presented as objects. In other words, pornography. As my husband has said, the ultimate male fantasy is that the woman will do anything, absolutely anything for the man. He wants to abolish her given reality (remember that it is God who gives the woman to the man) and have her remaide into his own creation (think about how many men are turned on by women having sex with women—hey, she will do absolutely anything!!!!). And so, to have his wife remade, in the image of his own idea, that is a problem. No woman should make herself into an object.

Nope, not gonna do it. No matter what hubbie says.

Children and churches

2005-09-25T10:33:00.000-07:00

Just received my copy of the Journal of Sacred Architecture. This is publication that lifts my spirits. They are not pre-Vatican II, but are rooted in the Tradition, with really sharp sensibilities. They feature some amazing church buildings as well as the worst disasters. Just one of the great things that are happening at my Alma Mater.

When I have time (!) I want to write to them about church architecture and children. Why, in this "populist" era of church architecture, is no one talking about the way that children learn about their faith in church? Children can't read and the really small ones don't pray (at least like we do) but they see everything, from the color that father is wearing to the stained glass windows that I miss because I am busy taking care of them! In our parish church-in-the-round, there is, thank God, one beautiful crucifix. But there are no side altars, no place to take the kids after mass to say a quick prayer to St. Joseph or a patron saint. The church in town here is an even worse disaster--the tabernacle looks like a wooden crate. I am not rabid about these things. We love our parish and our pastor is phenomenal, but I feel that my job as a parent and the primary teacher of my children is compromised when I can't point to pictures and statues when I am teaching my children about the Passion or the Blessed Mother or the Trinity.

Children are totally concrete. They need the gold and the ornamemtation. They love it and they crave it. And so should we.

communio

2005-09-22T15:00:00.000-07:00

Today, and atleast once a week, I wonder where the communio is. I mean communion with others. I used to think that a really big family was where it was at. I still accept, trust, and live the Church's teaching on procreativity with all my might. But my heart goes out to the women who feel stressed with one or two kids. In today's mobile culture, where do you turn when you need support--emotional, physical? If your parents are close, you are the exception. If you actually have genuine friends in your parish you are the exception. If you and your siblings still all have intact marriages you are the exception.

Someone out there, Lorenzo Albacete actually, said that the movement Communion and Liberation is Opus Dei for bad people. Maybe it is Opus Dei for the desperate.

Check out the Easter poster. That's my day today.

Agony

2005-09-19T18:32:00.000-07:00

Today was a terrible day. Maybe it was because I took Clare to the pediatrician--is it the stress of getting there, the stress of the shots, the stress of feeling like I am a bad mother for vaccinating, and that I would be a bad mother for not vaccinating?... Whatever the case, by the time my husband got home I was fit to be tied. So we fought and then I escaped to the store to buy lint traps and taco shells. I went by the magazine aisle--hey, maybe a gardening magazine would pick me up. And there I say Britney, buxom and beautiful, sparkling with pregnant sensuality on the cover of Elle. And then I just got madder because after baby number six my body is a wreck. So I got out of the store and figured that I had better not go home because we would just fight again because now I am fightin' mad.

So I went to adoration instead. I sat there and complained to Jesus. Hey, I am almost middle-aged with the body to show for it and, by the way, there are those two theology degrees which I got at great sacrifice and I am doing nothing with them. I love you, Jesus, I love your Church, and I love my children. I am making sacrifices.

So did I, He said.

So, what can I respond to that? But I still want to know what the degrees were for.

Benedetto and me

2005-09-13T19:55:00.000-07:00

For any readers that may remain, a reflection tonight on the act of blogging. I have been wondering where this whole thing fits into my life. I started out with the intention to reflect on true motherhood, experientially and ontologically (in the realm of being). Well, true motherhood means not really having a lot of time on my hands. No time to check out all the neat websites out there, or other peoples' blogs (even those that belong to my loved ones!).

I guess that I am really more interested in reflecting, and I write when I have the time and ability to reflect. No fancy links here. Just good, old-fashioned theologizing. Then, tonight, finally got on Godspy and read this little piece. It made me feel better.

Cardinal George and the hurricane

2005-09-07T19:24:00.000-07:00

This address by Cardinal George in Traces, n. 3, 2003 (see Archive)pretty much says it all when it comes to our country and disasters and our warped view of God. What we need here is a truly "spiritual" view, as in the Holy Spirit:

...we are not open to actions that are not planned; we are not able to recognize, to be surprised, when the Holy Spirit always brings novelty. Things must always remain the same. That is why, when a disaster happens, everybody assures us that we have not to worry, we will put everything back together. This is why the people that run society are insurance people and lawyers; we have to check everything with those people, because if there is something that has not been planned, then somebody is at fault and is going to pay for it. This is even true of God–there is a great resentment about God Himself being active; you can talk about God as much as you want, as a great goal of one’s particular experiences, and you can talk about God as the best in human nature or in human experience. But you cannot talk about God that breaks into history with a surprise, making all things new and changed. This God is resented, and deeply so.

Oh, Katrina

2005-09-06T22:27:00.000-07:00

Long weekend out in Wisconsin. And now back to Katrina. Today the blame-game continues. A quote from a doctor on NPR: “10,000 dead is a real failure.” The implication is that the federal government has failed. There is some truth to this, no doubt. But since the gospel of tolerance became the official religion of America, it has become impossible to have a spiritual assessment of any natural disaster.

Where there is suffering, there is the opportunity for each person to encounter the Crucified Savior. The talking heads can do nothing but, well, talk. They drone on and on about what could have been prevented if only... But the only true response to a tragedy is compassion, literally “suffering with.” Anyone who has ever been at a deathbed knows that what is called for is prayer and silence, not commentary. . . And this is precisely what we, with few exceptions, are unable to offer.

Dome, Sweet Home???

2005-09-01T20:01:00.000-07:00

Canning tomatoes this morning but I just had to comment on the move of the refugees from the Superdome to the Astrodome. What are they thinking?? We are moving these people hundreds of miles to a place where they have no home, no jobs, no permanence, no family. Does anyone think this will work?

It reminds me of a Civil War story about what happened when a group of injured soldiers were evacuated from the batttlefield to a nearby town. The townspeople refused to open their homes to the dirty common soldiers. In a fit of righteous anger, Clara Barton rode through the night to Washington to find someone with the authority to order them to help.

How many McMansions did these people pass on their way to the Astrodome? Where are you when we need you, Clara?

Green grass

2005-09-01T17:57:00.000-07:00

My brother-in-law out in San Diego has a green backyard, which is rare thing for San Diego. Apparently, there is an underground stream out there. I thought of this tonight as I realized that I haven't made it to adoration for a couple weeks. Since our parish began adoration in May, I have made it every week. Even though I have never doubted the power of adoration, I must say that I never really felt it until I started going every week. God's presence is like that underground stream. I would not even know He is there, always present, giving life, except for the green things that are growing. And I can tell that I haven't been over to the chapel because the grass is starting to brown out. In my life that means that I am losing my temper with the kids way too much, losing the focus at home, spending too much time on the phone... Time for a visit...

And farewell to the woods

2005-09-01T14:57:00.000-07:00

An update on my previous rant. Today, they are etching the name on the condo village across the street: "River Wood"--which is what they ripped out to build the pastel monstrosities (got that insight from the folks who wrote Suburban Nation, one of my favorites).

It all made me think of James Howard Kunstler. His website is really popular with bloggers, but are Catholics blogging about this stuff??? Once you have got the Theology of the Body, then what comes next is the natural world. In other words, practicing NFP ought to change your thinking on not just your matter but the world of matter. Or, again, it is not just the body that is a gift, but all of creation.

We are not just in moral territory. This is about world view.

Pennsylvania revisited

2005-08-29T20:47:00.000-07:00

Hi, those of you who came over from Amy's blog. I went back home for a few days and I'm just catching up!

"Home"... that's southwestern PA, where both parents live, but not with each other. It's a workable distance from southeastern Michigan, if only the psychological, spiritual distance were easier to traverse.

Coming back, with six kids in the car, I had only a precious few minutes to feel sorry for myself about my parents' divorce. I thought of Waugh's Brideshead Revisited. If you have never read this or watched the BBC miniseries, it is highly recommended. The family is broken: the patriarch, Lord Marchmain took off years ago and took up with an Italian woman. And all four children, as adults, are broken. The way Waugh writes it, not one has a fruitful union (only Bridey gets married, and his wife is too old to bear children). But, oh, the spiritual fruitfulness. Even Sebastian, a hopeless drunk, cannot stay away from the monastery. He lives out his vocation to celibacy in a broken fashion, but it is there, nevertheless.

I have thought about Brideshead Revisited many times over the years as I have pondered my parents' divorce and the aftermath. All the deeply Catholic stories are about sin and suffering and bearing the Cross to the end. I have raged against God because it just doesn't seem fair that Sebastian has to be a drunk at the end. Why must he suffer, and not his father? But, then, this is what makes it Catholic, that is, universal. Because we all have to bear each others sins. Parents have to bear their childrens' sins. And, mysteriously, children have to bear their parents' sins. And in the end this is fruitful.

Real Simple, indeed

2005-08-24T18:23:00.000-07:00

My brother-in-law over there at Godsbody keeps claiming that his blog is woefully behind the times. Well, I am going to do him one better. Tonight I am going to comment on an issue of REAL SIMPLE magazine from December 2004.

A thrifty mother can’t pass up a yard sale and that’s where I got nine issues of REAL SIMPLE for $1. Somebody (Aunt Cheryl??) had been singing its praises and I thought I should check it out. As I am reading through the issues, I find myself simultaneously engrossed and disgusted. Take December 2004. There are these great articles on winter skin care (yes, I have dishpan hands), how to find that elusive little black jacket (I yearn for the simplicity of it) and secrets for beautiful hair (I am open to putting a cup of mayonnaise on my head). But what sends me over the edge are the articles that are REAL SIMPLE’s trademark: things that your mother should have taught you if only she were acting like your mother….like how to hand wash sweaters, or how to pair a necklace with a ballgown, or, get this, how to have a life-long happy marriage. The latter article is a retrospective on a 35-year marriage between Diane and Bernie Bletterman. They survived hard times, two affairs and financial woes. And they stuck together and raised their boys with love.

It amazes me in that a story that is so ordinary is now extraordinary enough to rate a magazine article. It also fills me with what I hope is righteous anger. We are a generation that has not been mothered…and so we have to learn it from a magazine. Listen my child and learn the things that your mother never told you …because she was too busy actualizing herself, finding her inner child, getting a promotion, divorcing your dad.

And this brings me back to the mother’s role to foster the child’s contemplative relation to God. It is not a matter of being a domestic goddess a la Martha. It is a matter of preserving the sphere of love, of building it up through submission and suffering. I mean submission to the will of God, submission to the reality of marital union. So, concretely, it may (or may not) mean staying home, suffering a difficult marriage, living through financial difficulty or extramarital affairs. It is only possible in and through the Cross.

It’s news, folks: love and marriage are possible.

As promised, commentary

2005-08-22T05:58:00.000-07:00

I reprint Fr. Gerald Vann's quote, for commentary:

"Of all the trends we have been considering as characteristic of the world today--the increasing loss of wisdom and vision, of stillness, of Nature, of the stability of home and family life, of symbol--it seems true to say that they represent something particularly alien to the nature of woman.... Our troubles spring from the overemphasis on the masculine in our world ... precisely because the nature of the psychological crisis through which we are passing is what it is, woman has an unique opportunity to redeem the situation. (From The Water and The Fire, 1954)

Let's start this way: what is the "psychological crisis" of our time???? Let's consider Mother Teresa's assessment: it is the failure of love of the poorest of the poor. And she saw the greatest poverty in America.

Where do we look now to marvel at creation: technology. We wonder at i-pods and cell-phones and plasma TVs and (so-called) precision bombing and cloning. Children here no longer die of hunger, polio or tuberculosis. The wounds are much deeper now: neglect, abuse, divorce, day-care. Where is the suffering now? It is in the family, in relationships. Where is the nexus of love, of relation: first of all in the mother-child relationship.

A few years ago I did a talk at a Catholic law school to would-be women lawyers. They wanted to hear about John Paul II's new feminism. I brought in the Icon of Our Lady of the New Advent. If you want to know what feminity is all about: here it is. The woman guards the mystery of life. She bears it within her. Her being is realized in relation to that mystery. So, she is linked, physically, with nourishment, protection, care of the smallest ones.

But we cannot reduce this to the biological. Because man is destined for an eternal destiny, nothing "biological" is simply that. Biblically, theologically, a woman is linked to what it is that builds up, protects, nourishes the child in relation to God. And so a woman is linked to "stillness," contemplation: for if a child can only grown in the quiet of the womb, so that child cannot encounter God outside of a sphere that is protected, contemplative. A woman preserves these spaces--the home, the garden. She protects these spaces--and so she must be a guardian of the media--TV, phone, computer, that threaten the psychological and spiritual growth for the child.

Next, on wisdom...

Seeking simplicity

2005-08-19T22:35:00.000-07:00

While the rest of the Catholic world is tuning into World Youth Day, those of us who do not have cable are left to "keep watch and pray." Tonight, more reflections on Fr. Solanus. This amazing man, a Capuchin Friar, was ordained a "simplex priest," unable to hear confessions or give formal sermons. He was no simple man--a farmboy, born of Irish immigrant parents, he simply could not master the Latin and German that was required at the seminary at the time. Nevertheless, he had, apparently, complete acceptance of his superiors' decision to withold some of his priestly faculties.

Fr. Groeschel, who knew Fr. Solanus when Fr. Groeschel was a novice in New York, says that the seminary time was Fr. Solanus' dark night. His will to be entirely in God's will was unwavering. So, in this way, Fr. Solanus was certainly "simplex"--his soul was simple, that is, uncluttered, with his own will.

Tonight, after watching a video and reflecting on my visit to the center, I find myself surprised at my own will. When I think of totally abandoning myself to Him--saying, with Fr. Solanus, that my will is His--I feel my soul shrink back. What a great step, to truly trust God that everything that comes from His hand is truly good, MY good.

In my life, there is so much of me--my decisions, my needs, my wants. Even in the midst of my children, I still can assert my will with such ferocity--proof that a large family is in itself not enough for holiness. For there is this other thing, the total trust.

It is a curious thing: that I must not only trust Him, but that trust itself can only be based on Love. I start to imagine that if I give myself away it would mean that I will end up like Mother Teresa, in a forty year dark night. But, in fact, to take that leap, I need to have the conviction that even if I end up in the dark night, still His love is there...

God's little grain of sand

2005-08-17T23:07:00.000-07:00

Today, a visit to the Father Solanus Casey center. This priest was amazing--utter simplicity. Two gems: "Man's greatness lies in being true to the present moment." In other words, no nostalgia, no longing for the vanished past, or, worse, the what-might-have-been present.

Second: "God loves tiny beginnings..."

Well, there's another thing that seems to be forgotten in modernity: the tiniest things. The seed, the embryo. Women are the ones who care for the little things--we protect them, or at least we should.

This work flies in the face of the constant push for bigger and better. Let's manufacture a little embryo and sacrifice it for the grown ups!

Therese of Lisieux always wanted to be the "the little grain of sand."

Opportunity for women

2005-08-16T07:49:00.000-07:00

A lovely quote courtesy of my friend Tom Sullivan. We may even say that what we have now is not so much the "overemphasis of the masculine," but really a warped masculinity. Commentary to follow after children are in bed...

Father Gerald Vann, from his 1954 book The Water and the Fire":

"Of all the trends we have been considering as characteristic of the world today--the increasing loss of wisdom and vision, of stillness, of Nature, of the stability of home and family life, of symbol--it seems true to say that they represent something particularly alien to the nature of woman.... Our troubles spring from the overemphasis on the masculine in our world ... precisely because the nature of the psychological crisis through which we are passing is what it is, woman has an unique opportunity to redeem the situation.

The matter with me

2005-08-15T22:05:00.000-07:00

"Is 36 too young to be going through mid-life crisis?" I asked my friend Denise.
"No," she answered.

I asked my husband the same thing. "I thought women didn't go through mid-life crisis," he replied.

Well, I think I am going through it all the same. What else accounts for my propensity of late to weep every time I see a ballet dancer in her prime? Last night it was the beautiful Darcey Bussell, star of the Royal Ballet and star of my daughter's DK Ballet book. I quit my intense ballet training at the age of sixteen because I wanted a social life.

But, really, with six children, didn't I realize long ago that I wasn't going to be a ballet star? How long does it take one to be at peace with one's stretch marks? Apparently longer than this.

There is no doubt--it is written on my flesh: I have lived for an Other--six Others.

And isn't this the destination of all flesh: to be "for" an "Other"? There is today's feast day to make it clear: the sinless flesh of the virgin girl who never wanted to be anything else but "for an Other,"--her body alone stands as a testimony to the truth. Mary's body. For the rest of us, our flesh groans, awaiting fulfillment....

What is the "matter"?

2005-08-13T21:44:00.000-07:00

The woods up the street from us are no more. Bulldozers came and wiped them out to make way for more condos "starting at the $280's" I feel a pang when I drive by. The words of one of my children's favorite stories echo in my mind: " I am the Lorax and I speak for the trees..." But this is not a pang of environmentalism. It's a pang of motherhood. And it is important to know the difference.

From John Paul II's Memory and Identity: "In this [Paschal] mystery, not only is eschatological truth revealed to us, that is to say the fullness of the Gospel, or Good News. There also shines forth a light to enlighten the whole of human existence in its temporal dimension and this light is reflected onto the created world. Christ, through his Resurrection, has so to speak 'justified' the work of creation, and especially the creation of man."

OK, now just how do we view the trees and their roots and the ground they are in if we think they are "justified" by Christ (even in a qualified way). Are they ours or his? If everything tends toward Him, is justified in Him, then there is no purely "private" property.

That is not to say that we are paralyzed: it simply gives us direction for what to do. Man's dominion over creation is not restricted by Christ's dominion: it is perfected.

But we are hardly in a situation where this is taken seriously by anyone on any side of the question. ("private property" versus the EPA---neither respects the reality). No, we are in an age where men are manipulating genes in much the same way that my then three-year-old son attempted to jam a sandwich into the VCR. After all, it is just matter. Or is it "mater." Now we come to the pang of motherhood and why the bulldozers get under my skin. But more on that later...

True motherhood????

2005-08-10T11:43:00.000-07:00

It is not a brilliant name, but maybe it provokes. I just want to talk about motherhood in all its dimensions--children, childbirth, marriage, divorce, suffering, reality...most of all, I want this to be authentic. I am not going to romanticize. So, that's the "true part."