We pray for our sins to be forgiven: what has been done, what has not been done, what has been seen, what has not been seen. Today I saw something I tend not to see. It's easy to forget what we don't see- we forget that it exists and is very prevalent. The statistics in Memphis alone are devastating.
My OB's office is in Germantown, which is a nicer extension of Memphis. The general patient in the waiting room with me is black (my doctor is black, too), and well-dressed, seemingly educated. Today, one such mother came in while I was waiting. She had a girl with her, and the appointment was for the girl. I thought something for a second like, oh, bet she's here for a Gardasil shot, or do girls get PAP smears that young? Then when I was called back, the girl was, too. I was in a "cubicle" type pre-exam room getting weighed and having my blood pressure checked. So I overhead the nurse asking the girl some questions. I couldn't help listening after I head the nurse say, "Have you had the pregnancy confirmed anywhere else?"
The girl's reply is what really struck me: "Have I what?" She didn't understand the question. The nurse rephrased it, and the girl still didn't understand, replying simply, "That stick said I pregnant." I'm probably not doing her justice, but that is the exact grammar she used. When asked the date of her last menstrual period (to determine possible age of the baby) the girl was again flustered, not understanding what was being asked. The nurse worked with her and it became clear that the young lady didn't understand that menstruation cycles relate to fertility. If she didn't understand that...no wonder she was pregnant.
I also felt shock when the girl mentioned she had just turned 14. I'm just hitting my middle 20s, and having my 3rd baby. People react with shock that I am about to have three kids, not to mention my step-children who are for all practical purposes and heart reasons my kids as well. This girl is a child, and pregnant. She is pregnant, and doesn't really know why. She surely knows how, or her boyfriend knew the "how".
Dear reader, please pray for this child having a child. She's been on my mind all day. One of my Catholic friends likes to quote Mother Teresa, who said that "Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching its people to love, but to use any violence to get what it wants." "It is a poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish." Pray for the millions of other girls having babies (or worse, not having them). And for those of us who are pregnant and have children, and are completely conscious of that beginning life...remember the poverty, not of wealth, but of ignorance. Rejoice, parents who are trying to raise children who know God, that you are able to know your children, and how they were created, and to Whom they belong. Not every child that is born lifeless is aborted. Many of them are alive and grown, in the exam room next to you, and the child in their womb is already facing a looming darkness.
27 June 2011
15 June 2011
A poem I recently read to my littles.
Night comes
Night comes
leaking
out of the sky.
Stars come
peeking.
Moon comes
sneaking,
silvery-sly.
Who is shaking,
shivery quaking?
Who is afraid
of the night? Not I.
Beatrice Schenk de Regniers
26 May 2011
23 May 2011
boating and other stuff, like pregnancy
I've heard this notion that becoming Catholic after being Protestant, you swim the Tiber. I find anyone who thinks it's a rigorous swim to be a dolt. If they say "wade the Tiber", I'm all for it. If you've been a member of the Orthodox church, and decide to be Catholic, you might want to cut the swim and the wade from your hyperbole. Then it's more like floating on an overly prepared and comfortable raft. Let us not look a gift horse in the mouth, or something like that. To be fair, you're also a dolt if you are Orthodox and think your piety is !AWESOME! and are depending on public motions and the right phrases it to get you through.
It's the things in life that you don't know that sting and nag constantly, and drag at your will. You know those anchors. The things you work to know, and work to follow, mostly feel complacent much faster than you're comfortable with. Initial zeal is particularly dangerous, and full of the kind of emotion that sinks ships which otherwise, not burdened with the weight, could have weathered the storm. I've done zeal, too many times, and looked to have it in too many places. I haven't found exhaustion within Orthodoxy. There is a fullness that is emotional, physical, spiritual, and that isn't rigid and inflexible. Though, goodness, there are plenty of cons in Orthodoxy. They're endless and perfection in worship and prayer in any church filled with other people who aren't yourself-exactly cloned and unchanging-is going to be rough and ugly. I'd probably find my cloned and perfect selves annoying after a while, anyway. Pretending the congregation of persons you worship alongside are going to be the kind you really prefer and don't struggle to identify with is a sad joke. I've tried many places and many denominations looking for something unbroken. I won't say that in Orthodoxy I've found some gleaming palace of perfection. That would be a lie and a gross mistake if I thought so, especially after where we've been in the world of religion. I think the church is my mother but I haven't really had good luck in mothers. Good thing Doubting Thomas wasn't voted off. There is hope.
I do know playing The Angel Cried for my daughters as they fall asleep is good. The one time my littlest daughter will release her favorite thumb from her mouth and passively cross her tiny arms over her chest is to receive the bread of life, and that is good. The way the similarly roving morning sun moves over the halos of the icons and draws your wandering eye is good. The new baby held up in the sign of the cross and marched to the altar is good. Praying ceaselessly for the dead is good. Doing things that make your pathetic soul uncomfortable is good. Whatever is good and profitable for your soul...
I have all these little fragments. A few of them gleam. A few of them are rusted. I'm going to keep trucking along until I don't look for the gleam and I don't notice the rust.
Enough with the boating metaphors, already. However, the best way to boat is in a well tested and worn canoe on a small, placid lake (even better if it has navigable tributaries for when you get bored) that is shallow, well-known, and full of easily caught bluegills. Too bad we all pine for the colossal yacht in the middle of the rolling Pacific with the whale beneath waiting to swallow us.
It's 5:28 am and I have been up for hours trying to sleep. Haven't slept in days. The end of pregnancy is rough.
Then comes the infant stage again. It helps that my babies are the cutest things on the planet, but jeez oh pete at this point I could use about 5 years of make-up rest.
It's the things in life that you don't know that sting and nag constantly, and drag at your will. You know those anchors. The things you work to know, and work to follow, mostly feel complacent much faster than you're comfortable with. Initial zeal is particularly dangerous, and full of the kind of emotion that sinks ships which otherwise, not burdened with the weight, could have weathered the storm. I've done zeal, too many times, and looked to have it in too many places. I haven't found exhaustion within Orthodoxy. There is a fullness that is emotional, physical, spiritual, and that isn't rigid and inflexible. Though, goodness, there are plenty of cons in Orthodoxy. They're endless and perfection in worship and prayer in any church filled with other people who aren't yourself-exactly cloned and unchanging-is going to be rough and ugly. I'd probably find my cloned and perfect selves annoying after a while, anyway. Pretending the congregation of persons you worship alongside are going to be the kind you really prefer and don't struggle to identify with is a sad joke. I've tried many places and many denominations looking for something unbroken. I won't say that in Orthodoxy I've found some gleaming palace of perfection. That would be a lie and a gross mistake if I thought so, especially after where we've been in the world of religion. I think the church is my mother but I haven't really had good luck in mothers. Good thing Doubting Thomas wasn't voted off. There is hope.
I do know playing The Angel Cried for my daughters as they fall asleep is good. The one time my littlest daughter will release her favorite thumb from her mouth and passively cross her tiny arms over her chest is to receive the bread of life, and that is good. The way the similarly roving morning sun moves over the halos of the icons and draws your wandering eye is good. The new baby held up in the sign of the cross and marched to the altar is good. Praying ceaselessly for the dead is good. Doing things that make your pathetic soul uncomfortable is good. Whatever is good and profitable for your soul...
I have all these little fragments. A few of them gleam. A few of them are rusted. I'm going to keep trucking along until I don't look for the gleam and I don't notice the rust.
Enough with the boating metaphors, already. However, the best way to boat is in a well tested and worn canoe on a small, placid lake (even better if it has navigable tributaries for when you get bored) that is shallow, well-known, and full of easily caught bluegills. Too bad we all pine for the colossal yacht in the middle of the rolling Pacific with the whale beneath waiting to swallow us.
It's 5:28 am and I have been up for hours trying to sleep. Haven't slept in days. The end of pregnancy is rough.
Then comes the infant stage again. It helps that my babies are the cutest things on the planet, but jeez oh pete at this point I could use about 5 years of make-up rest.
18 May 2011
I think then that we're doing ok.
Value of Afflictions
"This is the will of the Holy Spirit, to be His beloved in continual reality. The Spirit of God does not dwell in those who live in rest because the Most-Good God wished that His beloved servants should not have rest in this life, but rather live in suffering, difficulties, worries, poverty, and nakedness, in solitude and debts, in sicknesses and defamations, in battles and crushing of heart, with sickly body and image detested by others, in a state which does not compare to other people's, and a lonely, peaceful, and quiet dwelling, completely invisible to men and free of anything that produces earthly consolation. Therefore, these people weep, and the world laughs; these sigh, but the world enjoys; these fast, but the world amuses itself. During the day, they wear themselves out; and, during the night, they prepare for deprivation. There are some who offer themselves to weariness voluntarily and also submit to afflictions; some are persecuted, while others were killed, and some hid in cellars. In them was fulfilled the word that says, "You will have afflictions, but in Me you will have joy," because the Lord knows that the ones who live in rest cannot remain in His love. Therefore, Christ the Saviour has prevented these from rest and satisfaction. He Whose love is more powerful than death of the body wanted to show also in us the power of His love. Amen."
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