7 Quick Takes, vol. 119

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First out of the box: I am writing a short magazine feature on marital communication and natural family planning. I’d love to have some quotes from some of you NFPers out there on how you think NFP has helped, hurt, or otherwise affected your spousal communication. Email me at kathleenbasi@gmail.com, or just leave a comment!

___2___

For reasons I won’t go into, I’ve been thinking about texts for liturgical music lately. There are ”horizontal” texts and “vertical” texts. Horizontal focuses on our relationship as community of believers, although there remains an implicit (and sometimes overt) vertical dimenion. The other is simply directed upward, pure praise and worship. (Now that’s interesting. I didn’t set out to use a term associated with praise bands. Vertical texts generally are associated with traditional hymnody, which is what I meant. But the juxtaposition indicates that the various schools of thought aren’t as far apart as they think they are! Hmmmm.)

Anyway, I’ve been thinking that the objections to horizontal texts (the “we” songs: They’ll Know We Are Christians, We Remember, etc.), or on texts that focus on me and my response to God’s call, don’t really hold up. Faith isn’t lived in some cerebral, vertical vacuum. It’s lived out in a messy world. God doesn’t force us to follow him; he offers the choice to live a holy life. How is it inappropriate to sing “I will choose Christ”? Worship is focused on God, yes, but implicit in any worship of God is our response. After all, God doesn’t need us to worship him. Our worship doesn’t make God greater. But it does change us.  If what we do on Sunday doesn’t affect the way we interact with each other the rest of the week, then we’ve missed the point altogether. And horizontal music makes those connections for us. So…in summary, both vertical and horizontal are important.

___3___

The third trimester of my last pregnancy was awful. It got to the point where I couldn’t support my weight on my legs; I walked around the mall one day leaning on the stroller. Finally I realized that it was the result of two C-sections; my core muscles were just weak, and I’d never done anything to strengthen them. So the last year or so, I’ve been doing Pilates and situps and stretches. But that problem in my right thigh reared its ugly head again lately. My massage therapist tells me it’s a result of pelvic tilt. So I decided to do stretches and see if I could ease the pain. So far, it’s helping. Not perfect, but it’s helping. I’m also thinking about posture more.

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Here’s one of those things that a mother “treasures in her heart.” A few days ago, I went out to get Julianna off the bus, and the bus driver–incidentally a woman who loves her job so much that she wears T shirts that are all about being a bus driver, and (even cooler) a bus driver for special kids–shook her head and said to me, “You know your little girl just charms everyone she meets?” Sniff, sniff!

___5___

I’m attending my first writing conference in a few weeks, and so I’m trying to put together a novel pitch. Intimidating, and exciting. I realize I know exactly how to pitch certain of my works–the Advent book and my first novel, for example–but not all of them. I know all the elements, however, and so it’s a matter of arranging them in a pithy sentence or four. And I take comfort remembering that my first novel pitch I played around with for about ten years. :)

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Chicken Soup for the Soul: New MomsI spy, with my little eye… …. … At the grocery store last week, I saw a whole rack of these babies in front of the pharmacy. It was totally awesome to see something with my writing in it featured–without my having to lift one finger to put it there! Anybody need a gift for a new mom? :)

___7___

The sun has cleared the horizon in a gorgeous liquid orange-yellow, throwing a fuzzy glow across the wall opposite me, and my daughter is scooting down the stairs in her jammies and her diaper, which means it’s porbably too late for the toilet. Time to say:

Have a great weekend!

Published in: on March 11, 2011 at 6:46 am  Comments (3)  
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Ending the Liturgy Wars

With the changes to the Mass less than a year away, it seems like a good time to address a topic that’s been bothering me for quite a while.

They’re called the liturgy wars, and they are as ridiculous as their name.

Today I’m guest posting at Catholic Mothers Online, and my topic is liturgical music–something that, as a church composer, a choir baby who now has choir babies of my own, is near and dear to my heart. Come on over and join in the discussion!

Published in: on February 9, 2011 at 6:57 am  Comments (1)  
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An Infertility Story, Part 1: Why NFP?

I spent the month of December writing a huge article on infertility. In the process of contacting and interviewing couples, I realized something: I have never actually addressed infertility on this blog. So I am dedicating this week to a no-holds-barred, lay-it-out-there infertility story. So if this is something you don’t feel like reading about, come back Friday.

But before I describe our journey, I need to give you a little background on our philosophy of life and sexuality, so you can understand why we made the choices we made.

Christian comes from a family that simply took the kids as they came. My mother had a big chart on the back of her bedroom door, with color-coded stickers. But although she kept track of her fertility and taught me some rudimentary fertility awareness (she told me to put a star on my calendar at the beginning of every period), my parents never set out to avoid or achieve pregnancy.

Thus, my husband and I both grew up with an instinct that birth control was not in our future—yes, partly because “The Church says so.” But since we both agreed about it, we didn’t feel a need to dig farther. We just found a class and learned natural family planning.

But over time, that began to change. I’ve come to understand that for all the focus on sex in our culture, people are appallingly ignorant of the process. Having given over understanding our bodies in favor of suppressing a normal, healthy function of the body, modern people instead view fertility as a disease. Ovulation is not some mysterious event that comes out of nowhere, lying in wait to betray a woman from within. It is a result of a complex interplay of hormones that cause daily changes in a woman’s body—far more than “bleeding,” “ovulation” and “PMS,” our cycles follow a pattern that we can read. And that knowledge gives men and women alike a whole new appreciation for each other. Truly, we are fearfully and wonderfully made, and practicing NFP really shows it off—monthly, weekly, daily.

Knowing that there are surely skeptics in the house, let me go ahead and address the elephants in the e-room:

  1. NFP doesn’t work. Only it does. The reason most people carry around this humongous piece of bad information is that in most side-by-side comparisons, modern NFP is lumped together with calendar rhythm, which isn’t effective. Like all methods of controlling conception, modern NFP isn’t 100%, but its “perfect use” statistics are the same as hormonal birth control (pill, patch, shots). (Here’s a study from 2007.) Using a condom during the fertile time is what some NFP methods call “achieving-related behavior.” Cheating the rules by a day: ditto. In this day and age, having given over understanding our bodies, we tend to view anything that doesn’t involve direct physical intervention as suspicious, but the fact remains that NFP works. Its user effectiveness is directly proportional to the couple’s motivation to follow the rules. Which leads me to…
  2. NFP takes the spontaneity out sex, and why should we have to abstain anyway? OK, let’s be honest. How often do you have spontaneous sex, anyway? Especially in the post-kid era. Intimacy in family life tends to be planned. And moms who write with kids in the house can vouch that structure increases productivity. What I’m getting at is that the structure of periodic abstinence makes you think about sex in a different way. And because of this, for many couples using NFP leads to more sex, not less.

Okay, so with that out of the way, here’s what I learned in the practice and study of NFP:

Our bodies are the way that we are able to reflect God in the world. It is with our physical beings that we do good or evil, that we build up or tear down the Kingdom. This means that our bodies have an incredible dignity, and that we should use them to reflect God’s love for the world. A good place to start is by respecting the way we were made. In this quickly “green”-ing world, why do we accept that dumping chemicals into our bodies and, by extension, into the waterways, is a good way to plan our families?

And when as I started to see how so many of the world’s problems were interrelated, I realized that the choice to respect the body has far-reaching implications—far more than just the way we space our children and plan family size. But when we hit the topic of infertility, those implications go from high priority to off-the-chart. How many women and men find the infertility process demeaning, disrespectful, and demoralizing? And why do we just accept that this is the way it has to be?

I’m oversimplifying here; this series of insights unfolded over the course of our infertility journey—and there’s much more to it. But I include it here to lay the groundwork for the rest. And since I’m already far too wordy, I leave off until tomorrow, when I’ll actually start talking about what happened when we started trying to get pregnant.

For Part 2, click here.
For Part 3, click here.
For Part 4, click here.

Published in: on January 24, 2011 at 6:19 am  Comments (9)  
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Stand-Up Comic or Saint in Training?

Remember the boy named “trouble”? It was Saturday afternoon and the poor kids got dragged to a special Mass with the Bishop. But it had its compensations. Alex always thinks the Knights of Columbus, with their sabers and capes and feathered hats, are worth watching. And Nicholas put on a one-toddler comedy act during  the Eucharistic Prayer–or so I am told by my cousin, who had the dubious honor of holding him during it.

“At some point,” she said, “he caught the Bishop’s eye, and the bishop was praying with his hands folded, and Nicholas went…”

“Then, after a few minutes, the Bishop interlaced his fingers, and Nicholas went…”

“And then, one of those poor priest up behind the altar just started busting a gut,” she said, “because the Bishop held his hands out wide, and Nicholas went…”

(Images recreated that night at the dinner table for your enjoyment. ;) )

So I figure Nicholas is either a) a stand-up-comic in the making, or b) a saint in training.

Who wants to place bets? :)

Published in: on January 18, 2011 at 6:25 am  Comments (4)  
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What exactly did the Pope say?

Pope Benedict XVI

Image via Wikipedia

You might have heard recently that the Pope changed the Church’s position on condom use. When I read that headline, my eyebrows shot up, because I was sure it wasn’t correct, knowing as I do

  1. how easy it is to take things out of context and make them sound quite different than they were intended;
  2. how richly nuanced my Church’s teaching is on matters of sexuality, and how badly they are distorted; and
  3. how badly the secular world wants the Church to change this particular teaching.

Still, all the flap threw a lot of people, because let’s face it, a lot of Catholics don’t appreciate the rich nuance of the teaching any more than non-Catholics do. This is the fault of the Church leadership, both ordained and lay leaders (like myself, an NFP teacher). But I sympathize; it’s a hard topic to address, because

  1. the walls of defense around people’s minds on this issue are understandably thick and tall;
  2. the teaching on contraception, in particular, is so often understood as a negative (“you can’t use birth control”) instead of something that involves both negative and positive teachings, the negative less important than the beautiful, beautiful positive; and
  3. this positive involves a whole language about love that stands so far above the way we think of love that the language has to be learned first, and we haven’t done the proper catechesis.

So I was thrilled when our associate pastor spoke about the Pope’s remarks on Sunday. Rather than flap my own inexpert fingers anymore, I’m going to link you to his remarks. The one caveat I will add is that although Fr. Schrader is correct that the Pope is speaking from his heart, and not making a formal Church pronouncement, the reality is that anything he says will always be identified with the Church—and really, that’s as it should be. It’s a heavy responsibility, but there it is.

Anyway, I know that this is not a topic that many of you would choose to read about, but I’d love it if you’d do me a favor and read it anyway, especially the long, beautiful, but frank quote from Benedict that got so twisted when it was turned into a sound byte. This is a topic that’s near and dear to my heart, and I think if more people really took to heart his words, the world would be a better place for it.

Published in: on November 30, 2010 at 4:52 am  Comments (4)  
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Broken, Humbled, Part 2

Psalms of Queen Jadwiga in three languages (La...

Image via Wikipedia

There’s a prayer I say every time I go up to sing the psalm: Lord, speak through me today. Use my voice to reach your people.

This is a humble prayer, and with good reason…because I’m not. I think pride is built into the makeup of artistic people (imagine the ego: I put my words or music or voice or flute playing out there, and I expect you to sit and listen, read—and enjoy!)

I know what I’m good at, but I also know my failings. I spend an inappropriate amount of time worrying about whether my dress is hiked up in my pantyhose in the back, or whether there are perspiration spots under my arms. Stuff that has no place in the sharing of Scriptures, because it’s not about me.

On Sunday, I was even more distracted than usual. I’d been at church for two hours on Saturday night signing books, and I’d arrived that morning at 7:30 to do the same. So by 10:10, after running into church just as the Gloria was starting and slipping into place in the choir area, I barely had time to catch my breath when the reading from 2 Maccabees ended and it was time to go up to the ambo.

Part of the job of a psalmist is to pray over the words I am to sing ahead of time. I’ve never been very good at taking the time to do this, and in the kid era, it’s even worse. But this was a setting I wrote, and that makes a difference. The act setting Scripture to music—especially when it’s word for word, the way a psalm is—imprints those words in my consciousness, even if it’s buried somewhere beneath layers of busy-ness and distraction.

Sunday morning, I said my prayer as I walked up the steps. And I knew almost as soon as I started singing that I was in trouble, because the Spirit was staking me literally—speaking through me, to me.

“Hearken to my prayer from lips without deceit,” I sang, and humility rode the flat ninth straight to my core. Really? Lips without deceit? Aiya!

“My steps have been steadfast in your paths; my feet have not faltered.” Ouch! Really? Seriously? Surely the psalmist couldn’t have meant that! Whose steps haven’t faltered? Can’t I rewrite it to say, “I stumble around in your path, and hope I manage not to fall off it altogether.” Okay, so it’s not poetic, but it’s more authentic.

By the time I reached “But I in justice may behold your face…I shall be content in your presence,” something had happened, a musical alchemy in which knowledge of my own unworthiness to sing these words seared me. And as my soul cringed away from the light, I got out of my own way, and the Spirit took over. Suddenly, everything gelled—piano, drums, choir, assembly, and me—the music waxing and waning with the words of Scripture.

And it changed the celebration for me. Most Sundays, I lead the assembly in song, and lose my own spiritual food in the process—a true musical Martha, that’s me.

This week, I experienced music ministry.

*

Joining Emily at Chatting in the Sky

Published in: on November 9, 2010 at 9:33 am  Comments (4)  
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Second Home

Twilight comes early these days. When choir practice ends on Wednesday evenings, we press the touch pad on the wall and full darkness descends, leaving the holy spaces heavy and silent, a comforting closeness that can only be found in vast spaces, beloved and intimately known.

There’s something about the feel of the church as  footsteps pad on wine-red carpeting, noiseless (or perhaps buried under the gleeful squeals of our children, who are well past their bedtime), that brings into the present a segment of my life that usually seems much more distant than five years.

I’ve always loved the church at night, when streetlights twinkle through stained glass, concealing and revealing images by turns. I spent hours there every day. I felt so at home there that during the summer I would run across from my office barefoot. And yet it wasn’t until nightfall that the cavernous space finally felt like mine. Because, although I worship in song, I touch God in silence and in solitude.

I think of stolen moments of quiet before rehearsals, when the world ended at the edge of the lights in the music area, and holiness pressed in from the darkness beyond. Of sound whispering back from darkened distance, echoing melodies only heard in my head until my fingers touched the white keys. Of incandescent globes gleaming in black lacquer.

We came to this church ten years ago, most unwillingly. Called to serve—that we didn’t doubt—but heartbroken to leave a community we loved. I missed the neutral walls and arena acoustics of our old home, which transformed every splash of color into a burst of glory. I missed the drums and guitars, the questing spirit. Two years, I told myself. I’ll serve the Church for two years. Then I’ll have babies, and we’ll go back home.

Only it was four years. And by the end of the first, we knew there was no going back. We had thought we knew what it meant to put down roots, but this community opened its arms and enveloped us. We found our own drums and guitars, our own questing spirits, and our roots grew deep among theirs.

I spent so much time there that I used to joke about moving a mattress in during Holy Week and Christmas. I watched two long, pale lines form on the burgundy carpet, pooling into great pinkish blobs before the sanctuary, as week by week, people came forward and paused with their children to receive the bread of life. I sang people into the Church, into married life, into Heaven. I hung greenery, arranged flowers and rice bowls, traded jokes with singers, bickered with sound personnel. I stumbled into offenses, apologized, hurt them again, apologized again. They grieved alongside us through infertility. They flooded us when Alex was born, and that was nothing compared to what we got when Julianna came along.

This is how I learned: The more you give of yourself, the deeper the roots go. The more of yourself you give away, the more comes back to you.

And although we don’t give nearly as much of ourselves as we once did, it’s enough. Today I stand before the choir on a chilly Sunday morning, conducting Bernadette Farrell’s poignant interpretation of Psalm 139, and the word “radiant” catches on the image of light coursing down upon an empty tomb. I flash back to another grace-filled moment, and I know that I will spend the rest of my life unpacking the messages delivered within these walls.

***

Linked to On, In and Around Mondays with L.L. Barkat.

Published in: on October 31, 2010 at 8:11 pm  Comments (5)  
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Thursdays are for being tired

Thursday mornings can be hard in this house. Wednesday nights, we get out of choir practice at 8:30 (half an hour past the kids’ bedtime) and go pick them up and take them home. Every week, kids shove books in our hands and protest violently because we say, “No, not on choir nights, honey, you know that.” (Alex has this half-funny, half-maddening habit of responding to a no: “Fine! Then I’m NEVER having a book AGAIN!” Ha!)

Last night it was 9:20 before the lights went off. The irony is that Christian and I usually go to bed earlier on a Wednesday night than usual, because we’re so exhausted after choir practice that nothing seems as productive as collapsing in bed after putting the kids down. Leading the choir is energizing and draining all in one. Last night moreso than usual, because we had our first rehearsal for Christmas Eve.

Anyway, I launched that explanation to explain why I’m late posting this morning…Christian’s alarm went off this morning, he smacked the snooze. Three minutes later, my alarm went off, and we both remembered we needed to take my temperature. But I could not get out of bed to go running this morning. Or do Pilates.

I had intended to do a little writeup about Nicholas this morning, but at this point I’ve been so wordy with my explanation that I kind of think I’ll have to save it for later. What an un-inspiring blog post I’m writing today. Oh well, after the heavy topics all week, I was due for something entirely lacking in profundity. Aha, I know how to salvage this post. I’ll tack on my two favorite pictures of Nicholas from our fall portraits:

Isn’t that just the cutest thing ever? :)

Published in: on October 21, 2010 at 6:59 am  Comments (1)  

7 Quick Takes

Adventkranz (liturgisch)

Image via Wikipedia

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Well, folks, it’s early, but it’s not too early to be making plans. Advent is coming. How are you going to celebrate? Here’s the first book review of my book, Joy to the World: Advent Activities for your family.

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Speaking of Advent, I’m planning to host a weekly roundup for anyone who is using the book to help their families find a balance of sacred and secular during the month of December. Stay tuned!

___3___

I’m afraid to say this out loud, so consider this whispered: Julianna was dry for basically four days this week. It’s the first time I’ve had the thought that maybe I need to go buy some cute girly underwear. (Happy dance! Are we finally coming close to having only one in diapers…during the day, at least?)

___4___

As one who spent several years coordinating volunteers, I often wondered why people were so reticent to make commitments to liturgical ministries. In the last few years, I’ve learned the answer: because when you have kids, it’s SO FREAKING HARD.  At least, music ministry is. This whole fall we’ve been fighting the battle of “where will we rehearse,” because everybody wants the same space. We finally worked out a compromise, and now it’s child care. People often thank us for our ministry, but sometimes I want to get behind a microphone and scream, “People! Are you aware that we PAY for the privilege of volunteering to serve you? Can’t you at least make a minor commitment to sing with us????”

(Note to self: take a deep breath before you step in front of the microphone on Sunday.)

___5___

Alex adores kindergarten, and seems to be thriving. But. He is a very slow worker, his teacher tells us. In fact, she put a note on a project that said he had to stay in from recess for a few minutes to finish it. His trouble is not distractedness or laziness. Quite the opposite. He is a meticulous perfectionist. Like his daddy. And this is a good thing…within reason. We can definitely tell the difference between his “I’m trying to get this done fast” work and his “I’m doing a good job” work. Any suggestions for encouraging a slightly-faster-than-a-snail’s-pace pace without sacrificing quality?

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Here’s a great quote from Chesterton, which I found via my bloggy friend Sarah: ““[Children] often say, “Do it again”; and the grown up person does it again till he is nearly dead. For grown up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps, God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, “Do it again” to the sun; and every evening, “Do it again” to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes each daisy separately, but never got tired of making them. It may be that he has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.” 

WOW.

___7___

I don’t feel good, so I’m just going to say: for more Friday tidbits, go visit Jen at Conversion Diary.

7 quick takes sm1 7 Quick Takes Friday (vol. 99)

Published in: on October 1, 2010 at 5:03 am  Comments (2)  
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7 Quick Takes

Sense and Sensibility

Image by elycefeliz via Flickr

1. Late last week, I short-circuited from novel rejection letters and general loathing for my own work, which naturally led me straight to the edge of an impenetrable titanium wall called WRITER’S BLOCK. After I’d bloodied my cranium against it for a few days, I finally decided it was time to take some time off, back up and get a bit of perspective. So I put the kids down for nap and pulled out Sense and Sensibility (something I’ll never watch if I have to wait for Christian to consent to watch). And on the DVD I found  Emma Thompson’s Golden Globe speech, which was so charming that I decided to share it with all you lovely people. I love how she’s so loosey-goosey, compared to the self-importance and self-aware giddiness of most celebrities giving speeches. She keeps throwing her hair out of her face and looking like this fancy dress is such a bother. And I mean, really–”An enchanting companion, about whom too much good cannot be said.” Who says things like that, outside of a Jane Austen novel! Emma, you inspire me! I firmly devote myself for the rest of the…uh, day, anyway…to placing all prepositions BEFORE their objects, even in speech!

2. With all the troubles we’ve had getting Alex to participate at church, this post from Jen at Conversion Diary really hit home.

3. I also came across a good Natural Family Planning video this week. A lot of times, people zone out as soon as you mention the words. There’s this automatic assumption that planning families without using contraception is a choice only a religious zealot would make. But there are lots of good reasons not to junk up yourself and the world with chemicals and barriers, and I thought this video–which BTW is from Parents–did a pretty good job of introducing them.

4. Did you hear about this one? A man gets on the bus and yells at the kids for tormenting his 13-y-o daughter. When I first heard the story, I was ticked off at him. Then the newscasters added this tiny, unimportant tidbit: his daughter has C.P. Suddenly I found it hard to fault him. If all of what happened here happened to my daughter, I can’t promise I wouldn’t get on the bus and deliver a blistering scolding, too. Although I don’t know that it would include profanity and death threats. If you’re interested in this case, here’s a CNN opinion piece about it.

5. This is my linky week. Here’s an essay by Jenni Newbury about life with her brother, who has Down syndrome.

6. Okay, I’m done with links. This week I spent some time at school with Alex. I walked down the hallways, and it hit me: that smell. That Catholic school smell. Anybody know what I’m talking about?

7. I was so impressed with the integration of teaching in his classroom. Some have suggested to me that parochial school doesn’t really matter, that religion is confined to religion class, and you can teach your child yourself. But what I saw yesterday was science class, taught using the language of science, but paying homage to God who created it all. It was truly beautiful to behold. And then, at lunchtime, his teacher simultaneously taught right from left, classroom discipline (lining up) and the Sign of the Cross. All I could think was: wow!

7 quick takes sm1 7 Quick Takes Friday (vol. 98)

Published in: on September 24, 2010 at 5:10 am  Comments (4)  
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