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Jonah had a really bad attitude. God gave him a job he didn’t want to do– the people of Nineveh weren’t worth his trouble–so he took off in the opposite direction, only to find himself stuck in the belly of a fish. When he proved indigestible (how lucky for him he was spit out near shore!), he did as he was told…but he did it with bad grace. The people of Nineveh repented, and God spared them.

Jonah should have been ecstatic. Who gets that kind of chance to change the world? Instead, he pouted because he thought God had made him look stupid. So he went into the desert to die. When his shade tree died, he threw a little hissy fit, and God said, “How can you get so upset over the death of this little plant, and simultaneously be completely insensitive to the deaths of the people of an entire city?”

This is the story our associate pastor told in the homily yesterday. It reminded me of a column from our diocesan newspaper this week, addressing the story about the Marines who urinated on the bodies of dead Taliban members. I won’t share it all because I don’t have permission, but this part really stopped me in my tracks:

“The irony is so great that we don’t get it. A sterile liquid produced by the kidney and streamed onto a cadaver is morally debated, but the hail of bullets that penetrated those bodies, making inanimate what was only minutes before a breathing, sentient being, does not enter the discourse. War gets reduced to an etiquette that shows more respect for the dead than the living.”

Christian and I spent Saturday morning at a training session to learn how to talk to parents receiving a diagnosis of Down syndrome–part of our local effort to start a hospital visitation program. Right now, the presenter told us, most people are being “surprised in the delivery room.” But very soon the paradigm will shift to almost exclusively prenatal diagnoses, because of the new tests. She reiterated that the Down Syndrome Guild is “pro-information,” not “pro-life,” a position I have always thought was untenable–how can you advocate for people without taking a stand that they are inherently worth taking a stand for?

But as the morning progressed, I began to see the wisdom, or at least the necessity, of such a position. If we come out all guns blazing, laying down a blanket “law” via a prolife message, we will never get the opportunity to witness at all; people will never let us near them, because they will know that we are more about our soapbox than we are about helping them. The fact is that abortion is an option, whether we like it or not. If we hope to be credible witnesses, we have to acknowledge that, and say “Look, we know what you’ve heard about Down’s is scary. Here’s the part the doctors can’t tell you”–without trying to “guilt” people into proper behavior at a time when they’re wounded and bewildered. If we can’t do that, then we can’t be trusted to have a family’s best interest at heart, and we have no right to be doing this work at all.

Sometimes we get so focused on the unborn child that we forget the wounded parents before us. And that’s why I bring it up in connection with Jonah and the dead Taliban. We must respect the dignity of every person–even when they are considering an action we find morally reprehensible–even when the dignity of another life is at stake. The risk to the baby’s life does not negate our responsibility to respect the parent as well.

I don’t have my thoughts all in order on this topic yet; I can’t help feeling there are holes in my logic that I haven’t yet identified. So I’ll be interested to see your thoughts.

I have never had to buy very many clothes for my kids; we’ve been the grateful recipients of several tons of children’s clothing over the years, so shopping for baby clothes is sort of a novelty! I went to Target on Saturday (yes, one week before Christmas, having forgotten the stroller, which meant I had to carry Michael in my arms all over that madhouse of a mall…didn’t think that one through very clearly) in search of a Christmas outfit for a newborn boy. Target had nothing dressy-Christmasy, but I did find some of those cute fleecy outfits: one cream with red reindeer and brown pants, one light blue with a polar bear.

“Those are cute,” Christian said when I got home, “but they’re really not dressy.”

I sighed and shrugged. “Well, I have to go to Barnes & Noble for Mom on Monday,” I said. “I’ll go over to Penney’s. They’ll have that kind of stuff.”

So yesterday I trekked back to the Mall (this time with stroller!) and excavated the baby department in search of dressy Christmas clothes for a baby boy. Would you like to know what I found?

NOTHING.

There were a dozen and a half different styles of super-frilly, satiny, shiny, sparkly dresses for newborn GIRLS–all on the clearance rack, I might add; apparently as of December 19th, Valentine’s Day is the pre-eminent holiday…I could go on ad nauseam about that, but it would be another post…but the only clothes for boys on that rack were onesies that said obnoxious, offensive things like, “WHATEVER SANTA DOESN’T BRING ME, GRANDMA WILL!”

I’ve always loathed what I call “attitude” clothes, but I’ve never seen them for boys before. It’s always girls’ clothes with words plastered across the derriere or the breasts, proclaiming “SPOILED! I’m perfect! Worship me! Princess in training! AVAILABLE!” Things that set girls up to be insufferable or objectified (or both).

The exporting of “attitude” wear to boys’ clothes is not attractive.

But even more irritating is the dichotomy between girls, who are dolled up within an inch of their life beginning in the newborn stage, and boys, who apparently are never expected to dress up at all. What’s wrong with this picture?

If I complain to J C Penney headquarters, I’m sure I’ll get some bland, polite note back saying “We offer what people buy; there is no market for dressy boys’ clothes for Christmas.” But I don’t buy this argument. After all, it’s not like anybody’s offered us the opportunity to buy dressy boys’ clothes for Christmas, is it? I took a quick look online just now and the dressy outfits seem to start at 12 Months.

Well, on some level I can understand; it’s hard enough to get those tiny arms and legs into a sleeper, much less a shirt and vest and pants. But then, we seem to think it’s an acceptable sacrifice to make for girls, so why not for boys?

(Close rant.)

One thing I turned my nose up at, however, was superheroes. We might have watched a couple of Superman movies when they came out on TV. But I mean, seriously. Those costumes? Who would be caught dead in them?

Meeting Christian required learning a whole new vocabulary—and for a long time, I tolerated the capes, tights and masks of his guilty pleasures with much eye rolling.

Slowly, though, I came to a grudging respect for these guys, helped along, no doubt, by the fact that superheroes have grown up. They’re no longer jumping around, Errol Flynn-like, striking poses and acting all Shakespearean.

These days, you get to see what makes them tick, what hurts them and what drives them. You see what they’ve lost, what they’ve given up, the inner struggles that make them just like us, only with really cool powers. Marvel, in particular, seems to be on a roll lately. The X Men franchise had me a long time ago…it only took casting Hugh Jackman as Wolverine. But who would ever have guessed I’d enjoy watching Captain America? I spent almost a week thinking about that movie, revisiting scenes. I mean, really. Captain America?????

As a mother of boys, I’m now a confirmed superhero fan. I’m getting to know them all—not just the biggies, like Superman & Batman, but the ones I’d never heard of until adulthood. What’s not to like? These are people who face difficulties and dangers to keep the rest of us safe. People who manage to navigate the sometimes-murky waters of right and wrong and come out on top.

Wouldn’t the world be a better place if these people really existed? Could they inspire us to find compassionate and truly just solutions to problems like institutional sex abuse? Could they clean up Washington, convince the (anything but) “super” committee to get their heads out of their…?

Well, anyway. The reality is that those problems are much more complicated than Red Skull trying to take over the world, the solutions much less clear. And therein lies the value of superhero stories. The things that make life in our world so difficult don’t have simple (no matter how difficult) solutions. Superhero stories give us clear-cut good guys, men and women without sordid pasts, who have good hearts. Superheroes are people we all, no matter what our political, religious or philosophical beliefs, can come together in rooting for.

I still can’t read comic books. I can’t even figure out what order to read the words on the pictures, and the overemphasized body parts set my teeth on edge. But the stories—those stories give us hope.

Now that I’ve gotten all gushy, you need to watch this video, one of many “how it should have ended” videos. HILARIOUS. But probably unfathomable if you didn’t actually watch the movie.

1. Cute clothes that actually look good on me.

2. Ultrasounds. I had another one at 32 weeks—they found fluid in the kidneys at 24 weeks and wanted to check in again. I’ve never had a high-powered ultrasound so late, and even though it was only 2D, I was watching my baby’s face in motion, and I could almost see the contours well enough to know what s/he will look like. It was amazing.

3. Anticipation. Not finding out the gender. Coming, slowly or quickly, to an opinion about which it is, and finding out that I’m right. Or not. Either way, it’s a ton of fun.

4. Baby movements. At least, as long as Baby’s not trying to perform the C-section from inside. Or tickling me under the ribs. Or punching the bladder nerve. But I love being able to feel the contour of an entire limb. It’s so cool.

5. Having little boys press their lips against my belly and call “Good night, baby! It’s time to go to sleep now!”

6. The built-in-opportunity for sex ed with my child who is old enough to get it. If Julianna was at age level, I’d have two kids this would apply to, but as it is Alex is the only beneficiary. Still, it’s good for him to see the process in motion, and see it as holy. I want my kids to grow up with a sense of sexuality that is north of repression but south of promiscuity. And I think seeing the process in action is a great way to achieve that.

7. No underarm odor. I know, that’s gross. (And it’s weird. But it’s true. And I LOVE it.)

8. People being willing to do things for me that I’m perfectly capable of doing myself. Although frankly, that stage is past. Because now most of those things I really can’t do.

9. The motivation to eat carefully and keep my weight as much under control as possible. Because I think that’s good discipline for after.

10. The chance to participate in something truly miraculous, something that truly changes the world.

There you go. I assigned myself the number ten and wondered if I would be able to fill it, but I did. And it puts me in a better frame of mind to face this day, which is T minus five weeks (please God, no snow storms on the 14^th or 15^th of December!!!)

Image by Str1ke via Flickr

We were at church, waiting…me, in line for Confession, the children, in the pews, waiting for me. The older two sat quietly reading, but Nicholas wanted to explore: up to the front, back to me, wanting a hug and a snuggle. Off to press his nose against stained glass window…then back to me, for more cuddles. Testing independence, seeking reassurance.

I pulled him onto my lap and closed my eyes, nuzzling his skin, no longer as soft as it once was, yet still so chewable. He tipped his head back against my face and stared up at the ceiling. Whispered, “Wights, Mommy.” I opened my eyes. My child filled up my vision, too close to focus, a fuzzy compilation of long dark lashes gleaming in incandescent light, soulful brown eyes, and perfect skin.

This, I thought. This is the image of God.

In last Sunday’s reading, we heard the Pharisees asking if Jews were obligated to pay taxes. Our associate pastor invoked Jesus’s words: “Whose image is on the coin?” Caesar’s, of course. “Then give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and give to God what is God’s.”

It had never struck me before: if the image on the coin made that coin the property of Caesar, and if we are made in the image of God…well, that changes everything, doesn’t it?

This concept has caused so much misunderstanding. We get to thinking in physical terms: eyes, nose, mouth, body. And that leads to all kinds of complicated, unnecessary theological snarls. Masculine vs. feminine image of the divine. Forgetting that we are made in God’s image, not the other way around. Assigning God our own political, social or philosophical views. Claiming God is “on our side” in whatever conflict it may be.

It was my mother who first opened my mind to think of it differently. No, no, she said. It’s our souls that are made in God’s image. Not our bodies.

It’s so simple…and it changes everything. Because if it is my soul that is “in God’s image,” and if that soul belongs to God, then everything I do should reflect that. How I act toward spouse, parents, friends, coworkers, children, and random annoying drivers who drive too fast/too slow/cut me off/don’t move over/miss the light change because they’re texting.

It’s not our bodies that are made in God’s image, and yet it is with our bodies that we have the chance to reflect God. And that makes them so profoundly holy. In everything we do, we’re called to reflect the complete self-giving, creative love that brought all Creation into being.

This is the source of my Church’s much-maligned teaching on contraception, but it goes so much farther than that. I wonder, if we thought of ourselves this way, if many of the chronic problems that plague western society would disappear…or at least, downgrade from epidemic to oddity. Gluttony, lack of self-control—in food or entertainment, or any other area—addiction…the search for fulfillment through pursuit of the ephemeral.

I know that it’s not that simple, that many self-destructive behaviors become compulsive, that addiction isn’t something you can just turn off by self-will. But on the other hand, so many of those behaviors—perhaps all of them—begin with a single choice, made in a moment of weakness or loneliness or pain. Made at a moment when a person is vulnerable and isn’t thinking in terms of the incredible dignity and holiness their body contains, simply by being a vessel of the soul.

And although it’s easy for me to recognize the weakness all around me, I wonder what parts of my life need scrutiny. And if I have the courage to face them honestly, and make a change.

Related articles

• Money in the image of Caesar, and man in the image of God (newtheologicalmovement.blogspot.com)
• The 18th Sunday after Pentecost: Proper 24 Year A – October 16, 2011 (prayerbookguide.wordpress.com)

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I know this will come as no surprise to those who know our tendency to plan, plan, plan, but we have already started Christmas shopping. In fact, we’re well into the process.

And you know what? It is awesome.

See, here’s the thing. Every year, Christmas shopping gets more stressful. We can always come up with a long list of things Alex would like, but Julianna’s desires remain very simple: books and music. But we have hundreds of books, and she’s deliriously happy with the music we already have. And Nicholas? Nicholas loves everything, but thanks to Alex we already have everything: Duplos, trains, superhero action figures…

For the last couple of years, we’ve brainstormed, made lists, and hired a babysitter to go shopping. But let me tell you, those shopping trips are anything but fun. We feel under the gun. Nothing ever seems like enough; we feel compelled to have equal amounts of gifts for each child, but the inequality listed above makes it really tough. I spend the whole buying process feeling anxious and under pressure to get it done before the babysitter bill racks up too much. Not enjoyable at all. This is a perfect illustration of why I wrote a book about reclaiming Advent in the first place.

And it was really expensive. (Disclaimer: if you know us at all, you know we are collectively the cheapest people in the universe. I’m sure many people would roll their eyes at me calling it expensive, but as far as I’m concerned, having to pull money from savings instead of covering out of the budget qualifies as EX.PEN.SIVE.)

Plus, there’s this factor. Last year, the kids loved their toys…for a month or two. But they haven’t touched them for the last four months.

It’s time for a change.

So this year, we’re taking a little different tack:

1. Start early. Really early. As in making lists in early September.
2. Spread out the expense. The last couple of years, we’ve panicked at the last minute, realizing we’ve forgotten gifts for teachers and the like. That’s never a recipe for getting something they’ll actually use and appreciate. This year, we’re starting to collect Panera gift cards via the local SCRIP program (one each ordering session), and gift boxes from Penzey’s.
3. Limit the toys. I know we can’t avoid toys altogether, but we’re scaling way back. Why waste money on things they aren’t really all that interested in? My kids are experiential kids, not toy kids. Alex even said a few weeks ago, “I like toys that help me play. Like Wolverine claws.” (If only we could find those.)
4. Think creatively. Guess what? We desperately need pillows and bedsheets. Why not get some fun ones and wrap them up? And the kids, fighting over the Spiderman bath sponge? Sounds like a Christmas gift to me!
5. Check the bargain aisles. So far, bargain shopping has netted a book for each child (a fairy counting book, not Tinker Bell; a photo book of trains; and a car game book, total about $20), and we picked up two containers of sidewalk chalk for $.50 each.
6. Go handmade. I’m planning to make a couple of headbands for Julianna, and enlist Alex’s help. Being my artistic one, I know that will be right up his alley.
7. Go with time-gifts instead of Stuff that’s just going to lie around making more clutter. My work list is getting so long that it’s tempting to try to plow through the mornings and not spend time with the little ones. But they love to help me bake. Why not get some fun cupcake decorations and give them to the kids as Christmas gifts? Use them up, make a memory, and consume it. Sounds like a perfect gift to me.

That’s our plan for this year. But I would love to hear from others. How do you deal with planning Christmas gifts your kids will like without a) stressing out, and b) spending money on things they aren’t going to care about?

Most recently, the clinic that measured Julianna for her new shoe inserts–in August–called to ask me to get a detailed justification from my doctor, because the insurance was balking at paying; these inserts are different from the ones she’s used the last couple of years. Balking, even though, to the best of my knowledge, they’re cheaper.

I called my mom to complain, and she paused. “That sounds like a reasonable request to me,” she said.

I got to thinking–yeah, actually, you know, it probably is. But it made me realize, too, that this is one of those slice-of-life moments that people who have typically-developing kids will probably never see. And so I decided to blog about it.

Most people have kids who learn to walk wearing the worst foot support known to humankind, and they do just fine. (Kids are adaptible that way.) Most people, when their kids outgrow a pair of shoes, go to the store and buy a new one.

Not so for us.

Julianna’s feet turn outward, to the point where she basically walked on the side of her foot. Enter custom orthotics: DAFO, to be specific. If you go to this website, you’ll see a scrolling row of products. Julianna’s been through several of them, most recently one that looks sort of like this (only it was custom fit):

As best we can tell, the cost for this insert was upwards of $1000. Enter insurance, who interestingly enough, never peeped about paying for them.

Now, imagine trying to put those inside a normal shoe. Having worked in a shoe department, I can’t tell you how I dreaded putting little feet inside inflexible shoes…WITHOUT worrying about an insert. Imagine how much worse it would be with this hard plastic thing. Enter Hatchback Shoes:

Three velcro straps per shoe: one over the tongue, one on each side. Great shoes. Not so fun for getting them on and off to go through airport security, but fortunately, we don’t fly too often.

So this spring, a PT suggested that we try Sure Steps instead: a less rigid, less expensive insert, and, it turns out, one that might be able to fit inside a normal shoe.

Midsummer, I realized Julianna’s toes were right at the end of her Hatchbacks, so I started making phone calls. We had an appointment in mid-August to have her measured. Two weeks ago, I got a call from the orthotics place saying the insurance was giving them trouble, and could I please get a note from my doctor? But the doctor is not the origin of the order. The physical therapist is the origin point.

So I contacted Julianna’s PT, who wrote up a justification and sent it to me.

And I forwarded it to the doctor.

And the doctor forwarded it to the orthotics store.

And the orthotics store could then, at last, talk to the insurance.

So midsummer I put the shoe-buying process in motion, and on the fourtheenth of September, at last, the order was allowed to be placed.

Hence my annoyance at the insurance hassle.

You’ll never complain about having to go to the Mall to go shoe-shopping, will you?

My kitchen, before we lived in it. Or painted it. Or cluttered it up. I mean, look at that tiny table. Definitely not our table.

I think it happened because my dishwasher broke.

It’s ridiculous, really, that one appliance can become so indispensible that one starts to obsess, not only about clean vs. dirty dishes, but clean vs. dirty (or disorganized) everything else. Especially for me. After all, for the first twenty-one years of my life, I didn’t have a dishwasher. Whenever we griped to our parents, we got that old annoying response: “We do have a dishwasher! We have four of them! One-two-three-four!” (My three sisters didn’t find it any more amusing than I did.)

But here I am. And as I gnash my teeth and wash those plates and bowls and knives and spoons and forks and glasses by hand…or more accurately, as I leave them to pile up in precarious towers beside the sink…I think, Why didn’t it ever feel this way when I was growing up?

Well, I know the answer: We had an m.o. We stacked the silverware on the top plate, piled the other plates beneath it, then carried the whole works to the sink. Which was two feet away, not on the far side of a peninsula. Still, the piles of dishes awaiting cleaning looked nothing like my haphazard dish-dunes. We also were not allowed to leave food on our plates. We ate every bite, and we’d better do it before closing grace. (We didn’t have a garbage disposal, either; no easy scraping into the sink for us!) We had a rotation of dish duty: one girl per night, responsible for the whole works: clearing, putting food away, washing, drying, putting away. With Mom, of course.

And as I reflected on why dish duty seemed so much more a well-oiled machine when I was a child, I started realizing that my mom’s whole house was set up that way. In her pantry and cabinet, everything had its place. You always knew the flour and sugar would stand like sentries on the bottom right, the peanut butter and jelly above it, the Jello and canned goods on the left.

This is my pantry. It defies organization. I’m telling you. I’ve tried. Many times. Things migrate back to a wrong place, and it’s not me who’s doing it. The kids clothing drawers? Same story.

When my sisters and I were little, we went to school every day in neat and tidy pigtails or braids, even French braids on occasion. She used to brush our hair so that the part was perfect, the hair lay smooth from all sides as it converged on the hair band. I’ve tried that. Julianna moves her head, and a lock sticks up. I’ve quit trying.  But you know what? My mom touches Julianna’s hair, and it lays flat, just like mine used to when I was little. Obviously it’s not the hair, it’s the mom.

Then there’s the linen closet. My mom could always fold a sheet so that you couldn’t tell whether it was fitted or flat; they looked precisely identical. She had very little storage space, so she worked out exactly which folds in which order would make things stack neatly in the closet. She tried to teach me, too, but I didn’t get it. About once every three dozen tries, I manage to make a fitted sheet fold properly. But it’s still a different shape from its companion flat sheet.

Now, don’t get me wrong. My mom is not a paragon of organization. She’s lost more driver’s licenses in her life than I can count, and the kitchen table had to be cleared of random papers every single day before we could set for dinner.

But the table was clean every night. The counters might have taken the overflow, but the table was set for six, without another speck of clutter on it. The laundry did not sit for days waiting to be folded. The whole house was clean at the end of every Saturday. We grew a garden, canned and froze most of the family’s vegetables, raised chickens, butchered them ourselves, collected eggs every day, which Mom sold to neighbors up and down the gravel road.

And I don’t think any of us still had to wear diapers to bed at age 6 ½.

How did she do that? And why am I falling so miserably below the standards she set?

This is not the first time I’ve fretted about my lack of housekeeping prowess. In some ways, I think the universal frustration over housework is a product of a new era. Mom grew up expecting and planning to be the best housewife and mother she could be. My sisters and I grew up in a generation of empowered girls who believed we could have it all, do it all. And so I have children closer together than my mother did; I’m blogging and writing and teaching and public-speaking, and only dabbling in raising my own food. It’s an impossible standard to hold. I know that.

Yet I can’t help feeling frustrated and overwhelmed. I know the solution is to enlist the kids’ help, but trying to teach them slows down the household process even more.

This is the point where I’m supposed to draw it all together in a nice tidy package, look all perky and domestic, or at least accept my own limitations and talk about how I will choose to be content with who I am.

Then again, as House said in a rerun last night, discontent is the only way we improve ourselves. Right?

Last Friday, we took Julianna to the ophthamologist to have her post-lazy-eye surgery checkup. We hadn’t had her glasses on her in 10 days, and in the squabble of getting three little kids dressed, toys and books packed, and out the door, I forgot to bring them. But apologizing for being a loser mom opened the discussion of whether she needed them at all. The doctor said let her go without for a few months, since they her farsightedness has eased off by more than half. No glasses to lose! To scratch! To break! Freedom!

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Image by Rennett Stowe via Flickr

Our next doctor visit, to the cardiologist, was not so successful. Julianna has firmly associated things as innocuous as a scales, stethoscope and pulsox machine as INSTRUMENTS OF DEATH. DEATH, I AM TELLING YOU. Now just imagine what happened when they started sticking leads to her chest, arms and legs to do an EKG. If you’ve never had one, this is an almost-instantaneous reading; it takes longer to place the leads than to do the test. But there’s no reasoning with a four-year-old who had eye surgery two weeks earlier. It took four people to get Julianna’s EKG.  I held her arms and sang while her screams rattled my eardrums; one nurse held her legs; another tried to entertain her while the third ran the computer. Now we have a new family tradition: post-doctor visits, we will go for ice cream to soothe the trauma.

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Lately I’ve been shaking my head over the dumb questions reporters ask sometimes. This week Joplin schools reopened, and the TV reporter asked the mayor, “So how important is a sense of normalcy to the kids?” Puh-leeze. “Oh, for crying out loud,” I said. “What do you expect him to say? ’Actually, we think it’s terrific for kids to live in crisis mode!’ ” I shook my head and told Christian, “I will never be a good person to go on TV, because sooner or later I’ll short-circuit and say what I think, instead of what I’m supposed to say.”

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Can I just say how much I hate the Sears service line? I either want to talk to someone, or punch buttons. I do not want to have a chat with a machine. I give the machine all the info, and then they send me to a person who promptly makes me tell her everything all over again, and expects me, apparently, to leave my son languishing after school on the day of the appointment–because they refuse to be any more specific than “between 1 and 5.” I mean, come on. Everybody’s kids have to be picked up from school! How can anyone commit to this kind of a wacked-out, open-ended schedule? This is the problem with a centralized, national system for something that has to be done locally. Grr! Can I get an Amen?

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I’ve always been a little crazier than most pregnant women, but I think this one probably takes the cake. On Monday night I found myself standing atop a fifteen-foot pile of mulch, sunk up to my knees, flinging shovelfuls down as we helped prepared the school playground for the first day of school. It wasn’t until I had huffed and puffed my way to the top, using my shovel as a climbing pole, that I thought, Is this wise? Several people commented on my perch and my condition…but no one volunteered to take over. Alex and a couple buddies joined me, though.

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At rehearsal last night, I remembered a story I wanted to share, which will probably not be meaningful if you aren’t Catholic and a trained musician, but hey. My first 5 QTs have been pretty universal today. Humor me.

When you enter music school freshman year of college, the first thing you encounter in music history class is Gregorian chant. This is the beginning and origin of all Western music, and the concepts that underlie chant–including the structure of what was written–exert a huge pull on music for centuries to come. So oddly enough, this Catholic girl went to college and started learning Church history, in the form of “ordinaries” and “propers.” It was kind of cool, actually, because it added depth of meaning to going to Mass, since we still use largely the same structure.

Years later, we were doing a wedding with some non-Catholic professional musicians. Mid-way through rehearsal, the trumpet player said, “Oh!” He had a funny look on his face. “It’s like a mini-Mass.”

No, I wanted to say, it IS a Mass.

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I’ve had one of those low-key blogging weeks, where I didn’t feel I had the creativity or energy to blog in depth. But I have some posts stewing for next week, on pregnancy, fear, and being put together (or more accurately, not). Stay tuned, and have a great weekend!