Autumn Friend: A Child’s Poem

Little leaf, little leaf

Dancing in the wind

So lovely and so bright

You’re my autumnal friend

🍁🍁🍁

Little leaf, little leaf

Tumbling ‘long the ground

You rustle and you whisper as you spin round and round

🍁🍁🍁

Little leaf, little leaf

Shining in the sun

Oh, luminous with glory

A gladsome

part of Nature’s story

🍁🍁🍁

Little leaf, little leaf

Tickling my face

Colorful and light

A gift given by God’s grace

🍁🍁🍁

Little leaf, little leaf

Dancing in the wind

So lovely and so bright

You’re my autumnal friend.

Fall begins this week so I hope you enjoy this little poem about the delightful and beautiful autumn foliage. 🍂💛

Three Podcasts and a Book

“Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.” -Phil 4:8

This principle of focusing on and savoring the good, true and beautiful has emerged as a theme in the media I’ve been consuming lately.

As the world remains in tenuous and disquieting times, it’s necessary to fill our minds and hearts with material that nourishes and strengthens in order to counteract that darkness and frustration.

I decided I’d like to share a few of the soul-filling resources, which have been gifts to me. (All links included at the end.)

1) Bishop Barron’s Sermons from Word on Fire podcast.

Bishop Barron is renowned for his online ministry of evangelization engaging the culture and sharing the truth of Christ. Each week, he posts a 15-min sermon based on the Sunday Gospel reading for the Catholic Mass. I enjoy listening to him because he not only draws on theology and philosophy but also has a depth of knowledge in literature and history. He’s learned and articulate but also gets down to practicalities and real-life applications of the Gospel. He helps to make you smarter and holier!

2) The Book Club from PragerU.

This is a monthly podcast ( you can also watch online) hosted by author and commentator Michael Knowles in which he discusses a classic work of literature or history with a guest. Everything from Pride and Prejudice to Shakespeare to 1984 has been the topic of this show. He even interviewed Bishop Barron about the book of Genesis from the Bible.

Sometimes it takes a more political bent and/or brings in current events in the discourse around such books as 1984 or Booker T. Washington’s Up from Slavery, but I think it’s an important exercise to listen to his guests’ perspectives on the contemporary lessons we can glean from these classic works, even if we don’t arrive at the same conclusions.

3) Joy Clarkson’s podcast Speaking with Joy is a soothing, thoughtful, delightful listen for those interested in discussions of faith, art, books, beauty and life. Clarkson describes herself as an “evangelist for all things good, true, and beautiful” and I believe that is an apt depiction. I only recently discovered Joy on her Instagram page (@joynessthebrave, give her a follow) and from there, I found her podcast. It truly felt I had a heavenly guide leading me to these bountiful sources of inspiration and nourishment – that’s how much I’m enjoying them.

Through Joy, I discovered the rest of the Clarkson family, including Sarah Clarkson (@sarahwanders on Instagram) the author of my next recommendation and the “book” mentioned in this post’s title, Book Girl: A Journey through the Treasures & Transforming Power of a Reading Life.

Part memoir, part practical guide, part love letter to stories, Book Girl is both a work of beauty in itself and an arrow leading the reader to more encounters with loveliness, wisdom, whimsy, adventure and spiritual sustenance through books. It includes more than 20 reading lists!

Clarkson’s writing is poetic, vivid and heartfelt. One can feel her passion for story and its capacity to transmit beauty, goodness, and truth in every word she writes. I would love to have a cup of coffee with her (and her sister Joy) and indulge in a long conversation about our favorite books.

These four resources, I think, are true gems. I hope they are havens of delight, inspiration, and stimulation to you just as they have been for me.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/bishop-robert-barrons-sermons-catholic-preaching-homilies/id75551187.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-book-club/id1495731488.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/speaking-with-joy/id1310614879.

On Pentecost

Art by Jan Joest. Source: wikiart.org

“Perfect love casts out fear.” – 1 John 4:18. When I think of the Solemnity of Pentecost, which the Christian church celebrates today, this is one of the Scripture verses that comes to mind.

Peter and the other Apostles and disciples have just experienced the terror of Jesus’ Crucifixion a few weeks earlier. Then followed the rapture of His glorious Resurrection and Ascension into Heaven. Yet they are still cautious, still timid and unsure. The day of Pentecost comes and they’re hidden in the Upper Room, praying along with Jesus’ mother Mary, when suddenly the Holy Spirit infuses them with His power and peace.

And who is the Holy Spirit? He is the Comforter, the Love between the Father and the Son personified. He is perfect love. And He casts out the Apostles’ fear and timidity. Peter is emboldened and empowered to miraculously preach to the people in a language all can understand, regardless of background or place of origin, reaching into their hearts and minds and leading them to salvation in Jesus.

How did the Holy Spirit, the Third Person of the Trinity, the Comforter, the Spirit of Love come to the Apostles and Mary? Through two powerful forces of nature: wind and fire, the holy “refiner’s fire” and the wind, which hearkens back to the wind blowing over the water at Creation. Though Scripture states that the wind was a strong, rushing wind, it was not destructive but life-giving. Wild and free, I like to imagine that perhaps the pure, healthful scents of the Garden of Eden filled it, containing all the the sweetness of spring, lightness of summer, memory of fall, and power of winter winds but more alive and fragrant than our earthbound experience knows. It cleansed and renewed the Apostles’ souls, minds and hearts as did the holy fire, enabling them to fulfill their missions because they had received the Spirit’s gifts: wisdom, understanding, counsel, knowledge, piety, and fear of the Lord.

We pray for this purification and renewal at Confirmation and throughout our lives so that the Holy Spirit’s fruits: charity, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, generosity, modesty, chastity, goodness, faithfulness, and self-control will be manifest in our own journeys to fulfill the specific missions we have been given.

Pentecost is a feast of rejoicing, of hope, of saving power and of perfect love.

“Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of Thy faithful and kindle within them the fire of Thy love.” Amen. Alleluia. 🕊

America Needs Thanksgiving: What We Have in Common with the Holiday’s Origins

2020 is the four hundredth anniversary of the Pilgrims landing at Plymouth Rock in 1620! A year later what we consider to be the first Thanksgiving celebration was held.

In this remarkable year of 2020, I think it could be beneficial to remember the roots of our national holiday and consider what we can learn from our forebears.

That first Thanksgiving was a moment of mutual peace and friendship between the English Pilgrims and the Native Americans, two very disparate groups, who today would be termed voting blocs, demographics, opposites. Certainly, the white man and the native population experienced much violence and injustice at each others’ hands in years to come. But at the beginning, help was given and received with gratitude. The Pilgrims would not have survived their first winter in the New World without the aid of the natives, and 90 Indians joined in that first celebration of thanks.

Today, our nation is continually being split and divided by identity politics and labels. We can learn from those early settlers and natives to extend a hand of friendship and peace across seemingly impassable barriers.

Moreover, on that first Thanksgiving, many of the Pilgrims had lost loved ones due to the severity and illnesses of the previous winter, maybe they themselves had been sick. Their future in the New World was still precarious and uncertain. Nevertheless, they rejoiced and gave thanks to God for providing for them.

In this time of the Coronavirus pandemic, thousands of Americans also are experiencing the grief of lost loved ones or the struggle of recovering from illness. Many people’s future today is uncertain and unknown due to job insecurity or loss, an education system in flux, and other personal struggles. Numerous people are separated from their loved ones this holiday.

Yet, we still have cause for gratitude.

We can be grateful to live in America where we have freedom of speech, freedom of religion, the freedom to participate in our democratic republic. And the ability to work to preserve these liberties when they are being hindered.

We can be thankful for family and for friends who have survived illnesses, COVID or otherwise, and for the strides the medical community has made to combat this virus. We can give thanks for our own health.

Though bittersweet (and I know this personally), we can be thankful for loved ones who have passed on, for the lives they led, the memories we have, and the hope of eternal reunion in Heaven.

We can have a greater appreciation for “normal times” when we can travel and gather and go about our lives without worry of contagion or the impingement of government restrictions. And we can offer thanks for the frontline workers caring for the ill, the people giving to those in need, and the first responders who work to keep us safe everyday, pandemic or no pandemic.

While we certainly should not diminish the struggles and the sorrows of this year, the lessons of gratitude we can glean from the “founders of Thanksgiving” seem especially relevant.

“Give thanks to the Lord for He is good. His mercy endures forever.” -Psalm 107:1

Family Museums

Attics and basements are friendly, comfortable places. They are the grandmas and grandpas of houses, full of stories, memories, nostalgia, and hidden symbols of wisdom.

In a way, these secluded regions at the north and south poles of a home are family museums, containing artifacts and relics, that tell a family’s history. They are the place of repose for trunks and boxes filled with old clothes, year books, photo albums, knick-knacks and heirlooms until happenstance or curiosity send someone to blow dust off lids and forage for a half-forgotten treasure. Of course, one can’t fail to mention the baby’s clothes and seasonal decorations passed down from generation to generation.

Attics and basements are the extra homey, “lived in” parts of a house, in other words, the messiest as they are not regularly seen by “outside” eyes. All of their sights and sounds and smells signify home and safety.

Just the other day, I was in my basement in the house where I’ve grown up and I realized even the scent, the smell of the basement, especially in the fall and winter when the heater is cozily warming the place, was a familiar one of security.

Growing up, when my grandma would visit us, she’d always sleep in the basement and of course, I spent lots of time with her down there. As a homeschooler, my “school room” was located in the basement and I read many a chapter, puzzled over many a math problem, and fretted over many a book report in what we fondly called our “dungeon.” So many of my childhood toys are still in our basement and I can easily recall numerous family “picnics” hosted by me with my play food as well as hours of playing school, house and dress-up with my friends.

At night, however, the basement didn’t always seem like such a friendly place but rather one filled with dark rooms where hulking and mysterious figures dwelt. I would dash up the stairs lest a monster emerge and grab me.

Yet, if one thinks of it, even this aspect of spooky mystery and adventure makes attics and basements special places of fancy and imagination. Not many people envision beasts and monsters in their kitchens or dining rooms – of course, these creatures may dwell under beds or in closets, but mainly their domain is up high and down low in a house. 😉

As we grow, we learn these rooms are not haunted by anything but memories and bygone moments. Yet, it is these very reminders, tangible and intangible, of the people we love and the personal history that has gone before us, that give us a sense of self and of belonging.

The dust and the disarray of basements and attics may occasionally bring consternation and annoyance but the treasures these “family museums” hold are worth certainly worth savoring.

Image credit: Pinterest (https://www.pinterest.ch/pin/346917977526483456/)

Summer Reverie

Like Titania, the Fairy Queen,

I long to sleep where it’s lush and green.

A floral bower

for my castle tower.

Sweet-hued petals for my coverlet,

Soft fragrance bids me not to fret.

Nestled in my blossoms warm,

I know I will not come to harm.

Night sounds sing me into slumber.

Bright stars are winking without number.

Come morn, I’ll wake, refreshed, serene,

Knowing it’s but part of my Midsummer Night’s Dream.

A Spring Riddle

I glide and play on the air.

You may not see me but I’m there.

The flowers lift their leaves my way.

The birds sing greetings at break of day.

I shed freckles on your face.

Your skin is bronzed by my embrace.

What is my name?

What am I deemed?

Another hint,

Another gleam:

I carry health and daydreams.

I am a dancing sunbeam. 🌞

Book Recommendation: “The Legend of Holly Claus”

It’s no secret that Christmas and its festivities and traditions have provided rich material for stories and books through the centuries. A Christmas Carol, Miracle on 34th Street, The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, not to mention the innumerable Hallmark-style, Christmas love stories and all the wonderful children’s books about Christmas. In fact, there’s really a whole canon of Christmas tales – some profound and moving, some historical, others sacchrinely sweet and sappy, still others charming, fanciful and fun.

This year, through the recommendation of a friend, I discovered a Christmas story that completely transported me to its world: The Legend of Holly Claus by Brittney Ryan with illustrations by Laurel Long. It instantaneously became a favorite.

Holly Claus is not a picture book, but the illustrations, if you can find the colored version, are absolutely luminous and breathtaking. Even in black-and-white, they are magical.

Ryan includes mythological creatures and recognizable names from history to create this legend centering on Holly Claus, daughter of King Nicholas (Santa Claus) and his wife Viviana, and princess of Forever, the Land of the Immortals. Holly is the first human to be born in Forever and shortly after her birth she, along with the other immortals are cursed by the evil Harrikhan whose pride previously had caused him to be punished by the elders of the universe.

When Holly grows up, she decides she must earn her place in Forever and break the spell that holds her and her people captive.

Her adventure leads her to the mortal realm into Victorian New York City where she befriends a group of orphans and comes to work at a toy store, which is instrumental in the outcome of her future and fate.

Accompanying Holly on her journey are four animal friends, which I wish could be my companions: Tundra, the wise but tender wolf who is Holly’s protector and advisor; Alexia, the opinionated fox with a flair for fashion; Emperia, the slightly befuddled but well-meaning owl; and Empy, the loving and stout-hearted penguin. These four characters provide crucial help to Holly as well as comic relief to the story.

Holly is an admirable heroine. Her heart is pure and good, but she is not a goody-two-shoes. She’s genuine and fun-loving. She’s honest, humble, and brave.

The Legend of Holly Claus very beautifully conveys the theme of the power of love, that love is more powerful than fear, upon which evil thrives, and that love is even more powerful than time. This aspect of the story, which plays a major role in the conclusion, reminded me of the Bible verse: “Perfect love casts out fear.” (1 John 4:18)

Another motif is the importance of hopes and dreams, and without giving away spoilers , let’s just say Holly has a very special gift of discerning the dreams of children and creating something to help them define those dreams.

Ryan’s writing combines the stately tone of a noble legend with the beauty of poetry and the relatability of human conversation and experience.

I really can not recommend this book enough. Read it with your kids or enjoy this gem on your own. It is pure Christmas magic and delight and there’s even a love story interwoven in the narrative as well.

It may be January, but this enchanting legend is sure to keep that Christmas cheer in your heart through the cold winter nights.

I Believe 🎅🏻

Note: I wrote this short essay some years back as a school assignment inspired by NPR’s “This I Believe” program. I think it’s an appropriate time of year to retrieve from the annals and share with you all. A few minor edits have been made. 😉🎅🏻

I believe in Santa Claus. It might seem strange that a 21-year-old college student claims to believe in Santa Claus, but why shouldn’t I? From “Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Claus” to “Miracle on 34th Street,” there has been story after story that reaffirms faith in the jolly resident of the North Pole and in all he represents, and I have always eaten these stories up like Santa eats the milk and cookies left out for him on Christmas Eve.

Growing up, it was part of my family’s ritual at Christmas time to go visit “Legendary Santa” in a city not far from us. My parents would dress up my brother and me, and we’d go wait in line, sometimes for hours on end, to get our chance to sit on Santa’s lap, have our picture taken, and make our requests known to this magical gift-giver. This was a momentous occasion, and we were always practically shaking with fright and excitement. In fact, I was so terrified that it wasn’t until I was five years old that I would even sit on Santa’s knee. Every year prior, except when I was a baby and didn’t know any better, the picture with Santa invariably has me latched on for dear life to my Mother, head turned away from my brother and Santa Claus. Nevertheless, I still loved Santa!

Come Christmas Eve, (even after Santa and I were on speaking terms), I could hardly sleep; I would lie in bed barely daring to move or breathe, my head nearly completely covered by my blankets. However, without fail, Christmas morning would ring with shouts of “He came!” and “Thank you, Santa!”

One year I was totally flabbergasted because under the tree was a doll for which I had secretly been wishing; I hadn’t even told my parents, but somehow, Santa knew. Another year, a doll of my Mom’s, which she had handed down to me and which needed some repairs, mysteriously went missing from my room, a candy cane left in its place. Sure enough, on Christmas morning, there was the doll beautifully restored under the Christmas tree. Christmas magic indeed!

Now I’m not saying I literally believe there is a man who lives at the North Pole and delivers presents on Christmas Eve, but I’m also not saying I don’t believe. After all, the legacy of Santa Claus began with an historical man, St. Nicholas, a bishop who legend says helped a needy father pay for his three daughters’ weddings. Moreover, Christmas is a time when I celebrate Christ’s birth. It is remembered as a time of miracles and of love.

I believe this is what Santa Claus represents. He is a reminder that there is still mystery and wonder and innocence in the world, and that love, joy, and generosity are timeless. So yes, I am twenty-one, and I believe in Santa Claus, and I plan to keep believing in him throughout my life because his spirit and what he stands for is undoubtedly good and worthy of belief.

Image credit: http://www.reusableart.com/santa-21.html (This picture was used to illustrate Clement Moore’s “Night Before Christmas”

Autumn’s Poetry

As I was sitting and resting in my car, I pondered the colorful copse of trees before me. The thought occurred to my mind that an autumnal bower with its dappled, golden light and playing beams is a place of magic — a meeting place for the world of fancy and the world of the senses.

If one is very quiet and very still and allows the realm of imagination and wonder to open, the citizens of story, of history, of legend will be there, amongst the trees, to welcome the visitor, not as an interloper, but as a friend.

One may come to understand the language of the animals — to decipher the animated discourses of the squirrels protecting their winter hoards, the call of the birds to their comrades flying south. In the kaleidoscopic poetry of a fall thicket, one should not be shocked if a chipmunk were to scurry up and ask for an opinion on where to find food or if a shy deer were to blink curiously from a protective bush.

Then again, one may espy fairies frolicking on sunbeams and dryads giggling among the branches as they wink mischievously at the human sojourner in this dreamy region of natural enchantment.

And listen! That crunch of leaves may just be the footfall of General Washington as he exhorts his footsore and ragged troops to manful endurance. Or it may be a band of hobbits seeking forgotten ancestral gold. Perhaps it is Jane Eyre fleeing heartbreak and betrayal and seeking repose on the lap of Mother Nature.

It’s possible I am “too fond of books and it has turned [my] brain.” (Louisa May Alcott)

But to sit and absorb this fanciful wonderment, to let this natural beauty and autumnal serenity seep into one’s skin and mind and heart is to begin to find healing and wholeness.

We may echo Anne Shirley’s declaration: “Dear old world. You are very lovely, and I am glad to be alive in you.” (L.M. Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables)

For the imprint of God, “the original source of beauty,” is here, and His “imperishable spirit is in all things.” (Wisdom 13:3; 11:26)

Spooky Reads for October: Classics Edition

At last, it’s beginning to feel a bit more like fall. Seemingly overnight, the trees have donned their autumnal dress of warm, vibrant hues. The evening twilight gathers earlier and earlier. There’s a crisp bite to the air in the mornings.

This time of year you may enjoy having your reading fare line up with the season -the spooky season. If you find it fun to have a chill up your spine to match the chill in the air but don’t want to deal with the surfeit of gore and evil all too prevalent in modern “scary stories,” you have to look no further than some tried-and-true classics, which you may just remember from high school literature courses.

These selections are more restrained, leave some things to the imagination, and often seek to impart a deeper moral message or show a character’s development as a person. They don’t promote or glorify gratuitous violence and darkness for its own sake as some contemporary tales are wont to do but they entertain nonetheless.

With that in mind, here are five timeless novels that may not initially seem like a spooky or weird read but that, nevertheless, contain elements to create an eerie, suspenseful mood.

1) Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

This novel is a staple of high school literature classes and though at first blush, one may not consider it a “spooky read,” it contains many of the elements of an uncanny, October tale.

The titular heroine, Jane, starts off as a forlorn but passionate orphan who’s mistreated by relatives and cruel school mistresses. She grows up to become governess to the ward of Mr. Rochester, the enigmatic and brooding master of the old mansion Thornfield Hall. Jane’s goodness, frankness, and strength, despite her menial background, attracts the troubled Rochester and the two fall in love only for Jane to discover on the day of her wedding that her betrothed is already married to an insane wife whom he has hidden away in the attic of the mansion. This demented woman is the cause of midnight fires and other mysterious goings-on that had aroused Jane’s curiosity.

Jane runs away after learning of Rochester’s betrayal but eventually is drawn back to him by an almost spiritual, preternatural communication between their two hearts. She finds he’s been blinded and maimed in a conflagration set by Bertha in which Bertha herself perished despite Rochester’s attempts to save her.

All of these Gothic, gloomy qualities (though there is light-heartedness as well) create quite an atmospheric story but Jane’s integrity and character eventually triumph.

2) The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Hawthorne’s American classics are also heavy with brooding and mysterious atmospheres. The Scarlet Letter, set in Puritan New England, contains the time period’s superstitions surrounding witchcraft, lending a creepy element to this tale of the shunned and ostracized Hester Prynne, her child Pearl, and the troubled minister Dimmesdale who carries a scandalous secret. Imagery, symbolism, and conflict as well as themes of guilt and innocence, light and darkness, truth and deception, punishment and redemption all combine to make this a suspenseful novel.

3) The House of the Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Another Hawthorne classic that contains many of the same weird and superstitious ingredients as The Scarlet Letter. A young woman Phoebe goes to care for her reclusive relatives in their old and lifeless ancestral home. The threads of Puritan superstition about witchcraft and the gloomy setting of the mansion also make this a story weighty with atmosphere and mystery.

4) Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

I first read this book about three years ago and I was surprised by its suspense. The story opens with the protagonist Pip as a young orphan encountering an escaped convict in a foggy cemetery. Moving through the novel, one of the main characters that covertly propels some of the plot is Miss Havisham, a bitter and vindictive old woman living in a decaying mansion. She was betrayed by her husband-to-be on their wedding day and has left the wedding cake and everything else in her home just as it was at the moment her life changed. She even stopped all the clocks- a moment frozen in time. Disillusioned and hardened, she’s now training her protege Estella to toy with men’s emotions and to hurt them as she had been hurt. The aforementioned escaped convict also comes to play a pivotal role in the protagonist Pip’s life and fortunes as a young man. There are numerous twists and turns and suspenseful moments throughout this Dickens tome.

Though these four seemingly unlikely candidates for “spooky reads” are more subtle with their creepiness, they are, nonetheless, satisfying.

Of course, I would be remiss not to mention some of the more obvious classic spooky tales, which may come to mind during October.

1) The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, a page-turning Sherlock Holmes mystery about a potentially preternatural dog haunting an estate.

2.) Bram Stoker’s Dracula. I’ve never read this one myself but from what I’ve heard its not simply a tale of horror but really a tale of good and evil with some deeper philosophical and moral messages.

3) Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, which I also need to read, and which like Dracula has some deeper messages to ponder.

If you’re more interested in short stories, there’s always Washington Irving’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Oscar Wilde’s The Canterville Ghost and nearly anything written by Edgar Allen Poe.

Hope these classic tales offer you just the hair-raising thrill that is characteristic of this time of year. Happy Reading!!

🍁🎃🍂

A September Reflection

A page of the book is lifting, rising and settling with the wind.

The angle of the sun is shifting. The feel of the air is changing. Autumn is calling.

The heat and the air have adopted a mellower, more golden tone, one that lulls and rocks to sleep. No more the brash, exuberant summer brightness shouting to wake up and come play. Not yet the sharp, crisp note bidding you to breathe deep and sigh.

Brown, scented pine needles are showering down with a shake from a playful squirrel.

Leaves are starting to crisp and color on the edges. There is more crunch and color beneath my feet.

A small maple’s change of dress is still incomplete — autumnal hues of green, yellow, and red all slide into one another like the ripening apples burdening the limbs in the orchard.

Mornings come later. Evenings are chillier.

But the need for scarves and sweaters has not quite arrived.

Like the caw of the wheeling blackbird, I can hear Fall’s greetings, echoing, beckoning.

Patriot Summer

Is it just me or does summer feel like an especially patriotic time of year? As soon as the 80 degree weather rolls in, I’m ready to roll out all the red, white, and blue.

This inclination is likely for good reason: late spring and summer offer multiple patriotic holidays.

Cue a John Phillip Sousa march! 🎶

We just marked the solemn occasions of Memorial Day and the 75th anniversary of the D-Day invasion during WWII–both necessary and important reminders of the cost of our freedom here in this sweet land of liberty.

Now, we are on to more festive and jubilant holidays: Flag Day (also the US Army’s Birthday) today, June 14th and, of course, Independence Day on July 4th!! #partylikeits1776

As a bookworm and a history buff, some of my favorite types of books are ones about American history as well as memoirs of our presidents, military service members, and other notable figures.

What better time than these sun-drenched days of summer to lay on a hammock with a cool drink on a lazy afternoon and learn more about our nation’s history and the people who have helped to shape it both in the past and the present?

It may make all these patriotic holidays even more meaningful.

So without further ado, I thought I’d share some books I think are worth reading.

1) 1776 by David McCullough

1776 reads more like a novel than a history book. McCullough’s writing is engaging and vivid. He presents all the historical figures, American and British, in their full humanity with strengths and weaknesses, virtues and vices, and idiosyncrasies. Ample recourse to primary sources such as letters serves almost as dialogue in this riveting story. I learned much about this pivotal year in America’s founding as well as the characters of its principle playmakers, especially the admirable, fallible, courageous tenacity and leadership of George Washington whose circumstances and obstacles frequently appeared insurmountable.

2) The Faiths of Our Fathers: What America’s Founders Really Believed by Alf J. Mapp, Jr.

I haven’t read this book in a few years, but I remember it as an interesting look at the Founders’ religious beliefs, which ranged from orthodox to definitely not-so-orthodox. It’s not a continuous narrative but divided up by individual people, so it’s a book you can set aside and then pick up again without having to refresh your memory about what just transpired.

3) The Declaration of Independence

Okay, this one isn’t a book, but what more appropriate time than Independence Day to read the document that officially declared that our country was the United States of America! It’s kind of like our nation’s birth certificate. You can find it online.

Under this entry, I’ll also add The Patriot’s Reference: Documents, Speeches, and Sermons that Compose the American Soul edited by Joel J. Miller and Kristen Parrish. This book contains the Declaration and numerous other primary sources of American History. I have not read them all but it’s a good book to have on hand.

4) Band of Brothers: E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne from Normandy to Hitler’s Eagle Nest by Stephen E. Ambrose

This is the book on which the popular TV mini-series was based. It brings home the unthinkable realities of war. Well-written and engrossing.

5) When Books Went to War: The Stories That Helped Us Win World War II by Molly Guptill Manning

If you’re a voracious bookworm and a fan of WWII history like me, this book is a perfect combination. I had no idea of the tremendous impact that books, especially the Armed Services Editions paperbacks, had on the morale of our troops. Not only that but the books turned a whole sector of the population into readers and learners post-War. Books were “weapons in the war of ideas,” which this book shows was just as critical as the physical battles being fought. Books represented democracy and freedom in contrast to the Axis powers’ tyranny and oppression. Amazingly, the U.S. distributed more books to the troops than Hitler destroyed.

6) Over Here, Over There: The Andrew Sisters and the USO Stars in World War II by Maxine Andrews and Bill Gilbert

A more light-hearted but still informative look at the WWII years and just how much every part of society gave up to support the war effort. Makes one wistful for a time when the country was so united and everyone was willing to sacrifice for a cause greater than themselves.

7) American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History by Chris Kyle, Scott McEwen, and Jim DeFelice

I have not seen the movie based on this memoir but the book is certainly an eye-opening and gritty firsthand account of war.

8) Lone Survivor: The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of SEAL Team 10 by Marcus Lutrell and Patrick Robinson

Gripping and page-turning story of endurance and sacrifice as told by the Lone Survivor Marcus Lutrell. In recent years,his story was also turned into a movie (haven’t seen that one either.)

Both American Sniper and Lone Survivor are intense accounts of war but they offer authentic, thought-provoking perspectives for civilians who have never had to endure the unimaginable atmosphere of modern warfare. Both Kyle and Lutrell are gloriously unpolitically correct. They definitely pull no punches in their accounts in order to sugar coat harsh realities or to protect feelings. Yet they are not writing to sensationalize their experiences but to honor those who served alongside them. These aren’t always easy books to read but they are certainly impactful and profound.

9) Grateful American: A Journey From Self to Service by Gary Sinise

You may know Gary Sinise from the movie Forrest Gump in which he played Lieutenant Dan or from the TV series CSI:NY but you may not know all he has done to support our military service members, veterans, first responders, and their families. He has gone on 100 USO tours to entertain the troops, and he has established the Gary Sinise Foundation, which has several different programs assisting our service members, veterans, and first responders. He is such a decent, good man and a true patriot. His story really inspires you to support those who protect our freedoms as well as to persevere through one’s own challenges.

10) My Grandfather’s Son by Clarence Thomas

Very interesting autobiographical account of the life of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. He writes honestly of his own shortcomings and the obstacles he faced as an African-American man raised in the South and coming of age in the Civil Rights era. His determination and thoughtful opinions based on experience when it came to things like Affirmative Action are certainly valuable to today’s public discourse.

11) Destiny and Power: The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush by Jon Meachem

I checked this book out at the library shortly after President George H. W. Bush passed away last December. It is quite the tome but Meachem’s writing is not dry and this book is a lesson not only in the life of our late president but also in how politics functions and in the historical and cultural changes that transpired during Bush’s life span which covered a large portion of the twentieth century. Side note: Jon Meachem eulogized Bush at his funeral.

12) Condoleezza Rice: A Memoir of My Extraordinary, Ordinary Family and Me by Condoleezza Rice

I’ve read this book a couple times. Rice’s journey from a little girl in the segregated South to her service in the national government is inspiring. Her attitude of never succumbing to victimhood in the face of prejudice and of striving always to be her best and pursue her passions is inspiring.

Note: Obviously, recommending a book does not necessarily constitute an endorsement of everything contained in said books.

Happy Reading and Happy Summer!!

🇺🇸😎

Dawn

This little poem began to formulate in my brain early one morning while I was still half asleep, and I decided to write it down once I really woke up. I’m definitely no Emily Dickinson but it was fun to compose nevertheless.

The birds twittering outside my window, often well before the sky is fully light, are some of the first signs that night is passing away.

Honestly, I do wish they’d sometimes sleep in a bit longer, haha. But they are doing what they’re supposed to do, and wouldn’t it be grand if we could all wake up singing and rejoicing in the new day of life we’ve been granted!

“Dawn”

In the early, grey hours when I’m snug inside my bed,

My little birdy neighbors commence their choral greetings near my head.

Like tiny, feathered midwives, in their tweeting, sing-song way, they cheer on Mother Nature giving birth to a new day.

“Come on, come on, come on!” They say.

Then to me: “Wake up, wake up, wake up!”

But I retort: “Go back to sleep! Go back to sleep!”

Yet these heralds of life and light persistently peep:

“It’s here! It’s here! It’s here!” as they announce the sun.

Darkness has relinquished its hold on the world. A fresh morning has begun!

P.S. I’ve also been watching a Momma Robin sitting on her nest behind my home for several days now, and within the last 24 hours, the babies have hatched!! Praying St. Francis of Assisi keeps Mom and babies going strong! 🙏😉🐣

The Secret Wisdom of Nancy Drew: How the Teenage Sleuth Reminds Us of Important Life Truths

Have you ever noticed that re-visiting favorite childhood stories as adults allows us to pick up on so much that is easily overlooked as children in the sheer enjoyment of the plot’s action? Pearls of wisdom we may have missed or ways of thinking and talking that are now considered passé or politically incorrect.  This was the case for me when I recently re-read a couple books in the Nancy Drew mystery series. 

Written by multiple authors under the pen name Carolyn Keene, the books began to be published in the 1930s and have been popular reading material for generations of school-age girls ever since.  Penguin Random House’s website describes the books as “a cherished part of our cultural landscape” and “a noted inspiration for generations of women.”  The books have generated movie adaptations of the teenage sleuth as well as computer games and other items. One year, I even had a Nancy Drew wall calendar!

Though I haven’t come close to reading all of books, I periodically like to return to some of the older stories.  While outmoded elements can be found in descriptions of and references to characters, I also found myself recognizing positive messages that this perennial series subtly conveys.

There are many hallmark features of these books: descriptions of Nancy’s and her friends’ various outfits on different occasions, plentiful meals and snacks supplied by Nancy’s housekeeper Hannah Gruen, and mention of the title of the previous mystery Nancy solved as well as an anticipatory mention of the next mystery Nancy will tackle after she has wrapped up the current one.  And who can forget those classic cliffhanger chapter endings that made you read just a little bit more to see who had screamed or what would happen to Nancy after she was struck in the head and blacked out?

However, beneath the light-hearted fun and page-turning thrills, a few deeper messages emerge that are valuable reminders for readers of any age.

1.) The importance of family relationships. Nancy’s relationship with her attorney father Carson Drew is one of openness, respect, and confidence.  Nancy always discusses her mysteries and problems with her Dad, asking for his advice and help when needed.  In return, Carson Drew unfailingly tries to assist her.  He also just as unfailingly encourages Nancy and puts his trust in her abilities and judgment.  He has confidence in her, and she has the utmost respect for him.

Though it’s hard to imagine many real-life fathers agreeing to allow their 18-year-old daughters to attempt many of the things Nancy ventured to do in pursuit of clues and criminals, their relationship is a good example of a father-daughter bond.  Moreover, it underscores the importance of parents and mentors in the lives of young adults not only to advise and to warn but to encourage and to instill self-confidence.  Especially in the ‘30s when the books were first published, Carson Drew’s support of his daughter Nancy’s intelligent and adventuresome spirit is noteworthy and empowering. 

Meanwhile, Nancy’s rapport with the Drews’ housekeeper Hannah Gruen is just as endearing in different ways.  As we are reminded in each book, Nancy’s mother died when Nancy was a little girl and Hannah became a mother-figure to her.  Always fretful over the danger Nancy might be facing on her adventures and ready with revivifying food any time of the day or night, Hannah’s tender love and concern for Nancy exemplify the importance of always being there for family (blood-related or not) and of not being afraid to show you care.

2.) The need for loyal, supportive friends. Though our sometimes seemingly perfect heroine Nancy is clever, brave, and self-reliant, she could never have solved her many mysteries without the aid of her best girlfriends Bess and George and frequently her “favorite date” Ned Nickerson as well as Dave and Burt, Bess’ and George’s boyfriends, respectively. And Nancy would likely be the first to acknowledge that fact.  They were the ones alongside Nancy, “in the trenches,” so to speak, braving danger, contriving narrow escapes, and outwitting bad guys.  Bold George always jumped at the chance to assist however she could.  Bess, though usually more timid at the start, continually came through for her friend.  Of course, the boys always did their best not only to protect their girlfriends but also to help solve the case.

These friends’ willingness to help their pal Nancy through thick and thin reminds us not only of the need to have people in our corner to assist us in reaching our goals and overcoming our challenges but also of the need to be that kind of supportive person for our loves ones.  Everyone needs help along the way and the Nancy Drew books provide concrete examples of this truth through the lens of a group of friends teaming up to solve a mystery.

3.) Compassion for others.  In the series’ first book, The Secret of the Old Clock, Carson Drew states that Nancy loves to help people.  Nancy’s intelligence, affinity for mystery and her sense of adventure aren’t used for frivolous or selfish motives.  Instead, she puts them at the service of others.  She’s not hesitant to become involved in the problems of other people, even people she just met.  She utilizes her talents to help them.  While we obviously must exercise prudence in determining how much we insert ourselves into other people’s problems, these stories show us that good, old-fashioned love of neighbor can come in many forms.  We sometimes might think that charity only consists in volunteering with or donating money to a designated charitable organization.  However, Nancy demonstrates that serving others can be as simple and as creative as using our talents and interests to help those we meet, and she always makes new friends in process. This is certainly a message that is both timely and timeless.

One of my favorite quotes from C.S. Lewis is: “A children’s story that can only be enjoyed by children is not a good children’s story in the slightest.” The truth is that quality children’s literature, seemingly simple as it may be, frequently contains a wealth of wisdom while also providing an entertaining tale.  Initially, the Nancy Drew mystery series may not seem like a candidate for such edifying literature, but a closer look at this famous teenage sleuth with her kindness, smarts, spunk, and respect for others, may just show that she is a worthy girlhood role model who will continue to stand the test of time.

A Thanksgiving Reflection

I stood in a world of color and light. The leaves had deepened to garnet and purple, burnt orange and bronze and brown. Though no longer aflame, the autumnal landscape was imbued with a solemn beauty.

As the sun painted the sky with its rising, the expanding glow irradiated the shadows of the woods with morning light and danced on the shimmering frost lightly coating the foliage that glimmered like gems.

All was still.

I could hear the silence and feel the peace enveloping me with golden rays.

Closing my eyes, I inhaled deeply the cold, crystal air, and, opening them again, I exhaled a visible puff of breath.

Woodsy, comforting scents pricked my nose: the spicy odor of crunched leaves blanketing the ground, the fragrance of fir and pine, evergreen.

A squirrel’s cheeky chattering broke the silence as the little creature scampered up an oak tree. Two chipmunks chased each other in zig-zags on the ground sending leaves scattering and whirling. A wood pecker’s ruby head caught my attention as it tapped a cadence on the trunk of a maple.

I basked in the serenity and joy of it all.

The world was beautiful and alive.

I could feel my heart’s rhythmic beating and feel strength in my muscles. I was alive.

I whispered a prayer of gratitude and slowly ambled my way back to the drowsing house that sheltered sleeping loved ones. Time to put the turkey in the oven. It was Thanksgiving, and I was thankful.

Image credit: http://www.clipartpal.com/_thumbs/pd/holiday/thanksgiving/First_Thanksgiving_in_America.png

(This is an imagined reflection.)

Lessons from “The Gift of the Magi”

The holiday season is a time of love and peace. A celebration of faith and tradition with family and friends. It’s a period of reflection, renewal, joy, and generosity.

Or, at least, it’s supposed to be.

Regrettably, the pressures of the commercialization and material expectations of this special season often make peace seem more like a dream than a reality for many people and often long before December even rolls around.

If you’re experiencing the stress of a hectic holiday and worrying excessively about checking off that to-do list more incessantly than Santa checks his list, a few minutes with O. Henry’s classic short story, “The Gift of the Magi” may help calm your jangled nerves.

     O. Henry, the pen name of William Henry Porter (1862-1910), was an American author renowned for his short stories, which frequently had a surprise or unexpected twist at the end. One of his best-known works is “The Gift of the Magi.”

     At fewer than ten pages, this story is ideal to pick up and read during a moment of down time amid the holiday bustle. You may just come away from it looking at all your tasks with fresh eyes.

(Warning: spoilers ahead!)

     This brief but impactful Christmas tale centers on a young married couple, Jim and Della Dillingham, who don’t have much money to buy one another Christmas presents. Consequently, they both secretly decide to sell a prized possession in order to purchase a gift for the other.

     A witty narrator guides the reader through this domestic drama, focusing mainly on the experience and journey of Della. Through Della’s and Jim’s struggles and triumphs, the reader is reminded of some important truths that apply not only during the holidays but throughout the whole year.

1) People are more important than possessions.

This lesson may be an obvious conclusion from the basic plot of the story, but it merits pondering nonetheless. As already mentioned, both Jim and Della possess something of which they are extremely proud.

     Jim owns a magnificent gold watch, a family heirloom that had belonged to his father and grandfather. “Had King Solomon been the janitor, with all his treasures piled up in the basement, Jim would have pulled out his watch every time he passed, just to see him pluck at his beard in envy,” writes O. Henry.

     Della’s point of pride is her voluminous, beautiful brown hair. “Had the Queen of Sheba lived in the flat across the airshaft, Della would have let her hair hang out the window some day to dry just to depreciate Her Majesty’s jewels and gifts.”

Clearly, these were valuable objects to the Dillinghams.

     The action of the story begins on Christmas Eve when Della realizes that the $1.87 that she painstakingly saved for Jim’s Christmas present will never be enough for anything she deems worthy of her husband.

     Suddenly a flash of inspiration strikes her, and, looking in the mirror, she resolves to sell her bountiful hair in order to buy Jim something he deserves. She receives $20 for her locks, a handsome sum, and she immediately scours the stores for the perfect item.

We later learn that Jim has sold his cherished gold watch to buy something for Della. (Notice I’m not yet mentioning what they bought in exchange for their prized possessions.)

Jim and Della’s actions of selling a treasured item in order to bring happiness to one another reminds us to check our priorities.

     Do we put material wealth, goods, appearance over the happiness of our loved ones? Do we really consider the people for whom we are buying a gift, thinking of what they truly need or enjoy? Or do we select something perfunctorily out of obligation? What are we willing to give up for those we love?

This last question brings me to the next lesson.

2) True love involves sacrifice. Any type of love, be it of the romantic, familial, or friendship variety, necessarily involves giving of oneself, sometimes painfully, if it is to be a real love that abides and grows. By humbling themselves through relinquishing their points of pride in self-denial, Della and Jim exemplify this other-oriented love.

      When Della resolves to sell her hair, O. Henry notes, “Once she faltered for a minute and stood still while a tear or two splashed on the worn red carpet.” Yet he also describes her eyes as having a “brilliant sparkle.” Her countenance is an accurate depiction of the bittersweet nature of sacrifice. Giving up her beautiful hair isn’t easy and once the deed is done, she worries about Jim’s reaction to her altered appearance. However, the sparkle in her eye indicates a deeper feeling of grace and sweetness in sacrificing for a loved one.

     We don’t know any reservations with which Jim may have grappled, but it isn’t unreasonable to assume that he also felt twinges of reluctance to part with something so high in monetary and sentimental value as his gold watch. Regardless, his action demonstrates that his love for his wife enabled him to give up a dear possession.

How do we serve those we love? Are we unselfish in giving of time and sharing our blessings, material or otherwise? Or do we like those people only because of how they can benefit us?

3) The most valuable gifts aren’t necessarily material goods. As you may have suspected by now if you’re unfamiliar with the tale, Jim and Della each selected an item for the other to complement his or her prized possession. Della bought an elegant gold chain for Jim’s watch, and Jim bought a lovely set of hair combs for which Della had wished. Materially speaking, their well-intentioned generosity was in vain since neither could use the gift. However, neither one is vexed for long.

Jim has a “peculiar expression” when he first sees his wife’s shorn locks. Furthermore, he must comfort Della, who is initially distressed when she unwraps her combs, but she soon smiles agreeably and remarks how fast her hair grows. When Jim sees his watch chain, he also smiles and suggests storing away their gifts temporarily. Della then prepares their supper.

As thoughtful as the material items were meant to be, Della and Jim’s sacrifice for each other was the gift of greater value.

O. Henry concludes his story by describing Jim and Della as “the magi,” saying that of all wise men this young couple is the wisest because of their self-sacrifice for each other.

We have been taught that it is more blessed to give than to receive and that we also receive when we give to others. However, we sometimes forget that the hidden ingredient behind the truth of these words is love. It is selfless love that animates sacrifice and makes it sweet and that empowers the act of giving to be something other than a mechanical offering.

O. Henry reminds us of this lesson through the fictional characters of Jim and Della.

The gift of self-sacrifice might entail giving up material goods like the Dillinghams did. Yet self-sacrifice could also mean we give up previously-made plans to take care of a sick loved one or to call a friend going through a hard time.

Self-giving could also come in the form of devoting time, energy, and resources to create something homemade (instead of store-bought) like a hand-knitted scarf, a home-cooked meal or a photo album of old memories accompanied by hand-written notes.

What better time than the holidays to re-ignite a more personal and selfless type of love in our attitude to gift-giving and in our interactions with loved ones and in our communities? We may find that our disquieting holiday stress melts into the joy and goodwill that this season is meant to celebrate.

Photographic Reproduction of Currier and Ives’ “American Homestead Winter.” Source: Wikimedia.

How 9/11 has shaped our lives

As we approach the 17th anniversary of the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, it is quite stunning to consider how the repercussions of that tragic day are still being felt nearly two decades later.

Courageous first responders, who selflessly ran to Ground Zero to save others, have been and are continuing to fall ill and die because of the toxic air they inhaled that fateful day.

As a result of those appalling attacks, a galvanized and freedom-loving America became engaged in its longest war. An entire generation has grown up not knowing what the world was like before 9/11, what it was like for America not to be at war.

Some of those who are fighting this on-going battle were barely old enough to remember this century’s “day of infamy” that ignited the global war on terror.

Many beautiful human beings, who might otherwise be working civilian jobs, caring for and enjoying family and friends, have fought and died in the fray.

In some ways this war is markedly different from the wars of our parents and grandparents. Most of our lives are not consumed by the war effort like in WWII when victory gardens, rationing, and scrap metal drives were prevalent and every sector of society was doing its part to support the cause of freedom.

Nowadays, our armed services, amazingly, are all volunteer. This isn’t a war of conscription like WWII, Korea, and Vietnam.

Despite these important distinctions, our lives have been shaped and continue to be shaped by 9/11. Think of how much politics and national security are defined by the ramifications of that day. Every election cycle, candidates promulgate their ideas regarding the war, the troops, and how to keep America safe.

Think about how much the travel experience has been altered because of that day. Being born at the beginning of the nineties, I remember being able to go past security at the airport and wait to greet my grandma when she came to visit or to wave at the window as we watched the plane take off when she left. Now we can only accompany loved ones as far as the security line where we go through all sorts of safety measures that have changed and grown since 2001 and that have become routine.

We have been taught “if you see something, say something.” Sadly, numerous people have been lost in subsequent terrorist attacks since 2001, such as in Benghazi, Libya, on September 11, 2012.

Tomorrow as we reflect as a nation and honor the memory of those who died in New York, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania seventeen years ago, let us also ponder all that has happened in the wake of that day.

One good result of this national tragedy is perhaps that we as a nation are more grateful to our troops and have more of an awareness of what America means as a country and its role in the world. In the immediate days following September 11th, we did unite as a nation and come together in shared prayer and patriotism. We can hope and pray for a return to those sentiments in these days as well.

May God be with all those whose lives were lost or altered on and because of September 11, 2001.

Never forget. 🇺🇸🗽❤️

Setting out one flag for every person who lost their lives on 9/11. (2015)

Hooray for (Old) Hollywood!

Just this weekend a classic old Hollywood film soothed a heartache for an evening. My Mom and I watched the 1945 Esther Williams flick “Thrill of a Romance.” It had been a tumultuous, emotional roller coaster ride of a few days, and maybe the sweet simplicity of that old film was just what the doctor ordered as a balm to our taut nerves. In any case, as soon as it started, we both immediately felt more at ease and slept better than we had in nights.

It’s no earth-shaking plot, just an old-fashioned romantic comedy of sorts but with plenty of yesteryear Hollywood glamour and elegance.

Jimmy Stewart, PC: Wikipedia

Think of some of the Hollywood stars of old: Grace Kelly, Jimmy Stewart, Audrey Hepburn, Bing Crosby, Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman, Esther Williams, the list could go on…

Audrey Hepburn, PC: Paramount-photo by Bud Fraker; Wikipedia

Elegance, style, glamour.

With my affinity for 1940s and 50s music, movies and fashion, I often quip that I was born in the wrong era.

I think there’s something to be said for the elegance of that by-gone time. We seem to take a casual approach to so many things nowadays. Sometimes people barely differentiate what they wear to church from what they wear to the gym #athleisure. Read this article for an interesting take on athleisure and manners.

Whether we like it or not, fashion choices are a reflection of us, of our values and personalities and tastes.

The generation of our grandparents and great-grandparents had propriety. Certain clothes for certain occasions and locations. Maybe it was a bit too formal, but I think the millennial generation could use an infusion of that polish and refinement. Really, it boils down to respect. How one presents oneself in dress and deportment conveys not only respect for the people and places one encounters but also self-respect.

Then there’s the music of yesteryear. My family and I were listening to Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald duets the other day, and it struck me yet again how, generally speaking, the popular music of long ago was so much more romantic than nowadays. There were true love songs to which one could slow dance and be wooed and fall in love. They present true depths of emotions from sorrow and longing to love and joy to just plain silly fun.

Ella Fitzgerald, PC: Lewin/Kaufman/Schwartz, Public Relations, Beverly Hills; Wikipedia

Again respect and elegance and beauty. Moreover, those singers and musicians did not have the technology of today to alter and tweak their voices or their sound. Pure artistic talent was required.

Louis Armstrong, PC: Wikipedia (from Library of Congress)

A lot of contemporary music leaves nothing to the imagination (much like today’s movies) but rather mires itself in vulgarity.

I know I am speaking in broad strokes about past and present entertainment, but the general ethos is, I think, pretty close to accurate.

In my experience, taking a little “sentimental journey” via old Hollywood movies or music from another era might just be good for what ails ya.

If you’re looking for some suggestions, here are a few of my favorite old films and songs in no particular order. What are some of your old favorites?

Songs:

1.) “Dream a Little Dream of Me” by Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong

2.) “Sway” by Rosemary Clooney. I like Dean Martin’s version, too!

3.) “Swinging on a Star” by Bing Crosby

4.) “L. O. V. E.” by Nat King Cole

5.) “Sentimental Journey” by Doris Day

Movies:

1.) “Singing in the Rain,” starring Gene Kelly, Debbie Reynolds and Donald O’Connor

2.) “Roman Holiday,” starring Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck

3.) “Yours, Mine, and Ours,” starring Lucille Ball and Henry Fonda

4.) “Going My Way,” starring Bing Crosby.

5.) And since I just watched it and really liked it: “Thrill of a Romance,” starring Esther Williams and Van Johnson.

A Capital Day in the Nation’s Capital 🇺🇸

Hello everyone!! A little over a week ago, a long-cherished wish of mine was fulfilled! I finally visited our nation’s capital, Washington, D.C., for a day trip with a friend and fellow history-lover.

I live within a comparatively short driving distance from the capital, so it’s a bit unusual that I haven’t played the tourist there before now. But to everything there is a time and a season, and I am so delighted that the time arrived at last! Moreover, it had been an exceedingly wet, rainy week, but we were blessed with blue skies and sunshine for our adventure.🌤

If you’ve never visited D.C., I highly encourage you to make the journey. What I saw and explored only whet my appetite to return to see and do more. I believe it really takes multiple occasions to experience all that history-rich city has to offer.

Upon arriving at our Metro stop by the Smithsonian museums, I emerged from the stairwell to two patriotic, picturesque sights. I looked to my right and saw the Capitol building and looked to my left and the majestic Washington Monument greeted my eyes. It’s not an exaggeration to say this was a thrill. One of those “pinch me” moments!

Though obviously we couldn’t see the whole city in one day, I’m pretty proud of what my friend and I accomplished.

We took in some of the major exhibits at the Smithsonian Natural History Museum (rocks & gems, mammals, and a whirlwind pass through the mummies and dinosaurs) as well as four displays at the American History Museum (Star-Spangled Banner, First Ladies, American Presidency, and America on the Move: Transportation).

After revivifying ourselves with cold drinks and chocolate on a bench facing the architecturally magnificent Department of Agriculture Building, we set out for the pièce de résistance of our excursion: the National Mall.

In my inexperience, I had pictured the memorials and monuments of the Mall as more or less in a straight line along the length of the Mall.

No, no. Some are off on side paths which require purposeful walking. By this point, our energy was beginning to wane, so we had to be selective, and we saw four of the eight major sights: the Washington Monument, the WWII Memorial, the Lincoln Memorial, and the Korean War Memorial. We also stumbled upon a smaller memorial that is less well-known: the District of Colombia WWI Memorial. I think this somewhat humble monument deserves more attention. WWI was such a significant war, and the memorial’s plaque states that some big names like John Phillip Sousa were present for its dedication. Go search it out!!

All in all, this was a truly awesome day!! One can’t help but be proud to be an American when visiting D.C. No matter who is the president, it’s an amazing moment to look at the White House and think “wow, the president of the United States is in there!”

It is surreal to visit history museums and stand before artifacts like the flag that was flying over Fort McHenry during the War of 1812 and that inspired Francis Scott Key to compose “The Star-Spangled Banner” or to look at the top hat worn by President Lincoln when he was assassinated or to see a pair of Teddy Roosevelt’s chaps. It’s humbling and exciting. It’s like time travel, a link through ordinary items to historical figures who shaped our country and, consequently, our own way of life. It’s a testament to the human need to remember from where we came and to our fundamental need for connection. And it deserves some pondering.

The Mall monuments are truly beautiful. The solemnity of the Lincoln Memorial. One can feel the weight he bore on his shoulders. The haunting expressions of the soldiers that comprise the Korean War Memorial. The wonder and expanse of the WWII Memorial with its pavilions and fountain and numerous stirring quotations from presidents and generals.

I just love it. It’s also plain cool to see and hear visitors from around the world touring the sights of America’s capital. For all its warts and struggles, America is still a beacon of freedom for the world, and it is a blessing to live in this country.

When many statistics and polls can be pretty disheartening about people’s lack of historical knowledge, it’s also hopeful to see young parents bringing their children to visit these important places of history.

I’m so grateful for my friend’s and my adventure, and I am eagerly awaiting our next trip to explore more of our nation’s capital. 🇺🇸

P.S. The cafeteria in the American History Museum serves really tasty food. Barbecue chicken and cornbread for the win! 😋🍗

Book Recommendation: “Dear Mr. Knightley”

Gifts come in diverse places and forms. They can be large or small. They can have life-altering consequences or maybe provide a temporary lightness of heart.

An unassuming, easily overlooked gift arrived in my life a couple weeks ago. I was at the library hurriedly searching for a new story, scanning some of the authors a good friend of mine had suggested but nothing was piquing my interest. I said a quick prayer– yes, I prayed for Jesus to help me find a good book. He cares about all our concerns even those as seemingly insignificant as checking out a book at the library. Finally, I decided to look for another of my friend’s suggestions: Dear Mr. Knightley.

I went over to one of the search computers, typed in the title and, lo and behold, Dear Mr. Knightley was available at that library branch, no request necessary. Thank You, Jesus!

Oh my gosh! I devoured that book. It felt like finding a new friend. And I am now currently re-reading it. 🤓

Though a bit of my initial enthusiasm has waned on a second reading, it’s a book I will likely re-read again in the future.

Dear Mr. Knightley is a well-written, engaging Christian romance/fiction. The characters have some depth and dimension to them and have believable development and growth. Moreover, if the title didn’t give you a clue, this novel is brimming with references to classic English literature (Mr. Knightley is the hero in Jane Austen’s Emma).

Don’t be wary of its Christian classification. It does not brow beat you or preach at you. Rather, it’s through the faith, goodness, and love of some of the characters that the heroine begins to believe in God’s love for her.

Written by Katherine Reay, it is a re-telling of the 1912 story, Daddy-Long-legs by Jean Webster (which is now on my to-read list, haha.)

Samantha Moore, the main character, has had a difficult childhood – abusive parents, in and out of foster homes. She’s now in her early twenties and endeavoring to find her place in the world and to take ownership of her life.

She loves reading and writing (to borrow a phrase from Anne of Green Gables: I think she’s a kindred spirit!) and is attending graduate school for journalism through the financial support of her anonymous benefactor, the mysterious Mr. Knightley. The only condition for the arrangement is that she must write him letters describing her life and her progress in school. Hence, the book’s narrative takes the form of letters penned by Samantha to the mysterious Mr. Knightley.

Reay writes in the afterword that this is a story about forgiveness. Which is true. Samantha states decidedly at the beginning of the story that she does not forgive. However, by the conclusion, she is faced with a life-altering opportunity to forgive, and the painful growth she has undergone may enable her to assent to doing so.

Another motif of the novel is “unwarranted and undeserved” grace, as Samantha’s mentor Father John describes, and the choices we make to accept or reject that grace.

Samantha must accept and acknowledge the wrongs committed against her as well as her own sins and shortcomings and consciously strive to do better. She must give and receive second chances.

Then, of course, there is Samantha’s love life. This brings me to another element of the story: the various types of love.

True, constant love of any variety is something basically foreign to Samantha. She always has used her affinity for literature and its characters as a means to hide and to hold people at arm’s length, actually quoting stories to evade revealing her own thoughts and feelings.

Now, as she begins to blaze a path forward, she must learn to offer and accept love in a healthy way and in a variety of scenarios: to parent/mentor figures, to friends, and to potential romantic love interests.

One of my favorite relationships in the book is between Samantha and Kyle, a teenage foster kid for whom Samantha plays the role of mentor. Yet this mentorship blossoms into a true friendship, and Kyle is the catalyst for an event that brings major healing both to him and to Samantha.

The primary love story, which I won’t spoil, involves a handsome young novelist and is refreshingly clean in this “too-much-information” culture in which we dwell. It has its fairy tale elements, but it also has a lot of reality as two struggling, striving people find friendship and eventually love.

Samantha is relatable to me in many ways. From her physical description (tall brunette), to her proclivity for reading and writing, to her feeling of disorientation and being behind the curve in some areas of life. Our childhoods were not remotely similar, but there is much in Samantha that I think many twenty-somethings can find appealing.

Another perk to this book is the rich reference made to classic literature. It has re-awakened my interest in reading some stories which I haven’t picked up in a long time and in delving into some new ones as well (like Elizabeth Gaskell’s North and South).

Of course, after reading Dear Mr. Knightley, I wanted to read more of Reay’s work. Accordingly, I checked out The Bronte Plot, also filled with literary references, coming of age, and finding forgiveness. I definitely plan to read more.

As I said at the opening, gifts come in surprising packages sometimes. And though I am always truly grateful for books and stories, finding this new golden nugget felt like a God-wink, a little gift that popped up just when I needed it.

If you’re looking for a breezy summer read that also has heart, I hope you pick it up and enjoy!

Happy Reading!📖☺️

Celebrating “Old Glory”

The older I grow, the more I love patriotic holidays. Lucky for me, today, June 14th, the country has double the celebration because it’s the U.S. Army’s birthday and Flag Day! 🇺🇸

In honor of this double dose of festive patriotism, here are some fun facts about the Army and Old Glory!

1.) The Army is America’s oldest fighting force, even older the the country itself! Military.com tells us that it was founded by the Second Continental Congress in 1775 in order to protect the 13 original colonies’ freedom. That means that today is the Army’s 243rd Birthday! 🎂🎉We salute all our soldiers and all members of the military! God bless you, one and all!

2.) The American flag’s 13 red and white stripes represent the 13 original colonies while the stars represent all the states in the Union.

3.) Though it is unclear as to the precise reason why the colors of red, white, and blue were selected to adorn the flag, the Congress of the Confederation chose the same trio of colors for the Great Seal of the United States in 1782 for the following representative purposes. Red symbolizes valor and hardiness, white represents purity and innocence, and blue signifies vigilance, perseverance, and justice. (Source: ushistory.org.)

4.) Betsy Ross is credited with sewing the first American flag though it is unclear whether this is actual history or legend. Fun fact: in second grade, I did a project on Betsy Ross, complete with a written book report on a children’s biography about Ross and an in-class presentation for which I was dressed up as our patriotic heroine and distributed graham cracker flag cookies that my Mom had made! 😋

5.) The flag derives its nickname “Old Glory” from Captain William Driver, who seeing the flag unfurl on his ship as he was leaving on a voyage in 1831, exclaimed, “Old Glory!” (Source: ushistory.org)

6.) The American flag should not be allowed to drag on the ground. There are also numerous other guidelines for properly and respectfully displaying and disposing of flags. Google them!

7.) According to Wikipedia, Woodrow Wilson proclaimed June 14 as Flag Day, and National Flag Day was established by an act of Congress in August 1946.

8.) The lively, patriotic march “You’re a Grand Old Flag” was written by George M. Cohen in 1906 for his musical George Washington, Jr. (Source: Wikipedia).

9.) Today is also President Trump’s birthday! Whether you like him or not, it’s pretty appropriate that an American president was born on Flag Day.

In case these fun American history tidbits whet your appetite for more information about the emblem of our great nation, do some research on your own. Today is the perfect day to start! And remember to be grateful for the blessings of liberty we enjoy (and take for granted) in our country and for those who’ve fought and died to secure that freedom!

Image credit: https://www.publicdomainpictures.net/en/view-image.php?image=134882&picture=american-flag-grunge)
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“Ride the hobbyhorse”: Thoughts on Understanding

You know that feeling when someone just gets you, gets your situation. No need to try to explain or to justify. That person understands. What a rush of relief! A burden lifted off your heart. An untying of the defensive knot in the pit of your stomach.

Quite the contrast to when someone looks quizzically at you or gives you a semi-blank stare and a perfunctory, polite response. That person doesn’t get it. And he or she is not really interested in trying to do so.

Two of Merriam-Webster’s definitions of understanding are as follows:

“A mental grasp: comprehension”; “sympathy.”

Sometimes the former is not possible. We can’t always comprehend everyone and their individual circumstances. The majority of us cannot fathom the experiences of a military combat veteran. It’s hard for me to grasp the mentality of someone who goes through life without faith in God. Sometimes it’s hard for a family member or friend to understand a loved one who struggles with depression or anxiety. The list is endless.

However, when comprehension is absent, sympathy or maybe empathy can and should fill up the difference.

In To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee writes,

“You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view…Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.”

One of my primary professors in college taught his students David Sanderlin’s concept of “riding a hobbyhorse” when writing a history paper. A “hobbyhorse” is someone’s individual perception or viewpoint of the world shaped by his or her unique experiences. We need to be aware of our own hobbyhorse as well as try to figure out the hobbyhorse of the author/historian whose work we are reading.

PC: http://www.reusableart.com/horse-images-22.html

Like with research, one can identify someone else’s hobbyhorse in real life while still maintaining the integrity of one’s own principles and viewpoint. Extending understanding to another person does not mean we must compromise what we hold to be right and true. It means we show respect to someone whose life experiences have been different than ours.

Understanding is something sorely lacking in today’s society and public discourse.

Everyone nowadays is labeled and pigeon-holed. Groups, demographics, identity politics. Us versus them.

We tend to be scared of what we don’t understand maybe because we’ve encountered something truly foreign to us or maybe because we’re apprehensive that it may challenge our thinking or lifestyle.

Racist. Bigot. Homophobe. Sexist. We hear these epithets thrown around on a daily basis in the media. Perhaps justifiably in some cases. Perhaps more often because we don’t want to admit that the situation or topic around which these ugly labels are used is complex and nuanced.

When we don’t understand a person or a situation or a way of thinking, we resort to petty mockery or personal criticism. We don’t debate an idea or a principle but go after a person. We let our emotions overpower our reason. We invoke flippant sarcasm or ad hominem attacks instead of intelligent wit and logical arguments.

We forget that understanding, whether comprehension or sympathy, is a gift we can give to another. If we can’t attain a “mental grasp,” we can still show sympathy. We can compassionately ask for that other person to share with us and we may find that our own understanding is expanded in the process. Maybe what we can share with that person will help him or her in return.

Whether we’re addressing a different way of thinking or trying to comprehend another person’s health struggle, it takes humility to admit, “I don’t understand, but I want to. Please explain it to me.”

Sanderlin offers this pearl of wisdom in Writing the History Paper,“We will never understand, much less learn from others, if we condemn them for not knowing what we know, rather than respect them for knowing what we do not know.”

We are all children of God. While we debate and hopefully endeavor to seek truth and the common good, we need to remind ourselves that we can all learn from one another.

Again, though he is referring to a study of history, Sanderlin offers sage advice when he states, “The historian strives to understand people in the past that he might better understand himself.”

Endeavoring to understand someone else’s viewpoint may lead us to a deeper gratitude for our own beliefs and life experiences or it maybe it will challenge us to approach some people and situations differently.

Offering support to someone living with physical or emotional challenges can teach us to have greater patience and compassion and to learn to put someone else’s needs before our own.

We know how freeing and reassuring it is when understanding is extended to us. We need to pray and to strive to offer understanding to others in return.

The Hero

I’m going to ask for your indulgence again when it comes to my attempts at poetry. This latest poem was partially inspired by a truly awesome opportunity I recently had. In March, the ballet company with which I dance put on a memorable outreach performance at a veterans care facility in my state. We performed a very poignant piece that’s set during WWII. It’s an audience favorite that whisks me away to a different time and place, and I feel so incredibly grateful to be a part of this beautiful tribute to our military, especially those of the WWII era.

After our mini show, we were able to greet many of the elderly veterans who had watched. The warmth of those interactions left a long-lasting imprint with us as dancers.

I have written about supporting the troops before, and the military has a special spot in my heart for numerous reasons. So without further ado, here is:

“The Hero”

There he marched,

Tall and straight,

Strength and vigor in his gait.

His uniform, starched and pressed,

American patriotism at its best.

His unwhiskered chin set like steel,

But a glance at his eyes

And one could feel

His fears and hopes and

Dreams delayed,

His home to defend,

The land of the brave,

Family and comrades whom he loved,

For whom he would fight,

Would shed his blood.

A girl, his sweetheart,

The love of his life,

He still prayed that

She would be his wife.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Wrinkled and weathered,

There he sat

With twinkling eyes,

And on his lap

Lay a faded veteran’s cap.

His trembling hand

Reached out for mine.

His grip secure,

Undiminished by time.

I could picture him,

Young and strong,

Filled with devotion, mischief,

And charm,

His deportment upright,

But his smile,

Roguishly warm.

Now his grin grew wide

As he spoke of his bride

The girl he had once prayed to marry.

They had made a home

With kids of their own,

A life that was blessed

With joy, strife, and rest.

In his heart, her love

He’d always carry.

Then his eyes grew dim,

His mouth became grim

When he remembered

His fallen brothers.

His voice tight and quavering,

With loyalty unwavering,

His attention still upon others.

My heart, it glowed with love and pride,

Tears in my eyes could not be denied.

He thanked me for being there,

“No, thank YOU!” I cried.

While silently I offered a prayer

Of blessing and thanks to God:

“Oh, bless this hero

And all he gave

For the land of the free

And the home of the brave!”

(Image credit: https://www.publicdomainpictures.net/en/view-image.php?image=134882&picture=american-flag-grunge)

“So Big”: It’s a Big Deal

Edna Ferber

When I initially started writing this post back in the fall, I had recently re-read Edna Ferber’s 1924 novel So Big, which I first encountered in high school. This book is not only enjoyable, but it also arguably offers many profound lessons. Should one pursue worldly wealth or should one sacrifice and work for what is truly fulfilling and for which one has passion and talent? What is beauty and where do we find it? What is a true education? What is the value of living on and working the land versus living in a city? And what are the consequences of the choices we make about our life directions?

So Big is an important, multi-layered book, insightful in its look at cultural history and its philosophical questions about life. On top of all that, it is an engaging story with vivid, believable characters. Ferber doesn’t give the reader a tidy, “happily ever after” conclusion but rather a realistic one with one of the characters facing a moment of crisis and decision about what he will do in his life.

Set in rural Illinois and in Chicago from the late 1800’s to post-World War I, the reader witnesses the deracination of the culture with the Industrial Age and the accompanying generational shifts in people’s priorities and values as well as some of the disillusionment among the wealthy, “gilded youth” after the war.

The book takes its colloquial title from the game parents often play with their toddlers: “how big is baby? Soooo big.”  SoBig becomes the childhood nickname of the main character’s son and by the end of the book, the reader is left to wonder about the cost of being “sooo big” in the eyes of the world.

The story centers around Selina Peake Dejong, who is only nineteen when the action of the plot gets going.  Her father is loving and good-natured but he is a gambler by trade and tragically becomes the accidental victim of a fatal shooting.

He had instilled in Selina an appreciation for and love of beauty, and he had imparted this seminal piece of wisdom: “The more kinds of people you see and the more things you do and the more things that happen to you, the richer you are. Even if they’re not pleasant things. That’s living.” He told her that life is a grand adventure.

In order to support herself, Selina takes the position of school teacher in the bucolic, Dutch area of Illinois known as High Prairie. She is something of a fish out of water in the decidedly pragmatic and phlegmatic but welcoming community.  Yet, she accepts the challenges of her job and her new farm life as an adventure.

With her characteristic eye for beauty, she exclaims upon first sight that the cabbages grown by the Pooles (the family with whom she stays) are beautiful. Her reaction raises the mirth of all her new companions except for the Pooles’ twelve-year-old son, Roelf whose sensitive, artistic disposition contrasts with his family but finds a kindred spirit in Selina. Selina encourages Roelf’s artistic tendencies and loans him some of her classic literature to read.

Selina marries a farmer and settles on a High Prairie farm into a life she has never imagined for herself.

She has her fair share of hardships, including being widowed and having to raise her young son by herself, but she faces her trials squarely with poise, courage, intelligence, and creativity as she herself matures and grows as a person. She never loses her ideal of beauty but integrates it into all aspects of her life from how she runs her farm, to how she raises her son, to how she treats and views other people.

Even years after first moving to High Prairie, she still finds the cabbages beautiful. Ferber writes, “Life has no weapons against a woman like that.”

Selina has a child-like curiosity and simple kindness about her that attracts other people to her and gives a luminosity to her eyes. Ferber makes a point of contrasting Selina’s eyes to those of Julie Arnold, Selina’s girlhood friend, who attains wealth and societal prestige and can afford all the latest cosmetics. Yet Julie’s eyes do not shine like Selina’s but remain dull despite make-up, perhaps illustrating that old adage that the “eyes are the window to the soul.” Julie does not carry the same inner beauty that Selina possesses.

Selina is steady and steadfast, the “rock” of the story.

Her son Dirk is a different tale. Selina wants Dirk to have more opportunity than a farm life can proffer. She sends him to college where he decides to study architecture. This elates the beauty-loving Selina. However, away from his mother’s grounding influence, Dirk begins to stray from some of the values she held dear, even in how he treats those considered unpopular by the in-crowd.

When the Great War breaks out, Dirk gives up architecture for the more swiftly lucrative career of selling war bonds. He then transitions to banking when the war ends.

He falls into the restless, pleasure-seeking set of wealthy, gilded youth and their insipid, homogenous lifestyle, particularly that of his friend, the conniving and unhappily married Paula.

However, Dirk is ill-at-ease and Paula grates his nerves.

Selina, naturally, is concerned about her son and warns him not to betray beauty, saying that beauty may no longer be there when he decides he wants her. Basically, she is reminding him to take stock of his priorities and what he truly values personally and professionally.

Despite himself, Dirk finds that he is falling for a woman named Dallas, an unassuming, bohemian artist whose views on life are very similar to those of his mother Selina.

Dallas sizes up Dirk and decidedly gives him her opinion, and Dirk is left to accept the consequences of his life pursuits and choose in which direction he will turn.

I really cannot recommend this book enough. I don’t think it is as well-known nowadays as it should be. Its questions and conflicts are as relevant and timely today, if not more so, as they were one hundred years ago.

If you are looking for both a thought-provoking as well as engrossing read, check out So Big. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.

Laetare, Rejoice!!

Happy Easter!! Hallelujah!

One of my favorite aspects of the Catholic Faith is the extended celebration of Christmas and Easter.

The Catholic Church doesn’t confine these holidays to one day only but rather these feasts are assigned whole liturgical seasons. We can really revel and soak in the grace and joy of these marvelous days.

And this is completely fitting because the Incarnation, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus are literally the most important events that ever have occurred or will occur in human history. No human words can adequately convey their magnitude.

They should fill us with uncontainable joy, gratitude, and hope for He has won our salvation.

We are now coming to the end of the Easter octave, eight days that liturgically are viewed as one day, namely, Easter Day! The Easter season then stretches until Pentecost Sunday, totaling fifty days altogether. #Catholicsknowhowtoparty 😉🎉

Fortunately, I have been on spring break from dancing and teaching this week following Easter Sunday, so this holiday has truly been a holiday for me. While I was driving on Monday, the thought hit me that a mere day after Easter so many people were having to return to their ordinary schedules of work and commitments. Yet we shouldn’t be ordinary in these extraordinary days! They should be filled with prayer and praise and celebrations!

However, in the midst of daily responsibilities and tasks, we can still strive to cling to Easter joy and hope and have our own moments of rejoicing, even within the quiet of our own hearts and minds.

This past weekend I attended the Easter Vigil, which St. Augustine called “the Mother of all Vigils.” I usually attend Easter Mass Sunday morning, but this year, I decided to attend the Saturday night vigil for the first time in a few years.

There are many ways to describe this remarkable liturgy: Sublime. Mysterious. Beautiful. Ancient. Joyful. Simple. Symbolic. Glorious. Hope-filled. Sacramental. Solemn. Exultant.

One of the most awesome parts is the lighting of the Paschal Fire, symbolizing the light of Christ that warms and illumines but doesn’t destroy. The Paschal Fire is an actual fire about the size of a small bonfire. The congregation proceeded out of the church and into the parking lot where a miniature wooden tower (for lack of a better word) was built. Our pastor began to read prayers and prepared the Easter candle to be kindled from the fire. Suddenly, a fiery arrow whizzed down a string from the roof of the church and the Fire ignited. I’m not sure if the flaming arrow is customary in other places/parishes but it is a mesmerizing and stirring sight to behold. I looked at the faces of the children in the crowd when all this was taking place. Wonderment was painted there. I felt it, too.

The church’s Easter candle was then lit from the fire and from that candle the small candles that all of us in the crowd were holding were enkindled. The light was passed from one person to another, never diminishing but growing as it was shared, reminding us that the light of Christ does not dim but only expands as we bring it to others.

We started out in a cold, dark parking lot but as soon as the fire and those candles were set ablaze the atmosphere suddenly was a bit warmer. It was a little easier to see. Just like sin and hardship can darken our lives and make things seem cold until we allow ourselves to stand in the warmth and light of God’s love and mercy.

Holding our tiny flames, the parishioners then returned to the church, which was in darkness. We listened to the sonorous intoning of the Easter Exsultet by one of the many priests con-celebrating the Mass as well as to various Scripture readings from the Old Testament. Prior to a reading from the New Testament and the proclamation of the Gospel, the Gloria was sung jubilantly to the accompaniment of music and the ringing of bells. This was the first time that singing had had musical accompaniment since the Gloria during Holy Thursday Mass two nights before. (This moment has even more of a build-up since the the only time the Gloria is sung at Mass between the start of Lent on Ash Wednesday and the Easter Vigil is on Holy Thursday and on a Solemnity like the feast day of St. Joseph.) As the Gloria progressed, the lights began to be turned on until the whole church was illuminated. It was an impressive and joyful moment!!

The priest who delivered the homily incorporated an Easter analogy from one of my favorite book series, The Lord of the Rings. For those of you unfamiliar with J.R.R. Tolkien’s magnificent trilogy, I highly recommend it to you. Father spoke about the light of Galadriel (an Elven queen), and how she presented this phial of light to the hobbit Frodo as he was journeying to destroy the evil One Ring. It contained the light of a very special star, and when she gave this gift, she said, “May it be a light to you in dark places when all other lights go out.” So Father encouraged all of us to be that type of light to the world.

The Easter Vigil is also when new converts are welcomed formally into the Church and receive the Sacraments of Initiation. It is extremely moving to witness adults being baptized and confirmed! When this part of the vigil was completed and they turned to face the congregation, we applauded to welcome them home to the Faith. My cheeks hurt from smiling so hard. Later on in the Mass, many of them would receive the Holy Eucharist for the first time!!

From beginning to end, the Easter Vigil was a feast for the both the soul and the bodily senses!

It was such a hopeful moment to witness those adults choose Christ and His Church, choose to set themselves on the path of light and life, especially nowadays when it is so easy to succumb to discouragement amidst the corruption and sorrow we recognize in ourselves, others, and society at large on a daily basis.

The challenge is to hold onto the message and promise of Easter joy and hope even when the Easter season has concluded. Christ has conquered sin and the devil. He has defeated sorrow and anxiety. He has vanquished darkness and death. We still must face adversity and trials in this life. We still must work daily to convert and to turn away from sin. But Jesus has won the ultimate victory and His grace and mercy are always there when we truly seek it!

He died and rose for everyone, every person who has ever lived or will live.

I wish all people could experience and believe in the message of Easter! Whether you are a believer or not, know that Jesus loves you. He died for you. And He desires you to know Him and His love.

“Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me will live, even though he dies. And everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die.'” -John 11:25-26.

Happy Easter, friends! 😊

The Healing Power of Play

Playing, imagining, creating. These are an integral and indispensable aspect of every person’s life and development, particularly as children.

As a child of the nineties, I grew up going to Toys R Us, and I feel a bit like I’m mourning the end of an era with the news of the toy stores’ closings around the country. It seems the chain is just the latest to succumb to the swiftly changing retail landscape, thanks in part to the internet.

Technology certainly has its beneficial uses for work and for recreation but, to me, it’s frightening just how pervasive and how profound is its influence when it comes to affecting people’s lives and well-being. Physical problems like back and eye ailments, increased loneliness, social isolation and bullying. All these adverse conditions are attributable at least partially to technology. Not to mention the stress of being accessible 24/7 through smart phones.

Technology has also impacted the realm of children’s play. Computer games, video games, TV shows and movies available anywhere and everywhere due to mobile devices and in-car screens. Yet, more and more, it is being recognized that children’s screen time needs to be monitored and limited.

But this is not a post bashing all technology. I mean I’m typing this commentary on a smart phone for goodness’ sake.

Rather, it’s an invitation to remember and maybe try to re-capture some of your natural childhood wonder and imagination.

The Broadway musical “Finding Neverland,” which tells the story of Peter Pan author J.M. Barrie, has a whimsical but thought-provoking song that asks:

“Can you remember back when you were young?/When all the simple things you did were so much fun/ You got lost somewhere along the way/You’ve forgotten how to play, every single day.”

It’s refrain declares, “The world is so mysterious and wild/when you start to see it through the eyes of a child.”

PC: disneyclips.com

Back in February, my ballet company hosted a Father/Daughter Valentine’s Day event, which included the dancers teaching a simple dance to the dads and daughters.

In one section of the dance, the parents and children formed a “tunnel” with their hands and all the couples passed under it. You can imagine the giggles and gleeful expressions this elicited when the six-foot-plus dads tried to squeeze through with their tiny pre-school and elementary-school age daughters.

Yet, as I was watching and directing, it struck me that I was seeing looks of authentic happiness on the faces of these dads. They were genuinely having fun. And what were they doing? Dancing. Playing. Creating a memory that did not involve a cell phone or a screen.

Earlier this year, I was reading the story of a ballet to young students whom I teach, and I noticed their intent attention to the illustrations and the comments and questions they shared. It made me remember just how enjoyable such a simple activity like studying a picture can be.

Lately, I’ve been on a kick of re-discovering and reading classic children’s books. I’m slowly making my way through the Little House series. I re-read Charlie and the Chocolate Factoryand Shilohfor the first time since third grade. I’ve even re-read some of my favorite picture books from childhood.

In a world that is overly-technological, morally confused and is continually feeding us disquieting headlines, I think we could all use a healthy dose of child-like wonder in the little moments and opportunities for fun throughout the day. That doesn’t mean we shirk our responsibilities or ignore realities. But we don’t let our duties or technology or our worries overwhelm our capability for the simple joys that are offered to us every day.

Allowing ourselves to remember and experience those innocent realities of childhood- the fun of laughing, of using our imagination, of playing a game, or maybe even re-reading some of those classic or favorite children’s books- can be an excellent antidote to the ubiquitous stress and hustle-bustle of daily schedules and commitments. I really believe it can be healing, refreshing, and reassuring for one’s mind and spirit.

So un-plug from social media for a day or a week. Don’t allow yourself to check your email for an evening.

Use your leisure time to actually be leisurely-which is different from being idle- and enjoy your life, your friends, your children, your family.

In the words of Walt Disney,

“Laughter is timeless. Imagination has no age. And dreams are forever.”

A Lesson from the Little Drummer Boy

This past Sunday was the first day of the liturgical season of Advent, a special time in which we prepare to remember and celebrate Christ’s birth at Christmas as well as to welcome Him anew into our lives and hearts. It also serves as a reminder that we will meet Him one day face-to-face and that He will judge the world at the end of time.

One of the primary points of the homily during Mass this past Sunday was the obligation we have to use our gifts and talents for the glory of God and as a means of preparation for His coming. The priest said that God has given us these gifts for the specific day and age in which we live. And we must use our talents to build up the Church and the world.

Later that day the thought occurred to me that the Christmas song “The Little Drummer Boy” exemplifies this message.

The impoverished Little Drummer Boy wants desperately to give a gift to the newborn Christ Child but has nothing of material value to offer, so he plays his drum, that is, he uses his talent for the baby Jesus. His simple but loving offering of music pleases the Baby Who smiles at him in return. His offering of the intangible talent is his gift.

I think we can learn something of extraordinary value from this gentle Christmas carol. A lesson succinctly summed up in the following quote:

“Our talents are the gift that God gives to us. …What we make of our talents is our gift back to God.”

-Leo Buscaglia

The Bible says, “And whatever you do, in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.” -Colossians 3:17

I think it’s easy to downplay or discredit our skills and gifts as unimportant or to disassociate them from our spiritual and religious lives. Or we can wrongfully use our talents primarily as a means of self-gratification and aggrandizement.

The truth is God wants us to discover, to nurture, and to build up the talents He has bestowed on us to bring His light and joy to others. When we do this, we glorify Him. How we do this likely will change as we journey through the different stages and phases of our lives, but as the parable of the talents in the Gospels illustrates, we will be called to account for how we made use of what we were given (Matthew 25:14-30).

The cultivation and sharing of our talents can truly be a means to our own growth in sanctity and joy.

And “talents” can encompass an array of gifts. Certainly, things like artistic skills or athletic ability or eloquent writing or an aptitude for science and medicine or even impressive culinary skills. All of these things, undoubtedly, can be a conduit for the uplifting of others.

But less obvious qualities can also be a talent. The knack for making people laugh. A gift of being a good listener or being able to diffuse a tense situation and be a peacemaker. A compassion for others’ hardships and the willingness to offer quiet encouragement. The list could go on and on.

We all have multiple talents and characteristics, and they are meant to build up those around us, for we all bear God’s image.

In his Advent homily, Father also spoke about how each person’s talents are a different reflection of God.

That is a really cool idea to ponder.

Just think about it: artists, musicians, dancers can be a reflection of God’s beauty. Athletes can reflect His strength. A scientific or mathematical proclivity, His orderliness. That ready, listening ear, His love and gentleness. Of course, God is not just beautiful and strong. He is beauty. He is might and love. But His creation can and does mirror Who He is.

As a professional ballerina, I feel so grateful that it is built into my job to have the opportunity to touch people’s hearts and raise their spirits in both ticketed productions as well as outreach shows at elementary schools and assisted living facilities.

It makes what I do so much more meaningful and gratifying. Especially at this holiday and family-oriented time of year, it is a good reminder for me that I am a part of helping create special memories for children and adults alike, even as the weeks-long run of Nutcracker performances can sometimes be wearying.

As we prepare for Christmas during this season of Advent and as we plot and scheme about tangible holiday presents, I hope I can remember the Little Drummer Boy and the surpassing value of those intangible gifts we all have to share, not only at this time of year but throughout our lives.

In defense of thank you notes

Well, folks, the holidays are officially upon us! 😱

Thanksgiving is tomorrow, and before we know it, Christmas and New Year will be here.

People are visiting one another, exchanging gifts, reminiscing about the past.

One sentiment that should be foremost this time of year is gratitude. Perhaps we have forgotten that Thanksgiving isn’t actually about eating gluttonous amounts of food but is a day to thank God and celebrate with loved ones the good things in our lives, which can include turkey and all the trimmings. 😉

Christmas is not about getting material goods but about remembering the gift of God’s Son to our world and in response giving to others.

However, gratitude is something we should practice all year long not just during the holidays.

One concrete way that we can express gratitude is through the increasingly endangered custom of hand-written thank you notes.

Letter-writing, in general, is a practice that I wish would revive.

If you Google “benefits of writing thank you notes,” a whole slew of articles will come up.

Here is my own contribution to the discussion about the value of letter-writing and thank you notes.

1.) Writing thank you notes is polite and considerate. Nowadays, it sometimes seems like what was once known as “common courtesy” is not so common any more. I don’t need to list the ways in which society today regularly divides and degrades people. Any little act of courtesy and thoughtfulness, like a thank you note or a “thinking of you” card, can be a light in the darkness.

2.) Thank you notes or hand-written cards and letters are more personal than typed emails or texts. A person’s hand-writing is unique. When you write something to someone, you are really giving a part of yourself to that person.

A text message or email could be typed by anyone. It all looks the same. It’s kind of ironic really. Out culture is constantly pushing individualism, yet our proliferation of and dependence on technology as the primary mode of communicating is obliterating one of the most individual things about a person, namely, his or her hand-writing, especially cursive.

One can also find several articles about the benefits of hand-writing through a simple Google search, just FYI.

This being said, if you want to thank someone immediately for a mailed present, etc., or to let someone know you received a gift, sending an email or text is a nice idea. You can always send a thank you note later.

3.) Writing a thank you note or other type of letter shows you truly care. Whether you’re thanking someone for a gift or a favor or for hosting you at his or her house for the weekend, it’s likely that person expended time, energy, and thought on your behalf.

The least we could do then is sacrifice a bit of our own time and energy to write a thank you note.

4.) Receiving mail is just plain fun! Don’t you like to receive a letter in the mail? Aren’t you grateful when someone takes the time to thank you or check in on you through good old-fashioned snail mail?Well then, you are not alone in this feeling. Share the joy with another person!

5.) Letters and notes can be a keepsake of the past. If you’re having a gloomy day, you can pull out an old note or letter and be rejuvenated by someone’s kind words.

Or think about how much information and insight we glean about history from reading the letters of people in various time periods.

A hundred years from now, it’ll be slim pickings for our descendants when it comes to letters informing them of our daily lives.

Instead, they’ll have to find old external hard drives and flash drives to read emails? That seems pretty sad.

In whatever form it takes, an in-person thank you, a phone call (which is also a decreasing practice due to texting), a text or email, gratitude is a virtue we all need to cultivate consciously. But making that extra effort to write a thank you note, undoubtedly, is a worthwhile endeavor.

“So Big”: It’s a Big Deal

Edna Ferber

When I initially started writing this post back in the fall, I had recently re-read Edna Ferber’s 1924 novel So Big, which I first encountered in high school. This book is not only enjoyable, but it also arguably offers many profound lessons. Should one pursue worldly wealth or should one sacrifice and work for what is truly fulfilling and for which one has passion and talent? What is beauty and where do we find it? What is a true education? What is the value of living on and working the land versus living in a city? And what are the consequences of the choices we make about our life directions?

So Big is an important, multi-layered book, insightful in its look at cultural history and its philosophical questions about life. On top of all that, it is an engaging story with vivid, believable characters. Ferber doesn’t give the reader a tidy, “happily ever after” conclusion but rather a realistic one with one of the characters facing a moment of crisis and decision about what he will do in his life.

Set in rural Illinois and in Chicago from the late 1800’s to post-World War I, the reader witnesses the deracination of the culture with the Industrial Age and the accompanying generational shifts in people’s priorities and values as well as some of the disillusionment among the wealthy, “gilded youth” after the war.

The book takes its colloquial title from the game parents often play with their toddlers: “how big is baby? Soooo big.”  SoBig becomes the childhood nickname of the main character’s son and by the end of the book, the reader is left to wonder about the cost of being “sooo big” in the eyes of the world.

The story centers around Selina Peake Dejong, who is only nineteen when the action of the plot gets going.  Her father is loving and good-natured but he is a gambler by trade and tragically becomes the accidental victim of a fatal shooting.

He had instilled in Selina an appreciation for and love of beauty, and he had imparted this seminal piece of wisdom: “The more kinds of people you see and the more things you do and the more things that happen to you, the richer you are. Even if they’re not pleasant things. That’s living.” He told her that life is a grand adventure.

In order to support herself, Selina takes the position of school teacher in the bucolic, Dutch area of Illinois known as High Prairie. She is something of a fish out of water in the decidedly pragmatic and phlegmatic but welcoming community.  Yet, she accepts the challenges of her job and her new farm life as an adventure.

With her characteristic eye for beauty, she exclaims upon first sight that the cabbages grown by the Pooles (the family with whom she stays) are beautiful. Her reaction raises the mirth of all her new companions except for the Pooles’ twelve-year-old son, Roelf whose sensitive, artistic disposition contrasts with his family but finds a kindred spirit in Selina. Selina encourages Roelf’s artistic tendencies and loans him some of her classic literature to read.

Selina marries and settles on a High Prairie farm into a life she has never imagined for herself.

She has her fair share of hardships, including being widowed and having to raise her young son by herself, but she faces her trials squarely with poise, courage, intelligence, and creativity as she herself matures and grows as a person. She never loses her ideal of beauty but integrates it into all aspects of her life from how she runs her farm, to how she raises her son, to how to treats and views other people.

Even years after first moving to High Prairie, she still finds the cabbages beautiful. Ferber writes, “Life has no weapons against a woman like that.”

Selina has a child-like curiosity and simple kindness about her that attracts other people to her and gives a luminosity to her eyes. Ferber makes a point of contrasting Selina’s eyes to those of Julie Arnold, Selina’s girlhood friend, who attains wealth and societal prestige and can afford all the latest cosmetics. Yet Julie’s eyes do not shine like Selina’s but remain dull despite make-up, perhaps illustrating that old adage that the “eyes are the window to the soul.” Julie does not carry the same inner beauty that Selina possesses.

Selina is steady and steadfast, the “rock” of the story.

Her son Dirk is a different tale. Selina wants Dirk to have more opportunity than a farm life can proffer. She sends him to college where he decides to study architecture. This elates the beauty-loving Selina. However, away from his mother’s grounding influence, Dirk begins to stray from some of the values she held dear even in how he treats those considered unpopular by the in-crowd.

When the Great War breaks out, Dirk gives up architecture for the more swiftly lucrative career of selling war bonds. He then transitions to banking when the war ends.

He falls into the restless, pleasure-seeking set of wealthy, gilded youth and their insipid, homogenous lifestyle, particularly that of his friend, the conniving and unhappily married Paula.

However, Dirk is ill-at-ease and Paula grates his nerves.

Selina, naturally, is concerned about her son and warns him not to betray beauty, saying that beauty may no longer be there when he decides he wants her. Basically, she is reminding him to take stock of his priorities and what he truly values personally and professionally.

Despite himself, Dirk finds that he is falling for a woman named Dallas, an unassuming, bohemian artist whose views on life are very similar to those of his mother Selina.

Dallas sizes up Dirk and decidedly gives him her opinion, and Dirk is left to accept the consequences of his life pursuits and choose in which direction he will turn.

I really cannot recommend this book enough. I don’t think it is as well-known nowadays as it should be. Its questions and conflicts are as relevant and timely today, if not more so, as they were one hundred years ago.

If you are looking for both a thought-provoking as well as engrossing read, check out So Big. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.

On the Blessed Mother’s Birthday

In the Catholic Church, September 8th is celebrated as the Feast of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary. In other words, it’s Mama Mary’s birthday! And that is reason to celebrate!🎂

This Marian feast is one of my favorites. Perhaps because celebrating a birthday is something so very normal and homey. After all, Mary was a humble Jewish maiden.

It also is fitting to celebrate her birth because Mary’s “yes” to God, her fiat, enabled the Incarnation. It was through her that the world received its Redeemer.  She was the first to welcome and to love Him. And when He suffered, she suffered, too (Luke 2:35).

“At the beginning of the New Covenant, which is to be eternal and irrevocable, there is a woman: the Virgin of Nazareth.”

-Pope St. John Paul II, MulierisDignitatem (On the Dignity and Vocation of Women) –> I highly recommend reading this Apostolic Letter.

Mary is our mother as well, praying for and loving us with maternal care. She is not a goddess. We do not worship her.  But we do honor, venerate, and ask for her prayerful intercession and protection.

We all have much reason to exult on this happy day!

But what can we give to Mary?

As the priest at Mass this morning reminded the congregation, the best “birthday gifts” that we can offer Mary are repentance of our sins, prayer, and loving service to others. He mentioned specifically the devotion of Five First Saturdays, which you can learn about here.

The following is a simple little poem that I wrote last year for Mary’s Birthday.  I thought I’d share with you all today. (Don’t judge.  I’m not a poet, haha).

“The sky a gentle blue like Mary’s mantle

The light of the sun glowing bright like a candle

A quiet, laughing breeze fills the air

Signs of God’s glory are everywhere

It is the memorial of our Queen and Mother’s birth

She whose fiat brought our Savior down to earth

The courts of heaven sing God’s praise

The world joins in on this day of days

Immaculate with grace from the first moment of life

Throughout her years, she knew both joy and strife

Her love and aid are ever near

Patiently drawing us to her Son so dear

Mary, sweet Mother, we lift our voice,

‘Keep us close to you til in heaven we rejoice!'”

Happy Birthday, Mama Mary! 🌸🌷🌻

On Books

There’s nothing like walking into a bookstore and having the scent of books hit my olefactory sense. Whether it is the pungent mustiness of used tomes or that “new book smell,” shelves lined with books ignite curiosity and bring comfort.

For me, reading simultaneously feels like coming home and setting off for uncharted adventures. Reading a new book and making the acquaintance of the characters dwelling in its pages is like making a new friend. And like human friendships, there is always room for more.

“Books are the most wonderful friends in the world. When you meet them and pick them up, they are always ready to give you a few ideas. When you put them down, they never get mad; when you take them up again, they seem to enrich you all the more.”

– Venerable Fulton Sheen

All sorts of genres: fiction, history, biography, religion, poetry, philosophy, fantasy– they all have a different “personality” through their various styles and myriad characters. They all teach you, comfort you, entertain you, challenge you, in diverse and wonderful ways.

Even now as a young adult, I relish going back and reading children’s literature. Classic kids’ books from the Chronicles of Narnia to the Berenstain Bears series to Charlotte’s Web to the Tales of Beatrix Potter, these enduring stories and others in the canon of time-honored children’s literature impart important lessons that are valuable to young, old, and in-between.

“A children’s story that can only be enjoyed by children is not a good children’s story in the slightest.”

-C. S. Lewis

During my senior year of college, one of my echoing refrains was that I couldn’t wait to be able to read whatever I wanted whenever I wanted again.  Sure enough in the year-plus since graduation, one of my most pleasurable, restoring, and peaceful past times has been reading. Lying in a hammock in the warm sunshine of a drowsy afternoon or the cool evening breeze with a book or two–that is my happy place.

I have always been a voracious reader, a bookworm, a bibliophile.  As nerdy as it may sound, I am truly grateful for the gift of stories, literature, books, and for the authors who pen these friends in leaf-and-binding form.

Before I was homeschooled, one of the best parts of “regular” school was when I’d walk into the classroom in the morning and find a Scholastic book order on my desk. I would eagerly open it up and begin circling the books I hoped my parents would purchase for me.  Oh the joys of childhood!

I can definitely relate to that song from “Arthur,” one my favorite book series and TV shows from childhood. “Having fun isn’t hard when you’ve got a library card!”

I know you children of the nineties are singing along. 😉

Speaking of nineties TV shows, who remembers “Wishbone”? Another of my favorites. A cute, spunky Jack Russell terrier imagining himself as the hero of classic literature like Tom Sawyer and Romeo and Juliet, all the while going on relatable adventures with his owner Joe and Joe’s friends, Sam (Samantha) and David. Talk about truly educational children’s television! (For those of you who want a trip down memory lane, most of the old Wishbone shows can be found on YouTube.)

I don’t really know the point of this rambling and perhaps maudlin post except maybe just take it as a PSA in favor of reading! Haha. Reading really can improve your life, expand your vocabulary, help you to think critically and creatively, and introduce you to new places and people.

To all my fellow bookworms, keep on reading! Even if you’re not much of a book person, maybe listen to a book on CD or online.

I hope it’ll bring you much happiness!

PC: https://www.facebook.com/I-Love-Dogs-And-Books-185755638206971/

Friendship and the ‘Whys?’ of Life

You know those seemingly random encounters that just really leave an impression? Conversations with strangers waiting in line somewhere or sitting next to you on a plane? Meeting someone at a party or other event?

You’re with these people for a minuscule amount of time–minutes or hours–yet there seems to be a genuine connection … and then you part ways.

Have you ever wondered about these meetings of happenstance? What was the reason? Why this person at this time?

Do you ever think that if life circumstances were different a real friendship could have developed? That if this were the movies a real friendship would have developed?

What are we supposed to make of these meetings?

I wish I had an answer, but the truth is that we may never know the why or wherefore in this life.

However, if the encounter seemed more than coincidental, it probably was more, and we should first just be grateful to God because “all good giving and every perfect gift is from above” (James 1:17).

If the experience made such a mark on your heart and mind, who’s to say that it didn’t resonate with the other person as well? Maybe there’s a lesson that can be learned from the other person or maybe it was simply supposed to be an experience of pleasure and cheer conversing with a fellow human being.

“If you could only sense how important you are to the lives of those you meet; how important you can be to the people you may never even dream of. There is something of yourself that you leave at every meeting with another person.”

-Fred Rogers a.k.a. Mister Rogers

Or have you ever wondered why some friendships last a lifetime and other friendships, so important for a period of time, seem to fade?  Again, there doesn’t appear to be any rhyme or reason.

Rodin’s “The Thinker” Source: openclipart.org

Sometimes, the years lend perspective, and we can look back and see how God allowed those friends to be in our lives for a reason — for mutual need or help.  “Some people come into your life for a reason; others only for a season.”

I also believe that if the friendship was true, you can pick up where you left off should your paths cross again.

Yet all of these meetings and partings with strangers, acquaintances, friends — they have the capability of leaving behind a yearning ache in your heart.  Humans are by nature social and relational.  We are made for fellowship and for communion with God and with one another.

Sadly, in a sinful, broken world, “good-byes” and “what ifs” can leave their painful, wistful imprint.  Because we can’t see the future and we don’t know when or if we will be re-united.

But we must hold on to hope and to trust in God’s goodness.

Though only in my twenties, I have lived long enough to know that sometimes those people who you thought you’d never see again re-emerge in unexpected times and places.  So say “see ya later” instead of “good-bye.”

Pray for your friends, acquaintances, and those “could-of-been” friends you randomly meet.  If someone is on your heart, reach out in a tangible way — call or write that person.  Heed the old saying, “If you want a friend, be a friend.”

If the circumstances surrounding that incidental encounter are such that it would be appropriate to try and strike up a true friendship, be courageous enough to do so.  You never know until you try.

Finally, I strive to hold on to the consoling hope of heaven.  If we cooperate with God’s grace and mercy, we can hope to be re-united with those for whom we’ve cared and those we’ve loved, however briefly, on earth.  In heaven, we will have an eternity to love God and love one another.

“Friendships begun  in this world will be taken up again, never to be broken off.”

-attributed to St. Francis de Sales

 

Supporting the Troops

Summer is a time filled with patriotic holidays.  Memorial Day, Flag Day on June 14th (which I just learned is also the U.S. Army’s birthday), and, of course, Independence Day/4th of July.

I was raised in a patriotic household.  We were taught to show respect for the flag.  Stand up and place our hand over our heart for the Pledge of Allegiance and the National Anthem.  Never let an American flag drag on the ground.  I always loved learning about American history, especially the colonial and Revolutionary War era.

We were taught to honor the military. Many of my family members served in World War II.  This blog is named for my great-uncle George, who was so convicted of the need to fight that he went to Canada and joined the Royal Air Force before the United States even entered the Second World War.  My mom is proud to share a birthday with the U.S. Marine Corps. (November 10th, in case you were wondering.)

My interest in history and my involvement in performing arts came together in the selection of a topic for my senior thesis in college.  I wrote about the founding and the importance of the USO in World War II.  For those of you who may not be familiar, the USO stands for the United Service Organizations.

It was originally a conglomeration of six religious and charitable organizations that joined together to provide physical, emotional, and spiritual support for the military.  There were USO canteens and centers, mostly at transportation sites where service members could write letters, take a shower, nap, drink coffee or have a conversation with a USO hostess.  These centers also hosted dances and social events for the military.

Bob Hope entertains troops in WWII. Source: Wikipedia.

There was also the Camp Show side of the USO that performed for the soldiers both domestically and overseas.  Some of the performers included Hollywood luminaries like comedian/actor Bob Hope and the singing group, The Andrews Sisters.  The USO still provides support and entertainment for our military to this day.

I had just turned 11 years old when the terrorist attacks of 9/11 took place.  Growing up in a post-September 11th world amidst ensuing security concerns and the subsequent and on-going war on terror, I think awareness of what it means to be an American and respect for our troops have definitely played more prominent roles in my life than they possibly would have otherwise.

One of the main post office buildings in my hometown is named in memory of a school classmate of my brother’s.  This friend was a Marine who died fighting in Iraq in 2004.  He was a faith-filled, honorable young man.

As a I grow older, my support and gratitude for the military only continues to deepen and become more personal.

As we all know, summer is also wedding season.  This June, I was honored to be a bridesmaid in two weddings of very close friends.  One of my friends married a former Marine and the other married an active-duty member of the Navy.

The latter friend’s wedding included all the pomp and circumstance of the military, such as the sabre arch under which the newly married couple walked upon exiting the church as well as the ceremonial cake cutting with a sword.

Let me tell you: the patriotic, hopeless romantic in me was eating all of this up.  I challenge any red-blooded American woman not to feel at least a twinge of a heart-flutter when she first sees a man in uniform.  They just look so dang sharp.

But I digress…

On a more serious note, meeting, celebrating, and dancing with these guys at the wedding and knowing they are all serving our nation made things more real, more personal. I consider my friend’s now husband also one of my friends.

My friend is now a military wife.  She will be experiencing all the unique challenges, joys, and fears of that role.

I half-jokingly told one of my friends/fellow bridesmaids that now all these guys  are on my worry list and prayer list.

But seriously…

Do we really stop and think about the sacrifices of the military and their families?  We cannot and must not be indifferent.

They are volunteering to go fight, knowing the life-threatening dangers they will be facing, while many of their peers are clamoring for “safe spaces” on college campuses in order to hide from anyone or anything that might offend them or challenge their opinions.  Quite the dichotomy.

Yet they can protest and call for safe spaces because of our military-protected freedom.

“Land of the free because of the brave.” Some may think it sounds cheesy but it is true.

And how are we using that hard-won freedom?  Are we using it responsibly, working for the common good? Do we engage with our political opponents respectfully or do we resort to mean-spirited, personal attacks?

Do we show respect when the National Anthem is played?  Do we proudly display the American flag? Do we learn the true history of our country, warts and all, appreciating the good while learning from the mistakes? Do we remember our troops and their loved ones in our prayers?

Do we thoughtfully and actively participate in the voting process?  Could we perhaps donate our time or our money to a worthy organization that supports the military?  Do we thank service members when the opportunity presents itself?

How can we be more patriotic and self-sacrificial Americans?

To all veterans and active-duty service members and to your families and loved ones: THANK YOU!!!  Americans can never adequately express the debt of gratitude we owe to you.  God bless and protect you all!

Photo credit unknown.

The Gift of Dance

In the words of Porky Pig, “That’s all, folks!”

Enter a caption

The final curtain has fallen on the 2016-2017 ballet season in my neck of the woods. As I think back over the past months, one of the outstanding take-aways for me is gratitude for the opportunity that ballet affords me to encounter other people and, hopefully, to have a positive impact on them.  This interaction happens primarily through the performances themselves.

After one show, an audience member told one of the company’s directors that watching one of the pieces was the first time she had felt joy in two weeks!  What a blessing that we as dancers and artists have a platform to upliftothers!

In addition to regular ticketed shows, I’ve also had the chance to dance in numerous outreach performances at elementary schools and at senior living communities/assisted living facilities.

Let me tell you that these are special audiences, and they make these performances some of the most meaningful.

I could write a whole separate blog post about the exuberance, hilarity, and joy of the shows for kids.  They really do say the darndest things!

But dancing for the elderly has been truly moving.  Their faces brighten when we simply walk into the room.

Occasionally, we have been able to chat with the residents of the assisted livings and retirement communities after we’ve performed.  Invariably, we receive nothing but love and encouragement from these lovely souls.  In return, we are able to listen to their stories, such as tales of their own involvement with dance, or we simply offer a friendly smile and a warm hand-shake.

It is such a humbling and beautiful experience to be able to put dance at the service of others in this way.  Like other careers, the dance world can sometimes lead a person to be self-absorbed and to focus on self-aggrandizement in a demanding and competitive environment.  These outreach shows can be a good check on that attitude and a reminder that dance, like all talents, is meant to be shared and to benefit others.

Often in these facilities, we are dancing on carpet or on parquet or a combination of the two.  Sometimes we have to dodge low-hanging chandeliers (a particularly humorous situation for an above-average-height dancer like me).  In any case, definitely not ideal surfaces or conditions for a performance.

But that is not the point.

Of course, from a business angle, we are there to promote our company and our upcoming shows.  However, from a human and personal angle, I’ve come to realize that the purpose of these shows is not flawless technique or mistake-free dances. Naturally, I want to do my best, but the reason for these shows, especially the ones at retirement homes, is to uplift hearts and to spread joy.

Particularly in some of the facilities caring for lower-income senior citizens, our dancing, and simply our presence, is needed and appreciated.  One of the most memorable shows for me was at an organization that cares for children, elderly as well as mentally-challenged adults.  Some of the audience actually had tears in their eyes while we danced.

Even in places where the residents are more well-off financially and physically, our shows can be a morale boost.  One woman, whose granddaughter happens to be a professional dancer, explained to us that she had decided to wear a skirt that evening because she “was going to the ballet.”  She also repeatedly said that she was tired of “only looking at old people!”  Clearly, she was excited to see some youthful faces!

These authentic interactions, whether while dancing or in post-performance conversations, are an affirmation of the dignity of every person.  They are an opportunity for us as dancers to partake in an act of mercy for a group of people that is all too often disrespected and neglected.

I am so deeply grateful that our visits to these various places put a little more love into the world and, hopefully, a ray of sunshine into others’ lives.

“Whatever you did for these least brothers of mine, you did for me” (Matthew 25:40).

These shows are truly a gift for both givers and receivers.

Image credit to Musetouch Visual Arts Magazine

A Time to Trust

The French language has two words that both signify “to know.”  Savoir indicates knowing of or about something or how to do something while connaitre implies more intimate knowledge: to know a person or to be familiar with someone or something.  One could say that savoir is a more academic, aloof “knowledge about” while connaitre indicates a relationship.  Both words mean “to know” yet the level of knowing is as different as the shallow and deep ends of a swimming pool.

Belief also, I think, is a bit of a sliding scale. There is a vast difference between giving one’s intellectual assent to something –a savoir-type of belief– and a deep-down-in-the-heart-and-soul, connaitre-type of belief.

You might be thinking to yourself: “this parsing of words and meanings is all fine and good, but what is the point of all this?”

Well, this sliding scale of knowledge and belief is, arguably, a good description of faith in God and of spiritual progress.

I am in a season of life when many things are changing in little and big ways both for myself and for my family.  Sometimes I wish I could just wave a magic wand and fix some of the challenges with which we are presented.  I am recognizing more and more my “control freak” tendencies.  Sometimes it is hard to know where one’s responsibility lies or how much responsibility one holds.

When we’re children, if we are blessed with a loving family (which thankfully I was), our world is filled with security and comfort.  We are shielded from the nastier sides of life and obviously the big, stressful decisions do not rest on a child’s shoulders.  However, as we grow up, the monumental realities of life, both good and bad, become inevitable acquaintances.

Yet, we are still meant to have that child-like peace and security.  Christ tells us, ” ‘Amen, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven'” (Matthew 18:3). God is our Father and we are His beloved children.  Yet so often we can accurately be called “ye of little faith.”

I think the only way to develop that child-like faith, that unwavering trust, which brings peace and lifts burdens, is to have a personal relationship with Jesus.  To get to know him through prayer, Scripture, the sacraments, and through the wisdom of others.  To not simply know or to believe in a savoir, detached manner, but to believe and to know in a relational, connaitre manner.

To truly believe in His goodness and love, His promises and His providence.  To remember His blessings and help in past insistences.  To remember that He is our Savior and our Friend, Who always, always has our best interests in mind.  And also, to remember that just as God is working in your heart, He is also working on the hearts and minds of those around you, and maybe, just maybe He is asking you to have a little more trust in them as well.

Fr. Jacques Philippe writes in Searching for and Maintaining Peace: A Small Treatise on Peace of Heart, “In order to resist fear and discouragement, it is necessary that through prayer–through a personal experience of God re-encountered, recognized and loved in prayer–we taste and see how good the Lord is (Psalm 34).”

In A.J. Russell’s daily devotional book, God Calling, one of Christ’s exhortations is to trust Him for everything.  That really hit home with me recently.   When He says everything, He literally means everything!  From the majorly consequential to the little trivia of everyday living.  All our hopes, desires, worries, and concerns for ourselves and for others.  EVERYTHING.

Another frequent assurance in the book is that “All is well.”  A reminder that Jesus is the One with the final say.  And He is working all things for our good (Romans 8:28).

My great-Uncle George, for whom this blog is named, certainly must have had a goodly amount of trust in God when he decided to go to Canada and join the Royal Air Force during World War II.  That was, undoubtedly, one of the biggest decisions of his life.

If I let it (and I am trying to do so), this season of life can be an opportunity to strive to develop this type of trust in the Lord. But I have a sneaking suspicion that this will also be a life-long lesson.  It is hard for us prideful humans to let go of control, but so often when we finally do surrender a person, a situation, a problem to God, the solution readily becomes evident.

I will leave you with some words of encouragement from the Psalms:

“Commit your way to the Lord: trust in him and he will act.” (Psalm 37:5)

“Be still and know that I am God.” (Psalm 46:11)

 

 

Corps-eography

Performing is one of my favorite parts of being a dancer.  After all, performing is really the purpose, the point of it all (pun intended).  All of those hours of training and sweating and rehearsing in the studio, while rewarding in themselves, are meant to lead to the sharing of those honed skills and artistic gifts with an audience.  Ballet is indeed a performing art, and one could say that a performing art is a relationship, a relationship between the performers and the audience.  Performing is simultaneously one of the most gratifying, humbling, and exalting experiences in the life of a dancer.

 

These words can definitely be applied to dancers as well.  Image credit to Classic FM’s page on Facebook.

 

 

Moreover, during performance weeks, the regular class and rehearsal schedule is almost always different due to theater time, costumes fittings, etc.  I like the change of pace.  It is a welcome break from the usual expectations of the day-to-day.  There is also a palpably different energy surrounding performances.  Excitement and nerves are in the air.

Here where I dance, we just completed another performance.  I danced as a sylph in the corps de ballet of “Chopiniana” also known as “Les Sylphides.”  The ballet does not have a narrative.  The only plot line consists of a poet (the only male role in the ballet) who is dreaming of and dancing with a “flock” of sylphs.  The ballet was created over one hundred years ago and is of the romantic style, meaning that the tutus are long and the arms and heads are held in a particular way.  It is much softer and more ethereal than other styles of ballet. I truly feel as if we are a painting come to life.

The corps de ballet is the large group of dancers that are often on stage with and behind the soloists and principals.  Though the corps members are not the “main” dancers in any given ballet, one would feel their absence were they not there.  A well-known example of corps de ballet work is the dance of the Waltz of the Flowers and the Snow scene in “The Nutcracker.” Those particular two pieces are extremely aerobic and physically taxing.  But the true on-going challenge for the corps is pronounced right there in its name. “Corps” means “body” in French, and that it is the task of the corps dancers: to move as one living organism.

The corps work for “Chopiniana” was not as technically or physically difficult as Flowers or Snow or other corps roles, but the challenge was the meticulous care put into making sure the small details, the slow movements, the spacing, were uniform and correct.  Even eye-lines and head angles were under scrutiny.

Being in the corps teaches one to be a team player and to be spatially hyper-aware.  If, during a performance, the person in front accidentally goes off the intended mark, one must follow in order to keep the integrity of line.

I once saw the corps of Nutcracker described as the “unsung heroes” of the ballet because they had danced in every show.  That is another challenge or benefit (depending upon one’s perspective) about dancing in the corps.  Unlike principal and soloist roles, which often have multiple casts for a run of a show, the corps is usually the same for every performance. I read once that a professional dancer said she was in her best physical shape when in the corps because she was so strong from dancing in every show.

The next time you attend a ballet or watch one on video, I encourage you to be more aware of the corps de ballet.  Pay attention not only to its actual dancing, but also to its smaller movements, its poses, its angles and headlines.  Many hours of rehearsals and painstaking polishing of details went into that seemingly effortless final product.

Even though it may be an “unsung hero,” the corps is an integral part of a performance and without it, the beauty and richness of many classical ballets would certainly be depleted.

 

Image credit to Ellman’s Dancewear Facebook page.

 

 

Musings on Narnia

NOTE: I wrote these reflections a few summers ago after I had re-read “The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.” I thought that they would possibly make a decent blog post, so now that I actually have a blog I decided that I would share with y’all.  Edits and additions have been made.  Hope you enjoy these ramblings/informal book report from a bookworm! 😉

I feel like the older I become the better I can appreciate C.S. Lewis’ genius, his societal commentary, and the very spiritual Christian insights he incorporated into his writings.  He is, undoubtedly, one of my favorite authors.  The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (the third book published in the Chronicles of Narnia series but the fourth in Narnia chronology), like all of the Narnia books, is simple, beautiful, profound, and enjoyable for both children and adults.

During the first chapter, it struck me how much pointed humor his series contains.  When I was younger, I could not appreciate it as much, but now some comments stand out to me that were previously less conspicuous.  An example is Lewis’ description of Eustace’s family: “They were very modern and up-to-date people.  They were vegetarians, non-smokers, and tee-totalers.”  This is not intended as a compliment.  Eustace is obnoxious, bratty, and arrogant.  He has no imagination, believing solely in science and rational facts.  He and his family have abandoned the timeless truths and principles of wonder, respect, and belief in a Higher Power.  They are politically correct, but they are insufferable.  It’s not that being a vegetarian, a non-smoker, or a tee-totaler was necessarily wrong.  The problem is more that they have no permanent foundation of beliefs for their lives.  Instead, they go along with the latest trends, whatever is in vogue at the moment.

Eustace ridicules Lucy and Edmund for their belief in Narnia.  Even when Eustace experiences the wonder of Narnia firsthand, having entered this other world through an enchanted picture frame, he seemingly cannot give his assent to the substantiality and rationality of this fantastic realm.

Eustace continually tries to hold Narnia to the limited standards of his legitimate but incomplete world of science-only.  A world of chivalry and monarchy where a girl is given deference over men when it comes to living quarters is unfathomable to him. (Lucy was given the use  of King Caspian’s room while Caspian, Edmund, and Eustace bunked below the Dawn Treader’s deck.)  Eustace tries to tell King Caspian that this is demeans girls, not seeing how this simple distinction does not diminish femininity but actually shows respect for Lucy.

How often do we behave in a way similar to Eustace?  We measure God by our own limited, finite vision, experience and life.  Often we are blind to His work in our lives even when it is right in front of our eyes, like Eustace when he first enters Narnia.

We must strive to adopt the attitude of Edmund and Lucy Pevensie, who not only continually pondered and spoke of Narnia, but also always hoped and expected to experience it once more. Their faith was rewarded, and, thankfully, Eustace was pulled along with them for the adventure of a lifetime.

The crucial moment that begins Eustace’s journey of conversion is when he is transformed into a dragon.  Having wandered away from his traveling companions during a respite on an island, Eustace stumbles onto a dragon’s lair and falls asleep upon a mound of enchanted treasure.  During his sleep, he undergoes a metamorphosis into a dragon: “Sleeping on a dragon’s hoard with greedy, dragonish thoughts in his heart, he had become a dragon himself.”  His outside now reflected his interior disposition.

However, Eustace’s time as a dragon is a bit of an epiphany for him.  He recognizes how beastly he has been behaving and for the first time experiences true loneliness and a longing for companionship. Once he is able to communicate who he is to the others, he becomes most helpful, bringing them food and a massive tree from which to fashion a new mast for the Dawn Treader.  He also offers his services (the fire in his belly) as a source of warmth on cold nights.

Eventually, Eustace is transformed back into a boy, and the process by which this is wrought is filled with Christian symbolism.  Aslan, the mighty lion and Christ figure,  appears to Eustace and tells him to “Follow me.”  Aslan leads him to a well that is filled with water and directs him to bathe in it after undressing first, meaning after removing his dragon skin.  Eustace tries three times to scratch away his skin on his own, only to find that there is more underneath.  At last, Aslan says that Eustace must be undressed by him.  When recounting the encounter to Edmund, Eustace explained that this process hurt, but it was a good pain: “And when he [Aslan] began pulling the skin off, it hurt worse than anything I’ve ever felt.  The only thing that made me able to bear it was just the pleasure of feeling the stuff peel off.”  Aslan then tossed him into the well water, which also smarted and hurt at first but then became “delicious.”

One can easily compare this scene to repentance and Baptism. We must first shed the “dragon-ish” parts of ourselves, namely,  our sins and shortcomings through repentance.  However,  we cannot remove them ourselves.  If we try, we are only frustrated by our failure.  We must let Jesus and His grace work the transformation in us, a process that can be painful sometimes but that ultimately brings joy and peace.  We are ready to accept God’s forgiveness and be made clean in the waters of Baptism, which we will ultimately find “delicious.”

Eustace is frequently described by Lewis as a “beginner.” Baptism is meant for Christians at the beginning of their faith journeys, either as infants or as adult converts.  In fact, it is one of the Sacraments of Initiation.  Lewis says that Eustace was mostly a completely changed person after his encounter with Aslan, but he still had slip-ups and it would be more accurate to say that he was becoming a better person.  When we first make a commitment to Christ and to the faith, we often do have setbacks and slip-ups but we are now striving and improving and have hope rather than remaining in our mess.  Indeed throughout our whole lives and faith journeys, we must continuously strive for conversion and re-commit ourselves to Christ through prayer, the sacraments, and acts of charity.

Lastly, Eustace’s conversion was prompted first by being immersed in a world of believers, by being immersed in the world of Narnia.  Lewis mentions that the good effects of Narnia began to work on Eustace without him even realizing it; case in point, when he is struggling to climb a mountain, he perseveres to the end instead of giving up like he would have been wont to do before experiencing Narnia.  This small event exemplifies both the importance of evangelization as well as the reality that both our chosen companions and environment have an affect on our attitude and ways of thinking.  Secondly, his conversion was motivated mainly by an experience of hardship, that is, becoming a dragon.  Eustace’s suffering impelled him to make an examination of conscience, so to speak. He realized his nastiness and wanted to be reconciled and be friends with his companions once more.  So often in the real world, it is suffering and trials that drive people to conversion or to a re-awakening of faith.  We take a hard long look at ourselves and our lives and realize where we have fouled up and who we have wronged, and we desire to make amends.

These musings only cover a small portion of the insights contained in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader as well as the whole Narnia series.  If you have never read these books or if it’s been a while since you’ve read them, pick them up again and discover the beauty that C.S. Lewis has to offer!

 

Images taken from the Chronicles of Narnia page on Facebook.

 

 

“Off to the Fair!”

Now that we’re in the “bleak midwinter” (even though winter has felt very spring-like in my neck of the woods), I thought it’d be fun to do a #throwback blog post of sorts about visiting my local county fair this past summer with my brother.

Going to the county fair was an annual event growing up in my house.  My mother’s grandmother lived in the country, and my mom has many sweet memories of visiting and playing on the family farm with her cousins.  My father also lived on a farm when he was a small boy.  Consequently, both of my parents wanted my brother and me to experience even a taste of what they knew as children.  Though never huge, our county fair used to be much larger than now with numerous rides and games and live musical acts. I remember always listening for the screams of the people riding one particular ride that would swing them back-and-forth to an almost vertical line.  It was one of the tallest rides and looking and listening for it was a staple part of our fair experience.  Of course, every year had its own special memories and moments. One year, we even were able to watch a lady being shot out of a cannon!  Pretty dang amazing. One of the funniest memories I have of the fair is a cow sneezing on my brother.

Sprawled out in wide, expansive green fields beneath the grand Blue Ridge Mountains, the tents and rides were truly in a picturesque setting.  The earthy animal smells and sweat only added to the whole exhausting, exhilarating experience.

My parents weren’t able to join my brother and me this year; nevertheless, I was so glad to return to the fair as we hadn’t gone in several years. It was a steaming hot and humid August day, the kind where you just surrender yourself to the heat and feel your clothes slowly dampen with streams of sweat, when my older brother and I set off.  Due to a change of location, our fair had been greatly downsized, but some of our favorites were still there–the animals, the local art and photography exhibit, the farm-grown vegetables exhibit, the massive John Deere tractors with tires as tall as I am. We saw pigs being hosed down -did I mention it was hot?-fluffy baby chicks, and adorable miniature therapy horses, among other farm denizens.  The day we went there was even a blacksmith demonstration taking place.

Although my brother and I both agreed that we are glad we grew up with the fair as it used to be, going back lifted my spirits.  I am finding more and more that I love being out in the country and surrounded by nature, its simplicity and its bigness.  To borrow a phrase from Fulton Sheen, “the fecundity of life” is everywhere.  That day at the fair, I found myself feeling friendlier toward people and more confident–no expectations or pretensions of mankind.  It seems to me that man can be more himself and yet be drawn out of himself more readily in the country.  I loved seeing the 4-H club kids tending their animals and the sweaty, rosy-cheeked babies reaching out to pet their furry friends.  I was ready to move to a farm and enroll my non-existent, future children in 4-H.

At the risk of sounding melodramatic, that day I felt the country stir my soul and speak to my heart.  Out in God’s country, it’s not as if one’s problems or worries vanish, but suddenly, it’s like the weight of them is lifted.  One knows that they will be solved and that one will have the strength to handle them.  There is more freedom and space to breathe.

I would love to live in a more rural setting one day and when I am hopefully blessed with children, I would not completely disregard the idea of them participating in 4-H.

Man today is so deracinated (to use a fancy, college word), meaning he has lost his connection to the soil, to nature and its rhythms, to nature’s Creator and as a result, he is losing touch with himself and those around him.  Of course, both country and city-living have their pros and cons and one shouldn’t idealize or romanticize either one, but I think it would do this stressed-out, over-technological, consumerist society a world of good to return a bit more to the serene glories as well as the raw realities of the country.

In the meantime, please enjoy some photos from my brother’s and my excursion to our county fair!

 

A beautiful summer crepe myrtle!

A soft sheep sans his wooly fleece!

A ribbon-winning rooster named Frank!

Adorable baby chicks, which we were not allowed to touch.

A fluffy rabbit!

This picture may be my favorite!  This little piglet decided to rest in the water dish.  I guess the heat was too much for him!

 

P.S. The title for this post is the name of a chapter in the children’s literature classic Charlotte’s Web, one of my favorite books!

 

Fighting for Life

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are LIFE, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness” (emphasis added).  These immortal words are proclaimed in one of America’s founding documents, the Declaration of Independence, yet they are still not wholly lived out in our country due to such tragedies as abortion.

The topics of abortion and the pro-life cause are, undoubtedly,  multi-faceted, sensitive, and complex subjects, which encompass science, religion, philosophy, morality, economics, and politics.  There are so many angles from which one can look at these issues, and they are obviously much too big and important to begin to cover sufficiently in one blog post.  All that being said, I would like to endeavor to put in my two cents and write a bit about what has resonated with me most of late regarding these topics.

Firstly, I know many of you reading this may not agree with the pro-life position.  All I ask is that you consider some ideas behind a differing point of view.

Secondly, this post is not at all meant to be a condemnation of those who are suffering from their past decisions regarding a pregnancy.  If you or someone you know is need of information regarding resources for post-abortive women as well as men, you can find them, here. on the website of the organization, Silent No More.  Please know that you can find healing and restoration.

Though I was not personally present, I was so heartened and energized by the recent witness of the 44th annual March for Life on Jan. 27 in Washington, D.C.  For those who might not be familiar, this massive pro-life rally is held each year on or around the anniversary of the Supreme Court case Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion nationwide.  People from all over the country gather, no matter the weather or inconvenience, in order to protest peacefully this ruling that has since resulted in millions of deaths through abortion.

Have you ever wondered what all those babies would be doing right now?  What would they be contributing to society?  In our own lives, what cherished loved ones are we missing because they were aborted?

To me, it defies logic for a society to mourn with a woman who suffers a miscarriage and yet still say that a woman has the right to terminate her own pregnancy.  The objective value and worth of the unborn child did not change, only the subjective desires surrounding the pregnancy.

To paraphrase a quote I once read, let’s remove the crisis from the crisis pregnancy not the pregnancy itself. Shouldn’t we be working to alleviate the circumstances that lead a woman to consider abortion instead of just pushing abortion as the way out of a difficult situation?  Shouldn’t we be working to support those facing unplanned pregnancies in adverse circumstances, helping them to have the resources they need to choose life?  Shouldn’t we be advocating adoption?  So many post-abortive women testify to the fact that they felt they had no choice; they were coerced into abortion by boyfriends, husbands, parents, etc.  They did not have a support system and they did not want to do what they did.

Shouldn’t we be working to dismantle the diabolical lie that abortion is somehow a “right”? The truth is that a woman, indeed no person, is empowered or liberated through the degradation or demise of another person and certainly not through the purposeful death of an innocent child in the womb.  Women are not empowered when their unique and life-giving ability to carry a child is treated as a problem or a weakness or a hindrance to their supposed success in life.  The truth is that abortion hurts women.  Again, many women attest to the fact that they suffered emotionally, psychologically, physically and spiritually for years following an abortion. Often, it took a long time for them to make the connection that their difficulties were connected to their abortions.

Perhaps it is time that we remember that early suffragettes, such as Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who fought for true women’s rights, were themselves against abortion.  And that a main catalyst in the work of Margaret Sanger, the founder of abortion giant Planned Parenthood, was racist eugenics.

The pro-life movement is not perfect, but despite its flaws, its work is crucial.  I think Vice President Mike Pence’s speech at the March for Life was particularly encouraging to those devoted to the cause of life.

He said,

“…life is winning in America.  And today is a celebration of that progress that we  have made. You know I’ve long believed that a society can be judged by how we care for its most vulnerable, the aged, the infirm, the disabled, and the unborn.

We have come to an historic moment in the cause for life.  And we must meet this moment with respect and compassion for every American.

Life is winning in America for many reasons.

Life is winning through the steady advance of science that illuminates when life begins, more and more, every day.  Life is winning through the generosity of millions of adoptive families to open their hearts and homes to children in need.  Life is winning through the compassion of caregivers and volunteers at crisis pregnancy centers and faith-based organizations who minister to women in towns across this country.

Life is winning through the quiet counsels between mothers and daughters, grandmothers and granddaughters, between friends across kitchen tables, and over coffee at college campuses.  The truth is being told.  Compassion is overcoming convenience.  And hope is defeating despair. …

So I urge you to press on.  But as it is written, ‘Let your gentleness be evident to all.’ Let this movement be known for love, not anger.  Let this movement be known for compassion, not confrontation.  When it comes to matters of the heart, there is nothing stronger than gentleness.

I believe that we will continue to win the hearts and minds of the rising generation if our hearts first break for young mothers and their unborn children, and if we each of us do all we can to meet them where they are, with generosity, not judgment.”

This blog is named after my Great-Uncle George, who held so strongly to his convictions that he joined the Royal Air Force in Canada in order to fight in World War II even before the United States entered the fray.  He was bold enough to act upon his beliefs.  Those who believe in the pro-life cause do so with conviction and with passion.  It is something very near and dear to their hearts.  Let us follow the example of Uncle George who courageously fought for what was right even when others around him were not yet doing so.

And let us be encouraged by the words of Jesus, “Whoever accepts a little child in my name, accepts me.” (Matthew 18:5).

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Bid our sad divisions cease”

Pope St. John Paul II was known to speak about advancing the “culture of life” over the “culture of death.”  There are many perspectives from which one can view these phrases.  The “culture of death” can refer to the acceptance of abortion, assisted suicide, and the death penalty.  Whether you agree or disagree with these practices as political and social issues, I hope most people would concur that it is tragic when death is imposed as the solution to a situation.

Besides physical death, however, there are other ways in which this culture of death is pervasive, namely, through the destruction of people’s dignity.  Human trafficking and pornography are just two examples.  In both of these cases, human beings are reduced to objects to be used for other people’s pleasure.

A more everyday example is in the increasing divisiveness we are witnessing in families and in the culture at large–the “us vs. them” mentality that has people demonizing and demeaning those who disagree with them, sometimes in very cruel and defamatory ways.  People so often fail to truly try to put themselves in the other person’s shoes or to try to understand the other person’s vantage point.

There is a way to disagree with someone, even about contentious topics like the ones mentioned above, without being disrespectful or assuming the worst in the other person.  Discussion is important and disagreements are inevitable, especially as some of the issues the culture is facing go to the very heart of even what it is means to be a man or a woman.  But it is also crucial to develop prudence, to know the time and the place in which it is best to speak one’s mind.  Moreover, it is sometimes better to remember the old adage, “if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.”  One’s beliefs may very well be closer aligned with truth and virtue than those of the person with whom one is speaking but acting like a sanctimonious know-it-all will never influence anyone positively.  No one as an individual person, no matter how correct his beliefs, has a monopoly on goodness.  We all sin; we all make mistakes; we all have bad habits, and something we may easily forget, we can all learn from each other.

On the other hand, political correctness and attempting to sugar coat the realities of life are also a discredit to people. Common sense cannot be lost.

If we can speak with humility and love and try to understand the other person then maybe some of this awful divisiveness can be overcome, and a culture of life can begin to be built little by little.

One of the last verses of the Christian Advent hymn “O come, O come, Emmanuel” states, “O come, O King of Nations, bind in one the hearts of all mankind. Bid all our sad divisions cease and be yourself our King of Peace!”  These words, which will always be applicable to the human condition, seemed this year to be even more like a prayer fitting our day and age.

Let us pray and let us work to make 2017 a more peaceful, respectful, loving year, despite our differences.

 

 

The Nostalgia of Nutcracker

In the 1947 Christmas film The Bishop’s Wife (which I highly recommend if you haven’t seen it), one of the characters, a college professor, suggests that the holidays are a good time for looking backward. Nostalgia and memories certainly seem to be an integral part of this season.  Emotions, both joyful and painful, can flood one’s heart and mind alongside these memories.  Images of lost loved ones, remembrances of past friendships, family traditions, funny stories, and everything in between.

A large part of my nostalgic reminiscences this year has involved dance and “The Nutcracker,” undoubtedly, because I recently performed in this ballet for the first time in many years. It was truly a joyous experience to be a part of it all again.  Nutcracker, as with all shows, can bond people together and facilitate camaraderie.  Carpooling to and from theaters in and out of town, hours-long rehearsals, waiting around in dressing rooms, cheering on friends and colleagues from the stage wings, enduring and laughing at all the random mishaps, mistakes, and bloopers that inevitably occur when all the various dance, stage production, and musical elements are combined.  And, of course, the unpredictability, nerves, and exhilaration of performances.  All of this can come together to produce memorable moments.

Naturally, performing in a Nutcracker again evoked memories of the people and places connected with my past Nutcracker experiences.  So many people who were my best friends, my teachers, so much excitement, laughter, hard work, tears, so much of what my life and my family’s life was like at that point. Looking back through the lens of intervening years and experiences, I can now appreciate even more the sweetness of those times.  It would be fun to have a time machine to transport me back if just for a day.

But I am also reminded of this Lewis Carroll quote: “It’s no use going back to yesterday because I was a different person then.” My friends and I were still kids, dreaming about what we would all be and do. We were different people back then–not just age-wise but emotionally, spiritually.  Nevertheless, I believe the heart of those friendships is still there.   I still truly care about all those people, even though I have lost touch with some of them, and I would welcome the serendipitous crossing of our paths once again.

“Some people come into your life for a reason, others only for a season.”  And some, I have learned, may enter, exit, and then re-enter one’s life when one isn’t expecting it…just like a dancer on a stage.  It is cool to be old enough to have gained the perspective to see how God can intertwine various aspects, experiences, and people in one’s life.  Some people that I danced with years ago and but with whom I lost touch, are now back by my side in the studio on a daily basis.  I consider it a providential gift and a happy surprise when occurrences such as that happen.

One shouldn’t live in the past because doing so blinds one to the blessings and lessons of the present moment.  However, now and then, perhaps during the holidays, it is good for one’s spirit to indulge in nostalgia and to travel down memory lane, to cherish what one had because it most certainly contributed to the person one is today.

Cheers to you, Nutcracker, and to all my friends, old and new, who are indelibly a part of those oh so memorable days!

 

 

 

Moments of Wonder

Edgar Degas’ Dance Class, Bing Images

 

 

Ballet is a teacher, a teacher of life lessons as well as of quirks unique to the art itself.  Returning to dancing full-time after a college hiatus has reminded me of many of these lessons, both sweet and sour.  For example, I had blissfully forgotten just how gosh darn sore one’s toes become and how much one’s feet can ache after being crammed in pointe shoes for hours on a daily basis.  The flip side of that, however, is the liberating feeling of removing said shoes and being able to spread one’s toes wide apart again.  In ballet, the old saying, “beauty is pain” can very often be all too true.

Pointe shoes!

Furthermore, training and performing in any dance form and especially in ballet, at least at a school or company worth its salt, teaches a person to push himself/herself.  To perform and even to take class every day, one must have a solid work ethic and a whole lot of discipline.  Moreover, one must allow oneself to be vulnerable for one is continually being compelled to move out of his or her comfort zone, through self-motivation, teacher-prodding, and new and challenging choreography.  Trying and failing and trying and succeeding are part and parcel of the life of a dancer be he/she student or professional.  Practice that pirouette again.  Hold that balance a bit longer.  One more time.  A little more effort.  And most importantly, don’t forget to put heart and soul into the movements as well.  No automaton dancers.  One’s passion for ballet is what one can draw upon to inform the artistry and grace that gives life to the technique.

Despite the mechanics, the technique, and the arduous work that I know goes into ballet, sometimes it still seems like magic to me.  When I watch someone execute a step flawlessly or when the movements feel natural and good in my body or when I see the amazing feats of grace and coordination in balletic partner dancing, I find myself thinking of the tremendous gift that is dance and ballet and of the goodness of life.  I experience a moment of wonder.

Some of these moments have recently come during rehearsals of “The Nutcracker.”  This time-honored ballet favorite is familiar even to those who are not ardent followers of the dance world.  Many professional companies perform dozens of shows of “The Nutcracker” each year during the Christmas season.  Between rehearsals and performances, Nutcracker can easily consume a dancer’s life for three to four months.  Dancers sometimes joke about being sick of hearing the music over and over.

However, I never get sick of it.  Though the choreography of “The Nutcracker” differs company to company, Tchaikovsky’s incomparable music is the one exquisite and steadfast component to any production.  Perhaps because it has been a long time since I have danced in “The Nutcracker,” I have a re-awakened and heightened appreciation for its beauty.  Regardless, while listening to this grand score, I have found myself with goose bumps and not being able to suppress smiles.

One day as I was dancing to “Waltz of the Flowers,” I found myself almost becoming emotional while I was moving across the studio.  My stamina and breath were flagging toward the end of the nearly 7-minute piece, but the music was swelling and building, and in that moment, I realized that I had to allow the music to carry me through to the end.  The music and the realization that to little children in the audience, I really will be an enchanted flower dancing across the stage.  I am a character in a fairy tale.  And to me, that is pretty cool.  Again, a moment of wonder, of magic, and of appreciation for the gift of imagination.

The famous ballet choreographer George Balanchine said, “See the music, hear the dance.” This quote captures in a nutshell the relationship between dance and music, namely, an intimate one that enhances both sides.  I believe a prime example of this quotation is in “The Nutcracker.” The music is so rich and diverse as is the dancing, which includes several smaller dances or variations that reflect different nationalities. The music seems to be telling the story. There is the spiciness of Spanish, the sophistication and sensuality of Arabian, the breathless exuberance and strength of Russian, the excitement of the snow scene, the joy of the waltz of the flowers, and the majesty and romance of the Sugar Plum Fairy and Cavalier’s grand pas de deux, among all the other colorful, beautiful parts.  Throw in costumes and a set and the end result is truly awe-inspiring. (To learn more about a grand pas de deux, please see my previous post, Lessons in Love & Chivalry from the World of Ballet.)

These little moments of wonder are inestimably valuable, especially in our day and age.

Amidst the hustle-and-bustle of our daily lives, the concerns we may have about national and international events, and the modern technology that allows us to have a geyser of information and facts at our beck and call, it is rejuvenating and calming to allow ourselves to feel wonder and awe at the simple things in life and at the beauty of the world around us.  Remembering this can help us on those inevitable days when our occupation or our particular stage in life can be overwhelming or feel monotonous. I know I am trying to recognize more and more the little things in life and to thank God for them.

As a closing thought, if you have never listened to Tchaikovsky’s musical masterpiece of the Nutcracker or if you have never attended a live performance of “The Nutcracker,” do yourself a favor and remedy that situation.  It will be well worth your while.

You can watch an excerpt of “The Nutcracker,” filmed for television in 1977 and performed by Mikhail Baryshnikov and Gelsey Kirkland, two icons of the dance world, here.

It’s All in the Family

 

Welcome to Uncle George!  Right now, you may be wondering about the origin of the moniker for this blog.  As with all things seemingly out-of-the-blue, this name has a backstory.

Uncle George is my great uncle, one of the brothers of my late maternal grandfather.  Growing up, I heard the story of how Uncle George, eager to serve, protect, and defend, did not wait for the United States to officially enter World War II but instead decided to travel to Canada from his home state of Louisiana in order to join the Royal Air Force.  To me, this anecdote shows that Uncle George was a man of strong convictions, but, more importantly, that he had the courage to act upon those convictions.

The photograph in the featured image of this blog and in this post’s picture is a photo of my Uncle George in his aviator apparel.  An inscription on the back tells us that this particular photo was taken somewhere in southern England where he an instructor in bomber pilot training.  His Royal Air Force insignia is also visible near to the picture frame, and beside the photo is a pair of his ice skates.

Fortunately, Uncle George did not die in combat, but, tragically, he did lose his life during training.

Uncle George was a writer, a young journalist engaged to be married to a young woman, who was a fellow journalist.   Often when I have displayed a penchant or an aptitude for writing, my mother has spoken about Uncle George and his story.

It is a warm and comfortable feeling to think that I have something in common with a relative who, unfortunately, I was never able to meet–a man of conviction who loved writing.  It is a link to our family’s past, a legacy that helped to shape my family and myself.

So this blog is named for Uncle George.  Through my writing, I hope to share some of my own convictions, some of what is important to me, be it serious or light-hearted or somewhere in between.  In doing so, I hope to honor Uncle George’s memory.

Please come along for the journey.  I hope that this blog makes you smile, makes you think, touches you in some way, helps you to understand another’s viewpoint even if you don’t agree, and maybe brings a bit of joy to your day!

Thanks for stopping by, and Happy Reading!