Been awhile since I've posted anything "Crunchy", so here's a quiz to dtermine your level.
I am a 28. So in the middle. It must be the make-up and the breast-feeding stuff. I got the link from Nutmeg and I agree with her when she writes that there's really no in-between on some of those questions. And I can't breast-feed so I'm out on a lot of those, if I ever have my own kids. Oh well. And I am definitely a shoe girl. Can't work at the Statehouse without shoes.
But, like Nutmeg says, I try my best. I shop at Trader Joe's when I can and try to get organic meat when it's not too expensive. I eat whole-grain bread (although I have to get that from TJ's because, dude, the Kroger stuff? Not so much. Definitely not so much.) and more fruit because it's better for me and I feel better when I do it. Does that mean I don't have cookies around? Um, no. In fact I am going to buy Oreos as soon as I can...ha ha. But I try to be as "crunchy" as possible.
Showing posts with label Crunchiness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Crunchiness. Show all posts
Saturday, March 03, 2007
Monday, December 18, 2006
bookshelf
Some new arrivals at the Emily library:
--Swimming with Scapulars: Confessions of a Young Catholic : Just got this one today with a few other Amazon books. By Matthew Lickona, it's a memoir of growin gup Catholic, how his faith has shaped him, trials he has with faith, etc. It's refreshing honesty is very nice. It can be a bit sporadic and disjointed, but I kind of like that, since memoirs that tend to be strictly linear in their construction can be boring. He touches on all sorts of topics from Novus Ordo, The DaVinci Code, music at Mass, holding hands during the Our Father, and parenthood. He's 31, so I guess that still fits the "young" definition. Good first read, hope to get more insight the second time through.
I also got:
-- Cooking with the Saints from Ignatius Press: pretty self-explanatory. A great cookbook with patron saints, information about them and recipes associated with them. Lots of breads and desserts, and lots of German and Austria recipes. Some of them look really fantastic. There's even a recipe for suckling pig!!
-- Catholic Education:Homeward Bound by Kimberly Hahn (Scott's wife) and Mary Hasson. Since David and I like the idea of homeschooling (fitting in with our somewhat "crunchy" ideas), I thought I'd read this to get a leg up. I just started so I can't tell you too much yet, but anything Kimberly Hahn writes is good. :)
I am also going to start reading the LOTR books, due to some insightful posting over at Cubeland Mystic (link in the list) about which character you feel you are most like. There's been some really great discussion over there and I want to enter it intelligently, not just with movie knowledge, which, as we know, can be very, very wrong (although I don't think it's as wrong with LOTR as it was with, say, Troy . I will keep you posted.
--Swimming with Scapulars: Confessions of a Young Catholic : Just got this one today with a few other Amazon books. By Matthew Lickona, it's a memoir of growin gup Catholic, how his faith has shaped him, trials he has with faith, etc. It's refreshing honesty is very nice. It can be a bit sporadic and disjointed, but I kind of like that, since memoirs that tend to be strictly linear in their construction can be boring. He touches on all sorts of topics from Novus Ordo, The DaVinci Code, music at Mass, holding hands during the Our Father, and parenthood. He's 31, so I guess that still fits the "young" definition. Good first read, hope to get more insight the second time through.
I also got:
-- Cooking with the Saints from Ignatius Press: pretty self-explanatory. A great cookbook with patron saints, information about them and recipes associated with them. Lots of breads and desserts, and lots of German and Austria recipes. Some of them look really fantastic. There's even a recipe for suckling pig!!
-- Catholic Education:Homeward Bound by Kimberly Hahn (Scott's wife) and Mary Hasson. Since David and I like the idea of homeschooling (fitting in with our somewhat "crunchy" ideas), I thought I'd read this to get a leg up. I just started so I can't tell you too much yet, but anything Kimberly Hahn writes is good. :)
I am also going to start reading the LOTR books, due to some insightful posting over at Cubeland Mystic (link in the list) about which character you feel you are most like. There's been some really great discussion over there and I want to enter it intelligently, not just with movie knowledge, which, as we know, can be very, very wrong (although I don't think it's as wrong with LOTR as it was with, say, Troy . I will keep you posted.
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
Crunchy Christmas
From Rod's blog...
A Family Christmas, Crunchy Con Style
By Cary McMullen
cary.mcmullen@theledger.com
For all you bleary-eyed shoppers out there, here's a story from author and blogger Rod Dreher. Before he was married, Dreher told me by phone from Dallas that he spent a Christmas in Holland visiting a family with three adult daughters, the Jeurissens.
"The family celebrated in a typically Dutch way. They got together on Christmas Eve and cooked a meal. We ate together and told stories. At midnight, they brought out gifts they had made for each other. Then we put on our coats and went to Mass, even though they were not especially religious. As an American, I was waiting for the big payoff, but that was it.
"It made a big impression on me. It was so stripped down. What mattered to them was family, and faith, too," he said.
I called Dreher because I recently read his book, "Crunchy Cons." (The book's subtitle would take up the rest of this column, but the title refers to countercultural conservatives, with emphasis on the countercultural.) Dreher, himself a conservative, has written a literate and much-needed critique of how America in general and a rabidly pro-big-business Republican Party in particular reduces its citizens to nothing more than consumers or potential consumers - "the sum of our desires," as Dreher puts it.
"We believe that modern conservatism has become too focused on material conditions, and insufficiently concerned with the character of society. The point of life is not to become a more satisfied shopper," he writes in point two of his 10-point "Crunchy Con Manifesto." Instead of blindly acquiescing to being regarded as walking pocketbooks, Dreher wants us to fight back. He argues for a way of life that stresses family, community, faith, simplicity, beauty and humility.
Although I didn't agree with Dreher on some of his political and lifestyle arguments, much of what he had to say struck me as healthy skepticism and right on target. Dreher is married now and has three children under the age of 7, and I asked him how he and his wife manage to be countercultural during the holidays, the biggest assault of the year on our consumer sensibilities, with children as special targets of opportunity. He admitted it isn't easy.
"We have a family ritual. We light an Advent candle (and) read Scripture and pray together. We do have a Christmas tree. We also made a vow not to smother the kids with presents on Christmas Day. It's amazing to hear about people going into debt just so they can give things to their kids," he said.
Even if couples manage to set limits on gift-giving, they may have difficulty enforcing that rule on extended family members, especially grandparents, Dreher said. Limiting the number and price of gifts goes against the ethos. It's our culture's everyday math: Love equals things.
"We're told if you don't go all out, somehow your children will think you don't love them," Dreher commented.
The Drehers even allow their children to be visited by Santa Claus, because they felt "we didn't have the right" to deny their kids an experience both Rod and Julie Dreher had enjoyed themselves when young. But they play down Santa's role in Christmas in favor of emphasizing the role of Christ, he said.
The decision to have a countercultural Christmas requires work, he went on, not just in constantly saying no but also in constructing positive alternatives.
"It's not just joyless and grim. There's a lot of light and color in the Christian tradition. The trick is to find a balance," he said.
The thing that intrigues me about Dreher's philosophy is that although he's a former staffer for the National Review, often he doesn't sound much like what passes for contemporary conservatism, and he describes in his book how ideological conservatives have attacked him as a closet leftist. For instance, because consumerism is driven by capitalism, Dreher is not a fan of one of capitalism's biggest engines, advertising. Television is limited in the Dreher household.
"The media - by which I mean entertainment and advertising - are designed to separate you from your values. That makes it easier to sell to us. It's not a grand conspiracy, but it's true," he said.
What Dreher commendably embraces is traditionalism. Recalling his Christmas in Holland, Dreher still expresses wonder over the gifts the Jeurissen family gave to each other. One daughter wrote a poem. Another sewed an article of clothing.
"They poured love and affection for their family into them. They took time and thought," he said. "It was tremendously affecting to me, coming from a country where Christmas meant more, more, more."
Cary McMullen is religion editor for The Ledger. He can be reached at cary.mcmullen@theledger.com or 863-802-7509.
Tuesday, November 28, 2006
A Crunchy Thanksgiving
A farm-life story fromt he Dispatch . Go Crunchiness!!!
Thankful for farm life
Rural move gave family new direction — and most of their Thanksgiving dinner
Wednesday, November 22, 2006
Matt Tullis
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
Kim Wilhelm checks out Henrietta, a female turkey she is keeping to breed. The Wilhelms call all the female turkeys Henrietta and all the males Tom.
Acey the cat hitches a ride on 14-year-old Missy Wilhelm’s shoulders as Missy’s mom, Kim, prepares to feed some of the family’s animals at their farm outside Canal Winchester. Missy’s brother, David, 10, is a bystander.
he Toms and Henriettas ran
Taround the grassy yard, gobbled up food and ran from a dog named Henry. It was little more than a week before Thanksgiving, and the end was near. Come Thursday, one of them will be the guest of honor on the Wilhelm family dinner table, and another will be in a freezer awaiting Christmas. The other 21 have been sold and will be on other dinner tables throughout this holiday season. "The taste and texture are by far the best," said Kim Wilhelm, who along with her children has cared for the birds the past six months on the family’s 28-acre farm outside Canal Winchester.
Because they raise almost everything they need, the family’s Thanksgiving dinner grocery list is a short one: dinner rolls and cranberry sauce.
The Wilhelms are living their dream of a self-sustainable lifestyle. But they wouldn’t be if not for a rough patch five years ago.
Roger and Kim Wilhelm’s painting business went bankrupt after three major customers failed to pay for jobs.
The couple paid for things with credit cards and took out a second mortgage to get through the lean times, but new business never emerged. They lost their Westerville house and a new pickup.
They moved to Kim’s father’s farm, which had fallen into disrepair since her mother died.
Roger already had rebuilt an old pig barn on the farm, with plans to use it as an office for his painting business. Instead, he has turned it into an apartment, where the family lives, and a woodshop from which he operates a home-remodeling business.
Kim reconnected with the rural lifestyle she loved as a young girl, when she spent summers at her great-grandmother’s farm near Marietta. She has passed that love on to her children, Missy, 14, and David, 10.
Now the farm has a new life. There are turkeys, steers, horses, goats, ducks and chickens. There is a vegetable garden that, among other things, yielded 63 pounds of green beans this past summer.
"Since we’ve been here, it’s drawn our family closer," Kim Wilhelm said.
Missy and David treat the animals like pets, up until the end. The family doesn’t think twice about eating the animals they raise. The children are home-schooled and handle a lot of the daily chores. They also do several 4-H projects each year.
Missy, who was bottle-feeding a calf one morning last week, said she "loves on" some of the animals. David said he likes the young bull named Meatloaf, a moniker that no doubt foreshadows its future.
"When an animal is meant to be food, we’re going to eat it," Kim Wilhelm said. "At least we know they’ve been raised in a healthy environment, and they were happy and well cared for."
The 23 turkeys, ranging from bourbon reds to royal palms and blue slates, have been on the farm since they arrived as dayold chicks. The males all go by Tom, the females Henrietta, Missy said.
"There are just too many to name," she said.
Of all the animals, the turkeys are probably the easiest to care for, Missy said. "We just let them eat and get fat."
Less than a week before the holiday, the birds were trucked off to an Amish farm where they were "processed."
The family loves the lifestyle, Kim Wilhelm said, but they worry about the constant pressure in the neighborhood to develop. They fear that open land across the road one day will grow houses instead of corn.
It’s a challenge making a small farm financially successful, but the family is committed. Kim Wilhelm likes what a self-sustaining lifestyle can teach her children. David, for instance, can learn valuable lessons as he nurses a duckling back to health in his bedroom.
He named it Lucky Duck because its six siblings were killed by an "evil rat."
Luck can carry a duck only so far, though, especially at the Wilhelm home. Lucky Duck is a Muscovy duck and has a very tasty, steaklike meat.
When he is well enough, Lucky Duck will go back outside. And when he is big enough, Kim Wilhelm said, even Lucky Duck will be plucked.
Thankful for farm life
Rural move gave family new direction — and most of their Thanksgiving dinner
Wednesday, November 22, 2006
Matt Tullis
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
Kim Wilhelm checks out Henrietta, a female turkey she is keeping to breed. The Wilhelms call all the female turkeys Henrietta and all the males Tom.
Acey the cat hitches a ride on 14-year-old Missy Wilhelm’s shoulders as Missy’s mom, Kim, prepares to feed some of the family’s animals at their farm outside Canal Winchester. Missy’s brother, David, 10, is a bystander.
he Toms and Henriettas ran
Taround the grassy yard, gobbled up food and ran from a dog named Henry. It was little more than a week before Thanksgiving, and the end was near. Come Thursday, one of them will be the guest of honor on the Wilhelm family dinner table, and another will be in a freezer awaiting Christmas. The other 21 have been sold and will be on other dinner tables throughout this holiday season. "The taste and texture are by far the best," said Kim Wilhelm, who along with her children has cared for the birds the past six months on the family’s 28-acre farm outside Canal Winchester.
Because they raise almost everything they need, the family’s Thanksgiving dinner grocery list is a short one: dinner rolls and cranberry sauce.
The Wilhelms are living their dream of a self-sustainable lifestyle. But they wouldn’t be if not for a rough patch five years ago.
Roger and Kim Wilhelm’s painting business went bankrupt after three major customers failed to pay for jobs.
The couple paid for things with credit cards and took out a second mortgage to get through the lean times, but new business never emerged. They lost their Westerville house and a new pickup.
They moved to Kim’s father’s farm, which had fallen into disrepair since her mother died.
Roger already had rebuilt an old pig barn on the farm, with plans to use it as an office for his painting business. Instead, he has turned it into an apartment, where the family lives, and a woodshop from which he operates a home-remodeling business.
Kim reconnected with the rural lifestyle she loved as a young girl, when she spent summers at her great-grandmother’s farm near Marietta. She has passed that love on to her children, Missy, 14, and David, 10.
Now the farm has a new life. There are turkeys, steers, horses, goats, ducks and chickens. There is a vegetable garden that, among other things, yielded 63 pounds of green beans this past summer.
"Since we’ve been here, it’s drawn our family closer," Kim Wilhelm said.
Missy and David treat the animals like pets, up until the end. The family doesn’t think twice about eating the animals they raise. The children are home-schooled and handle a lot of the daily chores. They also do several 4-H projects each year.
Missy, who was bottle-feeding a calf one morning last week, said she "loves on" some of the animals. David said he likes the young bull named Meatloaf, a moniker that no doubt foreshadows its future.
"When an animal is meant to be food, we’re going to eat it," Kim Wilhelm said. "At least we know they’ve been raised in a healthy environment, and they were happy and well cared for."
The 23 turkeys, ranging from bourbon reds to royal palms and blue slates, have been on the farm since they arrived as dayold chicks. The males all go by Tom, the females Henrietta, Missy said.
"There are just too many to name," she said.
Of all the animals, the turkeys are probably the easiest to care for, Missy said. "We just let them eat and get fat."
Less than a week before the holiday, the birds were trucked off to an Amish farm where they were "processed."
The family loves the lifestyle, Kim Wilhelm said, but they worry about the constant pressure in the neighborhood to develop. They fear that open land across the road one day will grow houses instead of corn.
It’s a challenge making a small farm financially successful, but the family is committed. Kim Wilhelm likes what a self-sustaining lifestyle can teach her children. David, for instance, can learn valuable lessons as he nurses a duckling back to health in his bedroom.
He named it Lucky Duck because its six siblings were killed by an "evil rat."
Luck can carry a duck only so far, though, especially at the Wilhelm home. Lucky Duck is a Muscovy duck and has a very tasty, steaklike meat.
When he is well enough, Lucky Duck will go back outside. And when he is big enough, Kim Wilhelm said, even Lucky Duck will be plucked.
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
Rod on the COE's statement
This is more like it! Today, Rod is the man!!!!
Church of Mordor
One learns to expect outrage upon outrage from the poor old Church of England in her death throes, but even this took me aback: the C of E has endorsed infant euthanasia for the most severely disabled infants.
We keep crossing these bright red lines, all in the name of compassion, and the greater good. To be fair, the Anglican policy report does not call for the wholesale killing of disabled infants, and says only that it is in some cases compassionate to withhold or withdraw treatment when the situation for particular infants seem hopeless, and the cost of keeping a severely deformed infant alive is astronomical. It's worth having a discussion over when it is appropriate to allow a human being to die a natural death. But this report from the C of E, coming as it does in a time and place where the sense of the sacredness of human life is rapidly being lost, and replaced by a utilitarian and materialist ethic that judges the value of life on the basis of its absence of suffering within it and its usefulness to the wider community, ought to set off alarms. How is it that we can find the money to fund wars of choice in faraway lands, but are beggars when it comes to providing for the weakest and the sickest?
Where are the Cardinal Galens among us today? In his famous 1941 sermon condemning Nazi euthanasia programs, the Cardinal said: "[T]here are sacred obligations of conscience from which no one has the power to release us and which we must fulfil even if it costs us our lives. Never under any circumstances may a human being kill an innocent person apart from war and legitimate self-defense.
He went on:
If you establish and apply the principle that you can kill 'unproductive' fellow human beings then woe betide us all when we become old and frail! If one is allowed to kill the unproductive people then woe betide the invalids who have used up, sacrificed and lost their health and strength in the productive process. If one is allowed forcibly to remove one's unproductive fellow human beings then woe betide loyal soldiers who return to the homeland seriously disabled, as cripples, as invalids. If it is once accepted that people have the right to kill 'unproductive' fellow humans--and even if initially it only affects the poor defenseless mentally ill--then as a matter of principle murder is permitted for all unproductive people, in other words for the incurably sick, the people who have become invalids through labor and war, for us all when we become old, frail and therefore unproductive.
Then, it is only necessary for some secret edict to order that the method developed for the mentally ill should be extended to other 'unproductive' people, that it should be applied to those suffering from incurable lung disease, to the elderly who are frail or invalids, to the severely disabled soldiers. Then none of our lives will be safe any more. Some commission can put us on the list of the 'unproductive,' who in their opinion have become worthless life. And no police force will protect us and no court will investigate our murder and give the murderer the punishment he deserves.
Who will be able to trust his doctor any more?
He may report his patient as 'unproductive' and receive instructions to kill him. It is impossible to imagine the degree of moral depravity, of general mistrust that would then spread even through families if this dreadful doctrine is tolerated, accepted and followed.
Woe to mankind, woe to our German nation if God's Holy Commandment 'Thou shalt not kill,' which God proclaimed on Mount Sinai amidst thunder and lightning, which God our Creator inscribed in the conscience of mankind from the very beginning, is not only broken, but if this transgression is actually tolerated and permitted to go unpunished.
Church of Mordor
One learns to expect outrage upon outrage from the poor old Church of England in her death throes, but even this took me aback: the C of E has endorsed infant euthanasia for the most severely disabled infants.
We keep crossing these bright red lines, all in the name of compassion, and the greater good. To be fair, the Anglican policy report does not call for the wholesale killing of disabled infants, and says only that it is in some cases compassionate to withhold or withdraw treatment when the situation for particular infants seem hopeless, and the cost of keeping a severely deformed infant alive is astronomical. It's worth having a discussion over when it is appropriate to allow a human being to die a natural death. But this report from the C of E, coming as it does in a time and place where the sense of the sacredness of human life is rapidly being lost, and replaced by a utilitarian and materialist ethic that judges the value of life on the basis of its absence of suffering within it and its usefulness to the wider community, ought to set off alarms. How is it that we can find the money to fund wars of choice in faraway lands, but are beggars when it comes to providing for the weakest and the sickest?
Where are the Cardinal Galens among us today? In his famous 1941 sermon condemning Nazi euthanasia programs, the Cardinal said: "[T]here are sacred obligations of conscience from which no one has the power to release us and which we must fulfil even if it costs us our lives. Never under any circumstances may a human being kill an innocent person apart from war and legitimate self-defense.
He went on:
If you establish and apply the principle that you can kill 'unproductive' fellow human beings then woe betide us all when we become old and frail! If one is allowed to kill the unproductive people then woe betide the invalids who have used up, sacrificed and lost their health and strength in the productive process. If one is allowed forcibly to remove one's unproductive fellow human beings then woe betide loyal soldiers who return to the homeland seriously disabled, as cripples, as invalids. If it is once accepted that people have the right to kill 'unproductive' fellow humans--and even if initially it only affects the poor defenseless mentally ill--then as a matter of principle murder is permitted for all unproductive people, in other words for the incurably sick, the people who have become invalids through labor and war, for us all when we become old, frail and therefore unproductive.
Then, it is only necessary for some secret edict to order that the method developed for the mentally ill should be extended to other 'unproductive' people, that it should be applied to those suffering from incurable lung disease, to the elderly who are frail or invalids, to the severely disabled soldiers. Then none of our lives will be safe any more. Some commission can put us on the list of the 'unproductive,' who in their opinion have become worthless life. And no police force will protect us and no court will investigate our murder and give the murderer the punishment he deserves.
Who will be able to trust his doctor any more?
He may report his patient as 'unproductive' and receive instructions to kill him. It is impossible to imagine the degree of moral depravity, of general mistrust that would then spread even through families if this dreadful doctrine is tolerated, accepted and followed.
Woe to mankind, woe to our German nation if God's Holy Commandment 'Thou shalt not kill,' which God proclaimed on Mount Sinai amidst thunder and lightning, which God our Creator inscribed in the conscience of mankind from the very beginning, is not only broken, but if this transgression is actually tolerated and permitted to go unpunished.
Monday, October 30, 2006
Waaaay too fun!
Way too fun!
http://www.gracebeforemeals.com/video_player.html
Got the link from Immaculate Direction--it's a new PBS show (yes, you read that right, PBS about a priest who teaches families how to slow down, cook a real meal, and enjoy it! Crunchy Cons unite!!
http://www.gracebeforemeals.com/video_player.html
Got the link from Immaculate Direction--it's a new PBS show (yes, you read that right, PBS about a priest who teaches families how to slow down, cook a real meal, and enjoy it! Crunchy Cons unite!!
Monday, October 23, 2006
link to Mark's piece
For those of you who want to read Mark's piece, here's the link:
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/201/story_20191_1.html
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/201/story_20191_1.html
Rod and orthodoxy
He responds to a post:
Responding to Mark
Though I'm trying to move on past my monster post on leaving Catholicism for Orthodoxy, Bnet has posted a link to it on the front page today, and my friend Mark Shea has kindly written a companion piece in response. In it, Mark says some things that I really must respond to, because I don't want to leave the impression that I agree with his interpretation of my words. To wit:
Mark:
For instance, I don't believe that the personal charisma—or lack thereof--of a bishop is sufficient reason to leave the Catholic Church, just as I don't believe the sins of bishops and priests somehow de-legitimate the nature of the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church any more than Judas' or Peter's did.
I can't figure out why some folks get the idea that I changed my church because Archbishop Dmitri is a lovely man. When I wrote about him presiding over the feast in his humble cottage like a "grandfatherly Gandalf," I was trying to paint a picture of a wise old man who acted not as a CEO but as the head of a family. The material modesty in which he lives is plain, and it told me something about his character. Likewise, he is quite close to his flock, and relates to them in a way that I'd never seen before. I presume this has more to do with him than with Orthodoxy itself, but I could be wrong. The point is, what I saw in him, and in the congregation, was a family -- and that's what Julie and I were so hungry for. I had reached the limit of where abstract reasoning could take me, and I was completely burned out. What I needed was a family. And God showed me one.
Mark:
Like Rod, I converted to the Catholic Church as an adult. Like Rod, I was grieved and appalled by the sex scandals. Yet despite the despicable acts of Catholic priests and their episcopal defenders that have been uncovered in recent years, I don't buy the proposition that my children are in continual mortal danger from predator-priests and that the only way to protect them is to leave the church. The chances of any individual child's encountering an abusive minister in the Catholic Church are about the same in any Christian communion: which is to say remote. The notion that going to Mass or Sunday school is an act analogous to throwing your child into a pit of ravening wolves or sending him on a forced march through a spiritual desert is much closer to hysteria than to reality. Indeed, we Sheas have found the Church to be a rich fountain of living water--and in the highly troubled and frequently heterodox Archdiocese of Seattle no less!
I'm sorry, but this is very far from what I actually said. I have never believed that going to Sunday mass with my children was risking their abuse, though certainly the close encounter with the priest who had been put quietly into active service in the conservative parish (against diocesan rules, and without telling the bishop) was a breaking point for us. No, leaving the Catholic Church for the sake of my children was primarily about the spiritual protection of my children. You get to a point in which you realize having to tell your kids on the way home from mass that what Father (or Deacon) said in the pulpit is not actually true (that is, not what the Church teaches) is undermining their faith. More importantly, you come to understand, perhaps, that they are not actually being taught much in the parish other than that being a Christian is little more than a matter of going through the rituals and feeling good about yourself. And specific to my own situation, my constant anger over not only the sex-abuse scandal, but other things going on in the Church forced me to confront the fact that I was becoming a poor teacher-catechist for my children, or rather, that my anger and despair and near-complete mistrust of the Church that we actually lived with (as distinct from the Church that lives in books), was teaching my kids by example that the Christian life is primarily a source of anxiety and anger. For that, some fault lies with me, and I accept that. But I still had Christian children to raise, and after fighting this war inside myself for three years or so, I bailed. Anyway, to say -- as some Catholics have, and as Mark does here -- that I left because I thought Father Freakydeak was going to lie in wait in the confessional for my boys creates a straw man.
Mark:
Likewise, I never thought Rod was realistic to demand, as he did in a op-ed essay a few years ago for the Wall Street Journal, that the pope remove and replace a huge portion of the American episcopacy "with the stroke of a pen," or to declare himself "let down" when the late John Paul II did not comply. If Rod had really listened to the author of Ut Unum Sint, John Paul's encyclical on the role of the papacy in the life of the church, he would have realized he was talking about a pope who had a more "Eastern" conception of his office than any pope in a thousand years: one who took seriously the notion that bishops are not just disposable middle management for the Vatican. In this, Orthodoxy fully concurs, which is why I don't see the sense of demanding an impossibility from the Holy Father and then joining an Orthodox communion that would have condemned the Holy Father for acting "unilaterally" if he had met Dreher's demands.
This is not a bad point, certainly, but the fact is, the Pope does have the power to do those things, and the fact that he couldn't even bring himself to speak about this horrible scandal, except obliquely ("the mystery of iniquity"), was to me, debilitating. If he had simply chastised them severely and publicly, that would have worked wonders, at least to my own morale. John Paul sure got rid of the French bishop Jacques Gaillot early in his papacy for teaching heresy, and it's a good thing the Pope did so, too. But look, if he can can a bishop for teaching error, why can't he can a bishop for allowing children to be raped? You know? [And yes, I don't expect the Orthodox bishops and priests to have clean hands either, but it is my hope that going into life as an Orthodox with a sadly more realistic idea of what I can expect from hierarchs will keep me from setting myself up for a great fall, as happened to me in Catholicism.]
Mark:
Finally, when Rod wonders if his revised view of the papacy—that the pope can never speak infallibly—is just an ex post facto justification for a choice made mostly on emotional grounds, I have to say, "Yeah." Because I don't buy Rod's notion that something about Catholic teaching has suddenly been shown to be false. The fact is, the overwhelming bulk of Rod's testimony regarding his Catholic-to-Orthodox conversion is not about his questions regarding the truth or falsity of Catholic teaching, but about ringing changes on how the sins and "self-satisfied" average-ness of Catholics drove him and his family to distraction and how the various comforts and beauties of Orthodoxy made them feel.
Two points here: 1) I agree that my choice was primarily emotional, and that my intellectual reasons were flimsy (but let me say that I strongly believe there can be strong intellectual grounds for leaving RCism for Orthodoxy, though they did not apply to me in my particular case). I found in the filioque controversy, and later in papal infallibility, reason to doubt seriously what I had once believed as a Catholic. I didn't go into that in my long post because these reasons ultimately weren't determinative. Regarding emotion, I don't apologize for that. We are not Vulcans, but human beings, and living in a constant state of anger, anxiety, distrust and crushing spiritual depression had finally taken its toll on me. And the formulas and syllogisms no longer served to dispel them.
I do get really tired, though, of this canard that I'm some sort of snob who hates the "averageness" of Catholics, so had to rush to Orthodoxy. What I despaired of was the sense of alienation that I often had at mass, that we were all here because we had nowhere else to go. I despaired not because I was so good, but precisely because I know how bad I am. I needed people who shared my beliefs to help me find my way to being a better man. I needed spiritual headship and counsel. I needed a reverent, beautiful liturgy to lift me out of the everyday and put me in closer touch with God. Suddenly I find myself being accused of snobbery because I could no longer carry on in a parish where you couldn't tell who actually believed in Catholicism, and it didn't seem to matter to the clergy whether or not anybody believed, or learned, just as long as the process kept moving along.
I perfectly well know that the family I've now become a part of is, like any family, flawed and broken. I don't expect perfection, and I won't be disappointed not to find it. What I have found is a beautiful and holy liturgy, serious spiritual guidance and teaching, and a family. I didn't have that before. I do now. And it makes a big difference. Thanks be to God. If you find that in Catholicism, God has blessed you too.
Responding to Mark
Though I'm trying to move on past my monster post on leaving Catholicism for Orthodoxy, Bnet has posted a link to it on the front page today, and my friend Mark Shea has kindly written a companion piece in response. In it, Mark says some things that I really must respond to, because I don't want to leave the impression that I agree with his interpretation of my words. To wit:
Mark:
For instance, I don't believe that the personal charisma—or lack thereof--of a bishop is sufficient reason to leave the Catholic Church, just as I don't believe the sins of bishops and priests somehow de-legitimate the nature of the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church any more than Judas' or Peter's did.
I can't figure out why some folks get the idea that I changed my church because Archbishop Dmitri is a lovely man. When I wrote about him presiding over the feast in his humble cottage like a "grandfatherly Gandalf," I was trying to paint a picture of a wise old man who acted not as a CEO but as the head of a family. The material modesty in which he lives is plain, and it told me something about his character. Likewise, he is quite close to his flock, and relates to them in a way that I'd never seen before. I presume this has more to do with him than with Orthodoxy itself, but I could be wrong. The point is, what I saw in him, and in the congregation, was a family -- and that's what Julie and I were so hungry for. I had reached the limit of where abstract reasoning could take me, and I was completely burned out. What I needed was a family. And God showed me one.
Mark:
Like Rod, I converted to the Catholic Church as an adult. Like Rod, I was grieved and appalled by the sex scandals. Yet despite the despicable acts of Catholic priests and their episcopal defenders that have been uncovered in recent years, I don't buy the proposition that my children are in continual mortal danger from predator-priests and that the only way to protect them is to leave the church. The chances of any individual child's encountering an abusive minister in the Catholic Church are about the same in any Christian communion: which is to say remote. The notion that going to Mass or Sunday school is an act analogous to throwing your child into a pit of ravening wolves or sending him on a forced march through a spiritual desert is much closer to hysteria than to reality. Indeed, we Sheas have found the Church to be a rich fountain of living water--and in the highly troubled and frequently heterodox Archdiocese of Seattle no less!
I'm sorry, but this is very far from what I actually said. I have never believed that going to Sunday mass with my children was risking their abuse, though certainly the close encounter with the priest who had been put quietly into active service in the conservative parish (against diocesan rules, and without telling the bishop) was a breaking point for us. No, leaving the Catholic Church for the sake of my children was primarily about the spiritual protection of my children. You get to a point in which you realize having to tell your kids on the way home from mass that what Father (or Deacon) said in the pulpit is not actually true (that is, not what the Church teaches) is undermining their faith. More importantly, you come to understand, perhaps, that they are not actually being taught much in the parish other than that being a Christian is little more than a matter of going through the rituals and feeling good about yourself. And specific to my own situation, my constant anger over not only the sex-abuse scandal, but other things going on in the Church forced me to confront the fact that I was becoming a poor teacher-catechist for my children, or rather, that my anger and despair and near-complete mistrust of the Church that we actually lived with (as distinct from the Church that lives in books), was teaching my kids by example that the Christian life is primarily a source of anxiety and anger. For that, some fault lies with me, and I accept that. But I still had Christian children to raise, and after fighting this war inside myself for three years or so, I bailed. Anyway, to say -- as some Catholics have, and as Mark does here -- that I left because I thought Father Freakydeak was going to lie in wait in the confessional for my boys creates a straw man.
Mark:
Likewise, I never thought Rod was realistic to demand, as he did in a op-ed essay a few years ago for the Wall Street Journal, that the pope remove and replace a huge portion of the American episcopacy "with the stroke of a pen," or to declare himself "let down" when the late John Paul II did not comply. If Rod had really listened to the author of Ut Unum Sint, John Paul's encyclical on the role of the papacy in the life of the church, he would have realized he was talking about a pope who had a more "Eastern" conception of his office than any pope in a thousand years: one who took seriously the notion that bishops are not just disposable middle management for the Vatican. In this, Orthodoxy fully concurs, which is why I don't see the sense of demanding an impossibility from the Holy Father and then joining an Orthodox communion that would have condemned the Holy Father for acting "unilaterally" if he had met Dreher's demands.
This is not a bad point, certainly, but the fact is, the Pope does have the power to do those things, and the fact that he couldn't even bring himself to speak about this horrible scandal, except obliquely ("the mystery of iniquity"), was to me, debilitating. If he had simply chastised them severely and publicly, that would have worked wonders, at least to my own morale. John Paul sure got rid of the French bishop Jacques Gaillot early in his papacy for teaching heresy, and it's a good thing the Pope did so, too. But look, if he can can a bishop for teaching error, why can't he can a bishop for allowing children to be raped? You know? [And yes, I don't expect the Orthodox bishops and priests to have clean hands either, but it is my hope that going into life as an Orthodox with a sadly more realistic idea of what I can expect from hierarchs will keep me from setting myself up for a great fall, as happened to me in Catholicism.]
Mark:
Finally, when Rod wonders if his revised view of the papacy—that the pope can never speak infallibly—is just an ex post facto justification for a choice made mostly on emotional grounds, I have to say, "Yeah." Because I don't buy Rod's notion that something about Catholic teaching has suddenly been shown to be false. The fact is, the overwhelming bulk of Rod's testimony regarding his Catholic-to-Orthodox conversion is not about his questions regarding the truth or falsity of Catholic teaching, but about ringing changes on how the sins and "self-satisfied" average-ness of Catholics drove him and his family to distraction and how the various comforts and beauties of Orthodoxy made them feel.
Two points here: 1) I agree that my choice was primarily emotional, and that my intellectual reasons were flimsy (but let me say that I strongly believe there can be strong intellectual grounds for leaving RCism for Orthodoxy, though they did not apply to me in my particular case). I found in the filioque controversy, and later in papal infallibility, reason to doubt seriously what I had once believed as a Catholic. I didn't go into that in my long post because these reasons ultimately weren't determinative. Regarding emotion, I don't apologize for that. We are not Vulcans, but human beings, and living in a constant state of anger, anxiety, distrust and crushing spiritual depression had finally taken its toll on me. And the formulas and syllogisms no longer served to dispel them.
I do get really tired, though, of this canard that I'm some sort of snob who hates the "averageness" of Catholics, so had to rush to Orthodoxy. What I despaired of was the sense of alienation that I often had at mass, that we were all here because we had nowhere else to go. I despaired not because I was so good, but precisely because I know how bad I am. I needed people who shared my beliefs to help me find my way to being a better man. I needed spiritual headship and counsel. I needed a reverent, beautiful liturgy to lift me out of the everyday and put me in closer touch with God. Suddenly I find myself being accused of snobbery because I could no longer carry on in a parish where you couldn't tell who actually believed in Catholicism, and it didn't seem to matter to the clergy whether or not anybody believed, or learned, just as long as the process kept moving along.
I perfectly well know that the family I've now become a part of is, like any family, flawed and broken. I don't expect perfection, and I won't be disappointed not to find it. What I have found is a beautiful and holy liturgy, serious spiritual guidance and teaching, and a family. I didn't have that before. I do now. And it makes a big difference. Thanks be to God. If you find that in Catholicism, God has blessed you too.
Sunday, October 15, 2006
Rod going over to Orthodoxy...
Over at Immaculate Direction (http://immaculatedirection.blogspot.com/), Cubeland Mystic has exactly what I was going to say re: Rod's recent switch to Orthodoxy. But he says it better than I can. :) So read his if you want to know how I feel.
Update: OK, so maybe I do need to add my two cents, even though Immaculate Direction says it so well.
One of Rod's major reasons for leaving the Church (at least that he states) was the priest sax scandal. All right, true confessions here. That really hasn't had much of an effect on my faith. Sure, it is horrible to think about? Yes. But I guess I've always thought of priests as human, no better or worse than anyone else. Even though they are priests, and that puts them to a higher standard of behavior, I wasn't really surprised, in part because they're human and in part because of what I've read about the seminary culture during which these priests underwent their formantion (e.g., Michael Rose's book, Goodbye, Good Men ). It was not the 'best of times' in the seminary. That is not an excuse, but since i've read about it, I can't say I'm surprised by what's happened. Also I've seen this movement as something with which church reformers have taken like a puppy to a chew toy and just won't let go of, saying it's a sign of all this trouble in the Church and using it to bring up marriage and women priests and all that crap that does not belong . I just don't really understand how all of this could so shake your faith that you would want to leave the Church. Unless your faith just wasn't that strong or deep-rooted to begin with. Maybe Rod just wasn't really convinced that the Catholic Church has all the truth, I don't know. but I do know that Orthodoxy sure doesn't. The history of Orthodoxy is rife with political drama, and caesaropapaism (one of the major reasons for the schism, if not the major reason) is something I would have issue with. Essentially, it's who is more important? Church or State? Orthodsoxy says head of state. Rome says Pope. But this is an old argument that I'm not really educated enough on the specifics to get into here.
I am disappointed that the church scandal was such a problem from Rod that he converted. It also seems like the aesthetics of Orthodoxy appealed more to him. Well, yes, I'd like to have beautiful churches and perfect music and all that. But I think we can reform Catholic liturgy much more effectively from the inside than from saying, "I give up!" This isn't like big matters of doctrine. If you're pro-choice, or think women should be priests, then you need to go somewhere else because the Church ain't budging. But if it's stuff like music and the Mass, then we can change that. B XVI himself wants to change it. Let's see where these reforms go, especially with th enew translation due in a few years.
OK wow this was more than I thought I'd write. But it is disheartening because so much of what he writes in Crunchy Cons is based on Catholicism or the idea of Truth that is found in Catholicism. I was excited when I read his book, partially because he was Catholic. It sounded like this was something I could do. And I am still trying (I went to Trader Joe's today!), but I am a bit disheartened. Nonetheless, I will pray for Rod and his family, like he asked us to on his website.
Update: OK, so maybe I do need to add my two cents, even though Immaculate Direction says it so well.
One of Rod's major reasons for leaving the Church (at least that he states) was the priest sax scandal. All right, true confessions here. That really hasn't had much of an effect on my faith. Sure, it is horrible to think about? Yes. But I guess I've always thought of priests as human, no better or worse than anyone else. Even though they are priests, and that puts them to a higher standard of behavior, I wasn't really surprised, in part because they're human and in part because of what I've read about the seminary culture during which these priests underwent their formantion (e.g., Michael Rose's book, Goodbye, Good Men ). It was not the 'best of times' in the seminary. That is not an excuse, but since i've read about it, I can't say I'm surprised by what's happened. Also I've seen this movement as something with which church reformers have taken like a puppy to a chew toy and just won't let go of, saying it's a sign of all this trouble in the Church and using it to bring up marriage and women priests and all that crap that does not belong . I just don't really understand how all of this could so shake your faith that you would want to leave the Church. Unless your faith just wasn't that strong or deep-rooted to begin with. Maybe Rod just wasn't really convinced that the Catholic Church has all the truth, I don't know. but I do know that Orthodoxy sure doesn't. The history of Orthodoxy is rife with political drama, and caesaropapaism (one of the major reasons for the schism, if not the major reason) is something I would have issue with. Essentially, it's who is more important? Church or State? Orthodsoxy says head of state. Rome says Pope. But this is an old argument that I'm not really educated enough on the specifics to get into here.
I am disappointed that the church scandal was such a problem from Rod that he converted. It also seems like the aesthetics of Orthodoxy appealed more to him. Well, yes, I'd like to have beautiful churches and perfect music and all that. But I think we can reform Catholic liturgy much more effectively from the inside than from saying, "I give up!" This isn't like big matters of doctrine. If you're pro-choice, or think women should be priests, then you need to go somewhere else because the Church ain't budging. But if it's stuff like music and the Mass, then we can change that. B XVI himself wants to change it. Let's see where these reforms go, especially with th enew translation due in a few years.
OK wow this was more than I thought I'd write. But it is disheartening because so much of what he writes in Crunchy Cons is based on Catholicism or the idea of Truth that is found in Catholicism. I was excited when I read his book, partially because he was Catholic. It sounded like this was something I could do. And I am still trying (I went to Trader Joe's today!), but I am a bit disheartened. Nonetheless, I will pray for Rod and his family, like he asked us to on his website.
Friday, October 13, 2006
Commuting vrs. family time?
OK yeah been doing a lot of Crunch Con-esque blogging lately, but here's an article from the WaPo about the cost of commuting, which may outweigh the cost of suburban living:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15230632/
This is something Rod mentions in his book Crunchy Cons, that suburban life migh appear to have benefits, but how much family time are you actually getting with the 2 hours commute? He also mentions that if you homeschool then you're not held hostage to surburban living because of the better school districts--you can teach anywhere.
Valid argument?
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15230632/
This is something Rod mentions in his book Crunchy Cons, that suburban life migh appear to have benefits, but how much family time are you actually getting with the 2 hours commute? He also mentions that if you homeschool then you're not held hostage to surburban living because of the better school districts--you can teach anywhere.
Valid argument?
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