Raising Up Mommy: A long over due book review

The seven deadly sins and Mommy. Yep, that's right, your mom's not perfect...and we have our moments. Heidi Hess Saxton's book, "Raising Up Mommy, Virtures for Difficult Mothering Moments." is insightful! The way she discusses mothering in such a revealing way, brings to mind how her book, Behold Your Mother, made our Lady so approachable, so real, almost ordinary. Motherhood in the real mechanics of life, whether she's the Queen of Heaven or the queen of the household, can and will get dirty. Many times we feel that there is nowhere to turn when we disappoint ourselves striving to love and nurture our families.

Raising Up Mommy is a guide in mothering that gets down to the nitty gritty of being human, yet doing beyond human things each day. As the human condition asserts itself, we find that we fall short of our own expectations. Some days more than others, but still mother must pick herself up by the bootstraps and keep loving, giving, and getting that laundry done! We suffer with the seven deadly sins, some without notice until finally we feel that something isn't right, or try and try as we may, our goals are still far beyond our reach.

Throughout the ten chapters, Heidi is committed to being practical in giving a resolve to many of our common vices, asking questions, leading the reader into being reflective. No accusations here, just pure "I feel your pain" antedotes. Each chapter covers one of the seven deadly sins, or Parent Trap, and it's Virtuous Antidote, a Bible verse, a self-test and ways to overcome these traps that mothers find themselves in. "Gird your loins with truth..." as Ephesians 6:14 says. "Through the sanctifying grace of baptism (CCC#1266), we have been given every spiritual resource we need in order to sly "Mommy Monster!", Heidi tells us.

Thank you, Heidi for this great resource for mothers everywhere!

My mom needs your prayers!

She is in incredible pain. At 78, she is burdened with both Osteo. and rheumatoid arthritis and last year she fell braking her pelvis. It healed, but there was still lots of pain. An MRI revealed the nerve damage and it's getting worse. On top of this, last month she got shingles, which is also very painful.

My mom is one that when you call and say, "Hey Mom, how are you?" she say, "Hi, Elizabeth, I'm fine." "You ok, everything going good with you, Mom?" "Yeah, just fine, how are the kids?" (in other words, new subject)

The shingles are nearly gone, except for some residual tingling and sensitivity, but she is hoping for a pain blocker this week for her back. She is unable to raise her legs to get into bed, stand up, much less move around without excruciating pain.

She lives 10 hours from us and my sister-in-law, a nurse, is practically the only one who helps her. My mom is always in pain, always, but still volunteers at the hospital, drives people to doctor appointments, and up until recently, attends Mass every morning.

Please pray for her today? She loves the rosary and St. Jude. Who's the saint for back pain and arthritis?

God be with you!

The Empty Cup

Lessons for me do not always get through my hard head easily. When I was in my late 20's it occurred to me that when some issue continued to repeat itself fairly rapidly in a short period of time, it's time to stop and listen. It's a lesson. One that God knows I need to get right now. Not always open to learning new things, they take some time.

Why we are here after nearly nine years and not back in my cozy parish in TX with friends, I don't know. Back in TX we had friends that cared, and shared their lives with us and I practically lived at the Church all the time teaching, volunteering, I was a Eucharistic minister, in the Mom's Bible study every Tuesday morning.

Here I am Lord, now what? I ask, no answer.

Tonight one of our daughters and I attended an event at our parish here. I don't fit in. I watch as all the other adults have their friends, they mingle between each other. My daughter has no friends, but she is happy singing along and enjoying the music. This town is very cliquey and this parish is incredibly cliquish. Surely I am grumpy and stone-faced, which is doesn't help, but it is the unhappiness that I feel here.

At present, the lesson is presentation and desire for me.....I think. I messed up with the pastor here for taking the girls out of the school and homeschooling them for the past nearly 8 years, I have been told. I screwed up in several of my encounters with him during the parish council, and other times.

I am not a patient lady, no I'm not. I am passionate, but not patient.

So, tonight, as I watch all the happy people dancing, singing, clapping hands, talking and laughing, I sat and watched. The guest, Righteous B, he calls himself, recently recovered from a stroke and wanted thank everyone for their prayers of healing for him, told us a story.

As he laid in the hospital, he realized that his cup, that was full up of all the things he wanted, became empty. "I suddenly realized that this stroke was a game-changer, that I had nothing to offer anyone, my family, God." Then, slowly, God began to fill his cup with what God wanted Righteous B to have. Because when your cup is so full of the things that YOU want in it, you leave out God and have no room for Him in your life. Righteous B commented that he "wants his cup to be empty more, so that he can allow God to fill it with the things that will make him stronger, more dependent on God."

As I listened to him talk, I realized that nothing will change here but me. Things will remain the way they are and I will not be able to be happy until my cup is filled with the things that God wants me to have, not what I want...or think I need. I need to empty my cup of the desires of my heart, to heed God's way. Be more patient, and allow God to take over. I think God wants me to sit back and just observe. He doesn't want me to be involved in the parish or the new Catholic High school like I wanted to. Just sit back and patiently do nothing...at all.

Why Lord? Why?

The Rainbow.....

Too bad it has to now be more visible as to symbolize the gay lifestyle. Even the word gay had a fun and light definition, now you can't use it simply to explain how the day went.

As an arty person, I feel completely robbed of a symbol that expressed color to it's max and the sign that God gave Noah in His covenant not to flood the earth again. Now, it's a symbol of sinfulness, rebellion, and just plain societal tom-foolery against the Creator's plan.

What a shame.

Summer Programs at Thomas More College

Thomas More College: Summer Programs and Adventures

The Thomas More College of Liberal Arts, located one hour north of Boston, has an array of summer programs for students and adults alike. The Collegiate Program for High School Students offers a challenging introduction to the liberal arts and the Catholic tradition. Offering three college credits, The Catholic Leadership Institute examines the social teachings of the Church and inspirational leaders while also providing a means to develop leadership skills in the outdoors and through a service project. Open to those of any age, The Way of Beauty Atelier offers art programs on iconography, naturalistic drawing and on finding inspiration.

For more information, please visit: www.Thomas More College, or contact Mark Schwerdt in the Admissions office at (800) 880-8308.

Book Review: A Guide to Christian Meditation

Prayer is important, so critical to the believer's daily regimen that there are books out there to guide him/her through the process if need be. Meditation is one of the most misinterpreted and under utilized form of prayer. Probably due to the busyness of daily life, it would bring such peace in the same amount of time one heads to the neighborhood Starbucks for a tall, non-fat, decaf, latte. In this book review for the Catholic Company, I hope to dispell some of the myths of meditation and open up some minds to this awesome prayer.

In the book, A Guide to Christian Meditation, Fr. John Bartunek, LC talks us through just what meditation looks like. Filled with examples and descriptive mental visuals, he makes meditation seem so much easier than I ever thought.

Fr. Bartunek, describes the 4-step process of meditation, concentrate, consider, converse, and commit in detail allowing the reader to "see" how each step leads to a better experience in our conversation with God. He explains that distractions happen and that we must fight sloth (making excuses why we don't have time to spend time with our Lord, or we are too tired, there is something more important that needs to be tended to, etc.) It's just like exercise, you really do not want to get out and walk, but once you are out there, it feels so good! Prayer time and sloth is like that.

Distractions are abundant in my prayer life, Fr. Bartunek, explains that he has them as well, but that when they happen, up until the realization the distraction, it not his responsibility. At the point of realization of the distraction, he has a choice to keep thinking of the distraction, get distracted by the distraction, or calmly steer back to the meditation. He explains that the distraction can serve a purpose of fighting off the devils intervention and steering us closer to God using the distraction as an instrument of God's grace.

In the back of this small, conveniently-sized book, Fr. includes many prayers from the liturgy, common Catholic prayers for concluding and preparatory use during meditation. It is nice to have these handy if you are carrying the guide in your purse or in your car. I know that this is a book that will be a reference for quite some time until I get the hang of meditation, a prayer that I have been wanting to incorporate in my daily life for a long time.

If you are struggling with your prayer life, this guide will be a great blessing to you and your Christian journey to grow closer to our Lord.

Sunshine Award

Right about now, we all need a little bit of sunshine in our world and thanks to Esther, I got some! One of my favorite songs is Christ be our Light, the Son-shine that makes everything hopeful and worth the effort. If you have not yet been over to see what Esther writes about on her blog, you should...today! She is truly a spot of Son-shine to behold. To pass this on to others that are rays of Son-shine in cyberspace, I'd like to give this award to:

Nick at PhatCatholic
Marcel at AggieCatholic
Adrienne at Adrienne's Catholic Corner
The guys at In Laymen's Terms
Donna Marie at Donna Marie, A dose of Inspiration
Sarah at Snoring Scholar
Denise at Catholic Mom
Jackie at Catholic Mom of 10 Journey
Deanna at Not Lukewarm
Laura at Mixonian
Steven at Book Reviews and More
RAnn at This That and the Other thing

Please PULEESE don't think I have forgotten you, everyone on my blogroll is an inspiration to me, so consider this a blanket appreciation award to all and put it on your blog as my gift to you and pass it on.

Easter Season blessings to all!

The Catholic Vote

How much of a Catholic would you say you are?
How much of your Catholic upbringing effects your decisions?
Would you be wrong if you brought the tenets of the Catholic Church's teachings to the voting booth?
What are the Tenets of the Catholic Church's teachings?
Are you aware that you are to be pro-life? Respecting life at ALL phases?
Attend Mass every chance you can, but especially on Sunday?
That lying, cheating, stealing, adultery, greed, swearing,over-indulging, lukewarmness, etc are all sins and should be confessed...at least once a year?

As a Catholic myself, I know that I am 99.9% Catholic in my thinking, choices, and not perfect, but the Eucharist is VERY central to me having Christ feeding my body and soul weekly.

It is not easy being this way, but here I am Lord!! I will cast my vote to the best of my ability to the prolife candidate with God as their central decision-making influence.

This will be hard, so I am praying as I go.