News of the Dea

Exercise your priesthood! Pray the Office!

2009-06-16T11:20:00.000-07:00

Ron Rolheiser's column this week is brilliant. We are copy/pasting it into our RCIA lesson on Christian Prayer for next year.

What is priestly prayer? It is the prayer of Christ through the church for the world. Our Christian belief is that Christ is still gathering us together around his word and is still offering an eternal act of love for the world. As an extension of that we believe that whenever we meet together, in a church or elsewhere, to gather around the scriptures or to celebrate the Eucharist we are entering into that prayer and sacrifice of Christ. This is liturgical prayer; it's Christ's prayer, not ours. We pray liturgically whenever we gather to celebrate the scriptures, the sacraments, or when we pray, in community or privately, something that is called the Prayer of the Church or the Office of the Church (Lauds and Vespers).

And this kind of prayer is not restricted to the ordained clergy. We are all priests by virtue of our baptism and part of the implicit covenant we make with the community at our baptism is the commitment, when we reach adulthood, to pray habitually for the world through the liturgical prayer of the church.

What needs also to be highlighted here, since we easily miss this aspect, is that the church's liturgical prayer is for the world, not for itself. The church, in this world, does not exist for its own sake, but as an instrument of salvation for the world. Its function is to save the world, not itself. In liturgical prayer we pray with Christ, through the church, but for the world.

He speaks of devotional prayer and liturgical prayer and the importance of being aware of which you are participating in. Excellent stuff!!! (as usual).

Or sometimes the confusion leads someone to abandon one form of liturgical prayer altogether. I know a man who after years of praying the Office of the Church is substituting his own private prayer in its place because he doesn't find the ritual prayers personally meaningful. His private meditations now might well be wonderful affective prayer, but he is no longer praying the priestly prayer of Christ when he is praying in this way. We see this sometimes too in well-intentioned, but badly planned, churches services where what is intended to be a liturgical service ends up being a guided private meditation, however well-done and powerful, which neither uses scripture nor prays for the world.

So true!!! I stopped praying the Office -- in part for this reason. I had lost sight of the purpose of my prayer. This might just get me back into it.

Spring

2009-05-10T17:29:00.000-07:00

Funerals
Weddings
RCIA
Hebrew Club
Spring Session Linguistics 101 and trying to remember the IPA
car maintenance
planning the autumn trip to Europe
housework
planning the renovation and nagging the contractor
The Mystery of Grace by Charles de Lint
re-visiting all 7 seasons of Buffy and her 'verse
Trial and Retribution
Whisper to the Blood by Dana Stabenow
Aristocrats
Mavis Gallant's Going Ashore

oh yeah, and Star Trek. Enough happy nods to the past, homage without impersonation. Fun, fun, fun.

What have you been up to?

May perpetual light shine upon her

2009-04-17T06:21:00.000-07:00

And as she joins the communion of saints, now we can pray TO her instead of just FOR her.

Aw, Chrissie, I know I should rejoice that you are seeing God at last, but I feel so sad for your family. Thanks for sharing your last days with us - what an impact you made.

xoxox

Quiet alleluias

2009-04-14T13:55:00.000-07:00

I found out 10 minutes before the Vigil began that my cousin - from perfect health to fatal cancer in about 6 months - had gone into a coma.

I pray that she have an easy passage if God is calling her home, and that her recovery be swift if that be his will.

She is the first of my generation to be this close to death and it is hitting me hard. So many of Saturday night's readings spoke of life conquering death. Tears ran down my cheeks a couple of times. Sadness at her seemingly inevitable end. Jealousy that she will face God soon and know all the answers. Grief for her husband, her children, her parents, her siblings. For myself.

So yes, he is risen, alleluia, indeed he is risen!

But the rest of us wait.

Spare me!

2009-04-10T08:48:00.000-07:00

2 Sam 12:4a:

וַיָּ֣בֹא הֵלֶךְ֮ לְאִ֣ישׁ הֶֽעָשִׁיר֒ וַיַּחְמֹ֗ל לָקַ֤חַת מִצֹּאנוֹ֙ וּמִבְּקָר֔וֹ לַעֲשׂ֕וֹת לָאֹרֵ֖חַ הַבָּא־ל֑וֹ

Here's my rough literal take on this passage.

And the traveller came to the rich man, and he [spared, had compassion] to take (animals) from his flock and from his herd to prepare (something to eat) for the traveller who had come to him.

The words in square brackets [spare, have compassion] are the BDB lexicon definition for the Hebrew verb חמל. It occurs a few verses later in the passage, and definitely has the meaning of "have compassion" in that case. But what about here?

He spared to take animals from his flock ... He had compassion to take animals from his flock...

What does this mean, exactly? He DID take animals to prepare for his visitor? Or he did NOT?

This is what tripped me up on my Hebrew final exam. I thought it meant that he DID take the animals and barbeque them up for his guest. But no. Apparently not.

Now there came a traveller to the rich man, and he was loath to take one of his own flock or herd to prepare for the wayfarer who had come to him, but he took the poor man’s lamb, and prepared that for the guest who had come to him. (NRSV)

Yes, I thought it was a BIG party! The rich man took his own animals AND the poor man's lamb (greedy bastard!).

But really -- I think it's more a problem of my knowledge of English than my abililty in Hebrew, don't you?

;-)

Palm / Passion Sunday

2009-04-05T07:51:00.000-07:00

⁸Many people spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut in the fields. ⁹Then those who went ahead and those who followed were shouting,
‘Hosanna!
Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!
¹⁰ Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David!
Hosanna in the highest heaven!’ 11 Then he entered Jerusalem and went into the temple; and when he had looked around at everything, as it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve. (Mark 11 NRSV)

----------------
So I have a couple of questions.

How come SAVE!! was shouted when Jesus rode by? Was this a common thing to shout? the "yippee", the "hurray" of its time? Was this recognition of Jesus as Messiah? A momentary and miraculous awareness of his destiny, as someone suggested to me yesterday?

And secondly, Jesus went into the temple and looked around at everything.

Huh?

Like, sightseeing looked around? Like, looked around to make sure everything was ready? Like looked around for ...what?

It just struck me as an odd statement.

Happy Palm/Passion, people. The end approaches.

More on cleaning Altar Linens

2009-03-24T09:53:00.000-07:00

Our parish sends out the big altar cloths and all vestments, but here are some of the tools I've found essential for cleaning the small linens (which in my parish are a mixed bag - linen, cotton, and poly-cotton blend).

The ultimate brush -- I love these things, great for nails, skin, veggies and hey, purificators too!! You can toss them in the dishwasher if you need to, as well.

OxiClean -- the laundry spray (then scrub with brush); the powder to put in a bucket of water to soak wine stains. Excellent stuff, and doesn't fade the red embroidered cross in the middle of each cloth

Static Guard -- to spray your ironing board -- those poly-cotton blend purificators can build static up fast.

NOTE: don't ever use fabric softener on altar linens. It reduces the absorbancy of the fibers, and absorbing is the entire purpose of purificators.

If you are a fabric fan -as I am - you know that pure linen is very satifying to iron -- it's so crisp and has such a lovely sheen, well worth the work. Hems tighten up a bit when washed, so one usually gives a little tug to stretch them before ironing. I did that on one linen purificator and it ripped in two!!!!! I was a bit worried -- do we have a holy rag-bag? Are altar linens sacred items that should be disposed of like other sacred things? Apparently not in my parish (although I've read differently on a number of websites). Here we just chuck them. I haven't had the heart -- I keep my ripped one as a clean white cloth to slip under stains when I'm treating them. Might as well keep it all in the family.

The Lord's Laundry

2009-03-24T07:46:00.001-07:00

March has been my month to be sacristan at my parish. This means that I collect the used small linens (purificators, corporals, hand towels), take them home and wash & press them. An unsung ministry, perhaps, but strangely satisfying.

My sister once told me of the intimacy she felt for her husband when ironing his shirts. I think I know what she means.

STOP WEARING LIPSTICK TO MASS!!

The challenge with washing purificators - the cloths used to wipe the chalice after each person consumes the Precious Blood - is not as I once thought, how to get wine stains out. Rather it is how to make sure that no traces of Max Factor Electric Sunset #701 remain on the cloth.

DOES JESUS WANT YOU WEARING LIPSTICK TO MASS!!??

I did fairly well this week. Half the 20 purificators came clean the first go round and the other half have such tiny stains that no one would notice but me. They are going through their second soak as I write.

Part of the difficulty is that the small faded stains cannot be seen until you are ironing the otherwise-clean cloth. All that work just to be chucked back in the bucket.

We do not have a Sacrarium in my church. Or rather, they did, but because the soil is so clay-ey here, we cannot run a drain straight through to the ground -- the ground will not absorb. (If you're wondering why churches have sacrariums - sacraria? - it's so that any remains of the sacred species will not be put into the sewer but go back to the earth).

Anyway.

So the acolyte who tidies up after mass takes all the purificators and the corporal (the square cloth on the altar on which the bread and wine are prepared and consecrated -- folded specially to be a Holy Crumb catcher) and he puts them into a bucket of water to soak. The chief sacristan comes in early in the week to add a cupful of bleach for the unbleachables to the bucket. After each mass, the small linens are added to the bucket.

The designated monthly sacristan comes in on Monday or Tuesday and lays out the hand towels (which are tossed into a laundry hamper) on the counter and proceeds to wring all the cloths from the bucket and place them on the towels. The water in the bucket is then taken to the side door of the church and poured out into the garden (or rather the 4 feet of snow drifts on top of the garden). Then I take the bucket to the coffee kitchen to rinse it (the sink in the sacristy is too small for a bucket). I pour the rinse water into the meditation garden (it is closer to the kitchen than the side door). This involved propping the door open with one foot while lunging with the bucket to make sure the water ends up in the garden (beneath the snow) and not on the path where people would walk on it.

Back to the coffee kitchen to fill the bucket, which I take to the sacristy and place in the shower stall there (and no, you can't fill the bucket from the shower head either -- too messy).

Then I scoop up all my linens, replace the hand towel in the bathroom (the same kind as the hand towels used at mass) pop the wet laundry into a grocery bag and take it home to wash.

Now comes the fun part.

I lay a big white towel on the kitchen counter and gather my OXY spray, soak, bucket and brush. Each cloth is opened and inspected. The bleach for the unbleachables has removed some of the colour from the linens, but there are still grey blotches wherever the wine was.

DO NOT WEAR LIPSTICK TO MASS!!!

And lipstick.

I spray with OXY. I scrub with my brush. I put each item to soak in a bucket with many scoops of OXY in it. It's easy to see fresh lipstick on the wet cloths, not so easy to see old faded stains, especially if they're under a wine stain. I do my best. Soak for 6 hours. Wring them out, toss in the washer with some detergent and a double rinse. Scoop the lot out when the washer is done and iron them dry.

PLEASE DON'T WEAR LIPSTICK TO MASS!

This is when you first discover what worked and what didn't. A clean white pillow case over the ironing board and you press each cloth dry. This was a great week. Everything was passable and 50 percent was perfect. I have rescrubbed and put the not-so-perfects back to soak.

Here's the good part (apart from the chapped hands and soft breaking nails).

It's a very spiritual thing to do! Would you clean out the straw for the manger? Would you help prepare His swaddling clothes? His shroud? The place He lays his body down?

I don't always feel it. But usually with the corporal (never lipsticked). Really, this is a lovely ministry with hidden beauty and a quiet spirituality to it.

Gotta run -- may add some links later.

UPDATE: Parish Council met and discussed a Sacrarium -- no go, it involved jack-hammering through 30 meters of clay or some such thing. Bleh. On the upside, they ARE going to get a hose to put on the shower-head in the sacristy so we don't have to cross back and forth through the church with a bucket! Small steps.

CONFESSION: I have been known to wear lipstick to mass on special occasions. Christmas and Easter laundry must be killers!

Agony in the Garden

2009-02-25T14:06:00.000-08:00

One of my goals (?) for Lent this year is to learn the Mysteries of the Rosary.

Usually when I say my beads I just use them as a technique for stilling my mind so that I can listen for God, but I have been hearing a lot about using the Mysteries of the Rosary to draw closer to Christ, so I thought I'd give it a try.

Today I did the Agony in the Garden. I have a nice little booklet "The Rosary with Fra Angelico and Giotto" and I looked at the painting, read the scripture and said my decade while meditating on the event. Two thoughts popped into my mind. The first was that Jesus knelt to pray. I don't know why, but that really struck me. And the other was this: if my son were dead, I would hate for people to be constantly reminding me of it! Okay, yeah, it sounds a bit blasphemous, but it wasn't really, it just came to me during prayer, which is a bit creepy.

Anyway.

*sigh*

So when I was surfing around later I wondered if there was anything good on the intraweb about the mysteries or about the Agony in the Garden.

Bingo.

Do yourself a serious favour and read this article by Ron Rolheiser at Catholic Update. This is a site that Steve told me about a couple of years ago, and it has an amazing archive. Fr. Rolheiser is, of course, my favourite theologian and a very easy to read guy.

He speaks of the meaning of agony:

The word agony is not just a pious term from the Rosary or other traditions; it’s a term from Scripture. In Greek they talk about Christ’s agonia. We know what agony means in English, but in Greek, at the time of Jesus, it was also a technical term for what athletes did warming up for the Olympic Games. During that warm-up, the Greek athletes would produce a certain sweat which would warm up their muscles and ready them for coming combat. That sweat, that lather, was called their agonia.

Luke is telling us that Jesus does an agonia to get ready for his passion. In essence, Luke is saying, we don’t move from being self-pampering to dying on a cross without some preparation. The Agony in the Garden is the warm-up, the readying, the agonia for the Passion that follows.

Later he speaks of the importance of Jesus choice of the Garden as a locale for prayer:

Why the garden? Gardens don’t appear that often in Scripture, but they’re very important. In spirituality, gardens have nothing to do with cucumbers, radishes, garlic. Gardens are where lovers go. That’s very important in getting to the drama of the Agony in the Garden. This is a drama inside of love. That’s why the beginning, where Scripture opens up, we’re in the Garden of Eden. In the garden you can be naked. There’s no shame in the garden.

Where does Mary Magdalene, who was the great lover in Scripture, find Jesus on Easter Sunday, in the morning? In a garden. Remember the wonderful old gospel hymn that Elvis Presley famously recorded: “I come to the garden alone, and he walks with me, and he talks with me, and he tells me I am his own. And the joy we feel when we tarry there... .” That’s Jesus as a lover, and he calls us into the Garden.

Is there a big light-bulb going on over your head? Go ahead, have a read. It's just lovely. I learn so much from this guy. Thank you Fr. Rolheiser.

Lenten Movies

2009-02-24T07:59:00.000-08:00

Julie is collecting a list of Lenten reading -- but I've been thinking about what movies to watch during Lent.

Here are a few that inspire me with feelings of repentence or forgiveness or remind me of my brokenness and my absolute need for God's love.

The Mission

Schindler's List

Les Miserables

The Nephew

Flawless (the Philip Seymour Hoffman/de Niro one, not the Demi Moore one)

And of course, Saving Grace (the series, not the movie).

Any others?

Blog drought

2009-02-01T16:37:00.000-08:00

My goodness I've been away a while!

School is going well -- the Cyrus to Jesus course ended up being too much for me (too senior a history course -- no idea how to even begin a research paper at that level) so I dropped it, but the Hebrew study seems to expand to fill my available time.

I. Love. Hebrew.

I'm also beginning to think that Linguistics might be where my interests really lie -- linguistics as they apply to Hebrew Bible. I took an intro class back in 1982, but the undergrad advisor recommends that I take the present intro class as well. Things have advanced somewhat. I took at look at a copy of his final exam, and I have to agree. There's a lot there I don't get -- but I want to!

So there are about 6 Linguistics courses I want to take, and another 5 or six Hebrew/Bible courses. My university does not offer a graduate degree in Hebrew, but maybe by the time I finish all the classes that catch my interest, it will. Or maybe I'll end up with a degree in Linguistics focusing on Biblical Hebrew?

I don't know.

But I'm enjoying the search.

A YAY!!

2008-12-22T12:57:00.001-08:00

My Christian Theology prof finally posted the grades for my Bible class -- whoo hoo!!!!!!!! I got an A!

This is my first A since I was about 11 years old.

Junior High used percentages.
High School used percentages.
University (1st and 2nd times round) used the stanine system.

I am very pleased -- this was a class so full of information I thought my brain might explode and I worked very hard to remember as much of it as I could for the exam.

And since my Hebrew is a full year course (so I don't get a grade until the Spring), it's nice to know that I am doing okay at this student thing.

Did I tell you that we get a Hebrew test the first day back after Christmas break? I think this is a great idea -- make sure we don't forget all we've learned over the holiday. But it is a bit boring, just reviewing the same thing over and over (because since I am not 19 and have no life, I actually like studying -- ;-) ). So my prof suggested that I pick a chapter of the Bible and learn to listen/speak it.

I figured, might as well begin at the beginning, so I'm listening to and repeating Genesis 1, verse by verse. I don't have my Lesser of Two Weevils translation of Genesis anymore -- I chucked it all in the recycle bin when I started class this fall. So I'm relearning some of it. I am surprised at how much I really do know!! It's very encouraging. And I love this guy's voice! The way he holds each double consonant makes him very easy to imitate.

It's weird.

I know the Hebrew words and I know what they mean in English, so I repeat the phrase and try to picture the idea of the verse in my head. It was going okay until I hit verse 11 and the plants. I have to go very slowly there, and the reader on the mp3 is too fast for me. I expect I'll just end up memorizing a lot of it -- not a bad thing. But it's cool how many phrases and words I can recognize by ear. Genesis 1 was a good choice -- it has a lot of repetition.

God & Satan - bloggers both

2008-12-16T16:01:00.000-08:00

God's Blog.

Satan's Blog.

Read (including comments). Laugh.

Seriously, they're new enough that you can read them all back to the beginning and follow the interaction. Very sweet.

On the exam news, I'm all done!

Wrote the final one this morning:

I answered the question about the Prologue to John's Gospel instead of the one about the Birth Narratives in Matthew and Luke;

I answered the question about the celestial woman in Revelation Chapter 12 instead of the one about the Pastoral letters;

and I answered the question comparing/contrasting the 2 reports of the "illumination" of Paul in Galatians and Acts instead of discussing a topic of my choice.

The choice topic that I prepared was about the Documentary Hypothesis as seen in the story of Noah and the role of Redactor, but the way the question was worded on the exam itself was slightly different from the way it was worded on our prep sheet -- so I was not sure I'd actually be answering the question if I gave my prepared essay. Oh well.

It's all out of my hands now, so I can relax, review my Hebrew (don't forget, he gives a quiz first day back to make sure we don't lose our vocab over the holiday), and start the readings for next term's Religion/History class: Cyrus to Jesus.

Does this look like a whale?

2008-12-15T17:56:00.000-08:00

This thingy is a thumbnail of a Wordle of the Book of Jonah. Click on through to see the big one.

The name of God is top left, Jonah is at the right. Below God's name is the sea, below Jonah is Nineveh. The big vertical word? And he said.

I found this at Simon's blog, Eating Manna. He made his Wordles in colour -- very pretty.

The legal stuff:

If you use a screen-capture or other image representation of the Wordle on this page, you must attribute the image to http://www.wordle.net/. Images of Wordles are licensed .

Hot & Cold

2008-12-15T06:52:00.000-08:00

Today things are a bit warmer here -- up to minus 25 today (that's -13 F). Yesterday got down to -31 (-24 F). I love the deep cold. It's a very cosy feeling inside, we light the fire, make soup or casserole and hot desserts. Just generally cocoon.

But unfortunately, one of my girls has Reynaud's. It's not as bad as the hands in the pictures (ouch!!), but once her hands get cold, it's pretty damn hard for her to warm up. And with me being the queen of hot flashes, you can imagine that our idea of the right temperature setting for the heat in the house is not quite the same.

So she sits next to the fire in sweater, mittens and toque, and I wear a short-sleeved polo shirt and lean against the steel front door.

Today we're off to MEC to buy her a new parka. Her regular winter jacket is good enough for everyday (say to -10 or -15), but once we get into the deep dark cold, she needs something with a bit more oomph. So a fun afternoon at Canada's favourite outfitter for deep cold coat, and more mittens.

I'm not sure if southerners really get what it's like to dress for a cold Canadian winter.

I observe the university crowd at the bus stop. Until we hit zero (32 F), most young Canadians wear hoodies, or hoodie + denim jacket. Once we're into the minus numbers, the winter jackets come out -- padded hoodies, fleece lined denim jackets, short puffy jackets. Fashion is still the name of the game (unless you are an immigrant from a warm climate -- we smile at you in your parka!!).

But -20? We throw fashion to the wind. Nobody is looking at you, and even if they did, they wouldn't recognize you. Thick down-filled jackets and coats. Heavy wool coats with the ubiquitous hoodie underneath (a hoodie is way warmer on the neck than a scarf and although not as warm as a tuque, a hoodie doesn't give you hat hair). Sometimes the odd fur-coat from the second-hand stores on Whyte Avenue. Mittens. Scarves. Boots. Long underwear or tights. Denim is great most of the time, but in deep cold it stiffens -- much kinder to your skin to have some long johns underneath. And sales of body-lotion skyrocket.

And for heaven's sake, make sure you leave enough time to dry your hair before you leave the house!!!!!!!

You do not want to know.

Keep warm, my friends.

Man, that's a bad translation

2008-12-10T14:26:00.000-08:00

Please God, let it just be a translation....

Human history, in fact, has two "beginnings," the first is "tainted by the abuse of freedom, which intends to emancipate itself from God, but this is not how freedom is found, instead one opposes the truth and then falsifies the fundamental relationships between man and God, man and woman, man and the earth."

Huh?

Did they just change men in midstream? First a race, then a male, then a race again? It's HUMAN people, not MAN!! Get with the program!!

*sheesh*

This little gem is from the Pope's morning audience according to Asia News (and via Rocco).

What would shepherds do?

2008-12-01T07:27:00.000-08:00

Check out the caption on the photo. Do you suppose it's too late to order a few boxes of these?

Seen at PhDiva, via Jim at PaleoJudaica.

BDB, ha ha ha!!!

2008-11-26T08:26:00.000-08:00

What a rush, last night!

The prof was off at the SBL conference in Boston, so the grad students taught the class. They were introducing us to the Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew & English Lexicon -- a book I've been using for a couple of years.

As friends of the Weevil might remember, I found it a bit old-fashioned, and tended to rely more on William L. Holladay's edition of A Concise Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament.

However.

They did a great job and after the introduction to the BDB, we moved on to our work in the Infinitive Absolute and used the opportunity to look up some of the words in the Lexicon. The very first phrase we tried was the first bit of Genesis 22:17,

כִּֽי־בָרֵ֣ךְ אֲבָרֶכְךָ֗

We all analysed this as Inf Abs, and the prof had placed it front and center on the worksheet for Inf Abs. So what does BDB say? It's right there at the bottom of the second column on page 138:

Inf. cstr. בָּרֵךְ Gen 22¹⁷...

Inf CSTR!!! Yes, yes, you read that correctly!!! BDB says that this is the infinitive construct, when it is obviously the infinitive ABSOLUTE!!

BWAAAHAA HAA HAA HAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!

I don't know why I get such a cheap thrill from finding an error in a Lexicon, but i do. God, I love Hebrew.

:)

Rise & shine: Isaiah 60:1

2008-11-19T07:39:00.000-08:00

From the NAB:

Rise up in splendor! Your light has come, the glory of the Lord shines upon you.

From the Douay:

Arise, be enlightened, O Jerusalem: for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee.

From both the RSV and the NRSV:

Arise, shine; for your light has come,
and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.

So whence my title? Why "rise & shine"? This is so cool! We did this verse last night in class. The verb at the end "risen upon you" is the verb used for the sun rising up in the morning. The same root appears again in verse 3, and the whole section is comparing God's glory to the sunrise. Jerusalem has to get up and shine because God's glory is arising too. Maybe used in the morning liturgy in the Temple? Not sure --

But cool, or what?

And yes, that is Handel's Messiah I am humming -- it's that time of year.

Rage against the dark

2008-11-13T06:48:00.000-08:00

I hooked up the lights on my little tree in the back yard this weekend. Okay, so it's not so little. Miss K is 21, and it's her 1st grade tree, so I guess the tree is 21 too -- it's a blue spruce, about 7 or 8 feet high.

We had some light snow and I figured that if I wanted to adjust the lights (which I left on the tree all summer, mea culpa mea culpa) and find the plug-end without digging through mountains of snow, I'd best get to it.

It looks marvelous!

I am calling them Rage Against the Dark lights until 1st Sunday of Advent -- after that I'll call them Christmas lights.

Life is crap lately.

Have made some big mistakes and hurt someone in a permanent non-fixable kind of way. The mother-in-law situation is taking up more time. I miss my own parents, whom I just don't have a lot of time to see now. I have no time for friends -- we book weeks in advance for a cup of coffee. And my kids!! crankiness must be contagious because we've been snapping at each other non-stop. When do I get groceries? Clean the house? When do I wait for the painter? Book the decorator? Take the car in? Clean the windows? Stack firewood? Read a book? Go to the bank? Think?

I'm only taking 2 classes. What happened to my life?

School, RCIA, mother-in-law, exercise, food - shopping and preparing, bills.

I need to look out on the pitch-dark-at-5-pm yard and see my tree all lit up and pretty. No pre-Advent bitching!!

She's back....

2008-11-08T08:48:00.001-08:00

Lovely Lara Croft is back for another adventure -- Tomb Raider: Underworld, out November 18th. Just in time for someone to buy me for my 6th anniversary as a non-smoker (Nov 21, my Beloved, hint, hint, HINT, DAMMIT!!!).

:)

Debut Album of 1959 in Archaeology

2008-10-27T17:31:00.000-07:00

Check out the debut album of my new band, 1959 in Archaeology.

This is a fun game, courtesy of Cura Animarum (doing well with his band, Glasgow Tigers).

Here are the rules:

1) Go to Wikipedia and click on the 'random article' button (left hand side, navigation box, last choice) and snag the title to the first random article that pops up. This is your band name.

2)Go to Random Quotes. Scroll down to the bottom of the page. Click on the button that says 'New Random Quotations'. Scroll down to the bottom of the page (again) and snag the last four words of the very last quotation. This is your album title.

3)Finally, go to flickr's "explore the last seven days". The third photo on the page, no matter what, is your debut album cover.

I would add, go into Paint (or similar program) and make your album cover --- and could I have got any luckier? My album cover is actually musical!!

Actually, Cura made 2 albums --- I wonder what 1959 in Archaeology will produce for their sophomore effort? Hmmmmmm..........

Sinking...

2008-10-22T13:41:00.001-07:00

6:32 am: wake up, despite being up until midnight copying out Hebrew notes in good handwriting for crippled classmate. Skip workout.

6:40 am: have an orange, some peach yogurt, a skim milk latte for breakfast. Read the headlines in the A-section of the paper. Shower and dress.

7:30 am: do Hebrew homework; study Hebrew vocab.

9:10 am: pack up Hebrew notes (to photocopy), stuff mother in law needs/wants at Sub-acute Care Facility; write quick grocery list; go pick up MiL's sister (older sister, mind you, in her 80s, let's call her Auntie).

9:30 am: collect Auntie and her packages for MiL, head to MiL's condo to get more clothes for her (good thing Auntie has a key to the condo -- I forgot mine).

10:15 am: start long drive to Sub-acute Care Facility (SCF).

10:45 am: well, okay, so it didn't take quite as long as I thought from her condo, but it WILL take longer from my place. Arrivce SCF. Drop off Auntie and parcels and baskets and drive around looking for parking. Thank God (and Toyota) for my lovely little car.

She's not sick, you know. She's broken her ankle. But she has scleroderma and some other muscular thing that I cannot remember let alone pronounce so she cannot limp or hop around or use crutches until the ankle heals. She needs physiotherapy to strengthen her upper body so she can use a walker (zimmer frame) or transfer herself from wheelchair to bed, toilet, bath, etc. She is just not strong enough now. And some doctors think she will NEVER be strong enough because of the degenerative nature of her other conditions.

So she's in a sub-acute bed at a residential facility. They have about 7 sub-acute beds for people who can't look after themselves without help. They are temporary.

Because they're temporary, the SCF will not do your laundry. You need a friend or relative to pick it up and wash it and bring it back. My MiL has 2 relatives in town -- one is Auntie, her sister, who does not drive -- the SCF is 2 hours from her house by bus. One way. The other relative is my Beloved. He works in a very high-stress job. Leaves the house at 5:30 or 6 am, home at 6 pm. He is fast asleep by 10 pm. He is also male. You see where this is leading?

Anyway. We deal, Auntie and I. We reassure. We hang up clothes, plug in lamps, take away unneeded things. The entire time, a man across from us sits in the entrance to his room shouting, NURSE! I NEED HELP NOW! (yes, we got the nurse -- I guess he just "does" this)

We hug. We walk out and Auntie looks at me: Meg, kill me if I ever have to go into one of these places. I nod. Me too, says I.

12 noon: back to the car, I drive Auntie home, making arrangements for who will visit next and how Auntie can get there and back (fortunately, Auntie's DiL is a peach).

1 pm: arrive grocery store. Buy snacky type foods for kids. Resolve to abdicate grocery shopping to kids who eat this stuff.

1:25 pm: stop at UPS store to photocopy Hebrew notes for crippled classmate. Resolve to tell her about Student Disability Services. Drive home. Garage door finally works -- thankfully I did not need to be home for repairman to fix.

Unload groceries, Hebrew book, bags of MiL junk unwanted at the SCF.

2:10 pm: listen to voice mail -- missed my mother -- no Wednesday visit? and my Dad - Windows is not working as he wants it to, can I help? Call them back, get Mum, cry on her shoulder for a few minutes.

2:30 pm: call Beloved. Tell him to call his friend at the Big Catholic FundRaiser Dinner and get her to take my name OFF the list of Board Nominees. No way will I have time or energy for that this year.

2:40 pm: open bag of toffees and begin process of rotting teeth/regaining 30 pounds/comforting my miserable selfish un-daughter-in-lawly self.

3:15 pm: Okay, I'll play on the computer for 10 more minutes, then I have to start in on the 12 Bible essay questions for my next exam on Nov 4: and these questions require outside references. Super.

And cooking dinner, paying bills, all the rest of that stuff? God knows. And if the Deuteronomic Historian is to be believed, he is punishing me for every sin I've ever committed.

Maybe I should write a psalm.

Doctor, Doctor

2008-10-17T09:06:00.000-07:00

I meant to post this a few days ago. It was the feast of St. Theresa of Avila and the Common for the morning Office was a choice: Virgin or Doctor. Well, Doctor, of course! We all start out virgins, but only a few make Doctor.

Here's the morning hymn for the Common of a Doctor of the Church. Sing it for St. Theresa:

Rise up, O men of God!
Have done with lesser things.
Give heart and mind and soul and strength
To serve the King of kings.

Rise up, O men of God!
His kingdom tarries long.
Bring in the day of brotherhood
And end the night of wrong.

Rise up, O men of God!
The church for you does wait,
Sent forth to serve the needs of men;
In Christ our strength is great!

Lift high the cross of Christ!
Tread where His feet have trod.
As brothers of the Son of Man,
Rise up, O men of God!

Are there really people who DON'T notice the disconnect here?

Genesis 3:16, or why Hebrew makes me happy, reason # 397

2008-10-08T08:18:00.000-07:00

We went over this passage last night in class, and I just have to share it with you. We only studied a portion of this verse, so I've shrunk the parts we ignored:

(So, after Abram had lived for ten years in the land of Canaan,) Sarai, Abram’s wife, took Hagar the Egyptian, (her slave-girl,) and gave her to her husband Abram as a wife.

Sarai, Abram's wife, took Hagar the Egyptian ... and gave her to her husband Abram as a wife.

Here's the Hebrew:

וַתִּקַּ֞ח שָׂרַ֣י אֵֽשֶׁת־אַבְרָ֗ם אֶת־הָגָ֤ר הַמִּצְרִית֙ שִׁפְחָתָ֔הּ מִקֵּץ֙ עֶ֣שֶׂר שָׁנִ֔ים לְשֶׁ֥בֶת אַבְרָ֖ם בְּאֶ֣רֶץ כְּנָ֑עַן וַתִּתֵּ֥ן אֹתָ֛הּ לְאַבְרָ֥ם אִישָׁ֖הּ ל֥וֹ לְאִשָּֽׁה׃

The portion we're removing from the Hebrew is right in the middle.

וַתִּקַּ֞ח שָׂרַ֣י אֵֽשֶׁת־אַבְרָ֗ם אֶת־הָגָ֤ר הַמִּצְרִית֙ ... וַתִּתֵּ֥ן אֹתָ֛הּ לְאַבְרָ֥ם אִישָׁ֖הּ ל֥וֹ לְאִשָּֽׁה׃

The gloss (word for word translation) is as follows:

And-she-took | Sarai | the-wife-of-Abram | Hagar | the Egyptian | ... | and-she-gave | her | to-Abram | her husband | for-him | for-a-wife

My prof explained this so it just lit up. The balance between she took and she gave. The fact that men ordinarily "take" a woman to be a wife, and here Sarai "takes" Hagar. The fact that in Hebrew, her husband (isha) sounds exactly like a wife (isha). This verse makes it very clear that Sarai was NOT giving up her status as #1 wife! She is described as wife of Abram, and later on Abram is described as her husband. Sarai is definitely in the driver's seat here.

I'm not sure all that comes across in the English.

Oh well.

It probably sounds kind of lame here, but it makes me smile.

Words of wisdom from my professor: Understanding the Hebrew is easy. It's trying to translate it into English that is hard.