plus de Tempus Fugit

Time does fly. Check out these photos of two of my kids.

This is Christian and Francesca, aged 4 and 2 or so. Taken at my parents' house, Janet & I call this picture "Barflies" because it reminds us of an old married couple having yet another round at the pub. We have laughed about this pic for more than 15 years.


The next picture I stole from my daughter's Facebook today. It's France and Christian down at the College of Charleston celebrating her 18th birthday. Or studying. Or something.

In some ways time flies; in other ways, things don't change all that much, do they?

Metamorphosis

In response to the prior post about my rapidly emptying nest, a friend sent me a link to this article Michael Coren: Battling the barren concerning the decision to have or not to have children, and its consequences for the would-be parent in terms of life experience.

Coren's article reminded me of something I'd written years ago along similar lines. Here it is in edited form:

"The recent discussion about the West's segregation of generations from each other prompts me to make a similar observation regarding those who are, as they describe themselves, "childfree": a willfully childless person is selfishly segregating parts of himself from the rest of himself, with similarly poisonous results.

A married couple that decides to not have kids is simply opting for a stunted existence both as individuals and as a couple. In my own life as a father to 5 children, I have likened the transformation of myself from husband to husband/father to that of a larva becoming a butterfly. In other words, the transition from single man to husband was not transformational, having that first child was. And the change was too great to have imagined it before the change was made.

I had felt God as a modest presence in my life prior to parenthood, especially when He gave me my wife, whom I am fabulously undeserving of. In fact marrying my wife was such evidence of divine intervention that she and I from the get-go felt that the marriage involved three people: her, me, and God. But while I was grateful to God for this, I wasn't very much changed by it. That image of a threesome left little question, though, that we'd have children as they came. Having our mutual love continue God's creation by bringing children into the world brought about a complete (but imperfect) change in me. I could not have imagined before parenthood what effect it would have, any more than a larva can imagine life as a butterfly, even if there are plenty of butterflies to observe. How could a butterfly explain to a larva why it should metamorphose, when it's perfectly content to be a larva?

So I tend to see the problem of willful childlessness in terms of what people can imagine. Our image of marriage included God as an active participant, and that let us imagine ourselves as agents of His creation. This was enough to proceed to have kids, whose presence in our lives wrought such profound changes in my concept of self. In other words, my image of parenthood before we had actual kids turns out in retrospect to have been very puny, but it was the best I could do. However, it was big enough to get me to the next step, the step that these childless couples refuse to take. Because they don't imagine marriage as something other than a kind of cozy, shared selfishness, they remain larva.

For all the objections to raising children, such as:
I don't like children;
I can't afford children;
I don't want to give up my career/ interests/ freedom/ options;
I don't want to take a chance that the baby'll be deformed;
I don't think I'm cut out to be a parent;
I offer some responses based on my experience of having children:
Raising children will transform you for the better;
Raising children will turn you into a parent;
Raising children will set you free;
Raising children will elevate your worldview;
Raising children makes you more alive.
Raising children makes you more human.

Unfortunately, Western culture pushes a stunted image of life: simply a chance to consume as much as possible for as long as possible. As Viv Savage said in Spinal Tap, "Have a good time...all the time. That's my philosophy..." And if that is your image of life, then it crabs your image of yourself as a spouse, your image of yourself as a parent, and your image of yourself as a chunk of God.

But I'm optimistic (of course I am, I have kids). My wife and I make it clear to our kids why children are such blessings to parents, and I do the same in 6th grade Sunday School. The kids are curious and interested to learn about God, marriage, love, children and life. They want to hear that stuff has its uses, but is not important. They are ready to imagine that life can be much more the modern world says it is.

But first they have to hear it, explicitly.

Last of the Mohicans

Today we took two of our children to college and I'm feeling....nonplussed. We have 5 kids: Jacob (33), Michael (21), Christian (20), Francesca (18), and Alexandra (17). Jacob is married, has a 2-year old son, Jacob Jr., whom we care for a few afternoons a week. Michael is on his own, also lives in town. Last year Christian was at school, and the daughters lived with us. Even though we were down to the two girls, they kept the household lively. Parents will know what I mean: a household with children is uniquely full of life, and one gets accustomed to their vitality and energy....and wants to have it around pretty much all the time!

We have an offbeat family: I have one stepson, Jacob (my wife's prior marriage was annulled); two adopted children, Michael & Sandy; and two birth kids, Christian & France. They all seem the same as far as being our kids. Of course, I knew the two 'birthies' from conception. They're the only ones whose whole lives I witnessed: photos on my wall from ultrasound to graduation. As of today there's a practical end to both of these people residing in my house in any permanent sense; they join their two older brothers.

So these two are effectively out of the nest, and we are living with our youngest child, Alexandra. She and her sister were inseparable, now....? So change comes to Sandy after a lifetime of sharing everything with France, happily together every day.

I'm not sad that my kids are all growing up and leaving the nest; but I do feel, well, less than happy? If I define my adulthood as starting when I got married, then adulthood has been inseparable from childrearing. When Sandy leaves that'll be the end of decades of life as a 'houseparent' (in this case meaning a parent with live-in dependents), which is the only way of being married my wife & I have experienced. She's my best friend, we'll still get on like gangbusters when it's just the two of us. But being a houseparent has been such an integral part of our lives, I do wonder if something else will fill in that space. Now that I'm experienced at parenting, I'm running out of kids to parent. Last year for about a week we flirted with adopting some more kids...decided we were too old (both in our 50s now). Tempus sho' do Fugit. Maybe the houseparent phase is drawing to a natural close, and that pitcher will just be empty, but unexpected, new pitchers will need to be filled. Sounds good anyway. In the meantime, the kids, who have been like oxygen, are running out.

Who doesn't love this from Psalm 128:

Thy wife shall be as a fruitful vine by the sides of thine house: thy children like olive plants round about thy table.

That verse has lived in my house: how many thousand laughing meals did we have at our dining room table, and I'd see my fruitful wife at the other end, between us our children shooting up, and God just bursting like the sun out of everyone? And I'd think over and over: I'm just like the guy in the Psalm. And now: the two of us and our last daughter, soon to be gone. Per Psalm 127, a quiver full of kids is good, and we're down to our last arrow.

Not much to laugh about today. But plenty to be grateful for. And God flows out of the grandson at dinner as surely as He has from our children.

And there's this: having children liberated me (more or less) from being a slave to myself (I'm sure I'm not unique in this, I just don't presume to speak for others). How surprising it was to feel more free because of parental responsibilities. Learning to be other-directed without even having to think about it. Who would I be without the lessons learned through my kids? And for all these years I never had to wonder: what are doing with your life? Why, I'm raising kids! I'm making a big contribution! Once my kids are all autonomous, what answer will I give?

As Pee Wee Herman once said, I don't know!

I'm still nonplussed.

Ignore the Endless Hours

I like sad songs better than happy songs. Not that the sad ones are more pleasant; or pleasant at all, for that matter. But I remember the sad ones, and take their lessons to heart. Even when I was a kid, I'd be drawn to sad songs I wasn't old enough to fully appreciate. As time passed I built up a modest library in my head of sad lyrics, and they functioned as little cautionary tales about Romance. Sad songs forewarned me of missteps in life and love.

Speaking of sad songs, I read something striking today in church. Our parish provides Bibles in the pews, so it's easy to read from one before Mass starts.

From Ecclesiastes:
Sorrow is better than laughter, for by sadness of countenance the heart is made glad.
The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning;But the heart of fools is in the house of mirth.
It is better for a man to hear the rebuke of the wise than to hear the song of fools.

Written about 300 BC, this passage reminded me of the following lyrics, recorded by Frank Sinatra in 1969:
Pretend there is no silence, alone in your apartment
Don't notice things that once were hers
Ignore the endless hours
Don't chase the dream that your hearts were after
Children's laughter
Somehow believe in living, forget about the giving
Just tell your life it must go on
Run from yourself until you can't be found
But don't remember, refuse to remember
Forget to remember love

The "rebuke of the wise" is still sung 2300 years later.



*Speaking of cautionary tales, the image is of Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler.

Repetition & Repetition

I just learned something new that confirms my prejudices; therefore I am happy.

At Joe Paprocki's blog a post on the value of repetition in catechesis referred to this document: Four Hallmarks of Jesuit Pedagogy: Prelection, Reflection, Active Learning, Repetition. The word 'Repetition' caught my attention. Because I was educated mostly in Catholic schools K-12, I was required to repeat many, many things, and retained much of what I repeated (thank ya, Jesus for nuns; they beat me less often than I deserved).

By the way, the importance of repetition is also repeated at Brain Rules, a useful teacher's resource:

Rule #5: Repeat to remember.
Rule #6: Remember to repeat.

And one more remark regarding repetition: "catechize" comes from the Greek word catechein, to re-sound, and is related to "echo," itself a re-sounding. Thus the idea of repetition is implied by catechesis. One definition for catechize is 'to teach by means of questions and answers,' or as I would say, having a dialogue with the students that is managed and directed by the teacher to specific ends. And remember, before the printing press neither books nor literacy were widespread. Thus for most of human history, catechesis (κατήχηση) has been the norm.

I was catechized through 6th grade with the Baltimore Catechism (κατηχισμός). It's page after page of questions and answers which were read & recited aloud during class. The first couplet of hundreds to follow was: Who made us? God made us. Now, saying I learned the Catechism through repetition does not mean this:

Who made us? God made us.
Who made us? God made us.
Who made us? God made us, etc., ad nauseam.

That's not repetition, that's boredom. This is repetition:

Read from your books please: who made us? God made us.
Put down your books. Maureen, who made you? God made me, Sister Alphonsus.
David, who made you? God made me, Sister.Maria, who else did God make? God made me. Yes, but besides you? Umm, God made my parents? Yes, God made your parents.Mike, who besides your parents did God make? My brothers and sister!
Yes, God made our families. Jimmy, who else? My friends! Yes.
Christian, who else? Sister, God made everybody! Yes, little pagan (true nickname), God made everybody.
Mark, besides people what did God make? My dog!
Yes, Joan? Sister, did God make the devil? Joan, that's a good question. Yes. But God made him an angel, the devil became bad on his own. We'll learn about that later.
Someone else, what did God make? My house! And....Trees! And.... The Moon! And...Everything!
Yes, God made (Sister gestures with her arms to include the whole class)....everything! Yes!
Tell me again class, who made us? God made us!
Yes, God made all of us. Good children.

Repetition is not boring. Repetition is exciting. Repetition builds momentum. It goes up and down; it goes sideways. It widens and narrows, generalizing and specifying. It bends without breaking. It's ancient and fresh. Repetition teaches and learns.

The Who made us/God made us example, while simple, illustrates specific teaching tactics that are always useful. The teacher:

1. Asks questions constantly; maintains a rhythm of Q&A.
2. Asks individual students if hands aren't going up.
3. Adjusts questions to steer the discussion, usually forward, but sideways or back is fine as appropriate.
4. Answers off-topic questions briefly & returns to topic with a question.
5. Builds on answers by affirming, repeating, restating, expanding, or refining them.
6. Uses answers as the jumping-off point for the next question.
8. Lets momentum carry the class when possible: and...and...and...?
7. Maintains a repetition of sound, e.g.: God made...God made...God made.
9. Repeats the basic question to conclude the discussion.
10. Maintains a rhythm of affection and approval through a flow of small, earned affirmatives: yes...yes...good...yes...good children.

But this isn't the limit of repetition. Who made us/God made us shows repetition used for a single topic in one class meeting. But it also works across classes, i.e, in one class I may repeat a question in different ways 5 times. But I may also ask that question once per class for the next five classes. Or I may repeat a question that generates a different answer each time, such as 'who's your favorite saint?' or 'what did you give up for Lent?' Or I may ask different questions that mostly repeat one answer, such as:

Who is Mr. Slingshot? David!
What did Mr. Slingshot do? Kill Goliath!
Who sang for King Saul? David!
Who wrote Psalms? David! Yes, King David.
Who had an affair with Bathsheba? King David!
And how about Bathsheba's husband? David got him killed!Who did David confess those sins to? Nobody remembers? Nathan!
Who was David's famous son? Solomon!Who was Solomon's mom? Y'all forgot? Bath... Bathsheba! Yes!
So who was her husband? King David!

Repetition.

It's surprising, but until yesterday I hadn't realized just how much I was catechizing the way I myself had been catechized so many decades ago.

Thank you, Sr. Celine.

Thank you, Sr. Alphonsus.

Thank you, Sr. Helena.

Thank you, Sr. Mary James.

They loved me like a son; my debt is great.

Blood & Water

Recent posts here Crossed The Tiber and here Path Of The Weis prompted me to post this outline I use to give my 6th graders a quick overview of Baptism. I don't read it verbatim, but rather act it out (the Passover, Levitical sacrifice, and Naaman are great for this) and ask lots of questions, as is typical of most of my lessons. Like most of these lessons, it depends on the kids already knowing some stories, in this case including Abraham & Isaac, and the Passover. To any catechists out there, I'll mention that I have given up on trying to flip through my Bible quickly enough to maintain teaching momentum. I'll use the Bible for extended readings such as Passover or Creation, but if I have numerous quotes all over the place as in this post, I cut and paste them all into the lesson plan.

At the first Passover, each Israelite family sprinkled the blood of a sacrificed lamb on its doorposts to spare its firstborn:

Exodus 12:21+ Moses called all the elders of Israel and said to them, "Go and procure lambs for your families, and slaughter them as Passover victims. Then take a bunch of hyssop, and dipping it in the blood that is in the basin, sprinkle the lintel and the two doorposts with this blood. But none of you shall go outdoors until morning. For the LORD will go by, striking down the Egyptians. Seeing the blood on the lintel and the two doorposts, the LORD will pass over that door and not let the destroyer come into your houses to strike you down. You shall observe this as a perpetual ordinance for yourselves and your descendants.

Ritual sprinkling of blood on the faithful confirms their inclusion in the Passover Covenant:
Exodus 24:4+

And Moses....rose up early in the morning, and built an altar.....and sacrificed peace offerings of oxen unto the LORD. And Moses took half of the blood, and put it in basins; and half of the blood he sprinkled on the altar. And Moses took the blood, and sprinkled it on the people, and said, Behold the blood of the covenant, which the LORD hath made with you......

Leviticus 8:30 And Moses took some of the anointing oil and the blood which was upon the altar, and sprinkled it upon Aaron, and upon his garments, and upon his sons, and upon his sons' garments with him; and sanctified Aaron, and his garments, and his sons, and his sons' garments with him.

Blood and water together are sprinkled as a part of a ritual cleansing process:

Leviticus 14:2+ This shall be the law of the leper in the day of his cleansing ...the priest [will take] two birds alive and clean, and cedar wood, and scarlet, and hyssop. And the priest shall command that one of the birds be killed in an earthen vessel over running water. As for the living bird, he shall take it, and the cedar wood, and the scarlet, and the hyssop, and shall dip them and the living bird in the blood of the bird that was killed over the running water. And he shall sprinkle upon him that is to be cleansed from the leprosy seven times, and shall pronounce him clean, and shall let the living bird loose into the open field.

Purification of the unclean requires the sprinkling of water made holy by the addition of the ashes of a sacrificial victim:

Numbers 19: 17-18 And for an unclean person they shall take of the ashes of the burnt heifer of purification for sin, and living (i.e. running) water shall be put in a vessel: And a clean person shall take hyssop, and dip it in the water, and sprinkle it upon the tent, and upon all the vessels, and upon the persons that were there, and upon him that touched a bone, or one slain, or one dead, or a grave.

Washing in water effects miraculous physical healing:

2 Kings 5: Now Naaman, captain of the host of the king of Syria, was...a mighty man in valor, but he was a leper. So Naaman came with his horses and with his chariot, and stood at the door of the house of Elisha. And Elisha sent a messenger unto him, saying, Go and wash in Jordan seven times.....and you will be clean.....Then went he down, and dipped (baptized in Greek) himself seven times in Jordan, according to the saying of the man of God: and his flesh came again like the flesh of a little child, and he was clean.

Ezekiel prophesied that sprinkled water would effect spiritual cleansing:

Ezekiel 36:24+ For I will take you from among the heathen, and gather you out of all countries, and will bring you into your own land. Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you. A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh.

John the Baptist's ministry included a symbolic water baptism of repentance:

Matthew 3:4+ ...Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region about the Jordan were going out to him, and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. "I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire...And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water: and the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him. (note that as in Numbers, the living water was made holy by the immersion of a sacrificial victim's ashes, as the water of Baptism was made holy by the immersion of Jesus, the perfect victim, into it.)

Blood and water together flowed out of Jesus' crucified body:

John 19:31+ Since it was the day of Preparation, and so that the bodies would not remain on the cross on the Sabbath (for that Sabbath was a high day), the Jews asked Pilate that their legs might be broken and that they might be taken away. So the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first, and of the other who had been crucified with him. But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs. But one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once there came out blood and water.

The water and Spirit, present when John baptized Jesus, are joined to the blood of Jesus, the sacrificial Lamb of the New Covenant:

1 John 5:6+ This is he who came by water and blood: Jesus Christ; not by the water only but by the water and the blood. And the Spirit is the one who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth. For there are three that testify: the Spirit and the water and the blood; and these three are of one accord.
Thus Trinitarian water Baptism includes the blood of Jesus' sacrifice. This enables us to be sprinkled in the sacrificial blood of the New Covenant, just as the Israelites were sprinkled with sacrificial blood of the Old Covenant. Catholics will recognize a parallel during the Rite of Blessing and Sprinkling Holy Water, in which holy water is sprinkled upon the entire congregation.

Christian Baptism for forgiveness of sins is likened to death and rebirth through Jesus' resurrection:

Colossians 2:12 having been buried with [Jesus] in baptism...you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead.

Revelation 7:13+ "And one of the ancients answered, and said to me: These that are clothed in white robes, who are they? and whence came they? 14 And I said to him: My Lord, thou knowest. And he said to me: These are they who are come out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and have made them white in the blood of the Lamb." That is, through water baptism the saved were washed in the blood of the sacrificial victim.

Christian Baptism for forgiveness of sin recalls the Old Covenant sprinkling of blood and sprinkling of water; Ezekiel's prophecy of sprinkling water for spiritual cleansing; immersion in water for miraculous healing; the blood and water of Jesus' sacrifice; and immersion in water symbolizing death by drowning, then rebirth. Baptism by immersion emphasizes some, but not all of these aspects.

The Didache, (Greek, "teaching") one of the oldest Christian documents, was written around 80 A.D, as were some books in the New Testament. It was intended for the instruction of converts to Christianity. It shows that Baptism by either immersion or pouring was considered valid by the first Christians.
Didache, part 2: "Concerning baptism, baptize in this manner: Having said all these things beforehand, baptize in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit in living water [that is, in running water, as in a river]. If there is no living water, baptize in other water; and, if you are not able to use cold water, use warm. If you have neither, pour water three times upon the head in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit."

Christian denominations which only immerse will necessarily have a different understanding of these passages. Catholics believe the Church's understanding is authoritative.

Naked Coda

William Blake Gets It

In my prior post on marriage and creation, I noted that this last line of Genesis 2 is not discussed in my 6th grade class: 'And the man and his wife were both naked, and were not ashamed.' But I want to comment on its importance, as I used to when teaching adults the same material.

As we know, this verse closes the Creation story, which ascends from lesser creation (light, earth, plants) to the highest: men, women, and their oneness in marriage. Chapter 3 starts right off with the Fall, so the last words of Chapter 2 are as good as it gets in Paradise.

The Fall, of course, made a mess of all Creation: we endure sin, killing, tornadoes, death, disease, misery of every stripe. Still, within this broken world, a man and his wife can both be naked, and not be ashamed. This last-described characteristic of life in sinless Eden persists beyond Eden into our world of sin. And for me this is a big, big deal. Obviously in Eden, Adam and Eve were sinless in every way. But Genesis specifically mentions just this one particular way that they were sinless, i.e., 'not ashamed.'

Through this verse I imagine marriage as an 'Eden bubble' where there is still a real link to the prior state we miss, and to which we hope to return. A real link, not symbolic. That's why, ummm, marital relations are so otherworldly, transcendent: it's how humans maintain a physical continuity with our ancient sinless existence. In a world separated from, and driven out of Paradise, this one thing isn't. And by no accident, it's the thing that continues the creation that started there.

It's too bad I haven't figured out a way to say this to the kids.


Coda: (music) A passage which brings a movement or piece to a conclusion through prolongation.