Alicia posted a link via The Curt Jester to this recent George Weigel column about hymns. Oddly enough, I just read the same column in the Southeast Nebraska Register last night.

My husband and I found it pretty funny. Especially since we have ended up attending three different local parishs on the last three Sundays (mostly due to timing -- like the Sunday we hurried to get the children ready for 9:30 Mass, but weren't able to walk out the door until 9:25, which caused us to go to the 10:00 Mass at a neighboring parish). By sheer coincidence (I think), we've managed to be subjected to "I am the Bread of Life" three weeks in a row.

Now, I haven't been exposed to many Catholic hymns yet -- they tend to do the same 25-30 in rotation at my parish, especially when the choir is off for the summer. But I have to tell you, this particular hymn has never set real well with me. Mr. Weigel suggests it is the idea of the collective voices of the parish speaking for Christ, as if we, together somehow represent Him. That could be it.

My husband the musician thinks it's just really flat piece. One tends to imagine that all hymns will reach soaring levels of praise, like the Alleluia Chorus or something, and this one doesn't really cut it.

Since we come from a charismatic background, "praise music" probably has a completely different meaning for us than it does for most Catholics. My earliest indoctrination to "Christian Music" was marked by a full band with electric guitars, bass and drums, and catchy little "worship choruses" that tended to make up for their lack of theology with memorability. I've heard accounts from people who literally felt "entranced" by the music, and I can see why. The same short, pop-song-like, chord progression and heavy beat drummed into your head 7 or 8 times in a row can do that to a person. In fact, worship choruses basically follow the same principles as the jingles you hear in TV commercials. "My bologna has a first name..." is so much like, "...and I have J-E-S-U-S here in my H-E-A-R-T..."

The oddest thing about charismatic worship is how carefully it is orchestrated to look spontaneous. My husband served on the worship team for a long time, 10 years easily, I suppose. And pretty much everything that looked like it "just happened by move of the Spirit" on Sunday was actually planned out in rehersal on Saturday. Songs were often chosen through a subjective judgement process that included ratings such as how loud the crowd sang along, how many people got up to dance...plus a few objective things like, can the drummer assigned to play this week handle 6/8 time? (When all your musicians are volunteers, you can't afford to be picky about training or talent levels).

Since becoming Catholic, I think my means of evaluation of hymns and worship songs has changed a lot. I've been more interested that the songs be theologically correct for years. Now I'm less concerned about music style and delivery than I used to be. I know it was really hard for my husband at the guitar Mass we went to last Sunday, in which the instruments were neither tuned nor played very well and the folks leading the hymns were singing flat. He just has a much more trained ear than I do, so that sort of thing is really distracting for him.

After leaving that Mass, my husband began considering what would make a guitar Mass good. (It was his second -- my first -- and he said neither one of the ones he attended were done well.) I imagine that by analyzing hymns and the liturgy itself, and then applying what he knows about guitar, he could probably come up with something quite fitting for Mass. But there is always the question as to whether anyone would be interested in such a thing. We don't have guitar Mass at our parish, but several of the "younger" parishes do. And I imagine some of the more traditionally inclined find the use of a guitar inappropriate no matter what. Whereas -- correct me if I'm wrong -- the Latin Mass afficianados don't use any music per se, but stick to chant exclusively.

I have mixed feelings about the concept of a guitar Mass. On the one hand, I believe the Mass is universal, which ought to mean (I think) that it can easily be used in any cultural frame of reference without harming the content. Which means that Asian cultures that use an entirely different musical scale as we do ought to be able to chant or sing in music that sounds beautiful to their ears, the same way we in Western cultures seek hymns that sound beautiful on our own musical scale. On the other hand, I believe that Mass is timeless, which means any musical style or arrangement of instruments or even the quality of hymn-writing must be completely irrelevant.

Your thoughts welcome on this -- send them to me at sparki777(at)yahoo(dot)com and I will post accordingly (with your permission, of course).

--Sparki

At last -- morning sickness has abated enough for me to get in on some of the food conversations that have been going on here in St. Blog's. I haven't been able to read Erik's Rants and Recipes for a couple months, and was forced to bow out of a discussion elsewhere when Erik started chatting about making sausage from scratch. But I digress...

Since I was feeling a lot better on Saturday morning and maple syrup sounded good, I decided to make pancakes for breakfast. This is not typical fare at our house, but hey, it was Saturday, so I figured why not. I sent Dh out for syrup and threw open the cupboards.

Well, the cupboards produced only a cup and a quarter of flour, so I went through a couple cookbooks to look for an alternative recipe. Most of my cookbooks are still packed up -- I thought we were moving this month & started packing in June, but now we are staying put & I haven't had the heart to unpack yet.

Anyway, my Martha Stewart book had a recipe for "Swedish Pancakes." Being of Norwegian heritage, I was taught throughout my childhood to shun anything Swedish, but I pushed those feelings aside when I saw the description, "...eggier, lighter and slightly sweeter than regular pancakes." The recipe called for 1 cup flour, 2 teaspoons baking powder, a little salt, 3 eggs, 1 cup milk, and 6 tablespoons melted butter.

That just didn't sit quite right with me. First of all, how could they be sweeter when there was no sugar, and my regular recipe (out of the Mayberry RFD cookbook) call for 2 tablespoons? Second of all, that's a LOT of butter. And third of all, I thought the batter would be way too thin with those proportions, and I wasn't sure I could get through THREE raw eggs -- two might be my limit.

So, I adjusted things a bit. I mean, it's just pancakes, right? If Martha's recipe works and my Mayberry recipe works, then something in between ought to work out just fine. So, I used all my flour, three tablespoons of baking powder (knowing mine was a little less than active), salt, a tablespoon of sugar, 3/4 cup of milk, two eggs, and only 3 tablespoons of melted butter. Then I threw in a dash of vanilla, because that's always good.

The batter was really runny. I mean, it was the consistency of whole milk, not even half-and-half. Martha's must be more like water! But I forged ahead, congratulating myself on having the foresight to trim back the milk, eggs and melted butter or I would have had a real mess on my hand. I decided there must have been a typo in Martha's book.

Well, the next step was to heat a "cast iron Swedish Pancake skillet." Hmmm...didn't even know those existed. I already had my griddle heating on the stove, and I didn't have any other option for the moment, so griddle it would have to be.

It turns out that a Swedish Pancake skillet actually has round indentations to enable the pancakes to hold their shape. (They must be more like crepes than anything.) Without the skillet, my Swedish Pancakes looked like...well, Sweden. Long, irregular shapes. The batter was so light and airy, tons of air bubbles came up, giving the tops a lacy appearance.

They looked odd but tasted just fine. Zooey ate about seven of them (they aren't terribly filling because they are so thin). Dh ate a few and shrugged. Edyn likes everything at this point, so she's no judge.

The pancake experiment will continue. Dh has requested "buttermilk pancakes" next time. If you have a good recipe for those, please send it to me at sparki777(at)yahoo(dot)com.

--Sparki

Yowza. The computer I usually use went haywire. But I'm back on line now. I don't like this particular monitor at all, but I guess I will have to deal with it. When you get free Internet access, you don't complain about the details.

So anyway. A funny thing happened shortly before Easter, shortly before we joined the Catholic Church. My husband said to me, "If we ever have another kid, we'll have to have a boy and name him John."

I looked at him like he was nuts. I mean, at the time, Baby E was only 9 months old. And I'm just getting a little old for all this baby birthing stuff. I mean, I'll be 39 soon. I'm pushing 40.

But, he explained, one of the names we gave our oldest is Zachary, and one of the names we gave the baby is Elisabeth, and that is just like John the Baptist's parents, Zachariah and Elizabeth. So if we had a boy and named him after John the Baptist, we'd have paid tribute to the whole family.

I ha-ha-ha-ed him away and put the whole thing out of my mind. There was enough going on back then. But we're NFP folks and have been for a long time, so there's always that "Hey, it could happen" attitude between us as it is.

So then, a couple weeks after Easter, I was waiting to ovulate. And waiting and waiting and waiting. And little E started to wean, which I found discouraging and stressful, because she was only 10 months old, and I figured we'd go at least a year. And then after a long time of waiting, I started dropping everything I tried to pick up, and my husband suggested that I should probably take a pregnancy test.

(Does anybody else out there start dropping stuff when she's pregnant? My mom did, too. Our joints just get so loose. And the premature arthritis in my hands makes me clumsy anyway.)

So, as I'm sure you already figured out, the test was postive. My husband grinned from ear to ear, "Who would have thought John the Baptist had such a sense of humor?" Obviously, John the Baptist decided this was a very good idea and prayed for a namesake. And God agreed. So we think we're having a boy and working on names with "John" as part of the mix.

All this goes to show you that the Saints really do hear us. So be careful what you say. Or throw caution to the wind. Whatever suits your fancy.

Anyway, I'm 16 weeks pregnant and doing much better now that the relentless morning sickness is beginning to abate. The baby's heartbeat tested fine yesterday, and I'm only the slightest bit anemic (due to being unable to keep any meat/poultry/dairy protein and only the tiniest bit of veggie protein down). My dr. suggested I try to eat lots of nachos since I can cover the four basic food groups fairly easily and I haven't had any trouble with refried beans. And hey, that actually sounds pretty good. Why is it I can keep a little salsa down but not a piece of my husband's perfectly grilled chicken? If you can't tell by that Rx, my dr. is something of a folksy, down-to-earth, homeopathic-minded physician. She's a year younger than me, Catholic and totally trusting of the way God designed women for childbirth, which are all reasons I love her to pieces.

So...there's one other thing I want to say. I have a list here of women out in St. Blog's whom I have been praying for, because I know you all want so badly to conceive. We went through two years of infertility ourselves before conceiving our son, so I know how you might be feeling right now about my news. I remember so many times feeling a mixture of happiness for the couple who was expecting and pain/sadness/confusion at the state of my own empty womb. I really wish there was something I could do to make it all better, but all I can do is pray for you, and please know that I do. Every day. And often much more than once a day. And I never fail to ask the Blessed Mother and St. Gerard to pray for you, too. I am sorry that you aren't currently sharing this experience with me, but I pray it will be soon. Soon!

--Sparki

I thought this piece about letting one's conscious be one's guide by Frederica Matthews-Greene over at Beliefnet was very good. Also explains a bit about what happened last night in the ECUSA vote.

We were in an Evangelical Anglican church for a few years before converting to Catholicism. One of the conservative branches of the American Anglican Alliance. I wonder if there really will be a schism in the alliance? In ECUSA itself?

--Sparki

I’ve been thinking all day about what I want to blog here, and wondering if I should because I know it will be somewhat controversial. And a new Catholic such as myself probably doesn’t have any business being controversial or trying to publicly make sense of these difficult issues. People much smarter and more well-versed in Vatican teaching could probably rip my thoughts to shreds in seconds.

But I’m going to forge ahead anyway, knowing that here in St. Blog’s parish, I’m still relatively anonymous. I’m the woman standing in the corner of the foyer/lobby/narthex/whatever-you-call-it-in-a-Catholic-church with a baby on one hip and a preschooler by the hand, whom most folks barely notice. And I kind of like it that way, so don’t go telling on me to Mark Shea or anything. Deal?

Okay, so about the Vatican statement on homosexual unions…

I know that we have some homosexual folks out there in St. Blog’s, either bloggers or commentators or just readers, and at least one of them has been hit by this like a ton of bricks. I’m sure there are people who disagree with the Vatican, and some who are downright angry about this. I know some other people have the attitude of "What did you expect?" or "Hey, the Vatican has spoken, so deal with it." And I’m not sure what to say to any of them. So I’m just going to ramble a bit.

It’s a curious thing to me that anybody should be surprised that the Church’s position on same-sex marriage would be that it’s simply not possible. I mean, that’s been the position of the Church all along, and the Bible clearly states an opposition to homosexual activity. I honestly don’t know how anyone would have come to the conclusion that homosexual unions are okay with God. And I’m not at all sheltered on the homosexual lifestyle.

Throughout my life, I’ve had friends, co-workers and neighbors who are gay. In my early twenties, I played on a softball team for which I was one of three heterosexual women – all the rest were lesbians. And we were even sponsored by a gay bar, which hosted us for a round of beer after every victory. We won a lot, so I was there a lot. For a while, I even rented a room from the team captain and her live-in lesbian lover, and they hosted lots of parties for their homosexual community, so I actually knew as many gay people as straight ones in that particular town.

At the time, I had few moral standards for myself, let alone anybody else. I didn’t see anything wrong with the homosexual lifestyle, and the word "sin" was not in my vocabulary, so I wouldn’t have passed judgement on them, one way or another. It was just how different people were, in my estimation.

Some time after that, I learned that God really is real, and I became a Christian. And I was obligated to alter my views on homosexuality, to keep them in accord with what the Bible says.

Now I hear of Catholic folks who seem to be surprised that the Vatican document said what it says. And some of them find themselves forced to choose between the Church and the life they are living.

This is no small thing. I mean, nobody is asking me to move out of my house and leave my lover (husband in my case) and enter a life of celibacy. Not being asked to do those things, I probably find it all too easy to say, "Well, it would be painful, but if this is what I am being asked to do, I must obey." To me, it would be the Church telling me to exert self-control in one particular area of my life. I would hope I would simply accept that burden, understanding that self-control is one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit, which must mean that God would provide the grace I need to fulfill His wishes.

On the other hand, it’s been my experience that heterosexuals and homosexuals do not define their sexuality the same way. Most heterosexuals I know look at their sexuality as just another part of who they are. Whereas every single homosexual I know looks at their sexuality as the defining statement of their existence. Right or wrong, these folks are looking at the Vatican document as saying, "You can’t be who you are."

Now, if you’re not gay, think about that for a minute. Think about how you would feel if the Vatican told you that you couldn’t be you any more. Like, maybe, change your name, your wardrobe, your occupation, your family ties, your social circles, the way you work, the way you relax, the way you do everything you do. That’s the level where some people are putting this document.

This makes it a hard teaching for the Catholic homosexual community. I imagine some will leave the Church over it, and that is a painful thing to consider. I hope we are all praying that this will not happen. But more than that, like our parish priest said on Sunday, we ought not reject our homosexual brothers and sisters -- ever. And I think we must seriously consider how we can help shoulder the burden a bit.

What I mean is, as a Christian community, we often try to help folks out who have heavy burdens. Around here, if some child has cancer, there are pancake or spaghetti feeds held to help raise money for the medical bills. If somebody is killed in a tragic accident, donations are taken to help pay the funeral expenses. If somebody is out of work, he or she can turn to Catholic Social Services for practical help. And even on a more personal level, if you hear of somebody whose marriage is in trouble, like my brother-in-law’s that I blogged about, you offer to pray. I know you do – I had a number of people e-mail me and tell me they were praying for this couple, whom they only know through my little blog, and who aren’t Catholic at all. And I've seen the requests for prayers on several other blogs answered enthusiastically, every time.

The burden Catholic homosexuals is equal to any of that. Regardless of how we heterosexuals feel, that’s how they feel, and that means you just can’t say, "Struggle? What struggle?" and leave them to work through it alone. Or at least, I don’t think we should.

So here’s the thing. I’m still a newcomer in our parish and I don’t happen to know any gay parishioners there. But I pray that if there is somebody I can encourage or help in some small way, God will feel free to use me for that purpose. And those of you out in St. Blog’s who are struggling with this issue and this document, please know that I am praying for you.

Well, then. Comments still not up (sorry), but you can write me at sparki777(at)yahoo(dot) com. I cleaned out my mailbox, so there should be room for your notes. Let me know if it’s okay to post your input here. Or not.

That’s all for now.

--Sparki

The birthday party was a success. At least I thought so. Sticker jousting was fun, but the kids only wanted to do it once each. They were more interested in swinging the sword at the dragon pinata, which eventually was reduced to shreds of tissue paper all over the house. But not without effort. I don't know why the instructions said to use a "plastic bat" to open the thing. It was made out of cardboard! Zooey's sword hacked off the wings and the paper "fire", plus put a good slit in the tissue covering, but our oldest nephew finally had to use a hammer to make a big enough hole that I could shake the candy out on the porch floor for the kids to gather. Zooey saved the head & I've threatened to mount it like a hunting trophy. I managed to find a giant box on Saturday, cut it into something of a castle, and spray paint it red in time for the party. I have giant tubes (what they roll carpet onto) to make into turrets, but that will have to wait for next weekend. The kids enjoyed playing in that. The cake turned out fine, but the center part was a little dense. I knew my baking powder was a little past its prime, but I didn't have time to run out for more & took a chance.

Zooey got lots of great presents, including a Lord of the Rings sword that sounds like metal clanging on metal when you tap it against anything. Or jerk it in the air. Or just lay it down on the floor of the car and drive over any imperfection in the road. The batteries wore out by 6 p.m. (party was at 2 p.m.!), but luckily, I had another set and loaded it up again. My husband thanked me wryly.

Zoo also got a set of three fabulous water guns, much to his and my husband's delight. (Sort of makes up for the fresh batteries I put into the sword, doesn't it, my love?). So, the last part of the party was spent in the back yard as the kids took turns spraying each other, the house, the car, the neighbor's rose bushes, etc. and trying to shoot walnuts off the tree.

Zooey was excited and fairly gracious, managing to thank everybody for their gifts. He was happy to give all his cousins and friends capes to wear and he passed out the goody boxes with glee. I'm hoping he'll grow up more interested in giving than getting, but for now, both are fun for him.

My brother-in-law and his wife both came to the party, and while it wasn't the time for serious chatting, I couldn't help trying to look for signs of hope in them. I thought the definitely had a "We're here together" vibe and sensed no animosity between them. That gives me hope that they are still on the path of togetherness and that whatever troubles they suffer are being appropriately addressed.

I know of no marriage that hasn't gone through a time of serious trials. Blissfully happy as I am with my husband, I can think of two occasions on which one or both of us was this close to walking out the door and maybe never coming back. The issues we faced during those times were very difficult and highly charged emotionally. I clearly remember thinking, "How will we ever get through this?" both times. But even when it looks like there is no way to make it work, seems like there always is. Sometimes, you have to work like the dickens just to even see one shred of a solution.

Again, I note the helpful Retrouvaille program. If you are troubled in your marriage, please, please give it a try.

--Sparki

If I could make a living at it, I'd be a professional birthday party planner for kids.

Seriously, I'm more excited about Zooey's fourth birthday party on Sunday than he is. And he's pretty darn excited.

His favorite theme for most of the spring and early summer for imaginative play was dragons, castles, swords and shields. I got him a prayer card depicting St. George slaying a green dragon, and he thinks that's just the best (although somehow he decided that "When St. Hubert was a little boy, he was St. George." Some sort of need to combine his favorite saint with the exciting picture on the prayer card.).

So, we are using that castles/dragon theme for his party. We filled the dragon pinata last night, and the kids will take turns wacking at it with a toy sword and shield. All the goody "bags" are little boxes with turrets on either side to look like castles -- I've got two done and they are looking pretty good. Five more to go. Inside, we're putting a ring lollypop, two large chocolate coins, a kazoo and a bag of mini Oreo cookies, at Zooey's request. Plus whatever candy each kid gathers from the pinata. I'm usually much more restrained with candy (I tend choose granola bars and fruit juice snacks), but this time I let Zooey have more of a say.

Instead of party hats, I'm making capes out of adult-size t-shirts for all the kids. It's easy -- you just cut off the front and sleeves with pinking shears, leaving the neck, shoulders and back intact. I'm sewing an ornate button on the front center of each neck hole to look like clasp. I've been to three thrift stores to find each kid's favorite color in a shirt that is still in good shape, but I think they will all be very pleased. Every kid needs a cape.

The cake will be a castle, too. I baked the turrets in empty soup cans last night. The center will be a standard 13x9, cut in half and stacked, with a round turret on either corner, each topped with an upside-down ice cream cone for the peaks. I was going to make a drawbridge out of sugar cookie dough, but it's not worth mixing up a whole batch, so I'm just going to use chocolate frosting to "draw" it on. Zooey wants the castle to be red, but I think I'm going to try to talk him into light brown (half chocolate, half vanilla mixed together) and then frost the turret roofs in red as a compromise. Red frosting just takes sooo much food-coloring paste, and I'm never able to get the nice cherry red I'm looking for (the Wilton set of colorings I have has a magenta color that you have to mix with a little blue and a little yellow to get a decent red).

We're also going to have a go at sticker jousting. We have two stick ponies, and I envision the kids standing at opposite ends of the house and running at each other astride the ponies, trying to put a sticker on each other's shirts. Zooey and I tried this out using his foam baseball bat (a Nerf-line one with a plastic handle) to hold the sticker out (sticky side out with just a bit turned in on either side to hold it to the bat) and it worked just fine. But I haven't been able to find another foam bat yet. I'm toying with the idea of using a pool noodle, cut in half, as the two jousting rods (jousting stick? jousting lance?). I'm also having trouble coming up with appropriate knight/castle/dragon stickers. They may be stuck with smiley faces or something like that.

Siiiiiigh. I still have quite a bit of work to do, but I am looking forward to it. I want my kids to have great memories of their birthday parties, and even though we're doing a lot, it hasn't cost us very much. About $35 so far, with just a few little things left to buy, like ingredients for punch and the foam bat if I can find it. It will be around $40-$45 in the end, which isn't bad at all for a kid's party with six children and ten adults invited.

--Sparki

With oral antihistimine (and prayer, too, probably), Zooey's swollen cheek is almost completely back to normal, and his eye is it's regular, beautiful shape again. There's still a little puffiness and discoloring, but we imagine he'll be his usual attractive self by his birthday party this Sunday. It looked so awful on Monday, we're all greatly relieved to see him return to normal.

Both my kids have beautiful eyes. Baby E has my husband's eyes -- large and round with thick, sooty lashes that curl just beautifully. Her eyes are still a striking blue, but we imagine that will change. Because in our family, we have hazel eyes and hazel can take a long time to develop. Zooey's were blue like that at a year and maybe even two, but they've muted back to a lovely blue-grey-green hazel that alters with the color of his shirt or surroundings. Kaleidoscope eyes. My husband's eyes are a different kind of hazel -- olivey green. So we'll see how the baby's eyes turn out in the next couple of years.

Well, I'm obviously dwelling too much on the mundane, so I'll sign off for now.

--Sparki

My son, who turns 4 tomorrow, turns out to have an allergy to mosquito bites. I've always put something on him to deter bites, but he's spent so much time playing in the sprinkler this hot summer, a few mosquitoes have managed to find him. He got bit on the cheek Sunday, and now he has a huge purple knot crowding his eye. He's now on oral antihistamine, topical cream and a pain reliever when he needs it. He's handling it fairly well, although he was pretty embarrased when his face swelled up that first day. Hopefully the swelling will go down enough by tomorrow that we can take our planned trip to the zoo without fear of him being too ashamed to leave the car. Prayers welcome, as always. :-)

--Sparki

My apologies for the long silence. Been too caught up in my own thoughts, lately, I suppose.

Many thanks to all you kind readers who wrote to offer prayers & encouragement for my brother-in-law's marriage. I've had no updates, so as far as I know nothing has changed yet.

More than one person suggested Retrouvaille a Catholic ministry program designed to help married partners get back on track. I went to the web site and looked around, and the program does look very good. From the testimonials I've read, it seems well worth the time and effort to put things right in a marriage. Please, if any of you are in a marriage that seems to be not what it should be, go look at the web site. I'm sure these folks can help you.

At this point, I'm not at liberty to suggest it to my brother-in-law. I saw him yesterday for a few minutes, and he was particularly cranky so I thought the timing wouldn't be good. Plus he's pretty anti-Catholic, so even though neither partner has to be Catholic to participate in Retrouvaille, I don't think he would have been particularly receptive yesterday.

I have been really troubled by this, and often find myself at a loss for what to pray. Fortunately, there is recourse for Catholics in forms Protestants don't avail themselves to: we have written prayers to look up and make our own, and we can also simply ask a Saint to pray for the situation, trusting them to know exactly how to pray. So I have been trying to remember to do that. Old Protestant habits die hard, though, and I seem to forget that I have these options.

I hope to blog again very soon this week.

--Sparki

I received some troubling news over the weekend. My husband's brother's marriage is in one of those very difficult stages, and his wife has apparently asked for a seperation. My brother-in-law says they are in counselling and he thinks everything will work out, and I dearly hope and pray he's right! I really like his wife a lot, and I think the world of both of them. But they are coming off a really difficult year -- my brother-in-law was unemployed for most of it (though he has a great job now), and they had money trouble, her job was awful, they had a very high-strung and demanding 2-yr-old (who is now only a little mellower at 3), and some family issues on her side. Plus, I know her parents were against the marriage 6 years ago because they thought their daughter was too young and they didn't want her to drop out of college, which she chose to do in order to support my brother-in-law while he finished his degree. And, she'd planned on being a stay-at-home mother, so investing any further in her college education seemed pointless at the time. Now her mother is doing the, "I told you so, I knew you'd regret this" routine, which isn't helping matters at all.

So, I hope any of you reading my blog today will say a special prayer for my brother-in-law, his wife, his daughter and his marriage. I went here to look up patron saints for unhappy marriages and was surprised the list is so long. There must be a lot of unhappy marriages out there to warrant so many patrons. But I guess the more saintly intercession, the better -- right?

Everytime something like this hits so close to home, I look at my husband and thank God I am blessed with such a happy and solid marriage, and such a wonderful husband. I can't imagine being remotely happy without my husband, or being even a tiny bit happier with another man than I am with him. I wish everybody could feel the same way about their marriage as I do.

--Sparki

Pardon me while I rant. And feel free to rant along with me.

I've long been a fan of Real Simple magazine and frequently purchased newsstand copies that covered my personal areas of interest. But no more.

Real Simple recently ran an article called "20 Rules to Break" which listed breastfeeding as a waste of time. They actually interviewed some ignorant male doctor who said there were no real benefits to breastfeeding. I don't know what rock this joker has been living under but here's a quick list off the top of my head:

1. Lifelong health benefits for babies, including lower instance of heart disease and weight problems, fewer allergies, etc.

2. The act of breastfeeding releases a hormone in moms that helps them relax. And what mom of a newborn doesn't need more of that?

3. The baby gets the benefit of mom's antibodies, which means baby is sick a lot less often in the early days (proven that with both my kids).

4. Women who breastfeed even one baby have a lower occurance of breast cancer.

5. Mother-baby bonding at its simplest.

6. The milk is always there, always the perfect nutrition and always at the perfect temperature.

7. Some studies indicate breastfed babies have higher IQs, but I'm not so sure about that. None of my siblings nor I were breastfed, and my brother and younger sister are both certifiable geniuses with IQs above 175. So it could be that smarter people choose to breastfeed, and their kids are inheriting their brains genetically. (Still wondering how I got short-changed in the smarts department, though!)

8. Breastfeeding costs next to nothing (nursing bra, nursing pads), but formula is expensive.

9. Baby is exposed to flavors of many different foods, which means they adapt to table food more readily when the time comes.

10. Poop from babies who are exclusively breastfed hardly stinks at all.

11. In the middle of the night, mom can feed hungry newborn simply by lifting her t-shirt or opening her nightgown, before either one of them is 100% awake, which makes for more peaceful nights. As opposed to what formula-feeding parents must go through in gathering up hungry baby, stumbling into the kitchen to find pre-made bottle, heating said bottle, calming down now really, really hungry baby enough to eat, and finally getting the now wide-awake baby back to sleep before going back to bed.

There are more benefits, too. This is just all I can think of. Read the American Acadamy of Pediatrics statement about the necessity of breastfeeding here.

Now, I should say I know from personal experience that breastfeeding isn't always easy to learn. Nobody in memory of my family had ever nursed a baby. Nobody had in my husband's family, either. Or if they did, they didn't offer any advice. My mom had been told her milk was "too thin." This was back in the late 1950s and early 1960s, when doctors didn't know what "colostrum" was -- that's the early milk women produce during pregnancy. The regular milk comes 24-72 hours after birth, usually. Sometimes later. Anyway, some ignorant doctor held a sample of my mom's colostrum up to the light and pronounced it inadequate. So she fed us a dasterdly mixture of evaporated milk, Kayro corn syrup and vitamin drops. Far inferior nutritionally, but the best they had.

In the 1980s, my elder sister had her babies and tried to breastfeed the first two, but she had chronically inverted nipples. It was painful and frustrating, and the medical staff at her hospital told her she'd never overcome it, so she quit. She didn't even bother trying with her third.

When I had my son in 1999, I knew I also had inverted nipples, so I took some classes and read every book I could find. I figured I'd inherited those nipples, and since formula has only been around for less than 100 years, some female ancestors of mine had to have conquered inverted nipples or the genetic strain of nipple inversion would have died out because the babies would have starved to death.

Nursing my son proved to be difficult and frustrating. La Leche League told me my nipples ought to draw out by 2 weeks, but they didn't. It took four weeks on one side and six on the other. And I was nursing my son every 90 minutes, round the clock (hungry little guy!), so it's not like I didn't work at it. I also used a breast pump and did everything else LLL and the excellent lactation consultants at my hospital suggested.

I'm a stubborn person, so once I decided it was possible, I wasn't going to give up. And my husband -- who was dragged to a breastfeeding class against his will -- was 100% supportive and encouraging. He watched me cry a lot, and he watched our son cry a lot, and he never once said "Give up."

After 4 weeks, breastfeeding was a lot easier. After 6 weeks, it was a cinch. Now, a lot of people would say, "Six weeks is a long time," and in a way, it is. But when you look at the benefits for both me and my son, which really do last a lifetime, 6 weeks is nothing.

All this to say, breastfeeding was a lost art in this country for a long time. Partially due to the ignorance of doctors who told women like my mom that their milk was inadequate. And there are lots of women out there like my sister who could have overcome serious problems with proper help, but they didn't have it. So my opinion is, we need more education and more support for women, so they'll at least try breastfeeding. Women who have challenges like I did need even more help.

Every little bit of breastmilk you get into your baby's mouth is worth it, even if you have to supplement, even if you end up giving up.

Meanwhile, ridiculous articles like the one in Real Simple are doing a disservice to mothers who are on the fence about breastfeeding, or who are facing challenges like I did. And that idiot of a doctor they interviewed needs to go back to medical school.

Here is a website where folks can write to Real Simple or the doctor in question and voice their complaints. If you feel the same way I do, I hope you will write these people a letter. Maybe with enough people telling them they blew it, they will correct their mistake and print a retraction.

--Sparki

More on the Confession Issue

Davey's Mommy was kind enough to write and remind me about scrupulous tendancies. I do tend toward this myself, but in this particular circumstance, I was pretty sure I wasn't being overly scrupulous.

Without going into great detail, I was anticipating a certain circumstance would arise in my life. And in preparing to face it, I determined that I would really like to do X, but X would be the wrong response (a venial sin, based on the way my "Little Catechism of Confession" explains the 10 commandments in terms of mortal vs. venial sins), and I was certain Y would be a much better choice.

The circumstance did occur, several times in fact. And each time, though I had prepared myself to do Y, I chickened out and took the X route, basically to make things easier on myself. So, since I believed the action was a venial sin, since I had weighed my options ahead of time and understood them in terms of right and wrong, since I chose to do X with the sole motive of my own comfort, and since the situation had occurred more than once with no difference in my response, I thought it was pretty clear it was a confession-worthy sin.

Of course, I explained all this to Fr. during confession, but what he said was that because I should not have been put in that circumstance by the action of others, my choice was a means of "deflecting" the effects of their faults, and that's why I wasn't sinning in my choice to do X.

Davey's Mommy continued, "If you have no reason to believe the priest is not in line with the Church, I guess it's recommended to let his answer be final partly to avoid scrupulosity and the "rooted attachment to [your] own opinion" which the Catholic Encyclopedia (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/13640a.htm) describes as a
characteristic of scrupulosity but which obviously is also the source of a lot of sins
and wanderings from the Church."

That's very helpful, thank you. I have absolutely no reason to believe the priest is not in line with the Church. Our Diocese is tends toward the Orthodox (from what I gather -- still new to all this of course). So unless anybody has more input for me here, I will, for now at least, let the priest's word stand on this.

Kathy the Carmelitehas also offered her insight soon, so I am anxiously awaiting her thoughts & will post them here. (C'mon, now, Kathy -- you promised!)

I also want to add that one of the things I dreaded most about becoming Catholic (not that it was a hinderance to my conversion), was the idea that Catholics are very strict about sin. Having come from a fundamentalist Protestant background, I could only imagine how devastatingly difficult it would be for me to function as a Catholic and anticipated semi-weekly confessions just to keep track. Instead, I have found the Church to be overwhelmingly merciful in so many ways. All my penances so far except for the first have only required prayer, which doesn't seem like much of a penance for me, and the first required the addition of an action that I considered both easy and welcome. In fact, during my confession last week, I was so distraught about this sin issue and the circumstance I had faced, that Fr. actually told me that he would say a Rosary special for me about this, and I came away feeling like he was determined to do the bulk of my penance for me. Is that mercy or what?

I am continually flabbergasted at how loving and supportive our parish priests are. I mean, I guess you are supposed to expect such a thing, but these men appear to be tireless servants and so long-suffering in the confessional. Golly, am I blessed or what?!?!?

Please keep sending your thoughts to me at sparki777(at)yahoo(dot)com. And thanks for reading.

--Sparki