Thursday, April 30, 2015

England Anthology: London, the Tower and Ravens


I went to England this month, and now I am back. I didn't tell you about it beforehand, my readers, because I didn't trust you not to blab it to the world! No, no...that's just my little joke. Most of you are family and friends. It's the five or six of you whom I don't know personally who worry me!

My luck in finally seeing a country whose literary masters I have read all of my life is still something I can't quite believe. I am so very grateful to my husband for agreeing to the expense of such a trip and for taking time off work to mind our babies. When I recall the hospitality and generosity of my brother Nate and his wife Natalie, who live just outside London, I am amazed, appreciative and a bit convicted when I compare my own hosting skills or lack thereof. And I am very glad that Holly, my good and artistic friend, journeyed with me - having the same appreciation for Austen, the Brontes, Gaskill, and Dickens - and that she compelled me to see more than I would have done without her.

Still, the day I arrived in England, I missed my family terribly. The miles between us were multiplied by my anxiety in not being able to contact them via phone at all. I had the ungrateful thought that such a trip, such a distance away from my husband and kids, was not worth it, could not compensate for the fear of such a wide separation.

And now? Now I miss England. I miss my brother and sister-in-law and their vivacious little girl, Nina, who will so quickly forget me and who has yet to meet my own children. Though I don't wish to be apart from my family again, my head is also full of enticing memories of London, Bath, Dover and a little town called Devizes (the latter of which I mispronounced the whole time I was there). It was natural that last Friday, on my first day home in sunny Arizona, it uncharacteristically rained in spurts and was overcast, and I and the weather shared the same mood as I imagined that I had brought a bit of jolly old England with me on grey skies.

Ironic then that we had not one bit of rain on our trip in the UK. Holly and I joked we took Arizona with us, for the skies were blue and mostly clear instead of the rain and persistent clouds we had expected.


And so it was warm on our second day in the UK, the day Holly and I went into London and discovered that what my brother said was undeniably true: you cannot visit London and not see the Tower of London. It is obligatory. If you skip it, well, then off with your foolish head. The atmosphere of that place, the weight of its history (almost too much to bear for us young Americans), and the macabre details of its public executions is well worth your time. The Yeoman Warders, or beefeaters, who give the tours are knowledgeable fellows and much more than charming, witty Englishmen stuffed into old-fashioned garb. They actually live at the tower and serve the government as well as tourists; in fact, they can only get the job at the Tower after honorably serving 22 years in Her Majesty's army. Plus, they will cordially let you take a picture with them, even if you look ridiiculous wearing your backpack purse in front of you to fend off the dreaded pickpockets you read about in Oliver Twist.


It was our humorous Beefeater/guide who told us of the ravens at the tower and the legend pertaining to them that says six ravens must always be present there and that if the ravens were ever to abandon the tower, England will fall. How very Edgar Allen Poe of them! The Yeoman Warder then asked us tourists, "Do you think we believe in such superstition?" Being a good American, I shook my head. But that was the wrong answer, for the Warder quipped that the tower doesn't just keep six ravens, but seven for good measure.

I do wish they had asked for popular opinion on the subject or at least my opinion, for I could have easily told them, based on my observations after just a few hours in London, what was the real threat to the future of England: skinny jeans.

Yes, skinny jeans and skinny trousers, for that matter - in particular those worn by younger-than-thirty, "fashionable" London men - seem to me a real threat to population growth. They are worn so close to the skin all the way down to the ankles that circulation must be badly constricted to the lower half of their bodies. The only thing that could possibly save their nether regions might be the atrocious fact that they are also worn so low on the hip that underwear inevitably peeks through, and their waists are free from the maniacal cinching influence. Perhaps these skinny, self-torturing garments are meant to make the men look metrosexual. Well, I suppose we should cut these modern Londoners some slack, for stylish men used to regularly wear wigs, high heels and stockings just a few hundred years ago.

But enough about frightening apparel. London itself more than made up for the fashion of some of its male denizens. How could one look at the Tower Bridge and not be ebullient?



Ah, the whole city was beautiful! Perhaps I had long ago been charmed by its descriptions in English novels and was primed to drink in its ambiance, but I liked it better than any city I have known thus far. Though its buildings tread upon each other in seemingly endless rows on many narrow, winding streets, I was so enamored by their architecture and the sense of history that wafted from them that I never minded their shadowed influence.

Thus, I had no time to reflect on the distance between my family and I, no time for anxious thoughts. I was an urban explorer at last!

Traitor's Gate at the Tower....does that include Americans?
History lies down these halls.
A beautiful Norman window


These guys really do not budge or blink - not even at annoying, camera-wielding tourists.
Please don't ask. This picture went wrong somewhere...



Thursday, April 23, 2015

The Wonder (of so many) Years - guest post by Daniel Hylton

I promised Hillary I would write a guest post for her when she went to England to visit her brother and his family.  But, with seemingly everyone I love either ill or in the hospital, I have been sorely distracted.  And with serious situations ongoing, this will likely not be my best effort.
Sorry, Hoodoo.

I recently turned sixty-one years of age......

.....became a great-grandfather.....

.....and learned the truth of that which someone, somewhere, so wisely wrote:

                      When I was a child, time crawled.
                      When I was a youth, time walked.
                      When I was an adult, time ran.
                   
                       Now I am old, and time flies.

So many years have passed, and been filled with memories, and yet, to me, it seems like just days have gone by, rather than so many years filled with so many days.

It seems but a month - or perhaps six weeks - ago that I stood beneath the spreading lilacs in front of Gene Asher's home and courted his daughter.

A day later we married.

And in that first week, she bore four children.

In the third week of our life together, our oldest daughter married, our second daughter went off to the Air Force, and our son and his younger sister approached the end of High School.

During the fourth week, we saw another child, our son, enter the U.S. military, our other daughters were married, and we became grandparents.

Over the last two weeks, we gained eleven grandchildren, two adopted grandchildren, and our very first great-grandchild.  And two more grandchildren are on the way this very day - year.

So, a mere forty-two days after I met the love of my life, the cup of my life, indeed, is filled to overflowing.

Yes, I know they are years and not days, but how can that be?  When I was young, I often tired of watching my elders shake their heads and ask the same question of no one in particular, as if they simply could not believe that life had passed by so quickly.  Now I know precisely how they felt.

As I watch my parents approach the end of their time on earth, and witness the advent of new generations, I know that I am blessed with the years I have been given.

Were my life to end this very day, how could it be made more full?

I am reminded of the words to a song I wrote years ago - when I was young.

                     When we all get together, talking over the old times.
                      Mama and Daddy remember us as children,
                      laughing, playing, singing nursery rhymes.
                      But things are changing, we're all getting older.
                      And we've brought children of our own into the world.
                      And it's so strange to look around me
                       at all of us wrinkled, graying boys and girls.

                      Now the sun comes up and the sun goes down
                       and time flows like a river.
                      The young folks come and the old folks go;
                       that's the way it's been forever.

                       And by the time next winter comes, some gray heads may be gone;
                        but Spring will bring a new child, and the family line goes on.....

                        It's a family get-together, talking over all the old times.
                        And now the family is bigger than ever;
                        With all the husbands, and the children, and the wives.

When I wrote that, I could not imagine being a grandfather, let alone a great-grandfather.  Now I am both those things.....

.....and as I watch these days of my life come up in the east and go down into the west, I know the unmitigated delight of having lived for so many days - years - that have been filled with such.....

Wonder.

 

Wednesday, April 8, 2015

Choices

I dropped my cellphone. It slipped from my too-full hands and crashed at the Wal-Mart checkout. It was the second time it happened that day. Poor little, underappreciated device, I casually picked it up and shoved its battery back in, replacing its rear end to restore its dignity.

The young male cashier commented, "I love how you just pick it up, like 'no big deal'. If that was a smartphone I would have been freaking out, like 'Everybody remain calm!'."

I laughed. "I don't have a smartphone, but my son really wants one."

"My little brother is only maybe a little bigger than him," he said, indicating my five-year-old Danny I supposed. "And he has a smartphone, an I Pad, two tablets."

"I was talking about my twelve-year-old," I responded.

"Oh," the genial young man replied, confused. "Well, uh...have a nice day."

What was left for him to say at that impasse of philosophies? That conversation illustrates my idea of a healthy world and the current, mad trend. Does anybody left in this technological age believe in choices? In consumer wisdom and conservation of resources? Or the idea to earn through effort and sacrifice what you desire?

Hmmm. We give I Pads and tablets to toddlers. We plant phones in the hands of often foolish adolescents who do not understand privacy and courtesy as it was understood just within the last century and who do not appreciate what is simply handed to them. We listen to acquaintances complain about the cost of gas in shepherding their children to activities, or credit card debt, or mortgages, meanwhile holding in their hands an "indispensable" and very pricey smartphone or tablet.

Yes, my Berto, at the ripe old age of twelve, wants a cellphone. No, excuse me, a smartphone. He moans when we announce he can have a flip phone like mine when activities get too great, and he must go many places without us. He wants a smartphone. Anything less would be embarrassing.
He asked if he could have one if he helped pay for it, but his dad pointed out that it is not just about the sticker price of such an expensive gadget, it is the money we will pay monthly for data, talk, and texting service. But every last one of his friends has a smartphone! I believe him, though it makes me shake my head and moan in turn.

I understand peer pressure. I understand that phones are the new status symbol. So why will we not get him a cellphone? Well, my philosophy on life does not allow for status symbols, first of all. But it is also for the same reason that I tell my preschooler no, we can't get a balloon or toy at the grocery store, because balloons and toys are for special occasions. It is for the same reason that I tell my younger children that, no, we can't eat out at a fast food restaurant today, because we just got take-out as a family last week, and to eat out every week or every few days would be financially foolish. It is for the same reason that my children keep their school backpacks for at least a couple years or until they wear out.

No, that reason is not that I am a meanie head. It is that I dislike consumerism, and I dislike a throw-away mentality (and, yes, that includes exchanging an electronic gadget for a new one simply because a more advanced version has come out, or trashing a backpack merely because it is so "last year"), and I dislike going into debt by nickeling and diming myself to death over things that do not matter.

I believe in choices. If we buy that bigger house, we cannot take a fancy family vacation months later. If I got Starbucks last week, I will not get it this week. We do not need more toys - ever! - because most toys do not help a child grow their imagination, only serving to clutter our lives and our home with useless junk. No, we will not have a TV in every room, and definitely not in the bedrooms. We only need one computer in this family. My kids cannot have a huge birthday party with their friends and a ton of presents from us and go out to dinner. If they have the party or take two or three friends on a fun outing, they receive only birthday books from Mama and Papa.

But it's about so much more. It is about being aware of the world around us. I am convinced that if we all read the news, the real news, every day, we would not feel the urge to get that bigger house, sleeker car, brand new gadget, or even that junk food that we crave. For in reading about an African slum quarantined because of Ebola in which the thousands of residents only have three restrooms between them, we become aware of our foolish claims. In reading the words of a young boy in a refugee camp as he cries that he has no parents, no education, and no hope, we become more aware of our self-absorption. In seeing the pictures of minorities driven out of their homes by extremists, we become aware of what truly matters, and we recollect the words of a wise man who said, "Live simply, so that others may simply live."

The conversation with my children about these vital matters are frequent, and I confess I am perhaps too heavy-handed. Yet, in speaking to them about how we, here in America, run to the grocery store on a whim, because we are "out of ice cream" or "we need that Irish soda bread with the raisins" for our St. Patrick's day dinner, juxtaposing that with families living in Haiti who are eating dirt biscuits for their dinner and kids in Africa who are getting worms from poor drinking water and AIDS orphans living several to a mud hut, they can see, I fervently hope, just how spoiled we are and how we should really try not to be. We can then choose together not to make that trip to the store for things that are so obviously superfluous to our health and happiness.

You have heard about this "entitlement generation". Perhaps we have all become part of it. But what if we could save ourselves? What if we could change our kids' perspectives by teaching them that life is about choices? What if we instilled in their minds that status symbols passed out like stickers are worthless, but effort, solidarity and integrity are everything? What if we could all sacrifice pleasures and wants now and then in order to afford a greater charitable offering? We might then be able to fight the plague of consumerism, clutter and unreasonable expectations that are attacking the sense of what is truly necessary and enriching and destroying the spirit of hard work and sacrifice that our grandparents and parents exemplified.

Yes, I am crazy, and, yes, I have my own consumer weaknesses. I wish I could get a Starbucks every day! I balk at cooking dinner most nights. If chocolate is on sale, I'll grab it. And I have at times desired that bigger, nicer home. No one has yet or ever will walk into my home, and declare it to be gorgeous, beautifully decorated and exquisitely furnished. Our house is small; most of our furniture is second-hand and repurposed; and nearly everything on my walls or shelves that could be termed "décor" was given to me by family members or friends - therefore not complementary but full of sentimental significance. And that is suitable. Alas, I'm too frugal to buckle under pressure for appearances. The antidote is in acknowledging the poverty in the world around me. And so every day I thank God for our health, our home, our food, our safety, our overwhelming blessings that may seem so plain and unadorned to the world's eyes.

And what of my beautiful, intelligent oldest son? Well, we didn't refuse him a smartphone, because we don't love him. We didn't get him one yet, because we do love him. You can spoil kids with things, but you can never spoil them with love or attention. (Hold that baby as long as you like!) I have assured him that by not caving to the world's superficial expectations of him, by not burying his mind in myriad electronic distractions, he will someday grow to be a successful leader and team player, able to look into others' eyes while communicating effectively (for which characteristic other parents have already praised him), full of the solid values and soft skills with which every human being should be armed against vanity, dissipation and selfishness.

What is important, after all? It's all about choices.

Wednesday, April 1, 2015

Sunlight on the Forest Floor: Baptism


It is Holy Week for Christians, and though we do not observe it exactly the same way, we all rejoice at Easter, the holiest and most celebratory time in the Christian calendar. For Easter is the great event that caused St. Paul to muse:

Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?
The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. 1 Corinthians 15:55-56

For Catholics the Easter Vigil when we mark salvation history through myriad readings from Scripture beginning with Genesis, is especially sacred. For after months of preparation on their part, we welcome new members into the body of Christ through baptism. (In fact that period of intense preparation on the part of the Catechumens is how the forty days of Lenten preparation for the whole community originated many centuries ago.)

Before I speak of baptism, I want to share a joke one of our parish priests told at the beginning of a homily. The gist of it was this: St. Peter was giving a tour of heaven to a man, showing him all the many beautiful banquet halls where the faithful were gathered together, joyously eating and conversing with one another. St. Peter and the man then approached a closed door, and St Peter warned the man to be silent and to tread lightly.

"Why is the door closed, and why do I need to be quiet?" asked the man.

"Because," replied St. Peter, "the Catholics are in there, and they think they're the only ones here."

The priest said he wasn't just picking on us Catholics by telling that joke; one could substitute many different Christian groups. I have myself heard the judgments pronounced on various communities of Christians by their fellows.

Now we come to baptism. In Acts of the apostles we see quite a diversity of baptisms. There is the baptism of the multitude who heard Peter's speech at Pentecost (Acts 2:37-41). There is the unusual case of the Samarians who were baptized in the name of Jesus but were later visited and prayed over by Peter and John, so that they could receive the Holy Spirit who had not yet fallen upon them (Acts 8:14-17). Then there is the opposite event when Peter preached to Cornelius' household, and the Holy Spirit fell on all who were listening, and Peter cried, "Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people, who have received the Holy Spirit even as we have?" (Acts 10:44-48). Later we read the account of the jailer, guarding Paul and Silas in prison, who asks what he must do to be saved. They told him, "Believe in the Lord Jesus and you and your household will be saved." He and all his family were baptized immediately (Acts 16: 25-33).

Many of the baptisms we find in Acts happen quite quickly with little preparation except the inspired words spoken by the Apostles. And Scripture tells us that households and families were baptized together. I think we should reject the belief that we know precisely the proper time, place, age and manner in which someone else can be baptized, that we must understand fully the implications of our baptism. If it were necessary to understand the transformation fully before it took place, it could not take place for any of us. But after baptism? Ah, then the grace comes, and new wine can be poured into new bottles.

For the sake of dispelling some misunderstanding, let me share with you some of what Catholics believe about baptism. To do so I must briefly explain what we mean by the word Sacrament.

"The sacraments are efficacious signs of grace, instituted by Christ and entrusted to the Church, by which divine life is dispensed to us" through the work of the Holy Spirit. (From the United States Catholic Catechism for Adults)

Efficacious means they do what they are supposed to do.

Water is the ordinary matter of baptism, but it signifies a spiritual reality, that of dying to sin, being cleansed, and rising to new life in Christ. Baptism is necessary for salvation (John 3:5).  However, we believe "God has bound salvation to the sacrament of baptism, but he himself is not bound by the sacraments" (CCC no. 1257). Thus we believe in a baptism of desire, such as that of a catechumen who dies before the Easter Vigil or that of anyone who would have desired baptism had they known its necessity, and we believe in a baptism of blood, meaning that of a person who dies for Christ before they can be baptized.

But what does baptism do? In it we receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, and we become the children of God, co-heirs with Christ. Our sins are forgiven, and the stain of original sin is removed, though not its effect (Romans 7:18-25).

In conclusion, just as through one transgression condemnation came upon all, so through one righteous act acquittal and life came to all. For just as through the disobedience of one person the many were made sinners, so through the obedience of one, the many will be made righteous. The law entered in so that transgression might increase but, where sin increased, grace overflowed all the more, so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through justification for eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Romans 5:18-21

Where sin increased, grace overflowed all the more! I love that. As we will sing in the "Exsultet" during Mass this Holy Saturday night, "O happy fault, o necessary sin of Adam, which gained for us so great a Redeemer!" Instead of living under a spirit of slavery to sin, through our baptism we are able to partake of the divine life, to live as children of God in a spirit of adoption, being "born again" through the Holy Spirit and led by grace in an ongoing conversion to the likeness of Jesus Christ, God's only begotten Son.

Who performs a baptism? Though a priest is considered the ordinary minister, anyone can baptize. The Catholic Church accepted my baptism and accepts the baptisms of other Christians. We do not re-baptize those who convert to the faith unless they have reason to believe that they were not truly baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (Matthew 28:19-20). Baptism is done only once, a permanent change in our spiritual lives.

People have compared baptism to a membership card that allows entry into and participation in a church, as if church were some elite club for do-gooders. No, no. Please, when you see the word Church, understand Christian family; understand Body of Christ; and see the church built on the rock of Peter against which the gates of hell will not prevail.

Yet we do acknowledge baptism, as well as Communion, as the sign of the New Covenant, just as circumcision was a sign of the old. Jewish babies were circumcised and thus brought into and instructed in the Jewish faith. Now we bring our children into the faith through baptism. Remember that when the jailer believed Paul and Silas' words, his whole family was baptized. Grace is always given in baptism; it is efficacious. Faith is first and foremost a gift from God, His call to us. Our response makes the circle complete, and grace is the foundation of our response.

But the Lord's mercy is from age to age, toward those who fear him.
His salvation is for the children's children of those who keep his covenant, and remember to carry out his precepts. (Psalms 103:17-18)

Parents are the domestic church, the first teachers of the love of Christ, and I think family is the most fruitful place to engender faith. My own dad talked to his children constantly about God. (Thank you, Dad!) I also firmly believe children can and do have real faith. I had faith in Jesus as a child. I spoke long and often about my love for him and shared his words with my friends while at home or at school, a little evangelist. It often seems to me now that it was a more perfect faith, devoid of the pride, hesitation and fear I battle in adulthood. Perhaps this is why Christ said we must become like little children.

At the Easter Vigil a couple years ago, I was especially touched by the baptism of a young girl of about 10 years of age. Her father had formerly identified himself as an atheist; the mother had fallen away from her faith. But this little girl learned about Jesus from a teacher, and she desired baptism. Through her faith her whole family was stirred and blessed.

We should be very careful in pronouncing anyone's baptism invalid. People have told me that my baptism is invalid, because I could not have understood its significance when my dad dunked me in the cold creek by my childhood home at around eight years of age. One of my friends confided that fellow Christians declared her infant baptism invalid - despite the fact that she is living her faith. But I wonder if anyone would, in light of the incredible witness of her life, declare Mother Teresa's baptism invalid, performed the day after she was born - a day that she celebrated instead of her birthday.

Pope Francis called on Christians to remember and mark the day of their baptisms, just as Mother Teresa did hers. Though I remember little more of mine than a fear of being submerged in that creek water, each Easter I stand with fellow Christians to renew baptismal promises in solidarity with new Christians who are uttering them for the first time, renouncing sin and Satan, before they rise to new life in our Lord Jesus Christ.