Reading Catholic

Reading Catholic and catholic

Catholic memoirs

Random Thoughts, Volume 2

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Last weekend, I was on a two-night campout with my younger daughter’s American Heritage Girls troop.  And truly, I had a great time.  I would say so even if my whole family, children included, did not read my blog.

But, to be honest, before this, I used to say to people, “You know, the closest I get to camping is Hampton Inn.”  I love the outdoors, but I really like to come home to my own bed, or a Hampton Inn.  Some of you will know what I mean.

Even though I was officially having fun, after the first restless night with lots of little girls tossing and turning and needing to go use the latrine, I was pretty tapped out during a lull on Saturday afternoon.  So I might have hiked the half-mile to the minivan to take refuge for a little bit of quiet and non-outdoors.  I am sooo glad that I did.  That’s because I caught the very end of The Moth Radio hour. I generally stay away from The Moth, as I generally find it a more pretentious and annoying version of This American Life.  While I love and find   so Catholic and catholic, so many of the stories on TAL, it can also occasionally veer into the annoying category.

So my first random thought is to share this and invite you to take a few minutes to listen to “Before Fergus,”  Lynn Ferguson’s story of when she was pregnant at an “advanced maternal age.”  Listen if for no other reason than to hear her Scottish brogue.  Lovely.  Sitting there listening to it, and having a few minutes of quiet, was just enough to help me get back to several dozen energetic girls, the campfire, and sleeping in a bunk.

More randomness:

Do our Kids Get Off Too Easy? –Alfie Kohn, The New York Times.I found his book Punished by Rewards: The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A’s, Praise, and Other Bribes

that I read many, many years ago, utterly fascinating, and it really informed how I parent, I think because I was parented this way, without my parents having the benefit of such a book.  “Other researchers, meanwhile, have shown that high self-esteem is beneficial, but that even more desirable is unconditional self-esteem: a solid core of belief in yourself, an abiding sense that you’re competent and worthwhile — even when you screw up or fall short.”

Always Hungry? Here’s Why–The New York Times “If this hypothesis (that “rapidly digestible carbs” are the cause of hunger & weight gain) turns out to be correct, it will have immediate implications for public health. It would mean that the decades-long focus on calorie restriction was destined to fail for most people. Information about calorie content would remain relevant, not as a strategy for weight loss, but rather to help people avoid eating too much highly processed food loaded with rapidly digesting carbohydrates. But obesity treatment would more appropriately focus on diet quality rather than calorie quantity.”

The ‘Casket Catechesis’ of John Paul II–National Catholic Register.  Not new but read-worthy.  A man inspired to start a simple casket business after seeing the casket of John Paul II. “I hope that Marian Caskets is a part of this spiritual awakening, where death is accepted but where it won’t have the last word. That’s what the casket catechesis of soon-to-be St. John Paul II is all about: facing reality with humility, acknowledging our sins and asking for God’s mercy.”

18 Reasons Why This Skeptical Pediatrician Came to Love Homeschooling Dr. Kathleen Berchelmann, Aleteia.  My brother sent me this article and I found it really interesting and well-argued.  I still felt a little exhausted just reading about this family’s schedule though!  Neat connection: Kathleen attended the 2012 Behold Conference.  I got to meet her but not spend much time with her.

Who Gets to Graduate? –Paul Tough, The New York Times magazine.  Helping the most-at-risk kids to graduate.  I haven’t finished this one yet, but I find it fascinating, and want my teens to read.

What have you read or listening to randomly this week?

Intelligently Holy {Lent Book Series}

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Today the Lent Book Series features Gina Vozenilek.

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It’s a pity I missed Flannery O’Connor at the University of Iowa. She was in the famed Writer’s Workshop, and I was down the hall in the graduate literature classes. I was reading Beowulf and Chaucer, and she learned to write brilliant fiction, of which to this day I have read embarrassingly little.

We both went to St. Mary’s in town for Mass, but on Sundays as I’d sit praying amidst the ornate paintings, I never guessed she had been in attendance as a daily habit. She was also writing–with no thought to its publication–A Prayer Journal (another habit I wish I had learned to emulate sooner), out just last fall from Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Of course Flannery O’Connor and I also missed each other by about 50 years, but that is beside the point.

What a gift it would have been to have had the company of A Prayer Journal when, straight out of a sheltered religious university campus, I found myself in the relative wilds of Iowa City. I was often the only practicing Catholic in a classroom, and as a medievalist, I was confronted with interpretations of texts that were foreign to my understanding of my faith.

“At every point in this educational process,” O’Connor writes, “we are told that [Faith] is ridiculous and their arguments sound so good it is hard not to fall into them.”

I know how she felt. In my classes the Blessed Virgin Mary was frequently cast as a pawn in a devious patriarchal empire. I argued and defended as best I could, but I was often left to wonder if being a successful scholar in my chosen field and being a faithful Catholic was an either/or proposition.

O’Connor’s Prayer Journal speaks to all readers who encounter a similar crisis when she prays, “…help me to love & bear with my work on that account. If I have to sweat for it, dear God, let it be as in Your service. I would like to be intelligently holy.”

A Prayer Journal is full of intelligent holiness. The book, which includes a copy of the original composition notebook pages with a neat, loopy hand, is an artifact of a young woman’s struggle to understand her relationship with God and with her work. The work is incomplete, and the entries are short and regrettably few, but what is preserved is a series of densely rich prayers. Some are metaprayers, even, in which O’Connor examines her own habits of prayer with scrupulous honesty:

I want very much to succeed in the world with what I want to do. I have prayed to You about this with my mind and my nerves on it and strung my nerves into a tension over it and said, “oh God please,” and “I must,” and “please, please.” I have not asked You, I feel, in the right way. Let me henceforth ask you with resignation—that not being or meant to be slacking up in prayer but a less frenzied kind—realizing that the frenzy is caused by an eagerness for what I want and not a spiritual trust. I do not wish to presume. I want to love.

O’Connor’s prayerful entries should be read slowly, one at a time, if only to make them last longer. For readers who come to this book to develop their own practice of keeping a prayer journal, the entries serve as good models for how to concentrate patiently on a specific theme. She undertakes separately, for instance, the four elements of a good prayer:

Dear God, Supplication. This is the only one of the four I am competent in…I believe it is right to ask You too and to ask our Mother to ask You, but I don’t want to overemphasize this angle of my prayers. Help me to ask You, oh Lord, for what is good for me to have, for what I can have and do Your service by having.

Read A Prayer Journal, too, simply to hear the voice of a gifted artist praying to develop that gift. Sometimes elated, sometimes despairing, O’Connor’s writing is always deeply earnest and consummately literary.

“What I am asking for is really very ridiculous,” she writes. “Oh Lord, I am saying, at present I am a cheese, make me a mystic, immediately.”

In reading the Journal, I am reminded of Bl. John Paul II’s “Letter to Artists,” issued on Easter Sunday of 1999, in which he addresses the work of the artist as vocational:

Those who perceive in themselves this kind of divine spark which is the artistic vocation—as poet, writer, sculptor, architect, musician, actor and so on—feel at the same time the obligation not to waste this talent but to develop it, in order to put it at the service of their neighbor and of humanity as a whole.

It is clear O’Connor would have agreed with the Pope’s sentiments. “Please let Christian principles permeate my writing,” she prays, “and please let there be enough of my writing (published) for Christian principles to permeate.”

No Christian artist of any genre should miss reading Flannery O’Connor’s A Prayer Journal. In this slim book we meet a writer who both desperately wanted to become accomplished by worldly standards and devoutly wished that her work would be the fruit and the aim of her love for God.

“Dear God, please help me to be an artist,” she writes, “please let it lead to you.”

After reading A Prayer Journal, I have decided to go meet Flannery O’Connor properly. I’m undertaking a survey of her fiction and essays, and especially her letters, published as The Habit of Being.

As luck would have it, right here in the pages of Reading Catholic I picked up more inspiration for what to read next to further my exploration of the intersection between art and faith. The current Meet-a-Reader guest, Father Charles Klamut, has recommended a book called Unlocking the Heart of the Artist by Matt Tommey and one by Lorraine Murray about none other than Flannery O’Connor called The Abbess of Andalusia. Thank you, Father!

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Gina Pribaz Vozenilek, her husband John, and their four children are members of St. Jude Parish in Peoria. An essayist, her work has won national awards and has appeared in Notre Dame Magazine, Brain, Child, Literal Latte, the Tampa Review, Body and Soul: Narratives of Healing from Ars Medica, and elsewhere.

Gina is the Communications Director for the Jack Pribaz Foundation, a nonprofit group started in 2012 on behalf of her nephew Jack, 5, who is one of the first known cases of a rare genetic epilepsy called KCNQ2 encephalopathy. “Jack’s Army” raises funds for research and helps families connect to find support and information about this emerging condition. By sharing Jack’s story, the Foundation has helped locate more than 90 patients and their families around the globe. Read more at www.jacksarmy.org.

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*Gina was featured last year in The Catholic Post and here as a Reader.  Gina is one of those “Readers” who really inspired me to dig deep into some intellectual writing.

*I told Gina after reading through this that she writes so well of her, she may have  convinced me to try Flannery O’Connor again.  As I’ve written before, I have tried in vain to love Flannery O’Connor, as it seems all good Catholics must, but I have never been successful.  Perhaps A Prayer Journal will help with that.

Time for a Mid-Lent Re-Set

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Following is my column that appears in this weekend’s print edition of The Catholic Post. I invite your feedback.

It is a truth not universally acknowledged—but it should be—that the best ideas are often difficult—not easy— to explain in a meaningful way. The hallmark of good writing or speaking is simplicity, but nearly always getting there is very hard work.

Case in point: I have a vivid memory from years ago of a good friend, a mom of many, sharing her annoyance at a talk she heard about how mothers always live the corporal and spiritual works of mercy. For instance, the speaker argued that when we feed our children, we are “feeding the hungry,” and so on. My friend was bothered by how gimmicky the talk sounded, and how spiritually unsatisfying it was, despite the promising subject matter.

When I read and love a book like Mercy in the City: How to Feed the Hungry, Give Drink to the Thirsty, Visit the Imprisoned and Keep Your Day Job by Kerry Weber, I might be tempted to think, “Well, that must have been an easy book to write—try to live out the corporal works of mercy during Lent, and write about it.”

But the book excels not just because of a “good idea,” but Weber’s fresh voice and clear Catholic perspective—and a lot of hard work.

Mercy in the City indeed tells the story of how Weber, managing editor of “America” magazine, tries to live out the Corporal Works of Mercy one Lent in New York City, but it succeeds because of her spiritual maturity and natural ability to share her life and faith.

There are clever touches, like each chapter’s witty title, reminiscent of a 19th century novel, describing what will occur (“In which I attempt to create a Lent-appropriate date”). Those make me smile. But her reflections, some poignant, some gently ironic, on how and why to live mercy, is what makes Mercy in the City great.

Weber invites readers to join her journey trying to the corporal works of mercy, and we see her real stumbles, doubts and successes. She also offers a gentle challenge to us consider ways in which we can be more in tune to the needs of those around us, and live Lent well, no matter where we are.

Mercy is the City is a great mid-Lent re-set book. You know how spirits flag in the middle of Lent—giving up chocolate seems so hard (at least for me!)—so it’s good to have a reminder of what we are meant to do during Lent: pray, fast, and give alms.

Or, as Weber so aptly puts it, “It’s easy to feel broken down in these first weeks of Lent .. when trying to balance the things we want to do with the things we should do, and trying to create as much overlap between the two as possible. And above all, trying to unite these two things with God’s will for us.”

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You might also be interested in:

*Author Kerry Weber is the sister of Matt Weber, author of the humorous Andy Rooney-style book, Fearing the Stigmata: Humorously Holy Stories of a Young Catholic’s Search for a Culturally Relevant Faith. (Read my review of that book here–I really, really enjoyed it).   Clearly, this family knows how to write substantial and yet fun-to-read books that leave readers with both amusing and edifying stories, as well as a gentle invitation to live in the world as a more intentional, faithful and better person.

*Also, frequent and careful readers of Reading Catholic may notice that one of the Lent Book Series guest writers already reviewed Mercy in the City.  Sue Wozniak reviewed this book for the Lent Book Series earlier this month. It’s clearly a book worth reading.

A Lesson in Letting Go {Lent Book Series}

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Today the Lent Book Series features Mary McKean, who’s written here before about her love of Fulton Sheen.

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I never used to worry until I had kids.

Now I worry all of the time.

I suffer when they suffer. If they are sick, I want to make them better. If they have troubles, I want to alleviate them. I want to make their lives less difficult. I want to spare them the sufferings of life.

One of the most difficult things, for me, about being the mother of adult children is to realize that I am not in control. Never was. Never will be. What I would choose may not, in the end, be the best thing anyway.

Being a mother is a lesson in letting go. It’s a difficult one to learn.

Amazingly, the number one thing that has helped me in this journey is a book I read with my Catholic book club, He Leadeth Me by Father Walter Cisek.

No other book has changed my outlook and perspective as much as He Leadeth Me. The funny thing is, I would never have picked it up on my own. It’s about suffering, Russian labor camps in Siberia, and untold hardships. Not usually my cup of tea. But, it grabbed my attention from the very beginning, and I could not put it down.

He Leadeth Me is autobiographical, and tells the story of an American Polish priest who felt a calling to serve the people of Russia. He trained in Rome and found his way across the Iron Curtain. Disguised as civilians, he and another priest went to work in a factory in hopes of reaching the workers there, and perhaps uncovering any remnants of Faith that might still be present in Russia. They were discovered and separated. Fr. Cisek spent years in solitary confinement at an infamous prison before finally serving fifteen years in the hard labor camps of Siberia.

Fr. Cisek’s first book, With God in Russia tells the grueling facts of his life there. He Leadeth Me, essentially a sequel to that book, answers the questions that everyone asked afterwards….How did he survive? What was his strength? How did he face such hardships day after day?

The answer touched me beyond anything I expected. It is simple in its telling, beautiful in its theology, but incredibly difficult in its execution. The answer: to trust and embrace the Will of God. What that means I found penetrating to the core. Conformity to the Will of God was learned “only through the constant practice of prayer, by trying always to live in the presence of God, and by trying to always see everything as a manifestation of His Divine Will” no matter what.

Father Cisek went on to say, “No matter how close to God the soul felt, how blessed it was by an awareness of His presence on occasion, the realities of life were always at hand, always demanding recognition, always demanding acceptance. I had continuously to learn to accept God’s Will—not as I wished it to be, not as it might have been, but actually as it was at the moment. And it was through the struggle to do this that spiritual growth, and a greater appreciation of His Will took place”

What that meant concretely, was that this humble priest could see God’s hand in everything. God knew his situation. God loved him, and cared for Him so much so that He was willing to allow these sufferings to cleanse and purify his soul. Fr. Cisek let go of his worries. He let go of his desire to control his destiny. He placed his life and his future in the hands of God, and was happy in each moment, knowing that he was where God wanted him to be. He tried to do everything he did with perfection, as an offering to God for the Russian people. Because of Fr. Cisek’s obedience and embracing of the Divine Will, many were able to receive the sacraments and to know the love of God.

Life is a journey, and I struggle to let go and see everything through the same lens. As Our Lord once asked St Catherine of Siena, “Why will you not put your trust in Me, your Creator? Because your trust is in yourself.”

Exactly. Sometimes, I even want to tell God the details of how He might go about accomplishing all the many things I ask of Him. I am learning. Each day I learn a little more. Each event which occurs requires me to relinquish my will a little more. I have learned what little control I really have in the end. My adult children are free and independent.

Life and death is not up to me. Suffering and pain is not up to me. Like Fr. Cisek, I am trying to embrace God’s Will, even in the smallest aspects of my life. Unlike this holy man, I still have a long way to go. But at least now, I have a vision. I know where I need to be. In the end, it is a great sense of relief and joy to know that I can turn my life over to One who loves me with so great a love, and wants what is best for my eternal soul.

Mary McKean and her husband, Pete, have been married 35 years and are the parents of  eight adult children. and grandparents of 22 (and counting), where they are members of St. John the Baptist Parish in Bradford.  

Mary’s been a parish organist for more than 40 years (she started as a young teen).   Mary and Pete were Peace Corps volunteers in Ecuador as newlyweds in 1977.

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Practicing Mercy {Lent Book Series}

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Today the Lent Book Series features Sue Wozniak (writing about one of my recent favorite books!).

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Ever since last Lent, I have been thinking about doing something different for Lent this year. Sure, I will do the usual fast, abstinence, and daily Mass attendance as often as I can.

But that “giving up” thing just doesn’t seem to work for me anymore. What is left to give up? We watch what we eat so sweets and desserts are already gone. We are not big drinkers and I don’t smoke. We eat as little fatty food as possible. So giving up is not really a sacrifice.

I heard a great homily last year during Lent. Fr. John Alt at St. Rita in the Desert parish in Vail, Arizona,  spoke about almsgiving as an alternative to “giving up.” He encouraged his parishioners to focus on one of the Corporal Works of Mercy each week of Lent. That concept appealed to me but I didn’t do much with it last year.

This year, I was determined to try to perform at least one of the Corporal Works of Mercy each week during Lent. I was looking for something to read during Lent that would inspire me to achieve my goal. I found a great book that has given me just what I need: Mercy in the City: How to How to Feed the Hungry, Give Drink to the Thirsty, Visit the Imprisoned, and Keep Your Day Job by Kerry Weber.


I wanted practical advice on how to carry out the Works of Mercy in everyday life, especially some of the more difficult ones such as “freeing the Imprisoned.” I mean really, how is someone like me a supposed to free a prisoner?

Kerry Weber, the author of Mercy in the City, is a twentysomething young woman, who lives and works in New York City. She writes about her journey during Lent to complete all the Corporal Works of Mercy. While she and I are very different ( she is a writer, I am a retiree), I found that her approach and the story of her journey during Lent was just what I was looking for.

As Weber looks for ways to carry out the Corporal Works, she learns that there are many creative solutions to each of the them. She learns to look at people on the subway—actually look them in the face. She reflects that street people are someone’s father, brother, mother, sister, child. They are human beings. We have a tendency not to look, and not want to see people on the street.

In the past year, I seem to see more and more people begging on street corners. It is probably because I have spent quite a bit of time in some major cities, such as Chicago, Tucson, and Anaheim. But they are on the corners of Peoria too. I have always wondered, do I give them money? Will they just spend it on drugs and alcohol? I give to Catholic Charities and Salvation Army so that is what I can do. But, really, I see now that is not really giving enough of myself to “feed the hungry.” Weber’ has similar questions and she observes that one of those people on the street might be Jesus. She thinks she can share half of her sandwich with someone; she volunteers at a bread line.

Throughout the book, Weber describes each Corporal Work of Mercy and how she approached them. She writes to a chaplain at San Quentin and eventually visits the prison and interviews some of the prisoners. She realizes that many of the prisoners are good men who have done bad things. The chaplain conducts religious education programs within the prison. She discusses meeting these men and learning their stories.

While I am not planning to visit San Quentin, my brother recently asked if some of the family could write to a prisoner at Menard. So I will begin my actions by writing this man a letter telling him that God does love him and that we are thinking about him. I have begun taking dollars bills and placing them in a part of my purse that I can reach easily and will be dropping them in the can as I pass a homeless person on the street. So what if they don’t buy food with it, it really might be Jesus and I will look the person in the eye and say “get yourself something to eat.”

I plan to keep a journal during Lent about my own reflections and spiritual growth as I carry out the Corporal Works of Mercy. I hope that I can continue by regularly volunteering at the food pantry or at Hospice after Lent is over. I pray that I am successful in giving of my inner self to those in need and showing others God’s love through my actions.

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Sue Wozniak is the retired Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer at OSF Saint Francis Medical Center in Peoria, IL. Sue has been married to Ken for 46 years. They have five children and four grandchildren. She is a member of St. Vincent de Paul Parish in Peoria.

Getting Things Done

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This morning, I might have yelled at both my husband and my 16-year-old daughter. Perhaps it was within 10 minutes of returning  from daily Mass.

Let’s back up. One of the reasons that I don’t write here as often as I like is because I’m Getting Things Done”® in real life. Like all moms, I’m busy with so many details of life and household-running that often, my great ideas—for me, in writing—often fall by the wayside. But I do get a lot done (and actually not via all of David Allen’s system, though I enjoy using his ® and a lot of his GTD ideas).

I was up this morning well before 4 a.m., courtesy perimenopause. I’ve learned to work around this, when I can’t get back to sleep, by Getting Things Done®, and hoping for a power nap in the afternoon. This early morning, here is what I did:

I prayed the “Office of Readings” on the Universalis App on my iPad (and some other prayers),

I opened the Kindle App and happily finished Persuasion. I keep forgetting to read it—I’ve been fitfully it for about three months now— but last night while I was driving, I asked my 13-year-old to read out loud for the last 10 minutes before we got home. She did such a great British accent for all the characters.  In particular, her wonderful Charles Musgrove has inspired us in one evening to make  “Have I not done well, mother?”  a Piccione family saying.

(Normally this early, I would have checked e-mail, but when I read the other day that Melissa Wiley is taking some early morning time to read classics, I thought, yes! and I’m so glad I did. But now I’m sad to be finished, and mulling my next Jane Austen read, or maybe I will, like her, tackle Middlemarch for the first time since college?)

I got dressed and went to the treadmill, hoping to get some training miles in since I’m signed up to do a half-marathon in both March and April, and after that will likely be starting my training for the Air Force Marathon in September. Getting Things Done®, running-wise. I did a quick 3.5 miles, woke up my high schooler, and headed to 6:30 a.m. Mass by myself.

I remember nodding along during the first reading, from James, especially:

“See how a person is justified by works and not by faith alone.
For just as a body without a spirit is dead,
so also faith without works is dead.”

Yep. Getting Things Done.® That’s the way the world works. Thank you, James!

When I came home, I decided against a shower before driving teen and our carpool friend in to school, so I could put dinner in the crock pot.  I thought, it’s not like I’m going to be getting out of the minivan (famous last words, as we shall see). As I’m chopping vegetables for the crock-pot, I’m barking out questions to husband and teen about their schedules, things they need to Get Done® , and I end up yelling at both of them.

The details shall be lost to history, but suffice to say I was sorry for what I said, and at the same time still a wee bit annoyed because sometimes it feels like I’m the only one Getting Things Done® around here.

I apologized to teen (husband had since abandoned us for work), so as we drove in I called my husband.

(Now that I think about it, I called him using the bluetooth speaker that he purchased and put in the van for me, and taught me to use, so I guess I’m not the only one Getting Things Done®. )

I half-apologized by telling him I was sorry for being “too efficient,” but things do need to be done, after all! He smilingly said, “You know, I was thinking after you left that I can be frustrating, too.”

We both burst out laughing, and I thought, yes, you’re annoying when you’re spending time “being present” with people instead of Getting Things Done®. But I realized I’m glad for my Martha ways, and also glad that my husband (and others in my life) “choose the better part” by their “live in the moment” ways.

[[And so you might be thinking that this is going to be a reflection on the Mary/Martha, and how I need to be less like Martha and more like Mary. But it’s not.

I like Getting Things Done®, and I like being efficient, I just want to do so without yelling at my most beloved within 10 minutes of getting home from Mass. Is that too much to ask?

And—if you recall from Scripture (John 11)—it was Martha, NOT Mary, who came out to greet Jesus after Lazarus died (while Mary stayed behind), and tells him

“Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.  And even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you.”

And Martha, not her sister Mary, is the one who said to Jesus,

“Yes, Lord; I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, he who is coming into the world.”

So, yeah, if being a Martha means I can have that kind of faith, I’ll stick with Martha.]]

Anyway, on the drive to school, the radio had a piece about why husbands & wives shouldn’t have different checking accounts, and an interesting in-van discussion ensued. I said I didn’t agree, necessarily, although in our family all the accounts are joint. The main thing was for the husband and wife to agree in general on how to spend money, and for both to know in general where money was held. I was happy to talk about my role as CFO of our family, since I love… all together now… Getting Things Done®.

“And it’s helpful that Dad and I basically have the same ideas of being frugal,” I said.

After a pregnant pause, the teen said, “Once, Daddy bought me a $6 bottle of water, and he wouldn’t let me keep the bottle because he didn’t want you to find out.”

More laughter ensued (it was a “special occasion,” she said), and I told her of course every once in a while a $6 water bottle could be fun, and better to tell me straight out, because I will find out. And next time, $1 for the bottle of water, and $5 for college.

But secretly, I laughed that the two of them are making happy subversive memories at my frugal expense. As Mr. Bennet (one of my least favorite characters in Pride & Prejudice, but he does get an awful lot of good lines), said, “For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbors, and laugh at them in our turn?”

When we got to school, some larger vehicle (driven by a very nice but well-coiffed and cutely dressed mom, and me in my sweaty running gear, feeling jealous) was stuck in the drop-off driveway in the ice that had formed over yesterday’s slushy snow melt. We were several cars back, but after watching her try for a while, I told the teens, we need to get out and push that car. Me, Getting Things Done®, again.

So after retrieving the ice melt I had in the back of the minivan for just this purpose (and glad I had earlier this winter been Getting Things Done® by keeping the van well-stocked), another parent and I helped a group of teens push the vehicle into freedom.

I quipped to another mom in a car as I headed back to mine, “Well, that’s the last time I’ll come to drop-off in sweaty running clothes” which is actually a lie, because I undoubtedly will (but you have to picture me in wild hair, fleecy top, running capris, bare legs, and goofy low-boots I had thrown on. I was a fright).

As I drove home by myself, I pondered it all. Getting Things Done® and not getting things done, and being present, and laughing at one another, and how much I love my family and how different we all are and how much that drives me crazy.

I suddenly recalled a recent piece by Anna Nussbaum Keating in America magazine about the college “hook-up” culture, and how much I grieve for the young women (and yes, men, but mostly women) who think that getting ahead and hooking up while accruing money and prestige is normative. I truly feel heartsick to read these kinds of stories, and have so much to say but this is already getting long and I am nearing time when I need to go back to real life and Get Things Done®. This longish quote from it was powerful:

“In a detached environment, the message from the church sounds impossibly strange, and yet it is one worth remembering: It is not unambitious to want to have a good marriage or close friendships or to get along with one’s family or know one’s neighbors. It is, in fact, extremely ambitious. People do not accidentally have harmonious relationships, any more than they accidentally become secretary of state. They put in the hours, and their practices become their habits and their habits become their virtues and their virtues become their lives. (emphasis mine)”

Yes, what she said.

Just to clarify, having harmonious relationships doesn’t mean you have to be a mostly-at-home mom, like I am, or you have to be the Secretary of State (not that there’s anything wrong with that), or that you have to be married or single.

But it does mean you have to work, really work, on relationships—true relationships, not hook-ups—and be intentional and sacrificial and vulnerable. And you can’t just turn on that switch after years of acting a different way, though certainly time, therapy and prayer can help turn things around.

It means you have to be healthy emotionally and spiritually, or at least working on being those. It means sometimes you have to Get Things Done® and sometime you have to just be. It means a ton of grace and a ton of prayer (including Mass, with or without yelling afterwards), praying always, and it’s so, so worth it.

Deep thoughts for this topic, mostly to myself:

1.  Getting Things Done® is not all good, and it’s not all bad.

2. Yelling at your loved ones within 10 minutes of returning from Mass is NOT good.

3. Subterfuge is futile. The family CFO will find out about all extravagant purchases, even $6 water bottles made with cash, even if you destroy the evidence.

4.  “People do not accidentally have harmonious relationships, any more than they accidentally become secretary of state.”

5.  Practice makes perfect. Keep practicing.

(Linking up here with Modern Mrs. Darcy’s Twitterature, not because I’ve written “short,” but because this post shares some of the books–Persuasion, Getting Things Done,  Scripture–that I’ve been reading.)