Upon the recommendation of my friend John, I purchased Render Unto Caesar, subtitled Serving the Nation by Living Our Catholic Beliefs in Political Life, by the Archbishop of Denver, Charles J. Chaput, OFM Cap. (a.k.a. Capuchin Franciscan). Now that I have finished it (and John has asked to borrow it), I have decided to write this short review of the book. At around 230 pages, including intro, endnotes, etc., the book is not exceptionally long. I found this relatively short length is even more suprising as I read through the book. Archbishop Chaput has written a tour de force of a book, discussing the history of Catholic political engagement in the United States (where we were), current political activity of Catholics in the United States (where we are), and Vatican II and it’s postlude (how we got here).

Or, in the Archbishop’s words:

Like it or not, American Catholics are part of a struggle over our country’s identity and future. If this book helps some of us rediscover what it really means to be Catholic - the purpose of our time in the world, the lessons of our history, the responsibilities of citizenship, and the implications of the Christian faith we claim to believe - then it succeeds.

Throughout the book, Archbishop Chaput displays a wide knowledge of Catholic thinkers and Catholic history. John Courtney Murray, Henri de Lubac, Yves Congar, John Henry Newman, and Christopher Dawson are all mentioned. However, he also expands to discuss others such as C.S. Lewis, Victor Frankl, George Orwell, Christopher Lasch, and Lord Acton. (My own thought has been consistently expanded by some of these, especially C.S. Lewis and Christopher Lasch.) None are quoted simply for effect - all add something of importance to the discussion.

I find this book especiually important for several reasons. First, it excels as an overview of the history of American Catholicism, from a discussion of Charles Carroll, the Catholic Senator from Maryland who signed the Declaration of Independence through to John Kennedy, Mario Cuomo, and Robert Casey, Sr., three modern Catholic politicians. In examining the lives and talks of these individuals, the Archbishop charts a course for Catholic readers as to public and private political life (and suggest even that this distinction is too often of too much importance). Second, this book carefully dissects slogans and bad arguments used against Catholics (and other Christians). He uses as an example such phrases as “the separation of church and state” and “don’t impose your beliefs on society” and shows that they are less than argument and more like “a kind of verbal voodoo” employed “to shut down serious thought.” Third, this book is intended to give Catholics and any other Christian reader courage to argue for their beliefs in civil society. He notes that we do not argue for certain things because they are religious beliefs taught by the Church alone - rather, they are taught by the Church because they are right.

Finally, as with any book, the direct purposes are not the only ones which arise. I enjoyed this book, as I do many similar works, in some way just for the joy of contact with a well-organized mind. The book is not a difficult read, nor does it require any sort of “pre-reading” in order to understand it. Rather, it is beautifully laid-out and argued, and is likely to be one which I will re-read several times, discovering something new, and some new direction, each time.

-j.

Claire says the most hysterical things.  I suppose she’s the age of having very little filter and a LOT to say and a lot to ask about.  It’s totally endearing and totally obnoxious all at the same time.

Like today…… she told someone at St. Pius a knock knock joke.  It went like this.

C:  Knock Knock

P:  Who’s there?

C:  Um. um. um, well, um. a hey….where did you get that sticker?

P:  It’s not a sticker, it’s a Valentine

C:  Can I see it?

P:  Sure.  What about the knock knock joke?

C:  Um wait, who’s this on the valentine sticker?

P:  It’s Pooh.  What about the joke?

C:  Ohhhhhhhhh yeaaaah.  Knock Knock

P:  Who’s there?

C:  Orange

P:  Orange who?

C:  Do you want a loaf of bread banana?  (she breaks into hysterical laughter)

Today, she also has asked me “why” approximately 54 times (I tried to keep count, but I lost count somewhere in Barnes and Noble while Madeline was screaming “Choo Choo” and trying to escape the stroller to get the train set), and let me know that her best friend is named Chia and lives in a tree with the yellow birds and the dinosaurs.

Hmm.

If adults had days like this, they would ask what we are on.

So, I finished the aforementioned book. Much of what was important expounds on the theme I mentioned - “moralistic therapeutic deism.” One of the interesting themes the author mentioned constantly was that, while teenagers seemed quite religious in many ways, they were not the “rebellious spirital seekers” that many seemed to characterize them as - rather, they absorbed their parents’ religions quite readily. The parents, creatures of the “60s” and “70s,” often expounded a tolerant, easy-going approach to religion, which transferred to the children. The author often found the teens without an ability to state their religious beliefs easily, and were nervous when questioned more in depth, due to lack of knowledge. In addition, the author noted that many teens who were members of certain Christian (or otherwise) religious sects (such as Methodist) often held beliefs that would be schismatic / heretical to that sect as it was founded, but also were not aware of that fact.

One of the more interesting sections of the book came at the end, where the discussion focused on how youth group leaders, etc., could get the youth interested. The author recommeded challenging the youth on their belief - pushing them to learn more and seek out the reasons for their faith, and learn to enunciate them. (Interestingly, at about this time, I also happened upon an article laying out differences between an oral society, such as the early Greeks, and the written societies that came after - the written could sustain an extended argument and analysis. The article also argued that we may be reversing that trend in some ways.)

-j.

In the last 3 minutes……my dear Madeline has:

1. Pinched me (in the inner thigh…can you say ouch!)
2. Pinched her sister
3. Yelled at me because I won’t turn on Diego
4. Put her stuffed giraffe in the air conditioning return (well, tried to…..”SQUISHHHHHH SQUISHHHH”)
5. Knocked the keyboard off the computer desk
6. Tried to swallow a cap from a bottle of water
7. Wrote on my leg with a pen. (where she found that I have no idea)
8. Knocked over the toy shelf.

I think it’s time to go outside or run an errand or something.

Shamelessly copied from Erika’s blog……..and originally from Smurray.

Smurray’s sister was the physical therapist for the family whose email appears below… As a mother and as a human I feel compelled to share it with you all with hope that it will both raise flags about such an offensive way of treating a large group of people on such a large scale, as well as raise discussion on how we as individuals refer to persons with disabilities. I’ll try to get links to related articles or activities up here, too. (either that or link to Erika’s blog for those.  Ha.)

Dear Family and Friends,

J. and I are taking the time to let you know about a movie that is being released soon. “Tropic Thunder” with stars such as Ben Stiller, Jack Black, Robert Downey Jr., and Tom Cruise will be coming to a theater near us soon (LA screening is Monday August 11th and release to theatres is August 13th).

This movie has really hit home because it makes fun of people with intellectual disabilities unashamedly. To us it’s a personal attack on our son. “A particular sore point has been the film’s repeated use of the term “retard” in referring to a character, Simple Jack, who is played by Mr. Stiller in a subplot about an actor who chases an Oscar by portraying a mindless dolt.” Nice huh? We have actually been trying to get a letter written to all of you for about 5 days now, but we are so hurt and angry that we have had to use quotes to describe this movie. DreamWorks choose to promote this movie with a slogan that read, “Once upon a time….There was a the retard.” This has since been removed from websites. We are so sad that they are among a group
that has decided to make a movie about those with mental retardation to get laughs. We can’t believe that our son is still being used as the punching bag for actors and writers to get a laugh.

Below are some quotes and reviews:

“In perhaps the single most offensive scene in the film, Matthew McConaughey, who plays a Hollywood agent, speaks to the film’s main character who wants to adopt a child. “Well, at least you still have a
choice. I’m stuck with mine,” states McConaughey while pointing to a photograph of his teenage son who appears to have an intellectual disability.”

Newsweek gave “Tropic Thunder” a glowing review, 4 1/2 out of 5 stars. They’re calling it the “funniest movie of the summer.” They had wonderful things to say about Ben Stiller, who directed, co-wrote,
co-produced and stars in the movie. The part that includes the r-word is spelled out pretty specifically: “The comic momentum doesn’t flag, the gunfire and explosions balanced by inspired riffs. One of the best
is Downey/Lazarus’s memorable discourse to Stiller/Speedman on how to win an Oscar playing handicapped characters — you can’t do the ‘full r*****,’ as Speedman did in ‘Simple Jack,’ but only the ‘half-r*****,’
as Dustin Hoffman did in ‘Rain Man.’ ”

Newsweek had the audacity to write this…Newsweek. Notice that they knew enough not to write the word “retard” in their review.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY (this was an interview…using the n-word is unacceptable, but making fun of individuals with intellectual disabilities is ok?):
The challenge with that character was to find the right line. You want to make fun of this pompous actor, but if you play it wrong, it verges on being minstrel-like. Your costar Brandon T. Jackson told me there was a scene in the script where Osiris uses the N-word and that he said it went over the line.
ROBERT DOWNEY JR.: Brandon might have saved the movie that day.
BEN STILLER: For sure. We were rehearsing in Hawaii and we got to that scene and I said to him, “What do you think of this?” Brandon said, “This feels wrong.” It was definitely a constant process of feeling it out.
CafePress… had their t-shirt pulled, “Never go full retard”….but…..this link I think is just awful, it shows all the other quality clothing they sell Its amazing that this company would “save face” to the public and say
“we have removed the offensive material” This is a dispicable company and they have proven it today.
http://t-shirts.cafepress.com/retard

Dreamworks CEO’s and Disability activists, met this past Friday for a private screening. The activists that attended this screening deemed this movie far worse then they originally anticipated. “A coalition of more than a dozen disability groups is expected to announce plans for a national boycott of the DreamWorks film “Tropic Thunder” in response to language and scenes that advocates regarded as open ridicule of people with cognitive disabilities. At issue are repeated uses of the word “retard” and the subplot involving “Simple Jack,” played by Ben Stiller.
“Not only might it happen, it will happen,” said Timothy P. Shriver, chairman of the Special Olympics, of the expected push for a boycott. Shriver said he planned to join in the picketing personally on Monday at the film’s Westwood premiere”

Our desire for our son like any parents would be to give him a better life then the one we have had. When Z. was born we made a promise to him that we would do this, and today we were shown that it is going to be harder then we thought. If you or anyone you know is thinking about seeing this film we beg you to not support this movie. Please do us the favor and pass this on to anyone you know, and ask them to do the same.

Thank you,
J. and K.

Recently a number of my blogger friends have posted the “statistics” of the hits on their website.  The beautiful thing about owning your own domain, is that you can use Google Analytics code and track a whole bunch of really cool things about the people who visit your site.  I check it out occasionally to see if anyone but us actually reads this, and see what posts have been more popular than others, etc.

So here’s a little snapshot into the last month of The Watson Highlands.

122 people have visited our site in 530 total visits. The majority of our visitors use Internet Explorer.  Firefox comes in a close second and a few Mac holdouts use Safari to read our page.  The USA sends us the most visitors, and the states of New York and Ohio have sent us the most visitors in the last month.  Indiana, Illinois, Pennsylvania and Texas pretty much tie for 3rd place, while we also have visitors from North Carolina and Virginia.  That is pretty expected considering where we’ve lived and where most of our friends live. Top cities that visit us are Clifton Park (NY), Waterford (NY), Cincinnati (OH) and South Bend.  (Remind me not to say anything bad  or scandalous about a certain priest friend that lives in New York.  Tee hee). The country of Honduras sent us 4 visits in the past month (thank you Erika and Michael John), and we’ve had a handful of visits from Canada, India (thanks Ajay and Priti), El Salvador and Australia.

I just now let us be categorized in google because I was a bit apprehensive about being so public.  In the last month, 16 people have visited us from Google, using these keywords (in no particular order):

• baptism homilies
• almond butter south beach
• bare sheep yarn
• behavior modification for rolling the eyes
• beofish
• breanna bogner (I don’t get this one at all)
• Calvinism david bentley hart
• david bentley hart john calvin
• happy birthday spiderman
• lion bran fisherman’s yarn review

Fun stuff!

In no particular order….

1. Men’s field hockey.  why don’t they have to wear skirts?  And when did that become a sport for men?
2. Why do beach volleyball women wear bikinis where the guys wear shirts and shorts?  If the women share their stomachs with the world, the men should go shirtless. Ow ow.
3. Those wacky swimsuits.
4. Rhythmic Gymnastics.  I mean, come on.  Just allow ballroom dancing in already.
5. Curling. (I didn’t say this list was just summer olympics)
6. Steeplechase.  Isn’t that for horses?

I’m sure there will be more as the games go on.

From Smurray comes this jewel - if your kids watch Dora, see this link now:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1FfL9_P5LE 

(Mostly safe for work - probably not for kids…)

-j.

1.  My college roommate Sarah (Smurray) started blogging.  Go show her some love:  http://smurraythoughts.blogspot.com/

2.  Madeline, my child who never would watch TV, all of a sudden is interested….but only in Diego.  She had a minor meltdown this morning because I put The Backyardigans on for Claire

3.  Claire just asked me if “I could do a job for her and go clean the kitchen”.  Hmm.  Maybe I should put her to work.

4.  I have to stop typing. My fingers and wrists are actually sore from practicing the piano for 2 hours yesterday.  But the good news is that I can now play the Mass of Light Gloria.  It only took me like 10 years to learn it.  (The syncopation is freaking ANNOYING, by the way.  I swear, David Haas does not play the piano or he would have never done this to anyone)

5.  We’re going to the HealthWorks Kids Museum this morning.  It’s free on the 8th day of every month.  Score!

I decided to go back on phase 1 of the SBD for 2 weeks.  I sort of fell off track when Keith was here (MMMM Hospital Pizza), and I was doing so well before that it’s time to get back on track again.

Ali and I are doing a SBD Phase 1 challenge to keep each other motivated. I’m really going to try to blog about it every day, and blog about what I ate.

My challenge for today is that I’m going to a Pampered Chef party tonight and there is never food at those things that are healthy and SBD friendly.  I plan to eat a big dinner before I go so I can just take a nibble of whatever is being prepared.

This morning we had scrambled eggs for breakfast, and I think that I’m officially over eggs.  I’ve been eating eggs pretty much every morning for the last 8 weeks.  BLAH.  Maybe I can find a more creative way to eat them so they don’t bore me so much.   We shall see.

My goal for Phase 1, take 2, is to lose 10 more pounds.  Here goes nothing!

I’ve been considering the idea of “meaning,” in its more or less emotive context, over the past few days. One of the things that has struck me repeatedly is that in order for something to have meaning in our lives - and now that I see this, it strikes me as so simple that I wonder if it’s even worthwhile discussing - we must acknowledge some sort of personal limitation on ourselves by that thing. This is not a limitation in the sense of being fenced by an exterior force, but rather a self-limiting, a self-giving or gift, which results in a personal connection with that thing.

I think it may be analogized with art. Consider painting. The canvas, of whatever size, is the limitation. Or sculpture. The sculptor pares away stone (for instance), gradually evolving a figure out of it. Meaning is only acquired by limitation of space in accordance with reason. (Perhaps this is why “modern art” seems so devoid. The artists seeks no self-limitation, and asks none of you - interpretations might limit the artist in some way, and so therefore, the art is literally without meaning in being without limitation.)

This idea of meaning through limitation seems contrary to what society demands. Limitation is viewed as constriction on freedom (whether imposed within or without). However, in demanding unlimited access to anything, one thereby makes that thing devoid of meaning, for such is the emotional effect of unfettered choice.

-j.

No, that’s not Swahili.  That’s Madeline speak.

Other than her beloved Giraffe, Gigi,  and her sister, the only other thing Madeline adores in this world with all her heart is “juice”.  Juice can come in many forms, but it’s usually just a sippy cup filled with water, except at mealtimes where she has watered down apple juice or milk.  She asks for “Mah Djucie” all day, and drinks all day.  Yeah it’s a habit we’ve let her get into, but I suppose there are worse things in the world than being hydrated.  She still eats like a 10 year old (most days anyway), and is healthy and growing, so it’s not hindering her at all.

Anyway, sometimes this constant demand can get REALLY annoying, especially when there are no sippy cups clean or the dishwasher is running.

Monday night we went to dinner out at a local pizza buffet. (yeah, I know, not exactly South Beach approved, but it was convenient and cheap.  I was sort of good.)  The kids eat free at this place with the purchase of a drink.  Jonathan went and grabbed a booth with the girls, and I went to get them a plate of food each and a drink.  Every once in a blue moon, we let Claire have some Sprite when we’re out to dinner.  So I poured a glass of Sprite for her.  The best choice left for Madeline was an orange soda.  I CRAVED orange soda and Dr. Pepper when I was pregnant with her, so I figured she would like it.  I gave her about 1/4 of a glass.

Needless to say, Madeline was in love with the orange soda.  So much so that she was not eating her dinner, which is unusual for our little human garbage disposal.  I decided that she needed to eat more, so I took her “juice” (under much protest…she was yelling “Mah Djucie” at the top of her lung) and replaced it with some water.  I should have gotten her water in the first place, but I didn’t see that it was available from the soda machine until my second trip.

Her enthusiasm faded considerably after her first sip.  It went a little like this:

M:  Mah Djucie! Mah Djucie!  May Djucie!  Tank you Mommy!

Pause.  Drink.

M:  Oh.  Waduh.

She puts the drink down, and starts eating.  Jonathan and I burst into uncontrolable laughter.  Madeline looked at us like we were insane.

Instead of writing an incredibly boring narrative trying to explain where the heck we’ve been in the last 2 weeks, I thought I’d share it via photos.

Madeline has a BIG drink. (don’t worry friends, it’s water)

Amanda rocked the house as Gabriella Montez in High School Musical

“Mommy, I’m doing my ‘nastics’ in here.  Is this too dangerous for Madeline?”

(well at least she asked)

Cookie visits!  We have a great time, with the exception of the worst concert ever (at least the people sitting in front of us were nice).  He taught Claire how to ride a bike and we only had a teensy bit of medical drama (everyone is fine!)

I also finished 2 knitting project which I can’t post here until a reader receives them.

We’re back with a vengeance now!

I plan to read Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers, in preparation for a potential ministry I’ll be working on at Holy Cross College. Here’s an interesting excerpt (from a summary written by the book’s author, Christian Smith):

[W]e suggest that the de facto dominant religion among contemporary teenagers in the United States is what we might call “Moralistic Therapeutic Deism.” The creed of this religion, as codified from what emerged from our interviews with U.S. teenagers, sounds something like this:

1. A God exists who created and orders the world and watches over human life on earth.

2. God wants people to be good, nice, and fair to each other, as taught in the Bible and by most world religions.

3. The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about oneself.

4. God does not need to be particularly involved in one’s life except when he is needed to resolve a problem.

5. Good people go to heaven when they die.

I’ll post again when I’ve finished the work.

-J.