Curious Justin Goes to the Hospital

I spent the night before last in the hospital with Justin. We never dreamt when we took him to Maple Creek on Friday to get his eyes and ears checked that the doctor would want to keep him there overnight. He had been complaining for a few days of a bad headache, off and on, and I noticed a slight temperature in the evenings. He felt quite nauseous sometimes, too, so we suspected an ear infection or something.
As it turned out, his throat was infected. The doctor said he might just have had a headache because of the cold he had had, but he was wanting to be careful in case it was a more serious infection, so he wanted to put him on antibiotics intravenously right away.
One of the first things they did on his arrival at the hospital was to give him a gravol shot in the you-know-where to settle his stomach. That was rather painful. Then they put the needle in his left hand for the intravenous, and that didn't work, so they had to do it again in his right hand. After he got all hooked up and named his IV stand "Johnny" ,(please don't take any offence, anybody) he felt quite well. Then we had our usual bedtime routine of prayers and reading, and as he drifted off to sleep, he said "This is so much fun..."
In the children's ward in Maple Creek, they have a whole suite of rooms - the bedroom, where there was just room for him and me; the library, with a table, chairs, and a bunch of books; and the tv room, with Nintendo. We did the rounds quite a few times the next morning while we waited for the doctor to come and tell him he's fine.
Really, the only severe hardship in the whole thing was that McLanes were visiting at the farm and we were missing them. Fortunately, we did get to see them Saturday night and Sunday.
Justin's been enjoying telling everyone about his hospital stay ever since.

Authoship of the aforementioned

Raymond was asking about the authorship of "Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence" and I was going to just comment that the authorship seems uncertain. In my hymnbook, it says the text is from the Liturgy of St. James, translated by Gerard Moultrie. However, since you asked about my poetry, I thought I'd let you hear some of it:

Saskatoon, Saskatoon, my beautiful hometown
Your streets are so vast
Your Co-op store is the best
Plus all the other things you have to invest.

(notice the poetic licence!)
I wrote this a few years ago.

Let all mortal flesh keep silence

Let all mortal flesh keep silence
And with fear and trembling stand;
Ponder nothing earthly minded,
For with blessing in his hand
Christ our God to earth descendeth,
Our full homage to demand.

King of kings, yet born of Mary,
As of old on earth he stood,
Lord of lords in human vesture,
In the body and the blood:
He will give to all the faithful
His own self for heavenly food.

Rank on rank the host of heaven
Spreads its vanguard on the way,
As the Light of light descendeth
From the realms of endless day,
That the powers of hell may vanish
As the darkness clears away.

At his feet the six-winged seraph;
Cherubim with sleepless eye,
Veil their faces to the Presence,
As with ceaseless voice they cry,
Alleluia, alleluia,
Alleluia, Lord most high!

Oh, hi!

In case any of you saw an alien in town a couple of weekends ago, it was me. I was there with my friend, Bev, attending a silent retreat at Queen's House. Once I got there I realized I would not be able to phone anybody, because I couldn't talk, until the last meal, and then it seemed too late to call around. Bev and I went together in her car.
On Sunday she phoned her daughter to say hello and her grandson asked to speak to her. Her daughter said to him "Grandma's at a silent retreat at Queen's House, she can't talk." Then her grandson said "Well...couldn't she go out to the Queen's car and talk?"
It was an excellent weekend, led by the same priest and brother who will be looking after the boys' camp next summer, so it was a good opportunity for me to meet them.

Oh, hi!

In case anybody spotted an alien in town last weekend, it was me.
I was accompanying a friend of mine from Fox Valley on a silent retreat weekend at Queen's House. I didn't phone anyone ahead of time and didn't even think till I got there that while at a silent retreat I would not be able to phone anybody. I called home just to let Peter know I made it there safely, and my voice reverberated throughout the whole building.
It was a good weekend. The legionary priest and brother who led the retreat are the same ones who will be looking after the boys' camp next summer, so it was a good opportunity for me to meet them.
Ate too much, no exercise. I could have gone for a walk on Saturday afternoon, but I was exhausted.
Fr. Shane has a very profound way of putting things. One thing he said was "When Peter ran away after Jesus' arrest, he had to run away on the feet that Jesus washed."
At the end of the weekend, I told my friend that she should just drive home without me, I needed a bit of a jog.

Organ-izing

I feel a little torn tonight. We spent the early part of the evening moving the organ from our parish church into our house. Peter's dad bought the organ to prevent it being sold on e-bay to who-knows-where, and now we get to keep it in our house. This will come in handy because I can practice it, and because our sons and nieces have expressed an interest in learning to play it.
However, I feel a little disappointed that our parish has chosen the trendier electric keyboard over a classic instrument. Sure, you can buy an organ for a song at the moment, because they are not trendy. But they are classic - a few years from now the price will likely go up again, and they will not get a song for their electric keyboard. Also, there has been more beautiful church music written for the organ than almost any other instrument. It has a long tradition in a church filled with gorgeous old hymns that ought not to be forgotten. For example:

Godhead here in hiding, Whom I do adore
Masked by these bare shadows, shape and nothing more,
See, Lord, at Thy service low lies here a heart
Lost, all lost in wonder at the God Thou Art.

by Thomas Aquinas

Now try playing that on an electric keyboard!

a true fact

We've met a few people, all from the Battlefords, and none of them related to us, who use the expression "That's a true fact!"
Seriously, though, is there such a thing as solid, universal truth. I believe there is, of course, but can it be proven or indicated by experience?
I read a book years ago called Peace Child - I don't remember the name of the author - about a missionary couple who went to Papua New Guinea to evangelize a tribe of cannibals and head-hunters. When they first told the story of the Gospel, all the men of the tribe cheered when they heard the part about Judas' betrayal. As it turned out they loved treachery - thought it was the greatest thing when they could stab someone in the back after a peace treaty. That stymied the missionaries temporarily, until one day they witnessed a ceremony they did not at first understand. The chief of the one tribe gave his firstborn son to the chief of the neighbouring tribe. When the pastor asked what it meant, he was told that this was the one act that could put an end to all treachery between the two tribes. Then he was able to teach them that Jesus is the Peace Child given by the Father to the world to make it possible for us to be at peace with the Father.
A friend asked me recently if there is universal truth, if those cannibalistic head-hunting people had any idea that the way they had been living was wrong. I wouldn't know for sure, of course, but I wonder if their former treachery would have been half so "fun" if they hadn't had some realization that it wasn't right.
Are there moral absolutes? I think, like C.S. Lewis, that even people who believe there are no moral absolutes get mighty offended if you try to steal their watch. They also have some sense that if they share their outrage with the world, most people will side with them. Moreover they sleep fairly well at night, knowing that the sweet elderly ladies next door probably won't murder them in their sleep.
Don't we all assume a basic moral code exists?

Anything Worth Doing

One of my most recent pet peeves is the fact that so many conversations are so little worth having. I'm the most pathetic person in the earth to be talking about this, but I wish to rediscover the fine art of initiating and fostering good discussion and conversation. I mean thoughtful, thought-provoking, interesting and worthwhile.
So, to that end, I'm going to quote SOMEONE ELSE since I don't have a clue what to say.
"Anything worth doing is worth doing badly." What do you think?
I think I exemplify this pithy saying to perfection. For example, one of my responsibilities at Daily Mass is to choose and lead the entrance and recessional hymns. I just do it without accompaniment, from where I'm standing, so I don't even have a piano to hide behind. This is not good because I don't have a fine voice. In fact, it is rather pathetic. However, I really want my boys to learn lots of good hymns, and it doesn't really seem to happen elsewhere in our daily lives, so it seems a good opportunity. So, even though I don't do it well, I do it because it seems to me to be worth doing. My nieces, nephew, and sister-in-law like to learn hymns, too.
Fortunately, my husband and my sons have fine voices, so as long as I get everybody started on the right note, they can carry it.
We were always taught that "anything worth doing is worth doing well," and I can see that, too, but the reverse, a quotation from G.K. Chesterton, just cuts the mustard for me.

Poned by Baked Alaska

My son tells me that "poned" means destroyed.
Last Friday, to celebrate the Birth of Mary, I decided to make Baked Alaska. It has the advantage of having an American name, and as a homeschooling project, we are travelling around the world, beginning in America. Then, I decided to make an extra Baked Alaska for my friend, Debbie, who has a birthday on the same day. You see, then I could put "Happy Birthdays" on the top. I have a bad habit of not reading through to the end of recipes. When I finished said dessert, I noticed on the bottom of the recipe the line that says "Serve immediately." Well, I couldn't serve it immediately, Debbie wasn't here, and after a few minutes of sitting on the counter, these B.A.s were already starting to leak ice cream. Then I put them in the deep freeze until we could go to town and deliver the one, and eat the other at my Brother-in-law's house. Then I found out that Debbie has gone away for the week.
Well, we did eat one, and it was more or less edible. Saw Debbie this morning (a week later) and told her about my adventure, and she said she wouldn't have minded eating my mistake. Then I said, "Well, as a matter of fact, I still have it in my deep freeze!" Some of it melted all over my chicken, but the rest is more or less intact.
I think I'll make her something else instead.

Will somebody with an artistic bone in her body please help me?

I'm trying to construct an indoor water garden. So I have the pot and the water and the pump and so far it all just looks like a pump in a pot. Of course I have some plants around it. How do you disguise that big black cord?
What kind of plants can you plant around it to make it look like it just grew there?
I've been noticing lately how nice it is to have running water nearby. Okay I live in the Palliser Triangle. By running water, I mean a water fall or a fountain or a creek or maybe even a leaky tap. It tends to "cool off" a room and help one to relax. We are all running around here in a stressful state, trying to pretend to get something done before school starts, so some running water is definitely in order. Our yard is completely scorched brown, our trees are all turning brown and losing their leaves, and my garden looks like October. However it is still hot as blazes. I can't do much about the out-of-doors, but I thought if I could keep some water going indoors, it might be nice.

Excuse me, that should have been heartily.

Sagebrush studios

Five boys and I (I borrowed a nephew) went to Sagebrush Studios today. It was about an hour and a half trip to their place - a scenic farmsite in the Saskatchewan River valley. Over the course of a few years, Dean Francis and Fran Hartsook have been collecting churches, renovating them and turning them into studios for Dean's paintings and Fran's ceramics. Dean paints prairie scenery - he grew up in the prairies and loves to highlight them in his works.
The most interesting part of the day for the boys was probably the ferry trip at the Estruary crossing. My nephew was afraid he was going to be seasick, but fortunately the trip is only about 30 seconds long, so he was all right.
It was a good day, notwithstanding the terrific heat, and I would hardly recommend you all take a day trip there.

our mad bull

It occurs to me that some of you will not know about our mad bull.
One of our bulls broke one of its hind legs somehow in the community pasture, and so Peter and Mark had to go out with some other men and try to load it into the stock trailer and bring it home. It was acting rather irrationally and being difficult. It charged at Peter and hit him from behind with its head, knocking him to the ground where he scraped his face. Then it turned around and started running toward him as if it was going to trample him, but at the last moment turned aside and ran past.
Eventually they managed to load it and bring it home, but it was a little scary having it around. Peter took it to Medicine Hat, finally, and had it butchered. I think he rather enjoyed staying around and watching it get shot. I do hope there are not any animal rights activists around.

We decided to keep John here. We'll be sending for Heather.

Okay?

auspicious company

This will have to be short, because JOHN is here. We're having a great visit- I've never had one solitary Hickey here at a time, they always come in groups. We like groups, too, but this is a good opportunity to spend time with John. Last night we had a bonfire and I invited four or families to come besides our own. As it turned out, nobody could come except family. It was nice anyway. Even though it was quite windy, we managed to get a fire started. (That was the royal "we" incidentally) We had watermelon and smores, pop and beer. Father Zoller had come over for supper earlier and met John then. John is going to speak in our parish tonight, then he's going to Mass in Richmound tomorrow morning. Fr. Zoller said he could make an announcement in both places during Mass. Richmound, by the way, is the hometown of the Bosch family.
I had better go get started on the pizza.

Close Encounters of the Bird Kind

This should really be two separate blogs. The bird one comes first, and then there should be a clothesline one after, but I don't want to submit two blogs in one day. I do have a life.
So far this summer we have had two head-on collisions with hawks on the highway. Nobody was killed, except of course the hawks, but it was scary for a moment there. We thought we were going to have the first bird on our lap. There must just be a lot more hawks around than usual.
Incidentally, I was listening to a talk recently by a Science teacher, who said he knows of a group of educators that did a study on the seven most commonly used science texts in the States, to see how many errors there might be. By the time they were done their study, they had accumulated enough errors to fill a 500-page report. (The Science teacher was Dr. J. Wile, author of the Apologia curriculum) One of the errors he heard about was that in one text it stated that every year, 10,000 species of animals were annihilated by humans in one way or another. He said "How many species can there be left in the world?" He said in actual fact that only one species dies out a year, and mostly for natural reasons. Nobody is created to live forever on this earth.
Blog #2
I was hanging my clothes out on the line yesterday and thinking to myself"I wonder if, years from now, people will long for the days when they used to hang all their clothes out on the line." It seems like a nice leisurely activity, as opposed to the rush, rush, rush, of modern life. However, it was so windy yesterday that I couldn't get my t-shirt to stay on the line - not with any number of clothespins - so eventually I gave up and went inside.
My father-in-law claims that a neighbour theirs used to get up really early in the morning to hang all her laundry out on the line, so that she could be the first to have hers out. I guess she thought other people would assume she had been washing since 4:00. I should mention that this laundry was not washed yet. I don't know if it's true or not, but it makes a good blog.

Taming the Math Beast

One thing I seem to have a perpetual difficulty with, as a homeschooling mom, is determining how much our life should revolve around mathematics. Every person needs to learn some math - there is no doubt about that - but I keep having this feeling that not every high school student should have to learn rocket science -type math. I'm doing okay with my fourteen-year-old, Daniel. We're almost rather enjoying factoring quadratic occasions. But when the heck is he ever going to use this stuff. Really.
Now I do not have a utilitarian view of education, not at all. But I do have a utilitarian view of mathematics. Of course one does learn some logic doing math, which is A GOOD THING.
Last year, I heard a talk about different models of education, specifically the Greek model and the Hebraic model. The Greeks, who gave us the word "curriculum", trained their athletes by running them through a routine. Our school system operates in a similar fashion. However the typical Hebrew families had a more family approach. At a certain age, the father took on the education of his sons - I think the mothers looked after the daughters- and the father was the one responsible for passing on the faith. Of course their whole society was set up differently, and most sons can't inherit their father's business anymore. More's the pity.
I often wonder though, if there are some things we can take from the Hebraic model. It seems fairly obvious, that unless the father of a family passes on the faith, it's unlikely that the children will remain faithful to it.
Another thing I wonder is if we shouldn't be putting way more effort into language arts than we are. I want to try to do that personally. I want every single one of my boys to be able to read and write and speak effectively. Nowadays, it seems most parents think that's way too much to expect. I think I have to learn to "tame the math beast" in order to make a priority of the basic communication skills.

Prairie stroll

I was out for a walk today for the first time in a while. We've had a lot of rain and so it has been too muddy to take my usual route.
It was just a beautiful morning, and because I was walking into a slight breeze, I managed to get quite close to five antelope before they noticed me. They are quite timid of course, and when they saw me they ran off a little distance. I met them again on my way home. Magnificent creatures! They ran off in unison and made not a sound.
I love the prairies. They kind of chase you to Jesus in a way, because there's just no place to hide. My favorite time of day to walk is at the golden time of evening. Then the colors are greener and more golden than any other time of day. Right now we have many coyotes and foxes, and I get a little nervous going too far from home in the evening, so I walk during the day. We can hear coyotes howling all night long, and some of them are getting a little over-bold, but they're probably too afraid of people to come close to me.

Ahoy lubbers!

Pardon me for not blogging - we've been off on a cruise. We set off early Friday afternoon heading north/northeast going about - hmm, I'd say 90 knots. It was pretty rough sailing for the first couple of hours, then the seas calmed and the rest was a pleasant voyage. On our arrival, we had a nice meal, then took a walking tour. The accommodations were elegant, the meals sumptuous and the hospitality unsurpassed. Our return home was uneventful and no one was seasick.
Thanks Ma and Pa! See you in July.

Fox Valley isms

Hearing about others in rural areas who pronounce things in an unusual way reminded me of some of the local figures of speech. Probably every community has its own - I'm not trying to say we're special in any sort of way, but have you heard of "married up together with each other", or instead of saying "Are you going with somebody" we just say "Are you going with?" One neighbour remarked once how the conception in his house really improved when he got his new t.v. antenna.

a new era in laundry

Well, our old washing machine finally bit the dust. Actually it didn't bite the dust - I just told my husband it did bite the dust, then he hauled it downstairs and out to the garage, and then we discovered that it was the drier that was responsible for the black greasy (orc-lips, we call them affectionately) stains we were getting all over our laundry. After which, he refused to haul anything but a new washing machine back up again, just in case it happens to bite the dust next week.
Saying good-bye to our old washing machine has put me into a thoughtful mood. This is the same washing machine I accidentally washed our iron in several years ago. Peter took me into the laundry room and showed me the little picture of an iron with an "x" over it that means you are not supposed to wash irons. Or does it? Anyway, both the iron and the washing machine still worked afterwards.
This is the same washing machine that belonged to our household of five single women before I married Peter. When we were dating, he used to run downstairs regularly to redistribute the load for us because it was dancing around the laundry room.
It has since washed countless diapers for us and more recently, countless pairs of jeans.
I have a temporary apartment-sized washing machine now in the basement, where I merely have to wrestle with the mice for the laundry.
I look forward to getting a new washing machine. Really. But it's the end of an era and I can't help but reminisce.

just mostly dead

there's a mini series on EWTN this week about St. Teresa of Avila. It's always a low point of my year when they show this miniseries. I love St. Teresa. The problem is that for about a half an hour or more of the movie, she seems to be dead. You just sit and watch her lying there, with the doctor doing all sorts of experiments on her to see if she is really dead or just mostly dead. The doctor then decides that she is well and truly dead, but her dad won't allow anybody to bury her. Then in an exciting and gripping finale, she comes around and surprises everybody.
The reason I find this so difficult to watch is that it reminds me that no one has ever wanted to make a movie of anything in my life (a day in the life of a farmer's wife teaching piano lessons, etc.). They would rather watch St. Teresa lie there dead for half an hour.
It's possible that I just need a really good agent...

it's me

it's me
This is fun. I was watching my son play t-ball the other day. His team won something like 30 - 8, and the coach told them it was a tie. You see, the coaches have a policy of always telling the kids that the game was a tie, so that they don't get too competitive. I heard one little boy lean over and tell the person beside him "When coach says that, it means we lost." It seemed so funny that he didn't notice the Fox Valley boys going around and around and around the bases. I'm wondering if it really is such a good thing to never tell the kids when they win or lose. It seems to me that one really good lesson for a child to learn is how to win or to lose graciously. What do you think?

Hymn Thing

I thought I'd start out my blogspot with a true confession. I am a closet hymn lover. It began when I was a teenager, and has persisted through my whole adult life, through my various stages as a United Church person, then as a Charismatic Christian, and on into my Catholic life.
You see, I credit hymns with a lot of my personal formation. All kinds of ideas have been infused into me via hymns - granted the ideas came from Scripture and tradition, and people may have learned these things from books or elsewhere. Let me give you an example: when I am weak I am strong. I learned this first from "Jesus loves me", then from "Lord of all Power".
How many of you know that the "Divine Pelican" is a title of Jesus? If you don't that would be because we don't sing "Adoro te Devote" anymore. The original, I mean. St. Thomas Aquinas included a verse about the Divine Pelican. There is a legend that if a pelican is unable to find food for her young, she will peck her own breast and pour out her own blood to feed them, causing her own death. I don't know if pelicans really do this, but this is where the title for Jesus came from.
I promise not to go on too often about this, but I just had to tell everyone right off the bat. Anyone have any comments?