"As"

I was thinking about Jennifer @ Conversion Diary’s resolve to put up a post about the meaning of every single word of the Our Father, and I was picking out in my mind the difficult ones - “in”, “thy”, “as”, “it”. That was just how it seemed to me - as if, flowing along the words of that phrase, “thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven”, this one word, “as”, was written in bold. What did it mean? Why did that word suddenly strike me as profound, in a nonspecific sort of way?

So I started thinking about what that word, “as”, meant. It reminded me of another “as”, the one where Jesus says “Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.”(Matt 5:48). That phrase has provided a dilemma for me, a riddle. The saints and theologians all seem to say that we cannot actually attain perfection in this life, only in the next. But if so, why would Jesus say it?

And pondering it, I suddenly saw something.

Life is an asymptote.

For those of you less familiar with mathematical terms, an asymptote is one of those funny things that you get with certain equations, (most often when you get close to dividing by zero). If you have an asymptote, the graph of your equation will never quite touch some line that it is getting close to - but it will literally never stop getting closer and closer to it, either.

Let’s say that God’s will as it is done in heaven is 42*. Praying that God’s will be done on earth as it is in heaven means that you’re not satisfied with 40 on earth. It means that if the earth reached 41.9, you wouldn’t stop and say “This is good enough for me. I’m staying here.” You don’t let things just level off, remaining a permanently fixed distance from perfection. Even at 41.99999999999, you’re still striving, still fighting the good fight to inch us that much closer to God’s will as it is in heaven.

It’s important that we remember that God always loves us, whether we’re at 40 or a negative billion. We don’t say “as”, as if our eternal lives depended on reaching that “as” on earth. Our peace, our joy in God comes long before we approach perfection. But we keep striving for it, yearning for it, and praying for it, because we know that every little bit closer that we get, is totally worth it.


* If you’re on the internet and don’t know why I picked 42, I’d be a little shocked. But if so, go see 42.

A Kid's Easter Proclamation?

Elijah: "Now that Jesus is still alive again, maybe he can fix the flooding."
Me: "What flooding?"
Elijah: "Remember the place with all the water, because the thing broke? And the earthquake?"
Me: "You mean Japan?"
Elijah: "Yeah."

So I explained that I didn't think the land was still flooded, and that the Japanese were trying to rebuild everything. But I thought his connection of Easter with Japan was very interesting.

PicVids: April 2011

There's no videos in this edition of PicVids, on account of how I still have to upload all the videos from my laptop to Youtube. But enjoy the pics.

Gabe's been having this love-hate thing going on with baths. He wants to splash in it when someone else is in it, but he won't get in himself.

When we homeschool, he has to be involved, too. When I made the other kids copy a sentence in their notebooks, he got his little one and filled it with little swirlies about the size of letters. Here's he's scribbling on the notebook that I use to write out whatever they're supposed to copy.

Elijah's under the helmet, in case you can't tell.

I'm homeschooling, too, Mama, really I am!

Brother-sister love.

Going through my photos made me decide I need more photos of Ken.

Sisterly love. Or just Kyrie trying to get in on a shot. I forget which. :)

Do they look alike?

"Mom, why is she hugging me?"

Jules just sort of decided to join Gabe in the kitchen. Because that's what happens when babies learn to crawl.

Overheard

The kids are playing in the bedroom; well, they're sitting on the top bunk eating candy while Kyrie is talking. She's pretending to be someone or other, but I hear her talking about Santa and Mom and some others.

Then I hear: "By the way, I'm not really real."

My God-Driven Makeover

UPDATE: If you are looking at this post from my main blog site, it is probably appearing with a bunch of sentences underlined. I have no idea why. They do not show up on the individual post page, for some reason.




So after much mulling over and much discussion (mostly on Facebook) of the question of beauty that I wrote about before - where I think that God wants me to take some measures to make myself look more attractive - here is my own, personal "makeover". This is what I've decided to do.

1.Start wearing skirts at least some of the time.

I've been thinking about this one for a long time, actually. Some time ago, the idea of wearing skirts all the time captured my imagination. I haven't acted on it, but it was quick to come to mind when I started to think that God wanted me to put a little effort into looking more attractive. Right after that, I came across this post about wearing skirts, which seemed like a confirmation that that would be a good direction for me to go.

The reasons I haven't worn skirts much before this is (a) I only own one, and didn't want to spend money on more; and (b) it's hard to find ones that will hold up to use around small kids. I plan to deal with the cost by buying a few skirts over time, as I can afford them. I've bought this skirt off Etsy; it was Ken's favorite of the ones I looked at. (For a picture of me wearing it, scroll to the bottom of the post.) There's a black skirt at Lane Bryant that might satisfy (b), which I hope to buy in the future. And I will keep my eye out for other practical skirts. 

2. Wear other cuter clothes.

Some time ago Gabe, my two-year-old, was "helping" me sort laundry. He would grab each carefully-folded item out of the basket (thus un-folding it), hand it to me, and tell me whose it was so I could (after re-folding it), put it on the right person's pile. Whenever he pulled out one of my jeans, he insisted they were "dada"s. (It was actually quite cute; I would tell him, "no, that's mama's", and he would look at me, look back at the jeans, and say, "no, dada".)

So I've been thinking that maybe I would feel a lot girlier if, you know, I didn't have to look at the tag to tell the difference between my jeans and Ken's. I do own one pair of jeans with pretty decorations down the side, and they're my favorite jeans. When I buy jeans in the future, I will definitely try to find ones with distinctly feminine decorations on them.

Since I also needed some cute tops, Ken and I went shopping at Lane Bryant a couple weeks ago, and I came home with several cute tops. He has good taste in clothes.

This is the cutest top Ken picked out. I put this photo up on Facebook and asked if it was too low-cut. A couple people said to wear a cammy* if going to work or church, but most people said it was fine.

*I could not find a camisole at Kmart that both fit me and was more modest than the low-cut shirts. What's up with that? I did pick up some cute sandals, though.

3.Get my hair done.

Of all the responses that I got to my earlier post, doing something with my hair was the most common suggestion. And, frankly, it’s something I was leaning towards doing even before this all started. My sister got enthusiastic about this, picked out a salon for me (made possible by the internet, considering she lives half a continent away), and even transferred money into my account to help pay for it. Go Cathy! :)

Before:

Keep in mind that I never wore it down like this. It was *always* in a braid. And usually a frizzy, falling apart one at that.

The stylist figured she cut off about 8 inches of split ends, although she said the top was surprisingly healthy.

After:

Getting Kyrie to take a close-up and focused photo was difficult.

Ken wouldn't take a photo b/c he was sulking about how short it was. :)

I didn't know what I wanted, so the stylist suggested I have my hair blown out. I don't think I really care for how big that makes my hair look, but it was worth trying it to see. She showed me how wavy my hair was when wet, and said that I could try putting gel in it to keep it wavy, which idea I like. This is how it looks when I tried that. (I like it much better than the straight look).

Why does my laptop camera turn everything blue? I love the curls, though.

 And I do really like the length. (Ken doesn't). It came out a couple inches shorter than I was picturing it, but I don't mind that. It is SO much easier to brush and take care of. It's a lot lighter, too. And It's more flexible; I can leave it down for ordinary days, put it in a ponytail when I need it away from my face, and do a half-braid for special occasions. Instead of just braid, braid, braid all the time.

4. Try to clear up my skin.

A friend had previously recommended a 2% BHA Liquid that cleared up the tiny red bumps on her own face. Since I have the same thing, I went ahead and bought some. It seems to be helping a little, albeit slowly. 

Before:

See, this is what my hair usually looked like from the front.

After:

Can you even see any difference? My laptop camera isn't quite clear enough, and my digital camera doesn't focus when I'm holding it and pointing it at myself, so neither one really captured my complexion. This will take time to improve, anyhow.

5. Wear make-up (maybe).

I had actually decided not to do this, on account of the hassle, when I came across this post, a sort of beginner's guide to make-up. I will go ahead and try her suggestion for beginners - concealer, mascara, and lip gloss. (I don't have the concealer yet). Allergies make my eyes itch a lot, and there's a patch under my right eye that looks bruised from rubbing it so hard. Maybe if I wear concealer and mascara sometimes, it will help remind me not to touch my eyes, even when they itch really really bad. This is sort of a work in progress, so I'll have to try it out and see if I'm motivated to keep doing it or not.

I also am keeping some lip balm or chapstick with me at all times and using it often. I am blessed with fairly bright lips, as long as they aren't chapped and dry, so I think this will make a big difference all by itself. 




Putting it all together

Before:

It doesn't help that it's a crappy picture, but all the alternatives were muy fuzzy. Emphasizes the difference, though.

After:

All dressed up for the Easter Vigil. He is risen! Alleluia Alleluia!

The God Part


I will say, too, that I really believe that this is something God wanted me to do. I know it can seem superficial and wasteful to put time and effort and money into making myself look more attractive, but God has given me peace in my heart at every step. There was once or twice when I felt He was telling me to take a step back and not go too far with the whole thing, but for the most part, he has reassured me that, since this is what He told me to do, I will not be depriving anyone else of something they need by obeying Him. That is something that is harder for me to believe than it may sound. But, as I've allowed myself to look girlier and more attractive, it has been like a weight has lifted off my heart. (A weight I did not clearly realize was there.) I've found, as I have found every time I've obeyed God, a new sense of freedom and life. 

Would You Have Picked Up the Rosary?

As I was getting ready to leave for Holy Thursday Mass tonight, I saw my rosary and had an impulse to bring it with. 

At this point, a lot of thoughts are going through my head. Is this an impulse from God? Am I going to need the rosary for some reason tonight? I can't think of any possible reason why I would want a rosary at Mass. I'm definitely not going to use it *during* Mass. So why would God want me to bring my rosary? Could this instead be an impulse from the devil? Could it be a distraction to slow me down and make me late? I'm already later than I'd like to be. Could the rosary end up being stolen or lost if I brought it? That seems extremely unlikely. And so on.

I was like the proverbial cow, placed exactly between two bales of hay, unable to pick which side to move towards. Fortunately, I've been there enough times that I've learned to just pick a choice and go with it. Getting it wrong in such cases is usually a lot less painful than dithering over it indefinitely, imagining worse and worse potential consequences for each choice as time goes by.

I picked up the rosary and stuck it in my pocket.

Holy Thursday Mass is the one time of year when my parish brings together its very large Spanish-speaking community and its relatively small English-speaking community into one bilingual Mass. Kyrie had been picked to be one of the people getting their feet washed (they had been looking for volunteers at her First Communion class), so it was an especially exciting time. (The more so for me, because I had left the other kids at home with Ken, taking only Kyrie and the baby, so that we weren't taking up extra space in the very crowded church). Listening to the priest speak in Spanish and seeing all the Hispanics around me, I was renewed in my desire to learn Spanish. And, as I often have, I wondered if I could be an effective force for renewal among the Hispanics, helping them to see Jesus more personally, if only I learned their language. I have no idea if God wants me in a role like that or not. (And, to be sure, the ones who are coming to Mass may be the least likely to need it). 

At the end of Mass, the priest put the Eucharist in the monstrance and we had a little procession with it across the courtyard to the parish center, where it would be on display for Adoration until midnight. This happens every single year on Holy Thursday, and yet, somehow, every single year I forget that it's going to happen.

Kyrie wanted to go see what Adoration was about, so we went. Once there, I suddenly remembered the rosary in my pocket. I wanted to pray the rosary myself, but I doubted Kyrie could last that long without getting bored. After another brief interlude of mental dithering, I pulled the rosary out and handed it to Kyrie, telling her she could use it to pray the rosary if she wanted. I prayed the rosary myself, keeping track on my fingers.*

This worked out phenomenally well. Kyrie and I actually finished our rosaries at about the same time; having something to handle kept her focused and going the whole time, even when most of the room started up a Spanish group prayer out loud. In the meantime, I prayed my rosary for all the people around me, that each and every one of them would have a phenomenal relationship with Jesus. After all my concern for my fellow parishioners, it gave me some peace to pray a rosary for them.

*Apparently my counting skills need some work. I prayed the Glory Be at the end of the first decade, only to realize that I had forgotten my other hand, and had only prayed 5 Hail Mary's instead of 10.  :) (I ended up adding another decade on the end to compensate.) 

God Wants Me To Make My Own Food

I'd been thinking a lot about food in recent months - rereading the book Real Food, reading blogs and articles, and so on. I'm pretty sure that at least once, I took a moment to ask God to guide me towards what I should be doing. And apparently, He has some suggestions to make.

1. Make Your Own Yogurt

It started when I was attempting to make homemade yogurt. (I blogged before about this.) When I came across this recipe for home-cultured yogurt, it really caught my eye, because my kids eat a ton of yogurt, and it seems like the kind of thing that could be healthy but probably isn't when you buy it from a store with tons of sugar and other random ingredients added in. So a-yogurt-making I went.

How it went:

My first few attempts failed because I couldn't insulate the yogurt well enough to keep it warm to "grow". So I experimented with my oven's dial and a digital meat thermometer, to find where on the dial is about 106 °F. 

Yes, I marked the spot on the dial with tape so I could find it again. And you have no idea how hard it was to get this picture. Either the shot came out blurry or the light reflected off that black surface, making everything invisible.

The author of the recipe said using the cheap yogurt as a starter worked best. To test this for myself, I tried three different brands of yogurt.

YoBaby Peach (organic, not cheap); Strawberry (cheap); Plain

She was right. 

YoBaby = watery/separated. Strawberry = best of the lot. Plain = most watery/separated.

It didn't work so well when I tried to use some of the middle yogurt to grow another batch, though. It might not have been "strong" enough. I made five jars worth the next time around, and we'll see if we can get any of those to grow its own batch. Kyrie, who eats the most yogurt, tried some today and said, "I'm eating it, but I don't know if I like it or not." (That was after adding some pure maple syrup, since they're used to it sweet.) I love it, though, and I think I will let the kids get used to it.

2. Make Your Own Applesauce

Somewhere in the process of writing about yogurt, the idea had popped into my head of making homemade applesauce. I was moderately charmed by the idea, but did not think a whole lot about it. Then out of the blue one day, Kyrie told me I should make homemade applesauce. When I asked her where the idea came from, she said someone on one of the cartoons she had watched had done that. Since the idea had independently come up twice, I took it as God telling me something.

How it went: 

Peel 15 apples of mixed varieties; use the corer to core and slice them; put them in a pot with 3/4 c. water and simmer on med-low until soft. Mash with a potato masher. Fill 8 mason jars to put in fridge, and enjoy a heaping bowlful leftover to eat warm. Simple, and delicious.

I didn't bother canning it "properly", since I wasn't planning on having them sit in the fridge for more than a week.

Kyrie loved it. I loved it. Elijah and Savi said they didn't like "what you put in it, Mom". I found that hilarious, since I hadn't even added sugar or cinnamon. They just meant they didn't like the chunks of apples that hadn't got as liquified as the rest. Next time I will stir it every ten minutes or so to make sure the apples spend equal time in the water along the bottom, to make them softer and reduce chunkiness. (Although I like the chunkiness myself.)

3. Make Your Own Cheese

Right after I made the decision to try to make my own applesauce and yogurt because I felt God was leading me to it, I woke up to discover this article in my feed reader about a local class that teaches how to make your own cheese at home. (Which led me to this book about making your own cheese, yogurt, butter, and more, which I'm considering buying).

I laughed and said to God, "Really?! You want me to make my own cheese too?"

I plan to try some mozarella at some point, although I'm highly attached to cheddar, and I don't know if it's even possible to make cheddar at home. But mozarella is good too.

4. Make Your Own Cereal

I have this recipe called "Koinonia Granola" that my mom taught me to make growing up. I love the stuff; it's oodles and oodles better than any storebought granola that I have ever tasted. It's not overly complicated, but it takes a variety of ingredients that I don't usually keep on hand. And it has to be done in batches, so it can take a bit of time. (It lasts a long time, though.) I've only made it once since I moved to Oregon almost five years ago.

I wasn't planning to include this as one of my homemade foods. Then this morning, my son was staring at a box of Apple Jacks and said, out of the blue, "Mom, I wish we could make homemade cereal some time."

Okie doke, God. Homemade granola it is.