Gulo Gulo

I watched PBS's Nature last night. The program was "Wolverine: Chasing the Phantom." And among the many amazing things they said concerning this marvelous creature was its Latin name: Gulo gulo. The name means "glutton glutton." And I've been thinking about gluttony since and it seems to me right that the Desert Fathers thought of it as the heart of our sin - the first sin is a sin of gluttony and all sin flows forth from it. (Pride, C.S. Lewis - I hear you.) This is why fasting is of such paramount importance to the Fathers and the Orthodox even still. Fasting undoes the first sin. Now, I am not real big on fasting. (Whereas feasting is spirituality I can dig in to.)I wrestle with my gluttony, my avarice toward all things - consumption, gluttony, seems to be the prize of American culture and any limit imposed on it is flatly rejected (though more precisely any limit imposed from without rather than freely taken on by oneself). There is no true freedom in accumulation - more for the sake of more. (See Jonathan Franzen's Freedom.) My dog is a picture of my heart. She is a voracious, out-of-control scavenger. At times, ratlike. My cats are also this way. Especially the semi-feral cat. You have to pull Francis out of his food just to finish pouring it. There is no contentment, no rest. So it is with our hearts. This is why it is so important to share, to give alms. To say No to self in order to say Yes to my neighbor. To suppress the gulo gulo in each of us.

This is also part of the beauty and hardship of living generously in a large family, I might add. Twelve Popsicles mean two apiece. Maybe. Probably not, though, because Daddy might give some out to the little ones at home while the bigger ones are learning about landforms. And then there aren't enough Popsicles for everyone. And if there aren't enough for everyone, then nobody gets one. It's hard. But it is also blessing. It helps us form godliness and love within us. And it's hard.

It is like this in our world. We are a large family, and we must share. Because so many are without clean water and food. So many are dying while we become Mayors of our favorite restaurants. While we become fat. While we hoard and fill our barns. And build bigger barns. May God have mercy on us; that we might draw near to him, who pours himself out freely and unreservedly to all.

Mad as a Hatter

I've had very little sleep this week. I'm just warning you is all. The following may not be entirely coherent.

The baby is going to be here very soon. Last night was a contender for the birth date, but Laura feels better today. We'll see how she feels tonight. According to the doctor the due date is the 22nd, though the Ides of March was the original due date. It got shoved back. I am partial to the 15th simply for its Shakespearean value, but that may have little bearing on the date of the actual birth. Either way, the baby is full term and we've had other babies weeks early before. I suppose we'll wait to see.

We are expecting a boy, as that is what the ultrasound technician told us, and we have a name chosen, though it is not written in stone - it seems to change every couple of weeks. (To think that the name you so identify with, which is so much part of who you think you are, came down to the will of two very tired people who forget things constantly and dress rather badly can numb one's mind.) We think his name will be Samuel David, though it very well might not be.

Seven children. Who'd have ever thunk it? Lord, have mercy.

Speaking of Lent, it has become one of my favorite seasons in the Church Calendar - this call to come home is a precious, needful thing, and I am so very thankful for it. The call is year-round, of course, a silent presence behind the noise of our lives. It says, "I am here. I will wait for you." Patient Lover, who can resist your graces?

I've been writing some articles on poverty over at Tyndale's NLT site, and the early Church Fathers have been speaking quite loudly to me (they always seem to when you give them their say), Saint John Chrysostom in particular. I give too little thought about so much of what I do, about so much of how I live. My life, after all, is not lived terribly different than most Americans' lives. And yet so much of what I do is avaricious. Like having a full pantry and fuller closets. Like being isolated from the needs of my neighbors. I could go on. I probably should. Read Chrysostom's Homily 6 on Titus sometime to get a feel for what I'm thinking about these days. At one point in his homily, he talks about the impediment that riches are and the liberty that poverty brings - as illustration he talks about a nekkid man and a fully clothed man (think flowing garments and robes). Who is easier to catch, he asks? Homecoming and greased pigs is all I could think of, but it's pertinent, isn't it? I also thought of Mark, running off nekkid from the soldiers. Perhaps such is what Chrysostom had in mind. "Almsgiving," he says, "is the mother of love." And I'll stop with the following quote from another saint:

"The Lord's mercies are innumerable. Look at all the earth supplies in summer and in autumn! Every Christian ... ought to imitate God's bountifulness. Let your table be open to everybody, like the table of the Lord. The avaricious is God's enemy" (St. John of Kronstadt, from My Life in Christ, Pt. 1).

Live Jesus. Practice Poverty. Give alms.

Stuff

I am sorry that I have not kept up with my blog, but it has been busy and pushing my blog aside has been one of the better things I have done with my time. Since I have been gone, my oldest son started Kindergarten. He cried the entire first day of school. It was a rough couple of weeks. He is doing well now, seems to be enjoying school, but it still makes him a little nervous. Since I have been gone, I also began (with great trepidation) as a catechist for eighth graders at my parish. I teach Church history and mostly blather on and on - it is sort of like beating them with a stick until they're senseless. But if by the time the year is finished they know nothing but God is love, I will be happy. If I know it by the time the year is finished, I will be ecstatic.

Jack, that great lover of the automobile - specifically the truck - discovered the Disney-Pixar film Cars and I am ready to blow my brains out - it is on all the time.

Speaking of the boy, Jack used to answer "No" for every question asked of him - regardless of whether me meant yes or no - I am proud to report that he has finally begun saying, "Yes," which for him comes out quite handsomely as "Yessir." Very respectful and very southern, and it makes me chuckle every time he says it to my wife - everyone gets "yessir," irrespective of sex or age. We also recently discovered that he likes country music. I am considering changing his name to Hank.

Cate is growing too quickly; she has four teeth now. She enjoys time rooting around on the floor - and there are always great treasures to be found on our floors. Our family is in love again.

I have begun the discipline of writing; I sit down at my old green Hermes 3000 and type every morning. Not as much as I would like on most days, since I have other responsibilities. But I have about 100 pages now and am moving forward quite nicely. It is very rewarding seeing and feeling the pile of typed pages grow. It's a nice stack now and is roughly a third of the way into my first draft (my excremental draft, as Anne Lamott would say). If I do die before I finish, please burn it without reading it. "The earth was formless and void" - all that.

I hope all of you are well and I am looking forward to the time when we can simply sit down together for a while. Virtual is fine in the absence of actual, but it sure falls short.

A Little Saturday Morning Gas

The very day after the morning I tell my mother how disturbing it is to me that the McCain campaign has done nothing to stop the building anger and fear toward Obama in their rallies, McCain steps up and affirms Obama as a good family man (who just happens to pal around with terrorists). The GOP campaign, specifically Gov Palin and campaign ads, fed this fire. I hope they can put it out. I hope they do their best to try to. That being said, "Thank you, Sen McCain. It's good to see you again."

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The next time I get flak for the size of my family, I'm saying, "Listen, Pal. That 10 trillion dollars ain't gonna take care of itself."

Speaking of which, I was at Wal-Mart the other day with the two boys. The cavernous temple evoked a happy volley of shrieks, as per usual - not terribly piercing, just happy. A lady down the aisle glowered at us. Then she took several opportunities to look at us blackly as we wheeled by. After checking out, we passed her again with her adult daughter. As we passed she began telling her about the audacity of my children's vocalizations. "I swanny. Wal-Mart ain't no library, lady."

I Did Not Come Kicking and Screaming

Among other books, I have been reading Crossing the Tiber by Stephen Ray. His book relates his journey into the Catholic Church from Evangelicalism. But it's less than that and more. The book is divided into thirds. The first third is his conversion story. The remaining two-thirds give a somewhat overwhelming portrait of Baptism and the Eucharist and the unified witness of Sacred Scripture, the early Fathers, and current Church teaching concerning these two sacraments. Their testimony is astounding.

Of course, my heart is torn when I read such books because of where I am and where my family is. But let me be forthright and say that I don't believe that my family is in sin being Protestant. I do believe that they're wrong. And (regardless of how little I'll be believed) that is not to say that I do believe that I'm right, by the way. However, I do believe that the Catholic Church is right. My becoming Catholic is not the reward of my intellectual labor, not even my doing. It was not an intellectual discovery on my part, not an intellectual decision with which I rigorously struggled through in study. I did not chew my nails down to the quick wrestling with Catholicism. Some have. No, my becoming Catholic was very much accidental, like falling in love. I was longing for it. When I willingly walked into my first Catholic parish in 25 years and breathed in the smell of the place, I was home. I knew it. Deep calling to deep. My study of the Catholic Church was not to see whether she was apostate, but to see whether she was orthodox. I wasn't researching for a way to keep me from her, but researching to find a way into her. At that point, I already knew I wanted to be Catholic, I just needed to be certain that to be so would not be faithless to Christ. Little did I know that it was Christ who called me. Little did I understand that Christ and the Church are the whole Christ. There is no separating Christ from his Church. He is the Head and we are His Body.

The Catholic Church is populated with imperfect people, and such have populated her throughout history. But she is perfect in her faith. There is wholeness here. And so we pray during our liturgy, "Look not on our sins, but on the faith of your Church."

Section 760 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church says,

Christians of the first centuries said, "The world was created for the sake of the Church." God created the world for the sake of communion with his divine life, a communion brought about by the "convocation" of men in Christ, and this "convocation" is the Church. The Church is the goal of all things, and God permitted such painful upheavals as the angels' fall and man's sin only as occasions and means for displaying all the power of his arm and the whole measure of the love he wanted to give the world:

Just as God's will is creation and is called "the world," so his intention is the salvation of men, and it is called "the Church."

Recently I was listening to Aimee Milburn speak about evangelization and Catholicism. She speaks of how we need to respect others' faith and others' place and journey with and toward God - as Pope John Paul II said, to respect others' "spiritual timing and tempo." I've not respected this "timing and tempo" in others at various times. I probably will fail to do so in the future. And I apologize for my failings, my overstepping of this sacred boundary. I am sorry that I have made others feel as if I do not respect their faith, that I have made you feel as if I do not respect yours. Because I do respect your faith. Deeply. I know that you know and love God, that you are known and loved by Him. And yet my heart aches wanting you to discover this country I have unwittingly stumbled upon. This beautiful place.

But I am learning to be patient. I am learning to be quiet.

I scribble proudly on notepads while others breathe life onto canvas and carve human bodies from marble. Forgive my simple scribblings. If I am proud of them, it is only because they are all that I am capable of.

Bike by Bike

When my wife picked me up from the bookstore on that fateful February afternoon, I opened the truck's door to find a tangle of gaudy steel, rubber, and self-dressed children. Thrift-shop bikes were packed into every nook and cranny of the vehicle, sharing seats with and providing footrests for children. One child complained that the handlebar was digging into her ribs.

"They're ugly," I protested as I re-arranged the bikes the best I could. "The tires are bald." I slammed the tailgate and pulled myself into the driver's seat. I gave Laura my best look of exasperation and I turned the ignition. "They're crap."

"Fix them for the kids," she said in soft Marian tones.

"I hate crap from thrift shops," I wanted to bellow, though the stores often clothe my family.

And, until spring, the bikes lay in a pile under our carport on the red lava rocks that pave our drive. Spring comes easily in North Carolina. One of the bikes was picked up, the one with training wheels, by a child visionary who dreamed of freedom, of wind in her hair, who had fire in her legs. She cajoled her parents into supervision. She rode back and forth in front of our house and the others heard the whoosh of her bike and saw the joy radiating from her cherubic cheeks. Once, as she passed closely by, the breeze stirred the latent embers of desire in other small chests, chests that also yearned for freedom regardless the cost.

I saw the flame in their eyes; I shook my head silently. I turned and looked at the pile of broken bikes that needed fixing. "Shit."

It happened nearly as soon as a thrift-shop bike was ridden, the tire would go flat. One after another, as systematically as bubble wrap. So I went to the bike shop and laid out big money for a quality floor pump. (It also inflates automobile tires easily and has an accurate gauge.) Next, I stopped at Wal-Mart to pick up new tires and inner tubes, bike tools, and helmets (after a brief conversation with a police officer who stopped by one afternoon while the kids were riding bareheaded). All told, I spent nearly as much as I would had I bought all new bikes for the kids. Of course, to be fair, they still wouldn't have helmets, and I wouldn't have my bike tools and my expensive floor pump.

So I made a sign and officially opened Fat-Ass Bike Repair, the red-neck branch (is there another?), and went to work. I changed multiple inner tubes and put on new white, BMX style tires. The floor pump worked beautifully. Having the proper tools for the job was a dream. Soon the girls were riding. And within days, all of them were riding without training wheels. With Vulcan still sweating furiously in my breast, I retrieved my 25-year-old Raleigh 12-speed. It's moved with us everywhere across the Southeast, but hasn't been ridden since college. It needed a new tube for the front tire. It will also eventually need new brakes, as the old ones brake softly, and new shifters, which don't work (or perhaps derailers - I'm not sure yet). The seat is fine, if too small and too hard - a bit like bull-riding on a birch stump, I would imagine - and my large ass looks as if it is on the verge of swallowing it. But the bike works. (It was this bike that gave me piles my freshman year in high school. We have memories.)

Still, my wife needed a bike also. When we bought our house, two old bikes were parked under the carport. One was a men's 10-speed and the other was an old Huffy BayPointe 3-speed, a vintage cruiser, for a woman. The BayPointe was in need of some air and care, but that's about it. And soon, after adding a basket, and after a good rust scrub and wash, the bike was ready to go.

The girls rode their bikes at every opportunity. They gained the confidence and skills necessary for a trip down to the locally owned grocery (about a half mile down the road) and rode down yesterday for soda and candy with their mama. (Laura's basket detaches from its mount and can be used as a grocery basket inside the store, which is cool.) They made their daddy proud - especially when they brought him a Snickers.

We Are Lyons

My family is ramblingly huge. We keep track by counting rather than by naming. We are learning to share with one another, learning to sacrifice for one another, learning to submit ourselves to one another for Christ's sake. It is difficult, and we fail.

We are messy and loud.

Some are daunted by this leonine pride. They are used to small, well-ordered things. They are quiet. Their furniture and floors are spotless. They display fragile, valuable mementos on end tables, on low bookshelves and Christmas tree branches. When we visit, their pretties lie there before us like old antelopes.

Our furniture is old and second-hand, our walls dented and dingy. Our Christmas trees are top heavy. We have nothing of any great value ... except one another.

And I am happy.

Various and Sundry

I'm detoxing from caffeine ... again. I had a monster headache all last week and am still struggling through some rebound headaches as well. I have had one or two days headache free. I'm looking forward to more.

Important news: Yesterday was my mom's birthday. Happy birthday, Mom! I miss living near my mom and my dad. I miss being able to hug them rather than simply telling them I love you. But I do love you both, and, Mom, I hope you had a wonderful birthday.

The baby boy is coming! Our son is now full-term. And he will be in our arms before you can say Jack Robinson (No, that won't be his name). The due date is the 24th, but we are tentatively planning an induction on the 19th. Laura is just great with child and pretty miserable and tired much of the time. Pray for her and for our son.

I'm around, but I do have work to finish up this week - so, again, posting may be light.

Menagerie

The tram was full. It was a teacher work day and parents had decided that the 70-degree, blue-skied day was one for the zoo. I was among them, though I had forgotten about the work day (my wife's schedule is different than the rest of the county's). I was next in line and told the tram operator who was loading passengers and had looked my way, "I'll just wait for the next tram if we can't all sit together."

"There's room for you to sit together here," she said. I started walking toward the back of the tram, pushing Will in the stroller. As kindly as possible in front of so many passengers with cell phones and the Department of Social Services on speed-dial, I encouraged Anna and Avery to walk quickly. I unbuckled Will and told the girls to get up in the seat. The tram driver took my stroller from me to store in the front, and I climbed into the last seat on the tram. Or tried to. Anna wouldn't move over. "C'mon, Anna, move over so Will and I can sit down." She and Avery finally scooted over toward the thirty-something father next to them with the three-year-old towhead on his lap.

I sat down and thanked the man for making room. His daughter looked at me and said, "I think you might be too big to ride on here."

"I think you're right," I said.

As the tram began moving the little girl asked if the two girls were my little girls. "Nope," I said, "I just found them wandering around the park and I picked them up." She stared at me as she tried absorbing the information until I relented and said, "No, they're my girls. This," I said placing my hand on her head, "is Avery, and this," I said, moving my hand, "is Anna."

The little girl's dad, who held her tightly, said, "I told you he was their daddy, Sweetheart."

One of the tram operators got on the speaker as we came up on the tram stop halfway back to the park entrance. "Can I see a show of hands of anyone who would like to get off at this stop?" Several hands shot up, including the man's next to me. The hands went back down as the tram drove silently past the tram stop. I turned to him and said, "I guess they just wanted to see."

Notes from the Infirmary

The Lyons' house has been full this week. But Laura and Sophie, home because of the flu, are heading back to school today. Avery got it too, but it hasn't seemed to hit her as hard as her sister or her mama.

The Jeep's running loudly. I'll be looking at it today. And if you know anything about my automobile expertise, you are now laughing out loud.

I am meeting with our local priest to discuss sin and grace and justification tomorrow afternoon (4 p.m.). I'd appreciate your prayers about this meeting, as I'm having difficulty verbalizing my questions and ordering my thoughts.

Anyone have an extra Easy Button lying around?

On a bright note, it's supposed to be in the 70s and sunny (80 on Sunday and Monday?) for the next five or more daysΩ.

My son just typed that omega. I don't know how. The Raccoon has this thing with computers - after he's touched it, I usually have to do a search for help on how to get the computer running normally again. The last time he had access to it, he set the computer to "VoiceOver" so that the machine was reading every text out loud as I scrolled over it. It was not a sultry reading either - just sterile computerized vocalizations. (Blast!) It only takes him a few keystrokes to confound me.

Snot for Sale

I've got four, fully functioning snot factories currently up and running. Three of them have fevers, which increases output significantly. By year's end, profits should be through the roof if we continue at this pace (assuming we find a buyer).

Keep up the good work, Team.