Spring

It's spring here in North Carolina: My oldest daughter went to her first Reconciliation, receiving forgiveness for her dark and sordid eight years. My wife went to hers the same day.

Then, on Easter Vigil, Laura was received into full communion with the Catholic Church. I was confirmed. Our parish was crowded, the liturgy bi-lingual. It was noisy. And the Easter Vigil liturgy is not a short one, with reading after reading. But the children survived and now, thanks be to God, my wife also smells of balsam. She smells like the Holy Spirit.

The change in her is interesting to me - and it makes me happier than you can know. It surprised me. But the grace given to us through the sacraments shouted to her, I suspect. It moved her profoundly. She felt as if she were being married. As if she were being born again, again.

And I understand the feeling, the beauty and joy of it: The strangeness; being staggered into newness so unexpectedly; being elementally embraced by water and Spirit, and with oil and candlelight. And how, so immediately, your mind and heart turns toward family and friends, wishing they could, at the very least, participate in your reception. (In deep sadness, knowing that some would not.) Fervidly hoping that they might participate in their own - not because they are without Christ or anything necessary to their joy or salvation, because that is nonsense. But because they are not in full communion with the Church and miss the grace (the life, the nearness of God) that God gives so gratuitously within her sacramental life.

But it is difficult to describe, perhaps impossible, without offending those who are still where you were. And I will stop so that I am not guilty again of being overzealous. Perhaps I am already too late. (I do such a poor job - wanting to share my joy, but in the end only injuring those dear to me.) My heart is full. My wife's heart is full. And we are happy. Indeed.

May the Lord bless each of you. May his grace (his life, his nearness) pour out upon you. May you ever be more united to his love, which never fails, which has never been dependent upon you - that rushes forward without interruption, a mighty river from the side of Christ.

Christ is risen! He is truly risen!

The Taxman Cometh

What a weekend. Laura did taxes on Saturday morning and delivered the bad news: We owe over a thousand dollars. This news on the heels of other fun financial news. This news after we were expecting (and needing) a large refund due to our legion of children and the federal tax credit that currently comes with them. So Laura, visions of Cinderella Man in her head, cried some and we took the kids to the park.

After we got home, I looked for more freelance work as well as a full-time job - with little success, as usual.

Laura continued on the taxes. She came up the stairs into my half-story office and said that she had just entered Sophie's social security number and that when she did the amount we owed dropped to $20. That drop came with one child. We have a bazillion children. So Laura's tears became smiles and my nervous laughter settled down into peace.

. . . . .

My two youngest children are coffee drinkers. That's right, my three-year-old yellow-haired child and my 22-month-old boy, whose use of wet coffee grounds from the trash as chaw makes room for easy belief, are drinking now. Of course it's Eve's fault. I don't drink coffee. Okay, occasionally I'll have a cup. But these kids drink the stuff whenever my wife does. It's disturbing. Sunday, on the way to church, my son had my wife's mug and was slurping down her last ounce while strapped down in his baby seat.

That just ain't right. Are cigars next?

Falling for You

The van is working again. The mechanic slipped the drive belt on in no time at all and charged me nothing for his trouble. "Don't worry about it," he said - what an excellent little sentence.

We appreciate your prayers.

. . . . .

Last night, after the kids had gone to bed, my wife and I were watching American Idol. A commercial advertising the soon release of King Kong came on TV, and I leapt off the couch and walked like a gorilla over to the toy basket. I reached down and grabbed the naked Barbie doll and began quiet, ape-like gruntings as I ran and leapt back toward the couch.

Remember how Lucy continually tormented Charlie Brown with his inability to kick the football? She would convince him to try one more time through her most persuasive rhetoric. Charlie Brown would start running and, of course, Lucy would pull the football away just as he kicked at the ball. Chuck would fly into the air, reaching exceptional heights, and then fall hard onto his back. Remember?

That's what I looked like last night as I moved with Kong-esque rapidity. In my simian agility, I slipped on something. Then, like Chuck, my whole body came out from under me, and I flew into the air. After several moments, I came down like a ton of bricks onto my elbow and side and the wind was knocked out of me. I had started laughing while I was still in the air and continued to do so once I was able to uncrumple myself and catch my breath. Laura was sure I had broken something, but I did not. I didn't even wake the children with my great house-shaking. Barbie, played by Naomi Watts, was unharmed.

No more King Kong for the next day or two.

. . . . .

This morning when I went walking, I noticed that the porch was somewhat slippery from some frost that had accumulated there. I warned Laura about it before she left for school. I warned Sophie about it as well. They slowly made their way out of the house and cautiously made it down the steps and to the van. Laura set her coffee mug on top of the van and opened the door for Sophie. She then turned toward me and tried to communicate something to me with some gesturing. I shrugged my shoulders and shook my head. She quickly set her things in the van and came back up to the house. She was about half-way across the porch when one leg went one way and the other another. She fell on her hinterparts.

I admit that I laughed.

She managed to get up without too much trouble and when she reached the door, she asked for Sophie's coat. I told her it was in the van.

(Yes, she remembered to retrieve her coffee from the top of the van.)

Coca-Cola Blak

Have you heard about Coke's newest venture? Coca-Cola Blak is a new product soon to be released in France, to be followed with a release here and elsewhere - "Coke mixed with coffee" is the basic idea. I think, with my primary migraine trigger being caffeine, this product could kill me. Oh, but I'm tempted. Now, sure it sounds kind of disgusting to me, but it has curiosity as its initial drawing power. If the taste is good, the whole world might just be hopped up on Blak.

And then I think, as my mind is wont to wander, carbonation + coffee beans = some serious trumpeting. 'Cause both of those things tend to give me gas.

"Living and breathing give you gas," says my wife, walking by.

Expecting You

I keep expecting you to walk into the room, to ask me if I’ve seen your brush, to sit next to me, to lay your head on my shoulder. But you don’t. I wait for you to come down the stairs from your shower. But you don’t. I keep expecting you, but you are not here.

I thought I’d see you as I turned the corner into the dining room, but the table was empty and there was only food for me.

And as the sun set and the children fell asleep, I was sure you would be in your chair with your legs curled under you – knitting, reading, or growing tired. But the chair is quiet and empty, because you are not here.

---

Sweet Afton

FLOW gently, sweet Afton! amang thy green braes,
Flow gently, I’ll sing thee a song in thy praise;
My Mary’s asleep by thy murmuring stream,
Flow gently, sweet Afton, disturb not her dream.

Thou stockdove whose echo resounds thro’ the glen,
Ye wild whistling blackbirds in yon thorny den,
Thou green-crested lapwing thy screaming forbear,
I charge you, disturb not my slumbering Fair.

How lofty, sweet Afton, thy neighbouring hills,
Far mark’d with the courses of clear, winding rills;
There daily I wander as noon rises high,
My flocks and my Mary’s sweet cot in my eye.

How pleasant thy banks and green valleys below,
Where, wild in the woodlands, the primroses blow;
There oft, as mild Ev’ning weeps over the lea,
The sweet-scented birk shades my Mary and me.

Thy crystal stream, Afton, how lovely it glides,
And winds by the cot where my Mary resides;
How wanton thy waters her snowy feet lave,
As, gathering sweet flowerets, she stems thy clear wave.

Flow gently, sweet Afton, amang thy green braes,
Flow gently, sweet river, the theme of my lays;
My Mary’s asleep by thy murmuring stream,
Flow gently, sweet Afton, disturb not her dream.

- Robert Burns

Yeats, for Laura

The Young Man’s Song

I WHISPERED, ‘I am too young,’
And then, ‘I am old enough’;
Wherefore I threw a penny
To find out if I might love.
‘Go and love, go and love, young man,
If the lady be young and fair,’
Ah, penny, brown penny, brown penny,
I am looped in the loops of her hair.

Oh, love is the crooked thing,
There is nobody wise enough
To find out all that is in it,
For he would be thinking of love
Till the stars had run away,
And the shadows eaten the moon.
Ah, penny, brown penny, brown penny,
One cannot begin it too soon.

When You Are Old

WHEN you are old and gray and full of sleep
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true;
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face.

And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead,
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.